Medium-Rare

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Live from the Geico Outkicks studios, where fifteen minutes could
save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Visit
Geico dot com for a free rate quote. Well, eight
different NBA series underway, eight different NHL playoff series underway,

(00:22):
thirty two teams in action in the NBA and the NHL.
Two big upsets, I would say through the weekend and
beyond one from each. The Cleveland Cavaliers got their asses
kicked by the Pacers. There's no other way to say it.

(00:43):
We will unpack that. Also, if you are a Washington
Capitals fan, the Columbus Blue Jackets came into town and
whipped you at home. The Caps maybe the most underachieving
top of the line team in the playoffs in all
of American pro sports when you look at what they
have done the past two years now going into a

(01:06):
third straight year. But we begin with Lebron James, the
king entering into a quest to advance to the finals
once more, and there has to be nervousness, There has
to be great fear in the Kingdom. There has to
be so much trepidation in the NBA right now over
what would go down as one of the most shocking

(01:29):
upsets in the history of the n b A. I
really do mean that. I don't think you can look
at where these teams are seated. I think if the
Indiana Pacers were to go out on Wednesday night and
when again in Cleveland, it would send shock waves throughout
the n b A, cascading throughout everywhere that the NBA

(01:52):
has paid attention to, and in particular, it would leave
t N T and ESPN executives curled up in the
fetal position crying because everything about the ratings for the
NBA as predicated on Lebron James being involved in the
Eastern Conference Finals at a minimum, and probably being involved

(02:13):
in the NBA Finals as well. This was an ass kicking,
and I gotta come right out and say it. It's
still very early in this series, but when you go
on the road and you win by eight team in
game one of a playoff series, you are sending a
substantial message. Now, is it possible that the Calves are
gonna come back and win four straight? And we'll look

(02:35):
at this one game as a complete aberration. We'll look
back if they win four in a row and say, yeah, boy,
remember when that was funny? It seemed like the Pacers
had the opportunity to win this series. Same thing could
be true if the Calves go on and win in six,
if they win four of the next five and most
of their wins are not very close, but coming out

(02:57):
of that single game and basketball is fun this way.
Anything can happen in one single game. A team that
wins the series can lose by twenty a team that
that all of this could happen right in one game
settings why the n C Double A Tournament is so
much fun. Honestly, if the NBA really wanted to ratch
it up the pressure. Can you imagine if the first

(03:20):
round of the NBA Playoffs was single elimination, how much
more interest there would be in the start of the
NBA Playoffs than there is right now. If I told you, yeah,
your team played eight two games, but they can lose,
they better come ready in round one for that one
game playoff. And then if you moved into round two,
if you went h three out of five, and then
by round three you got into four out of seven, Oh,

(03:42):
it would add a lot of spice to the NBA Playoffs,
but it would also ratchet up the pressure. Right now,
not a tremendous about of pressure Wednesday night in Quick
and Loans Arena. There will be a lot of pressure
on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Now. The question that has to
be asked, I think is multiple one. Is it possible

(04:03):
that the Calves are just better? You look at the numbers,
and the question is how much of this is sustainable? Um?
The Calves did not shoot very well from outside right now.
They came out, remember after the initial trade and we're
so hot. They were eight to thirty four from three. Um,

(04:26):
that is something that's probably not going to continue. The
Pacers were eleven for Let's say that those teams shoot
roughly what you would expect, which is around thirty ish.
The game looks a lot different, right. But when I
watched this game, when I was most impressed by was
not the Pacers getting out to an early lead. If

(04:46):
I'm not mistaken, I think the Pacers had a twenty
eight point home lead last year and lost the game.
So the fact that they got up by I think
it was twenty three wasn't that impressive to me because
a lot of times an NBA game games, one team
gets up by a substantial double digit lead and then
the other team plays its way back into it. It

(05:07):
was when the Calves got hot and Kevin Love hit
that three pointer and got fouled by Sabonis I believe
it was, and cut it to seven and went to
the free throw line to make it a six point game.
I thought to myself, this game is over. The Calves
are gonna come back and win it. And I would
imagine most of you who were also watching felt the

(05:28):
exact same way as I did. You thought on that
three pointer, when Kevin Love got fouled and he was
going to the line to make it a six point game,
you thought, Okay, the Calves haven't played very well, but
they have decided to turn it up another notch and
they have a gear that the Pacers frankly can't keep
track of. And then from that point on, the Pacers

(05:50):
responded and took it to a different level and managed
to pull win this game. Not just win it, but
when it pulling away, that was impressive to They took
the best punch that the Calves could bring to bear
on yesterday's game, took it right on the chin. Everybody's
going crazy in that arena, and they came back and

(06:12):
won the game. Despite the fact that Lebron has basically
made it his story to break the Indiana Pacers in
the most crippling way possible. Then Lebron walks off the
court with eight seconds left. The King couldn't even manage
to stay to see how the game was gonna finish.

(06:32):
He went ahead and left the court. This is the
quintessential Lebron James move, right, just leaving the court early.
There's always something Lebron does that's just a little bit
of a bitch move. Frankly, It's true, whether you like
Lebron James or not, there is always something he manages
to do that makes him seem like a little bit

(06:54):
on the basketball court. Draymond Green was not wrong when
he said that Lebron James played like a little bit sometimes.
For a guy who is as big and as strong
and as good as Lebron James, he is so incredibly
psychologically I think weak in many ways. He just is.
But I gotta tell you right now, I said there

(07:18):
was a zero percent chance that the Pacers are gonna
win this series. I believe. I tweeted it out, said
zero percent. I still think that the Calves are going
to win this series. I think that there is so
much money at stake. The NBA is a little bit
like the w w E. I think that Lebron James
and company will not be allowed to lose this series

(07:41):
if it's a close series. That's I really do mean that.
I think they are gonna get the benefit of the
calls in a tight game and a close series because
they are worth tens of millions of dollars more advancing
than the Pacers aren't. I don't think it's some sort
of grand um conspiracy by the league or anything else.

(08:03):
I think that the Calves and superstars get the benefit
of the calls down the stretch over a team that
nobody knows. I think it's just human nature by the officials.
So I think if the Pacers are gonna win this series,
they have to make it beyond the shadow of a
doubt that they are the better team. And I don't
think necessarily they can do that, but if they do,

(08:25):
if they do pull off this series win, I will
do this as an apology to the city of Indianapolis
and to the state of Indiana and the Pacers fans everywhere.
We will bring the show. We will bring out Kick
to Indianapolis, so if you were listening early this morning,
people are like, why aren't you talking about the Pacers. Well,

(08:46):
I talk about the big story, and right now, the
biggest story in sports coming out of the NHL and
the NBA Opening around playoffs is the beat down that
the Pacers put on the Calves. If it continues, and
if the Pacers pull off one of the most shocking
first round upsets in modern NBA history, then we will

(09:08):
bring the show to Indianapolis at some point in time,
maybe even during the second round for the Pacers, and
we will do the show live from Indianapolis. To find
a place to do it in Indy to get everything
set up, but we will do that. As my personal
apology for saying you had zero percent chance to win
the series. Now, I believe we have some audio of

(09:30):
Lebron James discussing this defeat. Let's hit it, Danny g.
They dictated the tempo, they were more aggressive, they just
played inspired basketball, and they just took advantage of everything
that we wanted to try to do. They're more physical
than us. At the point of a tag, they were
more precisely what they wanted to do. You know, we
can't can score the ball we had some guys in
the first time out there, you know, in the playoff setting.

(09:51):
Like I told you, guys, you always asked me it
was anything you can tell first listen. Experience is the
best teacher, and they got it today. So it's Lebroun
trying to put in the context or why they lost.
I want to pull the the crew here and I
also will put out a poll question, what do you
think the chances are that the Calves end up actually
losing this series? Jason Martin, I'll say fiftcent I still

(10:17):
like I believed a little bit more in the patients.
I think going in just because I felt like they
were a better team this year than last year. Because
Oladipo seems like they're wanting to play around him more
than they're wanting to play around two wards they thought
was gonna leave. He was absolutely tremendous yesterday. And if
you look at just the starters in general, you know,
Bogdanovich had fifteen, Turner had sixteen, and you had Stevenson

(10:38):
with twelve. And Stevenson's that constant Lebron James irritant that
we've seen for a long time, and now here he
is again and then you look at the calves. The
starters were atrocious, Like I mean, Kevin Love had seventeen rebounds,
but you gotta get more than nine points from Kevin Love.
Jeff Green was over seven from the floor as a
starter in that ball game. You've got a decent amount
from j R. Smith in a decent amount from Larry

(10:59):
Nance Jr. But Lebron James had to do way too
much and early in the game at least I didn't
see him doing it like I didn't see him nearly
as aggressive as he needs to be. And that's been
one of the knocks on him, especially before he won
his first championship in Miami, is he would defer too
often to try and get people involved instead of trying
to set that tempo that he just talked about in
that audio on his own. He's a guy that can

(11:21):
set the tempo because no one can stop him when
he's running like a deer straight down the lane. You
saw Oladipo try to get a couple of charges on him.
Both of them went against Oladipo because he was about
a half step too slow to get into the spot
because he didn't realize Lebron was gonna barrel down quite
that fast, so I would. I don't think I can
go higher than fifteen, but that's about ten percent higher

(11:42):
than I was ready to go before Game one yesterday.
What about you, guys in l A, any chance this
happens and you buy into my idea that if it's close,
the NBA is gonna find a way to get Lebron
into round two. I guess you should have paid more
attention to that email you got from that Pacers fan
on Friday. Remember who was so angry? Ye? Yeah, he's
criticized in you for not talking Pacers ball Friday. Yeah,

(12:03):
I mean, when Stevenson can can start Game one by
literally slapping Lebron around, you know that, uh, Calves are
are in for a long battle here. It's the Pacers
are not gonna be an easy out. I'm gonna go
even a little higher than Jason did. I'm gonna say
thirty five chins high that I mean, because this would
be a massive upset contextually trying to put it into context.

(12:25):
What about you, uh, justin any idea, do you think
this is gonna happen? I don't like, I'm not positive
it's gonna happen. I'm I'm somewhere around thet, but I'm
rooting for it to happen. There's nothing that I would
want more in these playoffs than for Lebron to lose
in the first round. All right, help contect. Yeah, there's

(12:46):
a lot of people out there that would say that.
There's also a lot of people that would say, man,
the NBA in the Eastern Conference, if Lebron loses, this
is a crippling blow in terms of attention. People say, oh,
there's lots of young shooters. There's lots of young talent
in the league. Look, people come in to route for
or against big luminescent superstars. Lebron James brings eyeballs and

(13:09):
if he is not there, then this is a big hit.
I mean, this is a massive hit to the NBA,
just because people have gotten used to Lebron being in
the finals and everybody has an opinion about him one
way or the other. Where would this rank. If the
Pacers pull off the upset, and again, the next game
in this series is Wednesday, then we've got Friday in
Indianapolis and Sunday in Indianapolis. But if the Pacers pulled

(13:32):
off this upset, I know, again, if you look at
the seating, But I just throw the seating out the
window when I look in the NBA playoffs because so
much of the regular season. In the playoffs is a
different story, it's a different dynamic. I mean, everybody says, oh,
the Warriors are in trouble. Look at how the Warriors
finished the season. They're a veteran team now, even though

(13:53):
they're still relatively young. They flipped the damn switch against
the San Antonio Spurs. That game was a beat down.
And again it's sometimes I feel like basketball, in particular,
we overreact to one game because you've got another one
in forty eight hours and anything can happen that can
change your expectations of the series. But where would this
rank in terms of upset? For it is seven straight finals?

(14:16):
I think it is. If he's been to seven straight
finals and suddenly he lost in the first round, this
would be a shocking upset. I mean, I think, can
you even think of one in the last ten years
that has really kind of resonated like this one would?
Jason Martin, you paid attention to the NBA, Like, where
does this rank? If it actually happened, it would probably
be pretty high up there. I mean if you hadn't

(14:38):
paid attention at all during the regular season. If you
throw out the regular season, then it would be even
bigger because I think I think people and I think
people do. Because look, the Calves did not care about
the regular season. They obviously had to make a lot
of changes. I think the overall records of these two
teams don't really matter. I think it comes down to
do you expect Lebron James to lose in the first round?

(14:59):
The lot went is the last time that Lebron James
lost in the playoffs in the first round? Has it
ever happened? I don't think so. Lebron James ever lost
a first round series in the NBA maybe when he's
a rookie. I mean that that's how far back this
thing goes. I mean, somebody can do research on that.
Let's look that up, because that's why I think it
would be so shocking if you have been watching the

(15:19):
NBA for the last fifteen years since Lebron Lebron is
thirty three now, he came into the league when he
was eighteen. As he ever lost the first round series?
I know he's never lost. I think that's is true.
I don't think he's ever was a game one. He's
never lost the first round series ever. No, he hasn't.
Because I can look at the playoffs totals and see
how many games he's played. In two thousand nine two
thousand ten, he only played in eleven games in that postseason,

(15:42):
and that's the lowest number of postseason games he's ever
played in one season. He's played one, two, three, four,
or five six Seven times. He's played at least twenty
games in the postseason. Eight times, he's played at least
eight team So I mean he's played extra seasons when
you look at the number of miles that he's got
on his leg. In an addition to the fact that
he's started three he also played forty four minutes last night,

(16:04):
which was the most minutes that every anybody played on
the court at all. The next highest was thirty nine minutes,
and I think it was Bogdanovitch who spent a lot
of time trying to guard him. Uh So that would
really contextualize to me how unexpected this would be, that
something Lebron has never had happened to him before would
have happened. I will say this, if things start to
go against the Calves. Remember what happened right before Lebron

(16:27):
James left Cleveland the first time he yanks off his
jersey as he walks off the court against the Celtics.
Yet all those rumors about Delonte West and his mom,
everything surrounding that story. Lebron quit on that Calves team.
He just did. Next thing, you know, he shows up
in Miami. Could Lebron quit on this Calves team too? Well?

(16:48):
He quit leaving the court early. If things start to
go against him, he's gonna want escape. Goat look out
Kevin Love, look out other Calves. It's never Lebron's fault
when the team loses, it's always somebody else. Could that
happen again in this series? That's what I'm thinking. If
I'm the Pacers, let's increase the pressure. God forbid, we
could win two in a row on the road against

(17:10):
the Calves. Let's see what happens on Wednesday. How competitive
is that game? To what level can the Calves take
their game? Let's talk with Lance Taylor. We'll talk with
him about this next uh loaded show for you. By
the way, our two, we will talk with my guy
Brandon right, he's been an NBA veteran for many years,
he's out injured now. He was on the Rockets before
his injury into his season. What does he think is

(17:31):
going to happen in the playoffs? Can he break down
the NBA Force and the Washington Capitals have turned into
a postseason disaster. Britt mckenry was at the game last night.
She says she's gonna be up early with us and
talk about why the Caps are the most disappointing team
in all of American pro sports when it gets to
the postseason based on what they've done the last several years.

(17:51):
So a loaded show. All that still to come. But
I want to tell you, are you hiring posting your
position to job sites and waiting and waiting for the
right people to see it. Zip Recruiter knew there was
a smarter way, so they built a platform that finds
the right job candidates for you. Zip Recruiter learns what
you're looking for, identifies people with the right experience, and
invites them to apply to your job. These invitations have
revolutionized how you find your next higher In fact, eighty

(18:14):
percent of employers who post a job on zip recruiter
get a quality candidate through the site in just one day,
and zip Recruiter doesn't stop there. They even spotlight the
strongest applications you received, so you never miss a great match.
The right candidates are out there. Zip Recruiters how you
find them. Businesses of all sizes trust zip recruiter for
their hiring needs. Right now, my listeners can try zip

(18:35):
recruiter for free. That's right free. Just go to zip
recruiter dot com, slash clay that zip recruiter dot com,
slash clay, zip recruiter dot com, slash clay, zip recruiter
the smartest way to hire. Car shopping can be confusing
with terms like dealer, price, list, price, and invoys. True
Car shows you what other people paid for the car

(18:55):
you want, so you can recognize a good price when
you're ready to buy a new or used car. Are
visit True car to enjoy a more confident car buying experience.
We're gonna be joined by my guy Lance Taylor jocks
down in Birmingham to talk everything that happened over the
weekend in the NBA and maybe a little bit of
the NHL. But first let me go ahead and bring
in my guy Eddie Garcia. I find out what's shaken

(19:16):
in the world of sports, Well Clay. In the NBA playoffs,
we had the one versus eight matchup in the West
and the Rockets hold off the Timberwolves for a one
oh four one oh one victory. James Harden forty four
points in the win for Houston. Patients go into Cleveland
easily beat the Cavalier's ninety eighty. That's Cleveland's first opening
around lost in eight years. Victor Oladipo thirty two points
for Indiana. The Thunder down the Jazz one sixteen two,

(19:38):
one oh eight, Paul George thirty six points. Russell West
with twenty nine points to win Proclama City overtime of
the Celtics to beat the Bucks one thirty two one
oh seven. In the NHL playoffs, the Golden Knights, the
expansion Golden Knights beat the King's three to Vegas. Now
with a three oh series lead, Blue Jackets over the
Capitol's five four in overtime. Columbus is a two series lead,
winning both the first two games on the road. Wild

(19:59):
beat the Jets six to two. Winni Pixtel has a
two one series lead and the Penguins down the Fires
five to one. Pittsburgh grabually two one series advantage and
also Clay a couple of notes from baseball. The Red
Sox make it thirteen and two on the season with
a three one win of the Orioles. That's our best
start in the Hunter and Age in year history of
the franchise. And the Mets are twelve and two, best
started team mysteries. They beat the Brewers three to two

(20:19):
on a walk off home run. Good stuff. Let's roll
with Lance Taylor at the Lance Taylor on Twitter lt
We got Lebron James losing his first opener of a series.
Uh in the What does he twelve and oh in
the first round openers? So far in the in his career,
he's never lost a first round series since he cout

(20:41):
into the league at eighteen. How much of a nervousness
slash alarm button should this be for the Cleveland Cavaliers
and their fans? Well, I think it should be a
you know, they should be on high alert. Just a
couple of reasons play. I mean, they're a four seeds,
so it's not like they've had a great regular season.
And then you throw in the fact that they don't

(21:02):
have a Kyrie Irving. You're you're starting guys like you know,
Jordan Clarks in his first career playoffs start. Rodney Hood
has got no playoff experience, you know, outside of a
Kevin Love, you really don't have another go to guy.
And I thought one of the more amazing numbers, not
only the things that you just brought up, but on
the broadcast yesterday, they've won twenty one or they had

(21:23):
won twenty one consecutive first round games going back to
two thousand and twelve, Lebron teams twenty one consecutive first
round games that they had won. So now he's in
an old one hole against an Indiana team that Nate
McMillan's really had playing out of their mind the last month.
And Victor Oladipo's the guy that can take a game over.
He played better than Lebron in the clutch yesterday. So

(21:45):
I think, you know, even if Cleveland gets past Indiana,
clay and this looks to have the makings of at
least at six or seven games series, you know, then
you go on and you're playing a Toronto team that
is much improved. And if you get by Toronto, if
in b and Bet comes back from Philadelphia. UM, I
just don't know if Cleveland's got enough to get to
the NBA finals. We're the last time Lebron lost a

(22:06):
first round playoff game was May sixth, two thousand and twelve.
Is this right, Game four with the heat against the Knicks. Uh?
That is that's pretty crazy to kind of put into
context how long it has been since he actually lost
one of these games. Okay, what about the rest of
the NBA? Did any of the other first round games
really surprise you? Eight different series off and running any

(22:28):
other kind of apprehensive, excited? Anything about these teams that
are playing so far that stood out to you, Well,
you know a couple of things. Golden State looks motivated again.
Looking they're playing a shorthanded Spurs team that probably overachieved
without Kauai this year or for the majority of the year.
So I think Golden State is gonna do what Golden State. Uh,

(22:50):
we expect him to do. UM. On the other hand,
you know, Houston being the best regular season team, I mean,
they struggled in spots last night. James Harden was awesome
with this forty four, but everybody else, especially behind the
perimeter where Houston has been so good this year. They
really struggle and Minnesota with Karl Anthony Town's only going
for a kind of subpar game for him. Um, you know,

(23:10):
they almost sneak out a game one win, and if
you know, if that thing would have flipped Minnesota Wednesday game,
who knows. Um, And your best game of the weekend
was probably Boston surviving Milwaukee. Um. I still think Boston
is gonna have trouble putting them away, and you know,
Boston obviously shorthanded right now. But all in all, I
think it was a pretty exciting first weekend of the

(23:32):
NBA Playoffs. It just sucks that we've got so much
intrigue with this Cleveland, Indiana matchup and we don't get
to see game two until Wednesday, I know, I know.
And they want to set up Friday Sunday because one,
you know, that's when the ratings are gonna go roll in, right,
they want Lebron on Sunday when everybody's home. I think
that's a Sunday night game on T n T, but

(23:53):
they're setting it up so they got the Friday Sunday
kind of double header there. But waiting until Wednesday's pretty ridiculous.
I wish they were playing. This came on Tuesday, and
then they could have a couple of extra days to travel,
even though the distance between Cleveland and Indiana isn't exactly
very substantial. But I agree with you that it definitely
feels like you're dragging it out. Um and uh and frankly,
I mean, who knows what will happen over the next

(24:14):
couple of days. In terms of the storyline surrounding that
one you mentioned the Raptors, my contention had been coming
into the NBA Playoffs, the Raptors have lost whatever the heck,
it was so many different series in a row, game ones.
I think it was like ten or eleven in a
row that they have lost game ones. My argument was
if the Toronto Raptors were in New York City, if

(24:35):
you switched jerseys and the Knicks were in the Toronto
Raptors jerseys and vice versa, that there would be infinitely
more attention surrounding the Knicks than there is the Raptors.
That basically nobody respects the Raptors because they're from Canada.
Fair or foul discussion and accusation. I think you're I
think it's it's kind of dead on UM. I don't

(24:57):
think we've ever given this organization UM much respect at all.
And you look at you look at the backcourt. I
mean it's one of the best backcourts in the NBA.
N Kyle Lowry was playing with flu like symptoms this
past weekend and it's not close to but Demarta Rosen
if he played in New York and they had the
identical record, if they were able to win sixty games
in New York, uh, Demarta Rosen would be would squarely

(25:21):
be a guy that people talk about as a a
top ten guy. But because they play in Toronto, UM,
I just kind of think it's forgotten franchise. So I
think you're dead home with that. Yeah. And I also
people say, oh, well, de Rosen is not a star
because you know he's It's it's just because he's not
even necessarily that he's in Toronto. But like the Greek
Freak is a pretty big star and he plays in Milwaukee, right.

(25:42):
I mean, so if you're an American player, even if
you're born overseas, people will find you. I feel like
the Raptors are the most overlooked team despite the fact
that they're the best team in the Eastern Conference this year.
And maybe the argument can be, well, it's because they
haven't had postseason success and that's the reason why nobody
respects him. But I think a lot of it, frankly,
is just Canada and I think television here it does

(26:03):
not want to put on the Raptors because they don't
get the television ratings. I think that's a huge part
of it, because if you are t n T or
you are ESPN or your ABC or any of these
other networks, they know if they put the Raptors on
that Toronto may be a big market, but the Canadian
teams are going to get the benefit of those ratings,
not the American uh sports fans, So they don't bring

(26:25):
in a couple of extra million people that they'll get
if they put on an American team that has a following,
where they know they get the ratings points. I don't
think it's a conspiracy. I think it's just a flat
out business and I think that hurts the Raptors in
terms of their attention. I mean, when's the last time
a Canadian team really was impactful? Um, you know, you
know Edmonton the Owlers dominated in the eighties. Uh, the

(26:46):
Blue Jays were really good in the early nineties. You know,
Vancouver played in the Stanley Cup finals and nine four
Calgary was there. But we just hadn't had an impactful
franchise from Canada in a long time. Well, I mean,
they certainly haven't won the Stanley Cup since ninety three
in Canada, which is a pretty unbelievable long string of
futility and doesn't look like by the way, with the

(27:08):
Maple Weasts. We'll see what happens Minnesota gets a really
big win, uh in Game three in that series over Edmonton.
We'll see who exactly, if anybody in Canada is gonna
make a run this year. But I think you're right.
I mean, I think the Raptors are the best chance
for a team to advance to the finals in a
long time. Vancouver went out there to the finals. Who
to Vancouver lose to when they had the Riots and

(27:29):
everything else surrounding Vancouver was that the Kings they lost to?
Was that the Was that the Western Conference finals when
all that happened, I remember exactly. I think it was
a conference finals. So it's been a long time since
a team from Canada really had a run. I think
that I think there's a lot of truth to that. Okay, uh,
sticking in and I know you're not a hardcore NHL fan,
but the Caps, the Caps have the best record in

(27:52):
hockey the previous two seasons. This year they go up
against the Blue Jackets, who I don't believe. I think
I'm correcting this. I don't think the Blue Jackets had
ever played AID in the playoffs, so this is their
first two postseason games ever. I think that's correct. They
go on the road, the Blue Jackets do and win
over the Caps two in a row. In Washington, d C.
Are the Caps right up there? I know, the city

(28:12):
of Washington in general, since we've had this discussion before,
since the I think was ninety three when the Redskins
won the Super Bowl, I think the Caps in the
city of Washington, d C in general are the saddest
American sports town over the last like twenty five years.
But losing two in a row to the Blue Jackets
is pretty crushing when you've got somebody as good as Ovechkin, right, Yeah,
Veskin is a guy, that's uh. I mean, you know,

(28:35):
we talked about guys like Dan Marino, and look at
least Dan Marino made a Super Bowl. The great players
in their sport that just have this void and really
don't have anything to show for having that great career.
And when you look at Ovechkin and the Caps, I
mean just a team that has never done anything. And
I agree with you. You know, we're talking about Canada
as a country. When you look at d c Uh,

(28:57):
there's sports properties. I mean as good as the nash
those have been over the last five years. They've never
won a playoff series. The Redskins have been got awful
under Daniel Snyder. Um, the Wizards they seem to uh
be regressing. Uh you know we mentioned great backcourts. When
you look at Bill and you look at Wall, I
mean that team is an eight seed now, so um yeah,

(29:19):
I think it starts with a Vetkan though and the
Caps because they seem to have the most promise along
with the Nationals in that city. But it's just a
jink city. Right now, you're down in Birmingham, Alabama, SEC
and college football spring games happening across the country. But
the biggest story so far, I think coming out of
Alabama is that t is injured to a talk about Looa,

(29:40):
the star quarterback for Alabama who came in and one
of the national title against Georgia. What's the story there?
Is there anything any reason to be apprehensive or nervous
if you are a if you're an Alabama Crimson Tide
fan about to his hand. No, you know they've got
their their eight a scrimmage coming up this weekend, and
you know he he fractured the finger a couple of
weeks ago and has been able to practice on a

(30:01):
limited basis and just reaggravated it on Friday, So they're
probably gonna hold him out. But I just don't think
it's much concerned at all. Look at this is the
quarterback battle based on the fact that Jalen Hurt two
is a started quarterback who's played for two national championships
in one one although he was benched at halftime four
tug of aaloa. Uh, this is gonna be one of
these major um storylines in college football going all the

(30:23):
way until August, and we won't know the starting quarterback
is into the Louisville game until September. Uh. My my
bed is tongue of a Loa's talent will win out,
but I think there'll be a spot for Jalen Hurts.
You've got a new offensive coordinator in Mike Locksley, and
I just think Jalen Hurts is such an athletic guy
and he's a natural born leader. They'll find a spot
for him on the field. I think ultimately tongue of

(30:44):
a lower will start. But as far as the finger injury,
I don't I don't think it's much concerned right now.
Other big news that happened on Friday, and it kind
of got snowed under. I think because there's so much
of the NBA and NHL playoff games going on, des
Bryant gets released. If that happens in like the middle
of March, it's a huge story happening on Friday. I
thought it was smart. I believe the way the Cowboys

(31:05):
got it out. It's obviously a huge story in the
Dallas area and a big story for NFL fans in general.
But I think it pales in comparison to the start
of the NBA and NHL playoffs. Having said that, how
much value does Dez Bryant still have to you, how
much of an impact will this have on Dak Prescott
the Cowboys in general. Do you think there'll be a
lot of teams out there trying to sign DEAs you know,

(31:26):
I don't know QLay. It's it's really interesting that Jerry Jones,
you know, meets with it for twenty minutes and this
is the guy that is the all time cowboy leader
and touchdown receptions and look, the production has dropped off,
There's no doubt. I mean, he didn't go for over
one yards in any game this season for the first
time in his career. I think, um, but he was
only gonna make I think eight and a half million dollars.

(31:46):
And for Jerry Jones not to sit down and say, hey, look,
let's come up with the number, let's give you a
pay cup, but let's keep you on the roster was
really surprising. But to me, Dez Bryant obviously doesn't have
separation anymore. The fifth fifty balls that he doesn't dominate
like he used to all those and uh, to me,
he's more like a two now. So I think there's

(32:07):
gonna be some value out there for a Dez Bryant,
but I don't think teams are gonna pay him to
be a number one. Yeah, it is intriguing him on
the way out. We haven't talked much about this, but
there's a as we talked about spring football and everything else,
Shay Patterson. Do you think he will be the starting
quarterback for Michigan this fall? I do. UM. I still

(32:27):
I don't understand why everything, why uh, the instable A
seems to be dragging their feet on this. Of course,
We've seen that in a lot of different areas in
the past, but I've just got a feeling. You know,
there's been correspondents back and forth, and I think Michigan
really felt good about the situation a couple of weeks ago.
I know Old miss is not gonna do a one
eight on their stands, um, but I've just got this
feeling that Shaye Patterson is going to be the quarterback. UM.

(32:49):
It's funny when you look at the Big Ten East
right now, the best division in college football, nobody's talking
about Michigan. And I'm not a Jim Hardball fan by
any means, but I could just see this be the year.
Um as bad as they were last year, at least
under circumstances, if Shay Patterson is is eligible and starts
for them, I could see them be one of the
stories of college football this year. Do you think Shay

(33:11):
Patterson's the first round guy. No, I don't um. I
think high end. He could be Baker Mayfield ask He's
a little bit undersize, he's got a big arm, he's
got a lot of excitement surrounding him coming off the
knee injury. I just feel a little bit like it
may be aggressive to expect him to step in and
be as good as people are hoping that he's gonna be.
So I think that's gonna be a storyline to follow

(33:32):
for sure. Have a good week, man, appreciate you waking
up early with us. Okay, secret that's Lance Taylor at
the Lance Taylor on Twitter. We should start off the
week with maybe a little bit of animal Thunderdome. Get
everybody fired up. We'll do that final segment our one
up an hour two, will hop right in with Brandon
Wright and talk about the NBA playoffs. All that and
more than Britt mckenry in hour three from DC to

(33:53):
talk about the Caps collapse against the Blue Jackets. All
that still rolling, much to discuss, much to get to
here Monday edition, I'll kick the coverage on Fox Sports Radio.
Wouldn't you love a bigger tax refund? Tax Layer was
highest rated for maximum refund. So you have more cash
to spend on whatever the heck you want this tax season.
Go out and slay at max your refund at tax

(34:13):
layer dot com. It so I'm Canada's favorite sportscaster. Important
to note Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins. I
believe in the finals. That was when they had the Riots.
That's all I remember. And uh, the Columbus Blue Jackets
have never won a playoff series, I think in the NHL.
I think I'm correcting that they've been in the playoffs before,
but that's all. It's kind of secondary. It's time for
Animal Thunderdome maybies and gentlemen. I'm just glad. I was scared,

(34:45):
boys and good I thought he thought I was like
this enormous piece of chicken diarm times. I had a
volunt stricter such in my space. This is Animal Thunderdog
d Uh. This is pretty unbelievable. Million. This is the
headline that sounds like just absolute horror. Uh. And this

(35:07):
is terrifying and somehow all these different ads are popping
up on the screen. You gotta stop to pop up
ads thing on the internet. People A million killer bees
threatened Texas neighborhood. Quote it was like a horror movie.
One million aggressive bees have swarmed the Texas neighborhood and
residents are unsure of what to do. The bees have
set up shop in an East El Paso home for

(35:29):
about three years, but homeowners said the really become more aggressive.
The couple said they're worried about people who walked by
the home and the children who go to school nearby.
A be specialist went to the home to remove the hive.
The bees became agitated and that the photographer who went
to report on this said he was stung eight times

(35:50):
while shooting video. I went on top of the roof
and went there with my camera and he was there
with his helper. As soon as they got there and
opened the roof, the shing us from the roof. It
was like, believe me, it was like a horror movie
seeing the swarm of bees just coming out in a
black cloud. Within seconds, I started getting stung by bees.
I got two in the eye in the head. I

(36:13):
just went into my vehicle. Even though I went into
my vehicle, I still got bees inside. Livington said there
were about a million bees in the hive, and they
were mixed African and European bees. He said the bees
were twenty to thirty times more aggressive than normal honey bees.
This sounds pretty terrifying. I don't even know how you

(36:35):
solve this. There's pictures. We were swarmed. We found as
soon as we opened up a little area, we thought
there were maybe twenty thousand bees. It turns out to
be over a hundred thousand. Uh. The city of El
Paso said the bees were not the city's responsibility and
the homeowner's duty has has to remove or exterminate them.
They were able to remove some of the bee hive,

(36:57):
but not all of it. The walls would be opened
and then coote need to be closed. Bees have become
really aggressive of late, especially these killer bees. What you got,
Jason Martin, I've got this story from Thursday that several
people tweeted me that I had already seen. It's kind
of amazing and I guess maybe only in New York
could this happen. But Thursday, around eight thirty am on

(37:20):
the app Citizen, which pings an instant alert whenever a
crime has occurred nearby. In New York, police sent out
a notification after getting this call about a tiger being
spotted near one D sixty six Street and St. Nicholas
Avenue in Harlem. Residents near the area were awoken by
the notification that read quote, police are responding to unconfirmed

(37:42):
reports of a loose tiger running around on the street. Unquote.
One problem, it wasn't a tiger. It was a large raccoon.
How large I don't like I'm trying to figure out
exactly how large, But it doesn't do tower that it

(38:04):
was as big as a small dinosaur. Yes, I have
no idea, but it seems I'm not an expert in tigers,
but it seems like if you lived in in the
Manhattan on an island, first of all, that the tiger
would be a big, big deal if he were loose
on Manhattan, There's no doubt about that. But it seems
like there's a pretty big gap between a raccoon and tiger. Yeah,

(38:25):
how does anybody get those two animals? I'm actually want
a little bit surprised that they have raccoons in uh
in Manhattan, to be honest. Now, rats, I don't have
any doubt about it. And And when I lived in Washington,
d C. I mean I would like some of those
rats are like the size of small cats in Washington,
d C. Like it's terrifying sometimes when you're walking in
the streets. DC has one of the worst rat problems,

(38:46):
or at least and did when I was in college
and in years since. Like you'll hear him rustling in
the in the in like the I mean, like you
want to walk in the middle of the street and
these rats will see you and like they'll square up
on you, like they they want to go. Uh they
don't want to like run a from you. They're like, yeah,
what's up? What you got? Uh. So I can see that,
But a raccoon versus a tiger seems like a big

(39:06):
swinging to miss. Yeah, I don't know how big it
actually was. And I've looked in a few different stories
to see. They euthanized the raccoon and they found one guy, Yeah,
the one guy that actually called it in. He said, well,
they do have stripes, both of them have stripes. Uh.
My response to that is, you're an idiot. Like I
think we can all look at a raccoon and a
tiger and know the difference. This was not This was

(39:28):
eight thirty in the morning. The sun had come up
like this wasn't even just a dark large cat that
you all of a sudden said, well, that's got to
be a tiger. Yeah, and you still saw it reported
the raccoon as a tiger. We need him on the
show to really just kind of break down his story
and figure out was he drunk, was he on drugs?
What was the story that he saw this raccoon? Because
I mean, I would be pretty terrified if I heard

(39:49):
that a tiger was Loos. Be amazing for the show
if there was a tiger Loos in Manhattan and we
got to cover it live as long as nobody died.
Hour two. We'll talk to Brandon right next. Break down
the NBA on Our Kick Live from the Guico out
Kick Studios, where fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent
or more on car insurance. Visit Geico dot com for
a free rate quote. Biggest story of the opening weekend

(40:11):
in the NBA, Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Lebron
James Cleveland Cavaliers to lose they're opening around playoff game
against the Indiana Pacers. Is the first loss for Lebron
James in an opening round game one series at all
shouldn't say game one opening around series at all since
all the way back in two thousand and twelve, So

(40:31):
that kind of puts into perspective how long it's been
since Lebron James has lost a game period in the
opening round of a playoff series. He has never lost
game one of a playoff series, at least not in
his career. So this is a big deal to try
and figure out what's going to happen between now and Wednesday,
when Game two of this series will take place in Cleveland.

(40:52):
Games three and four Friday and Sunday in Indianapolis. Now
I began the show. If you were paying attention, I
also tweeted this last night. You can follow me on
Twitter at Clay Travis. I said, look, I will apologize
to the city of Indianapolis and come do out kick
Alive in Indianapolis if if this continues and the Cleveland
Cavaliers actually end up losing this series to the Indiana Pacers.

(41:15):
We pulled the crew here on whether or not we
thought that the Calves were actually in peril. I think
around twenty five or thirty was the highest odds somebody
would give on the Calves actually losing the series. I
think that has to do with all the success Lebron
James has had in the postseason. There is not a
lot of belief that Lebron is gonna lose this first

(41:37):
round series. Now, there's a lot of talent in this league,
and the Toronto Raptors, certainly, assuming they can hang on
and continue to win in their series, would be a
really tough matchup for the Calves. And then the way
the seventies Sixers are playing, that would be a tough
matchup in the event that that ended up being the
Eastern Conference Finals. So whether or not Lebron and company

(41:58):
can get past the Pacers, I think there's a legitimate
question about whether or not they have a real shot
to advance to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals and then
on to the NBA Finals for what would I believe
be the eighth consecutive year for Lebron James. I think
we've all just gotten so used to Lebron being in
the finals that potentially we have penciled him into early

(42:21):
What would that mean for the NBA is a good
or bad if Lebron James was not in the Eastern
Conference Finals or the NBA Finals. I think it's bad
for the league. I think it's bad for the league
in terms of television ratings. I think it's good overall
because Lebron's thirty three, he's playing forty four minutes, He's

(42:42):
played a couple of extra seasons of NBA UH playoff games.
There's certainly gonna be a lot of interest in where
Lebron goes. But is it too soon to say that
Lebron's time has passed in terms of maybe he can
go join a team that's already really good and still
be able to get ten for a championship. But I
think the days of Lebron James being able to just

(43:04):
carry a team without needing substantial talent around him are
are gone. I mean, look, I mean he's been playing
an awful lot of minutes. I think there's a lot
of tread on these tires. He's gonna turn thirty four
next year. I think it's hard to understand or expect
that Lebron is gonna be as good as a player
in the years ahead, let's say, the next three years

(43:24):
ahead as he has been in the last three years.
So there will obviously be a lot of where's Lebron
gonna go? That drama gets ratcheted up a great deal
if they suddenly get eliminated early. If the Calves get
eliminated early, that would really kind of ratchet that drama
up to a different level. And here's the other thing.
When you look at the Calves in general, remember the

(43:46):
last time Lebron left the Calves, he quit on this team.
He quit on the team. I believe they were playing
the Celtics. Right before he left and went to Miami.
He walked into the into the uh, into the locker room,
head into the locker room. In that tunnel, he ripped
off his Calves jersey. Remember that the cameras caught him
ripping off the cash jersey. He left the court with
eight seconds left, left the court with eight seconds left

(44:08):
against the Pacers. Lebron always, whenever he loses, and especially
when he loses unexpectedly early, he makes it about other people,
not himself. I'm just saying, if you're paying attention to
this story, it's worth contemplating and following. Where in the
world Lebron James is going to go. We've got Brandon

(44:28):
right with us now. He's been playing in the league
for a long time. He's out with an injury. He
was on the Memphis Grizzlies that he joined the Houston Texans,
was not able to get healthy, is now out. He's
watching the NBA. Sorry he was on I always say
the Houston Texans the Houston Rockets. I was cross up
their names. He's on the Rockets, the team that plays
basketball in Houston. Uh. And now he is watching the
NBA playoffs just like all of us. Brandon, what did

(44:50):
you see in the opening eight series? What jumped out
to you the most as a guy who's been playing
in the league for a while. Uh Man, the biggest
thing I sing yesterday was the Cleveland Indiana series. Uh.
I couldn't believe Cleveland came out like that, you know,
especially in the first quarter. You know a lot of
people already doubt them anyway, But I think that thing

(45:11):
is going on seven. I think Cleveland will have a
great effort tomorrow night, but it's gonna be a long series,
and you know, Lebron is about to do a lot
to carry these team to the finals that they're going
to get back. When you saw that game watching it
as an NBA guy, I'm watching it as a casual
Backs basketball fan, and every game is different, So it's
hard to draw a ton of conclusions. But you just

(45:32):
said you think it's gonna go seven, So you don't
think there's that much difference between these two teams, regardless
if Lebron gets past this game. How good are the Raptors?
How good are the seventies sixers? How much better is
the top line maybe of the Eastern Conference, not even
considering Kyrie being injured and Gordon Heyward being injured for
the for the Celtics. How much better overall is the

(45:53):
talent in the Eastern Conference this year than maybe what
we've seen in past years. Oh, it's definitely, uh step up.
I think the young guys that have been in that
conference for a long time but finally at the level
and then where they now can produce at a high stage. Um,
I mean, like you said, went through eight. You know,
none of those seeds really have a lot of separation.
You know, you see Milwaukee yesterday, you know had a

(46:15):
chance to win the game. You know, you see it
all these lower seeds. You see him he had to
get to win. Um, I mean Philadelphia pretty much smothered Miami,
but Miami have a better effort tonight. Uh, it's gonna
be close. Man. Man, I don't even know who's gonna
come out of that conference. It's it's so it's so
tough right now. How good has Ben Simmons when you
watch this game? Oh? Man, he's so talented. Um, you know,

(46:38):
he can do everything handed the ball, um, post up,
you know, he can get to the lane, you know
anything people say he can't do with shoot he doesn't
shoot it and jumps at all. I think when he
adds that he'd be probably the best player in the NBA.
But he's just so talented to be that young and
be that good already. I mean, that team is gonna
be really, really good for a long time. I've got
we're talking to Brandon Wright than the NBA for years.

(47:00):
He's out injured now, Uh, Brandon when this is an
amazing staff that I saw that I couldn't believe. Since
Ben Simmons left high school. Do you know how many
three pointers he has attempted in his college is all
obviously at l s U for one year and his
pro career, how many three pointers has he attempted? I
would say under ten. That's a good guest. Three he

(47:22):
was one for three, he was one for three in
college at l s U for an entire season. He
has made one three pointer since he left high school.
How do you become a good shooter? But, I mean,
you see a lot of guys come into the n
B A and I can think back to let's use
as an example, Jason Kidd used to not be able
to hit the broadside of a building. To use an
old school guy. When Jason Kidd came into the NBA,

(47:43):
he was almost entirely a point guard. He never had
a set shot. By the time he finished his career,
he had developed into a really good outside shooter. What
do you have to do to become a good shooter?
If you came into the NBA not a great shooter,
You've probably seen guys over the years work on it.
What makes it happen? Is it just get the raps?
Is it? Is it form? What can you do in
the NBA that allows you to become a decent shooter

(48:05):
with time? Uh? I mean, I'm glad you asked that question,
because you know a lot of guys get these shooting coaches,
they get these workout Google rules, and they get these
guys trying to tweak their shot. The biggest thing is confidence.
You know, you gotta keep shooting the ball. You gotta
keep seeing the ball go through the whole. You know,
like you said, Jason Kidd wasn't a great shot again

(48:26):
Kurch came in, but you can see to shoot the ball.
You look at a guy like even like DeAndre Jordan
can't shoot free throws in the game, but you know,
I've seen that guy's hit fifty free throws in a
row and practice. It's all about confidence. You know, you
gotta see the ball go in during the game and
that all allow you to make shots when when the
early counts. What about you, Okay, you were on the rockets.
First of all, how healthy are you? What are you

(48:47):
doing now to rehab and what's your day to day
existence like now? Uh, that's why I look so earlier.
Nted to the gym pretty soon to go work out,
and then I'm going to physical therapy right after that.
I just had a deed clean that three weeks ago,
you know, pretty simple, pretty standard, just you know, something
I had to do the get ready for next year,
and you know, feeling pretty good already walking around and

(49:08):
stuff like that. But everything's gone well, just just uh,
the procedure that had to be done. Um, now, before
I get into asking you about the Rockets and what
you think of that team, I want to ask you
this too. You are a you're you, You're living Nashville,
You're a Nashville Predators fan. What's your policy? Like tonight
the game is not gonna start till nine. You said
you're up early, going to get rehab. You're working on

(49:30):
your knee. You're an early riser, like a lot of
the people who are listening to this show are. Right now,
what do you do on late night sports? Do you
do you take a nap? Do you stay up for it? Like?
What will you do tonight? And then you can say
it also for the NBA, because I'm sure you're watching
the playoff games too. How do you handle these West
Coast games when they start so late? Yeah, I'll be
all over the place tonight. Um, I'll be watching the press.

(49:50):
I'll be watching all these other games. You know, I
pretty much still stay up. You know, I've been in
the NBA for eleven years, so I'm using to the
late banks early one, and so i'd be up pretty late.
Probably watched the whole press as game. I even watched
the other two NBA games in the one night, but
I just banded out tomorrow. You know, I might only
gift for I'll sleep. It might be a long day
on Tuesday, but I definitely still if they haven't watched.

(50:13):
We're talking to Brandon right, All right, what can you
tell me? Did you stay up and watching the Rockets
last night? And what did you think about their opening
game against the Timberwolves. Know, it was a little bit
tougher than uh, you know initially thought I thought it
was high scoring game. You know, Um, you know the
guys on the timber was in particularly shoot well. But
you know, James Harden pulled the team through. Um, you know,

(50:35):
he's been playing like that all season. And I'm expected
to be a long series. I expect to be a
shootout for sure. You know, Minnesota get to one game,
I think they would would be in good shape. But
I don't think it would be a close one at all.
We're talking to Brandon right. What is the difference in
the intensity level from regular season NBA to playoff NBA.
I think the biggest thing is every possession counts. Uh,

(50:58):
you don't want to just throw a possess in away Um,
you know that could be the difference in the game.
And you know, you know, you look at the Minnesota
Houston game last night. You know there were chances to
be had and just you know, Minnesota couldn't come up
with the place. And uh, you know, East East possession counts.
You know, every every every play is critical and you

(51:18):
want to limp those and stakes. You know the game
is along and those those TV time must make the
game more since, you know, make the game a lot
longer than what it should be. But you know, you
just gotta take taking one possession at a time. When
you look at the Warriors, we're talking to Brandon right,
long time NBA veteran. When you look at the Warriors,
it looks like they just flipped a switch against the Spurs.

(51:39):
And obviously the Spurs still don't have Kawhi Leonard. We
don't know exactly what's going on there. Uh, you're a
guy who's out with an injury. Now, have you ever
been in a situation like that with a team where
it seems like a lot of guys feel like Kawai
Leonards should be playing, he's not playing. How does that
internal dynamic play out? And also as part of that series,
it seems like the war years. Now, having played so

(52:01):
many postseason games and feeling so good even without Steph,
they literally seem like they flipped a switch and just dominated.
Is that an accurate reflection? Do you expect them to
be a different team in the postseason than they were
down the stretch in the regular season? Oh, no question.
I mean they have championship pedigree. You know, they have
plenty of guys who have been there before. And you know,

(52:21):
to be honest, I mean, you know people don't like this.
You know say this. You know you won't hear a
coach or general man just said. You probably won't even
hear many players say if they probably got a little bored.
You know, towards the end of the season. You know
they knew where ever is gonna be. You know, they
got to the point where they knew the Rockets was
gonna finish first in the West, and it was about
fifteen sixty yeames left and then you know they just say,
you know, let's get to the playoffs. You know this,

(52:42):
this is what we played for. You know, we're not
worried about these last last games in the regular season.
But you know, they definitely have a tremendous advantage over
the Spurs, and those Spurs really don't have enough thing,
having enough fire proper to keep up. And you know,
then being without quiet, that's tough. You know, I've been
on both sides that thing. I mean, you know, something
is going on that we haven't heard about yet. And uh,

(53:04):
whether he's dead next year, he's traded, or he's saw
a big time extension, you know, will eventually find out
what's going on. But I mean, obviously he's not comfortable
with the wage feelings, so he's not gonna step on
the court, and then that kind of puts the whole
team as well as Greg Popovich in an awkward position.
Papovitch said something about how you'll have to ask his group,
meaning I think in general, you know, it's his advisors

(53:25):
and everybody else that's surrounding him. This has really gone
south in a hurry, right, because it seemed like Kauai's
media reputation at least, I don't know if you guys
talk differently in the league, you never know whether somebody's
accurately reflected or not. But it was like, oh, Kauai
is the perfect Spur. You know, he's not a guy
who's trying to draw a lot of attention. A lot
of people tried to compare him to Tim Duncan, who
obviously is the ideal player to have been with Papovich

(53:48):
for as long as he was, man who Genobile, Tony Parker,
guys who kind of bought into the Popovich system. Uh,
what in the I mean like this is this has
to be something that NBA players are talking about two
just as much as NBA fans are, right, yeah, we
really don't. We really want to know what's going on.
And they've been really really tight lipped about the whole situation.
And obviously the Spurs organization is pretty fed up with,

(54:10):
you know, the way kwas handled this and you know,
him not coming back because they continue to say that
he's cleared by their doctors to play. Um, but he's
not playing because his doctors are telling him I have
to play. So something that's going on. Maybe he's not
feeling like he should, you know, maybe he's less than
a hundred percent and he doesn't want to go out
there until he's completely one. Um. You know, the story

(54:32):
is gonna keep on telling himself all the way through
the off season. But the Spurs are upset and the
players are starting to get a little frustrated, and I
think they're past the point where they're gonna counting him
to come back if you were predicting right now, so
I tell you right now, we've now seen the opening
games of the NBA playoffs, so you've gotten to see
all sixteen teams come out, see the first round games.

(54:53):
If you were predicting right now, who's going to meet
in the NBA Finals, who would you take? Tough? One man?
How about this man? I think you this the winner
of the Houston Goldst Day series is probably gonna win
the finals going away. Do you think the West is
that much better than the East. I just think the
way it's gonna shape up in the East, it's gonna

(55:14):
be just, you know, it's just it's gonna be a
battle all the way to who can get to the
conference finals. And it's gonna be so tough. You know,
I don't see many sweeps happening in the East the
first round. I think it's gonna be, you know, very competitive,
five six, seven games series all the way through it.
You know, by the time that that team gets to
the finals, I think he's gonna have to just breathe,
and then it's gonna be another team. There's there's so

(55:37):
much better, so much sounds is in them in the finals,
and it's gonna be tough on them. We're talking to
Brandon right, last question for you, because I know you've
got to get to rehab and uh and and continue
to get better be back for next season. When I've
been making the argument on the show that if the
Toronto Raptors exact same team was in New York City,
in other words, we just took DeMar Deroz and we

(55:58):
took Lowry everybody else. We just pick them up in
from Toronto and put them in New York City like
a Freaky Friday kind of situation. And you are not
that way because you're playing in different bodies. But you
just take that whole team and put it in New
York City and then you take the Knicks and you
put them in Toronto. That everybody would be talking about
this Raptors team, but that because they're in Canada, the
American sports media and fans don't give them as much respect.

(56:22):
Based on that fact. You buying or selling that idea
I'm behind, they would be it would be bigger than
the Warriors. They would be bigger than the Rockets. They'd
be the They'll be a huge story, and they'll be
right up there with Lebron James and where he's gonna
go and all that type of things. That would be
the story of the other league, because I mean, you
know how it is in New York. They're thriving four

(56:44):
team to be great. Yuh, now, you're one correct. I
agree with you that I think, uh, you know they're
under sould. It's a that's a great team, um, and
they they definitely have an opportunity to take that thing
all the way. Do NBA players buy into Toronto almost
more than the media does, because I think a lot
of people out there listening to us right now are like, Oh,
it's the Raptors. They're gonna they're gonna fade. They're no good. Uh.

(57:06):
You guys have played against him. You know how hard
it is to win fifty nine or sixty games in
this league no matter who you are. Uh. You guys
believe in them, maybe more than the general fan and
general media does. That's a great team. I mean that
they're they're solid one through ten. Um. You know, they
have guys who start bettering guys who played for a
long time put up big scoring numbers, and they bring

(57:26):
those young guys and off the bench and they keep
the pace up very very very high. And uh, I mean,
I don't know if you've seen the stats on them,
but that's how to be boring a lot of games
this year. Um, their bench is tremendous. Those guys have
been playing really, really well. Um. You know that that's
the reason why they won almost sixty games this year
is because mostly because of the bench coming in and
either playing even with the guys they're playing against or

(57:49):
out playing guys by a big margin. So they're gonna
be They're gonna be good. They're gonna be fine. Um.
I don't think washingtonon can really keep up with him.
I think Washington get a couple of games, but I
think Toronto they'll they'll take that series pretty easily. We're
talking to Brandon right, I know I said last question,
but what's your prediction for the Preds tonight against the Avs.
I think it's gonna be a tough game. I think

(58:09):
I think we dropped this on Actually, um as I'm
playing pretty good. You know, they they have given us
all they got. Um, you know, I think we lose
this one in the in the colost, but we do
in game four and coming back home and close it out.
Do you have a bank? You said you're gonna be
watching all the NBA games too? Do you have a
bank of multiple televisions? Are you work in the remote aggressively,
down the down the stretchy he or how do you
watch your games when you're sitting at home? No, I

(58:31):
got different different, Uh, I got it. I got the
iPad going, I got the laptop going, I got the
TVs going, I got everything going on. So it's it's uh,
it's it's pretty it's pretty crazy. Man. I'm just trying
to keep up, keep up with everything going on in
the sports war right now. That's it's always a great
time of year with the hockey playoffs and then playoff,
especially in the first round. All right, but man, get
to get well, get some sleep when you can, and

(58:53):
we'll talk to you probably next week. All right. I
appreciate Gavin. Yeah, that's Brandon right, He's been all over
the LEADU. He was with the Memphis grizzon lease, he
was with the Houston Rockets, and now he is on
his couch watching all the games like you and me
getting better for next season. I am Clay Travis. Uh.
Let's go ahead and run into the break and we
come back on the flip side. I've gotta I've gotta challenge.

(59:15):
Canada gets no respect, all right? I Am going to
open up the phone lines. We'll see how this works.
Jason Martin, be on on guard here, only Canadian callers.
Are your sports teams disrespected because of your country? Do
you feel like, as America's top hat, that you're giving
no respect Raptors fans, hockey fans, you haven't one of

(59:38):
Stanley Cup. I'm opening up the lines. I know we're
on in many different Canadian cities. I have no idea
how many. I don't even know exactly how the phones
work when you try to call us. That's a more
disrespect eight seven seven nine nine six six three six nine.
This is Canada's opportunity to fire back in America. I'm
giving you open phone lines to all fifty states. Your

(01:00:00):
your case for why Canada is disrespected and should be
respected more. It's possible nobody's gonna call in, in which
case I'll have to say, you know what, Maybe Canada
deserves all the disrespect that they get. This is your
opportunity a to call in and take shots at the
American sports fan and the American sports media. Myself included
for not respecting your team's enough eight seven seven nine

(01:00:22):
nine six three six nine. I'm Clay Travis's outcake. The
coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Car shopping can be confusing
with terms like dealer price, the list price, and invoice.
True Car shows you what other people paid for the
car you want, so you can recognize a good price
when you're ready to buy a newer used car. Visit
True Car to enjoy a more confident car buying experience.
Just did something I've never done before. I opened up

(01:00:45):
the phone lines and I said only Canadians, this is
your opportunity to call from north of the border and
tell us whether or not you feel like you have
been disrespected. Jason Martin, what would you say? Are we
gonna get a good feedback of Canadians here. Let's go
ahead and take a couple of calls and then I
will maintain the phone lines open, and then we will
discuss are the Raptors deed being disrespected as I am

(01:01:05):
arguing because they are in fact from Canada. Steve and Kingston, Oha, Ontario.
What's up? How's it going, man? I'm living the dream Steve?
Uh So, I know, I know the show is on
a decent number of cities in Canada. I don't know
exactly how many. But how do you listen to the show?
Are we on in your in your area? Yeah? You guys.

(01:01:27):
I picked you Days up out of Wartown, New York's
right on the border um with Ontario, and I listen
to Day every morning. Yes, and I totally agree, like
perfect example of a couple of years ago in the
Blue Days are really good. And I thought, come on,
you know if they say I think after three when
they won the World Series, and I thought for sure

(01:01:49):
that there is almost the conspiracy that we can't have
a Canadian team win this thing again. Yes, and it is.
Do you think it's television? My my, my argument in
my theory here is that this comes from television on
down and that by by that I mean this. If
the Toronto Raptors were to advance to the NBA Finals

(01:02:10):
and they were to play let's say, the Warriors or
the Rockets, which I think it's fair to say would
be the two favorites, right, I think the Western Conference
gonna be the Warriors of the Rockets. Eastern Conference seems
to be somewhat wide open, particularly given the fact that
the Calves lost to the Pacers in Game one. We
don't know that. Obviously, the Raptors finally won a game
one of a series. But if it were the Raptors

(01:02:31):
and it was against the Warriors or the Rockets, ESPN
slash ABC and the games would be on ABC. They
don't get the television ratings for the Canadian market that's
on a different television network. So I think they would
be miserable at the idea. And so as a result,
I don't even think they cover them. They're not on
t N T that much, They're not on ESPN that much.

(01:02:53):
They are like the bastard step child of the NBA,
even if they're good, and you guys feel that, definitely, definitely,
the Raptors are a great team. Okay, you could you
imagine if they were done in like you said earlier,
in New York, I mean it would be it would
be a totally different way that they were being covered
if that exact team was in New York City right now,

(01:03:15):
exactly exactly, and the NHL, I believe Gary Bettman has
it for any Canadian team. That's interesting because you guys,
you guys, obviously hockey is the national sport of Canada,
but you guys feel like you're discriminated against in Canada
because you haven't won Stanley Cup since ninety three. And
you think if that, you know, because the growth of

(01:03:35):
the sport primarily has been in America. Uh, you guys
feel like you're being treated unfairly even in hockey. Yeah, definitely.
I believe when when Commissioner Bettman came in, his number
one thing was to get a US market and I
that's great, good for the league, but for the money
gets to the players. But he just kind of kicked

(01:03:56):
Canada as a curb and hebe he doesn't care about
Canadian teams. Well, it's interesting. Thanks for the call. Let's
go to who should I go to? Jason Martin? Um?
Sorry Tom in Ohio. He's a dual citizen, but he
was in Canada for seventeen years. I guess that can count. Tom.
What's up? Thanks? Good morning, sir. Yeah, I gotta built

(01:04:16):
off on your previous caller there. Um, it's just not
the baseball. It's just not the basketball. Think about how
many times you get to watch CFL games, uh, you
know from you know, from the stage, how about the
great ones like Warren Moon and Jim Kelly. You know,
it's it's interesting you mentioned that when's the CFL season run. Uh, Like,

(01:04:40):
in general, it was about the same time that the
NFL does. And yeah, so let me say that if
I were the CFL, I think there would be interest
in watching Canadian Football League because this because football in
general is just so popular here. But I don't think
it's gonna be anywhere near what it is because it's

(01:05:03):
going to head to head with college football and the NFL. Now,
if the CFL played in a different time, went out
and they signed somebody like Johnny Manziel or Colin Kaepernick
was willing to play, or back in the day Tim
Tebow have been willing to play, I think people would
have watched it like crazy. And also by the way
gambled on it, because I think that would be important.
CFL is a different standard because you're playing a different
level of sport. But to me, the Raptors definitely have

(01:05:26):
a gripe about the way they're being treated relative to
everybody else in the NBA, Absolutely, especially with on the
Sport channel. Do you not get the coverage in the
US that they actually deserve. Look at the Raptors team
this year. They deserve more coverage than what they're getting. Yeah,
it's interesting, Thanks for the call. Do you guys buy

(01:05:47):
into this because my my theory is this is not
even a conspiracy, because I think a conspiracy you're trying
to hide something. I think that the NBA UH television
partners do not want the Raptors to get very much
attention because they don't get the benefit of the Raptors
in the American television market. In other words, I don't
know how many people live in Toronto, four million, three

(01:06:08):
and a half million, whatever the population is of Toronto,
and it's metropolitan area. Everybody who puts on the Raptors
in Canada doesn't count as a viewer for American television ratings.
And so as a result, if they get let's say
a team, That's why New York is a perfect example.
If this team was in New York City, it would
be worth tens of millions of dollars to American television

(01:06:31):
networks because they would suddenly have what they In an
ideal universe, who does the NBA want to play every
single year in the finals. They want a major East
Coast team playing against a major West Coast team. Now,
there are some exceptions. Houston's the fourth biggest market in
the country. Okay, the Rockets in the in the NBA
Finals not a disaster, right, But in an ideal universe,

(01:06:52):
you get a team from Frankly, l A going up
against the team from New York, that would be the
best possible scenario. If you had the Lakers going up
against the Knicks in an NBA final, I think they
would acknowledge. The NBA executives would that's the best possible
matchup we could have. Now, if you get Lebron James,
who everybody knows, going up against the big California team,

(01:07:12):
that's also a really good game. But if you had
the Knicks with the Raptors talent going up against against
either the Rockets or the Warriors this year, NBA executives
would be ecstatic if they got let's say, the Rockets
against the against the Raptors as good as those teams maybe,
and a lot of basketball fans out there say, hey,
there's a lot of really good players on those things.

(01:07:33):
People don't know them. Takes years for guys to become
big time stars. You have to watch them play lots
of different years. Everybody cares about Tom Brady, everybody cares
about Lebron James. Everybody's got an opinion about the Golden
State Warriors. We've seen those teams on the big stage.
You may think, oh, well, people care. You know, the
average NBA game gets it's as kicked by W W

(01:07:56):
E Raw and SmackDown. Even Lebron's games playing against a
good team gets dominated in the ratings by Raw and SmackDown.
Only a couple of million people watch those. By the
time you get to the NBA finals, twenty million people
are watching. Who are those casual fans that are coming in?
There are people who wait to see who the champion
is gonna be, and they want to see brands that

(01:08:17):
they already know going head to head and competing against
each other. So my theory here, pretty straightforward, is that
there is no doubt at all that the Toronto Raptors
are being discriminated against because they hurt ratings in a
substantial fashion. And if the Raptors end up in the
NBA Finals or even the Eastern Conference Finals. You can

(01:08:40):
go look at the ratings. They're a disaster. Two years ago. Yeah,
there we go. Two years ago. The Raptors played against
the the Calves in the Eastern Conference Finals, didn't they.
I'm right about that. I think two thousand sixteen one
of the lowest rated Eastern Conference Finals that we have

(01:09:03):
ever seen. ESPN lost a ton of money. At the
same time, on the other side of the equation, the
Western Conference Finals was going on. That game seven series
between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Golden State Warriors,
one of the highest rated NBA finals, Uh what Conference

(01:09:23):
finals of all times? Partly it was because that series
went seven games and was an incredibly competitive But am
I wrong that that Raptors calv series. Did it go
six games or did it go five? I know the
Raptors won at least one game. I thought it went
six for some reason. Regardless, it was a ratings disaster
because the Raptors didn't bring that home team audience that

(01:09:46):
the networks rely on so much. So I think it's
a conspiracy. I think it's a conspiracy lined up against
the Canadian team. So I find myself rooting for the
Raptors a little bit here. I'd like to see a
Raptor seventies sixers final in the Eastern Conference. I think
that would be intriguing to see. What about you guys,
Are you buying into my my argument here that the
Raptors are discriminated against Jason Martin, I'm buying into it

(01:10:09):
a little bit, but I would argue something a little
bit different, and it's the same thing I argued the
last time we talked about this. I think that there's
something to be said for it, but I think the
discrimination may come against the audience more so than anything else.
Like you talked about the ratings being down, well, they
got swept against the Calves last year. They did win
two games the year before. In the past five years
that Toronto Raptors have won forty nine, fifty six, fifty

(01:10:32):
one and fifty nine games. They've won four division titles
during that time frame. But when they get to the playoffs,
Kyle Lowry in particular, but also Demard de Rosen, they've
pulled sort of a very inconsistent, disappearing act, have underwhelmed
and haven't been able to get past Lebron James and
they got to the NBA Finals and went to a

(01:10:54):
Let me finish my point. Let me finish my point. Now,
what you're saying about Toronto is not entirely wrong, But
I would argue that they're more like Portland, They're more
like Utah, They're more like Indiana, but especially Utah. In Portland.
Portland's another team with two real stars and c J.
McCollum and Damian Lillard that a lot of people don't
know and don't pay attention to. But that team, if
they were in New York would do very, very well,

(01:11:16):
and they would be a trendy pick. Utah, it's got
Doners Mitchell, who's right behind Ben Simmons in the Rookie
of the Year voting, who's been absolutely extraordinary. He would
be on the front of every magazine in the world.
Minnesota is another argument. If you put Karl Anthony Towns
and that team in New York, a lot of these teams,
I think this team has actually been to the Eastern
Conference Finals and they played the six games. They play

(01:11:37):
a six game series. Yeah, they did good years. I mean,
I think it's hard to argue that they've been completely
worthless in the playoffs. They lost in the first round.
Every they've been worthless. They've been worthless five they lost
in the They've lost in the first round one to
three times. In two thousand, fifteen and sixteen when they
did get too off the Calves, they won four to three.

(01:11:59):
If you in both staying and play a six game
series and you're one of four teams left in the NBA,
you have not been completely worthless. If you lose four
to two against Lebron James in the era that he
has dominated the Eastern Conference, you're not completely worthless. Like
I would understand that argument more if they hadn't had

(01:12:21):
success in the postseason. Even now, I think people look
at the Raptors and they're over overlooking them. I mean,
the Vegas is not. Interestingly, Vegas has the Raptors right
now as the favorite to win the Eastern Conference. People
may think it's crazy, may not buy into it. But
right now, if you are betting the favorite to win
the Eastern Conference is the Toronto Raptors should be. I mean,

(01:12:43):
that's that's the whole deal. But I don't believe in
it until I see it, and it's not because they
play in Toronto. In my case, I see them the
same way. I see the Rockets teams with stars that
have not been able to do it in the postseason,
so I don't understand I'm gonna be able to do
it in the season. They got to the Eastern Conference
Finals and lost two games there. Yes, at home, they
won two games at home, lost everything on the road.

(01:13:04):
None of them were close, and that was the end
of the story. But that they're one of the final,
one of the four final teams, everybody's like serves so
much credit for being able to advance, Like that's pretty impressive.
We'll talk more about this. We'll continue to break down
the NBA and the NHL um and uh. We will

(01:13:25):
dive in a little bit, maybe talk Dez Bryant. What
is his value he got released on Friday. I feel
like that story almost slit under the radar to the
extent that anything that happens with the Dallas Cowboys can
slide under the radar. All that and more on the
flip side, I'm Clay Travis South. Get the coverage on
Fox Sports Radio, great news, quick way you could save money.
Switched to Geico. Go to geico dot com and in

(01:13:46):
fifteen minutes you could say fifteen percent or more on
car Insurance Canada's find us Drake bringing us back out
of the break right there, Toronto Raptors fan. Although, to
be fair, Drake is a fan of any team that
seems like it's winning. UM. I saw him out in
Kentucky Bass of All warm Ups not too long ago.
Dez Bryant. I think Dez Bryant's an interest interesting UH,
interesting situation here looking at dez Bryant stats UM A

(01:14:08):
lot of discussion about what Dak Prescott has meant for
Dez uh, Tony Romo's career ending and UH and Dez Bryant.
This is a stat I think is pretty intriguing. In
twenty seventeen, Dez Bryant was targeted the basically the second
most times of his career, i e. The same number

(01:14:29):
of times that he was targeted in his peak with
UM with Tony Romo in two thousand twelve, Dez Bryant
was targeted a hundred and thirty eight times, two thousand thirteen,
a hundred and fifty nine times, two thousand fourteen, a
hundred and thirty six times. He caught eight, eight, ninety
three and ninety two balls in those years In other words,

(01:14:50):
when he was targeted, Romo was getting the ball to
him and he was getting the ball down the field.
Had twelve, thirteen and sixteen touchdowns in those three years.
That is the most dominant three years of his career.
Last year, des Bryant sixty nine catches on a hundred
and thirty two targets. His yards per catch fell to

(01:15:12):
twelve point one. Total receiving yards fell to eight hundred
and thirty eight, had six tds compared to at the
peak of his career when he had twelve, thirteen and
sixteen touchdowns. What does Dez Bryant have left? That is
the question out there if you are an NBA team
looking into des Bryant. He is twenty nine this year.
He will be thirty next year. UM A lot of

(01:15:34):
times guys in the NFL kind of disappear when they
reach the age of thirty, especially if, like Dez Bryant,
they have used relied on their explosive playmaking ability. That
explosion just starts to fade. With all of the hits
that you have taken, with all the reps that you
have gotten on the field. There are not that many

(01:15:54):
players in the NFL who are explosive talents that are
really good after the age of third me, they're just
darned now. Sometimes guy like Priest Holmes. Maybe Priest Holmes
can be great after thirty because he didn't get that
many hits. Uh and early in his career. Dez has
been in the line of fire four years now. Again
a major falloff in his productivity over the last three

(01:16:18):
years now. He wasn't a percent healthy in two thousand fifteen.
He wasn't a percent healthy in two thousand sixteen, and
to be fair, the last two years he's had a
brand new quarterback after working into sync with everything surrounding
Tony Romo during those years. But what is Dez Bryant's
value now? Is he a guy that you would make

(01:16:39):
a run for. Is there any way at all that
he can be a number one receiver or does he
need to slot in somewhere as a number two receiver?
How much value do you think there is going to
be unlocked with des Bryant? My position on that is,
I think you'd probably be a two and he could
probably be a number two option for a team. I
think he's got at times the ability to go over

(01:17:03):
the middle still make catches. I don't know that he
that as a as a safety, certainly over the top
or as a corner, you're worried about him blowing by
you and beating you down the field. I also think
that's an interesting test for Dak. How good is Dak Prescott?
He regressed in year two. I think there's a single
Cowboys fan out there who wouldn't say, Yeah, Dak was
not as good in year two as he was in

(01:17:25):
year one. How much of that has to do with
the talent surrounding him? How much of that had to
do with the Ezekiel Elliott suspension. I think that's a
big question for the Cowboys. How much of that has
to do with Dak just playing out of his mind
in year one and by year three and year two
there's a lot more tape on him. And so the
NFL is the ultimate do the next thing well league.

(01:17:47):
They can take away your ability to be great at
something and make you do something you're not as good at,
which is why ultimately you have to be a pocket
passing quarterback. Can Dak Prescott consistently be the who drops
back on third and eight and makes the throw? Would
you sign Dez Bryant for seven million dollars a year,
Yes or no? Jason Martin, Yeah, probably, although there are

(01:18:12):
some definitely some questions out there. After three yards seasons
between two thousand twelve and two thousand fourteen, Brian hasn't
hit a thousand this contract, so he hasn't had a
thousand since he signed his new deal. He also had
the most drop passes tied along with Marquise Lee in
the entire league this year, dropped ten balls, and that's
been a consistent problem and it's getting worse. I think

(01:18:33):
that he has peaked and he's trending downward right now.
But the big playability and the possibilities of what he
could do if he continues to at least play at
the level we expect as Briant to play at are
close to it. I think it's probably worth the risk
for certain teams. Would you guys do it? In l
A Dez Bryant? Would you try to sign him? I'm
throwing the dollar figure out of seven million dollars because

(01:18:55):
I think that's probably around what his market value will
end up being. Yes or no? Would you make a
play for even million? Yeah? I think I would nothing
over that, But He's that number about right in terms
of what you think is value would be on the
open market. That's good. That's a good deal I think
for a lot of teams, and especially especially now because
he's extra fired up and he's a guy who seems
to always need extra motivation. And when I say seven million,

(01:19:18):
the way that these deals get announced in the NFL,
they're like, we signed a six year, sixty eight million
dollar deal. Yeah, how much of that money is actually guaranteed?
I think he's probably worth around seven million guaranteed right now,
and then you can get a couple of extra years
on the back end to see whether or not he's
got anything left. That's what I would attribute his value.
Assess his value at right now. Final hour of the
show up. Next question off the jump here for those

(01:19:39):
of you waking up, is going to be this good
or bad? If lebron loses in the first round for
the NBA. We'll discuss next on out Kick from the
Guy Go Outkicks Studios. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen
per cent or more on car insurance. Physic guico dot
com for a free rate quote. Monday edition. One of
the busiest mondays that there is throughout the entirety of

(01:20:01):
the sports calendar, because we've got eight different NBA series
starting the playoffs and eight different n h L series
starting the playoffs. Tried to keep tabs on all these
different series, trying to keep you up today, trying to
pay attention to them. I also was trying to get
my book done. I've got a book that's coming out
in September. So I was working basically burning the midnight

(01:20:22):
oil on Saturday and Sunday, cranking away. I turned in
the first draft yesterday yesterday evening. Uh So I've got
about three and twenty pages that I cranked out, and
I think this book is gonna be I don't think
it's gonna be out in September. I'm just not sure
exactly what day it's gonna be out. But I was
working on this book. I was also watching and trying
to keep tabs on the NBA and the NHL, and

(01:20:43):
to me, the biggest storylines from both the NBA and
NHL were as follows. One I went on last week
and I said the Indiana Pacers had a zero percent
chance of beating the Cleveland Cavaliers. I said zero. I
didn't say one percent. I didn't say two percent. I
said zero. That's because I believe basically wholeheartedly. And Lebron James,

(01:21:05):
who has never lost a first round NBA playoff series
in his entire career as a professional in the NBA.
And you know what, the Pacers looked a lot better
than the Calves did in Game one. The Pacers did
not look intimidated, they did not look overwhelmed. As I
said at the start of this show, the game was
decided to me. Kevin Love gets fouled on a three

(01:21:28):
point basket to make it a seven point game. He
goes to the free throw line to try to make
it six. He misses that free throw. But that was
right at the end of the third period. And if
you were watching that the third course, if you were
watching that game, you thought to yourself, I've seen this
story before. Lebron James allows the Indiana Pacers to get

(01:21:50):
out ahead of him, and then he's just pacing himself
and his team is gonna come roaring back in the
fourth and win this thing. And I guarantee you out there,
for everybody that was watching, everybody out there that was watching,
even if you were a Pacers fan, you gave up
a twenty eight point lead. Last year, Lebron has specialized
in finding ways to break the pacers hearts. You guys

(01:22:14):
thought you were gonna see the same script new year.
Lebron's team was gonna come back from a twenty plus
point deficit. They were gonna win. They were gonna break
Bain style, your team over their knee, break their back
like he did the Batman. And you thought that was
the way it was gonna end. And instead, the Pacers

(01:22:35):
did something that we haven't seen from him. They answered
that punch, they answered that run, They handled that crazy
crowd that expected that the Calves were going to continue
to roll in the fourth quarter, and they did something
pretty remarkable. They found a way to not just win,

(01:22:56):
but to pull away and not even allow it to
be a game down the stretch, not even and give
the Calves a chance to make that game one competitive
in the final few minutes. And as a result, Lebron
James walks off the court with eight seconds left. Lebron
may say, oh, I've been down three one in the
finals before, It's no big deal to be down one

(01:23:16):
nothing in the first round of the NBA playoffs. I
think this series is gonna be competitive. Now, I still
don't think that the Pacers are gonna win it. I don't.
I'm not willing to bet against Lebron James right here,
nor I think is anybody else on the show. But
I did say this as an apology for being wrong.

(01:23:39):
I am preemptively making this offer. We will bring out
Kick to Indianapolis. We will come to your city, and
we will do the show there at a time, date
and location to be determined. If the Calves can come back, sorry,
if the Pacers can keep the Calves from coming back,
and if they can win this series, we will go

(01:24:02):
to Indianapolis and we will do the show live from
your city, and I will offer my abject apologies for
what would be one of the biggest upsets in modern
NBA history. Think back, I know that this is just
a four versus five and somebody's gonna be on Twitter like, well,
there's only a couple of games that separated them. And yeah,

(01:24:22):
I don't consider the NBA regular season to be like
the NBA postseason. Smart people offshore and in Las Vegas
made the Cleveland Cavaliers the favorite to win the NBA
Eastern Conference when the playoffs started. They don't build those
buildings in Las Vegas by being wrong this often, this

(01:24:48):
high of a degree. The Calves are the favorites even
though they're the four seed. They're the favorites to win
the Eastern Conference when the playoffs started, so they might
as well be the one seed. This would be a
pretty prohibitive upset. Not quite the tempting Mtambo rolling around
on the court holding the ball up in his in
his hands, gazing skyward when they beat the Seahawks. Not

(01:25:10):
quite Golden State Warriors pre Golden State Warriors being awesome
when they upset the one seed Dallas Mavericks, who I
believe in won sixty games. But it would be up.
There's a pretty seismic upset in terms of the NHL.
Biggest upset going on right now, biggest surprise that we
have seen in the NHL playoffs, I think by far,

(01:25:31):
is what's happening to the Washington Capitals. Washington Capitals when
the President's Cup two straight years, can't even advance to
the Stanley Cup Finals get wiped out. Now they're going
up against the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team that I
don't believe it's ever one a series. I don't believe
the Columbus Blue Jackets had ever won more than two
games in a series in NHL history, And this is

(01:25:55):
what's happening. They are now down. The capitals are two
oh and they have lost both games at home. A
vetch Skin is in danger here of I don't even
know who you'd compare him to now in terms of
being one of the greatest players to have this kind
of futility in the NHL. I don't, Again, I don't.

(01:26:16):
I mean, he's he's a wonder to watch on the ice,
but is he the most talented player in any professional
sport not to have won a title? I think you
can make that argument. Who else would you even point
to right now? I mean, there are young guys in
their career, but guys who are currently playing at the

(01:26:37):
apex of their sport that have not won a title. Man,
I don't even know who you exactly point to. I mean,
I don't think you probably put Harden in that category yet,
maybe you do, Chris Paul, maybe, but a vet Skin
would be right at the top of that list of
guys that you would have expected to want to want
a title and haven't yet done. It now. Maybe Matt

(01:26:59):
Ryan all though, is he considered that high level? I mean,
we're talking about it can be in one of the
two or three best players in the league. I think
it's pretty hard to find anybody who is more in
need of a title relative to his overall success than that.
The Vegas Golden Nights still a ridiculous mascot name there.
They are now up three. Oh, they got a late

(01:27:20):
night win over the Kings in l A. That's a
pretty improbable story to go from not existing to being
one game away from advancing to the Final eight in
the NHL, and potentially to do it via sweep. All
that to discuss, but I believe the jumping off point here,
and it's one we're probably gonna talk about to be
Frank multiple days this week, and we even talked about

(01:27:41):
it a little bit before. Is it good or bad
for the NBA if Lebron James steps off the stage
this early in the playoffs? I can make an argument
either way, because the big time NBA fan is gonna say,
I think it's kind of good because there's a lot
of good young talent in this league. The seventies sixers
then have opportunity to step onto the age. Joel e

(01:28:02):
Beide comes back, Ben Simmons. That's a really talented team
in Philadelphia. I've been making the argument that nobody cares
about the Raptors because they're from Canada. But Lowry and
De Rosen have been to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals
before and have won a couple of games. There is
this their opportunity to really kind of step onto the
larger national stage, because there's a big difference between being

(01:28:23):
in an Eastern or Western Conference final and being in
the NBA Finals. A lot more people watch the NBA
Finals than watch either the Eastern or the Western Conference finals.
The biggest and most watched games all happened on ABC
in the NBA Finals. Maybe the Pacers can make a run.
They're young. It's amazing to think about where they were

(01:28:45):
last year when that Paul George trade happened and everybody said,
my god, the Pacers are dead. And then the Pacers
are not dead. There in fact of one oh in
the series against King James. And maybe I don't know,
maybe there's somebody else out there that can get hot
and make a run in the Eastern Conference Western Conference.
I don't think there's any doubt at all at all

(01:29:09):
that there is going to be a final Western Conference
between the Rockets and between the Warriors, and that the
way the Warriors looked when they just came out and
seemed to flip the switch and said, hey, we're gonna
kick ass now, the way they dominated the Spurs, it's
kind of hard to argue that the Warriors shouldn't be

(01:29:29):
the favorite again one game in. We've seen all eight
eight series begin in the NBA. We've seen all eight
series begin in the uh N h L as well.
J and Indy. What you got for us? Yes, I thanks,
say m man um, Hey, I hope you come to Indy. Man,
if you come, we've got a great airport and you

(01:29:50):
gotta stay at the j W. Maryott, is that your
Is that your first pitch when I when we might
come to do the show in Indianapolis, that we have
a great airport. Truth be told, I will probably. I
will probably drive because I don't think they're a direct flight.
And I could be wrong on this, but I don't
think there's a direct night there's a direct flight direct

(01:30:11):
that's only about the only place you can fly direct
from Indy. Oh really, Yeah, we we have an amazing airport,
all right, so then I'll be able to make that.
Then let's plan on that um alright, So so what
do you think the odds are that the Pacers can
actually pull off this upset? You know, I honestly think
Victor's on on the cusp of superstardom. I know that's
a lofty pitch, but I would The way they played

(01:30:36):
was fantastic enough for me to buy seven tickets to
take my daughter in the next game or to the
Sunday's game. Yeah, you know, I think that is intrigue.
Where should we do the show? By the way, if
you're in Indianapolis, where would be the greatest possible location
that we could do that? Well, remember we're on early
in the morning, so it's not like, you know that
we got to find somewhere where people will be able

(01:30:57):
to show up, because that's the one downside, The only
that side I would say, and thanks for the call.
By the way, the only downside I would say in
general about getting up so early is that it's hard
to do remote shows. It helps a little bit if
we're in the East Coast time zone because there's a
lot of people up in that final hour from eight
to nine, but we were We had a lot of
people turn out to see us, and I appreciate it.

(01:31:18):
In Minnesota, where we're on five to eight am, we
did the super Bowl, But as you move further west,
it gets almost impossible. So like when they are major
sporting events that are taking place in the Mountain time zone,
or the or the West Coast, it's tough to be
we're gonna do a live remote from three to six
in l A. Yeah, I don't know where we could
really do that. That there'll be a lot of people

(01:31:38):
who'd want to show up. Three to six am is
tough to pull off. Now. One thing we kind of
tossed around the idea is if we decided to do
a remote in l A or San Francisco, for instance,
could we tape the show for a live audience and
do it like nine to midnight West Coast. I think
there's probably people who could show up nine to midnight

(01:31:59):
West Coast, which would be and we finish about three am.
On the East Coast, unlikely, there's probably gonna be massive
news stories breaking during you know, the three to six
am hour when we'd wait to go live on the
East coast. I think that's a possibility, but that's the
biggest challenge. I don't know where the ideal location would be.
But if we did the show, we'd want people to
be able to come out in Indianapolis and say hi,

(01:32:20):
And I don't know where the ideal location would for
that would be. So I'm open to your suggestions. You
can tweet me at Clay Travis let me know where
the crowds might be or where people would be able
to reach easily in the first three hours of this show.
In the event that the Pacers pull off the upset,
I still don't think they're gonna do it. But if
they did, good or bad for the NBA? Is that

(01:32:42):
good or bad for the NBA to have Lebron gone?
And I guess it depends also on how broadly do
you mean the NBA, because I think it's a disaster
for television. There is no doubt whether you love or
hate Lebron James, it's the disaster for NBA television ratings.
If Lebron James were to lose in the first round,
people can say, yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty. It
opens the door for Boston. It opens the door for

(01:33:05):
the seventy six ers, opens the door for the Raptors,
opens the door for the Pacers. Yeah, not not a
big gain in terms of attention because most people are
already kind of gearing up for Lebron versus whoever is
gonna emerge into the Western Conference. So I think that
hurts on a national casual fan scale. But at some

(01:33:25):
point the league has to turn the page from Lebron.
Lebron's thirty three is gonna be thirty four next year.
I don't think you want a collapse like you saw
when Jordan's left the NBA. You know, the NBA ratings
still haven't reached back what they were in when Michael
Jordan's beat the Utah Jazz on that step back push

(01:33:48):
off jumper against Brian Russell that Game six. Michael Jordan's
game has still not been equaled in terms of its
overall audience will say, oh, well, we got more cable now,
we got more entertainment options. It also is a sign
of how much more beloved Michael Jordan's was and is
then Lebron James. I think that drives Lebron James crazy.

(01:34:12):
Even with Game seven. Remember Jordan never had a game
seven in the finals. Even with Game seven two years
ago between the Warriors and the Calves, they still weren't
able to equal that. And there's like twenty five million
more people in the country, which is a crazy stat.
Five million more people in the country now than we're

(01:34:33):
in the country twenty years ago when Michael Jordan's hit
that jumper to beat Brian Russell and the Utah Jazz.
But after Jordan's left the NBA taint for like a decade,
nobody watched the n B a relative to the audience
that Michael Jordan's produced. And as much as people want
to brag about NBA ratings now and ESPN is out

(01:34:55):
there fluffing up the ratings like crazy, they're lower than
they were five years ago, and they're way lower than
they were twenty years ago. But if Lebron eventually rides
off into the sunset, which I think it's fair to
say he's gonna do, will the NBA hit another trough
in the ratings where people who have grown up over

(01:35:17):
a generation caring about Lebron James, just like that generation
abandoned the NBA because you had Michael Jordan's fans, you
didn't have NBA fans. Are there Lebron fans who aren't
actually NBA fans? That's the test, will find out. That's
what would happen if LEBRONI a great test. If Lebron
lost in the first round, we'd be like, Okay, let's

(01:35:37):
find out right now, Lebron is not even gonna be
in the final four of the East, much less the
final round. How many people out there in the NBA
only care about what happens in the NBA because of
Lebron James. Like, there's a millions of people that would
be in that category. They love or hate Lebron James,
and he makes them turn on the television and watch

(01:35:58):
a game, just like Michael Jordan did, Just like Frankly
the guy who does it more so than anybody else
who's in sports today, Tiger Woods does for golf. I
think that's an intriguing question. All Right, she says she's
gonna be up. Will she answer her phone? Quick poll?
Will Britt mckenry answer her phone? Jason Martin, boy, that

(01:36:21):
is really tough. I can't go higher than but that
might even be a little bit high. Like I think
I think I might have undercut the Pacers chances. I
think I'm giving Britt too much credit based on her
past chance. She answers, what about you guys in l A.
I saw her twitter from over the weekend. She was drinking,
So I'm gonna say she was at the Caps game.

(01:36:43):
She swore to me, I am setting my alarm for
seven fifty am. I will answer, I will be good
to go. That's so she texted me last night from
the Caps game. Now, over time, they lost in OT.
They did lose an OT. She was at the Caps
against the Blue Jackets late, and that's a crushing loss
for her Caps. She's a un like unvarnished. She's not

(01:37:04):
hiding it. Caps fan and Caps fans have been in
for a rough time of it. Might have had to
hit the sauce a little bit harder after that loss.
So what do you got, Danny g What odds are
you giving me? Let's see less than fifty you're saying,
what about Justin Cooper? Anybody out there on the Yes,
Britt mckenry is gonna answer her phone train not me?

(01:37:24):
All right, I'm gonna rely. Here's her text. I'm this
is the last text that I got last night. Uh,
let's let's I'm reading it to you right now. I'm in,
she says, exclamation point, alarm set locked in seven fifty
am and man caps never make it look easy. That
was before the caps lost. That was before she might

(01:37:45):
have hit the sauce even harder. Will Britt mckenry answer
her phone? You will find out next on out kick
It is a cliffhanger, to be sure, and in the meantime,
using True car, you can easily find the car you
want with true Price. From Truecar, you can avoid the
confusion you encounter online by getting a great price you
can count on before you ever visit a dealership. The

(01:38:06):
true price includes all dealer fees and accessories. True car
will show you what other people in your area paid
for the car you want. Now you know what a
fair price is, so you can feel confident, and your
certified dealers know this, so they set their true price
competitively so they can win your business. Over three million
cars have been sold to True car users by the
True Car Certified Dealer network. They're over fifteen thousand True

(01:38:29):
Car certified dealers nationwide. True Car users save on average
over three thousand dollars off M S R. P When
you're ready to buy a newer used car, visit Truecar
to enjoy a more confident car buying experience. Some features
not available in all states. Oh big time? Hold on,
tell me when I'm live? Are we on? Is this?
Mike On? I think you've been live? Are we live?

(01:38:51):
Do we? This is the people actually listen to this show. Uh,
wouldn't you love a bigger tax refund? Tax Layer was
highest rated for maximum refunds, so you have more cash
to spend on whatever the heck you want this tax season?
Go out and slay at max a refund at tax
layer dot com. Britt mckinry update. She may have just
dunked on everybody, but first, Eddie Garcia, what's shaken? All right, Clay,

(01:39:12):
Let's start with the uh news. News from the nfls
and breaking news from the NFL, where five time Pro
Bowler linebacker James Harrison announced his retirement after fifteen seasons.
He was the defensive player of the Year in two
thousand and eight. In the NBA Playoffs, in four series openers,
the Pacers beat the Kafitaliers in Cleveland easily to eightiets,
Cleveland's first opening round loss in eight years. Victor Ladipo

(01:39:33):
thirty points for Indiana Rockets over the Timberwolves one oh four,
one oh one. That's the one seed versus the eighth
seed in the West. James Harden points for Houston thunder
down the Jazz one sixteen one oh eight over top
of the Celtics to beat the Bucks one one o
seven in the NHL playoffs, wins for the Golden Knights,
Blue Jackets, Wild and Penguins. Back to you, Clay, good stuff.
As always, Britt mckinry. Nobody had any faith in her

(01:39:55):
except for me. She is in fact with us at
Britt mckenry on Twitter, A brit, are you hungover after
drinking your sorrows away over the CAB's performance? A little bit?
I woke up. My long went off this time. I
wasn't good. I'd want to say employee, but obviously I
just come on your show occasionally. Jason and I are

(01:40:16):
killing it between snowstorms, not coming into work and then
be sleeping in. So my alarm went off and I
woke up. For a couple of seconds, I had no
idea why I did, and then I you know, I
was delighted. You know I'd be talking you today, but
just I'm I'm so sad. So wait, let me ask
you this. So last night I see you tweet out
a picture of yourself in a Caps shirt, and then

(01:40:38):
is that did you delete that? What happened? I didn't
see it on your feed this morning when I was
going to retweet that you were coming on. Yeah, I
was so mad. I was so mad. I I want
to compare myself to the guy remember that video that
went viral about and he's um in Cleveland and he's
like pointing to the Brown Stadium a couple of years
ago and he's like shouting that it's a factory of sadness.

(01:41:01):
That is how I felt last night at the now
Capital One Arena. It will always be a Verizon Center
to me. But I just immediately I saw the goal
coming thirty seconds before it happened. And to be honest
with Quay, in between like going to run get drinks.
I I was happy as could be. I thought they

(01:41:22):
were up to goals. They let Columbistic around. I don't
know why. I do know why Bradenholby wasn't starting in
the net because he had a bad stretch of you know,
the end of the season. But he didn't even do
that well. I mean, I just don't understand how this
team is always one of the best hockey teams on
paper clay and they can't get out of their own way.

(01:41:44):
We were just talking about this with a Vetchkin. Can
you think of another athlete you covered the NFL for
a long time, Like, who would the NFL version of
Alexandrovitchkin be? I mean, because obviously some people would say
it was Romo, but he retired, so he's not in
the league anymore. Is there even a play are in
the NFL that you could point to and say, this
guy is one of the best, if not the best,

(01:42:05):
maybe in the league that hasn't one. I mean, I
can't even think of who it would be that you
would point to as the o Vetchkan of the NFL.
For instance, Tony Romo was a good one, but like
he said, he retired. We'll see where does Bryant lands.
You could be a bit underachieving in terms of what
everybody do you sign Des? Like? You do you think
Des has anything left? I do? I think he has

(01:42:28):
a redskin signing written all over him. Like that's like
the Dan Snyder away overpay bringing a guy who's a
good name, and then he just disappoints everybody in d
C absolutely, Like you know, Alex Smith can't throw it
more than fifteen yards, never gets to him like that's
that's just typical. I would expect of them, especially if
does wants to stay in the NFC East. Sorry, Redskins

(01:42:50):
fans covered the team for a long time, but I
can't really think about it. Maybe Alex Ovechkin we'll go
down as one of the greades, if not the greatest
in terms of just pure raw talent. He's gotten older.
I know some of the guys who complained about his
lack of defense, but he scored last night and just
still like t j Osh got a goal. Nicholas backs

(01:43:15):
Term is underrated. I've always sid Nicholas backs Um. I
played soccer growing up. People listening don't know that I
was really into it. And he reminds me of Michelle Acres,
like if you go way back into the nineties of
how good he is. But Mia Hamm would always get
the attention. That's sort of like Alex Svestian and Nicholas Backstrom,
and he had he played well and he just can't

(01:43:37):
get it done. Now you also you're in the d
C area and you've adopted those teams. You went to
the Gnats, I know the playoff games for the Nats,
and the Nats consistently crushed people. The uh the Wizards
seem like they were trending in the white and the
right way with with Bradley Beale and with John wall
and even last year had a lot of exciting games.
I think they've lost to the Celtics in seven or

(01:43:57):
whatever the heck it was, I can't remember exactly, but
they seemed like they were going in the right direction.
Now they've regressed. It doesn't seem necessarily like they're going
to have a bunch of a shot to win a series. Um,
why is there so much sadness in the Washington D C. Area?
And obviously including everything since the Redskins won the title
in ninety three, the last twenty five years of life

(01:44:18):
in the nation's capital has been pretty brutal if you're
a sports fan routing for teams there. It has now
is Cleveland having one in basketball? I think that DC
in Minnesota has the longest playoff droughts. Yeah, well, I
think there's no doubt, Like if you were ranking, and
maybe Buffalo, but Buffalo only has two games. Like I
look at the NHL ratings for who watches, and I

(01:44:41):
just feel so sad for people in Buffalo because they're
the number one market and they they obviously the Bills
are you know, at least they got into the playoffs,
but that was an ugly game against the Jags. But
the Sabers are never that good. But I think if
you were ranking the three areas right now, I think
number one for futility over the last quarter century is Washington.
I think number two is the Minnesota Minneapolis St. Paul region,

(01:45:04):
and I think number three is probably Buffalo. Atlanta is
close to up there too, because I think they won
the World Series and if I'm not mistaken, but they
haven't won it since. So Atlanta and you look at
how close they've been several different times, I think would
probably be in the fourth spot. Um, but yeah, I
mean like DC to me is number one. The Falcons

(01:45:25):
went to the Super Bowl, at least should have won it. Yes, yeah,
at least there is something to look forward to. When
I was hired by ESPN, again there's always this misconception
I was working in Bristol, I never was. I would
go there sporadically, but I was based in DC because
they said, oh, the the Nationals are getting goods, Bryce

(01:45:45):
Harper or Steven Strasburg. There's the Wizards with John Wall
you know they're up and coming. And then there's the
and and of course the Redskins are just always going
to be popular no matter how bad their record is.
And look at all those teams. I mean, to your point, Claus,
it's it's bad. And if they do it in such
heartbreaking ways like for the Nationals and Game five, they've

(01:46:07):
had what Max ser there's won two Sions with them,
and the pitching was phenomenal and the playoffs last year,
but they couldn't they couldn't hit and and so I
remember coming back from that game. That's when I learned
Clay to never go to a playoff game, which I
did last night. But I stopped at a certain point
and just don't tweet, don't have the beers and Twitter. Yeah,

(01:46:30):
you know what, I make that decision all the time.
If I'm going to have two beers or more, or
two drinks or more, I just I don't get on
social media because like on Friday night, I went out drinking, uh,
and to dinner with with several friends and uh, you know,
like it's funny when we left, we were with four
couples and all four women were driving, So that kind

(01:46:52):
of puts into perspective like how much the men were
drinking at the dinner, Like we all drove there and
all four of our wives drove us home. Um, but
after two drinks, I won't tweet anything. And it's just
because I you know, like I don't know exactly your
inhibitions are down, like you know, how you're gonna respond
to people things like that. So um, you know that
that's my rule and I don't think I've ever broken

(01:47:13):
it because otherwise, like you go back and you look
at your timeline. I mean, just look at your text
after you have like five or six drinks. You wake
up the next day and you're like, oh, I don't
you know that was that was probably not the right
text asen right, like especially if you're single, God forbid? Um.
So yeah, look, I don't think there's any doubt at
all about that. How do you balance it out? Because
you cover the end. I feel like a lot of

(01:47:34):
times people like you have had to cover the NFL
and be quote unquote objective for a long time. It's
fun to just be able to go all in with
the team even if they're breaking your heart, like the
Caps and the Nats have and root for them. Um,
how do you balance that out? When people see you out,
Are they like, oh, Britt, why are you in a
Capital's jersey? Or why are you dressed up and then
for Natzky? Or or do people just kind of assume

(01:47:56):
that you're able to root for teams? Do you get
questions about it? I don't, just because I have been
in Washington, d C. For so long, I mean almost
ten years now. I was unique in that as soon
as I got I graduated, I came to Washington and
worked my way up here. So there's so many people
in this city that recognized me from being on local

(01:48:18):
TV have seen me at all these games. Um, so
I don't really have that. This is the first year though,
thanks Big c ESPN, that I I get to just
be the fan. Like I'm not covering the NFL draft
this year, which is amazing. Like I don't want to
be stuck in the rooms for three days, you know,
obsessing over picks that they won't end up picking, so

(01:48:41):
I get to watch this step just objectively as a fan.
But I've always been a fan of the Capitals, and
I became a fan because growing up with Florida. Yes,
Tampa Bay Lightning fans. I know you got a strong
base now, but when I was growing up, hockey and
Florida it's just not there. So I basically really learned
the sport up here, coming in right when Alexovetchkin came
to town, almost you know, maybe a year or two after.

(01:49:04):
So I started learned the sport with the team. They've
just always been minus maybe two years in the last decade. Clay,
the team that was supposed to win it all. I
mean how many times with Capstan said this is our year.
I walked away from the arena last night in the rain, Clay,
it was literally raining. I purged by Twitter of all
like happy pictures. I could be done. I could be done,

(01:49:25):
because how do they now get out of an an
O two hole, go to Columbus which has a really
fiery little space there, and it's the first round. Meanwhile,
the Penguins as cruising, just sweeping the flyers. I knew
this would happen. Clay, I was I didn't want them
to quite Columbus, so I have They're a factory of sadness.
Factory might be done if you have a if you

(01:49:47):
have a hockey team that's accepting fans. It's been a decade.
I think I maybe actually jump the chip now I
would say jump ship to the Preads, but I don't
want you to curse them by suddenly coming over. And
then they against that. I watched Philip Shoresburg. That's another
botch by the Capitals. They traded him for what Martin
e Rat and Michael Latta, who's like, who's not even

(01:50:09):
in the league anymore. And you've got the Bread's old coach,
Barry Trots, who left the Preads to go there. So
so the the connections, they are amazing. Speaking of factory
of sadness, have you watched Get Up yet? Oh gosh,
Now I could have called that a year I think
you and I on the radio might have said this
like a year ago, that it would be terrible, Like

(01:50:31):
what do you think? You talked to a lot of
people at ESPN, what do you think? And I do too,
And like I've heard so many things about this. First
of all, when you hear um that those you know
what people get paid, and you know everybody who who
who lost their jobs. When you hear Michelle Beatle five million,
Mike Greenberg six and a half million, Jalen Rose three

(01:50:51):
million to get a hundred and ninety eight thousand viewers
like they did on their morning show, I mean, we're
kicking their ass as a radio show. What do you
and we caused, by the way, a lot less than
fifteen million dollars across the board in talent. Like what
I mean was, I just don't even understand how these
decisions can be made if it is so foreseeable that

(01:51:11):
this could be a disaster. I mean, people are gonna
think I'm making a joke here, but I'm or some
sort of snide remark. I really am not, because it's
just not something to make fun of. Its reality. Sadly
that the president resigned because of a coke problem. I mean,
that's all that you have to know about some of
the head scratching moves in the last year. You know,

(01:51:33):
why do you blow up the six and put that
show on which has since failed? And everybody saw that coming,
you know, working there, there was just a sense when
you would see these moves of like we the sports
fan sitting on the couch can see these mistakes a
mile away, So why are they being executed now? I
don't always buy salaries. I know that those salaries were

(01:51:54):
reported in the Hollywood Reporter, but there's a lot, as
you know, Clay, a lot of people lie about their
salaries in this business US and intuite them. I was
never one of those people, just because, hey, if you
can talk sports for a living, or or just be
in television and make decent money, I think you're living
a good life. But everybody says that's what those those
three are making. And I don't understand it because no,

(01:52:15):
no shade. But let's face it, Michelle be a little
left to go to NBC that was a total failure.
Um you know, Jalen Rose, they've given him pilots on
ABC that failed, and Mike Greenberg was I think overestimating
himself a little bit too. So I don't know. I mean,
I I know like makeup artists, I know people on
that show working on it, not just those three that

(01:52:36):
I hope it does better for them, but it's it's
head scratching. I don't get it. What about the vibe
and that This is something I've talked about with several
people of feeling like, not only are they getting paid
insanely well to not succeed so far, but they also
got to go to New York City as opposed to Bristol.
You you pointed out you never lived in Bristol, you

(01:52:56):
were on the road covering teams and everything else. But
there seems to be among ESPN people a certain like
we're all in this together in Bristol because it's not
an ideal place to live, right, I mean, like, compared
to a lot of other major media markets where people
live and work, Bristol is not where you want to go.
So suddenly they build this brand new studio in New
York City, they send these people there. It's not just

(01:53:17):
that they're getting paid a ton of money, it's that
they're also living in New York City, Right. Yeah. I
can just attest to the fact that I was always
all across the country traveling, especially in my first year
I called the Golden Year of ESPN, where people actually
still really watch the channel with the exception of games.

(01:53:38):
It was great, and I traveled everywhere and I would
hear from some of my close friends that there was
resentment from different on air people in Bristol because they'd
see my pictures on Instagram on Twitter and they were
stuck in Bristol and there would be you know, sort
of those grumblings of Welsh even doing her job. And yes,
you know, if you're stuck out in Arizona for a

(01:53:59):
week covering the draft, it's it's not going to distract
from my work to drive an hour or two just
to get lunch and in sight see while I'm taking
my notes. So but there would be anger over that.
So I can only imagine if you get this brand
new studio which took forever to build. By the way,
as those people were making those salaries, they lay off
two people they were making those salaries, Clay doing nothing

(01:54:24):
because it took, you know, much longer than expected to
build that studio. So I did take it personally, to
be honest with you, Clay, like I was one of
the layoffs. And there's a lot of things behind closed
doors that went into that which I won't get into now.
Maybe I'll write a book one day, but um to
see all my my really good friends go through some
bad times and then it basically all went to fund

(01:54:46):
this show that's doing terrible. It's it's disappointing, Britt. It's
not disappointing that you got up early with us as
disappointing as the caps. Maybe we'll talk to you again soon.
I'm sure. Thank you for waking up with us. Okay,
that's Ed, Britt mckenry. I'm Clay Travis. Final segment, Jason
Martin did something he's never done before. What was it?
It's gonna blow your mind? Next on out Kick. What
does it mean when Geico says just fifteen minutes could

(01:55:09):
save you fifteen more on car insurance? It means you
probably should have gone to Geico dot com fifteen minutes ago.
Talk a lot about the difficulty of the UH, the
schedule in general, UM to me, this is UH. This
is the time of year when if you're an early
morning riser, it's the most brutal this tonight. This is
just the kind of the schedule for tonight. There's also

(01:55:29):
never more events going on than right now. But tonight
in the NBA eight Eastern Miami at the Sixers, pretty
interesting game. San Antonio at Golden State does not tip
until ten thirty Eastern. It's great if you're on the
West coast, if you're waking up early on the East coast,
that's tough as well. As if that were not enough,
all of the NHL hockey games going on. UH, the

(01:55:51):
Preds and the Avs. That's the game that I'll be
watching as I'm here in Nashville. The Preds and the
Avs is at ten eastern. UH. And then we got
Boston at Toronto, Tampa at New Jersey, Anaheim at San Jose,
and all of those things are going on on a
Monday night. It's not like it's Friday or Saturday or Sunday.
It's kind of the weekend. That's a lot of big

(01:56:11):
games going on. So that is the schedule for sports
tonight and the schedule for life in general. Jason Martin,
you did something you've never done before over the weekend.
I did, uh, something that I confess to on the
air well over a year ago. I think now it's
been a while we've been doing the show longer than
it feels like we've been doing this show. I had
a steak. I had a legitimate steak at a restaurant.

(01:56:34):
I can't believe you've never had a steak. You're thirty
nine years old. You never had a steak before? Uh? What? What?
What way did you get the steak cooked? I got
it medium up wrong. So here's the deal. You gotta
go medium rare on a steak, especially if you have
never ordered a steak before. Anybody out there that orders

(01:56:55):
their steak anything other than medium rare, you're basically wasting
your life. Have no idea? What if you get your
steak medium, well, you might as well just eat bacon. No.
I don't even know why you would make another choice. Now, Clay,
I completely agree with you, But this is Jason's first time.
He's gotta he's gotta ease into it. No, I disagree.
I think the ease with like a medium rare steak

(01:57:16):
is much more like butter. It melts on your tongue
as opposed to like the gristle and everything else that
can come from a medium or a medium well steak.
You guys are vampires. That's too much red. It's got
to at least be medium. You're a pussy willow destroying
the favor anybody who is hold on. Every single person
out there who is listening to me right now that

(01:57:38):
knows anything at all about steaks will tell you that
if you cook it for anything more than medium rare,
you are basically destroying the entire flavor of the stake. Well,
when you say medium, it actually comes medium rare. When
you have the same medium rare and I always often
than not, they'll over cook it. I always say medium

(01:57:59):
rare and closer to rare than medium. That's that's my
description of the steak that I want. That's that's last
possible order you could make for steaks. Let me throw
a little bit more context out there on this. The
lovely young lady that was with me, she had a
medium steak and she was kind of helping me. She
was suggesting to me what I should do. So she
ordered a medium and it came medium. Well to her

(01:58:19):
my medium, she said, look closer to medium rare because
it was definitely a lot of pink and a lot
of red in the steak. I did go no sauce,
which I got a lot of applause for on Twitter
after posting the photo on Saturday night that she took.
But you know, basically, I just thought first time, I
was just gonna go with whatever someone that was more

(01:58:40):
experienced told me. So that's what I went with we'll
go with medium rare next time, because I did really
enjoy this. Like that was the other point here is
that I came away a big fan of what I ate,
so it was a positive experience all the way around.
At Outback. It's not like you went to Morton's Right exactly,
and that that was another suggestion of hers. It's just like,
we don't need to go get a hundred dollar steak.

(01:59:02):
You're probably not gonna you may not like that one,
so let's go for something more middle of the road.
So we didn't go to like the worst place in
the world, but we went to out Back, and I
thought it was really good. All right. Updated odds to
win the Eastern Conference. I was just hitting on this.
Uh this from sports book Review. Raptors a Canada now
the favorite to win the Eastern Conference after the loss

(01:59:22):
by the Calves. But the Calves remain favorites over the
Pacers even though they lost the first game in the series.
That's relatively rare to have that happen. So we will
continue to unpack all this and all the games going
on tonight. Thanks for starting your Monday with us. We'll
be back tomorrow. Out kicked the coverage on Fox Sports Radio.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Brady Quinn

LaVar Arrington

Jonas Knox

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Medium-Rare