August 14, 2025 • 10 mins
Wex and AC react to the Houston Rockets' 2025-26 schedule en route to a postseason push. Who is the No. 2 seed taking on in the home opener? When's the biggest road trip? Who should Houston be watching for as a trap game?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven to ninety
Thursday edition of the show, NBA Schedule Release Day edition
of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We have it. We have it. It's here, all right.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
So you already know the Rockets will open the season
coming up on October twenty first, that's a Tuesday night
on NBC.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They'll be at Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And you knew a few other dates, like the Christmas
Day game, which will be seven o'clock local time at
the Lakers. But now we have the whole thing, and
it is the Twins on Friday night after the OKC
Day game on that Tuesday, just like wex predicted an
additional day off, which they'll need it. Man, they'll have
played all of one regular season game. Rockets will be
(00:55):
opening up at home against the Detroit Pistons, which, by
the way, they gave them a run for their money
last year. Was that a split or did they sweep them?
I feel like Detroit. I know Detroit gave it to
him pretty good up there, I believe. But yeah, Friday night,
October twenty fourth is the home opener for your Rockets,
taking on Amn Thompson's twin brother, A Sar and the
(01:17):
rest of the Detroit Pistons, who are I think they
consider themselves a lot like the Rockets in the Eastern Conference,
an upcoming team, up and coming team. They just didn't
add to Kevin Durant this offseason. That's the only difference.
So and then the Rockets. I do know this for
a fact, because well, you did one of the games
because it was on my birthday last year. The following Monday,
(01:38):
they'll welcome in the Brooklyn Nets, who the Rockets were
winless against last year and they were terrible. Is Cam
Johnson still making outrageous contract demands.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
For the Suns or whoever he plays for now?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I thought he was still with the Nets.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I don't know, there's too many Johnson's out there, but
I think that's the one. Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
What that pause?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So yeah, those are the first two home games after
that OKC game. As the schedule has been released, I
just looked at it right before we came out, came
back out up on the air, and so I haven't
had a chance to really.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Like, here's what I've got for you. Five game road
trip proceeds Christmas Day, finishes in LA with back to
back games against the Clippers and the Lakers. The Lakers
are the Christmas Day game. It's preceded by a quick
trip to New Orleans. Then they head out West, Denver
and Sacramento. They do close the season with six of
eight at home and eleven of seventeen at home, and
(02:32):
quite possibly the vast majority of those games are against
non title contenders. I would say, at the very very least,
the vast majority of the final seventeen games of the season,
eleven of which are at Toyota Center, are not against
the highest level competition. They close out at home. Minnesota
is one team that would stand out in that group.
(02:54):
Their final three or against Darryl Mory's team, Kevin Garnett's team,
and John Morant's team, Philly, Minnesota, and Memphis. He got
games on the road against Phoenix and Golden State. Three
more games at home before that against the Knicks, the Bucks,
and the Jazz. The four game road trip Chicago, Minnesota again,
Memphis again New Orleans. Nothing great, and they also have
a five game homestand that precedes that nothing of great
(03:17):
significance road or home.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Out of the gate.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Now you mentioned those two home games Friday and Monday,
the first two of the forty one to be played
at Toyota Center per the current schedule. The only other
thing that stood out was the possibility I think there
will be one home game for sure, maybe two between
December sixth and December twenty fifth. Every other game would
(03:40):
be on the road because between the sixth and the eighteenth,
those games are not yet on the schedule. Those are
NBA Cup games. If you advance to the NBA Cup,
potentially there's an additional home game. Potentially there's an additional
road game. Potentially there are two more games schedule for
Las Vegas if you don't advance, and I believe you
would have a game at home and a game on
(04:01):
the road in that window of the absent games on
the schedule. There's other regular season games in there, but
they happen to be on the road before that Cup
game break, and they're on the road for five games
out of the Cup game break as well, back to
back games at Utah, So the Rockets will only make
one trip to Utah. They'll do that at the end
of the of November and the beginning of December, and
(04:24):
they'll be on back to back nights. They'll play their
two games in Utah last couple of years, the NBA
has done a lot more of that. They will make
a couple of trips to LA but every time they
do they'll play two games there. They'll go visit the
Clippers and Lakers. Like I mentioned, two days before Christmas
and Christmas Day, the Clippers will come here for their
two games in Houston on the tenth and eleventh of February,
(04:46):
the Lakers will come to Houston for their two games
in a back to back scenario, although it'll take three
days to play those two games. That comes around Saint
Patrick's Day. They'll play Monday before Saint Patti's Day, get
wasted on Tuesday, and then play again on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You hear that, guys wex has the Rockets is an
alcoholic team. This year the Lakers will get wasted. Oh,
Austin Reeves will take the guys out for a day
and night drinking.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
KD and the Rockets are getting wasted here at home for.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
No Obviously, the other part of the schedule impacts your
television viewing or you're streaming viewing, and a not very unexpectedly,
the Rockets schedule is full of games on Prime, games
on NBC, games on ESPN and ABC all throughout the season,
(05:37):
way way more.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Than they are trying to count on the fly. Well,
of all those as a group, do you, I mean,
do you count I know you. Do you count streaming
as national television?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, sometimes the exclusivity is the only thing I care about, Yes,
I absolutely do. That is a national television game. Television
is the wrong word to use. I'm sure at some
point we'll create a new word, nationally broad cast game.
But those those games are specifically chosen to put on
their network for a reason. It's it's an uptick from
NBA TV. I do not consider NBA TV broadcast to
(06:09):
be the quote unquote national games. They're just games that
they carry because they're the NBA's network.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
H twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen nineteen. I
mean they've got over twenty just I mean, I was
I was asking Ross what the kind of round number
is for like the Lakers, because they're always on national
TV no matter what, and he I think he said
(06:35):
twenty maybe twenty five tops, because there is an eighty
two game schedule. The Rockets have just eyeballing it. At
least twenty five nationally televised games that's unheard of a
year ago. Unheard of a year ago. That is the
power of Kevin Durant right there, and.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Again, not all these are exclusive to that network, right
many of those games carried by some of those networks
will also be carried by their TV home space, city
home network, their radio home. No problem, we got them all.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
All eighty two plus playoffs.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
All eighty two games and preseason plus playoffs plus preseason.
We'll be broadcast on your home of Rockets Basketball Sports
Talk seven to ninety and many of them also broadcast
on News Radio seven forty kh.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Even preseason games played in the state of Alabama, where
there is not an NBA team.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yep, they got Atlanta a couple of times here and there,
they got Utah, and they will play in Bama when
they get together with the Pelicans on October fourteenth, just
for preseason games, the last of which is Thursday, before
the following Tuesday opener of the season.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The NBA season.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
The whole NBA tips off with Rockets Thunder.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, it's interesting they play the Spurs four times
this year.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Southwest Division supremacy, that's true. You play your division more
than you would.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
It's huge to win the division in the NBA South.
They're all nationally televised. Every one of the Spurs games
is nationally televised. That's interesting to me.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
We knew the game in the NBA Cup Friday, November seventh,
that was announced earlier this week that one is at
San Antonio. Won't see the Spurs again for quite some time.
The next time is not until January. That one's back
here in Houston. I'll see the Spurs again, like you
said via National TV in their building a little bit
later on in the season March eighth, in the fourth game.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Wasn't last year of the year where the Spurs is
on the twenty eighth all of the times, like by
the time Thanksgiving out here thinks.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
The team, Well, they played them three out of first
eight games of the season.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. So there it is.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean again, the first thing that's jumped off the
page of me is the nationally televised just I mean,
I don't even know if they had ten last year.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
If that, well, they were a five hundred team last
year going into the season learning about who their future
stars might be. Now it's totally different, even without tremendous
postseason success. They did win three playoff games. They didn't
win any series, but they have marketable players. I think
that was pretty by the fact that the Rockets and
Slam got together with the Men, the fact that the
(09:05):
Rockets and Slam got together last year with a cover shoot.
Shout out to Tracy Hughes huge part of that. Yeah,
definitely a shout out for her. A new member of
the Rockets, Tracy Hughes. It's their first season. Let's see
first season. How many seasons fifteen, twenty twenty five, it's
at least twenty Rockets basketball Tracy Hughes goes together. I mean, yeah,
(09:27):
but I'm trying to think she does great work. Is
by no means for those who don't know that was sarcasm.
She's been there a long time. She does great work.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
The Rocket head of communicator is a head of pr
head of communications.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Everybody has a different title for that role, but it's
the same rule.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Vice president, sorry geez, vice president Media and player relations.
Who's the president of the media early company, there's no
president of the media relations.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That's why I don't understand that.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well, there are lots of vice presidents at companies like,
I don't mean, how many vice presidents do you think
the Rockets have.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
There's president from my company, the United States of America,
not his company.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It's operated like it's his company, but it's not his company.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
He's the commander, the commander in chief, all right, when
we come back.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Best of X.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
We a lot of Texans practice early before everything got started,
and snapped a little video and sent it out and
it has become the subject of Best of X today.
Your comments on my post Best of X next
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven to ninety
Thursday edition of the show, NBA Schedule Release Day edition
of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We have it. We have it. It's here, all right.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
So you already know the Rockets will open the season
coming up on October twenty first, that's a Tuesday night
on NBC.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They'll be at Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And you knew a few other dates, like the Christmas
Day game, which will be seven o'clock local time at
the Lakers. But now we have the whole thing, and
it is the Twins on Friday night after the OKC
Day game on that Tuesday, just like wex predicted an
additional day off, which they'll need it. Man, they'll have
played all of one regular season game. Rockets will be
(00:55):
opening up at home against the Detroit Pistons, which, by
the way, they gave them a run for their money
last year. Was that a split or did they sweep them?
I feel like Detroit. I know Detroit gave it to
him pretty good up there, I believe. But yeah, Friday night,
October twenty fourth is the home opener for your Rockets,
taking on Amn Thompson's twin brother, A Sar and the
(01:17):
rest of the Detroit Pistons, who are I think they
consider themselves a lot like the Rockets in the Eastern Conference,
an upcoming team, up and coming team. They just didn't
add to Kevin Durant this offseason. That's the only difference.
So and then the Rockets. I do know this for
a fact, because well, you did one of the games
because it was on my birthday last year. The following Monday,
(01:38):
they'll welcome in the Brooklyn Nets, who the Rockets were
winless against last year and they were terrible. Is Cam
Johnson still making outrageous contract demands.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
For the Suns or whoever he plays for now?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I thought he was still with the Nets.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I don't know, there's too many Johnson's out there, but
I think that's the one. Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
What that pause?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So yeah, those are the first two home games after
that OKC game. As the schedule has been released, I
just looked at it right before we came out, came
back out up on the air, and so I haven't
had a chance to really.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Like, here's what I've got for you. Five game road
trip proceeds Christmas Day, finishes in LA with back to
back games against the Clippers and the Lakers. The Lakers
are the Christmas Day game. It's preceded by a quick
trip to New Orleans. Then they head out West, Denver
and Sacramento. They do close the season with six of
eight at home and eleven of seventeen at home, and
(02:32):
quite possibly the vast majority of those games are against
non title contenders. I would say, at the very very least,
the vast majority of the final seventeen games of the season,
eleven of which are at Toyota Center, are not against
the highest level competition. They close out at home. Minnesota
is one team that would stand out in that group.
(02:54):
Their final three or against Darryl Mory's team, Kevin Garnett's team,
and John Morant's team, Philly, Minnesota, and Memphis. He got
games on the road against Phoenix and Golden State. Three
more games at home before that against the Knicks, the Bucks,
and the Jazz. The four game road trip Chicago, Minnesota again,
Memphis again New Orleans. Nothing great, and they also have
a five game homestand that precedes that nothing of great
(03:17):
significance road or home.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Out of the gate.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Now you mentioned those two home games Friday and Monday,
the first two of the forty one to be played
at Toyota Center per the current schedule. The only other
thing that stood out was the possibility I think there
will be one home game for sure, maybe two between
December sixth and December twenty fifth. Every other game would
(03:40):
be on the road because between the sixth and the eighteenth,
those games are not yet on the schedule. Those are
NBA Cup games. If you advance to the NBA Cup,
potentially there's an additional home game. Potentially there's an additional
road game. Potentially there are two more games schedule for
Las Vegas if you don't advance, and I believe you
would have a game at home and a game on
(04:01):
the road in that window of the absent games on
the schedule. There's other regular season games in there, but
they happen to be on the road before that Cup
game break, and they're on the road for five games
out of the Cup game break as well, back to
back games at Utah, So the Rockets will only make
one trip to Utah. They'll do that at the end
of the of November and the beginning of December, and
(04:24):
they'll be on back to back nights. They'll play their
two games in Utah last couple of years, the NBA
has done a lot more of that. They will make
a couple of trips to LA but every time they
do they'll play two games there. They'll go visit the
Clippers and Lakers. Like I mentioned, two days before Christmas
and Christmas Day, the Clippers will come here for their
two games in Houston on the tenth and eleventh of February,
(04:46):
the Lakers will come to Houston for their two games
in a back to back scenario, although it'll take three
days to play those two games. That comes around Saint
Patrick's Day. They'll play Monday before Saint Patti's Day, get
wasted on Tuesday, and then play again on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You hear that, guys wex has the Rockets is an
alcoholic team. This year the Lakers will get wasted. Oh,
Austin Reeves will take the guys out for a day
and night drinking.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
KD and the Rockets are getting wasted here at home for.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
No Obviously, the other part of the schedule impacts your
television viewing or you're streaming viewing, and a not very unexpectedly,
the Rockets schedule is full of games on Prime, games
on NBC, games on ESPN and ABC all throughout the season,
(05:37):
way way more.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Than they are trying to count on the fly. Well,
of all those as a group, do you, I mean,
do you count I know you. Do you count streaming
as national television?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, sometimes the exclusivity is the only thing I care about, Yes,
I absolutely do. That is a national television game. Television
is the wrong word to use. I'm sure at some
point we'll create a new word, nationally broad cast game.
But those those games are specifically chosen to put on
their network for a reason. It's it's an uptick from
NBA TV. I do not consider NBA TV broadcast to
(06:09):
be the quote unquote national games. They're just games that
they carry because they're the NBA's network.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
H twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen nineteen. I
mean they've got over twenty just I mean, I was
I was asking Ross what the kind of round number
is for like the Lakers, because they're always on national
TV no matter what, and he I think he said
(06:35):
twenty maybe twenty five tops, because there is an eighty
two game schedule. The Rockets have just eyeballing it. At
least twenty five nationally televised games that's unheard of a
year ago. Unheard of a year ago. That is the
power of Kevin Durant right there, and.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Again, not all these are exclusive to that network, right
many of those games carried by some of those networks
will also be carried by their TV home space, city
home network, their radio home. No problem, we got them all.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
All eighty two plus playoffs.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
All eighty two games and preseason plus playoffs plus preseason.
We'll be broadcast on your home of Rockets Basketball Sports
Talk seven to ninety and many of them also broadcast
on News Radio seven forty kh.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Even preseason games played in the state of Alabama, where
there is not an NBA team.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yep, they got Atlanta a couple of times here and there,
they got Utah, and they will play in Bama when
they get together with the Pelicans on October fourteenth, just
for preseason games, the last of which is Thursday, before
the following Tuesday opener of the season.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The NBA season.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
The whole NBA tips off with Rockets Thunder.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, it's interesting they play the Spurs four times
this year.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Southwest Division supremacy, that's true. You play your division more
than you would.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
It's huge to win the division in the NBA South.
They're all nationally televised. Every one of the Spurs games
is nationally televised. That's interesting to me.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
We knew the game in the NBA Cup Friday, November seventh,
that was announced earlier this week that one is at
San Antonio. Won't see the Spurs again for quite some time.
The next time is not until January. That one's back
here in Houston. I'll see the Spurs again, like you
said via National TV in their building a little bit
later on in the season March eighth, in the fourth game.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Wasn't last year of the year where the Spurs is
on the twenty eighth all of the times, like by
the time Thanksgiving out here thinks.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
The team, Well, they played them three out of first
eight games of the season.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. So there it is.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean again, the first thing that's jumped off the
page of me is the nationally televised just I mean,
I don't even know if they had ten last year.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
If that, well, they were a five hundred team last
year going into the season learning about who their future
stars might be. Now it's totally different, even without tremendous
postseason success. They did win three playoff games. They didn't
win any series, but they have marketable players. I think
that was pretty by the fact that the Rockets and
Slam got together with the Men, the fact that the
(09:05):
Rockets and Slam got together last year with a cover shoot.
Shout out to Tracy Hughes huge part of that. Yeah,
definitely a shout out for her. A new member of
the Rockets, Tracy Hughes. It's their first season. Let's see
first season. How many seasons fifteen, twenty twenty five, it's
at least twenty Rockets basketball Tracy Hughes goes together. I mean, yeah,
(09:27):
but I'm trying to think she does great work. Is
by no means for those who don't know that was sarcasm.
She's been there a long time. She does great work.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
The Rocket head of communicator is a head of pr
head of communications.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Everybody has a different title for that role, but it's
the same rule.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Vice president, sorry geez, vice president Media and player relations.
Who's the president of the media early company, there's no
president of the media relations.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That's why I don't understand that.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well, there are lots of vice presidents at companies like,
I don't mean, how many vice presidents do you think
the Rockets have.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
There's president from my company, the United States of America,
not his company.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It's operated like it's his company, but it's not his company.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
He's the commander, the commander in chief, all right, when
we come back.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Best of X.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
We a lot of Texans practice early before everything got started,
and snapped a little video and sent it out and
it has become the subject of Best of X today.
Your comments on my post Best of X next
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety
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