05/30/2021 – The Jason Martin Show - Fox Sports Radio

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. What's happening? Welcome in.
It's to Jason Martin Show for the next three hours
here on Fox Sports Radio. Glad to have you with
us wherever you happen to be. My name is Jason Martin,
UM in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm on Twitter at j mart
To Radio. You can find me there. Christoper Fette, Bo Benson,
Brian Finley. That's the show effect that they're spending the

(00:22):
dollars radio style for me out in l A. And
we're brought to you by Discover this morning. Discover matches
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at the end of your first year. It's amazing because
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Learn more at Discover dot com. Slash Yes Nelson Report
limitations apply. I go to Twitter as soon as I

(00:44):
walk in here. I haven't been on it most of
this weekend, and I see trending in the United States
hashtag r I p Sebastian stand. I'm like, oh no,
apparently not. Apparently that's just trending for no apparent reason.
Somebody tried to get it trending. That the dude had died.
Maybe whatever. Cool is my response to that. I'm just
happy it's not true anyway. What is true is it's

(01:08):
Miami Heat season is over and the Milwaukee Bucks season
is continuing. We're gonna talk a lot of NFL in
the second hour of the show. I believe there's there's
there's a couple of interesting topics there and maybe a
thought experiment that I want to do with the crew
and with all of you. But let's start with the association. Certainly,
three is how it ended. Four games, not even a

(01:32):
gentleman sweep. Just get the ace out of town, basically,
and what we're getting from Milwaukee is exactly what they needed,
which is, Okay, this is a really good basketball team.
They've been a really good basketball team for a couple
of years now, but they haven't been able to cash
it in. I think they've been massively underwhelming when you

(01:54):
get there, So it's either and well it's bleeper, get
off the pot, right, Like, eventually you have to win.
Eventually you have to go deep in the playoffs, and
the first round is not d but this is a
rematch against a team that got you, a team that

(02:15):
has some meanness some tenacity and some talent. But you've
got your honest and you've got Chris Middleton to make
a shot when he had to, and you've got Brook
Lopez to give you twenty five points in the close
that game. And what you've got on the other side,

(02:35):
I think is the Jimmy Butler experiment happening all over again.
Jimmy Butler is a prime example of a dude that
wears out his welcome. He is. He is one of
the Kim Jong's of the NFL or the NBA. Here's
what I mean by that. Kim Jong is great in doses,
but you don't ever want him to be your star

(02:56):
of a movie. If Kim Jong is your star, you've
probably be screwed up somewhere. If you go back to
Dan Harmon's great show Community that was on NBC, it
was never highly rated, but it was. It became a
cult classic, kind of in the same way Arrested Development
did when it started streaming. I think more than anything,
but it was kind of Donald Glover's arrival on the scene.

(03:19):
The first couple of years the Community was so good,
and Kim Jong was part of that show. But as
Senor Chang became a bigger and bigger character on the show.
It was worse for community. In doses it worked, you
could argue, some of you will laugh at this, but
Rebel Wilson, it worked in doses in the first Pitch Perfect,

(03:41):
and then they tried to build the entire franchise around
her and the reviews tanked. There's just there's some people
that can't handle it. I mean, even go back to
the Hangover, the first Hangover film, Kim Jong perfect amount
of Ken Jong, and that film you go a little
bit later into the series, way too much of him,
and the movies were not very good. Jimmy Butler is

(04:03):
the Ken Jong of the NBA. That's what it looks
like because he goes somewhere and it's good, but then
when he takes over, he wears on you and wears
on you and wears on you, and then you don't
really want to see the sequels that much longer. Like
last year, Jimmy Buckets was all over the place for
the right reasons. This year the heat get knocked out

(04:23):
in four. But the big story here is Milwaukee and Janice.
Back to the topic at hand. Eventually, you've got to
win and Janice is going to win somewhere. The question
is can he win in Milwaukee? And I was starting
to think the answer was no, and it may still
be no. This is not enough for a Milwaukee team

(04:47):
that went twenty six this year, and if you look
at the record over the past couple of years, cashing
in has to be the goal here. The mindset is right.
Milwaukee looks the part right now. They were first in
the Central, they were strong again during the regular season.

(05:10):
Janice still has a couple of flaws in this game.
I don't I think we may just have to deal
with that. Most guys have flaws in their games. He
still doesn't have. He still can be kind of streaky
on the free throw line. He's not great from distance. Certainly,
he can be off and on hot and cold from
that fifteen to twenty foot range as well. But when

(05:33):
he's doing what he does inside the paint, and when
he's forcing the issue and when he's aggressive, they can
be awfully tough to deal with. My my problem with
Joannice over the years has been he's been too passive,
way too often when it counted, and it seems like
because of his limitations offensively as a younger player. You

(05:53):
were able to effectively take him out of crucial spots
in playoff games. You could scheme him out. Well. The
Heat could not do it this time. Spoilster and all
these got Nobody had an answer this time around. And
so the Bucks advance and the Heat are about to
go through a rebuilding process. What happens when somebody wears

(06:15):
out there welcome, Well, they go somewhere else. There are
pro wrestlers back in the territory days before it was
all Vince McMahan and a W and just a few
companies that most people paid attention to. Pro wrestling was
done territorially. And so you had the Texas area, and

(06:36):
you had Nashville, and you have Memphis, and you had
mid Atlantic in the Carolinas, and you had St. Louis
and you had Portland, and you had all of these
various different organizations run by different promoters with different audiences.
Some of them had TV, not all, but that TV
was not readily available across the country. We couldn't go
on YouTube. We could barely even tape trade. So you

(07:00):
could if you were a pro wrestler with a kind
of outlandish gimmick or one that had a shelf life.
You could roll into Texas, dominate for a couple of months,
make some money, work some programs with their champions, and
then on the way out the door, you know, put
their guys back over and then go to the next town,
go to the next territory because they hadn't seen your

(07:22):
act yet. You could go all the way around the
country and do this and make a good living and
people would love you because you wouldn't get overexposed. And
there are guys right now in the w w E
that you've probably watched where you're tired of their act.
But if you could have seen it for about three
months and then they move on out and then two
years from now they come back to your town, that
would be different. Well. Jimmy Butler is the act that

(07:45):
wears thin. Jimmy Butler is the act that needs to
head to a new territory. And when he goes there,
I guess what, They're probably gonna be good for a
short period of time and then he's gonna wear on
them as well. Just kind of the the bristly nature
of his competitive drive. It's both his biggest plus and

(08:05):
his biggest minus because a lot of guys just simply,
especially in this day and age, aren't ready to handle it.
I think Jimmy Butler, had he been playing in the
mid to late eighties or in the early nineties, would
have been seen vastly differently. He would have fit like
a glove on a lot of those rosters. You look
at those early rosters that have been chronicled in the
Last Dance and the Lakers Celtics documentary and all of those,

(08:29):
and certainly the Bad Boys Pistons and all this, like
Jimmy Butler would have fit during that time. Right, there
are only a few guys in the current NBA I
think that really would have fit then. I think Westbrook
could have fit there. I certainly think Jimmy Butler would
have fit there, and there's a select few others Patrick Beverley,
perhaps just because of the attitude side of it, the

(08:51):
irritanse side of it, but the game has become so friendly.
All these guys who played for different teams that get
along and hang out and go take trips together and
hang out with each other's families and all this. There
are a few guys that don't understand that they're wired differently,
and as a result, it isolates them and it creates

(09:12):
some problems. And I think that's what you've got with
the Miami Heat right now, is you've got a Jimmy
Butler team that's kind of rolling their eyes at Jimmy Butler.
And as a result of Milwaukee, Bucks move on. And
this is kind of the best thing, I think for
the NBA. Even though Miami is a bigger market, Milwaukee
is a team that they've wanted us to pay attention

(09:34):
to and care about for the last three years. They've
put a star there, or they've got a star there.
Who knows whether he stays my My thought would be
he will not. Within the next two years, he'll be
wearing another uniform. But the deeper they go in the playoffs,
the better deeper they go in the playoffs, the more

(09:56):
that hope gets creative for somebody else. And you're seeing
that across the NBA right now. Phoenix got a game
that was exciting, but since that point, you've seen what's
happened Utah trying to get through Memphis. We'll talk more
about that series a little bit later on in the program.

(10:17):
You're seeing the teams that you expected to see do
what they expected to do with the exception maybe of Denver,
everybody else that you anticipated playing well has I mean,
the Celtics Net series has got a little weird here
and there, but with some of Kyrie's comments and that

(10:38):
being a bit of a distraction and Jayson Tatum giving
you fifty, you're gonna have those kind of moments. But
what you needed if you were a Milwaukee Bucks fan,
and certainly if you were on that team or on
that sideline, is a statement kind of series. And against

(10:59):
the team that guy to last year that talked all
kinds of smack, you just sent them home one oh nine,
one oh seven in a two point game with the
Chris Middleton victory, and then after that you absolutely just
boat raced him one thirty two eight, four oh three

(11:20):
c A and canco. That was a statement had to
earn the first one. That was a great way for
the NBA playoffs to to kick off a week ago,
and then three in a row where you pretty much
toyed with another NBA team in the playoffs, and a

(11:40):
pretty good team at that and one that had had
success against you in the playoffs already. And so then
the Bucks troll heat fans and troll accounts on social
media after the sweep. And that's actually a different topic
that I want to do a little later on the program,
is well, is what's okay? How far can you go

(12:03):
if you're the official social media h Q for a
professional sports organization? Like? How much can you do before
it goes too far? How much trolling can you do?
How much joking at the other team's expense can you do?
All those kinds of things? Is there a line or

(12:25):
is all of this just fun? I would tend to
argue that Twitter at its best and at its worst
should just be for fun. If you're there for anything
more than that, then you probably have made a mistake
and it's gonna upset you relatively quickly as well. But again,
that's the take, right if you want to take something
away from this segment other than the Bucks getting the

(12:48):
job done and advancing and hopefully setting themselves up to
at least get closer. If they can't win, maybe they
can get out of the East. They get out of
the East, that means they probably have to go through
the nets at some point, at which point they've earned
their right to go to the finals to lose to
Lebron While they go on a long list of teams

(13:09):
to lose to Lebron. If it's indeed the Lakers that
get out, I have the Jazz in the finals. You
go there and you lose to the Jazz, that's probably
gonna stick to you unfortunately, even though the Jazz are
technically the top seed. But the big takeaway is Jimmy Butler,
is Ken Jong and Rebel Wilson. I don't think you've
heard that anywhere else in sports radio. Maybe ever, you

(13:32):
may have never seen it written anywhere either. As a
matter of fact, I would venture to guess I'm the
first one that has made that comparison. You tell me
whether or not that's one appropriate or two if it
made you laugh. But I'll bet you Ken Jong didn't
when they overused him in the second and third Hangover
films and in the third and fourth seasons of Community.

(13:53):
Just a little bit of food for thought, a little
bit of a different way to address this. When we
come back, I want to talk about some thing. It
wasn't really on the floor, but fan behavior over the
past week. What are we doing here, guys? We'll talk
about that next. I'm Jason Martin and this is Fox
Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk

(14:14):
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Radio app search f s R to listen live. Welcome
back to Jason Martin Show here on Fox Sports Radio.
I am Jason Martin on Twitter at j mart to
radio with you until six am Eastern Time every single
Sunday morning, holiday weekend. For a lot of us, Memorial

(14:38):
Day tomorrow. Something to make sure we remember is, you
know those families of people that you know you've lost somebody.
Maybe you haven't in your family, but a family you
know has, and that's a really tough day. So uh
send thoughts and well wishes and prayers and just remember
the price the a lot of folks have paid for

(15:01):
the freedom that we enjoy and the freedom that maybe
we took for granted. Last year we didn't have it
and now we're we seem to be getting it back,
and we're getting back into buildings to watch sporting events.
And that's kind of where I want to go. Because
we saw a couple of things happen over the past
handful of days involving fans stepping over the line, crossing

(15:26):
the line in a way that you simply can't. First off,
kudos to the guy who thought, yeah, let me pour
popcorn on the injured Russell Westbrook while they're trying to
help him off the floor. Classy man, seriously, And then
let's spit on Trey Young. Also, the easy take right

(15:49):
here is the one that I just made. We took
for granted being able to do this, being able to
go places, being able to do all this, and whether
or not we believed that what was happening was right
or wrong. When sporting organizations and leagues and buildings said no,

(16:12):
you can't come in, we didn't really have a choice there.
We had a choice privately, we had a choice maybe
walking into the grocery store, but it didn't mean you
could go see an NBA playoff game. So you get
that opportunity. It's the celebration of sports. It felt like
last weekend sports truly came back, whether it was Phil
winning at fifty, the NBA playoffs starting and being super

(16:36):
exciting all weekend long. Stanley Cup Playoffs were exciting last weekend.
There was a lot happening and it all felt positive.
And if you looked at the gallery and the crew
that we're following Phil Mickelson on eight team, even the
ones that you know got a little too close for comfort.

(16:58):
It was just joyful. There was a celebration aspect to it,
and Madison Square Garden was an awesome, awesome scene, and
Trey Young had his Reggie Miller moment, but spitting on
him and pouring popcorn on Russell Westbrook, all of this

(17:20):
kind of stuff. When was it that fans started to
believe this was okay? Like it's never been okay. Like
there was the famous heckler that went to all the
Washington Bullets games back in the day and said, like certainty.

(17:40):
I think his name was Robin and eventually I think
he got banned, but he was he was famous. Like
everybody came to the building, they knew that they were
going to deal with this dude. And he was this guy,
if I remember right, just had glass. It's just kind
of a normal looking god. I don't even know if
he used curse words, like I can't remember for sure,
but I remember the story and everybody that came to

(18:02):
that building, all the opposing players would talk about it
because I remember watching like a documentary of special on
that guy. Maybe it's like a five minutes segment or something,
and he was notorious for it. And there's been a
lot of things said to players at all sports completely

(18:22):
inappropriate for a very long time. It's hard to police
what comes out of people's mouths, especially when alcohol is
sold at the facilities. Some things are beyond the pale.
And you know, you look at it, you like, well,
do you want to take your kid to an NFL

(18:43):
game and sit high up in the seats or you're
gonna be around? I was like, are you You don't
know what you're gonna be around? Right? You go there
to have a good time. You've got your kids, You've
gotten them their sodas or whatever, the popcorn, hot dogs.
You're sitting there trying to enjoy the game. And then
there's somebody spilling beer on your kids or being very

(19:06):
very obnoxious, using foul language. All of this, you really
can't do anything about it other than leave. You can complain,
But if you're a player and in the NBA, we
have this situation where the fans are awfully close to
the action. I remember being stunned years ago going to

(19:29):
acron to Firestone to watch the w g C and
I'm standing two ft from Tiger Woods as he's about
to play a shot. I'm standing a foot away from
Dustin Johnson, like a foot and half of Rory McElroy.
All of these guys coming through, some of them talking

(19:50):
to you, some of them not. But you're that close.
It always felt kind of ridiculous to me that there
wasn't more of a separation, more of a dividing line.
When he NBA, you had your courtside seats and you
just you have guys that it's just your closer to
the action. You don't have that in football. You're not
that close to college football. You're not that close. In
the NFL. You might be able to yell and somebody
can hear you from the bench, but that's to nowhere

(20:12):
nearer the actual playing surface. But this stuff is way
beyond the pale. And it was such a bad look
and it robbed the celebratory atmosphere that we were watching.
You buy a ticket. There are some people to truly
believe if I buy a ticket, I can do what
I want. That's just not true. That's not true. Virtually,

(20:34):
anywhere you go, you can always step over a line.
Like if I drive home from the studio, tonight at
six am, and I it's like, well, there's not a
lot of cars out here. I think I'm gonna go
a hundred and ten miles. Well, if the cops there,
I'm probably gonna get stopped, even if it's just dead empty.

(20:56):
But I've got a driver's license, so I've got the
right to do whatever I want. Right, No, no, no,
you you you don't. There's still laws. There's also just
common decency, like humanity, and yeah, this is a couple
of knuckleheads amongst tens of thousands who did it the
right way, but unfortunately those are the ones that are

(21:19):
gonna get highlighted every single time, and that those couple
of knuckleheads are still way too many. Spitting on somebody
is just insanely disgusting, demeaning, dehumanizing. It's just low rent,
low class. There are some people that react to it

(21:43):
a lot stronger, maybe than I did when I was
a kid, But now it's like, it's just completely unacceptable.
I don't even want to add to the fact that
you know you're dealing with at least a lot of
feelings of angst and anxiety surrounding a virus, and just

(22:06):
the sheerness of that. I mean early in these playoff series,
you have both NHL and NBA coaches wearing masks on
the sidelines, and now you've got somebody spitting on a
star player. Not a great look. Now it ends up
creating a gray rivalry. Right, Maybe Trey Young becomes the

(22:27):
new villain for the New York Knicks. We could use
that because the Reggie Miller versus NIXT thing was fantastic television,
so good in fact, that thirty for thirty may one
of its best episodes in history, at least the early
history at thirty thirty with a one hour Reggie Miller
versus the New York Knicks winning time episode. We could

(22:48):
use that kind of thing because dating back to what
I was saying in the first segment, we need rivalries
in the NBA. We need dudes that actually hate each other,
at least on the court, like not wanting somebody to
fall down an elevator shaft or something like that, but

(23:09):
actual competitive nature with a little bit of bad blood.
Just I don't want it to cross over to being dangerous.
We don't need malice in the palace or anything like that.
I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying a very healthy,
edgy kind of competitiveness, and you don't get it very often.
There's only a few guys in the NBA they were

(23:30):
doing it, and you're gonna get that created here with
Trey Young and the Knicks, especially if we can get
a little bit more out of this series. But I'm
watching those two incidents that I'm thinking about it. It's
just like we just got back in buildings. They finally
are letting us back in buildings. Some of us believe

(23:51):
you should have been there a long time ago, but
that wasn't our decision to make in those cases, and
you're gonna roll in and with then a week or
two of having this privilege back, you're gonna go do that.
Luckily both of them have been banned. But how do
you really ban somebody? You're telling me they can't buy
a ticket? Maybe they can't, but their wife can, where

(24:14):
their son could or their best friend could. I mean,
they can't scan everybody's face coming in to match it
against a print out or something, so I don't even
know how you do it. It seems like a gesture.
But fan behavior can't be like this, Like we've got

(24:36):
to be better than this. There were a couple of
things that happened over the past couple of weeks where
I'm just like, I really hope that we're better than this.
And I don't just mean with fans, I mean in
sports media, Like that's that's not the way you want
to feel with the quality of the games that we're seeing,

(25:00):
with the joy, with the celebration, with all of this,
the wet blanket, the dark cloud, this stuff is just trash.
Fans need to be way better than this. I'm hoping
those are the only two incidents we're gonna see. Hoping

(25:21):
this topic isn't evergreen, It doesn't need to be. Luckily,
these things are sort of rare, but to get two
in one week makes you wonder. And the Westbrook one,
I mean, dude's injured and you're gonna do that as
he's being you know, as he's trying to hobble off
the floor to get to go to the back, Like,

(25:47):
did you feel good about yourself? How do you get
from disliking a guy on the floor, perhaps two do
in that And then on the drive home, how are
you feeling about yourself? Are you super excited about what
you did? Are you ready to make sure everybody knows it.
Do you hope somebody caught it? Do you want to
patch yourself on the Backberry Horrowitz style, like, what exactly

(26:09):
is the move here? Are you stopping somewhere for food
on the way home? Or you do you have champagne
in the back of your car? If I were doing that,
I would just kind of shrink down Steve Bartman style,
hope no one saw it, and kind of wish that
I could go back in time and erase it, because one,
it was dumb too. It was ineffective in terms of

(26:30):
all it did was draw Rise out of Westbrook. Certainly
wasn't gonna hurt him, It wasn't gonna hurt his team.
It was just gonna make you look stupid, make your
entire building a little bit lower rent, and bring down
the quality of discourse. So f minus for both of

(26:51):
those fans. Hopefully we are better than that, because those
were ugly scenes and for us to have just gotten
the ability to go back in the buildings and you're
gonna go back in and maybe that's the first time
you've been in in one, maybe that was your ticket
or whatever, that's what you choose to do. Yeah, man,
g t FO. We got no time for that whatsoever.

(27:11):
We do have time for this to go to Brian
Finley out in Los Angeles, catch up on the on
the latest, including a lot of NBA action. Yeah that
is right, Jason. The NBA first run playoffs that series.
They carry on as the Jazz score fourteen of the
last sixteen points to demean the Grizzlies one eleven to
take a two games to one lead. Donovan Mitchell putting
up twenty nine points. The seventies six ers body slam

(27:33):
the Wizards one two two, one oh three to go
up three games to none. Joel and Beat captivates with
thirty six points. M Beat after the game explained why
he was so good in this contest. Quote it was
one on one. I wanted to take advantage of it.
I guess that's on them to make that choice. It's
hard to stop me if you send a double team
or not close. Quote. The Trailblazers muddle the Nuggets one

(27:56):
fifteen to nine to level it at two games. Norman
Palm mesmerizing with twenty nine points the Modus Center there
in Portland, chanting out his name in unis in the
whole crowd as he saved the team after Damian Lillard
struggled offensively in a big way in this contest. The
Bucks sweep the Heat after a one twenty two one
h three shelling. Jana's out to the Coompo had a

(28:18):
triple double and after the game, Janna is speaking on
what has this team jelling? It did not really test
ocation because we what we do. We keep playing it
out away, we keep finding one another and uh, we
have great guys out there. I can know also scored
the ball. And then we just gotta keep playing it outway,
keep trusting on what we do in that game plan,

(28:38):
and that's what we did today and that's where we're
able to get the win. NHL postseason, the Bruins frazzle
the Islanders five two in their second round opener, the
Canadians for the first round Game seven after socking the
maple Leaves three two and overtime, turning to baseball. According
to ESPN, police and Georgia arrested Atlanta Braves Marcelo Soona
on Saturday for fell in the assault after he allegedly

(29:01):
choked his wife and flung her at a wall. The
normal aggravated assault strangulation charge to a spouse as a
sentence going from three years to twenty years, ranging in
those time periods. A couple of notes from games Yesterday,
The Cardinals hand the Diamondbacks their thirteenth straight loss with
a seven to four triumph. The Giants jack camera the

(29:23):
Dodgers eleven to six to go up a game against
l A in the n L West standing. So San
fran is two in the West. The Padres are number
one in the West after they swarm the Astros eleven
to eight in twelve innings. Jason, as I send it
back to I was thinking about what you're saying about
the fans, and there's one way to stop this, I think,
and that is, and I don't even know if this

(29:44):
is legal, but to find out the names of the fans,
post them on social media. You know how vicious Twitter is,
and all of these people that are on there, you
publicly scold them like that, You're gonna dissuade people from
engaging in that sort of behavior. Yeah, I don't. I
don't know if you could do something like that. I
just I find it. Look, the banning sounds really good

(30:07):
in theory, but I don't know how you actually enforce it.
Uh So, I imagine these guys, if they want to
go back, they can, but they shouldn't be allowed to
and hopefully they at least regret these just dumbass decisions
that they made. Welcome back. It is the Jason March
Show here on Fox Sports Radio. So I've joked in
the past it's kind of, you know, mouse halfway to

(30:30):
the side that whenever Chris Paul's playing for a team
where he's about to be acquired by somebody, it's like, man,
he's gonna be good when he gets you in, when
he gets you into the postseason, then gets hurt and
you know, you don't want to make a light of injuries.
But that's always been the fear for me about Chris
Paul playing for my team is what's going to happen

(30:52):
when you get to the playoffs and he's banged up,
because it's just happened so often. Well, he's hurt again
and they need him. Does Reully he's questionable I think
for a pretty crucial game for But think about this, Okay,

(31:14):
so he's hurt right now with the shoulder two eighteen
hamstring pool that's when the Rockets were about to potentially
not Golden State out two thousand fifteen hamstring injury with
the Clippers in the playoffs. These are all playoffs now

(31:37):
two thousand and sixteen fractured hand. Blake Griffin had a
foot fracture in as well. But like Chris Paul throughout
his career, which is a Hall of Fame career by
every metric, he gets hurt in The playoffs were near
the end of the season almost every year. So now

(31:58):
he's in Phoenix and certain he's the leader of that
team in terms of in terms of the veteran guy.
I mean, Devin Booker is the best player I think
on the team at this point. But but Chris Paul
is a necessary weapon and a necessary kind of veteran
almost general Patton for that team. And now he's banged

(32:20):
up again. That's been the story of his career. It's
mind boggling how often he's been hurt, and I'm sure
it is just insanely annoying to him. He's thirty six
years old right now. Like them getting past the Lakers,

(32:42):
I know there's seven seed, but come on, I don't
think many people saw that. I didn't. I remember R J.
Bell I think saying a few weeks ago, the Sons
are one of the team that one of the teams
that Vegas is going to fade because and this is
so indicting about the NBA three teams. He had a
list of three teams that you fade, and they were
all it was like the Jazz and the Sons and

(33:05):
one other and it was it was just teams that
have had awesome regular seasons. And the reason why is
Vegas knows that it's all about effort. And in the
regular season, those teams are putting forth effort when a
lot of the other teams aren't. You get to the playoffs,
everybody's putting forth effort. Then the scale is even, and

(33:25):
then those teams can't compete anymore. There is no bigger
indictment of a regular season than that. Then Vegas not
even taken seriously the top seeds because they just don't
believe anybody tried but them. They tried really hard. That's
why they earned those seeds. Didn't get into the playoffs,
and this happens, but this was a seven seed with
the Sons that look, they got that first win. That's

(33:48):
the easiest game to take if you are and and
I still thought it's certainly an underdog, even with the
seeding being kind of flipped from what you would expect.
But Chris Paul not being healthy is is like I
don't even want to laugh about it anymore. It's kind
of roll my eyes, like, really, again, we're doing this
movie again, Rocky horror style, let's do the time warp again.

(34:11):
Chris Paul is banged up? What else is new? And
all of them coming in crucial moments that have just
led to the downfall of those teams in terms of
the postseason, and certainly's gonna be the best he can. Like,
if you think about Game three, he did okay in
Game three and Game two he really could do absolutely nothing.

(34:33):
But when you get to the the second half, especially
like midway through the third quarter or so, you can
see Chris Paul just just didn't have anything. And here
we go again. I don't know what he's got. I
don't know how he will play if he plays. I

(34:55):
know he wants to, I know they need him, but
they need him to actually be healthy. And so many times,
even when he's come back and tried to play, he's
been so hampered that it stopped what he could do.
I have no idea if he could have won a
championship in his career had he been healthy the entire time.
We're never gonna know, because he never gets through a
season without getting injured. It's like he has his own

(35:18):
Madden curse. He's never been on the cover of Madden, obviously,
but wherever he goes, you can just you can just
chalk it up. Man, he's gonna be banged up for
for about a month, and it's probably gonna come into postseason.
It's probably gonna be into your team season. It's an
I roll. Now. I used to laugh about it, and
not not because I was making fun of the injuries themselves,

(35:39):
just because of his luck and just the propensity that
he was getting hurt. Now I'm just like, oh my gosh,
can you please get through one postseason just so we
can see what you guys were capable of if you
were fully healthy. I like eating a lot, I like
book or a lot. I like the makeup of that team.
I love Monty Williams, but damn man, we've gotta have us, Paul,

(36:01):
And every time a team of his is in the playoffs,
you can never be certain that you're gonna have Chris Paul.
Another guy you just never certain about is Paul George.
I want to talk about him next, and I will.
I'm Jason Martin and this is Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back,
finishing up the first hour. We got two more to
go onto Jason Martin Show here on Fox Sports Radio.

(36:23):
Appreciate you joining me. I'm on Twitter at j MAR Radio.
I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. So we talked about Chris Paul
and just how unfortunate those injuries were there in that
last segment. Right, So I put a put together a
list of the most overrated people in sports about three
years ago. I need to update it. Although I was
thinking about it's just like, well, how much of it
would change. John Gruten wouldn't change, Jim Harball wouldn't change.

(36:50):
I don't think Kirk Cousins would change. John wall i'man
I haven't seen him play enough basketball to even think
about that, So maybe that would change, just because I'm
not even sure he is overrated anymore, or maybe I
said over hype, maybe not over it. Like again, the
purpose of the list was to say, these guys are
not awful. It's not like these are the worst of

(37:11):
the worst. It is the level of coverage and or
hype and or expectation, and then the result often changes.
Tom Herman, would that change No, Probably not so really,
I don't know that my list would have changed at all,
except maybe John Wall just because you can find a
better example now. But there was one other name on

(37:32):
that list. It was Paul George. I like Paul George's game,
always have. But let me ask you a question. As
we're watching what's happened when it happening with the Clippers
against the Mavericks where you're seeing Luca really step up
to the plate, there are two guys in this postseason

(37:55):
right now that are really sort of arriving in a
new way, like Hoo. Peds knew about him, and we
all know about them to some extent, But there are
a large group of folks that did not know how
good some of these guys were. I think Trey Young
you put him in that list too, but Luka don

(38:16):
Chech and John Moran. But let me ask you a
question about Paul George. Has any NBA team ever made
themselves more dangerous as a playoff contender through the addition
of Paul George I'm letting that one briefe for a

(38:42):
second because I think the answers no, Like everywhere he's
been we had the whole you know, the playoff PA
thing and all that, like like they've never the teams
he's been on, they've never gone anywhere. They've actually gone
out faster than expected in most cases. He could be

(39:06):
great for you in the regular season and he's good,
but like since he's come back from that injury, he's
just kind of been the way you started to feel
about Carmelo Anthony until this latest turn where Carmelo is
trying to prove that he never should have been sitting
at home waiting on a phone call. And good for
Carmelo Anthony, who, by the way, celebrated a birthday yesterday.

(39:27):
Happy birthday to Mela. But seriously, like think about that,
like the teams of Paul George has been on, and
how he's recruited by a Kawhi Leonard for example, to
go to the Clippers, and you know his ability, but
how many teams have ever gotten better or made themselves
more dangerous as contenders towards an NBA championship by adding

(39:48):
Paul George Because you know, what's going to happen in
the playoffs. Just like you know Chris Paul is likely
to get injured. As sad as that is, history tells
you he's likely to likely to get injured. You can't
necessarily count on him being full strength for you in
the playoffs. You also can't count on Paul George making
you better in playoff games and helping you win series.

(40:11):
It's just because it's never happened before. It's not a
knock on his ability. There's just something there's a there's
a screw that doesn't quite go the way that's supposed
to when you get to the playoffs with Paul George.
So that's just something I wanted you to think about
here to end this hour. When we come back for
our number two leverage in the NFL and Julio Jones,

(40:33):
I want to talk about that, and we will when
you come back on Fox Sports Radio. What's Happened? And
welcome in our number two Jason Martin Show here on
Fox Sports Radio. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. My name, well,
it's Jason Martin. I'm on Twitter at j Martin Radio.
You can find me there. I'll tell you where the
studio was you could come find me here, but I
think that's probably better left not done. But I love

(40:58):
you guys, though I can tell you can't make it
here because they're in l A. That's Chris Perfett, Bo Benson,
Brian Finley. They're spending the dollars for me out in
Los Angeles doing a great job. Hopefully will chat with
them before the end of this hour. I want to
talk to you about Leverage. No, not the former TNT
series that's actually being brought back by I m dB TV.

(41:19):
I'm actually kind of excited about. I'm a big leverage fan.
I want to talk about leverage in the NFL. And
I actually did this a couple of years ago. Was
Zion in the draffe because there was a talk maybe
he didn't want to go to New Orleans, maybe he
would just refuse to go there. And there was talk
at that time about, well, the draft only works as

(41:42):
long as the players agree to those terms. If the
players actually were just like no, I mean, you can
try to draft me, but I'll play where I want
where I won't play at all. The system can break
because the system doesn't exist without his players. The structure
set up it's it's set up by front office, as

(42:03):
it's set up by commissioners, it's set up by these teams.
This is how everything is accepted. This is how it's
supposed to be done. But what happens if a group
says no, we're not accepting these terms. Things need to
change now. Zion ultimately did go to the Pelicans and

(42:24):
he's there now. But we've seen it here and there,
Eli Manning, John Elway. I've been a couple of moments
where no, I won't play there, we gotta work out
of trade. I gotta go somewhere else. Kobe didn't really
want to be in Charlotte, so he ended up with
the Lakers on his first night in the NBA. But
in the NFL, what is leverage? Well, if you have

(42:49):
no trade clause, then you obviously have leverage. You can
tell a team, no, you can't trade me there, I
won't accept that, or you can't trade me anywhere. If
you don't have a no trade clause, what's your leverage?
But when your contract is up, you don't have to resign.

(43:11):
But if you're stuck on a deal where you've got
a couple of years left, it's big money. A team
needs to get out from underneath you. Then what kind
of leverage do you have. Well, you can say I
want to play for X team, but they don't have
to trade you there. As a matter of fact, they

(43:33):
shouldn't trade you there, even if you have done it right,
even if you've been an uber professional your entire career.
Football is a business. Sports is a business. So we
get to the case of Julio Jones, and I think
this is interesting because we're seeing a few different things,

(43:54):
a few different people challenge the idea of leverage at
least some level. Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson, pre
everything else that's happened since and Julio. Now, Julio hasn't

(44:16):
challenged it in public, at least not when he knew
about it, until a phone call was placed on TV,
and that kind of change the leverage. But what leverage
does Julio Jones have when he doesn't have a no
trade clause and he has fifteen point three million dollars
this year plus two million at the end of the year,

(44:37):
so to assume him as a seventeen point three million
dollar deal, the Atlanta Falcons have less than four hundred
thousand dollars in their salary cap, and they have to
sign their rookie class, which is gonna cost them around
ten mills. They have to get someone out of there.
They've already had some high priced deals. So it's basically
Grady Jarrett and Julio and Jarrett they want to keep.

(44:58):
And Julio's deal is not friendly, so not team friendly,
and so convoluted folks that if they were to release him,
it will be four million dollars more expensive than keeping
him because of the dead cat money attached to it.

(45:19):
But if you're Julio Jones and you've seen these reports,
reports are Julio Jones wants to play with the Tennessee
Titans or the New England Patriots, I don't know. You
can take all this stuff with a grain of salt.
I imagine he would be happy playing in San Francisco.
I imagine he would be happy playing in Cleveland. I
imagine he wouldn't mind playing in Miami, like there are
some other places. There are some places he probably wouldn't

(45:40):
want to go either. I don't know if you want
to go to Philadelphia right now. I don't know if
you want to go to Detroit right now, there's still
some teams where I don't know about that. Julio wants
to win, but you even saw that, right, you've seen
that in the reporting. Julio wants to go somewhere where
he can win. Yeah, but he's not J J. Watt.

(46:01):
He can't just make this move. When the Texans released
J J. Watt, that enabled J. J. Watt to go
where he wanted and he ended up taking the money
and going to Arizona. That's not what this is. He's
not a free agent. This is a trade. Whoever offers
the best deal to the Atlanta Falcons. That's where Julio
Jones is gonna be, and I think it will be
by the time we are together a week from today,

(46:21):
he will have a new uniform. I don't think it's
gonna take very long. Once you get to June two
and that cap number changes around, then they'll get him
out of there. Reports are maybe a first round pick.
I'll believe that when I see it. A second is
very likely, or a third mixed with a player. But

(46:43):
the problem is Atlanta can't take on much salary and return,
so we might have a multiple team deal. I don't
see that being reported anywhere. But that's what I feel
like the whole time. It's like, all right, well, there's
not many teams to have the Capra and first off,
to bring in Julio at this money, so they're either
restructuring their own guys or they're gonna take a veteran

(47:03):
and they're gonna ship him somewhere else as part of
a trade just to dump salary, to create money in
order to make the Julio thing work easily under the
financial situation. But Julio doesn't control his destination. He can say, hey, guys,

(47:27):
please trade me here. Maybe they do aim as solid
because they loved him, but but they're gonna take the
best seal. So what leverage this Julio Jones have. He
really only has one kind of leverage, and that is
going public or speaking through back channels to let teams know,

(47:50):
do not trade for me. I don't want to play
for you. It's similar again to don't draft me, I
don't want to be in your city. I don't want
to be with your organization. Sometimes they'll do it anyway,
but that's about it. All Julio can do is refused

(48:13):
to play. We're in the same situation with Aaron Rodgers.
Trade me or I'll stay home, or I'll go hang
out in the mountains with Shanley and Woodley and Miles
Teller and Crew. One of the funniest comments I've seen
in a while was the response to the Aaron Rodgers
photos that popped up midweek, saying, these are the Facebook
photos of somebody that just you know, a couple that
just broke up, and one of them is showing their

(48:35):
best life just to show yeah, I'm over you. And
the aggrieved spouse here or a girlfriend here is the
Green Bay Packers. But really, again, all Julio Jones can
do is refused to play for a team that wants
to trade for him. And if you're the Atlanta Falcons

(48:58):
and you've dealt with Julio his entire career, and he's
been really professional except for the hold out like a
year and a half ago he held out a training camp,
if you remember, But outside of that, there really hadn't
been much negative about him. It's still a diva position,
a wide receiver position. I know some people don't like
that classification. I'm sorry, it's accurate. I've made the point

(49:23):
that wide receivers and cornerbacks are divas for a reason
is because they actually have a spotlight on them when
the ball is in the air. It's the only time
when everybody's eyes are in the same place. Quarterback lets
the football go. All of our eyes immediately go to
where that ball is going, whether or not that receiver
is open, and then whether or not he makes the player.

(49:45):
The cornerback knocks it down. It is Mono Imano King
of the Hill and everybody's watching. It's a pride position.
It leads to smack talk amongst you know, Richard Sherman
and Michael crab Jurty for example. That's why they're diva's
because they are on a stage. It's why they're the

(50:06):
trash shockers. That's why you see it like it just
it seems like those two positions. It happens an awful lot, right.
I think there's a reason behind it. I think it's
because of what's expected and how many eyeballs are on them,
and it's just a position of pride and a position
of ego, unlike a lot of the other things that
happen on football field that are more nuanced ory that
we miss. But Julio really wasn't the DIVA wide receiver

(50:34):
in order to get to a like again, he's he
wants to win. Well, of course he wants to win.
He in March, he went to them reportedly and said, yeah,
trade me, okay, but but trade you wear well, I'm
gonna trade you to whoever's got the best deal. And
who's got the best deal, Well, it's gonna be a
bad team, right because if I'm getting a first round

(50:54):
draft pick, or if I'm getting a second round draft
pick or whatever, I'm probably gonna get it from a
I would want it from a team that's gonna have
a good one, not a bad one. But that's not
gonna put Joio in a spot where he wins. So
he's going to lose here. It's real easy to put
that out there, Like he has some control over this,

(51:16):
but unless he has the temerity to attempt to just
say no, I won't play for you, Like he doesn't
have a no trade clause, but he does have the
ability to take it to the house. I mean, that's
been the speculation about Rogers this entire time. Will he
refuse to play? That was the speculation about Deshaun Watson

(51:37):
the entire time, before the lawsuits situation. Will he sit out?
That was the talk about Russell Wilson early on during
that whole situation. Would he be willing to sit out
to get what he wants? These are questions that we're
starting to see addressed more and more star are players.

(52:00):
And I think this is the NFL looking at the NBA,
seeing the power that the players wield in the NBA
via the c b A and the strong union and
the star power as well, and the NFL saying, well,
I want that. I want to go there. So we're

(52:23):
seeing four or five star athletes right now trying to
wield leverage. Let's go back a couple of let's go
let's go back somewhere else. You want to talk about
a diva position, and you want to talk about someone
deciding to find their own way out of town. Look
at Antonio Brown and how he got out of Pittsburgh

(52:43):
and then he realized, oh wait, Ben Roethlisberger and Mike Tomlin, boyd,
I didn't realize how good I had it. I certainly
don't want to be here with the Raiders. So watch this,
and then he just went nuclear winner left nape him
in his wake. All around and got out of there
and did that video where he was so excited that

(53:04):
he got out of town. If you have a level
of stardom, you have leverage even when someone owns your rights,
because if you've made enough money, the story can always
be written that you could just refuse to play. I

(53:25):
don't think that's what Julio Jones is gonna do. I
have said since the outset of he's going to be
out of Atlanta, that I thought he would be in
New England now. I read a report earlier this week
from someone very close to the Patriots that said they
like Huio Jones, but they don't feel like they need

(53:46):
Julio Jones to get to the Promised Land, and I
was like, really, you don't. I know, you spent a
lot of money in free agency, but I looked at
those weapons. You you still need Julio Jones if you're
trying to win the Super Bowl. I I've pretty sure
I'm still going Julio. I like some of the pieces
that you signed. I like the two tight ends, I
like the receivers, but you don't have Julio Jones on

(54:09):
that roster. And the a f C is as deep
as we've ever seen the FC we're about to see.
He's gonna be absolutely nuts. Ladies and gentlemen. I think
Julia is going to be in the f C because
I don't think Atlanta would see a great deal in
moving in, for example, to San Francisco and giving him
back to Kyle Shanahan and then having to deal with them.
Potentially if Atlanta and Arthur Smith and whatever they're about

(54:31):
to do, if they can make it to the playoffs,
you don't want to see Julio against you unless it's
in the super Bowl. So I don't think they're going
to trade him in the conference. So where can they
trade them? Well, they could trade them New England, which
I think makes a ton of sense. I think Indianapolis
makes an awful lot of sense too, and they have
the money to do it without actually having to mess
around much with their salaries or anything. I think Miami does.

(54:56):
And here's why Miami does. If indeed, you think somebody's
gonna give up a for round pick, why wouldn't it
be Miami. They've got two next year. You can give
up one of those picks, and that's gonna be a
better deal. Because I still don't think anybody's offering a one.
But if it, if it was somebody, I could easily
see it being a Miami. I mean, they just drafted Waddle, right,

(55:16):
you give up a first round pick. I'm not saying
you give up what I'm saying, you give a first
round pick and maybe a third and get Julio and
you pair him up with Wattle, and you give to
a literally everything that he could possibly ask for, and
then you're gonna find out whether or not he's the
guy real dagon fast. So I could see that being

(55:37):
a potential home. And then I think maybe even Cleveland
if they wanted to move on from Odell. But and
Baltimore would be a great fit in terms of they
could definitely use them. I know they drafted two guys,
but they still use Julio. I just don't Well again,
I was about to say, I don't know if Julio
wants to go there, but Julio's not gonna. I don't

(55:59):
think Hlio is the guy that refuses to play somewhere.
So if they would offer the best deal, then that's
where he'll go. I've got money on New England right now.
If I had to place money anywhere and certainly Tennessee
makes a ton of sense. They need a number one
wide receiver to go along with A J. Brown. I
mean a J's number one. Julio comes in, It's one

(56:20):
A and one B and you've got an offense with
that and the two time Russian champion that nobody's gonna
want to see. But they're in a situation financially where
it would be difficult to pull that off, and you
see the reporting is it's a long shot. But think
about that as we get a break leverage for somebody

(56:40):
without a no trade clause in a scenario like this
where you know he has to be moved and you
know he wants to be moved. The only leverages is
he a big enough star where he can literally just
either go public or call an organization be like, I
know you want to trade for me. I just don't
want to be there, guys, so please don't do that.

(57:04):
It's not gonna be worth it for you. That's the
new sports, that's that's trying to get to the NBA level.
All of these stories throughout the all season have been
superstar Hall of Fame level players in the news, disgruntled
or unhappy about where they are or about to get moved.

(57:28):
All of them are different circumstances, but we get to
the same point every time. Hey, do you think he
might just sit at home instead of playing? That is
invisible leverage. We'll be right back. I'm Jason Martin and
this is Fox Sports Radio, little Blues Traveler for you
this morning. Guess what. It's May five months gone. We're

(57:55):
about to be in the second round the NBA playoffs,
Stanley Cup Playoffs rolling right along. Most of those series
are into the second round. Baseball, we're in the dog
days of summer here, Like before you know, we're gonna
look up in football season is actually gonna be here.
We talked about Julio's leveraged there in that last segment,
and I just think it's an interesting discussion to have

(58:18):
everybody in the league, and I, you know, I saw this.
You know, Derrick Henry came out and A. J. Brown
put out a couple of videos. If you didn't see them,
they were very funny, like he idolized Julio as a
kid and sent him a sent him a note when
he got drafted, and I hope I can be as
good as you and all of listen. He wants him
to come play in Tennessee and all this kind of stuff,

(58:39):
And it became news that those two guys wanted Julio
Jones to play in Nashville, and I just kind of
I think I may have even said this last week.
It was kind of like, duh, Like what team, what
superstar players across the league wouldn't want Julio Jones to
be part of their team. But I'm sure there are some.
I'm sure there's some some that are top flight wide
receivers that wouldn't want to have some of the thunder

(59:04):
stolen away from them. But just about every team in
the league would be better with Julio Jones, even at
thirty two years old. And one thing, and this is
another discussion to have, and you can look like old
contracts to Jeter and all these guys towards the end
of their careers, like Julio still got some years left.
I don't know how many great years he's got left.

(59:25):
I don't know if he's Larry Fitzgerald or if he's
a guy that's got two or three or whatever, but
so he's got over thirteen thousand receiving yards in his career.
Whoever acquires him gets credit for precisely none of those yards.
It's hard sometimes to separate the player that you're getting
from the one that you've watched for so long, and

(59:47):
fantasy football has made it even harder because you've seen
what Julio has done for your fantasy teams through the years,
or what he's done to destroy your fantasy teams through
the years because he's playing for somebody else. But all
those yards that he's tooted up and all those great
catches that you've seen him make, all those receptions, all
the ridiculousness, like, none of that matters here in Nashville.

(01:00:12):
Last year Stephen Gotzkowski was acquired, It's just like, oh man,
so yeah, but yeah, but he and winning super bowls
for you. He didn't win any of the any A
f C championship games for you. Like, all those kids
are great, but the only thing that matters is what
he's gonna do from here on out. And in the
same things true, Julio, Like, you're acquiring a guy that
has thirteen thousand yards, that has not missed a lot
of time in his career, but just missed a decent

(01:00:33):
stretch of last year with a hamstring issue. Who's thirty
two going on thirty three, And here there's two ways
to look at how he hasn't been injured that much
during his career. He's been nagged with a toe for
the last few years, and he had this hamstring, but
he hasn't missed significant time throughout his career. He's played
a ton of games and he's had over thirteen thousand
yards of receiving. Like I just said, two ways to

(01:00:56):
read that. One he's durable, or two he's played a
ton of football and eventually that's gonna slow him down
or it's going to bang him up. And you know,
hamstrings and things like that. As you get older, that
kind of stuff happens. I mean, Lebron was healthy throughout
much of his career, but over the last few years

(01:01:18):
we've seen we've seen some cracks in that armor because
the body does start to wear down. Your progressing analogy
holds true. You've only got so many bumps in you
only so many times you can hit that canvas before
the body's like, hey, hey, hey, we're done here. Move
on to the next phase of your life. I run

(01:01:41):
right like I've been running since I lost all the
weight four years ago or whatever it was. Now I
look back and I can't remember the year, but a
lot of that was doing a treadmill and running and
all this kind of stuff. So I signed up. I'm
gonna do a marathon for St. Jude that's been pushed
back twice now because of the pandemic, and I'm training
for it, and and I'm doing eight miles, I'm doing nine miles,

(01:02:03):
and my knee, my right knee, is like, nah, man,
you probably aren't gonna be able to run this race
because you're flat footed, and it's just not gonna happen
for you. Like I didn't run my entire life, and
I ran over the last three or four years, and
now I maybe can run once a week and I
have to be kind of careful about that. And other

(01:02:24):
than that, it's the elliptical and soon it's gonna be
a bike and doing some different things like that. But
my knees saying, hey, man, you've only got a certain
number of miles in you, and I don't know if
training to do fourteen or thirteen point one is necessarily
in your best instress Julio Jones wherever it is that
he goes, you're gonna think about all that he's done,

(01:02:48):
but none of that really matters. I mean, it's awesome
that you acquire that guy, but how many more yards
does he have left in you? Because the thirteen thousands
stay in Atlanta. They didn't win a Super Bowl, but
that wasn't his fault. But I do think that fantasy

(01:03:09):
sometimes and just the memory of man, we just got
one of the greatest wide receivers ever, like, right, yeah,
but you are getting him after a lot of football. Now,
thirty two is not forty two. I'm not saying that
it's a mistake to go acquire Julio. It's just you
gotta be reasonable in whatever sports you are and whatever
your team is. When you get somebody, you have to

(01:03:31):
look at the churad on the tires and you have
to look at what's realistic by the time that they arrive,
because it's not the same. And you know what, that
age discussion makes what Phil Mickelson did last year the
last week rather that much more impressive. That dude at

(01:03:54):
fifty won a major and he beat I think maybe
the most dangerous young gun in the game. Brooks kept yeah,
and he did it feel style like he started out well,
and then he tried to find a way to come
back to the pack a little bit, but he ends
up winning. He has that great moment at eighteen, had

(01:04:14):
to make a couple of ridiculous shots along the way,
but fifty year olds aren't supposed to do that. They're
not Like we've seen guys come close in golf. Tom Watson,
the Brits and Frek couples of the Masters are two
that come to mind to me. But if you were

(01:04:37):
listening last week, I said I would be surprised if
Phil hung on. I hope that he would. I hope
to make it dramatic down to the end if nothing else.
He started out strong, kept could drop the shot early,
and we were off and running. It was great theater
all day, and Phil played great golf and it was
just one of those experiences you're glad to him been
able to see again. It was a celebration. It felt

(01:04:59):
like sports were back last weekend. But we're sticking here
talking about Julio and it sounds like I'm pouring dirt
on the on the career grave, but I'm not. I'm
just saying that a lot of times your team goes
and grabs this free agent that you've been watching forever
that you want to play, but but he's not the
same when he gets to you. Like I got lucky
as a Broncos fan to get Peyton when we got him,

(01:05:22):
But the year that we actually won the Super Bowl,
we want it kind of in spite of Peyton. We
wanted because of the defense and and Ostwalder was a
couple of games that year. Like, Peyton was fine, but
that was the end and he knew it. And I'm
glad that he got a ring, not just with Denver,
but that he got that second ring because he deserved it, because,
for my money, might be the second best quarterback ever.

(01:05:48):
But that that again, like that kind of thing happens,
you acquire somebody near the end and you realize real quick,
oh yeah, they're near the end. Now. I don't know
that that's the case with Julio. I'm not really suggesting
that it is, but sometimes you can get real easy
blind spots watching all this kind of stuff, which again,

(01:06:10):
like watching Phil, Phil gave hope to everybody. Right, I'm
forty two, married, six week old daughter going to golf
lessons right now. My coach is like, you got eight
years you could still make it, meaning I could go
beat Phil or go win a major like obviously tongue
in cheek joke, all of that, but it does give

(01:06:30):
you hope, right like, you watch something like that happen,
and if you're you know, late thirties, early forties, you
realize there's still a lot of triumphs left in your life,
whether it's sports related or otherwise. And if there is
one thing that I have harped on since the beginning

(01:06:52):
of this show, because there have been so many stories
that have shown it to be the case, it is
that challenges don't define us. It's our reactions to them
that do. And Phil put up this tweet that kind
of started making the rounds after he won, very shortly

(01:07:12):
after he won, and it basically was the exact same thing.
Like again that that story has been told over and
over again. It was Joe Burrow getting you know, wasn't
gonna be able to make it at Ohio State, ends
up doing what he did at l s U. Coach
O wanted to do what USC couldn't, so he ends
up where he ends up, and he wins that it
wins along with him. Tony Bennett's Virginia team losing to

(01:07:34):
UNBC and then coming back a year later and beating
Texas Tech for the national championship. And then another example,
Phil Mickelson, twelve days before he won the p g
A Championship, tweeted, I failed many times in my life
and career, and because of this, I've learned a lot.
Instead of feeling defeated, countless times, I've used it as

(01:07:55):
fuel to drive me to work harder. So today joined
me and accepting our failures, Let's use them to motivate
us to work even harder. And then twelve days later
he won his sixth major at fifty years old, something
no one's ever done. And Phil, who had missed like
sixteen of twenty major cuts. It felt like it was

(01:08:19):
a rap for Phil, Like as Tiger was resurging, Phil
was just kind of receding right, and then out of nowhere,
this tournament happens, and you realize how beloved left he
is across the world. The ratings are through the roof

(01:08:39):
that gallery. Everybody's out pouring after the fact, I was
a Tiger guy, so I was never a big Phil fan.
You had to like one or the other, right, and
I took that side. But I think now you can
appreciate both of them. But that was an awesome, awesome moment,
and it's another one of those things that only you
can only get that kind of moment in sports. You

(01:09:02):
can only have that kind of moment in sports. You
could script it into a movie, but it wouldn't be
the same. So we're starting and thinking about Julio. I
immediately my thoughts immediately went to to Phil Julio might
have ten more years left in his career. You don't know.
You never know how many majors you've got left, even

(01:09:23):
if you've got zero, or if you've just won your
first in your twenty two and everybody says that you're
about to run, You're gonna have a run unlike anything
we've ever seen. I mean, Drew Brees only played him
one super Bowl in his Hall of Fame career or
as soon to be Hall of Fame career. Philip Rivers
never played in one. Aaron Rodgers has never been able

(01:09:45):
to do it again after he got the one. It's
driving him nuts right now. Russell Wilson got to one,
lost the second when he got to That's what makes
what Brady is doing at his age so preposterous Bray
in his mid forties and Phil Nicholson at fifty. We're
just turning back the clock, man, like all of a sudden,

(01:10:06):
we just started watching sports in two thousand one. Over
the last week and a half, it's pretty awesome. This
guy's pretty awesome too. It's finly, let's go out to uh,
Let's go out to l A find out what's going on.
What's going on? Be yeah, Jason. So the NBA is
you've been talking about, continuing on with its first run
playoff action and Donovan Mitchell coming live in the fourth
quarter last night, scoring ten of his twenty nine and

(01:10:29):
the fourth as the Grizzlies defense. Wayne's late Utah prevails
one to one, oleven to take a two games to
one lead. The seventies Sixers shrug off the Wizards one
two two, one oh three to go up three games
to none. Joel Embiid had thirty six points in twenty
eight minutes. The Trailblazers get by the Nuggets one fifte

(01:10:50):
to level that series at two games. Norman Pale stepping
in for Damian Lillard, who struggled offensively, and Pal had
twenty nine points and he received chance from the fans
a little bit more than eight thousand inside the Motor
Center who were chanting his name as he saved the
team and got them to the victory. Elsewhere the book,

(01:11:10):
the Bucks sweep the Heat after one two, one oh three,
shelling Janisanto, the Koppo had a triple double, and here
is Miami's Jimmy Butler explaining the ways and the successes
that the Bucks had. They did a great job. I
think you can kind of just leave it at that.
But my game has ever been about you, Scorn. It's

(01:11:31):
about everything else. You know, he stops and everybody else involved.
Scorn was a little bit low, but as part of it.
N HL postseason, the Bruins crushed the Islanders five two
in their second round opener. The Canadians force first round
game seven after denting the Maple Leafs three two and overtime.
According to ESPN, police and Georgia arrested Braves Marcelo Soona

(01:11:54):
on Saturday for felony assault after he allegedly choked his
wife and threw her against the wall. The normal aggravated
assault strangulation charge to a spouse has a sentence ranging
from three years to twenty years he is currently in jail.
The Cardinals upstaged the Diamondbacks seven to three, serving Arizona

(01:12:16):
their straight loss. Elsewhere in Major League Baseball, the Giants
jack Cameron the Dodgers ten or eleven to six. Cody Bellinger,
returning from a hairline fracture and his right or his
left leg, he batted over four. The Pondres, who are
first in the West, swamped the Astros eleven to eight
in twelve innings. The Brewers take both games and a

(01:12:36):
double header against the Nationals. The Mets plum makes the Braves.
Excuse me the yeah, The Mets plum makes the Braves
thirteen to two. New York hit five phone runs, and
the White Sox sweep a double dip against the Orioles.
As we work to bounce pass, actually a chest i
pass to our man in the middle working the paint.
It's Jason Martin with the throw down. All right now,

(01:12:59):
I'll take it. I just saw Grayson Allen score on
on the screen in front of me in uh In
the Memphis lost to Utah. I am Jason Martin. Is
that Jason Marcho. I'm on Twitter at Ja march Radio
man alive um John Moran is pretty impressive. I know
they lost, but this is more a story about what

(01:13:19):
the future is gonna be. And one of the things
that I'm thinking about I want to do this will
open the third hour talking about it is some of
these new guns, these newer stars, they're really stepping out
right now, and you're just hoping that you're getting a
new crop that's that's gonna be able to carry the
torch for the NBA. The NBA needs more and more stars.
The more stars the better. It's a it's a stars leak.

(01:13:43):
And when you've got Vegas fading all these teams that
are you're one and two seeds because the perceived effort
is different among the best teams from the regular to
the postseason. Yes, here's something else that's not great. I
was reading the Sporting News is top twenty five in
college football, which came out a few days ago. They're there,

(01:14:06):
top twenty five like early rankings, and you know, there's
the usual and then the problem for college football continues. Yeah,
you can expand, but guess who's leading the top twenty
five in this ranking? Alabama, Compson, Ohio State. There's a shock, right,
you know what Number four is big shock. Oklahoma No. One,

(01:14:26):
Number five is big shock. Georgia Notre Dame is six.
Of course they are A and M S seven. Of
course they are Florida's eight. Of course they are Iowa
State really high nine. But they're bringing a ton of
folks back. And then Cincinnati's ten. So why am I
reading this to you right now? I'm reading too because

(01:14:47):
I went through the entire twenty and let's see l
s U USC, Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon, Oklahoma State, Iowa,
Miami was Hans and Old Miss Auburn Coastal Carolina Army,
and Penn State. It's not as much what I just
said in that list is what I didn't say. If

(01:15:12):
you remember, at the end of the first hour, we
were talking about Paul George and I went back and
referenced the list of overrated persons and said, you know,
I don't know how much of that list would change,
even though I wrote that thing like three years ago.
Maybe John Wall would change, just because he's kind of
out of sight, out of mind. I could come up
with a better example, but Gruden would stay. Tom Herman
probably stays, Kirk Cousins probably stays, Paul George definitely stays,

(01:15:37):
and I said there was one other guy who stayed too,
and that would be Jim Harball. Sporting News does not
have Michigan in the top yet Jim Harball came back.
That tells me two things. One, huh, that's the first thing.
I was like, wow, really not in the top twenty five.

(01:16:01):
But the main thing that it tells me is Hardballs.
This is it for Hardball. This is gonna be his
last year. And it makes me wonder why he's back
this year at all. I understand the argument, you can't
get anybody. Who else would you get other than him?
And it's just like, yeah, but but how good is he?
Like does that even matter? But this seems like a

(01:16:22):
lame duck year for Hardball because they're not even they're
not even in the top twenty five. Folks like Michigan's
name alone a lot of times would put them in
the top fifteen to twenty, even if it's preposterous and
they're not in the top twenty five. Honorable mentioned not
mentioned at all. Think about that for a second. That

(01:16:47):
dude's making a ton of money. They brought him back
again and he's not in there in the Sporting News
official rankings early though they may be not in the
top twenty five. Wow, that's not great. We'll be right back.
I'm Jason Martin and this is Fox Sports Radio. It

(01:17:08):
is to Jason Martin Show here on Fox Sports Radio.
I'm j mart I'm on Twitter at j mart Radio.
Haven't done one of these in a while. I hadn't
written one of these in over a year until this week.
But guess what. Holy Cow was at a movie screening
a press screening earlier this week for the first time
and over a year, like all of these things have
been sent to us. Now, we usually get you know,

(01:17:29):
DVD screeners towards the end of the year and stuff,
oscar stuff. When you get to Awards season, they send
a lot of this, but most of the screens that
you go through throughout the year, you go to these
press screenings of theaters, and we haven't had those because
of the pandemic. This is literally the first one I've
attended in I guess now it's probably close to a
year and a half. And so I saw A Quiet Place,

(01:17:49):
Part two, So real quick as we end this hour,
you should go see that. And if you haven't seen
the first one. You should see the first one. John Krasinski,
who certainly is a bigger part of the first one
in terms of an actor, you know, road and directed
both films. First film was a phenomenon. It kind of
came on the scene from nowhere, like nobody's really talking

(01:18:10):
about it before it released, and then everyone, you kind
of word of mouth got around and hey, you should
probably check this out. It's really well done. Then you
go see and you find out for yourself. Now, I'm
not gonna spoil either one of them here for you.
I'm just gonna say, if you like the first one,
you're gonna love the second one. The novelty in terms of, yeah,
you've seen the Magic Tricks, so you kind of understand

(01:18:31):
it going in. But it doesn't make it less effective.
It actually makes it more effective because it builds properly
without going over the top. They add Cilia Murphy, who well,
he's good and basically everything he's ever done, but he's
great in this secondary role that he has. It's not
really a secondary role, but one that's outside the family
the primary family. Mill sent the daughter is tremendous. Millson Simmons,

(01:18:55):
Emily Blunts are really good again. Like, it's not a
big cast. It can't be if you know the subject
matter here. But it's so intelligently done. And here's the
biggest compliment I can pay it. Other than just the
pacing and the sound and how everything has to be
done because of the monsters and everything surrounding it, this

(01:19:16):
is about the biggest compliment I can pay this film.
I don't know how many movies that we see that
we are sitting there as an audience feeling like the
people on screen are complete idiots because we know more
than they do. We already know what's behind the door.
We're screaming, don't open the door because we already know,

(01:19:37):
or we've seen a conversation that another character hasn't between
two other people, so we know, yeah, she's cheating on
him or whatever. Right. So so many times we're the
smartest people in the room. But in this film, I
found myself on multiple occasions thinking, oh, man, I would
have never thought of that. I would be dead right now.

(01:20:01):
You never think about the fact it just doesn't happen
very often in movies where they're smarter than you. The
characters on screen are smarter than you in those situations,
she's just like, Yeah, I wouldn't be I wouldn't have
been able to survive this. I wouldn't have thought of
that detail to muffle that sound. I wouldn't have thought
of that. It would have never run through my head.

(01:20:22):
I would have carelessly been killed. So I don't play
stealth video games very often because I'm terrible at them.
That's a really refreshing thing, Folks. You're watching a smart
film with characters that do things that make sense and
things that you actually feel like, Wow, that was intelligent,
that was crafty. I wish I could have thought of that. That,

(01:20:47):
to me, is the biggest compliment you can pay a
movie in where there's almost no original ideas and you're
making a sequel and you feel like the people on
screen are smarter than you are. Any audience kudos to
that him. It gets an A plus for me. We'll
be back with the third hour of the show next
here on Fox Sports Radio. What's Happening our number three
of the program. That's What's Happening here on Fox Sports

(01:21:09):
Radio Jason Martin Show. I Am Jason Martin, What Are You?
For sixty more minutes this week three to six ami
Eastern time, Every single week right here on Fox Sports Radio.
I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. On Twitter at j MAR Radio.
I'm thrilled to have you with me, thrilled to have
Brian Finley, Chris Perfette, and Bo Benzon out in Los
Angeles working with me as well. They do a fantastic job.

(01:21:33):
So they're not gonna beat the Jazz. But John Morant
is showing what I told you he was gonna show
before that draft and when they drafted. I'm on record,
Jah is gonna have a better career than Zion, and
I think a lot of that will be because Zion's
gonna miss a lot of time and the NBA is
built for guys like John Morant to dominate. I think

(01:21:54):
both of them could be Hall of Fame level players. Though,
So let me back up and say I don't want
a slight Zion because he just had a fantastic here.
The problem is you want to talk about being in purgatory.
He's somewhere where you just don't see him once you
get to the playoffs. So John Moran is one of
those guys that we are seeing. Yes, they lost to
the Jazz. Agave of the Jazz of the top seed
Jazz actually might pick to win the entire thing this year,

(01:22:17):
and they've given him a run for their money. But
John Moran has had ridiculous games throughout. He had another,
you know, twenty eight point performance last night in the loss.
He's gone over forty. He's doing three sixty donks. He's
doing all this kind of stuff. He's making himself a
name people are watching if they're watching this series at all, which, unfortunately,

(01:22:38):
because it's the Jazz, maybe a lot of people aren't.
But if you didn't know who John Moran was, you're
figuring it out. Now. More people are watching Nick's Hawks,
not because of Atlanta, but because of New York. Nick's
being Good's great for the NBA. It's good to see
that building rocking again. But Trey Young is showing out.

(01:23:01):
Trey Young, who when he came out of Oklahoma, some
people thought he might be a bus because he was
a high volume shooter, but he wasn't shooting a very
good percentage there late in the year at Oklahoma. I
was a little bit skeptical. But he's been closer to
being Steph Curry than a bust, hadn't he And he
seems to have a great head on his shoulders. He

(01:23:22):
says some very eloquent things. He seems to understand the moment,
and you think, I think he needs I think he's
starting to understand his role. He's embracing that against the
Knicks in a way no one has since Reggie and
he's scoring a ton of points. He's fun to watch.
He's fearless with the basketball. The NBA has made for

(01:23:43):
dudes like John Morant, like Trey Young, like Luca don Chech,
like Devin Booker, these dudes that can just go off
and yeah, you've got Janice and of course you've still
got the big time names. Now I'm talking about I'm

(01:24:04):
trying to look forward in the future and say, well,
who's done something good for this league, who's stumped it
done something good for themselves. It's not gonna necessarily pay dividends.
But if you recall there was a year where the
Oklahoma City Thunder were an eight seed and they had
to really talented players, but they were super young. And

(01:24:28):
those players were Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant and James
Harden was about to get drafted as well out of
Arizona State. They looked like they were they were it
was the makings of something. But the NBA usually is
a stairstep league. Like you you start out, you barely
missed the playoffs, then you're an eight seed, then you

(01:24:49):
get through a round or two. Then the next year
year of four seed, and then you you you might
have a shot then, And that's kind of what happened
with the Thunder, And you can point to other franchises
throughout the years and gates where that's been the case.
It's not usually a league where you go from worst
to first. It's just not the way that works. Memphis
is the youngest team in the NBA and they're looking

(01:25:10):
at right now against a little bit more veteran squad.
Know that the Jazz aren't exceedingly old, but they do
have some vets like a Mike Conley, who of course
used to be in Memphis and the Memphis team at
one point that was giving Oklahoma City run for its
number when it was Zach Randolph and Conley and Tony
Allen and all those guys, and that was more of
an aged team that was a veteran team. This is

(01:25:32):
the opposite that Phoenix team is really young. Outside of
Chris Paul, the Mavericks team. I mean, Luca is not
brand new and he had played for a while overseas,
but he's got a lot of great basketball left. We're
just getting the start of his career. Trey Young, super
young guy. Like this is still the Lakers and the Nets.

(01:25:54):
If you if you were just gonna put money on it, yeah, Lakers, Nets,
Clippers look like maybe they maybe they get by Dallas. Maybe,
but I don't feel really good about him going past that.
And you can look at Philadelphia certainly looks very good,
and Milwaukee will be heard from. But if you had

(01:26:14):
to lay money, you're probably laying it on the Nets
and the Lakers because of the names involved. I have
lamented the death of the regular season in the NBA
because we see more and more examples of how irrelevant
it actually is. Can we just enjoy that for what
it is and just be excited about the performances we
get there, or because of the entire purpose of sports

(01:26:39):
being winning championships, then I just tune out from December
until May and then come back then and then I
see who's good and who's not, because I don't need
to watch basketball teams that maybe are good. And then
you get to the playoffs and aren't. That is the
constant conundrum that I have about the association. But watching

(01:27:00):
these games, I'm trying to pick up stars because it's
definitely a celebrity league. That's the way the NBA is.
What you have found out I saw this written a
couple of days ago, is that the biggest draw in
the NBA right now is Steph Curry. I still think
it's Lebron, but Steph probably the other guy, and that

(01:27:20):
might be the only two draws. Like who else are
you gonna throw in there? Maybe Kevin Durant, Like I
don't even think Hardens a draw outside of basketball circles.
Steph and Lebron are draws outside of basketball circles. When
Golden State did not get past Mephis, that was bad
for the NBA in terms of ratings. Now we're getting

(01:27:42):
a chance to watch Jah where a lot of other
people are that haven't watched him during the regular season.
Maybe that's gonna be a good long term, But Steph
is a draw. So I'm trying to watch the nuance
and the little details of the playoffs in that. Okay,
these teams are not going to win, They're not ready
to win the championship. They're not built for that, they're

(01:28:05):
too young for that. They're in the building process. But
who are the celebrities of the future in the NBA.
Who is the next I'm not gonna say in the
next Lebron or the next Steph necessarily, but who's the
next Damian Lillard. Who's the guy's gonna be the next
Carmelo Anthony, Who's the guy's gonna be the next like
one a tier superstar that has a rap career, in

(01:28:29):
his own shoe line, and all this other kind of
stuff whether he wins a championship or not. Because the NBA,
unlike many other sports or many other enterprises, even if
you're not winning the championship, you can still make a
ton of money even with endorsements. Like I was watching
a documentary on Tony Harding and Nancy Kerrigan yesterday. Actually,

(01:28:52):
my wife was fascinated by the topic, so I was
showing her something, and that whole deal sent heard around
not winning a gold medal. It's centered around if you
win the gold in that sport, you're set for life
because you end up doing all these ice shows and

(01:29:12):
all of this charity kind of stuff and you just
earned millions and millions of millions and millions of dollars
that have nothing to do with you being a competitive
skater anymore. And so Tanya coming from nothing and having
no money and all of that, that whole storyline, it
influenced the rationale for why what happened to Nancy Carrigan

(01:29:37):
could have happened and why you would have believed Tanya
would have benefited from it. Right, not just because she
could have won, but because of what winning meant. Most sports,
and in fact most enterprises, you're not getting the endorsement
unless you get the gold. I mean, Dan and Dave
had that whole deal with McDonald's and run up to
that Olympic Games, and they went in both flamed out.

(01:29:59):
You never heard of either one of them again. The
other example might be Hollywood, where even if you don't
win the Academy Award for Best Actor, you can still
make a ton of money with endorsements and all of
that kind of stuff. I mean, dudes that have never
even been nominated for anything, women that have never been

(01:30:21):
nominated for anything can end up doing that. But in
most cases you've got to win. But the NBA is different.
The NBA is more of a celebrity league where you
don't necessarily have to win. You can be Damian Lillard
and you can be a celebrity, a superstar and never
win a championship. I mean, talk to Charles Barkley, he

(01:30:43):
never won a championship. He's big Tom Household name that
transcended his sport. But I think that's the difference, right,
Like you have NBA celebrities and then you have dudes
that have stepped past that level. Think that's where you
are with Lebron and stuff. So I'm watching the playoffs
and I'm watching the other guys. I'm watching to see

(01:31:05):
who could be the next great NBA celebrity that we're
gonna watch and say, well, is that guy ever gonna
win a championship? And I think you've got some candidates.
You've got Trey Young, You've got Luca don Chett, You've
got John Morant. You still have Janice, you, honest is
probably the cream of that crop. Or James Harden, because
those are two guys that have been m VP candidates
and m vps of the league that have not won

(01:31:27):
a championship yet. For Janice, it's still with his original
team with James Harden, it's with his third but he was,
you know, the most feared scorer in the league when
he was in Houston. Now he's with the Nets, and
now he's got this, He's got this. He's certainly got
the talent around him on that team where you look

(01:31:49):
at him just like, well, how do they not win?
But those are probably your two biggest examples. But if
you're looking younger and Zion obviously he's not in the
ploffs right now, but he gets included in this discussion.
And there are some other teams that didn't make it
to have some young guys that you like to But
that's the game within the game for me, and that's

(01:32:10):
what I'm paying just as much attention to as who's
gonna win the championship is who is going to fill
out the league? Where's the depth in the league. Who
are the guys that I'm going to want to tune
in to see during the regular season. Who is it
that the NBA needs to be selling to its audience.

(01:32:32):
Where is the hope right now? Where are they paying attention?
And I think the benefit so far in the NBA
playoffs is in just about every series you have an
example of a guy or guys that qualify. There's been
a reason to watch every series. You got Janice in
Milwaukee and Miami and even you know, like a Tyler

(01:32:55):
hero or something like that. But but we'll just go
with one guy, and we'll go with you honest. Okay,
they were in Portland. Well, Yokich is still young. He's
not a super exciting player. Maybe Michael Porter Jr. But
Damian Lillard is still out there. Even though he's not
a spring chicken, he still qualifies. He's probably up near

(01:33:16):
the hard and honest territory of guys that haven't been
able to cash in yet. Philadelphia and Washington. Okay, you've
got Joe l m b and Westbrook if you want
to include him. Utah and Memphis. You've got Donovan Mitchell,
and you've got John Moran. New York, Atlanta, Okay, you've
got Trey Young. You can even mention Randall, but let's

(01:33:37):
go with Trey Young for the for these purposes. Phoenix,
Los Angeles. You've got Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton, and
then you've got veterans on top of that. Plus you've
got the Lakers franchise and one of the veterans that
we're talking about is Lebron James. So you've got everything
you want there Brooklyn and Boston. Okay, well you've got
Harden who we talked about who hasn't been able to cash.

(01:33:57):
And now you've got Jayson Tatum who stepped right on
into that mix with the guys that we talked about
off the top of this segment, Tatum needs to be
mentioned in that list. I heard Jason Smith say that
a few days ago here on Fox Sports Radio. He's
dead right. Tatum is stepping right into that rare fight
Air two. And then Clippers Mavericks, You've got Luca. There's
something in every one of these series that adds this

(01:34:20):
layer of depth where Okay, they're not winning a championship,
but you're gonna see something special. And I think that's
the most important thing. I talked to I an Eagle
of CBS months ago, and I said, Hey, when you're
calling a game with a Derrick Henry or a Patrick Mahomes,
if you're calling a basketball, if you're calling a Zion game,
do you are you more acutely aware that you better

(01:34:43):
be on your game because you never know when you're
gonna have to make a call that might turn out
to be iconic, where you have to have the perfect line.
You go back to Phil winning the Masters last week
or winning the PJA Championship and Nance having that perfect
line about father time and then backing off just a
beautiful it was. It was perfectly done, And I Eagle said, yeah, absolutely,

(01:35:04):
like I do. I have to be consciously aware of
that fact. That means I have things scripted out, but
I know any play could become a game breaker. Now
that can be true in sports, but there's a higher
level of that potentially happening. So what is it that
not as an announcer, but as a fan and I
guess now as somebody in the media that covers us

(01:35:24):
and talks about it for a living. What is it
about each one of these series and which and what
is it about all of these teams that would make
me tune in and a random January whether or not
de Larry O'Brien is actually in the future for one
of those squads or not. And I think the good
news for the NBA is that there are a lot
of those guys out there. The question is how do

(01:35:46):
you market them? It can't just be on the jump.
You've got to find a way to get these guys
across to the non whopeds out out there who believed
the regular season doesn't matter and tune in when Lebron
and Steph are playing. That continues to be the challenge
for the NBA because it's not for lack of talent
or lack of star power. I just indicated it to you.

(01:36:08):
It's clear as day. It's all over the league. Now,
how do you make people care about that? That's a
little bit trickier. When we come back, who is this
year's Josh Allen? Who is this year's breakout quarterback in
the NFL? We'll discuss. I'm Jason Martin and this is
Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back Jason Martin Show here on

(01:36:29):
Fox Sports Radio. I'm Jason Martin and Nashville, Tennessee on
Twitter at j mar Radio. Lucas Questionable a little bit
of a neck thing. They need him man thirty eight,
nine and nine in this series against the Clippers. I'm
not sure what they are without him Questionable, but man,
if he can go, I imagine he's gonna try to.

(01:36:50):
I do want to shift gears. I asked this question
before the brain who is this year's Josh Allen and
maybe past that l a who is this year's Lamar
Jackson from two years ago? Who's your years Patrick Mahomes
from three years ago. Not that you necessarily get somebody
that has that kind of a jump, but who is
the candidate? Who is the quarterback that steps up and

(01:37:12):
steps out this year? It could be a rookie, but
I tend to think it probably won't be. I have heard,
just like you guys, everybody loves Mac Jones in New England. Okay, great,
I still don't even think the weapons are there for
him to have that kind of breakout, And now they
go get Julio Jones. Who knows. But I still think

(01:37:32):
Cam's a quarterback for at least some stretch, even though
Belichick is not the kind of guy where it's like,
all right, well, we're gonna have Cam do this for
five weeks and then bring in Mac Jones. That's not
really the way he rolls. So if Max ready, then
they'll put Mac in off day one. If not, then
I could see him not playing all year, or he
doesn't play until like the last month of the season,
and that would be by necessity. But who is it

(01:37:55):
that takes that Josh Allen leap, and Josh Allen last
year certainly leaped in a way we we weren't really
going to be able to predict. But it showed what
Stefon Diggs meant. It showed Brian dables brilliance as a
play caller, but also the maturation of Josh Allen into
the quarterback role. So I'm looking at some of these teams.

(01:38:16):
Could it be two in Miami? Could it be Let's see,
maybe Wentz has his resurgence right? Could it be Drew
Lock if he's playing in Denver? Is Derek Carr really
gonna step up? Justin Herbert certainly gonna be a good one.
I'm just looking at a FC first, and one that

(01:38:37):
I left out there is Joe Burrow, and maybe that's
the answer. Burrow still doesn't have a great offensive line,
but he's got Jamaar Chase. He's coming back. He showed
a lot of flashes last year. Herbert had an awesome season.
I don't like the problem for Herbert is he was
he was so solid last year that it's not possible

(01:38:58):
for him to have a breakout. But because he already
kind of did, it's got to be somebody that's coming
from a little bit further back than he is now.
I know they didn't win a lot of games, but
it wasn't because he played poorly. And now they went
and drafted well. I anticipate that they're gonna be good,
if not a playoff team. Could it be to a Yeah,

(01:39:18):
I mean they grabbed Jalen Waddle. Maybe they are still
looking at Julio, but they got a couple of more
weapons there. If tour could develop, maybe it could be him.
I think Burrow might be the easiest one to see
in the a f C. I don't think it's locked.

(01:39:39):
Car barely fits because he's been there too long really
to classify, so I'm gonna throw him out. Nobody in
Houston's doing it. Carson. I think Carson could could count
just because he's fallen so far off that if he
came back he would be the comeback player of the
Year and mind boggling kind of production. And he's on

(01:39:59):
a pretty a team, so you can maybe see it.
Everybody else has either been good or been there too long,
or as a rookie, like could it be Trevor, Sure,
it could be Trevor. I don't think it's gonna be
Zack Wilson. I still don't think the Jets have enough yet,
but it could be NFC. Maybe maybe the candidates actually

(01:40:20):
in the NFC, Daniel Jones, Jalen Hurts, Jared Goff, Jordan's loves,
certainly if he's playing in Green Bay, Sam Donald, Jamis, Kyler,

(01:40:45):
Jimmy g I mean those are pretty much the names, right.
Everybody else is a veteran, So I'm just kind of
looking at some of the guys that that would be
coming from further behind. I said, Kyler Murra, why's gonna
be at last year? I don't think that I was right.
I mean, Josh Allen turned out to be it, but
I still don't think Kingsbury it's good. And as a result,

(01:41:07):
I'm not really bullish on the Cardinals making the playoffs,
even with what they did in the draft and in
free agency. And I don't think j. J. Wat is
gonna be a giant fix either. But but as long
as Kingsbury is there, I have my doubts about Kyler.
Sam Donald I still like, but I can't not not

(01:41:29):
in Carolina right now. I'm gonna need to see that
before I'll predict it Jamis, I'm not sure Jalen Hurts.
I'm not buying into Daniel Jones. I'm not really buying
into either. But he's maybe the prime candidate for the
way you think about him, where sometimes he looks good,

(01:41:50):
sometimes he looks absolutely awful. That's kind of how you
felt about Daniel ja or about Josh Allen. But the
guy that's most likely to break out of all of
these guys, of the ones that have not already fairly
broken out, I think probably Burrow is the closest bet,
and it's just going to depend upon the rest of

(01:42:14):
the talent on that floor, the rest of the talent
on that sideline. I don't know how good that team
can be. That division is tough. I don't love Pittsburgh,
but they're still probably nearly a five team. The Browns
are really good, assuming Baker doesn't come apart in Baltimore

(01:42:41):
has made themselves better because the way that they've attacked
the draft to try and give Lamar Jackson some weapons
in the receiving game. So Burrow is the one that
has the opportunity because that's a tough division. It's still
the problem there is he's gonna take. I still think

(01:43:02):
the problem for Burrow is Burrow is gonna play well.
I think if he's able to stay healthy and stay upright,
even though they didn't draft Sol and went and grabbed
this guy Chase from L s U, he's gonna put
up good numbers on a bad team. Josh Allen last
year put up good numbers on a great team. Lamar
Jackson the year before put up great numbers on a

(01:43:24):
great team, won the NFL MVP, and Patrick Mahomes did
it the year before that. Do I see that in
Joe Burrow? No, because I don't think the team is
gonna be good. Does mean he's not gonna be great,
But at best he's Mike Trout right, Like Mike Trout
years ago with the Angels when they were nothing, Mike Trout,
you still knew how great he was, but what didn't matter.

(01:43:45):
Zion Williamson with the Pelicans right now, that kind of thing.
So I don't know, Like, I think he could have
the breakout, but I don't think the team is going
to have the breakout. Around in Miami is gonna be
really good. If Tooa can step up, it's probably him. Honestly,
he'll be going into his second year. Last year, there

(01:44:07):
was even talk about trying to move on from him.
Maybe they wanted to Shaun we heard a couple of
months ago. Maybe they're a possible landing spot for Aaron
Rodgers right now. But if two ends up being a quarterback,
two has got weapons. If two it can just be
what they thought he would be when they drafted him,
then the answer is gonna be to a Tonka Vale, right.

(01:44:32):
And then it's saying again, like you look at some
of these other guys, like Hurts is on a really
bad team in Philadelphia, and I'm still not sure about
him as a pastor. Daniel Jones is two up and down,
but I don't think he's Josh Allen two point Oh.
I just I don't see that in him. Sam Donald
has that potential because Sam Donald drafted even higher than

(01:44:57):
Josh Allen, was busted for an awful team. And now
he gets away from Adam Gaze. Now what can he
do when he's got Matt Rule and he's got Christian McCaffrey,
who you hope is going to be healthy this year.
He's in a better run organization, one that just doesn't
fall on his face constantly. So maybe there's gonna be

(01:45:20):
a resurgence for him. He could be a perfect candidate
for it, because will forgive I mean where he's coming
from right now, you couldn't be any lower. They couldn't
get a first round pick out of him, couldn't even
come close. Jamis well, Jamis fell, you know, out of
a starting job in two places. Now he might get

(01:45:41):
the opportunity to start. You could potentially put him there.
And then I started to think, well, maybe the answer
is a rookie. Could it be a rookie Trey Lance.
I don't know how soon he gets in the games.
I know how high everybody seems to be on him.
I like their receivers certainly. I love It'll too. He's

(01:46:04):
probably got the best chance this year, but I don't
know if he plays this year. Mac Jones in New
England again. I just think they're still gonna have to
get some more people there, and maybe they're not done.
Maybe after June one they're gonna do that. Justin Fields.
I don't love the Bears around Justin Fields. I like
one receiver on that team, Robinson, but that's a work

(01:46:28):
in progress. If they if and when they put him
in Trevor Lawrence. It could be him because the Jaguars
could win six or seven games potentially, but they still
don't have a ton of receiving talent. That's why I
immediately thought, if it were me and I'm Jacksonville, that's
who should go after Julio. They have the money to

(01:46:50):
do it, and they don't have a number one wide out. Yes,
they have some talent, they drafted some talent. They're a
younger football team. But if you've got the money, you
can bring in Julio Jones to pair up with your
wonderkin quarterback who's about to start his rookie season. I
think you probably do that. I don't even think that's
even been discussed. I've i haven't seen a single reporter

(01:47:14):
talk about Jacksonville, but I've just kind of in the
back of my head thought it would make a lot
of sense. And then Zach Wilson with the Jets again,
Corey Davis and a few of the other weapons that
they've done. I understand what they're trying to do. That's
a work in progress. I think Zach Wilson is going
to have some real ups and some real downs, and

(01:47:34):
it's too much to ask that he's stepping that far.
It's gonna take some time there. So I tend to
say I tend to say Burrows probably your best bet,
except that I don't think the bagels are gonna be good,
whereas I think Miami is. So I think Tua is
your best Guess. Now, it's easy for me to pick

(01:47:57):
the most obvious spot for it. But if Ta plays
a way to a play last year, it doesn't matter
who's around him. That's not gonna work. That becomes the
biggest concern there is if he's not the guy. But
I think you're gonna know, probably by the end of
this year, if he's a guy or not. I know
Josh Allen exploded in the year three, but I don't

(01:48:18):
know that year three happens for two. If year two
goes south, I don't know if Miami can afford for
that to happen. So you can tweet me at j
MR Radio tell me who you think this year's Josh
Allen is gonna be. I think my. I think my
just just not reading a tea leaves to say, this
is a guy that's gonna explode. But the guy that's

(01:48:40):
in the best position to create this kind of a
jump because of where he was last year, because already
again I take Herbert out of it, because he was
he was too prolific last year to have the kind
of jump that we're required to be classified one of
those guys, right, Josh Allen type, I think it's probably

(01:49:02):
too what they've got around him in Miami and where
he was being bench for Fitzpatrick multiple times last year.
I think that's probably the most likely scenario for somebody
to take that jump. On a good team. Daniel Jones
might be an outlier. I don't. I don't believe in
Daniel Jones, but the Giants did have a decent enough draft,

(01:49:23):
and they're bringing say Kwon Barkley back, and they should
be a much better team, and I like their head coach,
So maybe Daniel Jones could could turn out to be
the guy. If I had to put money on one
of them, I wouldn't because I don't necessarily think there
is a this year's Josh Allen, but the breakout quarterback
in the best scenario to succeed, I think it's probably
to let's go to Finlay one more time, and uh,

(01:49:45):
catch a look at what's trending. Bran what's going on? Yeah, Jason,
the NBA is what is going on? First round playoff
action continues and Donovan Mitchell had a big game. He
had twenty nine points to guide the Jazz past the
Grizzlies one to one eleven to take a two games
to one advantage with Mitchell twenty nine. Also Mike Connolly

(01:50:05):
scoring twenty seven point seven of ten from downtown, eight
assists and six rebounds as he was able to take
it to his former employer. The seventy six Ers neutralized
the Wizards one thirty two to one oh three to
go up three games to none. Joel and beat Wowing
with thirty six points, and afterwards he explained why he
was so effective out there the game. I slowed down. Um,

(01:50:29):
I mean, I'm not forcing anything. I'm letting it come
to me a man a few words. The Trailblazers sho
in the Nuggets on fifteen to level it at two games.
Norman Powell captivates with twenty nine points as his team
made Damian Lillard struggled, missing nine out of ten field
goal attempts. The Bucks sweep the Heat after a one two,

(01:50:50):
one oh three drilling, Janis onto the Coopo had a
triple double NHL postseason. The Bruins slashed the Islanders five
two in their second round opener. The Canadian ends force
first round games seven after rough housing the Maple Leaves
three too and overtime. According to ESPN, police in Georgia
arresting Braves Marcelo Souna on Saturday. He remains in jail

(01:51:12):
for felony assault after he allegedly choked his wife and
flung her at a wall. As far as games, the
Cardinals upstaged the Diamondbacks seven four, serving Arizona their thirteenth
straight loss. The Giants get a win against the Dodgers
eleven to six. Cody Bellinger made his return but did

(01:51:32):
not register a hit. The Padres demonized the Astros eleven
to eight in twelve innings. As San Diego is perched
the top the NL West. The Brewers take both games
and a double header against the Nationals. The White Sox
sweep a double header against the Orioles, and the Mets
take down the Braves thirteen to two. New York hit

(01:51:53):
five home runs, and their thirteen runs is a season
high for the Mets as far as runs the game.
With that we sent it to our clean up hitter
of this broadcast and the show, it's Jason Martin. I've
made a mess of things. I am not a clean
up hit or at all. Um one thing I want
to get to before we get to the break, and

(01:52:13):
then I have something I want to do in the
final segment today. But um Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky is gonna
be studio analyst for T and T. They're trying, I think,
to create a Charles Barklay like effect, but mainly it's
just you get the Michael Jordan of hockey, if you
can get the Michael Jordan of hockey, or you get
the Wayne Gretzky get basketball. As some have jokes because

(01:52:34):
Gretzky being a great one and all left such a
long time, and Gretzky has just kind of been more reclusive,
right Like it's not like you've never seen him, but
he's never really stepped out and done anything like this.
I was talking to Michael McCarthy in Front off the
Sports a couple of days ago, and I said, do
you think TNT has a clue whether or not he's

(01:52:55):
good at this? And McCarthy said, no, they're completely in
the dark, I bet, And that's that's the reason I
asked the questions because I was pretty sure that was
the answer I was gonna get. And I was just like,
but doesn't matter if your t n T, if your
turner right, and you've paid money for the NHL, and
the NHL is not what the NHL was in terms

(01:53:16):
of people paying attention to it when ESPN had that
contract originally and you had National Hockey Night and all
that kind of stuff, and they were covering it more
on all of their shows. And that's the crucial thing here. Okay,
when you pay two billion dollars for NBA rights, you
create a show called The Jump, and you do NBA

(01:53:37):
three sixty five if you can, because you're advertising your
own product at all times, you try to create that
you could create all the news that you can, all
the buzz that you can, because it's all gonna flow
inward because you're hoping to rate. Right. So ESPN jumping
back into the fray with the NHL, even on a
limited basis, is good for the lead because it means
that they're gonna have content that they haven't been doing

(01:53:59):
that they're gonna be doing. But because it's gonna be
a benefit in it. So if your turner, what bigger
name can you get to people that don't give a
damn about hockey, then Wayne Gretzky. It doesn't matter if
he's good. If he's not good, we'll find out quickly
and they'll end up moving on from it. But he
doesn't have to be great. I don't think you're getting

(01:54:19):
Charles Barkley here. I don't necessarily think you're getting Tony
Romo here or somebody like that that's really fit like
a glove in that world. But you couldn't get a
bigger star in that sport than him, him being in
the studio that first night. I'm gonna watch that, aren't you?

(01:54:41):
Even if you're not a hockey fan, Even if you're
a lapsed fan or you never watched, or you don't
get it, or you think it's boring or whatever it's
doesn't translate well on TV. Whatever you're reasoning, whatever your rationale,
you're probably still gonna check out Gretzky, or at least
you are curious to know how he does. You read
about it, or you'll ask somebody, hey, man, do you

(01:55:02):
see Gretzky. I didn't get a chance to see it.
What do you think that right there is worth this
weight in gold if your turner. If he sucks, he sucks,
but at least you get that value out of it originally,
if you're starting a new property, one you've never touched.
But you've done a great job with sports if you're Turner,
Look you've done well with baseball for years, you've done
well with golf when you've had those opportunities of those

(01:55:23):
couple of majors before they kind of moved away from
the network. And certainly you have the best NBA coverage
in the business bar none, not close. Then if you're
doing this with hockey, i'd say that to bet worth taking,
even if it costs you a lot of money. I
don't know if Wayne Gretzky is gonna be good on
TV or not, because again he's been very selective and

(01:55:44):
he hasn't felt a need to be out there that much.
But if he's compelling at all, then you've got to win.
But early on, it doesn't matter if he's compelling at all,
because the fact that he's there is compelling. Whether it's
content is compelling or not, his existence is compelling. Yeah,
so I see exactly. It's a smart move by Turner.

(01:56:05):
I don't know if he's gonna be good. I'm not
going to try and predict it. There's no reason to
do it. It's it's purely speculative, based on no evidence whatsoever.
Do I think he's Barkley? No? Do I think that's
what NHL needs, not necessarily what they need to start power.
That's a league that has like two recognizable names that
if you're trying to break out, you've got to find

(01:56:27):
ways to relate. And if Wayne Gretzky tells me about
Connor McDavid, maybe I'm paying closer attention. Like, well, Wayne
Gretzky said he's good, I'm gonna pay attention to that.
Turner has made a bet here. I don't think they
know whether or not he's good, and I don't think
they care, and I'm not sure. I'm not so sure

(01:56:48):
that they should. You get a chance to get Wayne
Gretzky and he says, yes, you probably take that. When
we come back, I'll finish up the show with a
special message. I'm Jason Martin, and this is Fox Sports
Tradio finishing up Memorial Day Weekend edition. Jason Martin show
here on Fox Sports Radio. Glad to have you with us.
Have you've been with us for this whole ride this morning,
I appreciate that. I hope you and yours are well.

(01:57:11):
I'm on Twitter at j Mart Radio. You can find
me there. Thank you to all of those who have
paid the price for our freedom, which is certainly not free.
You are the best of us, no question about that.
I wanted to finish today with a bit of a
personal note that I think is appropriate and honestly, it

(01:57:32):
wouldn't wouldn't be okay for me not to do this.
And we just have a few minutes. But as many
of you know, Clay Travis left Fox Sports Radio for
a new opportunity. Yesterday was his final show. Friday was
his final show, I should say, And you know, he's

(01:57:56):
making a move that I think makes a lot of
sense for where he's head in his career. He buck
Sex and You're gonna take over Russia Limball's spot for
premiere and that show starts on June twenty one, and
I wish them both the absolute best of luck. But
here I just wanted to say that, you know, when
Clay's show began on Fox Sports Radio, almost six years

(01:58:17):
ago he and I were together. He took me along
with him as his executive producer. I'll still remember. I'll
never forget the Sunday night that he called me when
I thought I was about to leave the industry entirely
because nothing was breaking for me. I just am I
ever going to get an opportunity. It didn't feel like
it was ever going to happen. And he calls me
on a Sunday night. I've been writing for his website

(01:58:39):
for a few years and had run into him in
the building in Nashville at the studio that we both
worked at because he was recording a show for another
national network at the time, and honestly, it wasn't a
very good show, and it just it didn't seem like
a good fit for him. And I would hear him
recording and I'm just like, man, I thought he was
better than that. He always was and the other stuff

(01:58:59):
that I saw him doing. He he called me that
Sunday night and he said, Hey, you know, Fox Sports
Radio has made me an offer, and I think I'm
gonna go host their their morning show, and what do
you say You come with me and do it? And
I was blown away. Because I didn't feel like I
even knew him enough that he would call me and

(01:59:20):
offer me the opportunity. And he did, and I would
find out that there were other people that had helped
him along the way to to give that phone call
to me and offer that to me. And so we
started I'll kick the coverage and as a radio show
on Fox in the mornings, and of course it would
build and I would get to know Danny g and
Roberto and and Robert Guerra and just so many people.

(01:59:43):
And the thing that I wanted to say as Clay
has left, it's just thank you to my friend. It's
not about opinions or agreement or disagreement. It's about how
loyal he was to me. It was about how he

(02:00:04):
went unknowing to me behind my back to executives at
Fox Sports Radio and said, hey, I want him hosting
for me when I'm out. This guy no one knew
meaning me. No nobody knew me from Adam, didn't know
if I could talk. But Clay was able to get
me on the air, and before long, I'm hosting with
Jeff Schwartzen, I'm hosting with Jonas Knox. Every basically everything

(02:00:26):
that that has come to me through Fox Sports Radio,
came through him, and he didn't have to do any
of it. I was just this producer, but he told
me from day one. He's like, I know what your
goal is and I want to get you there. Clay
has been really good to me in this industry, and
I don't really get into the weeds about any of

(02:00:47):
the rest of this stuff. He's a friend. He's done
a lot for me, He's done a lot for my family.
He's great to me as Abby and I were getting married.
So I just want to thank him. I wish him
well and just say that you wouldn't be hearing me
right now. I wouldn't have this opportunity, but not for him.

(02:01:11):
So all the best to him and Buck as they
roll along with their next face. I'll be back next
week doing another edition of Jason Martin Shaw more in
the NBA playoffs, and who in the world knows, maybe
Aaron Rodgers and Julio Jones have a new home Fox
Sports Sunday's coming up next.

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05/30/2021 – The Jason Martin Show

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}05/30/2021 – The Jason Martin Show