The Kevin Sheehan Show - Beal's Contract Busting

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Kevin and Thom today opened today's show with Springsteen, the new 9:30 Club, and the Nats. If that's not your typical menu of excellence, the boys had plenty on Bradley Beal's season-ending press conference comments. Lots of Commanders talk as well including sale news and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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 Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. And I've got a couple of reviews to read, Tom, to start the show today.

This one from another MD driver via Apple Podcasts. You have the ability, if you haven't already, to rate us and review us on Apple and Spotify. Also follow us on both Apple and Spotify. Spotify, that's a big help as well. This reads as follows, quote, where else are you going to get a podcast that covers the commanders like a blanket and connects the current big picture to their rich past legacy with interesting and dare I say, Ron, important perspective than this show?

Kevin is for the DMV sports fan, the diligent keeper of the flame on the wall that people at parties with tuxedos that love sports may not necessarily want to talk about, but deep down need. And on the days Tommy L. can join when he isn't busy smoking cigars watching TV series from at least 10 years ago, tending to the condo in Florida

or working on his singing chops for the next karaoke night. That perspective just runs that much richer. And the old guy chat is bonus city baby. Who else talks about loving, having a globe in the house.

Yeah. We were talking globes the other day and I do have a globe in my house. I've always had a globe in my house and Tommy has as well. That was very nice. And then hold on for a second. There was one other

that I wanted to read. Oh, this is a five-star review from Jay Teal who titled the review Love All Your Wizards Talk. I'm a commander's fan and I love the conversation about the

commanders, but I love when Kevin has conversations about the wizard's gnats and some capitals. Well, thank you. Because guess what? We don't talk a lot about the wizards, the gnats, or the caps. More this time of year than at any other time of the year. But guess what we're going to do today, boys and girls? We're going to talk about some wizards, especially some of the things that Bradley Beale said and Tommy Shepard said on their closeout day yesterday.

We'll talk about the Nats who are rolling here early in the season. Yeah, they've won three out of their last four. But I don't think we're going to talk about the caps today. So sorry about that, J. Teal. But thank you for the ratings and reviews. And keep them coming on Apple and Spotify. And anywhere else you can do it. And again, follow us.

There's a big follow button in the upper right-hand corner if you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts. Click that for us. and if you're listening on Spotify, it's about midway down the left-hand side. Tommy, how are you? Those were good reviews. Yes, they were. They were. They were. They were very good reviews. Great way to start the day. Listen, I just wanted to go over with you real quickly. My second Bruce concert I went to Friday night.

That's right. A friend of mine was at that concert. He was looking for you. He couldn't find you. He didn't reach out to try to connect with you through me. I would have helped him do that, but he really wanted to meet you and he was looking for you, but he didn't find you. And I said, look up. Wherever you are, look up into the outer reaches of where you are, because that's where he is probably sitting. How was it? Actually, I had better seats this time around. We were about maybe 15 rows off the floor. Oh, good.

So there were pretty good seats. And, you know, I enjoyed it more. I mean, he was great. I enjoyed it more the second time because I sort of knew what was expected of me as an audience member, you know, to participate. I didn't know the first time I went

what would be expected of me. I was fully understood now. You know, went to sing, went to, you know, listened to the whole nine yards. You're experienced. You're experienced. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. It was a lot of fun. That arena is the old Baltimore Arena. Civic Center. These private developers put $300 million in to fix up. Wow. And now it's called the CFG Bank Arena. I've never heard of this bank, but they'll get some run now with this arena.

And they fixed it up pretty nice for a real old Warhorse. of a building. And I think, you know, they had Bruce Friday night, they had the Eagles Saturday night. So it was a big important night for them. I think they had sold out crowds for both nights. I think it seats about 14,000, maybe. Yeah.

And they did a good job. I think they're looking at a primary as an event venue, not a sports venue, you know, with concerts and things like that. So that worked pretty good. Are you, you're familiar with the 930 Club, right? The history of the 930 Club and what they've been doing to reconstruct and they're opening up the new 930 Club on at the end of May with the footh fighters opening it up on May 30th. Have you been to the 930 Club?

I should have just waited for you to answer. I just figured you had. I went there once. It was a religious experience. I saw Booker T&EMGs at the 930 club. So they are opening on May 30th. It's now a 450 seat venue, okay? And they're opening with the foo fighters.

And it's basically tickets will be distributed kind of on a lottery basis. They've already received for a 450 seat venue. 520,000 requests for the first 44 shows with less than 20,000 total tickets to distribute. Winners are going to be notified, you know, on sort of a rolling basis. But they've got, look, I am, I'm a foo fighters fan. I don't have any pull. If anybody wants to help me get into the 930 Club on May 30th, I am open to being helped.

But there is a show as much as the foo fighters that I would like to see. I'd like to see the Pixies who are there on June 6th. And so my son put in a bunch of requests for all of us for various shows. But I think the chances of getting into that venue without paying outrageous sums of money on the aftermarket are going to be really hard for some of these shows. But they have an incredible lineup right through the end of. September, including, again, Foo Fighters open up on the 30th. The Pixies are there on June 6th. The Pixies, one of my favorite bands from the 80s and 90s. They were super influential on a lot of the grunge bands, especially Nirvana in the 90s. bands like Bush and Gary Clark Jr. is going to be there late August.

He's phenomenal. There should be some good shows. I just don't know how hard it's going to be to get into that place. I've seen a bunch of shows there. It's always been such a great venue, such a cool venue, such an intimate venue. And by the way, there are others in town now that are bigger, obviously. But, you know, there's so many more venues for music in Washington than there used to be. Tremendous. Yeah. I mean, tremendous amount of venues. The whole, the Wharf has, I think, three of them. Well, the Wharf has, you know, the Anthem. They've got Union Stage, which I've been to twice now in the last month. The anthem is an incredible venue.

But yeah, you know, D.C., and I don't know this from my own experience. I know it through my son's experience. He's a musician, and he plays, you know, it plays around town a lot with his band, which is really just him and his girlfriend. It's a two, it's a duo. And so they've played in a lot of places,

and I've been to a lot of the places. Like I've been to the Black Cat, I've been to, you know, Union Stage. I've been to DC 9, a bunch of these different places. But he still tells me that DC's not a great music town. Like the closest great music town is Philadelphia. Philadelphia apparently is phenomenal in terms of just places to play, lots of music coming out of Philadelphia,

lots of production availability in studios. So they're up there a bunch. But he said it's getting better, like DC's getting better from that standpoint. And it's got, you know, more venues than I remember, a lot more. But DC, as we've talked about so many times in the past, is so different than it was, you know, 25, 30 years ago. I mean, when I was a teenager in my 20s, we went to Georgetown. That's where all the bars were.

The bars aren't in Georgetown anymore, you know. Or we went to Adams Morgan occasionally. Or, you know, Tenley, actually, in Upper Northwest had a bunch of bars. you know, there for a while. But now there are all these different neighborhoods, you know, Logan and Mount Pleasant and Brooklyn and all of these different places around town that have, you know, lots of places for, I've said this many times, and I'll stop after this. It's a much better young person's city than it was when I was growing up. Much better for the 20s and teens crowd than it was when I was that in the 80s.

Much better. But it didn't seem that way when you were a young person. No, no. It seemed like you were missing something? No, not at all. Okay. Not at all. But, you know, if you went to New York, you know, look, the difference between New York

and D.C. is still pretty profound. But, I mean, you know, if you got out and about, you realized. is that D.C. was smaller. You know, D.C. was not, it's, it's, it feels much bigger and much more, I don't know, much, much, it's always been culturally diverse, but it feels even more so now. That's why, like, you know, but part of that is because of the federal government is, I don't know, Tommy. That, it's, it's, it's a better young person's town now than it was for us, but you're right,

I didn't think much about it. I just thought about where we, getting beers and where are the women at? That's all we were thinking about. I do want to get to the Bradley Beale comments specifically. We can talk a little bit about what Tommy Shepard said in the Wizards close out. We'll get to the latest on ownership. And I do want to circle back on a conversation that Logan Paulson and I had yesterday. Logan was great if you missed him. He was on yesterday's show. We did two segments with Logan. We talked a lot about the team, the quarterback stuff. and then he's already prepared profiles for 150 players in the upcoming draft.

He's working awfully hard. He should be working for a team, not in media. Same thing I used to tell Chris all the time, coolly all the time. But I do want to come back to something that we talked about at the end, which is Chase Young and sort of the decision that the team is going to make on Chase Young's fifth year option. I know we've had that conversation before, but I think it's a bit. becoming a little bit more clear to me. But anyway, how about the Nats? I mean, this team started off so poorly. They couldn't score. They couldn't get anybody out. And now they've won three out

of their last four. By the way, one of the games they lost, their first one in Colorado, was a one-to-nothing game in a mile-high city that usually produces, you know, 12 runs plus a game. You know, then they won 10 to 5, 7 to 6. They beat the Angels last night, 6 to 4. I know they're not beating great teams right now, but man, they've all of a sudden become pretty explosive offensively. How did that happen? Are you following it or not?

Yeah, I'm following it. They're having a tremendous road trip, especially a road trip out west. You know, and they're having success, and they're scoring runs, and it's a lot of fun. Yes, it is. Victor Robles, though, is the one who's been on fire. He's hitting 412 right now. He's got eight hits in the last four games. You know, and it just seems like we've been waiting forever for Victor Robles to do it, you know, as an all-around player. You know, he's in that last spot, but he's been hitting the hell out of the baseball. And the, you know, the, you know, They won last night, 6 to 4, Candelario had a big game. Poor Patrick Corbyn, he can't get anybody out, really. I mean, his ERA right now is, I think, 7.5, 7.7, something like that.

Every game he pitches, it's like you're into the third inning, and he's already at 80 pitches, it seems like. Yeah. Yeah. Look, as far as Robles, I've said before, Robles was their top problem. prospect at one time. I remember. Every trade talk that the Nats were involved in, teams wanted to talk about Victor Robles. And the Nats said no. And he had a pretty good rookie year 2019.

The year they went to the World Series, and he's never been able to get that back. And he's, he was one step from being out the door to start of this year. okay so uh he has he has the talent people always thought he has the talent and i always said about the nats they need a lot of things to go right and one of those things for the past couple of years is victor robois playing like everyone thought he could play right well i mean but again it's you know it's it's a lot of fun okay it's a lot of fun when they win three out of four when you're really not expecting it when they couldn't generate any offense in those first four or five games basically and then they blew that game against the raise where they kept

where they kept Kyle Finnegan in there way too long at the end which was embarrassing at the end and really since then they've played pretty well so I know I read this morning that Dave Martinez actually had to I guess he was sick last night and he ended up not manning much of the game had to take IVs. He fell ill before the game, so we hope that Dave Martinez is doing all right. But the Nats pounded the angels. By the way, the angels, so the angels still are, I would think, Tommy, wouldn't you think this to be true, are regretting the Anthony Rendon signing from a few years ago? Absolutely. I think he went back on the DL.

Yeah, he's back on the deal. Or at least he missed the game. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, it's the injured list now. It's not the DL disabled list anymore. Yeah, it's been a disaster for them. An absolute disaster.

And obviously, in hindsight, you know, that would have been a national disaster. But at the time, nobody knew that. Anthony Rendon was one of the best hitters in the National League. He was a, he was becoming a star. And he was a playoff star. Yes. He was an MVP candidate. Yes. How do we know it would have had?

happened in Washington? Well, we have to assume that, I mean, we don't know. Circumstances are always different, you know, depending on where you are. But there's no reason to believe that he's getting hurt because he's playing for the angels. Right. I mean, this guy, I mean, he's just been a disaster for them, an absolute disaster. and their team has, you know, considering what you'd look at roster-wise with Otani and Rendon from a couple of years ago looking at their roster, you'd think they would be better.

But anyway, the Nats. They have the two best players in baseball, Antony and Mike Trout. Exactly. With Trout Otany and then, you know, it's just amazing that they have not been a better team. But anyway, good for the Nats, three out of their last four, and the two losses in their last five games were one-run loss. that were winnable games. They're playing the Angels again tonight. You know what else is tonight, Tommy?

And we're going to get to the wizard stuff in the Bradley Beal comments because I know that actually this will interest many of you, the Bradley Beal comments. But tonight, the NBA playoffs open up with the NBA play-in tournament. And the Lakers are playing the Timberwolves. Timberwolves without Rudy Gobert, who punched one of his teammates and got suspended for a game. But the Lakers play the T-Wolves tonight and the seven versus eight.

Whoever wins this game is in is the seven seed. And the loser then gets one more chance. And then tomorrow night you get the other four teams. And then Friday night would be the last game. So you get three straight nights of this NBA play in and then the playoffs begin on Saturday. I know a lot of you don't care. But this is for Tommy as much as it is for the others.

The NBA this year established records for total attendance, average attendance, percentage of capacity, and sellouts in a season. They had a record 791 sellouts, easily surpassing the 760 record set during the 2018-2019 season. And league arenas were filled to an all-time high, 97% capacity for this season. season. The total attendance for the season of 22.2 million broke the previous record of 22.1 million. I saw that. I saw all that. And, well, look, I mean, there's a sucker born every minute. Okay? It's not even basketball anymore. I mean, you know, the NBA, this product, their players are fighting each other. one smashing his fist against the wall on the last day of the season, and one of their franchises is being investigated for tanking when actually the Wizards could also be investigated for that

as well. Well, there's a big difference between what Dallas did and what Washington did, but go ahead. Yeah, I know. I know. But my point is my point about the Wizards being all that is happening, and the Wizards are not part of any of it. So the Wizards are dead last in capacity in the league. They're at 84.1% of capacity average for the year, 84.1%.

That's dead last, the 30th ranked behind Oklahoma City at 29, which actually was surprising to me because in Oklahoma City, they've been so supportive of that team. But it wasn't a terrible team at all. In fact, they're in the NBA playing tournament. But I, yeah, the Wizards, the Wizards are a rock bottom franchise with middling results. And that's like the best way for me to describe it. It's like their results are never horrendous, but they feel very much like a rock bottom franchise in the NBA. They're in a city that is a basketball city at its core, as we've talked about many times.

and they really aren't very popular in their own city with people who love basketball. And that's a good segue into the Bradley Beal comments, unless you had anything else that you wanted to say about the NBA. No, I got nothing to say. I mean, it sickens me because basketball was my first love, and that's not basketball anymore. I know what you're saying. You just have the talent level, the skill level of the players today,

it's impossible to guard anybody. It is really impossible to guard anybody. I personally enjoy watching the skill level and the talent. There's just, to me, they're the best athletes in the world. It's not close in terms of combination of size, strength, agility, skill level. with what they're able to do. But watching NBA regular season games, it's become very much kind of like, you know,

the summer league cliche, where it just doesn't seem like anybody's that interested in stopping the other team. I think personally it has a lot to do with just an inability to stop players. They're just so good, Tommy, and I know you probably won't even agree with this. They're just so good and so skilled,

and they've stretched the long. floor sideways and long ways and ways that the game was never played before, never really even intended to be played before, and they're just impossible to guard. Impossible. And you get much more defense in the postseason and the game slows down and it resembles kind of the basketball that we like. And I like the playoffs a lot because I think the intensity is there. And you'll see the scores drop a little bit, but you're going to still see. you're going to see some games that end up 139-138 in regulation in the postseason. Like, it's a little bit more like the ABA scores from way back in the day

because they didn't guard at all in those games. And the playoff games in the ABA, if you go back and look at box scores from the 70s, it was like, you know, Nuggets 157, the Nets 149, you know, in a regulation game. You never got that in the NBA. The NBA was playing 88, 87 games in their post-season. at the same time. But I'm looking forward to the postseason, but I understand where people say it's hard to watch the regular season.

I don't watch a lot of the regular season. I watch enough of it, but it's not, there's a lot that's, you know, missing. The college game is so inferior skill-wise and talent-wise, yet there's more intrigue because maybe the pageantry, that's more really college football, but the coaching's more involved. The strategy, I think, is at high levels. It's just that the players aren't anywhere near as good.

In fact, I don't know that professional to college, there's a bigger disparity than there is between NBA players and college players. I mean, it's just night and day. Here's what Bradley Beale said. There are two specific things that I want to talk about. Number one is this. On the season, he said, I'm at peace with how the year went, but I'm not at peace where we are as a team.

He said, my patience level, quote, it's low. I have a low patience level. It's not like I'm not angry. And then he said, quote, the way y'all media are talking, y'all are trying to kick me out of here, close quote. This was the wizard's end of year press conference yesterday. I was more taken with Tommy Shepard's comments. I mean, Bradley Biel, I don't expect much from him. Okay?

I mean, I think we'd be better off with a press conference from Mrs. Beale, okay, who I think really runs the show there. But, I mean, this whole notion that Bradley Biel is some kind of victim now of the media. I mean, it's just, you know, it's funny. had the Wizards had fan appreciation day on Friday. Monday was fan insult day. You know, let's insult the fans, you know, with these ridiculous comments. Bradley Beal also, in describing the season as a disappointment, said, quote,

I have to be more available and take care of my body better, closed quote. So, number one is this. Look at Beal. okay he's not what some people thought he was he's never been that person he's not what they thought he was he's a good player i actually think in the the you know 40 games that he played this year um and he played or the 50 games that he played this year remember he only played 40 last year he's played 90 games in two years he's not been available anywhere near enough i actually thought at times he looked better, especially in fourth quarters of games and down the stretch of games, where they did rely on

him and they went to him and he delivered more often than not when he was in there. But Bradley Beale's just a good player. He's not an elite player. He's not a superstar. He's never been a superstar. And if you watched him closely enough during those developmental years, when he played pretty well with John Wall and some of those teams that advanced winning, you know, playoff series and advancing to the conference semifinals and within, you know, within close range of the Eastern Conference finals on two different occasions in particular. John Wall got hurt one year. That hurt them in their series against the Hawks. And then they were in a seventh and deciding game in Boston with a chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017. But Beale's just

always been a really good player, a really good offensive player, you know, an upper level score for sure. But he's never been a superstar and he's not going to. to become a superstar. Bradley Beal is only 29 years old, but he's now played with the Wizards for 11 seasons. He's not in his 12th season going to become a superstar 30 years old. And he doesn't play enough. He's not available enough. And since he became kind of the de facto best player on the team,

They've missed the playoffs four out of five seasons. And they haven't been a very good team. And this year, to be honest with you, for me is the most disappointing. Because I think talent-wise with Porzingis as healthy as he was for much of the year, and Kuzma sort of continuing to get better and being available for a big portion of the year, this should have been a team that threatened the 45 win mark rather than, ending up with 35 wins at 35 and 47. And the team made a big mistake investing in Beale to the extent that they have.

You can't contend for anything in the NBA if you don't have a superstar on your team. Bradley Beale talked about needing, you know, has talked about, you know, help and we need to be better. He needs to be better. And the truth is, is that Porzingis probably is the only player on the roster that has a chance to become a true superstar. His health has always gotten in the way of that. For Beal also to say, I've got to be more available and I've got to take care of my body better, you're getting paid $50 million a year. What do you mean you've got to take care of your body better?

You haven't been? I know. That's ridiculous. That's troubling, actually. And I listened to the whole context of what he said. And I don't think that, you know, he really was saying, I've been, you know, I've been slacking off in my conditioning or my nutrition or whatever it is. I think that, you know, he was just speaking to the injuries that he's had and hoping that his body would be, you know, would be a better and healthier body. There's only so much you can do when you're getting hurt. the way he's gotten hurt. But it's not the best description of why he hasn't been available for him to say, I've got to take care of my body better because that indicates that it's his fault for being injured and missing all of those games. And with respect to, you know, the way y'all media are talking, y'all are trying to kick me out of here, Bradley, we'd have to care a lot more to really call for you being out of here.

You should be glad that anybody is taking any time. to talk about you or your sorry team. Because nobody in this town really cares that much. That's the truth. We can't do more than a couple of minutes on you on this podcast, or people are fast forwarding to the next topic. On radio, talk radio, on days like today, you can do a little bit more because of the end of the season

and recapping the season. But in season, there are weeks that go by without discussion about your team. And you've played seven regular season games at that point. Nobody is to don't play that role. Don't play the, y'all are trying to kick me out of here. Do better. Play better. Be available. You know, win 45 games with Porzingis and Kuzma, which is what you were capable of with Dilan Wright, who became one of my favorite players this year. a good signing, by the way. He actually really tries to guard. I mean, be better defensively every night. Stop complaining. He got better with that this year. He wasn't last year, as in

2022, the 2021-2020 season. I mean, there were nights where I just turned it off because he's on one end complaining about a call that he didn't get and they're dunking on the other end. I mean, it's a dunk with his guy scoring. His turnovers over the years have driven me nuts because most of them aren't even forced. He's a good player. He's not a superstar. They paid him like a superstar. And now, unless you get rid of them and you burn it down and you start all over,

this is what you can expect. Now, if you truly hit the inside straight and everybody's healthy, Kuzma, well, first of all, you've got to bring Kuzma and Porzengis back. I don't know why they'd want to come back here. But if you do bring them back and everybody stays healthy, you can be a playoff team. You could be a five or a six seed in the east. You could. You're not going to contend for anything.

It's going to be right where you were a few years ago. Not even that good. It's good to have goals. It's good to have goals like that. Jesus, Kevin. I mean, come on, you could do that. It's not what I want. It's not what I want.

I'm saying that's what it could be at its best if you bring all these people back. And remember, Beal's got a no trade clause. I know. So they really can't burn it down. It's really just amazing. You know what? Did anyone ask Bradley Beal about how the investigation is going in Orlando by the police? Yeah, there was something about that.

There was something about that. Oh, okay. And what was the, what was the, you know what? I got to find it. Give me two seconds, and I will find it. Okay. I mean, somebody. I was kind of curious about that.

We haven't heard anything about that. Well, you know, you know what it was, right? Somebody basically told him to F off because they lost money betting on the Wizards or betting on him. You made me lose. But I think it's so, it's so funny. Here's what he said. It's really so funny. given that

Ted. Given that H. Rothstein is such a big proponent of fans betting on games. Exactly. I mean, he's more interested in that in his e-sports teams than his basketball team,

his NBA team, with the league, by the way, having a banner year for attendance and the Wizards are at the bottom of capacity, percentage capacity. They were, by the way, kind of in the, I do have his quotes here in a second,

but I just want to check real quickly on the average attendance itself, the Wizards were 21st out of 30 teams. They averaged 17,328. Dead last, though, in capacity at 84.1%. So Beal said, so what happened for those of you that don't know, and by the way, we have to set it up here because most of you probably don't know because you don't give a shit. I mean, the fact that Beal would talk about y'all media and you want me out of here,

most people honestly don't even most people didn't know until I told them that Bradley Beal only played 50 games this year and has only played 90 out of the last two seasons of games and they don't even know. You're so irrelevant. And it pisses me off because I want the team to be good. You know this about me forever as long as we've known each other.

It's the team that I really want to be good. And remember those couple of years? And it's like, oh my God, they swept, you know, they finished off the Bulls in five. They swept the Raptors in four. They might go to the Eastern Conference finals. Now, they weren't at Cleveland's level, obviously. But I thought they were a well-coached team with Randy Whitman. I thought they were a high IQ team with guys like Nenei and Areza and Gortat.

And you had two young cornerstone stars potentially in Wall and Beal. I actually thought that was the, it was the most optimistic. I've ever been because I wasn't super optimistic about the arenas Antoine Butler teams. I knew how bad they were defensively. And I never thought that there was much of a chance, even though, trust me, I was into those games and I went to a lot of those games. I was at that Bulls game in 2005 when they finished them off in 6 at MCI Center, I think it was back then.

But here's Beal. I mean, they didn't even need to hold an end of the year presser yesterday. Yes, that's my point. We've spent more time talking about them right now than anybody in town has. I guarantee you. But Beal on the incident in Orlando, which, again, I've got to make everybody fully aware of what happened. Because most of you were like, I have no idea what you're even talking about. There was a post-game incident with a fan in Orlando.

towards the end of March. Wizards were playing there. After a loss, Beal and his team, they were exiting the court, and in the visitor's tunnel, when, according to a police report obtained by ESPN, an unidentified man remarked to Beale, you made me lose $1,300 UF,

and he said you fuck. He called them, He used it as sort of a label for Beal. Beal, according to the report, turned around and walked toward a friend of the man who made the comment and swatted his right hand toward him knocking the man's hat off and contacting the left side of his head. Beal about this said, quote, nobody wants to lose money. I get it. If you keep it about sports, I'm all for it.

But I think it's when people start getting personal talking about your family, talking about your character, your integrity towards the game. I think all of that we can save it. We can really keep those comments to ourselves. But he said, I understand, I go to casinos, I gamble, I understand that, but I also understand it's probably a 99% chance I'm going to lose. I'm not sitting here about to get angry at the dealer or angry at everybody else, closed, quote. Well, according to his boss, there's not a 99% chance that you're going to lose.

Much better chance. Much better. It's better than 50-50. If you've got the data and analytics. If you get the analytics, we can beat the house. We can take the house down that he built next to his arena, inside his arena. Come on, play in my house. Let me see you try to take us down.

By the way, there was a question about, you know, would he be back next year? Because he can, he's got a no trade clause, but he can waive the no trade clause. And he just said, if I wanted to leave, you guys would definitely hear and know that Beal wants to leave, speaking in the third person there at the end. Okay, what did Tommy say that upset you? Oh, it didn't upset me. I'd say it upset me in a different way. Tommy said, basically, this was a disappointing year. We're going to spend this offseason looking at everything we can get better.

at. You know, that's like useless. I mean, really useless comments. Then he said, we want 35 games. That's disgusting to me. Yeah. This shows you that

there's nothing that they can say. Okay? Because that's as honest as you can get. And that's still not good. That's still, if you're a fan, the last thing you want to hear is the general manager who put this

team together being disgusted by what he saw on the court. You know, so, I mean, they're in a no-win situation, literally, because they can't win on the court, and they can't win and try it to justify their lousiness. You know, there's nothing that will work for a fan base that's heard every excuse over 50 years now. You know, so, I mean, they can go the route of saying, you know, we're going to evaluate and do better, which is, you know, such bullshit because no one believes it.

And then they're good, they can go the route of saying, you know, you're right, we really stunk. We were lousy. We were terrible. And nobody wants to hear that either. It's going to be. They're at the point where everyone should just shut up. You know, Eddie, uh, uh, West Unself, Jr.

talked about, you know, people need to look past results and look at the process. Oh, my God. they should have dragged them off the podium after that. Wes said that. Don't look at results. Because the other day he said he admitted that they underachieved this year. Before the finale against Houston, which, by the way, they almost won. I mean, which just would have been so stupid.

They were up 14 at halftime. But before that game, there was a comment. I read this yesterday where he said, in general, we underachieved. I mean, remember what Coach Thompson used to say about admitting? your poor performance, be careful because they may start to believe you? Well, he said it. And I agree. Well, I think this team underachieved.

They did. I mean, and it doesn't matter of people believe it. I mean, he's not going to, he wasn't going to get fired because it would cost Ted too much money. There's two more years on his contract. Yeah. You know, so they're not going to fire. He's not going anywhere. He wasn't going anywhere.

you know, this defensive, you know, guru for a franchise that's a bottom feeder now when it comes to defense in the NBA. Yeah, I mean, your best player, you know, is making $50 million, and he's not a very good defender. And as an offensive player, he's a really good score. But overall, he's just a good player. You know, I've said this for many years, and many of you pushed back, those of you, the three of you that care. used to push back and say, no, no, no, he's a top 10, top 15 player. I'd said, no, no, no, he's closer to 20 than he is 15. And that was when he was leading the NBA and scoring two years ago.

Look, they've got a middling strategy here. Okay, they're paying, the most you can pay an NBA player who's not a superstar. That's where it starts. They have taken up 50 million a year. to pay a guy who's not a superstar. If they were paying Janus or Kauai or LeBron or a true superstar $50 million a year, then, you know, we could complain about a first round or a second round exit. This is a middle-tier strategy.

I don't know how they're going to pay Kuzma and Porzingis and bring back, you know. And by the way, the only way this works, The only way this works is if you hit the mother load in the draft. And then you're going to have to pay that person as well and somehow convince Beal to take less or to move on and waive as no trade clause. But that's a couple of years down the road and he'd be towards the end of the deal anyway. But Beal really is a number two at best on a contending team. And the reason you're stuck in the middle is because he's your high. highest paid player, and he's nowhere near good enough. And by the way, again, let me just repeat this.

I think he actually got better this year in the clutch moments where he used to not really deliver. I thought he was better at that this year than he has been. But he's still just good, not great. What? Think about this. He will make more money than any player in the history of this town. I know. any athlete who's ever played in Washington, D.C., Bradley Biel will make more money than any of them. Right. It's really, it's really stunning.

You know, did you hear what Ted said? No. I try not to listen. Regardless of how others will evaluate the team's performance this season, we did not live up to our own expectation. We fell short on getting our defense up to play. par, and we weren't able to improve upon our playoff appearance from last season. Injuries and illness, while not excuses, certainly factored into our consistency. You know what he said this?

He said this at the end of last year. Yeah, I was going to say, because they weren't in the playoffs last year. No. He said this. This is what he said at the end of last season. Right. He could just rinse that and repeat it again. He'd have to open his mouth.

He could just post that again. Same old story. And speaking of getting lucky in the lottery, if I can just talk about the brilliant Johnny Davis who came on at the end, you know, number one draft choice from last year. Well, that's happening. It's going to play in the Vegas Summer League. That happens occasionally with

second year players. But yes, he was a massive disappointment in his rookie year. We'll see what happens the next few years. But, yeah, I mean... He was what? The tenth pick in the draft? He was. Yes. How many times has the tenth pick in the draft

after their first year in the NBA played in the Vegas Summer League? It happens. I'll bet you zero. No, I don't think. I guarantee you it's not zero. Guarantee you it's not zero. I think Rui played in the,

I mean, it's one of their players, but I think Rui played in the Summer League the second year. I'm trying to think of who else did. I don't know if Denny of Dia did. I'm just thinking about their last picks. No, it happens. You get second year players in the Summer League,

I think more often than you're suggesting. I don't have the data with me right now. I mean, Vegas Summer League last year. Let's see who was in it. I don't want to do this. Nobody cares. Let's talk about some football right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show brought to you by MyBooky.

Go to MyBooky.orgie.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And you can bet the NBA playoffs, Tommy. You can bet the play-in games tonight. Hawks are five-point dogs at Miami. I kind of like Atlanta tonight. The Lakers are laying eight against. of Minnesota, everybody expecting the Lakers to roll past the Timberwolves.

And I'd actually give Minnesota a chance tonight to cover that number. I like both dogs tonight. And you can bet the NBA playoffs, and at the end of them, get out if you want. All you've got to do is wager your deposit amount one time with My Bookie, and you're eligible if you use my promo code, Kevin D.C., to cash out right away without having to wager multiple times your deposit amount. That's different than most books. It's perfect for the NBA playoffs.

We've got them here. The full-fledged best of sevens start on Saturday. And we'll have four games on Saturday, four on Sunday. I'm actually looking forward to that. But you get the play-in tournament the next four nights, the next three nights. So enjoy that, I guess. So our next three nights, whatever it is. It's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I think.

I think that's what we got. Or maybe it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. Let me look that up. It would be worth watching to see if the Lakers implode. Tuesday, Wednesday. So, yeah, Thursday. Oh, okay, Friday they're playing the last of the two playing games, all right, which would be for the eight seed.

All right. So there was a report yesterday, Tommy, and I talked about this on the podcast yesterday. office sports. First of all, I think actually, you know, look, I don't want to take shots at anybody because I've been wrong with a lot of this stuff. You know, everybody's been wrong. Doesn't mean yours, Tommy says wrong in the moment. But, you know, front office, sometimes I feel like their stories are kind of just in reaction to another story that came out, you know, the day before. I mean, we had the guy from Puck News on the show on Friday, Teddy Schifler,

who had this stuff on Bezos. Front office, I actually think the piece of news that was brand new was that Steve Apostolopoulos, the Canadian businessman who is said to have submitted an offer, they reported he's having a difficult time raising the money. They have a source that tells them that Apostolopoulos hasn't been able to assemble enough partners and financing to satisfy Bank of America. Meantime, the headline of their story is that Dan Snyder continues to hold out for more. And I think that's where we are right now.

If I were to take a guess as to where we are right now based on some conversations with people that are at least much closer than we are to the situation, the bid that's been submitted is the Rails bid. It's between five and a half, but in six billion. but it's short of $6 billion. I'm pretty sure of that that it's short of $6 billion. They're not going up anymore. Snyder continues to slow play it, slow roll it, in hopes that somebody will come in with a higher bid to get him to the $6 billion or greater number. We've seen all of the Bezos stuff over the last few weeks.

And this guy, Teddy Schifler, Tommy, told me on the podcast on Friday, he reported that Dan and Jeff Bezos actually got together and met late last year, as in December of late last year of 2022. But, you know, it doesn't appear as of right now that Bezos is getting ready to make a bid. I still think it's going to be Josh Harris, Mitchell Rails, Magic Johnson, that get the team for something less than $6 billion. I hope it ends soon. I think it's going to end soon,

but I know I've said that before, so don't hold me to it. You have any reaction to any of this stuff? No, like I said, my position on Bezos hasn't changed. If he wants to own the team, he'll own the team.

There's always been a lot of speculation that if he wants an NFL franchise, he may see the Seattle franchise when the Paul Allen Family Trust is expected to put that up for sale at some point as a more attractive option for him with less obstacles. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that Bayes, like somebody said to me last week,

and I brought this up with Teddy Schifler and he didn't necessarily agree. But somebody mentioned to me if Bezos didn't want Washington and wasn't interested in Washington, why would he be lingering out there from a perception standpoint, which may result in Dan being helped by the perception that Bezos might be interested? Why wouldn't he just have somebody say or leak that Bezos is not going to make a bid he's more interested in Seattle if and when Seattle becomes available? Why would he want to help Dan by keeping his name around it unless he was actually still considering it. That's a good question.

I can't get in the mind of Jeff Bezos. I don't know what richest people in the world think, you know? So I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah. All right. So yesterday at the end of the show, Logan Paulson and I were discussing the Chase Young fifth-year option, and many of you picked up on Logan Paulson basically saying,

He said, I don't want to be inflammatory with respect to this. But ultimately, he said that, you know, the choice if he had to make it would be Montez's sweat over Chey Shung. A lot of you understand now, I think, that this is much more with Chase Young than about an injury, the recovery of an injury, the fear that he'll never be physically the same anymore. It's not about the ownership, you know, and having to wait for new ownership. This is about a coaching staff that does not trust his commitment. period. They don't trust the production when they last saw it when he was healthy in 2021, but they question and don't trust his commitment to becoming the player that they thought they

drafted in 2020. That's what this is about. You can believe it or not believe it. If they end up picking up the option, they'll say all the right things, but I really believe now that if they pick up the option, they're doing it just to not look stupid and to save face. The best move really would be not to pick up the option and make them earn it. Make them commit. Make them earn it. Make him show up to everything they want him to show up for. Make them produce on the field next year. And if he does, then you've got the option of franchise tagging him or signing him to a long-term deal then if you believe in him. If he earned your trust. Montez Sweat on some level has already earned their trust. I think they feel much more comfortable with Montez Sweat.

And as I said to Logan yesterday, I don't think Montez Sweets, you know, upside is so, you know, much lower than Chase Young. I think he's an incredible talent. So my question to you, and I know what your answer is, but I want everybody else to hear it is, if you had to pick one right now, you know, picking up the option on Chase Young or starting to discuss a long-term deal with Montez Sweat, which of the two would you pick? Oh, well, I picked Montes sweat. He has put some production out there. He does have a track record that you could feel comfortable with. And he doesn't think, he didn't think he was a star the minute he put on the uniform. You know, I don't think he has many game show commitments.

Well, he may not have been asked. You know? Yeah. Right. He wasn't the defensive rookie of the year. No. So, I mean, if it's a choice between the two, it's easy for me, Montez-Switt.

I think you're right. I don't think there's that much difference in the upside of either player in terms of what they can accomplish. I think Sweat is a significant talent and really could be a wrecking machine as a pass-rusher. What an embarrassment it would be for the, well, I then departed commander's coach to have the second pick. His first big pick, the second pick in the draft, turned out to be a bust. His first significant decision, by the way, unless you say, you know, I guess succumbing to Snyder's request to keep Dwayne Haskins and try to give Haskins a shot.

that probably was the first big decision he had to make, and he made the wrong one there clearly, which led to the second wrong decision. Because if he admitted that Haskins wasn't a guy that he believed could be the franchise quarterback, then they would have looked at number two to deal with the quarterback situation right then and there. Let me make one thing clear just because you said something, and it's not what I meant. I think there is a difference in upside between Chase Young and Montez Sweat. But I don't think it's the disparity that maybe many others would think. I think Montes Sweat has a ton of talent.

And I love Montez Sweat, and I loved him coming out. He was the player I wanted them to draft where they drafted Dwayne. And they ended up getting back into the first round. Remember there were the heart concerns, etc. But Chase Young's upside and talent is greater than Montez Sweat. We've seen Chase Young be an absolute takeover a game kind of a player as he did in 2020 multiple times at the end of the year. We've never really seen that with sweat. I'm not saying that he couldn't be that kind of player, but you're getting a lot of talent with sweat,

but you're definitely getting steadier and more consistency. And I think there's a trust level with him there now. So I'm with you. And I never thought I would say that I wouldn't have said it six months ago. But I think the issue here is they believe the chances are greater than not that Young doesn't give them the kind of season in 2023 that makes them feel good about picking up the fifth year option. So I don't think they're going to pick it up. I also don't think they're going to extend Montez Sweat quite yet. That could be an early middle of the year kind of thing, even though sweat would be headed towards free agency.

bottom line is they could use the tag on him. By not picking up the fifth year option and not extending sweat now, you could be faced with the worst case thing, which would also be the best case, which is they're both so good next year and so dominant, and yet you don't have either one of them under contract for 2024. But I think that they feel like that would be a problem that they'd love to have at this point.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I would agree with that. How would you get around that? Well, you would then try to extend one of them and franchise the other. That's how you try to get around it. But I don't think you can invest that much into that position anyway. So really what you would be looking to do is some sort of sign and trade, you know, or tag in trade. You know, extend one of them and then tag and trade the other.

And remember, you could also have a chance at the middle portion of the year if your team's not headed towards the postseason, if one of them's playing really well and you feel like you can get a lot back for them to trade one of them then. Here's the thing that you have to be aware of, and Logan brought this up yesterday, and maybe he brought it up afterwards,

because we ended up talking for a few minutes after the podcast, is don't discount defensive end pass rusher in the draft, maybe even early, because they'll take a player with a big upside on a rookie deal knowing that they can't keep both of these guys moving forward, and they may not want to keep one of them. All right, let's finish up the show right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Tommy, tell us about Shelley's.

Okay, Shelly's backroom, 1331 F Street, Northwest. They have so many avenues where they serve quality products, cigars, beer, food, I want to talk about wine a little bit, okay, because I don't know anything about wine. And I know you, a man of your stature and standing. I like drinking wine, but I'm not really, I mean, my knowledge is limited. Okay, so if I ask you about a white wine called Frogs Leap Chardonnay, is that something that you would highly recommend? I can't recommend a Chardonnay to begin with, but no, I can't help you.

you there. I can't. I know that... What about relax? Relax. Reesling. Uh, I wouldn't be able to recommend a reisling either. Um, but I wouldn't be able to recommend wines. My wife is much better at that than I am. So get her on here. Can you, can you switch over to her? So I can, I can talk to her about the wild horse pinion noir. Yeah. And the water brook, Malbec. Yeah. And the silver oak cavernet. Did he say Pina bernet? I bet

What about Opus 1 red blend? No, it doesn't matter what you think or what you know. They've got great wines. Great wines, yeah. Because they're at Shelley's back room. Right. And the owner, Bob Matarazzi, he only deals in excellence. It's like this show.

What you get at Shelly's is like what you get on this show, a menu of excellent. There you go. Excellent. Excellent. Love Shelly's. Great place, by the way, to go down and watch the NBA playoffs. They'll have those games. and Tommy's events coming up on May 22nd.

Can't wait for that. Yes, you get tickets at D.C.grays.com. You want to tell me about Succession. You're watching Succession. Was there a significant episode on Sunday night? Yeah, but I'm not going to talk about it in case somebody... Was it a finale? No, it wasn't a finale.

It's only the fourth episode of the season, I think. Or the third episode, maybe the third episode. It's only maybe the third episode of the season, I think. So, no, it's not, for, for what happened Sunday night to happen in the third episode of the season, it's pretty dramatic. Okay. And it was compelling. And part of the reason it was compelling, because unlike the show typically, you didn't, you weren't drowning in dialogue. I love the show, okay?

But, I mean, the dialogue is exhausting sometimes. It's just people just don't talk that glibly and that much without an oxygen tank next to them. I mean, there's some shows like that Aaron Sorkin is a god when it comes to writing script. He wrote a few good men. Yeah. You know, but his shows like the newsroom tend to fall in love with dialogue. You know, and it gets exhausting to me. And that's one of the drawbacks of Succession.

It's just too much talking. Well, there wasn't a lot of talking last night because the circumstances didn't dictate it. And I thought it was a compelling episode. So I haven't, I love what you just said, by the way, because I haven't watched Succession, but I've had a lot of people tell me to watch it. But when it's been on, I've like flipped it on and watched for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Because sometimes that's the way to get me into a show and then I'll go back to the beginning if I really liked it. And I was telling my oldest son who was watching it the other day and he's like, Dad, I don't know how you've missed succession.

And I said, every time I turn it on, it's like the most out there dialogue. Like it's just not, it's too exaggerated. Like you just said, people aren't that quicker, that glib consistently. And I just, so I didn't realize that it was an Aaron Sorkin show. I don't think it is an Aaron Sorkin show. I'm just saying, like Aaron Sorkin shows. I don't know who the writer is. Because you're right.

The newsroom, I actually enjoyed the newsroom, but you're 100% right. Like a lot of the dialogue, it's like, it's just completely unrealistic, you know, that people would be talking consistently that quickly and that glibly, as you described. Yeah, I watched a couple of episodes of this show called Poker Face on Peacock, which was recommended to me. And I'm sorry if I, I know one of my sons told me to watch it, but I think Clay maybe told me to watch it too. Clay, if you're listening, I think you may have recommended this.

It's pretty good. I've watched four of the episodes, and they're all kind of standalones for the most part. But I think it's pretty good. I think she's pretty good. She's a little bit annoying Natasha Leon. I think her name is. I don't know what else she's in. I know she's in something that people liked, and I'm forgetting what it was.

I don't know. I enjoy it. But really, the thing that I'm into is I'm caught up on Lassow this last season, and I think this season's so much better than season two so far. And we get another new episode that drops tomorrow night, which is great. All right, anything else you got for today? No, I got nothing else for you, boss. Okay, we're done back tomorrow.