The Kevin Sheehan Show - 2010 "Sports Fix" Drama

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Kevin and Thom today re-living the time Kevin nearly got canned by bashing the Donovan McNabb trade to the Redskins. Plenty on the Commanders, Wizards, the UNC hoops hire, and more.   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match Our listeners get the Harry’s Plus Trial Set for only $10 at https://www.Harrys.com/[INSERT CODE]  #Harryspod For all your garden needs: fastgrowingtrees.com/sheehan Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Chean Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show's presenting sponsor is always Window Nation.

86690 Nation, Window Nation.com if you need new windows. Tommy, this from Arch to open up the show. Arch writes, Kevin, ask Tom who we would have wanted on the show with him, had you been fired after the McNabb-Trade ESPN appearance. So do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. What am I talking about? Yes, I do.

You're talking about when you made an appearance on ESPN after the McNabb trade. Right. And you gave a very reasonable, honest new point. And that viewpoint was not appreciated by the people at Redskins Park, which we forgot from time to time owned our radio station. Right, so did you hear me talk about it? Did you listen to the podcast the other day?

No, I didn't. Oh, so you legitimately remembered that? Usually you remember only things that you were involved in. I know. I know. But maybe you remembered this because you were hopeful of maybe I would get fired and you'd be able to pick my replacement to do the show with you.

So let me just real quickly before you answer the question. Why? What? Like a general manager, I had a list of candidates I carried around my wallet. Just in case. The just in case list. Yes. Look, I think it was more likely that you were going to get canned based on something you said

than something I said. For those that have no idea what we're talking about, I told this story on the podcast yesterday or the day before, I think it was Monday, that I said. I saw this tweet from pro football talk reminding everybody that 16 years ago Easter Sunday, Washington traded for Donovan McNabb. And that particular night I was at Easter dinner, at my in-laws, we're having Easter dinner. And I got a call or a text from ESPN News saying, you know, would you come down and join the show to talk about the trade? And so I did, and I said, I know everybody's excited about it, but for me, the immediate reaction I had is, why would Philadelphia trade a viable starting quarterback to a team in their own division? To me, that's a major red flag.

And, you know, that's my first reaction to it. That was pretty much, I think, anybody's reaction to it except for Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen's reaction. and they were not happy and Dan in particular happened to have been watching he wanted to see the coverage I guess of how pumped up people would be and hey the skins pulled off

a great trade and there is somebody from the radio station that his company owns just basically you know dousing it with negativity and I got a call from Bruce Gilbert

on my drive back from that thing saying what did you say and I told them what I said. And I never really heard another thing about it. But for that night, I was pretty sure there was a chance that I may not be back or that my contract wouldn't be renewed when it came up. But Bruce just called me back and said, I took care of it. It's all fine.

And, you know, the next morning. And that was it. And I said, well, what did you say? And he said, I'm not going to get into what I said. But Bruce, you know, I said this about him the other day. He really was one of the only people we ever had in that building in a leadership capacity that was actually a normal human being with a brain. Yes.

Right? He was. Yes, he was. He wasn't one of these guys who got the job because he was the last guy in the room. Right. Yeah, we had a couple of those. Yes. So, Arch listened to me tell this story the other day.

So ask Tom, who would he have wanted to replace me and be your co-host on the sports fix? Had that been my last day? Who was on your list? I never thought about that. I didn't have a list. You just said you had a list. I mean, that was, what was that? 2010?

Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Look, at that point, I was still kind of thinking, I can't believe I'm doing this, you know? I mean, so I wasn't really in a situation where I didn't know the radio business still. I only have been on since, I mean, I've been on part-time for about 10 years,

but it wasn't like being there full-time, which we started in August of 2009, I think. And so I don't have been on not that long, six months maybe. you know, seven months. So I didn't really think I was ever in a position of thing. You know, I probably thought, well, who would they stick me with? But, you know, you shielded me from a lot of stuff. I didn't really know how bad things could have gotten, maybe. I don't think I shielded you from anything.

Well, I don't really have a sense of, wow, we're in trouble now when you said that. You know, did you feel that? No. What, you mean the show? Like, was it ever in trouble? Yeah. No, because we really came out of the gate swinging. And the show did, I don't know how it did well, but it did very well.

I think we benefited from the time slot. But, you know, there was a stretch there of three or four years. Oh, I know that. years where the show rated very, very highly with the key demographic, which was men 25 to 54. And there was... We got numbers that no one had ever seen before. Yeah, not in that time slot. Yeah, for sports.

But no, no, I don't, I never shielded. Look, you know what? The bottom line is, I, for me, remember, this was kind of, you know, now I had been in it for a while at that point. I'd been in it for six years, seven years or whatever. And I'd done the show with Riggins for two years. And I never felt like, you know, every day was going to be my last, even though I lived that way. Remember my office, I didn't keep much in it. My office was sparse compared to yours.

But, no, I just, I, once you and I started to do it, I was like, this is the right show. I always felt that. I don't think you felt that necessarily from the beginning. I think it was, I was an acquired taste for you, but I always felt. Well, no, here's what it was. What? I wasn't, I mean, I was a newspaper guy doing a sports talk radio show. Yeah.

And it took me a while to become a radio guy. Okay. So like when I would think, like, I'd want to have certain guests on or do certain things, I wasn't really thinking in terms of, well, you know, who's, no one's going to listen to that. I was thinking in terms of, well, that's a good, that's a good guess, where that's a good story. We should talk about that. Right. You know, I wasn't, I didn't know.

Well, I mean, you had done radio, though. I mean, you'd been on. Yeah, but I just floated in, did my thing, and floated out. Did you? I've always been a guy who didn't really want to know how the sausage was made. Always, because I used to be part of making the sausage in a newspaper business for a while, and I had my fill of it. Yeah, you loved being on Laverro Island, just kind of coming in, doing the show, and then leaving.

You were like Kornheiser. That's right. You were like Tony, basically. You came. It's not as much. You would hang around a little bit. Yeah. But, yeah.

So I really, in the beginning, I had more of a newspaper man's sensibility. so I really didn't understand the industry like you did and once I got you know once I figured that out then you know it was smooth sale there to that look I was still trying to figure it out at that point too um but uh what you didn't have and I don't think you did you didn't have the you know the journalism you know snobbery about sports talk radio. You know what I'm talking about. A lot of the, you know, legitimate reporters for newspapers in town, they, you know, even Tony did it, even though he was a radio star, you know, but there was always this kind of, you know, haughty-ta-y, we are actually intelligent, you know, evolved human

beings, this is the low end of sports broadcasting right here. Sports talk. Well, you know, I mean, a big part of that was you were dealing with post guys, and it's in their blood to be snobby. There was a lot of that. There was not all of them, but, but yeah, there was some of them. And, you know, that continued for a long time, I might want to point out. So, I mean, you're dealing with the post people, of course.

Right. Remember when the post went into the radio business? No. They bought $1,500 and they did post radio. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was all... Yes.

Well, actually, didn't they put Tony's show on TOP for a while? Yeah. Yeah, right. Yes. Right, because that's when I was on Tony's show and then I couldn't do it anymore because he moved it to TOP. Yeah. Yeah. They did that.

I think for about two years, and I guess that bomb, that didn't work out for him, and then they got out in a radio business. Right. But so, yeah, I think it was more the clientele you were dealing with in the actual profession. Right. There's, there are a couple people that I would have suggested for you, which would have driven you nuts. Okay. But we'll leave those names to the side.

The biggest one was I would have, I'd been on with Andy and Steve. Right, of course. For years. Right. And Andy is a great, great partner. Yeah. You know? So I've got to say, well, you know, let Andy do this.

Let Andy do this and the afternoon show. And Andy would have done it. Of course he would have. Of course he would have. You know, look, Andy, doing the Monday morning quarterback show with Andy for, you know, five years, six years, whatever we did it for. That was so much fun for me because I didn't have to lead the show. I didn't have to play, you know, what people describe in radio as, you know, you're the traffic

cop. And that was great because Andy's phenomenal at that. All right, we can move on to this next one. I want to read this from Frank L. This is email day here on Thursday to open up the show. Frank L writes, I love the show and have listened to all. all the way back to the sports fix days. So I'm sure you can figure out that my favorite days are when Tom is on the show.

My question for both of you is, why don't you have guests on the show that you can interview together like you did when you were on radio? When you guys tag teamed interviews, nobody, but maybe Tony, came close to the interviews you guys did. Well, Frank, that's very nice and quite the compliment. but we have done it before, but not very often at all. We haven't done it in a long time, in part because we only do an hour to an hour and a half together every day on the podcast.

We had three hours of radio. Yes, no, two hours. Oh, that's right. It was a two-hour show. I stand corrected. Yeah. It's a thing like three hours. What a gig.

What a gig that was. That was the easiest ever. The easiest ever. Two hours with a co-ho. Now, we often did four hours when Tony was out, you know, and he was out often in the summer. Yeah. So we would often do 10 to 2. Yeah, we did 10 to 2 a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I mean... Isn't there a logistics issue with having to get to? No.

No? No? No. Put a guest on. We've done it before. I just never think about it. I literally cancel out in my mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays having a guest on. And I guess I shouldn't.

It's a good point that, you know, if, but here's the thing. We're not going to put on, you know, like a beat reporter to talk about, you know, one of the teams. I mean, it would be something more interesting than that. I'll think about that, though. But yeah, of course we can do it. But the reason that we don't do it is we don't, we haven't needed it, A, B, is we do an hour and 15 minutes of content. It's not, you know, it's not a radio show every day where sometimes you need a guest to help you with, you know, further a subject or a topic. Or it's a good guest just to have on to have a conversation with.

I don't know. I'll think about it, Frank. Tommy will think about it too. No, I won't. Yeah, he won't. I won't. This from Daryl, who says he wrote a review on Apple, Tom's snorts and Kevin's scenarios.

He put that in, spelled it out phonetically in capital letters. Make this show a must listen. This was his Apple review. People, you can write a quick Apple review for us, and that would help us. But rating the show and following the show is a tremendous help. So if you get an opportunity to rate the show or review the show on Apple and Spotify in particular, it really doesn't take more than a few seconds to give the show five stars if you think it deserves it.

That's the best case for us, obviously. Write a quick review on Apple. Follow the show as well. Hit the plus button and the follow button. So Daryl writes, he says he wrote a review on Apple. Tom snorts, yes, I get that from people. You occasionally snort and make some odd noises. and Kevin's scenarios make this show a must listen.

Just wish they would spend more time talking about the team's pathetic name. I really think you both could be doing more to push Josh Harrison ownership to do something more dramatic than just change the uniforms. I'm always listening. Kevin, keep picking winners. You've paid for my beach vacation props. Whoa. Yeah. Well, thank you, dear. Look at that.

Yeah. I don't know what kind of beach vacation you're taking. I don't know if you're driving, flying, or what, but glad to help out. Yeah. You know, I get this a lot on social media. I get this a ton. You get it both ways, though, don't you? You hear from people who think you should never talk about the name.

Well, not as, no. I mean, I do, and I love reading those because they're so pathetic. But I get so much. I get so many more people, especially over the last two years, who say, I'm not doing enough. You should be doing more. You should be more passionate about this. You should be pushing ownership to do this. You and, you know, it's always like a list of me and Galdi and Zabe and, you know, the junkies and whatever.

You know, JP. But I get this from a lot of people that just say, you should be doing more. to push ownership in the direction that we all want. I've said this a million times. I don't think the old name's coming back. The rest of it has actually gotten a bit boring for me and tedious to talk about. Of course, I'm passionate about how I feel not having as much passion. That bothers me, but it's the way I feel.

But that was building even before the name was lost with the losing and the shenanigans of the Snyder regime. When the name was lost, that was a death knell in many ways for so many of us. I'm glad they're going back to the old uniforms. I think it's something that they really needed to do, and it was something that they could do. And so I'm glad they're doing it because I think it'll feel like the old team when we're watching it on Sunday. But yeah, I'm not leading some sort of activist, you know, cause here. It's not, I would have, maybe I would have felt differently five years ago. Well, that's when the name changed.

We're coming up on six years, believe it or not. Six years. Yeah, I know. You know what? But what would be more important at this point for some people? for the team to, let's say, do well enough to make it back to an NFC title game or the name. Oh, the name. I mean, we've talked about this before.

Really? Well, I mean, look at what we got? I mean, what are we talking about here? It's the name of the team. The team exists to play and win. Yeah. That should be the primary focus. Yeah, it's not, though.

You know it's not. I mean, it's funny because... Well, there's no point in you leading a mentally deranged parade down the street. Yeah. Well, people feel like it was changed during a time in which a lot of things were getting changed that look kind of silly, you know, five, six years down the road. A lot of people believe that the new name was Snyder's last, you know, Salvo, which I don't actually agree with. And they want it back.

I just don't think that name's ever coming back. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. And I still think doing something about the current name would be better than doing nothing. But I don't know that I have all the information to be able to feel super strongly about that. I talked about this the other day, actually, and I'm just trying to find the email that the dude wrote to me. You know, I do agree that I think they can do better than commanders.

Yeah. But I'm not sure how much better. And I'm not sure that any, I think the team has adopted the philosophy. Any energy they devote to the name. or anything to suggest that they're not happy with the name, just keeps the issue alive. They just wish it would go away. Well, look, I mean, changing the uniforms and teasing things about the logo and the spear out there.

And what, you know, this next, a week from yesterday, Wednesday, it's on April 15th next week, they're going to, you know, unveil this surprise on the uniforms. And Josh Harris alluded to not giving away some of the other surprises. So, you know, they're keeping it there. Like I said last week, if you look at the team's Twitter account, X account, nothing generates the response. Nothing generates the view counts that anything about the name or the brand does from the team. Nothing. I mean, last week when they put that news out about April 15th, new uniforms coming or two weeks ago now,

it had like 2.5 million views. Like their average view count is like 30,000. Like the most I could find in the last two months was an Adafay-O-A video that had like 650,000 views. Nothing generates the kind of response that the name and the brand generates from anybody, really. But I read this the other day. I got it from Ted. Ted wrote, Kevin, why so salty towards those of us who like the name? We're just as passionate about our position as you are yours.

And did you forget the Washington Post poll from last year? And he linked me to the post poll, which came out, Tommy, in May of 2025, where the percent of people who responded that they either liked or loved the commander's team name had risen from 34 percent the year before in a percent. of 2024 to 50% in May of 2025. We did a whole show on this a year ago. And my number one reaction was, you're telling me that after the season they just had,

where they won 14 games and nearly made the Super Bowl, it's still only 50%. There have to be some people that are disappointed. And we saw kind of an offseason where they did not get the bounce that they were looking for. And I suggested, I suggested to Ted, try running that poll right now. And maybe they will, like after the season they just had.

And see, Tommy, I don't know, and I said this the other day, I don't have one person in my life, friends, family, anybody else that likes the team name. I don't know of one person that does. So 50% is a much higher number than I would guess. but in the wake of where everybody said, not everybody, where a lot of people said, all they got to do, man, is win. Once they win and they've got an exciting quarterback, everybody's coming back and everybody will be fine with the team name.

Well, they weren't. Half of the people still said, you know, something less than liked or loved it. And I'm not salty at all towards people who, you know, like the name. I'm salty towards the people who lecture people like me, about the name issue is a non-issue, stop talking about it. Well, according to our guy that just emailed us, hold on, let me just pull up that email from Darrell.

I don't do enough about the team name, and I get that a lot more than you're doing, you know, stop talking about it. But whatever. I'm going to keep picking winners, Darrell. I'm going to, that's my number one goal right now, keep picking winners. And... Kevin's goal right now is your vacation next year, Darrell.

And I do want the team to do well. It's much better for us when the team does well. And I still, I did get some vibes last year in 2024. It was fun to see Washington, you know, in a major marquee spot like they were for a couple of weeks there. You know, being down to the final four years. teams that hadn't happened in 33 years. So it's not that I am not a fan of the team. I am a fan of the team. It's just that my levels of fandom have dropped. Maybe they would have anyway, you know, and it's just a sign of age. But I don't think so because when they were the Redskins, I knew a lot of

old people that lived and died with everything they did, which is what I did as a younger person. but yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not pushing. I've had conversations. Let me just say this, Daryl. I have had conversations with people in places that matter in the organization since the new group came in. I have mentioned that, you know, I've been asked. What do you think the number one issue is? Name and, you know, and their brand.

You've got to get, you got to get people emotionally attack. again. They're detached because, you know, that was a major shift in brand. And that's why I've said all along. I know they know it's an issue. I've been told that many times. They know how big of an issue is. It is it's just that there's not a lot they can do other than what they're doing right now, which is changing the uniforms. I'd like to see them at least bring back the old logo. I'd love to see that. All right, enough name talk. This from Reed. Reed writes, looking forward to Tom's annual anti-golf rant. The sport for kings

has produced nothing but blue-collar winners at the Masters the past few years. Let them know, Kev. I don't know if this is the time of year that you do your anti-annual golf rant, you know, the day before the Masters begins. It might be. I don't know. You do that rant once a year,

the thing where you say that, you know, only the privileged, you know, and the country club people play golf. Yeah. Yeah, well, with this truth, But, Kevin, why don't you give me the list of working-class heroes in golf right there? Well, Rory McElroy came from a very blue collar. He's Irish. His father was a custodian.

He's Irish. That doesn't count. Well, you know what, to be honest with you, I didn't even look at the list of Masters winners that he's talking about. So let me just see who the previous winners were. Rory last year, Schaeffler, no. Rom, yes, Schaeffler. I don't know about Hedecki. DJ, Tiger,

Patrick Reed, I think, certainly. Sergio. I don't know. Working class heroes, all of them. Yeah, well, I think he's really referring to Rory and Rory's upbringing,

which was, you know, the working, he was working class family. You know, I like Rory. I'm rooting for Rory. Last year was fun to watch him

win that. That was dramatic. Yeah, I like Rory McElroy. He's a little guy, you know that, right? He's all like 5-8-5-9. A lot of these guys are... That's the beauty of golf. Yeah.

Little guys, big guys. Right. You know, anyone can play men, women, children. Yeah. It's a wonderful game. Any socioeconomic background as well. It's available to everybody. That's the beauty of the sport now.

There's golf clubs on every corner for them to use and places and golf courses everywhere where they can just walk on and play. Well, that is true. I'm glad you finally come to realize there are many more public courses than private courses. I don't see. I didn't say it was inexpensive, but it's certainly accessible and not as expensive as you've made it out to be. Not as high brow

and blue blood as you've made it out to be. Oh, it is. This always bothers me because so many of your friends have told me this too. Like, whenever this conversation comes up, you know, a lot of the guys associated with your event will

text me and say, this is the biggest disconnect for me. This is a guy who loves smoking cigars, loves drinking a beer, and loves being driven around in things like golf carts. It's the perfect sport for him, where it's just a bunch of guys having a great time

drinking beers, smoking cigars, and hitting a little white ball occasionally. And you know what? There is some truth to that. That sometimes the actual hitting of the golf ball is sidebar to the camaraderie of it and the fun of it, of hanging out and drinking some beers and smoking some cigars. You'd love it. But, you know, once you've got your mind made up, that's it.

Well, it's my mind. You know, I can't escape it. As much as I might try, I can't escape the thought process that comes to these conclude. Look, I have a certain philosophy that things I thought when I was 18, a lot of them are still right, and Alps is one of them. Tom, Tom's still in his 18-year-old mind. wish he was in his 18-year-old body.

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You make the call. But I promise you if you decide to move forward with Wind It will work out. Just mention that you are a listener to this show and they'll take really good care of you. 86690 Nation window nation.com. Tommy did not talk about this, or maybe I mentioned it on yesterday's podcast, but the wizard secured with their loss the other night to the Chicago Bulls, a bottom four position, meaning a protected draft pick. They did their job this year.

They tanked beautifully. I mean, do you know that right now they are in the midst of 23 losses in 24 games? You know, there was a stretch there where they were playing some pretty good basketball, and they were kind of threatening this whole thing. But, you know, they had this 16 game losing Skid, and now they are in the midst of a 7 game losing Skid, 23 of 24. And really none of them, you know, with the exception of like an overtime lost Orlando, almost all of them have been, you know, non-competitive losses.

But they're in position now to be in that draft lottery, which will come in May. And it's going to be a big one because this really is thought to be one of the deeper, you know, when I say deeper drafts, deeper in terms of potential major, contributing players in like the top 10 to 12. Like there's a real strong feeling that there are 10 or 12 guys in this, you know, NBA draft in June that are going to be really good players. My belief is I'm not sure there's going to be a Cooper flag or certainly not a Victor Wembeenjama, but there's going to be a player that ends up being, you know,

they're going to be players, plural, that end up being all-stars. and they're going to have a shot at one of them. And this is what they've been, you know, this is what they've been lifting all them weights for, as Parcells once said. I mean, this is the opportunity that, you know, they've waited for. They've drafted pretty well with all the picks they've had. They've got some young players that really look like they, you know, may not be superstar, superstars, but good players.

Alex Sar's got a lot of promise. I'm a big fan of Will Riley and, Tray Johnson and the way they played this year. But we're not going to know a lot until they start playing real games that matter, which will be next year. But, yeah, this is going to be a big draft. And they put themselves into position to pick there, because that would have been an all-time organizational blunder

had they won too many games. But clearly there was no threat of that. Well, you know, the one thing the Wizards can do well is lose. They've done that well. Yes. They can do that well. Okay, don't you think, look, I'm not saying they had much choice. You know, they didn't.

They put themselves in a position as an organization to have to suffer through this. Okay, and they should issue an apology over the public address system in the arena before every game when they take the court. You know, we're sorry, we have to do this. Okay, but enjoy the game. And here's, you know, break out your credit card for another $25 beer. You know, but they had to do this, okay. But isn't there a risk of damage from losing so much on young players? That's different than how you started this.

I'll answer that in a moment. The thing that you are suggesting as it relates to the fans assumes that the fans want them to win. And I'm a fan of the team and I haven't wanted them to win. I've wanted them to do what they've been doing. And it's painful and you check out much more than you've ever done before because it's like, hey, I know what they're doing. I agree with what they're doing. Wake me when it's over and they're going to actually try to compete and win games,

which will happen starting next year, starting in October of 2026. Isn't there any anger over the fact that this is what you have to accept? No. Well, there should be. Why? What do you mean why? You have a team that for the last three years has tried to lose. Right.

Because that's the only way they could possibly be, yeah, what's a lot of. They can possibly be, yeah, what's a. another indictment on the NBA. How many leagues do you have where one-third of the league is trying to lose on any given night? It's not a great situation, but it's the way the game is. I mean, other sports aren't this way where you have to end. But the Wizards are not an innocent bystander, and if they put themselves in this position. The owner put them.

The owner wasn't the only one, obviously. He didn't own the team until 2010. but since he's owned it, he's contributed to the situation they're in. And there should be anger over the fact that you have to root for your team to lose. There isn't from my standpoint. I can't speak for anybody else. But I think that that's just what I've been conditioned to sort of, I've been conditioned to answer the question that way.

And I know what you're saying, like it would be much better, and I'd be a much happier fan if they were a destination organization. But they haven't been because of what you're referring to. They've been a loser for so long. 47 years and counting, they haven't won 50 games in a season. They haven't been to a conference finals. They are legitimately one of the worst two or three or four NBA franchises of the last half century. I mean, in three years, they'll probably be that because we're not out of a half century,

so we still have a title and a finals loss in the last half century. But, yeah, it sucks that they are a forgotten franchise, irrelevant, totally irrelevant. But the only way back to being relevant is to do it the way they're doing it. So if you're asking me if I'm angry that they put themselves into this position where it's their only way. out. I'm not, but I understand why you would think I should be. And maybe had they started this process 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been more angry then. But I've been conditioned to deal with my NBA team being, you know, irrelevant and being a loser. And this, this is way overdue what they've been doing here recently, way overdue. That no trade clause Bradley Beal contract

was stupid. Stupid. And what they've been doing here with Winger and Dawkins since they came on board is smart. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it's smart for the type of franchise that they are. I wouldn't call it smart. I call it basically, I mean, we're not talking about rocket science here. Everybody knows what they had to do. Yeah, but they've actually done.

done it well, Tommy. They've gotten really good value for their trades. They've gotten exceptional. They've been smart with some of the veteran moves that they've made at the right time. They've drafted pretty well here. They've got a nice young nucleus. They haven't

whiffed completely. At this point, it's still way early. I'm not telling you that, you know, the jury's in with the Bud Carrington, you know, verdict yet. But, you know, Kulabali and Saar and Johnson and Will Riley and Bub Carington, there are players that really look like NBA, you know,

high-level contributors, you know, maybe even an All-Star or two in there. Yeah, well, they're not trying to win. With all these good young players. They're not trying to win. So the players aren't trying to win? Well, the players are doing their best to win, but the mix of players that they'll have out on the floor during portions of games certainly limits their ability to win the games. I mean, some nights you've got dudes that you've never heard that they just called up on the

floor to play with, you know, some of the other guys. Yeah. What's the second part? Is there damage done to these young players? Yeah. Especially ones that have been here for two years or more. This is where, you know, I, and I, we talked about this after the, you know, Anthony Davis trade in particular. Not as much after the Tray Young trade. But what they, and Will Dawkins

came on with me a month or so ago, you know, after the Anthony Davis trade on radio. And he said, you know, there's only so much you can do and you can find out about the development of your players when they're not playing meaningful basketball games enough. And I had talked about that after the AD trade. It's like teams come in and they essentially are playing the wizards like they have the night off. There's no scoreboard watching. There's no standings watching. You know you are trying to be one of the four worst teams in the league so you can protect your draft choice in 2026. So what can you really learn? Look, I think you can make the case that in the NBA, it's hard to learn much of anything about teams until the playoffs,

because the playoffs are completely different than the regular season. And so much is revealed about teams, coaches, players, when the games have to be won, you know, and you're not playing on a back-to-back, and there aren't legitimate reasons why you're not ready to play the game. But yes, you don't want this to continue, longer and they're not going to let it continue much longer. They're going to start competing next year to win as many games as they can. And Trey Johnson and Bilal Kulabali and Alex Tsar and Will

Riley and Bub Carrington and Jaden Hardy, by the way, who came in the Anthony Davis trade. I'm telling you he can really shoot it. I think he's a part of what they're going to do here. But these are players that now need to go out with top down trying to win organizationally. that that's much better for their development. So, yeah, it's not great the way they've developed here for two years, but you've certainly gotten a sense of what these players can do. You know, it's not, you know, the pick that they had a couple years ago from Wisconsin. I'm blanking on that player's name, who legitimately could not play in the NBA,

and they realized it. Johnny Davis? Exactly, Davis. Yeah. Yeah. Look, it's like being treated, but you've been sick for almost 50 years being treated by the doctor. And three years ago, the doctor says, oh, we figured out what's wrong with you. But we've got to make you sicker in order to get better.

Yeah. Yeah, we got, you're going to go through hell. I mean, you're going to literally be vomiting 24-7. But the kind of person you're going to. to be, you're not going to look in the mirror in four or five years and you're not going to recognize that person. Yeah, I don't know where this is headed. That's the thing, but it's the only way to, you know, give yourself a chance for it to be headed towards winning a lot more games and contending. This pick, though, time. My anger, my frustration is the acceptance of it.

Okay. You could recognize they have to do it, but the readily acceptance of it, without, out some level of anger, well, I guess it speaks to the fact that they pretty much decimated the fan base. And they're at the bottom of the attendance. There's no passion in

this town for the wizards at all. And you know, that's not going to be easily rebuilt. We've seen this with the commanders. Okay? Just winning one year or it's

not going to make it done. And and the wizards, their damage is longer and is actually related to the product. Tommy, would it have been better these last three years if they had gone 34, you know, 35 and 47? No, no, no, no. No, I'm saying they have to do this. But, you know, I mean, people should be screaming, I hate you for having to do this. that that ship sailed a long time ago the problem you're describing you know emotion and there's not many people with a lot of emotion involved it's it's been completely apathetic look this the wizards kind of fit in with what dc's become as a sports town i said this not too long ago it's a bandwagon town it is the football team and then everybody else has to win and win big to draw you know a mass following.

And the wizards have been in that, you know, the wizards are at the bottom of the rung of the bandwagon teams right now, but they could also rise very quickly if they actually legitimately are able to compete for anything. And that's, again, back to what started this conversation, they're going to have a chance. I mean, I'm fully expecting the Wizards to get lottery bad luck

and end up with like, you know, the third or fourth pick. but I would love to see them get an opportunity to select A.J. DeBonson number one from BYU. Cameron Boozer is an absolute no for me. Darren Peterson, I think he can really play, but there's too much there that would be red flaggish in terms of his not playing through some of the sickness cramps, all that stuff. I really like A. Cuff Jr. from Arkansas. I think he's going to be, you know, a Dame Lillard type at the NBA level. After that, I don't, I don't feel strongly about anybody else. I feel, Caleb Wilson, I do feel like if Caleb

Wilson ended up being here, that would be certainly a player with a massive ceiling. Draft the player with the biggest ceiling right now, because you still don't have, unless Anthony Davis becomes that, or Trey Young becomes that, or maybe, maybe somebody like Will Ryle could become that. Will Riley is a really interesting player to watch. He got... He is. I'll grant you that. He really is. But this will be a big, big

evaluation and a big pick for them. I hope they get the opportunity to select who they want to select, and the only way that happens is if they end up number one overall. So let's hope for that. All right, let's get to a couple of more things, including Gino

Oriama's apology, and the Carolina hire. That more after these words from a few of our sponsors. Hey guys, I'm back to tell you about Thrive Market again. I'm a big fan. I've been telling you about them for a few months now. It's not just the convenience of getting items delivered, but it's being able to filter by dietary preferences for you and the whole family.

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plus a free $60 gift. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelly's. Well, Shelly's backroom at 1331 S Street Northwest. It's like a cigar museum. Okay, I say that in a positive way. D.C. is the museum town. There's museums all around Shelly's within walking distance. But Shelly's itself is a cigar museum.

You know, the kind of place that if you recreated, if somebody said to a museum designer, create a cigar room, it would be Shelly's back room, comfortable seats, comfortable chairs, you know, any high-definition TVs, all around the rooms,

so people can watch sports, and enjoy. And, you know, I always devote Thursday to Shelley's custom blend cigar facts. And I wanted to devote this one to a very famous cigar smoker. I know you've heard of them, the late, the great George Burns. Yep. You know, George Burns, his signature was a cigar, okay? Was Grace, wasn't his wife Gracie?

Is that what her name was? Gracie Allen. Yeah, very good. Thank you. I saw them in a movie recently. That's why George Burns came to mind. He smoked between 10 and 15 cigars a day. He lived to be over 100.

Okay. And one of his quotes was saying was, if I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral. And, you know, he didn't smoke. expensive cigars. He smoked the kind that you could buy at a gas station, El Productos. I mean, you know, I mean, those are chief cigars.

Even my dad didn't even smoke El Producto's. And he preferred that because they stayed lit on stage during his act, as opposed to more expensive cigar that would tend to go out if you didn't puff it enough. you know, but the El Producta would stay lit. He said, if you have to stop your act to keep lighting your cigar, the audience goes out. So if you had a hall famous cigar smokers, George Burns would be right at the top of the list. Yeah, when you said the late, great. The late was, I mean, decades ago now, right?

Yes. Like, do you know that show we talked about on? whatever it was on Netflix, maybe, 1975, that, that... Yeah, that documentary. Yeah, it was that documentary about the year 1975. He was in that. And when did he...

Did he die? He probably died in the 80s, right? I think so. I think he did. 1996, he died. He was 100 years old. Yeah. He had a run.

You can pay tribute to George Burns. By heading down the Shelley's Backroom, and you'll find out more at shelley's backroom.com. Who is, Gracie, Gracie Allen. She was an actress? Yes, looks like it. Yeah, she was a comedian, and they had an act to get. They had a TV show, very successful TV show for years called The Burns and Allen show, and they're very funny. Didn't Bob Hope make it to 100?

No. He didn't. You know, you, you know, you. You, I mean, of course I remember George Burns, but I really, as a kid, remember Bob Hope. And I remember all of those, you know, holiday specials that he did. Well, he used to do a football thing. He lived to a, he did the All-American team. He lived to 100.

He made it to 100. Did he really? Yeah, I was just guessing, for whatever reason, I thought that he really lived a super long life. He died in 2003 at 100 years old. um yep all right good talk

uh what were we going to end the show with oh so gino oriema uh came out by the way uh the other day after we talked about you know don staley's statement about how they had you know gotten together and then gino after after the uh after the statement that um

uh he made not even acknowledging don staley uh his his initial mea culpa. And then Don Staley essentially said, this one moment, this terrible, terrible moment won't define him. Gina or Ema came out and said that this morning, Don Staley and I spoke about our interaction after the game on Friday. I apologize to Dawn,

her staff, and her team. I've lost more games in the final four than any coach in history. But Friday, I lost something more important. I lost myself. Those who know me know I have nothing but respect and admiration for the game and the coaches who coach it. Dawn and her team deserved to win and they deserved better for me.

Women's basketball deserved better. My university, my athletes, my former players and our fans deserved better. Don and I have agreed to move on and we hope the focus will shift back to the growth in women's basketball. The game deserves it. Closed quote. Well, at least he finally knew her name. At least he finally used her name in this thing. Yeah.

You know? I mean, it's kind of funny because neither team won the national championship. No. No. No. And the team that won was really impressive winning the national championship, UCLA. Yes, UCLA. Yes.

And, you know, it's funny because I think this thing would have just, like, blow it over. Yeah. I don't think you need. needed another statement from Don Staley in the first place, but, you know, she forced Tino to come out and finally acknowledge her existence. Yeah. I wanted to end with this because I didn't spend a lot of time on this yesterday. Mike Malone being hired by North Carolina to be their new coach.

Man, this came out of nowhere for a lot of people. Mike Malone, for those that don't know, coach Denver to a championship in 2023, the Nicola Yolkich championship, and was a really good coach and then struggled a little bit, got fired, and has been doing mostly media recently. Do you know that he actually attended North Carolina practices before the season began, just kind of monitoring them and watching Hubert Davis coach? and he said, you know, I was really, really appreciative of the access they gave me, and I was rooting for North Carolina all year long. This is really interesting to me because I thought if it was an NBA coach, it would be one that's coached in college before, which Malone has not, and it would be Billy Donovan.

You know, we're living through an era right now where the North Carolina, we're in an era now where the North Carolina job isn't what? it was, you know, years ago. This isn't your dad's North Carolina job anymore. It is, people are staying in places because they're getting paid and the places are coming up with the money to pay players. It's whichever place can pay the players. And the SEC and the Big 12 have a lot of those teams. And the ACC has really fallen back as a basketball league. It doesn't have the same cachet it used to have. The North Carolina job doesn't have the same cachet that it used to have. There was a time, you know, not that long ago, 10 years ago,

where the North Carolina job were available and they were going to go outside the family to hire somebody. I mean, you would have had every big name in coaching other than the Duke coach and maybe the Kentucky coach that would have been interested in taking that job. Well, Tommy Lloyd turned it down. Others apparently expressed immediate non- interest and they had to turn to Mike Malone. And they gave him a six-year, $50 million deal, one of the highest paid coaches in the sport. So they have two former pro coaches coaching their football and basketball program.

Yeah. And making an unbelievable amount of money. You know, there aren't many examples. I mean, think of examples of pro coaches going to. college and succeeding. There aren't many examples of college coaches going to the pros in succeeding.

We have plenty of failures. Petino, Calipari, B-line, Kruger. I mean, the list goes on and on. Donovan's had some success in the NBA. The one guy that just comes to mind who's in the game right now is Bill Musselman, who coached in the NBA

and he did a good job at Arkansas and is doing a decent job at USC. He's a hell of a coach. Apparently held a deal with too. But this is going to be interesting to me. He doesn't have Nicole Yokic and Jamal Murray right now. But they'll be able to pay for the best. I heard, I don't know where I read this.

Somebody basically said that Hubert Davis didn't get fired by North Carolina. I wish I could attribute this accurately. I don't know where I heard it, but I'm not going to take credit for it because I heard it somewhere or read it somewhere, that Hubert Davis didn't get fired by North Carolina. He got fired by Duke. He got fired by John Shire because North Carolina's been battling for,

you know, barely top 25, top 20 rankings while Duke's been, you know, a one seed. And that just doesn't fly in Chapel Hill. So that is, whoever said that, it's true. Like Mike Malone, has to win the ACC. He's got to beat Duke. He's got to be ranked higher than Duke. He has to be in final fours and contend for national championships as frequently as Duke does. Because that's the school in that state. It's not Duke. For those that don't know or don't follow it, Duke's basically

got a northeastern, mid-Atlantic student population. It's a tiny private school. North Carolina is the behemoth in the state of North Carolina in terms of fan support. Duke's support is more nationally. You know, I'm not saying that they're not supported in the state of North Carolina. They are. But it's like Florida. The University of Florida has twice as many fans as Miami or Florida State does. In North Carolina, it's probably four times as many fans as Duke, NC State or Wake.

In fact, I think some people say NC State has the second. biggest fan base in the state of North Carolina. But man, that's a lot of money. And at the same time, with that, a lot of expectations, they really, really, I mean, that was a curveball. I didn't see that coming. Well, you are more well-versed on it than I am, but you're right about the very, very, very little evidence

of this kind of move working out in previous years in college basketball. Paul. Yeah. I mean, it's not a long list. Yeah. So we'll see if it works. Look, coaching college is totally different than coaching an NBA team. First of all, you have the responsibilities of not only recruiting, but also the portal, which is super intense. You also have to raise money. You've got a really hobnob with all of the big, you know, you know, the big money people, the big donors in the program to make sure they keep coming up with the money that will allow you to go pay top dollar for the best players. And then, you know, the game itself is much different. You know, it's just a different game. It's a 40-minute game, not a 48-minute game.

You're allowed to play true zone. The shot clocks longer. There's, I think there's much. more X's and O's strategy in college and high school basketball than there is in the NBA. The NBA is truly a players league. And look, basketball in general tends to be a player's sport because there are so few of them on the floor. But this is different. So we'll see, you know, we'll see whether or not he can get it done. But I just think it's interesting that North Carolina, and you've got to be careful now in college sports. if you think you're, you know, you can think you're something, you're not.

And that's a problem for places like that. You know, you run Hubert Davis off after he loses his best player, a top four player in the upcoming draft, Caleb Wilson. They go one and done in the tournament, and he gets fired, and they just expected the best of the best would be interested, and they had to turn to a, you know, a recently fired NBA coach. So, all right, you got anything else? I got nothing else for you today, boss.

All right. No show tomorrow. I'm actually out of town the rest of the week through the weekend. But I'll be back on Monday. See you, Tommy. See you, boss.