The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith: Westbrook's Return Doesn't Guarantee Anything

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Brian T. Smith: Westbrook's Return Doesn't Guarantee Anything

Hey, it's Craig Ackerman. Listen to the home of the Rockets on your smart speaker. Just ask. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on IHartRadio. 132, 790. You're home for the Rockets. Still have not heard a word about when the game time is going to be. The NBA will resume on Saturday.

And honestly, I don't even know if it guarantees the Rockets would play on Saturday. Because you were doing every other day. But that's all been goofed up, so they could actually move some things around if they needed to. Maybe they've got, I think, two courts that they use for games. Do you try to go three games in each day? I don't know. They don't like starting games after 9 o'clock in the Eastern time zone.

So I guess you could maybe do two. They have to clean. Who knows? The point being is that anybody trying to guess right now would be foolish. But we are going to see NBA basketball resume as soon as tomorrow. Brian T. Smith, lead columnist from the Houston Chronicle with us here, as he's every Friday on the show. Well, Brian, we got basketball back. We have some baseball back. And I asked Dusty Baker earlier about whether or not the Astros were going to play today.

And he didn't really know. I'm going to assume with it being Jackie Robinson, this will be a great day for those that are concerned about this to actually go out and play these baseball games. Do you agree? I agree. I also know, Matt, that just the way things are right now. And it's not just sports. It's the country. You know, we don't even talk about the coronavirus pandemic anymore, right? And to me, you know, that doesn't, that's not any way to play down anything else. Everything is important. Everyone has their opinion. Everyone has something

that is affecting them, you know, whether it's financially or the coronavirus or work or race, whatever it is. But that hasn't gone away. And, you know, you know, baseball was, you know, on and off the field constantly for the first 30 games, the first half of the 60 games season. The NBA still hasn't made it through the playoffs, you know, yet. I mean, they're still in the first round. That's the ironic thing about all this. So everything continues to just be so unpredictable. And so, yeah, it seems like, you know, baseball should start to be back and the NBA will be back on Saturday.

But it's very telling to me that the NBA, which very much relies on television and its partnerships with ESPN and TNT, that as you just set up, as we speak, the NBA is supposed to return tomorrow. This is the playoffs, Matt, in the bubble. And they still haven't announced what time the games are. So I don't know what to expect or what to think anymore about any of the major sports other than the fact that it appears at the NFL. will start on time. And a month ago, that would have been the biggest news in sports. And obviously it's not right now. You know, there's 100 NBA employees that are striking.

I wonder if any of them are in the scheduling department. I mean, we'd be foolish on the thing at least one person was, right? And that's the thing. I mean, it's hard because these are various, very serious issues. And it's unfair to say some people. You know, I mean, you have to have some type of qualifier, but many people. I mean, millions of people, tens of millions of people, feel incredibly passionate about that. And I, and I feel like the country more and more, you know, fully understands that.

But at the same time, it is fair to point out that the majority of the vast majority of people listening to your show, Matt, or reading the Houston Chronicle or living in the fourth-hearted city of America still have to. to go to work and can't take a day off and can't just say, hey, I'm not showing up today because I'm going to, you know, so it's such a complicated, somewhat fascinating, somewhat messy conversation that just continues to go on. And yeah, I mean, that's, and there's so much irony to all this. I mean, that's, that's, that's one of the things. So it looks cool on ESPN. It sounds great. You know, whatever, there's a press release. It's also, responded to it that you had NBA employees protesting. But it's also easy to joke that maybe that's why.

We still don't know what time the rockets are playing. I mean, we have news that Russell Westbrook has been reported through a variety of media outlets all day. That Russell Westbrook is going to come back in game five, but we're not even talking about Russell Westbrook coming back in game five or how the rockets are going to match up against the thunder. But once that happens, that will dominate the conversation again. So there's never been anything like this. You know, you would have to go back to the 60s.

But in the, look, and to me, that will always be thus far, more volatile, more powerful, you know, that was coming after enduring civil rights. You had the Vietnam War. I mean, you had, you know, president being assassinated. I mean, that's the most volatile time in American history. But this keeps getting closer to it. And while it is so interesting and fascinating and we are watching history for better and worse, Matt, play out in real time is sports are 100,000 times larger than they were then. And you look at social media and 24-7365 cable TV and ESPN feeds a lot of this. That combination of sports and the politics and all the other issues raise, you know, the economy.

you throw in the coronavirus pandemic, it just keeps getting crazier and crazier, and we still don't know what time the Rockets are playing tomorrow. Well, fortunately for us, as we try to be the Tour Department of Life on this show, let's get to the sports angle on this. Let's have fun. Russ, I mean, look, they should be at worst 3-1. You could argue that the Rockets could have already finished it off and four. But you know what? Give Oklahoma City credit. Give Lou Dork credit.

Give Chris and Dennis Schroeder, all the credit in the world. but if he is what the reports are saying and can help out with minutes and extend that rotation a little bit, the Rockets absolutely are the better basketball team and should absolutely finish this thing off in the next two games. And I'm sure that would be a little bit of a disappointment, would you say? It would be a tremendous disappointment. And I believe that if TELman Petita is not too busy trying to get all those other businesses back to normal, that, you know, a couple heads, you know, professionally are going to roll inside Toy and a center. in a couple of weeks. If the Rockets can't get out of the first round against an Oklahoma City team

that wasn't supposed to make the playoff, that's very inexperienced, that doesn't have a true number one player, if you have Russell Westbrook and James Harden, and Russell Westbrook comes back and let's just be honest, Matt, we can say this. It's okay. Even in 2020, the Rockets were helped by the strike, protest, you know, boycott, whatever you want to call it. Russell Westbrook got a couple extra days. If the Rockets were a lot of you. markets can't win this series. They have no excuses. And they should be up 3-1 if it's not over already.

Westbrook will come back. The only issue will be, and I'm not talking about personal chemistry, it'll be timing and on-court chemistry. Now, Hardin and Westbrook are two of the top players in the NBA. They've been doing this all season. They obviously go way back to Oklahoma City. But it's 2-2. And you're in a bubble.

And there's no crowd. and you have Chris Paul and, you know, a very proud, energetic young OKC team. Just because Westbrook comes back, they should win the series. There's no question about it, but it does not guarantee anything. And we've seen that the last two games for the Rockets. They've finished horribly those last two games, especially game four. So it should fix everything. But again, the Rockets have been uneven and unpredictable the entire season.

All right. On the baseball side, how much stock are you putting into this Astros A series, but how do they do play tonight? I mean, honestly, not a lot. I mean, you could have somebody hit. You could have a bench's clearing brawl. It could become national news, but there's right now as we speak, not a ton.

I just haven't felt the buzz for baseball all year. and it's baseball's fault. I mean, it's because they spent so damn long, you know, fighting each other. It's only a 60-game season. We're already more than halfway through the baseball season, Matt, and it still, to me, does not feel like we're really playing baseball. The A's are a very good team. The Astros are in a very interesting spot.

You have the trade deadline coming up, you know, on and on and on. I think the most amazing thing for the Astros this year thus far is that they're even above 500. So it's an important series, but in terms of everything else going on, especially with the NBA, it just doesn't have nearly the buzz that it would. All right. Last question. Two weeks from yesterday is the start of the NFL season involving your Houston Texans. And I don't know how much access you have, because I know everybody's been kind of limited,

what you've seen so far, if you've seen much. And I'm just anticipating the first month of the NFL season to be extraordinarily sloppy. but somebody's got to still win these football games. Just any impressions you have from the Texans, and do you feel it from your readers? I don't feel it from my show per se much that when you're out of sight and you're out of mind because of no preseason games,

it's hard to get revved up, but we will be because in two weeks, we'll be today, we'll be discussing the first NFL game of the season, even though there may be only about 10,000 people watching the game in Kansas City. I fully agree with everything you just said. And, I mean, yeah, we are less than two weeks. weeks now away from the start of the NFL season. The Texans will be on Thursday night football, NBC prime time season opener. I mean, that's, in a lot of ways, that's a stage they've never

had against Patrick Mahomes and the defending champion, Kansas City Chiefs, on the road. And really, nobody's talking about it, right? I mean, we're talking about the Rock, it's talking about the Astros and everything else going on in sports. Nobody's talking about it. I've been out the camp. The Texans have a different feel. They have a different look. I can in no way say that that is good or bad until we watch this team play. And I think the most important thing that you just said out of everything, and it was all valid, is the fact that we're just, it's going to be so hard, Matt, to get a read on this NFL season until we are midway through the season.

You know, you get into November. And that's often the case, but you can tell pretty quickly if a team, you know, has a shot to be in, you know, Super Bowl contention, to be, you know, to try to win a division, et cetera. I think it's going to be so week to week, so uneven. None of these teams have played. You're going to have major injuries. You might end up having coronavirus issues.

I could, you know, I mean, the Texans open to Kansas City. They play Baltimore very quickly. Normally, we'd be saying, oh, maybe they're going 0-2. We haven't seen this team do anything. But, Matt, we haven't seen anyone in the NFL doing. anything. So I think a lot of it will end up ultimately coming down to who's the best quarterback on the field, who's the best healthy quarterback on the field, you know, depth, all that stuff. And some of that week to week might work in the Texans favor.

So you ready to predict them going to Kansas City and winning? I have a weird feeling. And I mean, I will say this right now 13 days away, which is a never, that's usually not a good number. I have a weird feeling they're going to win that game. I mean, they might lose by 40. Well, here's the thing. Yeah. I have a weird feeling, Matt, because it's just, it's going to be, you know, it's basically 10 days before their next game.

You know, it's the season opener. It's not the home opener. It's not like you're playing on Sunday like normal. I just feel like that is a roll the dice type of game, and they could be blunt on the building, but do not be surprised if the Texans beat the Chief. And all of a sudden that the. buzz is there because Houston's going crazy because the Texans won the NFL opener in 2020. Well, here's how it goes. Here's the easy narrative for you. They win. Wow, this really is a

different season. Yeah, LeBriens, all the things I wanted to do. Sorry, ain't to see you leave, Dandreide, but it is what it is. They lose after one game. Yep. Same old Texans. And that's exactly. And here's the one thing I feel very, very safe predicting. It is going to be a season, especially with the stupid national media. It's going to be a season of just weekly, wild overreactions, locally and nationally. And it's going to be the media. It's going to be fans. It's just going to be so much overreaction.

And the second you think you have and nationally, and it's going to be the media, it's going to be fans, it's just going to be there's going to be so much overreaction. And the second you think you have a team figured out, you don't at all. That's what's going to happen all year across the league. And the Texans would be a perfect team for that. because Deshawn Watson can win every game that he plays, but occasionally the Texan screw things up. Have a great weekend, friend.

Thank you for the time as always. Thank you, Matt. You got it, Brian T. from The Chronicle. We've got Josh Reddick in 15 minutes here on Sports Talk 790. First a word for improve my erection.com, and the phone number is 281-4963355. Call them today, say, hey, I've got some intimacy issues. I believe blood flow is an issue.

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