The Herd with Colin Cowherd - THE HERD - Hour 1 – Wemby leads the way for the All Star Game, Is Mendoza built to carry the Raiders?

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

The NBA is a “follow the leader” league, and Victor Wembanyama got NBA athletes to care about the All Star Game again. MLB players sound off about the Dodgers and they’re fans of the spending power of LA. New information arises about Fernando Mendoza, and Colin ruminates on his presumed future with the Raiders. The Dolphins are blowing up their roster, what could be next for wide receiver Tyreek Hill and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was funny. You just understood. That's how personal it got.

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Radio in noon to 3 Eastern, 9 a.m. to noon Pacific. Find your local station for the herd at at Fox SportsRedia.com or stream us live every day on the IHeart Radio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR. Thanks for listening to the Heard podcast. Here we go on a Monday, Lots and lots to talk about. Congrats to Michael Jordan and his NASCAR team. All-Star Weekend in the NBA. We're in Chicago. It's the herd wherever you may be and however you may be listening.

Thanks for Megan us, part of your day. John Middlough in again today, J. Mack back tomorrow. It's really interesting. So you hear this all the time. And I want to start today with something that's been true for a long time. The NFL is called a copycat league because coaches copy other coaches schemes. It's not about the players.

That's why half the league runs Kyle Shanahan's offense. And a lot of defensive teams can run a two-shell, the high-shell stuff. Now, everybody wants to run that and they're taking away big plays. It's called a copycat league. I mean, at one point in the NFL, teams with good quarterbacks were hiking the ball to the running backs. For about a 10-game stretch, the wildcat offense was a thing.

Absurd as that sounds. The NBA is different. The NBA is a follow the leader league. It's not about schemes. Nobody copied Phil Jackson's great triangle offense ever. It's about, is your star committed to defense? Does your star care? So for the last seven years, the All-Star game stunk.

And a lot of it is, the best. players in the NBA have become all international. Until Wemby yesterday, none of them care about the All-Star game. Yokin's didn't care. They care about playing for their country, which is awesome. And they care about winning championships. That's awesome. But as the league has gotten more international, the best players are seemingly all-international,

they don't care as much about the All-Star game. I mean, Yokin doesn't care at all. I mean, he just mocks it. Luca didn't care. So you know who cared about the All-Star game? Kobe Bryant. In his prime, he'd humiliate you. He'd go after you.

He'd trash talk you. He'd trash talk LeBron. LeBron cared about it. So in Kobe's prime, the All-Star game was pretty good. In Kevin Garnett's prime, well, the All-Star game is pretty good. Because those guys cared about it. I've been saying this for years. The Patriot Way was nonsense.

The Patriot Way was Tom Brady. The minute he left, the Patriot Way disappeared. Because Tom Brady allowed Belichick to coach him hard. The reason the Spurs were great and so great defensively wasn't just Greg Popovich. It was that Tim Duncan played defense, practice hard, played hurt. If Carmelo

Anthony is drafted by the Spurs, they may win titles. They're not playing that level of defense. I mean, Mello's teams, Mello was an offensive guy. Barclay was more of an offensive guy. Didn't practice hard. Well, then that's the culture. The star player

in professional basketball leads the culture. People talk about the Miami Heat culture. It's D-Way. D. Wade was an impeccable shape, workout lifting weights every day, playing hurt, on the floor, real defense, everybody followed suit. Pat Riley was allowed to have long practices. Eric Spolstra could drag his players around because D. Wade allowed you to. I've been saying this for years. It's not about getting a star in the NBA.

It's about getting the right star who practices hard, who plays hard. LeBron practice hard, Kobe practice hard, Duncan, practice hard. practice hard. They got all the titles. Right. Okay. So this All-Star game, everybody's talking about, let's change the format. And there's some funny ideas. Nick Wright had a great one last week. Oh, the format. No. Wemby came out in the first five minutes. He's like, yeah, I'm going to play defense. I'm going to block shots. I'm going to humiliate you. I'm going to dominate. He talked about it all week. He's like, everybody's going to follow me. And so once Wemby's into it, this international player is like, no, I'm, I care. I'm going after you guys. I care.

Well, everybody followed suit. Here's Ant, the MVP of the All-Star game, talking about that. He set the tone, and it was definitely competitive with all three teams. I feel like, I feel like the old head's played hard, too. He was playing real good defense. But, yeah, he set the tone, man, and it woke me up for sure. Yeah, I always felt that Brady, Tom Brady had almost an NBA ability because he was taking pay cuts.

He wasn't doing commercials for years. he allowed Belichick to scream at him, humiliate him in front of other players. It almost had an NBA feel to it, a Duncan feel, a Kobe feel. And, I mean, Kobe could be terribly difficult. Go ask Phil Jackson, read the books. But Kobe practiced hard. Kobe was competitive. And so everybody follows suit.

And this is not a knock at international players. But Yolkich could care less about the game. Luca doesn't care much about the game or playing defense. And that's why I've said about the Lakers with Luca. If Luca leads your culture with the Los Angeles Lakers, you're not going to be a great defensive culture. You're not. LeBron in his prime, you know, early Cleveland or Miami. LeBron's playing real defense.

They're locking you down, starting the other way. They're playing real defense. So I think Wemby going out, it's not about format. Wemby's like, I'm into this thing. Well, all right. He's doing it. And he's the ascending star. Yokish may be the best player, but the ascending star, the north star of this league going forward, is Wembe.

And he was into it. Okay, so I love this. There's been this mythology, which is just absolutely ridiculous, that the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Well, pitchers and catchers are reporting. Here's what Bryce Harper, I love Bryce Harper, said about the Dodgers, quote, ruining baseball and stacking their roster. I love what the Dodgers do, obviously.

I mean, they pay the money, they spend the money. I mean, they're a great team. They understand how to run it. They run their team like a business, and they run it the right way. They understand where they need to put their money into. It bothers me whenever everybody talks about the Dodgers are spending money. No, they draft, they develop, they do it the right way. They understand what it takes to be the best team in baseball.

And this is a guy whose team is getting beat by the Dodgers. Bryce Harper has every reason they hate the Dodgers. And I've said this for years. As a billionaire, you buy a pro sports team. Let's say a baseball team. You buy it for a billion dollars or $2 billion. Well, the equity goes up every year, right? Like the valuation of the franchise goes up every year.

I mean, Mark Cuban bought the Mavericks for $285 million. He sold them for $3.5 billion. He changed the culture. The locker rooms were better. The arena was better. The travel was better. It was like the standard of the Dallas Mavericks with Dirk Nevitzky, it was like, oh, okay, they do well internationally.

they draft, they treat the players. Well, oh, that's a good organization. I'm not saying they didn't have problems and missteps like everybody else. But all the Dodgers do is they spend a huge amount of the money they make from suites and seats and sponsorship and local TV contract. They just pour it back into the team. The Yankees kids keep more of it for themselves. They both make $800 million in revenue a year.

Dodgers just spend it on their players. It's like, I never understand these people that buy a house and they don't fix it up. And then 10 years later, they want to sell the house. And they're like, okay, now we'll fix the house up. Well, and now you've got bad plumbing and bad wiring and all that white paint is a fluff job. You don't have a very nice house. Buy a house over the next two or three years, not only enjoy living in a better house, but keep up. Keep up with a wiring and the plumbing and the infrastructure and the foundation.

All the Dodgers really do. And yes, they make a lot more money than other teams. not named the Yankees, but then a lot of teams. I mean, when the Dodgers got Mookie Betts, they didn't steal them from the Reds or the Pirates or the Royals or the A's. They stole them from the Red Sox. The Red Sox decided profit was number one. The Dodgers decided winning is number one.

And, I mean, look at Netflix. Netflix didn't even care the first decade about profits. Netflix was setting a standard. So when you thought of streaming excellence, consistently, they had at least stand-up doubles with a lot of triples and home runs. Not a lot of singles in the first 10 years. They were losing money. Their production costs were $8, $9 billion as they were growing.

But Netflix wasn't just about profits. That wasn't it. They were building a brand. So now when you think streaming in quality, I think Netflix. They didn't go cheap, right? The valuation now is much better. Amazon didn't make a profit for 21 years. Jeff Bezos was building a brand,

delivering what you needed as quickly as possible. It was not about profits. And so the Dodgers, yeah, they make a lot of money. So are the Yankees. But they pour it back into research and development and scouting and their pitching staff. So when you think of winning in baseball in class, the Dodgers pay their announcers a lot. They pay their scouts more.

And so when you think of class and winning in baseball, announce her down. It's like, oh, Dodgers. It just, I mean, they don't need to upgrade their stadium. They upgraded their press box several years ago. Who cares, right? Because it was the Dodgers. We're going to be classy.

We're going to have the nicest stuff. So when you think of them, I mean, I think of the Dodgers, it's not just winning World Series titles. Because for about a 10-year stretch, they were spending money, and they weren't winning a lot of those. So Manny Machado, who you? to be a Dodger, has every reason to hate the Dodgers, it now plays for the Padres the Dodgers rivalry says, I love the Dodgers.

I love it. I mean, honestly, I think every team should be doing it. You know, they figured out a way to do it and, you know, it's f***ed way for the game, honestly. So I think every team, every team has the ability to do it. So, you know, I hope, you know, all 30 teams could learn from that. For the record, the Dodgers valuation increased like 20 to 25% last year alone. Why? Because they won again.

They've done the Netflix. We're not just sitting here looking about profits and handing out dividend checks. We are creating a massive brand. We are building an alliance and a loyalty in Southern California and nationally. So when you think of winning classy baseball 30 years from now, even if the Dodgers have only won two or three World Series in that time. You think, well, the Dodgers are class. That's how you do it.

Chicago Bulls are into profit, right? There are certain organizations that make a lot of, the Bulls sell out, they got a massive arena. They don't care about winning. They like the profit. And I'm a seasoned digger holder. Do I really feel like they are all in on? No.

But what's remarkable, because of MJ, they still sell out the games. MJ alone for a six, seven, eight year period, created this brand with the Bulls. Everybody in the city is a Bulls fan. They won in years. That's what the Dodgers are doing. If they have a rough stretch for four or five years, you'll still go to the stadium.

So Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. Love what the Dodgers are doing. Colin, they're just saying that because they want to get paid. Now, they want to win games too. You see, you watch games, you watch the World Series, you watch how much this stuff matter. It's not, they're all rich. They've all been rich forever.

They're all worth 300, 400, 500, 500 million. They want to win games. They want to have good teammates. They want to be surrounded by good players. So I finally, finally, you know, I love Fernando Mendoza, number one in the draft going to the Raiders, Indiana, who's your quarterback? I've been pushing back all these scouts I know calling him stiff. It's not a very good athlete.

I don't know. It doesn't affect his play. Here's a red flag that I actually do buy into. This is kind of interesting. Next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. Fox Sports Radio is taking over YouTube and you can be a part of it.

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We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called. Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

First people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. 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.

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. We 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 Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, N.L'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 I-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam, it's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before.

And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us

on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that,

Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be

be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, season two goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies.

We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Giamanka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad. But secretly, he became someone else, a master of discharacter.

guys who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy, but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong on what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happened? when you discover that your dad has been living a double life. That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue.

Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know I love Fernando Mendoza, who will be the number one pick of the race. and we did this when Andrew Luck came out, and I do not think Mendoza is as good as Andrew Luck or at John L.A. as a prospector, Caleb Williams. He's not that good. I think he's really good. I think he's better than, you know, all the scouts are telling me stiff, and he's not very athletic. And I'm like, I watched him. I got the numbers right in front of me against Ohio State, Bama, Oregon, and Miami. He was highly efficient, nine TDs one picked and moved very well in the

Miami game. I think he's great. But I'm not rigid. I'm going to listen. to criticisms. I just don't buy any of them so far until today. This one feels legitimate. There's an NFL analyst who calls something pressure to sack rate. And how many negative plays do you have? How long do you hold the ball? And if you look at last year in the NFL who had a really bad or really high pressure to sack rate, it was Gino Smith, J.J. McCarthy, and Shadur Sanders. And Cam Ward. Okay? And he has Mendoza's pressure to sac rate the same as Justin Fields. And what have we said about Justin Fields? He doesn't see the field very well, holds the ball too long.

Now, Justin Fields is hyperathletic, and he still has negative plays. So I look at Caleb Williams, his first year, hit all sorts of sacks in negative plays. Why would that be? Because his coach stunk. So I don't worry about Fernando Mendoza. I worry about the Raiders as his parent in this league. Bad O'Line, even if Clint Kubiak's a good coach, who'd be probably the fourth best coach in his division, ownership is impulsive and ridiculously impatient.

I don't have a Mendoza issue. I have a Mendoza to the Raiders issue. You just have to remember how this works. Joe Burroughs unbelievable. He may be the best third and fourth down quarterback we've had in the decade. He can't make the playoffs because the parent, the kid is limited. You've all seen this before when you were a kid growing up and you had a buddy and you just knew his parents were a mess. The kid ends up being a mess.

No matter how hopeful and optimistic you are about a kid, the parents control a lot, zero to 21. Bad habits are formed from parents. Kids watch. So as good as the quarterback hit, Trevor Lawrence, until he gets Liam Cohen. You're like, I was a huge Trevor Lawrence fan. And I don't like him anymore. Then he gets Liam Cohen. I'm like, I love this guy.

Okay. So who picks you matters a lot. I think it's an interesting red flag. You know, look at a lot of the quarterbacks that succeeded. Dak Prescott. You say, well, I mean, the Cowboys don't win Super Bowls. Before he got there, Jason Garrett, Tony Romo were making the playoffs. I mean, Kansas City.

Alex Smith, before Mahomes got there, making the playoffs. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore, winning organization. Josh Allen Buffalo. Tyrod Taylor made the playoffs before he got there. So obviously Tyrod Taylor's not Josh Allen, but there is, is it just a coincidence that Caleb Williams suddenly is the leading candidate next year for the MVP race?

He wasn't with Iber flus. He is with Ben Johnson. And I still don't know if I like the ownership of the Bears or everything that's upstairs with the Bears. But so I think this, because here's, the thing. Caleb may have struggled, but Caleb's an insane athlete. Right? Mendoza, and I would admit this, is not even an Andrew Luck athlete.

Here is Daniel Jeremiah, the former scout, comparing him to Drake May. I had it, Caleb, Drake, Jaden Daniels. All three of those guys would carry a higher grade than Mendoza. But in this draft class, there's nobody else that I would put, you know, up there at other positions higher than the level that he's at. I don't think he's as natural as Drake. Drake's just, it was so athletic. I think he's a little more robotic is the way I would describe Mendoza. But as analyst says,

Mendoza's propensity to take negative plays, hold on to the ball long, take more sacks, is in line with Justin Fields. Again, Justin Fields, I didn't really know what he was going to be. Mendoza, I feel much more positively, optimistically about, but it's something. That's a red flag. That's worth listening to. John Middlecock with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Okay, Colin, we have some breaking news. The future Hall of Famer, Tyreek Hill, has been released by the Miami Dolphins. Tyreek now becomes an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, but here's the problem.

if you forgot, he dislocated his knee and tore his ACL in late September, and I just read that he was able to walk for the first time without assistance about a week ago. So the Dolphins save a bunch of money. Tyreek status for 2006 is more than up in the air. What do you make of this move, Colin? Well, I think he's a great talent. I don't know if he's a winning player. I think it can somewhat combustible, taking shots at people.

I always think Tyreeks just, Kansas City said, we love you, we're moving off you, and they won back-to-back Super Bowls, right? Like without this speed demon on the outside. He goes to Miami and he and Tua had issues and he had some off-the-field stuff. So I think he's a really talented guy. He's probably going to make the Hall of Fame. But I've never thought the Miami architecture John made sense to me, which is let's give Tua a bunch of money.

He doesn't have a big arm. He has health concern. and let's load the roster with the fastest receiver group in the league. Well, in the AFC, you can't throw the ball downfield in January often because Baltimore weather, Kansas City weather. So I never, the whole build by Miami and Chris Greer, I never liked any of it. But I agree with Miami. I would keep two of for the one more year, big fat contract.

I think moving off him's the right move. Yeah, I mean, I think two things can be true. He was a winning player because they won a Super Bowl with him in 2019. he had the big catch against the 49ers. But when they pivoted and traded for him, they kind of proved defense wins championships. They trade, they get McDuffey, Carloftus, and they kind of built their team,

less around speed and more around toughness. And then they won back-to-back championships and had a chance to win a third. So Miami, it felt like was a little desperate when they made the trade with Mike McDaniel. He was very productive for them, but they have nothing to show for in terms of big wins in the playoffs. Here's another story that,

The just won't go away. Big Ben and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh, boy. Last week, Joey Porter criticized Ben and their time together in Pittsburgh. Well, another Steelers legend is jumping into the fray. Former Senator Marquise Pouncey, he's taking Instagram to defend his quarterback. He said it's unbelievable the hate I'm seeing from people inside the family, especially when we all, you know, get away from it.

If you're against Big Ben, bleep you, you're against me. out is a disease. One thing's pretty clear. Tomlin walking away from this situation, a lot of noise around the Steelers. I don't know about you, Colin. I know a lot of people criticize the McCarthy hire. I think this is not an easy job given the magnifying glass that's on this franchise and just the stuff around the edges when it comes to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, it also shows you there was a divide with Tomlin even when he was there, but people were reluctant to discuss it why Mike was the coach and still had power. The minute he leaves, there's a pro-Tomlin group, there's an anti-Tomlin group.

And I imagine for the last seven or eight years, that probably existed inside the building as well. When people leave, the truth comes out. Like Tomlin's out of the building, he doesn't have the power. So now people feel like they can be honest about. So what Pouncey's saying is, Big Ben's right on this stuff. And now the other guy, Harrison, James Harrison's like, yeah, Big Ben makes points. Then there's these other guys saying Joey Porter, senior, saying, now, this is bad news. So I think this was a little bit of a divided locker room at times.

There was a pro-Tomlin faction and a little bit of an anti-Tomlin faction. They liked Mike, but the team's been ridiculous offensively for like seven years. They can't figure it out. I also think quarterbacks, not every guy is Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Philip Rivers, beloved by everyone in the locker room. Some guys can be a little polarizing. Ben, you know, kind of fell under that umbrella. but the reality is you don't win anything without a good quarterback.

Look at the Steelers. As Ben got old, they fell apart. And over the last five or six years, they didn't have a chance. So the Tomlin divorce, the Ben kind of the shadow of Ben has been something that the Steelers have been chasing for a long time. Last but not least, when John Harbaugh took over the New York Giants, there were a lot of questions about him and his future relationship with the GM Joe Shane. Yeah. And how would it work? Well, Shane even went as far to say, it does.

doesn't matter in terms of who has the power. Well, reports indicate that Shane has had, he's seen a shrinking role when it comes to power. And Harbaugh is basically handling all the scouting. What's your thoughts on? One takeaway I have with the Giants is they've always been a general manager run operation and the coach ran. It was a big change. There was a story I read this weekend that a big, you know, sticking point for John Harbaugh

was I need to go directly to the owner, right? That's who I answer to. I don't answer to the general manager, which makes sense. Here's the thing, though. When Andy Reid went to Kansas City, he said, I don't want anything to do with the players. I want a GM to run that part of it. Harbaugh's always had Ozzie Newsom and Eric DeCosta. I do think sometimes it can get a little out of whack when the coach has too much power.

And let's face it, Joe Shane hasn't done much to deserve the power. so I understand John Harbaugh going, I want to be the boss. I do think that's when you can make some poor decisions, though, when a head coach, especially a guy 63 years old, he sends a $100 million contract, you can make some decisions that are living more week to week than the big picture decisions that general managers are there to do. Yeah, I think there's a handful of coaches who are good with personnel.

Sean Payton's pretty good with it. He has a system, guys fit in, but they're more often than not, even the very good coaches. I remember when Holmgren was in Seattle. Mike's super smart, great coach. When he had a lot of power up there, I didn't like his draft picks at all. And they had some guys that missed.

It was like, I mean, Bill Belichick, college personnel, not good. Last six drafts, seven drafts when he was running the whole operation during the draft. Belichick couldn't draft. Offensive players, skill players. He was brutal.

So, yeah. John Middlokoff with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The herd-line news. So generally, if you limit pathways for people to make a really good living, they're going to do what they have to do to feed their kids, build their business. You know, you find cultures that where you get a lot of tax cheating.

It's often where there's a lot of regulations. Europe's got some of this grease for years. They had to use Google Maps to figure out who had nice homes and nice. pools because there were a lot of people in that culture that weren't paying their taxes. There was a lot of regulation. Europe's always had a lot of that. And so the reality is the NBA is really bummed out about tanking. Well, the NBA used to be a transactional league.

You could go trade for KD. You could go buy Shaq and make a huge trade. Adam Silver didn't like that. He thought the league was getting top heavy. And I like Adam Silver. But Adam Silver decided we're going to be a draft and develop league. That's more fair to the little guy. Okay, but you've cut off, it's a much harder cap now.

It used to be a soft cap. You could pay a luxury tax in San Francisco, Joe Lakeb. It's kind of a soft cap. So you could draft or develop or you could go trade four and make big swings. Adam Silver's NBA, it's a hard cap. The way to go from awful to great is the tank. That's it. Utah's tanking, they're going to get probably one of the top three picks

with the current roster they have, watch out for the Jazz next year. By the way, the Spurs for eight years had been in a rebuild. The first four or five, you know, after like Duncan Kauai, it was like, Damar DeRosen, we'll do this ethically, and they were absolutely

uninspiring and nobody watched. And then they decided about three years ago in San Antonio, let's tank. And they got Stefan Castle and Wembe. Now they're great. Because that's the pathway to be great. Detroit for years. They were in a rebuild forever.

And then they kind of tanked. They got C'd Cunningham and neither the number one seen in the east. Now, not everybody tanks. Oklahoma City, Sam Presti, they remained viable. Made a couple big deals like they got SGA from the Clippers.

But there's just not that many pathways. It's a harder cap. There's fewer loopholes. There's massive penalties now. All these aprons. So all these teams are like, It's different in the NFL. Coaching is so valuable in the NFL.

The Bears can go get Ben Johnson. The Patriots can go get Mike Frable. The Broncos can get Sean Payton. The next year, you're a different team. Two teams last year, the Jags and the Patriots tripled their wins. A couple teams, the Bears, the Niners doubled their wins. The year before it was the commanders. That happens all the time.

That happens all the time in the NFL. I'm on a four-year streak where I've picked two teams, every year to double their win total or more, I've gone like eight for eight next year to the New York Giants and probably Tennessee. If you get the right coach, but that's because football, the coach, college or pro,

has so much influence over the schemes. But in the basketball, Eric Spolster's not winning a lot now. Why? You know the guys. Can't make big trades. Pat Riley and Spolster. Golden State Warrior, Steve Kerr's brilliant, right?

The team's terrible. Why? Well, you can't make trades. It's very, very difficult. So the NFL makes trading very easy, and therefore it's the League of Hope. You can go from, I mean, the Washington Wizards have been unwatchable for how many years? It's been terrible forever. Bulls have been mediocre forever.

So I will say this. I say that I'm pro-tanking, but what I'm pro is the ability to get great. and how do you go from not good at all to great? Spurs get Wembe and Stefan Campbell Castle. Pistons get Cunningham. So don't be shocked if all these super smart GMs around the league and owners are like, let's tank. We'll pay the fines. That's glove compartment money.

They don't care. We'll gladly write the checks. Last year's draft and this year's draft are stacked. You've got to get a top five pick. Adam Silver addressing the tanking problem. The league is 80 years old. It's time to take a fresh look at this and to see whether that's an antiquated way of going about doing it.

We've got to look at some fresh thinking here. I mean, what we're doing, what we're seeing right now is not working. There's no question about it. Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we've seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view. Yeah. And so, you know, again, like I started this by saying, if, if, I mean, if you tell, I don't believe in crime, I don't commit a lot of crime. But if I didn't have a job and I couldn't make money and I had to feed my kids, I'd probably consider it.

That would be the only pathway to feed my kids, right? I would get that. I hope I am never there, but I would get that. The only pathway to go from unwatchable to great is currently tanking. So the league has made it so difficult with all these aprons to access quality players. You know, so, I mean, I own a team. I run a team. How else can I do it?

You tell me. And so I like Adam Silver. I think it is time to come up with different ways. Here's more Adam Silver. If you step back in the fundamental theory behind a draft is to help your worst performing team. restock and be able to compete. The issue is if teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks, even in a lottery, then the question becomes, even if teams were rewarded for draft picks,

purely according to the predicted odds of the lottery, are they really the worst performing teams? So it's a bit of a conundrum. Yes, it is. and my bottom line would be, stop making it so hard to trade for players. NFL makes it easy. The NFL, you can go from terrible to the Super Bowl in one year. A, coaching matters more in football,

get the right coach, Ben Johnson, Brable, Sean Payton, Liam Cohen, things change fast. But the second thing is, you know, you ever notice in the NFL? John, you know this. You ever notice this in the NFL? everybody kind of just the Eagles just figure out a way to work the cap like everybody always have available money it's like it used to be the NFL felt like it had a hard cap everybody

just kicked stuff down the road in the NFL if you want a player you find a player you can get a play in the Cowboys are a zillion dollars over the cap they'll figure out if they want to get ways Jerry Jones could do it in the NBA now it's really hard so it's like all right I own a team I run a team I just always feel like like in the NFL, the cap, it's kind of squishy. Can't hear, John. Do you have your mic on? They made it worse, Colin, when they waited the lottery. So if you were worse, you had a better chance.

When it was equal, the top 10, 12 teams or whatever, everyone, like, you weren't as incentivized to be as bad as the jazz are. But the jazz are incentivized to be the worst to give themselves the best possible chance with the most amount of the ping pong balls because you guarantee yourself a top, I think is a four pick. if you have the worst record where before you go from 10 to 1, no different than go to 3 to 1. And I think that's got out of whack because let's face it, the NFL, you can't really play 50%, right? If you're going to play a game, you've got to try.

In basketball, you can play pickup and not try, let alone these NBA guys. So I think Adam Silver is a problem on his hands and there's no easy answer to fix it. Yeah. I do think the playoffs will be really, really good. but I, you know, and you've only got two rounds. So the bottom line is in the NFL, you can manipulate it and get 12 or 13 picks if you make some trades. I mean, they got compensatory picks in the NBA. I've seen teams with 11 and 12 picks. You know, the NBA, you could say to yourself, we're going to take away draft picks.

Well, if you only get two a year and you take away one, you're taking away 50% of my draft picks, what am I going to do? The other problem, Colin, is we've seen teams recently tank and then it not worked. in their favor. The Wizards last year, the Nets. So you just have this product potentially for years on end, which is just horrendous for individual teams. And they never get a top pick and they never fix their problems. Yep. Good stuff. All right. Coming up, top of the hour, Colin right, calling right, calling wrong. Also, it's pretty clear what is happening with smaller quarterbacks in the league. And UCLA's basketball coach

takes a shot in the right direction. Next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news?

We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend.

but this one's extra special. So how do 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. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers.

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. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what.

He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid.

He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. But get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court,

licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, I said, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is.

Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is,

you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 goes deep on both of those things, the fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies. We contain essence. We contain spirit.

How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Giamanka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad. But secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went to.

on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. But I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No. I didn't want to manifest that.

I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that you, your dad has been living a double life. That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Sunday on Fox, the NASCAR Cup series, heads to Atlanta. Kyle Larson and the best of the best. take on Echo Park Speedway for some high speed chaos. Pre-race coverage begins at 2 Eastern with the green flag at 3, only on Fox. So I said this earlier. So Bryce Harper, who competes against the Dodgers, and Manny Machado, the former Dodger, who now plays for the rival Podres,

both came out this weekend and say, yeah, I think the Dodgers are great for baseball. They spend money on the roster. So I know everybody can say, well, of course, Colin. Players are for that. It's not just players. Now owner Steve Cohen of the Mets also admires what the Dodgers are doing. Listen. They're formidable, right?

I mean, they have the ability to spend. So do I, by the way. And, you know, they've built a great team. But I think we've built a great team. team. And I think we're going to be really competitive this year. And the goal is to meet him somewhere along the way in the playoffs. So a rival owner have no problem with the Dodgers. They're not ruining baseball.

Rival players, even one that used to be a former Dodger, they let him go to San Diego. He's like, yeah, I think they're doing great for baseball. Baseball teams make a lot of money. They have 82 home games. We're 81 home games. All right, baseball team's doing fine. You got to spend the money and not just work. about profits. The Red Sox started worrying a lot about profits and let Mookie Betts go. Dodgers didn't

take Mookie Betts from the Pirates, the Mariners, or the A's. They took them for, Freddie Freeman was a brave. Atlanta Braves didn't want to pay him. The Dodgers said, okay, we will. Braves are a very well-capitalized organization. There are a lot of, if you're ever in the South, SEC football hats and Atlanta Braves hats, it's everywhere. Hugely popular franchise. So, you know, this just goes back to something. I've been preaching. And let me throw this. I have another theory on this.

So obviously, sports ratings are going up because of the new rating system. Olympics, World Cup, football has an advantage. It's once a week. And as we're a busier, more distracted of society, it's easier to sell people on an every four-year event, the Olympics of the World Cup, or like one game a week. but in baseball hockey and basketball, where you have long seasons and a more distracted populace than you did 15, 20 years ago, the TikToks and the Instagrams and all the streaming,

the one sport that isn't losing sleep on a dynasty is baseball. And what do you know? They're having a renaissance in ratings and attendance. So I would argue what Adam Silver is doing does not work in this day and age. We have something called attention economy. There's literally an attention economy. You can make millions of dollars if you're an individual

or billions as a company getting attention. Well, it's harder to get attention. There's more rivals, more platforms, people are more distracted. So baseball doesn't really care as it's having a renaissance about everybody can win. Baseball's like, now, Yankees, mats, the Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, Padres. It was about seven or eight franchise. They've got more money.

They're having a ratings renaissance. They're having an attendance renaissance. I mean, I would argue NASCAR would be better served if Michael Jordan's team won 50 straight races. Honestly, I mean, it was the last time. Oh, Michael Jordan's team. In a more distracted era, dynasties are incredibly valuable. incredibly valuable.

Parity is rough. Hockey loves parity. How's that working out for you? NBA loves parity. You can't make trades. You go from bad to bad to bad unless you tank. So just throwing it out there as everybody said the Dodgers are ruining baseball. We have an owner and multiple rival players saying, no, they're not.

They got a great team. Fun to watch play. Well, right. I had dinner not long ago with the Cubs owners. Tom Ricketts. His concern is creating more revenue so we can get more good players. He was an admiration of what the Dodgers were doing.

He's like, they're well run. They don't waste money. They make a lot of it, but they don't waste any of it. Albert Breers coming up. I saw this. So Tyreek Hill, dolphins are moving off him. They're getting very close to a decision on Tua. I do think it's interesting.

it's possible the dolphins will move off Tua and Arizona will move off Kyler Murray and can we now definitively say Russell Wilson got a lot of guys drafted that were undersized

what's happening with all these undersized guy? Tua's hurt Kiders hurt Bryce Young hurt Brock Pertty hurt previous two years Jalen Hertz was banged up I look at Tua

and Kyler Murray. And by the way, Dolphins still owe a lot of money and they may still let him go. I'd keep him. Arizona still owes Kyler Murray a lot of money. I'd probably let him go because of the owner, player relationship feels toxic.

But I think can we definitively say now, go look at the quarterbacks. Smaller quarterbacks, there was a cycle. And again, it's a kind of a copycat league. Here's the final four quarterbacks playing in the NFL this year. 6-5 Drake May, 6-3 Sam Darnold, 6-4 Matt Stafford, and 6-2-bonics.

And people say, well, Caleb Williams only 6-1. Caleb Williams has 6-6 horsepower. He's arguably got the best arm along with Josh Allen in the league. And his horsepower is of a 6-foot-5 guy. So I can live with 6-foot-1 or 6-5-5 with Caleb Williams. His V8 engine is the best in the sport right now, alongside or even better than Josh Allen in terms of power, athletic ability, arm. But we had this kind of cycle of Russell Wilson for a decade's really good. And everybody's like, oh, yeah, we can do it with small guys. Think about this. Philip Rivers, who's 6-5 and 255 plus, comes back to the league on the couch for four years. He was the 32nd most athletic starting quarterback when he left. Comes back. He's heavier.

out of shape and yet can move the chains. Big strong quarterbacks work. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. 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 Smigel 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 Smygel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcasts presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet.

Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school. Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks.

Why did you get hard salsa or? Instead of beer. Oh, they hit a bogo. Well, then you got it. Listen to soccer moms on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano.

It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was probably. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come in.

He's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.