The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Lose Their Momentum As They Sit 3rd In AL West, Rockets Post Season Trade Talk

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Astros Lose Their Momentum As They Sit 3rd In AL West, Rockets Post Season Trade Talk

1002 in H-town. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a Tuesday edition of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790, where, well, I'm just going to say that we are your proud home of the Astros. I was an astro buddy in 1979 and 1980, and I look forward to this team continuing to do what they've done for a better part of almost 10 years now. I did the 10th inning show last night, Rossi. Thank you, Matt. You're welcome. I'll do it again tonight.

Very glad to do so. Dan Matthews says thank you for that. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, look, we all scratch your letters back. I mean, Lord knows, Wex and Clinton haven't done much of that, but that's fine. Very busy. They're very busy. That's fine.

This is a boring baseball team right now. And I haven't said that very much lately. I've said in years past, like when I got back here in 2010, this is a bad baseball team. And then I've watched them in, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, say, this is a good baseball team. They're not horrible. But I was doing the post-game show last Sunday, which no one called.

I mean, I'm just going to call it out here. Zero. I should have called you. No, no, no, no. And so my rule is this. We do four hours of radio. We all collectively help out. minus is the Adams on the 10th inning shows.

And so if there's a vibe and there's calls and people are talking, I'm more than welcome to engage in Astros conversation. Yes. But if it ain't there, I'm going to bed. If it's broke, you ain't going to fix it. If it's a tree in the forest, no one's there to listen. Oh. Okay.

Somebody's always listening, Matt. I mean, you know that in radio. I do. But you have to, the part of what we call the, call-in show as you have to have the call-ins. If there's no call-in to the call-in show, it doesn't work. It's not a Matt Thomas monologue show. We do that for four hours a day during the week. Oh, well. You know.

So, and Joe Spott is going to join us at 1230. And Joe was obviously as optimistic about the bads going on. And yesterday they had nine hits, eight of which were singles, one double, didn't get a guy to second base until that double. I mean, they left eight men on base. They were only two for six runners in scoring position, meaning they weren't very men. They had a base-loaded situation in the six inning. they only score one run.

I mean, Rinelle Blanco gave you three runs over six. That typically is good enough. And that was a quote-unquote quality start, according to what the folks at Major League Baseball is saying. But to steal a line from Dusty Baker, damn, dude. They're in a lot of sizzle right now. No.

And I spent the time I was monologuing, because I've learned the best monologuing from you on the call-in shows. Thank you, Matt. As I ran through the OPS numbers. I hope you didn't go person by person, player by player. Well, in order to fill a few minutes of my time, I absolutely did. Is Rake Myers still leading the team? Rake Myers at 794 still leading the team.

Look, I love Rake Myers, but he should not be leading any team in OPS. Your heart of the order line. I'm not granted, nor Yordon, but Yoron's not having a great season. I mean, yeah, I wonder, we'll ask, we'll talk to Joe about it later on the show. I wonder how long this has been an issue for him, or if it really does. truly was just batting practice on Saturday, as I use air quotes. Yeah, I was going to say, you're air quoting. We're not on television yet. But, you know, it's the emphasis. You can hear it, Matt.

By the way, speaking of the ordon, IH or IP. It's a hand issue. This doesn't have to do with creaky knees. People hurt their hands all the time. I think he's actually had hand issues before. He has had hand issues before, yeah. And didn't he play like 140 games last year? What did you do? Let me look. For a major leaguer that doesn't go through an injury, 147.

That's a, you know what, 15 off days? I'm more than happy with that. Give me, give me 145 a year and you can't use IH or IP. We got bad weather. What's going on with our weather over here? Severe warning. Take action now. What is the, this is the Channel 13 app? What are they doing to us?

He's trying to scare us here? They got the NATO's. Uh-oh. He got Shark Nato's blowing in. Be careful out there, folks. Check my radar over here on my phone. Okay, you do that while I'll go through the games, play by Yordon Alvarez.

23, it was 114. Was that when he had the big oblique issue? Yeah. 2020, 135, and then 144 before that. And then of 2022, of course, he only played two. He had the big knee issues. Right. So over 135 games for three of the last four years.

We'll see how much time he misses with this hand issue. As far, I mean, look, I don't have any detail they've given on it. I'll say, there, every, look, and for that matter, everybody's got an injury history. Most people have injury histories. Yeah. I don't know of guys except, you know, a handful of NBA players, you know, or Cal Repkin that plays thousands of games in a row.

You got athletes pushing their bodies to the limit, Matt. Yeah. There's sometimes they are going to break down. Yeah. And there's fluky things that happen. Like, for instance, all those years of Jeff Bagel kept getting hit in the hand of the, oh gosh. At the plate and yeah, through no fault of his own, but, you know, time was out, time was out.

By the way, I was just looking, I was just curious about Jose Altova's gameplay. This is his birthday. How old is he today? He is 35 on the decline. Can I wish something? First of all he's not on decline. Stop it. He's not?

He's handling his business in left field. He's still getting hits. He's hitting 259 with an OPS of 681. you're happily married. And I'm happily married. But I want to introduce myself at least. Do you ever get in trouble with like? I just want to know. Never. She doesn't listen to the show.

She doesn't listen to the show. She doesn't listen to the show probably just because of comments like that. She knows this bit. So just relax. You stay out of this, by the way, Jonathan. Don't worry. I'll get you in trouble before the years of it. You already have.

What did I do wrong? Made fun of her about her sauces, man. Well, that's ridiculous. Five range dressings on a salad. It's too much. She thought it was funny. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

I mean, that is ranch. soup. That is gross. Yeah. I don't need soggy lettuce all over my addressing. Mm-hmm. Okay. Back to it. Yeah. So I did OPS run yesterday. Okay. Pena, 759. It's good. I mean, we'll take that for a lead-off guy.

But then you started to get the heart of the order, Altuve 681, Pareto is 752. Walker 619, Yon Air Dia 611. Zach Desenzo has been playing a lot, frankly, 682. And then your boy, Rake, is at 794. Woo! Cam Smith's rookie campaign not going to win the rookie of the year. The OPS is... He's got time.

He's also got some embats to get too. A two home run game. He'd be up the OPS like $7.50. Is that early? His OPS is 655. And the Mauricio DuBond's Ops is 524. 524. 524. Well, I thought he was going to be the savior for the Astros and he needed to be...

Altuvie needed to be traded away because he's the... No, no, no. You're talking about Cam Smith being the future. And how he doesn't make the team out of spring training is is absolutely Travis. Yeah. Okay. Back to my initial point.

Go ahead. The office is bad. They're at 500. Their pitching has been, I would say, if you gave a grade a B, right? Um, B plus? Okay, sure. I don't know.

I'm going to go put the old team ranks. Okay, I'll take B plus. ERA, their fifth, or six, excuse me. Okay. No, fifth. Okay. I can't read. So let's give my B plus then.

Yeah, B plus. Top five? You got a quality start on the road. Top five ERA is a B plus, maybe even an A. Yeah. Okay. So we'll give them a B plus then. But the offense has been a D?

21st in Team OPS. D is about right. C minus D. Yeah. Tomato potato. So what I would like is I would like the offense to match the would have perceived to be a very good start for this pitch and staff. They were never going to be a top.

Top 5, top 10 off. One, okay, top 10-ish would be the goal. They were never going to be, I mean, this is the thing. Like I said, we get in our Houston bubble. We're like, hey, Christian Walker and you're in Alvarez. They're not getting close to the Yankees offense. Look at what the Dodgers have up and down their lineup. The Cubs right now as well.

Thankfully, the Astros Division is met at best. It's funny, though, however, the Seattle Mariners are three in front of the Astros. The Seattle Mariners have a better record than the New York Yankees. Wow. They've been hitting. If you are three games above 500 in the American League East, you are in first place. The Boston Red Sox who were in second place are 500 in the American League East. I mean, it has been, frankly, and of all years for the asteris to get off of this kind of mid-start, which is 500,

yeah, it hadn't killed them. And that's why part of me is like, man, if you guys wake up, you can not only take over this division, but you can really think about what you may want to do come trend. headline and really get yourself in a spot because maybe the Yankees are more vulnerable than the past. You beat Detroit two out of three when they were here last week and they're that they've got the best rock in the America League. There's no reason why you can't amongst this mis this group of mediocrity be the best of the middle. Yeah. If you can just be middle of the pack, well as far as offensively and then the pitching holds, this is going to be a good

team and they can win the division. I think Cal Raleigh and Jorge Polanka have gotten off to White Hot starts for the Mariners. I think a cow rally's really good and he just signed a big deal, but I don't think he's going to hit 40 home runs. I think he's going to cool off at some point. That's right. All right. On the radio program today,

we've got gut feelings at 1130 this morning. Got anything in your gut today? Want to make a little gut about the rocket's off season? If you're not ready to do it, I don't want to force you to it. Unless you've got something. No, I really... Because I don't. I mean, I'll be brutally honest with you.

I don't. I have a gut feeling. Okay, save it for 1130. we've got the news fluctuating it's a fluctuating gut well maybe an in an asset could help with that I'm looking forward to it or regular bowel movement whatever you need to do I think I'm okay in that department but thank you for your concern

when I go on these your on these uh Facebook rules I go signs of a bad gut I'm like well you know what eating fritos and fries in the same meal probably is a reason for you have a bad gut oh I shouldn't do that I don't think so oh it was on the fritos and fries diet feels kind of starchy yeah We have the news at noon, and then at 1 o'clock today, we're going to run the press conference between Ema Adoka and Rafael Stone, the Rockets coach and general manager.

They're over at Toyota Center today. Kind of an off-season thing. Now, I guess, I don't know, shouldn't guess. I feel very confidenting. They're not going to be mentioning players by name in terms of other players out there. They really can't do that. But we'll do some context clue evaluation. How about that?

Yeah, we're looking at everything. We'll hear conversations, and we have to do some evaluations, and we haven't made a decision, and this is a long process that we've gone through, and we like the players that we have and the talent, and I think we can grow. And people have to remember we were ahead of schedule when you talk about where we are right now. So I think the organization is in a really good spot. You just gave the 10 o'clock audience a preview of what we're going to be running live at 1 o'clock today. And for that, we thank you.

713-212-5-790. If I tell you as a die-hard astro fan like I am and have been for 40-plus years, I'm bored with them. Not with them generally, but just bored right now. Are you with me on this? Are you like, no, Matt, you're missing something here? What do you mean? This is a high flying bat cracking Houston Astros, Matt?

Defense. Good defensively. Good, pitching wise. But if I'm bored, are you with me? Or are you like, no, I see more than you're seeing? Let me know. 713-212-5-790. with the things you learn on IHeart Radio.

So, renowned actor, John, I thought it was Lithgow, called himself John Lithgow. You know what? That's why you listen to the IHeart podcast. That's why I heard paying him the big bucks. To get the information on proper pronunciation. Is there anybody else in your life

that you've butchered their name for all these years ago? My God, I went all this time. Yeah, you're putting me on the spot. No, there'll be something. Don't, it'll come up to mind like, oh, I can't believe I've been calling that guy that for all these years. Yes, there's a couple baseball players that I always get wrong and go back and forth on. I can't remember. First of all, I was calling Logan Van Way.

I was calling him Logan Van Wye. No. That's wrong. Ooh, sorry about that. Mm-hmm. I forgive you. Okay, I'm sure. Well, Logan's at, he's probably listening.

He's in Sugarland right now. You think he is? I mean, there's a chance. We appreciate them. Thanks for the support. Well, I mean, he did pitch over the weekend. Uh-huh. So.

All right. Yeah, just think about that. Is there a name that you in your life, you have butchered that you're like, oh, my God, I went years and years and years of that. So just think about that in the back of your mind. Or somebody you knew? Could be somebody you know, too. Could be your cousin. Elma.

There was somebody up here who called me Russ for like 10 years. Why are you out in Sean Salisbury like that? That's not true. He called me Ross and Rosco. You know. that. I've never called you Rosco. Well, okay. That's fine. He always calls me Maddie Ballgame.

Well, he was the only one that called me Roscoe, and then I had an economics teacher that would call me Roscoe Bosco. No way. Yeah. And you're like, you don't know. Miss Dragon. I think she's alive? Her name was Miss Dragon? Mm-hmm. Economics. High school.

I mean, it's high school. What's up? Did she lose a bet on the last name? And she married in that name? Uh, yeah, she married A Dragon, Matt. Yes. Most famous person named Dragon. Can you go for... You get one guess and one guess only for $10 million. Nope. From Martin.

Darrell Dragon. Now you're just making that up. Her husband... His wife? The great Tony Tenil. They were the captain and tenor. I'll take your word for it. No, you should take my word for it.

You think if there's anybody in this market that knows Captain Tinnail, it's me. That's true. You're the official bureau of Captain and Tenil information. I had a crush on Tony Tenil for a long time. Okay. I was a kid. She alive or dead? Very much alive.

Good for her. Darryl Dragon is dead, though. Oh, may he rest, man. And they basically had a loveless marriage. She basically admitted. Well, that happens. Yeah, it's going to happen. Why? Because was it a beard situation? What is a beard situation?

That's when somebody who, especially back in the day when it was less acceptable to be out a... No, no, no, no. They just, he just didn't feel like the need for intimacy. And she's like, come on. Yeah, so was it a beard situation? Oh, I mean, I guess... You said she was hot. I thought she was.

I wouldn't say hot. I would say I would say I would just attract to her. I did. Yeah, but there's some sort of level of attractiveness. I can have an emotional. I can have a singing crush on somebody. Oh, okay. You had a crush on her singing voice rather than her, like Adele.

Oh, Adel's lost her. She looks good. I still listen to a level keep us together at least once a day. Once a day? Maybe not. You wake up and you're brushing your teeth. Love will keep us together. See, you know the song?

Yeah, I mean, I've heard it. It's kind of cheesy. Not cheesy. It's terrific. That's okay. Cheesy and Perific is kind of the Venn diagram. You stick right in there. A plus B equals Matt.

So there you go. Exactly. Let's talk to Kyle in Cyprus at 1023 on 790. Kyle, good morning to you. Thanks for calling. Hey, good morning. Thank you. Yeah, real quick, I had a guy I worked with for a long time.

I called him A-hole, but I think his name was Paul. So I got that. Was that a characteristic of him or just a, pronounce a name wrong i guess no i has character is okay i got you i got you yeah and tony teneal is awesome by the way but hey real quick john lithgow the best performance i've ever seen is on um the uh that movie uh the twilight zone when he was the scared guy in the airplane it's worth watching the movies for that nice i think william shatner played the original on the tv show but uh liscoe was just incredible what was that name of that tv show that it was on the um that had french

Stewart on it and Thor Ross and the son. That was a pretty funny show. He was on Dexter. He was in I believe he was in terms of endearment as the like the side piece to Devere Winger's character. Don't hold me to

that. Okay. Continue on. Yeah, he's on something with some big, it was some big creature or something. I don't know. He was in Shrek. He was the I can't remember the guy's name. but yeah so hey not to get on a downer subject but man you hit it right on the head i didn't know

what was going on i just hadn't been excited at stroes and can't really get hyped up for it i don't know something's missing i just uh i don't feel real good about this season and uh you know i know i didn't have the expectation of signing bregman and tucker but you know hindsight's 20-20 but was there a chance we could assign Tucker because he's just just lighting it up yeah Kyle the reality is this there was a 1% chance you could assign Alex Breggman there was a 0% chance you were going to sign Kyle Tucker Kyle Tucker Kyle Tucker never in his mind ever thought hey the Astros are part of my future first of all he wants a mega contract

secondly and probably the most importantly I think the damage with the arbitration deal when he lost it and you get resentment really stung and I think it was a I'll forgive but I will not forget and I think he was thinking at the end of the day I want to go see what else is out there and oh by the way you take me to arbitration after what I've done for this organization no thanks and I think

that did some damage yeah all right yeah well so we have to move on but yeah we gotta do something man we gotta make a move something there's just not that spark I don't know if it's out too big out there and left you know I don't know what it is but there's something and I know

Brendan Rogers didn't really pulling his weight and the first base, we still have those issues but I don't know. It's just, I'm kind of bummed out. I'm ready for the Texans already. Well, thank you, California. And again, a byproduct of this, honestly, guys and gals, is the fact they're

500. There is no one unless you're a super underperforming team that gets excited about 500. Like, if you're the Colorado Rockies, you're expected to lose 100 games before the start of the season. If they're 500, at this point, you're like, man, this has been fun watching this team.

Now, granted, they're not 500. They're going to have the worst record in baseball. Six and 28. Now, if you're the athletics and you're hanging around America League West, if you're around 500, you're like, okay, this is pretty cool. I mean, we've got a new stadium, a new city. We're not in our own bed. Nobody's watching our games.

Nobody goes to our games. We're drawing 9,000 a game. We're playing 500 baseball. This is kind of fun. But I think for a, and that's, I don't think it's, we're, we're, we're, we're wrong in our emotions, but there is a point in every franchise where you take that slight dip or sometimes significant dip. And thankfully at this point, the dip has been minimal, but it's still, now granted, compared to where this team was last year, that's the thing we have to kind of

keep in perspective here, is that this Astros baseball team was a hot mess last year. Yeah, they're having a schedule. Yeah, I mean, if they're going to put together this, like this June charge like they normally do, well, if they're hanging around 500 and through the month of April of May, you've got to be feeling pretty good about things. So, I don't know, it's just 500, and that could be about a football team, that can be about your basketball team. I mean, look at the Rockets last year,

41 and 41. I mean, it was great. It was fun. But it didn't necessarily rejuvenate basketball in our town. What we've got, rejuvenation was 52 wins and a number two seed in the playoffs in a playoff series. I'll step towards rejuvenation. You know what I'm saying. But my point is that you if you're just mediocre

or average, that means your restaurant's not overly busy. Can have few people in it. Huh. You could have a TV show that, you know, settles in the 40s and 50s. It's still on the year, but nobody's like running to make sure I got to watch it. And if you're a baseball team or a sports team and you're 500, you're like, yeah, I'll catch you when I can. But last night, nine hits, eight singles, bases loaded, got one run out of it. It was because of a fielder's choice error. They want a lot of drama to it, went a lot of energy to it. And oh, by the way, they were, they lost to a Milwaukee team who won the game yesterday.

And they're 500 on the year. just mid nobody wants to be mid in life mired in mediocrity not good but as I say all these things again glass half full on this for me you're mid and you're right in the thick

of America League West race for that matter you're right in the thick of the America League race it's Detroit and everybody else honestly yay yeah yeah you can say yay you can say you know you say

17 and 17 yay not out of it yet you know what you can say okay okay okay okay okay All right, I got you. It can get better. It will get better. I don't think it's going to turn.

We keep saying it's going to turn. We keep saying the bats are going to wake up and, well, it's early. We keep saying that too. Joe Spot will be with us at 1230 to. You know, we're going to get him fired up. I don't think he's going to be that fired up. No, we're going to get him fired up. For what?

Updusted to talk to him about it. We'll get him. Oh, you're going to get him angry? I'm just going to say, hey, let's start pounding and start the table and start throwing things. I'm going to have him go, but the boys put a movie on it, one of the greatest baseball movies of all time. Sandlot? No, I'm not putting Sanlott in the Astros Clubhouse.

Why not? First of all, overrated. He hasn't seen it. You haven't seen it. How do you know it's overrated? It's probably overrated. We have not seen it. And Jonathan, don't out me like that.

I don't care how I knew you are. Ross was going to do it first. Yeah, I was. See, Jonathan beat me to the punch. 713. He's learning about how fraudulent you are. Not fraudulent. I'm brutally honest.

713-212-790. 713-212-5-7-9 if you want to join our conversation. Matt Ross with you here on Sports Talk 7-9. We have gut feelings at 1130 today. You ready for that? I got a lot of good feelings, actually. By the way, to tell the truth yesterday did not work. The Boston Celtics lost game one of their series of the Knicks.

Yeah, what was your guys going to sweeping? I think I had the Celtics sweeping them, yeah. Well, every one of the juggernauts of the team, The three teams, I would say, the most chance to win the championship, all lost. At home. At home.

It's crazy. The semifinals, to me, is the sweet spot. First round, you get the riff-raf out. Atlanta, Orlando. Houston. Just kidding. They're not riff-raft. You know what I'm saying.

Right. Yeah, you get some of the riff-raft out, and then the semifinals is where it really heats up. Nicola Yokic, what do you have, 44, 22 rebounds, six assists, something like that? He's a, excuse my French. He's a sick bitch. He's the best player on the planet.

Should have won MVP this year, but Shaggildes Alexander's going to win it. That's okay. A seven-footer average a triple double and won 50 games and not going to win the MVP. That's crazy. Shaggildes Alexander wakes up scoring 35. Well, no, he only had 33 last night.

Okay, well. 10 rebounds, 8 assists. He's great. Chet Holmgren missed a couple of clutch free throws. I know, well, Matt, are we losing everybody already? Yeah, forget what? Okay, five more seconds. Two great games last night.

That's it. That's what I'll say. All right. To Hannah and Cal, they went to the country club to have their golf tournament to raise money. Good for them. They didn't have to do that. Yeah, Matt, raising money for charity.

She is the president of the Texans Foundation, right? Or vice president or senior VP or whatever. I don't know who the president is if she's the vice president. Maybe it's Cal. I know it's not Carrie McNair. He carries a lot on the plate. Present a lot of things. Janice is still.

She's out of everything, right? But she's alive. Oh, she is a lot. Okay. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be. I couldn't remember. Yeah, she's a lot.

Okay. But Cal and Hannah, we're speaking. A lot of Cal until Hannah had to jump in to rescue. Should have grabbed his hand. Cal? We talked about this before, Cal. Let me, let me. We went through this, Cal.

Obviously, I have a relationship with Tillman Fertita. And I had a relationship with Tillman before. Now he's in Italy. Yeah, he's a little. But I had a relationship with him before the Rockets owned it. Uh-huh. I've known Jim Crane for a long time. Now, I don't know if he knows my name anymore,

but I've been with Jim multiple times in a non-press conferencing atmosphere. So I have, I mean, if he saw me, he would recognize me and say, that's great. That's great story, Matt. Okay, my point is this. I have no relationship with Cal. But if Cal was to come in here and sit down, I think we'd find Cal engaging.

I don't think there's really a mean. Engaging? Excuse me. Pleasant. I'm sure he'd be nice. Yeah. Talk about barbecue ribs and... I mean, I don't think there's a...

I mean, I don't think there's a mean bone in his body. No. I think he generally wants the team to win. I think he generally appreciates the relationship he now has with the fans. I think they generally, genuinely, excuse me, uh, it's like every other person owns a multi-billion dollar industry. They want to make more money.

And so you have to mix all that in, be friendly, throw up the Hs, got this hot wife who does most of your heavy lifting for you. But it's very difficult for me as a talk show host to have to discuss ownership of the sports franchise in our town with one guy that it's the elevator going all the way to the top. It just doesn't. And that's hard because you don't because first of all, you never want to make fun of people. It's not fun to make fun of people. I get made fun of all the time and I take it personally and so it's not enjoyable.

I'm sorry, Matt. I'll stop making it funny. I mean, you know, I don't care who does. I just, it's not, it's not, nobody wants to be made fun of. I mean, imagine Cal in front of a microphone if Hannah wasn't at his side. Yeah. He wouldn't be owning the team and he wouldn't be in this leadership role if it wasn't for whose father is.

In theory, he didn't, he didn't do anything to own it, didn't raise the funds. Now, he was next to dad the whole time. smart move by him. Yes. Obviously, he's appreciated much more than Carrie's brother was. But it's tough because he does carry such clout for a guy that was gifted a, what is it? What are the taxes worth? $4 billion?

Maybe five? Maybe five, who give her a tank? Commanders went for six. So the Texans got to be in there. So here's some comments yesterday when they were at the golf tournament. And again, kudos of them for having a golf tournament that tries rain money for their foundation. Yes. here is

Cal McNair on the update on the lease with NRG Stadium. We're working with some really good partners with the rodeo and also the county and it's a complicated kind of a mixture but with the practice facility

we're working on that almost every day and the lease, overall lease we're working on that and where we wind up with practice facility I'm not really quite sure yet. We have a lot of great options and we'll sort of sort through that you know

sooner rather than later but we're in a good spot and we'll keep working out of complex okay that's thank you for that update first of all the general public doesn't care about the practice facility no no I mean as awesome as the Rockets facility is

nobody was around and going man we got this new practice facility I forgot it was there of which 99.9999% of Houston will not will never walk into no it's cool because it helps with free agency. It helps with facilities. It helps with the grind of a season, whether that's football, baseball. I mean, you want to have nice facilities. So the players that are thinking about coming to your respective teams. But in terms of the general overall landscape, there's no, there's no

rocket fan or no future Texan fan beating their chest going, man, we got this great practice facility. Thank God for that. So that's all relative. The general public only cares about one thing right now when you're talking about facilities and that is the future of where they're going to be playing after the lease expires I think it was it 2031 I think is what it is I'll take your word for it continue for yes here is Cal McNairn and a potential

relocation what's great is we're okay where we are and so that's our starting point and then would we move out yeah we would move out and do a brand new one somewhere but it's greater Houston area greater Houston area so And see, that's where Hannah had to come in and rescue.

Greater Houston area, Cal. We told we went over this Cal. Greater Houston area. Because if he wouldn't have said that, or if Hannah wouldn't have jumped in, the next question you would hope by the real media that's there as compared to some of the fake that were there yesterday. All right.

Would have been, are you exploring outside of Houston? And so thankfully Hannah came in like she's done. for the best, well, the last three years. Uh-huh. He's coming in and scooped in and kind of fixed the slight audio full paw that the Cal had. Yeah. So they, and he also said beginning, I think it was key. He said, we're okay where we are, is what he said at the beginning.

Not we love where we are. We couldn't be happier with the facility. Now the very beginning, he says, we're okay where we are. Now you know he's lying. Well, he's at least, I think he's not lying in saying we're okay. Like, we're okay. Like, okay, if we have to, if worse comes to worse, and we can't get anything passed through.

We can't find a spot. We're okay where we are. Yeah, the big question is going to be. It's like, how's the thing going with that new girlfriend of years? We're okay where we are. Hmm. That doesn't mean that doesn't sound like there's wedding bells in the future. That's right.

So the question is going to be ultimately, do they want to stay in Harris County? Does Fort Bend, Montgomery, I don't think, Walters way too far. Brazoria does somebody, does it outside Southeast Texas County? Galveston County? Nope. I mean, I guess you, there is, you could get to, you know, the pleasure pier. You know, not just like a Gabbasen County starts what, right past friends would, I think. I don't know.

I mean, you could do that, but that would be really, I think, far away. Yeah. The question's going to be, will there be an outside county that will say, you know what, we have a chance to help build this Taj Mahal to bring in this quote-unquote business, stadium, facility, hotel, restaurant. And just like these little sports communities that have been popping up around the country. Mm-hmm. If no one steps up, then they have. have to ultimately say, all right, what do we have to contribute to fix the renovations that

has NRG? And from what I, again, I don't, I'm not in their business, but everybody keeps telling me, at least the reports is that the, the county or whoever is in charge the stadium has done a woeful job of keeping it up to date. Now, keeping up to date, to me would mean, is electricity on, do this, are the seats in good shape, or are they keeping up to date compared to what every other stadium is getting with the brand new rebuilds and the hundreds of million dollars in improvements and the better club seats. So the finding is whether or not they've done their job in year-to-year improvements, I think, is up for conjecture.

Seems like they're well behind the Joneses. Well, I think compared to what we're seeing around the NFL, that's kind of obvious. 1044 on Sports Talk 7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. So, Rossie, you've been in this business for 10, 15 years? You're about to get stadium talk. 16 years. You're about to get some serious stadium talk come up the next three to four.

I will see. It will age you. I'm not worried about it. It aged me. Young Matt Thomas had all the hair. That explains a lot, actually. Yeah, had lots of hair until we got stadium talk and then we lost all of it. And then soon left. Yeah. That wouldn't find. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Matt Ross with you, we got gut feelings coming up in 40 minutes. A few things I want to clean up here. First of all, is it somebody on Twitter that said this? Ricky Steamboat, his nickname is the Dragon. I was going with the last name of dragon.

And so I'm still right. Daryl Dragon's the most famous last name of dragon. Yeah, Mike Mata. Mike Mata? That's not true. Tell your boy, Matt, the most famous dragon is Ricky the Steamboat Dragon. But he put a laughing, crying emoji. Perhaps could be a joke, I don't know. You know, sarcasm, sometimes tough to catch on the Twitter streets. It can be. Okay. Number two, Joan says

a name she still butchers is Amen Thompson. not Amen Thompson. It's Amen. Mm-hmm. And number three, two television little tidbits for you. You know, I'm always curious about TV stuff. Yeah, that's what we call you Mr. Tidbits.

No, that's actually Brian McTaggart. It was just time for tidbits. The Warriors Rockets game averaged six and a half million viewers on Sunday to rank as Cables most watched game round seven since 2009. That's 16 years. Wow. TNT has a 4% viewership bonus in viewership over last year. 3.3 million viewers ranking his table, the top cable net in prime through the first two weeks among people under the age of 35. That fits the scenario. I get lots of people that will comment on my Facebook and Twitter and Instagram is saying, I don't want the NBA. It's too woke. Or I don't like jump shots.

It's usually 35 plus. The 35 under crowd. 45 plus. Okay, 45 plus. The 35 under, as T&T just pointed out, loves the NBA. And Adam Silver knows that. So, again, to each his own, I mean, if you don't like it, ratings bumps are not going to say, well, I should go track it again.

You should go check it out. Either you like something, you don't like it. Like, for instance, you love Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. I find no value in him. I don't disagree with your love for him. I respect it, but it's fine. It's just not me.

I don't like it. Yeah. So I choose not to listen to it. Yeah, right. If you, uh, you like wrestling, Matt, and sometimes you tweet about things that happen in wrestling, I don't go reply to your tweet and go,

wrestling sucks. This is the worst. Well, it's funny because Twitter people do that. I know. People in IG like, I ain't watching that. Then don't. Yeah, I know.

I don't need you commenting. I know, like, I checked out of the NBA in 1997. or 1998 when basketball died with Michael Jordan. Okay, that's cool, man. You don't need to tell me. Yeah, I mean, welcome to Muteland. See you later. See you later.

I mean, I'm older. I'm in the old group. I mean, I am. I'm 50 plus and it's what it is. I just don't need to tell you how I feel about everything. Thank you, Matt. I had this radio show to tell you that I think soccer and Kendrick Lamar suck, but that's a different issue for a different time.

You think Kendrick Lamar sucks? No, it's just not my cup of tea. All right. thing on the television. 22 grannies says otherwise. Yeah, but he was buying votes. All right, MLB Media Chief, Kenny Gersh. Never heard of the guy, but I'm going to taste something.

Kenny Gersh. That's not a great Gersh. That sounds like the lame neighbor, the lame next door neighbor in a sitcom. Hey, there's Mr. Gersh. He was my high school P.E. teacher. Mr. Gersh. Okay, back to it. Anyways, Ken Gersh.

I'm sorry, that was my fault. says in 2028, which is three years from now. Three years from now, he would like either a national streaming package, which is suicide, frankly. I mean, I know we're all streaming, but we ain't streaming to go watch the Cardinals against the Phillies. Sorry, it ain't happening.

I thought they don't have like a league pass. Don't they have MLB TV? I think it's a game of the week kind of thing. Oh, okay. Or MLB Network becomes the home of law. local baseball. Like they'll have 10 affiliates, like they have the alternate channels. You'll have

30 alternate channels. Mm-hmm. For the Yeah, that's true. Which would essentially destroy every regional sports network. Which would mean baseball would be paying 30 play by playmen, 30 color guys,

staff, sideline. Well, maybe the team would be paying for it. The Houston version of Yeah. And then they have to get 30 sales staff to make money on all of them. It doesn't seem, that doesn't seem plausible to me either. The reality is this, you are losing regional sports networks by the year. Colorado, San Diego, Minnesota.

There's probably a third. Why is that happening in baseball more than basketball? I guess NFL is obviously the own animal. I don't know. I don't have an answer to you because the rangers, oh, the Rangers, by the way, are no longer on, on. They were on a fendual. They have their own network now. They do.

Yeah. It's like Rangers, whatever. It's called Texas Ranger Network. Yeah. Uh-huh. Now, they don't supply commentary and programming 24 hours today. They just put games on and they replay them and stuff. But it's on my DirecTV.

It's a channel. When are the Rockets at Astros going to do that? 19 bucks a month, space city home network. Let's go. I don't know. With the Matt Thomas show on 10 to 2. Maybe they want to keep people going to Direc TV or to AT&T the cable devices.

Maybe that, you know, you offer the streaming because you want to get people an alternative to what is currently on. And maybe they're long, you know, and if you want us that damn bad, you will go to those networks. And people that are YouTube TV people, they can't get it. No, they can't. What they, what certain teams want to do, and obviously the Rockets or any Astros in this group, they don't want you to be a YouTuber. They want you to go to DirecTV or do cable or Xfinity or whatever else, you know, carries a channel. They're saying if you want us that bad, then you know where to find us. And we're not going to give you all the card service.

Some teams do that. The Rockets and Astros have chosen not to do that so far. So far. So far. All right. Let's get to the top of the hour with Dwayne and El Paso once to talk about the Astros rotation and the Hunter Brown question. We'll get to that. As the Astros did fall yesterday to the Milwaukee Brewers, five to one.

We've got gut feelings coming up in a half an hour. And in two hours, the Rockets, Ime Adoka and Raphael Stonewell, have a press availability. We'll carry that for you live here on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach a show if you want to get in. 1101 on Sports Talk 790. Good morning. It is Matt and Ross. And we thank you for being a part of the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. 7-1-3. You're welcome. Well, I mean, we pay you to be here. Oh, wow. That's true. It feels like I'm working for free. Because I love working with you every day, man. That's what I'm. I'm saying. Hour number two of the show.

Yeah, I don't think I believe you. You're out of sports talk 790. I can just give you a hug. You'd rather be in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. I'm in Michigan right now. Grand Rapids? Isn't that place to dump? Um.

It sounds a lot cooler than it is. It's actually not got, it's got a pretty decent downtown vibe to it. Okay. In fact, Grand Rapids downtown, greater than Houston downtown. All right. Just saying. When's the last time you were in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan? It's when I was in Arena football.

So, so 1995. It's been a while. All those buildings have been condemned that you were partying at. Okay, 713, 212, 790. We got gut fillings coming up at the bottom of the hour. We have the E-May Doca get together at 1 o'clock with Rafael Stone. We had the Astros falling. We got Joe a spotted to join us, and I've not gotten confirmation of Joe, but I'm assuming 1230, right?

Oh, I guess. I think it was 130 last week, so maybe we should check in on that. Usually when it's later than that, somebody lets us know. Okay. I mean, Miliwake, it's the same.

Same time zone. Same time zone. Yep. By the way, the Astros have lost three or four in this Midwest road trip. It is what it is, right? And they're being mid in the Midwest,

yeah. Is that the headline in the Chronicle today? I don't think so. It was the last time you touched the Chronicle. I like a hard and copy. I felt it in my fingers. Yeah. I don't know.

It is crazy. Honestly, probably, probably like 0809. So I was going to get coffee one morning in San Francisco last week and there were copies of the Wall Street Journal, which I'm not bothering that. There was some another newspaper, and there was the San Francisco Chronicle.

I thought to myself, well, I'll go pick that up. So I grabbed a copy because I wanted to see what the San Francisco media was saying about the series. I took two minutes. I'm like, I don't have time for this. this, there's just ads all over the place. It's just faster for me to go to the website, which is sfgate.com as the

Chronicle. You didn't get a paywall? For a couple of things I did not. No, but my point is that if you think there's paywall and ads all over the spots on your internet newspaper addresses, go get a hard copy today. 80% of the page is an ad.

Well, advertising dollars make the world go around, Matt. Speaking of which we'd like to thank all our great sponsors. Oh, we have huge great sponsors, but at least we give you value. That's true. That's true. You don't think quality home products is happy that I'm going to send people over to there to get you guys a Generac standby generator, of course. Because that's the right thing to do. Well, there sucks around here. You need a generator. Thank you, Matt. Thanks for the help.

713. I'm providing a service, frankly. 713 quality. Let's talk to Duane in El Paso at 1104. Dwayne, how's the hurricane season out there in West Texas? We don't have them appear. We have the hard winds. We have the hard winds. below, but that's about it. You know what? I'll tell you what. I've been El Paso a handful of times. You don't have crappy weather, do you? No, sir. Sunshine's 24, and then we might have rain every once in a while, but no, uh-uh. You're blessed, because we were trying to find a part of the country that doesn't have severe weather of some sort. Like, you go to California, you get the mudslides, you get the earthquakes, you get the hurricanes here, you've got oppressive heat in the south,

and then you have, like, the snow and the blizzards, and maybe El Paso is a spot, Rossi. Could be. Just throwing it out there. What do you got, Duane? As long as you're not in a cartel. If you guys are okay with the shifting of the ground, then, hey, it happens here. Earthquakes? Yes, sir. Not twice a year. Yeah.

I didn't know that. It was the other day that I felt one. And I was in the room, my room and stuff, but the walls didn't shake. nothing shook except the floor itself shifted and then the bed moved quite a bit but other than that that was it man but it can be scary sometimes i get you all right get to the sports now my man what do you got now okay uh i don't get bored with with any baseball even with the astros they're they're they're going up and down and now we don't know when it's going to happen when they'll be able to start you know playing good ball again but my question is

is after the depletions of the farm club that they have over there, and then also the trades that they've made and stuff and the team that they have out there now. So what do you think? Would it be a good time for the Astros to pay Hunter Brown some money before the trade deadline comes up? because he's a very good pitcher. He's done some great things there in Houston as far as pitching and, you know,

coming to practices during the offseason and stuff. And he's just a real good pitcher. I just want to know. Okay, Dwayne. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a, it wouldn't be a, thank you for the phone call, Dwayne. And I hope you are say earthquake free out there in the West Texas. Nothing new with the trade deadline.

It's about you've got, he's got arbitration years coming up. So you could, you could write him a contract tomorrow. The reality is Dwayne, and to those that are Hunter Brown fans, it was it Chandler that reported a little while ago that the Astros had, that Hunter Brown said, hey, let's talk and the Astros said, we're good for now. Somebody legitimate said that. I can't recall. I think it was Chandler in like a mailbag is what it was.

I think it was what it was. You know that I'm a tagger. I'm pretty sure it was Chandler-Rome. Oh, yeah, it was Chandler, because I was looking at his mailbag not too long ago. So if you're Hunter Brown now, unless the Astros make a really, really sweet, hard deal when it comes to buying out the arbitration years, he's going to say, you know what? We'll just go year by year by year. And then when I become a free agent, it would be four years from now, then we'll test the free agent waters. I don't want to say that chip has passed because obviously things can change.

And again, if you, when you buy out arbitration years, you're buying for over with the, what the market. it says your value is, but then you also want to do that and extend beyond those years. Like, for instance, you don't just buy arbitration years and that's it. You buy arbitration plus two or two or three years typically after that when you're supposed to be a true street free agent. Yeah. So you try to save money on the back end. Like say, for example, Yordon's making what, $29 million? If he had hit free agency after his, or would hit arbitration, he'd be making, who knows, probably $40 million or whatever, but you lose them. the front. So that's, that's what you're doing. It's more money at front. Yeah, more money up front.

But the team gets extra years of you where you can, after six years of having major league service time, you can then become your own free agent and you can go see what you want, what you want out there. Yeah, you can lose on the deal on both sides. Or you can win on. Connor Brown could lose on the deal, but if he, say, has Tommy John surgery and, you know, he's, or just is never the same after that or something like that. He would be having a lot, he would have a lot more financial security. Didn't the Astros buy out some Lance McCuller's years? I don't recall. I think he was close. But yeah. De Astros lost on that deal.

Signing Lance McCuller Jr. for as long as they did because they haven't got anything out of them in the last couple of years. It's been a sunk cost. So there's risk on both sides. Yeah, Christian Javier took the deal. Jordan Alvarez took the deal. Kyle Tucker did not. Kyle Tucker said, I'm going to bet on myself. It's funny.

Don't you think it's the Latin players that typically. take it more because I think in their byproduct they're thinking, you know what, more money for my me, more money for my family, more money for, they want the guarantee. It feels like to me the Latin players, at least for the Astros, have all been way more accommodating in

terms of the buying out of the arbitration years than... I mean, Alex Breggman did. Breggman did it. Alex Breggman from Dominican. No, that's Alex Breggman from New Mexico. Okay. Sorry. Jewish guy from New Mexico. Yeah, so

there you go. There's your example. It's not. I don't think it's, maybe there is this. Well, but Javier, Altuve, Yordan, Bregman. Bregman, it's four. Who else has been? Carlos Correa is from Puerto Rico and he didn't take a deal. I mean, no. I think Carlis Correa may be from the time he signed his first professional contracts like I'm six years away. Probably.

And well, he's been toiling Minnesota. And maybe Kyle Tucker felt like the same way too. It's been a mixed bag for him betting on himself. He hasn't lost that much of the deal. He's very well financially compensated. There are players who bet on themselves. Jared Kellanick was one of the top prospects in baseball in the Mariners system, and he just got a DFAed by the Braves.

He was offered a big deal by the Mariners to buy out arbitration. He said, no, I'm going to bet on himself. And now he's, he just got DFAed by the Braves. So there are players who bet on themselves. Bobby Witt took arbitration years from the Royals and got then some. I mean, they really something with a 10-year contract. Julio Rodriguez took a big deal. Yeah.

as well. You know who's already wigging out right now? Is Juan Soto's fan club in New York? Oh, what's go? Is he the, they're, I saw a graphic where you were here. We were, is it with Juan Soso? Is that what they're calling them? One so-so, that's rude.

Do you know this and we've got to get your break on this? I would probably, not probably. I respect the hell out of Jim Crane's stance of I just can't pay long-term deals. Yeah. on the scale of I just don't get it. I get it. You might miss once in a while. Like, for instance, if Kyle Tucker signs an eight-year deal with Chicago

and continues to be an excellent player for the long term, whatever, you mind point. Then that's going to be a miss. But by and large, most of these super mega deals don't pan out. And so if Jim's going to stay on that frame of mind, I think the Astros, as long as Jim's running things, are keeping a responsible payroll, and I think it gives them flexibility to go get guys once in a while. It gives them flexibility to go get a Josh Hater at the very last second.

It gives them an opportunity to go, you know, pick up, you know, who else have they gotten? Verlenders may be a bad example. But my point is that I would, if I wasn't, you know, not that I would mirror everything to Jim Crane. It gives you the freedom to sign Rafael Montaro to a big deal, and Jose I Brayu and Christian Walker. Now that I wouldn't do.

But I don't think the Yankees are upset with the judge deal right now. I don't think, let's see, Phillies and Bryce Harper, they're probably pretty happy with that deal. The Trout deal's not working out. Lindorne's not working out for Anahehus. Yeah. Because of injury. Yeah. But that's part of it.

When you signed a 10-year deal, you hope that you're 10-year guy. Francisville and D'Or has been bawling for the Mets. He was one of the best. He had, though, he had more war than Shoahe-O-Tani last year. And Bobby Wood's been good for Kansas City. Bobby Witt's been good. Show-Haw-Tani. It's been good.

Especially with all that money that's deferred. Jeff Passum loves a deal. Yeah, let's see. I'm trying to pull up the biggest contracts in baseball. Fernando Tatis, well, he got suspended for a while, but he's been good. Mani Machado, that deal's probably been good. Mookie Betts, I think the Dodgers are happy with that right now. Very happy with that one.

And Flaglero Jr. we'll see on that, but that just happened. These are the biggest deals in baseball right, and then Juan Soto. Juan Soso, as they're calling them. All right. 212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to join our program, we're with you till 2 o'clock today.

Bottom of the hour has got feelings. And if you're new to the show, first of where the hell have you been? Second, dang glad to have you here. We make sports predictions. If you get them right, we brag about them. If you get them wrong, we just usually pass them away. Yeah, like if you said rockets in seven, we just move on.

If you talk really slow like this, we really don't really bring it out. See, most people had Garth Warriors in seven, though, too. No. The national folks did. Pre-series? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah.

That was supposed to be motivation for the team. Nobody thought we were going to win it. It went to seven. 7-13-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-2-5-79. It's 1114. It's a Matt Thomas-Hill-Ross. Come in and join us.

We're with you until 2 o'clock today here on Sports Talk, 7-90. Friend Ross, Villal, is in morning today. And one of his all-time favorite players is looking for working out in the NFL. Who's that, Matt? I'm actually, you have been so ingrained in Rockets coverage that you don't know that Justin Tucker really got released by the Raven yesterday. I do know that. He's not one of my favorite all-time players.

You've only got three jerseys of his. That's not true. I've got zero jerseys. He did make the game winner that was at one point the last game against A&M. Now the last game against A&M, they won it in college station, stuffing them in a fourth and... in goal to goal situation. Questionable call at the end.

I don't remember that. I don't know. I don't just don't make it that up. I was making that up. So, the Ravens are calling it a football decision. Now, now, to be,

try to be fair on this, he had his worst season of the NFL ever last year. Yes. Was it horrific by general kicker standards or was it horrific by Justin Tucker standards?

And I would have to say probably closer to the Justin Tucker, everything from 60 yards in he makes. That wasn't the case last year. Ravens announced, thank you very much for your contribution, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is a football decision. You folks, I have to understand the average person lies four times per day. Some more than others.

The Baltimore Ravens is an organization lied. They're cutting him because they know there is fire with that smoke with all the masseuses. I would agree with that, but I also will say I was just bringing up field goal percentages from last year. He was 30th out of 36 kickers. I was going to say, yeah, not every team's got to have a couple of kickers here and there. Yeah. Okay.

One bad year, you're getting rid of your greatest offensive threat, not name Lamar Jackson. I'm not trying to oversell this, but I'm going to properly sell it. No, it's a combination. I think would he still be on the team if he had the highest field goal kicking percentage in the league? I would say probably yes. And if he didn't have the issues with the massage therapist, then maybe they could chalk it up to an off year. How old is Justin Tucker? He's 35.

Okay. So that's not out of the ordinary for a 35-year-old kicker who's probably making great money to be released. He's still got the highest field goal percentage in league history, but he has been declining. for a couple of years now. Okay, so if you took away the massage stuff, at its value for the money that he is making, presuming he was the highest pay kicker tomorrow. Yeah, what was the cap hit?

How much guaranteed money do you have left? It's always this with the NFL, too. But if you have an intangible, you have a coin flip moment, do I keep him, do I release them, the off-the-field stuff clearly put him over the top. Yeah, if I had to guess. the off the field stuff being the

alleged assaulting of massage therapists so everyone's trying to put the why is Deshawn getting away with it and Justin is not can you connect the parallels of this at all or no I mean it was a different the Texans did get rid of him the Browns didn't care

Justin Tucker will probably will get signed somewhere I don't think Justin Tucker's out of football now. Unless it's really bad. Right, right. Unless we're hearing something really bad happening. I think Justin Tucker is going to get signed by somebody. I'm trying to, and maybe it's just because it's just, you know, you run with sports outrage to your social media accounts. Yeah, I don't think Justin's done.

Do I think he's on a roster in two weeks? No. Could it be a situation where a player gets, a kicker gets hurt in training camp or during the course of the year? And he signs in the middle of the season and comes in. in. Yep. Happens all the time with kickers. You know what?

I'll have a gut feeling for this coming up in 10 minutes. All right, we'll say the rest of the conversation then. But I don't think it's because Deshawn's a quarterback and Justin's a kicker. I think there's frankly to me probably a greater financial implication to whacking Deshawn Watson from a team and the salary cap hit you would have from that as compared to the salary cap hit you would have for Justin Tucker. Does that make more sense to you? That it would hurt more to say, we're not giving this guy a chance. We're not giving an opportunity to make amends. It's easier to do that with a kicker. I'm granted, I'm guessing that Justin's very

well compensated, but a cap hit for a kicker, in theory, based off of the position and how much money that position makes, is significantly less of a hit, a sting than if you all of a sudden getting rid of a quarterback, it was making $45, $50 million a year. It's all a matter of how good you can be on the field. The NFL will take you. Wife beaters, criminals, assaulters, you know, I mean, even vehicular manslaughter, literally multiple times. If you can play on the field, the NFL will find a way. And honestly, I don't really have a big problem with that.

If you're a free man and you're free to walk and you're free to, I don't know, be a grocery bagger at Kroger, why can't you kick a football? I don't have a problem with that. So that's what it's going to boil down to If a team thinks that he can help them Then Justin Tucker will be on a team But especially now that it'll be at a discount You can have the highest percentage of field goal makes In the history of football on your team at a discount

Now does he have it left? Did maybe the off-season stuff, off-the-field stuff, affect his on-the-field play? That's not crazy to think that. we'd have to dig into the number. I feel like especially with NFL kickers and field goal percentages, it can be fluky because you'll have one guy he gets cut from a team and then he goes to another team and he's like one of the best kickers on the planet. It happens all the time. And maybe it's a mental edge, maybe it's bad luck, maybe the holder had something off, maybe the weather was bad that day.

You never know with kickers to me. Or you could also just lose it on the field literally over a two-year span. You could. But I do believe, look, if you are, if you don't think, you're off, and this is in life. If you're a school teacher, you've got something going out at the house, it can affect your work. Yeah, I'll give you an example. Nick Folk was horrible with the Buccaneers five, six years ago, and he was released. Then he was really good with New England, and then the last two years with Tennessee at the age of 39 and 40, he's had the highest field goal making percentage in football for two straight years.

So it feels like it just goes up and down with kickers. Yeah. And they move around. that's why I would never pay one to a huge deal for a long term. Oh, I think they are a, and I don't mean to be rude about it, but I think they're a little bit dime a dozen. Now, if you have a good one, like Fairbaird has had a really good run here for the Texans. Yes, but he's been up.

There have been times where people want him off the team. Right. Well, he got that huge deal many years ago, and I'm like, you're paying this guy who's making about 60% of the field goals, like the fourth highest kicker now. He obviously played to that contract because he bailed out to Miko Ryan's on numerous occasions the last couple of years. 713-212-5-790.

We need your sports predictions. You can do it right now. You've got something you told your buddies at the office yesterday or this morning. It's trying to put your name on it and make it a part of a gut feeling. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Listen up, girls and boys. They've been so appealing.

Because Ross and Matt Thomas. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas. my show. All right. Now last Tuesday I was off, because I was traveling. I think I was right. Yeah, because we were coming back from San Francisco. So, Ross, you and the assembled cast of sports

talks that I didn't came up with gut feelings. How did you do? Yeah, I forgot. You were being a deadbeat last week and you weren't here. That feels rude. My gut feeling last week, I forgot about this. I said the Rockets win game five. They did.

And then they lose game six. Oh, you had the Warriors winning in six, huh? Okay. I was wrong. They lost in seven. Yeah, I know. I also don't know if I want to stand by this gut feeling I made last week. Which was?

Still on the Rockets roster game one of next season. Jalen Green. Since I made that, he's had three duds. three more duds in the playoffs if you were honestly i could stick with it if you were a forecaster i'm going to put you in the spot right now okay what are the percentages that jalen green is on the rocket's roster next year 65% that feels incredibly fair so yeah i'm going to stick with it i think they it just from the just gut feeling and this is actually going to lead into what i'll have in a second but just got just put it in the comments i think jalen green will be here uh jonathan said

what is that exploit i wrote this down jonathan i said i said alpren shingoon is not a superstar that's not a superstar that's not a superstar i'm asking for clarification no i said that alfred shingun is not a superstar and he will be in a trading in a trade package for jalen green with jalen green or fred van vleet yeah rather than it would be and you had rockets winning game five by four yeah well i mean it's fine. Okay, so look, I mean, Alpern Shingoon, we must say, led the rockets and points, rebounds, assists,

steals, and he played very good defense for what's asked for him and for what his physical capabilities are. Still, right now, be considered an average defender. But does block some shots. Positioning's well improved.

Yeah, I think he's... I Q's well improved. Yeah, I think he knows where to be, just sometimes physical limitations getting the way. He also still gets hunted by the other team. It is what it is. But yeah, just like we hunted Quentin Post for basically five games. Yes, and well in game one, they hunted Steph Curry and they said we're done with that. Jalen Green doesn't seem interested in going at him.

Stop. It hurts. I know. It hurts me too, Matt. You know why I love the rockets. We should be getting ready for game one. Here in town. Not in many apples here. My favorite professional sports team on the planet is your Houston Rockets, Matt. So it hurts me. me too. I don't know. All right. Calvin Murphy waving at me. I'm nine years old in the parade. Rockets championship parades. I love the Rockets. Calvin Murphy waved at you. Yes. How nice is that? Did you see me at the assort? My brother got my brother got a shirt signed by Robert Reed. I was

so jealous. Bobby Joe R.I.P. Yeah. My first ever radio partner on a Cougar broadcast. Yeah, we ran into him at a parade. He signed my brother's shirt. Love the Rockets. Jaylen Green didn't show up. All right. Now to this week, Scott Felix. By way, Brad is trying to call in, so we're going to let him get in. Oh, God. And remember, everybody in front of Brad gets in before Brad.

Yes. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you have a gut feeling, you're going to get yours in before Brad gets his in. So the longer you, the more frequently people call in, the less you have to hear from Brad between now and the top of the hour. All right, what's your got to feel? You got something you've been holding on to here.

Justin Tucker is on an NFL roster in week one. I will take the opposite of that. Justin Tucker will wear our uniform in 2025, but he will not be on a roster in week one. Now, everything could be cleared up with this off-the-field stuff. I could be wrong. That either could help you or my cause. Right.

If everything gets dismissed, that it favors me. Right. If things keep going forward, that probably favors you. Yeah. Yeah. Not in an NFL, on an NFL team in week one. I will say no. Yeah.

All right. Continue on. This offseason for the Houston Rockets. Oh, you're ready to. Oh, this is good. This is good. They do not trade for a superstar front line caliber player. I do predict either via free agency or trade or sign and trade or something.

some sort of complimentary slash rotation piece they will make a play for a rotation piece. I don't know who that is. I don't know if it's a 3-D wing. I don't know if it's a point guard.

But I think this rotation is not going to be the same next year plus this year's lottery pick. Yeah. Okay. Their mountains will not be moved, but they will make moves to improve the roster.

So basically last year they trusted the process, right? Last year they did nothing. You're saying they're going to do something. It's going to not necessarily be a head scratcher, but a hey, oh, wow, that guy's now a rocket. Okay, I can buy that. I got to stay away from the rocket stuff, not because I don't want to. I really don't. I don't have a feeling because I don't know if Janice wants to leave Milwaukee.

Oh, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I do know that Kevin Durant probably needs to leave Phoenix. Oh, he's going. So I will go with this. How about this? And I'm good either direction. There will not be a wow moment acquisition.

Like Russ Westbrook coming from Oklahoma City to Houston was a wow moment. Okay. There will be no wow moments or Chris Paul type things. So I would say at this point, if I was at betting man, I would lean against Durant and I would lean against a dente gumpo but again if I'm wrong on that I'd be jazz by talking about the Greek Creek for 82 games a year

I wouldn't be mad at it and plus Kevin Durant you guys are besties or I mean I would help you well I'd help you he's one of your favorite all-time players right? Absolutely I would absolutely try to build your relationship between the two of you thank you man I appreciate it

yeah I don't think he cares too much for the media but I'd appreciate you but you guys would be broskeys that's true we'll talk longhorn football uh okay uh... Anything on the gut-feeling side of this would be for me? Jake Myers MVP, top five. You already make him an All-Star?

No. Okay. That seems fair. Yeah, gut-feeling Jake Myers is not in the season as the team leader on Team OPS. I'll give you one that I need to hold back for a while. Okay. Dana Brown will make a 26-man roster trade. before July 1st. Huh.

You know how rare those are? I think that's a good spot for you there. That's not crazy. Saying, hey, I can get on the phones early. I can go trade for something. I won't have to give up mortgage or farm because I don't have a farm day mortgage. Yeah, you could unload McCormick or one of the left hand of relievers. You know what I'm saying?

You got 15 lefties. But I mean, point being is that I think there would. be a 26th man new to the team prior to July 31st. And I would say, I'm going to say before July 1st. Does it got feeling? Okay. Before July 1st? Before July 1st. Which would be about a month ahead of everybody else. Wow. Typically. All right. Anything from you, Jonathan? He's talking to people. They're engineering technical difficulties. Is he working on our phone system? I think also there's some gremlins in the system, Matt. Oh, we don't need those gremlins in there.

All right. You got some more? The Jeremy Pena, relative breakout, is real. He will finish with the, now I said last year he would finish with the highest OPS plus of his career. I was a year early, it looks like. I got one for you. I'm going to say Jeremy Pena, how do I say this? I just think, I'm not saying he's going to, you know, OPS,

over 800 and hit 40 bombs. Okay. But I'm going to say this relative Jeremy Pena breakout, I am buying what I'm seeing, and he is going to continue to have the best season of his career. I'll take it a step further. Okay. We are done seeing Jose L. Tuve as a regular lead-off man for the Astros. I could see it.

I mean, Jeremy Pena is on a nine-game Hitchieck Street. Okay. And that is our gut feelings. For right now. Let's talk to Joe. line two, Matt Thomas Show with Ross, 1141. Hi, Joe. Hey, guys. Hey, Nick Seltz. I don't know if you saw it, but the Celtics reminded me of the Rockets, unfortunately, missing those 21-3s. 27.

So we were going to playoffs last night. I think Del, I think Knicks are going to win this in seven. Brunson is an assassin. And just imagine that the Mabbs could have Brunson and Donkich right now. And they got rid of them both. Horrible. And also, I agree with Ross. No major trade for the Rockets. No major trade needed.

However, if we could give up Jalen and our two number ones that we got from Phoenix for a piece that fits better, I would do that. That's it. All right. Those are hard to kind of write down his gut feelings, but I think we'll take from Joe as he believes that Jalen Green will be a part of a trade this offseason. He said no major trade, but then he talked about trading Jalen Green. Which is a major trade. Yeah, another team would have to find value in him, and it would be relative to throwing in something else.

And another team could be right. He is still just 23 years old, but four years isn't a nothing a sample size in an NBA career. No, because again, we've seen a lot of players that have been in their fourth year really take that next step up. Yeah. And I think that I think Rocket fans are looking for gentlemen to take that next step up. And maybe in the regular season, Rossi did so. We're dealing with what we just saw. And that was unfortunately six subpar performances and one really good one against Golden State.

All right. More gut feelings are coming up. Now, Brad is up next. So again, if you don't want to hear from Brad, you have to call the show at 713-212. 5.790. 713 212. 5790. Listen up, girls and boys.

The segment's so appealing. Because Russ and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. I have a gut feeling. I'm going to be watching more Channel 13 weather. Because I need to make sure the

audience knows exactly what's going on with the current temperatures and potential for a dangerous weather. It looks like the north side's got some severe risk for the weather. Be careful out there, Maddie. Drive it home. I don't want to get home to late tonight. I've got to go out to the east-south part of town and go see that

rainy opening of the Shell Federal Credit Union. I'm ready to go. Okay. So be careful in those streets. I'm coming. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-13-212-750. I would remind her once again, the more that you call in the next 10 minutes,

the letters of an opportunity you get to hear from Brad. Please call in. We don't want to hear from Brad. 713-212-5-790. Terrence, what's in your gut? Yes, I was talking about Jaylen Green. You'll keep criticizing Jaylor Green. It's not his fault, man.

How they set picks for Kurd, then he started sitting picks for Jaylor Green. They said picks, and they would trap him, and then he would look like a deer in headlights and pass a ball away. But in Game 7, I want to need to talk about Game 7. the coach went to another lineup too early in the game

he put Adam in the game with like five minutes into the game he didn't yeah he put Adams into the game because he was playing better than Jalen Green all series

he went to him too early man I think he went to him too early and then he had you know what yeah I mean I'd rather just talk to Brad I mean I don't know

hey let's not get crazy now boy that was a bad phone call And we love taking phone calls. Was that Terrence Green? Was his last name Green? We had a great phone calls yesterday on the show. Did we know? I mean, even I, a Jalen Green defender, cannot defend what happened in that series.

I'm a huge Jalen Green guy. But, man, Jalen Green said he played like blank. I didn't put words in his mouth. He said it himself. Yeah, actually, I can find that for you, Matt. Give me a second. Go ahead. Let's let Jalen Green describe Jalen Green's performance so far,

or at least in that seven-game series. Oh, wow. Keep on. All right. Remember, last call here before we go to Brad. Just giving you that out there. 713-212-5. How would you describe your playoffs, Jalen Green?

Besides that one game. Straight-blank. And it rhymes with... Besides that one game. Yeah. I know it's kind of hard to hear him. Besides that one game, straight bleep. Besides that one game.

Straight bleep. His work. It's not ours. Yes. Starts with an S and we'll just leave it there. And the truth will always set us free. At least he's opening honest about it. Yeah.

What? Do you say, yeah, I mean, if you're him, you're like, I scored 20 points in the league. I scored 38 in game two. They're leading score all season long. What happened to me? I mean, if I'm in bed right now, relaxing, thinking about the offset, I'm thinking, what happened to me? That's not who I am.

I mean, Tepid has never been what I would use. for anything in terms of Jalen Green over the course of 82 game schedule. Would you? No, he, well, sometimes over the course of an 82 game schedule, he looked a little dis- No, I wouldn't say disinterested to the level of where it was the year before, last year or you get it before. Last season, I should say, as in before this past season. Brad, what is in your gut?

Well, for one, Fred Van Fleet, I like him as a player. When he does good, the Rockets win, but he's in. So for a guy that's making $42 million, we ain't got time for that. He's going to have to either take a pay cut, like half, or bye-bye. And then I agree with you guys on no superstar, but a star on a team that the rockets can make a nice, even trade, not one for five or something. So no superstar. and then with the Texans, I'm sorry, man. They didn't address their offensive line enough

and their defensive tackles enough. Baltimore and Kansas City will still rule the AFC. Oh, I got one more. Sure. Jose Al-Tube. I just don't think he's going to last his five years. I believe maybe another couple of years and I think it's going to pass him up.

That's my gut feeling. Pass what up? Wait, what's going to pass him up? Five, I don't think he's going to last five years. In other words, he's going to, you know, it comes to time and a point in sports where you're just not as good as you once were. And I just think maybe two or three years into his contract,

and maybe that's it. Well, he's under contract for four more. We'll see what happens there. Thank you very much. The last couple years. Now, everything up to what Brad just said about Joseon, I didn't think it was a terrible take. Star player, not a megastar.

Yeah. What else did he say? Texans. Don't win the AFC. Don't win the AFC. They're still the third best team. By the way, have you noticed with all of the different post-draft grade evaluations in terms of like power rankings? And again, you know how I feel about power rankings.

You love them? No, the only one I like is the Rotten Five because that takes originality. Thank you. But the Texans are still 14th, 15th, 16th among teams. in the NFL. That feels about right. Which means they just didn't do it. They didn't do anything left in the draft. Now granted, you can't, you should never, you should never create a draft before

actually watching the guys play. I don't know, two or three years. So this could be, this could be a fool's prediction. But it is what a fool believes. They didn't do enough to necessarily get over the, I mean, the free agency class was not spectacular. Now they did sign Derek Stingley Jr. They did sign Jalen Petrie. So they have shored up some spots defensively. They did get worse offensive line, even though I thought, you know, frankly, you know, Laramie was just a guy.

We'll see what Arionte Ersary has to have. Arioreonte, excuse me. Ersary. Tay has. The kids have called him Tay. Tayersery has. Could Blake Fisher make a leap? But rest of those offensive lines?

Cam Robinson is your stopgap. Now, Christian Kirk could be the sneaky good pick. I like Christian Kirk. And then all the Iowa State Royal receivers they drafted. All of them. And all the Jalen's they drafted. Jalen and Jaden. How many Jalen and Jadens are going to make a difference to 2025?

A lot. It's a very popular name. By the way, recent Brad and Miami got feelings that Will Wagner will win the third base job with the Toronto Blue Jays. He's hitting 184 and has not done so. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Will Wagner is batting 184 for the Blue Jays?

Matt, don't short him now. 186. Excuse me, 186. and how is Joe with Lopafito doing? Last I checked he was hitting under 200 in AAA. Jake Bloss? I can look. Oh, he had an ERA of over like six or something.

I can go look this up for you if you'd like. Loperfito update. Oh, good news. He's over 200 at AAA Buffalo. Okay, that's good. He's hitting 222 with three homers. So the OPS isn't spectacular either. 667.

Yeah, those modeling numbers. can be a little skew though. Maybe you shouldn't overreact to prospects. Oh, I'm sorry. There's 80% of Astros Twitter that lost their mind. How could you get rid of Joey Lopovito? Jake Blas, let's see.

Oh. Quick update. He has an area of 646 and 6th starts at AAA Buffalo. So the deal has not heard him yet. No. No. How is... What? Oh, sorry.

jump scared at this whip. 1.9. Okay. How is... Those you don't know, that's walks and hits per inning pitch. A good number is one or like 1.2 for a start. 1.9 is absurdly bad. How is you say Kikuchi doing in Anaheim? Oh, well, we don't have to worry about that.

They sign them to a big deal. Yeah. 713-212-790. The news at noon is coming up next. We've got the press conference with E. May, Adoka, and Rafael Stone in one hour as well. All right, here we go with hour number three. are with you till 2 o'clock this afternoon at 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-7-9.

We have manager Joe Espada coming up in a half an hour here on the radio program, but first we present to you at 1203, the news at noon. And we will do that with the Len Cannon of local useless sports. Oh, man, I don't know who the hell Lynn Cannon is, but I will take that as a compliment. here are the news at noon. Let's go ahead and get things started with what happened in Milwaukee. The Houston Astros.

Well, things not going their way as they drop game number one of a three-game series. It counts two and two. Here's the pitch from Blanco. That one's crushed. Right center field, going back on it, Cam Smith,

and it's gone. Hanging breaking ball from Blanco and Yelich connects for the 6th. time this year and it's 3-0. Rennell Blanco with a quality start, six innings pitch, three-earned runs. Feels like five-innings pitch, three-earned runs has been his M.O. for the whole majority of this season. Ben-Its-Suzzi giving up a couple of runs at the end.

Astros lose five to one. They could only muster nine hits, eight of them singles. One extra base hit, it was a double from Jose Altovae. Bats not looking good. Yordon Alvarez also placed on the IL yesterday. with that hand soreness. Apparently, he has been dealing with for some time, but unfortunately heard it even further on Saturday. Now placed on the IL was Yordon Alvarez yesterday for Cesar Salazar.

So that's just insurance policy, right? I mean, that means probably more D-Hing for a keratini or and or a, Janir D. Yeah, people have been saying keratini, but I would figure Yainer Diaz because, I mean, it depends on what the pitchers and who they're coming. comfortable with, but either A or B, one or the other, either or.

So you get both of those bats in the lineup, which didn't happen yesterday. Your designated hitter was Jose Al-Tuve. But with this opportunity, I think it does give a good amount of lineup flexibility for Joe Espada, who has been trying to mix in Jake Myers, Zach DeZenzo, Chaz McCormick,

Marisa Dubon, Brennan Rogers, to kind of get those guys some more regular looks. You don't want Yoron to go down. But I think it helps with roster construction. I'm sorry, with the lineup construction going forward. We'll talk about that with the manager himself coming up at 1230, Matt. Yeah, I get him no word that he's not joining us,

so we're going to continue to promote that he's going to be with us. Oh, wait, he's not? No, I mean, as I said, there's no way. I haven't heard he's not. So it should be fine. Okay, Hayden Wesniewski on the Hill for the Astros today against Chad Patrick. Chad Patrick.

And then it'll be a day game. 1210 start on Wednesday with Frumber Valdez on the Hill for the Stroes. Will they win the series? We didn't make a good feeling on it. I will say... You know what I'm going to retroactively put it? Astros won the series.

Take the next two? I almost said rockets. Are we going to get good framerer tomorrow? Because it's been so mixed up and down with him. Yes. What makes you think tomorrow's going to be a good fronber day? I don't know. Orange jerseys?

I choose to be optimistic. That's why. That seems fine. Well, he went with the blues and got shelled. Yeah. No uniform has been consistent for him. Yeah. Maybe the city connects.

I don't know. Bring back the shooting stars or something. He's got to do something. All right. Astros, I'm sorry, I'm writing down my gut feeling. Did you say you wanted to go with the gut feeling? I go with you on that, yes. I appreciate that, Matt.

Shador Sanders, Matt. Did you hear what jersey number he's going to wear? No, I have not. It's news. I don't know why. He's wearing 12. That's a quarterback number. Wasn't he two in college?

He's wearing, you know why he's wearing the number 12? Terry Bradshaw. Tom Brady? who has been a mentor to Shador Sanders. He wants to wear his number. You know, Tom Brady was taking 199th overall, Matt. So Shadour Sanders, who has been wearing

number two and incorporated into his branding, will switch to number 12. I mean, whatever motivates you? Is he going to be the talked about the most talked about fifth round draft pick in the history? He already is. And I remember, if he's a star, then it becomes a, well, a bunch of teams goofed up.

If he becomes a middle of road starter, it's okay, you got some value out of the fifth round. If he wants it being a career backup, it's like, why do we give this guy any of his 50 minutes of fame? Yeah. All right, I have a bet on the board. Okay.

Kevin Stefansky is the coach in Cleveland, correct? Yes. Multiple time coach of the year. If I was to put a bet on the board, Dion Sanders publicly criticized is Kevin Stefansky for his use of his lack thereof of his son. And I said the number was at minus 100.

Would you take the bet? I think I'd stay away. I could see it playing out where Deon Sanders does say something, but I could see him playing out where he says, you know what? This is my son, and he fell in the draft. I'm going to let him do his thing. I'm staying out of this.

I'm focused on the Colorado Buffalo's football. I will have 500 times more respect for Dion Sanders if he says nothing at all about anything except I'm rooting for my son. No references to the front office, no references to the coach, no references to the other quarterbacks on the team. He could show a sign of maturity to Dion can by just saying, I'm busy with my own football program, I'm a father, I wish him nothing but the very best.

Can that happen in 2025? I think we'll be watching it almost every single day from Brown's camp. especially during training camp. All right, Matt. Moving along on the news at noon, NBA action last night. You have had now, adding with the Cleveland Cavaliers loss

in the game one of their series on Sunday, last night, Celtics and Thunder, two of the favorites for the NBA championship, lost game one at home. Nix defeat the Celtics in overtime. 108 to 105. Nuggets lose as Chet Hongren misses both. Free throws late,

Aaron Gordon makes a left wing three-pointer, and they steal game one in Oklahoma City. Nicola Yokic was spectacular, 42 points, 22 rebounds. Six assists did have seven turnovers, but overall, numbers pretty darn good. Any of those road teams going to win the series? No. Of the three that have lost so far,

I will say... Denver's got the best shot of beating Oklahoma City. I'm going to go with Indiana because the caps have some injuries. Evan Mowbly is questionable. He looked like he had an ankle injury. Darius Garland is questionable. And I think they have one more player questionable for tonight's game. One more rotational player.

I have to go back and look it up. But they do have DeAndre Hunter. So DeAndre Hunter, Darius Garland, Evan Mowgli, all listed as questionable for the Cavaliers. So I will add in the injuries and say the Pacers have the best shot. What do you think about their shirts they printed out before game one? The diff is terrible. Do you know what the Diff was before?

The diff, so I saw Zach Lowe talking about it, and I remember you talking about it as well. Yeah. So in the Cleveland Arena, what is it called? Quicken Loans? It doesn't matter. They put the difference of the, so for people who can't, oh, 121 to 102, what's the difference? I don't know. They put the point differential up there.

They called the diff, 19. 19. So 19, they put it up there, so then they're calling themselves the diff. Mm-hmm. And they put it on their shirts. It's lame and dumb. They should put it on there, the goof. Hmm.

I can't copyright that, can I? I sure, if you want. You are the goof. Thank you. Yeah, so, yeah. All right, that works. And that is the news at noon. I had one more nugget if you like.

Oh, please. I love it. Our friend Jeff Passon did a prediction for some big free agent deals that could possibly be made over the off season. Okay. He categorized all the deals up to $100, $100, $300, $400,000, $500, $500,000, $500,000, $500 million deals that could possibly be made. Which category do you think he put Kyle Tucker

in? One, two, three, four, and five? Up to 600 million, actually. I'll give you a hint. There's one person at 600 million. It's Gunner Henderson and that's it. So he's under 600. $400 million. $500 million potential deal for Kyle Tucker says

Jeff Passing. Can I tell you right now that's bad money? he is going to be 29 next year and I like Kyle Ross that's terrible money being spent on a guy that ate that plus help me out

two straight bad post seasons yes one of last year was literally two games yeah oh no he didn't light up Terrick scubble but the previous one was a lot longer yes and not very successful

over his playoff career I think he's only had one really good postseason it was like 2021, I think. He was bad in 19, but he was a rookie. And he was bad the last couple of years, but he's been one of the best hitters in baseball the last two years. If he gets $500 million, the Chicago Cubs, which I'm presuming is the team he's talking about,

will, they'll regret that deal. Okay. So put it this way, if you give him seven years at $35 million a year, that puts him at $240, $2.345 million. I can see that. That's not terrible money. He's saying $500 million. I mean, that's a really stupid decision by them.

I would imagine $400 million. But also, Matt, I just must remind you at this juncture. We made the seven and a half under Kyle Tucker contract bet. And then recently we upped it from dinner to habachi. I'm from lunch. It was lunch and then it was habachi. Yeah, I'm still confident it's going to be less than eight years. No, I'm not.

I can hear the hibachi. you sizzling now. I can remember the Sibachi sizzles. I can hear... Oh, I just caught a shrimp in my mouth. You know what? I can... I can also see your left hand going to your wallet, too.

Pulling that credit card out. That's true. We're going either way. I'll hobba. I'll hobobachi. Don't worry. All right. Up next,

how are we feeling about AI? I mean, I think overall, his defense could have been better for how short... No, no, no, no, no, no. Not Alan I ever since. Oh. artificial intelligence. Lock 790.

All right, we got Joe Espana coming up in 10 minutes. I don't know if you've been no, no. I presume most people know that the new, one of the new television homes for the NBA next year is going to be NBC. They're going back to NBC.

And they're going to broadcast games next year on Amazon Prime. There'll be a large cable package of that, or streaming. There'll be a large cable package streaming on Peacock and they'll also be a large number of games on NBA and NBC. And I would have to think that most people, especially in this

demographic in which we live in, 2554, think the greatest television theme song to a sporting event is what we're going to play, Jonathan, first. Right now, this is back from 1998. NBA on NBC. Oh, it feels right.

The 1990s NBA final. It's Game The Chicago Bulls versus the Utah Jazz. All right. Now we get a little Bob Costas preview or a little Marv Albert or something in there? So late last week,

NBC struck a deal with John Tesh to officially have the rights to round ball rock again. And my guess is... Because it was with Fox, right? It was with Fox. A few other people.

My guess is they're going to jazz it up a little bit, update it for 2025. I mean, it's been 30 years. Yeah. But I think at its core, it's going to sound very close to that. Love it. So here is a promo,

this is the second video I want to play for you, of NBA promoting that NBC and Peacock are going to be the once again home in the NBA next season. Here's that. The NBA on NBC is back. See you this October for the NBA season tip off. Pretty cool, right? I got the same voice guy back.

Jim Fagan. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I don't know who that is. I didn't know. the name either. Okay. But a voice very recognizable to all of us. There's just one problem, Ross.

What? He died in 2017. Oh, they a-eyed him. It sounded good. It sounded natural to me. How does the Fagan Family Estate feel about this? I don't know. You have to get some kind of signing off, right? I would presume that

they would have called the Fagin family. Because I would think it would be a sign of respect. Yeah. They're not having they're not having the late Jim Fagan promote a Rens Royal Mote Royal. You know what I'm saying? They're promoting the NBA. I'm sure he was very well compensated for his time doing an NBA. So part of the story,

the reason I want to bring up. One is because Roundball Rock is coming back. John Chesh has signed off on it. So obviously, I think he's going to be even bigger. And by the way, they're going to next year in the NBA coverage, they're going to carry the starting lineups. What do you mean? like the arena starting they're not going to just say here are the five they're going to carry the lineups oh so you're going back to the PA game so you can get your shine

I don't think so I mean my shine was already bright in 1994 when I carried it in 1995 that's true duh of course in 2018 with that game seven between golden state and Houston which is yet another series loss I went on a San Francisco radio station they were still laughing about that do you tell them to shut their bum asses up no I said it is what it is oh I'm sorry I'll be back in a second I just got poked in the eye by draymond It's funny. So they're updating that. They're going to carry the lineups,

and they're going to use Jim Fagan's voice, who has been dead for about it seven or eight years. And they're going to apparently use it, I guess, every week. That's going to really sound creepy. Today, the Sacramento Kings versus the Detroit Pistons. I mean, he's obviously said all those teams names. It sounded natural to me. Without you telling me, it didn't.

seem like AI to me. I thought that brother was still working. To my point, though, AI is really scary, Ross. Why? Because that guy's been dead for all those years and he sounds great. It's coming for all our jobs is what you're saying. I mean, I will say, and I'm not going to tell you where I've been AIed, but I have been A-Ied before.

Why aren't you going to tell us? I just don't want to. Okay. It was at that stripper event? Stripper wrestling? I mean, it could have been in a jello pudding event. You don't know these things. Vanilla over the tapioca.

The thrill of vanilla. It's not the thrill of vanilla. It's the thrill of vanilla. My point is this. No matter who you are, whether you are famous or not, understand that AI is coming to get you. And you've got to be very careful with what you say or do because somebody can pick up a phone and AI you and think it's something else going on.

Yeah, the AI videos are scary too. where they can have people endorsing products that they don't, like famous celebrities, endorsing products they don't endorse. Which begs the question, who asked for this? Who created AI? Well, I mean,

AI, I get it. Like, when you're using tools for sales or whatever, or they do it like with Indeed because they want to lay, well, they want to lay people off, they don't want to pay them so they can use AI. But when it comes to like AI videos that look exactly like a celebrity, unless you're some pervert and you're trying to, you know,

make perverted stuff, I just don't get it. I just realized, guys, Matt, if you passed right now, they can be using your voice for nostalgia just for money and your wife would just be like, okay. Like, is that not like, like, put that something into you?

Hey, honey, it's Matt. I have been on a long road trip. I think I've been very disturbed by the thought of, hey, Matt, if you passed or something like that. Yeah, which you're right? It's only because the gym guy has passed away in 2017. You know, it's context. Thanks, Charlie.

Yeah. We can just replace you with an AI app. That's neither here nor there. Oh, keep going. Nothing but nylon. Hey! Don't give the Rockets any ideas. That's not nice.

Could be true. No, man. Nobody could call the games like you. Or talk to you for four hours like I do. Probably could get that. It wouldn't be as good. Yeah. We've been, we're in talks with the games. parakeet. I just thought it was weird because it's been a cool story that the NBA is going to go back to

Roundbock Rock, Round Ball Rock. It's going to go back to John Tesh. It's going to go back to what it was when the NBA was great on NBC. We always love nostalgia. Things were always greater than the years past. I don't think you can roll your eyes on that. I think the best uniforms and sports are the retroes? Of course. The best uniforms of the retro is the best everything was back in the day, Maddie. I love Back in the Day. You know what? They called me Mr. Back at the Day. Yeah, call you Unk. your son calls me unc. Better not. I don't want him.

Because I'm old. You are old. You're terrible advice guy too. No, Unk just means you're old. You gave him. You said, hey,

I want you check this soccer out during COVID and now he's a socceraholic. That's not true. I did not get him into soccer. He ran in the house Saturday. He said, what are you doing? He says nothing.

I said, oh, the Dynamo are playing at 930. I'm like, what? Yeah, I didn't tell him to get into Dynamo. That's true. I don't like the MLS. The level of play is not up to par.

All right. Let's talk to Joe is spotting next. Our time is 1227. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 713-212-5-790. As a second for you before we get to Joe. Scarlett Johansson. Oh, my God.

Is she just not a perfect goddess? She's one of the goats, Matt. Colin Jost, that goofy dude from Saturday Night Live, gets to enjoy being with her. Yeah. women like funny guys matt i i don't disagree my beautiful wife said part of the reason why she married me was because i was hilarious yeah that's a good excuse to make up you think that is okay that seems fine that's fine i thought it was the dashing good looks and charm mattie did you see me in my wedding

pictures i don't think so you were sweating i'm like what is she seeing in me i mean you could actually say economic potential and she's not okay on that. Uh-huh. She's been married three times. Not my wife. You're about Johanssen. I'm talking about Scarlett Ingrid Johansson. Okay, I got you. I didn't know that. By the way, she's a

dual citizen United States and Denmark. Sophia Vigara, Scarlett Johansson walk in the room. Okay. Which one are you telling him to see you later? Neither. No, you have to say goodbye to one of them. Your body going into one. Scarjo

Scarjo Okay, so you're keeping Sophia? No, I'm sorry, I'm keeping Scarjo Scarjo Margo Robbie Scarjo That's a hard one These are all difficult

I'm going to have to 100% agree with you I don't know if there's somebody That can knock Scarjo off the list I will give you my all-time all-time two favorites actually Please Scarjo By this is the work We're called killing time before Joe Espada

Should be joining us very shortly here In the meantime, we're talking about the hottest woman we've ever laid eyes on. My two favorite all-time, and this is why I don't even want you to ask me this question, is Scarjo and Jessica Alba. Really? And we're talking about Alba 2025, too, right? Sure. She was at the Kentucky Derby looking good. So I heard.

Can we do generational, or is that just a little creepy? What do you mean? She's generational. What do you mean? Let me give an example. Christy Brinkley's got a book out. So she's been doing some TV interviews. Sorry, I'm looking at pictures of Alba.

You've lost me. And she looks good. She's in her late 60s. You tell me that Christy Brinkley in the movie vacation wasn't the hottest thing on earth. I would ask you to find something hotter. I told you, Jessica Alba and Scarjo. That's my two all-timers. But Scarlett Johantin has been in the top, it's been on the top of the list for like 15 years now.

You're right. I mean, she's like the LeBron of hotness. Yeah. There's no, there's no fate in her game. Father Time has done her just fine. Mm-hmm. No text back from the team. No, I think, oh, yeah, we're looking for, we'll figure something out.

Well, you just want to ask me questions? I'll answer him as Joe Espada. No. Because I want, Joe is forthcoming with his answers. I mean, you know, it doesn't give us everything we want, but he just gives us a really good job on it. So, um. Yeah, I don't know. You would not ask him, hey, are you bored by your team?

Because I don't think anybody's bored by their team. There's always going to be challenges of being a manager. Uh-huh. I don't think he's bored. But, I mean, glass half full on this is your 18 and, what are you, 18 and 18 and 17 and 17? 17 and 17. And you're only three back. And you're only three back of the M's in the first place.

And by the way, Joe Spot is calling right now. So this is good. Yeah, but unfortunately, the bats have been struggling and Yordon goes down. That doesn't help. In theory. Yeah, and we'll get more on that coming up for the manager in just a couple of seconds. If you want to join us, we've got the press conference with the Rockets coming up at 1 o'clock, as they will discuss their off-season.

So let me get the manager in here. Joe, it's Matt and Ross. First of all, good afternoon. Secondly, when you're five minutes late to a segment, we have to talk about our all-time favorite women of all time. So I'm going to pose a question at you. Who is the most gorgeous woman in the world, not name your wife right now? Oh, man. My daughters, my two girls, Viviana and Eliana.

They go, they're not my wife. You are such a nice person, seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a diplomatic manager. You've been well trained, Joe. Did A.J. get a hold of you? And I don't want, I don't want to, you know, got to be careful what I, you know, I'm on the air 20 hours a week, Joe.

I'm not careful what I say. I get away with it. So trust me, once in a while you can be human. I'm just saying. Okay, okay. Hey, let's get to Yoran first. Did the hand all of a sudden rear its ugly head Saturday in itself, or was this something that was kind of building the last handful of days?

The last handful of games, and, you know, he's been trying to play through some of that soreness in there, and we just thought that the best way to handle this is just a pause and, you know, a pause and just get him to see our doctors and give him a few days. But, you know, the last few days, he's gotten better, but we need this to go away. So he's actually seen doctors this afternoon. He flew to Houston late last night. So we'll get more information once you see the doctors this afternoon in Houston. Is that just, you know, look, everybody as an athlete has ailments, whether it's a knee, a back or a neck or whatever.

Is there something with the grip? Is it a glove? Is it the bat handled? Tell me, is there anything that they could be possibly aggravating them? because it's not the first time he's had his hand situation. No, yeah, and I think it's just more, you know, once he grips the bat and he's going to release the barrel through the zone, there is, you know, there is like a little pain in the side of his hand,

which it just bothers him, you know, and once you commit to the pitch, you're going to release the hands, and if the pitch any action, late action on the pitch and you want to hold you swing, that's where he feels are the most. So it's almost like he's got a predetermined swing the bat and let go. And some of those cows, you know, causes like bad decisions when he comes to swinging at bat pitches. And we don't want your Don to be in between. We want your Don't to be locked in and have confidence and, you know, swinging the bat whenever he wants to.

and if he wants to, you know, out of take and hit with two strikes, he can do that because he feels like he's 100%. And so we're just trying to get him there. In a way, this does offer you some flexibility as far as lineup construction to get other guys at the DH spot. It was Altuve yesterday. Is your plan going to be to mix it up at that spot? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll have DHS, DH today. And, you know, it gives me an opportunity to play, you know, the younger outfielder's, the corners with more regulatory. Also, you know, that's, that, you know, provides an opportunity to get guys a few more at bats here. But, yeah, today, today, D.S will be, will be a D.H. And, you know, hopefully we can, you know, we can get some of these guys more, every, more, you know,

more looks and, you know, hopefully get them going. Joe Espada with us here on Sports Talk 790. I've told you this before, Joe. I am the president of the Jake Myers fan club, and the fan club had a pretty good week. Yeah, he did. And, you know, he's having some really good at bats. He's a really good spot, swinging, you know, swinging a really good bat driving the ball. I've been very impressed with how hard he's eating the ball.

You know, the quality of his up bats have been really, really good. He's putting himself in good hitters' counts, and he's not missing. And being patient, you know, when you're confident, you could kind of prolong your bat and your piece selection gets better. And right now he's in a really good spot. And we need to keep him going. Let's go back to the Sunday rain situation. Now, help me out. It's up to the ball club before the game starts and then it's up to the umpires after.

Is that correct how that works out? Yes, that's how it works. You know, umpires, MLB kind of take over the decision once the game gets past, you know, once the game starts. We don't really have much of a say on that, yes. Now, look, you needed your bullpen to be better, and I get that. Everybody knows that. But they didn't get any favors. I mean, it was really raining hard.

You could clearly tell the guys were having a difficult time gripping the baseball. Was there, how much can you kind of not necessarily needle the umpire? But, hey, like, hey, this is not fair to my guys out there. Yeah, no, and it sucks. Yeah, I'm with you, you know, and, you know, I'm over here screaming, you know, when we're going to put the tarp on and why are we allowing these players to play doing these conditions? You know, why not put the tarp down and weight it out a little bit? But, you know, once it starts raining and once the umpires have, you know, the ball is on their side of the court, it's their decision.

And it sucks because, you know, we still have two more chances during that game. So, you know, when you hear the decision is something that it really sucks for your clothes. So help me out here. I don't even know the answer because you guys look, you bused to Milwaukee, they had to go to Kansas City. How much rain was there after they eventually put the tarp on there? Could you have eventually played or do you think it was at the end of the day? Too much rain. You know, Matt, good question.

It rained, it rained, you know, even when we got on the bus, it rained all the way to we barely, you know, to we got to Milwaukee. So it rained for a while. They told us that, you know, the forecast was for two plus hours. And, you know, by the time we shower, we got to. the area. We continue to rain. It ran all the way until we got almost to me walking. So, you know, we look at the radar and I understand the call, even though it did not go in our favor. But, you know, I get it. I understand as well. Hey, last night, eight singles, one double, a little bit of action in the sixth inning.

But, and again, this is a team that has, last time we talked at least a couple weeks of for you and me, there were some crooked number innings going up. And if you were to judge this season so far, if you were to consistently break down the offense, there hasn't been enough of that. And look, you cannot predict these things. They come in bunches. But generally speaking, from a macro perspective on this, Joe,

why haven't we been able to see the two, three inning run innings on more of a regular basis from your squad? Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I look at it in different ways, right? You know, yes, we all want crooked numbers, but I start with looking at the quality of the at-bats, and the quality of our ab-bats have gotten better. You know, we're walking more. We're getting nine, ten singles.

Like, yes, we do want the extra base sets, but I've got to look at it as a whole. And we are doing things better than we did early in the season. Now, the crooked numbers happen once you consistently put those good at-bats, together in one inning, that's when you get the big double. And, you know, yesterday in the six inning, we were one swing away, right, from getting back in the game. But as a whole, I feel good about the direction that we go in individual, a bads, as a team. Now, we got to be the weekend.

We be better with many scoring position, all that kind of stuff. Of course. But now, it's more, it's more that it's just more controlling your, you know, we're lasting at the plate, we're scoring position, not changing your approach because now the abbatts potentially means more. Now you change your behavior. Now you're trying to do more. And now you have less of a positive result. That's where we try to help our players, listen, you know, same approach, same, same bat as you previous that by just because the base is a loader, just because it's running on second and third doesn't mean that you need to try to do more.

No, same approach. Try to hit the ball of back, you know, back up the middle. try to, you know, at walk counts also. You know, that's the message that we try to, you know, try to get our players to understand. To relax and just let the, just let the game come to you. Last question, Skip. Monday, you obviously went with Lance on Sunday. When he walked in the clubhouse on Monday, did you call, text ahead? How you're feeling?

Because, man, your pitch, he went 87, which was way more than I ever thought he was going to be. A, that's got to be surprised you. And B, what was it like having that conversation? when you said, how you feeling, Big Right-Hander? Yeah, we actually talked to him postgame, and first thing in the morning, I texted him, and he said, Joe, I feel great. He came in my office, I said, Joe, I feel really good. You know, we wouldn't have let them be out there for 80-plus pitches.

It wouldn't feel comfortable about, you know, letting him be there. He showed no signs of, you know, not. not being in a position to do that in between innings. So he pitched through trouble. And in the second, he had a quick third. And we felt pretty good. You know, they were following a ton of pitches off. So the quality of his pitches were good, you know.

Felt fell behind in some of some right-handed hitters, but the quality of his pitchers were good. I think he's going to be better his second time around. So we were really excited and happy for him. Since he worked, he stalled off to get back to that start. in Chicago. Great visit, as always, man. Thank you very much for the time,

and we'll see you back in town and end of this week. All right, Matt. Take care of you guys. All right, Jay, Joe is spotted with us here on Sports Talk 790 for our weekly Tuesday visit. Always a good conversation. 1245 is our time. The Rockets Press Conference in 15 minutes here on Sports Talk 790.

Rossi, that promo is about five years old. Am I still the widest man in America? I think it's got worse. Are you sure? I'm just kidding, Matt. Jonathan's like, I've never heard that before. John, you figure this out. 713-212-5-790, the Rockets Press coverage coming up at about 10 minutes.

Right now, let's talk to Mark in the Heights on 7-90. Mark, thank you for holding and good afternoon. Hey, guys. I know a spot I didn't want to answer the question, but hypothetical if y'all were still interviewing Dusty, what do you think his response would have been to your gorgeous woman question? And for the record, mine is Catherine Zeta Jones. Oh, Captain Jean Jones. That's an excellent call on your part.

Thank you, Mark. Dusty would have 100% answered that. I mean, he was a celebrity in the L.A. in the 70s, right? Could he go of Diana Ross? Sure, I don't know. Could he have gone Farah Fawcett? Could he have gone? This is hilarious.

Oh, oh, oh, Raquel Welch and Margaret. One of the goats? You go look at Go look at Am Margaret in 1974 And you're not feeling pure about yourself Okay Linda Carter Who and she turned into Wonder Woman?

I just put in 70s bombshells And this is what popped up Okay well go to 80s bomb Bo Derek Go to 80s bomb Oh, Bo Derek in 10 in 1980 Oh my gosh Oh mighty

Cheryl Teagues Yes Any of the Charlie's Angels Did you say Jane Mansfield? No, that was More 60s maybe 60s, yeah Go, yeah, go to

Who'd be the most glamorous woman of 1985? All right. That's Dusty's Willhouse. I'm getting flagged by our company for the following hottest one better of 80s. Heather Locklear? Oh, Heather Locklear in her prime, yeah, for sure. All right, let's Marky Post. She was on Night Court.

Good, not great. Okay. I mean, cute, but I mean, you know. I'm just putting in this list I just found. Carrie Fisher? No. No. Olivia Newton John?

Yes. Jacqueline Smith? Yeah, Charlie's Angel. For sure. Okay. All right. Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer would definitely be on Dusty's list.

All right, real quick, before we get this press conference. You know what? I'm going to save it. I've got some audio I want to play for you, but it's two minutes in length, and I want you to hear it, and then I want you to respond to it. Okay. So it's NBA Relabo saved to it. Cheryl Ladd?

Oh, Cheryl Ladd. Also a Charlie's Angel. Okay. Again, again, any charge. Again, give me 1979 Suzanne Summers. I mean, Sarah from Ferris Bueller's Days Off. Oh, Sloan. All right, this is enough.

We missed Cindy Crawford. Oh, Brooke Shields for the win. Brooks Shields is hot now. Oh, this is one of my faves, Elizabeth's shoe. Really? Yeah. Is Anne Hathaway a little too young for y'all? Yeah.

No. I'm a big Ann Hathaway fan. No. It's half plus seven? Yeah, you're good. I'm good. She's 42. Oh, yeah. I'm well in the wheelhouse. of that. Yeah, An Hathway is an all-timer.

Yeah. We're still looking good. All right, so who's your number one of the list? Is that it? Is that it? Scarjo versus whom? And that who is the whom that walks away the winner? He's got to find younger people. He's like an Arianna Grande guy? Oh, I like Ariana Grande. Whoever the girl was from Wolf on Wall Street, you guys said, Margot. Oh, Margo Redder.

Margot Robey, Roby, Ruby, Roby, Roby, that's right. Wolf of Wall Street. Snort and Coke. Oh, my God. the first five minutes of that movie. I was actually watching that recently. It's on whatever. And she actually played Tanya Harding and very,

very well done in that. I think, did she win an Oscar? She was nominated. Didn't the woman that played the mom of Margot of Tanya Harding went like a Golden Globe or something? I don't know. That's how you segue into an

E. May Adoka press conference with Raphael Stone. All right, we're waiting for the start of the press conference. And Jonathan, if it happens, just tell us, and just pot it up. So just go, you know, interrupt us. We're nothing special, right, Rossi?

By the way, congratulations in some respects to Rafael Stone named Finish Fourth in the NBA Executive of the Year competition. Sam Presti, the Oklahoma City Thunder winning it. Has he won it before? I don't know, but there's been some pressure on him to win because of all the stars, Westbrook, Hardin, Durant, SGA, Chris Paul, I mean, they've had a lot of different folks there over the years.

No, this is his first time winning. Yeah. It was the assistant GM with the Spurs when they won in 0305 and 07. Hmm. I think he's done a great job. I mean, they might not win it all, but. If they don't, and I've asked you this before, if they don't win it all, that's, that's going to be, you think it's a long offseason around these parts for not beating the Warriors in Game 7?

Imagine being number one record-wise about the entire way in the NBA in being dumped by Denver? 68 wins and the highest point differential in NBA history beating the 72 Lakers. And the MVP of the league. Well, I mean, I'm presumed it's going to have the MVP highest point differential ever. But if they're out in the second round, I mean, Cleokic is a monster. Now, I still think Oklahoma City is favored. I would agree. They're going to win the series, I think.

Still. Yeah, it just might take six. Which is not tough because Denver still is. I mean, I know Denver went from a coaching change and they underperform, but they were still a really good basketball team. Yeah, they're good, and they won 50 games, and they have the best player on the planet. But I still think that Thunder are the best team. If Chet Holmgren can make a couple of free throws, that game goes in overtime, if it plays out all the same, which it probably doesn't. No, because, yeah, they played it off the rebound.

So it would have been a completely different play. Butterfly effect, Matt. How did a seven-footer become such one of the greatest passers in the hands? history of the NBA. He became he's a walking triple double at seven foot and doesn't care about basketball. Yeah. It's one of the most interesting stories. If he gave a damn, he'd be the world chamberlain of the NBA right now. He could put up 75 points in a night. Well, I don't know about that. But yeah, I know what you're saying. That's yeah. I mean, three-time MVP, finished second in between that. I think did Embedd win it that year that he didn't win it

a couple years ago? And honestly, he would have my MVP, MVP, MVP, MVP, MVP, VP, VP, vote this year. But I get why people want to go with Shea Gill just there with the greatest team of all time in terms of point differential. They won 68 games. MVP, a lot of time goes to Best Player on the Best Team Award. Yeah, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I mean, I could say, I mean,

you don't have to always buy it by that rule, but I feel like it fits. Yeah. If it's a super close race, and look, it is, Yoko should be second, and my guess it'll be the closest second place vote in the history of the vote. I mean, basically, remember that one year was Westbrook versus Harden?

How close that was? Westbrook got to finish the season with a triple double as a six seed so he won it over Harden, which was ridiculous. Yeah. At least the Nuggets won 50 games and they were a four seed in a very tough west.

Yeah. All right, we are still waiting. I'm looking at, we're going through a website to get the coverage. So I keep checking it myself. So if something happens, I don't see anybody quoting anybody yet. That's good. Usually the rockets are pretty good. By the way, a lot of you are sending me in 80s love.

Phoebe Kate says H-Town Wicky for the way. Yeah, man, Phoebe Cates. Well, that wasn't even really her body on in the... It was a body double? Fast Times of Ridgemont High. Okay. Or Judge Reinhold was

thinking sweet things about her. Oh, those 80s movies. They don't make them like... They're not going to get away with any of that. Fast times of Ridgemont High. Porkies. Valley Girl. Airplane. And then you went to...

Are we ready? All right. I think... Do we have it? I thought I heard you say something. No. Okay. You just let's a knock. Okay. And then you had the John Hughes movies of Uncle Buck,

planes, trains, and automobiles, Home Alone's, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which, by the way, I'm still working on the manuscript for Ferris Dealer's Son's Day Off. I think they were making it. It's slowed. Oh, really? Yeah.

If anybody wants to help me produce Ferris Bueller's Sun's Day Off, we could make a lot of money. We would put Sarah, Jessica, Parker. Yeah, it's a spin-off film. It'll be directed by Dave Ketsenberg. When did that come out? Are they working on?

2024. Landed the director. What's it going to be called? Sam and Victor's Day Off. Okay, apparently, Waxner's shooting pictures, so obviously something's going on. So can we work on this a little bit here?

Jonathan? I don't see the... That's what Waxor just put a poster, picture. Yeah. I don't think he was up from now? Yeah. He zoomed in.

I would assume so Is there maybe like a Twitter stream going on maybe? I don't think it's on Twitter. They said YouTube page. So I'm on the YouTube page right now. Yeah, I have like three times. Yeah, I don't see it. Come on, Rockets.

No, my question, me late. If they're there, they're there. Let's take a look. It says, watch on our live YouTube page and the Rockets app. Can you get the Rockets app off a computer? I don't think so. Do you have to subscribe to the page to get it?

I don't know. No, no. It should be showing up whenever it's going to show up. I can play that Dremont clip right now. No, I don't want to do that. There's a cup I kind of want to play of Dremont Green. I want to get your thoughts on it. Have you heard it yet? Yeah, I've heard some of it.

I've heard the Alperin Shungoon stuff. But, yeah, these press conferences are normally up there, but they are not as of this moment. All right. This is great radio. I was going to the Rockets website here. Let's take a look. Nope, not on their website either. Hmm.

If we had a reporter, we'd send somebody down there, but we don't have reporters. I'm sorry. We have to pay your exorbitant salary. No, it's really Sean Salisbury's numbers that are probably out of whack. Well, we'll figure it out. We will. I think so. I wonder how much interesting stuff is going to be said.

Well, I just want to just in case somebody says something really interesting. Probably not. All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 if you want to jump in. on Twitter, you can follow us there at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Sports Talk 790, which is our... You know what? Follow my Instagram, at SportsRV.

I'm trying to build it up. You never put anything on there. I know. I'm trying to more often. At Sports RV. It'll help me out here. It'll help me out here, folks, if you know what I'm saying. Trying to get my followers up. I would hope so.

I just don't like posting. I mean, I don't have that many interesting meals. Just took pictures of where you're going to games and stuff. No one's asking for. No one's asking for intimate moments. Hmm. I wasn't going to do that. I mean, sports RV on Instagram.

Thank you. I'm going to keep plugging myself. I'm going to start plugging. My Instagram is growing. I know. I'm just trying to get to a thousand. And then what will be a big celebration? It'll help me professionally.

Okay. 108 here on sports talk. I'm going to start posting videos after the show. I know we should send somebody down. I'm going to start talking trash about what you're doing. You should be. If you want to out me to get your. boost up? That's fine. No, it's fine. No.

Yeah, are you on Snapchat, too? I'm trying to get under the MT umbrella. Oh, my God. It's taken care of you okay. It's not been horrible, but it could be better. I get it. I mean, I fully admit that. I understand. I don't see any quotes, so I think we're okay for it now. Do you think he used to stock photo? Yeah, I don't know. Why would he do that? Why would he do that? Did he just time that out there? Yeah, nobody else is posting any clips, so I think we're good for right now. All right. Let's do this.

Let's get a quick timeout in and see if that gives us a little minute here to go with it. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Gordy's in there helping. That's always a good thing. All right, we just got work from the Rockets or having technical issues over there. My life is nothing about a technical issue around the end of these parts. Internet phones, feeds that don't work.

That's not our fault. but it's going to be all right deep breaths Matthew deep breaths Matthew I don't know discouraging sometimes it's going to be all right at least I got you with me everything's all right Maddie

I'm glad I yeah you're going to ask me any questions no you are cathartic on this time of we can give we can get some quotes from Adam Wexler I mean I don't you want to read him in Adam Wexler's voice we're not the typical young team

We're stockpiled so many great players It's tough to get minutes every year is different. The development will come. We have full belief in our young guys. And with reading Cam and play, we'll see what they can do. You've seen what they can do. Sorry. Rafael says that he hopes to bring free agent Stephen Adams back next season, hopes that Adams feel the same way.

I'm sure Adams will feel the same way when the dollar amount matches. He made himself a lot of money in these playoffs, Stephen Adams. Whatever his market was before, it just went up. Did you read the email quote yet or no? Did you just read that or am I going to do? Go ahead. EMA says, we're not the typical young team.

We've stockpiled so many great players. It's tougher to get minutes every year is different. Okay, well, then I asked you if you read it. You said EMA quote. I didn't know you Wexler's email quote. I'm sorry, you didn't specify. I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'm sure he's had several quotes.

You think I would quote, Wex? I don't know what you're talking about. What was I quoted? I thought there was some bombshell drops. No, no, no. Did you see that Emeat quote? No, no, no. So that's what I thought happened.

It's not my fault. I'm looking at the people. at this press conferences. Half the people that are not even real accredited media. Okay, Matt. What is going on with our market? Seriously. Oh, we got it? This is for both of you guys. There's a decent amount of line-up data that suggests this team has performed

better without Jaling Green on the court this season. How much do you incorporate that kind of data into your decision-making process moving forward, be it roster construction, coaching decisions, that kind of thing? Yeah, that's a really flawed question. So like we have there's there's there's there's there's there's there's great data that we have and we use

but and I can one of my, email would know one of my favorite things I tell them when when when when we have a new when we have new coaches join my my one of my favorite things to tell them is I can make data say whatever I wanted to say. And and so you know I think you know we we heavily use it but but we're very careful. to try and really parse it out. And I would say that, I would say that that, that, that some of our very best lineups include him. And so, so that, that piece by itself, I just think that's just, yeah, that's just, that's just not correct. Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently or what would your approach have been differently this season, just knowing what you know now about how it played out? about how it played out yeah uh the season how the season played out like what would you have done differently knowing what you know now coach and gym um you know for me i think it went pretty

appropriately to the way we wanted to as far as you know like i said us being consistent and avoiding losing streaks and uh growing guys at the right pace and and so um you know the injuries happen and you get these different lineups out there and obviously i'm in starts to start when jabari goes down for a while and and so yeah I wouldn't say many things differently we have versatility in depth to kind of withstand everything and we showed that the like I said the rough stretch was Fred going down until guys kind of grew up and grew into that role and so I think it just made us better going into the playoffs and down the stretch of the season by some of the things happening unintentionally made us a more well-rounded team not as reliant so yeah you know we still have

some games we felt we gave away and you win 52 and shut it down toward the end of the season that's a good problem to have but um with a little more um whatever it is shooting finishing games end game situations i think you can get in the 60 range and so uh played out decently to me obviously the end of the season it's a sour taste that we're going to feel us the rest of the off season uh cam express for both the all from each perspective cam express a couple time just like his unsureness of what his role was on this team. Did you have any special conversations with him? Do you have to do this offseason? What was his role? What is he have to do to change his role? Yeah, I was a little caught off guard by that as well because we've

had in-depth conversations with Cam probably more than anybody. And so, you know, I'm pretty clear with what is going to get you on the court and what's going to help you sustain a role. And so yeah, I'll leave it at that as far as that. But plenty of conversations. very clear with what's needed and, you know, opportunities are there and not always taking advantage of, or, you know, other guys step up and play a little better at times, and you're looking for that consistency there. And so we'll have our exit meetings. We had about five or six yesterday, and we'll catch the other guys before they leave town and reiterate a lot of points. But a ton of potential there is just the consistency is the main thing, and he knows that.

And this is for the both of you. How important is the theme of continuity in this project that you? you've built over the last two years and moving forward. I mean, I think all things being equal, continuity is great. You know, sometimes they're not equal. And like we made a big addition to our team this year and Stephen Adams. Like, obviously we acquired him at the trade deadline last year, but he wasn't playing.

And I think we all believe that that was a really, really helpful addition. And so I think continuity for continuity's sake isn't what we're trying to achieve. but I do think like especially given we have so many young players that we think are internally improving. I think, you know, I think it's easier for players, it's easier for people to improve and to feel good in situations that they're comfortable in. So continuity helps with that. And I think from a coaching perspective, like you don't, you know, you're not trying to bring somebody up up to speed. and obviously there are guys who are just so high IQ that it's all really quick, but there's lots of effective players who it takes time.

And so the more continuity you have, the less you have to do some of that. So again, all things being equal, continuity is great, but the goal ultimately is to build a championship team. And if we think that there's a move or a series of moves that make it more likely we will be that, then we would ignore continuity and we do those moves. Yeah, I would say for me anyway, we talked about going into year two in the goals and understood that everybody was going to be much better in the second year. So we kind of hit the ground running as far as that, to his point on the addition of Stephen was there. And I think it really was a big part of us jumping out the way we did this year.

And so that continuity is good, no doubt. But you've seen teams make a lot of moves and they feel like they need to get over the hump and Dantzis is added. Butler is added and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but we always felt comfortable about what we had here and that we take this step this year. For both of you, is there anything that you learned about individual players or just the roster in total by playing the Warriors seven straight games and just kind of seeing the ways that they attacked you when you had their full attention for two and a half weeks? You know, I don't, I think we learned a lot about our, I think it's less what we learned and more.

a learning opportunity. That's how I think about it, which is like the grind of a series is different from the regular season and the intensity. Like, this is a compliment to EMA, my favorite thing about this team

is I felt from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, we were the hardest playing team in basketball. And that's really a testament to him and his staff, and obviously to our players as well. but that'll get you over in the regular season in a way it won't get you over in the playoffs because everybody plays hard in the playoffs. And so getting our guys to realize that, like not getting them to realize that, them having the opportunity to feel what that's like.

I just think it's a tremendous learning opportunity. And some of it we picked up on the fly. We for sure improved through the course of those seven games. But I think the bulk of that opportunity is to come where they get a change. chance to reflect on it and incorporate it and work through the summer and work through next year. So that's more how I think about it. An experience for me is a big thing for our young guys going through it for the first time and you know, how fast can we adapt to it and next time we're in the playoffs since it's hit

the ground running from game one, not, you know, take a step back. And I think we kind of found our footing, you know, midway through the series, but let go some opportunities early that I think with a with a series under your belt, a hard fought series you can kind of reflect on and go back on those lessons that you've learned. And so I think our guys will be better for it, no doubt. In regards to a man, just being in the gym with him every day, how would you quantify his growth, particularly on the offensive end and what's possible for him on that end? Rafael, what was it like for you seeing the guy that you were really high on,

but into this rising star throughout the year? Yeah, I mean, he's an extremely hard worker, a grinder like all of our guys are. They never had to complain about that of guys not putting in the work. And so he views himself as one of the best, if not the best, at what he's trying to be. And there's no real ceiling for him. He's going to continue to ascend like that. But the understanding, he catches on very quickly.

And once he does some things, he applies it and kind of puts it in his memory bank and just his versatility as, you know, he's a bit of. much different, we used him in much different ways than what he did his whole career, and he's adapted to all those things very well. And so ultimate Swiss Army knife, if you put him in any position, one through five, he guards, one through five he has played and gives us a ton of luxury and versatility to have a guy like that. But, yeah, sky's limit, no ceiling on what he wants to be, and the work he puts in has showed that. This is for both of you guys.

What did y'all like about the identity of the team this year? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the lessons I've learned in my current role is that there's a lot of ways to win in the NBA, and there's different organizations that have been successful doing different things. And one of the best ways to win in the NBA is just getting obscenely lucky and lucking into player X who elevates everyone around. him or something like that. But when you're trying to build something, I guess the biggest lesson I've learned is that having a clear direction that fits the organization's personality is really important.

And I guess for our organization, that 100% starts with Tillman. And then it's me, and then it's our coach, and then it's our players. And it's, but it's not like four people or 15 people or whatever. It's really, there's like, I don't know, 100 of us or 90 of us or something that interact on a daily basis. So taking that back to the team and everything, what I would say is that, like, there's different ways you can win and there's different ways you can lose. You can win a game by making every three-pointer and playing hurried. terrific defense and never getting a rebound. You can win a game, never making a three-pointer,

and playing the world's best defense in rebounding. I'm my personality, just me. I'm way more comfortable trying to win in version two of that than version one. And if I can, I personally, I'm okay. If I feel like we left it all on the table, I can lose and be okay. I struggle I struggle if I feel like we're soft or not

or getting outworked. Going all the way back to the first time we met and spent time together for me and EMA, that was something I felt like we kind of bonded over and it was for sure something I thought was going to end up being important to him and obviously it is important to him.

And so the way this team kind of in year two has taking that on is something I really like. And I think we have an identity and I think it fits Tillman's identity and it fits mine and it fits EME's and it fits our players

and I think that's a good basis, a good building block from which we can build. Ditto. I mean, it is a lot of what he said and that was from day one where the competitive

and effort and all those things were there from day one, especially for a young team and a team that had lost a lot. And so that's where you start with. And we've built it from there. And so I think guys have gotten tougher and guys have pulled each other up and all rubbed off on each other as far as that edge and toughness. And you start with that and then you get to the skills. You get to the IQ, you get to all the other areas where we need to grow

and continue to build and learn. But the foundation is set. We know we give ourselves a really good chance on a nightly basis because of that. And so a message was you come in with this effort and this competitiveness. You'll win three out of four games. That was our goal. We said, you know, 75% of your games, 70, 75% is doing that on a nightly basis, and we've done that from day one.

And so you saw all the competitiveness scuffles and scratch, you know, all the things from last year. And I think we've only increased that as guys have grown and we'll continue to when they get more confident. more physically stronger and all those things. And it bodes well for us going forward at that's late. And now we've got to work on everything else, the skill set, the IQ, and just continue to grow as a group.

Question for both of you. As you look back on the series, what is your assessment of what Jalen did in that series? How do you balance that with what you saw over the course of a long season? And perhaps what are the next steps for him to take as a player to become the player that I'm sure you would like him to become? You know, Jalen didn't have the series that he wanted to have, or we didn't. But I think, you know, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword in terms of trying to evaluate it because their goal going into the series was to take him out. And that was obvious.

And I think they talked about it. I didn't actually listen to what they said afterwards, but people told me what they said. So, like, who knows? I think they talked about it. We're not a team built around any one player offensively, whether it's Jalen or Alperin or a man or Fred. And so if your goal is to take out one of our players, in theory what should happen is that our other players should just punish it. And EMA frequently talks to the guys about inviting double teams, hit the guy, and you're the sacrificial lamb. And so, you know, in some games we punished it, in some games we didn't.

You know, in one of the games, we ended up with great spacing and we were able to, like, punish it with him. That's maybe unsustainable. But, yeah, I would just say that, like, we, for all of our guys, like, we want them to learn and everything else. But it's not, you know, one playoff series doesn't define a player. but also I think in particular with him and that yeah like if a team's going after you like that

they're going after you like that and then it's a team game for a reason and I'm confident that if we want to take any one player out we can and will on any team in the NBA and so it's just the repercussions of that that impact

the winning or losing that's how I think about it and more of the same where he really improved as far as that. It's a compliment to him that teams will go after him to that extent. And you saw it throughout the season. He had some practice at it, and we got better at it. But the main thing is obviously getting the ball to the playmakers behind it and not turning it over.

And at times he struggled with that early in the season. And he's really improved there. To Rafael's point, we made him pay at times. And then at times it worked in their favor, vice versa with them. when we took Curry out at times and Peyton hurts us down the stretch, but a lot of other guys miss wide-open shots and we win those going away. And so the more practice and confidence you have with that and him just, you know, being the decoy at times, like I mentioned.

And so there are opportunities that you still will have with that. And the more stops we can get, the more we can play in transition to avoid those is good for him and good for us. But, you know, we went through some growing pains, no doubt. I think physically getting stronger to absorb contact. on some of his drives when he has the advantage or finishing at the rim when he does get the driving lane. All those things are things we talked about with him going into

off season and able to use him off ball a little bit more. And you've got to get a little bit stronger as far as that because they took him out of some of those actions where they couldn't trap. And so some areas for him to grow, obviously, some areas for us to use them a little bit better. But when he does face those, we have enough talent behind,

especially a really good passing big like Alpi that should punish that every night. Tari and Jabari both missed some time with injuries this season but were able to make an impact still. IMA, how do you evaluate their development this season specifically? And Rafael, how likely do you think it is that those two sign extensions? Yeah, for me, obviously Jabari going down, he came back really good and adapted to the role. We brought him back in, which was coming off the bench. And so, you know, you slid him in and there and we're a different team, but better in some way.

obviously the shooting wasn't there at the starting unit but his versatility and amends made that a seamless transition I think he's ultimate professional came back and handled it well and even showed you know how much we missed him while he was gone you know he plugged a lot of those gaps when he came back

whether it was starting at the four or playing the three or the five at times and with a double big lineup he was really good there Tari's a little different obviously you know it's like the continuity of him playing every night, but he had to be conscious of that and getting him to the end of the season as well. And so there are some things with a young guy that you want to see growth-wise. And I think the fact that he couldn't play on a nightly basis, you know, that's a tough one for him,

especially as competitive as he is. And so, you know, you didn't mention Fred as well, you know, being out with injuries and how that hurt us and affected us, but how it helped the team overall. And so those two continue to show growth, you know, you would, I would say overall, they have a lot of things to work on, like everybody, and they know that. And that's what this big off-season is for. Sorry, I was going to say, I know you said you wanted me to comment on their free agency status, which is they're extension eligible.

We will talk. I'm not going to comment on any of our negotiations, but they're very important parts of what we do. and we have and they're just they're really really both solid solid guys like I they're they're I love those guys um actually like it's probably already come across but this team as a whole like the group of guys to that you you to come in every day and work with is is just great it's just great and yeah I thought I thought both tari and jabari in particular had really hard years with injuries and just growing up, growing pains of various sorts. And they both handled it so well.

Yeah, I'm very appreciative of them and their effort and very excited about the direction. I think they're both headed. There's questions for Raphael. You have an opportunity to talk with Tillman a lot. Later on in the season. later on in the season and during the playoffs and after the playoffs I know he leads the basketball stuff up to you but what is his vision moving forward going into next season and how does he currently see the roster constructed? I mean, I think it's, you know, we're aligned. It's the visions, the vision is the one I've laid out to you, which is where, we're, you know, I don't know.

I think I, like, no one believe me, but I think like four years ago, I was like, we're going to be really young. And I think I use words like excited. I never use words like winning. Like, you know, we knew what we were in for and he knew what he was in for. And, you know, and we're not there. Like, the goal is to build a championship team, and we clearly were not a championship. team this year, so we're all still in it. But he's completely bought in. I'll just speak on his behalf. I know this is his favorite team he's ever had. Again, kind of a lot of it is what I just

said, which is he also has an opportunity to be around our guys day in and day out. And they're good guys. And I think he appreciates them, not just for the players they are, but for the people they are. And yeah, and he's just very bought in on this group and seeing and thinking that that this group can get us to where we want to go. You're right. You did say excitement. We tried to get you to give us a number and you wouldn't, so I remember that. EMA, you've been around basketball

a long time. What do you do in terms of evaluating yourself and your staff is that process to say where are we, what can we work on? What's that process for you? Yeah, I mean, before the season starts, we do a full season recap of obviously our

coach of retreat. We get together and look at the previous season and look at areas of growth improvement across the board. We check the numbers and you see how we use guys, how we develop guys. Everybody has a different role, obviously, with the coaching staff. But reflecting on myself and looking at areas of growth, it's always a big thing. And that obviously starts much before we get together for a coach's retreat. And so, yeah, it's always ways to improve.

And that was a message to the team yesterday and after the game was, I have to come back better. The staff does as well. and all of you guys as well. And so it's not just physically, mentally, all those things. Yeah, it's overall growth. It's not pointing any fingers that we miss shots. It's, did we get the right shots? Did we use you guys the right way?

And, you know, target areas to be better at or be number one. And then we hit some of those this year. We've been really good at some, but we can always be a lot better. And so different ways to grow and learn and kind of lean back on experiences to your point. I've been seeing a lot of things and been around for a long time and anything we can implement to make our team better and things run more smoothly. You mentioned not being at a championship level.

What do you believe is the first step you all will take to get to that level? What more do you feel like you all need to get there? We're going to work hard over the summer and everybody's going to be better. Then we'll see where we're at. That's the one thing I know will happen. Yeah, the rest will see, but I know that will happen. and we have the vast bulk of our rotational minutes are being played by players that I believe in my soul will be way better next year than they were this year because that's the point of their career that they're at. So I think we'll see what, you know, we'll see what that brings.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right, that was the press conference. We are short on time, so we're going to do this. We're not going to play believe it or not today because we're only got 20 minutes left. the show, but I do want to get into the 20 minutes of what we just heard and some deductions from it. So, Ross, you're first on the great folks over at Centrogenics, and we'll come back and get into some thoughts about what you just heard.

All right, with that going quite a bit longer than we thought, and that was good, by the way, just to get a little sense of a variety of things. We're going to push, believe it or not to Thursday. So it's a happy 80th birthday to Bob Seeger, which all my favorite stars are really getting old. Bob Seeger is 80 years old. and so on Thursday's edition of believe it or not, because tomorrow we've got a short show. Unless something happens.

Oh, actually, I'm off Thursday, but so maybe what's... You're off Thursday? Yeah, I'm going to my son's graduating from college. So what? Oh, geez. Don't miss that. I'm just kidding. You hear that?

Don't miss that. Thank you very much. He's not. I'm just kidding. Geeing a graduation gift. No, for what? Cash? Why?

Because that's what normally you do? I don't know. I met the brother once. Oh, okay. All right, I'll say that. You were there for his first drink. I was and he got dizzy. Yeah, he did. He didn't like it. All right, real quick.

Boy, there was not a whole lot of we're going to listen to phone calls. I mean, they're going to, but certainly from two days after the defeat of the team, it was, we love our core, we love our nucleus, we love our group of eight that were our rotation guys. Trust the process.

So it sounds like that's probably what they're going to go with. I'll stick with my gut feeling from earlier. There's no earth-shattering superstar move, maybe a rotational player. So maybe we should not get into a deep-seated conversation about the certain member of the Milwaukee Bugs or the certain member of the Phoenix Suns. Probably not, or any members of the Phoenix Suns. Let's say that happens. Let's say they re-sign Stephen Adams, they restructure Fred Van Fleet, and they keep their lottery pick.

How are you feeling about next year? I'm feeling good. But the hangover of Jaylin It's the hangover that James Hardin has Now is that James, is that going to be a one-year issue for Janeland in the playoffs? I pray for James Hardin. At least he'd get you 10 assists. But the curse, not the curse, but the aura of James in important games,

that hasn't changed and he's been the link 15 years. Yeah. And I mean, it's just the, I would say that right now the fan base, as far as their support for Jalen Green is at an all-time low, and then just feeling the way that this series went. I'm feeling as probably as pessimistic as I have about his career, about him his blossoming career. So he said, Rofel did,

what is his team going to be like next year? And he said, this, this is, they're all going to be better, they're going to work hard, which they all are going to do. They've never been adverse to working hard. I've seen him myself. Yes. But I think there's one thing that has to change. next year.

And I'll tell you what that is. Oh, gosh. That's why we pay you the book. All right, let's set the rest of the week up. Tomorrow we have a snack size edition of the show. It's actually like snack. It's like coffee and a muffin, right? We're on 10 to 11.

And then you and I will host Astros on deck from 11 until 1140. I think is what it is. Yeah. Okay. And then Thursday, my son is graduating from college. So I'll be in college station all day. What time? Where are they having it? At the arena?

Yeah. Huge. We have to get there super early. Like the graduation ceremony starts at two, but we've got to be on our seats like at one. It's a mess. Thomas, you can be waiting a while, too. It's a three-hour conversation, too. Who's the commencement speaker, do you think?

Oh, it's some guy who was in the Air Force or something or Navy or. So bring extra coffee. I looked it up because we were talking about yesterday. I was nice here to do that. No, I'm just curious. That was nice. I did not walk at my graduation. was so happy to get out of U of H.

After being there like seven years, I'm like, just giving me the diploma. I'll get out of there. You're told me to shut their bum asses up. I mean, I kind of did. Yeah. It's a lot of work. I get it.

Yeah. And then Friday will be our next full show together when we are celebrating, hopefully an Astro series win over the hated Milwaukee Brewer's. And, oh, we'll know a Fred Van Vleet issued by then. It's five days after the completion of the season,

which is, that's quick. Yes. So I believe that two options are unrestricted free agency or the pickup opt in. Yeah. Can they just say, we're going to opt out

and with a understanding that. Yeah, I mean, they could say, here's the deal. We're going to give you. We're going to give you three years,

90. We're going to hide out now. If you want to go kick the tire somewhere else, that's fine, but you know what you got here. Yeah, I think it would be,

yeah, he wants to be here, but I don't know that anybody's going to blow his doors off with an offer anyways. You're probably going to make the most money here. At three at 90,

that would be probably probably... I'm just guess. I just totally make you have the only person's brought that up. You know, I've heard that similar number. Okay. That would give, that would put him at $34, another $90 million in a piggy bank. Point guards can go $35, 36.

Mike Connolly is still playing at this point in this in a career. Mm-hmm. Chris Paul's still playing. Russell Westbrook is still playing. I mean, point guards, and dog years a little bit different. Mm-hmm. So, um, he's got to, I think, I think he's got to be thinking I've got one super big contract left in me.

whether that's three years, $90 million or the one year at 40, and if the Rockets picked up, I know the Rockets love him. Yeah, if they pick it up, they'll be over the cap, like, by $7.5 million. Yeah, but you can knock Joclandole off of that real quick. But it's still, they want some flexibility. Yeah, they'll have more flexibility if they sign them to a longer-term, less average annual value deal. So we're going to save Bob Seeger for, believe it or not, on Friday.

He turns 80 today. We'll honor Bob on Friday. We're going to go against the win. and use it tomorrow. Do you think that Jonathan has even one Bob Seeger song in his memory banks? No. He sounds familiar though.

I bet if we played something like a problem. I bet, okay, I'll think the one song he would recognize, if any, would be old-time rock and roll. Don't they play that on commercials and stuff? Or night moves? Probably not nights. Sing it. How about turn the page?

Yeah, Matt, just sing it. I'll sing it to you in your ear after the show. That's it. Let's get you to Adam Clinton and Adam Wex are next. They are the A team. We have a snack-sized edition of the Matt Thomas show Ross tomorrow at 10 o'clock. But up next, Adam, with the A team here on 7.9.