February 23, 2018 • 48 mins
Doug's not convinced the recent FBI investigation is the end of college basketball like everyone else is predicting. He discusses the scary situation where a former NFL player was making threats against the high school he once attended. And Zach Harper from FanRag Sports joins the show to give his thoughts on the second half of the NBA season.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the best of the Dog Dot Leap Show
on Fox Sports Radio. Boom, What Up America, Doug Gottlieb Show,
Fox Sports Radio, coming to you from the City of Angels, cool,
crisp City of Angels, where we are reacting to a
bizarre and scary Instagram post from a former NFL lineman
(00:24):
who went to high school just down the street from
where we broadcast from. We'll get to that upcoming, and
of course we react to the big news care of
Yahoo Sports and this FBI investigation over college basketball. Get
to that and about thirty seconds um Calves lost last night. No,
(00:45):
they cannot trade everybody as they want to, kidding, but
Lebron somehow oddly energized even by the loss when no
one else scores in the last couple of minutes of
the game. Lakers take on the Mavericks tonight. You've heard
in the update and you'll hear me talk about Dennis
Smith Jr. Star rookie guard lottery pick for the Dallas Mavericks.
(01:05):
What's maybe more interesting about that game is a culmination
of stories about the Dallas Mavericks and what they will
do in the fourth quarter tonight against Lakers, who will
get alonzo ball back. End's a lot to get to.
Just when you thought boring this weekend sports, I thought
if I came in today, I'd have to have an
(01:26):
argument with you about whether or not you like the Olympics,
especially when the Olympics are trying to steal Winter X
Games in order to be relevant, or you like the
idea of Olympians competing for countries that they don't and
maybe have never even lived in. Then all of a sudden, pooh,
this one plops on my desk. It's from Yahoo Sports.
(01:46):
It's Pat Forty, a former colleague UH at one of
the other places, and from Pete Damo. I've known for
a long time. Both really good journalists who offer up
times up their opinion in their pieces. I think I
know most of their opinions in regards to the n
c A. I don't know their opinions on this particular
matter because they're playing it straight as straight investigative journalists.
(02:09):
I think they did a really good job. It is
at least curious that here we have a cloak and
dagger FBI investigations which no one's been able to get
any information when they made their arrests. Going back to
the start of basketball season. No one saw it coming,
and only now do we have leaked federal documents. Huh.
(02:34):
But the reaction to this story is maybe as interesting
as the story itself. By now, I would guess, unless
you're stuck under something large, or you've been listened to
country or pop music radio, you didn't know. Court documents
in the College Troops Correction Case corruption case spell out
who a c M that's Andy Miller's former agency paid
(02:58):
and how much. Documents and bank records obtained in discovery
during the federal investigation into the underbelly of college basketball.
Detail of the manick meticulous fashion the expenditures of former
NBA agent Andy Miller and former associate Christian Dawkins and
his agency including they include expense reports, balance sheets, and
(03:18):
list of cash advances, as well as entertainment and travel
expenses for high school and college prospects and their families.
This is supposed to be a smoking gun, and it
is of sorts. But who does the smoking gun actually indict?
It feels like any Miller and Christian Dawkins, and to
(03:40):
a slightly lesser extent, Dennis Smith, and to a slightly
lesser extent than that many other former and some current
college basketball players, but the reaction to it is not stunning.
It's not surprising at all because anytime there is a
(04:00):
story that has anything to do with collegian sports, especially
one in which money is involved, but sometimes not even
which money is involved, the narrative, at least on super
liberal super pro player Twitter, is this is about the
n c A. Blow up the n c A and
start over. The rules are dumb, are limiting, and only
(04:25):
help the schools and the coaches line in their pockets
and not the poor impoverished players. Now, that argument, while
I think has a ton of flaws, right, it has
a ton of flaws, is an argument at times worth having,
and it's one that seems to keep we keep having
(04:47):
we've actually had for like fourty or fifty years, and
people like, no, it's changing now, it's not. It's been
the same argument for a long time. And because the
TV deals, which are twenty year deals for twelve and
fourteen member conferences, have a B by the side of them,
you freak out over the amount of money when you
don't actually understand the details. Too. Basketball football athletic departments
(05:12):
are getting less money from the States less money, if any, money,
from the schools operating as individual entities. And yes, they
make more money, but they spend more money in order
to compete. And oh yeah, by the way, they have
to balance their own balance sheets. But that is a
separate argument. That is a non sequitur. This is a
(05:32):
story about a dirty agency that was paying players for
the potential opportunity of of getting them to sign up
for their services when they became professionals. That's it. So
you can despise Mark Emmert and his alleged arrogance. You
can hate the n c A, which many of you
(05:53):
don't really understand, I think, and that's our job as
as hosts, as analysts, as reporters to point out that
all the n c A is is kind of like Congress.
It's a huge conglomerate of the individual institutions and how
they believe their sports should be their sports should be run.
(06:16):
That's it. That's all it is. So you don't have
to like the n c a A. You can think
the n c as lack of desire to compensate athletes
above the level of a scholarship and cost of attendants
is a flawed premise. You cannot believe in amateurism as
many of my cohorts uh do here at Fox Sports.
(06:41):
That doesn't have anything to do with this story. Just
like last night. Last night in UM I was doing
a game in Eugene, Oregan Organ beat Arizona State up
the road. Arizona came from behind in overtime beat my
brother's squad at Organ State, and they did so without
Arizona did without Alonzo Tree or who's uh their best
veteran player, an NBA prospect who for the second time
(07:06):
in two and a half years, tested positive for p
e d S. It's a crazy story because he tested
positive p d S. He says. It's going back to
two thousands sixteen. It was after getting to a car
accident and his stepdad mix something in a drink he
said was laced with something that you shouldn't have taken,
and then they wouldn't clear him last year until there
(07:28):
were no traces of the steroid in his system. So
then when he pops up positive for a steroid, his
own lawyers like, hey, look, there's scientific proof that it
can be stored in your fat cells and when you're dehydrated,
somehow it pops in your system, which goes countered to
the idea that he had been clean and been tested
for a year. But I look on Twitter and I
(07:50):
see j Billis, who for ESPN is the voice of
college basketball landing shots at the n c A. Then
no, no no, it's not an n c A story. This
is Alonzo Treer story. He tested positive ones, then he
was cleared, after it was cleared from his system, then
something pops up in his system. Again, this has nothing
to do with the n c A. You may think
(08:12):
that college basketball coaches make too much money. You may
think that the system is tilted and slanted, you know,
for the coaches, for the athletic directors, and they're reaping
all their just money is raining down, you know, like
they're strippers at a at a strip club and somebody
else is making it rain. You may think all of
those that has nothing to do with this story, the
(08:33):
widespread corruption of college basketball coaches, at least in the
documents which have yet been have been released. All this
is his spreadsheets about basketball players who were on some
level of the take. Allegedly, that's it. Players know the rules,
the parents know the rules, the agents know the rules,
(08:54):
the agents paid the players breaking the rules, so the
agents pay whatever penalty and any oars lost all his
clients in the NBA, that's the story. You want to
make it into something else, and the idea that you're
the story. The The cliche is don't throw the baby
out with the bathwater, right, don't throw the baby out
with the bathwater, which means don't get rid of something
(09:16):
good just because the bathwater is is stinky. I would
say the modern expression is, hey, you know, you walk
into the kitchen. You're like, you open up the fridge,
start checking on the dates. Something stinks. You're going into
the trash like, oh ah, who cooked it? Who threw
(09:42):
it out? Why haven't you taken out the trash? And
when you do take out the trash, there's still a
stench left behind. You know, you might try for breeze.
The breeze is amazing stuff, isn't it. I could be
the spokesperson for But there's still a lingering stench. You
don't redo your whole whole kitchen because of it. Now,
(10:07):
are there are there issues within the college landscape? Sure
are there issues with agents and coaches, and agents steering
players to coaches, and shoe companies steering players to coaches
so that the coaches then deliver on their promise to
read to get the player back to the agent. Absolutely,
(10:30):
and there is some rather loose ties here Michigan State
in tom is Villanova's coaches, although no names listed as
being taken out to dinner. But but show me the
show me the part where there's coach k took fifty
grand to deliver Marvin Baglor Wendell Carter back to an agent.
Doesn't it's not there doesn't exist. And if, by the way,
(10:55):
just if you want to make the argument that hey,
if you pay the players, the black market wouldn't exist.
That sounds great. Huh, that that sounds great. Um, here's
the problem with it, though, whatever you compensate players for,
it's not going to be what NBA players make. It's
(11:16):
not gonna be huge, huge sums of money. And so
if you give, well, we can give kids twenty dollars,
it's fine. So that's X. What stops a player from
wanting too X or three X or four X. It's
just you show me the human being who is given
(11:37):
some money and doesn't want more and says, I'm good.
What we say all the time about rich people, you
don't rich people like more than anything. One money, everybody
likes being rich, and two free stuff. I'm gonna give
you more money and no one's gonna know about it.
And everybody else is making X, and I'm gonna give
you two X. The idea like paying players, like when
(11:58):
is it enough? I make a good amount of money
for Fox Sports. I'm very well, handsomely compensated. But do
you think of my next negotiation. I'm gonna go like, no, no, guys, good,
keep me flat. You know, the last thing I need
is more money, because nothing costs more in this world,
right my wife? I told my wife to find a
(12:18):
great sport for my daughters. Could you find one that's
ridiculously expensive, that's a group of people I don't relate to,
and that that costs exponentially more than basketball, football, or baseball?
And she nailed it. She picked a Questrian. And I
gotta tell you, I don't write checks for anything in
this world except for horses. So now I don't want
more money. I go out and grind on weekends if
(12:40):
I don't have something a gig with Fox Sports. I'm
doing a game tomorrow with Facebook that I'm doing a
game with the Compass Media. I'll do the n c
A Westwood one. So the the idea of you know,
if you just pay the players, nothing has happened. I
guess the dumbest thing I've ever that is dumber then
(13:01):
maybe any other suggestion. So I am. Look, I respect
people who are in this industry. I understand that we
all seem to have some issue with authority. Right. We
(13:21):
don't like Congress, we don't like the president, we don't
like our boss, we don't like heads of any sort
of industry, we don't like anybody. This is that everyone
hates everything, especially people who are in power. So you
don't like Mark Emery, you don't like the n c A,
you don't like the man. If you will is about
the man. Got it understood, But you're you're gonna have
(13:42):
to show me how that somehow relates to an agent
and agents runner and players need to be held accountable
for their actions. And oh yeah, by the way, they
are still accusations. Right. The way it works here is,
you know, Kevin Knox plays for Kentucky and his dad's like,
we didn't. I don't even know what this is. Accusations
(14:09):
are not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the court
of law. They are simply that even when they're in
court documents, because no one who is paying players knowing
that's illegal, would ever think of fudging a document in
order to get some extra money from the place they work. Right,
no one's ever fudged an expense report to simply get
(14:29):
a little bit more cash on their boss. Like we're
saying that Christian Dawkins, who has who has done everything
elicit in terms of trying to buy players for Andy Miller,
would never say I need four hundred bucks for a
dinner That didn't happen that because he's beyond repute with
nothing except for his expense reports. Got it understood? Be
(14:51):
sure to catch live editions of The Doug gott Leaps
Show weekdays at three p m. Easter noon Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Evan
Daniels joins us on the show. You see him on
Fox Sports one, uh, he does the Big East Show,
he does sideline for college basketball, um, he's covered recruiting
for over a decade, does an outstanding job balm on
Twitter as well. And and Evan, when when you saw
(15:14):
the Yahoo Sports report, Pete Samble and Pat Fordy co
authoring it, in which they have leaked documents from the
FBI investigation in the corruption within college basketball. What was
your reaction, UM, I think most people would want me
to say that I was surprised. I don't think that
I was. UM. I mean, I think we've all kind
(15:37):
of been waiting for more to come out from this
whole FBI investigation, and UM, slowly but surely, it's starting to.
But I think Ken, Doug you've been You've been around
way longer than me, and I think everyone UM that
has covered or been around this industry has kind of
known that this type of stuff UM goes on. But
(15:58):
to see it play out in the public, I guess
would be probably the most surprising. I mean, to have
those type of documents out for all to see, it's
not something that you would expect. No, UM, There's there's
several levels to it. Okay, in the documents themselves, While
they are damning for Annie Miller and probably Dennis Smith
(16:19):
and a couple of other players, I don't feel like
there's a smoking gun with coaches UM. And and so
when you hear people say, well, like you've got twenty
schools there and possible N S A and fractions like
I'm not not sure. Again, there may be some other documents,
there may be some things yet to be released, but
(16:40):
based upon this particular series of ledgers, I don't see it.
Am I missing something? No? I think that's I think
that's fair. I mean, I'd have to go back and
account exactly, but I think five or six names in
there that are currently playing college basketball, like Wendell Carter,
Kevin Knox, Colin Sexton, all those were basically meals. Um,
(17:02):
I think right around or under a hundred dollars. I mean,
that's minor, minor in the grand scheme of sne things. UM.
So I'm with you in that regard. And you know,
I spoke to a handful of coaches today and one
high major head coach said to me, well, how am
I supposed to police a kid we recruited his parents
(17:25):
on taking Um are going to UH to get a
meal with an agent in the meeting itself is not
even a violation. They're allowed to do that. It's it's
that's the fact that they paid for the meal. And
the other thing is is these are documents. There is
not and and don't get me wrong, Pete and Pat
did a good job of putting the story together. But
(17:46):
there's not proof that the money that let's say, Christian
Dawkins asked for in his expense report and took guys
to dinner, like, there's not proof of that event actually
doing that. I'm taking no guy, No guy has ever
forged a a an expense report, right, No one's ever.
There's never been a human being alive who has said
(18:07):
he paid for something that he didn't pay for an
expense report, just right right, like I'm saying that with
full sarcasm. No, I know you are, I know you are,
I know you are. And no, and and obviously I
would imagine a lot of that happened, but it's also
going to be pretty tough to proof. Um. Evan Daniel
(18:27):
joins us on The Doug Gottlip Show. All right, let's
get to the players. Miles Bridges playing for is OH
who also by the way, named in it in terms
of uh, somebody picking up a meal form allegedly, but
but plays for a highly reputable coach at a on
a school, on a team that could very well win
or compete for a national championship. Same thing with Wendell Carter.
(18:48):
Same thing with you know, a couple of other guys
that are Colin Sexton. If they get to the n
c A tournament in the short term, what happens to
these players? I would imagine, especially the guy is and
that that just had meals, they'll continue to play Miles
Bridges I think was just under five dollars. I'm interested
to see how these scenarios play. I remember last year
(19:11):
Doug Ohmer York seven, the kid that came over from Turkey. Uh,
he missed like eight or nine games to start the season.
But the inn double As have a long time to
investigate his deal and and it it came back that
he u had taken some money or or was meals
and other stuff paid for by the pro team that
he played for, and stuff that the incuble A beamed
(19:34):
um an extra benefit. He got eight games had to
pay it back, and maybe his nine games had to
pay it back. The interesting part is is there's so
many guys involved, whether the six or seven, and the
season is coming to a close. I mean, we're two
weeks from conference tournaments, three until selection Sunday. It's it's
not like the in l A has a ton of
time to act. And we also don't know what they
(19:55):
outside of that report, if they read, if they have
these documents, what they have access to. I would imagine
that the three guys like Kevin Knox, Sex and Windell Carter,
that their parents got a meal paid for by agents.
They weren't even expensive meals by the way. Um, I
would imagine they'll continue to play. Maybe the the others
that that were, um, the price tag was a little higher.
(20:19):
Maybe they don't. I don't know. I mean, even Miles Bridges,
his mom has sent an advance for four dollars and um,
maybe another meal. I mean, I think it's gonna be
hard to to prove and tell him you can't play
in such a short period of time or vice versa. Um, okay,
so will you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, I kind
of do. And I kind of think if there is
(20:40):
a if there's a change in the n c A,
I think it's more lenients more so than some massive
change into Like I understand, there's a lot of people
who covered I don't know where you sit on this.
There's a lot of people who cover college athletics that
think pairs players should be paid. Okay, I disagree with
it we could get into a separate bait. I feel
(21:01):
like that's a non sequitur to this particular discussion, just
because the idea that if there's an agent that wants
to give a kid extra money, whether you're making, you know,
the cost of attendance, which is like five thousand dollars
essentially for most ever you know, or you're making, if
somebody's gonna offer you more money, there's always going to
be kids that are would like to order their parents
(21:22):
who would like to take more money. That's just that.
So I don't I don't actually think that argument fits.
I think that if there's an evolution in the n
c A, it's gonna be a little bit more leniance,
a little bit more um understanding of reality, and not
as hard line a stance on on gray issues as
opposed to black and white issues. Yeah, I think that
makes sense. I think a lot of people are making
(21:43):
this like an issue and bringing up that athletes should
be paid and and this, and I don't think that
that solves this. I mean there's always going to be um,
you know. Look, this is how I'm not saying all,
but this is how a lot of agents have recruited.
I mean, they spread out a wide net and they
went for guys. I don't think that's necessarily going to change.
I also don't know how illegal that is unethical um,
(22:08):
but there's always going to be people that are willing
to go above and beyond what UM they're allowed to
do UM to recruit, not only from an agent standpoint,
but also from a college standpoint. Even if these kids
are paid to go to school. I still think that
we would see that there's always gonna be a black market,
always agreed, Evan Daniels joining us on the Doug Gotlip
(22:30):
Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Unfortunately, though, when you
say n ci A, you say violations, you say money
and agents, and here we are, you know, just a
couple of weeks short of selection Sunday. It's going to
cast a shadow over the sport in the prime time
of the sport. How does this affect the ultimate outcome
(22:52):
and maybe how we view March badness? But I think
there's been a cloud over the sports since everything came
out in late September. It's I mean, Doug, this is
you know, and I'm sure it's the same way for
you being a basketball guys. It's the only thing people
want to talk to me about only I get the
question from my everyday friends that don't even care about
college basketball, Like, that's the portrait of college basketball right now.
(23:14):
It's a black eye, there's a cloud hangover it. It's
it's just taking punch after punch after punch. It's the
main story. It's funny. We did a I did a
story over seven Sports Today about the National Player of
the Year and somebody responded, well, none of those guys
are actually National Player of the Year. The FBI is
because they've done more damage than anybody. And it's true.
It's it's a bad look for for college basketball. I think, um,
(23:37):
for people that are around the game every day. UM,
I want to say almost immune two. UM, kind of
the knowledge that this stuff takes place obviously never proved,
but I think it's pretty known that that this type
of stuff happens. And in a way, it's it's kind
of just something that, UM, if you're around the game
(24:00):
aim all the time, you're kind of just immune to it.
But to actually see UM the document too, UM, see
assisting coaches that you see on the road all the
time potentially facing jail time, I think it's UM, I
think it's it's just interest. It's an interesting time and
it certainly makes the sport look bad. And um, there's
(24:20):
a lot of cleaning up to do, no question. Last
thing um lost in this is the bizarre story of
Alonzo Trier from last night Arizona set to to probably
win the pack twelve um before he gets suspended for
a second PD positive test. Now, his lawyer as is
(24:41):
saying that this is the same substance, only was in
his fat cells and because he was dehydrated, that it
was still there over a year after he initially took
the substance. But to those of us again who followed
it like bait, Alonzo Trier wasn't allowed to compete last
year until it was completely out of his system. Um,
how does this play out with Alonzo Trier? Well, if
(25:03):
if it's truly from the last time and the remnants
just reached it up, this is garbage because the n
C double A approved him to play. Um, I'm I'm
not a scientist. I read Uh there was a story
last night about a situation where that um, the stuff
stayed in a guy system for for a long time.
If that's the case and this is the initial UM,
(25:25):
banned substance. Substance that he took the first time around,
then he should be playing right now. I don't. I
don't think that would be right. They they deemed him eligible.
If he retook something, then of course he's got a sit.
But that that doesn't appear to be the case. I
don't think Arizona or Sean Miller would have put out
that statement if that were the case. It is. It's
a crazy story though, I mean, just the the honestly,
(25:46):
the impacts their whole season. Alonzo Trier has been He's
been tremendous for them. He's their best score, he's their leader. Um,
you know, obviously they have DeAndre Atan still, but I
mean they can't. They're not winning multiple games the inst
turn them without a Lonzo trip. Yeah, and I don't
know how you. I don't know where you see them.
I don't know you evaluate them. And we have no
(26:06):
real clarity. I made the the entire and now that
becomes even a secondary or tertiary story to this one.
Check out, Evan, you got a game this weekend you
in studio, uh, inside the Big East this weekend, Inside
the Big East this weekend, which is on Fox Sports One.
Follow up on Twitter is a great follow or check
him out on seven Sports. Evan, thanks so much for
joining us. Of course, all right, that's h Evan, Evan
(26:28):
Daniels joining us. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Heart Radio app. Can you pull up that Instagram post
from Jonathan Martin um Buyer. I don't know how super
super busy you are, but I'm I'm fascinated by this
Dan Buyer of course, who We're gonna make him work
extra because he's had so much time off and uh
(26:50):
and of course you've got even been here, you just
haven't been here. That's that's the difference. Um. So you
hear him on the weekends here on Fox Sports Radios.
You always do hosting. So, um here's the post is
a shotgun and on the shotgun is hashtag Harvard West
like hashtag Miami Dolphins. And there's also links to Twitter
(27:11):
accounts at James Dunlevy, at t J Taylor, at Incognito
that's Richie Incognito, at Mike Pouncey, and there's a then
there's a like an inscription, like a post there. When
you're a bully victim and a coward, your options are
suicide or revenge. Um And apparently, as you heard from,
(27:36):
Danny's been taken into custody. His Instagram account is verified
but set to private and strangely has no avatar photo.
So the question becomes by or do you think this
is real or somebody somebody setting him up? I think
it's real. I don't know, I I don't know anything
(27:56):
about how you could hack into anything, but if that's
his account, um, yeah, I think it's real. It's a
It's amazing too, Doug is because when you look at
how it's I mean, it took some time to do this.
I mean they put a hashtag Miami Dolphins, you know,
on the gun, and the hashtag Harvard Westlake on the
(28:17):
gun as well. Like the words were. It wasn't just
you know, thrown together in a bit of rage. It
actually took some time to actually put the entire post together.
So it's music. I do think it's real. It's it
would be incredibly dubious and hard to understand why if
(28:37):
someone were to hack his account they would do something
of that nature. I mean, we've seen hacks all the time,
whether it's like getting into someone's phone and sending like
nude pictures or sending out stupid tweets like something of
that nature. I can't understand how someone would hack in
and meticularly like articulate something like that. Okay. The only
(28:58):
thing that I wonder is it says when you're a
bully victim, when you're a bully victim and a coward.
So he's calling himself a coward. I think that's just
part of the poor mental state that he's clearly in
to do something like this. Hmm, this is it's I
think that's actually a very smart point that you made.
(29:19):
And this is by the way that if if this
is real and well the authorities are treating in is reel.
This is the second legitimate threat which has been thwarted
in Los Angeles in the last like forty eight hours.
Remember I told you guys yesterday about the one with
in El Camino High School where a kid was saying,
tell into another kid, he's gonna go shoot up to school.
(29:40):
Security guy had heard him, called talk, called police. They
went to his house, found a couple of a R
fifteens and some other military grade weapons and thwarted a
potential attack on El Camino High School, which is a
Los Angeles Unified School District high school. And this one
obviously is as if this is really Martin John, than
Martin is crying for help. You don't pick, You don't
(30:03):
post something on Instagram about going and shooting up a
school and getting revenge or potentially shooting a former teammate
unless you just you need help, help more than attention.
But the tension brings the help. And then you know,
when you factor in park Land and the subsequent protest
(30:23):
and the president and the responses and the n r A,
and it just you're like, oh my gosh, the timing
of it. Who would do this in the timing? But again,
this is what I talked about yesterday, And maybe I
don't know Ryan. If I didn't articulate it well enough,
I apologif I didn't. My my, my point has always
been that we try and look at the idea of
(30:44):
shooting up a school from a logical perspective. We try
and look because we are our brains are functioning on
some level as God intended them to function. But when
you are ruggling with this level of stress, anxiety, depression, anger, etcetera, etcetera.
(31:05):
You're clearly not functioning the right way. Case in point,
Jason Martin, I mean Jonathan Martin. If it's sorry, Jason J.
Martin wars on Cley Traviss Show. Jonathan Martin, you never
would have posted this on Twitter if you really, if
your your brain is functioning correctly. This is a bright guy.
Harvard West like great school, goes to Stanford, tremendous player
(31:29):
plays in the NFL. We know how it ended in Miami.
This is scary stuff. Scary stuff. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Doug gott Leaps Show weekdays at
three p m. Eastern noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app. Let's welcome in. Zach
Harpery rights for fan rag Sports got a great podcast.
(31:52):
We've worked together at other places. He does an awesome,
awesome job. Um and uh, Zach, what if I told
you I have the most interesting, uninteresting game of the
NBA season for you? All Right, Mavericks take on the
Lakers tonight at Staples. Al Right, First, for the Lakers,
(32:14):
Alonzo's back. He's got a minister restriction, but Alonzo's back,
and Alonzo and Isaiah Thomas. How that thing works out together.
That's interesting to me. On the other side, you got
the Mavericks, you got Mark Cuban. First part is last
time these two teams faced each other. It was Isaiah
Thomas's first game, and Isaiah Thomas proclaimed his powers back.
Yet they lost to the Mavericks, and the Mavericks were
(32:35):
trying to lose the game. Go back and watch they
played dudes that weren't on the scattering report. At the
end of the game it was. It was the Lakers
lost to a team that was trying to tank and
Isaiah Thomas was claiming his powers are back. Then factor
in uh Mark Cuban getting fined for telling his team
to tank. And of course you got the si story
(32:56):
about the front office and the business side of the Mavericks.
Andy got Dennis Smith, who is alleged to have gotten
seventy three grand uh in a loan from an agent
he didn't sign with. And I give you the most
interesting uninteresting game of the NBA season. That's pretty I mean,
that's a long list of things that it sounds like
(33:17):
from like the pregame interviews and the postgame interviews are
the most interesting part of tonight's festivities, right, like just
getting any kind of comment on the record. I'm sure
Denison's j is not going to talk about what happened
uh in college and I'm sure that um, I'm sure
the scandal uh with the sexual harassment and the best
and violence within the Maths organization, I'm sure that's not
gonna that's not gonna be something they're willing to talk about,
(33:39):
especially coast game. But just the storylines alone actually give
a little bit of life through a game that probably
most people don't want to stay up for on these coasts. No,
but I guess maybe really what it comes down to
is I want to see what the Mavericks do in
the fourth quarter. Right Do they feel compelled to throw
Harrison Barnes and J. J. Burrea and Dirk Navitski out
there because everyone knows that'd rather lose, or do they
(34:01):
just go, you know, we already paid the six entred
thousand dollar fine, the hell of it, We're trying to lose.
Like I'm like, I'm in Yeah. Here's the thing about
the Mavericks too, is like I'm a pretty big basketball third.
Like there's not a there's not a lot of players
I'm not. I'm not familiar with They have trotted out
several guys this season. Who is level? Who is Max Kleiber?
I have no idea. Who is a creative player from
(34:24):
a video game? Like I don't want to be rude
to him, but that's not a real person. Yes, how
did this happen? How do you do that? Like we're
basket We're bad. I know he's not. They'll find somebody
who's worse. Don't worry, it's there's still plenty of time
to find somebody who's worse. All right, let's get two
games that actually do matter. Calves lose. Last night. Lebron
(34:44):
was magnificent, but all of a sudden, the supporting cast
cannot make a shot. Now, he was happy, go lucky,
He's all invested in the process. We still played hard,
we still moved the ball. Um, are are we pumping
the brakes on the on handing them the Eastern Conference
Champion Jim Trophy after seeing him last night? I mean
probably a little bit, just because they still he still
(35:05):
needs people to make shots because he was he was spectacular.
Um when he had like thirty two, nine and eight
or something like that, it was just a monster in
the fourth quarter of it wasn't enough. We still meet
them to make shots that we still need them to
play some semblance of defense, right, And they didn't really
do that against the John Wallace Wizard, who actually might
be the better Wizards that we're finding out. I'll get
I'll get to that. I'll get to that. You conduct
(35:25):
interviews on your podcastle But we do need the Cavaliers
to play some defense, and we beat them to look
better than they have and they looked good right after
the trades, and they look up before the break, and
maybe this was just a a All Star weekend malaise
that where that no one could hit a shot. But
I still think it's their Eastern Conference because they're still
(35:46):
drawn and he's still the best player on that conference.
What's it gonna take for anybody to buy into the
Toronto Raptors. You you can't buy into them until they
until they do it in the playoffs, right. And it's
not even just like can they get past the second round?
Can they get to the comm finals? That's not the question.
The questions can they get to the finals, And and
it starts with them, It starts with them not losing
(36:07):
the first game of every series, right, Like, if they
can come out and win Game one at home against
I don't know the Heat or the Sixers or whoever
they face in the first round. If they can come
out and win game one, then you start thinking like, Okay,
this Raptors team not like the previous Raptors team. But
unless they get to the finals, I don't really know
what we're doing with them. And Raptors fans don't like that,
and they think the American media hates that franchise. We
(36:28):
don't hate the franchise. I've compared them to. It's a
lot like the Chris Paul Clippers. Right. We know their
regular season good, we know they're awesome in the regular season.
You get to the postseason and it's like, okay, can
you do something that we haven't seen you do before,
which is get to a certain level in the playoffs.
If they don't do that, then we just don't care anymore. Yeah.
I would say this about Chris Paul's Clippers, which, of
course now we'll never know. They were never healthy, right,
(36:51):
Whereas the Raptors have been healthy. They've had two opportunities
in subsequent years against the Calves, they did force six
games two years ago. They put a very little fight
last year. I liken them to whether it's a Kia
or a Hyundai. Right, Initially it was really too higher
to buy in. Now they're making luxury cars, and I'm
supposed to think that they're just as nice as Alexis
(37:12):
or an Infinity or a Bend's or BMW. I'll go
along with it, but I still know that the reason
they're they're big sale is still we're the cheaper model.
We're the same, only we're ten thousand dollars less expensive,
Like it just takes a long time in order for
us to buy in. And I'm not there yet. Yeah,
I'm the same way. And I love Kyle Lowry. I
think the Martin rose in the way he's reshaped his
game is incredible. The way the Raptors have have reshaped
(37:34):
their offense to be less free thrower line and they're
shooting more threes and the depth is great. Um. Everything
they check all these boxes except for that sour taste
they left in every one's mouth over last like three posts.
Zach Harper joined us a fan rag sports dot com.
Of course you can fall them on Twitter. Check out
his podcast. It's a good one. Uh talk hoops. Okay,
so let's get to those Washington Wizards. Now we're starting
(37:57):
to have this legit conversation like, look, I like John Wall.
I think John Wall is a freak athlete. I think
John Wall can get that anywhere he wants to get
onto a basketball floor. But at what point do at
least go I don't know. Maybe they're a little bit
better without, Like I feel like sacrilege saying it, because
the reality is in the playoffs you have to have
a John Wall to win a big series. But man,
(38:19):
they're playing better basketball without him. They are, and it's weird.
I don't I really don't know what to do with it,
because you don't. You don't take away John Wall from
a team and say, like Thomas sat Our Anthony in there,
I bet they'll be better because that that doesn't sound
like anything you would do with the NBA level. But
they at least, like to their role players credit, everyone
is stepped up. There is more. Even though he's a
(38:39):
guy who passes a lot, right, he gets a lot
of assists. There is seemingly more ball movement with this
iteration of the whispers, because everyone has to do more
and everyone stepped up in that in that extended role
and it's really working. It just creates this this really
awkward dynamic personality wise with the team because there have
been you know, reports and whispers and whatever that Beal
(39:00):
and Wall aren't the best of friends, or maybe Wall
and the other guys on the team don't get along
as much as you would like them to. Not that
there's this you know, horrible shot Kobe fuke going on,
but just it's not as tight as you would hope
them to be. And if that's the and if and
if that's the case, then once that supermax extension kicks
in and they have real flexibility moving forward because they're
gonna have to pay Ubre or they're gonna have to
(39:21):
pay somebody. Right what that happens is have you capt
yourself out enough for a team that is good enough
or could you have Redis distributed that money elsewhere? How
does the Kawhi Leonard uh and the San Antonio Spurs
story end? I mean, I I con from the reports
from from what Kauai is legitimately unhappy right now? Is
it unhappy to where he doesn't uh, you know, he
(39:44):
doesn't want to be a Spur past next summer. Probably not.
I don't think it's that severe. I think he's mostly
frustrated that he can't play where he feels he can't play,
he can't trust his body right now, and I'm sure
that is something he's never gone through before, and it's
and it's a real frustrating thing. But the danger of
him leaping in twenty nineteen, it's real, Like, whether it
happens or not, it's real. And that's something we don't
really expect from the Spurs organization. And and if he leaves,
(40:07):
they'll still be good because Pop can you know, turn
anyone into a good rotation. But they're no longer title contenders,
and I mean they're not really title contenders now, but
they have a separate shot moving forward. If that's the case.
What do you what do you make of what he
said to the media where uh, you know, he kind
of let it out there that he might not play
the rest of this season. Do you do you think
(40:28):
that's a reality. I do think it's a reality. I
think it was more not a shot at Kauai, but
just theym preparing his guys for hey, Kaui may not
come back to save us, right, So I think he
did that. I think another thing is that is it
really did inform people that this is a Kauai decision.
This is not our decision. We've cleared him to play,
as ward report like we've cleared him. This is whether
(40:49):
or not he feels comfortable enough, and clearly he doesn't
because he's not going out there. And I think it
was more of a let me just get everyone on
the same page so that we're not continually getting questions
of why wasn't quite clear to play? Steph was amazing
last night, but there's something amiss with that defense. And
I know that everybody seems convinced you get to the
playoffs and Iguodala and Livingston will be the Iguodala and
(41:12):
Livingston of the playoffs past. But yeah, look, at some point,
you you kind of it's like horse racing, right, at
some point you go to the whip and the horse
just doesn't have it. At some point you try desperately
to all right, Iguodala is gonna be the Iguodala of old,
and he doesn't have it. Do you think they're playing
with fire with that bench at struggling so far in
the regular season? Absolutely, because you know, I don't. I
(41:34):
don't even think they need Iguatala to be, you know,
a plus defender every time out there, or living to
be a plus defender every time out there in the
playoffs in order to win the title. Right, Like, they
have so much firepower and they're so good and they're
starting lineup is so good that they don't really need that.
It's just that's what separates them from being able to
run through the playoffs and from them having to actually work.
(41:54):
I think the concern that the Curs had all year
is a valid one of like they can't build bad
habits as a team, even with as much talent and
firepower as they have. They have to take care of
the ball, they have to defend, they have to protect
the rim. They can't keep giving up three pointers. You know,
they're all these checklists that they can they can still
overcome because the talents there, But you just want to
make it easier on yourself, and they keep making it harder.
(42:16):
And I don't know that with as many games as
they've played over the last three years, including the post season,
can you just flip keep clipping that switch or do
you have to really build And we're not seeing them
build right now. Zach Harper, the only man has worked
in more places than me. He has and CBS not fan,
Rag Sports. Uh, you've got a website you gotta check.
(42:37):
He'll work for you. But he does a great job
covering the league. Check out his podcast whilem on Twitter.
He loves ball. You should love ball and listen to
his stuff. Good stuff. Man. A watch that completely watchable
and yet unwatchable Mavericks Lakers game late. That's gonna be
a really really interesting fourth quarter night, you know what
I mean. I can't get enough of lons of ball
shooting the basketball. So yeah, Zach Harper joining us the Dougallass.
(42:58):
Thanks so much, Zack. Fox Sports Radio has the best
sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our
shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the
I Heart Radio app. And now say Danny Cannell was
on First Things First. You can hear that on Serious
six M Channel eighty three. He was in for Chris Carter,
(43:19):
who's off getting married. Danny had this to say about
Kirk Cousins. Here's the crazy thing about Kirk Cousins. If
he was selected at the spot RG three was because
he was drafted later fourth round, even the same draft,
if he was drafted in first round, they he would
still be with Washington. He would have been extended years ago,
like a couple of years ago. After season, he would
(43:39):
have gotten a nice big contract. But it's the perception
of him, and it drives me crazy because he has
proven over three years. This isn't a seven game body work, Mike.
We're talking about Jimmy Garoppolo. It's not a small you know,
Nick Foles one season that he had back in This
is three years. He's been in top ten and almost
every meaningful category as far as passing stats. So he
has proved in it. Now he's going to get the
(44:01):
opportunity for a team to believe in him. Kirk Cousins
can be the next Drew Brees because Drew. The perception
around Drew Brees was similar. When he was charging in
San Diego coming off the shoulder surgery. There were only
two teams that were even considering looking at Breeze. It
was the Dolphins and the Saints. Didn't go to Dolphins
didn't work out medical, you know, concerns, and Sean Payton said, hey,
(44:22):
we believe in you. I think a team that says
to Kirk Cousins, we believe in you. I think you
can get that caliber of quarterback where he could take
your franchise to the next level, not for this season,
but for the next six, seven, eight years, much like
Drew Brees elevated the Saint Yeah, I like Danny Um,
I like Drew Brees, but the idea that they're the
(44:43):
same guy. Uh And look Drew there there were questions
about his arm strength when he was in San Diego,
and then and then the one thing I don't believe
I heard him say, do you guys remember Drew Brees
injury in his last game with the San Diego Chargers.
Others grew him. His shoulder bent kind of in half.
They had Philip Rivers sitting behind him. Everyone knew those
(45:04):
But the reason he wasn't picked up by anybody was
the shoulder. No one knew if the shoulder was going
to stay together. And somehow the shoulder seems to have
now a held up but been stronger than ever. He's
helped by the fact he's got Sean Payton with him.
He's played indoors. Uh. And Kirk Cousins is thrown for
nearly five thousand yards. I just don't see Kirk Cousins
as that guy. He wasn't able to elevate the Redskins.
(45:26):
He's good, he's fine, He's not a bad quarterback. I
just breeze is gonna go to the Hall of Fame.
And I don't think anybody, having seen him for three
years as a starter, like five years in the league,
would say that's a Hall of famer. We have enough
data to say who Kirk Cousins is, and he appears
to be an above you know, an average at best
(45:46):
to slightly above average starting quarterback. Sharene Williams, who covers
the Dallas Cowboys for the fourt Where Star Telegram, says
uh in regards to the possibility possibility of going after
Kirk Cousins, wouldn't pass the Cowboys at all. We've seen
so many time they're intrigued with quarterbacks. We saw it
(46:08):
with Johnny Manzel. He just gets in his head some
of these quarterback he falls in love with him. I
wouldn't be surprised if he has a little love for
Kirk Cousins. I was thinking about those down the field throws.
He does throw the ball down the field better than
most quarterbacks in the NFL Ben Roethlisberger right there for
right there with him. I disagree. I don't think he
has a great arm at all. I don't. I don't.
(46:28):
I don't see that from Jerry. Look, Jerry knows. I
think everyone knows. Dak Prescott is not a superstar quarterback.
He has limitations. But with it's like in um, like
when you're gonna make a big decision, you put the
pluses in the minus of the pros and the cons. Right,
So the con is that Dak Prescott sometimes lacks the accuracy,
(46:52):
especially when he reloads through his progressions. The cons are
that Dak Prescott um while he he has a he
can't have a big he doesn't have a huge arm.
He doesn't have a pretty big arm. But it's it's
the where he places the ball and how to get
some of his best wife. She's like like Dez Bryant
going the pro is. He can run, he's mobile, he
(47:14):
can run for a first down. He's got a big,
thick body. So unlike Lamar Jackson or r G three
or somebody thin er Teddy Bridge Wire, you don't feel
like he's gonna get hurt. Um, smart enough guy, good
enough leader and understands they got a good running game
to play. But maybe the biggest pro is he's only
gonna make like a million dollars a year. So if
(47:35):
you don't bring anybody else in, you have a chance.
You have a small window paying him on this menial
rookie contract from being a fourth round pick. You have
this small window where you don't have to pay him anything,
and yet he's still gonna be your starter. You can't
actually renegotiate his contract even if you wanted to. Can't.
(47:56):
In the by laws of the Collective bart In Agreement,
you cannot read a negotiate the terms of this rookie
deal until the end of next season. So you've got
a window where you're paying a million bucks for a
position that most people are paying twenty to twenty five
million dollars. They totally understand that in Dallas. So would
he tinker with what would there be a discussion? Yes,
(48:19):
in any organization, if somebody's on the market, you tinker
with the idea of bringing him in. But then reality
sets in and the Cowboys no, when you know the
wide receiver, we need to help on defense, we need
we need you know, our best players to not be
suspended or Shanlee to not be injured, and if that happens,
(48:40):
we're able to spend that other twenty four million dollars
somewhere wisely not on a backup quarterback. And while he
made you know, Cousins maybe better than Dak Prescott, is
he twenty four million dollars better than Dak Prescott. The
answer is no. That's what the Fox said. Say
This is the best of the Dog Dot Leap Show
on Fox Sports Radio. Boom, What Up America, Doug Gottlieb Show,
Fox Sports Radio, coming to you from the City of Angels, cool,
crisp City of Angels, where we are reacting to a
bizarre and scary Instagram post from a former NFL lineman
(00:24):
who went to high school just down the street from
where we broadcast from. We'll get to that upcoming, and
of course we react to the big news care of
Yahoo Sports and this FBI investigation over college basketball. Get
to that and about thirty seconds um Calves lost last night. No,
(00:45):
they cannot trade everybody as they want to, kidding, but
Lebron somehow oddly energized even by the loss when no
one else scores in the last couple of minutes of
the game. Lakers take on the Mavericks tonight. You've heard
in the update and you'll hear me talk about Dennis
Smith Jr. Star rookie guard lottery pick for the Dallas Mavericks.
(01:05):
What's maybe more interesting about that game is a culmination
of stories about the Dallas Mavericks and what they will
do in the fourth quarter tonight against Lakers, who will
get alonzo ball back. End's a lot to get to.
Just when you thought boring this weekend sports, I thought
if I came in today, I'd have to have an
(01:26):
argument with you about whether or not you like the Olympics,
especially when the Olympics are trying to steal Winter X
Games in order to be relevant, or you like the
idea of Olympians competing for countries that they don't and
maybe have never even lived in. Then all of a sudden, pooh,
this one plops on my desk. It's from Yahoo Sports.
(01:46):
It's Pat Forty, a former colleague UH at one of
the other places, and from Pete Damo. I've known for
a long time. Both really good journalists who offer up
times up their opinion in their pieces. I think I
know most of their opinions in regards to the n
c A. I don't know their opinions on this particular
matter because they're playing it straight as straight investigative journalists.
(02:09):
I think they did a really good job. It is
at least curious that here we have a cloak and
dagger FBI investigations which no one's been able to get
any information when they made their arrests. Going back to
the start of basketball season. No one saw it coming,
and only now do we have leaked federal documents. Huh.
(02:34):
But the reaction to this story is maybe as interesting
as the story itself. By now, I would guess, unless
you're stuck under something large, or you've been listened to
country or pop music radio, you didn't know. Court documents
in the College Troops Correction Case corruption case spell out
who a c M that's Andy Miller's former agency paid
(02:58):
and how much. Documents and bank records obtained in discovery
during the federal investigation into the underbelly of college basketball.
Detail of the manick meticulous fashion the expenditures of former
NBA agent Andy Miller and former associate Christian Dawkins and
his agency including they include expense reports, balance sheets, and
(03:18):
list of cash advances, as well as entertainment and travel
expenses for high school and college prospects and their families.
This is supposed to be a smoking gun, and it
is of sorts. But who does the smoking gun actually indict?
It feels like any Miller and Christian Dawkins, and to
(03:40):
a slightly lesser extent, Dennis Smith, and to a slightly
lesser extent than that many other former and some current
college basketball players, but the reaction to it is not stunning.
It's not surprising at all because anytime there is a
(04:00):
story that has anything to do with collegian sports, especially
one in which money is involved, but sometimes not even
which money is involved, the narrative, at least on super
liberal super pro player Twitter, is this is about the
n c A. Blow up the n c A and
start over. The rules are dumb, are limiting, and only
(04:25):
help the schools and the coaches line in their pockets
and not the poor impoverished players. Now, that argument, while
I think has a ton of flaws, right, it has
a ton of flaws, is an argument at times worth having,
and it's one that seems to keep we keep having
(04:47):
we've actually had for like fourty or fifty years, and
people like, no, it's changing now, it's not. It's been
the same argument for a long time. And because the
TV deals, which are twenty year deals for twelve and
fourteen member conferences, have a B by the side of them,
you freak out over the amount of money when you
don't actually understand the details. Too. Basketball football athletic departments
(05:12):
are getting less money from the States less money, if any, money,
from the schools operating as individual entities. And yes, they
make more money, but they spend more money in order
to compete. And oh yeah, by the way, they have
to balance their own balance sheets. But that is a
separate argument. That is a non sequitur. This is a
(05:32):
story about a dirty agency that was paying players for
the potential opportunity of of getting them to sign up
for their services when they became professionals. That's it. So
you can despise Mark Emmert and his alleged arrogance. You
can hate the n c A, which many of you
(05:53):
don't really understand, I think, and that's our job as
as hosts, as analysts, as reporters to point out that
all the n c A is is kind of like Congress.
It's a huge conglomerate of the individual institutions and how
they believe their sports should be their sports should be run.
(06:16):
That's it. That's all it is. So you don't have
to like the n c a A. You can think
the n c as lack of desire to compensate athletes
above the level of a scholarship and cost of attendants
is a flawed premise. You cannot believe in amateurism as
many of my cohorts uh do here at Fox Sports.
(06:41):
That doesn't have anything to do with this story. Just
like last night. Last night in UM I was doing
a game in Eugene, Oregan Organ beat Arizona State up
the road. Arizona came from behind in overtime beat my
brother's squad at Organ State, and they did so without
Arizona did without Alonzo Tree or who's uh their best
veteran player, an NBA prospect who for the second time
(07:06):
in two and a half years, tested positive for p
e d S. It's a crazy story because he tested
positive p d S. He says. It's going back to
two thousands sixteen. It was after getting to a car
accident and his stepdad mix something in a drink he
said was laced with something that you shouldn't have taken,
and then they wouldn't clear him last year until there
(07:28):
were no traces of the steroid in his system. So
then when he pops up positive for a steroid, his
own lawyers like, hey, look, there's scientific proof that it
can be stored in your fat cells and when you're dehydrated,
somehow it pops in your system, which goes countered to
the idea that he had been clean and been tested
for a year. But I look on Twitter and I
(07:50):
see j Billis, who for ESPN is the voice of
college basketball landing shots at the n c A. Then
no, no no, it's not an n c A story. This
is Alonzo Treer story. He tested positive ones, then he
was cleared, after it was cleared from his system, then
something pops up in his system. Again, this has nothing
to do with the n c A. You may think
(08:12):
that college basketball coaches make too much money. You may
think that the system is tilted and slanted, you know,
for the coaches, for the athletic directors, and they're reaping
all their just money is raining down, you know, like
they're strippers at a at a strip club and somebody
else is making it rain. You may think all of
those that has nothing to do with this story, the
(08:33):
widespread corruption of college basketball coaches, at least in the
documents which have yet been have been released. All this
is his spreadsheets about basketball players who were on some
level of the take. Allegedly, that's it. Players know the rules,
the parents know the rules, the agents know the rules,
(08:54):
the agents paid the players breaking the rules, so the
agents pay whatever penalty and any oars lost all his
clients in the NBA, that's the story. You want to
make it into something else, and the idea that you're
the story. The The cliche is don't throw the baby
out with the bathwater, right, don't throw the baby out
with the bathwater, which means don't get rid of something
(09:16):
good just because the bathwater is is stinky. I would
say the modern expression is, hey, you know, you walk
into the kitchen. You're like, you open up the fridge,
start checking on the dates. Something stinks. You're going into
the trash like, oh ah, who cooked it? Who threw
(09:42):
it out? Why haven't you taken out the trash? And
when you do take out the trash, there's still a
stench left behind. You know, you might try for breeze.
The breeze is amazing stuff, isn't it. I could be
the spokesperson for But there's still a lingering stench. You
don't redo your whole whole kitchen because of it. Now,
(10:07):
are there are there issues within the college landscape? Sure
are there issues with agents and coaches, and agents steering
players to coaches, and shoe companies steering players to coaches
so that the coaches then deliver on their promise to
read to get the player back to the agent. Absolutely,
(10:30):
and there is some rather loose ties here Michigan State
in tom is Villanova's coaches, although no names listed as
being taken out to dinner. But but show me the
show me the part where there's coach k took fifty
grand to deliver Marvin Baglor Wendell Carter back to an agent.
Doesn't it's not there doesn't exist. And if, by the way,
(10:55):
just if you want to make the argument that hey,
if you pay the players, the black market wouldn't exist.
That sounds great. Huh, that that sounds great. Um, here's
the problem with it, though, whatever you compensate players for,
it's not going to be what NBA players make. It's
(11:16):
not gonna be huge, huge sums of money. And so
if you give, well, we can give kids twenty dollars,
it's fine. So that's X. What stops a player from
wanting too X or three X or four X. It's
just you show me the human being who is given
(11:37):
some money and doesn't want more and says, I'm good.
What we say all the time about rich people, you
don't rich people like more than anything. One money, everybody
likes being rich, and two free stuff. I'm gonna give
you more money and no one's gonna know about it.
And everybody else is making X, and I'm gonna give
you two X. The idea like paying players, like when
(11:58):
is it enough? I make a good amount of money
for Fox Sports. I'm very well, handsomely compensated. But do
you think of my next negotiation. I'm gonna go like, no, no, guys, good,
keep me flat. You know, the last thing I need
is more money, because nothing costs more in this world,
right my wife? I told my wife to find a
(12:18):
great sport for my daughters. Could you find one that's
ridiculously expensive, that's a group of people I don't relate to,
and that that costs exponentially more than basketball, football, or baseball?
And she nailed it. She picked a Questrian. And I
gotta tell you, I don't write checks for anything in
this world except for horses. So now I don't want
more money. I go out and grind on weekends if
(12:40):
I don't have something a gig with Fox Sports. I'm
doing a game tomorrow with Facebook that I'm doing a
game with the Compass Media. I'll do the n c
A Westwood one. So the the idea of you know,
if you just pay the players, nothing has happened. I
guess the dumbest thing I've ever that is dumber then
(13:01):
maybe any other suggestion. So I am. Look, I respect
people who are in this industry. I understand that we
all seem to have some issue with authority. Right. We
(13:21):
don't like Congress, we don't like the president, we don't
like our boss, we don't like heads of any sort
of industry, we don't like anybody. This is that everyone
hates everything, especially people who are in power. So you
don't like Mark Emery, you don't like the n c A,
you don't like the man. If you will is about
the man. Got it understood, But you're you're gonna have
(13:42):
to show me how that somehow relates to an agent
and agents runner and players need to be held accountable
for their actions. And oh yeah, by the way, they
are still accusations. Right. The way it works here is,
you know, Kevin Knox plays for Kentucky and his dad's like,
we didn't. I don't even know what this is. Accusations
(14:09):
are not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the court
of law. They are simply that even when they're in
court documents, because no one who is paying players knowing
that's illegal, would ever think of fudging a document in
order to get some extra money from the place they work. Right,
no one's ever fudged an expense report to simply get
(14:29):
a little bit more cash on their boss. Like we're
saying that Christian Dawkins, who has who has done everything
elicit in terms of trying to buy players for Andy Miller,
would never say I need four hundred bucks for a
dinner That didn't happen that because he's beyond repute with
nothing except for his expense reports. Got it understood? Be
(14:51):
sure to catch live editions of The Doug gott Leaps
Show weekdays at three p m. Easter noon Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Evan
Daniels joins us on the show. You see him on
Fox Sports one, uh, he does the Big East Show,
he does sideline for college basketball, um, he's covered recruiting
for over a decade, does an outstanding job balm on
Twitter as well. And and Evan, when when you saw
(15:14):
the Yahoo Sports report, Pete Samble and Pat Fordy co
authoring it, in which they have leaked documents from the
FBI investigation in the corruption within college basketball. What was
your reaction, UM, I think most people would want me
to say that I was surprised. I don't think that
I was. UM. I mean, I think we've all kind
(15:37):
of been waiting for more to come out from this
whole FBI investigation, and UM, slowly but surely, it's starting to.
But I think Ken, Doug you've been You've been around
way longer than me, and I think everyone UM that
has covered or been around this industry has kind of
known that this type of stuff UM goes on. But
(15:58):
to see it play out in the public, I guess
would be probably the most surprising. I mean, to have
those type of documents out for all to see, it's
not something that you would expect. No, UM, There's there's
several levels to it. Okay, in the documents themselves, While
they are damning for Annie Miller and probably Dennis Smith
(16:19):
and a couple of other players, I don't feel like
there's a smoking gun with coaches UM. And and so
when you hear people say, well, like you've got twenty
schools there and possible N S A and fractions like
I'm not not sure. Again, there may be some other documents,
there may be some things yet to be released, but
(16:40):
based upon this particular series of ledgers, I don't see it.
Am I missing something? No? I think that's I think
that's fair. I mean, I'd have to go back and
account exactly, but I think five or six names in
there that are currently playing college basketball, like Wendell Carter,
Kevin Knox, Colin Sexton, all those were basically meals. Um,
(17:02):
I think right around or under a hundred dollars. I mean,
that's minor, minor in the grand scheme of sne things. UM.
So I'm with you in that regard. And you know,
I spoke to a handful of coaches today and one
high major head coach said to me, well, how am
I supposed to police a kid we recruited his parents
(17:25):
on taking Um are going to UH to get a
meal with an agent in the meeting itself is not
even a violation. They're allowed to do that. It's it's
that's the fact that they paid for the meal. And
the other thing is is these are documents. There is
not and and don't get me wrong, Pete and Pat
did a good job of putting the story together. But
(17:46):
there's not proof that the money that let's say, Christian
Dawkins asked for in his expense report and took guys
to dinner, like, there's not proof of that event actually
doing that. I'm taking no guy, No guy has ever
forged a a an expense report, right, No one's ever.
There's never been a human being alive who has said
(18:07):
he paid for something that he didn't pay for an
expense report, just right right, like I'm saying that with
full sarcasm. No, I know you are, I know you are,
I know you are. And no, and and obviously I
would imagine a lot of that happened, but it's also
going to be pretty tough to proof. Um. Evan Daniel
(18:27):
joins us on The Doug Gottlip Show. All right, let's
get to the players. Miles Bridges playing for is OH
who also by the way, named in it in terms
of uh, somebody picking up a meal form allegedly, but
but plays for a highly reputable coach at a on
a school, on a team that could very well win
or compete for a national championship. Same thing with Wendell Carter.
(18:48):
Same thing with you know, a couple of other guys
that are Colin Sexton. If they get to the n
c A tournament in the short term, what happens to
these players? I would imagine, especially the guy is and
that that just had meals, they'll continue to play Miles
Bridges I think was just under five dollars. I'm interested
to see how these scenarios play. I remember last year
(19:11):
Doug Ohmer York seven, the kid that came over from Turkey. Uh,
he missed like eight or nine games to start the season.
But the inn double As have a long time to
investigate his deal and and it it came back that
he u had taken some money or or was meals
and other stuff paid for by the pro team that
he played for, and stuff that the incuble A beamed
(19:34):
um an extra benefit. He got eight games had to
pay it back, and maybe his nine games had to
pay it back. The interesting part is is there's so
many guys involved, whether the six or seven, and the
season is coming to a close. I mean, we're two
weeks from conference tournaments, three until selection Sunday. It's it's
not like the in l A has a ton of
time to act. And we also don't know what they
(19:55):
outside of that report, if they read, if they have
these documents, what they have access to. I would imagine
that the three guys like Kevin Knox, Sex and Windell Carter,
that their parents got a meal paid for by agents.
They weren't even expensive meals by the way. Um, I
would imagine they'll continue to play. Maybe the the others
that that were, um, the price tag was a little higher.
(20:19):
Maybe they don't. I don't know. I mean, even Miles Bridges,
his mom has sent an advance for four dollars and um,
maybe another meal. I mean, I think it's gonna be
hard to to prove and tell him you can't play
in such a short period of time or vice versa. Um, okay,
so will you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, I kind
of do. And I kind of think if there is
(20:40):
a if there's a change in the n c A,
I think it's more lenients more so than some massive
change into Like I understand, there's a lot of people
who covered I don't know where you sit on this.
There's a lot of people who cover college athletics that
think pairs players should be paid. Okay, I disagree with
it we could get into a separate bait. I feel
(21:01):
like that's a non sequitur to this particular discussion, just
because the idea that if there's an agent that wants
to give a kid extra money, whether you're making, you know,
the cost of attendance, which is like five thousand dollars
essentially for most ever you know, or you're making, if
somebody's gonna offer you more money, there's always going to
be kids that are would like to order their parents
(21:22):
who would like to take more money. That's just that.
So I don't I don't actually think that argument fits.
I think that if there's an evolution in the n
c A, it's gonna be a little bit more leniance,
a little bit more um understanding of reality, and not
as hard line a stance on on gray issues as
opposed to black and white issues. Yeah, I think that
makes sense. I think a lot of people are making
(21:43):
this like an issue and bringing up that athletes should
be paid and and this, and I don't think that
that solves this. I mean there's always going to be um,
you know. Look, this is how I'm not saying all,
but this is how a lot of agents have recruited.
I mean, they spread out a wide net and they
went for guys. I don't think that's necessarily going to change.
I also don't know how illegal that is unethical um,
(22:08):
but there's always going to be people that are willing
to go above and beyond what UM they're allowed to
do UM to recruit, not only from an agent standpoint,
but also from a college standpoint. Even if these kids
are paid to go to school. I still think that
we would see that there's always gonna be a black market,
always agreed, Evan Daniels joining us on the Doug Gotlip
(22:30):
Show here on Fox Sports Radio. Unfortunately, though, when you
say n ci A, you say violations, you say money
and agents, and here we are, you know, just a
couple of weeks short of selection Sunday. It's going to
cast a shadow over the sport in the prime time
of the sport. How does this affect the ultimate outcome
(22:52):
and maybe how we view March badness? But I think
there's been a cloud over the sports since everything came
out in late September. It's I mean, Doug, this is
you know, and I'm sure it's the same way for
you being a basketball guys. It's the only thing people
want to talk to me about only I get the
question from my everyday friends that don't even care about
college basketball, Like, that's the portrait of college basketball right now.
(23:14):
It's a black eye, there's a cloud hangover it. It's
it's just taking punch after punch after punch. It's the
main story. It's funny. We did a I did a
story over seven Sports Today about the National Player of
the Year and somebody responded, well, none of those guys
are actually National Player of the Year. The FBI is
because they've done more damage than anybody. And it's true.
It's it's a bad look for for college basketball. I think, um,
(23:37):
for people that are around the game every day. UM,
I want to say almost immune two. UM, kind of
the knowledge that this stuff takes place obviously never proved,
but I think it's pretty known that that this type
of stuff happens. And in a way, it's it's kind
of just something that, UM, if you're around the game
(24:00):
aim all the time, you're kind of just immune to it.
But to actually see UM the document too, UM, see
assisting coaches that you see on the road all the
time potentially facing jail time, I think it's UM, I
think it's it's just interest. It's an interesting time and
it certainly makes the sport look bad. And um, there's
(24:20):
a lot of cleaning up to do, no question. Last
thing um lost in this is the bizarre story of
Alonzo Trier from last night Arizona set to to probably
win the pack twelve um before he gets suspended for
a second PD positive test. Now, his lawyer as is
(24:41):
saying that this is the same substance, only was in
his fat cells and because he was dehydrated, that it
was still there over a year after he initially took
the substance. But to those of us again who followed
it like bait, Alonzo Trier wasn't allowed to compete last
year until it was completely out of his system. Um,
how does this play out with Alonzo Trier? Well, if
(25:03):
if it's truly from the last time and the remnants
just reached it up, this is garbage because the n
C double A approved him to play. Um, I'm I'm
not a scientist. I read Uh there was a story
last night about a situation where that um, the stuff
stayed in a guy system for for a long time.
If that's the case and this is the initial UM,
(25:25):
banned substance. Substance that he took the first time around,
then he should be playing right now. I don't. I
don't think that would be right. They they deemed him eligible.
If he retook something, then of course he's got a sit.
But that that doesn't appear to be the case. I
don't think Arizona or Sean Miller would have put out
that statement if that were the case. It is. It's
a crazy story though, I mean, just the the honestly,
(25:46):
the impacts their whole season. Alonzo Trier has been He's
been tremendous for them. He's their best score, he's their leader. Um,
you know, obviously they have DeAndre Atan still, but I
mean they can't. They're not winning multiple games the inst
turn them without a Lonzo trip. Yeah, and I don't
know how you. I don't know where you see them.
I don't know you evaluate them. And we have no
(26:06):
real clarity. I made the the entire and now that
becomes even a secondary or tertiary story to this one.
Check out, Evan, you got a game this weekend you
in studio, uh, inside the Big East this weekend, Inside
the Big East this weekend, which is on Fox Sports One.
Follow up on Twitter is a great follow or check
him out on seven Sports. Evan, thanks so much for
joining us. Of course, all right, that's h Evan, Evan
(26:28):
Daniels joining us. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Heart Radio app. Can you pull up that Instagram post
from Jonathan Martin um Buyer. I don't know how super
super busy you are, but I'm I'm fascinated by this
Dan Buyer of course, who We're gonna make him work
extra because he's had so much time off and uh
(26:50):
and of course you've got even been here, you just
haven't been here. That's that's the difference. Um. So you
hear him on the weekends here on Fox Sports Radios.
You always do hosting. So, um here's the post is
a shotgun and on the shotgun is hashtag Harvard West
like hashtag Miami Dolphins. And there's also links to Twitter
(27:11):
accounts at James Dunlevy, at t J Taylor, at Incognito
that's Richie Incognito, at Mike Pouncey, and there's a then
there's a like an inscription, like a post there. When
you're a bully victim and a coward, your options are
suicide or revenge. Um And apparently, as you heard from,
(27:36):
Danny's been taken into custody. His Instagram account is verified
but set to private and strangely has no avatar photo.
So the question becomes by or do you think this
is real or somebody somebody setting him up? I think
it's real. I don't know, I I don't know anything
(27:56):
about how you could hack into anything, but if that's
his account, um, yeah, I think it's real. It's a
It's amazing too, Doug is because when you look at
how it's I mean, it took some time to do this.
I mean they put a hashtag Miami Dolphins, you know,
on the gun, and the hashtag Harvard Westlake on the
(28:17):
gun as well. Like the words were. It wasn't just
you know, thrown together in a bit of rage. It
actually took some time to actually put the entire post together.
So it's music. I do think it's real. It's it
would be incredibly dubious and hard to understand why if
(28:37):
someone were to hack his account they would do something
of that nature. I mean, we've seen hacks all the time,
whether it's like getting into someone's phone and sending like
nude pictures or sending out stupid tweets like something of
that nature. I can't understand how someone would hack in
and meticularly like articulate something like that. Okay. The only
(28:58):
thing that I wonder is it says when you're a
bully victim, when you're a bully victim and a coward.
So he's calling himself a coward. I think that's just
part of the poor mental state that he's clearly in
to do something like this. Hmm, this is it's I
think that's actually a very smart point that you made.
(29:19):
And this is by the way that if if this
is real and well the authorities are treating in is reel.
This is the second legitimate threat which has been thwarted
in Los Angeles in the last like forty eight hours.
Remember I told you guys yesterday about the one with
in El Camino High School where a kid was saying,
tell into another kid, he's gonna go shoot up to school.
(29:40):
Security guy had heard him, called talk, called police. They
went to his house, found a couple of a R
fifteens and some other military grade weapons and thwarted a
potential attack on El Camino High School, which is a
Los Angeles Unified School District high school. And this one
obviously is as if this is really Martin John, than
Martin is crying for help. You don't pick, You don't
(30:03):
post something on Instagram about going and shooting up a
school and getting revenge or potentially shooting a former teammate
unless you just you need help, help more than attention.
But the tension brings the help. And then you know,
when you factor in park Land and the subsequent protest
(30:23):
and the president and the responses and the n r A,
and it just you're like, oh my gosh, the timing
of it. Who would do this in the timing? But again,
this is what I talked about yesterday, And maybe I
don't know Ryan. If I didn't articulate it well enough,
I apologif I didn't. My my, my point has always
been that we try and look at the idea of
(30:44):
shooting up a school from a logical perspective. We try
and look because we are our brains are functioning on
some level as God intended them to function. But when
you are ruggling with this level of stress, anxiety, depression, anger, etcetera, etcetera.
(31:05):
You're clearly not functioning the right way. Case in point,
Jason Martin, I mean Jonathan Martin. If it's sorry, Jason J.
Martin wars on Cley Traviss Show. Jonathan Martin, you never
would have posted this on Twitter if you really, if
your your brain is functioning correctly. This is a bright guy.
Harvard West like great school, goes to Stanford, tremendous player
(31:29):
plays in the NFL. We know how it ended in Miami.
This is scary stuff. Scary stuff. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Doug gott Leaps Show weekdays at
three p m. Eastern noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app. Let's welcome in. Zach
Harpery rights for fan rag Sports got a great podcast.
(31:52):
We've worked together at other places. He does an awesome,
awesome job. Um and uh, Zach, what if I told
you I have the most interesting, uninteresting game of the
NBA season for you? All Right, Mavericks take on the
Lakers tonight at Staples. Al Right, First, for the Lakers,
(32:14):
Alonzo's back. He's got a minister restriction, but Alonzo's back,
and Alonzo and Isaiah Thomas. How that thing works out together.
That's interesting to me. On the other side, you got
the Mavericks, you got Mark Cuban. First part is last
time these two teams faced each other. It was Isaiah
Thomas's first game, and Isaiah Thomas proclaimed his powers back.
Yet they lost to the Mavericks, and the Mavericks were
(32:35):
trying to lose the game. Go back and watch they
played dudes that weren't on the scattering report. At the
end of the game it was. It was the Lakers
lost to a team that was trying to tank and
Isaiah Thomas was claiming his powers are back. Then factor
in uh Mark Cuban getting fined for telling his team
to tank. And of course you got the si story
(32:56):
about the front office and the business side of the Mavericks.
Andy got Dennis Smith, who is alleged to have gotten
seventy three grand uh in a loan from an agent
he didn't sign with. And I give you the most
interesting uninteresting game of the NBA season. That's pretty I mean,
that's a long list of things that it sounds like
(33:17):
from like the pregame interviews and the postgame interviews are
the most interesting part of tonight's festivities, right, like just
getting any kind of comment on the record. I'm sure
Denison's j is not going to talk about what happened
uh in college and I'm sure that um, I'm sure
the scandal uh with the sexual harassment and the best
and violence within the Maths organization, I'm sure that's not
gonna that's not gonna be something they're willing to talk about,
(33:39):
especially coast game. But just the storylines alone actually give
a little bit of life through a game that probably
most people don't want to stay up for on these coasts. No,
but I guess maybe really what it comes down to
is I want to see what the Mavericks do in
the fourth quarter. Right Do they feel compelled to throw
Harrison Barnes and J. J. Burrea and Dirk Navitski out
there because everyone knows that'd rather lose, or do they
(34:01):
just go, you know, we already paid the six entred
thousand dollar fine, the hell of it, We're trying to lose.
Like I'm like, I'm in Yeah. Here's the thing about
the Mavericks too, is like I'm a pretty big basketball third.
Like there's not a there's not a lot of players
I'm not. I'm not familiar with They have trotted out
several guys this season. Who is level? Who is Max Kleiber?
I have no idea. Who is a creative player from
(34:24):
a video game? Like I don't want to be rude
to him, but that's not a real person. Yes, how
did this happen? How do you do that? Like we're
basket We're bad. I know he's not. They'll find somebody
who's worse. Don't worry, it's there's still plenty of time
to find somebody who's worse. All right, let's get two
games that actually do matter. Calves lose. Last night. Lebron
(34:44):
was magnificent, but all of a sudden, the supporting cast
cannot make a shot. Now, he was happy, go lucky,
He's all invested in the process. We still played hard,
we still moved the ball. Um, are are we pumping
the brakes on the on handing them the Eastern Conference
Champion Jim Trophy after seeing him last night? I mean
probably a little bit, just because they still he still
(35:05):
needs people to make shots because he was he was spectacular.
Um when he had like thirty two, nine and eight
or something like that, it was just a monster in
the fourth quarter of it wasn't enough. We still meet
them to make shots that we still need them to
play some semblance of defense, right, And they didn't really
do that against the John Wallace Wizard, who actually might
be the better Wizards that we're finding out. I'll get
I'll get to that. I'll get to that. You conduct
(35:25):
interviews on your podcastle But we do need the Cavaliers
to play some defense, and we beat them to look
better than they have and they looked good right after
the trades, and they look up before the break, and
maybe this was just a a All Star weekend malaise
that where that no one could hit a shot. But
I still think it's their Eastern Conference because they're still
(35:46):
drawn and he's still the best player on that conference.
What's it gonna take for anybody to buy into the
Toronto Raptors. You you can't buy into them until they
until they do it in the playoffs, right. And it's
not even just like can they get past the second round?
Can they get to the comm finals? That's not the question.
The questions can they get to the finals, And and
it starts with them, It starts with them not losing
(36:07):
the first game of every series, right, Like, if they
can come out and win Game one at home against
I don't know the Heat or the Sixers or whoever
they face in the first round. If they can come
out and win game one, then you start thinking like, Okay,
this Raptors team not like the previous Raptors team. But
unless they get to the finals, I don't really know
what we're doing with them. And Raptors fans don't like that,
and they think the American media hates that franchise. We
(36:28):
don't hate the franchise. I've compared them to. It's a
lot like the Chris Paul Clippers. Right. We know their
regular season good, we know they're awesome in the regular season.
You get to the postseason and it's like, okay, can
you do something that we haven't seen you do before,
which is get to a certain level in the playoffs.
If they don't do that, then we just don't care anymore. Yeah.
I would say this about Chris Paul's Clippers, which, of
course now we'll never know. They were never healthy, right,
(36:51):
Whereas the Raptors have been healthy. They've had two opportunities
in subsequent years against the Calves, they did force six
games two years ago. They put a very little fight
last year. I liken them to whether it's a Kia
or a Hyundai. Right, Initially it was really too higher
to buy in. Now they're making luxury cars, and I'm
supposed to think that they're just as nice as Alexis
(37:12):
or an Infinity or a Bend's or BMW. I'll go
along with it, but I still know that the reason
they're they're big sale is still we're the cheaper model.
We're the same, only we're ten thousand dollars less expensive,
Like it just takes a long time in order for
us to buy in. And I'm not there yet. Yeah,
I'm the same way. And I love Kyle Lowry. I
think the Martin rose in the way he's reshaped his
game is incredible. The way the Raptors have have reshaped
(37:34):
their offense to be less free thrower line and they're
shooting more threes and the depth is great. Um. Everything
they check all these boxes except for that sour taste
they left in every one's mouth over last like three posts.
Zach Harper joined us a fan rag sports dot com.
Of course you can fall them on Twitter. Check out
his podcast. It's a good one. Uh talk hoops. Okay,
so let's get to those Washington Wizards. Now we're starting
(37:57):
to have this legit conversation like, look, I like John Wall.
I think John Wall is a freak athlete. I think
John Wall can get that anywhere he wants to get
onto a basketball floor. But at what point do at
least go I don't know. Maybe they're a little bit
better without, Like I feel like sacrilege saying it, because
the reality is in the playoffs you have to have
a John Wall to win a big series. But man,
(38:19):
they're playing better basketball without him. They are, and it's weird.
I don't I really don't know what to do with it,
because you don't. You don't take away John Wall from
a team and say, like Thomas sat Our Anthony in there,
I bet they'll be better because that that doesn't sound
like anything you would do with the NBA level. But
they at least, like to their role players credit, everyone
is stepped up. There is more. Even though he's a
(38:39):
guy who passes a lot, right, he gets a lot
of assists. There is seemingly more ball movement with this
iteration of the whispers, because everyone has to do more
and everyone stepped up in that in that extended role
and it's really working. It just creates this this really
awkward dynamic personality wise with the team because there have
been you know, reports and whispers and whatever that Beal
(39:00):
and Wall aren't the best of friends, or maybe Wall
and the other guys on the team don't get along
as much as you would like them to. Not that
there's this you know, horrible shot Kobe fuke going on,
but just it's not as tight as you would hope
them to be. And if that's the and if and
if that's the case, then once that supermax extension kicks
in and they have real flexibility moving forward because they're
gonna have to pay Ubre or they're gonna have to
(39:21):
pay somebody. Right what that happens is have you capt
yourself out enough for a team that is good enough
or could you have Redis distributed that money elsewhere? How
does the Kawhi Leonard uh and the San Antonio Spurs
story end? I mean, I I con from the reports
from from what Kauai is legitimately unhappy right now? Is
it unhappy to where he doesn't uh, you know, he
(39:44):
doesn't want to be a Spur past next summer. Probably not.
I don't think it's that severe. I think he's mostly
frustrated that he can't play where he feels he can't play,
he can't trust his body right now, and I'm sure
that is something he's never gone through before, and it's
and it's a real frustrating thing. But the danger of
him leaping in twenty nineteen, it's real, Like, whether it
happens or not, it's real. And that's something we don't
really expect from the Spurs organization. And and if he leaves,
(40:07):
they'll still be good because Pop can you know, turn
anyone into a good rotation. But they're no longer title contenders,
and I mean they're not really title contenders now, but
they have a separate shot moving forward. If that's the case.
What do you what do you make of what he
said to the media where uh, you know, he kind
of let it out there that he might not play
the rest of this season. Do you do you think
(40:28):
that's a reality. I do think it's a reality. I
think it was more not a shot at Kauai, but
just theym preparing his guys for hey, Kaui may not
come back to save us, right, So I think he
did that. I think another thing is that is it
really did inform people that this is a Kauai decision.
This is not our decision. We've cleared him to play,
as ward report like we've cleared him. This is whether
(40:49):
or not he feels comfortable enough, and clearly he doesn't
because he's not going out there. And I think it
was more of a let me just get everyone on
the same page so that we're not continually getting questions
of why wasn't quite clear to play? Steph was amazing
last night, but there's something amiss with that defense. And
I know that everybody seems convinced you get to the
playoffs and Iguodala and Livingston will be the Iguodala and
(41:12):
Livingston of the playoffs past. But yeah, look, at some point,
you you kind of it's like horse racing, right, at
some point you go to the whip and the horse
just doesn't have it. At some point you try desperately
to all right, Iguodala is gonna be the Iguodala of old,
and he doesn't have it. Do you think they're playing
with fire with that bench at struggling so far in
the regular season? Absolutely, because you know, I don't. I
(41:34):
don't even think they need Iguatala to be, you know,
a plus defender every time out there, or living to
be a plus defender every time out there in the
playoffs in order to win the title. Right, Like, they
have so much firepower and they're so good and they're
starting lineup is so good that they don't really need that.
It's just that's what separates them from being able to
run through the playoffs and from them having to actually work.
(41:54):
I think the concern that the Curs had all year
is a valid one of like they can't build bad
habits as a team, even with as much talent and
firepower as they have. They have to take care of
the ball, they have to defend, they have to protect
the rim. They can't keep giving up three pointers. You know,
they're all these checklists that they can they can still
overcome because the talents there, But you just want to
make it easier on yourself, and they keep making it harder.
(42:16):
And I don't know that with as many games as
they've played over the last three years, including the post season,
can you just flip keep clipping that switch or do
you have to really build And we're not seeing them
build right now. Zach Harper, the only man has worked
in more places than me. He has and CBS not fan,
Rag Sports. Uh, you've got a website you gotta check.
(42:37):
He'll work for you. But he does a great job
covering the league. Check out his podcast whilem on Twitter.
He loves ball. You should love ball and listen to
his stuff. Good stuff. Man. A watch that completely watchable
and yet unwatchable Mavericks Lakers game late. That's gonna be
a really really interesting fourth quarter night, you know what
I mean. I can't get enough of lons of ball
shooting the basketball. So yeah, Zach Harper joining us the Dougallass.
(42:58):
Thanks so much, Zack. Fox Sports Radio has the best
sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our
shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the
I Heart Radio app. And now say Danny Cannell was
on First Things First. You can hear that on Serious
six M Channel eighty three. He was in for Chris Carter,
(43:19):
who's off getting married. Danny had this to say about
Kirk Cousins. Here's the crazy thing about Kirk Cousins. If
he was selected at the spot RG three was because
he was drafted later fourth round, even the same draft,
if he was drafted in first round, they he would
still be with Washington. He would have been extended years ago,
like a couple of years ago. After season, he would
(43:39):
have gotten a nice big contract. But it's the perception
of him, and it drives me crazy because he has
proven over three years. This isn't a seven game body work, Mike.
We're talking about Jimmy Garoppolo. It's not a small you know,
Nick Foles one season that he had back in This
is three years. He's been in top ten and almost
every meaningful category as far as passing stats. So he
has proved in it. Now he's going to get the
(44:01):
opportunity for a team to believe in him. Kirk Cousins
can be the next Drew Brees because Drew. The perception
around Drew Brees was similar. When he was charging in
San Diego coming off the shoulder surgery. There were only
two teams that were even considering looking at Breeze. It
was the Dolphins and the Saints. Didn't go to Dolphins
didn't work out medical, you know, concerns, and Sean Payton said, hey,
(44:22):
we believe in you. I think a team that says
to Kirk Cousins, we believe in you. I think you
can get that caliber of quarterback where he could take
your franchise to the next level, not for this season,
but for the next six, seven, eight years, much like
Drew Brees elevated the Saint Yeah, I like Danny Um,
I like Drew Brees, but the idea that they're the
(44:43):
same guy. Uh And look Drew there there were questions
about his arm strength when he was in San Diego,
and then and then the one thing I don't believe
I heard him say, do you guys remember Drew Brees
injury in his last game with the San Diego Chargers.
Others grew him. His shoulder bent kind of in half.
They had Philip Rivers sitting behind him. Everyone knew those
(45:04):
But the reason he wasn't picked up by anybody was
the shoulder. No one knew if the shoulder was going
to stay together. And somehow the shoulder seems to have
now a held up but been stronger than ever. He's
helped by the fact he's got Sean Payton with him.
He's played indoors. Uh. And Kirk Cousins is thrown for
nearly five thousand yards. I just don't see Kirk Cousins
as that guy. He wasn't able to elevate the Redskins.
(45:26):
He's good, he's fine, He's not a bad quarterback. I
just breeze is gonna go to the Hall of Fame.
And I don't think anybody, having seen him for three
years as a starter, like five years in the league,
would say that's a Hall of famer. We have enough
data to say who Kirk Cousins is, and he appears
to be an above you know, an average at best
(45:46):
to slightly above average starting quarterback. Sharene Williams, who covers
the Dallas Cowboys for the fourt Where Star Telegram, says
uh in regards to the possibility possibility of going after
Kirk Cousins, wouldn't pass the Cowboys at all. We've seen
so many time they're intrigued with quarterbacks. We saw it
(46:08):
with Johnny Manzel. He just gets in his head some
of these quarterback he falls in love with him. I
wouldn't be surprised if he has a little love for
Kirk Cousins. I was thinking about those down the field throws.
He does throw the ball down the field better than
most quarterbacks in the NFL Ben Roethlisberger right there for
right there with him. I disagree. I don't think he
has a great arm at all. I don't. I don't.
(46:28):
I don't see that from Jerry. Look, Jerry knows. I
think everyone knows. Dak Prescott is not a superstar quarterback.
He has limitations. But with it's like in um, like
when you're gonna make a big decision, you put the
pluses in the minus of the pros and the cons. Right,
So the con is that Dak Prescott sometimes lacks the accuracy,
(46:52):
especially when he reloads through his progressions. The cons are
that Dak Prescott um while he he has a he
can't have a big he doesn't have a huge arm.
He doesn't have a pretty big arm. But it's it's
the where he places the ball and how to get
some of his best wife. She's like like Dez Bryant
going the pro is. He can run, he's mobile, he
(47:14):
can run for a first down. He's got a big,
thick body. So unlike Lamar Jackson or r G three
or somebody thin er Teddy Bridge Wire, you don't feel
like he's gonna get hurt. Um, smart enough guy, good
enough leader and understands they got a good running game
to play. But maybe the biggest pro is he's only
gonna make like a million dollars a year. So if
(47:35):
you don't bring anybody else in, you have a chance.
You have a small window paying him on this menial
rookie contract from being a fourth round pick. You have
this small window where you don't have to pay him anything,
and yet he's still gonna be your starter. You can't
actually renegotiate his contract even if you wanted to. Can't.
(47:56):
In the by laws of the Collective bart In Agreement,
you cannot read a negotiate the terms of this rookie
deal until the end of next season. So you've got
a window where you're paying a million bucks for a
position that most people are paying twenty to twenty five
million dollars. They totally understand that in Dallas. So would
he tinker with what would there be a discussion? Yes,
(48:19):
in any organization, if somebody's on the market, you tinker
with the idea of bringing him in. But then reality
sets in and the Cowboys no, when you know the
wide receiver, we need to help on defense, we need
we need you know, our best players to not be
suspended or Shanlee to not be injured, and if that happens,
(48:40):
we're able to spend that other twenty four million dollars
somewhere wisely not on a backup quarterback. And while he
made you know, Cousins maybe better than Dak Prescott, is
he twenty four million dollars better than Dak Prescott. The
answer is no. That's what the Fox said. Say
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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