Rockets Grab An Easy Victory vs Wizards, Chandler Rome & Ime Udoka Join The Show

Rockets Grab An Easy Victory vs Wizards, Chandler Rome & Ime Udoka Join The Show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross ten oh one
in ahe town.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning and walcome we do a thirties TICKETEDITIONE to
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety He.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Won forty five.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
He's how can you not be in a good mood.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
After a rocket victory with Linel Richie and the Commodorees
in the background. Holy smokes, Jonathan, you gotta use that
it your girl? You know what I need to She'd
be like putting in your hands? What a song? Now?

(00:51):
Apparently Lionel Richie's in some trouble because he was selling
tickets to some event where he I guess people thought
he was going to be singing and he just read
poetry instead.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
I don't I don't know. I don't know the great
details on it.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I just know that if I went on the Google streets,
I could find a story about it pretty quick. I mean,
if I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Buying anything Lionel Richie, it better be he better be.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Singing all night long, you know what I mean? You
know what I mean? You better be singing some of
the Commodore hits. You better be singing, dancing in the
ceiling on the ceiling. Oh Man oh I did a
Sunday morning show in Minneapolis for a couple of weeks,
like as ad a fill in station. I was working
at it in the Twin Cities, and I used to

(01:38):
ask my theme song of the show. I mean, I'm
telling you, Jonathan, it just gets you in a good mood,
does it not?

Speaker 4 (01:44):
And just lifts up all the negative energy from you,
A lot.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Of negative energy on these these uh these world streets
that we live in.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Just feel like you're flying, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
You need.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Everybody needs some more easy like Sunday morning in your life.
And we're gonna play again a little bit later on
Hi it is Matt Ross. Is I guarantee you still sleeping.
He's in a Pacific time zone, so there's no chance
he's awake. And it's good. He's getting some downtime hanging
out with some friends in California. I am here in Houston,
where I'm ready to visit with you today. What's gonna be?

(02:14):
I believe a fun interesting I mean, the show's usually
fun and interesting. At least I tried it. Let it be.
We got a couple of interesting guests to join us
on the show today, which will include coming up at
the bottom of the hour. Channel Rome is in Las Vegas,
speaking of Pacific time zone. He's going to be coming
back from the Baseball General Manager meetings, so we'll hear
from him about what he heard from Dana Brown. It

(02:34):
was the GM meetings. That's to be not confused with
the Winter Meetings, which will be coming up in a
couple of weeks. Scott boris the agent for all the megastars,
including your favorite Hunter Brown, including your favorite jose L
two B including one of your all time favorites, Alex Bregman.
Well he is, well, he held court about Bregmany yesterday,

(02:58):
and we're gonna play the audio clip for you. And
I don't want to say that a man is getting
past his prime because he still has all the megastar
baseball players and whatnot, and I respect the hell out
of that. But his little attempt at humor yesterday, I
mean fell completely flat. I mean completely flat. So we're

(03:20):
gonna let you hear that, and we're gonna play just
how awkward was that? And you'll be hearing that coming
up on the show. Also, emay A Doka is gonna
be with us today at twelve noon as the Rockets.
It'll be our news in noon will be Emay Doka
joining us, looking forward at visiting with him. Rockets winning
last night over the Washington Wizards, and it was easy
as the Rockets are now seven and three for their
first ten games. So if you're on pace guy, the

(03:42):
Rockets would be let's see, there's eight stretches of ten,
so that'd be about a fifty seven win fifty eight
win basketball team. I'd be okay with that. I'm just saying. Also,
on the radio show today, we get the latest in
the Texas injury news. And if you have not heard
by now, c J. Stroud did not partake in any
sort of workouts or practice yesterday with the Texans. So
the presumption is he is still in concussion protocol and

(04:04):
the presumption is that he will not play Sunday at Tennessee.
I'm going to presume that if you need c J.
Strowd to beat Tennessee, you don't deserve to beat Tennessee.
So Davis Mills and we trust on you a second week,
you should go beat up on Tennessee and let all
everybody else who is worried about concussions and Nixon bruises
and whatnot. Should rest up with that which should be
a seismic game one week from tonight in Houston against

(04:27):
the Buffalo Bills. There is also late news coming out
within the last half hour, and I don't know how
much this necessarily moves the needle, certainly not maybe more
so in Waco than it would be here in Houston.
But within the last half hour, the athletic director at
Banter University Mac Rhodes, announcing that he will be taking

(04:52):
a leave of absence for personal reasons. Now, there have
been issues with a player that happened in a particular
incident in September, and then apparently what the national folks
are reporting, there is others something else going on that
is not related to that interaction with that player. So

(05:15):
I don't know exactly what is going on. Everybody is
kind of speaking in you know, there's relative terms like hey,
we're hearing something, but I can't confirm what it is,
YadA YadA, YadA, And that's kind of how things work.
But mac Rhodes is not resigning at Baylor, but he
is taking a leave of absence. I've known Mac for

(05:35):
a long period of time. I would consider Mac a friend.
In fact, a chance to visit with Mac a little
bit when the Cougar has played Baylor for the national
championship for years, or the national semifinals at the Final
four in Indianapolis a few years ago.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
But I've not seen or spoken to him since.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
But he was always a very good athletic director, at
least personally towards me at the University of Houston. I
will just say, and I'm not going to speak out
of school here, Mac has a little bit of a temper.
It can get fired up for a variety of things,
and I don't know if that is part of it
or not, but it sounds like to me there are

(06:13):
some issues. And clearly the September twentieth incident involving a
player did involve a spirited conversation. And I'm probably using
that term rather conservatively, But you know, like I said,
not for me to get into. Let the Baylor folks
decide that. And if there's something going on in Max's
life that he needs to get fixed, I hope he
does so. But he is taking a leave of absence

(06:35):
as the athletic director at Baylor university. All right, as
far as what else is going on, we mentioned we
got a channel room coming up at the bottom of
the hour, looking forward to hearing from him. Rockets last
night beating up on the Washington Wizards. I told y'all
yesterday how bad the Wizards are. They are the worst
team in the NBA by far. They are a team

(06:57):
that has a couple of recognizable players. Chris Middleton was
a star with Milwaukee. Cee Jim McCollum was a star
in Portland and New Orleans. And then you have Trey
Johnson for those of you that are University of Texas fans,
he was the star player for the Longhorns last year
and he was their number six overall pick, and Alex
sar is their center, the number two pick of a

(07:18):
year ago. But the rest of the guys are young
and not very good. I mean, the Rockets could score
on any part of the floor if they wanted to.
They shot fifty three percent from the floor, forty nine
percent from three point range, and they scored eighty one

(07:40):
first half points. Yeah, I didn't stutter. Eighty one first
half points. So the Rockets did something yesterday that they
should have done, and hopefully we'll do to a lot
of the second and third team tier teams in the NBA,
and that's take them out and beat them up badly.
Whatever the Cocket's elixir was to help out destroy the Wizards,

(08:03):
the Texans should do the same thing to the Tennessee
Titans this Sunday, because it's about that comp The Tennessee
Titans are lucky to have one win this year. They
were gifted a victory at Arizona. They super are super awful.
The Wizards are one and eleven I think right now,
and I'd be hard pressed for them to win ten
or fIF more than about twelve or thirteen games this year.

(08:24):
So yeah, it was not a dynamic performance in terms of, well,
we're gonna spend four hours breaking down the Rockets Wizards
game last night. But it was fun and the Rockets
did their thing. Kevin Durant twenty three points in thirty
minutes of play and all for of the five starters
in double figures. And I got some news for you.

(08:45):
There are a lot of people that were wigging out
about Reed Shepherd, and look, the sample size is still
very small for him, but Reed Shepherd, it's turning out
at this point to have a much better sophomore season
than he had as an NBA rookie. Last night for
him read eight of eleven from the floor, five of

(09:07):
eight from three, had thirty to twenty one points in
twenty five minutes to play finally kind of living up
to what I think a lot of folks and certainly
the Rockets thought would be worthy of the number three
pick in last year's draft. So on the agenda today
Rockets talk if you want to, Houston Cougar is disposed
of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies. We've got Scott Boris Texans

(09:32):
injury report, Mac Rhodes taking a leave of absence, and
on the show today we mentioned we've got Channeler Roam
at the bottom of the hour. I just don't get
it is coming up at eleven thirty and it will
feature my friend Chris Gordy. Of course you heard him
this morning on seven nineties Morning Show. Of all the
tweets in my entire Twitter life, nothing has gotten more

(09:56):
reaction in the history of me being on Twitter, which
would now be what I was in Minneapolis for about
a year when Twitter first started. Then obviously here fifteen
in my seventeen year life on Twitter. I have never
had a tweet gain as much traction as my tweet
was on a retweet of a Chris Gordy tweet bltmore.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
Oh I gott look at this.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Go. I want you to go read the audience with
the number of likes, are comments and views?

Speaker 4 (10:25):
All right right here? Uh lit's see listen, listen listen
to see.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well you have to building the drama.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Does this say one point one million views?

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Oh no, oh no, look at it again. Ten k likes, YEP.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
Two hundred and forty four retweets, ccy three comes one
point seven million views.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's it's up to it's up to one point eight
million views.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
There's no shots.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
What the he here's what I'm saving this for eleven thirty.
I just don't get it. One. I have eleven thousand
likes on just a random given Gordy crap tweetback, two
hundred and fifty retweets, sixty four comments. Now some people
are calling me terrible, terrible names, which is fine. I

(11:19):
I it just once again shows you that people on
Twitter in life are mean, and it's easier to be
just mean to somebody. It's compared to you know, just
like passing by. But Jonathan one point eight million views
on a random tweet about LSU and Brian Kelly's buy
out of his contract.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Oh, and they're coming after you?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Is good?

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Oh? Oh, they are coming after me. But then I'm
you know what I've decided to do.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm going right back at him. I can't. I have
too much humor in my life. I have to go
back at you. I have to go back at you, like,
for instance, at this guy name cannot be blank. Now
this person has only forty followering lives in Utah, he says, Lol,
so they shouldn't even look at what the contract says

(12:02):
about termination. Where did you get your degree from? Matt?
And I responded back at fu. So I'm embracing this
hate from random people with less than fifty followers on Twitter. God,
I got issues, dude. I'm seriously got serious issues. It

(12:24):
is a ten to twenty one on The Matt Thomas
Show with Ross Ross's off. I always think it's me
when he always says it's the Matt Thomas Show, Ross
without Matt Thomas TELLMA to stop doing that.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
But you just said it without Ross.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
No, I said that Matt Thomas Show with Ross rosses off.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
That's all I said.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Oh okay, okay, I see, okay, you went all right,
I can tell him yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
So you know he does the Rotten five every Thursday
at twelve fifty when I'm here, you know when he's
when when I'm not here, he he skips it. You
notice that what a fraud he is. So we're not
going to give you a Rotten five because that's his bit.
We're gonna try something for the first time today at
twelve fifty during that spot, and Jonathan, I don't know
if it's gonna work or not. We're gonna call it

(13:06):
the Rotten one. Rotten one, all right, rotten one, and
people are gonna call in and during that time at
twelve fifty, and if they if they call the call
of not as you me doing it, we're gonna name
the worst team in the NFL, just one, and then
we're gonna tell the reason why. Okay, So we're gonna
see how many people can actually call in and kind

(13:28):
of take over Ross's bid with the Rotten one. So
we'll see how this goes. So the Rotten one is
at twelve to fifty. We don't you know, have to
come up with the list. You don't have to have
a detail if you just want to call. And so
the Dallas Cowboys are the rotten one because they just
suck in general. I'd accept that. So it's kind of
a free, liberating little segment of the radio show coming

(13:50):
up in a couple of hours from now. So be
ready if you want to tell the city of Houston
with a decent radio audience who the rotten one is.
That's gonna be for you today at twelve fifty here
on Sports Talk seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven niney if you want to join us
right now seven one three two one two five seven

(14:12):
nine zero again, Jonathan, excuse me, uh, our friend Channel
Rome's going to join us at bottom of the hour. He
is in Las Vegas. Now the question is going to
be his flight leaves at eleven ten our time. I
wonder if his flight's delayed. Now we have the guy.
The government's back in action, right are we are? We
are we backwork. But it sounds like to me the airports,

(14:33):
in terms of the flight controllers, are going to take
a couple of days. So I will say this, thankfully,
it will be resolved before Thanksgiving because people obviously this
is it's one of the busiest weeks of the year
to travel airplane wise. Do you know I've only traveled
once in my entire life during Thanksgiving week for a
family event. Really, yeah, because part of it is is that,

(14:56):
you know, I always think, if you're gonna go away
for four or five, six days or what whatever, you
want to have time to do it. If let's say
you would work a normal job and you don't take
the whole week off, you gotta work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and then if you have to work Wednesdays, he'll say
two or three o'clock. You're trying to leave work early.
You gotta race the airport. What do you want to
be with thousands of other people? So then you're flying

(15:18):
either Wednesday night then lee or leaving on Thursday morning.
Then you're going to potentially miss the football games, and
you know you could have travel issues and then you
gotta wind up flying back on Sunday. Now, you could
obviously take a day off in front of her behind it,
but it just feels like that's a that's a it's
a really congested time to go travel somewhere. Now, if
you have relatives live in Dallas or in Austin or

(15:39):
San Antonio, you get in the car and you do it.
But yeah, I couldn't imagine like going to Seattle for
like three days just to have Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yeah, asking he's more of a housele than anything.

Speaker 6 (15:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, Like in Christmas time, you can spread your wings.
You can leave on the twenty if you could stay
to the twenty eighth, you could. I mean, you could
do a lot of things. And I guess people could
do the same thing about Thanksgiving. But I've only traveled
one time, so I can't really speak to how bad
or good it is. I remember doing it once and
it was fine by me. But it just feels like
that's a really congested time to try to do it.

(16:09):
So shout out to all of you that do try
to go see your family and at Thanksgiving time, and
uh we wish you the very best and hopefully you'll
have very little if any flight delays. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety If you want to
come in and join the radio program seven one three
two one two five seven ninety. So the Texans injury
report is out from yesterday, Uh, those that did not

(16:32):
take part in it, Demiko Denico Autrey was out with
a bad knee, Kimie Fairband remains out with the right quad,
Jaling Petrie still out with concussion protocol. Dalton Schultz had
a shoulder did not take part in practice, although he's
been doing that a lot lately, but still playing, and
c J. Stroud is still out with a concussion. Limited
participation Alzij Shair, Jake Canson and Ingram and Cad Stover

(16:56):
the positive side of things. Christian Harris did partake in
pri yesterday, although he's not doing much this year for
the team. Uh Davis Mills suffering a little bit of
a sore left elbow. He's okay, obviously it's a right
elbow that's the most important thing. And Titus Howard, who
had a concussion of the previous week, was back at practice.
So kind of just giving you an idea of how
the Texans are. And remember it's not today's injury report.

(17:19):
It certainly wasn't yesterday, so it'll be Friday's injury report
that will ultimately decide. Now. I believe Demika was not
at practice yesterday attending a funeral of a former teammate,
and I think he is set to schedule to meet
with the media today, so I'm sure we were going
to update on what's going on with c J. Stroud
uh in just a couple of hours. All right, what's
happening with the astros at least with Dana Brown at

(17:41):
the general managers meetings. We'll talk with Chandler Rome about
that next he is in Las Vegas. It is the
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Come on in and be
a part of the program as well at seven one three, two,
one two, five, seven ninety. Let's spend ten callity minutes
with Chandler Rome. Let's not mess around. He's got a
flight to catch. Hopefully's in his class, Jaylor. Let's just

(18:03):
knock out the coaching stuff first. Anything interesting about the
new hires are still to be determined about how this
organization shapes up. The guys behind Joe A. Spota, Well,
they have.

Speaker 7 (18:15):
An offensive coordinator, Matt, so you're gonna have to alter
your pre show tweets.

Speaker 8 (18:19):
Now you know you can talk You.

Speaker 7 (18:21):
Can talk about Nick Kayley and then whoever you can
talk about Nick Caley and Anthony Ioposse, who is going
to be the Astros I'll send. Actually, no, Dan Hennigan
is the Astros offensive coordinator. He's a guy that's he's
a biomechanics guy. He's a new age kind of coach.
He's been in the organization for a year. He's gonna
be in charge of like game planning and advance scouting

(18:43):
and kind of a data side of things. Victor Rodriguez
is the number one hitting guy. He is the lead
hitting coach, and Anthony Iopasse you will work alongside him.
So one thing Dana said yesterday is they wanted to
have to find roles for these guys.

Speaker 8 (18:58):
They wanted to have a clear hierarchy.

Speaker 7 (18:59):
Of responsibilities, of duties of things these guys do. That's
something that with Troy Snicker and Alex Centron they didn't
really have. They just kind of shared the hitting coach
title and kind of divided their responsibilities pretty evenly.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Let me ask you this because I've been telling the
audiences and if I'm wrong, please correct me. Uh, it
was it harder to get really good guys because of
the lame duck status so of both Dana and Joe.

Speaker 7 (19:24):
I mean, it's certainly not nothing, but you know, you
do look at the two guys that they hired, you know,
Victor Rodriguez, Mike Schill retired with the Padres, so he
needed a job. Anthony Ioposse was not returning to aj
Hinch's coaching staff and Detroit, so again needed a job.
You know, Look, they talked to They talked to a
lot of different guys. They talked to a lot of

(19:44):
you know, current hitting coaches elsewhere. They talked to guys
out of the game. You know, I don't know that
the lame duck status had much to do with it.
I just you know, my feeling, Matt is, you know,
the players are the ones swinging the bats. The players
are the ones playing the game. Like you could tell
me that they hired any hitting coach Joe Smith, John Smith, whoever. Like,
it's up to the players to go out there and perform. Now,

(20:05):
can the messaging and the philosophy and kind of what
they're putting in their ears and their eyes? Could that
improve or could that be streamlined?

Speaker 8 (20:11):
Sure? But at the end of the day, this is
a player's game.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
I read your tweets NonStop. From a Las Vegas I was,
I don't want to say blown away, but I was
more than just normally surprised about the health of some
really important people, namely Jordan Alvarez and essach Peredes. Eastside
did everything he could to come back and at least
pitch hit in DH for this team. But when you

(20:35):
said he may not be ready for the start of
spring training, is there any second guessing of maybe he
should have just gone ahead and had the surgery, so
maybe he would have been ready for the start of
next season.

Speaker 7 (20:44):
Well, no, if Matt, if you'd had the surgery, they
were looking at a six month recovery for that surgery,
so he would have definitely not been ready for the
start of the season had he had the surgery. Okay,
you know, I think part of it too is just,
you know, these guys don't the minute the offseason end,
these guys kind of rest a little bit. So a
lot of this may just be these guys have rested,
you know, when the season did end, and now they're

(21:05):
just kind of ramping up activity. And so with jord
and Alvarez jogging sixty five to seventy percent, that's just
his gradual ramp up. You know, Paradus was always going
to probably be a little bit behind going in the
spring training I don't think they're concerned that he won't
be ready for the season, but yeah, you could see
him maybe a week or so behind people when they
get to camp, but that was to be expected, and

(21:27):
I think it's even more admirable now in hindsight that
he came back and gave them what he could that
last two weeks of the season.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
General Athletic Astros Beat reporter whether it's from Las Vegas,
at the General manager meeting, So for the audience that
doesn't know, give the essence of a General manager's meetings
as compared to the Winter meetings which will be coming up.

Speaker 7 (21:48):
So it's kind of the same thing, but it's a
little bit on a smaller stage.

Speaker 8 (21:52):
At the GM meetings, you know.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
But the winter meetings, the managers go, the clubhouse attendants go,
the traveling secretaries go, everyone in baseball goes to.

Speaker 8 (22:02):
The winter meetings.

Speaker 7 (22:02):
The GM meetings is a little bit more low key.
The gms are there, obviously, all the agents are there,
and it's just a little bit more of like a
foundation laying thing, you know. This is where you go
and teams will meet with all the agencies there and
they'll start saying, oh, okay, well, this free agent's looking
for this year is and this kind of money. They'll
meet with other teams like, oh this this guy's available

(22:23):
in trades. So they'll kind of lay the foundation here
and then over the next month keep working toward it,
and then you know, the winter meetings is where you
see transactions happen. But yeah, it's a lot of standing around,
a lot of networking.

Speaker 8 (22:36):
A lot of late nights. That's some watering holes.

Speaker 7 (22:39):
Because everything happens around the bar. So yeah, just it's
it's kind of the kickoff of the offseason, if you will.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Cam Smith finished his twelfth and the Rookie of the
Year and the American League side of things, and then
your quoteses and your story today is about the fact
that he may not be guaranteed a roster spot heading
into spring training. Those are not words that you put
into Dana's mouth, but I'm curious the context behind it.

Speaker 7 (23:04):
Yeah, that was probably to me the most newsworthy, kind
of revelatory thing he said yesterday.

Speaker 8 (23:10):
You know, it certainly wasn't a situation.

Speaker 7 (23:13):
Where Dana was being negative or down on Cam Smith,
but you know, he said, look, this is a production
game and he's got to produce, and we've got.

Speaker 8 (23:20):
To be open mind.

Speaker 7 (23:21):
This was Dan's quoting, So we have to be open
minded to the thought that if he doesn't produce and
he doesn't have the adjustments that we need him to
make this off season, that we could send him to
Triple A and that you know, you watched him last
year toward the end. If that team wasn't as injured
as it was, and if that team didn't have a
lack of options behind him, I think Cam Smith would
have probably been in the minor leagues, you know, toward

(23:43):
the end of last year, because he really fell off
in the second half. It was a snowball effect of
a lot of things. But which fascinates me though, is like,
if he is not penciled in.

Speaker 8 (23:55):
As the everyday right fielder and.

Speaker 7 (23:56):
If he's not going to spring training with a guaranteed
roster spot, like you know, they can't just they've got
to have some insurance behind him. Does that mean they're
in the outfield market? Does that mean that they may
be you know, trend toward keeping Hey Sus Sanchez instead
of you know, maybe trading him or non tendering him
because they need that some insurance behind Cam Smith. Does

(24:17):
this mean Zach Cole is a bigger piece of the puzzle,
just means maybe they're reticent to trade Jake Myers, who
they're getting a lot of calls on because his value
has never been higher. It opens up a lot of
questions as to kind of how they're going to proceed
this offseason. Sound listen Dana yesterday, it sounded like they
have some work to do in their outfield. His exact words,
when they need to firm up the outfield. I'll be

(24:39):
interested to see kind of what how Cam's status, how
that kind of affects what they do on the open market.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
A couple more minutes here with Chandler, were surprised that
Christian Walker was poop pooed by Dana about being a
trade target.

Speaker 7 (24:53):
I would read that quote a little more carefully. Nowhere
did he say I'm not trading Christian Walker. All he
said was, we haven't talked about Christian Walker in trades,
and Christian Walker's are everyday first basement. Both of those
things can be true. On November eleventh, I still think
they're going to have to find a way to solve
this infield logjam. I personally, barring an injury, I personally

(25:18):
can't see how they carry both Paradis and Walker and
get them every day at bats. And for the money
you're paying these guys twenty million to Christian Walker and
about ten million to Escoc Paradus, those are guys that
need to be in the lineup every day. And you know,
Dana was a little more forceful and a little more
assertive that they don't want to trade Estock Paradus.

Speaker 8 (25:40):
His quotes on that were.

Speaker 7 (25:42):
Very a little more illuminating and a little more you
can tell they had some weight and some heft behind them.
I think the Christian Walker one, I think, quite frankly,
it was a non denial denial. It was on November eleventh. Yes,
maybe they haven't discussed Christian Walker in trades, and maybe
he is, and he certainly as of today is there
every day first basement.

Speaker 8 (26:02):
But that certainly could change.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, I saw that too, and I'm like, wait a minute,
that doesn't I don't care who you want to get
rid of, you Eastark, Praddy should be the first basement
of the team next year. I mean, I don't know
any other way to say it. And again, the only
reason why you would not pencil him in today obviously
is how his hamstring is. But that's something for down
the road. Okay, Look, Dylan Sees was on the radar
for the Astros of the trade deadline. It did not happen.

(26:25):
But you know, in wrapping this up, Chandler, when Jim
Crane's got somebody on the mine on the brain, he
goes after guys I E. Josh Hater, I E. Justin Verlander.
How serious do you think at the end of the day.
And doesn't mean they're gonna grab him, but how intense
do you think Dylan Sees conversations will be with the
Houston Astros.

Speaker 8 (26:42):
I think they'll check in.

Speaker 7 (26:43):
I mean, certainly if they had interested him at the
trade deadline, then obviously you know they they haven't lost
interest in the two months since. I find it hard
to believe that they'll get to the years and the
money that Scott Morris will want for Dylan Ceese especially.
You know, this is an organization under Jim Crean that
the most I've ever guaranteed to a pitcher and free
agency of ninety five million dollars, and that was the

(27:04):
Josh Hader who pitches one inning. You know, the most
they've ever guaranteed. The starting pitcher in Crane's ownership sent
years eighty five million dollars to Lansome Colors. It's going
to take more than that. It's going to take years.
It's going to take money. And I'm here to tell
you they don't want to go over the luxury tax,
at least not right now. They don't want to go
over the luxury tax this winter. So that's another reason

(27:24):
why they're probably gonna have to trade some of these
guys just to get some payroll flexibility, to get some
arms in here. I think there certainly will show interest
in Delencies. I don't see them going to the length
that Scott Morris will will want for him. I think
you mentioned Justin Berlander. I think Justin Burlander is a
more realistic target, and I think maybe someone kind of
in that middle, kind of a too or a free

(27:46):
type starter, is probably more what they'd be looking for,
maybe other than Delancy's.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
And the very last question, how interested will Hunter Brown
be in the amount of money the Astros spent on
pitching this offseason.

Speaker 7 (27:57):
I mean, look, Scott Boris said it, Yesterda. You know
they'll listen, the Astros come to them. But here's the thing,
like Scott Boris doesn't. You don't hire Scott Boris to
do a PREARB extension. You don't hire Scott Boris to
do a pre free agency extension the Asters. And also
it's not as if Scott Morris won't do an extension.

(28:18):
The Ashers are just gonna have to blow Hunter Brown away.

Speaker 8 (28:20):
They're gonna have to blow the market value away.

Speaker 7 (28:23):
They're gonna have to give him a reason to say,
I'm gonna skip free agency where thirty other teams can
bid on me, and.

Speaker 8 (28:30):
The Astra is under Jim Crane like and.

Speaker 7 (28:32):
It's worked, but they've never been the team that's gonna
blow anybody out.

Speaker 8 (28:36):
Of the water with their contract offers.

Speaker 7 (28:38):
So I see this going a lot like how all
the other homegrown superstars have gone, and it's just going
to you know, he's going to play out is kind
of final couple of years and then he's gonna head
into free agency where he can get one of those long,
big deals and have thirty teams interested in his services.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
I hope that black tech players around you played the
car as well. That's all I'm gonna say.

Speaker 8 (29:00):
They were six out of ten, six out of tens.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
I can't have that for you. Save travels, friend, Thank
you for the time.

Speaker 8 (29:07):
All right, thanks Matt.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
All right, Channa Rome Athletic with us here on Sports
Talk seven ninety. Let's get speaking of Scott Morris. I
don't know him. I just know the reputation. I know
he is the most powerful agent today in sports and
certainly has been the og of big money contracts in

(29:31):
baseball for the longest time. Is he losing his mind?
We'll discuss that next ten to forty five on Sports
Talk seven ninety. It is the night Thomas Show and Ross.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
We take this program today until two o'clock.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
I just don't get it. At eleven thirty, he may
don't get twelve noon, we have the Rotten One at
twelve fifty, Johnathan, I hope it works out. I hope
people can call up and give me one crappiest of
the NFL teams. It's the rotten One. No preparation, alright,
twelve fifty will have it for you here seven two one,
two five, seven, Untie, Brian and Katie with us before

(30:06):
we hear from Scott Boris.

Speaker 9 (30:07):
Hello, Brian, Hey, Yeah, this was gonna get Scott Boris
to call. Uh want to throw the idea out there.
Guys did it in the Morning show, thought about it
again after the fact. Paul schemes to Houston create that package.
And I think it's not as far fetched as people are.

Speaker 8 (30:27):
Making it out to be.

Speaker 9 (30:29):
I mean, you've got a one time Style Young Award winner.
Granted he's what twenty three years old? Times club controlled two. Well,
I thought you. I didn't think he quite got it.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
But anyway, oh, you know what I'm thinking. Maybe he's
not Scoop. No, maybe it's Scoople. You're right, I'll think
about that. Are they announcing it already? Go ahead, continue on.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 8 (30:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (30:48):
So you've got club control. Jim Crane love that type
of situation. You've got an outfield that's loaded. You've got
a team in Pittsburgh that is not going where anytime soon.
They've proved that with the obviously the trade of people
like Garrett Cole and so on and so forth down
the line. You've got offense, which is what they need.

(31:10):
They obviously don't care about their pictures as much as
they ever, you know, since since my time than when
I was born. Probably, I mean, it's just making sense.
You give up some some outfield talent, give up some
some some draft picks in the coming future. I don't
know number one is number two. I'm just the armchair GM.

(31:31):
So you know, whatever I say. So it starts to
it starts to bear fruit. This treat in this tree
that's in my head, it starts to bear fruit. And
similar to the Rockets, if for apples and apples, Kevin Durant,
in my opinion, is single handedly changed the trajectory of
the Rockets and ten games or whatever it's been. I

(31:53):
feel like we're one picture away and a guy like
Schemes from literally changing the direct and the end result
of a one hundred and sixty two game season for
the Astros. What if it look like to you guys?
Could y'all even play around with this scenario and tell
me what y'all think it looks like and what the

(32:13):
iris go for?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
I mean, Brian, I think I wanted you to stay
with me on the line here, Okay, because I first
I appreciate you calling and thank you very much for listening. Okay,
there is a zero percent chance that Paul Skian is
the Houston Astro.

Speaker 6 (32:28):
Zero.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
I don't mean to be that, can I say this.
I mean, let me just give you this. The Astros
have and have had for about seven or eight years now,
a bottom five minor league system. Okay, it's not getting
any better right away. It takes time. It sometimes it
takes seven or eight years to build a respectable midway

(32:54):
mid level minor league system. There is nothing in the
organization that from a minor league perspective, that the Pittsburgh
Pirates would want in return for Paul Skins. Nothing in
the minor league system. You could not stockpile enough players
to make that happen. So that's why, Brian, with tremendous

(33:17):
amounts of respect to you, this is a complete and
utter nonstarter.

Speaker 9 (33:21):
Well, I mean, and I'm not even looking at the
minor leagues. I get what you're saying from the minor
league standpoint. But just the other day, I know what
outlet created the article, but they said the chopping block
started in the in the outfield and possibly even there
was an article about Christian Walker.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Okayser, Brian, You're going to trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates,
an aging thirty plus year old first baseman who's lost
significant slug for one of the brightest arms in Major
League Baseball for maybe the next fifteen years.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
And I'm not saying it's just Mono Monol. I'm just
saying there's nothing.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
The only player that the act that the Pittsburgh Pirates
would listen to that are on the that's on the
current major league roster. There'd be two of them, Hunter Brown,
and you're on Alvarez and you're an Alvarez can't stay
healthy for a full one sixty two. So if I'm Pittsburgh,
I still don't do the degree. All.

Speaker 9 (34:25):
Yeah, all I'm saying is, hey, it's Thursday. It's thirsty Thursday,
trying to have.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Some fun back.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
You must be drinking. Well, what are you drinking right
this second? What are you drinking? I want to know
what you're exactly what you're doing.

Speaker 10 (34:34):
It's about it's about to open up.

Speaker 9 (34:36):
We're gonna hit the brown water and Rocks and we're
gonna have a little fun and maybe this deal makes
even a few a little more sense after a few
of those guys.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Thanks, thank you, Brian. It's gonna make zero sense. It'll
make actually less sense, Brian, Thank you for calling me.
Brian's been thinking of myself that I really call a
major market radio show at ten fifty five and explain
that I could try to see Paul Skeans. The Pittsburgh
Pirates have got the sign young going to the Houston Astros.
I mean I would be all for it, but there

(35:10):
is and I mean this, there's no chance, no chance,
no way, no how Paul Skeans will be attracting serious
if again the Pirates decided to make the move, which
they will, because that's what the Pirates do. They have
their young stars and they move them. Bet it ain't
gonna be for unless Paul Skeen said, I want to

(35:32):
play for the Astros. And why would Paul Skeans want
to go play for a team that does pay its
players well but doesn't give the mega deals. Paul Skeens
is going to be looking for eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve years. When Jim Crane heard the number number eight,
he almost choked on his breakfast. Thank you for the call.

(35:55):
My friend kind of needed that, didn't we. Speaking of
outlandish thing, I'm gonna let you hear what Scott Boris
said yesterday at the General Managers meetings in Las Vegas.
And I wanted you to guys to tell me the
truth was this funny or cringey or old man or

(36:18):
fail to temp me. I need you to describe what
you're gonna hear from the most powerful sports agent and
be real with me on this. You're gonna hear what
he said about Alex Bregman in his time in Boston
last year.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Coming up is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
All right, it is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
Who's having a couple of days off. Thanks has been
gone all week. I kind of missed the guy. Not really,
Ni who was no you? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yeah,
Paul Skeens won the Siung this past year. I don't

(37:11):
think he's won a second one. Two time All Star
Siung and twenty five. Yeah, he didn't win two times.
So your people on Twitter are making making me question
my thoughts, which is probably right. No, he's not. I'm
sending this one to Joseel tuob season. I don't think
Hoseel TV is sweeting me up from his account. But

(37:32):
that's fine. All right, So I gotta do this. I
got to play this audio for you. This is you know,
this is the as Chandler Roll mentioned earlier. This is
where the agents and the general managers really get to
have some good old fashioned, deep heartfelt conversations about how
their clients are awesome. So, yeah, Alex Bregman decided to

(37:52):
opt out of his contract forty million dollars last year
to play for the Red Sox. It was good money spent,
but he's looking to get a longer term deal, signing
a three year deal with the Red Sox with opt out.
Since he opted out, so Scott Boris helped serve with
the media that was assembled at the general manager meetings
in Las Vegas, and uh, this is how. This is

(38:16):
how Scott Boris basically described Alex Bregman's time in Boston.
So I want you all to hear this, and then
after you hear this, you have to tell me if
this is funny, corny, dad joke, cringey, however you want
to describe it, let me know seven one, three, two

(38:37):
two five seven, honey. But here is Scott Boris talking
about Bregman at the season last year in Beantown.

Speaker 11 (38:45):
I would certainly think that, you know, like in Boston, now,
we learned a lot about Bregman in twenty five because
in Boston prior to twenty five, they had a they
had a lot of lineup do not.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Poles and it.

Speaker 11 (39:06):
Certainly, prior to twenty five, Boston has been a kind
of a club that's been has dunken well below the
playoff line. So I think it was a bad roast
in Beantown and certainly, and give the owners credit in

(39:28):
twenty five, you know, they went out spent some Starbucks
to bring in a bragman blend that led them to
the playoffs. So I I'm sure the Boston fans don't
want this to be just a cup of coffee, and no.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
One wants say that breaks it.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
Uh And the audience doesn't see his face, but this
guy didn't smile that once saying this stuff.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
By the way, Scott boris the guy. All right. First
of all, I applaud I applaud the very little and Jonathan,
you don't know this. We make fun of people that
are part of the media that make these we called
awkward media laugh. There was hardly any of it there

(40:32):
really are. Let me know. Let me tell you something.
I work in a media market in Houston, Texas that
has a bunch of water carriers for the local sports teams.
I mean big time and they so funny. Caller so funny,
Nick Cereal, so funny. Yeah, it's it's it's it's especially

(40:52):
bad in Texanville because they want to be buddy buddies
with Demiko and Cal and Hannah and everybody over there.
And that's fine, So I will give credit where credits due.
There was a little bit of, you know, but there
wasn't much. The problem with that whole thing was Jonathan.

(41:14):
He was so measured about it.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
He wanted to make sure every one of his little
puns hit.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
He said, so many of them with five I don't know.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
But I'm not going I'm not gonna go back and
recount them.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
But they were all bad.

Speaker 5 (41:29):
He said, beans out of They can't even get the joke.

Speaker 6 (41:33):
Ra.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
I don't even know what he was gonna say.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
Brag blend Uh.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
He mentioned the Starbucks, he mentioned there were a lot
of doughnut holes.

Speaker 12 (41:45):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Do you think he was stroking out in front of
the media there.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
I mean that it was awful.

Speaker 5 (41:51):
You get a couple of shots before he got onto this,
and the reality is this.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Look, I don't mean to do this, but sometimes I
catch myself doing dad jokes because I'm a dad. So
I kind of get a little room for error on that.
But what the hell was that? I mean?

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Was what I didn't realize?

Speaker 2 (42:11):
It was open mic night at the general manager's meetings.
Did you if y'all would to listen to that right now?
Were y'all like, what in the hell is that? We've
all done things that are been cringey before or awkward moments. Hell, this,
this show between ten and two is largely awkward. Yeh,

(42:36):
that was terrible. I don't remember him doing that. I remember,
you know what I remember Scott Boris being cold, calculated, cutthroat, emotionless.
That's why these players go to him. They don't go

(43:00):
to Rodney boris Field for their contract negotiations. If I'm
Briggs and I love Bregs, be like, Scott, are you okay?
You off your meds? Or maybe I guess the question
would be are you on some meds? Let's play it

(43:21):
one more time, okay? And then I want y'all to
really just take a deep breath on this and say, hey, Matt,
he was having some fun. Leave him alone. You could
say that I'm okay. I mean, if you have a
kempelling enough argument. That's the thing about me is just
because I come on with a show opinion. I'm up
for listening to other people's opinions. I don't. I'm not
going to begrudge you on this. To me, this will

(43:44):
be within seventy five seconds of the most cringey stuff you'll
hear the rest of your day, except for the show.
Obviously ten to two here it is.

Speaker 11 (43:50):
I would certainly think that, you know, like in Boston, now,
we learned a lot about Bregman in twenty five because
in Boston, prior to twenty five, they had they had
a lot of lineup do not holes, And certainly prior

(44:14):
to twenty five, Boston has been a kind of a
club that's been has dunken well below the playoff line.
So I think it was a bad roast in Beantown
and certainly, and give the owners credit in twenty five,

(44:35):
you know, they went out and spent some Starbucks to
bring in a bragmant blend that led them to the playoffs.
So I I'm sure the Boston fans don't want this
to be just a cup of coffee and no one

(45:00):
want to say I breaks it.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
How many was that?

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Mat? I heard two sniffles, which was an attempted humor
and five puns. I'm serious. I know he's the goat
of Al's, the OG's, and the greatest of all time
when it comes to negotiating contracts, at least in the

(45:24):
last thirty years. But I'm like, Brah, are you okay?
Because if that's if if he's more worried about working
on his material for showtime at the GM meetings, then
he's not worried about my contract. And I guess the
thing is he's so powerful. Did he have somebody write

(45:45):
that stuff for him and he had just had to
memorize it. I'm actually a little bit sad because dude,
that's sad. Yeah, that dude is the most powerful man
in baseball.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
Man, he probably just had a cut a couple on
the table before he got you know.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Oh, is that what you're saying? A few pops?

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Okay? You know what now that you say that? Because
A remember I told you before, I'm willing to listen
to other people's opinions.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
I will go with you on that. The most powerful man.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
In sport, in baseball, maybe in sports, was blank faced
and he had a chance to go in front of
his micro in front of a bunch of microphones to
work on his material. So I applaud you Boston or
a national media. You didn't sit there and chuckle at
every one of them. There was a couple of sniffs.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
That's like those sniff were like kind of like a
shock laugh, Like what.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Do you do?

Speaker 12 (46:41):
Well?

Speaker 2 (46:41):
You know what, I wonder if if Boris was mad
that he wasn't getting a better reaction, and yeah, think
about if you're if you're I don't know if you've
ever been stand up comedy before, I have not, But
if you're up there in front of a bunch of
people and your jokes are falling flat, you're just like,
I want to look out there and find out some
of this gonna actually laugh and I'll because here's the thing,

(47:02):
if you would have laughed at that, maybe you would
have gotten a story out of it. Thank you for
laughing at my bat my many puns about coffee during
my Alex Bregmant conversation, call me litter. I'll give you
some details, details on my clients. Nobody was biting, and
you know how snarky media can get.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
You know, there was some serious rolling of eyes and
that bad.

Speaker 6 (47:23):
Boy was done.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
No, for sure, how big this news is?

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Oh for sure, all right, So I wanted Jolly to
hear that. Somebody a friend of mine, Aaron, just sent
me a text said that was Jack easterbe cringey. Let
me tell you something, Gang Jack Easterby would do that
in front of Houston media. The difference would be we'd
have a bunch of media water carriers for him, going, oh,
that was so funny, Jacky was really good, thanks Jack. Well, yeah,

(47:52):
in Houston, that runs it well, especially with the fake
media that we have here that pretend they're media. Ooh,
that was rough. I never you know what, I'm so
blessed by that I never have to worry about that
with Emandoka. Do you think Emandoka would come on this
radioho which's gonna do in forty five minutes and start
dropping puns on me? Imagine he's the most serious man

(48:15):
I've interview interviewed in my life, and I love it.
I'm okay with it. I want my you know what
I want, Jonathan, I want my agent serious. I'm hiring
Scott Boris. I don't want him working on as schecky
shacky Boris material. I want him getting me as much
money as humanly possible. All right, I just want to
play that for y'all. Oh lordy, that was something else. Well,

(48:38):
at least gave you something to think about, all right.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Seven one three, two one two five seven ninety Chris.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Gordy's gonna join us in about fifteen minutes for a
segment we have I just don't get it coming up
at the bottom of the hour. Uh. And Gordy is
a part of what has turned out to be my
most Now when you have views and pres have that's
I mean, people looked at him and they scrolled through
my tweet. It's an all timer in the history of

(49:05):
my sixteen or seventeen year relationship with the platform known
as Twitter are now called x So we'll get Gordy's
thoughts on that coming up in a few minutes. All right,
let me tell you all something I love y'all. Y'all
are like my associate producers. Hey, look, I can't watch

(49:26):
or read everything about everybody, So that's why I got y'all.
Y'all are awesome. Apparently, and it says a few of
you who sent this to me, he does this for
a lot of his clients, these horrific puns. So This
is not a new bit for him. Apparently he did
it with pin Alonzo and then he did it most

(49:51):
recently with Taric Scuball. I mean, holy smokes, and I
it's the one about Tyrek School.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
I've got it's on a Reddit page. I couldn't forward
it to Jonathan.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
Are talking about like little Caesars or yes, okay, I
think this is the right one to.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Play it, Go ahead, play it here. It is.

Speaker 11 (50:12):
All All we know is that, look, the the fans
in Detroit want the Tigers to build a Trek Barrick.
You know they uh, you know Little Caesars running around
town saying SYSI. So it's uh, it's it's the kind
of thing where he's he's built a base. Obviously everywhere

(50:35):
they go they know it's Schooble day. They understand that
that uh, that organization is substantially different if he's not there.
And you know, we we uh when when you're in
these situations and you go through it, all we know

(50:56):
is that we hear mostly from the fans and the player.
Here's the fans and and and it's kind of like
it should be Scooby done right and uh and if not,
I think the fans would certainly think it's a Detroit joint.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
If they don't, how they approach you about an extension
again at this point? Or I can't do it.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
I mean, I mean, come on, So he's damn lost
his mind.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
It just seems like he was having a fun night.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
I don't know, like so apparently you know, see he
must have like two Gin and Tonics before he goes
up in front of the media, because he's like, I
got now he does have this. He doesn't have a
script in front him. It's like, give him credit for
having it memorized.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
It should be Scooby done. I don't know. I like that.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
What was Okay? So let me ask you this. Did
you like did you like the Bregman one? Did you
like the Scooba one? Did you like both? Or did
you like none of them? That's cringe? Doorgsc oh no,
don't now I'm doing it. Oh my god, what's the
matter with me?

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Little caesars running around town?

Speaker 2 (52:10):
What's that's compared to saying pizza pizza? You say, sighing?

Speaker 4 (52:15):
See, Okay, I don't know. This one's kind of he
gotta hit the down as well.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I got this gonna get Oh no, you're giving him credit. No, no,
come on, you young and jush, let me tell you something.
You me, as an older dude, would try should try
to find this more humors than you as a young
and I.

Speaker 5 (52:30):
Just I think I think it's the context of while
I'm laughing at it, it's just like, I don't know,
like side that's he's good. Unless he had descripted like
you're saying, give him.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Remember did he say row at any point during his
conversation about Tarrek Schoobel. I don't think he did. Oh man,
Scott Scott bores. He said school day. Yeah, yeah, you
know what. You know what it is though he has
so much power and he has all these great athletes

(53:02):
that he just wants to f with us. Basically, that's
how he gets his That's how he gets his giggles.
Don't have a lot of fun in his life. You
know what he is?

Speaker 3 (53:13):
This is the thing.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
I think I figured it out at eleven twenty four. He
is cutthroat, mean, nasty, void of emotion. Ninety nine percent
of his day he gets in front of a microphone.
He thinks it's he thinks he's on star search.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
We need to give him a podcast.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Or showtime with the Apollo.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
What you know, what I'm thinking of is how and
I when I went and googled his I googled Scott
Boris puns. There's a lot of different radio stations in
the country that have been saying, Hey, I wonder what
they would say about our team. Guys, do we need
to help Scott Boris write material for Hunter Brown?

Speaker 6 (54:02):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
No, come on, come on Twitter, you guys are bright.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
It's Chuckie Brown in there something.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Let's think about this for a second. All right, So
if you want to help me with this, let's help
out Scott Borris. If he's gonna go with this bit
all the way through, we should do this seven one
three two one two five seven Honey, what puns would
he use for a Hunter Brown? To stay with the astros?
You got to bring up space City, You got to
bring up astronomical Yes, you have to bring up our

(54:37):
food like you know fetas, You got to bring up
the traffic. Come on, Houston, y'all are smart people. I
just gave you all props. Would be my associate producers
of the show. What dad joke slash astro pun would

(55:01):
Scott Boris use when discussing a Hunter Brown's future with
the Astros. It shouldn't take a crane to get Hunter
Brown a new contract. What can Hunter Brown do for

(55:23):
you in Houston? I mean, I'm tapped out. Let me
see me and y'all on Twitter. Got something going on here?
Come on, y'all can do this for me.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
I don't know what you would say.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Okay, what can Hunter Brown do for you? That's an
easy one. That's the lowest hanging fruit out there. It
would be you don't need to get use a crane.
You shouldn't have to use a crane to get a
new contract for him. What else? Come on, y'all, devious people,
you know what. I'll need you out there. We'll get
gord to help us out, because Gordy's Gordy is the

(56:01):
king of uncomfortable puns. Bonnie Joe says, I counted seven
uncomfortable coffee puns.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Two were very nuanced. That was cringey.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
As you stated, he is cold, that has no sense
of humor, and that was ultimately clear in his statement.
H it would be out of this world if the
Astros resigned Hunter Brown. Now see you see, you see
that's why he's got people he has people that write
this stuff for him. I would not be better if

(56:35):
it was.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
Just him making these up though, like it was just him.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Mm, I don't know, it.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Should be Scooby done. I don't know. That's that's kind of.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
No that we're talking. That's Tark Scooby. We're talking about
Hunter Brown.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Oh, if the Astros want to hunt for a Red October,
they should get signed you know.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Oh, okay, you know what I apol it. Let me
tell you him.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
I gotta I know, I got I'm sorry tomorrow. I'm
sorry for doing this too. I got sucked, suckered into this.
I did my bad. I this is terrible. I am
I sincerely apologize all of you.

Speaker 8 (57:13):
Do you have something in your life.

Speaker 13 (57:15):
That you just don't get No need to worry, no
need to We will just do for something to see
if we comprehend the things that makes him use on friends.

Speaker 8 (57:25):
It's time to say I just.

Speaker 10 (57:26):
Don't get it.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
All right, y'all came through as I knew you would
listen to these. Jonathan, it's a no craner. Ooh that's
from Darren Robert says you can't take Brown of the
super Bowl, but you can hunt down an MLB championship.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Okay, that's got a good.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Pedro says. The Astros have a hunter's chance to sign
Brown to a long contract day.

Speaker 14 (57:55):
Okay, see, I know y'all could do this.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
They got y'all.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
All right.

Speaker 15 (58:02):
Maybe if he stays in Houston, they can get him
a big cup of Joe aspata.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Oh go toy cover it through.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
It is so nice to have you on the show
right now. I want to thank you from the bottom
of my heart. I don't know why this happened, but
we have to talk about this. It is an all
time example of I just don't get it. Okay. So
I will tweet things and you will quote tweet me,
and you will tease me. You will quote things, you
will say things, and I'll quote tease you back. It's

(58:34):
just what guys do, right, coworkers and friends. Nothing crazy.
So you put out your tweet a couple of days
ago about all fired College coaches should have to go
to an independent obortraitor to argue why they deserve your
full payout. Like an MLB, you present your case and
why you deserve it, and the opportraitor decides what percentage
you get, and then at the very end because you
are looking to make it a comedic bit.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
And then we televised live on ESPNU.

Speaker 15 (58:59):
Yeah, okay, no part of that should read this guy serious.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
So doing what I like to do. Because we're pals.
I respond back to you. You offered me a contract,
I signed it, case closed in five seconds. That's how
it works even at LSU.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
So you and me go back and forth.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
A couple of people that follow us have their comments
about it. It's just a nice little give and take. Right. Well,
that was a few days ago. Since that tweet at
five point fifty seven PM on November the eleventh, which
is two days ago, almost three to two full days ago, Corny,

(59:43):
it's been viewed by one point nine million people.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
Oh, I've got over two million now.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
Sixty six comments, two hundred and sixty one retweets, eleven
thousand likes, Wow, one hundred and sixty four book marks.
I say to you, Chris Gordy, about our tweet, our
interaction and how the X platform works. I just don't

(01:00:12):
get it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:14):
Well, I can get I don't get it either.

Speaker 15 (01:00:16):
But I think if it's from this angle, Matt, everybody
wants to be an expert, and when something comes out.
That's very divisive and people are split on Yeah. People
want to let oh I know this, Oh I know this,
and people want to Twitter is the king of it. It
used to be message boards. Now it's Twitter. People want
to jump in and go ah. Let me tell you

(01:00:37):
from my years of studying law and contracts, this is
a contract you cannot fight. It's like, bro, we were
having fun, like we didn't need your seriousness to step in.
I have lawyers jumping in my mentions, Matt tweeting at me.
This isn't how contracts work. Thanks mister contract appreciate it.
Didn't really ask for your expertise. I would call your
law off as if I wanted that advice.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
I have not been ratio, so I'm happy about that,
but I have been told what an idiot I am.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Mine has gotten.

Speaker 15 (01:01:03):
I'm at fifty seven comments, four hundred and eighty one likes,
so there are more people who are liking my tweet
as opposed to wanting to hate on it. But I
just I mean, again, of all the stuff I tweet,
I wish some of my sports takes people would jump on.
This was just a joke that people are misinterpreting as Oh,
you're an idiot.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
You don't know how things work. Let me tell you
how things work.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
So, Gordy, we have to figure this out. It's being
me and you. No one's listening except us. We got
to monetize our takes. Now, we just have to. We
have to be able to get these one. We got
to turn our number of you. Now, how many of
views do you have on yours? By yourself? You have
two million views? Millionaires?

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
Am I piggybacking off of your views? Is that what
I'm doing?

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
I think?

Speaker 16 (01:01:42):
So?

Speaker 6 (01:01:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:01:43):
My oh look, okay, I'm looking at my total Oh,
this is my total earnings on Twitter. Yeah, my last
couple of payouts for Twitter monetization has been twenty eight bucks,
thirteen bucks, twelve bucks, so this is probably a twelve
dollars tweet.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Don't I don't monetize my Twitter? Should I do that?

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
You gotta do it?

Speaker 8 (01:02:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
You should have been on that now, you miss.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Let me take you.

Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
The only way I can do that is if I
have to, I have to pay for the blue check mark, right.

Speaker 15 (01:02:06):
Yeah, but but I I make that made that back
in like the first couple of months. I mean, you
know how many mcribs you can buy with twelve bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Guess who brought mcribs of the Kingwood Studio today. Missus
Thomas did wow entire family.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
She knows the key to your heart.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
She does well that and other things. But that's a
different issue for a different time. So, corny, if I'm
picking backing off of your I have because I have
one point nine million views on mine. You have two million.
Look at look look what we've done.

Speaker 6 (01:02:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:02:40):
Unfortunately, I wish Twitter would, uh would raise the amount
of incentivizing those because again, like I said, probably about
ten or twelve bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
So what I'm gonna do for is, every time you
have something half halfway controversial, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Quote tweet you because I can gravy train off of you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
I can zero problem with that. You're locked on sec.

Speaker 15 (01:02:57):
Well, I realize why I rarely tweet thoughts because again
they get misintern Almost everything I tweet is always kind
of a joke or tongue you know, like not even
joke because I said it's a joke and guy's like,
good joke.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
Uh huh.

Speaker 15 (01:03:09):
I'm like okay, Like it's tongue in cheek. It's not
it's not wasn't good for you to laugh out loud.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
At No, there's it's it's very hard to interpret humor.
Now you got to go back to your regular job.
But is there anything else you don't get in your
life besides this? For me?

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
Because I sincerely don't get how this became such a thing.

Speaker 15 (01:03:25):
Yeah, I I don't get how how YouTube TV still
has to figured this thing out. I have a bunch
of friends who had not been able to watch sports
because of this stupid holdout between Disney and YouTube TV,
and apparently Google is involved somehow, some way. I just

(01:03:45):
nobody cares. The consumer doesn't give a bleep. Figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
It is crazy, crazy crazy. It's gone as long as
it did. I we should have had a contest what
goes longer? Government shut down or the roop TV ver
versus ESPN fight.

Speaker 15 (01:04:02):
I'll give you two more because or two quick punts
here because I know Aaron wants to get in on
the way out. The astros could use I didn't know
if carrots were in coffee, but you could get a
carrot you know, sou fle carrotini with a cup of coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Oh my god, hit the that's Jonathan hit the hit
the net, the buzzer that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Was, and then you know if the if the Astros.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Monetized that, Gordy, I can't monetize that tweet.

Speaker 15 (01:04:30):
I know the Astros were, you know, they were looking
for an extra hitting coach. Maybe they could bring in
Jose Barista, Bautista Barista.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I gotta like that one. I don't know, I gotta
like that one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
The tough crowd.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
Jay says, the hunter is now the hunted.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Eh.

Speaker 6 (01:04:55):
Oh God, did.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
You know Scott Borris did this?

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
I guess I have.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
I have I diversify my life beyond watching agents speak
to the media. I didn't. I had no idea he
did this until until yesterday. And I didn't realize he
did it until a bunch of people said that he
did it for his other clients too.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
I knew he did jokes. I didn't know they were
this bad though.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Oh yes, I mean super cringe.

Speaker 15 (01:05:16):
And he's like digging deep in the back of his mind.
What was that line I had memorized about Beantown?

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
But am I right? If this would happened in Houston,
all the fake media would have been laughing their asses off.

Speaker 15 (01:05:26):
Oh yeah, media laugh Yeah, Yeah, if he could get
some text Mex jokes in there, that'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
All right, Well, Gordy, thank you for coming back. I
appreciate you and thank you, and I have now made
the decision. I'm going to go get the blue check
mark because if I'm going to get one point nine
million impressions, I need to check out of this.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Again, it doesn't pay well.

Speaker 15 (01:05:45):
You would need about thirty five of those tweets to
go viral to make any kind of money.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
All right, well let's make this. You and I collaborate
once a week. Let's do something so obnoxious we can
get one point nine million views per tweet.

Speaker 15 (01:05:57):
I disagree, Matt. I am on this side. I am
on this side. And people you sucking. Where's your law
degree from? So I say mine degrees from?

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
If you?

Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
That wasn't very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
They had one guy that said I was a terrible
talk show host. You had two followers. He didn't even
live here. You don't even know if I'm a good
host or not.

Speaker 6 (01:06:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
One guy might be like, you might be your accurate,
but you don't know it for sure.

Speaker 15 (01:06:17):
One guy was like, I went to your sports channel
and you don't have a ton of subscribers. So that's
good because it takes like these. I'm like, all right, bro, yeah,
thanks for your thanks for your interaction.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Thank you very much, Thanks Gordy. All right, Aaron wants
to get something he doesn't get. If you have something
in your life you just don't get, let me know.
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety All right,
time to judge this one, Jonathan. The Astros don't want
Union Station running out of diesel.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
Ooh, I don't know y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Have to do this.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
I think that's too I think that's too good for Wars.
Though that was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
That may be the best one, just saying, let's talk
to uh Aaron on seven? Aaron, what's the good word? Hey?

Speaker 8 (01:07:11):
Are you hot? Ready?

Speaker 10 (01:07:13):
Because no matter how you slashed the pie, he's gonna
make some crazy breads Detroit, but with a guard six Houston,
we Uh, you gotta keep the.

Speaker 8 (01:07:23):
Vacation going with fantashment. Don't want to brown out, uh
and brown.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
Not a fan, not a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
The best part of that call was Aaron just saying,
oh what he said, and then he hung up. He
didn't want to he didn't want a reaction from us.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
You want to brown out? That wasn't bad.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I didn't want you don't want to brown out?
Gotta feel you know what. Here's the thing, Jonathan, Unfortunately,
these Scott Boris puns are gonna be a part of
the future of this show.

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
Oh, most definitely, because the.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Astros have Scott Boris clients. All Right, you know what,
I asked for this, and when you ask for something,
you get them. Who's the class.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Pina in Brown?

Speaker 8 (01:08:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Uh? It is Brown, It is Altuve. Yeah, I believe
it is also Lance mccullors. There's a few paina Oh
my god. Oh you guys. You'd hate for Jeremy to
have to go find his takarias somewhere else.

Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Oh my god, what have I done? I'm sorry, housed to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
You know why? This is two reasons Ross has gone
all week and two I'm still trying to fight this
cold the last I mean, this is the problem I
have to go through.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
And you work a rocket game last night, you do the.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Show, You're gonna you're gonna get a little, a little
bat blank crazy. And I've just done that for y'all.
I've made my show Scott Boris equips puns. It's my fault,
not yours. I'm taking the blame. I'm sorry it's too late.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Dwayne on seven ninety Hello Dwayne, Hey.

Speaker 17 (01:09:25):
Bud uhsh your clip at for tomorrow is gonna be
like all this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
The entire show.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
You're right, Dwayne, You're exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
You you are.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
You are one of my associate producers for a reason.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:09:41):
Oh man, if I got paid, we don't pay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
We don't pay around here. I ask Johnathan, not us,
we pay, you'll be You're like, I get the hell
out of here.

Speaker 8 (01:09:50):
I'm an oil man.

Speaker 17 (01:09:51):
Just so okay, Well, you know on the contract, doesn't
it say the last name first, then the first right,
So instead of round Hunter, he could be green.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Hunter staying oil. Yeah, I mean, I love you doing,
but staying oil it's easier for you.

Speaker 17 (01:10:11):
You you were just talking about all these guys that
are Boris clients on the astros.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Yeah, well, well.

Speaker 16 (01:10:19):
Are we talked about.

Speaker 8 (01:10:19):
The past or Like?

Speaker 17 (01:10:20):
Seriously, Uh, it hasn't been that bad. I know he's
ald goofball, but he's damn good at his job.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
He's amazing at his job. Dwayne. That's the thing. That's
the thing that troubles me is he uses this as
his comedic relief. Do you think he smiles more than
three times a day? Oh hell no, I love it.

Speaker 17 (01:10:39):
I have family in Boston and trust me, they don't
need to drink as much coffee as his stupid joke,
which you know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Well, here's the thing is that, Dwayne, even when he smiles,
I mean, even when he gets a new deal done.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
For his client, he's moving on the next client.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
He doesn't. He's like Nick Saban one of his college
football and he won a national championship. He's not worried
about it celebrating the national championship. He was worried about
recruiting for the next year's class. That's how Scott boris
roll y.

Speaker 8 (01:11:01):
Yeah, he's he's like.

Speaker 17 (01:11:02):
One of those gangsters, not with the golden tooth, but
the golden rim tooth.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
You know. Yeah, exactly, thank you, that's exactly what he is.
He is looking for, Thank you, Dwayne. There's no celebration
when when Pete A. Lonzo gets new deals and tarks
Google gets new deals and I don't know if Paul
Skeens is a client. Alex predman clearly is they're not.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
He He's like, okay, got y'all gotta go to my
next guy.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Bye. M He uses money for tote paper because think
about this. He's getting all these ridiculously huge contracts for
these guys, and granted he's not getting ten percent, but
he's getting three, four and five depending on who the

(01:11:47):
client is, and three percent of you know, a seven year,
two hundred and twenty million dollars deal or an eight
year two forty nine to seventy or a ten three hundred.
I mean he's got like thirty of those guys that
he gets those mega deals for. You want mega deals,

(01:12:08):
you want cutthroat, you go to Scott Morris. And you
know what, Gang, if I was a player and I
was he lead at my position, and I was about
to go to a new contract, I'd want to do
the exact same thing. James in Climb before we talked
to em Adoka. Hello, James, Yeah, I hope he starts

(01:12:29):
pitching this new contract.

Speaker 10 (01:12:30):
It doesn't strike out and the Astra to the home run.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
You didn't like that, Say it again, man, say it
one more time.

Speaker 10 (01:12:45):
I hope when he starts pitching this new contract.

Speaker 8 (01:12:48):
That he doesn't strike out and the Astros hit a
home run.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
James leave the punts the professionals, my man, Okay, thank you,
thank you, James. You we appre shit your effort. But
you know what, I'm gonna have to I think, Jonathan,
I think we're gonna have to put a more to
him in these things.

Speaker 4 (01:13:08):
This is probably of my favorite shows for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Because James wrote that, and I feel bad that he
probably wrote it on a piece of paper. He's like,
I gotta call Matt and see if this vis jams.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
I think at least has he must have writers that
did this, because again, he had it measured. He wasn't
just talking off the top of his head when he
was doing all that stuff with Regman in the coffee bit.
All right, that's it. We're done. We're never doing this
again until Scott Borrow speaks again, and then we're gonna
do it again. Lord m m all right. We will

(01:13:56):
not do the news at noon today because we got
Ema a Dooka coming up mat minutes. Because he is
the news at noon. We'll talk to him. We're gonna
do the Rotten One at twelve fifty. And you're like,
what the hell's the rotten one? Well, Ross does the
rotten five. We're not gonna make you do that much work.
You have to call in and tell us who the
worst team in the NFL is now, if it makes
any sense and you have logic behind it, that'd be great.
If you just want to crap on on a team

(01:14:18):
that you hate just because you hate them, Look, it's
the rotten one. It's your contest, not mine. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven ninety. Eme Adoke is next
here on seven ninety is.

Speaker 8 (01:14:31):
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Spot. It is twelve oh one on Sports Talk seven ninety.
It is a Matt Thomas Show with Ross Ross off
this week MT with you here until two pm. We're
gonna spend ten minutes right now with the head coach
of your Houston Rockets, who picked up his one hundredth
career victory as the head coach in the Houston Rockets,
emy A Doka with us here on the show. Coach,
Thanks for the time, congratulations a pretty fast run to

(01:14:59):
one hundred, my Frank, It's got a lot more to
going fortunately for us.

Speaker 18 (01:15:04):
Yeah, it's a nice little miles on to hit. But
you know, with the team we have in our expectations,
I think, uh, that was kind of foregone conclusion.

Speaker 6 (01:15:13):
But we're looking for bigger things.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Anyway, you ran some uh youth teams when you were
still playing in the NBA. Correct, I mean, so this,
this coaching bug was part of your assistant for a
long time, right, Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:15:27):
I sponsored au team out of Portland, Oregon or some
of the guys on staff, Mike Mosic, Garet Jackson were
part of the team.

Speaker 6 (01:15:35):
So I started way back then, did some coaching clinics
at the National.

Speaker 18 (01:15:38):
Basketball Players Association, three fourth summers in a row, and
got the it's early.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Who was the coach? Who was the coach? You mad?
That was the guy that said, all right, I'm I'm
gonna follow this guy's path. I want to be the
head coach ultimately at the highest level. Who was your
biggest influence.

Speaker 6 (01:15:59):
I'm curious, obviously, Pop.

Speaker 18 (01:16:02):
You know, Pop offered me my first job, you know,
when I was still finishing my career and kind of.

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
Expedited the process.

Speaker 18 (01:16:09):
I wanted to play a few more years, and he
gave me a great opportunity. So spent seven seven years
coaching with him before I went to Philly Brooklyn in
Boston and played two and a half years from so
the longest playing career with him, playing the team I
played with, and then coaching obviously, So he's been the
biggest influence on.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
Me by far.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
You made a dooker with us here on seven ninety
coach last night Washington, we knew defensively just not very good.
Giving up the most points in the league eighty one
you'll take all the time, doesn't happen a lot, but
a combination of you took advantage of some of their
deficiencies on the defensive side with some hot shooting. How
did you see how the first twenty four minutes in
particular went for you against the Wizards?

Speaker 18 (01:16:48):
It was good, obviously, he got off to a great
start of forty point first quarters is always nice, and
then forty one in the second. So we were consistent there.
But you know, we didn't just want to get in
the shootout, go up and down. We wanted the fan
at a high level as well, and so to hold
them to fifty four in the first half was great
as well. I think a lot of times when you
play an inferior opponent. A lot of times you relax
and just getting to that up and down, open gym

(01:17:10):
style game. But we want to maintain our discipline on
defensive end, obviously, share the ball, and only three turnovers
in the first half, twenty assists in the first half.
All those are great numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
The turnover number has been something that you've talked about
on a semiregular basis, and sometimes they're influential in games.
I even in San Antonio and maybe against Oklahoma City,
do you feel like things are getting a little bit better,
that we're going back to the more of the norm,
because especially in that first half, as you're not only
scoring all those points, but you guys took tremendous care

(01:17:40):
of the basketball.

Speaker 18 (01:17:42):
Yeah, it's been an emphasis since day one. I think
when you look at the Oklahoma City game, you know,
giving up twenty eight points on twenty five turnovers in
a double overtime loss, that really stands out. And then
to your point, thirty three points in San Antonio given
up off of our turnovers. So we know what we
can look at when we lose certain games. Specific things
and taking care of the ball is one of our
main main points of emphasis.

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
You know, he's scoring eighty.

Speaker 18 (01:18:05):
One points and us being the best offensive, rebounding and
team in the league, where almost like this, get shots
up and we'll have a good chance to get it
back if we miss, but let's not turn it over
and field teams in transition.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
You may this has been I don't know if it's
a four or five game stretch now for Reid. Uh.
He's come off the bench for you and has really
provided some nice offense. He's also very active in terms
of stealing the basketball turnovers have been Okay, did a
light bulb just turn on? Or is this the mid
just making the most of his opportunity to be given
to him, especially now that Fred's gone for the season.

Speaker 6 (01:18:36):
It was gonna be a little bit of both.

Speaker 18 (01:18:38):
You know, he gained some experience last year, but getting
this opportunity to play now is always going to help
a young player. And just being aggressive and confident is
gonna those things are gonna show up in the stat sheet. Offensively,
we want him to take those shots and make the
right plays and and you know'll be a backup point
guard and play some off ball off of LPNKD, but
also defensively take on the challenges and he's done that.

(01:18:58):
You know, you stick to this sign, to the game plan,
and he's just a really good smart plug for us.
Every team has that, and we want him to be
that for us.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Then, the offense in this league, just in your game
last night, the league in general, we are seeing some
incredible performances. And you and I have talked about this
at least once before about usually sometimes the offensive ahead
of the defense, but it feels like, I mean, we're
talking about most teams have played at least ten, eleven,
twelve games. These offensive production numbers are incredible. Are we

(01:19:29):
going to see this for a forty two or do
you think it's going to regress a little bit at
some point.

Speaker 18 (01:19:34):
Or you think it would come down and teams would
be a little more stinsy on defensive eventually. But you know,
teams played towards their strengths and a lot of times,
you know a lot of those teams are really gifted offensively.
Try to get in those shootouts and like I said
to our team, like I said, quite often we can
do it on both sides, and so we're scoring at
a great pace, but we still want to not to
get our identity and what gave us success the last

(01:19:55):
two years. So improve defensively, continue to cut talk, communicating
our zones typically, and start to hold teams down to
those lower numbers, and we're scoring you know, one, ten, twenty,
we should win easily.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
If you and I were talking during the preseason and
I said to the first ten games of the season,
the Rockets would be the number one team in three
point percentage, would you have said, all, that's nice and
a pleasant surprise, or would you have said to me more,
we better be.

Speaker 6 (01:20:20):
No, it is a great surprise.

Speaker 18 (01:20:22):
It's not not unexpected that teams are going to guard
Oupria and Kevin the way that they do, and that's
going to lead to some wide open shots. And so
credit to our guys for putting in the work in
the offseason.

Speaker 6 (01:20:32):
Obviously, our numbers weren't where we wanted them to be
last year.

Speaker 18 (01:20:35):
But when you're getting these wide open looks, the percentages
are going to go up.

Speaker 6 (01:20:38):
Confidence is going to go up.

Speaker 18 (01:20:39):
And you continue to work off with Kevin and oupring
with those double teams, guys are going to be a
reshipping into those open shots.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
It feels like to me, Iman, please tell me if
I'm wrong it's a lot of teams guys will use
a slidestep to get a little bit of a better angle.
It feels like to me this year it's a lot
of catch and shoot from your guys. That the guys
are positioning themselves well, then once the ball reaches their
they're letting it fly pretty quickly.

Speaker 18 (01:21:03):
Yeah, spacing has gotten much better. Anytime we have success,
it's been a large part due to that. And when
we haven't, guys have kind of been out out of
their spots. But we're really encouraging guys to be aggressive,
not passive any shots. And like I said, we're such
such a great offensive rebounding team that we know teams
are gonna double, they're gonna be in a scramble mode,
and it's gonna lead to some mismatches on the glass

(01:21:24):
as well, and so get the shot up, not pass
up shots. So guys are kind of learning on the
fly as far as that. You got some guys early
in the season passed up some shots and you don't
always get a better look. And so we're encouraging them
to be aggressive and then hammering the glass like always
of Steven out being Clinton a.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
Couple more minutes here with Imadoka. You know, I don't
remember much about Steven Adams early in his career, but
I've obviously watched intently the last four or five years
and last couple here in Houston. Is he playing the
best in terms of just not only getting his fair
share of offensive rebounds, the putbacks, the pick and rolls,
and then he's able to now hit some free throws.

(01:22:02):
Is he even exceeding what you thought he could bring
to this team when you first originally brought him here.

Speaker 6 (01:22:08):
No, I wouldn't say I'm surprised at all.

Speaker 18 (01:22:09):
If you've coached against him or you're played against him,
you know what he's all about. You know, he does
a lot of the things that don't always show up
on the stat sheet, but one of the best screen
setters in the league defensively, really smart, has a high Q.
And then offensive rebounds is one of the things he's
been great at throughout his career. So more of the
same guys that played against him or played with him. No,

(01:22:30):
he attracts all the attention on the boards and freeze
it up for other guys. But he's going to get
his five six a game himself. It feels like, and
those are obviously boosting our numbers.

Speaker 6 (01:22:38):
But I think more than anything, to put back to.

Speaker 18 (01:22:41):
Some of the things you mentioned, is due to health
and rhythm getting back after being out for almost two years,
and you can kind of see his legs and him
in training camp.

Speaker 6 (01:22:48):
He was just a different player than started last year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
You have a huge sports performance department that monitors just
about everything what these guys do in terms of eating
and resting and working on and playing and how they
do during the game. The Rockets have kind of caught up.
We've played some of the least number of games so
far this year. It's gonna eventually catch up. So how
do you kind of manage that knowing that we're going
to be in a spot here not before long where
there are some back to backs and there's gonna be

(01:23:11):
some three games in four night situations.

Speaker 18 (01:23:14):
Yeah, well, we'll discuss that and take a look at,
you know, scheduling and then who we need to play,
who we need to rest based on that based on
that schedule and matchups and things of that nature. But
for now, we haven't had any early I think it's
it's helping us out and getting guys legs and rhythm
and conditioning under them.

Speaker 6 (01:23:30):
But that's where our depth comes into play.

Speaker 18 (01:23:32):
You know, you brought Clint here for a reason, and
Josh and Dory they'll be back eventually, and so uh
when guys do have to rest, some guys coming off
injuries or surgery, we have capable bodies.

Speaker 6 (01:23:42):
As you've seen in the past.

Speaker 18 (01:23:44):
I feel like we have a three deep roster at
every position that can come in and contribute.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
Last question for you may the loss of San Antonio
stung because that was a game you felt like you
could have won. It was also an nd season tournament game.
You got one of those coming up tomorrow night. Do
you now we've done this a few years? Are are
you sensing any extra juice in the guys and maybe
even even more of a importance on tomorrow night's game,
because obviously you guys enjoyed being in that tournament last
year and having to go to play in Vegas with

(01:24:10):
a chance to win it all.

Speaker 18 (01:24:12):
Yeah, it's something we don't really talk about, but guys
know it's there, and obviously to give to lose that
game to San Antonio being it the first one I
think was it was something that we want to get
back on the right step, regardless it's a Western Conference
opponent and trying to maintain a certain standard, regardless of
what the implication is. But everybody knows about the n
Season Tournament. We got there last year and we want

(01:24:33):
to take another step this year by winning it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
Well, I'm all for that. Thank you for the time.

Speaker 6 (01:24:37):
As always.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
We'll see you tomorrow night against the New Portland Trouble.
I just appreciate the visit as always.

Speaker 6 (01:24:42):
Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
You got it. That's a Emaodoka with us here on
Sports Talk seven ninety as a Rockets take on Portland.
That is a tournament game tomorrow, and that'll be a
seven o'clock tip time, and then the Rockets will conclude
their three game homestand Sunday against the Orlando Magic. All right,
seven one three seven ninete two one two five seven ninety.
It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. We've got

(01:25:05):
some other headlines to get to when we come back.
We'll do that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
We'll do our news at noon at twelve twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
How about that. We'll do that and give you an
up then, And what's happening in Texans practice? Plus an
athletic director in the Big twelve is taking a leave
of absence and it has implications to the college football playoff.
Will tell you what that means in a moment, All right,

(01:25:29):
Madam Jonathan with you today on the show. Rob Grangkowski,
by the way, officially signed a one day contract today
with the New England Patriots so he can retire as
a Patriot and we will. He will be today's edition
of Believe It or Not today at one point fifty.
So there it is, Rob Grankowski, a one day contract.

(01:25:50):
He says, I'm a New England Patriot, Patriot for life.
My career started here one hundred percent needed to end here.
It is an absolute no brainer to come here and
retire as a Patriot. There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
By the way, did we ever, Jonathan, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
We got to look at that. Did JJ Watt ever
sign a one day contract to come back to retire
as a Texan?

Speaker 5 (01:26:11):
You hadn't tell me. I thought he retired as the Texan.
I didn't know he got I don't know he'd ever.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
Left that he went to the Arizona Cardinals.

Speaker 4 (01:26:17):
So yeah, actually yes, I don't think he did come back.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
Let's see here, I'm looking this up. No, the last
thing I've seen about this is June of twenty twenty
three says JJ Watt won't sign one day contract with Texans,
hasn't filed retirement papers yet. Now that remember that was
a couple of years ago when people thought that he

(01:26:41):
might come back if especially the Texan needed him in
the middle of the ear I remember that. Yeah, so
that's the last time ever been talked about with a
JJ Watt one day contract was during that So, uh,
you know the Texans will ultimately do.

Speaker 4 (01:26:55):
That, oh all day. I mean that's only only yeah,
only you can think of You think Texans, you think
j J Watt.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
I'll be you know, I'll make a little gut feeling
here right now. I will say the next time JJ
Watt does a game in Houston, in Houston on CBS,
they will because.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
I know he's he he knows.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
Who Gronkowski is. I mean they work in television net
now different different networks, but yeah, right, gott feeling says
he is going to sign a one day contract the
next time he comes to Houston for a game. Now,
it may not be this year because hell, the Texans
loses game against Tennessee. I don't see JJ Watt doing
any Texans games the rest of the year, and I

(01:27:39):
think he's going to do a Texans game coming up
in a couple weeks on the road, but I don't
know that for sure. Are just presuming that because the
Texans are going to have some decent matchups between now
and the end of the year with their opponents are playing.
Just something to think about. JJ Watt the greatest defensive
player in Texans history for sure, and I guess you
could have a decent argument is is he the greatest

(01:28:00):
player of them all? I would say no, because Andrey
Johnson's in the Hall of Fame now. JJ will be
in the Hall of Fame ultimately, But I think it
depends on you know what stage of Texans fandom you were.
Were you watching them when the franchise first began, and
that you realize that Andrey Johnson had to have touchdowns
throw to him by lesson spectacular people I e. David Carr,

(01:28:23):
Tony Banks in the like, or do you go, you
know what, pound for pound, who was the most feared
player on the Texans team for a longer period of
time he was JJ Watt. I mean, you're a three
time Defensive Player of the Year. That kind of speaks
volumes to it all. Right, Now, as far as what's
happening with the Texans today, our Texans reporter now, now

(01:28:46):
wex isn't Yeah, that's what I forgot about the news
and Noon didn't I.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
As well.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you did that. That's good.
We like a little production value. Now. Adam Wexer is
our Texans reporter, but as you guys know, I'm the
Texans insider. There's definitely a difference, Okay. Jalen Petrie not
out today at practice, Kyami Fairbairn not out at practice today.

Speaker 8 (01:29:12):
C J.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
Stroud out at practice today. So those three guys, Petrie
and Stroud are battling concussion issuy issues. Fairburn has the quad.
Those are among the people you would care about. Also,
Wexer putting out sixteen minutes ago. Dalton Schultz not seen

(01:29:33):
during the media portion at practice. He was at practice yesterday,
says Texans reporter, not insider Adam Wexer, but did not participate.
There are two tight ends practicing today. Luke Lashie or
Lache I don't know how you pronounce it. La Lacchie
I don't know whom it cares or in Kate Stover.
Kate sever will get the primarily most of the playing time.

(01:29:55):
So there you have it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:56):
So there's your update on the Texans.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
No Dalton Schultzer practic just today working out, no Jalen Peatrie,
no Kamie Fairbarn and no c J.

Speaker 6 (01:30:04):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
The Texans injury report will be coming up in just
a few minutes or actually a couple hours, probably later
this afternoon. Mentioned the Rockets last night. Thanks gonna email
for Adoka for joining us on the show. The Rockets
are now seven and three on the year, as they
disposed of the Washington Wizards last night and a game
that was not as close as the score might not
indicate it, one thirty five to one to twelve. Rockets

(01:30:26):
scored eighty one first half points. Reed Shepherd off the
bench last night was fantastic. In fact, the Rockets bench
last night was really good. Both Tarre Easan and Read
sheepperd north of twenty points in the victory. As Houston
is seven and three, they'll take on Portland tomorrow night.
Baylor athletic director Mack Rhodes, you're saying that name sounds familiar. Well,

(01:30:50):
Mack was a former athletic director at the University of
Houston for six years. He then went to go to
Missouri and he was there for like one year, and
then he took the job at Baylor. He is taking
a leave of absence and he's also doing this for
the College Football Playoff rankings. He is a member of

(01:31:15):
the committee and he is stepping down as the ad temporarily.
It could be full time, you don't know it, Baylor,
and he's also off of the CFP for personal reasons.
He declined to explain why he's leaving. Bator officials know
they're not telling us. But it is a very very
odd situation that Mac Rhodes, who gets an opportunity to

(01:31:40):
be on this college Football committee to help determine who's
going to play for the national championship in college football,
would have to leave. There is a previous report about
Mac having an alleged confrontation with Baylor Titan Michael Trigg
about the color of the shirt he was wearing against
Arizona State on September the twentieth. The school had issued

(01:32:03):
or release saying the incident was quote thoroughly reviewed and
investigated in accordance with university policies, appropriate actions were taken
and the matter is now closed. Now you have to
understand Baylor being a private school, they're not going to
be overly forthcoming with what's going on with their employees.
But it is interesting to happen there. There are two

(01:32:24):
gentlemen that will be the interim athletic directors while Mac
is gone. It has not been determined whether or not
this is a full time resignation or a stepping away
for personal reasons. But not only are you losing an
AD at a power five school power four school at Baylor,
but you are also losing a member of the CFP.
The name that is being talked about to potentially replace

(01:32:48):
Mac Roads on the CFP is a guy that Mac
replaced at the University of Houston, Hunter Yuriicek, who is
now the athletic director at the University of Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (01:33:01):
Question, there is there's a lot of heat one Hunter.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
You're a checking whether or not he's going to be
the long term AD at Arkansas because they had to
fire their coach earlier this year and they don't be
very pleased on how things are progressing with the athletic department.
So a lot of uh turbulence in the administration world
of college athletics, and hopefully everything with mac is okay.
But he is stepping away from both the eighties roll

(01:33:25):
and the CFP role due to quote unquote personal reasons.
And that is the news and news or the news
at twelve twenty six, I'm at them seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven to one three
two one two five seven ninety If you want to
come in on anything you saw from last night the
Rockets game, I want to hear what Ema Adoka had
to say. If you want to discuss the Texans and

(01:33:47):
the fact that probably CJ. Strode is not playing on Sunday,
does that give you pause for hope that he's going
to play Thursday against Buffalo or do you say, well,
if he's not in clearing concussion protocol on Sunday, is
all of a sudden you gonna clear things up. I'm
Monday or Tuesday so we can play that game on Thursday.
It's not a great time of you playing Buffalo, first
and foremost, especially if your quarterback's hurt, but especially it

(01:34:08):
doesn't help that you're doing it on a short week. Also,
if you want to get in, if you were at
the college basketball game last night between the Cougars and Oakland,
I was called hackets. I did not see it, So
let me know how that went. As the Cougars continue
to dominate the non conference light, They're gonna be playing
Auburn this weekend in Birmingham, Alabama, and a little non
conference neutral site tilt, and what else we got going

(01:34:32):
on college football? The rankings and Thursday Night Football tonight
featuring the Jets and the Patriots. And I am a
Drake may guy because he is on my fantasy team.
So Drake, please throw over four and twenty five yards
in five touchdowns. Mad in Ross today, Well Ross not
here seven one three two one two five seven ninety

(01:34:56):
seven one three two one two five seven ninety tomorrow program.
I'm sorry, and I feel like I've apologed. I should
apologize for this entire week. Not on that I go viral,
not a viral, but I went crazy on my tweet.
Let me see how. Let's check on my own tweet
here that I had with my buddy Chris Gordon.

Speaker 4 (01:35:13):
You went viral. You got one point nine million views
on that. There's no way.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
Are you sure I'm not piggybacking off of Gordy's tweet?

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Well you like it's you kind of are.

Speaker 5 (01:35:21):
But in a sense, it's like your tweet that you
quoted tweeted him like got more.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
So, so he's gravy turning off of me.

Speaker 5 (01:35:28):
No, it's your You took his like you ratioed him.
So you took his tweet and like made it more popular.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
Basically all right, because I'm thinking I need to monetize
this right, and we put it towards charity Thomas Family Foundation. Okay,
Oh my gosh, I got another tweet that came in
about our puns that were it was inappropriate. Let's see

(01:35:56):
if I can find it here real quick. I don't know.
Let me go the phones were quick, and I'll look
for it. Seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven nine zero.
If you want to join us, you may do so.
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety. Let's
go to uh Carl on the northwest side at twelve

(01:36:17):
thirty four on seven ninety Carl, thanks for winning in
good afternoon, Well.

Speaker 16 (01:36:22):
Good afternoon to you. I wanted to ask if I
could do a shout out to my doctor. Uh, I've
just had my second hip surgery in this year, and doctor, well,
I'm gonna do it anyway. Doctor Stewart was has been wonderful.
They messed up my first surgery at a different hospital.
Pay my leg one inch shorter. Now it's now I'm

(01:36:43):
back to normal. Today I started or yesterday, I started
walking without a cane. So things are looking good.

Speaker 10 (01:36:48):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wow, No, hold on,
let's get the shout out again. We got a shout
out the guy. So it was the same surgeony. He
went to a different surgeon to get this thing.

Speaker 16 (01:36:56):
Oh no, a different different doctor, different hospital at Methodists,
So he did. I call him Doogie Howser because he
looks real young, but he's really takes time to explain
things to you. And I did a full full hip
replacement after I had four screws put in. The first
surgeon by which I found out, was actually a hand
surgeon an emergency room, Like, what are you doing doing

(01:37:18):
a surgery on me? A hand surgeon doing a hip
doing the four screws of my leg. But it's all
good now, So I'm walking without a Cane today, so
things are good.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
Nice.

Speaker 16 (01:37:30):
So anyway, his name is doctor Stewart at Methodists, and
two other things. I was calling, calling to thank seven ninety.
I have a birthday that's coming up on about three
or four days. I'll be seventy one. And I once
ac DC tickets last week. I'm pumped about that for
next year. The main thing is I was calling about

(01:37:52):
how much fun it is to listen to the watch
I'm sorry to watch the Rockets play. You know, it's
like they some times to get a little sloppy on
defense and you know, mispasses. But man, that's a bunch
of tall six eleven, six eleven, six eleven with the
most athletic guy on the on the court six seven.

(01:38:13):
I'm in, and it's so much fun to watch these
guys play. And I've got very high hopes for him.
I like the fact that I'm in. I saw something
where he told Reed Shepherd, if you take one extra
extra dribble next time, I'm gonna punch you in them
out rather than shoot I I just love watching m
It's a joy to watch the Rockets play. So that's

(01:38:35):
all I had. I appreciate you listening.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Thank you and I hope you start to feel better.
I'm glad you're without the cane because cane suck.

Speaker 8 (01:38:41):
I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:41):
Thank you, Carl for the phone call. Now, that's not
me trying to artificially brag on the Rockets. That's that's
a guy that just called the show that did so.
And I look, I understand your ten games into the season,
it's gonna be hard for a lot of you to
kind of jump in on this, But I'm going to

(01:39:03):
tell you if the Texans are going to let you down,
and they've got a lot of work ahead and they
have to go six and two in my mind for
them to make the playoffs. I don't think a nine
to eight team gets in the playoffs in twenty twenty five.
I just don't a ten and seven. Probably nine and
eight gonna have a difficult time. So if they don't

(01:39:24):
get there, you're gonna need something to hold you over
till the start of the baseball season. And that's why
I'm going to tell you the Houston Rockets can do
it for you. You have one of the greatest players
ever to play the game is on your floor, and
even though he's thirty eight years old or whatever, he is.
He's you hate to go to this often cliched term,

(01:39:46):
but he's aging nine fine wine, he's shooting fifty percent,
about thirty eight percent from three knocks out about eighty
five percent of his free throws. His chill as all
get out. I mean he is now. Look, Katie and
I are are gonna be best friends. But he's very pleasant. Now.

(01:40:07):
If you go out on him on social media, he's
gonna find you and attack you. And that's just part
of who he is. But generally speaking, he is super,
super chill and I've had nothing but pleasant experiences being
around him a few times that I have. He's a star.
Alpria and Shingun continues to get better and better a man,
and Thompson continues to get better and better. Reed Shepherd mean,

(01:40:30):
y'all are dog cussing him, and I know it was fair.
The criticism for Reed Shepherd last year was fair. But
he's got he's starting to put it together now. Don't
worry about him being the number three pick and whether
the number three picks are supposed to be franchise turners.
Just say, hey, did the Rockets go to the draft
last year and get somebody good that's in their rotation

(01:40:52):
that can play and help them win. The answer so
far right now is yes, this year he's in done so.
Jabari Smith scoring at a higher clip. Tarre Easton is
playing very, very well, as is your first forward off
the bench. Steven Adams is playing like he's twenty five,
not thirty five. And by the way, that man still
scares me to this day, but I love him for

(01:41:13):
some reason. This is a fun basketball team that I cannot,
under any circumstance, guarantee you a Western Conference championship or
an NBA title. I can't do it. The competition in
the West is sickly good. Oklahoma City has lost one time.

(01:41:35):
They beat the crap out of the LA Lakers last night.
The Lakers are good this year. Minnesota is good, Phoenix
is playing better, Denver is awesome. Golden State, you know,
wins games. They beat San Antonio last night and San
Antonio's a surprise. It is going to be the most

(01:41:58):
anticipated And just trust me when I tell you this,
even though if you may not be the biggest NBA fan,
trust me when I tell you this. This might be
the most anticipated NBA playoffs from a conference perspective, that
I've ever seen in my entire life is either a
sportscaster or a sports fan. It would be like if

(01:42:19):
you're an NCAA March Madness fan, having on one side
of the bracket having you know, instead of you know,
there's each each brackets thirty two teams, right, you'd be
like one side of the bracket having sixteen teams that
legitimately could say I could win the whole thing on
that side. I can tell you right now, even though

(01:42:42):
we are in the early portions of November, that the
eight seed, whomever that may be, in the Western Conference
playoffs will have a legitimate shot at playing for the
NBA Championship. Now, as I say that, you gotta be throne,
you gotta slay the dragon, and the dragon handle and lost.
But one time this year we're talk about Oklahoma City,
they're cruising but everybody else, just like it was last year,

(01:43:07):
it was a dog fight in the finish two through eight.
So stay with me on this. It's gonna be fun,
and take it for what it's worth. I don't I
don't need you to give me deep analytical breakdown.

Speaker 14 (01:43:19):
If you know, if you are the old school NBA family,
just says, I missed the days of my chem Elijahwan
being the center and low playing the low block, and
I missed the two point shot. I mean, okay, I'm
never gonna convince you, but if you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:34):
Like two point shots, like mid range, Kevin Durants am
making a living doing it. So there are guys in
the Rockets that have old school. Two of them passing
Big Man an Opera and Shan Gun Yep, a guy
that can play more than one position like Magic used
to do back in the day. Now, Magic was an
old timer. But my point is that you got one
on the Rockets, and men, Thompson, you have one of

(01:43:55):
the greatest scores ever to play in the history of
the NBA on your squad right now. And you got
some dog. You got a coach, the coach that will
dog cuss his players even when they're up by twenty
five points. It's a good group. So enjoy it, or
at least not necessarily. You know, you don't have to
enjoy it or go buy tickets. They like you to go,

(01:44:18):
But turn the game on, put the game on radio.
I promise you you'll be entertained. And it's kind of
nice to have because I was watching, it was calling
the game last night with Washington. The Wizards team, they
score a lot of points, but they give up a
lot of points, and they jack shots up and they
don't care where they are, they don't care about they're spacing.

(01:44:41):
That's a team that is going to lose at least
sixty five games. That's not fun. That's depressing. That's like
twenty eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen Astros baseball. That's what the
Washington Wizards have been doing for a better part of
about fifteen years now. We got a pretty good around here.

(01:45:01):
Can't guarantee a championship. I can't even guarantee the West Finals.
I'd love for it to happen, but man, it is
such a competitive Western Conference race, which then means to
me that every regular season game is gonna mean a
little bit more that perhaps it has in seasons past.
All Right, John, they're gonna try something for the first
time on this radio show. I don't know how this

(01:45:22):
is gonna go every Thursday. When Ross doesn't forget, basically,
I have to remind him we do the Rotten Five
at twelve fifty Today, it's gonna be the callers on
the rotten one, who is the suckiest, worst, awful football

(01:45:44):
team in the NFL. And I'm gonna let you. I'm
gonna do something to do this on the air, even
on television. I'm giving you a wink wink. You can
choose anybody you want, because guess what, it's your rotten one.
Who is the worst team in the NFL. Tell me
right now, It's time for the Rosses, not Ross's rotten one.

(01:46:06):
Next seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seventy. If you
want to tell the city of Houston, tell your neighbors,
tell your best friend at work, who may be listening
at the office, who's the worst team in the NFL?
And I will not judge you for who you choose.

Speaker 8 (01:46:25):
Lived gone there.

Speaker 2 (01:46:28):
They draw flies.

Speaker 8 (01:46:31):
Riz Ross's rotten five.

Speaker 2 (01:46:35):
This don't smell quite right?

Speaker 19 (01:46:39):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
Ross is not here. We can't steal his bit. It's
not the Rosses rotten five, it's the Sports Talk seven
ninety audience, rotten one. All you gotta do is call
up and tell me who you're who the worst team
in the NFL is? And why can I go first? Jonathan?
Go ahead, My nominees for the rotten one would be
the Dallas Cowboys because they're arrogant and their general managers

(01:47:02):
see now. My nominees would be what else, the Arizona
Cardinals because they allowed they allowed Tennessee to win a
football game this year after the Tennessee the Arizona guy
dropped the ball before he got to the end zone.

(01:47:23):
My rotten one candidate would be Aaron Glenn, who is
just getting all cranky because the Jets reporters are figuring
out who's healthy and who's not, and he got mad
at him during a press conference. But MT's rotten one.
Amy Krunk Drunk and her sucky Tennessee Titans. I hate you.

(01:47:45):
I've never met you, Amy Krunk Strunk, but I hate you.
I hate you took my team. I hate you took
them to Nashville. I hate you change their colors and
their stupid logo. And I love the fact that your
quarterback is made at best. And you fire coaches and
you fire general managers and you fire pr people for
your mistakes. Amy, you suck, Your team sucks. You are

(01:48:09):
the rotten one. M kind of felt good. Jonathan, who
is your rotten one?

Speaker 4 (01:48:22):
My rotten one.

Speaker 5 (01:48:23):
A lot of things I could pick, but man, the
Cleveland Browns, top to bottom, front office Autoway down to
the practice field is the most suckiest team I've seen.
And I've watched the ball since I was a little boy.
I've never seen someone traight away, they're starting quarterback, didn't

(01:48:46):
put up the backup that wasn't even better than the
other draft pick that they got.

Speaker 4 (01:48:51):
And then it's a whole. It's a mess.

Speaker 5 (01:48:53):
And they have actually a pretty good defense, which is
that's another reason.

Speaker 4 (01:48:57):
Why they're at the bottom.

Speaker 5 (01:48:58):
For me, you did all this, especially the coaches and
everything like this. Y'all can't even win a game because
y'all can't decide what's going on in the locker room
and behind the scenes, and it just I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:49:09):
That's my rotten one.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:49:10):
I think they're just.

Speaker 2 (01:49:12):
Out of the sound effect. You lose good tast sir. Now,
if any of you picked the Saints, I can't do
the Gordy line because he just speaks in Louisiana babble.
So who is your rotten one? Seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety My rotten one will always be

(01:49:36):
the team I used to love so instead of never
to have lost in loved before love or lost. I
just say, Amy crunk drunk, I hate you. I hate
your dad. Period. Hates a strong word, man, it is
a strong word. I hate them. I hate everything about them.
I hate they got a new stadium. I hate that
the Texans have to play them twice a year because

(01:49:57):
I have to bring them up twice year. If they
were playing the Differ Conference, I could live with it,
but I gotta see them twice a year. I hate
they bring in oilers heroes and they go to Nashville
and they get honored when people in Nashville couldn't even
name four orders. They might rotten one.

Speaker 3 (01:50:15):
Jacob on seven to ninety Jacob, who is your rotten one?

Speaker 9 (01:50:20):
My Ron one is the Dallas Cowboys because they suck.

Speaker 16 (01:50:24):
The Dallas Cowgirls.

Speaker 9 (01:50:25):
That's been their year for like thirty years.

Speaker 8 (01:50:27):
They still suck.

Speaker 9 (01:50:29):
We have more playoff wins than them since we've been
a franchise.

Speaker 2 (01:50:31):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (01:50:32):
They don't win the playoff games.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
YEP.

Speaker 9 (01:50:34):
I hate hearing Dad say.

Speaker 19 (01:50:36):
Here we go, here we go, another losing season.

Speaker 9 (01:50:39):
In the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (01:50:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:50:41):
I hate Jerry Jones, he's stupid. How do you tray
Michael Parsons.

Speaker 9 (01:50:46):
I think he just takes the Cowboys.

Speaker 16 (01:50:48):
Yeah, they're my.

Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
Running one because they suck Jacob's rotten one, the Dallas Cowboys.
That is perfectly executed right there. Who is your rotten one?
Seven to one to three, two five, seven ninety Jason
and Kingwood Jason, who's your rotten one?

Speaker 19 (01:51:06):
My rotten one will be now and forever. The Tennessee Sitans, Yes, sir.
The fact that they hired Jeff Fisher at any point
is laughable, but yeah, the Tennessee Titans and the Adams
Slash Stronk family, and also hot take before I go.
If the Oilers never left Houston, they would be a

(01:51:29):
more popular franchise than Dallas Cowboys. I put that on everything.
Between the colorway of the jerseys, very identifiable, the following
we had in the eighties and the seventies, the Oilers
would absolutely be the most popular team in Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:51:49):
But it's not even a thing anymore. Thank you for
the phone call. I think I like this rotten one.

Speaker 4 (01:51:57):
It's got nice huh.

Speaker 2 (01:51:58):
You know why? Because it takes very little, minimal preparation,
and even if the even the Titans were like seven
and five, I still hate them. They'll always be my
rotten one.

Speaker 3 (01:52:12):
I mean I could be mad at I mean, who
else who?

Speaker 2 (01:52:16):
There's nobody else I don't like. I tolerate the Colts,
I tolerate the I mean the Jaguars. I mean the
Jaguars are rotten one because they keep trying to sell
us that they think that Trevor Lawrence is a good quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:52:30):
But that's that's their own misery.

Speaker 2 (01:52:34):
The Titans, you will always be my rotten one, and
the Cowboys will always be my rotten two. I just
feel bad for the Saints. I can't even feel bad.
I can't even really hate them. I like their colors,
like their uniform, staves pretty cool for being, you know,
almost fifty years old or maybe even fifty years old.
But they suck too. But man, oh man, oh man,

(01:52:56):
ten anything about Tennessee, and I guarantee you on Sunday's game,
they're gonna show lots of video of the text of
the Titans new standium in Nashville. They've gotten two new
facilities since leaving Houston. You know it's gonna be mad
about the Titans UO facility. You know this is gonna
be Hannah. She is not gonna be pleased when she
has to go back and look at that thing, because

(01:53:18):
that's what she's looking for ultimately. All right, nicely done,
guys by two callers. You gave us the rotten one.
All right, let me tell you about the next hour
of the show. We got the one o'clock start of
the program. We're gonna play some more of our friend
Lionel Richie. And by the way, I found the story
about Lonel Richie about his poetry thing. I gotta tell

(01:53:40):
you about that. Coming up. We're gonna put some rocket
holez behind some of this stuff because it was easy
for the Rockets to win last night. If you missed
my conversation with Chandler Rome at ten thirty this morning,
we're gonna play that for you at one twenty. And
today's edition To Believe or Not is all things Rob
Grankowski because he is retiring today officially as a member
of the New England Patriots twelve fifty seven on The

(01:54:01):
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. If you want to chime in,
we are welcome you right now. Seven one three, two,
one two five seven ninety. That's seven one, three, two, one, two, five,
seven ninety is the Matt Thomas Show with.

Speaker 12 (01:54:14):
Ross the Rockets now with six threes in the first
half alone, sixty one.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
Forty five Houston out, Oh the Great Voice one of
the all time Goats line of Ritchie. I don't know
if I was ever thinking then easy would be a
song with rocket highlights behind it. But it kind of fits,
does it none?

Speaker 4 (01:54:44):
You know, if it's very nicely too, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
You very much. Remember you go home and play this
your song to your girl. She's yours forever, like I
should be giving advice like that, right? It is? What
five onths Sports Talk seven out eighty and again if
you missed our conversation with Channa Rome, Uh, that's coming
up in about fifteen minutes from now here on Sports

(01:55:07):
Talk Cementy.

Speaker 3 (01:55:07):
So I did a little bit of checking about this line.

Speaker 2 (01:55:10):
Richie bit uh. Apparently he had a concert in September
of this year's uh.

Speaker 3 (01:55:15):
It was called Truly at the town In Hall in
New York City.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
It was built as quote truly an evening of Lionel
Richie in Friends. So if someone said to you, Jonathan,
if I called you and said hey, Jonathan, I got
tickets to go see Truly an Evening of Lonal Richie
and Friends. What would you think it would have been?
What kind of event would it have been?

Speaker 4 (01:55:41):
I'm thinking, like, we have the whole hits, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:44):
And he prot it.

Speaker 3 (01:55:44):
Probably some famous performers with you know, somebody you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:48):
Like maybe maybe Dinah Ross has showed up accidentally, or
maybe Mariah Carey drops fire for a couple of songs,
you know what I mean. It would have been one
of those alternate ultimate collaboration of all all of the
people that are big in his life, in his life,
right star.

Speaker 4 (01:56:04):
Yeah, he's well renowned, so.

Speaker 2 (01:56:08):
Many attendings atten D's I should say this is according
to Fox five New York says, people who bought tickets
on the secondary market believed it was a musical concert
and were angry when it turned out to be a
moderated conversation and book talk. So if you bought the

(01:56:28):
Truly An Evening of Wana Richie and Friends, you bought
it from the legit websites, you knew exactly what it was.
If you bought it from the secondary market, the secondary
market had no interest in telling you that it was
not a concert. So thus if you went to the

(01:56:50):
you know, the different Rickett rasters and all that other
stuff that we're selling this stuff. So apparently, once people
started getting there and settling down and he wasn't singing,
some fans, according to this story and fox yelled insults,
threw books at him, and demanded refunds. Let me tell

(01:57:13):
you something, I'm not throwing a book at anybody. I'm
sure as hell only thrown a book at line Richie.
Now maybe if they threw it in the stands or
something like that, I don't know. Again, I've never been
to this town hall place, but you gotta have serious
stones if you're gonna throw a book at one of
the greatest singers of all time. One person apparently during
this Fox five New York story said, somebody stood up

(01:57:38):
and said, shut up and sing. How did Richie respond,
If you're looking for a concert, you came to the
wrong place. So yeah, uh, not real great there.

Speaker 3 (01:58:05):
I'll be brutally honest with you.

Speaker 2 (01:58:07):
If I was even on the secondary market, I found
out that loner Richie's in New York City and it's
an evening of loner Ritchie and friends. I'm not thinking
he's reading Doctor Seuss to me. I think he's singing
all night long to me, right singing you are singing
brick House. I think I'm running out of lone of

(01:58:29):
Richie songs easy, but I'm curious how not? Yeah, I mean, look,
I'm not going to see any more Paul McCartney songs
because he's lost his voice. But if Paul McCartney ten
years ago was having a concert, I'd go, like I've
done before. But if Paul McCartney was going to, you know,

(01:58:50):
read some some stuff out of Wikipedia, I wouldn't go
do that. I don't care how much I love Paul McCartney.
I want Paul McCartney to sing. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:59:01):
I don't know who gathers.

Speaker 2 (01:59:03):
Who is oh the most responsibility on that, because here's
the thing. You have to know what you're paying for,
do you not? Yeah, it would be one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:59:15):
That they said, truly in the evening of Lona Richie
and Friends.

Speaker 2 (01:59:19):
He might sing, That's one thing. But I don't think
anybody off of the pr campaign tried to hide the
fact that Lona was just gonna read some poetry. It
was a moderated conversation in book talk. Now I wouldn't
personally do that because if I'm gonna go spend money
on Lona Richie, I want him to sing my songs.
But to me, it comes across as maybe that when

(01:59:42):
you go to the secondary market, you don't always get
what you're supposed to be paying for. So there you
have it, Lona Ritchie, thank you very much for your service.
Easy hit with the Rockets. Most important thing is Rockets
won last night. They are seven to three, and we'll
take on the Portland troibl Agers tomorrow in the in
group game number B. They've got four opponents in there.

(02:00:02):
The winner from each group goes on to the knockout
round and then the winner that will go on to
play in Las Vegas for the semifinals and for the championship,
which is coming up in about four weeks from now.
I went last year and I loved it. I can't
wait for the NBA to go to Las Vegas. I'm
think I'm gonna have to take like four days off
before each game the Rocket's playing, probably four days off

(02:00:23):
after because Vegas, even though it's got no soul and
it's expensive as hell and they don't treat you very
nice anymore. And Las Vegas has made a lot of mistakes.
There's still no place like it now, so I'm sticking
to that. Seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven. I
got a line of Richie story here from Brent in

(02:00:43):
the gallery. I'm very curious about this.

Speaker 3 (02:00:45):
Brent.

Speaker 2 (02:00:45):
The flora is George. Good afternoon, mister maw are you sir?
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 10 (02:00:51):
I'm saying yeah. So Lino. Richie is on tour nineteen
eighty three. It just came out with the Hello album.
Obviously you've left the common and as you know, everywhere
you know megastar and I'm seven years old, and my
mom takes myself, my brother, my older brother, my older sister,

(02:01:13):
and her boyfriend. We all go see line Richie and
we're rolling up to the summit. We make the exit
right there off fifty nine and sixteen. We're rolling to
the summit. The Martine, which is still there, says tonight
only line Richie, and right underneath it and very small
lettering says with special guests. And my mom goes, oh,
Keina Turner's the opener tonight. I didn't know who Tina

(02:01:34):
Turner was, And Anyways, we get our seats and the
lights go down and the music comes up and Tina
walks out on stage. I'm seven years old, mine, man,
she walks out on stage and it's sad hair and
that those legs, and she's wearing this leopard print thing
that no seven year old she'd ever see a woman wear.
At that age, I didn't know what I was looking at, man,

(02:01:55):
but I knew I was gonna remember it for the
rest of my life. And I'm forty nine years old now,
and I remember it like it was yesterday. Was life changing,
and of course you know, Linel comes out and he
does his thing. Was just an absolute life changing. So
it was actually the first concert I can actually remember
significant detail from and I was seven. That's my line.

Speaker 2 (02:02:15):
Note, Richie saw Brent. That is an outstanding story. My
first ever indoor concert was the Summit. I went and
saw Chicago in nineteen eighty four. So I always will
always hold a special place for the Summit in my
mind because that's the first place I went. Plus that's
where the Rockets played their games and I was a

(02:02:36):
kid growing up, and where they won their championships. But
you have vivid memories of that and I remember I
went with a bunch of kids in my school. We
were in the sixth grade, and we had a really
great time. Except for one of the girls in my
that went with me. It was like six of us.
She got her personal one to the Chicago concert. I
felt terrible for somebody just snatched it right out of

(02:02:58):
her hands walking in the of course the summit.

Speaker 10 (02:03:02):
Yeah, we went to go see Iron Maid, me and
my buddy. Fast forward a few years later, one of
my buddies had his shirt stolen from the Iron Maiden show,
and of course we were young kids and it was
cold and he was just out there with no shirt
after but that was later. But my first recollection of
a true concert memory was was that show. And uh,
I think later in life I actually got to understand

(02:03:23):
what the saying is, you know, doctor the berry, sweet
of the juice, And I give it all credit to
the queen herself, Miss Tina Turner. That's my rest story.

Speaker 2 (02:03:31):
Thank you very much, Brent appreciates good stuff right there.
Thank you for the phone call. So Tina Turner, huh
was the opener for Lionel Richie. I wonder if any
point maybe you guys are music historians, would it would
have ever been a time where it would have been
the roles would have been reversed. I mean Tina's had

(02:03:53):
Tina had some hits. Don't don't get me wrong on that,
but I'm wondering if just because of Lionel's solo career
plus his career the commodores that he would always have
the top billing. I guess it would be. I don't know.
I don't have Tena's music library in my mind like
I have Linels. But yeah, okay, there you go. Thanks

(02:04:13):
for Let's start good stuff there. All right, let's get
to some baseball chatter. How did how did Dana Brown
address a lot of topics at the General manager's meetings
in Las Vegas. We'll get the perspective of Chandler room
for the Athletic next one fourteen on Sports Talk seven
ninety one nineteen on Sports Talk seven or earlier today

(02:04:36):
four Chandler jumped on a plane. Mister Rome, great baseball
writer for the Athletic, joined this radio show to discuss
what he heard and saw from the General Manager's meetings
from the astorisk perspective, and namely, what Dana Brown said
to him and others. We first talked about Joe A
Spot his coaching staff for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 7 (02:04:56):
Well, they have an offensive coordinator, Matt, so you're gonna
have to alter your or pre show tweets.

Speaker 8 (02:05:01):
Now you know you can talk.

Speaker 7 (02:05:03):
You can talk about Nick Kayley and then whoever you
can talk about Nick Cayley and Anthony Ioposse. Who is
going to be the Astros I'll send Actually, no, Dan
Hennigan is the Astros offensive coordinator. He's a guy that's
he's a biomechanics guy. He's a new age kind of coach.
He's been in the organization for a year. He's gonna
be in charge of like game planning and advanced scouting

(02:05:25):
and kind of a data side of things. Victor Rodriguez
is the number one hitting guy. He is the lead
hitting coach, and Anthony Ioposse will work alongside him. So
one thing Dana said yesterday is they wanted to have
defined roles for these guys. They wanted to have a
clear hierarchy of responsibilities, of duties of things these guys do.
That's something that with Troy Snicker and Alex Centron they

(02:05:47):
didn't really have. They just kind of shared the hitting
coach title and kind of divide their responsibilities pretty evenly.

Speaker 2 (02:05:54):
Let me ask you this because I've been telling the
audiences and if I'm wrong, please correct me. Uh it
was it harder to get really good guys because of
the lame duck status, so of both Dana and Joe.

Speaker 7 (02:06:06):
I mean, it's certainly not nothing, but you know, you
do look at the two guys that they hired. You know,
Victor Rodriguez, Mike Shill retired with the Padres, so he
needed a job. Anthony Ioposse was not returning to aj
Hinch's coaching staff in Detroit, so again needed a job.
You know, Look, they talked to They talked to a
lot of different guys. They talked to a lot of

(02:06:26):
you know, current hitting coaches elsewhere.

Speaker 8 (02:06:28):
They talked to guys out of the game.

Speaker 7 (02:06:30):
You know, I don't know that the lame duck status
had much to do with it. I just you know
my feeling that is, you know, the players are the
ones swinging the bats. The players are the ones playing
the game. Like you could tell me that they hired
any hitting coach Joe Smith, John Smith, whoever. Like it's
up to the players to go out there and perform. Now,
can the messaging and the philosophy and kind of what
they're putting in their ears and their eyes could could

(02:06:51):
that improve or could that be streamlined?

Speaker 8 (02:06:53):
Sure? But at the end of the day, this is
a player's game.

Speaker 3 (02:06:56):
I read your tweets NonStop.

Speaker 2 (02:06:57):
From a Las Vegas I was I don't want to
say alan away, but I was more than just normally
surprised about the health of some really important people, namely
Jordan Alvarez and Essach Parades. East Side did everything he
could to come back and at least pitch hit in
DH for this team. But when you said he may
not be ready for the start of spring training, is

(02:07:19):
there any second guessing of maybe he should have just
gone ahead and had the surgery, so maybe he would
have been ready for the start of next season.

Speaker 7 (02:07:26):
Well, no, if Matt, if you'd had the surgery, they
were looking at a six month recovery for that surgery,
so he would have definitely not been ready for the
start of the season had he had the surgery. Okay,
you know, I think part of it too, is just
you know, these guys don't the minute the offseason end,
these guys kind of rest a little bit. So a
lot of this may just be these guys have rested,
you know, when the season did end, and now they're

(02:07:47):
just kind of ramping up activity. And so with jord
and Alvarez jogging sixty five seventy percent, that's just his
gradual ramp up. You know, Paradis was always going to
probably be a little bit behind going into spring training.
I don't think they're concerned that he won't be ready
for the season, but yeah, you could see him maybe
a week or so behind people when they get to camp,

(02:08:07):
but that was to be expected, and I think it's
even more admirable now in hindsight that he came back
and gave them what he could that last two weeks
of the season.

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
General Athletic Astros Beat reporter, whether it's from Las Vegas,
at the General manager meetings, So for the audience that
doesn't know give the essence of a general manager's meetings
as compared to the winter meetings which.

Speaker 7 (02:08:28):
Will be coming up, So it's kind of the same thing,
but it's a little bit on a smaller stage at
the GM meetings. You know, at the winter meetings, the
managers go, the clubhouse attendants go, the traveling secretaries go
everyone in baseball goes to the Winter Meetings. The GM
meetings is a little bit more low key. The gms
are there, obviously, all the agents are there, and it's

(02:08:50):
just a little bit more of like a foundation laying thing.

Speaker 2 (02:08:53):
You know.

Speaker 7 (02:08:54):
This is where you go and teams will meet with
all the agencies there and they'll start saying, oh, okay,
well this agents looking for this years and this kind
of money. They'll meet with other teams like, oh this
this this guy's available in trades. So they'll kind of
lay the foundation here and then over the next month
keep working toward it and then you know, the Winter
Meetings is where you see transactions happen. But yeah, it's

(02:09:15):
it's a lot of standing around, a lot of networking,
a lot of late nights. It's some watering holes because
everything everything happens around the bar. So yeah, just it's
it's kind of the kickoff of the off season, if
you will.

Speaker 2 (02:09:30):
Cam Smith finished his twelfth and the Rookie of the
Year and the American League side of things, and then
your quotes and your story today is about the fact
that he may not be guaranteed a roster spot heading
into spring training. Those are not words that you put
into Dana's mouth, but I'm curious the context behind it.

Speaker 7 (02:09:46):
Yeah, that was probably to me the most newsworthy, kind
of revelatory thing he said yesterday. You know, it certainly
wasn't a situation where Dana was being negative or down
on cam Smith.

Speaker 8 (02:09:58):
But you know, he said, look, this is a production.

Speaker 7 (02:10:00):
Game, and he's got to produce, and we've got to
be open mind. This was danis quoting, So we have
to be open minded to the thought that if he
doesn't produce and he doesn't have the adjustments that we
need him to make this off season, that we could
send him to Triple A, and that you know, you
watched him last year.

Speaker 8 (02:10:14):
Toward the end.

Speaker 7 (02:10:15):
If that team wasn't as injured as it was, and
if that team didn't have a lack of options behind him,
I think cam Smith would have probably been in the
minor leagues, you know, toward the end.

Speaker 8 (02:10:24):
Of last year, because he really fell off.

Speaker 7 (02:10:27):
In the second half. It was a snowball effect of
a lot of things. But what fascinates me though, is like,
if he is not penciled in as the everyday right
fielder and if he's not going to spring training with
a guaranteed roster spot, like you know, they can't just
they've got to have some insurance behind him.

Speaker 8 (02:10:46):
Does that mean they're in the outfield market. Does that
mean that they may be you.

Speaker 7 (02:10:50):
Know, Trenchward keeping hey Sus Sanchez instead of you know,
maybe trading him or non tendering him because they need
has an insurance behind Cam Smith. Does this mean Zach
cold is a bigger piece of the puzzle. Just means
maybe they're reticent to trade Jake Myers, who they're getting
a lot of calls on because his value has.

Speaker 8 (02:11:07):
Never been higher.

Speaker 7 (02:11:09):
It opens up a lot of questions as to kind
of how they're going to proceed this offseason. Listen, Dana yesterday,
it sounded like they have some work to do in
their outfield. His exact words, when they need to firm.

Speaker 8 (02:11:19):
Up the outfield.

Speaker 7 (02:11:20):
I'll be interested to see kind of what how Cam's status,
how that kind of affects what they do on the
open market.

Speaker 2 (02:11:26):
Comele more minutes here with Chandler. Were surprised that Christian
Walker was poop pooed by Dana about being a trade target.

Speaker 7 (02:11:35):
I would read that quote a little more carefully. Nowhere
did he say I'm not trading Christian Walker. All he
said was, we haven't talked about Christian Walker in trades,
and Christian Walker's our everyday first basement. Both of those
things can be true. On November eleventh, I still think
they're going to have to find a way to solve
this infield logjam. I personally, barring an injury, I personally

(02:11:59):
can can't see how they carry both Paradis.

Speaker 8 (02:12:02):
And Walker and get them every day at bats.

Speaker 7 (02:12:05):
And for the money you're paying these guys twenty million
to Christian Walker and about ten million to Escoc Paradus,
those are guys that need to be in the lineup
every day. And you know, Dana was a little more
forceful and a little more assertive that they don't want
to trade Estoc Paradus. His quotes on that were very
a little more illuminating and a little more you tell

(02:12:26):
they had some weight and some heft behind them. I
think the Christian Walker one, I think, quite frankly, it
was a.

Speaker 8 (02:12:32):
Non denial denial. It was on November eleventh.

Speaker 7 (02:12:36):
Yes, maybe they haven't discussed Christian Walker in trades, and
maybe he is, and he certainly as of today, is
there everyday. First basement, but that certainly could change.

Speaker 2 (02:12:45):
Yeah, I saw that too, and I'm like, wait a minute,
that doesn't I don't care who you want to get
rid of, you eastcarc pready should be the first basement
of the team next year. I mean, I don't know
any other way to say it. And again, the only
reason why you would not pencil him in today obviously
is how his hamstring is. But that's something for down
the road. Okay. Look, Dylan Sees was on the radar
for the Astros of the trade deadline. It did not happen.

(02:13:07):
But you know, in wrapping this up, Chandler, when Jim
Crane's got somebody on the mine on the brain, he
goes after guys I E. Josh Hater, I E. Justin Verlander.
How serious do you think at the end of the day.
It doesn't mean they're going to going to grab him,
but how intense do you think Dylan Sees conversations will
be with the Houston Astros.

Speaker 8 (02:13:23):
I think they'll check in.

Speaker 7 (02:13:25):
I mean, certainly, if they had interest in him at
the trade deadline, then obviously you know they they haven't
lost interest in the two months since. I find it
hard to believe that they'll get to the years and
the money that Scott Morris will want for Dylan Ceeese especially.
You know, this is an organization under Jim Crane that
the most they've ever guaranteed to a pitcher and free
agency is ninety five million dollars, and that was the

(02:13:45):
Josh Hater who pitches one inning.

Speaker 8 (02:13:47):
You know.

Speaker 7 (02:13:48):
The most they've ever guaranteed the starting pitcher in Crane's
ownership Seniors eighty five million dollars to Lansome Colors. It's
going to take more than that. It's going to take years.
It's going to take money. And I'm here to tell
you they don't want to go over them luxury tax,
at least not right now. They don't want to go
over to the luxury tax this winter. So that's another
reason why they're probably don't have to trade some of
these guys just to get some payroll flexibility, to get

(02:14:09):
some arms in here. I think there certainly will show
interest in Dylan Sees. I don't see them going to
the lengths that Scott Morris will will want for him.
I think you mentioned Justin Burlander. I think Justin Burlander
is a more realistic target, and I think maybe someone
kind of in that middle, kind of a tour or
a free type starter is probably more what they'd be

(02:14:30):
looking for, maybe other than Dylan.

Speaker 2 (02:14:32):
See's all right that again. Chandler rome joining us earlier
today from Las Vegas. The next thing will be the
winter meetings. Whereas Chandler brought up a little while ago,
it's everybody from organization will wise meet up and with
include owners, general managers, managers, scouts, and that's when the
real conversations get going. Curious to see when the JV

(02:14:54):
deal might strike, if it is a case if Dylan
Ceze is really on the radar, and really whether or
not Christian Walker will remain in an astro for twenty
twenty six. All right, you want to get your thoughts
in on that, you may do so at seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven nine zero. If you want

(02:15:15):
to follow me on Twitter, I'd greatly appreciate that at
Sports Empt and of course our station address is at
Sports Talk seven NINTI and a reminder coming up in
twenty minutes. It's gonna be believing or not all things
about Rob Grankowski, who retire today officially as a member
of the New England Patriots seven one three two one
two five, seven ninety one thirty one here on the

(02:15:36):
Matt Thomashil with Ross right here on Sports Talk seven
ninety one thirty five on Sports Talk seven ninety It's
really been a weird year, weird month for me because

(02:15:58):
there are two people that I've had professional dealings with
have made some pretty decent news headlines. Here. We talked
about this a few weeks ago when Damon Jones, a
former University of Houston cougar, a longtime NBA player, part
time coach, and matter of fact, he did U of
h games with me on the radio about fourteen or

(02:16:18):
fifteen years ago before he went back to co coach
with Lebron. You know, he got in trouble for being
a part of those fake poker games that were rigged
up the Chauncey Phillips involved with. And also there were
some allegations of point shaving and giving un information about
Lebron James health to betters. So that guy got into

(02:16:39):
some serious hot water. And then now Mac Rhodes, who
is the athletic director at the university, wasn't the University
of Houston went to Missouri. Now he's at bail for
quite some time. He's taking a leave of absence. He
is removing himself from the college football Playoff Committee. How again,

(02:17:00):
rumors are coming out about exactly what's going on with him,
and nobody's been able to confirm anything, and that's good.
I mean, you don't need to irony. It's information out there.
But apparently there was an allegation of, you know, impropriety
or whatever on November the tenth. It does not involve

(02:17:21):
student welfare. NCAA rules under the title nine, does not
involve the football program. So apparently this is coming from
Adam Rittenberg of ESPN. This is a separate incident from
the previous reported Michael Trigg incident. Michael Trigg was a
I believe it's a tight end for Baylor. He was
wearing a different colored shirt than the rest of his teammates.

(02:17:41):
Mack wrote Solomon on the sideline and voiced his displeasure
to it. And what Baylor said a few weeks ago
was that was internally handled. Yeah. I don't know what.
It is foolish to speculate, so we won't, but whatever
it is, it's pretty serious. I mean, Mac has been
a college administrator at you know, multiple Division IE places.

(02:18:07):
You know, helped with the financing through the Drake McLain Foundation,
the building of a new facility for football, a new
facility for basketball. I do have some Baylor friends that
like to whisper things to me, and they are not
happy with David Randa at Baylor. Obviously there's been disappointment there.
They are not happy that Kim Mulky got cash whipped

(02:18:28):
to go to LSU as compared to staying at batter
where she was building a pro powerhouse program on the
basketball side. So I don't know if the internal pressures
of running an athletic department at Baylor got to him
again personal demons. Who knows, But Max's always been very

(02:18:50):
good to me, as I said before, and I would
be worth I would say this public Landa did earlier today.
Mac had a little bit of a reputation for having
a little bit of a quick fuse, and it's not privately,
it's been seen publicly if you've gone to games over
the years. He has never been afraid to show his
displeasure towards officials, and while that's healthy in some regards,

(02:19:12):
if you're an athletic director at a high end university,
for that matter, athletic director at any position, it's probably
something you shouldn't do. And if you're going to be
mad at officials, you go in you're suite at your
stadium in the arena and you shut the door and
you yell at somebody, But you don't do it to
the on the court where people can see you publicly
do it. Again, whether that has anything to do with it,
I don't know. But so Mac gets this opportunity to

(02:19:36):
be a high end D one athletic director and he
gets to be intimately involved in determining who gets to
play home in the upcoming college football playoff. So I
don't know what his future entails whether I mean he's
off the committee for sure, and the committee is gonna
be done a few weeks anyway, we'll have well, you know,
they're rolling down a handful of weeks left to go
in the college season. But bigger picture is what's going

(02:19:59):
to happen to his few sure as an athletic director.
Because he was a hot name for a long period
of time when as soon as he got to you
of h I mean, I can tell you this gang. Uh,
that's a tough job. The University of Houston is an
incredibly difficult job. I think any Nunya is starting to
feel it right now. Certainly his predecessor has felt it.

(02:20:22):
It's tough. It's tough to fundraise, it's tough to get
people in the building. It's tough to compete in a
town with so many pro teams that if you show
any assemblance of success and you make the right hire.
I mean Mac made the hire for Calvin Sampson, that
was his get, and I want to say Mac hired

(02:20:44):
Tom Herman too, if I'm not mistaken too. So you're
only going to be known, frankly, as good as your
hires are. That's what and that's what I think ninety
percent of the jobs are in college administration is you
hire good coaches. Your set. Now in twenty twenty five,
it's a little bit different. Is obviously still trying to

(02:21:07):
balance title nine. Obviously it's still trying to hire the
right coaches. But the reality is, if you don't bring
money to the table to pay these athletes, now you're out.
I don't think that's the case of why Mac would
step aside for personal reasons because if you don't believe

(02:21:28):
that schools and are going in a good direction when
it comes to its fundraising, then you can just flat
out and say that you can. You don't have to
hide that. This is Max's decision, not Baylor's decision, although
I'm sure Baylor said, you know what, maybe takes the
time away. But the athletic director role, it was always
a tough job in my mind. I think it's even
more difficult now because not only you trying to fundraise

(02:21:48):
to fill your stadium up and to have really cool facilities,
but you're not also trying to put together a bank
roll so you can pay your athletes. And that's not
just football, that's basketball, that's you know, trying to get
some money for the females, for the women's sports. Some
jobs are easy Texas, Baylor, I mean Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia,

(02:22:14):
I mean all the powerhouses. I thought, for a short
time in my life, I wanted to be an athletic director,
kind of running an apartment. But I want no part
of it. And I'm not trying to say that the
pressures of being an ad got to Mac. I'm just
talking about in general that Mac had a little bit
of success, hired the right coaches, and he left to

(02:22:34):
go to Missouri where he was there for a year
and he's like, man, this place is a tough place
to win. We're in the middle of the sec where
we're not gonna be able to compete with the Alabamas
and Auburns and lsus in Florida's And so he went
to Banner and was able to carve out a NISO
career there, got the stadium built, and at the time
Randa was a good hire, had some success, but you know,

(02:22:55):
they've kind of fallen in the middle of the pack
in the Big twelve conference. I'm telling you, every time
I see an ad on a new contract they get,
they're usually worth the money the schools are spending on
them because those schools are giving very little grace period.
Not that many of you care, but it's interesting. I
saw that today there was a woman that was the

(02:23:15):
athletic director in Washington State, you know, up in Pullman, Washington.
I mean, a really tough place, not a grand alumni base,
the big state schools Washington that's in the big city,
huge stadium, huge TV deal, mega conference. Washington State, not
a major conference, is going to be part of the
new Big Pac twelve next year, which is going to

(02:23:35):
be basically the Mountain West. She got let go after
him being on the job less than two years. She
had worked at Washington State for like twenty years. Finally
gets her one chance be the ad and they let
her go less than two years into the job. Ads
not only have to massage coaches, they got to massage
the egos of alums. They got to massage the egos

(02:23:56):
of their high price coaches. And oh, by the way,
you got to start finding ways to get money in
these kids' hands or they're gonna leave. And that's why
eighties now like football coaches and they have some success,
they go to the bigger spots. And if they go
to the bigger spots, they don't produce right away. They
normally out of work. Let's play believe it or not.
It is one four the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

(02:24:17):
If you want to play, it's all things about Rob Gronkowski.
Gronkowski seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven nine were
playing for Jack Johnson tickets all right. Wrapping up a
Thursday issue into the program, tomorrow, Johnathan, we only give

(02:24:39):
a half hour. I'm sorry. Is I feel like I
owe like an hour worth an apologies to people for
a variety of things you do. Yeah, no, no, don't
back that. I'm like, no, man, you've been good, don't.
You're not supposed to do.

Speaker 3 (02:24:48):
That spot to have my sight on that terrible.

Speaker 2 (02:24:53):
I gotta apologize to all those LSU fans I got
mad for saying that they're gonna to pack the contract
to Brian Kelly. Hold on my view I don't. I've
not checked my you count only how am I doing
on my view count? Over two million?

Speaker 4 (02:25:02):
Now you definitely have two two million. Let me check
right out. You're gonna keep blowing up tho this and
keep going.

Speaker 2 (02:25:08):
I gotta monetize. I'm gonna have to. I've decided today
I haven't told my wife this ship. I'm gonna pay
one hundred and twelve dollars to get the blue check mark,
because hell, I can get that back if I just
do a couple of crazy ass tweets and lsu fing it.
Ol mad at me, legal people out there, I mean,
you're not wrong, Yeah you're at You're still two million.

Speaker 6 (02:25:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:25:28):
I can't see the actual like.

Speaker 2 (02:25:30):
Yeah, but that's right. I can't see either. But it
usually says too many. All right, well good two million,
two million views? Or are they called impressions or views?

Speaker 4 (02:25:39):
I guess impression of views is.

Speaker 2 (02:25:41):
I don't think two million people saw it. I think
too many people may have scrolled by it, but they
didn't two million people didn't know.

Speaker 4 (02:25:46):
Too many times this post was seen. This is what
it says.

Speaker 2 (02:25:49):
Oh God, it's so good. I'm gonna buy it. I'm gonna,
you know what, I'm gonna This will actually help me
and so Ross won't give me crap up with this.
This will actually help me pay for haibachi about it?
So thank you X platform. Five minutes left to go
in the show.

Speaker 3 (02:26:05):
What should we do?

Speaker 2 (02:26:08):
We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show.
We simply called it be Believe It or Not. And
here's how it works. You'll call seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety Today's edition of Believe It or
Not is all things about Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski I always

(02:26:29):
get his name butcher, but it's Gronk. I'll read you
his statement about Gronk statements completely utterly accurate. You'll win this.
You'll say this, I should say if a statement's erroneus
full of bunk, get made up? You will say this
not two believe it or not in a row and
all things about Gronk will get you a prize. That
prize will be tickets to see Jack Johnson live on
the Surf. Phil McK Surf Film Music twenty twenty six tour.

(02:26:52):
By the way, if you're gonna name a tour, make
it easier to say than Surf Film Music. Surfilm Music
August twenty eighth, Wolands Pavilion. Tickets go on sale this Friday,
ten o'clock at ticketmaster dot com. Let's play Believe It
or Not? Blaine on Sevenintie Blaine. You're ready to play
Believe It or Not?

Speaker 19 (02:27:10):
Believe it?

Speaker 2 (02:27:10):
Blaine. Gronk is a New York Times best selling author
for his memoir titled It's Good to Be Gronk. Believe
It or Not Not? I can't make up Bill. What
is your favorite Gronk moment as a Patriot?

Speaker 10 (02:27:31):
Oh? Wait, bi a better chick? Uh cooed it wo girl?

Speaker 2 (02:27:35):
Gronk shot of pilot episode for a reboot of the
TV series Saved by the Bell.

Speaker 3 (02:27:40):
He played the role of principal building Believe It or Not?

Speaker 10 (02:27:44):
Hey Man, I believe it?

Speaker 3 (02:27:50):
Oh, I love that. I love what he loses.

Speaker 2 (02:27:54):
Kelly on Sevenintie, Kelly, what was your favorite part of
today's ten to two radio show?

Speaker 12 (02:28:00):
All of It?

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):
Along with Randy Orton, Gronk once held the WWE Tag
team titles for fifty five days in twenty twenty two
Believe It or Not Believe It No, he was.

Speaker 8 (02:28:14):
A twenty four tag team champion.

Speaker 3 (02:28:18):
To Brandon on seven ninety brand, you're ready to play
believe it or not?

Speaker 19 (02:28:25):
Believe it?

Speaker 2 (02:28:26):
Brandon, Good luck to you. Rob played his college football
at Arizona, where he was a pre business major. Believe
it or not not, that's a.

Speaker 8 (02:28:34):
Believe it Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (02:28:38):
Four answers in a row, in a row. That's what
we call a mini scun where you got ten questions today, though,
I gotta get all ten, All timer, you want to
get it, We're gonna get me a no hitter here.
Paul on Seveninty, Paul, you're ready to play Believe it
or not?

Speaker 10 (02:28:52):
Believe it?

Speaker 3 (02:28:53):
Paul.

Speaker 2 (02:28:53):
Gronk was a first tight end in NFL history to
leave the league in receiving touchdowns. Believe it or not?

Speaker 19 (02:29:02):
Believe it?

Speaker 4 (02:29:03):
Believe it?

Speaker 2 (02:29:04):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (02:29:05):
Statement number two for the Wind.

Speaker 2 (02:29:07):
An erotic novel inspired by Gronk called A Gronking to
Remember was published in December of twenty fourteen. A Gronking
to Remember Believe it or not not? That's a believe
it couldn't Jonathan, Did you read erotic novels? No? All right? Colin?

(02:29:30):
On seven? Are are you ready to play? Believe it or not?

Speaker 18 (02:29:33):
Believe it?

Speaker 2 (02:29:34):
Colin? In twenty twenty four Gronk was asked to run
as a city councilman in his home in his town
of Foxboro, Massachusetts, but he politely said no, believe it
or not not?

Speaker 3 (02:29:45):
Yeah, he's Statement number two for the Wind.

Speaker 2 (02:29:49):
A horse named Gronkowski ran in the twenty eighteen Belmont Stakes.
It finished second. Believe it or not? Believe it.

Speaker 3 (02:29:58):
That's congratulation.

Speaker 2 (02:30:01):
Finally, the end is near. Let's talk to Bradley on
seventy Bradley, what was your favorite part of today's Send
the two radio show?

Speaker 8 (02:30:09):
All of It?

Speaker 2 (02:30:09):
Mike, my name is Matt. Thanks. Gronk is like, yeah,
it's fine Gronk is like me. He hates squawkam only believe.

Speaker 16 (02:30:17):
It or not Believe it?

Speaker 3 (02:30:19):
No, he loves it. And my name is Matt ron
on seven and he ready to play believe it or not.

Speaker 6 (02:30:30):
It.

Speaker 2 (02:30:31):
Gronk has two dogs, Brady and Belly, named after Tom
Brady and Bill Belichick. Believe it or not Believe it? No,
He's got one dog's name is Rob. Imagine he named
his dog that, Jonathan. I give myself an eighty for
the days doing the show by myself and writing those questions.
Oh my god, I'm gonna give myself a pout of

(02:30:53):
the back. I'm gonna put a buckeye on my helmet
like they did in Ohio State, up next to guys.
It always deserved those applause and the rewards. It's Adam Wexer,
It's Adam Klan. They are fit team. I'll talk to
you tomorrow for anything goes Friday tomorrow at ten on
seven at