March 13, 2025 • 49 mins
On a Thursday edition of The Best Of The Doug Gottlieb Show: Doug reacts to the news that great sports author John Feinstein has passed away at the age of 68. Doug gives out his take on the firing of Minnesota's head basketball coach and how it went down.
Doug and the crew focus on 2021 in this version of Don't Call It A Throwback, Thursday.
Doug welcomes FSR Insider Mark Medina on the show to talk about the Thunder, Lebron and all of the other major headlines around the NBA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:24):
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It's the way the tire buying should be. Wow. Still
(00:47):
stunned a little bit by that news of John Feinstein
passing again. I want to do the sports radio talkie
talk thing and we will, but oh that's a man.
It's a gut punch from this standpoint. So John Finstein
(01:08):
passed away today? Did I do the tyrach We're broadcasting
from the tyrach dot com studios. Unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road as protection over ten thousand recommended sallars. Tyrat
dot COM's way tire buying should be. So we're getting
ready to do the show and Jason Stewart he says, hey,
(01:35):
did you hear about John Feinstein? And you know, like
it's very very interesting here the I'll just give you
a little history lesson on me and then my relationship
on John and Jason Stewart's relationship with John. So when
I was in fourth grade, I had to go see
(01:58):
a reading specialist. You know, I was the classic Ada
add or now it's adhd kid right where they're like, well,
maybe we put him on ruling because I would get
bored in school. I get up. I'd walk around the
classroom really good at math and science, not particularly good
at English. Not a great reader, a more oral presentation
(02:19):
sort of guy. And so the reading specialist was like, look,
he just needs to sit down and read books. And
my dad's big thing was like, you know, sign you
got to pass the English part of the SAT Like
my dad nearly got a perfect score on the on
the math part as well, and he'd be and he
(02:39):
is a vociferous reader. So we made it. He made
a deal with me that I got five bucks every
time I finished a novel, and they we would alternate
between non sports and sports novel, right know. My my
(03:03):
non sports now, first non sports novel was The Boys
from Brazil by Leon URIs. Have you guys ever heard
of The Boys from Brazil? Leon? Your Leon yours incredible
award winning best selling author. If you guys, Jay Stu,
you ever read familiar with the movie? Oh yeah? Became okay,
so and I guess I can. It's like a fifty
(03:25):
or sixty year old book by a fifty year old book,
right or maybe not that old, but it was. It
was really fascinating if you think about it. The the
premise was that Nazis had escaped Nazi Germany to Argentina
and through the net, through the use of genetic splicing,
they had created basically Hitler clones and they were trying
(03:49):
to mirror Hitler's upbringing to help, you know, mother Germany
rise again. That was I mean really like now obviously
it's like truth or stranger than fiction. Now, it's like, wow,
these technicist technology probably does in fact exist. Anyway, When
(04:10):
I would read the sports books, my first one was
actually the autobiography of Catfish Hunter. Fascinating, but I fell
in love with John Feinstein's work with a season on
the Brink, which of course followed around Bob Knight in Indiana,
and it was a terrible year one in which ended
up in the NIT and it was I think the
(04:32):
year before they end up two years before they end
up winning a national championship, and you followed up with
a season inside and later on there was Next Man Up,
which followed around the Baltimore Ravens, and each one there
was the Army Navy, one there was Forever's team. Like
you kind of go back and if you know, if
you've ever read a sports novel and you read more
(04:56):
than one or two, you read a Feinstein and you're like,
that was unbelievably thorough. Couldn't put it down, remarkably not
a well written, but it was kind of well narrated
in terms of how I was written. Because I always
thought like, I'm a big Tom Clancy guy, right, but
Tom Clancy's novels at times became too wordy and I
don't care about the exact data behind every missile that
(05:18):
it's like showing off how much research he had done.
But for whatever reason, I thought Feinstein did just the
right amount of I've done the right research, yet it's
tangible to you So fast forward to twenty twelve and
I started. I was part of the initial launch group
to CBS Sports Radio, and we followed Jim Rome, I
(05:41):
believe right. That's how it was, Jim Rome and then us.
And before Jim Rome, John Feinstein had a show and
John was let go. Well I still had the radio
job there, and I don't want to know if we
had a falling out, but they were just you know,
(06:03):
John was not the easiest dude in the world. Now,
when I say that, you're gonna sound like that's gonna
sound like John was an a hole. He wasn't. He
just wasn't easy. He did not what's the term you used,
Jay Stu didn't suffer.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
What he did not suffer fools.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
No, not at all. And he held people people around
him to a way higher standard than most people did.
And I know, and and look what happens in this
business is when you're like that, you can get you
can get coined difficult. But difficult doesn't mean bad. Difficult
just means difficult. And I mean I just fascinating to
(06:43):
fascinating person somewhere along the way over the past. Well,
you know, I've been at Fox Sports Radio for eight years.
Over the past five years, he and I have run
into each other at various events. Back when I was
the CBS, I covered the Patriot League. I saw one
of those games. Of course, he wrote the book on
the page, literally wrote the book on the Patriot League.
(07:04):
And then in the last eight years we ran each other.
It's the Big Ten tournament, the NCAA tournament, and we
had kind of, I don't know, made amends, but there
was no falling out. It was I don't even remember
what it was over, but I think it was mostly
over the fact that John got let go and he
just lashed out at people because he was upset, which
you have every right to be upset, right. I didn't
(07:25):
get you fired. I didn't like. None of that thing
was me, But that's what I thought. I thought that's
where his bitterness kind of came from. And Jason, I
want to get to your story about him in a second.
But here's what's fascinating. Obviously, our season did not go
as planned in terms of wins and losses. There are
(07:46):
tons of wins and some losses off the court and
in the preparation and things that we've learned, and in
terms of the story, like I still continue to contend
that if you named college basketball teams that have been
covered this year, there's like five or six, and we're
one of the five or six. Right, we're one of
the five or six. Your college basketball is kind of
(08:09):
a month long sport, but there's like five or six
and we're one of the five or six. And uh,
you know, we we've done. We have a pilot, and
there's another couple of shows for a reality show, and
we have the buyers are kind of lining up, you know,
all the all of the usuals want to have you
(08:29):
know them follow us around be embedded. And we have
a production group that's already done some of this work.
And it's really really good stuff. But there's a lot
that happened this year, like man I wish there was
a camera there, or man I don't I wish there
wasn't a camera there. But it's a it's a really
fascinating story, like if people only knew. And let me
just make sure I get the date right. So I
(08:52):
texted John March fifth, March fourth, and he texted me
back March fifth. He said, are you glad your season
is over? I said, no, we just were figuring out
playing well and starting to get healthy. So we texted
back and forth a little bit and I said, what
(09:12):
are you working on? He said, I'm doing a book
on what makes great coaches great besides great players. I'm
also teaching journalism at Longwood University. And I said, John,
do you want your next bestseller? He said always. I said,
come follow me around for a year and write this story.
And he said, I'll call you, and he did. He
(09:35):
called me earlier this week and I was in the
middle of an exit meeting with one of my players
and I pushed that button that says can I call
you back? And not what it says is going to
call you back? Whatever? And I was driving today long
drive last days and on my list of calls was
John and I was like, ah, I'm just I'm gonna
(09:58):
do it tomorrow. I'm gonna do it tonight. And John
Feinstein passed away today, is studying And how old was he.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Jasetu sixty eight. He died at his brother's home. He
just penned an article today for The Washington Post about
Tom Izzo.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
For people who don't know, how did you get to
know John Feinstein?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It was in this very building that I'm in right now.
He was a frequent guest host for Jim Row And
by frequent, you know, Jim often says he takes a
lot of vacation, because he gets a lot of vacation,
and we're talking like twelve weeks a year. And I
would produce those shows for guest hosts, and John Feinstein
(10:47):
was a regular of ours. So I got to know
John on a professional level and a personal level, and
you know, to say he was difficult, He's just one
of those guys that kind of demanded a certain state
and old school and I felt privileged to being as
good grace as because of that, because I knew he
could be that way, and you know, he didn't suffer fools.
(11:10):
And the older I get, the more I appreciate that
about people. You just know where you stood. There was
no pretense to John, and I really did love that
about him. And I read a couple of his books,
my favorite being The Punch, which chronicled the entire episode
of Kermit Washington almost killing Rudy tom Yanovich in a game.
(11:37):
And I encourage any of our listeners to read that book.
It was fascinating. One of my good friends is Stan Brooks.
He's a executive producer, made a lot of TV movies,
an Emmy Award winning producer. He was the one that
produced Season on the Brink for ESPN. And Stan has
told me so many stories about how Feinstein was during
(11:57):
that process. Imagine that, Doug. Imagine being the person that
has to make Feinstein's book into a movie and how
difficult that may have been. But again, all these stories
are just speak to how genuine he was as a person.
And I really did like John.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
John Finstein was sixty eight years old in John Feinstein's honor.
I have a rant I want to make and we'll
do it right now. First, let me tell you speed
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(12:41):
your hiring process. Okay, here it is. Would you say
that a good portion of why he was how he
was is because at the end of the day, right,
there's a right way and a wrong way to do something.
That is that a fair depiction of it? Yep, yep, Okay,
(13:02):
there's a right way and there's a wrong way. And
I think, what's what's truly fascinating about college athletics, And
you know, we can get into the nil and all
that other stuff. But Ben Johnson was fired at about
midnight last night or this morning by the University of Minnesota.
(13:25):
Ben Johnson was the head coach. He's young, he was
an assistant Xavier at the time. It was a surprising hire.
He's a Minnesota allowed me play basketball Minnesota. He was
only assistant. Took over a Big ten job. And again, look,
you probably hired him to save money when they couldn't
get their initial guys they wanted to hire when Richard
Patino left went to New Mexico, and so they hired
(13:48):
Ben Johnson. And it started out pretty bad. Last year,
they ended up going to the n I T. Won
a game in the n i T his entire starting lineup.
I believe left because that's what happens when you have
some success, your whole team lead, and now you have
to go and buy a new team. That's where we are.
I am not making a comment about whether or not
Ben should have kept his job, okay, because I don't
(14:10):
know any of the particulars other than they probably didn't
win enough and college head coaches, and look, I don't
make a lot of money as a college head coach,
but whatever I make, it's plenty. It's plenty. So you
shouldn't feel bad for me if in you know, four
or five years, you know it doesn't work out, and
(14:31):
and my boss Josh Buon walks down the hallway and says, hey,
let's sit down, let's talk about it, et cetera, et cetera.
But there's a right way and a wrong way to
do something. And it's one thing to fire a guy
at midnight and announce it on social media after you lose.
It's a whole other thing when it's also an alum
(14:54):
of the school that he represents. That doesn't mean he
can't be fired. That doesn't mean you're not within your
rights to fire it. But again, there's a right way
and there's a wrong way. Why why can't you call
him in this morning and say, hey, man, we're gonna,
we're gonna, we're gonna let you go, but we want
to give you a couple hours to call your coaches,
(15:17):
to call your support staff, to have a team meeting, Okay,
to make sure everybody knows the process of what's taking place,
and then why don't we come back at noon. We'll
grab some lunch, we'll sign some papers, we'll shake hands
like men, and we'll be on our way. And we'll
be on our way and and look again, I have nothing
(15:40):
bad to say about Minnesota or their athletic director or anything. Again.
And I don't know. I don't know the particulars of
why it was done when it was done. I don't
and I don't care. Okay, Mark Coyle is there their ad. Okay,
he's been there since twenty sixteen. I have no doubt
(16:03):
that Mark who you know. He's been the ad at Syracuse,
at Boise State, he's been at Kentucky. He knows what
it looks like. He's been in this business for years.
There's a right way and there's a wrong way. When
do we get to the place where you have an
alum he's gonna get fired? He gave him a whole
(16:23):
cycle of four years. It's not good enough. Why can't
you just call him into your office and have him
relieve him of duties like a grown up, like grown
people do. Right. There is a right way in a
wrong way, and a midnight tweet, a midnight firing. Just
like the tarmac firing with lang Kiffett. It ain't right.
(16:46):
It ain't right. And this is not me saying, hey,
Ben should have kept his job. I thought Ben did
a really good job this year. I thought they're well coached.
I didn't think. You know, it's hard. You know you're
going against teams with gigantic payrolls, and like everybody's got
their problems. I'm not man commentary on it. I don't
pay enough attention to somebody else's team. I only know
(17:06):
Ben is a good man, and he's he's a gopher.
It's not how you treat people. It's just not. And
as much as you can sit there and say, hey,
the head coaches you make plenty of money, they do,
and Ben it'll be fine. He'll get an assistant job.
And now he's been a head coach of four years
in the Big ten, and'll he might be able to
get another head coaching job right now because he's handled
himself like a complete mench. He might not, but he's
(17:28):
got enough money now and he'll get money on whatever's
buyout is a couple million dollars to where he could
probably live comfortably doing pretty much whatever he wants and
I'm sure he wants to coach, but you have I mean,
here's all the people that are that are affected. You
have all the gas, all of the players, all of
your support staff, like all of their families are going
(17:51):
to lose their jobs, have to move. And again, it
doesn't mean that it was wrong to fire them and
that we should think about all those people before they're fired.
He don't. That's not how you run an athletic department.
You case, sometimes you got to make hard decisions. I
got to make some hard decisions as well, with players,
with coaches, with support staff, and and and even with myself,
got to make hard decisions. But in the middle of
(18:12):
the night, when the guy's in a lum you're not
firing for cause you know, he didn't get a DUI
didn't beat up a woman. There's no nonsense. They're not
Mclem Houskins was they were. I mean the type of
cheating they were doing back in the day, right, But
they did go to a final four. So people are like, ah,
(18:33):
Clem not bad. Like look that one you can do
in the middle of the night. That one you can
do in the middle of the night. This one, it's
just in honor of John Feinstein, who did not suffer fools.
That's not the right way to do it, and I
think everybody knows it, and the more adults act this way,
(18:57):
we shouldn't be surprised when players I don't even tell
their coach, hey, I'm going to the portal. They just
put in the portal. You find out on social media
when players don't do things the right way, you're like, oh, well,
their kids. Now what they are is they they they
see how everybody else acts and they react as such.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
This is the best of the Don dot Lead Show
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
What of what you Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio,
coming to you from the tirat dot com studios diirect
dot com. What we get their unmatched selection, fast free shipping,
free road ass protection, over ten thousand recommend in stallars
direct dot com. It's the way that tire buying should be. Welcome, Welcome,
Welcome in Springs arrived. We're getting ready for the IDEs
of March, right. I'll be fun. That's if you know
(19:42):
anything about the the IDEs of Marcher upon us. Of course,
selection Sunday, a couple days away. Conference tournaments underway, we'll
talk about the injury and the Duke game earlier today
and what that means for the tournament, what I think,
what I think it means for the actual player who
got hurt that's upcoming fifteen minutes away. But it is
a Thursday, and most people will many people will tweet
(20:05):
out or on ig put you know, TBT throwback Thursday.
We don't throw it back on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Don't call it a throwback.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Throw back Thursday, don't call it a throwback thirst. This
is where Jay Stu picks out a year and we
just had some fun with it. Talk about sports, talk
about things in the media, talk about things on TV,
(20:39):
things in movies, things in music. What year we picking today,
Jase dou.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Thank you Doug. I'll take it from here all to
remember what you were doing three four years ago. The
year is twenty twenty one. If you think about it,
if you just take like a glance scene, thought about it,
it was a very strange year. We were coming out
(21:03):
of a worldwide pandemic. We weren't out of it by
any means, and it's almost like it was a different world.
Like things that were politically popular in twenty twenty one
are no longer popular. So we're going back four years,
so it's almost like we're going back twenty four years
in a lot of ways. But I did want to
draw attention to something. In twenty twenty one, we had
(21:25):
a strange NFL draft. Trevor Lawrence was considered by many
people a can't miss off the top of the draft,
and that didn't work out. Trey Lance was taken by
the forty nine ers. And this is the very crux
of this segment. There was a report at the time
that Kyle Shanahan and Shanahan didn't want to trade up
(21:50):
to get Trey Lance. He wanted mac Jones. He thought
mac Jones was best for the forty nine ers. Well,
the guess who signed with the forty nine ers yesterday,
Mac Jones mac Jones. Trey Lance was traded away to
the Cowboys for like a six round draft pick. But
if you think about those three quarterbacks in that draft,
they're all misses, and then you include Zach Wilson, who
(22:14):
went second, and that it makes it even worse, which
tells me a lot of things. It tells me that
all the noise that you're hearing from pundits right now
that are acting like they know what they're talking about,
they don't and a lot of NFL executives who do
this for a living often get quarterbacks wrong in the
NFL Draft. Twenty twenty one is a cautionary tale for
(22:37):
those that talk about the NFL and those that paid
a lot of money to make decisions in the NFL,
Which is why I'm choosing to focus on the year
twenty twenty one. Isaac Lowancron is in for Dan Byer today. Isaac,
when you think back to that year, what sticks out
to you most sports wise?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I feel similar that any event you talk about is
clouded by the transition period where we're not in COVID,
but we're kind of starting to come out of COVID,
so we're kind of caught between two worlds. So what
exemplified it for me is something we actually might have
talked about yesterday, and that's the NCAA Tournament that year,
(23:21):
which was held entirely in the Indianapolis area, mostly at
the Pacers Home Arena, Lucas Oil Stadium, Farmers Coliseum, which
we were talking about, Hinklefield House. There were also games
played in Bloomington at Assembly Hall and Macki Arena at
Purdue and it was just all those venues were operating
(23:45):
at a I believe, twenty five percent capacity. The other
thing I remember about the tournament that year is the
run by UCLA and that incredible semi final game against Gazaga. Yeah,
the banked in three that sent the game to overtime,
where Gonzaga eventually prevailed. But I think what overall stood
out to me was it was kind of that odd
(24:07):
transition between the COVID world and now, thankfully us getting
back to the way it's been ever since since that event.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
And don't forget about UCLA first four to final four.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Oh that's right. Yeah, they they went.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
All the way and believe they actually I think they
defeated Michigan State in that first four game and then
they went all the way to that final four.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That it was. That was a weird NCAA tournament, but
it did prove that you can do it one site
in one area, and I still think Vegas eventually they
should do it. There.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
It was Baylor over Gonzaga.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yes, and it was it was Gonzaga was the
dominant team. I thought it was gonzag and everybody else
they were supposed to play earlier in the year, but
the game was canceled because of COVID, and then they
played the Natal Chanceship game and Baylor was unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
And we were talking Doug earlier about Gonzaga's star player
Jalen Suggs, and I had to look up like where
he ended up. And he plays for the Magic, So
that explains why I had to look him up. Even
though the Magic are they're coming, They're up there there.
They have a winning record, right, I mean, listen, I'm
gonna pull come up.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Okay, well, I'm gonna pull a Shack here like from
the other day and just be like, I don't know
anything about the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I really don't.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
But he is on the Magic, Jalen Suggs And yep,
but that Baylor, uh, that coach drew team playing with
defense and they got the Natty.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Could I point out one difference between Shack and Iowa Sam.
Shack gets paid twenty five million dollars a year to
talk about basketball and he doesn't know the head coach
of the Detroit Pistons. IOWA Sam doesn't get paid that much,
not even close.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
And I could tell you that Chauncey Billups played for
the Pistons, but he wasn't the coach.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, you know, it's what's interesting about that that Baylor team,
Davion Mitchell was one of their stars. Davian Mitchell has
one of the great nicknames in this your college basketball
You're familiar with what his nickname is?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Anybody, Uh, Spider, No, that's I'm sorry that Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yes, yes, his name is off Night. Oh boy, yes,
because anyone he guarded had an off night Tyrese Halliburton,
who he guarded when he s at Iowa State.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I assumed it was a different nickname, all right, that
that that would actually be a good discussion to have
later best unflattering sports nicknames of all time, because when
you said off night, I thought that related to him
and not the guy he guarded.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Okay, Sugnight.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
That's also I mean, like, look, that was the wasn't
that the COVID year playoff football playoffs as well?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well? In every single year, every single week, we do this. Yeah,
so the twenty twenty football season was wacky, right.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And then yes, the twenty one I know it wasn't
the season, but the twenty one playoffs were during COVID, right,
and that was when Tampa won the road games. But
they went to lambeau Field and it.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Was half full that's correct, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Right, and Tom Brady they were he was unbelievable in
the first half. And who was that? King? Was his
last name? What was the defensive back? Who got who
got burned on the like the last play of the first.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Half by Scotty Mitchell. I want to say, right, Kevin King.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I'll say sure, okay, And then of course you know,
Aaron Rodgers had had a chance to score. I think
it was first and goal after three trice. Then they
kicked the field goal instead of going forward on fourth down,
which was an interesting strategy.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
We talk about Desmond King.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Desmond King, that's its mean. He's from Iowa, isn't he?
Was he in Iowa?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Desmond King? You're talking?
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Yeah, he played at Iowa, But I don't think that's
the guy who got burned. This is what you're talking about.
The Packers Niners. Yeah, yeah, no, he never He played
for the Texans and the Chargers. He hasn't played for
different guy. Okay, m a lot of guys named King
out there. Yeah, my, my, Desmond King won the Thorpe Award. Yeah,
(28:23):
different guy.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Now the actual NFL season, the twenty twenty one NFL
season was the the year of Aaron Rodgers. Remember he
did the immunization crack went on to win the MVP.
Cooper Cup was a standout that year as well as
he would go on to uh lead the Rams to
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, since any Bengals played him in the Super Bowl.
Cooper Cup was incredible in that in that Super Bowl
as well in the Super as well. We're missing buyer
for golf, no or not? Does anybody love golf as much? Now?
Was that the was that? The The year before was
the Dodgers in COVID World Series? Right?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah? This was the Atlanta Braves Championship. They went from
like six seed wild card to winning at all? What's
his face was on all these championships. I'm trying to
think of the pitcher's name that was on. Was it
will Smith? Isaac? That was on like three straight championships?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Right, you're right, you're right, he was on that Braves team.
I will say one golf note. It was the year
that Tiger had his accident. I know that's been mentioned
much of him.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That as Yeah, did we ever find out why.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
He was He was late for some event and he
was at what happened to be a very dangerous curve curve.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Speed.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
With when their accidents happened, there regularly just lost control.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I will say that. I remember after that accident, I
said on this show, I don't think he ever played
profession golf again. Now he hasn't played particularly well, but
he has played professional golf so as much as when
he turns as Achilles ten and were like, well he's done.
They just stitch him up. But he comes back and plays, right,
They just they just do.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Which random NBA team won the title? Hasn't there been
like six and six years or something.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
In twenty twenty one? Yeah, we want to say it
was the Milwaukee Bucks, Right, was the Bucks over the
Phoenix Suns?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yes, yes. Kevin King, by the way, is the is
the culprit n Green Bay Packering?
Speaker 5 (30:31):
My Desmond would never get burned like that.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I just remember I remember seeing a feature of Yiannis
when he was winning that title. It was a sixty
minutes feature, I want to say, and he was wearing
earbuds and the sixteen minutes reporter was like what are
you listening to right now in your earbuds? In twenty
twenty one, and it was this hit song of the summer,
(31:08):
legitimately good song. It topped the charts for seven weeks.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Top the charts for seven weeks.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I want to say. One of the babies featured was
that du baby Dub baby.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
He got baby, he got actually canceled, he got what
do you called it? Not exp uh expunged. His part
of it was expunged because of something offensive he said
at a concert.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yes, yeah, it was a bunch of offensive stuff.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
And so they took the rap part of that. Right now,
we're playing him, but he was, he was sort of
his part. It was canceled out and they reissued the song.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh, that was I believe Dune Part one came out
that year. I'd become a big Dune guy. Did anybody
read the novels?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
No? I never read the novels, but I've seen both movies.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I thought they were good. I thought they're good. It
was a weird year though, for movies because most of
them were filmed before COVID right that, and yet been
properly edit edited, And it's just kind of a I
will tell you something about twenty twenty one that I know. Okay,
if you are looking for a pre owned vehicle, if
it's pre twenty twenty, like, it's you know, reasonably expensive.
(32:17):
It's like normal whatever a you know, five six year
old car costs once you get to twenty one, because
there was limited cars and then all of a sudden
there was mass inflation, like it's like twice as much
and you're two years later, Like that doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
it's the whole COVID limited.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
It's a pre pre owned were hard to find. You
couldn't find a rental car because no one wanted to
rent a car during COVID because they weren't going anywhere,
so they sold off a lot of their fleets. Yeah,
it was a I managed to somehow get I got
a pre owned twenty eighteen car in twenty twenty one,
and I locked in my monthly payment for something that's reasonable,
(32:54):
and I feel like I got a good a.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Really good deal. Humble brag, humble brag on my monthly
pay the car I did. So my car story of
twenty twenty one. And this is interesting. So you talk
about the values, Doug and how they were out just
how to whack. So my lease was up in the
fall of twenty twenty one. So when I took my
(33:16):
lease to the dealer, they were willing to give me
top dollar from my used car. Yeah, but I used
that value to my advantage and I bought the rest
of it. I just bought the rest of it. I said,
here's some cash, I'll take it off the lot, and
I'm happy for it. So that's how I utilize that value.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Now, I do not have a vehicle related twenty twenty
one story, but ironically, you.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Have a vehicle. How did I How did I get
here today? It's a long bicycle or.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I don't know me? Like, there's the ways you can
get to places walking, bike, foot power, scooter, busard.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
My my current vehicle is fine, But you should talk
to my wife because the vehicle that I had when
we were dating, the best thing you could say about
it was it it was a jelopie.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It wasn't exactly a chick magnet. Yet she married me anyway.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
But the one overlooked thing that happened in twenty twenty one,
and it was overlooked rightly so because it wasn't supposed
to happen. Remember, they actually held an Olympics in twenty
twenty one, the twenty twenty Olympics, exactly the twenty twenty
Summer Olympics that were supposed to be held in Tokyo
were actually held in Tokyo in July and August of
twenty twenty one, And as I recall, they just didn't
(34:29):
seem to make a cultural impact at all, at least
here in the United States, compared to what turned out
to be extremely successful from a rating standpoint with the
twenty twenty four Olympics.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, Doug went viral during those Olympics. I did you did?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Was dead yips? Right?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh that's right. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
One, Simon Bios. Not the yips. What do they call it? Uh?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
The twisty's, twisty's.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
The twisty's.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Was that right?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I was on your side on that one.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah. Do you guys remember what you's talking about?
Speaker 6 (35:00):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I mean I remember what happened with some on Biles,
but I don't remember what you said about it at
the time.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I don't remember the actual tweet.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Do you just dou No? No, no, It was just
something along the lines.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Along lines of like you took somebody's spot basically, you know,
and you had the twisties. The twisties are the yips,
like we make it out like it's you know, she
could die, Like I understand, it's like that stuff is dangerous,
that sport is in fact dangerous. But I felt like
(35:32):
it was a little like you could not question her.
And my thing was, then here's what I believe My
take was. Then I could be wrong. Was Hey, all
athletes deal with some sort of performance anxiety. The best
of the best find a way to overcome them. Is
that fair?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
If sports are indeed the last meritocracy in our world,
then that is true. Everybody has to deal with their
own stuff. And if you can't deal with it and
you get criticized, that's part that's baked in. That's baked
into being a high profile.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Athlete, criticized female athlete.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, the criticism of it that you know you had
to pull out or you let your team down, or
you know you got to battle through these things.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I mean no, no, I'm just saying, what like the lesson
is you look at this, you cannot criticize where this
the The whole idea of equality is basically debunked in
that right, they're protected class. Female athlete. Can't correct can't nope,
can't do it, can't do it, can't be critical of
a great female athlete. Can't do it.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I'm a big fan of that tic.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Well, if we fast forward to twenty twenty four, she
she redeemed, redeemed herself there in Paris, big lely, big time.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Wait wait wait, if she redeemed herself, then she did
something wrong.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
I guess if it depends on where you where you
line up. I mean, she wants some.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I got them, I got them today, got him?
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Got him?
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Do you guys remember though, that we squeezed two Masters
in twenty twenty one? Like, remember the Masters in twenty
twenty was in April, and we postponed it until was
it October of twenty twenty one or no, November?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They did they have two.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
It was weird because we played ketchup with a lot
of these events, and it just was a strange.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
It was like it was November of twenty twenty and
then regularly in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, but still you're right, strange.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
Right, and they have it like six months later. Just
was like, all right, here's the Masters make Good and yeah,
it was like that for the Olympics as well.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I will say this in pop culture, everyone love TikTok TikTok.
I guess made its biggest gain and users in twenty
twenty one as we were in our homes and then
Kim Kardashian. Pete Davidson was a thing that was Wow.
That was four whole years ago. Wow.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
I guess my brain didn't hold onto that. A little
bit of history.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was that before or after Ariana Grande?
Speaker 5 (38:04):
I think it was after he was dating Ariana Grande
And then it was like Pete Davidson was the It
was like the cologne of the month for a lot
of a lot of ladies, a lot of high profile
celebrities out there. Pete Davidson because of rumors circulating about.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Uh, yep, we're good, We're good. Can't do it? Yeah, man, Like, listen,
this is a this is a network radio show. The
podcast saluted to it, and that is don't call it
total back.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Thursday, Fox Sports Radio had the best sports talk lineup
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox
sports radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Stut Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Cue the
music there, Sammy, if you would, I really appreciate it.
That's because when you hear the music, he comes strutting in.
He's funky, he's cold, he's Mark Medina, He's our Fox
Sports Radio NBA insider. Uh sad news. Mark. And I
(39:08):
know obviously you have a journalistic background as well. John
Feinstein passed away today. Do you have a favorite Feinstein book?
Speaker 6 (39:16):
There's many, but yeah, Season on the Brink I think
would be the top of the list. Learned a lot
about Bobby Knight and learned a lot of just about
how you tell stories. I mean, the depths that John
Finstein would go in with being you know, entrenched with
the team and share their season's story was something that
you know, we all aspired to match but could never
(39:36):
truly do because John Feinstein was one of the kind.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
One of He was one of one of one. Okay,
let's let's get to some association stuff. It is weird
right that Lebron. I mean, I don't know how much
you tracked this every March about this time, you know,
something goes wrong, what are the expectations about it? With
(40:00):
his return.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
It's a very good point that you make there's an
ultimate fork in the road right now because there's uncertainty.
You know, Lebron made it clear he doesn't feel like
this groin injury had the same severity as the one
he had in twenty eighteen when he then missed seventeen
consecutive games. But you pointed out a very good trend here,
Doug that basically, since he's been with the Lakers, which
(40:22):
has coincided with the tail end of his career, he's
always had some injuries. And so what you've seen with
Lebron is when he's on the court, he's still playing
a high level. He's not, you know, the same player
that he was during his prime. The athleticism isn't always there,
maybe exception of this season. The defense wasn't there either,
but still all star caliber level. But when he has
been heard his timeline to return has been delayed more
(40:46):
than anticipated. So as we talk right now, there's no
definitive timetable other than he's not with the team now.
He's in LA, So that means he's definitely not playing
tonight's game in Milwaukee or tomorrow's game in Denver, but
that was to be expected anyway. I'm curious on if
he returns it all next week when they're at home,
(41:07):
and if not, what the team looks like, because you
would think, okay, this is the time for Luka Doncic
to make this his own team. Everyone has had it
on hands all deck approach defensively and you know, offensively
since this trade went down. But yeah, this could be
either a blessing in the skies that he rests up
before the playoffs start, or could be something that all
(41:30):
the good vibes that started after the Luka Doncic trade
happened starts going in a downward spiral.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Stet Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, it
is interesting, right, everything was smiles, everything was great. Dallas
is a mess, and now of a sudden he hurts
a groin and you're like, wait, wait a second, maybe
this is not the best team in the NBA. Speaking
of best team in the NBA, two the best met
last night. What what does Oklahoma Cities win against the
(42:02):
Celtics last night do for them in the eyes of
people in the league.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Yeah, I think obviously it's good when you win marquee games.
I think it was very telling that Oklahoma City has
been able to win another big game even without one
of their key players. This time it was without Jaylen Williams,
but Doug marri Call. Earlier this season, they started the
season out without Isaiah Hartenstein. It was fine. Then chet
Holmger missed time, it was fine. They have a really
(42:28):
great roster construction. Obviously it starts with Shay Gilgess Alexander,
but they just have so many wings that they can
throw at different teams that they've been able to offset injuries. Now,
what is the win against Boston mean big picture? Yeah,
it's nice that they went on the feed against them,
but as far as what it means in the playoffs,
hard to say. I think, and this is for the
(42:51):
better of the league. I think that as it stands
right now, Oklahoma City, Denver, Cleveland, Boston, they don't have
an equal case to be made that they're the NBA favorite,
and then it's going to come down to which team's healthiest,
which team makes best adjustments. But that's what it seems
like it's going to be. Doug that that's the collision
course of Eastern and Western Conference matchups, And yeah, I
(43:14):
think the Lakers and the Warriors, Yeah, they've shown that
they are the real deal. These trade deadline moves with
Luca Jimmy Butler, It's dramatically changed their team. They have
a chance to climb through that window if they catch
lighting in a bottle. But I think it's really it's
going to come down to those four teams and the
thunder have shown that, Yeah, this idea that they're inexperienced.
(43:35):
I don't want to say it's not a factor, but
it's not as big of a factor compared to all
the other things that are going their way.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Steug Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Trader that's the
voice of Mark Medina or Fox Sports Radio NBA Insider
on the other end of the coin, Right, you have
teams like Utah who openly just openly tanking. Right you
have New Orleans, you have Washington who's just ridiculously bad.
(44:07):
Can they make it a little less obvious?
Speaker 6 (44:10):
I don't think they can. I mean, what's fascinating, Doug
is with this in season or not the playing tournament
Ever since the bubble in twenty twenty, that's created a
lot of good competition at the end of the season,
but it's also exposed like the extreme disparity between really
good games, the teams that are still fighting for their
lives going all in, and then the really bad teams
(44:32):
getting even worse. And so I don't know what the
solution is. I don't think any idea of, oh, let's
make an or a playing tournament wider even more. That
would cheapen the value of having the tournament to begin with.
And that explains why some traditionalists at the beginning didn't
like it, that it almost incentivize the teams to try
(44:55):
to get a playoff spot without the plan. But yeah,
the these teams, Washington, I would add Charlotte with exceptionala
mellow ball making some highlight reels, and Philadelphia because they've
been injured the entire season. All those teams have been
very tough to watch. I think the only small thing
is now that Zion Williamson's back. He's put up Zion
(45:20):
type of performances, but because he's missed so much time,
it's almost irrelevant. I know that they talk about, oh yeah,
I just build the habits in the next season, but
it's been tough basketball to watch with either of those
five teams.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, no question about it. Speaking of the Warriors, but
you mentioned kind of new life is this real? Can
they really contend?
Speaker 6 (45:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, they really can. I mean, you look
at Jimmy Butler's numbers. He put up a triple double.
He's very efficient as a score passer, and he's hitting
all the buttons that the Warriors lack. They didn't have
a consistent secondary score to help Steph Curry when he
was getting double teams. They weren't gain enough attempts at
the free throw line. When you looked at Steph Curry's number,
(46:00):
since Jimmy Butler has been there, it's increased by about
five points. They've won I think, every single game, with
the exception of one game since Jimmy Butler has played
with the Warriors. So they're the real deal. But I
don't think it's enough to match up against a team
like Oklahoma City or Boston Cleveland just because they've been
so dominant. But Doug, as you know, the playoffs, it's
(46:23):
one thing to talk about how teams look on paper,
how does it look in reality? You have to always
accept the fact that teams aren't going to be a
fully one hundred percent. So I think that this is
beyond Oh yeah, Steph Curry. They have a really good
thing going for them. But if I had to make
a prediction, I don't think it's enough to win a title,
but there is mathematical trans for it to happen.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Let's circle back Celtics. You mentioned losing to the Thunder.
Perzinga said, there's something viral that he's been dealing with.
Any idea when he returns.
Speaker 6 (46:56):
No idea when he returns, and no idea on what
exactly this viral sickness is. And I'm a big fan
of Porzingis, great player, has been a great fit, but
always something yeah, always something right. But I think in
defense of Boston, the sense that I got talking to
people around the league before the season, during the season, now,
(47:17):
and in the finals last year when he was coming
off his injury, is that they viewed poor Zingis as
a nice compliment but not a necessity. So I don't
think that he is going to make or break the
Celtics championship fortunes. It's going to be about Jason Tatum,
Ken Jalen Brown be consistent every single game than anything
with Porzingis. But look, it could be a variable. Only
(47:40):
because we're talking about Oklahoma City, Cleveland. There's so much
dominance in parody right now. But I think when you're
weighing everything, that's probably a third fourth item on their
worry list that determines their fortunes.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Jalen Brunson, when's your back.
Speaker 6 (48:00):
That's not clear either, only then that it's at least
one week more week. But keep in mind Doug, that's
one more week until he gets reevaluated. So I don't
think that that's when he's going to come back. Yeah,
I think he'll be back for the playoffs. But the
problem with the Knicks is they're in third place right now.
They only have a cushion for I think for about
(48:20):
five and a half games over Milwaukee they could lose
the third seed and Carl Anthony Towns he's rounded back
into form. I think that they've had a good toughness
under Tom Thibodeau, but I don't see them getting past
the second round. And with Jalen Brunson, I would be
surprised if he's back when he's reevaluated. It's also very
(48:41):
telling that the Knicks haven't said anything on what the
grade level of his ankle sprain is, and that really
determines how severe this is. If it's a grade one,
you're only talking a few weeks, but for anything beyond that,
it could be, you know, a few months.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Mark great stuff as owys we way to bring so
much insight and information. We truly appreciate thanks for a
guest that fox. Good for you dog.
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Appreciate you, sir,
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
three to five Eastern twelve two Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Find your local station for the Doug Gottlieb Show at
Box sports radio dot com, or stream us live every
day on the iHeartRadio app by searching f ASR boom.
What of America Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio coming
(00:24):
to hear from the tyrack dot Com studios tyrack dot com.
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It's the way the tire buying should be. Wow. Still
(00:47):
stunned a little bit by that news of John Feinstein
passing again. I want to do the sports radio talkie
talk thing and we will, but oh that's a man.
It's a gut punch from this standpoint. So John Finstein
(01:08):
passed away today? Did I do the tyrach We're broadcasting
from the tyrach dot com studios. Unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road as protection over ten thousand recommended sallars. Tyrat
dot COM's way tire buying should be. So we're getting
ready to do the show and Jason Stewart he says, hey,
(01:35):
did you hear about John Feinstein? And you know, like
it's very very interesting here the I'll just give you
a little history lesson on me and then my relationship
on John and Jason Stewart's relationship with John. So when
I was in fourth grade, I had to go see
(01:58):
a reading specialist. You know, I was the classic Ada
add or now it's adhd kid right where they're like, well,
maybe we put him on ruling because I would get
bored in school. I get up. I'd walk around the
classroom really good at math and science, not particularly good
at English. Not a great reader, a more oral presentation
(02:19):
sort of guy. And so the reading specialist was like, look,
he just needs to sit down and read books. And
my dad's big thing was like, you know, sign you
got to pass the English part of the SAT Like
my dad nearly got a perfect score on the on
the math part as well, and he'd be and he
(02:39):
is a vociferous reader. So we made it. He made
a deal with me that I got five bucks every
time I finished a novel, and they we would alternate
between non sports and sports novel, right know. My my
(03:03):
non sports now, first non sports novel was The Boys
from Brazil by Leon URIs. Have you guys ever heard
of The Boys from Brazil? Leon? Your Leon yours incredible
award winning best selling author. If you guys, Jay Stu,
you ever read familiar with the movie? Oh yeah? Became okay,
so and I guess I can. It's like a fifty
(03:25):
or sixty year old book by a fifty year old book,
right or maybe not that old, but it was. It
was really fascinating if you think about it. The the
premise was that Nazis had escaped Nazi Germany to Argentina
and through the net, through the use of genetic splicing,
they had created basically Hitler clones and they were trying
(03:49):
to mirror Hitler's upbringing to help, you know, mother Germany
rise again. That was I mean really like now obviously
it's like truth or stranger than fiction. Now, it's like, wow,
these technicist technology probably does in fact exist. Anyway, When
(04:10):
I would read the sports books, my first one was
actually the autobiography of Catfish Hunter. Fascinating, but I fell
in love with John Feinstein's work with a season on
the Brink, which of course followed around Bob Knight in Indiana,
and it was a terrible year one in which ended
up in the NIT and it was I think the
(04:32):
year before they end up two years before they end
up winning a national championship, and you followed up with
a season inside and later on there was Next Man Up,
which followed around the Baltimore Ravens, and each one there
was the Army Navy, one there was Forever's team. Like
you kind of go back and if you know, if
you've ever read a sports novel and you read more
(04:56):
than one or two, you read a Feinstein and you're like,
that was unbelievably thorough. Couldn't put it down, remarkably not
a well written, but it was kind of well narrated
in terms of how I was written. Because I always
thought like, I'm a big Tom Clancy guy, right, but
Tom Clancy's novels at times became too wordy and I
don't care about the exact data behind every missile that
(05:18):
it's like showing off how much research he had done.
But for whatever reason, I thought Feinstein did just the
right amount of I've done the right research, yet it's
tangible to you So fast forward to twenty twelve and
I started. I was part of the initial launch group
to CBS Sports Radio, and we followed Jim Rome, I
(05:41):
believe right. That's how it was, Jim Rome and then us.
And before Jim Rome, John Feinstein had a show and
John was let go. Well I still had the radio
job there, and I don't want to know if we
had a falling out, but they were just you know,
(06:03):
John was not the easiest dude in the world. Now,
when I say that, you're gonna sound like that's gonna
sound like John was an a hole. He wasn't. He
just wasn't easy. He did not what's the term you used,
Jay Stu didn't suffer.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
What he did not suffer fools.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
No, not at all. And he held people people around
him to a way higher standard than most people did.
And I know, and and look what happens in this
business is when you're like that, you can get you
can get coined difficult. But difficult doesn't mean bad. Difficult
just means difficult. And I mean I just fascinating to
(06:43):
fascinating person somewhere along the way over the past. Well,
you know, I've been at Fox Sports Radio for eight years.
Over the past five years, he and I have run
into each other at various events. Back when I was
the CBS, I covered the Patriot League. I saw one
of those games. Of course, he wrote the book on
the page, literally wrote the book on the Patriot League.
(07:04):
And then in the last eight years we ran each other.
It's the Big Ten tournament, the NCAA tournament, and we
had kind of, I don't know, made amends, but there
was no falling out. It was I don't even remember
what it was over, but I think it was mostly
over the fact that John got let go and he
just lashed out at people because he was upset, which
you have every right to be upset, right. I didn't
(07:25):
get you fired. I didn't like. None of that thing
was me, But that's what I thought. I thought that's
where his bitterness kind of came from. And Jason, I
want to get to your story about him in a second.
But here's what's fascinating. Obviously, our season did not go
as planned in terms of wins and losses. There are
(07:46):
tons of wins and some losses off the court and
in the preparation and things that we've learned, and in
terms of the story, like I still continue to contend
that if you named college basketball teams that have been
covered this year, there's like five or six, and we're
one of the five or six. Right, we're one of
the five or six. Your college basketball is kind of
(08:09):
a month long sport, but there's like five or six
and we're one of the five or six. And uh,
you know, we we've done. We have a pilot, and
there's another couple of shows for a reality show, and
we have the buyers are kind of lining up, you know,
all the all of the usuals want to have you
(08:29):
know them follow us around be embedded. And we have
a production group that's already done some of this work.
And it's really really good stuff. But there's a lot
that happened this year, like man I wish there was
a camera there, or man I don't I wish there
wasn't a camera there. But it's a it's a really
fascinating story, like if people only knew. And let me
just make sure I get the date right. So I
(08:52):
texted John March fifth, March fourth, and he texted me
back March fifth. He said, are you glad your season
is over? I said, no, we just were figuring out
playing well and starting to get healthy. So we texted
back and forth a little bit and I said, what
(09:12):
are you working on? He said, I'm doing a book
on what makes great coaches great besides great players. I'm
also teaching journalism at Longwood University. And I said, John,
do you want your next bestseller? He said always. I said,
come follow me around for a year and write this story.
And he said, I'll call you, and he did. He
(09:35):
called me earlier this week and I was in the
middle of an exit meeting with one of my players
and I pushed that button that says can I call
you back? And not what it says is going to
call you back? Whatever? And I was driving today long
drive last days and on my list of calls was
John and I was like, ah, I'm just I'm gonna
(09:58):
do it tomorrow. I'm gonna do it tonight. And John
Feinstein passed away today, is studying And how old was he.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Jasetu sixty eight. He died at his brother's home. He
just penned an article today for The Washington Post about
Tom Izzo.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
For people who don't know, how did you get to
know John Feinstein?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It was in this very building that I'm in right now.
He was a frequent guest host for Jim Row And
by frequent, you know, Jim often says he takes a
lot of vacation, because he gets a lot of vacation,
and we're talking like twelve weeks a year. And I
would produce those shows for guest hosts, and John Feinstein
(10:47):
was a regular of ours. So I got to know
John on a professional level and a personal level, and
you know, to say he was difficult, He's just one
of those guys that kind of demanded a certain state
and old school and I felt privileged to being as
good grace as because of that, because I knew he
could be that way, and you know, he didn't suffer fools.
(11:10):
And the older I get, the more I appreciate that
about people. You just know where you stood. There was
no pretense to John, and I really did love that
about him. And I read a couple of his books,
my favorite being The Punch, which chronicled the entire episode
of Kermit Washington almost killing Rudy tom Yanovich in a game.
(11:37):
And I encourage any of our listeners to read that book.
It was fascinating. One of my good friends is Stan Brooks.
He's a executive producer, made a lot of TV movies,
an Emmy Award winning producer. He was the one that
produced Season on the Brink for ESPN. And Stan has
told me so many stories about how Feinstein was during
(11:57):
that process. Imagine that, Doug. Imagine being the person that
has to make Feinstein's book into a movie and how
difficult that may have been. But again, all these stories
are just speak to how genuine he was as a person.
And I really did like John.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
John Finstein was sixty eight years old in John Feinstein's honor.
I have a rant I want to make and we'll
do it right now. First, let me tell you speed
up your hiring process with Express Employment Professionals. Reduced time
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(12:41):
your hiring process. Okay, here it is. Would you say
that a good portion of why he was how he
was is because at the end of the day, right,
there's a right way and a wrong way to do something.
That is that a fair depiction of it? Yep, yep, Okay,
(13:02):
there's a right way and there's a wrong way. And
I think, what's what's truly fascinating about college athletics, And
you know, we can get into the nil and all
that other stuff. But Ben Johnson was fired at about
midnight last night or this morning by the University of Minnesota.
(13:25):
Ben Johnson was the head coach. He's young, he was
an assistant Xavier at the time. It was a surprising hire.
He's a Minnesota allowed me play basketball Minnesota. He was
only assistant. Took over a Big ten job. And again, look,
you probably hired him to save money when they couldn't
get their initial guys they wanted to hire when Richard
Patino left went to New Mexico, and so they hired
(13:48):
Ben Johnson. And it started out pretty bad. Last year,
they ended up going to the n I T. Won
a game in the n i T his entire starting lineup.
I believe left because that's what happens when you have
some success, your whole team lead, and now you have
to go and buy a new team. That's where we are.
I am not making a comment about whether or not
Ben should have kept his job, okay, because I don't
(14:10):
know any of the particulars other than they probably didn't
win enough and college head coaches, and look, I don't
make a lot of money as a college head coach,
but whatever I make, it's plenty. It's plenty. So you
shouldn't feel bad for me if in you know, four
or five years, you know it doesn't work out, and
(14:31):
and my boss Josh Buon walks down the hallway and says, hey,
let's sit down, let's talk about it, et cetera, et cetera.
But there's a right way and a wrong way to
do something. And it's one thing to fire a guy
at midnight and announce it on social media after you lose.
It's a whole other thing when it's also an alum
(14:54):
of the school that he represents. That doesn't mean he
can't be fired. That doesn't mean you're not within your
rights to fire it. But again, there's a right way
and there's a wrong way. Why why can't you call
him in this morning and say, hey, man, we're gonna,
we're gonna, we're gonna let you go, but we want
to give you a couple hours to call your coaches,
(15:17):
to call your support staff, to have a team meeting, Okay,
to make sure everybody knows the process of what's taking place,
and then why don't we come back at noon. We'll
grab some lunch, we'll sign some papers, we'll shake hands
like men, and we'll be on our way. And we'll
be on our way and and look again, I have nothing
(15:40):
bad to say about Minnesota or their athletic director or anything. Again.
And I don't know. I don't know the particulars of
why it was done when it was done. I don't
and I don't care. Okay, Mark Coyle is there their ad. Okay,
he's been there since twenty sixteen. I have no doubt
(16:03):
that Mark who you know. He's been the ad at Syracuse,
at Boise State, he's been at Kentucky. He knows what
it looks like. He's been in this business for years.
There's a right way and there's a wrong way. When
do we get to the place where you have an
alum he's gonna get fired? He gave him a whole
(16:23):
cycle of four years. It's not good enough. Why can't
you just call him into your office and have him
relieve him of duties like a grown up, like grown
people do. Right. There is a right way in a
wrong way, and a midnight tweet, a midnight firing. Just
like the tarmac firing with lang Kiffett. It ain't right.
(16:46):
It ain't right. And this is not me saying, hey,
Ben should have kept his job. I thought Ben did
a really good job this year. I thought they're well coached.
I didn't think. You know, it's hard. You know you're
going against teams with gigantic payrolls, and like everybody's got
their problems. I'm not man commentary on it. I don't
pay enough attention to somebody else's team. I only know
(17:06):
Ben is a good man, and he's he's a gopher.
It's not how you treat people. It's just not. And
as much as you can sit there and say, hey,
the head coaches you make plenty of money, they do,
and Ben it'll be fine. He'll get an assistant job.
And now he's been a head coach of four years
in the Big ten, and'll he might be able to
get another head coaching job right now because he's handled
himself like a complete mench. He might not, but he's
(17:28):
got enough money now and he'll get money on whatever's
buyout is a couple million dollars to where he could
probably live comfortably doing pretty much whatever he wants and
I'm sure he wants to coach, but you have I mean,
here's all the people that are that are affected. You
have all the gas, all of the players, all of
your support staff, like all of their families are going
(17:51):
to lose their jobs, have to move. And again, it
doesn't mean that it was wrong to fire them and
that we should think about all those people before they're fired.
He don't. That's not how you run an athletic department.
You case, sometimes you got to make hard decisions. I
got to make some hard decisions as well, with players,
with coaches, with support staff, and and and even with myself,
got to make hard decisions. But in the middle of
(18:12):
the night, when the guy's in a lum you're not
firing for cause you know, he didn't get a DUI
didn't beat up a woman. There's no nonsense. They're not
Mclem Houskins was they were. I mean the type of
cheating they were doing back in the day, right, But
they did go to a final four. So people are like, ah,
(18:33):
Clem not bad. Like look that one you can do
in the middle of the night. That one you can
do in the middle of the night. This one, it's
just in honor of John Feinstein, who did not suffer fools.
That's not the right way to do it, and I
think everybody knows it, and the more adults act this way,
(18:57):
we shouldn't be surprised when players I don't even tell
their coach, hey, I'm going to the portal. They just
put in the portal. You find out on social media
when players don't do things the right way, you're like, oh, well,
their kids. Now what they are is they they they
see how everybody else acts and they react as such.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
This is the best of the Don dot Lead Show
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
What of what you Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio,
coming to you from the tirat dot com studios diirect
dot com. What we get their unmatched selection, fast free shipping,
free road ass protection, over ten thousand recommend in stallars
direct dot com. It's the way that tire buying should be. Welcome, Welcome,
Welcome in Springs arrived. We're getting ready for the IDEs
of March, right. I'll be fun. That's if you know
(19:42):
anything about the the IDEs of Marcher upon us. Of course,
selection Sunday, a couple days away. Conference tournaments underway, we'll
talk about the injury and the Duke game earlier today
and what that means for the tournament, what I think,
what I think it means for the actual player who
got hurt that's upcoming fifteen minutes away. But it is
a Thursday, and most people will many people will tweet
(20:05):
out or on ig put you know, TBT throwback Thursday.
We don't throw it back on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Don't call it a throwback.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Throw back Thursday, don't call it a throwback thirst. This
is where Jay Stu picks out a year and we
just had some fun with it. Talk about sports, talk
about things in the media, talk about things on TV,
(20:39):
things in movies, things in music. What year we picking today,
Jase dou.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Thank you Doug. I'll take it from here all to
remember what you were doing three four years ago. The
year is twenty twenty one. If you think about it,
if you just take like a glance scene, thought about it,
it was a very strange year. We were coming out
(21:03):
of a worldwide pandemic. We weren't out of it by
any means, and it's almost like it was a different world.
Like things that were politically popular in twenty twenty one
are no longer popular. So we're going back four years,
so it's almost like we're going back twenty four years
in a lot of ways. But I did want to
draw attention to something. In twenty twenty one, we had
(21:25):
a strange NFL draft. Trevor Lawrence was considered by many
people a can't miss off the top of the draft,
and that didn't work out. Trey Lance was taken by
the forty nine ers. And this is the very crux
of this segment. There was a report at the time
that Kyle Shanahan and Shanahan didn't want to trade up
(21:50):
to get Trey Lance. He wanted mac Jones. He thought
mac Jones was best for the forty nine ers. Well,
the guess who signed with the forty nine ers yesterday,
Mac Jones mac Jones. Trey Lance was traded away to
the Cowboys for like a six round draft pick. But
if you think about those three quarterbacks in that draft,
they're all misses, and then you include Zach Wilson, who
(22:14):
went second, and that it makes it even worse, which
tells me a lot of things. It tells me that
all the noise that you're hearing from pundits right now
that are acting like they know what they're talking about,
they don't and a lot of NFL executives who do
this for a living often get quarterbacks wrong in the
NFL Draft. Twenty twenty one is a cautionary tale for
(22:37):
those that talk about the NFL and those that paid
a lot of money to make decisions in the NFL,
Which is why I'm choosing to focus on the year
twenty twenty one. Isaac Lowancron is in for Dan Byer today. Isaac,
when you think back to that year, what sticks out
to you most sports wise?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I feel similar that any event you talk about is
clouded by the transition period where we're not in COVID,
but we're kind of starting to come out of COVID,
so we're kind of caught between two worlds. So what
exemplified it for me is something we actually might have
talked about yesterday, and that's the NCAA Tournament that year,
(23:21):
which was held entirely in the Indianapolis area, mostly at
the Pacers Home Arena, Lucas Oil Stadium, Farmers Coliseum, which
we were talking about, Hinklefield House. There were also games
played in Bloomington at Assembly Hall and Macki Arena at
Purdue and it was just all those venues were operating
(23:45):
at a I believe, twenty five percent capacity. The other
thing I remember about the tournament that year is the
run by UCLA and that incredible semi final game against Gazaga. Yeah,
the banked in three that sent the game to overtime,
where Gonzaga eventually prevailed. But I think what overall stood
out to me was it was kind of that odd
(24:07):
transition between the COVID world and now, thankfully us getting
back to the way it's been ever since since that event.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
And don't forget about UCLA first four to final four.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Oh that's right. Yeah, they they went.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
All the way and believe they actually I think they
defeated Michigan State in that first four game and then
they went all the way to that final four.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That it was. That was a weird NCAA tournament, but
it did prove that you can do it one site
in one area, and I still think Vegas eventually they
should do it. There.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
It was Baylor over Gonzaga.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yes, and it was it was Gonzaga was the
dominant team. I thought it was gonzag and everybody else
they were supposed to play earlier in the year, but
the game was canceled because of COVID, and then they
played the Natal Chanceship game and Baylor was unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
And we were talking Doug earlier about Gonzaga's star player
Jalen Suggs, and I had to look up like where
he ended up. And he plays for the Magic, So
that explains why I had to look him up. Even
though the Magic are they're coming, They're up there there.
They have a winning record, right, I mean, listen, I'm
gonna pull come up.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Okay, well, I'm gonna pull a Shack here like from
the other day and just be like, I don't know
anything about the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I really don't.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
But he is on the Magic, Jalen Suggs And yep,
but that Baylor, uh, that coach drew team playing with
defense and they got the Natty.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Could I point out one difference between Shack and Iowa Sam.
Shack gets paid twenty five million dollars a year to
talk about basketball and he doesn't know the head coach
of the Detroit Pistons. IOWA Sam doesn't get paid that much,
not even close.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
And I could tell you that Chauncey Billups played for
the Pistons, but he wasn't the coach.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, you know, it's what's interesting about that that Baylor team,
Davion Mitchell was one of their stars. Davian Mitchell has
one of the great nicknames in this your college basketball
You're familiar with what his nickname is?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Anybody, Uh, Spider, No, that's I'm sorry that Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yes, yes, his name is off Night. Oh boy, yes,
because anyone he guarded had an off night Tyrese Halliburton,
who he guarded when he s at Iowa State.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I assumed it was a different nickname, all right, that
that that would actually be a good discussion to have
later best unflattering sports nicknames of all time, because when
you said off night, I thought that related to him
and not the guy he guarded.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Okay, Sugnight.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
That's also I mean, like, look, that was the wasn't
that the COVID year playoff football playoffs as well?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well? In every single year, every single week, we do this. Yeah,
so the twenty twenty football season was wacky, right.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And then yes, the twenty one I know it wasn't
the season, but the twenty one playoffs were during COVID, right,
and that was when Tampa won the road games. But
they went to lambeau Field and it.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Was half full that's correct, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Right, and Tom Brady they were he was unbelievable in
the first half. And who was that? King? Was his
last name? What was the defensive back? Who got who
got burned on the like the last play of the first.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Half by Scotty Mitchell. I want to say, right, Kevin King.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I'll say sure, okay, And then of course you know,
Aaron Rodgers had had a chance to score. I think
it was first and goal after three trice. Then they
kicked the field goal instead of going forward on fourth down,
which was an interesting strategy.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
We talk about Desmond King.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Desmond King, that's its mean. He's from Iowa, isn't he?
Was he in Iowa?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Desmond King? You're talking?
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Yeah, he played at Iowa, But I don't think that's
the guy who got burned. This is what you're talking about.
The Packers Niners. Yeah, yeah, no, he never He played
for the Texans and the Chargers. He hasn't played for
different guy. Okay, m a lot of guys named King
out there. Yeah, my, my, Desmond King won the Thorpe Award. Yeah,
(28:23):
different guy.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Now the actual NFL season, the twenty twenty one NFL
season was the the year of Aaron Rodgers. Remember he
did the immunization crack went on to win the MVP.
Cooper Cup was a standout that year as well as
he would go on to uh lead the Rams to
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, since any Bengals played him in the Super Bowl.
Cooper Cup was incredible in that in that Super Bowl
as well in the Super as well. We're missing buyer
for golf, no or not? Does anybody love golf as much? Now?
Was that the was that? The The year before was
the Dodgers in COVID World Series? Right?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah? This was the Atlanta Braves Championship. They went from
like six seed wild card to winning at all? What's
his face was on all these championships. I'm trying to
think of the pitcher's name that was on. Was it
will Smith? Isaac? That was on like three straight championships?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Right, you're right, you're right, he was on that Braves team.
I will say one golf note. It was the year
that Tiger had his accident. I know that's been mentioned
much of him.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That as Yeah, did we ever find out why.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
He was He was late for some event and he
was at what happened to be a very dangerous curve curve.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Speed.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
With when their accidents happened, there regularly just lost control.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I will say that. I remember after that accident, I
said on this show, I don't think he ever played
profession golf again. Now he hasn't played particularly well, but
he has played professional golf so as much as when
he turns as Achilles ten and were like, well he's done.
They just stitch him up. But he comes back and plays, right,
They just they just do.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Which random NBA team won the title? Hasn't there been
like six and six years or something.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
In twenty twenty one? Yeah, we want to say it
was the Milwaukee Bucks, Right, was the Bucks over the
Phoenix Suns?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yes, yes. Kevin King, by the way, is the is
the culprit n Green Bay Packering?
Speaker 5 (30:31):
My Desmond would never get burned like that.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I just remember I remember seeing a feature of Yiannis
when he was winning that title. It was a sixty
minutes feature, I want to say, and he was wearing
earbuds and the sixteen minutes reporter was like what are
you listening to right now in your earbuds? In twenty
twenty one, and it was this hit song of the summer,
(31:08):
legitimately good song. It topped the charts for seven weeks.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Top the charts for seven weeks.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I want to say. One of the babies featured was
that du baby Dub baby.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
He got baby, he got actually canceled, he got what
do you called it? Not exp uh expunged. His part
of it was expunged because of something offensive he said
at a concert.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yes, yeah, it was a bunch of offensive stuff.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
And so they took the rap part of that. Right now,
we're playing him, but he was, he was sort of
his part. It was canceled out and they reissued the song.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh, that was I believe Dune Part one came out
that year. I'd become a big Dune guy. Did anybody
read the novels?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
No? I never read the novels, but I've seen both movies.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I thought they were good. I thought they're good. It
was a weird year though, for movies because most of
them were filmed before COVID right that, and yet been
properly edit edited, And it's just kind of a I
will tell you something about twenty twenty one that I know. Okay,
if you are looking for a pre owned vehicle, if
it's pre twenty twenty, like, it's you know, reasonably expensive.
(32:17):
It's like normal whatever a you know, five six year
old car costs once you get to twenty one, because
there was limited cars and then all of a sudden
there was mass inflation, like it's like twice as much
and you're two years later, Like that doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
it's the whole COVID limited.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
It's a pre pre owned were hard to find. You
couldn't find a rental car because no one wanted to
rent a car during COVID because they weren't going anywhere,
so they sold off a lot of their fleets. Yeah,
it was a I managed to somehow get I got
a pre owned twenty eighteen car in twenty twenty one,
and I locked in my monthly payment for something that's reasonable,
(32:54):
and I feel like I got a good a.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Really good deal. Humble brag, humble brag on my monthly
pay the car I did. So my car story of
twenty twenty one. And this is interesting. So you talk
about the values, Doug and how they were out just
how to whack. So my lease was up in the
fall of twenty twenty one. So when I took my
(33:16):
lease to the dealer, they were willing to give me
top dollar from my used car. Yeah, but I used
that value to my advantage and I bought the rest
of it. I just bought the rest of it. I said,
here's some cash, I'll take it off the lot, and
I'm happy for it. So that's how I utilize that value.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Now, I do not have a vehicle related twenty twenty
one story, but ironically, you.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Have a vehicle. How did I How did I get
here today? It's a long bicycle or.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I don't know me? Like, there's the ways you can
get to places walking, bike, foot power, scooter, busard.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
My my current vehicle is fine, But you should talk
to my wife because the vehicle that I had when
we were dating, the best thing you could say about
it was it it was a jelopie.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It wasn't exactly a chick magnet. Yet she married me anyway.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
But the one overlooked thing that happened in twenty twenty one,
and it was overlooked rightly so because it wasn't supposed
to happen. Remember, they actually held an Olympics in twenty
twenty one, the twenty twenty Olympics, exactly the twenty twenty
Summer Olympics that were supposed to be held in Tokyo
were actually held in Tokyo in July and August of
twenty twenty one, And as I recall, they just didn't
(34:29):
seem to make a cultural impact at all, at least
here in the United States, compared to what turned out
to be extremely successful from a rating standpoint with the
twenty twenty four Olympics.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, Doug went viral during those Olympics. I did you did?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Was dead yips? Right?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh that's right. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
One, Simon Bios. Not the yips. What do they call it? Uh?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
The twisty's, twisty's.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
The twisty's.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Was that right?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I was on your side on that one.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah. Do you guys remember what you's talking about?
Speaker 6 (35:00):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I mean I remember what happened with some on Biles,
but I don't remember what you said about it at
the time.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I don't remember the actual tweet.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Do you just dou No? No, no, It was just
something along the lines.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Along lines of like you took somebody's spot basically, you know,
and you had the twisties. The twisties are the yips,
like we make it out like it's you know, she
could die, Like I understand, it's like that stuff is dangerous,
that sport is in fact dangerous. But I felt like
(35:32):
it was a little like you could not question her.
And my thing was, then here's what I believe My
take was. Then I could be wrong. Was Hey, all
athletes deal with some sort of performance anxiety. The best
of the best find a way to overcome them. Is
that fair?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
If sports are indeed the last meritocracy in our world,
then that is true. Everybody has to deal with their
own stuff. And if you can't deal with it and
you get criticized, that's part that's baked in. That's baked
into being a high profile.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Athlete, criticized female athlete.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, the criticism of it that you know you had
to pull out or you let your team down, or
you know you got to battle through these things.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I mean no, no, I'm just saying, what like the lesson
is you look at this, you cannot criticize where this
the The whole idea of equality is basically debunked in
that right, they're protected class. Female athlete. Can't correct can't nope,
can't do it, can't do it, can't be critical of
a great female athlete. Can't do it.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I'm a big fan of that tic.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Well, if we fast forward to twenty twenty four, she
she redeemed, redeemed herself there in Paris, big lely, big time.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Wait wait wait, if she redeemed herself, then she did
something wrong.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
I guess if it depends on where you where you
line up. I mean, she wants some.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I got them, I got them today, got him?
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Got him?
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Do you guys remember though, that we squeezed two Masters
in twenty twenty one? Like, remember the Masters in twenty
twenty was in April, and we postponed it until was
it October of twenty twenty one or no, November?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They did they have two.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
It was weird because we played ketchup with a lot
of these events, and it just was a strange.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
It was like it was November of twenty twenty and
then regularly in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, but still you're right, strange.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
Right, and they have it like six months later. Just
was like, all right, here's the Masters make Good and yeah,
it was like that for the Olympics as well.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I will say this in pop culture, everyone love TikTok TikTok.
I guess made its biggest gain and users in twenty
twenty one as we were in our homes and then
Kim Kardashian. Pete Davidson was a thing that was Wow.
That was four whole years ago. Wow.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
I guess my brain didn't hold onto that. A little
bit of history.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was that before or after Ariana Grande?
Speaker 5 (38:04):
I think it was after he was dating Ariana Grande
And then it was like Pete Davidson was the It
was like the cologne of the month for a lot
of a lot of ladies, a lot of high profile
celebrities out there. Pete Davidson because of rumors circulating about.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Uh, yep, we're good, We're good. Can't do it? Yeah, man, Like, listen,
this is a this is a network radio show. The
podcast saluted to it, and that is don't call it
total back.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Thursday, Fox Sports Radio had the best sports talk lineup
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox
sports radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Stut Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Cue the
music there, Sammy, if you would, I really appreciate it.
That's because when you hear the music, he comes strutting in.
He's funky, he's cold, he's Mark Medina, He's our Fox
Sports Radio NBA insider. Uh sad news. Mark. And I
(39:08):
know obviously you have a journalistic background as well. John
Feinstein passed away today. Do you have a favorite Feinstein book?
Speaker 6 (39:16):
There's many, but yeah, Season on the Brink I think
would be the top of the list. Learned a lot
about Bobby Knight and learned a lot of just about
how you tell stories. I mean, the depths that John
Finstein would go in with being you know, entrenched with
the team and share their season's story was something that
you know, we all aspired to match but could never
(39:36):
truly do because John Feinstein was one of the kind.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
One of He was one of one of one. Okay,
let's let's get to some association stuff. It is weird
right that Lebron. I mean, I don't know how much
you tracked this every March about this time, you know,
something goes wrong, what are the expectations about it? With
(40:00):
his return.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
It's a very good point that you make there's an
ultimate fork in the road right now because there's uncertainty.
You know, Lebron made it clear he doesn't feel like
this groin injury had the same severity as the one
he had in twenty eighteen when he then missed seventeen
consecutive games. But you pointed out a very good trend here,
Doug that basically, since he's been with the Lakers, which
(40:22):
has coincided with the tail end of his career, he's
always had some injuries. And so what you've seen with
Lebron is when he's on the court, he's still playing
a high level. He's not, you know, the same player
that he was during his prime. The athleticism isn't always there,
maybe exception of this season. The defense wasn't there either,
but still all star caliber level. But when he has
been heard his timeline to return has been delayed more
(40:46):
than anticipated. So as we talk right now, there's no
definitive timetable other than he's not with the team now.
He's in LA, So that means he's definitely not playing
tonight's game in Milwaukee or tomorrow's game in Denver, but
that was to be expected anyway. I'm curious on if
he returns it all next week when they're at home,
(41:07):
and if not, what the team looks like, because you
would think, okay, this is the time for Luka Doncic
to make this his own team. Everyone has had it
on hands all deck approach defensively and you know, offensively
since this trade went down. But yeah, this could be
either a blessing in the skies that he rests up
before the playoffs start, or could be something that all
(41:30):
the good vibes that started after the Luka Doncic trade
happened starts going in a downward spiral.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Stet Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, it
is interesting, right, everything was smiles, everything was great. Dallas
is a mess, and now of a sudden he hurts
a groin and you're like, wait, wait a second, maybe
this is not the best team in the NBA. Speaking
of best team in the NBA, two the best met
last night. What what does Oklahoma Cities win against the
(42:02):
Celtics last night do for them in the eyes of
people in the league.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Yeah, I think obviously it's good when you win marquee games.
I think it was very telling that Oklahoma City has
been able to win another big game even without one
of their key players. This time it was without Jaylen Williams,
but Doug marri Call. Earlier this season, they started the
season out without Isaiah Hartenstein. It was fine. Then chet
Holmger missed time, it was fine. They have a really
(42:28):
great roster construction. Obviously it starts with Shay Gilgess Alexander,
but they just have so many wings that they can
throw at different teams that they've been able to offset injuries. Now,
what is the win against Boston mean big picture? Yeah,
it's nice that they went on the feed against them,
but as far as what it means in the playoffs,
hard to say. I think, and this is for the
(42:51):
better of the league. I think that as it stands
right now, Oklahoma City, Denver, Cleveland, Boston, they don't have
an equal case to be made that they're the NBA favorite,
and then it's going to come down to which team's healthiest,
which team makes best adjustments. But that's what it seems
like it's going to be. Doug that that's the collision
course of Eastern and Western Conference matchups, And yeah, I
(43:14):
think the Lakers and the Warriors, Yeah, they've shown that
they are the real deal. These trade deadline moves with
Luca Jimmy Butler, It's dramatically changed their team. They have
a chance to climb through that window if they catch
lighting in a bottle. But I think it's really it's
going to come down to those four teams and the
thunder have shown that, Yeah, this idea that they're inexperienced.
(43:35):
I don't want to say it's not a factor, but
it's not as big of a factor compared to all
the other things that are going their way.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Steug Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Trader that's the
voice of Mark Medina or Fox Sports Radio NBA Insider
on the other end of the coin, Right, you have
teams like Utah who openly just openly tanking. Right you
have New Orleans, you have Washington who's just ridiculously bad.
(44:07):
Can they make it a little less obvious?
Speaker 6 (44:10):
I don't think they can. I mean, what's fascinating, Doug
is with this in season or not the playing tournament
Ever since the bubble in twenty twenty, that's created a
lot of good competition at the end of the season,
but it's also exposed like the extreme disparity between really
good games, the teams that are still fighting for their
lives going all in, and then the really bad teams
(44:32):
getting even worse. And so I don't know what the
solution is. I don't think any idea of, oh, let's
make an or a playing tournament wider even more. That
would cheapen the value of having the tournament to begin with.
And that explains why some traditionalists at the beginning didn't
like it, that it almost incentivize the teams to try
(44:55):
to get a playoff spot without the plan. But yeah,
the these teams, Washington, I would add Charlotte with exceptionala
mellow ball making some highlight reels, and Philadelphia because they've
been injured the entire season. All those teams have been
very tough to watch. I think the only small thing
is now that Zion Williamson's back. He's put up Zion
(45:20):
type of performances, but because he's missed so much time,
it's almost irrelevant. I know that they talk about, oh yeah,
I just build the habits in the next season, but
it's been tough basketball to watch with either of those
five teams.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, no question about it. Speaking of the Warriors, but
you mentioned kind of new life is this real? Can
they really contend?
Speaker 6 (45:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, they really can. I mean, you look
at Jimmy Butler's numbers. He put up a triple double.
He's very efficient as a score passer, and he's hitting
all the buttons that the Warriors lack. They didn't have
a consistent secondary score to help Steph Curry when he
was getting double teams. They weren't gain enough attempts at
the free throw line. When you looked at Steph Curry's number,
(46:00):
since Jimmy Butler has been there, it's increased by about
five points. They've won I think, every single game, with
the exception of one game since Jimmy Butler has played
with the Warriors. So they're the real deal. But I
don't think it's enough to match up against a team
like Oklahoma City or Boston Cleveland just because they've been
so dominant. But Doug, as you know, the playoffs, it's
(46:23):
one thing to talk about how teams look on paper,
how does it look in reality? You have to always
accept the fact that teams aren't going to be a
fully one hundred percent. So I think that this is
beyond Oh yeah, Steph Curry. They have a really good
thing going for them. But if I had to make
a prediction, I don't think it's enough to win a title,
but there is mathematical trans for it to happen.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Let's circle back Celtics. You mentioned losing to the Thunder.
Perzinga said, there's something viral that he's been dealing with.
Any idea when he returns.
Speaker 6 (46:56):
No idea when he returns, and no idea on what
exactly this viral sickness is. And I'm a big fan
of Porzingis, great player, has been a great fit, but
always something yeah, always something right. But I think in
defense of Boston, the sense that I got talking to
people around the league before the season, during the season, now,
(47:17):
and in the finals last year when he was coming
off his injury, is that they viewed poor Zingis as
a nice compliment but not a necessity. So I don't
think that he is going to make or break the
Celtics championship fortunes. It's going to be about Jason Tatum,
Ken Jalen Brown be consistent every single game than anything
with Porzingis. But look, it could be a variable. Only
(47:40):
because we're talking about Oklahoma City, Cleveland. There's so much
dominance in parody right now. But I think when you're
weighing everything, that's probably a third fourth item on their
worry list that determines their fortunes.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Jalen Brunson, when's your back.
Speaker 6 (48:00):
That's not clear either, only then that it's at least
one week more week. But keep in mind Doug, that's
one more week until he gets reevaluated. So I don't
think that that's when he's going to come back. Yeah,
I think he'll be back for the playoffs. But the
problem with the Knicks is they're in third place right now.
They only have a cushion for I think for about
(48:20):
five and a half games over Milwaukee they could lose
the third seed and Carl Anthony Towns he's rounded back
into form. I think that they've had a good toughness
under Tom Thibodeau, but I don't see them getting past
the second round. And with Jalen Brunson, I would be
surprised if he's back when he's reevaluated. It's also very
(48:41):
telling that the Knicks haven't said anything on what the
grade level of his ankle sprain is, and that really
determines how severe this is. If it's a grade one,
you're only talking a few weeks, but for anything beyond that,
it could be, you know, a few months.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Mark great stuff as owys we way to bring so
much insight and information. We truly appreciate thanks for a
guest that fox. Good for you dog.
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Appreciate you, sir,
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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