Most Futile 36-hour Period In Houston Sports History, 2025 Astros Back?

Friday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton react to the Coogs and Astros losing. Plus, Jeremy Pena returns to the Astros' lineup, and new measures to prevent tanking in the NBA.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Anybody down for a Friday edition of All Right, Let's
take two on this Cougar's and fighting a lina over
Toyota Center for a spot in the regional final in
the South and Hunter Brown on the mound to take
on the Angels Opening day for the Houston Astros, Take

(00:21):
two would be nice. I mentioned almost five minutes into
last night's game over at Toyota Center that I had
seen two Houston teams play in person to that point
in my day, and neither one of them had scored yet.
There's a rough go of it at Toyota Center last
night after an amazingly offensively charged first South Sweet sixteen

(00:43):
game between Iowa Nebraska a lot of red in the house,
and then the second game, also with a lot of
red in the house, and all that taking place in
downtown Houston, just a few blocks away from where we
were yesterday afternoon and where many of you will be
focused here this evening, if not focused at FedEx Form
where the Rockets will play, anticipating either of these teams,

(01:07):
both of these teams doing something a little bit out
of character for their recent pass for the Astros recent past,
It's one day's worth of baseball. As we get started
here on the Friday edition of the A Team One
Day's Worth of Baseball showed you a handful of things.
You have an ace, Hunter Brown grinded his way through
shutout baseball. You have some hard throwing bullpen arms, and you,

(01:30):
for one day against an ace, may struggle, as was
the case many many times a year ago. And for
the Houston Rockets, game three of a four game road trip,
they would certainly like to see some kind of consistency
starting with this into the final ten games of the season,
maybe start to feel good about themselves. And unless you're winning,
it's going to be pretty unlikely that that's the case.

(01:52):
They have not put together a host of games in
succession where the w has come along with it, even
though they just had a five game homestand in the
first two games of a four game road trip, they've
held the lead in the fourth quarter of all of
those games, every single one of them. But it did
include a pair of losses to the Lakers in very

(02:12):
disappointing fashion, but none as disappointing as the lost couple
of nights ago in Minnesota. Memphis is their opponent tonight.
Take us about two seconds to mention all of the
elite talent that the Memphis Grizzlies have on the court tonight,
but it's very similar to the team they just played.
So as per usual for your Rockets, it's always in

(02:34):
their corner. It's in their locker room, it's in their huddles,
it's on their side. It's not about the other team.
They pay these guys to go play NBA basketball, and
when you let them feel like they belong in the NBA,
well they're gonna show you that they do. And that's
what happened when they played the Bulls, and it very
well could happen tonight when they play the Grizzlies unless
they just wake up for a full forty eight minutes. Obviously,

(02:55):
we'll lock in a little bit on the Astros as well.
Always curious day to day and Major League Bay what
Joe Spotta wants to throw out there on any given day. Obviously,
there was a little bit lack of an offense yesterday,
and I'm being very nice.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Three hits is a little bit of a.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Lack of offense and looking for your first run of
the season when you're not on day one of this season.
It's just something we will make our way through this
afternoon lots to get to today. As usual, we were
here for Rockets head coach, he may you Dokee. A
little bit later on the program around three thirty, we'll
have tickets to give away, as per usual here on
the show, and it's Friday, so we'll have some fun
with that. And for those teams that were not able

(03:31):
to get under way yesterday, like teams that were and
enjoy themselves. Kyle Tucker's Dodgers, for instance, enjoyed themselves, Alex
Bregman's Cubs probably enjoyed themselves a little bit less, and
all that on the table today, not on Anything Goes
Friday edition of the show, but a welcome to Friday's
edition of the A Team.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Nonetheless, it feels like it's in Anything Goes Friday.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
It always is, which is why we don't bill our
shows like that. We put no guardrails on our listeners.
We've put no guardrails on those who contribute to the
show via social media because that's how we play it here.
Start over at dyk In Park. Yesterday we gave you
a four and hour and forty minute pregame show, all
in advance of a team that they got worked, just

(04:17):
to be honest, by the pitching staff on the other side,
all while they were striking out Angels left and right.
You look at some of the numbers from the Astros
pitching staff, from Brown to blue Ball, to King and
to Roa, who was making his Astro's debut. They certainly
had the Angels most of the afternoon kind of right
where they wanted him. Were the only few times in
the early five innings that they were in trouble, they

(04:38):
pitched their way out of it and they rung up
K after K after K. Couple of balls went over
the fence, and that's the difference between the Angels and
the Astros yesterday. For the most part, when the Angels
hit the ball with home run peripherals exit velocity and
launch angle, it managed to make its way over the fence.
When the Astro, one Astro hit with those peripherals exit

(05:01):
velocity and launch angle that otherwise would have gone over
the fence, one hit the roof and landed in foul territory.
The umpires did not make an incorrect call, did not
misinterpret the ground rules over at dyke In Park. They
were all applied correctly. Which is rather unfortunate that the
Astros did not take a one nothing lead in the
opening day game of their season with a second batter

(05:24):
up to bat when yord On Alvarez homered, but not
he puts.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
The ball in places that no one else does in
that stadium. What year did this stadium open under a
different name?

Speaker 1 (05:35):
I'd be two thousand and you've been to a few games,
You've seen many more on television. You've discussed nearly every
single game they've ever played there. I have done the same.
That was a first. I have never seen a batted
ball from a left handed batter on its way out
of the ballpark make its way down the right field
line and be still so high that far away from

(05:56):
home plate and strike the roof. So he hit the
one in fair what we all know was fair territory,
But again, the ground rules state the ball is in
play where it lands. We landed in foul territory. Thus
it's a foul ball.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
So he hit that one. And he also hit the
one up in the well. It's actually basically a part
of the stadium and no longer.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Again, yeah, we've never seen a guy hit a home
run quite that far. But we've seen someone him hit
a home run twelve feet less distance and twenty feet
less distance and a little bit to the left and
a little.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Bit to the right.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
We've never seen one strike the n run Field roof,
the Minute Made Park roof or the now dyke In
Park roof. It's the same roof, by the way. It's
open right now and it will not really, Well, they
haven't officially said that. Would you say this like you
weren't here last year for the eighty one roof closed games.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, but this is usually the one week of all
of the week.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, you and I spent a couple of minutes outside
today before we arrived here for the program.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yep, it's warm, it's getting warmer. It seems like.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
An easy Yeah, let's go ahead and close that sucker up.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yet not as humid as it will be later on
in the No, just the heat that's out there.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Again, could we manage it even if we were not
sitting in our cushy, comfortable, air conditioned press box as
spoiled members of the media that we are, and we
were actually out in the very comfortable, many of which
are covered seats over.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
At dyke In Park.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, we could probably handle it, but no, I don't
anticipate the official word coming from the Astros saying, hey, fans,
until we win a game, the roof will remain open.
I put a lot of pressure on Hunter Brown's teammates
the next four days.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Hunter Brown didn't He wasn't the innings eater. We talked
about yesterday's game one. This is what we talked about.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Like he did grind like this could have happened anytime
in the season. Not necessarily a victim that fell prey
to what I'm not stretched out yet. He nearly threw
a hundred pitches. It was a grind. You could see
that from the very first inning, and I actually think
it's not out of the ordinary.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
It is very Hunter Brown.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Like he feels like he can get hitters to you know,
he can pitch to the corners, but he can also
blow guys away. But he's a strikeout pitcher, and more
often than not, your strikeout pitchers are high pitch count pitchers,
and he is one of them.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
He walked a couple of batters.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
He obviously went into extended counts with a host of batters,
but he worked his way in and out of trouble.
The reliever that relieved him mid inning. Aj Bluebaugh was
able to complete the zero for Hunter Brown's day's worth
of work. Sat here late in the show yesterday, and
technically sitting here means over at dyk In Park, right
outside Crawford Box area, not too far from the Jeff

(08:44):
Bagwell statue, and predicted the Angels would score three runs.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I could not have been more correct. Now.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
I also said the Astros would have five they had none.
That was incorrect.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
I mean it is one of one sixty two.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
And we said yesterday I'd come in here how many
times this year, give or take.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I know you don't really want to do that,
nor do I.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Hunter Brown's gonna, if healthy, He's gonna make thirty two
starts this year. The Astros aren't gonna go thirty two
and oh clearly they can't. They're not gonna go thirty
one and one either. He's not gonna win twenty games.
They might not win twenty of his thirty two starts.
Even when he delivers ace like performances. It just doesn't
work out that way in Major League Baseball. I mean,
Tark Schooble's you know, running on how many different how

(09:26):
many consecutive Cy Young Awards. They're not gonna win every game.
It just doesn't work out that way. You're gonna lose
a one nothing game, he's gonna get shelled one day.
He's gonna pitch in a minor league ballpark multiple times
during the season.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
You never know.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
I mean, you do play in West Sacramento again this year,
so we would like to win a great majority of
those starts. But there's nothing wrong with the way the
Astros pitched in yesterday's game. You hold an opponent to
three runs pretty much across the board in Major League Baseball,
pick a team. If they do that, they're gonna have
a pretty good record over the course of the season.
And I doubt, very seriously the Astros are gonna find
a way to fall outside of that norm.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
They'll find a to put runs on the board.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
They did not have a good offensive season a year ago,
and quite frankly, it costs their hitting coaches their jobs,
both Troy Snicker and Alex and Tron. I cannot possibly
tell you how easy it is for me to tell
you we're not gonna talk about the hitting coaches today
on the A team. We're not going to talk about well,

(10:21):
I thought they were the problem and they're gone. Well
maybe they're not. We're not gonna do that, you guys.
I'm giving you guys a little bit more credit than
that did the roster change. Are they sending out different
hitters this year? Are you starting to figure out what
may or may not be the bigger issue or the
bigger reason why it.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Will not be an issue this year.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
It's not the guys who wear costumes but don't go
to the Plate's the guys who do wear costumes and
go to the plate that will likely make a difference
in whether the Astros remain as the lowest scoring team
in Major League Baseball in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
One game in the twenty twenty five Astros. Are they
better that offense? Is it back?

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Well maybe that nice Yeah, maybe that non home run
that we were just talking about as the latest example
of that.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yep, instead of three nothing, three to one, instead of
three nothing, instead of a first shutout and more than
a decade on Opening Day, I would have only lost
by two. Astro fans get excited. We got lots to
go here on the A team today. So let's have
some fun Friday on the eighteen oh and take a
revisit seven one, three, two two five seven ninety if

(11:32):
you want to join us here on the programmer revisit
of what I dubbed with a hashtag yesterday, chiund Sports
Day was open for bigger and better things. I don't
think too many people cared who was the first round
leader over at the uh PGA Tour event the Texas
Children Houston opened yesterday. But it's not every day that
you have a PGA Tour event in town. It's four
of the three hundred and sixty five days. Yesterday was

(11:54):
day one, Today is Day two, Round two, and the.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Rounds three and four.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Obviously over the weekend the weather has certainly been extremely
helpful with having all the attendees and fans in town
or just in attendance at the tournament enjoying themselves could
certainly give you an update there. But that was where
h Town Sports Day began for me. Yesterday I was
able to spend a little bit of time over at
the course, say a lot to a handful of people.

(12:19):
Always love going over there the last couple of years,
especially since it's moved.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Over to Memorial Park.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
I'm being dead serious with you I couldn't go more
than one hold in the next or driving range of
the putting Green, Putting Green to the whole nine nine
to ten are right there, basically near where many people
might roll in as a quote unquote entrance, right there
off of the Burger restaurant where they're also open during
this year's event, which was not the case a year ago.

(12:46):
Kick going more than forty five steps fifty steps and
someone says thanks largely in Part two, our partners over
at Sehn, hey man.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Really love the show. Great to have you out here, man.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
You guys do a great job most of the time,
recognition all the time, most people say nice things about
the program, and again made my way over there and
then immediately took it over to Dyke and Park. With
the help of our tremendous promotion staff yesterday we were
able to set up a wonderful broadcast and honestly, our
location from my perspective, is ideal. When you want to

(13:16):
go inside the game and you realize, oh, Streetfest is
going on, or you purposely came to yesterday's opening day
festivities early so you could enjoy everything that street Fest
has to offer. Guess where you walk in we are
the entrance. Sports Talk seven ninety is the entrance, and
with some of the activities being so popular, maybe there
was a line and maybe you were forced to stand

(13:37):
in front of our broadcast location for a little bit
of extra time. Obviously you could hear everything that we
had going on. Huge thanks to our three guests, and
you're gonna hear them all throughout the year. Chandler Roam
of the Athletic, Brian McTaggart of MLB dot com, astros
dot com, and of course who you heard and saw
last nights on SCCHN. Jeff Blum all joined us and
it was great to hang out with you again. Same thing,

(14:00):
and it happens in more places than you think, and
that's why we truly appreciate what we do. Needed to
get a lot of pictures taken yesterday, you did take
a ton of pictures. Britney came by. Now she's on
which is a broadcast table. Typical event, whether we're on
remote or on location, we have a table that we
set up our stuff on. We usually have a promotions

(14:20):
table off to our left or right. In yesterday's case
that was off to our right, and listeners who want
to dap us up, want to take the food that's
on our table because they think it's giveaway items, any
number of things that might bring them to a brief
conversation with us, because we're normally wearing headsets and talking,
and most people recognize they're working, they're on the air.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
They probably can't talk right now.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
But many people did come up. And Brittany in particular,
she said she was obsessed. And I'm using her words,
I'm quoting her.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
I remember this. I'm obsessed with you guys. I'm obsessed
with the A Team.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
And so in this current day and age, it's twenty
twenty six, Oh can I get a picture? Well, sure,
But almost every time that's we'll just take us health,
they turn around, they get in their own picture and
they fired off. But here on the A Team, we
definitely know we should do one better than that. Hey, Brittany,
come on, let someone Hey, can someone take a picture

(15:12):
for Brittany for crying out loud, so you can be
in the picture with us. It's it's me and then
there's you and then there's ac. Let's do this right.
And it happened over the course of the afternoon, so
that obviously was great. Now I'm not gonna lie to
you and said the same thing happened when I was
sitting in the upper press box over at Toyota Center
last night, Stop number three. It is accurately titled the

(15:32):
Upper press Box at Toyota Center, and I'm glad there
is it's it was called overflow media seating, and in
that these very important NCAA tournament games were not played
at NRG Stadium, and many of them have in the past.
It's been awesome how involved the city of Houston has
been in visits Sweet sixteen and Elite eight games, obviously

(15:53):
Final four games. They've been played here fairly regularly over
the past couple of decades, and they're awesome to have
here in town. I'm hopeful that even though we saw
an outrageous decline in ticket prices for Saturday's game because
the two teams that were bringing the most fans all
of them a red Nebraska losing in Game one and
then sadly U of H losing in Game two obviously

(16:15):
reflected in some of the demand for it. But it's
great to close out the day that way. Saw a
very entertaining Game one between Iowa and Nebraska and saw
a less entertaining only in the fact that both teams
could not put the ball in the basket. You get
a three from Kingston Flemings to close out the first half.
A dreadful, awful offensive first half for the Cougars, who
were down two, down two points, after being almost completely

(16:39):
unable to score four minutes of the game, they were
still sitting on zero. Unfortunately for them, the second half
was essentially a carbon copy. They went from twenty four
to twenty two down to twenty seven to twenty six
down just a couple of minutes into the second half,
and then Illinois scored seventeen consecutive points. They finally found
a pocket of the game where they scored, they hit

(17:00):
their shots. U of H never found that, and they
were never able to overcome it. Sadly, the game ended
again with about fourteen minutes to go. I truly appreciated
how much belief the Cougars had in themselves making shots late,
fouling to a certain extent, having a couple of opportunities
to get it within seemingly reasonable range, to try to
essentially steal a win and get to the regional final.

(17:21):
But ultimately it did not work. The media there along
with myself. I've been there too many times with this
particular team. The coaching staff hasn't changed a lot, obviously.
Kelvin and Kellen and Polis Price and a handful of
others have been there through this entire run, and so
I've seen their disappointment, their sadness, their frustration, just everything

(17:44):
that goes with those terms as they've walked off the court,
and then know that they're going to be in the
locker room with these guys before they meet with the
media in what's going to be a very emotional, sad state.
And was there now to see this particular group of
U of H players walk off the court, some just
about overcome with emotion, a few others with towels or
their jerseys, you know, covering their face. And then a
very very extended period of time, our good friend Lauren

(18:07):
Shahati was waiting outside the locker room. She was awaiting
Kelvin Sampson. You know, the coach who's on the losing
end usually comes out of the locker room, speaks with
the network. In that case, she's handling those duties last night,
it took an exceptional long period of time, and I
don't blame the Cougar's one bit. And when we did
get into the locker room after Kelvin emerged for that interview,

(18:27):
you could absolutely see why.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
There's plenty of audio that we can share with you today.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
If you didn't see all of it, it's up on
our YouTube channel and my own YouTube channel. It's tears,
it's emotion, it's despair, it's sadness, it's the recognition that,
especially for the seniors, they're not ever going to put
the uniform on again. And Emmanuel Sharp was the last
player we talked to, and for everybody on the team,
they're never going to put that uniform on again with

(18:51):
any of these particular guys specific to this twenty twenty
five twenty six Cougar team probably have a couple of
freshmen and Kingston Flemings and Sanak neither of whom would
address that last night and rightfully so understand it's asked,
but politely did not give an answer. But it's likely
that both will be heading off to the NBA the
NBA Draft and likely a top fourteen pick. We commonly

(19:12):
call them lottery picks, but I just I recognize how
difficult it is and it goes back to what we
talked about before last Thursday. Why is this tournament so
looked forward to? Why is it set apart from all
the others. They play thirty plus games during the regular
season to determine who the best teams in the country are.

(19:33):
Did you get an automatic bid? Did you earn an
at large selection? You know, who have you played against
to give us all belief that you can play against
teams like that again and beat them. But it is
a series of six one game tournaments. It's always win
or go home, and in basketball that is absolutely not
the case as soon as you get out of college basketball. Yes,

(19:55):
the NBA's institute of a play in tournament, but even
those games aren't necessarily like that. But you got five
games to figure things out, or you have seven games
to figure things out, and the frustration and emotion and
tears that might come along with it, they probably subside
a little bit when neither of the writings on the
wall were down to nothing, We're down three to one.
We're just not better than this team versus you go

(20:16):
into the Every player on the court for both teams
last night thought their season was going to continue. It
was correct for Illinois was unfortunately not the case for
you of age.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Speaking of hoops, Best of X coming up next. Jalen
Brown the latest to absolutely have had it with that
BS that.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Lou Dort does on an NBA floor every night. Well,
the list has grown.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Hey, man, are you in the NBA? Yeah, do you
hate a certain player? Well, duh, I mean the NBA.
I just told you. It's kind of the same question.
It has happened many many times over and a lot
of players in the NBA's history, certainly in the very
widely televised era of the NBA's history. Now in the
even more widely seen Internet and social media age of

(21:05):
the NBA, you can't really go and play a certain
type of basketball and not be known for it. And
that's what's happened with a player who's actually been recognized
for being good at something in the NBA. The league's
voters who get to make these kind of determinations, Hey,
this guy an All Defensive player? Is this guy an
All NBA player? Says right here, twenty twenty four to

(21:26):
twenty five All Defensive Team. Somebody must think he's good
at something, and that then something would be defense. He's
Lou Dort plays in the NBA. He's played for one franchise.
I'm very, very curious if that will be forever. His
contract's going to run out. The thunder have only so
much money to spend on their much much more impactful

(21:48):
to winning players than lou Dort. So I'm curious if
maybe by year eight or nine he's in year seven,
if lou Doort ends up playing anywhere else, and then
if the viewpoint on who Lou Dort is as an
NBA player externally fans, media changes in any way. I
don't think he's in a pretty good place today and
I don't think it would get any better. But you're
always curious, is this fabricated? Is it narrative? Is it

(22:10):
you know, fans speak? Is it media driven? Or do
the players feel a certain way? Well, one particular player
if you're paying attention to the NBA's slate. Earlier this week,
when the Rockets and each of the five teams that
share the top six in the Western.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Conference were all on the court.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
The Rockets were playing the team at number five and
the top four teams the four teams ahead of them
were all on the court.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Denver was a winner the Lakers were a winner.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
The Spurs were a winner, but the number one team
in the Western Conference they were not. They played the
Boston Celtics and they lost, So everybody in the top
six made up a game's worth of ground on them,
except Houston obviously, who lost to Minnesota. But in that game, naturally,
the best players on the Celtics are going to be
matched up against loudor to time or two or ten,

(22:54):
and one of those best players is Jalen Brown. Jalen
Brown is what people outside the end that had become
famous for reasons I don't know, are commonly referred to
as streamers. He goes on and streams what he wants
to talk about, and in this case, he was streaming
after the game. He was screaming after this performance, and

(23:14):
he was just running through things that happened in this
particular game.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
So he just trided to describe something in very.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Particular, something very particular that happened in the game when
he and lou gentz Dort were wrapped up. So we'll
take you to Jalen Brown's stream as he talks NBA basketball.

Speaker 5 (23:30):
They wasn't even about the call. It is too bro
smack me outside the head. I'm tight. Bro smacked me
upside the head like I'm one of his grandkids or something,
and they wasn't even about the call.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
It, like I'm one of his grandkids or something.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I mean, he just comes right out and says what
a lot of NBA players have probably been thinking.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
So context of a play like that.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
If you're out on the perimeter and you're dribbling and
you get smacked across the face, it's pretty hard for
the officials to skip over that and act like all
six eyes missed it. When you drive to the basket,
when you're on a fast break and you seem like
you're out in front of the defense and a player
goes for a block and they miss you put it
in perfect no call. Why what foul? You went up

(24:13):
for a layup? You put it off the glass. It
went right through the cylinder and through the nylon. That's
two points. It's all head back down court. Well, they
missed these calls from time to time, missing this call
on lou Dort. In this particular situation, he swipes for
the block and he catches nothing but dome. All he
hits is Jalen Brown's head, his face as Jalen Brown said,

(24:36):
hits me across the head like I'm one of his grandkids.
I mean, we wouldn't necessarily need you to hear a
player complaining about a non call when there was a foul.
But I have not heard an NBA player said that.
I've heard the phrase. We're all familiar with that. I
think the belief that you know, maybe maybe that happens,
maybe maybe that's that's something you've seen at the house.
Probably not viciously like lou Dort, but we get it.

(25:00):
I wish the NBA got it. I wish he wasn't
respected at all as a defensive player. But he's actually
not bad when he plays defense. But most of his games,
to me, predicated on, Hey, they can't call everything. I
can hold on every play and they're not gonna call it.
I'll just keep doing it. He's a foul machine, and
obviously he knows the NBA will not. He could file

(25:21):
out of the game, and it's the first six minutes
he plays if they called it by the rules.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
They don't.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
It encourages players who are foul machines to continue fouling,
and he's taking advantage of it.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
But the list of players who are absolutely like singled
out to be referenced by name, is still relatively small and.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Well like, this isn't a dirty play, This is just
look who got away with another clear and obvious foul.
But he's widely regarded inside the league by the players,
forget me, forget you, forget fans. He's not held in
high regard. It still brings all of these conversations, bring
you back to the same player, and I still don't

(26:01):
get it. Nobody should be held in lower regard in
the entire league than Draymond Green. He doesn't to everybody.
He does not discriminate. If you're wearing another team's costume,
then he will play dirty against you. Dirty, not foulu,
not compete with you, not make it hard to overcome
what it is he and his team are doing, but
play dirty. And when the officials allow it to happen,

(26:24):
it becomes that much more frustrating because it just makes
it worse. And lou Dort fits in that category, probably right,
He's probably next in line. There might be a handful
of other players we could say we could say this about.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I don't know how many players you know.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
The anonymous surveys like the Athletic or ESPN will do
with the gmsurvey, or NBA dot Com will do with
the GM survey. You might get some some answers like that,
who do you think the dirtiest player in the league is?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
As long as you maintain anonymity.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
But they should also add the caveat No, No, it's fine.
You can vote for players on your own team. Go ahead,
we don't you're anonymous.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Actually, you want to win, and if a guy like
that's on your side and it helps you win, you
kind of turn the other cheek. But all the while
you're thinking, I'm glad he isn't on somebody else's team.
It's not that you you're glad you have him. You're
only glad that you're not faced with that. And I
do think there's a difference. Oh, you wouldn't say that

(27:17):
if he was on your team. You're right, because he
wouldn't be doing that to me. He's on my team.
It's not that he's helping me win. Is that now
I'm not subjected to that. It really is a difference
to me, and I wish this team that's so good.
I'm glad they have a few players we never talk
about because they do things in a way that so
many people can respect. But the two players we do

(27:40):
talk about, one of them is crazy talented SGA. You
can't go a day when the Thunder play. You can't
go a day on social media the next day or
on any of the talk shows nationally or even locally
that have NBA interest and not hear from or talk
about or see an incident in the game and you're like,
come on, man, that's not basketball. Come on, SGA. And

(28:04):
this is the best team in the league. This is
probably the most talented team in the league. It's one
of the best defensive teams in the league. They really
have super top to bottom rotation talent. This is this
is all we can see and talk about.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well, I think this reputation is what you know, turns
off some of the casuals.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, it does, because that is that is literally, it's
a literal way of putting it. That is absolutely all
they see. They're a casual, So they didn't watch Celtic's thunder.
All they watched was what Jalen Brown posted and what
they saw on Brick Center, and what they saw on
the Hater Report, and what they saw it on br nation.
That's an NBA sent that's all they see, and that

(28:43):
narrative is getting pushed so hard. I almost feel like
I have to be on the other side just to
be fair and balanced.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
All right, U of H finding a new way to
rip its fan bases collective heart out. We'll discuss that
game last night next the Age on Sports Talks se
I never thought this year's Cougar squad was the best
of this kind of run that they've been on. But

(29:12):
for some reason I thought maybe with the bracket the
way it went and what their strengths were on any
given night, they would find a way to make this
be the year that they'd finally break through.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Definitely did lay out that way. I do think there's
some respect needed to give to Illinois. When I saw
the bracket came out, I thought the same thing, although
I thought Illinois was there the most likely team to
be in their way, and it happened to be that
being a three seed, they would see them sooner than
the number one seed Florida, who the ultimately could have
played in a regional final had either of them and
neither of them ended up getting there. I actually thought

(29:45):
matching up against Florida, and again, if you saw them
at that point in time, each of you would have
had three tournament wins, and now one went away from
being in the final four.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I think the confidence that would have gone along with that.
For U of H.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I really wasn't concerned, But you know, that is how
I had my one bracket. I filled out only one bracket.
It did have Florida and u of H in the
regional final here at Toyota Center, which ultimately now is
a five o'clock five Toho nine tip off tomorrow. It's
the first of the two regional finals with just the
one one seed Arizona, who they've kind of trampled everybody

(30:20):
on their way to the regional final. A phenomenal game
that ended up ending almost at the exact same time
as the early game at Toyota Center, as Iowa was
finishing off an amazing come from behind victory in front
of our eyes at Toyota Center against Nebraska, Purdue and Texas.
We're going toe to toe pretty much the entire second half,

(30:40):
very very close game, very hotly contested, and now the
final bucket of the game has become very hotly contested.
It was a tip in with point seven seconds left,
which everybody at Toyota Center saw because we were all
watching it on the big screen during the first of
the two Sweet sixteen games regional semifinals at Toyota Center.
When we were in a timeout or at halftime or

(31:02):
just after the Iowa Nebraska game ended, they just put
it on the big screen on the big overhanging scoreboard,
the massive scoreboard that you are familiar with from Rockets games.
So we're all watching it as it happened. Most people
that aren't Boiler ballfans think there was a foul that
could have easily been called ten times on the final
tip in, but tip in good point seven seconds left.

(31:24):
Purdue took what was ultimately the deciding margin and lead
of the game. So that's a one versus two here
in the South Regional. It is not neither U of
H or Florida got there three versus nine, and it
is an all Big ten matchup the two teams who
had the least fans support. It's very easy to tell
big red. First game, there was red everywhere, and then

(31:46):
here's two Iowa fans, there's ten Iowa fans, there's the
Iowa cheerleaders, there's the Iowa band, and then there was
one huge section that was Iowa fans. There's like twenty
eight sections in the lower bowl. One of them was
very very yellow. Almost all the others were read. And
then for the second game, not nearly as much of
a descrepancy. The Illinois fans were actually in the building

(32:06):
for a lot of that first game, and a ton
of them traveled to go see the fighting a line
in Now presumably they will have the run of.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
The building I think Saturday night.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
But the Cougar's game is unfortunately super simple, and through
the tears and some of the frustration and the hugs
that they were giving the teammates when they spoke with us,
it was a pretty simple answer from Kingston Flemings, who
I talked to first, and Chase McCarty and Emmanuel Sharp
and Chris Sanak talked to all these players in the
locker room. It's unfortunate Ramon Walker as well, they just missed.

(32:38):
I don't want people to look at too many NBA
games like that, And honestly, that's exactly what Kevin Durantz
has talked about with the Rockets. What happened here, well,
they made a bunch of shots. Why did you keep
up when we missed a lot of shots. They usually
have a pretty good belief in the shots that they're getting,
and I can't say I didn't either. U of H
was taking shots they normally make and tryson Ac was probably,

(33:01):
you know, maybe the biggest downside to that. He missed
nine of his twelve shots, and I don't think there
was a hand in his face on many of them. Heck,
one of the three shots he made should have been
a three point play early in the second half, the
huge donkey had he got clobberd, he got hit on
both arms by the defenders. They just just let it go.
But just a poor shooting night. Poor shooting night inside,

(33:21):
poor shooting night outside the inside. Credit ILIINAI credit the
fighting line. That's a big team. I think they had
a really good defensive plan. I think they forced the
Cougars into some not very comfortable looks on the interier
and that's why I think it resulted in some overpassing
in the second half. Cougs did not turn the ball
over a lot, they didn't play bad basketball, but they

(33:41):
just couldn't ever get going offensively. There was no long
stretch of you know, made baskets. They never really went
on any kind of run. Their last lead was with
thirty minutes left in the game midway through the first half.
They missed too many shots. Illinois had one good stretch
in the early portion of the second half off and
that was that. And it was unfortunate. It was a

(34:03):
new way for the Cougars to not come through. Twenty
two in the first half, thirty three in the second half,
fifth lowest tournament output for the Cougars in their team's history.
And it's not just the Samson era that has been
wildly successful.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
There have been plenty other eras.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Obviously, Guy vy lewises multiple different eras and may most
notably and most recently the five Slam a jama era,
where there were not only winning games, they are advancing
to the final four into the title game on two
different occasions. In this game, yes, the sadness of saying
this is you do have to go back to the
tournament final against NC State, they actually scored less than this.

(34:42):
But the game was different then, very different then. The
rules were different then, and it was a much more
commonplace if a team decided to go that route that
that could actually happen. Those teams still were much more
high scoring teams, so it definitely was not the style
of play they would normally want to play, and it
was clearly the end of the road for Milo, Samanuel

(35:03):
and Ramon. Obviously all seniors expected that it's the end
of the road for Kingston Flemings and Chris Sanak. I
still believe watching what took place in college basketball this
year and those two players against some of the other
players that will likely be in this draft, almost all
of them under classmen, I think Sanak's development will be
great as an NBA player. I think it would be

(35:25):
phenomenal if he stayed at U of H. If there
was nil money that made it make sense, I think
he'd be great. I don't think either decision would make
him better as an NBA player, or either decision would
lessen the likelihood that he becomes a great NBA player,
And I don't think anybody even brings up that conversation
with Flemings. Not a great day for him. He was
four for ten, did not reach double figures. Sanak was

(35:47):
three for twelve. Those three two point baskets were the
only points he scored. Neither one of them finishes off
their only likely only season at u of H in
the way that they would have hoped, and that was
obviously a team wide feeling. And Samson at the podium,
he didn't really give anything definitive about his future, but
I don't really think it's in question. He clearly still
enjoys it. There's no reason for him to step aside.

(36:08):
There's nothing about where the program is that suggests they
should want to go in a different direction. And I
hope this doesn't need much explanation. Ball share it anyway.
College basketball is not like the NFL. It's not like
professional sports in this regard NBA teams, Major League Baseball teams,
and NFL teams. They're firing coaches just almost on a whim.

(36:31):
It seems like, oh, we didn't win as much this year.
Oh we've been to the playoffs six straight years, We've
got five playoff wins. I don't care. You're gone, Sean McDermott,
Good luck. The next coach is going to be more
successful than that. Yeah, if he wins a super Bowl
pretty much and that's it. Yes, I know, a conference
title win would also be technically more than Sean McDermott did.

(36:54):
But all you're doing is winning winning division titles every year,
but this year or going to the playoffs and winning
in the playoffs in the NFL really doesn't matter. And
that's a long term head coach. There's a lot of
coaches that get in there one year and they're done.
Pete Carroll's the latest one. Two years they're done, three
years they're done. You know, it's not usually like that
in college basketball. There is no national championship for Kelvin Samson,

(37:17):
not just here in Houston, but at any of his
other stops either. But you can't nobody inside the university,
not the ad who is obviously there outside the locker
room and then inside for some of the evening as
well along with the rest of us. He's not looking
at what didn't happen. They made it to the sweet sixteen.
They've done that seven consecutive times. There's no other programs
in college basketball that can currently say that without a

(37:39):
national title. Also true, not firerable, not worthy to move
on and try to find somebody else. And yes, I'm
aware you of hed doesn't have to find anybody else.
Somebody else is right there on the bench. The next
head coach for the Cougars will be his son, Kellen Samson.
But that's not happening in this offseason unless Kelvin tells
everybody that's what he wants to have happen, and I

(38:00):
do not believe that will be the case. We'll flip
on the simulcast top of the hour at three o'clock
we will dive in on how everybody here in Houston
took what we have seen from the Rockets and the
Astros and the Cougars over the last couple of days.
Here as we get started at three o'clock here on
the eighteen.

Speaker 6 (38:19):
The A Team, Adam White Floor are the A team.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
One day off for Jeremy Pania.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
It's betting laid off today for your Houston Astros as
the lineup for Game two of one sixty two has
been delivered by Joe Aspata and if Jeremy Panie is
back in the lineup will the answer for one day
from Joe Aspata on how do I get all my
bats in today's lineup was solved thanks to yours truly.

(38:57):
That's me Adam Wexley here on the eight team. As
we all commuted to three o'clock hour and the simulcast
over on SCCHN. And remember you can catch the Astros
game this evening right here on Sports Talk seven to nine,
exclusively here on radio on Sports Talk seven ninety. Appreciate
everybody that was with us at the ballpark yesterday listening
throughout the day, and now you get the same opportunity

(39:19):
as you will throughout the year this evening for their
game seven to fifteen first pitch against the Angels, which
will feature first pitch of the game from Mike Burrows,
his first ever pitches as a Houston Astros player.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
He wears number fifty and Jeremy Pania.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
After being a part of the opening day roster but
not being a part of the opening day activities, he
was not in the lineup and obviously did not participate
in the game. They told us yesterday was getting some
more at bats, basically some live VP in sugar Land
in hopes that he would be ready to come back
long before their ten games would have elapsed obviously had

(39:55):
they put him on the ten day il, which they
chose not to do. And we can't come back any
faster than one game. He's starting. He is your shortstop
and the Wexler solution for how to get Alvarez, Peretis, Altuve, Correa,
and Christian Walker into the lineup, It was a pretty
simple one.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
You got four in field spots.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
They offer you the designated hitter spot and a handful
of the players I just mentioned if needed well, they
can play left field, especially the one who is a
left fielder, and that's where Jordan Alvarez is today. He
was the designated hitter yesterday, did not do much activity.
He didn't reach base. He obviously was hanging out by
the dugout after his home run. That wasn't that hit

(40:39):
off the roof, the closed roof, and thus was not
a homer. Would have landed in fair territory if there
was no roof. It would have been well over the
fence if there was no roof, But ultimately it landed
on the foul side of it. And I do need
to make a correction the Astros tonight because we have
both Astros and Rockets. Astro's exclusively here on iHeartRadio. We'll

(41:03):
take them on k TRH. Well of the Rockets right
here with their seven pm tip against the Memphis Grizzlies
right here on Sports Talk seven ninety, so he's gonna
play left field. He bats second. Isak Perettis he played
third to start. If you missed it yesterday, he slid
over to first base after Christian Walker was lifted for

(41:23):
a pinch hitter.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
But he doesn't need his glove today.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
I don't think I don't think they're gonna forego the
designated hitter spot at any point in this game and
ask him to go play the field. He bats third,
he's your designated hitter. Jose al Tuve is the cleanup hitter.
He's batting fourth and playing second. Carlos Korea slides back
over to third base, where he intended to be throughout
his astro's second career because of Jeremy Pania. Now with

(41:48):
Payna back in the lineup, that's where he will be tonight,
and did play a little bit of third base also
in yesterday's game after Nick Allen came into the game.
Nick Allen came in for Walker, Walker left defensively. Isach
Peretis went from third to first, and Carlos Carreer went
from short to third, and then Nick Allen slid in

(42:09):
as their shortstop. So Correa bats fifth. He's their third baseman,
Cam Smith back in right field. Christian Walker bats seventh,
as was the case yesterday, He's at first. Janer Diez
does the catching again today, same as he did for
Hunter Brown and the three pitchers that followed. He bats
eighth and the season debut in the ninth spot in
place of Jake Myers. In centerfield. Who got the start

(42:30):
yesterday is Bryce Matthews. Matthews showed enough to them that
they could man. He could man at least one outfield position.
I think you'll see him in center and in left
on occasions this year, probably not too much right field,
with the number of options they have on players there,
and quite frankly, I think they'd like to see camp
Smith and right field nearly every single day. I don't

(42:51):
think it's too much too surprising that the Astros got
three hits yesterday. Two of them came from a player
who's not in today's lineup. Two of them came from
Joey Loperfife. Yesterday they faced a right handed pitcher. He
got two hits off of him, the only player to
do so, and he hits off of Jose Soriano. But
lefty today, you say Kakuchi's getting the ball for the Angels,
so he will be available to Joe Spot off of

(43:14):
the bench, and hopefully somebody else will find their way
to get on base and get a hit, do something offensively.
They're obviously looking for their first run of the season.
There are I don't believe a single change in the
lineup for the Angels other than obviously you say, Kakuchi
is doing the pitching and would have been plenty exciting
to go out to the yard today or catch the

(43:35):
game here on our family of networks because Mike Burrows
makes his debut, and I do think that matters. They
got what they expected to get yesterday, and over the
course of our three interviews yesterday with initially chand Lerome,
followed by Brian McTaggart, and then with Jeff Blum, I
share it, but I think there's a tremendous amount of
optimism in their starting pitching staff, giving this team, quite frankly,

(44:00):
this offense a chance. Starting pitcher didn't give up any runs.
The start of the pitching staff gave up only three.
That's winning both baseball. That's what I think the Astros well,
they'll certainly get that type of pitching from Hunter Brown
they won't make it through the season if they don't
get that pitching from somebody else regularly, maybe not quite
as often as Hunter, but regularly.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
And it certainly could be Emi that does that.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
I think it quite possibly needs to be Mike Burrows also,
and we'll get a little bit of a look at him.
He obviously is somebody they've had eyes on for a
little bit of time. They've talked about it all off season.
Why do they essentially target him from the Pirates' pitching
staff orchestrating that three team deal that costs the Astros
Jacob Melton among other items and assets and players to

(44:45):
bring him here, and I love the deal. Now, the
Astros do not have the answer for the outfield. They
have one outfield spot I guess they feel good about,
and that's Cam Smith. I mean, we're already at day
two and Jake Myers is not the starting center Fiel. Obviously,
left field's going to change on almost regular basis. This
is day two and it's the number two different player

(45:07):
that started out in left field. And I don't have
any issue whatsoever about moving on from Jacob Melton, probably
regarded as a better prospect than every player they have
here in the outfield other than recently acquired Cam Smith,
and it's totally fine give something else up to make
your team better. Jacob Melton with Tampa this year. He
did not make the team out of spring training. He

(45:29):
will almost surely make his Tampa debut at some point
this year, but I hope no one is looking back
before anything happens. It's easy for me to say it
today Jacob Melton's not even a major leaguer today, But
I mean three, four or five years from now, when
we ultimately have an answer on what kind of major
leaguer Jacob Melton is. I don't think anybody's going to
ever second guess that deal, certainly not, as he is

(45:52):
a part of it. And now it's Mike Burrow's turn
to tell me that's right, to tell me that's why
we won't have to think that he.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Has slotted into number two.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
I don't think it necessarily means they expect him to
be the second best starter on this team, but it
made sense from where they lined up how spring went
for both he and Hunter Brown. He obviously came to
camp healthy, He stayed healthy. He didn't give up any
runs until his last outing, out in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He throws pitches guy swing and miss on. He works
the zone very well. I do think you'll see him
walk some batters, but I think his control is actually

(46:22):
very good. He's just confident enough in it that he
will try to He'll try to hit the corners. He's
not gonna say I'm going to blow you away. Hit
this pitch over the heart of the plate, and you
can't because I'm throwing ninety eight, ninety nine, one hundred.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
He's trying to again work hitters. He has swinging miss stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
I think he's getting more and more close to not perfection,
but the execution of some of the additional pitches a
slider and some other things that have really been worked
on a lot more since he became an astro. I'm
as equally excited for tonight as I was for their
game yesterday. One other item in Major League Baseball, just
because of its recent report, Shane Boz sixty eight million bucks.

(47:03):
Shane Boz just got sixty eight million dollars. It's all guaranteed.
This is Major League Baseball. The Orioles game of a
five year, sixty eight.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Million dollar deal.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
I'm gonna look to double check, but I'm I'm willing
to stick my neck out. I'm gonna say, so far
in Shane Boz's career, he's had zero good major league seasons.
He was just obviously moved for a big prospect. Hall
Baltimore already showed they had confidence in him because of
what they gave up to get him. Last year is

(47:36):
the first year he was a full time major league
starting pitcher. It was the fifth season since he made
his major league debut. Last year, he answered the bell
thirty one starts, nearly two nearly one hundred and seventy
five innings, and he posted a four eighty seven ERA. Granted,
if I rip a minor league ballpark, I'll have to
note it here. He pitched a lot of games with

(47:58):
Tampa last year in their home ballpark, and their home
ballpark last year was an exhibition field, George Steinbrenner Field
in Florida. So again, I don't know that they really
truly inflate his numbers, but I imagine they had an
impact on them. But I think it's fair to say
his only really positive production season was half a year.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
It was two years ago. He was a pretty good
pitcher two years.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Ago for half a season, and now he just got
sixty eight million dollars guaranteed. This strikes me as the
type of contract minor leaguers get when they've never played
a major league game, when they've just made their debut
and they want to get locked up, and it's it's
a team friendly deal for a prospect that's gonna blow up,
and they've gotten him on the cheap, and they're gonna
eat up some of the ARB years and it's gonna Yeah,
it works out for the team because he hasn't even

(48:39):
gotten to the majors yet. And when he does and
when he dominates, well, now you're good. You're in good shape.
They're banking on a pitcher who made his major league
debut in twenty twenty one to be awesome. Thirteen million
a year and change. That's what a sixty eight million
dollar five year deal is worth. It's not the most

(49:02):
lucrative deal. It doesn't break the bank, doesn't prevent them
from doing anything else. There obviously is no cap to
begin with, just to CBT, but I saw the number
and I was alarmed by the amount of confidence they
show in him. You know who else was interested in
him this offseason, your local nine, the outfit here in Houston.
Under no circumstances do I think the Astros were going

(49:22):
to both trade for him and then offer him that
type of deal. Again, commitment is one thing, and I
get the Orioles commitment to this. We already gave up
all these prospects. We are obviously committed to him. What's
the difference if we give him all this money now
or wait? Because we believe in him. They are showing
extreme belief in him. But again, as we open up
the segment, you're headed over to Dyke and Park, or

(49:43):
if you're hanging out here with us over on iHeartRadio
throughout the evening and want to enjoy some Astros baseball, Well,
right here on KTRH you will hear the first bats
of Jeremy Paine this season. Tonight he bats leadoff for
you Houston Astros tonight.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Obviously, get back to the Astros.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Over the course of the afternoon, we'll hear from what's
going on over the ball bar today. Joe Spottus comments
on clearly Jeremy, hopefully Jeremy himself, about how things are,
how things are feeling, and why today was the day
he will ultimately make his major league debut. This evening, again,
you'll catch the Astros on KTRH. Right here on Sports
Talk seven ninety. We will go into Rockets coverage as

(50:26):
we wrap things up here this evening at six with
Rockets Launch Pad. Then Rockets Countdown begins at six thirty,
And of course, the game itself against Memphis. Memphis is
twenty four and forty eight. Memphis is going to finish
outside of the Western Conference, playing tournament and obviously playoffs.
If you weren't already aware, the ten teams that will

(50:49):
play more basketball in the Western Conference are already determined.
The five teams that are lottery bound, they're franchises. Whether
or not they hold their picks or not, they're already determined.
The Pelican Grizzlies, MAVs, Jazz, and Kings. They cannot make
the play in tournament. Those are the five teams that
are headed home after game number eighty two. No matter what,
two more teams will join them among currently Phoenix, the Clippers,

(51:12):
the Blazers, and the Warriors. Whichever two teams don't claim
seeds seven and eight, then they're treated just like the
five teams who didn't make the playoff playoffs are playing
tournament to begin with, and they will their pick as
their team owns or not owns, will be headed into
the lottery. Obviously, the same holds true in the Eastern Conference.
They just don't have quite as clear yet a picture

(51:35):
of who is in the play in tournament that honestly
could change today. There's a ten win cushion in between
the Miami Heat and the two teams that still could
weasel their way into the play in tournament. So Miami's
magic number is one. If Miami doesn't lose every game
the rest of the season, and Milwaukee and Chicago win,

(51:57):
or Chicago wins every game the rest of the season,
then Miami's in the playoffs and those two teams will
join the other eight that are already in the lottery.
I bring all this up because the NBA reportedly several
outlets now reporting what the proposals are for anti tanking,
and a lot of it has to do with changing
the lottery. On face value, hearing this makes it hard

(52:22):
to make it make sense. In order to keep teams
from tanking, we're going to increase the number of teams
that make it to the lottery. Right now it's fourteen,
and one of the proposals maybe two. There's probably still
some tweaking. Suggested should be moved to eighteen, which would

(52:42):
mean it now includes every team that's not in the
top six in their respective conferences. Even if you finish
seven through ten and win your way into the playoffs,
you land the seventh seed or you land the eight seed.
If you are not one of the original six playoff
clinching teams that didn't not require the play in tournament
to make the playoffs, you would be a part of

(53:03):
the lottery. Eighteen of the thirty teams would play out
their eighty two games and then be a part of
the offseason lottery. Now again, reading through this and wondering
if there's some cutoffs, my first thought every time I
hear an expanded lottery is you might increase the possibility

(53:26):
of mission accomplished. What is an anti tanking rule? We
want to eliminate tanking. We want it to not continue.
We want teams to think twice about what are the
benefits from it. When I'm not landing the lottery pick,
I'm not winning the lottery. More teams are involved, So
the need to lose games on purpose is lessened, but

(53:48):
it also opens the door for teams that are good
at basketball to win the lottery, doesn't it. Now Again,
are there tiers if you are one of the best
teams that's in the lottery, one of the four best
teams seeds fifteen through eighteen before the lottery takes place,
are you automatically ineligible to jump from eighteen to one?
As if I read it correctly, that does not appear

(54:10):
to be included in that. I don't think these proposals
are written to finality yet. The league governors meet again
in May, and I think we'll see some tweaking to this.
But I don't want a team that won forty games,
forty two games, forty four games. I want their percentage
chance of winning the lottery to be zero, not point

(54:31):
zero five, not one point two. I want it to
be zero. I don't want those teams winning the lottery.
They didn't tank to get there. Mission accomplished. Great, you
just gave the number one pick to a team that's
already doing it right, that's already going to win. And
what did you do in the process. You kept a
team that's doing it wrong, that's losing. They're going to

(54:51):
continue losing. The board should be full of calls saying
and what's wrong with that? Why are you rewarding these
terrible basketball teams. It's not really a reward. It's just
how you keep your league competitive. If you want the
same teams to win every single year, then you wouldn't
do any of this. None of these things would be
in place. You just have free agency for everything. The

(55:12):
teams that have the most money, just go ahead and
spend the most money. You want to keep winning, well,
you have good fruct structure in place, your players aren't leaving.
Your resigning guys. You're up over the CB team. Just
go ahead, keep winning. These other teams are never gonna
win because they're never gonna have better players. There's cities
like where the Rockets are tonight. Man, put me together
a five person team the all time greatest free agent

(55:34):
signings in Memphis Grizzli's history, and then do it for Sacramento,
and then do it for Utah, and you will be
embarrassed by how bad those outfits those new five person
teams you put together are because players don't go there.
If you trade for them, you can get them. If
you draft them, you can get them, and there's too
many cities that that still falls under management. There has

(55:56):
to do their job very very very very well.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
There really aren't a.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Whole lot of short cut for teams in these places.
Lotter is in place partially because of that, and again
league wide health should be a concern for all the owners.
You want your league to be healthy, so you continue
pocketing all this money and turn your billionaire status into
billionaire status.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
So more teams in.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
The lottery is one one of the two ideas actually
for the anti tanking proposals that I do think will
be voted on, and quite honestly, they're going to have
one of them in place prior to the upcoming season.
Whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing,
it really depends on what all the particulars are. So

(56:37):
I know it was thrown out there today and multiple
reports on it. Until we until we know the very
important specifics and details and if there are tiers and
what the percentages actually are, I do think it makes
a big difference on how you should actually feel about
where this might actually take the league, what it might
actually mean to the teams that you know, quite Frankly,

(56:57):
I'd say for the past three weeks, i'm doing a
Rockets basketball game on the radio, or tonight i'll be
doing it on TV, and lough, I won't want to
know what the standings will look like at some point
during our pre and postgame show or halftime show on TV,
and I will want to know where things stand with
the scoreboard. For any given evening. There's eight games tonight,
There's ten games tonight. There's eleven games tonight. There's five
games tonight, and none of them are competitive. It's one

(57:21):
forty seven to one twenty two. It's one twelve to
eighty seven, and one of the teams that's winning isn't
even wanting to win, but the other team is so
bad and so incapable or so unwilling.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
To put a roster together.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
It's just a consistent night Tonight's basis, we still have
two weeks of the NBA season to go until April twelfth.
There's too many games that it's not that they don't matter,
it's that they're unwatchable. You wouldn't you shouldn't be expecting
fans to want to buy tickets and sit in the
seats for these games.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
You certainly.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
I got another email from the league today this game
will no longer be televised. Instead, we will televise this
game because it involves teams that are not entertaining. They're
not playing good basketball, they don't intend to play good basketball.
And I'm sure when I run through the scoreboard later
on this evening from the NBA slate, that's what we'll see.
It's not every night, and it's not every game, but
it's just far too many of them. So anti tanking rules,

(58:15):
maybe extreme anti tanking rules. They're a given for the
governors to get together and decide we cannot move forward
without changes, and they're absolutely positively for that very reason,
will be changes. It's I just don't think they believe
that they can manage their way through. We're into more
than a month of this, and especially with the All

(58:37):
Star break and the trade deadline where it is, well,
teams already know they've played enough of their season left
and there's still too much of it left. Their fate's sealed. Honestly,
we know some teams fates sealed long before the season begins,
but you got a team this year Indiana is kind
of an extreme case. The best team in the NBA's
Eastern Conference. Last year the best team they represented the conference.

(59:00):
They were in the Eastern Conference Finals. They won the
Eastern Conference Finals. They play in the NBA Finals, and
they were competitive with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
That team, the Pacers. They're the worst team in the
NBA this year.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
They watched Miles Turner sign with the Bucks, and of
course Tyre's halliburtn was hurt in the finals and he
hasn't played any games this year. That's all it took.
They're literally the worst team in the NBA. Every team
has more wins than they do. They will have as
a franchise rep. They will have the most combinations in
the lottery to win the lottery this upcoming season and

(59:34):
land the number one pick in and out rageously out
rageously talented class of incoming NBA players. I hope I'm
not playing it up too much. We'll find out three
to five years from now if it is accurate or not.
But I think this class is insane. I think it's incredible.
I think it's got star power. I think it's got
star power in the front court and the backcourt. I

(59:55):
think Darius Acuff, whose tournament run ended yesterday is one
of the best three players available and should absolutely go
top three, with definitely Debantza and probably Darren Peterson. But
if I told you there's two more players in Houston
just a few segments ago for the Cougars that are
the lottery picks, well there's five right there, without even
diving at all into how much talent there is in

(01:00:16):
this draft. Indiana, Brooklyn, Washington, Sacramento. Those are the four
teams right now that would be likeliest to finish top four.
That's bad, stinky, awful, and smelly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Those are your NBA's worst here as we head into
the offseason.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Shortly lead us into a conversation with the Rockets head
coach he may Udoka. Ten games remaining for the Houston
Rockets Versus of those ten tonight in Memphis, they have
nineteen more wins than the Grizzlies. Hopefully after tonight it
will be twenty games of interest to Houston Rockets standings watchers.
This evening, Denver Nuggets are at home for the Utah Jazz.

(01:00:54):
The La Lakers are at home for the Brooklyn Nets.
The Lakers have thirty more wins than the Nets. The
Nuggets have twenty five more wins than the Utah Jazz Rockets.
Go ahead and take care of business earlier. Today is
weekly appearance on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross none
other than Rockets head coach em Udoka. Off of their

(01:01:15):
first two games of this road trip, which were obviously disappointing,
and there are each of their own regards. Two more
games to go tonight against Memphis and will wrap things
up on Sunday night. And remember after that, there's only
two more road dates the entire season for the Houston Rockets.
They are surrounded by a pair of three game home stands.
A portion of the conversation with e may for you here,
beginning with where his level of frustration is with this

(01:01:38):
team's inability to stay consistent.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
Yeah, I would say, you know, it's been a problem
of ours throughout the year. You know, we look and
feel and play like a different team at times against
the big matchups, you know, kind of get up with
those and then have lows against some of the lesser
teams with the losing records, and so obviously something going
to change and be consistent regardless who were playing, and

(01:02:02):
even in those games, you know, we got really good stretches.
It was a poor quarter or two that kind of
foot us behind. Obviously the first court in Chicago after
a good win, but even the end of the Miami game,
letting them come back like we did, and then the
first court in Chicago outside of that played a great
three quarters. Didn't play our best, you know, most of
the night against Minnesota, probably a C level game and
put together, you know, good last three minutes and a

(01:02:24):
great start to overtime, but have to be more consistent
and sustain that effort, that defensive mentality and then offensively
being aggressive and confident.

Speaker 7 (01:02:33):
Was there anything that Minnesota did in that last half
of the overtime? I mean, look, that was minutes fifty
three and fifty four of the game. What went from
so good in that fourth quarter to you know, align
with those free baskets that they were able to make
that comeback and of such a short period of time.

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
I mean they started going after Kevin a little bit.
They blitzed a few times, We got the outprint in
the pocket and Zubari had a wide open three miss
in the pocket one time, and had some wide open
shooters and LP in the dunker spot and kind of
shot over a few people, so a few miscues outside
out of the blitz and then some some turnovers a
second violation obviously, and some turnovers that got the mount
of transition. But that was the point.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Once we got the lead.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
You know, our defense wasn't set because they were getting
out running and scored pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Much, you know, seven to ten seconds on the shot.
Talk a few times in a row. You man, you're
you're so late in the season here.

Speaker 7 (01:03:25):
It's not about teaching, it's not about an extra practice,
it's not about uh intense film setting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
It's it's a.

Speaker 7 (01:03:31):
Little bit of I guess the psychologist part of your
job as a coach to say, look, guys, we've let
a lot of these kind of games slip through our fingers,
and if we want to be where we want to
be in and make a playoff run, we got to
get this corrected down with about ten games of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Is that the way you're kind of approaching things.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Yeah, absolutely, because even in those games that we haven't
played a full four quarters, we've had really great stretches,
really dominant stretches, and obviously, like I said, so go
down twenty one in Chicago and come back as fast
as we did in the way we did. Obviously, we
played really good basketball and guard at a high level.
So how can we sustain that? That's the main thing,
coming out to start games with the same intensity that
we bring when we get down, and so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
That's the real thing. I mean, I think we all
know we can get back and want.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
To be playing our best going into the playoffs and
have a chance to still do that.

Speaker 8 (01:04:15):
A Rocketect coach Rong mid Dooko with his here on
Sports Talk seven ninety. Yeah, obviously, when you go through
bad stretches out here, one of the things that that
pundits like to go to is vibes or body language
or things like that, and there's been some national people
picking up on that. Just your perspective, how do you
feel morale, chemistry, vibes, whatever you want to call it
with the team.

Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
I would say everybody's frustrated when you lose, and nobody's
going to be happy about it. And so, yeah, body
language isn't going to be totally upbeat when you're you know,
down twenty or giving up a big lead. But you
have to have some resiliency and some determination to get
back in these games the way we have or you know,
to be even keeping it close when we're not playing
our best, and so we look at that thing, those

(01:04:56):
things overall, and how can we, you know, manage to
play a at a quarter here so we're not down
in the deficits.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
So I don't put a ton in that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
I think our guys are all on the same page,
rooting for each other's chairing for each other, and you know,
when you want it's going well, we were upbeating all
that and you just got to maintain that even in
the downtimes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
And so I don't look too much into that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
I think all our guys know what's says stake now
and how we have to play at a more consistent.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Level, and so we don't look at that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
I don't really hear it, but you know, we go
about our business and try to put a full game
together tonight against Memphis.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Now you mentioned just going about your business. Is there?

Speaker 8 (01:05:29):
What do you do as a coach? You try to
keep it just business as usual. Do you try to
do anything differently when these types of.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Stretches pop up? No, you definitely talked about it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
You don't sweep it under the rug and act like
it's okay, Like we're playing our best basketball, our most consistent.
We make that at a point and see how we
can get to it and show the great stretches that
we've had to you know, come back from down eleven
in the last three plus minutes and then take a
thirteen point lead.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
We did some really good things.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
We were physical into the ball, they were the aggressive
most of the night, and we flipped it there. And
if we can come out with that start, you show
him all the good things, the positive things that obviously
we look at what went wrong as well, but you
understand what can get you there and how consistent you
have to be. And so we look at both, you know,
put on the table and see the waste for us
improved and how we could do it in these last
nine games.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
How have you liked a.

Speaker 7 (01:06:16):
Men since the change when you put reena start line
up the last handful of games.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Yeah, it has been great regardless. I think you've been
going back to his last twenty or so games, even
before Reid was in the lineup, he's been playing an
extremely high.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Level on the ball, off the ball.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
It just gives him more variety when Read is in
to not have to handle as much, you know, he
can get back into some of his dunker spots and
screening and rolling and on do the offensive rebounding it
so just gives.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Him more varieties.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
If waste, he can score, ways he can attack and
not just having the ball and setting up. So he's
still doing that. Some obviously want him to continue to
grow in that role, but he's so good at the
other things you don't just want to limit him.

Speaker 7 (01:06:54):
You know, you've got the Memphis Grizzlies in the night.
This is a team that said twenty nine different players.
What is it like for even for a division opponent,
You will see them for the four third time this
year to have to basically draw up a new lineup
or at least film study wise of a bunch of
guys you've largely I've never seen before collectively play together
at the same time.

Speaker 4 (01:07:15):
Well, you just take a look at Chicago and Washington
and all these other teams that are you know, guys
are auditioning for roles for their futures. And you know
they had a close game of Boston the other night,
They beat Denver a few games ago in the last
five and so you don't look at the names on
the back of the Jersey as the NBA, and you
can get beat any night if you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Come out with the right mindset.

Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
And so for us, it's it's about coming out aggressive,
guarding them just like they're anybody else. And we've got
to get back to our physicality on that end, offensively,
taking care of the ball, sharing the ball, and you know,
being aggressive attacking there and not looking for fouls or
calls or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
And so, like I said, it's more about us.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Honestly, We'll go about our business tonight like we have to,
but we want to see a consistent four quarters and
then carry it on to the next game as well.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
That should include a good start that has not been
the case the last couple of games, playing from behind
or just allowing the other team. Chicago certainly stands out
to just gain confidence. They don't deserve half. They're not
a good basketball team. They're not really even playing to win. Now,
Chicago's kind of in no man's land. We talked about
this with Milwaukee. They have the same record. You know,

(01:08:17):
the Milwaukee saga with should they tell Giannis not to play?
Should he want to play and force his way back
on the There's nowhere for them to go on the standings,
they're not gonna make the play in tournament, and they
really can't catch any of the teams by tanking that
are so much worse than them. Chicago's in the same boat.
They're just out there playing basketball because they're NBA players.
Don't give him confidence. Don't let them have a forty

(01:08:37):
one point first quarter. Don't make Collin Sexton think he's
the sixth man of the year. All those things happened,
and even though they all came all the way back,
they then found a way to still come out on
the losing end. Still wanted to mention something additionally to
what he said about him and Thompson. But it's always
draft season, always draft season for Nick Casarro and the NFL.

(01:08:58):
Is there a player out there that's accidentally trying to
sell himself to Nick Cassio.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
We'll talk about that next.

Speaker 6 (01:09:06):
The AED on Sports Talk Day three.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Although it doesn't really seem like it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Of the Major League baseball season, the Yankees and Giants
got it all started on Wednesday, and then they were
so tired they took yesterday off. But they're back on
the field today. We'll get you updates as necessary. I
promise to not update you on that game until at
least one of the two teams scores. Giants are very
Astros like so far this season, but worse, they're ten

(01:09:33):
innings into their season and they have not yet scored
a run. Astros, of course, will play a little bit later.
Mike Burrows, you say, Kakuchi, their respective teams starting pitchers
will have that game for you right here on news
Radio seven forty Kate t r H Rockets Basketball and
Rockets launch pad in advance of the Grizzlies game comes
your way tonight at six o'clock. So that's baseball, that's basketball.

(01:09:56):
Told you we were going to go NFL draft talking
when we returned, and here we are. If you take
a look at any random mock draft, with which I
will gladly do for you. Here what is in line
for the Houston Texans and Nick Casaro. They hold pick
number twenty eight, right near the end of the first round,
the worst pick among all of the teams that didn't

(01:10:19):
play for a conference championship this year, Number twenty eight.
Peter Woods, defensive tackle, Clemson. Trying to spin my brain
around who I spoke with yesterday? Was it at the
golf course. Was it at dyk and Park or was
it at the end of the evening at Toyota Center.
I'm gonna go with the ladder when somebody said, yeah, Ipen,

(01:10:40):
Hey Wexon, Yeah, what's going on in Texans? I think
I saw somewhere they're gonna draft a defensive lineman. Do
you really think they're gonna do that? And I'm like, yeah,
I kind of really do think they're gonna do that.
Peter Woods would fit that bill defensive tackle from Clemson.
That has nothing to do with what I teased. A
player unintentionally potentially selling himself to the vest. Mister straight

(01:11:04):
is in arrow, mister all football all the time. Nick Casario,
general manager of the Houston Texans, Well, maybe I don't
think these are truly Jeremiah Love's intentions, especially since Nick
Casia does not hold one of the top ten selections
in the draft, nor is he likely inclined to trade
into the top ten. But this sounds like a player

(01:11:25):
he and many people around the NFL just might fall
in love with.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
I'm a pretty simple guy. Can you draft me?

Speaker 9 (01:11:32):
I'm not doing too much and none other than football,
like outside of football.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Like I'll go out here and there. I'll go out
here and there.

Speaker 9 (01:11:39):
But I'm the type of guy like my perfect day
after a game, going home, play video games, talk to
wherever I want to talk to, and watch animate So
I'm a simple guy. You're gonna get strictly a football
player with me, which is what you want. You know,
It's gonna be my job. So I'm gonna take it
very seriously and I'm gonna give you my all, and
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Gonna always absolutely strikes me as a Jeremiah what what
kind of player would the insert team name here get
if they were to draft you in this upcoming draft.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
That's the kind of answer he gave. But I ask
you this. I want to get into the anime portion
of the answer. That's its own category of the conversation,
but that'll be part two.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Part one is does that answer and anyway change your
viewpoint of Jeremiah Love as a solid football character?

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Dude?

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
If he said I'd like to play video games but
only GTA, well, yeah, you know, there's there are certain
types of video games, like we all expect the answer
to the question. If the next question was, so, which
one or ones? We expect him to say A football game,
likely along with any others he might enjoy, but that

(01:12:49):
would be one of them. He's a regular guy. He
plays football. He is football. It's his job to play football.
He probably plays video games. He plays Madden. That applies
to both subjects, the video games and the anime.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
Right, So in the video game portion of it, does
your view, your outlook for Jeremiah Love change in any
way when you find out the answer to that very
important second question, which one or ones do you play?
Is there a game that would make you think differently
in a positive way? Because the already that's a very
positive answer. Yeah, But is there a game that would

(01:13:24):
make you think in a more negative way? I can't
imagine that there's one worse. G t A it Well,
it's a lot of athletes, are it is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
It's assumed that they're into athletic games sports games only.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
But you know, G t A.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
If you want to shoot up the mean streets every
now and again to blow off some steam, I'm not
gonna judge you. But that's because I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
I mean, I'm putting out a storyline, a narrative that's
foolish and ridiculous. Now, that second question might have also
been answered in this way by Jeremiah saying, well, yes,
there's a game I like to play, and thank goodness,
by April April twenty third, when I'm drafted in the
first round, I will know that in addition all the

(01:14:13):
NAL money I've made, in an addition all the money
my agency has been fronting me, I will now be
drawing a salary, a big salary, so I can afford
the price tag that was just announced on GTA six.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
So, oh wait, do they have a price out? I
believe I saw seventy dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
Oh that's fine, of course it's fine. That's not even
the most money I've paid for a video game before.
That's why I was kind of surprised it was that low.
I mean, yeah, well that's got to be like the I.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Believe they're anticipating a seventy nine ninety nine price or
maybe as much as eighty nine nine.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
Ye, Like, I wonder if there's tiers of this where
for a little bit more, you get like Bill poster or.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Shark cards, as you know, because you're such a GTA
and plus those cards, what word shark cards? You have
a bank account on the game. Yeah, it would be nice.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say I
would frown upon putting Jeremiah Love in the Texans backfield
to be the best player they've had back there, maybe
since Arian Foster yea. But obviously that's not something that
Nick Cassaira is at all interested in doing. There's no
reason to trade up to do that. He is absolutely
the talent at the running back position in this draft.
It's nice that his teammate is also very good, but

(01:15:29):
thank goodness, we haven't reached that stage with RB one
and RB two like some people want us to do
with QB one and QB two. Price will probably be
the second running back draft, but nobody's considering one versus
the other. They're taking the better one if that's where
they are in the draft and that was what fits
their needs. And like I said, I can't. I know,
there's a bunch of defensive players that could from six

(01:15:53):
to seven, from seven to eight, from eight to ten.
Maybe Jeremiah doesn't go quite as high as we think,
but there's a certain less where like top twelve absolute
end of the line, there's no waise on the board
for a team to to draft at eleven to trade
up to thirteen trade up to go get him. There
he is off the board, snatched up, somebody traded up,
or somebody's already picked him again. This is I could

(01:16:14):
tell you right now from the Makeye reference the Peter
Woodsfick pick. He was the seventh overall pick to the Commanders,
which makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
One thing I was listening to or hearing when I
was listening to that clip of Jeremiah Love. He's like
Bob McNair's dream. He's totally Texan worthy. Yeah, he's a
character standpoint.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
I mean, you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
I think we joke about it because of how silly
it really is. Like there's levels to this. I mean,
nobody should be wanting to draft players who've already shown
you this player might run a foul of our rules
and regulations in this league, first of all, and then worse,
he might run a foul of the law and might.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Put in yourself, was that guy when he came out?

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
When he came out, but he'd put how many years
of Well, nothing's happened, so maybe everything's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
Yeah, but what a weird injury?

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
Yes, which obviously has nothing. Nobody's concerned with Joe Mixon.
Oh my god, I don't know if we should have
this guy here. He might have a weird foot injury
for no reason and a weird offseason.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
No, there's no.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Pros and cons on the scouting report for Jeremiah Love.
The cons page is super light. There's nothing on it
basically when looking at what he is likely to produce
at the NFL level. We got things to get to
here on the show. Each and every day this week,
we've been giving away Rockets tickets. We'll give you a
little bit of a hint on how you can get

(01:17:39):
your way into seeing Rockets Bucks basketball. You'll just have
to be listening in to the top of the r
for detailed instructions.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
It is Friday, It is the eighteen Here on Sports
Talk seven, I y Xac Josh here with you. Simulcass
continues our number two over on scch N.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
You'll actually me over there throughout the evening.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
We handling Rockets Television pre Happen Post alongside Calvin Murphy
for an opportunity to get a win on the road
trip for the first time. It's their third game of
this four game trip. Disappointing games to open it quite obviously,
so hear us talk more about that than over on SEHN.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
Beginning at six thirty, we'll have.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Rockets basketball for you here on the radio side, right
here on Sports Talk seven to ninety Astros Baseball against
the Angels, Game two. That's over on News Radio seven
forty KRH, each of those broadcasts beginning with local pregame
coverage on those two respected stations on deck on seven
forty launch pad here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:18:41):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Kevin Durant has been the focal point of NBA discussion
for quite some time, and for the first time it
is here in Houston because he's a rocket, and he's
been consistently putting up numbers that have him chasing records,
dding records, doing things that nobody else has done before,

(01:19:03):
or very few others have done before. As he rises
up the list, he's the guy they count on in
clutch time, quite obviously. He did have the ball in
clutch time in a tie game just two nights ago
with nine seconds left, and they did not get a
shot off. They didn't even get the ball past the
three point line. After the inbounded it to him, he

(01:19:23):
immediately turned it over and then their bacon was saved
to someone's dismay by Alpa and Shanngoon.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
But that's for a little bit later on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
Here on the show, we just happened to come across
one NBA great who, since retiring from his playing days,
has done ten times as much entertaining as he did
during his playing days. And I'm talking about a player
that's in the Hall of Fame. I'm talking about a
player that needs two of his fingers to put NBA

(01:19:54):
Championship rings on. He's an all time great, he played
on one of the all time greatest teams in college
basketball history. He's a hooping legend to the nth degree,
and he's entertained me at least as much since he retired.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
He is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
Isaiah Thomas spent some time on Everybody's favorite group chat
on NBA Basketball, Chandler Parsons and Beatle and lou Will
and in this case, DeMarcus Cousins. DeMarcus is actually the
only other voice you'll hear in this comment. But they
were all chatting it up about hoops, and Isaiah Thomas
wanted them all to know about a player he'd already

(01:20:34):
talked to about this, So he recounted the story to
the panelists about Kevin's exploits that could have been if
this hypothetical situation could have been orchestrated, which of course
it's mythical at best, but listen and believe.

Speaker 10 (01:20:52):
And I said this to Kevin Durant. If you would
have played back and all there and they put you
in the triple at the mid post area and they
took to or now and you playing with Pippin and
you played with Kukoach and you got to run into
the mid poles, would he have won six championships?

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
I feel like, even with about fifty five seconds left
in this SoundBite, I have to stop there.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Okay, would he win six championships? Of course he would.

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
The thing is like he's he's literally putting in this
fictional scenario, literally pulling MJ out, plugging Kevin Durant right in,
and that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
He's not.

Speaker 3 (01:21:42):
I mean, if you watch the last Dance, you at
least know that the championship seasons, especially like there were
seasons where Michael was carrying that team because those guys
he just named and others were out for injury or
whatever other reason. And Michael just kept going. I'm not
saying Katie wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
It's essentially meant as an enormous compliment to the system
and the player, Kevin.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
It's meant as an extreme Michael. It's just.

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):
You know where he's from, right. I want to remind
everybody where Isaiah Thomas grew up and where he's from
and owned up until Michael started winning championships.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
I believe he's one of Chicago's finest.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Yeah, and I think I honestly, I know this might
even sound dumb, I legit think that has a huge
role in this festering thing with Isaiah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
It's to me, it's still funny because under like, what
did Michael have to do in Isaiah's mind about him
being a Piston? Because how can I feel like, oh,
Isaiah wants Chicago. You took it from me, it's my city, Well,
how is it going to be your city? What did
Michael have to do with that? He was great in
Chicago's a bull and they want all these titles. Of
course it's his city. Did he prevent you from playing there?

(01:22:57):
If his teams wouldn't have beaten your teams, which would
have prevented you from winning more titles as a Piston,
Would you own Chicago? Like if verse Michael Jordan won
no titles, would Pistons legend and Chicago native Isaiah Thomas
have Chicago?

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
I think? Might?

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
He might think that way? Conversely, why don't you own Detroit?
I mean, it's not like Michael grew up in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
What kind of prize is that?

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Well, not a very good one. Luku didn't want to
own Detroit. Larry Fitzgerald, Barry Sanders, Matt Stafford. Yeah, the
people who owned Detroit put skates on their feet.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
It's cold up there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
Well, it's the hockey team, the players and the team
they owned Detroit. It's not the Lions. It's not the Tigers,
not the Pistons.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
Yeah, but don't you think to a degree it is
the Lions.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Like I mean, they have the nostalgia factor and everybody
loves the Lions, who are losers in.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
Sports US are like the Cubs in that way they are.
But I will let Isaiah continue with Rodman.

Speaker 10 (01:24:01):
And Tippan and Cuckoach and DJ and Greg Hodges and
all of them around him, and he get.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
The post up in the mid range and that ball
is you know.

Speaker 10 (01:24:10):
Targeted to him every night and he's getting up twenty
five thirty attempts. Yeah, he can do the same thing.
The most amazing thing about Kevin Durant is go back
and okay pull. That's when you research guys the poll
listen at up. How many shot attempts did does Durant

(01:24:32):
have compare to the shot attempts that Jordan had to
break the ruck. I don't think he's taking like over
sixteen seventeen shots tonight. Very rarely Durant like taking thirty shots.
You know, he get to you, you know on seventeen

(01:24:54):
eighteen shots.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
That's real.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
I left that last part in there because nobody there
wanted to touch it. I'd say he was wrong or
have a debate. Apparently that was DeMarcus there at the end.
But you know, he put the two things he did
for the A team right there. He said, get your
research team on this. Gladly we actually have one. Yeah,
we will actually put that to good use. And he

(01:25:18):
went to specifics. Now, I don't really blame him because
recollecting numbers is not an exact science usually, but his
point is a good one, although it's just a little
off from the numbers early in his career when he
was racking up scoring titles and leading the NBA in
shot makes per game. He did that seven consecutive seasons.
Talking about Michael Jordan, it's something that Kevin Durant has

(01:25:41):
done once. Kevin Durant has never led the NBA in
shots per game. He's only averaged more than twenty twenty
shots per game in three season three of his seasons.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
So while.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Isaiah was a little light on his a little off
on his shots per game, his point was accurate because
mj led the league in shot attempts per game on
eight different or seven different occasions, and three of those
occasions it was better than twenty four, twenty six, twenty
eight shots per game, So he was on the right track.
He just made it sound even better. It wasn't quite

(01:26:15):
to that level. But then they got to the point
of it all. All he's looking at is play this
offense the triangle. Put those teams together just as they were.
That could take pressure off of whomever this star player
was and could do certain things that maybe the old
star player could do in the new star player I'm
putting in there hypothetically can't. And now this get new guy,
this Kevin Durant, who's playing with the Bulls now because

(01:26:37):
of his overwhelming, unbelievable, outrageously high success rate on all
of the shots we think he's going to get created
for him. He creates them for himself right now in
the NBA and has done that for years, and he
makes them all the time. Well what if it was
easier to get them and his teammates just set him
up for them and he was still making him at
at least as higher rate. Because now, if you ever

(01:26:59):
get into the shooting numbers, which I'd gladly do, his
shooting numbers are incredible well, and as compared to Michael's,
they're still better.

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
No, And when it comes to Michael, that is, if
you want to say, oh, he's the greatest of all time,
and he's perfect in pretty much every way. He has
very few, if any flaws, I would say that was
one of them. And it's not even really a flaw.
It just means cause, again, you can take a bunch
of shots and miss them and nobody's gonna be impressed
that you do have to get those shots. In other words,

(01:27:27):
you have to get that shot off sometimes and with
the kind of defense is he was facing night in
and night out to be able to get off as
many shots.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
Even if you're having to take more of those shots,
I would think he's still impressive.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
Even the run It Back research team that doesn't exist
could probably have at least delivered this to their pod listeners.
He just passed him a game or two ago. He's
now taken. He Kevin Durant twenty two two and twenty
six shots. He's better than two thousand shots, better than
twenty three hundred shots behind Michael Jordan despite outscoring him.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
That's the definition of efficiency. Is a all time definition.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
Now you want the other figure that tells you one
of the biggest reasons why Kevin Durant's twenty two thousand
plus shots include six thousand three point attempts.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Right, MJ. Moore didn't even get to two thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):
Yeah, he's gat He shot him at a miserable rate,
whereas Kd's at thirty nine percent.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
You mentioned that the other day his first three seasons
he was like in the twenties, he was he would
love it if he were in the twenties. Four scene
four seasons of not shooting twenty percent to open his
career really yes, And he finished his career with what
his career percentage was, three twenty seven thirty two point
seven percent.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
Really respectable when you consider the numbers you're talking.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
About, and he barely shot any. He made nine as
a rookie, he made three as a second year player.
He got all the way up to twelve in year three,
and then made seven his fourth full season, all eighty
two games. MJ made seven threes and different five on
the all time scoring list a week ago. Five not
anymore though, six he stinks. All right, we've got another

(01:29:16):
guy that was talk. You're listening closely, Rocket fans, Yeah,
that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
Speaking of the Rockets, Bill Simmons is the latest to
talk about their quote bad vibes.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Can't believe Bill Simmons is going in on an emy
Udoka coached team.

Speaker 11 (01:29:33):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety a team rolling
along here on a Friday edition of the program Sports
Talks seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:29:42):
So Bill Simmons, I would say you could characterize him
as a talking head in the NBA realm that has
never been afraid to shove his foot directly into his
mouth with some of the things he says. We all
remember the bad vibes comment from Kendrick Perkins that led

(01:30:03):
to Kevin Durant opening his press conference after the Hawks
win with the vibes tonight, you know it was all funny?

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):
Did you say after the Hawks game? I believe so?
Or did you say after the Hawks win after the
win over the Hawks that went over the Hawks?

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
Okay, just on to make sure. So the vibes were
good after the win over the Hawks. An NBA team
of men who travel around the country together and hang
out all the time, they won a game, and you
would have said the vibes were described as so, how
how are the how's the body language is good?

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
How about the vibes? They're good?

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Yeah, good vibes. Okay, after this was after a win? Yeah,
oh so they felt good?

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
Yeah the time.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
Now, the comments made by KP. Kendrick, they were made
after after a loss, after a loss, okay, during a
season with lots of bad losses, Okay, a season where
they've gone from fifty two wins and the second seed to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
Lesser heights. Yeah, okay, got it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Okay, And again maybe were in the chicken or egg
discussion here do the vibes create bad basketball? Or does
the bad basketball create the vibes or good I know,
we don't know which comes first.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Well, the winning cure is all line isn't famous because
it's not true. That is true. I mean it's people
say that, but it sounds simplistic, but it does actually work.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
So all of this is to say their most recent
game was a rather crushing defeat. So that's the side
of things that any old National Yaker, who obviously was
not at any game they ever talk about, but sees
them as we do. If we're not in the city
they're playing in, like their game, Evin's Minnesota. So Billys
weighs in on the Rockets in the form of a doctor,

(01:31:48):
a body language doctor.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Houston, the body language doctor is just horrified. It's bad.
This is bad.

Speaker 12 (01:31:55):
First of all, it's the most disconnected of all the
playoff teams. There's a play last thing where they're up
at the end of regulation and Shangun has to come
down and he makes this absolutely insane block to save
the game on Randall and then hits his face on
the floor and his lips bleeding. Reach Shepherd comes over
kind of like gives him a nice job, buddy, Like
it's the end of the first quarter or something. Durant

(01:32:17):
doesn't even acknowledge him, really, and nobody else in the
Rockets comes over and Shangun just walks back. This was
like one of the best plays of Shangun's career. Was insane.
I thought he was gonna get hurt, and that team
is just so so not on the same page. I
don't like the vibes. Something's really wrong with the Rockets.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):
It's just so.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
I'm not saying none of that is accurate as far
as like, Okay, if you want to take the fact
that Reaed Shepherd didn't pat him on the butt enough times,
or that Kadi, who by the way, had made a
horrific turnover to where the block that he was describing
by Shingun was even necessary, I mean, he's probably still
mad at himself.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
I don't know. I'm not a body lane wash doctor,
as he said, but gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
Man, if you want to make something into something, you
can really make something into something.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
You just got to try hard enough.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
It's it's the roller coaster is like never gonna be built.
You could never open an amusement park with the roller
coaster that the Rockets were on. Just in that game
in that moment, because it's too unsafe. You'd never get clearance,
you'd never get enough insurance, and nobody would ever want
to ride it, even thrill seekers. They just played one
of their worst forty five minutes of basketball all year.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
That game was terrible. They had no business even being
in it. And then they went on a thirteen to
two run, and then they had.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
The ball with a chance to win, I mean, the
best vibes ever potentially, and then they turned it over
just on it, just because that's what they do.

Speaker 2 (01:33:46):
I'm justus.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
And then you needed Shengun to have an unbelievable block
to get you to overtime.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
And if he cared, you couldn't make his point.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
If he cared to continue watching like, I don't like
you said, I don't really disagree with what he saw,
but I don't know that in between the cutups of well,
all right, camera one, take shangoon, all right, camera three,
zoom in on his lip, all right, camera four, show
the disgruntled Timberwolves knowing that they're going to overtime, all right,
should give me the fans? Camera two go, and then
you get direct Kevin Durant, I mean, what happened in

(01:34:16):
between Kevin Durant see Shngoon meadmonging his way all the
way to the bench with blood dripping offices.

Speaker 2 (01:34:21):
I don't know was he We don't see that. Neither
did Bill because he wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
And I'm pretty sure Bill's not watching on a live
feed a backhaul channel where he can see everything that
we don't necessarily see. Not saying it happen, but I'm
just telling you he's only seeing what they're giving you
and working off that and the good vibes, bad vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
We just beat the Hawks? How are the vibes? How's
the bottle?

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
How do you think the body language was when they
went up ninety eight ninety five and one oh one
ninety five and one o eight ninety five? Did you
watch that part of the game where they could not
have been more excited for each other related to how
they're playing exactly. He's absolutely chair picking. And look, you
heard somebody do this last night the postgame presser. Do
you hear the question that emy Udoka got about he

(01:35:04):
was not Tari Easton.

Speaker 3 (01:35:05):
Didn't look like he was really involved in the huddle
at one point, and I may was like you could
tell he wanted to say, you stupid idiot, but instead
he said instead he was like, I didn't really know,
so it wasn't paying attention, you know, probably because he
was running the huddle.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
I don't disagree with people who think that there's something
wrong and are searching for reasons, because we're actually doing
the same thing. We look at the talent, we look
at the basketball, we look at stretches, a good play.
We just heard Ima Udoka within the hour talking about
all these same things. Searching for answers is fine, and
since nobody has any, we got to accept all the
answers that are out there, whether they're right or wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
I mentioned that Bill Simmons going.

Speaker 6 (01:35:41):
In on e May.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
Wow, what a stretch.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
Well there was more from Bill, beginning with the thoughts
on e May and then of course the great narrative
that it's not going to go away unless someone tells
it to go away.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
You'll know what I'm talking about, he May.

Speaker 12 (01:35:55):
I think this has been one of the worst coaching
jobs of the year. I don't see any adjustment. The
vibes are awful. I don't think he really likes the
team that much. And if you want to go full
conspiracy on it. They have not looked the same since
the All Star break, and all the KD. Burner stuff,
whether that was true or not true, did not look
the same, and they don't seem connected at all.

Speaker 1 (01:36:14):
Now I'm gonna cherry pick this comment, okay, because I
don't know the context under which it fell during his
five minute, ten minute, forty minute an hour long podcast,
but in the format we've given it to our listeners,
that sounds like you had your two minute and twenty
five second sports cast and you have a six items
and you kept what actually is breaking news, but you

(01:36:35):
really didn't break it yourself, or you're not one hundred
percent sure on it, so you bury it at the
end of your sports cast because you want to make
sure no no, I had that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
For you the other night.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
But it's not such a you're not strong enough behind
your own story or sources that you wouldn't have immediately
led with breaking news. Da da da, And so he
dropped the And they also haven't been the same since
the old Burner stuff, just to slide that in there.

Speaker 3 (01:36:56):
And the thing about that is even parts of that
he can't really dispute, Like even if you don't if
you're the most staunchest believer that Kevin Durant didn't do that. Okay, well,
then why did he fire his entire social staff right
after it all came out?

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
Why right after it was in the news cycle for
like forty eight. I don't know what's going on at boardroom.
That could be something completely unrelated.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
I'll tell you what's going on at boardroom him posing
for pictures with Aaron Judge. I don't know how to
feel about that situation. The Rockets pre All Star Break.
They went into the All Star Break with that loss
to the Clippers. They had lost three of five heading
into the break. They were four and five in their

(01:37:39):
nine games preceding the break. I don't know if you've
noticed this Bill or everybody else. They're entering play tonight
with a forty three to twenty nine record. They're fourteen
games over five hundred. They've played seventy two games. In
their first twenty games of the season, they were ten
games over. They started fifteen and five. They've played fifty

(01:38:01):
two games since then. They've They're four games over five
hundred in more than half a season. They've been like
this since the beginning of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
After twenty games, the next month, the next month after that,
the next month after that, and the current month. Is
how they've played. This is not a post All Star
break burner part of the season. How they've played.

Speaker 3 (01:38:23):
It just sounds lazy, like I've got to feed into
a narrative that's out there already. You're not even creating
your own stupid narrative. You're just But he didn't make
it up out of thin air. Is this part of
the story that it's there's no real reason for it
to go away.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
It wasn't completely shut down by the main source when
he was asked about it. I was there that day
and he just said, come on, guys, I know you
have to ask, but we're moving on. Guys here know
how I feel about him As he said that day,
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):
Gonna say someone else had a press conference similar to that, like, yeah,
I'm cod, but let's just move on.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
But his name was Rex Ryan. It was a very
very different situation.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
Yeah, that doesn't impact how your teammates view you. His
football teammates, his players. Are you sure, hey, man, is
this a good place for me to be defensively? Should
I be backpedaling here or should it be up in
this hole? Is that my responsibility? Do you want me
to press coverage? Is that what we're looking for here?
I don't think they care if he's a foot guy. Yeah,

(01:39:26):
I'm like, how you put that guy? Should shouldn't bother
their d tackle, shouldn't bother their strong safety. I doubt
their tight end was too concerned. Well, is this something
that now he could be into the punter?

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Maybe I don't know. I place kicker, I don't, I
don't know. You see what I'm saying that, Like there
has to be where's the line? Oh my god, my
head coach, he likes feet.

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):
I'm out, get my agent on the he his wife's fat,
Get me out of here and videotaping it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
That was a weird, weird video. All right, we will.
We're gonna pay off the giveaway.

Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
He told you to listen up closely to Zeke earlier
and if you did, you'll be able to win rockets tickets.

Speaker 8 (01:40:08):
Next.

Speaker 9 (01:40:11):
What's up?

Speaker 8 (01:40:13):
I say it was.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
That we should give away rockets tickets. You're listening closely
all week? Then you know we have rockets tickets for
your Rockets bucks April first. We're not kidding, Uh, they
will be one of the six teams that still has
to visit Toyota Center to close out the season, and
that game comes on April first.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
We would like to send you there.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
We have a pair of tickets to do so if
you were listening to the show and you'll know the
answer to this question. We told you you need to
be listening, and if you were, this answer is very,
very simple, and you can call in with it and
win a pair of tickets to go see the Rockets
and Bucks on April first. At So you had a
center seven one three, two one two five seven ninety,
just fire off the answer to this simple question. We
let you hear from the most important basketball player in

(01:41:05):
the history of Chicago after Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
It's Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah Thomas was speaking.

Speaker 1 (01:41:13):
About you could just put this player in Michael's place,
alongside Scott and Tony and Dennis and BJ and the
other assorted bulls, and would that player and those players
now together with mj out and this hypothetical current NBA

(01:41:34):
player in would they win six championships? His answer was yes.
It was not met with any resistance either. So the
question is, as you heard here on the show earlier,
from Isaiah Thomas, which current NBA player did Isaiah Thomas
say could also have won six championships if he just
simply replaced MJ on the six time NBA champion Chicago

(01:41:55):
Bulls over that eight year period.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
We've got two pair leftwax acsh would give them both away.
It is Friday. Absolutely, we love our fans.

Speaker 3 (01:42:03):
Absolutely, this is a pretty easy one. We've been giving
you some really good ones all week long. Yeah, so
we will have two winners today.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
We have two pairs of tickets for Rockets Bucks April first, seven, one, three, two, five,
seven nine. If you know the answer that question, which
if you were listening to the show, you absolutely will
know because we played you the answer.

Speaker 3 (01:42:23):
You You texted me about this story last night, and uh,
I was like, wait, what who? These are the times
where we just go straight to it. Oh, you guys
are really you know anything. You guys are actually seem
like you're actually friends. You actually text each other, somebody
talk to each other.

Speaker 2 (01:42:37):
Actually, so we did get there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
This is after a few texts were sent about our
afternoon broadcast and how things went for the Astros and
if it was your fault or Ross's fault or my
fault or whatever happened. And I said to you after
you were mentioning just other random things that I have
nothing to do with today's conversation, I said, uh, somebody
that you like watching on the Worldwide Leader. She gives

(01:43:03):
gambling information. Her boyfriend sued his parentals. You responded with
for what, And I said, stealing his bread?

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
What meant?

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
But of course we know what bread is. It's dough,
it's greenbacks, it's simoleans, it's money. So this particular gambling
expert works for ESPN. Her boyfriend is Alec Bohm, who
plays for the Philadelphia Phillies, and that's why this story
met the light of day. He alleges and has sought
the court's assistance because of he thinks his parents have

(01:43:38):
I think one word they used was misused his money.
They took it, They took it from him, some of
which he did authorize them to do so. But then
the manner in which they used it, and he tried
to get it back from them, it didn't go very smoothly.
So he's suing his parents over their misuse of his

(01:43:59):
hard earned baseball money.

Speaker 2 (01:44:02):
He began to review his personal and financial affairs in
recent mon then how much money you have? I don't know.
My parents are managing that. It says that his parents,
you're twenty eight years.

Speaker 13 (01:44:11):
Old, refuse to give him access to the accounts. What's
the password, mom, it's my account mom? Or provide im
on Lisa with the information he sought about them.

Speaker 3 (01:44:24):
They sought to freeze him out of four accounts established
as limited liability companies, and now he believes they converted
a sizable amount the phrase siphoning large amounts.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
Of his money.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
He would just spend this story a completely different way
and it will sound very, very really reasonable and believable.
Reread that part about the freezing and the keeping him
away from his money.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
Yeah, they start to freeze him out of four accounts
established as limited liability companies.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
So this is parents of a very troubled abuser. He
was addicted. He was someone that could not be trusted.
They'd tried everything. They've sent him for counseling. He's been
in and out of rehab over and over and over again,
and they would no longer give him money. He was
still living at the house, they were still doing what
they could. They just knew that allowing him access to

(01:45:14):
this amount of money was just asking for trouble. They
knew he would go down the same path again. It
was for it was the last thing they thought they
could do to keep him from essentially harming himself anymore. Now,
doesn't it sound like a believable story. It sounds like
we're talking about Robert Downey Junior in less than zero.
But in fact, as the representatives for the parents said,

(01:45:37):
Daniel and Lisa, Daniel and Lisa Boehm love their son
very much, and I've always acted his best interests, both
personally and professionally, and still do so to this day.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
We're innocent. Well, yes, obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:45:54):
The weird part is that Alec Bohm has had full
access to the accounts and his parents are paying his
expenses on their personal credit cards.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
Really, hey, what what do you so?

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
That his parents were watching over his money and they
were very concerned about maybe some expenses that where they
saw come across like.

Speaker 2 (01:46:16):
One hundred thousand dollars of sides. Jordan, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:46:22):
I mean, it's it is odd like I would not
that I don't business meeting well, not that clients, not
that I'm not doing anything or I'm doing anything wrong,
but I just why would you ever even give your
parents that access. I'm not even saying from the criminal standpoint,
I'm just like, why would you want them both to
see what you're spending your money.

Speaker 2 (01:46:42):
On at a certain point in your life.

Speaker 1 (01:46:44):
Clearly you'd want it back, But it's not uncommon for
players to because of the amounts of money. Who are
you as an eighteen or seventeen year old. You're a
high school senior, living at home, going to high school
and playing exceptionally high level baseball, and then you forego
college and go play professionally as a minor leaguer, gotten

(01:47:06):
a signing bonus as a teenager, and I'm not even
this could be him, This could not be a pretty
typical or you're out of high school for three years.
It's something like you're young, having your parents involved in
your monetary handling your finances is very very common. YEA,
By the time you're twenty one and have ten point
two million dollars in salary owed you by the Philadelphia

(01:47:28):
Phillies annually, maybe it's less common.

Speaker 3 (01:47:32):
It does fascinate me how many athletes, celebrities, whatever this
happened and Billy Joel has happened with his first wife's
brother was like swindling him for a ton of money
even after they had gotten divorced, and Christy Brinkley was like,
hey man, why is he in first class and wearing coach?

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
Have you ever read a story about a celebrity child
actor in a story written about themselves and their parents,
and the word is strange was used because they couldn't
get their money that they made as a child actor.
And they're thirty five years old now only a billion
times mcaulay Culkin and others many many, many times over.

(01:48:12):
You're young, they're helping you, they raised it, they did
a good job. They're handling your finances. And then either
they take advantage of you or you don't know how to.

Speaker 3 (01:48:21):
Help yourself, and if they're particularly sleazy, they'll even start
a conservatorship over you, like Britney Spears, dad did there?

Speaker 2 (01:48:27):
You have it? Awful?

Speaker 11 (01:48:29):
Awful showbiz parents the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
I guess so.

Speaker 1 (01:48:38):
Earlier this week over the extremely popular TGL event.

Speaker 2 (01:48:44):
What's that? What's TGL golf?

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
That's correct? The Indoor Golf League Tiger Woods in Red
was out. There was even a Sunday he was golfing
he was participating, and the thought was, as he participates there,
just a couple of weeks out from that little golf
tournament down Georgia, that he would be participating there. He's
obviously got health problems, and he's old for a golfer

(01:49:09):
and doesn't didn't play much golf competitively anymore. The what
are you kidding me? Part of the story comes from Florida.
This is not a non Florida story.

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
This is a Florida story.

Speaker 1 (01:49:24):
I'll just read it straight up from the television station
out in Fla Martin County as they wrote it. Golfing
legend Tiger Woods was arrested on suspicion of dui after
a rollover crash on Jupiter Island just before two pm today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:44):
A rollover. I think the vehicle is not on its
wheels as I looked right.

Speaker 3 (01:49:50):
Which would indicate this is more than just a run
of the mill bumper type crash.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
That's that's not necessary. I'm being dead serious.

Speaker 1 (01:49:58):
If you veer out of your lane at certain speeds
or angles and you catch a curb a different height
of whatever you've run into, you can easily pop the
car off his wheels.

Speaker 3 (01:50:11):
He's got to be you have to have enough momentum
that the curb would cause that kind of end result.

Speaker 1 (01:50:18):
Two tests of Tiger were requested. He refused one, he said,
okay to the other. Now he complied with the breathalyzer.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
What's the other one? Field sobriety.

Speaker 1 (01:50:29):
The Marin County Sheriff John Budensik said he refused a
urine test.

Speaker 2 (01:50:35):
Oh, okay, that's interesting. Did not appear.

Speaker 1 (01:50:39):
According to the sheriff, that Woods was hurt, misdemeanor chargers
expect to be what Tiger faces and at least eight
hours of hanging out in Martin County jail. A new mugshot,
I haven't seen one that doesn't meet our friends or
what does TMZ stand for?

Speaker 2 (01:50:57):
The media source? The media zone? The media is ours?

Speaker 1 (01:50:59):
I'm sure if there is a mug shot, if somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:51:04):
Like, does everybody is he super famous?

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
Like? Does everybody know his name? I guess, I mean,
I know he drinks a lot of whatever is in
his water bottle? And so does everybody work for Is
that part of the job interview?

Speaker 2 (01:51:13):
Hey, could you guys get more bricked up? Oh? Is
he's like you?

Speaker 1 (01:51:16):
You walk in and do you do I know for
you from your paparazzi days, I know you from your
your desk editing days. But let me see your backpack
and let me see what your water bottle looks like.
I don't know if you're cut out to to be
seen on camera hanging over the cubicle with.

Speaker 3 (01:51:34):
Your water bottle in hand. It's unbelievable, But they break,
they break all the news. They somehow have a a
network to get that done. Come on, I mean, so,
what what is your like, your feeling here about this.
I don't you're certainly shouldn't be saying poor Tiger. I'm
feeling more like, thankfully it's a one car crash and

(01:51:57):
he and nobody he doesn't appear hurt, neither does anybody
body else. There are certain people that, after enough, really catastrophic,
not just like, ah, this is bad, you know hiccups here,
really catastrophic repeat events.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
You just kinda.

Speaker 3 (01:52:16):
This sounds morbid, but you just kind of expect that
ultimate story. Here's the story I was I was thinking
was coming.

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
I mean, I don't think it today, and I definitely
didn't think it before today. I'm not thinking that Tiger
Woods is ultimately gonna no longer be with us, or
being some hyper horrific near death crash because he has
an alcohol problem but a drug problem or or.

Speaker 3 (01:52:35):
But it's not just it's the type of drug. It's
not he's addicted to this designer drug here, it's you know, percocet.
It's the painkilling going back to the back of you know,
so it can manifest itself and then spread and balloon
and into something much nastier. And there was a while
there where I absolutely was concerned about that because he
kept getting stopped by cops and that was after his

(01:52:58):
ex bashed out the car window, the back window with
the nine iron. At the time, that was his wife,
not for much longer, but I would say his wife
did it, not his ex.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
She's now his ex.

Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
But yeah, at the time that if she was already
his ex, I don't think she would have reacted that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
I was just referring to this was his ex because
he's been with so understanding since then. I got you.

Speaker 3 (01:53:22):
But uh, yeah, I mean there is a while there
where I was worried about that. There's still like Rick Flair,
same thing it was, he kept doing things in Richards,
same thing. Well, that's a different same guy's already dead,
which Richards has been dead for like twenty years already.
What about mc mars, she's not in the ground yet.
Well mc mar has already died. Well, then he got

(01:53:43):
his heart.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
Kickstart, he got it set up. Nice job, but boom.

Speaker 1 (01:53:48):
Thirty mile zone historically used in the film and TV
industry just to refer to the studio zone TMZ thirty
miles zone.

Speaker 3 (01:53:55):
Oh that's what's really I would have guessed a million
times and never come that. It's a Hollywood term, the.

Speaker 2 (01:54:02):
Mile thirty mile zone. Huh. All right, we didn't get
to Chewbacca this segment like I wanted to.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
It requires more than three minutes. Well, you are aware
of what Chewbacca said, you're aware of the U. I
wonder how that looked on the close captioning. By the way,
when I said that just now always good for a rewatch.

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):
So we were talking about that lamar Odem documentary coming
out Netflix. I think it's the yeah, thirty first of
this month, so a few more days it's Tuesday, and.

Speaker 2 (01:54:38):
It's call.

Speaker 3 (01:54:39):
It's part of their Untold series focuses on lamar Odom
and his twenty fifteen overdose at a Nevada brothel.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
Why can't they just say where it was? He was
at the bunny Ranch. Why would you give them the
just he was at a brothel. They don't need it. Okay,
through the brothel.

Speaker 4 (01:54:55):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
And uh for the documentary Netflix ob interviewed several people
close to him.

Speaker 1 (01:55:02):
Again the title of the documentary, Uh huh, The Death
and Life of lamar Odom.

Speaker 2 (01:55:07):
Yeah, he's got that in common with uh Mick mars.

Speaker 3 (01:55:10):
He is alive. For those that are wondering, yes, very
much so, more so maybe than Keith Richards. But the
whole point of this article was that they were surprised
that A. Chloe Kardashian sat down and b that she
was so forthcoming when.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
She did that, he means sat down for the interview, like,
gave them time. There you go? What what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (01:55:34):
What do you think I meant that she's I was
taking it literally, Wow, she sat down. We thought she'd
stand the entire time. Now and then there's you know
clips that they put.

Speaker 1 (01:55:46):
They sounded pleased and surprised that she was so forthcoming.
Now obviously was not a very good time in her life.
She wasn't treated very well.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
It made her.

Speaker 3 (01:55:54):
I'm sure it made her feel very just made her
feel bad. It was clearly she was splashing out on
social when it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:55:59):
I remember, But.

Speaker 1 (01:56:02):
Why wouldn't she want She it's going to be relived
without her input, or it's going to be relived in
her words, right with her input.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Without people assuming and she yeah, but the director to say,
it's one of those prizes. You expect people with that
level of fame and power, quite frankly, to have conditions,
to have things that are willing to talk about, not
willing to talk about, and have a handler sitting over
their shoulder who says, you know, you can say this,
but don't say that, or I have to interrupt you
there or whatever. Right, Yeah, like Jordan, for Bill knew

(01:56:32):
that was coming. We're not doing this interview anymore. Isn't
that what she said? You give her take.

Speaker 2 (01:56:38):
You can't ask that. We're not answering that, we're not
talking about that. Now we talked about this, We're not
doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:56:44):
Can you imagine her sidled up next to him for
all of his press conferences with the Patriots over the years.
He didn't answer the questions anyway. He didn't need her
like when when Spygate happened, he wasn't even there.

Speaker 2 (01:56:56):
That's what she would have said. You think he knows
how to inflate balls? All right? Football at five is
directly ahead.

Speaker 6 (01:57:06):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:57:11):
Two days this week. She's so nice, you should be
nicer to her. She's such a nice person. I don't
think she is.

Speaker 3 (01:57:21):
Why because she's a Kardashian by definition, they are NICEA
Why she's her own person?

Speaker 2 (01:57:29):
Who's the nicest one her? I think that's a reasonable answer.
He the bar is low.

Speaker 1 (01:57:35):
Well, yeah, if you're only comparing her to them, I
think other people would just say she's nice, end of story.
What do you she's nice er than Courtney, or she's
nice er than Chloe, or she's nicer than Kim.

Speaker 2 (01:57:46):
It's not She's just nice. Do you think if Bob
hadn't kicked the can kick the bucket? Sorry? And do
you think this would have all happened the same way?
Do you think the Kardashian.

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
Obviously changed dramatically with him not in it? And you
know Chris taking such an involvement in their lives and
came along first of all, there's under no circumstances could
anybody in that family ever have thought this would have happened.
The amount of money and popularity because her makeup, that's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
I'm just like, she makes how much money?

Speaker 1 (01:58:27):
Well, now, it's even she's been able to create a
make Kim and to a certain extent, the others in
the family, the amount of money they've been able to
create by creating money off of this Skims and other things,
et cetera. Skims is in bed with the NBA. They're
one of the a major partner in the National Basketball Association.

Speaker 3 (01:58:46):
That's incredible. I was trying to think about this oday.
So Kim's been married to Reggie Bush, right or were
they just together?

Speaker 2 (01:58:56):
Yeah? I don't I thought they got married, and I
don't think there was a marriage. That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:59:00):
She didn't marry that athlete. The athlete she married was
Chris with a k h humphries. No, h it was
just Kris Yes, so spelled like her mom U.

Speaker 4 (01:59:13):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
Interesting that lasted how long until they handled it? Eleven days?
It was a brief, brief, brief connection. I think it
was a little over a year.

Speaker 2 (01:59:24):
And of course there's Kanye.

Speaker 1 (01:59:27):
Well, Chris was husband number two Kanye was husband number three, right.
The first one was some fella named Damon Thomas.

Speaker 2 (01:59:36):
Does he have a stage name?

Speaker 3 (01:59:37):
I had never heard of him before this. Oh, okay,
how long did how long were they hitched? Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:59:44):
That's in the middle. Chris was the shortest, Kanye was
the longest. Damon was in the middle, But he was first.
With plenty of others not married to any others. Wouldn't
shock me if marriage number four was sometime in her future.

Speaker 2 (01:59:59):
Definitely wasn't first marriage. Yeah, that's true. He was the
first marriage.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
Wide range of television shows she's been involved with, Keeping
Up with the Kardashians, Courtney and Kim Take Miami, Courtney
and Kim take New York and the Kardashians.

Speaker 2 (02:00:18):
Why did you say the last one like that? And
because she's there's no acting job, she can't handle.

Speaker 3 (02:00:27):
Keeping up with the Kardashians, Who is it Chloe and Kim?
Chloe was not a title partner her other sister with
a k Courtney.

Speaker 2 (02:00:37):
Oh, Kim and Courtney take Manhattan and there's no Manhattan
here New York. I thought that would just stick to
the favorite Burrough Dude. I know she was with Reggie Bush,
but this cannot be cannot be football at five?

Speaker 1 (02:00:54):
Why he's a football player. You can exhaust the entire
NFL store now, right, that's it. We've hit it all. Well, no,
not necessarily, because do you want to talk about her
time with Miles Austin too, Well, he.

Speaker 3 (02:01:08):
Did play football, and then of course her mom at
one point is rumored to have been with another guy
who played football. His name was Oorenthal James Simpson.

Speaker 2 (02:01:17):
And as you would ask me moments ago, how long
did that last? We tuk admitutes.

Speaker 1 (02:01:26):
I mean, I think the category of facts the Kardashians
at football at five, I think it's been exhausted.

Speaker 2 (02:01:33):
We could get this sponsored so easily come on again. Currently, Yeah,
they're pretty much.

Speaker 10 (02:01:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:01:40):
I would say the shows. The show is running after
it went away, hm, like, hey man, this was kind
of a good thing. That was my favorite part. By
the way, well is one of them of the the
OJ documentaries, because he's in the middle of the robbery
in Vegas, you know, the thing that put him into jail,
not the two people he killed, Okay, And he said

(02:02:02):
he's there waiting on the guys or whatever, I can't
remember what. And he said that he saw Kim Kardashian
on TV talking about her new show, Keeping Up with
the Kardashians, and that OJ said, oh, I don't never
amount anything.

Speaker 2 (02:02:15):
That's stupid. Family, She's an idiot.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
Well, she does have a listing of both films and
television programs. Because you've ruined you win. It is sports.
I'm asking you a sports question. Okay, there are nine
listed television programs with which she is associated with. I'll
read you eight of them, and then you will give
me the sports related television program she's associated with recently.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
I'll read you from recent to least recent.

Speaker 1 (02:02:42):
All's fair, American Horror Story, The Kardashians, Kim Kardashian West,
the Justice Project, Dash Dolls, Courtney and Kim take New York,
Courtney can take Miami, and of course what started at
all Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
And I'll give you this. This is separate from any films.
We'll do that next. This is just television shows or
program she was a part of.

Speaker 1 (02:03:04):
I gave you every single one of them except the
sports related program or event that she was credited for
being a part of, American Gladiators.

Speaker 2 (02:03:15):
That is incorrect. Is it a good guess yes, it's
a very good guest. Earlier.

Speaker 1 (02:03:20):
There are oiled up, very muscled up men involved in
this production.

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
All right, so it's not Hawaiian Tropic.

Speaker 1 (02:03:28):
March thirtieth, two thousand and eight, at the Citrus Bowl
in FLA.

Speaker 2 (02:03:32):
She was a WrestleMania. She was at WrestleMania.

Speaker 3 (02:03:35):
She was with another female, famous female actress or talent
I believe, unless I'm getting her mixed.

Speaker 2 (02:03:43):
Up with she served as hostess of the event. Okay,
all right.

Speaker 1 (02:03:47):
Then on the film side, to wrap up the completely
necessary Friday edition of Football at five, It's today has
been Kardashian only.

Speaker 2 (02:03:55):
Lauren has texted in and says she loves this segment.

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
Right as you said that, from most recent to least recent,
I was a little bit surprised to see all of
these credited film roles listed on a source for information.

Speaker 2 (02:04:08):
Is the film she was in with Ray J listed?

Speaker 1 (02:04:11):
As I said, I'm going to list them from most
recent to what was the first thing she's listed? The
first thing, Paw Patrol, the Mighty movie Paw Patrol, the
movie Zoolander, Supermodel Temptation, Confessions of a Marriage counselor Deep
in the Valley, the only thing of all on this
list that I've seen even part of disaster movie, the

(02:04:33):
spinoff type movie. And yes, you were correct. The first
film listing for her is listed as a credited role
for her Kim Kardashian Comma Superstar.

Speaker 2 (02:04:45):
What's the name of two thousand and seven? That's the
name of the film.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
Oh okay, you weren't aware that was the name of
the film when it was released and you saw the
front cover of the release. What I saw, Kim Kardashian Superstar.
I thought that was common knowledge.

Speaker 2 (02:05:00):
No, well not, it wasn't common with me. Okay, that's
very interesting. By the way, now do we need to
replay the imaging support more? Kim k talk?

Speaker 3 (02:05:14):
And by the way, Gordy brings up something very pertinent
to this conversation. Does she not get credit for the
roast of Tom Brady? I mean there, I guess that
could be there.

Speaker 2 (02:05:25):
It wasn't listed. It was not listed, so you're clearly
not on IMDb they would have had that. That's a
good point. It's a good point.

Speaker 3 (02:05:34):
By the way, there aren't they these people that roast everyone?
Aren't they about to do a new one soon? Like
next month?

Speaker 2 (02:05:40):
It's a pretty regular occurrence. I had not.

Speaker 1 (02:05:42):
I don't know what then. I'm sure you're right now.
You might recall from I can't take it anymore. You
might recall from a few days ago, maybe a week,
two weeks ago. We were talking about the current NFL player.
He's the quarterback at the Chicago Bears, and he was
looking to make more money off of his own Monica Iceman,
and we joked about Val Kilmer, Kazansky and all that stuff,

(02:06:06):
and we really never made the obvious connection, just because
it's an older reference. But the Iceman and this will
never change. I know this generation doesn't know anything about it,
and they'll think the Iceman is, in fact Kayleb Williams.
But the Iceman is George Gervin. Not happy, yeah, and
he shot him because he's the original he and they

(02:06:28):
say he was caught off guard that he learned that
somebody had attempted to trademark Iceman after recently earning the nickname,
even though George I think he's I mean, if you
haven't seen any Iceman posters and you call yourself a
longtime NBA fan, come on, where have you been?

Speaker 2 (02:06:48):
And just who's George? Right?

Speaker 1 (02:06:51):
I really feel like more people know him as Iceman
than George Gervin. It's it was such a it was
doctor j caliber use.

Speaker 3 (02:06:59):
Yeah, you don't them by their actual name, you call
them by that moniker, like when people see Michael Jordan and.

Speaker 1 (02:07:05):
They go, oh, look it's black Cat. But unfortunately back
here on an America to his name. The timing of
you know, he was caught off guard. But it wasn't
like he could say, well, you can file all you want,
it's mine. It's the opposite actually, because he had not
done anything with it. So files were made on his behalf,

(02:07:26):
but only since March twentieth, and the Patent Office and
Trademark Office PTO USPTO the application they're going to accept
Williams because he filed it first, and Girvans will be denied.

Speaker 2 (02:07:40):
That's kind of.

Speaker 3 (02:07:41):
Crazy that it basically just comes down to who got
to the building first, I guess, or the website. I
don't know all the particulars.

Speaker 1 (02:07:50):
I mean filed it this whole time though, this whole
this is now our second conversation about the Iceman And
at no point did you or me ever bring up
Chuck Liddell. Was it not that popular I mean, he
was like the most popular performer at the time in
the UFC.

Speaker 2 (02:08:08):
I guess I don't remember it being Iceman. It was.
He even filed for the trademark this.

Speaker 3 (02:08:13):
You know what this reminds me of is when both
the Seahawks and the Aggies were arguing over the dumb
number twelve on a flag.

Speaker 1 (02:08:19):
It shouldn't be called dumb. It's it is dumb matters.
It's a money making factor for both of these parties. Yeah,
because idiots will buy a T shirts to say twelfth
Man on this It's ours you. That's what this whole
office is all about. It. You're you're stealing from me.
I own this, and I'm legally earned ownership of this.

Speaker 2 (02:08:38):
You can't have it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:39):
You can't make money off this. It's mine. You want
to make money off it, great, give it to me.
It's my money.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
Who uh, who ended up winning that scrap between the
Seahawks and the Aggies. Why don't you rhetorically answer your
own question? Why one of the two losers flighting over?
That's now? Man, The Seahawks are defending world champions. There
you go. Then they're the winners that they won every
they won it all they want it life.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
All right, we will get to some of the items
we still have not to today at the bottom of
the hour in case you missed it, And of course
we still have some tickets to give you guys away.

Speaker 2 (02:09:12):
All of that still to come on a Friday edition
of the program.

Speaker 6 (02:09:17):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:09:21):
It is The A Team Sports Sox seven ninety Space
City Home Network.

Speaker 2 (02:09:27):
By the way, the.

Speaker 3 (02:09:29):
NBA's three comprehensive anti tanking proposals, what do you think
of that? Because I don't think it's getting a lot
of it's not getting a positive response. Let's just put
it that people on social media the people that matter,
of course.

Speaker 2 (02:09:45):
I mean that's kind of why I brought it up
more importantly.

Speaker 1 (02:09:48):
And first of all, there's going to be there will
be anti tanking rules in place before we see another
regular season game. Once April twelfth comes and goes next
regular season, they will be in place. Obviously they will
impact how teams bread a little bit maybe in the
off season, but much more likely how they operate from
I think the season beginning moving forward, and that is
of importance if you're going to change the rules for
the upcoming season's playing schedule. Well, that especially when it

(02:10:12):
has to do with punishments and the draft and tanking,
and teams probably would be want to be aware of
them exactly what they're going to be as they plan
about their off season heading into this first year of
these anti tanking rules. So I think that's kind of
first things first on it, and there should be some
definitive answers before we get to any off season changes,

(02:10:34):
because they're going to have the Governor's meeting in May,
and I think at that point in time, even if
it's not one hundred percent approved, and there may be
another meeting that comes after that where they revote or
they ultimately vote on the exact terms of what they're
going to have, it's going to be in place before
we've determined to champion, which essentially is when we flip
the calendar immediately into the draft, free agency, and the

(02:10:57):
off season. It is a very quick change from the
last game that gets played and when Oklahoma City wins
the title and when free agency and obviously the draft begin.
But I said this on the air a little earlier
in the day. Adding more teams to the lottery base.
One suggestion proposal is pushing it from the current fourteen
to eighteen. Another proposal is pushing it all the way

(02:11:18):
to twenty two, meaning only eight teams won't be in
the lottery. But again, if there's tiers to it, I
can't imagine too many owners, especially the bad owners, are saying,
oh yeah, the ninth best team in the league sounds
like a really awesome plan to give them any percentage
chance of winning the number one pick in the draft.

(02:11:39):
That can't possibly be in any final wording of any
future anti tanking legislation.

Speaker 3 (02:11:46):
Some of the people that responded to Shams tweeting about
this you know, being explored, Drew said, this feels like
a group project that went too far.

Speaker 1 (02:11:56):
This is like almost every other rule, whether it's hand
checking or name anything. The intended goal might actually get reached,
or they might get a little bit closer the intended
goal the spirit of the rule, why did we do this?
But there almost always are the unintended consequences which they
then have to deal with and then have to reassess
and then maybe have to reach it, change it flat out,

(02:12:18):
or put something else in place, because now this is the.

Speaker 2 (02:12:20):
Problem this guy is. This is where I'm at. I
agree with what he's saying.

Speaker 3 (02:12:25):
He says all three NBA anti tanking proposals still reward
being bad. Number one real fixes shrink the playoffs, fewer
teams equals higher stakes. Number two flatten the lottery odds
for all non playoff teams. And number three, if you
land a top five pick, you're automatically locked into the

(02:12:47):
bottom five lottery odds the next year if you happen
to be in a lottery.

Speaker 1 (02:12:52):
The last statement of that comment makes a lot of sense.
You're trying to be both fair and not rewarding fair
in terms of I want my league to succeed, which
means ultimately the teams that stink, I need to help them.
The NFL does the same thing for the sake of parody.
The bad teams get the best players in the draft
because they stink. It's not as huge of an issue

(02:13:13):
there and their shortened season and the fact of what
these players are putting on the line physically. But in
the NBA it clearly is so I like the idea
of well, you were bad, and you stunk, and we're
out of parody and fairness for all of our league's teams.
You have a really good chance of landing a top
player and this year's draft, I hope it's good, and
then next year you can't. It cannot happen, it will
not happen. You are ineligible for it. I don't care

(02:13:33):
how badly you play or how bad injuries hit after
you did great things this offseason, you just can't have it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:39):
Yeah, it sounds okay.

Speaker 3 (02:13:41):
He goes on to say, we need to flip and
this goes but back to what you're always talking about
with Major League Baseball.

Speaker 2 (02:13:47):
We need to flip the NBA narrative.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
Stop obsessing over can you win a championship and start
celebrating can you make the playoffs? Right now, you know
less than ten teams or around ten teams are openly tanking.
Making the playoffs just means not sucking on purpose, which
makes the entire eighty two game regular season feel meaningless.

Speaker 1 (02:14:09):
So right now, fourteen teams don't make the playoffs, do you?
Are you really really upset? Let's stay on the flattening
the odds. Oh, you didn't make it. You're in the lottery,
same odds. You can tank all you want, but this
thirty five win team and this sixteen win team you
have the same odds if all fourteen teams have the
same odds this year Indiana, Brooklyn, and the assumption that
they have their pick, which is not accurate, but just

(02:14:31):
off that assumption Indiana, Brooklyn, Washington, Sacramento, Utah, Dallas, Memphis,
New Orleans, Milwaukee, Chicago, Golden State, Portland, Miami, Charlotte, if
again you have to play off of this the teams
that are in those spots today, some of them could
still play their way into the playoffs and the play tournament.

Speaker 2 (02:14:46):
But forget all that.

Speaker 1 (02:14:47):
Those fourteen teams I named to bother you at all
if any one of them has an equal chance as
Brooklyn as Washington to land the number one pick, is
it bad for the league? Are you mad if a
good team like Miami or a good team like Portland
or Chicago or Charlotte gets the number one pick because
we flattened the odds, because go ahead.

Speaker 3 (02:15:08):
Well, I was gonna say, provided we don't think anything's
not on the up and.

Speaker 1 (02:15:12):
Up, Okay, so we can't flat In my opinion, you
can't flatten the odds already. I don't want that, but
we definitely can't flatten the odds if either of the
fifteen or eighteen or twenty two team proposals are passed,
and I don't think they're suggesting that, But my big
concern is especially for a team that maybe does manipulate

(02:15:33):
it later in the Sea.

Speaker 2 (02:15:33):
We had a really good season, we have a really
good team.

Speaker 1 (02:15:35):
I think we could win a title this year, and
then Anthony Edwards gets hurt and now we can't win
the title, but we can finish in the bottom eighteen
and still make the playoffs, and now we have very
we haven't a chance, and all of a sudden, Anthony
Edwards team lands the top pick or lands the lottery pick.
And I haven't seen enough of the particulars to say

(02:15:56):
they have a chance to win number one, but they
can't know our top four, whatever it is. I don't
want good teams to have virtual like even now. I
don't like that the fourteenth best team has a three
point four percent chance of landing the number one pick.
I don't want to see aj debants on any of these.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
Winning part of these, the top five pick, you're automatically
bottom five lottery odds the next year if you're in
it would presumably try to at least deflect a little
bit of that negative backlash or result.

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
Yeah, leading into this draft.

Speaker 1 (02:16:29):
They're a bunch of teams tanking leading into a draft
that quite clearly doesn't have mega talents in it, Like
most of the drafts of the Rockets have been. At
the top of me, it's ridiculous. Maybe they would be
less inclined to do so. Probably some elements of where
these protected picks are has to be a part of
this lottery discussion. I think that's why, even though we've
seen report from the Athletic and you mentioned Sham's reporting

(02:16:51):
on it, I don't think enough of the particulars of
exactly what's being going to be laid out to make
a good decision on where I think these are best.
And we may not see it until after they voted anyway,
but they're going to be changes. It's not going to
be met with wide league wide acceptance, but enough of
the league is going to vote for it to push through.

(02:17:13):
I feel extremely confident that will happen. They even the
owners that are doing it, they're playing by the rules,
but they might also recognize this is not good for
our league's business. It's good for me to follow the rules.
There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. I'm trying to
do what's best for our organization. And you don't have
any anti We don't have any anti tanking rules that

(02:17:33):
I am breaking. But I would advocate for them in
the future because I recognize where things are. If they
have any confidence in their GM, they would. I mean,
I'm talking about the right thing to do. Am I
sure an owner really thinks like that, or he's saying no,
I don't want that. My guys, I've hired so many
bad people, don't I know I'm going to in the future.

Speaker 2 (02:17:55):
I need help. I mean, it's the thing is, it's
working for the thunder. You know they did this. They
they tanked and and if the Clippers wouldn't have traded
them SGA, they might just be a good team, right,
not a championship team with all the tanking. Yep.

Speaker 1 (02:18:11):
And I don't know if all the tanking is proper,
but you know there'll be examples, and unfortunately, the Rockets
might be one of them examples.

Speaker 2 (02:18:19):
A bad example.

Speaker 1 (02:18:20):
The Rockets clearly did not put a roster together it
was likely to win very many games over three consecutive
seasons with the intentions of rebuilding through the draft. If
they top off at fifty two and thirty with no
playoff wins. If they don't do more than that and
the Kevin Durant era, it clearly would be deemed extremely unsuccessful.

Speaker 2 (02:18:37):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:18:38):
That's why I think this offseason is going to be interesting,
because I think you might.

Speaker 2 (02:18:43):
I don't know, I haven't heard anything.

Speaker 3 (02:18:45):
I just think that if you're serious, you're not just
going to be comfortable with Hey, let's just have Fred
come back and Steven come back and all the problems
that we've had this season are going to fix themselves.

Speaker 2 (02:18:57):
Well, I mean, what's the Bobhage is going to be like? Yeah,
I mean if those are if those things aren't good,
what do you even really have?

Speaker 1 (02:19:07):
Why should I'm just looking forward to Fred's next availability
or his next appearance on this program, and we can
ask him what he thinks of those two things.

Speaker 3 (02:19:15):
What do you think of the body language? How do
you think the vibes are? The thing is he would
give you a great answer on this.

Speaker 1 (02:19:21):
Well, he's inside, he's not us, he's not Bill, he's
not everybody else.

Speaker 3 (02:19:25):
As it would also probably be a little too unfiltered honesty.
Usually forget that it's not his podcast. Okay, Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2 (02:19:31):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:19:33):
Like we promised, the things we have not gotten to
here on a Friday edition of the program are coming
up next and in case you missed it, at the
bottom of the five o'clock hours, So it's time for
in case you missed it, Wex has begun his voyage
over to the Space City Home Network studios for Rockets

(02:19:54):
basketball tonight. I'll be on the radio side of things
alongside Matt Thomas and hopeful they can snap this. Uh wow,
it's this not the most heavy two game skid of
the entire season, Josh, It's like, I don't know, man,
I those last two took a lot out of me.
If you're a Rockets fan, especially coming off the weekend
with with KD and all the good vibes that we

(02:20:16):
talked about.

Speaker 8 (02:20:17):
Very up and down. We heard it on his interview
with Matt Thomas and Ross. It's just you win some
and you're like yeah, and then they drop one. We
were like, how did you drop that one?

Speaker 2 (02:20:26):
It's just been like it for those guys.

Speaker 3 (02:20:28):
Yeah, it's they have been consistently inconsistent, and I gotta
tell you, like I can deal with tough losses in
a season and even sometimes some self inflicted wound type
tough losses what have you, that's gonna happen. But the
amount of turnovers that are just unforced, that's what just

(02:20:49):
crushes me. Because you're already going to turn the ball
over X amount of times because of the way you
don't have a point guard and the offense is set up,
and who's carrying the ball, and on and on and on.
But like you don't have to give them an addition
five or six more.

Speaker 2 (02:21:01):
It's just brutal. Anyway, what else we got now?

Speaker 8 (02:21:04):
All right, Well, hopefully the astros will be a more
happy topic for us, but based on what the offense
looked like yesterday, not so much.

Speaker 4 (02:21:11):
So.

Speaker 8 (02:21:11):
There are some tweaks today I wanted to share. Earlier
in the show, we talked about this a little bit.
Jeremy Pania returning. Hopefully that'll make a difference for the offense.
So your starting lineup today goes pna ord On, Perettis, Altuve, Correa,
Cam Smith, Christian Walker. Notice Walker in the seventh spot. Again,
we talked about this that seems to be consistent. Jiner
Diaz and Bryce Matthews getting a start in center field.

(02:21:33):
Over Jake Myers with Mike Burrows on the mound, so
clearly they want to get some more offense. You only
had three hits yesterday, ac two of them are Joey
loperfdo what's he get rewarded with?

Speaker 2 (02:21:43):
Go sit on the bench tonight. But it makes sense.

Speaker 8 (02:21:45):
You got Y Say Kakuchi pitching lefty on lefty, So
I see why they're doing it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:50):
Yeah, I am is so again yesterday you got an
amazing outing from Hunter Brown as long as he was
out there wasn't nearly as long as you would have
liked to have him to have gone, but pitch count dictates,
and it's the first game of the year and all
that good stuff. I see why you did what you did,
and you until late had had some very good pitching

(02:22:11):
from even your relievers. But I don't know, like I
just I want to see Mike Burrows so bad tonight.
Do a good job tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:22:19):
But also just.

Speaker 3 (02:22:22):
You can get excited about a pitcher that's going to
be dominant or has the potential to be dominant, but
they're only as good as the run they get scratched across,
if that's all it is. And I just what a
flashback to twenty twenty five last night, cause it's it's
not again, like I said a billion times last season,
it's not that they weren't getting traffic on base, they

(02:22:43):
just weren't bringing them home, which is almost more frustrating.
I know it would be technically more fuel if the
Astros never even got base runners, but I almost think
I would feel better about it because offens just bad.
But if you're good enough to get on base, why
don't you go ahead and be good enough to drive
some of those runs home. That was what.

Speaker 8 (02:23:03):
Frustrated me because you had that opportunity when Christian Walker
hit the double right, and then you pinch run for
him with Alan and then you go to Jiner and
Jake Myers.

Speaker 2 (02:23:11):
They can't do anything. I don't even think they moved
the runner over.

Speaker 8 (02:23:13):
Altuve somehow gets a walk, the guy that swings more
than anybody, because he got four straight pitches that weren't
even close. So you get jord On up your guy
in that situation, he grounds out and that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:25):
Yeah, that was a little anti climactic. I don't know
what was more. Which of his at bats was more
anti climactic.

Speaker 3 (02:23:33):
The one word the home run was taken away because
he hit the freaking roof, or the anticipation of him
doing something amazing on opening day and instead he you know,
dribbles out weekly to first base.

Speaker 8 (02:23:46):
Yeah, I guess hindsights everything here, right, because we know
that one run wouldn't have made a difference yesterday, right,
So I think that factors into it as well. But
you had the guy up you want it, And keep
in mind a lot of people are critical of a
spot of for batting Yord on second instead of third.

Speaker 2 (02:24:02):
Some people are kind of split on that.

Speaker 8 (02:24:04):
Well, you had him up with the chance to break
the game, open, tie up the game, and if he
was hitting third, he probably wouldn't have gotten a chance
to hit, but still didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (02:24:12):
He just wasn't able to come through.

Speaker 3 (02:24:14):
Yeah, Mariners lost on opening day, The Rangers lost on
opening Day, the Angels sitting first play, you know, like,
it's one game. It sucks because it was the opening
day and it's again. I get it because I texted
somebody at the end of the gay I was like,
this is a carbon copy of every crappy Astros.

Speaker 2 (02:24:33):
Game from twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (02:24:35):
Yeah, debilitating non clutch at bats following getting guys on
base and oftentimes dominant pitching that is required to basically
be perfect and not make any mistakes because the offense
just can't supplement it. But that was the story last
season when you had so many injuries. This year, Pano's

(02:24:56):
out of your lineup on opening day and that's it.
He's coming back.

Speaker 2 (02:24:59):
So much for taking it slow, by the way, right,
isn't it weird?

Speaker 3 (02:25:04):
Like that was just the weirdest twenty four to forty
eight hours of I guess the recent example of weirdness
with it with an astros injury.

Speaker 2 (02:25:14):
There's so many that I've lost count at this point.

Speaker 8 (02:25:16):
And paina magically he just needed twenty four extra hours
to get back out.

Speaker 3 (02:25:20):
There, you know, Like I said, you know when he
when he's hitting that home run in that spring training
game over the train tracks and then you hold them
out of the lineup on opening day. It was just
it was just odd And it doesn't have to mean
anything more than that.

Speaker 2 (02:25:34):
It just looked odd. It did.

Speaker 8 (02:25:36):
And Brian Bogus Epic was on with Matt Thomas Show
the other day and I thought it was interesting. They're like,
what can be the problem maybe with coming back a
little early from an injury like that, and he's like,
what you want to be careful of is not developing
any bad habits because you're compensating for that finger.

Speaker 3 (02:25:51):
And you know what I mean, It's funny that you
bring that up, because out of all the guys that
have come up, the young talent that has you know,
come up to the major league roster and then also produced,
he's probably the guy that I have heard that I
have seen both talk about and you know, performance wise respectively,

(02:26:15):
where adjustments based on bad habits you've created are such
a big part of how you're trying to chase success.
Because in the early going that was I mean, Jeremy
Paanie year two, remember the whole bat waggle like I
try to reduce that, you know, leg movement, like just
all these little bitty things. It's just it's incredible the

(02:26:36):
attention to detail when it comes to two hitters in
Major League Baseball at times.

Speaker 2 (02:26:41):
And it's also like other sports.

Speaker 8 (02:26:43):
Too, right where you have like a running back, say,
and they have a bad hamstring on one leg and
then they end up pulling a quad on the other leg.
You know, your body kind of naturally compensates and we
don't want to see that from Paania. We need him
ready to go down the stretch at the end of
the year, hopefully chasing the playoffs. If you misses a
few games early on, I'm not so worried about that.
But either way, he is in the lineup today, we'll

(02:27:04):
see if they can get some more runs on the board.

Speaker 6 (02:27:05):
How about one?

Speaker 3 (02:27:07):
Yeah, I mean it wouldn't have been enough yesterday, but
it would have been for a large majority of the
game because Hunter Brown and then blue Ball for a
time after him, was really getting the job done. I
obviously you want more innings out of Burrows than you
got from Brown because of the greater good of the
bullpen if you will, yep. But I'm just like I said,

(02:27:31):
he's probably the one guy, maybe even more than Emi.
I don't know if that's crazy to say. I'm probably
definitely the minority. But I just like, it's almost like
I forgot about Mike Burrows for a second and then
I remembered, Oh, yeah, they went and got that guy.
I want to see what he has.

Speaker 2 (02:27:47):
Yeah, because the Burrows, he's going to be here for years. Emi,
we don't know.

Speaker 8 (02:27:51):
He could have one year and be gone so I
think you'd rather Burrows end up coming through for you.

Speaker 2 (02:27:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:27:56):
And by the way, Mike says that the Astros are
zero to one when I don't rub my head for
good luck.

Speaker 2 (02:28:00):
So here you go, Mike, there's there's for tonight. I'm
gonna get us.

Speaker 3 (02:28:03):
I'll get the Astros back to five hundred with just
that kind of gesture. We will wrap up the show,
wrap up the week with some ticket giveaways when we
come back.

Speaker 2 (02:28:15):
The age.

Speaker 6 (02:28:16):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:28:20):
The Rockets for Rockets.

Speaker 6 (02:28:23):
Dollop a three three Shaman down.

Speaker 2 (02:28:28):
A gentleman.

Speaker 4 (02:28:29):
Hey, it's called Judoka here every Rockets game on Sports
Talk seven ninety and on the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 3 (02:28:39):
Guy Jeff, who's watching. As a matter of fact, let
me just do this, Jeff, Mike, Uh, Dustin, and Renee
all texting in that they're watching on the simulcast Sports
Talk seven ninety in Space City Home Network from throughout

(02:29:01):
the show today. So thank you to all of you
guys who are watching us in addition into listening to
the show out there, and speaking of which, we like
to reward you guys, our listeners, because you are the best.
Here on Sports Talk seven ninety and as promised, we
are giving away three pair that's three different pair to
the Psychedelic First show pair of tickets to see these

(02:29:23):
Psychedelic Firs live May twenty third and House of Blues
tickets on sale now at ticketmaster dot.

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):
Com or you can win one of these three pair
right here.

Speaker 3 (02:29:33):
So earlier in the show, a little bit of eclectic
NBA conversation, and we were talking about the fact that
on March thirty first, the newest untold documentary, The Life
and Death of lamar Odom or Death in Life of
lamar Otem documentary is coming out. And he obviously led

(02:29:55):
a wild career off the floor as much as he
was a consistently pretty good to really good talent on
the NBA floor. And uh, well, we were talking about
some of the people that sat down for this documentary
and the director went out of his way to say
how surprised he was for one of the participants in
this lamar Odom documentary. And I've been calling her a

(02:30:19):
nickname all week, So that's your hint right there. So
what is the name of that person? Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety and you could be going
to see the Psychedelic first.

Speaker 2 (02:30:33):
All right, a few minutes left in the week.

Speaker 3 (02:30:37):
Obviously, you want the Rockets to bounce back tonight, like
just for the sake of the city of Houston. Again,
one of the most, if not the worst thirty six
hour periods in Houston sports history. Now, the stakes weren't
all huge. I mean only one of them was to

(02:30:59):
you know, get to what the the final four, but
like a Rockets regular season game in March and the
Astros season opener in the grand scheme of things, it's
not that important. Yet, it just felt like a very

(02:31:19):
heavy thirty six hour period. And then you you notch
in the Texas game. If you're Longhorns fans out there,
there's a lot that was that was like coming up
snake eyes every time. Just a really really barren sports success,
a dearth of It's just awful, just not a great.

(02:31:40):
So I say all that to say, no pressure to
both the Rockets and the Astros tonight as they try
to bounce back. Rockets trying to snap two game skid
and of course the Astros trying to bounce back from
losing to the freaking Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (02:31:58):
Orange County Angels.

Speaker 3 (02:32:01):
That's a bad baseball team and they had their way,
especially the pitching. Astros shut out on opening Day and
all the good stuff that comes with that. It's just
not a lot of fun around Opening Day once the
actual baseball began. Great by the way, to you guys
once again, to echo what WEX had to say. Great

(02:32:22):
crowd out there at FanFest, Love the interaction, Love you
guys coming up to see us. We don't get out
as much as we used to because of the simulcast now,
so whenever we do, we like to see you guys
in person. We appreciate you listening and coming over and
saying hello and yeah. The atmosphere was incredible, as per usual.
It's Opening Day should be a national holiday, let's face it,

(02:32:42):
but lots of kids, lots of families, a lot of
people saying it was their first time to go to
an Astros game. Like good stuff, good stuff on opening
Day right up until the baseball and the Astros can
flip that obviously and all will be well heading into
the weekend.

Speaker 8 (02:32:59):
If you.

Speaker 2 (02:33:02):
Did you see, by the way.

Speaker 3 (02:33:03):
And we were kind of talking about this a little
bit on the what was essentially a five hour pregame show.
So obviously, Paul Skeen's got just destroyed. And that was
not even twenty four hours after Logan Web got destroyed
by the Yankees in the open on Wednesday night. Those
are two really good pictures. Those are two guys that

(02:33:26):
participated in the World Baseball Classic. Not even saying that's
what it is, but it was like that story that
he was chased in the first inning after giving up
five runs was really like taking off on social media
because he's twenty three. First of all, he's already like
the best pitcher in baseball. And if he's not, he's

(02:33:47):
this side of show Hay or you know whoever you
think is the best. But he's one A. And oh,
by the way, he's with his model girlfriend, Livy Dunn.
He's twenty three, he's the reigning nl Cy Young Award winner,
and he thirty seven pitches he's done on opening day

(02:34:09):
five runs and while recording just two outs and what
was by far the shortest of he's got fifty six
major league starts. Now, his era, you're ready for this,
You've seen this, Josh right, Paul Skeen's is era after
one start for the twenty twenty sixth season. Sixty seven

(02:34:33):
point five. It is, It's ridiculous. It's obviously going to
be fine, provided he pitches the way we know he can,
and it'll all take care of itself. Pretty increded. I
don't know if I've ever seen that. I'm sure there's
been one like that, you know, after opening day or whatever,
a guy gets shelled. But sixty seven point five. And oh,

(02:34:54):
by the way, Livy Dunn was not happy as she
was in the stands for that that open a city
field in New York. They opened up against the Mets,
and there was a reporter that was reportedly sitting five
rows in front of her, and she was not handling
it well. She was quote livid watching her boyfriend get

(02:35:14):
shelled by the Mets and pulled just two thirds of
the way into the first inning, and she was not
happy about it. Apparently he gave an update and said,
she's an incredibly gracious celebrity. Literally an endless stream of
fans asking for pictures and autographs and she didn't reject anybody,
and she stayed for the full nine innings. So good

(02:35:36):
on her for hanging in there, if you will. That
is going to do it for us for the week.
We have obviously plenty to get to here tonight as
soon as the show is over. However, remember Rockets tonight
here on Sports Talk seven to ninety and Astros only
on news Radio seven forty KTRH because of course it

(02:35:57):
is at Apple game, so you can hear about it
on news radio seven forty k TRH. And again, Rockets
looking to snap that two game skid. Astros trying to
get in the win column for the first time here
in twenty twenty five, and they'll see if they can
get that thanks to one of their new pitching talents
that they added to the roster this this this past offseason.

(02:36:21):
Rockets just need to stop turning the ball over and
and get a maybe a vintage performance from Kevin Durant.
It was weird the other night he and Albern Shangoon
each had thirty. They at Shing Guon had thirty the
night that that Durant had his forty, and it's they're

(02:36:43):
two and two during that stretch. I mean, the scoring
from those two, like specifically, has been outstanding, and yet
they've got a five hundred record to show for it.

Speaker 2 (02:36:54):
And it's they are a. They are an enigma this year,
the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 3 (02:37:01):
I don't know what to make out of them, and
I don't know to expect much for the postseason, but
we shall see. Like I said, Rockets here on seven ninety,
Astros over on seven forty, we will reconvene coming up
on Monday afternoon to talk about everything that unfolds over
the weekend, and unfortunately it will not evolve the U

(02:37:22):
of H Cougars going any further. But that's the breaks,
as they say, have a great weekend everyone. Rockets basketball
right around the corner here on Sports Talk seven ninety