Ahem.....KEVIN DURANT IS A HOUSTON ROCKET!!!, Blast-off For The Postseason!

Wex and AC spend nearly ALL FOUR hours reacting to the Kevin Durant trade in Houston!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam, raised.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
By Earl.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Nolan, multed by the magnificent roller coaster ride that is
Houston sports, chill lags down for the only homegrown afternoon
team is.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Talking Your teams?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A teams.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Ah, you wouldn't know it, but Kevin Durant's a rocket.

Speaker 5 (01:00):
It is the A team. Sports Talk seven to ninety
Monday edition of the show. Yeah, slightly big news from
over the weekend. Now, we talked about this going into
the weekend. Not only would it be the final game
of the NBA season and we'll have thoughts on that obviously,
but we kind of figured that the week of the draft,

(01:25):
Durant would find out his destination.

Speaker 6 (01:28):
Yeah, there's a deadline. How nice?

Speaker 5 (01:29):
Well, I mean you the draft and there being picks
that the Phoenix Suns want to use in said draft.
It's it made this the case, Like, I don't think exactly,
this doesn't necessarily happen this way. If that's not the
little the caveat that whatever you want question. The unfortunate
part is, I'm still pretty sure Wednesday night, Adam Silver

(01:55):
is going to say, yeah, with the tenth pick he
has in the NBA Draft, the Houston Rockets select, and
he will name a player who probably won't be very good,
and he'll then be a Phoenix Sun on July sixth.
But yes, this was pretty exciting news, I think for
people one way or the other.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
We're ready to take your thoughts on it. You guys
have heard a lot of from us already, even though
we have not yet been on air. Each of the
last two shows had four hours worth of time to
spend with you, plus the time we all sortiedly spent
on social media with you. Looking at the future for
the Rockets, looking at the future for the Suns, because
it still matters to the Rockets what the future of
the Phoenix Suns is. The Sun's got the tenth pick

(02:32):
in the draft this year back from Houston, but they
still have remaining responsibilities to pay off to Houston from
previous trades in twenty seven and twenty nine. So the
future of the Suns is definitely something that the Rockets
are interested in. But Kevin Durant is going to be
a Houston Rocket moving forward. The date we mentioned, due

(02:53):
to Jalen Green's contract, one of the particulars in the
deal eliminates the possibility of the anouncement coming before the
new league year begins. We do have the NBA Draft
Wednesday and Thursday. We will have the opening of the
new league year and free agency shortly after that, and
when that comes to pass on July sixth, it will
all be made official. Kevin Durant, obviously, as you all

(03:14):
know by now, was part of a rather large event
this past weekend over in New York City and was
right there in front of the people to awkwardly answer
some questions about his future. Again, because the official nature
of it to everybody involved from an organizational standpoint, pretty
much precludes them from saying anything. His position a little
bit different. He and his agent clearly got the news,

(03:37):
or made sure the news would come to them, uh
that Saturday or that Sunday morning, yesterday. They were able
to share it with each other. They were able to
share it with a lot of other people. And we'll
get to share that with you, our thoughts, your thoughts,
the future of the Rockets. Has it changed course in
any way to you, whether for the positive or for

(03:57):
the negative. Seven one three two one two five will
be taking your thoughts all throughout the day, both there
on the phone lines and of course via social media.
If you want to hit us up at Adam J. Wexler,
at Adam Clinton, or at mister Cole Thompson, the A
team is here for you on that front. We'll start
this way before we get into everything else happened this
past weekend, because it was packed full of things. We

(04:18):
need to get into some from the other coast out
in LA. But initial thoughts, since we spent about three
weeks wondering if the Rockets would be willing to part
with some part of their core if they were truly
in on thinking Kevin Durant as a rocket makes them better,
because teams don't make this move unless they think that,
and Phoenix obviously made this move for the longer term,

(04:39):
but they think it's a good move for them and
merely more concerned about what do you think? So I
ask of you Ac the initial reaction if you didn't
already catch it from Stone Cold yesterday in his truck.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
Yeah, why did everybody think that? I was gonna say?
And that's the bottom line.

Speaker 6 (04:54):
I guess they haven't seen enough of your personal when
I'm not at work postings from all the other things
you do. Hang out at the pool, go run Errand's
on the weekend, go to concerts, eat food, typical stuff.
You might see him dressed like a regular old person
every now and then. I'm gonna start wearing a leather
vest to work.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
No, I feel more strongly about what I said in
my truck yesterday than I did then. And you know
that was I allowed myself at least a half hour
or so to digest the knee jerk reactions, and as
a knee jerk guy, especially when it comes to the

(05:32):
local baseball team, much to the chagrin of my co host,
I understand you initially see five of any kind of
draft pick, and if you're any sort of like non
die Hard or not a talk show host who talks
about this kind of stuff on a daily basis, you're like, whoa,
what five draft picks for a thirty seven year old
Kevin Durant. Be like, there are layers to this, obviously,

(05:54):
there are levels to this. Look further there what we
always talk about here on the show, and Wex does
a good job of kind of painting that picture. They're
second rounders, i e. They are currency. They are not
going to be players that in all likelihood are going
to be any sort of you know, substantive anything for

(06:15):
your team, especially on a win now because that's what
this is about, a win now team, a win now organization.
You don't make this move unless you are and Vegas
reflects that, by the way, and we'll get into all
this stuff, but I just I.

Speaker 6 (06:27):
Look, first thought about this deal was they added five
second round picks to this. Well, no.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
My first reaction to people who were reacting like, oh,
we gave up too much, like, what are you talking about?
You gave up Jalen Green. You had to give up
something of value to me. Dylan Brooks is more about
salary than anything else. He makes a chunk of money.
And the only way you were going to be able
to make this deal and not give up all those

(06:53):
picks and not give up all the rest of your
young core and get the money to match is if
you threw in either Fred van Vliet or Dylan Brooks's
salary along with the guy who everybody knew you were
going to trade. Basically from the moment that you signed
Alpera and Shingun to a five year extension and only
signed Jalen to a three year extension, neither of which
were max dollars.

Speaker 6 (07:14):
It was like, Okay, this is a sink or swim season.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
If Jalen Green takes that next step, great, he's under
contract and it's not ridiculous money. He did for the
regular season, and then we all saw what happened in
the playoffs. I'm not saying Jalen Green got traded for
Kevin Durant because he only scored thirty eight points one
time and scored in single digits twice the other six games.
But I am saying it didn't help his cause and

(07:39):
it's a big reason why he finds himself honestly in
limbo today because I'm not convinced he doesn't get rerouted
at some point over the next few weeks.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
Yeah, my first thought was, like I said earlier in
the week last week when we were doing shows, you
got Kevin Durant. I never really had to go so
far as saying, but you had to give this up
because I never expect the Rocks to do that. I
felt pretty confident no one what they want, how they operate,
what they think about their team, and the fact they
would not knee jerk after one playoff series for a
men Thompson, one playoff series for Alprin Shangoon and Jabari

(08:09):
Smith Junior and Tario Easton and Jalen Green and on
down the line, they still believed. And it was the
premise that I made throughout the week last several weeks,
right after their playoff series ended. Point blank, they're in
a good position no matter what they do. They would
have to make an insanely bad trade to make themselves worse,
which obviously I think they're smarter then and did not
do that here. If they do nothing, they're in a

(08:31):
good position to win next year. The second best team
in the Western Conference on Saturday was arguably the Houston Rockets.
You could have argued some other teams like Minnesota and
maybe Denver the second best team in the Western Conference
today on Monday, unofficially, you definitely have to include the
Houston Rockets. It's okay if you still think Minnesota or

(08:52):
Denver has a better chance than Houston. Vegas does not.
Vegas doesn't know everything, and they've never seen Kevin Durant
play in a Rockets uniform. Neither have we. But that
was my first is you gave up what I thought
was a respectable amount. You look at the young core
you want to see get better, and you get to
watch them all do it in a Rockets uniform except
for one player. You can't get Kevin Durant for nothing.

(09:12):
I know. It seemed like you were almost going to
be able to get him for nothing, and there were
other teams bidding on his services and offering nothing, and
that's why they don't have him, and it is why
the Rockets do have him. They didn't offer nothing. I
don't think this deal is quite as bad for Phoenix
as many others do. I also think they could reroute
both of these players. Maybe not immediately, but I could

(09:33):
certainly see forty good games from Dylan Brooks forty five
to fifty games until the trade deadline, when if there
has not been any new deal for him, and I
don't expect there will be, he could technically get an
extension from them. I don't believe that will be the case,
so it would lay this out at the trade deadline.
He's done what he always does for Memphis, then for Houston,
now for Phoenix. Provides what a really good team needs

(09:56):
to win. He can't do that in Phoenix the winning part,
but the thing he has done for both of his
last two teams. There's no reason he won't do those
things for Phoenix. So why wouldn't a good team, if
they can make the money work, be someone interested in
adding Dylan Brooks sometime in the next several months. In
Jalen Green's case, it's more about fit. There's no reason

(10:17):
for a team like Phoenix to not want Jalen Green
except their particular team has only two expensive players. They
both play the two guard. They can't really outfit a
competitive team. I don't think with all three of them
still on their roster. I don't know what means they
trade any one of them before the season begins. One
of them they just got. One of them isn't going

(10:38):
to be moved, and the other one has an enormous contract.
I'll say it again, like I said last week, Bradley
Beal's individual offensive numbers were actually extremely good last year.
Somehow he didn't help him win. He doesn't play any defense.
I know that's part of the answer to somehow, but
it's his contract that prevents him from being moved. He's
not over the hill an I can't play any more player,

(11:01):
but he is very difficult to move. And again this
matters to Houston. If Phoenix finally decides once and for
all to stop competing for the eleventh spot, which is
maybe where they're targeting right now, which is still good
for Houston. Down the road, they could send themselves into
a different direction. Don't have their pick for next year
or their own, but after that two of the next
three years they have control of the Phoenix Suns pick,

(11:24):
which also means they could move those picks somewhere else
to help this year's team if they so choose. But
yet initial thought was really simple. They didn't give up
too much. I don't see how they're going in the
wrong direction. They have plenty of defensive mindset players to
move forward with. And as I said last night on
Sports Sunday, both Adam and I were there. I think

(11:47):
the pressure is obviously on the new player. He's going
to the Hall of Fame. He came here to win.
There is some pressure on Kevin Durant, especially as he's
team hopped his way out of Oklahoma City multiple times,
but there should be pressure on everybody else to the
same degree. They cannot win if Amen Thompson doesn't get better.

(12:07):
They cannot win. If alprin Atari and Jabbari and on
down the line and Cam and Reid don't get better,
don't make a difference. How about if I told you
they just traded for Kevin Durant, Cam wentmore and read Shepherd,
because that's basically what they did. If they're all three
Rockets next year, Yeah, we're just scratching the surface. Lots
to get into, lots to time to welcome you into

(12:30):
this discussion, Plenty of additional time to talk about the
Rockets and the Astros. The Astros who won a second
consecutive road trip more wins than losses when they leave
Dyke and Park the first two times that's happened all year.
They have the best team in baseball for the month,
and we only have a week left to go in
the month, and they continue to set the pace in

(12:52):
the American League West. And off day today, thirteenth straight
days of baseball without one and then they pick back
up tomorrow. A couple of very good National League teams
coming to town, beginning with the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday.
So looking forward to discussion on both of those things. Obviously,
a full weekend of other items for us to enjoy
with you. Here on a Monday edition of the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (13:24):
We've got breaking news out of the NBA where Kevin
Durant is headed to the Houston Brocket.

Speaker 8 (13:29):
If you wanted the critique Houston, he was they couldn't
score in the half court.

Speaker 9 (13:32):
They just got one of the best to ever score
in the half court in Kevin Durant.

Speaker 10 (13:35):
Been able to kind of dictate what you want to
do and then stand with a team that values you
and I'm looking forward to him.

Speaker 11 (13:42):
He elevates them to championship status.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
This they got a shot to win it all.

Speaker 12 (13:47):
They asked me where I wanted to go some of
my destinations. I gave it to him. Mate, here we.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Are kill me and Fatida's ecstatic email. You dope is ecstatic.
I'm trying to tell you. They love it.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
They are incredibly happy about it.

Speaker 5 (14:03):
It's just a little sampling of some of the national
media's reaction to the Kevin Durant news. Look, there are
people out there, and honestly, I think they're the same
people that if Kevin Durant had been traded to their team,
they would be saying the same things that we are,
and then conversely, maybe some people here in Houston would

(14:26):
be like, ah, you know, he is what he is.
He is thirty seven when the season starts. He has
not played more than what sixty two games over the
past handful of seasons. And he's also far better at scoring,
which is all that's really going to be asked of
him here in Houston than anybody on that roster last

(14:47):
season for the Rockets on a fifty two win club.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
They played seventy five games two seasons ago. Okay, so
it is there.

Speaker 5 (14:56):
I'm gonna say this now so we can get it
out of the way. Is there a scenario where he
has given the Steven Adams Tarry Easton treatment. He's not
playing him back to back games with the intention of
keeping him healthy for when the games really count.

Speaker 6 (15:10):
I doubt it not. In full Again, we talk about
those two players like they weren't hurt. Steven Adams missed
a year and a half of basketball before he came
back last year. Tari Easton still has a little bit
of mystery around what ailed his leg and what prevented
them from wanting to send him out there as often
as it appeared that he could have been, and it

(15:31):
also worked brilliantly. Both of them were at one hundred
percent or as close as you can be when the
postseason rolled around and away from Houston and in the NBA,
it probably is worth noting again now that the finals
are over. It's the most unfortunate, obvious topic, and it
happens every year. Who wants to win the NBA Championship

(15:54):
Raise your hand if you think you're going to be healthy,
because nobody else will win. You will win if you're
health awful. It's the way goes. It's the way. It's
all it's been for probably two decades. I don't know
that it's always been the way in the NBA, and
obviously in my opinion, when you play an eighty two
game regular season and then you ask one team two
teams the losing team as well, to try to win

(16:14):
sixteen more times, there's plenty of time to do it.
Two months playoffs beginning mid April. We're here in the
end of June. They spread it out nicely, but it
is still an exceptionally long period of play, and you
are playing at the highest level for two months straight,
no matter how many days off in between you have
in between, no matter how many days you have in

(16:34):
between series. Oklahoma City had a very quick opening series,
and then an arduous second round series, and then a
very quick third series, and then an arduous finals series.
The finals was the only one that had extreme rest
in it and excitement drained out of it because of it.
But two teams or three teams in the Eastern Conference,

(16:54):
two of them had the chance to win an NBA
title this year, had players go down with an achilles
injury which will impact next season. Obviously, the last of
those happened last night with Tyre's Halliburton. I would imagine
none of the Eastern Conference draft picks on Wednesday night
in the opening round, We'll say, I want number zero

(17:16):
from my team. Eastern Conference. Lillard, where's zero? Eastern Conference? Tatum,
where's zero? Eastern Conference? Halliburton, Where's zero? If you wear
in the West, You're fine. I don't know where their
seasons will begin next year, but it's possible with Tyres
Halliburton just got hurt. A bunch of other NBA players
could have also gotten hurt in the middle of June

(17:37):
during the fifth or sixth week of their offseason. Workouts.
He got hurt during the season. The season just ended
for him, but it was two months after most of
the rest of the league was already finished. So his
timeline is pushed back. Jason Tatum's timeline is pushed back.
Lillard's timeline is pushed back to Kevin Durant. Obviously, injuries
have been a part of the back half of his career,

(17:58):
the first part of it when he was in Seattle.
Never got hurt in Seattle all season. The one season
stayed with the thunder franchise and essentially never got hurt
there either until the very end of it. He had
the nearly seasoned long injury, and then you saw a
series of those injuries pop up, and unfortunately it's exactly
what we saw the last week with Tyrese Halliburton and

(18:20):
Bob Myers is on set all week. We were there
in the thick of it. Kevin Durant has a strained calf.
I wonder what's next. Now, I promise, I promise he
can play, he can play, He'll be fine. Yeah, his
weekend calf won't have anything to do with the fact
that he's about to blow out his achilles, which we
watched with very slow motion video, making it very obvious,
and the diagnosis has been confirmed that that's what happened

(18:42):
with Halliburton. So he signs with Golden State, talking about
Durant on a lengthy deal, knowing he's not playing that
first year, and he didn't and his games plays clip
not Golden State Brooklyn leaving Golden State for Brooklyn. Many
games were missed throughout his time in Brooklyn, and then
they would get to the playoffs and then he would
be okay, I'm good to go. I only played four

(19:04):
games one year. His big toe cost them more games
the previous year, and then essentially the same happened in Phoenix,
although his trips to the playoffs were either brief or
like this past year, non existent. I'd have injury concern
with every player. I do have more injury concern with Durant,
but not of the catastrophic variety. Kevin Durant's going to

(19:25):
turn an ankle. He's gonna have a minor something injury,
all right, he needs four games off, he needs a
week off, and then we'll reevaluate. He's gonna end up
missing the next nine games or so, which is basically
what happened last year. They started the year eight and one,
and then he started missing time and they still were
playing great basketball with him. Yes, Phoenix was playing great
basketball with him last year, and then he just had

(19:47):
pockets of time where he missed and clearly at the
end of the season there was no reason for them
to play him, and so they did. Last month of
basketball was in March. His last game of basketball was
against his new team, the Houston Rockets. So that's a
lot of the number of games that he missed last year.
But had the playoffs been there for them, just like

(20:08):
I hope when they're there for the Rockets, I think
if he's healthy when they begin, that's great, But I
still would have concern. He's got another twenty three postseason
games to play eighteen, nineteen twenty. If you're going to
the finals, that's a lot of that's one hundred games
to outfit him for and you're only concerned about the
final twenty years.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
So we give Kawhi Leonard and the first the Spurs
and then later the Clippers grief for that very thing.
I don't think that that is too much to ask,
considering what we're talking about and considering why you went
to get him, does it makes you?

Speaker 6 (20:46):
It does no good for you.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
If Kevin Durant scores thirty points per game all regular
season and then can't play and win the games count.

Speaker 6 (20:52):
Oh, that's true. But even you know the Kawhi Leonard
facts of games played. This is great comparison. But if
I ask you right now now, what's wrong with Kevin Durant,
You're not gonna say anything, because there's nothing wrong with him.
If I ask you right now on June twenty third,
what's wrong with Kawhi Leonard, You're gonna talk about his knee.
He has a problem. He has an issue, he has
a We need to figure this out every moment of

(21:13):
every day of every season, probably for the rest of
his career. And they did a nice enough job that
at the end of the season he was healthy, and
all through the postseason he was healthy. That's why they
almost pulled off the upset of the Denver Nuggets. And
I think there's a lot of older players like that.
Paul George seems like that. There's also a younger player
like that, Joel Embiid. I mean, it's the off season.
What's wrong with Joel Embiid? You should be saying nothing.

(21:34):
We'll see what happens next year. But it's not the case.
You're going into every season knowing we have to figure
out how to get him on the court and keep
him on the court. I'm not saying that about KD today.
I'm just trying to withstand anything that might come up,
any injury that occurs. How do we make sure it
doesn't get worse? Does he If he doesn't blow out
his knee, if he doesn't have something horrific, then he's
gonna miss name what I do and everything will be fine.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
What I don't want to have happen is the Rockets
race out to a ten oh star, which is plausible,
by the way, with the health we're talking.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
Who's on the.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
Schedule, I don't know. It doesn't matter. I'll tell you
who's gone to schedule Opening Night. You ready for this.
I'll make a prediction when we come back. Actually, we'll
do Best of X when we come back. But I
will make a prediction in the final segment of the
two o'clock hour about Opening Night and who it's going
to be, where they're going to play, what time it
will be, all of that. I've already got it figured
out months in advance, well at least a month in

(22:24):
advance before the NBA schedule comes out. But yeah, there
was a lot of reaction to this trade and many
other things over the weekend on the mean streets of
social media, and we will get to all of that
next in Best of X.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 12 (22:43):
Did you all see this putting out?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Between five and fifteen posts a.

Speaker 13 (22:47):
Day, four hundred people were arrested for things that they
said on social media.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
History repeats itself type beg, You'll succeed.

Speaker 6 (22:56):
Never doubt that you're.

Speaker 7 (22:58):
The one, two pers for no one, bud Yo the best.

Speaker 14 (23:03):
X.

Speaker 6 (23:04):
Nothing's gonna ever top you know, YO, the best posting
ever single day. You're the best of X, breaking the
entire Internet. It is the best of X.

Speaker 5 (23:25):
We do it every day around two thirty and we
go down all of the columns timelines. However, our setups
are each one of us respectively, and we see some
of the best stuff on Twitter, X, Instagram, et cetera,
et cetera. Now, yesterday was different because we knew the

(23:49):
amount of material we would be given was just fantastic.
But I want to start with the fact that well
you and I for sure posted our initial reaction to
the trade within the hour after we found out about it,
and we're like, hey, give us your thoughts and the replies,
And of course that's where a lot of the stuff
that I was already seeing and then continue to see

(24:11):
after I posted my video and you no doubt did
yours where you find out all right, some people are
just really really upset about this, and it's it's kind
of it's kind of insane because I was seeing more
than anything else, that's just so much to give up
to get him, And I'm like, what do you think
would have been the case if they did some of

(24:32):
the other scenarios that were out there, And you read
like Kelly Eco's article in The Athletic about how this
all came together, it paints a really interesting and clear
picture of just how firm the rockets were in saying
you can't have this, you can't have this, you can't
have this, you can't have this, and you can't have this.
If you do this, we'll do the deal. But when

(24:54):
I see people say I hate to give up Jalen
to get him, because you know, KD could have been
really good for him, but this move makes too much sense.
But then you have other people that are like, that's
way too much to give up for him. I just
I don't know what you thought was going to happen,
unless you just didn't want them to make any trade.
Stand pat and see what happens next year.

Speaker 6 (25:15):
Yeah, well, the way too much part, I'm not sure
about for sure. Just like you said you gave him
a starter, you got a starter. You gave him Dylan Brooks.
Maybe it tips the scale a little bit. You gave
him the tenth pick in the draft. The tenth pick
in the draft is welcome into the show. Tell us
about the tenth pick of the draft. I'm sure you
have tremendous knowledge about who that player is and how

(25:35):
he will perform on into the future. Also note that
that player stands a reasonable chance of slotting right behind
Reed Shepherd and Cam Whitmore on that you're not going
to be in the rotation tour here in Houston. And
while that player might turn out to be very good,
he might help your depth, he might fight his way
under the court, he might be better than I'm assuming
he would be. But you also have Kevin Durant. And yes,

(25:56):
there's a timeline on Kevin Durant. There is no timeline
on Jalen and there's no timeline on the tenth pick,
not one that you care about, because there's ten years
ahead of both of those players. There's three years ahead
for Kevin Durant. That is very much understandable. But yeah.
Some of the responses were I'm happy traded for nothing
unless you are O a Jalen Green believer. Is wex
gushing over this deal a gift from Billy Madison where

(26:18):
he makes fart noises and sticks his thumb down. I
think that means they don't like it. Kat's this came
from Superman or Clark Kent. Katie has been swept the
last four years in the playoffs and is no longer
number one option. His team didn't lose any playoff games
this year, aren't playing any Katie isn't going to play
back to back games. Jabarney's show vast improvement read and
Cam need to step up And the initial comment was

(26:42):
Katie does not play d We lost this deal only
one playoff series in Green twenty three or four, and
we traded him. I think that might be the most
reasonable thought about this. It's what is his future talking
about Jalen Green. That is a perfectly reasonable I don't
want to give him up because of and I think
some of us are losing sight of that because of

(27:03):
two weeks. Has been here for four years and then
he played two weeks of playoff basketball. The player you
saw during his first two weeks of his NBA career
or year two or year three, do you think that
was what he would be at the end of it all. Granted,
this two weeks of playoffs is after his fourth regular season,
but when he makes the playoffs again, and he will,

(27:25):
do you think he's going to have this limited aggression. Well,
some of the aggression is by design lack of it.
If they want to defend us this way, this is
how we want to play. Signed your coaches, signed your teammates.
I know he could have been more aggressive. I guarantee
you he could have scored more points. He probably would
not have been very efficient. His turnover count would have
gone from almost non existent because he barely turned the

(27:47):
ball over at all in this series too. I don't
know if this is tenable. I don't expect him to
ever end up on an All NBA team. He's certainly
not going to have the see any season or a
career like Kevin Durant, he just has more of it
in front of him and there could be excellence in
front of him. And not making all NBA doesn't mean
you're not a helpful part to a championship. Top thirty,

(28:09):
forty fifty NBA player, whatever number that he turns out
to be, and maybe it is borderline all NBA. What
if he goes from you know, a guy who you
can't count on to consistently make his shots, and he
got a lot of them last year. What if he
goes from a guy that can drive to the basket,
get hammered and not get fouls called to a player
that can go to the basket, get hammered but get
fouls called. Because we were experiencing that, he was experiencing

(28:31):
that firsthand. He was the player. But those things could
all change. The best of Jalen Green wasn't in the postseason,
and quite frankly, it wasn't in a Rockets uniform. Now
that he's going to be playing somewhere else, the best
of Jalen Green is in his future. Hope that's not
the case. Is there someone you think he's headed in

(28:51):
the other direction or something. I'm not saying.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
I think he's head in the other direction. But if
you're gonna bet your house that Jalen Green is going
to become something special.

Speaker 6 (29:01):
Well see that's not what was said. I said, that's
why he got traded.

Speaker 12 (29:04):
Then.

Speaker 6 (29:04):
The best part of his career is in his future.
That's all I said. Yeah, And I think that would
be extremely hard to argue against. No, I.

Speaker 5 (29:13):
Don't necessarily disagree, but again, I think the Rockets would
have held on to him. I thought if they thought
he was going to get so much better than he
is right now. I don't think he's going to do that.
I really don't.

Speaker 6 (29:26):
And I just I mean, you can make your head.
I'm not trying to get into a Jalen believer in
Jalen hater conversation because that's where I think people who
want to have. It's just that's not what it's about.
You cannot land Kevin Durant if you don't trade somebody
that's good at basketball. They had to it. It has

(29:47):
to happen. Look at the at least Miami for instance.
I think we have a pretty good idea of the
Miami offer. The Miami offer was a pick ten spots
worse than yours at twenty two players who are significantly
less talented than Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green additional players
to make the deal work was purely from a monetary standpoint.

(30:11):
Some of these teams involved in this deal. Miami is one,
and I think it's pretty clear San Antonio is another.
There's a reason why Kevin Durant isn't going there, and
it's not because Kevin diverted his path away. It's because
Phoenix hung up with the phone on them. Because they
weren't offering anything, nothing to make them significantly worse so
they could land their own picks, and nothing to make
them significantly better. And those two teams, it's just they

(30:34):
don't have what the Rockets have to off. The Rockets
traded away a starting player who scored more points than
anybody else they had, who's they signed an extension with
prior to the season. They don't hate him, they're not
giving up on him. They gave him to the team
so they could get this player. If they pulled Jalen
Green out of the deal, there is no deal because

(30:55):
they weren't willing to part with other players, most of
whom technically all of whom have done less with their career,
but they view as maybe reaching a higher ceiling individually
or mattering more towards winning big.

Speaker 5 (31:09):
But again, if the Phoenix Suns do what some people
are reporting there thinking about doing, and I don't know
if it's true or not, but if they turn around
and redirect Jalen Green in another deal, I mean I
think that kind of tells you what they thought of you.
And again, I know he plays the same position as
Devin Booker.

Speaker 6 (31:26):
And Bradley Beal right, I mean they're stuck. This is
why they were begging Raffelstone to say, can we please
have one of the other players? And he said no, right,
and he should have by the way, he did a
great job, yeah, I think.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
And again, so if they do trade him though you're
saying it's far more about the redundancy factor versus anything else,
because again I get that, but I could also see, well,
if Jalen was really that good, why wouldn't And again,
nobody wants Bradley Beal and his contracts.

Speaker 6 (31:57):
I get all that too, but I just four years
in you're not betting on is Jalen really really good?
Nobody nobody thinks that you're betting on can he be?
You're betting on the future. Still, the Rockets bet on
his future in the off season, and then they bet
on Kevin Durant's future in the immediate future beginning this year.
Phoenix or whomever Jalen Green suits up for next year

(32:17):
will be betting on the future. They don't. They don't
want him to be a finished product. If this is
the finished product, then of course the Rockets are okay
moving on from him. I just don't believe that's the case.
But I also do believe there's a ceiling. That's why
I initiated that conversation with I don't expect that there's
an all NBA spot in his future, but I do
believe there are other sides and other perspectives, and there

(32:39):
can be. As we gave to you in the best
of X some responses to our initial thoughts. And there's
a one other one we didn't even bring up that
people might disagree with, and they didn't do a good job,
and they should have just said, no, plain simple, We'll
just keep building with what we have. Feel free share
that with us seven one three two one two five
seven ninety the Rockets and Kevin Durant unofficially moving forward

(33:01):
in partnership.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
The A on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 5 (33:08):
Ninety Welcome back into a Monday post Kevin Durant trade
to the Rockets edition of the A Team Sports Talk
seven ninety. You can stare at our faces coming up
in the next segment, as the simulcast will begin over
on Space City Home Network. In the meantime, we are

(33:28):
here until six o'clock. Regardless of whether you're listening or watching,
or doing the combination of both. It's WEX, it's AC,
It's called Thompson, and it's today. After the trade that
frankly I thought somewhat overshadowed the deciding game in the
NBA Finals for a large part of the day leading
up to the game.

Speaker 6 (33:48):
Completely overshadowed it. And it was a joke everybody was
making when the report came out of Phoenix that it
could happen in the next day or two. Will the
announcement come during tip off? Will it come? Well SGA
is a free throw line. They break away from this
to talk about it. It was a big deal. It
was talked about in pre game, it was talked about
all throughout the evening. Players were talking about it, people
on site were talking about it. We were talking about it.

(34:09):
Now you guys can talk about it. Seven one three,
two one two five seven nine to get out to
the phone lines far and wide. Let's get tell Passo.
Let's get Dwayne in on the A team. Dwayne share
with us your thoughts.

Speaker 13 (34:20):
Hey, gentlemen, how you doing today? Hopefully everything's going well
there in Houston. I had a couple of comments, knowing
that the new basketball that we are playing now is
consist of patients, uh, defense, versatility as well as debt.

(34:42):
Why would the team the Houston markets were which were
following that very well with the coach, they have make
a trade and we won't know unless you know, something
changes next year whether they were the team to become
the world champions as the Oklahoma City thunder War. And
the other comment I had to make was why Kevin Durant.

(35:05):
The man is never happy anywhere he goes. And it's
not going to matter if becomes here or if they
would have sent him to Miami or they would have
sent him anywhere else. He's not gonna be happy. And
those are my two comments. God blessed, take care.

Speaker 6 (35:20):
You got it, Dwayne appreciate. Those are definitely two things
that a lot of people are pointing out. Let's start
with the first one. Not gonna know, Yes, that's sure
follow the path of Oklahoma City that's been shared by
a lot of people over the last couple of weeks.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, you know, traded for Sga after
his rookie season, so essentially he became what he is
now as a member of the Thunder. They've built around

(35:41):
him through the draft. When they got to this point
this past offseason, when it looked like they were about
to become the best team in the NBA, and remember
this was the second consecutive year they were the number
one seed in the Western Conference. Although they had the
same record, were tied at number one a year ago
they had the number one seed. It was also a
huge jump, a Rockets like jump, although they went from

(36:02):
a pretty good team to the best team record wise,
and then they obviously did not reach the Western Conference
finals a year ago. Building from within and leaning heavily
on their young talent, and they went out and did
what the Rockets did a couple of off seasons ago.
The Dylan brooks ad the Fred Van vliet Ad, you know,
Jeff Green, etc. They went out and added Alex Caruso
and Isaiah Hartenstein less for their guidance and wisdom, although

(36:26):
I do credit Caruso for some of that. We'll hear
from him later on the show, because he's probably an
honorary member of the show with what he had to
say yesterday at the podium. But nonetheless he had some
championship pedigree. But more to the point, these are the
things we need from a veteran. And then they went
out and made a huge jump, won sixty eight regular
season games, and they're the champs. But the Rockets aren't

(36:48):
like the Thunder in the most important way, the way
that gets you from one of these seven teams to
make the Western Conference playoffs. And Oklahoma City, the Golden
State Warriors have it, the Minnesota Timberwolves probably had it,
the Lakers they have it, obviously, the Mavericks did have it.
We'll find out about some of the other teams. Denver

(37:08):
has it, and the Rockets do not have it, and
they might not have it even now that they have
Kevin Durant. And that's the SGA. Anthony Edwards, Steph Curry,
Nikola Jokic caliber player, which takes us back to the
segment we just finished. That's not on their roster, is it?
Alprin shan Gun isn't that? Do you expect him to

(37:30):
become that? I guess we could talk. Jalen Green's not that?
Do you expect him to become that? And if you do,
that has to happen almost immediately now because this isn't
your one or year two for those players. This is
your four year five or your four year five for Jabari,
your three and your four for a man. I'm not
saying it's over, but the group together is continuing to

(37:50):
progress only if these players continue to aggress. And while
I would not sit here and say Avent Thompson isn't
that because I don't know what Amen Thompson's the team
level basketball is. I would bet on Jalen Green winning
a scoring title before i'd bet on Amn Thompson. I
wouldn't bet on either because I like my money. But
I think you get the point I'm making now. It's

(38:11):
about do you have a player that's gonna make sure
you're hard to beat, You're hard to score against, You're
going to win games because of me? Even though I
might not be twenty six, twenty seven to twenty eight
points per game score, because that's a men Thompson and
I do think it's fine to believe this team can
be phenomenal without Jalen Green, but with Kevin Durant Amnon
Alpi as your best three players.

Speaker 5 (38:32):
Well, something that the caller also said that I have
to push back against. And I get it. We are
talking about the day of the trade. He has not
even gotten a training camp. He hadn't gotten in town yet, be.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
In Vegas for all, we know when they start training camp. Well,
he was in New York yesterday. We know that, and
that's true.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
I would hope that he doesn't go the James Harden
route to quote, get himself into shape and then.

Speaker 6 (38:53):
Show it's not the GM like James was.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
What would a fat suit look like for Kevin Durant.
I've never seen one.

Speaker 12 (38:59):
We lose.

Speaker 6 (39:00):
Yeah, it wouldn't be much of a slim reaper. So
what did you want to push back on that?

Speaker 5 (39:05):
He's saying that Kevin Durant's just automatically not going to
be happy here. And even though we have not seen
training camp or a single game or postseason or anything else,
not to mention. We haven't seen an extension, and I
don't know that we necessarily will.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
I feel pretty confident we will. Now I'm not as
confident on what it's going to look like, correct having
but listened to more people discuss it.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
What the callers said was, he's not going to be
happy here. I've never seen a guy, well, let me rephrase,
I haven't seen a lot of players find out about
a trade in real time like we saw Kevin Durant
find out about it. And I'm not talking about when
he was on stage with Taylor Rook. I'm talking about
the video you posted of his representation clearly telling him
he was going to Houston, and he's animatedly if I

(39:47):
can make up a word, I think excited about it.
He's clearly happy, he's clearly pumped, and then he couldn't
get that bleep eating grin off his face the rest
of the time he was on stage and afterward, even
with Kay Adams, except for the part where he was
on Phoenix where they could stick it their fans and
their organization.

Speaker 6 (40:05):
You wanted me gone. I gets so good, all good.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
That's the Kunda Durant, and I'm excited about off the floor.

Speaker 6 (40:10):
Yeah, Kevin Durant was probably happy on the front side
of all of his new places. Happy at Golden State
when he first got there, happy at Brooklyn when he
first got there, Happy at Phoenix when he first got.

Speaker 5 (40:20):
How many reasons is he happy about going into any
of those situations that aren't even on the floor related.
Think about all the guys you named last night that
he's tight with in this organization right now before he's
ever even set foot in the city.

Speaker 6 (40:34):
A good stepping point into the next hour more if
you want in on the discussion, it will remain the
same as we begin an hour number two simulcast as well.
But what is it about this deal that makes you
feel strongly one way or the other? That's next.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
The age on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him Talking
your Team, Adam Clinton and Adam Weckfler par the Aeam.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
It's straight up three o'clock here on Sports Talk seven
ninety and now Space City Home Networks simulcast underway on
a Monday edition of The A Team, wex ac Cole
Thompson and Kevin Durant. Because we're all part of the
recipe here on a Monday, after KD finally gets traded.

Speaker 6 (41:30):
We had a feeling it would happen before the draft.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
I was going into the weekend kind of under the
impression that probably wasn't going to be Houston, simply because
from the standpoint of I didn't think they were going
to be willing to give up any other young piece
that wasn't Jalen Green that we talked about over much
of the first hour. I think the reason that this
trade is so good is because of what you didn't

(41:55):
give up, And I talked about that in the video
I posted on social yesterday. I know Wex is given
his thoughts, but this is our first real, full form
chance to talk about this deal. And it did not include,
you know, a Men Thompson was a non starter. But
it didn't include Opera in Shingoon. It didn't include you know,
any of the other young pieces, Tarry East and Jabari

(42:18):
Smith Junior maybe most pronounced, because I think that was
the name that was most often tied to a would
be deal. And it didn't, like you said in the
first hour, Wex, it didn't include Reed Shepherd or cam Whitmore.
And I know that there's some reports floating out there
that the likely starting five is just going to be
a men, Thompson sliding into Jalen's spot because he can

(42:38):
play all five positions, and Jabari getting his old starting
position back at the four where Kevin Durant would be
the three. But you know, Cam Whitmore is going to
get a chance here. I think I feel very strongly
saying that because otherwise they would have put him in
this deal. I highly doubt that Phoenix didn't at least

(42:58):
inquire about him.

Speaker 6 (43:00):
Yeah, but you already knew that the other deals were awful.

Speaker 12 (43:02):
They didn't have to.

Speaker 6 (43:03):
I mean, that's the bottom line. The bottom line is
the Rockets gave up something, but knew they didn't need
to give up a ton or more than their core.
They give it one player, one player from their young core.
And I'm only saying from their young core to make
sure you recognize I'm not trying to eliminate Dylan Brooks
from the conversation. Dylan Brooks value to the Rockets over
the last two years is probably immeasurable. Immeasurable to what

(43:23):
he meant to how this team plays. The idea that
this team backs down from nobody. It came from somebody,
and it's him. It's him and Ema Udoka and a
little bit of the other veteran stepped in, and clearly
each of the other individuals, probably a Men Thompson and
Cam Whitmore at the top of that list, that's just
who they are. We've already seen a Men Thompson get
into it with players. We've seen Cam Whitmore not back

(43:45):
down from any other players. But I do think they're
trying to cultivate the you can't push us around. I
don't know who you think we are, but we know
who we are. And he deserves some credit for that.
Also deserves credit for working on his own game. He
was a pretty good offensive player when he left Oregon,
a pretty good offensive player early in his career. Asked
to play a slightly different role in Memphis and relish
the opportunity to maybe expand again back on his offensive game,

(44:09):
which he clearly did. Last year, the Rockets did not
have very many good three point shooters, and you could
argue they had won and he was it, and it mattered,
especially to a team that just needed much more of it.
Because whatever offense you'd like to describe that they run,
it does create open looks for three and in the
postseason series, the team actually did make a pretty good percentage,

(44:30):
certainly after the opening game of the series. Obviously Jalen
in Game two, and really the rest of the team
the rest of the way, they made a good enough
percentage that well, the series was tied after game one
three games apiece. There are things that they did better
then and kind of showed you what this team is
when they just make a few more shots, just to
make a few more threes, and that's what Kevin Durant
is here to do. They add the tenth pick in

(44:50):
this year's draft, which many years it is a lottery pick.
It is top fourteen, But I do believe there's a
little bit of a crapshooting nature to it. You know,
the player they draft could deafinitely be a player that
came out of college after blistering the nets for six
point three points and five point seven rebounds, because you're
drafting for what you think he might become in the future.
Very unlikely that player has a whole heck of a

(45:13):
lot of resume or a whole heck of a lot
of an opportunity to play here. He's probably gonna have
a great opportunity to play there in Phoenix or wherever
that ends up. And the five second round picks didn't
get into that a whole lot in the opening hour.
I know second round picks play NBA basketball, But the
only way I will be convinced that second round picks

(45:33):
matter as a fan of the game or someone who
talks about the game, which is me, I'll acknowledge they
matter to gms, but they have to explain to me why.
Because the only reason to have them is so you
can trade them. And I don't know why anyone wants them,
but you get them so somebody else will want them.
You don't want to use them, yeah, because if you
use them, then you're getting a player who's probably not

(45:53):
very good. I'm well aware that there are second round
picks in the playoffs, in the finals. Even winning the
title this past year, some fairly significant role players for
the championship team. Well, unless you drafted them, it doesn't matter,
and they did a couple of them, but most of
the others drafted in the second round couldn't play available

(46:15):
to anybody, and then you get them. That's not the
value of a second round pick. That's a nothing. Some
of these players, two of them in fact, part of
the rotation for Oklahoma City undrafted. So the value of
a second round pick is I don't even want to
call it a mystery. I don't want to call it
lost on me because I'd rather call them worthless. But

(46:36):
gms keep trading for them, and like I said, the
only reason to trade for them is that you can
turn around and trade them away. For some reason, this
deal only went over the top, only able to be
rubber stamped. Hey man, look we're giving you Jalen Green,
We're giving you Dylan Brooks. You can have your pick
back at number ten. Can we just call it into
the league office so we can announce it in two weeks. No,

(46:57):
I want five second round picks, per fect.

Speaker 12 (47:00):
I have them.

Speaker 6 (47:00):
They're yours. Deal done.

Speaker 5 (47:02):
Is this the equivalent of Nick Cassario with sevens? And
it is absolutely not. I'm glad you brought that up.
Totally different, Honestly, is not even remotely close. Nick Cassario
and the other thirty one gms in the NFL spend
hours and hours and hours, starting in the fifth round,
talking to players we're gonna sign you after the draft,
we're gonna sign you after the draft. They signed, depending
on their respective rosters. You know, seven to fifteen players

(47:25):
to undrafted free agent contracts because they will matter. Because
there's fifty three guys out there, plus the sixteen on
the practice squad. You will find players that can play
and help your team on special teams as a reserve,
sometimes even better than that. Constantly, there were five players
in last year's or the twenty twenty. I went back
a couple of years to make give these players a

(47:47):
little bit more of a chance to make a mark
in the league. The number of players in the second
round that never even make it to the NBA is
still alarming. The number of players that make it to
the NBA only four, Well, we had to sign them
because they're American and they're going to be here and
here's your.

Speaker 6 (48:02):
Two way deal. They just there's so few that make it.
I know there's not none. But you also have to
recognize where these picks are. And we don't know the
definitive landing spot for all of these picks, but of
the five, I believe the majority, which is three are
going to be in the very back, back, back back
part of the second round. In addition to that, and

(48:22):
it goes back to what I said last year about
the most ridiculous topic we spent any time on so
far in our history doing this show. Ronnie James was
the second round pick. Can we now move on? It
doesn't matter. It's a good person to bring up or
good player to bring up. When you're making that point
and go, I keep going back to why this trade
is so good for the Rockets in that.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
They didn't give up. I don't think they gave up
a ton at all. I know people are like, ah,
Dylan Brooks, man, that's gonna hurt. You're the same people
that didn't want the Rockets to give quote all that
money to Dylan Brooks. You remember that that was a
talking point when the Rockets signed him in the offseason.
The Rockets got laughed at for giving all this money

(49:05):
to both Dylan Brooks and Fred Van Vliet, more so
Dylan Brooks at the time, because I guess they thought
he was damaged Goods coming out of Memphis. Well, Memphis
has never been the same since he left, and I
realized there are other factors besides him. But he's a
plus player on and off the floor for your team,
especially if it's a young team trying to build a culture,
and what he did, along with Fred van Vliet and

(49:27):
others to a lesser extent like Jeff Green, in making
this culture what it has become and continues to evolve into,
cannot be understated.

Speaker 6 (49:36):
But and I really do.

Speaker 5 (49:38):
Think that his talent and clearly his three point shooting
because he was the best three point shooter for the
Rockets last year, is a part of why Phoenix was interested.
But I still keep going back to the fact that
I think his contract, ironically is the biggest reason why
he was included in this trade, and it's again another

(49:58):
reason why you didn't have to include younger other talent
that I think Phoenix would have liked to have got
a tans on, and I think at the top of
that list is Jabari Smith Junior, who watch out he
will be the next guy to sign an extension with Houston.

Speaker 6 (50:12):
Yeah, it seems like if you would say, well, we
can't include him in a deal, then you're also saying,
and his agent is listening, we like him. We don't
want him playing somewhere else because we like his future
too much. We like what he's going to become. And
I do think that plays a little bit into whatever
negotiations there might be he and Easton in that position
this offseason to potentially be extended by the Rockets. Don't

(50:33):
know the monetary figure you're going to be paying Fred
van Vliet yet, though we could know shortly. The twenty
ninth is actually the deadline for that likelihood gets agreed
upon sooner whatever his extension is here, and I still
think there's really no debate about it, no two sides
of it. Everyone agrees that they're going to come to
some sort of agreement for his future here in Houston.
And keep in mind just the money side of it.

(50:55):
You are committed to pay roughly fifty five million dollars
to Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green for this upcoming season
and for the season that followed, and then the thirty
three thirty four to thirty five million that was still
due on Jalen's contract in that third season when Dylan
would have other with no extension become a free agent. Well,
that's what Kevin Durant makes. You're paying the same money

(51:16):
to now one player instead of two, and that one
player is Kevin Durant. It might go up in years
two and three, but we don't know that for sure.
I've been going around saying I expect him to sign
that Jimmy Butler like extension two years what would probably
be about one hundred and twenty two million. He could
opt to sign for less and maybe give the Rockets
an opportunity to be in a different slot on the

(51:38):
Apron level and things like that. Maybe there's a little
bit more flexibility for them. We've hardly talked about the
basketball they're going to play moving forward. We've hardly talked
about what this will look like. You mentioned the potential
starting lineups when I pushed that out immediately. Maybe having
Cam Wittmore, who needs to earn it, be a part
of that starting lineup, and maybe having Jabbaritari, Steven Adams,

(51:59):
Reed Sheppard all part of your nine man rotation coming
off the bench. These are all options that they have
with today's roster, and with the fact that they did
not give away any of their other future assets draft
pick assets other than this tenth pick in the draft
that they comes up on Wednesday, they still have options
to reshape this team before year one with Kevin Durant begins.

(52:19):
That's where we begin the conversation when we come back,
what does the basketball look like? What major significant change
to the Rocket's fortunes will Kevin Durant make one stands
above all others. I'll mention that to you next.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
It is the eighteen Sports Socks seven ninety Space City
home network. You know, like two weeks from today is
my prediction as to when the introductory press conference will be.

Speaker 6 (52:59):
You know, because NBA rules.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
You can't really talk about the fact that the Rockets
completed this trade, even though everybody knows about it, we
can't officially say anything if we're the team until after
July sixth.

Speaker 6 (53:10):
Does also give time for the deal as we currently
see it to be potentially altered, whether there's a third
team involved, or some smaller particulars change or added to it.
I believe it's due to the language and Jalen greens
set to be in place extension because this is the
first year it kicks in. But yeah, that is the situation.
Odds are pretty decent though, that as soon as the

(53:32):
doors open for them to announce it, which would be
July sixth, and the Rockets would shortly thereafter, well the
seventh on a Monday two weeks from today. Maybe introduce
the guy who's going to somehow fit into Christian Woods
old jersey.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
That is remarkable that I forgot he wore that number.
Or he could if he wants to. He could ask
Cam Whitmore for his jersey. He's worn that before. But
he's much more known as a thirty five than a seven.
Was he seven in c H No, he was thirty
five there, so it was.

Speaker 6 (54:05):
Texas.

Speaker 5 (54:06):
He was thirty five there too. Where did he wear
seven when he was with Eme in Brooklyn?

Speaker 12 (54:11):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (54:11):
I forgot about that? How many years you? So he
didn't actually play the first year? But how many years
was he in Brooklyn? Two or three?

Speaker 12 (54:19):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (54:19):
Well the following two seasons? So three total?

Speaker 5 (54:22):
After the injured I'm going to make max money to
do nothing here?

Speaker 6 (54:27):
I mean I would sign it.

Speaker 13 (54:28):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
Absolutely, I'm not criticizing him at all. I will absolutely
criticize he was bold during the season. The Phoenix trade
was in season trade.

Speaker 12 (54:39):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (54:39):
I forgot that it wasn't an off season deal. Who
mismanaged their assets worse involving Kevin Durant or just in
general Phoenix or Brooklyn?

Speaker 6 (54:47):
I mean That's why what we were talking about from
this entire offseason of the Desmond Bane deal to the
potential of what this deal would be to now that
we know what it is. Man timing is an age matters.
I just people have to know this right like Desmond
Bain is not going to is not likely to help
Orlando win more this year than Kevin Durant is likely

(55:11):
to help the Rockets win more this year. Even though
Desmond Vane is awesome. I think it's a tremendous move.
But Desmond Bain is making way less money. He's also
under control for much much longer, four times as long.
He's already under control than the one season that Durant's
under control for. And again all of those years for
way less money. And he's young. And ten years from now,

(55:34):
Desmond Bain will make an NBA three pointer during that
regular season, Kevin Durant will not. He will be six
years retired probably by then. So the hauls you get
for these players, it's not just about who they are
and what they do. Run me down a list of
the top twenty NBA players right now from the twenty
four to twenty five season, probably gonna have Kevin Durant
on it probably aren't gonna have Desmond Baine on it.

(55:56):
I think the magic would.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
Normal will ever be on it twenty he's pretty good,
but yeah top twenty twenty.

Speaker 6 (56:02):
Yeah, probably not. But that's kind of the point essentially
right right now, Clearly you gave up way less. I
think depending on where those picks land, then Orlando gave up.
But it's just not apples to apples. A trade is
not a trade in the NBA because of what you
know the future holds. What are the magic title odds

(56:23):
look like right now? Well, if you were asked, well,
what do they look like now? Because you're letting the
whole day play out yesterday, like including what happened Sunday night,
Well that's true.

Speaker 5 (56:32):
So Cleveland has the best odds, huh in the East
because they're in the end. And then who is it
the magic?

Speaker 6 (56:40):
Why not?

Speaker 5 (56:41):
In light of Tyrese Halliburton, which by the way, was
one of the saddest things ever. You realize his playoff
run single handedly flipped me on. I couldn't stand that
guy before the playoffs. I love him now and I
hated last night because I hated the fact that the
Pacers and him personally were put into a situation where, well,
it's the NBA Finals, so I've got to risk it,

(57:04):
and they they risked the entire season next year because
the Pacers are gonna be what without him, they'll be good.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
The odds great for next season. Heavy heavy heavy heavy
heavy heavy favorites are the Thunder, and right behind them
in line like they were right behind them as the
two seed in the West last year, is the Rockets.
The Rockets odds dramatically changed from a Vegas perspective and
everybody else that puts out odds as soon as this
deal was made. They are widely odds wise considered the

(57:33):
second most likely team to win the NBA Championship, even
though they play in the conference with the Thunder. After that,
the next three teams are in the East, and the
Magic are among them. The Calves and the Knicks have
the same odds at eight to one, and the Magic
are right behind them at twelve to one. I do
find it interesting that if you just run through the West,
the Thunder followed by the Rockets, followed by the Lakers

(57:55):
and Wolves at fourteen to one, followed by the Nuggets
at sixteen to one, So that's one, two, three, four.
Five Western Conference teams at sixteen to one are better, obviously,
all five of them more in the postseason last year,
and then a team that wasn't in the postseason last
year or the year before and hasn't made any significant
moves this offseason. The Spurs come in at twenty to one,

(58:18):
ahead of the Warriors, ahead of the Clippers, head of
the Mavericks, ahead of the Grizzlies.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Because they're gonna have a full season of a presumably
healthy Victor women Yama and Daron Fox mean you ha
a pop played two weeks together basically less you basically
had a full season of Wemby and year one. Obviously
the team around him was not nearly as good. He
made improvements this year.

Speaker 6 (58:35):
It's pretty easy to see that he was a better
player in year two than he was in year one,
and reasonable to assume better in year three than in
year two, especially when he has at least one other
player that should get markedly better in Stefan Castle. Some
familiarity with deeron Fox clearly should be a part of it,
But what else they really bring to the table, who
you really believe in that they still have. Is there

(58:56):
some other move that they could make if there's a
run at Yannis from everybody who wants him, if he
ultimately is shopped, then well, certainly they're absolutely in the
running and that could change things dramatically, And that might
be part of it, saying, well, if you honest is moved,
we know where he's going, so we don't want to
get taken by having these odds run so deep. But
otherwise that's a pretty serious jump for a team that

(59:19):
hasn't been able to do anything and your bank, Like,
I could sit here and tell you Wendy's gonna play
seventy five games next year, fully healthy, and they're gonna
finish tenth.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
Yeah, So it's not just about his health. And I
don't know why you'd be confident about his health even
though this wasn't a bum knee or something that's gonna
hopefully linger with him. This is something that could get
fixed and something that can if fixed, won't be with
him the rest of his cards. They're also hiring Jason
Kidd's assistants to be assistant head coaches because Pop's not

(59:51):
gonna be there. So you are banking on two very
big question marks in order to get to said odds,
Victor o Mignama's health and whatever the coaching situation to
just kind of remain seamless.

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
I know that that was two things they were going
up against this year.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
I mean it's not I'm not making excuses for the Spurs,
but when your head coach basically has a medical incident
in the middle of the season and you don't know
when or if he's coming back, that's, especially if you're
a young team, that's tough to make anything of it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
And then obviously, once Victor.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
Weymanyamo went down, it was not going to be a
lot of fun in San Antonio.

Speaker 6 (01:00:30):
So yeah, I mentioned some of the things that are
going to be better to get into what the Rockets
might look like next year. The Rockets Kevin Durant moves
into the starting lineup, You do have options on how
you want to outfit the team. Beside that, Fred van
Vliet signs his extension and he's looking up at his
other four starters no matter who they are. But if
they're a men Thompson, Jabari Smith Junior, Kevin Durant and

(01:00:51):
Alpern Shangoon, whether they have the athletic mobility that they
had with Dylan Brooks in there, they have height Kevin
Durant for the defense that people don't think he plays,
he was right there with a Men Thompson from the
how he graded out as the closest defender. They were
in the top five in the league, both of the
two of them. Now they play together. It's somewhere where

(01:01:12):
Dylan Brooks wasn't. I think Dylan Brooks does a lot
of things better than Kevin Durant does defensively, probably goes
without saying, and plays more physical brand. But you can
bang into Kevin Durant all you want, You can maybe
get into the position you would like, and then you
have to shoot over him, and it isn't easy. And
that's why his numbers look one of the reasons why
his numbers look the way they do. I don't think

(01:01:32):
the defense we watch the Rockets play their final seven
games of the year against Golden State is much of
a barometer of how they really play defense, because I
do think they kind of threw it all out the
window because it was a specific matchup, which I'm fine with,
but their team defense should not be markedly worse. And
even though you're losing one clearly plus defender, you might
actually outfit your team more minutes of any game's night

(01:01:56):
or any Knight's game where you're just a better defensive team.
It definitely is impacted by how healthy Tari is, how
much if Cam Whitmore is here, he plays a role
in that because I don't think there's an improvement going
from Jalen to Cam, which should not be the case.
Jalen could and I think did, become a better defender.
Cam Whitmore has a long way to go on that front.

(01:02:18):
But there are things that Durant does and I haven't
even gotten to the above all else. We'll save that
for a little bit later this hour three forty five.
But they won fifty two times because they play really
good defense. They're going to be I think a top
five defense in the upcoming season and when they get

(01:02:39):
to the playoffs, and they should go to play just
as hard as they did in the regular season. How
everybody plays hard in the postseason, but there's no reason
with the personnel they still have and the personnel they'll
be moving forward with that they shouldn't be a top defense,
not near the top, but right there, right there with
anybody that plays defense capable of winning games even if
you can't score. On nights you don't score, there's no

(01:03:01):
reason that's not who they should be. And guess who
their head coach still is, and guess who everybody else
still is here on that staff. And I do think
they're The re signing of Steven Adams mattered a whole
lot more than Oh good, he's not gonna hit the market.
He's back for three years three point thirty here on
the A team plenty for us to still discuss that
we haven't yet gotten into. Among those things is a
visit to the Baseball Diamond. Steve Sparks made his visit

(01:03:24):
his weekly visit on the Seann Salisbury Show earlier this morning.
Some of his thoughts on a winning weekend and this
Astros team pushing away from the rest of the division
in the Al West.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Next the Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
It's a Monday edition of the eight team Sports Talk
seven ninety Space City Home Network. Wexac Cole Thompson with
you until six o'clock tonight.

Speaker 6 (01:03:53):
Just got a text. I'm getting a lot of these types.

Speaker 5 (01:03:55):
Of messages this weekend from Rockets diehards, even some Rockets casuals.
But this is a diehard buddy of mine, says, all right,
just sat down at the home office, excited to hear
the Rockets talk. Somehow, I'm even more excited today about
KD than I was yesterday. I wonder how many of
you guys listening watching what have you are like that?
You know, in other words, you digested the particulars and

(01:04:20):
maybe you talked yourself off the ledge or you know.
I don't know. You just you're you feel better after
what happened. But we'll continue to discuss. In the meantime,
there is a baseball team that's still playing games and
playing them well. Saturday night's result, notwithstanding that was basically
over before it began, but book ended another series victory

(01:04:44):
and another road trip victory for your Houston Astros, who
continue to lead the Al West by more than a
handful of games and look good doing it.

Speaker 6 (01:04:54):
Define the odds, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
Let's ask Steve Sparks, who joined the station for his
weekly visit earlier, and one of the questions he was
asked early on is a bullpen being overused now with
the three starters who are.

Speaker 8 (01:05:07):
Out, If you're able to keep a little bit of
a cushion. You're gonna get creative, I think, And that's
what the Astros did in twenty twenty two. They were
more fresh and livelier than anybody else, especially in the
pitching department, because they went to that six men rotation
for more than half the season. And it was very
evident that the Astros were they still had a lot
to go. Remember the extra inning. Yeah, in Seattle, there

(01:05:30):
was a famous line by the Astros pitching coach Josh
Miller said, Hey, we still had one hundred pitches left
in our in our chamber. They really did, you know,
they still had Urkidi and they had somebody else, and
I think they felt very comfortable that they could have
played another five or six innings. So I think that's
the goal for the Astros is to build this lead,
continue to play good baseball despite Jr. Don alvarezbi announce

(01:05:51):
since May third, I believe it is in Houston still
ten games over five hundred in his absence. But if
you can continue to increase that lead, I think you
you got a chance to get creative. Maybe skip a guy,
start keep a six man rotation. I'm not sure how
this looked, Maybe be creative with that injured list.

Speaker 9 (01:06:08):
Steeve, You've been in playing it and covering it all
these years, You've seen, you know, managers that have to
make tough decisions in games. I was just thinking, you
know this morning, how often you know, somebody reminded me
of that. How often in a game in a series
throughout the season. I'm talking about those tough, tough decisions
that come within a game. How often do you see
managers hapen to make tough tough decisions in professional baseball?

Speaker 12 (01:06:30):
You know, in a game to game decisions.

Speaker 8 (01:06:33):
I think it varies just because you know your personnel
better than anybody else. And that's what that's probably my
favorite question is to ask a manager of the day after,
is what was your toughest decision yesterday? But when you
think about tough decisions for me, if I was a
coach or a manager, I think the hardest part for
me personally would be releasing guys, you know, especially in

(01:06:55):
the minor league.

Speaker 12 (01:06:56):
I was thinking about this yesterday.

Speaker 8 (01:06:57):
I played in the California League for three seasons, and
one year I had a minor league coat who had
five kids. In the last three weeks of the season,
his wife decided to take his four youngest kids back
home to Arizona for the rest of the season, and
his oldest kid was nine years old. He ended up
staying with his dad for the rest of the summer,
so he would be at the ballpark every day and

(01:07:17):
we had a great time with him.

Speaker 12 (01:07:19):
But he just became part of the team.

Speaker 8 (01:07:20):
And I remember one day in Bakersfield, California, we were
stretching before batting practice one day and Ben, the oldest son,
he was nine years old, was just kind of sifting
through the rest of the players. Now keep in mind,
he was around his dad in the hotel rooms. He
heard all his dad's conversations on the landline back in
the hotels in those days, talking to the front office.
But he was running around with the guys on the

(01:07:42):
team and they were punching him and knocking him down
and just having a good time. And he finally he
goes up to this one guy on our team who
was stretching, and he shook his hand and he said, hey, John, Hey,
I'm gonna miss you. And John goes, oh, Ben, you'
you going home with your brothers and sisters. He goes, no,
I'm not going anywhere.

Speaker 12 (01:07:59):
You are.

Speaker 8 (01:08:00):
He goes, what, Yeah, I heard my dad on the phone.
Oh my god, getting released after the game. Oh my god,
look at him.

Speaker 12 (01:08:06):
We're going getting released after the game.

Speaker 8 (01:08:09):
And he goes, yeah, you and Scott both, and then
we all looked at Scott and literally, these two guys
got up out of the stretch, went into the coach's
office and got released and we never saw him again.
That's how they got released from professional baseball by a
nine year old in front of their whole team.

Speaker 12 (01:08:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:08:23):
It's one thing find out on the internet, but the
nine year old's got it before you do. Yeah, I
get the conversation. It's like, hey, breaking news. It's not
Jeff Passon, happens.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
To be the nine year old who's the son.

Speaker 9 (01:08:32):
Of a kid out there during batting practice and you
guys are gone. Yeah, talk about tough decisions and then
having a nine year old come in. That's not what
a manager or teammates want to hear. I would imagine, Steve, Steve,
is this team good enough in your eyes right now?
I'm talking about with the with the injuries they have
right now? And I said, can you see them in
the World Series? What's your answer?

Speaker 8 (01:08:51):
Yeah, I can't. I mean, I look at everybody. Everybody's
got warts Sean, and I just feel I don't think
Jordon's too far away. And you say, look at him
right now, but I don't think they're too far away
from getting.

Speaker 12 (01:09:02):
Their best hitter back. And I think that's that's gonna
make everybody better.

Speaker 8 (01:09:05):
But you look at three guys in particular offensively for
this team, and we've talked enough about the pitching. The pitching,
there's no question they have as good at pitching as
anybody in baseball Amen one through thirteen, but they need
your it on.

Speaker 12 (01:09:18):
But there's three guys in particular.

Speaker 8 (01:09:20):
Panya, Myers and Paradus have three of the top eleven
upticks and ops of anybody in all of baseball. So
when you look at those guys and see their improvement,
Jake's got the second best road batting average in baseball
behind Aaron Judge. I mean, there's there's some crazy stuff
kind of going on right now, but you've got enough
guys in there that are putting together some kind of

(01:09:43):
breakout seasons and it's fun to watch that stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
It's a good thing they are. That last part is
just like insane, but it's representative of how the twenty
twenty five campaign is gone for the Astros.

Speaker 6 (01:09:57):
It's been incredible what Etro has been able to do
for the Asses and Center. I mean, single after single
after single after single, it's it's white press. Jake Myers. No,
I'm just I was hating on eachro the other day
for a singles, so I might as well make fun
of myself or making fun of him. He gets a
lot of hits that matter. I mean, I say this
in ingest only because of what happens on the show
before ours. You would have what's gonna happen bold prediction,

(01:10:23):
tell me something that nobody else thinks about the twenty
twenty five Astros. I don't know how far down the
list of people we could have walked up to and
asked and they would have said, I think Jake Myers
is gonna be really, really good offensively. I think he's
gonna be one of the best hitters in baseball when
he's not at his home park. I think he's gonna
be getting on bass constantly. He's gonna have multi hit
games all over the place. And what you did know

(01:10:44):
is he's gonna continue to play Gold Glove caliber center field,
and he has. He hasn't made every single play recently.
There's a couple that have just eluded him. And he's
of course balanced that out with several extremely good diving catches.
He makes the play that ended last night's game look easy.
You've had teams talk about that. Jeremy Painey was talking
about that the other day when he made one of
those spectacular diving catches leaving his feet for a ball

(01:11:06):
that was well over his head, and he said, he
makes it look easy. He does, and it's almost like
I feel like the voters sometimes while they have numbers
to look at that they take away from him. Oh man,
her path was so good that you made that look easy. Well,
it's not easy. He takes hits away. That's what it
will got him on the field to begin the year.
He made his pitchers lives easier. He made it harder

(01:11:27):
to score on them because extra base hits were taken
off the board. For all these extra base hits that
he doesn't have, and these home runs that he's not hitting, well,
he's taking them off the board for other teams. Balls
that would hit the gap that's two or three bases.
Everybody on base is going to score. Instead, the runners
on base don't even move ninety feet. It's this defense matters.
This just in the playing elite defense like the Astros have,

(01:11:51):
specifically in center field, fielding the ball matters. It's one
of the reasons why they are where they are. Well.

Speaker 5 (01:11:57):
I talked forever about how I thought their defense was
just vastly underappreciated, not just underrated during this time of winning,
and yet here they are again making plays. Maybe not
with regularity, but feez, Jeremy Paine has had some absolute
gems of late. All Right, we'll get back to the
KD talk. Don't you worry. We will do that as

(01:12:19):
I predict the Rockets opening night opponent.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Next the Aight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:12:32):
Hey, WEX, what is up? What night?

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):
Does the NBA typically start on? What night of the weekday? Yeah,
that's what I thought, and I knew you would answer
me as a Madrara shot on inside stuff. So there's
typically a double header on TNT that night, which won't
be the case this year, but somebody will have a doubleheader,
presumably ESPN or.

Speaker 6 (01:12:58):
I don't know how it will.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):
Work, but if the pattern holds true, two standalone games
before the rest of the schedule gets underway a couple
days later in the week for opening week of the NBA,
where games actually count YadA, YadA.

Speaker 6 (01:13:13):
YadA, Boston hosting New York, Lakers hosting Wolves. October twenty second,
twenty twenty four, it's already set in stone. That was
twenty twenty four. Those are the opening night games. Okay,
twenty four, Sorry I misheard you.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
Well, you know, because sometimes in the NFL you have
opening week games announced way in anticipation of the rest
of the skis.

Speaker 6 (01:13:35):
Some of these will get leaked, That's about it, but
it will only come very very close to when the
entire schedule.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
Well, the Rockets is gonna get leaked because they're gonna
be on an opening night. They're gonna be the second
game late, and they're gonna take on the Warriors in
San Francisco.

Speaker 6 (01:13:49):
It's a lock. So no, Luca and the Lakers. Lebron
and the Lakers, now they could playing night, could plan
opening night if they're playing like the Knicks, Let's get
La in New York. Let's do it at the Garden,
and you know, we'll just do a ratings bonanza as
far as big markets go. But well, the early game

(01:14:12):
is the actual issue where you might want to suck
a Western Conference team in a road game to play
in it, because where are you playing the game? If
an Eastern Conference team is in it, it basically can
only be New York. Correct. Well, you're not gonna have
the Calves open on opening night. That's your very first
game of the season. Nobody wants to see the game.
The Pacers are out their best player, the Celtics are

(01:14:34):
out their best player. The heat suck. I mean, you
run out of teams pretty fast. For they're gonna be
on national TV plenty over the course of the year.
But this is a little bit different. This is the
opening night for the season. You'll pick a couple games
on the next night that will be national, same thing
on Thursday, even on Friday, there'll be a couple, but
Opening night will have as he said, I'm sure just
two standalone games, and you could run top five teams

(01:14:57):
in the West, Oklahoma City, the Denver Nuggets, the Houston,
the LA Lakers at the very least would all be
the Minnesota Timberwolves. I think you're probably right, and that
particular matchup.

Speaker 5 (01:15:08):
The Rockets and Thunder would be better. But because Steph
blah blah blah blah, Well.

Speaker 6 (01:15:14):
Can't they do what everybody did for the last twenty
four hours? Can you believe the best three players in
Thunder history then also went on to play for the Rockets.

Speaker 5 (01:15:22):
Yeah, well, and I've heard all sorts of Hey, you
think Kevin's gonna recruit his old buddy Russ to come
play back up point?

Speaker 6 (01:15:30):
Why would the Rockets do that? Why would Kevin do that?
That's an actual better question. First of all, he's recruiting
players because you're on the team. That happens. I know him,
I'll talk to him. Let's see if we can make
it happen. Running the team from the bench in your uniform.
Those days are over, certainly in Houston. They're gonna be
run from the to the bench and a few rows up.

(01:15:52):
Rafel will sit in his seat and em will be
on the bench. They'll run the team. Refel has great seats,
he does. He almost has a run of the place,
at least before tip off. But Kevin Durant might be
able to help you get a gauge on a player
here or there, but it's not gonna be this one.
I wish I could tell you come on, who said

(01:16:12):
that nobody thinks that's gonna happen. I wish that were true,
because nobody should think that should happen. Why would you
want Russell Westbrook on this team to do what? Miss
more shots, make more bad decisions, turn the ball over,
not play the way this team likes to. I mean,
I'm being pretty mean to the guy.

Speaker 5 (01:16:28):
You already did all those things in Houston already for
one year, and he was better, right, right, and younger
most importantly, since that's a sticking point these days. But yeah,
I just think, and like I said, I think Rockets
Thunder i e. A potential Western Conference final preview would
be a better sexier matchup.

Speaker 6 (01:16:46):
Well, let's talk about it from the last two weeks.
It's the league and bad situation in a bad situation
because of who's in the finals. If we're putting the
Rockets and Golden State on opening night instead of the
Thunder and the Rockets on opening night, then just keep
complaining about how the NBA doesn't know what they're doing.
Why are you featuring Golden State on opening night? Well

(01:17:09):
maybe they sure the champ feature the MVP and they
feature the finals MVP.

Speaker 5 (01:17:14):
They still probably will, but I just don't know if
it's gonna get because they want to. The reason I
bring up the Warriors is because it's a rematch of
the playoffs and it's a reunion between the team that
tried to trade for him and he said no and
the team that he basically forced his way to. If
we're to believe some of the reports that are coming
out today.

Speaker 6 (01:17:34):
Yeah, and more people probably would watch. And it still
puts the league in that position of, well, you're doing
a bad job of promoting your players. Well, then what
do you want us to do? Do you want us
to do what we know works or do we want
to start the next phase? We want to start promoting
because they haven't. They certainly haven't started back with them.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
That is why if they chose the Lakers, same scenario,
it would make more sense because at least Luca is
going to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:17:58):
For a while.

Speaker 5 (01:17:59):
But why should we have to go to LA They
were the two seed last year and the Lakers are
the ones who sucked like Michael Bolton.

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
Only because they play on the West Coast, otherwise they
can have the game here. Rockets can open up the
season with a home date tip off of they should
nine thirty whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:18:13):
Well, no, I I thirty in a weird way, that's reasonable.
Like Oklahoma City and Indiana should be what they try
to do because that's an Eastern cut. But Jerry Caliburn's
not going to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:18:27):
They can't. That's like putting the the Eagles and the
Chiefs on Opening Night, except Jalen hurn't even know who
the backup is in Philly anymore. He's playing instead of
Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:18:39):
Yeah, these are why they make the big bucks so
to speak.

Speaker 6 (01:18:43):
Yeah, make or break your season, but it should absolutely
draw excitement. They're the only games people are gonna watch regardless,
but people might be more inclined to watch and be
locked in for that. The ratings weren't good for these finals.
They were never going to be good for these finals.
It has to do with every factor. Who these teams are,
the market they represent, the stars that they bring to
the table. Nothing wrong with their talents. Tyre's Halliburton's All NBA,

(01:19:05):
Shay Gillis Alexander's All NBA and is the MVP. And
the basketball was very, very good. The games were compelling
for the most part. There were some fantastic finishes where
there were some surprising finishes, But yes, they did suffer
from a rating standpoint, all while they just brought in
all this money for these new TV deals, All while
the cap continues to rise and rise and rise, all

(01:19:27):
while they keep playing the older stars sixty million dollars
per season. They're they're gonna be They're gonna manage just fine.
It won't be what you want. People will still complain
about the ratings, even though they shouldn't because they obviously
I mean, what if the ratings were good? How much
more money would these networks be begging to get in
bed with the NBA for They're already doing it. They're

(01:19:48):
already branching out to this streaming service and that streaming service.
And you got sued by one of the networks who
didn't want to be out on the NBA anymore. I
think the only thing that everyone wants to be out
on is the fact that the network that did carry
the games. I just think that a very bad job
in producing those games, from the moment they went court
side to the moment they left court side. The people

(01:20:10):
calling the games, the people producing the manner in which
you watch the games, because it's not. I mean, I
don't know why they don't like doing it anymore. I
guess they want to give more time to their yackers,
but produce something, put an open together, get people excited.
You've seen this thing on social media they do all
the time. It's called a hype video. I mean, you
could do it all. I mean teams do it in
the regular season for regular season games for their own

(01:20:33):
team with their social media and creative department. Why the
league's television partner isn't doing that for these games? And
then it does subject us to more of a terrible
studio show, really bad unfortunately with some people I like.
But they just did a very awful job with it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:50):
And the good news is it's all coming back next year.
I don't know about that. Well is the Marquee Network
is definitely well, yeah, network has it. But you got
seven voices you could change if you want it. They
need to they need to change them. We will change
to the four o'clock hour and a visit with Danielle Lerner,

(01:21:10):
the Rockets beat writer for the Houston Chronicle.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
Next the a team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking your Team.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team.

Speaker 6 (01:21:34):
A couple hours into the A Team here on a
Monday afternoon simulcast continues on Space City Home Network WEXA
C Cole Thompson here with you. A lot of chatter
about the newest Rocket, Kevin Durant, although unofficial for a
couple of weeks, likely with the league as it is,
the draft comes up on Wednesday, the tenth pick will
be made. It's likely going to the Phoenix Suns in
that deal, along with Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks and five

(01:21:57):
second round picks over the next several seasons. But having
to rant to Houston. As reported over the weekend, the
Rockets definitely saying something loudly to the rest of the league,
and to that end, we traveled to the Houston Chronicle
Rockets beat writer Danielle Lerner for some insight on this discussion.
Where do you think things finally came to let's go
ahead and pull the trigger from inside the Rockets group

(01:22:20):
in that they felt good about not making a move.
They obviously feel good about making this move. What do
you think kind of tipped it in the let's go
ahead and pull the trigger.

Speaker 7 (01:22:29):
I think it just came down to being able to
keep the majority of their young core intact. You know, obviously,
I think the Rockets would have liked to keep Jalen
Green if they could.

Speaker 15 (01:22:39):
They were not shopping him by any means.

Speaker 7 (01:22:40):
They were receiving interest from various teams around the league
on Jalen, so you know, they knew that if they
really felt they need to get him out the door,
they could.

Speaker 15 (01:22:50):
But this is a thing where it was like, Okay,
if we could just give.

Speaker 7 (01:22:53):
Up one of those guys from that young core, you know,
that ends up pretty much being a steel especially when
you have a guy like Kevin Durant who's going to
come in and immediately be able to make an impact.

Speaker 12 (01:23:06):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:23:06):
I know there's the questions about his age and his longevity,
but he's been doing this in the league for as
long as he has at this level because he is
Kevin Durant. So I think that the Rockets should feel
pretty good about what they gave up in this yield?

Speaker 6 (01:23:21):
Is that the word you would use a steal this
trade the Rocket's pulled off.

Speaker 7 (01:23:27):
I mean, you know, every hindsight, it's twenty twenty on everything,
But as of right now, I think I wouldn't be
quite that acusive in it, but I think it is
a good deal.

Speaker 6 (01:23:37):
Yeah, I think we agree.

Speaker 5 (01:23:39):
And I think the interesting part is how much Emi
Udoka maybe factored into this. You're hearing reports saying, you know,
he went to management and kind of decided to deviate
from what had been the course, which is to let
all these young players develop together. How much does that
really show the sway that he has, especially when you

(01:24:01):
consider that he just got made paid one of the
highest coaches in the association less than a week before
this trade goes down.

Speaker 7 (01:24:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think that was a very shrewd
piece of business that the Rockets did, not only because
of the interest that the Knicks were reportedly showing in
hiring Udoka, but because they.

Speaker 15 (01:24:18):
Knew the relationship that he had with Durant, and you know.

Speaker 7 (01:24:22):
If anything was going to potentially tip things in their favor.
Because they really didn't want to have to budge on
the offer that they were giving the Sun, they needed
Durant to use his voice and leverage in this deal
as well. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened,
and Durant kind of said like, look, these are my
third destinations. You can take me the.

Speaker 15 (01:24:42):
Deal on me wherever you want. But I'm not going
to make it easy.

Speaker 7 (01:24:44):
I'm not just going to say like, yeah, I'll play
ball and all time and extension with any old team.
You know, Durant wants to play for Emay, he wants
to be with Royal Ivy, his very good friend, wants
the potential to you know rehe and I with Steven Adams,
with possibly with Jeff Green if Jeff Green resigns as
a agent. So I think on both sides with e
May and with Kadi, there was a lot of mutual

(01:25:06):
interest there. And I think, you know, rafel Stone and
Tilman Fertita gave Udoka.

Speaker 15 (01:25:11):
An extension because he has gotten.

Speaker 7 (01:25:14):
The results on the court end a story, and I
think like that counts for a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:25:18):
Let's take it on to the court next year when
they open up the season or on their way into
the playoffs. What do you think is something significant specific
to what he will do offensively for this team sets
they like to run, where he's going to find a
success that maybe they were lacking last year when he's
out there with the other four.

Speaker 15 (01:25:36):
I mean, I think the biggest difference you're going to
see is with Alpha and Shangun. You saw Shangoon have.

Speaker 7 (01:25:40):
To take on a lot of the offensive load this
last year, even more so than he had done in
his previous three years, and you know, he obviously.

Speaker 15 (01:25:48):
Performed well through that, But that's a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:25:50):
And just knowing that you're gonna have Kevin Durant out there,
and he's naturally going to attract double teams, he invites
double teams, he's perfectly okay with playing through them.

Speaker 15 (01:26:00):
You know, I think that's just going to open up
a lot of things. And then his shooting ability as well.

Speaker 7 (01:26:03):
Right Houston obviously struggled massively with outside shooting and with
overall spacing, both in the regular season and the playoffs.
Now you've got a guy who's a prolific multi level scorer,
one of the deadliest mid range shots in the game,
pretty much shoot over anybody.

Speaker 15 (01:26:18):
And if you moved Dabar Smith Junior into the.

Speaker 7 (01:26:20):
Starting lineup into that vacant hole as well, you know
that's he's basically in the same archetype as Katie.

Speaker 15 (01:26:27):
So you have two guys who.

Speaker 7 (01:26:28):
Could do that, and I think that's going to count
for a lot when you know they've traded away two
of their best three point shooters in Jalen and Dylan.

Speaker 5 (01:26:36):
Ye know, I might be jumping ahead a little bit,
but I'm just anxious and I'm admittedly biased because I
like him.

Speaker 6 (01:26:42):
How much does this mean that.

Speaker 5 (01:26:44):
We're going to get maybe some of the minutes go
to a Cam whitmore that we weren't seeing, because I mean,
if for no other reason, Jalen Green was taking the
lion's share of those, he's got to feel like. I
just remember looking at him during the playoff series against
the Warriors. He looked miserable, not saying I knew anything
or heard anything. He didn't say that, obviously, but I

(01:27:05):
just feel like that has been his storyline since he
arrived in Houston.

Speaker 6 (01:27:08):
I can't get on the floor. This probably changes that.

Speaker 7 (01:27:11):
No, Oh, definitely Dylan being gone also, you know, there's
just been such a log damn of minutes at the
wing for the Rockets the last several years, even before
Cam got there.

Speaker 15 (01:27:22):
You know that was that was happening.

Speaker 7 (01:27:24):
So I definitely think that he's going to get some
more playings on him and Reid both. You know, that
was the goal for both of them, that both Son
and Udoka said when the season ended, and I think
they're they're going to hold true to that, So I
think what More definitely gets into that.

Speaker 15 (01:27:39):
Second unit more regularly, so does Shepherd.

Speaker 16 (01:27:42):
And there's still a chance that the Rockets could go
and add additional depth with like a mid level exception
and free agency will also off to see what happens
with Aaron Holiday, But I think regardless, yeah, Cam and
Reider are going to get way more time on the court.

Speaker 6 (01:27:58):
Danielle Learner, Houston Chronicle beat writer for your Houston Rockets.
Do you think they will be able to work something
out with Fred that is very team friendly and similarly
with Kevin on an extension, He's do better than fifty
million this season, could be in line for one hundred
and twenty plus over the two seasons that follow via
an extension. But do you think all parties, recognizing what

(01:28:20):
they could be about to start over the next three
years championship level basketball, they might be able to do
something that you know, keeps them from an apron there
happier with than the worst one.

Speaker 7 (01:28:31):
Yeah, definitely, I think that was kind of the goal
from the start, even before you know the KD talks
heated up, they Rockets won them out their business in
a very specific order. Getting the Adams extension done first
was really good about both opening things up for a
potential trade and you know, giving them a firm foundation
for what they could negotiate with Fred. So I think

(01:28:53):
that they are trending towards, you know, declining that option
and structuring a more team friendly, law longer term deal
that may be frontloaded, just like Adams is. Where you know,
they're paying Fred more this upcoming season than in the
following years of the deal. But that's also because they
have to be mindful of extending Chari, extending Jabari Smith

(01:29:15):
Junior next summer, looking to you know, extending a Men Thompson.
So I don't think the Rockets care if they have
to pay the luxury texts this season, but they would
be mindful of in following seasons being repeaters.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
Let's go back to you know who kind of made
this happen, because we talked about how I may sway
with his power, you know, influence this trade happening. How
much was this Kevin Durant Because we kept hearing about,
all right, here's his preferred destinations, but he doesn't want
to go play in Minnesota, and he doesn't want to
go play here are this team's not willing to give
this up. It felt like to me san Antonio kept

(01:29:52):
getting put out there attached to his name. And I
never know how much truth is in these because the
reports seemingly changed from day to day. But it looked
to me, and especially when you gauge his reaction on camera,
he really wanted to play with the Rockets, I think
more than anyone else.

Speaker 6 (01:30:07):
Now that all the dust has begun to settle.

Speaker 7 (01:30:10):
Yeah, I mean, I can't really speak to san Antonio's
involvement at all, but I do think, like I said before,
that Katie has really been open to this idea of
playing with the Rockets, and specifically for Iodoka for a
long time. He even said it back in February when
the Songs came to play the Rockets. You know, he
was extremely complimentary when he was asked about what the
Rockets have built here.

Speaker 15 (01:30:30):
You know, he had worked out with with Jalen and
Jabari over the summer.

Speaker 7 (01:30:33):
He's been an admirer of Fred for a long time
since you know, they played each other in playoffs and
so you know, I think I think that there's multiple
reasons and multiple people here who Kdi just saw himself
being a part of. And it's also really appealing to
join a team that's on the rise, right. I think

(01:30:55):
that with Katie's edition, like the Rockets are real contenders
next year to you know, battle this thunder at the
top of the West, and I think that's enticing. Obviously
coming from that situation in Phoenix, anything was kind of
be going to be an improvement. But I think with
the trajectory the Rockets are on, you know, who wouldn't.

Speaker 15 (01:31:15):
Want to be a part of that.

Speaker 6 (01:31:17):
On the other side of it, real quickly, what do
you think the future holds for Jalen Green. It's a
tough spot roster wise, and that the best three players
on the Phoenix Suns all play the same position. He
along with Bradley Beal and Devin Booker. He's under contract
the next three years, may or may not be a
long term Sun, But just the basketball side of it,
what do you think lies in Jalen Green's future?

Speaker 15 (01:31:38):
I mean, I think he also was trending upward.

Speaker 7 (01:31:41):
You know, we saw him get so much better defensively
and offensively that season, he had the best offensive and
defensive ratings of his career. He really improved as a playmaker.
I think that's something that could potentially help him if
he ends up staying in Phoenix. Is the ball handling
experience that he got this year, particularly when Bread was out,
you know, I think that really expanded his game and
kind of forced him to be a little bit more

(01:32:02):
patient with his decision making, kind of expand his court vision.
And so that's something that could potentially differentiate him and
work really really well to compliment Devin Booker if they
end up playing in the same backcourt. I also think
it's possible that the Sun continue to, you know, look
for the possibility of flipping him to a third team,
not because they don't appreciate the player he is, but

(01:32:23):
like you said, if he kind of has a redundant position,
redundant role, and you know, the salary, obviously it's not
the highest that there is, it's not the worst deal.
The Rockets structure his deal that way for a reason
to make him a possible trade chip. But I think
the Suns, if they're in total rebuild mode, depending on

(01:32:44):
who they draft as well and how they feel about
that you know, they could end up sending him away
to another team.

Speaker 6 (01:32:51):
Rockets still have a hand on a part of the
Phoenix Sun's future with what they did not have to
give back to them. Danielle, really appreciate the coverage all
throughout the season and all season and leading into the
draft on Wednesday, and appreciate the time joining us here
on the eight team this afternoon. Thanks God, you got it.
The Rockets land Kevin Durant Officially, we'll continue talking about

(01:33:13):
that here on the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:33:30):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety, thanks
again to the Houston Chronicles. Danielle Lerner. One thing we
haven't talked about really, I mean we a little bit.
When you get there to Toyota Center next year with
the new scoreboard and sound system and the new ribboning
and now the new roof and soon to be new

(01:33:52):
seats which will look sick, it's gonna be a different feeling.
It's gonna be a different feeling than you've basically had
since James Harden walked out that door. And that didn't
even really, that wasn't even the same because you had
the whole COVID situation in the middle of that year,
it's going to be the place to be in one

(01:34:14):
of the.

Speaker 6 (01:34:14):
Hottest tickets in town again at Toyota Center. Yeah, during
the hardened era, at times you could enter a season
and get asked, do you think they have a chance
to win a championship? And if you answered yes, that
was legit and you haven't had that ability much before then.
You haven't had that ability clearly in the recent years
following that, including last year, if you had said the
Rockets are going to or do you think the Rockets
are gonna win the championship? If you answered yes, you

(01:34:36):
were off your rocker. They ended up doing a lot
more than people expected. Making that second huge jump in
the standings is hard to do. You know, to have
a thirty win increase over a two season span. When
year one you go from twenty two to forty one,
and then you add another eleven to that and get
to fifty two, that's difficult. It's going to be difficult
to make the next step. That's why you had Kevin
Durant to try to make it a little bit easier

(01:34:59):
to close the there's a gap between the Oklahoma City
Thunder and everybody else in the West. Two of the teams,
one Western Conference team and one Eastern Conference team, pushed
them to the brink. They played elimination game basketball this
postseason on two different occasions, with that game seven being
needed one rather relatively easily in both instances. Last night's

(01:35:20):
game became easier and who wasn't able to finish the game.
But give credit to the Indiana Pacers, a very important
man down, They did keep Oklahoma City from coasting. They
were never really threatening to take the game from them.
But the NBA season ends with the team expected to
win it all winning at all, and the team that
outplayed everybody during the regular season doing the same in
the postseason. I don't think the Rockets have elevated past them.

(01:35:44):
The Oklahoma City Thunder pretty obviously were healthy when it
mattered most. They had only one really significant injury over
the course of the season, and that one was to
Chet Holmer, and he missed a big chunk of the
season after he fell down too hard on his side.
He had some game games missed by their players, typical
of any other NBA team, and then you saw that
played out in the postseason. Injuries didn't necessarily dictate who

(01:36:06):
was going to win the series, but it certainly became
easier to win both of their seven game series when
you got to the sixth and seventh game. Tyres Haliburton
played hurt and then played hurt and got hurt worse
in game six and Game seven, And the same thing
happened against the Denver Nuggets. Michael Porter Junior was playing
with only one of his shoulders for most of the series,

(01:36:27):
and there Gordon was playing with only one leg and
they were in a seventh game. Oklahoma City was healthy
in both instances. A lot of that dictates the title
doesn't to me. It doesn't really take anything away from
any titleist, because it's just part of what happens. It's
happened for you, it's happened against you. It's helped you
win a title, it's helped you not win a title.
Golden State can certainly speak to both sides of that.

(01:36:48):
I think all the teams that have been there, and
we now just crowned our seventh different champion over the
last seven seasons. If I told you there's going to
be an eighth different champion next year, well now you
have to pick who it is. And clearly that means
it's not Oklahoma City. You don't have to go very
far down the list. You maybe don't have to use
a list. It might be the Houston Rockets. Well at

(01:37:10):
the top of your list.

Speaker 5 (01:37:11):
You keep talking about the health and the Oklahoma City
Thunder being the latest example of a team who A
was healthy and b clearly got to take advantage of
lack of health in their opponents.

Speaker 6 (01:37:24):
Plural.

Speaker 5 (01:37:25):
That's why the Golden State Warriors have at least two
of their championships, if not three, And conversely, why at
least one of those that they wouldn't have had isn't
sitting or isn't hanging from the rafters in Toyota Center.

Speaker 6 (01:37:38):
Chris Paul doesn't go down.

Speaker 5 (01:37:39):
I think we all think that they've got title number three,
but then again, probably doesn't lead you to the path
where you're at right now, where the Rockets just got
Kevin Durant. I think one of the things we have
not talked about enough, and this is where rafel Stone
gets some credit and Ema Udoka as well, but mostly
rafel how many NBA teams are just in purgatory or

(01:38:00):
just playing bad for a whole lot longer than essentially
five years for the Rockets to have blown it up
and potentially be the second consecutive franchise to do just
that in this city to where it pays off in
the form of at least a championship, if not multiple championships.
That's something that I think a lot of us might

(01:38:20):
take for granted because the Rockets have now done it
kind of twice, but not to this extent. They never
really blew things up before this, Prior to like the
Elijahuan era. I mean, they were always making moves to
bring guys in. This is the first time you tore
it down, truly sucked on purpose, whether you want to

(01:38:43):
admit it or not, and are now trying to build
a champion out of the rubble of what was and
now is becoming this era of Rockets basketball.

Speaker 6 (01:38:53):
I definitely think it's different than Major League Baseball in
that the Rockets did something that Washington does. Washington just
keeps picking the wrong players. Washington just keeps doing it
wrong by going out and signing the wrong players. The
Rockets didn't spend one hundred plus million dollars on Jordan Poole.
They don't pay a ton of money to Kyle Kuzma,
and they don't keep picking players that suck. They haven't

(01:39:15):
had the number one pick either now, so easy, no,
but you Yeah, I don't want to take anything away
from them, but the idea that they intentionally said, well,
we're here and the only way to get good we
got to throw it all away. They didn't intend to
divorce James Harden. They would not have made that decision
if it were up to them, but he forced their
hand and obviously it was the only move to make
at that time. After he had made them, helped them,

(01:39:38):
coerce them, guided them to making deals that got progressively worse.
I mean, in next year's draft, the Rockets will not
be selecting in the first round because of James Harden
general manager slash Daryl Morey general manager. That's still hanging
over them. Trade just an embarrassingly bad deal, which we

(01:39:58):
all knew, I think at the time, So it does
still impact that. But yeah, it's both good and bad.
They didn't win the number one pick in any of
these drafts, but I do think they drafted a good player.
Could they have gotten a better player maybe some years
versus others? Sure, did they get better players like a
men Thompson is the second best player in that draft class,
at least they drafted them at four. Jalen Green's probably

(01:40:20):
not the second best player in his draft class, but close.
But Evan Mobley could have come after that, you know,
Jabari Smith junior. And I'm not talking about a player
at nine or eleven or fifteen that clearly wasn't in
the discussion that team's just missed on, but a player
right there that you are basically deciding in between. And
yet they still managed to put a fifty two win
team together, a team in position to try to put

(01:40:41):
that final piece in place. And as we talked about
with Danielle, and we talked about it off the air,
since the deal was made, you traded one future non
tangible asset away. I'm calling Dylan and Jalen tangible. They
put on your uniform and bounce the ball for you.
All your draft picks are not tangible yet you don't
know where any of them will even fall in the draft,
except for the two that you've now moved on from

(01:41:03):
in ten and fifty nine. Fifty nine is one of
the five second round picks they will send to Phoenix
as part of this deal. But the other ones are
still yours. Yours after twenty six. All the Rockets picks
are there is after twenty six. There may be some
swap rights associated to some of these selection I'm I'm mentioning,
but the other two future picks from Phoenix that you

(01:41:25):
specifically shifted over from Brooklyn this past offseason, they're still yours.
You still have assets. There are still other moves to
be made if you want to, If there are players
that you think you can get by using these picks
and really going all in and maybe drafting or excuse me,
maybe adding a player that has more than three years left.

(01:41:45):
And I think Kevin Durant has three years left. You
might find player that's in his mid twenties, someone who
can help you much longer than that, so they don't
have to necessarily be done. The only other part of
this Kevin Durial Durant deal we haven't really gotten into
is around the NBA, all sixteen teams that made the playoffs,
the eight teams that advanced, the four teams that advance,
and so on, very few teams were getting significant contributions

(01:42:09):
from anybody over thirty three thirty two, like Steph Curry
at least advanced once he would fall into that category.
Obviously Kevin Durant didn't. He didn't wasn't even in the playoffs,
and of the four teams at the end of it all,
both conferences, I mean, like Rudy was the oldest, like
Mike Conley. I don't know how you great his contributions,

(01:42:30):
but there's certainly what they're expecting from a Conley or
a Gobert versus what the Rockets might be expecting from Durant.

Speaker 5 (01:42:36):
Dramatically young league, I mean, which is good for what
we were talking about earlier, with the health of the
league and promoting its product and all that. But yeah,
and you know, I think that Kevin Durant's deal, which
we'll talk about before the end of the hour and
what I'm talking about, his deal after this upcoming season,

(01:42:58):
where he can sign that extra to your extension, what
have you. But is it going to be for the
amount that I think a lot of people assumed it
would be when this deal was made, or will he
give the Rockets and as it were, incoming more help
a break by not taking as much money. It's very
Tom Brady of him if he does that.

Speaker 6 (01:43:19):
Yeah, there are some serious financial implications. Just a little
bit about that. It's a little bit about how you
can help them have either an exception or space, whatever
it is in each situation. But yeah, the player would
be taking less money. And we talked about it with
the Warriors for years and the Klay Thompson negotiations, and yeah,
we can sign Klay Thompson for this amount and Clay

(01:43:39):
will get amount X and will pay amount X plus
sixty million in taxes. Because that's what tips us over
the line. And that's something the Rockets, as we've clearly seen,
it's a descending salary for Steven Adams from year one
to two to three, and that's something they're definitely thinking
about down the road. We are definitely thinking about our
signature segment on a Monday. That's the Good, the Bad,

(01:44:01):
the Ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
It's next the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 17 (01:44:10):
Now the good, oh good, the bad, that's not good,
and the ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
Don't with the eighteen. We're selling you the good, the bad.

Speaker 5 (01:44:26):
It's time for our signature segment on a Monday. Because
the weekend happens, it provides so much material for just
this sort of thing.

Speaker 6 (01:44:34):
What was good?

Speaker 5 (01:44:35):
What was bad and what was ugly from a weekend
that saw the Astros take two out of three and
the Rockets land Kevin Durant this week, Cole is good,
Wex is very bad, and I am super ugly.

Speaker 6 (01:44:49):
So with that out of the way, Cole take it away.

Speaker 14 (01:44:52):
Well, I could just say that Thomas Castelanos wrote his
own deaf ticket by calling out Alabama week one, and
that'd be great for me and for anyone that root
for the Tide. But I have yet to get my
opinion on the Kevin Durant trade.

Speaker 6 (01:45:04):
So it was good. It was so good. It was so.

Speaker 14 (01:45:09):
Well constructed by rafel Stone because of when it initially
was reported that Kevin Durant want to get traded, you
knew that the asking price was going to be a
little bit out of left field because if they wanted
to make sure that they were walking away with a
massive win in their back pocket, that didn't happen. You
can go to the tenth overall pick. Okay, that player
was going to the G League or basically turning into

(01:45:30):
read sheepherd two point zero. Yes, is it stinked to
let go of a guy like Dylan Brooks. Yes, but
you're getting rid of the salary cap structure. Jalen Green
for all us, here was out the door already. We
kind of had that written in stone. The thing that
I love about this deal more than anything else is
that Kevin Durant is going to add an offensive flexibility
to your roster immediately at the second level. I think

(01:45:53):
he's gonna do great inside the paint. I think the
other guy's going to really stand out is he offers
you a little bit better value than the three point range.
Last season, Dylan Brook shot forty percent, Katie shoots forty
three percent. He's averaging twenty five points a game when
he's on the court for you. And I think my
favorite part of this deal is that, much like you a.

Speaker 6 (01:46:12):
Scene, I'm high on Cam Witmore.

Speaker 14 (01:46:14):
I think the best is so to come for him,
but I'm really high on Reed Shepherd. You don't draft
a kid third overall and not expect him to have
some significant role with your team. They're going to play now.
You didn't give up mob Men Thompson. You didn't give
up Jabari Smith. Jabari Smith was a no contact, hang up,
no questions ask kind of player. You didn't give up

(01:46:37):
a lot of your flexibility. You still keep veteran ship
with Fred van Vliet. Now, the only question I have
is the health long term of Katie. If that is
going to be a negative in all of this conversation,
so be it. But you didn't give up the first
round picks. You only give up the second round picks.
Jalen Green was already halfway out the door. It's stinks

(01:46:58):
losing Dylan Brooks, but you replace it with a future
Hall of famer. Oh, by the way, if Yannis does
get traded.

Speaker 6 (01:47:04):
How much better of a deal does this look for you?

Speaker 14 (01:47:06):
With desbon Ban going for four first round picks with
whatever the asking price is going to be for Giannis.
If you were to be moved, you give it the
tenth overall pick and you still have multiple lottery selections
in the future. Raphelstone, it's stay plus for me. Did
absolutely the way that you were able to handle this steal.

Speaker 6 (01:47:23):
That's good Widely viewed like that, seems like most people
believe the same way. They have flexibility moving forward. While
you can say they went all in, they certainly didn't
mortgage the future both on court and in assets to
do so. The team that won in fifty two games
and three playoff games other than Jalen and Dylan, which

(01:47:43):
is a lot. You didn't play an enormous rotation in
the postseason, so there's only so many players in it,
and there were two of them pretty significant minutes. But
that's what it took to you do get a player
in return. Kevin Durant's gonna take a lot of those
minutes away from what we're being given to Dylan Brooks.
And then you know, I don't want to be too
short sighted on number ten, like we shouldn't be too
short sighted on number three. Year one was a waste

(01:48:05):
for Reed Shepherd from a how did he contribute to
the team? That's certainly the case, and I do think
the tenth pick could end up being the same thing
were to be made by the Rockets and held by
the Rockets. But that doesn't mean that player can't be
good on into the future, can't be a difference maker,
can't be the player you were missing. You just look
at Jalen Williams and what he was able to do
in the finals or in his career to date, and

(01:48:26):
that he's at the back end of the All NBA
teams already, And this is a player drafted outside the
top ten. I guess the bad was made rather simple,
and it's just the other side of it. They watched
this all unfold. They went out and used a tremendous
amount of their assets Phoenix did to put this team together.
They went all in with Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant

(01:48:47):
and have turned around in a position where they don't
know what they're doing. You know, they got a lot
of bad offers. I think we can agree on that now,
and it's partially by their own doing. That the time
to probably make the deal, and unfortunately they did let
Kevin Duran just unfortunate from Phoenix standpoint, extremely fortunate from
the Rocket standpoint. The bad here for me is actually
very good for Houston and a very good for Kevin Durant.

(01:49:10):
He absolutely dictated part of what's happening here. He's dealt
to the Warriors. If the Warriors don't get scared that
somehow him saying he didn't want to be there was
going to equal, then he's not gonna play or he's
gonna make it miserable. I'm not sure what an NBA
player can do that's not James Harden that is going
to make you say, man, this was dumb. Yeah, he

(01:49:30):
gave something up and then you did it again just
about a week ago with Minnesota. Minnesota had a deal
I do believe was comparable, different way of looking at it,
but comparable to what the Rockets offered. But they basically
got not a dad joke here, cold feet, and they
backed away from what they were offering and say, well,
we can't be confirmed or compelled to believe that he

(01:49:52):
wants to be here and thus wants to be extended
here or else. We're trading whatever we're trading, and then
all of it's gonna be gone in a year. So
Phoenix put themselves in a bad situation, which played out
quite well for Houston. You went the ugly. Now that's
what comes next.

Speaker 5 (01:50:07):
Because I'll tell you this and it's it's my own
personal spin on this. There was a lot of people
saying this and it's just so laughably bad that it
has to be ugly. Of all the opinions I got
about this trade, and you can like it, you cannot
like it.

Speaker 6 (01:50:24):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (01:50:25):
Don't try and tell me this is the same as
Charles Barkley from nineteen ninety six. That is the most misleading, ugly,
non educated.

Speaker 6 (01:50:35):
Take on this.

Speaker 5 (01:50:36):
I could I get from the standpoint he's older, and
that's when it starts and finishes as far as comparison.
So Sam and Robert are Jalen and Dylan, right, except
for this, Sam and Roberts not really Okay, well, I
mean you can't go any further than that once you
finish the sentence with Sam and Robert helped bring you
two championships. Both of them did key cogs in why

(01:50:59):
the Rockets were back to back champions and what do
you think Barkley to get those two titles? So that's
why it's just you see why it gets ugly for
me real quick, I do as you push back on that.

Speaker 6 (01:51:11):
Sam Cassell moving on from Houston after just two seasons
and all they did those two two he was two
for two and winning titles. He did, in fact make
an All NBA team in Minnesota. Yeah, and I do
think he played well enough at different times maybe to
do more than that. That was a super talented player.

(01:51:33):
The other player was never going to make All NBA.
All he was going to do was win the title
five more times with clutch shots, with very very clutch shots.
But you didn't know that, right.

Speaker 5 (01:51:45):
I mean, although he'd already hit two of them for
you on the way to the title.

Speaker 6 (01:51:49):
I do think there are some similarities. The difference is obvious,
and it definitely could be an ugly comparison, because what
did you do in the years you had Jalen Green
and Dylan Brooks Definitely less, definitely less than winning titles.
It's clear where the team came from. You know, Sam
Cassell and Robert Orrie were drafted by the Rockets to
play with a chem Olajahwan, Jalen Green, and anybody else

(01:52:12):
drafted here was never drafted to play alongside a Hall
of Famer. There aren't any. It's a little different. I
just you're not Morgan.

Speaker 5 (01:52:19):
The amount of assets you gave up to get Barkley
alone makes it for a dumb comparison.

Speaker 6 (01:52:25):
I mean, just look at the players that Sam and
Robert played with here in Houston, just for two years,
or just for those two years, and compare it to
the players that any of the young Rockets played with.
I just went to the playoffs for the first time
this year. I know those guys got to waltz into
a really good situation.

Speaker 5 (01:52:43):
Absolutely all right, We will waltz into more chatter about
this Kevin Durant deal from Sham's and Kadie taking less money.

Speaker 6 (01:52:52):
We'll hear that next.

Speaker 1 (01:52:54):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:53:05):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 5 (01:53:06):
It's Sports Sox seven to ninety, Space City Home Network.
Lots of Kevin Durant chatter. We thought we were talking
about this a lot last week. Once the deal gets made,
possibilities are endless up to an including an aspect of
this situation that we talked about a lot before we

(01:53:28):
knew where he was going, because it seemed like anytime
a team was tied to Kevin Durant, it was a
foregone conclusion that in order for that team to make
the deal, you were going to have to know or
have an understanding that Kevin Durant was going to sign
beyond this upcoming season. He's got one more year left
on his contract at fifty four million in change, and

(01:53:50):
then it was assumed he would sign another one of
those lebron esque because he keeps doing that two year
type deals, so you'd have essentially three years with him
minimum maybe maxim, but.

Speaker 6 (01:54:04):
At a max rate.

Speaker 5 (01:54:06):
That might not be the case, however, as sham Shrania,
who's obviously been all over this story, spoke about earlier
today that will be a conversation.

Speaker 18 (01:54:16):
I do expect the Rockets to have those formal discussions
on an extension. I don't know if it'll be this week,
but I expect at some point in July and August
that's a conversation that will happen. And listen, Kevin Drant
is eligible for I think it's a two year, one
hundred and twenty one million dollar extension.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
Will it be all of that?

Speaker 6 (01:54:34):
Will it be a part of that?

Speaker 18 (01:54:35):
Like, it would not surprise me to see how you know,
Kevin Durrant is approaching this.

Speaker 12 (01:54:40):
This is a partnership.

Speaker 18 (01:54:41):
I think this is there's a goal in mind here
to end his career in Houston on both sides, on
both fronts. How can he make it easy on Houston?

Speaker 2 (01:54:48):
How can he Houston do right by him?

Speaker 18 (01:54:50):
I think that will be a conversation at some point
this offseason.

Speaker 5 (01:54:53):
This is like I'm not gonna say it's unheard of,
but how could insert max level player make it easy
on insert team that he's on or just got traded to.
Even you just don't hear that it's just assumed he's
gonna get the MAX.

Speaker 6 (01:55:09):
That's what happens. That is Jimmy Butler. Jimmy Butler went
to the Golden State Warriors and immediately got the MAX.
Who's very similar to the scenario that could play out
with Kevin Durant. I don't think that helps the Golden
State Warriors win. It helps Jimmy Butler cash in. And
he hasn't made quite the money I guess as Kevin Durant,
but he's made a lot of money. It's just I'm

(01:55:32):
not telling players to take less. They shouldn't really be
asked to take less. They've they've earned the right to
earn whatever do they're do. And the way that the
CBA works out, you know, as you continue to play,
your max value becomes greater and greater. It's why you're
you're seeing players like Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard. These aren't
the best players in the NBA. They're just making the
most money in the NBA. Durant's a little closer to

(01:55:54):
being among the best players in the NBA, and he
played at an all NBA level this year. You'll you'll
look back in a few and maybe forget man twenty
four to twenty five, the Rockets added Kevin Durant off
of a season where he didn't even make All NBA.
There are qualifiers now. You can play as well as
you want, but you don't play in a certain number
of games, you don't qualify for it. His play suggested
he certainly could have made one of the top fifteen slots,

(01:56:17):
but he didn't. And even that kind of weighs into
what some players max deals are if it helps them
add a player too, I'm pretty sure he's going to
listen to it if it merely, I mean, because of
where it keeps them on the apron and things like that,
and what kind of team they're classified as you have
to if you're the player, I hope you would look
at it that way, because the other way to look

(01:56:39):
at it is so you just want me to take
less money so it doesn't cost the owner more money.
You just want me to save him money. If it's
saving him money, and that helps you sign a player
because you've saved tax money, or put your team in
a different break in the aprons so you have more
of the exceptions, et cetera. Well, that's one thing, but

(01:56:59):
if just less money to pay less money and not
spend as much money. That's a totally different animal.

Speaker 5 (01:57:05):
Well, if you're the Rockets, is Kevin Durant the final
piece of the puzzle or is he? And then what
those pieces you're talking about adding? Is that still to come?
Because what have we talked about this whole time? This
guy couldn't even crack the rotation last season. This guy
was like on the fringes of the rotation. We're talking

(01:57:25):
about Reach Shepherd and Cam whit More respectively. Well, so
you're gonna go out and get I mean, I know
that Daniel Lerner was talking about Aaron Holliday.

Speaker 6 (01:57:34):
Are you gonna go use.

Speaker 5 (01:57:35):
Your mid level exception to bolster the two guard spot?
But again, if you do all that, what's your rotation?
Like Emay's got a famously almost Mike D'Antoni playoff esque
eight man eight and a half man rotation.

Speaker 6 (01:57:49):
How are you cracking that? They're all the same, Like
everybody has a small rotation. I think we watched a
little bit of the NBA Finals and thought, oh man,
these teams shuld play a lot of players. It's not
like that, very very unlike that for almost every team,
and they have the personnel to do it, and we
were looking at their players and saying, why wouldn't you
place give this this player. Hasn't he earned some minutes
and basically what you're saying, has he earned your trust?

(01:58:11):
And that certainly wasn't the case. It probably wasn't the
case for Reed Shepherd either. I'd be a little bit
more concerned than we've kind of led on about the
Rockets and their backcourt, something Danielle said we had not
brought up as much as we probably should. I'm all
for a men Thompson running point when he can and
when it's necessary, but Jalen Green made it a whole
lot easier to play any minutes when Fred was healthy,
and any minutes when Fred was hurt, to bring the

(01:58:33):
ball up, set up the offense, be your main ball handler.
That's gone, your backup point guard as it sits today,
is Reed Shepherd. That also means Reed Shepherd has to
play basketball when you don't have the ball, and that
means he has to defend somebody. I think he's way
stronger than people think, but he's not going to grow up.
He's not going to get taller. He is an easy
player to play through as he's currently built, and that's

(01:58:56):
probably not ever going to change, and it will impact
the way Tech team plays their team defense because he's
out there. Fred got so strong and has such a
good bass, and like Alex Caruso, but Shorter understands some
of the mechanics of playing as an undersized player against
bigger players when you're switched off or whatever the case
may be. Reach Shepherd doesn't know that yet and may

(01:59:17):
not even ever be able to get to that point.
And these are things that are going to take some
He's got to earn the right to be out there,
the same as Cam. They just automatically get these minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:59:28):
Here's a loaded question. Did you consider John Stockton a
good defender? Is there about the same size, right?

Speaker 6 (01:59:35):
But they're the spacing issues that exist in the NBA
didn't exist back then. I mean the best outside shut
on there from the Jazz was probably Calm Alone from
seventeen feet. Yeah, like where you were, you just weren't
concerned about that, and he would his way to figure
things out, unlike Fred was to punch people and push
them and don't forget the elbows and get away with
it and then flop and then fall down. Lou Dort like,

(01:59:59):
don't forget shay uh. Shay falls down when he has
the ball. Lou falls down when he's trying to fool
the umpires on the basketball court. They're like framing his pitches,
is what he's doing. Oh, Ben Mathern is moving down
the court because his team's dribbling and he wants to
go play offense. Why don't I just bump into him
and fall down? Even though I outweigh him by twenty

(02:00:20):
five pounds, I can outlift him by one hundred and
fifty pounds. These people who have whistles will fall for.

Speaker 5 (02:00:27):
It, and they certainly did last night. You mentioned Lou Door.
I mean that was so egregiously bad.

Speaker 6 (02:00:33):
There's three of you. It's okay to overrule. Come on, man,
when somebody should have gone to the official that made
that concept. Ah, we're not doing this. You missed it, dude,
Like this is ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (02:00:42):
Since we've hit the close to the end of the segment,
close enough to where when we hit the brake on time,
I haven't left much time for this, but I didn't
even send you any information yesterday at nine am or
eight am, when it was announced that none of The
three officials were Scott Foster for the finale. Almost texted
you last night and I forgot as we talked about earlier.

Speaker 6 (02:01:03):
What four? What do you need him for? For those
people who think he is crooked is a super strong word,
but helpful to the league is even worse. It's me,
I do what do you need him for? It's game
seven already? Do you have to have somebody win? Does
he really have to play into that?

Speaker 1 (02:01:18):
No?

Speaker 6 (02:01:18):
They put three good officials, and they did have three
good officials that he'd make one hundred percent good calls.
But they're three good officials and the right to be there.

Speaker 5 (02:01:25):
That was more about the player fooling somebody versus it
looks like the officials going into business for himself here.

Speaker 6 (02:01:32):
If I read it correctly, the only official to work
an NBA Finals game only once this final series was
Scott Foster. Everybody else got.

Speaker 5 (02:01:41):
At least team now it should be when teams are
competing for the ultimate prize Football at five Coming up next.

Speaker 2 (02:01:49):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:01:54):
Adam Clinton and Adam Weckler are the A Team.

Speaker 5 (02:02:07):
Football at five underway on a day where Kevin Durant
and his trade to the Houston Rockets has dominated the show.
Did you see what we keep that going here at
football at five? Well, I'm about to Okay, I want
to bring it all full circle. You see what JJ
Watt tweeted the other day A Rocket. I was like, man,

(02:02:32):
JJ loved him some Rockets when he was here and
this is no different.

Speaker 6 (02:02:36):
He still roots for all the local teams.

Speaker 2 (02:02:38):
He does.

Speaker 6 (02:02:39):
We know. Kevin Durant was at Fanatics Fest this weekend.
If you watched a lot of the footage social media
footage that came out, you also saw that he was
gifted from Travis Scott through Fanatics owner Michael Rubin a
new hoodie, some nice little top that featured the logos
of the locals. It listed an h Town salute from KD. Now,

(02:03:04):
Kevin Durant played here not that long ago. One of
the last road games he played in was here in Houston.
The actual last game he played as a Phoenix Sun
was also against the Rockets. This last month of his season.
He was awesome, shot better than fifty percent on threes.
But that trip to Houston was right after the All
Star break was in mid February, and not right around then.

(02:03:30):
You had the Travis Scott Foundation, the Cactus Jack Softball event,
of which c J. Stroud participated in. CJ. Stroud Houston
Texans quarterback the Phoenix Suns at Houston at Toyota Center
on February twelfth. If you were there, you might have
seen KD head over to CJ. Dap him up, have

(02:03:52):
a little convo with him. Chandler Chancellor Johnson was among
those that caught up with CJ at the softball event,
and I had a chance to ask him about Kevin
Durant and their interaction and now they're city mates here
in Houston.

Speaker 10 (02:04:08):
Katie is my favorite player growing up. I told him
now like when I first met him like two years ago,
and he shown me love every sing so I was
really respect you know, he's a big brother of mine,
and you know, I definitely have a you know, a
big fan of his and just appreciate and just we've
been saying what's up to me yesterday and.

Speaker 12 (02:04:21):
It's a lot.

Speaker 6 (02:04:22):
Do you think he'll say what's up to him the
next time they cross paths when he comes across the
court as a member of the Rockets and sees CJS
sitting there now also should be noted as the interaction
between Kevin Durant. An interview between Kevin Durant and Kay
Adams continued. He was scheduled to be at a Q
and A with Cowboys edge Michael Parsons Cowboys linebacker Mike

(02:04:47):
or Parsons. Michael Parsons. Obviously, he's only played for one
NFL team, the rival team of Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant
is a DC guy. He is a Washington football fan.
He brought up the thought of, hey man, we got
to get you over to the commanders. What's it gonna
take to get you over there? And Micah's response was,
you know, the only man I roll with is Dan Quinn.

(02:05:09):
He's like, he's basically opening the door for this when
the Cowboys continue to not extend him. I don't really
think that's gonna happen the Cowboys. I do think we'll
extend him. I do not think we're anywhere near seeing
Micah Parsons play for one of the cowboys fiercest rivals
and a team that's way way ahead of them and
the pecking order in the NFC. I don't know that

(02:05:30):
anybody's ahead of the Commanders in the pecking order behind
the Philadelphia Eagles, including the Detroit Lions. The Detroit Lions,
there's two things, same company that again bring this same
topic together. Did you see that Netflix? Netflix reminded everybody

(02:05:52):
that their quarterbacks program was on its way back this
coming year. Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, the featured acts.
They also snuck it in without a whole lot of fanfare,
something that was announced back in October. They got closer
to giving us a launch date for it. And it's

(02:06:13):
another program, a series, a sports program that they're going
to run again. Do you remember back in October then
the announced that there would be cameras Netflix cameras following
around NBA players. You remember which players will be featured
on the upcoming season for that program on Netflix. Durant

(02:06:34):
one of them. Durant is one of them. I thought
starting five season two, Jalen brown SGA, James Harden, Tyrese Halliburton.

Speaker 5 (02:06:45):
So they got two players in the finals, a lot
of rehab. Well it's pretty much over. Yeah, it was
a chronicling of the season. I don't know how much
off season there is going to be, but a chronicling
of this past season and Kevin Durant, Durant Sga Tyres
and James Harden. It drops later this year, should be sometime,

(02:07:06):
probably early October. I would assume, though, that the cameras
were rolling last night for something like.

Speaker 6 (02:07:11):
That, because the season wasn't open and two of their
featured five players were playing for a title. I would
think so.

Speaker 5 (02:07:18):
But I mean the whole Halliburton injury, which was just awful.
It's just, you know, he knew right away, you could.
The camera got an unfortunately epic capture of his face
and what he was clearly saying, and the.

Speaker 6 (02:07:32):
Other camera got even worse angle.

Speaker 5 (02:07:35):
Well that was yeah, but that we got a wrangle
of that. When Durant did hit, he was here in
Houston and.

Speaker 6 (02:07:40):
They all stink. And this is again I go back to,
I know you don't want to not play. I know
someone wants you to be out there. I know they
don't want to tell you not to play. And it's
not automatic the literal championship on the line, but this
is clearly a precursor to this injury. If not handled appropriately.

Speaker 5 (02:07:59):
If we find out that Kevin Durant has a tight
calf at any point this season, shut him down.

Speaker 6 (02:08:04):
It's pretty simple. I mean, I don't care where it
is either.

Speaker 5 (02:08:07):
You just you don't have a choice because otherwise you're
not only gambling with whatever in the moment you're talking about,
you're gambling with next year of his life. And it's
not just like Tyrese Haliburton's not going to be the
same for probably a year after that until medical technology
improves or what happened. I mean, remember what was it

(02:08:30):
like a like a like a tornmaniscus or even licker fracture. Yeah,
or even an ACL is not the death sentence it
used to be. It's still bad for an ACL, but
there are knee and leg related injuries where it's you
know it's not. But this is basically the Tommy John
of NBA players. You're out for a year and you're

(02:08:51):
probably not going to be the same for at least
a year after that.

Speaker 6 (02:08:55):
Good news for the NBA, even amidst the bad news
with that comparison is I mean, maybe from a percentage
stand point, it isn't as good as I think, but
we did see a significant uptick in the number of injuries,
just like we saw a significant uptick in the Tommy
John injury who saw way more Achilles injuries. There's even
one on the court, but out of the NBA with
a player going through his workouts and had gone on

(02:09:15):
many of them, and unfortunately his season won't happen because
of it. Jaguars, by the way, I don't know how
they managed to do this, but they signed their draft pick.
That's what everybody does, but nonetheless gets thirty million dollars
up front be fitting of a player who will play
one side of the football. We'll see if it's befitting
of a player who plays both sides of the football.
But Travis Hunters deal is done. We have as of today,

(02:09:40):
one month exactly until the Texans will be on the
field for their first training camp practice. I believe should
be on July twenty third. The Texans are like are
unlike every other team in the second round, and that
they took care of business with their second round pick,
one of them in Jayden Higgins, which left everybody else

(02:10:01):
that didn't want to do this wondering what to do.
They guaranteed all his money. One other team did that
with their second round pick, and nobody else has been
able to figure out exactly what they want to do
there I don't think it will result in anything of
a player not being there. They still have a month
to go, and I hope it doesn't impact this team either.
Considering this particular player we're talking about, Tay Ursery is

(02:10:22):
in line to compete to start at either side of
the line. If things work out at left tackle, that's great.
If he outplays Cam Robinson's to the point that he
should be the start of them by all means, put
him out there and say, come on, CJ. You know
this guy's over there. You've got to get rid of
the ball faster. Or if Cam Robinson plays in a
manner that keeps him on the field and keeps Ursery
behind him, I think he'll get a look on the
other side, as he has at times during the offseason program,

(02:10:45):
and I imagine that's still what they have in store
for him when they get back onto the field, joint
practice or two and everything else that gets them ready
for the season. One other monetary thing we discussed. I've
been talking about franchise values and how much this latest
tale amounted to, which yeah, it's unheard of until the
next time, or somebody else's big lot of assets results

(02:11:09):
in a ten billion dollar price tag, which is what
we just saw for the Lakers. The Jets are their
owners getting in on some premier league action. He's going
to get less than a fifty percent stake about a
forty three percent steak in a premier league team, Crystal Palace.
It's only going to cost him two hundred and fifty
four million for a forty three percent steak in a

(02:11:33):
football team foot ball, that's all it costs. So give
you a little bit of an idea of at least
this particular outfit and the amount of money it takes
to put you in that position. One other thing from
a football standpoint, we always like to do this when
it presents itself. The Rockets made a huge deal, and
normally when a basketball team makes a magnificent deal from

(02:11:54):
a blockbuster standpoint, you have NFL owners chiming in on it,
and that has happened with Commander owner Irvin Magic Johnson
at Magic Johnson on the X platform, like when the
sports enter mingle. Two time NBA champion and future Hall
of Famer Kevin Durant being traded to Houston will make
Rockets one of the favorites in West next season. That

(02:12:15):
is at Magic Johnson new handle at captain obvious.

Speaker 5 (02:12:20):
You and I exchanged a text about this last night,
already flagged.

Speaker 6 (02:12:25):
What did you say again? Already flagged? No, no, no, what
did you say after that? I don't know.

Speaker 5 (02:12:30):
I'd have to go to the source. I thought you
would remember. It's only three little words. He is smart,
he's the best. Ah And of course I responded with
an asterisk that said worst.

Speaker 6 (02:12:43):
He's not the worst. Is so harmless, this is awesome worst. Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:12:47):
If I wanted somebody with his platform and his status
to tweet the most obvious things ever, I guess that's
one way to go, but I would like more of it.
Like it's almost like Magic Onsen doesn't understand how social
media works.

Speaker 2 (02:13:02):
He had what your.

Speaker 6 (02:13:03):
Thoughts not facts? He had a second post just after that.
It said first year coach Jordan Ott and Phoenix will
have tough time moving forward without Kevin Durant. I mean,
come on, I made.

Speaker 5 (02:13:17):
That up, but you could see where I'd believe you,
I would and anybody else. All right, coming up, there
will be another segment of the show signed Magic Johnson.

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
The a T on Sports Talk seven ninety.

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Speaker 1 (02:18:47):
We now return to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (02:18:56):
Even though it's an off day for your Houston Rockets
serial on the eighth at Astros, also Rockets and Texans
and just about everybody else here on a Monday or
that play sports here in the city, plus the colleges
there in the off season. Now, everybody's by the way,
in the off season. Didn't slot this into the ugly
because we went all KD on the good bad ugly

(02:19:17):
for the signature segment. But it was pretty laughable. I
don't care what you're you're thinking, you're doing, and you
can't the manager, if we will, the coach for Coastal
Carolina cannot be told to stop participating in Game two
in the first inning as he was yesterday. That was
an ugly situation handled very badly by the umpires. Far

(02:19:39):
from an irate out of control. This guy's stalling the game.
He's making us look. It's a conversation. You got to
be able to have a conversation, even if it's about
a taboo subject like that. Watch how Major League Baseball
managers are handled all throughout the season. You can't come
out here, you can't talk. They come out, they speak,
they leave they don't always get ejected for it. It

(02:19:59):
doesn't have to be that way. It didn't need to
be that way, and it was rather unfortunate heck of
a game otherwise. That's what people remember is comments afterwards
were quite good. But nonetheless LSU did snap their winning
streak with the Game one win, and they won the
national championship with their Game two win. I know how
much it means, so we'll leave it at that, but
LSU is your national champions on the college baseball front. Professionally,

(02:20:23):
the Astros took care of business is as well as
they could. For two teams that they played against hitting
the ball over the fence that the way that they were.
The Astros ended up winning four out of seven on
this recently completed West Coast road trip. The Angels, I
know they don't win a lot of baseball games. They're
thirty seven and forty, but they do mash. They're one
of the worst hitting teams in baseball. They've been in

(02:20:45):
the bottom five pretty much all season. They hit about
two twenty to twenty five for the year, and they
hit the ball over the fence. They strike out all
the time. Unless they're hitting the ball over the fence,
and yesterday was no different. The Astros managed win despite
the fact that the Angels kept hitting the ball over
the fence. The Angels are second to the Yankees and

(02:21:07):
that is it in Major League Baseball and home runs.
But like I said, they hit two twenty six. So
even though Gusto was troubled by the home run ball
and Josh Hater gave up another home run and lockdown
a save, that's what he does, they did a good
job of winning and the game in between the two
wins against the Angels, Clearly they didn't put anything on
the board, and the home run ball bit them there

(02:21:29):
just as much as he did in any of the games.
But they got six innings out of Gusto. Probably could
have gotten more he'd given up his five runs, but
it was only at seventy nine pitches. The off day today,
I'm sure had a little bit to do with it.
And King of bra you Hater giving up two runs. Okay,
they had a three run lead, so they still won
by one. You got six innings out of Brandon Walter

(02:21:49):
the day before because he was able to get you
six innings. He didn't have it much more so than Gusto.
Even though both of them piled up a bunch of strikeouts,
They've had so few of those games that they had.
On Saturday, they head home for this home stand against
two good National League teams. Still looking at everybody else
in baseball. They've been the best team in baseball in June.

(02:22:10):
They've been among the best pitching teams in baseball all year,
and that's even been on an uptick. Here made two
moves between then and now, both subtle and one will
make an impact immediately on the major league club at
some point whenever Joe Spota puts him in the lineup.
But Taylor Tremmel, who was with the Astros in camp
in spring training, but had a calf injury there that

(02:22:32):
has limited him. He went to the Complex League for
a few games, then went to the Space Cowboys the
last week and he's been activated. He is on the
active roster for the beginning of this home stand. Shay
Whitcombe again is sent away to Sugarland. I know they
win every time Cooper Hummel plays. They're three to zero
when he starts. I know Luiski Yorme has been a

(02:22:53):
wizard with his glove and entertaining when he's running, either
running out to left field to catch the ball or
running into a head first slide as he did this
weekend into home plate. But man, they can't hit and
they're still here, and Taylor Tremelle bats from the left side.
Is an option to be in the lineup whenever they're

(02:23:15):
facing you know, pitching, which teams are clearly steering away
from because of the imbalance of this Astros roster. And
according to Chandler on the Astros have added John Singleton
on a minor league Contract's baby. I did look at
John Singleton's numbers from whenever they match up with Christian Walkers,

(02:23:35):
so roughly three hundred and ten three hundred and fifteen
plate appearances uh to end Singleton seasons versus what Christian
Walker's put together so far this year. I'm not I
shouldn't do it because it'll be perceived a certain way.
Christian Walker's not losing playing time to anybody in the organization,
let alone a guy they signed to a minor league contract.
But it's the same reason why I wondered why they

(02:23:58):
let him go to begin with. They don't have something
and at least he can do that. As numbers from
compared to Walker's offensively or very similar, very very very similar,
and just to pile on since that's what I do
with Christian Walker. He had two errors last year, he
had two airs the year before. This year he had
two errors on one play and four for the season.

(02:24:19):
Not quite an untouchable like elite overwhelming, not on a
gold glove track at first base, which he's won a
couple times before, that would be helpful for what he
hasn't provided them offensively, but much like the Wes Clark
signing or trade last week. By the way, Wes Clark
is playing at Double A for the Astros. Also not

(02:24:39):
about to usurp playing time from Christian Walker. This is
a we have a lack of organizational depth in certain
areas and for the time being, the left handed patient
home run bat of John Singleton can be used at
Triple A. Does he make it up here? Yeah? I
think he does. How soon, because you can a player

(02:25:01):
like that, you get him onto the forty man, whether
you shift somebody this sixty day IL or you designate
Cooper Humble for assignment, then you do the same thing
with Singleton. Unfortunately, it's bad. It's bad for the player.
It's awful and very impersonal. Do you think when you
get the call up, ah, good, they need me. Well,
as soon as they don't need you, you're not even
in the organization anymore because you're out of options. So

(02:25:22):
they just DFA, which is what they're going to do eventually.
And it could be any day with Cooper Humble, could
be any day with luis Ki or May and he
may end up back in the organization, but they have
to be dropped off the forty man first.

Speaker 5 (02:25:32):
I think what you said at its core is true.
It's bad for the player, but I mean, ask John
Singleton where he would rather be where he was or
where he is now.

Speaker 6 (02:25:41):
I can ask his wife, but she already told us.
They're very excited that one an opportunity has come back
in a much better climate than Syracuse, which is where
the Triple A Mets are, and that's where he'd been
the whole season before they released him. And now he's
back here. I mean, when you sign with Houston on
a minor league deal, you play in Houston or sugar Land,
to be more exact, It's unlike most everywhere else in baseball.

(02:26:05):
He's here, and that does I really think It makes
it if every team would want this if they could,
and it's very very limited, it's very unique. All their
players are right here. The only bad part about sugar
Lands situation is they're in the PCL, and so when
they're on the road and you're not, or vice versa,
they're not close. Like Shay Whitcomb's path to the Astros,

(02:26:27):
the literal physical path to the Astros was trying to
figure out how to get from Reno to where the
Astros were now they were on the West Coast. Sometimes
it matches up quite nicely when they're not. You could
be in Vegas, you could be in Reno, you could
be in all sorts of who knows where's. But yeah,
the Astros made a couple of moves organizationally with the
off day, without the need to immediately continue the six

(02:26:49):
man rotation. They're going to get Hunter Brown and from
ber Valdez to pitch in the same series over the
next three games. First, in the last game of this
upcoming three game series, they continue to pay this team.
But the Astros, as they did all weekend and all
week on the road, they got good enough starts. They're
not necessarily winning starts they're not making you win. They're

(02:27:10):
not shutting down the other team, but they're not burning
through their bullpen. And it's a loud king and okurt
and hater and a brave you specifically to not get overused,
and it matters. It's a huge impact to the Astros.
They're almost at the halfway point and they're pitching staff
all things considered, with how many innings they missed from
guys they were counting on Arraghetti and now Lance included,

(02:27:34):
it's in really, really good shape for what they've It's
just I'm amazing, Well, I.

Speaker 5 (02:27:39):
Think that at the end of this season, you know,
regardless of how it all works out, I think the
Astros are obviously, I think they'll win the division. I
think they'll go to the postseason. Don't know what will
happen because I don't know about matchups and health and
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 (02:27:51):
There's a long way to go and you don't know
who's gonna win in advance to play them as the
two seed. That's true. Once they za sawlidify their spot
ahead of the end, I was about to say, why
every other day is back and forth? Why can't they
overtake the Tigers. They're not going to overtake the Tigers. Why,
I just don't think they are.

Speaker 5 (02:28:11):
What if one of their good players finally gets hurt
as opposed to all the Astros good players, all of them, I.

Speaker 6 (02:28:17):
Just don't think they're gonna pass. They're getting Alvarez the
deadline this year. I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (02:28:21):
So anyway, whatever happens, you know, I think at the
end of the day, when the dust settles and all
the cliches I could use right here, some of us
me included, might might Oh, Dana Brown an apology, Yeah,
I mean the.

Speaker 6 (02:28:40):
Only apology I think. I don't know. I don't want
to say it that way. I think if you won
by what camp Smith is, won that deal, so to speak,
because if you've got a star player out of it,
you won.

Speaker 5 (02:28:51):
I'm not saying he has to be better than Zucker.
Doesn't resign in Chicago, you automatically win, right, But what.

Speaker 6 (02:28:57):
He does for cho loses, that just means their end
is bad. I don't care what their end is anymore.
I care about your end. You can't win the deal
if cam Smith's not great, correct, So that's all I'm
looking at. And I do think there's a pretty good
chance that he will be. He had a little bit
of power in Oakland or Sacramento. Has everybody had power
in Sacramento? The team had an eight to seventy six

(02:29:20):
ops on this seven game road trip. They hit fifteen
home runs on the seven game road trip? How many
will they hit on this homestand at dyk And Park?
In case you missed.

Speaker 1 (02:29:30):
It is next the aged on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (02:29:41):
Time to get you caught up on a few items
if we have not discussed them fully today. So that
will not include any update on the Kevin Durant deal.
There's one. It was made, it is unofficial. It will
not be announced until after Wednesday's NBA Draft, long after
expected to be announced on July sixth. Does provide the
opportunity for potential changes to that deal, whether there's third
team involved or some minor parts of it. Doesn't appear

(02:30:04):
to impact the major framework of the deal, which will
send Kevin Durant to the Rockets and we'll send Jalen Green,
Dylan Brooks, the tenth overall pick in Wednesday's draft, along
with five second round picks, including a second round pick
in Thursday night's draft, to the Phoenix Suns. The Rockets
are hosting a draft extravaganza on Wednesday nights, knowing full

(02:30:27):
well what has happened unofficially, and look forward to seeing
all of you there. A couple of legends will be
in attendance, so we'll be out there as well as
the Rockets welcome the Sun's next player at number ten.

Speaker 5 (02:30:40):
Overall, it is going to be awkward. I was texting
with Gordy about this. He was like, poor kid's gonna
have to wear a Rocket. I'm like, okay, you can't
call him poor. He's the number ten pick in the draft.
He's about to be very, very not poor. This happened
to Scott Pippen. It can happen.

Speaker 6 (02:30:56):
It's happened in previous years, but I do think this
will be different. Well announces the Houston pick, everybody that
interviews him immediately off stage, and when he goes to
his podium for media on site, and even when he
says yes to Well the team would like to talk
to you. I surely hope we aren't among those talking
to him, because there's absolutely no reason for it. I've

(02:31:16):
done that before. I've interviewed a player we all knew
wasn't coming here because the deal was already there and awkward,
which is unnecessary because it was silly. So I don't
think that will happen again, and it's not the Rocket's fault.

Speaker 5 (02:31:26):
And I still think you guys should all make your
way out there because there's a lot of cool stuff
that's going to be in play, and plus the just
the guy you'll get to.

Speaker 6 (02:31:33):
You can not everybody. I don't know how that you're
planning on attending and getting yourself entrance to, but the opportunity,
if you'd like it, and whatever necessary means to do it,
you'll be able to get down to the Toileta Center court.

Speaker 5 (02:31:46):
Yeah, being on the floor at Toileta Center is absolutely
cool no matter what, taking pictures with the trophies. Rudy
will be there, Steve Francis will be there, Muchie Norris
will be there.

Speaker 6 (02:31:57):
But here's what I wish.

Speaker 5 (02:32:00):
Could be allowed to happen, And again this is through
no fault of the Rockets. They've made the trade. We
all know what it is, but we can't talk about
it until you last sex. It would be awesome if
they could actually introduce Kevin Durant in that setting because
the place would absolutely erupt.

Speaker 6 (02:32:15):
Yep, they will have an opportunity to do that, just
won't be on on Wednesday. What else do we have today, Cole?

Speaker 14 (02:32:24):
It actually is bricking news because it just got released
three metsgo. According to our friend Chane in the room
from the athletic astro shortstop, Jeremy Pangham has a new agent.

Speaker 6 (02:32:35):
At Scott Boris. He will for the man. Come on, really,
we're still having that reaction to this. I don't want it.
I'm tired of it.

Speaker 5 (02:32:44):
I'm tired of looking at his dyed hair when he's
sitting up there at a podium with some other team
that the former astro player he represents signed with for
an ex dorminant amount of money. I'm sick of Scott
Boris in my life. Man, beat it, well, go represent
some other.

Speaker 6 (02:33:00):
He just asks Scott if you're Dana or Jim or
any number of members. They just say, look, I know
it's not gonna happen, so just give us. Let us
sign one of them, Hunter or Jeremy. He now represents
both of them. I hate pillers and astros like Jose
Altuvey who have signed lucrative extensions here in Houston.

Speaker 2 (02:33:20):
And it makes sense.

Speaker 14 (02:33:21):
I mean, especially when you're hitting three twenty six for
just fourth of the majors and you have an OPS
in the top ten at eight seventy four.

Speaker 6 (02:33:27):
Look, you want to cash in. He seems like the
best time to hire him. He's the best leadoff hitter
in the American League from the moment he moved into
the leadoff spot. The numbers are to back it up
everything else he has done on the bass pass doesn't
even mention anything about his glove, but he has been
that and yes, this is impactful, and I don't deny
that that should be the reaction. I do believe you

(02:33:48):
were going to get to the All Star voting, which
isn't complete yet, No, but we're very very close to it.
Thursday is when Phase one ends, and they eliminate everybody
on the ballot except those that fish in the top
two at their respective positions or those that finish in
the top six in the outfield. It's not quite doom
and gloom for the Astros, no, mos, let's just call

(02:34:10):
it as is. We got an update that.

Speaker 14 (02:34:11):
Raphael Devers is no longer leading in the American League
because if he kind of can't bablocks to Ryan O'Hearn,
but Bobby wit Junior has taken over second place for
shortstop over Jeremy Panna. Currently, Jeremy Panna has roughly about
eighty eight hundred and eight thousand votes, where Bobby wit
Junior is slightly ahead. However, Jacob Wilson lee in the

(02:34:32):
pack with over one million. A couple of other updates,
Jose al Tuobe comes in at third, behind Orioles Jackson
Holiday and Detroit Tiger's Playvor Torres. You have Estoc Parides
in fifth behind Addison Berger, Zach McKinstry, Alex Bregmant and
Jose Ramirez.

Speaker 6 (02:34:46):
Those are the top two.

Speaker 14 (02:34:47):
Cal Rowley put up monster numbers this year, probably playing
his way into an MVP season, so makes sense that
he's on this list. But Yanu Diaz moved up to
number four in the list, and at first base, Christian
Walker surprisingly is.

Speaker 6 (02:34:59):
Still your top five. Yeah no, I mean it's nice
to hear where they are. The only one that I
think will make a has a chance to reach the
Phase two and it's not Jeremy Panna. It's Astro's left
fielder Jose al Tuove. As listed on the ballot Astro's
second basement, jose Al Tuove Jackson Holiday is less than

(02:35:20):
twelve thousand votes ahead of him. Yeah, that is very
much to be decided in this next update. The update
will come Thursday. You do have a few more days
to vote. You'll see a pretty large number of people
because now there's a deadline there, there's a run on votes.
At this point, I think jose Al Twove actually will
overtake him, and he'll be the lone Astro to make

(02:35:40):
it to phase two. Though I bet at that point
it probably doesn't overcome labor Tourist, but we shall. I
mean they start back at zero again, but quite a
ways ahead of him.

Speaker 14 (02:35:50):
I was about to ask it it starts backing zero
where Okay, cool, So there's a shot maybe Jeremy Panya
can work his way up against Jacob Wilson. At this point,
I'm laying Bobby Winchi.

Speaker 6 (02:36:00):
Leaning this has a humongous lead. It's it would be
exceptionally surprising sixty thousand.

Speaker 5 (02:36:06):
It's fine under division in sixty thousand. The playoff run
and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, neither one of
those guys are gonna make the playoffs. By the way,
dear god, it is that much.

Speaker 6 (02:36:14):
I didn't even realize. Right, we're pretty comfortable in saying
that that's a fan vote. It's who's excited, who's who's entertaining,
who's popular? Who do I want to see? Then they
can vote however they want. No, the A's shortstop is
not going to be in the postseason this year, nor
I wouldn't put the Royals out just yet. I want
to put them out. I wouldn't put them in either.

Speaker 14 (02:36:33):
Here's what it would put in ac you want to
have your mind be completely re uptured and ruptured and
basically hating on more of Yahoo Sports. Yes, I've seen
the worst of the worst. Top ten quarterbacks going into
twenty twenty five. See A Shaw comes into number ten,
that's bad. Who do you think is ahead of them
at number nine?

Speaker 5 (02:36:54):
I mean, if it's the idiot you're gonna tell me,
then that's just another entity that's stupid.

Speaker 6 (02:36:58):
It's the same entity, but it's a new person. This
This reeks of I did this well enough that nobody's
going to respond. So I need to do something here
at the end where I don't care, but I'm going
and I think this person's very good and I'd love
to get him on the show. But who he put
at nine, regardless of who's after him, it happens to
be CJ. Is why people will talk about it's mission accomplished.

(02:37:22):
Who's at nine?

Speaker 14 (02:37:23):
Nate Tyson's top ten list, number eight, Dak Prescott number nine,
Trevor Lawrence number ten, CJ.

Speaker 12 (02:37:30):
Stroud.

Speaker 5 (02:37:31):
Oh well, okay, go ahead and tell me that I
don't need to take you seriously in anything you ever
do for the rest of your life.

Speaker 6 (02:37:36):
Really, yeah, that's why I do. Then why is he stupid?
It's almost like he wrote it or he recorded his
podcast and did it all and then he sent it
in and they said, what are you doing? There's nothing
controversial about this. I'm sorry, we're putting Trevor Lawrence nine.
And they said, Nate, sorry, you're gonna have to deal
with the backlash. We want people to interact because he's

(02:37:57):
much more knowledgeable, very good with his tape work, really
good analyst. We will get him on. Unfortunately, we'll have
to ask him. I tell him he's a moron when
when you book him, because he's going to agree and
say I think it's a typo. It better be. But again,
it's in a podcast. We'll get the audio for you later.
Where is uh, what's his face? How far up? Of course,

(02:38:21):
Alan Jackson there at two and three.

Speaker 1 (02:38:25):
The a on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (02:38:35):
Hey, is the funniest part of this whole situation with
Durant the fact that he was just like a few
days ago debunking fistfight locker room rumors via Boogie Cousins.

Speaker 6 (02:38:48):
And that was the last thing he tweeted before anything
else happened. I mean, I guess that's the last thing
he's tweeting today. He's been tweeting since the deal. He
never stops. Yeah, but it was like it has been
a while. He had to get to manniaccho today for
something that he did to try to make Kevin Durant's
NBA legacy look bad. What did he do? He came

(02:39:10):
up with a legacy formula. Doesn't sound like it was
very effective. Well, it's basically the premises, if you play
basketball and win a title, you are better at it
if you did it with only one team.

Speaker 5 (02:39:23):
Okay, if you did it with more than one team,
then I've got to doc you certain formulaic points. So
he's pointing out the fifth stop for Kevin Durant is
making his legacy worse. Kevin did not agree, So how
does he feel about Lebron? He was lower on the
list because of those same reasons. Like, I get it,

(02:39:46):
I get why there was you call it an old
head mentality of wanting guys to stay with the same
organization and win. Like, but here's the problem. Lebron left
Cleveland the first time because the organization, in his opinion,
wasn't effectively surrounding him with the talent needed to win

(02:40:08):
a championship. And I, like, I vividly remember at the
time agreeing with him.

Speaker 6 (02:40:14):
It was true.

Speaker 5 (02:40:15):
I mean he was dragging Boogie Cousins and zadrunas Ilgoskis
to the NBA finals.

Speaker 6 (02:40:20):
Well, we'll give you six players including Lebron. We meaning
OCHO leave you six players in the legacy formula, Kobe Bryant,
Tim Duncan, Steph Curry, Lebron, James Dirkoviski, Kevin duran and
in that order, five titles for Kobe and Tim, all
for one team. The legacy formula, when you take the
rangs and divided by the teams, that's your score. They

(02:40:42):
both score a five. Five titles one team, five divided
by one is five. Steph Curry four titles, one team.
His legacy score is a robust four very good. Lebron
also four titles, but three teams, so we got to
cut that one down. Division says. His legacy formula puts
him fourth on the list. One point three Dirk all
one title of Dirk's career with all one team he

(02:41:03):
played for, so his score ranks just behind Lebron at
one point zero. Durant two titles, five teams. It's a
bad math formula. He's sitting down there at point four
zero point four. That's the legacy formula. How many tiles
does you have again?

Speaker 5 (02:41:20):
Two and so that's twice as many as Dirk, who
has almost a full rating ahead of him.

Speaker 6 (02:41:25):
Yeah, because he did it with one team. That's the
legacy formula. Oka, you have to fill time, dude, I know,
we know how it's done every day for four hours,
and we managed to do that without making up really
really dumb stuff. But we also haven't yet been hit
with a response when we post that on social media
from at KD. Trey five and he has his own
legacy formula according to this is Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant.

(02:41:50):
According to the Great Kevin Durant's Legacy formula that was
created in the Best Labs at MIT, Emmanuel is the
worst linebacker of all time. Sure you want to listen
to this guy about greatness. Rockets fan quote replied to
that and said, who's the best linebacker of all time?

Speaker 12 (02:42:08):
Then?

Speaker 6 (02:42:09):
NKD. Of course, still on social media, he quote tweeted
that and put a gift of ray Lewis.

Speaker 5 (02:42:15):
Okay, I mean that's not a terrible choice, It's arguably
the correct choice. Oh well, unless Lawrence Taylor didn't exist.
I mean, I think it's reasonable for them that was
being done is just also in this, I do think
there there's gotta be some and I don't know this

(02:42:36):
for sure, maybe I'm wrong, but there's gotta be some
sort of I feel like the whole premise of this,
the appearance on the show this Auto did this on
his TV show was a little bit it. There has
to be suggest in it, and then for Durant to
come at him like he did, I think there also
has to be because this is Longhorn on Longhorn violence. Well,

(02:42:57):
that's the first thing I thought of when you said
his name, but just I mean, you're right, that is
just a time filler.

Speaker 6 (02:43:05):
I mean, I know what legacy conversations are, and oftentimes
they're the worst. They're treated properly, they can be fine,
but most of the time they're not. I mean, there's
an element that we think is a part of everybody's career,
and they get asked the questions, even, what do you
think this does for your legacy? Or when they're in
their situations like us and they're sitting in a studio
or on set, why does this impact his legacy? And

(02:43:27):
then you got five hours of stuff to fill with
and it gets made way too big a deal of
he's gonna go in the Hall of Fame and he's
gonna list all the teams that he's played for, and
to list his accolades, which currently will include two titles
and the MVP, et cetera, and the finals work that
he did. His legacy is impacted his spot on some

(02:43:48):
person's all time list of talented NBA players. You want
to say, well, he's not as good as this player.
And even though all the basketball is the same and
all the accolades are the same, he put on more costumes.
So I've got to dock him. He talked his way
out of this team. He forced his way off of
that team, which is pretty I mean, maybe you viewed

(02:44:09):
Kevin Durant that way. We had to call our first
caller of the show. He's not never happy where he is.
He's going to be unhappy here. He's been unhappy and
like it's impacted his play negatively in some way, played
his butt off every stop. Here's what I think we stop.

Speaker 5 (02:44:23):
Yes, but here's what where I think a lot of people,
not me, but a lot And again, given what happened,
maybe I should be on this list, but I wasn't
a lot of people. I think Kevin Durant lost when
he just lost a three to one lead in the
conference finals to the Warriors and then joined them the

(02:44:44):
next season. Like would it be that big a deal
if the player's tribune didn't exist?

Speaker 6 (02:44:49):
No, Because I don't think it was about how he
broke the news. It was about was so mean for
so long? Where is it for this trade?

Speaker 5 (02:44:56):
Just to bring it back to Jordan again, because that's
what it always seems like. It comes back to what Jordan,
who was like, ah, yeah that sucked. That was a
tough series. I'm gonna go sign with the Pistons.

Speaker 6 (02:45:06):
It's funny that he and you just did it, maybe
for happenstance. Why do we compare everybody to him? We
could compare like two guys to him. Kevin Durant's not
in any conversations with Jordan. Why should he be in
this one. He's the time leading scorer in the NBA,
tings a thousand whatever number better than himhen we all
know it. Why why should I compare him to five
spots ahead. I just think it's not relevant. Like you

(02:45:27):
don't have to take these players that are clearly not
on his level and compare them to him. Okay, well,
there's no reason to pick any player that had a
rivalry with another team. He's just a contemporary, someone who
plays in this era, someone who you know that's more,
that's a better.

Speaker 5 (02:45:41):
Get a lump against insert team. I'm trying to think
of who that would be doing the same time.

Speaker 6 (02:45:47):
Spent how long in Oklahoma City? Like it's okay, crazy.

Speaker 5 (02:45:52):
This would be like if the time was in Cleveland
with the lack of talent around him, and kept getting
repeatedly beaten by the heat and then joining up with
Dwayne Wade.

Speaker 6 (02:46:03):
Right, that's a better comparison. It didn't happen. Kevin Durant'
the guy that did it. It's okay to put him
in a category all by himself the other guys, anybody.
I think we could compare him to who's run up
against the wall in the postseason.

Speaker 5 (02:46:15):
So you're gonna row by the Rockets and then two
years later joined them. But everybody wants to be like
that's the same deal.

Speaker 6 (02:46:22):
That's not true. Yeah, a lot of chatter obviously about
the big news from the weekend. Day off for the
Astros obviously helped with that. They'll back on the field
and back at Dyke and Park. We got a couple
of road shows this week. We'll be over at car
Back on Thursday, be over at Top Dog Fireworks on Friday,
so we'll get you more details on that, and of
course Rocket Draft party on Wednesday, we have the Nightcap

(02:46:43):
Come in your way next

Speaker 2 (02:46:46):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety