The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Is Bryan Abreu Back In the High Life? Ime Udoka & Rafael Stone Presser

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Is Bryan Abreu Back In the High Life? Ime Udoka & Rafael Stone Presser 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. In H-town, good morning, and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. It's the ball game. A series win for the Astros in Boston, and they take down the Red Sox in 10, 3 to 1. If only the Astros could play in the American League East. Well, maybe just the Red Sox. American League West is not some juggernaut.

That's right. They're back in the high life. We're back in the high life again. Oh, my goodness. We found something to enjoy ourselves this weekend. Yeah. Why, would anything else happen this weekend? I think I can recall.

No, no. I was not in Los Angeles yesterday. It's okay, man. R.I.P. to the huge. Should we have a rocket's funeral at some point? Well, um. Lay them to their final rest? It'd be fun.

What's the good, what's this, I mean? If we had the nightcap still back, we'd do it. Yeah, I know. RIP nightcap. No, nightcap's still going. It's in good hands with Josh Jordan. Oh, Josh, host the nightcap. No, at nightcap, today, I get Astros baseball.

But I need to start listening to that. Oh, Rossi, how the hell are? How was your weekend? I'm great. I just burned my tongue. You did great on TV last night? Oh, thank you. I mean, peel the curtain back.

Ross said, hey, can you come to channel two? and I'm like, I just need a little time away. And I still do. I'm going to be an Astros most starting tomorrow. Yeah, you big time. It's okay. That's a strong term. But it's accurate.

I don't think it is. Yeah. It's like, hey, man, it'd be cool if we were both on the show together because we host a show together. You know, mentioned sports talk 790. Well, how about me giving you some run? Good chemistry. Let him breathe your own air. Okay.

Yeah, if you want to sell it like that, sure, why not? I mean, if Channel 2 was closer, I'd go. I know. It's a long way. That's my fault. Totally my fault. I'm trying to do... I wasn't going to blame anyone else.

Ross, I'm trying to get closer. You're going to blame somebody else, but that's all right. But yes, it was a good time on Sports Sunday with Adam Wexler of the A team. Two to Six. He lives closer. Yeah. Yes, he does. You guys both live closer.

I think he's closer than I am. It's like 15 minutes for him and like 10 for him, if that. Yep. So, and then went and pick up the wife and the daughter after their last tournament in Reno. So it was just a weekend I needed to just get away from everything a little bit. Friday night was certainly very frustrating. I still can't hear it on my left ear, and that's just not great either. You sound great.

I don't think I sound great. I think I sound great. Yeah, you seem a little cranky. No, I'm actually not cranky. I actually did a bunch of honeydews. That's good. I washed clothes. Yes.

Dishwash. Yeah, power wash the driveway. Let's not get crazy. I don't think that was on the agenda. but I appreciate you throwing a business out there. Watching a lot of the Astros. Honestly, Rossi, I still don't know them very well. What do you mean?

I mean, I can't give you the starting five rotation at this point. I think I can give you some of it. Joe Espada can give you the starting five rotation at this point. That's true. That's true. But... I mean, are you talking about our guys Daniel Johnson and Dustin Harris? Yeah. Yeah.

They even, No disrespect to these individuals. No, no, no. And they have to understand this. They even have generic names. Hello, I am Daniel Johnson. I am your replacement player on the Houston Astros roster. It's like you're watching guys on lockout.

These are the guys coming in that are going to... Oh, the scabs. The scabs. I mean, they're not. They're not. They're not. Hello, I am Dustin Harris. Oh, hey, Dustin.

How'd you get here? I was claimed off waivers from the White Sox. Oh, okay. Cool. Nice to be you. Cody Bolton and Cody Bolton, yeah. Cody.

And then you got Colton Gordon. Colton, yeah. So you got Cody Bolton. Yeah. See, it's not great. This is not what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be Tatsu Yemi. It took me a month to get Tatsu Emi's first name and last name proper.

We'll see. It takes him a while to acclimate. It's taking him time to acclimate. All right. Give him a break. Who knows what's going to. the slope of the mound is looking like in Corpus. Oh, I saw there were video highlights.

He's all right. He spent way too much time navigating that bad boy. It's okay. He's going to pitch again soon, right? Yeah, Sugar Land this week. Okay. And Josh Hader, too. Oh, Sugar Land.

Should be good. I'm telling you, we should have got, well, you know we should have done. We should have got some PSLs for Sugarland Skeeter baseball. I'm telling. What's their record looking like? Well, they're not going to reach 140 wins, I don't think. Oh, they're not? I don't think they are.

Well, they do like two half seasons. That's right, because the lineups changed so much, yeah. I get it. Oh, what the hell? They're only 17 and 16? Well, you know what? I thought they were going to be stocked with talent, but everybody's been called up because everybody's hurt.

Yeah, it's really, if you had the over-under on the skis cowboys, you're pissed because you thought all those awesome arms would be leading the AAA squad. All the quadruple-A players are up at the majors. Yeah. But yeah, the Astros won yesterday. They have won five out of six against the Red Sox. Yes, yes. They won two in a row for the first time in like half a month.

Yes. So that's good. And you Nimrods on Astros Twitter, getting mad at me for saying that it was ridiculous that Joe Spottish should be fired. It's just ridiculous. I was hitting mute at a breakneck speed. It's good. Toxicity is at an all-time high. Seriously, I'm going to give me one second if you don't mind.

Astros' Twitter, I know you're pissed. I know you're upset. I know the team is disappointing. And the fact of the matter is that the Astros don't make the playoffs this year. Joe Espada is probably out of job. And I wasn't endorsing extending Joe Espada. I mean, I wasn't talking about a five-year contract. He's the greatest of all time.

I was just saying he has been in an untenable using a Chandler term, a Rome term. He's been screwed. This team's wrecked with injuries and lack of performance. But I said on the show on Friday. Calling for Joe Espottos firing would be the dumbest thing Astrosw could do. Some guys in Space City Sports, I don't know who those guys are. They seem like decent people. I put my quote up there.

And they called me handicapped and retarded for basically four hours. Five hours after that. Yeah. I think I got guys wanting to fight me? I mean, seriously, Astros, Twitter, be not as stupid as you normally are. That's all I'm going to say. The team's not good. Just don't be as stupid.

Firing Joe, firing, if you don't like those guys, it's coming in good time. It just is. Yeah. can't believe they're not in first place with Braden Shoemaker and Dustin Harris starting every game. They sound like PGA tour golfers.

Braden Shoemace? And Braden Shoemake on the approach, he's got about 171 yards here, Matt. Looks like he's got the 8 iron. What do you think about this shot? Let's go to 16. Thanks, Ross. At 16, we've got somebody

named Johnson here. He's a guy that was on the live tour but he's not particularly happy there and Daniel Johnson is 510, 200 pounds 330 years of age 330 years no 510 200 age of 30

he was a number 5 pick of the 5 round pick of the Washington Nationals My bed's not working or the computer It doesn't matter at this point Point being is this Timing is everything Timing is everything the bit's gone

Just stay with me on this Oh, there we go. It's too late. I'm sorry. Turn it off. If you're unhappy with... And again, this is the same along line of thinking of Rafael Stone and E-May. Shay Wickham sounds like a golfer, too.

Stop firing people. No, we fire everyone. But the Red Sox fired Alex Cora. And working. Yeah, how'd that work out this weekend? Not great. Alex Cora, being fired, fix everything? How the Phillies since they've got rid of Thompson?

Yeah, we want blood. That's how it is. And I'm going to say, I think Twitter is getting... worse? Because I think honestly users are down. I see how many there are. How many votes we're getting on polls? How many likes we're getting on stuff? I mean I people are deactivating accounts left and right. So

Twitter for us is still going to be a spot for information and I'm looking at. But remember I mean I'll be this first it was fun kind of seeing how the Twitter account would go up. We'd have some parties. I could give two craps about that right now. I understand because the people who are staying are like the people who are more addicted and quite frankly and this is for me too.

I'm not taking shots at everybody. So everybody listening, I know there's normal. I'll take shots of me myself too. Yeah. Like the more you stay on there, the more probably you're addicted to it. And that means you probably have like other issues like me. But we are not. We are not connecting with our audience on Twitter like we used to be.

And it's not because we're not there. It's just because people have said, yeah, it's toxic. We're gone. So we'll still be on it. We still love to engage with you. But Rossi told me a long time ago, now what I do now is I always thought it was, and I'll peel the curtain back here a second. I thought it was just kind of dushy

to me to fight with people. Now I kind of embrace it. I call you out and then you want to kick my ass and then you've got 49 bots. You know what? I'm going to mute you. I'm going to block you. I'm going to call you a name.

I'm going to insult you. I'm going to tell you to have a bad weekend. And it felt good. Oh, wow. I didn't know you're getting into scraps with everyone. A few. I mean, you call me names. I mean, I do think it's stupid

to ask for a managerial firing unless, again, you had a loaded lineup that was underachieving. Alvarez, crushing. Walker, crushing. Injuries, part of life. Pitching sucks.

Emi sucks. Brian would bring you until yesterday. Sucks. Nothing that Joe did. And I'm not trying to defend it. They're like, oh, you're the flagship. Now shut your bumasses up. I'm at an Astro fan since 1979,

way before I worked for the flagship radio station. By the way, new deal, bitches. I ain't going anywhere. Me, none of us You know that? I called him bitches. I love y'all, but I don't love some of you And I want you have a bad day

If you want to get in a car wreck, I don't care about that either What? What? You're worried about my voice too. I'm going, I'm ready to go. Good stuff. Oh, man. You want to fight me, fight me, that's fine.

Come to Kingwood's light on to drive at least. You want to come kick my ass, but go have something to eat. People were threatening you? I'm this and this You're Call me retarded and calling me handicapped And like Whoever thinks of what man has to say

Yeah Bitches I might have 30 years in Houston So suck it People do listen You don't need to listen But I'm just telling you I got scoreboard over you bitches

I do You got scoreboard I like that I do I'm doing something right I don't do everything right I goof up a lot I'm the first to admit it

but I'm doing something right I didn't know you were getting in all these internet scraps well it's because the guy Space City guy said and like I know why does anybody kill with that he's out here dry snitch and he knew what he was doing with that he knew people were going to respond yeah didn't even put Asports MT

so I see and then people are out I mean like you know what I'm going at you let's go I appreciate that guy he listens don't know his name I love Space Series sports you're a good dude I muted him but yeah they just they just can't have I wish him the best And I have a, you know, I try to have a thick skin, but I'm a sensitive fellow.

He was like also one of the ones, Udoca needs to be fired for not playing Reed Shepherd. Okay, well, Reed Shepherd played. He went one for 10 in game six. And my rocket season's over with. Can you come in some slack day? How is Reed Shepherd is the savior of the Rockets guy doing right now? Reed Shepherd not looking like a savior. But of course, the counter, oh, well, if he had got reps in the regular season,

he'd have been ready for the moment. Okay. Maybe he needs to grow up. Maybe going from four points a game to 13 is a massive leap and he is developing on time. Maybe that's what's happening. Or maybe you know more than Coach Udoka, who's been

in the league who played in the league for a long time and has been around the league and learned under the tutelage of Coach Popovich and took the Celtics to an NBA finals was the highest sought-after name in the coaching market when the Rockets hired him and hasn't done a good job since he got

here. They won 50 plus games in two years in a row. Or maybe you know more him maybe there are people out there listen to this show right now that no more than me i'm fully admit it that's true i guess i'm very cool with that but let me give you a hug matt no i don't no i don't no you need a hug no i just don't want me me called i'm kind of i'm hugging you man i'm not retarded man i'm not retarded matt here i may be stupid oh he's coming to hug me i love you all right thank you thank you sports sorry it can't hurt you man it's just words on a screen i know but it's like come on now i don't call you all those names well i may i may i probably

do all fair. I'll be honest. Just mute them. A lot of times that's what they want. They have sad lives. They don't do anything. They hate their job.

They hate their wife. They hate their kids. So they go on the internet and they want to get reactions out of people. That's how they get their dopamine hit. I don't. You win? I don't get it to them. Just muting.

I'm just muting them. I'm a mutant mofo. 1016. Madden Ross. 713. 212-12-790. 1023. It is Madden Ross.

Nice have all of you with us. So the girls are out of town, they're volleyball, the boys. You know, we like to go to places that the girls don't like to eat. So we go to Rex's Roadhouse because we just like the rolls and the steak's good. You know, it is what it is. What are you laughing about? Nothing, Matt. That's just funny.

The Kingwood Living, baby. It is what it is. I didn't live the King of Metro. Why don't the girls like Texas Roadhouse? They're a little bougie. Well, boozy. Oh, they're bougie? Yeah.

I mean, I'm boogey, too, but I can pound those rolls like with the, the best of them. Don't clip that. That is too bad. You can bound those rolls with the best of them. Okay. So we so we Jesus. Be careful.

All right. I want to use that one all right. I'm sure you do. That'll be in the best of. So we can go to Rex's note house and we go set the bar because there's a wait. I mean, there's the one in Kingwood, I don't know, man, y'all, I can, it's always a wait. There's a weight? I think Porter comes in and sneaks

in there. That's fine. Yeah. So we go set the bar. Okay. And Cameron and I had a bet of whether or not the Toronto Cleveland game would be on any of the televisions. There's like eight of them. All right. Zilch. So I said, can we put the basketball game on? And I

save myself a step ahead by telling him channel two, because there was no way that the two bartenders were and I know what game the channel was on. So they put it on for us. It was fine. That's good. But man, when we check out on sports in this town

and it involves local teams, we really check out. I don't think Toronto, Cleveland would have moved the needle. I understand. Would a, if we were at a bar and say, let's go with Salt Lake City, would we, would a Rockets Lakers game but on at a bar in Friday?

Yeah, I would say most, for the most part, yes? Yeah. What Rockets and Lakers is sexier than Cleveland in Toronto? That's true. That's true. So. But yeah, it was, it's tough. It's why y'all going to go to Big City wings.

I mean, we, we weren't, the boys wanted the steak, and Big City doesn't serve wings or serve steak. But, yeah, they're like, you least you go in or you know the games are going to be on. RemoteFew.Biz needs to get Rex's note house as a client. On the curb.com, grass-fed, organic beef, filet, ribby, New York strip. What's up?

Hmm. Okay, I got you on that. All right. So, but that's just not close. my house, but I'm sure it's going to be great. It's great. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9-0. We mentioned again, we got to tell the truth at 1130. Astros with a series win. Dodgers are in town the night. Are we going to be infiltrated by Dodger fans left

and right everywhere? It's at Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They can't be coming in for this, right? I would say so, probably. Now, show he's going to pitch tomorrow. And by the way, he is... Did you see the problems for the series? I go ahead it's okay so ok so okard has been named the opener is that going on because it was tb it was tbd right tvd versus yoshinobo yamamoto what did you say pierre yoshinobu yamamoto that's a that was a song by sticks back in the early 80s no he's a he's a really good pitcher er a under three versus an opener

slash bullpen game Shohei Otani whose ERA is 0.6 Actions is a better pitcher than he has hitter this year which is strange against Peter Lambert Okay that's our

that's our co-ace and then Lance McCullors versus Tyler Glassnow who's been one of the better pitchers in baseball too and his under 3 and a whip of 0.8 so yeah

roll one bill in the day that's why high life again was Brian and Brayu it's fine it's a series Reds are struggling. It's fine.

I know you declared this a couple of weeks ago. Now, things can turn around, but it's feeling like it's going to be a long summer. Well, here's the only thing that I did not declare. I didn't realize how generally speaking, the American League sucks. Look at the standings. Yeah, that is good.

That is the only thing I did not declare. The good news is, and the saving grace of this 14 and 20, 21 start. The only say it agrees, frankly. Not only is their division week, the entire American league is weak. A's are in first. They're two games above 500. Just go win and get a nice little fat six out of seven, and you're 20 and 22.

Yeah. I mean, it literally could be a lot worse. Could be a lot better. Could be a lot better. And again, we're going to be spending a lot of time looking at what's happening in old Sugar Land this week. Come on, Tatsuya. come on josh hater by the way

you you were right in saying that there's going to be 18 million reasons why Scott Boris is going to tell Tutsu you might shut his bum ass up and stay in the United States yes but I did see a national storyline I think it was on MLB.com about if he's really miserable

the right thing to do would be to go back and not do this the right thing to do by who for who if he's miserable here again it's the right thing to do would be to go back to Japan. Well, how's he doing now? He's taking a little time to acclimate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying if this is a season-long issue, the right thing would be to say, you know, this U.S. Major League Baseball thing isn't my cup of tea. But Scott Boros is I don't let that happen. Why is it the right thing to do? Because you can't take people's money if you're unhappy. Why not?

I don't know. That's a decent thing to do. John Wall took everyone's money and he was on the bench. He wanted to play. He took the check. But he wanted to play. Tatsu Yemi doesn't like playing in the United States. Well, he wasn't happy. Not playing, John Wall.

Sitting in a bucket hat coaching. But you've got options. He didn't have an option. No, the option for the player, the player option for Tatsuori Mai is he can opt out out of the next two years of his contract or the next year of the contract. He's not. He's opting in. Do do do do do.

He's opting in. He's opting in. You know what? He will say, here's how it's going to work. If he has a miserable year, he's going to take the conference. contract for an extra year. He's going to put the Astros on the dime for $18 million. He's going to say, I needed a year to acclimate. The Astros signed the deal, too.

Yeah. And I didn't realize it. I mean, I also didn't realize how miserable he was going to do. I'm not crying for them. I'm just not. It would be funny if he's like, I don't think I can do this. It would be crazy. I mean, it would be. It would be a one-timer. Has that happened to anybody that's come over from Japan? I have never heard, I'm not talking about Japan.

I have never heard of a pitcher who sucked. that said, you know what, I don't deserve another chance. Yeah. $18 million? I'm going to go back to Japan and make four. Look, I don't think,

not that I have intelligence on this, but I don't think it's the Astros' fault. The Astros have done everything they could. They send him to a Rockets game. They threw up his ages. He played golf. We're trying to get a cuisine for it. They didn't get him in the slope of the mound,

the correct slope of the mound. In two different places, though? In humidity, he needs a due point of a exactly 52 degrees, and then he's ready to go. Is that what it is? If it's higher or lower? So it's the Astros fault. Yeah.

Their mounds are not human enough for them. They need to get a humidor for him. He needs to get like in a bubble. Can you be like bubble boy? Seriously, you're going to start seeing videos of him working on mounds. He's already done in two different cities. Yeah. Be like on Instagram.

Where is Tatsui this week? And where is he, what mound is he working on? Does he bring his own shovel? I don't know, but maybe that's, you know, but maybe that's, you have a corporate sponsor, aren't he? Make some of the money back? like that, like a dirt company? Yeah.

Yes. Tatsu is the mound is not happy in the corpus? Yeah. He travels with it. That stuff they use, a quick dry? He can get on that. He better not doing Sugar Lane. I know.

Like your little league coach always had a couple of quick dry bags ready to go. And they sat on the stool and the dug out there? All right. Roger and Terry, we'll get to you coming back at 1031. It's Matt and Ross. We're with you today until 2 o'clock. The news at noon is coming up to tell the truth at 1130. And I got some juicy ones for you today.

on to tell the truth. All right, a few other headlines to get to before I go to the phones. Congratulations. Jordan Alvarez, you are the America League player of the month in baseball for the month of March and April. God, he was crushing. In the month of March and April, 356,

42 for 118, 9 doubles, 12 home runs, 27 RBIs, 21 walks, 25 runs scored, OPS of just shy of 1,200. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go.

A little cold over the weekend. May hasn't gone off to such a hot start. No, he's not going to win the award at this point from March. Well, there's still time. Come on now, but probably not. Big series against the Dodgers. Number two, John Sterling, the longtime radio voice of the Yankees, and been frankly fodder for sports radio hosts for 30-plus years,

passing with the age of 80. today. Oh, he did? Yeah. I think he had worked a couple of games in the last couple of years, but he has been retired since then. But John Sterling, I only have one

dealing with John Sterling ever in my life, and it's a weird one. So I'm covering the Minnesota Yankees 200 playoff series. It's got to be about... This is the one when you guys were in the urinal? No. Oh. 2009. See, he always brings it to urinal talk. No, I don't.

I've literally never said that. So we're at Yankee. You said it was a weird story. It was a weird story. And you, how, this is gotta be a 10 out of 10 weird. There's a big platter of desserts at Yankee Stadium.

And he takes his index finger and he licks the frosting off of one of the desserts. Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to do that. And then he left it? Yeah, I don't think you wouldn't go get another piece,

but he just wanted some of the frosting taste. That's not 10 out of 10, first of all. Oh, come on. In public? I think it is. Weird, 10 out of 10? Have you ever done that before? No, I have.

If he, like, licked every one, that'd be 10 out of 10, maybe. Or it'd be like 8 out of 10, really. Okay, so what do you put, boys? A grown man going to a dessert area, index finger going, you know, I don't want a piece of the cake. I don't want some of the pie, but I'm going to take a big old index finger scoop of frosting to, you know, to take care of my palate. It's a weirdo. Kind of. It's a public.

You do it at home. A little narcissistic. It's a little narcissistic. Nasty. It feels like. It's kind of nasty. Like everyone else is here for me. Yeah.

So like an only child or something? I don't know. I knew him early in his career as a voice of the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Braves. Back when I first watched the Braves and TBS in the back in the years. I didn't even know he was anywhere else. Yeah. He's done a lot of things over. He announced eight World Series with five victories.

12-time sports Emmy Award winner. When he was fastball was good, but he became kind of a character of himself. the last 20 years or so. And then another three, what are we going to do without our spirit airline fights? What airline takes that over? I don't know.

Does there going to be more fights on other airlines? I mean, it's like Frontier. I'm going to throw hands over here. This is bad for everyone, you know. Oh, it's terrible. Because I'll tell you what, I went on a mirro to Charlotte

to Charlotte when we went down to spring training. And it was fine. I mean, I had to get the first class. I wasn't going to sit back in the coach, but it was fine. I mean, nothing wrong with it. Yeah, the mere existence of spirit keeps prices low across the board. So there was a merger up for grabs a couple of years ago between Merritt and Rhett Rue.

What? Ret Rue. Bless you. And there was some. Ret Rue. Rue Airlines, yeah. And there was unfortunately a lot of political bantering. like this is bad for business

rare it's out of war we can call it spare time. Yeah, the jet fuel prices accelerated their demise. Didn't help. They had thin margins as it is and then I guess they were looking for a $500 million government help out

and they couldn't come together on that. They said shut your bum ass up. That's rude. The nice thing about it is you're seeing some there were some like some Spirit pilots that were supposed to follow their last flight. They were flying on other airlines and the other airlines were like,

hey, we applaud you, you're retired now, you know, congratulations in your long run. So it's kind of sad. But, man, the merit, Spirit Airlines flights

with the luggage people behind the ticket counter, those are legendary. Why? Because they just, they call each other names and throw hands and it's just,

you kind of miss it. Yeah, I didn't care for merit, but. I only flew at one time, it was fine. I did it one time and I vowed never again.

Your back hurt, it did it. They were multi-hour delayed, so I didn't check my bag in early, and they're like, you need to, they wouldn't take it. They said, you need to check an hour before. I was like, the flight's in two hours. Like, no, you need to check an hour before the original time. Shut up. Yes.

That's terrible. They would not take my bag. I had to call my mom. She had to go home, get a carry-on bag, and then come back. I love mom. She's the best. Oh, my God. Do not deserve her.

You do not deserve her. At all. At all. All right. line three is Roger. His phone usually sucks. Will his phone suck again today? I don't know. Is he in a category three hurricane? Roger, good morning.

Roger. Hello. Hello. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Okay, I'm sorry, Matt. So, just on the Rockets rather quickly, I, you know, I'm not trying to fire anybody or get anybody. I just think that if they're going to try to reshovel some of this deck, just start with the bench, start with the bench, have something coming off the bench that's going to at least help you out.

And, you know, in a couple of games or just try to, you know, get some guys that, you know, that, you know, that are helpful, not just a bunch of guys that are just, they do nothing for you. I mean. There were down three starters, so they had to go to their 9, 10, 11 guys. Like, yeah, if you're down three guys or three or top six, I should say. So, yeah, your bench is going to be thinner. But can the quality get better? I mean, do they have enough money for that? I mean, I'm trying to start low, you know, I know they're, you know, money.

Aaron Holliday should have not have been out there. Josh Akogi probably not playing if everybody's healthy. The reality is this. The only real freedom you're probably going to have will be for two things. If you don't re-signatory, you'll have some flexibility. And then if Fred gets a renegotiated contract or maybe a lot, lesser base in future years. But there is, I mean, you are tied heavily into Kevin.

You are tied heavily into Alperin Shingoon. You are tied heavily into Jabari Smith. A man, Thompson's looking for a deal that's going to put them in that $50 million dollar category. There isn't a tremendous amount of flexibility at this point. Not that I've been privy to the numbers, but I'm doing my due diligence looking around and see what the contracts are. And I don't think if you moved off of Jayhawne and Aaron Holliday and Jeff

Green and other people like that, that's all of a sudden going to open up a roster spot for a $40 million guy? No, I'm not asking for that. I just maybe just a slight upgrade. Also, what are your, what do you think about this? I mean, the sign and trade with Taris and to bottle them up in another package. I don't know who that's going to be. Also, another question, because if you are the Rockets Insider and we love you, Matt.

Thank you. For all kinds of reasons. But is, is Kevin Garnett, the Boe, Allen Han of basketball. Now, if you know who that is, that's a fictional character from the movie Draft Day, in which, by and large,

it was a top draft pick that wasn't so popular with his teammates. So that's all I need to ask. Kevin Garnett. Thank you for the phone call. Yeah, we got you. We got you. Thanks, Roger.

Oh, God. Kevin, Matt was missed five of the six games. Yeah. Can we like... Look, the vibe about... Okay, let's just put everything on it. The vibe about the burner count isn't great. He's...

And I've told you all this 100 times times a million. Kevin Durant leads by hitting mid-range shots at a 50% clip and hits... 41% threes and hits about 90% from the free throw line. That's how he leads. He's not going to be the kumbaya leader. I don't want kumbaya. I need wins.

I need points. You guys a year ago to this point, we're like, we can't rely on Kevin, on Jalen Green. You can't rely on Dylan Brooks to be a 25-point score. Fred Van Fleet, I can give it to you every single time. Those all are still equations in play. You wanted the Rockets to go get an elite fourth quarter score.

Well, unfortunately, he couldn't be out there in the fourth quarter because he was hurt. But when he was on the floor and you needed buckets over the 78 regular season games, he gave him to you. Go ahead, Jonathan. I was just saying because the whole reason Katie probably came to Houston is because we, Houston Rockets already had Fred Ben Lee as the leader. He was part of it, yeah. And he was gone.

Help me out here. If we were doing Minnesota radio and when the Timberwolves loses the Spurs without Aunt Edwards and Dante v. DeVincenzo, is everyone calling for Chris Finch to get fired? Is everyone in L.A. saying that the Lakers JJ Reddick needs to be fired if they don't beat the thunder with with Luca Donchich. I don't know those are different situations.

But I mean, it's so ridiculous, the expectation right now. And I know what y'all are scared about. And I get it. Fred's going to be a year removed for this. He's a year or year older. He was never a knockdown, drag out 40% three-point shooter. He helped you out in spurts. But it is something that needs to be discussed that Freddie is missed.

Stephen Adams Was missed Kevin Durant played only one game in the series Yeah One game And it's all the coaches And it's fire everyone

And that one game he played Played better than the entire team And Well except for the turnovers But that's a difference Turnovers were bad But I think he led them in score Yeah

He would have 20 points In the first half or whatever Yeah Yeah Yeah Aaron Holiday shouldn't be out there Jay Sean Tate And those guys

Like shouldn't be out there And by way Dorey Fennie Smith did not play well this year. That's another thing. That's, I mean, that was a bad miss at this point. He was a dud. Complete dud. That's for sure an issue.

And you're hoping with an offseason, the ankle can get better and he can play better. But he's going to be a year older. Fred Van Fleet's going to be like 33 coming off an ACL injury. Stephen Adams is a big, aren't you worried about a big man coming off an ankle surgery and how he's going to acclimate and get back and operate? I mean, this is going to be a, very interesting. They're going to kick tires on trades

because that's what every team does. But it ain't a quick fix. And I got news for you. Any of a quick fix for a lot of NBA teams? Let me tell you, Denver isn't a bad spot. They have a Christian Brown contract that is killing them right now. They're losing their mind.

They're losing their mind. Jamal Murray can't stay healthy. That's killing them. With the younger Adelman. What's his first name? David. David, sure, why not? You know what I'm saying?

this is not just the rockets that got issues. The rockets and the rest of the NBA had these two teams called the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder who just look fantastic. And it's going to take a seismic, seismic offseason for them to get to the number three seed. Or at least being that top two because right now those two teams have been, what,

the part excellence really since the start of the season? Yeah. And the rockets want to get there. They do. To tell the truth is coming up in about 35 minutes. Well, the news at noon. We're going to carry E. Medoca and Rafael Stone speaking at 130 today. Ross will be off tomorrow.

So Gordy's going to come and hang out with us for a couple hours. I got Joe a spot on. Hopefully we'll be celebrating an astro victory over the Los Angeles. Let's go, baby. Got missing you today at 120 today because we've got the press conference at 130. Maricio Dubon making highlight material. Yes. nice catch.

Stop. Nick or Zach Allen? Nick Allen? I think he's hurt, right? He's still hurt. Those are the ones that hurt. Let me tell you. Look, Dubon isn't everything,

but it wasn't like Dubon was breaking the bank for you, and man, that just doesn't look good. That's what hurts is because, now, we, I can, in defense of Jim Crane, like signing these big time gouty long-term deals, I get it. You don't want to sign. Kyle Tucker to $60 million

a year. You don't want to sign Bregman to everything that he got signed to. Same thing for Frumber and Cole and all that type of stuff. But like shaving payroll to get under the tax for Mariso Du Bonn, that's where the penny pinching hurts. And we will see how

Hesu Sanch has does. Okay. I was a little perfido doing. It hurt. Oh. But it was okay before he got it. Well, then he declined. and then Bryce Matthews kind of learning center field a little bit Hey, yeah, that's a storyline. Bryce Matthews wakes up.

That'd be good for Dana Brown. That'd be good for the Astros. Making plays out there. Speaking, yeah, you got Bryce Matthews making center field catches. He's got more pop. Marisio Du Bonn. He's been hitting a little bit. Dana, I mean, I don't think I need to tell you all something that you don't already know.

Dana needs some wins pretty soon here. He needs some draft picks to pop up on some. prospect lists. Right now, it's nothing. Yeah, it's not good. All right, 713-212-5-790. So, Terry, we'll get to you guys coming up starting the top of the 11 o'clock hour. We have to tell the truth at 1130.

It really hit me hard going to Bex's remote house about how we just don't. Like, the NFL Network Draft Rewind was on the TV. We just don't care about non-Huston sports. Well, yeah, I guess somebody would have asked at some point. It was a game seven. I know. But still, it's Eastern Conference. We didn't care about Eastern Conference.

We haven't cared about it in 20 years. That's true. It was like Jordan was there. Yeah. That's the last time we locked in on Eastern Conference playoffs. I got news for you. Boston ain't feeling great today. Their team lost in game seven of the playoffs.

Their Red Sox sucked them in a managerial change, and it didn't pan out. Other cities are going through it. And it ain't just us. I know. That's why I've got to keep the Astros relevant. Yes. Please, please, please. 10.57 on 790.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Good morning, Houston, Texas. We're going to get through this. It's a crappy time for Rocket fans. Astros are under 500. Just hang around. Look, Ross, again, worth repeating again before the good phones. American League sucks.

I mean, the Yankees are the crem della crem. I get that, but everybody else is just fighting for second place right now. That includes your Astros. I mean, as bad as they thinks have gone, they're only four and a half out of first place. The A's are 18 and 16. They're in first place. They're two games above 500. They have a minus 10 run differential.

Every team in the American League West has a minus run differential. You still got to start winning some more games. You do. Two out of three. Yeah. It is good, but you still have to take advantage. You have an opportunity, you have to seize the opportunity. Now the Reds have lost three in a row.

The Astros will go up to Sensei this weekend to take on the Reds. The Dodgers, by the way, are coming in with a record of, here we go, 21 and 13. They have lost five of their last 10. You know the hottest team in baseball is? Who's the hottest team in baseball, Matthew? The Atlanta Braves. They are 25 and 10. They have the best record by far.

Any in sport in baseball. It's because they got Maricio Dubon. The next best record is the New York Yankees are a game and a half out. The Cubs with Alex Bregman are two and a half. Tampa Bay is the fourth best record. They have the race of a better record than the Dodgers do. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I'd rather not.

All right. Let's go to the phones, talk to the great people of Houston, Texas. By the way, this allergy thing. I'm taking daily allergy stuff. I don't know if it's affecting my voice. I feel fine. I mean, I look amazing. I was thinking Haggard was the word.

Really? No, I'm just kidding, Matt. Sorry, you look great. You know what? I took a Ross Villa Real bit of advice, which I don't like to do a whole lot because normally the stuff you tell me is not good. You need to listen to me more, quite frankly.

I completely decompressed for this weekend. Yes. Did not leave the Kingland Metro area. Just took the boys and I. We had a lot of weekend stuff because the girls were in Reno and volleyball. By the way, shout out to me. my daughter, her last ever club point was her, she served an ace to wrap up her club career. That's beautiful.

That's it. Now I can spend that money on airfare between. She's like Michael Jordan in 1998. Left on top. Yeah. Well, I guess except now she's going to college, so it's different. Yeah, I got to pay for a lot of Houston and Providence Airfare. It's best time they're here and over there.

Not worry about that at all. Seems like you're a little worried. You keep bringing it up. I'm significantly worried. Yeah. Really, really worried. Kso on 7. so good morning to you.

Good morning, guys. How are y'all doing? Good. Okay, quickly I'll go through it. There is probably no way EMA get fired this summer. Zero chance. This is already Stone's second coach. So how would that look

if he already pulled the plug on this? He's going to ride with EMA. Now, I will say that there has been way too much smoke when it comes to the coaching staff, and there's been a lot of criticism from the national media. I think the Rockets do need to take a look at the coaching staff and try to get an offensive ace, kind of like when Dan Tony was here and he had Bisdellic running the defense. I'm looking for something like that for hopefully, hopefully this summer, because I just don't

see Stone moving off of EMA. I just wanted to see what you guys think about that. And one last thing is, you said Terry's calling in next? I guess, yeah. Y'all should play like a national anthem or something every time he calls in, you know, give him a little presidential treatment. Well, how about we play, we should play the money song because he's a multi-millionaire because he won the lottery a handful of years back. Don't forget that part.

Well, let me check my VINMO. One trillion billion, one billion, trillion people. Thanks, guys. Yeah, I'm checking my VINMO. Terry is supposed to send me, you're supposed to send us all some money, right? Yeah. Well, the question is, is Terry know how to use Venmo? Oh, that's rude.

I imagine he does. There's no chance. He's probably had to Venmo the grandkids. Well, we can ask him. Yeah, might as well knock this out. Oh, it's so weird. What's weird? I know how people spend their money.

I'm not going to tell you how I Venmo. I put mine on private. You're never going to know how I spend my money. It's so weird. send the money with a, it's like a kitten emoji. What's that for? I mean, there is pizza emoji. There is phone emojis on here, haircut emojis,

baseball with a ticket stub on there, some boutique that one dude gave to another to his girl. This is weird. Why do we need to know y'all's business? Is your Venmo public? No. But why are we the normal ones then? I don't know.

Let them live their lives. That's fine. I mean, is this like a false brag? A humble brag? It's a humble brag to tell somebody you bought pizza? Like Matt paid Winfred and it's a gas station emoji. Okay, well, that's nice. Caleb paid Halley for a bag.

Matt paid William for pizza. I mean, you kind of get low-key obsessed over this. You know, forget it. Let me see what you all are spending your money on. Please close your VIMO app. Terry, what's your VINMO account? 69696. Mm-hmm.

All right, Terry, what do you need? Yeah, congratulations to your daughter. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Nice you to say. And as far as you being upset, let's go Cavs. We're the Lakers playing. In Oklahoma City?

We're the Rock. In Houston, Texas? In Cancun. Exactly. You all have a great day. And why didn't you play the presidential? There we go. Oh, this is a national anthem. You want a hell to the chief?

Why don't play the national anthem? It's got gunfire in the back. I don't like this. Where did you find this, by the way? I think we have hailed out of the year. Is there a sky hawk in the background, too? Yeah, there's an eagle. All right.

It's, Hail to the Chief, I think, is what we're looking for. Yes. Is that what you want, Terrell? He's gone. Oh, you hung up. I think he's got his pills at 1115. So.

Vitamins. Is he his lunch? Well, no, it's 1208 in Cleveland. It's Eastern Time. Is he taking his one today already? Gotta say healthy, baby. So I'm doing these allergy things. I'm it's working.

Yeah. Okay. I don't think it is. I wish you knew the best. That's fine. All right. What are we going from here? after Terry completely derails the show.

I think we're going to have to give Terry a break. It doesn't have anything. It's funny sometimes. Sometimes, but it hasn't been funny in like two weeks. I disagree. I like when you take shots at you. That's something funny about that whatsoever.

That's hilarious. I've already got people on Twitter taking shots at me. I got Terry taking shot at me. Come on, can we just be nice to each other for once? San Antonio Spurs, 13 and a half point favorites over the Timberwolves. Ooh.

Nix and Sixers. Celtics eliminated. That's a shame. Jamal Mosley fired today by the Orlando Magic. How about this? They get up in the series. What were they up, 3-1? I think 3-1.

So he went from being fired to being rehired to being fired. Yes, back of being fired. And apparently Donovan Mitchell. Billy Donovan is the sexy name to replace him down in Orlando. That makes sense. Thunder 15 and a half-point favorites over the Lakers. I cannot comment on these things. I would like to be in that spot.

You don't have to comment. Just saying, that's a big number. That is a huge number. Lucas sounds like he's nowhere close to being ready. Yeah. Oklahoma City's been sitting there relaxing on, well, there's no beach in Oklahoma City. I don't know what they've been doing, but...

What is the number one thing to do in Oklahoma City? Visit that haunted hotel? What is the number one thing to do in Oklahoma? Probably their top zoo. Well, first of all, it's not a... It's not a place that you would go visit. They just got a new hamster at the zoo. They actually have a decent zoo from what I've been told.

Oh, really? Yeah. They have a Bricktown area, which is like their downtown restaurants, bar stuff. Number one, National Memorial and Museum. Oh, for the tech? Oh, it's for the bombing. Yeah, I don't think I want to do that. That's a real downer.

I don't want to do that at all. No. Oh, Bricktown. Yeah, Bricktown. I guess it's like the sewage walk in San Antonio. Pretty close, smaller. It's got putt, putt, Oh, they're the National Cowboy Museum. The jam would have been to go to the casinos down in Norman. Well, Western Museum. Okay.

I think the casinos are legit now. I'll take, oh, apparently I told you, well, you're not going now. I told you the one that goes, they don't have any, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore. I was supposed to be in L.A. today. Celebrating a game seven win. One for the ages. Let's go. Instead, Oklahoma, L.A.

Instead, they scored 78 points on Friday, and everybody wanted to claw their eyes out watching their offense. 78 points was a miracle they got that far. What was it at half, 31? I've already lost the game out of my mind. Ugh. And by the way, we have to stop. Look, some of the things LeBron says about non-basketball stuff is really stupid.

He's still a magnificent basketball player. I mean, he just said, you know what? Stop talking about my age. I'm going to put up 20 points and I'm going to do it fluidly. He was a volume shooter again tonight, but generally speaking, for a guy who's 41 who's supposed to be old and can't practice and can't play more than two-day, you know, twice a week, he scored over 20 points in all the games in the series.

28 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds in a close-out game at 41 years old. And by the way, Will Anderson looks like his kid. Well Anderson and Brony James are like twins. It's scary. But congrats to Will Anderson. Ridiculously rich. Al-Shaire. Ridiculously rich.

Yeah. Not LeBron money. Not NBA money. But they're doing well. But they're doing well for themselves. They're not starving. Not looking for their next meal. No, they're not.

Even in Oklahoma City. 1113 is Matt and Ross with you today until 2 p.m. We've got to tell the truth coming up in about 17 minutes here on the program. 713-21-2-5-7-9 if you want to jump in. That's 7-13-212-5-7-90. Astros with a nice rebound. And we've got to get to Brian O'Beroux. Is he back?

Or was it a one-off? We'll discuss that next year on 790. All right, so Brian O'Reyu gives you two innings yesterday. Kind of by necessity, Ross, right? I mean, poor, I'm worried about AJ Blueball. I don't think I've ever thought I would utter that phrase. My man is just throwing serious innings the last two weeks or so. High volume usage.

Frankly, the entire bullpen. I mean, you guys, if Stephen Hoekard's starting the night, that's a bullpen game. It's a concern. And you just continue to, I mean, you're getting, let's see, you got a quality start from McCullors. I'd have to go through the weekend again. I mean, that was like at the end of the last week, I should say. Spencer Arrigetti was good, but he went five innings.

I'm a little worried, still long term. They won two out of three. Yes. Not bad. The right socks are terrible, but you've got to beat terrible teams, and then it may be builds momentum. Now remember, yeah. You know, you're not looking to sweep the Dodgers.

Hell, I'd be happy with one. No, I don't say that. Don't say I'd be happy with one. Come on now. Two out of three I'd be happy with. One out of two, one out of three, I should say. It's a good two.

Okay. Show if Tony's got to give him some runs at some point. He's got to have a .6 ERA all season. Against the team. Well, again, the Astros offense. Start the lineup, especially top of the lineups good. We need a hells out of the way to bounce back a little bit. Bryce, yeah, I know.

At least he's playing gold glove defense at second. according to some. Who said that? I don't know. Seeing eye tests okay. You know, I'm a huge watcher of how people age because I'm aging myself.

Okay. You notice the amount of gray in Joe Spada's beard is growing? I have not. I'm more focused on my own gray that's growing. That's fair. It's from hanging out with you.

Yeah, but I saw you on TV. You did okay. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I look good. You can say it. You were going to say it. You stopped yourself.

I think there were people asking why you were a sport coat. Yeah, I understand. I have a, because I have a blue one and I didn't have a pressed shirt that matched right. The only other shirts I had, they were ready to go were blue. I guess I could have prepared better, but. No, no, no, no. You guys were on for like five minutes. It's fine.

It's fine. I like to wear a coat. But, and also I lost some weight, so two of my other coats don't really fit. Well, that's good, right? I didn't want to go out there looking like I was wearing my dad's coat. Hey, I have a problem with that. I have lost a lot of weight in the last 10 years, and I had to basically last summer

just going to my closet and get rid of everything. I understand. I'm going to hold off. These are good problems to have. Yeah, because if I gain it back, I'm going to want it all. They're going to get fat and happy. Yeah, exactly. Okay. How many sport coats do you own Jonathan Allen, collectively?

Two? I have two suit coats and two sport coats. I think I'm in that same spot. A lot of is because I don't wear a lot of that. Why would you get a lot? I think this day and age, we're less formal. I mean, look at the, for example, coaches in the NBA, it's everywhere.

Things are less formal these days. Do you like the less formal coaching? People are really mixed about it. I kind of don't care. But it is nice when they dress up, but it's also like, you don't need some guy. Like, remember when Sean Miller was like sweating through his shirt? You don't need that.

Let the guy wear some dry fit, okay? How about the coach that used to be A&M? He's now in Maryland. Buzz Williams? Buzz Williams. It's like his suits didn't fit him. And he was like stuck in them. Squeez-in?

Really? They don't have good tailors up in college station? They should. He makes great money or did. I'm sure he makes good money in Maryland now, too. I don't have a problem with it whatsoever. Be comfy. I don't care either way. I would say this. I'd say leave it up to the coach.

They can wear suits still right if they want? Are they allowed? They're unionized. I don't know if it's an awful one. What's the coach's union got to say? The coach union said sweatpants are fine. Give them an option. I mean, I love living the sweatpants life.

I come up here about four out of five days of the week I'm wearing sweatpants up here. You got me. I'm in the Lul Lemon life. It's right. You feel good, don't you? I do. You want to be comfortable on here. I don't want these white pacy legs being shown publicly. I notice when I'm walking around in the hotel.

Like some of the players are like, who is that, first of all? And second, why is his legs so white? It's glowing. It's fair. I know. But the only way I'm really going to fix it is to put them out there. No, no, just don't worry about it. Yeah.

Because you're not going to do it because it's going to fade. If you take time to tan, you've got to maintain. Yeah, I don't have time to maintain That's the thing with life changes, Matt. You got to be committed to maintaining them. It's like I'm good for. I'm going to go in keto for three weeks. Okay, yeah, what's going to happen after that?

Like working out. There's nothing worse in my life than working out. Now I can eat right. I can do that. There's a gym right here. You can hit it after 2 o'clock. There's nobody in there normally at 2 o'clock. Nobody?

Just me, myself and I? Usually. Okay. So you don't have to be embarrassed. And that's fine. Because I seriously, I have zero muscle tone. Yeah, well, I think you should at least get. like you get your steps in.

I get my steps. Get your hypertension down. Worry about your blood pressure. Me too. Me too. Doug, South Padre, good morning to you. How's it going, guys? Good.

You know, with the rockets, I think as fans, we've got to be a little bit patient. You know, they're starting five, obviously not counting Durant, is like 22 and a half years old. And the Lakers starting five, not counting LeBron, was 28 and a half. And, you know, I don't always agree with

the way the Rockets draft, they've had really good draft picks, two, three, four, three, but they're always getting the kids that are one and done. You know, their average age is anywhere from 18 to 20. So they're not really learning on the job in college. They're having to learn on the job and the pros. That's just going to take time for these guys to develop. So as much as I don't like the fact that they're always taking kids one and done, at least the kids they've drafted are more than what you and Ross like to say,

just the guy. And I'll use as an example, Jerees, Walker from the Cougars. He got drafted first round number eight in the NBA. First year, three points, second eight or four points. This year, ten points. So it's taken him three years to become again, what you guys called just the guy.

So the folks the Rockets have are more than that. But I can understand that we just have to be a little bit patient. You know, let these guys go under their age. They're not 25. They're not 26. They're 22 years old. So it is what it is. But anyway, I appreciate guys.

I'll hang up and all this one. Thank you. It's funny, we can't, and thank you for the phone call, Doug. We don't need to use age anymore. It's more about experience. You know, there are some that say Alperin Shangoon is who he's going to be for his career. Jabari has taken a step up a little bit. Reid certainly has.

I'm talking about the guys. Amin Thompson, the next step in his career will be to obviously get the shot going. Now the question will be, will that ever be the case? his free throw percentage is exceptional, went up over 10% year to year. So there was a increase in that. It's in the eye of the beholder, Ross. And it's not what you and I really believe. It's what the Rockets believe.

Yeah, it's a true statement to say these guys are young and they can get better. But the question is, and that nobody really knows the true answer to, is how much better? Because as you said, you have guys, Alpern-Shingun is in his fifth year of his career. Yes, he's 23 years old. And by the way, a two-time All-Star, although the second time was an injury replacement, how much better is he going to be?

Because there are players who hit their ceiling a lot faster and who within those five years are getting MVP. For example, Aunt Edwards has finished top 10 in the MVP within his first five years. years a couple times. And we got into this, this trap with Jaylen Green. Oh, he's so young, he's so young. But yeah, but when you compare him to his peers, he's lacking in development.

Because there are guys usually takes him a couple years to reach their all-star potential, and then they can get better from there. But general, by year three or four, you're seeing a lot, at least 90% of what the player is going to be. And as I mentioned on the postgame show on Friday, there was, like in 2016-17, I thought James Harden in his ceiling.

then he went on one three scoring championships and MVP. So guys can't get better, but James Harden went from like 29 points a game to like 33, right? You're not expecting all of a sudden Alperin Shingoon is going to be a 30 and 10 guy or something like that. That would be largely unprecedented. And the comp that a lot of people make is Nicola Yokic. Well, by his fifth year, Nicole Yokic, I believe, was making an all-star team. I'm trying to pull it up here real quick. Yeah, by his, oh my God.

Wait, is this, Nicky and Nicola Yoko? Oh, my God. What? By his fourth year, he was first team all NBA. By the way, there has been a little bit of not shaming of Nicola Yokic, but that Denver lost to those folks. He wasn't very good. Rudy Gobert did a number on him that series. Did we take him off the top 10 all-time list?

Because I'm the leader of that. We can't take him off the list because of one bad series, can we? No, we can. All right, I'm just saying. You said, no, we can. We can or cannot? We can. I mean, you're three-time MVP

and you're being bouncing in the first round. Oh, okay, Jonathan. Johnny put it out there. That's what I'm saying. We got to hold him to the standard. He's three-time MVP. Okay. I'm not taking them off the top ten all-time.

Well, first of all, I didn't have them on the top ten all-time list. I did. You got to flesh that list out then. Because the problem, here's the problem is, if I'm putting them on the list, I've got to kick somebody out. And I don't know how I'm going to do it. He averaged 26 points, 13 rebounds, and nine and a half assist. Horrible.

He almost average a 26-point triple double in the series. But why is Rudy Gobert getting all the shine, though? He shot 44% from the field. Turn the ball over, quite a bit, I'm assuming? Let me see the turnovers. 4-3, 4-4-3 and 5. That's a lot, but it's not Kevin Durant 8. For the amount of ball handling he does as well.

Yeah. And that's also 9. We're talking about 9.5 assists. So, I mean, 3.8 turnover. nine and a half assists. That's acceptable. Three to one, for sure. All right, listen, Dave, hang tight. We're going to get to you once.

Talk about the Rockets. We have to tell the truth coming up next as well. So, gentlemen, I have four sports takes. Also, we have an interesting Ramona Shelburne report with some nuggets about the Rockets' future. Okay, let's hold on to that, too. We got to tell the truth. Dave and Ramona Sherbourne. About the, I saw Ramona in L.A. Yeah? Mm-hmm. That's cool.

It's fine. It's fun of those California reporters. Never come east. They always want to stay in LA. That's not true. I didn't see her in Houston. Dave McMinneman was there. McMillan, McMillan. Rachel Nichols I saw there.

She looks good still. She was ever bad, but you know, forget it. All right, guys, I have four sports takes. I believe three of them. You hear me? You've always put me in this tough spot. I did nothing. You're right.

I put you nowhere. It's just easier for me to blame you. 713-212-5-790. To tell the truth. is up next plus Ramona Sherburn Nuggets 713-212-5-790 time for us to play to tell

the truth where I have three truths in one line 7-13-212 5-2 let me get to try it again 7-1-3-212 5-7-90 we have a little bit of breaking news from the Texans as well to get to really so we got a little juicy morsels to get to

over the next hour or so and moles. Nothing's so severe. Nothing's so crazy. Okay. Let me get to it. I have three truce boys and I have one lie. Wonderful.

Which of the four am I lying about? Number one. These are opinions. These are not facts. These are all opinions of mine. So I take that with a grain of salt. I don't like watching games at Fenway Park. I don't like going to Fenway Park.

I think it's just... Yankees said even though it's new is mystique to it. Chicago's got mystique Dodger Stadium is mystique I ain't a fan of Fenway Park It's overrated I think the right field Whatever that DePeske's poll thing is a joke

Is what you're saying I'm saying Yeah I just don't like it I have not been it's next up on my list I think it's everything is overrated about Fenway Park Okay Number two I would be stunned Stunned

If it's an eventful offseason for the Rockets And I would say Stun meaning that a Jabari or an Alpi or a man or something like that would be traded. They're going to kick the tires. I just, there's going to be like 10 teams kicking the tires on a lot of high-end players. I would be completely stunned if it's an eventful offseason. Could be wrong, but this is my opinion.

Number three. Ross, you've been trying to put this in my head for a long period of time and it actually rains true more than ever before. There is such a discrepancy between Oklahoma City and San Antonio and the rest of the West that if I'm Steve Kerr, I'm getting out of coaching. I'm going to go back to television where I was very successful.

I was a front office guy with the Phoenix Suns. I think the roadblock for Oklahoma City and San Antonio are too big that he's going to say, you know what, I can make good money. Not at nearly as much pressure, maybe going to the front office. I'm done with coaching. I'm leaving the Golden State Warriors. Okay. And number four. Guys, I think it's been way too quiet on CJ Strata Extension Talk.

I think we hear from David Mullageta in the next 30 days. Don't know that for sure, but just a gut feeling in mind says that I think he's like, oh, this is great that Al Zee's Alshar is getting his money. And I really feel great that

Will Anderson is getting his money. And that Nico Collins, you know, if there's been one thing we've noticed about Nick Casero, he takes care of his guys, and maybe you take care of him now, as compared to him having a bounce back year, and then really want overpay, really putting you in a behind the eight ball

because you're talking about maybe paying him 40 to, 45 this year is compared to the next year, maybe 60-65. I think we're going to hear from David Mulligan in the next 30 days, his agent. Hear from him in what way? Just pay me, Nick? We're looking forward to having some really good conversations. And what do you mean? He's going to have a press conference or he's going to tweet something out?

Yeah, no, he'll get a story out. He'll have a press conference for a player. But he'll, Dan Mulliganna will run to a Schefter, we'll run to a, Ian Rapaport, if you will. Okay. So my four takes are one. Nothing I like watching or going to a game at Fenway Park. Number two, I'd be stuck if there be an eventual eventful off season for the Rockets. Number three, I think Steve Kerr is going to leave coaching for television to the front office

because Oklahoma City and San Antonio are setting up for domination in the West. And number four, I do believe we're going to hear from David Mulligetta in the next 30 days. Just to put a little birdie out saying, hey, you've been taking care of a lot of guys in this roster. Take care of my guy. Which one of the four am I not telling you. truth. Which one am I lying you about? Which three am I telling you the truth? How are you feeling, Jonathan? I'm not good. I'm not going to...

I think it's down to the last two for me. I think Matt has said Finway Park is overrated. I think I've heard that before, too, but I'm not too sure. And in Steve Kerr, does Matt really believe that? I mean, Steve, he built a dark star. I don't know. That's just like way out of left field. Steve Kerr's coaching future? Yeah, does he leave? I mean...

Um... Hmm. I think he's right about the Rockets off season. We'll see. I mean, I don't know. He said, he said, all opinion, by the way. It's all opinion. I know.

Usually they're way off base. Okay, that wasn't unnecessary. Such a catchy song. I'll go with... It's harder. Three. Okay, you're going to take a... You just take Steve Kerr?

That's the Steve Kerr one? That's Steve Kerr one, yeah. Today, while we're young. 30 days, you believe that? Mm-hmm. You know what? Let's, maybe he threw a curveball. Let's do the Rockets.

Number two. Okay. Okay. Here we go. I do not like Fenway Park at all. It's a bandbox. It's hard to get around. The seats are uncomfortable.

I think Peskey's a joke. I think the monster is way outlift. It's just gimmicky. Gimicky. It's a gimmicky ballpark. That's a Matt Thomas word. That's a Matt Thomas word. So, yeah, I don't like Fenway Park at all.

Okay. I'm sorry, Jonathan. I don't think it's going to be an infillof. offseason for the Rockets. That was a low hand. We've been talking about that even during the show today. Yes. Got to listen sometimes.

That's all right. He's busy back there. He is busy back there. You know, sometimes you don't. I know. I know. And number three, I do think it's been too quiet. I think David Mulligan is going to say something next 30 days.

So, Ross, you win. I think Steve Kerr's going to be a coach. The money is incredible. Highly respected. He loves it. You got to, I mean, I don't know if he wants to continue climbing up the all-time win list. That might be important to him. I think there could be a job.

in Chicago. There could be a job in Orlando. He could ultimately stay in Golden State. You never know. But I don't think Steve Kerr is quitting coaching. So Ross wins and further extends his lead over you. I know. I know, Jonathan, I have an advantage, you know. I'm in here. I can feel the body language.

It's a little better. Don't feel any of my language. Don't feel my body either. Why not? All right. Should I leave the room? No, no. You can stay. We need you to stay, actually. You got to run the board. All right, that's the time.

Let's see. All-time coaching. Oh, he's further down than I thought. Where the heck is, Steve Kerr? Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr. Just want to say, Cole Thompson tried to play, and he lost two, so I don't feel like that. Did he really? 604 wins.

I thought he had way more than that. Well, Marty Jackson took some of his wins, I think, right? All-Times wins leader is? All-time coaching wins. Lenny Wilkins. No. Third. Phil Jackson?

You're going to kick yourself when I say it. Phil Jackson? No. Fourth. Sorry. Phil Jackson's way down. Don Nelson. Second?

Well, I'm all around it, aren't I? Don Nelson. More recent. Phil Jackson. Jerry Sloan? More recent. More recent. You're going to kick yourself.

Oh, I feel bad. Actually, I'm going to end this now. Greg Popovich. I know. See? I told you. I hate myself. I know.

I know. I got all around it. I know, you know. It's like me in the dating scene. I got all around it. Just couldn't get in. Correct. Deep breath.

Okay. 713, 212-1-2-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. We've got some breaking. A little bit of breaking Texans news. We'll get to that. But first, Brent, you are up in Boston this weekend. You have a good trip?

It was a good trip. I'm still in Maine now. I got to see the Game 7, Celtics Blues. As it turns out, Celtic Fantiers. very salty. They were very upset after that. But I don't blame him. Man, Friday, everybody was laughing, having a good time. And when I left y'all, I told you not to jump off a bridge or cliff this weekend. And Matt from the first segment, it seems like you did a cannonball off that sucker.

That's what I'm talking about. You know what? Let me tell you. Let me tell you about Brown. Let me tell you about radio, okay? You can't do that every single day because that's fraudulent. But when I go off and I'm mad about something, I hope you all understand that's genuine. And that's just how I was. I mean, if he did it every day, it would be tiresome. So I don't do it every day. But sometimes you just got to say what you've got to say. You got to do what you got to do.

You know, everybody's upset right now. Everybody, the vitrials high and stupidity comes out when everyone gets real mad. But, you know, a Rockets basketball was just a roller coaster emotionally this year. I mean, the news about getting to Rand and then the gut punch of Fred's injury. And then on the court, just how many blowout games did we have that, We almost lost, and then some that we did lose. Just an emotional roller coaster, and then Steve Adams going out was terrible. Just on how they had the staff for their defense.

And that's kind of the surprising thing for me this year. One of the takeaways was the swarming defense that we had last year that didn't seem like we had this year. I mean, we were calling them the terror twins last year, and while they're both individually good defenders, it seems like we lost the energy this year. What do you think about that? The energy. Is the catalyst for the swarming defense? Dylan Brooks, a high effort, high energy, good shooter, not elite shooter.

You didn't miss his offense. You know what you really miss, Ross? You miss Jalen Green taking that next logical step to be a guy that could score 25 points every single night. And it's not going to be part of his resume. And can we talk about this Dylan Brooks mystique? I mean, come on. You know how many top first team all NBA defense he's made? Zero.

Zero in his career. He's made one second team in his career. super big Dylan Brooks fan. I like Dylan Brooks. But I know who Dylan Brooks is. He sets an edge and culture and all that type of stuff. Dylan Brooks, I mean, what's the deepest he's been in the playoffs with anybody? I like Dylan Brooks. But I think it's a complete oversell to act like he was the reason the Rockets defense was incredible last year, where they finished six in defensive rating this year. They finished fourth last year. So you went from fourth to six, and that's also with guys that have been

injured and stuff like that. So yes, Dylan Brooks, good defender. Yeah, fun, I guess. He stares at the other end of the floor for five minutes at the beginning of games. And he gets some technical fouls and ruffle some feathers. He's more skilled Patrick Beverly.

He's just, yeah, he's more of a pest than he is an actual guy like lockdown defender guy. Way oversold by Rockets fans, I think. But valuable. I mean, if he came back tomorrow on a one-year deal, I'd be happy to have them back. But I mean, you're talking about like you want some kind of

like, you know, tough culture and stuff like that. Amin Thompson is emblematic of that. I think Jabari Smith Jr. does a good job with that as well. You have guys on this team who are tough and hard-nosed, and they play good hard defense. Tari Easton, I would put on that list too. Yes. But you need, this team needs outside

shooting. I mean, and Dylan Brooks is going to give you, what, 37%? No, yeah, Dylan Brooks, I don't know what it was ended up with, but yeah, he was your best three-point you or last year. Two years ago, yes. That matters. There are two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Jonathan Alexander from The Chronicle put out a tweet that doesn't clarify some things, but something still not clarify. We'll discuss that next. 713-212-5-790, 1145 here on Sports Talk 790. So Jonathan Alexander, I may need to text him because the tweet he just sent out, which is about

22 minutes old said the following. And other people are catching up on this too. Cal and Hannah McNair said the Texans and the rodeo have decided to make things work to keep where they play football games in Harris County. Well, Torotown's in Harris County. I think it is. I think Cyprus is Harris County. Still. Okay.

So that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm trying to, is Cyprus and Harris County. You all can help me out of that. Now, you could go outside of you, Fort Ben, Walter, Brazori, those counties to build a stadium. But I guess my argument is he's saying to keep in Harris County, that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to try to keep the team that Texans playing at Energy Stadium. You see what I'm saying where there's a little bit of... It looks like it's right on the edge, but I think it is in the county, yes. I think it, yeah, is Cyprus and Harris County.

So it doesn't necessarily... Yeah, it's in the county. Okay, yeah, you're right. So it doesn't necessarily answer a whole lot. I'm going to text him see if you can give us a little clarification on that. Okay. Now, I was given a little tidbit. I'm not an insider on stadium talk,

but I was given a little tidbit that, frankly, it would be probably in the best interest for Callan Hanna. And I did not realize this to keep it at NRG Stadium because the money that Cal and Hanna have is the franchise. You know how Tillman's got the casinos and the hotels and a restaurant. Cal and Hanna don't have that. What about McNair or whatever? I don't know if they're attached to that.

Yeah, I'm just asking. I don't certainly carry as a one of any part of that. Yeah, how's that going? Is Kerry still the head of McNair group? So the money that Cal and Hannah have accrued have accrued through the investment of the Houston Texans. They don't have outside interest. Now they may have some, but it wouldn't be the level of owning an NFL team. Okay.

So they don't have $3 million, $3 billion that are owned to build a stadium beyond what their friend. They'd have to literally give up the stadium, the finances stadium off of mortgaging the stadium of the team itself. So that's what I'm saying is that maybe, I'm sorry again, I don't mean to speak in ambiguities here, but it's just the statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless they just came and said, look, rodeo, we'll get along. Toro Town is being built. We're looking for a place to play in 10 games. maybe the rodeo's like yeah you guys get out of there you build torotown we're good to go

so that's the thing from jonathan and like i said i'll try to text him and see if you get a little bit more for clarification on that okay the reality is this it probably i mean they would love to have their own facility they'd love to have what jerry world has but the Dallas cowboys are a different brand they're just they're just not the same brand as houston texans are and you can't you can all you can wish what you want but you just you know you're not going to you don't have the same sort of uh how would you say interest Harris County has been burned by stadiums before I thought they still owed a billion on

NRG. Refurbishment would be obviously a lot cheaper and we're seeing refurbishment frankly it. Yeah, we're seeing. The Toyota Center is getting an upgrade. Yes, and Tillman's kicking in money for that. Yes, he is. And you know that Dyken Park is going to get the boost as well? I mean... Oh, it is? I think it's going to. You know, honestly, it feels like a it doesn't feel as old as it is.

No, you know why? I think it's because to the Astros credit, that I can park, does they maintain things down? That whole middle of middle metropolis that were going to build a cross street with a connection and then the restaurants and shops. It's been slowed for a reason. What's the deal? The reason we don't go down, we don't go downtown. I wouldn't do it.

I know. We're too spread out. We've never been a city that goes in early and stays late. It just hadn't been the case. we go to our games and then we get out and I think that's just I just think that's who we are I don't know if that's not a good thing about slap it up a bunch of stuff on there

they're putting lights under the underpasses and stuff I guess they're trying to they're trying to beautify the area for the World Cup isn't George R. Brown just a hot mess right now yeah I think so yeah everything's constructed the whole city is under construction right now ahead of the World Cup everything downtown they're planting flowers so we can look pretty for I don't know the people come in from Azerbaijan for the World Cup or whatever.

It's crazy to me. I have not heard. I have a lot of soccer friends. They're not buying tickets. They're like, Matt, they're too expensive. Sales are slow. They're very expensive. And as I've communicated multiple times,

the tickets that they're gouging American prices. And the Europeans and people from, I mean, Eurasia and everywhere all around, like they're not used to these big ticket prices. I told you, they launched protests for like $80 tickets in England. They were like, no! And we're like, what?

That's cheap. That's real cheap. So they're trying to charge like American prices and the world's like, no. We're not going to have empty stadiums, are we? I don't know. I don't know.

Maybe not for like the knockout rounds and stuff like that, but for a lot of the group play, it could be. People are predicting a disaster, but people like to always do that, so I don't know. Well, you know, the greatest example that to me is,

remember when Qatar had the Summer Olympics? how the seams are not going to be ready. Yeah, they're just functional. They look good. It was fine. Exactly. It's as easy. I guess it's easier to predict doom and gloom than it is.

Or ahead of the curve on these things. All right. News and noon coming up. Yes. Ramona Sheper with an article in the Rockets. Interesting. Are the Rockets, the Astros, excuse me, are they back in the high life again with Brian Abru?

That gets the final, the final two hours of the show. By the way, Rockets are meeting with immediate at 130. We'll carry the press conference for you right here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Taking it to second. Correa throws the first double play, and that is the ball game. A series win for the Astros in Boston as they take down the Red Sox in 10, 3 to 1. Back in the high life again, Sports RV.

That's how the Astros are. I guess. Four and a half out of first place in America League West. They're right there, baby. Thank you, A.L. for sucking. I wouldn't say my confidence is super high, but we'll see. Well, confidence can be built with a series win over the Dodgers. It'd be nice.

Starting tonight at 7.10 p.m. Las Vegas does not think it's going to happen, but no, Las Vegas can be wrong. Two to one dogs. Yeah, not good. All right, 12.05 on Sports Talk 7 on a time now for the news. at noon. Frosting, what's going on? Oh, Matthew, thanks for asking.

Yes, the Astros get a series victory in Boston, winning yesterday with Cody Bolton and A.J. Blue Ball, getting it done, combining to only give up one run, then Okert, Angel de los Santos, and Brian Abrae, getting you six outs with a 10-inning victory. Now, unfortunately, even though, though you did get the six outs from Brian Abraeu, Matthew. Velocity didn't really tick over 95, a lot of it holding at 92-93.

So Velo's still not there for Brian Abraeu, so therefore I am still concerned about how effective he can be for the Houston Astros. I would not sell it any harder than we have. I mean, we played a little C-Win-Wil, which is good, but he had, there was nothing else the Astros could do. He had to go out there and give him two, and they got him. Mike Burroughs had a quality start for you on Friday. gave up a three-run jack, but that was it.

And then Spencer Erigetti was good. Five innings of one-run ball on Saturday. So hopefully that's something to build on with the rotation. Tonight, starting for the Houston Astros. Stephen Okert, opening against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Said, three times fast. Yoshinob Yamamoto, Yoshinob Yamamoto, Yoshinob Yamamoto. 2.870 RA.

Tomorrow, it's Otani with a point. 0.6 ERA against Peter Lambert. And then it's Glasano with a 2.5-6 ERA versus Lance McCullough, Jr. with a 6.32 E.R.A. Hmm. Probable pitchers for the Astros and Dodgers. Just get one, maybe two. I don't think they're going to sweep.

But it'd be wonderful. If they did, it would be nice. It would be nice. A Wednesday, by the way, a 110. game here on Sports Talk 790. Yes. You're home for your use at Astros. We love when you listen to Astros games

all the time, especially in the noon to 10 to 12 to 2 spots. Yes. By the way, ESPN giving out their monthly grades for the all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Would you care to hear the grade for the Astros in the month of April? No. Don't do it.

It's an F. An F? An F. Can does it explain why? I get they do. 5.91 staff ERA 11 different starting pitchers That's not F, that's injuries. Four game sweep in Seattle.

Oh, that was not good. Walked 26 batters in the first three games of that series. Awful. Good news is, though, for the month of April, Yordaunt Alvarez, player of the month. That's right, folks. He did enough to be player of the month in the American League.

So congratulations to Yordon In the month of April, 356, 462 on base, 737 slug. And playing every single day, by the way, too, right? Has he taken a day off yet? He has not. He did struggle over the weekend.

I think he was one for 14 in Boston. Well, he can have the days off in Cincinnati. Why? Well, Sadd Rogers, you need your heavy hitters. No, if you're already going to lose, might as well rest him. No. Yeah.

I need all guns of blazing. No, if you're already two to one dogs, you're going to lose with them. Might as well rest them. Is that what Joe Spot on a second? Oh, or two to one dogs? Give them a day off. Absolutely. You should play them when you're favorite.

See, this is the Greg Popovich philosophy, which I like. Greg Popovich used to rest his players on the team where they were going to lose or it was going to be 50-50. What you do is you increase your win probability against the bad teams. Play them against the Rockies. You can send them against the Dodgers when you're starting Steve O'Kard, and you're going to lose anyways, probably. So how is Astros' Twitter going to handle it?

If Yordon Alvarez is not playing any of the three games I'm not going to play him for now I'm not saying sit him for three games I'm not saying sit him at all put him out there I put him out there Okay good he's played 35 games oh Matt How are we feeling He's pacing for 162

You have him at 129 Were you nervous about Christian Walker When he got hit in the head Saturday? Oh my God I really wasn't I don't know if he was bleeding or whatever But he looked You know he didn't go down in a heap

He stood up the whole time looked coherent, came back and played the next game. It was crazy that his helmet got snapped in half. But I wasn't that concern. It was a lot of the next night day. It was really good to see. And I know this isn't breaking news,

but I mean, it happened on Friday night, so we must mention the rockets were eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend. 98 to 78. No, it's not 1996. This was a game in 2006. The Rockets only scored 78 points.

31 points in the first half, could not get it going from three or anywhere, bad offense, Lakers were good enough, Rockets eliminated, four games to two in their first round Western Conference series. And a press conference at 130,

which will carry right here on Sports Talk 7-90. Make sure you stay tuned. Yeah. Also an interesting article put out by Ramona Shelburne and Tim McMahon. We'll talk about that later on in the show as in regards to what the, basically the season and what the future holds for the Houston Rockets. So those two people know, huh?

They were given the inside intelligence. I mean, they've been around for years in the NBA. Tim McMahon's broken a lot of stuff, Ramona Shelburne as well. So I'm not going to say they're making a bunch of stuff up. Nope. I'm sorry. There's somebody that's got to trust him. Okay.

Thank you, Mac Brown. Oh, sorry. I don't mean to do that like that. Ramona Shelburton with a bombshell piece of the ESPN. Ramona Shepard and Rachel Nichols in the same room. Freaking bread. By the way, I do miss the Mac salad at Crypto.com Arena. I've had it every single time I was there.

Delicious. I don't know why I brought that up. I'm sorry. Macaroni salad, delicious. I love Maca salad. It's not better than Sally's macaroni salad. Oh, yeah. Macs salad or potato salad?

You got one choice. What are you going with? Potato? I'm going to go potato too, but Mac is underrated. Mustard. Both. Both only. Absolutely both.

Must you be better. All right. And Spirited Airlines out of business today. Close down Saturday. It's bad for everyone. Even if they don't fly them, it's good that they have cheap flights that are options for other people to keep other prices down. Yeah, we need fuel prices to go down. I was trying to book these airfares for these fall trips are going up there.

I mean, my God. Oh. What's it? Never mind. You don't even want to know. I'm talking like six hundred. Well, good thing I fill up like once a month. Oh, the gasoline prices in L.A.

when we were there, but $6.79 something great. And that's Beverly Hills. It's like $8 now, right? Yeah, it's not great. All right. So a little tidbit on the Ramona Schoberg story coming back. Astros chatter, and we got it 120 today. 120 missing you.

How are former Astros doing? It's a Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. All right. So I'm doing my missing year prep. I'm 3 and 5. And so far we're three for three on not missing you. I think. Okay.

We'll have that at 120 today, normally at 130. Are you okay with her? It's cold at here. It's got a shiver. Did you? Mm-hmm. All right. Yes, I'm okay.

Three out of five, we don't missing you. We'll find out of the full missing you at 120. We have the Rockets Press coverage at 130 today. Woo! All right. So Ramona Schauburn and Tim McMahon. Yes. Tim is based out of Dallas.

It becomes a lot of rocket games. Ramona, I don't see much at all, but she was able to do a little deep dive and she's got some NBA sources. My guess more from the agent general manager's side than it would be from the player. These players today just rossom talked to the meeting anymore. They just don't. Yeah. Unless you got some kind of broskey relationship with them. But what did you were able to assess?

Well, I was able to scan the entire article throughout a couple of our breaks. I'm not going to say I did a complete deep dive, but there are a lot of interesting takeaways for me. I think first and foremost, I'll just go ahead and go with the headliner. They are not expected to make a big move talking about the Rockets. They believe in their young core. This is a quote from a source of course. High-ranking Rockets Source stressed that the Rockets franchise would be opportunistic, but the hope remains they can build a sustainable contender

without making a costly blockbuster deal. Quote from the source. We aren't thinking we've got to win now because we're in Katie's window. We're hyper-focused on our young core. Our five guys have a chance to win a lot of games together for a long time. We don't want to make the mistake other teams have of giving up on guys too soon. I wonder what the players are talking about. Who gave up on people too soon?

I'm sure there are been. The Clippers on Shade Gildes-Alexander. That one comes right on top of mine. The Mavericks on Jalen Brunson. Off the top of my head, those two, I think. but I mean now you wouldn't say Isaac Hartnstein right

you wouldn't say that I'm not going to go with that yeah I think the Mavericks gave up too soon on Luca Donchich that's a pretty fair assessment by way if you want to join us today we've got a lot of people that have been calling him and not holding so look we're here for you guys

at 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-1-2-5-790 so there is a theory to if he's wearing somebody else's gear is he going to flourish and that would make is even more madder than we are right now. I get it. Go on. Also, that's the biggest takeaway

is they don't think that we shouldn't expect as much as you said on to tell the truth, Matthew, not expecting some kind of huge boat rocking deal for the rockets in this offseason. Also talks about the burner thing with Kevin Durant says that

that was no issue with anybody and that the players that he was talking about allegedly on the burner account, mostly Jabari Smith Jr. or Alpern Shingoon don't have the thin skin. And they apparently, Kevin Durant talked to everybody after the All-Star break and they hashed it out and everybody was cool.

Like it wasn't some sort of rift in the locker room or anything like that. Also an interesting one as well about Reed Shepard. Ooh, I don't know about this. There is a belief in the Rockets building that Reed Shepard could be similar to Steve Nash Hmm Hmm

That's a lot of love Yes Internally there's belief Reed Shepard has the potential To develop into an all-time great Such as former Phoenix Suns Point Guard Steve Nash If given enough time

And the right conditions This is a funny part too Externally there's less of a consensus A rival scout said Quote more like Steve Kerr Than Steve Nash Well, if you're the number three pick Now granted, the NBA draft that year was not

That was when Zachary Rishashe went number one And then the center for the Wizards was number two Alex Tsar, right? I think so, yes So it was not a gangbuster draft to begin with So judging him as a number three In normal NBA years Wouldn't be necessarily the right case here

Stefan Castle is the best player of that drafts right now Right? He was the Stefan Castle was rookie of the year Yeah. I don't know who else is. Donovan Klingin's been okay for the Blazers. I don't need read to be a number three overall pick, but I need to be a solid 17 point guy.

Montes-Buzales came alive a little bit for the Bulls. Yeah. I'm just trying to look at guys that were taking in that lottery. Yeah, Montes-Buselis averaged 16 points on high volume. He was talked about as possibly a guy who could go in the top three. He slipped a lot because he was. He was terrible. He had tools, but he was terrible in the G League that year.

Zach Eady? Zach, he's hurt all the time. No. Is it fair to say that Reed made a sizable jump from season one to two in the NBA? I think the answer is yes. Absolutely. And I think people need to get a little perspective on Reed Shepard because they wanted him to play 35 minutes a night and start every single game.

Like the year before, he was coming up and down from the G League. Like he, he made a massive leap. And I understand we always want more. We want more right now. But like expecting him to be a 20 point per game score immediately. And then he made doka as an idiot for never playing him. He played 20, he played all 82 games in 26 minutes a night. Only Rockin to play all 82, by the way.

And again, 26 minutes a night. That's serious rotation time. And I'd be curious, you know, I'll look it up what the second half of the season was. I'm sure those minutes per game went up considerably. So if you played all 82 games at 26 minutes a night, that's stunting your development? People got to relax on that. No, there are deficiencies.

I think he's going to probably have to gain about 10 pounds. I think the DeAndre ain't in defensive coverage. A big man on him hurt him. Did you see that in game five? Game six, excuse me. Yeah, they were switching a lot of stuff. And so the elite, the elite shooting guards. are going to have to figure out ways to get by the blow by those guys

or slide step or do whatever it takes to get open looks because I thought Deioner 8 and game 6 made Reed's life miserable in terms of open looks for shooting. Yeah, he reads good, but people act like, I don't know. He's got like the handles of Kyrie Irving and he could just get by everyone and he's got some limitations. He can't get by a lot of guys on the perimeter who are better defenders. and he does his little in-out dribbles and throws in a couple of fakes

and sometimes it works and it looks great and sometimes it does it. Yeah, almost 28.9. So almost 29 minutes a game in the second half of the sea. After the All-Star break, 29 minutes a game. That's not stunting his development, folks. I mean, come on. That's using a player who's shown you something. He went from 12 minutes a game to 26.2.

It's a big leap. He can get better. He needs to. He's going to have to. He's got a bulk up. as you said it's got to get a little stronger I mean he's getting back down

on switches Marcus Smart was bullying him in the post Rue Hutchamura as well like they were working him the Lakers and in a seven game series the good news is I mean the bad news is they're going to exploit things that are wrong with you

the good news is now you know now you know what you need to work on and the deficiencies and that Re Shepherd was getting hunted all series long same thing with Alper and Shingun they did a lot better in the second half of the series Alpe's got to get that three-point shot going again. He had it in the first two months.

I don't know if he'll ever have it again. No, I don't think. It's not going to happen. You don't need your seven-footer to make threes, but you don't need it. But the problem is if you have him and a man on the floor at the same time, that takes two perimeter guys that you can't rely on outside about 15 feet. I would like him. I don't know what to do.

I mean, in theory, trading one of them is not the worst idea, but I just don't think that's going to happen. especially if that story is accurate saying that you're giving up on somebody now they of course the story doesn't say that they are not going to make a move right just says they would they will knock on some door basically they will be opportunistic is what it says they will be but they're not thinking we have to win now you know the reason why and again i understand why yannis is so attractive but there's a part of me ross and maybe

you got to shake me from this. I don't want them to overpay for him. Two straight years of serious injury. He doesn't help you in terms of three-point threat. He is on the wrong side of 30. He's still a magnificent player. I'm not arguing that point. But if you're going to go all in to add a second player on the down third of his

NBA career, and that's just the case, he's been around the NBA a long time, that makes me a little nervous. Now, if Yonis all of a sudden says, I want to play for the Houston Rockets, Rockets make it happen? Of course I'd be excited. Well, here's the thing, though. That makes you nervous, right? It does. What if they run it back with what they have?

Well, I know for a fact they're not going to do that. Everything is, you're dealing with the unknown no matter what. You're dealing with an imperfect situation. You're dealing with a situation where things, oh, no, yeah. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not talking about you, but anybody. Like, oh, no, if they trade for Janus, it could go wrong. Yeah? If they run it back, it most likely will go wrong.

And if they blow it up, like they did several years ago. There's no guarantee you're getting the... They tank for four years. They got zero superstars out of their four years of tanking for draft picks. A lot of that was byproduct because of the lottery balls. We could say, oh, no, it's not going to work out if they trade for Janus. Yeah, it might not work out if they don't. Or do.

Either way, you got two Goliaths. You have a budding dynasty in Oklahoma City. And then you have a giant that is waking up and getting its feet underneath it in San Antonio. So there's no guarantees, no matter what you do, is the problem. They can trade for Yannis, and then it might not work out, for sure. And overpay. Doing nothing is more likely to not work out.

I'm not pushing for Yonis. It can work out, but you need a lot of, kind of like we were talking about the Astros. You need Hunter Brown to get back. EMA needs to be good. This guy, like, you need all this stuff to happen. You need Alperin Chingoon to get stronger. You need Reed to continue to develop. You need Jabari Smith Jr. to get to 40% three points.

shooting. You need to get a man. Kevin Durant back and healthy at 38. You need Fred Van Vleet back and healthy and playing better at 33 off in ACL. You need Stephen Adams back and healthy off a major surgery as a seven footer. That's, I just name like six things that have to go right. But that's everybody. So there's no guarantees no matter what. And one more element of that is you just described a team it's got flaws. What all of a sudden makes it those guys super attractive to Milwaukee to say, I want what you don't want in order for us to, unless you're giving up draft picks. I think part of it is that Alperin Shingun could thrive more, or Amin Thompson, could. They could both thrive more without each other, honestly, on the floor as both as non-shooters that have to start.

All right, a little clarification on the Jonathan Alexander tweet about the Texans and their stadium situation. We'll give you that coming back. 1230 on Sports Talk 7.9. 1234 on Sports Talk 7.9. Trying to eat during the show is stupid. But when your man's hungry, man is hungry. Hi, Matt. How you doing?

Not good. I'm going to let you work through those hiccups. I'm going to encourage people to follow me on Instagram. Oh, using my hiccups for your Instagram follow numbers? Yeah, I'm three away from 1,500. At SportsRV. And until 1 o'clock, I'll follow you back. You know what, until 2 o'clock, I will follow you back at SportsRV on Instagram.

Let's see, what do I have up there? My latest is my, well, I have a video I did it. I did a video like at 1 a.m. at the Toyota Center. They're literally packing up the court, talking about the Rockets off season. Do they like you when you're that late? I don't think most people don't care. I'm normally not in the way.

So, yeah, they were packing up the cord and like picking up the trash and stuff like that. And also my review of a well-known Houston restaurant. I put up this morning as well. So there you go. Check it out. Good things and bad things? Check it out. I think I, nothing bad.

Most everything was good. But I put in order of what I thought was best, from best to worse, is how I listed things. At Sports RV on my Instagram. I would appreciate a follow. Thank you. I'm never getting it again during the show. I don't believe you. You're a liar of fraud.

There's zero percent chance. I don't believe you. Believe it. You're right? No. Okay, well, one more thing from the Rockets, um, uh,

Rockets, Ramona Shelburne and Tim McMahon piece is they talked about how the, the word used was moodyness. And I didn't mention that I should have. Dorent was predictably brilliant on the court throughout the 25, 26 season, averaging 26 points, blah, blah, blah,

playing 78 games. But team sources said his quote, mootiness, end quote. took some getting used to and wore on the team's young players throughout the campaign. But isn't that who Kevin Duran is? A dynamic that was exacerbated

without Van Vleet and Adams as buffers. I think they knew who KD was. Don't you think? I mean, I don't think he's acting out of character. I don't know. Maybe that rubs younger teams the wrong way. Obviously it does.

As I mentioned, the story also says the burner thing was not a problem. problem. They talked about it. They talked it out and everybody went about their business. I mean, they won nine and the last 10 games, so it couldn't have been that big of a problem. Right, right. All right. I promised you a little update on the Texans. Jonathan Alexander. Texans update. What do you got? Jonathan Alexander updated his story on the Chronicle website, giving him a running. This is a good job. Cal McNair saying today, through the team president, the Texans are focusing on renovating rural lines. stadium, which is said to be significantly behind a needed maintenance. They have not ruled out building a new stadium within the park.

Okay. So what I'm getting out of this is they're not going to go to Fort Bend or Bresoria or Walter County because probably those counties sell them to shut their bumasses up. I guess so. Not so many words. Not so many words, but you have to go to those counties and say, are you willing to contribute? And they can say no. And then that makes the answer fairly easy.

So it sounds like to me There are three options in play One, refinance reliant Two, tear down reliant And build another one right on the premises Now that, my guess is that would be the rodeo kicking in and helping on that. Yeah, I mean, where would they play while they're tearing it down?

That's moot. Astrodome Uh, no. Or three, stay in Harris County and go to Torotown and build a stadium there, which my guess is would be the least attractive because I don't think the rodeo wants to be out there at Torotown. Yeah, I mean, I get that.

And the rodeo is, I mean, obviously a huge deal. You get 500,000 spring breakers coming in for that. Or 2 million, depending on who you believe. 2.2 million, according to KPRC local too. Mm-hmm, who's letting people. They have more sources than you do. I don't think that. Yeah, they do.

No, they do. But it's also, no, I guess it's easier, though, because the rail is full. What I'm trying to say is, like, it's not like NRG slash reliant area is super accessible and bustling when there's not an event. It's non-existent. Right. So how much would the rodeo feel like, well, if we're a destination anyways? The rodeo can't.

But the rodeo cannot. You can't have that monumental, that humongous structure for 15 days a year. That seems ridiculous. I mean, I'm trying to put the common sense angle to this. The Texans need 10 home games. The Reliant needs 20 dates for rodeo and cook off and the rodeo itself. You filled up with concerts the rest of time. You refurbish everybody win-wins?

But again, the jealousy is the only thing that kicks in is that if you're jealous that these other cities are getting these facilities, is Cal and Hannah going, why can't we get this too? And I just don't know economically with those, I mean, if you're not willing to go outside of Harris County, because Kansas City is leaving Missouri at this point to go to Kansas. That's a state leave. Yeah, they got a bunch of money. Cincinnati is doing a refurbishment. Chicago may be going to Indiana.

I mean, I think you have all these options in front of you and the best option is stay in Harris County, work with the rodeo. You're getting Toro town. You're building that yourself. You're getting, I'm sure, a huge tax break and really. estate advantages. It's 10 days, Ross, right? Help me out. It's 10.

Yeah. I'm trying to look at how many concerts do they do a year there because it's only usually the big, big, big names. Well, you probably get. Like Kendrick Lamar, of course. Taylor Swift. The weekend.

Here's the problem. You're not getting a Super Bowl again. And that's probably driving the nuts. But the problem is, it's not the location of the stadium that's not getting the Super Bowl. We're not, we don't do a, we do an okay job, but we're not a golfing six days a week, big party town. I mean, they're going to rotate Rossi between Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Los Angeles and probably do that for the, even Miami's not going to be involved.

They build a new stadium and get one. They usually do it for teams that build new stadiums. Yes, but that means Kansas City is probably what's going to want to get one. but well Buffalo won't get one because that's too far up there Tennessee is going to get one Nashville needs to get one because I got a brand new city going into their place you cannot sell your soul financially

for a one-time event you got to get back in the rotation for your college footballs your final fours your major concerts the 50, 60,000 seat concerts and you'll get all that done with the refurbishment I just I think with the Texans

did, and again, I've not been privy to any of this. My guess is they went to the other counties, and the other counties are like, we'd love to have you, but we can't give, you know, we don't know the viability of building this religiously huge structure for 10 home games a year. I think it feels like refurbishment's going to happen. That's how it kind of feels now.

Now, the only thing that's new to this is that would they destroy reliant to put a structure? Because you're not, you can't move the Astrodome. We've talked about that at nauseam. You've got to dismantle that, bad boy that that opens up a ton of space they're trying to make a national landmark they said they can't blow it up

that's ridiculous they said they can't blow it up because it's underground basically too much of it is underground you're going to literally rock the foundation of everything right so you have to dismantle it which apparently is a much more expensive take the reckon ball let's go tear it down we'll have a huge party dump you have a bunch of land

right there you got to take it down national landmark for what nobody goes there nobody can get in there No, not a lot in there. It's just a big eyesore. It's a big dilapidated eyesore. See, I think that area, even though I would never put a business over there because it's terrible over there,

you refurbish energy, energy, reliant, you build the huge parking structure where Astororil was, and you start to figure it out that way. That land across the way on 610 still just sitting there, right? As far as I know. I don't go over there any much anymore. Me either. So, but today to me the headline is Fort Bend, Brazoria, Walter County, what else that we got in there, have basically said, yeah, you guys keep it to yourself.

And I think they probably understand that it's best for them to stay in Harris County and probably best for them to work with the rodeo. I think the Toro town thing probably changed their mind. They can do all they want out there. They can build their practice facilities. They can have their restaurants and their bars and they can have their full. flag football fields in their volleyball courts, and then shipping, like the Cowboys do. Cowboys play 10 games

at AT&T. Everything else they do is in Frisco. That's what they make their money. I guess. How are the, how is it the Red Robin at Friscoe doing? I don't know. The Red Robin Arlington doesn't do great. It was on the Rangers

Parade route. Red Robin does do unlimited fries, though, correct? That's ridiculous. Who cares? It's fried potatoes. Yeah. If you want to Unlimited Burgers, we'll have a conversation. Different conversation. That's right. All right.

713212-579. If you want to join us, 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. Astros take 2-1-3 from Boston. Do we have a bray-you fixed? The numbers don't necessarily indicate that. The Vila was like around 93.

He hit 95 like once. So no. 7-13-212. 5-790. We've got the Rockets to get to. The press conference coming up in 45 minutes from now. We have missing you at 120. I've done all five on missing yous. Good. Looking forward to it. I don't know if any of these guys would make that big of a difference. I'll let you decide that. Well, I feel like I'm missing at least one. Matt and Ross with you until 2 p.m. And at 1.30, we'll have the Rockets press availability at Toyota Center.

Wonderful. is Eme Adoka and Rafael Sohn will speak. Now, they're going to get into the, there'll be some things that you will not understand because I don't understand them. The aprons are basically tax thresholds where they get penalized. Yes. You're going to hear about aprons. And once you cross the apron, you get penalized for them.

So take everything they say with a grain of salt on that. It's more about the big picture. I'm sure there will be some Kevin Durant questions. I'm sure there will be some Stephen Adams questions. I'm sure there will be Fred Van Bain. when you hear the apron stuff, it's just going to be the white noise. At least it is for me. They'll be asked about trade possibilities.

And they're going to be probably very generalizational, right? We have a good core. We like our young players. We want to let them grow. We don't want to make rash decisions. Stuff like that. Kind of the end of season stuff. I'm sure they'll be asked about coaching staff,

whether they'll be an adjustment made to bringing in some more offensive-minded folks. We're going to evaluate everything. That's something we do in the offseason. Imagine if they said, Matt, bring in somebody else to add a third leg to your show. How do you think of we would take that? We wouldn't be thrilled about that question. Like, what is this show missing? Nothing.

We bring you entertainment analysis. Jonathan's the third voice. Jonathan's the third voice. He does great. People always talk about how great Jonathan does. Jonathan, you're always welcome to come on the show whenever you want to. Thank you all. Thank you all.

That's what I'm saying. We don't need this. I tell Ross many years ago, when the show first began. I said, man, this ain't my show. This y'all just come in and say what you want. Argue with me? Yes.

You hear stupid stuff? Oh, yes. Oh, love it. You've been doing it for the long time. I wouldn't say attacking. Yeah. This is some tough love. Tough, that's exactly right.

Tough love. All right. So, Jonathan, you're now in charge of tough love on the radio show. What's your girl said, too? Some tough love. Is this Dirk? Is that correct? Is that Dirk on 790 at 1252?

Hello, Dirk. Hey, Matt, how you doing? Good, how are you? Hey, I'm doing well. Thank you, sir. Hey, I just want to give you a shout out. I was traveling back from y'all's favorite place, Vegas. Oh.

Oh. My son, yeah, I can hear any voice. It's been a little while. It has. I was there for my youngest son's pool tournament, and so we were traveling back, and I was running through Flagstaff, and I was listening to a radio station at Ross was probably like as a classic rock. Anyway, they were playing, and then they went to their news,

and they were talking about the, it was game five that the Rockets had won and stuff, and I'm paying minimal attention to it and stuff. I'm trying to not get killed, but I hear the voice. Oh, your voice. Oh, nice. He had one of your clients. It was LeBron still. I think it may have been Reed Shepherd.

Reed Shepherd, that's exactly right. Good for him. Thank you for catching that. Yes, I said, hey, Flagstab gets to hear the best guy in Houston. Oh, you know what? I don't deserve you, my man. How'd you do in Vegas, by the way? Well, like I said, I went there to watch my son play,

and we were there about four days. I did gamble a little bit at the Golden Nugget, a whole dollar. A whole dollar. I got you. A whole dollar, brother. That's funny. I found an old-fashioned 25-7 machine why my wife was using the restroom. But I figured the Tillman may have needed that buck, so I was going to give it.

Well, maybe he'll put that towards my future income. Dirk, thanks for the nice message. I appreciate your listening. How about that? Listen, Flagstaff, Arizona, a little highlight call. Wow.

We're worldwide. Yeah, it works out. That was a great steal. That was Reed's best postseason moment, the mid-range and then followed up with a steel and slam. It was beautiful. He's got some limitations. We've got to fall in love with the highlight reels and stuff like that,

and he's shown us, he's sewn and flashed, but he's not perfect. He's got to refine, and yeah, he's only two years in the NBA. and I don't want to call his rookie year a wash, but in terms of how much you can say that, how much of a leap he made from one year to the next, as I said, 12 minutes a game up to 26?

It's a big leap, and he handled it pretty well, and he can still get better. I would hope so. I'm telling you, folks, and you may not know this or want to comprehend it, they love him. They love him. They love him.

This Ramona Shelbur, piece with Tim McMahon says they think he could be the next Steve Nash. I would take, he don't need to be Steve Nash. Solid NBA player. I don't think he's going to be Steve Nash, but it'd be great if he was. Who's the Nash is saying, I can see clearly now?

Oh, I don't remember. Hold on, I don't want to look it up. I don't want to look it up. Me either. But it's going to, uh, look it up. Johnny. Johnny Nash. Houston guy, by the way.

Oh, really? Yeah. I think I remember not. Now you say it. All right. Let's go to Glenn on 790 and 1255. Glenn, good afternoon to you. What's going on? Good afternoon, guys. Great show. Thank you. I enjoy listening to y'all. Appreciate that. When y'all were talking about Cyprus and the county it's in, it reminded me last week before the Rocket game,

I switched to, can I say the names of the network? I mean, names of the channels. Anyway, it was a channel that the Rocket Game was on. I didn't have it. So I said, well, I'm going to call in and buy that channel. So I did that so I could watch the Rocket Game. And it was $16 a month. So I said, that's no big deal.

And then I said, what's my new bill going to be? And she said, two, it's like $2.25 a month. And it had been $150 something. So the math didn't work. So I said, well, go ahead and leave that. She said, you're going to lose the Space City network. And anyway, I called back to clarify that the next day, and they said the same thing. So I kept thinking that doesn't make sense.

So I called back on Friday, and they put me on hold, and she came back and asked me what zip code was. I gave that to her. And she said, how many are you in? And I said, Harris. She said, you're not in Montgomery? And I said, no. She said, well, you're paying, the reason it went to 200, you're paying out an area for Space City Network.

And she said, you're in the Ranger area. You know what? Unfortunately, and Glenn, I hate to do this to you. But it's, the geo fences are a disaster. Everybody has got it differently on their computers, on their phones, on the televisions. I cannot, and I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the television side of things. I don't know what the hell's going on. Montgomery County isn't the Rangers area, though, either.

It is not. It's based off of maybe it's something. Sometimes what your satellite thinks you live or your phone thinks you live, I wish I could give you some sage advice. But if I do, I would tell you to call the provider, and then you're going to be talking to somebody making $9 an hour that lives in Kazakhstan, and you're going to be just pissed off even more. The safest thing you can do, and I know you guys don't want to hear this,

the safest thing you can do is go get direct TV. Illegal stream. Or illegal stream. Oh, sorry. I thought it wasn't DirecTV beefing with CBS recently? Who knows? Everybody's beefing. Extending is beefing with an NFL network now, I think.

Yeah, you can get your Space City Home Network separately on your phone without having a cable and or satellite. It's for all the things, and first of all, you also have these restrictions based off of where your city, like who a team is closest to you. They need to get rid of all that. Just get rid of it. If I want to be an astro fan and I live in Abilene, I should be able to watch the Astros on Space City and call it a day.

Yeah, you should be able to choose. And they're trying to do that, but there are territorial restrictions in the NBA and in baseball that are just stupid. It's just stupid. Two thousand 26, let's go. These regional TV networks are going away. Stop with these territorial restrictions. So, Glenn, I'm sorry, I cannot give you any sage advice of what to do because you're going to wind up calling Kazakhstan and you're going to be mad at them because they have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

Good luck. No, good luck. You have no luck. You got bad luck your way. You know, he can get the Astros somehow. Yeah, direct TV. It's probably the easiest thing. You can do S-C-H-N.

But the cutter you try to get, the more hurdles you're going to have to overcome. Well, I'm already sick of Fubo. They've got no NBC networks and no Turner networks. Because they're beefing with everybody. Everybody's beef with everybody. I know. At least I went to Mexico's Mote House and said Channel 2

and they put it on for me yesterday. I'm glad they had Channel 2. Because everything else was on the NFL Network of draft recaps. All right, final hour of the show is coming up in 20 minutes. We got missing you. We got Gerard and Gambra Jim. Gammer Jim's call suck. I don't want to do, but it says Astro's pitching,

so I'm going to give him a little bit of a break on this. I want to talk. No gambler talk. Because nobody cares about that stupid product. They lost again. I don't know how I know this. Sounds like you care. Maybe I'm gambler Matt.

Maybe I'm gambler Matt. One o'clock on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Live on Sports Talk 790. It is the final hour of the Matt Thomas show. We got missing you coming up in about 15 minutes where we take a look at five Astro, former Astro players and how they're doing. And the press conference for Eme Adoka and Rafael Stone coming up at 1.

30 here on sports talk 790 Can't wait You can't We're waiting all day No, I can't wait All right I'm gonna get some water Yes

Trying to get back to close 100% Okay We got to Gerard to talk to Oh, all right Gerard The floor is yours At 106 on 790 Girard good afternoon to you

Good afternoon You do Matt Ross, y'all doing all right Doing great Doing fantastic Thank you Okay, yeah, I don't think the Rockets need to make a huge trade, you know, based on what's available, you know, in particular trade deadlines.

You know, you try to bring in Yonis, man, Yonis is not a shooter either, so I don't think he'll mess well with a mean Thompson. You know, you probably have the trade to go in the deal, but I don't think that would just be a good pitch for the Rockets' young course. So I don't, I wouldn't make that trade. I think they just need to make some smart, small moves around the edges doing through agency. We got guys like a C.J. McCullum, a guy that can get a bucket, maybe coming off the bench,

maybe a Greenhill man, or maybe a Norman Powell. That's another guard that could create his own offense, get a shot off, you know, a veteran player. I probably would look at a player like that. And then when you go to the draft, I know the Rockers don't have a number one draft pick. They've got two number twos. I think this is a deep draft for point guards coming out of college. You got the guy out of Purdue, Brandon Smith. you got the guy

Bradley out of Arizona who's out there they got some pretty good dogs I think even the what they got named Trude from Michigan I think he's coming out so you got some good point guards

because even when you get Van Fleet back I think you need another ball hand even with Van Fleet coming back I think they need another ball hand so maybe you look at the NBA draft coming up after the NBA season and over to maybe address that lead but the problem with the Rockies is they don't have

a franchise level player. They don't have a transformational player on the team. Like an OKC guy, Shade Gildreddrich, San Antonio has Wemley Yamma.

Even Minnesota, they have Ant Edwards Delver. They're going to probably make some moves too, but they do have a good starting point in a Jokic. The Rockers don't have,

they have a lot of good players, a lot of B plus level players, but they don't have that top 10, top 15 player. That's part of the problem. You need that type of player to, you know, get over there,

get over that hump and make a deep playoff and possibly win the championship. The Rockers don't have that currently. But I think they probably don't have to go the Detroit Pistons route. You know, back when they had, you know, Trancy Billeton was they closed.

They had a lot of B-B-plus-level players and Prince and Rip Hamilton and Rashid Wallace, Ben Wallace. They won the championship beat the Lakers team that led by Colby and Shack. So I think that's probably the blueprint that the Rockers need to look at.

Just keep building, keep building, keep building, add a piece here, add a piece there. and hopefully you get over there hump it's going to be tough though with OKC and San Antonio both having young roster both having formidable teams for years to come so but I think that's the best route

the record's got to go man go that go that route make smart move in free AAC get another ball handers to go with Van Fleet and then either take your chances next season possibly making some noise thank you Gerard Ross a thought or two about that well he covered a lot

he wants more ball handling he wants him to get somebody in the draft but they don't have a first round draft pick. That's going to be a problem. Mentioned, yeah, look, if Yannis comes, he's not a great shooter, but he's a really great passer. And he can drive past guys. You don't have anybody. Now, I mean, a men can drive past guys, but a lot of times people just sag off in the paint

and it clogs everything up. Kind of same thing similar with Yannis as well, but he still makes it work. Yonah's shooting like 63% from the floor this year. And he's an excellent. excellent passer and reader of offenses. We're talking about a guy one time or two time MVP. I think maybe two.

Here is John is still in a nutshell, according to me, from the outside. Still one of the greatest downhill players of the NBA has. Fantastic finisher. Has got diversity in his game as long as it's not the three-point shot and is a minus free-throw shooter.

So getting the free-throw line times a game is thrilling, but if you only make nine of them, it's not great. I do worry about injuries, but you know what? Life is worried about injuries all the time. But you worry about Kevin Durant can get hurt. Fred Van Ville did get hurt.

Seamanville did get hurt. We're dealing with the element of the unknown, no matter what. Yep. I know. There's a scariness aspect to what you already know and have with youth as compared to experience, but knowing that chemistry is still not up in the air? I know. I mean, what's the chemistry of the rockets?

Is it great? Is it awful? I mean, we got stories out there that are saying a little bit of both. You, at the end of the day, no matter what they do, I mean, you've been trying to win a championship since 1995. Yes, I need another ring. Okay. Well, I just mean the city of Houston. Oh, you're talking about, oh, the city.

I'm sorry. I wasn't just making it about you. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean. But, yeah, that's okay. But, I mean, you mentioned the Pistons. They've been trying to run a ring since what? 2004.

The Knicks have been trying for 50 years. Knicks had been trying for 50 years. When's the last time? Do we have to go back to, when's the last time in 76 years won? Was it 83? Never won with Iverson. One of the finals in 01.

Was it the foe foe foe-molone teams? Was that it? Is that the last one? Yeah. It's hard, folks, to win a championship. And now we're watching Oklahoma City building a dynasty

with more draft picks. San Antonio striking it rich with Wembenyama. Terrible. Seriously, Victor Wemba makes a difference. You don't listen to stupidos that think, oh, he's going to get hurt.

Well, of course, everybody is going to get hurt. Hurt is part of the life in the NBA. It just is. Yeah, you didn't get Cade Cunningham and you didn't get Wemby. Those are the ones that really hurt. Powell, I like, but I don't think... Powell's making a lot of money for being just...

And didn't like... Did he like Jamal Mosley got fired today. Did like Jamal Mosley who got fired. Yeah. Last championship for the 76ers is 1983. It just ain't us.

Life is hard in the NBA. No matter what they do. The most likely thing is no matter what they do is they're not going to be a champion. They're going to win a championship. I'll let you be fake Gian for 30 seconds.

You'll make the move for Janus. No. If you do. If I do. I do believe the men is untouchable. So let's go Jabari, Alpi. for the trade.

What a bunch first-round picks? Yeah. What does your lineup look like? I don't even know. What's going to... I mean, you're starting Dway and Fannie Smith? I guess you're starting Tari. Are you keeping him? He's a restricted free agent.

See, that's one thing... I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah. They're going to run it back. Because I also think part of it is, I think there's going to be 10 teams kicking the doors. And I think the Rockets will have the most attracted deal to 10. Unless you just want to give the bucks a boltload of draft picks.

My guess they want... Then you're mortgaging your future again. Yeah. Mike. Yeah. All right. Missing you is up next. We've got the Rockets Press Conference in 15 minutes as well.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. It's Matt Ross. We're with you today up until 2 o'clock. No, believe it or not today, because we have that press conference coming up in just a few minutes. 113 on 790. It's our weekly update to see how exactly how we're feeling about our five Astros,

among others, that are gone. And I simply give you the stats. I ask Ross, are you missing you? Kyle Tucker for the Los Angeles Dodgers. We're in town tonight. We're not getting a Kyle Tucker tribute, right? That happened last year already, right? Yeah, we're good.

All right. Last seven games for Kyle Tucker. Six for 25, no home runs, three RBIs. For the season, the Dodger-R-R-Fielder, three home runs, 16 RBIs, an OPS of 684. Ross, I ask you, are you missing him? No. Cam Smith, doing just fine.

Just fine. Hades said Pradis hitting bombs. Oh, Perth is hitting very well. Next. It wasn't asking, not so much, but that's okay. Framber Valdez did not pitch last week for the Tigers. Why not? Maybe he said, is he okay? Is it tonight?

Two and one his mark with an ERA at 3.67. I say. Ironically enough, we're missing you. Absolutely. Seven starts. Would you say ERA? 3.67? On the season?

Yeah, I think so. 2-1. I got 335. Uh-oh. All right. I'll look it up. I mean, it's a half run among friends. Either way.

Yes, you're missing Frommber because your starting pitching has been a disaster largely all season long. Oh, you know what? The last game he pitched was April the 5th. 30th, eight strikeouts, six hits, two earn runs over six. Yeah, two and one, three 35 ERA. WIP is 1.26.

It's pretty good, right? Yeah, it's okay. That's fine. We're still missing him because we've got Stephen Oprah start. We're missing him because he's been good. Yeah. He's had one really bad start and every other start. He's been pretty good.

Next, Hesu-Sanchez of the Toronto Blue Jays. Last seven games, five for 25, no home runs, no RBIs. For the season four home runs, 15 RBIs, and an OPS, a 7thus. 2725. Ross, do you miss him? I guess we'll say yes because low profito's hurt. Yeah. Sure, why not? Well, you made it for a cost-cutting move, too. Isn't that been great? Yep.

Ooh, it's a negative war. Actually, okay, no, not missing. Not missing us. Jesus. Number four, Alex Bregman, last seven games for the Chicago Cubs, four for 24, no home runs, two ribbies. On the season, three home runs, 12 RBIs, and OPS 686.

Needs to get the knob of the bat in front of the ball better. I say we don't fix his swing in Boston, right? I say we don't miss him. No, not missing him. All right. Last but not least, Maricio Dubon, don't go look at your highlights on your Instagram and your ESPN.

He's making incredible. How did he bounce off the wall and make the throw that fast? And I believe his shoulder and neck were throbbing after. That's what I'm saying. That's crazy. Incredible play. Two home runs, 18 RBIs on the season with an OPS of 745. In his last seven games, six for 25, no home runs for rubies.

Great defensive play over the weekend. No doubt the Astros are missing you. We're missing you, Mauricio. Especially since Allen and whatever his name is. Nick Allen. Why don't I keep calling him Zach? I don't know. You're thinking of Zach Galan, the pitcher for the Diamondbacks?

Or Zach Galvanakis, the actor? Zach Grinke. Zach from Saved by the Bell? Nick Allen. Zach Morris. Nick Allen. We do. We miss.

Well, we don't miss him. We miss him. We do, really? Why not? I guess utility-wise. Hadn't to play a career at Shoricep. I think of the back spasms. All right.

So of the five, we miss two. We miss you from Bravades. We miss you, Maricio Duvonne. Nick Allen is rehabbing, by the way. Hunter Brown throwing catch up to 120 feet. Up to 120 feet? It's only going to throw 60 feet. Six inches.

He's thrown, yeah, but he's throwing catch. He's not throwing him off a mound yet. Oh, dang. You know how rehab for pitchers works? Have you not been around Houston last three years? I got memorized it. Yeah. All right, that's missing you for the week.

I'll miss you tomorrow. Yeah, I will be gone by. Yeah. I'll be back Wednesday. Back on a short show to. For a long show. Look at you. You know, you've been, you learn from the master.

Charlie? Yeah. I'll work the 30-minute shows Yes, you will, and you should. That's funny. Yeah, we had a 30-minute show last week. I know. All right, any surprises come up in this press conference here in five minutes?

What do you think? Surprises, no. Okay. Yeah, Udoca's not here. He's been gone. He's fired. No. Sorry.

Any thought of aprons can just confuse the hell out of us, correct? I'm not that confused. Aprons are bad. If you hear apron is bad. This mom's making brownies or something. Yeah. Think about that. Well, you got a kiss to cook apron.

Kiss the chef. Dad in the outside of the barbecue. Yeah. All right. Let's get to that press conference after I tell you about Sethi's Fine Jewel, S-E-T-H-I-S. Seth these fine jewelry.com is the website I want you to check out because Sethi's has an amazing... I'm sorry. Quick, interesting new Tarik Scuble injured list.

Tigers. Sorry to interrupt. That's okay. I made a noise, so I figured I might as well. Tell you why. All right. Jonathan, you will give us the cue when we are ready to go with the press conference down at tooter center.

131 is our time. Matt and Ross with you here on 790. Tomorrow we'll have Joe is spotted with us at 1230. Gordy's going to hang out with us for a couple hours, which 10 o'clock until noon. Wonderful. May check him with Ryan Hollins as well. He owes me an appearance on this show to maybe get a thought about whether or not Oklahoma City can, or the Lakers can make him competitive with the Lake with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

My dad is, I guess is no, it's not. You just have to hope. The internal growth. Running it back. You need everybody to come back and get healthy, and the need players you have to get better. 22 and 23-year-olds can get better. Now, does that mean they can know.

They're all going to blossom into superstars? No. Shoot better, play better, play better together. So another thing we talked about is the chemistry it takes. Remember it was LeBron James going to the heat, not four, not five, not six, not seven. Yeah, they lost their first year.

All right, he says go on, he says go to the press conference. Here we go. This is for both of you. start with Rafael, just big picture overall thoughts on the season and your assessment overall. Yeah, I think the season was frustrating and disappointing. We expected to win more games in the regular season than we did, and I think we expected to win more games in the playoffs than we did.

And I understand that we took a lot of injuries this year. And I do care about the injuries, but the expectation for winning is with the players that we have playing. And I think that that feeling of disappointment is definitely felt everywhere in our locker room with all of our players, all of our coaches, all of our front office and ownership. I think everyone feels the same on that front. Rofel, Eme, do you guys feel that you can compete with the top of the Western Conference with some small tweaks to this roster, or do you feel like that you guys need to make big moves in this offseason? In terms of the roster, you know, we'll look at everything over the offseason and look at all, you know, all potential deals.

Getting back to Vanessa's question, we think that the players in our locker room can win a lot of games and can be very competitive. And my firm expectation is, I mean, we have players coming back from injury. They will help us. If we bring back largely the same group, I think continuity will help us. but the single biggest thing is my expectation is that

um uh tari jabari jibari reed alpi amen all need to be way better basketball players next year and

and I think they should be that's on them it's on us but um I expect that growth from them and so I expect to be an improved team um

next year regardless of our ability or willingness to do to bring in any outside talent. So, Amy, from a coaching standpoint, do you echo Raphael's position? Do you feel like your roster is good enough if everybody's healthy to get to the next level? Absolutely. I think, you know, we had expectations that we fell short of. You know, due to circumstances, injuries and things like that, they may have changed at some point. but when we're whole and healthy,

competing is the least of anything. We feel that we can beat anybody and play at the highest level. And so this year changed due to that. But as it is constructed and what we had, we still feel we should have won more than 52. We still should have won the first round series. And, yeah, we had some injuries there and they did as well, but felt we had more than enough to get it done.

And so, yeah, it would be interesting to see us whole and healthy. But, you know, like I, said even with what we had we felt we should have done better. Raphael, you've mentioned a couple times competitive. But when you bring in a guy like Durant, when you make a move like you made last offseason, certainly it seems like you're looking for more than just to be able to compete, right? No. So you're not, you weren't thinking championship?

That's part of competing. Like, you just go out and compete. Like, there's no, there's no trade I can make. There's no draft pick I can make. make that is going to say, oh, we're guaranteed a championship. That's not it. You have to compete. This is a hard league. Like, the margins are very thin. Sometimes the hardest series a team has on the way to its championship run is their first round series. So, like, to me, what the goal is to put a roster in place that has a chance to compete for a championship. But that doesn't mean that, that

That doesn't mean if you don't make the finals or something, you failed. Like in terms of putting together a roster that can't compete. You want one that can't compete. And not once did I ever say with respect to bring Kevin in that it was championship or bust. I never said that to him. I never said that to anybody. That's very much not our attitude. We thought he could be additive to the team.

He was. We thought he could be a wonderful example to the. team of to the young guys of of how to work like a professional how to how to like really hone your craft I thought he did a really good job of that yeah that that that that's that's the thought process Rafeil you mentioned the younger players just a right here just a moment ago with specifically with Tari and a man obviously Tari has a contract situation I'm just curious if those are guys that you are interested in just giving your comments

or the guys that you're interested in extending and where you guys are what the status is with that? Yeah, I mean, I generally just don't talk about contracts, but I'm happy to talk about them as players. They're an enormous part of what we've done. And, you know, I fully expect that they're going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Obviously, like, you know, there's choices and everything has to be made and nothing's guaranteed, but I'm extremely high on both of them. Well, Sharpe. During last offseason after you signed, Doreen,

You spoke about how you signed him because you wanted him to kind of take the place, not take the place, but kind of filling the void left by Dylan Brooks. What was kind of your understanding on his injury timeline as far as recovering? Were you surprised it took as long for him to come back onto the court? Yeah, I mean, I was and he was too. It was just a little, it was just a slower process than anybody wanted. The answer is yes. Refel, do you expect to go into the repeater tax again next year? Is that something ownership has kind of okayed, so to speak?

I mean, it's a discussion. We're not going to be in the repeater, just so you know, like, that doesn't apply to us because this was our first year on the tax. I think you're asking, where we're going to be in the tax. I think, you know, we'll see the roster the way it's set up. We very likely will be, but all of that's like what contracts become available, what trades happen, all of this. I don't see us, I don't see Tillman, ever wanting to take a step back that isn't strategic. So like if we weren't it's because of some opportunity to do something else that is basketball related. You know, I think I've told you guys a couple of times. I think in a lot of respects, I have kind of the best owner of sports. His goals are really aligned with mine and it's all about

winning and and he's provided amazing amounts of support and I expect he will continue to. Coach, on last year you all got, you all were second in the West, and you were eliminated in the first round. And when we had these type of, when we had the exit interviews last year, you talked about, you know, how the team was, and then you all talked about going into the next season,

and then you all blew the team up. And, well, you made some changes in the team, excuse me. But now you're pretty much in the same situation. Now, you know, you were successful in the regular season, maybe not as successful as you want to be lost in the first round. Is there any mindset that some more changes are going to happen, or do you all know that as we speak today or could something change later on? I mean, changes are always an option. You know, you do have guys that are free agents and have contract situations.

But to say blowing the team up or whatever, you know, the Durant trade and, you know, changing the look of our team, that was something that happened and wasn't a plan going into offseason. last year. But for us, I think improvement across the board is like Rafael mentioned with our young guys, that's not making any changes. That's growth from those guys. Getting everybody back healthy as a part of it. And we'll have that veteran mix in what we kind of envisioned going into the season, which was, you know, Fred and Stephen and I have a season of injuries during coming around from the surgery and Kevin available in the playoffs. And you mix that with our young core. we have a great outlook with that as far as our opinion. Yeah, we won 52 felt we should have won 60 plus

lost in the first round, even with the injuries and the injuries the Lakers had, and still felt we could have made it out of that series as well. And so, you know, due to the circumstances, expectations can change, but we still thought we do better. And I think that's the plan coming back with the guys we have next year, with everybody healthy. But at the same time, you're not,

you never know how people respond to, surgeries and our recovery, and so we're not putting it all back on Fred or Stephen. And the main thing is our young guys continuing to grow and seeing that mix and what it looks like when we're all healthy. Rafael, you mentioned the frustrating situation with Dorian coming back from his leg surgery. With Fred and Stephen, are there any concerns that they might have similar limitations next year? What's the outlook as far as just what you can reasonably expect from them next season and

when they'll be fully clear to play? I mean, the honest answer is there's always concerns coming. off of surgery because you just you don't know how everybody's body is going to recover and everything else the big difference is dorian surgery was postseason and they and you know freds was i don't know nine months ago now whatever it was seven months ago eight months ago and uh and stevens was like three or four months ago so i i think they i think that they they have the luxury of of you know His timeline was to be ready, you know, right going into preseason and then it ended up extending. So when it bled, it really, it really hampered him.

That's not their timeline. So hopefully it's better, but they're not young guys. And like you may said, like, yeah, you know, we're not completely dependent upon them. It's not, you know, the offseason plan isn't, oh, they're coming back, it's fine. I think it's much more looking at our young guys and saying, you guys need to improve. you've had this year, you need to come back, kind of, you know, better than you were at the end. And by the way, I think all of them were better at the end than they were at the beginning. And so it's really, you know, that's where we're looking for the real improvement.

I do think Fred and Stephen will make complete recoveries. You know, we expect that to be for the beginning of the season. But even if it bleeds a little bit, you know, if those guys, if the rest of our team is doing what they should be doing, I think we'll be in a good place. Both of you guys, do you expect changes to the offensive structure and or the coaching staff for next season? Offensive structure, I would say the ability to play different ways with the personnel that was missing.

That should obviously change. You know, you look at your Florida general kind of being out and how we had to kind of adjust on the fly and with our choice to stay with Reed and I'm in and give those guys a really good look at the point guard position to change some of the things we could do, no doubt. You know, situational things and the game situations, but that was a choice you made,

and I think it will help us long term, but having certain guys back, I think Stephen is very underrated in what he does for us, and so losing him halfway through definitely affected us as well. And so just the versatility and, read and I'm in growing this year and not having to rely on Kevin as much or Alperin as much and having a point guard back should definitely help the offensive structure flow of things and, you know, winning at certain points and not losing late game situations.

And so in the totality of the guys that we have back, I think in general, we should look better. We should look different and close out the games and have some of the lumps and ups and downs that we had at the end of the games. they'll be exciting to see that part in general coaching staff-wise. I don't see any changes. Coach, in terms of the reflection after game six, is it harder to reflect knowing that there isn't another game or is it easier because this is going to be the offseason starts now

and you have a new season to start from a whole new page? I wouldn't say it's harder to reflect. I think you could see pretty easily immediately the things that we did to be successful in the prior games and what we didn't do in that game. And so, you know, the basics where we played at a much faster pace in the games, prior games, created a lot of turnovers, got out in the open court, offensive rebounded better outside of game five. And then we made some more shots, obviously, that's a part of it. That's what hurt us in game one and two and game six.

But, you know, it's pretty easy to look back and see what hurt us throughout the series, the things we did really well and how that got away from us in game six. And so, you know, it starts now. We've had exit meetings with guys already and mapping out the plan for the offseason and talking about negatives, positives, all the ups and downs of this season and where guys grew. And so I think everybody's locked in and using a first round loss as motivation going forward. Refel, not having Fred this year and just trying to get somebody to be a primary distributor for you, is that something that you guys identify as a primary target this offseason,

even if Fred is back to have somebody veteran or otherwise that can be able to do that alongside him? I mean, no, like, no, we don't need somebody alongside Fred. If you're saying kind of behind him, like, if that's what you meant, like, I think maybe, like, we'll see how it works. I mean, we were really, really effective this year when a men was on the court. And so I do think that one area, we weren't as skilled as I would have liked. And certainly I think we all like, so like when Reed and a man were in together, it was way better than in terms of our skill level than it would have been otherwise. I think, you know, Fred is like a man in that he can guard multiple positions.

So Fred can play with Reed. He can play with a man. We can play Fred and Reed and amend because of men so big. So Fred coming back would add a lot. If the opportunity comes in to get a good positive player who's also really skilled, like we'll jump on it. The issue is just like what I don't believe in, I guess philosophically, is just going to get a point guard because they're a point guard.

And let's just say somebody is a very good ball handler and passer, but they can't defend and they can't shoot. Well, I'd rather just cobble it together than, okay, yeah, we can get into our offense good, but no one guards them after they make the initial pass, and then on the other end, they're just a sieve. And those players do exist in the NBA. There's quite a few of them, and they're available.

But I didn't think that would make us better on the whole. So I think it's always an opportunity cost, and there's lots of ways to win basketball, basketball games, there's lots of ways to lose them. My goal is simply to win, and aesthetics just aren't that important to me. And so, like, understanding the concern people have about the way things sometimes look, there are tradeoffs. And our team

this year was very big, and we were very physical. And when Fred went down, I think we made a conscious decision just to lean into that. And I think it paid off at times, and at times it hurt us. But again, there's a trade-off. And if you can get a player who's big and physical and a point guard, that's optimal. Those guys are kind of hard to find. So sitting here today, going into the summer, you know, we would like to be more skilled. We'd like to, we'd like to be better shooting. We'd like to do all of that without giving up defense and rebounding. I hope we can do that. Like that's always the goal. But, you know, but if you can't, then we'll have to make some hard

decisions around the margins. I think the timing of when Fred went down dictated our course more than anything else because at that point in time, and even bleeding into the trade deadline, it was going to be very hard to make a short-term deal that didn't hurt us in the long term and provided kind of what we thought was an optimal trade-off. And so we did what we did. This question is for Emmy. When you look at this roster as this currently constructed, I mean, what do you feel like maybe you guys maybe need more of or, you know, where you could really improve? And then secondly, what do you come down on the usage of Durant going forward as, you know, as he gets a little bit older and all of those things? I mean, are you comfortable playing him in as many minutes and as many games as you did this year or next year?

I would say, I mean, variety is good for us and shooting always stands out. you know we want as we've mentioned our guys have internal growth in those areas but you know there are some needs addressed there and I said at the final press conference where we have some guys that do a lot of the same things and so to have a little variety there specifically shooting would would be good as Raffel mentioned whether it was before the season or trade deadline you know talking about point guard the decision we went with I'm in and Reed you know it really came down to the names that were there and is anybody going to supplant those guys in their role or take away? We obviously look in a big picture.

We didn't want to take away from Reed and our men's development. So, yeah, to this point, if there's a name there or something, that makes sense, you look at it. But we also hope that they took steps and grew enough this year to, you know, backup or couple with Fred. And so that's that. I think the shooting is always a thing like I mentioned. But versatility is a good thing for us. and we have a lot of guys that can play up and down. And when you look at Tari and Kevin, even Jabari,

and those guys are playing outperin with Stephen, we can go a lot of different ways. And when we're whole, it gives us a lot of options that we didn't have once Stephen went down. And so, like you said, we'll look at everything and whatever makes sense, you know, try to add to our team, no doubt. As far as Kevin, I would say,

no, you definitely want to shave those minutes down. And that was not the plan going into the season. I think a man's a little bit different, younger guy that does a ton for us, and we're great when he's on the court. But I'm not a guy that would like our two of our guys being the top five minutes-wise. And so, you know, Kevin was a guy that was available. Outside of missing two games personal and sitting one, he really missed one game with the ankle injury. And we had a lot ups and downs with other guys being in and out. And so he shoulder the load.

He obviously works extremely hard to be ready for those situations. but yes, you take age and into a factor and you'd like to shave that down. But having Fred, Stephen, back, and, you know, Dorian, you know, coming off injury and hopefully better next year should be able to do that. And I'm in as well. You don't want to rely on anybody. I think our balance is good when everybody's healthy and that'll help take care of us minutes now.

Rafael, what do you feel like is y'all's most realistic or, I guess, optimal path to add and improve the shooting that we've all talked about at this point. I mean, y'all mentioned the confidence in the young guys. So where does that improvement in shooting overall when the team actually come from? I mean, I think, you know, it's possible we bring back 15 guys,

but it's very unlikely. So I think, yeah, I think that as we're, as we're looking kind of at filling out the back end of the roster, I think, I don't know that we're going to like get a shooter who can't do anything else, but like trying to find a quality player who maybe their strength is shooting, I think that makes some sense as well as Eme does. And that can come in a lot of different forms. It might not just be one guy, it might be two or three guys, like who knows.

And then also like, yeah, like I think some of our young guys, I think both Jabari and Reed are already very good shooters. The theory of them and my expectation for them is that they become elite. And again, that internal growth changes our dynamic too. Ravel, I just want to make sure I'm understanding when you're saying very skilled, you mentioned you're very skilled with the men on the floor and then you're looking for that. What are those traits specifically that you would put under the umbrella of being very skilled? Sorry.

I mean, what I was saying is like if he's playing at the three and then you've got two small. guards next to him that you're probably going to be very skilled because like all of them can dribble like when i say skilled i generally mean dribble and pass so you're but your ball handling capability um and so if he's if he's your primary ball handler and you don't even have a secondary you're you're you're not you're not probably a very skilled team you're really big you're probably like doing that because you're going to be really really big and physical but you're you're probably foregoing skill um that's why back.

Ruffell, what do you take from Reed's season overall, and how did that impact how you look at what he can be in the future? Is he a starting point guard years down the road? I mean, my expectation for him as he should be, I think he should be a really good one. I think that's his expectation for himself as well. I actually thought Reed had a great season. He essentially didn't play as a rookie.

We got him in here and there, but never in kind of a high leverage real way. And he got thrown into the fire. And when he was good, he was really good. And so I think for him, it's finding consistency and just getting, you know, and I thought he did over the course of the season. But he took a big jump last summer in terms of his readiness to enter this year. He needs to do the same thing again this summer so that we, you know,

Going into each game, we're hoping to get great read. I don't know that we expected to it. It needs to become that the expectation is we get him playing, you know, nightly at his very best. And when he doesn't, we're all surprised. That should be his goal going in the next year. But I did think he had a very good year. For both of you, what did you take from a men's season at point guard? How did he perform?

How did teams defend him? How did he react? Is that a role you see him continuing to feel moving forward? I think he has some ups and downs. When you look at him and Reed, and that's not their natural position that they played. Amends had the ball in his hands a ton. Reed has played more off ball.

Coming off the bench of Kentucky with Dillingham, he didn't even play the point. And I think we looked at it coming into the draft. He had 16 pick and rolls as a freshman in Kentucky. So, you know, he's more off ball, moving, even going back to high school, it was a motion offense where he didn't just dominate the ball. And so their growth, we knew they were going to take some lumps with it, some ups and downs.

They both progressed and showed, you know, potential at times and making the right play, whether it was the score, make the pass, pocket pass, skip passes, those things. But, you know, I look at it like, you know, if you have a rookie quarterback in the NFL, he's played quarterback before. He was drafted to play quarterback. It's different than bringing two guys to play the point guard that really haven't played that spot. And the rookie quarterback is still going to struggle. So, of course, if you have guys out of position, they're going to take some ups and downs,

but it will benefit us all going forward. And so for our men, I think it was just that understanding of balance. And the last two months of the season, you kind of saw his numbers take off and his comfort level take off there and his understanding take off. And so the paint touches were evident and not shooting in the crowd or finding his outlets, it became more consistent. And so couple that with Fred coming back, and you don't have to rely on Fred like we did our first two years for turnovers and getting us into sets because you have Reed and

a man that grew in that area. Kevin obviously is part of that and then you have a unique center who can initiate and so the balance there should be much better but I think they both took steps in the right direction as far as playing the point guard being that that was not their natural position coming in. Just a second I'm gonna you ask both of us that question I believe yes um yeah I do want to say I was very happy with the manager I mean he played a ton of minutes He was super durable and we were just a really good team with him on the court. And so I think he had a really good season to build off of.

And to EMA's point, I was really, really pleased with the way he ended the season and some of his last steps. I think a big thing for him is the same thing for Reed is just becoming more consistent with it and really understanding what he wants to do. And then the other one is like doing it in the playoffs too. I thought he had some good games in the playoffs. but I think he's capable of so much more. I think a man is capable of a lot,

and so we're going to keep pushing him as well. We're going to listen to both of you. I'll start with you, Ema. Can you just talk about the season that Alpi had, and is there any concern about the summer load weighing on him in terms of injuries throughout the season? Your light is on. Oh, I'm sorry.

But, no, I think it was really good for him. We had coaches out there spending a lot of time with him. He obviously had a really good Euro basket. And the carryover into the season was great. You know, he was in tremendous shape. You know, played really well. I don't know. I think, you know, I did lean on some things in the past in San Antonio days

with Manu and Tony and these guys playing in all the European or all the competitions that they played in. And it felt like at some point they all kind of hit a little wall in the middle of season and needed a little breaker reset. And, you know, with the injuries this year, it was hard for us to afford that opportunity for Alpahue to take a game here or there, you know, once Stephen goes out and all that. And so I think the carryover is great. You start the season really great in a great spot, very confident and aggressive. And then you might have hit a little bit of a wall in the middle, which the guys do in general around All-Star break.

And you can see some things physically starting to add up, you know, some getting nicked up here and there. But I love how he bounced back and finished as well. And so I think it's always a good thing to continue to play and be in different roles. And like I said, it was a little non-it-it-was a non-deniable how good he came into the season. And they had great carryover from that. You answer for me. Right. We'll take two more.

Right. Coach, there's a lot of outside noise about the vibes and the chemistry, about your team, about the locker room, and especially post-all-Star break. Could you just take us into the locker room and tell us, you know, know how your players vibe and have the type of chemistry that they have with each other. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, for us, it's almost a little bit laughable when you hear things because you're like, where the hell of this comes from? And it's the opposite of what we deal with on a daily basis.

And I think that be echoed by the players if you ask them, you know, day-to-day man-to-man. And so they all make jokes about and laugh about the vibe and all that. And I think you saw that throughout the season. Things are said, and it's always been the case. I've been in some bad situations, and we're far from that or anything like that. You go through your normal ups and downs of the season, and guys are frustrated with losing at times games we shouldn't lose or whatever the situation may be.

But, yeah, like I said, we almost turn a blind eye to it and make a joke out of it more than anything because these reports come out and you're like, where to come from, where they're talking about the opposite of it. what we're feeling. So don't put much stock into it, honestly, and I don't think the guys do either. Yeah, I want to add to that one. One thing I did note, which I thought was really funny, is none of you in this room wrote about that. So the people who were around the team weren't the ones writing it. So I did find that really interesting, that the people whose faces I see

every day, they didn't write that. So those of you who aren't here today, you can note that. for the both of you. Obviously the cohesion between you, yourself, and ownership has been pretty strong over the last two, three years. How is it, or how are those conversations like when you guys don't see eye to eye and how do you guys find a resolution? The premise of your

question, I don't think happens very often. So, I mean, I think the reason it works well, I'm not trying to speak for you. The reason it works well for me is because when I look at what's happening on the practice court or the game court or what or the locker room or whatever and then i go to talk to

them we see the same thing so like and then i think it just becomes brainstorming how to fix it or how to enhance it or whatever the case is but um i don't remember a whole i don't remember like i don't remember anything of significance where we actually did disagree so when that happens i'll get back to you I'd say the same. I mean, it's pretty much aligned on everything. And, you know, as far as roster and personnel, people that we've targeted and liked, it's been very similar. It's not like he's forced me to take a guy that I didn't think meshed with, excuse me, mesh with what we're doing. And so that's what is, good alignment.