The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith on Jack Easterby & The Rockets Returning Tonight

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

Brian T. Smith on Jack Easterby & The Rockets Returning Tonight

is the Matt Thomas show. 2 o'clock, sports talk 790. Believe it or not today, Ross, will be all things about what? Mavericks and Rockets? Sure. What are we doing on that? This is your main segment. This is where Brian and I get to argue about something.

What are you guys going to argue about? I don't know. You can stay here for a second. I want you to go. So, Brian, we are kind of. debating about, we played a couple of Easterby sound bites. It was very hard to make them short because he's

he's got a lot to say, which is ironic as his first time he's really ever spoken to the media. Did you find him to be, now thoughtful certainly, was there a little bit of clergy in him? Was there a little bit of politics in him? Or was that is just who the package is of Jack Easterby is

as we speak here in 2020? All of the above. Okay. And if anyone expected anything, different. And I think there are some people on Twitter who maybe did. I don't pay attention to them. I don't follow them. I hear about these things. They have no idea what they're talking about. They don't know the Texans. They don't know anything about Jack Eustrabee. And they just don't know what they're talking about. That is, that is who he is. I'm not saying that's bad. I'm not saying that's good.

That is how every time that I've been around him, every time that I've heard him speak, you look at, you know, his interactions with Bill O'Brien, his reactions running that's helping to run the Texans, that is who he is. There is a lot of energy. He will mention blessed. He'll mention, you know, serving. He believes in those things. And I actually think that if you're out there on Twitter, which is, you know, 1% of 1% of the country, let alone the sports, you know, sports fandom, and you're criticizing somebody for that, get a life. Or you don't have a life.

So you might want to try to get something. of life. What my thought was... That is who he is, Matt. Yeah, and that's... Today was the first on the interaction on the Zoom. I watched that. And then you and I, among some of the members of media,

saw him face-to-face for the first time a few months ago. What I came away with it is, I believe he is going to continue to gain more and more power once he knows his side of the football operations. I think being a character coach and a chaplain is one thing for one organization, and being around a guy like Bill Belichick, you're going to just soak up the things and how he runs a franchise.

This is his baby now, and granted we got Bill O'Brien's general manager, but I told this to Ross about 50 minutes ago. I don't know if you agree or disagree. I think slowly but surely we will see Jack have a much more integral role as a player evaluator, as a salary cap person, as a contract negotiator.

And no one knows at this point, Bill, or say, Brian, whether he's good at it or not, because I don't think he's done a lot of him in his life. Here's the thing. You make some very good points. And I'm not about to disagree because, but this is important, okay? And again, people just don't understand. Number one, he did not have to do that today.

So normally only in the NFL, now the assistant coaches will talk a little, but it doesn't really matter. The coordinators, you know, used to talk once a week. That's kind of changed a little, and I don't know how to be in the Zoom era. But they don't say anything. The only person in the NFL met that says anything are with two people. The head coach and the general manager, sometimes the owner, Cal spoke and a little more. He still hasn't ever done to sit down with a media. Bill O'Brien is the head coach and the general manager.

So think back to Gary Kubiak and Rick Smith. Think back to Bill O'Brien or Rick Smith. Rick Smith would only talk to us once a year, twice a year. You know, twice a year at most, the combine and the pre-draft process, and they were respectfully as canned, as cookie cutter, as, you know, non-political, political as they could humanly be. They were absolutely worthless press conferences. Bill O'Brien is now the head coach and the general manager. So you're going to lose, you know, one of those opportunities to interview another person than the Texan.

I actually think it's fantastic that Easter even was willing to do this. It's been more than a year, about a year, since he was hired. He had not spoken with the media. Cal McNair does not speak to the media. So much like I would say for the return of baseball or MLS or the NBA or the NFL Matt, something is better than nothing. And, you know, he was decently transparent and he actually spoke at Link. Did he say anything incredibly newsworthy?

No. But you know what? It's Corona. Almost every question was about the coronavirus because that's what's important right now. Can they even keep this team healthy before they get on the field? Yeah. Again, as I told the audience a half an hour ago, I can't be the person that says, where are you, Jack?

Why can't we hear from you? And then we hear from you, and all of a sudden becomes, well, this is useless. And again, it's not great for sound bites. What do people want to say that, hey, this is what we're thinking for Deshaun Watson's contract extension. These are the years of the average value. You know, Laramie Tunsel is disappointing us or exciting us. You know, David Johnson, I don't know if that's going to work out. Let me really be in a word.

Of course he's not going to say that. Yes. What you just said is what people want, but that's on their hearing of the world. People are stupid. Of course, any of that. Nobody does. And if they expect it, they should probably expect a little less out of life. All right.

Let's get to some more important things. We have debated this as well on the show today. Will the Major League Baseball season be finished out? This is a fun debate. I don't know. Right? I mean, all we do is talk about the return of baseball and can they make it work and all the Astros issues. And, you know, on some level, Matt, breaking down Joe Kelly and the 96-mile-fass ball and when's Jordan Alvarez going to show up and is Justin Verlain are going to pitch again, all that stuff is obviously very relevant.

And it's honestly, it's fun to get excited about it and break it down and talk about it because that's what we normally do. But underneath everything is the undercurrent of positive coronavirus tests. And as long as that keeps going on and it affects multiple teams and a team is going a week without playing a game and a 60 game season, it feels like right now and it changes every hour, not every day. It feels like at this moment, Matt, that they could still complete the 50 game season, but it's going to be so inauthentic. Not only is it 60 games, but if you're going to have teams that only play 50 games, 52 games and everything's out of whack and they have to go to winning percentage. I mean, I'm sorry, even if the Astros win it. In 20, 30 years, no one's going to be, look back and be like, man, that was one of the greatest seasons ever. Like, oh, what a special season.

I mean, it seems like it's always on the verge of the season being canceled. Yeah, we were kind of joking about the fact that I, you know, have asterix next to seasons. Mine would have been put up aha next to this because this is becoming a joke. Right. That's what it is. I mean, we got double headers being manufactured. We have seven innings. seven innings double.

I saw your tweet today about what doing three, five inning, five inning, triple headers. In 2020, increasingly, that's a great idea. This is what I think is going to happen.

In the official record book, baseball reference, the official record book, Major League Baseball, you go on ESPN, you see you on the World Series. It won't have an asterisk. It'll have a mask emoji by it.

It'll be 2020, you know, Astros, Best Record in Baseball, 35 and 25. It'll have a mask by it. That's, that's where we're,

we're at right now. All right. Before I let you run, let's get to the Rockets. What do you want to see yourself from this team in the next eight seating games? Well, you know, the Eric Gordon issue is huge. I mean, look, I've said it for weeks now. I'm incredible. I thought the NBA looked fantastic last night. Both games were close. They were very watchable. A little floppy play, but again, like used to be, what do you expect? They've been off for four and a half months. I think it looks great on television. It's very watchable. It's exciting.

I think in some ways it's better than a normal broadcast because you're not, you don't have all the in arena distractions and it doesn't feel so distant. It feels very up close. With the rocket specifically, they've been so inconsistent all season. And they can talk championship. But if you're going to go small ball and you're still putting your chemistry back together and Russell Westbrook and James Harden have played together four and a half months, I see all the potential.

I'm excited overall to have them back. If this team does it, they're going to be an incredible story. But they haven't been consistent all season, and now you're going to take Eric Gordon out again. So I think the Rockets match for these seating games, and I heard Clanton and Wex talking about this yesterday. I mean, part of it is just about survival. Part of it is, you know, you try to get the right match up. You don't have home court advantage. You don't want to lose anybody else, and you want to be clicking as much as possible in the playoffs,

not against Milwaukee on Sunday night. Let me ask you this. We had Jonathan Fagan on the first hour. He had an answer. We'll see if you guys match. Who do you want to avoid the longest? Avoid a matchup with the Lakers or avoid a matchup with the Clippers? Yeah, that's fun.

See, this is why it's the night of sports coming back. I want to say the Lakers because of, you know, Davis and LeBron and because of their height and they're the Lakers. And technically, they're the best team in the Western Conference, technically just by the record alone, and it is LeBron James. I'm going to say the Clippers. And I don't care about how they've matched up this far in the regular season. I don't care about records, anything like that.

If the Clippers, and it's a huge if, because they've really done it this season, but if the clippers are healthy and they stay away from Magic City, and they don't have guys disappearing, if they're healthy, that is the deepest team in the NBA. It could be the best defensive team in the NBA. It could be one of the best offensive players. And oh, yeah, they have Kauai Leonard, who in the playoffs the last few years has been the biggest assassin in the NBA. I'll never fully trust, no offense. I'll never fully trust Doc Rivers as a coach until he wins a title, you know, post-Boston.

I'll never fully trust him. He's had too many blown playoff runs. But the Clippers, if they are healthy and they stay away from Magic City, they're scarier to me from the Rockets and the Lakers are. Yeah, they're scarier, they're deeper. and if Fagan's like, well, wait, you don't use 10 guys in a playoffs. But if you have nine guys, I mean, if you've got Lou Williams and you've got Montres Herald combining for about, I don't know, 28 points off the bench per game,

I don't care how many DPR, what kind of burst that is for that squad. That's what scares me. The problem is, and I talked to him about this earlier, there's something about them that chemistry, mentally, something just doesn't mesh where LeBron, say what you all about who he is and what he says, can take a guy like last night, the kid from A&M, Alex Caruso. And he gets the absolute best out of Alex Caruso.

He has a huge steal in the fourth quarter of the game of that last night and makes that Laker team pick up a huge first night win. Yeah, and here's the thing with the Lakers and Clippers. We all know LeBron can do that. You know, he did it with bad Cavaliers teams. He's done it. He's the second-grade as player all the time. Kauai has done it in other situations.

But Toronto was his team. The Spurs became his team. I agree with you, Matt. That's the thing. It's just a huge if. And we've been saying if with the Clippers all season, they should become the best team in the West. They will become the best team in the West.

It's still an if from them eight games before the playoff start. So I don't know. And I don't know about their chemistry. And I don't know, you know, with the hierarchy. and I've never fully trusted Paul George. You know, I still don't trust Paul George in the Western Conference finals, the NBA finals, to close it down and be the best player on the court because that's what you have to be.

That that decides championships, that you're either Hardin or LeBron James, and there's only one guy. There's only one team wins up on top every year. So the rockets are a huge question mark. A lot of potential. Clippers, tremendous question mark, with a tremendous amount of potential. Well, leave it that. Have a great weekend.

Enjoy all the sports. I look forward to reading you on Houston Chronicle.com, my friend. Thanks for the time as always. Same to everyone else, and thanks for having me on, Matt. You got it. Brian T. Friday visitor on the Matt Thomas show

and always bringing the good, strong opinions. Time is 213. We are 38 minutes away, Ross, from, believe it or not, we're giving away a little sample here? Oh, we could. Sure, why not? Yeah, it's going to be Mavericks and Rockets players.

Okay. They're in the opener tonight. And what's our sample? Let's go with in 2011, Austin Rivers won the McDonald's All-American three-point contest. Believe it or not.

I'm going to say it's to believe it. Not. He was an McDonald's All-American, but the three-point contest was won by former rocket great Kyle Wilcher. Kyle Wilcher out three-pointed Austin Rivers? Correct. Okay, so when that question gets brought up,

the answer is not. They get bonus points for saying Kyle Wilcher's name? No. Probably not. All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-9. We've got, what, 40 minutes left to go on the show today?

What do you want to talk about? We got Texans speak. We have MLB with the C. We have conference schedules being announced. We have the NBA return. We had NBA games last night. We have the Rockets in their future. Anything is fair game in the next 35 minutes.

7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-1-2-5-5. 790.