Astros Won a Series, Rockets Didn't, Houston Will Run it Back, NBA Playoffs

Monday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler look ahead to the Rockets’ offseason, recap the Astros taking a series in Boston, break down the NBA playoffs, and more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well you heard the man.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
His name is Adam Wexler, and he said we would
start the show shortly, and here we are. It is
a Monday edition of the A Team Sports Talk seven
ninety will be simulcast on schn coming up at the
top of next hour. But in between now and then,
we've got a surprise guest for you, and we have
lots to get to from over the weekend. Boy, that

(00:23):
Houston team was really competitive after being down in the series,
coming back and really really ended the weekend strongly.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
And that was the astros.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
What the Rockets did and what we just heard the
somewhat of the fallout from an entirely different conversation. One
that's going to start today and honestly, wex I don't
think it's going to end until after next year.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, the NBA is pretty I mean, it's very much
like everybody else in when you leave the postseason at
the time where the Rockets did. They left at the
beginning of May. We'll have some answers that the beginning
of July. So I got two months basically of rolling
through May and June. But that's the rest of the season.
Unfortunately that they're not a part of the NFL. The
season ends with the Super Bowl, and five weeks later

(01:11):
or so, the calendar turns to the new league year,
and you see a bunch of moves getting made, and
you had a pretty good idea as soon as this
actual postseason ends in the NBA boom, you're hare. The
NBA Draft is within the week free agency opens and closes.
To a certain extent, from the windows that they have,
it really doesn't close, but at the beginning of July

(01:32):
through July fourth, it all can happen very very rapidly.
Waiting to see what the Phoenix Suns and the six
other teams involved in the trade want to do. Didn't
take very long last offseason, or will it this offseason?
With many teams, you may have some teams that are
in a little bit different situation that have the players,
like the Clippers and Kawhi, like the Bucks and Yannis.

(01:55):
But likely no, they if they want out, they will
be out. If they want to move on from them,
they're going to move on from them. They probably won't
take particularly long either. The Rockets have some of their
own internal questions to answer. And that's a little bit
of what you heard today. Was there on Friday night,
as was Ac on the call, but listening to everybody
after the game. Again, there were no players available today.

(02:15):
It was just general manager rafel Stone and Rockets head
coach imy e Doka. Essentially the five starters all gave
us five to ten minutes of their time following the
last game of the season, which was one of their worst,
which is why their season ended on Friday night. A
little bit of an idea from them on where they
think things went wrong within the series, but most of
what we asked them were very much end of season questions,

(02:39):
you know, exit interview type questions. So some of their
ideas I'll share with you about what they think might
need to happen and where things can change, and also
some of the obvious for Felstone mentioning, you know, the
players have to improve when you have enough of your players,
and it became almost all of your players in this
series that are young, well, they don't improve, you're sunk.
If you don't believe there's any improvement left to make,

(03:02):
then you're already drowning. So we can answer some of
those questions with all of thoughts. But as they ended
this series and started the very young from an age
standpoint lineup that they did. Oh, these are all players
that if they're not getting better, then you've been off.
Then you're in You're no man's land. If this is
the ceiling for the players on the roster that were
on the court, Eastan Shephard, Jabbari Amen and alprin Shoon,

(03:24):
well you can play some fun entertaining, fill the stadium
up basketball, but you're not competing for championships.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well that's why I say the question of some of
the questions, not all of them, Some of the questions
aren't going to be answered until after next year. I
mean after the upcoming season, because you can do things
this offseason, and they certainly will, even if one of
those things is standing pat largely, which I don't know.
It depends on who you believe or what SoundBite you

(03:51):
believe coming out of reportedly the Rockets organization. They might
do that, they might go big fish hunting. But what
I'm saying is whether or not it does anything to
change where we're at, which is going backwards, by the way,
is going to be largely determined by the decisions that
are made this offseason and then how the team that

(04:12):
is ultimately on the court, which again some of that
has to do with health performs. Because this season, as
much as you hate to say it and as much
fuel as it gives to a rafel Stone, well, we
don't know what we have because we didn't see it
all together.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Let me ask you a question before we hit to
our normal break here shortly, and it's very semantics based,
but not just curious. Do you think the team went
backwards or do you just basically think one team got
better because they're clearly significantly they're in a worse position
than San Antonio currently. I think even if they maybe
match up with them, okay, and I think that's probably reality.

(04:48):
I think the Rockets actually do match up with the Spurs,
all right. I doubt the Spurs are getting worse next
year unless they have injuries, so that's a factor. But
I think people are locked into this. Well, they went
fifty two and thirty, and then they went fifty two
and thirty, and they went from number two to number five.
I spent the whole time last year leading into the
postseason saying I'm aware of what the Rockets seed is.

(05:08):
I don't think there's a single person that follows the
NBA that thinks they're the second best team in the
Western Conference. They are the two seed, but I don't
think anything anybody thinks they're the second best team in
the West. Now, the second best team in the West
isn't them this year again, right, but the third best
team in the West limped out of the playoffs just
like you did, without a postseason series win. The fourth

(05:30):
best team in the West is a team that pretty
much nobody thinks can win a championship, even with a
healthy Luka Doncic. So again, back to the original question,
did they go backwards or did they just more or
less stay the same and you consider it backwards, which
is also fair because the team that was clearly nowhere
near as good as they were last year San Antonio,

(05:52):
a non playoff team, is now significantly better than them.
I mean, did anything else in the West change?

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I answer that question after the break.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, we got all all sorts of time this afternoon.
I'm putting it out to you, to Josh, to anybody
out there. I'm curious what everybody thinks. A good question,
because you know, and also once you get to a
certain point, once you get to be Minnesota, Denver, La Houston,
you know, Golden State for several years after winning the title,
Memphis for a couple of years before they've fallen off.

(06:19):
Are you good yes? Are you good enough to win
a championship or does it even matter any different? That's
part of the question, Like you're trying to get better,
but you're trying to win a title. Are you in
that group? What does it take to get in that group?
Or does the group that you have tell you we're
not gonna get in that group unless we do something
dramatic both to potentially move backwards short term or possibly

(06:41):
move forward. So, like Ac said, there are a lot
more questions unanswered and to be asked after they unfortunately
fall out of this postseason series. Took forever to get
into it, just like they did last year, fell behind
three games to none, Enlist this year, fell behind three
games to one a year ago. Then they started playing
like they were in a playoff series and a little
bit too little, too late. Obviously. We'll mention the astros.

(07:03):
Ac and I are got it lockdown on SCCHN right now.
I hope cam Smith comes through with a hit two
out spases loaded one to one in the tenth inning.
We'll let you know how that plays out as they
get ready for the Dodgers in town over at dyke
In Park, and of course right here on Sports Talk
seven ninety as we wrap things up here tonight. But
that's four hours away, a full afternoon of the A Team,

(07:24):
and as mentioned, a very special guest in very short
order here on the show today.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
The all right, it is the A Team spour Stocks
seven ninety sech in at the top of the hour.
Special guest next segment, and I know what. I'm not
gonna tell you who it is because I want you
to hang around. But you're gonna want to hang out,
all right. Wex asked me a question going into the break.
Are the Now I want to make sure I get
this right, so just ask her to the rockets go backwards? Well,

(07:53):
if you're gonna sit there and say, well, they're the
two seed last year, now they're the five seed, Like,
that's not what this is about, though, And like you said,
they weren't the second.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I want more want as yeah, more than that.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
I I they went backwards, definitely, but it's because of
the areas in which they went backwards, Namely, everybody's gonna
say defense even though they were fifth last year and
six this year, So it's like negligible, especially for a
team that traded away Dylan Brooks. This offense is an
abject failure, disaster, abomination, dumpster fire, train wreck.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, I do think it's different than last year.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
So they got a much better offensive player as their
main shoot ball shooter and they got significantly worse.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes, because their point guard was out all year and
the guy you replaced him with can't shoot. Oh and
he also turns the ball over and he can't defend.
And they turned the ball over more than last year.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
So yeah, to hear that night, it should make you
focus in on where we are. This is why we
had a very loud argument last week, and Philadelphia helps
to drive home this point. Philadelphia had awesome injury luck
this year. M HM and Joel Embiid barely played. They
had the Anti Lan the regular season. They advanced because

(09:12):
he was healthy enough to play part of one series
and they advanced out of it because of that. The
Rockets got Kevin Durant for eighty one healthy games. He
missed two for personal reasons. They sat him out in
the finale. He missed one game due to injury during
the regular season, and they had awful injury luck with
Kevin Durant this year because he wasn't available when it mattered.
He wasn't available in the postseason, which is the only

(09:33):
thing I said this last week when we were having
this discussion. The Rockets could have won forty five games,
landed tenth, wormed their way into an eight seed or
a seven seed. But if Kevin Durant was healthy when
it mattered, I've been down for that. I'd sign up
for that. That's what you want. That's why he's here.
He's not here for the regular season, he's here for
the postseason. That's kind of true for every great team.

(09:54):
Oklahoma City would say that about Sga or Ched or anybody.
Victor wembin Yama when he went down with concussion. Oh
my gosh, they might lose to Portland in this series
because of it. You can't decide what's going to happen.
You just have to deal with whatever happens. Whether or
not they went backwards is relative to what kind of
basketball team you think they have now, And I guess
it's hard to say because of the team that literally

(10:16):
walked off the court. You had three guys in street
clothes walking off the court on Friday night at Toyota Center.
Lots of money, most of your money, I mean, none
of them are cheap players. Obviously Steven Adams has an
extremely reasonable but seven figure salary, and what Fred's and
Kevin's are on the very very high side.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
What uncomfortable aspect of the Rockets organization?

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Do you want to tackle first? And by you I
mean the Rockets.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, you want to tackle the fact that you're about
to max out a men Thompson and he can't shoot
and sometimes even dribble or create a shot at least.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, we can start there, but I'm going to start
with somebody you mentioned in the last comment, Reed Shepherd.
That's another kind of Kevin Durant, not in the regular season,
Kevin Durant not in the posting. Which is it same
thing with Reed? Is he a good shooter? Is this
his first playoff experience and everything will be fine? Like
you can't have We spent all year when he got
minutes most of the second half of the season post

(11:10):
All Star Break average almost thirty minutes a night, and
it was very easy to see why he wasn't getting
more minutes earlier and why the minutes that he's getting
now are problematic. He cannot help this team enough when
he's on the court. If he personally is not scoring,
he's definitely gonna run the team better because he can
dribble the basketball. And this team obviously cannot function without

(11:31):
a dribbler. And when Aaron Holliday and Reed Shepherd were
on the sidelines this year, they did not operate very well.
They can't operate very well at all if at least
a guard, a point guard, a dribbler is out there.
So great the offense runs a little bit more smoothly,
but their defense is awful. And because they hunt the
same person over and over, or if not, then they

(11:52):
hunt Alpi. And that's two of the five you have
out there. So if he's on the court, he personally
has to score, you're gonna get better shot. He's going
to provide a little gravity. He has to be defended
even when he goes one for ten. But if he's
not making any of the shots that he's taking, and
again we're taking it to the extreme, but four of
nineteen is the extreme. Shooting thirty percent in a six
game postseason series is not an accident, and it's not

(12:15):
a fluke. This was a disaster series, an extremely large
disaster series for him offensively, even with the rip of
Lebron James in Game five and the two quick buckets
that helped to win them Game five. So reed, Shepard
can't play basketball like that for this team and them
expect to win. Even if he got better defensively, got
stronger defensively, was less of a liability to defensively, wasn't

(12:37):
hunted as often. So is he a thirty percent shooter
in the postseason or is he a forty percent shooter
in the regular season? And I asked, is he he
actually was both? Any reason to think his growth doesn't
go forward, any reason to think he didn't just play
his worst playoff series ever, because I'm sure he did.
But then we also have to deal with articles being

(12:58):
written to extreme opposite articles. One side says there's nothing
going wrong in the locker room, and you heard from
e May just as we were getting started, and we'll
replay that for you if you missed it about the
vibes in this locker room. But you had another article
saying the vibes were bad because of what went on
two completely different postseason Our sources tell us that that
had the exact one point eighty of an idea about

(13:20):
what went on inside this team's locker room. But just
the players who they are, starting with Reid, and we'll
get through every single one of them because they all
have warts. Every single player they used in this postseason
series had major league warts which hurt them in the
And at some point we'll stop saying against the Lakers,
because nobody should care if they can or can't beat

(13:42):
a wounded Lakers team, just like nobody should have cared
if they could or couldn't beat Golden State last year.
It's just a bad statement that they failed in both
of those instances. But you shouldn't be trying to compete
to advance with the roster you've tried to put together.
You're trying to compete to play in the Way Eastern
Conference Finals at the very least, and their two series

(14:04):
wins away from even doing that.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, and in that vein.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
We'll get to this a little bit later.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
There's now, of course, stuff coming out about that guy,
you know, the one he had the facial hair that
everybody talked about, and how it purchasing Walker, not Christian Walker,
not even a little bit, much more facial.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Hair, much more.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Steven Adams, keep going, Kevin Durant, He's not on the
roster now, he used to be.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Jalen. Does he have any facial hair? It's patchy at best. Dylan.
I mean, I know what you think I'm doing, and
our listeners probably really don't know who I'm referring to.
A recent former ex rocket with a lot of hair
on his face.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
His name's the Beard.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
My god, that's ancient.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
That's not really.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
Old, an hour ago, old old old news.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
When was he a rocket? Last?

Speaker 3 (14:57):
It was whether or not he could have been this year.
That's what what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
But all that's gonna have to be put on hold
because our very special guest, his name rhymes with schmef mum.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
He's coming up here on the A team.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Jin of the best of X this afternoon. Here's how
we're going to play today x dot Com slash Blummer
twenty seven. Let's see what the last thing out there
is and that'll be our best of X fort today
x AC and our special guests that is uh Jeff Blum,
Astro's television color Analyst or Space City Home Network SCN.

(15:30):
With those that know, have a safe and fun evening everyone.
That's a pin tweet from the end of the year.
He wished to everybody a happy new year. Uh, Jordan
Alvarez has good numbers late April could be Player of
the month and then what happened then he was named
Player of the month earlier today. And to that end,
we will welcome in our guest. So we fade out
the music and Jeff, it is great not only to

(15:51):
have you on here with us from afternoon.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Did I didn't realize I.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Was gonna get special in studio today. Thanks for time
much fresh off the bird from Beantown.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Literally off the bird. Yeah, we won a series. Yeah,
that was a lot of fun to call.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
And you did it an extra innings, We did it.
You clutched up with a bray, You on the mound with.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
A bray won. Well, Thank goodness for Saidan Rafaela, who
is an elite talent. And I really enjoy watching that
guy play. But when I watch players lose their marbles.
After a guy gets hit in the foot with a
pitch that missed the zone by about six feet, that's
all and you swing at the first pitch, I'm like,
tip the cap, Yeah, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Exactly, you hit it.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
Right at our best defender at shortstop and you get
thrown out by fifteen feet in the game.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yes, four pitch walk bunt the very next pitch, two
pitches later a hit by pitch, and then you swing
at the very first pitch. I'm going absolute miracle eight
pitch inning. Yeah, it reality ball game. Astros win WEX
you know as well as I do. Wins is wins boy. Yeah,
It's basically what Joe Spotta said after the game. And
you guys as well as you rolled it into post game,

(16:55):
rolled into your way back out of town to come
back for a very short series with the Lost angelas Dodgers.
A couple of night games tonight, the Wednesday game, an
afternoon game which again very quickly is a getaway day
game and actually on site over at Dikin Park on Wednesday, Uh,
MERK will be over there. They're playing with Heart Initiative.
They'll be on site, UH with some engagement, some opportunities

(17:18):
for people to see what that is all about. You
know what it's all about, being that you are an
ambassador for MERK and they're playing with Heart nationwide educational
program and campaign and also close to the cause that
they're trying to enlighten everyone with.

Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yeah, it's about bad cholesterol, and it's it's sneaky too
because and I'm also grateful for the opportunity because I
know that a lot of people who are listening actually
follow me on Instagram. You know that I am becoming
a man of a certain age, maybe wax and I are.
I know the Clinton is still trying to work up
that latter in Yeah, but you're creeping into that realm where.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Things Wednesday, Yeah, and do it.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
But that's the thing, and that's why we're here, And
that's that that that is most of the reason why
I'm here, and I think that's probably the bigger part
of the messages, creating opportunity to maintain a well lived life.
We're all fathers of kids. We want to stick around
as long as we possibly can because so many things
are happening in life, and we enjoy our jobs, we
enjoy being around sport. But at the same time, I've

(18:17):
had too many friends and I'm not sure if you
guys have too, but too many friends that have suffered
from heart attacks, too many friends and family that have
suffered from strokes and now being able to work with
the astros and bring to light playing with heart and
you can go to playing with Heart dot com. But
bringing to light that you can be like me and

(18:37):
I work out. I still have the maybe the false
perception that I am somewhat still of an athlete. I
work out, I try to eat as well as I can,
but I'm doing I did the same thing you were
going to do, Adam As. I went to the doctor
and I literally got my results back on the road
when we were in Boston, and my LDL is above
where it should be, pre diabetic. There's things going on

(18:59):
in eternally that maybe I didn't anticipate. But I'm fortunate
that I have found a doctor here in Houston that
is giving me the numbers and giving me the feedback
and now I can chart a course. It's going to
make me better. It's the same thing, you know, if
my swing is having an issue, I got to go
find a coach that's going to help me figure out
a way to make my swing better. So all I
want to do is maintain my health and continue to
play well and stick around as long as I possibly

(19:20):
can and not be a burden on anybody. But I
had no idea personally that having the high cholesterol is
one of those unforeseen symptoms. If you don't get tested,
you're not going.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
To know well.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
And we need to keep you around so that you
can post more May the Fourth be with you Instagram
posts and I can make fun of you.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
But no.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Part of the reason that this is kind of like
near and dear to you is.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
The fact that you know, Darryl Kyle yep was one
of those situations, and you know, it's it's that's I
can't believe how long ago that's been.

Speaker 5 (19:51):
Now it's scary, but it doesn't feel that long ago.
I mean, I know in time wise it is, but
it's still at the forefront of everybody's minds and hearts
thinking about Darryl.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah, for sure. And so I mean it's very important.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
And yeah, you think you're doing all these things right
and then you go get those results and it's like, oh.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's all about wellness. It's
all about trying to maintain what, you know, what you've
got going, and it's just crazy to think that, you know,
I know, professional athletes, you know who was a Garrett
Anderson you know, didn't have a lot of symptoms. He
was working with as pancreas and he ended up passing away.
But situations like that to kind of bring the conversation

(20:27):
to the forefront, and to be brutally honest, I'm not
going to name names, but there's plenty of ex athletes
who sit in my seat or a radio seat, and
we travel, we see each other, and we've witnessed in person.
You know, it was a twenty nineteen you can go
back in the history book and particular radio analyst fell
out right there, had a heart attack right there in

(20:49):
the booth at what was made Park at the time.
So it's kind of frightening to realize that your contemporaries
who are professional athletes, who work out, who eat right,
maybe even vegan, but they still have the high cholesterol.
It's kind of a scary thing to think about. And
we're talking about dudes. It happens to women too. And
if you go to playing with Heart dot com you
scroll down to the bottom, you're going to see the
women heart logo down at the bottom. So women are

(21:10):
affected by this too. It might be the number one
cause of death for women. Is that hidden LDL number
that causes that heart attack.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Low density lipoprotein ACCVD is what we're talking about here.
Trying to learn more about the risk factors and simply
put bad cholesterol simple messages, Play with Heart, playing with
heart dot com, get more information about the educational part
of trying to know more about this, and simply visit
your doctor and find out what your bad cholesterol number is.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
That is the biggest thing. You don't know until you know,
and going to get those tests. Find a doctor.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Sheeese.

Speaker 5 (21:44):
We're in Houston, for crying out loud. You can find
great doctors in this city who are going to give
you the opportunity. But yeah, go get the doctor, get
the information, and then create a game plan from there.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
One of the angles of the doctors that we've been
talking about completely away from this, we've been talking about
chemistry doctors, like about what are the vibes? Okay, has
team chemistry here? You know, I know that question has
been asked about a lot of what's happened this year
for the Astros sitting as they do several games, you know,
seven games under five hundred heading into this series, you're
out there on the road with them. You get to

(22:13):
come back on a flight after winning a series. They've
actually split each of their last two series, so maybe
stabilized a little bit. But in hearing some of the
interviews you guys have done, some of the stuff we've
had from the ballpark, from the radio broadcast, it actually
sounds like these guys are still mentally we're we've got
we can make something happen this year. It's not we're

(22:34):
not sunk. We're not mentally sunk, and I think that's
why they've played some of these games, especially these recent games,
the way they have.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
Yeah, and we've talked about this division too, even before
the season started that the ALE West is kind of
one of those divisions that's kind of up for grabs,
even though the Astros haven't been playing extremely well only
I think four and a half games back as we
sit right now. I know it's kind of crazy to
talk about it in May, but you're right, the vibes
are high, and I think the vibes are high because
this offense is so damn good. You talked about Jordon

(23:01):
winning Player of the Month. He didn't do anything in
that Boston series, and the Astrals still go out there
and win two out of three. I know it's the
Boston Red Sox and you have the Dodgers coming into town,
but it's nice to create a little bit of momentum
going into a series when you're gonna play the Dodgers
as good as they are, But it's gonna be a
fun matchup because you've got one of the best pitching
rotations in baseball and then you have one of the
best offenses. So I think it's gonna be a little

(23:23):
bit of a battle at dyke In Park. Of course,
you get to see sho Heyo Tani. But at the
same time, if you can just get a solid five
innings five to six innings of three run baseball from
your rotation, like we saw on this road trip, you're
gonna be in pretty good shape because if you keep
it to three four runs and offensive scores five plus
runs is going to win you.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Some games a week. Were got whacked?

Speaker 5 (23:47):
He did?

Speaker 3 (23:47):
I just wanted to put that out there. Also, the
Dodgers are in the town.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Astros fared better against him than they did against Chad Tracy.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, they lost a game to Chad Tracy. They lost games.
Why were we sure that a show? Hey, TONI is
good to go this this week. I know he got
absolutely drilled with a softball.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
Well did you see where he got hit right in
the wallet. I think he's fine, he's fine, drill.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
And he's batting and I'm like, okay, yeah, I guess
he's fine.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
That scared the heck out of me, man, Like the
way the way it happened with the helmet and the replay,
the helmet pops off and then the ball hits it
and like everything's ricocheting and breaking. I was like, and
then he put his hand up to his head.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
I was get hit in the head.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
Never got hit in the head, not not at the plate.
I've gotten hit in the head running around the bases
of bad throw, you know, king to him, well dropped,
dropped hit whatever.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, baseball helmeta, fat.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Helmet, boba fet helmet is not nearly as secure as
you think it would be.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
But uh, I mean, can we affect one quick comment
on why this is such a fun day the fourth.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
Of Great Yeah, because I've completely indoctrinated my family into it.
There are certain there are certain goals we have as parents.
Some are to make their kids, you know, professional athletes.
Some are to make them you know mensa, go out
there and be the smartest person on the planet. Mine was,
You're gonna learn about Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Now?

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Do they watch all of the movies? The original three?

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Well, they watched the original three, and I've done such
a good job that the the CGI three that came
out later they absolutely.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Abhor Good for you, that's good parenting.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Tell you I've done a little bit right in my life.
That's one of them. Looking forward to the Mandalorian that
you know coming out the rest of the end of
the year.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
The one without the now fighter again, I don't know
how it works. Is she still an actress or is
she a fighter now?

Speaker 3 (25:38):
I ask him.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
We'll see if Gino Corano is in it anymore.

Speaker 5 (25:42):
I know right could be a sneak appearance floating around.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Was great for our Merk ambassador going on Jeff Blong
with the Playing with Heart initiative to join us this afternoon.

Speaker 5 (25:51):
No, I appreciate the effort. It would be great to
be on with you guys a little bit more often,
because I do enjoy the banter on air, but I
really enjoy the banter off air.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
We issue make it happen soon.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
I know you guys are great we need each other
throughout the course of the season because it's going to
be a roller coaster ride.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
How's Todd holding up?

Speaker 5 (26:07):
He's okay, it's fun. It's a good question. That's a
really good question right now at this given moment. Great shape. Okay,
great shape. But again, like the off air, in between
any conversations, get a little get a little worsome sometime
a little spicy. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Todd can
get spicy, man. And you put the two of us
together in spice woop, good times.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Everybody likes a little spice. All right.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
That's Jeff Blum revisiting us, catching up. He's got the
Dodgers three games series commences tonight. Thank you so much
for stopping by, sir, and we will see you and
talk to you soon.

Speaker 5 (26:39):
I look forward to it. Remember playing with heart dot com.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
All right, We've got lots to get to here on
the A team. Back into that Rockets conversation when we
return on a Monday.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
So here, I'll see all over at the ballpark tonight.
You can listen in right here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
Of course, you're home for Astros Baseball. The Astros on
deck show gets started as soon we wrap things up
here today, and then we will have baseball for you
with the Dodgers and Astros their three games here in
Houston tonight, Tomorrow night, and Wednesday afternoon. I'll be nice

(27:10):
if the Astros did actually carry momentum with them from
off of this trip to Boston. I hope this isn't reality.
And they handled themselves well against one team so far
this year. They've already finished their season series with the
Red Sox. They beat them three straight here, held them
to just seven runs in those three games at Dyke
And Park. And they went to Boston this past weekend
and again held them to just seven runs in those

(27:32):
three games and took two of those three. That's a
five to one record against the Boston Red Sox, who
are not on the remainder of your schedule thirty five
games into the season. It's unfortunate, so you will have
gone nine and twenty against all the other teams that
are on your schedule the remainder of the season, or
those that you have not seen yet. They are going
with an opener tonight. Steven Okirk would imagine Ryan Weiss

(27:53):
is their quote unquote bulk pitcher not needing to pitch
in yesterday's game barely since ended in ten innings, and
he was actually getting loose very very quickly as Brian
and Bray worked his second inning, but he only needed
eight pitches to get through that second inning, that tenth
inning and the Astros to get to get the three
to one victory. Huge two out, two run single off

(28:14):
the Monster from cam Smith brought home runs two and
three in the tenth inning, a rare, multi score, extra
inning worth of offense for the Astros, and you can
see how valuable that can be, especially in a game
where even in that inning they had a runner thrown
out on the basis three times in last night's game,
yesterday afternoon's game they had a runner thrown out on

(28:35):
the bases. Lots more to get into clearly on that
and obviously about tonight's game. Congrats to Ryan and Hayley
their new child. He was on the paternity list for
that very reason and born appears all is good inside
the household, so he's back with the team and now
also back with Houston. They did actually just make a
couple of roster moves announce those kind of expected with

(28:57):
Zach Cole coming back from his toe injury and getting
in some work at the single A level. He was
playing recently with the Fayetteville Woodpecker's got in twenty eight
bats there, hit a home run there. He is now
on the Astros for the first time this season. Did
not make the club out of spring training, but most
people thought he was the kind of the next guy
in line. Pretty impressed with the way Bryce Matthews has

(29:19):
defended in center field, and he's obviously a weird splits
guy so far crushes on the road, gets crushed at
home at Dyke And Park, and so I wouldn't be
surprised if we saw right handed pitcher tonight for the Dodgers,
saw Zach Cole in the lineup tonight. The DFA Daniel
Johnson junior, an outfielder who they just recently brought into

(29:42):
the organization, and the day that they added him, I
told you this is just the nature of the business.
When you are full on your forty man, but you
have to bring a player up who's not on the
forty man. He's probably somebody that unfortunately is kind of
not really quote unquote in the organization. So you bring
him up, you give him as much time as you
have until the next guy is ready, and then you
let him go. He's free to play with anybody else.

(30:03):
He maybe ends up back with the Space Cowboys. If
he does soon, well then he'll be teammates with Zach Decenzo.
Descenzo has completed his rehab stint, so he was activated
off of IL but then optioned immediately down to Triple A.
So really only one roster change with the twenty six
man roster, and that is outfielder for outfielder cole In

(30:27):
Johnson out. All right, we will leave it at that
for the two o'clock hour.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
When we come back, we are going to talk more
about the Rockets, not just about what we have to say,
but also what they had to say earlier on you
heard it at the start of this show and from
the Matt Thomas Show, the presser with im Udoka and
rafel Stone. All of that discussion coming up next on
a Monday edition of the program The eight on I'm

(30:55):
Sports Talk seven to ninety Space City Home Network schn
simulcast as commenced, and uh look, as the weekend progressed,
the Astros did this somewhat and the Rockets well, we
all saw Friday night. I uh, we were kind of
It was an odd start to the show because the

(31:15):
press conference with em Udoka and general manager Rafelstone bled
into the start of our show. It started over at
Toyota Center around one thirty or so, and as you
were listening to each of these two very pivotal people
in the organization answer questions about the future of this club.
I mean, you could go in and you mentioned it.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Wex.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
There was two different articles written about this by you know,
reputable outlets, and they're completely different outlooks on twenty six
and beyond.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
I I had no idea what they said about the outlook.
I'm just saying one of them said this was the
burner account left to some lingering feelings all throughout the
season that seem unresolved and we're unaddressed. And the other
one said they were addressed not so much in a
team meeting standpoint, but a long conversation which ultimately probably
benefited the whole team. Players weren't sensitive to it. They're

(32:09):
pretty thick skinned, and ultimately we think this, you know,
our sources indicate that actually, you know, having discussions and
having it come to the forefront with something that helped them, like,
could not be more opposite of So what happened I
didn't know before and I don't know now.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, you asked me the question before.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
We had Jeff Blum in here, and I appreciate we
appreciate Blum coming by again once again.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
It was good to see him. Have they regressed? And
I think you know.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
You were talking about the offense specifically, and I just
don't know if it does you any good to have
Kevin Durant if it's as simple as when he's out there,
and by the way, this will happen more and more
until adjustments are made. You can just swarm and double
team him and they're either going to turn the ball
over or it's going to grind the offensive set that's

(33:00):
whatever they may or may not be, to a halt
and you're not going to get a good shot. If
that's as easy as it is to defend the rockets,
then it's not going to matter if Steven Adams comes
back and gives you second chance points or Fred van
Vliek comes back and helps you cut down on the
turnover numbers, which is, if you can't score, you can't win.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
So how come if you double team just because of
the team they played, you double team Lebron. How come
that doesn't slow their offense?

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Now, Well, is Lebron bringing the ball up the floor.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
When they would run a double team at him top
of the you know, thirty thirty five feet out when
he was the trigger man for the offense A double
team question? Well, I already know the answer. Why.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
How much in his career has Kevin Durant been a
point guard to facto?

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, you don't have to be a point guard to
do it correctly. It's not just you, And I wasn't
going to say it's just Lebron. Lebron is a billion
times better than KD at this, but it's not the point.
He got rid of the ball much more quickly. And
one of the reasons why he would do that he
wasn't even looking to try to beat the double team.
You're saying, awesome, my guys can beat you guys four
on three because they know where to go and what

(34:06):
to do. It was less of a Kevin Durant problem,
like it was a non Lebron problem, and it was
more of the other guys didn't know what to do
and where to go. So that's partially coaching and it's
partially the individuals. They did not know where to find
open space. He did not know when to get them
the ball. They did not know where the shooters should
be lined up. They didn't know who would have the

(34:27):
advantage once they got the pass, and they were letting
these three other guys outplay their four guys consistently all
year long.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
This wasn't just a Lakers thing either. It's a bigger
Everything you just said is true. But even if they
do know where to go, even if they do know
how to space on and on and on, if you
can't hit shots, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Well, you need to get better shots. When you're not
hitting shots. It's the same as the hardened rockets. You
can fire up twenty seven threes if you want, but
at some point you just go get shots that you
can make. You go get shots that you're gonna get
out of them.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
That's the difference. These guys can't hit shots consistently to
save their lives. And it's not just threes.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
I mean in the game where they didn't hit any shots,
very very specific game. They should have never taken that
many shots like they did. As far away from the basket,
no matter what they were made of, no matter who
was on the roster. They're in the NBA, they could
make layups. You need to go get some, you need
to go fight to and Alpern's probably the biggest culprit.
And it wasn't because he was shooting threes. It's because
they weren't going to get shots they could make. He

(35:24):
just haphazardly, sporadically chose well in this game, in this
two minute span, I'm going to spin until I actually
beat DeAndre Ayton, and I'm gonna lay it off the
glass and it's gonna be a piece of cake. But
for this six minute stretch, I'm gonna spin in turn
and not beat him at all, and then turn around
and take a twelve foot fade away. It's just the

(35:44):
insanely low quality of shots. They took credit to the
Lakers defense because they figured out how to kind of
frustrate them into just accepting the shots that they were taking.
I thought, on men, Thompson had a lot of makeable
shots that he didn't even attempt, and he should not.
I'm perfectly happy with all the threes that he attempted
in this series. You know, one or two, maybe you
think twice about when it's fourteen seconds on the shot clock,

(36:08):
But most of the others were, well, we don't have
any other options. And I'm a point guard who plays dumb,
and I'm gonna dribble out the shot clock and then
as soon as I don't have a shot, I'm gonna
pass it out to him and Thompson at the three
point line with one on the shot clock. These are
I don't think they're e May or Coach Sullivan or
Coach Ivy mistakes. I think they are players on the
court mistakes. And to what Rafelsone has consistently said, each year,

(36:31):
with these young players, and each year they're a year
further into their careers, the improvement has to be there,
and he said that he thinks the players were more
improved at the end of the year than they were
at the beginning of the year. And I agree, But
the improvement that needs to be made hasn't been made.
And I'm not sure how many more years of calling
them young players. They're young in age, none of them.

(36:53):
Not a single player on the Rockets roster. No one
that plays is young when it comes to experience. Zero
players on this roster should ever be referred to as
an inexperienced player ever. Again, no matter where they play
or what they do, you got a full six game
series from Reed. Shepherd the only one that needed a
series like this, because everybody else already had a full

(37:14):
series in their back pocket. Now they have two of them,
plus all these full NBA seasons, and for the most part,
all these players were talking about Jabari, Amen Reid. They
were very healthy over the course of this season, so
it wasn't like a partial season, and it's stunned any
additional development. You know, every single player, we've already focused
on Reid quite a bit. I don't know who you

(37:36):
want next, but I mean Amen Thompson's the last one
I brought up, and I just said, I think he
passed up a bunch of shots that I'm not really
sure why he can make it. In my opinion, every
time he shoots the basketball from fourteen fifteen feet in,
I actually think it's going in as long as it's
not an off balance. I'm already falling over fade away
that's gonna get blocked. But she takes too often. But
everything else you know you're talking about him can't dribble.

(37:57):
Can't beat beat a guy off the dribble he doesn't
have he takes two dribbles. And if he hasn't beaten him,
just jump up and shoot it. Just take a jump
shot from twelve feet or the elbow or fifteen feet
wherever it is you've gotten to or eight feet in
the paint. Your defender may be in front of you,
but he's not gonna block that shot. You've made enough
of a get him off balance, or he's trying to
beat you to the spot. There were a billion shots

(38:18):
of those that could have been taken. Most of them
ended up taking too far. I'm gonna keep going to
the rim, and it's just gonna go wildly out of
bounds off of me, sometimes, off of them sometimes. And
his overall play at this point, can't we acknowledge that
he shouldn't be the front man. He shouldn't be bringing
the ball up the court and setting up the offense.
He's so much he can five or six times a game.

(38:40):
No one's saying he can't do it, but you don't
want him doing that, and Fred's return should alleviate that.
But look how effective he was even in this series
playing away from the ball off of the basketball. I
don't want to put too much shock in the final
ten games of the year, because I do recognize some
of the competition against whom they were playing was lesser
than what you'll see in a postseason series. But there

(39:00):
was a lot of good things going on with our
offense and finding people in their spots, and he was
probably the biggest beneficiary of that.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
I just I don't know if going back to the
Amen Thompson thing, for example, I don't know if it'll
be one of those situations where like with Outbruingching Goon's
contract and then Jalen Green's contract, or I guess those
were done at the same time, you'll be able to
not give him the full max, make him happy, and

(39:30):
everything just falls into place, because I.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Like, you have two options this year in my opinion,
he's getting the full max and he's happy, or he's
playing under his current contract.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
There's no in between, and that again, in my opinion,
I just I'm the biggest the Men Thompson fan there is.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I just don't know if you can give a guy
that kind of money who.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Can't shoot from beyond where five feet Tenah. I just don't.
I mean, that's ridiculous. He can shoot from everywhere on
the court inside fifteen feet, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Not consistently.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
He can't. Yes he can, He's been doing it most
of this year.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
No, No, he has not.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
I can show you the numbers.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
I can say the that you're wrong. There's no way.
I mean, I'm like, the guy is.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Saying he can't shoot, means he can dunk it and
lay it in and that's it. And maybe you that's
what you're saying. Yeah, okay, Well I just don't agree.
I think where are the majority of his shots come
from the room. There's a reason for that because it's
so easy to get them.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
When the rest of the roster can't hit a three
outside of Kevin Durant.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
I don't max that guy. Yeah, there, I understand the
issue with that, and it's it's more see that to
me becomes the rest of the roster problem.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
So max him and improves the rest of the roster.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Look at look at these other teams that we think
have championship aspirations. They're going to have minimum of two
Max players, right, some three, Like yeah, they have three,
And we'll probably see the Spurs with three when those
players get there, right Harper, Harper, Castle and Wemby probably,
So the Rockets right now have.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Zero yeah, because durant less money.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
So you have one who's going to be off the books,
probably due to retirement for the majority of a men's
career mm hmm. And then you have to figure out
all the other stuff. Fred's gonna be not sure or
Alpi is obviously at a certain level but not Max.
Jari a certain level but not Max.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
He's gonna take less money but get more years.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
It's what he did last year. He took less per
year but ended up with a fifty million dollar guarantee
for it. I think there's a possibility that is where
they're headed again this year. Probably a strong one. But
the point on a mend that I'm trying to make is,
if he's maxed out, you're you're thinking what I'm thinking, Well,
he can't be your best player. You're not winning a
championship if he is your best player and one of

(41:39):
even if he's two MAX players, if he's maxed out
and the other player on the team that you're trying
to win with isn't more trustworthy a guy you can
go to at the end of the game, then you're
not gonna win anything. I agree, but I'm totally on
board with him being one of your max players and
winning a title with him. I think he can.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I mean, he is a first team All defensive type guy,
so you need those kind of guys. And I'm still
of the opinion he's young enough you can improve on
your shot wherever it's from. I mean, if Karl alone
can become one of the best free throw shooters of
all time. When he started in the like upper fifteen,
he improved a lot. He still wasn't awesome, but he

(42:15):
went to the line a lot, had quantity.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yeah, volume three free throw shooter.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
So yeah, there's a lot still of elements to get
to and we will continue to do so here on
a Monday edition post mortem Rockets Season of the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
The eighteen on Sports Talk.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
So let's just take Freed Shepherd for example, and he's
getting hit twice today.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Everybody, this is all I heard all season, all series long. Well,
he barely even played in the playoffs last year. That
is accurate. Okay, well, now he's played. I'm sorry, but
if you're gonna tell me that, all right, going into
twenty six, twenty seven. He's just gonna take the leap.
What does that even mean? Because I hear that all

(43:04):
the time.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
If he would have just shot like he did during
the season, right, that's all that. Nobody was asking him
to shoot forty five. Nobody was asking him to be
Ruy Hachimura for crying out loud, Oh my god, he
just wanted me to make thirty nine percent of his three.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Let me just say something real quick before we move
on completely from them. Jokes on you, Lakers fan, You're
about to get fed to that wood chipper, and it's
going to be a delight watching SGA flop his way
to another series victory over you that might not even
last five games. I'm not even they should torch the
Lakers because now you have an offense that can actually
score and knows what it's doing.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Oh and they defend way better too, So good luck
with that at home. Yeah, I mean, I don't think
they're gloating about Ah, you guys are going home. We kicked.
They played a team they thought they could take advantage of,
and they did, and now they're playing the best team
in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
And on that note, that jackass Lakers fan that was
sitting next to Tracy Hughes courtside the other night with
his kid. No, I'm not going after the kid. Don't worry.
He can't help who his old man is. What an
absolute jackass. How people like that get that close to
the floor in a playoff game that's do or die
makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. And all of

(44:14):
them did, by the way, So again, can't wait to
see them get fed to that woodshipper.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
All right, I digress.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
You can't just say, well, it's another year slash, he
has more experience. It's not gonna just magically happen because
you want it to. And I feel like that's where
we are with like so many players on this roster.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
You asked if the Rockets regressed. I'll tell you one place.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
They absolutely regressed, and it has nothing to do with
seating or anything else like that. Alber And Shingoon is
a cone on defense. He got torched repeatedly by scrubs
by Luke Cannard interior, not outside interior stuff where guys
are just going by this guy.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
That just can't happen.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I don't want to hear about how they were the
sixth rated defense when they were fifth the year before.
You think Dylan Brooks would have let Luke Canard drive
it will to the basket on him, like I can't.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Well, after the first two games, three games, he was
a kind of a nothing.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
No, I'm just giving examples of interior baskets. The first
two games he was torching them from three point land
yet right, well, I don't know what Alpi. If Alpi
was on him, then that's the Rocket's fault. No, I'm
talking about guys taking Alpi to the basket in the lane,
and Luke Cannard being one of them among many.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, to me, the biggest issue with Shanngoon in this
series was his unwillingness apparently to battle with DeAndre Ayton
physically because he got manhandled and the team got manhandled
because of it on the offensive glass. So as a
defensive rebounder, he didn't do his job. He was almost
exclusively matched up with him, especially on the interior. Even

(45:47):
with how the Rockets were, you know, switching some defensively.
I mean, I just obviously I had a chance to
watch a lot more of it in the three games.
I wasn't doing He just didn't get a body on
him over and over and over, and so Aiden's he's
just either tapping it to himself or gathering it himself.
This is the hallmark of the Rockets basketball team. And

(46:07):
when another team's capable of doing that to you, which
they did over the you know, the shooting percentage for
the Lakers got worse as the series continue, but it
didn't really impact how many points they scored in the
game or really how efficient their offense was, because they
would ultimately score anyway, because they ultimately did a great
job on the offensive glass. And then on the other end.
This was one of the I mean, I haven't seen
the Rockets offensive rebounded this poorly really for any long

(46:31):
stretch of time, even after Steven Adams left. And you're
playing the same team every game. If it's a deficiency
one night, possibly it's a deficiency every night because they
just might be better, faster, quicker, or stronger, whatever it is.
But it wasn't the whole series wasn't like that. It
shifted in that direction on the back half of it,
when the Rockets were actually winning some games, I could
just imagine them winning even more or having a I mean,

(46:52):
how about having a more comfortable lead than six with
thirty seconds left and the ball imagine that asking for more. Yeah,
but they could have easily had more. They could have
been up ten, they could have been up tweve they
could have been up fifteen if some of those things
that they were doing not so well. And again, every
time we get deeper and deeper into our conversation, I
want to continue to remind you a victory over the

(47:12):
Lakers in this series, however it might have happened, it
means you're in the final four of the West. It
means you're in the final eight of the NBA. That's
not what this team thought they were building when they
were repeatedly drafting in the top five and seemingly finding
a second sometimes second player in the first round of
the draft, whether it was Cam Wentmore, Alphera and Shangoun

(47:33):
or tar Easan along with these top five picks. They
weren't trying to build something ultimately go trade for one
of the best players to ever fill it up offensively
so they could be top eight. They're not just trying
to win a first round series, which is even harder
to take. You're not trying to be better than Golden
State last year. You're not trying to be better than
they banged up Lakers. This year. You're trying to win

(47:55):
a series against San Antonio or Denver or Minnesota or
Oklahoma City in the next round, which they haven't even
had a chance to attempt to do yet.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
When you see that, Ramona Shelburne is saying that James
Harden's representatives reached out to the Rockets when the Clippers
were in the middle of that six and twenty one
start to gauge their interest in a trade, and the
Rockets were like, now we're good in hindsight, Should they

(48:25):
have at least entertained it more than just a flat no?

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Or I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Well, I mean, there's really no debate here are the
Rockets in twenty twenty five, twenty six, all the things
that were in place at the deadline. Are they better
with James Harden on the roster however it took you
to get them this one season, or are they worse?
They're clearly worse. James Harden would have helped this basketball
team this year. But there's more to it than that.
And sometimes articles get written, in conversations get had and

(48:50):
they don't factor in any of these other things. What
literally would it have taken for the Clippers to say
yes to.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
A detatching money alone?

Speaker 1 (48:57):
What would you have had to forgo for your future,
for your present? And then what is your commitment to
James in the future, which also might be foregoing your future?

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Same questions you're gonna be asking this offseason if you
decide you want to go after one of those big
fish as people keep calling it, big fish is a
name only At this point.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
At least, you can rely on James on an attendance standpoint.
If you're playing a game, he's gonna be there.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, And you can't say that about Giannis Kawhi. I
don't know why Donovan Mitchell's name keeps getting thrown in
with the Rockets.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
He's playing right now barely. Yeah, but they went seven
games with freaking Toronto and they probably only advanced because
Brandon Ingram got hurt.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Yeah, that's fine, they advanced. They did it sure in
the second round. It'll be fine. After all. The Celtics
won't be there. It's very very you knew I think
you knew.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
It would be now. The Pistons will win the EGA.
You didn't know which four teams would be there, but
you probably knew it would be wide open. I just
texted somebody yesterday and I said, here's how I would
rank the remaining eight teams. Everybody in the Way, and
then everybody in the East, and that includes the banged up, beaten, up,
injured Tea Wolves. Yeah no, i' are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (50:08):
After seeing what the Tea Wolves said and then did
to back it up, nobody in the East is beating them.
If Anthony Edwards is in street close and by the way,
he's trying to play in Game one, Go Wolves.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
I couldn't decide whether to fire this text off when
someone said, I think it was Mark Stein said, Anthony
Edwards has been upgraded to doubtful for Game one. I'm like,
upgraded from what this is the very first injury report
that's been issued in this series. They haven't played basketball
in days. Upgraded, Well, it's been days. What do you mean?

(50:39):
Upgraded from what.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
I did read it.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
He's really playing, He's really trying hard to convince the
medical staff to play in Game one, but it's ultimately.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Going to be up to them, right but and keep it.
It will be interesting I think for fans to just
be aware of. While it was to a different part
of his body, it was a very similar situation.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
You know.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
Kevin Rant twisted his ankle so badly that the bones
in the ankle created a very serious bone bruise in
his ankle, and it was sweaty. Edwards had a hyper
extended knee, did not tear ligaments, but it was hype
are extended to such a degree that he created a
bone bruise in his knee. It's a different injury, but
extremely similar in terms of what they have to deal

(51:22):
with to try to come back, and the timeline that's
with it. Schamser's reporting identical timelines, just at different points
of start. Kevin Durant probably shouldn't be playing for two
to three weeks. It's exact same thing everybody's saying about
Anthony Edwards. He's now getting more time though, because of
when he was hurting the series. A few days off
they've had. They're clearly playing for at least seven more
days every other day for the next seven days one

(51:43):
game one is and if they win any of those games,
they're playing even longer. I'm expecting Edwards to play, but
he will have had the requisite time that the Rockets
ultimately didn't give Kevin.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Well, would that back give or take?

Speaker 1 (51:55):
The Probably Game three or four is more like when
he could actually be quote unquote healed to the point
where they'd clear him. But he's not truly gonna be
like Kevin would have played if still hurt. It would
be Or you're dealing with something that's probably not gonna
get worse, but can you deal with how much it
impacts what you want to do?

Speaker 2 (52:14):
All right, we are going to hear from Emmy Udoka
and rafel Stone from earlier in case you missed any
or all of that press conference that took place just
after one thirty or so over at Toyota Center today.
Some interesting answers from those guys, so we'll get into that. Also,
lots of Astro's discussion to come as well.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
You're not Alvarez is your AO player of the month?

Speaker 6 (52:38):
Ish?

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, he's very, very good. I bet you want to
go see him play, so as we did on Friday
celebrating the Budweiser one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Come hang
out in section one fifty for Tuesday's game with me
and my friends over in the bud Light section well,
we'll give the Budweiser section, I should say, got tickets
to give away to Tuesday's game. I'll tell you more

(52:59):
about that this next segment, and you'll want to be
listening again at four o'clock so you can win.

Speaker 7 (53:05):
You got that.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Eastern conference you were talking about X A lot of
drama on that side. I feel like there's way more
drama in the East than there is in the West.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
No drama in a four game series between the Thunder
and the Suns. No drama in a five game series
between the Blazers and the Spurs.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
It's not true about the Suns because remember they were
calling out the officials, which also is now happening in
the East from.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
The team that blew a three to one lead. It's
a part of the NBA. It doesn't I don't even
bat an eyelash at it anymore. It's what everybody does.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
But Devin Booker getting fined thirty five grand because he
basically is saying this one exact official is terrible at
his job and it's been happening for a long time.
Is that's somewhat drama filled. But I just I'm saying,
I can't believe that in one weekend we had, I mean,
the Magic obviously we're going to fire their head coach

(53:57):
after they blew their lead the Celtics wall.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
You don't think they you think they're going in the
same thing like Toronto lost their series and they lost
one of their most important players and their coach is
gonna be fine. You know, the Magic were up three
to one in their series when they were pretty healthy,
and then they weren't and Franz Wagner was watching his
awful brother Moe play instead, and then they.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Lost Dennis Dennis Desmond bane Is. That was something like
they should have clearly won.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
And if you're blaming Moseley, I say they should have
clearly won. For those that aren't aware, they had kind
of a big lead in one of the close out
games and they kind of stopped making baskets worse than Houston.
They hit four shots in twenty four minutes of basketball
in the second half.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Incredible.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Maybe that's partly their coaches got.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
To do something eight in the next in the second
half of a of close out game exactly.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
I wanted to say elimination, but it wasn't for them,
So yes, losing that and the drama you're talking about
just from a basketball standpoint. You have two teams that
three to one meant nothing to them. The Sixers advanced
and the Pistons advanced, and he had all these multiple
game sevens, So yeah, there's a little bit more drama there.
And the Celtics, who were the favorite, They were the
favorites ending a new postseason, and they were the favorite

(55:14):
of many team, many people. Once Jalen Brown was rejoined
by Jason Tatum. Ultimately Tatum wasn't there for Game seven, but.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
He's catching some heat.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
They're out. I'm just my favorites in the East are
out of the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
And now I don't even know who the new favorite is.
It should be Detroit on paper, but they had to
work their way out of a three to one hole
the Philadelphia seventy six ers. As you mentioned, I mean,
this is like, this is textbook to the t carbon
copy Anthony at Anthony Davis taking some time off, albeit

(55:50):
because of COVID, and then being healthy enough when it counts.
That's Joel Embiid right now.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Anthony Davis took some time off because the world to
some time raft. Joel Embiid took some time off because
of emergency surgery that happened here in Houston. It's an appendectomy, yep.
And he did return fairly quickly. I don't know that
the expectations were there to do that. He played a
very good series when he was out there. Obviously he

(56:16):
can be their best player. But they did they I
don't think they got lucky, but they were ecstatic when VJ.
Edgecombe was on the board for them to draft. And
he's been awesome. Obviously, Tyreese Max, he is very good,
and the roster is capable of doing things. You know,
they're getting contributions from most everybody else, and they have
as good a chance as anybody I think other than

(56:36):
the Knicks. The Knicks would be my pick to win
the East right now. I don't know that Detroit didn't.
Kind of you might say, oh man, they were just
playing so badly and now they're mentally strong and they
figured it out, and here they go. I think a
lot of people are gonna look at him like that.
I still think what Orlando showed was they have some
major deficiencies. They got to get help from. I mean,
Kate Cunningham's trying to do this all by himself. They

(56:57):
won Game seven when he got helped Tobias Harris all
of a sudden, one of the best postseason games of
his career.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
If the Rockets get the number one pick that year,
Kevin Durant's probably not in Houston.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
I mean, so many things are different.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, Detroit got the number one pick one year, and
several years later they are the number one seed in
the East. San Antonio won the number one pick, and
several years later they won sixty games and they're in
the number two seed. The Rockets a never got number
one either of those years or any of the years
and other I don't know that the number one picks

(57:30):
in the other years because one of them was Paolo,
followed by Chet, followed by Jabbari. I mean, I don't
think I would. I could have said that about Chet,
but I would feel like a liar. They're not in
the they're not winning sixty games and have a title
because Chet was their pick. He's helpful, he's very good.
He's borderline all NBA, and he's definitely all defense. But
he's where he needs to be to be a championship player.

(57:52):
He is the Pistons. Victor is the Spurs with lots
of help in both of those situations, but Chet's not
the thunder. If check out and Jalen Williams was in,
they'd probably be the favorites to win the West even
without him.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Tell me what rafel Stone had to say today, Well, there.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Are a lot of things they had to say. They
spoke right here on sports Stock seven ninety for about
thirty five minutes. But obviously the idea is about some
of the things you might want to see done differently
with the roster were presented to him, presented to e May.
They were the two members of the organization that were
available today. Essentially, exit interviews took place on Friday night.
I had a chance to talk to all five of
the starters there. They spent a lot of time with

(58:28):
the media answering I'm sure some pretty depressing questions considering
how the night went and ultimately how the season shouldn't
or couldn't really be looked at as a success because
you're right in the same place you were a year ago,
despite changing the roster pretty dramatically in the offseason. But
these are the guys that have much more saying who's
out there? As in, when you ask Aman Thompson what
would you like to see done with the roster next year?

(58:49):
He says, I can't answer that, or I'm not going
to answer that to be more specific, and similarly about
other players, even with Tari's contract situation, he was asked
about that. You know, Jabari was asked about Tari because
there's some clothes and al Brint about anything that could change,
because he's well aware that if the Rockets are casting
a line for, as you said, a big fish maybe

(59:09):
from Greece, then he's probably the bait and he's aware
of that. And they addressed a few of those things.
But the GM rafel Stone on some of his thoughts
on outside talent as future Rockets.

Speaker 4 (59:21):
You know, well, we'll look at everything over the offseason and.

Speaker 8 (59:25):
All, you know, all all all potential deals.

Speaker 7 (59:30):
But getting back to Vanessa's question, we.

Speaker 8 (59:38):
Think that players in our locker room can win a lot.

Speaker 7 (59:42):
Of games that can be very competitive.

Speaker 8 (59:44):
And my firm expectation is, I mean, we have players
coming back from injury.

Speaker 7 (59:51):
They will help us.

Speaker 8 (59:55):
If we bring back largely the same group, I think
continuity will help us.

Speaker 7 (01:00:00):
But the single biggest thing is my expectation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Is is that.

Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
Uh Tari Jabari read auth amend All need to be
way better basketball players next year, and I think they
should be. That's that's on Damn, that's on us. But
I expect that growth from them, and so.

Speaker 7 (01:00:23):
I expect to be an improved team next year, regardless
of our ability or willingness to do to bring in
any outside town.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
So in addition to Fred's healthy, Steven's healthy, that's going
to lead to more victories, whatever, what have you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
It sounds like what we've been talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
They just think these other players not named Fred and
Steven Adams are just going to get better because years.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
It's interesting because they're answering it, like they do expect
them to get better, but they're saying they have to
get better. It might not be different because I think
we see it differently. Of Course, yeah, you're not gonna
win if they're not better, But the real question is
are they going to be better? What is it about
their games that's not in place today that you expect
to be better in a men's third postseason, Jabari's third postseason,

(01:01:16):
Atari's third postseason, third, fourth, fifth, sixth years in the NBA.
Stuff like that is a better way to try to say, well,
and that's what we ask the players, and obviously the
night after their last game of the season where they
scored seventy eight points, I don't think it was crystallized
exactly what the parts of their game need to be better.
I mentioned I would tell you about how to win
those tickets to come join me tomorrow at the Astros

(01:01:38):
game with Budweiser celebrating their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
I'll give you a hint on what you need to
listen to the next segment. We'll give those tickets away
at the top of the four o'clock hours. So you
want to win, you keep on listening, and we really
appreciate it. The Age one Second was able to get
a couple of pairs out to you. We'll get another
couple of pairs out to the rest of you coming

(01:02:01):
up at the top of the four o'clock hour to
come join me with my friends at Budweiser Section one
fifty inside the ballpark Tuesday night for Astros. Dodgers have
a couple of tickets to give away a pair of
tickets to each of the winners. We'll do that at
four o'clock and at four o'clock we'll ask you to
call in with some information. I'm gonna tell you that
information right now, which you might even already know, and
then you just need to give it back to us

(01:02:22):
because you've been listening and we appreciate you listening to
the A team. So we're gonna appreciate you so hard.
We're gonna get you out to the ballpark thanks to
Budweiser as they celebrate one hundred and fifty years as
an American icon. We're two hundred and fifty years old
here at America and they're celebrating one fifty kind of
along with it. I'm pretty sure most of you guys
know this. But the information I want from you and

(01:02:44):
the four o'clock hour when I give you the signal
the bat signal to call the Bud at one fifty
signal to call in, is if they're having a one
hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration on site at the Anheuser
Busch Brewery on Sunday May seventeenth with a huge concert
and the Clydesdale's and behind the Sultans tours, et cetera.

(01:03:05):
Where would that be, Well, that would be at the
Budweiser or the Anheuser Busch Brewery in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Everybody knows that, right, The Anheuser Busch Brewery is in
Saint Louis, Missouri. Duh, Saint Louis, Missouri. Okay, all right,
thanks for being with us. I'll see you at four o'clock. Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
I don't know if it's flying under the radar or not,
but I saw this today and when you combine.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
It with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
You know what the Spurs are probably going to do,
which is beyond a collision course in the Western Conference
Finals with the thunder.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
By the way the NBA is now able to do
with all the series ending the way they did, Basically,
I have two games every night for the foreseeable future
with each of these series. Philly and New York start tonight,
and Minnesota and San Antonio after that, Cleveland and Detroit
tomorrow night, and the Lakers in Oklahoma City after that.
I won't say exactly after that. Both tonight and tomorrow

(01:04:04):
the second game starts ninety minutes later. These aren't true
double headers over the air like we normally are used to.
They're very much like what we spend a year silly
as we are fighting about streaming and times and getting
I think we may see some man this isn't I'm
not a real big fan of this come this series,
but those series will play every other day for the

(01:04:25):
next several days. So flying under the radar was what
with the Spurs and the Thunder headed in a collision
course in the West.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
The Mavericks made a really really smart decision.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
What they do? They hired the guy that put together
the Raptors Championship roster as their new team president, Messai
ujirie Is.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
One of the better personnel guys in the association has
been for a long long time. And sorry, like one
team has Victor Wimbin and sixty two wins and looks
to stand toe to toe with the Thunder and at
least in the regular season can actually say that. And
the other one has the Rookie of the year and

(01:05:11):
just got a competent person involved. Now make all the
jokes you want as to why Cooper Flag is a
Maverick since we know how that happened.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Yeah, they won the lottery.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
How'd that happen?

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Their combinations were selected? Why did they get those combinations?
I don't know the whatever percent chance they had a
fourteen percent chance I don't know a good team or
a bad team. Yeah, they were in the lottery. Usually
it's for bad teams or teams that trade into the lottery.
They were just a bad team.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Team become bad.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
I think trading away and injured Luca helped, but they
probably going to lose a bunch of games anyway. He
was hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
And fat, right, I mean drunk. According to their ex.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
You is a whole eighteen months removed from bouncing the
ball in the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Yeah, that's funny how that happens.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
But anyway, I don't think Messi Euxieri is going to
trade away their franchise player for a song anytime soon.
As president of the Dallas Mavericks, I think that's a
really good move by the MAVs.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Yeah, there's nothing I would say negatively about it, just
to be me and be on this show. So I
won't a lot of good years in a couple of
good years in Denver, a couple of fifty win seasons,
that's where he kind of first got his start as
a decision maker, and then more than a decade there
in Toronto, and they obviously had very very high times
winning the NBA title. They also had five straight fifty
win seasons. I think the title is known clearly as

(01:06:33):
the shot that was made to help them win. The
title was reignited this weekend because the RJ. Barrett shot
reignited the l I remember the Kawhi Leonard shot. They
had struggled with what most teams in the NBA do
struggle with. And the Rockets are probably there right now.
We aren't bad. We're definitely going to the playoffs, and
then what are you a championship team or you stuck

(01:06:55):
in that awful middle. You're in not necessarily in the
top eight, but you're definitely not in the bottom twelve.
So you're stuck not drafting tremendously highly and not really
being truly competitive for a title. And that's kind of
what Toronto has done during did during the most of
the later stages of his time there. But he's only
one year away from them, and they just they were
the five seed and nearly one opening round series, and

(01:07:17):
they probably their roster's probably not awful. They might not
have the elite level star. But yeah, sitting here and
trying to say you don't you think this move is bad?
That would be hard to do. Is this a good move.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
No, he's gonna have Cooper Flagg, who is really showing
out down the stretch. I still think he stole the
Rookie of the Year award. I really do, like I
think Conk Nipple. I think it's stupid that Conkin Nipple's
votes were skewed by playing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
I mean, do we really have evidence of that. I mean,
I know the vote's already been announced.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
I think some people, I don't know they admitted it
change their vote.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I hope they didn't, because they'd never get to vote again.
You'd think, well, I mean, it's explicitly told to them.
This is a regular season award. These are not regular
season games. They should have no impact on it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Ramona Shelbourne goes on ESPN and says she votes for
the MVP based on narratives, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
But she still votes. Doesn't explicitly say you can't. Yeah,
it's not against the rules. It's a bad look. It's
a terrible look. All I'm saying is it's my first book.
The vote showed is that there are a lot of
people that supported both of them. I thought it would
be a close vote.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
It was, But you're gonna have presumably a healthy Kyrie Irving,
who's still not over the hill.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
How old is he now?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
It's thirty four? Oh that's interesting. So how would you
describe Kyrie Irving? If I sat here last week and
tried to call Fred van vliet old, what would you
say about Kyrie. I'm not going to give you his age.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yet he's older than Fred.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
He's thirty four.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
Okay, he's not over the hill.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Well, okay, I mean he didn't play any games at
age thirty three.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Yeah, but that was an injury, that twenty four player,
twenty four euro player.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
So no, I'm just saying he's now having to come
back from that at age thirty four, after he played
fifty and fifty eight and sixty twenty three fredick Kyrie
now fifty four and twenty I mean Kyrie never plays
Oh okay, so okay, no, that listen, that's Kad. No,
it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
What I'm saying is he hasn't played X amount of
games in so many years. And that was what we
were talking about with Kad until this season, a decade's
worth of you've missed this time here, this time there,
this time here, and then he plays seventy eight games
only to not be hurt in the playoffs or to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Me, her last three years or seventy eight, sixty two,
and seventy five all higher than any year I just
mentioned for Kyrie.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Yeah, but they both missed significant chunks of time compared
to Katie's regular season this year. I know what you're saying,
but there are worse options right now than to have
the rookie of the year in a healthy Kyrie Irving.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
I'd like to say for sure the Mavericks are one
of the five worst teams in the West next year,
but I can't. I don't think for sure right I
think they might still be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
But let's just say they've got to surround that roster
with whatever I would trust this guy to do.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
That. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
So ah man, there's there is in addition to having
Kevin a rant on your roster and the pressure that brings,
there's gonna be growing pressure within the state in my opinion,
as the Rockets continue to be in a very very
precarious position. In my opinion, we will get to those
tickets that wex mentioned and some thoughts from Steve Sparks

(01:10:18):
about your astros, including Brian Abray. You coming around he's
back at it. Where do you put him? We'll hear
from Steve Sparks when we come back for the four
o'clock hour eachin a lot of rockets conversation today, first chance,
we've had to discuss everything that happened Friday night, the
Astros taking two out of three over the weekend in Boston.

(01:10:42):
But before we get to any of that, Wex has
some tickets he'd like to give you, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Yeah, big one hundred and fiftieth anniversary Budweiser. Let's celebrate.
Let's go see some Astros baseball. Tuesday night's game gets
the Dodgers, and you're gonna be sitting in Budweiser one
fifty section, one fifty win and we got a couple
of winners on Friday. We'll get a couple more here.
We'll all have a good old time out there thanks
to Budweiser one hundred and fifty years. This Bud's for you.

(01:11:08):
Joy responsibly as I always do. And if you're listening
last half hour, you know what I'm asking for here,
for you to call in with seven one three two
one two five seven ninety so you can get a
pair of tickets and enjoy the game in UH Budweiser
one fifty section tomorrow over at the ballpark for Astros Dodgers. UH.
They are celebrating their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. So

(01:11:29):
I asked you to tell me where they're specifically going
to be doing that at the Anheuser Busch Brewery. So
if you already know that or you were listening, you'll
know where that is and what I was asking for.
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety. If
you know the answer, we'll get a couple of winners here.
We'll pull them all together and we'll have h we'll
have a meet and greet enjoy some Budweisers tomorrow over

(01:11:50):
at the ballpark there in downtown Houston. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven nine. We got two winners on Friday,
so we need three more for five total winners to
join us and enjoy the ballgame. If you know the
answer to that extremely difficult question, I gave you the

(01:12:10):
answer to last segment that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
And every time you hear a commercial for them, they
say it pretty much always.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Like when I say it, right, Anne hazard Bush bud
Light beer. That's not the amount of syllables. I like
how you threw them off. Well when you say the state,
Uh huh, it's added to it. I got you as
you do say the state. That's true, that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Sparky visited the station like he always does each and
every week here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. We're
talking about Steve Sparks, the radio color analyst for your
Houston astros here on Sports Talk seven ninety and I
don't know how you feel about Brian to bray you
after yesterday's performance, thought, I think, and I know that

(01:12:53):
that Blummer who was in here earlier and TK kind
of they alluded to this. Maybe that's the type of
mormans that can maybe help you bounce back if you've
had the type of start that he has turned things around.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
I don't know what did spark You.

Speaker 9 (01:13:06):
Think it's a little more condition and a little more
confidence once he started seeing some swinging mid so.

Speaker 6 (01:13:12):
I think it's still going to be two or three
more addings when you start to see it feel really good.
I mean, he's still tittoeing into these games. The first
pitch was ninety two yesterday.

Speaker 10 (01:13:23):
Then he's ninety five and he's ninety seven, and then
you know, like inside his head he feels like, all right,
I can compete. So whatever's going on in there, it's
going to take a little bit more time, I think, anyway,
as far as putting him in leverage situations when everybody
else is.

Speaker 6 (01:13:38):
Rested to feel really good about Brian going out there,
but you know, the arms still fine. I mean, if
he's getting it up there at ninety seven miles for hour,
you know, you know, just cleaning it up just a
little bit more, he can get it up even a
little bit more. So I think mentally he's getting close,
but still not there. You know, I'm still waiting to

(01:14:00):
to get a few of these under our belt. Like
like we talked about last week.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Encouraged by the way that the pitching looked, I mean,
is it kind of so much encouragement that you feel
like a corner has kind of been turned by this
staff both were starters and relievers.

Speaker 6 (01:14:12):
I wouldn't go that far. You know, they've still got
some work to do, but everything's gonna look a lot
better when the starters get better. I mean, you can
you can point at the bullpen as much as you want,
and I know Brady's struggled, so we can we can
just put that aside. But everybody else has been pitching
in different roles than pitching too much. So it doesn't
look good. It's not as bad as much as far

(01:14:35):
as who they have out there. You know, King and
Okert and Susa. Those guys are solid. You saw last year.
I know it's multiply when you look at believers from
year to year, but they look they look fine. They
look like they're filling the ball well. And you mentioned
Blue Ball and Kaiwai Tang. Those guys have been solid.
So I think they have enough in the bullpen to

(01:14:57):
be good and to be able to hold lead if
their starters can just go deeper. That's just the name
of the game. And the starters go deeper when they
throw more strike that's the bottom line.

Speaker 11 (01:15:09):
Is it time to have a conversation about the turnaround
for Bryce Matthews because the series in Boston, whether or
not you want to say it was offensively or defensively,
all goes far to say the series in Baltimore too,
outside of the home run that he gave up that
really it was.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
A bang bang play.

Speaker 11 (01:15:22):
Yeah, it was about as strong as a series you
could ask for for a player that many people did
not want to see on this major league gross much longer.

Speaker 9 (01:15:29):
You know why he's on the major league roster because
he has value defensively, and you give guys like that
when they're giving you value defensively in center field and
left field, second base, he can play, he can play
shortstop if you're needing to play shortstop.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
He has value.

Speaker 6 (01:15:47):
So he gets a longer look in a bigger leash
because he's a valuable member of the team. Now you
get him time to start working some things out offensively,
and now you're starting to see some of the so
you know, big hats off to Bryce, you know, just
to keep pounding, you know, and there's going to be

(01:16:08):
a lot of ebbs and flows throughout his career for
La curious for everybody else offensively, but he's always going
to give you that defense. And man, that catch in
center field was unbelievable, almost rob the Grand Slam in Baltimore.
He glides out there. I mean, he's an excellent center fielder.
So I love what he brings to the team, and

(01:16:29):
it's exciting when you start to see him get confident
at the plate and making more contact. And for a
guy that's not real big man, he's got some real pop.
I mean, he hit that ball his first home run
this year into the Hall of Fame Alley at Dykin Park.
What it was a four hundred and thirty six feet
or something like that. He's got real power. So he's exciting. Man.

(01:16:50):
He's fun to watch, you know, camp Smith, we talk
a lot about where the f side is still Bryce
right into that mix.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
Sparky, are we concerned with howl? Two bays? Looked at
the plate?

Speaker 6 (01:17:02):
Now? We've seen this before. You know, he's you know,
everybody goes through put streaks and slumps and periods of
chasing and all that stuff. So we know when he
comes out of it, we usually know what it looks like. Dan.
What he looks like when he's about to come out
of it is he draws a couple of walks, he

(01:17:24):
hits a couple of balls to right field, and then
he goes nine for thirteen. You know, we've seen it
over and over and over, so it didn't just go away.
You know, he's he's going through it right now, but
he'll snap out of it, you know, and it's it's
fun to watch once he gets going, but they've got
a lot of guys that are swinging that well. Christian

(01:17:45):
Walker is one of the best hitters in the American
League so far this year and gets overshadowed by Rorddan
Alvarez month. He'll probably be the player of the Month.
I think that gets it out today, but Christian Walker
has been fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
It does get announced today, and it was a fact.
Jordan Alvarez was announced after that interview as the American
League Player of the Month. Each of those individuals that
he was just talking about there at the end, here's
a little bit more on that. Jose Altuve coming back
to dyk In Park for him, that's a good thing
on the road. Jose al twove is hitting two to
h five with a five fifty four OPS. That is

(01:18:23):
quite poor. It's bad. It's very bad. And there's been
some instances of that. Last night in their big inning,
their two run inning the beginning, they had probably would
have liked to see that work out a little bit differently.
He swung at the first pitch right after they had
loaded the bases and grounded into an exceptionally rare six

(01:18:44):
two five double play when Jordan was thrown out at
home forced out, and then you also got the force
out at third base of Esach Peretis. But coming back home,
he hits a lot better at home. Christian Walker, He's
the astros best road hitter. He's got a nine to
ninety one OPS and overall for the season he's balanced

(01:19:05):
out enough. He's got an OPS way over eight to fifty.
At home. He's one of the top ten hitters in
baseball through the first month in March, top ten OPS,
Christian Walker. The Astros have two players in the top ten.
And then a long bit of thought from Steve on
Bryce Matthews. Matthews probably a little bit less enthused about
coming back to his hometown, at least in terms of

(01:19:27):
how he's been performing. He is the Astros arguably one
of their best. Second best hitter on the road this
year eleven stakes. He's one of four Astros to drive
in at least eleven runs on the road this year.
He's hitting three seventeen hes ops is nine to forty five.
That's fantastic. Now at home, where he is tonight's starting
center fielder, he has a double. He also has a

(01:19:50):
homer and in his other twenty five home at bats,
He's OH for twenty five with sixteen strikeouts. He's hitting
seventy four at Dykin Park this year.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
I'm not even king I say this.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Do you think it's the fact that he's from here?

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Nope, feels pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
Twenty I think it's complete and total fluke unless there's
something for him specifically that he hasn't found his comfort with.
Because he did hit better on the road last year. Also,
that means he's finding comfort with his visualization and whatever
you know, the hitting background or whatever it is in
pretty much every place he's playing except here so far.

(01:20:26):
So I don't really know why. Too young of a player,
not enough of a he's not bringing fifty people out
he's I just don't think there's anything to all that stuff.
He just happens to have gotten off to us. It's
twenty seven at bats. If he had three more hits,
his average would be in the two hundreds. It wouldn't
be as big.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
Of a deal, small sample size, but I would argue
that the success on the road, separate from the home struggles,
is a great sign.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
It means he's got a few things figured out. Obviously,
a strikeout rate is way down on the road, and
that's the only reason he's not more of an every
day thought of his more of an everyday guy he
currently is because they don't have a lot of outfielders healthy.
But he strikes out too much. There's not enough contact there.
He worked a great walk in front of Cam Smith
last night and helped them drive him drive in two runs.
He nearly slid in safely at home lineup tonight. By

(01:21:11):
the way, since I told you, Bryce Matthews is in
center and as I suspected, the reason why they activated
Zach Cole so they could play him, He's the starting
left fielder tonight. We'll go from the bottom of the
order up the ironer. Diaz is batting ninth for the
first time since twenty twenty four as a starter. Zach
Cole is the left fielder. He's eighth. Up from there
Smith and Matthews up from there a'l two Van Walker.

(01:21:32):
Walker's your cleanup hitter again. One through five is pretty
much standard now for Joe. A spot at parade is
in the three hole. Your designated hitter bat second, that's
your don that's the player of the month, and of
course your leadoff hitter is Carlos Correa, who regularly plays
shortstop until Jeremy's return.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
All right, good stuff there from Sparky, and we'll continue
to discuss the Astros as they start this series with
the Dodgers.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Here a minute May Park Day game on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
By the way, Yeah, it'll be Steven Okert against Shohey
Otani to open up tonight's game. Otani obviously batting lead off.
He's like their starter tomorrow on the mound, but he'll
be in there for the first pitch of tonight's game
from Steve O.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
That's what they call a mismatch.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
I expect that Otani will open this game over one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
He's going to strike him out, isn't he. I didn't
say that. You heard it here first? Sort of? Do
you watch the Inside the NBA Show as much as
you always did now that it's on ESPN.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
No, because I seem to catch it a lot more
then when I would forget to stick around and then
go back later. And they were in their ninetieth minute
of that evening's postgame showing and they just don't do
as long of well, their show is not as long now.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
And are they done?

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
I don't know. I felt. I'm pretty sure ESPN still
has a few more playoff games. That's what I would imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
No, maybe I was just miss hearing the end of
the broadcast when this happened.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
But I mean, the Celtics are done, and the Raptors
are done, and the Rockets are done and the magic done.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
You gotta admit, if you're a Boston sports hater, you're
loving life right now. It is a mess in Boston.
Red Sox have fired their manager and are not good.
The Celtics were the favorites, as you mentioned, in the East,
and they just got ousted in the first round after
having a three to one series lead and to.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
What would probably be considered a rival.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
And Dirty Diana continues to be the gift that keeps
on giving when it comes to the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Wh there's a gift of her gift.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Oh okay, sorry it wasn't a hard enough tea there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Well, your hockey teams season's over, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:42):
I don't know. I don't even know what's going Are
they in the playoffs?

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Move on? Come on, come on, man, hockey. I don't
care until we get an NHL team here. I don't
have to u inside The NBA is very famous for
their Gone Fishing segment where they take a team that's
been eliminated and the city and anything else has to
do with it, and they make graphics if you will,
and this one, this was an all timer. I'll just

(01:24:09):
let you hear the audio and then we'll explain what
they are talking about for the visually impaired. Since this
is radio, and.

Speaker 12 (01:24:16):
We've got the Boston Celtics who knocked out by the
Philadelphia seventy six ers. You guys are our fishing, our
buddy Bill Simmons there, John Krasinski, and I don't know
if it stopped. Ben Affleck, damn.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Yeah, that's all I see on that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
Boat out else.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
I'm gonna let Ai help you guys out here if
you search Celtics Gone Fishing. The matchup Sixers eliminated the
Celtics forced them into the off season. The graphic the
gun fishing image show Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Bill Simmons,
Mark Wahlberg, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon on a boat.
The controversy. The graphic prominently featured a photoshop image of

(01:25:05):
reporter Diana Rossini and coach Mike Rabel in a Titanic
style pose, causing intense social media reaction. Well, as you
heard there, who's out of the front of the boat.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
To be spit Well what you heard before that was
Charles immediately recognizing what someone in the graphics department had
done and said, come on, man, but it's not just
a Titanic related graphic. It's jack and Rose at the
front of the boat, Titanic style post. Front of the boat.
She's got her arms out and Mikey is behind her.

(01:25:38):
Why did they go Mikey because that's what she calls him.
I'm sorry her son she named after him. I mean,
I'm sorry, we don't know Mikey. During this whole discussion
and nonsense. One of the billion clips of her that's
flying around that looks way worse in hindsight. She mentions
her son name, her son as being called Mikey.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
Oh they call him. I didn't know she and v
G called him Mikey. Stop calling him Kevin G. It
makes me think of mean girls.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
But anyway, thinking of getting jackets, they're not on the
front of the Titanic, They're on front of a fishing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
They're on the farm of a fishing brought a harmless
fishing trip gone fishing following the season. Some people play
there one, two, three Cancun jokes, and there are a
bunch of memes about that, with all sorts of ousted
teams walking down the dock towards their boat and looking
off into the distance, and there was the rocket's loco
joining them for this boat ride.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
Unfortunately, did you see the other latest aspect of this story.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Let's see, So they had their they're gonna have their,
had their draft. He told the first round pick that
he's doing great, so he's a good liar. Obviously. Is
it her related or him related? It's them? Then, I
haven't heard it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
Do tell there was an NFL source. There was like
two bars right and I can't remember if this was
the owner's meetings or what, but it was basically, oh well,
this bar over here is where a lot of media
go to kind of let their hair down. So the
one across the street, which of course no one would
ever cross the street and go and find this out,

(01:27:10):
was where a lot of the coaching staff will go.
And apparently, once upon a time during this last six
years of this whole deal that supposedly went on, Mike
Vrabel was in there. Diana Roussini was allegedly not only
sitting on his lap, but when she got up, and
this was an NFL source, as it was written, when

(01:27:33):
she got up, he gave her a little slap on
the backside.

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
So before you get to the slap on the backside,
did you not already say she was sitting in his lap?
M that's enough. I got it already. I don't eve
the second part is totally unnecessary, but I already get it.
That's unbelievable. That cannot it cannot corp.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
And the way it was written was that, Wow, this
must be like an open secret. If all these people
saw this, they weren't exactly trying to and it's just known.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Now you're trying to take me down this, I guess
believable path that his marriage was one that she knew too,
and is only mad now because everybody knows because it's public.
That's a very good question. She's going to a bar
where it's full of reporters and coaches at the meetings,
whichever ones they are just and he's.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
The reporters are across the street, remember, not one I know?

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
Like going to a bar where nobody knows you and
six years later, Rando's are talking to TMZ about these
pictures they took and they didn't even realize who it
was at until then. Like that's one thing. This is
not some random I don't think we're going to get
spotted here. This is We're definitely going to be spotted
by a bunch of people who know both of us.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
And we don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
That can't be true.

Speaker 2 (01:28:50):
That's why I'm asking what's more brazen, this which allegedly happened,
or urban Meyer where you definitely know it happened because
you had VIDI of said female on his lap in
that bar.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Wasn't it his bar? I don't know, He's just this.
I mean, I'm not trying to make Rabel out to
be a better person than urban Meyer, but I would
probably just say he's a better person than urban Meyer even.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
After I'm not trying to make it out. I'm just
saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Oh, he didn't kick any of his players, such a
jod Both scumbags.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
I mean, I feel like urban Meyer is an actual
scumbag because every step of the way, and again you're
not you're not making me talk nicely and all. I
don't mind what Rabel's done. I do know what you're saying.
I have heard.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
I've read that a lot of people are like, deep
down they think Mike Vrabel's got a good heart.

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
And you wouldn't say that about Urban Meyer.

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
That almost he did. I don't even want to make
his Oh he made a mistake. Did he make a
six yeer mistake? That doesn't sound like a mistake. He
did some bad things and he made some really bad decisions,
and he hurts some people as close to him as
you can get. And that's bad. That's not you have
a good heart, But that's a bad thing. That's a
bad thing to do that. You're a bad person for
doing that. And Urban's still worse, much worse, in my opinion.

(01:30:07):
He just doesn't seem like a good person in any way.
He goes on TV and talks sports, he coaches teams.
He just had scoundrel filled rosters. I mean, how bad
of a person? Yeah, do you have to be to
get fired that fast in the NFL? When the guy
who brought you in, the owner loves you, and you

(01:30:28):
had no pedigree in the NFL, and he turned everything
over to you. We're gonna build a new facility this
is gonna be Urban's team. You're running the you're doing
it all. We cannot love you anymore. And they were
just blind to who he was and they found out
fast well.

Speaker 2 (01:30:43):
And I would say with the Urban Meyer situation, and
again this is just speculation on my part. Up until
like last year, they were a disaster organization too.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Who was the Jacksonville Jackets just weren't winning games and
then they had some internal thieves. I mean, I don't
know if that's a renegade organization, Like were the Cardinals
a renegade organization because not related to Carlos Correa stole
all that money or stole all those secrets from other
major league teams and all that card and then Jacksonville,
Like we spent so much time on show haes gambling

(01:31:18):
issues and what we want to believe in what we like,
I believe this was a gambling related I just kept
taking more money from the company. The Jaguars guy because
I was a gambler.

Speaker 6 (01:31:29):
Guy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
Who's gonna take the first pitch from Steven Okert tonight
is absolutely skating free for something he was a part of.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
You think Epees asked for a TV time tonight? No,
I mean, he's he's in there, isn't he still?

Speaker 3 (01:31:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
I just think show Hay is not this pure as
the driven snow innocent party that was had no idea.
Oh it's just fourteen million or whatever it was that
he used to gamble. I mean, was it fourteen four
or five? Does it matter at this point?

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
No, it doesn't matter because he had so much money
barely kept track of it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
How have you believe? That's how his camp would have
you believe it. I can believe a story like that,
and I can disbelieve it. So there you go. There's
the there's the update for today.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
So we're three two and a half hours in leading
into the ball game that's now two and a half
hours away. Kyle Tucker's playing tonight at dyk And Park.
They love Kyle Tucker in LA. He's batting fifth and
playing right field, bringing his six't eighty four ops into
the order fifth in.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
The Dodgers lineup. And how bad are they? I'm kidding
there's no Mookie. Oh well, then that's probably why. That's
at least one slot that he'd be down. He's awful
for them.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
He's had a slow start.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
They're hunting him like Reed Shepherd.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
They're trying to soon get through Freeman, Smith and ti
Oscar so they can get to Kyle. I love it.
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
He's acquiescing them with all of the strikeouts and bad
at bats.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
Well, we'll shall see what happens tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
We shall see what happens next segment when the good,
the bad, and the ugly from over the Weekend takes place.

Speaker 4 (01:33:03):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety Now the good,
oh good, the bad that's not good, and the ugly
don't make me good With the A Team, We're selling
you the good, the bad.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
All right, it's thaking for a segment time on Mondays.
We bring you the weekends best stuff and worst stuff
and somewhere in between, the good, the bad, the ugly
from what's taken place since we last spoke, which was
Friday afternoon. So the NBA's first Round all came to
a conclusion. For Houston, it came to a conclusion on
Friday night when they lost Game six to the Los
Angeles Lakers. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Astros took care

(01:33:49):
of winning a series, taking down the Red Sox in
two of those three games, all sorts of greatness on
social media, whatever other sports that are going on. I'll
give you the ugly ac he has the bad. Josh
gets us roll in this Monday afternoon on the good,
the bad, the ugly with the good.

Speaker 13 (01:34:05):
All right, let's do it. How about the good being
Spencer Araghetty. Another start for the Astros, another win for Aragetty.
He's basically been that ace that you've needed with Hunter
Brown out. Can he keep it going? But he's four
and zero now, guys with a one nine six era
the good Spencer Aarraghetty.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
It's to the point where I think they're gonna win
every time he pitches.

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
Why would you think that? Since they've won every time
he's pitched. He started four times, they've won four times.
Keep in mind that means they're ten and twenty one.
When he doesn't pitch, he's not pitching. Tonight. He didn't
have his This is probably the second time in those
four outings where he didn't have what he would call
and did call not having his best stuff and walked
too many batters. Again, he's walked fourteen guys already in

(01:34:48):
just these four starts and was lifted after five's innings
largely because of it, but teams aren't getting enough hits
and tying enough of them together. He's made a ton
of huge, clutch ee well executed pitches and there's no
question his defense has helped him out tremendously. And this
last start was also more evidence of that. He gave
the It was Colin mceugh. I think that gave us

(01:35:10):
one of the all timers. Jake Marisnik I think made
a catch in centerfield and there was a great view
from the centerfield camera towards home plate where you saw
Colin mcew with his hands on top of his head like,
oh my god, what a catch.

Speaker 8 (01:35:21):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
Spencer Agaty did that this past weekend with Bryce Matthews
catch up against the centerfield, big, big centerfield wall at
Fenway Park.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
Crian Presley did that in the World Series when Chaz
went up on the wall too. He did he did,
he tried to. I feel like that was more. He
went down to the dirt because that's where the outline
was after he was laying there dirt.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
Angel yep Iowa Cup. Great, Chas McCormick, what's the up
to these days? He's playing for the Iowa Cubs.

Speaker 3 (01:35:50):
I saw somebody say I can't hurt. I'm like, stop it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
What can't hurt?

Speaker 3 (01:35:54):
To go get him back to do what? Thank you?
That's the answer to that question.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
I mean, we're not. I mean, I know we feel
like we've run out of bits to steal from the
other programs. But there is a bit. I don't know
if they have any musical accompaniment. It's called Missing You.
It's on the program that precedes us, our unbelievable killer
lead in the Matt Thomas Show with Ross, it's a
Missing You segment and they just wander through the oasis
of exited astros, whether it's Heeslu Sanchez or Mauricio Dubon

(01:36:24):
or whomever it might be, and what they're up to lately.

Speaker 3 (01:36:27):
Did you see Mauricio Dubon on social Well, that's why.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Mauricio Dubon was good in every possible way for your team.
It'd be awesome if he was even better baseball player.
He's a tremendous reserve. He's got unbelievable positional flexibility, always ready.
But man, is he a good clubhouse guy? And I
know that doesn't matter if you can't play. And he
can play. He's a major league talent, and the Astros
helped prove that to the rest of Major League Baseball.

(01:36:52):
But when Bryce Matthews jumped over the wall and caught
Adleie Rutchman's Grand Slam and then couldn't hang onto it
when his own arm went over the wall and it
fell into the Baltimore Orioles bullpen, he said he got
a text from Mauricio Dubon and said, man, you gotta
make that catch. He got more than that. Then, Mauricio
made an incredible catch up against the wall for the Braves.

(01:37:13):
He turned into a sackfly and he he didn't even
break stride, just went crashing into the wall and bounced
back and throw the ball in like he hadn't done anything.
And he set that via social media, posted that and
tagged Bryce in it, so they see it's not that hard,
not that hard.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
But of course Bryce made it a sensational grab in
yesterday's game.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
Now, we gave you a little bit of what Steve
Spark said, and I know you've got the bad ready
to go. He was right, And I'm amazed at how
they showed a bunch of shots on the sem broadcast
of Jason Bell in the dugout one of the Astros coaches,
specifically one of their outfield coaches. I mean, he was
fired up and he should be what they as a staff,
and he was obviously here last year and along with

(01:37:57):
Dave Clark, big part of it. You know, Cam Smith,
My gosh, has he taken to right field quickly. The
fact that he was a Gold Glove finalist last year
is crazy, and he's way better this year. He was
already incredible for someone who'd never been out there. And
Bryce Matthews, just as Steve Sparks said, he's making this
look so freaking easy. He's an infielder. He's running down balls,

(01:38:18):
taking great routes, great instincts out there, which is crazy
because you've never been out there. He's been enormously helpful
to a broken down outfield. Jordan doesn't play outfield, Joey
low Perfdo got hurt, Jake Myers got hurt, Taylor Tremmeell
got hurt, and defensively, they haven't skipped a beat, which
is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Yeah, it is crazy, and it's one of the main
reasons they've been able to win as many games as.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
They have, which isn't that many, it's fourteen.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
What's the bad, Well, it's it was on its way
to being ugly, and then it got curtailed a bit
with garbage time and became just bad.

Speaker 3 (01:38:52):
And that was the Rockets offense on Friday Night.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
What yeah, wait what They scored seventy eight points. They
hit thirty percent of their shots where the deep, deep
deep reserves came in and it's only bad.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
So at one point, this is what I'm This is
my proof of what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:39:07):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
At one point, during the early stages of the fourth quarter,
I looked up lowest point total in Rockets franchise playoff history,
and I knew this was the case because I watched
this stupid game in a building that no longer exists,
the original Channel two building.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
I can't believe it took you that long to look
it up. I wish I could go in my history
and show you all the dumb awful these guys think
tonight things I looked up during the.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Sixty seven points at Salt Lake City to the stupid
Utah Jazz that had Memeto core ak forty seven and
Darren bowl cut haircut Williams and all the other losers
on that team there.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
They had rough going with hairline. It was an issue.
It was a bowl cut fade, to be specific.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
But that jackass never won anything, and it was great,
uh sixty seven points. That was the I believe Carl
Landry era Rockets with Yow and Tracy, who probably were
both hurt because it was Yal and Tracy. But they
had thirty eight turnovers in that game, and I was like, well,
it could be way worse.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Rockets up sixteen eleven, and then the Lakers scored twenty
seven on the next thirty.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
Points ten almost eleven minutes, if not more, I think
it might have been over eleven minutes without a field
goal from the five to thirteen mark of the first
to whenever they decided to reach Shepherd was gonna get
a layup.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
In the latter stages of the first half, I was
like looking at people like, are we being punked?

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
This is ridiculous, Like, I get it, your offense isn't like,
you know, a complete chainsaw to opposing defenses, but can.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
You like make a shot a shot? After they returned
from LA down two, we said things like if they
could just score, I think most of us would have
killed for them to score like they did in games
one and two. They easily could have won the game
if they'd only scored as well as they did in
their terrible offensive games one and two. You know, bad, bad,

(01:41:03):
bad offensively in games one and two, and they probably
win Game six with that bad, bad offense.

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
He way worse. He may said this for sure, I
believe others said it. We played good enough defense to
win this game. Yeah, provided you score more than seventy
eight in a playoff game, that's elimination on your home floor.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
And the other team at some point was probably pretty
unconcerned about scoring any more points. I was just like,
I was like, ugh, that was the noise I made.
I hope it's soot to pull that up on the
see what it sounded like on air. I missed that.
I was sitting too far away. You saw me, though
I did see. It was not a pretty site. I'll
get you the ugly that also not a pretty site.
Come back on the other side, a little bit on

(01:41:41):
the other series and how they ended, especially the one
that had the most people talking about it, including the
players talking about it NonStop. The rivalry series between the
Celtics and the Sixers will do that.

Speaker 4 (01:41:51):
Next the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety did.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
You the Ugly?

Speaker 7 (01:41:57):
Here?

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
As mentioned, there's a couple of elements to it. One
was what happened with Orlando. I feel pretty bad about
this situation. I bet a lot of people in the
NBA do also, probably none more so than the coach
who made this happen willing and unwillingly. And that's his
good friend JB. Bickerstein.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Okay, I don't want to. I don't think people in
the NBA feel bad for the Magic. They're the ones
that traded four first for Desmond Baine, sit in your
first round loss and like it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
I don't mind that they lost. They just think, I mean,
what do you want this guy to do? Jamal Moseley
was fired after they were up three to one in
a series with a much healthier team than the one
that lost three straight to lose the series and ultimately
the same thing they've done three consecutive years, no fifty
win seasons in these last three playoff trips for Mosley
in the Magic, and they're out in the first round,

(01:42:44):
as their seed would suggest they should be. And they
were even a playing team this year and they won
that obviously, advanced and they're playing the Pistons. They played
them great, and they also blew that enormous lead earlier
in the series in a closeout game and ultimately lose
the series. With Franz Wagner out. Injuries has been a
huge part of why they maybe haven't taken another step,
and maybe they have some hope in that. Powlo has

(01:43:05):
played significantly better throughout most of this series. He obviously
had a forty five point game, and he was also
very good. He's got two career game sevens. He scored
thirty five or more in both, but they came up short.
Moseley's fired. He had some good things to say on
his way out the door yesterday. For his five seasons
in Orlando, they were in a very similar situation of
the Rockets winning twenty one games, then winning twenty two games,

(01:43:27):
sitting near the top of the draft. They obviously were
the team that drafted Powlo number one, when the Rockets
thought maybe it'd be the other way around. They draft
Polo at number three and Jabari would be a member
of the Magic. They've now gone to their next head
coach in that series, and the Rockets obviously did that
a couple of seasons ago, but the much more fun ugly.

(01:43:48):
As we sit here in our ivory sports talk radio chairs,
it's what we do. I already know the answer to
this question is no. Do you know who Keith Pelly is. No,
he's the president of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. You
know what that entails. He does as president.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
Probably helps run the Toronto Maple leafs Sporting and Entertainment enterprise.

Speaker 1 (01:44:12):
Yeah, the hockey team. Yes, he's in charge of the
hirings and the firings. He's the president. He helps to
make those decisions. Former NHL great Matt Sundean is an
executive advisor and he helps with those decisions. They needed
a new general manager, and they found one and they've
hired him. And that's time for the press conference. So
Sundean and Keith Keith Pelley are up there at the table.

(01:44:33):
It's a table for three. They're new hires. Sitting there
with them John Shika and Keith was met with this
question directed to him by a reporter his name is
Steve Simmons, and went like this.

Speaker 14 (01:44:48):
In the past, say, three to four days, I have
been in contact with about twenty people who work in
the National Hockey League, many of whom are prominent names
that we would all know. And of the twenty people
I spoke to, one was supportive of John's hiring and
the other nineteen thought it was a sham. To be
perfectly honest, words were used like con artist, liar, salesman,

(01:45:10):
how did you come to a different conclusion that I
was able to come to in a very short time.

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
I must have talked to different people.

Speaker 15 (01:45:18):
That's it, because in the hockey world today is astounded
by this announcement, okay, And your response to that is, as.

Speaker 1 (01:45:28):
We've conducted due diligence, and it was deep due diligence.

Speaker 12 (01:45:32):
It was a thorough process, and I'm quite happy with
where we've landed.

Speaker 1 (01:45:36):
Keep in mind the con artist, liar and salesman is
ceded to his right as he's being hit with that question,
why is a reporter asking it as if he's not
and most everybody he's spent there or ask him what
he thinks And I can't. I don't know all the
context of how the rest of the press conference went,
both before and after, but he spent time with you know,

(01:45:57):
the Coyotes organization and people in the media. There basically
said same thing. John Gambadora, we talk about him all
the time, one of the great radio voices out there.
He said, this is incredible. Chika was a total fraud
here cost the Coyotes first and second round picks for cheating.
Quit on the team before the bubble, stabbed Don Maloney figuratively,

(01:46:20):
what in the back? Okay, get the gig here? And
on and on and on and as the reporter noted,
this has been met with are you kidding me? I
mean again, the teams that see this happen probably are like, well, good,
they're going nowhere. Yeah, But everybody reporting on the story
is more to the point saying this is incredible. Someone

(01:46:40):
with this kind of baggage and everything else that's trailing
his career could still land this gig.

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
Yeah that is I mean, is this how it's done
in the NHL? I like it, But exactly That's why
I'm like, we need more of this. If that's the
case in other sports, especially, well, I'll just leave it
at that, we need more of this in sports in general.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
These kinds of questions, I mean, obviously, say over at
Toyota Center, there was a lot of disappointment. I believe
the words used by Rafel when asked about the season,
Vanessa asked Vanessa Richardson, obviously of shn asked him about
how he'd assessed the season, and those are two words
he used, frustrated and disappointing. We were here bringing you

(01:47:25):
that press conference live. Nobody had the need to or
felt like asking a question quite like that when we.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
Just heard listen if that kind of question had been
asked of em Udoka.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
But what would it have been.

Speaker 3 (01:47:39):
Well, it wouldn't obviously have been about a hire.

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
Okay, just just for the sake of answering my own
rhetorical now not rhetorical question. You just gave us the
bad and I scoffed that you only called it the
bad so that for me would produce the line of
questioning or you've answered many questions throughout the season and
even today following your seventy eight point performance and thirty

(01:48:04):
percent shooting in Game six, and then you would ask
him something super condescending, mean, and probably get you booted
out of the press conference about do you really think
the offense was? Okay? You know it like that?

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
The you know what the equivalent would be if you
wanted to get to the ugly ask him, ask imay
Udoka if he thinks he needs an offensive coordinator, since
that's what keeps getting thrown out there.

Speaker 1 (01:48:25):
It sounded like they they felt like there. I think
he said he didn't foresee any coaching change its coming.
It wouldn't even be the first time the Rockets have
done this.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
Jeff Bisdelic was the defensive coordinator from Mike D'Antoni because
Mike D'Antoni noted offensive guru was too stupid to coach
the defense. That's what people would have you believe.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
Now, even if the team or e may in this case,
says he doesn't foresee any that's the perfect way to
answer it. Uh. I mean you you don't necessarily want
to lose coaches, but you do want to have coaches
that other people want. So if other coaches on your
staff are getting interview he sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:48:59):
Like Thiago Splitter is going to be available again because
the owner's too cheap.

Speaker 1 (01:49:03):
He obviously should be drawing. Like every team that now
has a head coaching opening probably should be interested in him.
I don't know if he'll be interested in them. I
bet the Orlando Magic and that's what I mean, will
you would you be interested in the Orlando job? I mean,
you want a head coaching job. There's thirty of them.
They're hard to come by. You had one, did a
good job and still didn't get to keep it. So
I don't know that he would say no to it.

(01:49:24):
I don't know where you're going if you're coaching the
Orlando Magic other than the same place Jamal Moseley had them,
which is probably to the playoffs and then leaving after
the first round. They don't have the talent to get
any further, and I don't know what they can do
to make it any different than that, even if they
were fully healthy all year and had a better record,
a better seed, and then stayed fully healthy in the playoffs.
The Bulls obviously they've now hired front off his help.

(01:49:46):
As of today, I'm not sure what like, what's appealing
about that job, not very much.

Speaker 2 (01:49:51):
Would you die if the figuratively, of course, if the
Rockets traded Jabari Smith for Polo because they were in
the same draft and that was what one You know,
people thought one team would have one versus the other
and ended up being the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):
Yeah, one franchise is pushing one of those players as
their number one. That's Orlando. The Rockets aren't even pushing
Jabari as their number two, maybe not even their number three.
They're very different positions on their respective teams. And now
you're flipping that you're getting a pseudo number one.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
For your four if Orlando says, yes, Powell is not
a great player, but he's probably got a skill set
that could help you, if you could say, just go
ahead and make a few more than maybe think of it.
Since we were on the subject of the Orlando Magic
five o'clock hour, Football at five.

Speaker 3 (01:50:38):
Coming up next.

Speaker 4 (01:50:41):
The a team on Sports Team.

Speaker 1 (01:50:43):
They made the news today here on Sports Talk seven
to ninety. He brought you the Rockets press conference earlier
to then. Obviously they've had a great discussion about both
that and the team and their performance from this past
series and Friday night, specifically, the Astros are set for
baseball tonight over at Dyke and Park. Steven Olker number twelve,
twelve different pitcher who's been giving the ball to start

(01:51:06):
a game for the Astros this year, like Kaiwai Tang
a couple of games ago. This will be more of
an opener, who expect Ryan weiss to follow and they've
got the Dodgers for three tonight, Tomorrow night and then
Wednesday afternoon and your Houston Texans. They were on the
golf course today their twenty third annual Charity Golf Classic, big, big,

(01:51:26):
big fundraiser over the years and no different again today
five hundred and sixty five one hundred thousand dollars for
the Houston Texans Foundation. They do a little competition before
everybody starts their round. You purchase entry into the putting
contest and you just stand around the putting green circle

(01:51:47):
the putting green and you get a number. It's on
your golf ball, and everybody fires off their putt together
tries to make it in the one hole, and somebody
did so they were the big winner. I don't know
beyonde pick with Toro, Cal and Hannah what else they got,
but I'm sure it was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:52:03):
And then we get to uh to make our way
out to the tenth hole to shoot a little video
of one player teeing off hopefully the Texans in the group,
and they always are jj t and off before a
few others.

Speaker 1 (01:52:15):
Today it was Kayimi. It's very good golfer and had
a nice group with him today, and we also got
a chance to talk with both Cal and Hannah, Mike Toman,
the Texans president, and their head coach, Debiko Ryans. I
asked for an assessment of Nick Cassario from Cal and Hannah.
They talked about obviously what they've been doing this offseason,

(01:52:36):
the draft, and Hannah was talking about I'm sure you
saw it. Friday night, she had a chance to meet
their second round pick, Kayden McDonald. He was there with
his mom and she was you know, they were courtside
run underneath the Rockets basket, if the one adjacent to
their basket, so she had a chance to talk to him.
Big fan of him and his mom and you know
what he's gonna do here. They obviously met Kielan Rutledge

(01:52:57):
and his wife when they came in for their conference,
and then kind of the plan on what this team
had done. They clearly have had specific interests in the
types of players they've wanted to add, adding Rutledge, adding
Whyatt Teller Teller was one of the players today out
on the course and Braden Smith a very specific type
of player they've added this year and they've been screaming
it at us we want to run the football. We're

(01:53:18):
doing something with purpose. If these plans work, then they
will at least have accomplished one part of their offense,
and maybe they've created a little bit better group of
a running team, a team that at least I don't
know if you have to have an identity, and we
always ask that question, I don't think it really matters,
but they're actually apparently trying to create one. So I
asked him about, you know, what he kind of thinks
of things as how they are. He just said that

(01:53:40):
the obvious we're close, very unsatisfied with where we are,
but looking at what we did, what we've done, what
our roster has looked like, and what our roster now
looks like, the same goal is in place. They've been
there three straight years the playoffs. They've won a game
three straight years. They've been in the final eight three
straight years, and that's not satisfactory. They're more needs to

(01:54:03):
be done. Clearly, all of this lines up with CJ. Strout.
If more is done by CJ, if he plays better,
thus the offense plays better unless they probably score more points,
all that stuff, and he can play better because they
ran the ball better, because they blocked better because they
all sorts of things can lead to both on his
side and their end. You know, Demiko Ryans talked about

(01:54:24):
it really doesn't need to do anything differently regardless of
his own contract situation. Even during an offseason where they've
extended Aziz al Shire, they've extended Daniale Hunter, they've extended
Will Anderson Junior. They gave you more money and an
extension adult and Schultz, they have not done that with CJ.
Other than picking up his fifth year option. It definitely
guarantees him more money made as a football player, but

(01:54:46):
it doesn't guarantee him of the same type of wealth
and long term guarantee that it does with the player
just like him in terms of years and Will Anderson Junior.
But Tamiko's comment on CJ was, you know, the contracts
take care of themselves, essentially, go do what you do.
You got to know the areas you need to get
better at. Focus in on those things. I mean, if

(01:55:07):
we're to look at any videos or pictures we've seen
of the of CJ. Stroud, I think the more recent
ones take our focus away from his new haircut and
our focus to his new guns.

Speaker 3 (01:55:19):
And his sound Garden T shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:55:20):
It was very I did take it. I did do
a little screen pinch to make sure that's what it was,
and it was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:55:26):
Iconic cover of absolutely no listen, it's all the table
is set, so to speak. For him to have the
greatest bounce back season in Houston sports history, well.

Speaker 1 (01:55:38):
He has to bounce back from both years. But clearly
the bounce back you're referencing that I'm just now getting
is how he performed in his last game.

Speaker 3 (01:55:45):
What you consider the position he plays.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
He's the quarterback for the Texans. In the league he
plays for, it's the NFL. Brock, Well, that's not how
Brock would say it. Say it how he would say it. Well,
here in the National Football League. Loser. I got another
loser comment coming up. Somebody totally different, but big loser.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
Like I just I can't think of one, unless I
really can't think of one.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
He it's rare that a quarterback in such a short
short period of time three seasons can get to the
highs he got to and fall to the low's last
game lows that he has. There's clearly a talented player.
There's clearly a player you can win and win big with.
The plays that were being made through you know, the
first seventeen to twenty maybe twenty five games of his
career when you include the playoffs and maybe the beginning

(01:56:32):
of year two. There's just so much that was there.
The roster, especially offensively, was it light years better than
the roster he's played with the last two years. Absolutely not,
very similar to the roster he's played with now. They
haven't run the ball particularly well. Maybe they ran the
ball a little bit better that particular season. Maybe there's
not a whole lot of difference. The team has gotten

(01:56:53):
a lot better. They're much more When they won their
playoff game, as in his rookie season and then went
to Baltimore for that playoff game, the expectations were, this
is awesome. Look at where they might be one day. Yeah,
look at what they could be doing. This is a
phenomenal start to the Demiico Will and CJ era. I
can't wait to see what's in the future. Well, it's

(01:57:15):
very different when things happen the way they did in
year three. I mean, I can't wait to see what
happens in the future, but I don't know if CJ's
in their future long term. We don't have those answers yet,
so that's kind of where things are. They do have
rookie mini caamp this weekend. Hard to tell which veteran
players will participate. I would suggest, especially since he's here
and he's been here most of the off season, that

(01:57:36):
they would want Graham Mertz to work there. But I
don't yet know the answer to that. I asked somebody
about that today and they weren't even certain if he
would participate. We'll be out there on Friday, get a
chance to see who is out there beyond the obvious
their draft picks, they are undrafted free agents and what
else is in store. Most of the many, not most,
but many of the other teams took care of that
this first weekend, last weekend in May, first weekend of

(01:57:59):
the month, and then Sexans and a few other teams
will do it this weekend. Essentially, today was the start
of phase two, so the on field portion of getting
ready for their real offseason program. It started today. They've
been over there since the twentieth. Demiko is talking about
some of the meetings they add and now because the
onfield work is the beginning, there's more coaches involved in it,
and he said, our coaches are like, let me add them, like,

(01:58:22):
I cannot wait to get started with these guys.

Speaker 2 (01:58:24):
Yeah, I'm I mean the off season activities, all of
this stuff is just to tease because training camp can't
get hair fast enough. Look, I'm very happy that the
Astros won a series in Boston this weekend. I don't
look for them to do much of anything this year.
If they do, great, I'll eat my words. I'll be

(01:58:46):
very happy to the Rockets. Obviously. That goes without saying
right now and penning what they do this offseason. This
city's the Texans to take if they just do it
right now. As from a sports stand, and I get it,
the NFL is always the biggest and but that hasn't
mattered because this franchise has found inordinate amounts of ways

(01:59:08):
to disappoint its fan base. If they do what hopefully
they are capable of doing, and what like I said,
the table is set for them to do.

Speaker 3 (01:59:16):
I mean, it's just gonna feed generations.

Speaker 1 (01:59:19):
Yeah, one other thing from out there off and technically
on the field, or a couple other things. A lot
of questions about both of their facilities. It's only been
a few months, but nothing's changed on the Toro district.
Everything is as they would hope, still plan on opening
in twenty twenty nine. Nothing really new or different on
that front. Not everything is totally dotted t's and crossed
eyes yet, but it wasn't a few weeks ago, and

(01:59:42):
it wasn't necessarily expected to be at this point in time. Yeah,
that on purpose, right, I did their actual facility. They
sure made it sound like they and the Rodeo and
the HCCHSA, the Harrison County Houston Sports Authority. Their answers
to us were with extreme confidence that everybody's still on
the same page. The lease has another six or seven
years on it. They have already been in ongoing negotiations

(02:00:05):
and talks and they continue. But they said, we're going
to make it work, or we feel like we're going
to make it work. Those are the words they used
in order to, you know, continue to tell people that
they don't really anticipate moving from this site. And that's
something their president said. More to where we are, he
didn't talk specifically about we're playing in Reliant Stadium now,

(02:00:28):
but more look at the area we're in. We've all
got this entire I can't remember the number of acres,
he said, contiguous space. There, we're right off the major
arteries of six'. Ten, like this is what you want
when you have a. Stadium This these are the really
good things about. It obviously the building is old and
there are things that need to change and will. Change but,
again just from what they, said everything sounded exceptionally positive

(02:00:52):
about how they feel like they can work. Together for
a we're not going, anywhere and neither is the.

Speaker 2 (02:00:57):
Rodio, well you can plant me firmly in The they
don't need a new stadium. Camp if you're going to do,
anything just renovate the existing. One, right they have the
opportunity to do the funniest. Thing so what was a
joke about the astronome for the longest, time, which by the,
way what are we going to do with? It, no
that's the second. Joke remember the whole burial. Ground people,
think oh it's, cursed that kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:01:18):
Stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:01:18):
Whatever all, right so let's just say for the sake of,
argument they want to go wild and not build. There
whant you just go across the freeway where there's all
that valuable land That Astro world was going to give
up when they got rid of it back in two
thousand and. Five if you build the stadium over, THERE
i guarantee they won a Super bowl.

Speaker 3 (02:01:39):
The first, year.

Speaker 1 (02:01:41):
Because it's not.

Speaker 3 (02:01:41):
Cursed that's across the.

Speaker 1 (02:01:43):
Freeway the other thing that was brought, up AND i
Believe hannah's words exactly where you're gonna love. Him she
was very careful to not divulge anything about. Them but
The texans will have part of the NFL's rivalry. Uniforms
theirs are going to be unveiled this. Year more new. Uniforms,
yes the schedule's probably coming out either next week or

(02:02:04):
the week.

Speaker 2 (02:02:04):
After between the, texts they will Have. TITANS i just
can't get enough of this new jersey.

Speaker 3 (02:02:09):
Stuff can you tell them being?

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
SARCASTIC i don't know. WHAT i can never tell with
like some. Man they got a great. JERSEY i love.
IT i gotta buy. One AND i can't tell if
you like them or you don't like them to. Win
AND i don't care about The oilers. Anymore those they're
not petitioning the league to do. Something THE nfl is
unveiling rivalry uniforms for every team in THE. Nfl they're
not rascal well everybody. There last, year a few teams got,

(02:02:35):
theirs and this year The texans are in a group
that will GET, theirs and next year a different group
will get.

Speaker 2 (02:02:39):
THEM i wonder when they're gonna wear their oilers. Jerseys
probably when they play The texans and every.

Speaker 1 (02:02:44):
Other but, again that's The titans. Thing that's not A texans.
THING i.

Speaker 2 (02:02:48):
Know that's why we think they're so. Silly i'm just
tired of they're. Silly that's that's one. Word you never
have said. That that's. Right there is the Eighteen sports
SoC SEVEN shn so real Quick celtics being the favorites
in The east and having a three to one series
lead and then losing it in spectacular fashion to a rival.

Speaker 1 (02:03:14):
By the, way IS i Think julius Texted lawrence over the.

Speaker 2 (02:03:18):
Weekend did THEY i, MEAN i know they had to
have had a rivalry because of the The, yes they
got an on court. Fights oh that's, right they did. Fight, shit,
WELL i GET i lose track of that. STUFF i
always think About barkley And, lambier although that's The, pistons
not The. Celtics and with The, CELTICS i always just

(02:03:40):
thought about The.

Speaker 1 (02:03:40):
Lakers, yeah it's it's not quite what it was in the,
eighties but the rivalry still.

Speaker 2 (02:03:44):
Exists did you see this the clip Of Jason, tatum
who Missed game seven after the. Series it's a it's
it's a still photo of video that is basically him
laughing as he's Hugging sixers, players and basically the caption
it's a.

Speaker 3 (02:04:04):
Meme the caption, WAS i hate TODAY'S.

Speaker 2 (02:04:07):
Nba this guy's laughing about this after he's eliminated in
A game seven in the first. Round AND i get
that it's pretty.

Speaker 1 (02:04:14):
Common it. IS i can totally understand. That Now i'm
a little surprised By, like after The rockets, game you
could OBVIOUSLY i was court side when it, ended SO
i saw everybody come off the, court and the mood
that they, were Like LeAnn was pretty. Obvious and then
many many minutes, later they visit the podium after whatever
they've said in the locker, room whatever hugs and feelings
have been shared and everything, else AND i still felt

(02:04:37):
a little compelled to ask a men he was second to,
LAST i Think alprin was after him And Tari jabari
And reid had already. GONE i was felt LIKE i
needed to, ask just to double check with WHAT i
thought was the, truth like you're less disappointed and sad
and more exceptionally, angry like you're pissed. Off man, was,

(02:05:00):
Yes And i'm not saying it's wrong or, right but
it is a little bit of who he. Is AND
i saw him on the. Court he was. Still he
smiled when he was talking to other players and shaking
hands with the other you Know Austin reeves for. Instance
it's very pleasant and he wasn't so mad he couldn't
stay on the court and show some respect and even
have a laugh with. Somebody but it did seem like
he was more ticked. Off AND i don't, know you

(02:05:22):
know players in that moment versus as soon as they
get to the locker room or based on like The
rockets probably were mad for thirty, minutes an, hour an
hour and a. Half how mad are they going to
be at the final? Buzzer their fate was sealed hours
ago because they played so. Poorly, now the pissed or
The celtics sixers, game, well you might, say, yeah they
lost by. Nine it was like a one possession. Game

(02:05:45):
for they made this huge comeback and the last four
or five minutes were anybody's. Game they then missed nine
shots in a row to close out the. Game they
were right there and should have, Been LIKE i cannot
believe in the blink of an eye in the last three.
Minute it's of real. Time we went from advancing to
our season ending in game. Seven, yeah and it is for.

Speaker 2 (02:06:06):
It this After Peyton, pritchard one of the most likable
guys in THE, nba let me tell, you dripping with,
sarcasm just cannot say it. Enough just a Total richard embraceable.
Guy you don't believe? Me what's wrong with? Him listen
to this Before game? Seven if we don't have, It
i'm going to absolutely throw a, fit.

Speaker 1 (02:06:28):
All, right? Throwaway oh my.

Speaker 2 (02:06:30):
Gosh so, Essentially Peyton pritchard was, like we're not worried
About Joel. Embiid why are we sitting around being scared of?
HIM i, mean why would we. Be we're not game
planning for him Even and he's saying this in a courtside.

Speaker 1 (02:06:47):
Seat, yeah shoot around interview right before game. Seven. Yeah
by the, way a day in Which jason that's not
necessarily the. Case so was it the day? Before it
Says april twenty, Fourth this is before the series or
a couple of days into the ind of the.

Speaker 3 (02:07:02):
Series, yeah but.

Speaker 2 (02:07:04):
They it means more when you consider That Joel embiid
was by far the most dominant and you, know consequential
player In game.

Speaker 1 (02:07:14):
Seven, yeah he hadn't played in the. Series he was
upgraded the doubtful and so he had been asked about.
Him he, SAID i, mean game plan for. Him if he,
plays he plays thirty four Points Arry drago like Very,
apollo very blazy plays, right he, plays but in more
of a this guy is the Most Taylor Made boston
role player player in the history of THE.

Speaker 2 (02:07:34):
Nba just Oozes boston Everything Delta bravo about any athlete
in that town and their.

Speaker 1 (02:07:42):
FANS i Hate boston so uh, So Joel.

Speaker 2 (02:07:47):
Embiid scores thirty, four Sends payton To pritchard home for
the offseason out of the first, round and he was basically, like,
Yeah i'm glad he did. That thank you very much
for doubting me and inspiring me to destroy your.

Speaker 1 (02:08:02):
Club when the other team doesn't worry about you or
have some sort of game, plan it helps you have better.
GAMES i thank number eleven for, That, like thank. You
definitely heard, it definitely used it as. Motivation it's interesting
when people players Coaches Chris, finch just if you used,
it you could tell. Us if you didn't use, it
you can tell us that. Too you could scoff. It

(02:08:23):
what becomes? Motivation what's bolten board? MATERIAL i just wish
if they did, it just tell. Us if you didn't
tell us that. Too even like embiid is being very,
Clear i'm aware of what was. SAID i think it's.
Ridiculous i'm one of the best players in THE nba
When i'm on the court and you're not even gonna
game plan for. Me can was you don't know If
i'm gonna player or, not which is, fine that's helpful for.

Speaker 2 (02:08:43):
Us he was the Anti. Nuggets they didn't get mad at.
All in, fact they went. Off they whimpered into the
offseason The Denver nuggets after they were called. Out these
guys don't play. Defense and if you're wondering WHO i,
mean let me name them all by, name first and last.
Name and that's exactly what The timberwolves. Did and then
they backed it.

Speaker 5 (02:09:02):
Up.

Speaker 1 (02:09:02):
Yeah interesting in that The timberwolves were without in their final, Game,
Iodasumu Anthony, Edwards Dante davincenzo three rotation. Players rockets were
also without three rotation players as their series came to a,
conclusion and clearly that's a depth impacting. Situation quite obviously it,
is and The rockets are well aware of this because

(02:09:25):
they've just Played minnesota twice down the. Stretch did not
win those. GAMES i mean not That Terrence Shannon iss
some unbelievable, player Or Bones highland or Even Jalen. Clark
these are the guys that filled in the. Gaps And
shannon went out there and was just a highlight. Reel
he took twenty shots in what was their closeout, game

(02:09:46):
he scored twenty four. Points he brought it clearly big.
Time and then they got contribute huge contributions from the other.
Starters rudy having a great, Series julius got his, Eighteen
jade McDaniels had a great probably his best game of the.
Series their players were forced to step up and they
did and they beat The denver had a couple of

(02:10:08):
injuries also With gordon And, watson But, Yo, Kitchen murray
And johnson And brown were all out there and they
beat him by. Twelve they beat him kind of not.
Easily but they were in control of that. Game you
just said. It they Have.

Speaker 2 (02:10:20):
Jokic that could be the end of your sentence BECAUSE
i can tell you right, now if you sub Out
Kevin durant and you Put jokic in, there and he
plays for The, rockets they should have no problems with
The La, lakers.

Speaker 1 (02:10:34):
Right, Well like The lakers Had reeves And lebron at
the end of the, series and The rockets were missing
their three players and they couldn't beat. Them The nuggets
Had Yo Kitchen murray out, there and we're missing other
pieces like The lakers were missing another piece and they got.

Speaker 2 (02:10:49):
HANDLED i wonder if you, could you, know give me
the equivalent Of fred Van vliet to every just contender
in THE nba and then let me know how they.
Do so it wouldn't Be shay for The, thunder but
it would be again that's you know, why THAT'S i
think you know why this is hard to do because
he's a point.

Speaker 1 (02:11:09):
Guard, no because you're talking about a player who we
all know not one of their top. Players fred is
not one of the top players on The. Rockets, okay
what he's only he's only thought of that way because
of all the deficiencies of their top. Players, yeah he
needs to be out there so this guy isn't forced
to do that which is not very. Good he needs
to be out there so that player doesn't have to do,

(02:11:30):
this but rather he can do what he does well
Because fred's out.

Speaker 2 (02:11:33):
There but, okay when when healthy and back in the
lineup and everybody's back in the, Lineup fred is the
what best player on the, team not most important.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
Best The rockets are closing out a playoff game type, Game, Fred,
Kevin Amen, jabari And alpern are out, there how kind
of pot what number should? He shouldn't he be? Five
four or?

Speaker 3 (02:11:56):
FIVE i, mean depending on What Amn thompson's.

Speaker 1 (02:11:59):
Doings then it's the other guys that are at, fault
just like we already know they. Are, yeah, yeah, LOOK
i just Like profel said, It we played it for.
You these guys have to play better when before they'd
made these, moves when they made the moves to Get
fred And. DYLAN i said it then And i'll say it.
Now the only way they're ever gonna win big is

(02:12:19):
if these young Guys jalen at the, time and everybody
else is Still they're gonna make them Win they're gonna
win titles with them if it. Happens they're not gonna
win titles Because fred's on the. Team they're not gonna
win titles Because dylan has helped with the. Culture they're
gonna win because they're, young highly touted superstar draft picks
become that and nothing's actually. Changed they were forced into

(02:12:41):
that because Of kevin's, absence and they had a better
chance to be a part of a huge winner With.
Kevin Because kevin's addition is not Like fred And dylan's.
Addition this is a put us over the. Top we've
got one of the best scorers currently in the. League
he's on our. Team he can walk into the gym
and score twenty three points like he did In game.
TWO i wanted to say, higher BUT i was being. Accurate,

(02:13:03):
yeah and then he didn't play in score as much
in the second.

Speaker 2 (02:13:05):
Half there is a, big, big, big big baseball news
item we have not gotten.

Speaker 3 (02:13:11):
To it's gonna be one of the things we get.

Speaker 1 (02:13:13):
To this was the loser THAT i was mentioning, earlier
AND i don't even think you know what it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
Is it's gonna be. Delicious, okay can't wait for. That
in case you missed.

Speaker 1 (02:13:19):
It is next final segment of the, show and we
get you caught up on some items we might not
have discussed or need to. Revisits we got a pair
of tickets to give away in the final segment of the.
Show that's ten minutes from, now a little after five forty.
Five Jack johnson is on The Sofil Music. Tour there
will Be he will be at The Woodlands pavilion On
august twenty. Eighth tickets are on salebe ticketmaster dot. Com

(02:13:42):
now keep this in mind if you were not already,
aware there's one more day of. This Live Nations summer
Of live promotion basically has run through a bunch of
their shows and offered you tickets to those shows for
just thirty. Bucks this is one of such, shows including service.
Charges so if you don't win them here with us
in the final segment of the, show you can hit

(02:14:02):
them up and see what others or this particular show
you'd like to go see at a drastically reduced rate
as part of Their summer Of live. Promotion, Now i'm
going to get us started, Here josh with the in
case you missed, it moved your items into this particular
order for a, reason and Then i'll throw to you
to read our. Listeners the headline of the story you've

(02:14:23):
linked to as the third member of the we finished
in the top three for The Scion award last, year
was in the news. Today so you've got that headline
ready to deliver to our. Listeners i'll tell you what.
Not friend of the Show John hayman had to post
on his x platform this afternoon at one four. Pm it,
Reads Tark scooble is being scratched, tonight but hope and

(02:14:47):
belief is he will be, okay seen as a precautionary.
Move the Headline josh is about to read is from
an article posted on The Worldwide leader less than forty minutes.
Later what's the headline that.

Speaker 13 (02:14:59):
Is That schooble is to have surgery on left. Elbow
hope and belief is he will be? Okay seen as
a precautionary.

Speaker 1 (02:15:08):
Movie he's having surgery on his elbows out several. Months Thanks,
john appreciate the. Insight you are way ahead of. Everybody
most reporters In. Detroit just a few minutes after, that
we're reporting exactly What josh just. Mentioned this is a
loose bodies. Procedure it Isn't Tommy john not that somewhere
down the road it might not be, worse but removing

(02:15:30):
some loose. Bodies he's going to be sidelined for a couple.
Months obviously there's some ramping up time that would be
built into. That they are a month into the, season
so it's not thought that his season is. OVER i
mentioned those three pitchers in The Cy Young award race last,
year only to note that all three of them are
currently on the injured. List Garrett crochet did not pitch
on The World Baseball. Classic Hunter brown did not pitch

(02:15:52):
on The World Baseball. Classic crochet actually declined if they,
had And Tark schooble did throw forty one pitches in
The World Baseball. Classic he pitched their first game through three,
innings through forty one, pitches and then couldn't decide what
the best course of action was for the next several
games they, had but ultimately never suited up again to

(02:16:12):
pitch for, them as he had headed into his largest
contract ever awarded an, arbitration but also his walk here
which is this.

Speaker 2 (02:16:24):
Year This John haymon tweet that was tweeted just after
one o'clock not only did he not delete, it why
he quote tweeted standing with a business, update standing on
what businesses job?

Speaker 1 (02:16:39):
Like he quote tweeted that tweet.

Speaker 3 (02:16:41):
With, oh by the, way he's undergoing.

Speaker 2 (02:16:43):
Surgery no set, timetable but seen as a relatively routine.
Surgery best, guest two.

Speaker 1 (02:16:47):
Months so are the ninety four comments on that quote
post that was only twenty six minutes, later even better
than the first. ONE i guess it wasn't this precautionary.

Speaker 2 (02:16:57):
Quote believe he will be, okay he will need surgery
emoji like the first.

Speaker 3 (02:17:01):
RESPONSE i like. IT i guess it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (02:17:03):
Precautionary hopefully two months is all look Away tigers fans.

Speaker 1 (02:17:08):
AB's he, said why would he keep them? There my
loose bodies are under the. House you'd think that was my.

Speaker 2 (02:17:14):
Account routine elbow surgery is my favorite way to spend
two months of a.

Speaker 3 (02:17:19):
SEASON i just love the.

Speaker 1 (02:17:21):
Comment in case you were not, aware was it so?

Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
Precautionary was?

Speaker 1 (02:17:25):
It? John? John we've talked clearly about The astros and
their win. Total they're all those. Things but it's a
pretty interesting start to the season in The American, league
and The tigers are right. There at the forefront of this.
Comment tigers are one game over five. Hundred they're tied
for first with The, guardians who obviously are also one

(02:17:46):
game over five. Hundred The athletics lead The Al. West
they're two games over five. Hundred all three of those
teams have eighteen. Wins that's four more than the Awful Houston.
Astros there are two teams in the entire league that
are more than two games over five. Hundred only two
of the Fifteen American league teams are more than two

(02:18:09):
games over five, hundred and The yankees still won't win
A World The yankees are one of, them The rays
or the other.

Speaker 3 (02:18:14):
Is Yankees John Hayman's.

Speaker 2 (02:18:16):
Yankees by the, way sure elbow surgery that sidelines someone
for a few months is just a precautionary measure and
not a big. Deal and my, Favorite Glad scooball will
have a brand new elbow for The dodgers Slash yankee
Slash mets in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (02:18:30):
Seven must be. Nice The Andrew friedman presser is kind
of writing. Itself was there any concern That scooball's first
year will be spent on the shelf after he Had
Tommy john surgery and they sign him. ANYWAY i, mean
they don't even. Care i'd sign. Him, yeah The astros
made up some ground in the. Division The rangers have
lost the last two, days The mariners have lost the
last three. Days they're just two and two and a half,

(02:18:53):
games respectively ahead of these seven games under five Hundred,
astros who also vaulted out of last place in The
vision by virtue of their weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:19:02):
Work The angels now rest. There what else do we?
Have Mike trout's gonna get traded this?

Speaker 1 (02:19:08):
Time what's? Different, yeah well he's. Older now what else we?

Speaker 8 (02:19:11):
Have?

Speaker 13 (02:19:11):
Josh we got more? Baseball how about your? Astros Jake
myers resuming swinging a. Bat we know we had that oblique,
injury but it made me. Think, Man Bryce matthews has
been looking pretty good, lately, right and he's hitting three
hundred over his last twelve.

Speaker 1 (02:19:25):
GAMES i got, it ops eight eighty.

Speaker 2 (02:19:27):
One you platoon. Them bryce plays on the, road Only
jake plays at. Home who hates? It who says, no.

Speaker 1 (02:19:35):
It's Not the players don't have the option to say.

Speaker 2 (02:19:38):
NO i think this is gonna be Another are they
gonna have a what do they call. It are they
gonna have a outfield quagmire, now.

Speaker 1 (02:19:48):
He is swinging the. Bat he is doing a running
and throwing. Program he's doing running and throwing. ACTIVITIES i
don't think he's. Close joey Low perfido hasn't started doing
anything other than light. Activity same thing For Taylor Trammel
myers is still quite a bit away from. Playing we
might see a rehab appearance in the next seven to ten.
Days For Jeremy, pania it looks like that's where he's.

(02:20:11):
Headed he ramped up his activities and increase the intensity
of his. Workouts Tatsuya emi And Josh hater both are
expected to throw in the same game.

Speaker 2 (02:20:21):
Tomorrow one definitely has a proven track record in the.

Speaker 1 (02:20:25):
MAJORS i did find it, interesting, though because of the
moves they've had to make with the forty man and
what they've decided to do with some of their sixty man. Spots,
well Tatsu emi needs to pitch well and he'll be
back on the roster his next appearance after. Tomorrow if
all goes, well we'll be as A houston. Astro Josh
hater is going to pitch in a game in a

(02:20:45):
rehab assignment, tomorrow but he's on the sixty day. Il
he's not eligible to return for three weeks, Still so
how many appearances do they want him to? MAKE i
don't want to say waist his arm throwing minor league.

Speaker 2 (02:21:00):
Rehabites they want to see how he, responds and then
if he has a setback poof he's already on the ifs.

Speaker 1 (02:21:09):
You might want to kiss his season. GOODBYE i don't
think that's what's In i'm just, saying.

Speaker 2 (02:21:12):
Why would you put that out into the universe in
a year like this where it could totally.

Speaker 3 (02:21:16):
Happen, well three.

Speaker 1 (02:21:17):
Weeks worth of rehab appearances for a reliever is a
lot in my. Opinion, NOW i know he hasn't been ramped,
up but he's not. Needing he doesn't need to get
ramped up to fifty.

Speaker 2 (02:21:28):
Pitches by the, way his quagmi are the BEST uh
supplemental cartoon character name in the history of.

Speaker 1 (02:21:35):
Cartoons what does he sound? Like? Giggity we'll give tickets
away next.

Speaker 4 (02:21:42):
The eighteen on sports talking the.

Speaker 1 (02:21:44):
End of the business at, hand and that is seeing
if you'd like to get yourself out to go See Jack.
Johnson so for music Tour august twenty Eighth Woodland's. Pavilion
tickets on sale. Now tickemaster dot. COM i mentioned The
Live Nation summer Of live promotion on going with a
host of. Shows surely you can find one of your,
liking even This Jack johnson. Show they're offering tickets at

(02:22:05):
select tickets for just thirty dollars for this, show among many,
others and tickets are on sale now ticketmaster dot. Com
should you not win, them here got a pair of
tickets to go see The Jack johnson. Performance if you
know the answer to this, question it's about something we just.
Discussed the very most recent segment was called In case
you missed. It in case you missed, it the Reigning
Cy Young award winner Aj hinch's left handed ace that

(02:22:29):
isn't From Briveldez tark's schooble needs. Surgery his bodies and
his elbow were. Loose he's work done on. That this
information was learned by many many people who cover The
Detroit tigers very very, closely almost on a daily, basis
as if they're beat. Writers but the information was given
out very very differently by a very, specific Non detroit

(02:22:51):
based reporter that reports on baseball on a national, level
and he posts about it on THE x, platform and
he'd hosts shows and HIT us, podcasts and he's one
of our. Favorites and about thirty minutes before the report
came that this young pitcher makes a lot of money
for The tigers is set to undergo surgery which will

(02:23:14):
sideline him for. Months this particular person AND i want his,
name and we brought it. Up last segment posted Tark
schooble is being scratched, tonight but hope and belief is
he will be. Okay scene is a precautionary. Move forty minutes,
later everyone including this Particular National baseball, reporter posted undergoing
surgery for loose bodies in his. Elbow no set timetable

(02:23:37):
scene as a relatively routine. Surgery best guess two. Months
and then he is so. Awesome he credited the reporter
who was first on. Surgery clearly it was not. Him
who is this? REPORTER i need his first, NAME i
need his last. Name it's his handle and it's all
anybody ever calls. Him so you should know who this.

(02:23:57):
Is and if you're, lazy you can probably find. It
but we just discussed. It what Awesome National baseball writer
is not a friend of the, show posted That scoobale's
just being. Scratched it's a precautionary. Move he's awesome early
forty minutes before everybody. Reported he's out for several months
and is having.

Speaker 2 (02:24:15):
Surgery AS i, recall he is also the man who
was responsible For hey, man don't say That Arson.

Speaker 1 (02:24:22):
Judge, yes he's had some issues with his. Post there's
my wex. Hint they needed a little bit of an
edit before it was. Posted and NOW i can't say
much about. That the amount of times people say you
left a very important word out or that doesn't make any,
sense AND i literally left the only important word that
would make it make any sense. OUT i do it

(02:24:42):
all the, time SO i can't get home for. That
that's WHY i make fun of it and, Say, arsenal.

Speaker 2 (02:24:46):
That's like when you write pick piked instead of picked
yep in a script THAT i then read because it's
on the.

Speaker 1 (02:24:52):
PROMPTER i, MEAN i don't know how many strikeouts That
Steven ochard is going to pike up tonight during his.
Outing what's the other word you? DID i can't.

Speaker 2 (02:25:00):
Remember, hey the Aforementioned Eastern conference, drama there is one
more piece of.

Speaker 1 (02:25:08):
It.

Speaker 2 (02:25:09):
NOW i know that officiating is always at the forefront
in the playoffs because that's what happens this time of.
Year bad calls are made and then we're supposed to
just act like it didn't.

Speaker 3 (02:25:21):
Happen and these guys are the best in the.

Speaker 1 (02:25:23):
World do we get any intel on What Scott foster
is is the executioner or the.

Speaker 2 (02:25:29):
Extender he's the official who The rockets are now one
in ten when he officiates their.

Speaker 1 (02:25:35):
Game i'm glad you put it that, way like could
factual could him attending and using his whistle At Friday
night's game have meant any less to the? Outcome and
yet you have no reason to not use it in
the future. Statistically and he officiated the game and they,
lost and it was in the, playoffs and now they're
one in ten and you want to say it's because of,

(02:25:55):
him and you, can because he was, There but he
just didn't have anything to do with.

Speaker 2 (02:26:01):
It actually he gave. Them he the review of the
night went The rockets, way AND i think it was his.

Speaker 1 (02:26:12):
Call, yeah he was.

Speaker 2 (02:26:13):
Wrong he had to override. Himself it was the double block,
shot and it was you know that in that scenario
it's not a caucus that's making the. Call it's him
making the call against, him and he made the right.
Call AND i said on the, Broadcast i'll be or
something to that. Effect that's ALL i was gonna give.
Him he doesn't Get he gets zero credit.

Speaker 1 (02:26:33):
To what other important officiating nugget do we have for
our listeners.

Speaker 2 (02:26:38):
Today you know who's sitting at home right now along
with The rockets The, celtics that's one, team and it's
because of the, officials not because.

Speaker 1 (02:26:47):
Of them or them blowing a lead or.

Speaker 2 (02:26:51):
Anything not only is it the, officials and not only
is it because they he thinks there's a conspiracy among
the officials against. Him Jalen Jaylen brown actually said the
referees told him they were targeting.

Speaker 3 (02:27:08):
Him they clearly had an.

Speaker 16 (02:27:10):
Agenda maybe Because i've spoke in those critical or the
reps in the regular, season so you know how they, responded,
like we're gonna call Every we're gonna we're gonna you're
gonna lead the playoffs and offensive. Fouls that's how that
was the response from the officiating. Crew you could clearly.
Tell And i've actually spoke to some reps and they
said it was it was agenda going into each game

(02:27:31):
to Anytime jalen brings his arm up just from reputation
and just call.

Speaker 2 (02:27:35):
It how long until one of them is traded out of?
Town and how long until he?

Speaker 1 (02:27:41):
Stops he And Jason. TATUM i think that maybe the
rest were against. Us you know WHY i think that
because they're so. Stupid they had an, agenda and they
told me about, It and Now i'm telling you that
they told me about. It i'm supposed to believe this.
Nonsense we have an, agenda and we're telling, you and
then we're gonna execute, it and then you're gonna tell

(02:28:03):
everybody about.

Speaker 2 (02:28:03):
It what IF i were to tell you that The
rockets do go big fish, hunting all, right and they
do Trade alpura And, shingoon, okay but they do it
to make a deal with The Boston celtics for one
of the. TWO i don't know, which but it immediately
reunites them with their old head.

Speaker 3 (02:28:23):
Coach Ema udoka puts.

Speaker 2 (02:28:25):
Someone With Kevin, durant who he will not talk, about
on his, burner allegedly and improves the scoring that you
needed secondarily and the defense that you lost When Dylan
brooks walked out the door in one. Deal and it's
not For, giannis it's not For, kawhi it's not For Donovan. Mitchell,

(02:28:48):
weirdly it's for someone who's not over the hill that
could help you in all the areas you need and
the money.

Speaker 5 (02:28:54):
Works.

Speaker 1 (02:28:55):
BOOM i just solved other. Problems they won a title
with these two don't fit together.

Speaker 2 (02:29:00):
Players, yeah And Jalen brown just got done saying this
was my favorite season as A.

Speaker 1 (02:29:05):
CELTIC i bet it. Was, wait the other guy was out.

Speaker 2 (02:29:08):
All year while you could rack up numbers and you
lost a three to one lead and didn't win a
championship like you did two years. Ago totally see why
it was your favorite season. Ever you think he was throwing,
shade of, COURSE i. Do they hate each. OTHER i
just said. It they hate each, other AS i, Said
so that's how it works in THE. Nba you just say, It,
Hey Kevin, durant locker room.

Speaker 3 (02:29:26):
Cancer. Boom, SEE i just said.

Speaker 1 (02:29:27):
It it's.

Speaker 3 (02:29:28):
Fact that's how it works in THE nba with the.

Speaker 1 (02:29:29):
Media, Okay so they have An executive of The year
award in THE, Nba, YES i think. So, Yeah Brad
stevens wanted again this. Year, okay so he's head, coach great.
Executive he's gonna hit the podium With alprin as they
introduced him with whatever numbers they have Left Hayes, Alpi
i'm A celtic and someone that also covers THE nhl

(02:29:53):
That Maple leafue. Specifically, okay he's going to be in
the audience to ask a question Of Brad. STEVENS i
Just i've talked to twenty people around the league and
nineteen of them, said you just made your team. Worse
what do you have to say about that would be. Awesome, seriously,
though If rock's such a bad fit With Jason tatum
that they think they're getting better by moving Alpron in

(02:30:16):
And tatum And brown, out aren't they getting? More that's
what else do they worry? ABOUT i, know but they
have To the executive of The year has to, say, yes.

Speaker 2 (02:30:24):
A rockets traded for one of, them you can pick which.
One don't you think they get?

Speaker 1 (02:30:28):
Better? YEAH i. DO i mean they they'd have to
address the pivot a little. Bit pivot they would be lacking.
There i'd pick up the phone right.

Speaker 9 (02:30:37):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:30:38):
Nothing they're not doing.

Speaker 2 (02:30:39):
Anything neither one of these teams are doing anything for
the next several, Months so why not is that?

Speaker 3 (02:30:44):
TAMPERING i don't know the.

Speaker 1 (02:30:46):
Rules i'm pretty Sure rafel has his, number So i'm
sure they can start greasing the wheels on this.

Speaker 3 (02:30:50):
Deal which one would you pick if you had?

Speaker 1 (02:30:52):
TO i, Mean tatum is the better, player BUT i
would be a little concerned that his injury is not
what we think it is and there might be lingering
issues even moving into next.

Speaker 2 (02:31:02):
Year come To Papa Jalen, brown you are now A Houston.
Rocket i'd do.

Speaker 1 (02:31:07):
It i'd probably have to say yes to. You don't
even think you made it a pretty simple, deal like
big game hunting and going fishing For kawhi And. Yannis come, on,
man let's not get so. Old aren't the?

Speaker 2 (02:31:19):
Money isn't the money all relative, Here it's all the.
Same it's very.

Speaker 1 (02:31:22):
SIMILAR i Can't i'd have to check on how many
years you're committed to each of, them but the individual
season's worth of.

Speaker 2 (02:31:27):
Dollars i'm gonna put this into the. Universe these two
hate each other and they're gonna break them. Up i'm
gonna put it out there BECAUSE i think IF i
do that, enough.

Speaker 1 (02:31:33):
What relationship is most fractured and will be over in two.
Months The bucks With yannis That's Alreadeve balmer And Kawhi
leonard's Or brown And, Tatum.

Speaker 3 (02:31:45):
Brown And tatum because The rockets get.

Speaker 1 (02:31:48):
Better we go right Into Astros. Baseball we've got The
astros On Deck. Show next The astros And dodgers right
here On Sports talk seven ninety the first of. Three
next on your home For Astros, Baseball THE. A.

Speaker 4 (02:32:02):
G Wonds Sports talks