The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hour 3 - Cooper Flagg vs Bronny James

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

More on Angel Reese being on the NBA2K cover over Caitlin Clark Kevin Durant talks about his time in Brooklyn Thoughts on Cooper Flagg vs Bronny in Summer League tomorrow   #douggottliebshow  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thanks for listening to The Heard podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in noon to 3 Eastern 9 a.m. to noon Pacific. Find your local station for the herd at Fox Sports Radio.com or stream us live every day on the IHeart Radio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is The Herd. Wherever you may be listening, however you may be making it as part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlie. In for Colin Cowherd. And for the next hour, I want to talk sports with you.

So it's, it's, we're in this weird time. You would all agree, I think, if we, none out of our head, like, it's a little bit of weird time. I politically, it's just weird. You don't have to say what side you're on politically, you would admit. It's, it's, uh, the, the best way to say, well, that's different. Yeah, that's, that's, that's different. Yeah. That's, that's different.

We're going to do a, uh, the UFC fight at the White House next year. Yeah, that's different. That definitely. there'll definitely be a lot of barbed wire tattoos at that event. And look, I watch go see two weekends ago. It's great. At the White House, that's different. Sports is in this kind of different place as well.

College sports, massive change now that you're paying players. Massive. And I do think that there's lots of things that sports. radio, sports television have done that are good. We bring attention, and attention brings curiosity. Curiosity brings people to either the TV sets or to their radio stations or in person to watch games. That's really we're drumming up interest with discussion about it.

Not all of it's positive, right? I think the proliferation of sports on TV combined with the fact that sports television hyper-focuses on star players. And a lot of young fans are not fans of teams anymore. They're fans of players. And a lot of it is that players move team to team to team. Take LeBron James. He's played for the Lakers for seven years.

It still doesn't feel like he's a Laker. And Laker fans would go like, nah, he's not. I mean, are you really going to put him on the Mount Rushmore of Lakers? an outsider to Laker to Los Angeles would be like, well, of course, he's an all-time in the score. He won an NBA championship. Why wouldn't you? Well, because, honestly, like, are you going to take Jerry Westdown?

What about Magic? What about Kareem? What about Big Game James? What about Kobe? What about Shaq? Where do they stack up? You're like, well, that's different. We didn't even get to all the other.

Will Chamberlain. Never discussed him. Right. Elgin Baylor didn't discuss him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we're in a weird time where there are people who are LeBron fans, not Laker fans, and Laker fans who, they don't even accept LeBron as a Laker. He's just kind of playing for Lakers and they're like, yeah, well, we're good. We're also in this time in which suddenly now we're, I mean, Sunday, obviously, I think most of the world, most of the United States,

we start to pay attention to soccer. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, World Cups next year. We'll be fake soccer fans up until then. And when it's over, that we'll pretend like we're real soccer fans, and then I'll move on. But the WNBA has been a part of the sports,

radio, sports, television conversation now for parts of the last two and a half years. And what does that coincide with? The rise of Caitlin Clark. And you can argue otherwise, feel free. You can say, well, there's this, there's that, blah, blah, blah, blah, but the reality is it tracks directly with Caitlin Clark. And the ratings are the easiest determinant. Again, I don't, you know, it's like if we went purely by ratings, we should be talking about NASCAR, but the reality is NASCAR fans, NHL fans, they don't listen to Sports Radio.

But in the sports discussion, the WNBA has become kind of a talking point. And I think it's just weird that we feel compelled to force the conversation to spread out around other players. Angel Reese is the biggest recipient of attention, some because of her play, a lot of because of her antics going back two years ago in the Final Four. but a lot of it is like, look, she's good players, good rebounder. Reebok gave her her own shoe. I would love to see the sales numbers on that bad boy. And there is a portion of the demo, which likes Angel Reese, likes that she somehow becomes some underdog story.

Like, she's not an underdog. You know, she left to school to transfer to LSU where they gathered up the best women's basketball players and won a national championship. That's not an underdog. And then choose a top pick. Not the top, but a top pick in the WNBA draft. Like, that's not an underdog.

But whatever, if you want to make it into an underdog story, we can make anything into an underdog story. But I find it really curious on how Angel Reese is the face of the WNBA on the WNBA edition of 2K26. Ha? Right. So that's a weird one. Now, for, you know, in the superstar edition,

Carmelo Anthony is also on the cover. So you're like, wait, now we're getting super weird. Carmelo Anthony covers the NBA now. I think he's, is he going to work for Amazon or NBC? So a little bit of the 2K cover is kind of like the Sports Illustrated, being on a Sports Illustrated cover, right? used to matter a lot doesn't really matter now.

Like, I don't even know if Sports Illustrated still does the magazine. Even when they did the magazine, they started doing the regional stuff. And when they started doing the regional stuff, they started placating as many different demos as possible. Like, hey, let's just be nice. Where it used to be like,

let's just put Jordan on the cover and sell a bunch of magazines. He's the best. Everybody knows he's the best. But the 2K cover is weird. Right? why would you put Angel Reese there? What is this need to place others there? We do it, by the way, in advertising.

If you watch the NBA playoffs, there were littered throughout the entire playoffs were WNBA players in the place of where NBA players used to be as spokespeople for, you know, what used to just be the Chris Paul, LeBron James and Steph Curry show. Now all of a sudden you have WMBA players who, let's just be honest,

no one knows who they are outside of Caitlin Clark. And my guess is that 2K26 and this alternate cover doesn't sell a ton anyway, but do you think you would sell more if Caitlin was on the cover? The answer is yes. How do I know? Well, her Mamba shoes sold out in like, what, two hours or something crazy like that? Like, she's a thing.

You know, she's a superstar. And superstars are not always determined based upon who the absolute best is. It's who we like to watch the most. By the way, Caitlin Clark returned from injury today. 10, 6, 5, and the fever's blowout loss to the Valky. That's the new team in San Francisco. So they've hit a little bit of a tough stretch. She hasn't shot the ball as well.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you. Caitlin Clark's the best player in the WNBA. I don't know who is, and frankly, I don't care. But I've been doing this job for 23 years. 23 years. 22 years ago, 23 years ago, I started at ESPN Radio on a show called Game Night. Never talked to women's basketball, especially the WNBA, unless there's something dramatic and for the most part,

It just wasn't there. And again, I worked at ESPN. ESPN talked about ESPN products all the time and said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, talk about our stuff. Synergy, synergy, synergy. But no one ever said, you know, we should talk about WNBA because nobody cared. People care now. And yet it's like the WNBA wants to like push her away and say like, yeah, she's fine.

But everybody else is awesome. That's why you should really be paying attention. And when you're trying to figure out why, like why? What would the pushback be? I think to most of us, especially to men, you're like, eh, jealousy. That's reasonable, right? And we can say that only women are jealous, but plenty of guys are jealous, right? Think of the story of why Barry Bonds is alleged to have started using steroids.

Barry Bonds was the first ballot Hall of Famer, no doubter. Roger Clemens, first ballot Hall of Famer, no doubter. Both had started their careers that started to be diminished. And they started to be outshown by people who most people think were on steroids. And so then they juiced up. And the two who were two of the all-time greats became the greatest ever at an age which had to be receiving artificial help. Those guys are jealous. I have three dogs.

Okay. Pack mentality. But my dogs, you know, when I come home because I'm the leader of the pack, they're all fighting for attention. So why? It's some sort of jealousy. And we're seeing that here in the WNBA and the inability to process the jealousy and to use the positivity of the attention that Caitlin Clark getting to grow the overall sport is kind of laughable to the rest of us.

But it's also understandable. Hell hath no wrath like a woman who scored, right? That's from a playwright in the 16th century, 17th century. and it's true here and they're not scorned by Caitlin Clark they feel scorned by the media and it's crazy right because the media is doing backflips to try and help them out

like hey we're trying to cover your game but we can't talk about stuff that nobody cares about and the mainstream fans and you can't control what mainstream fans like and don't like I think the easiest Taylor Swift is maybe in arguably the most popular performer in the country. She's, by all accounts now, she's got that third comma, she's a billionaire.

She toured on her last tour and sold out stadium after stadium after stadium night after night. Would anybody argue that she's the best, songwriter, singer, performer, or best-looking? No. But people have decided, I like her. I like the vibe. I like the songs. I like the whole thing. Are there better female singers?

Sure. They're better female country singers. Yes. Are there better performers? They're better looking women. They go, yes, yes. But again, it doesn't mean that they're as popular. And the people who have pushed back against tour tour are no different than the people who push back against the popularity of Caitlin Clark.

like imagine shunning being on the opening act for Taylor Swift. Why? Like, hey, I should be a headliner. Like, that's great. You should be. Or you can use the attention of her tour to propel your career to heights unknown, right? To heights unknown. Do you guys remember that time slot?

This is, again, if you're a child of the 90s. If you're a child of the 90s, you remember must see TV on NBC, right? And he had Cosby Show into TV. cheers and you had that time slot in the middle. Most of it was, for a long time, was a different world. I remember a different world? And whatever that 8.30 show was got a huge number, not because it was a great show, but because it was in between two the greatest shows on television.

And then it became Seinfeld and Friends, whatever, same thing. But the point is that you can either use the rise in popularity for good, or you can fight against it, and it feels like the WNBA is fighting against it, and they keep pushing us, Angel Reese, Angel Reese, Angel Reese, Angel Reese, and you're like, you keep pushing it, and I just, I don't, it doesn't feel good to me. It feels like bitterness.

It feels like jealousy. It feels like you've been weaponizing yourself for 25 years of not being paid attention to. Then we pay attention to you, like, nah, you're not paying attention to the right stuff. here we are again with another WNBA story of not using the popularity of Caitlin Clark to grow the game. Because you put Caitlin Clark on that cover, the thing sells out in minutes. Minutes.

And when it sells out, inevitably, there'll be, I don't know, a third or half the number of people who buy it have never bought a video game ever before. And if even half of those people throw it in and play it, that's... That's found money. That's a whole new market. That brings people to playing games that have never played it before. Instead, it's Angel Reese, who has a level of popularity, but it is a fraction of that of Caitlin Clark. We got a lot to get to.

We got Cooper Flagg versus Brony. That's tomorrow in Vegas. We got herd line news. But coming up next here in the herd, wait to hear what KD said about his time with the Brooklyn net. That's next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeart Radio app. Hey, what's up everybody? It's me, three-time Pro Bowl of LaVar Arrington, and I couldn't be more excited to announce a podcast called Up on Game. What is Up on Game, you ask?

Along with my fellow Pro Bowler, T.J. Hushman Zada and Super Bowl champion. Yep, that's right. Plexico Burris. You can only name a show with that type of talent on it. Up On Game. We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded with teachable moments. Listen to Up On Game with me, LaVar Arrington, T.J. Hushmanzada, and Plexico Burrish on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast from. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers. And guess what?

We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jones. Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a... We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how did we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered.

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I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs' tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening. at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jen she went. I mean, she went down at three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open.

Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. As for Steve Nash, that's KD's former head coach when he was in Brooklyn. Here's KD this week talking about his time in Brooklyn. I didn't think we didn't get the full Steve Nash. Like, I won it. Like, you probably won it.

I just felt like it was just too much, too many distractions in a way. And, you know, you can't win that way. But I felt like we had great intentions, though. I feel like we cared enough. I feel like every day we were trying to push towards winning the championship. It was a great vibe. It was some of the best times. That first year, that's why I saw that deal.

That first year, man, most fun ball I had. Some of the most fun ball I had playing my whole life, I enjoyed it. So obviously it's a different spin on Katie's time in Brooklyn, which is generally seen as a failure, a failed experiment. And I know Colin likes to point out, like you're putting your career in the hands of Kyrie Irving. And, you know, Kyrie Irving, among other things, got hurt. And he got hurt. And that was the year, you know, without throwing Kyrie under the bus,

Kyrie was under the bus from that year. That was the year that, remember, Kyrie was the post-COVID. He didn't want to take a back, couldn't play at home. Then eventually he got to play later on the year. you fast forward to the next season and Kevin Durant they nearly beat the champions

the Milwaukee Bucks if not for his foot being on the line and that was without Kyrie Irving was hurt and of course James Harden had the pulled hamstring that he was trying to play through you had the Ben Simmons thing uh look every athlete

every place you work when you move around like man it would have worked if, but it didn't. And you got to work through those stages of grief where you get to the acceptance level, right? And I'm sure there's a, hey, it's really hard to coach when you have all these other, don't know if Kyrie's going to play tonight or if he's not allowed to play. Ben Simmons, what's his deal? James Hardin, remember he wanted to be traded.

Then he had, he was constantly hurt. He doesn't want to play any defense. Like, it's a lot. And, you know, again, if you parse his words, you're like, oh, well, he had more fun there than playing in Golden State. I think for KD, you know, if you really cut down to brass tacks, it's got to be hard because LeBron's sitting there. You know, and LeBron's pretending to be everybody's best friend,

or maybe he wants to be everybody's best friend now. But the reality is, Kevin Durant was an MVP. By the way, three-time runner-up for MVP. But an MVP in Oklahoma City, they come within a game of beating Oklahoma City. Then he's a free agent. He goes to Golden State. And they win two titles probably would have won the third. He'd not torn his Achilles tendon.

And I'm sure at that point in time, he was trying to show, hey, I am the best player in the world. I just am not surrounded by enough space to where I can show you that I can score on anybody, including LeBron James in the NBA finals, which he did. but most people or many people's reaction continues to be you joined a 73 win team and congrats you won an NBA title like on this show at the time and since I've repeatedly told you okay why do we pay attention to the number of wins of that team yet ever since right in the 10 years since how many times the team of the best record this year obviously best record won the title but did so in seven games how many teams is the team of the best record this year obviously best record won the title but did so in seven games how many teams is those teams ever got to the finals. Just like there's not really a correlation between college success and professional success in football and in basketball, there's not really the correlation for the most part between regular season success and post-season success.

They're just not. Right? There's just not. And that 73-win team, okay, probably should have won the NBA title. Andrew Bogot got hurt and then Draymond Green got suspended. And even then, it took an incredible game seven from a loaded Cleveland Cavaliers team to beat him. So they instead of doing strength in numbers, they gutted their roster, they moved down from Harrison Barnes, and they got Kevin Durant. I'm sure in his mind, he's like, look, dude, here I am.

I think I'm the best player in the world. And on the biggest stage, I was the best player in the NBA finals, two consecutive years. Guarded by LeBron James, I was better than the second half where it matters. But he didn't get the positive accolades that he felt. like he deserved. So he goes to Brooklyn? Mine. You don't like it when I join the team?

We'll build one on our own. We found a coach who was a former player that we could all, you know, I mean, it's not his fault. Yeah. I mean, I understand what Colin's saying where it's like, okay, Karee saying we don't need a head coach. And having all of these guys, like a James Hardin or a Ben Simmons that have their own flaws, no matter how talented, like it was a recipe for a disaster. despite that they were within one toe being on the line of beating the Milwaukee Bucks who won the title. But KD trying to have the back of Steve Nash and saying, hey, he really didn't get to coach.

Does paint us a picture of just how chaotic that franchise must have been. But I will tell you, and this is again from personal experience. No matter how chaotic, you either break through as a coach and demand that you are a coach. And I know it's different in the NBA when those guys are worth half a billion dollars. Or you don't coach. you don't coach. So, going to be interesting.

36, working on 37, and now with probably one or two more shots at a title, and that's what I think Katie probably thinks he needs to put himself on a Mount Rushmore that he'll probably never be able to get to despite the fact that I think he belongs there.

I think he's the best score of this generation. Post Carmelo Anthony and his game evolved more than Carmelo Anthony's did. in terms of three-point shooting and playing face in the basket, whereas Carmelo was unbelievable score for a time, mostly in the post and the mid-range. Let's get to Ryan Music with the news. No, no, no, no, turn on the news.

This is the herd line news. All right, Doug. We'll stay in the association, talk some NBA here, the Celtics, major movers this off-season, dumping salaries and players left and right. Well, Boston's president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens, had this explanation for all of these moves in the offseason. The second aprons why those trades happen.

I think that those are pretty obvious. And the basketball penalty associated with us are real. We've all talked about that. That was part of making the decision to push and put our chips on the table and go for it the last two years. But we've known for a long time that hard decisions were coming. And I think the agents and players have known that too. I mean, that's been pretty well communicated.

So pretty clear that the Celtics were looking to get underneath that second Abrin, which is highly, highly prohibitive against making any future moves down the line. And in addition to this, he's also put an emphasis on the fact that people keep using the term rebuild. And he said, that's not going to be a part of the lexicon in our building. and the way we're going to focus moving forward, he wants them to, quote, compete like hell to win the next game. Look, do I think the Celtics will be better

than anyone could perceive without Jason Tatum? Yeah, do I think he gives Jalen Brown a chance to show he can lead a team? Absolutely. But when you have 300 million tied up into two guys, and one of them can't use his left hand. The other one is coming off in Achilles. going to be hard.

But what he's been able to do in manipulating that roster and figuring all out, as good a coach as Brad is, he might be a better executive. Yeah. Might be a better executive. Pretty remarkable. But it...

So one of the sort of talking points that Boston has held on to this offseason was that the Jason Tatum injury specifically in a vacuum. did not necessarily change the moves that they were already intending to make to avoid that second apron. Do you buy that? Yeah, I mean, they were going to move for Zingis.

I mean, that thing wasn't. I mean, he barely played last year. He wasn't right. Sure. You know, they, and they, Horford was one of those. I'm sure they wanted to make an offer or whatever. But at 39, it was probably best he moved on. And the same thing with Drew Holiday.

Like, Drew's tremendous. but I'm sure that was all part of the plan. You know, Drew not happy about being in Portland, but I'm sure he'll end up finding a place to a team that wants to compete for a title. Yeah, I actually do buy that. I do. I think that the plan is still in place and that they haven't, you know, totally, I think the Anthony Simmons one would be the Simons, excuse me.

That's the one that's like, all right, would they have acquired him if they had Jason Tatum? probably not. But the guys they moved on from, yeah, I think that was part of the plan all long. Yeah, it also, I tend to believe that and agree with you in the sense that we know that the Celtics have been aggressive with making moves. And as you said, Brad Stevens may be a better front office executive than he even was as a very successful head coach. And we tend to forget, like, the Knicks were in real control of that series with a healthy Jason Tatum. So I think there were some early indications that even within side the building, Boston may have been looking at that as we can't just sit here and assume that we were ready to win another title if Jason Tatum hadn't gotten hurt. The Knicks, who we now look at as a seriously flawed team, were very much in position to win that with a healthy Jason Tatum.

So I tend to agree with that as well. Yeah. I mean, they stole game one. I mean, that was a big part of it. Sure. And they were in control before Jason Tatum went down. but I think the Prazingis thing was really, you know, I also think it's really interesting what's happened in Dallas. You have a guy who builds a championship roster that go to the finals last year, and part of building that was he moved off of Prozengis

because Pris is always hurt. And then Boston was able to just keep him patched together to win one NBA championship. And, you know, this year, again, he's always hurt. It's always something. So, but yeah, I mean, I think they were going to move on from Pryzingus. They were going to move on from Al Horford. They were going to move on probably from Drew Holiday as well at the end of the year, regardless of winter loss.

I'm sure that was part of their plans. All right, to the NFL, Travis Kelsey, he will be back for a 13th season in the NFL and with the Kansas City Chiefs. But his production has dropped off in the last two seasons, and last season, most notably, part of his decision to come back was that he didn't want to be. to go out like that. He felt like he let his teammates down. Well, Brett Beach, general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, had this to say about Travis Kelsey at the end of his career and where he's at at this point as a playmaker saying, quote, the great ones know how to find it. They know where it's

buried. They know how to access it. They can't access it at that age, week in and week out. But when they need it, they know how to find it. This might be it. That's sometimes what we're like with Travis, but when the games are most important and the lights are the brightest, he finds it somewhere. Yeah, that's about right. Right? That's about right. Like he doesn't have it on a daily basis, but when needed, he can still dial it up. I think Kansas is going to be interesting, right? Because they continue to figure out a way to get it done despite the fact that they don't

There's not playmakers that strike fear in people's hearts. So, again, I'm interested. And the other part to it is most NFL people will tell you, like once you start to think about reen retired you are, I think he's really thought about it. So, again, be interested to see how he comes back from him. Yeah, to your point. So what will be interesting to see about Travis, this,

upcoming season is the production dipped slightly two seasons ago, but what we saw in the regular season wasn't the same as during the postseason where he had those big moments. This year, it just felt like the production had really dropped off and he wasn't totally able to tap into that next year quite like he had the previous season. Now, he has taken full ownership of it. he's admitted that, you know, in the offseason, he could have done better with taking care of his body, and he's taking a different approach this year. So we'll see if he can sort of turn back the clock. But it feels like for a guy playing that position at this age, at this point in his career,

it would be hard to sort of reverse course from where the trend is headed. But obviously for someone who's been as productive and successful as he's been in his career, and with Pat Mahomes throwing him the ball, it's not impossible. We'll wrap up with this, staying in the NFL. T.J. Watt, holding firm on wanting a new contract that pays him inline or more than Miles Garrett, who now makes $40 million per year on average. Well, Adam Schaefter reporting the two sides still far apart on a new deal. Watt has been withholding from team activities in hopes of that new deal

and has at least stated not publicly, but the expectation is that he would be willing. to hold out of training camp or hold in whatever they do these days to get that new deal. Yeah, I think Pittsburgh, you mentioned, Collins mentioned it going all in. I think they want to let the season play out and then figure out what's what, who they want to keep what they don't. And there's a world where they let a match and start over, including the coaching staff. There's a world in which they have a great season, and even Aaron Rogers did lead the door slightly cracked. I think it's my last season.

We'll see. And that's right. Music with News. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Herd Lye News. It's that time of year where there's an overhyped, fake game that brings you to the TV to watch Summer League in the NBA. What game is it this year?

And what should proper expectations be towards Brony James? I will tell you next. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, F.S1 and the IHard Radio app. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news.

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Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jenchian win. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world. right now and I actually can win on any surface because if she's serving, well,

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Iheart Radio app. Let's discuss this NBA Summerlink stuff. So you got the stats there, Ryan Music, for Ronnie and two Summer League games. Now, first Summer League game had 10th and a half, ended up with 10, didn't play huge minutes, but did play enough. And then played yesterday and really struggled, right? What was the combined stats that you had? So, yeah, he hasn't played heavy minutes in either game.

But if you combine them, he has played 26 minutes over two games. He scored 12 points, but it's the shooting and the lack of efficiency, which has become a problem. Because he's 4 of 12 from the field, 2 of 7 from 3. Yeah, and he shot, I think, an air ball or two in yesterday's game they played at the Warriors arena. Here's the reality to it. Okay. And somehow, I know that every time. we post something you get to the

why you're talking about LeBron or Brani or whatever like well we talk about lots of topics. Bronte James and Cooper Flagg on opposing teams on opening night of Summer League is going to be a thing. And what we talk about on Fox Sports Radio are the things, are the important things. We don't dilly dally on things that people don't care about. That's what bad radio can, bad sports radio networks do.

We focus on what people talk. about the most. They'll be talking about that. So the expectations for a second year pro, and these are reasonable expectations, are for you to dominate in Summerlake. You've played in the NBA. You've played against the best. You've practiced against the best. You've been through an NBA season. You know whatever sets that you're running, again, they're not running anything ornate, but you've done it on an NBA floor. You know all the tricks. You get a little bit more respect from the officials. The expectations are for you to be dominant, the best player on the floor. Now, here's why it's unrealistic for Brody James. He might have had one G-League game like that this year,

maybe. And I mean, again, I never watched him outside of videos prior to when he moved to Los Angeles, but I saw him play in high school and AU in Los Angeles. And there was never a time which he was absolutely the best player on a high school floor, nor on a college floor. And so it does feel like unrealistic expectations that he'll be the best player on a summer league floor, not because you're not supposed to win you're an NBA player, you are, but because that's never been him. As for Cooper Flagg, I am intrigued by how he's used, how he's played. We have seen him dominate.

Again, here's the difference, right? here's a kid who was the best player when he played 16s, was the best player last summer, was the best player at Duke, and at times this year on college basketball floors, he was the best player. Does that mean he'll be the best player? No.

Opening nights, we've seen Wemby struggle opening night. Now, he'd just gotten off a plane from France. We've seen other guys like LeBron dominate in opening nights. Obviously, he's LeBron. He's a little bit different. But usually number one picks are, sort of like golf, a round of golf, there's one or two things that make you want to come back. Ooh.

Ooh. Ooh. There's something there. So proper expectations for Cooper Flag are, who, one or two things. Proper expectations for Brunny James are, hey, dude, at some point, you got to be best player on the floor. You play in the NBA last season. And you're playing against 80% of those guys are not NBA players. Maybe more.

and you had three more years of guaranteed deals. And I, and I, you know, you can't undersell this enough. Like the Lakers spent most of this year with their G-League team focusing on the development of Brony James, which I'm sure is part of kind of this recent pushback where they're like not really about LeBron, which is like, dude, really? Like, you're not all for us, all for us. for winning a championship and we basically create, you know, changed our G-League roster

and he traveled sometime, didn't travel for the first part of the year, then did travel some, that he's called up a bunch, then we played him some in the NBA. Like we did all these things for Ronnie James. Like, it's not really an NBA player? And then, oh yeah, by the way, you have, you have read various people who covered the NBA have said, hey, expectations are that they think next year he'll be in the rotation.

if you're an NBA rotational player, you should be dominating summer league. I play with the Lakers in the summer league. Slava Medvedenko and Devin George were dominant. They took all the shots. They had all the points. They knew all the sets. They knew everything. And they were bit players on those Lakers teams.

That's how it works. Hasn't changed. Won't change. And that first summer, that first summer between rookie year and second year, that's the most important summer of your NBA career, you've got to make big strides. And the first big strides you got to make is dominate in the summer league. It's just a mentality thing that has to match up to your skill set. And my issue with it is only we haven't seen him do that before.

So the likelihood of him doing it doesn't feel great. Doug, to your point about the attention and the interest in this upcoming game between the Mavericks and the Lakers in the summer. Summer League. Anthony Slater, who we had on earlier on the show, pointed this out, but some of these statistics online floating about is that the average ticket price for a summer league game that counts for absolutely nothing is going for about $223. And courtside seats are looking to be over $3,000.

First of all, just so we're aware, I don't buy that. I know what's being reported, but again, like, I don't really, do you think anybody's really shelling out $3,000? Maybe. Yeah, I, it feels hard to believe. Here's the, here's. Now, part of it also, remember, that event is a kind of a who's who have, it's, this is like the NBA's convention, right?

Free agents meet there, agents meet there. You have international players there. International agents are there. International teams come to scout, because most of those players. we'll go play overseas, whatever. It is, and that opening night is a who's who. And, you know, I mean, like, look, Cooper flag's going to, I mean,

Kyrie's going to be there, I'm sure. The guess is LeBron's going to be there, right? So you're not necessarily just buying a ticket to watch the game. You're buying a ticket to, like, basically going to a club before everybody goes out to a club. Exactly. And that's what I was going to say is the only reason I'm willing to buy that this is a possibility is because it's in Vegas.

So if I'm going to believe that guys go to Vegas and they'll drop 10 grand on a table in a nightclub to pot bottles of champagne, which from the supermarket go for much less than that, I fully believe that in order to flex those same muscles as a, hey, look at me, why wouldn't someone drop a couple thousand dollars to be able to be courtside to watch Cooper Flagg and be able to sit next to LeBron James? Yeah, although you'll never get next to LeBron James, right? And you're going to watch Cooper Flagg and maybe he plays 20 minutes and whatever. Again, I'm not saying it's a smart thing to do, but I totally see it happening for sure. If you have $2,500 in Vegas, is that the best way to allocate your resources? Absolutely not. But there's a lot of things. There's a lot of poor financial decisions happening.

Yeah, correct. It is a, it is a, it's like my old college coach, Edie said, we played in Vegas against UNLV two years in row on the road. And both years we got out the planet. He's like, man, look at them skyscrapers, brother. They don't keep building them because the house loses. There's, that is the land. It's not just Sin City, but the land of bad financial decisions. All right.

If you missed any today's show, check out the podcast. Meanwhile, future dates, listen to Doug Gottlieb show. This is The Hurt on Fox Sports Radio. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick.

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