All of the Patriotism, Rockets & Udoka Starting to Feel the Heat, Optimism for CJ

Monday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton react to Team USA's win over Canada, examine the Rockets' recent struggles, and discuss some optimism surrounding CJ Stroud.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two oh one here on Sports Talk seven ninety in Houston, Texas, USA.
That's right, baby, God bless America. I've never been more
patriotic in my life. Well I have, but that was
a lot of fun. Hey, Wex, you remember, like I guess,
it was two weeks ago or so when I was

(00:23):
bleeping all over the Olympics.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't watch that crap eye.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, I can tell you this, and part of it
is credit to my wife because she's actually the biggest
hockey fan in the house, believe it or not. For
all the wrong reasons, of course.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
But.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
That that was so freaking cool yesterday. Like there's no
sugarcoating it or making it sound eloquent. That's how I felt.
That was freaking cool. Like that was you know, Patriots,
all the cheesy things right, all the the you know,
just the cheeseball stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was appen that up.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Man, it was amazing to watch, and basically it was, yeah,
let's do.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
It to the punk goldy looks uldy.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I believe see how it goes. After that, you said,
we'll save the golden goal for a little bit later.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Dude. How good is Kenny Albert's life right now?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
That's why you do what you do if you can
reach the pinnacle. It's why we play all the stuff
here in Houston. From the World Series. I would be
even more awesome if we everybody here got to hear
both of our local teams. We are super lucky that
radio runs all the way through the postseason, so Robert
and Steve have handled all that work over the years locally.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
It would be awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
And when you consider this particular assignment as opposed to
Marv doing the finals, or Michael Breen doing the finals,
or Troy and Joe doing the finals or the super Bowl,
this is different, very very very very different. It's kind
of okay that the announcer on the United States television

(02:09):
network NBC recognizes this is as close in as you
can get. And I could say professional because everybody on
the ice as a professional. They're all being paid to
play hockey in the NHL. It's a pro team, and
you're calling the game nationally. It's not your team, except
it is your team. Do you think there was a

(02:29):
difference on NBC and CBC when Hughes scored his goal.
You don't have to guess a little bit later on
the show we'll let you hear that and we'll leave
it there. But yeah, I mean the excitement for he
knows who's watching, knows what this is all about. And
in this particular instance, you also get to add something
else to it that you just really would not have

(02:50):
ever had the chance to do that. It's February twenty second,
it's been that many years, forty six years for this
particulars just a team, for this team on the ice. No,
it's not a team, it's a country. This is the Olympics.
The entire country is on the ice, and he's in
the booth as part of the entire country to do
all these things, so raise that level of excitement. I

(03:13):
didn't set an alarm. My body knew. I woke up
in time and was there, ready to go and watching
every moment of it from the jump. Obviously watched a
lot more of the other games leading up to this,
including how Canada got there, how Team USA got there,
and it was as advertised you would hope, and in
a tournament where Team USA weren't challenged much at all. No, Remember,

(03:37):
Canada had the old semifinal and they had to make
it happen to get there and We're there from noted
NHL and hockey expert Charles Barkley on that also a
little bit later. Ye, Team USA didn't struggle with Slovakia.
It was a cakewalk. It was absolute domination. They scored
two goals in nineteen seconds in studio here with us

(03:58):
last week when they needed to go from two zip
to four zip, and then the final was very very,
very very different. It does seem like just about everybody,
all of our listeners, everyone in this city and every
other city was in, was locked in and aware of
it and loved it, and it is a moment you
probably won't ever forget, even though it was relatively early

(04:18):
in the morning. It was awesome everything about it and
in fact the game itself, for the challenge that it was.
They weren't the team looking like they were going to win,
probably from at least the moment Canada tied it up,
but probably more like from the first intermission on now
they killed a five on three, which is insane and

(04:41):
just they didn't have anything going for such a long
period of time. They really didn't have much going at
all until it went to three on three in the overtime.
Canada had chance after chance after chance after chance, and
what we've heard from people afterwards is almost as fun
as the game itself.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
No, it has been social media heaven for Leonard skinnerd Well,
how about Leonard Skynerd's Instagram account recognizing, Hey, Danks, this
is pretty cool. This is the theme song of us
beating everyone else.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
I would say I've heard that song. I don't even
know how many times. Yeah, we all have where I
will never not think of Team USA ever again when
I hear it? Is there always think of that moving forward?

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is that kind of like to a degree and not
nearly as not nearly as prevalent because this doesn't happen
every year, it happens every four years. Is that like
one shining moment for college basketball or fill in the
blank for another I don't know if there's ever been
a song that's kind of captured it.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Probably more like on a tiny scale that we all hate.
Don't stop believing for the dumb White Sox. Yeah, yeah,
that sucks. That kind of ruined that song. I just
don't think one shining moment. If i'd say, what do
you think when you hear one shining moment? You think
of the tournament. But it's every single year, right, one team, yeah,
or even one entity. It doesn't matter who wins. It

(06:01):
doesn't matter how you feel about who wins. You're gonna
get one shining moment. It's about the tournament.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't know if there's
a song.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Like one shining moment this past year. Was this one
of the worst one shining moments of all time because
it featured U of H not winning at the in
the last few highlights.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
They should because they were in the title game. They
should be champions right now. They should speaking of well,
I don't want to say should be champions because they're
playing anything but all right, So I'm gonna give you
guys a little peak inside the curtain or behind the curtain.
Wax and I do Rockets games, and we half them
every day. I should know that, right, Well, that's not
the peak every now and again. The fact that we

(06:42):
both do them allows us to be flexible with our schedules.
And at the last second, I was offered tickets to
the UFC event over the weekend at Toyota Center.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
I wanted to go see Puffy or Sean Well, which
you did?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
It was it was a really good night by night
from all all accounts, Like I went for the prelim fights,
and I'm normally the person, oh I'm gonna rode fa
shonably late because of who my wife is. But yeah,
like because I went with who, I went with my
buddy Dustin. He's a UFC megafan, He's like, I want
to see the prelimbs, Bubba, Like, of course you do,

(07:18):
so you would get in there whatever. And the fact
that I was available to do that was because my
co worker here, my co host and my co rockets
host if you will, was able to flip that date.
And I was thinking at the time two things. One,
I can't believe what a jerk I am for not
realizing that was his birthday. You didn't say anything, though,

(07:39):
I mean you could have been like I got some
dinner plans or something, and I would have been like, oh, yeah, duh.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
I could have lied and said I had some, but
you didn't had a birthday dinner on Friday night.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, I had a birthday dinner.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
You got it out last night also, And then I
got to eat there was some really good food on
Friday night or Saturday night while I was up here.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Okay, good, what'd you get?

Speaker 3 (07:58):
They actually messed up the order and gave me too
much food.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh I like that. It's awesome. I like when that happened. Well,
they knew it was your birthday.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
I mean, it was the kind of things a lot
of home Rockets fans over Toyta cent are really enjoy.
After a fourth quarter where the opposing team this is
two free throws on one trip to the free throw
line consecutively in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was a waterburger. It was pretty awesome. So that's
the thing. I mean, no one should have to witness
that on their birthday. And to be fair, last year
on my birthday, So the Rockets didn't play on my
birthday this year. Last year, on my birthday, it was
when I believe they were the sweep by the Nets
was being completed. I can't remember if that was the
first of the second game, but the Nets won both

(08:38):
games against the Rockets last year, and one of them
was on my birthday and it was the blowout one.
It was the one where like the Rockets weren't even competitive.
I think they scored like sixty points for the game
or something stupid like that. I'm watching at the end
of the third quarter, I'm like, oh, man Thompson with
a bucket, we're gravy.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
This is good.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And they managed to blow an eighteen point lead in
the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
They led that eighteen in the fourth quarter, breaking news
by the way, the Chicago Cubs who signed Michael Confortos, Oh,
you can put that to bed. We don't have to
get into saw that, get into that anymore. That was fun, though,
well it lasted. Good luck to him and the Cubs.
The Rockets were down thirteen in the very same game.
They engineered their own thirty one point turnaround thirty four

(09:22):
to twenty one the score as they got from the
first to the second quarter, made their way back to
where they had the lead at the half. We're starting
to build that lead late third quarter, built it even
more early fourth quarter, and then just almost as quickly
watched it walk away. Couple of threes, a couple more turnovers.
Nicks had a zero turnover fourth quarter and the Rockets
had a nine turnover fourth quarter. They didn't make any

(09:44):
of their shots either. You really needed a perfect It's
really it is difficult. As much as people say you
got to play the full forty eight. It's still pretty
difficult to lose that size of a lead and that
short amount of time. There just wasn't a whole lot
of time left on the clock. I don't think the
Rockets thought they had it, but they certainly allowed the
Knicks to dictate the style of play, the pace of play,
and the recklessness with which the Rockets played offensively down

(10:05):
the stretch. And of these to me more than you know,
losing games to the team they're playing tonight Utah, which
they've done. You know, the way they lost to Sacramento
fits here because they also had a ten point lead.
The way they lost to New Orleans when they had
a twenty five point lead. These are the ones you
played most of the game. Are It's not five o'clock
in the afternoon and you're an eight and a half
point favorite. You know, ah, we got this. And it's also,

(10:27):
you know, not halfway through the game and you've got
this lead. It's late in the game and you've got
a huge lead. Just okay, can I sharpie, as they
will say, come tournament time, put it in the win column.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
And they found a way to not make that happen.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
But the problem is they've done this a lot this season,
maybe not an eighteen point lead variety.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Well, two different kinds of a lot. Losing, you know,
saying you've lost fourth quarter leads, If you're not telling
me what that means that, I don't really care what
you're true.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's fair.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Like having the lead in the fourth quarter. Oh, Rockets
took the lead with nine to thirty five left to go.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
They blew it, right, blow it.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
You have the lead in the foot No, doc, I'm
not running with that. Yesterday you blew it. But they're
sad about that. Is what you're saying is true. But
two things can be true about that scenario, meaning a
close lead blown. If you're blowing that lead because you're
missing fourth quarter free throws, for example, and you end
up losing by a score single digits whatever, that that

(11:20):
does still factor into the non clutchness of the twenty
twenty five twenty six Rockets.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Also in my opinion, and I said it on the
broadcast on Saturday night, I don't know if their team
is clutch, but their player is. Jalen Brunson was walking
around last Saturday night with nothing to do except missshots
and be uninvolved for three quarters. He took only eight
shots in the first three locked him in may, he
guarded him some. He only took eight shots, he only

(11:50):
made two of them. He did get to the free
throw line, and then in the fourth quarter he took
four shots and he made all of them, and they
were all huge. He was the one who gave them
the lead light. He is one of the even and
as remarkable as it is at his size, he's one
of the league's most trustworthy clutch players. Everybody knows he's
getting the basketball and he rarely creates for anybody else
because he knows he's going to score.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Another amazing personnel decision by the Dallas Mavericks.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I was really good.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
I was talking to somebody just yesterday and I said
it again. We've heard it from me on the show
a bunch of times. I said, I cannot. I thought
Dallas was genius. This is the level he's gonna play at.
Him and Luca are a nice match. You're gonna have
trouble in the backcourt defensively because Luca is a disaster
and Brunson is small, and he's gonna score you eighteen
nineteen twenty points a game. He's really effective. He creates pay.

(12:35):
He's a really good player, but if the Knicks want
to sign him for twenty five million dollars a year,
you should probably let him. And I was, this is
one of my all time wrongs. It's probably a steal
at this point. Twenty five million. Oh, that's exactly how
I described. I said, if Dallas, you should be happy
you didn't overpay the Knicks underpay, Yeah, dramatically for Jalen Brunson.

(12:57):
These are still two of the best teams in the NBA.
Rockets winning with the seventh best record, the Nicks winning
with the eighth best record. And oh, by the way,
the Rockets and most everybody else in the West, they
are chasing the Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder, the
teams in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh place. We'll
all hit the court for their next game riding a
one game losing streak. They've all lost their most recent game.

(13:19):
So this jockeying for position is being lamented by all
five of those teams.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Only one of them has a guy that's stat padding
for meaningless records at this point in his career.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Though amazing from their third best player.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
It's just I'm so glad. You know it could be worse.
Rockets fans. You could be the Lakers right now.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
So all that is on the table.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Obviously, we have our first opportunity today to talk about
Astros exhibition baseball in the rearview mirror, a couple of
games over the weekend, a couple of players that will
be important participants in this year's twenty twenty six Houston
Astros run to the World Series championship, so a little
bit on them.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
The NFL is.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Starting the tagging process and players probably won't like it,
but we're happy to be back with you to start
a new week here on the A Team. Lots for
us to get into and lots of time for you
to join us, and we'll have tickets to give away
as well. Very important details on that because these particular
tickets we're going to be giving away this hour here
on the A Team, right here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Walk a project package, look over.

Speaker 6 (14:30):
The first stage the first team ships any in the United States.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
You've pray here that a few more times in your
life this week, next week, four years from now, and
every year in between. Team USA two Team Canada, the
silver shines Justice Bright.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
You're right, man, I don't think I'm ever gonna listen
to free Bird the same way.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Again, and that's fine.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
I'm okay with it, and some very specific portions which
most most people have attached to their social media. And
keep in mind this is twice over because we're just
a couple of days removed from Team USA doing the
exact same thing to Canada.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Oh Man women's.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Team won in very dramatic fashion with the late late
third period goal and then the overtime winner from Keller.
You got an early goal, you actually had the lead
in this game. We played you the Boldie goal earlier,
and then you won it with six skaters and two
netminders on the ice in overtime.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
What was it forty seven, forty eight shots on goalie
stopped on goal, soh yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
But I can't remember the exact night. He's in the forties.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Well I and we'll get to some of the reaction
on both sides. By the way, my favorite over the
last few hours, because I mean, I just I wouldn't
say I was living on social media since it happened,
but I was just paying more attention than I normally
would have on a Sunday afternoon that didn't involve football
or baseball. Let's just put it that way, like real
baseball that means something. I mean Astro's play, it didn't

(16:15):
mean anything. I'm sorry, unless you're Mike Daniel Brown pitched, Okay,
Jeremy Pania was in the field, so right, Jake Myers.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Are they all healthy? They came out of the game healthy,
that's all that matters. Well, Mike Burrows looks like a
nice little pitcher. You call him that nice little acquisition,
nice little hurler.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
You sound like, was it? Uh? Oh gosh?

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Who is the guy that said, uh, he's having a
life talking about Tiger Woods when he was very young?

Speaker 2 (16:44):
The racist, the Johnny Miller, No, the other races. I don't.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
That's why I was sad. I even had somebody to
guess the one that had the SoundBite about Tiger Woods.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Don Imus.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
No, he's got a nice little swing, and so you
know what you do? Does you mean the golfer, Yeah,
that's what I said, the golfer. Yes, he made some
Yes that that would have been a better guess because
there are multiple lit the little way, it's almost dismissive. Well,
he was very He was even worse when he described
the menu they were likely to have it the Masters

(17:17):
after Tiger earned the green jacket.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
You can't do that when I'm taking a sip of coffee, wex.
It's just the timing of the show segment of the
show Man, all right. So that was fantastic. All the
goosebumps of the slow Moo replays. My favorite was sometimes
I wonder how much these are authentic the people that
are watching and filming themselves.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
If you're watching, you take a chainsaw to your television.
It is not authentic.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Well, no, see that stuff is clearly staged and not real.
Any sort of damaging of a television screen.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Dude, chill broh.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
He got his line in, like, none of that I
ever believe, but especially like the Canadian fans filming themselves
watching them.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
I watched a few that were seemingly very authentic because
they cut up little parts of the game so you
could see the joy when they tied it up, and
you can see the angst when they nearly won the
game on a couple of occasions, or took the lead,
and then the despair. Not much, not a lot of
you know, fist pounding or just total anger more like disbelief.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yes, crushed again? Yeah, okay, so all that was great.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
I love the Justin Trudeau tweet that was being dug
up and just eviscerated all the way up to the
White House.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Who's he he? Right?

Speaker 3 (18:38):
No?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right now? What is he? He's? Is he just a
Canadian citizen.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
I'm gonna be very careful how I say this, but
he has no position, right, not have authority. Okay, what
he is right now is a guy who walks around
with his beard Katy Perry, because that's what she is
right now?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Are they are?

Speaker 3 (18:55):
You know, obviously Bill and Joe and Rock they're you know, George,
former presidents and regarded and held in very high regard.
If they're ever out anywhere like All Star Weekend, definitely
get recognized, notice, probably interviewed by Reggie Miller. Is it
the same for Justin t and other Canada or just anywhere?

(19:18):
Are they held in as equally like this is one
of our leaders? This is a former I don't know
many Canada is just so Canada?

Speaker 2 (19:27):
All right?

Speaker 3 (19:27):
So yeah, I am aware that when USA wins in
the manner that they did, and has it won in
such a long period of time, and during that time,
Canada's won multiple times. You're probably gonna have some freezing
cold takes out there heading into this game specifically.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, well, I mean some of these analysts that were
just basically, oh, it's how much they're going to trounce
the Americans.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Which is so funny because it's hockey. Well, Finland led
them to nothing in the semi final. The Team USA
wasn't struggling to arrive at this game.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
This was the only close game they had.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Basically, you watched the game and you're like, I see
what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, kinda was.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
I know people are going to have already ripped McKinnon
for what he said after the game about you tell
me who is the better team?

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Automatically hate the Avalanche.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Now, it's just you've got to have there's semantics to it,
and there's nuance to it. They dominated the offensive action,
that's a fact they did.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
But it is a game and it is definitely a
team game.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
And you know, you hear from Jack Hughes after the
game to this point he said, you know, our goaltender
was our best player by far. Yes, there's five guys
on the ice plus your goaltender. They can dominate the
action all they want if they can't beat him, or
a little credit to the defense. Also, they took I
think they took four shots total during their three four
minute to or five on three because they weren't getting through.

(20:54):
It's not a shot on goal if you know, risked
one to the net and a defenseman blocks it with
his skate, or someone dives in front of it, or
someone sticks it away and it never reaches the goal.
A shot on goal is a shot that would otherwise
be a goal if it wasn't kept from going in
the goal. If you shoot it, why not a shot
on goal? If it doesn't make it there, it's not
a shot on goal. Everybody gets a lot of credit

(21:15):
for keeping the score where it was, even though the
action on was he was in the Canadian offensive end
for the last thirty minutes of play.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Me, for someone that knows next to nothing about the rules,
none of this pretty simple. I yeah, but I've just
never don't take a stick to the face and lose chicklets.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Why you can still score the golden goal?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Well, you're not allowed to do the part that part
four minutes two on two two plus two on that
penalty because he's like, hey, mister official, Hey linesman, hey
ref you see this, these are my teeth and I'm
bleeding all right, two more minutes.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Greatest photo ever, I mean, just and if you haven't
seen it, obviously you might not have a pulse. We
you know, put it out to start the show today.
I mean, Jack Hughes talk about never having to buy
a drink ever in any city in America, not just one.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
There are a lot of good stuff about drinking from
that particular game. Since you bring it up, so Best
of X may just feature some of the things around
that game. We obviously will get into all the other
items that we normally talk about, but I don't have
this all that often, so'd love to hear your thoughts
on the memories you will now take from this. How
many of you were watching it, how many of you
been into it throughout, been into it long before this year,

(22:27):
had memories going all the way back to maybe even
nineteen eighty or what have you? All of it here
on the show today. Halfway through our number one we
get there next Best of X, the eight now had.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
The American hockey team, not just won a gold medal
over Team Hoser. We might I might have pulled an
audible based on some news that came out last night
involving my favorite NBA official, But we'll get to that
later because I did find out via x. But instead

(23:02):
we'll stick to the script here. I mean, just how
many Team USA Hockey related posts did you? Would you
say you enjoyed on average? Fifty one hundred thousand more more?
It was like it was so good we didn't play
Mike tico last segment. We could play that here if
we wanted, because he actually played the role of good

(23:27):
Bob costas you know what I mean, like where he
would sum up the event that he was broadcasting on
NBC without being political.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
He got a lot of season left and got a
lot of seasons, a lot of year left, I should
say a lot of years of sports broadcasting. In our future,
I'm sure someone else will also come along and be
very highly regarded.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Good luck.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
I love my tread luck topping the work that keeps
being cranked out by Mike Trico. And I know I
called him out during football season for one thing that
was said, but as at and I even noted it
when I posted. We talked about it here as a
broadcaster of games, and in this instance he was a
studio host right after he was a broadcaster of games.

(24:05):
It's hard to do with all of these things as
well as he does all of those things, but he
does all of these things that he has on his
plate at an exceptionally high level. He's the best we
currently have. Let's play it. Come on, let's play it.
Not me, you'll play it, Josh, Mike check on the
modulation of it. Sure it sounds like crap because I

(24:28):
put it in.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Mike Turrico summing up just an amazing event, the gold
medal game and the way it all unfolded, and obviously
the final result and what it meant for everybody in
the country and around the world watching that unfold.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Because of a drought that almost lasted a half century.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Those teams are reverewed.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
They are held onto forever, and what happened today doesn't
take away from the greatness of those teams for the
meeting that those teams have in US hockey. But what
you saw today was the build of a generation, inspired
perhaps by that team that lost in twenty ten in
Vancouver to the Sydney Crosby golden goal in overtime, or
the team where tj Oshan all those shootout goals in

(25:13):
twenty fourteen. That's when these guys were doing what you're doing.
Watch it on TV, and they were young and they
were living the dream. So for all the young people
out there, not just the hockey, but all the Olympics
you've watched, those dreams are formed. Now go chase them
and go get them. Because our country loves sports and
it brings us together unlike anything else.

Speaker 7 (25:34):
And if you.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
Didn't know that, if you haven't been watching the last
two weeks, he saw it in Team USA hockey winning the goal.
Over there are travel Canada here in Milans to wrap
up these twenty fifth Olympic Winter Games.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Mike Turrico is a national treasure, the absolute best in
the business. Mike Turico is the best to ever do
it ever in sports broadcasting and hosting. He's Bob Costas,
Jim McKay and all the others combined one man.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
He's incredible.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Torico is simply the best perfect balance of remaining professional
and letting those patriotic emotions come through. Look, I have
gone out of my way to say that if I
can't have Marv Albert, I want to have Kevin Harlan
call the biggest games because as a play by play guy,
just from a sheer delivery standpoint, if nothing else, he's
my go to. It's not any shot at Mike Turrico.

(26:21):
He's probably number two. If I can't have Harlan, he's
probably who I would want at this point.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yeah, different sports bring out different things. Kevin Harland. What
makes him so amazing, I think is whether it's a
basketball game or a football game, it's hard to do
what he does, extremely similarly excitable about his calls. Sometimes
the action does it. Sometimes he just brings it. Obviously,
nobody is even I mean, I don't even know who

(26:48):
to compare him to in this regard, I because I
don't think anybody does it at all, not just doesn't
do it as well as him, but literally doesn't do
it at all.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
When fans run onto the field.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Oh well, I mean, come on, like that shows me.
I've said this about announcers that aren't my favorite. You're
not gonna be my favorite if it sounds to me
like in any way you're not enjoying yourself, you don't
love what you're doing you can't, you're not shining through
with your voice.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Then it's awesome to be here.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
And when he goes off on just these idiots running
on the field, you can tell how much fun he's
having because he's poking fun at this total nonsense. But
you would hear it anyway in his calls. Gus Johnson's
having a great time at the games. He does to
the nth degree. Mike, same way. These guys are great.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, And we've had Kevin Harlan on and you couldn't
get him off the phone because he just wanted to
talk about great sports moments and his job.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
He enjoys his job. Mike Rico enjoys his job.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
To me, it felt like Mike Turrico was shelved for
a while there because of that. He was in that
kind of transition period where NBC was waiting to get
big events again that he would be calling. And of course,
you know he was having to wait on Al Michaels
to step aside on the football side of things so
that he could become that guy.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
But he was so good and really, honestly, all the
coverage of the games were so good. Yesterday, during one
of the two games, the one with I think it
was Ryan and Doris, maybe the NBA game on another network.
They mentioned how good it was. They mentioned what a
great job Mike did on NBC with the games. He's

(28:24):
got universal as a former colleague of theirs.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, he was ABC in ESPN, but he is. He's
I think he's universally beloved by his colleagues, which is
like the truest sign of you know, you've you've really
done something right. And a little trivia the former college
roommate of a Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Employee, Yeah, some of the Sunday night football we both
worked over at Channel two. It's obviously an NBC product
when you have games at NRG Stadium or Reliant Stadium,
but he wasn't doing games back then. The crew comes in, obviously,
the three or four people that are doing the game
that night. He's done many games as part of that crew.
I've had a chance to talk to him there on

(29:02):
the field and about the game or in advance, and
as he would think he is when you watch him
conduct interviews, because he's the one interviewing a lot of
the Olympians after they've won. In this most recent time,
you've seen him in any other place you've seen. He
comes across as so likable, personable, understanding, and full of
joy for whatever it is he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's the same way in person.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
He's like Matt Thomas. He's he's very much. I definitely
was going to say the same thing. MT equals MT.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah. See it's it even goes. So there you go.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
When we come back to wrap up the two o'clock
hour final segment, before the simulcast mentioned it, Rockets blew
an eighteen point lead in the Big Apple and fair
or unfair it's the whispers are growing louder. Emey Udoka
is starting to feel the heat. He just is you're

(29:55):
gonna hear from the Rockets head coach following this latest
disappointing defeat, in which the Rockets relinquished a fourth quarter lead,
this time of the eighteen point variety. As we mentioned,
emy Udoka's thoughts after that one coming up next.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
JD. Buncus are you familiar with his game?

Speaker 1 (30:15):
He's based in Toronto, Okay, he says in his bio.
He is a Yukon kid host of Leaf's Talk on
Sportsnet and the JD. Buncus Podcast. He wrote the following yesterday. Honestly,
if you're an American celebrating that win, you're a casual

(30:37):
who doesn't know Puck, totally fine, grow the game. Then,
as he got I mean ratio to French Canadian hell,
as I put it, he said, every reply is basically.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
An admission of this truth.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
I think that's why everybody here in America is destroying
the arrogance that was the Canadians on social media, both
prior to and after yesterday's result. It's just like the
whole it's our sport thing or that makes it even worse.

(31:16):
It's just like he didn't win it neither, and that
that right, that well nobody. I don't think they're bringing
that together, honestly, I really don't. Well, you lost in
two different finals to the Americans men and women's.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
That's what I mean. I understand.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
But they could have said it three days ago when
it happened the first time. I don't think a lot
of people were saying it then.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, it was, it was when the men did it.
Now it's really a problem.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Well, you know, me saying they won is kind of
I think the point he's making, and that's fine, if
that's really how you want, if that's how you want
to stand on this, because in this particular sport, it
doesn't matter. And it's why Nathan McKinnon said what he said.
He said after the game, this is one of the
greatest players currently in the NHL. Obviously Canadian, obviously a
big part of their effort, one of the reasons why

(32:00):
they thought they were going to win, and probably could
have one had he put one in the back of
the net, but he did not. He said, you'd be
the judge of who was the better team today, And
that's kind of how I explained it earlier this hour.
Dominating play offensively, because I can't even say they dominated
the game. You canna have the ball on your foot
all game in soccer, you canna have the puck on

(32:21):
your stick all game in hockey, and in your offensive
zone all game. But if you're not scoring, you dominated
offensive play, you dominated the puck, you didn't dominate the game,
because the scoreboard keeps track of who's dominating the game,
and that's what the scoreboard is for. We've had some
antics conversations about that in basketball, for sure, but it's

(32:44):
there's a reason you were in the NBA. If you
miss We have to guess why was because you just
missed and there was really no defensive pressure on you,
and you just missed a wide open shot. Or did
someone block it? Did someone force you into a tough shot?
In hockey, almost every time it's the latter, or or
the goalie was in the way, or the goalie made
a ridiculously impressive save. I mean, you really can't do

(33:07):
that because it's goaltending. It's funny how these terms fit
so well together. They ask you to goaltend in one sport,
you're not allowed to goaltend in the other sport. So
dominating the game is exact dominating the action, dominating the
offensive end. Sure they did the whole game. Every American
was sitting on the edge of their seat, even on
the bench. I'm sure in the arena the players and

(33:28):
the coaches were like, man, it's just a matter of time.
If we don't do something differently, if we don't pull
our heads out, if we don't get some burst of energy,
if I don't look to a different line, if I
don't change up a combination of players I'm sending out there,
this is gonna go badly for us. And it just
kept going longer and longer and longer where it didn't
go badly for them for some of what they were
doing defensively to prevent a score, and obviously what they

(33:49):
were doing in net to prevent a score.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, he can cry all he wants.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
That's all you have when you don't have the most
points or goals on the scoreboard at the end of
the game.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
I bet he loved George Springer taking VP in his
team USA.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
I wish it was better because I wish he was
standing in the box against Philippe Rizzon and not Kevin Gaussman,
who he was taking live VP off of the whole
team's American.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
His manager was pretty arrogant too. I love that.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
I wish it was even better by him having nothing
but French, Canadian or Canadian teammates.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
I love George Springer. I also I love i may Udoka.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
But he's starting to feel the heat, and after the
latest loss in the fourth quarter, an eighteen point lead
in the fourth is going to get a little bit
more attention, especially when it's on national television, especially when
it happens at Madison Square Garden. I think he's he
is he's starting to feel the heat I'm seeing any
semblance of he doesn't have any offense, he doesn't know

(34:46):
how to make adjustments. These are the things that are
being said about em Ay Udoka right now, both by
random Joe Schmos, blog boy, fanboy up to an including
you know, more prominent observers if you will, of the NBA,
and we'll get to one of those a little bit
later on specifically about Ima Udoka. But as it stands

(35:09):
right now, this is what Emay had to say, a
portion of which what he had to say after the
Rockets lost that game in Madison Square Gardens Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Stop moving, start isolating too much.

Speaker 8 (35:22):
You know, we had nine turnovers as well in that
quarter and fuel them and transition. They score thirty points
off our twenty turnovers, only had one in the third quarter.
And then you know, it's just the same story. And
we've lost too many games like this with big leads,
and whether it's Kevin going out and you know, I'm
telling them in and our young guards read specifically those

(35:43):
two are in got to be more demonstrative and get
us into our sets, get us into what we're looking for,
and it's not just time to freestyle and like I said,
turnovers hurt, but bad offense is just as bad. And
you know, before you know it, it's sixteen to six
and then you score six the rest of the way
before Kevin hits that last three.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
So you know, four on both sides.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Give me a percentage of each turnovers versus the offensive sets.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
They win the game easily if they have four turnovers
instead of nine. They win the game by double figures
if they have zero turnovers instead of nine. And to me,
because you're going to get up more shots.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Right, they're going to get up fewer because you're not
giving them the possessions probably, I mean it's a combination.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Well, you're giving them easier shots because they had three
runouts in the fourth quarter alone. Hm, that's the type
of shot you don't want to give up. If you score,
they get a shot after. If you turn it over,
they get a shot after. It's really limiting your shots
more than anything, just the ability to score goes away
if you don't take a shot. Guess how many points
you score on zero for zero attempts zero.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, as you're turning it over.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
You know what it's a dangerous game to play, is well,
Fred's gonna fix all this. I just don't believe even
if he makes it eighty percent better, I just don't
think you can go this offseason thinking that, and this
offseason going to come a lot sooner than everybody wanted
it now.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
I do think Fred would fix a lot of it.
I really do, and I think he could fix at
the moment he walked on the floor. It's probably killing
him to watch games like this.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
It should be.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
But what has to be fixed is what the other
guys are doing wrong, not don't be so reliant on
somebody else to fix it. The players they have are
absolutely capable of fixing this. And I am amazed how
few people think that. I am absolutely amazed. And the
people were talking about, like you described them, just people
watching basketball, whether it's online or on television, it doesn't matter.

(37:31):
I'm amazed that everyone looks at them and says, well,
he Ma's fault or this is because Fred's out Now,
it's the players that are on the court. It is
their fault. It is one hundred percent their fault. Above
and beyond coaching, In my opinion, coach could definitely be
doing a better job with the players that are out there.
He could probably do doing a better job with choosing
which players are out there. But it's one hundred percent

(37:52):
on these guys who are way more capable than everyone
wants to ignore. Blame E may, blame re, blame them all.
There's more than enough to go around. Blame Kevin and
blame the four guys who are on the court with
him most of the time. Hey, Kevin's got it, my
work's done here. That's the thought they have, and it

(38:12):
looks like that's what he's thinking too.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Well.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
He's thinking it because he doesn't create for anybody else.
He creates for himself, and everybody knows it, and so
they play accordingly when they shouldn't. He doesn't ever have
anywhere to go with the basketball because nobody's ever doing
anything when he has the basketball. You know, we've seen
ten picking rolls with him all year where it's ended
with a dunk for Capella or Shongoon or a men.
I mean, we should see five a game. They just

(38:37):
they don't do it. And I know defenses get better
and defenses have different ways to get around it. Because
you don't have as many, especially two of those players
alping in a men. They don't need to show on them.
They would love for them to shoot jump shots, and
the Rockets have obliged a lot lately. So I'm happy
to discuss the issues, unhappy that there are issues, would
love to hear more specifically what people why this is

(39:01):
on Emy's shoulders so dramatically, and I'm not trying to
apologize for him in any way at all, So you
can bring that as well as we get into our
number two here on the show today two of four
full vote on The A Team Today three o'clock hour,
we will bring back us Team USA.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
We're awesome, straight up.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Three o'clock here on a Monday edition of The A Team.
It's Sports Talk seven to ninety and Space City Home
Network one hour in the books. We got three more
to come and all of those will be simulcast over
on Space City Home Network. Coming off a uh so
so weekend sports wise, you can't really you can't top
a gold medal win in hockey at the Olympics over

(39:46):
Team Canada. You're not going to really be able to
top that. But the the Rockets over the weekend locally
did their best to at least tarnish the weekend, if
you will, just because of the nature of what we
were talking about last segment with email Dooka's comments following
them blowing an eighteen point fourth quarter lead.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
I don't think we've mentioned it enough.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
I know we have, but the was it a twenty
turnover game for better than thirty Knicks points and nine
of those coming in the fourth quarter, as Chick was
also nine to nothing in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
The Knicks didn't turn it over at all in the
fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Which means your defense that used to be able to
hang your hat on last season a lot, for example,
wasn't getting it done. By the way, the Phoenix Suns,
you know what we are talking about. They were neck
and neck with the Rockets record. I think that takes
a dip.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
We'll see.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
They did not have a very good offensive couple of days.
The last two days. Yesterday they scored seventy seven points
without Dylan Brooks or Dylan Brooks is out for four
to six weeks with a broken hand.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
He broke his hand in two games ago.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
That game they actually won in double overtime on a
night where Jalen Green basically couldn't hit anything. He was
five for twenty five and then hit the game winner
at the in the corner four to three in double overtime.
So he finished sixth for twenty six in their game
yesterday when they scored just seventy seven points. He had
another awful shooting game, but so did his team. So
they're probably they're possibly about to go through it. They

(41:13):
had played some pretty good basketball kind of regardless of
who'd been in the lineup. We'll see what they're I
haven't looked at their how many teams they're playing that
aren't trying to win portion of their schedule, but at
thirty three and twenty five, they're still just two and
a half games back of Houston. They're actually only two
and a half games ahead of the Warriors, who won
impressively yesterday. They just played without Steph Curry obviously without

(41:35):
Jimmy Butler and without Draymond Green, and they beat the
Nuggets and they very entertaining games. Yeah, I mentioned this
to open the show. The Thunder and the Spurs are
way out ahead of everybody, now five games clear of Denver,
who is third, and the Spurs of one eight in
a row, the Thunder of one a pair in a row,
and they're thirty games over five hundred. The Nuggets, Rockets, Lakers, Timberwolves,

(41:58):
and Sons. Of the next five teams, all of them
lost their last game. None of them have won more
than six of their last ten. Two of them have
lost six of their last ten, including Denver and Phoenix.
I don't think those five teams in the name are
going to change. But talk to Jabari Smith Junior today
over at shoot around, and he noted that I asked him,
you know, does it feel like there's a lot of

(42:18):
season left or is there a sprint to the finished
kind of field post All Star breaks?

Speaker 2 (42:22):
There's a lot of season left.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
And if we don't focus every night, if you don't
go out there and play to win every night for
the entire game, well, he actually said, you'd end up
at ninth. I don't think you're gonna end up at ninth,
but his point is true. If the Rockets have a
poor final twenty five games of the season, they're gonna
finish seventh.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Well, so far it's poor because it's five hundred, but
it's only two games after they all start break.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
You win to night.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
They had to play well down the stretch against a
worst team, Charlotte, and they did, and they won because
of it almost blew that lead, and then they needed
to just make probably three more plays in fifteen minutes
of basketball are the last ten minutes of basketball, and
they would have snuck out of there with a win.
If they do what they've done to get the lead,
they would have coasted out of there with a win

(43:06):
with the Knicks likely resting players late in the game
because you were still up by eighteen or twenty.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Do you know what's interesting is tonight and Wednesday you're
playing teams that you have multiple losses against that you
shouldn't have. These very losses, the type of losses we're
talking about, came against both the Jazz and the Sacramento Kings.
Will be in here on Wednesday twice. In the case
of the Kings, they have a loss to each Yeah, well,

(43:32):
I thought they lost to the Kings.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Twice just once.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Are you sure they're zero and three on the road
against the Jazz and the Kings two losses to the
Jazz or assuming they're one to two on the road
to the Jazz and Kings. They beat the Kings here
in Houston in December.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
So it was the overtime loss in Sacramento, the one
where Russell Westbrook hit the three because of course, yep,
he's not gonna hit threes against anybody else, but he
will against the Rockets.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
That is correct, that's brutal.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
But anyways, get those two wins this week, and for
God's sake, stop.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Turning the ball over. I guess had too much to ask.
They followed.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
They had a nine turnover fourth quarter, they had a
one turnover third quarter. Same team, and you had different
players on the court obviously through the respective twelve minutes,
but they actually went through a nice stretch where they
were taking care of the basketball. And like I said,
you want to get mad at the coach. That's absolutely
fair and absolutely warranted, no question about it. But you

(44:33):
can't watch these games and act like, yes, I can't
believe what's happening. Amy has got to do something. Yeah,
he either has to pull the player because he's not
playing basketball correctly, or he has to call time out
and get them to play basketball correctly. I'm not going
to get into whether you can coach offense or not,
because that's a totally different conversation, but you can pinpoint

(44:53):
any one player you'd like that was a part of
last night's game and we can tell you why having
him on the court was not good for the Rockets.
I'm including Kevin Durant, I'm including Amn Thompson, and I'm
including Al Prinshingun. I actually thought a man had one
of his best games of the season, and unfortunately during
the time where he was on the bench in the
fourth quarter, everything unraveled. And you think you can just
put that player back out there and everything to go

(45:14):
right back to where it was when they got the lead.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Same thing with KD.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
He was off the court for some of that stretch,
but it just doesn't work out that way. You've given
the other team hope, You've given him life. Basketball is
absolutely a game of feel and emotion and flow, and
for sure, momentum you made a you Tarry made his
shot to give him a four point lead. KD made
another shot to give him a four point lead, but
that wasn't going to get momentum back. There had to

(45:37):
be a six point leader, an eight point lead re
established by two or three stops followed by two or
three buckets, and they never did that the rest of
the game. They had a seven point lead when Reed
Shepherd came into the game late third and that's when
they built the eighteen point lead. But he also didn't
come out of the game right when they got to
eighteen and then it all went away. He stayed on

(45:59):
the court as the Knicks got it all the way
back down to seven. So the reed Shepherd is hated
by his coach. And why can't he just see what
they're doing when he's out there group and it's a
big one out there. I don't know how y'all are
watching the same game. If he makes shots, he can play,
and he has to make shots or he literally can't play, Yeah,
because the other team has such an easy time of

(46:22):
scoring or doing whatever it is they want to do offensively.
He doesn't push the ball and command the ball on
offense like he should. It literally is only is he's scoring,
It's not is he running the team well?

Speaker 2 (46:34):
And sometimes he does.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
He actually had some really nice creative plays for teammates
in that stretch in their game on Saturday night, but
not nearly enough of it. While he's out there, he
can't just be, well, well, my SHOT's going in. I
guess I could stay out here there. And he knows it,
and he Ma has talked about a hundred times Reed's
talked about it a hundred times. It's not just about
creating steals. It's not just about scoring. Like there's things

(46:56):
he just can't do yet. And it's very, very obvious
that is quite simply stay in front of a person
on the other team who has the basketball.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
It's it's not just a limitation, it's a liability. It
doesn't matter who the other who he is guarding. If
they have the ball and you're guarding that person, that
is the play the other team, that is their number
one option.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
He's being hunted every time.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
It's it's just they're running their offense and then someone's like, oh,
well I have the ball and they've made a switch. Perfect,
we got it, or he's gotten you know, the Rockets
defense has pulled him. He's making a switch, he's doing
the right thing. He's not even making mistakes, and they
don't score every single time. I spent much of Saturday
night's games saying to our producer Josh different producer, Josh,

(47:38):
we have two of them here, both excellent. The Knicks
would make a three and Josh would be feverishly working
like he always does, and I said, guess who that
one was on? He wouldn't even look up. You go Alpi,
I'd say, of course it was over and like so,
if you want me to pick on Reid, you just
heard it. You want me to pick on Alprin, I
can do the same thing. His inability to defend in
twenty twenty five twenty is alarming. It's alarming for this team.

(48:03):
Losing Dylan made you need other guys to step up.
They're stepping back and much worse defensively. Individually.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
There was a lot of aggression going on in Houston sports,
from CJ to the Rockets defense.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Like I knew their defense would have some issues because
of what they gave away, even though I loved what
they brought in. I'm not down on the deal at all,
but the guys that need to make that happen, especially
in the paint now with no Steven Adams, he doesn't
defend the rim and he can't get out on shooters
no matter who they are, BIG's and Brook, Lopez, Or's
Smalls and Ananubi. All of Ananubi's points at the beginning

(48:40):
of the game were on Alpi.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Isn't Dylan a free agent this summer? UH would have?

Speaker 6 (48:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:45):
I think it would, Like No, I think he has
one more year, have a double check.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Come on home, dB.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
They might like him there, No, I know they, I
know they do they I mean they There was a
reason he was included in the deal and the reason
the Rockets didn't want to and the last set and
is when he got thrown in. Now it was mainly
for money purposes, and that's what we're talking about here.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
But you also have to recognize put Dylan Brooks back
on the team, So you would have traded somebody else away.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
You can tell me who you think that might be.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Or if you trade away somebody that's in the rotator,
that is in don't trade away anybody that's in the rotation.
Well then what you I mean, you could find minutes
for everybody, but everyone's in the rotation. What you want
him out there?

Speaker 1 (49:23):
If you had traded Jabbari instead of Dylan, would you
be better this year?

Speaker 3 (49:29):
I don't think so. You'd be very very different. And
glad you brought Jabari Smith Junior up so next seven
we can get into that. First of all, Jabari Smith
Junior is their best rim protector this year. I think
that's a reasonable statement to make. He and Amen do
a great job of protecting Kevin. Durant has helped in
that regard, but yeah, their perimeter defense is where it
really is difficult, and their post defense is where it's

(49:51):
really struggled. Dylan could guard anybody on the perimeter as
long as they didn't get by him, because he'd loved
to get out there on them so much. Sometimes that
was a little bit of a a weakness. But if
he's bodying them, forget it. He was playing great defense.
They might score, but it was going to be a
very difficult, contested shot. And I think a men and
Tari make them similarly flexible this year. The key to

(50:13):
another player that I mean, if this is the Wex's
Kraken on the rockets segment, what have they gotten from
Dorian Finney Smith other than the Charlotte game. We're in
game fifty six.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Not three point makes not defense.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
He played well enough in the Charlotte game to unfortunately
play too much in the next game.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
They got issues, They got a lot of issues.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
These are the pieces of the puzzle you put back
together and saying well, we're losing Jalen, We're losing Dylan. Okay,
so we're getting Kevin and we're gonna go out and
get Josh Koge and Dorian Finney Smith very reasonable. What's
going out, what's coming in. It hasn't worked out that way.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Well, we'll get to this, like wex mentioned a little
bit in the next segment also, and again I'm hardly
alone in this, but something that you know, obviously we
got talked about again in earnest after what we saw
over the weekend with the Team USA hockey victory.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
We'll get to that as well.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
That's straight ahead here on a Monday edition of the program.
So we're watching the amazing unfold yesterday over in Milan,
Canada goes down. Team USA wins first time in forty
six years. I would't even call it the miracle on ice.
That was a completely different situation this time around. But

(51:31):
you know, there's a lot of hearkening back to it,
just because that was the last time it happened, and
I did the thing that everybody was doing, especially here
in Houston. I want some of that every single night
I can get it. I want an NHL team here,
and you know what, it should be that easy, just
I want it. I want to speak it into existence,
and the powers that be here in our great city

(51:53):
should make it happen. Why can't it be any more
complicated than that, even though we all know the answer
to that.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
I mean, hockey is awesome in and of itself. You
just watched the That was a five game, sevens all
rolled into one, right, but not game twenty five of
a regular season in your fifth year of existence as
a twenty and sixty hockey team.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
But what kind of hockey team? An all star team?

Speaker 1 (52:18):
No, what I'm saying is you said game twenty five
of a regular season of an NHL schedule, not IHL,
not mine, like the real McCoy the whole defensive one.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah. Whatever.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Listen, if if I were to tell you that the
Houston area, the Houston sports scene has a very good
chance of getting a professional team in the coming few seasons,
and the choices are WNBA or the NHL, just do it.

(52:53):
Let's just do a poll of one hundred sports fans
in this city. What are we gonna get? Ninety seven?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
That won the end? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (53:01):
I mean, we're asking a bunch of questions that aren't
necessarily related though, like are they is one more likely
to succeed than the other?

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Do you care?

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Do you just say I'd like hockey more than women's
basketball or vice versa. I mean, they're really really different questions,
I think fairly obviously, Well.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yeah, there's different aspects that go into both scenarios. But
what I'm saying is, if, and now I'm telling you
the truth, this is not made up, the more likely
scenario is the WNBA is coming back to Houston before
the NHL comes here for the first time.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
I think one other thing of pretty sizable significance matters
in my opinion, when if you're comparing two possibilities to
add to the sports landscape here in Houston, the number
of games in the season for one team and the
number of home games in a season for the other
team are like the same number. You're going to probably

(53:53):
have a forty four game regular season in the WNBA.
That's twenty two home games to home dates. An NHL
season is basically double that. You're gonna git that many
more dates for your season if you enjoy it, you know,
whether you're listening to it on the radio or going
to the game, going to your local watering hole pub

(54:14):
most likely in this instance.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
And it's running concurrently with an NBA calendar, that's already
in place here in Houston at that would be same facility.
Because if Tilman doesn't own the NHL franchise that comes here,
where are they playing? And I know that there's NBA
and NHL teams that share a facility. That causes some headaches.

(54:36):
If Tilman's not owning a team, I don't think they're
playing at Toyota Center.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
It's very, very difficult as the owner of the team
to play in somebody else's building and make the kind
of revenue you know you should have owning the team.
That's what all owners want to do. They're not leasing
it out to somebody else, which would be fine. You're
the owner of the building that the owner of the
team doesn't want to be the one going to your building,
especially literally, I mean even slightly looking at the Texans.

(55:02):
It's not their building, right, people don't. Owners don't like that.
And there are smaller issues that some greatest bigger issues.
But yeah, that's a huge one. You know, your Toyota
Center and your Tilman Fertida, and you decide to fill
the building with say forty five more dates, with fifty
more dates maybe whatever the number is with home game
and exhibition, games, et cetera. Okay, well, all those dates

(55:25):
are now off limits for your other events that you
would otherwise want in the building, whether it's a concert
or some other speaking engagement of political and whatever the
case may be. There's plenty of things to go on
at Toyota Center that you know those would get knocked
off the calendar. But I want to say, at the expensive,
or thankfully at the expensive, are you in a position
where you know those dates are going to generate even

(55:46):
more money. I feel like we have the venues already
to house some of the other events, or we're going
to if we don't already with some of the new
buildings that have already been built, maybe not to that size,
but maybe still would be reasonable alternatives. So I wouldn't
want to have our cities music fans say be left
in the dark that this artist is no longer coming

(56:07):
to Houston because it's Toyota Center or bust for their
particular tour. I would I would think that wouldn't knock
them off. And I obviously this is an awesome play.
Almost everybody on every major tour that rolls on an
arena tour, they come to Houston of course they come
to Houston.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Why wouldn't they come to Houston?

Speaker 3 (56:24):
But if that presents an obstacle, it's obviously these are
things you would have to consider. But you own the building,
and you know you've got your fifty Rockets dates plus
playoffs and your or forty five Rockets dates plus playoffs
and forty five hockey dates plus playoffs, both of which
could have if you're good, extended playoffs, two months worth
of playoffs with you know, four or five games a

(56:44):
month at home minimum.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Probably more.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
There's a lot of if you're again, if you're selling it,
and if you have the corporate dollars involved, which is
the huge, huge part of it, then it can make
it and it can be a winner. There's no question
there's support for both. I think this is a very
good women's basketball market. I think it can be a
good hockey market. I would only be most concerned about

(57:08):
how big is it if they had a five thousand
seed arena? Yeah, I think that's no question. Even if
prices we're out of control. I think we could fill
that up. But can you fill up a fifteen, eighteen,
nineteen thousand seed arena where you have five thousand very
very expensive seats and then more affordable seats and fill
it up. Plus obviously gotta have advertisements on the ice

(57:30):
and on the dashers.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Are most NHL arenas NBA arenas too throughout the league.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
I wouldn't be comfortable saying most.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
There's a very big difference between a ten thousand seat
capacity and you know, a nineteen eighteen whatever. The range
of an NBA sellout would be.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
The Stars play in the same place as the MAVs, right,
same for the Nuggets and the team you hate in
Colorado now because of Nate.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
As we should the Avalanche. Well, real quick, do you
know this the answer to this question on the fly?
What's the capacity for a Stars game versus a MAVs game?
Because I know it's going to be smaller for the hockey,
but just because it's simply because of the lack of
floor seats available that would be there for an NBA game. Right,
it's this giant thing called ice, and you can't have
people sitting on it. Uh.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
The for hockey it's eighteen thousand, and five hundred and
thirty two at the aa SE. For basketball, it's six
hundred and sixty eight more nineteen thousand two.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
So it's not as big of a difference as I thought.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
I thought, for whatever reason, it'd be a couple thousand,
but I'm not good at these things.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
No, it's roughly roughly the same eighteen and change and
nineteen thousand in change.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, and that's kind of that. Those numbers that you
just spit out are very Toyota centers.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Court side seats and on the glass seats, very expensive
advance amium. The average ticket price the ANHL, if I'm
not mistaken, is a touch higher than that of the NBA.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
I think it's more than a touch. And here's why
I think it's.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
I feel like, and I could be wrong on this too,
I feel like it's more expensive on average than an
NFL ticket. I realized there's a huge disparity in the
amount of people. But what I'm saying is the NFL is,
by i've on average, more affordable than an NHL game,
because NHL tickets are so insanely high. And the only

(59:28):
reason I say that is because one time, the reason
I were in Nashville and we had a free night.
We were up there for a Texans game in twenty fifteen.
The very end of the season and we were like, well,
let's go see a Predators game. And I just went
to go see what it would cause. And these, of
course were secondhand. I don't remember if it was a
sell out or not. This is I've slept since then,

(59:49):
and it was like over a decade ago.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
I just remember.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
I was like, I'm not paying that. I'm just not
and I'm not that guy. I'm not cheap or anything
like that, especially when it comes to events. But I
was just like, I'm not blowing that kind of money
just for a one off NHL game.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
I think there are nine combo arenas if I did
my quick count correct.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
And how many teams are in the NHL more than
that I know that. Is it like the NBA where
it's thirty two or whatever, Well, I think it's thirty
or thirty. I should say it's thirty two NFL teams.
I'm just curious because I do. I'll say this about
both of those scenarios. I think there are legit concerns

(01:00:27):
with the long term viability of both a WNBA and
an NHL team. Here in one of those situations, you've
already seen the deterioration of the WNBA franchise.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
That's why the comments no longer play here.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
The comments no longer play here because of an ownership problem,
not a support problem.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
I don't know about that though.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
When the owner of the Rockets I was there, I
was working. I mean, there was nobody there. The all
part of an ownership problem, in my opinion. You definitely
welcome more opinions. But when they were owned by the
NBA owner and owned by the Rockets, they were obviously
they won right out of the gate, one, two, three,
four straight times, right. But when he sold to somebody else,

(01:01:10):
it did it was he had no idea what he
was getting into and I just don't think he was
into it, and it showed.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Just just let it go based everything died on the vine. Absolutely,
I want the NHL more. I just want to put
that out there. I think a lot of people were
with me. But it's a lot easier said than done.
All right, speaking of the Rockets and they're choking.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Uh. We were talking about that a little bit earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
There's an article that was put out and it's, you know,
just take it or leave it, but it's it paints
a rosy picture about C. J. Strouds specifically as it
pertains at twenty twenty six. Want to get into that,
uh for maybe a little bit of a reason for
optimism with the Texans signal caller.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
We'll do that when we come back.

Speaker 7 (01:01:54):
The eight.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
See a Team Sports SOX seven nine any Space City
home network. The uh, the fact that Team USA did
that against Canada. I still can't get over the just
the fallout on social media and all the good Who
is the who is the avant Avalanche player that's so

(01:02:18):
butt hurt?

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
The Canadian and I don't even associate with them yet
they have started playing again about who they played for,
and you know that you see he's he's on Team Canada.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
As far as I know, it's Nathan McKennon. My favorite
was when they had handed him a little plush doll.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
What was that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
By the way, I tried to tell again we saw this.
I guess people finally noticed it during the last hockey
final when the women beat them and they had you know,
the cameras are obviously right along with the presenter. They
present them all with their medals, which they're already they're
pretty unhappy about it, whether there were tears or anger,
They're they're not real happy about standing there receiving their medals.
And this happens right after the game. You know, it's

(01:02:58):
the gold medal game. The gold and silver medals are
handed out right then and there, and they go all
the way down the line and hand them their medals,
and then they go all the way back to the
front so they can hand them there plushy, they're stuffed animal. Well,
the women were rolling their eyes and giving these looks
like I don't want this, I want this to be
over please, And obviously the men did the very same thing.

(01:03:19):
There's some pretty classic memes that have been created from it,
and he was among those that were right in the
middle of it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
For sure. I just yeah the memes. But again, they
gave him to everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Right when you set your figure skating competition and you
got silver and they got bronze. Well that's three dolls
they got handed out. Mikayla Schiffern won her event, she
got one, and so did the person who finished second.
So say, all the way through the entire Olympics, we
just noticed it more because of the length of time
it takes to hand out twenty five thirty medals and

(01:03:52):
then do it all over again with the animals stuffed
of course.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
All right, So just a little side bar here to
jump into some Texans conversation since we haven't talked about
them very much lately and find.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Combine this week. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
It kind of feels like the calm before the storm.
That should be a very the most pivotal offseason in
franchise history. It just sounds so over the top, but
I really feel like that's where we're at right Like,
is that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
You can't have one unless you're good. They're good, They're
They've reached a hurdle and they have kicked the hurdle
with their shin and fallen on their faces. After each
of them, three straight years, three straight years, they've kicked
the same hurdle and skinned up their knees and hurt themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
This is very pivotal.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
It's never done before, Never before in Texans history have
they done this. Keep getting to the same place without
any progress. Ten wins, twelve wins. What difference does it make?
Great roster not as great roster? What difference does it
make the other teams in your conference? Three different ones
in three seasons, I've outplayed you in their gym.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
You've familiar with John Crumpler's work. I mean, I know
who he is, but I don't really vaguely if that Okay, oh,
I know exactly who he is, but I wouldn't say
I'm familiar with his work. I just he wrote something
that stood out to me, and it is basically arguing
that CJ. Stroud is the team's best path forward to

(01:05:22):
a super Bowl and that you're all being the fan
base is too mad right now to see it sounds familiar?

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Why you say that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
That's what I've been saying since the day the game ended.
You can want him out all you want. You can
act like acquiring in an outstanding quarterback is so easy,
just move on to the next one, but it isn't.
Look at all the teams we crap on daily yearly, Indianapolis,
what are you doing have you had? Are you gonna

(01:05:53):
tell me you've had no good rosters for seven years?
Because that's a lie. So but you can't win because
you haven't gone out and done anything about your quarterback position.
And then conversely, the teams that do have them, that's
why there aren't any available because you don't get rid of.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Them, right, You have them, and you don't put in
Davis Mills by the way either.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Now there's the middle ground, Tua's Big Fat extension, Kyler's
Big fat extension, Trevor Lawrence's Big fat extension. Two of
them you could say probably did not work out, and
now Miami in Arizona the two that didn't. You got
to figure out how do you get away from this?
I would think Jacksonville thinks there's did work out, and
we had huge reservations about that prior to Liam Cohen

(01:06:31):
getting there. So you can sit here and say we're
in that boat right now. Are you extending CJ after
year four like he's Trevor Lawrence? Like you hope he'll
become that, which sounds awful to try to reach Trevor
Lawrence's plateau or try to get even with Trevor. That
sounds terrible, But you certainly don't want to have a
quarterback making fifty five to sixty million dollars a year

(01:06:52):
that plays poorly and wins as infrequently as Tua and Kyler?

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Are you like me just as an ass side with
the Trevor Lawrence situation where you need to see him
do it again before you're like this is legit or
do you think that's who he is?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
I think he's all I think he is who he is,
But he's playing for a better oc with better personnel
and accordingly made more plays. I still think he's prone
to the really ridiculous mistake. He also is so capable
with his legs you can kind of overcome some mistakes.
I mean, heck, Josh Allen's been making mistakes his entire career.
This year, he didn't overcome them quite as well in

(01:07:30):
the game that he needed to overcome countless mistakes that
he should absolutely have gotten beyond by Now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
I'm going to gloss over all the obvious stuff that
is in this piece that we have talked about at nauseum.
There's no sense in doing it. I just want to
fast forward to the point where he argues to not
let your anger cloud your judgment and then points to
the underestimating in his opinion of the toll on the

(01:07:59):
injuries and hits on Stroud's twenty twenty five results specifically,
and because you're a numbers guy, I know you'll like this.
He had the concussion right, He missed three games yep,
before that concussion twenty nine carries. Again, this is talking
about his running game one hundred and eighty nine yards

(01:08:21):
sixty five point five percent success rate after the concussion,
twenty two carries only thirty one yards and at twenty
two point seven success rate. I just remember us talking
about this this aspect where there would be times where
he was holding onto the ball too long and or
you would want him to either climb the pocket or

(01:08:44):
just take off to make a play work they could.
I'm not saying you do that just for the sake
of doing it, but if you can make a play
and then therefore extend a drive by doing that, why
wouldn't you? And it felt like he was a little
bit gun shy, whether it was because of the concussion
situation or not, and concussions, I should say, because he
had been concussed the year before. Are you with that

(01:09:08):
as being a big reason why specifically the running game
went away with him?

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
And I'm again it's relative. He's not a run His
running game went away, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Just not running games. Sounds like he's a running quarterback.
So that's not what I don't think is being said here.
It's certainly not how I look at him, but just
the bit like he's he's not even Drake May, but
he has the ability to move, and he just felt
like he wasn't or worse, he was making a bad
decision to not get rid of the ball, take a snack,

(01:09:42):
sack or whatever, as opposed to taking off when he
could have.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Keep in mind two things. One, the first concussion was
year one. He played all seventeen games in year two.
And then the second concussion diagnosed and games missed because
of that happened last year. So I'll give you my
full thoughts on that when we come after the break.
They'll keep those couple of things in mind. Lastly, on
the two concussions, the first one was when he was
standing in the pocket and took a hit and was

(01:10:09):
slammed backwards. The second one was on the very thing
we're talking about. He scrambled right up the middle against Denver.
He slid and he got smashed and he suffered a
second concussion. So we'll start there when we come back
on the other side. Positive vibes from CJ. If you
can get your emotions out of the way, that's next.

Speaker 5 (01:10:27):
The A team on Sports Talk seven nine.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
When he had opportunities, was it because he was scared
of being concussed again.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
My first thought, we just longgoing conversation all throughout the season.
I was there a couple of times. Unfortunately CJ talks
during our show most times during the week, most Wednesdays,
but a few times I was over there, And obviously
I've been watching what was said throughout the year, and
obviously his post games too. He was asked that very question,
the gunshine nature of it, and he said, I can't
play that way.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
I don't play that way.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
The numbers, obviously are are pretty pretty strong statement for
what was and wasn't done offensively by this team when
he was playing quarterback pre and post injury. I don't
think there's any question about it. There's really no way
around it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
The competition that they played, the games that were being played,
the scoreboard for those games is five games or six games.
After returning, you had the two close games immediately with
Indianapolis and Kansas City. Kansas City not quite as close
and very little offense. He also didn't play very well
that day. And then you close out the season with
Arizona and Vegas, the Chargers on the road in LA,

(01:11:37):
and then finished things up with the Indianapolis Colts. Those
last couple of games were extremely competitive, extremely close. He
only played a half of one of them because of
the nature of the Indianapolis game. But the game against
the Charger I thought was one worth really looking into more.
And I'm not looking at the numbers because I don't
think that tells you much of the story. So I

(01:11:58):
think this is being born on people looking at the
numbers and saying, well, in the beginning of the season,
he's got four carries for twenty two yards and five
for thirty two and two for twenty five and seven
for thirty upon returning to the field, he had zero
games of ten yards or more than ten yards. He
had five of six games of five yards or less.
He didn't have a single game like that, not one

(01:12:21):
for the first eight starts of his season, not even once.
And that's praying post injury. So the numbers, they definitely
tell you a story. But a lot of times people
are saying, well, why did he run here? Why did
he run there? Look at this play, And I'm like, yeah,
look at this play. Now, really look at this play.
If he runs like people outside are telling him too,
then he's running into this hit or he's running into

(01:12:43):
that hit and he's not getting any yards out of it.
He's not putting their offense in a better situation. I'm
not saying don't take a hit. I'm saying, don't take
a hit for nothing. There's nothing there. I think people
were looking at it saying, man, there was eleven yards,
there was fifteen yards, or why is he just taking it?
Because he certainly seemed like he was at the beginning
of the year. They're all different plays. Every single setup
is a different play. There actually were designed runs for him,

(01:13:04):
not often, but a few at the beginning of the season.
I can't say there weren't because I'm not him and
we know how much of a mental game this is.
And the play was what it was, both running the football,
taking the yards that were there, you know, putting your
instead of going to third and ten from second to ten,
go to third and six by gaining those four yards
and running out of bounds. Those plays probably were there.

(01:13:26):
I don't think there's any question they were there. But
look at the way he through the football afterwards. Look
at the look of the way this offense played afterwards,
you know, quite poorly. They had one pretty good offensive showing,
and that came against the Arizona Cardinals. He completed seventy
five percent of his passes, he had one of his
best yardage days. He didn't throw any picks. They had

(01:13:46):
three touchdowns. They kind of did what most of the day,
did what they wanted to do against Arizona. I don't
really care what he does against Arizona. I don't care
if he runs it. I don't care if he throws it.
I know they're gonna win, and they did rather easily.
It's more about in all the other games he was
already struggling in every other every other area. The offense
was struggling, and defenses aren't going to do things that

(01:14:08):
allow your team to run the ball, let alone him
run the ball. And I don't know, I've lost track
of who to compare him to as a runner, because
everybody else that I would consider using the term with
is better than him, every one of them running the football.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
One of the names eventually like come to mind, you know, initially,
and then you're like.

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
We just walk through the postseason this past year and
start at the top and work your way down. The
number one team had bow knicks light years better than CJ.
The number two team this year was Drake May light
years better than CJ. He won their game by running
the football against Denver, last play of the game, somehow
Denver got fooled. Just ran around the left side and

(01:14:47):
stiff armed a guy and got the first down. He
obviously ran very well against Houston on a couple of occasions.
A third was Trevor Lawrence. I don't think he's gun shy,
and he took a comparably vicious hit, much more illegal
in his case, I guess, But came back this year
and seemed like when it's there, it's there. They definitely
called plays for him much more than they called plays

(01:15:07):
for CJ. To just run the football, and he was
very good at it. They beat Kansas City because he
was capable of running the football. He took a shotgun
step and fell down and picked the ball up and
ran for a touchdown on that play, kind of like
CJ in the postseason a year ago against the Chargers,
making something out of nothing. CJ's a better running quarterback
than Aaron Rodgers. They were four seeds, so he got

(01:15:29):
that dead last, so we got one. The Texans were
obviously five, and then you had Herbert and Allen as
the other two postseason quarterbacks, both of whom are much
better runners. Work your way back down the list. Mahomes
and Jackson both better runners than CJ. It's not even
a competition, but the idea that he needs to do
this because they're doing that, they're better than him at it.
They're better athletes than him. They move faster than him.

(01:15:52):
Now are they making decisions faster than him? That would
be a much bigger issue because you can you don't
have to be great, great speed, great athlete if you
recognize what's happening more quickly. This guy's not open, that
guy's not open. Pockets closing, there's my hole, there's my opening,
which you might already know before the snap if you
see something in their defense. Usually we see that and
hear about it and they say, yeah, I knew he

(01:16:13):
would be open or I knew this would happen. Well,
you might also know that these guys are in man
and we've got three guys running deep. If I fake
a throw this way, there's not going to be a
soul over here on the right side or the left side.
And if nothing's there for me, I've got ten yards
if you know, I've got ten yards if that's what
the play turns into.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
So how much of this is Nick Kyley? Probably none? Basically, Well,
I mean I feel like there was a lot of
people that are watching what was happening, and again a
lot of this goes on CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Stroud's shoulders. How much is it you mean running or
how he played the offense in general? Yeah, I mean
that's obvious. Then I would have answered very differently. I
know you meant that as his ability to run the foot.
I should have asked it better because you do have
to keep in mind that Joe Mixon wasn't there. You
do have to keep in mind that Tank Dell wasn't

(01:17:05):
there and what he's gonna be when he comes back.
I think everybody's just assuming Tank Dell's going to be
the same guy. We don't know that yet, And I
don't know if that's a question that you want to
have to learn the answer to the hard way as CJ.
Stroud tries to build back whatever it is, whether it's
his confidence or I don't know. I wish I could
go swimming around in that brain right now, which nobody can,

(01:17:28):
because he's the only one that can really tell us
what where he's at mentally. But I just I know
we all wanted to get rid of Bobby Slowick before
Nick Cayley got here, And now a lot of people
are thinking maybe not, oh, I want to get rid
of Nick Caylee. But why did you even give us
a situation where we could ask that question by going

(01:17:48):
out and hiring a guy who wasn't a play caller
with more experience, And now you're not in that situation.
This is year two with Slowan. Now it's year two
with Kaylee. We've seen what year two was like and
they fired him afterwards. Keep in mind, you got and
you keep. You have to factor this in Dell. You
have to factor this in Joe Mixon exactly. You have
to factor those things in. You think CJ is going
to have an equally underwhelming season in year one with

(01:18:11):
Nick Cayley if every time he dropped back he had
a healthy Tank Dell, healthy Dalton Schultz, healthy Nico Collins
out there, and a healthy Joe Mixon behind him, probably not.
No matter who the play caller is, he's playing with.
Not the greatest situation doesn't mean you get excuses for it.
But that's reality of it, you could have. The Dell

(01:18:32):
situation is the biggest complaint of all. You knew he
wasn't gonna play this year, and the veteran receiver you
brought in was extremely underwhelming until the first playoff game.
And talking about Christian Kirk and he'll be a free
agent again and I'm not gonna get us a deal
he got here.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
I can tell you that Ali Wex is high on
Christian Kirk. I am not. I just just guessing I
was not and am not all right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Four o'clock hour coming up next and uh, you know
what unlikely source an NBA legend calling the Americans winning the.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Gold medal before it happened. You'll hear that next.

Speaker 5 (01:19:10):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
So one in five men are suffering from low testosterone
and may not even know it. For number three is
underway here on Sports Talk seven ninety and Space City
Home Network.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
It is the A team. He's wex im Ac. Josh
Jordan is our producer.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
As we continue to bask in the glow of Team
USA throttling Canada.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Okay, maybe not throttling. They throttled everybody else on their way.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
There actually a close competitive game in overtime for the
gold medal finish.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Yeah, we didn't really talk about one huge aspect of
Olympic overtime hockey. You play five on five all game.
There's penalties could make it four on five. On four,
there's penalties that could make it five on three, all
sorts of other there could be four on four. There's
three on three hockey at the drop of the puck
to open overtime in Olympic hockey after the three periods

(01:20:09):
and as a tie game, Canada had already played in
that situation just the game before and moved on in it.
They played in this game and did not move on.
They didn't win the gold medal. There were big, big,
big complaints from them about, oh, it's not hockey.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
I actually agree.

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):
I wish they did not do it this way, but
I'm not gonna sit here and say it's not hockey.
I'm also not gonna say it's an unfair way to
decide a winner. I also think if you look at
what was taking place during the game, and then you
looked at who was on the ice as overtime started
and continued, the setup is probably advantageous to Canada against

(01:20:49):
Team USA, like it would be probably against every other
team was an Olympic competition, and yet when it's three
on three, it's a mistake or it's a physical play
made by the other team to overcome something. Honestly, the
game was lost by Canada when the puck was gained
by Team USA fifteen feet twenty feet from the net
because the the only only defender at all, he was

(01:21:11):
there first and got out worked by Team USA, got
pushed away from the puck, and that player then controlled
the puck so he had an easy cross eyes pass.
The second defender was just about to join the play,
and the third defender was nowhere near joining the play
and also wasn't killing it to get back to join
the play, you know, wide open. Look, all you had

(01:21:33):
to do is beat the netminder went five hole. I
wish this isn't how they did it four on four.
I know it sounds silly. I'd probably be accept more
acceptable of that, And I know why it happens. In
the description. You want the game to end. You don't
want to play forever and ever because it's made for
TV these events. Even though it was on at seven

(01:21:53):
o'clock in the morning and playing five on five could
potentially take forever. They only scored one goal each in
the first sixty minutes, So you play twenty and it's
still one to one. You play another twenty and it's
still one to one. I understand why they do it,
but I would think four on four would keep it
closer to who won in sixty minutes nobody. That's how

(01:22:16):
close these teams are, so let's keep that as close
to it as we can get. That's why shootouts are.
I hate them. That has nothing to do with hockey.
That says we got five guys who can make a
shot anybody. This guy made a move, this goalie made
nothing to do with the playing the game of hockey.
Obviously you're doing the same thing. I think people know
what I mean. I don't like deciding soccer matches that way,

(01:22:37):
and I don't like deciding.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
Hockey goal competition at the end. See that's where you're
taking it too far. Why it's getting a ball a
ball between.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
No, it would be like deciding a college football game
on here's your two point play, here's your two point play.
Here's your two point play. Here's our two point play,
over and over and over until you determine a winner.
That's a football play. You have all get seventy times
both team, one hundred and forty times you snap the
ball and try to get yards or get in maybe
five times during the game. You've got red zone plays.
Those are plays like I don't want to bring the

(01:23:08):
kicker out.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
That was well, I feel like you have more options
with that scenario where you're going for two point plays.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
Well, I'm just saying this is literally what college football
does now when they get to the third overtime and
they decided that way, was it Georgia Georgia Tech? Right,
We've had some seven overtime games where the scoreboard I
think was too alarming for people LSUA and M.

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
And what happened here?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
What because they were being rewarded with touchdowns when they
would keep driving four touchdowns and now they drive from
the two yard line for two points and games do
end much more quickly. But from five on five to
three on three, the amount of ice you have, and
you know, the tiniest little mistake which you can absolutely
make when you have four other teammates out there, it

(01:23:53):
just gets punished so dramatically when you only have two
other teammates out there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Yeah, it was. It was.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
It was no less fascinating to watch it all unfold, though,
And I feel like every time we turn around this
guy surprises us for all the right reasons. Maybe Charles
Barkley was like one of the biggest ambassadors of this
thing before it happened.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):
Yeah, he was doing his usual podcasts with EJ. And
this was during the day when these semifinals were going on.
So Team USA Team Canada for the gold medal game
was not yet set.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
It wasn't the matchup wasn't even set.

Speaker 3 (01:24:32):
Neither team had finished their game yet. He actually was
taping it, as you'll hear during the game that featured Canada,
not ahead, as he will note in this, but he
definitely had the prediction and the demand and what everybody
wanted to see. Where we're all on Team Charles for this.

Speaker 7 (01:24:50):
Canada, we're going to win the Gold Metal. I'm sick
of this. We haven't won since nineteen eighty for dis
Rain of Terra Canada. You gotta get the first. We're
taping as you on too Zip. You're down too zip. Hey, Hey, hey,
come on, come on, we won't Canada. We don't want
to beat Finland, were gonna beat Sweden. We won't Canada. Duh,

(01:25:10):
we won't, y'all. Shout out to the women, congratulation on
winning the gold medal, and shout out to Canada women.
Man winning a civil medal. It was a heck of
a run. But man, we're gonna win the gold medal.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
I mean, he nailed it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:22):
And well, how many times here in Houston have we
enjoyed the we want Houston? Okay, Yankee fans, you can
have him, and they're gonna walk right through you. Yet again,
he said, we want Canada. The matchup wasn't set, The
gold medal match wasn't set.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
We want.

Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
We got a long history and it is a heated
rivalry and we want it. We want the smoke. Not
every game was lopsided for Team USA. A lot of
them were, but not all of them. And Canada needed
overtime a couple of times, or one goal games, overtime
or otherwise to get there. He wanted it, He got it. Charles,

(01:26:01):
even though he's slimmer now, was probably sweating for some
of this game about what he had said.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
But he also had to know that this finale, if
it were set that way, was not going to be
like any of the other games Team USA had played
where they were just essentially all blowouts.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
I mean the Sweden game obviously was just a one
goal there was just a two to one game, but
most of their others were pretty clearly they had to
the majority excited advantage. These were the two best teams.
It is what I think everybody outside of the individual countries,
fans of hockey with no rooting interest I guess, or
whatever however you want to say it. These are the
best two teams. That's that's what you want. And they

(01:26:40):
both played pretty exceptionally. Did you happen to catch Donald
Trump calling them on Tiger I didn't. I saw them
singing and dancing. I saw some beers getting chugged, So
they did not see.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
That free bird.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
He invited them to the State of the Union address
at night, and apparently they've accepted.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
So my understanding is because of the weather in New York,
they were supposed to fly back to New York, which
they could not do right instead flew to Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
That's one of the things that he said. He goes,
you don't have to worry about the weather or anything
like that. Eight we gotta have military plan.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
I'll bring it here well, like going to Miami to celebrate.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
Yeah, that's something they're probably still gonna be feeling it
tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
If indeed they go to the State of the Union.

Speaker 3 (01:27:25):
It would be like Mikayla Schiffer and won her medal
and clearly and almost acknowledge it she'd had plenty to
drink during this interview, or that everythew She conducted herself
pretty well, even though she cursed a couple of times.
There were many interviews I saw just from the yesterday's
match where it was pretty obvious they were deep, deep
into celebration and still microphones are there and they're still
gladly accommodating to it. There was the podium meme that

(01:27:50):
was created. You had three US hockey players on the
podium and the player on the far or close right
was speaking, and there was a player to his left,
and then third player up on the podium had a
beer bottle which looked pretty full. Yeah, and he was
looking at the waitress pointing to the bottle saying, I
need one more, Like there's a way, Like literally, this

(01:28:12):
is what you do at your table when the waiters
across the room and you're I need another bud light.
That is what he was doing there and also on
the ice. I'm sure everybody saw it because you couldn't
miss this as easy easy lip reading. I'm gonna get
drunk tonight. I'm getting drunk tonight. You could see one
player repeating himself talking to teammates saying it was I

(01:28:34):
don't doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:28:35):
That he did.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
And by the way, I used to so back in
the day. This was like my first couple of years
of college. I was dating this girl who's her both
of her her parents but especially her dad, humongous hockey
fan and would watch NHL games like we watch NFL games.
You'd sit down in front of whichever he I mean,
he had his favorite teams, I believe, but you know,

(01:28:58):
he had no problem and he would always tell me
because I was a big Rockets fan, and he would
say this, and it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
I believe it's true. You can tell me what you think.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
NHL players have to be in just such elite physical
condition to do what they do. I realized that soccer
players are similar in that regard with the cardio, but
they're not wearing nearly the amount of gear and oh,
by the way, they're not skating.

Speaker 3 (01:29:24):
Who'd you say, does similar cardio well soccer players? Oh yeah,
and I guess technically they do get hit a little.
You mean, they flop a lot, their bodies do touch,
and there are some hard hits and you get tripped
a lot. But even when you get tripped, what do
you fall into grass that's soft? What about hockey?

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
Not grass that's soft?

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
The ice or the boards or the net. Yeah, there's
nothing crossbars of the net.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
If you haven't gotten your teeth knocked out by a
stick or a puck, it's just insane. It makes you appreciate,
like if you've ever even tried, I had to go
ice skating before, and you're not even good at it,
you know what I'm talking about. I just go to
the gallery of sometime see what the ice is like.
Now imagine just going absolutely crazy from an athletics standpoint,

(01:30:11):
if you can.

Speaker 3 (01:30:12):
Yeah, I saw a reporter during the Olympics, a female
reporter go on the ice to do an ice skate,
an ice hockey piece. She clearly has skated before she
can skate, and then added the element of shooting the puck.
She was out there with the hockey team, and they
were teaching how to do this and balance this way,
and while she clearly could do it, she scored nearly

(01:30:33):
with every shot. It's not easy. You could see how
the balance of it that I've got a hit. It's
not easy, like skating is hard enough.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
I don't know how more people don't break their necks
out there. I'm not even being kid like. It's just
insane and they get it done, and it's just it
really is art. Speaking of Chuck, by the way, it
wasn't done. You know, a big topic on the show
last week was how to get rid of tanking in
the NBA, and I'll be if he didn't come up

(01:31:01):
with three really better than any of the ones that
were on the list that were in that article about
Commissioner Adam Silver. So you're gonna hear more from Chuck
as the Charles Barkley Houer continues here on Sports Talk
seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Astro's posting their I don't even know what you would
call this, you know, where they.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Do the fancy video work with the social media staff
where the players are in full uniform and the lighting's
fancy and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
Media day, so they have all their stuff for the season.
I guess products media production day. Yeah, like it's media
day when we talk about it on the shows when
we interview players. Their media day is when they gather
all the elements they're gonna need throughout the season. For
the players they hope remain with the team throughout the seasons,
and they have stuff to use throughout the season.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
It does make things a little bit trickier, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:31:51):
Out this awesome Garrett shot on the fly after each
o oh not Garrett, he was actually acquired in the offseason.
JV or Zach GREENK might be better examples, right, Or
you say.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
Charles Barkley last segment calling the Americans winning the gold
medal before it happened, that's impressive. Charles Barkley fixing NBA tanking,
that's way more impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Wex.

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
Yeah, you said three really good ideas. There's two of
us here. I would not I would not stand behind
that statement.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
So you don't like any of them.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
I didn't say that yet. Let's hear idea number one
from Charles Barkley.

Speaker 7 (01:32:27):
We've got to come up with some type of solution
because it's not fair to the game. First and foremost,
it's not fair to your fan base. I don't think
any NBA team should be able to raise your ticket
prices if they have a low five hundred. I've always
said that you cannot raise your ticket prices if your
team is below five hundred. I think they should make

(01:32:47):
that a rule in every sport. To be honest with you,
even if you're still trying to tank, you can't raise
your ticket prices because then you're getting your cake and
eat it too, which you know, I'm full cake, getting
your cake and eat too.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
Yes, all right, this one's kind of more of a
gimmicky one to me.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
You can't raise your ticket I.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
Mean doesn't have anything to do with the basketball, which
unfortunately why I don't think it would do anything to
the basketball. You know, business is business, and you want
to make more money.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Trying to He's trying to penalize people who are tanking monetarily,
so I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
So after you tank and left your prices where they
were for the upcoming season, which will take them to
mean that you can immediately raise your prices after tanking
landed you insert star player we got because we tanked.
Insert draft pick that we kept because we tanked. Now
for one year, you weren't able to raise ticket prices,

(01:33:37):
which I would imagine that would that would be a
fun meeting to sit in on between the NBA's owners
and NBA's business operation staff and all the presidents of
basketball and the presidents of business operations and to see
how they would attack that. You know, teams don't raise
ticket prices every year, but it seems like they do,

(01:33:58):
and maybe they could prevent loophole and saying well, you
can't raise this, and that they could just say you
can't raise them at all. Whatever they were at last year,
that's where they're staying this year. I mean, it's not
so separated because that's a hard way to do business
because you're how do you make money? You make money
off the TV deal and your ticket prices and plenty
of corporate sponsorships. Clearly, well they're capping one of those

(01:34:21):
revenue streams off if you stink, So how do you
I'm sure teams would get creative and figuring out ways
to say, like he just said, under five hundred, like
there are teams that are thirty eight and forty four
that didn't tank at all, and there would be penalized
by this thought. Meetings would be fun and it is

(01:34:41):
an interesting thought. I wouldn't shoot that one down. I
would think that's one worth at least continuing discussions on
how about barkley proposition to.

Speaker 7 (01:34:53):
Every team and a lot of the U should get
one ping pong ball.

Speaker 9 (01:34:56):
They shouldn't give you more ball everybody. Yeah, and that
came out the other day too. Maybe we're thinking about
anybody's on the same level playing because the team that
had the worst record I think has only got the
number one pick like two out of twenty five years.
So give everybody one ping pong ball if you don't
make the playoffs. If you don't make the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
So that's you got eight teams in each conference making it.
So you have fourteen teams in the lottery. That includes
the teams that were nine to ten or seven or eight,
whichever didn't make the postseason, and the hopper basically goes
back to the Patrick Ewing days. You just double the envelopes.
You got fourteen teams with an equal chance of making it.

(01:35:34):
So right now, Phoenix is the best team that's not
inside the playoff picture. They are seventh in the West
and they have the best wreck better record than the
seventh place team in the East.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
And they have as good a chance as they lose
to Golden State at home in the first playing tournament game,
and then they lose to Portland at home in their
second playing game. They now become a lottery team and
they have an equal chance land the number one pick
as Utah, Washington, Sacramento, New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
On down the line, do you want that? No, I
shoot that down, that idea down.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
But I also don't want I guess the inverse unfair
way of a team that's I guess purposefully losing. For example,
it's always stuck on my crawl. The way the San
Antonio Spurs got Tim Duncan, I mean Tim Duncan. And

(01:36:30):
again this he could have been not as good as
he was. He could have been just sort of good.
You basically had a quarter of a century's excellence because
you were resting a healthy David Robinson.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
That's what it came down to.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
I don't believe for one second his back was as
hurd as they made it seem. And meanwhile, the Boston Celtics,
who by no means do I think they should deserve
more championship caliber players with the amount of banners they
have hanging in their arena. It's not like I was
trying to help them out, but I mean like they
actually had a legit bad season, and San Antonio I

(01:37:08):
think fudged it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
Well they did, but they also weren't sitting at the
top of the list. They had the third worst record,
so the third best odds of winning the number one
pick seven.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Who was in between the Nuggets.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Vancouver had the highest probability. They had the worst record.
Toronto was because Toronto was not allowed to select to
first in that draft, same reason the expand Boston had
the second worst record, and so I take it that's
who that's basically had better lottery chances Boston with two picks,

(01:37:40):
including their own because of the second worst record, But
the Spurs definitely installed their chances, like the Celtics had
a thirty six percent chance of winning the lottery. They
ended up with pick three and six. They drafted Ron
Mercer at six, and they drafted the former Portland Trailblazers
gambler Chauncey.

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Bill and never had his best years with them.

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):
No, but it's the same thing, utah on anybody else
is doing Utah is not gonna finish with the worst
record in the league, probably, but they're trying to finish
with at least bad enough to not see their pick
go to OKC. And every pick slot you move up,
your lottery chances increase other than one. Like I'd like
what they've done with one, two, and three, but it
just does I like it for the overall fairness, but

(01:38:25):
it doesn't really do anything for tanking. The three teams
that finish with the three worst records all go in
with the same chance. They all have the exact same
fourteen point zero percent chance of landing number one and
the same fifty two point one percent chance of landing
one through four. But that also means it's fifty to
fifty roughly that you're the worst team in the league
and you pick fifth.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
That's why, like I'm looking at these all of these
articles out there right now about oh, look at the
two teams are the best record in the NBA, the
Pistons and the Spurs. Well, yeah they got the number
one pick. The Rockets weren't. I mean, I'm not going
to sit here and say the Rockets weren't trying to lose.
We all saw what happened, But the Rockets weren't this

(01:39:09):
like proverbial bleep show every single year, mismanaged all this
kind of stuff, Like they had their superstar basically throw
the grenade down for.

Speaker 2 (01:39:17):
Them and then you know, all of the chips fell.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
But like the Pistons were a disaster for a long
long time after that two thousand and four championship. Just
bad decision after bad decision, front office after front office.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
It was just awful.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
It all changes if the number one pick is yours
in a year where the number one pick is Kate
Cunningham or Victor.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
Or him Duncan in nineteen ninety seven, right, but you know,
like that's that's where I'm like, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
James er Another and Kate, they've made two good lottery picks. Yeah,
they both were All Stars this year. They have the
best team in the East.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
And the Rockets had a number two pick that year
that Kate coming Cunningham was drafted.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
I mean, I look at.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
The team that had the number one pick the next
year when Jabari went third. Well do you think Orlando
got the number one pick and they drafted Palo Bancaro.
Big deal, They're going nowhere.

Speaker 1 (01:40:14):
Yeah, But I still like, I know this sounds crazy,
is gonna sound super crazy, and light of the fact
that they're the defending champs. I just don't look at
Chet Holmgren to think, ooh, superstar. He isn't a perfect spot.
He's probably not gonna player on a championship team.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
I mean, the way Jalen Williams has played this year,
I'm not so sure he's not their second best player.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
But that's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:40:32):
Yeah, he doesn't have to be the team leader. Cade's
the team leader, clearly. Obviously Victor is the team leader.
I'm sure Cooper Flag is going to be the best
player on the Mavericks, but Chet as the number two
overall pick. I bet he doesn't play a single season
in Oklahoma City where he's the best player on the team.
He has SGA.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
We didn't get to the last Charles Barkley SoundBite.

Speaker 3 (01:40:50):
Well, we'll see which way the scale slides. I said
yes to one saying no ticket price increase because you
stink you're under five hundred, and I said no to
everybody gets the same chance. If you don't make the playoffs,
you have an equal chance of winning the number one pick.
If you won forty three games, or you won fourteen games,
same chance of winning the lottery and landing on top.

(01:41:13):
One more possible tanking solution from Charles Barkley, plus of
course signature segment time. Next the good, the bad, Oh good.

Speaker 5 (01:41:22):
The bad that's not good, and the ugly don't make
me good of With the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:41:28):
We're showing you the good the bad. Do things a
little bit differently today since we have something holding over
for the good, the bad, and the ugly, with Chuck
Barkley offering up some tanking solutions. Oh, Chuck weird one
and two. Uh, it is signature segment time. It is Monday,
so the weekend always brings us back to the good,

(01:41:49):
the bad, the ugly. We're technically set up for me
to be ugly, a seed to bring the bad. And
of course Josh, the goodest of them all, he has
the good. But Josh, you see right there in our
awesome system, we call it RCS. There's three cuts from
Charles Barkley. Number one we heard he said, no raising
ticket prices if you're under five hundred. His option number

(01:42:11):
two was the ping pong balls are even for everybody.
Everybody gets one. I'm going to the fourteen that are
the in the lottery. We said that's a bad idea.
We were willing to listen to the other idea. You
know the title of cut number three. So I want
you to tell me where that fits in the good

(01:42:31):
and the bad and the ugly before we hear number three.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Is it good?

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):
Is it a good suggestion which would tip the scales
into saying Charles is smart? Is it a bad suggestion
which would keep the scales probably where everybody thinks they
ought to be Charles not so smart? Or is it
a horrific unbelievable The NBA would roll over and.

Speaker 2 (01:42:50):
Die before they'd take this idea ugly.

Speaker 10 (01:42:53):
I guess I'll go with good. I don't have a
big stance on this. Wets all right, Well, let's hear it.
He has the good.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
So this is josh A's I for a good idea
from Charles Barkley on limiting tanking.

Speaker 2 (01:43:04):
He wants to limit something else.

Speaker 4 (01:43:06):
What is it?

Speaker 7 (01:43:07):
If you trade a pick, it's gone because now teams
are manipulate dumb it well, if it falls in the
top three or four of top seven protected.

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
No, he just wants to say this is a first
round pick, period. This is a second round pick period.
You're not waiting to see if they finish in the
top eight. You're not waiting to see how the lottery
plays out. It doesn't have to convey sometime in the future.
It doesn't have to turn into a second pick in
second round pick in the future. If this first round
pick was never conveyed, you don't have to hope this

(01:43:42):
is the year Portland or Phoenix or Brooklyn is really
bad and you land it because it falls inside or
outside the productions. If you trade five first round picks
for Desmond Vane, if you trade five first round picks
for Michale Bridges, well, the team that he came from
gets your five first round picks for that particular year,

(01:44:03):
no matter where they fall.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
Is that a good idea or not? I don't mind it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
Do you think it would limit the operation of the
league too dramatically because pick protections facilitate trades and player
movement pretty obviously, right, yep?

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
So would you be okay with limiting tanking?

Speaker 3 (01:44:24):
Maybe by limiting the ability like making a move for
these players becomes I don't want to play here, I'm
not coming back. You can't make me go on the
court you gotta find a new home for me. Can
you trade away like trading away unprotected picks when you
lay in these players?

Speaker 2 (01:44:41):
Is what would it would now come to.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
I do think it would dissuade the tanking, though Matt's
at the end of the day, that's what we're trying
to achieve, isn't it not.

Speaker 3 (01:44:50):
It would dissuade tankings that are involved in pick protections.
I mean, but how many of these Like let's say
Utah has all their picks in this year's draft the
next year's draft, and they're not relying on any keeping
it from going to Oklahoma City. Well, they're going to
just keep tanking. It's not it's not added to that.
It's okay, though we don't live ourselves to one rule.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
We should allow tanking if it means it's at the event,
if it's the direct non benefit of the OKAC thunder.

Speaker 2 (01:45:20):
Yeah, so that should be a rule.

Speaker 3 (01:45:21):
There are going to be multiple rules put in place
this offseason. I don't think there's any doubt about it.
I actually thought some of the ones we ran through
on Friday with what was suggested that the league was
talking about and what you read that Pablo Torri was
reading about and then reporting about that some more ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:45:39):
I thought.

Speaker 3 (01:45:39):
It's a combination of a lot of those ideas, which
we'll get into more deeply outside of our signature segment.
But I think a lot of them will actually do
their intended purpose. We might find out usually when you
make big rule changes, like hand checking or anything else,
when it you know, you know it's going to do this,
but you didn't realize it was also going to do that,

(01:45:59):
which I don't like. But if you're okay with that
being your only submission for good and that you had it,
we'll move on. But I don't want to deprive you
of telling the people what was so good about your
sports weekend from Friday at six o'clock until today at
four thirty seven fifty seven.

Speaker 10 (01:46:14):
I'll just make it quick. Mike Burrows looked really good.
Went two innings for the Astros the other day. He's
a big addition. Good to see him off to a
nice start.

Speaker 2 (01:46:21):
Look at how Josh described now.

Speaker 3 (01:46:22):
He described it as a big addition, and not less
than two and a half hours ago, I said, you
had a nice little day. Nice, he's a nice little picture.
It's a nice little picture. No, I agree. That's what
spring training can show you beyond the game results. Sent
out two starting pitchers this weekend. Colton Gordon threw the
ball well, very very outside chance of making the roster

(01:46:42):
out of camp, and Mike Burrows threw the ball very well.
He was hitting his spots, he was throwing strikes, he
was getting swings and misses, he got in his work
and two innings without any issue, able to get up
to twenty four pitches and now takes his spot somewhere
down the line for the next time. Hunter Brown will
pitch on Wednesday, by the way, and that was a
good thing. That was a very good to see that
for a first in Astro's uniform appearance for Mike Burrows.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
The bad well.

Speaker 1 (01:47:07):
For the first time since January of twenty twenty four,
the Houston Cougars lost consecutive games. It was a bad
week for the Kuks and if they don't win against
Kansas tonight on the road's gonna get even worse.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
And that's not a gimme. As they drop to I
believe number.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
Five, a couple of different rankings depending on what you
like the most. There are number five in the AP,
there are number four in the coaches pull and worst
of all, Duke is number one. Duke had a very
important win over the weekend. The top four teams in
the country played each other in two separate games, and
the two teams that won their game Duke beat Michigan.
Michigan's now three, Duke is one, Arizona beat Houston. Arizona

(01:47:48):
is two, and U of h is in those two spots.
I mentioned. They still have a very nice path to
either landing a number one seed or landing in the
region that sends them through Houston. But it would be
nice to see the same type of game.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):
They had Iowa State pretty much right where they wanted them,
even though it was their building. Well, they sho didn't
play well down the stretch. They had six minutes of
basically not scoring. There was a bad call in the
in part of that, but they couldn't put the ball
in the basket. And it has happened to them over
the years, and it's happened to this year's team. They
lost to Iowa State Arizona game. I had not seen
Arizona as up close. I've watched them quite a bit

(01:48:24):
this year, but kind of start to finish this time
they're good. I definitely thought they were the better team
that day. They held the lead for much of that game.
They made it very difficult on the Cougars for a
number of reasons. They definitely Cougar's definitely struggled on the inside,
which is it's kind of the one difference between this
year's team and all the other teams that Kelvin's had
that they had. They well, Tuggler is an elite rebounder
and defender, maybe the best they've ever had. They don't

(01:48:46):
have anything on the inside offensively at all. There's nobody
to throw the ball into. There's no I need a bucket.
I can go inside to Jaywan. He's gonna get faller,
he's gonna get a layup or a little hook shot.
That's that's the only thing they're missing. They might be
better guard play this year. I can't imagine a college
basketball team having a better trio than Sharp, Flemings and Uzhan.

(01:49:07):
So they definitely have an advantage over most teams in
that area. But you could see what could hurt them
in that regard. A three straight loss, a third straight loss.
We will have the game on our family of networks
this evening Kansas and U of H Kansas, also, by
the way, got smashed by a very mediocre Cincinnati team
over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:49:28):
Good maybe they'll get smashed tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:49:30):
Losing two games at home is something they don't do.
So as as many have said, going into this game,
something's got to give you. I'll get you the ugly
on the other side. I don't know how ugly it is.
But we have talked about this topic quite a bit
this afternoon. A few other items for us to hit
on this afternoon. We will talk about the Tush push

(01:49:51):
as the league goes into their competition committees. We will
have other tickets to give away, concert tickets to give
away later this hour or next hour. As always in
the final segment of the show, all that's still to
come here on the eight team, the eight, we had

(01:50:12):
time to clean up our signature segment here. Yeah, the good, bad,
and now the ugly. The ugly was just some of
the aftermath of two to one. Over time we win,
you lose. Free bird all over you? So not from us,
free all over you? Yeah, I like it. Not from
us here in the Great United States of America, but

(01:50:34):
rather for you Canada who complained about three on three
not really being hockey. After you lost this game, I
bet not after you can after you won a game
under the same rules previously, and after you lost this game,
somebody for Team Canada, maybe their best player, said, ask yourself,

(01:50:54):
who you think the best team was tonight? Yeah, I will.
I'm going to look up at the scoreward. My answer,
how would be good to go? I recognize the magnitude
of and I said earlier, I know where he's coming from.

Speaker 2 (01:51:09):
And we've seen it before in any sport you want.

Speaker 3 (01:51:12):
It's just the scoreboard is there for a reason, and
it can be tough to stomach sometimes. You know, the
Texans probably did it four or five times this year
and got away with it a bunch. They're just out
playing these teams dramatically, outplaying these teams as they led
three nothing, six nothing, twelve, three, fifteen to seven, Like,

(01:51:33):
come on, you're dominating them up and down the field.
You're dominating time of possession. They barely have any time
to get the football. They're punting every time while you're
going the length of the field and then punting and
pinning them deep where you're going the length of the
field and you're kicking a field goal after an eight
minute drive. Well, the scoreboard says, they're still in the game.

(01:51:54):
And when Canada was just peppering the go with shots,
and when they were constantly making the it look like
the US was never even going to get a shot
on goal themselves. It's such a decided advantage after the
early portion of the game, because they were dominating the
offensive side. They had chances and chances and chances. The

(01:52:17):
scoreboard said one nothing USA, and then it said one
to one. Like, think about this statement, ask yourself this,
Who do you think the better team was?

Speaker 2 (01:52:26):
I don't know, was it you?

Speaker 11 (01:52:27):
Guys?

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Wait?

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
You never had the lead the entire game from start
to finish. Never, never, at one point were you leading
this game. So is it you?

Speaker 2 (01:52:36):
No, of course not, it's not you.

Speaker 3 (01:52:39):
At what point were you about to win, when you
were losing or when you were tied?

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
Which time? Neither?

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
I just love how twisted into a pretzel they're doing
this hole, these whole shenanigans where we know that if
they had won that game, the rest of the world
would have just been expected to and again under the
same circumstances, let's just flip the whole thing. They score
the early goal, they lead most of the game, and

(01:53:08):
everything happens the same way, and the goalie statistics are
flipped as well. We would just all be expected to
bow down to their superiority and accept that they are
the just better product over the course of time. That
quite obviously would be reasonable to say. And that's one
of one of the teams. Again, not the only team

(01:53:30):
that has prevented Team USA from landing a gold medal
in years past, but Canada's been pretty good. I think
that's a reasonable thing to say. They did not medal
in twenty twenty two. USA did not either.

Speaker 3 (01:53:44):
They medled in twenty eighteen, they were third, They were
worst of the medalists the last place.

Speaker 2 (01:53:50):
They were the number one loser like they were yesterday.
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
Twenty fourteen they won it all and again in each
of these two years I've gotten through.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
How do you not win it all every year?

Speaker 3 (01:53:58):
You invented the no USA medal? Twenty ten very memorable
to a lot of people in both of these countries.
They were on the gold medal match Canada one.

Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
It's instead to.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
Beat them in two thousand and two. Also, isn't this
like the dream team not winning every single Oh no, no, no,
I definitely wouldn't say that. Why no, no, Canada maybe
their sport, but clearly yesterday and they were maybe the
better team, and they showed maybe they were playing better
hockey at times, so they didn't have the better goaltender,
which kind of cancels it all out. And they weren't
playing better defensively because they couldn't get enough shots on

(01:54:32):
goal to find the net back in the net. They're
maybe the best team. Like ranked number one, the dream
Team wasn't just ranked number one, it was I'm talking
about any they couldn't lose. No, I'm talking about Canada,
clearly can I'm talking about any year, not ninety two only.
Well you said dream team. You think every US team
is a dream team or so they call them. Well,

(01:54:54):
was last year's team a dream team?

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
Yeah? What about the year four years before that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:54:58):
What about the twenty the next team that Kevin Durant
says he's going to play for if he's still good
in twenty eight?

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
In LA dream teams, dream team? So chet Holmes Packers
were the dream team when Vince was there. We laugh
at that. I'm trying not to laugh at this or
was that the Eagles. It was.

Speaker 3 (01:55:18):
I don't really consider USA basketball as a dream team
unless it was one of two very specific teams. And
I do look at I mean, I want you know,
I've said this many I'm like, I can't believe Team
USA doesn't just crush everybody still, but I've got to
face facts.

Speaker 2 (01:55:35):
They don't.

Speaker 3 (01:55:36):
I think they're still going to win, and I think
they're still the best team. And we look at a
little bit in the NBA. I'm look at all these
MVPs that are all international players, team versus world. You
look at the roster for the world. If they were
really cared, they would be pretty awesome. The top five
in the world versus everybody else on planet Earth or
in America, that team would be awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
But they don't all play for this.

Speaker 3 (01:55:57):
You're not playing against the world on any given night,
you're playing gets Team Latvia or Team Grease or Team Canada. Well,
Team USA doesn't change. It's the same great American players
they do play on one team. That's why they should
be winning gold honestly without much problem every time. In
my opinion, still to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:56:19):
Speaking of basketball, what do you think if Bill Simmons
noted Celtics Hank for years years. Yes, what if he says, hey,
I've seen this act before from imy Udoka, and it's
it's not gonna go well for you.

Speaker 2 (01:56:35):
I've seen this before.

Speaker 3 (01:56:37):
It's not gonna go well for you. I've seen this
act with them. Amy was there for how many years?

Speaker 2 (01:56:41):
Two? Okay, what do they do in those years? Went
to the finals and lost?

Speaker 3 (01:56:45):
And then so he's right if you're parsing his words
and saying, it's not going to end well for you,
if only if the only ending you prefer or can
live with is an NBA championship, because it did not
end well in his one season in Boston, he only
won the East.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
It's not going to end well. That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:57:07):
They lost their last game in the NBA finals. I
sure would take a trip to the NBA finals. Let's
hear what he had to say very quickly, so you
guys can be the judge.

Speaker 11 (01:57:15):
I was on two different text threads this morning with
Celtics fansy friends, all of us kind of getting PTSD
for the ema season that the Celtics had when it
would go bad and it would just get stagnant and
nobody moved and there would be no solutions to a
defense kind of figuring out the offense.

Speaker 1 (01:57:34):
Again, he's talking about a season in which they went
to the finals and lost to Steph Curry's Warriors, when
Steph Curry was still in his prime.

Speaker 3 (01:57:43):
As favorites or underdogs, I can't remember, be curious.

Speaker 1 (01:57:49):
I feel like I feel like if the Warriors were
in the finals, they had to be the favorites. But
the Celtics team he coached and then won the championship
next year after he left, was really Now.

Speaker 3 (01:58:00):
I don't want to be too super dismissive because we're
watching it a lot more closely than he is. He
watched Saturday night's game, He's watched their other primetime standalone games,
and I imagine he's league passed it quite a bit.
But you and I and MT and all of our
listeners were in on all their games.

Speaker 1 (01:58:17):
And let's not forget how the players on that Celtic
squad went out of their way to talk about after
winning the championship how much they missed emy Udoka there.

Speaker 2 (01:58:27):
That's not a small thing.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
I think the players here like him too, but they
might say, yeah, we could. I again, not infallible, not
Coach of the Year material this year. There are issues
with one through fifteen and the coaching staff. I would
agree with that, not that they can't overcome it. Even
during this season. They do not look like a championship
contender today on February twenty third. We'll see if that

(01:58:49):
changes over the next two months. Another hour here with
us on the A team. I already mentioned the tush
push once and you know how much I love saying it,
so let's do it again to start next hour set
to get off the five o'clock hour, and I love
football at five to watch on video today of the

(01:59:10):
new touring drummer for a well known band called Rush.
You know where they're from, Canada, losing not all of
them now because their new drummer I do not believe
she's from Canada much younger than they are.

Speaker 1 (01:59:24):
I am not one of those people that hates on Rush.
In fact, I love Rush, but boy, can I hate
on some Canada.

Speaker 3 (01:59:31):
We've been doing a lot of that today because we're
just following your lead, America.

Speaker 2 (01:59:36):
And thanks to yesterday's finish.

Speaker 3 (01:59:38):
Fantastic finish in overtime gold medal for Team USA in
both men's and women's hockey and the closing ceremonies that
followed in the Olympics have now come to a conclusion.
It's nice to have those additional sporting events for those
that are interested. Over the last couple of weeks, Spring
training baseball began last Friday and ongoing Astros would be

(01:59:59):
back on the diamond for the rest of the week
starting tomorrow. Hunter Brown gets the ball on Wednesday. Jeremy Payne, You,
Jake Myers, Mike Burrows all seeing their first Greape Fruit
League action over the weekend. So plenty for us to discuss.
We also are in the midst of basketball season and
hockey season, which we'll resume once again now that the
players needed to play games in the NHL are no

(02:00:21):
longer tied up losing to every team or losing their
last games in Milan, Courtina, except for Team USA Football
at five. There's some news items to get to first,
and then we'll get to the rules related items. A
couple of players seem destined to draw the franchise tag,
not the transition tag, but the franchise tag in Atlanta

(02:00:44):
and in Dallas. Atlanta looks like they were really happy
with the first good season. Productive's healthy season for Kyle Pitts,
and now we'll try to keep him as part of
their offense moving forward. A couple of drafts away from
drafting Pits, London and Bijon Robbinson and the makings of
an exceptionally talented trio of players at those three skill

(02:01:05):
positions and looks like either for one more season or
for multiple more seasons, they've come to a different agreement
cale Pits will stay there. Dallas just got their hands
on George Pickens after they acquired him in trade from
the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he was just flat out awesome,
super duper productive, made their offense one of the best
in the NFL. Was a great player to have on

(02:01:27):
the other side. Most plays from Ceedee Lamb made life
great for Dak Prescott in the passing game. They are
probably not saying it loudly enough, but their actions are
saying it quite clearly. They're not ready to have a
long term relationship with George Pickens, but they know they
like him.

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
That's what the Cowboys do. They get talented players and say,
you know what, I don't want a long term relationship
with you.

Speaker 3 (02:01:52):
I'm on the Cowboys side this time.

Speaker 2 (02:01:54):
Of course, aren't you.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
Yeah, and that's not a completely factual statement, which I
just said.

Speaker 3 (02:02:00):
They did lock up Dak Prescott. They had three guys
worth locking up. They locked up two of them.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):
Yeah, and listen, I will never ever be upset with
Jerry for not locking up running back in today's NFL climate, But.

Speaker 2 (02:02:16):
He did well.

Speaker 3 (02:02:17):
That was the other Dallas Cowboys news they agreed to
a multi year deal with Javonte Williams.

Speaker 2 (02:02:23):
It was so I'm talking about oh my geech.

Speaker 1 (02:02:27):
Yeah, that was so arduous that when they finally did
give him a contract, because remember they did, it was
so underwhelming and he was underwhelming.

Speaker 2 (02:02:35):
It was a bad contract, yes, even when he got it.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
But I'll never I'll never get upset with any team
for not giving running backs big money because I just
I understand it might I might not even like Arian
Foster was the perfect example here, And that was really
when I think the league was. I don't even think
they were on the cusp. I think we were already
in the full throwes of you shouldn't pay running backs

(02:03:00):
big money because they're just not The shelf life just
is not there.

Speaker 3 (02:03:05):
Well, the shelf life if it's their second contract and
they were a first round pick. Then if you're taking
it after the fifth year option, you're getting years six, seven,
eight to nine. If they're a second round pick, you're
getting years five through eight. If they're Arian, you're getting
earlier years. Because obviously he wasn't a pick at all.

Speaker 1 (02:03:25):
Yeah, I might think going year to year, I think
if Arian had been traditionally drafted where his talent after
he was allowed to display, it would have put.

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
Him I mean first round draft pick, second rounder.

Speaker 3 (02:03:38):
I mean plenty of players that have Well, if you
redrafted Arian Foster's draft based on what he did in
the NFL, where was he taken? He was I'm not
even gonna look, I'm gonna trust my instincts here and
then I'll go back and be proven wrong. Best running
back in that year's draft.

Speaker 2 (02:03:55):
Right, So he would have been a first rounder in
all likelihood, I would think so.

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
So, you know, and because of what you said, which
I think played a big role into it. If he's
a first round draft pick, the Texans probably decide not to.
I mean they did that with Mario Williams and he
wasn't even a running back. He was a pass rusher
and he wasn't as good at his position.

Speaker 3 (02:04:15):
Mario Williams was good and not clearly not the best
as rusher who was among the better players in multi
time promo. Arian Foster was arguably and in the discussion
for everybody in every city in America, I said he
was number one as the best running back, the best
player at his position, a premium game changing position in
the NFL.

Speaker 2 (02:04:34):
That was my belief.

Speaker 3 (02:04:36):
And I was on the air at the time, not
with you, and I said when we were having this debate,
because you wouldn't sign, you had a lot of option,
I was on the side of saying I would absolutely
give him a long term deal.

Speaker 2 (02:04:49):
I would.

Speaker 3 (02:04:49):
I he his best season was year two. He still
had two more, probably three more awesome seasons, and that's it.
He had three awesome seasons. One of the first four
seasons was full of injury, and then as soon as
that fourth season after year two, so year six, happened
another injury, and essentially that was it. His career had

(02:05:10):
come to an end. He played two more years. He
really ended in Miami that day, Yeah, it definitely did.
But he played eight games his final two seasons. He
had no seasons of more than thirteen games in his
final four seasons.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
But going back to these these two players you just mentioned,
Kyle Pitts and George Pickens.

Speaker 2 (02:05:26):
Mm hmm. One of them is.

Speaker 1 (02:05:30):
I you know, have no problem with it with Pickens,
I mean, what year is he going into?

Speaker 2 (02:05:36):
Year five?

Speaker 3 (02:05:36):
Or year five was last year because that was the
fifth year option as a first round pick, so year six.
That's why they're not going long term with him. He
has four years of oh, I don't know why he's
not better, and then one year of wow, we really
threw in the ball, so we got a lot of
more production. So as all the baggage has all the
does he care enough?

Speaker 2 (02:05:54):
Is he going to? Okay? I finally got what I want.

Speaker 3 (02:05:57):
I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say he's
playing for a contract and that's all he's there for.
But he was also not a first round pick because
of issues which prevented the big money fourth year and
the big money extension which he then would be in
line for. Instead, he's a second round pick on a
second round deal who's gotten traded away from a team
who clearly needed wide receivers. That's why they'd have dk Metcalf,

(02:06:20):
So they chose him over him to be hesitant on
locking up and guaranteeing eighty million dollars sixty five million
dollars to Chickens. Yeah, I'm on board with questioning that
in a weird way. Isn't he kind of like CJ?
In that way? I mean, well, CJ's baggage is pure football.
Pickens baggage is not football.

Speaker 1 (02:06:42):
Correct, but his baggage is no less severe because it's
probably in between his ears, and he plays the most
important position on your team. Therefore, they're a lot. They're
similar in that way in that this is a very
major proven year for their respective clubs.

Speaker 2 (02:06:57):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:06:57):
Peeking back in on my bold statement, mh Arion Foster's
draft class included super star. I'll tell you this about
his draft class. He got drafted the same year as
Matthew Stafford.

Speaker 2 (02:07:08):
Okay, what year is that? That's two thousand and nine. Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:07:12):
Matthew Stafford is the seventh leading rusher among drafted players
in the two thousand and nine draft WO with his
thirteen hundred and fifty seven yards ahead of him Beanie Wells,
Donald Brown, No Sean Marino, Rashad Jennings and the second
leading rusher in the draft class players who were drafted
is extremely well known Sean Green. Now now I bring

(02:07:37):
up the question, was Arion Foster the best running back
in that entered the league in that two thousand and
nine class? And I only hesitate even though I still
think I'm right. Regardless of what the career totals tell you.
Aaron Foster finished his career with sixty five hundred yards
six thousand, five hundred and twenty seven. Neighbor's about five

(02:08:00):
thousand yards less than Lashawn McCoy, who.

Speaker 1 (02:08:05):
That he was.

Speaker 2 (02:08:06):
But didn't he play in a Super Bowl?

Speaker 3 (02:08:08):
He had, He had what you would call a really
good career for a running back.

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):
He lost to the Patriots in eight correct seven season
eight Super Bowl. I want to say something like that. Okay,
h about the answer, I thought again for me, and
again I don't even play. I don't fall he's saying
for that because his running back or his quarterback that
year was freaking t J.

Speaker 2 (02:08:30):
Yates because of injuries.

Speaker 3 (02:08:33):
I think in Kansas City and Tampa later in his career,
and then I don't believe he played in the Super
Bowl with the Eagles.

Speaker 2 (02:08:40):
But I could be wrong. I could have sworn he
was there with Donovan McNabb.

Speaker 1 (02:08:45):
Two thousand and nine obviously was year one. Oh never mind,
you're right, because that was after they played there.

Speaker 2 (02:08:50):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (02:08:50):
So six time Pro bowler, two time All Pro, maybe
a little hometown in me and probably Lashawan McCoy would
be regarded as having a better career. But at their peaks,
which was a short time for Arian, he was the
best running back in the NFL. Anybody would have said
that about Lashawn, although they probably would have said he

(02:09:11):
was second or third. His twenty thirteen season was phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (02:09:16):
Only wrestling fans are going to get this analogy, but
it's very very apropos. Arian Fosher was the stone col
Steve Austin of running backs, white hot box office, the
top dog for a very very short but very very
effective time.

Speaker 3 (02:09:33):
Last thing on the franchise transition tag story probably lands
in Indianapolis.

Speaker 2 (02:09:38):
Will they do that with either.

Speaker 3 (02:09:40):
Of those two players, Daniel Jones or Alec Pierce, both
of whom otherwise are top ten free agents. Daniel Jones
is most likely going to come to some sort of
agreement with Indianapolis to be their starter next year, whether
it's a franchise, transition tag or just an extension, which
seems much more likely. Pierce is much more, in my opinion,
up the air, maybe fifty to fifty. Fifty to fifty.

(02:10:01):
They say we can't afford to lose him and tag him,
or they let him reach the market and see what
can happen. Again, the transition tag gives you even more options.
Might be what the Jets do with Breest Hall, we'll see.
I don't know that for a fact yet, and they
don't either. They got a little bit more time before
the tagging window closes.

Speaker 2 (02:10:20):
I feel like they would have done it by now.

Speaker 3 (02:10:22):
Nobody like, unless you're you're going to do You're waiting
on where you think discussions might be and if you
really want him. But that's why this week is different
than last week when the window opened. Now we have
a pretty clear idea because Stephen Jones even talked about it,
they're going to put the franchise tag on Pickens, and
we know now from Atlanta from the reports today, they're
going to do the same there.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
We talked about it briefly earlier.

Speaker 3 (02:10:44):
Didn't give you the specs on USA basketball moving forward,
So a little light on that situation as applies to
your Houston Rockets, and we'll get into what we did
not this segment. Potential rule changes in the NFL, A
lot of them, a few of them, none of them.

Speaker 2 (02:11:00):
We'll talk about it next.

Speaker 1 (02:11:04):
Kad wants to go to the twenty twenty eight Olympic Games,
look at Team Canada and say they're idiots.

Speaker 3 (02:11:13):
And everybody else. I mean, it's not Canada's sport. So
let's face it, Canada's not gonna be in a gold
medal game? Could be who's their best player?

Speaker 2 (02:11:21):
Shay? Okay?

Speaker 1 (02:11:24):
Are the international Olympic committees going to award him fifty
foul shots? Like the NBA's stupid res dues? Pretty good
in the last Olympic contests?

Speaker 2 (02:11:33):
Right? What did he medal in? Where was his medal?
What kind of metal was it? You're well, will it's platinum?

Speaker 3 (02:11:43):
Do you even know how the last Olympics went?

Speaker 2 (02:11:45):
No? Okay, I told you I don't watch these things
unless I really want to.

Speaker 3 (02:11:50):
I really want to, all Right? Did they gold medal?
I'm not here for to give it. I'm not here
on the show to give people information. Really did that
sound like Ron Burgundy? It was supposed to really that
squirrel can water.

Speaker 1 (02:12:06):
Skimm Yeah, I'm sure Shay was awesome, seeing as how
they play.

Speaker 3 (02:12:11):
Evens about Kelly and Dylan, you don't like how they play,
They're fine. How did they meddle? I not, like I said,
I don't. I don't even know. I'm not paying attention
to it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:23):
By the time twenty twenty eight rolls around, which is
still two years away, more than two years away technically,
because it's going to be, it'll it's going to be
the summer games. Katie's still putting up thirty at night right.

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
It's right after he finishes up his Rockets career unless
he has another contract with who. So Yeah, he gave
us some comments to the Worldwide Leader, if you want
to call them that, and said he didn't like people
making this assumption that his time at the Olympics ended
alongside Lebron and Steph the last go around in Paris,
Lebron was very clear and I'm sure it'll be true.

(02:12:58):
He said, this was it for me. I'm not playing anymore.
I don't know that I'll be playing basketball professionally either.
Steph didn't say that, and Kevin Durant didn't say that.
They're just old and have done this a lot. And
the assumption was, well, they'll be moving on to a
younger group or he won't still have it anymore. And
in those comments he made because for Grant Hill and
the group to make their decision, it's all predicated on

(02:13:20):
me still being able to play and help this team.
But he has every intention of being capable of saying, yeah,
you better take me. I'm one of the best twelve
players that you have.

Speaker 1 (02:13:31):
Yeah, International Lebron and Curry are not going to be
taking part.

Speaker 3 (02:13:35):
Well, like I said, I don't think Curry said that
definitively Lebron did.

Speaker 1 (02:13:39):
Curry's unlikely to play. According to Anthony Slater, who writes
exclusively about Nothing but Warriors basketball.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
They have team reporters for just a couple of teams,
and two of the teams you hate the most have
their own reporter.

Speaker 2 (02:13:54):
What about nothing but the Warriors?

Speaker 3 (02:13:56):
Before he worked at ESPN, which is why they hired
him to write more about out the Warriors, he used
to cover them for The Athletic.

Speaker 2 (02:14:02):
Well, then what's Tim mcmannon's Tim mcimons.

Speaker 3 (02:14:04):
Man covers Southwest basketball, Anthony California Basketball, if IF, Anthony
Davis hurts his finger before the trade to Washington. Tim
McMahon would be the one they'd ask at ESPN to
write about it. If Victor wants to talk about how
he carried the weekend at All Star Weekend on his
extremely broad shoulders, then Tim McMahon would be the one

(02:14:27):
writing about such a try hard.

Speaker 1 (02:14:30):
I love the quote, though, I just don't like the
ton finished fifth. I guess, yeah, so Shay was awesome
metal Shay serious, being dead serious. They finished fifth with
two outstanding guards, Diddley Pooh up front and Dylan Brooks

(02:14:53):
Jamal Murray Shay. That's elite, that's gold medal caliber backcourt. Yes,
and that's why they didn't win, because they.

Speaker 2 (02:15:02):
Have up front who are their starters?

Speaker 3 (02:15:04):
H Lou Dort up front just playing the wing three forwards,
six foot two, three pound Lou Dort eleven roster, probably
the strongest guy on the team. Oh so the French
side came out upfront forward?

Speaker 2 (02:15:25):
Okay? Who was there? A little?

Speaker 3 (02:15:27):
Kelly olennok probably was mixed in quite a bit, kidding me.
That's why I said this is there was a weakness
of Team Canada. The front line. That is that is
light light packing she's like a buck fifty. They didn't win,
not surprising.

Speaker 1 (02:15:46):
They didn't even get a medal. They're not France or
Serbia who led you to this fifth place finish Shaye. Anyway,
this is a quote from Kevin Durant, and again he's
got the best quotes.

Speaker 2 (02:16:02):
He's got the best quotes.

Speaker 1 (02:16:04):
I just don't like to talk around the USA versus
European style of how you approach the game. All I
hear is AAU is destroying the game. The Euros do
it right, well, the Americans do it wrong. It's a
lot of bs. He doesn't say bs, he says the
words with that. I can read between the lines on that.

(02:16:25):
It's a shot at black Americans. We're controlling the sport.
They're tired of us controlling the sport. France is coming
for you. Really, we smack them boys gold medal game. Yeah. Look,
I don't know about the racial aspect in between there.

(02:16:46):
I don't know one way or the other. I would
tend to think not, But what if that's what he thinks.
Better yet, if that's what fuels him and them to
a gold medal, fine, whatever you.

Speaker 2 (02:16:57):
Gotta use for motivation.

Speaker 3 (02:16:59):
Well if just bottom line all right, fine, beat us
then right, That's.

Speaker 2 (02:17:03):
Where I'm at on that. I'm exhausting. If they were.

Speaker 3 (02:17:06):
Only if it was one country, either you're with us
here in America or you're against us, so you can
all play together, they would absolutely give Team USA a
run for their money. I'm not even saying they would
win because Team USA still is that talented if they
want to be, but it would be a different story.

Speaker 2 (02:17:25):
But that's not reality.

Speaker 3 (02:17:27):
And now totally different argument aau versus how they're doing it.
He's saying how the Europeans do it? If I put
together Team World, they're not all Europeans. I even know
that Canada isn't in Europe, and I think SGA would
make the squad.

Speaker 1 (02:17:40):
Where is it AOC? It's just is it north or
south of the equator?

Speaker 2 (02:17:46):
What are we? We're north?

Speaker 3 (02:17:48):
Then it's also north, thank you. So you just use
deductive reasoning. You don't even even have.

Speaker 1 (02:17:52):
To grow an map. You could use a map a
globe ever seen one?

Speaker 3 (02:17:56):
I mean, I still find it hard to like. There
are some teams that just didn't have They had NBA experience,
but not good players, and they outplayed some of these
teams with really good players, really good NBA talent outplayed them.
TMOSA will have the best twelve player, eleven player, thirteen
player roster of anybody in the world at the next
Olympics and the one after that, whether Kevin Durants on.

Speaker 2 (02:18:18):
It or not, he'll be what thirty nine, I think
he'll be. Yeah, And like I could totally see him
still putting up the numbers he's putting up that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:27):
It was just a couple of years, couple of Olympics
cycles ago, when he was still an active player. Carmelo
Anthony was arguably the best international, best Olympic player TSA
has ever had, because for this game, for this style
of basketball, with his with he wasn't he was awesome.
And Kevin Durant is so similar to that.

Speaker 2 (02:18:46):
It's the elbow jumper.

Speaker 1 (02:18:47):
He's just I'm just gonna better kill you with it, right,
And he can also hit threes better than Carmelo. So yeah,
I hope he plays. I hope they win the gold,
and I hope the open.

Speaker 3 (02:19:00):
Spot next time around will be opened by Drew Holliday's
spot will be open, Lebron's spot will be open, Derek
White's spot will be open unless they want the same
utility players they brought that time. Anthony Davis, the spot
will be open one way or the other. Maybe Joel
Embiid for the same reason. Yeah, Steph Curry, Well there

(02:19:21):
should see significant turno. Anthony Edwards, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown
who was not on the team, kd it could easily
make up the gold medal winning team next time around.

Speaker 1 (02:19:31):
Trying to think of who what Americans would take some
of those places that have maybe not since entered the
league but have since come on to where they would be.

Speaker 2 (02:19:43):
I'm just trying to think of.

Speaker 3 (02:19:44):
Well, you brought him up already and it's not crazy
like chet Holmgren being a part of Team USA for
the uniqueness of his skill set and the size he brings.
That makes a lot of sense. Donovan Mitchell makes a
lot of sense. With the group we're talking about, would
be good. Iris Maxi makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (02:20:03):
James Harden just kidding. He's he doesn't want to go
over this medal before. He doesn't want to go over
there and do that.

Speaker 3 (02:20:10):
Cad Cunningham has not been on the national team yet.

Speaker 2 (02:20:13):
Tell you he's not going to be on the team.

Speaker 3 (02:20:15):
Jalen Green and again, if if the competition needs to continue, great,
it's long been over. You know who I was the
number one player should be better than you. He was,
and the margin isn't particularly close. I'd put him in
Thompson on that team utility player. Addition, you don't need
to shoot, you just need to kill the other guy's
best player every single time. Like he'd basically be the

(02:20:37):
opposite of why Derek White was there. Derek White was
there to shoot. Similar he was one of the eleven
best players in from America in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (02:20:46):
Didn't Derek White about six seven sixty six some on
that range? Yeah, and he is a good defensive player.
I'm not I don't.

Speaker 1 (02:20:51):
I don't mean to say that. I was hoping the
Rockets would go and get him. I think you'd be
perfect for them right now.

Speaker 3 (02:20:56):
Jalen Johnson could be somebody they would consider. I would
I would imagine, Okay, Well, I'm I think.

Speaker 2 (02:21:02):
I think they're gonna be okay man.

Speaker 1 (02:21:04):
Yeah, I'm not worried about them. They're gonna get the
gold medal and Shay is not why not even get
a medal? Just like you said, maybe you shouldn't even go.
I'm sure he'll want to.

Speaker 3 (02:21:14):
They probably want the free gear in the free trip.

Speaker 1 (02:21:16):
Nobody wants to watch you shoot free throws internationally either,
they l They won't have to why because they the
calls won't be the same. I should hope he's just
another guy, really not a fan of his. Rules are
also different. Yeah, you can goaltend.

Speaker 3 (02:21:31):
Yes, you can goaltend. We'll get you with in case
you missed it. Next, give you a line on what
tickets we have for you this week, which we'll give
away in the final hour of the show.

Speaker 2 (02:21:38):
All that coming up next the ie you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:43):
Some items we've not yet gotten into or others that
need your attention.

Speaker 2 (02:21:47):
Additionally, two items we have gotten into.

Speaker 3 (02:21:51):
NFL teams finishing up their off season work internally, putting
together coaching staffs and front offices before they dive deeper
into the off season of player acquisition. Combine underway this
week in Indianapolis, a few days away from players hitting
the field for drills.

Speaker 2 (02:22:08):
We know a few of.

Speaker 3 (02:22:09):
The players who've already said that's not for me. I
don't need to perform out there. I'm already the guy,
and others who said no, no, this is an opportunity
for me to show off. So I will hopefully more
teams than just the Bills are sharing with us some
of their internal conversations at the combine, like we got
to see a lot of with Keon Coleman a couple
of years ago and other teams, So always look forward
to that.

Speaker 2 (02:22:30):
But the NFL's teams.

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
As Josh will get into here in case you missed it,
one of them, in particular out West, put together their
coaching staff and announced it all. There are some very
interesting names on Sean mcvay's new coaching staff for twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 2 (02:22:45):
That there are.

Speaker 10 (02:22:46):
The one that caught my eye Robert Woods, former Houston, Texan,
hired as assistant wide receivers coach, which makes a lot
of sense, right. That's one of the reasons they brought
him over was his familiarity with well at the time
slow ex offense correct.

Speaker 3 (02:23:00):
Polutely was one of the reasons why I do think
he was I was never sure of it. I knew
he knew the game very well, but I did not
know and never asked him specifically if this was something
he wanted to get into his couple of seasons here.
It was pretty obvious he was well aware of all
the ins and outs of what you need to do
as a player and in taking coaching and helping his
teammates with it. Like Josh said, for one of the

(02:23:20):
reasons why he was here with that new offense.

Speaker 2 (02:23:22):
But he is into coaching immediately.

Speaker 3 (02:23:25):
He signed a one day contract with the Rams, able
to retire as a Ram and now is a part
of the offensive coaching staff that will include two pretty
familiar names.

Speaker 2 (02:23:35):
One is Dave Ragone.

Speaker 3 (02:23:37):
He's their associate coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Speaker 2 (02:23:41):
Again, not personal to Dave.

Speaker 3 (02:23:43):
It's not his fault that a team with a second
year quarterback drafted Dave Ragone way too early or at all.
It's not Dave's fault terrible NFL player, But he's now
I would guess he's almost, if not already, ten years,
probably more like twelve years into his coaching career.

Speaker 2 (02:24:00):
He's shaved since then. I'm pretty sure he has.

Speaker 3 (02:24:02):
He's coached in Chicago, he's coached in Nashville, and he's
associate coordinator because they have an offensive coordinator, Nate Shieldhouse
gets advanced to that position as their previous coordinators now
I head coach. But they also have an assistant head
coach and his name is Cliff Kingsbury. Is he like

(02:24:24):
on his ninth live at this point, No, I don't
think so. I think he is a one time NFL
head coach, yeah, who had not as much success as
was necessary to keep his job. It was not a disaster,
but it was not as much of success and needed
to keep it. He was an unsuccessful from a wins
and losses standpoint, college football coach, which is crazy because

(02:24:46):
nobody seems to care. Nobody cared then while he wasn't
winning a lot, and nobody seems to care now that
he's away from that job. I'm sure colleges continue to
talk with his agent about the possibility of going back,
but he definitely strikes me, especially with this job moving
on from Washington, who also lost ta Vita Pritchard, who
went to Stanford to become their head coach on the

(02:25:07):
offensive side. It was just time that he and their
head coach Dan Quinn just basically wanted to go in
a different direction. He look at how he was thought
of after each of the last two seasons he worked
with Jayden Daniels as a rookie.

Speaker 2 (02:25:20):
This is awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:25:22):
I think we might think about hiring Cliff as our
head coach moving forward, and then last year a little
bit different. This is a move that makes me think
it's just a matter of time until I interview for
the right NFL head coaching job and get it.

Speaker 1 (02:25:35):
Who has been more underwhelming coming from the college ranks
to get a prominent position, Cliff or chip Kelly.

Speaker 3 (02:25:45):
Oh, chip Kelly, It's not even close. Chip Kelly is
a total disaster failure in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (02:25:51):
But without having their record side by side his head coaches,
I mean, aren't they go I'm just.

Speaker 3 (02:25:57):
Talking about what they've done in the NFL period, Like
as like chip Kelly got fired during the season this
past year because it was such an awful, awful choice
and he just like the players after the fact. I
don't I think they were smart to keep it internal.
I guess early on, but I mean he was, he coached.
He has two NFL jobs obviously, both very brief. Look

(02:26:18):
at the San Francisco part of it, how do you
how does that happen? They hire you after you've been
a head coach already with the Eagles and you get
two wins in there, like this is a leaping disaster
you gotta go.

Speaker 2 (02:26:31):
Yeah, Yeah, I guess I didn't think about the h.

Speaker 3 (02:26:35):
His time in Philadelphia. Two playoff appearances in his first
two years. Yeah, and then in year three when they
don't make the playoffs, they say, you gotta go.

Speaker 2 (02:26:44):
I guess I was forgetting about the San Francisco portion.

Speaker 3 (02:26:47):
And you know, Raiders' job I think will be pretty
hard to overcome. But he's back in college now, he'll
be fine. He's the Northwestern Well see, I'm sure they're
gonna have a fine offense.

Speaker 2 (02:26:56):
What else do we have?

Speaker 10 (02:26:58):
Some more NFL rule being talked about? This one I
thought was interesting. NFL mulling allowing replay officials to throw
flags but on non football plays. They give you an
example here of in the Super Bowl Stefan Diggs, Josh Job,
they grab each other's face masks on the sideline, Job
delivers a punch to Diggs's helmet. No penalty flag thrown
on the play. They're considering maybe stuff like this should

(02:27:21):
be able to be penalized from the replay officials.

Speaker 7 (02:27:23):
What do you guys think?

Speaker 3 (02:27:24):
So playing my part on the show is okay with you.

Speaker 2 (02:27:26):
Josh, I can do that.

Speaker 3 (02:27:28):
It doesn't have a choice Okay, here's what I'm gonna do.
As you said it twice during that statement. NFL mulling
allowing replay officials to throw flags so obviously, and they're
not going to have to have them on site at
all NFL stadiums. They can't put them in the press
box to review stuff where all the technology is, because
how would they ever be able to throw flags.

Speaker 2 (02:27:48):
On the field. It's too far, it's too far.

Speaker 3 (02:27:52):
Are they only going to hire former NFL quarterbacks as
replay officials? That's a long distance. We're up in the
eighth floor a NRG stadium. You know, all the fans
are gonna get hurt. Players get hurt when the flags
get thrown near them. Sometimes when it gets inside their helmet,
hits them in the eye.

Speaker 1 (02:28:05):
Why does the NFL not do what the NBA does.
Light up a little thing, little area, little siren looking situation.
H I like the green lights on. It's time to challenge.

Speaker 3 (02:28:16):
Well, the official has told them to do that. The
NBA official has gotten the sign from the coach and
then indicate it to the Yeah. No, NBA coach throws
an object onto the court, right, he just walks onto
the court, puts hiss at that dance together, makes a
t and then helicopters out piece.

Speaker 1 (02:28:34):
And does it all in one motion angrily if he's
e made Uh, No, I'm being an idiot here. I
wish this was something they vote through. And the play
that Josh described is exactly why they even said it
themselves in some I think Roger Goodell said it during
his commentary at the Super Bowl obvious missed calls. That

(02:28:56):
is an obvious missed and correctible call. We should want
that fixed. I would be down for that, and I
would imagine teams.

Speaker 3 (02:29:05):
That's something I could see teams having the support behind
to get the necessary votes.

Speaker 2 (02:29:09):
So as if that was actually proposed, Tush push.

Speaker 1 (02:29:12):
Notwithstanding, NFL is the quickest and most efficient most of
the time to fix things like this. The NBA will
sometimes address things, usually too late, and they'll probably screw
it up. And then MLB is egregiously slow, always behind
the times and the last ones in the room to
figure out, Hey, we should probably change this because we're morons.
Has that about do it for the three major sports?

Speaker 2 (02:29:35):
Yes? Good answer.

Speaker 3 (02:29:37):
Uh didn't get to this and probably would not have otherwise.
But if you were paying attention yesterday, especially on the
TV broadcast on Space City Home Network, if not here
on the radio with Robert and Steve. The Astros scored
three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and
it was a six to five game because of it.
Last pitch of the game was probably a ball, but

(02:29:59):
it was called a strike. With Justin Thomas at the plate,
everybody in the dugouts screamed him to challenge. He didn't
realize in time to do so. They had a challenge remaining.
Didn't challenge because he didn't immediately go to the helmet.
He went to it too late. Should have had your
designated catcher do that for you. Well, he was batting.
The designated catcher played for the other team. He didn't
want to challenge it. He got the call. But we'll

(02:30:20):
see much more of that. To a review of the
reviews from Major League Baseball's exhibition game coming later this week.
Tickets to go see Godsmack. Yeah, they're next.

Speaker 5 (02:30:33):
The a team on Sports Talk seven nineties.

Speaker 3 (02:30:36):
We get back to you today. Good to be with
you here on a Monday now. Rockets basketball coming your
way this evening. Astros and Rockets. The remainder of the
week Rockets have another back to back. They still had
six to go coming out of the All Star breaks,
so we'll knock one of those off on the Wednesday,
Thursday back to back. They we'll have first at home
and then on the road. Utah and Sacramento the two

(02:30:57):
teams to visit toy Ata Center, Utah tonight, eight thirty
Tips seven thirty. Our coverage begins Cole Thompson as Rockets
launch Pad. We've got Rockets countdown for you at eight
MT and I will have tip off for you at
eight thirty. There's only three NBA games tonight, this is
one of them. We got tickets to give away. As
always here on the A Team. You guys are our best.
We love you, our listeners. You guys are gonna win,

(02:31:20):
you always do right here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
You listen to the show, you win pair of tickets
to see God Smack on the Rise of Rock World
Tour twenty twenty six. Stone Temple Pilots will be there.
Dorothy will be there performing with them May thirtieth, the
Woodlands Pavilion tickets on sale now at ticketmaster dot com.
To win those tickets, you just need to know the
answer to this very very simple question related to the

(02:31:42):
content of our program today. If you are listening, you
will know the answer and you'll call seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety Our question today for these
god Smack tickets is what.

Speaker 1 (02:31:57):
Well we were talking about Kadi wanting to play for
the uh non dream team.

Speaker 2 (02:32:03):
Yeah, US men's national team basketball.

Speaker 1 (02:32:05):
Whatever, in the twenty twenty eight Olympics in Los Angeles.
He'd be at the age of thirty nine, by the way,
when this happens. We mentioned two very prominent to this
era NBA superstars, but only one of which has definitively
said he's not playing. Name that superstar seven one three

(02:32:25):
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:32:28):
Katie wants to go.

Speaker 1 (02:32:30):
We mentioned a bunch of guys that will not in
all likelihood, but one of them for sure has said I'm.

Speaker 3 (02:32:35):
Out, and very important that he told them he's out
before they could tell him you're out.

Speaker 2 (02:32:43):
And there is a classic wax hint.

Speaker 3 (02:32:47):
Uh a previous gold medal winner is your second very
unnecessary hint.

Speaker 2 (02:32:54):
He did not put the other team to sleep in
the Golden Medal game. There you go. I'll just pile
on here.

Speaker 7 (02:33:03):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:33:05):
You mentioned something involving this in the last segment, the
very tail end of the last segment.

Speaker 2 (02:33:12):
How there was not on a final pitch of the
game a challenge made.

Speaker 3 (02:33:18):
Yeah, the opportunity existed because the Astros had a remaining
challenge and on a three on a pitch that's going
to end the game, it was probably high.

Speaker 2 (02:33:27):
You have to.

Speaker 3 (02:33:27):
There's no there's nothing to lose there. The game's over
if you don't challenge. The game is still over if
you're challenge and you're wrong, and the game continues and
you have your challenge still remaining if you win the challenge.

Speaker 2 (02:33:38):
Well, what if I were to.

Speaker 1 (02:33:38):
Tell you that, just the baseline, that Jason Stark wrote
a whole bleeping article about a subject I don't even
tell you what it is. First of all, would that
surprise you? He writes very long articles. I'm a fan,
I'm not a fan. Nine o'clock this morning, this guy
churned out fifty thousand words posted it.

Speaker 3 (02:34:00):
I mean he's been working on this a while, probably
writing it during the hockey game.

Speaker 1 (02:34:04):
He's such a boob. Why are so many like per capita.
I know that journalists in today's day and age, buy
and large are just not good. It's just collectively there's
like for everyone that's like tolerable. There are ten to
twenty that I just want to hit with my truck.
Not really, of course, but it's just metaphorically just you

(02:34:24):
go away to do wrong. Now, Oh, I was just
saying in general about Jason Stark, right, he's I don't
he was crapping recently. I don't lump him in with
the other You don't have to be a cheerleader. I
didn't say that. Far from it. You also don't have
to like grind that axe. Ten years later, still he's
not in that group. He's an axe grinder and he

(02:34:46):
hates them and he grinds his acts. So anyways, he
wrote the following headline, the robot umps are here. Actually
I should say it like him, the robot.

Speaker 2 (02:34:56):
Umps are here. Want to watch for with abs? This
mL be spring training? How's that? It's fine? Kind of
sounds like Pat from SNL back in the day.

Speaker 1 (02:35:07):
Right, So anyway, he legit wrote this like giant article
that is, I mean, my favorite part is why is
baseball doing this? And then he says, we all love humans.
They're our favorite kind of people. Do you hear what
I said?

Speaker 3 (02:35:25):
Humans are our favorite kind of people? Is there some
other kind?

Speaker 1 (02:35:28):
And those humans in umpire suits do fantastic work?

Speaker 2 (02:35:34):
Again? Did you hear what I just said?

Speaker 1 (02:35:37):
Yes, it's just that every once in a while, as
all you Angel Hernandez fans know, they remind us of
their well humanity.

Speaker 3 (02:35:47):
Every once in a while, between first pitch and last
pitch of every single major league game, that's when they
remind us.

Speaker 1 (02:35:55):
I mean, I get that he's trying to not make
it sound like he's killing these guys, but come on.

Speaker 3 (02:36:02):
Dude, don't you like the information that it gives you
a little insight to the astros that's in this piece.

Speaker 2 (02:36:08):
I'm getting to that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:08):
Okay, I'm still back here at we love humans, They're
our favorite kind of people.

Speaker 2 (02:36:15):
I understand that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:18):
But the point of all this is he's essentially writing
about strategy, about how teams are going to approach this,
and we kind of like I'm alluded to it last
segment of the second before we talked about this last week,
and Joe Aspota came run right out and said, our
designated challenger guy that's the official word for it. The

(02:36:39):
term is going to be our catcher, and I like that.
By the way, I don't think it should be like
all willy nilly, now again, don't I don't know that
I would just put it on the catcher. I'd rather
have the actual pitcher himself have a little leeway. But
I also understand the thinking behind it. These guys are
way too emotional. Pitch to pitch if they feel like
they're getting job.

Speaker 3 (02:37:00):
They're sixty feet twelve inches away, sixty two feet away,
sixty three feet away. The catcher's right next to the
ump and right next to the plate. He knows most
of the time. I think the Astros I don't know
the total, but I think it was six or seven
in their two games that they did challenge their catcher
challenged as they were in the field. I think they

(02:37:21):
only got one wrong. It's not bad.

Speaker 1 (02:37:26):
I did like what he said about the part where
he was talking about the general adjustments. So he takes
the rectangle square, I'm fudging here a little bit strike
zon what you see on TV, and he puts a
little oval around it, meaning this is what's generally going
to be called a strike or what they most often

(02:37:46):
called a strike. I guess as it were in twenty
twenty five, that rectangle being the actual abs zone. But
neither is the answer to the question what's a strike
in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (02:37:58):
We don't know yet, And I do think this should
be pointed out. I don't know if it's obvious to
everybody or they think the same way I do on this.
That oval that you're talking about, there is a plate there.
Home plate is a physical thing. It's right there on
the ground in front of the catcher, in front of
the hitter, facing a different way in the umpire.

Speaker 2 (02:38:15):
So if it's.

Speaker 3 (02:38:16):
Outside to the left or outside to the right, you
know you have a visual marker to look on. That's
the difference between up in the zone and down in
the zone and a high strike and a low strike.
And that's why the oval is where it is. The
pitches that are outside the plate, it's a small small
area that have been called strikes that should have been balls.

(02:38:38):
The pitches that are above and below the zone much
much more surface. Thereecial because many well he has to say,
there's the same distance above the strike zone for him
as there is for other people up and down is
the same, isn't it? No, because he's short and so
the distance is between a man. I don't think that
at all.

Speaker 1 (02:38:56):
Judge like he did Aaron Judge and Jose Al two
Bay side by, and he said, you're gonna notice that
the total height of Judge's zone is only four inches
larger than now two bays, even though Judge has thirteen
inches of height on him. He goes, that's because Al
two Bay is one of the rare players whose zone
actually will grow larger at the top than it was
called in the past. According to a source who has

(02:39:18):
been briefed on the new strike zone calculations, that means
Al two Ba's about to get jammed because if you're
a pitcher, you're gonna throw right at his head, well
not right at his head, right at his head level
every single time, and he's going to get called for strikes.

Speaker 2 (02:39:30):
Oh he's not. He's probably gonna swing at it and
hit it. I sure hope. So he done it his
whole career, not last year as much.

Speaker 3 (02:39:38):
I think there will be an adjustment for the umps
and the catchers, and then an adjustment for the pitchers,
and then after that an adjustment for the hitters.

Speaker 2 (02:39:46):
Why is L two a zone now higher because he's
a croucher? He called him. He called him a croucher.

Speaker 3 (02:39:51):
We'll get to the other elements that apply to the
astros as we continue this week about that high strike
zone that has been bad for them in the past,
and maybe they'll get a little bit more leeway on
in the future if they need to. Challenge is used
and correctly. You can just keep going all throughout as
many times as you want. Can you bring us back
a win against the Jazz tonight? Please tomorrow at two o'clock.

(02:40:13):
I'd really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:40:15):
Yes, when you finally get there at nine o'clock later
on tonight, ahead of time, right thirty tip off.

Speaker 2 (02:40:22):
Headed there right now.

Speaker 3 (02:40:23):
Three games of the NBA tonight, the second of the
national doubleheader. Is what the Rockets and Jazz have right
here on Sports Talk seven ninety. We had started at
seven point thirty with a launch bad Rockets Jazz nightcap
is next here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Josh has
that for you as usual. We are going to be
back here tomorrow two o'clock. As Ac said to talk
about victory number thirty five for your Houston Rockets.

Speaker 5 (02:40:48):
The Eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:40:52):
How about a victory for your bank account if you've
been in a collision because some knucklehead on the road