The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith Talks Possibilities Of NBA Return

Episode Date: May 1, 2020

ICYMI; Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle joins The Matt Thomas show talking the latest developments surrounding a return to basketball and other sports.

is the Matt Thomas show. 2 o'clock sports talk 790 the final hour of the week that is. And we always enjoy getting 10 good minutes from our friend Brian T. Smith from the Houston Chronicle with us here on the radio program. BTS, I've kind of earmarked May 15th as an important day for all of our sports teams. I feel like that's the day or give or take plus or minus. we need some decisions about whether or not it would be an NBA season and Major League Baseball season when it will start. Is that fair or are you the belief that we still don't need a calendar at this point

that when these things happen, they'll just happen? No, we need a calendar. And I actually had a column earlier this week, Matt, in The Chronicle, which was what's next, right? We had the NFL draft. It felt like all of us were hanging on just saying, hey, if we can get to the NFL draft, that gives us enough material. There's enough to get into.

It's a real live sports event, even though it's not an actual game. But what follows that? And NASCAR is coming back. Mid-May, you'll have the Coca-Cola 600, which could actually be huge. Memorial Day weekend. But that's without fans, and that's NASCAR. And NASCAR's not the NBA. I love me some auto racing.

I'm not not going to auto racing. golf will come back, the PGA tour, it'll start in Fort Worth, but that will be without fans. And we know that the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball will initially be without fans. That's 99.99% certain, but those are the sports that are going to swing everything. That's when people can start getting excited again. That will mark the largest return to sim. my normality, you know, other than being able to go to the restaurant and not having your server wearing masks and gloves. So I fully agree with you. It's got to happen. Doesn't

happen tomorrow? It cannot go into July or August because at some point, Adam Silver and Adrian Wernarnarnarski had an article this morning about this that was very in-depth, as always, but this wodge. At some point, Adam Silver is going to have to make a final decision. We either call the season as is. We cancel the rest of the season. We crown the Lakers the champion by default or the Milwaukee Bucks, sorry. Or we find

some way, and I heard you guys talking earlier when I was driving to the grocery store with a mask and gloves, we find some way to have an abbreviated season and get this thing going, but there will be a break date. And I think it's going to be around June 1st. May 15th is not that far away from that. I think

I have an answer to this question. I'm about ask you. I believe that Adam Silver is probably the, how do I safely say this? The most socially aware, Commissioner had a long period of time. So I think he's really wrestling with how do I bring these multi-million dollars back, players back on the court, restart an industry when there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that may not be able to get to mask and test. And, oh, by the way, there's a lot of people that still believe that we should still be sheltered in place. I feel like he wrestles with that much more than he wrestles with the logistics of trying to bring back the NBA. Yeah, I fully agree with you there too, Matt. I mean, he's always been

very well aware on every level, socially, economically. Adam Silver, much, much better than Roger Goodell. Roger Goodell took a nice little step forward to his basement last weekend, you know, tip of the cap to the King Commission. But, you know, Rob Manfred has looked lost and over. And over the overwhelmed during the baseball off season with the Astros and the Red Sox and the sign stealing, etc. Adam Silver is the best modern pro sports commissioner, and if he keeps this up, he'll be one of the best of all time. He's got a long way to go. Point being, Adam Silver can balance billionaires and, you know, super cool, flashy NBA stars that basically run teams better than anybody in the world. But he's also having the balance the coronavirus.

having to balance stay at home and masks and PPE and sanitizer, all that stuff, there might be one person in the world that could do that and nail it because, you know, we talked about this before. If you bring it back and then it has to leave again, I mean, that's going to be so defeating and so demoralizing if there's a second wave and the NBA plays five games, they have to shut it down again. So I fully believe that they are going to do every single thing they can to try to find some way to do this,

but it's going to have to happen much sooner than later because at some point, Matt, it starts the back end to the 2020-21 season, and then all of a sudden that's a domino that they're not going to push over, even if they're forced to. At some point, they will cancel the season if they have. So basically you're saying,

and this kind of goes obvious, if there's any more problems, if another player gets the virus, like if Rudy Gobert goes to try to finish and gets it again or any other players, they'd be like, you know what, we try, we just can't finish the season off. You know what? I'm actually not saying that. I think that this is the balance and this is the balance that everyone's having to deal with right now.

If you're a small business owner, if you're a restaurant owner, if you're Sylvester Turner, if you're Donald Trump, if you're Gavin Newsom, you know, whoever it is, if you're the head of 790, right? The head of the Houston Chronicle, this is the balance. how much can we allow to come back live with some consequences and still eventually try to get back to normal? Because, I mean, this is the thing, Matt, you can't shut every – I mean, people have been saying this for weeks now and once. This is my opinion. You can't shut everything down and just wait for it to be perfect again. Number one, because things are number perfect.

Number two, because, I mean, at some point, we'll have another issue. So the NBA is going to have to make a decision at some point. Can we live with a Rudy Gobert type getting corona? It's because you get corona. Doesn't mean you die the next day, especially these guys. They're incredibly healthy. They're in their athletic prime. They're in their prime of life.

What makes more sense to me and seems to make more sense to others, Matt, is if they get it, they're immediately pulled out. and, but that's the thing. I mean, who do you have to quarantine? How long are they out? That affects your team, but that doesn't affect the rocket. That's a bit of an unfair competitive advantage. It's very, very difficult.

But I think the simplest way to do it is you keep the minimum people that you have to have in an NBA type of arena, and they are, whatever, quarantine, they are protected, they are checked pregame, post-game, and you do that. And if it works, that is freaking awesome. And if not, the truth will present itself, and you'll know you have to shut it down. But I don't think one player testing positive for Corona, if the NBA comes back, that's not going to shut it down. And you're going with the thought of going to a bubble, going to Orlando or Las Vegas, doing it in one location to finish things off. Yeah, I wish we could be normal.

I hate the idea of having to play in one or two cities, the baseball Arizona bubble, which that's obviously fallen away. ESPN initially reported, which never seemed to make sense. But I don't know how else you do it in the next couple months, right? They're going to need to start the season. I mean, we're at May 1st. They're going to need to start the season by mid-June, you know, first day of July, just like baseball would, at the latest. And so I don't know how you do that when the country's at 25%, 50% back.

That's the best case scenario. and you're flying all over the country and you're playing, you know, you're doing back-to-back. You know the like. I don't see how that's possible. And I think that's why we continue to see, whether it's Disney World, Vegas,

all the things you guys were talking about earlier. Right. That seems to be the only possibility to even pull this off. If you're Charlotte or Sacramento or Detroit, do you convince the league not to bring back those teams saying, look, what was the point? That has not been discussed enough.

And Steve Kerr had his comments. And I actually, I love what the Bronn came out yesterday and said, like, why in the world we talk about canceling things? Shut the bleep up. You know, let's try to find a way to finish off this season. That being said, if they're going to do this, in my opinion, if they're going to do this and you're going to try to be as safe and as efficient as possible and not waste people's time, not get anyone sick that doesn't need to, et cetera, et cetera. if you're five games out of the eight seed and they've only got six games left, whatever the cutoff is, why in the heck would those teams be playing? But I guess if you do that, then, you know, other than maybe having one or two exhibition games

just to kind of get your legs under you, I guess maybe you just roll right into the playoffs. I mean, the Rockets would have to theoretically play the rest of their schedule. But yeah, if you're Detroit, if you're Sacramento, if you're the New York Knicks, you can't make the playoffs, your season's about to end anyways, why would you even risk anybody? And that hasn't been discussed enough. Because again, that would also limit the number of people in the bubble, because that's the thing is that the bubble's going to get smaller as the teams drop off. And what you could do, and theory, what you do is you take the 16 teams that are eligible for the playoffs. Because honestly, you're not worried about the AC. You're the only reason why

you'd come back and play regularities in games is maybe that a rocket team could win four or five to move up a couple of spots. But at the end of the day, oh, well, you don't take it. It's a Rick Corona, you'd have to live with it. And as you guys pointed out earlier, the Pelicans would be an incredible story. But if you've only got five or six games, the Pelicans aren't going to have enough time to make up grounds. Yeah. I just, the risk is just way too big. So you have 16.

You play three or four, which is what you do, I'll honestly. You play three or four exhibition games against a team from the Eastern Conference. So you're not giving an intelligence with anybody that you play. Give them a chance to play these rounds. And then start the playoffs two weeks after the. that and then go best of three in the first round. That's exactly what I do. And look, if you, you can't go down to three games, go down to five games. They used to do that. Go down to five games in the first round. I don't love five in the semifinals because, you know, that can make

a breaker season. But it's Corona. If you have to do what you have to survive during this thing, if you have to freaking wear a mask everywhere, you have to wear a mask everywhere. And so you can't, you know, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Go down the five games in the first round, five games in the second round. If you're not one through eight, you're not one through right now, cut it off, you have an accelerated playoff, but here's the thing. You'll have some type of closure and you will bring people back together and the NBA will make a lot more money than it's losing right now. You're on television and, you know, the country gets back going. And then they have a real season, a full season, and you start on Christmas Day next year. I actually think

that could all work if we can stay healthy enough. All right. Last thing on the Texans. Yesterday, Brandon Cook's met with the media. I've never a hundred, heard a player speak so glowingly of a vice president of football operations in my life, like Brayne & Cook spoke of Jack Easterby. I mean, that relationship is stronger than perhaps you and your wife and my wife right now. Yeah, they retreat each other. That was reported at that time, Aaron Wilson from the Chronicle, reported that at the time that they were very, very close.

Look, Bill O'Brien wanted Brandon Cook's here, but Jack Easterby was a central part, And that's interesting in itself, right? This is the summer or the all season when they trade DeAndre Hopkins. They play, they pay Laramie Monsle, they let DJ Reader go because obviously they couldn't afford him. They trade for Brandon Cooks. And while O'Brien GM head coach was obviously the main voice in that, Jack Easterby, who still, I believe calendar-wise hasn't even been with the organization for a full year yet. Jack Easterby was ultimately the main voice in that because he had that relationship.

he had that bond with Brandon Cook. That's interesting in itself. Yeah. All right, BTS. Hopefully next week we've got something. We'll have the first days of NBA practices, it sounds like, if everybody, I guess. Yeah, I don't know if they're going to have any media. Maybe they do, you know, James Hardin on a Zoom call.

We've got to get something. We've been going for 51 days now. I've fostered two puppies. I've done every, yeah, I've done every household chore. can't cut the lawn anymore. I'm writing five days a week about sports somehow, but we've got to get something going again. Maybe NASCAR will be our meeting great.

In all honesty, it's got to be the NBA because they're the ones that are on the clock more than anybody else. Yes. Thank you, BTS. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next week. Have a great week. Take care, Matt.

Brian T. Smith, Houston Chronicle, Akron Brian Smith, if you want to join us there. 214 is at time. Ross, what if I told you that Michael Jordan was offering $100 million for something? and he said, no thanks. I would tell you, I saw that story a couple days ago, and I found it curious, and I want more details, Matt. And we'll hear those details for you next on Sports Talk 790.