Anthony Gargano & the Fellas Discuss Final Four & Top NFL Headlines

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M M. Good morning, good morning, good morning, good bleep

(00:47):
in morning. Everybody, happy, happy, happy, Final four Saturday. It's
a Fox Sports Saturday right here with the fellas. I'm
Anthony Gargano as we hang out on a April the
first we have reached April, and it's it's Fool's day, baby,

(01:12):
so happy April. First, we come to you alive from
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(01:32):
buying should be. Yes, Baseball is back, and then we
had the Final four today, so we got to talk
a lot about a little Final four action as uh
Florida Atlantic, San Diego State, and Yukon Miami looks like
it's Yukon's tournament. Like they look like the best team,

(01:55):
although San Diego State to me is a grizzled bunch
and I think they could be a little dangerous. We'll
discuss what we think of the Final four, because you know,
I mean I hit you with uh. The nine seeded
Florida Atlantic the five seed San Diego State, the five
seed Miami, and the fourth seed Yukon as the four teams,

(02:19):
it's not exactly blue bloods. And uh, I don't know,
I don't know how I feel. I mean I kind
of thought it was. The tournament had some moments. It
clearly lacks, you know, the top part of like the
top echelon basketball. I mean, it's good, but it's it's

(02:42):
certainly not you know what it's been in the past
where you've had, you know, really you know, great teams
like these teams are good, you know, I mean Yukon,
they're and they're fun. And when you may like the
story where you know, you have multiple you know, Cinderella
is I just think there's no such thing as Derella
anymore because the tournament is all parody, you know. I mean, listen,

(03:07):
player of the Year is bounced to the first round
and the first round with Purdue, and that kind of
tells you the whole story. The whole story of the
tournament is there is no cent Derella anymore. The seeds
are relatively meaningless. It's parody, and you know, some people
may like it. The only thing that I think that

(03:31):
I'm a little you know, media I'm a little lukewarm
on is the concept of you know, name recognition and
you know, the better players, like the best players in
the country, you know, just don't stay so that the
lacks the name recognition. And you know, you kind of
look at this tournament and it's more of, you know,

(03:51):
you get to know the guys as the tournament roles.
And I think that's that for the most part of
the country. And then you know, you wonder, for the
sake of college basketball, it is whether or not it
can hold you. Does it hold your attention enough to
just get to know the players during the tournament, And

(04:12):
that's something that is uh. I think people have to
get used to. And quite frankly, the women's tournament, as
you've seen, has grown and grown and grown and ratings
are increasing, while the men's tournament the ratings are decreasing.
So we'll discuss the tournament. And I gotta, I gotta,

(04:33):
I'm want a baseball and up, man, I'm all geeked
up with baseball. I you know, love it and it's back.
I missed it and you know, I mean I felt
that the rules are going to play. I'm gonna have
a big effect on the game. Now, the positive effect
is what everybody's been talking about over the last two days,

(04:53):
which is the time of games. I mean, you know,
I have to just give it up to the masses
and say, listen, you got like baseball more encapsualized than
two and a half and you know two and a
half hours, Hey, that's gonna make you watch it. Then
I'm for it as much as I don't like it,
and I don't like a clock in baseball, and I

(05:14):
think it has an effect because the one thing you've
noticed is that when pictures start to get in trouble,
they can implode. Guys are gonna implode because you know,
when you're when you're starting, you're a little wild, or
you're getting hit a little bit. You need to breathe, right,

(05:34):
But you can't breathe with the clock. You gotta rear
back and you got to throw it. And you know,
I think it taxes pictures, so you gotta be unless
you work quickly. You know, some guys work quickly and
they just won't have an issue. But some guys who
like to labor and who are more deliberate and and

(05:56):
you know, kind of catch themselves and there's a there's
a rhythm, the pacing to pitching, and this is where
the clock is gonna they're gonna have to to adjust
or get eating. So that's some of it, but by large,
I think it's been a successful two days. Baseball is
being back, so we're gonna get all into baseball. And

(06:18):
speaking of being back, I got my main man back,
the one, the only Kevin Figures Figgy es her. Good morning,
my prof, good morning, good morning. What's going on? Oh Man?
Missed you buddy? Likewise likewise back and it makes that
a little bit of a shuffle last weekend. But we're
back and ready to get to it. Talks to Missy
double a tournament as you men, just a little bit
of baseball, a little NFL off season. I'm ready to go.

(06:40):
I like it. Well, let's begin first. Let's just begin
with baseball, because you and I are big baseball fans,
and what'd you think of the first two days in
the season. I loved it, you know, and it was
you know, people were a wonder ring. Well, spring training
is a little bit different or the game is really
gonna be sped up that significantly. I mean, you saw it.
I mean we're talking a difference of you know, twenty

(07:00):
five twenty six minutes, you know, which is a major difference.
So I I like the fact that there's a faster
pace to the game. There's less you know, guys walking around,
stepping out of the box, staring off into space, guys
walking off the mount, walking in circles, because that's honestly
what it is, Anthony. A lot of it is less
of you know, time to think and all that stuff.
These guys have scouting reports and do all this event

(07:22):
scouting and all these things. They know how they want
to attack guys, they know how they want to adjust.
I don't. We don't need all the standing around and
the guys stepping out of the box and readjusting their
gloves and all that stuff is just a waste of time.
So more than anything, I think baseball is just you know,
able to hasten the players to say, let's cut out
all the you know, all the unnecessary stuff, and let's
play baseball. So I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far.

(07:43):
The clock itself, and also the shift, I think has
made a big difference too. When I've seen already a
couple of screaming liners or a couple of dribblers that
last year would have easily been out. Now you have
some singles getting wrapped up and more stolen bases. What
was it on I think the stat was opening day
twenty three stolen basis and twenty one were successful. Yeah,
be incredible, I know, I you know. And here's the thing.

(08:07):
Right when I look at you know the uh the
I think you're right about the shift in the action.
I think what people need from baseballs, you need the
ball and play right and you need I mean think
about it. You mentioned steals, you mentioned contact, and you
mentioned action in a shorter period of encapsualized time. And

(08:31):
if you compare this two days versus last year, where
at the last couple of years, especially where analytics come
to play, and it's like hit his home runs, its
strikeouts and you know, three and a half hour games. Yeah,
that's a tough slid for a lot of people. Man. Yeah,
I mean you just look after the trick adown effects

(08:53):
that to go along with that. So the reason why
so many guys are striking out or you know, swinging
for the fences to hit home runs, it is because
of the end field shifts. Well, now all of a sudden.
Maybe there'll be an adjustment at the youth level coming up. Well,
now launch angle might not be as big of a
deal if you don't necessarily have to worry about having
to hit the ball in the air because you're concerned
that if you hit it on the ground, it's going
to go right to a third baseman playing at shortstop.

(09:15):
So now it actually reintegrates the ability of guys who
you know, maybe not be the strongest home run hitters.
They can be line drive hitters, they can be groundball
hitters and use their speed. So I think ultimately absolutely yes,
great point be pucky. So I think, you know, even
you know, eight ten years from now, we're gonna see
kind of a re revolution, if you want to call it,

(09:35):
going back to the way that baseball used to be played,
where you have a variety of different types of players
as opposed to everybody trying to hit thirty home runs.
I Greg, I listen, and I think manufacturing runs. I think,
you know, having speedy guys, see like I do, like
the game when you got variety, right, like you got
speed at the top, right, it's guys who swipe bags,

(10:00):
Guys that you know, we're we're you know, you had
a typical fast guy a leadoff, and then you built
your line up around a guy it's a contact hitter
in the two hall. You know, it was more of
a thinking person's game. And you know, I think that's
what the beauty of the sport is is that it
is like that. And you know, you can't have a

(10:20):
variety of guys and not everybody's going to hit, you know,
be the big guy hitting bombs that you got little
guys and you got you know, you're out two days
and you know you're you're you know, Ricky Henderson and
all these guys from the past that actually helped make
the game. And it's funny because by modernizing the game

(10:42):
and you know, this shift is one thing, and then
adding the clock to it, and as much as I
don't like it, you all of a sudden brought the
game back to where it was two and a half hours,
and you know, I do think that helps. Yeah, you know,
if you're trying to get you know, and we've discussed
this in the past, you know, baseball is not as
sarily concerned about losing people that are already fans because

(11:02):
you're not going to as much as we can scream
and complain and from a general standpoint, and you know,
I went to the Dodgers play at the Angels of
their last preseason game earlier this week. It was my
first game in person experiencing the clock and the banning
of the shifts and all that. From a gay day
experience standpoint, I really didn't notice a whole lot of
a difference, to be honest with you. Specifically, when the
bases are empty and when guys are on base, pitchers

(11:24):
are probably working a little bit faster than they usually would.
But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. So
I really don't think from an aesthetic standpoint. You know,
if you're a pure a baseball purist, it makes that
big of a difference. But if you're not, and you're
used to the microwave society and everything moving to trillion
miles an hour, baseball will never move that fast. But
it's certainly moving a little bit faster than it has
in the past, and I think it will only help

(11:44):
and bringing along the younger generation. Yeah, I agree. And
then the other thing I agree about is when you
you just just the idea of like action, like you
need a little action and you're right. My only suggestion
would be this, you gotta kill the clock in the
ninth inning, the pitch clock. Yeah, that would be the

(12:06):
only thing, because you gotta let in the ninth inning
when you have drama, you gotta let it breathe because
all those you know, we talk about the World Baseball Class,
how great it was, and all those moments in the
World Baseball Class like the Troto tany at bat like
that incredible, you know, full count, you know, did Tying

(12:27):
run it to play two outs? Like all those pitches
would have been you know again, there would have been
balls because you gotta be able to you know, because
the women after the clock. So just let the game
breathe in the ninth inning would be my only suggestion. Yeah.
I don't think they'll end up doing that though, But
and I understand the sentiment. You know, people talk about

(12:49):
big moments, and especially when you look at the postseason,
you know, pausing and looking into the crowd for all
the shots and all that stuff. Part of me understands that.
But from a game flow standpoint, look a lot part
by the way slowing down games and guys taking forever
on the mount. It's rarely ever starters. It's usually relievers
are the guys that take forever, whether they're closers or not.
I understand that it's a heightened sense of drama, but

(13:10):
look the and the crunch time in the NBA, there's
still a twenty four second clock. You know, whether the
game is tied with forty seconds left or it's the
first quarter, it's all the same. So for me personally,
I don't think the drama is any less. Did you
have to just pick pick up the pace and work
a little bit faster, the drama is the same. I
don't necessarily know if we have to stand stand around
for fifteen thirty seconds anticipating the pitch coming. But I

(13:34):
might be in the minority in that it doesn't make
the drama any less, from it more or less. For me,
I just say, you gotta let it breathe, and I
do think you gotta allow you got to allow it
to breathe, and you got to allow you gotta allow
those guys a chance to like, you know, gather themselves too.
I think, I mean, I you know, the NBA is

(13:55):
I mean that didn't nature the game the NBA. Yeah,
it's a different sport. I understand I mean, that's pace.
You know, that's the NBA is supposed to play like
that baseball. You know, you're supposed to be able to
let it briefe like that's you know, you're y'all cork
the wine and you let it because it tastes better
when it breathes. But you know, I listen, it's my
little tweak, right, my little tweak would be that. But

(14:17):
other than that, I got nothing. I had nothing bad
to say. I'm excited, in fact, to me, what's best
for the game, what's best to get more people. I
always say this because you know, we love these games,
and we know we treat you, and I see it
similarly that it's you know, sports is about you know
you love the game. We love our sports, all of them.

(14:39):
I don't. I hate differentiating between all of them. And
that I think it's good for us. It's good for society,
it's good for kids, it's all that. So I go,
whatever gets more people into it, I'm I'm I'm good. Yeah,
like it's gonna get pull upark because you know it.
You've been the games where there's nobody in the ballpark there.
It's horrible there, horrible atmosphere, there really are. There really are,

(15:02):
but if you if you get guys into it. One
thing I would love to see, and this is nothing
that baseball itself can do. Talking about the World Baseball Classic,
and I still go back to that final from a
few years ago, when I think the Dominican Republic one
and those fans were rabid. I mean, you thought it
was like a soccer game the way they were going
at it and screaming and shouting throughout the entire matchup.
Just to have that sort of energy at a baseball

(15:24):
game was something that we've never seen. I would love
at some point to have that sort of atmosphere at
a major League baseball game at some point. I don't
know if it will happen, but it certainly we'll be
something to look forward to it because that was incredible.
Oh my god. Yeah, you know what's funny, you know,
And I wonder if there's any way you could I

(15:46):
don't want to see change the culture of baseball in
the stands, but like adapted a little bit, you know
what's interesting, And I wanted to breathe this up to
I was having a conversation yesterday a friend of mine
who is in non fiction television and we were talking
about international sports, and I brought up baseball because I

(16:06):
covered the Winter Leagues, and the the was like the
Latin American Championships. It was, uh, it was so much fun.
Like the people were selling very like they celebrate. It's
like they're singing and chanting and the drums and everything
going on. It's a much more soccer like experience. In

(16:29):
Japan it's the same way. So uh. And if there's
somehow like if you will go to a game like that,
that alone makes it intoxicating. I've never been to a
soccer match abroad, which is one of all my bucket list,
but I can only imagine it was like that because
I covered baseball. It was like in Puerto Rico, they
had the championship games and you know, I don't went

(16:51):
on up and down the Winter Leagues and it was,
oh my god, it was fun. The music's playing and
it was barty and people are dancing. I mean, it
was tremendous. Yeah. The only closest thing that I've been
witnessed to that is they had the Rose Bowl. A
few years ago. They had the Concacalf Championship between Mexico
and the United States And that was one of the
most insane atmospheres I've ever been to. And I've been

(17:13):
to college football playoff games, NBA finals, you name it,
and that's still the greatest atmosphere I've ever experienced. And
I can imagine. Look, that's just the United States versus Mexico.
This isn't like a Premier League game or anything. If
it's that incredible and there, I can only imagine what
an international soccer match would be. And I'm just imagining
that sort of atmosphere on a night and night out
basis from Major League Baseball. That would be incredible. Yeah,

(17:36):
it really would be. It would be a lot of fun. Anyway,
we got lots to get to. Who got Torn Him
to talk about? We get the NFL Draft to talk about.
So we got a lot a lot of KIDDI up happening.
It's April fools Day, fools Day, figgy, So we've reached April.
April's a great month's right, we got bad playoffs start

(17:57):
and baseball starts and four so in the draft, so
Masters drama with live guys coming to the Masters. Yeah,
I forgot about that. Yeah that's awesome. Yeah, wild all right,
Lots to get to it's uh where the Fellas right here?
Just kicking it not on our favorite Fox Sports radio.

(18:20):
All right, welcome back Fellas on a Saturday morning. Good time,
Great stuff happened, and don't forget fellas. Brought you by
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(18:44):
in one place. Bundle and save Progressive dot com figure.
What is the So the agreement with the NBA, the
seven year deal between the players and the owners, which
is a good thing, man, Which is something that get
a lot of these leagues that gave push it to

(19:05):
the deadline, start to negotiate public and the NBA has
had a really good relationship with its players, so there's
health there. So what do you think of the deal?
And some of the specifics pretty solid. I mean, one
specific I know is the as far as the salary cap.

(19:25):
I know, one big issue for a lot of the
owners was that there are some clubs, specifically Golden State
and the Clippers, you know basically teams that you know,
print money. They find ways to continue to add to
their rosters despite the fact that they're well over the
luxury tax. So one provision at the NBA put in
in this new CBA is that if you're seventeen and

(19:45):
a half million dollars or more over the luxury tax,
you no longer have the taxpayer mid level exception. So
you're not able to give a guy, you know, if
you're well over the cap, well over the tax, you
can't give a guy, you know, a five and a
half six million dollar contract, which is a big deal
because there are some veterans who are willing to take
a little bit less to go play for a contender,
but not a lot less. So if there's a guy

(20:06):
who on the open market could get eleven million and
he takes six that's much different than a guy in
the open market who can make eleven million. Now, all
of a sudden, all you can offer as a veteran minimum,
you know, whatever it is, two and a half million
dollars are not going to take it. So kind of
a way to try to make sure that other teams,
you know, have a more of a chance to compete
against large market teams that just want to spend a
lot of money and can afford to spend a lot

(20:27):
of money over and above the tax. I don't know
how I feel about the sixty five game minimum as
far as being eligible for awards, because in an now
it does say the CBA says with some exceptions. I
don't know what those exceptions are, but I realized they
want to curb load management. But I honestly don't think
some of your upper echelon players, you know, really care

(20:48):
that much about it. I mean, as Lebron James really
care if he wins another league MVP. I mean, it'd
be nice, but I don't know if he really cares
that much about it. So, I mean, I think he'd
rather rest to make sure he has a chance to
win a championship. So I really don't know how much
this sixty five game minimum was really gonna curb guys
sitting out games if they know the greater goal is
to win a championship. Yeah, I listen, I think that's nonsense.

(21:09):
To think it's ridiculous. Uh, you can't tell a player,
you know the all The biggest problem with load management
is like you could just invent injuries, right, and you
know you have no way of policing it, and if
a guy's really hurt, like I could make the argument
that in bed it was two years ago, last year,

(21:29):
my name was last year, I don't know, but he
played right around that number, and he actually could have
made the argument that he was the best player. He
got hit with COVID, which like sidelined him for a
couple of weeks. So it wasn't like he was taking
a lot of games off for load management. He had
missed a block of games. But whatever, I mean, I

(21:50):
think that I think the league has one major issue.
The game has one major issue that it has to
figure out. And I had this conversation yesterday with Tim Legler.
Legs comes on my show every Friday, and uh Legs
of course from the ESPN, ABC, the LA AT NBA analysts,

(22:11):
and we started talking about the health of the regular season,
and you know, he brought up a mindset and it's
true it First of all, it was never like that,
like the with the with the regular season is now
is it's just a prelude to the playoffs. You're good teams,

(22:32):
kind of know who you are. You're good teams. We'll
try to turn it on during the playoffs. And the
regular season is really just a way station. And the matchups,
like the great matchups that used to see like on
a Sunday afternoon, especially like after football, and you could

(22:56):
wait for those Sunday matchups. I mean, guys, you knows
are incredible like the other like Boston plays Milwaukee to battle,
but wanted two seeds in Milwaukee and Boston wins by
forty one. Wasn't even a game, Like you can't even
look forward to a lot of the regular season games.
And he leg said it, and he goes, listen, he goes,

(23:18):
there's a mentality that the regular season just doesn't matter
and you can't risk for the playoffs. And I think
that's a killer, and that's gotta be somehow fixed. But
you know, we were talking about it yesterday. I don't
know how you change the mentality. It's the genie out
of the bottle thing. Well, it's a couple of things. One,

(23:39):
if you're talking about like a forty point blowout in
a game that most people are looking forward to, you know,
the direction of the league now where everything is so
heavily weighted to the three point shot, is what lends
itself to those sort of results. You know, I think
I think a good point. I think the Celtics made
like twenty eight threes or something ridiculous in that game,
and it's just hard to keep up, you can. I guess.
The good thing about the three point shot and the
way the NBA has played now is you're never out

(24:00):
of the game. But if another team gets super hot
and you can't make one, then you're done by midway
through the third quarter because you're down by forty or fifty.
So that's something that I don't know it can really
be fixed, to be honest with you, because that's just
where the analytics have taken the sport at this point
in time. You know, I thought Damian Lillard had a
really good point on I believe. He was on JJ
Reddick's podcast a couple of weeks ago and saying like, look,

(24:24):
I play basketball because I love to play. Yes, my
goal is to win a championship, for sure, that's all
of our goals. But you can't sit here and tell
me that all the training I do in the offseason
to get ready for the regular season, grind of eighty
two isn't work anything. And he says, now, he said,
there's too many fans, there's too many talking heads, that
sit up here and tell everybody, well, what you do
in the regular season doesn't matter. Wait till you get

(24:45):
to the playoffs. Wait till you get to the playoffs.
And there's enough guys who played in the league who
believe that, So, you know, I wish there were more
throwbacks like Damian Lillard, who, by the way, was shut
down by Portland and he says, I didn't shut me down.
They did, by you know, they did. They that made
that decision, not for me, but I agree with him.
I think the regular season has lost its luster because
many of us and I say us, not us specifically Anthony,

(25:08):
but talking heads fans have told them the regular season
doesn't count no matter what you do one through eighty two.
All that matters is eighty three and beyond once the
postseason starts. And I think that's part of the reason
why it's kind of lost its luster. With the players. Yeah,
I think it's part it. I agree completely that it's
part of it. But it's been some trending because I
can't take the players off the Hawk half together. Okay, sure,

(25:30):
well we'll start with that news. As Anthony mentioned, the
new seven year collective bargaining agreement agreed to between the
NBA and the Players Association. We mentioned the sixty five
game minimum for players to be eligible for awards. Also
an end season tournament that includes includes pool play games
baked into the regular season schedule, so that'll be interesting
as well to see how that ends up playing out.
That could enter the schedule as early as next season.

(25:53):
Friday night, you had Golden State with the big victory
over the Spurs one thirty to one, fifteen steph with
thirty three points, Clay Thompson thirty one. They remained in
sixth place in their Western Conference. They are tied with
the Clippers with the identical records. Grizzlies did beat the
Clippers one o eight to ninety four. Elsewhere, you had
these Suns beating the Nuggets one hundred and ninety three

(26:15):
thirty points there for Kevin Durant their fourth straight victory,
Lakers getting thirty eight points and seventeen rebounds from Anthony Davis.
They nach a one twenty three to one to eleven
victory over Minnesota to move into the seventh seed in
the Western Conference. In Major League Baseball, Arizona beating the
Dodgers two to one, you had the Guardians with a
nine to four victory over Seattle Rockies, beating the Padres

(26:36):
four to one, Houston with a six to three victory
over the Chicago White Sox. Back to the Fellas, Oh
that's us. We are the Fellas when we come alive
from the ti iraq dot com studios. He's Cavin figures On,
Anthony Gargano, It's cousin Figgy, and we are the Fellas.

(26:56):
Our man, our producer, Mark sound engineer, all hanging on
this April the first. So, UH think I agree. I
think you're right. I think I wish there were more
Damian Lillards And uh, you know, I get the fans
and I get the pundits and I'll put some onus

(27:19):
in blame on that. But I mean, I was talking
talking to Legs yesterday. You know. One of the things
that is not as pervasive, pervasive as it was in
the past is the mindset that I'm playing for my
teammates too, that guys just don't missed a ton of
games and they don't feel guilty about it. Like David,

(27:42):
you're still guilt in the well, you know, it is
what it is like. No, like you look, you used
to and like I said, it used to look around
and go, well, I'm not letting my man next to me,
who I'm lacing my sneakers up with, you know that?
And the loss of the rival. Like you know, I
hate to go back in the Barkley day because sometimes

(28:04):
when Charles the pontificate, people roll their eyes and go, ah,
nobody wants to hear. You know, you know what the
game is like twenty years ago, blah blah blah. But
I mean you don't even have to go that far back.
You go back to Kobe, which is you know, this century,
and you know those records season games were great, and

(28:24):
Barkley and this idea about the championship that's been around
since Barkley. I mean when Barkley, you know, the ring
Chasers and all that stuff. I mean that's twenty five
years old. Now. Yeah. Social media is not though, So
that's the problem, and that's the greater influence because all
these players are on social media constantly and they're being bombarded.
They could say they don't listen to messages. We know

(28:46):
that they all do and you didn't want to look. Still,
I still firmly believe that's a major reason why Kevin
Durant went to Golden State is because he was tired
of being told that you're a great regular season player,
but you've always choke in the postseason and you haven't
won a championship, so you're not an all time great.
And I believe that's the reason why he left Golden
State because of the same criticism. You jumped on a
team that won the most teams in regular games in

(29:07):
regular season history, and you know they're already already made
a championship team. So I think he can't win. Oh,
you are to the noise. He has what three or
four Berner accounts that are world documented. I mean, this
is I mean, it's it's obvious. He can't even deny it.

(29:28):
He can't deny that he lets the outside noise get now.
I know he did a recent interview with the Athletics
saying like he's beyond that now, he doesn't care anymore,
which could be true, and I'm glad that he's putting
it past him and just playing basketball if that truly
is the case. But you know, unfortunately early in his career,
I do believe some of the outside noise he allowed
it to influence the decisions he made with his career,

(29:48):
and now I can't criticize him. I mean, he won championship,
sure or whatever, but I think he found out once
he went there and won, he still felt unfulfilled because
he was still getting criticized by people whose opinions he
I don't know if he held in high regard, but
he certainly listens to them, you know, let he let
them affect his decision. Man. Yeah, and listen, it's a

(30:10):
shame because you know, I mean, you can't allow that
he's too good of a player, too great of a
basketball treasure to be you know, slighted by noise. Yeah, nonsense.
You know, it's a shame, you know, And listen is
what it is. I guess you know. Part of it

(30:30):
is they just I don't know how you you change
the mentality. And the other issue that is A is
an issue. The other issue that that comes to roost
is the AAU mentality and it gets put into youth
and and that travels up and the idea of AU

(30:53):
where it's not about team, it's about showcase. Yeah. I'd
like to win, but I got to score thirty and
I don't have any rivalries, and I don't really care
that I don't win a game. As long as I
get mine and I look good, that's all that matters.

(31:14):
Because I'm I'm getting showcased, and that AU mentality, I
think is a bad mentality for the sport. I agree,
and this is why I wish. I know there's no
provision for this to happen, and maybe if in the
NBA could find a way to adopt the Baseball provision,
and I know they did not add this in when
it comes to the one and done rule. I think

(31:35):
what helps teach guys out of that, at least a
little bit nowadays, is if you actually do go to college,
because I fear very few college basketball programs are gonna allow,
even with your super freshman to just run around and
do whatever you want, especially if you're playing for, you know,
an established coach with an established culture, they will emode
you onto their culture. But you know, too many guys,
to your point, coming out of these AU circuits, all

(31:57):
they care about is, you know, getting their highlights, making
sure they get the clicks, making sure they're on Instagram
or TikTok or whatever, and it takes away from the
greater good of the team. So I'm right there with
you and to your point, the other thing, and let
me ask you if you if you agree with this.
The other issue is you got kids that and this
is what leg said because he coaches a lot of

(32:17):
those things, right, and he's like, you know, I there
are certain kids like I can't coach them hard because
if I coach them hard, they're gonna leave. And it's
like that now with the portal at college that the
least bit of you coach these kids hard and they
get offended and they're out. That's sad. That's one of

(32:39):
the saddest things I've ever heard, because that's how you grow.
You grow. Look like we're not saying when you say
and I know right, yeah, We're not saying yeah and
yelling at him. I'mber rating them in front of the team,
you know, but just like offering coach like legitimate criticism
or saying, look, this is the way that you can
improve your game. Listen to me. I'm the coach, you know.
But too many kids now nowadays, not to make it

(33:01):
a non sports you know, go off on a tangent,
but on empowered they say respectives earn not given, which
yeah for an adult, sure, But I'm not gonna have
a twelve year old sitting there here telling me what
you know, they can't they're not gonna do on a
basketball court. It doesn't work that way. But they've somehow,
for some reason, been empowered to be able to feel
that they can say whatever they want to whoever they
want with no consequences. And you know what the problem is,

(33:24):
we give them an out, anthony, because last can say
I'm going to coach you this way, and this thirteen
year old to tell his dad, no, I don't like
the way he's coaching. We'll go somewhere else. It's like, well,
we'll just move on to this other team, and the
other team will say, well, the kids talent it, we'll
let him do whatever he wants. He can play for us.
So you don't learn anything there, there's no there's no
lesson learned, and it just it could continues to build
and build as they get older and they don't learn
any responsibility. It's bad, dude, I'm so with Yeah, it's

(33:48):
so sift. First of all, all sports is is a
microcosm of society. So any of society's ills just have
to play out in sports, right, So it's not like
the athletes are separate from everybody else. Dan's part and
parcel right your spot on, man, I mean you spot on?
Did you see U? I don't know fin it was.
It was last year, I believe Cam Newton had this

(34:10):
football camp for kids and there's like this, you know,
fourteen year old kid yelling at him, saying like, oh
you suck. You asked how come you were a free agent?
And I was like, you came to my camp to
learn from me and you're sitting here berating me in
front of everybody else about how comma this is Cam Newton.
I don't know the name of the kid, but Cam
Newton was hosting a football camp for high school kids.

(34:31):
Did hear that? Yes? And it was like, that's like
the nerve of this kid. I don't know how old
he was, fourteen, fifteen, whatever, it was to be talking
to a thirty something year old man who was, regardless
of what he ever accomplished at the NFL, this is
someone who's old enough to you know, potentially could have
been your father to talk to him that way, and
who was who is like whatever? Forget about what Cam

(34:52):
Newton was in the NFL. It was one of the
greatest footballege football players ever, at least exactly. I mean,
you gotta be kidding me, and you gotta which one
about deserving respect? And you're you know what, dude, that's
so spot on thing. You know, that respect thing. You
know the kids need that you gotta get lesson. That's

(35:14):
where you get you know, that's where I'm not saying
you gotta you know, go upside their head, but you
know they gotta learn the hard way about respect and
punishment or whatever you want to do. Let's sit tight,
let's uh, let's continue this because I think it's an
important conversation. We are the Fellas right here on Fox
Sports Radio. All right, welcome back, Fellas from the tire

(35:42):
IRAQ dot com studio. So fake. So you're spot on
with the you know, these kids with attitudes, Man, it's unbelievable.
And we're not just talking about elite athletes either, right,
and maybe it's you know, it all stems from how
we parent these days. And you know, so I I coach,

(36:03):
you know, you know, I coach these kids, right, and
so I'm coaching fourth and seventh basketball right and uh
for school, So I just do we have a team
and everything's good. Or whatever, and then uh, there we was,
there was we were whacked into like three teams and
our our school, right, we had three different teams for

(36:27):
our grade, and it was four it was third and
fourth grade, all right, all right, So at the end
of the season, I go, listen, we're gonna I'm gonna
grab the best kids and we're gonna have an all
star team and we're gonna go compeatment and compete in
the tournament because there's a tournament for all the Catholic schools.
Because my kids go to Saint Margaret's. So everybody's like, oh, great,

(36:48):
great idea, blah blah blah, let's you get a little
kids ready, And I send the no doubt to the
parents and I go listen, this is just an all
star team. It's a one it's a double listening, double
elimination tournament. So we're gonna practice for two weeks and
then you know, we're gonna go try and play and
see if we can win. And we're you know, again,

(37:08):
it's a it's an honor just to make the team.
So there's no guarantee playing time. That was for the
regular season. Uh, this is gonna be a little bit
more elevated. We're gonna learn a little bit more. Practice
gonna be important, and playing time is not uh is
not guaranteed, all right, because I send that email out

(37:32):
right right now, and and everybody's fine. Five five of course,
you know, right off the bat into the second game,
because the first game we went big, right, so everybody
plays and the like the second kind of third unit,
they played probably more than the than the starts, right, Okay,
the second game we play was more of a tight game.

(37:56):
And I already got a woman complaining of that there's
something in't play and I go and the worst is
she was telling me, you know, he's got you know, anxiety,
and this makes things worse. And and I go listen,

(38:16):
like you can't put that on me, right, you know,
Like I'm well, I'm sympathetic. I'm gonna make sure the
child is um, you know, is okay, and I'd like
to help. But this we agree that this tournament was
going to be what it is. And the fact that
that he only has anxiety because he doesn't play well
the sea bait. He made the team. So that's good.

(38:38):
That's good. And I don't know this kid or this mom,
but I call BS on that. You know, kids have anxieties.
People have anxieties for any numbers of different reasons, and
there's the different ways that you can deal with it,
cope with it, figure weight out, figure a way to
you know, not have it affect you while you're sitting
on the bench, even if it's a child. So I'm
sure he has dealt with this issue before, and there's

(39:00):
a way around, you know, not being able to play
and not have that anxiety rile up. I think what
she's trying to do is trying to make you feel bad.
That's what it is. She's weaponized, Yes, his issue, which
is terrible, right, and I'm going no, no, no, no, no,
no no. And I you know, listen, I was very respectful.
Of course, I was very delicate, yes, because you know,

(39:21):
I mean today's climate, you got to be super delicate.
I mean, I just wanted to say, here, hey, you
want to coach it, ahead, coach it? Yeah, right, But
but I didn't, you know, and I was trying to
be sympathetic, but I was like, listen, these are these
are the rules, and you know, but it crept into
my subconscience, right, and I played the kid. As the

(39:41):
tournament went on. I played that kid more than he
should have, just so you wouldn't have to hear from
the mom probably or at least part of it, right,
And part of me also felt kind of bad, like
you know, and and and I'll be honest with you,
you know, he was borderline whether or not he made
the team. Is it he's got issues or is it

(40:03):
that he, you know, is using this to get his way. Yeah,
that's and that's something that you got to be afraid of, right,
And that's something that you obviously all one person knows
answered to all Fox Fox Sports Radio has the best
sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our
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(40:24):
iHeartRadio app. Search f SR to listen live all right,
Welcome Bag, Happy, Happy April one to all across the
Delaware Valley and beyond all across the country. Every once
in a while, my local show bleeds in Uh we

(40:47):
come you Alive from the tire rack dot Com studios,
fellas my man, the Great Kevin Figures. I'm cause and
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(41:32):
dot com. All right, a couple of things. We've been
talking about the NBA and how it ratified a new
agreement with the players, and I think he just told
you the details. That's a great thing for the league.
But we are talking about, you know, kind of the
changes in sports, and you know, we see some great

(41:53):
stuff happening in baseball, right listen, you know, say whatever
you want and I figgy nailed it. You know, pacing
is important, right, it just is. And the idea of
meandering on the mound and fixing your sleeve and on stuff.
As much as I am old school and like you

(42:15):
know thin and think that baseball and clocks don't go together,
that the only time should be a sundial when it
comes to baseball, it hurts it right, even more so
the shift hurt it, right because it it brought in
the analytics of the game. It made it too home

(42:35):
run heavy, right because it's like, well, you know, if
I can't if there's a shift on and I'm a
guy that's going to pull the ball into the shift
rather just hit a home run, and it just that's
the analytics of the game. And that took over for
a long period of time, and let's face it, it
deadened the game. And what we saw over the last

(42:57):
two days to start a baseball it's been great. It's
been pace, it's been movement, it's been action. There's balls
in play. There is you know, kind of a throwback, interestingly,
because you add the clock and you change the shift
and you got a game that moves and a game
that is varied, and you know what we want is

(43:21):
like you want varied part of the game. Un Like
home arms are great, but stollar stolen bases and so
always like the beauty of the game, hit behind runners
and manufacturing you know, runs and hits and put the
ball in play. So all that stuff, I think over
the first two days of the season have we've seen

(43:41):
and I think that's good and healthy for the game.
NBA I think the game itself, we'll get we'll get
into because I want to bring this up to Figgy
about the three point, about the three point shot, but
beyond that, when the game is played in the playoffs,
it's incredible, The theater is awesome, it's just great basketball.

(44:05):
But how do you get that in a regular season,
and how do you get how do you get guys
to care now, pundits and fans as Figg he brought
up spot on, man, you know we're all telling everybody
and all that matters is a title. All that matters
is a title. So you just flush in eighty two
games and you're flush in five months, and that's not healthy,

(44:29):
like the idea of enjoying incredible players like we have great,
great players, and it's it's when we talk about Damian
Lillard that figure brought up Damian Lillard, and I think
this is so spot on. Damian Lillards should be celebrated
that he doesn't bolt Portland, that he doesn't leave and

(44:52):
go try to chase a ring. He should be celebrated
for that, that he's loyal to his town, to his city,
to his reach it. Yep, he should be But all
anyone will say, if his career ends in six years
and he doesn't win a championship, and it's like, well,
he was a good player for his time, but he

(45:12):
never won, so moving on, And it shouldn't be that way,
and it wasn't always that way. Look, Charles Barkley still
considered one of the all time greats, Patrick Willing. There
are guys, you know, in the annals of NBA history
who are lauded as great players who for whatever reason,
just didn't win a championship. For whatever reason. Now, I
think I know part of the reason, because again, social

(45:33):
media is so big and everybody sees every highlight and
follows every single score every single night. You know, it
gets held against the guys even more nowadays than it
did for the guys back then because there's just so
much more coverage. Yeah, yeah, but I agree with you.
I do. I applaud Damian a little bit. If he
never wins a championship in Portland. I give him so

(45:53):
much love and respect over some of these other guys
who would run off and try to chase a ring
somewhere else. Yeah, I think it's honorable. I agree. You know,
I look at Dame and I go man you're you're
the man. Dame love you and uh if I'm Portland
and I know they, I know the fans of Portland,
they're great basketball fans and they love Dame. And it's

(46:16):
and that's that should be the poster child of you
know how we celebrate the sport and Dame always busted
in the regular season. Like you get a match up
of Dame and Steph. I mean, that's that is great,
great theater, Like that's what the game needs. It needs

(46:38):
Thursday night and tea games where you have matchups. Now
I know. Now, yeah, I'll bring this up to because
we were dealing with it in my neck of the
woods Monday night. It was Sixers and Nuggets and NBA
TV's broadcast and all the NBA reporters descend on today

(47:00):
ver and it's going to be the matchup of the
MVP candidates, Joker and Joel Right and the Embid. And
here's the issue. The Sixers are now out of the
really the running for the two seed. All. They really
are kind of locked into the three. They could kind
of fall the four, but they're really not. They're kind

(47:21):
of locked into the three. They're on a West Coast swing.
They were playing three games in four nights, the playoffs
is coming in ten days, and it's a Monday night,
the last game of the trip, the third game in
four nights in the altitude, and he's already dealing with
it with Nick with a Nick calf, and so he

(47:42):
doesn't play. And then all of a sudden, all holy
hell breaks loose, like as though embiid is ducking Yoki,
which the last time they played inbad scored forty four
eighteen rebounds and dominate it. And oftentimes these things are

(48:02):
not in the players hands. The teams are the ones
that tells them or suggested them strongly, don't play tonight exactly.
But Kendrick Perkins comes out and you know, here, I
want to remember this. I'm an MVP rotor and I'm
blah blah blah, and the shame is, yeah, I wish
that Joe would have played. But the problem is if

(48:28):
you if it is all about the playoffs, as everybody says,
and it's third game at four nights, and the one
thing that we know is if the Sixers have any
prayer he'd better be healthy, then I'm not playing him
in that game. And that's that's an issue. Yeah, it's
a major issue because I was supposed to be a
marquee matchup that we were all looking forward to. And look,

(48:51):
maybe the solution is I think it's fairly I mean,
it's easy for me to say, sitting in this chair,
do away with the three games at four nights, do
away with the You might not be able to do
away with back to backs, but maybe sure nobody has
more than a handful of back to backs in any
given season. Give guys more time off in between games.
Extend the season a month longer so there's more time
in between games. For your TNT Thursday contract or whatever

(49:14):
it is. Make sure that neither team is the second
night of a back to back like that might be,
you know, hell for the schedule makers. But do everything
you possibly can to try to put as much emphasis
on these big time regular season matchups as you possibly can.
And I just think the easiest solution. Everybody's trying to
find out different ways to make sure that you know,
to do away with load management. The only way to

(49:34):
do away with load management is to make sure that
the players get what they deem to be adequate amount
of rest in between games. So the way to do
that is to know three and four nights, fewer back
to backs make the season longer. That that seems to
be the most pragmatic way to handle it. Yeah, I
hear you. Why is it, though, you gotta the one

(49:55):
thing that I that I still have the trouble wrapping
my arms around. Why is it go back to Kobe,
Let us go back to Jordan, go back to Kobe
and go back to those regular season games and he's
playing or iverson. I mean, hey, I's playing eighty two
games and he's playing forty minutes a night, eighty two games,

(50:18):
three nights in forty games, three games in four nights. Oh,
like that's where to happen, right? What? What? What the
mindset of load management is? It is that what was
the genie? Taking the genie out of the bottle? I
mean to a degree now, what some will tell you,
and especially some scouts in advanced analytic people as well,

(50:41):
A big reason why they're doing this is because the
game is played at a faster pace than it ever
has been played before. Guys are running for more miles
during the season. There's more wear and tear during an
eighty two games season today than it was even ten
years ago let along, you know, the nineteen nineties and
the nineteen eighties. So as there's more you know, action,
more running, more jumping, more explosiveness, more wear and tear,

(51:02):
you're most susceptible to injuries. So low management is put
in place to make sure that guys don't have as
much wear and tear and aren't susceptible to those sorts
of injuries Achilles, acls, wear and tear sort of injuries.
So that part I semi understand. I get it. And
again the way that he believe it, Uh yeah, because
I think there's science behind it. There's definitely signs behind it.

(51:24):
I know there was a deep dive into DeMarcus Cousins
when he was still with the Nuggets, really the injury
that changed his career. I was playing with the Nuggets.
What would you say seven years ago, I was having
a phenomenal season, ended up tearing his achilles, and they
went back and crunched the numbers and looked at you know,
he was running so much more in that particular season
than he ever had before, putting so much pressure on

(51:44):
those joints, being as big as he was. You know,
they do believe that that all contributed to him tearing
his achilles when it happened, and that a management program
probably would avoid it that from happening. So the natural
way to build in low management is what I said
a second ago. Just stretch out the season and make
sure these guys don't play, you know, back to back games,

(52:04):
because the pace of the game is not going to
slow down as the athletes get better. Quicker pace shooting threes,
that's not going anywhere. So just as baseball had to adjust,
you know, trying to get a younger audience, trying to
speed the game up, I think the NBA to a
certain degree when it comes to their own players, has
to adjust and realize the game is played differently. Now,
how do we adjust to what they're doing now to

(52:24):
make sure we still get the products on the floor
that we want. And I think the easiest way to
do it is to make just make sure that these
guys have adequate rest in between games. Yeah, let im
down with that. It also brings into into the conversation
back to the youth sports, right, So how much is

(52:45):
too much? Like how much mileage is too much? I
have a cute place travel baseball, right, so you know,
I mean they play. Now it's not Callie or Florida
or Texas where you're playing you know, all year round.
But there, you know he started workouts right right July third,

(53:10):
right where if we just went outside for the first time,
like like a week and a half ago, right now,
you can imagine that's a lot of throwing. It's you know,
the whole thing. And he's ten all right like and
he's been doing this for a while. Kids playing AU
ball never season never ends, right. You got your take

(53:31):
a high school kid, you got your high school season,
and then you got your rolph to bat. As soon
as that's over, your a AU spring, summer and fall
sessions come into play. And now you're playing, you know,
all year round. And now all that cutting, all that
tiff I mean, you want to talk about wehear and

(53:51):
tarry your joints is it? Does it start then? Probably?
Because I mean you go back to you know, you
mentioned the Kobe's and the Ais and guys back then,
you know they the AAU circuit was around, but it
wasn't what it is today. You know, those guys played
their seasons. A lot of those guys played, I mean,
Iverson played football when he was hoble. You know, so

(54:13):
these guys played different sports, they had actual off seasons,
even the pros. You know. The big joke about you know,
football players or basketball players back and like, you know
the sixties and seventies is you know, they were you know,
accountants in the off season, and they use training camp
to get themselves in shape. Well, the time that they're
spending accounting is the time these guys are now, you know,
running a trillion miles an hour, lifting weights, running, jumping

(54:34):
up and down during what's supposed to be their off season.
You can't tell me, like the human body, as great
as these athletes are, you know, you're still a human overtrain. Yeah,
and that happens, and it could easily happen. So I
think that's a major part of our evaluation. It's not
about these guys are lazy or do these guys don't
want to play. There's like they're also pressured in't thinking

(54:58):
that they need to overtrained or else they're not working,
and they're not because of the contracts for so much.
Why are you getting paid one hundred and fifty million
and what are you doing there for three months? Well
guess why? It's probably better for them to lay on
the beach chair for three months that it is to
go play and and go lift and do everything else

(55:20):
because you're overtrading your body. Yeah, I'm old school, I'm
I mean looking. I probably would never be a coach anyway.
But if it were me and I was a coach
of an NBA team after the season ended, hopefully in
late June, after you won the championship, I'd say, I
don't want any of you guys doing anything for a month.
I don't not not one damn thing. Go on the beach,
drink some my ties, you know, gain a pound or two,

(55:40):
and then ramp up, you know, do some light workouts
in July and August, and then we'll hit a four
board coming around in September. Exactly. I agree. I think
that's right. And I think the other thing is when
we go back to youth sports, they need to play
other sports they do because the same sport is the
wear and tear on the elbow and shoulder for baseball,

(56:05):
or the achilles in the knees in basketball, and you
gotta just you gotta switch it up. I think that's
our root problem is over trading and specialization in the
one sport. Yeah, when did you never heard about kids
getting Tommy John surgery even in the nineties, if we
want to go that recent, stuff's happening all the time now.

(56:26):
The high school kids are getting Tommy John surgeries now
because they're no. I'm so with you. But now the
game itself, and this is something I want to discuss.
So we're talking about the game itself and uh, is
there we saw baseball with the shift? Is there it
over read? It? Is it out of wack? Is the

(56:49):
three out of whack? And the way analytics treated the shift?
Do we need to tweak the three? So let's discuss
that at lots to get to we'll get into the
draft coming up as well, and all kinds of fun stuff.
It's we are the Fellas. He's Kevin Figures. I'm Anthony

(57:10):
Gargano right here, Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back, fellas from
the tire rack dot Com studios. He's Kevin Figures. I'm
Anthony Gargano. All right, figure protostatic because you're talking a

(57:33):
lot about you know, baseball, and oh my god, it's
incredible and it's the whole thing with the pitch clock
and the shift and it just works great and all right,
So the one thing that everybody loves about the NBA
is the three. But you said it earlier when we

(57:55):
talked about the box. In the Celtics game, Bolston went
nuts from three and you know, they win by forty
one and just the game gets out of hand and
then nobody wants to play in the second half and
it's just ugly. Now where everybody's bestowing the virtues of baseball, like,

(58:15):
oh my god, it's not just about the home run.
It brings everybody to play. Well, can't the same be
said about basketball? Where do we need to revisit the three?
What to do and how to bring the big man back?
Because the big man it has been a dinosaur. And

(58:37):
really the three has become akin to what the home
run ball is. It's all about the three and the
big man is completely devalued. Yeah. Well, and the issue
is he's mentioned analytics. That's the entire reason why they
do it. It's it's a three or a dunk and

(58:57):
anything in between is bad. Now, I will say over
the last two years, in this year especially, I don't
know if you've noticed this, and I don't know the
numbers on this, just from an anecdotal standpoint, just watching games,
there seems to be a little bit of a revolution
back to the mid range game for a lot of guys.
You know, there's certain players like Kawhi Leonard or DeMar
De Rosen who kind of live in the mid range anyway.
But I'm seeing a lot more players, for whatever reason,

(59:20):
you know, go away from just settling for threes or
attacking the basket and actually pulling up and shooting it
from the mid range. I don't know if that's a
coaching situation that's telling him to do that, or scouting
or what, but I think it's great for the game.
And to your point, you know, the big issue for
any sport, I think is when it becomes homogenized, you know,
and I think that's what happened with Major League Baseball,
which we talked about earlier, with everybody hitting home runs,

(59:42):
you know, when you could have a little bit of
a variety, you know, knowing that it takes something different
to prepare for this team tonight versus that team tomorrow.
It's seeing contrasting styles. That's what makes the sport, any
sport interesting. And now the way the NBA is currently
built because of the advent of analytics, it's everybody comes
to runs down this sh threes the transition game, you

(01:00:03):
have a three or one break. Oh, you're shooting a three. Yeah,
And if somebody happens to be alone under the basket,
you might pass it to him. You know. That's it.
Which back in the day, if you did that, you
get benched on the next possession. Yeah, easily. Yeah. And
the problem is, you know, you ask about a solution
to it for the NBA, I don't know if there
is an easy one, because if you want to say, well,

(01:00:24):
move the three point line back, and it's like, all right,
guys like Steph Curry and Damian Lillard are shooting from
half a foot inside to the half court line, So
how far back you're actually gonna move it? Now, If
you did do that, one thing I would say is
it would open up more space on the inside. It
would widen things on the inside, and so maybe you'd
have a little bit more space to operate for the
big man. But I just think that the classic big

(01:00:45):
man back to the baskets set up in the paint.
I don't know if that's ever going to come back
to the degree that we, you know, are used to
seeing get you know, back in the eighties and nineties. Well,
and here's the question, because eighties and nineties it was
that you could say that was boring because it was

(01:01:05):
too much slated for the big man. Yeah, especially in
the nineties, it was way too slow, beat him up ugly.
That's how everybody playing the bullieball type of thing. You know.
Now here's here's my Here's what I would say is
that the best always in life, the middle is the best,
whether it's you know, politics, or whether it's uh, you know,

(01:01:30):
diet like it just moderation in the middle. Everything is
good when it's in the middle. It's just playing stupid
nature man, you know. And the same way we look
at sports. So when you think about it, the eighties, nineties,
too heavy big man today too heavy three and I

(01:01:53):
think you gotta move the needle back toward the big
but not where it was all the way back in
the eighties and nine. So I was messing around, just
have an idea. Yesterday, I was throwing it out because
I was having this conversation and what do you think
of this? What do you think of if you get

(01:02:14):
fouled into paint? It's three free throws. Uh, I don't
know how I feel about that one. Actually, three free
throws for just getting fouled inside the paint. Right. Well,
so here's here's what it does. Two things. It forces

(01:02:37):
you now to play a post up game and have threes,
and it also rewards you that because if you don't
want to play, if you don't want to foul, it
makes the two point bucket even easier. So now you
are really limiting. So now you're you're really forcing them

(01:03:00):
to look inside and the game becomes truly inside outside. Yeah,
to a degree. Although I will say there's you know,
it's if there's a big guy, let grant, if there's
not that many that are classic bigs, who are you know,
can't shoot free throws or whatnot. I just feel like
I don't know if I want to just reward someone
for you know, running into the paint getting grabbed because

(01:03:22):
they had a free layup and now all of a
sudden they earn three free throws. Well, but here's here's
the thing. People don't do that anymore, well, people will,
I mean, look, people attack the paint. They just don't
do it as like they did back in the day.
I mean, guys are still you know, I mean, points
in the paint are still still a big differentiating factor

(01:03:43):
and a lot of NBA games as much as guys
shoot threes. Again, it's about shooting threes or getting layups
and nothing in between. So usually there's a pretty healthy
ratio between those two on any given night when the
team wins. So it's not that teams are not attacking
the paint, they just don't attack it the way they
used to. They meet, i e. They don't throw the
ball inside to the big man and they run off

(01:04:04):
of him, allow him and allow him to go to work.
Now it's a lot more screen and roll crash to
the glass, you know, underneath pass slip pass, the guy
gets a lay up or a dunk. So it's just
it's aesthetically different. But the teams do still attack the paint, yeah,
except they're still over reliant on the three as well.
So again, my again, all I'm trying to do is

(01:04:27):
bring back a sense of balance. It's either that or
you know, get rid of the corner three and move
back the line. And hey, if you're Dame ord Steph,
I've had it. But you know, there's not a lot
of Dames and steps. So move the three back, kill

(01:04:48):
the corner three, and let's go. I feel like that's
more practical. I think moving the three point line back.
I don't know if they get rid of the corner
three or not, but if moving the is making it
a little bit tougher, widening it out a little bit,
I think would at least make the three points shot
at least a little bit more difficult for you know,
the rank and file type player like you mentioned. I

(01:05:10):
feel like I like that idea a little bit more
than I like the idea of giving someone three free
throws for getting fouled inside the paint. Yeah, yeah, I listen.
I get it's drastic. It's also more of a Wings
game now too. He's just not a lot of way more,
you know. So it's just it's not the game just
isn't slamming towards bigs like that because you have so many,

(01:05:31):
how do you bring it back? Because here's the thing,
you know, we have some amazing, incredible bigs in the game.
I mean, I watch one with him bead right, and
I got fans and it drives me insane. Fig I
got fans telling me that they gotta trade and Bead

(01:05:53):
because it's just too hard to build around a big
and so they just gotta trade them. And I'm like,
I don't think that's true, and I'm going to trade
a bead. What. So they're of the belief that the
reason the seventies sixers have not won or maybe play
out front is because of Joel Ebad. Yeah, that's ridiculous.
That it's too hard to build around him. Oh it's not.

(01:06:17):
You know what's hard when you have a Robin to
his batman that doesn't want to get fouled and goes
to the free throw line, has back issues and is
mentally shot. That's a that's a reason why you can't win.
It's not because he's a big that's ridiculous. There is
an anti there's a big man bias. That's that's that's
that's ridiculous. That's all the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

(01:06:39):
And I got news for you. It's pervasive among ANBA fans.
I I I that's that's great. I had not seen that, um,
But that's that's that's wild to me. The idea that
you haven't won is strictly because you can't build around him.
Why can't you? And by the way, Sorry, Joel and
Joel Ebiad is not shocked. Who who has to get

(01:07:01):
the ball three free from the basket? And I talk
like he does. You know, he's amazing as any quality
wire Yeah, as any quality big is nowadays to us,
but not but few are as talented and skilled as him, right,
So why can't you build around a guy who's great
defensively and offensively, can shoot the three, can dribble, can
take you off the dribble, and can back you down.
If you can't build around that, then you can't build

(01:07:23):
around anybody. I'm doing. I'm with you. I you know
that's my opinion. I question those people's uh knowledge of
basket like there's a lot of them, I mean a
ton of them. Have I told you? I mean, here's
a guy who I real like freend the bid him
and oh every day I like to the point where

(01:07:46):
I gotta tell him, dude, I we we all, I
we disagree, all right, stop Like he is so anti
and bed and I'm a pro and b guy, right,
So whatever, I don't know how you could be anti.
I just I don't understand if I told you this,
dude bust my balls every day to the point where

(01:08:08):
I go, dude, this should affect our friendship, all right,
Wow that bad. Wow, that's incredible, only because like, like
it doesn't like if you feel certain way they god
have at it. I'm not trying to I'm not trying
to change it. I think you're wrong, but I'm not
trying to change your opinion. But stop texting me about
the damn thing and having a conversation about this every day.

(01:08:29):
It's ridiculous. By the way. The guy's great player. I mean,
tell him, oh, he's selfish, only cares about the m
V pagest and that, and like, you know what, you
could have made that case a couple of years ago,
but he's matured. A lot of guys and you know,
once they hit through, you know, late twenties, they been
sure and that's just how it goes. And I go,

(01:08:50):
I understand how you can argue it was the same way.
It's so weird, right because I feel like I've done
this long enough that I've seen both ends of this spectrum.
So years ago when Alan Iverson was here, Now, everybody
loved Alan, but there was a bunch of people that
believe that it was impossible to build around Alan because

(01:09:13):
he was just six foot two guard, and back then
they needed to have a more traditional view of the game, right,
like a point guard, two guard three, like you're six
five six six two. I would have subscribed more to
that theory back then than they MB thing now. But

(01:09:35):
going on, but everybody hates the big, right, you know
what I mean, Like nobody likes to bag. There's an
anti big man bias. Like I would like to bring
the big back. I'm so interested because I hadn't seen that.
Now now, granted, would you consider Janna's to be a
big or would you consider him to be a wing?

(01:09:56):
So you consider him to be a wing and out
a big because I was like, because they just wanted championships,
drives to the basket, he sets up on the wing,
will post yea more so than the NMB does. Yeah,
I mean Joe Joe's I mean, Joe's also two two sixty. Yeah,
he's he's been two seventy. I mean, like, you know,
he's a monster, right, he just had to be superior,

(01:10:18):
you know, super skilled. But he's not a you know,
he's not a face too. He can't face the basket
and he could also post up. He's been of a unicorn,
but you know, I mean, honest, he's more of that,
you know fleet, It's like k D might be seventy
feet tall, but he's gonna shoot over Yeah. I guess
the part of the problem is what is the incentive

(01:10:38):
for the NBA or whomever to get the big man
back into the game. Well he's seventh? Is you like baseball?
You make it, you know, more interesting? Like I do
find some of these games to be mundane. Right, How
many times am I going to see teams shoot sixty three's? Right? Buying?

(01:11:00):
I don't disagree. I mean it's boring to me. I
used to like a break at dunk, Like, how many dunks,
like incredible high light dunks do you see anymore? Few
serving rocking the you know, rocking the cradle, you know,
I mean taking off from the foul line was legit

(01:11:20):
during a game. Yeah, yeah, you just don't see much
of it anymore. And the problem is now the biggest
coming up he talked about affecting in the youth level.
All these guys are all trying are trying to be
stretched for as the stretch fives now, so they're not
even being taught to be like legitimate bigs with their
backs how to post They don't do it because that
I mean Joe didn't how to post up. Yeah, yeah,

(01:11:40):
because they're well, you know, long, long time to figure
out how to actually use your boy. He would come
out like he's set up down low, and then he
would move toward the pass and give up his position. Wow.
You know. So there's an art to the postop game
that you gotta just do it, you know, over and

(01:12:01):
over again. Yeah. Look, and I do think and the
incredible bar for me is like for someone as talented
as Ebid, who you could if you really wanted to,
you can give them the ball in the post, you know,
thirty times a night and play off of that and
it will work to their advantage with the right lineups
out there. Like the way you build around a big
man now is the same way you built around a
big man twenty years ago. You put a bunch of

(01:12:21):
shooters around them, somebody that can you know, create off
the dribble in a pick and roll type situation if
need be. I mean, it's not that complicated. Players just
aren't built that way. And if the seventies six six
ers have been delinquent and how they've built the roster
and why they haven't been able to win, that's on them.
That's not on dwell Ebid exactly because Jimmy Butler stays here.
Right to Brett Brown, it's all completely different. They win

(01:12:43):
and you can't say that, all right, brother, with some trending,
all right, well, speaking of the NBA report from sham
Shurania and what Adrian Wardanowski overnight saying that the NBA
and the players union have agreed to a new seven
year collective a bargaining agreement. The deal reportedly includes an
end season tournament and a sixty five game minimum for
players to be eligible four awards. There is a mutual

(01:13:05):
opt out for both sides after the sixth year on
the court. Steph Curry scored thirty three points to Clay
Thompson tripping in thirty one for the Warriors as they
defeated the Spurs by fifteen. Their former teammate Kevin Durant
scored thirty for Phoenix as they defeated Denver one hundred
to ninety three. Thirty eight points for Anthony Davis as
a Lakers defeated at Minnesota, forty eight for Jalen Brunson.

(01:13:26):
Nick's picking up a big victory over Cleveland in a
possible playoff preview. There King Sixers and Grizzlies with victories.
Celtics get thirty nine points from Jason Tatum and a
victory over the Jazz just a five game slate. On
Day two of the Major League Baseball season, Arizona avenging
their opening day loss to the Dodgers a two to
one victory thanks to a Kyle Lewis two run home run,
Guardians beating Seattle nine to four, Charlie Blackman a two

(01:13:48):
run home run, leading Colorado over San Diego four to one.
Back to the Fellas, all right, that's us Where the
Fellas Live from entire rack dot Com Studios. Will take
a quick t o will come right back, and some
Final four stuff that we got to discuss, and football

(01:14:08):
Man Football Draft heating up. Some of the odds are out.
Oh I love the wind totals. We'll get to that
stuff as well. Where the Fellas right here? Five sports
Radio Fellas Alive from the tire rack dot Com Studios.

(01:14:37):
I'm because he's Figgy April the first upon us. Figgas.
A couple of things one Final four. Now we've been
on the air almost two hours and you know, we
touched on a very uh you know at the top
of the show. Really just broad strokes. Final four today

(01:14:59):
San Diego, Stay, Florida, Atlantic, Miami, Yukon. Uh. General thoughts
on the final forty Are you looking forward to you're
feeling it? You are you excited for it? Or lukewarm? Well, yeah,
because it is the Final four, I'm looking forward to it.
But I'll be honest with you, I'm more lukewarm than

(01:15:20):
I have been in a long time. And on top
of the fact that there are no you know, blue
blood programs, and I know Ukon has been, you know,
one of the better programs over the last couple of decades,
but I still don't know if I will consider them
a They're not duke you would see UCLA. You know,
you really don't have a lot of marquee just names either.
There is deep in the tournament. There's I mean, nobody

(01:15:40):
in this is gonna be a you know, a top
you know five lottery pick. You know, So that that's
the part that makes it difficult too. On top of
the fact that it's not they're not marquee programs, there's
not necessarily a marquee player that everybody wants to stop
and drop everything to go run to the TV and
watch you know, you know that's that to me is
the point in a nutshell. That to me is the

(01:16:01):
is the best point out there, which is it's not
even about blue bloods. It's about you know, the players.
Are you do you? Are you? Are you in? Are
you like uplifted by that basketball? Yea, like a good
basketball game? Is a good basketball Yeah? That's great. Yeah,
but you need more than just sixty eight sixty six.

(01:16:23):
You need, you know, in the final four. You need thrilling,
great ball. You need a draw like games. Yeah, like
you're great, you need greatness. You know, I see more
greatness in the women's final four than I do in
the men's final. Oh, no doubt. I mean, my guy,
Caitlin Clark is phenomenal, right, I mean, you know, in fact,

(01:16:47):
I was watching that Maddie Secrets from Villanova, who was
you know, fantastic, and you know, and and these these
the women have names because they're there for four years, right,
these programs and so fascinating could be how come the
women's uh, the women's ratings are up, the men's are down, well,

(01:17:08):
because you know what, these teams are great teams. The players.
You start to know these players. And it's the same
thing right Indiana. In the end in the NAA men's
you don't know the players. Yeah, and that that and
that takes it away because again, nobody wants to tune
in to see a bunch of people that they've never

(01:17:29):
heard of at the very least, Like I said, if
you have a blue blood program. I would even use
North Carolina as an example last year where they made
it to the title game against Kansas. Now, some of
those names became more household names because of the championship
run and they had more of a disappointing year this year.
But because it was still in North Carolina, a lot
of people will say, all right, I'll check that out.
That that sounds about right when you look up. And
this is no disrespect to FAU, but you say people

(01:17:52):
who are saying, like what is FAU? Where is that?
Who is that? You know? Even San Diego State there
was like they would think San Diego State was a
football school more than anything. Same thing about Miami. They're like, oh,
Miami plays big time basketball. Who knew? Right? It's and
so on top of that, and then you know, you
look at mock drafts and all that too, there's nobody
from any of these teams that are even remotely close

(01:18:14):
to being on the top you know of the draft.
If Alabama made it, at least you know Brandon Miller,
at least you know a couple of players. You don't
know any of these people. Unfortunately. Now it's it's it's amazing,
And I think that's what's killed college basketball. Yep, yeah,
because a big part of it is, you know, you're
only gonna get so many super freshmen. But the big

(01:18:36):
keys to your point and talking about the women's game
is having a having the chance to have these teams
grow and build together and having these stand out players
come from being freshmen to being superstars in their junior
and senior seasons like a like a Caitlin Clark. You
just don't get that. On the men's side these days, it's, uh,
it's it's unbelievable. I mean, how would you look at it?

(01:18:59):
You got, well, uh, let me ask you. Let's take
a look at the like just go to NBA draft
dot Net. All right, go there a lot, right, and
you look at it and there's no and you just
said it. There's no kids that are playing today, not one,

(01:19:20):
No kids that are playing on the big board, and
that that ultimately is what hurts the product. Yeah, you
have to look all the way down into the second
round to see Andre Jackson from Yukon projected to be
the thirty sixth overall picks, right, that's the only player
and then Isaiah Wong player of the Year in the
ACC this year. Uh is it projected to be a

(01:19:41):
second round pick two exactly? You know, you start to
look at that stuff and you go, well, what what
am I? What am I looking at? Right? You know
what am I? Who am I watching? It's supposed to
be the best of the best right now. It's no
slight to the teams themselves, right, but you need more
than just the teams in the in the final four.
You have to have some sort of draw. There really

(01:20:01):
just is no draw. That's right. All right, we'll come
back and we actually will look at the games coming
up next. Fellas on good morning, happy happy, happy, happy
happy Saturday, Fellas a man Figgy, I'm couz and together

(01:20:25):
where the Fellas right here on Fox Sports Radio on
a beautiful Saturday morning, April one. That's right, April the first.
You gotta love it. Baby. We are in the April,
the time of the draft, in playoffs, Final four the
Masters Baseball. We come be alive from Tire from the

(01:20:48):
Tirac dot Com Studios. Tirac dot Com. We're gonna help
you get there. An unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free
road hazard protection, over ten thousand recommended installers, TI dot
Com the way tire buying should be. And uh, it
is a final four Saturday, and you know we were
talking at the Final four, and you know, I don't

(01:21:09):
want to just make it a well, it's not like
what it used to be. Let's celebrate those teams that
are there, and let's talk about the games, Figgy, because
they are great stories. And FAU has been a terrific,
terrific story all tournament long, getting to the Final four.

(01:21:30):
Blows up against San Diego State. San Diego State a
two and a half point favorite against FAU. I gotta
tell you I love San Diego State in the game.
You know, I've been joining this FAU team and they're fun,
and but I think San Diego State is rugged. I
think San Diego State is tough, and they're good defensively.

(01:21:54):
I think they're I think they're pretty nasty. I like
him actually by margin in the game, Yeah, they're great defensevely.
My only concern is can they keep up on offense?
Can they make enough plays offensively to be able to
look They're not gonna shut Fau down one completely? Though
that team can score, and I know San Diego State
is held every team they've played in the tournament below

(01:22:14):
their average. I just want I wonder, like if when
shots need to be made, if San Diego State will
be able to make enough to keep up with him.
I agree that I think the game will be played
at San Diego State's pace. I just wonder if they
have enough offense to be able to to hold on
and win. So I don't know if they're able to
win by that margin I expected to be a close game.
If I had to pick, I would I would My

(01:22:34):
money would go on Fau right now? Really odd, Dad,
you don't well, let's say all fau't up. I mean,
if I had to pick, I picked him, But I
certainly wouldn't be surprised if San Diego State one. Yeah.
Kudos San Diego State, by the way, too, because if
you remember in the COVID year in twenty twenty, there

(01:22:55):
were gonna be a one seed and when the hell's
the last time I met Mountain West team was a
one seed in anything, you know, So some of those
kids are still left over. Well that's the thing. They're
veteran now, and they're veteran and they're just I think
they're nay. I think they werena muck it up. And
that's why I like them, I understand, and I can
certainly see it going that way. Um, I just know

(01:23:17):
that FAU and look, we thought they were down, you know,
a couple of times last weekend, and they were able
to just have this offensive you know, barrage. If they
can do that for a two and a half three
minute stretch and San Diego State goes cold, you know,
that's something that I will be fearful of if I
was a San Diego State backer. Yeah, because as we
saw with Yukon, which we'll get to in a second,

(01:23:38):
you know, don't matter what kind of defense you play,
if these guys are being able to are able to
make the three of the way those guys were able
to shoot, it doesn't matter. It's the old Mark Jackson,
you know, good offensive beats, good defense, you know line,
So it's one of those. That's a good uh good imitation.
I've been told that's one of the better ones that
I do. So let me hear it again. Good offense, bids,

(01:23:59):
good beats, good defense. Hand down, man down, that's actually
great man down. It's very New York Point glow, New
York point gold. Yeah, that's pretty good. I like that
a lot. You bring up Yukon, and yes, Yukon probably

(01:24:21):
the best team left in the tournament. It was funny
I brought this up to you a couple of weeks ago.
There was a lot of the analytic people loved Yukon.
I gotta give him credit because a lot of people
that I talked to thought that Yukon had the best
metrics of any team in the tournament, and they were
proving correct because they luck like the best team left.

(01:24:45):
Now five and a half, it's kind of steep, and I,
you know, I think it's gonna be closer. Ultimately, I
think Yukon wins. I don't know if it's that steep,
and maybe I'm drinking the kool aid. I don't know.
Maybe it's just watching Yukon literally run everybody off of
the flour that they've played so far. Uh. They I'm
not gonna say they look unbeatable, but they don't look

(01:25:08):
far from it because they literally can play any style.
You want to play defense, cool, you want to shoot threes,
all right, I want to drive inside, we got you
free throws, whatever, pace, whatever style of game you want
to play, they can play it. Uh. You know, Miami
had a you know, valley and effort last weekend. They've
had a great run as well, and they can score
with anybody. But Yukon is a different type of monster,

(01:25:31):
I think. So I don't think this one. I won't
say I don't think it's close. I don't know if
they wint by twenty, but I certainly think they probably
win by eight to ten when it's all said and done.
Yeah I could say it. I mean, you know, again,
I could. I could say. I just think. I think
there's a lot of a lot of like love. I

(01:25:51):
think Miami's weird, right, Miami's dangerous, like they. I thought
Texas had them last. So did I they did. I
had Texas winning at all so yeah, so I did too.
I Texas win at all time, But I saw I
actually was rooting Texas the whole game because that's the
same thing in my bracket. But I kept looking at
Texas and I'm watching the game, and I mean, I'll

(01:26:14):
be honest with you, I thought the game was over,
so did I. I mean, fifteen minutes to go in
the game and they were up eleven, and they were
up thirteen, and they're up ten and twelve and nine,
and I'm going, all right, there's no way. And then
Miami goes on that little barrage and they're sneaky defensively,
and that's kind of where I'm at where I look at,

(01:26:37):
you know, both these teams, and I go, you don't
want I can't count up Miami. Now. Maybe it's just
because I got that on my brain and I listen,
I respect Yukon big time, but that Miami team is
you have freaking nightmare because they just keep coming ATCHI
and coming ATCHI and coming at you. And I look
at it and I go, you know, I think game

(01:27:00):
is gonna be steaky close. I mean, I think, look
at I agree with you that Ukons the better team.
I just got that. And maybe again it's just because
I experienced step over the tournament over like there's like
like three games like that where I think they're done.
There were Well, so there's two ways to look at
It's like, man, they're super resilient and there you can

(01:27:21):
never count them out. Or it's like they're you know,
they're playing with fire and it's gonna come back and
burn them eventually. Yeah, you know, especially against a team
like this that's been playing the way Yukon has been playing,
you almost have to be perfect and playing the way
they've played throughout this tournament playing with fire obviously as
far from perfect. So you know that that is just
another reason why I like, I like Yukon to win convincingly. Yeah,

(01:27:47):
it's interesting. Yeah, you're right, you could look at it.
You could look like look at it like that as well.
I certainly hope that's not the case, because you want,
you know, entertaining games, um which which for the most
part of the last couple of years, for sure, we've
had you haven't been had a whole lot of blowouts
in the final four itself in recent years. So will
you have basically four can you have four cinderellas? If

(01:28:10):
there are four? Is there even one? I don't know
how that works, but you know, four teams that certainly
were not the most not likely to make it this
deep into the tournament. So I guess for a lot
of people, I guess you're rooting interest probably just turns
to a just make sure that both games are super
entertaining and maybe be for some others who just won chaos.
Root for fau to, you know, root for the the

(01:28:31):
biggest Cinderella to actually come back and win this whole thing. Yeah,
you know, it's funny. I don't even think I started
the show by saying this, And it's funny you said that.
Can't you be four Cinderellas. I think there's no Cinderellas.
I don't think Cinderella exists now because parody is so

(01:28:51):
great that there is none. I mean, how could you
say anybody is that big, even Florida Atlantic. I almost
think seeds are worthless. I think I think in this
particular year, yes, I would agree with you, But I mean,
if you look look at the last couple of Final four,
is I mean, it's some of the it's recognizable. It's Gonzaga,

(01:29:11):
it's Kansas, it's North Carolina, it's so I just this
is just kind of an anomalous year where all things
just kind of fell into place. I think this is
the second. I forget the exact wording of the stat
but like, if you combine the numbers of all the seeds,
this is the second highest total number of the combined seeds.
So this doesn't happen super often. So I know, and

(01:29:33):
I know what you mean when you say there's more
parody across college basketball in a general sense. But I
do think once we get down to the nitty gritty,
your sweet six teams, your elite eights, more often than not,
you start seeing the blue blood programs, at least the
majority of them, kind of pull away. And for whatever reason,
this particular season, we didn't see that. I don't know
if I'm ready to necessarily call that a trend. It's

(01:29:55):
just something that's happened in this particular year for whatever reason.
Let's look at it, all, right, because I think it's
Here's why I think it's a trend. Okay, I think
it's a trend because one and done and the idea
of the blue bloods being so young, and the teams

(01:30:20):
that stay together win together. Uh you know, I mean,
if you think about the final fours, I gotta get
the well, I mean, I know a couple like I
mean you go back to uh, Ucla played in Zaga
a couple of years ago, Baylor certainly over the last decade,
you'd say as A as a basketball powerhouse, and Houston

(01:30:41):
since Kelvin Sampson's been there, I was considered to be
a basketball power But is Houston you know, uh five
slamm of jamma No, no, but the program itself, like,
I mean, yeah, there's no fire. It's good. You know,
it's not Florida a right, But I go, is he great?

(01:31:04):
I mean you're winning, you know, twenty eight plus games
over the last six seven years. Conference. Well look, I
mean can you play who you play? And they're moving
into the Big Ten, Big twelfth soon. Um, I mean,
you can't deny they've been one of the better programs
over the last seven eight years. They've made deeper Again,
I go, what is that Kansas to me? Or Ucla
or Kentucky. Oh, but it's also not they didn't come

(01:31:27):
out of nowhere. Houston did make some magical run as
a fourteen age and like put to me, if they're
not a Cinderella, but they're not a blue blood, No,
but they're also a team that you would I would say,
they're a team that you wouldn't be surprised to make it. Yeah,
all four of these teams, you know, a month ago,
if I were to say, would you be surprised if

(01:31:49):
any of these make it? You say absolutely? Hell? Are
you talking about Florida Atlantic. So so let's go back
each year. All right, let's just go back real quick.
All right, so last year is your blue blood year, right,
Carolina Duke ye Nova yep. I mean that's pretty big,

(01:32:09):
that's pretty that's pretty blue blood is absolutely the year
before you said it, Baylord, Gonzaga, UCLA, Houston. You know,
you know, certainly U C LA, those are traditional I'd
say it in recent memory of LA Gonzaga. He's not
a blue blood. No, well, look again, it's not about
a quote unquote blue blood. It's about a team that

(01:32:30):
that has the expectations of making a deep run into
the turn. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I mean, but
if I go back, it's Gonzaga. Uh, let me go
back to UMLV from the Larry Johnson like, you know,
like they're not that right. No, but again, it's like

(01:32:53):
to say, I think we're conflating two different things too.
If we're talking about big name NBA type players versus
big time programs, they don't always go on, right because
like you can only be a Cinderella, Like Cinderella can
only exist if you're going up against NBA type teams.
I don't disagree with that part. Sure, you know that's

(01:33:15):
what makes Cinderella. Otherwise, you know, Cinderella is just you know,
just a regular you know, just the regular Joe, right, which,
in this particular season, I agree with you that there's
probably not a Cinderella. Everybody's kind of the same. But
I feel like in that for the great number of
tournaments in a general sense, I don't think that that
to this point has been true. I don't know. I

(01:33:38):
just look at I'm looking back at these I mean
you're looking back. I mean, look at look at all
of these teams are aligned at Oregon, Loyola Chicago. That's
a Sindela Chicago was one of eleven twelve seed, maybe
even lower than that. And I get one of those
staking are these are these epic teams like you go,

(01:34:00):
oh my god, that Kansas team that No, they're not
epic teams, but they're epic programs, their programs, you expect
to be there, But don't you need the epic team
to have Cinderella to exist? Uh? Not necessarily, because if
that's where that's where we differ. Because North Carolina, with

(01:34:22):
Armando Baycott and Caleb Love and all these guys who
might not be superstar NBA players, it's still North Carolina.
And if they lose to Loyola Chicago, who's a fourteen
seed in U in North Carolina will say a two
or three, that's still a major upset. And people are
still going to say, oh my god, North Carolina lost
to who. Regardless of who's wearing the jersey, it just

(01:34:44):
happens to be the North Carolina jersey. Now it's enhanced,
it's absolutely enhanced when you have superstar players. And if
it's you know, if it's Vince Carter and Antoine Jamison
running out there and they get eliminated by somebody like that,
then sure it's enhanced. But I still think that there's
there still some magic to a blue blood program even
if it doesn't have blue chip players. Losing to a

(01:35:08):
Cinderella team all right, you know, I mean I could
move the needle a little bit there I still go.
You know, I'm not I'm not going. Wow, it's Princeton
beating a Risota twenty years ago, which was a little
bit you know, Sean Elliot or whatever. Ye know what
I mean. Yeah, all right, let's do this. Let's come

(01:35:29):
back and a couple of things. One, I gotta go
a little NFL with you. I got d h surprise
has gone this long? Nor know we got win the
NBA basketball a baseball and the rule changes how rightfully,
So that kind of dominated the early part of the show. Yeah,
give those give those sports some shine, because once the

(01:35:51):
draft comes up here in a few weeks, it's all
over football football. We'll sneak has some NBA playoff talk
here and there. But yeah, we gotta talk about the
back up guard that the Eagles are gonna draft in
the sixth round. Come on, oh yeah, baby, I want
Bjian Robinson. You yeah, oh first round, y M. I'll
make my case for you, okay, you think I'm all

(01:36:12):
ears Hight. And then we'll get into Lamar. We'll get
into the kind of wind totals and all the good
He's southy an foul next with the felas right here.
Fox Sports radio. All right, welcome back, fellas live from

(01:36:34):
the tire IRAQ dot com studios. I'm Anthony Garganah's Kevin Figures,
my main man. We got the big e producing. And
then Muddy Mark is our fine audio engineer and our

(01:36:55):
associate producer. He's quiet, he's so quiet for it because
cracking the mic. Here, what are you doing? Man, you're sleeping,
just hanging my boy, Mighty Mark, he marks my man
watching HBO. He's looking right at that Eagles draft guide
right now, day dreaming about my Philly sports. That's all

(01:37:18):
I'm doing, watching Fig do his thing through the glass'sweky
boy pizza Fig? Oh, yes, my bad Fig. Oh it's okay.
My waistline doesn't need it anyway, so it's probably best
that I missed it. So he went with the four
am pie. Wow. Hooked up Monsey, you know, coming all

(01:37:39):
in doing her thing. She hung in right, because yes,
Monsey did. Monsey was terrific. Yeah, she did her thing.
She did her thing, not not you know, no k Fig,
but you know, oh no, please, Montery's the best. Monty
has enough energy for all four of us combined. She
actually does. She's the best. Yeah. Yeah, he right, he
rocked it, and he would the pie had a place

(01:38:00):
stack that had the pie. Now we're talking about deep
dish New York style. What were we looking at here?
It was Mark? What was it? Do you remember? It
was a record? I sold pictures pie, regular pie, not
a deep dish, but just you know, regular pizza. Oh
it's good, all right, you heard it, mighty Mark. Can
you get a can you get a deep You can't

(01:38:22):
get a deep dish outside of Chicago. Um, not as
good as quality of Chicago deep dish. No, all right.
If I remember correctly, there was a Geno's East out here.
As a matter of fact, Sherman Oaks, If I remember correctly,
I don't know if it's still open or not. Now,
I don't know if somebody from Chicago moved out here

(01:38:44):
or someone from the family branched off and did something
and not one hundred percent sure, but there's yeah, it
looks like there's still one here here in Sherman Oaks, California,
there was Geno's East. Wow. Wow, yeah, all right. I
should have just you know, gave all this up years
ago and moved out to Cali and open up a
cheese steak joint. Trust me, the cheese steak, because there's

(01:39:11):
a few out here. I don't want to name any
names that you know, claim to be authentic Philadelphia cheesesteaks.
Yeah no, No, any any cheese steak place you see
out here that says Philly cheese Steak on the on
the front of the they gotta cut it out. Yeah,
I hate that. It's did these national chains. The Philly Steak.

(01:39:32):
Oh yeah, I shut up. There's a Philly steak rap
or the Phi The role is such an important item
in the steak standwhich stop. They don't even know what
they're doing. Yeah, it's like heresy, Philistines fake, no good.

(01:39:58):
Let me make my case for now. Running backs are devalued, right,
so nobody wants to take running backs in the first round,
no doubt. So knowing that and understanding that Bijean Robinson
is a great it's going to be a great player,
seems like it. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing he can't do.
He can catch the bay out of the backfield, he

(01:40:19):
can block, pick up a blitz like he's a he's
just a he's big, he's got breakaway speed like you know,
there's really nothing he can't do as a back, and
knowing that the running backs are devalued, the Eagles with
two picks in the first round the whole right now,

(01:40:39):
they have Rashad Penny, who, by the way, you know,
decent back but can't stay healthy though correct, right, can't
stay healthy is correct, and so to me, I know
I can get Bijon somewhere in the twenties and I
can finagle it. And usually I got two picks. So

(01:41:03):
if I'm Howie Howie Rose with the GM of the Eagles,
I could finnagle it where I can get Bijon in
the second in that third bottom third of the first round,
I then had the best running back to go with
an offense and as a j Brown, DeVante Smith, Dallas Goddard,

(01:41:25):
Jalen hurts a great offensive line. I know that I've
relied on Jalen to run the ball a lot with
all his read option stuff the rprs H Now, with
Beijean Robinson, I got a legitimate eighteen to twenty five
carry a game back. I had. He's in three down back.

(01:41:49):
Since I take him at the end of the first round,
I control him for five years and so I'm controlling
cost and he fits perfectly to my offense. I don't
to run my quarterback into the ground, and I come
in with a machine of an offense. It makes all
the sense in the world to me if he's going
to actually last to the end of the first round,

(01:42:11):
because I believe the Eagles have their own pick is
number thirty I believe, right or thirty one, right before
the Chiefs. So I mean, the problem is there are
some teams directly above them that could use a running
back if they wanted one, And I think right around
the twenties is probably when teams would consider taking a
running back because then the value was actually heightened at
that point, because yes, there's a short shelf life for

(01:42:32):
running backs. If you can get the fifth year, if
you can get five years out of a guy with
the first round contract, you're probably getting his best years.
So exactly, so if you can draft the guy low
on the first round, that's really good value. But I'm
looking at teams like the Chargers. Who knows what the
Alston necklace situation is, Like they're at twenty one. What's
the future in Minnesota with Dalvin Cook? You know there

(01:42:53):
are trying, they're trying to move off of him. They
are at twenty three. You know, so the Dallas Cowboys
just cut Ezekiel Elliott and we love Tony Pollard, but
I still think that he's a complimentary guy and not
a bell cow. You know, if you put him in
the same backfield with BJR. Robinson, who's a Texas guy
by the way, you know, so I could see an
avenue where there's a few teams that can take a

(01:43:14):
running back before he would even get to the Eagles
at thirty thirty one. That's why I want to move up. Okay,
so you want to move up to get him, Yeah,
I agree, Like, I don't think thirty is he's gonna
be there at third. Yeah, but I got two picks.
I got ten and I got thirty one. Whatever it is,
thirty one thirty, and so what I want to do

(01:43:37):
is I want to make sure that I, like I
would even trade back at ten and you know, get
myself an extra pick and have one of those picks
in the you know where I you know, can actually
take BJR. Robinson in that spot. Yeah, I think, you know,

(01:43:58):
like that's kind of what my what up my philosophy is,
I mean, you plug him into that offense, that'd be
a sick offense. Do you think that it would definitely
help obviously, especially after losing Sanders. Do you need to
help that the running game? I don't know. Do you
think they could potentially use help elsewhere like the defensive
secondary maybe or linebacker? Well, you brought your you brought

(01:44:22):
your both, You brought both of your Corse corners back. Yeah,
so that's a big deal. You need a safety. I mean,
now they went out and they plug some holes. They
got a box safety. You need a cover safety and
they're fine. Linebacker, you got the Kobe Dean ready to
step in. You got Morrow. You probably need another. You

(01:44:43):
need another? Is another edge rusher? You certainly need that.
But which I see all the couple of other tackle right,
I've seen them mock to get Nolan Smith in a
couple of drafts with their tenth pick. Talking edge rushers, Yeah, yeah,
I mean, knowing how they like to build, you know,
up front, it wouldn't surprise you to see them go

(01:45:04):
go back to take somebody in the front seven again
and take an edge. Oh no, no, listen, and I
got news for you. That's uh, that's a formula that
has worked. So you know, I'm I'm for it. But
here the bottom line is you just said it, Mark
Jackson said it that a good offense is going to

(01:45:25):
be the good defense. And now, man, now that's that's it.
In the NFL, it's the same way. It's the same way.
I mean, look at look at the Chiefs they win
a Super Bowl and that look at their secondary all young,
all rookies all over the place. Yeah, no doubt. I

(01:45:45):
can make the argument that Steve Spagnuloh is one of
the most is one of the greatest defensive coaches ever
when you look at this type of resources that he's
got and how he's been the lynch and the key
to winning Super Bowls. For helping him win Super Bowls,

(01:46:06):
oh yeah, well look, and as great of a job
as he's done, I think what he's what he's done
the best at is building a defense that's complimentary to
the offense that he has to work with. So you
build the defense that tries to get sacks, tries to
force some turnovers. You're going to give up some big
plays here and there, but as par for the course,
because you know the offense has your back, so you
can actually be a little bit more risky and the

(01:46:29):
type of defense that he plays knowing that you have
the offense to back you up. I think some of
the best coordinators is not always about the stats. He
was like, oh, their defense is ranked twenty fourth year
and twenty third. There you know, time, getting timely sacks,
getting timely turnovers, playing your defense, playing complimentary football from
one unit to the other is the key to winning.
And I think no matter what stop he's been in,
whether it was with the Giants, previously with the Eagles,

(01:46:51):
o other places, with the with Kansas City, that's what
he's been able to do, mold his defensive unit to
his offense. And that's what good organizations are able to do. Yeah,
and he just never had like he never has a
lot of resources. And that's the only point. Like when
you man, you know, it's it's hard when you got

(01:47:11):
the you know, all the players are on offense, it's hard.
All Right, hit us with some trending and then we'll
I want to dive into some wind totals and some
lamar and everything else. All right, Well, we'll start in
the NBA with some news that broke overnight. Adrian wardronows
give ESPN Shams Sharania of Stadium both reporting the NBA
and the Players Association have agreed to a new seven

(01:47:33):
year collective bargaining agreements. The deal reportedly includes an n
season tournament and a sixty five game minimum for players
to be eligible for awards. There's also a mutual opt
out clause for both sides after the sixth year. On
the court Friday Night, you got thirty three points from
Steph Curry as he led the Golden State Warriors to
a fifteen point victory over the San Antonio Spurs. They

(01:47:54):
maintain their spot at this as the sixth seed in
the Western Conference. Kevin Rand scoring thirty for Phoenix, they'd
be the shorthanded Nuggets one hundred to ninety three. No
Nicola Yokich in the lineup there for Denver. Lakers getting
thirty eight points and seventeen boards from Anthony Davis in
a victory on the road at Minnesota to take sole
possession of the seventh seat in the Western Conference. Forty
eight points for Jalen Brunson. Nick's beating Cleveland in a

(01:48:17):
possible playoff preview sixers over Toronto one seventeen to one ten,
Boston A one twenty two to one fourteen victory over
the Jazz. In baseball, Arizona avenged their opening day loss
to the Dodgers. They notched a two to one victory
thanks to Kyle Lewis's two run home run in the
eighth inning, Guardians beating Seattle nine to four. Charlie Blackman
a two run home run to lead Colorado over San Diego.

(01:48:37):
Four to one victories for Houston and Miami as well,
and the women's whose final four. Caitlin Clark scored forty
one points one fifteen to thirty one shooting, leading Iowa
to an upset win over previously undefeated South Carolina. They
will take on LSU for the national championship on Sunday.
Tigers defeating Virginia Tech on Friday night seventy nine to
seventy two. Back to the Fellas, all right, that's us, Yes,

(01:49:00):
we are the Fellas, coming you alive from the tire
rack dot Com Studios. That's right, tire rack dot Com.
We're gonna help you get there. Um all right. A
couple of things. One, the Lamar situation as the owners

(01:49:21):
met in Phoenix. Still at a standstill, nothing happening, kind
of where where are you at with it? Fig well, look, look,
somebody's gonna budge first. You know, the problem for Lamar Jackson,
why I think the Ravers are getting more and more
leverage here is that more and more teams are starting

(01:49:43):
to solidify the quarterback position, and the closer and closer
we get to the draft and maybe even beyond the
draft with no resolution, you know, there's only gonna be
two end points for Lamar Jackson. You play for Baltimore
or you play for nobody. And he doesn't strike me
as a kind of guy that I want to play
for nobody and set out a year like lav On
Bell did. So if that's the case, I think the

(01:50:03):
ultimate resolution the way things are pointing right now Anthony,
is that he's likely going to sign the franchise tag
and play for one year, kind of prove it to
me deal, and if he balls out, hopefully for his sake,
stays healthy, has a phenomenal year re inter free agency
next year. It's unlikely that Baltimore is gonna franchise him
again because the number is going to go up exponentially
as it always does. Would you, if you're a team

(01:50:26):
that needs a quarterback, would you have put together a package?
It would depend on which team I am. Like, if
I was Atlanta, I would not have come out publicly
and said, yeah, Desmond ridds our guy, because I look
at Arthur Smith and the kind of offense that he
ran and how solid I would use as a word,
decent solid of a year they had last year with
Marcus Mariota at quarterback. I mean, Lamar Jackson can slide

(01:50:49):
in seamlessly to that style of offense and perform not
only just as well, but world's better. You know, Atlanta,
you know already surprised people with how decent they were
last year, you and Jack Jamar Jackson, and why they
could be the favorites to win the NFC South. So
I'm a little puzzled up by them taking themselves out
of the running in Washington too so. But for whatever reason,

(01:51:09):
these teams are not in on Lamar Jackson, whether it's
the guaranteed salary, whether it's the injury history, maybe it's
a combination of both. It probably is. But again, his
options are just really are really drying up right now.
I mean, you go back to the like, I mean,
you can't do the guaranteed Toshan Watson contract. That's just
a bad contract, and it's already been readjusted to a

(01:51:31):
small degree, but still it just it just it handicaps you.
It's tough to pay that guy that much money. It's difficult.
Especially on top of the fact that you're asking for
that much money, you're also injury prone. The last couple
of years, everybody keeps saying, like, Lamar Jackson's an MVP.
He's an MVP. It was four years ago, that was ages.

(01:51:51):
He hasn't come close to replicating those numbers, not even
close over the last three years and the last couple
of years two years specifically, he's had injury issues pop up.
That's not going to get better as he gets older,
as he takes more hits. So, you know, the people
trying to find different reasons saying there's like a conspiracy
out there against Lamar Jackson. I don't think there's a conspiracy.

(01:52:13):
I just think there's a lot of things he has
working against him. You know, the injury history, the demands
for a guaranteed contract, not having an agent, and I
think all three of those together are hefty contributors as
to why we sit in the position we're sitting right now. Yeah, man,
I feel you all that. I completely feel you on that.

(01:52:34):
So where do you feel and where do you think
he ends up? I think he's back. Yeah. Now do
you think he gets an extension or do you think
the one year attack? I don't. I just don't think.
I don't think he's mindset. See, I worry. Here's where
I worry about. If I'm Baltimore, I almost worry about
him signing it because I don't know that his head

(01:52:54):
is going to be in the right spot. He doesn't
seem like, you know, it might be better, they might
be better. All just trying to trade him. But the
problem is you're you know, you can't, Matt. You've got
to be able to maximize the situation, right. And my
fear is is that they're not getting anything or else
they would have no way. Hardball, you know, do what.

(01:53:17):
I believe that Hardball wanted to run it back with
him and the whole thing. But I just think there
there is a limit. And now I think about Lamar
and everything you heard out of Lamar, you just wonder
is he in the right headspace to go back there. Well,
I mean, it would only be a detriment to him

(01:53:38):
if he signed that contract and he wasn't you know
what I mean, Like, if he signed the one year deal,
you know, it would be a prove it year for him,
So it would behoove him to Look, you don't have
to interact with the front office. He doesn't have to
talk to you know, Bashadi or anybody upstairs. You know,
most of the time the players, their interactions are with
the coaching staff and the other players. So if he

(01:54:00):
has a gripe with the front office, that's between him
in the front office. He can still look. At the
end of last year, all the players in the locker
room stuck up for him saying that he you know,
it was BS saying that he could play, and he
was actually hurt and stopping, you know, coming down on
this guy. He's really injured. So he hasn't lost support
from the locker room and I and obviously John Harball
this past week's spoke Holly of him publicly saying he
still wants him back. So I believe if he does

(01:54:22):
sign the franchise tag, I do think he'll be on
his best behavior, because at that point he's putting himself
from recruitment mode, like all right, I'm gonna be on
my best behavior. I'm gonna, you know, work my tail off,
have a great season, be a free agent next year,
and be so undeniable that you guys are gonna be
banging down my door to give me a guarantee contract.
I feel like that's the mentality he should have. Yeah, yeah,

(01:54:44):
because otherwise he's it's sabotage. If he comes back and
he's whole hum and he's half in and he doesn't
play well and he's mediocre, Well, I mean, are you
can you justify asking for you know, two million dollars
you know we're saying guaranteed at that point. No, No,
not at all. I just worry, worry about him just
being there and just being so sour. And that's kind

(01:55:06):
of where I'm at, Like the sour piece of it.
They like, both sides may be better by just moving on,
But I just don't know that you can, because you know,
Lamar wants what he wants and the Ravens need to
get in return for what he's worth. Yeah, I don't
know that that's gonna happen. I wonder it kind of
has like a like a Major League Baseball arbitration field

(01:55:28):
to it. Yeah, I don't know if you saw the
Corbyn Burns thing when he when he was talking about
how these guys are trashed you in front of your
face and they say they want to have you back,
and it's like it and it's hard to go back.
But that's unfortunately for Lamar Jackson, that's the nature of
the beast. So you have to kind of you're you're
betting on yourself in this particular year. I don't think
he sits out. I think that would actually be even
more destructive if he sat the entire year out. Nah. Yeah,

(01:55:50):
he can't. And by the way, I don't think he
he's that he's wired like the ultimately want to play,
like yeah, you know, I mean they want to play.
I mean they want to they want to be on
the field, right, I mean that's the bottom line. Yeah,
So I think I think he comes in with extra motivation.
I'm with you. I'm with you on that. All right.
Let me just take a quick tea. We'll come right

(01:56:11):
back where the fellas Fox Sports Radio by Progressive in Shorts.
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(01:56:36):
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out for yourself. Discover dot com, slash match uh figures.
Let me ask you about Aaron Rodgers and Buddy Mine,

(01:57:00):
who is a Jet fan who was like no, not again,
not again, not again by going after like the talking
about the far situation now Rogers and thinks that Rogers
is washed. And you know, like listen, I you know,

(01:57:21):
having watched him a lot last year Green Bay, and
you know, there were times when he certainly did not
look like himself, like at least he did not look
like he did a couple of years ago. However, I
mean he still can move and his arm is still
you know a plus R. Yeah, he's not watched. If anything,

(01:57:43):
it's like Tom Brady, Like Tom Brady is still good's all,
going back to last year. He just needs more help
around him. Aaron Rodgers needs more help around him than
he did even three years ago. Not bad, it's just
you know, everybody gets older. It happens. He's still an
effective quarterback. With the right team around him, you can
still compete for a championship. I don't think the Jets
are going to compete for a championship with him. I
think there's too much to fight through in the AFC.

(01:58:06):
But he's definitely not washed. I didn't see that he's
lost a step, but you know, when you start pushing forty,
who doesn't. And the other thing is, I mean, he's
not the far situation where you know, Farve couldn't move
right like far. You know, the thing with Rogers is

(01:58:26):
you put him with credible receivers. You know, Garret Wilson's
stud I mean, he's gonna be dangerous. Remember those kids.
It took a while for them to be on the
same page. Yeah, you know. And also, and Brett Farr
was just so careless with the ball, like Aaron Rodgers
is the best quarterback of all time in terms of
volume of throws. We're talking not turning the ball over

(01:58:47):
and being smart, being efficient, So that that's where the
comparison begins and ends. They're both Hall of Fame quarterbacks, cool,
completely different players, completely different places. So I don't think
that it's far of all over again. If Aaron Rodgers does,
if this ends a getting completed, Aaron Rodgers does go
to the Jets, They're gonna be a better team. He's
gonna perform somewhat well. I think they'll be in the
playoff race, but I don't think they'll make much noise.

(01:59:09):
Which if that's the case, Anthony, I think I asked
this question a couple of weeks ago. If you're not
going to compete for a championship, I'm making this move,
why do it? To begin with? I don't know if
this is something if I were the Jets, that I
would even pursue. Really, if it's not gonna keep you,
help you win a championship, what's the point. I'd rather
stay young and continue to build, you know, Ah, hear you?

(01:59:34):
Let me let me marinate, Let me ruminate, right fellas,
right here, Fox Sports Radio morning, Good morning, good morning,
good morning, Happy Saturday to all across our great nation.
It is Saturday, April the first Fool's Day baby, and

(02:00:01):
uh Final four weekend. We got Final four Saturday today,
Championship game Monday night, Baseball Day three, and of course,
uh we're arcing down in the NBA for the playoffs.
Grape month man, we got football, we got the whole
thing happened in the draft. It's a fun time and

(02:00:22):
it's a fun weekend. Eastern next weekend, so springtime is
upon us. So I know it's some nasty weather overnight
across the country, so be careful everybody, and you know,
hopefully we get to springtime and it'll be nice. We
all get outdoors, have some fun. Fellas he is my

(02:00:44):
main man with me is Kevin Figgers call him Figgy.
Um Anthony Garganim called me because and of course we
got our man Ethan and the Bige producing and Mighty
Mark as our sound engineer. So lots of do For
this last hour of the show. We got the big
brain on Brad who will join us. We'll take a

(02:01:05):
look at the weekend in sports from a betting standpoint,
but we're talking a lot of Final Four and of
course a lot of football. Ben It's funny we start
off on baseball rule changes. Got to the NBA. You
heard Figgy tell us about the agreement between the players
and the owners. One thing that it's funny we're talking

(02:01:28):
about the NBA and the tournament. They've been dying for
this mid season tournament and anything to make the regular
season we're interesting. I just don't know how what it does.
I mean, I'm all for fun things. I think the
way soccer European soccer has it in the Premier League

(02:01:51):
is great. I just don't know that you can replicate
that in the NBA. No, this does nothing, So wondering
how this tournament, at least seemingly is gonna work. So
these the tournament's basically going to include games that are
already on the regular season schedule, so it's not like
they're stopping the season playing a series of games. Certain
games are going to be designated in the schedule as

(02:02:14):
I guess, pool play tournament games, quasi tournament games. You
advance to the next round to a single elimination tournament
in December at a neutral site, and I guess the
team that wins. This is according to Seana Sharania, every
individual player against five hundred thousand dollars, which is nothing
to sneeze at if you're the eleventh, twelfth guy on
the bench. But I mean if you're Jason Tatum, you

(02:02:36):
know you lose five hundred thousand dollars in the couch cushion.
You know what I mean, is that incentive to make
you play harder or something. That's the part that I
really don't get. Yeah, and this is something that I go,
who cares? Right, because to five hundred thousand, first of all, whatever,
it means nothing to the fan base. What do they

(02:02:58):
care about whether a player that's making thirty million gets
into all the five hundred grain right? Really, I mean,
we're gonna be honest about it. It does nothing for
the fan I don't know what you do. I mean
I get it, like I understand that they're trying, they're dying,
trying to figure something out, you know, desperately to make

(02:03:20):
the mid season, that this kind of tournament the way
they do in soccer. But unless you're gonna get like
make it like the World Baseball Classic where you get
all the countries involved and you do it like that
and you don't incorporate the regular season, I don't know
how else you're doing to make it effective. Yeah. I

(02:03:41):
don't either, because there's there Because that's not enough. Saying
the players are gonna get five un grand does nothing
for the fan bases themselves. So what it's my incentive
to want to watch the you know, Portland Trail Blazers
playing the Sacramento Kings and the finals of the of
the regular season mid tournament. What does that do for me? Why?
What incentive do I have to watch that? I feel like,

(02:04:02):
I go, what's the big deal? I still say, if
you wanted to have extra you know, an extra you know,
TV revenue for some sort of tournament, I would have
teams play it out for the number one pick in
the draft. Have the teams with like the four worst
records or something from both conferences who are off in
a tournament that runs concurrent with the NBA playoffs, maybe
on different nights, and the team that wins actually wins

(02:04:25):
the top overall pick. Yeah, I'd rather do something like that.
That's something actually that I actually like. I think, you know,
something like it. You're something needs to be on the
line right right, and fans will care whether or not
there you know, you actually root for your team to

(02:04:45):
win games, not to actually get the first pick in
the draft, instead of rooting for them to tank. You know,
you're incentivized. You'd be excited. You want your you know,
you can have the Houston Rockets with nineteen wins, but
it's like if they're in this postseason tournament to try
to secure the number one overa all pick, you know,
let's go Keevin Portal. Let's do our thing, like you're
you're settling that game out or are close to it

(02:05:06):
hoping to get hoping to get a top pick. You know,
there there there's more creative ways. I just don't see.
I don't see where this makes much sense. I realized
they want to get more interest, get more TV viewers,
get more look better TV contracts, spots, all that stuff.
I know how that all works, but I don't don't
think fans are gonna watch. I really don't. No. What

(02:05:30):
you need to do is you gotta get guys to care. Yeah, Like, honestly,
the bigger problem is not you know, dressing up the
regular season, it's guys caring. Like we started the show
with this, which we were talking about. I was telling
you about the conversation now with Tim Legler from ABC ESPN,

(02:05:50):
and we were talking about He's like, dude, He's like
when we and you know, nobody wants to hear when
I played, but you know it's legitimate, you know, like
and he goes, dude, what I played? You know, couple things. One,
those Sunday national TV games were a big deal. I
mean when you had your rivalry, there was no way

(02:06:13):
you were sitting out like you know there was if
you're Georgian was in town, there's no way you're sitting out. Nope.
And I think it changes, uh, you know from that
standpoint because we can all see every game every single
night too. You know, from a natural it was so
much bigger back then because all you had was the
CBS or NBC depending what generation you're from, the Marquee matchup,

(02:06:36):
and you didn't have you know, there's literally a game
on television every single solitary night all some now and
you're right, and it filtered down to the players, right
to the players. Being on national TV took it more serious,
and you're right, like, now you know you got NBA TV,
got TNT, got ESPN, you got a ABC. Yeah, like

(02:06:57):
that was that was their showcase a right, you know,
you guys haven't seen me play all right, here I go. Yeah.
And then the other thing two is like those guys
and this is something like I said, is there was this.
It wasn't as me, me me, and look, all of
society has turned into me, me, me, So, I mean
that's a truism, Whereas then it was like the team

(02:07:21):
thing was more profound, like I'm not letting my my
my main man over here down, Who's who's lacing these
sneakers next to me? And there was I mean that
was real. Well what do they say now that these
guys are individual franchises upon themselves? Yeah, well, I mean

(02:07:41):
all the culture has fostered itself to that. You know,
you get followers so you can tweet out this sponsor,
you wear this particular shoe or this jersey. You know,
that's that's what these guys have all turned into. I
can't say that I begrudge them, because if I was
in their situation, I want to maximize and get every
penny that I could too. But it's also to what
in at a certain point, Yeah, I think you're spot on, dude,

(02:08:05):
I do. I think your spot on. Your problem is,
I don't know if there's a way to put the
toothpaste back into the tube now, No, I don't know
how you make it all of a sudden matter, and
then you open thing two is like you need rivalries back,
Like what's the rivalry? I mean, bolster of Milwaukeees at
a rivalry on a small scale, I guess probably that's

(02:08:26):
probably the biggest one right now. You know, Lakers Golden State, No,
because the Lakers haven't beaten Golden State in a meaningful
They beat him in the for a play in spot
what two years ago. Cool, but it's not. They've had
a back and forth like a rivalry is Lakers Celtics,
you know what I mean? Even Lakers Sacramento, the Sacramento
Kings back in the two thousand, has never beat him,

(02:08:47):
but they had some some really high level series where
you didn't know which way it was gonna go. Usually
in a rivalry there is a little bit of back
and forth. This is this is the Draymond Green Dylon
Brooks thing, which I don't know if you saw that
last week, but yeah, yeah, I love that. But I
just stuff like that. I know Draymond says it's not
a rivalry because Memphis hasn't won, but it feels like

(02:09:08):
it because there's general animus against two good teams. We
all hest one good team. I don't know what Golden
State is right now, and that's the kind of stuff
you look forward to. And also I think that's something
that you can you talk about the AAU. You know,
Mentality mentioned that a couple of hours ago on the show.
And you know another thing that that's lost when it
comes to rivalries is guy's not liking each other. I'm
not talking about guys like legitimately hating each other, but

(02:09:29):
I mean, from a basketball standpoint, not being friends. The
problem is all these guys know each other from the
age of like nine, because they're traveling, they're flying all
over the place. Everybody's cool. Back in the days of
Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, all those guys, it was, it
was regional. When the first time you saw those guys,
maybe you ran into him in the tournament, but the
first time you saw him was in the NBA, and
you built some animus, you build a little bit of

(02:09:51):
a rivalry, and you just enhanced all of it. You
just don't get that now, No, you know that is true.
You know, like you remember back in the day, like
the Knicks heat Oh yeah, I mean there were blood battles.
I remember, you know the covering I covered a bunch

(02:10:11):
of Jordan, like ended Jordan and it was Chicago, was
the Bulls Pacers. Dude, Oh my god, you were doing
Mark Jackson, Mark Jackson point guard. It was Jackson, Rick
Smith's Dale Davis and of course the great Reggie Miller.

(02:10:33):
And Reggie was just the best man. Yeah, you know,
like they would go at it, Antonio Davis and I mean,
I mean that was just it was great theater. I
mean like they hated each other, they hated the Bulls
and in the end, and Reggie hated the Knicks. Yes,
but all Spike Lee stuff was legit. They covered those games. Yeah, man,

(02:10:55):
the Pacers pushed the Bulls to seven games that one year.
I remember that vividly, the N seven or ninety eight.
You're right, dude. I was at couple of game seven
United Center games tied with two and chains to go amazing.
But let me ask you a question. Give me one
regular season game that you were like, oh my god,
I gotta watch it. It stood out to you. Do

(02:11:18):
you remember this year or just in general this year?
It's this year? Absolutely, not not a single one. Well,
I guess that a problem. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know,
I was into the first and beat Yokis battle, and like,
in fairness, I wish and I understand why he didn't

(02:11:41):
play because three games, four nights. You're locked into the
two seed and there's no need to risk any injury.
But like the league does need to foster where it's
not three games and four knights. You said that earlier.
Manipulate the schedule a little bit so that when you
had these faces, these guys face off, you got legitimate

(02:12:03):
you know, there's no excuse you guys got to play. Yeah.
I know they put in some loose provisions saying like, hey,
make sure your guys play on national television, but that's
not necessarily realistic, you know. So at your point you
said it earlier, every game's nationally televised. Yeah, well, because
I mean, if you're a big enough fan, you have
the league pass, so that might as well be a
nationally televised game. So there's just there's no one sitting

(02:12:25):
it for the players to say, hey, come watch we
play tonight in front of you know, in front of
everybody's like you already do on a night in, night
out basis. So that I can remember early, way early
this year. This may have been in the first three
weeks of the season. The Lakers played Milwaukee, and that
may have been a TNT game, and I think the
Lakers won that game. This is obviously before they made
all their trades to turn over their roster. They were
still bad, but they beat the Bucks, and how big

(02:12:47):
of a win that was for them. Early in the year.
That might be the only national television game that I
was like, I have to see this. I want to
see how they measure up. But other than that, nothing
really stands out to me. No, no, Now I'm with you, buddy.
All right, let's take a quick t o. We got
a whole slate of baseball, we got the Final Four,

(02:13:10):
we got the Masters coming out. It's just an amazing time.
A great sports geeked him. So we'll talk to the
big brain coming up and take a look at the
weekend from a betting standpoint. That's coming up next. Where
the fella is right here on Fox Sports Radio. All right,
this is Jay Glazer. And you may know me for
the world of football or fighting or even shows like

(02:13:32):
HBO's Ballers. Well you don't know is for my entire life.
I have lived in something I refer to as the
gray depression anxiety. So now I'm coming out with a
new podcast, Unbreakable, a mental health podcast with Jay Glazer,
where each week. Well, we talk about mental health. I
hope to describe it, give it words. Listen to Unbreakable
with Jay Glazer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or

(02:13:56):
wherever you get your podcasts. Three night game. So full
slate of Major League Baseball is going on. Uh so
I'll have some funny By the way, there's a game
tomorrow night on uh uh Phillies Rangers. I'm gonna be
on the k Rod um uh on the Create k

(02:14:17):
rod telecast. Right, it's the k Rodcast with Alex Rodriguez
and Michael k on ESPN two. I want to be
on there tomorrow night Texas and the Phillies. So I
got my man. I love a rod and so we're
gonna be chopping it up tomorrow night during the k Rodcast. Now,

(02:14:37):
we got my main man on the Big Brain on
Brad Brad Feiedberg to take a look at sports from
a betting standpoint. Good morning, Bradley, good morning, very good,
very good. Baseball is back, Buddy, Baseball is back. Um.
You know, look, we you know, we we touched on

(02:14:58):
a briefly then or night MS beneath the pitch clock,
some of the rule changes. We're seeing a lot more
space stealing cheese, which kind of figured what happened. But
it's really been significantly more of these first couple of days.
Definitely seems like a new, you know, new brand of
baseball in some ways. But I'm again, I'm just glad
it's back. I enjoy all the sports for different reasons,

(02:15:19):
and it should be a great, exciting season. Yeah, I'm
looking forward to it. I really I've enjoyed. I enjoyed
the first couple of days. It's funny. I was actually like,
oh man, you know, I can't wait for today because
you get a full game back, and I'm you know,
we're Phillies people, so I'm looking forward to the see

(02:15:40):
the Phillies back after a day off yesterday. But it
is the final four. So let's begin with the Final
four and some of the games that you may like.
Of the two games today, which side you in, Let's
start off six O nine, the number nine seed and
Darling Fau San Diego State. San Diego State two and

(02:16:03):
a half point favorite. You know, it's interesting the line
has gone down, and I love San Diego State in
the game. I just think they're tough and they're defensive minded,
and I just think it's a real bad matchup for FAO.
It feels like the other way. It feels like the
public's going the other way. Well, it's interesting, this line

(02:16:25):
actually opened one and a half and two's got bet
up to three and your right's now I've been back
down the two and a half. Look I made this
line three. I leaned San Diego State. I just loved
their brand of physicality. They going legitimate, legitimate nine deeps.
And what I like about that is, you know, look

(02:16:46):
empy back of the day. I used to run a
clothing business way back when, and one of my biggest
customers was Walmart and I was overly relying on Walmart
because they bought so much stuff. But San Diego State's
not overly reliant on one player, and I like that.
So if one of their guys gets into foul trouble,
no big deal, right, And I think that's a really

(02:17:09):
nice thing to have where they don't need the you know,
one guy to carry them and they really go a
true nine D and it can be any of the
nine it's depending on the day in the game. I
do think that they have I don't again, and I
know that size we saw in the Produe game, and
you know against Faily Dickinson, it didn't make it difference.

(02:17:30):
Small can be big, But I think it's gonna be
harder for FAU in this game. I do. I think again,
I don't think they are quite big enough in physical
enough to beat Sennego State. Look again, I made this
line three, not thirty, so it's close to three and
two and a half what I made it. But I
do think Senego State will win a tough, rugged game.

(02:17:51):
It's called by seven or so. I lean here to
the Aztecs. Yeah, see you, And it's funny you and
I see the same way. Like there, it's one thing
when you look at that FAU and they put terrific,
but they hadn't played a team as gritty and that
like they could jump like Tenneo State junks it up. Man.
They're like, they give you that it's an alleyway game.

(02:18:14):
Well no, but they did have they Look, let's give
them grid. They did beat Tennessee UM, which in Tennessee
likes to do that as well too, but U and
they did win that, and and I'll give them, I'll
give them credit for that, But I do agree with
you that this is going to be a tougher a
tougher game for them. I just really do believe that. Um.
And I mean I think Stego State, look, they're tough,

(02:18:35):
but again, the way the fay you can win this
Saintinggos State is just really not that good offensively, Okay,
use a team sort of like six years seniors. They're
just gritty and tough in like they're gonna be younger
teams because they're veteran and they're you know, kind of
like you know, they've been there, done that, and just
physically they're This is men playing right because these guys

(02:18:57):
are game some twenty three year old guys. This is
not like you're eighteen year old teams with young guys.
This is a team with you know, it's tough, and again,
I just think it's for me a little bit a
little bit too hard for thank you. I like Seneca State, Yeah,
I'm with you. Next game, it's interesting one and Yukon,

(02:19:19):
whom everybody loves. Everybody loves Yukon, and you know, I
get it. That line is at five and a half.
And you said it from the early in the tournament
that there was a lot of people that were all
over yukon Um and I liked him too. I mean,
we talked about it, but I canna tell you this game.

(02:19:40):
I count I count Miami out. Man, Miami scares me.
I thought Texas had that game. I thought Texas was
winning that game. I mean, you know, and the lead.
I mean, it's amazing that second half. Texas up twelve,
thenter up thirteen, the interrupt nine, they're up ten, and
the're up eleven, and I'm like, the Texas win this game.

(02:20:01):
And then they went on that little run and the
next thing, you know, man, they just sneaky. Man, they
sneak up one. Yeah, I think Miami's going to keep
this game close, and they don't. You remember you'd asked
me a few times you'd give you a long shot
team on your show, and I give Miami. And I

(02:20:22):
said the reason was, I go, this is a team.
I go, you'll give me a team that can actually score, right,
give me a team that can actually like put pressure
on the other team. And that's what they can do.
And you know, we saw them get down. They was
like fifty two thirty nine or something, a little bit
ilk and they do it. They gave the ability to score.
I get the solid the fifth of Texas team they

(02:20:43):
were scoring at will. Look that being said Anthony, and
I know I sent you a text off air that
this Yukon team is playing thoroughly not as well because
it's the competitions nowhere. You was great. But similarly to
that doul Over team that beat everyone by twenty points
or more. Yeah, you know when they won their national

(02:21:04):
title against Michigan, can they just ran through They just
ran through everyone. I don't think they they went They
beat every team by at least fifteen points. Yukon is
doing the same thing. And Yukon is you know we
talked about, Yes, analy Analytically, they're a top twenty offensive
and defensive team. They have a bunch of guys who
the two to three. They have everyone who can score.

(02:21:26):
Look on dayper Anthony, if we considered this like a
big pie, Yukon would win the championship the most times.
There's not a doubt on my mind. They are the
best team. But no one and done situation. It doesn't
necessarily always go that way. Look, this is a harder
game for me. I'm more of a lean towards San
Diego State, and this Geame, I would say this if
you like Yukon, I do not think this line will.

(02:21:48):
I do not think we'll see any five. If you
like Miami, still sitting at five may, I think we
will see some sixes, that is my guess. So if
you like Miami, I would wait till close to post.
I think that the recreational betters will just take the
comfort food of taking the favorite, taking Ukon. Look, my
numbers made this five and a half. Think Ukona win

(02:22:10):
the game. I do with respect for Miami, but I'm
not anxious to step in front of that Yukon train
right now. They just seem to me like they're playing extremely,
extremely well. I could definitely see Miami winning the game.
I can see Miami covering not a game I'm wagering
on because I just don't want to step in front
of that buzz all that is Yukon basketball right now. Yeah,
I mean listening. I think that's fair. I gotta tell you,

(02:22:31):
I do. I think that's very fair. All right, Sit tight,
I want to dive into a little baseball with you.
But first, Figgy, what's trending? Buddy? All right, Anthony will
go off the court in the NBA the league in
the players Association agreeing to a seven year collective bargaining
agreement that according to Adrian Ward Danowski of ESPN, the

(02:22:53):
agreement includes a sixty five game minimum game at minimum
I should say for players to be eligible for awards,
and season tournament that includes pool play games baked into
the regular season schedule. It also places certain free agency
restrictions on teams that are well above the luxury tax
on the court Friday Nights, Steph Curry, Jordan Pool Clay
Thompson combining to make twenty three pointers. They leave Golden

(02:23:14):
State over San Antonio thirty points for Kevin Durant twenty
seven for Devin Booker as the Sons defeated Denver one
hundred to ninety three. Sacramentos won four of their last
five after beating Portland. Lakers are the seventh seed in
the Western Conference after they hammerd Minnesota. You also had
victories from Memphis, the Knicks, Boston, and Philadelphia. In Major
League Baseball, Arizona beat the Dodgers two to one, it

(02:23:35):
was the Guardians nine and the Mariners four. Rockies over
the Padres four to one. Houston defeated the White Sox
six to three. Solo home runs from Horace Selaire and
Jazz Chisholm led Miami to a two to one victory
over the Mets. And at the women's final four, Caitlin
Clark forty one points eight assists leading Iowa to an
upset victory over South Carolina, who suffered their first loss
of the season. They will take on LSU, who defeated

(02:23:57):
Virginia Tech earlier in the night seventy nine to seven
and two. All right, back to the fellas, thank you,
figuring we are the fellas. That's right, coming alive from
the tire rack dot Com studios. The big brain with us,
the Brad Feinberg who takes a look at sports from
a betting standpoint, and again these are all his opinion.

(02:24:20):
He bets these games. He's not selling you anything. He's
not a tup. He doesn't give you picks. There's no one,
eight hundred number out of that stuff. It's just good
sports talk with the big brain who invests in sports.
All right, Baseball, let me ask you a question for
Brad Lee today full slated games. What have you seen

(02:24:41):
so far? Any trends early that you could dive into
the stolen base trend was big. Is it translating into
something you can capitalize on? Well, I just think if
they we're probably going to see more run score just
this year in baseball, just because of our daily made
the base is bigger. And so the person listening you say,

(02:25:03):
what's the big deal with that? Well, what that'll do is, um,
these plays when you're trying to steal a base right
where you watched in baseball game, the guys out by
you know, a bang bang play by a close half
an inch, those plays the guy will now be safe on.
And it's just and that's going to lead to more
runs because and then obviously the shift we see with

(02:25:25):
you know, not being able to fish you to these
lefties right, not being able to have this shift, which
would hurt guys batting average a ton. Uh, it's now
going to be look just generally, and I think we're
going to see more runs scored. Uh. And I think
it's going to be you know, some of these pitchers
that maybe were heavily reliant on groundballs, groundball success, maybe

(02:25:48):
it helps, it helps the shift. Maybe it's going to
hurt their guys and maybe for example, Sandy Alcontra was
a guy that was heavily reliant on groundballs, um and
now having if you know, maybe that's gonna hurt him
a little bit. Uh, and he maybe he won't be
quite decided the other days because listen when you're when

(02:26:10):
you when you feed in the got that he's going
into a lot of lefty pitchers, lefty and the hitters.
Um and now you can't do that. That could be
difference between a couple hits the game, which you know
could lead to you know, look at it's just subtle
differences where you could I always say in sports, the
difference between being great and good is close them. Is
between good and average is close them, between average and
bad his clothes, So all these subtle differences ad out.

(02:26:34):
I just think we're gonna see more runs scored. And um,
that's look I foot baseball wanted, Anthony. They wanted uh,
they wanted people to be more uh, they wanted more action,
more runs. I think they're gonna get it. And they
also did the obviously put in the pitch clock to
make it that it doesn't go on forever. So we'll
see how their master plan works. Are a couple of games, Anthy,
I do want to discuss today that I did like

(02:26:55):
in baseball and the start Anthony with uh Brandon Woodroffe
against Justin Steele Woodroffe, I laid a dollar seventeen. Woodruffs
one of my favorite pitchers in baseball. I think he's
very underrated. I made this line closer to a dollar
thirty five actually, so this one was way lower than
I personally would have made it. Steel pitched decently for

(02:27:17):
the Cubs last year, but I think Woodruff is like
a legit number one starter. And I also did bet
Steel under six and a half strikeouts Anthony seventeen and
seven to the under last year. Plus we're getting again
opening day start. Sometimes you don't feel quite as many
pitches as you will obviously one month into the season.

(02:27:39):
I think under six and a half strikeouts is a
very good wager. Give you a couple other bets, Anthy,
I like another prop. I liked Spencer Strider over six
and a half strikeouts. Now again, I know it's opening
Day and he may not be as many pitches, but
he did. It was thirteen and five to over that
last year. I just thought that number should have been
a tad higher, even factoring I complete, yeah, and he's

(02:28:01):
just a dominant gay guy. Man, I'm gonna give you
Anthony a couple other games, two other games. I do
like Spencer Turnbull of Detroit. Underrated guy. I actually pitched
you off for two straight years. Came off Tommy John Surgery.
Everything I've read the buzz on him has been terrific.
This stuff looks filthy going into ex Philly Zach Efflyn,

(02:28:23):
I took a dollar sixty. Look, I'm gonna be honest.
I think I think Ethlyn is not great. I think
he's okay, very okay. I a Turnbull ranked hire as
a pitcher. I made this line closer taking a dower
thirty and my numbers because I just think this line's
way too high, like the Tigers as a dog today
and Logan. Gilbert's one of my favorite pitchers in baseball.

(02:28:45):
I think he's poised him and George Kirby, both of Seattle,
to potentially really bust out and be elite. Aaron Savali
to me, he's completely average. I laid a dollar thirty.
I liked Gilbert a day of Seattle. Again. I thought
that lunch closer to a dollar fifty. Yeah, I I
totally see that. Man. I'm completely with you there, Um,

(02:29:07):
did you do you like Wheeler today? Wheeler? No, No,
I don't, No, I don't like I love. I love
Zach Were. I think he's great this. It's not that
I don't like we or Anthy. It's I texted a
team again. I like Texas in Seattle both a lot
in that division. I think both teams are gonna be good.
I think the Evaldi is a guy that I like Evaldi.

(02:29:30):
I do. It's not that I don't like Zach We
or I just respect Yovaldi. I think Evaldi's gonna have
a big year for Texas. I really like that signing
a lot. I like what Texas did upgrading their staff,
not only him, but obviously getting Jacob to Grom and
they also got uh Andrew Hainey. I thought they really
improved their team quite a bit. No, I mean I
thought we were should have been about a dollar thirty.

(02:29:52):
Favorite sat what he's coming in at. I think it's
always win the game, but with the price. I think
it's the right number. I like that that line is
going to score runs. I think that lineup is is
pretty nasty. Um, you know it's funny. Chris sale goes
today for the socks. Yeah, I'm curious that what would

(02:30:13):
he if he could make the comeback trail? Yeah, Aunty,
look he's going in stein Kramer. Um. Look, Chris Sale
to me, aff me. And here's one thing I'm gonna
say about Chris Sale. Look what we're going to get now,
Chris Sale is the different version of Chris Sale. I mean,
we're not going to get the dominant, dominant strikeout guy. Look,
he was kind of like I'm I'm not going to

(02:30:35):
say he was as good as this guy, but he
was kind of like the version of Randy Johnson for
a few years right where he was that herky, jerky domald.
He was amazing. I mean like he was. Yeah, I
mean I don't know he ever went to cy Young.
I think he did, yes, but he certainly was great
the white socks. He was unbelievable. Yeah, he was probably
over a five year period, the best picture of US

(02:30:56):
League baseball. So but I don't think wherever and see
that Chris Sale ever again. But but my my spighty
sense has told me, I think that he can have
a good act to where he maybe not being that
dominant elite guy, but I think he's crafty. I think
he's smart, intelligent, and I think we'll find a way
even without that stuff that he used to have to
still if he could stay healthy, carved out a nice

(02:31:18):
major league you know, the rest of his career. I
really do believe that. Again, I just think there was
dominant thirteen fourteen strikeout days. May be done, but I
still think will be effective. I really do. So. I
got to tell I like the Orioles as a dog
today big time. And where did they get in plus?
Swat are you get a bus from a dollar forty

(02:31:39):
dollars forty five area too? Yeah? Yeah, you know sale Listen,
he's it's fastball. It's topping out at ninety four. Yeah,
well you're not going to get what he used to
get from him. Well, no, I agree, And like he
got beat up a little bit in the spring. Uh,
it's going to be early. And I like the Baltimore

(02:32:00):
a lineout. I like the Orioles lineout. Eble if Baltimore. Look,
both both these teams had the same over under basically
if season wins. So you know, if they're right there
and U Kramer is their number two starter, look, not
a game I personally wizard on. I would be on
the dog side if I had to play it. Um,

(02:32:20):
just because again I'm not going to be laying a
dollar sixty dollars sixty five with for sale, no way.
But um, I do have him. Again, I do still
have some respect for the guy, and I'm gonna give
him a chance because I do think he's a crafty gun.
I think he has the ability to be to redevelop
himself and still be effective. Baltimore, they just don't have

(02:32:41):
anyone who I can trust pitching wise, truly, to be
honest with you, Yeah, yeah, strike guys out. So like
they now, he's take a guy that it doesn't have
the ability to strike guys out. That's you know, one
of the things we learned, like from fifteen years ago,
twenty years ago, if a guy wasn't a strikeout pitcher,
I'd say, who cares? That doesn't mean anything. Well, now
you know people have been educating. No, look, if you

(02:33:03):
the testabilities, when you big guys miss so that the
balls are not putting play, you don't give him a chance.
So when you guy like Cramer doesn't strike guys out,
you know it's the kind of guy that can obviously
get hitting any given game. So that's what I would
say with that. That's why I personally didn't bet the
game real quick because I got like thirty seconds. You
gotta you gotta mass his pick because you're not gonna
be on until next Saturday. Yeah. I mean, look, it's

(02:33:26):
just just so many great golfers, and I think that.
I mean, if I had to pick a guy, I'd
probably say Scottie Scheffler just because Ye's phenomenal. But it's
just it's it's so hard to win those bets, and
there's so many good golfers who can win. And literally say,
there's by twenty five guys who were generally can win. Yeah, no,
I hear you. I listen, big Brain, you're the best man.

(02:33:48):
We love you, buddy. You guys have a great weekend
and enjoy the five four. Here he is Brad Feinberg,
Big Brain on Brad, we'll come back, wrap it up,
figging I on a Saturday, April the first right here
Fox Sports Radio. All right, welcome back, fellas from the

(02:34:15):
entire rack dot com studios. Time now for the progressive
play of the day and let us go to the
women's final four. Last night, Iowa takes out South Carolina

(02:34:36):
top of the key. She hit it again. You gotta
be kidding me. Park from the way outside with a
hand in her face. It doesn't matter. Park's got thirty one.
What a game she had? Oh my incredible. Progressive makes
things even easier. They're gonna help you bundle your home

(02:34:58):
and your car in shorts together so you could save
on both. Learn more at Progressive dot com, where you
can call one eight hundred Progressive. All right, Viggie, time
to wrap it up, sir. This, uh, this, it's gonna
be a fun weekend man. Yeah right, So tell me,
are you, uh, how do you feel about your Dodgers? Well,

(02:35:21):
I had a tough loss on Friday night, but pretty confident.
You know, they have a bit of a different roster. Look.
You still have veterans like Freddie Freeman and Mookie Bets
at the top, but at a lot of these young
kids have a lot of hype around them and a
lot of confidence. So um fan the fan base. Gauging
the fan base on our local show on Friday, They're
pretty excited. Their expectations are sky high. I know everybody

(02:35:41):
loves the Padres and all the money they spent, but
the Dodgers believe it or not, in Vegas and many
sports books are still favorite to win the division despite
all the things that the Padres did this past offseason.
You like Outman, the truth, Vargus the truth. Yeah, and
I like their demeanors. You know, they're not like, you know,
wide eyed, you know rookies who are you know, afraid
of the moment. They're both very even keel. They have
the right personality for it to be a successful baseball player.

(02:36:04):
And you don't see that from a lot of young
guys that don't have a lot of experience. They have
quiet confidence is the way that I would put it.
Not necessarily cocky, but confident. Yeah, I'll tell you Vargas. Look,
I was watching the game. Vargas looked real good to play.
He had double and if he walked three times, he
showed a lot of good patients, a lot. And you
know that part of that is born out of so

(02:36:25):
during spring training he broke his finger on his hand
or his wrist actually, and but they wanted him to
continue to get work in the field. So what they did,
so he played in games. He went up to bat,
but never swung, so he said it actually helped his eye.
So and there were time I think he went like
three for ten or something like that, and I think
and walked like five times and those at bats something

(02:36:46):
like that. So he had a stretch of spring training
games where he actually only played defense, came up to
the dish, never swung, and still garnered a lot of walks,
and he says it actually helped him with his plate
discipline and his eyes to see what was a ball
and what wasn't. So yeah, yeah, are they panicking in
San Diego? Two losses in the Rockies? Oh? Probably. I

(02:37:07):
don't want sixty to go, but still, you know, and
they still there's still plenty of time to go to hit.
You still don't have a Tortis back in the mix yet,
so you're not at full strength when it comes to that.
My issue with San Diego is just their pitching depth.
They're very top heavy, especially when it comes to arms.
But you know, to make it through one sixty two,
you're gonna have a little bit of depth. If you
have one or two injuries on that staff, like Joe

(02:37:29):
Musgrove got hurt, you know you're gonna have some issues.
So that that will be my one fear with San Diego.
But there'll it'll be a fight all year long for
them and the Dodgers in the NLST. It should be fun,
you know. I feel bad for it still. I mean, jeez,
I mean, if you're an Angel fan, it's just to watch,
which I am so thank you. H You see, you're
more Angels than I grew up. I grew up an

(02:37:50):
Angel fan. I work at the Dodgers station and want
them to do well, obviously, and I have no anem
as towards the Dodgers, but I grew up as a
kid as an Angel fan. Yes, oh dude, oh you
know what? Kidding me? For his sake, I kind of
want him to leave. He's like, you know what Artimura
used to game free. Yeah, you don't want to sell
the team. You want to continue to run the team
into the ground. Fine. I hope Trout asked for a trade.

(02:38:11):
I hope all Tony walks away go somewhere where he
can actually be showcased, have a chance to play on
national television in playoff games and games that matter. It's
sad that Mike Trodden show you, Tyny, the two best
players in the league say like the most fun they
ever had with the greatest atmosphere they played him was
at the WBC. No disrespect to the WBC, but come on,
that's sad that that organization can't put enough team players

(02:38:33):
around them to make them a legitimate playoff contender. Uh.
I am so with you, and I so can't believe it.
I mean, I just looked like the other night. He
pitches a gym, it's great, and that a's team sticks
and he takes d l more things change, the more

(02:38:54):
they stay the same. Oh my god, dude, it's I
felt so bad. Well again, you've just been eight because
oh Tonnie's so great and he's gonna go get big
money in the match or the Dodgers or whatever. All right,
well that's gonna do it for us. Everybody, have a
great weekend. Man. We love you guys. We'll see you
next Saturday.

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