The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Is Westbrook Ready, Mike D'Antoni Rumor & Matt's Hurricane Coverage

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. Yeah. 12-1-1 in H-town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 790, where we, like the weather channel, are tracking Laura.

Storm. Surge 790. Are we going full wall-to-wall coverage, Matt? No, but our sister station is starting at 7 o'clock. Okay. With your buddy. Who's my buddy? Me. Brandon? Adam? Adam? Wexler? Adam?

Adam? Sean Salisbury? The Wexler Clinton had worked so many hours this week that they may be climbing overtime. Is it too much overtime for them? They need to speak to their union rep? Yeah. So, yeah. I did it once. Yes. Learned a lot from it.

Yes. hoping never to do it again? Well, at least for 24 hours, I'm going to be doing it because we, our sister station, by the way, it's the Matt Thomas show, Matt Ross and Brenner with you. 740 is one of our sister stations. We're under the I-Heart media umbrella. And we have a significant signal strength. 740 covers 40% of Texas, gets into Mexico and really does hug the coastline.

I mean, I think I can hear KTRH, Claire's a bell in Lake Charles. Beaumont, Orange, probably as farther south as like Corpus Christi, right? I don't go down there very often. But it's that our strongest part of our signal is in the areas that, unfortunately, especially to the east of us, are going to be directly affected by the Laura, which is supposed to arrive. So as a service to our friends to the east of us, and could also include Galveston as well, depending on what's going on with the storm surges or whatnot, we're going to go and do hurricane coverage at 7 o'clock tonight. So it'll be Corey and myself to do that.

I've forgotten Corey's name already. Corey Olson. Matt's too big time. He can't keep track of the little guys. Big Seattle sports fan. He loves his Seahawks. He loves his Mariners. I love his mariners because the Astros beat the hell out of him on a regular basis.

So you're going to break down where Taiwan Walker is going to get traded with Corey Olson tonight about midnight. Well, if we get delirious, yes, because we're going to go from 7 to 4 a.m. I'm going to have to stop calling. you the voice of Houston sports and just call you the voice of Houston. So I'm going to hang with you until 2 o'clock. I think you and Brendan can handle the final hour while I go take a nap. Okay. I got to get up at 5.

I want to get up at 535-ish to watch the Rockets, at least the first half. Okay, so you're going to pop an ambie at one, and then you're going to start feeling it at the by the end of the show. Maybe. You're going to light us up in the last segment and then just walk out of here. Like, how many cups of coffee will I consume between in the next, let's see, 12, 16 hours? It's going to be a lot, Matt. But you know what?

This is what you're getting the business for to help people out. And you know what? There could be some massive power outages. And the number one thing, it's funny. Here we are in 2020. And we have the greatest technology, satellite coverage, all different ways of information. But when the power is out, sports RV, those batteries in your radio always come through for you. Yes.

Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. So we're going to do at least one. night of coverage. I think that's all we'll probably need. It feels like to me Laura is going to come in here, or at least come into Southeast Texas in southwest Louisiana, beat the hell out of it and then move up to the Midwest where they're going to destroy a lot of things up there too. I mean, this thing is going to be way uglier in terms of winds and initial push than Harvey did. Problem with Harvey was, Harvey came over our area and didn't want to leave and didn't leave and

caused the massive flooding. It was funny when I was doing the Harvey coverage, I was on air when it hits Corpus Christi and then moved up the upper Texas coastline. And so it's sobering how people would call you and say, oh, my God, what are we supposed to do now? Or, oh, it's here. And there'll be some people that will call me tonight, you know, maybe 1.32 o'clock in a morning from that quadrant of the area. He'll say, yeah, here we are. And we're in Port Arthur. It's Head or it's Beaumont or it's a beam pass or it's like, I mean, I really feel bad for Lake Charles.

I've been watching Weather Channel a lot to kind of get a feel of this. and I'm sure a lot of you were doing the same thing. Rossi, we love Lake Charles. I do. We go, we've been, again, you and I've gone probably 10 times over the years. I've gone probably 30 or 40 since, you know, Lake Charles became a gambling destination. We used to go back back in the day when it was just the Isle Capri, and there was something else that was there, too. There is the Kashadas down in Kinder.

Kinder, that's about an hour from there. But I'm talking about there used to be two boats in Lake Charles. Oh, I don't know that. And in fact, we used to go to, when I was in my 20s, I would go, and they would actually have to take you out on the lake to go gamble. Yes, you'd have to go out of the boat. Right. You don't do that anymore now. Luckily.

And then you would sometimes if you were doing really poorly, you'd get back in the car and play Rolling Stones Start Me Up and then go back over there, over the bridge again to start out. Yeah. It was awful. We always thought putting Rolling Stones start me up over the Lake Charles Bridge was always a positive. And it never turned out that way. That's a nice jam. Get the juice is flowing. So then LaBerge shows up.

We're like, we got to go check out this super fancy hotel. And we did. Yes. And then I lost my ass there too. It was more of a Vegas-like experience with LaBerge. And then Tillman's like, well, LaBerge is doing so well. I'm going to build me a golden nugget. Yes.

And we've gone there and done quite well. Now, last time not so much, but generally speaking, it's okay. So it is, I mean, I'm going to assume that anybody that likes to gamble listens our show has been at least like Charles one time. And it's funny, every time people go to, of Destin, the number one thing I hear of is, man, we should have pulled off for a few minutes. Or, hey, I did pull off for a few minutes. And that a few minutes became four and a half hours. Just one spin of the roulette wheel and head out.

Yeah. You think you're going to do that? But then three and a half hours later, your kids and your wife are still in the car. And they're like, can we please leave? And you're getting shaken down at casino credit. It's just a whole scene. Yeah, it's all right. So we will keep it to largely sports on the show today.

But, you know, frankly, a lot of us are concerned about our friends of the East. And I don't think anybody's kidding around. I think Lake Charles could potentially be in for something that would be a Uber destruction. Larry and Stafford said it was Harris Casino Boats. Is that accurate? Yeah. Okay. That sounds right.

Thanks, Larry. It's before my time. Yeah. I mean, we don't, we, if you like to gamble, like I'm going to assume some of you do, we need Lake Charles to, we need a small prayer for them today because it could destroy the city. And the people there that live there. Of course. It's not just the casinos.

But that's what I'm talking. Yeah. I mean, I've got a... And the, uh, Louis, what is the, what is the college out there? McNee State. Atney State, yes. And all those nice young co-eds, hopefully they're okay. I, I've never, I've never walked or driven the McNee State campus, but I'm sure it's probably up there.

Well, I'm sure, I figure that's where they get all the waitresses from at the Golden Nugget and LaBairge, and they're very nice. Yes. And then some of the heavier set women, you like, uh, they're in their mid-50s. This is a false narrative. I was there. I saw it. I want the only. only one there and saw it. Michael Conner bang me up. Just because I'm drunk and talking to

everyone doesn't mean I'm hitting on them, Matt. Yeah, but you wanted to buy them drinks at the bar. Michael Conner and I saw that. You know how I know that's not true? Because I don't buy nobody drinks. All right. That's a, that's a strict policy on my part. Please allow me to embella stories. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. All right. So on the show today, we can spend a little bit of time on the double hudder yesterday. Game one was really nice, fun, interesting. Christian Javier doing his thing. Calpocker doing his thing. And then game two was the Joe Biazini experience. I don't think Joe B. Eugenie is a bad human being.

He's not funny. But I've never met a person who wasn't funny that was a bad person. You know what I'm saying? If you're an a hole, you don't try to be funny. You just either you're a mean, spirited person or you're just a guy that tries really hard to be funny and it just falls flat. Joe B. Geney does not come across to me as a person that is a bad human being, he just sucks

as a major league pitcher. And he's a terrible joke teller. And it takes an hour and I have to get a joke out. And it's never funny. And you have to overthink what he has to say. So what I did yesterday was on Twitter to give him some positive vibes is he and I think he was a part of two consecutive endings where the bases were loaded. The first time around, he had the base load.

And I said, I will laugh at all Joe Beijini's jokes if he gets out of this mess. And guess what he didn't sports rave? He got out of the mess. Okay, so now you have to laugh at all his jokes. The next inning, he loaded the bases up again, and I said all bets are off. I rescind my offer. And he gave a bunch of runs, and his ERA is almost 21. 0.70, 20.77.

He's all right. I said almost. I didn't give him the full 21. It's almost. Chastas Young's is a robust 27.0. Everybody that pitch you, Brandon Bilac was terrible for the second consecutive game. Walk, couldn't even get out of the first inning. Yeah, he was.

He was on, he was pitching on short rest because he only threw like 27 pitches in his first start. And he only got through 35 pitches in this one. Well, it would have been his end of throw anyway. It was a light bullpen session for him. Well, it was a bullpen. He was throwing, he was throwing bullpen pus is what he was throwing. Batting practice. Different kind of BP.

Yeah. So that's bad. And it's not good. So it makes you think what are the Astros going to do if they're going to do anything? They're going to finish second in the America League West, at least. Just about guaranteed, yes. It's just, I mean, it would be the 99.99%. Yeah, those are what their playoff odds are, literally, from baseball outfits.

It's like 99.9%. So, because the Rangers suck and they got beat up by the A's and the A's gained a half game on the strode. Bad bottom of the AOS is terrible. And that's who the Astros are going to be playing. Well, I mean, thank God the Astros are in the American League West because they wouldn't be in the playoffs if they were playing any other division. Yeah, Central's kind of tough. East isn't that great. All right.

So we're going to get to some of that today. we have some interesting rocket news to discuss next. And I'm not trying to oversell it. This would be the term interesting, right? I agree. I'm going to go with that. 713-212-5-790. If you are east of, say, Baytown and want to give us an updin in your life,

let us know what you're doing and how you're preparing for Laura to reach. The Houston, I'd say the Southeast Texas Quadrant, Southwest Louisiana, about 12 1 o'clock this morning. morning. 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show. We take you to 3 o'clock today on Sports Talk 790. 12-17. It is a Matt Thomas show.

Good afternoon, Houston, Texas. Thoughts and prayers to everybody east of us. The winds are going to probably be the thing that we're going to be worried about around here. I think that is the biggest concern here in Houston. Yeah. Is that the wind, and then, of course, subsequently knocking out power, possibly for a long time. That's what the problem with Ike was. Yeah.

Was that it was a windstorm and it knocked out power for two weeks for some people. Do you follow Eric Berger on Twitter or at least his time of year? Okay. No, I don't follow him, but I see all of his tweets. Yeah, people tend to retweet. Yeah, somebody's retweeting maybe five seconds. So I follow him by association, basically. So he is very non-TV guy.

He's broken off from the norm, but he follows and knows his stuff. And he, even in his, it'll say, it says hype-free forecast and weather information. So he's not going to sensationalize things. He's not going to be out there saying this is going to be the worst storm ever and all that if it's not true. Yeah. All right. So we're going to get through the rockets up in a second minute. I was just blown away, literally, blown away by a tweet that he put out an hour ago.

Listen to this. He says, here's some real talk. If a 145 mile per hour Laura were to make landfall in Freeport or San Luis pass, Houston, as we know, it would pretty much be gone. surge inundating Galveston Bay energy assets, wind damage across the entire city, power outages for weeks to months. We are unprepared. Now, the forecast is not shown. She's at 1.23, I think.

Yeah. So not 145. But he's saying it could happen sometime down the road. Apparently our, I don't look, I don't know a whole lot about this, but apparently our energy infrastructure is not prepared for a very high wind storm that's possible. and if it did come, we would just be wiped out for a very long time. And the reason why I read that to you is because that's not Eric Berger's modus operandi. That's not how he operates. He's not that storm coming, get away. You know, he's very plain spoken, very matter of fact,

very, here's what I've learned and here's what I've noticed, that kind of thing. So that's why it blew me away to say, if Eric Berger's dropping this on us, like we don't realize how insanely lucky we are, this. storm is going as far east as it is. And that if it was to turn at any point further northwest, he's saying we could be in a very, very, very, very situation. Hope you got a lot of candles

and books, Matt. Books? Yeah, there's these paper things you open up and they can transport you to another world. What's the last book you read? I'm reading a book right now. Are you really? It's called an Army at Dawn. It's about the American invasion of North Africa

in World War II. Huh. It's a pretty good book. Brandon, what are you reading? I actually, I don't, so I don't read physical books, which would kind of screw me over it, but I listen on Audible. That doesn't count. Now, if you said, if you had your audio books count, I think. You think so?

It's like a podcast. I mean, you're getting the information. But I think it takes a, I think it takes a physical effort to read a book on a Kindle or a hard copy or whatever. Again, either way, I would be out of luck if I lost power for weeks. Yeah, I get you. I'm same way. I spend so many hours on the internet that I don't read books. I'm trying to think of the last book I read.

Every time I feel like I ask that question, it comes back to Tori Spelling's book. And I'm embarrassed by that and frankly ashamed. Okay. But there's got to be something I've read since then. I certainly hope there is. But my last 10 books... Well, you read some of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's book, right? Oh, that's right.

Because you were supposed to have an event and then he screwed you over. I was going to make $5,000 introducing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. and that didn't work out. So that's exactly right. So part of Karim's book, and then I just said, I'm done with that. I read Notorious with Tori Spelling,

Jerry Springer's Ringmaster book. I did read Jose Kinsekos steroid book, and that was a very fast read because it was written in the fifth grade level. And that's a pretty easy read. Oh, really? But nothing like, nothing Tom Clancy asking anything like that.

He's dead. Yeah, I don't like reading fiction. I like reading nonfiction. Okay. I figure if I'm going to waste my time, reading. I might not waste my time, but you know, I'm going to spend my time reading. I'm going to spend my time reading. I might as well read something that actually happened. All right. Game, oh, by the way, at 150 today, we need to do the lineups before I get out of here. Okay.

Because so far when I've done the lineups for the Rockets and Thunder, they're 2 and O. Is that right? Because today's a home game. That's true. Yeah, you can't do them for road games. No, because I'm not the pay announcer for road games. So I'm 2 and O in PA for home games this year. Yeah, that's true. Doing the lineups here on 790. So we'll We'll do them again today at $150 before I get out of here. You know, Matt, they say the series doesn't start until someone wins on the other team's floor. So hopefully the series doesn't start tonight. Do you notice which court they're on?

No. Like there's two different ones. They look the same to me, right? Yeah, one is the Advent, something or other, and then one's just the arena? Arena and a field house. Yeah, I can't. I don't know. But they're all looking at the same.

Yeah. They started putting ads on the court. Did they just, have they been doing this whole time and I didn't notice or is that recent? No, they've done it for all of them. Okay. I guess I didn't notice it early on. your home game, you get to put a couple of your sponsors on there. Like, Oklahoma City would have like Kentucky Fried Chicken on there.

I saw the Trailblazers had Moda. Yeah. Rockets have had, I want to say Tota on theirs. So, you know, you got a product fulfillment. These people are paying major dollars and they can't play these games in these arenas. So you've got to figure out somebody to do it. So, yeah. I don't think they superimpose them or they give them these little placards they just throw on there.

Yeah, I would imagine it's digital. Because that's what they're doing. Like AT&T does that on the side. as Methodist and then put it on the hill and all that type of stuff. Got to make that extra cache, man. Yeah, boy, the Astros aren't being, AT&T's not being sneaky, but those astroliners, are they? All right.

To the good news of the day, I think it is. Russell Westbrook has been upgraded to questionable for game number five tonight. Interesting. It will be a quote-unquote game time decision. And I really do believe that. I don't think the rockets are being coy. Here's my thought on this. Russ is so damn antsy, Ross, and he has seen his basketball team drop two basketball games in a row,

in which at the very worst, they should have won one. They very easily could have won both that I think he's going, maybe me at 80% is better than me at 0% and not playing. I just don't want him to get out there, risk further injury, do something that's going to potentially knock him out of a second round series. Against the Lakers. I think the Lakers finish it off tonight with Portland. That is the worry with any of these when you have the, what you would call the soft tissue, the muscle injuries is re-injuring.

Hamstring, calf, quad. They just don't take a week to fix. They take, you know, months, essentially. Yeah, you're worried about just re-injuring them. And it's what you can afford to play with and how much pain you can take where you're going. I think this is about him being antsy. I think he's going, you know what, I'm making a boatload of money. My guy James isn't playing a lot of minutes.

he needs me out there. The team needs me out there. And I appreciate that. So I'll be doing, Matt, I have Rockets Launchpad at 430. I'll be doing the lineups probably about 452, 3 or so. So am I putting Russell Westbrook? So Clayton and Waxler are working an hour and a half today? Yeah.

They ought to be frankly ashamed. And you're doing what, Matt? I'm doing two hours with you and then nine tonight. And they're doing zero. What a life. Now how many hours they work yesterday? that would be zero. I had to do the unnamed bridge,

doubleheader bridge show for some reason. In their time slot. Yes. I was like, okay, well, you know, it's hey,

it is what it is. I was happy to do it. They ought to be ashamed. It's just embarrassing. It is. Okay, so you're asking me whether or not he plays. In my history of watching and seeing injury reports in the NBA,

if there was, I think by doing this today, moving him to questionable means he's playing tonight. I would have to guess the same as well. I think you're right. And I'm worried about it. I'm nervous. I'm very gun-shy about what we're going to see.

Do you say gun-shy anymore? You can say gun-shy-right? I think so. Well, you know. Criss-cross applesauce. He can't say anything. They changed the gun emoji to a water gun because it was offensive. Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic, but a little leery.

I just don't want him re-injuring himself. costing him potential the rest of this series. And really at this point, when you have a quad like this late in the year, any day could be too much pain for him. You know what I'm saying? So maybe maybe that's what they're thinking. At some point, it might hurt again.

He might strain it again. He might have to miss five, six, seven games. If they need you now and you can go at 80%, go try it. I wish they would have just won. If they had won game three. This would be an other factor. Game three was in their hands.

They're up five with a minute to go. Well, when you open up the third quarter in game four, making eight consecutive threes. Yeah, you get up 15. And you get up 15. And not that 15 point leads can evaporate in the NBA. It is the NBA. But you would have thought you would have been able to step on their throats and finish them all.

And then that damn Dennis Schroeder just doing his thing for bad turnovers, bad defensive breakdowns and bad shot selection. Yep. Yeah. So I think that's, and look, it appears to me that Russ just can't sit still. And that's good. It's alpha dog. Hey, he's been jumping up and down.

off the bench and rooting everybody on and talking to the referees and stuff like that. And fighting with Stephen Adams too. That's right. His boy. Stephen Adams. They were tight. Stephen Adams adores Russell Westbrook. I don't know Stephen Adams. I think I would like to have beers with Stephen Adams. I would love to hang out with Stephen Adams. I can't hate the guy. He would take us to an international bar that would have new. He would ask for the New Zealand's top, top beers and food. And they'd walk in and go, what's up, Steve Biden? Or whatever, they would say mate. And he would buy. And he'd be, he'd take.

care of the tab for us. He wouldn't want us, he wouldn't make us dress up in any sort of fancy clothes. He'd want us to be in jeans, you know, t-shirt, whatever. He wants us to be as comfortable as possible, yeah. Because Chris Paul bought him a suit. And it was like, why are you wearing a suit, Stephen Adams? You come across the guy that we like to wear cut off jeans. Yeah, I used to hate Stephen Adams when it was young Stephen Adams and he looked like a caveman. Now he's just cool. I think he's, I think, I can't, yeah, I still like Chris Paul too, so I don't really hate the Thunder. I mean, this is a team. Imagine this. Go out and have pops with Tyson Chandler, Stephen Adams, Chris Paul, and you guys just talking, or actually, you wouldn't say it were.

You just listen to their stories. It would be a foot shorter than all of them, too, except for Chris Paul. And extraordinarily cheap. I'm actually an inch taller than Chris Paul. Is that right? Oh, yeah, I guess what's he listed at? He's listed at six feet. I'm six one.

Yeah, he's going to take you off the dribble, though, Matt. Yeah, and he's going to kill me with mid-range. Well, I'll be out there shooting air balls from three because I'm under the Mike Dan Tony way. Speaking of Mike Dan Tony, I hate NBA rumors. We'll discuss them next. 1228. Matt Thomas Show 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Tell your smart device.

Play Sports Talk 790 on I-Hard Radio. Pleasuring Houston earholes. Your hoops. The Houston Rockets. Your hits. And the Astros. And your honest opinions. All the chickens play.

All in for Houston all day. This is Sports Talk 790. All right, so I hate NBA rumors. Actually, I love them. I just don't like them when it involves somebody that I like. Does that make sense? I'm glad you said that because I was just about to call you out. No, no, I live for NBA rumors.

Just not involving people that I actually care about. Mike Dentonnie is one of my favorite people I've ever dealt with in all my years of sports. Love Mike, great coach, going to the Hall of Fame Guarantee. Bust my balls constantly. I don't mind it because I bust his. Wonderful. And I have that relationship with him that I can do that. And look, I listened to your call-in show today when everyone's like, you know,

coached Antonio's causing us this game. I was like, I'm trying to, to be honest, like, you guys never called one game one and two when they were winning and you said, man, coached Antonio coach his ass off. So I take those with very much a grain of salt. Yes. And as I've said before, the game of basketball is more of a player's game than any of sport or there. I think hands down. I go baseball first,

but basketball is there too. I'm talking about not necessarily, let me rephrase. If the stars like you, you're going to keep your job. If they don't like you, they're going to fire, you're going to get fired a lot faster than a majorly manager. I don't think Rossi,

people loved Jim Leland or Bobby Cox. And if a player went to those different teams, because old school guys can survive, today in Major League Baseball. Buck Shawalter. You know, those kind of group. Dusty Baker for that matter.

I'll give you one. Brett Brown just fired by the Sixers. They were a Quay-Lennard fallaway shot from advancing in the playoffs and possibly going to the NBA finals after that. And then this year, you're missing Ben Simmons and he gets fired. It's not because he's not a good coach. I think it's because Joel M. B. doesn't like him. Yeah. Yeah. He's a really good coach. He's super smart. I've never seen a sport in the last.

last 20 years that has allowed the players to dictate things more than the NBA. So that's where I was going with on that. Yeah, I agree with that. So today, Nate McMillan at about 930 gets fired from Indiana. Nate's a good basketball coach. It is what it is. But they got swept, I think, for the second straight year in the playoffs. Indiana's a tough spot.

You would think Indiana, you know, great basketball, high school, college. It's not an NBA destination. It's going to be very difficult for them to go. get people to stay there long-term for agency. Signed Paul George. Yeah. I mean, think about it. When you think of Mr. Pacer, it's Reggie Miller.

Yes. There's not a lot after that. There are some great players that have played for the Pacers. Yeah. But it's not because they said, man, I was in L.A. for the Lakers for five years and I just want to go play in Indiana. Jermaine O'Neill, but he was drafted there, right? Yeah. I mean, Rick Smith.

They have to go homegrown. The dunking Dutchman. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yes. They have to go homegrown. It's not a destination place. And frankly, there's probably only about five or six NBA destination places at all.

If that. So, the first thing that I see from Woge after he announces that Nate McMillan has been fired is that the Indiana Pacers plan on pursuing Mike Dantone. Who, by the way, is in the last year of his contract with the Rockets. and I told you this before many months ago. Mike Dan Tony is going to coach in the NBA next season. As long as he wants to. As long as he wants to. He's 69.

He has shown no signs of wanting to quit. I think he has basically said I'd like to coach three or four more years, depending on the situation. Hell, Pop 71. And I don't think there's any signs immediately at this point that he is going to go and that he's going to retire. In fact, there were rumors we talked about on the show yesterday that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant would like him to come coach the Brooklyn Nets. So the end game on this is, is that Mike Dantone, unless he just said, you know what, I'm done, which I don't believe he's going to do. He wants to coach the NBA next year. And here's the thing, Sports Harvey, he's going to have a variety of options to go to.

New Orleans job is open. Indiana's job is open. The rocket certainly would be in conversation. I'm not completely sure that maybe one or two other jobs might open up here and the next. Because in the NBA, it feels like there's four or five jobs. jobs every single year. And I think the number one name may not be Mike Dantonia. It might be Tyron Loo, but it's 1A or two is Mike Dantone.

And it took Woge, who's very well connected, agents particularly, player agents, coaches agents, to say, you know, there's a coach out there that may, you know, Indiana wants to change its style. They got some talent there. about Miles Turner, right? Yeah, Miles Turner, DeMontas a bonus is a good piece. Victor LaDipo.

I don't know if you're a big Malcolm Brogden fan, but he's decent. I mean, it's not a terrible franchise. But they probably could use a little infusion of excitement and that kind of thing that. So Mike has been brought up as a potential name there. Bulls also vacant and the 76ers, as I mentioned, vacant. So that's already.

And then the Nets, I think Jacques Vaughn is interim, right? He's not full. Five jobs right there. You mean the time that Mike Dan Tony's on at least one of the five jobs? He's at 100% going to get at least one. 100% going to get it. So I'm being purely selfish when I tell you this. I don't want Mike Dan Tony to leave because someone's going to scoop Mike Dan Tony up. And for people that will call and say, well, you know, he hasn't done Jack Squad or he hasn't got that team to the NBA finals, then why would his name be brought up immediately Ross in so many different options

for other spots if people run the NBA didn't respect his coaching document? They do. They absolutely. do. I agree. And I would wish him the best. I want him back here in Houston. I want him to be the coach. I know that a lot of people are upset and they want Mike De Antoney to work the mid-range and they think he doesn't make adjustments and that's not true. If you say those things, you're just not paying attention or watching on the court. And I think he's a really good coach. I think he fits the system. I think he's bought into what Darry is doing. And you know, like the Texans word, right, Matt, alignment. There's a lot of alignment between Darry, Mike De Antone. and then James Hardin and Russell Westbrook. They all respect each other and they all are in the same, had the same tunnel vision of the same way that they want to succeed. And I think that's hugely important in an NBA organization. So I would absolutely want him back. And here's the question.

Does James, because I don't know James whole enough to answer this question, does James and Russ go to Daryl and go to Tillman and say, we want, this is our guy. Don't you think those two guys going to, the general manager and the owner of the basketball team would be able to be persuasive enough to say, we know what he's worth, we've got this many years of us being still in our prime,

we want him as our coach. Wouldn't that solve it pretty quickly? I would think so. Or do NBA players, forgetting it whether it's James or Russ, at the end of the day, as long as they're taking care of in the way they want their team being run,

they at the end of they don't particularly care who the head coach is. I think they care. I think Mike Danton and Hardin and everybody gets along, and I think that is important. And I think the wild card to us is, tell him, how much we've seen him as an owner, and we've seen him obviously willing to spend money and things like that. But we haven't seen him throughout the years and years of how is he going to react from lack of success or not getting where you want to go. Is he going to start, is he going to be rash and change everything up? Or is he going to be a guy who stays the course? We don't really know because we haven't seen him own the team long term.

So that's really where the question comes in is how Tillman's going to feel about it. It's his team. He gets to make the decision. And he's not made a major decision in terms of personnel since he's been here. And a lot of that is good because most teams, when they hire owner, when they get new owners, the first thing they want to do is they want to completely clean up the front office of coaching staff. Correct. So if I'm using that is, if I'm using Russ and James can control this,

my argument would then been had they done it yet, will they going to do it? And if they haven't done it yet, why haven't they done that? Don't you think one phone call from James to tell them and say, look, it's on us. We like Mike.

He gives us what we need. Now, just because you have a good boss doesn't mean that his boss gets to keep you. Like we love our bosses here at IHeartRadio, right? Of course. We have Eddie, we've got Mark, and we got Brian, We like them. They treat us well.

But if the people above them don't like their work, I can't go above those people and say, please keep the three guys I just mentioned and then be guaranteed that because Matt Thomas likes those three guys, those three guys are going to keep their job. Well, James Hardin's more important to the Rockets than Matt Thomas says to 7-9, unfortunately. So let me take myself out of it.

What if Michael Barry went to... Oh, now they would listen to Michael Barry, I think. Rod Ryan would have zero. problem. Yeah, I think they have a little more. Sorry, Matt, nothing against you. I think Michael Berry has a little more pull than you do. So Rod Ryan has the pull.

Danad has the pull from 99.1. Wex and Clinton would have the power if they worked. So since they don't, they don't have that kind of pull. Yes. But, yeah, I don't think our company and the rockets are in the same way. No. Those two guys can go in there and say, look. It's similar in that we are the product.

and the players are the product. But James Hardin makes $40 million a year. He's doing a little bit better than us. Yeah. Well, and forget about money. It's just he's the alpha dog. He is the face of the franchise. Right.

Face the franchise goes to the boss and says, hey, don't mess up how we're running our business. We'll be fine. All right. 1243, sports talk 790. When I tell you that Mike Dan Tony is going to be courted by several basketball teams, you have an opinion one way or the other on it? And was there ever a time that Joe Biazini's,

ever told a funny joke. If it is, don't recite it to us us and we don't believe you. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. There is other NBA news that potentially could be quite disturbing to the league. You just knocked us. What are you doing back over there?

Would you control yourself for five seconds? We'll see. You know, let me get you a course light. I'll call me down. Yeah. Cool, crisp, refreshing. not cool, cold, refreshing course light. Now, if you're at home because the kids are off of school today and tomorrow like mine are, and you're all just hanging in the house, it's kind of waiting for the storm to ride out one way or the other. Getting a cold course light's going to make sure everything goes better for the day. Cooking, relaxing, watching a movie, not driving.

I don't want you driving and drink in a course light. That is unacceptable. But everything else, as long as you're at the house chilling, is going to go better with the cold refreshing taste of course. And when the mountains turn blue on your canter bottle, you know it's at its peak refreshment. So as you enjoy the final days of summer before we get to fall, do it with a Corrie's light. Stop by our local liquor store, grocery store today and tell them you want the refreshing, clean, crisp taste of Corse Light made to chill. Darrell Mori here.

Let's go Rockets. This is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. All right. Hurricane Advisory just coming in number 20. 7a from the National Hurricane Center. Air Force Hurricane Hunter Aircraft reports Laura has become an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane. Oh, catastrophic storm surge. Extreme winds.

Flash flooding expected along the Northwest Gulf Coast tonight. Oh, category four? Just stop. Can 2020 just stop? How many categories are there? I think there's five. I think. By the way, when you were a kid and you were watching like, and Brandon, you can jump on this because you're, you know, you're just in your young teens right now, when you were watching your favorite cartoons, do you ever think to yourself, you know what I'm going to do for a living?

I'm going to jump on a plane and go chase hurricanes. I'm going to go see what exactly what it's like to be in the middle of a storm that has 140 mile per hour winds. It's a category. Yeah, it goes up to five categories. The most recent category four was. Ike. Harvey. Well, really?

Harvey got up to four-hand. And it just sat there. Yeah. Who, what kind of person is Hurricane flight guy? Bold. Reckless. When there is a, like, I saw myself when there's turbulence on a plane. Yes.

You and Mike Trout. Yes, he talked about that. He's like, I'm not flying in this. Yeah, Mike Trout's apparently driving home from the series. That, yes, the whole double-headed thing was brilliant, the Mike Trot rule. He must have gone. on a Major League Baseball and said, we ain't sticking around for this. We're going to play a doubleheader today and then we're going to get our asses out of here.

But could you imagine if you don't like turbulence on a plane, which some people don't mind it. They don't think it's no big deal, which it really isn't. I mean, no one's ever died of turbulence. I would say, unless it's really bad, I'm usually pretty fine. On a scale of one to 10, if I have a couple of drinks on a plane, which sometimes I do, I'm at about a 3 and a 1⁄2. Okay. If I have no drinks, I am a full flight 10.

Really? It's scared out of my mind. One bump and I am a... 10 means. like you're screaming up and down the aisles. Okay, that's Craig Ackerman. Let me drop that down to age. Dang, why you got to out Craig like that, man?

No, I was an outing. I think he'd be the first one to tell you this. You didn't say, Matt, don't tell the world that I'm afraid he can on the planes, which I just did. You watch a Obama too many times or something. All right. So I would say eight and a half nine with no alcohol, three and a half four with alcohol. Because it just calms you down.

Alcohol can just can be a natural relaxant. Yes, as long as you don't drink too much. Or maybe if you drink too much. It's a depressant, yes. Yeah. I call it relaxing. All right. So what kind of, who is national hurricane hunter aircraft guy?

It's like storm, like a storm chasers in Oklahoma, right? Like in Twister? There's a difference. Like Helen Hunt? There is a difference. You're in a car, you can turn around real fast. If you go in the middle of a hurricane, it's going to take you a half hour to get out of it. Yeah, but that tornado can start heading for you straight for you in a second.

Maybe they're one of the same. Maybe they're the same people. But I feel like it's a little more safe because at least you can control the direction of which you turn. If you're in an aircraft, now granted, you probably have clearance because there's no airplanes anywhere around you because no, I'd tell you, Delta Flight 1400 is anywhere near the hurricane.

Can you fly over, Laura? No, you can't. How high does the hurricane go? You can't fly into it. Is it in the mesosphere? No one is flying in the golf right now. I'm going to go look at flightradar.com. I can guarantee you there's not one day.

damn plane within three hours, within 500 miles of this, of this hurricane. Are they, are they strato cumulus? What type of, what type of clouds are the hurricane clouds? I mean, if you want to fly above it, that'd be one thing, but what are we talking about, flying 48,000 feet above sea level to get rid of it? I have to know it. How high does a hurricane go? Let me Google this. I'm going to look right now at the Baton Rouge airport and see if anybody's flying over Baton Rouge. Hurricanes can be over 50,000 feet high. Yeah, that's a hard pass.

there's nobody in the golf flying right now. Yeah, I'm looking at, I'm looking at flight radar.com. There is not a single plane out in the ocean. Look at that. I told you, right. See, there's not a Gulf Mexico. I didn't figure there would be, Matthew. Except there's that one badass.

It's like, I'm in the middle of this hurricane. Come at me, Biatch. Come on, Laura. Get in here. I think if I got one good look at a hurricane from that close, I'd have to leave Houston. I'd have to move somewhere where hurricanes could never reach. You're going to Kansas, but then you're in tornadoes.

Where are you the safest? There's no safe place. What's going on in Vegas? It's a hurricane. I guess you can get earthquakes. 160 degrees. Yeah, you can get earthquakes from... Yeah, but you can know that that's going to happen.

You just put a little sunscreen on your shanas. There's no great city in America for weather. There's not a city in America that's 73 degrees every single day. Because I could say San Diego, but then you get earthquakes and fires. Earthquakes and mudslides and fires. And fires. So that doesn't count either. There's nowhere to perfect.

clearly not southwest Louisiana because they're about to get one hellacious storm hit the way that eye is going straight from Beaumont now I is the calm in the storm right yeah but I think inside around it is it intensifies I don't know look at they're saying at 4 o'clock

we're going to be on the air still it's going to be right up just north of Lake Charles and then it's going to go up the Midwest it's going to re-complete havoc over that and then it's going to go to the east and create havoc on the east coast they always make the little sea or whatever.

You know what it is? It's a freaking bright of, it's Chucky from Child's Play. It's terrorizing different people. Okay. And then it goes back out in the water and then redeveloped itself as something else.

Hmm. Laura's never going to go away. Laura's going to hit half of the complete Western world of ours. Come on, Laura. Hate you, Laura. Real fast. We should probably get this more time,

but I don't want to give it a whole. Raptors and Celtics are contemplating boycotting game one. They get together and do that? I guess you can hang out in the bubble and get everybody. You can make a little counsel of Raptors and Celtics players. Help me how this helps. It's conversation starting.

Is it now, are they going to be out on the streets? Oh, it'll start a conversation all right. Yeah. I would say, like people who would say that Colin Kaepernick didn't do anything because he took a knee, I would disagree with that. I think he started a lot of conversation and he sparked a lot of people's minds and got them thinking about a lot of this stuff. But that is 100% different than canceling a game.

Why is it 100% different? They're both nonviolent protests. Because Colin Kaepernick took the knee and then got back up, put his helmet on, and went and played football. These guys are saying, we're not going to play a game. You're going to alter a playoff schedule and a series because of this. I do not see any value in doing this. If they want to all wear the same shirt, if they want to stand. I mean, whatever they, that's what you do.

That's how you sell it. How is there more value in not wearing a shirt and not playing a shirt and not playing a shirt and not playing a game. Ross, there's no value not playing the game. No value. All you're going to do is is going to, is anybody going to go, wow, those NBA players are so upset they didn't want to play. No, they're not. They're going to go, these guys are taking a way of completely throwing everything off for this. They can do nothing. The best thing they can do, as I've said from day one, is play basketball, let us see their uniforms, let them see their playing, let their voices be heard by them going away and saying, we'll see in a few.

days isn't going to help the situation. I don't think the Kaepernick situation is anything close to this. And I understand these guys are upset. I'm okay with that. If they want to be upset about the situation, I'm all for that. But to say, we're so mad we're not going to play, the NBA had nothing to do with that. Nothing that could have been done in the bubble the NBA is responsible for. Instead, instead you're going to hurt your own league, your television partners.

and, oh, by the way, those television partners of yours are the ones that pay your salary. So if you want to just give up and not play at all and let the winner of the other series advance to the west to the eastern championship, that's fine. But boycotting for one game does nobody any good. And I'm all for peaceful protests. In fact, I've been applauded much of what has happened out there. But this is patently absurd.

There's nothing, no value in them skipping a game under any circumstances. Well, I will see if they do. do it, first of all, because they've talked about not playing in the bubble at all, and they went ahead and did that because they're going to get money. And I'm okay for them thinking about, hey, we're concerned. What can we do? This is, isn't it? This would logistically throw off the league, and that's not fair to the league, because the

NBA has been more than respectful of their feelings towards all the civil unrest. Well, their thinking is that we are becoming a distraction to the important issues, and then we're going to stop being a distraction, we're not a distraction. That's the way they feel. Well, they're wrong. The world of sports, the world society has not ever said, man, these people in the NBA, they're so inconsidered by playing basketball games. You're allowed to have wrong opinions.

I have wrong opinions, and not the end all, but I guarantee you, greater America, the greater sporting public, for that matter, anybody that doesn't even like sports, is not going, how selfish are these NBA players? to be playing. In fact, my guess is even the non-MBA fans, non-basketball fans that are very civic, very socially opinionated, are probably applauding the things the NBA is doing to try to affect change. Protesting is about upsetting the apple cart in many ways, not necessarily through violence or anything like that. It's about getting notice. It's about getting conversation started.

It's about getting people talking. And this would get people talking. No, it will not. We're talking about it right now. It will be a bad talk. It will not be productive. This Colin Kaepernick's knee served the purpose. This doesn't serve any purpose. This is a big middle finger to Adam Silver, who has been more than forthcoming than Roger Goodell ever wishes he could have been. Way more player-friendly than Rob Manfred has been.

Well, this is the thing. I can't go out there and say, if Jason Tatum says we're not doing enough, I don't want to play basketball. I can't say, no, get out there, Jason Tatum. Go play basketball. Entertain me. I can't say that to him. It's about his feeling he's a human being and can make his own choices.

So it's not up to me to tell him what to do. If he thinks that's what he needs to do, I'm going to say, go ahead and do it. Then he wants to back out of the game. He can do that. But they're collectively coming together and saying, we need to be on a united front to cancel to postpone the game because we think we can force change.

That isn't it. 1259. We start the second hour, the Matt Thomas show next. Here we go. 105 on Sports Talk 790. Laura is an extremely dangerous cat four, says the Weather Channel. Appreciate the breaking news coming in from them. Laura is hauling unsurvivable storm surge.

Whatever that means, it does not sound good. Well, how high could that be? Damaging winds and rain will stretch well inland. I'm tired of seeing giant swirling radar clouds and rain just hurtling towards the Texas coast every year. Can we stop this? I've listened to Coast to Coast for years. Apparently we got the weather control machine.

Well, come on, Donnie T. Isn't every year the worst year coming for hurricanes? When that news story comes out, you know, National Hurricane Service says this could be an extremely active year. This should be no surprise. We were told that the Uber warm waters of the Gulf were going to spike a lot of storms. Yeah. And then the world, the global. Global temperature has gone up basically every year for the last 20 years.

Oh, geez. You know, when I used to read Sports Illustrated as a kid, there was the sign of the apocalypse. Yes. Yes, at the very end. I feel like 2020, every day is it. Today's new sign of the apocalypse. Yeah, basically every year since 1980, the average global temperature has gone up. Mm.

That's unfortunate. Well, then why is it still minus 13 degrees in St. Paul, Minnesota when I was living there? Because I guess it used to be minus 20. so you should be thankful for that telling you the going back you know going there in January when it's like 11 degrees you don't think you say global warming you can suck it

I'm I'm convinced there's global warming issues for sure but you just don't feel it when you're in the middle of the tundra of Minneapolis state of how much when you walk out the last outside the last couple of weeks I don't know this breeze we've got it's going so far it's kind of cool things on a little bit man that's hurricane breeze oh sorry

I'm looking at Laura Lora's is she just wants to destroy America. She's going to Shreveport, Little Rock. She's going a little road trip. Nashville, Louisville. What is she on? Is she a AAA baseball player? What is this?

Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and then she's going back out in the Atlantic. Hmm. It's like the, it's like the Stormen will never, it's like, uh, like how did you beat, how did you eventually bring down King Kong? He jumped off. They, they shot him. off of the Empire State Building, right? You can't shoot this thing down.

Because normally you would think if it goes over land, it's going to break up, it's going to dissipate. Well, didn't Donnie T. want to nuke them? King Kong or the storm? The storm? I don't know. I don't, I'm not watching the convention stuff. That just, me either.

Gross. But, yeah, why is Laura doing this to us? It's weather, man. It's always actually sobering every night. and then to get reminded that we think we're in control of our lives and we really are not. When it comes to Mother Nature, she rules all. So meanwhile, we're trying to get hundreds of thousands of people evacuated.

And all by the way, put your mask on in social distance. Look, there are people in Shreveport. Shreveport is what, 250 miles from Lake Charles, give or take, maybe a little bit less? Yeah. Are the casinos over there going to be okay? I don't know. I mean, I actually want to call Tillman and see how what's going on with Golden Nug. I mean,

they had to build the buildings with hurricane winds in mind, right? You would think. I mean, I think the casinos are all closed now. They board up, but you can't board up every window, right? No, I wouldn't think so.

I mean, that's a, how many stories is it, 25, 30 stories? Somewhere like that, yeah, it's nuts. There's no chance that if they're saying these winds or whether,

there's going to be some sort of damage to those hotels. I'm going to talk about not just the nugget, but La Bear's too. Well, hell for that many city of Lake Charles. What? I mean, I'm really, and you're not supposed to be speechless on the radio, but I'm speechless on this. This is two minutes ago, Laura on the way to becoming a category five? Well, of course. The year of 2020 doesn't give us a cat one or a tropical depression. She's making this the biggest storm we've seen in, you know, a couple of decades here.

How's the rest of your life, everybody? Makes you want to call in and talk positivity. Let's give you positive. Russell Westbrook might play tonight. You can talk hurricane. for nine hours on news radio 740. Why am I wasting my material right now? I should be saying this for 7 o'clock tonight. The L Rushbow fans are not listening to us right now.

Yeah, they listen to El Rushbow. Exactly. So I can take this conversation, put it on KTRH and I'm like, who is, Matt, we recognize your voice, but who's interviewed? Although you've done a lot of KTRH in the last couple years. Yeah, oh, they've gotten angry at me too. They want their Ground Zero radio, coast to coast. Are Mark Levine people going to be mad at me tonight?

Oh, yeah. they're not going to be happy that Mark Levin's not on. All right. The radical left is out of control. Thanks, Mark. Everybody's out of control. That's true. All right, but Russ might play tonight.

See, you know, I'm always trying to turn it back to sports. Because that's what people come here for. We don't come for politics. We're here to talk about Joe B. Eugenie's sucking performance again in the bullpen. Is that what we want to talk about? You said we were going to talk about good news. Oh, okay. So, let's do this.

Kevin Johnson is going to join us in the bubble next. Okay. The former mayor, Sacramento? No, this is Kevin Johnson. He's the official score at Rockets games. He's been working for the NBA the last... How long has he been there? We had him on what, about five or six weeks ago, I think?

I'm trying to think. You might have been in the COVID world. Quarantine. Was that a COVID haze? How long ago is that, Brendan? That's got to be six weeks ago, right? I'm trying to see if I can look back. He's been in the same area in the bubble for that long.

eating the same food watching endless amounts of basketball games. I mean, they've got all the Landry's restaurants, right? You've got enough variety for a couple of months. No, that's not Landry's territory. He doesn't work for the Rockets. He's working for the NBA. But in the bubble, I thought they were catering all the Landry's stuff. I think just the team, the Rockets.

Oh, okay. Now, he can probably, I can see, you've got to ask him, can you Uber Eats? You can get a little Vic and Anthony's? Kind of price you on Uber Eats. That's true. If there's a discount, maybe it was about six weeks ago. So he's been down there about seven weeks. and he's been working a lot of the great games.

I think he worked Clippers Dallas last night. We'll see what we'll see what his schedule is. We'll talk to him about what it's like to be in the bubble, knowing that your house may be in trouble here in Houston. You said you wanted to be down there. You still by that? Yeah. I would still be there.

They call me tomorrow and said, well, the hurricane is hitting your family? Wouldn't you be concerned? It's over in 24. You should kick your feet up and have your Vic and Anthony's. I see. Well, first of all, you have to be quarantined for like five or six days. Oh, okay.

If they call me tomorrow and said, Matt, come this weekend. I couldn't even help them for another week because they keep you in the quarantine for a few days, which means you don't even leave your room. The food gets delivered to your hotel room, and that's it. You just watch a lot of Mori. Yeah, but that's a hundred, you're in a 225 foot square foot room for five or six days? Yeah. You do want to do that?

Get some beer, play the Mori drinking game. Anytime they say a DNA test, anytime the crowd booze, anytime they booze, anytime they boo somebody who comes out. A lot of detector tests, reads that, yeah. There we go. Mori drinking game. We just came up with it. Is there like a Mori bingo card? All right.

We'll find out more about this coming up. We'll talk to Kevin Johnson's with the Rockets with the NBA as one of the official scores. He's a buddy ours. He lives here in Houston. And we'll see what life is like for him now being in the bubble for, I think, seven weeks. 113 on the Matt Thomas show with a message here for Shaw's Jewry at the corner of West Gray and Montrose, where thankfully the stormers are not going to hit us directly. So if you were out about today or tomorrow, or maybe this weekend as things calmed down a little bit, you can get some amazing jewelry, fine diamond jewelry at very, very affordable prices from Shaw's jewelry.

Also, one of the things that they are very proud of is they have the largest selection of pre-owned Rolexes in the city of Houston. If you've never been able to purchase one before, pre-owns where it's at, they look beautiful. They'll do a great job for you at prices that are way, way less than the absolute stores you see out there. So we're talking about diamond earrings, diamond pendants, engagement sets. All sorts of things that your beautiful bride would appreciate because she deserves it because she takes care of your kids. She cleans your house. She cooks your dinner. And she's a good maid for you.

So take care of her by taking her firsthand and seeing the great selection of fine diamond jewelry today at Shaw's. Open Monday through Friday 10 to 7 Saturdays ago, 10 to 6. That Shaw's jewelry at the corner of West Gray in Montreal. This is James Arden. It goes to hard three to shoot. Jacks up a three hits. This is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Are you kidding?

All right. Joining us now is perhaps the third most famous Kevin Johnson we know. One is a former Texans corner. One is a former mayor of Sacramento and Phoenix Sun's Guard. And one is the longtime official scorekeeper for Houston Rockets games. And right now he works on behalf of the NBA. It's our buddy Kevin Johnson and his second time appearance in the show. Kevin, can I call you KJ?

Absolutely. How are you doing that? More importantly, I'm fine. We just have a hurricane here that's east of us. We're going to be fine. How long have you been in the bubble again? How long? I've been here since July the 12th.

July the 12th. Damn. I'll be working, I believe, my 39th or 40th game tonight when I work the Lakers Portland game. Damn. Okay. So last time we talked, you were in the quarantine and you were having food delivered to you. Right. So let's talk about the first time I said you can come.

outside and play. What did you do? Oh, I mean, I think there were a hundred of us released on the same day and we were walking around like ants trying to figure out where we could go, where we couldn't go, what we could do, what we couldn't do. And as time went on, those restrictions changed. First, it opened up a little more, then it got a little more restricted and just different things happened that caused that. Nobody got in any trouble or anything. It's just what we had access to and didn't have access to. But the novelty of living in a result, has worn off. You know, the amenities are still great and everything that we can do is still great, but it's work now. It's become Groundhog Day that you just wake up, you figure out what

shirt you're wearing, what time the bus leaves, and you go to arena and you work a basketball game. So you are working one game per day. Are you working sometimes two or mostly just one? So we worked two per day until the playoffs started. Now we are working one per day. And you are just keeping, you are literally keeping score for anybody that knows there is a When we were in junior high school and high school, there was a book that had your name, number, number of fouls, and points. And every time a basket is scored, even though we are in a computerized world, you still up to physically with a pencil right in a scorebook. That's exactly what you're doing, correct? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Very simple job. Very simple job. It involves with the active rosters and starters and also with the extension of the referees, you know, knowing the rules and during the reviews and flagrant fouls and all the scenarios that come up during a game. just being an extension of them to make sure everybody's making the correct call before we move forward. Okay, so you're doing the games. Now, where are you eating? Do you have multiple options?

Are you going to the same chow hall every single day? We pretty much have the same chow hall every day. And when we first came out of quarantine, all the food was still in boxes and stuff, kind of like first-class airline food. And it wasn't great. It was tolerable, but not great. About two weeks out of quarantine, they changed that. And now it's more of a little bit of a buffet style, almost kind of like a Luby's deal where you can go in and pick from one or two or three different things and it's hot right off of, you know, you get it put on a plate instead of a box and set in a little area. And you still can take your food outside and eat at picnic tables in different areas around the lake or by the pool or do whatever.

You can order pizza, but you have to order it 48 hours in advance. So you have to know that you're going to have pizza two days from now if you want pizza. Who does that? Who orders, who thinks at 7 o'clock at night that, man, I can go for a pizza on 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon? No, so what happens is, you know, T&T and ESPN oftentimes alternate the days they are covering the games. Well, all those roadies and behind the scene people are then off for a day or two, so they will know what their day off is and they will order 20 pizzas and have it at the pool, you know, for that night. So there's a lot of that going on. And then there's some restaurants here that you can go into.

Some people have access to them. Some people do not. But everybody has access to order to go from there. And the food is actually pretty amazing. They got great burgers. They've got catfish. I mean, pastas. It's actually not a bad menu at all.

Now, is that all you can eat or do you have to pay for it? So pay for it, but it's expense. Now, the regular stuff, like I was talking about, Loubies, that's all you can eat. Like, they've got these ice cream bars here that are Mickey Mouse ice cream bars. I've eaten two a day since I've been here. They're addicting. And you can walk down there anytime. So you've gained some weight then, basically.

Actually, I've lost weight because I'm working out every day. I'm running. The gym is right below my room. So, no, I've actually lost the belt size and feeling great. I'm in great shape. So basically, go to the bubble, lose weight, work your ass off, and see the same people every single day for six weeks is your life, essentially. That's right.

That's right. But, man, it's been very interesting. So we talked a little bit about the referees. situation. Yeah. Yeah, so the cool thing about that is, if you think about it, the long tenured guys, the guys that have been in the league 15 plus years, they don't get to work together because they are the lead official, so they're working with all the other guys. So this is the most time they have spent together since it was like their, you know, early years in the league. So them being able to hang around each other and then all the referees never get to be together for an extended period

of time. So that has been the best experience for me is, you know, hearing their stories, how they got involved in the league, how they started refereeing, all the breaks. And then, of course, the road stories of when they're doing high school at college basketball and traveling in cars together and getting stuck in snowstorms and crazy stuff that happens, you know, during games. I mean, those stories are just priceless. So that's been good stuff. Well, I can say this officially because there was a story done about it, but I want you to explain, because I saw us on ESPN. Who is the commissioner of your pickleball league that you guys are involved in?

That is by far is Scott Foster. So there's a pickleball court set up. He set it up like day one outside of quarantine in a little courtyard area that everybody has to walk by every day. And starting at 9 a.m., you will hear that ball in the racket hitting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And there's literally games going on until about 2 in the afternoon when it gets extremely, hot, then everybody will go to the pool. And then at nighttime, again, it'll pick back up, people that aren't working games. And that court got so crowded. They actually went out in the parking lot, and they take off two more courts. And at first, it was extremely competitive.

I mean, it was, if you weren't an A, B player, don't come over here, you know, stay away type thing. Well, then it became where Scott was teaching everybody the game. And now, you know, different people. A lot of the young ladies have joined the end, some ESPN anchor people. I mean, all sorts of people have kind of joined in and now it's more of a, it's still very competitive, but everybody's involved. It's not people that are isolated. But I guess ESPN and the Washington Post, a couple people have done interviews with Scott and folks that are heavily involved in it. And I think Scott's actually had people reach out to him for sponsorships from the pickleball America Association, whatever it's called. I don't know what it is. But he's got people like a racket company

or somebody that's wanting to be a sponsor. Kevin Johnson is the official score at Rocket games at TOTUS Center. He's working on behalf of the NBA, and he's with us here on Sports Talk 790. Give me 30 seconds on the game of pickleball itself because I've never played it before in my life. It's a variation of tennis and ping pong. It's just on a very smaller court and a little bit different. It's a paddle and a ball different than tennis. But that's a good variation. It's a very small tennis court that's played. And out here, you can play singles, but everybody's playing double so that everybody has an opportunity to play. Now, are you separated combination-wise from the players, and when you go for walks and kind of just walk the campus, are you running into players, or are you kind of in your own little world over there?

So the players are actually staying at our facility. Now, there's another hotel that has just players, but at our facility, there is a tower hotel, and that's where the players are. And then there's a hallway that goes to all these ballrooms, and that's where every team's practice court is set up. Every team flew their own logo practice court in here and set them up in the ballrooms. And the teams go down there every day and work out in practice. We are in the hotel rooms that are kind of like cottages that are around that tower. There is one private restaurant out in the middle of the lake and there's one private pool that has a huge waterfall and a slide in the back. Now, the first two weeks that was open to everybody.

And then the medical staff came over and was like, wait a minute. It's kind of an unfair advantage that the two teams at the other hotels don't have people walking around them that could possibly infect them. So we need to kind of limit this. So we got cut off from their main hotel and that one swimming pool, which was fine. It's not that big a deal. The places, I mean, I don't know. This place probably holds 10,000 people and there's not a thousand of us here. So there's plenty of room for everybody to move around and not be on top of each other.

And you know us, Matt, same as you, us guys around the league. We don't do autographs. We don't do pictures. We don't do any of that stuff. So it's really not that big a deal. Nobody inconvenienced any of the players at all. So it wasn't anything like that. It was more about safety.

Speaking of testing, how often are you getting tested? Every day. So we wake up and we take our own temperature and we take our own oxygen level and it registers to an app that they are monitoring. And then we go down to a room they have set up and we get two different tests right there on the spot. And within 12 hours, we get a lot. our results back. And then that registers to our app, which that gives us a green light. And we have

a wristband on that we have to scan to get in our door and to every facility, where we go, we have to scan this wristband. And if you're not green, you get in. You get sent to another room. You get retested or whatever. It might be that hasn't happened to me yet. So I don't know what they do. And there has been some people that have come down with colds and stuff that they've isolated for two, three, four, five days. Nobody has tested positive. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't don't know what the last number is. I don't want to exaggerate, but it's been over like a hundred thousand tests and no positive cases yet. So you're, I mean, it's literally, go ahead. I was going to say, are you getting swab, the nose swab and all that kind of stuff?

So we do. The nose swab, though, is not that brain scratcher that you see or hear about on TV. It's barely inside the nasal cavity on both sides. And then they do like a DNA swab of the inside of your mouth. And the reason being is because you can get a 20% false positive reading. So when they do both of them, it offsets that chance of it happening. Wow. So you feel like you've got, and I got about a minute here, you feel like you've got plenty of space to walk around, be alone, you're not on top of each other. That's what, I'm getting that from your conversation. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I could walk 30 minutes and not see another person. I mean, this facility is huge. It's huge, but we all kind of congregate in the same area as the same time of night and stuff like

that. And can you Uber Eats and all that kind of stuff you wanted to? You can't do Uber Eats. They do have a few restaurants on a list that you can order from. But I mean, I know guys that ordered like a $70 steak and it was an $80 delivery charge on top of that. They're like, yeah. Yeah. So the food here is adequate enough. Nobody's really complaining about that. Yeah. All right. And it's not pop a seat is and it's not my wife's cooking, but it's adequate enough.

So you've got to be though, and this is our last question. I mean, this is a great experience. As I've told the audience, I would have done it myself if my rocket schedule would have a lot of it. But I had my other responsibilities here. What have you taken away from this that maybe even surprised you before you got there and got settled into doing this thing? Well, everybody's talked about it. It's life-changing. I mean, it is absolutely amazing, the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

And that's what we try to tell everybody that's here that, you know, soak this up because, I mean, there's a lot of things going on in our world. And we're in a pretty safe environment right now doing a pretty minuscule job considering what's going on. We're safe. We're protected. We're able to share stories with each other, grow and learn from each other. So that's been quite an experience of getting to know the people that do my job in other cities or the officials or, you know, people that are behind the scenes. I mean, everybody's got a story and it's good to hear and share that. Well, we're proud of your efforts.

We wish you were back here doing the games in the TOTA Center. I've been calling these games on radio and there, and TOTA Center just has literally lifeless because there's nobody in it, and it's just so weird that have you guys down there. Have you worked any rocket games? Matt, Matt, Matt, let me tell you one story that's funny, and I'll be quick as I came. So you know when we have a playoff game, there's 19,000 people in there, and generally it takes 30 to 45 minutes for the stadium to empty out. and you know you don't go get in your car right away you let traffic die down so we may stay in the arena an hour or two hours in the locker room and then drive home after a playoff game right well there's there's no fans last night I had the Clippers Mavericks game and five minutes after the lights off we got on a bus and I was back in my room 20 minutes after it came in it was crazy that is crazy feeling of just like it's over let's go home close the gym well it's great to hear your voice again I'm proud of you

you for what you've been able to do and accomplish and represent the Rockets, the NBA in our city. Stay safe. Keep those negative tests coming, and we look forward to maybe checking with you one more time before the thing is all said and done, friend. Thanks for the visit. I've got Rockets OKC game seven if it happened. Well, it better not happen. I'm going to be a nervous. It better not happen. That's right. Thanks, Kevin. We appreciate it, buddy. All right, Kevin Johnson with us from the NBA and the Houston Rockets. We're here at 132. Fascinating stuff. I could ask him a million questions. And I think he's right. It is a life-changing

event to be in that situation for as long as he has been. 133 on 790. 713212-5-790 is how you reach a show. 7-13-212-5-790. I want to tell you about Beck and Maston, Buick, GMC. Their summer sail-a-thon is going on right now at both their locations. Do yourself a favor. Go to the website at beckendmaston.com. Check out the different variety of vehicles for yourself.

Do some searching. And then you'll realize that Beck and Maston is, the place to go because so many people over the years have gone there. In fact, they're the number one sales volume dealer in the state of Texas and they have been that way for 20 years. So if you're on the south side of town, you go to 45 in Fuqua. If you're on the north side of town, you go to FM 1960 and Jones Road where you will find Beckendmaston.com and their awesome selection, which includes zero percent financing, zero payments for 90 days. And again, the reason why they're so successful is their summer saleathon continues. We're talking about terrains. We're talking about terrains. We're

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Interesting stuff from Kevin Johnson I think it's He has told me And I don't think I'm speaking out of school this They're at the pool they'd like to go to the pool You know because you're in Orlando It's hot I'm gonna chill out

Yes He'll be sitting there Is Chamu there? No, that's SeaWorld Oh That they'll just be chilling And four or five referees that you guys have known their names We'll be just sitting there saying what you're all up to

What's going on? I mean brothers. Yeah, by the way, he worked in a game. Can I call it? If I hang out with Tony brothers, can I call him

brothers? Or is that bad? That's really to him. Okay. Can I call him TB? That's like tuberculosis. Probably don't want to do that.

Does Tom Brady go by TV? TB 12. Yeah, so nobody walks him and says, what do you say TV? They call him TV 12. So that would be no, yeah, no tuberculosis. You call him 12?

No. Nobody called Terry Bradshaw 12. Tommy? No. With your Boston accent? So I'll say this. It would be, because I only know the referees one way,

too. I know them as they come on the court. They're very nervous because they're about to be yelled at in front of 18,000 people for two and a half hours. Once you get to that level, you're used to it, right? Didn't you have an omelet with Joey Crawford or something like that? I did. It wasn't an omelette. It was more like a cereal bowl with fresh fruit. Oh, okay. More of a continental breakfast. And I'll say this again. He asked me what I was doing. I said, I'm a sportscaster in Houston. And he goes, yeah. I said, they, why did I? How did I go in here? Like, they hate you. Did you say that? No, I said, they don't hate you in Houston.

And then he goes, yeah, you're right. They just hate me in San Antonio. Because his most legendary ejection was Tim Duncan. Yeah, he gets suspended from that. Yeah, you don't, Tim Duncan, you don't toss Tim Duncan from a game. You might tee him up. Well, I think he didn't do anything. I think Tim Duncan, like, gave him a look or something like that.

And he just didn't like the way he was looking at him. I can't remember the exact details. Missy, the ultimate Spurs fan could probably recount that story. She's been noticeably quiet during this NBA postseason. You noticed that? I don't know. She's been talking a little bit. I was talking about Chris Paul flopping.

She's like, you can't see anything about flopping. All right, Missy. By the way, it's James Hardin's birthday today. He's 31. Happy birthday to him. He's on the wrong side of 30. Aren't we all?

He's making $40 million the next three years. No, there's no reason why he can't be the same production next three years. I will say yes. His game is not predicated on athleticism as much as others, say, a Russell Westbro. I would have to say his minutes are going to have to drop,

eventually. I thought, and I said this before, and I don't want to see it again, again, I'm not in control of this. Him opening and playing the entire fourth quarter, I don't think is in his best interest. I think there was a level of fatigue that kicked in, and that's what concerned me about doing four. I agree. And that it affects the on-court play, and it affects the mental play, the decision-making. Bad out Laplace was under a minute to go. Yeah, just, I think you've got to keep him in that 35, 35, 30s. range, even if it pains you to do it. The problem was Ross, they could smell 3-1.

And I think there is a whole world of difference when you're in 3-1 in a series as compared to 2-2. I don't you think, I mean, don't you think 3-1, you tell Russ, relax, you work on that quad, 2-2, he goes from out yesterday to now questionable, which means Russ must have walked in and said I'm going to try to figure out how how to play because I don't want us to lose three straight games and potentially lose this first round series.

That's why I think 3-1 to 2-2, even though it's just one game, meant a whole lot. And I think that's why Mike said, and Marley James is the same thing. Get me in there. I've got to finish this off. Yeah, James wants to be able.

And he wasn't, he wasn't the reason why they lost. It was a factor. Because there were some three-point shots that didn't drop in the fourth quarter that certainly were dropping in the third. Many of them, why? Some bad selection, but many of them wide open. Yeah.

Okay. So we got an hour ago. We're going to get an update from the asterisk in the next hour from James Click, the general manager of the Stros. He was on with Sean Sosbury. What else you want to? Is there anything we have not gotten to today? Hurricane.

Talked about the potential boycotting of game one. We got to Russ potentially playing. Yeah. Anything on the Texas? Cover all over bases. Yeah. We talked about the Pacers and make McMillard. Nate McMillan and Mike Dan Tony.

Terrible NBA rumors? Well, NBA rumors that you don't like. That's right. A terrible NBA rumor I don't like. What a rumor I do want to see is that rockets are close to resigning Mike Dan Tony. But that's really, and that's up to, you know, that's up to Darrell into into, into, uh, into, uh, into, in the, if they don't think that this franchise is going to take the next level and they feel like it's a culture change. And first of all, anybody that would say a bad word about Mike Dan Tony just doesn't, they just, you're not a good human being. Now, if you want to just make a change for the sake of it because sometimes you need leadership changes,

that happens all the time too, right? Especially in the NBA. Guys that are uber successful. Nate McMillan's been a successful coach. Really everywhere he's gone. But the playoff success just hasn't been there. And I think the Pacers just kind of said, you know what? We need a different set of eyes.

We need a different voice. And that's clearly within the rise of these sports teams to do that. Yeah, I think that's definitely a lot of it a lot of times because these coaches are smart. And whoever is the next coach of the Pacers is going to be smart as well. All right, 144. is our time. We take the show till 3 o'clock. We come back. I will give the starting lineups for tonight's game. Kind of feel like I need to, right? I think so. You got to get the people going. Desper measures for desperate times. Well, that's 2-2. It is a home game.

Is it a must-win game? No. Duh. 144 on Sports Talk 790. The Rockets at Red Nation. Matt has Maddie Nation. Things are going to start happening to me now. I'm somebody now. More Matt Thomas. Now.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Toyota Center for game five of the Western Conference playoffs. Now, let's meet tonight's starters. First for the Oklahoma City Thunder. At Guard, six feet from Wake Forest, number three, Quis Paul. The other guard, 6-4 from Arizona State, number 5, Lou Dorts. The third guard, 6-6 from Kentucky, number 2, Shea Gilgis Alexander. At forward 6-10 from Italy, number 8, Danilo Golanari. Center, 7 feet from New Zealand, number 12, Stephen Adams.

Head coach of the Thunder, Billy Donovan. It's time for liftoff with your Houston. Rocker! Guard, 6.3 from UCLA. Number zero, Russell Westbro. And another guard, 64 from Indiana, number 10.

Eric Gordon. At one forward, 68 from Tennessee State. Number 33, Robert Cummington. And another forward 6.5 from Texas number 17. PJ Tucker. And the other guy, 6.5 from Arizona State.

The beard. James Hardin. The head coach of your Rockets is Mike Dan Tony. All right. I'm 2 and 0. Let's go. Let's end this mess Get the 3-2

You're a 2-0 That's right Finish off The series in 2 Do not let it go to 7 Ross doesn't want to work at game 7 I don't Can I have Sunday off place?

I don't want to drink A lot of alcoholic beverages Are watching the game I'd be so nervous For a game 7 Please just win this thing in 6 As I predicted before the series It's gonna happen Matt

What's gonna happen game 7 No rockets are gonna win tonight Done in 6 I like it They're winning tonight Two James not gonna lose on his birth hey? No. He's going to drop 50.

Wow, that many? If you add up the points assisted rebounds. I'll say one thing. Turnover's been relatively low. All things considered. They had like five or six last game. They picked up the last couple of games, but he had a five to one ratio going at one point. Well, it wasn't that last game. I don't know for sure. All right. Are we going back to Adolfo here? Hey, it's your guy Adolfo. Adolfo. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back, fellas. What's up?

I just want to say, I'm a way back from San Antonio now, so I'm seeing all these hotels. They're pretty packed, and it's pretty sad to see. But I just want to bring up Luca right quick. I want to know, what was it? Do you guys think teams saw to, I guess, not draft him? Obviously he's special. I mean, the guy's got some talent.

And I'm just wondering, like, why did teams, like, I read that he's been scouted since he's 12 years old. and I'm wondering, man, like, I was Houston with it, there's something to get them, but. Well, the Rockets don't believe in, the Rockets haven't had a first round picking forever, and when they do, they trade them, and they're not going to be that high. I mean, you know, I don't. Yeah, they haven't had a top three picking since, what, 2002?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, we're talking that long. Let me see who went in front of him. DeAndre Aiden and Marvin Bagel. DeAndre Aiden, yeah. Ooh, no, no. Remember the Hawks traded down? Yeah, Flip for Trey Young. I mean, Trey Young's the star.

Yeah, he's nice. John Jackson Jr. is going to be a nice player for Memphis. But Luke is the best player in that group, not even close. I agree. But it's also, you've got to realize, too. I mean, you've got Chey Gilders Alexander who's in that mix at number 11. The Knicks like Kevin Knox. I mean, this has been a pretty damn good draft.

You think about it. McHale Bridges is doing okay. Colin Sexton is a guy that doesn't get any. run because he plays with Sucky Cavaliers. But, you know, Wonder Carter Jr. is a guy. Mobom. I mean, Moabama not so much. But, whoa, don't disgrace

the name of the Longhorn Great. He's having post-COVID evaluation, man. It's not his fault. Well, all of us are. All of us are evaluating it that way. I don't know. Moabham has been a disappointment. DeAndre Aiton has been, was the number one guy going in

the season. I don't think he did enough in his one year at Arizona to make him think that he was going to not get the number one spot. I mean, there have been a lot of guys in a Adolfo that have been 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 that have been way more impactful than the first two picks in the draft. That's not out of the ordinary. Right. No, I agree.

Anything else? Pretty much just had that curiosity. Like, I mean, I never, I always wondered, like, if Luca, you know, played in the U.S., you know, as a kid, if it'd be different, would he have more stardom? Yeah, could be for sure. Now he's, man, he's a lot of, like, even LeBron, like, guys, they say he's a star. I mean, it's awesome to see. Yeah, I don't think there's anybody in the country in Adolfo. Safe Travels, my friend, that's even worried about his.

I mean, Luke may be the face of the NBA before you know it. Right? How would you, if you're the NBA, how do you not... Yeah, I mean, the next crop of young stars is definitely going to be headlined by him. He's a 40-point triple double guy. Zion. Yeah. And frankly, I'd probably put more my eggs in Lucas basket than I would Zion because I, you

and I have argued, not necessarily argued, We debated. I don't know if Zion's going to be able to, body-wise, is going to be able to stay healthy for a full NBA career. We'll see. I don't know.

I'm not his doctor. But who's had a healthier NBA career at this point? That would be Luca Donchich. Now, Grant, he's also in another year in the NBA more so than Zion has. And he's been playing pro ball since he was 16. Yeah. Had Real Madrid.

This 18 draft has had a bunch of stars. Shamet with Eclipse. Amphrey Simons. Done okay. I always want to say, Chamet. Well, Andre Chamet. I'm trying to think who else here. Michael Porter Jr. of Denver.

He's going to be a really nice player for them. Oh, who the Rockets take in the first round? Didn't have a first round pick. Whose pick was it, by the way? I can't remember. I got to look at the side stuff here. Boy, I can't go. It had to be in the 20s, right? Oh,

Omari Spellman was the Atlanta Hawks pick. It was from Houston via the L.A. Clippers. Oh, how they got... Oh, that was part of the Chris Paul deal. Yeah, I think so. It's very... It can't keep track of all these first-round picks

traded away by Derrimori. It's like, if Tillman's sitting there trying to cut the budget, player evaluation, you don't draft anybody, so you can skip that trip to Russia to go watch those kids. You know what I'm saying?

The Rockets did draft D. Anthony Melton, but then they traded them. So, yeah, good draft, though. A lot of nice players in the league, for that matter. But look, as I said, the other day,

Luca's going to scare the bejee's out of us. He stays healthy. He continues to develop his game. He's already a triple double guy more nights and not. I mean, in a different style, but definitely that kind of player. Yeah,

well, yeah. And he's only going to get better. He's, what, 20, 21? How old is he? And apparently he has an attractive wife.

I mean, a mom, not wife. What's that said mom's decent? Who was it? Was it Vince Carter or somebody like that? I can't remember. Well,

it was like, you know, in draft night, who was the first person he, hug, he did his mom. I'm like, who is that little minks? And he was like, what? That's his mom?

Andre Igu Dala, that's who said it. Mom's decent. Well, I'll let you during the break, Google Luca Danchich's mom. Okay. Do it on your own personal computer, though. All right, Ross. I'm going to go get a nap. Oh, goodness.

Sorry, Matt. Go ahead. I'm going to go try to take a nap now. Oh, geez. It's probably not going to happen properly. You got the next hour with a visit with the general manager of the Astros. Yes. We're talking Stroes.

We're talking Rockets. We're talking full breakdown of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Okay, probably not. You can have that. I'm going to go nap. But I'll be listening to anyone. Oh, oh. Well, I apologize in advance.

What? I'm just kidding. Oh, okay. Talk to you guys at 9 o'clock, 7 o'clock on KTRH for Storm Team coverage. Ross has got you for the next hour. 18 going to put in a full, what, 90 minutes today? They are basically the meat to the Ross sandwich because it's going to be me for an hour. Then it's going to be them.

And then it's going to be Ross with the Rockets Launchpad. And how much money they make is compared to you? I don't even want to think about that. I'll let you think about it next. You just made my stomach hurt. Back with the final hour here on 7.90 in just a second. Is the Matt Thomas Show. Matt Thomas has ducked out.

He is getting his pre-storm coverage nap. As we are seeing, I have it on Weather Channel in here, Brennan, and I think I've got to turn it off because all it's doing is just scaring me. Everything, every word expected to be extremely dangerous category four. Unsurvivable storm surge. All these very scary words and verbiage are scaring me here with what's going on in the weather channel right now. But category four, Hurricane Laura expected, well, you're already getting some rains over there in Beaumont. expected to be extremely dangerous, according to the Weather Channel,

according to the National Weather Service and all that good stuff. So you will have here on a Sports Talk 790. The Rockets tipping off at 530. I'll have the pregame show for you coming up at 430. Matt Thomas is going to be in storm coverage. He did this during Harvey. I don't know if he did it during Imelda. That was last year.

That was a big flood there, too. Tropical Storm Imelda. But he'll be on the storm coverage there on News Radio 740 KTRH. I'll have you here for rockets. 18 coming up at 3 o'clock. So he ducked out for a little nap. So let Matt get his rest. A little nap. Who is just me and you? So you want to get in? 713, 212, 570. The phone number 7190, 7190. 7190. 790. So I would say the biggest story for the day would be the Rockets and what's going to happen with Russell Westbrook. He was down or upgraded from out

to questionable. We'll know a little bit more when Mike Dan Tony speaks to the media coming up at 345. I'll have some of that for you coming up on the pregame show at 430. But that's what's going to happen there is going to be really interesting. You really wanted the Rockets to win one of these last two games. I think especially game three, when you're up five with a minute to go, that's where you put your foot on the throat

of the Oklahoma City Thunder and basically choke them out. You get up 3-0. You're not going to lose that series. You're just not. Well, unfortunately, they let them back in it. Daniel House missed that free throw

to put them up there at the end. and overtime was just a complete debacle, debacle once James Harden fouled out there with about a minute inside of the overtime. So now you have tonight, what's going to happen? Are they rushing Russell Westbrook back? Is he okay? We don't know, right? Mike Dantone said it this entire time, we don't know.

We're getting a lot of that. I don't know what's going on. He's feeling better. I mean, he looks like he's jumping out of his seat when he's cheering for the rockets and all that good stuff. And he's being a coach on the cord and he's talking to the, the referees. So he looks at least relatively healthy, but obviously sitting on a chair on the sidelines inside the bubble is a little bit different

from being the explosive zero to a hundred mile an hour Russell Westbrook that we all know and love and being that guy because, quite frankly, he's not a guy that's going to be known for his long-distance jump shot. He's not a guy who is known as, I mean, he has some skills. He can knock down a little dirk step. He can knock a little pull-up mid-range jump. and stuff like that, but Russell Westbrook's best asset on the, on the basketball court is going to be his explosiveness. And so if he has that quad injury, how healthy is he going to be?

Is he going to play tonight? I tend to think that he is just because how quickly he got upgraded. But I don't necessarily think I would be surprised either way if Russell Westbrook is in the lineup. Though when Matt Thomas did the lineups there in the last segment, he did put Russell Westbrook in there. So I hope he plays and I hope it might my worry is. is that he's not rushing back, right? Because this is what happens with these muscle injuries is, is somebody going to rush back

and then are just going to re-injure themselves and then be out within a couple of minutes or within a couple of games or something like that. Don't want Russell Westbrook getting re-injured, and that's what you have to keep an eye on when it comes to these muscle injuries. So you've got a tweet in coming in from DoSK. I predict Russell comes back tonight,

helps tremendously, gets a run-out dunk in the third quarter, and rips his quad out for the rest of the season. Come on now. Don't put that on us. That's not right. That's not very nice. Jake, appreciate you listening, but that's not what we want to hear.

So that's the thing. It's definitely the biggest storyline for the rockets coming tonight is, is Russell Westbrook going to play? Because I think the Rockets obviously are a better team without Russell Westbrook. Before the Russell Westbrook news, the Rockets were about a minus three and a half on the Vegas line. now they're about a minus four because there is some of the optimism. But I am concerned. I wasn't concerned after game three.

I came out and said that. I think they're the better team. It's fine. The things that concern me into the end of game four is the 43 minutes that James Harden played. And he just seemed like he wasn't all there energy-wise. You saw a couple of sloppy turnovers. You saw some bad shot selection. And quite frankly, we've seen that.

from James Harden before in the playoffs. And one of the reasons that we've seen that, and especially in 2016, when there was no Dwight Howard, there was no, that was before Chris Paul, and then that was before Dwight Howard, right? That's when I was a little bit worried

about James Harden because he was just carrying way too much of the load. And he was fatteeth. He was basically ruined by the end of that series. He just, he didn't have any energy. You saw there, at the end of that overtime game in Game 5 at 2016 against the Spurs. And then there in 2016 in Game 6,

where the Rockets just got absolutely blown, their doors blown off at home against the Spurs. And James Harden just looked like he didn't have it because he needs somebody else out there. So you know what? If Russell Westbrook is back, if he's able to carry the load, maybe that's going to be what the rockets need, the shot in the arm the rockets need. But I don't want him out there if he's not going to,

to be 100% healthy. That's what we're worried about. So let's just assume for some reason that Russell Westbrook is not ready to go and he's not out there. Honestly, my worry level goes a little bit higher for the Rockets because of what we saw there at the end of the fourth quarter with James Hardin. Don't want him playing all those minutes and some of those other guys are going to have to step up. You can't have Eric Gordon going 0 for 4 from 3 in the fourth quarter. You can't have the entire team going 3 for 18. You look at the box score there were 4 for 19, but there was the last second desperation heave from Daniel House. I don't count that.

Three of 18 from three in the fourth quarter. Everyone looks sloppy. There's bad shot selection. You can't have that. The thunder are really good. The thunder are going to get theirs. Tip of the cap to Dennis Truder for scoring 30 points and getting into the basket like crazy and knocking down threes, four or seven from three.

And credit to Chris Paul from he made a lot of tough mid-range shots, but we've seen him here. We've seen him do that throughout his entire career. We're all going to be dead and buried in the ground. And Chris Paul is still going to be making tough mid-range jumpers. So we know that. So what the Rockets are going to have to do is they're going to have to play their best basketball and they're going to have to have some energy there in the fourth quarter because it seemed like they had none

there in game number four. And this is part of the problem is the Rockets overall are an older team than the Oklahoma City Thunder. Eric Gordon Longer in the tooth, James Hardin, Robert Covington's a veteran, and we know the same thing for PJ Tucker, Jeff Green is a 13-year vet and you're playing every other day. And I think that is becoming a factor. When you play, what is it, four games and basically seven days at that point. Now we're going to five games and nine days. Rockets playing every other day, I think maybe wearing on them as the series goes along. And that's definitely something that I'm concerned about and definitely something to keep an eye on for the game tonight coming up at 530 here on Sports Talk 790. Not a must win game because I'm a, I like to

take that very literal. I don't like using must win. it's game seven or unless you're, if you're facing elimination, then it's a must-win game. But this is a very, very important game for the Rockets. And I wonder, the more I think about it, I wonder if Russell Westbrook is going to be pushed into the starting lineup by the Rockets. And there are basically three outcomes or three scenarios for what's going to happen with Russell Westbrook. He's either going to play. He's either going to play with a minutes restriction or without one or he's not going to play. which of those three do we think is going to happen?

I don't know. I would imagine they wouldn't let him play without restriction. They'd probably keep an eye on him having him back. And unfortunately, he's probably going to want to blow through that because he's Russell Westbrook, and the passion with which he plays is one of his greatest assets as an NBA player as well. So I don't know what's going to happen.

I just know that the Rockets are a better team of the Thunder and they need to play like it because they haven't in the last couple of games. Is Russell Westbrook going to play How much would you expect out of them? We can talk about it on the phone line. 713. 2125790, the phone number, 713, 212579. The phone number here.

It is the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. He'll be on News Radio 740KTRH starting at 7 with Hurricane Laura coverage. But my name is Ross Villarreal with you for the rest of the hour here on Sports Talk 790. Going to take a short break here, don't go anywhere. At least now we know that losing sucks. And if anybody knows how much losing sucks, it's Matt. Thomas. I'm outstanding. This is Whitney Merciless. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Thought 790.

Phone lines over, and if you want to get in. If you don't, that's okay too. Ross v. Real with you. Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas. He is on, he is, he's got to be napping at this point, right? He is going to take a nap because he's going to be on storm coverage. He's going to have you on News Radio 740KTRH all night long from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. on news radio 740 KTRH. So tip of the cap to Maddie stepping up again for us here on storm coverage here at IHeartMedia, Houston. If you want to get in 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. Talk about Rockets in Game 5 coming up at 530 here on 794-30 pregame with yours truly in the launch pad,

a team in between. But you also have the Astros yesterday, a tale of two games with the seven-inning double-headers. you had the first game win. Christian Javier taking a no-hitter there. Well, I guess when it's a 7-80 game, he took it deep end of the game. With a 6-3 win for the Astros there, and then just as a disaster in the second game, I mean, Brandon Belak, last couple of times he's been out. He threw like 28 pitches and gave up a ton of runs.

And his second to last start, and then his last start last night, only got a couple of outs, 35 pitches, gave up 3 earned runs, four runs total, and was just chased out of the game. before even finish an inning. And then kind of from there, it was just a mismatch of relievers, not pitching that well, giving up runs. Unfortunately, Andre Scrugg gave up his first run as a Houston Astro. And then Joe Biazini just letting the wheels come off there in the seventh there,

giving up four runs. And you know what? I wanted to ask, first of all, Brennan, what do you think of the, this is the first time this time for the Houston Astros? two seven-inning double-headers. I was totally opposed this before, but now I think I kind of like it. I'm very pro-seven-inning double-hatters.

I mean, you save your bullpen. Well, the Astros didn't save the bullpen last night, as they had, let me see, count them up, eight pitchers in the game. How do you have eight pitchers in seven innings? How is that even possible, de Astros? I will say this. Having seven-inning double-headers

in the middle of a season where your normal game is nine innings feels weird. I kind of just like seven inning baseball. You mean just like overall? Like it's in Little League? Yeah, a little bit. Okay, well, I don't think that's going to happen. I just think it feels so weird.

Now you're getting a little too crazy, Brendan. No, I'm not saying to make the change. Why not six innings? I'm not saying to make these changes. I'm just saying as much as I do kind of enjoy that shorter game, it feels so weird. Like, you don't feel like the game is ending as you're coming up on the sixth and seventh inning. Yeah, it's just, it's your timing is completely off.

But as far as if it's only for doubleheaders, I actually didn't hate it that much. And it's funny because I felt like different ways about different things that they're changing. Like the extra inning rules, when it first started, I was like, okay, in theory, you know what? It's not that big of a deal. I wish they would do it in the 11th, but I don't mind it that much. And now I really don't like the rule. It's just weird. And it gives a bigger advantage to the home team.

But I guess the home team has an advantage anyways because you get the extra at bat if the game's not over. I don't know, man. It's, I'm just not liking the extra inning thing, but this seven-inning double-header thing yesterday, I think it's kind of cool. I like it. You don't need to play 18 in an entire day. You whittle that down to 14,

and you're only doing it now for a pandemic when it's a regular season. You don't really have double-headers for the most part anyways, unless there's weather. And since the Astros have a covered roof stadium, it's not really necessarily a concern for the most part. You're not going to have a lot of double headers, and normally it's going to be a day-night double-header and stuff like that. So not necessarily a big deal, but overall,

I think I kind of like the seven-a-ning double-headers. How do you feel about it? It's 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. But as mentioned, Brandon Belak was terrible yesterday. Here's a little bit from Dusty Baker. His thoughts on what happened yesterday in Game 2. Nobody really shined out there except probably Sneed. and screw up, you know,

threw the ball pretty well. But there was a long day, long night. And, you know, we had some balls hard. I mean, extremely hard. But, you know, they were right, you know, right at them balls. And, you know, they got some hard hits, but they got a lot of hits that just found holes.

So that second game was just their night. Yeah, second game was their night. and I mean, you got guys like David Fletcher killing you. I mean, what's going on with that dude out there at third base? Making some nice picks out there, actually, at third base, and getting three hits in the second game yesterday. But you expect to get killed by Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon, but, I mean, you're getting killed by David Fletcher.

That was not cool yesterday. So there you go in the second half. And as I mentioned, I mean, Joe Bijini, I believe he is every time he has gone out there to pitch for the, Astros. He is given up a run, and in many cases, he is giving up multiple runs. He has four times he, Joe Biajini's been out there, three times

multiple runs every time he's given up a run. ERA now up to a stout 20. 77. I don't understand why Joe B. Eugenie is still on this team. Here's Dusty on the latest from Joseph. It's not a hard time getting people out. I think he threw, like, I don't know, usually, I don't know

what he threw, but he threw a lot more balls than he threw strikes, so therefore he's pitching from behind. And I don't care what kind of stuff he got. He's throwing fall. A little good velocity is just a matter of throwing strikes. And if you throw strikes, you got a chance to get guys

out because we had a great defense behind him. So we're all sitting around here wondering when Joe going to be a DFA because, I mean, he's just not productive right now. He's not really providing anything for the Astros. And really in his entire... I think he's taking over the mantle, right? So you don't know this, Brendan, because

you weren't here in years past. There's always, but you know this in baseball. There's always one guy in the bullpen that when he's getting up, everybody just groans. And when Chandler-Rome or somebody tweets, X is getting up in the bullpen, he knows he's about to get about 100 mentions and people are going to be upset about it. In years past, it's been Chad Qualls. It was Luke Gregerson for a while. It was, even there was some Tony Sip. That was one for the last couple of years. And now I think it is a official. First it was kind of Josh James. People were upset with Josh James, but now he's on the IL, so he hasn't factoring in. Is Joe Biazini the number one target in terms of the Astros bullpen

of when you see Joe Biazini is warming up, you know that people are not going to be happy with the way that's going. And you're just going to have low expectations. You're like, okay, well, here comes in the gas can. And now I think that's where Joe Biazini is right now. He is the official scapegoat of the Astero's bullpen and while he's kind of earned it, a guy goes out there and he gives up a run every time he goes out, how is anybody going to trust you? And unfortunately, I think that a lot of times that bullpen guys get a little bit too much heat because you give up one run once and you're just the worst guy ever. We had people last year calling in and all upset about Roberto Osuna.

Roberto Osuna was really good for the Astros last year. Yeah, he gave up some runs. Yeah, he wasn't perfect. but Roberto Osuna was a very high-level closer for the Stroes last year. But right now, Joe Piazini is earning it. And right now, the starting pitching, I mean, we're talking about a week ago. What was it that one run through the rotation? It was McCullors through maybe even Belak or whoever it was in the five spot. You had that one run through the rotation, it was like 30 innings or 30.1 innings pitched

and four runs given up. And you're saying to yourself, okay, maybe something. things around it in the form of this Astro's starting pitching. Maybe they're going to be okay. Well, not so much the case right now, the way we're feeling. Christian Javier was fine. You go five and two-thirds. It's not necessarily a quality start. You give up three runs, but you've got a no-hitter going through a good chunk of it. That's decent. But now the last couple of turns from Brandon Belak have been questionable. Lance McCullers has, I mean, has anybody been more up and down than him? and that's really just been the tail of the tape for the Astro's season is up and down.

They're six and nine. They win eight in a row. You get swept by the San Diego Padres and then you win two out of three against the Angels. It's just been a very weird up and down season all throughout. And it's continuing and probably not a coincidence that it's also been up and down for the bullpen. It's been up and down for the starting pitching. It's been up and down for the lineup. So I don't know what's going on with the starting pitching,

but a couple of weeks ago, I was not confident. Then a week ago, I was like, all right, things are rounding in a form. Things are okay. We're going to be fine. And now it's just, it's a lot of question marks. Outside of Zach Grinky, who pretty much were, are we over halfway point of the season now? What? Yes, we are.

We're 31 games into a 60 game season. We're halfway through the season? You know how I said you don't feel like the game's over as you're approaching? the sixth and seventh inning. Are you going to feel like the season's over when you're approaching like game 50? How is this? How is we halfway through the season? That really just blew my, I just blew my own mind.

Brian McTaggart said earlier on In the Trenches, if the Astros were to get swept by the A's, you can pretty much call the division race over. And it sounds weird hearing that. It's true. But it's how close you are. Man, two, 2020 is a joke in many circumstances, in many ways. Well, yeah, they're four games back of the A's. They need to go ahead and sweep them,

but I don't know if that's going to happen. A's are playing really, really well right now. But the playoff odds right now for the Astros, 97.1%. Thanks to the Mariners, Rangers, and Angels for being absolutely terrible for the entire season. I cannot believe they're over halfway through the season. Zach Rinkie's been your MVP at this point.

That's what Jay Kaplan was saying on Twitter. I totally agree with them. I mean, the guy after he had a shaky first start, and then since then, he's been good to very good to great depending on the outings and he calls his own pitches and throws 54 mile an hour curveballs what's not to love about that

but we are halfway through the season for the Houston Astros how weird is that for me to say that and how are you feeling about it? 7132125790 the phone number 713212.57790 tweets to at Sports RV and at Brendan Riley underscore my name is Ross Viori out you're listening to the Matt Thomas show

without Matt Thomas, who are still yet to hear from Astros, GM, and James Click. Going to have some conversation with you guys on that or with the guys in the morning show on that. Also want to hear you guys' thoughts on the Rockets, Russell Westbrook playing, or will he and the Astros? All that good stuff coming up 30 minutes to go here on the Matt Thomas show. Short break here. Don't touch that dial. Awesome Rivers here. Listen to Rockets Radio on your smart speaker. Just ask. Hey, Google. Play Sports Talk 790 at IHeard Radio. for the relievers that used to make people grown back in the day.

I put a tweet out. Oh, look at Cameron Thomas, the man himself tweeting in. Tony Sip. Yeah, that's definitely one that I mentioned. You got two mentions for Tony Sip. Like, just when you heard him that he was warming up, you're like, oh, my goodness. B-Diz tweeting in, David Weathers. Yes, that's a good one.

I remember like, oh, man, David Weathers? We can't put it out anybody better than David Weathers. and that was in 2004 where you had, I mean, was Wagner still here around there? That was towards it. He might not have been there. But I think you had Dotel and Lidge at that point. I'd have to look it up.

But those were the golden years. When you had Dotel, Wagner, and Lidge, that's when you knew if you could just get your starter to the sixth inning. Everything was going to be just fine there with the Astros. But a couple of, I mentioned Chad Qualls. A lot of you guys are going with that. Pete Monroe is another one. Oh, man.

Us Springer. That's a name I'd forgotten for a while. So a lot of good suggestions coming in there for relievers that made you grown when you heard they were warming up there back in the day. But you know what? Joe Biazini. He's that guy right now for the Astros, unfortunately. And whenever, if and when Josh James comes back, that'll be another one. But I think Joe is definitely taken over the mantle. Four times he's come out, four times he's given up runs. And the man in charge of the Houston Astros roster and that bullpen and hopefully trying to get them a little bit of help there, but it's going to be difficult in a shortened year with a farm system that's not too well stacked. The man is named James Click. He joined the Sean Salisbury Show earlier today.

I wanted to bring you guys some of that conversation, him talking to all things, Astros, and how they're doing. Here's James Click from earlier today on the Sean Salisbury Show. Full conversation available at Sports Talk 790.com. Okay. Or it's not going to work. Farmer was a guy that before I got here. knew how well he was thought of. The raised reports on him were pretty solid as well. But I hadn't had the up-close and personal experience that a lot of people keep talking about. And they keep telling me, well, this kid was wild or he couldn't figure it out or whatever. And so I don't

have the same contact that everybody else does. I'm just enjoying getting to watch him go out there and use that plus plus stuff. They get out for the big league level. It's been fun. What are they saying the reasons that he's been so successful? Mostly command and control. And I think that a lot of times these days with the trackmen and the Hawkeye data and the radar done, you know, we get in spin rates and all that kind of stuff. We get caught up in how good a guy's stuff is. But, you know, if you ask most people, they'll tell you that command and location is more important than stuff.

And obviously, you know, you want to have both. And it may be easier to teach command and stuff. I don't know. That's a question for Stromi. But, you know, being able to put the ball where you want it and mixing up your pitches and sequencing correctly is the next step and it looks like he's taking it. I guess we can expect, you know, Belak, the struggles. This is kind of the norm for young pitchers getting an opportunity.

Yeah, no questions. And like we talked about before, we try not to overreact to, you know, a couple rough days. We try not to overreact to, you know, some of those games where those guys got out there and extra innings, strand runners, and really come through for us. So it's going to be a learning experience for them. It's a learning experience for all of us, trying to figure out the right spots for them,

how to maximize their repertoires, you know, how to maximize their ability to post up every day. You know, a lot of these kids haven't been through the ringer of going back-to-back days or three out of four, and that's something that we're going to need to make sure that they learn how to do before we, you know, hopefully get into October baseball. How close are we to having our Kiti take the mound? Well, that got delayed a little bit by the fact that we had to shut down the Corpus Christi site for a few days, but he's supposed to get back out there and start throwing out. the site is back open.

And so if he can continue his progression, we're hoping it's sometime maybe next week. But that'll be a conversation again about, you know, what his role looks like and how much he can give us and making sure that we put him in the right spot to succeed. Kyle Tucker's been impressive. Thoughts on him. Well, it's not even just the hitting recently. It's the defense base running. You know, there's a reason this kid was a high, high overall draft pick. And I think we're seeing that come to life.

And for me, it's not even just the hitting, but the ability to stay in there against lefties. You know, so often you have these left-handed hitters that the other team can bring in a side armor or somebody from that left-hand side and shut him down. And he is really impressive staying on the ball and driving the ball against the same-sided match-up. Is his approach changed? I mean, before he had this success, I mean, this continued success. And what's he doing different that's sticking out to you? I don't know if he's really doing anything differently.

I know that he's always working with AC and Smith, you know, on his hitting and making sure that, you know, he, you know, rotates the back foot and keeps his hips in and all that kind of stuff. But sometimes it's just, you know, a young kid seeing enough major league pitching to start to figure it out a little bit. So like you're talking about, you don't want to overreact to 200 throws. You know, we try not to overreact to, you know, a couple hundred at bats. And sometimes this is just the guys getting the experience and learning what a big league pitcher looks like and how a big league pitcher likes to pitch them. How busy have the phone lines been with this trade deadline coming up? Probably starting to ramp up a little bit. You know, it was sleepy there a little bit last week, but things are starting to move.

A lot of teams are trying to wait it out and kind of see where they are, where they wake up, you know, even this weekend. With the new playoff format, with the short season, you know, it invites a lot more possibility of getting yourself back in the race. And so I think there's some teams that want to give their guys every chance to put them in a position where it makes sense to add before they start doing the opposite. So it's also a little tricky just with, you know, extra playoff teams and, you know, how much can you really do in a three-game series in the first round of the playoffs?

So all these kind of things are probably putting a damper on it a little bit, but conversations are definitely starting to pick up. Is there added pressure? And I don't know this answer, James, is your GM first time here in Houston? is there added pressure to make a move because you're the GM here and you're new here? I don't feel any added pressure. We're going to do whatever is right for the franchise, not just this year, but long term. We can't get caught up in doing something to try to address a need maybe that we see this year

that's going to put us in a bad position in a couple years. I mean, Jim Crane has been very clear that he wants this thing to be a sustainable, successful franchise, and we have to do everything we can to make sure that we keep one eye on the present and one eye on the future. While you're looking at name, we can't mention names of other teams, obviously, but positions on this roster, is there a pecking order of needs in your mind for 2020 if you were going to make a deal? It's funny. I mean, you know, five, ten days ago you might have said, you know, the bullpen or the starting rotation, and then now you might say, you know, it wouldn't be the worst thing to have an extra bat in there.

So it changes, you know, week by week, and we're trying to be cognizant of the fact that we do have guys that are ready and able to step up. And we need to give these young kids a chance to show what they can do before we go out there and get a veteran name to step in because it may be that we already have talent on hand to go out there and win the games we need to win. Are you a World Series caliber team today? I think that's really tough to say. I think when we get out there and we're healthy, there's no question about it,

but we're obviously battling through some significant injuries. And so part of the calculus of the trade deadline is not just, who we are right now, but who we can be in mid to late September and hopefully, you know, if all things go right into October. So, you know, we don't want to go get somebody that, you know, is only going to be able to help us for two weeks before some of these guys come back. So we just need to be cognizant of that balance as well. Do you think we'll see Justin Verlander pitch from the mound in a game in 2020? Justin's out there. He's throwing, he's continuing a throwing program today.

It's just a question of, you know, how quickly it can. can he get through that? But if anybody's going to be able to figure out a way through that, it's Justin Burlander. And update on George Springer and the severity and or when we'll see him back in? He should be good to go for Friday. He responded really well at the treatment yesterday. But I have to hand it to him.

I mean, that looked like it hurt a lot. You know, if I get hit like that, I mean, I'd be on a stretcher. So he's a tough guy. You know, he obviously wanted to stay in the game, but, you know, we obviously felt that the best. thing was to get him out of there and start treatment, and he responded well. And so hopefully it should be good to go Friday. James Click with a conversation earlier today with Sean Salisbury, some interesting stuff there

from him. I like the question from Sean, is this a World Series team? And James says if we're healthy, yes, we are, but right now they are not healthy. So it'll be interesting to see. And I think a fully healthy Astros team could definitely catch lightning in a bottle. But as they're comprised right now with the injuries and with some of the questions, marks there on the pitching staff. I would say it doesn't feel like a World Series team right now.

All right, 713, 212, 5, 790 is the phone number. 713-212-5-790. A ton of you are weighing in with relievers who made you grown when you heard they were warming up. We'll get to those. We got a couple of on hold on the phone lines. We'll get to you as well. Final segment of the Matt Thomas show coming up here in a just a second. Don't go anywhere.

This is Ricky Williams. I may have worn a wedding dress on a magazine cover, but it still looks better than any outfit Matt can put together. Let your wife dress you, man. Texas Five, Texas Five. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk, 790. Well, you people are blowing up my mentions with relievers over the years that you hated from the Houston Astros. We'll get to some of those in a minute.

713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. Is a Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. Let me lay out the programming. for you here really quickly. Matt Thomas left because he's taking a nap. He's going to be on Hurricane Laura Storm coverage. We'll have that on Sister Station News Radio 740 KTRH. Matt will be on with Corey Olson starting at 7 o'clock there. He's done it a couple of times before answering the bell. Yet again, Matt Thomas on storm coverage in KTRH starting at 7 o'clock. Here on

Sports Talk 790 starting at 3 o'clock, you'll have the A team till 430 and then it'll be me again, high with the Rockets launch pad and then the Rockets versus the Oklahoma City Thunder and Pivotal game number five coming up, tipping off at 530 here on 790. I'll also be with you for the Rockets Rap show, a call-in show after that. All right. In the meantime, let's go ahead and talk some Astros with you folks. It's 713, 2125.790. Rick in Cyprus, want to talk some strokes. What's up, Rick? Hey, what's going on, man? Yeah, so I just wanted to ask you about. about playoffs for this season. I'm not sure I remember what the deal is.

I know that likely the Astros aren't going to win the West, but even if we finish second, it looks like we have a shot. So can you quickly... If you're automatically in. If you get second place, you're automatically in. Oh, very good. And then they take, like, maybe the top of, like,

some of the third place teams? The next two to third place teams. Okay. So it looks like we have a decent shot of at least getting into the dance. Just got to get healthy first. That's right, Rick. Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it.

Man, this is just a crazy season. I already talked a couple of segments ago. I couldn't even forgot that we were over halfway through. Now with the two games played yesterday, you crossed the halfway point of the season, a 60-game season. The Astros, it feels like this season's in its infancy, which normally it would be.

You're talking about normally you would be what? Not even a fifth of the way through at this point. Now you're over half of the way through, and you're 17 and 14, your four games back of the Oakland A's and the ALE West. but as Brendan pointed out, the Brian McTaggart said earlier today, you get swept by the Oakland A's and you're down seven games. You're not recovering from that.

So this is a big series coming up at Minutem made with the Oakland A's this weekend for the Astros. And the game that they're missing today that has been postponed, that'll be made up later as the Astros will have a home game in Los Angeles. Just what the hell is going on in 2020 baseball? You're playing 60 games. games. You're halfway through the season. We just saw yesterday a seven-inning double header in both of those games at the Astros split with the LA Angels. Just crazy, crazy stuff that's happening right now. And now you're over the halfway point of the season. So if you look at

at least on ESPN, the playoff odds have the Astros at 97.8%. So it's going to take quite a precipitous drop for them in order for them to not make the playoffs because not necessarily a factor of the Astros are great because it's mostly that the rest of the AOS sucks. Seattle Mariners, 12 and 19, Rangers 11 and 18, and the Los Angeles Angels

with all these big names, of the Shohei Otanis and the Mike Trouts and the Anthony Rendon's, they are 10 and 22. They are 11 and a half games back of the Oakland A's, and they got a 5% chance that makes the playoffs.

They're going to have to rip off and goes on some kind of crazy unprecedented run if the LA Angels are going to make the playoffs at some point. So that's why the Astros are sitting pretty right now. And you had the audio there from last segment with James Click. Are they a World Series winning roster? When healthy? When healthy, they have to be a lightning in a bottle type of a team.

That's what's going to have to happen. They're going to have to get some crazy hitting. People are going to have to pitch over their heads. maybe Jose Arkiti or Forrest Whitley comes up and shows up and they're spectacular in the first couple of starts and they can win you playoff games because anything can happen. You can take the best team in baseball,

who are the Dodgers right now. They have an ungodly 77 plus 77 run differential, which is just insane at this point. For context, number two in the major leagues is going to be the A's and the twins with a plus 39. The Dodgers are just blowing out everybody. They're 22 and 9. They've got the best record in baseball,

and they're really great. You didn't tell me the Dodgers can't win, lose two out of three games at some point against some random team that they're going to be matched up in the playoffs. They lost, well, they split a series with the Padres earlier this season. And they also,

so I mean, anything can happen in baseball. So that's what the Astros need that anything can happen in baseball. They need to be on the other side of that. Like last year in the World Series, I will contend that overall on paper, of course, the Astros were a better team than the Washington Nationals. Nationals took them to seven games.

Nationals came and won the last two games here at Minutemay Park and won the World Series. Credit to them, good stuff from them. But, I mean, we've seen, what was it last year or a couple of years ago, whenever it was, the Astros got killed by the White Sox or the Tigers or somebody like that they were struggling with. Anything can happen in baseball. And the Astros need to be on the good side of variance with that anything can happen mentality. You're a three-game series in the first round of the playoffs. They can beat anybody two games in a row.

They can lose anybody two games in a row. I think that has been made quite obvious by the results of the Houston Astros today. But also, speaking of the relievers, because we were talking about this, the conversation started with Joe Biagini. Yesterday, he comes on the mound. And when you just say, when any of the beat riders like McTaggart, Rome, Kaplan, Joe Beajini is warming up in the bullpen. You just look at the mentions.

you already know what you're going to see. Oh, great. Here comes the gas can. Oh, no. It's like gifts of people crying and stuff. Like things on fire. That little cartoon dog on fire saying this is fine. That's basically what you're seeing at that point.

So I asked the question, who are some of the Astros relievers over the years that made you grown when you heard they're warming up? I think, number one, as far as the responses I've been getting, which I've got a ton of of them right now. It's, oh man, Chad over the walls, qualls. People are calling him. And also Chad no balls qualls. That's not nice. Don't call Chad Qualls no balls qualls. He's throwing a baseball. I imagine he's got a set. But really people are upset. I think number one that I'm getting is, is Chad Qualls. Number two's probably got to be Ken Giles. 100 miles Jiles. People forget in the regular season, Chad Qualls is actually really good in 2017. His ERA was under three. He had like 30-something saves. Yeah, he blew a few of them. But then he just got, the entire bullpen came unhinged in the end of

2017. And then, well, Ken Giles was traded away. And then, well, actually, last year for the Toronto Blue Jays, Ken Giles was actually fantastic. So, but yeah, Ken Giles is probably number two. Chad Qualls number one. A lot of people are saying Luke Gregerson, I remember him warming up and not being happy about that. And then Tony Sitt probably very well up there. Some people with the long time ago, the Dan Macelli, the Dan the Missile Micelli pull from a couple of years ago.

That's definitely one of the ones from years past. And somebody gave me Mike Jackson. Who remembers Mike Jackson? They had Mike Williams, I think, and Mike Jackson at the same time. And I was like, man, you've got to go by Mike Jackson. When you're named Michael Jackson, you pretty much got to go by Mike.

Mike. That's what he did. But there you go. A lot of you ringing in at Sports RV with some of the guys that are really made you grown when they're coming out of the bullpen. That guy right now, unfortunately, Joe Biajini. I know somebody who is Joe Biazini fan number one. His name is Adam Clanton. He's coming up on the A team alongside Adam Wexler here on Sports Talk 790. They'll take you to 430. So I'll be back with you on the Rockets launch pad coming up. And then Rockets Thunder, Pivotal game number five, 530 here on Sports Talk 790. My name is Rosbyor. Real. Thanks to Brendan Riley. for producing doing a great job. Talk to you guys at 430 as we get you ready for Rockets Basketball here on Sports Talk 790.