Arnie Spanier and Aaron Torres talk Lakers and Aaron Rodgers!

Arnie Spanier and Aaron Torres talk about the Lakers & their divorce from Russell Westbrook, the dire ratings struggle of the NBA amidst load management, possible NFL QB movement and the future of Aaron Rodgers, and a whole lot more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh, good evening, everybody is. We're broadcasting live from the
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dot com. The way tire buying should be plank with

(00:26):
the night off. Lookkuzier, it's Aaron Torres. How you doing tonight? Torres?
Really good? It's you know, it's interesting that that uh
you know you read that tire rack read perfect? Are
you perfect? Are you allowed at your age to still drive?
Or by laws that? Like? Because I don't know, you know,
I mean there's been a lot of advancements, you know,
in driving and technology. So I'm already driving this show

(00:50):
better than you could drive this show. There's norking jerking
that wheel left, jerky at right because we say psych break,
gas break, gas break. I'm I'm I'm perfect driver. I'm
perfect all over the place, like one of your shows. Yeah, typically,
what's going on? Man? How are you? How's life? You
got your wife out shoveling right now? Or what she
I brought her for her new birthday? For her birthday?

(01:12):
The Deluxe shovel that has bent a little bit with
the foam hand. Monograham with her initially, Oh my goodness,
you know, only the best for my wife. And yes
she was. She was out shoveling earlier today as a
matter of fact, because we we did have over foot
of snow. So I said, hey, the driveway is not
going to clear it jove, so yo, let's get out there.

(01:32):
Let's go ahead and do that thing. So I gonna
take take your birthday president, go ahead and use it
for good right now. So there you go. All right, well,
very good, Well, it's great to be here. Play. People
think I'm kidding too, right, They think, oh, I mean
I've been working with you forever. I know that you
forced your wife to shovel. You claim that she loves it.
She says, she loves I don't want to take that
away from her. Are you guys, I know, we gotta
get to real sports stuff. Are you guys in a

(01:54):
little of like a crazy weather pattern, because because like
I heard, like Washington, DC was like eighty five degrees
on like Thursday, and then it was down to like
twenty five on like Saturday. So are you in the
middle of one of those or are you just always
basically no, no, no, no no. We actually a matter of fact,
this has been a real mild winner out here. I mean,

(02:15):
we did have some snow and then it eased up
on that and we got a few flurries, but overall,
temperature wise, we've we've been okay. So it's been good
out here in the in the Northeast. We haven't had
as much snow and bad weather and rain as you
guys have had in California, that's for sure, you know. Yeah,
it's well, it's funny because I didn't mention that the
other day was I was driving into the studio. The

(02:36):
roads are really bad. I know that I need some
new tires for the car, and I was like, well,
i'll just call tirect dot com tire buying should be yeah.
Oh absolutely, man, I've been on that website a million
and a half times on it when I was buying
all my tires. All right, we got a lot to
get to. It is a busy show, Todd Furban. We'll
join the sticks, Howard di Seger will join the Sticks hour.
Of course we'll have all the updates, and of course

(02:56):
Plank with the night off. He was making his way
back from California with Oklahoma softball, so we gave him
the night off. I didn't want to, but what the hell,
I'm such a nice guy out there. Lakers win. How
about that by Lakers down by twenty seven? What did
you think about that? Towards did you see that record
teams like Owen one thirty eight or something like that.
When they're down by twenty seven points in the game,

(03:19):
they came back. They what a great win, a big
win against Dallas. I was a little nervous about Lebron
because he said he thought he heard something pop. I
thought he was talking about his knee. He heard his ankle.
That would have just destroyed the whole season. Who knows
what that would have done to his career. But he's okay.
Lakers get a big victory there, my friend, so really quick.
They've won four or five since the trade deadline. Are

(03:39):
you a believer that the pieces are now there for
them to make a real run. I think it was
better obviously than it was when Russell was there. There's
no doubt about that. Not that Russell's not gonna help
the Clippers, and I'm sure we'll get into that later on,
but it seems like they're more coherent, or they're more
in tune with each other, and I'm playing a little
bit better basketball. Am I wrong on that or what
you're not? I am curious though, because for the last

(04:02):
three years, all I've heard is it's Russ's fault. It's
Russ's fault, It's Russ's fault. And I've heard some blame
on ad he can't stay healthy. Last year it was
Frank Vogel. By the way, in the lead up to
the trade deadline, it was all Rob Polinka's fault. He
can't put together a Rosstreet doesn't know what they're doing. Well,
now it seems like they got some pretty nice pieces
that actually compliment each other. Obviously, DeAngelo Russell, Ruy Hachimura,

(04:25):
Jared Vanderbilt's a nice piece that kind of, you know,
a defensive stop really sealed the victory. Today, I'm telling
you is maybe they dug a hole too big, and
maybe Lebron won't take any heat at all if they
don't have success in the postseason. But for the last
three or four years, since that Bubble championship, all I've
heard is it's everybody else's fault. Well, you got the coach.

(04:45):
You wanted the GM did his job at the trade deadline,
you got rid of the guy that everybody was blaming.
I'll be curious to see how it all plays out
for the Lakers and Lebron over these next couple of months.
I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, Anthony Davis
has played what thirty six games or something like that.
That's where it starts. When you throwing load management and
you still only play thirty six games and you go

(05:06):
ahead and get hurt a lot. Um. I don't know
what that says about John. I don't know what you know,
what if it's just unlucky physical conditioning or what it is.
But that's the biggest problem that him and Lebron have
have not been on the court too many times. Other
that they have the best record where they are, but
obviously they're a much better team. They've got to stay healthy,
they've got to play a little bit more. What would
this team be if they didn't have to do load management?

(05:29):
How many more wins would they have? So? Um, well,
that's where it starts with Anthony Davis. Well, you can't
have that conversation without saying, what if nobody had load management.
Where would the Clippers be, where would the Pelicans be? Like,
you know, you got in the Pelicans are a bad example,
but you go on and on down the list. Listen,
I'll say this man, you know, the West really is
wide open. I think that's one of the reasons. Not

(05:50):
only is it the obvious reason why the Sun's made
the trade for KD, but I think it's why it's
so interesting because you can even add a piece as
good as Katie, and there might be other roadblocks in
the way, but I think that with Katie with the Suns,
it makes them, in my opinion, probably the favorites. And
it was funny right before the SHAW, I was asking
producer bo As we have a Clippers Nuggets game on

(06:13):
on the TV. I said, I understand the Nuggets are
in first place, and there's a lot of people that
follow the NBA more closely than I do. And I
said to him, I said, does anyone actually believe the
Nuggets are really gonna make a run? Like I don't
care if they're the number one seed, they have this
many regular season wins, home fill advantage, blah blah blah.
Does anyone actually believe that they're gonna make a run
I would think of take. I would take about three
other teams to come out of the West. Well, I

(06:33):
would say probably Phoenix because of the moves they made, Um,
Dallas because of the moves they made, Maybe the Clippers
because you know when playoff time comes around they're turning
it up, and maybe even more Sacramento. I'd probably take
those four teams before I would take Denver. That's being
disrespectful to Denver, though. So you just said that the
that Russ is going to have no impact on the
Clippers at all, and you believe I would take the Clippers.

(06:54):
I know that's what I'm saying. A minute ago though,
you said Russ is gonna have no impact on the Clippers. Um,
but you leave in in the Kyrie Luca dream team
over there with one basketball and all that more than
you do, more than you do the this team are here.
I don't know so much after today's game, to be
honest with And by the way, if I said Russ
isn't going to be a difference baker for the Clippers,

(07:16):
that I that I misspoke on that, because I think
the opposite. I think he is going to be a
difference baker for the Clippers. It just didn't work out
with the Lakers out there. I think I think he
got a bad rap. I hate to see all the
knocks he took For a guy that was a former MVP.
I still thought he had a lot left. And you
think we were just blaming him because they wanted somebody
to blame. You only have to look in the mirror

(07:37):
with the with Lebron and Anthony Davis and I remember
when we were doing our Saturday show. I remember arguing
with you about this because anyone that understands like the
fundamental elements of basketball understands that you know, Russ is
like Russ is a former MVP UM, but his game
was never gonna mesh with Lebron. And this was the
piece that Lebron won. And this is the frustrating part,

(08:00):
And I think this is why so many of us
get frustrated with Lebron, is that he's this incredible talent,
but he can never take response. Everything is always somebody
else's fault. It's like, this is the guy you went
to bad four, this is the guy that you had
a private conversation with Anthony Davis in Los Angeles a
few weeks before that trade went down. This was the
guy that you wanted, and the second that thing that

(08:20):
things go sideways, even though we all know that he
is a player that doesn't compliment your skill set, the
second that things go sideways, it's all his fault. And
it became all his fault for an eighteen month period
until he was ultimately traded a few weeks ago. So
he's not a perfect player. At this point, we know
what his faults are, he being Russell Westbrook. But this
was the guy that Lebron wanted. This was the guy

(08:40):
that we all said, I don't know how they're gonna
work together, and then the second it goes sideways, it's
all everybody else's faults. You know what's so crazy as too?
I mean, look at the difference between the Lakers and
even Portland. What Portland's at number twelve, and I think
there's a game and a half or two and a
half games that separate them from number six. I mean
there's like eight teams separated by a game a game

(09:02):
and a half. That's that's absolutely insane. There's gonna be
a lot of jockeying the last twenty one twenty two
games out there, but that's crazy about how they're all
punched up like that. There it is, and you know,
I think it again speaks to what we discussed a
minute ago, is that it just feels so wide open,
where you know, the difference between say third place and

(09:24):
you know, the Lakers in eleventh place is what six
and a half games, Whereas you look at at the
East and it's like, you know, there's a big gap
between those top two and everybody else, and so the
West is wide open. It'll be Actually, let me ask you, somebody,
I know you love the NBA, you have forever. Does
it feel like those top two in the East or

(09:45):
significantly better than everybody in the West, Like, do you
think if the Sun's figured it out with Katie? Like,
do you think there's a threat to win it all
in the West? Well or the West? You're talking about
the West to win it all? To win it all
to beat either Boston or Milwaukee. I assume that those
are the two that you think are the favorite tea Well,
I like I like Philadelphia too, but I think Boston
is certainly the team to beat the Milwaukee's right on

(10:07):
their heels. I think the Milwaukee um I would probably
take Philadelphia over Milwaukee. But I do think that Boston's
gonna come out there. They're just so deep. They and
with Tatum and Brown, they're just great one two punch
and a matter of fact, they're there's such a great
one too much that they're not even get enough credit
that they get right now, I mean blooming Stars, and
we don't even Tatum, look what he did in the
All Star Game, but we don't give enough credit. But

(10:29):
the only team that I see that could win it
out of the East is Boston. Otherwise I would take it.
Buy Milwaukee, Huh, I'm not buying. Yeah, I'm not buying.
Not so much about the half game back and I
know they won four in a row. I just don't
see them able to go up against some of the
teams in the West out there. I don't even see
them beating Boston in a seven game series either, And
I think they'd have a tough time with Philadelphia, who

(10:49):
they'd probably have to meet in the in the semi.
So that's a big break for Boston because they would
end up getting Cleveland. I think everything's winding up for
Boston coming out of the East really quick. Same with
the seventy sixers. We're actually before the show just talking
a little bit about them. You know, Harden's doing his
regular season thing where he's putting up really good stats,
and it's like we've seen him in the playoffs a
million Like, I'm just not a buy a believer in

(11:10):
Harden in the playoffs specifically, I don't care what you
do in January and February when the games get tight,
when teams have four or five six games to put
together game plans for you, I don't buy him in
the playoffs. Uh. You know, I actually thought last year
Tyrese Maxie was a better player for them than Harden was. Yeah,
are you not a buyer in Philly either? It's not

(11:31):
that I'm not a buyer, and I do like them
as I see a lot of their games out here too,
so I get to watch a lot of them. I
just think that Boston so much better. And what a
great did you see the shot? To you? What was
it was? On air? That was the thing that was incredible.
You know, Jason Martin pulled the Arnie Spanier. He's six
seconds ahead and yelling for Jason Tad. You know, I'm

(11:52):
you know, I'm kind of on air trying not to
do the play by play. Disagra was with us but
trying not to do the play by play off. It's
one oh seven one seven will keep you updated if
anything has happening. And then as soon as I say that,
Jason Martin screaming, and then I said, well, I guess something,
just how then they starts screaming again. So so yes,
I saw it all and was on air. Yes, you
are lucky that I wasn't on the air when Arizona

(12:14):
State beat Arizona we'd have to have like a two
day delay. I thought you were gonna call out. I
thought I was gonna have to do this show myself.
Plank's calling out, you're calling out. I believe if Plank
was working today, I would have called it in sick.
I'm I'm still distraught over that game that killed me.
You know that, don't show It means that now Arizona
State's probably gonna make the tournament. That's great. Don't you
have for that? I don't know. I don't root for

(12:36):
my rival. What's you do you for? Connecticut State? Come on? Now,
I love Central Connecticut. Who that was? Baby? Uh? Arizona State?
You need all the Pac twelve teams to get in.
You know, we'll talk about it later if the Pac
twelve is gonna be a thing in like a year
from now, so you got to celebrate while you can.
Man'na be Gamebridge launches from knocked down a three from

(13:02):
back court and the sun Devil halfe hath one to
watch in the game, and I'm saying to myself, are
you blanking kidding me? And I was praying, I go, please,
say the clock right out? I go, please, Hey, that's
the block ran out. I'm begging him to miss the shot,
miss the free throw um. Then that never happens. It
amazes me how many coaches get it wrong on when

(13:25):
the mike free throws, when the miss free thos um,
you don't put anybody in bounding the ball, you give
a guy a free shot. It just amazes me, Aaron,
It's crazy, you know, Yeah, it was. It was interesting.
My wife actually happened to walk in the room right
as that play happened, and she did the whole like, oh,
I guess it's college basketball season. And I'm like, oh,
we're a couple of days from March. So yesterday was crazy.

(13:45):
Today had some crazy results. I know, we'll talk about
that later, but it's getting to be that time. And yeah,
Arizona State the team of the weekend. How about then
sun Devils? Forks up? Baby? How about the sun Devil? No,
it's not how about them Sundown. By the way, this
segment brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes a
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(14:06):
combining your motorcycle, your RV, your boat, are your a, TV,
and more, all for your protection in one place. Buddalin
save it Progressive dot Com. He's Aaron Torres sitting in
for our buddy Chris Blank, Abartispanner. We'll come back. We'll
give you an update on Lillard. He just went off
for forty one in the first half. How many does
he have now that they're in the fourth quarter. We'll
get to that, and we'll talk a little bit about

(14:28):
the rules in Major League Baseball. This had to be
just going crazy for the last couple of days. So
we're gonna get to all that. That's coming up next
right here on Fox Sports A Radio. All right, good evening, everybody.
Aaron Torrez in for Chris Plank, Comarty Spaniard. We are
live from the tire rack dot Com Studios. We're, by
the way, Damian Lillard with sixty four right now. Torres unbelievable.

(14:52):
I mean, the guy is twelve of nineteen from three
point range, twenty of thirty two from the field sixty
four points trying to get into the seventy range. He
is on fired tonight. He has a career eye. So
did you see the story? First of all, he's an
incredible player. Did you see the story? He did an
interview I think it was with Evan Turner where he

(15:14):
said that he thought he was one of the most
disrespected players by the media and the NBA. No, I
did not say even when he says something controversial, we
didn't see it. So he is disrespective and go ahead, see,
I actually think it's the exact opposite. I actually no,
I we you know, Matzy brought this up. I was
filling in with Dan Bayer the other day. Real professional,
I might edit, No, that's my go to line, you're

(15:34):
a professional too. No, and Matzy kind of brought it
up in passing. And I only bring it up because
I actually think it's the exact opposite. I think he's
actually pretty much like the most respected player in the NBA,
And I actually think I don't want to say he
gets a pass, but like, isn't Damian Lillard the only
guy in the NBA that we kind of don't hold

(15:56):
the standard of, like you gotta win championships, right, like, uh,
be honest, you know, yokitch we criticize if he doesn't
because he plays for a bad team though, That's what
I mean though, But so so I think, you know,
I don't want to say he gets a pass because
I don't think he gets a pass, but I think
everyone respects his decision to want to stay in Portland

(16:16):
to try to build a winner there. As he puts
up another three, he missed that one though, sorry, I
can't do play by player. I don't want to gets
in trouble. I just think that if he was playing
with the Lakers and Lebron and on the way Russell no, no,
I'm just taking the way that Russell Westbrook did and
he didn't make the Lakers any better, he'd be catching
tons of heat. It's just that he's playing a market
that's a small time market. If he was like in
New York or LA, if he was part of that

(16:38):
Brooklyn team, right, now that's falling. He'd be catching tons
of heat about that, you know, But he wouldn't be
part of that team. Like that's the point though, Like, yeah,
I mean he would catch heat if he was whatever,
if he was Russell Wilson and demanded a trade or
demanded Pete Carrolly fired. No, no, Russell Wilson, Like, like,
you could throw in a million hypotheticals, but that's just
not who he is. This is market, though, Poland you're

(17:00):
you know, if he's in a bigger market where they
hold you accountable, maybe it's a full different stories. I
think they hold him accountable. I think it's that he's
sticking with an organization where he's trying to win, but
it's clearly not the best situation for him to win.
So I actually give him credit, I think. I think,
I think it's a pretty cool story. I like the

(17:20):
fact that he's loyal to Portland, that's where he wants
to be, and he's doing everything he can to bring
success to that organization. But to sit there and say like, oh,
you know, you know, I'm being disrespected, It's like I
don't think anybody disrespects you, man. I think everybody kind
of loves you to be perfectly honest. All right, Aaron Torres,
aren't he span your Torres in from Plank By the way,
today's a special day. You might not know this, but

(17:42):
in nineteen ninety three, that was the last time I
was wrong. I want to read a tweet to you
that said, stud no, God said that said that said,
you said the nineteen ninety three Mets were winning the
Nlle's guaranteed on the Sports Entertainment Network. You were so wrong,
but nobody's perfect. I enjoy your shoulders back then. I
think that was the last time I was wrong. So

(18:02):
that's why it sticks out nineteen thirty years. He's holding
that against me, Darres, thirty years just to tell me
I'm wrong. How do you remember? I don't remember what
I said back three days ago. You had a him
thirty years I'm sorry. They said that. They said a
tweet that said that I was picking the Mets back
in nineteen ninety three, and I was very wrong about that,
and you were picking them in twenty twenty three. No, no, no,

(18:25):
I'm just wanted to let me know that I was
wrong thirty years ago. Okay, I mean you're wrong. I
mean I could give you a more recent example today.
I don't know, maybe that's it. But the reason I
bring that up I want to get to some maj
jague baseball. You saw the highlight of the game that
the bases loaded full count. Of course they the batter
was what thrown not thrown out, but given the final stripers,

(18:45):
he didn't get in the batter's box fast enough. There's
a pitch clock now going on, and not only just
for the picture, the batters have to get in a
timely fashion. When I first saw this, I go, if
they're going to start doing this. Can you imagine during
the agar season if they say, nope, bases loaded and
you didn't get in the batter's box fast enough for

(19:07):
you didn't pitch fast enough, that's it automatic strike or
automatic ball. And just it's incredible. And then I'm thinking
to myself, I looked at the times of the spring
training games, especially for the Mets, and I sent that
over to you. Two hours and fifteen minutes, two hours
and twenty minutes, two hours and thirty minutes. I'm like,
that's what I'm talking about. I kind of like the

(19:27):
faster game. Let's speed it up a little bit. I
like that kind of trend. You know, I disagree because
one I think that I just think that, first of all,
if you look at baseball, like, let me ask you, so,
let me ask you, is Baseball's biggest problem time time

(19:49):
of games? Like, are there twenty six year old guys
out there that don't care about baseball right now that
all of a sudden are gonna be like, you know what,
let's put on that Red's Rockies game because they got
that pitch clock now. Like, like, I think the people
that like baseball right are watching it already, and I
know you always want to expand your audience, and I

(20:11):
also think like that's part of the fun of going
to a game, as you grab some beers, you grab
some hot dogs, you hang out, you do this, you
do that. I just don't think this is basebook biggest
problem right now? If that makes sense, Well, let me
ask you, so, do you think that football's biggest problem
was protecting the defensive receiver or you know, late hit

(20:31):
on the quarterback? But yet they make changes every year.
We're gonna be talking about some of that later on
in this show. But they make changes every year. Are
they getting more fans when they protect the defensive receiver,
or they just making the game better. You know, maybe
maybe it's not there to make more fans. It's maybe
it's to make baseball just a little bit faster, a
little bit more palatable to the people that watch it.

(20:52):
Right now, you know, I guess, yeah, I I also
but my own you know, if it's a concern, like
you know whatever, like you know, is it a concern.
It is a concern. It is moving too slow. It's
so much of a concern that that's why they did
with the runners on second and extratings. They're doing their
best to speed it up. Now, let me ask you
a question, though, If you're saying it doesn't somebody under

(21:14):
the age of twenty five say, okay, they're speeding it up. Now,
I'm gonna want to watch baseball. If you're gonna If
the answers no to that, then baseball is gonna be
a dying sport, and they're in big, big trouble. A
matter of fact, there's two sports right now. Well there's
NFL and college football, and then there's everybody else. It
wasn't like that when I was younger. The other sports
really stood on their own. I mean, in the NBA

(21:36):
after Larry and Magic got in. But now, I mean
it is it's night and day the gap that the
NFL and football is created between the other sports. And
I don't know what's gonna happen. If you're telling me
baseball can't get fixed by playing at a faster pace,
then they're in big, big trouble right now. And I
don't know what the hell to do. By the way,
Damian Lillard just checked out. I believe he'll finish the

(21:58):
game with sixty nine points. Oh, they didn't let him
get the seventy the didn't let him get one more?
What's wrong with that? What's the thirty nine seconds left
in the game? So no, he got to seventy one.
He didn't get to seventy one? Who how about boy? Now?
I agree. We just got a tweet and I agree
with this is um from from one of our listeners
who said, I can say Lillard is highly respected by me.

(22:20):
I barely tolerate the NBA, but I'm a huge Dame
fan that he's due massive respect. I know we want
to get back to baseball, aren't you got to sacre?
But I do agree with that. I just I think
he's about the right things. He's been loyal. He could
go somewhere else, but he's trying to bring that championship
to Portland. By the way, what's the old saying, don't
don't try to be happier than happy. If he's happy
in Portland, that's where he wants to be. Good for him,

(22:43):
And you know, is it realistic that they'll ever build
a winner for him at this point in his career.
Probably not. But he's fun to watch and I respect
that out of him all right. By the way, Sham's
put this out, Damilar with the seventy one to night
becomes the eighth player in NBA history to score seventy
or more in a game. So there, you're just the
eighth player. That's I thought there would be a loan.

(23:04):
I guess that's about Donovan Mitchell got about seventy. The
other about it was overtime, I know, but he got
seventy a few weeks ago, right, a few months back,
because I just remember it was actually, you know, not tragically,
but could have been tragically. It was in the night
the DeMar Hamlin situation happened, and he went for seventy
and it got completely overlooked But why I bring it
up was I was like, damn, seventy is a lot.
And then of course you automatically think about the eighty

(23:25):
eighty point game from Kobol. He's Aaron Torrez, a Marny
Spaniard here on Fox Sports Radio. What was he? What's trending?
I also want to get back to other changes, some
of the rule changes in some of the other sports,
especially the NFL. We'll get the Brandon Miller also, but
first look who it is the sager. I don't give
in the night off. What's trending out there? The segar
or did I ask? Of course? Donovan Mitchell last month

(23:47):
seventy one points and he played fifty minutes on the court.
Kobe Bryant scored eighty one in forty two minutes on
the court with the Lakers in a comeback against Toronto
in two thousand and six. By the time they took
Lillard out of this game tonight in the final minute,
he was gassed. He had in thirty nine minutes on
the court seventy one points and six rebounds and six

(24:11):
assists and only two turnovers in all of that. Wow,
we were keeping a track of the three point shooting
Clay Thompson with the NBA record of making fourteen three
pointers in a game. Lillard finished thirteen thirteen of twenty
two from long distance. He was really starting to put
him up in the final minutes. They left him in

(24:32):
and what wound up solid win. Normally he would have
been taken out in the last two three minutes, but
not tonight. Blaze should have found them. Michael, go to
the line. We're down eighteen. Yeah, I'm sure the opponent
would love to do this. Houston losing its ninth straight game.
Blazer's one thirty one, one fourteen is the final. So
the folks at stat muse point out that here we've

(24:54):
got Damian Lillard with another fifty point game. In fact,
this was the call out of the wing steps back,
fades away along two heads. It fifty for Dame and
he kept going after that. I was Blazer's radio network
on FSR affiliate kpoj SO fifteen times in his career.
A fifty point game for Damian Lillard. Guys who've had

(25:16):
fifty point games fifteen times or more are, of course,
Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor, James Harden
and Damian Lillard. Wow, And they point out that Wilt
has more fifty point games than the other five guys combine,
just for the record, Which brings me to a secondary
point which I've brought up before. If you hear people

(25:38):
talking about the ten best players in NBA history and
they're not talking about Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
just tell them to stop talking. Yeah, but we'll played
against pharmacist and stuff like that. I'll tell you this
if you want. If you want to talk about the
greatest athletes ever born, Wilt Chamberlain might be number one.
This guy was for people don't know. He could have

(25:59):
been like a world class track and field guy. He was.
He was setting all kinds of records in high school volleyball,
and then he retired and some say he was the
best volleyball player that ever lived after retirement from the NBA.
So he not only had the hundred point game early
in his NBA career, he had four seventy point games
in his career. On top of that, Yeah, I was

(26:19):
guarding him in the hundred point game. Now, well that
explains that I can see you being in Hershey, Pennsylvania,
for no good reason. I'm not surprised by that at all,
by the way, because that wild hundred point game was
not played in Philly or New York. Those were the
two competing teams, right, There's no film of it. It
was in Hershey, PA. I have heard the radio broadcast
because I guess it got replayed at midnight, or the

(26:41):
station recorded it or somebody. There was some weird story
of how we even had that, but really no iPhone
back to I can't believe that. I don't understand that.
In nineteen sixty two, there's no there's no film of that.
So we got just one NBA game still going at
Denver nine minute to go, Nuggets still ahead of the Clippers,

(27:02):
but it's just seventy to sixty six now. Earlier, the
Lakers were down twenty seven in the first half, pulled
off the biggest comeback win in the league this year.
They won at Dallas, LA one eleven, one oh eight
the final, Milwaukee won its fourteenth straight game, even with
Janis out with the Bruce quad after I just got
the idle think they can do it true thirty three points.

(27:24):
Milwaukee beats Phoenix one o four one oh one, looks
like Kevin Durant, we'll play for the Suns this week.
And Atlanta got a game winning jumper at the buzzer
from Trey Young to beat Brooklyn one twenty nine one
twenty seven, The Hawks agreed to a five year deal
with Quinn Snyder to be their new head coach. College
basketball's regular season ends next weekend. UCLA will be hosting

(27:44):
second place Arizona in the Pac twelve Number four. Ucla
clinches the Pac twelve titled today winning at Colorado sixty
to fifty six. To sayga real quick, Quinn Snyder, is
he actually gonna coach this year? Or they just blast
this week? That the ships day, right, Yeah, maybe as
early as Tuesday, but yeah, it sounds like at some
point this week. That's a good question, because they've had

(28:06):
an interim coach, of course, getting rid of McMillan recently,
Northwestern beaten at Maryland, Illinois beaten by Ohio State. Padres
agree to a new eleven year contract with Manny Machado
and Kyle Busch won the NASCAR race in Southern California
And finally for our pal, Chris Plank, he was in
Southern California this weekend. I've talked about this on the

(28:26):
show before. There are these three baseball slash softball fields
out by Palm Spring. One looks like Wrigley Field, one
like Yankee Stadium, and one like Fenwick. They're not full
sights fields. They're for youth tournaments and like this Division
one softball tournament this weekend. So if you're driving east
from LA and pass where NASCAR was at Fontana and
just keep going to Cathedral City, Oklahoma, played five game.

(28:50):
This is defending Softball National Chants played five games there
this weekend. Four of the five they had to stop
after five innings by the mercy rule. They just killed
everybody crush Ula, including number one and undefeated UCLA fourteen
nothing today, four homers in one inning. So I didn't play.
That's right. They could have eaten anybody this weekend. Back

(29:13):
to you, I don't know how, so damn good. Thanks
a lot. The sager Erontarre is in for Chris Blank.
I'm on the Spaniard Alive from the ti Iraq and
dot Com studios. You go ahead and check it out
ti Iraq and dot Com real quick on a serious subject,
because I know you were talking about this last night,
about Brandon Miller and the introductions were was padded down
by a teammate. The whole thing, Aaron, The whole thing

(29:37):
is terrible. There's no doubt about that. There's no sugarcoating
that a young woman lost her life. Absolutely the horrific
situation there. As though for Brandon Miller, I personally think
that he has not done anything legally wrong. I'm not
an attorney, but it doesn't seem like he's done anything
legally wrong. Morally, absolutely, he's done something wrong, but I'm

(30:01):
really not sure what type of punishment people were expecting
to school the hand down down to him. I just
thought that the introduction the other day shows that he's
not cognizant on how serious the situation was, because if
you were, you don't do something like that. You say,
you know, I know they were doing it all year
and before every game, but you have to know what's

(30:21):
going on, you have to know what the situation is,
something that should not have been done, and you know
somebody should say, hey, maybe you shouldn't do it this game,
maybe you should cut that out and you know, show
a little respect. And to me, that was very disappointing. Yeah,
there's a lot of layers to this, and obviously we
don't have to get into every single one starting on
Tuesday with the pre trial hearing and NATO ittes press conference.

(30:44):
But as far as the pat down, you know, introduction
is concerned, I will say, like, like I'll defend NATO.
It's a little bit on This is that I'm with you, Arnie,
is that the player has to have a little bit
of self awareness, right, And I get these twenty years old,
but first of all, I'm told all the time, these
aren't kids, right, like, like, oh, it's a business. They

(31:06):
should be able to go pro at eighteen. They're not kids.
They should do this. They should Well, if they're not
a kid, that makes them an adult. And as an adult,
we can talk again about the situation that he finds
himself in the legalities of it, all of that, but
he has to be aware, and frankly, it's on the
school before any of this happens to make him aware.
Hey man, everything you do is under a microscope. Whether

(31:29):
we think what you did was wrong, whether we know
you know, if we believe you're innocent, whatever, that is
irrelevant of the fact that everything you do on social media,
everything you do on the court, every single statement and
you make to the media paid And I am money,
so you know that's a job you're getting paid there,
and you know I agree. And so as far as
the pack down is concerned, I don't blame the coaches

(31:50):
for it. Now, they're the ones that have to answer
the questions after the game. That was just a complete
lack of self awareness. The situation is bad enough as
it is. I know Nadotes said that they're not planning
on doing it anymore, but you got to be a
little bit more self aware. Did anybody ever ask why
you do need a gun on a college campus or
is that an appropriate task? I'm just kind of curious

(32:11):
about that, you know, because you would think a college
campus is pretty safe, especially down there. Well, no, I
think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and I
just think, in my opinion, listen, I understand that some
people come from tougher backgrounds where they think that this
is necessary, but I also do believe that as exactly

(32:32):
as you said, a college campus is supposed to be
a safe haven. I'm not trying to compare apples to
apples here, but it's What made the Michigan State situation
a few weeks ago so awful is that parents send
their kids to a college campus to be safe and
to be you know, in a safe environment. And I
will say I actually saw OutKick dot Com this week
sent a reporter down to Tuscaloosa, and the students referenced

(32:55):
how the police presence is a lot different. It's it's
a you know, and I'm not trying to be dismissive
of a woman who lost her life, but it's not
as fun to go out anymore. Everything is taken more seriously.
There's a different tone to going out on a Friday
and Saturday night in Tuscaloosa since this incident happened. It's
probably the way that it should be, Arnie. But to
your point, you would hope that when you go off

(33:17):
to college, it's a safe place where you don't need
to fire him. Unfortunately, we've had some bad things on
some college campuses, but our thoughts really go out to
the twenty three year old who had lost her life,
the young lady. And you know, I guess, like I said,
he had not done anything legally wrong, but morally I
certainly think he did something wrong. But when you're the
star of the team, you're not gonna get a punishment

(33:37):
like that. You know you're protecting somebody when you would
treat him differently than the last player on the team
who probably would have been thrown off the team for
something like that. Would you not agree on that errand
or what that the last player on the team would
have been thrown off if it had happened to him.
I believe so. Yes, I think there you know again,

(33:58):
should he be sitting because he didn't committed crime? I've
said this many times on these airwaves the last couple
of days, Alabama, as big as mistake was not sitting
him the second that they found out that he was
at the scene of the crime. Let law enforcement do
their investigation, and then when he's cleared by law enforcement,
you can say, hey, we did our due diligence blah
blah blah blah blah. Once they decided to play him.

(34:18):
I don't agree with them not pulling him, but I
sort of pseudo understand it. But I think they made
a mistake by not sitting him at the beginning. And
I bring it all up to say I agree with yarn.
If this was the eighth guy on the bench. If
he was the thirteenth scholarship player, he probably want to
be with the team. Right now, Aaron Torres in for
Chris Plankamarni Spaniards. Some buzzer beaters just today in college hoops.

(34:39):
We'll talk about who we like and some pre March
Madness excitement. All that coming up next right here on
Fox Sports A Radio. All right, good even think everybody
of your Live from the tire rack dot Com Studios,
Aaron Torres in for Chris Plank Amarni Spaniard, taking you
through this Sunday night. A lot of buzzer beaters in

(35:00):
college basketball yesterday. Torres, By the way, I just I
don't know what it is this year, and I love
college basketball. There's just I'm gonna take every underdog in
March Madness. I'm not, seriously, I just have no idea.
There's been so many different number one teams, you know.
I remember when you were hyping up your Connecticut team,

(35:22):
and they've had anybody in that top twenty. It seems
like can make a run at this thing. It is.
It is crazy. It really is bunched up, and I
could make a case for more teams. Why they won't
win it, why they will win it? So it just
seems like it's just so wide open again this year.
I've said this many times. I think the narrative that

(35:45):
this comes up every year. Oh, it's wide open and
there's twenty five teams that can win it. No, No,
there's not. Usually by this time of year, you can
whittle it down to about four or five teams. It's
usually either the note history says, if you're not a
number one seed, or you don't have a dominant player
like a Kemba Walker, you're not winning the tournament. I
bring it up to say this year is absolutely the exception.

(36:06):
Arn't absolutely. I mean you you know you talk about
talking yourself out of teams. I don't feel really good
about any team right going into March. I mean think
about even just the top ten. I mean, you know,
Houston's number one. You know Houston. They haven't played a
surefire and see a tournament team since before Christmas. So

(36:27):
it is a easy schedule that made it. It is
a perfect storm for them. Easy schedule. Not that they
haven't done a good job up there, but it's been
perfect for them. You know. Yeah, Virginia just lost to
a bad North Carolina team. They're in the top ten
right now. Lost to a bad North Carolina team this
after losing a Boston College the other day. You lost, right.
Purdue lost at home last night to Indiana. My Wildcats

(36:51):
lost to Arizona State. Another bad game there. Arizona State
owns Arizona. It's official. It is the official premier school
in the state. A couple of weeks ago, I like
Tennessee and they've kind of fallen on hard times now
they have. And you know, I think the other thing too,
is you can't dismiss teams that were bad. We're good

(37:12):
early and struggled in the middle and are getting good.
So I'll give That's what I was gonna say. I know,
every Oh, you're a homer. Well, they got a couple
of NBA players, and they're the last calendar month. They're
six and one, and the way you kind of look
at their schedule, they when they really struggled, it was
because they played a lot of teams on the road
that I don't think we realized they were as good

(37:32):
as they are. You know, they played Marquette on the road.
Marquette just won the biggest regular season title Providence is good.
They played them early on TCUB Kansas this year, did
they not? Is down at number twenty four, Kansas in
the top three tea. TCU is a team that it
sounds crazy, but TCU is a team that could absolutely
win the national championship or at least Final four or

(37:54):
something like that, you know, make a run like that way. Absolutely.
Baylor's another one. I mean, you go on and on
down the list. We didn't bring up in the end,
bring up in the Ada. I was just about to
say them, it sounds crazy. They've been bad. I'll tell
you the other one too. They're not even ranked right now.
Kentucky's won ten of their last thirteen. They got an
NBA point guard and a National Player of the Year
down low? Is that the team if they get like

(38:16):
a seven seed, because they'll probably be in that range
if you're a two seed in Arizona or Kansas or whomever,
is that the team that you want to see? Because
that's not a team that I want to say, No, No,
it's definitely not. Definitely, not at all. It just it
just seems like this year and we've had some great games.
I don't know it, it's something's missing from college basketball.
I just I've not got into it like I've had

(38:38):
it in the last couple of years. It just seems
like something's missing there and I don't know what it is.
But I'm sure we'll come back once March Madness starts.
You know we will. And this weekend was really awesome.
But I would also I think it's because there is
no great team. Every time you get excited about a team,
they take a bad loss or two bad losses or whatever.
So I actually, I think you're onto something there where
I think it's gonna be a great tournament. I hope

(39:00):
the good teams do advance and don't all get upset
in the first weekend and we end up with a
you know, a Kansas State Providence championship that wasn't hurt
this year, because I mean, really, people are not gonna
be upset if Houston gets eliminated or Purdue or Virginia
or you know one of those. It's not like they're
blue bloods or anything like that. No. No, I mean,
I just you know, it's gonna be a fascinating tournament.

(39:22):
That That's all I can say. And I think even
with one week left in the regular season. Some teams
like EZAC of the regular season is done, it still
feels very wide open. Look at that. I were one
of the books just cruised on by. Look at that.
And I don't even have to carry you all that much,
to be honest, it's amazing. We'll come back. Todd Furman's
going to join us sixth hour, Just Sager's gonna go

(39:42):
and stuff on Bibe. We got more NBA to get to,
some rumbers in the NFL busy show for you today,
So get on and of course Torres and Span you're
here on Fox Sports Radio. All right, good even think everybody.
As we're broadcasting live from the ti iraq dot com studios.
Tire rack dot com will help you get there an
unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, and

(40:05):
over ten thousand recommended install wars. Tire rack dot com.
The way tire buying should be tourism. Tonight, Chris Blank,
I gave the night off. He had to travel too much.
He's too busy. Right now, you got that Oakhola ten
minutes from the Fox Sports Radio studios. No, I'm just kidding.
He works hard, Yeah, he wait to do it. OK.
He's number one Oklahoma's softball. You know they're number one

(40:26):
in the country. He deserves a little respect. You know that,
don't you? So? Oh? I respect Chris blank a ton.
I wish I could say about everybody. I mean, I
knew that was coming. I didn't start talking about the
people that I respect in this building. Well, there's Chris Perfetta,
I like him, Bow everybody but me, Yeah, Steven Singer,
Chris blank Uh, Cavino and Rich everyone, Jason and Mike.

(40:51):
Don't forget the guy that parks the car ja Jason Martin. Yeah,
the security guy. I don't know his name, but he
seems very nice. I think I got just about everybody
called cowhert to gott leave. J Stewart, did I say
both Benson, he's a great guy. Yeah, Les to that.
By the way, Damian Lillard had to what's seventy one today? Unbelievable.
By the way, somebody put out a tweeter. Our producer
put this out to us, Um, somebody's gonna get a

(41:13):
hundred points anytime soon in the NBA. If somebody's gonna
get one hundred points in the NBA, I think it's
got to be somebody who obviously could shoot the three. Yeah,
somebody who gets obviously a lot of shots, high scoring team.
I would probably say somebody like Steph Curry when he's
on fire. You know. So I had I've had this thought,
and you know, I don't know if it's gonna happen.

(41:34):
I'm not smart enough to know. But like, I don't
think it's out of the question with the way that
the rules are. Um, you know, we can we can
argue an NBA fans would say otherwise, but nobody really
plays defense in the regular season. I mean, how many
of the King's score the other night, like one seventy six? Yeah,
And like you said, and listen, we can criticize the defense,

(41:54):
but let's also acknowledge that the players now are more
skilled than they ever have been. And so I don't
know if it's a Uka, I don't know if it's
a Trey Young, I don't know if it's a Damian Lillard,
a Steph Curry. I can see Luca doing it. I
see that. I was gonna say, it's gotta be somebody
that can hit threes, but I'm with you, it's got
to be somebody that can hit threes, can score and
volume all of that but yeah, I think it's it's not.

(42:16):
Not only do I not think it's out of the
realm of possibility. I would venture to guess I bet
we get some I bet we get somebody else that
hits eighty at some point, at minimum in the next
couple of years, if not a hundred. You know, some
records are stood the test of time. Some records are
not made to be broken. Um, few to come to
like Johnny vander Meer back to back no hitters. That means,

(42:36):
you know, went back to back to backdo hitters? Sure, um,
Hack Wilson, I think you have like a hundred and
eighty six RBIs or something like that. Well, maybe somebody
beats that. But um, we have to assume all those
pitching records, like most complete games, most innings pitched like
those are never gonna be topped at this point, right,
Like what is it, thirty one regular season wins something

(42:59):
like that, and most pictures don't even picture the fifth inning,
the early win anymore, aren't. Well what about the hitting streak?
What about that? Yeah, the MAGI I mean that's the
one that's what stood the test of time. Because now
you have specialized pictures that if you don't get a
hit off the first guy who goes fur intings. Then
you got another guy throwing one hundred miles an hour
coming in and hitting five or six, and another guy

(43:20):
the setup guy at inning eight, the closer, and ning nine.
You're facing all stars every time you get up there.
You know, Cy Young finished with how about this five
hundred eleven career wins? How about this? Aren'tie seven hundred
forty nine complete games in his career? I'm listen. I'm
not mister Bam breaking that. Yeah, maybe this new pitch

(43:43):
clock is gonna change everything. I do not think the
record of seven hundred forty nine complete games pitched is
going to is going to is going to be broken anytime.
So yeah, but that's mostly baseball though. I think basketball
you can see a lot of the records I guess
following by the wayside, and I guess Wilts one hundred

(44:03):
is probably the next one to go, you know what
I mean that that'd probably be the next one. And
now with the NFL going the seventeen games and eventually
eighteen games, we'll break every NFL record offensively, you know. Yeah,
I think mostly the baseball ones, Like there are some
that felt and I'm sure the Kareem scoring record basically
felt unattainable. And I'll say this, like you know, listen,

(44:23):
I've been critical of Lebron plenty, but I mean, when
you think about how long Lebron, Lebron literally had a
triple double I believe in his second career NBA game
and basically played what now, twenty one years, twenty years
without any real major injuries. Like I know, we said
no one was ever gonna break Wilt's Kareem's career scoring record,

(44:45):
but Lebron, I mean, how many good years does I
think Lebron still got one two and a half, three
good years left where I mean he's I mean, he's
still gonna be competing at a really high level. So
that's one that is as he continues to push past.
I just don't know if guys play enough. I don't
know if they can stay healthy enough. I know it
just got broken, so it's hard to say it'll never
get broken. But that feels like one that could. I'll

(45:06):
give you one that will never ever be broken ever?
Oh what's ever ever? Ever? Especially in the in the athletes,
the time in a year that we deal with athletes
now that's two thousand, six hundred and thirty two, which
is a number of consecutive games that Cal Ripken played consecutively.

(45:26):
That that's never right, that's never gonna be broken. But
we give everybody gets time off. That load management in
all sports. That's never gonna be broken towards ever, never
gonna be broken. How about this? Do you remember the
stat that Wilt Chamberlain averaged more than forty eight minutes
game per game, forty eight minutes played per game one season.
In other words, he played every minute of every game,

(45:48):
including overtime. He averaged more than forty eight minutes per
game in one season. I'm trying to look it up
here as we talk. That's that's gonna be impossible, right
you Never there's nobody that plays every minute of game.
How about this? For this nineteen sixty one sixty two season,
he averaged fifty point four points per game, twenty five

(46:08):
point seven rebounds, shot a brisk fifty point six percent
from the field, all while playing forty eight and a
half minutes per game over eighty games that season. And
somebody Jason sent us in two Grand slams in an
inning off the same pitcher Will never ever be mad.
So I don't see three grand slams off the same pitcher. Yeah,

(46:32):
that picture's got to have the longest leachever. I mean,
you know most pictures, like I said, they're not pitching
more than two and a half innings as the starter,
and now we have the closer that's actually the starter. Yeah.
I think that's a good one from Jason. Don't think
that's getting broken anytime. You know, you were talking about Lebron.
I want to get to the Lakers a little bit.
They were down by twenty seven. Teams that are down
by twenty seven or oz and one thirty six or

(46:54):
one thirty eight, I'm not sure exact number of coming
back and winning the game. That was until today when
the Lakers came back and win. This is something they needed,
they needed. This gave him the worst way. I think
they're gonna go in a little bit of a run,
and who knows how far they can climb up, but
at least they'll they'll be in the playoff series or
the playoff matchups. It worst the playing games, but they

(47:15):
could be up a little bit higher than that if
they make a little bit of a run. Here. You know,
the West is wide open. And again, I know I've
been critical of Lebron plenty, but listen, he's he's a
great talent. And I will say listening. We can argue
about how this roster, the previous roster came together with
Russell Westbrook, how much did Lebron have in getting Russell
Westbrook here? But this roster is much better suited to

(47:39):
the skill set of Lebron James. I mean, obviously, again
we talked about it earlier, but riehatch Amore kind of
that scoring wing that they needed. Jared Vanderbilt, great defensive player,
kind of broke up the final play of the game
there today, Malik Beasley, DeAngelo Russell, you just go on
and on down the list. Listen, Rob Link, I live
here in La Aren't. I don't know if if he's

(48:01):
gotten as much pub nationally, but he has taken so
much heat over the years, and probably most of it justifiable.
But I thought he did a really good job at
the trade deadline to get a nice roster around around
Lebron James. Did you see the highlight or whatever when
Lebron got hurt And then he turned to one of
his teammates and said, I heard a pop you told

(48:23):
me about. I did not see a lot. Well, first
I thought he was talking about his knee, yeah, because
it wasn't like he was holding his ankle at the
time when he said that, he was clutching his legs,
So I wasn't really sure. When you say you hear
a pop, that first thing that comes is the knee.
You don't think about an ankle or anything like that.
When I saw that, I'm like, oh, no, he's done.
He's done for today's game, and who knows if he's

(48:44):
not done for the rest of the year. When you
when you hear something like that, he was right back
out there, had a great game and carried him on
the victory. That that would have just I mean, could
you imagine something would have happened to Lebron that's the
last week, would have heard about how bad load management
was or anything like that. That, By the way, are
they getting hurt more because they don't play more? It
was that ridiculous to even say something like that. I

(49:05):
don't know, they're certainly getting hurt more. It feels like,
and I don't have the one hundred percent data to
back it up, it feels like guys are getting hurt more.
I've heard the story that because they play so many
games kind of at the AU level at a young age,
they're playing, you know, one hundred and fifty games over
the course of a season. Maybe that's why by the
time they get older they have much more wear and

(49:27):
tear on their body. It feels like it. Arn'tie, it
feels like it. I don't have a good answer as
to why the injuries seemed to be more recurring, but
I do think there's something too the start stop kind
of you know theory behind that. I think there might
be something to that. And you know, again, a lot
of people got hurt back in the day. Also, it
just didn't seem like it made them miss games like

(49:47):
they're missing now. And you see the Anthony Davis is
of the world with what thirty six thirty eight games
and stuff like that. Load managements was killing this sport?
Is the problem here? You saw the numbers on the
All Star Game, did you not? Aaron and oh yeah,
talked about it last night. Embarrassing. What's gonna happen to
the NBA if this continues? Is it gonna get worse?

(50:09):
I mean, is it going to continue to decline like
this one's gonna happen to the TV money if this continues,
you know, do you see? I think it's one hundred
percent on it, not one hundred percent. The disproportional amount
is on Adam Silver. Everything this guy has touched since
he got to the league has gone in the wrong direction,
and so I don't know if it's going to take
new ownership. The one thing I'll say, and Charles Barkley
said this a few weeks ago, the next time we

(50:31):
have a collective bargaining agreement, which is probably going to
be this summer, I believe they gotta get some of
this worked out. You can't have superstars and listen, I
think you could do Aaron zero. You could do and
tell that to a billionaire owner. That's that's about to
lose money because they're starting any money. No, not gonna
lose any money because it really it's not about what
the number of people that come to the game. It's

(50:51):
all about the TV revenue, and the TV ratings are
going down. You heard Turner, who has broadcast the NBA
for what forty years, say we want to keep the NBA,
but it isn't essential. Basically, I don't I don't have
the exact quote in front of me, but they basically said,
we're not going to overbid for the NBA um and
so I think it's I don't know if you know

(51:13):
it's because I'm not the listen. I love hoops, so
like people think I'm anti NBA, but I the trends
you cannot deny, aren't you said it earlier? It's the
NBA one college football too, and then a massive gap
for everything else. And that gap didn't used to be there.
That gap did not used to be there. And I
don't know what the answer is, but but TV regular

(51:36):
season rains are going down, playoff ratings are going down.
It didn't help that the NFL playing on what Christmas,
which is usually what reserved for the time for the NBA.
Those days are overalls where we say the NBA starts
after Christmas. I'll tell you this, this is one you know,
we we in this business have to give out opinions,
and some of you get right and some of you
get wrong. I remember Jason Martin and I were on
two Christmases ago, normal Saturday shift and the Packers were

(52:00):
playing the Browns and it was a Baker Mayfield meltdown
game whatever, and it felt like everybody was watching it.
And I said to Jason right then and there, I said,
the NFL got a taste of this Christmas. And I
was like, they ain't giving it back. It actually had
started the year before. I remember you and I worked.
It was a Saints Vikings game and Alvin Kamara had

(52:21):
like nine touchdowns or something like that. But it was
during that weird COVID year where the NBA had played
the Bubble and they weren't sure if they were gonna
be back by Christmas Day, and the NFL basically said, well,
what to throw a game on just just in case that,
you know, the NBA doesn't play. And like I said,
I think they got a taste of it. It was
heightened two years ago with the Packers Browns game, and

(52:42):
then this year they had a three game slate and
I think outside of maybe when Christmas falls on a
Tuesday or Wednesday, I don't think they're slowing down anytime soon. Yeah,
but that's gonna lead the load management in the NFL,
especially when you have the Thursday game, and a lot
of players complain about that when you have to play
out of Thursday, right, after a Sunday. It just doesn't
give them enough time time, you know what I mean,
It just doesn't give their enough time for their body

(53:02):
to heal. And but they voted for because they wanted
the extra hundred thousand dollars or whatever it was, Aaron,
Really nobody to blame but themselves. What are you gonna
do with that? You know? I mean you and wait
till they go to eighteen games. They're gonna have to
keep the Thursday game around, you know. I don't you
think there's gonna be load management in the NFL? I oh,
I definitely think so, especially when it comes to the quarterbacks.

(53:23):
When there's eighteen games, you're gonna need a quarterback to
start maybe two to three games the Thursday after the
Sunday game. Maybe your quarterback gets hurt for one or
two games. You how many quarterbacks started this year, Aaron?
How many quarterback? Many different quarterbacks started this year in
the NFL. You you needed number two big time more
than ever. Now. Well, and I was gonna say they

(53:44):
add an eighteen game, you know what that probably means.
They're probably gonna add a second bye week. And now
we got the NFL going into March right into March madness,
that that would be a worst case scenario for the
NBA if you go to eighteen games. He had a
second bye week, and now all of a sudden, we're
talking about right around March first, that the Super Bowl
is going on. Oh, that's gonna crush college basketball. Well again,
we don't. We don't care about college basketball until March

(54:06):
maddens though. Everybody says, until we have those brackets out,
those damn brackets. Let me ask you a real quick question.
I know, we gotta get the Todd firm me. Yeah.
Do you feel like the NBA, like fifteen twenty years ago,
was bigger earlier in the year, Like I remember when
I was a kid in the nineties and it was
a million years ago, Like watching Sunday NBA games on

(54:26):
NBC with Jordan and Ewing and all that. Like I
don't even think they try to broadcast games nationally on
the weekend anymore during football season. Am I crazy? It
feels like the NBA felt big even before Christmas. Christmas
was kind of the day where it was definitely big,
and even in January before the Super Bowl, it felt
like like there was more buzz than there has been

(54:47):
a reason. It only felt big, and I talked about this,
it only felt big because we didn't have access to
the number of games like we do right now. Somebody
brought up the TV Guide. I put it on Twitter
and people like, oh, I'm remember the TV Guide. When
I was young. I used to have to open up
the TV Guide to the sports section in the beginning,
and they would list all the games that were on
TV and I would see, Wow, we got two NBA

(55:10):
games this week. That's incredible. I get to see the
Lakers twice. I was living in LA I'm like, wow,
I get to see two and be on the local
channel nine, cake out channel nine, So that was a
big deal. I just even watch two games. Now there's
a game every Now there's a bunch of games every night,
partial games, full games. That's why it doesn't seem special

(55:31):
anymore like it did back when you were younger. You know,
last thought you mentioned TV Guide. So my wife and
I were watching a TV show on one of the
apps and they only put out one episode at a time.
They announced the whole season and then they put out
one episode at a time. It is freaking killing me.
I'm like, how did we used to just watch one
episode and then sit around and wait for a week

(55:53):
for the next episode. And then we had to wait.
I was like hot, like right now, I'm losing my mind.
I was like, how does eddiebody? How did anybody do this?
And so it's crazy how things used to be so
coming next week, Fansie jumps to Shark. I mean, there's
just I agree with you. Yeah, you'd have this this
cliffhanger and you'd have to wait a wait to see
the answer. I don't just get to watch the next
episode now, father way. This segment brought to you by

(56:15):
Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes a bundling easier and affordable. Get
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changes in the NFL, there's some interesting ones being thought
about that's coming up next right here on Fox Sports Radio.

(56:38):
All right, good evening, everybody. Of course, Aaron Torres in
for Chris Plank Comari Span. You're alive at the Tirek
dot Com studios. By the way, Torres, now that we
know that Russell Wilson has a body like a sack
of potatoes. Is this are we can start calling him
spuds Russell spudge Wilson Now is that not gonna be
his nickname or one? Why do you say that? I

(57:00):
mean because his body? Because his ex teammate says he
has a body like a sack of potatoes. So I
thought we'd be calling him spuds down. I didn't see
this quote. When did this come out? You get the issue?
Did stop it? You didn't see that one I saw
where Russell Wilson try to get Pete Carroll fired. I
saw that one. No, his h one of his ex
teammates um said he has a body of like a

(57:23):
sack of potatoes. Let me ask you, I feel like
us Russell Wilson either is the worst human being ever
or he takes more crap than anyway. I was telling
this Jay Smart last night is like everything he does
like the Internet has just decided that certain people they
love and certain people they hate. And so I use

(57:44):
the example if Joe Burrow was doing high knees on
a plane on the way to London, people would be like,
oh my god, Joe cool. Everybody should be he is
the coolest guy ever. He has so much swag. He's
so awesome. But because someone along the way decided they
don't like Russell Wilson. I just feel like, no matter

(58:07):
what he does, he gets heat for everything, Like, oh
he has he has an office in the facility. He's
not a good teammate. It's like, don't we want our
quarterbacks to be at the facility all day? Well, it
is amazing that office is such a big deal, you
know what I mean. We talked about it, like I
don't like he has a private jet or something like that. Well,
it's like, if we're going to criticize Kyler Murray because
all he wants to do is play call of duty
and never be in the facility, we can't then criticize

(58:29):
Russell Wilson because he wants to be in the facility
all day and night. By the way, it was a
Seahawks rooky Terek Woolen, who said Russ has built like
a sack of potatoes. So I just thought we'd be
calling him Spunge from now Huddard something like that. I
don't know if he has a body like a sack
of potatoes or what does that mean for the rest
of us for grying out loud, you know. Yeah. See,

(58:50):
he's also got one of the most beautiful wives in
the world in two hundred million in the banks, So
in terms of ye, but maybe he is losing it
a little bit. I mean, he obviously did not have
a good year last year. I could think of a
probably about twenty quarterbacks I would rather have over him.
He's gonna get Sean Payton, and so I'm curious to
see how that's scoring the work. But I still don't
have high hopes. Confidence level not high for the Denver Broncos,

(59:12):
no doubt, no doubt. So I was gonna ask you, so,
so let me actually ask you a second question first,
because if you don't have confidence in Russell Wilson, let
me ask you, do you think Sean Payton made a
mistake taking this job? And let me let me let
me just lay it out really quick. At some point
we all we all know Brandon Stanley's not the guy.
It's not gonna happen. I don't buy it. I know
Kellen Moore's in whatever that job is probably going to

(59:33):
open that job being the Chargers. It sounds crazy, but
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility
that if the Buffalo Bills disappoint again next year, losing
the divisional round, that Sean mcdermot's out. And then, oh,
by the way, you have supposedly two franchise quarterbacks coming
in next year, and Caleb Williams and Drake May. I
guess my question is I understand Sean Payton is a

(59:54):
football coach, he wants to coach football, but if he
waited one more year, it feels like there had to
been a better situation than Denver. Now, I don't think
he wanted to wait to one more year. You're right
about that too. You mentioned Buffalo and Buffalo. I lived
in Buffalo, went from Buffalo, yes, but do you want
to move to Buffalo when you, like you said you
could live in Los Angeles? You can go to Denver?

(01:00:18):
Who knows. I mean, again, there was Arizona, but maybe
that's just too messed up for him. I think he
wanted the job, but there were some roadblocks there. I mean,
Denver was not a good team, and that he's having
an aging quarterback who's not getting it done. Maybe you're right,
maybe this wasn't the best place for him, But I
don't think he wanted to wait another year. I think
he wanted to get right back in the thing, you know.

(01:00:39):
And that's the thing, right. I remember having a conversation
about Jim Horball, like why would he take the Denver
job or why would he take this job? And it's like, well,
if he just wants to be in the NFL more
than he wants to be in college, then he's gonna
take whatever job. Now we'll see if that happens next year,
if he's gonna stay at Michigan forever or whatever. But
it's kind of the same with Champagne, Like if he
just wanted to get back, then this probably was the
best job available. I just do wonder, you know. I mean, listen,

(01:01:02):
I don't think his legacy is gonna be like tarnished
or anything. But but but if if the goal is
to win another Super Bowl, uh, and really at yourself,
as you know, I don't know how many guys have
won a Super Bowl and more than one spot, but
it can't be very many, if any at all. Um.
You know, I just feel like if he had waited
one more year, there were probably better options. Well, like,
he could have waited one more year, and you know,

(01:01:23):
what job he really probably could have gotten to what
he was hoping he was going to get this year,
but it did. No. But that's the Dallas Cowboys, right,
So you never know if you have one bad year
with the Cowboys you are gone. Is that they didn't
think you could have eight bad years and you're still there.
I mean, Jerry's but Jerry's bad. But Jerry did you
know obviously him and Jerry and Sean have a very

(01:01:43):
close relationship. Um, you know, he's always been rumored for
that job. I don't know you would think that he
would have waited one more year maybe that job would
have been available for them. You know, I think it's fair. Um,
I just remember, you know, you and I filled it
in so many random spots, but I remember filling in.
Do you remember that week after the season when it
was clear that Jason Garrett had to be fired? Yea,

(01:02:04):
And they're like, we did shows for like four straight
days where it was like, is today the day they're
gonna fire him? No, they're having a meeting with Jason Garrett.
Then they're having the second meeting with Jason Garrett. Then
they're figuring out if he can be in some role
that's not the head coach. It's like Jerry just rip
off the band aid. He's clearly not the guy. So
I think Jerry's gotten soft in his old age. I
also I also think he kind of likes having a

(01:02:25):
puppet as a head coach. The personalities I don't think
would mix. I don't think Sean Payton's gonna put up
with any nonsense from Jerry, from Russell Wilson, from whoever.
So I don't know if that one would work. But
to your point, I do think if you can get
that job in a year, it's probably a better situation
than the Broncos job that he's just unless maybe he
doesn't think he could win with Dak. I mean, I
guess if you think you could win with Russell Wilson,

(01:02:47):
then you could think you could probably win with with
Dak Prescott. No, I would think so oh, A lot
of cowboy fans don't think so I promise you that
we don't think you can win. I don't think he
can win with Dak. But if you're talking yourself into
Russell Wills, and I think you probably would talk yourself
in the deck too, I would agree with that. Plus,
do you look at that division, though, how long are
the Eagles. Eagles are probably gonna have a run at
that division for a while. Being up there, we'll see

(01:03:10):
if Washington terms of around with all their different moves
now and be interesting about how Eric b Enemy is
gonna do over there. You know, I think it's one
of the most interesting things that's happened in the NFL
in a long time, the b Enemy move. Because I
just give him credit, man, like he bet on himself.
It would have been easy for that guy to just
sit there and say, you know, stay in Ksey with

(01:03:31):
Patrick Mahomes, hope any Reid retires, complain that he doesn't
get a job. I give him so much credit for
betting on himself. With Washington, all right, I want to
get to those rule changes possibly in the NFL. Will
get to that next. He's Aaron Torres. And for Chris Plank,
come on, he's fan your Let's check in with the Sager.
See what's trending right now, what's going on out there?
At the Sager, we will talk about Damian Lillard seventy
one point night in the Portland victory over Houston that

(01:03:53):
you guys were talking. You know, keep in mind to
break a Wheels record. He would have needed another thirty points.
I mean, you want to get that in a court.
You could have played five quarters this hot and not
got one hundred points, but to have you know, you
were talking about unbreakable records, like, Yeah, career records I
think are a separate discussion. But to be so hot
on one night or one incredible season, I thought your

(01:04:14):
baseball suggestions for unbreakable records were good. I'll add one.
Barry Bonds in one season was intentionally walked one hundred
twenty times. That's insane now, and then somebody could maybe
to maybe like an Altani or something, but that is crazy.
I looked it up. Aaron Judge last year set the
home run record for the American League. Right, he was
walked one hundred eleven times total? And how many was

(01:04:37):
Barry Bonds one twenty intentional? Wow? Bonds two hundred thirty
two walks in under one hundred fifty games in two
thousand and si Bonds was walked with the bases loaded. Yes, absolutely,
that's how stunning it got intentionally intentionally Yeah, so he
may have done something and then had his seventy three
homer season when magically he'd never had fifty in a season,

(01:05:00):
and then the three years after that, I mean, they
just didn't allow him to get to even four or
five hundred at bats because they locked him so much.
As far as football, there is a record that's still
on the books since nineteen fifty two for a defensive
back who intercepted fourteen passes in one season as a rookie,
Dick Night train Lane. There hasn't been more than eleven

(01:05:22):
in the last forty years. Now, that's crazy with all
the passing that goes on. But then again, quarterbacks are
more proficient. They don't pull the ball down field the
very much like they did back in the day. Yeah,
they were Richard far more in the Brad Shows for example, absolutely,
which is why you can't compare career stats here and then.
But I looked it up. Last year, six interceptions led

(01:05:43):
the league. The NFL record is fourteen picks in a season. Well,
and then we had Damian Lillard tonight. The win over
Houston was by a final score of one thirty one
one fourteen. Lillard was seventy one points. He had forty
one in the first half. Donovan Mitchell in his seventy
one point game last month, had forty two in the

(01:06:04):
second half, but Lillard, just in the first half from
three point range was eight of eleven long distance. So
here in this three point era of the league, the
only other guy that had had a forty point half
with eight made threes was Kobe Bryant twenty years ago.
So he kept seventy one in thirty nine minutes on
the court tonight and sends Houston to a ninth straight laws.

(01:06:28):
So in the month of February, one game to go
for him. Damian Lillard averaging forty points a game this month,
and he's shooting fifty forty ninety fifty percent from the floor,
over forty percent from three point range, and way over
ninety percent on free throws. In fact, he hasn't had
a single game this month where he's missed more than
one free throw. He's had a fifteen for sixteen from

(01:06:49):
the line, a sixteen for sixteen to ninety was fourteen
of fourteen on free throws. And ye're not going to
make the playoffs to say, yeah, that's right. So when
you're going to when you start talking about the most
valuable player discussion, well, what's your opinion of value of
a team. I don't know, has there ever been an
MVP of a team from a team worse than that? Oh, NBA,

(01:07:14):
because I remember Andre Dawson when the Cubs were always bad,
wound up a National League MVP, and of course the
Cubs weren't sniffing the playoffs year after year after year then.
But Portland isn't even in the top ten at this point.
They do, they do have a chance for a player
now with this expanded you know, you could literally finish
under five hundred and tenth plays in your conference and

(01:07:36):
make the playoffs the way things go. So don't count
out Portland just yet, especially if he has these types
of games, which is not I mean, I don't mean
seventy one, but the type of scoring he said right
before the All Star break, back to back nights he
scored forty and then thirty nine. He had one week
a month ago where he scored forty two and forty
two and forty He had last month a sixty point

(01:07:58):
game and a fifty point game, and then seventy one.
All of this these are all just within a span
of two months. Wow, And here we have what a
month and a half left in the season. Milwaukee won
its fourteenth straight game. Lakers with a big comeback win,
Ucla and College Hoops won to clinch the PAC twelve title.
Padres agreed to a new eleven year contract with Manny Machado,
and Kyle Bush won the NASCAR race in southern California.

(01:08:21):
He's won at least one Cup Series race in a
record nineteen straight years now. Chase Elliott started thirty first
and finished second. This was the last day at Fontana
before they reconfigure the track there from a two mile
layout to a half mile track, and after the rains yesterday,
Exfinity race was tonight on FS two, a win for
John Hunter. Neimacheck back here all right, Thanks out to

(01:08:43):
seg aeron Torres, of course for Chris Blank, I'm already Spann.
You're live at the Tirek dot Com studios. The NFL
going to talk about this odd monthday. One of the
teams proposed that they could look at roughing the passer
again on replay. I think you got to do that.
There's so many times I'm like, oh, you can't call that.
You can't protect them that much. It seems like they

(01:09:04):
make a mistake on roughing the passer a lot more
than any other call that's made out there. I could
understand most of the pass interference, the holding, uh you know,
on the off side, stuff like that, but I get
so aggravated sometimes on the um, you know, protecting the
quarterback this much. I look, I know we don't want

(01:09:25):
to keep stopping the game for everything. Eron. I know you, oh,
we gotta stop it for this and replay for that.
But I think that's something we got to look at
because that's a game changer, you know, real quick, Chriss,
you have something to add, Yeah, So I think I
saw a tweet earlier actually this about the committee that
was going to discuss this. They set out of eighty
roughing the passer calls, only three were wrongly called this year. Really,

(01:09:49):
just three out of three out of eighty. I think
that was from Judy Batist style. Try to get the
actual tweet, especially when it's open to an interpretation projecting, yeah,
it's subject active and it's not actually like wrong. Half
the time we just get upset that it's called in
the right place. And I think opening it review for
review is just it's gonna chunk up the game. And
just a lot of it's gonna come back is like

(01:10:10):
call stands like, it's not gonna overturn anything, it's just
gonna I personally hate this idea, terrible idea. Um. What
bothers you more is like when you get the hand
to the helmet air in or is it the helmet
to the helmet, because sometimes a lot of times the
guy with the ball lowers his head down and that's
what causes his helmet the helmet out there. Um. And

(01:10:31):
by the way, the fact that you can't hit the
quarterback low if he's standing in the pocket like that
and you know you may be on the ground and
they call penalty on that. Also, we do we do
so much to protect the quarterback right now, So I
agree with you that I have no problem with them
replaying it because they replay everything else. And my whole
thing with replay, I've said it for years. I don't

(01:10:53):
know if you can make everything up for review, but
if we're gonna have replay, get it right, Like that's
my whole thing. Isn't the still moments in time, Arnie,
where either something isn't reviewable that is obviously wrong And
unfortunately there's a lot of times you know, and maybe
it's because I watched so much college hoops and there's
a million replays and all that. You go to the

(01:11:13):
monitor knee still get stuff wrong. So I actually have
no problem with it because listen, I mean, you know
you would remember because you host every Sunday. But whatever
game it was with Tampa Bay, you know Tom Brady
gets thrown down, it's called roughing the pass, or they
rally to win. It's like, I think it should be,
like anything else, we do enough to protect the quarterbacks.
If it's it's probably the right thing to allow the

(01:11:36):
benefit of the doubt for the defender. And then, oh,
by the way, it's still a reviewable play from the
perspective that the coach has to throw the challenge flag
for it to happen. So it's not like we're gonna
be stopping the game twenty times to see if it happens.
But I have no fundamental issue with this at all. Arnie.
You know, we talk about let's look at a replay.
Is this a reviewable play. We have the defensive receiver,

(01:11:57):
let's protect the quarterback. Now we have the pitch clock
in Major League Baseball. UM, so many changes out there.
Is sports broken? Is that what's going on here is
that is that why we're fixing all the sports out there?
That sports is broken and we need to have more
offense than or one. I think tech well with the replays.
I think technology has made it so good where that's

(01:12:19):
gonna give more runs. That's gonna I think it resulted
more runs. What's that the pitch clock. I am so
interested in the pitch clock. I know this is kind
of random, but it's gonna get in pitchers heads. Like
think about remember rick An Keel, like he just couldn't
throw strikes. Now, imagine a picture just having a clock
in his face, like I gotta, you know, I gotta
get this guy, gotta get this pitch off. Like, I

(01:12:42):
think it's gonna have wild side effects that we haven't like.
It fundamentally changes how we play the game. Most rules
don't the pitch clock does. And I don't think we
need it, but I might be in the minority. Most
people seem to want it, so I'm not gonna argue
with everybody on it, but I can see the scenario
where it impacts wins and losses like it did yesterday
in the in the spring training game. And I think

(01:13:04):
there's gonna be pitchers that really struggle with it because
it's it's gonna be a mental thing. You're other reason
why we have the pitch count. Your generation can't sit
through a baseball game. Speed it up. I can't take it.
It's take a du long. You know, Let's move. I
gotta get out of here. Your generation made us do this.
Just put it on TikTok. Baby, I don't even have TikTok.

(01:13:25):
I don't even have TikTok. Now, I'm with you. But
but but I still I don't know. I'll be curious.
I'm willing to give it a shot. I don't think
that there's twenty four year olds that at the bar
on an NFL Sunday that are all all of a
sudden gonna be saying in September, hey, you know this,
uh you know, uh Rogers versus whoever. This is good.

(01:13:47):
But give me that Rockies game, because that pitch clock
has really gotten me fired up. Like I just think
people that watch regular season baseball are baseball fans. And
then again, as I said earlier, when you go to
the ballpark, I'm never in a rush to get out
of there. I'm having a good time, and if I
want to leave, I want to leave some all right,
The Sagar's coming up next. I'll tell you more about
Damian Lillard's big night. That's coming up next right here

(01:14:07):
on Fox Sports or radio. All right, could even get everybody.
We were alive at the Tyrock dot Com studios. Aaron
Torres in for Chris Plank. I'm already Spaniard. Let's check
in with the Sager to see what we missed, and
the Sager somebody tweeted in another unbreakable record, Fernando wins
the cy Young and Rookie of the Year was that

(01:14:27):
the same year? Didn't do nomo? Do that too? Or
am I crazy? I don't know if that's unbreakable, how
do you break that? Yeah, it's gonna be repeated. Yeah,
it's never gonna be rough. I don't know. I don't
think that's so well, that is hard, but not if
you want Rookie of the ear twice, that would be
a record that we've got some new n IL eligibility

(01:14:51):
or I think, well, before we get to we've got
a good treat when we talk hoops here in this segment.
But the Clippers, remember late Friday, they played that overtime
classic against Sacramento lost one seventy six one seventy five.
Clippers have just started overtime at Denver Tide at one twenty,
so a long weekend for them. Geez. We talked about
the game at Portland tonight. Damian Lillard was seventy one

(01:15:14):
points in the win against Houston. Final score was one
thirty one to one fourteen. I found the story of
what I referenced earlier, as far as the radio broadcast
that was found about forty years ago of the fourth
quarter of Wilt Chamberlain's hundred point game. Remember it was
his Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks, but the
game was not played in Philly or New York. It

(01:15:36):
was at Hershey, Pennsylvania that night. A college student at
the time had recorded the three am rebroadcast of the
fourth quarter, so it exists. Apparently the original game tape
WCAU had been recorded over, which was kind of a
common practice in radio and TV in the old days.
I've heard that one of Jerry West NBA All Star Games,

(01:15:57):
the first half exists, or one half and the other
half to knock because it was recorded over. Funny anyway,
here believe it or not, Wilt the scratchy nineteen sixty
two radio broadcast. When he's sitting on ninety eight points,
they stopped the game for about ten minutes as people

(01:16:29):
ran onto the court in the little place, and then
they did conclude the final minute of the game. Wilt
Chamberlain finished with not only one hundred points, but twenty
five rebounds in the game. You're not gonna believe me,
but after that game, I had a show and I
said I'll never do it again. I probably you would have. Absolutely.
He was a notoriously bad free throw shooter, but on

(01:16:52):
that one night he was twenty eight of thirty two.
If he was the regular, Wilt nowhere close to a hunt.
Now wait a minute, now was to be a great
free soil shooter before they changed the rules were he
could like jump from the foul line and lay it
in and not the way he used to do it. Right,
He used to back up from the foul line as well,
not even tow the line. But you know, for the
career he was like fifty percent. Yeah, but that was

(01:17:14):
they changed the rules because he was well. But this
game was early in his career. This was nineteen sixty two,
So it was the Philadelphia Warriors before they ever came West.
But Al Addles was a teammate for him for the
Warriors in that game, and he wound up being the
coach of the Warriors state title team with Rick Barry
in nineteen seventy five. Well, we do have Baseball's World Cup,

(01:17:37):
you could say the World Baseball Classic on Fox next month. Well,
there is a Basketball World Cup at the end of
the summer. It's going to be hosted by Japan, Philippines,
and Indonesia. And this was a big weekend for qualifying
for that tournament. The US not using NBA players to qualify.
Beat Uruguay a couple of days ago, so it clinched
a spot. The guy who's going to be top pick

(01:17:59):
in the draft from France, Victor Wembanyama, has led France
into a spot. Montenegro four years ago was the smallest
country to qualify. Now they've qualified again. The country of
Georgia has punched its World Cup of bark on the
team for the hell of it, we just need bars
against The Cape Verde Islands off of Africa has become

(01:18:23):
the smallest nation to qualify for a basketball World Cup.
Iran got the last ticket from the Asian qualifiers. Again.
This tournament is taking place for a couple of weeks
starting in late August. And this is a big tournament
not only in and of itself, but it acts as
a qualifier for Olympic Basketball in France in twenty twenty four.
The two best teams from our region, the Americas, of

(01:18:46):
how they do in this tournament get automatic tickets to
the Olympics a couple of years. The next year, the
two best from Europe in this tournament get tickets. The
best from Asia goes the best from Africa. And so
this is not only the World Cup, it's also a
qualifier for Olympics. When does this all good? Starter? When
August twenty seven, No. Twenty fifth August twenty fifth World

(01:19:09):
Cup of Basketball starts. Wow? Wow, good, good, nice job
to say. I like that. Yeah, I like that little
recording of Wilta scoring one hundred and Argentina's out by
the way, Argentina got upset by Dominican. Wow, it was
so good for so long? All right, two hours are
in the books, The Power Hours coming up next. We'll
go through some of those NFL rumors in my pack twelve.

(01:19:31):
What's gonna happen here on Fox Sports Radio. Ah, good evening, everybody.
It is the Power Hour, the Show Tourism for Plank.
I'm Onny Spaniards. We're broadcasting live from the tirerac dot
Com studios, tirac dot com. We'll help you get there
in unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection,

(01:19:52):
and over ten thousand recommended installers tirac dot com the
way tire buying should be. By the way. Um, I'm
kind of bummed. I didn't see the fight, but Jake
Paul was today. I was. I was still hoping that
this guy would continue to win before you get his
head knocked off. But he has to split decision today.

(01:20:12):
Did you watch him? Did you care about that? You
don't care? I mean, I like Jake Paul. I did
not watch it. I actually was hoping. I remember that again.
Another I remember you and I were filling in. I
swear we filled in for literally every sporting event. Yes,
I might have been on the call with you. The
night will score one hundred and two. So I uh,

(01:20:33):
we were on air the night of the Logan Paul
Floyd Mayweather fight, and so I just assumed this was
a nighttime fight, and we would be talking about it, like,
you know, we would find a stream and kind of
both watch it together. So I kind of came up
for air the middle of the day today and it
was done. I'm a Jake Paul guy. I'm rooting for
Jake Paul. Yeah, but I mean he didn't win. I

(01:20:53):
know that, but I was rooting for him. It's, uh,
the pay per view is not as brisk as it
used to be, you know what I mean, It's not
something as much as it used to be. And making
all that money for him, you know, I did not
know he was fighting until like probably two days ago.
Probably not the greatest sign. And he's fighting a real
fighter too. People that follow him a lot of people
getting into that or what. Well, So here's my question.

(01:21:15):
Do you think the fact that and I know in
boxing circles, Tommy Fury's a big name and he's you know,
the you know, related to Tyson Fury and all that stuff.
But do you think the fact that he wasn't Jake
Paul fighting Nate Robinson or another former prominent athlete, do
you think that hurt the hype for this fight? Yes,
I do. I think you know, when you have those

(01:21:36):
type of things, people want to tune in. Even if
it's a you know, like an accent, you want to
see what it is. You still want to look. Um,
I think you needed another big name out there, you
know what I mean. I don't disagree. I mean, I
like I said, I it's not like totally my cup
of tea. But obviously if I was either at home
on a Sunday night or if I was in studio

(01:21:57):
with you and you know, would have had to grab
a stream. That's that's do you know I almost did that.
By the way, celebrity boxing, I'm not kidding around before
it became involgue. I'm talking about many many years ago.
I mean, it must have been pretty far down celebrities.
So wow, Well it's so funny because Danny Bonna Ducci no,
I'm serious, for the Partridge family was doing a lot
of this boxing stuff and we did a simulcast together

(01:22:20):
when he was on in Chicago and I was on
in Phoenix, and he liked me, and I said, hey, Danny,
I would love to be that guy because he was
looking for somebody to box. And he goes, hey, no offense,
You're just not a big enough name. But but but
he picked Donny Osman though you know Donny Osman in
that wee box? Was it Donny Osman? Or what is

(01:22:40):
like a mad libs game from nineteen eighty four? Is? Uh,
who else are we can we get in here? Is
Robin out involved at all? It was George Brett? What
are we? What are we doing here? By the way,
we got a couple of them were talking about Damian
Lillard seventy one and if anybody would ever get a
hundred points up with will. Then we started talking about
unbreakable records. Um, somebody sent an unbreakable Tony Dorset ninety

(01:23:05):
nine yard touchdown run in nineteen eighty two, and I
think that was what Leonard Fournette had that Also he said, yeah,
nobody's gonna break that that see, but that's that's a
numbers game, you know, That's what that is. And somebody
said nobody will ever throw more than seven no hitters. Yes,
I I think pitching is the one that right now

(01:23:27):
we just have to acknowledge. I think all of those records,
like there are certain things in sports, we can like them,
we cannot like them. They're not going back to the
way they were. I love college basketball. We're not going
back to a world where great players that can play
in the NBA are staying three and four years of
college basketball. It's just not happening now with the n
n I L. Will some decent players stay a year later, maybe,

(01:23:48):
but it's the same. It's the same with with baseball.
It's the same with with It's the same with baseball.
From the perspective that we can wish that we had
lived in a world where pitchers just took the all
every three days and you know, pitch game one in
Game four, in Game seven in the World Series. Like
that era is just over and I don't ever see
a coming backgard Well, I've I've thought somebody would have

(01:24:10):
broken the RBI record by Hack Wilson, only because nowadays,
like a judge will about like first or second, get
five or six at bats in the game. Um, you know,
people are getting walked all the time. Not that they're
walking people to pitch to him, but you would think
that somebody would go ahead and you know, break down
sooner or later. Was of all the advats you're getting betting,

(01:24:30):
you know, you don't have to wait till getting up
in fourth or anything like that. You know that one,
That one does surprise me a little bit. And I
know we have more walks in the game today than
ever before. Yeah, but that one does surprise me. And
you think about all the great players that have played
the game since Hack Wilson and what was it like
eighteen ninety or something like that. Um, the idea that whoever, um,

(01:24:51):
you know, Willie, Willie Mays whatever, like you know, Mickey
Mantle had never has never, you know, never top that record.
That is kind of surprising to me. I think of
all the great hitters we have right now, um, you
know that that could be doing that. So I'm gonna
be curious to see how that plays out. By the way, UM,

(01:25:13):
I want to get to some NFL stuff, and I
know we're still waiting to see where all the dominoes
are going to fall, but I'm still thinking that Aaron Rodgers,
obviously he's going to be the first one. For some reason.
I see him in a Raider uniform. I think he'll
be a good fit out there. Um. I'm not so
sure he's gonna bring him a super Bowl or anything
like that, but I think that's where he's going to

(01:25:34):
end up now that he's emerged from his hotel of
darkness or whatever the hell he was doing out there. Um,
I think that's where I'll end up. But we'll have
to wait and see on that. What do you think
I thought there was a report that the Vagas Raiders
were out on him. Was it was? I didn't see
that report. I believe late last week the report came out,
so we can look to see. You think it's good,
it's gonna be the jets den or what's gonna happen

(01:25:55):
after that? Or is he gonna end up back in
Green Bay? Well? Those are the two let's see here.
Raiders Raiders, Raiders. I don't know. Um, so let me
ask you about Let's just let's just talk about this,
you know. So do you think that? Like, like, I
get why the packers are frustrated, right, and we saw

(01:26:16):
that report that there. I wouldn't want him back. I'm
done with him. I don't want him back. Well because
I think there's just too much animosity. I think there's
just so much between him and the organization. He's there
because of the money. I think he's ready to move on. Also,
if he got the right situation, I think it's an
amicable divorce and it's time for them to move on.

(01:26:38):
But I'd be I'm fed up with in Shenanigans. He
doesn't really want to work with the young wide receivers
like last year. He really is just really about himself
right now and his vacations. I'm just done with this
guy for the fifty five million dollars on paying him
or whatever I'm paying him. You know, real quick, bo
you had something on the Raiders. Yeah, yeah, Raiders GM.
Dave Ziegler was on the Busting with the Boys pod cast,

(01:27:00):
and this is what he said. He said, Uh, we're
in charge of filling the most important position on the team,
and there's some pressure that comes along with that. It
doesn't mean that we're going to have an immediate answer
this year. So I do think he kind of threw
a little bit of dirt on the idea of trading
for Rodgers, but I don't think he killed it entirely. Interesting. Interesting,
Thank you both. Yeah, I don't think that means he's
not interested in Aaron Rodgers, don't want to get Aaron Rodgers.

(01:27:21):
I still think that Bubby first on his list. I'll
say this. So back to the Packers thing. I get
your point. I was thinking about this the other day though, right, Like,
so we all watched the Last Dance documentary. I assume
he probably watched it right, and like there's a lot
of themes to take out of it. But I think
one takeaway that we all had watching it was like

(01:27:43):
the Bulls ownership in front office had the greatest player
to ever walk the face of the earth, right and
just decided, you know what, we want to prove that
we can do it without this guy. And I'm not
saying Aaron Rodgers the greatest quarterback to ever walk to
face the earth, but the whole point of working your

(01:28:04):
entire career to be a GM. I know the Packers
don't have an owner to be a GM, to be
a team president. Is every guy in this league and
woman in this league that works in a front office
works their entire career to get a quarterback the caliber
of Aaron Rodgers. Now, I know he took a step
back and he's a little bit you know, he's at

(01:28:24):
I just think unless they're convinced that Jordan Love is
that guy, I just look at somebody like the Colts.
The Colts for twenty years could go to the stadium
with the one exception of the year between when pay
and Manning got hurt and when they drafted Andrew Luck
and they knew they were good at quarterback and didn't
have a care in the world. Arnie, how many good

(01:28:44):
coaches and how many good gms have been fired because
they couldn't find an Aaron Rodgers caliber quarterback. I'll just
say this really quick, and I'll tell us back to you.
Three or four years ago, Matt Rule was the hottest
name in coaching circles. Everybody wanted him. He goes back
to college, everybody wants him. He never figured out the
quarterback and he got canned in Carolina in two and

(01:29:06):
a half years. And so listen, if the Packers want
to move on, it's their prerogative. I just think it's
so easy to get caught up in all of the
off the field Shenanigans. Asked the Colts what it's like,
asked the Packers moved on from a coach because they
didn't win a Super Bowl? Aaron Rodgers brought him what
that one super Bowl and that was it. You can
say that he's underachieved a little bit. People expected more

(01:29:27):
than just one Super Bowl out of this guy. So
if there was an owner, maybe they would have fired
the GM a long time ago. I just think there's
a lot of great coaches and great gms that didn't
look great. Look at Bill Belichick was what has he
been without Tom Brady? And so if you're sold, by
the way, if your soul, Jordan Love is the next
dude like the Packers were sold twenty years ago. Aaron

(01:29:49):
Rodgers is the next dude that make the move. I
just think again, pick the organization, the Colts, the Jaguars
pre Trevor Lawrence, the je Bets forever, whiff after whiff
after whiff after whiff to get the Commanders, whiff after
whiff to get a guy the caliber of Aaron Rodgers,
and you have him, you have him under contract. I

(01:30:13):
don't know where do you think he's going to end up? Then?
Where do you you think he's gonna in the back
with Green Bay or he's gonna go somewhere else. I
think I think he's gonna end up back up with
Green Bay. I will say this from a content perspective.
I want him in New York, Man. I just think
it'd be great. I think I think it might be
fondly fantastic. I think he'd be re energized. I really do. Obviously,

(01:30:37):
the young offensive talent is through the roof there. He
won it back down from the New York media. The
New York media won it back down from him every week.
They would be getting into it. Any chance he ends
up in San Francisco, or maybe Brady SMEs out of
retirement for San Francisco. Since now we find out that
Brock Purdy is gonna be you know, on the shelf
a little bit longer than we expect. He who knows

(01:30:59):
if the guy's even gonna be able to play next
year or through halfway of the season. So Trey Lance
or Bust I guess sand Since day one, is everybody
automatically linked Brady to San Francisco because he's from the
Bay Area? Yes, and then he retires, And my question
is exactly what you just asked, Why not Aaron Rodgers?

(01:31:20):
And you know, I know he's from the Bay Area.
I don't think he cares as much about returning home.
But at the end of the day, they need a quarterback.
And and like, first of all, it's it's a one
to two. First of all, he's only got two years
left on his contract. That's Aaron Rodgers. But I look
at the San Francisco situation and I go back to
why I would have chosen Jimmy g over Trey Lance
coming out of training camp last year. It's because you

(01:31:40):
have a team that is built to win a Super
Bowl right now, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, all these guys
aren't going to be around forever in their primes, you know,
going into leading into their primes, you know, Deebo, Samuel whatever.
And it's like, now you got to go into that,
like you said, because then you have to give him,
what a two or three year contract, and then you're
saying the brock Purty, then you're not gonna be the starter,

(01:32:02):
So sorry, we're gonna have to end up trading you
or something. Well, brock Purty, as you said, I don't
think he's gonna be ready for the start of the season.
So now he's not gonna be ready forget about that.
That's already. That's what I mean. Yeah, And so so
do you trust Trey Lance? Because no? Yeah, So I
mean I go to Aaron Rodgerson I figured out from there,
and I'm you, do you trust Brock purty like he's

(01:32:25):
the guy that's the next coming because of what he
did in what seven eight games? Is that enough sample's
eyes for you to say this guy's a starter in
the NFL? Or he's do have some doubts about this guy.
So I'm with you. I don't know if he I
don't want to insinuate what you were saying there, but
I have my doubts on this guy then before we
start annaulging him all pro and everything like that. I
thought it was very interesting going into the NFC Championship game.

(01:32:47):
I heard a lot of smart NFL people, including Adam Kaplan,
and I had him as a guest on some show
I was doing where he said, oh the conversations over
this is your your twenty twenty three starter for the
San Francisco forty nine ers, And I was like, really, like,
like were that sold? Because as he beat a bunch
of mediocre teams, mostly at home, Like I mean, I
don't eat. I had to push off a surgery now
because his arm, the swallowing never went down. But let's

(01:33:08):
say he goes back to one hundred percent even before
the injury. I thought it was very weird that it
was just a foregone conclusion. It's not even up for
conversation that anyone other than Brock Purty could be the
quarterbacks better. Well, who's a better quarterback? It's easy to
say if I said Brock Purty or Aaron Rodgers, you
would immediately would say Aaron Rodgers. Never rephrases the question
who's a better quarterback? Aaron Rodgers at fifty million dollars

(01:33:31):
or or brock Purty at what two million or whatever
he's making? What do you think? Then? Uh So, here's
my statement to that, because you could use that buddy
for a lot of other things. Right, I'm not a
cap expert, but what I would say is what I
just said a minute ago. Your Super Bowl window is
right now. I mean, how many years are you going

(01:33:52):
to have an elite defense, all the other pieces in place? Like,
I get it, but it's also rock parties are gonna
be ready for the start next year. We frankly, here's
the thing again, I'm not a surgeon, but I've been
told some of these elbow injuries, the injury that he had,
some guys are never the same. And so it's just like,
how many times do we keep going to the well

(01:34:14):
hoping that Jimmy g stays healthy. Hope in that rock
party stay. Jimmy's gonna be gone anywhere. But I'm just
using him as an example, right right right for the
last three years, Can this guy stay healthy? Is this
guy that is that? It's just like, I don't know,
go get a quarterback that is a sure thing. And
and I know Aaron Rodgers is banged up this year,
but for the most part he has been a mostly
healthy quarterback as well. So he's Aaron Torres sitting in

(01:34:35):
for Chris Plankmarny Spaniard will come back. We got more
stuff from the NFL and where some of the other
quarterbacks are gonna end up. That's coming up next right
here on Fox Sports Radio. Right the segment brought to
you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes a bundling easier and affordable.
Get a multi policy discount by come out of your motorcycle,
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(01:34:56):
your protection in one plays. Bundle him save at Progressive
dot com. By the way, I saw the highlight again
of Caitlin Clark's three pointer at the buzzer. By the way,
that was the longest one point five seconds left ever
seen in my wife. Um, where they got the foul shots,
they got the ball out of bounds, and by the way,

(01:35:17):
I don't think you get into the half court. They
kind of moved it down a little bit. But that
was still a great shot though, Aaron. That was But
we get buzzer beaters all over the place for right
out loud, you know, great week for college hoops, great
weekend for college hoops. And uh, yeah, it feels like
you know again, I understand, Uh, most people don't care
about college hoops still March. Well guess what this week is, March,

(01:35:39):
and this weekend was a good preview of what's to come. Yeah,
and you know again, my Wildcats got beat by Arizona State.
That was a crusher. Um. When you're up by one
and you have one foul shot left, you're supposed to
miss the second one. When the other team has no
timemounts left, they by the time they get the rebound,
they got to throw a full court shot. It's not
gonna go in. Um. Two. Many guys are making these

(01:36:00):
half court shot nowadays. It's insane. A matter of fact,
the Clippers that won right before the end of half
time before halftime, but they was too late. It was
like a half a second too late. Otherwise they would
have won the game and they had to go in overtime.
We're getting them all over the place. But yeah, March madness,
we're upon it. I love that. I'm more of a
conference me too, a guy, I like that a lot

(01:36:22):
more too. You know, Yeah, that's become a more common
conversation over the last couple of years. I remember bringing
this up like six seven years ago, people like, you're
out of your mind. But my argument for the conference
tournaments is, first of all, all these teams know each other,
they've played all year. But you get really good in
the best conferences. You get really good teams going against
each other three four, five days in a row. Right,

(01:36:44):
So opening around in the NCAA tournament, the best teams
and I know the best teams aren't that good this year,
but you know they're probably gonna win. They're probably gonna
kill somebody in the opening round, and then the second
round you might get a good game and then you
move on in the tournament. The conference tournaments and the
good conferences like Kansas is gonna have to probably beat
like Oklahoma State, which is a tournament team. Then they'll

(01:37:05):
get Baylor and then they'll get Texas, or then they'll
get uh, you know, Kansas State, and then they'll get Texas,
or then they'll get Texas and then they'll get Kansas State.
Like you're gonna see Kansas play three NCAA tournament teams
that are equipped to beat them in three day span.
And I just love start to finish all week long.
It ramps up that Thursday Friday when all the conferences

(01:37:26):
are kind of playing it. Yeah, the smaller ones though,
I got here. We have the America East with with
the Vermont Um they won their division but their conference,
but they're still not as good as they've been in
the last couple of years, you know what I mean,
They're they're not as dominant, but they still won the conference,
so that was a good They'll they'll get their conference
tournaments started and stuff like that. That's that's what I love.

(01:37:47):
It's these small conferences. It's only gonna get one team in,
so you know, everything's on the line with the conference tournaments.
What makes the tournament so great though, right, I mean,
you know, Vermont the opportunity to potentially be on a
national stage, you know, some smaller schools. That's what I
always say about the nca Tournament. Everybody loves it because
you either are in theory, betting on it through a bracket,
or you're you're from a small school, you're from a

(01:38:08):
small state. It's just it's just a really fun event
that brings everybody together. And I'll say this too, is
like we had two years in a row twenty twenty.
I always say it was the only sporting event that
was ultimately canceled in twenty twenty. Everything else we figured
out a way to play. We played the NBA in
a bubble, Major League Baseball and a bubble, the Masters
we played in like October and November. The NCAA Tournament

(01:38:30):
was the only the only event that got canceled too. Yeah,
and then twenty twenty one, it's played in a bubble
and there's no there's limited fans. So it was just
so great to have the tournament back last year the
way that it was, and he had the great storylines,
Coach k retiring and they played Carolina in the final four.
Carolina wins there Villanova. We didn't know at the time,

(01:38:51):
maybe Jay Wright's last game as a basketball coach period.
It was just a really fun event last year. I
will say this, I think it's gonna be really entertaining
this here. I don't know if the end a result.
I don't know if we're gonna get a Duke Carolina, Villanova,
Kansas type final four this year. I'll just put it
like that. By the way, since we're talking a little college,
I know you must have brought this up last night,

(01:39:11):
but what the heck is going on with my Pack twelve?
With the streaming you're gonna you're gonna put on streaming
for crying out loud, this is pretty much the end
of the Pac twelve. You know that. Though I've been
telling Chris blank as soon as I found out that
UCLA and USC we're really gone over to the Big ten.
They're not going to survive. A matter of fact, I
think Arizona and Arizona State should immediately take off to

(01:39:33):
the Big twelve. I've been saying they should go to
the SEC, but the SEC probably doesn't want them. But
you could have to have these super conferences more sooner
than later. But I could see Arizona Arizona State going
over to the Big twelve or I would love to
go to the SEC and then everybody else is in
big trouble. Maybe Oregon and Washington go to the big
big ten, but the Pack twelve is over come on

(01:39:57):
we First of all, nobody watches the Pack twelve network anyway,
would but out of here in Vermont I have it,
and my goodness, man, you it's just horrible what has
happened in the Pack twelve. Yeah, you're gonna have to
move on. Nobody's gonna want to watch it, you know, Arnie,
I hate when you're right. I think you're right though,
and I think what people don't realize. So UCLA and

(01:40:18):
USC are leaving in the fall of twenty twenty four,
right we are now in February of twenty twenty three. Yeah,
there is no TV contract for the other remaining ten
schools in the PAC twelve in literally literally about a
year from now. Like imagine being like, like we always
hear this with coaches, Like coaches never go into the

(01:40:40):
last year their contract, Like you always give them an
extension before they even get to their last year. I'm
with you, is I hope, by the way, I hope
we're both wrong on this. I hope they find a
way to survive. I think the conference is school also.
Should they have to though it wouldn't it be better
if you just go ahead and just dissolve it and
let the teams go to the other conferences than we
have four super conferences? Well, I would What I would

(01:41:01):
say is the sad thing about it is the remaining
PAC twelve football schools are actually gonna be a pretty
good conference, like Utah's the two time reigning champ, Oregon's
really good, Colorado's gonna be interesting with Dion Sanders. I'll
say this even here. Arizona Wildcats were much improved this year,
and I think they're on an upward trajectory. So but
but but their Tucson Arizona and Arizona State is Phoenix,

(01:41:25):
and Phoenix is a pretty big market. But Tucson doesn't
do anything, doesn't move the needles, you know what I mean?
It doesn't matter about that. Well, it doesn't, and that's
why they're having trouble. And they're just not teams that
I think the problem with the PAC twelve. They're not
really schools in games that people seek out. Most people,
if it's on TV late at night, they'll watch it,
and people will still our generation, like like some generations

(01:41:49):
will find it. But I'll say this, listen, I mean
I host every Saturday night at eleven pm. There will
be no way for me to watch Pac twelve football
the way that we're trending. Because we have a great
set up here in the five sports radio studios. I
can't pull up Apple TV to cover the le whoa, whoa?
How do you pull up Thursday football? How do you
pull up to Thursday football? I might have to get
with Jason and Mike. I don't know how do they

(01:42:10):
do it? Well, I mean do they watch to their computers?
I'm literally asking. I don't know. Well, it's the same
thing though, and the NFL is pretty big, and if
it's good enough for the NFL, and some people Jason
who just didn't watch, they just like refuse to cover
the games on Thursday, like, yeah, we're just not watching it.
I can't find it on my TV. So now it's
a good point. It's a good point. I guess to
your point, if it's the only game on in town

(01:42:30):
and there's gonna be ranked teams, I'll have to figure
out a way to watch it. But you know it's
not gonna be easy to get that Apple TV roll
in or the Amazon TV or whatever. So I'm with you,
though I hope that we're wrong. I would like to
see them stay together. I don't want a twenty fourteen
Big twelve. We're gonna get there eventually, to your point,
but I have no problem keeping it this way for

(01:42:50):
a couple more years. Let let the league stay together
for another five six years until the Big tennant decides
to expand again. Um. I know the SEC doesn't need us,
but I would love Arizona and Arizona State to go
to the SEC. Would help big time in basketball. But
the Alabama is number one right now, but I would
I would just love to see that over the Big twelve.

(01:43:12):
I'm not even that excited about going to the Big twelve,
but you know you got to go somewhere. Yeah. I
think the one thing I will say, Arizona is gonna
have a landing spot. If you were in Oregon State
Beaver and we're doing Beaver calls every time your team
won and lost, I think he might be in trouble.
Washington State, cal Stanford, I don't know if they have
a landing spot. I think Oregon and washingtonill end up somewhere,
and it feels like those four they call him the

(01:43:33):
Corner schools Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah. It sounds
like they could end up in the Big Twelve together.
We're live at the Tirek dot Com studios. Of course,
he's Aaron Torres sitting for Chris Blank. I'm Marni Spaniel.
Will get back to more of those NFL rumors. I
promised that's coming up decks. First of all, let's see
what's trending. We check in with Steve the Sager. What's
going on to Sega regarding the Thursday night football How

(01:43:55):
we were able to watch it on TV here, perhaps
because we had a corporate account. Is Direct TV assigned
a channel number to the Amazon game Thursday, so we
were able to watch it Thursday here. You couldn't do that,
or at least I couldn't at my home. But yeah,
there was a channel number here. And you talked about
the boxing today in Saudi Arabia. By the way, everybody,

(01:44:17):
we had live golf today ironically finishing up its first
tournament of the year, when everybody hates to live golf
because of the Saudi money. Nobody cares that Jake Paul
took the Saudie money apparently, and ESPN K per View
got in bed with them. And nobody cares that Beyonce
gives her twenty million dollar private concerts in the Middle East.
And you know, the NBA played preseason games in the

(01:44:38):
United Arab Emirates. There you go, by the way, the
Milwaukee Bucks, who almost blew up the bubble, they walked
off the court and said they don't know if they
wanted to play anymore, was the team that played the UAE.
So give me a break with all this political nonsett.
This morning, our time, Tommy Fury beat Jake Paul by
split decision in Saudi Arabia, eight round fight. The winner
got knocked down and the Fury said it was a slip.

(01:44:59):
But Fury before today, despite the last name, was eight
and oh with four knockouts, and according to Yahoo Sports,
his eight opponents had a combined record of twenty four
and one seventy six. Oh what do you fight? Men?
Get out of here. Meanwhile, the live golf opener finished
up in Mexico, Charles Howell the winner. Let's compare the weekend,

(01:45:22):
shall we. The PGA had the Honda Classic in Florida.
The winner in a playoff was Chris Kirk, his first
win and over seven years. He gets first prize of
one point five million dollars. The live golf winner got
over four million dollars for the weekend. Charles Howell had
been on the PGA Tour for all of three career victories.

(01:45:42):
Those three wins earned him less than three million total.
He got over four mill just for the three days
this weekend. A guy who played over twenty years on
the PGA Tour over six hundred events, had only won
three times. Four mill plus today and a tie or
fifth today got you about nine hundred thousand dollars. Next weekend,

(01:46:04):
there are three XFL games on f X. By the way,
there were two XFL games tonight, Houston Roughnecks win two
an O and the San Antonio Brahma's gotta win three
touchdown passes for Jack Cone from Wisconsin in Notre Dame.
You heard Brian no here this afternoon, mister Notre Dame.
He probably went straight from his show to watching XFL

(01:46:24):
with the Paula Casino four hundred. I need my updates.
He did have a victory for Kyle Bush in southern California,
the NASCAR winner, and he has won at least one
Cup race in a record nineteen straight years. Now. The
victory sixty first of his career, most among active drivers,
his first win with the new car owner Richard Shoulders
racing here. It was cloudy, temperatures in the forties. The

(01:46:47):
mountains behind the track were covered with snow, but no
rain today and they got the race. Him on the
ice wins for Toronto and Pittsburgh. And then there's the Clipper.
The late game, the Clippers at Denver contest in the
NBA overtime nug It's beat the Clips one thirty four,
one twenty four, Nicola Yoki's triple double forty points, seventeen rebounds,
tennessis one turnover. Now, keep in mind the clippers most

(01:47:10):
recent game was very late Friday, the double overtime loss
to Sacramento that was one seventy six one seventy five.
So the Clippers, according to the La Times, got aboard
the jet in La about noon Pacific time on Saturday,
headed to Denver. Within a minute of the team plane
taking off yesterday, a bolt of lightning hit it. Get

(01:47:31):
staff members for the Clippers felt the engines momentarily quiet,
and then rev up again for the steep climb into
the clouds. When everyone finally got off in Denver for
tonight's game, there was quote a noticeable splotch along the
tail the site of the lightning strike, which had been
stripped of its paint. So really, the double overtime and

(01:47:52):
the overtime losses aren't that much in comparison. Unbelievable, lat
You gotta tell that story another time of Minneapolis Lakers
plane that went down in the cornfield. Yeah, yeah, that
is an old time. Yeah yeah, how what was your
reaction when when you were on air for that? Come on,
and what about when Wilt scored one hundred that night?

(01:48:14):
Or the Lakers today were at Dallas and down by
twenty seven first half and still beat the MAVs one
eleven one o eight to Milwaukee won its fourteen straight game,
edging Phoenix. Atlanta got Trey Young's game winning jumper at
the buzzer to beat Brooklyn, and the Hawks agreed to
a five year deal with Quinn Snyder to be their
new head coach. Orlando signed a guy who was Rookie
of the Year in the league about a decade ago,

(01:48:35):
Michael Carter Williams. And then there's the game at Portland
Tonight's Damian Lillards seventy one points in thirty nine minutes
on the court. Portland beat Houston one one. Fourteen. Rockets
have lost nine games in a row, so most sixty
point games in NBA history. Lillard has five in the
last five years. I think Kobe had six sixty point games.

(01:48:58):
Wilt had thirty two sixty point games in his career,
but this top seventy, and he nearly tied the record
for three pointers made in a game. It was thirteen
of twenty two tonight. Clay Thompson had fourteen three pointers
in a game, still to mark. But to have a
seventy point game, not even ten players in the whole
history of the NBA have had a seventy point game.

(01:49:19):
This was very rare tonight. Congrats to Lillard who did
so in under forty minutes on the court. By the way,
that's that's a first. Who did so with ten threes
plus may that's a first oldest guy to have a
seventy point game and one of the shortest guys to
have a seventy point game. Donovan Mitchell six one had
seventy one just a month ago, still built a hundred

(01:49:43):
points in one game. The record and final note, the
Padres agreed on a new eleven year contract with Manny
Machado with no opt outs. He would have acted out
of his old deal after this season. Most MLB teams
started their exhibition schedule yesterday. Padres today led Arizona fourteen
to two in the fourth inning, won the game eighteen
to six. Twenty hits time in the game three hours

(01:50:06):
three minutes. Wow. I like that. There was in the
Toronto Yankees game twenty two total hits time of the
game three hours five minutes. There you go. And then
there was a Washington three two over Houston time of
the game two hours and seven minutes. That's what I'm
talking about. The sag good. I like that. Thank you, Sayger,
you have a good week. My friend. Of course, Aaron

(01:50:28):
Torres is sitting in for Chris Blank. By the way,
we were alive at the Tirerock dot Com studios. Would
you say, Torres? No? I was gonna say the reason
I asked the sager about the Poula Casino four hundred.
I told him this last night. But my wedding was
actually right down the street from Pola Casino, and we
stayed at Pola Casino for my wedding. We actually had

(01:50:49):
a rehearsal dinner there. And so when I saw they
were sponsoring a race, I figured it was some like,
you know, dirt tracks something something, and I was like, oh, no,
this is a nash Scar Sprint Cup race or whatever
the you know, whatever the race the circuit is called now,
So I thought that was pretty cool. But if you
if you were wondering why I interrupted his his thing
to hear about the Paula Casino four hundred, that's why,

(01:51:11):
aren't you? Now? I wasn't paying attention, but I do
want to go ahead bring this up here. UM, you
want to talk about it. Thank you, Thank you. Um,
I wanted you to listen to this. The highest rated
or the highest graded running back in twenty sixteen was
David Johnson for the Cardinals. In twenty seventeen, Alex Kamara
for the for the Saints, say Quon Barkley in twenty
eighteen for the Giants, Nick Chubb for the Browns in

(01:51:33):
twenty nineteen, Derek Henry for the Titans in twenty twenty
Jonathan Taylor twenty twenty one for the Colts, Josh Jacobs
last year, twenty twenty two. It now is pretty evident
that you do not need a running back um to
go ahead. None of these teams even sniffed a deep
run into the playoffs. Shatlone, a Super Bowl m the

(01:51:57):
days of Ezekiel Elliott and all that, which, by the way,
he's just I mean, I don't know what they're gonna
do with him in Dallas. You just don't. It's like
having the big seven foot center back in the day
in the NBA. You just don't need that anymore. You
just don't need the big time running back anymore. You
could pick them up anywhere, you know, I don't disagree.
And it'll be interesting because you know this NFL draft

(01:52:17):
once again, you know, Bejean Robinson is a guy that
probably fifteen twenty years ago is probably a top five
ten pick, and now people are talking about him as
a fringe first rounder. There's a couple of the running backs.
It's a new world man. And it's funny, right because
we were talking about this earlier with the roughing, the
passer penalties. Is everything has been put in place for
the quarterback, to protect the quarterback, to keep the quarterback
on the field, and slowly but surely that run game.

(01:52:41):
The run game still matters, but the person carrying the
ball seems to matter less and less. Do you think
we're hurting development of other quarterbacks when we protect the
quarterbacks so much? You know, it allows somebody like a
Tom Brady to play in their mid forties because nobody
could touch that quarterback. You just stand there and sling it.
Suppose you could just go after him like you did
back in the Terry Brads odd days. Boy, if you

(01:53:01):
were a scrambling quarterback, you'd be worth a lot of money,
you know, like Daniel Jones or you know fields over
in Chicago. You'd be worth big time money, and the
quarterbacks would not be lasting as long as they do
right now. But obviously we protect the hell out of
him right now. I don't know if you saw this,

(01:53:21):
but right around the Super Bowl there was a good
profile of Joe Montana. It was a long written piece
and the underlying story was like, I don't think Joe
Montana is jealous of Tom Brady per se, but I
think you could kind of tell by some of his
comments about you. Know, come on now, like you can't
compare Brady to me. Like, if Brady was playing in

(01:53:43):
my era, he would have retired at thirty four thirty
five years old, just like everybody did in my era.
So I don't think that's a stretch at all. I
have no problem with it. I love to watching Tom
Brady play untill he's forty five. I still think he's
the outlier. I think thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine
is going to be the tail end for most guys.
But I don't think you can deny that the rule
changes during Brady's career helped him last as long as

(01:54:04):
he did. What about those old great running backs, you
know we bring up like Dorset and Sanders and guys
like that. There'd be nothing nowadays, right, There's no need
for a great running back anymore. You would you don't
need him around anymore, you know, I guess, yeah, I
mean like it would would Emmitt Smith. I mean, I
guess he would still be a Hall of Famer, But
I don't know would he be a Hall of Famer?

(01:54:24):
I don't know. It's interesting. Right, Well, we'll come back,
and of course we'll give you a few predictions before
we get out of here on this Sunday night. Aaron Torres,
of course, sitting in for Chris Plank. I'm only spanning.
You're right here on Fox Sports or radio. Now. Dame's
got it one forty five to play, fuck drives, run
it up? Guess seven day seventy one for Damian Lillard.

(01:54:47):
Oh man, I got goosebump, I got chills. I'm seeing history.
Dame is the eighth player in NBA history and a
score seventy or more. All right, that was the Progressive
play of the day, and it's brought to you by
Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes some bundling easy and affordable. Get

(01:55:08):
that multi policy discount by combinding your motorcycle, your RV,
your boat, your ATV and more, all your protection in
one place. Bundle him save at Progressive dot Com. Seventy one,
my friend, seventy one. Um, are we gonna get that
one hundred? You think so? That's your first prediction? Yay
or nay? Will we get somebody that scores one hundred

(01:55:30):
points in the NBA? What do you think about that?
It seems like it's inevitable with the way scoring is going.
But like to Sayer, did bring up a great point
of as good as Dame Lillard was, he would have
had to score thirty more points that he scored tonight.
So well, he had forty one in the first half,
so you double that, that's eighty two. But I know
that that's still not a hundred's not so I will

(01:55:53):
did it. But he wasn't all. He wasn't a three
point shooter. So he did it without you know, going
up against the arm a sister, whoever you did back then,
here's my prediction on February twenty six, twenty twenty three.
Within the next five years, at least one person gets eighty.
But I don't think anybody gets one hundred. All right,
outside the top ten in college basketball, give us a team.

(01:56:17):
We're not concentrating Goner. Just give us a team that
you think could win the whole thing. Maybe a Gonzag
at number twelve. I know Tendensee's hit on some hard times.
I don't know. Maybe a Miami Xavier with Miller old
coach from Arizona. You tell me, give me a team,
maybe Indiana, your Yukon team, a team outside the top
ten that could win at all. So I'll give you

(01:56:38):
two first one is Indiana. They won it Purdue last night.
And the bottom line is freshman point guard Jillenhochifino is
a lottery pick. You need NBA players to win. Trace
Jackson Davis is a star fourth year player. The other one. Listen,
it's not a Homer thing. It's Yukon. Listen. Yukon at
one point started the season fourteen and ozer with fourteen
double figure wins. They just stroy They beat Alabama, who's

(01:57:01):
number one in the country at number two right now,
by fifteen points. They beat Iowa State, which is ranked
by by eighteen points. They won at Florida. They beat
Oklahoma State by double figures. What happened to them? What
happened to them? I mean, I can give you the
whole story. I think, first of all, conference plays is tough.
Like they played good teams on the road. You know,

(01:57:23):
they played at Marquette. You know, Marquette ends up winning
the league. They lose by seven on the road. They
played Xavier early on the road and lost by three.
So I think conference play everybody kind of knows you
a little bit better, and it's hard to go in
to other people's gyms and win. But they've They're six
and one in their last seven over all. Over the
last calendar month. They beat Marquette, they beat Providence, two

(01:57:44):
top twenty five teams. Marquet's the regular season conference champ.
So that's why I like them. I it's not a
Homer thing as you look at at this year. Everybody
has flaws. Everybody can be beaten. Yeah, you kin can
beat you in a lot of different ways. I'm telling
you they really can. I'm not confident about my Arizona
Wild time. It's been you know again, you talk about
teams with fause, but it's not because of the Arizona

(01:58:05):
State game. But we've lost the teams we had no
business losing. Question made it home it um not that
it's been an up and down year because we're still
a good teams. You'll see it. We deserve to be
in the top ten. But we can get caught on
any day, just like any of the other teams out there.
You know what I mean, are in any of those
top ten teams can get caught on any day. One
thing that worries me. You know, you lose that game

(01:58:27):
the other day, like you let them stay in put
them away. Um, they're a decent team. They just they
run too hot and too cold. I'm kind of out
on Arizona. One thing I'll say for Arizona, they get
it that West Regional West Regionals in Vegas this year.
You know that's Arizona. Yeah, but I don't think they're
going to because you see he's going to be in
the West Region, so great call. Yeah, I don't think

(01:58:49):
that's that's going to happen. Thank you for filling in
my friend for I mean, Plank. But I like to
work with you as far. I hope you learned something
about driving a show. I hope I taught you you know,
nice and don't do what you do. Wow. Wow, Well
I appreciate you sitting on and thanks to all the
guys producing and directing and all that. Big Ben Maller

(01:59:10):
coming next year on Fox Sports or Radio.