To Jalen Green Or Take The Field, Another Astros Loss, Stephen Okert Says Hello & Poor Russell Westbroon

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
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Speaker 4 (00:26):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham, raised.

Speaker 5 (00:30):
By Earl.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Nolan Hockey, molded by the magnificent roller coaster ride that
is Houston Sports. Chill lage down for the only home
grown afternoon team is Talking your Teams. Adam Clinton and

(00:54):
Adam Weckler are the A Team.

Speaker 6 (01:13):
It's a Tuesday edition of the A Team. It's Sports
Talk seven ninety. Welcome into the program. Wex Ac and
Cole Thompson with you as we take you up once
again until about five thirty and then we'll stay here,
but we'll transition into Astros on deck as they are
still in search of their first victory in that series
against Milwaukee. So two straight losses, both of the disappointing

(01:38):
variety for different reasons, and we'll get into that obviously
as last night, I hate to say that maybe I
felt like it was over as soon as the Astros
were down three nothing, but I just felt that way
with the way the offense has been unpredictable of late,
and so that's how that kind of went down. By
the way, we will be chatting it up with Steven

(01:58):
Okurt on the lines coming up at the bottom of
the hour, so we'll catch up with an actual Astro
given what happened last night and what's going on lately
with the team, as we do each end every week,
usually on Tuesdays. We'll also hear from Joe Aspata coming
up in the three o'clock hour his thoughts on all
things Astros as he made his weekly visit here on

(02:20):
your home for Astros Baseball Sports Talks seven ninety And
of course we can start reading between the lines translating
rap lyrics.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
That's what we used to do with the Shawn Watson.

Speaker 6 (02:31):
That was a fun game, remember before DeShawn Watson got
all those cases thrown at him, and it was just
as simple as trying to figure out and decipher which
rap lyrics meant what as it pertained to the Houston
Texans organization.

Speaker 7 (02:44):
And him not wanting to play for it anymore, trade
me or else.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
It was fun.

Speaker 6 (02:47):
Those were fun times. It was a much simpler time
into Shawn Watson's life, and it's a most.

Speaker 7 (02:51):
Simpler time just in life in general.

Speaker 6 (02:53):
It was I feel like I say that about so
many things, and it feels like it's less and less
years that I'm pointing back to when I say that,
But I digress. What I mean by that is the
Rockets had their end of season meet with the media
session the come to Jesus, so to speak, the here's

(03:16):
what we think went well, here's what obviously did not
go well. Here's what we can say about what we're
gonna do, which is not a whole lot of that.
But we can give you little nuggets and then you
can take them and run with them and overreact and
everything like that.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
That's basically what this is.

Speaker 6 (03:35):
When you get the you know, the the invite as
a member of the media saying, hey, Rockets are speaking
at such and such time and we can talk about,
you know, the future of this team. I gotta tell you,
and I reached out to them. It's not gonna work
schedule wise, But Michael Pina of the Ringer wrote a
very interesting article earlier today that basically highlighted what may

(03:57):
or may not happen with the Rockets, and honestly, what
he did was map out which two roads they should
maybe take. And in light of what we heard and
what you will hear today, some of the highlights, if
you will, from ima Udoka and rafel Stone, the Rockets
general manager meeting with the media, you can kind of
get a glimpse maybe of what they're thinking. They're going

(04:18):
to hold their cards close to the chest, They're going
to not tell you a lot. But man, and I
feel like I say this about teams a lot every
off season. We set it with the Astros, especially in
light of the fact that both Kyle Tucker and Alex
Bregman got moved and it was kind of rumored that
at least one of them was going to be out
the door. Well one got moved in one just left right,

(04:40):
but letting them leave that kind of thing. But I
feel like I say this all the time, this is
one of the most important off seasons for filling the
blank Houston team. But in this case, I mean, you've
got your franchise quarterback with the Texans. We know that
the Astros are going through some weird, interesting, whatever you

(05:01):
want to call it, transition from a contender to maybe
mid I don't know what you want to call them
right now.

Speaker 7 (05:07):
The yeah, yeah, the baseball team, that's about it.

Speaker 6 (05:11):
But the Rockets trajectory and the rockets potential, and the
rockets this Rocket's that it's very, very bright, and I
don't know that there's a wrong answer necessarily to how
they handle this offseason.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
I also don't know if.

Speaker 6 (05:26):
We learned anything one way or the other about where
they're leaning after listening to rafel Stone and Ima Yudoka.
But a man who's there in the building today in
the flesh, who's now in the flesh now here is
Adam Wexler high wax.

Speaker 8 (05:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (05:40):
I don't think there's anything you learned from them today.
And that's spy design. Same way they've addressed the media
since they've both been here, obviously in Refel's case a
little bit longer. But that is not their forum for
divulging information about the future of this team now, questions
about the series, and questions about the season, and questions
about the players that are already under contra for next season.

(06:01):
I think there were some interesting thoughts from both of
the two of them about what they saw and what
needs to come next. Specifically on Amn Thompson. I think
they see it the right way. I think they see
it the way everybody sees it. There is no ceiling
to amend Thompson and what the level of play he
can bring to the table, even though there's shortcomings in
his game, even though there's weaknesses to his game two

(06:22):
years into his NBA career. I do agree with them
that you know this is a player that you found
something pretty special, and there are so many ways we
saw it. If you cared to watch last night to
NBA postseason games, we saw there are more ways to
impact a game than the simplest way. Hey man, you
scored awesome. That's two more points for us, or three

(06:44):
in the case of the Celtics, only three because they
don't ever try to score anything but three because they're stupid.
Sometimes there's ways to win games without being a twenty
five point game score. There's ways to win games without
you know, filling it up into usually offensively, even though
on some nights you absolutely can. And that's what he
did in Game seven, It's what he did over the

(07:06):
final four games of the series, and there are many
bright futures inside that building is among the brightest. Question
specific to other players, whether it was on the they
didn't have much chance to prove themselves this year and
reach Shepherd and Cam Whitmore, or players that were obviously
on full display at the end of the season. As

(07:26):
one team said, well, if we're gonna lose to this team,
it's not gonna be because of him and most of
their defensive efforts, which are much easier to do in
his particular spot, as he was double teamed and blitzed.
He being Jalen Green, and the man in the middle
was single teamed and never blitzed alper and Shongoon. They
decided to go about it that way. It's no different
than the Rockets saying, hey, man, if Brandon Pajemski beats us,

(07:47):
and Gary Payton the second beats us and Buddy Healed
beats us, okay, then we'll go home. It's the same
thing the Golden State did. In their case, they were
saying if Alpern, Shangoon and Dylan Brooks and Men Thompson
and those guys beat us, which they did three times,
then okay, then we'll go home instead. They're in Minnesota
and they will play tonight in their first game of
their best of seven series. But definitely worth hearing some

(08:10):
of the things that they had to say if you
missed any of that earlier on the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross. I was there, and if not for our
incredibly well designed parking garage, I would have been inside
here probably four minutes ago and right inside for the show.
What happened today? Nothing happened today. They didn't design it today. Okay, well,
why what feature of it sucked? Follows which turn was

(08:35):
the one that bothered you? The mouse wax? It's the
same answer, right, But they asked me one feature, all
of it, every single quarter was the one bad. Any
turn you take also bad, and the number of the
ones that you have to take in order to get
where you want to go are bad. And then I
guess a little bit of a it's not all the

(08:55):
garage's fault. I appreciate those who have their names the
buildings so they can take all the spots that never
get used every day, Yes, on all the levels that
are empty. And this is not specific to our garage,
but it is specific to people that drive vehicles. They
lines are there for a reason. They're supposed to be
inside of it.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
That's any parking lot in Houston though.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
As I said, but my favorite feature of our parking garage,
since we're on the subject, is when you enter it,
there is a you know, there's one of those things
that hangs down that shows you your clearance, right, and
it tells you this parking garage has a clearance of
six foot eight inches. And there are two sides because
there's two lanes to enter the garage, correct.

Speaker 7 (09:37):
Yes, and there are two entrances, so four entrances total.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (09:41):
But on this particular entrance where that chain hangs, there's
two chain there's you know, two signs that say six
foot eight inch clearance. They're both at different levels even
though they both say six foot eight inches.

Speaker 9 (09:53):
Hm.

Speaker 7 (09:53):
Well, I don't have to think most people have to
worry about that. You do, But I don't. I just
drive right in.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
I just don't park there.

Speaker 7 (09:58):
There you go, no longer have to concern yourself.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Building manager hates my guts.

Speaker 7 (10:03):
Anyway, don't. I'm a big fan of directions a because
they usually are this is what will get you there faster,
but mostly because it gives you an arrival time which
is really just you're going to beat this, aren't you?
Which I do? Uh? And and to think that I
shaved all that time off while driving legally just happened
to make the lights as necessary and drive around the

(10:26):
people that clearly or we're test driving their vehicles, all
thousand of them that I or learning to drive or
direction not given all those minutes back circling the parking
lot up to a level. I have literally worked here
for almost more than half a decade. I've never parked
or I had to park today. Luckily, we got four
hours with you today, so we'll get into things much

(10:48):
more important than Ain't nobody got time for that. We've
now done that. We will be with you for those
four hours, as I mentioned, because the last half hour
will be spent getting you ready for Game five of
an extremely disappointing road trip for the Astros in Milwaukee.
Now an opportunity to still win this series, but not
much of an opportunity to win last night's game with
just the one gift run they put across the board,

(11:09):
Hayden Wiznski returns to the bullin So, like I said,
when we get there we will get into that, and yes,
clearly more from the future. And you mentioned, you know,
one of the biggest it's feels like the biggest off
season for the Rockets, or this past Texans off season
that's not even complete, feels like the biggest off season
for the Texans. It's because these teams have something to
play for. They're not trying to get to this point anymore.

(11:31):
The Rockets have been trying to get to this point
for a long long time. You know, last year's off season,
you could have deemed it important, I guess, but I
don't think anybody expected that this offseason would be the
one where they're trying to figure out how to win
the West. Last year they were trying to figure out
how to not miss the playoffs. There's a big, big difference.
The Texans are obviously trying to figure out how to
win on the road in the playoffs so they can

(11:52):
get to an AFC title game, or how to win
more in the regular season so they can make a
path to an AFC title game a little bit easier
for them. These are the off seasons you want. You
want your general manager and your owner and your head
coach to be facing the decisions that will either work
out tremendously well or will man. I can't believe that
we were on this path and we made this road

(12:13):
and we were making progress and then we went for
it with X move and it didn't work. And now what.
Glad that they're both there. Glad that this off season
presents itself. Fred van Vliet question mark, Steven Adams question mark.
Basically everybody else that played a role in this postseason,
they're under contract in some form or fashion. Whether or

(12:34):
not there's extensions in front of Jabari Smith Junior or
Tarry Easan will learn over the course of the off season.
But these are the ones you want. This is what
a championship level operation should be asking themselves any offseason.
And there are another seven teams still playing games that
will be asking themselves those questions. The Calves who are

(12:55):
now downh one, the thunder who are now down one,
and the other teams that are still playing well.

Speaker 6 (13:02):
And Aaron Gordon is batting a thousand as far as
hitting a game winner in a series so far in
this playoffs.

Speaker 7 (13:09):
Assisted on one of them by Russell Westbrook yesterday a
bad shot by Nikol and not an assist on the
other one.

Speaker 6 (13:15):
Okay, when he's coming down, I mean, I know we're
got to go to break here, but we better make this.
Oh go fine, when he's coming down the lane and
he is about to do the bad thing, which is
driving miss Alana lay up at point blank range, aren't
you weren't you relieved for rushed?

Speaker 7 (13:31):
If you want to play the in studio audio from
the Regional Sports Network that they posted while that play
was happening, we can, yeah, we probably should do that much. Okay,
we can do that and lots of other fun stuff here.
It is a Tuesday edition of the show. We're fifteen
minutes out from talking with Steven Okert, Astro's reliever left hander.
He will join us at two thirty. Obviously, our signature

(13:52):
segment at four thirty that is say what and all
the other goodies that bring you the A Team here
on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Ninety The Aight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (14:06):
Yeah, it's the A Team. It's Sports Talk seven ninety.
It's a Tuesday edition of the program. WEX and AC
with you along with Cold Thompson as we take you

(14:27):
up until five thirty. Astros on deck from there and
then Game two of this three game set between the
Astros and the Brewers. I was very disappointing last night,
as was Sunday night inside Toyota Center, for very different reasons.
Rockets are. They are up and coming. I know that
because again I said this yesterday. I do think that

(14:50):
this is a little bit tougher on the chin, if
you will, because of the loss being to the Golden
State Warriors. If the Rockets got fifty two wins the
second seed and they lost in the first round against
anybody else not named Oklahoma City, I just don't and
not the Warriors. I just don't know that it. Maybe

(15:10):
we're saying some of the things we're saying. However, if
Jalen Green performed that way against another team, probably some
of the similar sentiments about him are being said. But
as far as being disappointed with the team, I have
tried desperately since Sunday night to keep it in perspective.
And it's not a moral victory thing. It's not a

(15:32):
silver lining thing. It's just you're coming from forty one
and forty one and you push the Warriors to the brink.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
And again, I don't think the Warriors are some world beater.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
I think they're gonna get smashed in this round and
even if they don't, Oklahoma City you'll probably beat them
if they're there, and Denver W'll beat them if they're there.
They're not gonna do anything this year. It's not about
who they faced. It's as always, it's about the Rockets.
So what do you do though, based on this based
not just who they played this round, but who they

(16:03):
could have played and who they played this season? What
do you do moving forward? If you're the Rockets? Is
the temptation so great? With the assets you have to
make a move that you feel like can get you
the next or the missing piece? Is that missing piece
even out there? And if it's not out there, or
even if it is, do you think instead that it's

(16:25):
on your roster already and you just need another season
of seasoning and percolating and whatever else you want to
call it continuity if you will well in that vein.
Both ima Udoka and rafel Stone addressed that exact word,
used that exact word when talking about this past season
for the Rockets.

Speaker 10 (16:45):
Yeah, I would say for me anyway, it's you know,
we talked about going into your two and the goals
and understood that everybody was gonna be much better in
the second year, So we kind of hit the ground
running as far as that to this point on. The
addition to Stephen was there, and I think it really
was a big part of us jumping out the way
we did this year, you know. And so that continuity

(17:07):
is good, no doubt. But you've seen teams make a
lot of moves and they feel like they need to
get over the hump, and Doncis is added or Butler's added,
and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But we always
felt comfortable about what we had here and that we
take this step this year.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
All right.

Speaker 6 (17:23):
So if I'm hearing that Wax, I'm hearing let's keep
the group together. Yeah, But he's not really saying that.
He's saying he liked what they had, and he was
referencing the deadline and saying the group that we have
is good enough and probably is better than a first
round exit. Go back to what we've been saying forever
and has nothing to do with any individual matchup. Every
matchup would have been the same to me. The West

(17:46):
is hard.

Speaker 7 (17:47):
Three teams that are very good did not advance in
the out of the first round, didn't win a playoff series,
went home disappointed, majorly disappointed for the roster that they
put together. The GM in LA with the Clippers. He
didn't do a bad job. He has really good team.
They didn't win a playoff series. The GM in Houston.
He didn't do a bad job. They have a really
good team. They didn't win a first round series. I

(18:07):
don't know if Rob Low did a good job or not,
but he did add Luka doncis that seems like a
pretty good movie. He did a good job looking like
Rob Low. It's it's not about that. I do think
it was more interesting, just specific to the words that
were used when Rafelstone said, and I totally agree. I'm
sure you agree too, and many others out there and
the players in the locker room probably agree that they

(18:29):
in the process of saying, you know, throughout this series
against Golden State, I felt like we were going to win.
I don't think we lost for something we didn't have,
because that was how the question was posed. You know,
watching this postseason series, watching your team perform, you know,
is there something that needs to be added? Could you
see something miss missing? And things like that. I totally

(18:49):
agree they didn't lose this series because they didn't have something.
They didn't lose this series because they didn't have enough.
They weren't missing something. Their play dictated. They were missing
three point shooting in two of the five game or
two of the seven games, which is remarkable, six of
twenty nine in game one, six of eighteen in game seven,
forty one percent on thirty attempts in games two, three, four, five,

(19:12):
and six. Bad three point shooting team during the regular season,
awesome league best caliber three point shooting in five of
the seven games of this series. The five games they
had a chance to end this series, and you can't
win five games in a series, but they had a
chance to win all five of those games, winning three,
So I would agree they weren't missing anything in this series.

(19:36):
But the question we're asking about the future doesn't mean
what is it going to take to get out of
the first round, And I'm glad it doesn't mean that,
and I'm glad that they don't think it means that
no one's trying to get out of the first round.
Even if you didn't do it, you're trying to win
every round. Every team that was in the playoffs this
year in the Western Conference other than Memphis should have
expected to win more than one round. Three of them

(19:58):
just didn't win any rounds, and they're expected, Asian were
to win more than one round. That's what it's like here.
That's what they should They shouldn't be saying, well, if
we couldn't beat this particular Golden State team because we
were missing this in this particular Golden State series, then
that's what we should at least go after. No, they
should be trying to be better than a fifty two

(20:18):
to win two seedy. The other thing that I thought
was pretty interesting and it's very very true. I don't
know if the players were unaware before they arrived in
the playoffs because they'd never been there, but this is
the Rockets were one of the hardest playing teams all
season long. One of the biggest reasons why they won
fifty two games is because they outworked other teams over
the eighty two game season. They played harder for more

(20:39):
of the minutes during those games, and then it equalizes
in the playoffs. There are knights where the other team
they're just not there, they just don't bring it, and
you beat them one fifteen to ninety and nobody cares
because it was Game thirty six. Those games are pretty
infrequent in the postseason. They certainly did not occur in
any of the games of this series. The only reason

(21:00):
Rockets blew him out twice is because they were that
good on those nights. The Warriors came to play, the
Warriors showed up, the Warriors played hard, they just got
out played. That's what changes. That's where you have to realize, Okay,
now that they've equalized one of our assets, one of
our strengths was being playing harder than everybody else, working harder,
caring more, grinding more during these games. It usually equalizes

(21:22):
in the playoffs. So now you kind of see what
you're missing or where you need to improve, where individuals
need to improve, and that's what this team should be
looking at.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
Look, I just I read that article earlier today from
Michael Pena and of the Ringer and it's I mean,
it almost had me convinced to just stand pat And
he was not saying that one way. He was again
he was giving both sides of what the Rockets could do.
And he didn't just name Kevin Durant. He also did
throw in Kevin Booker or Devin Booker. He also threw

(21:50):
in Giannis and Tentacumpo names that played all the hits.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Well, Yannis is like a late rival to the party.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
I don't think we're talking about Yannis if Damian Lillard
rips up his achilles, I really don't.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Isn't that crazy to think about?

Speaker 10 (22:04):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Do you agree?

Speaker 7 (22:05):
No?

Speaker 9 (22:06):
I think?

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Do you think he would have wanted out? No matter what?

Speaker 7 (22:09):
I think he would have wanted out because I think
the result of their first round series would have been identical.
And the likelihood that he believes the team they're coming
back with next year, even a healthy Damian Lillard is
incapable of competing in the East. He didn't need to
lose this playoff series and lose Lillard. I hope to
realize he's not gonna win again in Milwaukee unless they

(22:29):
change their team dramatically around him, which is very hard
to do at the stage of his career and the
money he's making and the fact that they have another huge, huge,
heavy dollar player now clearly it's all different. Even on
top of that, because now Lillard's hurt, so now you're
spending all that money. It takes up so much of
that space and he's not going to be an impact
player for you next year or maybe ever. Again, that's

(22:51):
just my personal opinion. Maybe Jannesty's it differently, Maybe his
affinity and loyalty to Milwaukee would have out shown all
of these to me very obvious thoughts. You're just not
on a competitive team anymore. Losing the first round is
not surprising, being the fifth seed, not among the top four,
and losing to Indiana the way you did is not surprise.
Losing the specific game the way they did with them

(23:13):
letting Indiana get it to overtime and then the too
late turnovers to give the Way a game in overtime,
that's that's something. But so they were gonna win another
game and another game, I really don't think so.

Speaker 6 (23:25):
I wonder, you know, because so much of this is
determined by the players or the yeah, the players that
are involved. Well, we'll table this for a second because
there's plenty more to get to, and we've got to
get to Steven Okert. But I just there's Giannis is
a fascinating part of this whole conversation coming up this

(23:46):
summer for a number of reasons, and I just I
guess I didn't think he'd be that top of mind
because I didn't know he was going to be this available,
but I do think he will be.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
So we'll get to that in a little bit.

Speaker 6 (23:55):
But as we said, we're gonna get to Steven Okert
on the phone when we come back, Astro's reliever, his
thoughts on the team and what's going on lately.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
When we return.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety. Adam
Wexler over there, Adam Clanton right here, as we take
you up until five thirty, and then Astros on deck
getting you ready for the second game of three game
set in Milwaukee against the Brewers in that vein. Stephen
Okurt joining us on the phone line. Steven, appreciate the time,
and how is Milwaukee this time of year?

Speaker 9 (24:38):
Yeah, thanks for having me yesterday. It was a little chilly. Today,
it's pretty nice weather. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
I saw Blumber post so nice.

Speaker 6 (24:46):
No, I saw that Blummer had posted it was fifty
degrees out there. So we forget sometime, since the summer
is already underway down here South, that there is seasons
in other parts of the country, right right, Well.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
It hasn't been the best road trip so so far.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
Obviously, what's I guess the mood of the team as
you enter in this second game of this three game
set with the Brewers.

Speaker 9 (25:09):
Oh, it's not too bad. I mean you got to
leave every day behind and move on to the next,
you know, so you know we're out here, everybody's ready
to go and you know, hopeing for some wins.

Speaker 7 (25:18):
You've obviously gotten off to a really nice start here.
You had a really nice spring training. Tell me about
what the kind of the road to get here, about
the injuries you'd needed to clearly once you're past them,
this is the kind of pitcher you can be. What
were the last couple of seasons like on your way
to Houston.

Speaker 9 (25:35):
Shoot, it's been a good journey. You know, wasn't in
baseball there for a year and then got a chance
with Miami and you know, things kind of went my way,
so I lucked out there, and then getting traded last
year was it was a little weird first time getting traded,
but happy to be here.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
I know that.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
Do you get to this team and pitching coaches, other
people in the organization, I kind of walk through some
things they like about your stuff. We think this plays well.
The shape of this pitch is maybe something we should
use a little bit more often. And how did those
conversations go as the first couple of months meeting up
to opening.

Speaker 9 (26:10):
Day happened for you, Yeah, we kind of had those
conversations in spring. You know, last year was was pretty
tough second half for me. So well, I'm sure you
know why why I wasn't doing very good and why
stuff wasn't playing. And then get here and and have
some like goals meetings, and they like, just like you said,

(26:31):
they talk about, you know, what's going well for me,
and you know, a lot of a lot of it
came down to I was getting behind hitters a lot
last year, So biggest thing here was getting ahead of
hitters and telling me that when I get ahead, my
stuff plays pretty well and we're gonna, you know, mix
in a little more fastball than I had the last
couple of years. And I feel like it's you know,

(26:52):
it's been good so far, so I'm happy with that.

Speaker 7 (26:56):
I love the analysis that's the simplest, most obvious, but
still needs to be executed and listened to and told.
And they're basically if I can dumb it down for me.
Are they essentially saying, hey, man, let's throw some strikes.

Speaker 9 (27:10):
Yeah, you know, and over the course of the season,
you don't. You don't realize. Okay, I'm you know, one
O two oh to all the hitters. You just remember
the hard hit balls and not getting very many outs.
So coming here, they're telling me that my stuff is good.
I just you know, got to get in pictures counts
and less hitters counts. So it was, like you said,

(27:31):
a dumb down way of looking at it, but something
I needed to hear.

Speaker 6 (27:36):
We're talking to Steven Oker here on Sports Talks seven ninety.
You've been in several organizations now in your Major League
Baseball career, and I'm always curious to hear what new
guys to the Astros organization think about this organization, this team,
this clubhouse. There's been obviously some big changes just since
last season, but your impressions in your short time as

(27:58):
an Astro so far about how they do things down.

Speaker 9 (28:00):
Here, Bob, I really enjoyed it. Coaching staff's great, everybody's
you know, it's full of good guys and very positive
looks on each guy. And I mean the team. It's
a great group of guys. Everyone gets along, everyone's pulling
for each other. I mean, I've been very happy here.

(28:21):
It's been a lot of fun so far. And you know,
obviously once we start winning more games, it's gonna be
a blast.

Speaker 7 (28:28):
We know, life out in the bullpen is probably pretty lively.
There's guys that do different things to keep everybody loose
and everybody into the game, and everybody's got their routine.
I'm gonna guess in this bullpen, tell me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
It is.

Speaker 7 (28:40):
It's really out there, considering there's not one, not two,
not three, but four lefties out there, including yourself.

Speaker 9 (28:49):
Yeah, you don't see that very often. We've we've joked
around that we have, you know, probably about ten percent
of the league left he's in our bulleten because most
carry one maybe two. But i mean, we got a
great group out there. Everybody's pretty chill, not not too
much anxiety, it seems like out there. But he talks

(29:10):
and get along with helped each other out. But it's
been fun out there so far.

Speaker 7 (29:15):
Are there any specific responsibilities for the younger guys or
newer guys, like coffee and when and who gets it
and how they like it?

Speaker 9 (29:23):
No, none of that we got. We got a couple
little bags that we bring out, but you know that
they got to carry, but really not too much anymore.
You don't. You don't see the pink pull pin bags
like you used to.

Speaker 7 (29:36):
Understood what you were just saying a minute ago, Steven.
When we start winning more games, I think things will
You know, it'll be even more fun than it already
is the assumption I think from inside the clubhouse, just
like we have out here and the fans do as well.
The team that we see is capable of more. What
do you see when you when you look around your
clubhouse and see this is basically a five hundred team
to date?

Speaker 9 (29:55):
Yeah, I mean we looking at our lineup on paper,
it's it. It's a great lineup. You know, things are
going to start clicking, getting those timely hits. Guys, are
you going to continue to throw up zeros? And it's
gonna all come together and you know, hopefully we go
on a pretty good run here soon.

Speaker 6 (30:12):
Is there anybody that you gravitated towards in that clubhouse
when you got here, we talked about so much. You know,
this off season we talked about you know, during the
process of of Alex Bregman, you know, becoming a Boston
Red Sox, how much he was a part of like
Mound visits, that kind of thing, and who is going
to be the leader in that clubhouse? Now, what's your
take on that as a as a new guy to

(30:32):
that clubhouse relatively speaking?

Speaker 9 (30:36):
So yeah, I mean, obviously I wasn't here with with Bregman,
but I feel like, you know, we we've got a
good group of bets. We got you know, Walker new
v I mean, paying all these guys that you know,
they kind of take control. And I mean, obviously we
have Jose, so you don't get much more veteran than him,
and he's a great guy. But I feel like, you know,

(30:58):
there's not just one guy that stepped up and took
that over. It's kind of a team.

Speaker 7 (31:03):
Effort playing major League Baseball with the Giants and the
Marlins and the Twins and some of the teammates who
have had there obviously for a brief period of time,
Carlos Korea among them. Did you know what to expect
from the kind of person, the everyday regular guy that
Jose Altuve was, and and what do you you know,
what were your kind of expectations about knowing he was
a leader, but I just don't know him yet.

Speaker 9 (31:26):
Yeah, obviously, when you're on the other side and he's
beating you up, you're not a big fan of him,
you know. But getting here he's a great guy. Didn't
realize how nice of a guy he was and positive
and you know he'll talk to anybody. He's not too
good for anyone, and that's big for you know, having
your your veteran of the team.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Any special plans for the old man on his birthday today.

Speaker 9 (31:52):
Not for me, I don't know. Maybe they got him
a birthday cake or something fun. It's crazy, you know,
he's what he is, thirty five now, it seems like
he's been around for forty years. He's it's crazy. But
you know, if everyone's in tell him happy birthday. Maybe.
I know we've had a couple Marianzi mans come through,

(32:13):
so I don't know if that's something they'll do, but.

Speaker 7 (32:16):
I think you can pretty well guarantee he will be
smiling at the ballpark today less just like he has
been for every year of his career minor league or
at the major league level. And I swing it that
way before we let you go. I'm curious if there's
you know, any place in the Oa Kirk closet with
your path through Augusta and Richmond and Sacramento and Jacksonville.
Do you have old volcanoes gear, flying squirrels gear, jumbo

(32:41):
shrimp gear somewhere in the house.

Speaker 9 (32:45):
I think I might have a river cast jersey. But
they don't really let you take much home in the
Mayor League, so you don't. You don't get a ton
of gear and take home a couple of shirts, but no,
no jerseys.

Speaker 7 (32:56):
Really did you have a favorite in name or in
how the organization operated around the fund that you're supposed
to be having as a marketing department in the miners, I.

Speaker 9 (33:07):
Feel like the Giants did a pretty good job with
that through the minor leagues. Only spent you know, half
the year with the jem Bus Shrimp, and then a
couple of months last year with Saint Paul, so obviously
having five years in Sacramento, I experienced it the most,
but we usually had a pretty good time out there.

Speaker 7 (33:25):
Okay, five years in Sacramento, did it ever come to
your mind that this is going to be a major
league baseball city like it is now?

Speaker 9 (33:34):
No? Then, didn't see that didn't see that move coming. Well,
have been there yet this year?

Speaker 7 (33:40):
Yeah, they're in your future.

Speaker 9 (33:42):
They've renovated it. But what wouldn't have been a guest
that that was going to be a big league stadium
one day?

Speaker 6 (33:48):
Well, pound for pound a Stephen Okirt, River Cats Jersey
is uh. I think that's my best bet for the
best value when it comes to a collector's item. Steven,
We appreciate the time, good luck the rest of this
road trip and the rest of the season, and welcome
to Houston.

Speaker 9 (34:04):
Thank you. I appreciate it all right.

Speaker 6 (34:06):
Steven Oker here on Sports Talk seven ninety is the Astros,
as we mentioned, getting together with the Brewers for Game
two of that series. Took one on the chen last night,
hoping to reverse things and force a rubber matchup. If
they can get that win tonight, we'll take a quick
time out. We'll jump back into what else was happening
around the NBA last night when we return.

Speaker 7 (34:27):
This is the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (34:31):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (34:40):
A team on a Tuesday appreciate Steven Okert, Astros, a
lefty out of the bullpen joining us. Last segment, maybe
bring a little bit of that back for you later
if you missed it. If not, you can always catch
it via the podcast at sports Talk seven ninety dot
com or via the iHeartRadio app were Sports Talk seven
ninety needs to be number one on your presets again,
if you haven't downloaded the new and improved iHeartRadio app, well,

(35:02):
then you realize that feature exists. It does the preset feature.
It's a good one and you can have us right
there at number one easy to catch all that we
do here each and every day right here on Sports
Talk seven ninety, including being your home for the Rockets
and Astros. Rockets broadcasts, well they've gone silent at least
for a little while Astros broadcast. We've got another one

(35:23):
for you tonight, so they take on the Brewers. The
return of Hayden Wiznski to the Mound has not pitched
since April twenty fifth, a little under three hours from now.
We'll get you ready for that in earnest when we
bring you the Astros on deck show. We're into the
next round of the postseason. It's actually Game two tonight
for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana Pacers. Pacers trying

(35:44):
to take both games from Cleveland in Cleveland, while the
Golden State Warriors have made it from Houston to Minnesota
for the opening of the series between the sixth seed
and the seventh seed pretty infrequent second round matchup in
the Western Conference, but the Minnesota Timberwolves, after easily taking
care of the Lakers in five, now get to host

(36:06):
and have home court advantage in that series because these
seven seeded Warriors advanced last night the number one seed
and the Western Conference was finally back on the floor
after OKC mode through Memphis and withstood a jam morantless
Memphis team's crazy comeback to end that series and get
a whole lot more rest, like the rest they could

(36:28):
have had in the last ten days the season because
they'd already clinched the number one overall seed. And then
they went back to playing basketball, and they did pretty
much what they had done all year. They played from
in front, they had a comfortable lead, they were winning
the game, and then I think their coach was rather
unsmart with how he instructed his players to perform in

(36:48):
the final minute, and it all led to this fantastic finish.

Speaker 11 (36:55):
Crups it seven seconds one West for five seconds they're
talking about what Cordon got it.

Speaker 12 (37:04):
Aaron Gordon with a dick shut Williams three.

Speaker 7 (37:09):
No, God, the nugget steal game one.

Speaker 11 (37:14):
That's a winner for Aaron Gordon one twenty one till
one nineteen.

Speaker 7 (37:19):
Great call on TNT by Noah Eagle's dad. And when
he says steals it winning on the road like Indiana
did in Game one to take home court advantage, I
don't really think that was stealing Game one. They just
simply outplayed it in them. Yeah, and it was a
close game in the fourth quarter, but the final six
minutes belonged to the Pacers and they put them away.
That was stealing it. When you're playing from behind all night,

(37:43):
you're getting it to within four and then it's immediately
back to ten, you're getting it within six, and it's
immediately back to eleven. And it was still that margin
late late, late into that game before they closed and
they had it down three. And what I was referencing
with coach Daniell was his decision to foul up three.
It's always a debate. The way they fouled up three

(38:06):
twice not up for debate. You don't foul the way
they did up three immediately upon the ball being inbounded
twice and in the back court. You don't do it
when Nikolejokic is on the bench, because he was properly
subbed out by his extremely tenured, experienced head coach, David Adelman.
He's now coached ten games. Those were some really egregious mistakes.

(38:31):
You're winning, don't put the pressure on your team to
make free throws down the stretch when it's not necessary.
As often as it was, Nuggets made their free throws.
They went four for four down the stretch. Chet Holmbren
because of an awesome defensive play while guarding the ball
was made by nikol Jokic. He's the player on the ball.
After you've closed within one, you have to foul and okay,

(38:54):
So he's coming out of a timeout their last time
out and inbounding it. And as soon as the ball
is handed to the inbounds passer, nikola jokicch throws his
hands up and then about a second later, he turns
around puts his back to the passer for the sole
purpose of wherever Shay gets open, I'm going to be
in the way. You are not throwing it to your

(39:14):
ninety percent free throw shooter, and so they didn't. They
threw it to chet Holmgren, good free throw shooter, he's
not Shay and he didn't make either one. You heard
the rebound come down to the Nuggets after it hit
the floor. It did such a good job boxing out.
They then said, oh yeah, we should go get the basketball,
which they then did. But they were only down one.
They didn't need a three, They just needed a score, right,

(39:36):
But it was what they executed well, and I thought
they were coached very well on who to foul, win
to foul, how to defend it. And I think on
the other side of it, even though Daniel's a great
coach deserving of Coach of the Year consideration, he finished
fourth deserving of Coach of the Year in previous year consideration. Absolutely,
he's a really good coach.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
I think he was.

Speaker 7 (39:53):
He made some mistakes there and it cost his team
a very important win. Now they have to get four
wins in six games instead of three in six it.

Speaker 6 (40:01):
Conversely, I mean, all of this talk was about what
are the Denver Nuggets doing firing Mike Malone a month
before the playoffs, and here they are. I mean, they
had to they had It's kind of like the Rocket
series with the Warriors. Whoever came out of there was
going to be battered and bruised and had definitely earned
that series.

Speaker 7 (40:21):
But dude, are you kidding me? With Jokic's numbers. They
didn't They didn't play battered and bruce, no play like
they just got there, didn't play like they had no
time to prepare for this series. They played like they
were ready to beat them.

Speaker 6 (40:33):
I wonder it was hard, yes, And I wonder if
the Warriors play like that tonight. I don't think they will.
I think it's a completely different type of team. But
I just can't get over when I see Jokic put
up these numbers. It looks like you played a video game.
And that's what it looks like. That's the end of
the sentence. That's it. That's the tweet. Look, he's a
video game. The numbers he puts up in the playoffs

(40:56):
as a as a big man playing against very good competent,
very good teams and in this case, you know, a
very I think, a pretty good set of defenders. They
nobody could do anything with him. It's I don't know,
it's incredible, and you and I exchanged. I told you
so texts about this because of what we had said yesterday.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (41:16):
I did not see this coming at the outset of
the playoffs because of what was going on internally with
the Nuggets, and who knows, you know, it might catch
up with them, They might get swept the next.

Speaker 7 (41:26):
Four Yeah, I didn't. I asked the same question, well
what are they doing? But I didn't think, well, now
they can't win. Yeah, the players just wonder why that
kind of moves made. And I don't want to take
away anything from coach Adelman, because I'm sure there are
things that he and his assistants are good stock Man. Yeah,
but what did they come up with some new formula

(41:47):
on how to win? Let's run two man game with
Jamal Murray and Nikola jokicch you see how this goes.
It went well, Againe, it always does.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
It's not a new thing. All right.

Speaker 6 (41:56):
We'll take a quick time out right here and we
will get you into the three o'clock hour reset and
talk more with rafel Stone and email Udoca.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
Next, the A.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Team on Sports Talk seven ninety two lifelong Houston sports
guys named Adam talking your team. The Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the AEAM.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Welcome into a Tuesday edition of the A Team Sports
Talk seven ninety and now on Space City Home Network
leaks for the next couple of hours or so Rockets
and their end of season meet and greet.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
That's not what it really is, just.

Speaker 7 (42:45):
The exec and the coach. Well, no end of season
following Game seven's a season meet up for us with players.

Speaker 6 (42:51):
I like calling it a meet and greet simply because
that's the most un email Udoka slash rafel Stone thing
to call something like.

Speaker 7 (42:58):
This absolutely to you know, I was clearly trying to
arrive to the show on time, knowing that it was
near impossible. The minutes were lining up almost perfectly, but
not quite so I couldn't get a you know, a
hay and shake goodbye from either one of them. They
had just literally stepped off of the podium down on
the practice court over toy at the center before I
very calmly drove over to the station. But it was

(43:21):
very business as usual. Well, this is, you know about
maybe I don't know the tenth time or so they've
done this. We hired him and there were more people
up there because Tolman was there. Then they've had in
front of season media days now a couple of times
they've had in front of the postseason setups like this.
They've had press conferences to introduce Ausbra Thompson's twin brother
as the newest Rocket, all sorts of things.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Can I read your post on social media?

Speaker 7 (43:45):
I made several?

Speaker 6 (43:46):
Pick one the one on Instagram, you know, if you're
wanting to know exactly the platform this is on. Although
you also did this on X and then pasted it
on Instagram. This is what it was on X earlier today.
Quote the ultimate a Swiss army knife. The sky's the limit,
there's no ceiling on what he wants to be. That's
three different sentences. You quoted here about a men Thompson,

(44:10):
and you tagged him in it, and then a men
saw it.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
Sometimes when you tag people, says a stalker.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Thing to do, isn't it? Hey, he saw my stuff,
I liked it for.

Speaker 7 (44:20):
Yeah, he might. He might not pay attention to everything
that Udoka says, So this helps him. I mean, I'm
just trying to do my part. This is what he
said about Amn Thompson.

Speaker 10 (44:33):
He cuts it on very quickly and once he does
some things, he applies it and kind of puts what's
it in his memory bank. And just as versatility, as
you know, he's much different. We use in much different
ways than what he did his whole career, and he's
adapted to all those things very well and so ultimate
so s army knife. You put him in any position
one through five guards one through five. He has played

(44:55):
and gives us a ton of luxury and versatility to
have a guy like that. But yeah, Skuy's limit, no
ceiling on what he wants to be and the work
he puts in a show of that.

Speaker 7 (45:05):
I parsed it up a little bit to get to
the key points, but those three comments within that longer
comment obviously stood out. Uh talked about the versatility is
one thing, and in different sports we talk about it
in so many different ways. On the basketball court, it's
massive when you can do all the things that he
can do offensively and defensively. Hey, e May, this is

(45:26):
a doctor Biles. It looks like we're gonna have to
probably go tonight, maybe a couple of nights without Fred.
Is that cool? No problem? A men will start. Hey,
coach Biles, here, we're gonna have to probably go the
next couple of games. Bar Smith, he's here his hand
to practice. He's not gonna be able to go for
probably a month or so. All right, we'll probably just
start him in. Hey, Uh, there's doctor Biles again.

Speaker 6 (45:46):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (45:47):
Dylan's gonna need to sit out the next two games.
He's got a little bit of minor issue. We'll be
back probably within the week. All right, We'll probably just
go ahead and start him in in his place.

Speaker 13 (45:56):
Now.

Speaker 7 (45:56):
I know Jalen's never hurt, so we don't have to
worry about that. But Alpern's gonna need to probably be
on the shelf here of the next couple of days.
Very very minor issue, a little bit of a calf problem.
Just want to make you and the staff aware of it,
give you a heads up so you could plan on
who you might want to put into the starting lineup todight.
All right, I guess we'll start him in. Didn't matter,
And then literally laying out what happened all year. It
did not matter who was not in the starting lineup,

(46:18):
who was out for injury or whatever the reason was
prior to a man being a permanent fixture in the
starting lineup, which took place after Jabari Smith Junior was
hurt and then came back as a member of their reserves.
It didn't matter who's hurt, who's out, well, a men
can fill that role. He played point for this team
quite a bit when Fred was out, brought the ball
up the court, set up the offense. When Fred was

(46:39):
out played in the dunker spot. No matter who he
was on the court with, Bigs or otherwise triple big
lineup didn't matter. He is, as he said, that Swiss
army knife, and he was actually referring to the other
end of the court when he said it. He guards
one through five, he clearly. And when you say one
through five, I'll take that two different ways. He guards
one every game. Whoever the one is on the other team,

(47:02):
he'll spend some time guarding him. He spent a lot
of his time guarding Steph Curry for obvious reasons in
this past series, and had they moved on, he would
spend a bunch of his time guarding Anthony Edwards. He
would have spent time guarding nas Reed. There's no limit
to where you would want him defensively, and that's the
Swiss Army knife of it. Clearly, we've talked about his
offensive parts. You know what does he do well? And

(47:24):
I think he actually put more of it on display
than people give him credit for. In Game seven, his
ability to create his own shot showed up a little
bit more often. I wish he was playing with that
kind of confidence at other points of the season. Depending
on who is standing in front of him, and if
the rocket's spacing is as it should be, I think
he can get to the basket pretty much whenever he wants,
And unconventionally, if I'm talking about Jalen Green in that situation,

(47:47):
I'm pretty sure, with like ninety nine point ninety seven
percent certainty, if Jalen tries to beat his man in
that situation, the end result is going to be Jalen
at the rim trying to lay it in off the
right side, because that's how he beats guys. When a
man does that, nobody knows where he's gonna end up.
Is gonna eurostep his way to the other side of
the line. Is he gonna put a heasy into it

(48:09):
and just drop one in over the front side of
the rim. Is he gonna beat him so badly with
his right crossed over to his left that he's actually
gonna finish with a dunk or the highlight that's probably
been replayed more than any other play from Game seven
when he drove through the lane and ended up with
a crazy English spinning reverse layup, like it was nobody
else out there with him, like he was at practice,
like he was at home on the at the gym,

(48:30):
or at home outside on the goal. He's so creative,
so confident that he can get there. Beginning of the series,
it was more of a struggle for him to figure
out how to finish. That's how fast as you heard
a little bit from emay there. He adjusts and learns
on the fly. Super high basketball IQ, the ultimate sponge,
the ultimate I'm coachable. I mean we've you and I

(48:52):
have had individual, off the record conversations with people in
the Rockets organization about this very thing that he's just
He's a Jim Ratt, He's a basketball junkie.

Speaker 6 (49:04):
What do you do in your spare time for fun?
I played basketball Like that's a man. Thompson. That's you
can't coach that, you can't even really teach that.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
It's just who he is.

Speaker 6 (49:15):
He's obsessed with basketball, and his brother's the same way.
I had a conversation with rafel Stone about that, just
how much when he saw them before they were drafted
playing together. Just you know, I peeled the curtain back.
Rafel Stone is low key obsessed with the Thompson Twins,
and I don't mean the eighties band like. He loves
what they bring to the table, and it's why he

(49:37):
wanted to draft him in. And I just we've been
talking about how young Jalen is and how you got
to be patient and all that kind of stuff. Two
guys that are younger than he is that I think
showed more promise in their first playoff Albrin Shanoon and
Amn Thompson. I don't think that's unfair to say either.

Speaker 7 (49:59):
It's not unfair and it's definitely a fact, but there
are also some other reasons why beyond I do think
the players deserve some credit for it, but I also
think some recognition, it was discussed at length today, Recognition
of what the other team was doing, just like recognition
of why Buddy Hial had the best game of his life.
Just they that's what they wanted. They wanted him to miss.

(50:20):
They wanted to score eighteen points on four of nine
to three point shooting. He made eight of nine or
made nine of ten. He made nine of eleven, he
ate ten. It just didn't work out. The Golden State
Warriors didn't defend Amen Thompson like they thought he was
going to win the series for him on the offensive end.
They surprisingly didn't defend Alprin Shangoon in that way either.

(50:41):
I can respect the confidence they have in both Draymond
Green and to a smaller extent because he didn't play
very much, Kevon Looney, but they defended Shngoon with pretty
much anybody who was forced into a switch on him,
single coverage, almost exclusively the entire series, and they never
did that with Jalen. They were blitzing Jalen. They were

(51:02):
picking him up full court, which was a smart thing.
I'm not saying that this was a bad idea. This
was a smart thing to do, not just to hold
him down, but more to the point, to keep the
Rockets from getting into their offense very quickly and in
some of the games early in the game created a
lot of uncertainty with the Rockets offense and specifically turnovers.
They had a plan. Their plan was to impact the

(51:23):
Rockets offense by getting after Jalen Green by making him
make the play they wanted Jalen to make, and the
Rockets acknowledged it. The same was the pass, the hockey assist.
Get the ball to where it needs to be, get
it into you know, Alprinchengoon at the free throw line,
r Men Thompson, whoever is supposed to be there when
their defender has come out to do to push you

(51:44):
even further out, Get rid of it. Don't try to
beat them, don't try to continue dribbling. Steph Curry tried
to do that, and that's fine, that's what he probably
should do to try to beat the double team. That's
not what the Rockets want Jalen Green to do, and
the Warriors just wanted to get the ball out of
his hands. It's why not only were his minutes down
because there were other lineups that were going to get
Golden State out of that and produce much better results

(52:07):
for Houston specific to the players that were on the
court more so than who was off of it. But
his shots were also down while he was out there,
way down.

Speaker 6 (52:18):
Especially in Game seven. And as you've pointed out so
many times, no especially in Game seven. That was every
game but game two. He didn't take eight shots in
any other game though, did he? Yes, that was that
was his postseason with this. This was their whole sit
seven game series, eleven, eight, eight, eleven and eight in
the final five games. Golly, I thought, I I thought

(52:40):
for sure. He had taken more shots in every game
but game seven.

Speaker 7 (52:43):
He hit three shots in five of the seven games.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Exactly something else you had pointed out when he wasn't
making the pass and he did keep the ball all right,
if you're going to dribble, you're going to your left.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Because you can't.

Speaker 7 (52:55):
Yeah, he did a nice job of not turning it
over and kind of forcing it. He had the five
turnover game. This is the game I was obviously alluding
to a minute ago, with three of those coming early.
He only had five turnovers the rest of the series.
In six games he turned them all over five times.
He only had one turnover in game five, six and
seven combined. His minutes were clearly down. His usage Rake
went down a little bit with it. But what he did,

(53:17):
to a certain extent is what the coaching staff asked
him to do. Make the right play. We think our
other four guys can beat their three. They didn't well.

Speaker 6 (53:28):
And look we're sitting here complimenting them in Thompson and
you know, just basically giving a general assessment of what happened.
There's another guy giving out compliments to the Rockets, maybe
an unlikely source. You're gonna hear from him on one
Rocket specifically, and you talk about giving flowers. You don't

(53:49):
hear this very often. You'll be shocked to hear who
it came from.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
That's next.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
The AED on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
It is the A team, It's Sports Talk seven ninety,
it's Space City Home Network, it's WEX, it's AC, it's
Cold Thompson, it's you at seven one three, two one
two five, seven ninety. Or you can just sit back
and watch and listen to us as we meander our
way through Houston Sports Astros and Brewers game two of
their three games set in Milliewaukee, coming up with the

(54:25):
Astros on Deck Show at the.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Bottom of the five o'clock hour.

Speaker 6 (54:29):
In the meantime, we've been talking a lot about the Rockets, because, well,
yesterday was all about licking your wounds if you're a fan,
and talking about what went wrong in a pivotal Game
seven and could have should have would us. It's what
unfortunately sports talk radio is a lot about on days
like that following a gut punch loss. I still don't

(54:50):
think it's nearly as bad as twenty eighteen, given what's
what was on the line, and that was in my
opinion that the facto NBA Championship that year, either one
of those teams is going to destroy Lebron James and
the Calves. But this team was about growth and all
of the silver lining moral victory things that you don't
hear the day after a seven game loss, but you

(55:11):
have to kind of explore. And then today it was
about taking that to the next level with ima Udoka
and rafel Stone meeting with the media at around one
o'clock and talking about the season that was and the
offseason that awaits them.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
And we'll get into that a little bit more.

Speaker 6 (55:25):
But I don't know, like you talk about an enigma,
you talk about just somebody who brings so much to
the table, good and bad. I've said it a million times.
I can't stand Draymond Green. Drives me crazy. Don't like
what he does on the floor, don't like a lot
of what he says off the floor, And yet I

(55:46):
know that as soon as the Warriors get thrashed by
the Timberwolves or whoever ends up eliminating them, he'll be
right there in that chair on tnt IS, you know,
provided they're still broadcasting, and he'll be giving analysis that
I'm going to like because he's brutally honest, sometimes for
better or for worse. And that could apply to what
he said on his podcast about a certain member of

(56:09):
this year's Rocket squad, you know, the one that he
went up with or went up against the most in
this first round series.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
They had their.

Speaker 6 (56:17):
Dust ups both in the playoff series and the regular season,
and Draymond had his fair share of dust ups with
seemingly everybody on the Rockets roster. At times, he was
not very complimentary of Dylan Brooks, and Space City's own
Vanessa Richardson got after him a little bit on that.
That was interesting, But as it pertains to Alpa and Shingoon,

(56:40):
can't think of much better of a compliment than what
you'll hear right here from one Draymond Green.

Speaker 12 (56:45):
He's special, singhool.

Speaker 14 (56:46):
I always tell people, man, in a playoff series, one
of two things happen. You either completely lose respect for someone,
or you gain a lot of respect for someone, you
also get to see how people are singooon real man
hate he backed down? Oh what I would say to
him if I was his og flop a little less embellish,
a little less because with a defender like me, he

(57:07):
doing that, my feet off that, you know what I'm saying,
he real, he ain't he physical, he ain't backing down.

Speaker 12 (57:13):
He got a bad you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (57:15):
Like he twenty three years old, so he real a
lot of respect for him.

Speaker 6 (57:20):
It's just like even when he's complimenting though, he just
you laugh because of some of the things he's saying.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
I'm gonna feed off of that.

Speaker 12 (57:30):
I just just.

Speaker 6 (57:31):
You know, be complimentary of him. If you're going to,
I get it. It's his podcast. He's gonna do it
his way, his style. That's who Draymond Green's always been.
But you can't deny what he's saying is true. I
think we agree with it, both the good and the bad.
But for him to be as complimentary as he was
about a number of the Rockets, He's done this before.

(57:53):
He did this when the Rockets lost with the James
Harden era. You know he'll give it out, and he'll say, look,
they made us work for it. This is not He'll
say in one breath, it's fun to beat this organization.
But in the same press conference he will give out
praise where it's.

Speaker 7 (58:07):
Due impossible, in my opinion, not to it's seven game series.
You we're up three to one, right, and this is
why we're here. This kind of stuff, giving you Draymond
Green audio, letting you hear about it, letting you discuss it,
letting you join the show to discuss it, firing off
texts and hitting us up on social media and getting

(58:28):
more into this. This is what we're supposed to do.
This is why we're here. This is what the A
team is all about. I really could care such a small,
small amount now long time coming about what Draymond Green
has to say, especially after I had to hear him
say what he said about Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
It cheapens it.

Speaker 7 (58:48):
It doesn't cheat, it can't not anymore, it can't get
any cheaper. I don't need I mean, That's why I
said what I said initially. I don't want to sit
here and be all wet blanket. This guy's no fun.
Come on, man, this is a sports talk. You were
supposed to analyze stuff and debate stuff and get into
stuff and get hyped up, down up, whatever. But Draymond
Green is is total nonsense. He's one hundred percent b

(59:12):
s all the time. It's all nonsense. What should I
say today? That makes no sense for who I am?
What should I say tomorrow? That makes no sense for
how I play? He should flop less, We'll take that.
I don't remember him falling over during in play where
he was defending you. I remember you falling over in
game seven and looking over at the official and wondering, well,

(59:34):
he hit me so hard I had to fall, right,
He hit me so hard that we should be going
the other way with a personal foul on him. Right, No,
that was you, not him. Now he does flail his
arms and he looks for calls. I don't know that
I would call Alprin Shangoun a flopper, even an offensive sense,
which is what he's clearly referring to. And I was,

(59:55):
you know, in my position in game seven broadcast position.
I'm right there down on the court, right in the
Rockets tunnel with SPA City Home network, so I can
see the Rockets making their entrance to the court before
the game, making their visit to the locker room after halftime,
coming back out of the court, and then leaving for
what unfortunately turned out to be the final time. And
I knew this was coming the moment it happened. A game.

(01:00:17):
The Rockets were playing every last second of that game,
so much so that down double figures, Golden State's Brandon
Pajemsky had to call time out with eight seconds left
because he was stuck in the back court, so it
allowed them to take some starters out, allowed them to
bring in their reserves. Rec League Stevens came in and
the game was going to end. The Rockets kept their
guys out there. And the game ended, and Dylan Brooks

(01:00:39):
was on the Rockets end of the court already, not
on the other end, very close to the tunnel.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Game ended.

Speaker 7 (01:00:44):
He lifted his jersey out from his shorts, untucked his shirt,
and he walked off the court. No, nothing angry. He
didn't run off the court, He didn't run away from anybody.
He was basically already there. He was the first player
for the Rockets off the court, and he did not
shake hands with anybody over to his bench to say
anything to them. He didn't go over to teammate to
do anything with them. He was not very happy, but

(01:01:06):
you really, because I know he wasn't happy. He didn't
do anything. He just he walked off. He went into
the Rockets locker room. Most of the other players, especially
the ones who were involved in the series, handshakes, hugs, words,
whatever needed to be said, and is totally normal also
after the series. But when I saw him do that,
it was an absolute given that some fool, in this
case it's Draymond would feel it necessary to point it

(01:01:28):
out as some sort of he's a chump, he's a sucker,
he has no respect or what he said at the
beginning of this comment about shng gun. When you play
in a playoff series, you do one of two things.
You either gain somebody's respect or you lose it. So
I'm supposed to care, and I know all of his
legions of Draymond Green's podcast will care because Draymond said it.

(01:01:50):
He lost respect for Dylan Brooks because of this. Why
I know you want them to respect you, and I
know Fred respects you because he said as much after
the game after Draymond punched him in the face and
only got a technical instead of a properly called flagrant.
He said, yeah, we're good. We have enough of a history,
we have a good relationship. There's nothing needed to be said.

(01:02:11):
He didn't need to apologize. I didn't need to say
anything to him. We'll be good, we'll talk, everything will
be fine. It's okay not to like somebody else. And
they clearly don't like each other Brooks and Green, nor
should they. Why do players think it's okay. I'm amazed
that some players kind of get over this and don't
let it stick. I love Tarry Eason because I know

(01:02:32):
he doesn't do that. I hate the Warriors perfect. You're
not bulletin boarding them. You're telling us how you really feel.
Jim Brooks doesn't need to shake your hand. He might
respect you. I know he respects Jimmy Butler. I don't
know if he respects you or not, and I don't
really think he should because of what you do. Why
should players respect what you do? You're really good at defense,

(01:02:55):
You're a four time champion, You've been a huge part
of some of the best teams that any of these
current players have ever played in, or played against, or
played with, And yet how can they respect you when
you do what you do constantly.

Speaker 6 (01:03:09):
What did you think when it was such a big
deal made of the Bulls Pistons, you know, non shaking
of the hands when the Pistons finally lost to the
Bulls and Jordan was clearly pissed about it in the
last dance. I mean, it's a huge part of that documentary.
Do you think it's the I mean, one thing is
the same. They walked off without shaking hands. They also

(01:03:31):
did it before the game ended. Well, they also had
played several playoffs series, right, But this is different because.

Speaker 7 (01:03:36):
At the exactly what I was getting there, there's so much,
such a difference, Like Dylan Brooks's history with the Warriors
actually does exist a little bit with a different team
with a different team, but he has some history with
these particular players. And add Gary Payton the second to that,
because of what happened between the two of them. Peyton
didn't do anything. He got knocked over by Brooks and
broke his elbow.

Speaker 6 (01:03:54):
And didn't play in Game seven, by the way, well
that had nothing to do with it. Yeah, previous inter
actions on the court. I mean, I'll I'll say is
I am totally fine with Dylan Brooks or any of
the other fourteen Rockets saying it, showing it, or believing it. Internally,
I do not respect you, Draymond. I don't think they should,

(01:04:15):
even though he's a really good basketball player and helps
his team.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Wait, you know what, Wex, I didn't shake his hand either.
I hate that guy.

Speaker 7 (01:04:20):
I didn't walk off the court. I sat in my chair.
You should have walked into the tunnel to protest. I
finally had work to do. His work was done, all right.

Speaker 6 (01:04:27):
Joe spotted did some work earlier, and you will hear
that next.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:04:43):
WEX and AC with you on a Tuesday edition of
the A Team Sports Talk seven nineties Space City Home Network.
Joe Spota stopping by for his weekly visit on the
station earlier today, and I guess, despite the loss last night,
the most pressing thing on everyone's mind since he's now
on the DL retroactive to a few days back, You're

(01:05:06):
on Alvarez was the first question you're going to hear
about here. What's the update on the big man? As
the Astros look to get their first win in the
series against the Brewers tonight.

Speaker 15 (01:05:16):
The last had full of games, and you know, he's
been trying to play through some of that soreness in there,
and we just thought that the best way to handle
this is just a pause and you know, a pause
and and just get in to see our doctors and
and give him.

Speaker 9 (01:05:32):
A few days.

Speaker 15 (01:05:33):
But you know, the last few days he's gotten better,
but we need this to go away. So he's actually
seen doctors. He's after noon. He flew to Houston late
last night, so we'll get more information once you see
the doctors. He's named Houston.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Is that just you know, look, everybody as an athlete
has ailments, whether it's a knee, a back, or a
neck or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Is there something with the grip? Is it a glove?
Is it the bad handled?

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Tell me what is there anything that they could be
possibly aggravating because they're not the first time he's had
his hand situation.

Speaker 13 (01:06:03):
No, Yeah, and I.

Speaker 15 (01:06:04):
Think it's just more you know, once he grips the
bat and he's going to release the barrel through the zone,
there is you know, there is like a little pain
in the side of his hand, which it just bothers him,
you know, and once he once once you commit to
the pitch, you've got you're going to release the hands

(01:06:24):
and if the pitch any action, laid action on the
pitch and you want to hold you swing. That's where
he feels it the most. So it's almost like he's
got a predetermined swing the bat and let go and
some of those cows, you know, CAUs his like bad
decisions when he comes to swinging that back pitches. And
we don't want your time to be in between. We

(01:06:45):
want your down to be locked in and and have
confidence and swinging the bat whenever he wants to. And
and if he wants to you know, auto take and
hit with two strikes. He can do that because he
feels like he's one hundred percent and so we just
trying to We just try to get him there.

Speaker 16 (01:07:00):
In a way, this does offer you some flexibility as
far as lineup construction to get other guys at the
d H spot. It was al tuove yesterday. Is your
plan going to be to mix it up at that spot?

Speaker 15 (01:07:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll have the d H today.
And you know, he gives me an opportunity to play,
you know, the younger, the younger outfielders in the corners
with more regulartery. Also, you know that's that you know,
provides an opportunity to get guys a few more bats here.
But yeah, today today DS will be will be a

(01:07:31):
d H and and you know, hopefully we can, you know,
we can get some of these guys more every more,
you know, more looks and and you know, hopefully gets
them going.

Speaker 16 (01:07:41):
Joe A spotted with us here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
I've told you this before, Joe, I am the president
of the Jake Myers fan Club, and the fan club
had a pretty good The fan club had a pretty
good week.

Speaker 15 (01:07:51):
Yeah he did. And you know he's having he's having
he's having some really good at bats. He's in really
good spot swinging, you know, swinging a really good bad
driving the ball. I'd be and very impressed with how
hard he's eating the ball. You know, the quality of
his up bats that have been really really good. He's
putting himself in good hitters counsel. He's not missing being patient.
You know, when you're confident and you could kind of

(01:08:12):
prolong your bat and your piece selection gets better. And
right now he's in a really good spot and we
need to keep him going.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
This is a team that has Last time we talked
at least couple weeks something for you and me, there
were some crooked number innings going up. And if you
were to judge this season so far, if you were
to consistently break down the offense, there hasn't been enough
of that. And look, you cannot predict these things. They
come in bunches. But generally speaking from a macro's perspective
on this, Joe, why haven't we been able to see

(01:08:42):
the two three inning run innings on more of a
regular basis from your squad?

Speaker 9 (01:08:48):
Yeah, so you know what I mean.

Speaker 15 (01:08:49):
I look at it in different ways, right, you know, yes,
we all want Crookeet numbers, But I started with looking
at the quality of the bats. And the quality of
our bats have gotten better, walking more, we getting nine
ten singles like we Yes, we do one the extra basets,
But I got to look at it as a whole,
and we are doing things better than we did early

(01:09:12):
in the season. Now, the Crookeet numbers happen. Once consistently
put those good at bats together in one inning, that's
when you get the big double. And you know, yesterday
in the sixth inning, we were one swing away right
from getting back in the game. But as a whole.
I feel good about the direction that we go in
individual at bats as a team. Now the weekend we

(01:09:35):
be better with many scoring positions, all that kind of stuff,
of course, but now it's more it's more that it's
just more controlling your your you know, relaxing at the
play week scoring position, not changing your approach because now
the bats potentially means more. Now you change your behavior.
Now you're trying to do more, and now you have

(01:09:55):
less of a positive result.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Last question, skip Monday. You obviously went with Lance on Sunday.
When he walked in the clubhouse on Monday, did you
call text ahead how you feeling? Because man, your pitch
he went eighty seven, which was way more than I
ever thought he was going to be a that's got
to be a surprised to you and be what was
it like having that conversation when you said, how are
you feeling, big right hander?

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:10:17):
Yeah, he actually talked to him post game and first
thing in the morning I texted him and he said, Joe,
I feel great. He came him my office said Joe,
I feel really good. You know, we wouldn't have let
them be out there for eighty plus pitches. It we
didn't feel comfortable about, you know, letting him be there.

Speaker 5 (01:10:38):
He he showed no.

Speaker 15 (01:10:39):
Signs of you know, not being in a position to
do that in between innings, like he pitched through. He
pitched through trouble and in the second he had a
quick third and we felt pretty good, you know that
they were following a tone of pitches off. So the
quality of his pitches were for good. You know, fell

(01:11:00):
behind in some of the some right hander hitters, but
the quality of his pitchers were good. I think he's
going to be better. He's second time around, so we
were really excited and happy for him. Since he works.
He still off to get back to that start in Chicago.

Speaker 7 (01:11:14):
If you were paying attention both here on the radio
or on the TV side, what Joe was saying is true.
He was throwing the ball similarly in the last ten
pitches pitches seventy eight through eighty seven as he was
at the onset of the game. And if you had
the chance to catch Lance's interview during the game yesterday
with Blumber and TK, he was talking about those same

(01:11:36):
things Joe was. Had he been able to get out
of previous innings when he was in position to do so,
you know, he had himself on path to not throw
a twenty nine pitch inning a twenty seven pitch inning,
but he couldn't get that last out. He kept extending
them and there were too many foul balls, and that's
why he was a little bit disappointed, and that he
only gave the team eleven outs, but he was very

(01:11:57):
pleased and that he threw eighty seven pitches. He threw
the ball. He hoped he would. This was the next
day that he was giving this interview and felt like
he hoped he would the day after, and as Joe indicated,
and with Hayden, was Nesky getting some time off and
between his two stars. He goes again tonight with Gusto
and the bullpen still ways off from the Arraghetti return,
though the necessity for potentially a six man rotation could

(01:12:19):
arrive after this next off day. All signs point to
as Lance hoped, I got the ball and I will
keep getting the ball every fifth or sixth day as
part of this rotation.

Speaker 6 (01:12:28):
Yeah, I mean the next logical step is to what
get to Well, he basically pitched four innings.

Speaker 7 (01:12:35):
Eighty seven pitches is fine, just make sure you've gotten
them five innings out of your eighty seven pitches. But
it looks to me like there won't ever There won't
likely be any kind of pitch limitation on him other
than what everybody has. When everybody gets to the thirty
fifth pitch of an inning, you're like, I can't throw it.
Let him throw any more pitches this inning, But between
eighty seven and ninety and ninety five ninety eight pitches.

(01:12:55):
I think that's something that when it happens, it's gonna happen,
and they won't really think watch about it. Uh So
you get to hear from Joe spotted there. You can
catch the full interview at sports Talk seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:13:08):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (01:13:16):
Eighteen continues, this is the Tuesday edition. Adam wactually Adam Clanton,
Cole Thompson here with you. You know where to find
us on the socials. You know where to find us
on the phone line seven one three two one two
five seven ninety. Just heard from Joe Aspata. He said
Janre Diaz will be in the lineup today being the DH.
He did not lie to our audience. He is the DH.

(01:13:37):
He is batting fifth. Victor Carrattini will get the start
and provide the Astros with their loan left handed bat
in the lineup. The only other left handed bat they
have is newly recalled say Salazar, the third catcher, who
I hope will be used sometime soon. I'm not a

(01:13:58):
huge fan of players being on the raws that aren't played,
and I'm not saying that he won't be, but I
guess preemptively saying I hope he does, because that's what
they're there for, getting guys opportunities and putting him in
the line up here and there, or certainly utilizing the
fact that they have a third catcher and how they
might want to go about this particular game. And I

(01:14:18):
do think with the change in extra inning rules and
that extra inning games are pretty much going to end
as soon as they start, teams are going to score
almost immediately, if not one both rarely neither, So you
don't really have to be all that concerned when you
lose your DH not in my opinion, It's definitely can
impact things based on maybe where you ended up in

(01:14:39):
the lineup or who's what you have to do right
out of the gate, and they can kind of get
around it. But Janardys is the dhday Victor Krarttini is
the catcher. If there's an instance where Victor Krarttini is
on base and they need to pinch run for him,
I mean, even without Sayzar Salazar, I would absolutely do it.
And then you just move Yonder to catcher and you

(01:15:00):
lose the DH. Big deal you use a pinch hitter,
are you hit?

Speaker 15 (01:15:03):
What you do?

Speaker 7 (01:15:04):
Whatever you want to do. I don't think it's that
big of a deal to do that, but obviously with
the third catcher there, it gives you the flexibility to
pretty much do that at any point in the game
and not be forced to lose the DH. Heck, if
Yaner Diaz has come around with his offense, I think
they would want him in the line of pretty much
every day, even on the days he's not catching. So
your lineup is that much more potent getting at least

(01:15:26):
a tiny, tiny bit of I can't I can't even
say it with a straight face. I wanted to say
a tiny bit of balance, but you still have eight
right handed hitters in the lineup. There's no balance. They're
totally imbalanced, and honestly, going back to spring training, I
was surprised that they chose to do this. They chose
not to put John Singleton on the team. I think
we all know the reasons why, from a how inflexible

(01:15:49):
he is. He's basically a DH or. He's a first baseman,
and with Christian Walker at first base, he pretty much
was never gonna play. I get that, but he certainly
could have been the DH. I'm not telling telling them
to go ahead and put Jose al Tuove back at
second and put jord On Alvarez in his hurt hands
back in the outfield. But a pinch hitter off the
bench that's left. He gives you a little bit of

(01:16:10):
something for the other manager. And there are bullpen arms
to consider, and now you just really don't have that
because you are so right hand heavy. They've barely seen
any left handed pitching this year, which would benefit normally
a right handed hitting lineup like they are. But top
of the lineup remains unchanged. Paynale, tou Ve, Perettis Walker
at their respective usual positions, including al Tuvan left, Myers

(01:16:31):
bumped up to the sixth spot. He's in center care teen,
he's catching batting seventh. Brendan Rodgers gets the start at second,
and Cam Smith hopefully gets some ninth in the order
of magic going as he is in right field, and
it'd be nice to see if he can continue to
progress rather just than just continue to, you know, go
out there every once in a while or catch a

(01:16:51):
couple of starts in a row. Progress is what you
expected from cam Smith this year. I don't care where
he is. If he was in double A, I've expected
if he was in triple A. But since they've put
him on this team, I expected here too.

Speaker 9 (01:17:07):
No.

Speaker 6 (01:17:07):
I look, he's he's got to perform and he's got
to be uh the guy that unfortunately has that kind
of pressure on him because.

Speaker 7 (01:17:15):
Of who he is here in light of I really
don't honestly, I don't know. If we've keep going about
it this way, and we keep going at it, it
seems like I always bring it up when you bring
it up.

Speaker 6 (01:17:25):
Do you think he feels that. Do you think they
feel that. I think they feel it'll be irrelevant. Well,
I in my opinion, I don't know that. Again my opinion,
I don't think that some people in the organization would
have gone this way. Yeah, and other people wanted it
to go this way, and that's why he's where he's
at on the level he's at.

Speaker 7 (01:17:46):
Do you think it would have been any different in
August if he made his major league debut to be
the well, you're the guy we got and you just
hit three hundred with twelve homers, whatever it was, If
he like, maybe it's not that late, one thing would
be definitively different on how fans or the organization or
cam would perceive what we're talking about. You're the Kyle

(01:18:07):
Tucker guy. You're the guy we got, We need you.
One thing would be different if he got to the
ball club in Juni or August or whenever. He would
have earned a promotion by playing well during the baseball
season against triple A competition. He earned his promotion in
spring training by blowing their doors off against I don't
know what kind of competition if you really get down

(01:18:29):
to it. So he absolutely earned this promotion, but the
team wasn't going to bring him to the club had
they sent him to double or triple A, unless he
gave them a reason to by hitting three hundred, by
getting on base thirty eight percent of the time, by
slugging five fifty, by hitting fifteen homers, by having thirty
extra whatever the numbers might have needed to be or

(01:18:50):
what he had shown them, and that didn't need to happen.
He was just here from the get go, from the jump,
I'm not expecting to be unbelievable. I totally understand where
he's coming from. Basically nothing. He's coming from college to
the majors is basically what he's doing. And my expectations, again,
they don't change if he started at this point. He's

(01:19:11):
been here a month, so we have a starting point.
Let's see what kind of improvements, adjustments they're gonna make
to you and you're gonna make to them. I can't
deny what you're saying. It's got to be in everybody's
mind to a certain degree. So irrelevant's probably an improper
word for me to use. How can Cam not feel it?
Because he is here, he's on the big league club,
and he's playing his position, a new position to him.

(01:19:35):
I hope he doesn't feel it too much, because it
would be nice if they were, you know, twenty and
fourteen or somewhere in that neighborhood, because it'd probably be
even less pressure on him. But if they were like
last year, I think this would be a totally different
conversation if this team was struggling even more than their
record indicates their average.

Speaker 6 (01:19:54):
But the other conversely, the other good thing is that
the rest of the division isn't running away from them.
So well, Seattle's running away from them, but not really, no,
they're not.

Speaker 7 (01:20:03):
Their manager decided to intentionally walk two batters and extra
innings to get to the soon to be Rookie of
the Year, and they lost the game because he walked
them off. Well, I was just talking about the standings.
I know that they could, they might have. Maybe they
win and maybe they create some gap. I don't you
say the division itself isn't. It's not who's who's gonna
run away with a division when nobody's awesome. Even with

(01:20:24):
like what they brought to the table this year, the
Seattle Mariner is great pitching from last year and not
a very good offense. They've actually kind of gotten both.
Their offense has really come around the last probably three
or four weeks. Their pitching staff has been very good.
It's just they have had some injuries, and there are
other injuries that have now hit them. They also we've
glossed over it because we're so anti Jorge Polanco all

(01:20:45):
off season. This is just because it's getting stupid now
or we're in the first week of May, soon to
be in the mid May. What hurts more him or
Alex Brow because I've never in a million years that
there's the dumbest move to make for that kind of
money for this team. It's a smart move to make
for Sea. They didn't do anything else was already there.
They already spent money, They already traded Kyle Tucker, they
did all sorts of other things to not need to

(01:21:07):
spend seven million, eight million, ten million on Jorgey freaking
Polanco and he's sitting three eighty with an eleven hundred ops.
I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 12 (01:21:15):
The name was says congratulations on first place.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
Eventually, it's a weird year.

Speaker 12 (01:21:20):
It's a very weird year.

Speaker 6 (01:21:22):
And that's that goes across all of baseball. Really, if
we're being honest.

Speaker 7 (01:21:26):
Well, you say nobody's running away with this division. Take
a look at the American League as a whole, right,
nobody's anything tightly packed. We will talk rockets future, two paths,
which one do you take? We'll talk about that next.

Speaker 5 (01:21:41):
The a te on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him talking your
team so very.

Speaker 5 (01:21:55):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eight.

Speaker 6 (01:22:06):
It is the four o'clock hour underway here on a
Tuesday edition of The Eight Team Sports Talk at seven ninety.
Hopefully you're recovering from your Cinco de Mayo celebrations. I
know wex really hit it hard last night. We had
food appropriate feeds you today.

Speaker 7 (01:22:22):
Yes, and it's okay now that I think we have
a third household member at the house. Before I arrive
home from my extremely hard work day, the meal was
already started before my arrival. There's oftentimes where this particular meal,
enchilada bake is It's time consuming. You gotta brown the meak,
got a layer in the things, and then you eventually
gacated the oven. You beg it. So it's a timely process.

(01:22:45):
So on the days where we've preemptively laid out the menu,
like on the day before or the week before, we
already know it's coming. I know what I'm going to
be eating that night, and then I get home at
six twenty seven and I'm like, you guys didn't start yet.
Not but last night with Samantha back at the house
and Ryan Uh there to assist as well, basically by

(01:23:06):
just telling everyone to.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
What run the show.

Speaker 7 (01:23:08):
Well, he's he's got work, he's still in school, he's
still studying. So yeah, it was almost completely finished when
I got home last night. So a nice little Mexican meal.

Speaker 6 (01:23:18):
Every night from me, it was awesome. Okay, So I
have to say this, and I'm not going to reveal
the place. There was a certain and it's fast food,
there's no other way around it.

Speaker 7 (01:23:29):
Yummy.

Speaker 6 (01:23:29):
There's a certain chain of the poultry variety that it
does not have chick in the name that we used
to get. For whatever reason, it ended up being uh
now it's well, yeah, yeah, that's the one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Okay, there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:23:45):
So I uh they were like, we used to call
it that name Sunday because we'd ended up getting on
on Sunday afternoons.

Speaker 7 (01:23:53):
Definitely eliminated one of them. But you already did that.

Speaker 6 (01:23:56):
So she wanted it meaning Brooklyn, and I was like,
all right, this is because the last time we got it,
I was like, I just don't feel good eating this anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
I'm getting old. I can't I don't know what it
is like, I can handle macco shell way better.

Speaker 7 (01:24:11):
Every time you do that, I want to banish you
to a segment. I'm at Thomas show.

Speaker 3 (01:24:15):
That's where I get it. That here why it's funny.

Speaker 12 (01:24:17):
It's funny.

Speaker 6 (01:24:18):
It makes him mad because we're a bit stealing. So anyways,
wanted to get it last night, and it's simple to
my eye. Won't even think about that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
I'm not.

Speaker 6 (01:24:25):
I would have loved that because that would have been
better food. We got it, And like we're looking at
each other last night, me and Teresa, and we're just like,
do you feel like bleep?

Speaker 9 (01:24:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:24:33):
I feel like bleep?

Speaker 7 (01:24:34):
Enjoy any surveasas or Margarita's no, not you, but right
anybody else?

Speaker 15 (01:24:39):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:24:39):
No, And we just just felt the cholesterol levels climbing
and the sodium intake and the puffy finger today.

Speaker 7 (01:24:47):
How you feel well? Totally fine? All good?

Speaker 6 (01:24:50):
I felt I feel better now than I did earlier today.
Put it that way because you're doing the show. Yes,
that is the number one reason.

Speaker 7 (01:24:59):
I knew it.

Speaker 12 (01:25:00):
I thought it was just because if you had too much.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
Water tonight, I want like soup or something lame.

Speaker 7 (01:25:07):
Now there's something never ever sick healthy ever, you don't
need soup. I would never say I want soup. I'm
not saying I've never had soup or won't continue to
eat it and.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Want it.

Speaker 7 (01:25:21):
Oh, man, I really gotta have soup. Like broccoli cheese
soup is very good. There's a few others that are
very good. Some nice restaurants have some very good varieties
of soups. Turtle soup, and I'm not saying it isn't good,
but it's pretty infrequent. I'm like, man, I could really
go for some soups.

Speaker 17 (01:25:36):
I'm having soup tonight. I'm not even joking, like I mean,
I'm glad I don't have to like it was planned. Yeah,
I have a crockpot right now for garlic garlic chicken soup.

Speaker 6 (01:25:45):
I mean, when I'm sick, it's good. But this is
about This is more about what I did to myself
last night that I don't want to happen tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:25:54):
Don't plan on having for dinner tonight. Not not just
something different, not mop Eyes.

Speaker 12 (01:26:02):
Oh you were talking about that one if I'm talking
about the other one.

Speaker 7 (01:26:04):
No, what's where love that chante?

Speaker 12 (01:26:06):
No matter what ross Viery, you're looking good.

Speaker 6 (01:26:08):
No matter what ross viial says, their biscuits are not
dry and awful.

Speaker 7 (01:26:13):
They're awful. They are one awful. Well, if you douse
them in honey, they're fine.

Speaker 17 (01:26:17):
But you shouldn't have to douse anything in sauce to
make it good.

Speaker 7 (01:26:20):
Ac what are you talking? This is what food is
all about. It's okay to have strong feelings. It's also
okay to disagree. Some might call it a choose your
own adventure. Some might call it that.

Speaker 12 (01:26:29):
What are we doing playing dungeons and dragons with our
food at this point?

Speaker 7 (01:26:32):
No, we're actually gonna see which path you guys think
the Rockets should take in the future. We had some
public discussions today with the management team of the Houston Rockets,
their gmrfl Stone, they're head coach Ema Udoka, the decisions
contractually speaking that could be made this offseason from a

(01:26:54):
rotation player standpoint. Obviously, Steven Adams was a major part
of the twenty twenty five twenty four twenty five Rockets,
acquired it the deadline a season ago, unable to play
it at health, and then clearly a major major rotation
player if they fancy what they saw from the two
Bigs or Adams in general as a very helpful player

(01:27:14):
to winning. Mainly in the playoffs. Then, as rafel Stone
said today, they obviously liked what he did. They hope
to have him back here and hope the feeling is mutual.
It's obviously not up to them entirely. The player and
his agent have a lot to say about that, potentially
other NBA teams, But the indication was given publicly that yes,
Steven Adams played good basketball for us, means a lot

(01:27:37):
to us. We'd like to have him to continue to
do that. And in Fred van Vliet's case, the option
the team option five days to decide if they hadn't
already from the end of the season, which was Sunday,
to decide if the end of his three year contract,
the last year of the three year contract will be
picked up as a team option at forty four point
nine million dollars, or there are other alternatives to make

(01:27:59):
sure he's under contract with you. There's a new contract offer,
a multi year deal for less annual salary, which is
much more likely the case. And again rafel made it
pretty clear without getting into any of the real negotiating answers,
you know, Fred van Vlietz exactly what we thought he
would be when we brought him here and we're very
optimistic about him being a part of our foreseeable future.

(01:28:23):
You have options on extensions, just like you had this
past offseason with Jalen Green and Alper and Shin Gooon.
The next offseason brings that same option with Tarry Eason
and Jabari Smith Junior. Now to the bigger picture, what
we've been talking about throughout the season, throughout the series,
and now into the offseason. The same team on the

(01:28:43):
floor next year with a year's worth of playoff experience,
a year's worth of growth for players who may not
have been in the rotation. And are you good enough
to do something special in the playoffs? You were good
enough to make the playoffs and be it tough out,
But are you good enough to be something special or
does it require outside influence? And that's what we've been
discussing and will continue to discuss even after the decision

(01:29:05):
has clearly been made by moves not being made or
by the Devin Booker press conference.

Speaker 6 (01:29:13):
Well, I haven't just point blank asked you that question.
We've like danced around the subject. Is that who you
want top of your list?

Speaker 7 (01:29:22):
But I think there's more than three players will ultimately
get to when we're further along in this. The three
players were all focused in on, and we all know
the Phoenix Sun's duo, probably singularly Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. Obviously,
I do think the writing's on the wall. I don't
think he has gone to management yet in Milwaukee and
said I want to leave, but I do think he will,

(01:29:43):
or they'll come to an understanding that the Bucks might.
I don't think the Bucks would ever want to move him,
because you still want the fans to like you, You
still want people to come to the arena, and I
think if they make a deal, they know that that's
not going to happen in their immediate future. But I
think it's going to be him going to them saying
I am too good still, who capable?

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

Speaker 7 (01:30:01):
I want to win and it's just not gonna happen here.
And I appreciate it all. So those three guys are
who we focus on. I don't think he'll show up
way out. No, it's not. Nothing like that is gonna
You say it because it happened, and I don't think
anybody views anybody else's path out of town similar Anthony

(01:30:21):
Davis's path out of town was somewhat similar, and that
he basically just stopped playing. Well, he stopped playing. He
wore his Looney Tunes T shirt and said it was
just laid out for you. I didn't pick it out.

Speaker 3 (01:30:34):
But he was no longer.

Speaker 7 (01:30:35):
He was healthy and inactive every single night. As that
season came to a class, It's.

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
Like Jimmy at the end.

Speaker 7 (01:30:40):
You know, Luca didn't. He's who was blindsided. He didn't
ask out and he was moved. And you know Kevin
Durantsman moved a couple of times. I don't think it
was in this same fashion other stars that I'm sure
we could run through that whole list. Jimmy Butler, I mean,
he would have played, but the Heat said your contract
is detrimental to the team. We don't want you to
play anymore because you're too much of a distraction. He

(01:31:01):
didn't show up out of shape and unable to play
at a high level like James did. But like James did,
he made it very difficult for you to keep him
on the roster. That's a very strong similarity. He forced
his way out of Miami clearly in season. He was
not gonna finish the year there. He was not going
to be extended. They were going to move him, and

(01:31:22):
he made sure it happened on his timetable. That's what
James did. He made sure, Oh you're gonna make me
come to camp really well, I'm gonna make you trade
me as soon as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:31:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna make my own camp.

Speaker 6 (01:31:34):
Yeah, I just I think that. I mean, Devin Booger's
at the top of my list. I've kind of, you know.

Speaker 17 (01:31:41):
For me, like for you guys, as Giannis at the
bottom of your list of three. Yeah, just because of
what the asking price is going to be to go
ahead and land him.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
I don't know. See, here's the thing. No matter which
way you go in this, choose your own adventure.

Speaker 6 (01:31:53):
As Michael Penia titled the article in The Ringer, even
if it's Giannis ever, everybody that is involved in this,
no matter when it happens, it's absolutely not happening until
we see where the dust settles in the draft. Because
if the Rockets have the number one pick, then that
opens up tons of possibility. No, you're no longer well,

(01:32:15):
Phoenix wants their picks back, so we should go that way.
Everybody wants your pick if you're number one.

Speaker 7 (01:32:21):
I think more teams will also want it. If you're two, three,
or four, I think it's a huge jump, and I
think there's a significant drop off maybe after the top five,
maybe after the top three or four, So depending on
which one it is. The one question among many I
could have asked today did not have the opportunity to,
was kind of watching the clock. Griffell, have you and

(01:32:43):
the organization locked in on who you're sending as your
representation face front representation to next Monday's draft lottery.

Speaker 6 (01:32:51):
I mean, my personal choice would be Vernon Maxwell because
just the possibilities are endless.

Speaker 7 (01:32:56):
What what do you mean we didn't get the number
one pick.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
I told yaw you I was not gonna pick ahead
of us. I hate Utah.

Speaker 6 (01:33:03):
It would be awesome, But I do think that that's
the first domino to fall in this article says that
as well.

Speaker 7 (01:33:08):
Because we're not even in the off season yet, right, Well,
that's that's when it's officially the off season for the Rockets.

Speaker 6 (01:33:14):
Even if there's other people playing. We can continue to
kick this around, for sure. It's a fascinating part of
a fascinating off season for the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 5 (01:33:25):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
I found out the answer to your question last segment,
but I can't tell anybody. It is the A Team
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:33:41):
I'm not even gonna tell you, guys which question I'm
referring to, So just roll that around in your heads
while you're listening and watching us.

Speaker 7 (01:33:48):
We'll find out shortly.

Speaker 3 (01:33:49):
Yeah, it's not gonna be that long.

Speaker 15 (01:33:52):
I like it.

Speaker 6 (01:33:53):
I think you like it because I told you you're
in the break anyway, it is the A Team Sports
Talk seven ninety, Space City Home Network Cole. I did
not tell you this during the break, but I wanted
to get to both emay Udoka's and rafel Stone's thoughts
on Jalen Green's performance in this past postseason.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
They both addressed it earlier today.

Speaker 15 (01:34:13):
It was.

Speaker 6 (01:34:15):
Probably the biggest topic coming out of this series, if
not during the series, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:34:21):
I just felt like, no matter how.

Speaker 6 (01:34:25):
Things were going, whether they're trailing three to one or
they had tied it up, like after Game two, especially.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
How did Jalen Green perform? How many points did he score?

Speaker 6 (01:34:34):
That was the number one topic outside of just you
know what happened in the game itself.

Speaker 3 (01:34:40):
Did you say em first?

Speaker 6 (01:34:43):
Yeah, Okay, let's uh, Let's get ima Udoka on Jalen Green's.

Speaker 3 (01:34:46):
Performance and then we'll hear from rafel Stone.

Speaker 10 (01:34:49):
There are opportunities that you still will have with that,
and the more stops we can get, the more we
can play in transition to avoid those is good for
him and good for us. But you know he went
through some growing pains, no doubt. I think physically getting
stronger to absorb contact on some of his drives when
he has the advantage, or finishing at the rim when
he does get the driving lane, all those things. There

(01:35:10):
are things we talked about with him going into the
offseason and able to use them off the ball a
little bit more. And you got to get a little
bit stronger as far as that, because they took him
out of some of those actions where they couldn't trap,
and so some areas for him to grow obviously, some
areas for us to use him a little bit better.
But when he does face those, we have enough talent behind,
especially a really good passing big like Alpi that should

(01:35:30):
punish that every night.

Speaker 6 (01:35:32):
Does it make you feel better that Jalen, when he's
been asked about his performance, has been so candid and
I'm not just talking about after Game two, when it's like, oh,
he scored thirty eight points, this is how he's going
to actually be, and he's talking about how timid he
was in game one. I'm talking about after the series,
when he's like, I'm played like bleep, Like that's what
he said, that's a quote. Do you feel better that

(01:35:53):
he at least knows that or and or is willing
to admit it, or do you not care about how
it comes back?

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
You just want change.

Speaker 7 (01:36:01):
I mean, clearly the second part is all that's truly important.
But this was a series long series of answers from
Jalen that I thought were incredibly deep and professional. Yeah,
for a player who's going through this for the first time.
For end, I mean, it was nice that he had
a thirty eight point game in Game two and he
hit eight threes and he tied the franchise record. They

(01:36:23):
even the series up, they blew out the Warriors. That
he was able to go to the podium after Game
two and acknowledge some of the Yeah, the lights were
too bright. I got out to the court, the court
was too big, my legs weren't underneath me. I was
nervous in Game one, and it showed and I played
that way. And I'm admitting this to everybody. In the

(01:36:46):
early stages of a series that's one to one, we
need three more wins. We need to prevent them from
getting three more wins. I'm telling everybody, Yeah, I didn't
have it in game one because this was too big
for me in my first opportunity. Now I've answered you
pretty well. I've responded very well. You know, I called
it the best game of his NBA career. I think
if you would disagree considering the stage it was on,
in the point in the season that it took place,

(01:37:07):
and then he had the other five games. But over
the course of those games, and you mentioned his postgame
commentary after the last of those games, he knows what happened,
and he was unable to make much of a change
to what was happening after game three or four, or
five or six. And that's what you would have wanted
to see. But it isn't that easy. And what e
May's made it sound like he's one of the players

(01:37:29):
they've already had their exit meeting with. They had it
with about five or six players today and they're more
coming tomorrow. That it's this is a unique case. This
is an individual player. I don't I don't really want
to hear any comparisons about man, this guy has not
had a good playoff career. And now look at Jalen
because there couldn't be more dissimilar. And I'm sure you
know the player that we're talking about, he's played in

(01:37:50):
one playoff series. He was you know, the needs from
him are very different than most every other player that's
playing in the playoffs, both now or has already been eliminated.
He needs to get better at basketball. That's what needs
to happen. And I don't mean shoot the ball better,
I mean better at basketball offensively.

Speaker 6 (01:38:09):
Yeah, look he knows that too. I mean that's you're
right about him giving these deep answers. I know that
the one that's getting the attention is what he said today,
which is that I played like bleep pretty much the
entire series.

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
I played likely, he repeated himself, like.

Speaker 7 (01:38:21):
It's six bad games. Yeah, it was a seven game series.

Speaker 6 (01:38:24):
Six offensively, right, We keep going back and giving that
disclaimer because.

Speaker 7 (01:38:28):
Even you even giving the you know, letting the other
guys beat win the game, passing out of the double
team that's all well and good, and you did make
plays assistance, Yeah, it doesn't excuse what he was still
unable to do in the limited opportunities and forcing the action.
And you know, as you were saying, and you know,
we we want to make sure we think that this
team had a better chance to win while he was

(01:38:50):
on the court defensively in this series, but clearly not offensively,
because you would have changed everything, and we saw it.
Golden State played totally different defense when he was not
on the And there are numbers from the season that
can point you in a number of different directions. Was
pointed out to Rafel today and back at the media
about well, you can kind of make numbers say anything
you want.

Speaker 6 (01:39:10):
By the way, before we get to what Rafel said
about Jalen specifically, reading and this is this will not
surprise you at all reading that article that Michael Painey
wrote about the Rockets, to choose your own adventure if
you will. I did not know Steven Adams was only
thirty two, and I did not know Fred Vanvliet was

(01:39:30):
only thirty one. Do they not seem like their Jimmy
Butler Steph Curry age instead?

Speaker 17 (01:39:35):
See the only way that I knew that Fred was
my age is because of we were in college at
the exact same time.

Speaker 7 (01:39:41):
Twenty thirteen, at age twenty, Steven Adams made his NBA debut.
It almost seems like it's more the way he plays,
he must have been in a league even longer. But
we have a relative timeline on the Steven Adams entering
the NBA because of his connection immediately to Houston par
the James Harden deal. Yep, so that's how long he's

(01:40:02):
been in the NBA.

Speaker 6 (01:40:03):
Jeremy Lamb was not a great acquisition, but the pick
that got Steven Adams was.

Speaker 7 (01:40:08):
But now Jeremy Lamb is gonna have a huge impact
on the NBA dating the owner's daughter in Sacramento, So
we'll see how that plays out. Fred van Vliet's NBA
debut was only in twenty sixteen. Now Fred's debut. The
reason why we can't believe he's thirty one now is
because you probably couldn't believe he was twenty three twenty

(01:40:31):
two then because he probably looked thirty then. Yeah, they both.
He looked a little much different now than he did then,
a little bit beardier.

Speaker 6 (01:40:38):
That means in year three four is when he was
thrashing the Warriors in the finals to win a championship
for the freaking Raptors, who will never do that again?

Speaker 7 (01:40:47):
That was his third postseason. He made the postseason each
of his first three seasons. He was not a very
important Raptor, though a rotation player in year two, not
a starter during this twenty four game playoff run. He
didn't start a single game in that postseason championship season
while averaging twenty five points a game shooting thirty nine

(01:41:08):
percent from three.

Speaker 3 (01:41:09):
Oh, he was a super six man.

Speaker 7 (01:41:11):
He was awesome, and he was awesome, like you said,
in the actual finals series.

Speaker 6 (01:41:16):
And look, we all know that both Klay Thompson and
Kevin Durant were down in that series. Who cares you
know who else was down at Chris Paul when they
won a championship. So screw you Warriors. But yeah, I
just I guess. Well, first of all, I'm surprised that
Toronto did let him walk. I'm sure it was money.

Speaker 7 (01:41:34):
There's nothing, Yeah, why would you pay him? Oh here,
we want to pay you a lot of money so
we can lose. Like they were bad. It's a bad
team when he left, they were bad. But they were
worse than worse good. We have a chance to win
again if we can get a draft pick or two.
Meaning at their level, they probably would have been a
thirty two to thirty three four win team or something.

Speaker 6 (01:41:52):
Well, once Kawhi left, they weren't going to get back
to championship level and they never I really don't think
they can.

Speaker 7 (01:41:58):
Yeah, spending money on Frederick Edmund van Vliet would have
made no sense.

Speaker 6 (01:42:02):
But going back to Jalen Green obviously the GM of
the Rockets, who would beat Look, he's going to be
the guy that makes any kind of deal. EMA is
controlling this right, am I crazy? I know it's a
joint venture. I know e May is running this organization.
In my opinion, that's what I think. He's the final
say I mean, I guess Tilman's technically the final, say Patrick,

(01:42:25):
I'll take.

Speaker 7 (01:42:25):
The thirty or so seconds to process that. While we
listened to what raphel Stone had to say about Jalen Green.
Jalen didn't have the series that he wanted to have,
but we didn't.

Speaker 13 (01:42:36):
But I think you know it's it's a little bit
of a double edged sword in terms of trying to
evaluate it because.

Speaker 5 (01:42:46):
Their goal going into.

Speaker 13 (01:42:48):
The series was to take him out, and that was
obvious if your if your goal is to take out
one of our players, in theory, what should happen is
that our other players should just punish it. You know,
in some games we punish it, in some games we didn't.
You know, one playoff series doesn't define a player. But
also I think in particular with him and that, Yeah,

(01:43:11):
like if if a team's going after you like that,
they're going after.

Speaker 7 (01:43:14):
You like that, and then then it's it's a team
game for a reason, and their team is literally set
up in that fashion. You know, the star of the
series is not on the Rockets. The star of any
series in the postseason is not on the Rockets, is
on the other team. The other team has a clear
lead dog, if not two of them, and the Rockets
have much more of a team. They do have an
all star and ouprand and they have a rising player
in Jalen. Clearly, your comment about Emay and Rafel absolutely

(01:43:38):
deserves a lot more time than the few seconds we
have less than this segment. We do have to say
what I kind of feel like you repeating what you
just said might fit in perfectly next segment here on
the a team talking the Rockets and their future and
the path they should take.

Speaker 5 (01:43:58):
The Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:44:04):
This is Adam and Adams Weekly changed through mind bockling
moments that make you go say what.

Speaker 9 (01:44:14):
What?

Speaker 8 (01:44:14):
Say?

Speaker 5 (01:44:15):
One month Tad what is here?

Speaker 9 (01:44:18):
No?

Speaker 15 (01:44:18):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:44:20):
On a Tuesday? Hey what odin?

Speaker 9 (01:44:23):
I dare you? Now? Say what?

Speaker 7 (01:44:28):
As this became a signature segment many many months and
years ago, you heard the familiar voice of then Oklahoma
City thunder guard Russell Westbrook say say what during a
postgame interview when he could not believe a question that
was sent his way. He was going to be a
part of say What today, but the audio that was

(01:44:51):
going to accompany it.

Speaker 15 (01:44:54):
Well.

Speaker 7 (01:44:54):
First, if you missed the end of last night's game,
the second of the two games, the one where one
of the two teams did not shoot nineteen three pointers
in one quarter while attempting only one two point shot,
that would be the Celtics gam I'm talking about the
Nuggets thunder game. Let's let's remind you how this game ended,
and I'll explain to you how Russell Westbrook needs to
be a part of Say What. Tilling till he's not.

Speaker 11 (01:45:17):
Rims Crown, Crims it seven seconds left west for five seconds,
They're turnbout.

Speaker 12 (01:45:23):
What Gordony got it?

Speaker 5 (01:45:27):
Aaron Jordon?

Speaker 12 (01:45:28):
Where's a tick shot?

Speaker 7 (01:45:29):
So that iron eagle running through the play. It's a
rebound from Brown, a pass to Westbrook, a pass to Gordon,
and what ultimately is the game winning shot with just
a couple of ticks remaining. They were down one, they
got a three, so they were up to Any basket
would be would make them happy. A Russell Westbrook basket
would make them happy. A Russell Westbrook outcome, all of them,

(01:45:52):
as Russe himself described, could make a lot of people unhappy.
There was exactly one player on the NUGG It's Last
Night that played all twelve minutes of the fourth quarter.
Wasn't Jamal Murray. It wasn't game winning shot maker Aaron Gordon,
definitely wasn't Nikola Jokich, wasn't the other starter Michael Porter Junior,
or Jamal Murray. It was Russell Westbrook, all twelve minutes

(01:46:16):
of one of the greatest comebacks an NBA postseason history,
certainly for franchise history. But as that play developed, second
free throws missed by Chet, rebound hits the floor before
Brown grabs it and he looks up court. There's Russell
passes it to Westbrook. As he passes half court. He

(01:46:38):
makes the decision after he's gotten almost to the three
point line to go cross court to an open Aeron Gordon.
He hits the shot as that was happening. This is
a lot of how viral videos from a sports perspective
come into play. You have a game winning shot in
the arena, We're gonna have like fifty different viewpoints of it.
These thirty fans, these five people on the social media team,

(01:46:59):
the action will broadcast footage and we get some awesome,
awesome views. The ord On Alvarez home run, It turned
the series upside down. The ord On Alvarez home run
that was a walk off against Seattle. When you see
some of the other angles, when you can see Alex
Bregman in the background, all these things, we get them all.
We got one last night, I thought, from the regional

(01:47:19):
sports network that was preparing for their postgame coverage after
last night's Game one. They had a camera on their studio.
There's three gentlemen there, an analyst, another analyst, and the host,
and you could hear their audio as this play unfolded
and they posted it and it went kind of like this,

(01:47:40):
Oh wait, I can't play it for you because I
didn't grab it, edit it and capture the audio because
it comes from a sense deleted post if I'm not mistaken, really,
because their audio was oh uh oh no, no, no,
no no, This is the Denver Broadcast studio saying no, no, no,

(01:48:01):
as the ball was in Russell Westbrook's hands. And I
believe it's gotten such a big say what our own
guys that it has now been taken off of the interwebs.
I'm sure I could find it, and I'm sure it's
out there, but just kind of making the point that
while it's awesome video and I think everybody gets it,
I even think Russ gets it, especially if you listen

(01:48:23):
to what he has said. He kind of went through
all the Russell Westbrook plays that can have. Hey, you
might get a turnover, you might get a basket, you
might get a dunk, you might get it. He knows.

Speaker 6 (01:48:31):
This is how he He hasn't played like this his
whole career, but the further along in his career he
has gotten He's been It's everything is he gonna go.

Speaker 7 (01:48:39):
Is he gonna have a breakaway layup? Well, I know
he's gonna have a breakaway. I don't know if he's
gonna finish the layup. Is he gonna block a guy
at the rim on the fast break?

Speaker 6 (01:48:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:48:47):
Is he gonna turn it over?

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:48:49):
Is he gonna he does everything good and bad? But
I think they decided, well, this is this kind of
anti our own guy, maybe we should get rid of it.

Speaker 6 (01:48:59):
It's not the first time I am a broadcast crew
has probably at least thought this while calling a russ game.

Speaker 7 (01:49:06):
And that's kind of the point, Like everybody, of course
we think it. He knows why we think it. He's
presented this as the reason to think it, because we're
not one. This is a series two. Did he have
five plays that you wanted him to not do what
he did in the last series? At least in the
last two games. I had thirty of them over the

(01:49:27):
course of the series. He blew so many points shots
and you're taking the good with the bad, you're taking
the turnovers. And honestly, at the end of the game,
one of the things that the Thunder was trying to
do clearly was at the ball to Shae and have
him kind of facilitate the office. Same thing they've done
all year long, all career long for Shay, since he's
been there. And of course the Nuggets know that. So
what did they do in the fourth quarter? During all

(01:49:48):
twelve minutes that Russell was on the court, he was
one of the guys that would blitz him, one of
the guys that would get the ball out of his
hands or force them to force him to take a
shot he's not going to make, or at least a
much more difficult one, but more to the point, he
did try to force the ball into other guy's hands.
Even in the fourth quarter, Shay was still four for
seven thirteen points and when they were able to execute

(01:50:10):
their game playing perfectly make the rest of the thunder
beat us. They were four for sixteen in the fourth quarter,
and Russell was out there for all of it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:20):
You said, you have the audio call?

Speaker 12 (01:50:24):
Yeah you ready?

Speaker 3 (01:50:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:50:31):
Still ready? That is everybody every time, even coaches, when
someone takes it. No, no, no, yes, yeah, yeah. It's
all all he did was make the smart play.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
Yeah, but it's him, man, you can't. I get it.
I totally and I've done this with the Rockets.

Speaker 12 (01:51:00):
I get it.

Speaker 17 (01:51:01):
But also it's just like I have a soft spot
for us, so like I I watch, I don't have
a soft spot for us.

Speaker 6 (01:51:07):
It Russ stole a MVP from James Harden because he
averaged a triple double.

Speaker 7 (01:51:12):
See why do you blame him the team? Probably?

Speaker 15 (01:51:17):
So how.

Speaker 7 (01:51:19):
Is all he did was play basketball. He didn't say
a vote for me, He didn't say I deserve it.
He didn't say, James, let's let's give away.

Speaker 6 (01:51:29):
No, when he when the votes came in, don't even
get to the speech where he gives away the t
r say this is ridiculous. Say, uh, you know, I
know that James didn't get the award last year because
Steph had the better record. But now that he's the
three seed and I am on the sixth seed, and
we're gonna play each other and James's team is gonna win,

(01:51:52):
I definitely shouldn't accept that award now that the goalposts
have been moved.

Speaker 3 (01:51:55):
That's the go to.

Speaker 7 (01:51:56):
But he averaged a triple double, and people like narratives.
Just Ramona Shelburne, So at that time you had one
hundred and one voters. Lebron got a vote. Kawhi Leonard
got a vote and eight more he had nine. James
Harden had twenty two votes, Westbrook had sixty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:52:17):
Nice.

Speaker 7 (01:52:18):
It was heavily in his favor, but.

Speaker 6 (01:52:22):
It was driven by the same media that voted for
him starting in like February. Probably a lot of different
over those guys, averaging a lot of different numbers.

Speaker 7 (01:52:31):
To look at. One of the numbers I think people
ultimately settle in on is wind shares. James Harden had fifteen.
Nobody else had more than thirteen six and Russ wasn't
even that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:52:43):
It was an anomaly. It was a it was a
narrative thing, and that's he.

Speaker 7 (01:52:47):
Did outscore James that year though, like two and a
half points per game. Wow, thirty one point six to
twenty nine point one.

Speaker 6 (01:52:54):
I got him three lower seeds than James's team. Really
good stuff there, Russ and voters.

Speaker 5 (01:53:00):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (01:53:07):
So, say what gets us through the Russell Westbrook portion
of that game? There was some other stuff that we
can expand on and kind of move forward with with
what took place the last couple of days and mentioned
it either yesterday or now the other item today. NBA
Awards season continues. Yesterday, email Udoka was a finalist for

(01:53:29):
Head Coach of the Year in the NBA. Did not
expect him to win. He finished third, so one of
the three top vote getters behind former Rockets assistant coaches.

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):
JB.

Speaker 7 (01:53:39):
Bickerstaff of the Pistons finished second erroneously to the winner,
Kenny Atkinson of Cleveland. I don't think there's I think
Kenny Atkinson did an awesome, awesome job in the training
room this year with the Cavaliers. That would be my point.
Last year JB. Bickerstaff's calves were hurt. Each of their

(01:54:00):
top three players played less than sixty games. This year,
Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland played significantly
more games. And look what happened. They won a bunch
of more games. This is a regular season award. They
won sixty four games. They won the number one seed
because they were pretty much as good as last year.
Some improvements. Clearly, not to denigrate him completely, but you
had a healthy team, you went for it, You won

(01:54:21):
the East, you had the number one record. In the
case of the Pistons, he took an absolute piece of
and turned it into a legitimate threat to win their
opening series against the New York Knicks. Soon now you
have a one game to lead, one game to non
lead over the Celtics. That award should have been bicker
Staffs for the team he took again. He got there
last year too, because he just got fired by the Pistons.

(01:54:42):
This his first year, are fired by the Cavs. This
is his first year there with Detroit and they were
going nowhere. Helped to facilitate the needed improvement from Cad Cunningham,
helped to realize who which lineups they should have been
playing all along. And they did all this without hardly
anything from Jade and Ivy who had the catastrophe injury
during the season. Anyway, this was all to say. E

(01:55:03):
May finished third. Mark Daniel of the Oklahoma City Thunder
finished fourth. That's calvs Pistons, Rockets Thunder. The Executive of
the Year awards handed out today, voted on by executives
in the NBA wont a member for panel made up
of a member from each team. The same four teams
that had their head coach finished one, two, three or

(01:55:23):
four had their Executive of the Year finished one, two, three,
or four, with rafel Stone in that group. Sam Presty
finished first. Sam Presty won.

Speaker 3 (01:55:34):
The award your favorite GM.

Speaker 7 (01:55:36):
Well, I always think it gets misconstrued, so I brought
it up here to help explain it. But I'll let
Mark Daniels get things started. He obviously had a media
availability today. They just lost Game one last night of
their series, so he took the time brought Sam out
there with him when he met with the media to
congratulate him for the work that he's done. And this
end of his clip here on the congratulations after you
talked about how mister Bennett, their owner who stole the

(01:55:59):
team from Seattle, build this and Sam's been here a
long time. It's not a year annual award. This is
a year to year thing, and he's made some big
picture moves and he's thanking Sam for the work that
he's done, and also then getting to some recognition about
what happened last night in their Game one loss.

Speaker 5 (01:56:14):
Sam's been the.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
Architect of that. It's a pleasure to work with them.

Speaker 13 (01:56:18):
We on behalf of the team could be happier for
him face full deserved honor, So Dolla's tuck poge following.

Speaker 17 (01:56:26):
Up three.

Speaker 7 (01:56:29):
Full recognition that he screwed up. We talked about it
earlier in the show. He knows it now, I hope.
And I don't know what the line of questioning was
after that, but I think that sounds like an acknowledgment
of maybe we could have gone about that differently. I
didn't mention it. By the way, Rafelstone was fourth of
those finishers, fourth to Trajan Langdon third, kolbe Altman second,
and Presty the winner.

Speaker 6 (01:56:49):
I mean, can you really argue with it seeing as
how they had the best record for most of the
the season and it's all the team he put together.

Speaker 7 (01:57:00):
It's you know, what Danielle said is kind of why
this award is a tough one, right, He didn't build
this the team. He just won the award for us
for the twenty four to twenty five thunder. He didn't
build him this offseason. He put a lot of work
into getting them to this point. So it's just a
weird award and that it's it's an annual award that's
handed out, but it's not work that you only did
this season quite the same thing. There's no real there's

(01:57:22):
no argument here. This is this is the best team
in the NBA. You put it together win the award.

Speaker 6 (01:57:27):
Now this is where your head explodes because this you
once asked me, who are these people?

Speaker 7 (01:57:35):
I did actually bring up this whole segment to eventually
answer your question that never made it into say what
at the end of the four to fifteen segment when
you said, e May is running this team, but I'm
happy to go this route. We can definitely do this
at football at five.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
Yeah, we will.

Speaker 6 (01:57:53):
We were talking about Jalen Green and how some people
and you always ask who they are. Well, in this
case it's Lou Williams would compare him to a certain guy.
Here you go, there's really no setup. Just listen to
Lou Williams say, hey, Rockets, don't trade Jalen Green.

Speaker 8 (01:58:12):
The only way you consider moving a guy like Jalen
Green is if you have a real chance of going
to get a John Morant or Kevin Durant or one
of these guys that are obvious franchise changers.

Speaker 7 (01:58:23):
Other than that, you stay put.

Speaker 3 (01:58:25):
Brandon.

Speaker 8 (01:58:25):
He did struggle in these playoffs, but it was his
first introduction. You know, imagine if the Lakers turned their
backs on Kobe when he played, how he played against
the Utah Jazz when he was such a young player.
It was not a lot of Jalen Green's just laying
around any ways that you could just up and up
and move these guys, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:58:42):
And so I think that's the part.

Speaker 3 (01:58:43):
Of our league that we got to get better at.

Speaker 8 (01:58:45):
We're so impatient when we see these guys have struggles
that were just born.

Speaker 3 (01:58:49):
We're ready to move on from.

Speaker 8 (01:58:50):
He'll be a better player next year, him Sengoon Aman Thompson,
Like we just mentioned Eason Jabari Smith.

Speaker 7 (01:58:58):
That is a nice nuclear. It's a young talent that
you can build around.

Speaker 8 (01:59:02):
You don't bust that up because a guy struggled in
the playoffs so early in his career.

Speaker 6 (01:59:06):
Now, before you react everything outside of the Kobe comparison,
he's actually spot on about I think.

Speaker 7 (01:59:14):
I mean, do you think there aren't Jalen Green's just
laying around out there? That's one of his comments.

Speaker 3 (01:59:22):
But to answer that, you have to see what the
rest of his career is going to be.

Speaker 7 (01:59:26):
Kind of But well, let's then let's focus on what
we can get at the Kobe. Can we get can
we do the Kobe?

Speaker 17 (01:59:32):
Kelly?

Speaker 7 (01:59:32):
Can we do that?

Speaker 3 (01:59:33):
Please?

Speaker 7 (01:59:36):
It's why I brought it up earlier about James Harden.
These comparisons are stupid. It doesn't have anything to do
with what Kobe did as a young player in the
playoffs or any other time. I know Jalen Green, He'll never, will,
never get away from this. He was the second overall
pick in a draft. He absolutely was. I was there
when it happened. I know it's true. I know that

(01:59:57):
that will carry something with him forever. I can't sit
here and believe anybody, and maybe I'm wrong. Does anybody
think he was a better pro prospect at that time
than Kobe Bryant when he came out of high school
and was drafted outside the top ten? I think because
I think the answer is no, and a resounding note.
Kobe Bryant as a Laker and acquired to be a

(02:00:21):
Laker because there was pretty much zero doubt he would
have to prove them wrong that he can't be the
next great Laker. Everybody knew this was coming. That's not Jalen.

Speaker 3 (02:00:35):
It never was.

Speaker 8 (02:00:36):
No.

Speaker 3 (02:00:36):
That's so that part is absolutely one hundred percent I
agree with.

Speaker 6 (02:00:39):
But I would ask you this, and you're gonna have
to go back in the the cobwebs, so to speak,
because we all remember this.

Speaker 9 (02:00:47):
I was.

Speaker 6 (02:00:49):
A freshman in high school when Kobe was traded from
the Hornets on Draft night to the Lakers. Jerry West
with his master stroke, his latest master stroke. He isn't
getting here enough credit as a GM and he got
a ton, Yeah, he got a ton. But like those
first few years, several of them, Like we're talking ninety
six through ninety nine before Phil got there, and he's

(02:01:12):
being coached by Phil Donahue. I'm sorry, Del Harris, he was.
There were people like talking about him the way they're
talking about Jalen Green right now, Like get rid of
this guy. He's airballing threes against the Jazz and the playoffs.
This guy sucks against the Warriors in Game seven. Similar.
But I don't see the comparison. As far as the potential.
There's potential with Jalen, I just don't see Kobe potential.

Speaker 7 (02:01:35):
A Jalen started each of the seven playoff games this year,
right mm hmm. Kobe started his first playoff game in
year three, after coming off the bench in his first
playoff year, coming off the bench in his second playoff year.
And I don't even know why I'm continuing. Stop. There
should be no comparison to a Jalen Green and a
Kobe Bryant. It is dumb with a B.

Speaker 6 (02:01:56):
All right, we fight over the GM and the coach
and who has more clout and the Rockets oranization for
football at five next.

Speaker 4 (02:02:03):
The Aeed on Sports Talk seven ninety, Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 7 (02:02:14):
All right, It is basketball at five here on Sports
Talk seven ninety. Apologies to the Texans and the other
thirty one NFL teams, even the ones that have given
Shudeur Sanders number twelve. That's Cleveland. The Texans will be

(02:02:35):
back on the field this weekend. I'll be happy to
get them all the time they need.

Speaker 3 (02:02:39):
Rookie Minicamp.

Speaker 7 (02:02:40):
Rookie Minicamp didn't even share all the fun stuff from
yesterday's golf event, but there were some fun stuff out there.
I just joking with somebody about who will be throwing
the ball to. Who probably be about twenty five to
thirty five players out there for Rookie Minicamp their draft picks.
They're undrafted free agents, which is small class, and some

(02:03:01):
of the younger players that are on the roster that
probably were not contributors a year ago well, great, might.

Speaker 12 (02:03:08):
Just get me throwing that football just from a wheelchair.

Speaker 7 (02:03:11):
That was the joke I was making with somebody out there,
even if he would be attending, because not really healthy
enough to probably be out on the field and throw
after his ACL injury last year. And this is not uncommon.
I mean, teams don't always draft quarterbacks, team don't always
sign undrafted free agents. So often this rookie mini camp
is also for tryouts, and they if they're gonna do

(02:03:32):
anything out there, well they can't have Nick Cassario and
the other assorted members of the coaching staff who once
played quarterback be the only quarterbacks out there. So they
have usually tryouts and they will have some other quarterback.
Last year they had a D three quarterback out there.
It was kind of fun watching him work. I think
they're going to have to do the same thing. Somebody
that has no chance to make the roster probably doesn't
even get an invite to this camp or maybe any others.

(02:03:55):
Donovan Smith, you have, h quarterback last year, is getting
a couple of tryout opportunities. Not here Houston, but that's
kind of how it goes. So I'm interested to see
who Jalen Knowle and Jaden Higgins will in the off
season catch their first pass from in front of the
media's eyes, because I don't know who it's gonna because
it will not be likely. The pick they wasted on
Graham Mertz is no offense to him personally, But that's

(02:04:18):
a pick thrown in the toilet, and I don't understand
why teams do that at any point.

Speaker 3 (02:04:22):
In the draft.

Speaker 7 (02:04:22):
But nonetheless, we'll get back to basketball here in football
at five?

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
Who is the quarterback that.

Speaker 7 (02:04:28):
Oh my gosh, who's Dave Ragon? Yes, that's see. You
knew exactly where I was going. Is the quarterback that
makes your skin crawl? Not him personally? Just like you
blaming Russ for James's MVP, I don't blame fault. It's
not his fault. That Charlie Castle. He said, hmm, we
just spent the number one overall pick on haircut car

(02:04:49):
and this is year two of our expansion franchise. What
should we do with this early round draft pick? Should
we get a player who could help the team, might
be a future a Hall of Famer even maybe because
you can find them in different portions of the draft.

Speaker 3 (02:05:05):
Or should we.

Speaker 6 (02:05:06):
Draft a player that if all works out well for
the picks that I've made.

Speaker 7 (02:05:11):
Here is GM of this franchise. If I do my
job well, should I draft a player who best case
scenario for me doing my job well is he will
never ever ever play because he plays quarterback. In the
two thousand and three draft with a third round pick,

(02:05:32):
not only did he draft a quarterback, Dave Ragon, he
drafted a quarterback who couldn't play. He wasn't even good
in college. He was a bad quarterback at Louisville, and
then he played twice in the NFL here in Houston,
losing both games dramatically, one of them a shutout. Now,
congrats to Dave to carving out an NFL career as

(02:05:55):
a coach. But this was undoubtedly to me the dumbest
use of a draft ever.

Speaker 17 (02:06:01):
So basically it's going to be the trajectory of what
we see moving forward with Grant Mertz.

Speaker 7 (02:06:07):
Not a third round pick, but it's not taking a
year after you drafted c. J. Stroud. Just stupid too.
Your sixth round pick is very different than the eighty
eight pick on the draft, torn A Quinn. You were
sall on the board.

Speaker 3 (02:06:18):
All right, Enough of this talk about Dave Vergan, I'm
tired of it.

Speaker 9 (02:06:20):
Here we go.

Speaker 6 (02:06:22):
You got emay Udoka and you've got rafel Stone. And
I wouldn't say you bristled at it, but apparently it
got your attention when I said.

Speaker 7 (02:06:33):
Because you basically said the jam has to ask the
head coach if this deal is okay.

Speaker 3 (02:06:37):
Well, let me ask you this.

Speaker 6 (02:06:39):
James Harden came to town last summer and he sat
down with emay Udoka and emay Udoka and I'm paraphrasing,
and this is the cliff notes, but we all know
the story.

Speaker 3 (02:06:50):
At least you know where I'm going with this.

Speaker 6 (02:06:52):
Emy Udoka said, what's your idea of the offense and
James Harden said something to the effect of I am
the offense and e May said beat it, go play
for the Clippers, something to that effect. I'm very much
close notes. You know I'm sensationalizing this, but my point being,
if Emay doesn't want a guy on the team, I
don't know he gets on the team.

Speaker 3 (02:07:13):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 7 (02:07:14):
That's fair, and that's why it's kind of a difficult
question to answer because I would say, no, he's not
the final decision maker. But I would also say, the
amount of influence he has on the roster and the
decisions that this team makes in conjunction with their general
manager and Patrick. It's a massive e May's influence on
this roster from the moment they chose him to be

(02:07:36):
the head coach and he chose them to be the
team that he would next be the head coach for.
It's enormous. It's as much as I think any coach
in the league has where he doesn't also have the
general manager title with him, And we've had NBA coaches
that essentially either were entitle that or they have run
the team from the bench. I do think what you're
saying is probably kind of true. But I would wonder

(02:08:00):
if you know, Raffel worked on something with e May
involved and got to the point where Rafel just said, look,
I know where you stand, and we've talked it out,
and I feel like this is if I give this
team to you, if I make this deal which shuffles
our roster in this specific way, that you have a
you have a better chance to win with the players

(02:08:22):
or players that I want to give you in this
particular deal. Doing whatever we're doing this entire offseason. I
mean what does he may say to that, because I
don't think he can say, well, I'm leaving, or he
can say I disagree, he can say I don't agree with.
I don't think they actually operate like this because I
think Rafell would not get to that point. I think
their working relationship is one that they're gonna end up

(02:08:45):
seeing eye to eye before any deal gets well, I'm
winning this argument.

Speaker 6 (02:08:52):
Yeah, but like, and this is different for every team
in every sport, right, there's always a head coach, there's
always a some guys are the same. I mean, famously,
he went really bad here in Houston when a guy
tried to do that. But we won't talk about the stupid,
the stupid DeAndre Hopkins trade. I just I think at
this point he's got the most clout in the organization,

(02:09:15):
even if it's not final.

Speaker 3 (02:09:16):
Say, if you want to call.

Speaker 7 (02:09:17):
It that, Yeah, this is this hardened deal. Let's make
it specific to the discussion. James Harden was going to
make a big difference on this franchise. If James Harden
is brought here, if the general manager thinks it makes
sense he comes here, it shapes everything they would have done.
Do they win Game seven, well, what kind of team
would they be? And that's why you're seeing a bristle
from e May. James Harden's clearly still very very good.

(02:09:40):
He was on a fifty win team. He was the
architect of the point guard, the quarterback of that fifty
win team while playing a secondary role once Kawhi Leonard got.

Speaker 6 (02:09:50):
Healthy, but he wasn't going to start playing defense. Now,
he wasn't going to start and he Jalen does. He
was on an awesome defensive team. This is a top
five defensive team that James played on this year. Then
they got Kawhi and finally, yeah, he helped, but they
were already a great defensive team without him. They played defense.

Speaker 7 (02:10:08):
Now, I'm not sure what kind of defense this team
would have played with James Harden at point. I watched
them play offense without James Harden in this series, and
I definitely think it would have made an enormous positive difference.
But I think the negative to the culture is bigger
than everything we just mentioned. We talk about culture on
the NFL side like we're gonna go blowing the face.

(02:10:29):
It's everything. Oh the ya, this is toxic and that
what a culture that you know, Demiko Ryans is great. Well,
the players are very good, and your culture's gonna go
alongside that. And when you have bumps in the road,
if your culture's not great, then you are going to
struggle to push through that. Can you imagine the culture
of the Rockets franchise led by Ema Udoka if in
his second season his basketball product was led by James Harden.

Speaker 6 (02:10:52):
I mean, I'd like to think, well, if they had
a guy like James Harden, they win that series. But
do they even get to that seat? Are they the
number two seat? I'm probably because the regular season offense
would have been spectacular, but would the defense have been there?

Speaker 7 (02:11:04):
How about you're following the lead. You're following the lead
of your players. You're following EM's lead, which in turn,
you're following the lead of your players. Why is Jalalen
playing as hard as he is in his fourth season?
Why is a man playing as hardy is? And I
don't want to take anything away from the individuals, but come, well,
along this ride with me. Why is Jabari wise all
these players who probably would be playing like this anywhere
apurn I get that, But you're following the lead of

(02:11:27):
your on court leader. You're following Fred's lead, You're following
Dylan's lead, You're following your veterans lead. What are you
doing if James is that person? Are you following his lead?

Speaker 6 (02:11:37):
Because you're gonna play a totally different brand of basketball
if you do.

Speaker 3 (02:11:41):
And then you're gonna follow his lead to the Strip
club after the game. It's just the facts.

Speaker 7 (02:11:46):
The culture that e MA wants the hard nosed, grind
out victories. Play harder than the other team, get the
fifty to fifty balls, lock down on defense, and we'll
figure it out on offense. You just can't play that way.
If James Harden is on this team.

Speaker 3 (02:12:02):
I just can't.

Speaker 6 (02:12:03):
I mean, I know he would have played his usual
post defense because he's good at that, still, he wouldn't
have needed it in this series.

Speaker 3 (02:12:10):
Yeah, yeah, I just.

Speaker 7 (02:12:14):
Like he would have been wasting his time wandering around
the court, not really chasing Draymond Green around. You know
how Steve I talk about this, You know, Steven Adams
and Alprin Shangoon and Dylan and everybody, they were switching everything,
literally everything. They were playing zone and we're leaving guys
unintentionally open, and so oh, this guy's I got to
run over there and challenge running guys off the three
point line, doing everything they could to stop one guy

(02:12:36):
cannot be done. If James is on that team, He's true,
It's true, and actually leaves worse than Alprin, Schongoon and
just Steven Adams defensively, much worse.

Speaker 3 (02:12:45):
And they're not even prima defenders.

Speaker 7 (02:12:46):
He's just a he's a foot speed, is awful on
defense where he doesn't care. That's like now, he was
on a good team. He's on a good defense, So
I'm not trying to crush the guy. When he did
have a good season, he had an awesome Game six,
and he had a typical Game seven, and still I've
heard the comparison. Well, look at James Harden's playoff issues
late and see why are you comparing that to Jalen.

Speaker 3 (02:13:08):
Well, that's why I brought that. Yesterday.

Speaker 6 (02:13:09):
I had somebody message me and it's not it's not
I'm not attacking them personally, but it's just like, would
you trade Jalen to get James Harden on this team?
Why would I turn in one set of problems for
arguably a bigger set of others. Because even if he
scores thirty per game, he's back to twenty eighteen, which
he can't do. Then he's also not gonna play defense,

(02:13:31):
and I just don't think the Rockets were here because
of their defense.

Speaker 5 (02:13:38):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 7 (02:13:40):
Ninety eight team here gonna get you into Astros on
Deck shortly about fifteen minutes out from prep on Brewers Astros,
Hayden Wiznski's return to the mound of a question for
you guys with an opportunity to win tickets to go
see Nellie Ja Rule and Eve. That's the way of

(02:14:02):
the party at tour coming up in September, so keep listening.
But before we get into the other topics, wanted to
thank some people here, the awesome people over at Big
City Wings, Sam the owner specifically, and everybody else for
being a huge partner here on the A team. Love Sam,
love hanging out with our listeners at any of the
Big City Wings locations. Love telling everybody about their locations

(02:14:23):
and their partnership is important to us, just like yours
could be. If you want us to speak for your business,
great as it is, we'd love to help you with that.
We'd love to have you as a partner here on
the A team. It's very simple. Just email me Adam
Wexler at iHeartMedia dot com. We can make that happen
for you and partner up here with the A Team.

Speaker 6 (02:14:42):
Absolutely, and it goes without saying that we love all
of our clients here on the program and continue to
want to have more of you come into the fold
so we can put your message out there. So absolutely,
email either one of us at Adam or Adam Wexler
at iHeartMedia or Adam Clanton at iHeartMedia dot com and

(02:15:03):
we'll get you.

Speaker 3 (02:15:03):
We'll get your message out there. We'll do it the
right way.

Speaker 7 (02:15:05):
Love to do it for you. We'd love to send
you out to the Woodlands Pavilion and we can do that.
If you were listening to the show earlier, you will
know the answer to this question. So we can get
you a pair of tickets. Got a couple pairs to
give away here today, Nellie Ja Rule Eve. Where the
party at tour September fourth, Woodlands Pavilion. If you don't
win him here, you can't get tickets at ticketmaster dot com.
Tickets are on sale now, but we have some to

(02:15:26):
hook you up with the pair of tickets. If you
know the answer to this question is seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety Earlier on the program today,
we were unhappy with a comparison made between Jalen Green's
loan postseason series and the early postseason struggles of a

(02:15:46):
certain elite member of the NBA fraternity, Kobe Bean Bryant
his early postseason career with the Lakers, coming off of
the bench for the first twenty of those postseason games.
The comparison was made on a podcast that this player
I'm asking you about? Who is this former player? Co

(02:16:07):
hosts with former Rocket Chandler Parsons and former Louder NBA
voice Michelle Beadle. Who's the other host that made this
very specific comparison, also a former Rocket Hint Hint. Earlier
today we played the audio from him comparing Jalen Green
to Kobe Bryant and why which you get rid of
Jalen Green? Can you imagine if the Lakers who got

(02:16:29):
rid of Kobe Bryant after his early postseason struggles? Crazy
to even think it? Yes, also crazy to say it.
Who was that former NBA player that said that? You
heard it here? Earlier on the A team and probably
out on your social media channels as well. Seven one three,
two one two five seven ninety. He is not the
former rocket I just mentioned that was looking at me

(02:16:51):
as I walked into the arena for Game seven. Was
outside briefly during the five o'clock hour round five twenty
on KPRC Channel two, and look right outside media will
call and the administrative entrance. The unfamiliar Rockets offices are
right above that on the second floor and right above

(02:17:11):
the practice facility. The windows facing that entrance second floor.
If you look up into that office, Chandler Parsons cardboard
cutout Chandler Parsons looking down on you.

Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
Although isn't he on that same Uh with Michelle Beadle.

Speaker 7 (02:17:27):
That's what I was just saying. That's part of that show.
So not Chandler, who's not a Beadle.

Speaker 9 (02:17:33):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (02:17:33):
They've had not as permanent a fourth every day, but
there have been a couple of people. These are usually
the voices you hear from the most. Yeah, Michelle, give
me the other player that's.

Speaker 3 (02:17:44):
A co host.

Speaker 6 (02:17:45):
Michelle Beadle has fallen a bit. I mean, if you
think about she was thinking the NBA Finals.

Speaker 7 (02:17:50):
She i think was very strong, willed with her opinions,
and once she gave them, was willing to stand behind them.

Speaker 3 (02:17:59):
M hmm.

Speaker 7 (02:17:59):
And it's didn't always mess with the people that.

Speaker 6 (02:18:01):
Hired her, and when they were spurs opinions, they didn't
mess with me. I think she was also. It happened
with NBC quite a bit.

Speaker 7 (02:18:09):
I think similarly with UH and maybe it wasn't Megan's fault,
but Megan Kelly when they hired her, I forgot she
was there. How could you remember?

Speaker 3 (02:18:17):
It was two seconds.

Speaker 7 (02:18:18):
It was just it was a first of all, for
a ridiculous amount of money, and then say well, here's
what you've been doing so well, and this is why
we want you here. But let's not have you do
any of that. Let's put you in this talk show role.
And why well, and you're also talking about she say
no like I say this about players and sports. Why
would you ever say no to this money?

Speaker 14 (02:18:39):
Right?

Speaker 9 (02:18:39):
You?

Speaker 7 (02:18:40):
Probably no? Deep down? I don't really want to do
this or this isn't going to work. But how can
I say no to this? I'll find something later.

Speaker 6 (02:18:45):
You're talking about her going from one side of the pendulum,
from the network she was working for to the very
other I brought it up.

Speaker 3 (02:18:53):
It's always about the money.

Speaker 7 (02:18:54):
Yeah, Michelle was hired to do certain things that really
never came to pass. And she's like, why am I here?

Speaker 3 (02:19:02):
There's one of the member of the idiots known as
the View who did the same thing like she was.

Speaker 7 (02:19:08):
Was she at the met Gala?

Speaker 6 (02:19:09):
I don't know, No, not that one. She's a lunatic.
Actually lunatic's being nice.

Speaker 3 (02:19:16):
I mean, just wow. No, she's the token.

Speaker 7 (02:19:21):
She's the token other view on the View, if you
know what I mean. But she totally sold out for
the views, aren't there.

Speaker 6 (02:19:28):
There's four views that go one way and she's the
supposed other voice. But she doesn't dissent. She just sits
there and catch cashes her checks because she's scared of
the one you mentioned that goes to the met gala.

Speaker 7 (02:19:39):
And well, there could have been I only saw pictures
of this one at them. There could have been others
that attended. That was the other thing about dinner last night.
I didn't mention that I wasn't as happy about why. Well,
when I got home, that was the Red Carpet Show
was on. I'm like, what are you guys doing?

Speaker 3 (02:19:53):
That is the question. You should have asked.

Speaker 6 (02:19:55):
But if I had been there with you, I wouldn't
have probably asked it as politely. Who turned in this
bleep on? Is what I would have said. It's usually
a simple solution. Where's the remote?

Speaker 3 (02:20:06):
They're but they're not like me. They're nice people, your family.

Speaker 9 (02:20:09):
I let it.

Speaker 7 (02:20:09):
I let it stand for a little while while I
finished off the wash.

Speaker 6 (02:20:13):
Yeah, they do all the red carpet shows. Uh, speaking
of sports. If I'm not mistaken, Maria Taylor was one
of the hosts on the on this particular E show
of the game. Yeah, carpet's done a little bit.

Speaker 7 (02:20:29):
She barely. I don't even know how much she was
even able to say because the other very fat. No,
she was just in the in the studio.

Speaker 3 (02:20:38):
I got you. So who is doing the interviews? Anybody?

Speaker 7 (02:20:41):
These are all people I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:20:42):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (02:20:42):
I mentioned her because she was the only one I
didn't know. Okay, if I'm even accurate, So she's now No,
it's just one of the family of networks that I think.

Speaker 3 (02:20:51):
She She's still at NBC, right, Okay, I'm excited about NBC.

Speaker 9 (02:20:55):
Like with her.

Speaker 7 (02:20:56):
She signed with NBC out of ESPN to do way
less work for way more money. There's no work to
do sometimes, especially when Mike Tarico when he's not sick,
thankfully you'll be better, isn't doing it. He's so good
they keep asking me to do everything.

Speaker 3 (02:21:10):
And Rachel Nichols was not a fan of that move.

Speaker 7 (02:21:12):
Well, I mean, Rachel Nichols hasn't really like she does
some podcast work, and she's the thing about on the
outside looking.

Speaker 6 (02:21:20):
In the thing about that though she was never good,
she just wasn't like Maria Taylor's good at what she
does when she's not, you know, when she's doing sports.

Speaker 9 (02:21:27):
I like her.

Speaker 3 (02:21:28):
I'll just leave it at that.

Speaker 6 (02:21:29):
But like Rachel Nichols doing sports made me want to
just absolutely light myself on fire every single time it
was her delivery.

Speaker 7 (02:21:36):
It wasn't that disdain, it was bad. Well, she was
one of many people in that era which I think
we've moved away from a little bit. She was a reporter,
she was a beat reporter. She covered the league that
though they turned her into a television personnel I actually did.
I think she's obviously adapted to quite well.

Speaker 6 (02:21:52):
The hosting wasn't as bad. It was the reporting I
didn't like. And here's why I don't like to watch
any kind of report. Like, there's people that do these
reports and they're really good at it. Then there's people
like her who you feel like you're being read a
book two in kindergarten class.

Speaker 7 (02:22:07):
I didn't know the feelings were that deep.

Speaker 6 (02:22:09):
I talked to im Adoka and he said, we're gonna
need more from Jalen Green next year.

Speaker 7 (02:22:14):
Now, I don't know if you mean that as a
typical national network trick, but I'm not a fan of
that trick, even though it's a word hard play. I
talked to Ema Udoka, Huh, I know you did. The
other fifteen of us did two. Or it could have
been a personal conversation off to the side, but usually
it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
It doesn't matter to me.

Speaker 7 (02:22:34):
You did talk to them when they met with the
media and answered questions from fourteen other people, and you
happen to hear it all.

Speaker 6 (02:22:40):
Let's just take Tim McMahon for example, because he's like,
he said the same thing author, Tim McMahon, Yes, that
guy Luca book author. Well, you don't know off the
top of your head, you can't remember what it's called,
right something? Boy, wonder I guess you can remember what
it's better than small wonder I was I was going
to ask you what you would title it. Well, I
would have named it drunk fat guy is out of town.

(02:23:02):
Now that's their words, not mine. I mean, I'm paraphrasing,
but that's that's basically what Nico Harrison said. Hey, he
drinks too much, called the wonder boy. That's so you
want to go for the cut line? Yes, Luka doncic
and this sounds like a Harry Potter movie. Luka doncic
and the Curse of Greatness. You know, when you say

(02:23:23):
it like that, I think I wish Bill Waltim were
alive to commentate on that whole situation. Look at this guy,
so he drinks a little bit too much. He's unbelievable.
You'll never win the ultimate Prize in NBA title without him.
And now look at him doubling and tripling down on this.
You didn't know that Dallas fans were big fans of Luca?

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
How could you not? Do you have a polls?

Speaker 5 (02:23:48):
Are you alive?

Speaker 3 (02:23:48):
Are you even breathing? Nico Harrison, get out of town.

Speaker 7 (02:23:52):
The good news is the e book now features a
brand new chapter detailing Luca's shocking trade to the Lakers.

Speaker 3 (02:23:59):
How dark is that?

Speaker 6 (02:24:00):
I want to get the audio book of Matthew Perry's
book so I can hear him talk.

Speaker 7 (02:24:04):
Pretty dark.

Speaker 6 (02:24:05):
I mean I had the book before he died, and
then when he died, I wanted to hear him say it.

Speaker 3 (02:24:11):
Have you read it?

Speaker 9 (02:24:12):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:24:13):
Okay, it's underneath. What would Sippowitz do?

Speaker 7 (02:24:15):
Well. I don't want to suggest having an AI Perry
read it for you, but I'm sure that possibility exists
with some of the AI videos I have not forwarded
to you of people saying things recently. No doubt, we
got astros on deck coming your way next with the
A Team, and we'll be back with the remainder of
that thirty minutes next

Speaker 5 (02:24:34):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety