February 24, 2022 • 35 mins
In hour three of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, Jason and Mike Harmon circle back to the news that Troy Aikman will be signing a massive deal to broadcast elsewhere, and Jason thinks he's cashing-in just in time. NBA Insider Ric Bucher joins the show to shed some light on LeBron James’ motivations, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
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Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports
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(00:25):
Sports Radio. Come on, I'm waiting for a tysher. Where
is it? Hobo? You got an unofficial hobo there. Yeah,
that's not the official hobo. That's not the official hobo drop.
I want the official hobo drop Hobo. There we go, Okaya,
Fox Sports Radio, Hour three of the Jason Smith Show
(00:48):
with my best friend in Mike Harmon. We got Rick
Buker coming up at about twenty minutes breaking the biggest
news in the NBA. Are is the relationship between Lebron
and the Lakers really that bad? What the hell are
the Nicks doing? And his Kyrie Irving really going to
be playing home games soon? Yeah? Rick Buker, stop and
buy with all of that coming up, he had a
(01:08):
big day in the NBA. Well, so far, it's been Okay,
not talking about Aaron Rodgers has has gone about seven minutes,
so we've done it. We've done it so far, even
though you just brought his name back into the mix,
which I don't know if that means we got to
start a new streak. You may have just screwed that up. No,
I don't know that we have to start a new streak.
(01:29):
Is just you know, it'll well, it'll last until we
do the clean story again in about an hour, because
that's the worst story in the world. But that's not
really an Aaron Rodgers. Oh is he staying? Is he going? No?
It's a ring. It's so, it's fine. I think I
think that's fine. But the whole Aaron Rodgers is he
gonna get traded? Is he gonna retire? Is he gonna stay?
(01:49):
That's not like to say, you know what, let's just
let's just not talk about it. Let's cleanse ourselves from
that storyline, and we'll do it when he actually says something. Yeah,
because I like anything else in the world, just because
you're trying to ignore it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Not for this I really is. Now while that is
going on, the biggest story in the NFL. Tonight comes
(02:10):
to us courtesy of Monday Night Football, where a big
bombshell in that Troy Aikman is leaving Fox to go
to Monday Night Football. He's going to be broadcasting games
for ESPN, and while the deal isn't done yet, it's
expected to be finished momentarily and Aikman will get in
(02:31):
the neighborhood, maybe surpassing the seventeen and a half million
dollars that Tony Romo gets right now to do games
for CBS. So here goes Aikman going now to Monday
Night Football. And the first thing to know about this, Mike,
is that here's Aikman saying, hmm am, I still going
to get this kind of money if guys like Sean
(02:53):
McVay or Mike Tomlin decide, Hey, I want to make
some easy money for a while, I'm gonna go to television.
And there's a lot of people that want to hear
what I have to say because I'm much more relevant
than Troy Aikman is. Even though Aikman does a great
job and he does look he's one of the best
analysts out there. The desire to see the new head
(03:14):
coaches coming in and doing games is great, And eventually
Sean McVay is gonna say, yeah, I need a couple
of years off, So I'll take eighteen million dollars a
year to do a bunch of games. That's way more
than I'm getting with the Rams. And you're gonna see
other guys do the same thing. Kyle Shanahan will probably
do it at some point. Other coaches will say this
is easy. Why am I getting up at six o'clock
in the morning, getting home at eleven o'clock at night,
(03:35):
not seeing my wife and my family. What am I
doing this? And I'm getting paid less money when I
can go and be undefeated in the studio? Why am
I not doing this? So Aikman jumping because if he
doesn't jump now, I don't know that he gets that
paid day, because that gets filled with Peyton Manning or
Eli Manning, or Peyton and Eli Manning or one of
the coaches who decide I'm jumping in here because I
(03:56):
want to get paid because i want a better lifestyle. Yeah,
this is Aikman saying I'm cutting to the front of
the line before that line is not there for me. Yeah,
I mean there's a couple of things in play right obviously,
have more entrants, more people wanting in on broadcasting, right,
live sports is your last bastion of really being able
to charge that advertising premium on a whole other level
(04:20):
in television these days. And with those new entrants means
you want to make a splash with those hires, so
the price of poker goes up, right, And as you said,
people want to see these other new exciting right, the
new shiny toy. They love Aikman, and especially if you
listen over the last couple of years with Joe Buck,
(04:43):
maybe they'd get a little bit looser than they would
in years past in terms of criticisms and their discussion
of topics, which made it not only just event television,
because they were on the big game, right, which is
one of the hallmarks in our business in terms of
the television side of If you hear that voice, it
(05:04):
means this game is important. And Troy Aikman certainly there
and they're trying to bring some of that back to
Monday night football. And that's not to say that the
current participants in the booth, right, the current guys, especially
when you look at Lewis Riddick, a guy that is
very well respected and his analysis, but doesn't move the needle,
(05:25):
you know, to your point, all these other coaches, if
they were to decide to jump in, Yeah, those are
people vying for those top spots. So for Troy Aikman,
perhaps you have a point where you feel like you
need to challenge and conquer a new landscape, keep your
name fresh out there, and you know, go into a
(05:47):
different phase. Right when we're talking a long time at Fox,
and while you hate to leave them, you always applaud
folks taking a shot on themselves. I mean that's one
of the hallmarks of this show in particular. Yeah. Look,
and I happy for anybody that can make this kind
of money in their chosen profession, Right, I'm happy for Aikman,
I'm happy for Tony Romo. But quite honestly, there's no
(06:11):
more overpaid people in sports than than NFL analysts for games.
I mean, CBS doesn't have to give to eighteen million.
But you just talked about all these guys that you
want to hear come into the booth, which means there's
competition for bodies and for jobs, right, right, Right, that's
what I mean. It's it's great, but they're so overpaid,
(06:32):
and Sean McVay would be overpaid, and so would Kyle
Shanahan because nobody is gonna watch a football game because
one of those guys is the analyst on it. There's
not one person that's gonna say, I'm gonna change my
viewing happens and I'm gonna go watch that, because that's
what it is. That's why I usually pay people, right,
because I want people to come and and and consume
my program, right, and people aren't watching my program, So
(06:54):
I'm gonna go pay somebody money that's gonna come and
make people watch. Right. No one is gonna watch a
football game on Monday Night football or turn it off
because of Troy Aikman. No one's gonna do it. No
one's gonna watch or not watch a CBS game because
of Tony Romo, whether he's got a good voice or
the gravelly voice, and he's adding out for the past year.
I tell you, Jim, I just love this game. I'm
just sitting here and get paid a million dollars a week.
(07:16):
And Wow. I used to predict plays, but now I
just kind of sit back and laugh and go, oh
my god, I can't believe this. Nobody does that. And
I feel that ESPN is at the point where where
they are saying, we are sick and tired of every
Monday night people making fun of our broadcast. And they
think that's a big deal. They think they think because
(07:38):
Twitter makes fun of whatever the broadcast is and whoever,
somebody says that's a bad mark on them, and it's
not Twitter as far as it goes, it's irrelevant. I
get you don't like it, but there's I haven't met
a company yet that's been able to deal with social
media the right way. Every company I'm with thinks social
media is, oh, we got to have this person. They
have so and so many followers, and that means they're
(07:59):
gonna wind up why the TV show And that's not
how it works. But yet every company I've been with
it I don't deals with social media, and thinks that's
the case. And again, I'm happy the guys are getting
paid because it's great. It shows growth, I understand, but nobody,
nobody needs to pay any analyst that kind of money.
You could have Dan Fouts doing Monday night football and
(08:20):
the same number of people are gonna watch, and people
are gonna complain and they're gonna watch, or they're not
gonna watch, because if it's the Jags and the Titans,
less people are gonna watch. If it's the Steelers and
the Cowboys, everybody's gonna watch. No one's gonna say I'm
turning off Jags Titans for Jets Patriots because Troy Aikman's
doing the game. No, no one's doing that. It's just
(08:41):
not happening. It's I don't know why they think this
is such a big deal when it's not going to
affect their bottom line at all, except you're paying a
lot of money out to a guy you don't really
have to pay. Well. I would argue that the people
smarter than us, with access to more umbers than us,
would dispute that, hence the bidding wars that come into play.
(09:05):
But just from a games perspective again, talking about Troy
Aikman in the large esse of games. Yeah, Monday and
football is Monday Night football. But Monday Night Football Jags
Titans versus Monday Night Football. Hey, we gave you another
Kansas City Chargers game or Raider Nation is in the building,
(09:25):
or whatever the case may be. That's got a little
more gravity toss to it. Right, so maybe you've got
a little more of a viewership there and having Troy
Aikman in the booth is helping you maybe tweak how
the schedule gets affected again percentages. Right, it's all, you know,
parts of a larger pie in the decision making process.
(09:46):
But you know you're also looking at advertisers and Troy
Aikman being in the room and executives, whether it's moving
the needle on the ratings. And we can quibble about
that as we will, right, because there were some that
we're telling you football where was dying? How funny is that?
But the idea being that you get to bring to
(10:09):
all the banquets, circuits, all of the sponsors. Hey, this
is Hall of Famer, you know, three times Super Bowl winner,
Troy Aikman. Check it out. He's our lead analyst on
Monday night football. Oh you want a photo? No, that's
that's great, Hey, Troy, can you can you get a
photo from our friends insert company name here that that
has gravitas? Right? That that hell helps? Wait because there's
(10:31):
a lot of ads spending that goes on and those
guys are part of the sales process. Right, you can
you can send autograph pictures of Steve Levy and Brian
Greets has a shame that if you need to, oh
you want to, really, that's what we're gonna We're paying
Troy Aikman to sign autographs to be all. The point
is the meet and the great and being the guy
in the room. There's some clout for the folks at ESPN.
(10:55):
But also when you're talking about your advertising sales, right
and everything else, having that name and that persona associated
with it, you're telling me that doesn't have more clout
than Steve Levy. Sorry Steve Levy, but you fortunately, you're
collateral damage here. I think I think the Steve Leevie's
got great hair, though, I think the main thing is
(11:16):
we have the games and here's you. I could get
you this autograph by Troy Aikman. But take a look.
Here's now you're reducing it and totally discounting everything. I
just said. Which week one is Patriots rams, Week one
is Patriots Rams, Week two is this week three is
yeah you can pay them and and yeah, I'm not
saying it doesn't look good when when you hire Troy,
(11:38):
but you're not saying you're saying it adds no value
and I would argue that if you're gonna pay you
got twenty million dollars, that you've decided that it has
some value to the overall product, not only what you're airing,
but to your bottom line. They they they overrate things
in sports all the time. Companies overrate ESPN, they overrate
things all the time. Be careful, be careful. Give it.
(12:01):
Given what we do for a living, says talk radio
hosts that generate four hours of content or more a night,
we're content guys, man, where the show is on and
we gotta talk, we should be getting paid that kind
of money. No, but but look at look at how
how skewed certain things are. Certain daytime shows. You know,
whether it's a news show or a sport show, whatever
(12:24):
it is, you you would see it written about on
social media or blogged about and or or opined about
on Twitter, and you think it's the biggest thing in
the world, and meanwhile, less than a million people are
watching it. So it's like, Okay, how big of an
impact is it. It It seems like it's so much bigger
than it is when it's really not that big a deal.
And and that's where you get into between what numbers
(12:47):
are and noise. And we've talked about this a lot
on the show. What's trending in the moment is kind
of fun. I mean, you got you said you got
McAfee tridening. You tried to take credit for that, and
you wanted to get paid for that. So now you're
telling me none of that has any meaning. Oh no, no,
I definitely wanted I wanted to get paid for that. Man. No,
I was, hey, I increased I increased streaming for him.
(13:10):
That was a definitive thing because I said what I said,
he had more people streaming, he was making more money.
I actually pushed more people there, unlike announcers and analysts
who don't push any more people to games. You don't
know that from the numbers, you know, so of course
I do. You could have a game with no announcers
like they tried with the with the Jets and the Dolphins,
(13:32):
but you could watch the You could watch the game
on mute and still get everything. You don't need. You Unfortunately,
working in the Fox Sports radio studios on a Sunday
sometimes on those Sunday morning live from London games, I
got no choice. You don't fill in my own color
commentary you don't listen to what analysts have to say anyway,
So what is you sure you do? You call him
(13:52):
an idiot? You don't. You don't know my team? Can
you believe I'll take it from some of the guys
over the score in Chicago, the out of town stupid
of the guy that they assigned to our game. Yeah,
it matters you listen, you take offense. You think everybody
hates your team, That's part of the fun of it.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
(14:14):
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific. I'm George Reister, host of the Reister or
Wrong podcast. This is the intersection where sports, business, society,
and pop culture meet the truth absolute fire Home Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays Facts only. Make sure you check your
(14:37):
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The Jason Smith Show with my bass friend Mike Harmon
(14:59):
kill I mean to say the Knicks decided, Hey, they
couldn't trade Kemba Walker at the deadline. No, no, no,
we tried, we couldn't trade him. Here are after the deadline,
and they decided that, oh, he's gonna sit the rest
of the season and he's got an expiring contract that
Nicks will move on fromhim in the off season. They
could have given away for anything. Yeah, no, no, but
(15:21):
now he's gonna sit for the rest of the season,
so we decided to not trade him to just sit him.
Nix Yo joining us now on the hotline. Who I'm
sure his first words will be Nicks Yo. Fox Sports
won NBA Insider Extraordinaire. He's on Twitter, at Rick Buker,
That is at Rick Buker. What's happening, Rick? How are
(15:41):
we gentlemen? Are we excited to get that second half
of the actually not the second half, it's the last
third of the season going. Are you excited? Are you
ready for that Knicks run? Are you? Hey? Eventually we're
gonna be playing the All Star Game right after the
regular season ends, with a week before the playoffs. That
that's kind of where we're trending. Rix, that's what's going
to happen. Uh, Yeah, if we're going to be playing
(16:05):
the All Star games at all, it's I don't know.
Did the did you guys? Did you guys enjoy the
All Star Game? Did you watch the Altar Game? I
enjoyed the game. I watched chunks of it. I can't
say that I was riveted to my television for two
plus hours. But Saturday I watched it. But Sunday Saturday.
(16:28):
I mean, I love spectacular failures and until I don't,
oh goodness, yeah, until I don't. I look, I'm not
one to say that we should get rid of the
dun Dunk contest because I think they're going to be years.
I do think that they have to do a better
job of who they're selecting. You can't have all brand
new guys who have never been in that that atmosphere
(16:52):
atmosphere before. And I think ultimately, you give a guy
two shots at a dunk, at a particular dunk, and
if you can't do it, you got to do something else.
You just have to move on. Yeah, you have to
move on? Yes, right, I mean here you have to
jump rope for twenty seconds. Yeah you're done. Yeah, well
I like that even better? Yeah? Yeah, double dutch. Yeah, Actually,
(17:17):
you know what if here's here's what happens is if
you don't, if you're not able to execute the dunk
that you want to perform on the big basket, we
bring out one of those nerve hoops and you have
to perform it on that one, and then we're gonna
judge you based on We're gonna judge you based on
that one. So there's a little bit of there's a
(17:39):
little bit of embarrassment that you've been moved to the
to the kiddie pool, but nonetheless you'll be able to
execute it and we can keep we can keep this
thing moving. All right. Well, speaking of keeping it moving,
we'll move past the All Star Game, which really was
dominated by Lebron James and his various quotes of the
weekend about how we'll play is last year with Brawnie
(18:00):
could be anywhere he could go back to Cleveland. And
now we get the reports of how much Lebron and
the Lakers are at odds with each other and things
are really bad. Rick take us behind it. Is it
really at that point where hey, the divorce is inevitable
and now it's just we're just gonna wait and see
how it happens, like what's going on? Well, well you
have to add the last piece. So, because Lebron and
(18:23):
Klutch don't like the negative publicity that came out of that,
they then reached out to Shams and to Stephen Ay,
those are the two guys reached out to them and said,
you know, there's no truth to any of this. We're
not unhappy. I can't I'm not even sure I can
say it with a straight face. We're not unhappy with
(18:45):
the Lakers. We didn't want to move Russ West for
John wall and in a future first round pick. There's
no there's absolutely no truth to any of this. And
my first thought was, well why not? I mean, you
should be like it's got to be one thing or
the other. You can't tell me that you guys are
happy with where things are, So what is it? How
(19:08):
is it that you're not happy? How is it that
you're not communicating anything to the Lakers about where things stands?
How could you? How could you accept the status quo
whatever it might be. So I'm just I'm glad that
I don't, like, I don't have to be that guy,
because I would have a hard time taking that and
reporting that with a straight face. But the reality is, Look,
(19:33):
Lebron likes to do one and one thing only, which
is played for championships, and they're not. He knows quite
clearly that that's not what they have right now, and
he also sees that he doesn't have a clear path
to doing that anytime soon with the Lakers. So it's
a matter of what else can I do? Where else
can I can put my focus on, and how else
(19:54):
can I have the spotlight on me that is not
looking at the fact that I am not on a
championship team. I am not leading a championship team. I'm
not playing for a championship team. What else can I
do to divert the attention from that but still have
the spotlight on me? So to that end, I'm I'm
open for business where where who wants me? Yeah, there
(20:19):
I go. Now you have everybody talking about where's he
going to play? Well, that's good. I mean take over
an All Star weekend and make it all about myriads storylines.
We'll leave LEBRONI one alone for now because that's a
couple of years down the road, but maybe we can
get it next week. But in the interim, how do
you see this work in Rick. I mean, does he
get dealt at the end of the year. Everybody that
(20:40):
keeps wanting to see Anthony Davis traded, I got news
for you. I need to see him on the court
for three weeks straight before I'd actually want a deal
for him. But as the Lebron get dealt. Yeah, And
here's the real here's the truth of it. Here's the
reality is that you can't. It sounds good and there's
a lot of places in the league where you could
say we're gonna cut bait and we're gonna move our
stars and we're gonna rebuild. The Lakers can't rebuild. You
(21:02):
have to the ticket prices, the competition for attention. There
is no way that they can do that unless you're
trading Lebron or Anthony Davis were other stars, and I
don't know how you're going to be able to do
that at this stage. Now, there is one other theory
out there which I give some credence, which is that
(21:25):
Lebron is doing this to set up to get the
payday that Chris Paul and James Harden's going to get.
Chris Paul did get guys in their late thirties who
are getting loaded up by suggesting I am don't know
whether I want to stay or go, and teams are thinking, well,
where would we be if we don't have them, and
(21:46):
so they get the max and paying Lebron, you know, premium.
At this point, you're much like Chris Paul. And presumably
if James Harden gets the deal that everybody expects him
to get, you're gonna be a price at thirty nine,
forty years old. And so but it would give Lebron
one last big pay day. He'd get to stay in
(22:10):
LA and it would be with and You're gonna draft Brownie.
So I get to stay where I am, I get
to continue with the production company. I get paid. And
if I'm getting paid and I'm playing with Brownie, then
I can live with the Lakers not necessarily being a
championship caliber team. Because here's the problem with the whole
idea of him going to an open suitor is he's
(22:31):
got to leave LA. He's got to leave everything that
he's got there, and and probably has to make that
decision sooner rather than later, because I believe that he
has the option to opt out of his deal this summer.
And so that's where the Lakers might have to come
with a premium contract in order to keep him, and
(22:53):
if they don't, then it gets I mean, that's where
his leverage is with the Lakers in order to get paid.
So we'll see how it ultimately plays out. You know,
when I step back and look at it, I have
a hard time believing that Lebron really is interested in
going and playing in Charlotte or Sacramento, or even going
(23:14):
back to Cleveland and playing there. And again we're talking
about that's with Brownie two and a half years from now.
But if he were decided to walk on the Lakers now,
like where now, it gets really interesting. Who's going to
pay him? Where would he go? Who's got the money
to pay him? I just I don't see that as
a realistic move for either side. So at the end
(23:37):
of the day, I think this is a leverage play
to get everything he wants and stay in LA, which
includes as much money as he can possibly get, and
promise that they'll they'll draft Brownie when he's eligible. FS
one NBA insider Rick Buker our guest here the Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carman. All Right, so from Lebron
James we go to Kyrie Irving. All right, we get
the news today that potentially the vaccine mandates is going
(24:01):
to be eased in New York City sometime in the
next month or so. The new mayor talked about it today.
So now Kyrie can go back and play for the Nets,
and Rick, you know, I get that. Boy, Hey, Kyrie
coming back playing full time is going to be great.
But it's not like I guess I would say this,
that's great news. So then in two weeks, I'll wait
(24:22):
for the next controversy that's gonna stop things from happening
for the Nets. So if that, that's great, but I'll
just wait for the next one in two weeks. Yeah. Well,
and it's also I mean, look at the look at
how they've played when Kyrie has played, and now some
of it is because he's in and out. Some of
it they're missing, they're missing Kadi. But the reality is
that even with Kyrie playing, it's not as if they
(24:42):
were winning at any significant clip. They were losing a
lot of games. So it helps that he's back and
he's playing full time. But KDS still out for weeks.
We still don't know the return of Ben Simmons and
we're still what we're still talking about him month, So
we're still looking at the potential of the Nets having
(25:05):
at most a week or two before the playoffs start
where they can get Ben kd and Kyrie on the
floor at the same time and try to develop some
kind of chemistry or symmetry. And that's the assumption that
all of those guys will be back and will be
healthy and will be one hundred percent. So I just
(25:28):
don't know that Kyrie winning the battle, and this is
something that the Nets had been hoping for all along.
He's winning it awfully late in the game. And there's
some other elements here that change the equation. Namely, I
do believe they're better. They can potentially be better with
Ben Simmons than they would have been with James Harden,
(25:51):
But that needs to be demonstrated, and they need to
get all those guys on the floor together and get
a little bit of time before we're actually going to
see that. Rick is Zion Williamson played his final game
with the Pelicans. Well that's my hot take. He's played
his last game with the Pelicans. Rick tell me I'm
right right, yeah, I mean you might be, you might be.
(26:15):
I haven't heard definitively what you know what the plan is,
the question is going to be. And again, this is
another very tricky situation because even if it's we're gonna
sign you, I would fully expect that Zion wants to
get wants to be signed and get the max from
(26:37):
the from the Pelicans, and then demand to be traded.
But in signing that deal or creating that deal, they're
gonna have to put in all sort of sorts of
injury stipulations in it, much like the Philadelphia seventy six
ers did with Joel emb where you just you protect
yourself and you don't do that. The New Orleans Pelicans
don't do that just for them. They do that so
(27:00):
that if they are forced to trade Zion, that they're
able to get a little bit more bang for their
buck in doing so, because other teams are gonna look
at that and they're gonna wait a minute, you gave him,
you gave him the MAX with no protection, like, Okay,
we'll give you this, but we're not going to give
you like everything they need to. And if the relationship
(27:22):
is as fractured as I've been told it is, and
as I've heard it is, then negotiating that thirty five
page contract is not going to be easy. So you
may be right, but there are so many hurdles to
clear before they can even get to the point where
they trade Zion that we need to see how they
(27:43):
navigate all that. I do believe genuinely that Zion is
like it's he's going to be playing someplace else sooner
rather than later. It's just a matter of whether it's
before he ever plays again for the Pelican. He's on
Twitter at Rick Buker, that is at Rick Buker check out,
(28:07):
is on the Ball podcast as well, all the latest
and this this one is dedicated entirely to Kemba Walker
sitting for the rest of the season. Right, that's your
latest one? Actually? Sure? Why not ke Keba Walker? I
will say this, Kemba Walker is mentioned in my very
next podcast and it is, believe it or not, it's complimentary. Wow, okay,
(28:33):
complimentary for him for the Knicks. For him or for
the Knicks, because there's a difference. Now oh oh for
Kemma Kemma the nicktar a lost cause are you kidding me?
More things change, Rick, the more things change at fire Yo. Yeah, yeah,
(28:54):
probably just wait until next year, It's okay, legs of
buying trick taking easy, buddy. Don't forget the on cast
Seebody wore there as well. Check it out again. Good
things about Kemba. Walker can't say many people have said
that so far this year, I can't say. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harman weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
(29:16):
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app Fox
Sports Radio. The Jason Smith Show with my bas friend
Mike Harman just rolled off my tongue. It rolls off
your tongue really well. So Major League Baseball wants us
to know that, hey, things are getting serious right now.
There will be a shortened season if no labor deal
(29:37):
is reached by Monday, February twenty eight. MLBPA and Major
League Baseball, if they can't come to terms, that's what's
going to happen. The games would not be made up,
players would not be paid full season salaries. According to
Major League Baseball, a deadline is a deadline. Missed games
are missed games, salary will not be paid for those games.
(30:01):
If Major League Baseball thinks they're going to negotiate this
through the media. Oh boy, they're just wasting their time,
and they bitch better get it back to the bargaining
table because fans don't care. We don't care anymore. I'm
the biggest baseball fan in the world. You're the biggest
baseball fan. We're the biggest baseball fans here at Fox.
I don't care if they play on time or not.
(30:21):
Let me know when they play. They'll play eventually. This
is not twenty years ago. There's not two thousand and
two where every night it was there's a baseball lockout
looming or a strike and what's going to get it
to be played? And what happens and my kids are
not going to get to see baseball and look what
they're doing, they're ruining the sport. Yeah, we just don't
care anymore. We've been through a lot in the last
(30:42):
couple of years, and you know what, we've missed some things,
and things that we missed we found we don't need
them nearly as much as we thought we did. And
if baseball isn't ready to play, okay, it's coming back
at some point. It will play eventually, and we'll be
ready and I'll be ready when it does, and until
it does there's news that comes out, we'll talk about it.
But if there's no games, they're way okay. If they're
(31:05):
if they think that that, they're gonna try to argue
this through the media, and that's gonna put pressure on
the players to capitulate and say we want to sign.
That's not happening because this is just met with a yeah,
I don't care, and I'm talking and you and Mike,
I know you and I agree on this, and like
I said, we're the biggest baseball fans in the world.
And when I see this story, I go, yeah, great,
it's not two thousand and two. This is not gonna work.
(31:28):
Just sit down and get it done because we don't care.
It's like the old Bill Parcel's line, don't tell me
about the labor, just show me the baby. I don't
care what you have to do, and if you don't
get it done in time, you don't get it done
in time. I don't care. If you play one hundred
and fifty games, one hundred and forty games, one hundred
and thirty games, one hundred and twenty games, I don't care.
I think sports seasons are too long. Anyway, you know,
you get to too much things. It's too much overlap,
(31:50):
and you can't focus enough on Moyna. You play one
hundred forty games. Yeah, I don't care. I don't think many.
I don't think anybody else cares either. I could feel
your brain getting scrambled and frazzled right there. Scrambled. Yeah,
it's it's the idea of you've got century overload and
so many options at your disposal. And I think the
last part, as you started to talk faster, as if
(32:12):
caffeine was kicking in or sugar in that moment, was
the fact that we already have these discussions, both for
the NBA and from Major League Baseball, and sometimes for
the NHL when they're in the mix and in the
discussion for things of this nature of yeah, you can
trim games, right. We had the story from Daryl Morey
(32:33):
the other day saying, yeah, it should be fifty eight,
and we could quibble over over the number, but obviously
the money of it all means it won't happen. But
how many times in a baseball season, like, wow, the
dog days of August? Why is it the dog days
of August? Yeah, it's hot, but it's the all right,
we really need to get to the end of the season.
And with the second wildcard, yeah, more teams are still
(32:55):
in the mix, so there's still that level of excitement,
but there's still a yeah. The first month, we've got
opening days and more opening days, and guys are just
getting into the swing of things. They're in shape, but
they're you know, baseball at that point, it's just all right,
Now we're getting started. First couple of starts are a
little odd. They takes some time for hitters to get
(33:17):
in sync, and eventually you start flowing. Some teams obviously
come out of the gates strong, not saying it's for everyone,
but it takes a while to warm up. Why because
you're watching the end of the NBA regular season and
into the playoffs. You've watched March Madness, you're starting to
watch free agency in football, there's a lot of things
to captivate your imagination and attention span, not to mention
(33:40):
the rest of your life. So trying to assume everybody's
sitting around with bated breath for that first pitch, it
ain't there. I mean, and they should learn from the
last stop it right, is that you know how you
came back, you had a guy that showed up for
work every day that got feeded for it, and then
you had a bunch of cartoon character is running around
(34:01):
and then you wagged your fingers years later because you
felt that society had turned against you, so suddenly it
was wrong. All the millions that you collected while you
had guys pumping stuff into their bodies. Do you want
to repeat of that? Because right now, if you lose
games and you want to get relevance back in, that's
gonna be some of it. You're gonna have some ills
(34:22):
that might might need to happen for you to get
your place back, because a lot of folks are just
gonna say I don't care. Yeah, And look, even the
biggest baseball like I said, Mike, and I'm telling these
big fans, we are with the average fan desided for
the white socks. I got a young squad already, let's go. Look,
even the biggest fans are gonna say that this has
become a tune out because they know the biggest fans
(34:45):
know Rob Manford can't stand the players, hates the players,
hates them, hates them, hates them, and so it becomes
it becomes a rough headline just for that, not that
at least Bud Steely he was, he was, Hey, we
gotta work. I don't want to give the players a lot,
but I wanted to. Rob Manford just out now can't
stand the players. So it's like this is just such
a negative headline in general for not only the average fan,
(35:06):
but the in depth big time baseball fan too. I mean,
there's no win for major League Baseball on this. There's
absolutely none because nobody has any patience for this. Twitter
Twitter at about a fresca. Mike gets swollen down The
Jason Smith Show with my best friend in future World
Series Champion White Sox fan Mike Harmon. Coming up next,
we get back into a story. Well, let's jip. Let
(35:29):
me just say this. We are going to go through
a cleanse coming up next, and see where that takes us.
This is Fox Sports Radio
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports
Radio dot com, or stream us live every night on
the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR. You're listening to Fox
(00:25):
Sports Radio. Come on, I'm waiting for a tysher. Where
is it? Hobo? You got an unofficial hobo there. Yeah,
that's not the official hobo. That's not the official hobo drop.
I want the official hobo drop Hobo. There we go, Okaya,
Fox Sports Radio, Hour three of the Jason Smith Show
(00:48):
with my best friend in Mike Harmon. We got Rick
Buker coming up at about twenty minutes breaking the biggest
news in the NBA. Are is the relationship between Lebron
and the Lakers really that bad? What the hell are
the Nicks doing? And his Kyrie Irving really going to
be playing home games soon? Yeah? Rick Buker, stop and
buy with all of that coming up, he had a
(01:08):
big day in the NBA. Well, so far, it's been Okay,
not talking about Aaron Rodgers has has gone about seven minutes,
so we've done it. We've done it so far, even
though you just brought his name back into the mix,
which I don't know if that means we got to
start a new streak. You may have just screwed that up. No,
I don't know that we have to start a new streak.
(01:29):
Is just you know, it'll well, it'll last until we
do the clean story again in about an hour, because
that's the worst story in the world. But that's not
really an Aaron Rodgers. Oh is he staying? Is he going? No?
It's a ring. It's so, it's fine. I think I
think that's fine. But the whole Aaron Rodgers is he
gonna get traded? Is he gonna retire? Is he gonna stay?
(01:49):
That's not like to say, you know what, let's just
let's just not talk about it. Let's cleanse ourselves from
that storyline, and we'll do it when he actually says something. Yeah,
because I like anything else in the world, just because
you're trying to ignore it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Not for this I really is. Now while that is
going on, the biggest story in the NFL. Tonight comes
(02:10):
to us courtesy of Monday Night Football, where a big
bombshell in that Troy Aikman is leaving Fox to go
to Monday Night Football. He's going to be broadcasting games
for ESPN, and while the deal isn't done yet, it's
expected to be finished momentarily and Aikman will get in
(02:31):
the neighborhood, maybe surpassing the seventeen and a half million
dollars that Tony Romo gets right now to do games
for CBS. So here goes Aikman going now to Monday
Night Football. And the first thing to know about this, Mike,
is that here's Aikman saying, hmm am, I still going
to get this kind of money if guys like Sean
(02:53):
McVay or Mike Tomlin decide, Hey, I want to make
some easy money for a while, I'm gonna go to television.
And there's a lot of people that want to hear
what I have to say because I'm much more relevant
than Troy Aikman is. Even though Aikman does a great
job and he does look he's one of the best
analysts out there. The desire to see the new head
(03:14):
coaches coming in and doing games is great, And eventually
Sean McVay is gonna say, yeah, I need a couple
of years off, So I'll take eighteen million dollars a
year to do a bunch of games. That's way more
than I'm getting with the Rams. And you're gonna see
other guys do the same thing. Kyle Shanahan will probably
do it at some point. Other coaches will say this
is easy. Why am I getting up at six o'clock
in the morning, getting home at eleven o'clock at night,
(03:35):
not seeing my wife and my family. What am I
doing this? And I'm getting paid less money when I
can go and be undefeated in the studio? Why am
I not doing this? So Aikman jumping because if he
doesn't jump now, I don't know that he gets that
paid day, because that gets filled with Peyton Manning or
Eli Manning, or Peyton and Eli Manning or one of
the coaches who decide I'm jumping in here because I
(03:56):
want to get paid because i want a better lifestyle. Yeah,
this is Aikman saying I'm cutting to the front of
the line before that line is not there for me. Yeah,
I mean there's a couple of things in play right obviously,
have more entrants, more people wanting in on broadcasting, right,
live sports is your last bastion of really being able
to charge that advertising premium on a whole other level
(04:20):
in television these days. And with those new entrants means
you want to make a splash with those hires, so
the price of poker goes up, right, And as you said,
people want to see these other new exciting right, the
new shiny toy. They love Aikman, and especially if you
listen over the last couple of years with Joe Buck,
(04:43):
maybe they'd get a little bit looser than they would
in years past in terms of criticisms and their discussion
of topics, which made it not only just event television,
because they were on the big game, right, which is
one of the hallmarks in our business in terms of
the television side of If you hear that voice, it
(05:04):
means this game is important. And Troy Aikman certainly there
and they're trying to bring some of that back to
Monday night football. And that's not to say that the
current participants in the booth, right, the current guys, especially
when you look at Lewis Riddick, a guy that is
very well respected and his analysis, but doesn't move the needle,
(05:25):
you know, to your point, all these other coaches, if
they were to decide to jump in, Yeah, those are
people vying for those top spots. So for Troy Aikman,
perhaps you have a point where you feel like you
need to challenge and conquer a new landscape, keep your
name fresh out there, and you know, go into a
(05:47):
different phase. Right when we're talking a long time at Fox,
and while you hate to leave them, you always applaud
folks taking a shot on themselves. I mean that's one
of the hallmarks of this show in particular. Yeah. Look,
and I happy for anybody that can make this kind
of money in their chosen profession, Right, I'm happy for Aikman,
I'm happy for Tony Romo. But quite honestly, there's no
(06:11):
more overpaid people in sports than than NFL analysts for games.
I mean, CBS doesn't have to give to eighteen million.
But you just talked about all these guys that you
want to hear come into the booth, which means there's
competition for bodies and for jobs, right, right, Right, that's
what I mean. It's it's great, but they're so overpaid,
(06:32):
and Sean McVay would be overpaid, and so would Kyle
Shanahan because nobody is gonna watch a football game because
one of those guys is the analyst on it. There's
not one person that's gonna say, I'm gonna change my
viewing happens and I'm gonna go watch that, because that's
what it is. That's why I usually pay people, right,
because I want people to come and and and consume
my program, right, and people aren't watching my program, So
(06:54):
I'm gonna go pay somebody money that's gonna come and
make people watch. Right. No one is gonna watch a
football game on Monday Night football or turn it off
because of Troy Aikman. No one's gonna do it. No
one's gonna watch or not watch a CBS game because
of Tony Romo, whether he's got a good voice or
the gravelly voice, and he's adding out for the past year.
I tell you, Jim, I just love this game. I'm
just sitting here and get paid a million dollars a week.
(07:16):
And Wow. I used to predict plays, but now I
just kind of sit back and laugh and go, oh
my god, I can't believe this. Nobody does that. And
I feel that ESPN is at the point where where
they are saying, we are sick and tired of every
Monday night people making fun of our broadcast. And they
think that's a big deal. They think they think because
(07:38):
Twitter makes fun of whatever the broadcast is and whoever,
somebody says that's a bad mark on them, and it's
not Twitter as far as it goes, it's irrelevant. I
get you don't like it, but there's I haven't met
a company yet that's been able to deal with social
media the right way. Every company I'm with thinks social
media is, oh, we got to have this person. They
have so and so many followers, and that means they're
(07:59):
gonna wind up why the TV show And that's not
how it works. But yet every company I've been with
it I don't deals with social media, and thinks that's
the case. And again, I'm happy the guys are getting
paid because it's great. It shows growth, I understand, but nobody,
nobody needs to pay any analyst that kind of money.
You could have Dan Fouts doing Monday night football and
(08:20):
the same number of people are gonna watch, and people
are gonna complain and they're gonna watch, or they're not
gonna watch, because if it's the Jags and the Titans,
less people are gonna watch. If it's the Steelers and
the Cowboys, everybody's gonna watch. No one's gonna say I'm
turning off Jags Titans for Jets Patriots because Troy Aikman's
doing the game. No, no one's doing that. It's just
(08:41):
not happening. It's I don't know why they think this
is such a big deal when it's not going to
affect their bottom line at all, except you're paying a
lot of money out to a guy you don't really
have to pay. Well. I would argue that the people
smarter than us, with access to more umbers than us,
would dispute that, hence the bidding wars that come into play.
(09:05):
But just from a games perspective again, talking about Troy
Aikman in the large esse of games. Yeah, Monday and
football is Monday Night football. But Monday Night Football Jags
Titans versus Monday Night Football. Hey, we gave you another
Kansas City Chargers game or Raider Nation is in the building,
(09:25):
or whatever the case may be. That's got a little
more gravity toss to it. Right, so maybe you've got
a little more of a viewership there and having Troy
Aikman in the booth is helping you maybe tweak how
the schedule gets affected again percentages. Right, it's all, you know,
parts of a larger pie in the decision making process.
(09:46):
But you know you're also looking at advertisers and Troy
Aikman being in the room and executives, whether it's moving
the needle on the ratings. And we can quibble about
that as we will, right, because there were some that
we're telling you football where was dying? How funny is that?
But the idea being that you get to bring to
(10:09):
all the banquets, circuits, all of the sponsors. Hey, this
is Hall of Famer, you know, three times Super Bowl winner,
Troy Aikman. Check it out. He's our lead analyst on
Monday night football. Oh you want a photo? No, that's
that's great, Hey, Troy, can you can you get a
photo from our friends insert company name here that that
has gravitas? Right? That that hell helps? Wait because there's
(10:31):
a lot of ads spending that goes on and those
guys are part of the sales process. Right, you can
you can send autograph pictures of Steve Levy and Brian
Greets has a shame that if you need to, oh
you want to, really, that's what we're gonna We're paying
Troy Aikman to sign autographs to be all. The point
is the meet and the great and being the guy
in the room. There's some clout for the folks at ESPN.
(10:55):
But also when you're talking about your advertising sales, right
and everything else, having that name and that persona associated
with it, you're telling me that doesn't have more clout
than Steve Levy. Sorry Steve Levy, but you fortunately, you're
collateral damage here. I think I think the Steve Leevie's
got great hair, though, I think the main thing is
(11:16):
we have the games and here's you. I could get
you this autograph by Troy Aikman. But take a look.
Here's now you're reducing it and totally discounting everything. I
just said. Which week one is Patriots rams, Week one
is Patriots Rams, Week two is this week three is
yeah you can pay them and and yeah, I'm not
saying it doesn't look good when when you hire Troy,
(11:38):
but you're not saying you're saying it adds no value
and I would argue that if you're gonna pay you
got twenty million dollars, that you've decided that it has
some value to the overall product, not only what you're airing,
but to your bottom line. They they they overrate things
in sports all the time. Companies overrate ESPN, they overrate
things all the time. Be careful, be careful. Give it.
(12:01):
Given what we do for a living, says talk radio
hosts that generate four hours of content or more a night,
we're content guys, man, where the show is on and
we gotta talk, we should be getting paid that kind
of money. No, but but look at look at how
how skewed certain things are. Certain daytime shows. You know,
whether it's a news show or a sport show, whatever
(12:24):
it is, you you would see it written about on
social media or blogged about and or or opined about
on Twitter, and you think it's the biggest thing in
the world, and meanwhile, less than a million people are
watching it. So it's like, Okay, how big of an
impact is it. It It seems like it's so much bigger
than it is when it's really not that big a deal.
And and that's where you get into between what numbers
(12:47):
are and noise. And we've talked about this a lot
on the show. What's trending in the moment is kind
of fun. I mean, you got you said you got
McAfee tridening. You tried to take credit for that, and
you wanted to get paid for that. So now you're
telling me none of that has any meaning. Oh no, no,
I definitely wanted I wanted to get paid for that. Man. No,
I was, hey, I increased I increased streaming for him.
(13:10):
That was a definitive thing because I said what I said,
he had more people streaming, he was making more money.
I actually pushed more people there, unlike announcers and analysts
who don't push any more people to games. You don't
know that from the numbers, you know, so of course
I do. You could have a game with no announcers
like they tried with the with the Jets and the Dolphins,
(13:32):
but you could watch the You could watch the game
on mute and still get everything. You don't need. You Unfortunately,
working in the Fox Sports radio studios on a Sunday
sometimes on those Sunday morning live from London games, I
got no choice. You don't fill in my own color
commentary you don't listen to what analysts have to say anyway,
So what is you sure you do? You call him
(13:52):
an idiot? You don't. You don't know my team? Can
you believe I'll take it from some of the guys
over the score in Chicago, the out of town stupid
of the guy that they assigned to our game. Yeah,
it matters you listen, you take offense. You think everybody
hates your team, That's part of the fun of it.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
(14:14):
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific. I'm George Reister, host of the Reister or
Wrong podcast. This is the intersection where sports, business, society,
and pop culture meet the truth absolute fire Home Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays Facts only. Make sure you check your
(14:37):
feelings at the door, because nobodys is allowed. We keep
it one hundred. This is where real conversations happen. Listen
to the Rights or Wrong podcasts on the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, Fox Sports Radio,
The Jason Smith Show with my bass friend Mike Harmon
(14:59):
kill I mean to say the Knicks decided, Hey, they
couldn't trade Kemba Walker at the deadline. No, no, no,
we tried, we couldn't trade him. Here are after the deadline,
and they decided that, oh, he's gonna sit the rest
of the season and he's got an expiring contract that
Nicks will move on fromhim in the off season. They
could have given away for anything. Yeah, no, no, but
(15:21):
now he's gonna sit for the rest of the season,
so we decided to not trade him to just sit him.
Nix Yo joining us now on the hotline. Who I'm
sure his first words will be Nicks Yo. Fox Sports
won NBA Insider Extraordinaire. He's on Twitter, at Rick Buker,
That is at Rick Buker. What's happening, Rick? How are
(15:41):
we gentlemen? Are we excited to get that second half
of the actually not the second half, it's the last
third of the season going. Are you excited? Are you
ready for that Knicks run? Are you? Hey? Eventually we're
gonna be playing the All Star Game right after the
regular season ends, with a week before the playoffs. That
that's kind of where we're trending. Rix, that's what's going
to happen. Uh, Yeah, if we're going to be playing
(16:05):
the All Star games at all, it's I don't know.
Did the did you guys? Did you guys enjoy the
All Star Game? Did you watch the Altar Game? I
enjoyed the game. I watched chunks of it. I can't
say that I was riveted to my television for two
plus hours. But Saturday I watched it. But Sunday Saturday.
(16:28):
I mean, I love spectacular failures and until I don't,
oh goodness, yeah, until I don't. I look, I'm not
one to say that we should get rid of the
dun Dunk contest because I think they're going to be years.
I do think that they have to do a better
job of who they're selecting. You can't have all brand
new guys who have never been in that that atmosphere
(16:52):
atmosphere before. And I think ultimately, you give a guy
two shots at a dunk, at a particular dunk, and
if you can't do it, you got to do something else.
You just have to move on. Yeah, you have to
move on? Yes, right, I mean here you have to
jump rope for twenty seconds. Yeah you're done. Yeah, well
I like that even better? Yeah? Yeah, double dutch. Yeah, Actually,
(17:17):
you know what if here's here's what happens is if
you don't, if you're not able to execute the dunk
that you want to perform on the big basket, we
bring out one of those nerve hoops and you have
to perform it on that one, and then we're gonna
judge you based on We're gonna judge you based on
that one. So there's a little bit of there's a
(17:39):
little bit of embarrassment that you've been moved to the
to the kiddie pool, but nonetheless you'll be able to
execute it and we can keep we can keep this
thing moving. All right. Well, speaking of keeping it moving,
we'll move past the All Star Game, which really was
dominated by Lebron James and his various quotes of the
weekend about how we'll play is last year with Brawnie
(18:00):
could be anywhere he could go back to Cleveland. And
now we get the reports of how much Lebron and
the Lakers are at odds with each other and things
are really bad. Rick take us behind it. Is it
really at that point where hey, the divorce is inevitable
and now it's just we're just gonna wait and see
how it happens, like what's going on? Well, well you
have to add the last piece. So, because Lebron and
(18:23):
Klutch don't like the negative publicity that came out of that,
they then reached out to Shams and to Stephen Ay,
those are the two guys reached out to them and said,
you know, there's no truth to any of this. We're
not unhappy. I can't I'm not even sure I can
say it with a straight face. We're not unhappy with
(18:45):
the Lakers. We didn't want to move Russ West for
John wall and in a future first round pick. There's
no there's absolutely no truth to any of this. And
my first thought was, well why not? I mean, you
should be like it's got to be one thing or
the other. You can't tell me that you guys are
happy with where things are, So what is it? How
(19:08):
is it that you're not happy? How is it that
you're not communicating anything to the Lakers about where things stands?
How could you? How could you accept the status quo
whatever it might be. So I'm just I'm glad that
I don't, like, I don't have to be that guy,
because I would have a hard time taking that and
reporting that with a straight face. But the reality is, Look,
(19:33):
Lebron likes to do one and one thing only, which
is played for championships, and they're not. He knows quite
clearly that that's not what they have right now, and
he also sees that he doesn't have a clear path
to doing that anytime soon with the Lakers. So it's
a matter of what else can I do? Where else
can I can put my focus on, and how else
(19:54):
can I have the spotlight on me that is not
looking at the fact that I am not on a
championship team. I am not leading a championship team. I'm
not playing for a championship team. What else can I
do to divert the attention from that but still have
the spotlight on me? So to that end, I'm I'm
open for business where where who wants me? Yeah, there
(20:19):
I go. Now you have everybody talking about where's he
going to play? Well, that's good. I mean take over
an All Star weekend and make it all about myriads storylines.
We'll leave LEBRONI one alone for now because that's a
couple of years down the road, but maybe we can
get it next week. But in the interim, how do
you see this work in Rick. I mean, does he
get dealt at the end of the year. Everybody that
(20:40):
keeps wanting to see Anthony Davis traded, I got news
for you. I need to see him on the court
for three weeks straight before I'd actually want a deal
for him. But as the Lebron get dealt. Yeah, And
here's the real here's the truth of it. Here's the
reality is that you can't. It sounds good and there's
a lot of places in the league where you could
say we're gonna cut bait and we're gonna move our
stars and we're gonna rebuild. The Lakers can't rebuild. You
(21:02):
have to the ticket prices, the competition for attention. There
is no way that they can do that unless you're
trading Lebron or Anthony Davis were other stars, and I
don't know how you're going to be able to do
that at this stage. Now, there is one other theory
out there which I give some credence, which is that
(21:25):
Lebron is doing this to set up to get the
payday that Chris Paul and James Harden's going to get.
Chris Paul did get guys in their late thirties who
are getting loaded up by suggesting I am don't know
whether I want to stay or go, and teams are thinking, well,
where would we be if we don't have them, and
(21:46):
so they get the max and paying Lebron, you know, premium.
At this point, you're much like Chris Paul. And presumably
if James Harden gets the deal that everybody expects him
to get, you're gonna be a price at thirty nine,
forty years old. And so but it would give Lebron
one last big pay day. He'd get to stay in
(22:10):
LA and it would be with and You're gonna draft Brownie.
So I get to stay where I am, I get
to continue with the production company. I get paid. And
if I'm getting paid and I'm playing with Brownie, then
I can live with the Lakers not necessarily being a
championship caliber team. Because here's the problem with the whole
idea of him going to an open suitor is he's
(22:31):
got to leave LA. He's got to leave everything that
he's got there, and and probably has to make that
decision sooner rather than later, because I believe that he
has the option to opt out of his deal this summer.
And so that's where the Lakers might have to come
with a premium contract in order to keep him, and
(22:53):
if they don't, then it gets I mean, that's where
his leverage is with the Lakers in order to get paid.
So we'll see how it ultimately plays out. You know,
when I step back and look at it, I have
a hard time believing that Lebron really is interested in
going and playing in Charlotte or Sacramento, or even going
(23:14):
back to Cleveland and playing there. And again we're talking
about that's with Brownie two and a half years from now.
But if he were decided to walk on the Lakers now,
like where now, it gets really interesting. Who's going to
pay him? Where would he go? Who's got the money
to pay him? I just I don't see that as
a realistic move for either side. So at the end
(23:37):
of the day, I think this is a leverage play
to get everything he wants and stay in LA, which
includes as much money as he can possibly get, and
promise that they'll they'll draft Brownie when he's eligible. FS
one NBA insider Rick Buker our guest here the Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carman. All Right, so from Lebron
James we go to Kyrie Irving. All right, we get
the news today that potentially the vaccine mandates is going
(24:01):
to be eased in New York City sometime in the
next month or so. The new mayor talked about it today.
So now Kyrie can go back and play for the Nets,
and Rick, you know, I get that. Boy, Hey, Kyrie
coming back playing full time is going to be great.
But it's not like I guess I would say this,
that's great news. So then in two weeks, I'll wait
(24:22):
for the next controversy that's gonna stop things from happening
for the Nets. So if that, that's great, but I'll
just wait for the next one in two weeks. Yeah. Well,
and it's also I mean, look at the look at
how they've played when Kyrie has played, and now some
of it is because he's in and out. Some of
it they're missing, they're missing Kadi. But the reality is
that even with Kyrie playing, it's not as if they
(24:42):
were winning at any significant clip. They were losing a
lot of games. So it helps that he's back and
he's playing full time. But KDS still out for weeks.
We still don't know the return of Ben Simmons and
we're still what we're still talking about him month, So
we're still looking at the potential of the Nets having
(25:05):
at most a week or two before the playoffs start
where they can get Ben kd and Kyrie on the
floor at the same time and try to develop some
kind of chemistry or symmetry. And that's the assumption that
all of those guys will be back and will be
healthy and will be one hundred percent. So I just
(25:28):
don't know that Kyrie winning the battle, and this is
something that the Nets had been hoping for all along.
He's winning it awfully late in the game. And there's
some other elements here that change the equation. Namely, I
do believe they're better. They can potentially be better with
Ben Simmons than they would have been with James Harden,
(25:51):
But that needs to be demonstrated, and they need to
get all those guys on the floor together and get
a little bit of time before we're actually going to
see that. Rick is Zion Williamson played his final game
with the Pelicans. Well that's my hot take. He's played
his last game with the Pelicans. Rick tell me I'm
right right, yeah, I mean you might be, you might be.
(26:15):
I haven't heard definitively what you know what the plan is,
the question is going to be. And again, this is
another very tricky situation because even if it's we're gonna
sign you, I would fully expect that Zion wants to
get wants to be signed and get the max from
(26:37):
the from the Pelicans, and then demand to be traded.
But in signing that deal or creating that deal, they're
gonna have to put in all sort of sorts of
injury stipulations in it, much like the Philadelphia seventy six
ers did with Joel emb where you just you protect
yourself and you don't do that. The New Orleans Pelicans
don't do that just for them. They do that so
(27:00):
that if they are forced to trade Zion, that they're
able to get a little bit more bang for their
buck in doing so, because other teams are gonna look
at that and they're gonna wait a minute, you gave him,
you gave him the MAX with no protection, like, Okay,
we'll give you this, but we're not going to give
you like everything they need to. And if the relationship
(27:22):
is as fractured as I've been told it is, and
as I've heard it is, then negotiating that thirty five
page contract is not going to be easy. So you
may be right, but there are so many hurdles to
clear before they can even get to the point where
they trade Zion that we need to see how they
(27:43):
navigate all that. I do believe genuinely that Zion is
like it's he's going to be playing someplace else sooner
rather than later. It's just a matter of whether it's
before he ever plays again for the Pelican. He's on
Twitter at Rick Buker, that is at Rick Buker check out,
(28:07):
is on the Ball podcast as well, all the latest
and this this one is dedicated entirely to Kemba Walker
sitting for the rest of the season. Right, that's your
latest one? Actually? Sure? Why not ke Keba Walker? I
will say this, Kemba Walker is mentioned in my very
next podcast and it is, believe it or not, it's complimentary. Wow, okay,
(28:33):
complimentary for him for the Knicks. For him or for
the Knicks, because there's a difference. Now oh oh for
Kemma Kemma the nicktar a lost cause are you kidding me?
More things change, Rick, the more things change at fire Yo. Yeah, yeah,
(28:54):
probably just wait until next year, It's okay, legs of
buying trick taking easy, buddy. Don't forget the on cast
Seebody wore there as well. Check it out again. Good
things about Kemba. Walker can't say many people have said
that so far this year, I can't say. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harman weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
(29:16):
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app Fox
Sports Radio. The Jason Smith Show with my bas friend
Mike Harman just rolled off my tongue. It rolls off
your tongue really well. So Major League Baseball wants us
to know that, hey, things are getting serious right now.
There will be a shortened season if no labor deal
(29:37):
is reached by Monday, February twenty eight. MLBPA and Major
League Baseball, if they can't come to terms, that's what's
going to happen. The games would not be made up,
players would not be paid full season salaries. According to
Major League Baseball, a deadline is a deadline. Missed games
are missed games, salary will not be paid for those games.
(30:01):
If Major League Baseball thinks they're going to negotiate this
through the media. Oh boy, they're just wasting their time,
and they bitch better get it back to the bargaining
table because fans don't care. We don't care anymore. I'm
the biggest baseball fan in the world. You're the biggest
baseball fan. We're the biggest baseball fans here at Fox.
I don't care if they play on time or not.
(30:21):
Let me know when they play. They'll play eventually. This
is not twenty years ago. There's not two thousand and
two where every night it was there's a baseball lockout
looming or a strike and what's going to get it
to be played? And what happens and my kids are
not going to get to see baseball and look what
they're doing, they're ruining the sport. Yeah, we just don't
care anymore. We've been through a lot in the last
(30:42):
couple of years, and you know what, we've missed some things,
and things that we missed we found we don't need
them nearly as much as we thought we did. And
if baseball isn't ready to play, okay, it's coming back
at some point. It will play eventually, and we'll be
ready and I'll be ready when it does, and until
it does there's news that comes out, we'll talk about it.
But if there's no games, they're way okay. If they're
(31:05):
if they think that that, they're gonna try to argue
this through the media, and that's gonna put pressure on
the players to capitulate and say we want to sign.
That's not happening because this is just met with a yeah,
I don't care, and I'm talking and you and Mike,
I know you and I agree on this, and like
I said, we're the biggest baseball fans in the world.
And when I see this story, I go, yeah, great,
it's not two thousand and two. This is not gonna work.
(31:28):
Just sit down and get it done because we don't care.
It's like the old Bill Parcel's line, don't tell me
about the labor, just show me the baby. I don't
care what you have to do, and if you don't
get it done in time, you don't get it done
in time. I don't care. If you play one hundred
and fifty games, one hundred and forty games, one hundred
and thirty games, one hundred and twenty games, I don't care.
I think sports seasons are too long. Anyway, you know,
you get to too much things. It's too much overlap,
(31:50):
and you can't focus enough on Moyna. You play one
hundred forty games. Yeah, I don't care. I don't think many.
I don't think anybody else cares either. I could feel
your brain getting scrambled and frazzled right there. Scrambled. Yeah,
it's it's the idea of you've got century overload and
so many options at your disposal. And I think the
last part, as you started to talk faster, as if
(32:12):
caffeine was kicking in or sugar in that moment, was
the fact that we already have these discussions, both for
the NBA and from Major League Baseball, and sometimes for
the NHL when they're in the mix and in the
discussion for things of this nature of yeah, you can
trim games, right. We had the story from Daryl Morey
(32:33):
the other day saying, yeah, it should be fifty eight,
and we could quibble over over the number, but obviously
the money of it all means it won't happen. But
how many times in a baseball season, like, wow, the
dog days of August? Why is it the dog days
of August? Yeah, it's hot, but it's the all right,
we really need to get to the end of the season.
And with the second wildcard, yeah, more teams are still
(32:55):
in the mix, so there's still that level of excitement,
but there's still a yeah. The first month, we've got
opening days and more opening days, and guys are just
getting into the swing of things. They're in shape, but
they're you know, baseball at that point, it's just all right,
Now we're getting started. First couple of starts are a
little odd. They takes some time for hitters to get
(33:17):
in sync, and eventually you start flowing. Some teams obviously
come out of the gates strong, not saying it's for everyone,
but it takes a while to warm up. Why because
you're watching the end of the NBA regular season and
into the playoffs. You've watched March Madness, you're starting to
watch free agency in football, there's a lot of things
to captivate your imagination and attention span, not to mention
(33:40):
the rest of your life. So trying to assume everybody's
sitting around with bated breath for that first pitch, it
ain't there. I mean, and they should learn from the
last stop it right, is that you know how you
came back, you had a guy that showed up for
work every day that got feeded for it, and then
you had a bunch of cartoon character is running around
(34:01):
and then you wagged your fingers years later because you
felt that society had turned against you, so suddenly it
was wrong. All the millions that you collected while you
had guys pumping stuff into their bodies. Do you want
to repeat of that? Because right now, if you lose
games and you want to get relevance back in, that's
gonna be some of it. You're gonna have some ills
(34:22):
that might might need to happen for you to get
your place back, because a lot of folks are just
gonna say I don't care. Yeah, And look, even the
biggest baseball like I said, Mike, and I'm telling these
big fans, we are with the average fan desided for
the white socks. I got a young squad already, let's go. Look,
even the biggest fans are gonna say that this has
become a tune out because they know the biggest fans
(34:45):
know Rob Manford can't stand the players, hates the players,
hates them, hates them, hates them, and so it becomes
it becomes a rough headline just for that, not that
at least Bud Steely he was, he was, Hey, we
gotta work. I don't want to give the players a lot,
but I wanted to. Rob Manford just out now can't
stand the players. So it's like this is just such
a negative headline in general for not only the average fan,
(35:06):
but the in depth big time baseball fan too. I mean,
there's no win for major League Baseball on this. There's
absolutely none because nobody has any patience for this. Twitter
Twitter at about a fresca. Mike gets swollen down The
Jason Smith Show with my best friend in future World
Series Champion White Sox fan Mike Harmon. Coming up next,
we get back into a story. Well, let's jip. Let
(35:29):
me just say this. We are going to go through
a cleanse coming up next, and see where that takes us.
This is Fox Sports Radio
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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