October 9, 2025 • 9 mins
Wex and AC react to the news of the caoaching staff changes for the Astros Where does Houston turn next with Joe Espada and Dana Brown's status entering a contract year ahead of the surging AL West?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety AC and wex
with you on a Thursday edition of the show along
with Cole Thompson.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Start spread Yeah, talking a little bit of everything today,
obviously the Astros making changes. You mentioned that the situation
with the Rockets. You got to see Kevin Durant for
the first time, you personally, and everybody that was in attendance,
everybody that was washing on Space City Home Network as well.
It is a big deal, as evidenced by the recently
released annual NBA dot Com GM survey, which we'll definitely
(00:38):
want to dig in on a little bit of how
it relates to the Rockets and how it relates to
some of what we talked about yesterday during Wednesday's BS.
We're all back here together again and everyone's calm, so
we'll try to keep it that way when we get
into that survey. But a lot of people figured the
acquisition of Kevin Durant would be a pretty sizeable one
in terms of taking a team from one level to
the next.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
The Rockets a playoff level team.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When you don't win a playoff series, that's about as
high praise as I can give you. Even finishing second
in the West team in number two spot, Houston won
fifty two games. Other teams that were in the playoffs
and didn't win series, we're in the forty seven range.
Very very little difference between two and three and four
and six and seven and eight and on down the line.
But if you don't win in the playoffs, then there's
(01:21):
a big step to take, and you don't add Kevin
Durant to take a small step. They're not trying to
win a playoff series this year. They're trying to win
all of their playoff series, all four of them. There's
no off opportunities by weeks in the NBA. They're trying
to win every single one of them. Little glimpse of
what the offense might look like with what probably will
be the group that he's playing with quite a few minutes.
(01:43):
I think there's still some question about who the fifth
starter will be. But a lot of what Kevin Durant
is going to do for this team isn't really predicated
on whether or not Reed Shepherd is on the floor.
It's is he playing alongside Jabari Smith Junior, and then
Thompson and Alperh and Schengoon for a ton of his
rotation minutes, certainly at the beginning of games and then
clearly at the end of games, which they don't do
(02:05):
during the preseason, the end of games in the preseason,
or for the guys trying to say, hey man, you
definitely want me on your G League team, because I'm
gonna show you. But we sure saw a lot of
good things from the Rockets. Their ability to play through
a new point guard who's tall and from Turkey, a
new point guard who's tall and has a twin In
the NBA, it doesn't really matter where it's coming from,
(02:28):
but they realize they have players that can create for others,
and Kevin Durant I think will also become one of
those players. He also scored with extreme ease. He could
have gone ten for ten, He could have gone three
for ten. The other team wasn't preventing his makes or misses.
Missed his first three, made his last seven shots in
a row, a cool, comfortable, casual, smooth, twenty points on
(02:54):
ten shots, all five of his free throws dropped. I'm
not sure what people were expecting him to look like
Rockets uniform, playing with those caliber of teammates and their
particular skill sets, It's what I expected, and I couldn't
like it much more than I did.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, I can't remember if it was Cole or
Josh before the show that was talking about how it
didn't even look like he was moving fast and all
of a sudden boom, he's at the rim.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm like, well, yeah, sudden boom throwdown.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well my immediate he was, Yeah, he can still dunk,
unlike the player who his former teammate was we were
talking about yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, well he just doesn't. He just doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But I mean thirty seven year old dunkers like Jeff
Green last year. Think about what the crowd does when
Jeff dunks.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Well, that's because he's old.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He's the same age, been in the league, the same
amount of time.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
He is a touchholder, but he's not averaging twenty six. No,
he's not.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And the strides that Kevin Durant makes are the big
This is like Jordan running the bases.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Gosh he's fast.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Well, yeah, it helps when you're like six foot six
or seven feet In this case.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
He only has two bases left in his the remainder
of his major league career. To get hurt on he's
been hurt sliding into second I don't do this, and
he's been hurt running across us home plate.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, he just put his foot on backwards.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He's running hard and he went right across the dish.
Who knew stepping on a dish was so hazardous?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Well, it is when the stupid umpire doesn't keep it
from being slick.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It was his fault.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Rockets got in and out of last night's game, as
usually as the case during the preseason without issue. We'll
find out what he May has in mind for the
two road games next week. They will leave Houston for Birmingham,
Alabama for a Tuesday night game against the Pelicans, lovely
this time of year, and then they'll make their way
to see the Hawks for a second time, this time
(04:35):
in Atlanta. That is a week from tonight, and then
the preseason is over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday off and
then October twenty first, their first game of the season,
the first game of the NBA season, and some clarity
on what he intends May intends to do the start games,
and as the season progresses, we'll find out what he
intends to do to finish games. And I don't think
(04:57):
that will be set for quite some time and maybe
not at all, and it'll be a little bit based
on matchups and nightly impact from certain players. Jabari Smith
Junior is someone we probably don't mention enough because of
all the other things going on. There's a big three,
Kevin Durant just got here. We're expecting big things from Alpi,
a big jump forward. Maybe most improved type of player
on the court in a men. But I can't help
(05:19):
but absolutely love the Rockets getting I don't think it's
happened in all four beginnings of games and meaning first half,
second half, but it's happened three times right out of
the gate to open each game and last night to
open the third quarter, Jabari Smith Junior behind the three
point line splash.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Guess who found him both times? Well, actually I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
About that offensive rebound and he had two actually to
start the game in Atlanta. It's just the the Rockets
are different in this major way this year versus last year,
just simply because of Kevin Durant and the skill set
of your big three. Wide open shots for a player
who's going to make them, Jabari Smith Junior. They are
(06:02):
going to be there all day, every day, all season
long and a monster three point shooting season is a
request from me. I'm not guaranteed telling you, but I
certainly think it can happen.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's just terrifying to think about no drop off defensively
and an increase in three point shooting that is significant.
That's the recipe for knocking out. It's not, Oh, we've
been built to beat the defending chimps. I mean, in
this case it's the thunder and not the Warriors. But
and by the way, we got to talk about that
Ringer article that Daryl Morey shared on his Facebook page.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
If he hadn't seen the other places, Oh my gosh, Facebook,
Sorry you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, but you realize Best of X almost never includes
Facebook because I've never said it.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, but that's problem other people, Yeah, other people do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That's why I was just acknowledging that I didn't see.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I don't do it as much as I used
to either. But yeah, it's we'll get to that a
little bit. But no, just real quickly. Jeremiah's got to
be the the least surprising of all the firings, given
what happened last year, in the way it happened, right,
I mean, I know it is.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, I said that in the opening set.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It is to me, and I think there's still a
split in duties that has to be recognized. It's not
doctor Jeremiah Randall. He's the head athletic trainer and runs
the you know, all the things that they're doing in
the performance aspect of it. He works with the players
every single day, he works through their rehab programs. But
he's also not the one doing all of the medical diagnosing.
(07:30):
He's diagnosing things when a player has to take their
glove off because they've been hit on the finger. He's
diagnosing them when they're limping down to first But then
you move on to the imaging specialists and the doctors
and everyone handling those types of things. So firing Jeremiah
Randall has not solved their problems. I think it's helped
with one very very significant problem, and that's kind of
(07:52):
the department in general. But the doctors involved in some
of this are there's going to be some issue with
how they've diagnosed things, how they suggested. The program for
rehabilitation must go. You go under the knife for Tommy
John surgery. You're out there sitting out saying, all right,
procedures done. Bye, They have a plan in place which
they convey to the people that work for the astros,
(08:13):
that make sure this is what we recommend, and we
want to see him again here and there's just too
much involved for them to just think. And I don't
think they think this Jeremiah randall out perfect, We're all
set now.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's far from that.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
No, But I will say this, I think the days
of discomfort are over.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
But think about it. Who do you think was pushing
that narrative? That word? I hate that word. I know,
and I really don't. I mean, I don't want to
say I don't understand the hatred for it. But the
vast majority of the time sense the word discomfort would
come from the team would be the immediate night of
commentary mentioned during the broadcast, because it just happened.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You don't know the specifics of it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You don't want to get into the specifics of it
before you know the specific of it. It is an
easy crutch, but it's used all over the place, all
over the league.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's discomfort.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And when we get more things done, and when he's
slept on it, when we get back and we look
at it again, we'll give you a little bit more now.
The giving us a little bit more didn't come until
part of the way through the season, and that's clearly
something that I think whomever is hired will be.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Leara nudge.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You say, we're going to steer clear from the path
we have taken in the past because it helped absolutely
nobody didn't help. The players, didn't help the team, didn't
help us, and certainly did not help our fans.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, we'll get to that more in depth because I
don't want to take any time away from our next
segment with chand Larome of the Athletic He's going to
join us about all the moving and shaking going on
inside the Astros organization.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That is straight ahead the age. On Sports Talk seven
ninety
It's the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety AC and wex
with you on a Thursday edition of the show along
with Cole Thompson.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Start spread Yeah, talking a little bit of everything today,
obviously the Astros making changes. You mentioned that the situation
with the Rockets. You got to see Kevin Durant for
the first time, you personally, and everybody that was in attendance,
everybody that was washing on Space City Home Network as well.
It is a big deal, as evidenced by the recently
released annual NBA dot Com GM survey, which we'll definitely
(00:38):
want to dig in on a little bit of how
it relates to the Rockets and how it relates to
some of what we talked about yesterday during Wednesday's BS.
We're all back here together again and everyone's calm, so
we'll try to keep it that way when we get
into that survey. But a lot of people figured the
acquisition of Kevin Durant would be a pretty sizeable one
in terms of taking a team from one level to
the next.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
The Rockets a playoff level team.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When you don't win a playoff series, that's about as
high praise as I can give you. Even finishing second
in the West team in number two spot, Houston won
fifty two games. Other teams that were in the playoffs
and didn't win series, we're in the forty seven range.
Very very little difference between two and three and four
and six and seven and eight and on down the line.
But if you don't win in the playoffs, then there's
(01:21):
a big step to take, and you don't add Kevin
Durant to take a small step. They're not trying to
win a playoff series this year. They're trying to win
all of their playoff series, all four of them. There's
no off opportunities by weeks in the NBA. They're trying
to win every single one of them. Little glimpse of
what the offense might look like with what probably will
be the group that he's playing with quite a few minutes.
(01:43):
I think there's still some question about who the fifth
starter will be. But a lot of what Kevin Durant
is going to do for this team isn't really predicated
on whether or not Reed Shepherd is on the floor.
It's is he playing alongside Jabari Smith Junior, and then
Thompson and Alperh and Schengoon for a ton of his
rotation minutes, certainly at the beginning of games and then
clearly at the end of games, which they don't do
(02:05):
during the preseason, the end of games in the preseason,
or for the guys trying to say, hey man, you
definitely want me on your G League team, because I'm
gonna show you. But we sure saw a lot of
good things from the Rockets. Their ability to play through
a new point guard who's tall and from Turkey, a
new point guard who's tall and has a twin In
the NBA, it doesn't really matter where it's coming from,
(02:28):
but they realize they have players that can create for others,
and Kevin Durant I think will also become one of
those players. He also scored with extreme ease. He could
have gone ten for ten, He could have gone three
for ten. The other team wasn't preventing his makes or misses.
Missed his first three, made his last seven shots in
a row, a cool, comfortable, casual, smooth, twenty points on
(02:54):
ten shots, all five of his free throws dropped. I'm
not sure what people were expecting him to look like
Rockets uniform, playing with those caliber of teammates and their
particular skill sets, It's what I expected, and I couldn't
like it much more than I did.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, I can't remember if it was Cole or
Josh before the show that was talking about how it
didn't even look like he was moving fast and all
of a sudden boom, he's at the rim.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm like, well, yeah, sudden boom throwdown.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well my immediate he was, Yeah, he can still dunk,
unlike the player who his former teammate was we were
talking about yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, well he just doesn't. He just doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But I mean thirty seven year old dunkers like Jeff
Green last year. Think about what the crowd does when
Jeff dunks.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Well, that's because he's old.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He's the same age, been in the league, the same
amount of time.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
He is a touchholder, but he's not averaging twenty six. No,
he's not.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And the strides that Kevin Durant makes are the big
This is like Jordan running the bases.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Gosh he's fast.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Well, yeah, it helps when you're like six foot six
or seven feet In this case.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
He only has two bases left in his the remainder
of his major league career. To get hurt on he's
been hurt sliding into second I don't do this, and
he's been hurt running across us home plate.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, he just put his foot on backwards.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He's running hard and he went right across the dish.
Who knew stepping on a dish was so hazardous?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Well, it is when the stupid umpire doesn't keep it
from being slick.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It was his fault.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Rockets got in and out of last night's game, as
usually as the case during the preseason without issue. We'll
find out what he May has in mind for the
two road games next week. They will leave Houston for Birmingham,
Alabama for a Tuesday night game against the Pelicans, lovely
this time of year, and then they'll make their way
to see the Hawks for a second time, this time
(04:35):
in Atlanta. That is a week from tonight, and then
the preseason is over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday off and
then October twenty first, their first game of the season,
the first game of the NBA season, and some clarity
on what he intends May intends to do the start games,
and as the season progresses, we'll find out what he
intends to do to finish games. And I don't think
(04:57):
that will be set for quite some time and maybe
not at all, and it'll be a little bit based
on matchups and nightly impact from certain players. Jabari Smith
Junior is someone we probably don't mention enough because of
all the other things going on. There's a big three,
Kevin Durant just got here. We're expecting big things from Alpi,
a big jump forward. Maybe most improved type of player
on the court in a men. But I can't help
(05:19):
but absolutely love the Rockets getting I don't think it's
happened in all four beginnings of games and meaning first half,
second half, but it's happened three times right out of
the gate to open each game and last night to
open the third quarter, Jabari Smith Junior behind the three
point line splash.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Guess who found him both times? Well, actually I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
About that offensive rebound and he had two actually to
start the game in Atlanta. It's just the the Rockets
are different in this major way this year versus last year,
just simply because of Kevin Durant and the skill set
of your big three. Wide open shots for a player
who's going to make them, Jabari Smith Junior. They are
(06:02):
going to be there all day, every day, all season
long and a monster three point shooting season is a
request from me. I'm not guaranteed telling you, but I
certainly think it can happen.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's just terrifying to think about no drop off defensively
and an increase in three point shooting that is significant.
That's the recipe for knocking out. It's not, Oh, we've
been built to beat the defending chimps. I mean, in
this case it's the thunder and not the Warriors. But
and by the way, we got to talk about that
Ringer article that Daryl Morey shared on his Facebook page.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
If he hadn't seen the other places, Oh my gosh, Facebook,
Sorry you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, but you realize Best of X almost never includes
Facebook because I've never said it.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, but that's problem other people, Yeah, other people do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That's why I was just acknowledging that I didn't see.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I don't do it as much as I used
to either. But yeah, it's we'll get to that a
little bit. But no, just real quickly. Jeremiah's got to
be the the least surprising of all the firings, given
what happened last year, in the way it happened, right,
I mean, I know it is.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, I said that in the opening set.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It is to me, and I think there's still a
split in duties that has to be recognized. It's not
doctor Jeremiah Randall. He's the head athletic trainer and runs
the you know, all the things that they're doing in
the performance aspect of it. He works with the players
every single day, he works through their rehab programs. But
he's also not the one doing all of the medical diagnosing.
(07:30):
He's diagnosing things when a player has to take their
glove off because they've been hit on the finger. He's
diagnosing them when they're limping down to first But then
you move on to the imaging specialists and the doctors
and everyone handling those types of things. So firing Jeremiah
Randall has not solved their problems. I think it's helped
with one very very significant problem, and that's kind of
(07:52):
the department in general. But the doctors involved in some
of this are there's going to be some issue with
how they've diagnosed things, how they suggested. The program for
rehabilitation must go. You go under the knife for Tommy
John surgery. You're out there sitting out saying, all right,
procedures done. Bye, They have a plan in place which
they convey to the people that work for the astros,
(08:13):
that make sure this is what we recommend, and we
want to see him again here and there's just too
much involved for them to just think. And I don't
think they think this Jeremiah randall out perfect, We're all
set now.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's far from that.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
No, But I will say this, I think the days
of discomfort are over.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
But think about it. Who do you think was pushing
that narrative? That word? I hate that word. I know,
and I really don't. I mean, I don't want to
say I don't understand the hatred for it. But the
vast majority of the time sense the word discomfort would
come from the team would be the immediate night of
commentary mentioned during the broadcast, because it just happened.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You don't know the specifics of it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You don't want to get into the specifics of it
before you know the specific of it. It is an
easy crutch, but it's used all over the place, all
over the league.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's discomfort.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And when we get more things done, and when he's
slept on it, when we get back and we look
at it again, we'll give you a little bit more now.
The giving us a little bit more didn't come until
part of the way through the season, and that's clearly
something that I think whomever is hired will be.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Leara nudge.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You say, we're going to steer clear from the path
we have taken in the past because it helped absolutely
nobody didn't help. The players, didn't help the team, didn't
help us, and certainly did not help our fans.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, we'll get to that more in depth because I
don't want to take any time away from our next
segment with chand Larome of the Athletic He's going to
join us about all the moving and shaking going on
inside the Astros organization.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That is straight ahead the age. On Sports Talk seven
ninety
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