July 5, 2024 • 42 mins
In the Best of Covino & Rich, Jason Fitz and Kevin Figgers are filling in for the day! Jason and Kevin open the Hour 2 talking Dynasty or Parity, are you happy with a new team dominating every year or would you rather see a team dominating a century!? Next the guys look at one of the NBAs biggest market team the Lakers and debate whether or not they are in a win now mode or a building phase! Finally, the guys look at the newest NCAA video game, EA Sports College Football 25 and what this can mean for the older generation of gamers!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, thanks for listening to the best of Cabino and
Rich podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
So much of the conversation that we have as sports
fans is about what we want, and we're in this
society right now that's looking at absolute domination, for example,
in the NFL, from a dynasty that's clearly happening in
front of our very eyes with the Kansas City Chiefs.
But then we're looking at an MBA where it feels
like a repeat champion is almost impossible to find now.
(00:42):
And the real question is is we look at what
genuinely grabs our interest and we try and figure out
how more sports can cut through in July to get
everybody to pay attention. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
are we craving a dynasty or do we really want parody?
Do we want different every year, or do we want
the easiest hero and villain? The easiest path of this
(01:04):
is the team you've got to knock off the perch
or do we want a season where every year it
feels like every team has a chance, Because if you
look at the numbers, I think you'll be surprised when
you realize that most people frankly want the same old,
same old. It's Cavino and Rich. I'm Jason fitz Kevin Figures.
We're filling in for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
We're broadcasting live from the tyrack dot com studios. Tyrack
(01:27):
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should be figuring. I keep thinking about the NBA, and
we sat a minute ago that I don't think the
Lakers are gonna win a championship anytime soon because I
don't think they can keep up with the modern NBA.
But the modern NBA is truly being built much like
(01:49):
the NFL likes to be built with the mindset of man,
let's have parody. Let's create a salary system that is
going to force teams to do all of the little
things the right way to win. That seems to be
what they're trying to accomplish, which is part of the
reason you and I agreed the Lakers may not be
best suited right now in this NBA to compete. But
as you look at what we have seen the Nuggets,
(02:10):
we're supposed to be this team that could repeat before them,
the Bucks were about to go on a run. Now
everybody will tell you the Celtics will go on and run. Well,
what we've learned is that right now nobody can go
on a run. And if nobody can go on a run,
isn't that what we're supposed to want? Yes, But in
the NFL, what do we have got The Chiefs? The
Chiefs are everybody's angel or devil. Right, so you have
(02:33):
all this parody. You have all this parody sitting there
where any team could go nine to eight or eight nine,
But there's a king in the mountain. So with all
this parody, you're hoping somebody breaks through. I'm trying to
figure out what people really want, because I think there's
a blend. They want to feel like their team has
a shot, but they want to have an easy target
to root against every single year.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, now I think there's kind of two competing emotions
when it comes to that. But I think the Chiefs
are a great example because no sport has promoted parody
and wanted parody more over the last thirty years than
the NFL. We mentioned earlier that you know, everybody's built
to be five hundred, and it's really the best of
the best that have enough juice, enough scouting, good talent
to get to eleven, twelve, thirteen wins. The Chiefs, in
(03:13):
the sport that has promoted parody for the longest, have
found a way to build a level of dominance into
a certain degree of The New England Patriots for twenty
plus years did the exact same thing, and I think
what the NBA is doing it doesn't mean that you
can't have a dynasty. It just makes it more difficult
and it puts more of the onus on the front
office to.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Put in the work.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You know, going back to our Laker discussion, it was
so easy for the Lakers to say, we're LA, We're
a franchise of stars, come play for us. The weather's great, Yeah,
the taxes are high, but there's so many other things.
You're playing for a marquee franchise and we can pay,
we can afford to pay more money than anybody else can. Well,
that's no longer the case at this point in time.
It's more of a level playing field. Doesn't mean the
(03:53):
Lakers can't be successful, but they have to be just
as savvy as Oklahoma City, or just as savvy as
the Clippers or across town. Even though the Clippers have
a lot of money, they didn't willingly spend it on anybody,
was very calculated in how they did it. I don't
think there's anything wrong with forcing franchises to be measured
and be intelligent with how they actually built the infrastructure
(04:15):
of their system to make sure they put a winning
product on the floor or on the field, while also
making sure they cultivate for the future at the same time.
It's difficult to do, but the best franchises are the
ones who are able to do that and sustain success
over a long period of time. And I don't think
that's necessarily a bad thing for leagues to encourage teams
to operate that way.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I think leagues have to at some level because what
do you end up with. Look at some of the
fails we have right now. I would say the golf
right now has been going through an identity crisis for
a minute. We all know that, and it's because Tiger
was so great and now in order to get the
next Tiger, which is the only thing when you've had Tiger,
the only way people are going to when you have Tiger,
(04:56):
the only way that you can sort of replace Tiger
is to have somebody come out and exceed Tiger. Right,
that's not happening. So that's part number one you need.
But even look at yesterday, I will go back to
this over the course of our time. We've talked about
this a lot over the course of the last few hours,
the hot dog eating contest. What do we have yesterday?
We have a new champion, but Joey Chestnut wasn't there.
(05:17):
And the first thing people say isn't finally Joey goes down.
It's well, can't even top Joey, Like Joey did better
than that. We even want domination to a certain level
in hot dog eating. We want to look, if somebody
can take down Joey Chestnut, that's fine, but they better
get a better number and then immediately as well, Joey
ate more than five minutes. Like it's all of these
comparisons because there is some level of we as a
(05:40):
society love to have one easy mark, whether it's a
mark for greatness or a mark for what we're going after,
Like we all want to know who's at the top
of the leaderboard and how to go after him. And
so you're right, it takes this measured approach for a
team to get there. It's part of what we have
to acknowledge. But I'm not sure we as a society
or even ready for that. If the the NBA goes
(06:00):
through a period of fifteen years where they never have
a back to back champion, I honestly don't think that's
going to be good for the sport. It's having parody
feels good, but not having somebody that's easy to target isn't.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And well, you know what a healthy mix of that is.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And I don't know if they'll ever go through a
fifteen year stretch where there won't be your repeat champion.
But maybe you need a team like Boston to say, ah,
we won three championships in seven years, or Golden State,
I won two championships in six years and you're always
in the hunts. It's a difference between a team that
just wins every single solitary season. Four straight championships, five
straight championships, even if it's five out of seven years,
(06:35):
whatever it is, and just a team that's always just
kind of middling around always finds them. You know, the
Utah Jazz never won a championship in the Malone Stockton years,
but they were a shoe in for the second round
and or the conference finals for about a six to
seven year stretch. Always be in the hunt, but you
don't necessarily have to hoist the trophy every single solitary time,
because I think that ends up wearing on people to
(06:55):
a certain degree. Look back at the Cavaliers in Golden State,
when every year for four straight years, you new exactly
going into the season, there's a greater than ninety percent
chance that's exactly what we're going to have. And I
think that, as much as anything, there's other factors as well,
is a bigger reason.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Why NBA Finals ratings kind of went down. Everybody knew
exactly what we're gonna see.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's gonna be Cleveland, it's gonna be Golden State, and
Golden State's probably gonna end up winning in five or
six games because the deck was so stacked against everybody else.
It just wasn't even entertaining anymore. You can have great games,
great talent spread across the league. I can have Minnesota
play Denver in the conference finals this year, if then
one of them they play each other again in the
first round next year, and then another one again two
(07:35):
years from now, they play again in the conference finals.
It can be a cyclical situation where a handful of
teams are all competitive, but not one team is always
at the top of the mountain every single time. I
do think, yes, dominance from that standpoint is bad, but
having a certain number of teams that you could bank on, Hey,
this team has a legitimate shot over the next four
years to make it too the conference finals.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
A couple of times.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I think that's actually healthy for the sport because it
has enough up predictability to actually allow to be able
to be sucked in a little bit and still have
some interest.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I mean, take it a step farther. He's Kevin Figers.
I'm Jason fitzwer In for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
If you take it just a little step farther, you're
describing the New England Patriots. Sure they were in every
Super Bowl or AFC Championship game. He always knew they
were the best team. They didn't always win it, you know,
eighteen and one certainly didn't. Doesn't hit the right way
(08:24):
for Patriots fans.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
But what did you have there?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You had a whole bunch of other teams that were
really good, and you had them be pushed, but you
knew that constantly they were going to be at or
near the top of the ladder. So you have this
era of Peyton Manning and the Colts trying to get
through the Patriots while the Patriots are there, and even
if they get to the Super Bowl, sometimes they're losing
the Super Bowl. These are all that's sort of the
description that you're giving there. Like the Celtics skull in
(08:47):
this dominant run where every year they're in the Eastern
Conference finals or they're in the Championship, but they lose
a bunch of those along the way, still gives people
enough hope that they feel like there's rooting for something
Like it's funny just as a society we want winner
until they win too much, Like we want we want
athletes to be the greatest until they're so great that
it gets boring, Like we want world records until all
(09:08):
they do is set world records. It's just such a
fine line on what we want to gravitate towards more
interest on it. But I do think that maybe the
model here is to look at one team and say, man,
I want them to keep getting there and then not
getting the job done, which I mean, if we're being real,
we just lived with the Celtics for several years. Did
(09:30):
their championship right now? Feels kind of good in everybody's
hearts if you're not a Celtics hater, because you're like, yeah, look,
these guys put in so much time together, like all
of these different you know, it feels good that they
finally won one. If they could keep now getting into
that cycle where they lose, they win, they lose, they win,
that might be the best thing for general interest.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
But also part of the general interest part of it,
I think.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And the Celtics are a great example because this was
this was what year seven of Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum,
and how many people for the last two off seasons
have been talking about blow this thing up.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Clearly a dozen work. It was like, how can you
say something.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
El work with two guys who are under the age
of twenty five years old and that have been together
for six years. That's just the microwave society that we
live in. There's a level of accomplishment if you're a
Celtic fan today, you know, coming off of that parade
a few weeks ago and then winning a championship, there's
a part of you that appreciates that they grew from
those poor experiences losing to Miami in the conference finals
a couple of years. You know, all the issues that
(10:21):
they've had. You feel like you accomplished something, you grew through,
something you went through all of the issues that they
went through at the same time. Just being able to
wake up, roll over and sign the heatles together and
start winning championships two years later, it just feels different.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It feels a lot different.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
As opposed to a team that you actually, you know,
saw go through the growing pains and actually, you know,
win together, learn how to win together and grow together.
I think as a fan, just from an individual team standpoint,
it hits a little bit differently when your team that
you saw go through the battles and actually grow into
a champion, as opposed to a team that was just
ready made slap together through a bunch of free agents
(10:55):
and actually wins a championship. And I think it's probably
more subconscious if you're not a team a fan of
an individual team, but you sort of feel that way too,
the fact that Boston can stick it out and actually
build something, because it tells you if you're Oklahoma City
or if you're another smaller market team that doesn't necessarily
draw in free agents, if we draft the right guys
put the right guys around them. You know, Boston didn't
(11:16):
do anything special. They didn't sign any major free agents,
the Horfords and the Porzingises, and they trade it for
all those guys they were, So there's there's a method
to be able to do it. They showed that through
patients and shrewd drafting and trades, they can get it done.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And if they can do it, why not us.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I do think I'm left to wonder constantly what would
have happened to the Bulls when they couldn't get past
the Pistons. If Twitter had existed in that era, If
twenty four to seven people yelling about wasted teams had
existed in that era, what would have happened to one
of the greatest teams and franchise and sports moments we've
ever seen in our lives, if we hadn't been, if
(11:57):
we'd been in a society that's as impatient as the
one is now, right, That's the factor I think we
have to remember sometimes and I want and.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I want people to stop saying, like Michael Jordan got criticized.
There was this column in USA Today and he was
called the ball hog. Yes he was sure. All of
that is turned up by a trillion today. You know,
you had to wait a week for USA Today to
come out. At that point in time. Living in Chicago,
you didn't get the whatever that was put in a
column in the LA Times or something. You probably didn't
(12:25):
even see it, or the New York Post. It's so
much different nowadays because all these guys are on social media.
They see all the criticism that they get, and they
get constantly reminded of it every single second of every
single day. And as much as you say I just
turned social media off and ignore it, it's easy for
you to say that, it's much more difficult to do
in practicality.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
And so you're right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I do wonder, I do wonder how that would have
hit if we had this sort of media exposure.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Now, if we hadn't been, I should say, as we have.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Now, every single TV in America wasn't on USA today
in every airport, like right, I would just tell you
fly once and look at all of the TVs and
as you walk to the airport, ask how everybody shuts
that noise off?
Speaker 5 (13:05):
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Speaker 2 (13:47):
Some franchises have to make moves for relevance just stay
in the news to sell jerseys, to be part of
the conversation. Some franchises draft thinking about what it means
for what their fans want. Some franchises hire coaches for
the same reason. But one of the franchises it's supposed
(14:09):
to be above all of that is the Lakers. So
the question is, why aren't they acting like it. It's
Gabino rich on Spots Sports Radio, Kevin Figures Jason fitzwre
in for the guys as we get you covered through
everything you need to know coming at you from the
ti raq dot com studios, and hear me out on this.
I think that there are certain franchises that I don't
(14:32):
care how their coach wears the hat. I don't care
whether or not their newest draft pick sells a bunch
of jerseys. I care, frankly about one thing. I care
about whether or not that franchise wins championships.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
They're only judged by that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
We want to say that's the way everybody is in sports,
but that's not real. The way certain franchises are viewed though.
It's about just one thing wasting a trophy, and that's
supposed to be the way The Lakers do business. Somebody
explained to me, if that's the way they do business,
what the Lakers are actually doing right now? I don't
know if JJ Reddick's going to be a good hire.
I don't think any of us do. But I know this,
(15:10):
You can't tell me equivocally that he makes you closer
to a championship. I don't know if the fifty fifth
draft pick is really supposed to matter.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
Who does? We could talk all day long. Was it
a valuable draft pick? Now? But Bronni's sticking around? Does
that keep Lebron happy? Great? For what? For what?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This version of the Lakers is not going to win
a championship. So when we start the season right now,
when we start the next NBA season, we can definitively
go out there and say, hey, putting money on the
Lakers to win a chip is a waste of cash.
When's the last time the Lakers went through any sustained
period where they, frankly just weren't even part of the
(15:49):
championship conversation. So, congratulations, you kept Lebron happy. Congratulations you
got Lebron and ad. Congratulations you got Bronny, you got
the coach. Sure, maybe everybody feels like that's the right
way to treat a superstar. But Kevin figures, if you
ask me, what the Lakers have really told you is
that they'd rather make sure everybody's happy then actually get
themselves into the rebuilt process that is inevitable towards trying
(16:12):
to get themselves to a championship because they got.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
No shot with this roster.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah, you ultimately find yourself in no man's land because
are you trying to build for the future or are
you trying to win right now? In basketball, I think
one of the few sports where it's really difficult to
do both.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
You can do it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
In Major League Baseball, you have all the minor leagues
and you got fifteen thousand draft picks. You have a
finite number of roster spots with a certain number of
guys who make a certain amount of money at certain
ages on your roster, and so you really have to
make make sure you know what direction you're going in.
And while catering to Lebron James, even though he's still
one of the great players, one of the best players
in the league top three, I think, even based on
(16:45):
the way that he played last season, and Anthony Davis,
who had a great season last year, was able to
stay healthy. Doubt he'll be able to stay as healthy
going into this next season. You know, what have you
really done to try to improve the roster to try
to impact winning Now, now some of that is out
of their hands. Maybe the trade market it's not what
you wanted it to be. Maybe guys opting into their
contracts when you didn't expect them to.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
But frankly, that doesn't necessarily matter.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
If you're saying you're a team that's chasing championships, you
know people want to see you put in the work
and try to make moves to make sure that you
put yourself in a position to be able to do that,
and they haven't done that at this point in time.
They're bringing back basically the exact same roster from last
year and saying, well, hopefully the Dangel Russell is better,
Hopefully Vanderbilt stays healthy, and Gabe Vincent and hopefully we'll
be drug kicking and screaming or drag kicking and screaming
(17:28):
into the modern era of NBA basketball with JJ reddick
By shooting more three pointers. I don't feel like just
aok coaching was bad last year. Fits I'm not gonna
deny that darbn Ham was not the greatest head coach
even the year before when they went to the rest
in Western Conference Finals. There are definitely some tactical issues.
So but the problem is how much of an improvement
is he actually is? JJ Reddick. If he is an improvement,
(17:49):
quint actually have this on this roster, on this team,
five wins, six wins, If even that, does it make
him even more of a contender this coming season than
they were last year? I don't believe.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
So.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I think the issue what the Lakers there's they're kind
of caught in a rock and a hard place, and
really it's all the doing of Genie Buss going off
of this franchise principle of we need to please and
appease our star players, take care of our guys, and
there's nothing wrong with that to a certain degree, but
business has to trump that and they should have learned
from the final years of Kobe Bryant. You said, when
(18:20):
was the last time the Lakers had an extended period
of time of not being a factor. Kobe's last couple
of years extended beyond that for a couple of years.
I'd say maybe seven years where they were routinely winning
between seventeen and twenty one games a year. They were terrible,
but at the very least they had a plan. They
knew they were bad, they knew they were going to
get some draft picks. Now, granted, they struck out in
free agency for some star players, but at the very
(18:40):
least they went into.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
A lot of those seasons knowing, we're gonna be bad.
Let's try to cultivate some young talent.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Use these draft picks and make sure we hit on
some of these guys, and maybe we can end up
turning it around. A lot of those draft picks ended
up turning into Anthony Davis. They won a championship in
the bubble. The problem now is Lebron James is forty,
Anthony Davis has the body of a forty year old
that seems like, and the pieces around them are not
good enough to compete in an ever improving Western Conference.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I really don't know exactly what direction they're going in,
because I don't think they know what direction they're going in.
All they know is we want to upease Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
We want to retire with his jersey and give him
a statue and give him everything that he wants because
he's a clutch client, and we want to play nights
with Rich Paul because a lot of these guys coming
into the league are going to be clutch clients and
we want to make sure we're on their good side.
That's kind of the way that I look at it,
because otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It doesn't make any sense. He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason
fitz in Forra Cavino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio.
The Lakers were the seventh seed last year. Now, the
West was tight, so they were what three games away
from being the five seed? Four games away from being
the four seed? All right, so let's jump breaks. Let's
say everything breaks the right way for the Lakers. Okay,
you get a miraculous big season out of Ad, you
(19:49):
get another he stays healthy, you get another big season
out of Lebron somehow, some way, maybe you're the four
or five seed. But are you suddenly going to be
the team that everybody better than the Nuggets at that
point consistently? Are you on the same plane as the Celtics.
The Celtics would destroy the Lakers as currently constructed, right, Like,
So I just I look at all of this and
I say, for what, Like, there are certain teams that
(20:13):
simply can't handle a rebound. And I asked this at
the time when Oklahoma City was losing everybody. My question was,
what is the cost of relevance? How much should you overpay,
no matter what it costs, just to make sure that
people realize you're a basketball franchise. And it took Oklahoma
City a long time to bounce back from losing the
stars they had. We all know that some franchises will
(20:34):
struggle through that period. The Lakers will get a lot
of anger, the fans will be mad, but it's not
like their fan base is suddenly going to deteriorate. They
don't have to worry about losing the market that the
damn Lakers like. So go act like the Lakers and
be honest with people. Look around and say, hey, guys,
we're at a spot now where we go we gotta
rebuild this thing. We got to figure out a different
way to do it because the way we're doing it
(20:55):
isn't working. Otherwise, all you're doing, yeah, you're putting stars
out and we'll talk about it. Everybody will talk about
it because the Lakers resonates so great, you'll continue to
be relevant as a brand, But how long will that last?
Like how many years in a row before the Lakers
essentially become the Dallas Cowboys where we talk about them,
but not for any championship they've won in memory like
the Lakers. While they I know it feels staggering to
(21:16):
say this, because we did have a Bubble championship in
twenty twenty, I feel like the Lakers are a hell
of a lot closer to going through a period like
the Knicks went through where all they were was basically
irrelevant for twenty years than they are to being where
the Celtics are right now.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Twenty twenty Bubble championship was essentially their saving grace because,
quite honestly, their last few seasons with Kobe, I would say,
basically after Phil Jackson had his final season, either twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, whatever that was, you had a couple of
playoff appearances. It's been downhill for the Lakers for thirteen
fourteen years, with a blip on the radar being that
twenty twenty championship. Other than that, they haven't been a
(21:50):
great franchise. They've missed the playoffs more than they've made it,
I believe, or if not more than they've made it,
they've missed it just as often as much as they've
made it. They're a mediocre franchise and have been for
a long period of time. You use the Oklahoma City example,
and look, maybe it doesn't fly as much in big
markets as it does in small markets. Although I'd argue
even though the process of Philadelphia didn't necessarily work, I mean,
(22:12):
you did get Joel and be out of it Ben
Simmons up before his major knee injuries, and obviously his
other concerns was trending towards being a really good impact
player for years to come.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You can say that they at least had a plan
in place.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I think most fan bases these days will appreciate if
you have a plan and know exactly what you're doing.
Oklahoma City realized that Westbrook and Paul George wasn't working,
blew it up, got a bunch of draft picks, got
Shay Giogos Alexander and hope for the best and make
and hope that he would turn into a great player.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
He has.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They've hit on those draft picks. Now, all of a
sudden you got ched Holmgren, who's getting better. They've now
used some of the money they have a freed up
to sign some some veterans in the free agent market,
and I think they're going to be one of the
top contenders to come out of the Western Conference next
season because of it. It took a little longer than
you would like, but at the very least they had
a plan in place, and now it's coming to fruition.
I feel like fan bases, whether it's the Knicks, the Lakers,
(23:03):
whatever else, will be willing to be patient with a
franchise if they know exactly if the franchise has a
plan in place in what direction they're going in. The
problem with the team like the Lakers, is no one
really knows because it seems to change every other year.
Why would you blow up a championship roster two years
after you just want to title on the bubble to
bring in Wilsell Westbrook, who everybody knew wasn't a fit,
(23:24):
just to appease Lebron. A lot of these things keep
going back and forth to appeasing Lebron James, trying to
appease your star as opposed to doing what's best for
the franchise. Sometimes those things are mutually exclusive. Sometimes you
have to be able to tell them no. Now it
sounds like most recently although Bronni James being drafted. Notwithstanding,
they say Lebron is taking a step back from making
personnel decisions unless the front office do what they want
(23:46):
to do. Well, thanks Lebron. That helps a lot. Now
now that the roster is stuck with contracts they can't
trade and players that nobody wants and we can't even
improve the roster, we greatly appreciate it. Where was this
three years ago? I think that's where their frustration sits
with a lot of Laker fans.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
Right now, here's the real truth. The NBA has passed
the Lakers by. I'll explain what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
First, I want figure to get everybody caught up on
the Latest Greatest what's going on. But the fact is
the NBA has passed the Lakers by. We'll tell you
why in a second.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Well, Latest Greatest.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
If you go to the quarterfinal action of Euro twenty
twenty four and you don't like scoring a lot of goals,
you're gonna love this matchup between Portugal and France. They
are headed to penalty kicks. Now this game you can
see on Fox. Portugal has dominated time of possession both
teams with just a couple of shots on goal. That's
been as defensive as a matchup as you can expect
from high class international soccer. So again, Portugal and France
(24:35):
check that out right now on Fox. The winner of
this matchup will take on Spain and the Semi Spain
went into extra time against Germany earlier today and won
that matchup two to one. Tonight at nine Eastern on
FS one, you'll see Canada take on Venezuela in the
quarterfinals of the Copa America Tournament.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Third round action at Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
On the men's side, Joan nick Center won his matchup
in straight sets, as did Tommy Paul in a match
that lasted almost four hours. Carlos Alcoraz outlasted Francis Tiafo
in five sets. On the ladies' side, Madison Keys and
Coco Golf won their matchups in straight sets as well.
Third round action there and wobbled it on the lady side.
And Major League Baseball says Azuki with the home run
for the Cubs. They defeated the Angels five to one,
(25:16):
and speaking of the NBA. Some news earlier today from
Shamsharinia of the athletic forward Franz Wagner agreeing to a
five year contract extension with the Orlando Magic where two
hundred and twenty four million dollars. It could be worth
as much as two hundred and seventy million dollars.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
All right, back to the Cavino A Rich show.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
All right, it's Cavino and Ritz coming at to live
from the ti iraq dot com studios. He's Kevin Figures,
I'm Jason fitz In for the guys. It's simple. The
NBA has passed the Lakers by This is real. There
is a point where you got to look at the way.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Business is being done.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
You got to look at what's successful, and then you
got to figure out how you're going to fit into
that model. What has the Lakers model ben for as
long as we can remember, go find the stars, sign
the stars, bring the stars in, and make sure that
the stars play together nice. We'll try and win some championships.
All right, That's been the model. Whether we're talking about
I know, Kobe being the outlier trading for on draft day,
but whether we're talking about trading for Shack, whether you're
(26:10):
talking about trading for a million players that didn't work
out at one period. You look at the way that
they've worked things over the course of the years. The
Lakers have been about star power, right It's about showtime.
It's about getting butts in the seats with that energy
and that excitement and that brand value, all of these
things that are tremendous and all of these things that
are true to the way business was done in the
NBA before and not now. I think we can learn something,
(26:33):
Biggie from the Celtics and the way that they brought
their roster together, right like, there is some element of
let's get some homegrown talent, let's get them to play
a bunch of games together, let's rise that talent together.
Look at what we've seen over the last couple of
champions There is a method right now between what the
Nuggets have done, what the Celtics have done. You just
mentioned Oklahoma City, the way they're trying to do it
with the new CBA, with the complications and acquiring talent,
(26:56):
with the tax complications there are there. With the mathematics
degree that it takes to figure it all out.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
One thing is very clear.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
If you want to win, I believe in the modern
NBA you are going to have to draft, You're going
to have to build, and then you're going to have
to patiently let it grow together, and then at the
last second, like a perfect cake, you can sprinkle on
some cupcake stuff at the top. You can sprinkle on
some little extras, bring in one little guy here, one
extra piece there. That's fine, but that can't be the
(27:22):
way you build it. You have to actually build a
structure and then use the one extra piece as a
little augmenting portion that gets you to greatness.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
That's not the way.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
The Lakers have dumb business, and I don't know that
they know how to do business in that process because
it requires patients, and it requires a path, and it
requires persistence, and it requires a plan and the ability
to say, guys, we're going to get there, but it's
going to take three or four years. The Lakers have
never been there. Lakers fans have never been there. The
Lakers organization doesn't know how to do this. The modern
(27:52):
way to win in the NBA doesn't match with the
way Figgy The Lakers do business.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Which is a lack of awareness on their part in
many facets. I mean, we can extrapolate this out to
the last decade. They're one of the last teams to
actually incorporate an analytics department. I mean, they didn't even
have that in place.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
One of the talking points for JJ Redick when he
was hired, he said, Oh, I want to hire someone
to develop my program with nutrition and analytics and all
this stuff. And people are saying, you didn't already have
somebody in this role in the building already, And it's
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
The day that the Laker mystique died is when they
did a free agent pitch to the Marcus Aldridge and
did all this all these history onics with We're gonna
have your name on billboards and put you in commercials
and do all this stuff. This is the Laker brand,
And the Marcus said, what are you guys gonna do basketball.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Wise to entice me to come here.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
The fact that they weren't aware enough at that point
in time to realize that they should be doing something different.
That's selling The Laker mystique means nothing, or at least
means very little to players anymore. These days, you can
win anywhere you could be a superstar anywhere. You can
be a superstar in Oklahoma City, you can be a
superstar in Oakland.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
You can be a super It doesn't matter it's an
international sport. In Milwaukee, no one cares.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
At this point in time, You're gonna get endorsement deals
because the NBA is a global sport, So the market
that you play in doesn't matter whether it's an I look,
the Knicks learned this a long time ago. How many
free agents that they strike out on when they were
trying to sell people on come to the garden and
do this and do that, and you know what, the
Knicks are successful again. And how have they done it?
They built a roster full of grinders. This is basically
the Knicks for the nineties. No superstar player, really good players.
(29:20):
I mean, you know, Brunson is turning into an all
star sort of player, and he's only going to get better.
But it's basically him surrounded by a bunch of tough,
hard nosed, defensive guys building the right roster.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Your point right there. I have yelled in screen this too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I've had this argument with Steven a where everybody says, well,
you gotta.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Come play with the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Why if you're a twenty four to twenty five year
old kid, all you know of the Knicks is a
bunch of bad basketball right for the last year, right Like,
there is this level of yeah. But the Garden I
will never forget we were playing when we were touring,
I played Madison's Square Guard. My right arm is a
tattoo of all the places that might like the places
I've lived in the moments in my career, in my
life that I'm proud of st A part of that
(29:59):
is the Madison Square Garden logo. Like I grew up
spending a lot of time in New York. That show
meant so much to me. And I remember walking into
that venue and I had goosebumps, man, because we had
a sold out show at Madison Square Garden, And I
remember a guitar player in the band that was, you know,
probably fifteen years younger than me, looked over and he said,
this place is a shole.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
That's the first thing he said.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I got the dump, and the guys walked in, They're like, man,
this place stinks like nobody. The next night, we were
at Barclay's doing the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show thing and
immediately everybody's like, man, this arena is much nice, and
then the Garden, like they were kids, so the history
didn't necessarily mean the same thing to him. But I
looked at that and I was like, God, there's a
lot of kids that are coming like they don't remember
(30:40):
watching wrestling in the eighties at the Garden and being like,
oh my god, this is so cool. Like those moments
didn't they didn't resonate the same. So if you're twenty
three years old and you're playing basketball, the only thing
you know about the Knicks and the Garden is what
your dad told you, right, Like, that doesn't hit the
same way.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
And you're right at this point, you.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Can be honest and be as rich as anybody playing
in Milwaukee.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And I think that's the thing that the Laker franchise
to your point, as far as them, you know, being
behind on the times just doesn't understand.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
You know, no one cares anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I'm not saying that being a Laker doesn't mean something
that you can't appreciate the legacy of the franchise and
all the great players who've won that jersey. You can
have an appreciation for it and also say, you know, what.
This isn't the best decision for me professionally, because I
don't think that you guys at the top know what
you're doing.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
So I'm gonna go ahead and b side of this.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Far as many people as who made fun of Maggie
Johnson for his press conference and say it, I'm not
gonna be here anymore. There was a reason behind it,
because I think Maggie Johnson knew the direction of the
franchise and how they were operating up top, and he
was like, I really don't think I can succeed. And
I succeeded everything that I touched. I don't think it's
gonna work here, and so he decided to walk out.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Dan Hurley elected to remain the head coach at the
University of Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Right that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Look, I live ten minutes from that campus. I know
what Ucon basketball means. I know how important it is
to coach. I know his family really loves the scenery there.
I know all of those things. But if I invented
a time machine and I went back and told you
that Dan Hurley to ten, fifteen, twenty years ago would
turn down the Lakers job to stay in Hartford, I mean,
(32:15):
what would we think, what would that.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And you know a lot of people say, well, you know,
cost of living, all these things up. Hartford's got the
second highest tax rate in the country. Connecticut has the
second highest tax rate in the country. Like he would
have actually taken a gotten a massive raise by moving
to California, as obscene as that sounds, because the taxes
are so incredible.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I live there. I know this.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Like there's this moment of Dan Hurley turned down the
Lakers that to me still says something about the fact
that now we live in a global economy where if
you are great at whatever you are doing, you're making
so much money that money won't be the thing that
it has to be to move you from one spot
to the other. Like if Hurley felt like there was
even on even level playing field. He's made it clear
(32:56):
he wants to go to the NBA at some point.
If the two jobs are on level playing field, he
might jump. He prefers Connecticut. What does that say?
Speaker 3 (33:03):
But it also says to this point, because he also
set this to Dan Lebattard a couple of days later,
there's a price. I don't know what it is, but
there's a price that would have pried me away. Now,
the reported price was one hundred million dollars. The reported
offer from the Lakers was seventy. So again, you offer
him seventy And what are you saying in your pitch meeting?
We won't give you a hundred. But we're the Lakers
(33:24):
and Phil Jackson coached here, and Jerry West was here
and all these other people were here. Don't you want
to be a part of that legacy? And if I'm
Dan Hurley, I'm like, no, I want a hundred million
dollars to up in my family, up and move from
everything that I've ever known.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
You got to make it worth my while. That's not
a home run swing. A home run swing has given
the guy whatever he wants. And if you truly cove
him the way that you say you covered him, you'll
give him what he wants.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
That price tag can't be too high. If you're the
Lakers and you love him as much as you say
that you love him, you'll give him whatever he wants.
But that's exactly that's a perfect example of the Lakers
being behind all the times. We'll offer you less because
we're giving you the opportunity to be a part of
what we do.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Looking at it the other way around.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And it says everything about their brand value that they
don't understand that, the fact that they thought that simply
being the Lakers would allow them some flexibility, and the
fact that it doesn't says everything. If his number is
one hundred million dollars, then that doesn't matter if it's
coming from Milwaukee, or that matters if it's coming from
the Lakers. That speaks to the very brand thing that
(34:23):
we're talking about. And I just don't know how the
Lakers are going to do business in that environment. I
don't think it's going to get any easier for LA
over the course in the next couple of years, as
wild as that sounds. So speaking of wild, what if
I told you for all of the doldrums dog days
of summer, what if I told you we are only
days away from one of the best July days that
(34:43):
you will ever have if you are a sports fan,
I'm telling you it's right around the corner, and we'll
tell you what it is coming up next. But first,
if there's one feeling, and I know more than anything,
it's the electric buzz a game day all around you
and when you're looking for that same vibe, which you
gotta do is you gotta check out graduate hotels.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
That's right. Fits.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
A stay at graduate hotels is like stepping onto the
field in those college towns.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
No, yeah, no doubt. Figure. In fact, I've been to
a bunch of them. They're great.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
They all kind of echo the campus of the place
that they're closest to. Camino and Rich The Boys are
going to be at the brand new Auburn location, broadcasting
live Friday, September twenty seventh for the game day weekday
of the of the.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Tigers versus the Sooners.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Say what you want to me, This is an incredible
thing here because they are so unique to the places
that they've been. I went to the Guys Show in Nashville.
It was incredible. College football is in graduates, DNA graduates
all about bringing the charm and legacy you love about
your alma mater into one of a kind hotel experiences.
They have over thirty locations across the US and UK,
(35:46):
and we promised they're like no hotel you've ever stayed
at before.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
So you want to keep that game day spirit alive
and book your stay at graduatehotels dot Com.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Graduate hotels because they're graduate where we are all student.
One event coming up in July that you cannot wait for.
It's only a few days away. You'll be hyped. We'll
tell you about it next. Cavino and Rich, Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz figging it, findle in it.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Scavino, I'm Rich on Fox Sports Radio. Coming
at to live from the tiraq dot com studios. Chason Fitz,
Kevin figures in for the guys. Gotta tweet.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Judy tweeted us and said, I can't wait for you
in the clown working with you today to eat your words.
Hitting on LA analytics stinks. I'm paraphrasing. Gotta feel the
game and play the game. I hope JJ and Lebron
shut up everyone. Okay, I mean, look, I got no
skin in the game. I don't really like Fine. If
the Lakers turned around to win a championship, good for them.
(36:53):
I don't think it's gonna happen. It's just that For me,
it's kind of that simple. I don't think it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Well fits as someone who has getting ino the game,
who considers themselves still a Laker fan, I hope I'm wrong.
You know, few people are more critical of their favorite
team than I am. So if I feel like they're
doing something that's holding them back and basically holding back
to their ability to be able.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
To win, I'm going to call it out.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I'm not going to be some fanboy that just worships
every single thing that they do, because I'm not being
fair to myself and basically fair to the team at
that point in time.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Hold the team accountable.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
If you're the Lakers and you hold yourself to a
high standard the way that you say you do, then
the fans just hold you to a high standard too.
And if there's something that you're doing that's not putting
you in the best position possession position I should say
to be successful, then I'm going to call you out
on it.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
We're coming at to live from the tyrack dot Com studios.
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I love everybody comes in super confident. I'm like, okay,
like you tell me, then, I mean you're willing to
insert and tweeter here whoever's coming at it. You willing
to bet your house on the Lakers winning a championship
this year, because I share.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
As hell wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
You're willing to bet your house on the Lakers winning
a championship in the next three years, I share as
hell wouldn't. I mean, if I got to take the
Lakers or the field for the next three years to
win a title, I feel pretty good about that.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
I'm gonna end up owning your house.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
That's just I have no confidence in JJ and Lebron
to be able to bring home a championship in the
next three years. And that's just what usually the Lakers
have been judged by, Like the Lakers have created the
very standard that makes this life difficult for them that
when they are doing these things, they get questioned to
that level.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Figuring right, Yeah, And there's a difference between hope and faith.
I hope the Lakers do great. I hope Bronni James
starts into a great role player contributor. Hoped Dalton connect
makes an impact as a rookie. Hope Lebron James and
Anthony Davis stay healthy. D'angela Russell if he stays there,
figures things out, and they stay healthy and they make
a deep run.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Do I have faith that's gonna happen?
Speaker 5 (38:39):
No?
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Why should I Please tell me why I should have
faith that any.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Of that stuff is gonna end up sussing itself out
of the course of eighty two games and put the
Lakers in a position to compete for a championship going
into the playoffs. I have no faith in that, and
there's no way I've been given no reason to have
faith in that. But I certainly hope it happens. That's
two different things, though.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason Fitzen for the guys. All right,
so we're about a week away. What's your level of excitement?
Because EA Sports College Football Game comes out for the
pre ordered people on July sixteenth, I think it's July
nineteenth for everybody else. The level of excitement FIGI because, like, look,
you and I both love college football, right and for me,
and part of this is just about the opportunity to
(39:20):
see so many of the experiences that we fall in
love with on Saturday. That's what the game needs to
capture and it will capture from everybody I've talked to
that's looked at it.
Speaker 6 (39:30):
Or played it.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yet the game has to capture the experience as much
as anything.
Speaker 6 (39:34):
That's why this is going to be so special.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
I don't remember ever seeing a more hyped video game
release in sports than what we're seeing here. And I
know people all over the place that are just they're
ready to take the day off, sit down with their buddies,
and play games all day, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
I mean this is I waste the days of my
life back in the day playing this college football, especially
in the Dynasty Motor Legacy mode whatever it was called.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
You can go out and actively recruit.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
And obviously they've made so many any different enhancements to
that situation that I haven't even seen yet. There's like
a new trailer coming out every single week of the
new things that they're doing. The problem with me fits
is I wonder if I just missed the boat. It
has been gone for so long, I've forgotten about it.
I've moved on to other things. Do I have to
invest in buying a game, video game system that can
actually play it? Am I going to be able to
(40:18):
invest the time? Do I want to invest the time
to be able to play it. I feel like, as
much as I love the game back in the day,
it has been gone for so long. I really don't
know if I'll be able to rekindle that passion. Even
if with all the new features and innovations looks amazing,
I just don't know if I'm at a point in
my time in my life where it's really going to
roll me back in.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I think there needs to be like a mode. You know,
for Madden players there's Rookie in More Pro and all
Matt and you go through that. There needs to be
a mode in this one. It's called Welcome Back, and
that's it for all of us that haven't played like
that game in so long that we're having to figure
it out how to rock against some kid that's, you know,
thirteen and is just absolutely whoop our buds like that.
That's inevitable. I also think most of us are just
(40:59):
going to have to do this. This is so embarrassing
to say. I think most of us that own a
system that by this game are going to have to
wait to invite friends over until after we've got like
gone through the tutorial. I think we're gonna have to
actually do the whole like practicing where it's like, okay,
how do I run the triple option here? Like what,
Like there's gonna be this real clumsiness of trying to
figure out how to work the controller again, Like this
(41:20):
is all gonna be very real.
Speaker 6 (41:21):
You're gonna have Nintendo thumb all day.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Look it up because it's like we used to get
a Nintendo thumb where like you get a little pocket
on your thumb to get an end inch and because
the one controller always did that, we're.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Gonna have that from this game.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I never I was never diagnosed, but I'm pretty convinced
that I got carporal tunnel. I feel like I got carpoltonnel.
Once on my hands hurt, except when I was grabbing
my Xbox controller. That was the only time that it
felt comfortable literally doing anything else, it felt awful. I
feel like I got carpal tunnel because all I did
was play Madden and play NCAA all day long, every day,
(41:52):
and I dominated. Now if I try to pick it
up trying to play now, to your point, some seven
year old somewhere is gonna absolutely kick my ass up
and down.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
The felt before the end of the first quarter. I
can already see that that's that's.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Why you wear the headset and tell them that you're
also a kid. That's the other right, and then like,
I'm not sure what to do with this because like
for men, I'm gonna stay one, I'm gonna start it
up and a fired up I'm gonna go into dynasty
mode and I'm gonna go with you and LV like
I'm going to try and make a terrible, terrible football
program the number one team in all the land. For
repeating like I want to win multiple national champions I
(42:24):
don't know if I can respect you if you're coming
in and you're like, yeah, I'm winning games and I'm
playing a Bama Like you got to take one of
the other teams, right, like off the beaten path once.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Part of the fun of being able to do that,
and with my favorite team in Madden as the Raiders
have been so bad for so long, you basically are
taking a terrible t and gyn to turn them around.
So you didn't have to try. There's no effort, it's
already it's well built in there for you.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
God, I barely remember what it was like to play
video games where the Raiders were really good.
Speaker 6 (42:46):
Those rich can in years.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
All right, dynasty or parody? What do we really want
out of our favorite leagues? We'll answer that next Cavino
and Rich Kevin figures. Jason fits in for the guys.
Hey, thanks for listening to the best of Cabino and
Rich podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Be sure to catch us live every day from five
to seven km eastern two to four pacifics on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Find your local station for Cavino and Rich at Fox
Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day
on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So much of the conversation that we have as sports
fans is about what we want, and we're in this
society right now that's looking at absolute domination, for example,
in the NFL, from a dynasty that's clearly happening in
front of our very eyes with the Kansas City Chiefs.
But then we're looking at an MBA where it feels
like a repeat champion is almost impossible to find now.
(00:42):
And the real question is is we look at what
genuinely grabs our interest and we try and figure out
how more sports can cut through in July to get
everybody to pay attention. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
are we craving a dynasty or do we really want parody?
Do we want different every year, or do we want
the easiest hero and villain? The easiest path of this
(01:04):
is the team you've got to knock off the perch
or do we want a season where every year it
feels like every team has a chance, Because if you
look at the numbers, I think you'll be surprised when
you realize that most people frankly want the same old,
same old. It's Cavino and Rich. I'm Jason fitz Kevin Figures.
We're filling in for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
We're broadcasting live from the tyrack dot com studios. Tyrack
(01:27):
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free shipping, free road hazard protection in over ten thousand
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should be figuring. I keep thinking about the NBA, and
we sat a minute ago that I don't think the
Lakers are gonna win a championship anytime soon because I
don't think they can keep up with the modern NBA.
But the modern NBA is truly being built much like
(01:49):
the NFL likes to be built with the mindset of man,
let's have parody. Let's create a salary system that is
going to force teams to do all of the little
things the right way to win. That seems to be
what they're trying to accomplish, which is part of the
reason you and I agreed the Lakers may not be
best suited right now in this NBA to compete. But
as you look at what we have seen the Nuggets,
(02:10):
we're supposed to be this team that could repeat before them,
the Bucks were about to go on a run. Now
everybody will tell you the Celtics will go on and run. Well,
what we've learned is that right now nobody can go
on a run. And if nobody can go on a run,
isn't that what we're supposed to want? Yes, But in
the NFL, what do we have got The Chiefs? The
Chiefs are everybody's angel or devil. Right, so you have
(02:33):
all this parody. You have all this parody sitting there
where any team could go nine to eight or eight nine,
But there's a king in the mountain. So with all
this parody, you're hoping somebody breaks through. I'm trying to
figure out what people really want, because I think there's
a blend. They want to feel like their team has
a shot, but they want to have an easy target
to root against every single year.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, now I think there's kind of two competing emotions
when it comes to that. But I think the Chiefs
are a great example because no sport has promoted parody
and wanted parody more over the last thirty years than
the NFL. We mentioned earlier that you know, everybody's built
to be five hundred, and it's really the best of
the best that have enough juice, enough scouting, good talent
to get to eleven, twelve, thirteen wins. The Chiefs, in
(03:13):
the sport that has promoted parody for the longest, have
found a way to build a level of dominance into
a certain degree of The New England Patriots for twenty
plus years did the exact same thing, and I think
what the NBA is doing it doesn't mean that you
can't have a dynasty. It just makes it more difficult
and it puts more of the onus on the front
office to.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Put in the work.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You know, going back to our Laker discussion, it was
so easy for the Lakers to say, we're LA, We're
a franchise of stars, come play for us. The weather's great, Yeah,
the taxes are high, but there's so many other things.
You're playing for a marquee franchise and we can pay,
we can afford to pay more money than anybody else can. Well,
that's no longer the case at this point in time.
It's more of a level playing field. Doesn't mean the
(03:53):
Lakers can't be successful, but they have to be just
as savvy as Oklahoma City, or just as savvy as
the Clippers or across town. Even though the Clippers have
a lot of money, they didn't willingly spend it on anybody,
was very calculated in how they did it. I don't
think there's anything wrong with forcing franchises to be measured
and be intelligent with how they actually built the infrastructure
(04:15):
of their system to make sure they put a winning
product on the floor or on the field, while also
making sure they cultivate for the future at the same time.
It's difficult to do, but the best franchises are the
ones who are able to do that and sustain success
over a long period of time. And I don't think
that's necessarily a bad thing for leagues to encourage teams
to operate that way.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I think leagues have to at some level because what
do you end up with. Look at some of the
fails we have right now. I would say the golf
right now has been going through an identity crisis for
a minute. We all know that, and it's because Tiger
was so great and now in order to get the
next Tiger, which is the only thing when you've had Tiger,
the only way people are going to when you have Tiger,
(04:56):
the only way that you can sort of replace Tiger
is to have somebody come out and exceed Tiger. Right,
that's not happening. So that's part number one you need.
But even look at yesterday, I will go back to
this over the course of our time. We've talked about
this a lot over the course of the last few hours,
the hot dog eating contest. What do we have yesterday?
We have a new champion, but Joey Chestnut wasn't there.
(05:17):
And the first thing people say isn't finally Joey goes down.
It's well, can't even top Joey, Like Joey did better
than that. We even want domination to a certain level
in hot dog eating. We want to look, if somebody
can take down Joey Chestnut, that's fine, but they better
get a better number and then immediately as well, Joey
ate more than five minutes. Like it's all of these
comparisons because there is some level of we as a
(05:40):
society love to have one easy mark, whether it's a
mark for greatness or a mark for what we're going after,
Like we all want to know who's at the top
of the leaderboard and how to go after him. And
so you're right, it takes this measured approach for a
team to get there. It's part of what we have
to acknowledge. But I'm not sure we as a society
or even ready for that. If the the NBA goes
(06:00):
through a period of fifteen years where they never have
a back to back champion, I honestly don't think that's
going to be good for the sport. It's having parody
feels good, but not having somebody that's easy to target isn't.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And well, you know what a healthy mix of that is.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And I don't know if they'll ever go through a
fifteen year stretch where there won't be your repeat champion.
But maybe you need a team like Boston to say, ah,
we won three championships in seven years, or Golden State,
I won two championships in six years and you're always
in the hunts. It's a difference between a team that
just wins every single solitary season. Four straight championships, five
straight championships, even if it's five out of seven years,
(06:35):
whatever it is, and just a team that's always just
kind of middling around always finds them. You know, the
Utah Jazz never won a championship in the Malone Stockton years,
but they were a shoe in for the second round
and or the conference finals for about a six to
seven year stretch. Always be in the hunt, but you
don't necessarily have to hoist the trophy every single solitary time,
because I think that ends up wearing on people to
(06:55):
a certain degree. Look back at the Cavaliers in Golden State,
when every year for four straight years, you new exactly
going into the season, there's a greater than ninety percent
chance that's exactly what we're going to have. And I
think that, as much as anything, there's other factors as well,
is a bigger reason.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Why NBA Finals ratings kind of went down. Everybody knew
exactly what we're gonna see.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's gonna be Cleveland, it's gonna be Golden State, and
Golden State's probably gonna end up winning in five or
six games because the deck was so stacked against everybody else.
It just wasn't even entertaining anymore. You can have great games,
great talent spread across the league. I can have Minnesota
play Denver in the conference finals this year, if then
one of them they play each other again in the
first round next year, and then another one again two
(07:35):
years from now, they play again in the conference finals.
It can be a cyclical situation where a handful of
teams are all competitive, but not one team is always
at the top of the mountain every single time. I
do think, yes, dominance from that standpoint is bad, but
having a certain number of teams that you could bank on, Hey,
this team has a legitimate shot over the next four
years to make it too the conference finals.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
A couple of times.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I think that's actually healthy for the sport because it
has enough up predictability to actually allow to be able
to be sucked in a little bit and still have
some interest.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I mean, take it a step farther. He's Kevin Figers.
I'm Jason fitzwer In for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
If you take it just a little step farther, you're
describing the New England Patriots. Sure they were in every
Super Bowl or AFC Championship game. He always knew they
were the best team. They didn't always win it, you know,
eighteen and one certainly didn't. Doesn't hit the right way
(08:24):
for Patriots fans.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
But what did you have there?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You had a whole bunch of other teams that were
really good, and you had them be pushed, but you
knew that constantly they were going to be at or
near the top of the ladder. So you have this
era of Peyton Manning and the Colts trying to get
through the Patriots while the Patriots are there, and even
if they get to the Super Bowl, sometimes they're losing
the Super Bowl. These are all that's sort of the
description that you're giving there. Like the Celtics skull in
(08:47):
this dominant run where every year they're in the Eastern
Conference finals or they're in the Championship, but they lose
a bunch of those along the way, still gives people
enough hope that they feel like there's rooting for something
Like it's funny just as a society we want winner
until they win too much, Like we want we want
athletes to be the greatest until they're so great that
it gets boring, Like we want world records until all
(09:08):
they do is set world records. It's just such a
fine line on what we want to gravitate towards more
interest on it. But I do think that maybe the
model here is to look at one team and say, man,
I want them to keep getting there and then not
getting the job done, which I mean, if we're being real,
we just lived with the Celtics for several years. Did
(09:30):
their championship right now? Feels kind of good in everybody's
hearts if you're not a Celtics hater, because you're like, yeah, look,
these guys put in so much time together, like all
of these different you know, it feels good that they
finally won one. If they could keep now getting into
that cycle where they lose, they win, they lose, they win,
that might be the best thing for general interest.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
But also part of the general interest part of it,
I think.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And the Celtics are a great example because this was
this was what year seven of Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum,
and how many people for the last two off seasons
have been talking about blow this thing up.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Clearly a dozen work. It was like, how can you
say something.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
El work with two guys who are under the age
of twenty five years old and that have been together
for six years. That's just the microwave society that we
live in. There's a level of accomplishment if you're a
Celtic fan today, you know, coming off of that parade
a few weeks ago and then winning a championship, there's
a part of you that appreciates that they grew from
those poor experiences losing to Miami in the conference finals
a couple of years. You know, all the issues that
(10:21):
they've had. You feel like you accomplished something, you grew through,
something you went through all of the issues that they
went through at the same time. Just being able to
wake up, roll over and sign the heatles together and
start winning championships two years later, it just feels different.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It feels a lot different.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
As opposed to a team that you actually, you know,
saw go through the growing pains and actually, you know,
win together, learn how to win together and grow together.
I think as a fan, just from an individual team standpoint,
it hits a little bit differently when your team that
you saw go through the battles and actually grow into
a champion, as opposed to a team that was just
ready made slap together through a bunch of free agents
(10:55):
and actually wins a championship. And I think it's probably
more subconscious if you're not a team a fan of
an individual team, but you sort of feel that way too,
the fact that Boston can stick it out and actually
build something, because it tells you if you're Oklahoma City
or if you're another smaller market team that doesn't necessarily
draw in free agents, if we draft the right guys
put the right guys around them. You know, Boston didn't
(11:16):
do anything special. They didn't sign any major free agents,
the Horfords and the Porzingises, and they trade it for
all those guys they were, So there's there's a method
to be able to do it. They showed that through
patients and shrewd drafting and trades, they can get it done.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And if they can do it, why not us.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I do think I'm left to wonder constantly what would
have happened to the Bulls when they couldn't get past
the Pistons. If Twitter had existed in that era, If
twenty four to seven people yelling about wasted teams had
existed in that era, what would have happened to one
of the greatest teams and franchise and sports moments we've
ever seen in our lives, if we hadn't been, if
(11:57):
we'd been in a society that's as impatient as the
one is now, right, That's the factor I think we
have to remember sometimes and I want and.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I want people to stop saying, like Michael Jordan got criticized.
There was this column in USA Today and he was
called the ball hog. Yes he was sure. All of
that is turned up by a trillion today. You know,
you had to wait a week for USA Today to
come out. At that point in time. Living in Chicago,
you didn't get the whatever that was put in a
column in the LA Times or something. You probably didn't
(12:25):
even see it, or the New York Post. It's so
much different nowadays because all these guys are on social media.
They see all the criticism that they get, and they
get constantly reminded of it every single second of every
single day. And as much as you say I just
turned social media off and ignore it, it's easy for
you to say that, it's much more difficult to do
in practicality.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
And so you're right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I do wonder, I do wonder how that would have
hit if we had this sort of media exposure.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Now, if we hadn't been, I should say, as we have.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Now, every single TV in America wasn't on USA today
in every airport, like right, I would just tell you
fly once and look at all of the TVs and
as you walk to the airport, ask how everybody shuts
that noise off?
Speaker 5 (13:05):
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Speaker 1 (13:17):
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(13:40):
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Speaker 2 (13:47):
Some franchises have to make moves for relevance just stay
in the news to sell jerseys, to be part of
the conversation. Some franchises draft thinking about what it means
for what their fans want. Some franchises hire coaches for
the same reason. But one of the franchises it's supposed
(14:09):
to be above all of that is the Lakers. So
the question is, why aren't they acting like it. It's
Gabino rich on Spots Sports Radio, Kevin Figures Jason fitzwre
in for the guys as we get you covered through
everything you need to know coming at you from the
ti raq dot com studios, and hear me out on this.
I think that there are certain franchises that I don't
(14:32):
care how their coach wears the hat. I don't care
whether or not their newest draft pick sells a bunch
of jerseys. I care, frankly about one thing. I care
about whether or not that franchise wins championships.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
They're only judged by that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
We want to say that's the way everybody is in sports,
but that's not real. The way certain franchises are viewed though.
It's about just one thing wasting a trophy, and that's
supposed to be the way The Lakers do business. Somebody
explained to me, if that's the way they do business,
what the Lakers are actually doing right now? I don't
know if JJ Reddick's going to be a good hire.
I don't think any of us do. But I know this,
(15:10):
You can't tell me equivocally that he makes you closer
to a championship. I don't know if the fifty fifth
draft pick is really supposed to matter.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
Who does? We could talk all day long. Was it
a valuable draft pick? Now? But Bronni's sticking around? Does
that keep Lebron happy? Great? For what? For what?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This version of the Lakers is not going to win
a championship. So when we start the season right now,
when we start the next NBA season, we can definitively
go out there and say, hey, putting money on the
Lakers to win a chip is a waste of cash.
When's the last time the Lakers went through any sustained
period where they, frankly just weren't even part of the
(15:49):
championship conversation. So, congratulations, you kept Lebron happy. Congratulations you
got Lebron and ad. Congratulations you got Bronny, you got
the coach. Sure, maybe everybody feels like that's the right
way to treat a superstar. But Kevin figures, if you
ask me, what the Lakers have really told you is
that they'd rather make sure everybody's happy then actually get
themselves into the rebuilt process that is inevitable towards trying
(16:12):
to get themselves to a championship because they got.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
No shot with this roster.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah, you ultimately find yourself in no man's land because
are you trying to build for the future or are
you trying to win right now? In basketball, I think
one of the few sports where it's really difficult to
do both.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
You can do it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
In Major League Baseball, you have all the minor leagues
and you got fifteen thousand draft picks. You have a
finite number of roster spots with a certain number of
guys who make a certain amount of money at certain
ages on your roster, and so you really have to
make make sure you know what direction you're going in.
And while catering to Lebron James, even though he's still
one of the great players, one of the best players
in the league top three, I think, even based on
(16:45):
the way that he played last season, and Anthony Davis,
who had a great season last year, was able to
stay healthy. Doubt he'll be able to stay as healthy
going into this next season. You know, what have you
really done to try to improve the roster to try
to impact winning Now, now some of that is out
of their hands. Maybe the trade market it's not what
you wanted it to be. Maybe guys opting into their
contracts when you didn't expect them to.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
But frankly, that doesn't necessarily matter.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
If you're saying you're a team that's chasing championships, you
know people want to see you put in the work
and try to make moves to make sure that you
put yourself in a position to be able to do that,
and they haven't done that at this point in time.
They're bringing back basically the exact same roster from last
year and saying, well, hopefully the Dangel Russell is better,
Hopefully Vanderbilt stays healthy, and Gabe Vincent and hopefully we'll
be drug kicking and screaming or drag kicking and screaming
(17:28):
into the modern era of NBA basketball with JJ reddick
By shooting more three pointers. I don't feel like just
aok coaching was bad last year. Fits I'm not gonna
deny that darbn Ham was not the greatest head coach
even the year before when they went to the rest
in Western Conference Finals. There are definitely some tactical issues.
So but the problem is how much of an improvement
is he actually is? JJ Reddick. If he is an improvement,
(17:49):
quint actually have this on this roster, on this team,
five wins, six wins, If even that, does it make
him even more of a contender this coming season than
they were last year? I don't believe.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
So.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I think the issue what the Lakers there's they're kind
of caught in a rock and a hard place, and
really it's all the doing of Genie Buss going off
of this franchise principle of we need to please and
appease our star players, take care of our guys, and
there's nothing wrong with that to a certain degree, but
business has to trump that and they should have learned
from the final years of Kobe Bryant. You said, when
(18:20):
was the last time the Lakers had an extended period
of time of not being a factor. Kobe's last couple
of years extended beyond that for a couple of years.
I'd say maybe seven years where they were routinely winning
between seventeen and twenty one games a year. They were terrible,
but at the very least they had a plan. They
knew they were bad, they knew they were going to
get some draft picks. Now, granted, they struck out in
free agency for some star players, but at the very
(18:40):
least they went into.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
A lot of those seasons knowing, we're gonna be bad.
Let's try to cultivate some young talent.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Use these draft picks and make sure we hit on
some of these guys, and maybe we can end up
turning it around. A lot of those draft picks ended
up turning into Anthony Davis. They won a championship in
the bubble. The problem now is Lebron James is forty,
Anthony Davis has the body of a forty year old
that seems like, and the pieces around them are not
good enough to compete in an ever improving Western Conference.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I really don't know exactly what direction they're going in,
because I don't think they know what direction they're going in.
All they know is we want to upease Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
We want to retire with his jersey and give him
a statue and give him everything that he wants because
he's a clutch client, and we want to play nights
with Rich Paul because a lot of these guys coming
into the league are going to be clutch clients and
we want to make sure we're on their good side.
That's kind of the way that I look at it,
because otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It doesn't make any sense. He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason
fitz in Forra Cavino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio.
The Lakers were the seventh seed last year. Now, the
West was tight, so they were what three games away
from being the five seed? Four games away from being
the four seed? All right, so let's jump breaks. Let's
say everything breaks the right way for the Lakers. Okay,
you get a miraculous big season out of Ad, you
(19:49):
get another he stays healthy, you get another big season
out of Lebron somehow, some way, maybe you're the four
or five seed. But are you suddenly going to be
the team that everybody better than the Nuggets at that
point consistently? Are you on the same plane as the Celtics.
The Celtics would destroy the Lakers as currently constructed, right, Like,
So I just I look at all of this and
I say, for what, Like, there are certain teams that
(20:13):
simply can't handle a rebound. And I asked this at
the time when Oklahoma City was losing everybody. My question was,
what is the cost of relevance? How much should you overpay,
no matter what it costs, just to make sure that
people realize you're a basketball franchise. And it took Oklahoma
City a long time to bounce back from losing the
stars they had. We all know that some franchises will
(20:34):
struggle through that period. The Lakers will get a lot
of anger, the fans will be mad, but it's not
like their fan base is suddenly going to deteriorate. They
don't have to worry about losing the market that the
damn Lakers like. So go act like the Lakers and
be honest with people. Look around and say, hey, guys,
we're at a spot now where we go we gotta
rebuild this thing. We got to figure out a different
way to do it because the way we're doing it
(20:55):
isn't working. Otherwise, all you're doing, yeah, you're putting stars
out and we'll talk about it. Everybody will talk about
it because the Lakers resonates so great, you'll continue to
be relevant as a brand, But how long will that last?
Like how many years in a row before the Lakers
essentially become the Dallas Cowboys where we talk about them,
but not for any championship they've won in memory like
the Lakers. While they I know it feels staggering to
(21:16):
say this, because we did have a Bubble championship in
twenty twenty, I feel like the Lakers are a hell
of a lot closer to going through a period like
the Knicks went through where all they were was basically
irrelevant for twenty years than they are to being where
the Celtics are right now.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Twenty twenty Bubble championship was essentially their saving grace because,
quite honestly, their last few seasons with Kobe, I would say,
basically after Phil Jackson had his final season, either twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, whatever that was, you had a couple of
playoff appearances. It's been downhill for the Lakers for thirteen
fourteen years, with a blip on the radar being that
twenty twenty championship. Other than that, they haven't been a
(21:50):
great franchise. They've missed the playoffs more than they've made it,
I believe, or if not more than they've made it,
they've missed it just as often as much as they've
made it. They're a mediocre franchise and have been for
a long period of time. You use the Oklahoma City example,
and look, maybe it doesn't fly as much in big
markets as it does in small markets. Although I'd argue
even though the process of Philadelphia didn't necessarily work, I mean,
(22:12):
you did get Joel and be out of it Ben
Simmons up before his major knee injuries, and obviously his
other concerns was trending towards being a really good impact
player for years to come.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You can say that they at least had a plan
in place.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I think most fan bases these days will appreciate if
you have a plan and know exactly what you're doing.
Oklahoma City realized that Westbrook and Paul George wasn't working,
blew it up, got a bunch of draft picks, got
Shay Giogos Alexander and hope for the best and make
and hope that he would turn into a great player.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
He has.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They've hit on those draft picks. Now, all of a
sudden you got ched Holmgren, who's getting better. They've now
used some of the money they have a freed up
to sign some some veterans in the free agent market,
and I think they're going to be one of the
top contenders to come out of the Western Conference next
season because of it. It took a little longer than
you would like, but at the very least they had
a plan in place, and now it's coming to fruition.
I feel like fan bases, whether it's the Knicks, the Lakers,
(23:03):
whatever else, will be willing to be patient with a
franchise if they know exactly if the franchise has a
plan in place in what direction they're going in. The
problem with the team like the Lakers, is no one
really knows because it seems to change every other year.
Why would you blow up a championship roster two years
after you just want to title on the bubble to
bring in Wilsell Westbrook, who everybody knew wasn't a fit,
(23:24):
just to appease Lebron. A lot of these things keep
going back and forth to appeasing Lebron James, trying to
appease your star as opposed to doing what's best for
the franchise. Sometimes those things are mutually exclusive. Sometimes you
have to be able to tell them no. Now it
sounds like most recently although Bronni James being drafted. Notwithstanding,
they say Lebron is taking a step back from making
personnel decisions unless the front office do what they want
(23:46):
to do. Well, thanks Lebron. That helps a lot. Now
now that the roster is stuck with contracts they can't
trade and players that nobody wants and we can't even
improve the roster, we greatly appreciate it. Where was this
three years ago? I think that's where their frustration sits
with a lot of Laker fans.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
Right now, here's the real truth. The NBA has passed
the Lakers by. I'll explain what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
First, I want figure to get everybody caught up on
the Latest Greatest what's going on. But the fact is
the NBA has passed the Lakers by. We'll tell you
why in a second.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Well, Latest Greatest.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
If you go to the quarterfinal action of Euro twenty
twenty four and you don't like scoring a lot of goals,
you're gonna love this matchup between Portugal and France. They
are headed to penalty kicks. Now this game you can
see on Fox. Portugal has dominated time of possession both
teams with just a couple of shots on goal. That's
been as defensive as a matchup as you can expect
from high class international soccer. So again, Portugal and France
(24:35):
check that out right now on Fox. The winner of
this matchup will take on Spain and the Semi Spain
went into extra time against Germany earlier today and won
that matchup two to one. Tonight at nine Eastern on
FS one, you'll see Canada take on Venezuela in the
quarterfinals of the Copa America Tournament.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Third round action at Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
On the men's side, Joan nick Center won his matchup
in straight sets, as did Tommy Paul in a match
that lasted almost four hours. Carlos Alcoraz outlasted Francis Tiafo
in five sets. On the ladies' side, Madison Keys and
Coco Golf won their matchups in straight sets as well.
Third round action there and wobbled it on the lady side.
And Major League Baseball says Azuki with the home run
for the Cubs. They defeated the Angels five to one,
(25:16):
and speaking of the NBA. Some news earlier today from
Shamsharinia of the athletic forward Franz Wagner agreeing to a
five year contract extension with the Orlando Magic where two
hundred and twenty four million dollars. It could be worth
as much as two hundred and seventy million dollars.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
All right, back to the Cavino A Rich show.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
All right, it's Cavino and Ritz coming at to live
from the ti iraq dot com studios. He's Kevin Figures,
I'm Jason fitz In for the guys. It's simple. The
NBA has passed the Lakers by This is real. There
is a point where you got to look at the way.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Business is being done.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
You got to look at what's successful, and then you
got to figure out how you're going to fit into
that model. What has the Lakers model ben for as
long as we can remember, go find the stars, sign
the stars, bring the stars in, and make sure that
the stars play together nice. We'll try and win some championships.
All right, That's been the model. Whether we're talking about
I know, Kobe being the outlier trading for on draft day,
but whether we're talking about trading for Shack, whether you're
(26:10):
talking about trading for a million players that didn't work
out at one period. You look at the way that
they've worked things over the course of the years. The
Lakers have been about star power, right It's about showtime.
It's about getting butts in the seats with that energy
and that excitement and that brand value, all of these
things that are tremendous and all of these things that
are true to the way business was done in the
NBA before and not now. I think we can learn something,
(26:33):
Biggie from the Celtics and the way that they brought
their roster together, right like, there is some element of
let's get some homegrown talent, let's get them to play
a bunch of games together, let's rise that talent together.
Look at what we've seen over the last couple of
champions There is a method right now between what the
Nuggets have done, what the Celtics have done. You just
mentioned Oklahoma City, the way they're trying to do it
with the new CBA, with the complications and acquiring talent,
(26:56):
with the tax complications there are there. With the mathematics
degree that it takes to figure it all out.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
One thing is very clear.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
If you want to win, I believe in the modern
NBA you are going to have to draft, You're going
to have to build, and then you're going to have
to patiently let it grow together, and then at the
last second, like a perfect cake, you can sprinkle on
some cupcake stuff at the top. You can sprinkle on
some little extras, bring in one little guy here, one
extra piece there. That's fine, but that can't be the
(27:22):
way you build it. You have to actually build a
structure and then use the one extra piece as a
little augmenting portion that gets you to greatness.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
That's not the way.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
The Lakers have dumb business, and I don't know that
they know how to do business in that process because
it requires patients, and it requires a path, and it
requires persistence, and it requires a plan and the ability
to say, guys, we're going to get there, but it's
going to take three or four years. The Lakers have
never been there. Lakers fans have never been there. The
Lakers organization doesn't know how to do this. The modern
(27:52):
way to win in the NBA doesn't match with the
way Figgy The Lakers do business.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Which is a lack of awareness on their part in
many facets. I mean, we can extrapolate this out to
the last decade. They're one of the last teams to
actually incorporate an analytics department. I mean, they didn't even
have that in place.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
One of the talking points for JJ Redick when he
was hired, he said, Oh, I want to hire someone
to develop my program with nutrition and analytics and all
this stuff. And people are saying, you didn't already have
somebody in this role in the building already, And it's
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
The day that the Laker mystique died is when they
did a free agent pitch to the Marcus Aldridge and
did all this all these history onics with We're gonna
have your name on billboards and put you in commercials
and do all this stuff. This is the Laker brand,
And the Marcus said, what are you guys gonna do basketball.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Wise to entice me to come here.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
The fact that they weren't aware enough at that point
in time to realize that they should be doing something different.
That's selling The Laker mystique means nothing, or at least
means very little to players anymore. These days, you can
win anywhere you could be a superstar anywhere. You can
be a superstar in Oklahoma City, you can be a
superstar in Oakland.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
You can be a super It doesn't matter it's an
international sport. In Milwaukee, no one cares.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
At this point in time, You're gonna get endorsement deals
because the NBA is a global sport, So the market
that you play in doesn't matter whether it's an I look,
the Knicks learned this a long time ago. How many
free agents that they strike out on when they were
trying to sell people on come to the garden and
do this and do that, and you know what, the
Knicks are successful again. And how have they done it?
They built a roster full of grinders. This is basically
the Knicks for the nineties. No superstar player, really good players.
(29:20):
I mean, you know, Brunson is turning into an all
star sort of player, and he's only going to get better.
But it's basically him surrounded by a bunch of tough,
hard nosed, defensive guys building the right roster.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Your point right there. I have yelled in screen this too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I've had this argument with Steven a where everybody says, well,
you gotta.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Come play with the Knicks.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Why if you're a twenty four to twenty five year
old kid, all you know of the Knicks is a
bunch of bad basketball right for the last year, right Like,
there is this level of yeah. But the Garden I
will never forget we were playing when we were touring,
I played Madison's Square Guard. My right arm is a
tattoo of all the places that might like the places
I've lived in the moments in my career, in my
life that I'm proud of st A part of that
(29:59):
is the Madison Square Garden logo. Like I grew up
spending a lot of time in New York. That show
meant so much to me. And I remember walking into
that venue and I had goosebumps, man, because we had
a sold out show at Madison Square Garden, And I
remember a guitar player in the band that was, you know,
probably fifteen years younger than me, looked over and he said,
this place is a shole.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
That's the first thing he said.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I got the dump, and the guys walked in, They're like, man,
this place stinks like nobody. The next night, we were
at Barclay's doing the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show thing and
immediately everybody's like, man, this arena is much nice, and
then the Garden, like they were kids, so the history
didn't necessarily mean the same thing to him. But I
looked at that and I was like, God, there's a
lot of kids that are coming like they don't remember
(30:40):
watching wrestling in the eighties at the Garden and being like,
oh my god, this is so cool. Like those moments
didn't they didn't resonate the same. So if you're twenty
three years old and you're playing basketball, the only thing
you know about the Knicks and the Garden is what
your dad told you, right, Like, that doesn't hit the
same way.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
And you're right at this point, you.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Can be honest and be as rich as anybody playing
in Milwaukee.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And I think that's the thing that the Laker franchise
to your point, as far as them, you know, being
behind on the times just doesn't understand.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
You know, no one cares anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I'm not saying that being a Laker doesn't mean something
that you can't appreciate the legacy of the franchise and
all the great players who've won that jersey. You can
have an appreciation for it and also say, you know, what.
This isn't the best decision for me professionally, because I
don't think that you guys at the top know what
you're doing.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
So I'm gonna go ahead and b side of this.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Far as many people as who made fun of Maggie
Johnson for his press conference and say it, I'm not
gonna be here anymore. There was a reason behind it,
because I think Maggie Johnson knew the direction of the
franchise and how they were operating up top, and he
was like, I really don't think I can succeed. And
I succeeded everything that I touched. I don't think it's
gonna work here, and so he decided to walk out.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Dan Hurley elected to remain the head coach at the
University of Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Right that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Look, I live ten minutes from that campus. I know
what Ucon basketball means. I know how important it is
to coach. I know his family really loves the scenery there.
I know all of those things. But if I invented
a time machine and I went back and told you
that Dan Hurley to ten, fifteen, twenty years ago would
turn down the Lakers job to stay in Hartford, I mean,
(32:15):
what would we think, what would that.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And you know a lot of people say, well, you know,
cost of living, all these things up. Hartford's got the
second highest tax rate in the country. Connecticut has the
second highest tax rate in the country. Like he would
have actually taken a gotten a massive raise by moving
to California, as obscene as that sounds, because the taxes
are so incredible.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I live there. I know this.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Like there's this moment of Dan Hurley turned down the
Lakers that to me still says something about the fact
that now we live in a global economy where if
you are great at whatever you are doing, you're making
so much money that money won't be the thing that
it has to be to move you from one spot
to the other. Like if Hurley felt like there was
even on even level playing field. He's made it clear
(32:56):
he wants to go to the NBA at some point.
If the two jobs are on level playing field, he
might jump. He prefers Connecticut. What does that say?
Speaker 3 (33:03):
But it also says to this point, because he also
set this to Dan Lebattard a couple of days later,
there's a price. I don't know what it is, but
there's a price that would have pried me away. Now,
the reported price was one hundred million dollars. The reported
offer from the Lakers was seventy. So again, you offer
him seventy And what are you saying in your pitch meeting?
We won't give you a hundred. But we're the Lakers
(33:24):
and Phil Jackson coached here, and Jerry West was here
and all these other people were here. Don't you want
to be a part of that legacy? And if I'm
Dan Hurley, I'm like, no, I want a hundred million
dollars to up in my family, up and move from
everything that I've ever known.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
You got to make it worth my while. That's not
a home run swing. A home run swing has given
the guy whatever he wants. And if you truly cove
him the way that you say you covered him, you'll
give him what he wants.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
That price tag can't be too high. If you're the
Lakers and you love him as much as you say
that you love him, you'll give him whatever he wants.
But that's exactly that's a perfect example of the Lakers
being behind all the times. We'll offer you less because
we're giving you the opportunity to be a part of
what we do.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Looking at it the other way around.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And it says everything about their brand value that they
don't understand that, the fact that they thought that simply
being the Lakers would allow them some flexibility, and the
fact that it doesn't says everything. If his number is
one hundred million dollars, then that doesn't matter if it's
coming from Milwaukee, or that matters if it's coming from
the Lakers. That speaks to the very brand thing that
(34:23):
we're talking about. And I just don't know how the
Lakers are going to do business in that environment. I
don't think it's going to get any easier for LA
over the course in the next couple of years, as
wild as that sounds. So speaking of wild, what if
I told you for all of the doldrums dog days
of summer, what if I told you we are only
days away from one of the best July days that
(34:43):
you will ever have if you are a sports fan,
I'm telling you it's right around the corner, and we'll
tell you what it is coming up next. But first,
if there's one feeling, and I know more than anything,
it's the electric buzz a game day all around you
and when you're looking for that same vibe, which you
gotta do is you gotta check out graduate hotels.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
That's right. Fits.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
A stay at graduate hotels is like stepping onto the
field in those college towns.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
No, yeah, no doubt. Figure. In fact, I've been to
a bunch of them. They're great.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
They all kind of echo the campus of the place
that they're closest to. Camino and Rich The Boys are
going to be at the brand new Auburn location, broadcasting
live Friday, September twenty seventh for the game day weekday
of the of the.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Tigers versus the Sooners.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Say what you want to me, This is an incredible
thing here because they are so unique to the places
that they've been. I went to the Guys Show in Nashville.
It was incredible. College football is in graduates, DNA graduates
all about bringing the charm and legacy you love about
your alma mater into one of a kind hotel experiences.
They have over thirty locations across the US and UK,
(35:46):
and we promised they're like no hotel you've ever stayed
at before.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
So you want to keep that game day spirit alive
and book your stay at graduatehotels dot Com.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Graduate hotels because they're graduate where we are all student.
One event coming up in July that you cannot wait for.
It's only a few days away. You'll be hyped. We'll
tell you about it next. Cavino and Rich, Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz figging it, findle in it.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Scavino, I'm Rich on Fox Sports Radio. Coming
at to live from the tiraq dot com studios. Chason Fitz,
Kevin figures in for the guys. Gotta tweet.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Judy tweeted us and said, I can't wait for you
in the clown working with you today to eat your words.
Hitting on LA analytics stinks. I'm paraphrasing. Gotta feel the
game and play the game. I hope JJ and Lebron
shut up everyone. Okay, I mean, look, I got no
skin in the game. I don't really like Fine. If
the Lakers turned around to win a championship, good for them.
(36:53):
I don't think it's gonna happen. It's just that For me,
it's kind of that simple. I don't think it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Well fits as someone who has getting ino the game,
who considers themselves still a Laker fan, I hope I'm wrong.
You know, few people are more critical of their favorite
team than I am. So if I feel like they're
doing something that's holding them back and basically holding back
to their ability to be able.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
To win, I'm going to call it out.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I'm not going to be some fanboy that just worships
every single thing that they do, because I'm not being
fair to myself and basically fair to the team at
that point in time.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Hold the team accountable.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
If you're the Lakers and you hold yourself to a
high standard the way that you say you do, then
the fans just hold you to a high standard too.
And if there's something that you're doing that's not putting
you in the best position possession position I should say
to be successful, then I'm going to call you out
on it.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
We're coming at to live from the tyrack dot Com studios.
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I love everybody comes in super confident. I'm like, okay,
like you tell me, then, I mean you're willing to
insert and tweeter here whoever's coming at it. You willing
to bet your house on the Lakers winning a championship
this year, because I share.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
As hell wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
You're willing to bet your house on the Lakers winning
a championship in the next three years, I share as
hell wouldn't. I mean, if I got to take the
Lakers or the field for the next three years to
win a title, I feel pretty good about that.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
I'm gonna end up owning your house.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
That's just I have no confidence in JJ and Lebron
to be able to bring home a championship in the
next three years. And that's just what usually the Lakers
have been judged by, Like the Lakers have created the
very standard that makes this life difficult for them that
when they are doing these things, they get questioned to
that level.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Figuring right, Yeah, And there's a difference between hope and faith.
I hope the Lakers do great. I hope Bronni James
starts into a great role player contributor. Hoped Dalton connect
makes an impact as a rookie. Hope Lebron James and
Anthony Davis stay healthy. D'angela Russell if he stays there,
figures things out, and they stay healthy and they make
a deep run.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Do I have faith that's gonna happen?
Speaker 5 (38:39):
No?
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Why should I Please tell me why I should have
faith that any.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Of that stuff is gonna end up sussing itself out
of the course of eighty two games and put the
Lakers in a position to compete for a championship going
into the playoffs. I have no faith in that, and
there's no way I've been given no reason to have
faith in that. But I certainly hope it happens. That's
two different things, though.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason Fitzen for the guys. All right,
so we're about a week away. What's your level of excitement?
Because EA Sports College Football Game comes out for the
pre ordered people on July sixteenth, I think it's July
nineteenth for everybody else. The level of excitement FIGI because, like, look,
you and I both love college football, right and for me,
and part of this is just about the opportunity to
(39:20):
see so many of the experiences that we fall in
love with on Saturday. That's what the game needs to
capture and it will capture from everybody I've talked to
that's looked at it.
Speaker 6 (39:30):
Or played it.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yet the game has to capture the experience as much
as anything.
Speaker 6 (39:34):
That's why this is going to be so special.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
I don't remember ever seeing a more hyped video game
release in sports than what we're seeing here. And I
know people all over the place that are just they're
ready to take the day off, sit down with their buddies,
and play games all day, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
I mean this is I waste the days of my
life back in the day playing this college football, especially
in the Dynasty Motor Legacy mode whatever it was called.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
You can go out and actively recruit.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
And obviously they've made so many any different enhancements to
that situation that I haven't even seen yet. There's like
a new trailer coming out every single week of the
new things that they're doing. The problem with me fits
is I wonder if I just missed the boat. It
has been gone for so long, I've forgotten about it.
I've moved on to other things. Do I have to
invest in buying a game, video game system that can
actually play it? Am I going to be able to
(40:18):
invest the time? Do I want to invest the time
to be able to play it. I feel like, as
much as I love the game back in the day,
it has been gone for so long. I really don't
know if I'll be able to rekindle that passion. Even
if with all the new features and innovations looks amazing,
I just don't know if I'm at a point in
my time in my life where it's really going to
roll me back in.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I think there needs to be like a mode. You know,
for Madden players there's Rookie in More Pro and all
Matt and you go through that. There needs to be
a mode in this one. It's called Welcome Back, and
that's it for all of us that haven't played like
that game in so long that we're having to figure
it out how to rock against some kid that's, you know,
thirteen and is just absolutely whoop our buds like that.
That's inevitable. I also think most of us are just
(40:59):
going to have to do this. This is so embarrassing
to say. I think most of us that own a
system that by this game are going to have to
wait to invite friends over until after we've got like
gone through the tutorial. I think we're gonna have to
actually do the whole like practicing where it's like, okay,
how do I run the triple option here? Like what,
Like there's gonna be this real clumsiness of trying to
figure out how to work the controller again, Like this
(41:20):
is all gonna be very real.
Speaker 6 (41:21):
You're gonna have Nintendo thumb all day.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Look it up because it's like we used to get
a Nintendo thumb where like you get a little pocket
on your thumb to get an end inch and because
the one controller always did that, we're.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Gonna have that from this game.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I never I was never diagnosed, but I'm pretty convinced
that I got carporal tunnel. I feel like I got carpoltonnel.
Once on my hands hurt, except when I was grabbing
my Xbox controller. That was the only time that it
felt comfortable literally doing anything else, it felt awful. I
feel like I got carpal tunnel because all I did
was play Madden and play NCAA all day long, every day,
(41:52):
and I dominated. Now if I try to pick it
up trying to play now, to your point, some seven
year old somewhere is gonna absolutely kick my ass up
and down.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
The felt before the end of the first quarter. I
can already see that that's that's.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Why you wear the headset and tell them that you're
also a kid. That's the other right, and then like,
I'm not sure what to do with this because like
for men, I'm gonna stay one, I'm gonna start it
up and a fired up I'm gonna go into dynasty
mode and I'm gonna go with you and LV like
I'm going to try and make a terrible, terrible football
program the number one team in all the land. For
repeating like I want to win multiple national champions I
(42:24):
don't know if I can respect you if you're coming
in and you're like, yeah, I'm winning games and I'm
playing a Bama Like you got to take one of
the other teams, right, like off the beaten path once.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Part of the fun of being able to do that,
and with my favorite team in Madden as the Raiders
have been so bad for so long, you basically are
taking a terrible t and gyn to turn them around.
So you didn't have to try. There's no effort, it's
already it's well built in there for you.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
God, I barely remember what it was like to play
video games where the Raiders were really good.
Speaker 6 (42:46):
Those rich can in years.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
All right, dynasty or parody? What do we really want
out of our favorite leagues? We'll answer that next Cavino
and Rich Kevin figures. Jason fits in for the guys.
Hosts And Creators
Rich Davis
Steve Covino
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