The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - MLB Players Counter, Drop Dead Date For Return, Why July 31 For NBA

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas Show. 12.01 in 8th Town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790, alongside Joe George, our producer, my cohort sports RV. Ross, Villarreal, who gave me an early birthday gift.

You're welcome. This might be the earliest, I would say Christmas. The earliest birthday gift I've ever received in my entire life. Also, maybe the only one I've ever given you. Yeah. You've given me, you've taken papers and shredded them and throw them up in the air. It's called them confetti and said happy birthday, which I thought was... I forgot about that.

Of little originality and a little warmth. This was warmth. Now, granted, there's an F-bomb on the front of the cover, which again, the kids won't be able to see. but you know what? The private journal is a private journal. If you want a picture of it, you can find it. Yeah, at SportsMT.

I'm Matt, by the way. I hope you guys, I was going to say, I hope you had a great weekend, but nobody did. I mean, let's be brutally honest. Nobody had a great weekend. That's why this show has got to be what it always is. A place where we're going to laugh, make fun of each other, lighthearted insults, sports analysis,

occasional great guest. And we'll have them later in the week. but today is just kind of a day to go over everything that happened the weekend, which unfortunately was in the world of sports, Pell of comparison to everything else. But I will quickly say this. I tried, because I had been immersed, frankly, in all of the coverage about the unfortunate passing of Mr. Floyd

and everything on the riots and whatnot. So I decided I needed a sports diversion from that. And put on the Lance Armstrong 30 for 30, the very first episode. Rossi, I watched 30 minutes of it and I, I don't know if I was, I was bored by it because it was cycling or he's just an A-hole. So you gave up? I gave up every 30 minutes. It's two-hour parts, correct? Yeah.

And I gave up. And I want to know if I should continue on with it. I haven't watched it. I haven't recorded. It is on my list of things to get to, but I did not watch it. So I can't really tell you whether or not to watch it. So I will say this. He just dropped 40 F-bombs in the first minute and a half.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, and are they playing them like on the last dance? Oh, absolutely. Wonderful. Absolutely. And didn't particularly think his father, his adopted father, was a really nice person and didn't particularly like the way he treated his teammates on the cycling team.

And then they got into this convoluted EPO, EPA, CPO, CP3 of the doping. H-1-H-C-G. And I'm so not interested in cycling that it became a quick tune-out. So I'm a fraud when it comes to watching sports of everything. I lost interest. I 100% lost interest.

I think it's okay to lose interest in cycling. Now, you've watched, Joe, you watched more than 30 minutes, correct? I watched the whole first episode. And are you, like, cannot wait to get to episode two? I'm going to watch it tonight because I feel like I'm playing poker and half my chips already on the table.

You're obligated. You're all in already. You're committed as the thing. kids say. And they finished the first episode with his first tour de France win. So I kind of just want to see where the story goes from here. He wins like six more. Yeah. Spoiler. And like I want to see him like,

I don't know. It's, it was interesting. It's not the best documentary ever. I just, I'll watch it, but I'm not like thrilled by it. But help me out with this. It is at least something that doesn't have his mitts all over it. Like Michael Jordan had all over the last dance, correct? Right. I would say yeah, because people

speak pretty negatively about him. that's the one thing is that I was watching this thing for about 20 or 25 minutes going you know what I've already seen enough terrible things on television this weekend I'm not watching another hour and two so you know what I wound up watching celebrity family feud okay did you have that on your dvr or did you go to YouTube again no no no this was the one that they debuted it last night oh they brought it back yeah they do during the summertime and here's the thing I didn't realize they stretch out an you know how normally each show is 30 minutes, so they have the contestants. They stretch it out to an entire hour for one game.

I was thinking they were going to have multiple families and multiple celebrities. No, it was they were queer eye for the straight guys OGs, which I didn't realize there was such a thing. Yeah, did they got those queer guys out of there, the original? Five queer eye for the straight guys on one side against five queer eye for the straight guys. Oh, the new ones. Oh, wow. So I guess they just thought the, some guys got like two, old for it. They're not cool anymore. They're not chic.

Well, or 33. One of the other. Yeah. So I watched that and and then I just, I got back on YouTube and watched a bunch of rabbit holes of Mid-South wrestling and was done by 10 o'clock. That's how the old sports MT life lives. I don't refer to myself a third person, but that's what it was.

You guys, same thing. Like, what an action pack weekend except watching the complete devastation of our country in one 48-hour swoop? Keeping an eye on that, I suppose. I watch a UFC on Saturday. How was that? It was okay.

Meaning that you're not a big of UFC guy or the UFC bouts were just okay. The bouts, I mean, the main event, the Tyron Woodley fight, he lost in a five-round fight. It wasn't that great. It was a decent card. It was fine. It was what it was. It's something to watch.

It's still weird with no fans in the stands at all in these things. But you're getting more accustomed to it, right? Because I've seen some UFC fights without it. And it doesn't, I don't think for me as being a very novice UFC fan, doesn't take it away for me my enjoyment if I enjoyed it. Yeah, I mean, obviously it adds a level of drama when there is crowds and somebody's getting beat up or takes a big shot and the crowd ooze and awes and stuff like that. So, yeah, there definitely is some taken away.

But yeah, I'm still watching and I don't think it, you do get used to it once you get a couple of fights in. Because let me ask you this. When you're watching it, say, three or four years ago, did the crowd add to your enjoyment of the bout? I think so. Did it? It doesn't cry.

That's why they had laugh. to shows. A little crowd adds as a synonymous. But the thing about UFC is they're always dark. You don't, you don't, like in basketball games, you see the fans. When a basket is made, the crowd shots

go crazy. I don't necessarily know. Yeah, they do crowd shots in UFC, I guess. Boy, I just haven't watched enough of it. I mean, not in the middle of a round, but you can see them. And you can hear it. Most importantly, you can hear them.

More importantly, did they have the ring girls still there? Yes. And how they look. Just a quick breaking news on that, Matt. They're still ridiculously hot. Like, they're all tens. Okay.

No. You're saying it'd be hard to walk up to one of them and say, you're just a nine. I wouldn't walk up and say that to anybody. I don't walk up to a three and say, hey, you're just a three. Maybe we should do that.

That'd be rude. Do we want more truth than I see? You know what we should do? You want to film us? Like, we'll go out to it when, you know, when everything is safe. So maybe like in 2050, we'll just like have,

it'll be like the dunk contest. You know how Dwayne Wade gets up a 10? Right. You just hand one to somebody for how hot do you think they are? And we don't tell them what the number competition is for what it's for. It'll just say, hey, you're an eight. Oh, you know, just hand in the card. Just hand them an eight.

Yeah, we don't have time to write, hey, you're or not. Just give them a number card. Presumably we're getting these printed. They're going to say Matt Thomas show Sports Talk 790. Well, I don't know if we want to promote that way. That's true. They're going to say Space City Saturday, Sports Talk 790. We should go to a hardware store.

You know how they have like little stickers that you put on your, mailbox. Just give one of those. Or you know what? How about, like, you know when you get fruit at the, uh, at the, at the grocery store, it's been graded or it has like an approved or inspected by with a number on it? Oh yeah. It'll be basically like that. We'll get stickers. Inspected by MT. And they'll have like a, if you're a six, you get a six. So let's recap here. We're going to be completely sexist pigs. Yes. We can do it to guys too. Brad Pitt. He's a 10. So if you were to, if you were to hand me a sticker, what would you give me?

Matt. Remember when I said... This is the first time you're speaking today. You already said you had a bad weekend. I know I talked to... If Brad Pitt's a 10, Matt, you're clearly a nine and a half. Thank you. My Monday's already up to a lousy start.

I went to got a hamburger a few minutes ago, and I got the jalapinos on it, and I was thinking they were grilled. They were not. All of a sudden, my head began to really, really sweat profusely. Yeah, you're not... Why did you even go with the jalapinos? You're not a big spice guy. Because I do like them.

And you can tell my voice is not even 100%. Then I haven't noticed anything. Okay, good. That makes me happy. All right. So we're going to, we've already decided we're going to, once the pandemic is over with and once everything, the civil unrest, you know, hopefully comes to a hold someday. We're going to walk around and hand various groups of men and women numbers based on what we

think they're, how good they look. That won't be judged by anybody. No. I think we should do this. See how many times we get drinks spilled in our faces. Or we get called terrible, terrible names. Or get slapped. Or get to fights with their boyfriends.

What if somebody's with their girlfriend and you give her a five? No, no. You do it when she's by herself. Okay. Go to library. I was going to say, that's just weird now. Library, Panera Breds, Starbucks. Okay.

Any place where someone's just having some peaceful. Barnes & Noble? Yeah. Peaceful time by themselves. I wouldn't go to a bar and start hanging the numbers. out. That sounds like the most fun place to do it, though. Yeah, it does.

And I'm with Ross here. Because it could be good for Ross that night. That's what I'm saying. If you just starts going out, handing out seven and eights? No, this is what they like them? Yeah, look, never mind. But doesn't every, what do you think I am? But doesn't every girl think she's a 10?

No. There's not a girl that walks up in front of a mirror and goes, got a four and a half. They know. That's what I'm saying. No. Well, even the tens are insecure, but that's another discussion for another time. All right. What is going on?

Well, we just, we have to, we just kept, keep things of a little light. We just do. It's just our job. Major League Baseball, the owners put out a plan for what, 82 games schedule, and they wanted a massive, massive cutback on salaries, depending on what you made. The more you made, the more you got cut off your salary. This is all based on a prorated salary. Major League Baseball Players Association said,

you guys are high, were insulted. Max Scherzer said, this is ridiculous, non-starter. Well, guess what? Over the weekend, Major League Baseball Players Association gave the owners

a new proposal. We'll tell you what that is and whether or not and how the Major League Baseball owners are going to react to it. If you'd like to join us today, 713-212-5-790. That's how you reach our show

this afternoon. 7-13-212-5-7-90. A lot on this baseball stuff. A lot of on, I need somebody to walk me through why the NBA is going to wait until July 31st start their season. We are just end of the month of June. And then we're also going to talk today about how the Houston Texans went to a high school

to fill out their analytics department. Details on that. All those things. Plus, whatever you guys want to get into, 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-790, a Monday edition. Hopefully a more peaceful, entertaining, lighthearted edition of The Matt Thomas Show here on Sports Talk 790. First of all, he's a great guy. He's a hardworking guy. It's Matt, and he's back. Brings his lunchtime, Houston Sports Talk, the Matt Thomas Show on 790.

Time is 1216. Happy anniversary 15 years ago today. The Tombstone article, the May 31st edition, actually 15 years ago yesterday, May 31st, 2005, the Astor's season is done, tombstone, front page of the Chronicle, sports section. And we know what happened after that. They went on to win the National League pendant in 2005. Do newspapers carry that kind of clodder is just anecdotal to you? Because we had choke city by the Chronicle, choke city again

and then we had Clutch City and Clutch City he's kind of stuck What were the two Choke Cities? I know when they got down to nothing against the sons I think they did the following year too or there was maybe and it was back-to-back games

of the Rockets had leads involved we just know for the fact that Choke City was a thing Yes and then they flipped it to Clutch City one of the all-time great turnaround stories in sports Matt If you were an athlete

Would you let the paper drive you a little bit? My guess is a little bit. Probably a little bit bulletin board material. But I think on the whole, especially on the highest level of sport at professional sports, it's bulletin board material doesn't provide much. I had a friend of mine who used to work at The Chronicle said that they lost a lot of subscribers after that day. Oh, really? Yeah.

But people called in and canceled? Correct. Interesting. That some journalists go bold, different, interesting. The New York papers do it all the time on the back of their paper. That's everyday. New York Posts famous for their headlines. New York Newsday, Daily News, all those are those famous headlines. It's just not normal for a normal newspaper to editorialize an end of a season, especially when you're talking about it being May 31st.

I mean, I know that strange things have happened that usually baseball pennant chases are up and running by that time. And I guess I'll have to go back and look and see how far they were behind that day. But for a team that had gone to the National League championship series to lose the St. Louis the year before, to all of a sudden write them off after two lousy months, again, to each its own, I mean, obviously it had tremendous staying power because people still talk about it to this day. And I guess that's what you're supposed to do.

Make memorable news headlines. Problem is the paper just doesn't carry the clout that it used to carry. Now, the different teams still think media carries, the newspaper carries a lot of clout, because if you go to a like when the Astros were playing the Nationals in the World Series, every newspaper was in the main press box. If you were a newspaper, you got in the main press box. If you were a TV station or radio station or internet site, you were sent out to one of the variety of auxiliary media boxes.

They still, at the end of the day, newspapers carry way more weight in the world of media than anything else, even though readership and the number of people that are actually buying the, newspaper is significantly lower than it was 10, 15 years ago. No, I don't... I guess you still carry some semblance of cloud, but it's certainly not the same. But, I mean, who has the most clout? You wouldn't say, I guess, maybe certain websites. I guess ESPN, the branding of that?

The athletic now? ESPN's there. Not yet. The problem with athletic is... I think it's pretty heavy hitting right now. It just doesn't... I don't know how their subscriber rate is doing. They have tremendous cloud with terms of writers.

I mean, they have Ken Rosenthal. And is Jason Stark still a guy with the house? Athletic? I believe so, yeah. A lot of the guys that were Fox guys left. Evandrelic, who used to be with The Chronicle, was on the show last week. He's moved over there. A Shams, Sharania, if you will.

Yeah, he's the number two guy in the NBA behind Woj. I mean, that comes down to it. Who's there, I don't know who their NFL guy is. I don't know if they have like a guy. A guy. I don't think they have the guy. And Jay Kaplan's article in The Athletic says the Astros had just lost 9-0 the previous night and then fall into 18 and 32

when the article was written. That's rough. How far were they out of first place at that point? What's the day? May 31st, 2005. So it's just six place. They were, this says, according to these, I tried to find these MLB standings.

The Cardinals were 15 games over 500. The Astros were 13 games under. So they were 14 games back. 14. You know what? It's not a, it's, I mean, to be honest, you'd have to go back in people's memory. I wasn't working here in the market at the time,

but I'm going to assume that if I was doing sports radio on May 31st, 2005, and the Astros were 14 games out of first place, I probably would be thinking the exact same thing. The season's over with. Great news, Joe. The Cubs were in second place, but they would eventually finish under 500. 2005. So I'm guessing Kerrywood and Mark Pryor both got hurt.

Thanks, Dustin. I was going to say, this is the starting of the, Wood Pryor overused arm syndrome. Yeah, because this is what, two years after Bartman? So, yeah, that's about right. Was Soriano with him at the time? I don't know if Soriano got there in 05 or when he loved Sorriada. Well, it was the same year, wasn't the same year, Carlos Lee became an astro?

Oh, stop. Be nice to him. I'm just asking. I don't think Soriano, did Soriano ever get busted? Wasn't he on the Mitchell Report? There were half the baseball was on the Mitchell Report. Soria, it doesn't look like Soriano was playing there. The 2005 Cubs, their leader in home runs was Derek Lee.

Hmm. Forgot about that. He had some good years. Aramis Ramirez. The older Aramis. Oh, Nomar was on the team. Nomah. Nomah.

He got, I think that was year he got traded. And by the way, Carlos Zambrano. He used to hate him because he could hit, man. Zambrano, hated him. Their rotation that year was Maddox, Zambrano, prior, Kerry Wood. And then I'm guessing Dempster was bullpen.

And you let the little lowly Astros jump over your team and win the National League Central. Let's call the Astros manager and find out what happened to the Cubs. I love Dusty, just for the record. I'm really excited he's here. You hear that, you hear the cackle in your throat right now? I don't want to be like, I hate Dusty Baker. Yeah, you do. No, I love Dusty.

I don't blame Dusty for Carriwood. finish under 500. They actually had a decent rotation and a decent lineup. I think that's the year when things like started really falling apart. Full breakdown of the 2005 Cubs now. Saturday. Space, no, uh, windy city Saturday.

And you don't want to talk about 2005 on that show because I'm the only Cubs fan on that show. Yeah, I don't want to talk about because Jeff Blum helped the White Sox won a world series. That, that 2000, okay, we're moving on to 2020 because things are much more pleasant 15 years later. Todd Wellemeyer. I love hearing these names that I

her forgotten who even existed. All right. So the Major League Baseball Players Association decided to give their version of what the owners wanted. Owners wanted 82 games. There was a report, or at least the rumor that they wanted 100 of the players. That was inaccurate, obviously. Gentlemen, they won 114 games.

The Major League owners want the players to play at a prorated salary and take a cut off of the prorated salary because they cannot make any money at the gate. Major League Baseball has said 40% of their revenues of their sport come from what happens inside a stadium. Major League Baseball players said, we're not going to take a cut. We're not, we'll take the pro rate and that's it, but we want it pro-rated over 114 games. They also want, as according to their new plan, expanded playoffs for two years, Major League Baseball says expanded playoff for just this year to go from 10 teams to 14 teams. A salary advance of $100 million to split among players during the so-called spring training 2.0 that leads up to the regular season.

Additional commitment to players wearing microphones in the field and other broadcast enhancements. Oh, wow, that really is giving up something or giving in something. It is. and an offer to hold events such as an offseason all-star game or a home run derby to generate additional revenue. How nice. We'll go hit some home runs for you. They also said that there are two different ways you can opt out for the season. Now, Joe, help me on the clarification on this.

Players that are high risk. We'll get a salary. We'll get a salary, meaning they have to be proven by a doctor to be a high-risk candidate. If you are considered to be a low-risk candidate, you will not get a salary, but your service time will go into your pension plan. It will also go along to the lines of your year towards free agency. For instance, if George Springer all of a sudden said, I don't want to play this year, and I'm not going to get paid, he would then still gain his sixth year of eligibility of being a majorly baseball player, 10 making him then a complete 100% free agent in 2021.

So let me ask you all this. And again, the big picture for all of us is we play baseball. But what are the players really giving up? They want their same salary for almost a full season. And again, I'm trying to find out because if you're going to go in negotiations, you have to give something up. What are the players giving up? I would say if I were the players

I would be arguing that we are putting ourselves at risk and we are the ones going through the testing and we're going through the ringer and we're following 67 pages worth of crazy protocols for your entertainment. We are non-essential. We don't need to be out there. We're generating revenue for you.

We're generating revenue for ourselves as well. But we're the one that bearing the brunt of the risk. You're going to sit up in your high rise in your building with your feet kicked up on your desk. We're the ones that are going to be doing it. This is going to be on our backs. So I will be in the high rise for a second just to play devil's advocate. So you're telling me you're playing tremendous risk on yourself, risk to being out there, is what you're saying?

Yes. Then why are you taking my 82 game schedule and making it worth 114 games? Isn't that a huge risk? It's because we want more money. Damn. Isn't always about money? Of course. It's about the money for the owners.

With this players? Yeah. There was a story on ESPN that I want to go over a little bit in the next segment of the show that talks about Why Major League Baseball is in way more trouble than the NBA and the NHL. This gentleman who wrote this article, let me give you his name because it's definitely worth a read. John McLean? No, it's Bradford-Doolittle. Bradford-Doolittle.

Okay. Bradford-Doolittle. A former Harvard Law professor, now he's working for ESPN. The name of his story is MLB is having a tougher time returning the NBA and NHL. what's baseball's problem? He's indicated nine more problems that baseball has that the other two sports don't have. That's a lot, Bradford.

Bradford, dude. I wonder if I can call him Brad. I wish his last name was Dinwiddie. Bradford Dinwiddie. You want anybody's name to be Dinwiddie. It's a great last name. It's the Matt Dinwiddie show. Ooh, SportsMD.

Dinwiddie and Company. I like that, the SportsMD show. It does have a better ring to it, doesn't it? All right. So I'll run through some of the issues that this gentleman, Bradford, is it what I call him, Bradford? Bradley. Bradford. Bradford.

Come on, Bradford. Call yourself Brad. No adult man calls himself Bradford. What do you want to go by Bradford? Yeah. What's wrong with Bradford? Name another Bradford. Uh, La Bradford Smith?

Nope. Not going to work. It's close. It's close. No. Yeah. But we don't play close in the name game. It's like, yeah, I mean, even Jeff Passing, the D that he is.

He doesn't call himself Jeffrey Passing. He's Jeff Passing. Yeah, Google, the first suggestion for Google is Bradford White, and that is a manufacturer of water heaters. Okay, so Bradford-Dulittle manufactures water heaters, and he also writes nine column segments on why baseball is in trouble. We'll run through some of those low lights of that coming up in a minute. 713-212-5-790 if you'd like to join us today.

713212-5-790 on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Joe George Radio. Right now, a message for Big City Wings. Tonight is buy one, get one free chicken tenders in any of the nine, make it eight Big City Wing locations. I'm sure it'll be a ninth one soon. I also talked to Sam yesterday. He says, Matt, the crawfish are going beautifully, still to this day at Big City Wings. Five pounds of crawfish, corn, potato, sausage, the special seasoning.

Five pounds plus the crawfish, obviously, $25. So a double dual of specials tonight at any of the eight Big City Wing locations. Big on sports when they resume, big on specials, happy hour deals, social distancing for dine-in. There's also take-on delivery service. And tonight again is buy one chicken tender for $1. Sauce and toss the way that you want to, along with those great tasting crawfish at five pounds of $25. All at big citywings.com. that's big citywings.com.

Alexa, play sports talk 790 on I-HartRadio. Sure, Mr. Bumby. Would you like it regular? Or talked and screwed. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Keep it trill. I don't think Bumby has called his show since he was called Bumby. A low watermark in the history of the Matt Thomas showing to you, that for damn sure. Pretty funny, though.

Man, we're in June already? Don't say already. This has been the longest three months of our lives. That's true. It was... So you were... It was so bad. At the microphone for the public address.

Rockets, March 11th, defeating the Timberwolves by 6. Yes. How long ago does that feel? The last road trip I was on, we went to Charlotte for one day. Oh, no, Charlotte's nice. Really, really nice. The Hornets suck, though. Is there a casino over there?

No. No. A lot of beautiful Southern ladies in Charlotte. Southern bells. It's really a beautiful place It's one of the few rare East Coast cities I've been go live in Okay

But yeah I haven't called a basketball game since March And thought My guess is when the NBA resumes I'll be doing it off a television screen Besides the 10 minutes you did on On Not even 10 minutes

Oh it was on the 2K on the Xbox on Gordy's Xbox We might have to do that again to get myself Get your reps Yeah I think we should shout out by the way to the main creek class of high school class of 1990 30 years ago today we graduated wow 30 years 30 years ago this day I put a Facebook post up on it and I don't remember much about the ceremony but I do remember where we were going to eat my mom and my dad and myself was just three

of us where we were going then we were going to go to I was going to my project graduation at the high school after and all of us said hey there's this really awesome new Italian restaurant that's really opening up a bunch of locations and I heard the food is magnificent. I didn't say magnificent. No 18 year old says magnificent. But it was really great. Machias? Nice try.

Should we call to make a reservation? Yeah, because these places are so crowded we should. So I did. And we did. We made a reservation. My graduation dinner, after graduation, before prior to graduation, we went to the Olive Garden It's nice

Did you get some breadsticks? Salad, pasta And it was I mean, Ross, you wouldn't, I mean, you wouldn't believe

how difficult it was to get into an Olive Garden. Oh, hey, Olive Garden's not that bad, Matt. I like Olive Garden. I took a girl

on a first date to an Olive Garden. How did it end up? I mean, I was in high school. Scale 1 to 10. It was fine. We went to Olive Garden

in the movie. Did you get a kiss tonight? Nothing really happened, yeah, I think so. Good for you. What movie? Catch me if you can. Really? Yes.

Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. I got a movie review coming up in a couple of minutes on the Big Loboski. It was January 10th of 2003. There you go. Oh, you remember the date exactly? I do. Where's that girl now? She's around.

You wanted to touch a topic? I can do it. That's fine. Okay. You ever notice, Joe, how we like to make each other as uncomfortable. as possible in every scenario. That's when you know you're a part of the family. It's a good kid. Great kid. All right. So yeah, that was 30 years ago today, June 1st, 1990.

Only if I would have been able to predict what was going to happen 30 years later. Which would be? Married. Yes. Three kids. That's why I would imagine they'd be on your agenda. Two dogs. Okay. Palatial Kingwood Estate. Palacio Kingwood Estate. Successful career. A pandemic. Yes. amazing civil unrest. And in nine and a half on a 10 scale.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the best part is I'm a better looking man than I was when I was 18. Basically on Adonis. Let's not get crazy. All right. So the story from our buddy Bradley. Bradford. Bradford. Sorry, Bradley. Bradford too little. He's an article on ESPN.com. MLB is having a tougher time returning than NBA, NHL and what's baseball's problem. So guys, I'll run through some of these factors. Some of them are kind of so convoluted that it's just not worth

mentioning. He says factor number one while MLB is having a problem is the calendar. Because they can't figure it out. They can't figure out if they're going to play 114, 82, 100, and based on how long they bitch and moan to each other, that's going to have a large impact. And oh, by the way, while we're enjoying beautiful hot weather these days, the thought of a major league baseball season ending on October the 31st and trying to play postseason games in those cities in November, Rossi, you're screaming snow outs, cold outs, rainouts in the month of November. This World Series may not be, last, may not get underway until, like, December to 9th. So you're fighting the calendar on that.

You should put it in Minutemate Park. You'll be fine. So you think they should go, because if they're not going to, but the problem is, they want to have fans. Can you go neutral site unless it's a good weather city? What are you supposed to say about that? No, I know. but like, is there a way to be like

if the World Series has played in L.A. in Houston or Texas and Florida. You are Mr. Asterix, aren't you? I'm just saying, like, if you can play it in the home ballpark, then why not play it there? Just say, like, above the latitude and lawn, like the Mason-Dixon line

or something. Yeah. If the average November temperature is X degrees, you can play it. We'll play the World Series. What is wrong with both of you? It makes sense. It does not make sense. Why not? Congratulations, Kansas City, you've won the American League, and you're going to not have any games because it's 48 degrees in November.

Sorry. No, I'm sorry. It's cold. You chose to live in a cold city. People can travel. People travel for a week to the Super Bowl. You can travel for a week for the World Series. Annie and Hattman.

You should have to buy five games worth of tickets. If they want fans, right now the only place they can come is Houston or Arlington. So let me ask you this. What a, if let's, let's put the, let's put two teams in another non-astros. If the Yankees were to play the Dodgers. In the World Series. Uh-huh. And you could put 10,000 people at Minutemade Park.

Would the play sell out? At World Series prices. I would imagine. I don't. I think so. I would say yes. Honestly, I might go to one game. See?

You know what World Series Springs are, aren't you? No, I know. I'm not going to one game. It's an icon. It'd be like an iconic moment. I don't care how iconic things are. I'm telling you, again, it's going to cost you $185 to go to a game. You would want that ticket stub for all time.

I guess you'd have to get physical tickets, though. It's like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Okay. And go to a neutral site world series. I'm the king of once-in-a-a-lifetime. I've already told the NBA, the NAPA. In Orlando, I'm going. Yeah, you said you're going to go away from your family for three months.

Well, they don't really won't miss me that much. They're like, are you sure you can't go somewhere? All right. Next. Economic structure. What does the NHL and the NBA and the NFL have that the majorly baseball folks don't have? Salary cap. Salary cap.

So when you don't revenue share, there's no incentive to get it to make as much money together. So if you're a majorly baseball player, you love the fact that your team can spend as much money as they want on you. And they can also pay a luxury tax threshold. But the negative is it feels like it's harder to collectively bargain in moments like this, right? Yes. So in this one particular case, not having a salary cap, not having a revenue sharing plan hurts because everybody in the NFL wants to get together. They want to play a full season.

They want as much money going in because they know it's going to be split among the two sides. The NBA, the players, Ross, want to get back because they know their salary cap is directly influenced based off how much revenue a league makes. and they know that games do matter. Major League Baseball does not have that. Next. Let's see what I'm trying. I think what else would be,

things that would make sense in terms of factors why major league baseball. Sources of revenue. Major League Baseball Rob Manfred, that's the commissioner, says that 40% of its revenue from attendance and related income streams come from those that go to the game. So beers, concessions, parking, luxury suites. Because you think about it. You have.

Cotton candy. 81 games. 81 parking. 81 tickets. Yeah. To me, yeah, that is huge because they have way more games than anybody else. So that's why they, you know, that's why it's when not having fan. And that's probably the number one point.

Don't you think the owners are saying, I can't make this money if I don't have anybody in my stands? I want to pay you. I want to pay myself, but I can't pay you just a prorated number because I've got nothing coming in. Players are saying too damn bad. You signed up for this. We're in hard times. Live with it. Yes. When profits were soaring, you didn't say a word. But if they don't make any amendments, Ross, we're going to lose a season. Don't you agree? Yeah, absolutely. I think the players have to go to an adjusted salary. maybe you slightlyen the adjustment from what the player you know how the guys were making $35 million or making down to $7

maybe that $35 million guy is making 10 or 11 but playing more games is going to cost major league baseball owners more money I like the deferred thing

that they want they're like okay well you can pay us a bunch of this money but you can defer the payments we'll take it in a couple of years I think that makes a lot of sense because like you're saying Ross

they make money every year They're making billions of dollars as a league every year. So eventually you would think the money is going to come back. You would figure, so if the money is going to come back, then pay me later. I owe you. Well, how about this? You know, the CBA and baseball, the collective bargaining agreement ends out of the 2021 season. Do you bring that at the table and say, I know we were going to defer this, but we're not going to pay you on this?

Here's the number one problem. The owners and the players in baseball hate each other more than anybody else. It seems like they're both digging in and seems like they're both just Remember we talked about how leaking was going to be an issue? It is happening like every five minutes now. Well, the problem is they don't trust each other. And that's the one thing that the NBA has over anything else.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't have a lot of fans. I'll give you an example of that coming up the next break. But it feels like the NBA from the players and from the owner's side, they do respect Adam Sovere and they think that he is working in the best interest of both of their sides. 1243 is a time. It is the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790.

713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 if you'd like to join us today. Right now, I want to tell you about bronze roofing here today, here tomorrow, and they have been in the Houston area taking care of needs of those that have had problems with the roofs for over 30 years. You know, roofs can last up to 15 years if they are properly maintained. Make sure you're getting a thorough inspection every few years to make sure it's a doing its job. So call them right now. That's bronze roofing at 281-480-9,900. Typically, within 24

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I feel like we're going to get some definitive information this week. But the timeline, man, seems really, really, really long. We'll discuss that in 12 minutes. timeline. All right. And we'll talk about this tonight. We have our Monday night meeting this evening in 8 o'clock, not 7. We want to make sure Ross is home and comfortable in his pajamas.

Thank you. So he can do his Monday meeting. We can do 7.30. No, it's 8 o'clock. It's already been set. I mean, in the future. Oh, okay. 8 o'clock tonight.

Because I know you get sleepy by about 30. Yeah, maybe. Monday night meeting tonight will feature you, me, Connor, Clinton, and Wexler. Oh. Joe gets the week off. Oh. Joe's right busy.

That's it. It's okay. If I was on it, Matt, would forget to tag me in the three because I'm not that important anyways. So what's the difference in this way? Exactly. Right in the stomach, too. I know two weeks in a row, forgetting me like that.

Just not shocked I can get the invite now. Maybe he even forgot the invite. Well, I didn't want to bring up the Cubs frustration of 2005 today. They had a pretty good squad. Yeah, too good. Yeah. On the Windy City potty cat. A potty guest.

podcast. Was this for toddlers? The windy city. Remember when Wrigley Field wouldn't have, didn't have lights and didn't have large exploding scoreboards? Back in the good old days of average Cubs baseballers. I mean, I was not alive when

they didn't have lights. It's funny because a lot of the reason why they thought the Cubs were not very good was because they would play every game during the day and that the sun would well, would kind of tire them out during the end of the season. That was one of the theories. Interesting theory. I don't know if I believe that, but. I don't think I believe that either.

The sun does tire you out, Matt. So I don't go out in it. Exactly. That's my silky white legs. Soaky is probably not the proper context there. All right. So while watching the terrible coverage around the United States, I decided to take a little diversion. It's really mentally exhausting, isn't it?

It's sad. It's exhausting. I've never felt a period of helplessness in my life. life that I feel like right now. I'm not the only one thinks that. So I needed a little get away from that. And so I rented the Big Lebowski. Okay. And look, the movie is 20 plus years old, but I feel like I've done, I feel like I've stepped in a challenge this year of what you've asked me to do. Yes. Labowski. Yes. Both of the godfathers. I've not done it's always sunny in Philadelphia. That's fine. Or Goodfellas. But isn't Goodfellas just another gangster movie?

Is it different than the other gangster movies? It's not. It is, but it's not, but it's the best. We'll start listing gangster movies. It's different than the untouchables. Casino? You could say it's similar to casino just because the actors are the same, but the story is done differently.

Casino, to me, is more of a slow-burning epic, and Goodfellas is a more of in-your-face fast-paced movie. And you know, I don't like violence. This is probably going to, I will probably close my eyes during half of it. I wouldn't say in Goodfellas, that's the case. you know what the opening what happens in the opening scene besides the opening scene yeah and several other scenes

okay under the second scene I'm going he's putting all the aprons on to go right all right all right all right spoilers no I think it's not that bad I've seen uncount gems this summer okay I haven't you know what I still I said I was going to watch that like Tuesday and I didn't same didn't watch it so I watched Lobowski

yes go ahead on a scale of one to 10 I would give it probably a six and a half Not iconic. It's iconic. I mean, I'm in my mind. Among my friends that love it, they recite lines from it, they pretend their characters of it, they have watch parties, they believe they're the character.

It's almost Star Wars, Star Wars, in an essence of... It's more of a cult thing. It's very much a cult thing. I didn't realize a young Tara Reid was in there, and she's delightful before the numerous plastic surgeries. Yes. Julianne Moore. Julianne Moore.

I thought her character was beyond peculiar. Of course. Although, again, Julian Moore being naked in movies is not a bad thing. It's not. No. Boogie Nights was more of her nakedness. But, you know, that's not true. As Amber Waves.

That's an iconic movie right there. That's a great movie as well. That is a great movie. Love Jeff Bridges. John Goodman's character just was just pissing me off the whole time. Why? He's hilarious. He might be like, He steals the movie almost.

Well, he's in the movie. It feels like as much as anybody else is. Has the whole world gone crazy? I didn't get the whole Germans in the whole thing. The Nialists? Yeah. Well, so those were friends of Bunny and they were trying to kidnap her for money. And what she didn't, she really, I wish she didn't give it.

She'll give it away? Yeah, sure. I mean, the movie's from like 97. She was, she was, she was just went away from 18. Some friends. I love the porn star. Was that guy to say something hungus? Carl Hungas.

I love the fact that he kept drinking white Russians everywhere he went. And bowling for no reason was in the movie, except it just beautifully segues to everything. It's a part of the movie, right. It's not a bowling movie. It just takes place at a bowling alley.

There's just enough things in there. And then Jesus, we got to meet John Titoro, which I don't know, Nick. I didn't know, I didn't know his brother John, but I saw John now in the movie. What? You've never seen John Tutro in anything?

I don't think so. He's been in round. He was in that. He's been in, what is it? The one with Adam Sandler. Okay, was he in Transformers? I don't know.

What's the one in Adam Sandler where he's a billion, Mr. Deeds? Nope. He's been in a bunch of Adam Sandler movies. Great character there. Let's see what else. The stranger, Sam Elliott,

point in a couple of scenes. You kind of knew who he was. Didn't really want to say it was. Great voice, by the way. Great voice. One of the all-time greats. Hey, can we do a Fantasy 5 on voices? We've done that.

Are you sure? Yes. We drafted Sam Elliott. I took James Earl Jones number one overall, I believe, I won. Damn. See, Joe, running out of fantasy 5s. Every time I think of a great fantasy 5 topic, he says, we've already done that. Oh, well.

Sam Elliott was 1,000% on the list. Sam Elliott, the Smoker, he was just given that voice. I don't know. So, yeah, I might even watch it again just to catch up on things that I didn't understand the first girl around. I think you should. But I didn't think it was bad. It's subtle. There will be things and little humorous things that you don't pick up on because you were trying to pay attention to...

I mean, the whole thing of... I mean, it's just so great. One of the funniest parts to me was John Goodman's character goes out and starts smashing that car. And he just the kid's car. It's the neighbor's car. That was good. How about when he throws the ashes into Jeff Bridges' face? That to me is one of the more laugh-out, loud, funny moments of the movie. Probably number one.

Now, our buddy Bonn said, make sure. you pay attention to the television screen when dude is paying for his milk at the grocery store. It was President Bush speaking about Saddam Hussein, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's a period piece. It's in 98, but it takes place in like 91 or 2 or whatever. Was that a huge part of the show? No.

No, but I just thought it was interesting that that was in there. But, yeah. I don't think unless there's some hidden meaning that I'm not aware of. The whole urinating on the rug was funny. The rug really puts everything in the room together. How about when they're dunking his head in there? And he's like, well, let me go take another. look.

Yeah. And was it bleach in the toilet or what was that? Because when you dunk something in the toilet, typically it's just regular water. Oh, it's, no, it's just a dirty,

nasty apartment water. Yeah. And then Julianne Moore basically like, I want to have sex with you just because I want to have a baby. Yes. As she's putting herself in paint and ramming against the, making a painting with her naked body. You always love a movie where Julianne Moore is up in the air,

completely naked, drawing stuff. So yeah, maybe, you know what? I'll give it a seven. It's a great movie. Yeah, it took a while, but I understand.

Some of it has to sink in, Matt. I understand why some people, like my uncle who lives in Dallas, likes to watch the movie five times a year, at least. Oh, really? Yeah. Where he just feels like every time you watch something, he catches something new. Mm-hmm. It's one of those.

Sort of like me with the movie airplane. I catch a new joke every single time. Those are, that's more in your face. It is in your face for sure. So you have airplane at a 10 then? Oh, for sure. So see, that's why I think you need to watch Walk Hard. You still haven't seen that?

No, my middle son wants me to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. He thinks that's one of the funniest movies. The good, the bad, and the ugly? Yeah, I think it's what he wants me to see. No, that can't be it. That's a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western. Oh, okay. There's something else.

There's something, something, something. He thinks that that has been named the funniest movie of all time. I don't believe that. What? I thought Airplane was the funniest movie of all time. That's a great topic. Have we done funniest movies of all time? I think yes.

Damn. See me, I'm always trying to figure of new ways to do Fantasy 5. See, but Walk Hard is more of a, like, because Airplane was like a parody of all the disaster movies, right? Correct. So Walk Hard is a parody of all the biopics

of like the, the walk the lines, of the ray, of all that type of stuff. When was it produced? 2004-ish? Oh, it's 5-ish. So it's John C. Riley. You know John C. Riley?

Oh, for sure. So he's like this character and he plays him from like the time he's 15 years old. It's a joke-a-minute parody. Like what airplane is. Just stupid. Basically this show. Stupid slapstick jokes every 30 seconds.

Like airplane, it just back at back. You just, breakneck speed. It doesn't stop. I mean. I mean. Nobody ever talks about that movie, though. It's very underrated. Joe, have you seen it?

I have not. Now I'm upset. Sports RV Movie Club. What's it called? Walk Hard. Walk Hard. 2007 it was made. Perfect.

All right. Second hour of the show. We'll get to the NBA over the weekend. And not a lot of new developments except that they keep telling us we're going to have some really interesting news by the end of the week. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in today. 7-1-3-2-2-5-7-90 with a message for Shaw's jewelry. West Graham Montrose, the exact intersection they've been there since 1966. They specialize in engagement rings and diamond ring upgrades.

They specialize in pre-owned Rolexes. In fact, they've got the largest selection in the city of Houston. If you want to give your wife that diamond ring upgrade, she's always wanted, or perhaps a gorgeous diamond studs, or a diamond tennis bracelet, think of only one place. And that is Shaw's Jewelry at West Graham Montrose. And right now they're offering zero percent financing for 12 months on purchases. Some exclusions apply. West Gray and Montrose since 1966 is the place for fine diamond jewelry and great customer service that Shaw's at West Graham Montrose. Is the Matt Thomas Show.

on a Monday. Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. See that we're all going to be in Tropical Depression coverage for you know it. There's a certain sportscaster won't say his name,

me, that hopes it does not move towards this area for reasons of all of us and our safety and our well-being. And the fact that I'm at KTRH at 1.30 in the morning with hurricane coverage. I'll prank call you.

It's happened. You got prank called on a KTRH when you did your hurricane coverage? Yes. Okay, what I'm about to curse. What kind of person? What kind of a-hole would do

that? Have you met Houston? Yeah, that's terrible. I mean, we are generally speaking. You're like, oh, you're working your ass off trying to provide the people with information about a natural disaster, one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the country. Correct. I was

joking. I wouldn't just wake up and prank follow you. Well, you got to realize when you work the 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift, there's going to be a bunch of Looneybirds out there. That's a fat. I had to work those shifts every now and there. Twitter is really nice during that time. Yes. But generally speaking, America is a little cranky. Twitter is a cesspool. It's a cesspool. I've had probably, I think I've probably lost 50 to 75 followers. And I don't think it's because of anything I've said, I think people are logging themselves out. All right, fine. You want me to follow you back? I've lost, yeah, I've lost over 30 in the last couple weeks.

Yeah, I don't, because I, look, you can choose, not to choose a follow. I mean, that's fine. But it's just one of those things that I think people have said, it's just such a bad place. I need to get away from it. And, you know, it's easy to say, I'm not going to look at it when you wind up looking at it. But if you deactivate yourself, you can't look at it unless you make a concerted effort to go to Twitter and start looking. If I didn't need it for sports information and my job, I'm pretty sure I would not use it. Twitter for me is a wonderful place during a game.

Now, again, if I'm calling the game, I can't do it. Or, you know, if I'm working on Rockets, but if I'm watching a good football game, watching the Texans play, or the Astros are in a playoff game, or it's a good college football game. It's a lot of fun. It really is. Yes.

Great. During a sports event, a big sports event, everybody's posting memes and gifts and funny stuff, and James Hardin's dunking on Dremont Green, and we can all celebrate. It's cool. It's fun. Yeah.

During something like this, it's an ocean of misinformation there's an ocean of bad takes and ill-informed people who and just opinions uninformed opinions where people I don't really put out political opinions because I don't really know

what I'm talking about and that doesn't stop anybody else it seems And what I've learned is that no matter what you put out just like America 50% think it's the gospel and 50% think you're just the most horrible personal life So that's why we don't do it Like this thing of the FBI agent is

trending right now. It turns out there's this video of this guy getting arrested because he's black and he's an FBI. He's not even an FBI agent, it turns out. Like, what, in 300,000 people are tweeting about it. It's always just this fake fake news. Uh-oh. I've become everything I hate.

This last thing we're going to get, before we get to sports here. The craziest thing I saw this weekend, and I knew this was a sign of the apocalypse. In Seattle, a cheesecake factory was looted. Mmm, that sounds delicious. As they were looting it, someone picked up a cheesecake and left the restaurant with it.

What else do you loot a cheesecake factory for? Well, just to damage it. But to take, to have the stones to go into the restaurant after you looted it and to grab an entire cheesecake and take it back with you. I mean, is exactly what was wrong with America. It's going to spoil, Matt.

Oh, so you're saying it's a considerate looter then. Yes. Okay. It's like, this is going to go bad anyways. Let me go ahead and get my hand mitts on this red velvet cheesecake. Let's move on. you're warped you really are

is this new information that is true 713-212-2-5-7-0-0 well you know what does somebody I feel like I'm about to a bit steal something here but I think we kind of need it right now

okay are you okay somebody's called my phone I'm in the show I want to pick it up no pick it up it's probably an automated yeah

what is there somebody that's the best thing to happen to you this weekend is that somebody steals that Well, I told you that John Krikkisinski, or whatever, the guy from the office who was Jim Halpert, he did some good news. And he was doing every day, he was going on YouTube, he put a suit on and he'd say, this is what's happening in good news today. Do you want to do that? Or would you want to call it?

The best thing that happened today. This weekend. Or this weekend. You just want to do it on Mondays? Yeah. Joe, you okay with this? The short time you're with us still? Sure.

Let's try this. I can't imagine it being much because it sucked as a weekend. But if something great happened this weekend, I will take it. I will, like, if your kid graduated from high school this week. Like, 30 years ago, today I graduated from high school. And I'm very happy to say that I'm probably still friends, or at least through Facebook, of at least half of the people I graduated with. That makes me happy. Good.

At least half people I have some sort of communication with. Okay. Do you want to know the best thing that happened to me this weekend? So the best thing happened to me this weekend is two things. One, I kind of got thought about the good days in my high school, and two, I'm in an amazing chicken on the grill this weekend. Marinated it beautifully with a little broccoli. It was delicious. It was a carb-free lunch, which did okay because I had an intense high-carb dinner with pizza. Oh, I made honey barbecue glazed pork chops on the grill. That's the best thing that happened to you this weekend? No, the best thing that happened to me this weekend is I have a three-year-old niece.

Yeah. And she's a middle child, so I feel like we bond. Sure. And so she was like, can I go watch Incredibles? And sure, I was like, okay, I'll go flip it on. And then she didn't want to watch it with her sister because her sister makes fun of her. She has an older sister. And then she said she wanted to watch the movie with me and she didn't want me to go back to the living room.

And that just warmed my heart. That is the best thing that happened to Ross this weekend. It was so sweet. Joe, what do you got? Anything? You've got, he's got nothing. I don't know if I got anything. No, I know what you're going to say.

I went grocery shopping this weekend and just ran into some of my new family members. from Dana's side. It was just I haven't seen them since the wedding. That was really nice. Unexpected, nice little surprise. Let's see some nice smiling faces, even though I couldn't see their smiles. I got one more for you. The best thing that happened this weekend.

My daughter had an overnight stay with a friend's house, and they live about 35 minutes from us. And she called me and said, hey, I want to stay a little bit longer. So I had extra few minutes to kill. So I went to a Starbucks to get a coffee and banana nut bread. I got there, they paid for it. Hmm. I said, is this another car? Nope, just on the house.

Enjoy your day. I said, thank you. The best thing happened me this weekend. Good. That's cool. Now, if we ever do a segment called The worst thing that ever happened this weekend, that would take like three hours.

So if you have anything that happened, it was awesome this weekend. I'll take it. Yes, I like that. The best thing I have to do this weekend. Tweet to at SportsMT and go ahead and follow them while you're at it. Yeah, because, you know, I'm closer going back to my 20,000.

You lost your point one. Oh, yeah, I told you I'm under 251 now. I lost people for something I must have done or said or maybe didn't. I think it's a lot of deactivity. And somebody's tweeting in, can we have another 20K party when you lose 5,000 more? So if I go under 20 and then re-get the 20 again, we're going to Vegas. I'm all in on that. So what I would do is I would never announce what we were doing over 30,000, and say,

now that we've reached 20, let's all go to. Vegas and celebrate. I mean, if you start tweeting politics, you'll probably be under 20,000 by the end of the week. Yes, right. And then you delete all the tweets and be like, I'll never talk politics again, give you back to 20K. Or I can do this. Follow me, and I'll give one of you a hundred bucks.

That'll work. You're okay. You have to keep track of the people to follow you. But I could afford it, right? I'm sure. I want to give one person, 100 bucks. I can do that easily. Let me go to Ian on 790 at 110. Ian, good afternoon. I don't think my weekend is nearly as good as you all. I mean, even though it involves some work debauchery.

But anyways, I was wondering, baseball thing goes on. Doesn't it disadvantage the players because the owners can't pay them as much? Because, you know, there's less games. Yeah, the owners only want to pay for, at this point, only want to pay for 82 games. They have no interest in making it a longer season. So in your mind, my Matt, when do the owners just call it quit and cancel out the season? Do you think it's in June? Do you think it's in August or do you think it's somewhere, sometime earlier?

I think if they don't have an agreement with the players by June 15th, there will be no season. I think we are two weeks. Do you think we're at two weeks? Two weeks. All right. I really appreciate this, man. You always have the best insight when it comes to serious matters. Thank you, Annas.

Take it easy. You too. All right, buddy. I did. Thank you. You guys agree? We'll come back. Hold it.

It's June 15th. Does it feel like to you a good drop dead date? We'll talk about that. And the NBA, they think they're coming back this week. It's just one of they going to really come back. 112 on Sports Talk 790. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. Step back three and the quarter is good.

Matt Thomas, my favorite voice in Houston. Now, that's the Lord's eyes right here. Back to the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. 116. I just saw the NFL's statement from Goodell about what happened, obviously, with passing Mr. Floyd. And Kenny Steele's tweets back, save the BS. Okay. We get a long way to go, everybody. We do.

Yes, sir. I can agree with that. And frankly, I'm tired of it being a long way to go. It's sad that my kids are. suffering and all of us are suffering the way that our parents did and everybody. It's just terrible. It's why we try to keep it as loose as possible on the show, but I just saw that tweet come out a few minutes ago. Okay.

So, I say they have until June 15th for the Major League Baseball season to start planning the games, go to spring train and do this. Am I right or am I wrong? How much later can they go from that if you think June 15th isn't the drop dead date? it's got to be around there and one of the things that I can I think can happen you know like there's a thing called

that the president can do called a pocket veto when a bill passes he doesn't have to sign a veto he can just kind of let let it expire what if the owners do that what if they don't necessarily

they just keep negotiations going until they can they go down from 114 games to 100 games to like 90 games and the negotiations continue to drag out until where they get closer to the 82 games that they want. Can the owners just do

that? Or is there going to be the players association have to put their foot down and say this is the deadline after this date we're not negotiating anymore? Because if the MLB players are willing to have a neutral site playoffs and play the regular season until October 31st, my guess is it would be it would just be 82 day or like 95 days back from there. So whatever the drop day date. from that is. So maybe like August 1st is totally, God, that sounds crazy. But like, it's like July 1st doable where you start playing August 1st and you play 82 games in 90 days. August, September. 95 days, I'm just Googling it just to help the conversation. 95 days from August 1st is November 4th.

So that's pretty close. So I mean, guys, you remember they're going to be double headers. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe if they need three weeks, then maybe July 1st is the 8th. absolute drop dead date if they're willing to play an 82 game season from August 1st to October 31st. Maybe they can go into July. I mean, we blew up. Yeah. I don't know. The July, wasn't June 1 supposed to be the soft deadline?

Yeah. We're here and it doesn't look like we're close. And I think June 6 was more of the hard deadline. So, I mean, look, if the players are willing to play 82 games and go to October 31st, I would say. But are they willing? Great question. But I would say, like, I would say drop dead date for that. scenario is July 1st. Because here's the thing, this latest round back to the players, to the owners,

I should say, doesn't mention anything about a cut in salary. They're cutting a salary just because there aren't as many games. Just for example, if you work a 40-hour-a-week job and you make X amount of money, if your job all of a sudden got cut to 30 hours, you'd still get paid the same rate, it would just be based on 10 less hours. That's what the players want. Because I don't want to get into the minutiae of every little bit of this thing. But that's the most, that's the easiest thing to figure out is they want every bit of what their contract stipulates. They are, however, willing to do it at a prorated basis. And the reason why they are giving you such a high number is because they understand that 162 games is not a possibility

in 2020. But they're figuring if we get this thing going in the next. handful of days, we can get 114 games in, which is what, essentially 75% of the season, maybe a little bit less than that. So they're saying, we'll take 70% of our real dollars as compared to 50% of our real dollars minus a discount because you don't think you can make any money without any fans in the stance. Guys, it seems so far. That's why I'm saying we can set deadlines all you want.

who's going to back down? Does the counter back the season out? Does the counter finally push somebody all in? To your point, Adam, do you think, or maybe it was not Adam? Joe? Joe, you're Joe. You're Ross. You work with Adams. That's right. I felt like there's at least one show on our station with an Adam somewhere on it. The players are not going to say, well, well, they got us. It's only down 82s. I guess we've got to accept this. Yeah. I don't have the union doing that at all. to set a deadline, I think. Who set the deadline? I think the players need to.

If they are the one that want 114 games. But you say 114 saying we'll probably do 100, or we'll do 95. Can you play 114 games if you start July 1st? July's 30, August is 60, September 90. Yeah, because it's four months of 30 days. It's 120. You have some double-h headers and you have off days. You can't.

July 1st, November 1st, is 123 days. So take 10 days out of the mix That's 114 Then take probably another 12 of those that are double-headed days Yeah You can do it Oh, there's going to be a lot of injuries That's why you get the taxi squads

That's why I got 50-man rosters apparently Yeah They got to figure this out They got to do something They have to If there is going to be a season Which I mean I'm trying not to have a bleak outlook on this

But the more I see it And the more we keep saying, like the Jason Stark cuts that we played last week where I'm looking for a middle ground. I don't see a middle ground. That's the problem. It's not like one says give us 50% and one says give us 55% let's meet in the middle. But don't we? It's a whole different thing. But don't we do that as typical sports hosts and fans?

Don't we always think there's no middle ground in the? No, like I said there, I feel like there is. Like there was the NFL CBA. They were arguing over percentages of the pie because they wanted. They were like, okay, if you give us an extra game, we want an extra percentage. The NFL can say, no, we want to give you half a percent. We want to give you whatever. You can meet in the middle of 2%.

How do you meet them in the middle of no pro-ration? I mean, no, what would you call it, salary cuts or salary cuts? Half the cuts? Because, yeah, let's make sure we're very clear on this. There is no salary cuts, according to the players. There is a proration, right? Yes. That's what they want.

They want proration. And that's it. And they will concede nothing further, according to Max Scherzer, unless, unless the owners open up their books. And we know that's not happening. And show us how poor they've been. Yeah, because if I was the players, if I'm supposed to get $17.8 million, like if I'm Max Scherzer, and they're telling me I'm going to get $7.8.

What do you want to try to get to? 13? 14 million? I think that's where the deferment thing comes in, where they want deferred payment. You're like, okay, you can not pay us now, but you're going to pay us in the future. Yeah, like you can pay you guys now, but seven later. guys have been killing it with the revenues. So you've got to have money somewhere.

And you're going to make money next year. So you're telling me these players do not care about the economic hard times these owners are having in 2020. No. Should they care? I don't think so. But Ross, if they don't care, there won't be a season. They know that. Owners know that, the players know that.

See, I feel like the longer this goes, guys, the more heat there's going to be for just cut the season. The owners are going to be like, we've already said what we're willing to do. We're not, we cannot negotiate more. If 40% of our revenues come from the people that walk through the turnstiles, I can't make that money back. And they have said, whether you believe them or not, the more games you play, the more it's going to cost us. And the money they're going to get back, at least some of it will be with expanded playoffs and extra round of playoffs. they said they'd have a home run derby Matt make some revenue off that

put microphones you know what I would do I'd put get rid of the logos just put corporate sponsors on them for a year yeah does that have to be collective bargained I guess they would yeah because the players are representing them especially if you are a if you're a baseball player and you represent Nike and they want you an underarmor shirt or something

yeah I bet it's a big mess but I mean there are you know like the players don't have any say of what's on the uniforms right so if they say hey we're going to put this patch on I wonder if, well, I guess the players would have to... The players should just put an American flag over it. That's true. Like Michael Jeffrey Jordan did. Man, I'm missing me some last dance.

You can watch it again. Lance Armstrong is just not hitting the same thing. It didn't hit the same sweet spot. It didn't. I'll be honest with you. I'm really looking forward to the Bruce Lee one. I'm too. That and then the Sosa McGuire one are both going to be good.

Actually, remember I was telling you a couple weeks ago, man? I was like, you know what? I'm going to check out a couple of Bruce Lee movies because I'd never seen them. Did he die of what I think? he died of? What do you think he died of? Didn't he have an adverse reaction to aspirin? No. No. I think it's just

unconcerned how he died. Yeah, it's kind of mysterious. Like, could have been killed. At least, yeah, at least according to the biopic. All right. The problem is, I'm not in the Bruce lead. The Sosa-McGuire one's going to be amazing because that

got baseball back on its feeding. And that's a hypocrisy of baseball, isn't it, guys? that the sport was dormant for about a half decade until these two monsters kept hitting home runs everywhere and we were on the edge of our seats. I remember going to a batting practice at the Astrodome when those two guys were each, when the Cubs would come in and when the Cardinals would come in,

they'd be trying to be 30,000 people trying to get inside the Astrodome to watch those guys hit batting practice because they had a chance to catch a home run ball from him during batting practice. Cerebral Indema for Bruce Lee. Which is, aka what? excess accumulation of fluid in the intracellular and extra cellular spaces of the brain.

Wow. What year was that? 73. How old was he? 33. Damn. 32. Oh, man.

He's an international, all-time, eternal legend at the age of 32. What have I done in my life? Yeah, what have you done with your 32 years of your life? Oh, Christ. At sports RV. I don't know. I'm certainly not an international icon. Are you sure?

You're a regional icon. Yeah, let's not get crazy. All the region? North Central Houston icon? All right. Now that I'm depressed again. You know what, though? Dying Young adds to your legend.

So I'd rather just live longer. Scoreboard, Bruce Lee. Yeah. Live longer and be less recognized. Yes. Like would James Dean be nearly as cool if he was alive today? Hell no. No.

Good point, Matt. Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendricks. The list goes on. What was a woman's name? Amy Winehouse? Janice Joplin. Yeah, we're running through the whole 27 club now. Robert Johnson in the 27 club.

Kurt Cobain. Okay. Now we've... I want to go to a therapist. How do we get on the celebrity deaths again? Do me a favorite. Find us a sports topic to get into. sinker Tateen Tew, Joe. You're the producer of the show.

Are you on the recap of the Bundesliga action? No. He's about J.R. Smith beating up some dude. Dude, he kicked that guy's ass. And then he just, he started doing interviews today. He said he regrets it. Well, he regrets it, but he was mad. Just beat his ass is awesome.

What he did is, he did a video about what he, what happened, ahead of being chased by every news media organization. And then there was a video, I think a TMZ put out, put him side by him. speaking, putting it side by side of what the video of the guy going after his car. J. Harris. Was he the one that thought the game was tied? Yes.

He thought they were winning and the game was tied. That was literally yesterday. Yeah, yesterday was the anniversary. Somebody tweeted out like, May 31st needs to be J.R. National J.R. Smith Day. Because he beat a guy's ass, and that's the day that he didn't know what the score was. I want to say.

At the end of a finals game, where did LeBron drop like 50, 11, 11 or something like that game? And on Saturday, he's right. his bike down the streets of LA with LeBron and Anthony Davis. So I'm like, this guy is still like involved in the NBA but no one will touch him. Well, the question is

wasn't his explanation even worse? Can you find that joke coming out of the brain? I want to say he just had the worst explanation as compared to saying I goofed up, I didn't realize what the score was or how much time was left. I think his explanation probably did him worse than it did anything else.

And wasn't he also a guy that, like, celebrated during without a shirt on during the whole celebration wasn't he t wasn't he shirtless jr smith that's a 30 for 30 i don't want to be a want to keep on i would like to watch that one so see see if you can find the audio of jr smith talking about a lot of good dunks yeah let me tell you right now about berkeley eye center first second before we get to the jr smith stuff because he is kind of fascinating i'll be honest with you uh between your glasses fogging up every time you put on a mask and worrying about using your fingers or put another contact lens in your eye i'm thinking right about now is the perfect time to get LASIC from Berkeley I Center.

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BerkeleyI.com. IHeartRadio, the free app for your music, your stations like Sports Talk 790, and number one for podcasting. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show. Here on Sports Talk 790, Ross via Real Matt Thomas. So we were talking about J.R. Smith. So that game won

of the Warriors versus the Cavaliers in the finals of 2018 I was pulling up that box score that game went into overtime where the Cavaliers just got crushed but it was tied at 107-107 who was it? George Hill

misses a free throw J.R. Smith grabs the rebound he has an avenue for a putback with Kevin Durant just under the basket and he takes it out to the three-point line and that's when the iconic LeBron James that's like one of the all-time iconic sports photos, right?

LeBron James just sticking his hands out at J.R. Smith. It's like Muhammad Ali standing over Sunny Liston, Michael Jordan shot in Utah, and LeBron James just shoving his hands at J.R. Smith, what are you doing? So you can like remember that play.

You kind of forget about it and then I'm listening to some of the J.R. Smith interview and he's trying to explain it. I'm like, this guy is just a total. I'm a total idiot. Like, what are you doing, man? I think after the game he was trying to explain. And you know what's actually kind of funny, though?

I do remember in that moment watching it. I was confused when he ran away. I was like, are they up? I'm like, I'm looking at the school. I thought something was wrong with the graphics that ABC was putting up or something like that happens. They don't adjust it right away. So like, oh, maybe they missed something. Yeah.

Nope, they didn't. LeBron dropped 51, 8, and 8 in that game. And they lost and went on to get swept. You know, that's the worst thing as a play-by-play guy is getting the score mixed up. Oh, yeah. Remember Mike Bring was talking about that today? Yes. How he could, well, he couldn't see, well, he couldn't see his foot if it was a two or a three.

In the Nick's Rockets game. Yeah. Brian Anderson. Is that name where you're going to be able to? He hosted the golf coverage a few weeks ago for Ernie Johnson. He does a lot of TNT, baseball, and basketball. He messed up last year during the Sweet 16. I don't know if he had called it a tie.

It was like a game losing or winning call? It was a final shot call and he said, he said it's a game. I think it was he said it was a game winner, whatever game was calling and it was a game of tied the time again. That's going to stick in. He's going to remember that for the rest of his life. That sucks. We've all done it.

That's a huge gap. But it's so awful because especially if you're given the assignment of a lifetime where you're calling a huge game and you make a. make a mistake like that. Oh, it kills you. Can we talk about this roster LeBron Drag to the finals, though? Go ahead.

LeBron James. Kevin Love. Not Dragon. Player. J.R. Smith. Dragon. George Hill. Tristan Thompson.

Dragon. Jeff Green. Larry Nance. Dragon. Jordan Clarkson. Dragging. Kyle Corver. Took with him.

LeBron's the second greatest player of all time. He just is. And you know what? The people who want to just point to his final records, Like, see, he lost in the finals. Yeah, with J.R. Smith getting 40 minutes and Tristan Thompson doing nothing. Who's the second best player on that team? Kevin Love.

Kevin Love. Not even close. And then third. Who running through him again? George Hill. Tristan Thompson? Maybe. J.R. Smith?

No. Jeff Green. No. Larry Nance. No. Jordan Clarkson. No. Because this is when Kyrie's hurt, right?

Was he off the team? No, Kyrie was hurt. Was Kyle Corver shooting much during that series? Do you play much? I'm trying to pull up the whole final stats. Okay, back to my point. LeBron's the second-grade's player of all time. No disrespect to Kareem.

No disrespect to Bill Russell. Notice respect to Will Chamberlain. LeBron has taken some very pedestrian teams of the NBA championships. Corver averaged one point, one and a half points a game in that final. Killing it. LeBron average 34, second was Kevin Love with 19. Why do women like Kyle Corver so much? The hair.

Is that what it is? It's the hair. And the silky stroke. Excuse me? You're saying he's got a smooth stroke? Why do you call him silky? Are you watching Gray's Anatomy again this week? I am, but no.

So let me ask you this. So you sit there with your wife and you're sitting on the couch. Yes. And you're like, hey, I'd like to watch an old Laker Celtics Mb. finals game and she says, I'd rather watch Grey's Anatomy. You know? No. No, if I wanted to, we could, but I don't, I don't honestly, I've, I've probably watched

three old sporting events since all this started. That's it? I've tried. I'm not into it. I've watched like eight hard word classics. I watched game seven of 2016 World Series. I watched Game 6

the movie. That was really good. Can I tell you what I've watched a lot of? 20 strikeout game. Oh, family feud. Of course you did. Besides family feud. So the old rocket games are on there. And as I've told you before, I wasn't the most handsome devil back in the day.

To each his own. Your wife disagreed, Matt. Well, yeah, but she also knew the economic income was going to be pretty good. So I try to see pictures of myself on these videos, and I have not been able to catch myself on the video. Because I'm afraid to see what I look like. Don't be afraid, Matt. It doesn't matter. It is. The past is the past. The future is now.

That's true. But I have caught myself saying, what did I wear that game? I remember when it wore for Game 7 in the 94 finals. It was a blue dress shirt with the red rockets tie. And then we wore like rocket sweaters the second year. I mean, gaudy 1995 sweaters. I love that. Have I shown you a picture?

I got to show. You were wearing ugly sweaters unironically at that time. No, they were supposed to be fashionista sweaters. And then what I wore on David. David Lutterman was in complete embarrassment. But I had no choice in that because I was out in the heat playing golf when David Lunderman's people called. So remember those rocket hats of the, you know this who had worked from Lids.

The rock, the old 1990s hats with the huge, with the city name and the rocket, the name of the team. Yep. What would those be called? What were those called? Just team hats, I guess. I mean, I'm trying to think of a fancy term for it. But they would, it would have Los Angeles and Lakers across the top.

It would say New Orleans Saints across me, in this big, big script. Very cheesy 1990s gear. I don't know what those are called, but I used to collect those. That's how bad they were. It was just like the style back then. Oh. It was a different time. Different time.

I remember buying the championship hats at Wieners. Weeners. Yes. They had one left when we went and tried to buy me and my dad and my brother. So who got it? I think... I'll fight for it? Yeah, I think my dad got it.

But we could wear it. He'd let us wear it. His two young children wanted their own rocket hat. I think we kind of shared it. And then we eventually got our own. But it was like the day after or something like that. Okay. The saddest thing about last year is that I was doing commercials for Academy.

As soon as the Astros won the World Series, go get your World Series hats. Well, they didn't happen last night, but it's going to happen the night. Go to Academy of the Academy of the... Yeah, that cost me money, too. I was supposed to go get some appearance. money. Damn you, Astros.

Astros taking money out of my pocket. Damn you will, Harris. Come on, man. Do you think AJ's going to be permanently ridiculed for that? Ridiculed, maybe.

Will it sit well with him? I think it will. Because he's smart. He knows what he went and his thought process when he made the decision. Is it such, like when I think of

boneheaded managerial decisions, that doesn't come right to mind. Me either. I don't think it was boneheaded. Like, for instance, the most boneheaded managerial decision, now I've been watching these old retro games is when, was it Grady Little was the manager of the Red Sox when he left Pedro

Martinez out there to pitch to a couple extra guys in the Yankee series. And the Yankees won't come back and winning. And I think is what it was. I want to fit was Grady Little as a manager. I can't remember if it was him or not. But there was one game. He was the manager of the Red Sox in 2002 and three. Yeah, it had been those times. That he left him out there, that Pedro Martinez got left out for one or two extra batters. He had thrown like 125 pitches at the time. and it was a big mistake and they never let Red Sox lost. It's literally in the opening of his Wikipedia page. Despite his accomplishments,

little is best remembered for his decision to leave starting Pedro Martinez in the eighth inning of Game 7 while the Red Sox held a three-run lead. Like when we're sitting, when we're talking to our grandkids and they ask us about the 2019 World Series, am I going to be telling him, well, we were this, what I remember most about the series is the road teams winning every game. I was going to say that. is by far

the most profound thing off of that world series. It's crazy. You get down an O2 hole, going on the road, win three straight, and then lose two at home with Cole and Verlander. And it wasn't like

Will Harris sucked. You didn't bring in... Verlander and Grinky, right? Yeah. Who would have been a very pedestrian route? It wasn't like Joe B. Eugenie was brought into Holtusay to keep the lead

or keep a tie game. Or Josh Flames James. You know what I mean? it was Will the Trill Harris. Yes, and he'd been great in the playoffs. A folk hero until that pitch left the yard.

144 on the Matt Thomas show. 713212-5-790 if you'd like to get in. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. Kind of a pulpery of topics of conversation here. Top of the hour, more on the Major League Baseball, and hopefully somebody will give us some good news

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It's synergenics testosterone clinics. This is Craig Ackerman. The rockets are certainly popping the polypropylene. I know Matt Thomas all too well. Hey, by the way, this is my new catchphrase. Nothing but nylon. Is this a soundtrack from a movie? It's kind of feel like an Adam's family or something.

No, it's Uma Thurman, I think Yeah, it's Umah Thurman by Fallout Boy You must have this on your What's the question? It sounds like a soundtrack from a movie Like this? Updated Adams family or something

But it's not All right, one thing we've not talked about today a little bit Is... Did you say Uma Thurman? Yeah, she sings? No, it's Fall Out Boy. Oh, the song's called Uma Thurman. There's the Adams family.

I knew it was in there. No, that's not Adams family. Is it? Oh, that is that. That's part of the family for sure. Okay. Yeah, you're right, actually. So the NBA could be as early as this Thursday is going to announce that there's going to be some sort of season.

And they still haven't decided whether it's going to be 82 games or say 30 teams, 20 teams, 22, or send to 16. And they're going to go through all sorts of proper protocol, make sure we're safe, make sure Orlando's secured. And the presumption is, let me ask you. why is July 31st have to be the date? Logically, let's work the calendar here. Okay. Why so long? Well, you have to get players quarantined.

You have to get them up in shape. There's there going to be some kind of, we're talking about July 31st, games start, regular games of whatever. Is it going to be straight to playoffs? Is it going to be playing? Whatever it is. Whatever it is. Whatever it is.

We are in June 1st. So that's two months from now. You have to get everybody together. You have to get everybody in shape. You have to get everybody quarantined for a couple of weeks. You have to figure out the logistics of acquiring the tests. You have to get people who are going to administer the tests. You have to get, I don't know, lodging put together.

Maybe it's just the logistics of it. Take about a month. Unless everything's in place. There's no way everything's in place. Yeah, I don't think they figure out their health and safety protocols yet. So, like, it's, I think it's like a three-week training camp. two weeks of quarantine, that's five weeks alone. Maybe it's on the minimum four weeks.

So that means like everyone has to be in Orlando by June 31st, then two weeks of quarantine, two weeks of training camp. Basketball starts July 31st or June 30th, whatever. I just get the feeling that I don't want them to run into another. Like basketball needs its own time. He's got a chance to really take over the world, so to speak, for a relatively short period of time. August 1st gives them about a month to be playing regular season games, a little bit of playoffs,

and then college football is going to, and pro football won't be far behind, and they're going to be in the same spot they were before, always playing behind somebody else. I mean, those are on Saturday and Sunday, I guess, on Monday and Thursday, but. It's all the finals games on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Can I do the Matt Thomas fast-forward track? Yes. And you tell me where my playing is erroneous, okay? So he announces by June 5th with this Friday that the league is returning and we're going to play games.

He gives everybody 10 days to get to the city in which they plan. That's June 15th. You quarantine there for two weeks and you practice. Because in quarantine, you're not just sitting there. You're obviously getting yourself into some sort of shape. You leave Orlando. You leave for Orlando on June 30th. You practice for another two weeks there.

You get yourself acclimated. That gives now Orlando, these hotels that are essentially empty, everybody put assignments in there. I don't see why you can't start at the very latest by July 15th. And you're saying, Matt, it's two weeks. But it's two more weeks of it being the most unbelievably highest rated. You're all by yourself. Nobody's there to compete with you. Television ratings are going to be astronomical interest in the sport.

It's going to take over sports radio kind of thing. And you think, I think you need every little bit of that right now. It just feels like to me in my mind that, man, this could be, not fast track, because everything has been slow tracked. Every, you know that the term sooner rather than later? Guess what? Later's been winning a lot more than sooner has. You mean to tell me that Orlando couldn't put the hotels together right this second if they had to? Of course they could.

They're not busy. They've been on the, they've been out there for volunteering themselves forever as it is. Where are they getting the tests? How many tests are they buying? How fast are they ship? Where, I mean, who gets, who gets the- Who receives the test? Who gives the tests?

Who, I mean, what's happening with that? I think that's another thing that they have to figure out that may take time. But why does it take them so long where Major League Baseball feels like they can be ready July 1st? Why is it taking the NBA twice as long than Major League Baseball? And there's way more players? I don't know. I don't think they're just dragging their feet, though. I don't think they're just saying, I don't think they're saying, hey, you know, let's just get, I think there is a sense of urgency on the other side of the players.

Remember back in May, we had this story from coming out of Utah that the MLB has partnered with a lab in Utah for their own coronavirus test. Yeah. We haven't seen that from the NBA or the NFL or any other sports, but the MLB has had their own tests that they were working on. curious why the NBA did not plan that out. Or at least why hasn't been reported, yeah. So it really comes down to the number of 10. If that's the answer, then I got to live with that. I don't know.

I'm not allowed to. You're not unless I don't know the rest of the show. I'm sorry. I don't know. You're asking me a question that Adam Silver maybe has the answer to, and that's about it. I'm throwing them out there. I'm saying that somebody in Major League Baseball was ahead of the game on this, because Major League Baseball has more players, more team.

30 player. check that, 50 players times 30 teams that's in 30 different venues. We're talking about the NBA going to one city. Yeah, maybe it's easier for them to have them on their own and you can let the teams do their individual thing, I guess. I don't know.

I don't know. Matt? I know you don't know. Any concerns about this weekend? Like all the NBA players being in these large crowds? No. And just the possible of like the coronavirus being passed that way. I don't have any concerns

I hope not Are you concerned Because you brought it up No I'm not I'm hoping that this weekend shows Like the one thing we can take away From all these like large groups of people Is that the coronavirus virus

Doesn't spread through that Based of what we just saw last weekend That we're ready for coronavirus talk That's crazy It's like it doesn't exist anymore I mean a lot of the protesters We're wearing masks right They certainly weren't social distancing

Remember when we used to about beaches being too full and bars being too full. That's what I want back. I never thought you would say those are simpler times, but they are. Let's see this. Top of the next hour. What was the last thing we bitched about that was nothing

involving horrific race relations and horrific coronavirus problems? Cody Bellinger. You know what it was? It was the Astros cheating. Yeah. Michael Jordan Pizza. Ooh, I didn't think of it that way. Michael Jordan's altitude sickness.

I'm convinced that's what happened. No, no, no, this was, that was, that was, that was post-virus. I know. Yeah. Pre-virus, what did we bitch you about? It was the Astros, right, Ross? Absolutely. So what was the national thing we bitched about before that?

Well, actually, the Astros were the pre-for the national. That's what we need. We need baseball bags and we could just complain about the Astros cheating. I don't want to do that either. It was as much simpler times. It was a simpler time, but it kind of sucked, though. Yeah, but we didn't have people dying. We need so much civil unrest.

That's what we need. We need a good old-fashioned hour of Leave the Astros alone. Win it on the field. We can't get them on the field yet. All this stuff's gotten to my head, Ross. I've got to be honest with you. I'm hungry.

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Is the Matt Thomas Show. Here we go. The final hour of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. I've decided that between Joe George, Ross, Rayal and myself, we are going to negotiate the 2020 MLB season. We're going to take a little bit of theirs, owners, a little bit of the players, we're going to mesh them together, and we're going to figure this out. Because we as Houstonians, we as baseball, we as sports fans need live sports.

And I don't think of, especially in this horrific time that we're living in, not uncertain, Ross. on we're living in horrific times that we need something to smile about. And it's going to be labor negotiations with the baseball? No, we're going to fix it. Okay. No other station in town is going to try to fix it like this one is. I'm certain that's true. We will fix it like nobody else can.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5 at 790. Davidson, Las Vegas on the Matt Thomas show. David, what's a good word today? 60 hours I'm counting A whole baby But who's counting? No poker room, correct?

But I'm not a lot of poker guys But there's nothing to bet on What are you going to bet on? What are you going to bet on? Boundus Liga, man, I'm telling you. But that's a whole other chance. Bundesliga? Boundish Liga, okay, fair enough.

It's been great. It's been fabulous. You know what? Because the teams are playing to form. So you know, you can look at all the stats and do the normal stuff you would analyze that actually works out that way. So those are a winner.

A lot of winning tickets on the league. But anyway, I didn't call to talk about any of this. I called the, on the basketball, and this is a simple thing that I need to explain to me, and I know you can explain it. I've been sort of assuming that, you know, following the money, the greed angle is going to carry the day in all these sports, and that's why I've been pessimistic

about the baseball thing. I don't like to talk about that because I don't want to be Debbie Downer, but I've been thinking there's no baseball season for a long time. At basketball, I do think there's going to be season. But everybody says there's this thing with it. I forget if it's 70 games or 72 games, which is sort of a magic number where the TV

contracts all get honored in full if they do that. And what I'm trying to understand is that a national TV contract? Is that you know the TBS? No, it's for the local teams. Or is that only the individual local ones? And if it's the local ones, can you explain to me how

these teams that don't have a chance to make the playoffs are supposed to be so happy not to come and play any games if it makes all that much difference to their bottom line because they'd miss out on those on a big payoff for that that's what i don't get david i'm here to explain it thank you very much first of all i don't think steve kirr cares about the local tv deal for the golden state or he's he's done he's a coach of a basketball team he worries about his staff he worries about his coaches and worries about his players he's not worried about whether or not they get to 70 games

uh to answer your point let me let me go back a step before i go forward every team in order to receive their maximum payout on their local television contracts. That's for us, AT&T, SportsNet, Southwest. Most people have foxes. There's a few, yes, there's, you know what I'm talking about. Anybody that's DirecTV knows that each different network is named something separately. They're paid out the maximum amount based on a 70 game television schedule.

They play 82. If you televise 70, you get the most. Well, some teams are on national television a lot, and they're blacked out. The Rockets. The Rockets get blacked out a lot by local television. The Lakers get blacked out a lot. Who else would be it? The Boston Celtics get blacked out quite a bit. The Clippers would get quite a few.

All the really, really good teams get lots of national television exposure. So it's going to take them longer to get to it. If they don't get to it, they won't get full payout. My feeling is the NBA is going to tell them, can I say tough tiddies on this? Well, you said it. I like to say tough nuggies Tough nuggies They want those teams to get as close as they can

Because they know the local payouts there It's just going to be probably impossible For them to get to that number We're so late in the game So late in the calendar year It's just not going to happen I guess there's just there's a guarantee What exactly is that let's say

It's the 70 game thing Is it full payment Okay so they're just going to get 95% payment Right if they've had it It all depends on You would each regional networks television deal is worth. But 70 seems to be zero.

No, what I'm saying. But I think I think it's probably going to cost them more than they want to admit. I mean, if you give them 60, 60 of their 70, that's pretty good. Well, it's pretty good. But it doesn't necessarily mean

that you're getting 80% of the contract. Maybe you can promise some more games in the future. You say, you know what? You can do all the 82 next year. How about every... That is the issue. Because the TNT and ABC, you're not going to let that happen. TNT wants exclusive. so does ABC.

Why can't they give them extra? Why can't we all get along and say this is a global pandemic? We'll give you extra games the next couple of years or something like that to make up for. But we're dealing with the here and the now. And the here in the now is that in order for regional,

in order for teams to get their maximum regional dollars is based on a 70 game television contract. Well, they're just going to miss out a little money. They're missing revenue. They're missing fan revenue. They're already missing a lot, though. We don't know. I don't expect, though. I feel like it's for the lower teams in the NBA,

like they're really bad ones, that they're not going to, really miss out on that much revenue. You know, just because I know them so well. Well, the Lakers deal. The Bulls had one game. So, like, they're not going to miss one national games. Like, they're not going to miss out of anything.

But the difference is the Lakers aren't going to be able to get to 70, and that's going to mean millions and millions. It's going to hurt the Lakers and the Clippers and the Rockets more than it's going to hurt, say, the Nets and the Hornets and the Bulls and the Cavaliers. I feel like if they play some regular season games and then they carry the first round on television. There's a chance. They could get, like, they'll get really close. Like, they could get to, like, the high 60s.

Like, if they tell Phoenix not to come, I'm just using Phoenix as an example, they're not going to get to their 70 mark because they're not going to be in the playoffs. They're not going to, so they're going to, so the Phoenix Suns are not going to be able to get full television revenue that, say, another team might, because they got the 70 games.

That's just a balance that the owners are going to have to go with the, that's their own battle. Well, hopefully their billionaire owner will be okay. But the problem is, is that we don't know how much of a payment. Like, do you get, 60% payment unless you broadcast all 70. I mean, I don't think it's a, we pay you by the game kind of thing. I think there's threshold that you have to reach. I feel like that should be able to be negotiated. Or there has to be some kind of clause for some kind of leak stoppage.

I don't know. That's a good question. It's good. It's really good. I don't know. But I, that has been something that has been often discussed is this 70 game threshold. So it must mean a lot, especially to the upper end teams. I don't think the Rockets have a great televised. I don't think the Rockets have a great television deal. I don't think the Astros have a great television deal, but I think the Lakers have a huge television package. The teams that have their own TV networks. The Bulls, I think, have a pretty good package with NBC Chicago. But yeah, Atlanta Hawks games on Fox Sports South probably aren't going to move the needle and probably don't carry the same sort of revenue that 60 games on the Clippers cable channel does. So again, it's each individual team. They all negotiate them

separately. Don't collectively share that. What was the other question? He was asking about. I think it was it, right? Pretty much. Unless you want to talk more Bundesliga. No, no. It's just heavy minutia on that. But it is a way for teams if they play up to a certain number to get closer to that 70 mark. And thus full payment. Because I think at this point, aren't these teams looking for any way to recoup as much money as they did before this pandemic came out?

Yes. So that'd be the easiest way to get to it. it because they're not getting it from gate revenue. I was thinking about this last, you know, I'm on my dreams. I'm a new book, my new book that you bought. Yes, you're welcome. I was dreaming about the release of next year's schedule. NBA?

NBA. Okay. About starting around Christmas. Will fans be in the stands December 25th, 2020? Yes, but not everywhere. Full stands or partial? Partial. So remember the half full?

Do you remember when two months? ago when we started talking about this and I said it would be 2022 before we got for a full stands again. Mm-hmm. Am I going to be right about that? Probably. Seems like. Honestly, I think Super Bowl, Tampa Bay, full stands still.

That was my original thought. So you're talking February 2021. Yep. I think Super Bowl and then followed that up by WrestleMania, the biggest, those two massive events, the early part of 2021. Are you only saying that because they're both going to be in Florida? I don't know. Where's WrestleMania going to be this year?

L.A. Tampa. L.A. Yeah, I think it's outdoors at L.A. in the new Ram Stadium. You're going to tell me the first time that Ram Stadium is completely full is going to be with 90,000 people going to a wrestling match.

Yes. Do you really believe what you're just saying? Yeah, I think by early 2021, hopefully we'll have full stands. Yep. WrestleMania 37, Inglewood, California, SO-5 stadium. I mean, they're going to have the Rock is going to probably headline

WrestleMania in LA so they're going to have to have a full stance by the way I caught myself in a rabbit hole the other day the Rock's best lines during WrestleMania you ever catch those no I haven't but he's good he's an entertainer even if you're not I know you don't like wrestling no I didn't like wrestling but I really like you got to watch his act his

his work on the microphone is legendary if I would say my favorite wrestlers it's probably the Rock and Stone Cold just because I knew who they were and I didn't even follow wrestling and like I had a cousin who loved them and so like I would have to watch some of stuff. And I always thought he was hilarious and entertaining and really good. He's so, he's, you, you had, we should have seen he was headed for stardom.

Yeah. Like John Sina is going to be in movies and whatnot because he's very popular, but he doesn't have the quick wit that Rock does. Rock is a funny human being. He's got personality. Yeah, sort of like you do. Yeah, I would say so, Matt. Yeah, you and the Rock, we should be in a buddy cop film. I like. You know what? I'd watch that. Thank you, Joe. you mean like the ones that Kevin Hart are in? Yeah, like he had a movie with Kevin Hart Central Intelligence or whatever. Yes.

So kick out Kevin Hart, insert Rossville or L. Absolutely. I'm good with that. Put me in coach. Not as many short jokes, though. Would you show up on time? I would think so. Well, wait, how many millions am I getting paid?

I'd probably give you five. Okay. But you have to realize if you don't show up on time, you're not answering to Matt Thomas, you're answering to the rock. That's a big difference. I'm answering to some Hollywood producer. What kind of difference is there, Joe? A size of human beings.

That's true. I don't think of it that way. All right. You've never struck fear into me, Matt. I'm sorry. Can I? Actually, a couple times. I'm ready to. When you get really upset with me? I haven't got that in forever.

Oh, okay. At least a week. At least a week. All right, we're going to come back, and we're going to the three of us. Matter of, can we have, what would be good labor negotiation music? Think about it out loud. Give us a song. Ross.

Russian labor candidates. Joe and I'm just so happy we got Joe for an extra time. We usually lose them at 2 o'clock. the three of us are going to solve labor and problems in Major League Baseball next. 2.13 on Sports Talk 790. Hey, it's Eric Gorton. Gordon for three in the lead. Matt Thomas is my favorite voice in Houston. EG for three.

You're listening to the flagship. Sports Talk 790. Home of the Rockets. Mediator. Just call me Mediator Thomas. for the lack of more How about your honor? I'm not a judge, am I?

Sure, why not? No, we haven't gone to court on this. Representing the owners, Ross Villariel. What? Oh, yeah, let's go, baby. I represent the players, Joe George. We're getting the players?

Yeah, you are. Okay. This is a jam, by the way. So, let me ask you, Mr. Owner, Villariel. Yes, sir. You're crying poor. Why is that? Look, it's a simple fact of the matter is we're planning for 162 games season a couple of months ago.

We're supposed to have fans in the stands. We're supposed to be able to make concessions and we're supposed to have parking, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These are the things that we plan for revenues year by year. We're missing out on basically all of that. Yes, we're going to get our TV money, but that is just a very small percentage of it. when relative to say the NBA or the NFL, because we have 81 games. The NFL only has eight home games.

We are trying to be the change that America needs. So we have offered these olive branches to the players. We're willing to get them back at a discounted rate. We want to get something done, but we're just quite honestly taking it in the shorts this year. And Joe, you represent the players. You don't believe a worthy owners are saying. I do not believe anything the owners say.

They make billions of dollars each year. And for them to say they don't have the money to pay us now, it's a joke. Final report on that. Why don't you open up the books ownership? They're sealed. We lost them. Dog ate them. The dog ate them.

Look, that's just financial information that you were privy to. Look, you don't look at a man's bank account when it comes to these matters. You don't pocket check. You're not, we're not here to be pocket-checked, okay? Look, and you see people talk about, Joe, is a fine young man, talking about the revenues and how they've been up. And that's true. But you're looking at revenues, you're not looking at net income.

Okay? We're still having to spend money on payrolls and millions and millions of dollars on that. We still have to spend money on our general managers, on our staffs, on our analytic staffs, our minor leaguers, our minor league systems, our scouting department. We have to spend money every. So when you see that revenues are up, we're usually just investing that into our own organization. It's not like we're just running to the bank and pocketing all this extra money that we're making.

We're trying to make our organization better. Players, you believe that? I just don't understand why if you, that's where your money is going, why you won't show it to us. At the end of the day, that's my question. I don't believe you have invested in making this team better. I play for the Tampa Bay Rays. We haven't paid a player over $15 million in ever. You play for the race?

Yep, I do now. By the way, why are you in my business? I'm taking all the risk in owning these sports teams. Sir, you're not the players. I'm sorry, what am I doing? Yeah, go ahead. You're the judge. I thought I was getting some impartiality here.

All right. Next up. So, owners, you want an 82 game schedule. Yes. And you want players to take a pro-rated sales. salary plus a cut of your prorated salary. Absolutely. Look, this is the thing.

We understand the players want over 114 games and they want to be paid for those extra games. But every extra game that we have, that's operations, that's security, that's people, that all these types of things that we have to do. That's just more cost to us that we don't get any more profit off of because we're not going to have fans in the stands. So every game over 82 is going to cost us that much more money. and oh by the way they want salary for those games.

So if they're so concerned for their safety and putting themselves at the risk, why do they want more games? It's simply because they want more money from me. Hey, let me ask you this, players. Can't you understand that this is a difficult year for everyone, that everybody's taking it in the shorts, that you just asking for a prorated salary just isn't enough?

Can we be, can we, can we meet it halfway here on this? Can you accept a salary reduction on top of, the prorated salary. Can you at least be fair on that a little bit? I think there's open for discussion for that to happen, but nothing that we have been presented as the players has been fair. We're talking about 80% pay cuts, not 50% pay cuts, 80%. They're drastic amounts of money. But if you're only playing half the season, sure. And you're a 32 million dollar guy, and you're not making 16. I'm asking you to take a, what percentage off of that $16 million?

I'm asking you to take off. Another 10? Yep. Look, there's fewer than 20 players making over $35 million or over $30 million in Major League Baseball. So we're only talking about a select few number of players who are going to help subsidize. And what this is going to do, we're going to help the young guys in the game. We're going to let them keep their money. And the guys who've made millions upon millions upon millions aren't maybe they're not going to be able to make their yacht payments, but we need that money to try to help it spread the wealth. and help everybody because we're all as one. We have to take care of each other,

not just Justin Verlander and Zach Rinkie and Max Scherzer. And that's why I'm here. I'm going to ask you players to take a cut of your prorated salary. How much are you asking for? 25%. So if I'm making $35 million, you're only 20 of you. So let's back that down. Let's go to $15 million year a guy.

Okay. Pro rated salary. By, by we haven't discussed a number of games yet. I'm willing to extend an olive branch of 100 games. You want 114? I want 82. Let's do 100. I'm going to give you a pro-rated salary of 100 games.

And of that 100, I'm going to then knock it down 25%. Just for this year and this year only. I'm going to expand your playoffs. And I'm going to... What am I going to do for you in the future that's going to make you happy? deferred money. Oh, you only want two years of playoffs. I only want one year of extended playoffs.

I'm going to make it a second year. I'm going to give you two years. So I'm going to ask you to take a pro-rated 25% discount of your pro-rated salary. I'm going to give you 100 games. You're going to make more money that way as compared to what I want to pay you in 82. And we're going to play baseball. We're going to do it starting July 1st. Players, will you accept that?

Would you go 20%? and 5% of that 25% is deferred. So we'll take your 25% pay cut. Yes. But 5% of that gets to deferred over the next two years. Come on now. You're breaking balls here, buddy. Owners, what do you say?

You're breaking the balls. We're getting more money now. Owners, you're giving them 18 more games and you want to give. They're taking a 25% discount off of the prorated games of 100, 982. So they're getting more money, and they want deferment of 5% of that money. Sure, why not? I owe you. Let me write it down.

Okay. Players you accept? Yes. We're playing baseball. And we're all satisfied with the COVID and the pandemic testing and everything. Yeah, we'll figure that out later. Yeah, stop spitting everywhere, players. Never quit.

So players, can you call? Never quit the spit? Can you call a couple of your guys and tell them to go back on their Twitch channel for a minute for me? Yeah, what's Blake Sinell up to? Go. Go. Go call Blake Smell and tell him everything is good. Okay, we've just done it then.

Wonderful. No other radio show in the marketplace has just solved the baseball financial dilemma. Here it is. 100 games, not 114 or 82. You are getting a prorated salary minus 25% of which 5% of that 25% you're eventually getting it back because you're going to push it towards next year. Yep. I think that's a fair deal

if they want to go a little deeper than that that's fair too now owners you're going to play 18 more games and you wanted to I'm not happy about that well you can say no tell me how you really feel some money is better than no money

can you play 18 more I like the deferred payments yes we've done it Houston Texas 226 baseball is going to resume thanks to the law firm of Thomas Cheatham and Howe. Thanks, Thomas.

So you feel better now, don't we? And you know who really wins in this? The lawyers. They always get paid on both sides. Because to tell you the truth, do the fans really even care how it works out financially? No, it really doesn't. Because we can spend a lot of time talking about what they're giving and what they're taking back, but the fans don't care.

I wouldn't particularly care. if this if all of a sudden the owners went all in and said you have it all players whatever you want we wouldn't be mad at them in fact we'd probably be great we'd probably be very happy that the owners gave in to everything and if the players gave in we'd probably love the players for giving in saying you guys understand you're still going to get paid and we're going to have baseball in 2020 so it doesn't really matter what they give and who gives in we're just thinking in every article you've run on ESPN and athletic in the last week you're saying if they don't play baseball could suffer extremely long-term effects and Ross I don't think that's rhetoric I think it's the absolute truth yeah you don't play in 2020 good luck being relevant in 2021 probably over to 2027 I think it's very possible there are already long-term effects we just we don't know we won't we won't know that it's going to be million times worse in the final half hour of the show the Houston Texans went to a high school to go get members of their analytic department.

We'll tell you who they are and what they're going to do now when we come back. Plus, now there's another mixed message among the owners in the NBA about who should show up in Orlando. It just gets more and more confusing. And maybe there's a reason why July 31st will be the start date for the NBA season. Right now, a message for Woodhouse Day Spas. I'm so happy to speak for them because this is a group of people that want to see you very shortly at one of their two locations. We're talking about the gift of relaxation that someone on your gift list, whether it be an anniversary coming up or birthday or just a good old-fashioned thank you, they'll never forget. With over 70 different spa services available for massages and facials, body treatments, manicures, manicures, even sleep treatments, your loved one is going to experience the beauty of relaxation all year long.

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Congratulations to the newest members of the Houston Texans Analytic Department. 232 on Sports Talk 790. Ross, they hired a gentleman by the name of Curtis Goodwin as a performance data scientist. Okay. Let's see here. Kevin Clark has been hired as a football data and applications engineer.

Boy, these are just some really funky. long, drawn-on important titles. Would you like to get to know your former, would you like to get to know your performance data scientist? Okay. He was the department chair of the mathematics department at Boswell High School in Fort Worth.

Okay. He supervised 14 math teachers and was an assistant basketball coach. Okay. So the man knows his math. math, and he knows his B-ball. As for Clark, he was hired away from the Arizona Coyotes. He is an A&M grad and Arizona State.

Texas A&M and Arizona State? Yeah, both. By the way, Arizona State, I really wanted Cameron to go to. I haven't been fun. First of all, the ladies are just incredible there. I thought I would pay any attention to that. You just wanted to go on a campus tour. That's what you did. Well, I mean, I probably would have wanted one to walk around see how I was gone.

You would have insisted to go on the campus tour. It is one of the hottest. How pricey is it? It's out of state, so it's really pricey. That's what I'm saying. Well, he'd have to go live somewhere for a year and then... So you're saying circumvent the system. Yeah.

Okay. Fair enough. Why not? Like go to like Phoenix Community College or something like that for here? Establish residency? Could go be a Phoenix. Well, that's online. That's online.

That doesn't work. So Mr. Clark worked for the Coyotes. He's in Arizona State and Texas A&M graduate. He worked for the NHL team as a research and data development data engineer until this past May. Clark is a former software engineer for Intel. He developed statistical models to project player performance and evaluate the team's performance using analytic systems. Cool. I like this.

I feel like Bill O'Brien's been more analytics forward the last few years, and I'm totally on board with that. Yeah, you can't possibly argue it. Because every team, frankly, the NFL more than any other sport is behind on the analytical game. I would say so, yes. Yeah. What they're doing, I don't know. Now, what they probably do is what software, what kind of information do you think you can bring to us that we don't already know about ourselves?

That's how I'd hire somebody. Wouldn't you think? Yeah. What type of plays work, formations, effectiveness. Oh, I think it goes way beyond that. I think it goes down to how they practice. Yeah, okay. Where their energy levels are in particular games.

Don't you think? I mean, that all comes into play. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if the high school math teacher knows any of that stuff, but hopefully he can figure it out. But it is a little peculiar where they went and got the guy. Now, granted, they didn't go searching after Boswell High School math teachers.

There was obviously a job opening for performance data scientist. And he said, hell, I've been teaching calculus. The least I can do is help an NFL team. You know what this means to me? What? Buy stock and Deshawn Watson, either as MVP or at least at the very least in your fantasy league. because analytics nerds love passing the football, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass,

pass, and then pass some more. Sean Watson's going to be one. If Bill O'Brien is going to listen to these analytics nerds, Joshan Watson might lead the league in passing yards. See, this is the one thing. You know, spacing on the floor, like, it's best for PJ Tucker to shoot corner threes. It's best for Russell, not really not to shoot three.

It's and even normal stats would prove that out. But it's best to put in guys in certain parts of the game. They don't take plays off in the NFL. I wonder what the number one. Would Deshawn's number one analytic be where to throw the ball? It would maybe be formational or he's more effective with a moving pocket. He's more effective in play action, stuff like that. Well, like routes.

Yeah. When trying to get a certain amount of yardage. Like which part of the route tree is the most effective on a third and five versus a third and eight? Like what are the routes you should run here? What is the best percentage from your quarterback to first down? You know what, though? Does that take 2020 for that to happen? You mean to tell me all these years in the NFL they don't know what plays work best on third and eight?

Yes. It would be, well, Gary Kubi actually certainly couldn't figure it out. But, no, it's like what he said, and also your opponent. Like, for example, this cornerback is not good at stopping this route. This receiver is good at running this route. Like, I saw some analytic on Twitter the other week. It was like Michael Thomas's target effectiveness. How many percent of targets is a catch on this route and that route in the whole route tree or whatever?

How many yards per attempt? All that type of stuff. And you put it in situational. Yeah, there's a lot of information out there that maybe has been readily available last couple of years. let me ask you this. How do you keep that from overloading Deshawn's head? Because I think, I think teams use analytics, but they use them to the point where they don't let the guy, it doesn't, it doesn't hinder his creativity. Like James Hardin knows analytics about himself, but he can't be, when you're on the floor, you can't be thinking about what was told to you

an hour and a half ago. It has to come very much natural to you. It's like anything. You do via practice, via practice and repetitions, whether it be mental repetitions and physical repetitions. PJ Tucker knows to shoot in the corner. He knows if he's shooting above the break three is probably not going in. But that's easy for him to figure out, right? Go to that spot on the floor, stay there, or at least be in that quadrant until the ball is thrown to you. If you happen to be at the top of the key, you know that's not a good spot for you to be shooting. I feel like for football, it's going to be more top down, more to the offensive play caller and to the preparation. going into the game.

Because does an offensive a lot of men care about the analytics at this point? No, because at the end of the day, Deshawn's going to do, like, Deshawn's going to pull a rabbit out of hat whenever you can. So in reality, the most important people that need to be embracing the analytics is the head coach, which obviously he is, because he's

bringing these guys in. Tim Kelly is offensive coordinator and the quarterback. Because if you're a route runner, you're only going to run the play that is being called, right? You don't have the freedom on the field to do whatever kind of route you want to go to. They don't have a lot of, especially in the Texan system, it's a lot of option routes.

So the Texans, I mean, Deshaun Watson and his receivers will have to be on the same page. So that's the more cerebral part of it is like Joe says, going to come from the top, it's going to come from the coaching. And then it's also going to be on, the onus is going to be on Watson and his receivers to be on the same page. You know when Bill O'Brien's next media availability will be that he's going to be asked about this. So Rossi, I think we should do it. What's talking about Bill O'Brien? right this second. Would you talk about Bill? Okay.

So get Sabrina ready here. This would be, what are you going to talk about Coach O'Brien? What would you talk about Bill O'Brien? So let's see if we can get that fired off here. Because I feel like you can probably answer these questions because we're going to be highly confused no matter what you say. So I present to you at 239. What would you be talking about Bill O'Brien?

What you're doing about you're talking about? Coach O'Brien. Hey, guys. Hey, coach. Hope you doing well. Hey, coach. A question for you. Sorry, are you got something in cut your nose there, son?

Coach, sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry. You know, sound of me so soft-spoken. Coach, you've hired a lot of different people in your analytics department. What makes analytics so important? Well, you know, a lot of times people think of, and they hear the word analytics, and they start thinking about a lot of things that it's not. At the end of the day, analytics is nothing but information.

So we hired these guys, a couple of smart guys, really good guys. We want in here, hard workers that are just going to provide us with different information. Now, obviously, you have two sides of it. You have the information side and you have the people side. That's mostly what I'm going to be dealing with, play calling situations, all those types of things. But at the end of the day, all we're doing is getting more information. And I think that's a good thing. We've seen a lot of the best football teams across the league do this throughout the years.

So happy to have those guys on board and happy to get to work as soon as possible. We're going to have to save that because I think you got a five stars without even knowing when the answers yet. Okay. I'm going to throw one more at you. This is what would you be talking about, Coach O'Brien? Fire it off, please. Here we go. So Brian.

Excuse me, Coach. I'm sorry, sir. Speak up, please. Excuse me, Coach. Excuse me. Is this something that your vice president of football operations, Jack, used to be brought to the table when he became the vice president, even though he really held his experience of being a grand pooh-bah

and a man who says things before the game? Look, Jack is a smart guy. I would say it was more of a collective idea. This is something we've been talking about and thinking about expanding the analytics department because we're in 2020. We are just trying to move forward and progress because anytime in the national football league, you have to find any little edge that you can over the next team. There's a lot of smart coaches out there.

There's a lot of good quarterbacks out there. There's a lot of good teams out there. It's hard to win in the national football league. So you've got to search for every little edge that you can do. And I think that's what we're doing here with these recent hires for our analytics department. I've never been so proud of you before my life. you took quotes from questions I haven't even been asked yet, and you nailed them. Years of practice.

It is. Like, part of me never wants Bill O'Brien and be like, go, because you'll have to learn a brand-new stick. I swear to you, when he was 4 and 12, I wanted him to stay so that we could keep playing his soundbites and keep doing this game. I didn't know he was going to get an extension. I just didn't want him to get fired. You didn't realize he was going to gain as much power as he did. I was just hoping he wouldn't get fired. Not only that, he got an extension and then got more and more power in the organization.

All right. We're going to end the show today with a mixed message from new owners around the NBA. Uh-oh. You see the crawl a few minutes ago? I did not. You brought it up to me a minute ago. Okay. We'll do that. Just to confuse the general public again about what's going to happen in the 2020 NBA season, the rest of it.

It is 243 here on Sports Talk 790 with a message for the Shell Federal Credit Union. Shell Federal Credit Union had been around since the 19. 1930s, taking care of all the financial needs for people all throughout Harris County. They offer right now ideal mortgage financing options for something with something for everyone. Fix rate, purchase or refinance available. $500 in cash back on every mortgage loan is available. There's low down payment options, no closing cost programs, and your loan is completed in-house from start to finish.

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if you want to say hi before we close the show. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. So the NBA is supposed to get together on Thursday, right? Right, Ross? And they're supposed to decide if there's a season, which I think they're going to say yes. Yeah, the board of governors, not owners.

That's right. There were four options. 16 teams only. Yes. Which has some steam. I like that scenario. It doesn't fulfill the same. 70-game regular season number we've been talking about for local television deals.

There has been steam for 20 teams, meaning you take the next four highest records aren't in the playoffs and let them battle for a playoff spot. There has been conversation about a 22 where you essentially take three teams from each conference and let them battle it out. And that was said to be the favorite as of like a couple of days ago from both Woj and Shams. And then there was one that said, this is getting no steam. Don't bring it up and ain't worth it.

Bring all 30 teams to Orlando and finish out some sort of regular season, then start the playoffs. That was thought to have been the least likely scenario. So give the folks the update here at 248. Well, the small market teams are urging the NBA to include the entire league on a restart. Near the end of the NBA's Board of Governors' call on Friday

is according to Adrian Wojrowski and Zach Lowe. Oklahoma City Thunder owner Clay Bennett delivered in a passion soliloquy on why the league and owners need to consider the competitive and financial plights of smaller market teams that could benefit, or I'm sorry, that could be left out of the season's summer resumption in Orlando and the potential symbolic power of all 30 teams gathering there to play as one United Association. Or to collect on television money. Yeah.

Right? Am I missing something here? The inequities facing smaller markets had to shape the league's thinking. Bennett suggested nine months could have. have an impact on developing players, cultivating sponsorships, and selling tickets and markets where franchises struggle to gain hold. Meaning I can't put Love's travel stop on national TV spots, but I can put them on my Oklahoma City TV Thunder TV commercials.

They suck compared to Buckees anyways. Remember Loves the jam for the longest time until Buckees came in? But Loves is stationed in Oklahoma City. So is Sonic. Driving? Yeah. Love Sonic Drive-in. I've changed my views on Sonic.

Good. Especially after those two Gibbonsis are gone. You hated a business just because of their commercials? That's actually fair. If I want to hate Progressive because of Flow, I'm well within my rights to do that. I guess. It seems a little dramatic. This is America, Joe.

That is so bogus on your part. I swear I'll catch you in a lie on this soon. By the way, I do have Progressive because they were cheapest. What? I don't hate businesses because of commercials. I might not use their product. Yeah, exactly. That's what Matt's kind of getting at.

Those signs. Matt has like disdain. Yeah, because they're not funny. And they take a product in which I love that Route 44 is about the jam, right? Cherry Lamade. Cherry Lamade, easy ice. Yeah. And I think we're in happy hour mode.

So there you go. You got your plug, Sonic. I'm going to go get a slushy. Point being is this. Those two guys are not funny. They don't make me want to go get a Sonic. I think they're kind of, well, they were funnier of 10 years ago. everything shall pass.

But the show was funnier 10 years ago. This show? Yeah, I think it's getting funnier. I think it's getting funnier. Joe, you are you laughing more on this show now or when you first listen to it? No, I'm saying one. Yeah, you're laughing at the show. No, I enjoy the show a lot.

You know, like, where's the beef? That old woman didn't stick around very long. You got to cut, you got to get rid of things. I mean, the floor's been around forever. Joanne Howard, knock, knock. Who's there? Joanne. Do you want to eat my fries?

I mean, that McDonald's bit left. Toyotathon Jan's been around for a while. The Gecko-Gyko has been around forever. Bud Light. What were they doing? Why ask why, try Bud Dry. Or the I love you, man guy. I love you guy.

I love you, man. Or they, when they were in the, oh, God, what were they did a couple years ago? When they were doing the Lancelot chance. Dilly Dilly Dilly. Dilly, Dilly. Dilly. Dilly is gone. Everything goes away eventually. Except those. A-holes. They have been stuck with us forever.

No, the Dilly Dilly-Dilly guy's only been a couple of years. But they're gone. Are they gone? No, they... What was the last time you saw a Dilly-Dilly? They had the night with the Bud Light Premium or whatever. What was the same? They do it differently now. Well, it's the same company. Budweiser, but they do Dilly Dilly Differently differently.

The Was-Up guys are gone. See? If Sonic leaves those, like, if they get two hot girls in there, I'd be fine with it. And like, we only And look, we only see the, what are they called? Clydesdale horses for both. Christmas. For Christmas and for Super Bowl.

That's a great one, though. Like, that's the only time they show up. Limited marketing. I mean, the middle of high life guy didn't last forever. That's true. T.J. Jagadowski and Peter Gross. And what are they doing now? Nothing.

Probably collecting on royalty some Sonic commercials. When we get started with this? How do we get started on the Sonic? Sonic, I don't remember. Oh, Oklahoma City. Yes. The Thunder in the NBA. We went from Loves to Buckees to Sonic in about 75 seconds.

But do you think Clay Bennett has a point? Well, also on the call, the Philadelphia's owner, Josh Harris, the 76ers owner, and son's owner Robert Sarver enthusiastically backed Bennett's call for the league to come together for as many teams as possible. Now, help me out with this, guys. Do you have to have three quarters vote on anything they vote on? I don't know, probably. I think it is three quarters.

But there was a report last week from Woj, I believe it was, Woes or Shams, that said that the governors would support whatever Adam Silver came up with with the NBA PA. So if that report's true, like, yeah, they might want. some of this other things that happen, but they're just going to do whatever the players approved so they can all agree to play. Can we bring them all back and have people play for the number one pick? I like that.

Don't stop making games. You are a gimmick guy. What's wrong with that, though? No, like play for the number one pick. Forget your tanking. Everyone come back straight to the playoffs, two playoffs. The lottery is fine. I like that.

You have two tournaments going at once. There's nothing wrong with the lottery whatsoever. That's a good idea. It's a good idea, Matt. What's wrong with that? No, I don't want gimmick. I don't want. Oh, I'm sorry. They're all going to play at the wide world of sports complex. That's in Orlando. That's a basketball court and then gimmicky about that.

Oh, they're playing for the number one pick. What's gimmicky? Is it court 70 feet long? No. Is the basketball bigger? No, it's not gimmicky. It's a 94 foot basketball. Yeah, the basketball will still be the same size when they play for the number one pick as well. It's better than a folded or extra like coal like lottery ticket. Oh, is that right, Patrick Ewing? Okay. I see you go with this. The lottery is the biggest conspiracy of all time. I like that. I like that. Play for the first pick. So that all teams get something to play for and you can do their local TV deals. You fix your TV deals. Three game tournaments.

I like it. Wrong. And double. I don't think this is wrong at all. Wrong. Is that something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do? Are you going to then let teams pick who they want to play in the playoffs thing? Because that makes more drama.

I like that one too. Absolutely. Why not? No, just seat it. So like the Wizards would play the Warriors in the first round. You stick in the mud. That'd be awesome. I think this would be a great idea.

Permanently great idea. Somebody that's suggested that already because you're not getting, so the teams, what's the incentive? What have the bucks earned by having the best record in basketball? Nothing. They're not going to have home court. They're not going to have home court. So why don't you let them pick their team, their opponents?

I like that too. And then we could broadcast it on MTV. Okay. Sure, why not? And have some Brody Jenner to do the color commentary. And get Kurt Loder there too. Why not? Who am I talking to?

Geniuses. Let's have some semblance of a real season. The location isn't great. It is what it is. But it's about safety. This is Matt Thomas doing sports radio in 1950. They're going to let them dribble the basketball? What's wrong with the set shot?

James Neismith and the peach baskets. Why is Jerry Seinfeld the 1950s? I don't know. Matt, what's wrong with a basketball game? They're going to put a clock on the teams? No, basketball is a big. Pua game. Coming up on the Ross Fillerio, George League, four point shots

in the last two minutes of the game. Matt wants the shot clock gone. He wants the three point line gone. He wants three attempts at a free throw to make two. I don't even know any of you anymore. He wants the key about a three foot wide so Wilk Chamberlain can dominate.

And I want the sonnet guys bag. Tell me about their slushies. Well, we know you don't want that. This show has sucked in O-in, just like this weekend. Adam Clanton, Adam Wexler next is going to entertain you for the next three hours. We get the nightcap at six.

Our Monday night meeting is at 8 o'clock tonight. I'll send a tweet out and on Facebook as well. Ross, don't forget, we're doing it 8 o'clock for you and only for you. Thank you. Have a great rest of your day. Clanton, Wexler, the A team. They're up next on 790.