Everyone Is Feuding! Good News On Walker and Texans Making More Moves

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him talking your
Team series, Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler R D A
T A.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is number one versus number one sprot top prospect
in the Mets organization.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Here's the offer.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Man Smith lines this the opposite way and it's down
for a base hit.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Fifth hit in eight times up for cam Smith. Stack
these days play winning baseball.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
There's a line drive off the glove of the third basement.
Beet To's in the left field in the gorky or
may cam Smith basically hit that through the glove of
viet To's hit, so sharply that might be an RBI
base hit at one to eight point two off the
bat for cam Smith.

Speaker 6 (00:53):
He talked to me and has a second base.

Speaker 7 (00:55):
He's a easy easy so I thought that was cool.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
You don't one he is rocket it out to right
center field, base hit for cam Smith. Mistita's heads around
second and he'll get to third.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
But cam Smith three for four this evening. All of
them very well.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Struck just gin pitches and on swing and app you're
gonna hear it a lot do it here on the
A team. Nobody wants to grab a seat hop a board,
run alongside, and dive into an open car like the
A Team onto the Cam Smith hype train. Whoooa love

(01:35):
it letterrip, maybe three more knocks in yesterday's practice game
for the Houston Astros as they prepare for the twenty
twenty five regular season right here on your home for
Astros Baseball against Juan Soto, who they will see again
on opening day here in Houston, right here on Sports

(01:56):
Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (01:58):
Can you promise me something?

Speaker 8 (01:59):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yes, absolutely, I can promise you. This is a Friday
edition of the A Team More Evening Astros Baseball coming
your way in just a couple of hours. Looking forward
to getting you into that more left field work for
Cam Smith's teammate Jose Altuve and everything else that goes
along with getting you, guys into what shapes up, at

(02:21):
least through my eyes, to be a fantastic weekend. What
can I promise you today?

Speaker 6 (02:26):
All right? I need you to promise me here in
spring training that once the game start counting, every time
he drives in a run, you do that on the
following show the next day.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Promise we'll follow through, all right, no question about it.

Speaker 7 (02:41):
It doesn't have to be a home run, although it
probably would make more sense.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
I'll just open things up with this little piece of
information statistically speaking, as the Astros get set for play
later on this afternoon, Camp Smith in the starting lineup yesterday?
Is it bats came against pitchers who likely won't be
with the Mets when the year began begins. But when
you heard the first of those three hits, Garrett Green,

(03:04):
the voice of the Sugarland Space Cowboys, on the call
with Todd Kallis, he noted it was one versus one.
That is, top prospect number one for the Mets against
top prospect number one for the Houston Astros. So he
will be a major leaguer, he just probably won't be
when the season begins. The last guy he faced is
a former major leaguer and a former Houston Astro spring

(03:28):
training participant, Anthony Goes, who used to be an outfielder
and then he became a pitcher. And he's one of
the weirdest dudes I've ever talked to in a baseball clubhouse.

Speaker 7 (03:38):
Why was he weird?

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Just because he I don't know. I can get into
that later if you'd like and it just if you
would like to verify that with any other member of
the Astros traveling media. I think it was six years
ago at Astro spring training, maybe.

Speaker 6 (03:56):
After as somebody we were close to on the Astros
traveling they would probably say so. But he throws gas
and it was the third of his four hits. But
the numbers I'll give you to you today as we
roll through spring training, he is tied for thirteenth on
his ball club with eleven at bats. Twelve Astros have

(04:17):
more at bats this spring than he does. He leads
the team in runs scored, he leads the team in hits.
He leads the team in triples, he leads the team
in homers, he leads the team in RBI, he leads
the team in walks. Obviously, all the other numbers that
are average based, average, OBP, slugging ops, of course, he

(04:41):
leads the team in all of those as well.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
He's had a good spring doing it at that. Yeah,
he's had a good spring. He's seen a couple of
major league pitchers, he's in in a couple of minor
league pitchers. He's barely seen any minor league pitching in
his professional career, considering he just got drafted last summer
from Florida State, but making them think about it. Certainly
what it sounded like from the broadcast cruise respectively, that

(05:04):
we're doing. The game yesterday was TV game on the
Mets side of things, so those who've seen the highlights
heard them discussing things about this guy looks a lot
like a player who can hit the baseball very well.
He had a playover at third base that I imagine he
would have liked to have made later in the game
that he did. Not all these things to go into
the decision making. Not to mention what we discussed yesterday.

(05:25):
One of the two Christian related items we were talking about,
neither of which are religious. Christian Walker's MRI back in Houston.
If that is an open roster spot, well then I'm
sure they'll have to think about giving third basement outfielder
Zach Dezenzo a long look at it. Peaswan Smith too, Yeah,
and then the other Christian swings us into the other

(05:46):
big story as it continues here today, Christian Kirk, and
the timeline on when the Houston Texans general manager and
the agents for Christian will get together and say this
is how we want to structure your new deal to
remain here with Houston beyond just this season. They'll talk
about void years and all the good stuff that goes
along with it. And additionally, the news from today regarding

(06:09):
the Texans has long been discussed in one place right
here on the A team could not understand how, even
with information, there could be a case made for Shaq
Mason Houston Texan twenty twenty five. And that will not
be the case the Texans, according to Aaron Wilson and
others that have confirmed since he will be released by
the Texans. It will be a June first release, so

(06:33):
they'll take a cap savings of two point one million
dollars into the league year. They will gain additional cap
savings when that date passes, and he will be looking
for a job in the league elsewhere he will almost
assuredly get one. But if you thought they were just
going to steal it from the Astros run it back

(06:54):
on the offensive line, you now know for sure, no
matter how loudly we were telling you here, they will
not be running it back.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
That's funny, since the Rockets are the ones that actually
came up with that as a hashtag.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
I'm looking at it in my mind and when I
was saying it. I wanted to say Rockets because I
knew that was right, because Chris Paul and all that.
But then in my mind I was seeing it in
orange print. I'm like, that must be the Astros. I'll
never forget when they use that mistake. Almost made it
seven minutes, not quite, that's fine.

Speaker 6 (07:21):
I'll never forget when they use that hashtag. And they
did indeed run it back and James Harden had somehow
immensely a better statistical season, but that was all enough
for the VA.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
I was still good enough to put fifty up in
a game.

Speaker 6 (07:35):
That was crazy.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
He's awesome.

Speaker 7 (07:37):
He look. I'll never I will never dishold with that.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
You've already mentioned his name, so have I, and I
know you have more to say. But on a day
like today, considering how things have gone, it would be
unfair and an improper way to operate this program if
we talked about the NBA before we mentioned Hey, the Rockets.

Speaker 6 (07:57):
One no, no, no, no, I mean that's Truetistically, Rockets went to
New Orleans and out played the Pelicans and got a dub.
You're close, You're getting closer.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
That's what I watched. I was over at Tom's watch
bar last night. That's what it looked like to me
and all the people we were hanging out with. That's
what Tiffany saw.

Speaker 6 (08:11):
To take a saw from last night, was that the
Rockets won a road game for the first time since January.
Late January, it doesn't matter, it's mid March. I came in, well,
it's late of early March. I came in last night
and Teresa was laying on the couch watching trash TV.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Oh what was on Bravo? No?

Speaker 6 (08:31):
I think it was a Northern Show, Summerhouse. I can't remember,
although she's watched all of that crap too.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
The nineteenth vander Pump Rules Special Get Together, Reunion.

Speaker 7 (08:42):
Show Reunion, those are so so.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
She was on the couch awaiting your arrival, looking forward
to talk Rockets basketball like you do before you go
to bed.

Speaker 8 (08:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (08:50):
Yeah, she loves doing that. And I said, she goes,
do they win?

Speaker 6 (08:54):
That's always what she says, because she wants to know
what kind of mood I'm in. I wish I were kidding,
and I say, yeah, I said the first road where
first time they've wrote one on the road since January?

Speaker 4 (09:04):
And she goes, ew go, Yeah, I can see it's rough.
I could see someone who's the significant other wife of
one of the players or coaches or serious in game
staff members traveling party that knows upon arrival of that
other person, they're gonna want to check their move. They're

(09:26):
probably taking it home with them. Yeah, I don't think that.
I know it doesn't happen for me. Let me explain.
There's sick knowledge that does happen for you. Rockets. Go
play a road game, home game, whatever, you crank out,
your good work, you put eight plus broadcast together, and
then you take it home with you and you think
you could do better the next game.

Speaker 7 (09:44):
Right, Let me explain this to you.

Speaker 6 (09:46):
I uh we And I'm not explaining this part to
you because you are part of it. But for those
who don't know, we don't travel with the team for
road games, so it's a unique situation where we are
in this studio more often than not, well always, for
a road game.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
It's pretty stale environment to broadcast a basketball game.

Speaker 6 (10:04):
Especially when you're wanting to add color analysis and you're
not in the building.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know what happened there? Well, Matt hopefully will tell
you because I can't.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
Hopefully the feed didn't go down from the live arena
feed that we get to watch the game on.

Speaker 7 (10:17):
No I is.

Speaker 6 (10:19):
It's one of those things where if you have, you know,
say a six and a half year old, and he's
starting to recognize, oh, dad's got a game that night,
and so in the drop off line at school, he's like,
I'll miss you dad.

Speaker 7 (10:29):
It's getting to that point where it's like, ah, man,
that sucks.

Speaker 6 (10:33):
So I'm like, you know, if I'm gonna be away
from him for a night and I don't have a
win to at least show for it for over a
month and a half, that kind of sucks.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Well, one of my kids is super up late guy,
and the other one wasn't as much. So for many years,
if drop off was taking place on a Rockets game day,
I would hey, love you, have a good day, see
you tomorrow.

Speaker 7 (10:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I know it sucks.

Speaker 6 (10:57):
And that's that's with him because last night he actually
went to bed early and somehow had a meltdown before
school today. So maybe we put him to bed in
a normal time tonight.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Well, the good news is what we're saying is actually true.
Rockets did not get off to a particularly good start.
They took a team that clearly hasn't had a good season,
but it's in a little bit better shape health wise.
Although one of the players that's returned his eye on Williamson,
and if you think a team wants to trade for him,
then just pop the tape in from last night's game
and the answer will be no, thank you. The rest
of his teammates played pretty well. Had the Rockets wondering

(11:28):
when or if they would take the lead back from them.
They ultimately did in a very strong third quarter, and
while they did not play a very strong fourth quarter,
they certainly weren't in any jeopardy of losing the game.
It would have been nicer to make it a little
bit easier on some of the guys that were playing,
but nonetheless had to have it.

Speaker 7 (11:46):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
Need to keep pace with those that are ahead of them.
Need to make sure those that are behind them stay
there and have the same opportunity. On Saturday night, an
atypical Saturday night Toyota Center tip off time of six o'clock.

Speaker 7 (11:59):
I don't be late.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's the same team, Pels and Rockets. One more go.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (12:03):
It was an interesting scenario in that they did what
other teams have been doing to them. They beat up
on the opposition for one quarter so badly that it
was enough to offset the highly competitive other three quarters,
so they got the win.

Speaker 7 (12:18):
They'll try to do it again, as wex mentioned, and we.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
Have a lot to discuss as far as that, and honestly,
the NBA in the last twenty four to forty eight
hours is a gift that keeps on giving on a
lot of different topics. One of them I'm still debating
in today's abbreviated show. If I bring it up to
wex I'm debating it so much that I didn't even
send him the link to the audio because it's so

(12:42):
conspiratorial and yet still very plausible that I'm just I
don't know if I want to bring it to the
table today.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Wow in authentic reaction coming up a little bit later
on the A team. That is that what I can tease?

Speaker 7 (12:54):
Maybe maybe not?

Speaker 6 (12:54):
Well, I just did fifty to fifty here, let's have
to listen to find out.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety back to Adam Clinton
and Adam Wexler, the eighteen.

Speaker 7 (13:16):
Did you allow yourself? Last night?

Speaker 6 (13:18):
During the watch party over at Tom's watch Bar, aptly
named by the way, to get excited about the fact
that one of the two teams that will be highlighted
in next segment was apparently very close to getting upset
by the Brooklyn Nets.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
I was much more excited about it when I was
watching it later. Didn't happen. It was on in the
one of the screens out there. I mean on the
way they got blown out in the first quarter and
they only had thirty six minutes left to overcome it,
which they rather easily did. I really didn't think they
were gonna lose. It would have been nice. You were
flirting with it.

Speaker 6 (13:55):
If you didn't get a forty burger from Steph Curry,
it probably doesn't happen.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Well, I didn't bring this up the other day, though
I do believe it is still true. It's possible with
SGA's fifty one point game. It's not in the games
that Steph has played in since Jimmy Butler's arrival. He
went from twenty third in the NBA in scoring prior
to his arrival to first first in the NBA in
scoring since Butler's arrival. On the he plays, which is

(14:19):
all but one of them.

Speaker 7 (14:20):
Now, why do you think that is?

Speaker 6 (14:22):
Because they're focusing on him defensively and so stoking.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
No, I think they just have a much better basket.
This is what I couldn't believe people didn't see beforehand. Oh,
they're giving up Wiggins for Butler. Butler's awesome when he cares. Sorry,
he just is. Yeah, and Wiggins isn't. There's just a
much better team both ends of the flour. She's just
he's not going out there and drawing so much attention.

(14:46):
But you don't take too much away from I don't.

Speaker 7 (14:48):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
I think you're selling wigans Short as a talent in
the NBA. Well, let me know what you like about
his career. And no, I'm just saying he's not. I
don't think he's just another guy. Like, do I think
he's the second best player on championship team. No, but
he's somewhere in between that and oh, he's just the
third guy on a declining championship window for the.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Warriors, especially at the stage of his career. He's thirty,
his play is he I know you're trying to be behind,
but he's absolutely a run of the miller.

Speaker 6 (15:20):
Now, what's the averaging this year? Just his numbers across the.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Board seventeen and a half points per game.

Speaker 6 (15:25):
See, to me, just a guy is like more in
the ten to twelve range.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
I mean, that's way below just a guy. This is
the guy you trained, this today's NBA. That's probably true. Well,
this is what they did. Somehow we got We're going
to replace you with Jimmy Butler. Right, you got a
lot better.

Speaker 7 (15:42):
What's Jimmy averaging since coming to the Warriors?

Speaker 4 (15:44):
What he I'll tell you what he's I bet you
he's number one and something. Also, where in the top
three free throws per game he gives he's behind SGA.
He gives Steph so much rest because he goes to
the free throw line so much that takes another minute
off of the game for have to have to run
up and down the court. And it puts points on
the board because he makes them, and they obviously meet

(16:06):
That means they gave the ball to him, or he
got an offensive rebound, or they did something where he
was the focus that particular time. The whole rest of
the year, if Steph wasn't the focus of an offensive possession,
it was a bad possession. And now that's not the case,
and they are probably they're gonna come down a little
bit with what their schedule turns a little bit here,
not too much. But they're just playing really well. So

(16:28):
I wasn't two concerned that they would lose the latest
game going last night, which should be the headline from
the NBA from last night, but of course isn't. Because
we like to talk about the talkers more than we
like to talk about the games. Great game, great game
between the Lakers and Knicks. These are the games. The
more of these games that are shown to the people,
the better off the league would be. It happened to

(16:48):
be two teams that carry the league because they're in
New York in LA. But the game itself was great.
Nick's got to be kicking themselves for kicking that game away,
and the Lakers miraculously decided as an awful three point
shooting team the rest of the game, they would be
a phenomenal three point shooting team. In the fourth quarter.
They made seven threes in the fourth quarter every time
they threw it up there bucket bucket, bucket connect Vincent

(17:10):
Lebron till late in the game, and they ended up
in overtime because they couldn't make one late and they
ultimately came back and got a win that keeps them
ahead of Memphis, ahead of Denver, and as far ahead
of Houston as they've been.

Speaker 6 (17:22):
And again, another aspect of Clinton doesn't know what he's
talking about when it comes to the Lakers was once
again proven last night, as the Lakers defense held the
Knicks to fifteen points in the fourth quarter, allowing them
to force that overtime. If you want to look at it, that.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
It was good if the same thing goes that I
was kind of talking about with Curry pre Jimmy Butler.
That is what the Knicks looked like last night. And
sometimes it works if you're playing Houston, Jalen Brunson, every play,
every single play, go create something, drive and dish to
Josh Hart, drive and try to make a shot off
the glass over a big player. In this case, it
didn't work when Jackson Hayes threw his stuff. It was

(18:00):
a well defended game. Jackson Hayes finally is being trusted
to take on the role of the big that defends
the basket for the majority of the game. It never
happened for him anywhere else for probably obvious reasons. And
they don't really have a choice now and he's taken
to it. It's pretty nice with the rest of the
guys you're out there with, and quite honestly, the group

(18:20):
around the two stars now, it's not all. They shouldn't
be a miserable three point shooting team, not with Knnect,
not with Vincent, not with Dorian Finney Smith. The two
big guns were bad last night shooting the three, but
the rest of the team got them back in the game.
They've been an exceptional defensive team for the last I
don't want to say two weeks. I'll leave that to

(18:42):
somebody else to talk about the Lakers for the last
two weeks, but probably more like the last five weeks,
and that's why they went from fifth to second.

Speaker 6 (18:49):
Yeah, and you know, speaking of the schedule, because I'm
looking at the Western Conference is still largely bunched after
Oklahoma City, but it's two bunches, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yeah, So what we talked about here for if the Rockets, Lakers, Nuggets,
and Grizzlies can continue what they're doing, it should keep
the Clippers, Warriors, Wolves away from them. And I will
no longer include the MAVs and Suns because I think
they're probably battling for the last spot. Yeah, I average
an't gonna win a whole lot. I don't think the
rest of the way. Man, the Suns have played so badly,

(19:22):
I'm not even sure they'll catch the MAVs.

Speaker 6 (19:25):
Do you think there's a chance because, for instance, the
Suns come here on the twelfth? Oh yeah, Do you
think there's a chance that Phoenix just shuts everybody down
at some point?

Speaker 4 (19:35):
I don't really think so, there's no there's no advantage
to it. Really.

Speaker 6 (19:39):
What if the Rockets are like, hey, we don't need
our guy getting hurt next year. We don't need our
guy that we're gonna get from you. You want your
picks sit.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
Him, so an end season agreement that's not tam getting
your picks back. If not, I want to make a
trade with you on draft nights, so when we get
to sixteen, we want you to take this place so
we can then execute the draft if you execute the tray.
If you are quite like that, if you.

Speaker 6 (20:05):
Are of the opinion that you want the Rockets to
go get Kevin Durant or even Devin Booker, whatever, just whatever,
you think you're gonna do a deal with the Suns
to bring back a major talent to Houston. What if
one of those guys rips his achilles over the last
stretch of meaningless games for the Phoenix Suns.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Then the pick will continue to get better, which you
will then keep.

Speaker 6 (20:30):
Yeah. No, that last part is it right there? But yeah,
I just there's not that much movement. I mean every
I've said this enough, I'll say it again. Any movement
is good movement.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
If they can slide from where they currently are, which
is twelfth the worst, So the twelfth worst odds to
land the number one pick and not likely to land
in the top four, but it sits at seven point
one percent. They could bump from twelve to four. They
have the same number of wins as Orlando now who's eleven.
They only have one more win than Portland, who's ten.
They still have three more wins than San Antonio, which

(21:03):
sounds like a tough catch. They still have four more
wins than Chicago, who's inside the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
And that's it. They're not gonna They're not gonna underwhelm
anybody else. The top seven teams are who they are, Philadelphia,
Wealth In Toronto, New Orleans, Utah, Charlotte, Washington.

Speaker 6 (21:19):
And by the way, this is gonna go exactly how
it always goes in the NBA, and it's gonna go
according to the script. The worst team in the association
from a record standpoint will not get the number one pick,
because it never does. And the team that will get
the number one pick in a draft in which super
squad white Boy Cooper flag is available will be the

(21:40):
Utah Jazz.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
So I ran a simulation while you spoke no way
and you said Washington will not land the number one
pick with as the team with the worst record. Uh huh.
Not only will they not land the number one pick,
their four number selection will not be selected at all,
So they'll go from one to five.

Speaker 6 (21:55):
Good.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
They'll get the fiery to.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
Do anything with it anyways, because they never do.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
New Orleans has the fourth worst record, they will land
the fourth pick. Charlotte has the second worst record, They'll
get bumped back a notch. They'll have the third pick.
Your Utah Jazz, who have the third worst record, they
have the number two pick, and through no moves made

(22:19):
intentionally to land the number one pick, happening to the
team that has the two worst contracts in the NBA
currently up from number seven to number one. Your Philadelphia
seventy six ers landed the number one pick in the
draft with an eight point two percent chance of doing so.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
That's the worst.

Speaker 6 (22:42):
That's worse than when the Rockets got Yao Ming with
an eight point seven percent chance.

Speaker 7 (22:47):
Yea here then, yeah, they're.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
A little bit different with how they do the lottery now,
But what I was talking about with Phoenix, you could
still see them go from a team with about seven
percent chance to land top four to twenty percent to
six percent to land top four. I'd still be probably
six percent or less to land number one.

Speaker 7 (23:05):
When did you say Spurs were gonna pick? Did you
say that.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
The Spurs were not one of the teams that got
their spot picked, so they just landed in order as.

Speaker 7 (23:12):
Long as they don't get him.

Speaker 6 (23:13):
After the ridiculous gross luck that franchise has had.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
Three of the four teams that should pick top four
landed top four, so basically only one team truly jumped.

Speaker 6 (23:24):
Like the last time a team from Texas had this
kind of luck in the draft, they had one of
those prized possessions have their career cut short due to injuries,
and he happened to be the same height as Victor Winbinyama.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Well, think about it. Just a couple of years ago,
the Rockets and Spurs were battling unintentionally for second worst record,
third worst record, fourth worst record pretty much all season,
and then the Rockets beat him once late they ended
up with the same record. They had to go to
a coin flip, which delivered essentially. That's why the Spurs
that slot was the one that won the number one

(23:59):
pick in the draft.

Speaker 6 (23:59):
In the rock it's got a Men Thompson, who's gonna
have a better career when all of a sudden done.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, you were doing some postgame work last night on
the network. I was on the way home and you
didn't have a count, but you because you were locked
in on the broadcast, you knew what the number was.

Speaker 7 (24:13):
High. It was eight dunked.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
A men Thompson made ten shots, eight of them were dunks.

Speaker 6 (24:19):
I've said this a million times. I'll say I love
that kid.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
I just loved when he drove Trey Murphy bassline and
Murphy's like, oh, He's going to drive on through and
pass it to someone on the wing, and then he
just stopped on a diamond dunked it.

Speaker 7 (24:31):
So awesome at the Rockets gala.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
Are you going to be the one that takes the
photo of us that's going to be framed in my
rock Star bathroom?

Speaker 8 (24:39):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (24:39):
Yeah, I've been waiting all the time for it. I
think what you like. I think tonight's the night to
do it because we're both gonna look dapper.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
All right, Well, we got your best of 's coming
your way. Anything on social media that is a killer
and entertaining and beefy, sometimes fights will be there for it.
A whole lot of options for it. Probably an update
or two on some very important news from floor all
a part of what is next? Best of X here
on the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety toxic.

Speaker 7 (25:09):
Hey it's a men, tops doubt?

Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean for all three ball, every Rockets.

Speaker 6 (25:14):
Game on Sports Talk seven ninety and streaming on the
iHeartRadio app home of Rockets Basketball.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Did you all see this? We're putting out between five
and fifteen posts a day.

Speaker 8 (25:27):
Four hundred people were arrested for things that they said
on social media.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
History repeats itself type bangils succeed.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Never doubt that you're the one who pus no one
building lead.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
You're the best of X. Nothing's gonna ever top you
know you're the best.

Speaker 6 (25:47):
Of X posting every single day, and you're the best
of it breaking the entire enginet.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
It is time for the Best of X travel around
social media for all the goods you might not otherwise know,
or are people going back at each other in the
comments or really entertaining ideas that we might not have
otherwise been able to creatively come up with, or to
begin today's edition of Best of X, just a couple
of pieces of information we just haven't gotten too yet
but is now out in the landscape of news. The

(26:21):
Astros made a couple of roster moves around Gusto, who
has shown them You're probably next in a line among
Astros starters in the miners that need to make a
spot spark here or there be a part of the
club at some time. He's actually been optioned to minor
league camp. His appearances at spring training games will possibly continue,
and the games he'd already appeared in We're excellent, including

(26:44):
yesterday's work, but much more importantly with two guys who
are very likely to be a big part of the
twenty twenty five Astros Christian Walkers Houston based MRI did
not show a strain or anything that we are concerned about.
Joe Spota via Matt Carahara and Brian McTaggart there with
the Astros. That is obviously very good news. Headed back

(27:07):
to West Palm Beach today to begin easing his way
back into activities and the other player, Lance mccullor's junior.
He continues to progress positively on his way back to
the mound for some game action sometime before spring training concludes.
At a live BP session this afternoon. Everything has continued

(27:30):
to go in a direction that it is time for
the Astros to continue discussions about the date the when
when is Lance mccullor's junior throwing in a game in
spring training and then hopefully successfully enough that he will
then be throwing for the Space Cowboys to begin the year,
and then soon after with the Astros, maybe as early

(27:51):
as late April.

Speaker 6 (27:52):
Do you think it was twenty three or twenty four
pitches that he threw today based on McTaggart's tweet.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
Uh, Well, Brian's tweet said what exactly.

Speaker 7 (28:00):
He threw twenty three or twenty four pitches?

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Well, I mean I have at least can you know
lean on a second report an additional source. Matt Kyle
O'Hara goes with twenty three. Okay, so maybe the additional
pitch rolled to home plate and they did. One of
them decided to count it and the other one didn't.

Speaker 6 (28:18):
Lance mccullors threw about twenty three or twenty four pitches
in his second live batting practice today and said it went.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Well, that's all that matters is the last part, yep, exactly.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
So all right, let's dive into all of the shots
fired around the country, and this will probably end up
bleeding over into next segment. Since we just talked amongst
ourselves so much, you all are very aware of the
fact that Charles Barkley and to be honest here, Kendrick
Perkins and don't really usually filter themselves.

Speaker 7 (28:47):
They don't really minse words.

Speaker 6 (28:48):
When they feel like something, no matter what the topic,
it's usually pretty you know.

Speaker 7 (28:53):
Not volatile, but unfiltered.

Speaker 6 (28:55):
And it can be a little contankerous at times if
they're very upset about something.

Speaker 7 (29:00):
And that's kind of the case here.

Speaker 6 (29:02):
So for context, I brought this up on the show
a few days ago. Here's what Kendrick Perkins had to
say about the Los Angeles Lakers, you know, the poor
underdog Lakers who never get anything to go their way
and never you know, they don't have an employee that
shoots far more officials, or they're not a team in
general that shoots more free throws than most every other

(29:22):
team in the NBA, for example, it's the LA Lakers,
the great underdog story of the last century. Really, this
is what Kendrick Perkins thought would be an accurate assessment
of them just a few days ago.

Speaker 9 (29:36):
Right now, the Los Angeles Lakers are saving the NBA.
So now y'all can honestly say that y'all more excited.
Why because we could possibly get Boston versus Lakers with
the superstar power. And then you take a deeper dive
is you're looking to say, who's going to stop them
from meeting up in the finals? So not everyone, all

(29:57):
the fans around the world who probably was like in
out when it came down to what's gonna happen in June,
they're committed. They're all in yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:06):
So you can imagine after I heard something like that,
I had an equally unfiltered response on this show the
very next day, and that sounded like this so excuse
me if I'm not excited about the Lakers chieving the
NBA again. Kendrick Perkins, you moron, don't ever come on
the show again. I don't want you. Geez, what a

(30:27):
jerk that guy sounds like. So, as you can imagine,
once Charles Barkley got wind of this, and mind you,
Charles Barkley and Kendrick Perkins are about to essentially work
for the same network starting next season. It'll be all
TNT staff, but Inside the NBA will become an ESPN property.
And he didn't take too kindly to what Kendrick Perkins

(30:47):
had to say, and he made that known last night
on Inside the NBA.

Speaker 7 (30:52):
I saw a fool.

Speaker 8 (30:53):
Idiot on TV talking about the Lakers, save the NBA,
save the MBA. Yeah, yeah, he's an idiot, a fool,
but you know it is what's his name, Shack, which
when you're talking about Kendrick Perkins, Oh.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
He said the Lakers.

Speaker 8 (31:06):
First of all, the Lakers have had a great two weeks,
he said, the Lakers say the NBA season, that's to
caut them. Foods on the other network, which we're gonna
be working for the next year. That's all they talk about.
Let me tell y'all something, And first of all, I
want all the smoke. What's when I walked by the
grid yard or anything like that. The Lakers are doing great,
got a long way to go. But the reason the

(31:29):
season has been going great for the Cleveland Cavaliers and
the Oklahoma City of Thunder, y'all just want to talk
about the Warriors and the Lakers. They're both doing great.
Don't get me wrong. If I turn out to be wrong,
I got no problem with that. But y'all are idiots
because y'all talk about the Lakers and the wars all
the time.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
All right.

Speaker 6 (31:50):
First of all, after saying what I said and then
hearing just the first few seconds of that, I felt
like Charles Barkley was one of those puppets, and I
had my hand on his back, like controlling his mouth
because he was essentially, I mean, like lockstep, Like we're
not locks up on a ton of things. I definitely
don't look at Galveston the way he does, but I
was like, yes, I feel that, man. That's basically what

(32:13):
I said the other day. And you know it's it's true.
It's what I've been talking about. Now you have somebody
on an NBA broadcast essentially saying what I was saying,
which is that the NBA wants this, or at least
that network wants to push this narrative that not only

(32:33):
are the Lakers saving the NBA, that's Kendrick Perkins's words,
but more.

Speaker 7 (32:37):
Like, this is good for the league.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
We need this.

Speaker 7 (32:42):
Other options are inferior, on and on and on.

Speaker 6 (32:45):
Now when we come back, something else that Charles brought
up about the NBA and narratives that are being pushed,
plus got to hear from Kendrick Perkins with his response,
and as you can imagine, that was pretty volatile too.

Speaker 7 (33:01):
That is straight ahead the ag on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
I wonder if you're watching inside the NBA last night
inside a Big City Wings location. I mean, after all,
Big City Wings is your basketball headquarters. It doesn't have
to be of the college variety. In the month of March.
Whenever there's basketball on, whenever there's sports on, they've got
wall to wall TVs at those thirteen convenient locations. And
you can experience the Big City Wing treatment today when

(33:31):
you go in there, because oh guess what, there's a special.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
There is a day of the week. That means there
is a special at Big City Wings Fridays. It's half
price apps nine to close Margarita madness throughout the evening
as well, so enjoy it while you're enjoying all the
games on their Wall to wall TV's delicious fresh made
to order menu items that includes, of course, boning and
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(33:58):
the desserts are sensational. Loaded fries are awesome, and so
are all of the Big City Wings locations all across
the city. Find them at Big Citywings dot com, where
they're big on wings, big on specials, big on sports.
Because Big City Wings. That's Houston's wing joint.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Back to Adam Clinton and Adam wexlerk the.

Speaker 7 (34:19):
EIGHTE winding down the two o'clock hour.

Speaker 6 (34:25):
It's the eight Team Sports Talk seven ninety Friday edition
of the program. Last night on Inside the NBA, Charles
Barkley not very happy with the fact that Kendrick Perkins
said that the Lakers are quote saving the NBA this
year for what Charles said was a good little two
week stretch. Lakers have been better than that or at

(34:46):
least have been better for longer than that.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, best team in the West over the last fifteen games. Yeah,
it's about a month's worth of time, or a little
bit less than a month worth of time.

Speaker 6 (34:54):
It's nauseating to me too, But I'm not gonna sit
here and act like it's not happening, and until somebody
proves me wrong, there's nothing to say. I mean, I
still will say that I hate them and think it's
a fluke and think they're gonna get railroaded in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
But well, they those things don't necessarily have to be different.
Well I put it, it's what they're doing pretty clearly
isn't a fluke like last night.

Speaker 6 (35:17):
But that's a good team they be. That's a very
good team they be. I don't know who all the
teams are. You're going to play multiple good teams in
a month's time. It's just we don't have to even Look,
they definitely did seven game winning streak right now. Yeah,
it's not a fluke what they're doing. This just happens
to be the best stretch they've played. It doesn't mean
they aren't going to lose their opening series, doesn't mean anything. Yeah,
it's all about match I mean, look, the Rockets don't

(35:38):
have two titles. I said this a couple of weeks ago.
With that, if they run into the Sonics, I still believe.
I hate it, but it's just facts. So if they
run into a matchup, but I don't even know what
that's the other part. What would be the matchup?

Speaker 4 (35:49):
They haven't they've played any of the teams they might
play maybe twice with this group.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
Who knows the Rockets are going to play them in
LA twice before the end of the season. It's a
brutal stretch.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
I think it's fascinating today. I'm unfortunately believing it's gonna
be a lot less fascinating when the games get here
and we see who's not playing. Well, it's not that
late in the year, the last month.

Speaker 6 (36:13):
Yeah, but if if everything is still tightly wound, they're
gonna have guys playing, maybe the Rockets will, Oh, come on,
the Lakers aren't gonna sew up the two seeds so much?
So how about they don't care?

Speaker 8 (36:27):
Good?

Speaker 7 (36:27):
I hope they don't.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
That's my point. I'm not saying they're gonna be so
far ahead. I'm saying, is it that important to them?
To get a you know, a seventy seventh game out
of Luca in a seventy ninth game out of uh Lebron.

Speaker 7 (36:37):
That they is on the line, it should be.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
I mean March thirty, first, they play the Lakers in LA.
That game has been picked up by National TV, and
the second to last game of the season is also
in LA. It's game eighty one. Pretty reasonable to think
there might not be much on the line, probably something
for one of them. But if there's a two game
gap or they're not concerned about being two versus three,

(37:00):
I would be if I were them. But we'll see.

Speaker 6 (37:03):
That last part is the only reason I would think
that that would be an approach, because if I just
a even if the Lakers keep this up, I still
think the Western Conference after Oklahoma City is up for
grabs and I would absolutely be playing for home.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Comes from your point to kind of clean up the
beef that we've got going here. From best of X,
but I will I'll leave you with this thought, the
last seven games of the season, how many teams are
ahead of the Rockets in the Western Conference standings. Four
The last seven games of the season include one, two, three,
four games against those teams.

Speaker 6 (37:35):
Yeah. Yeah, Listen, Honestly, a lot of those games are
in the last stretch of like ten games.

Speaker 7 (37:41):
Their last ten games are brutal.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
The last seven games are those that I mentioned. Yeah,
three to four it should be if the Rockets are
playing correctly, should be win win win in Phoenix.

Speaker 6 (37:53):
Ya. Like I said, Phoenix is probably resting some guys too,
because some of them might be playing.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
For the You need to hear from Charles again or
do we get the point already?

Speaker 6 (38:00):
Nope, need to hear from Charles again because he went
into a whole other realm of what he's upset about.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
Plus Kendrick Clark, fools and idiots. What else is there?

Speaker 6 (38:09):
Well, there's another layer of content or subject matter. I
should say, here's more from Charles last night.

Speaker 7 (38:16):
Is there some credit to be handed out here? Yes?

Speaker 8 (38:18):
Yes, but don't say basketball is only watching now. First
of all, between that and it's lame ass Lebron Michael
Jordan debate, which is lame. I've said for years, the
only people talk about Lebron and Michael. There's people on
television who got no talent to talk about anything else.
I've been saying that for years. I ain't hanging on

(38:40):
to the nineties. I've always said Lebron's great, Michael's great,
but y'all talk about it all the time, and then
got Lebron out there polls and talk about he all
mad about being in the face of the league.

Speaker 7 (38:51):
But it makes me mad.

Speaker 8 (38:52):
The Oklahoma City and the Cleveland Cavaliers are the two
best stories in the NBA this year. Congratulated to the
Lakers and it Warris. They've had two good weeks, the
Calves and Okayseeve has six great months.

Speaker 6 (39:08):
To me, I'm not as upset like he is about
the the Calves and the thunder not getting their love,
although it does play into what I've been saying, which
is that don't complain that nobody's watching your games when
all you do is push the same teams over and
over again. What we didn't play from him is him
talking about the Lakers and the Warriors additionally being pushed

(39:28):
just because they're both.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
Now, that's what he said the last two weeks, the
Warriors and the Lakers or played great basketball. Don't take
anything away from him. He noted that, Yeah, but keep
this other element to this whole what everybody's talking about
angle that Charles has taken Charles Kenny Shack come on
a couple times a week for a couple of hours
right m and most of it comes after games. There's
a few, there's some time before there's halftime, but most

(39:51):
of it comes during the late night hours following their
second game. The place that he's going to be working
with and for and where Kendrick and Steven h everybody
works now. Their day is filled with what an early
morning repeat of Sports Center, followed by four hours of talking,
followed by an entire afternoon of talking, followed by probably

(40:13):
some games college basketball, maybe maybe an NBA game. Every
day of the week they have six to seven hours
a day of talking. Of course, they're going to be
talking a lot about the things that make you mad,
and you don't have to because you can pick and
choose the most only the most important. They can't pick
and choose the most important things. They talk about the

(40:33):
things they think people are going to react to, and
you're doing it literally exactly what they hope for, even
though you're technically on the same team. Like if an
executive wanted to line up for the company basketball game,
he could pick both Kendrick and Charles to play on
the same team because technology. It's funny that this conversation

(40:54):
about a company basketball team is coming up. I was
randomly watching one hundred Modern Family episodes in a row
last night, and they had the one where DeAndre Jordan
and Charles Barkley are at the basketball game and Phil's
trying to redeem himself make a late free throw and
get a W.

Speaker 7 (41:08):
I love DeAndre Jordan. Good dude, all right.

Speaker 6 (41:10):
Kendrick Perkins not surprisingly responded at about ten till seven
last night, Hey, NBA on TNT, might want to tell
that senior citizen Charles Barkley that I'll be around when
he see an idiot or fool in person. Make sure
he keep that same energy. He can come playing with
me if he want to add, or if you want to,

(41:34):
and I'm gonna address his ass like the numbers on
a house straight from the four h nine Homeboy, and
we bar none and fade all hashtag Texas boy around.

Speaker 7 (41:46):
Oh geez, I don't know ten and thirty.

Speaker 6 (41:48):
This morning at Adam Clanton quote tweeted that and said
the senior citizen once through hands with a prime Charles
Oakley and Shack. I don't think he'll be a concern.
I'm in the seven to one to three if you'd
like to discuss on Sports Talk seven nights.

Speaker 7 (42:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
For those that don't know in our listening audience, especially
those that are in it, Area Code four oh nine
from nineteen eighty three introduced and it's about to hit
its anniversarys. It covers the Galveston and Beaumont areas in Texas.
Beaumont's own told about you know, little less than a
million people, Port Arthur Beaumont, Texas city.

Speaker 7 (42:25):
Was he I know, bun b is Port Arthur.

Speaker 8 (42:27):
He was.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
He was Beaumont Ozen and he was part of probably
still one of the most legendary tournaments here in Houston.
His team was in town for it. The Oak Hill
team was in town for it with Carmelo. This was
when Carmelo was there was kind of a big deal.
They brought it to Texas and brought six of the
best teams in the country and had Beaumont among them.

(42:49):
Probably not quite one of the best teams in the country,
but while he was there, it was undoubtedly one of
the best teams in Texas. And of course they could
compete with him without any issue whatsoever. A bunch of
super stars to be in college. But what you actually
read from Kendrick and I think he means it even
though nothing will happen, thankfully, He's saying, Hey, Charles, let's fight.

Speaker 7 (43:12):
Yeah, I mean I can't speak.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Let's fight.

Speaker 7 (43:16):
Well, that's why I said what I said. Like this guy,
this is now.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
This is what happens when everybody talks. The people are
gonna say things you don't like, so you have every
right to say more things back. But the end result
is let's fight.

Speaker 7 (43:29):
I used to you know me, I used to get
into it well more.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
I don't think it's really truly what he's saying, it's
just how he's saying. I stand behind what I said.

Speaker 6 (43:37):
Well, what's funny about it is just like you just said,
just like on the floor, nothing's going to happen, like, no,
no physical altercation.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
We should this is you're talking about. You're covering a sport. Yeah,
you're quote unquote a reporter or analyst. You don't need
to be fighting other reporters and analysts because when I
used to argue, even if they call you a fool
and an idiot.

Speaker 6 (43:58):
Yeah, sticks and stones can come on. And by the way,
that's what Charles said. He wants all the smoke too.
He's not, I guess totally.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
On the other side of not, he's challenging people to
bring more smoke.

Speaker 6 (44:08):
Two fat guys are out off on camera getting skinnier,
though he's still not skinny.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
He's getting skinnier. I guess he's getting thinner.

Speaker 6 (44:17):
He's getting thinner, getting getting less fat is probably more.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
They tried to make him eat donuts the other night
and he wouldn't do it. No, no, while he was
fasting like us. It's those were his words.

Speaker 6 (44:27):
Yeah, it's not even I don't even know if it's
the best. It's well, it's probably the most entertaining back
and forth in NBA circles over the past twenty four hours.
But there's another one. I'm sure you saw this. It
also involves Lebron James. I cannot this guy can.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Find that entire Lakers conversation. Not one time until now
did you say or anybody say Lebron's name. It was
just Lakers, because the Lakers are currently and were before,
more than just Lebron. You know, that's the big deal,
big name, big story fifty I don't need to say that,
but there's only a handful of players. You're gonna say,
the best player in the NBA, one of the best

(45:08):
players in the NBA, and he continues to play with
one of them both before and after the trade. Those
players Davis before and Doncic now they matter to the
coverage of the league, to where the league's going. And
only one of those two players was actually in the
last game of the season last year because it was
a conference champion. Now he's on Lebron's team. Yeah, it

(45:31):
does matter. Those other things matter, and they were the
big game last night and it was a great game.
But we don't want to talk about the basketball. We
want to talk about the talkie talkies talking at each other, right,
we want to talk about the off court activities.

Speaker 6 (45:43):
Lebron did that. If you want to ask my opinion
on it, which what made it what it is? I
can't wait to find out what it is. But we
do need to take a quick break here. We'll be
right back after the top of the hour.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham talking your Teams.
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team A team.

Speaker 6 (46:18):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety Friday
edition of the program. It will be cut short when
the Astros and the Cardinals get together for spring training.
Action coming up here in a couple of hours will
make uh, We'll make way for that, and the uh
Astros will continue their dominance in spring training. I don't

(46:39):
even it's so ridiculous, Like are of all the preseasons.
I don't want to say it's the least consequential, because
there's clearly jobs that are to be gained and had
and all that kind of, but I just feel like
there's so many games.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Well it's it's overkilled in their case, but their situation
is different. They don't everybody that's gonna play on your
football team is available for every game. Everybody that's gonna
play on your basketball team is available every game. Twenty
some odd people in camp are not available every single game,
and twelve to fifteen of them are only available every

(47:17):
fifth game for the pitchers that they need some sort
of significant ramp up. And then even when we get
to the regular season. March twenty seventh, Fromberval does on
his eighty fifth pitch as he spins a one hitter
against the Mets. They're like, we gotta get them out
of there. That's enough. Eighty five pitches in the first
game of the year, that's enough. We gotta move on.

(47:38):
I can't believably even let them go this long, and
it'll be a probably a two or three starts before
pretty much anybody would be unleashed completely. So from that standpoint,
that's the only unfortunate part. But from a record standpoint,
it's pretty much across the board. It is completely irrelevant
what your team's record is. Probably in the NFL and
in the Major League Baseball situation, it's optionally irrelevant. NFL

(48:02):
quarterbacks and their most important players. You got three games,
that's one hundred and eighty minutes of football. What do
they play twenty minutes? Maybe? Who cares if you win
or lose a game with your backups and your seventy
fifth through ninetieth players that aren't going to be on
your team. With baseball, I mean, who's on the field
for the final four innings of every minor league game

(48:23):
or every spring training game. A bunch of guys aren't
going to play for you. Your record is. It's why
I have not said at one time this entire spring,
and it won't. It's not relevant. How individuals perform when
they're against like individuals is important. When some of your
lower level minor leaguers are getting an opportunity and they're
getting a chance to see double and triple A pitching,
maybe major league pitching, that's pretty significant. When Cam Smith

(48:44):
gets a start and he plays and faces major league
caliber pitching, which he really didn't do yesterday. He faced
good pitching, but it's probably not major league caliber pitching.
That stuff matters. Why do you think Josh Hater came
into the game early yesterday so he could face major
league hitters.

Speaker 6 (48:58):
Well, he's gonna have to come in early to face
major league hitters because they won't be playing later in
the game.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Yes, exactly. And even in the case of Gusta, who
was optioned out by the team today, he went through
the Mets lineup more than once. The Mets lineup, which
certainly the top five or six were their regulars, guys
that will be in the lineup when they come to
Houston in a couple of weeks. So you should go
by Gusto. I think it is Gusto. This is one
of those even though it's so simple it's.

Speaker 6 (49:27):
Fine, but I just feel like that's that's the word
that you use in the terminology, so I feel like
I would know.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
I'm sure they will. I'm sure Garrett will get it
right during his maybe the opening day start for the
Space Cowboys this year.

Speaker 7 (49:38):
You're probably right that it is, Gusto.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
I mean, all you have to do is listen to
the game yesterday, which I'm fully acknowledging I missed part of,
but I tried my best.

Speaker 7 (49:48):
I think it's okay. I don't think we're gonna.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
On television, so I watched it so I could see
what was happening.

Speaker 6 (49:56):
You don't just go by the clips of the guys
who did something on social media.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
Someone could tell me cam Smith could have fielded the
hot shot ground or a third base, or I could
have wish watched it and make my own assumption on
whether he should have fielded it or not. That's true.
Same thing with his hot shot to Vereling. I mean,
they didn't know if he was gonna score it. They
were gonna score it an era or a hit, and
I saw it, I thought, yeah, absolutely, that's a hit,
and you'd be Alex Bregman might not have even stopped

(50:19):
that ball at third base. He's too busy hitting home.

Speaker 7 (50:22):
You can't you can't be the eye test if it's
not your eyes.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Yeah, I tend to believe that my eyes tell me
for the first time in a long time. Uh, the
non city specific baseball team that shares the same division
as the Astros is doing smart things and getting very
very I think lucky that two players on their team
are on board with it. They're two best players. I'm

(50:48):
talking about the team that will play in Vegas this
year that does not like to have a city attached
to their name unless they're building their own graphics.

Speaker 6 (50:54):
So I thought you were talking about the Rangers because
they don't really play in oh they have it.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
They have they have a state name attached to them. Yeah,
even though there's more than one team in the state.
But the as a listing on the Major League Baseball pages,
it just says Athletics doesn't have a city attached to them.
The A's actually put out some new renderings of their ballpark,
although they looked exactly like the old renderings, except they
updated the batting lineup for both teams in the fake

(51:21):
game they were playing. By the way, A's nine Yankees nothing.
In the third inning of that game, Aaron Judge was
leading the Yankees and hitting he was sitting just a
shade below three hundred. They did jazz on Dominga's dirty
and had him hitting in the low two twenties.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
They did.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
I guess it was an early season game or a
late season game, I should say, because gian Carlo stant
was in the lineup for the Yankees. Every batter in
the A's lineup had at least the two to seventy
average in the fake game that they mocked up in
their graphics. So okay, we'll see. But what I was
getting at is they got both Brent Rooker and Lawrence
Butler to agree to long term extensions this offseason and

(51:59):
when play allow the team to buy out their arbitration years,
like Christianavier, like Jordan Alvarez, like Alex Bregman before them.
One hundred percent of the time it's a team friendly deal,
and in both of these cases, in my opinion, it is,
and we'll look at it even this year and the
year after and the year after two three years into

(52:20):
the Butler deal and they're only playing this guy nine
million in change, and the Rooker deal is comparably incredibly
team friendly. They were two of the best fifteen hitters
in the American League last year for the final four
months of the season, and Rooker was one of the
best hitters, probably one of the best five or six hitters.
They both played for the same team, and they both
locked up long term for a team that we've been
enjoying having a part of this division because they certainly

(52:42):
don't care about keeping good players. It wasn't very costly,
which again, if the players and their agents are on
board with it, then you can do it. Butler would
have been making hundreds of thousands of dollars only for
the next several seasons. So I can understand from his standpoint.
I was a rookie last year. I had a great year,
and they want to give me sixty five and a
half million. I'm supposed to say no to that, but

(53:03):
it is, it will be, and soon will show dramatically
that it's a team friendly deal. How Meluss he falls
on his face, which he won't, he's too talented.

Speaker 6 (53:11):
What's the capacity of that new stadium again, like minute
mats forty.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Two, probably if the standing room only is what they
hope in the neighborhood of twelve to thirteen thousand.

Speaker 7 (53:20):
That is unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Same thing and for Tampa home games this year because
of their ballparks.

Speaker 7 (53:25):
That no, no, I'm talking about the new ballpark in
Vegas when they build it.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
Oh, it's I believe it was in the neighborhood of
thirty low thirty. It'll be the smallest ballpark in BASEB
by far right. I'll have to double check that, but
it was. It was on the smaller side.

Speaker 6 (53:40):
I mean, if you think about it, I believe, and
I could be wrong on this.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
I just want to make sure you can still look
out the back window and see the lion at the MGM.

Speaker 6 (53:50):
Is that the direction we'll be facing over the left field,
left center field? You'll see it right out there. How
are the windows? How is that in relation to the
gigantic fear which I can't wait to see totally other
end of the strip. I can't believe it's been so
long since I'll be.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Able to see it. But it's totally on the other end. Yeah, Okay,
thirty three thousand is the estimated number I believe that
they're running out there.

Speaker 6 (54:15):
I mean, I guess that's still much bigger than an
NBA arena.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Twice the size for some, but a lot of them
are more like nineteen to twenty.

Speaker 6 (54:22):
Right, I think either the United Center or maybe even
Madison Square Garden holds the most in the NBA. But
don't quote me on that.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
The house that Scottie built, you think is one of
the biggest.

Speaker 7 (54:32):
He didn't build that house.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
Oh the house that Buchler built.

Speaker 6 (54:36):
Yes, jud Bushler. Steve Kerr, No, no, Steve Kerr didn't
build any house. Just played with the greatest and then
rolled out the ball for some other good go coach
the greatest, Yeah, did so did the lesser Walton for
a large chunk of the season during their best season,
by the way, that didn't end in a championship. So yeah,

(54:59):
I can't. I cannot believe there's they're going to. I mean,
there has to be a small the smallest stadium in
Major League Baseball. But I just can't believe after everything
that went into them finally leaving Oakland one of the
more storied franchises in Major League Baseball, at least from
a longevity standpoint, if not from a winning standpoint, because
they haven't done a lot of that lately.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
That that's what they settled on Vega. It's only fair.
They've been playing in the biggest one.

Speaker 7 (55:27):
Yeah, I guess that's true.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
Fifty thousand plus and once upon a.

Speaker 6 (55:31):
Time they showed I was about to say once upon
a time they used to fill it.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
Well, it is to me, it's even more significant. There's
you'd be surprised how many of the capacities are under
forty thousand, but thirty three thousand is a significant drop
off from I think every stadium except maybe Cleveland, which
I think is in the low thirty five's or a
neighborhood of It's about it, all right, Duke and Park
much larger, Yes, yes, out about forty one thousand and

(55:57):
whatever number they choose for any given night, forty.

Speaker 6 (56:01):
And six. All right. When we come back, there's been
another release in the NFL that I think should get
the attention of the Texans and their fans. We'll explain
that when we come back.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety back to Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler, the eighty.

Speaker 6 (56:36):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety Friday
edition of the program. So we're in the season of cuts.
I mean, we're in the season. A lot of things
going on in the NFL. But you mentioned Jack Mason
with the Texans earlier today, he can no longer plague
our souls.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
It was unfortunate what turned into last season for him.
The interior of the line was really, really poor. He
was poor. Probably caught a break that the focus outside
the building was on the other side with the work
given by Kenyon Green. But this is why the product
as a whole was so poor. To the both guards
were poor. Simply put. Texans will save a little bit

(57:17):
of money before the league year, about two point one million,
which begins on March twelfth. They'll save an additional seven
million in cap space in both instances when that post
June first release posts. But Mason will be looking for
work elsewhere. He came over here in trade from Tampa.
Had a good enough year last year that I don't
think they were tremendously concerned about any drop off this year.

(57:39):
But there was a significant drop off and a look
at what the guard market is and what you might
be able to do if you're committed to spending money
on it. I don't think it's a great group of players.

Speaker 6 (57:51):
Well.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Fries of the Colts is somebody to note. Kevin Zeidler
is somebody to note. Certainly in Zeitler's case, that's an
extremely expensive option. Many teams will be looking at it,
older player but still playing at a very very high level. Yeah,
this could end up looking at You could look at
it from the Texans standpoint. Well, they're now they're paying
even more money to that position, on top of about

(58:12):
five million in change of dead cap that you're now
going to be hit with in Mason's case. But I
gave you the as simply put as I could give
it to you earlier this week. Do you want to
pay Shaq Mason fourteen million dollars in cash or ten
point whatever on the cap to play for you? Or
do you want to pay five million dollars in cap
space to not have him play for you? And they

(58:34):
they've chosen the second of the two options, which.

Speaker 6 (58:36):
That comes down to with most of these guys, unless
they're really, really old, it's okay to give a glance
to the market if you really believe it's so poor,
like I can let Shack Mason go.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
Great, I saved a couple of bucks. It's going to
help us, you know. Redo Kirks deal. It's going to
help us go sign a player at another position. But
if there's nobody to go sign, if there's nobody to
put an into his place as a replacement, that's better,
then you'd give it a second thought. I think there's
people that weren't covering the Texans quite as closely that think, well,

(59:06):
it's not crazy money to pay a guard, and now
you're going to have to probably go pay crazy money
to a guard or draft one in hope. So it's
not a slam dunk type of move. And I would say,
otherwise your option is playing him. That's no longer a
viable option. So this is the move.

Speaker 6 (59:23):
So in that vein, and you actually mentioned this, well,
Tom Pellisario is the one that tweeted it what you quote.
Tweeted the fact that the Titans are releasing pass Rusher
Harold Landry.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
Titans have made it official now as well, twelve minutes ago,
posting we love you, you were great, we'll miss you
type of beat it bonvoyage. They didn't say beat it,
did they No, they did not say beat it. But
Harold Landry is not a Titan anymore. Another player late
in his contract that they felt it was unnecessary to
follow through on signed a lucrative extension a handful of

(59:57):
seasons ago, three seasons ago, and played every bit to
it after he was hurt the very first year of
the deal. He missed the entire season with an ACL injury.
But it didn't matter at all. Last two years, there's
twelve thirteen. Maybe he's definitely top fifteen in my book,
one of the top fifteen edge rushers in the league,
and now he's one of the top edge rushers available.

(01:00:20):
If you look at it from Tennessee's point of view,
sure you're saving money. But they attempted to trade him.
Jonathan Allen with the Redskins thempt are commanders. They attempted
to trade him. Both were unsuccessful, and financially speaking, they
chose to go this route so they could deal with
their cap. The Titans aren't gonna from a football standpoint,
doesn't matter if Harold Lander's a Titan or not this year.

(01:00:41):
They're not gonna win with or without him. So maybe
you view it as well, we might as well get
started on the not paying him so we can send
that money on a younger player or a player we
believe in more. I guess, and he's gonna be here
for the next several years because as soon as Landry's
contract is up, we're not going to be the team
resigning him, So go ahead, but just to drop him,
that's purely financial. It's, in my opinion, has nothing to

(01:01:02):
do with his play, and there's plenty of players out
there that get to this point that doesn't have anything
to do with their play. He's awesome. Harold Landry is
a game wrecker to me. He's just not first tier.
He's not quite what Daniel Hunter, John Gernard, TJ. Watt
and the list of will Anderson junior. He is very
close to it, though he's right on the other side

(01:01:23):
of it. Nine and a half plus sacks each of
the last two years. You know, thirty six quarterbacks combined
over the last two years, and both years were good,
not one year one one good, one bad and not
yet thirty a really really good player to let go.
But if you're bad, and it doesn't matter if you're
spending money on a good player or spending less money
on a bad player or not as good player, it

(01:01:43):
doesn't matter to them. So Landry probably ends up in
a very good situation. It's a good time I would
think to for him at this stage of his career
to go into free agency.

Speaker 6 (01:01:52):
Well, that's my next obvious question. Where is he likely
to land? I know it's very early to me, as
I don't know if I conveyed it in the quote suite.
I was looking at it this way.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
This is good news for the Texans because unless he
signs with the Jaguars or Colts, he's not running into C. J.
Stroud maybe at all this year, and any players that can,
the fewer that can, the better. He played every game
against the Texans, the Titans, are the Colts, and the
Jaguars every year of his career since being a starter
in twenty nineteen, other than twenty twenty two, he was

(01:02:23):
super successful against all of them. Where does he land?
I don't know what team, any team that's Houston, maybe Minnesota.
There's very few teams that are locked up. It's unfortunate
from a timing standpoint that the Texans they're not even
there's no phone call to even make. They can't sign
an edge rusher. He's awesome, but he won't be playing here.

(01:02:44):
Every other team that isn't locked down with two elite guys.
So Pittsburgh's probably one of those teams, Houston's probably one
of those teams. Maybe there's four or five other teams.
Any team that is trying to win should be picking
up the phone and talking to his agent. Absolutely, and
he's gonna get paid big in my opinion.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
That part right there though, like how often do we
see all these teams that are competitive. It's because they
have good players on the roster that they're either already
paying or they're about to have to pay their own,
and that makes it harder for guys like this to
join a quote unquote winner, like even the Eagles, I
think Saquon and uh oh geez, who's the linebacker they

(01:03:22):
just resigned. Yeah, I think people were shocked about the
Bond deal because they just thought, well, that's just going
to be somebody that they let walk because he's going
to command too much money, and they didn't they.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
Knew how much he meant to their defense. They've been
reluctant to pay players at his position for years. He
was all world arguably the best player at his position
in the whole NFL. This year they won the Super Bowl,
their defense was great. They made the smart move now
Darius Slay and James Bradberry were two people they had
to let go. From a cap standpoint, Bradbury a little

(01:03:55):
bit less on the field recently, and obviously Slay's still
playing and will get a nice deal, so we're probably
short term for where he is in his career. But
you got teams on the other each end of the spectrum.
The Eagles are trying to make sure that they can
blend their tremendous draft picks with their extremely expensive star players.

(01:04:15):
I mean, their offense is ridiculous. They're paying Smith, they're
paying Brown, they're paying Hurts, they're paying Barkley, they're paying
Lane Johnson, and that there's four other linemen. I mean,
the amount of money that they're able to navigate through
the cap with is incredible. We didn't even mention one
other thing from a Texan standpoint today. From a financial standpoint,
a second restructure has been completed Nico Collins earlier this week,

(01:04:39):
and as he's Al Shaire who's only in year two
of his deal, just like Nico into his extension. This
is how you make your cap a better situation. It's
not hard and you just face the obvious. We're going
to create we're taking advantage of all the loopholes. Void
years come on around. This player hadn't been with us
for how long and we're paying for I'm still on

(01:05:00):
the cap, no problem because it's not this year. His
cap figure for this year went down to the tune
of saving up about five point six million. You added
a void year to a contract for a player that
only signed for three years to begin with, and there's
still more work to do. Any time, you can create
space when you want to go out there and win.

(01:05:21):
The Texans were as splashy as splashy could get last offseason,
and they won't quite be there this year, but they
didn't accomplish anything with that. They're getting there. They're in
a greater better position this year to take a step
than they were a year ago. So all indications are
with the restructures, the moving on from Mason and going
out to get Christian Kirk, who you're going to pay

(01:05:45):
it says they're going for it again. They're creating space
so they can actually spend money on at least one
player that's out there in free agency, beyond the player
they've added via trade in Christian Kirk. That's what they
continue to do. That's what the Shire move does. That's
what the Collins move does. They're in the namehborhood of
twenty million. They gain a tremendous amount of space. When
the Mason deal becomes an official release date, they're in

(01:06:07):
position to still be players, just not for as many players.

Speaker 7 (01:06:11):
I the moral of the story is the Titans are
going to suck next year.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Well that's the thing, So Harold Landry's going to do
what for them? It makes some huge play in the
fourth quarter of a game that gets them their seventh win.
Reality is, they don't. They don't want a seventh win.
They want five wins. They want four wins.

Speaker 6 (01:06:26):
So they can finally draft their franchise quarterback the following year.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
Well, it's interesting that when that news came out, abduall
Carter posted something that many people took incorrectly. I of
course sent it out there with no comment other than
the eyeball emoji. But he has been on a Top
thirty visit with the Titans this week. Was erroneously reported
that it was today, was actually yesterday, and the reporter

(01:06:49):
corrected his mistake. But just interesting to see abduall Carter
post grinning face with smiling eyes emoji. Not long after
a player at his position where he's going to be drafted,
possibly number one overall by that team, was reportedly released.

Speaker 6 (01:07:05):
And then you took the gas can and poured it
all over that fire with your eyeballs emoji. Your eyes.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
You're supposed to interpret that as you wish your plane game. Hey,
look here, that's all.

Speaker 6 (01:07:17):
Did you?

Speaker 7 (01:07:17):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (01:07:18):
Speaking of eye test, when we come back, I can't
wait to get your reaction on what happened on the
floor the Lakers home floor.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Last night, the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Myers crushes it said, goodbye.

Speaker 5 (01:07:37):
Hey, Jake Myers, catch every Astros game on Sports Talk
seven ninety before.

Speaker 6 (01:07:42):
The iHeartRadio app Home of your Astros. All right, did
the eight team Sports Talk seven ninety X and AC
with you on a Friday at issue of the program
already had a little bit of beef exchange between Kendrick
Perkins and Charge Barkley on the program because the NBA

(01:08:02):
is nothing if not filled with drama at all times,
and the you know, one of the sticking points in
that confrontation was the fact that you know, Charles is like,
all right, stop trying to force the Lakers down our
throats because they've had a nice little run of late
in his opinion, and start paying attention to some other
storylines out there. But unfortunately for him and other people,

(01:08:27):
when when Lebron James decides he ain't happy with something,
he's not usually quiet about it, and it might not
always come directly from him, but it did last night.

Speaker 7 (01:08:42):
Stephen A.

Speaker 6 (01:08:42):
Smith, you know, Loudmouth, recently freshly signed to a new
one hundred million dollar contract broadcaster that allows him, to,
by the way, have political opinions now. Apparently that's part
of his new deal with with the ESPN. Apparently he
rubbed Lebron the wrong way when it comes to Bronni
And you know, Lebron could have, I guess, reached out

(01:09:06):
in any number of different ways, at least if you
listen to how Stephen A. Smith kind of came at
it when he reacted to it on first take. But
instead Lebron came up to him on the floor at
last night's game, and in what Stephen A Smith I
think felt was a very public setting relative to how

(01:09:28):
they could have done it. But again, if you're if
you're Lebron and you're upset about something that stephen A
Said Smith said publicly. Then maybe it's disingenuous for steven A.
Smith to get upset about it his confronting him in
a public setting.

Speaker 7 (01:09:43):
I think more like steven A.

Speaker 6 (01:09:45):
Smith happened to be in LA for the game and
was on the floor, and so Lebron's like, well, here
he is, I'll just go talk to him about it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Pretty simple, Yeah, But.

Speaker 7 (01:09:57):
Steven A.

Speaker 6 (01:09:58):
Smith didn't see it that way, and and he said
that Lebron basically was taking him to task for things
that he said about Bronnie in the past.

Speaker 7 (01:10:08):
Meaning you know.

Speaker 6 (01:10:09):
Lebron said, hey, you draft, you draft Bronnie, I come
to your team. Essentially is one of the things that
he put forth, which was something that Lebron.

Speaker 4 (01:10:18):
Said to the other NBA teams.

Speaker 6 (01:10:21):
I think he made that sentiment known that if you
draft Bronnie, you've got a good shot at getting me.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:10:29):
So stephen A.

Speaker 6 (01:10:30):
Smith, responding to you know what happened last night and
specifically how he would explain his side of things is
what I want to get to here.

Speaker 10 (01:10:41):
I would have said to Lebron James, I never would
speak negatively about your son. I was talking about you,
meaning you, lebron James. I have nothing but the best
wishes for Bronnie James. I wish him nothing but the best.
I hope that he flourishes into an NBA star. Usually

(01:11:03):
in other sports we see all stars, and on occasion
we'll see their children become stars as well. That doesn't
really happen with the NBA. I sincerely hope he's the exception.
By all accounts, he's a wonderful kid. And I don't
know anybody who roots against him, and it surely isn't me.
But in the same breadth, at the time that we

(01:11:23):
were talking about him, he was percolating to such a
degree that the Bronnie James stories had gone viral, and
so we had to talk about it. And when I
said the things that I said, I wasn't talking about
Bronnie James, because my attitude is he's a rookie. It's
gonna take some time and to get himself together. He'll

(01:11:44):
be just fine, especially with JJ Reddick and the staff
coaching him. I was talking about the position that he
was put in.

Speaker 6 (01:11:52):
By his dad. I mean, honestly, for the eighty billionth time,
what position playing on the Lakers with his eighteen times.
What do you mean eighteen times he's played in eighteen
games he's played.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
Who cares? That's what second round picks do.

Speaker 7 (01:12:09):
A lot of people, all of them.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
They're idiots, every one of them, one hundred percent of them.
People who are still on this Brownie James forced to
pick him stuff are absolutely freaking clueless, beyond clueless, forced
to pick him. Seven of the thirty second round picks
have played zero minutes in the league. He's played one
time in the first quarter of their entire season. He's

(01:12:31):
seen less than ten minutes of action in any of
the quarters, but the fourth quarter hasn't played in a
game that they haven't had a ten point margin of
victory or defeat since the first ten days of the season.
His season this year is identical to seventy five percent
or more of second round picks. That's completely missed by

(01:12:54):
everybody who creates this ridiculous narrative.

Speaker 6 (01:12:57):
Because he situation as all the useless, because his situation
is identical to zero percent of those No.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
His situation is the same. Lebron's situation is different. Ronnie's
this What do you ever notice? How we never hear
from Bronni we don't interview Bronny, we don't talk about
his basketball because he's just like the other second round
picks that aren't Jalen Wells or any of the guys
that aren't doing anything.

Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
But he's Lebron's kid on his team, which Lebron issue.

Speaker 4 (01:13:27):
None of this is what Stephen A.

Speaker 7 (01:13:29):
Smith's saying. That's what he just got done saying in
that SoundBite.

Speaker 4 (01:13:33):
But it's not that Lebron, Lebron getting him to be drafted,
I think is it's such a it shouldn't be treated
this way.

Speaker 6 (01:13:43):
Why that's what he did?

Speaker 4 (01:13:44):
Why is it so Why is this so bad? People
don't understand this? What is so bad about? Why are
we so hard up?

Speaker 7 (01:13:51):
Not until Lebron comes over and says, keep my kid's.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
Name the whole idea of what's gotten us to this point.
Who cares in such a negative way that Lebron James
is the one of the greatest players in the league
and now the only player in the league to play
with his son. Why is this such a negative? Why
do people hate it so much? He's just like all
the vast majority of not NBA caliber players that NBA

(01:14:19):
teams waste second round picks on or better than the
seven players who've played it.

Speaker 6 (01:14:24):
But because is it's a completely different scenario that he's
dealing with.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
Right, and get to the part that I want to
send people to. Here's the alternative. Nothing they draft John Johnson,
they draft European. That there's they didn't miss something. He
didn't force them to do, something that prevents them from winning,
that makes them worse, that wastes their assets. None of

(01:14:50):
those things happened. He doesn't play in games. He doesn't
matter to the Lakers at all this year, nor would
anybody they drafted. Okay, with the fifty.

Speaker 6 (01:14:59):
Pick, Why go out of your way to say, hey,
you better draft him or I might not play here.

Speaker 7 (01:15:05):
Why do that?

Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
That's just unneeded drama for a Lakers team that's clearly
doing everything in their power to make you happy so
that you don't leave, like going out and getting Luca.

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
What's wrong with any of those things?

Speaker 6 (01:15:18):
They're good nothing, they're talking to win nothing until there
is something wrong with it. James Harden and the Rockets
when it doesn't work and he's like, all right, I'm
out of here.

Speaker 7 (01:15:26):
Anyways, that's the NBA.

Speaker 6 (01:15:27):
I know, that's what you're gonna say, well, let me
ask you this, and I'm serious when I ask you,
hold on, hold on, let me ask the question, Jesus,
why why can you not just take anybody criticizing Lebron
James ever you get so upset about.

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
It, criticizing him. We can talk the rest of the
show on that.

Speaker 7 (01:15:47):
That's what we're doing.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
But it's all I'm trying to keep the focus where
it belongs. What the whole idea that Stephen A needs
to waste my time because it's now here on our
show talking about something that doesn't matter at all? He
should only I mean, it's insane to me that he's
so he's so incapable of doing that because he's the story.

Speaker 6 (01:16:10):
But really, right now, he's the story, Stephen. Why is
that wex.

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
Because he decided that people dumb enough like me would
begin to talk about it, because he talked about it himself.

Speaker 6 (01:16:22):
He why was he talking about it? Because he called
Lebron James. No, this is not, oh my gosh, we didn't.
Smith's full of himself. But Lebron isn't right? Is that
what I'm getting? Because Lebron is the one that went
up to him knowing that there was cameras on. All
of them made this big scene about it. And that's
what stephen A. Smith is talking about. If you want

(01:16:43):
to think that he's playing because of viewers and clicks
and all that, that's fine. That is, don't act like
one of them is that the one.

Speaker 4 (01:16:49):
I never said.

Speaker 7 (01:16:50):
That's how it's coming off.

Speaker 4 (01:16:51):
Though, Well, then let me finish jesus uh again it
has again if you want to call me Jesus I was.
I tried to make it that way. I just don't
feel like I feel like it's a waste of time
for most competent people, like what Charles was saying earlier,
like people who talk about the Lebron Michael stuff ad nauseum,

(01:17:13):
like I don't what's the debate. I guess there's people
that think this. I'm not trying to say nothing negative
about Lebron at all. But as stephen A got to
this this morning, I did watch it. I did not
feel the need to discuss it. But he said, I
didn't want to talk about this. I don't need to
talk about this. I wouldn't feel I went to bed
feeling I would not be talking about this. But and

(01:17:36):
then he explains all the reasons why. Of course he's
talking about this one hundred percent. Of course he's full
of himself. ESPN just told him, why, here's whatever number
of million dollars you just got again, as we're firing
everybody else because he if Kendrick wants to say the
Lakers saved the NBA, I think ESPN feels like steven
A is saving the station because they cannot get enough

(01:17:58):
of him. They compelled they want him to do this.
I'll just go to Kevin Love on the X platform.
He quote Sweeted steven A, who said, I didn't want
to have to address this. I wouldn't have either had
it not gone viral. These are steven A's words. Now
I have no choice. So Kevin said, you have no
choice question mark lol because it went viral. Question Mark Lol.
You didn't want to have to Lol. You wouldn't have lol.

(01:18:21):
I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Kevin Loves, longtime teammate of Lebron James, is absolutely going
to be in his corner. That should unquestionably be added
to the other NBA guys have to say about this
from a different perspective.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
Totally different side. Minor portion of this. NBA players do
not like this person at all. Oh, I can totally
see that. But to your point about he's just like
any other second round pick, yeah, I didn't even think
he would have been taken in the second round by
any other team he's that bad. Yeah, I don't know

(01:18:53):
about that. I really don't think he is that bad.
If you look at you know, what younger players do
in the in the G league or whatever, he's right
on par with what anybody else might be doing.

Speaker 6 (01:19:02):
As a.

Speaker 4 (01:19:04):
I would I would actually agree with you what he
did to get to this point. No, nobody's going to
draft he had a medical issue. Playing well at s
he's not going to get drafted off that. Now he's there,
he's performing like you would hope somebody you want to
develop would be performing. But Lebron has created all of
this for years. He created even more of it recently

(01:19:26):
with the face of the NBA stuff he had. You know,
I think there's some value to a face to face,
which I think is why Lebron did it. But yeah,
of course he knew everybody would see it. He could
have talked to stephen A in a bunch of different
places after last night's game. Five minutes from then, when
they were both in the back, or when he asked
him to go in the But it's the only good

(01:19:47):
part of steven a is that we didn't play. That
we don't need to play. Was when he said I
was sitting their court side with so and so representing
one of his representatives with his agency and Larry David.
I was there at the game.

Speaker 6 (01:19:58):
That I actually forgot about that part, and I meant
to say, oh, yeah, by the way.

Speaker 4 (01:20:02):
The thing, everything we just gave you for the last
fourteen minutes is more than one hundred percent a nothing
burger on Lebron James, Oh okay, it's absolutely there. I
don't I do sense as we go at it on
these things. And now you've got to remind me to
tell you a story from last night's watch party. The
focus does tend to be one for one against, and

(01:20:24):
it really shouldn't be. I'll try to present it a
little bit. I'm very hard on Lebron on the air.

Speaker 6 (01:20:28):
I admit that I think he's that's because I think
he's a fraud personality wise, I do. I mean, like
I can separate his greatness on the floor by knowing
that listen, Michael was a fraud in a lot of
ways because he was in total a hole then people
didn't know about that until later. But Lebron is just
it's so much more superficial. Just Michael was that way

(01:20:50):
because he wanted to win so badly and cut your
heart out. Lebron's like he's a different kind of diva.
They're both divas, don't get me wrong. A lot of
athletes are. Most of the best are.

Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
The Lakers have for some unfortunately put together a run
and a roster, then instead of playing only to mid April,
could be playing through May and into June this year
and additionally to ten weeks of this.

Speaker 7 (01:21:13):
How badly do.

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
You think the officiating will be when the Rockets play
the Lakers in the playoffs after all this.

Speaker 4 (01:21:19):
I don't know, probably pretty unsavory.

Speaker 6 (01:21:21):
It will be unhinged.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety Back to Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler eight on Sports Talk seven ninety
for the corner.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
Home of your restros.

Speaker 6 (01:21:42):
Do you want the well reasoned response to our exchange
last segment or do you want the mean response to
this situation?

Speaker 4 (01:21:49):
You can have one. I'll take one.

Speaker 6 (01:21:52):
Well, I'll give you the mean one, Okay, I'll take
the other one. It's not about this, Oh good, It's
not about our exchange. It's about the situation you're aware
of at stool Presidente. I'm aware. Yeah, he saw or
he clips the footage of Lebron going up to stephen
A Smith and.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Yeah, this is for those that don't know, it's an
eight second clip after the game. Steven A did have
court side seat, so's he's easy to find them if
you're in the crowd and shooting video. He walks over
to him and they have a bit of an exchange.
There may have been more before it, but you do
see the end of it because Lebron says what he says.

Speaker 7 (01:22:29):
How has somebody on way gotten the audio yet? Because
we always have that list.

Speaker 4 (01:22:33):
You can see Lebron's facing the camera that's shooting it,
the phone camera, so there's some lip readers out there.
And based on what steven A said about not being
able to repeat, it's probably pretty accurate about the anger
in his voice or the words that he used. But
it wasn't a very long exchange. But that's what that's
the confrontation that we're talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:22:51):
So Dave Portnoy, ever, the serious observer. Yeah, my heart
aches for Bronnie James. Kid doesn't belong in the NBA.
He can't quit. He didn't ask for this. His dad
created an impossible situation for him. He's a make a
wish kid in the NBA. I just hope his dad's

(01:23:11):
insatiable ego doesn't ruin his love for this beautiful game.

Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
Yeah. To Bronni's credit, he appears to have taken everything
that's come along with this for all the bad that
we've discussed pretty well in stride. Yeah, he's not been
a big story. He hasn't been any part of the story.
It's his basketball has been documented and criticized quite clearly.
His G League work nobody talks about, even though it's
perfectly fine. You know, twenty plus per five and five

(01:23:38):
a night, which is what players, even borderline players, they
can do there and they might not be able to
do that here, and currently he cannot do that here.
I'll give you the other version. Sean sent this our way.
Usually agree with you. WEX you can talk about teams
wasting second round picks. Truth is, Bronni doesn't get drafted
at all without LBJ was a gift not earned. LBJ

(01:23:59):
brought all this smoke he gets regarding this on himself.
And my response, still unsent, is that I did acknowledge
that at the end. I probably should have a little
bit earlier. If you look at his path to get here.
Pretty good high school player McDonald's All American sc doesn't
do anything and also had the major health scare, which
thankfully was only a scare. And he's fine and he played,

(01:24:19):
but he didn't play well. It'd be pretty hard to
turn what he had done there. Again, McDonald's All American
makes him sound like this unbelievable prospect. He was a
highly sought after high school basketball player as a high
school basketball player, nowhere near considered one of the best
players in his class, but yes, still a McDonald's All American.
Actually saw Lebron was here in Houston, and that game

(01:24:40):
was played here when he was a McDonald's All American
at Toyota Center. He had courtside seats for it. It was amazing.
But point being, I do acknowledge what he did leading
up to the year he got drafted. In my opinion,
he only declares for the draft because of the situation
he was in an opp unity to get drafted. And

(01:25:01):
play with his dad, and he only gets drafted even
at fifty five because the Lakers had the fifty fifth pick.
Again a reminder, the Lakers missed out on exactly three players.
They could have had it anybody they wanted at fifty five,
and then there were three more picks in the twenty
twenty four draft. They didn't draft him at thirty three
or thirty one or thirty seven.

Speaker 6 (01:25:22):
And people taking in that situation, whether they're browny or not,
typically don't contribute to your point.

Speaker 4 (01:25:27):
Like Jalen Well's plays for Memphis, he's really really good.
Jamal Shed plays for Toronto, really really good. Two second
round picks drafted way eighteen picks in Shed's case, ahead
of Lebron James kid, who was at the very end
of the round. But that's the side of the story.
I chose to discuss the whole other side of the story.
Like I said, we would never be off the air.

(01:25:47):
We could have a Lebron James Marathon broadcast and literally
Sean and Brian and Matt and Ross and Dan and
Doug and all our paid programming and the astros and
the Rockets, they could all take the month off because
we would never run out of topics to discuss that
we keep on all sides up. Well, I don't know
if that we'd do that. It takes me to the
story from last night you just heard. Got another time's

(01:26:08):
watch party coming up for Rockets basketball on the twenty first.
We had one last night for the victory over the Pelicans,
had some great food out there, hung out with some
great people, had some nice things for them to enjoy
from our friends here at Sports Talk seven ninety and
one of our listeners said, Yeah, I'd listen to you
when I'm on my way home from work every day,
and I just wanted to ask you something. I'm like, well,

(01:26:30):
what is it? Why do you guys fight so much?
I mean, it's almost like I'm making this up, but
that was literally the question she asked.

Speaker 7 (01:26:38):
She goes, oh, it's a woman that said this.

Speaker 4 (01:26:40):
She said, why do you guys fight so much? And
she added she doesn't really like it. She thinks so
sometimes it's too much.

Speaker 7 (01:26:46):
She probably didn't like that last segment.

Speaker 4 (01:26:47):
It's possible I maybe early enough in the day that
she's not kicked off from work yet and unfortunately she's
not fired up. The new and improved iHeartRadio. Have you
can listen to that right there in your office, right
there on the palm of your hand. And I know
you have, because as as we all do, we mentioned
it to you guys. Make Sports Talk seven ninety number
one on your presets right there on the new and
improved iHeartRadio app. Be Having presets is one of the

(01:27:09):
new items, so you can always find us right there
at number one, the station you love to listen to.
And I explained it to her, it is, as I
hope you could tell last segment, unplanned and unscripted. I
might know we're going to talk about that, but I
don't know what's gonna be said or the angle that
he's gonna take or I'm gonna take. I do know

(01:27:29):
he's probably gonna get mad at me for talking too much,
which he did last segment, and rightfully so I called.

Speaker 6 (01:27:34):
You a name.

Speaker 7 (01:27:35):
Yeah pretty not you, I think a nice one.

Speaker 4 (01:27:37):
But that's that's just what we what we do here,
the smoke part of it, and where things go with
him we can address probably on a different show. I mean,
after all, it's four o'clock.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
You're on the eighteen, the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:27:56):
Two.

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
Lifelong Houston sports guys named at him talking your ties.
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:28:08):
A team.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
Opportunity here on the A Team on a Friday kind
of reset. Some of the things that have taken place
over the last handful of hours, both this morning and
late last evening, including your Houston Rockets claiming a road victory,
something they were unable to do this past month of February.
Beat the Pelicans last night, very strong third quarter, very
strong game literally strength wise from Ament Thompson who was

(01:28:33):
brutalizing the ten last night to the tune of eight dunks,
and the Rockets got a much needed victory. They are
being chased and the gap has been closed. They also
fell back of all three teams that they led for
much of this season, the Lakers, the Grizzlies, and the
Denver Nuggets. Maybe an opportunity to send things back in
the right direction. The same Pelicans team they beat last night,

(01:28:54):
they have in town on Saturday night, the first of
six consecutive games at Toyota Center. Orlando and Phoenix are
the next two. None of those games are from a
back to back variety, so hopefully that also bodes well
for the Rockets continue to play without Fred van Vliet
last night, obviously offensively putting up the points they did

(01:29:15):
even with a less than stellar fourth quarter of offense,
they can do things well enough to win games. Probably
could have hung onto the basketball a little bit better
than they did. And again that's not a Fred thing.
That's a we're careless with the basketball thing. Some bad
angles on bounce passes, some dribbling into traffic. That it's
a very common email Udoka discussion point. I'm sure we

(01:29:38):
have a few for each of the last you know,
five or six head coaches. Things that they always go
back to in their comments about the team because the
team continues to do those things. You know, when Kevin
McHale was the head coach and the ball on offense
would get sticky, wasn't moving enough, they weren't throwing passes.
I do remember the sticky days. He said that a
lot e may in He's accurate. Also, he says that

(01:30:01):
they play in traffic too much. You know, Jalen Green's
out on top. He dribbles by his man into three
Pelicans and they lose the ball Outprinch Schngoons gets the
ball back to the basket, dribbles into three pelicans and
loses the ball. It just happens too often when it's avoidable,
because if there are three pelicans on you or any opponent,

(01:30:22):
probably can find somebody else who has no pelicans who
or an opponent on them.

Speaker 6 (01:30:26):
Were you impressed at how they somewhat contains Zion last night?

Speaker 4 (01:30:31):
I brought it up at the beginning of the show,
never really expanded on it, and in a manner that
I said it was if there were teams considering if
the Pelicans called them and said, would you be interested
in his Ion Williamson trade, I don't think you would be.
They did a really nice job the games like that.
I really appreciate the roster that they have because you
have a very difficult, unique player to try to defend.

(01:30:54):
Zion is extremely unique in how you try to defend
him with one person, and the Rockets have so many
different one persons to throw at him. They usually succeed
with that group. Whether it's Dylan who was called out
positively by em after the game. I thought Tari did
a really nice job on him when he was defending him.
There's only so much that that Zion can do. Even

(01:31:17):
this far into his career, you don't have to guard him.
If he's twenty feet away, he's a he's not even
to attempt a shot, and if he does, that's like
a turnover. He let him so you are allowed to
position yourself where you want. And amazingly, and I think
it's very noticeable, like he doesn't really post up, he
fakes guy out, he faces his guy up and tries

(01:31:38):
to beat them off the dribble, over and over and
over again. They don't use him in pick and roll
very much, even though he's impossible to get around, because
if you didn't notice his basketball, you noticed what is
still obvious. He's humongous. There's no way this is his
best playing weight, and it never has been. And it's

(01:31:58):
always what he's been at, whether it's this number or
a higher number or a slightly lower number.

Speaker 7 (01:32:04):
You know what's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
Watch him move up and down the court. He doesn't
if they're on the break, any think he might get
a dunk out of it, He'll move fast. Otherwise, forget it.
You know who he is.

Speaker 6 (01:32:16):
He's what the MAVs try to tell us all Luca
is Oh my gosh, Well think about it. Think of
all the things that he was accused and now I'm
not saying like alcohol and all that kind I'm just
talking about from a weight and conditioning standpoint. He's exactly
what Nico Harrison is trying to make the world believe
Luca was behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 (01:32:34):
All while Luca is playing in the finals, He's being
all NBA First Team. You know where you're not going
to be brilliantly with the Lakers.

Speaker 7 (01:32:39):
You know where you're not.

Speaker 6 (01:32:40):
Going to be this summer Dallas in the finals or
even in the postseason.

Speaker 4 (01:32:45):
And I just, yeah, I would credit the Rockets quite
a bit because Phoenix, Utah and the Lakers were the
last three teams Zion and the Pelicans played, and Zion
averaged right under thirty points a game in those three games.
He shot seventy seven percent, seventy four percent, and sixty

(01:33:05):
one percent on fifty eight shots combined in those three games.
And then he played more minutes against the Rockets than
he did in any of those games, and they made
him go five for fifteen with four turnovers. He had
three turnovers combine. This is like the best stretch of
his whole season, and they said not tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:33:23):
I know they lost the Lakers game.

Speaker 4 (01:33:25):
With the other two they beat Utah on Phoenix, two
crappy teams with bad defenses.

Speaker 6 (01:33:31):
Why I can't I still I can't bring myself and
protector in Utah but they're not a good defense. Why
can't I still can't bring myself to call Phoenix crappy
when they have two of the best players in the NBA,
which is wild.

Speaker 4 (01:33:42):
Crappy defense, yeah, but very bad.

Speaker 6 (01:33:44):
I just still don't. They started the season eight and one.

Speaker 4 (01:33:48):
And Durant got hurt and they immediately fell. But now
since he came back, which he's been healthy for most
of the rest of the season, they never really were
able to turn it back on again. So that's one
item we have not visited much. Obviously, we're getting set
for a second straight game of Astros baseball. First pitch
just after five pm yesterday was the camp Smith show again,
as he's now piled up seven hits during his springs

(01:34:09):
worth of work, three of them coming yesterday after three
different probably minor league caliber pitchers for the Mets at
least at the onset of this season. But nonetheless, it's
pretty nice when your prize prospect who you just acquired
who you reluctantly had to give up Kyle Tucker to
do so, is hitting any pitches in game action at
one eight point two off the bat consistently smashing balls

(01:34:32):
all over the field, and he just continued to give
them pause to whatever their original plans were they might
have planned on. We haven't seen him play in our
system at all. He's barely played above double all. He'll
be at Corpus Christy to start the year. This will
be great. We're gonna fast track him by starting him
at Corpus. Maybe maybe they'll think otherwise with the pitching,

(01:34:53):
he'll continue to get to see and what they think
he can be with his development. Spencer Areghetti gets the
ball tonight. If he's so up any fly balls to
left field early in the game, which is when he'll
be pitching, then Jose Al Tuve will be on the
receiving end of those catches, outs and whatever else he
might do. And obviously, news from the football side is

(01:35:13):
an ongoing, never ending process, probably for the next seven
days straight, this weekend, probably even tonight, there's gonna be
a massive news dump. You know, March Triday, after all,
it is March tenth, is the day where we can
start getting reports that, oh, they've come to an agreement,
they're far along in negotiations, but they can't sign their

(01:35:34):
deal yet. And then on March twelfth, everybody's in compliance
with the salary cap, the new league year begins, the
announcements of the deals will come in from agents and
soon after the teams, and then the second wave of
free agency probably is not that far behind. The Texans
are positioning themselves by restructuring Nico Collins deal. They've restructured
his ease, Al Shayer's deal as he signed a free

(01:35:54):
agent deal for better than thirty plus million last offseason.
They have released according to reports on all these fronts,
Shaq Mason, Aaron Wilson reporting that first this morning about
two point one million dollars in cap savings today, more
coming as a June first release. And they traded for
Christian Kirk yesterday for a seventh round pick. You know

(01:36:16):
what I think around seventh round picks late in the draft,
they're all just kidding.

Speaker 7 (01:36:20):
A little bit less than sixth round pick.

Speaker 4 (01:36:22):
It's probably not the fourth to last pick in the
draft like the NBA side of it. But Christian Kirk,
if you didn't hear us yesterday that news broke while
we were on the air. I couldn't have dead panned
and monotone by initial thought. You were talking about some
other NFL news at the time when the news broke,
and I said, blah blah blah, Texas are traded for
Christian Kirk. What I meant to say was, this is awesome.

(01:36:44):
The Texans have traded for Christian Kirk. It only cost
them a seventh round pick, which is nice that Nick
compile or loads them up each and every off season
so he has them to move like he did with
Joe Mixon. And I'm not saying that it's awesome because
Christian Kirk's going to clearly be great for this team.
It's a point of emphasis that this team is telling

(01:37:05):
you they know what their problems are, they want to win,
and they're going to make moves that aren't obviously unquestionably
going to be great, but they have the chance to be.
That's all you can say. I remember my attitude about
Joe Mixon last year. I wasn't over the moon about them.

Speaker 6 (01:37:21):
Actually, I felt like you were kind of down on that.
I was kind of surprised by it.

Speaker 4 (01:37:24):
Yes, absolutely and then they redid his deal and they
redid're gonna redo Kirks deal. So these are just a
couple of things we obviously want to continue to spend
a little bit of time on here in this hour
of the program. But before we call it a day,
we'll still have an opportunity to hook you up with tickets,
because for those of you that were listening earlier, that's
our thank you to you for listening to us earlier.
The kids that we are, we got tickets to go

(01:37:46):
see the Roughnecks and their season opener. Got tickets to
go see Journey coming up next week. So that's coming
your way as we continue here in what is today
the final hour of the A Team.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:38:01):
The A Team continues one Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:38:16):
A Team rolling along here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
It's been an interesting show today. Now I hope that uh,
that listener that came up to you last night was listening.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
I do too, and hopefully she will continue. We talked
about quite a few different things, but one of the
other subjects that usually gets a pretty fired up reaction
in here is the discussion about recognition of the one
major issue. And it's amazing that these two gentlemen, Jamiko
Ryans and Nick Cassario have worked together for these past
two years. And if you were, you know, playing cards,

(01:38:49):
if you were, you know, applying for jobs, if you were,
you know, taking a test, they'd be crushing it on
all fronts, but in one area they would be like,
I mean, I graded you out and you got a
nine and a half out of ten for this, and
you got a nine out out of ten for that
and ten out of ten here. I mean, this is
a gorgeous looking report card, but we kind of need

(01:39:11):
your parents to come in because this one area, you
guys are just just missing. You're just not understanding the
curriculum at all, and you're failing year in this is
we're heading into the third year of trying to not
have you fail this area. I mean, we can promote
you to the next grade, but nothing's gonna change. You're
not gonna be any smarter, You're not gonna be able
to keep up with everybody that's now advancing past you.

(01:39:33):
And it's the offensive line and if nothing else, the
acknowledgement of it's better for us moving forward with a
mystery solution at guard, then moving forward with Shaq Mason
as a we hope he plays better in year three
with us than he did in year two. We hope
he doesn't. You know, it can come back from the
injury he had late in the year, because he did

(01:39:55):
technically come back, but he certainly didn't come back and
play well in the one game that he played, which
I still can't I believe he played in considering how
the team was playing without him. But they by releasing him,
that's what they're saying. They're not going the route that
many thought they might. And I think we're hearing that
was strongly under consideration by the team, which is bring
in competition for him.

Speaker 6 (01:40:16):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:40:17):
I never' that means he's that's not the right person.
You know, when you bring in competition for a player,
that means you don't think they can do it and
you think they can be beaten out. Well, the player
you bring in, do they need that motivation because clearly
you want them to win the job. Well, now there's
no battle. I'm okay with that. The player they bring in,
you can have the job. That's why you're here. I

(01:40:38):
hope they bring in multiple players, whether it's draft picks
or multiple veterans, probably only one of whom they would
spend significant money on. But they need better competition because
their problems were not solved when their starters were off
the field. Their problems weren't solved when Kenyon Green couldn't
play because he got hurt, when Jared Patterson went in
for him for ten plays before he got hurt, and

(01:41:00):
then ultimately he went to center, and then Jewice Scruggs
shifted over to guard, and then Mason went down and
Titus Howard went in at guard and Blake Fisher went
to tackle. They just played musical chairs and there was
some improvement in their play. But they don't want some improvement.
They want to reach a different bar, and that means
they need a retooled line.

Speaker 7 (01:41:19):
And it's not nine and seven yet.

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
A retooled with one game to go, a retools line
is the is more than just here's some competition. Here's
a young player we had on the practice squad last
year and we have some belief in and we drafted
Blake Fisher with a second round pick and Juice with
a second so we still believe in them. Believe in them.
All you want but if you're OC and your quarterback

(01:41:44):
can't perform because of the play in front of them,
then believe in something else.

Speaker 6 (01:41:50):
Wasn't Chris Palmer the one that was like, either let
go or believe too much in?

Speaker 7 (01:41:56):
David Carr like, what.

Speaker 6 (01:41:57):
Was the scenario again? Remind me, I know you know
this because you were way more.

Speaker 4 (01:42:00):
I think we're unfortunately the timing of Gary's involvement in all.

Speaker 6 (01:42:05):
This because Gary got on the scene and said I
can fix him. That's the problem, and I'm not drafting
a gaust Young.

Speaker 4 (01:42:11):
In my opinion, I think that's what the owner wanted
to hear because that was his golden boy, I think,
and even four years into this career, I think he
wanted it to work and thought, I want to hire
a hook coach who can stay make sure, and clearly
he hired the if it was gonna work, Gary would guy.

Speaker 6 (01:42:31):
Two things work that Bob McNair was overly committed to
for far too long, David Carr and Natural Grass.

Speaker 4 (01:42:40):
It's still amazing to me that I know we've talked
about it so many times since two thousand and two.
There's so how many people are involved in the design
and the architecture and the plans.

Speaker 6 (01:42:51):
In this city where grass grows year round, they found
a way to build the one building that kept that
from happening.

Speaker 4 (01:42:58):
We're gonna have this big of an opening and the
son's going to be coming from over here, and here's
where the grass is going. All right, let's go.

Speaker 6 (01:43:04):
Maybe they should have thought more about their ecosystem.

Speaker 4 (01:43:07):
Maybe, So, I mean, we do have stadiums now with
grass on trays that.

Speaker 7 (01:43:11):
Slide out Arizona.

Speaker 4 (01:43:12):
Does that seems like it worked that heat. Yeah, that's right. No,
there's just some interesting ways to go about it. That
was one thing that they did. But yeah, rather than
grade the quality of the result, the fact that the
Texans are acknowledging the like it was, it was hard
for me to believe that they acknowledged they had a
problem last year, Like that's the first step. So I
heard acknowledging that there's a problem.

Speaker 7 (01:43:34):
Who does the intervention?

Speaker 4 (01:43:35):
Acknowledging there was a chansive line problem finally came with
this release. They didn't acknowledge it. Really, if you look
at what they did, Kenyon Green's not playing well, well,
we're not benching him. Kenyon Green's hurt well, I guess
we have to. Jack Mason's not playing well, Well, we're
not benching him. Shack Mason got hurt, well, I guess
we have to. They never really acknowledged that they needed

(01:43:55):
to make a change, or they felt so badly about
their reserves they wouldn't do it.

Speaker 6 (01:43:59):
Hopefully, the the cause of the battered quarterback syndrome is
finally addressed. Since we're talking about interventions and domestic issues.

Speaker 4 (01:44:07):
Here, DQS. It's a tough one to overcome.

Speaker 6 (01:44:09):
I'm not even making light of it, like I am
the guy who's in the outside of the relationship looking
in saying if you don't step in, I'm going to
because I'm tired of seeing the person I care about
get hurt all the time.

Speaker 7 (01:44:21):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 4 (01:44:23):
I think everybody knows you are not kidding.

Speaker 7 (01:44:26):
I love CJ. Stroud and everybody needs to know it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:29):
Yeah, a couple other moves that we're made today. Want
to get into a little bit more. We'll do that
on the other side. And something we've been talking about
you'll hear about next segment when you relay that information
to our producer so you can win those tickets I
mentioned earlier. All that still to come here on the
A team.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety Let's talk about
a proud partner of the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 6 (01:44:52):
And if we're talking about that, we're talking about Mocarum
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Speaker 7 (01:45:08):
And I'm hoping that.

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You're not hurt, and if you are, it's not too severe.
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Speaker 7 (01:45:55):
On nice Stream, Dave Us came about Frog Baseball Strike one.

Speaker 6 (01:46:02):
Hey your dummies, listen to Astros baseball and Rockets basketball
games on any device with the free i Heeart radio apps.

(01:46:24):
It is the eighteam Sports Talk seven ninety. Hey, the
summer of fun. How long have we gone until it
actually becomes summer again? That's I mean, we've been saying
summer a time since. Yeah, but when did we start
saying this last summer?

Speaker 4 (01:46:38):
Yeah? Okay, the actual summer.

Speaker 6 (01:46:40):
Yeah, well, it's always summer in Houston, frankly, even though
it just snowed several inches in this town about a
month ago. But anyway, eventually it'll get warm enough for
football or you know, going to the rodeo.

Speaker 7 (01:46:53):
Actually, it's already a warm, warm enough for that.

Speaker 6 (01:46:56):
You can get a four pack of tickets to the
Houston Roughnecks season opener against the Saint Louis BattleHawks that's
coming up on March twenty eighth. It'll definitely be warmer
By then at TDECU Stadium. It's a single game and
our single game and season tickets, I should say, are
on sale now at ticketmaster dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:47:14):
Or a pair of tickets to see.

Speaker 6 (01:47:17):
Most of the Journey lineup and the guy who sounds
like Steve Perry on March fourteenth at Rodeo Houston. Again,
I can't be as big of a fan of that
band as I am and not give that disclaimer, but anyways,
tickets and full entertainment lineup are available now at Rodeohuston
dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:47:33):
It's your choice.

Speaker 6 (01:47:35):
At seven one three two one two five seven ninety.
We've gone back and forth about a number of things today,
not the least of which was the thing that got
us most heated all day long. It was a confrontation
that happened on an NBA court last night. All I

(01:47:59):
need to know is where that court is located. What
city in America is that court located in. If you
can tell Dan that it's seven one three two one
two five seven ninety, you will be able to get
a choice of those two sets of tickets.

Speaker 4 (01:48:14):
Good luck, It's really hard. My Rocket's played last night
in New Orleans. That's wrong. There are only five other
NBA games. Good luck.

Speaker 6 (01:48:20):
Yeah, come on, now, it's a Friday. We're getting We're
throwing me a freaking boon here. That's what we're doing
right now. It wasn't Boston, wasn't New York. That's correct.

Speaker 4 (01:48:31):
Just trying to make it easy for you. Belove you guys,
want to send you out there. I want to make
things work for you.

Speaker 7 (01:48:36):
I mentioned there.

Speaker 4 (01:48:36):
We're a couple of other NFL items. One of them
we haven't even discussed. James Gladstone, busy reshaping his brand
new football team in Jacksonville for his brand new head
coach and his brand new executive. They also said goodbye
to several other players beyond Christian Kirk being traded at
the Texans, a couple of other receivers targets, if you will,

(01:49:00):
Devin Duvernet and they're tight end Evan Ingram. Ingram, like Kirk,
was a prize acquisition for the Jaguars a couple of
seasons ago, when they were looking past the Irvan Meyer
era and looking to their number one overall pick, Trevor
Lawrence and saying, we got to get this guy's weapons,
and those are two of the big weapons they spent
good money on to go get and while recently people

(01:49:23):
here in Houston probably regard Evan Ingram as one of
the hey, we can't have this, let's fight after his
e's Al Shaier leveled Trevor Lawrence. But I would also
note that he's in a pretty small group. He's near
the top of the list. If you go back to
his time the last four NFL seasons, he's fourth in

(01:49:43):
the NFL in receptions per game. He is many times
during his time in Jacksonville, they couldn't get anything going,
so he would just throw to Ingram twelve times in
a game. This is what you know. Ingram had one
year where he had a case of the dropsies, but
that's not really his NFL profile. Also should note that
they didn't just release him. Aaron Wilson reported they released

(01:50:04):
him with a failed physical designation. I'm not sure what
that would entail, but I'm gonna try to source this
information out. You think Evan Ingram is on the X platform,
I'm gonna go with yes, he is at easy. Ingram
twenty one hours ago, he posted the following late last

(01:50:24):
night or early last night. It's all love Jack's but
they just led a bleep dog loose excited for what's
next hashtag be easy. My guess is he's perfectly capable
of participating in any and all football activities necessary with
his future team. There probably was a legitimate reason why

(01:50:44):
that designation was associated with his release, but I do
think any team looking for a quality tight end, and
some years are better than others on the free agent
market with tight ends. He is the regardless of how
much time he's been in the league where regardless of
this is team letting him go. There were cap savings

(01:51:05):
involved with this, about six million bucks. But there are
some who cover the Jaguars that think these moves were
more made of let's move on from what we've been
and let's go try to get better and find better players.
If they think they can find a better tight end
for their offense. And he missed time last year's significant time,
played about half the season and that's noteworthy, then by

(01:51:27):
all means, go out and find someone who can contribute
more than that. He's been a pretty reliable pass catcher
both with the Giants and then more recently with the Jaguars.
I think he can be an asset in Nick Cayley's offense.
I doubt it he ends up here, but I would
absolutely inquire about him. Even with three tight ends on
the roster and under contract, Dalton Schultz, the returning Brevin Jordan,

(01:51:52):
and second year Katee Stover.

Speaker 6 (01:51:54):
There's a couple of things I wanted to get to
as far as NFL, and that's one of them. Is
obviously tech related. We keep seeing fairly substantial offensive lineman
trades well ones in Kansas City at least, is part
of Nick Cassario's retooling of the line going to involve

(01:52:19):
a trade? And if so, is it like something that
no one sees coming, like at a left field, like
we didn't even know that the team was making that
player available, or is it more so just we're going
to try and draft, We're going to try and coach
up what we have that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:52:34):
I think it's a combination of all those things. If
I can gm the answer for you, we'll exhaust all avenues.

Speaker 7 (01:52:40):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:52:41):
Contractually, you could just say, well, this guy's in the
last year of his deal and he's over twenty seven,
and this guy's in the last year of a lucrative
deal and he's thirty. Those are the players that you
usually can pick up the phone for their GM and say,
is this a situation where you know, I have a
pretty good idea. It's a rhetorical question. We're interested in
getting this player off your hands. We're the team that's
willing to pay him. You're clearly not. That's why Joe

(01:53:02):
Thuni was moved from the Chiefs, not for a lack
of quality play. He's very good player. Jonah Jackson being
traded to the Bears maybe was a little bit different
because obviously he was off the field for most of
this year when he was hurt. But the coach has
a history with him, and so both of those trades
were able to be made, and in both of their cases,
they are still due a tremendous yearly salary two years

(01:53:24):
for Jackson remaining on his deal and just the one
year remaining for Thuny. Those are the types of players
you would suspect could be moved, But it's figuring out
all that. That's his job. I've tried to look around
and see, well, this player is and in this situation,
but the team has to not want them there. They
have to be in a bad enough cap situation, and
presumably Kansas City is or else. They don't move on

(01:53:45):
from him. We're talking about trying to protect CJ. Stroud,
who's played in zero conference championship games. They're trying to
protect Pat Mahomes, who plays in all of the conference
championship games. And they said goodbye. They're going to have
two young players in the field the year of their
NFL careers, respectively, and Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith that
are making tremendous money. But they said goodbye to one

(01:54:07):
of their best, one of the best. Soon he's gonna
be one of the best linemen in the league this
year for the Bears, and they said goodbye. So figuring
out which other teams are willing to do that. Like
last year, Jacksonville traded Cam Robinson too Vikings mid season,
but Cam Robinson's not top flight and the Vikings were

(01:54:30):
desperate and it worked. It helped them do what they
needed to do, and then they figured out what they
can do from there. I think the Texans will be
in the market to make all those phone calls. I
think everything they can do to create money, which is
what we're watching. This was not the last restructure. The
one that was reported today with Alshai here. They have
not yet extended anybody and they will and I think

(01:54:51):
Stingley Junior is soon going to be the next announcement
we hear because they know they have to. There's a
big difference between drafting Gray's abel in this year's draft
somewhere between twenty five and forty and hoping he steps
right in place, because if you draft him there, that's
exactly what he has to do because your line has

(01:55:11):
holes this year. You drafted a tackle last year near
in the middle of late second round, I should say
there wasn't a hole at tackle. He wasn't supposed to
step right in and play. You draft an interior offensive lineman,
he is supposed to step right in in play. Or
you spend serious money on an established starting plus starting
caliber lineman, and the question marks shouldn't exist if you

(01:55:32):
do that, and I think that's the route they have
to go. One more quick break, come back on the
other side, and get you into Astros Baseball. Here, as
the A team continues.

Speaker 3 (01:55:41):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 6 (01:55:44):
Ninety, let's talk about something that is going to allow
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(01:56:04):
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(01:56:25):
do the camping or glamping thing. They've got you covered
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(01:56:46):
for twenty percent off.

Speaker 8 (01:56:47):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:56:48):
Back to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler.

Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety where Rockets had
Astro's play and real Texans talk.

Speaker 4 (01:57:00):
Unfortunately, a brief segment here to mention something that clearly
should have been mentioned quite a bit, and by Monday,
I'm curious where this story will have taken us. We
take you to Cleveland. I love it Miles Garrett situation.
I tried to downplay it when we first got news
of Miles Garrett. I want to be traded. He put
out a statement, Andrew Berry, their GM had already spoken

(01:57:22):
about where we want him here, and then after the
statement came out, we have no intentions of taking calls
on moving on from Miles Garrett. Nothing's really changed in
Super Bowl and some people spoke and he was around
and saying things were said. But the story today reported
by Tom Pellisero, is that Miles Garrett wanted to talk
about things with the owner and the owner said, no,

(01:57:44):
I'm not well accepting a I'd like to have a
meeting with you. He decided to say no, I don't
want to talk to you.

Speaker 6 (01:57:51):
Well, typically when this situation happens, it's the player saying no, right.

Speaker 4 (01:57:56):
I mean, usually when this happens, neither side says no, oh.

Speaker 6 (01:58:00):
That's true, but like he wants a trade, and not
only did the owner Jimmy Haslam say no, he said,
talk to the GM.

Speaker 7 (01:58:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:58:10):
One thing that you can do by having discussions is
have the player give some potential financial assistance. This is
not necessarily about getting a new deal. It really isn't
about getting a new deal. It's just about getting out
of Cleveland. So if the current contract you're under, is
there a way for you to make it a little
bit easier on the team trading you financially. Yeah, if
you're trying to get out, if you do this solid

(01:58:32):
for us and let us finagle the cap a little
bit differently because the number we'd be hit with otherwise,
then we can get you to the destination you want
to go. This is why you speak and for a
player to get the feeling that this is not an
organization I can win with, I can move forward with.
There are only two seasons removed from being the number
five seed in the AFC playoffs. Granted they had to

(01:58:54):
come to Houston and get their clocks cleaned, and he
did nothing in that game. And people who are saying, well,
clearly they don't support him now, they did support him
when he tried to swing his helmet into another player with.

Speaker 6 (01:59:07):
Us why do I feel like wherever he goes, he's
not going to be as effective as he ever was
in Cleveland. That always happens.

Speaker 4 (01:59:12):
Naturally as we close out the show. I think otherwise
he's too young and too quality and still playing at
a level. I think he's going to be great wherever
he goes, and I think this kind of last straw
type of feeling. I get he is going to be moved,
he is going to play elsewhere. They're going to find
a home for him, and he's going to be great there.
It just won't be here, and hopefully it's not in
the AFC either. We've got Astros baseball for you. Next,

(01:59:34):
We've got Rockets basketball for you tomorrow night. We return
to the airwaves on Monday, the A

Speaker 3 (01:59:41):
Team on Sports Talk seven ninety

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Everyone Is Feuding! Good News On Walker and Texans Making More Moves

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