Rockets Chemistry, Astros-Orioles, Rob Thomson Out, KD Trade Bait?

Tuesday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler react to all the noise surrounding KD and the Rockets. Plus, they preview Astros-Orioles and examine another firing in MLB.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
WEX over the are ac right here. Josh Jordan is
our producer. A little bit of a an abridged show today,
seeing as how the Astros are going to resume their
schedule and they're doing so in Baltimore, which means everything
gets pushed up because of the East Coast timing, and
so we will kind of transition into the Astros on
Deck show at the bottom of the four o'clock hour.

(00:21):
In the meantime, A lot to get to until then,
including some leftovers from yesterday that we didn't really get
a chance to get to. I am fascinated and I
guess this is another reminder WEX that you have a
top five in the NBA player on your team superstar.
Oh yeah, Well, I just mean from the standpoint of

(00:46):
I forget sometimes how long it's been since the Rockets
had a guy with that kind of star power. And
it was obviously James Harden before this, But the drama
that came with James Harden was always different. It was
who's he trading off of his roster? That was like
what it was consistent and it happened every so often
every few years. This is different, this KD narrative about

(01:10):
him and the team not having chemistry has obviously been
exacerbated from right around the All Star break when the
whole Burner gate thing happened. And then you know whether
or not that was true by the way, He's burner
told no lies in a lot of ways. If it
was his burner, who did he start his career with
UH Seattle?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Technically? Where did he go to.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
The finals for the first time with the first franchise
he worked with Oklahoma City?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Right correct?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Any players on that team that he was rumored to
not have good chemistry with.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
If there were, I don't remember, Yes you do.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I really don't know us really, yes, really, this is
I'm not trying to get you. I'm saying at the
end of it, I d he doesn't want to be
on the court with this guy anymore. Oh, Kevin Durant
can't stand playing with Russ anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
He knows what this team could be if not for
all the narratives were there, And then where'd he go?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
He went to a Golden State.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
There's no way Kevin Durant wants to play alongside Draymond Green.
Look at their body language, look at this dynamic. It's disastrous.
They're screaming at each other. It's never gonna work there.
He wants out of there the second he got there
on And it's good for whatever reason, because he's been
playing at the highest level from almost moment one. He

(02:28):
was a super young thunder team that he led to
the finals with two other would be Hall of famers
obviously Russ and James. But he was the leader of
that team quite obviously the best player on the team
at the time, and he's never shaken it. Oh, he's
now a vagabond. He's joining this team and not helping him.
He's joining this team and not helping him. And on

(02:48):
top of what's going on in Houston, what else do
they have for him? This year they got an extra
added bonus of narrative anti Kevin Durant, Durant nonsense.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Look how good Phoenix is now that he's gone. Yeah,
that was my favorite part.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I actually got a message the other day there's there
welcome to the Nonsense edition. We're with you for another
two and a half hours before I get you into
the Astros on deck show because people can't stop. And
I actually did see Kevin Durant in the flesh today
over at the Rockets practice facility.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I heard he was there. I wasn't. Yeah, I heard
he was there.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
My sources, my eyeballs told me that if I once
I walk into the facility and set up shop at
the specified location for media interviews to be conducted, then
if I look to my left and the huge open
space that is the athletic and training portion three cards there,
well that those of the courts are right in front
of me, but all the way to the left when

(03:43):
you're inside into waiting is where they went. The weight
room is, and the alter g Anti gravity treadmill is,
and everything else a pool, if you will. We've all
seen that work here in Houston, that don't travel in
for games and then leave town and file awful reports
in between. I could see him with my eyes. So
I've not been told he's in the building. I've not

(04:05):
been told he's been rehabbing. I actually saw him doing that.
All that being said, it's exceptionally unlikely that he's capable
of rehabbing an injury that probably takes two to three
weeks to recover from because tomorrow night, but because.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
It's him, he's not interested in being on the bench
in Game three, it's an excuse or it's a lie
that he was getting treatment while not being on the
bench in games.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
If he's on the bench for game three, they don't
have more ammunition. If he didn't have a burner for years,
they have more.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
He's given.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
I can't deny that he has given them some of this,
But I can deny anyone that thinks that. I just
I had someone in a very calm conversation with someone
yesterday trying I asked them over and over. It was
almost like I was berating them. I was trying to
be as nice as possible. Just run through the scenario
that this makes any sense. Tell me why someone who

(04:59):
just has shown and told us for twenty years now,
why are you doing this?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
What makes you come back to the game. Why are
you moved?

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Because I love playing the biggest hoops jay, I want
to play basketball. Why would he go out why would
he do what he did for seventy eight games this
year right just to not want to be out there
for This is why they do all that.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
This is why he's still out there.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
This is why everyone who's played with him, whether they
like him or not, have unbelievable respect for the work
he puts in to be the best shooter that the
league has ever seen. Kevin Durant is the best shooter
that the league has ever seen. It up, I don't

(05:39):
mean he's the best three point shooter or he's the
best creative shot maker on forty footers in the postseason
they get Mike Bring to say bang, I mean, if
it's a basketball jumper, which is what a shooter shoots.
Not layups, not dunks, not mini hooks, not sky hooks.
Shooting the basketball to me means shooting jumpers. That's what

(06:01):
he does better than anyone who's ever played the game,
certainly better than anyone who currently plays the game. And
it's not an accident. It's because he likes playing basketball
and he works hard. Same thing with Lebron becoming what
he has been. It's because he loves playing basketball and
he loves working hard. Now, run off the other top
twenty three, other top twenty five rs. Not a team though,
and why they are where they are. I mean, think

(06:22):
about hint Like I'm all for any Kevin Urant talk
we want through today. Remember we got a whole partial
show tomorrow before Wednesday Night's Game five, another must win game.
For the Rockets, and we will share with you some
thoughts from email Udoka, Jabari Smith Junior, and maybe a
little bit from a outprinching goon as well. We talked

(06:42):
to those three young men over at the facility todaynger
than me.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Anyway, Here's what I don't understand about specifically KD. Because
I mean, I am an unabashed, noted Lebron hater. But
I've given my reasons, and honestly, I think my reasons
are backed up by a lot of facts. In you know,
other people share that opinion. I guess, and I look.
I've always admired Kevin Durant from Afar. He was always

(07:06):
probably my favorite non rocket before he became a rocket.
I've just you just got done talking about the one
aspect that everybody knows universally, players, coaches and fans that
actually have a brain in their head, which aren't many.
That he is a hoops junkie. He's a jim rat,
he's whatever you want to call it. He just loves
to play basketball. That's a given. That's a non starter.
That's that's not something that can be disputed. Why is

(07:29):
it you mentioned Oklahoma City was the first place this
started happening, but I think it was exacerbated by not
only where he went, but the fact that that team
was down three to one two the team he left
the year prior. People forget that part, and so it
became he has chemistry issues with Russ because James was

(07:50):
already here in Houston by that point.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
But really, I think.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
That was a convenient way for OKC to kind of
lick their wounds after he spurned them in free agency
and went and joined a seventy three win team. Nobody
liked that. I hated it. I'm like, oh, crap, I
can't root for him now. He just joined the enemy.
This is the one team that he could have gone
to where I'm like, f Kevin Durant. Now, for as
long as he's there, then he leaves and I'm good.

(08:17):
But it's like, even when he went to Brooklyn, everybody
knew he wasn't gonna play the first season because he
had ripped up his achilles, So I think that put
him behind the eight ball.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
It's really helped the players tribune business.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Of course, my next journey, but it's like everybody knew
he couldn't play, but yet it became part of this
sort of anti Kevin Durant, slow burning narrative and and like,
I don't even know what to call it, but it's
league wide. He's got former teammates that are completely looking

(08:48):
for ways to throw him under the bus, like Kendrick
Perkins needs to shut his fat mouth.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
No, it's so easy to not care.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
No, it's I know, he's on a very popular platform,
and then that's where I always come up. Even higher
people watch that, and just like people that watch certain
networks for politics or news, they're stupid because they don't
look elsewhere for their narrative slash fact slash. They don't
ever think to themselves, hey, maybe what this quote unquote

(09:17):
you know, whatever, this fill in the blank entity is
feeding me.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Is absolute dirty diaper stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
It's not true. It's just something that gets clicks and
views and likes. And it's like, like, I just I
guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am. And
after seeing him here in Houston for not even a
completed season, because their season is technically still alive for
at least forty eight more minutes that we know of,
but like.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
This guy plays seventy eight games this year.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
He had the most healthy track record in a season
in the last probably decade, and they couldn't wait to
start with the up.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Here we go. This is what Kevin Durant brings you.
You're enjoyed the Kevin Durant experience. He always gets hurt.
This played more games this year than he ever has.
Was absolutely his efficient best. He's one of the best
players in the NBA, as you pointed out from a
shooting standpoint, line up any of these other so called
superstars that are either about to be eliminated by the

(10:14):
way or they're already sitting at home.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Or how about Phoenix, they just got swept last night.
Let's talk about who.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Had a better season that, Like, come on, you guys
couldn't wait. And again fat Kendrick Perkins could not wait
to come on and not only say that Kevin Durant
causes chemistry issues and there's always.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Something going on. But now he's trying to trade him
every other of the place.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I'm like, wait a second, you hate this guy because
he's such a locker room cancer, but XYZ and twenty
other teams are gonna be interested in him, Like, make
up your mind, which is it? Which stupid non truth narrative,
Are you gonna spew out there with your fat face?

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:48):
I called him fat three times in a segment because
he is, and he's been on the show before and
he was good, and then he stopped answering my messages,
so scroll.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Him and I'm like, oh, I got you.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Now. You know what's.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Narrative is Kendrick Perkins.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
The narrative on him is that he only goes on
Kendrick Perkins friendly programs. They're not gonna call him on
his BS when he starts opening his stupid fat mouth
about Kevin Durant shut up for a change.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
He's a very popular topic around the NBA streets and
will remain that way as long as the Rockets season
is ongoing, and at least until the offseason when Kendrick
can get him moved. Lots to get into. We're happy
for the year. Can you tell we're happy to be here?
We will take you into Astros Baseball. You got a
five thirty first pitch with the Baltimore Orioles for four
point thirty, we'll hit you with the Astros on deck

(11:33):
show it's game thirty and the Astros will turn to
their eleventh different arm to start a game for them.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
I will talk about that.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Like I said, we will take a trip over to
the Rockets facility to hear from both the email you
Dooka with an update on KD and Jawbari Smith Junior
weighing in. He only had two possible answers. Who is
the best team in this series?

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Jabari? Your answer? That's next.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
So Kendrick Perkins is hardly alone in talking about Kevin Durant.
But let's get to the most pressing news of all.
Is he gonta play tomorrow night?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Just kidding? I know the answer to that.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, there's no reason for the Rockets in a playoff
series to definitively really rule one way or the other
if it's not a more significant injury than it is.
Same thing that we'll see, I'm sure from Minnesota when
their next injury report comes out. I'm sure Anthony Edwards
will be listed as questionable, and I'm sure other players
other than Devincenzo will be listed similarly. The same thing
the Lakers have done with Austin Reeves, the same thing

(12:31):
the Rockets have done with Kevin Durant at earlier points
in this series. Unfortunately, he's missed three of those games.
Reeves has missed all of the games. But to emy
dooka talking after practice today as we walked in and
I laid this out in the opening segment. When we
walked in, we could see him on the treadmill working
on things. Obviously he did not participate that we could see.

(12:52):
So we wanted to get some more information on all
those things from Emay, including what is his status for
tomorrow night's game?

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Five alter alter G what does that do? And just
where is yeah and possibly playing tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
It's a good conditioning of you know, test your mobility
without the weight bearing and so it takes a pressure
off the joints. But that's just in the process of
him trying to get back. Obviously treatment in spite of it,
but you have to get out there and do it
a little bit and just the next.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Step in the process.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
No back, Kevin, Do you still see it as a
possibility that you go play for We'll see.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
I mean, it's it is a day to day game
to game, but you know you have to get on
the cord to do some things, and you know you
don't participate.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
In practice today.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
But I guessaid he's doing the conditioning and other aspects
of trying to get.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Back doing all the things as part of the progress
towards getting healthy.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Being on the alter g.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
The anti gravity treadmill is not usually oh well, all right, perfect,
now he's ready to go. He did not participate in
practice today. Is extremely unlikely he's playing in Game five.
I don't think he's going to be playing in any
of the remaining games. Remember, this is the last game
of the series. Tomorrow night's Game five that will be
played with more than one day of rest in between.

(14:13):
If the series keeps going, Wednesday night, they play Game five,
and if the Rockets win, then Game six is after
one day of rest Friday night, May first, back here
in Houston, and if they win that game, then they
travel back to LA with one day of rest in
between your travel day, and you play Sunday, May third,
in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
That's it. The series is over on.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Sunday, no matter what happens, and that's still three games
to be played starting on Wednesday night, Wednesday, Friday Sunday.
Very unlikely that the injury that we've been told or
sources have indicated that it is with the bone bruise
there which a bone bruise is what has Anthony Edwards
sidelined also, and the report is very similar to Kevin's,

(14:55):
it's in a different.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Place quitting on his teammates with Edward's.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Ankle with Durant normally, the expectation, if the reports are accurate,
that's a two to three week recovery period, not a
couple of days. Anthony Edwards has had two days, Kevin
Durant has had four days. The likelihood that at any
point during the remainder of the series he can play
is low, but they also don't need to rule him

(15:18):
out for the season, which there was some confusion on
after the last game because of how he answered a
question that was phrased as if he was out for
the season, which he's not and has not been ruled
that way, and no one's reported that either. But we
don't know how much longer the season is. It could
ultimately be true because the season could be over Wednesday
and he will not have played, so he would have
missed the remainder of the season. Same with Friday, same

(15:39):
with Sunday, same with maybe game one, two, three, four.
I don't know of a next series should they get
to it, but it is expected, it is believed to
be an injury that he can't play through, and it's
the second injury, two totally different injuries that have occurred
after the regular season ended. He did not miss Game
one with this injury. He played through this new injury

(16:03):
while playing through the previous injury for forty one minutes
in Game two, and then because of the second injury,
the knee injury, he has not or the extuity of
the ankle injury, he has not played in games since. Yeah,
and look, that's that all for a very nauseating reason,
goes into the stuff you're hearing and seeing today. Keep

(16:26):
in mind, again, just from the basketball he played in
one of the games that they lost where there was
virtually zero difference Game one and Game two carbon copy.
The Rockets couldn't make any shots from behind the three
point line, and he was one of them, and his
second half mirrored their performance offensively in the second half
when he made a shot one basket in the second

(16:48):
half of that game while playing the majority of the
second half. They fell behind early because they couldn't slow
down the Lakers in the first quarter. They were down
two in Game one. At the half, they were down
three in Game two at the half. They took the
lead extremely early in the third quarter of both games,
only to see the Lakers immediately take it back and
slowly pull away.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
And win a game.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Between nine points on Game one and seven points in
Game two, they were He had almost no impact on
how the game was played from a scoreboard perspective, one
game versus That doesn't mean they wouldn't have been better
off with him. I'm not trying to say that, but
the Rockets have gotten outplayed for the full ninety six
minutes in LA, which is why they were down two

(17:31):
to oh. They outplayed the Lakers for the full forty
eight minutes here in Houston, and unfortunately, if not for
just a thirty second stretch of Game three where the
Rockets made so many mistakes they couldn't overcome them and win,
They're not up. They're not tied going into tonight's game
with Kevin Durant playing in only one of the games.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
And now you have the ringer among other plays, trying
to trade Kevin Durant.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's what they've done to him with him ever since
he left Oklahoma City. As they were winning championships in
Golden State, he's not happy here. Let's see where he
can go next. As he signed with Brooklyn lucrative deal
many years. Where can he go next now that he's
back on the court and they failed and oh my god,

(18:19):
the dysfunction with Kyrie James and Kevin Durant. I don't
know where's he gonna go next. Same thing in Phoenix. Well,
Phoenix was also the management was part of that. They
tried to get him traded almost before the reports had
Well we need to see where Kevin Gan Durant can
go next. I mean I said it from the day
the Rockets acquired him officially and probably even the day
he found out about it at the Fanatic Fest. He's

(18:41):
not playing any other games for any other team ever. Again,
this is his last stop. He's finishing his career in Houston.
Nothing during his eighty six games ninety games if you
count preseason as a Houston Rocket, nothing changes my opinion
on that he's not moving on. He's not asking to
be trade and they're not asking around to see what

(19:02):
he can be traded for. And again I would love
it so we could see it just from a discussion standpoint. Wow,
just a year removed from trading these first round picks
Jalen Green and Dylan Brooks to get Kevin Durant. The
Rockets landed insert Kevin Durant's value in return for this
latest trade. What is it that the Rockets are going

(19:23):
to do to make their team better by sending thirty
eight year old Kevin Durant somewhere? What's part of that
package they're getting in return that alleviates the Kevin Durant
problem and elevates the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
I'm all for finding out what that is.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, it's I think there's a little bit of an
argument about what you just said and that they did
get thirty seven year old Kevin Durant, and he just
turned in one of his most efficient seasons in quite
some time. So nobody questions, at least nobody with a
brain questions whether or not the Rockets should have made
the deal to get him him, So then they turnaround.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
That's there, But what isn't likely. I don't know what
he could have done this year? He played awesome. YEP,
totally agree with you. His value didn't go up.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well, it's because he is thirty eight exactly, but it
also but again, nobody's talking about his age. They're all
talking about this cancerous, rotten locker around another reason why
his trade value.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Right, the Rockets are going to not make out like
bandits on this deal. They're not interested in making a deal,
making zero to tell everyone to shove it.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Kevin Durant isn't going anywhere to give c Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
The crazy thing about this article by the Ringer is
that the very first paragraph the article or the author,
Michael Pania, talks about, you know, before we look too
far ahead, we should probably play Devil's advocate and make
a case against him pending demand for firings and trades.
And then he goes in and states facts, the three

(20:58):
most ir replaced players on Houston's roster, Fred van Vliet,
Steven Adams, and Kevin Durant have not been healthy enough
to compete in this series.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
You should end the article right there. Uh uh, Devil's advocate,
let's play. Let's play.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Not only does he not in the article, he actually
puts in parentheses like it's an action vigorously shakes self
back to reality. No, actually, the paragraph you just wrote
was reality. Now you're gonna go and do the clickbait thing.
Let's be serious. Something is rotten at Houston's core that
goes beyond its need for a steady point guard, a
glass smashing center, and a healthy primary option. And look,

(21:36):
the next party says, which is that there's no excuse
for what we've seen through this humiliating first round series,
a level of mismanagement in disregard that's compounded the seemingly
dozens of crunch time collapses endured during the regular season.
All that's true, but like the other part's also true,
and maybe the other part not being true, the health part.

(21:57):
You know, the part where Fred van Vliet, of the
top point guards in the NBA kurktail's a ton of turnovers,
and all of a sudden, you're not losing these games
with these collapses because you don't turn the ball over
multiple times, And then nobody's talking about it, and nobody's
trying to trade.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Kevin Durant exactly run it back, you heard him. I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Have a better feeling about them running this version back
than maybe running the version back with Russell Westbrook or
even James Harden and Chris Paul.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Not a lot of other things to get to, but
will stick obviously with some Houston Rockets Discussion. Want to
give you what Jabari Smith Junior had to say about
what Kevin Durant has had a message for the team
or what he's told them over the last couple of
days as he has been unable to participate with them
on the court, and obviously what Jabari thinks about their
team against this version of the Lakers.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Bring that to you.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
But of course, halfway through our number one we hit
you with the best of X. I tease this over
a half hour ago when I sat in with Ross
and the payoff for more about Mike and Diana Jerdy Diana.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Next best of X the eighteen they can take they.

Speaker 6 (23:06):
Can take it like the eighteen on Sports Talk seven
ninety it's the best of X.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Now, we got to ask a serious question here during
the course of your.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Teen to young adult dating life, before you and R
found each other and eternal love and two children and
a happy home.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
I'm glad we have a short show today because if
I really had to run through the history of all that,
I don't know if I could get it all in there.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Before two thirty eight. It's two thirty six right now.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Did you have a crush and or dating situation where
you made and I'm gonna probably guess this would have been.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
A mixed CD. Try again, Was it tapes? Of course,
I don't know. I'm trying to give you some credit.
I sp be dubbing my friend, grab your ghetto blaster
or you're a a whatever you had, you know, hopefully
that's what you had.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
It made it a lot easier get your.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Uh, your Maxell blank cassette tapes, dub some stuff over
greatest poster ever by the way, hope, hope, hope that
your favorite pop music station would play the songs you
were hoping to put on your mixtape. It was Maxel
where the guys sitting in the chair in front of
the speaker.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yes, what a great.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
TDX was another popular outlet for a blank cassette tapes.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Great billboard and I do remember doing that. In fact,
I once I.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Will commit to bringing one into up to the station tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Oh that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
I once recorded my call into the Rockets post game
show that was hosted.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
By Charlie Pololo. I was thirteen at the time, after
Geene and Jim signed off. Yes, okay, I.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Probably sounded like this, but anyways, all that is to say,
I think we all at some point did something of
that nature.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Mine was a CD. My mixes were for me. I
don't think I ever remember giving one to another.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I didn't make one for anybody else. Well, that was
the whole question.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Cause again, in order to have the music whenever I
wanted to hear it, I had to record it off
the radio to have it. Otherwise I would have spent
all my money at Sam Goody.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, sound Warehouse, that's thank you, and you know Circuit
City best Buy.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
I mean those are newer. Well, I.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
There are all out of business kids listening to this
right now rolling their eyes. There was this time in
America and the world. It was known as pre internet,
so there's no streaming.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
I was fired up when you could at finally tune
in radio stations digitally. Yeah, that was a neat invention.
The knob wasn't necessary necessarily. I think if I go
a little bit past here, no status, back back back
back back, go the other way.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
All of this is to say there's a new layer
to the Mike Vrabel dirty Diana saga.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
She deleted a Twitter account.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
She's apparently shell shocked, as the word that was used
in one article I read about what's going on in
her life.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Right now.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
We all know that Mike had his sex addict therapy,
I mean counseling with his wife over the weekend instead
of drafting.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
I mean, I know Eldrick made it popular, but and
David Duchovny having sex with someone who's not your wife
when you have a wife, maybe even more than one
person who isn't your wife when you have a wife.
Not necessarily sex addiction might just be you need to

(26:40):
get out of your marriage, or you're making bad decisions.
Thus you're going to be out of a marriage.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
I'll take it a step further with this not so
hot take. Everybody is addicted to sex? How about that
you're you know, you're not a sex addict because you
like sex.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
I could see this being a question on the Steve
Harvey version of the Family Fuse gosh, some sexually charged
question about things you hate about adult interactions in the bedroom?
How long until he's staring head?

Speaker 2 (27:12):
What's on it? Exactly?

Speaker 1 (27:15):
It's a popular thing to do. Diana Ruscini, have it right,
enjoy it. Diana Russini made a.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Akon, had a song about it with Lonely Island and
Jessica Alba. They had just had it, and uh, who
are the other two? Oh, Molly Simms has been in
some of those those theatrical performances, but not this one. No,
this was somebody that's another problem.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
This was Diana Russini making a Spotify playlist called turning
the Page.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Diana Rossini makes Spotify playlist called turning the Page and reportedly,
and according to her Spotify account, shared it with someone named.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
One of the most popular names in America.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Not Michael, Mike, not mikey Mike, Mike had a child
what's his name?

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Mike?

Speaker 4 (28:05):
Mike?

Speaker 3 (28:05):
I had a Spotify list, shared it with who among
the was this the only share was unlikely? There was
just one save Mike. By the way, it's named Mike.
There's no at Diana Rossini on the x platform and now,
as of sometime today, there's no Diana Spotify account with

(28:27):
the playlist turn the Page.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
She shared this playlist with said user named Mike December nineteenth,
twenty twenty two, which is just go by Mike.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Just so no, wait, why should I change?

Speaker 1 (28:39):
He's the one who sucks, which just so happened to
coincide with a Titans four game losing streak.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Remember they've been.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Having sex May since he was the coach of the Titans.
So this was a pick me up playlist shared with
the four game losing streak head coach of the Titans.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
My favorite part about so this playlist, okay, is how
much everybody is dogging it.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
So you know what's on the playlist, can share that
with our listeners. We joked about what could have been
on the playlist ourselves off air. I didn't even realize
the timing of it. I would be all for jokes
if people want to share them. What do you really
think would have been on an actual Hey, man, things
will get turned around.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Don't worry about it. You're a great coach.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Signed Diana, I've made this playlist for you to pick
up your spirits, to keep you in a good mood,
to not let the losses get to you. What's on
that list? I'd love to know. Stop believing journey.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Okay, So you guys can think about that.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
Tell us what's on the actual playlist that Diana Recidi
made on her Spotify account that you shared with Mike.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Cuff It by Beyonce, Okay, Big Energy by Latto, and
that's not the phrase in the song. If you've heard it,
it's explicit. Break My Soul also by Beyonce. So so
far sixty six percent of the songs are by that
No Talent hack Uh, House Party by Sam Hunt, My

(30:11):
Love by Route ninety four.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
So it is just a run of popular songs Louder
by the Black Eyed Peas and Tiesto, Raise Your Glass
by Pink.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Based Down Low by dev and the Cataracts.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
I mean the is there nothing too specific about to
move just you know, very popular too, Can't Stop by
the Chili Peppers. Okay, Last Resort which is super Dark
by Papa Roach. What's the premise of that? I mean,
I know my song Okay, I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I mean it makes sense. I just really didn't pay
much attention to it.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Sorry, Welcome to the Jungle by the not as bloated
at the time Axel and s and Roses.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Let me take it back to the Last Resort would
not have been on a playlist specifically to lift up
his spirits during a four game losing streak.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
And that doesn't really gets the opposite.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Okay, Photograph by Deathly Way, which everyone likes to hear
when they're suffering a four game losing streak and they're
head coach of an NFL team.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Picture of Diana Rusini, God of thunder By that just
doesn't fit. This playlist is just all over the place.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Dance the Night Away by our Boys in Van Halen,
I mean, Diamond Day version, the version, and Renegade by
Styx because apparently he coaches the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
They play that during game wild. That just went where
I did not expect it.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
The first about eight songs made sense, the last few
sounded like an accident.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
My favorite response was Mike, who has a handle of
gopats forty two sixty nine, so he's clearly not biased,
Like what has to be going on in your life
to find this? And the guy who found and published
the list's response, which has five thousand likes, says you
should check out the website I run where I do
things like this and people pay to read it.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
It was a very wex response. I like it.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
It's I mean, it's just another layer to this gross
slash fascinating.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Stories of the recent layers are like probably coincidental, but
everyone just like everyone isn't isn't involved in the families
that are obviously affected here as having a heck of
a lot of.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Fun with this.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Like remember that song way back in the early nineties
called people Are Still having Sex? That would have been
better for this playlist. I don't remember that song.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I think it was a techno song.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Oh, no, wonder I don't remember. I remember Color Me
Bad's song about sex. Yeah, I want to sex you up.
I remember George Michael's song about sex. I think it
was about sex.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Was want your sex?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
And then I believe Wright said Fred had a song
about sex. I think it's hard to tell you sexy? Okay,
it was about being sexy?

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, he you know, maybe like I expected to pull
up this playlist and those songs download it well, and
then like maybe like Justify My Love, which is a
really subtle Madonna song.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
No Naughty by Nature songs on there.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Opp well, that that would be actually appropriate for the
nature of the relationship.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Mark called in and requested a certain czy top song.
Ac I think you might know, uh is it? Does
it involve a necklace? Sure? Does? Okay, so not leg
but at that well, I also could have worked and
not mispronounced tush.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
And not sharp dressed man, since he wears a puffer
vest everywhere he goes when he's not dressing up.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Bum Phillips. That's true. So uh, I love that he
got beaten that day by the Texans when he did
that and not got me owned. No, not that either.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
I mean, Dance the Night Away is not the van
Halen song. I thought she would choose what van Halen's song?
Should it be Dance the Night Away?

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Somebody get me a doctor jumped dead legs.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Top Jimmy ice cream Man?

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Ice cream Man would have been good actually about sex?
Said that, I thought, I wondered if that. Maybe I'll wait,
maybe a good one. I know that things are you
know you're not, you are attached, So I'll wait so
your love comes down?

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Um something newer. Pound Cake.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Pound Cake would have been of the Sami variety, but
very very full of innuendo. Human let's just talk about
the album that came off of for Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Why can't this be love?

Speaker 1 (34:49):
That's different? That's more a feely, touchy, peely nice kind
of love. Not I'm having an affair on now.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Before she worked for the Athletic, was she in the
education industry at all? If by education you mean telling
people things on espin. Maybe she has.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Maybe that was she had a background in some learning
of some sort, so it was hot.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
For his teacher. There you go. I don't think she
was teaching him anything new. Have we exhausted the topic
for the day.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
To keep the streak alive, we just need to figure
out Wait till tomorrow's segment on Mike Vrabel and Diana
Russini only exclusively right here on the A team on
Sports Talk seven to ninety.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
They were all the lyrics to the song that would
be a perfect fit for the two of them. What
is he talking about in this song? I'm just looking
for some Hamburgers. Have you seen what people have done
with her last name?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Lord, take me downtown Nashville. I'm just looking for soda pop.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Wait, crank it up right here. This makes me mad.
He says that.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Dallas, Texas in Nashville Ororo.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Why doesn't he say Houston, Texas. They're from here, not Dallas. Oh,
Robert Kraft, take me downtown.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
To orchards of Asiatown in Florida.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
That segment is over all right, fine, Astros and Orioles
for the first of three. Tonight's too early starts mid
afternoon today and tomorrow, and then an even earlier starts
on the Thursday to get him out of town and
off to Boston to face Chad Tracy's Red Sox.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
The new manager of the Red Sox.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
By the way, according to a Bob Nightingale, now we
were joking yesterday, I don't even know who the baseball
or basketball writer of note is for USA today anymore.
They have a baseball department. Bob Nightingale is the lead
writer there for them. This report came today from him
mid afternoon, after the news official news that the Philadelphia

(36:55):
Phillies were the next team who thought they were going
to be great this year and playoff bound. They got
off so a miserable start to fire their manager, Rob
Thompson was fired in Philadelphia. And Bob's report is that
the Phillies reached out to Alex Cora, hoping to have
him say yes, I'd love to manage your team, and
he said no, I'm going to take some time. I'm

(37:18):
gonna spend some time with my family. I'm going to
collect my Red Sox money both for the remainder of
this year and potentially all of next year. And you
guys can just go ahead to the obvious choice in house,
and they've given the job to already on the coaching staff,
Don Mattingly, with years of managerial experience, and I'm fairly

(37:40):
certain if he's interested, he will be their long term manager,
because like here in Houston with Joe Spata, like they're
in Boston with Alex Cora, probably like what's going on
in New York with the Mets and Carlos Mendoza. The
Phillies aren't losing because Thompson can't manage. They're losing because

(38:00):
their billion dollar offensive outlay of cash, is not hitting
well enough, and they're very expensive pitching staff. Now with
Zach Wheeler back, he's made one start, isn't pitching well enough.
They have three starting pitchers with eras at or well
above six.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
They're the nl Astros.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
They haven't pitched well and they can't hit well enough
to overcome it, and without they are the nl ASTs
except for one thing.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
They're more healthy.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
They have Wheeler was hurt before the year, so accommodating
for that was something they could have done.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
He's there, Hunter Brown their offense.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
I mean, the Astros really only have one two offensive injuries,
Jake Myers and Jeremy Pania.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
But they don't have any over there in Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Great, well, they're paying a lot more for their roster
than the Astros are.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Now, hey, listen, you've got Bryce Harper making a buttload
of money.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
And Trey Turner and Kyle Schwarber.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yeah, Kyle Schwarber, it was rumored was going to be
on his way out the door. But yeah, back could
go to Boston, but I don't think so. What a
weird What a weird season this has been. We'll continue
to Newark. Thirty games in and two of the managerial
jobs became open's.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
And no, I don't want Alex Korra back here in Houston,
you losers on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Job's not available. That's right for now. Three o'clock hour
is coming up.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Next three o'clock hour is officially underway here on the
A team. Sports Talk seven to ninety got Astros Baseball
pre empting us a little bit earlier today, it'll be
a four to thirty star time for the Astros on
Deck Shows. The team is in Baltimore to start a

(39:44):
series up there against the Orioles and Kaiwai Tang converted
from the bullpen to the eleventh starting pitcher used by
Joe Aspot on company this season already.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Yeah, Joe Spott, you'll hear from him during the Astros
on Deck show a little bit late get more into
detail about this, but more likely than not, and he
pretty much said as much. This is an opener for
the Astros this time. It certainly could change if there
is a next time, and that probably will be. He's
certainly not ready to start a game. Conventionally, he's not
been stretched out as a reliever, and clearly he's not

(40:18):
stretched out as you go into this start for Kaiwait today.
He's been outstanding in his eleven appearances out of the bullpen.
It's the best stretch of baseball he's had as a
major leaguer, but it is pretty brief. Last year he
was essentially a starter, and during his seven starts the
results weren't very good. I'm not sure what they will
be this time around, and again, today is more of

(40:38):
a bullpen day.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
It's more of an opener.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
I don't really have somebody following him that is expected
to finish things off or get him another fifteen to
eighteen outs unless things went unbelievably well, but that's how
they're going at it today. Shane bos will throw for
the Baltimore Orioles, something that we talked about during the
offseason because they orchestrated such a large scale deal a
host of prospects going over to the Rays four bass

(41:04):
and then turning around and giving him a huge extension.
I thought that was well questionable. I suppose he's owned
two of the five eight eer and has that injury
problems prior to last season, So we'll see how it
goes for them. For the Astros, a very familiar group
on the field for them today. Interesting in one respect
from a batting lineup that Joe A. Spotta has sent

(41:26):
out there to face Boz Correa, Alvarez, Peritis, al Tuove
Walker go one through five. That's pretty typical and exactly
what I think they will do more often than not
when all five of those players are healthy. That's your
entire infield, and of course you're designated hitter Jordan Alvarez.
The rest of the order is interesting. Janar Diez is
back in the lineup. He'll do the catching for Kaiwei

(41:48):
and everybody else that throws unless he gets taken out.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Of the game. Dustin Harris bats next.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
He's your starting left fielder, another righty on the mound
against them, So starting another left handed bat in the
lineup is understandable, but not much production from Dustin. And
he's batting seventh, ahead of Cam Smith, who clearly is
slumping right now. He has not enjoyed himself the last
handful of games, down to just two sixteen and well
under seven hundred with his ops. He bats eighth, and

(42:16):
I'd asked Channel Room about this yesterday when he joined us,
and he made a very good point about Bryce Matthews.
He bats ninth. He's playing center field. They don't have
really any other options, both with the club or down
on the farm. He's sitting one thirty six. Almost half
of visit bats are strikeouts, and that is obviously not

(42:36):
something that they want to continue. The offense has been
very good, despite the fact the bottom four in the
order have basically done nothing most of the year. In
the bottom four in today's order certainly echo that they'll
face Pete Alonzo as an oriole for the first time,
and they will try to do to him what everybody
else has done to him since he became an Oriel
get him out sitting one ninety six with three homers

(43:00):
and all of Baltimore's money.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
That last part is very important for him, but is
not paid off, so to speak, literally for them.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, there are a couple games under five hundred, and
there are two games under. The Astros are seven under.
Everybody that was on the diamond last night inside the
Astros division took an l Well.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Look, that's obviously helps out the or the Astros cause
at a time like this when they're trying to fish
their way back to five hundred.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
But yeah, Seattle couldn't slow down Christian Rose twins. They
lost eleven to four. The Angels, who had a five
to one lead, couldn't slow down the twelve and seventeen
White Sox. The Angels have lost four in a row
and the Astros can move pasted them today they're twelve
and eighteen and such sad news coming from Arlington Yankees

(43:52):
four Rangers two.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Did you see the fight?

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Tell us about it?

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Well, first and foremost, I must say that whenever there
is a fight in any sort of sporting venue, if
you are the person that is seated in the lower
row of seats and you get into an Oh you
mean a fan fight.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah, oh, I thought you meant the Yankees and Rangers
threw down.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, they did their fan bases.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
If you're a fan sitting looking up at the potential combatant,
good luck.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
I mean, it's simple like leverage, leverage, physics, whatever you
want to call it. Never ever, ever start fighting with
a person that is above you. It's like a built
in height advantage before there's ever a swing to be had,
and that came into play here.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
It was not a particularly competitive fight. One guy got well, yeah,
he need several people.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, that was the only aspect that was competitive. He
wasn't knocked out.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
So two fans a girl obviously together looking up at
two other fans and kind of instigating things. It's hard
to tell exactly what was said and why there were
so much anger, but once a liquid product was hit
out of the fan above them's hand, he decided punches
needed to be thrown, and the guy at the lower
end took the brunt of all the punishment.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
In this video, you can also see the woman involved.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
She's trying to enough, let's stop hitting him so much,
just getting clobbered, right, and other people were trying to
keep her out of it, to keep her from getting
hit or getting involved.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
It's just a tough spot.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
She did do the thing where she was basically like
using her hands to try and break up the action
whilst keeping her own face out of the action. If
you've seen the video, you know what I'm talking about.
So come on, fan fights, I mean enough, Yeah, I've
just never It's such a gross behavior in society, and
it's becoming more and more prevalent. I blame GTA for this,

(45:54):
even though I'm a huge fan.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
GTA not six. Have you heard what they're gonna do?
What we tell our listeners, Oh my gosh, what happened?

Speaker 1 (46:03):
The release date has stayed the same. It's November nineteenth,
twenty twenty six. You can go ahead and not expect
me to be working that day. But also the it's
a living, breathing organism. Oh they send someone over to
the house. Well, no, like if you if you commit
certain crimes on the game, people will take out their
phones and start filming it, and then you have a

(46:24):
rep within the game about said activities, whether you're fighting
on the street with somebody or committing a robbery or whatever.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Other crimes that you can commit that don't have people
videoing it, and there's crime that you can commit.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
They do just like in real life. If there's not
people around when you do it. I figured would be
the differentiation. But like right looking forward to it, guitars six,
stop calling it that.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Also, if you just like eat fast food and never
work out on the game, you get fatter, that never happened.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Now if you work out, you get swollen. You're kidding me.
Not The developers said, why haven't we been doing this?

Speaker 2 (47:03):
What doing what?

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Killing more people, showing more blood, having more music, No,
making the people who eat fast food get fat? Why
haven't we been doing that? Not realistic about if you
know what I think, you're right. They did, and that's
what they said. That's why this game costs. You know
what it cost to make this game? Have you heard
seventeen ninety nine?

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Not what you wish it would cost to buy it,
what they cost to make it?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Is it developer? Is it free? With three UPC symbols
from Lucky Charms.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
No, I'm not talking about the cost of purchasing it.
I'm talking about the cost of making it. Oh, a
couple hundred bucks?

Speaker 2 (47:42):
What's wrong with you?

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Like?

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Can you even give it a good college try, uh,
just give me a ballpark number of developers involved. It
doesn't start with an M. It starts with a B.
Six trillion dollars. Well, you remember what the rockets were
purchased for by Tilman, less than what it costs for GTA.
Barel barely? What did he? Was it to two?

Speaker 2 (48:02):
And are they gonna three? Are they gonna make money?
Are they gonna are they gonna recoup this? Are you
kidding me? Is this a bad business model?

Speaker 1 (48:10):
This is like making This is like the Michael film,
which like made back I think ninety percent of its
budget in the opening weekend. GTA is just like the
Michael Jackson It will cost two billion to make this game.
A lot of people making a lot of money, and
they're soon to get a lot of people spending a
lot of money.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Be honest, how many days should I take off to
play it? Just the one?

Speaker 3 (48:32):
It is November nineteenth? I need to see what day
of the week that is? Can we get the useless
monitor in here? What do you mean the useless the
one that's all black? Every day we do our show,
it's a Thursday hook it up? Man?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Should I just take Aday weekend, bring the console in Thursday,
play on the air.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Twenty six I take off Thursday Friday, right four day
weekend to play GTA.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Are you guys ready? How big of a loser? Am I?
The biggest? I know? Don't answer that. It's a truck question.
So anyways, there you go. I didn't mean to give
you a couple of innings out of kaiwai tang is
what we were getting to. Yeah, I hope that's the case.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
I also hope that you can answer this question you
being Jabari Smith Jr. Hey, there's two teams in this series.
One of them is up three games to one. It's
not the Rockets who you play for? Who's the best
team in this series?

Speaker 2 (49:23):
A little set up here.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Was asked a question about what the message has been
from Kevin Durant since Game three, or on the bench
in Game four, and or in the days that have
come between then and now. So he starts his answer
off like that and then turns it into what his
feelings are about his Houston Rockets basketball team.

Speaker 7 (49:41):
You know, just stay with it, bus be aggressive. Play three.
You know, well, obviously the better team I feel like,
So just just knowing that being confident, trusting our work.
He's just telling us to be us.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
Us.

Speaker 7 (49:59):
I just feel from top to bottom, Sam bias, but
I just think we're the better team.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I love how he answered that, well.

Speaker 7 (50:06):
Obviously the better team. I feel, well, obviously the.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Best so we're obviously the better team.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Were obviously, I feel like top to bottom, I just
feel like we're the better team now. Obviously, when I
was there and heard him say that, I made a
mental note of that and chopped it up, edited it
for our program like that Michael Shapiro's question in between there,
asking him, well, why do you feel that way? Obviously,
it's usually a good question to follow up with, and
he gave us another additional response to that, And I

(50:34):
also posted on social media. But unlike other people, I
want people to hear what was said. I'm fully aware
of what a comment like that will do on social media,
but I'm also not I'm definitely doing it wrong because
I want to do it the way I think it
should be done. I included the commentary about I may
be biased and that's my opinion. Well, yes, I want

(50:56):
people to see that in the context in the caption
before they just read. Jabari Smith thinks his team that's
down three to one is the better team in this series.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Fire post.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Let's have fun with this, but obviously the comments that
have come with it. Has at King James seen this yet?
Oh yeah, I'm sure the team that's lost three out
of four that's the better team. Hey, Laker fans go, well,
who cares what Laker fans think about anything? Or by
the way, who cares what Lebron James thinks about anything?

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Certainly not me.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
He did get the other obvious responses. We take you
to break here. What should he say? They're definitely better
than us. Let's go get on a plane and playing.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Bingo a little bit more Rockets conversation because something was
not played yesterday and you have referenced it. I have
referenced it. How stupid it was? Well, actually two of
these pieces of audio are really stupid. I'm gonna call
him mister Malika Andrews. Is that who he's married to

(51:55):
at ESPN? His name's Dave, and he gave would you
characterize this report that he gave from the Rockets practice facility?

Speaker 3 (52:05):
Uninformed categorized it in a post on the X platform
that was never sent. It was basically a book that
I wrote about it as a draft. Yeah, and it
said this report is and I used the number two emotionals.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Quote tweeted his report the video that we're about to
play the audio of.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I don't think we're about to play the audio of that.
We're not. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
We're not playing sixteen seconds. Yeah that you confused me? Yeah,
we got it. Okay, can we play it? Yeah, we
can play it. But it's okay, we can play it.

Speaker 8 (52:39):
And then Thompson was asked about an hour ago how
kat is feeling, and he said, to be honest with you,
I don't know whether that means Katie has been doing
all of his rehab away from the team or the
team hasn't really necessarily been checking in on him. That's
another dynamic dynamic to look for as we head towards sipball.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Listen you say before I gotta say so, oh my gosh.
The beginning of that, he said, you know he was
talking about a men right before he said that.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, he said, make of this what you will. That's
what he said.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
That's how you know someone's about to tell you a
load of what you wrote in the emoji form on
your draft.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
So he said, make of this what you will and
the narrative we want to follow up until game time,
right yep? Yeah, So, like I said, I posted a
bunch of stuff that I ended up not sending. You know,
that's on me. I gotta be better. I gotta be
more you know, vicious and stand up y. But I
did send this as at mcten would report, make of

(53:41):
this what you will hashtag smh. I'll be covering the
game tonight and of course this is another dynamic to
look for as we head towards tip off tonight. And
it was a quote well, I also used the face
palm emoji. It was a quote t sweet of Thirty
minutes after that report, his own guy Sham's reported that
Kevin around is expected to miss the game. So I'm

(54:02):
not sure what narratives to follow, our dynamics to follow
after that. The issue with the report is a and
I could probably get to f here. He gave a
quote a men. Thompson said this, It wasn't quite exactly
what a man said. I think the gist of it
was close enough, but it was not what he said.
And it was also the response to a question that
Dave mcmanhamhon got wrong. That's not the question he was asked.

(54:23):
He was asked how he's feeling. He was not asked
how he was feeling. He was asked what his mood is,
And in this context, that is very different. An answer
given of I don't know how he's feeling could be
taken as I don't know how his mental state is,
or I don't know how his ankle or knee or
shoulder or finger feels. But that's not the question he
was asked. He was asked what his mood is. So

(54:44):
when he said to be honest or ain't gonna lie,
I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
I don't know. Make of this what you will.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
The other part of it is why I had a
book written, because it's extremely disingenuous to the people that
want the information from reporters who cover practice, who covered
the team, who report on these teams, to make it
seem like this is nuts. A healthy player on a
basketball team doesn't know the status of an unhealthy player

(55:12):
on his basketball team as he's leaving the court to
meet with the media after he has practiced, but the
injured player didn't practice. He's not practicing. A men doesn't stop.
When he's done, he goes doesn't go back in the
back to check on a player. He doesn't go back
in the back to catch up with the athletic training

(55:32):
staff and the strength and performance staff to get an
update and then come back out so he can meet
with the media.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
They don't. That's not how it happens. So to put
it out.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
There like that is insanely disingenuous.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
You're responsible, is what it is.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
And I know that there are people who were very
displeased with the manner in which that report was.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Believe, listen, this is why I and again I understand
why you're like, why do you pay attention to them?
But I can't help it because just like the Kendrick Perkinston,
people consume this and believe it.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, the why do you pay attention to them is
hard for me to get past, but I need to
because you can't help it. If it was only on
a television program and it was reported and then they
went back to discussing it, and that was that, you
wouldn't have to pay attention.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
But it's clipped and posted by.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
The network where any other reporter that wants to post it,
or at full court Press, are at Legion Hoops or
at hater Central, and they do with it what they
want to continue. They want the narrative because it draws clicks,
and so you can't ignore it. You actually do need
to speak out against it so people who do care
will actually have the real information.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
I'm not telling you anything.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Might not be wrong inside the building, but there's no
reason unless you have an agenda, which most social media outlets,
including the outlet for the network he works for, everybody
has a certain agenda. It's not anti Rode rockets are
pro lakers or the reverse. It's we want people to
care about what we're saying, and the only care we

(57:06):
care about is incendiary. It's inflammatory, it's drumming up emotions
that don't belong here. But if we can spin it
this way, like just what I did with the Jabari
Smith Junior comment, if I don't think people on Instagram
or social media other outlets aren't going to grab Jabari
Smith Junior says, we are the better team and post

(57:27):
only that.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Don't quote it, don't leave put the audio in there.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Just write that on an Instagram post with his picture
and put it in a big quote on a big
graphic Jabari Smith Junior says Rockets are better team in
this series, are obviously the better team. They're all gonna
do it. They don't really care about that. They're not
in it for that, They're.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
In it for the views well, and he is the
most perfect, disingenuous, little smarmy troll that they could have
put to cover that team. Because as you know, okay,
what's been it's been this way for a long time.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
I'm saying is they didn't choose Dave to send on
the road to cover this series. They chose the Lakers
beat writer to continue covering the Lakers. They don't employ
a Southwest beat writer or a Rockets beat writer, but
they do employ a Lakers beat writer. Obviously he's going
to continue to cover the series, but his intel and
insight is for only one of the teams.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
If you want to call it that, because intel slash
insight would insinuate that he is a good reporter and
not a mouthpiece for Genie Buss's organization, which is what
he's always been.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Like Ramona Shelburne before him.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Did you see Genie? I think it was at Game two.
There's a good shot of her and Jay no I don't.
I think it was did someone get a technical in
game two there in La Did Jabari maybe draw a
technical somebody did?

Speaker 2 (58:44):
I think it was a point in.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Time where maybe Kevin was arguing in the game that
he played, because you could see Jay in the background.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Come on, tee him up, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
My man.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
I can't hate on him because he was a good
dude to me, but yeah, he was great and go.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Plus he's a party at five. He was great in
that movie.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
It's real, Jerry. He should say something. I just it's
it's bad.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
It's easy to not do that, but everybody seems to
want to do that.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Well that network. Yes, at most they've so fallen from
where they want. I mean it's not even everything's no question.
But he's just such a little weasel. I mean, I
really like he is Ethan Sherwood Strauss. He's no different.
He's the same guy. In fact, I'll probably step on
him if they force a game six because I won't
see him there like the cockroach he is. But speaking

(59:38):
of which, at least Jeff Tigue took this media.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Who's Jeff Tigue. He's a former player for the Hawks.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Primarily I believe hosts a podcast and he's gotten run
on our show before. It has said things that generated
a lot of interest on social media, and a lot
of people really enjoy his podcast. He's he is a
great storyteller and he's got a lot of them. But
every once in a while, we'll bring you some of
Jeff's tigue's work.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
He he was on whose side? Was he on? Not Dave's?
Is he on your side? Yes?

Speaker 9 (01:00:09):
He is being like to like to try to make
something bigger than his post like dramatic, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Bro, Like don't nobody knowing what nobody?

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
It was just like, wasn't on the big game for you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Bro?

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
I don't know that business? Yeah, about to piss me up? Like,
I don't know if you don't ankle hurt for real?

Speaker 9 (01:00:26):
Don't I ain't going Kadie's your ankle hurt when you
coming back?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Bro?

Speaker 9 (01:00:30):
And people don't even talk to each other on teams
like that, bro, Like we don't be going in the
locker room asking you might come in there and like
are you playing today?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
And he'd be like nah, like nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
That's I had not heard that clip before. It's perfect.
That's it's just what you said, what I just said.
They don't go back. It's an NBA player saying it.
Like not to say that he has more credibility than you.
He don't know does Yes, he has better credibility.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Than Dave McManamon. I know that much.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Listen, Dave mcmhmmon's greatest accomplishment is marrying that hot airhead
that also covers the NBA for ESPN as their studio host.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
And I don't care what you already. She's an idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
I've seen her do and I'm not even remotely alone
in thinking that. In fact, go to her mentions anytime
she says something even remotely controversial NBA related, and everybody's like,
this chick sucks at her job. That's all anybody thinks.
It's the worst X Yeah, but I mean it's consistent.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Like this awesome, what not terrible platform that we all refer.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
From, this awesome, very terrible pregame show for your one
of your biggest entities that you've gotten in bed with
money wise, the NBA, like do better. I feel bad
for Shane and it's not because she's from Houston. She
does a good job and she's surrounded by absolute morons
on the set of that show, and Malika, excuse me,
Dave's wife is one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
There you have it, there, you have it terrible.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
The eight we had intended on replaying a portion of
the conversation Steve Sparks had on his weekly visit here
on the station, and we just we were derelict and our.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Duty, that's what they call it. Wex. We didn't get
to it, and that's on us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
But I did want to get to it, especially since
the Astros didn't play last night, and anytime Sparky has
something to say about this Astros team, I sit up
and listen because he's an authority, much like Jeff Tigue.
He has a much better credibility rating as a former
player than you and I will ever have.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Fourteen years on the Astros broadcast, a couple of years
before that, he played Major League Baseball. He threw the
pill to the catcher. I hope the hitters wouldn't hit it.
Sometimes they didn't, Sometimes it fluttered on its way to
home play. He was a knuckleballer. His thoughts here a
couple of minutes worth of it, and you can't catch
that inner viewing full, especially if you are subscribing to
our podcast via the our Heart Radio app or right

(01:03:06):
there on our site at sports suck seven ninety dot com.
As they get set for baseball tonight. They haven't played
since Sunday, the series that wrapped up with the Yankees
and the one prior with The Guardian. Steve Sparks was
in on how the week that was went.

Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
Pretty good week against two first place teams. I'll say
that with Cleveland and New York book teams playing really
well in the Astros, I think right now you're digging
yourself out a little bit of a whole, of course,
but if you win weeks, you know, if you keep
your head above water while you try to get healthy,
I think that's that's what you're looking for. That's what
they did. They went three and three against Cleveland and

(01:03:40):
New York, a couple of good teams, and we're starting
to see a couple more guys offensive league contribute along
with your with with Ethoch Perdits Chrystian Walker bashing in
that Homestead. Hey, by the way, at home, you know,
for Christian Walker, that's that's good to see, as I
mean last year he's really struggled. I can park, and

(01:04:00):
he talked about maybe I got a little poll happy.
But right now, man, he is raking it a diking park.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
He's also doing it in the four hole, Sparky.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
So let me ask you, besides the fact that he's
gone full super trooper mode, what have you knows about
his approach that's changed at the plate.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
I think he's just staying closed much better. I think
last year it's actually of power when you open up
that front shoulder, you know, and you get out in
front of hit the ball off the end of the
bat and you become very successful to the breaking pits
slow and away and you can't cover it. So I
think for him is just keeping that front shoulder closed.
And he just looks confident too. He just he's waiting.

(01:04:36):
I think I think he has benefended from the ABS
and he's done a nice job.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I like with this offense is headed. Their approach this
year has been much more mature and impatient, and I
love with what they're doing on a daily basis. I
think this offense is gonna, probably more so than the
pitching that we've seen in the last few years, probably
carry this team a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Along those same LINESA Perettas. How nice to see him
finally get going.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
You know what for me, is he same more pictures
like he did last year. But the other thing is
he's getting in these leverage counts and he's being more aggressive.
And that's what I was I was taking early on.
I said, I mean, what's the point of going to
and zhero or three and one if you're not gonna,
you know, come to your shoes on some of these
these pitches down the middle. So I think that's what
we're starting to see him do now. And he had

(01:05:28):
three home runs from the last week or since the
last time we talked, and he looks like himself again.
He said something after a game I think right around
the last time we spoke, and he said, you know what,
I'm going up to the plate with a with a
good approach, and I'm changing it halfway through the bat
and I'm just not being myself. I don't know why

(01:05:48):
I'm not continuing through. And I think that's what we
started to see, especially in those three games against New York,
is somebody that's taken advantage of these counts, and that's
what he needs to do. The Astors need a couple
of guys to stay pretty warm to protect jord On
just a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Had you ever seen anybody that looked as locked in
as ord On right now?

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
At the plot he had a stretch. I think when
he first came up in twenty nineteen that was probably
pretty similar. And the only reason I can even say
that is because I looked it up because I was
thinking the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Dan.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
It's like, man, I'm not sure if I've seen him
as locked in as he is right now. And even
the outs are one hundred and ten miles power right now,
so I'm with you. I mean, this is as good
as I've seen. And when I talked to other broadcasters
like David Code or some of the guys that I
played against it and have known for quite a while,

(01:06:42):
they're saying the same thing. It's like, Man, this is
this is peak big poppy. I mean, this is this
is stuff that you just don't see. And I think
the biggest reason why Dan is that he's so balanced.
And when you're as balanced as he is, even when
teams are trying to put him inside to trying to
knock him off the play a little bit, when you're

(01:07:03):
that balance, man, you're really seeing the ball well, and
you know, talking to the heading coaches, his his pregame
work is impeccable. He's very confident. And I say this too.
How many times have you seen jord On to step
out of the batter's box and take a big deep
press And I'll tell you what the answer is. The

(01:07:23):
answer is zero, because he doesn't breathe hard. I mean,
you see everybody else step out and take a big
deep press and look at the end of their bat
and go through their routine. Jordan On, man, he is
breathing easy, and he's very confident right now. And we
can't miss this. I mean, even if the team has
an over some week, we can't miss talking about your

(01:07:46):
because we're watching one of the game's best and one
of the best I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
One of the best he's ever seen.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
And for most people who've watched baseball for twenty five
years only might be the best they've ever seen. Some
we've watched it for fifty it's one of the best
they've ever seen. I've called the best left handed hitter
in the American League I think so far this year
that certainly extends to not just left handed hitter or
not just American League, but he is the best hitter
in baseball.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Yord On Alvarez essentially.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
His top ten in almost all of the metrics like
launch angle, sweet spot, hard hit percentage, number of hard
hit balls, barrels for played appearance, all those somewhat advanced numbers.
Yord On Alvarez has never led the league in hits, RBI,
batting average, on base percentage, selecting percentage ops ops plus

(01:08:35):
intentional walks, total bases, never led the league in any
of those categories. He's currently leading the league in every
single one of those categories. I hate that it's being
wasted on this season. It's not over yet, It's only
game thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Yeah, but okay, do you think it's going to not
be wasted on this season?

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
I don't expect what they've done to continue. They're seven
games under today, twenty nine games into the season. I
don't expect them to be fourteen games under five hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Do you expect them to make the playoffs?

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
I expect them to be in the hunt to make
the playoffs. I think that's the best. The reason they
do well. The reason they do is because Spencer Araghetty
has continued to do this Peter Lambert has continued to
do this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Hunter Brown has returned and.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Done this, and somebody else, probably Mike Burrows, has turned
it around. Jordon Alvarez could lead the league in every
single category. He could sixty home runs this year. You
could drive in one hundred and forty runs somehow and
be a Triple Crown winner. If they can't pitch, they
won't win. It's that simple. He's doing all this while
they're not winning. It's not going to change unless they

(01:09:44):
pitch better well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
And the offense in general is doing all this while
they're not winning. Most nights.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Yeah, their offense has had two pretty good spit stints
and even with some of the down scoring games they
had this past week, it's on an uptick again because
Jordon's doing this consistently and now Isak Peretis is swinging
a hotter bat. Christian Walker has continued his start. I
mentioned this yesterday to of the top five hitters in
the American League, and ops are.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Astros and Christian Walker is the other one.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
With Jordan Alvarez, Korea and al Tuve have had good
enough offensive starts, and that's five guys at the top
of the order.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Yes they have been good enough.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
If the bottom of the order comes around a little bit,
it will be that much better, but it still won't matter.
They won't win no matter what this offense does if
they don't pitch a whole lot better starting tonight with
Kaiwei Tang, who will throw the first hand full of
pitches for your astros?

Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
The A team on Sports Talk seven night, Real quick,
we've already covered this, and we didn't really.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Cover it in detail, nor do I want to. This
Ringer article that's basically already mapping out the Rockets offseason is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Just like, I get what you have to do.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
This was written in release before they won Game four,
by the way, and the best part about it was
that one of the responses was this article would have
slapped had they not won Game four the way they did.
You can call it a gentleman's sweep, and certainly people
will if the Rockets don't extend this to a sixth
game tomorrow night. But there was gonna be no shortage

(01:11:20):
of these kinds of stories, and frankly, these kinds of
rumors if the Rockets didn't beat the team that they
were heavily favored to beat, especially under the circumstances going
into this series.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Yeah, going into the series when they're all NBA player
was healthy, and once the series began and he didn't
play and they were down one and two and three.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Well, don't forget the other all NBA world player that's
involved in this series that wasn't healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
And then Austin Reeves too.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
No, if Kevin Durant was healthy and they were overwhelming
favorites to win this fact in fact, when everyone was
looking forward to this, I think the series could already
be over. I do too, So things changed dramatically. They're
not overwhelming favorites. At no point during the actual series
have they been overwhelming favorites. Because during Game one, like

(01:12:18):
at tip off, they weren't overwhelming favorites to win the
series anymore because something had changed. Kevin Durant out well,
not knee contusion.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Not Kevin Durant locker room cancer vibes are not immaculate,
all that kind of stuff. I just honestly, I don't
wann give that Ringer article anymore time. Yeah, a couple
segments is enough.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Stop it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
But I will say this, I have not heard this
SoundBite in its entirety, but I know what the gist
of it is. Brian Wendhors says, regardless of what happens
in this series, the Rockets may have to explore some trades,
and I happen to agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
I wish we had a different system. It's very not
one's seat. Oh let's load up a SoundBite. There's no
other sound bites there. Guess which one I want to
play that one.

Speaker 10 (01:13:10):
Houston has a couple of significant challenges. One is is
that there are limited in what they can do to
add to this roster because they're even though they've got
draft picks of other teams, they're not going to get
high draft picks going forward. Their hand is a little
bit limited here and how they can improve. What I
can tell you on the court is he's not play

(01:13:31):
his best basketball. But even if he had players best basketball,
this team was going to have a challenge to how
to figure out how to deal with those monsters in
the Western Conference without the ability to dramatically upgrade their roster.
So they may have had to look at trades no
matter what happened in this season.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
So I'm not clear said this hundreds of times in
the last couple of months. I don't think.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. I agree. I actually
agree with what he was saying. I thought this before
the series. Agree that they have to look at it.
I don't know that they're going to act on it
or b need to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Act on it. Well, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
If they do make a significant move this offseason of
any kind, it's not going to be Kevin Durant.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
It's just not. They've already extended him.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
He's been here, whether you think like again, let's just
be transparent about it. If he said all that stuff
on his burner account, he spoke from the heart. And
who's disputing some of the things he said based on
what you've seen since it came out. Who's honestly with

(01:14:42):
a clear conscience disputing most, if not all, of the
things he said.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Anybody's not really the point, is it? Well, what's the point?

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Teammates don't normally do that. That's not good for your team.
Of course, Okay, I'm not letting him skate for that act.
But at the end of the day, the fact, the
facts remain about what he said. And I mean, if
you're not gonna win a championship as is, you need

(01:15:14):
to make changes because no one in the West is
getting worse, and you're you're not good enough right now,
those two facts are indisputable. But whatever happens with the
rest of the series, because again we've been saying it
all week long, either one of these teams is gonna
get fed to the wood chipper.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
That's what okac is.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
You think Shay Gildess Alexander flopped a lot in the
first round, Way do you get a load of him
in the semis. He's gonna average twenty three throws and
they're gonna sweep whoever gets out of this series.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Sweep eight straight to open. Why wouldn't they. The refs
are giving the SGA the whistle that Harden should have
gotten for doing much less.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
If he's playing against Luca and Lebron and Austin Reeves,
they might get the same whistle.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
I doubt it, although since you brought that up, if somehow, some.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Way he's playing against a Men and Alprin and Jabbari,
you think he's gonna get that whistle more than them.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
He's actually gonna men will get that whistle. Next time you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Say, hey, here's Lebron coming down the lane, He's going
to lead with his elbow and can cuss you and
the foul will be on you. A man, You like
that because that's how it's gonna go.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
They're out playing the Suns dramatically and on top of
that getting very friendly whistles.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
It's ridiculous. The series is over. I'm acknowledging that they
beat him in four straight.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
Yeah, it's not like over because they're up three to Oh,
it's actually over. But just for the sake of argument,
the Rockets somehow force a Game seven, which would be
in LA. By the way, you think the NBA wants
the Rockets to advance to play the Thunder. You're already
dealing with the backlash of you're defending NBA champion in

(01:16:58):
favorite to repeat, everybody hates the way they play because
their free throw merchantz or they just straight up assault people.
We didn't even talk about Lou Dort intentionally tripping Devin
Booker and injuring him and be like I didn't do
anything after he kicked his leg out. What an absolute
piece of crap Lou Dort is. I never thought he

(01:17:19):
would stoop to this level. He used to just be
a guy that was like physical and hit a few
threes and was annoying. Now he's like straight up Bruce
Bowen two point zero. He's worse, worse than Bruce Bowen.
I think he's much worse.

Speaker 3 (01:17:32):
How I don't have twenty fifty four hundred clips of
the stuff that Bruce Bowen did. Maybe there's thirty and
I got all that. With Lou there's so many plays
that he's made that are just these are I think
it's cooled the referees missed them, which they did. Yeah,
the league's got to come in or else it's not
gonna stop because the referees miss him too often or

(01:17:52):
they improperly call it during the game. The league has
to absolutely step in. Guess why, because so far they
haven't stepped in and it hasn't stopped.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
People are getting hurt. They should care.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):
And it's not that Devin Booker got hurt, which is
what happened. It's that a player in the NBA got hurt.
It could be the twelfth guy on the bench, it
could be a two way player. Just should matter. This
is not NBA basketball. I told you this earlier this year.
He's not he doesn't play basketball, he plays Lolue Dort
is not a basketball player.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Yeah, it's embarrassing. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
And again you're asking a league that love looking the
other way on this. This this what you'll do this
all up with? Will you think they want this?

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
Of course they want the Lakers to advance, But what
is it that you're intending to see? You're expecting to
have us all unfortunately have to watch like you can't
be that overt during the Game seven to make sure,
from an officiating standpoint, that the Lakers advance.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
It goes back to the original premise of this series.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
That the Rockets had taken care of the business like
they're supposed to, they'd never be in the position to
have that happen.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
There's nothing wrong with the league wanting certain things that's
good for business.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
They want what's good for business.

Speaker 1 (01:18:59):
What's funny is they, technic should also want that Game
seven to take place before all of this gets to
that point.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Yeah, a couple extra games and some extra money Toyota Center,
a Game six.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
And then Game seven. There comes Scott Foster walking through
the door in LA.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
He'll be busy with another series. I worried or scred.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Four o'clock hour is underway here on a Tuesday edition
of the program. It's gonna be an abbreviated hour as
far as the show goes, because at the bottom of
this hour, Astros on deck will take over. We'll get
you ready for Kaiwai Tang and your Astros trotting out
there eleventh starter this year, even though he's gonna be
an opener against the Baltimore Orioles in the opener of

(01:19:38):
that series n B.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
More so, we'll get you ready for that one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
In the meantime, we've talked a lot about both the
Rockets and the Astros here in the first couple of
hours of the program, primarily the Rockets, you know, going
into Game five again do or die must win situation
tomorrow night in Los Angeles, where they're gonna trying to
force things back here to Houston, and then they'll be

(01:20:03):
trying to force things back out to LA for a
Game seven if they can win that. But first things first,
it's gonna be the Rockets and the Lakers in that
Game five. Austin Reeves likely to play, Kevin Durant likely
not to play for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):
Yeah, I don't think Kevin Durant can return for this series.
But the Rockets have not given a definitive word on
that moving forward, just today saying day to day, game
to game, per email, Udoka's out there at practice and
those are the words he used. The official injury report
for both teams not yet submitted. They don't play until
late tomorrow night. Philadelphia, Boston, Lanta, New York, Portland, San Antonio.

(01:20:41):
Two of those three series could end tonight. Lanta New
York is even at two games of peace. San Antonio
and Boston each have a third win already in this series.
Orlando and Detroit, Toronto and Cleveland and Houston and La
are the games tomorrow night. We have talked almost none
about the rest of the NBA postseason. I do like

(01:21:01):
that we have a lot of storylines to take care
of with this one. But it's pretty noteworthy when the
number one seed in the Eastern Conference is now facing
what the Rockets are facing, must win games three consecutive
times in order to advance. They are down three games
to one to the eighth seeded play in tournament participant

(01:21:22):
Orlando Magic.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
Well before I knew that Kevin Durant would miss all
but one of the games in this series, what did
I say and I'm not trying to be I told
you so, guy, but I really have sincerely meant this.
The Rockets are heavily favored. They should win this series,
but because they're the Rockets, they'll make it way more
difficult than it needs to be. I had no idea
they would fall behind three before they'd win their first
game in the series, but I did think it would

(01:21:44):
go at a minimum of six games because the Rockets
are one of the lowest IQ teams I've seen in
a Houston uniform in the past twenty five years. And
I still maintain that even after the win the other night.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
Yeah under email Udoka, I mean the exceptionally good news,
no tongue in cheek, no sarcasm.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
Intend to here. They're three and one once the other
team gets three wins. That's true.

Speaker 3 (01:22:06):
They won two of the three games last year and one,
while the Warriors had three wins in the series, and
they're so far want to know this year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
You know, it's weird comparing this year to last year because.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
Their backs aren't against the wall, like if they're in
the middle of the room, they stink.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
They're in the middle of the room.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
No, once their backs are against the wall in the
room that they're in. They're almost resilient bunch, almost unbeatable.
They've won three four games.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
They're not the same team, you know. And that's another
thing about that dumb Ringer article. It mentions how their
identity this year was being physical and playing defense this year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
I'm like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Everybody that keeps mentioning the Rockets for the sixth rated
defensive team, that's such like smoking mirrors.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
They are nowhere.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
They are light years away from a year ago defensively,
and they have been when they were at full health
this year, obviously minus Fred van Vliet and Steven Adams.
That's a big part it is defensively. I mean, Fred
van Vliet is not a bad defender. He's not a
great defender, but he's not a bad.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
Defense Take this into account, as will be the case
tonight and has been the case for three of the
first four games of this series tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Who's their point guard?

Speaker 4 (01:23:14):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
What's the lionel? It's Reed Shepherd? Okay, there're no other answers,
all right? And who was their point guard last year?
You're trying to tell us Fred van Vliet's a good
defensive player, good defensive point guard.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
He's light years better than Reid.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
That's the d People don't understand these these differences in
the team. The drop off is all that matters. The
change in the style of defense. You're now forced to
play as a team because this player is on the
court and this other player is not scrambling permanently when
Reed Shepherd is on the court, scrambling if they've chosen
to double when Fred's on the court, switching everything because

(01:23:54):
it's works with Fred on the court, switching everything because
you have to with Reid on them. There's all sorts
of differences to everything that they want to do. And
I'm not even sure what people are referencing or what
they're looking at when they make like statements about what
this team was when when they work off of that number,
you mentioning they did finish the regular season this year

(01:24:14):
in the NBA as sixth in defensive rating, and if
you watch them play basketball, there's no way you could
believe in that. And when you consider a significant injury
took place during the season that changed how they played
Steven Adams, it's more about what were they after that.
The team that's actually going to the playoffs, and then
you can't even take that team that's actually going to

(01:24:35):
the playoffs because now Kevin Durant isn't on it. They
can't play the same defense without Kevin Durant that they
played for the final post Steven Adam games. They are
they're doing everything differently then they just did it. They're
actually learning on the fly how to play together. The
Lakers were almost in that boat. Five games did matter.
They got to play five games without Luca and Austin Reeves,

(01:24:57):
and I think people were wondering, well, how come they're
playing so much? Why is Lebrono out there so much?

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
What it?

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
Because they needed to see how to play, They needed
to make sure it was going to work. They needed
to try things that they might not otherwise want to
try in a playoff series because they hadn't seen it before.
It's one of the reasons why the Rockets didn't catch
them and pass them for the four seed. They clearly
were able to beat teams that weren't trying, but they
also were playing guys to ensure that they would know

(01:25:23):
what they were doing when they got there. Rockets have
obviously put themselves in this way situation whe or without
Kevin Durant, they clearly could have won games if they
made themselves more aggressive at the basket. So they can't say, well,
we're missing our shots, that's all we have to do. Well,
then stop taking the shots that you're missing. Like points
in the paint. It's almost like first round draft picks

(01:25:43):
in the NFL, a twelve foot shot inside the elbow
and a seven foot fade away outside the restricted area.
But inside the paint, it ain't the same shot as
the dunk and a layup. Like the twenty seventh pick
in the draft in the NFL is not the same
as the seventh pick. Points in the paint in the
at the beginning of the series, and their percentages in

(01:26:06):
the paint were embarrassingly low because they weren't taking the
ball all the way to the basket. They were shooting fadeaways.
They were shooting seven foot one foot shoot the ball
off the backboard, dunk it, put it over the top
of the rim, and drop it in. This is what
they've done the last two games, a lot more successfully
in the last one game, but way more successfully than

(01:26:26):
either of the two games in LA where they could
not score from outside the three point line. Or inside
the three point line. They're never gonna win a series
they can't make either of those. They've rectified it a
little bit inside, and obviously in Game four, if you
want to believe in those numbers, and I think that's
a little iffy, they did make forty percent of their threes,
clearly the best they'd shot. And similarly, the Lakers finally

(01:26:49):
had an awful game shooting threes. They made twenty three
percent of their threes on a night where they still
overall made.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
Half their shots.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
They out shot the Rockets fifty to forty eight in
a game they lost by nineteen points because the advantage
behind the three point line was heavily in favor of
the team that won the game for the fourth straight time.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
And that's honestly out of everything you just talked about
and everything we've talked about all season long about this
Rockets team and frankly last Rockets team. I mean, they
haven't been a good three point shooting team since James
Harden was here in his prime.

Speaker 3 (01:27:27):
WHOA, come on, now, the sixth rated defense in the
NBA not a good three point shooting team?

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Correct? Wrong, We're gonna fix that quick.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
The Rockets regular season three point shooting numbers, where do
you think they finished top ten? Tenth, thirty six percent
three point shooting team?

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
Wrong?

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
Again, numbers are sewed by the first month of the
year when Tarry Easton was the best three point shooter
in the NBA. I mean, that's reality. It's so skewed.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):
And again, yeah, the team that reached the playoffs had
gone through that eight game winning streak final ten games
of the season as a much better three point shooting team,
and you hope that would carry over. But yes, nothing
that we watched from Game one toto game eighty two,
it makes you think, oh, yeah, that's one of the
best three point shooting teams in the league. This year's
my thing, Like you can.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
I was willing to trade off a little bit to
get Kevin Durant as far as the defensive prowess, but
last year's defensive team was nasty, absolutely nasty. It actually
also allowed them to not be as good of a
three point shooting team, although Dylan Brooks did that too.

(01:28:42):
You didn't have the defense or the three point shooting
this year, and you didn't have it in the first
three games of this series. And that's why you found
yourself in an three hole, primarily because of what you
just got done talking about. When they're hitting nineteen threes
and you're hitting eight, seven, whatever, it was miserable and
you're taking thirty to get those.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
I mean, the math ain't math.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
And dude, no, there's a few other things from Game
four you'd like to see replicate.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Those are two of them.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
Obviously, you'd love to see the Lakers actually continue what
they've been doing. It was just at an all time level.
They've turned the ball over consistently all four games. Twenty
four in Game four was even for them more than usual.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
There's two away from a Rockets franchise playoff record. Yes,
and then they didn't force any for like the last
five minutes of the game.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
And since the play by play era, the seventeen steals
among those twenty four created turnovers that did tie the
franchise record. I just plus those steals turn into the
live But those steals thirty feet from the basket, sixty
four feet from your own basket, or probably more like
sixty two feet because the basket hangs over the end line.

(01:29:48):
Those are dunks, Those are targe east and breakaways. Those
are men Thompson breakaways. Those are reed Shepherd three on
one lead fast breaks where he doesn't pass it and
finishes over the defender.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
And I know that you don't like, you don't get
this stuff doesn't get to you as much as it
does to me. I'm like, I'm sorry, Like, don't stop
telling me about how amazing Lebron is at his age
the first three games, and then when he has a
crap performance, then start feeding me immediately. The same people,
by the way, that are talking about this chemistry issue

(01:30:21):
and Kevin Durant needs to be traded now, they're the
same people also saying, well.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):
He's old, he was tired because he's forty one. I'm like,
he was tired of turning the ball over, he was
tired of missing all but two of his shots.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
Score ten points and he only got to ten because
of some BS possession that They then checked him out
because he goes double digits, Like stop like running interference
and coverage for this guy so much what he's had
ever done, But he hasn't been good in five years.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
That's ridiculous. He always good against this Rockets defense.

Speaker 3 (01:30:55):
Let's see how he's been good for year old Lebron
the last five years.

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
He has to play defense at all, and let's see
how good he is when he plays Oklahoma City.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
It's gonna be embarrassing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
They're gonna have to like help him along every other game,
the officials.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
You know it's coming.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
I don't want any part of that second round, by
the way, and you should neither. Rockets fans, I want it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Are you aware of.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
What was posted on shake Gilgess Alexander's Instagram account about
thirty minutes ago.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
Congrats to my teammates, looking forward to the next award
I'm gonna win.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
I don't know what There.

Speaker 1 (01:31:35):
Are Canada twenty Phoenix posts or twenty slides on this
post right.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Has he launched a new shoe No, nobody cares about
his shoes something fashion related.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Nobody wants a free throw merchant?

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
Has he released a free throw shooting technique video?

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
On slide four, there is a picture of him him
back pedaling up the court, pointing with a smirk on
his face at Dylan Brooks. And then if you slide
over to slide five, it's a different angle of the
same picture. And Shay clearly had someone else do this

(01:32:16):
because there's no way he was intelligent enough to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
He had Dylan Brooks has the number three, correct. I
believe that's his number. That's correct.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Well, you know where on the back of a player's
jersey it has their name and then the numbers underneath it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
That's pretty uniform. Well most everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:32:37):
On this one, it says can coon on and then
three he has photoshopped at on the back of Dylan
Brooks's jersey and the caption reads, everybody wants to be
villainous until the brooms come out and the dust settles
and you realize who the villain is.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Man that is so hard, has so much street cred.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
After doing this, DAPs everybody up on the floor after
the sweep, then runs to Instagram to post this photo
shop where he thought he would just slide it in
on slide five of twenty against Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Never mind the fact Team Canada teammate.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Yeah that guy, okay, one Canadian hating on another one.
I thought these people were polite. I thought they were
always like sorry and things of that nature and saying
a boot. Honestly, I everybody hated him last year. Everybody
has loathed him in the thunder this year. But after

(01:33:40):
doing this, like, fine, we get it. You get the
best whistle in the league. The league lets you get
away with murder. You flop all over the floor. You're
an embarrassment to the league. You're the MVP of the league.
And it's like, it's a joke how much you turn
off casuals from wanting to watch the product that is
your team's basketball games. But now you're going to lean

(01:34:01):
into it, which is what I always say to do,
So to be fair, I'm always like, well, yeah, lean
into that villain role, except for, like, nobody wants you.
Nobody likes this at all. Everybody hates the Thunder because
of this very thing. So now he's what like taunting
Dylan Brooks because he got eighteen nineteen twenty free throws

(01:34:22):
a game. Great, great look, man, awesome league, awesome stuff.
Can't wait till they repeat. Everybody's going to be rooting
for them.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
Imagine that people don't like the best team in the league.
Never happens.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Everybody loved the Warriors when Steph was hitting all those threes,
except for here in Houston. Yeah, that's what I'm saying,
is when I'm saying there is no comparison to this
would be Thunder dynasty and the amount of casual You're
not gonna see a bunch of casual fans wearing SGA jerseys,
not even a little definitely true like Steph Curry jerseys.

(01:34:56):
I can't even be mad at it. He's the greatest
shooter of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:34:59):
The last release from their Partners Merchandise Partners, Steph Curry
had the number one Yeah jersey cells and look.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
He's say what you will.

Speaker 1 (01:35:09):
He's corny af when he does his stupid little shimmy
celebrations and all that, and is the mouthpiece and all that.
He is twenty billion times more likable than SGA. He's
not a free throw merchant. He's an amazing shooter. This
is how bad SGA is. He's got me waxing poetic
about Steph Curry sitting here in Houston.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
That's gross.

Speaker 4 (01:35:30):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
I hate the Thunder and you should too. It's very
clear you should too. You can't tell me you like
their brand. We'll say something you like their brand of basketball.
I like this as good for the league. The way
they're going right now.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
I just over forty eight minutes of the game.

Speaker 3 (01:35:47):
There's there's not as much of it as some people
see that is cheap and lame, and they're still very good.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
They're good at first possession.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
The other night he's like, ah, yeah, he gets the whistle.
In two games he took eighteen shots and made fifteen
of them.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
I mean that's not normal. Yeah, no, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
He has knights where and if you would just be
that guy, he would have a lot less haters.

Speaker 2 (01:36:11):
If you will, well, that's for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:36:12):
You want.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
I don't think he I think he's I don't know
this for a fact.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
He's out there doing the things he thinks will help
his team win as cheap as they might appear. Yeah,
but most play most players, not all players. Most players
do that. Lebron does that, Harden did that. It's not
out of the ordinary.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
You remember when Jordan got this all the time when
he was playing. Uh you breathe on Jordan, it's a
foul unless you're the Pistons. Well that's because they were
actually taking out weapons and assaulting him, and they had
a book written about like Jordan rules, Like, come on,
that's nice. If there was the SGA rules incorporated right now,
twenty nine fan bases would love it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
I can only like who would even figure out what's
what's the defense for SGA.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
I saw one of the XGA rules. Okay, wow, since
you act we don't we don't have them.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Man, I saw somebody kick it near him the other night,
and it was it was not like some Johnny Come Lately.
Was somebody actually had a decent following and they were like,
if if I were the Suns, I think it was
about this playoff series, but it might have been a
regular season game. I would clear the starters and like
the first three reserve, I would take like the last
five guys on the bench, and I would just hammer

(01:37:20):
him intentionally, not like you know, sending out a hit
like Charles Barkley, but essentially like, all right, you're gonna
call these I'm gonna make them count, but I'm gonna
use players that we don't need to win, and we're
not gonna use to win in most cases to get
these licks in. Until you know, the officials kind of

(01:37:40):
make this right. And it goes back to that that's
they're the only ones that can stop this, and they won't,
nor will they be held accountable when they continue to
enable it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
Yeah, my position on all this stuff is not to
be dismissive of it. It just doesn't overwhelm me. I
wish it did more, because it probably is the consensus.
But even in this series that we're involved in with
the Rockets, I can't help but see some of the
things that happen in it that I'm like, Wow, that's awesome.
The plays, I mean, like, I don't like that the

(01:38:08):
Rockets lost containment and forgot somebody should stay in front
of Lebron and he drives through the lane and frozen
frozen reverse dunk. I mean, these are things that put
people in the arenas and people want to see, and
they're still great things happening. I do wish there are
a lot of other things that weren't happening. I think
what happened at the end of the game that we
talked about at length yesterday between the Wolves and the

(01:38:31):
Denver Nuggets isn't absolute turnoff. Jokic did in last night's
game is an absolute turnoff. We're not talking about it
as much because it didn't create a fight, but it was.
He's been as crazy, soft and embarrassing and small as
you can be. At the end of both games, one
they got blown out and one they did the blowing
out and he looks like an idiot in both situations.

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
Mm hmm, yeah, he's not.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
I mean your two best players in the league right
now that are still standing, well, I guess technically I
mean Anthony Edwards. He's he's name, but he's not standing.
Are those two SGA and JOK?

Speaker 4 (01:39:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
And they have the last two three four seasons?

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
However long ago, but they do have company now and
I think we're headed this way for several years. Again,
as much as you'll dislike it, the top three finishers
for MVP are probably already in place for at least
next year, if not the year after and year after.

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
He'll get hurt, don't worry, it's coming, or he'll miss
the sixty five.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Roubs walked in the other night and I was like, oh,
look there's future Wimby.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
Jeez. His body will fail him. It's happening. It's awful.
I'm not wishing it. That was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Dream and Ralph and Elvin Hayes were all seated next
to one another court side the game two nights ago.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
Were they have they been? Were they at Game three?

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
I did not see any of the three of them,
but I can't say they weren't there.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
Because you know, just when people were going to start
to say that CJ and company were a curse on
the Tech are the Rockets for being there a large
contingent of Texans players.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
They were also there for Game four.

Speaker 3 (01:40:06):
I'll see if I can check in with the Kamari
and Kaylen and Reid and see if they have gotten
flights for tomorrow night's game. But they were all also
seated courtside for much of the game, Kaylan and Kamari
for all of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
Game four? What did Reed do? Do you hand out
T shirts?

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):
He got introduced separately and earlier, and yeah, he was
throwing T shirts out to the Vans. They gave him
maybe three or four shirts to throw, and he tossed
him out to the crowd and then he's like, give
me more, and he kept going back to the bucket
to give more out.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
He's gonna love it here and we're gonna love him here.
I feel so.

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):
I certainly think it could be a really, really good
It's a great situation for him. I mean, he got
out of Philadelphia where they're gonna finish second this year
to the Cowboys in their own division.

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
According to who who was the guy that was like
the people, who is the guy that was like? Definitely
Cowboys winning in the vision Now cowboys actually as we're
I'm gonna laugh when it's the commanders, which is realistic.

Speaker 3 (01:40:59):
Well, they have the most to gain by who's back
Jade Urans quarterback. What they what the Cowboys have to
gain is maybe they actually did a good job from
the end of the season to where we are today.
The changes they made on the coaching staff, it's impossible
for them to be wrong because their defensive coaching staff
last year was awful and then the moves they've made
all seem like they make sense, both free agency and

(01:41:20):
much more so, what they were able to do in
the draft. I mean, there's people right now and I'm
sure during the season will think they got the best
player in the draft in Caleb Downs. They needed to
do something defensively. Even though Michael Parsons deal looks bad
the trade, they have players because of that and a
couple other moves that actually are good defensive players, and
now they need to incorporate them in a good defense

(01:41:41):
so they don't have to score forty points to win.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
What was his position again, that they drafted downs. Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
Safety, So he's the last line of defense. Yeah, he's
a little bit different. He's a lot like Kyle Hamilton.
I don't really look at him with the raves the
last last line of defense and the.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Pass rush, you don't have to rely on that guy.
I mean, I forget it. He's awesome. He's gonna change.
He changed he is.

Speaker 1 (01:42:02):
He won't get after the quarterback anymore. Now that Micah
plays in Green Bay. He's Jerry.

Speaker 3 (01:42:06):
He'll make a huge difference. I like I said, I
love it. If I were a Cowboys fan, I'd be
ecstatic coming out of the draft.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
What will Jerry do this year? I'm curious what he
will do.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
They've already made their statement on what they're gonna do
with the Pickens, and I think it'll end up being fine.
But Pickens is probably playing his cards too. He now
doesn't have to participate in their off season program and
get fined because of it. If he doesn't sign his tender.
He's ultimately gonna play under that tender. He knows it
and they know it. But he has a little bit

(01:42:37):
of leverage there from a I don't have to be
here if I don't want to be because I'm technically
not under contract yet.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
So he'll do that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:43):
He'll play, and he'll be ready for the first game,
and he'll if he's healthy, he'll help them tremendously over
those seventeen games. I'm in off of this baseball talk.
Let's get some baseball talk in. We got the Astros
on deck show for you. They're playing the Orioles. It's
all next.

Speaker 4 (01:42:59):
The