May 14, 2026 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Foxsports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every night on the
iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Greetings, Welcome inside final hour tonight the Jason Smith Show
with my bas friend Mike Harmon.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Very much you two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We'll get to the NFL schedule story in a second.
But game that just finished, the Indiana Fever get their
first win of the WNBA season. They beat the Sparks
eighty seven to seventy eight. Caitlin Clark twenty four points,
nine assists, four rebounds, had a big game six turnovers.
(01:01):
Watching this game, right, and look, it's been been a
rough week. It's always a rough week for Kitlin Clark.
I feel like people are just gonna we're just gonna
hate her. We're just gonna hate her, just gonna hate her.
But if you want a realistic criticism for Caitlyn Clark, right,
especially watching this game, down the stretch like you and
I did. The one thing I can tell you about
her game, as great as she is, right as great as.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
She is, is that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
The one problem that seems to be something that I
don't know that she can solve, is that there's a
little bit too many times where she really has trouble
with the on ball defender, and especially in the front court,
where she's not fast enough to get around and they
can poke the ball out, or they're a little bit
bigger for her and she can't get by them to
(01:45):
the hoop like she used to or like she was
used to. They spend so much more care now with
Caitlyn Clark and doubling her, but just seeing one on one,
there's some defenders where I go, oh, this is a
pretty good matchup, and you watch a couple of turnovers
she had again like she had one. She had one
series where ball got poked out, she got put in
a bad spot by her defender and she couldn't get
(02:06):
the ball out for a pass like this game got
closer at the end when it was a twenty point game.
Now she made up for it on a big possession
where a huge out of bounds Alioup throw for a
layup was awesome. Mean, look, Caitlyn Clark, is that great?
But you want a legitimate criticism is that, Yeah, you
have the right on ball defender on her, and you
can really cause her problem. She gets frustrated, she yells
at the referee, she wanted a foul call, which was
(02:29):
really a hell ballplay that she went crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
With the referee on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So she's someone you can still frustrate an on ball
defender that gives her problem. She does not like that
and she has not found a way to keep her
cool through those situations yet. That's and that's a fair
criticism for Kitlyn Klark to grab things in a great
big hug to turn it back to the NBA as well.
It's what we've seen with wem Bin Yama, It's what
we saw with Jokic against the Tea Wolves and what
(02:53):
they've been able to do defensively. You keep sending bodies
and the body blows. Eventually they get frust traded, get
taken out of their game. With Caitlin Clark, she's expecting
the foul, whether it's reputational or you know, the way.
You expect her to turn to the reference and don't
you know who I am, like trying to get into
a hotspot restaurant here in LA. But yeah, it's it's
(03:16):
often doesn't come and you can match up with her,
and speed can certainly take her out of some of
the game. Some of the turnovers are just she's got
a look in a pass, and we saw a couple
that were executed brilliantly. There's others that become ham handed
because the ball's coming in fast as the receiver on
the other end under the basket or down to the
(03:37):
wing isn't quite expecting it. So like there's still some
of that timing. And she's still banged up, right. She
left the last game with a couple of injuries, like
a couple of times. So I think maybe some of
the speed and the ability to cut and get around
the defenders is whatever is going on, there may still
be part of that. Not to do excuse making because
(03:57):
we're we're in the first week of the season, still
rounding into shape, exit out about a Fresca exit swollen dome.
Jason Smith Mike Carmon live from the Fox Sports Radio studios.
I got more basketball coming up in a few minutes.
But we are now twelve fourteen hours away from the
NFL schedule release, we'll find out where everybody is playing
(04:19):
the weeks. Will start looking at our schedules. With those
travel schedules, find out come on and find out when
your buys are. That's where you can tell your best friend. Hey, listen,
this is when you get married. October sixteenth is your date.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Wide. The Jets have a buy that week.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
If you're doing a dopey fall wedding, Yeah, I have
a had it.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Jason just confirmed Jets Argonauts Week three.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Uh no, that's the opening week.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Week three week Week three is the Rough Riders, Doug Flutes,
the Argonauts.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
My sources are telling me, uh, watching the last couple
of days with the leaks, right, what the it's really
fun to see that. Hey, we get the word about
some Week one games, right, Like Jordan Schultz today said.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Hey, pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Uh uh, sources that tell me it's going to be
New England and Seattle and he for that coffee. Yeah,
game isn't gonna be at Starbucks.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You know Jets and Dolphins potentially playing Week one. Giants
and Cowboys we know playing Week one. We got the
international schedule. Today, we find out there's going to be
a Thanksgiving Eve game, And watching this, all I could
think of was this with with the NFL at the
schedule lease Like now now they've turned it into this
is where I say, hey, the NBA still sucks the
draft lottery because hey, we're jamming it in, you know,
(05:41):
before a Knicks playoff game and then when it can
really be its own thing everybody between the games, by
the way, and we had talked about it, like because
traditionally that's where it is, here's a little little bit
of a break in the action because there was a
gap between the games, would have been able to fit
it in there.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Now let's do it at noon.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
We always say the NFL finds a way to take
advantage of everything on this Now, schedule release day is
a thing.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Not anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now it's schedule release week because every day this week
we are getting Hey we had the Giants Cowboys game
on Monday, we had a few more games.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yesterday, we had all the international slate.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Today like it's now schedule release week. This is this
is like the scene with Anthony Bourdain in Wolfe of
Wall Street when he talks about using every part of
your protein right and all right, this will be made
into a soup and this will be That's what the
NFL does with the schedule release.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
We get every piece of.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It use the Jets will get one of those random,
hey Thursday night games against the Patriots. That's the only
time they'll be on. But like you see the NFL
taking advantage doing this, but watching the way it's gone out,
I kind of feel like the NFL is reminding me
of like a big auction house that has all kinds
of memorabilia and they decide, okay, we we need big
(06:56):
cash flow. We want to you know, we want to
pay some investors, want to want to be able to
buy more memorabilia. So we're gonna sell off, you know,
just a bunch of high priced items. And we're gonna
sell off this baseball for five million dollars. We're gonna
sell off this set of golf clubs that belonged to
Walter Hagen, the very first set of clubs he ever had.
That's gonna go for twenty five million dollars. Right, we're
(07:17):
gonna sell this. We're gonna sell and they have all
kinds of money coming in that again they can reinvest,
pay investors, buy new things like, this is what the
NFL is doing. It's like, oh, we have two hundred
and seventy two pieces of memorabilia, right, we have all
seventeen weeks in the regular season we can give away.
We can sell twenty five of these things. Oh hey, oh,
you mean you'll give us one hundred million dollars for
(07:38):
a night before Thanksgiving game. We'll give you a game. Sure,
we'll give you one of those games. That's no problem.
Like once the NFL found that Amazon said, yeah, give
us a Black Friday game for one hundred million dollars. Oh,
so each game's worth a hundred million dollars. Okay, Now
it's like that's what they're doing. Hey, we're gonna sell
off these games and make one hundred million dollars a game,
and we're gonna get We're gonna keep reinvesting and owners
are gonna get more money, and teams are gonna get
(07:59):
more money. Well, you're selling off some of your some
of your your your your collateral there, and some of
your product. Well it doesn't matter. In a year, We're
gonna add another sixteen games with the week eighteen of
the regular season. So these twenty five games we're selling
off we're really only selling off nine because.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
We're getting sixteen.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
More like, it's a brilliant business exercise at the NFL.
And and this is how it's gonna be done right.
It's not gonna be the case for the NFL where
in five years everything's going to streaming, right. Roger Goodell
said the other day that a streaming partner would have
to bowl us over with an offer to get us
to move it. Which yes, as you said earlier in
the show, Hey, that means let me know what you got.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
But it's a lot of backlash. It's a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
If you're suddenly taking all of the AFC games going
to Amazon, the NFC games go to Netflix, it's a lot.
But for the next I'll tell you the next five
years is gonna be just like this because what they've
seen is, yeah, we're okay piecemealing games out. We got
nine international games this year, next year will be ten,
and we're gonna be eleven, and we'll be twelve. We
got a Thanksgiving Eve game, We're gonna have a Christmas
(09:03):
Eve and Christmas Day game. Now we're gonna have new
They're gonna find a way to continue to piece meal
this out one hundred million dollars plus a game. The
price is just going up. Everybody's gonna want to buy it.
And this is just the way it's gonna go. It's
gonna bleed for the next few years. We're i mean
not saying it's not gonna happen at some point where
stream He's gonna take over. But this is what the
next five years is gonna be. It's just gonna be
(09:24):
this way of the NFL saying, oh, yeah, we can
either throw this game on a Sunday, which what does
it matter. We have a bunch of games on a
Sunday anyway, or we can sell this one hundred million dollars. Hey, owners,
how do you feel about that? Yes, let's do that.
Let's sell more games, Let's play more games overseas, Let's do.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
All this money. Money, money, money.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I mean, this is an absolutely brilliant plan. But again,
it reminds me of an auction.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
How it's going.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, we'll get some money coming in, we'll sell some stuff.
We still got tons of stuff. We'll buy new stuff,
and we're gonna keep doing this forever. Well, you reset
the market with each piece, and you establish the the
proposition of all right, this window, this opportunity, this in country,
these different streaming platforms or network partners. It makes sense.
(10:07):
It's proof of concept, and now we establish what the
market is.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
It's today was a huge release in the trading card world. Right,
this is the Prospects special for baseball cards. The Bowman
set came out and everybody's looking at all right, who's
the next guy Holiday's brother, or you're looking at you know,
the White Sox sluggers or whatever else. But it becomes
the marketplace of all right, first sold. All right, now
we've got that market Well, how many of them are
(10:32):
coming out? There? Are they serially numbered? To your point,
there's only two hundred and seventy two of them. This
is one of two seventy two. Now we have that
many fewer with each one or each package that gets sold. Hey,
here's a lot of five that will sell to you
for Thursday nights. Come and get it sold. All right,
now we only have all right, we just got rid
of six of them. There's two sixty six left. Guess
(10:54):
what price poker keeps going up? Because now we're going
to scarcity. It's like your auction draft for a fantasy
football or fantasy baseball. Wait, I need a catcher. There's
only three of them that can hit. All right, Well,
that guy's gonna go for a lot of money, right,
or the shortstop or you know, quarterback in the NFL,
if you want someone who's gonna be vilab on a
weekly basis. But for this, yeah, you've got that proof
(11:16):
of concept. And now you'll go on the calendar and
figure out where it makes more sense. And eventually we
go to the eighteenth game, and as much as the
players will moan and complain and they'll be like, wait,
the salary cap went up again? What And with those
extra games, we're able to collectively bargain for more jobs,
to keep guys in the league longer, or to add
(11:38):
just more potential to stay another year or two if
you're willing to make concessions on your contracts whatever else. Yeah, yeah,
sign me up. Oh wait, now we need a nineteenth Sure,
and the NFL will keep printing them, right, keep writting them.
Let's go back to the well, this is the second
edition of this issue, right like comic books, all right,
(12:00):
we got to cover variant. It's the second time that
we're reprinting this because it was so popular. Sure, the
first edition is gonna be worth more, or is it
because these are holographic variants or as you come to
know it, Friday Night Football. I mean, really, it's a
it's a case of the NFL saying, we know where
(12:23):
the business is going, and if we continue to put
these games out, one or two at a time, a
couple of new things here, Well it's not like, well,
we're gonna put out an eight game slate and and
these different entities are gonna bid on it, and and
you're gonna get a certain amount of money. But when
you're saying, hey, we're gonna add another two or three,
well we got to get one of those. And yet
we'll give you all because now it doesn't seem like
(12:45):
they're giving you a lot more. It's like at they
wanted to say, hey, here's a bid for this. I mean,
the money would be insane, But what kind of competition
are you getting. But if we're gonna, you know, slowly
add two or three new games in here, well we
got to get that game. We saw what this game
means for that. So what this game means for for Amazon,
We see that there's gonna be a triple header that
(13:05):
we didn't expect to see like that's gonna that continues
to create interest in that I gotta get one of
these because there we're not I'm not gonna. I can't
sit back and just wait for Well, we'll save our
money and I'll all of a sudden they say, hey,
the rights are up, Well we'll take all that money. No,
they know that they continue to have to bid now
because it's just coming out dribs and traps like the
NFL is doing this in a brilliant way.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No other league can do this.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
No other league can say, hey, we're gonna sell you
these individual games anything, no college football. If they found
a way to sell their game, they couldn't even do
this right. This is where the NFL runs unopposed because
they can keep doing this in perpetuity just as long
as people still want watch the NFL, and I don't
think that's going anywhere. They're gonna be gonna keep doing
this and saying, hey, here's some more games, here's some
(13:49):
more games. We'll find another way to get a game
in there. Hey, guess what, We're gonna have a special
Halloween Day game.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Wait what yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What but Halloween's on a Friday does matter. We're gonna
put a Halloween game on a Friday, and it's gonna
be this this, Uh, it's gonna be broadcast by the
Sci Fi Network or whatever it is. We're gonna find
a way to put something out there that's gonna continue to,
little by a little get you to keep buying it
and and and making each individual game worth that kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Because you get creative with it too.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And this is where the marketing machine of it all
comes into play.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
We've seen the iterations of the toy story games or
the NBA jam looking uh setups, or Mickey Mouse playing
on the streets of downtown Disney or right by the Castle.
I mean, you've done all those overlays, and that expands
your market because now you're adding toy companies revenue uh
(14:44):
and for those ads, sales and all of that. So
everybody's getting fat. So when you can do more of that,
you get into the sci Fis, you get into maybe
some true TV. I don't know, but you have so
many different entities that want a piece of that pie
because it is just so lucrative and valuable for that
live space. You got all the networks and now we
(15:05):
keep seeing Amazon and Netflix and everybody else getting involved
in telling you it's only so far before we're selling
stuff like where you know, hey, the Ronco products in
the third quarter, this punt, get your blender Exit O
out of Fresca exit swalling down. The Jason Smith Show
with my best friend Mike Carmon Coming up next, The
biggest stuff from tonight in the NBA. Does the Cavaliers
(15:28):
win tonight mean bad things for Lebron James? That's next,
Jason to Mike Fox.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Set.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Got here.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
I have a podcast Empire. It continues to grow, and
I have brought it here to Ihearder. I'm also doing
a live radio show from three to five pm Eastern
because my wife wanted to kick me out of the house.
It's called ste Gotson Company Live, which is available in
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(16:09):
Some of the biggest names in sports.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
A lot of phone calls.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I love you, got your show. It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
A lot of interact shit guys, not taking themselves too seriously.
Those are just some of the things that you can
expect from Stu Gottson Company and Steve Gotson Company Live.
So listen to Steve Gotson Company Live and our original podcast.
Please subscribe, rate and review Stu Gotson Company and God
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(16:37):
today and you can check all of those out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts,
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best
friend Mike Harmon, where the cz Eveland Cavaliers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Are now one win away from a showdown with a Knicks.
Look Conference finals quite honestly, and Eastern Conference Finals.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
We thought we were gonna.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Get maybe two years ago, but yeah, what looks like
we're gonna get it now.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Led by James Harden.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, okay, And I will say this first of all,
you look positivity here on a Wednesday. Always about positivity.
James Harden tonight thirty points, big clutch free throws at
the end, rebounding his own missed free throw in overtime
was huge. Flat footed Detroit Pistons players in the lane
(17:38):
I talked about playoff Harden the first couple of games,
and this is who Harden is. This is who he's
been for the last fifteen years. It's not gonna change.
But I gotta be accurate. The last three games, James
Harden has been terrific. He has been fantastic. Was the
best player on the flour tonight for the Cavs. Probably
should have given him the ball the end of regulation
(18:00):
of forcing it to Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
He was due.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He was the best player on the floor.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
No qualifiers, no anything, Jason, but you hate James Harden.
I don't like to say great things about James Rden,
but I know I have to be accurate. James Harden
the last three games has been terrific.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Let's see if he can do it again. He has
been really surprisingly good, so good.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Maybe he's done and these can't do it again, but
he has been so good these last three games.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I gotta give him credit.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Forty three minutes, played thirty points eight of twenty one
from the field, and he did miss a couple of
free throws down the stretch, so I thought maybe you'd
go after him for that, although he did rebound his
own to earn two more trips to the line. Fantastic.
Strews was great for them, had a couple of big
plays off the bench, twenty points for him. They helped
(18:53):
pick up what was a struggling Donovan Mitchell. It seems
like he just left everything on the court. Sec and
a half performance last game. Yeah, so James Harden had
to put that cape on. He said, Not only am
my starting out, so I'm gonna finish slow, I'm gonna
finish slowly the entire game because I'm really really exhausted.
From forty eight points in three quarters whatever it was,
(19:14):
seven and eighteen from the field, won for eight from
three point range, finished with twenty one points on the night.
But overall, you know, James Harden, you also could have
gone after the six turnovers.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, you couldn't have six turnovers regularly, but he had.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
He had more made baskets and turnovers tonight. So I
left him alone with it eight greater than I left
him alone with James. James again, James Harden has been great,
but now he's gonna get tired.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
He was great, so all of a sudden next game
he's gonna get tired. Great.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
This is usually when he gets tired, and then it
gets tired at the end of the games and misses
a lot of shots that costs the team wins.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
But he's been great the last three games.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Your guys have gotten a lot of chance to rest up,
no question about it.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
As we look.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Ahead to the next game, and said, series spread currently
at four, started at three and a half. Uh, you know,
I told you last Kay last week when the Pistons
were getting ready for getting ready to preview Game seven
against the Magic, I said, look, the Magic are done.
They're cooked. They had a three to one lead. They
blew it. Whatever the point spread is, give me the Pistons.
(20:17):
They're closing this out in style. And they did. I
feel the same way about game six, except I'm gonna say,
whatever the spread is, give me the Calves, double it,
triple it, because the Pistons are done. They looked absolutely
cooked tonight at home at home the last five minutes
of regulation, they couldn't do anything offensively, They couldn't get
(20:38):
a shot off. They looked done. They looked like they
were just going through the motions. They were settling for
bad jumpers. Their last possession when they had a chance
to go ahead and win the game. Kate Cunningham can't
get to the hoop. He settles for a bad fade away.
They luckily get an offensive rebound. Then Kate even get
a shot off before the twenty four second clock you know,
resets to fourteen. And that goes out like it was terrible.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
And then they.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Compound it in overtime with a really bad careless turnover
and not boxing out letting Harden rebound his own missed
free throw. Like the Pistons look like a team that says,
you know what, we're finished. It's They're the the kid
in school that's looking at the clock saying it's two
fifty eight and thirty seconds. This bell is gonna ring
in a minute and a half. I got my backpack on.
(21:23):
I'm not writing down anything, the teacher says anymore. I'm
pushing out my chair so I could be the first
one out the door onto the playground. Like they look
like they're done. They look like they have they have.
They have hit the wall. And for a team that
that I thought was coming into the playoffs, they're gonna
give people all kinds of problems their depth again, they
run nine to ten deep. The guys play that big minutes.
Cad Cunningham got through the first difficult part of the
(21:45):
playoffs still carrying the Pistons, which is what great players do.
But eventually you gotta play like you can and I
haven't seen it. They have not played like the Detroit
Pistons yet in this playoffs, and now we're getting this
is not ay week Game two, Game Threecks did hey
after Game three of that first round series against the Hawks,
It's okay, we're flipping a switch. It's time to put
(22:05):
on a clinic And that's what they've done. But this
is a Pistons team that still looks like they look
like they're done and all their warts have been laid bare.
Theok like a team that they don't have another option
behind Kate Cunningham. We talked about this a couple hours ago.
Rick Buker talked about it with us last hour. They
now seem okay. In the offseason, they gotta go after
somebody else to be that number two scorer behind Cunningham
(22:26):
because they don't have anybody else that you can rely
on to get a bucket. Right. Tobias Harris is a
nice player, but when it's like hey, it's either it's
either cateror Tobias Harris. You got problems, man, The Pistons
have problems, and they're going home in game sex. Yeah,
you look at the way the rotation went. Jenkins ends
up with nineteen. He's in place in Duncan Robinson. So
you missed that three point acumen that you're used to
(22:47):
and spreading the floor. But Jenkins does well eight of
seventeen from the field up. But to that point, again,
Robinson's just a twelve point game score. Paul Reid comes
off the bench. This thing again goes back to Jayalen
Duran and in his ability or where he's fallen short
in this series, is that Paul Reid came off the bench.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
He played all the fourth quarter and overtime, so like
he had played a minute. So it's a little more.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It would have been more shocking if Paul Rudd came
off the bench and played a bunch of best.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
That's a man. You can't even see him.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Then he gets really big, and then he gets really
big in the low post. There's no question about it.
But you talk about that trying to find the second score,
trying to find some level of consistency there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Which has not been the case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Whereas for the Cavaliers, you've got some balance, you've got
some depth, and now they're on the precipice of facing
off against your knicks. And for Detroit it becomes, well,
what's the next iteration of the squad needed to look like?
I know Bicker Steph still had some issues with officiating
because they did win the points in the paint, so
they did operate there for a good chunk of the game.
(23:57):
But the false shots were thirty eight to twelve, and
certainly we saw a lot of that for the Cavs
in the fourth quarter in overtime. But yeah, you end
up finishing the season with a lot more questions. And
this was a squad that predicted to finish well, wins
the regular season trophy as your number one seed, which
gets you a whole lot of nothing. Now, when it
(24:19):
comes to Lebron James, why does he have something to
do with this game tonight? Huge things to do with
this game.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Today was a real crazy day because story comes out
Dave McManaman, who's been covering Lebron James'.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Entire career, stalking that.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well he's got he's got a careers an insider, no
I yeah, I can't fault to all the people following
brought Brian Windhorst, all these guys until big career.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
He threw wind Horse offs beat it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But we hear today that potentially Lebron James very mad
at the Lakers because they didn't honor him with the
game ball the night he set the record for most
wins in NBA history?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Did he get it from? Honest?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Happened if they were fighting over at mid And now
there's a lot going on with this, but so that's
something we're going to get into in a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It's a crazy ass story.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
But just know that now you have questions, you know,
Lebron and the Lakers maybe at odds over this. This
comes out, as Rick Buker said, this is where Lebron's
got to tell whoever leaked this story, dude, what are
you doing?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
This does not make me look good. But bottom line is.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
When we're in the middle of this discussion about what's
next for Lebron, right it really there's two choices. Right,
there's two choices for Lebron. There's he stays with l
A are you kidding the Knicks? Like, dude, we know
Knicks are going to Knicks from the Eastern Conference Finals
for the second straight year. Lebron, Sorry, man, you missed it,
but no, no, no, no no. Then it's Giannis. Then
(25:49):
it's Jannis going back to what you were saying a
couple of weeks ago, and you're fitting that jersey again.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So he's got two choices.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He stays with the Lakers, or he goes home to Cleveland,
because they're only one place he can go if he
leaves La where he can have the storybook ending that
he wants to, and that's going home, because if he
goes anywhere else and doesn't win, it's gonna be Look
at Lebron, he tried to jump from team to team
at the end, and he couldn't do it. That's why
Golden State, Lebron. That doesn't make a lot of sense, Lebron. Again,
(26:19):
you're not gonna win anything in the NBA if you
are basing your team around guys in their mid thirties.
But that's where you go the sentimentality of I've always
admired the game Steph Curry and I've always wanted to
play with him. Not gonna win, that's not so that's
not He got a guy with a violin, as you say.
So there's two choices, right, it's the Lakers or the Cavaliers,
(26:41):
Because the Cavaliers, if he goes to Cleveland and they
don't win the title, yeah, people are gonna say, oh, Lebron,
he could win, but it's gonna be awe. But look
at him come home. It's gonna be a whole season
or whatever he decides to retire of. Here's Lebron getting
a rocking chair, he's getting a pony, he's getting whatever
it is. Here he is home again. This is how
this is the last I'll play here. That's the last
time I'll do this. And if he doesn't win, he
(27:04):
can leave with I'm just a guy from Akron. I
started here, I left, I came back. I left, I
came back. It's always gonna be my home. I finish
at home. But then our guy Kenny wrote, and all
the people there in Cleveland going.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He left a broken home.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The Catdaliers are further away from a title than they
ever were, so that's the only place he can go.
Or if he doesn't win, he's not gonna my career
is not gonna finish that Frostbury. You can say that
a million times. Now I'm next next. I'm not worried
about you putting that out in the atmosphere because that's
not happening. That's not happening. You're You're gonna have to
stick with Lebronnes and keep him. You're gonna have to
(27:38):
keep it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
No one else is happening. You're gonna have to keep
him whooping the Knicks ass. He said, Burr, it's cold.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
He can only go back to Cleveland, right, So I
think why he would go back? Now, why would Cleveland
want him back? Cleveland would want him back because now
they're a big time contender in the East. They have
a pretty young core. But maybe we're lebron James away
cause we need somebody that can fill the gaps to
do what he did with the Lakers this year. Sometimes
(28:06):
play point guard, sometimes small forward, sometimes power forward. Be okay,
being the number two guy to Donovan Mitchell, but coming
home being the guy being grandpa coming go Hey. He
can fill in there and he can be an asset
to us. Maybe he can help us mature. Maybe it's
good for us in the playoffs where we have a
guy who's been through it and one and he can
(28:27):
take the pressure on his shoulders and let our guys
just play their games right, Because this is for the
Cavaliers why he would be attractive there. That's why the
next two games are so unbelievably huge for Lebron James's future,
because the Cavaliers, if they win, which I think they are,
they go to the Eastern Conference Finals. Are they going
(28:47):
into the offseason saying if we don't win, if they
don't beat the Knicks, they don't go to the NBA Finals.
Are they gonna say, you know, if we had Lebron,
we could have won.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
No, they're not.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
They're gonna lose to the Knicks. If Karl Anthony Towns
is gonna wind up having a series and make him
look like Bill Russell, where the ball's gonna be going
through him, he's gonna have a huge game. They don't
have the bigs to stick with him. It's gonna be
we have to build our team to beat the Knicks.
We need a big that can score, that can play
a really good defense. We need a big two way
player there. That's what they'll go after, because that's what
it's gonna be. That's gonna be their questions if they
(29:16):
lose to the Knicks. Right, that's where we are. So
Lebron suddenly is not gonna have a place to go to.
It's gonna be the Lakers are nowhere, and the Lakers
have a lot of leverage. If the Cavaliers lose the
next two games, they blow Game six at home, they
lose Game seven, they walk into the offseason going we
had it. What were we missing? Maybe we were missing
(29:37):
that veteran presence to help us close out games. Maybe
we were missing that guy to come in that can
do all the things that we needed to be done
that we didn't do in the game six. In Game seven, right,
we need somebody to play, to play point guard for
a little while, right and stop our tour whatever it was.
Maybe then we are a Lebron James away. These next
two games are huge for Lebron because if the Cavaliers
(29:59):
move on, they're gonna walk into the offseason not need him.
If they don't, they blow it, then Cleveland can still
be a destination for him. Now, there's a couple of
things I want to touch on here, the first one
being the wicked configuration that could exist. James Harden has
a forty two million dollar player option.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Say he decides he wants to stay in Cleveland, do
you really think he's like he's gonna turn that down?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He's been getting forty million dollars from team for years,
but eventually that trick is gonna run up empty for Lebron. Well,
but that option is there, so you have him, you
have Donovan Mitchell. Let's bring in Lebron James. Tell me
you don't want to see that that trilogy going at
I mean, that's a Spider Man meme if there ever
was one in terms of trying to roll through. I
(30:56):
good luck navigating that one. So that so that's fun.
The other is going back to your Knicks commentary, how
many times did you practice in the mirror and in
the car on the way here the phraseology of quote
building a team to compete or beat the Knicks, that's
(31:16):
you're gonna quote.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I never thought that.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
How many time did you have to go through that
in your head to where there wasn't a question mark?
Now a snicker or a flat out giggle or an
exasperated side Once in a great while, I actually stopped
myself and say, I can't believe I'm saying this about
one of my teams. Like maybe it's like every eight
or ten years, but like, I can't believe I'm saying
(31:38):
that about one of my teams that now teams in
the East are gonna have to build themselves to beat
the Knicks, Like that's I never when when did you
think I would ever say that?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I mean, but now I get to say that, which
is awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
When the original playing, I probably won't even get to
say this for the ten years after this, but I
get to say it now. No, it's it's just that
curious space that we're in right now, and a lot
of it depends on Karl Anthony Towns and what he becomes,
and and not to get ahead of ourselves, because we
still have to crown a contender, uh to play them
before it's all said and done.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
But it
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Foxsports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every night on the
iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Greetings, Welcome inside final hour tonight the Jason Smith Show
with my bas friend Mike Harmon.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Very much you two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We'll get to the NFL schedule story in a second.
But game that just finished, the Indiana Fever get their
first win of the WNBA season. They beat the Sparks
eighty seven to seventy eight. Caitlin Clark twenty four points,
nine assists, four rebounds, had a big game six turnovers.
(01:01):
Watching this game, right, and look, it's been been a
rough week. It's always a rough week for Kitlin Clark.
I feel like people are just gonna we're just gonna
hate her. We're just gonna hate her, just gonna hate her.
But if you want a realistic criticism for Caitlyn Clark, right,
especially watching this game, down the stretch like you and
I did. The one thing I can tell you about
her game, as great as she is, right as great as.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
She is, is that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
The one problem that seems to be something that I
don't know that she can solve, is that there's a
little bit too many times where she really has trouble
with the on ball defender, and especially in the front court,
where she's not fast enough to get around and they
can poke the ball out, or they're a little bit
bigger for her and she can't get by them to
(01:45):
the hoop like she used to or like she was
used to. They spend so much more care now with
Caitlyn Clark and doubling her, but just seeing one on one,
there's some defenders where I go, oh, this is a
pretty good matchup, and you watch a couple of turnovers
she had again like she had one. She had one
series where ball got poked out, she got put in
a bad spot by her defender and she couldn't get
(02:06):
the ball out for a pass like this game got
closer at the end when it was a twenty point game.
Now she made up for it on a big possession
where a huge out of bounds Alioup throw for a
layup was awesome. Mean, look, Caitlyn Clark, is that great?
But you want a legitimate criticism is that, Yeah, you
have the right on ball defender on her, and you
can really cause her problem. She gets frustrated, she yells
at the referee, she wanted a foul call, which was
(02:29):
really a hell ballplay that she went crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
With the referee on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So she's someone you can still frustrate an on ball
defender that gives her problem. She does not like that
and she has not found a way to keep her
cool through those situations yet. That's and that's a fair
criticism for Kitlyn Klark to grab things in a great
big hug to turn it back to the NBA as well.
It's what we've seen with wem Bin Yama, It's what
we saw with Jokic against the Tea Wolves and what
(02:53):
they've been able to do defensively. You keep sending bodies
and the body blows. Eventually they get frust traded, get
taken out of their game. With Caitlin Clark, she's expecting
the foul, whether it's reputational or you know, the way.
You expect her to turn to the reference and don't
you know who I am, like trying to get into
a hotspot restaurant here in LA. But yeah, it's it's
(03:16):
often doesn't come and you can match up with her,
and speed can certainly take her out of some of
the game. Some of the turnovers are just she's got
a look in a pass, and we saw a couple
that were executed brilliantly. There's others that become ham handed
because the ball's coming in fast as the receiver on
the other end under the basket or down to the
(03:37):
wing isn't quite expecting it. So like there's still some
of that timing. And she's still banged up, right. She
left the last game with a couple of injuries, like
a couple of times. So I think maybe some of
the speed and the ability to cut and get around
the defenders is whatever is going on, there may still
be part of that. Not to do excuse making because
(03:57):
we're we're in the first week of the season, still
rounding into shape, exit out about a Fresca exit swollen dome.
Jason Smith Mike Carmon live from the Fox Sports Radio studios.
I got more basketball coming up in a few minutes.
But we are now twelve fourteen hours away from the
NFL schedule release, we'll find out where everybody is playing
(04:19):
the weeks. Will start looking at our schedules. With those
travel schedules, find out come on and find out when
your buys are. That's where you can tell your best friend. Hey, listen,
this is when you get married. October sixteenth is your date.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Wide. The Jets have a buy that week.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
If you're doing a dopey fall wedding, Yeah, I have
a had it.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Jason just confirmed Jets Argonauts Week three.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Uh no, that's the opening week.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Week three week Week three is the Rough Riders, Doug Flutes,
the Argonauts.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
My sources are telling me, uh, watching the last couple
of days with the leaks, right, what the it's really
fun to see that. Hey, we get the word about
some Week one games, right, Like Jordan Schultz today said.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Hey, pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Uh uh, sources that tell me it's going to be
New England and Seattle and he for that coffee. Yeah,
game isn't gonna be at Starbucks.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You know Jets and Dolphins potentially playing Week one. Giants
and Cowboys we know playing Week one. We got the
international schedule. Today, we find out there's going to be
a Thanksgiving Eve game, And watching this, all I could
think of was this with with the NFL at the
schedule lease Like now now they've turned it into this
is where I say, hey, the NBA still sucks the
draft lottery because hey, we're jamming it in, you know,
(05:41):
before a Knicks playoff game and then when it can
really be its own thing everybody between the games, by
the way, and we had talked about it, like because
traditionally that's where it is, here's a little little bit
of a break in the action because there was a
gap between the games, would have been able to fit
it in there.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Now let's do it at noon.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
We always say the NFL finds a way to take
advantage of everything on this Now, schedule release day is
a thing.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Not anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now it's schedule release week because every day this week
we are getting Hey we had the Giants Cowboys game
on Monday, we had a few more games.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yesterday, we had all the international slate.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Today like it's now schedule release week. This is this
is like the scene with Anthony Bourdain in Wolfe of
Wall Street when he talks about using every part of
your protein right and all right, this will be made
into a soup and this will be That's what the
NFL does with the schedule release.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
We get every piece of.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It use the Jets will get one of those random,
hey Thursday night games against the Patriots. That's the only
time they'll be on. But like you see the NFL
taking advantage doing this, but watching the way it's gone out,
I kind of feel like the NFL is reminding me
of like a big auction house that has all kinds
of memorabilia and they decide, okay, we we need big
(06:56):
cash flow. We want to you know, we want to
pay some investors, want to want to be able to
buy more memorabilia. So we're gonna sell off, you know,
just a bunch of high priced items. And we're gonna
sell off this baseball for five million dollars. We're gonna
sell off this set of golf clubs that belonged to
Walter Hagen, the very first set of clubs he ever had.
That's gonna go for twenty five million dollars. Right, we're
(07:17):
gonna sell this. We're gonna sell and they have all
kinds of money coming in that again they can reinvest,
pay investors, buy new things like, this is what the
NFL is doing. It's like, oh, we have two hundred
and seventy two pieces of memorabilia, right, we have all
seventeen weeks in the regular season we can give away.
We can sell twenty five of these things. Oh hey, oh,
you mean you'll give us one hundred million dollars for
(07:38):
a night before Thanksgiving game. We'll give you a game. Sure,
we'll give you one of those games. That's no problem.
Like once the NFL found that Amazon said, yeah, give
us a Black Friday game for one hundred million dollars. Oh,
so each game's worth a hundred million dollars. Okay, Now
it's like that's what they're doing. Hey, we're gonna sell
off these games and make one hundred million dollars a game,
and we're gonna get We're gonna keep reinvesting and owners
are gonna get more money, and teams are gonna get
(07:59):
more money. Well, you're selling off some of your some
of your your your your collateral there, and some of
your product. Well it doesn't matter. In a year, We're
gonna add another sixteen games with the week eighteen of
the regular season. So these twenty five games we're selling
off we're really only selling off nine because.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
We're getting sixteen.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
More like, it's a brilliant business exercise at the NFL.
And and this is how it's gonna be done right.
It's not gonna be the case for the NFL where
in five years everything's going to streaming, right. Roger Goodell
said the other day that a streaming partner would have
to bowl us over with an offer to get us
to move it. Which yes, as you said earlier in
the show, Hey, that means let me know what you got.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
But it's a lot of backlash. It's a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
If you're suddenly taking all of the AFC games going
to Amazon, the NFC games go to Netflix, it's a lot.
But for the next I'll tell you the next five
years is gonna be just like this because what they've
seen is, yeah, we're okay piecemealing games out. We got
nine international games this year, next year will be ten,
and we're gonna be eleven, and we'll be twelve. We
got a Thanksgiving Eve game, We're gonna have a Christmas
(09:03):
Eve and Christmas Day game. Now we're gonna have new
They're gonna find a way to continue to piece meal
this out one hundred million dollars plus a game. The
price is just going up. Everybody's gonna want to buy it.
And this is just the way it's gonna go. It's
gonna bleed for the next few years. We're i mean
not saying it's not gonna happen at some point where
stream He's gonna take over. But this is what the
next five years is gonna be. It's just gonna be
(09:24):
this way of the NFL saying, oh, yeah, we can
either throw this game on a Sunday, which what does
it matter. We have a bunch of games on a
Sunday anyway, or we can sell this one hundred million dollars. Hey, owners,
how do you feel about that? Yes, let's do that.
Let's sell more games, Let's play more games overseas, Let's do.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
All this money. Money, money, money.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I mean, this is an absolutely brilliant plan. But again,
it reminds me of an auction.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
How it's going.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, we'll get some money coming in, we'll sell some stuff.
We still got tons of stuff. We'll buy new stuff,
and we're gonna keep doing this forever. Well, you reset
the market with each piece, and you establish the the
proposition of all right, this window, this opportunity, this in country,
these different streaming platforms or network partners. It makes sense.
(10:07):
It's proof of concept, and now we establish what the
market is.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
It's today was a huge release in the trading card world. Right,
this is the Prospects special for baseball cards. The Bowman
set came out and everybody's looking at all right, who's
the next guy Holiday's brother, or you're looking at you know,
the White Sox sluggers or whatever else. But it becomes
the marketplace of all right, first sold. All right, now
we've got that market Well, how many of them are
(10:32):
coming out? There? Are they serially numbered? To your point,
there's only two hundred and seventy two of them. This
is one of two seventy two. Now we have that
many fewer with each one or each package that gets sold. Hey,
here's a lot of five that will sell to you
for Thursday nights. Come and get it sold. All right,
now we only have all right, we just got rid
of six of them. There's two sixty six left. Guess
(10:54):
what price poker keeps going up? Because now we're going
to scarcity. It's like your auction draft for a fantasy
football or fantasy baseball. Wait, I need a catcher. There's
only three of them that can hit. All right, Well,
that guy's gonna go for a lot of money, right,
or the shortstop or you know, quarterback in the NFL,
if you want someone who's gonna be vilab on a
weekly basis. But for this, yeah, you've got that proof
(11:16):
of concept. And now you'll go on the calendar and
figure out where it makes more sense. And eventually we
go to the eighteenth game, and as much as the
players will moan and complain and they'll be like, wait,
the salary cap went up again? What And with those
extra games, we're able to collectively bargain for more jobs,
to keep guys in the league longer, or to add
(11:38):
just more potential to stay another year or two if
you're willing to make concessions on your contracts whatever else. Yeah, yeah,
sign me up. Oh wait, now we need a nineteenth Sure,
and the NFL will keep printing them, right, keep writting them.
Let's go back to the well, this is the second
edition of this issue, right like comic books, all right,
(12:00):
we got to cover variant. It's the second time that
we're reprinting this because it was so popular. Sure, the
first edition is gonna be worth more, or is it
because these are holographic variants or as you come to
know it, Friday Night Football. I mean, really, it's a
it's a case of the NFL saying, we know where
(12:23):
the business is going, and if we continue to put
these games out, one or two at a time, a
couple of new things here, Well it's not like, well,
we're gonna put out an eight game slate and and
these different entities are gonna bid on it, and and
you're gonna get a certain amount of money. But when
you're saying, hey, we're gonna add another two or three,
well we got to get one of those. And yet
we'll give you all because now it doesn't seem like
(12:45):
they're giving you a lot more. It's like at they
wanted to say, hey, here's a bid for this. I mean,
the money would be insane, But what kind of competition
are you getting. But if we're gonna, you know, slowly
add two or three new games in here, well we
got to get that game. We saw what this game
means for that. So what this game means for for Amazon,
We see that there's gonna be a triple header that
(13:05):
we didn't expect to see like that's gonna that continues
to create interest in that I gotta get one of
these because there we're not I'm not gonna. I can't
sit back and just wait for Well, we'll save our
money and I'll all of a sudden they say, hey,
the rights are up, Well we'll take all that money. No,
they know that they continue to have to bid now
because it's just coming out dribs and traps like the
NFL is doing this in a brilliant way.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No other league can do this.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
No other league can say, hey, we're gonna sell you
these individual games anything, no college football. If they found
a way to sell their game, they couldn't even do
this right. This is where the NFL runs unopposed because
they can keep doing this in perpetuity just as long
as people still want watch the NFL, and I don't
think that's going anywhere. They're gonna be gonna keep doing
this and saying, hey, here's some more games, here's some
(13:49):
more games. We'll find another way to get a game
in there. Hey, guess what, We're gonna have a special
Halloween Day game.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Wait what yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What but Halloween's on a Friday does matter. We're gonna
put a Halloween game on a Friday, and it's gonna
be this this, Uh, it's gonna be broadcast by the
Sci Fi Network or whatever it is. We're gonna find
a way to put something out there that's gonna continue to,
little by a little get you to keep buying it
and and and making each individual game worth that kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Because you get creative with it too.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And this is where the marketing machine of it all
comes into play.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
We've seen the iterations of the toy story games or
the NBA jam looking uh setups, or Mickey Mouse playing
on the streets of downtown Disney or right by the Castle.
I mean, you've done all those overlays, and that expands
your market because now you're adding toy companies revenue uh
(14:44):
and for those ads, sales and all of that. So
everybody's getting fat. So when you can do more of that,
you get into the sci Fis, you get into maybe
some true TV. I don't know, but you have so
many different entities that want a piece of that pie
because it is just so lucrative and valuable for that
live space. You got all the networks and now we
(15:05):
keep seeing Amazon and Netflix and everybody else getting involved
in telling you it's only so far before we're selling
stuff like where you know, hey, the Ronco products in
the third quarter, this punt, get your blender Exit O
out of Fresca exit swalling down. The Jason Smith Show
with my best friend Mike Carmon Coming up next, The
biggest stuff from tonight in the NBA. Does the Cavaliers
(15:28):
win tonight mean bad things for Lebron James? That's next,
Jason to Mike Fox.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Set.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Got here.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
I have a podcast Empire. It continues to grow, and
I have brought it here to Ihearder. I'm also doing
a live radio show from three to five pm Eastern
because my wife wanted to kick me out of the house.
It's called ste Gotson Company Live, which is available in
podcast form right when the show finishes every single day.
(16:09):
Some of the biggest names in sports.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
A lot of phone calls.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I love you, got your show. It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
A lot of interact shit guys, not taking themselves too seriously.
Those are just some of the things that you can
expect from Stu Gottson Company and Steve Gotson Company Live.
So listen to Steve Gotson Company Live and our original podcast.
Please subscribe, rate and review Stu Gotson Company and God
Bless Football. Taylor's livelihood depends on it. You do it
(16:37):
today and you can check all of those out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts,
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best
friend Mike Harmon, where the cz Eveland Cavaliers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Are now one win away from a showdown with a Knicks.
Look Conference finals quite honestly, and Eastern Conference Finals.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
We thought we were gonna.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Get maybe two years ago, but yeah, what looks like
we're gonna get it now.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Led by James Harden.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, okay, And I will say this first of all,
you look positivity here on a Wednesday. Always about positivity.
James Harden tonight thirty points, big clutch free throws at
the end, rebounding his own missed free throw in overtime
was huge. Flat footed Detroit Pistons players in the lane
(17:38):
I talked about playoff Harden the first couple of games,
and this is who Harden is. This is who he's
been for the last fifteen years. It's not gonna change.
But I gotta be accurate. The last three games, James
Harden has been terrific. He has been fantastic. Was the
best player on the flour tonight for the Cavs. Probably
should have given him the ball the end of regulation
(18:00):
of forcing it to Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
He was due.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He was the best player on the floor.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
No qualifiers, no anything, Jason, but you hate James Harden.
I don't like to say great things about James Rden,
but I know I have to be accurate. James Harden
the last three games has been terrific.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Let's see if he can do it again. He has
been really surprisingly good, so good.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Maybe he's done and these can't do it again, but
he has been so good these last three games.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I gotta give him credit.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Forty three minutes, played thirty points eight of twenty one
from the field, and he did miss a couple of
free throws down the stretch, so I thought maybe you'd
go after him for that, although he did rebound his
own to earn two more trips to the line. Fantastic.
Strews was great for them, had a couple of big
plays off the bench, twenty points for him. They helped
(18:53):
pick up what was a struggling Donovan Mitchell. It seems
like he just left everything on the court. Sec and
a half performance last game. Yeah, so James Harden had
to put that cape on. He said, Not only am
my starting out, so I'm gonna finish slow, I'm gonna
finish slowly the entire game because I'm really really exhausted.
From forty eight points in three quarters whatever it was,
(19:14):
seven and eighteen from the field, won for eight from
three point range, finished with twenty one points on the night.
But overall, you know, James Harden, you also could have
gone after the six turnovers.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, you couldn't have six turnovers regularly, but he had.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
He had more made baskets and turnovers tonight. So I
left him alone with it eight greater than I left
him alone with James. James again, James Harden has been great,
but now he's gonna get tired.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
He was great, so all of a sudden next game
he's gonna get tired. Great.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
This is usually when he gets tired, and then it
gets tired at the end of the games and misses
a lot of shots that costs the team wins.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
But he's been great the last three games.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Your guys have gotten a lot of chance to rest up,
no question about it.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
As we look.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Ahead to the next game, and said, series spread currently
at four, started at three and a half. Uh, you know,
I told you last Kay last week when the Pistons
were getting ready for getting ready to preview Game seven
against the Magic, I said, look, the Magic are done.
They're cooked. They had a three to one lead. They
blew it. Whatever the point spread is, give me the Pistons.
(20:17):
They're closing this out in style. And they did. I
feel the same way about game six, except I'm gonna say,
whatever the spread is, give me the Calves, double it,
triple it, because the Pistons are done. They looked absolutely
cooked tonight at home at home the last five minutes
of regulation, they couldn't do anything offensively, They couldn't get
(20:38):
a shot off. They looked done. They looked like they
were just going through the motions. They were settling for
bad jumpers. Their last possession when they had a chance
to go ahead and win the game. Kate Cunningham can't
get to the hoop. He settles for a bad fade away.
They luckily get an offensive rebound. Then Kate even get
a shot off before the twenty four second clock you know,
resets to fourteen. And that goes out like it was terrible.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
And then they.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Compound it in overtime with a really bad careless turnover
and not boxing out letting Harden rebound his own missed
free throw. Like the Pistons look like a team that says,
you know what, we're finished. It's They're the the kid
in school that's looking at the clock saying it's two
fifty eight and thirty seconds. This bell is gonna ring
in a minute and a half. I got my backpack on.
(21:23):
I'm not writing down anything, the teacher says anymore. I'm
pushing out my chair so I could be the first
one out the door onto the playground. Like they look
like they're done. They look like they have they have.
They have hit the wall. And for a team that
that I thought was coming into the playoffs, they're gonna
give people all kinds of problems their depth again, they
run nine to ten deep. The guys play that big minutes.
Cad Cunningham got through the first difficult part of the
(21:45):
playoffs still carrying the Pistons, which is what great players do.
But eventually you gotta play like you can and I
haven't seen it. They have not played like the Detroit
Pistons yet in this playoffs, and now we're getting this
is not ay week Game two, Game Threecks did hey
after Game three of that first round series against the Hawks,
It's okay, we're flipping a switch. It's time to put
(22:05):
on a clinic And that's what they've done. But this
is a Pistons team that still looks like they look
like they're done and all their warts have been laid bare.
Theok like a team that they don't have another option
behind Kate Cunningham. We talked about this a couple hours ago.
Rick Buker talked about it with us last hour. They
now seem okay. In the offseason, they gotta go after
somebody else to be that number two scorer behind Cunningham
(22:26):
because they don't have anybody else that you can rely
on to get a bucket. Right. Tobias Harris is a
nice player, but when it's like hey, it's either it's
either cateror Tobias Harris. You got problems, man, The Pistons
have problems, and they're going home in game sex. Yeah,
you look at the way the rotation went. Jenkins ends
up with nineteen. He's in place in Duncan Robinson. So
you missed that three point acumen that you're used to
(22:47):
and spreading the floor. But Jenkins does well eight of
seventeen from the field up. But to that point, again,
Robinson's just a twelve point game score. Paul Reid comes
off the bench. This thing again goes back to Jayalen
Duran and in his ability or where he's fallen short
in this series, is that Paul Reid came off the bench.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
He played all the fourth quarter and overtime, so like
he had played a minute. So it's a little more.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It would have been more shocking if Paul Rudd came
off the bench and played a bunch of best.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
That's a man. You can't even see him.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Then he gets really big, and then he gets really
big in the low post. There's no question about it.
But you talk about that trying to find the second score,
trying to find some level of consistency there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Which has not been the case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Whereas for the Cavaliers, you've got some balance, you've got
some depth, and now they're on the precipice of facing
off against your knicks. And for Detroit it becomes, well,
what's the next iteration of the squad needed to look like?
I know Bicker Steph still had some issues with officiating
because they did win the points in the paint, so
they did operate there for a good chunk of the game.
(23:57):
But the false shots were thirty eight to twelve, and
certainly we saw a lot of that for the Cavs
in the fourth quarter in overtime. But yeah, you end
up finishing the season with a lot more questions. And
this was a squad that predicted to finish well, wins
the regular season trophy as your number one seed, which
gets you a whole lot of nothing. Now, when it
(24:19):
comes to Lebron James, why does he have something to
do with this game tonight? Huge things to do with
this game.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Today was a real crazy day because story comes out
Dave McManaman, who's been covering Lebron James'.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Entire career, stalking that.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well he's got he's got a careers an insider, no
I yeah, I can't fault to all the people following
brought Brian Windhorst, all these guys until big career.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
He threw wind Horse offs beat it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But we hear today that potentially Lebron James very mad
at the Lakers because they didn't honor him with the
game ball the night he set the record for most
wins in NBA history?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Did he get it from? Honest?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Happened if they were fighting over at mid And now
there's a lot going on with this, but so that's
something we're going to get into in a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It's a crazy ass story.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
But just know that now you have questions, you know,
Lebron and the Lakers maybe at odds over this. This
comes out, as Rick Buker said, this is where Lebron's
got to tell whoever leaked this story, dude, what are
you doing?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
This does not make me look good. But bottom line is.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
When we're in the middle of this discussion about what's
next for Lebron, right it really there's two choices. Right,
there's two choices for Lebron. There's he stays with l
A are you kidding the Knicks? Like, dude, we know
Knicks are going to Knicks from the Eastern Conference Finals
for the second straight year. Lebron, Sorry, man, you missed it,
but no, no, no, no no. Then it's Giannis. Then
(25:49):
it's Jannis going back to what you were saying a
couple of weeks ago, and you're fitting that jersey again.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So he's got two choices.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He stays with the Lakers, or he goes home to Cleveland,
because they're only one place he can go if he
leaves La where he can have the storybook ending that
he wants to, and that's going home, because if he
goes anywhere else and doesn't win, it's gonna be Look
at Lebron, he tried to jump from team to team
at the end, and he couldn't do it. That's why
Golden State, Lebron. That doesn't make a lot of sense, Lebron. Again,
(26:19):
you're not gonna win anything in the NBA if you
are basing your team around guys in their mid thirties.
But that's where you go the sentimentality of I've always
admired the game Steph Curry and I've always wanted to
play with him. Not gonna win, that's not so that's
not He got a guy with a violin, as you say.
So there's two choices, right, it's the Lakers or the Cavaliers,
(26:41):
Because the Cavaliers, if he goes to Cleveland and they
don't win the title, yeah, people are gonna say, oh, Lebron,
he could win, but it's gonna be awe. But look
at him come home. It's gonna be a whole season
or whatever he decides to retire of. Here's Lebron getting
a rocking chair, he's getting a pony, he's getting whatever
it is. Here he is home again. This is how
this is the last I'll play here. That's the last
time I'll do this. And if he doesn't win, he
(27:04):
can leave with I'm just a guy from Akron. I
started here, I left, I came back. I left, I
came back. It's always gonna be my home. I finish
at home. But then our guy Kenny wrote, and all
the people there in Cleveland going.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He left a broken home.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The Catdaliers are further away from a title than they
ever were, so that's the only place he can go.
Or if he doesn't win, he's not gonna my career
is not gonna finish that Frostbury. You can say that
a million times. Now I'm next next. I'm not worried
about you putting that out in the atmosphere because that's
not happening. That's not happening. You're You're gonna have to
stick with Lebronnes and keep him. You're gonna have to
(27:38):
keep it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
No one else is happening. You're gonna have to keep
him whooping the Knicks ass. He said, Burr, it's cold.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
He can only go back to Cleveland, right, So I
think why he would go back? Now, why would Cleveland
want him back? Cleveland would want him back because now
they're a big time contender in the East. They have
a pretty young core. But maybe we're lebron James away
cause we need somebody that can fill the gaps to
do what he did with the Lakers this year. Sometimes
(28:06):
play point guard, sometimes small forward, sometimes power forward. Be okay,
being the number two guy to Donovan Mitchell, but coming
home being the guy being grandpa coming go Hey. He
can fill in there and he can be an asset
to us. Maybe he can help us mature. Maybe it's
good for us in the playoffs where we have a
guy who's been through it and one and he can
(28:27):
take the pressure on his shoulders and let our guys
just play their games right, Because this is for the
Cavaliers why he would be attractive there. That's why the
next two games are so unbelievably huge for Lebron James's future,
because the Cavaliers, if they win, which I think they are,
they go to the Eastern Conference Finals. Are they going
(28:47):
into the offseason saying if we don't win, if they
don't beat the Knicks, they don't go to the NBA Finals.
Are they gonna say, you know, if we had Lebron,
we could have won.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
No, they're not.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
They're gonna lose to the Knicks. If Karl Anthony Towns
is gonna wind up having a series and make him
look like Bill Russell, where the ball's gonna be going
through him, he's gonna have a huge game. They don't
have the bigs to stick with him. It's gonna be
we have to build our team to beat the Knicks.
We need a big that can score, that can play
a really good defense. We need a big two way
player there. That's what they'll go after, because that's what
it's gonna be. That's gonna be their questions if they
(29:16):
lose to the Knicks. Right, that's where we are. So
Lebron suddenly is not gonna have a place to go to.
It's gonna be the Lakers are nowhere, and the Lakers
have a lot of leverage. If the Cavaliers lose the
next two games, they blow Game six at home, they
lose Game seven, they walk into the offseason going we
had it. What were we missing? Maybe we were missing
(29:37):
that veteran presence to help us close out games. Maybe
we were missing that guy to come in that can
do all the things that we needed to be done
that we didn't do in the game six. In Game seven, right,
we need somebody to play, to play point guard for
a little while, right and stop our tour whatever it was.
Maybe then we are a Lebron James away. These next
two games are huge for Lebron because if the Cavaliers
(29:59):
move on, they're gonna walk into the offseason not need him.
If they don't, they blow it, then Cleveland can still
be a destination for him. Now, there's a couple of
things I want to touch on here, the first one
being the wicked configuration that could exist. James Harden has
a forty two million dollar player option.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Say he decides he wants to stay in Cleveland, do
you really think he's like he's gonna turn that down?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He's been getting forty million dollars from team for years,
but eventually that trick is gonna run up empty for Lebron. Well,
but that option is there, so you have him, you
have Donovan Mitchell. Let's bring in Lebron James. Tell me
you don't want to see that that trilogy going at
I mean, that's a Spider Man meme if there ever
was one in terms of trying to roll through. I
(30:56):
good luck navigating that one. So that so that's fun.
The other is going back to your Knicks commentary, how
many times did you practice in the mirror and in
the car on the way here the phraseology of quote
building a team to compete or beat the Knicks, that's
(31:16):
you're gonna quote.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I never thought that.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
How many time did you have to go through that
in your head to where there wasn't a question mark?
Now a snicker or a flat out giggle or an
exasperated side Once in a great while, I actually stopped
myself and say, I can't believe I'm saying this about
one of my teams. Like maybe it's like every eight
or ten years, but like, I can't believe I'm saying
(31:38):
that about one of my teams that now teams in
the East are gonna have to build themselves to beat
the Knicks, Like that's I never when when did you
think I would ever say that?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I mean, but now I get to say that, which
is awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
When the original playing, I probably won't even get to
say this for the ten years after this, but I
get to say it now. No, it's it's just that
curious space that we're in right now, and a lot
of it depends on Karl Anthony Towns and what he becomes,
and and not to get ahead of ourselves, because we
still have to crown a contender, uh to play them
before it's all said and done.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
But it
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Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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