The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Positive Feelings From Leagues, Mike Stanton & Cole Cubelic, Mannequin Invasion

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show alongside our producer Joe George, my cohort, my fellow craps player, sports RV. Lake Charles opening up next week.

Holla! All right. I'm going. I may be by myself, but I'm going. I'll put the damn mask out. I'll do it. So are they like wiping off the dice in between rolls? I have not done a deep dive into this. I just know that they're going to have massive restrictions in terms of they're going to check your temperature.

There's going to be lesser people at each table, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're checking your temperature at every table or when you walk in? No, when you walk in. You know how you don't normally walk in to make. sure you're okay age-wise? Ross and I went to go. They don't really check my idea anymore. Ross and I went to a restaurant Friday, which we didn't stay because they went with this

BS gift card crap, and they checked our temperature. Well, they said that their gift card accepting system was down, whatever that means. Yeah, that means we'll give them out. We just don't want for you to actually use them. At this moment, when they're low on revenues, Matt. You should have just said, hey. You can't pay for your meal in these trying times? I pay for a lot of meals, Ross.

That's why I'm using the gift card. Thomas household down too. Don't trust me on this. All right. On the radio program today, Ross's attempts to get Jeff Van Gundy have gone unsuccessful. True. Sean calls him right away and says,

yeah, I'd be glad to go on the show. That's fine. It's not fine. It is what it is. I don't have a personal relationship with him. I don't either. I don't have a few times throughout the years. But whenever Jeff's on, it's fantastic stuff.

So we're going to replay some of the best of the conversation. If you missed it this morning at 1-20. 20 this afternoon. Very busy 2 o'clock hour. Mike Stanton, who does the Astros studio hosting on AT&T Southwest, former Yankee, former Braille. I mean, I feel like every time the Yankees are playing in a playoff game, Mike Stanton threw an inning in the contest.

So we'll talk with him about what he thinks about the potential return to Major League Baseball. That sounds positive. And then Cole Kubeneck's going to join us at 2.30 from ESPN. Okay. Cole does Birmingham Radio. Kubik? Kubelik. What I say? Kubolik?

A man anxious. Kubelik? You know, I'll go listen to YouTube in a minute. Kubelik? No, it's not that. Kubelik? Kubelik, I think is what it is. And he'll join us at 2.30 today.

College football is going to be a CF this year, sports rave. Kentucky fried chicken? Wait, country fried chicken? CFC? It's going to be an issue this year because the Pact 12 schools can't go to school. It sounds like there will be no fall schools in California. and the NCAA yesterday said, y'all are on your own.

I've never in my life seen a governing body have such little power. Literally they said, we're not going to stand in the way of different conferences competing in their year. We can't, we're going to leave it up to state

and local governments to figure this out. So what exactly does the NCAA do? I mean, I'm being really serious. They are so out of it when it comes to college football. They had been a little hamps in everything college basketball-wise, and they are sure not watching gymnastics in the College World Series.

But damn, they will not get in the way of college football. They collect money, and then they ding you when you want to raise money for your sick mother as a college athlete or make money off your YouTube. Bingo. And that's why my philosophy has changed about paying athletes over the years. I have such little respect for college football or for the NCAA that I'm in the point where, you know what, go. get you go get you money i'm glad i brought you over to the dark side matt well i don't think you did

per se although you probably did it had a small influence it's just they're just corrupt and they just pick and choose when they want to be the bad you know the big bad wolf put it this way all right uh we have a busy show for the it's in the back half of the hours uh but right now it's you and me joe george and you at 713 212 577 if you want to get in on the conversation 713 212 5 790 you can also read out through Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Joe George Radio. So yesterday we spent the entire day staring on our tweets, looking to see if there was any news about the Major League Baseball owners versus players conference call.

It's hitting refresh on the Jeff Passons and the Bob Nightingales and the Ken Rosenthal's. A Buster only, if you will. A Tinkirkson, maybe. I'm still weary of a grown man being called Buster, but that's okay. There's some strange names out there. They just are. And the giggle from Tim Kirchian makes me hard to take him seriously. And don't people try to impersonate him all the time?

It's a rather easy one to impersonate the voice. I don't do it. I don't do impersonations. None? I do Bill Cosby, but it's not really important. That's tough. No, the best one is Keith Jackson. Yeah, but everybody does a Keith Jackson.

I don't think everybody does. Joe, do you do it with Keith Jackson? I don't do any impersonations. Oh, why not? I'm bored. Just work on them in the mirror. Just stand there and just practice? Yeah.

Is that what you do, Ross? And flex. Yeah, I just flex. He just flexed to this year. All right. So back to my point. So you stood in front of your computers or you were checking your phone every five minutes for waiting for something. And you kind of got a little nibble yesterday.

The nibble was they went over potential logistics. They went over game schedules. They went over DH being in play in every game. All the good stuff that could be worked out probably in a conference call. or in a day or two. What they didn't talk about was the money and how the owners have said, we cannot give you

prorated contracts this year because we have got no fans coming into the stadium. Which sport is it, Ross? Is it basketball or baseball that's 40% of the gate revenues? 40% of the proceeds come from base. That's what Adam Silver said in the conference call last Friday.

Okay, the NBA. Even though we've heard 15,000. to 20%, so there's going to need to be some books opening up on that. It would be, it would be, baseball's got to be a much higher percentage, right? I want to say they were saying somewhere around 40 as well. Yeah. So it does make sense that they're saying, look, if we don't have any fans, even with the television contracts, we're losing tremendous amount of marketing dollars in the stadium or losing the marketing

and the parking and the beer and the ticket prices that we need to do revenue share. So how do you not bring that up yesterday? I mean, is it because you already have? I was thinking about this with Joe yesterday. We were saying it kind of seems like, Matt, if I'm doing a negotiation with you and you're putting yourself at risk and you're the one that's kind of putting yourself out there. It would be seem a little callous and maybe even foolish and in bad faith for me to come to you and talk money first. I would come to you and say, hey Matt, let's talk about you being safe. Let's talk about all these measures we're going to take.

Let's talk about all this testing and these protocols and everything and all these plans that we have in place to keep you safe. We're worried about you. You're number one. Now, obviously, number one for the owners is the money. We know that. But they're going to try to get to that a little bit later and first address all the logistics, address the games played, address travel, and address safety. So I think that's what they're kind of doing.

kind of softening it up and then you go to the money negotiations. So you take care of all the other stuff that you know can get by, not necessarily get by, but both sides can agree to. And then you put in the heavy. Yeah, exactly. The negotiation, you start with the easier part. You would figure the easier part. And also, if the players don't agree to the safety measures, you're not going to have a

money split anyways. You're not going to have any games. So you have to agree to all that. You have to agree to the games. You have to agree to all of this. And then you say, okay, now what are we doing with the money? now that we know all this, this, and this is in place. So it kind of makes sense when you think about it.

It does, but I think the tone of the quotes are out by Tony Clark, the Players Association Chief, was like, we're not talking about this. We've already taken a cut, and we don't believe revenue share is your fancy term for salary cap. Sounds like a non-starter, yeah. Or they're going to have to say 50-50, we need 6040. We need 65, 35, we need whatever. Maybe it's going to be a percentage type of deal.

Yeah. Okay, well, so I would say, even though what you just laid out, it makes a lot of sense, I was still surprised that there was such non-news about that yesterday, that it wasn't even broach. And maybe it was, and they said, hey, just table any public opinion about this, or don't go run to your baseball minions and tell them what we said about this, that this is going to have to take a few days. I mean, and I don't think anybody expected yesterday the grand revelation of either players

fully rejected or players fully accepted. This is going to take some time. The question is, how much time is it taking? before you start thinking about, well, we've got to get these guys into camp by June the 1st. That's going to be the interesting thing to keep an eye on. All right. So we have that. Rossi, we do have some encouraging NBA news.

The first, I think the most encouraging NBA news we've had in quite some time. The players did get together, a select group of players, and they want to play. Now, logistics again, big part of that. Where do you do it? How many games do you play? Do you bring all 30 teams back? Do you play just the playoffs? But it sounds like in the next two weeks or so, there will be a come to June.

Jesus understanding of whether or not they play a basketball season. And it sounds like the players really want to play. A, because they want to determine a champion and B. And I think who was it that said it? Some NBA player, Jared Dudley said, if we don't play, our future collective bargaining agreement is completely screwed, meaning salary cap gets massive, massive plunge, which means we're going to make lesser money down the road. So let's finish out this season, keep the CBA intact,

and keep that high salary tax or have that high salary cap available for us to go grab that money. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. It is the Matt-Thomas show with Joe and Ross. I'm Matt. 7-13-212-5-7-90 at SportsMT at Joe George Radio and at SportsRV. We continue with a, it seems like a positive Wednesday, at least encouraging. And now a message for TGS insurance.

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Good news. It's the Matt Thomas Show for lunch. Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. 10 on the Matt Thomas Show. A couple of news items in the world of Twitter. Both coming from the A team that you can hear three to six. Wex are just tweeting out that LSU and Rice are going to play September the 19th at NRG Stadium of the 230 start time.

LSU minus 45 in that game. Oh, my God. Do we know anything about their quarterback? It doesn't matter. I could play quarterback for LSU. And they would be favored, yeah, for sure. I'm with that. Thank you.

How's your handoff game, Matt? Yeah, I mean, I don't... That's a good point. I would not expect to throw a pass. Can you throw a screen? I could probably throw a toss sweep left would be as far as I'd want to go. Okay. At least we've got a little bit of the playbook here.

Yeah, poor rice. I mean, when Rice has to go to Energy Stadium, it's not because they don't find that Rice Stadium is inadequate. They just know that someone's going to be coming there that wants to pay them for the game and they're going to take a beat down. When Rice plays Texas, they get a beat down. down at Energy Stadium. I don't know.

Rice and Houston never put it in NRG, but, I mean, I'm going to assume the history of Rice Stadium has not turned out well for them. No, probably not. The marching owl band just doing crazy things and empty seats and bleachers.

I went to a couple of rice games when I was a kid. It's not a bad place. At the Rice Stadium. Yeah. It's kind of a dump. It's kind of like a homey, old school feel to it.

But it's our dump. Yeah, I guess I get that. It's like when I was living in Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota basketball team plays at Williams Arena. They call it the barn. The barn? The barn.

Let's all head to the barn now. Uncomfortable seats. Visions not great. So I said, man, this place is overrated. And I got just a constant. You got crushed. Oh, no, the barn is a basketball in a legacy. No, it's not.

It's a home of a very... Kevin McHale played there. It's a very average place. Now, you go to Cameron Indoor Stadium, and you can come to a pre- appreciate that place because it's got charm. And oh, by the way, it's got, it's a plethora of national championships a little bit of a place. Like a Frank Irwin Center, if you will. I don't know if I'd go Cameron Indoor and Frank Irwin.

I would say more like the Tijuana Center is more like the future Cameron Indoor. It's going to be layered in national championships. I'm even more delusional than I thought. You see the Cougars are like, and somebody's poll like number six in the country for next season? Oh, wow. Good for them. Yeah. If they have a season.

Stop. I don't think that way. I want if the NCAA will step in. And then number two, the Adler, Adam, Adam Kleinlin, who we love and adore, got sideways with Warrior fan yesterday. The entire fan, literally the entire fan base is about. So he's going on the Warrior Station today at what would be 8.30 our time tonight. PM? Yeah, because they're two hours behind.

Okay. So the funny thing is that the producer of the show didn't reach. out to Adam directly. He reached out to Gordy. Yes. And Teresa, Adam's husband at 94.5. And apparently our boss. All three of them got that request? Well, not Adam. If you don't have your DMs open and you don't have your email listed like Teresa does on her Twitter feed, then it's kind of hard to reach out to you. That's not true at all. We all have NBA Blue Books. He's not in the book. Sure he is. Adam Clinton? Not in last year's book. Well, you can look it up on our web.

website. I'm sure there's a way to email Adam Clinton off the far web page. Let me go Adam Clanton email. I bet I can let me see. I'm just Googling it. I don't know. It's just, if you are right that I will stand corrected, but I don't believe it would be very difficult to find Adam's email account. Matter of fact, why don't we do this? Why don't we give Adam's phone number out too? So if you ever need to reach out to him during the show, you can just call him directly. Doesn't look like it's on the website. So. But I, I bet I could, you said you already looked in the NBA bulletin. Adams email is on there. I haven't looked No, I'm currently reading why Oliver Luck got fired, according to Vince McMahon.

Uh-oh, is it, is it juicy? Yeah. Okay, save it for the bottom of the hour, because I have not seen this. Can we have like a little segment called Adam Storytime? Every day? No, you're on Adam. You're Joe. Two of the top three hits when I Google Adam Clinton email.

One of them is Adam Clinton out at KBME, and then the next one is Adam Clinton returns to 790s new lineup. Gone for not, but never forgotten. Yeah, we have a good, we have a liberal hiring policy. As long as you're not a jerk, we'll probably hire you back. Yeah. I mean, if you're a complete Nimrod, you're never going to get hired again. If you're complete douchebag, you're never going to get hired again.

But short of that, you probably get a second chance. Am I a Nimrod or a douchebag? You're still in 12 years, Matt. I know. We should have like an 11th year party for you. Longest employee here. Longest tenured 790 employee, yes. So when was your first day?

My first first day was January of 2008. My first day was like January 2nd, 2010 on the air with the show. I'm sorry, 2009. January of 2009. So you're beating me by just under a year? That's how long I've been here at the company. Yeah. Okay.

But not right at 790 per se. Is that Adam right there? I hope so. It is Adam. Hey, Adam, you're going on that station today. I am definitely listening. You know that for sure. You know what?

The nightcap will be on. No, the nightcap will It's taking a hiatus tonight Just for this. It's a special event, Ross. You're going to call in with me. It'll be a tandem thing. I'm busy. I know you're busy. Hey, I just making sure you weren't giving out my phone number on the air.

Like, you keep threatening to do everything. No, I'm not. I'm just saying that I believe it is easier to find your email address than what Joe George is saying. If you go to the 18 blog, on Sports790.com, I guarantee you it's listed somewhere on that page. Okay. That's my, and that's the point that you're trying to make, it sounds like,

because it was just very bizarre to have, literally I'm reading a text from Gordy this morning or a forwarded email, I can't remember which, showing me this guy, their producer, reaching out to him. And as I'm reading that, I get a text upstairs from Teresa in our studios saying, hey, who's this guy Ryan Mouser trying to get me to tell you to go on their show in San Francisco? I thought that was strange. Now, you know, they're going to roast you like nobody's business. Jeff Ross would like to roast you over your tweets.

Well, I mean, that's fine. I mean, consider the source. But I really do think, and I said this to Joe yesterday on our show. Like, this is not about disparaging or saying that Steph Curry is a bad player. When you say somebody's overrated, that doesn't mean. they're bad. It just means you think they're hyped up a little too much versus what you think they are. That's all I'm saying. So on this ESPN thing, he's rated as a 13th highest player, right?

Yeah, that's Astonine. So is Janice being 27th on that list. Yeah, I did see the list this morning. Yonis Atentigupo is in the top 30. I mean, he's a wonderful player. Okay. Mr. Atentagumpo is in the top 30, which to me seems a little, not a little high. It stands significantly higher than it should be. especially because he is still very young, relatively speaking, compared to the all-time grades that are playing in the NBA.

But like I said, as much as I don't like the Warriors about, I really don't like Draymond. I respect the hell out of them just like I respected the Showtime Lakers in the Celtics of the 80s. And I suppose I guess I had to respect the Detroit Pistons. But, yeah, I don't know. Are you ready to go? Because you know they're not going to be pleasant to you.

Well, the tweet is, you know, the tweet says that I live on. on the planet Mars, and they hope the internet connection is strong there. I mean, and they said something about respecting someone who revolutionized the game's opinion more than mine. I'm like, why do you have Steph Curry on your show then? But show me where Steph Curry has revolutionized the game. And don't just say everybody shoots a bunch of threes now. Show me where they've changed the dimension of the court.

Show me where they've required everybody to wear their mouthpiece outside of their mouth as they're playing. He hasn't done anything of revolutionized the game. He's just a good three-point shooter. who won a bunch of titles and three other Hall of Famers. I'll destroy these guys. I don't care. All right.

We're going to have to play it tomorrow, I think. Well, I mean, they're going to dump me if it gets to that point. Well, I mean, as long as you come in with facts, you're going to be fine. Well, here's a thing. They don't want to hear facts. They don't want to hear. They're not going to want to hear anything about the rockets. They're going to bring up the rockets, first of all,

which I never said anything about the rockets in my tweet, but you know they're going to bring up the rockets, which that right there tells you all you need to know about this. That's what they do. They think that the Rockets fans are obsessed with them and, you know, Daryl Moore and all that kind of stuff. They never talk about how much they're talking about us all the time while they're winning all these titles. Do you know what? I'm not obsessed with any other basketball team except the Houston Rockets winning games.

That's what I'm obsessed with. Right. Right. So like, but if I'm the Warriors and I'm ringing up banners because I had a really good team and then Kevin Durant decided to join it on top of that after, you know, having a 3-1 least. beat on my team. The Houston Rockets are the most insignificant thing to me ever because I keep kicking the crack out of them in their words. Even though the rockets were probably the only team that had a shot to beat the Warriors during that whole span. But if I'm a Warriors fan, I don't care

about the Rockets. And I definitely don't have their radio hosts on my show because I need content. 645 Pacific 845 Central Time on 957 the game. Is that correct? Yeah, by the way, those are their words, not mine. They said I need the content Okay, well, prove them wrong I still think that Steph's an amazing player though But that's where you and I, I mean, when you are and I got a role Thank you for calling the show as always

And don't be afraid to listen to the 18th at 3 o'clock at 7 o'clock at 7 o'clock He's just Steph's just the greatest I mean, I don't know I mean, if you were to have a jump shooting contest It's what, Ray Allen, it's Reggie Miller, it's Steph, right? Yeah In any one of those orders?

Yeah, I mean, maybe want to throw Kyle Corver or somebody in there, but I mean, it's not even a jump shooting contest. What he does from the range that he can do it, under duress with a hand in his face, those are all, I mean, those are all skills that he has that other people have had, but he has them better than anybody else.

I mean, absolutely, the term that basketball nerds like to use is gravity. When Steph Curry has the ball, all eyes are on him, because he can get a shot up quickly and you need to be, basically, anywhere he moves on the court, the defense gravitates towards him because of how lethal that he is.

He's one of the most lethal offensive weapons in the history of the game. I'm just telling you, having watched all three of the guys, and obviously Steph's been the latest one because he's the one that's still playing. He sticks a knife in my heart is what he does when he makes those shots. Where I could come to appreciate Reg, I can come to appreciate Ray, but I don't see, I have not seen a player in recent NBA world that, that just buries you with one long-distance three after the other, and making four in a row, and making three in a 45-second stretch. And I don't like the team.

I don't like the Warriors at all. They're cocky, they're arrogant, and their fan base who were warriors. They couldn't even name three Warriors 10 years ago. But they have the greatest jump shooter of all time on their roster. And yeah, does he have an I-H? Is he occasionally IP? Sure. but when he's on the floor,

he scares the living Jesus out of you. Yeah, he's a great player. One of the greatest players of all time. And I think he's probably properly rated at number 13. Yeah, I don't know. It's basically like splitting hairs once you get into maybe the top 15-ish. Yeah, I think you could twist 11 to 20

and put him in any particular order and be fine with it, right? Mm-hmm. But Janus being where he was, I think, was 27? Really, really high. James Harden. at 32, I think, and Janice at 27, I think. Okay. Again.

He might get there. He's not there yet. It's just purely subjective. Of course. 1231. It's a Matt Thomas show. Thanks for AC for coming in. And again, he'll be on at 3 o'clock this afternoon.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-7-90. If you missed the Jeff Van Gundy conversation with Sean Salisbury, that's at 120 today here on Sports Talk 790. But right now, you can visit with us at 7-1-3-212-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2. 570 with them. Message here for Oop Steam Cleaning. Would you like to get your carpets professionally clean the right way?

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EG left corner for the career. Hi! And he got it! Eric Gordon here. Listen to Rock His Radio. on your smart speaker. Just ask. Alexa, play Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio. Six on the Matt Thomas show.

Let me just say y'all something. I am right or die with the people of this radio station. Others apparently are not. And I'm done with it. Sorry, I didn't mean to get that in there. Things piss me off sometimes. I don't mean to speak in undertone, but I apologize. Joe, how are you doing all back there, all right?

Confused. Good, you should be, because I'm confused myself. 713-21-2-5-7-90. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. I'm not throwing out Adam Clayton's digits. I don't care what you all want. You cannot have personal text with him. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90.

7-13-21-2-5-70. So do we feel better today than we did yesterday? At least there was no funniest talks on the Major League Baseball side of things. The NBA player, they got a who's-who list of NBA players, and they're like, let's go play. Even John Moran tweeted that. you know what I mean? That's good.

I mean, it's... Things are trending in the... Things are... I feel better to... There's a proposal on the table for for Major League Baseball bringing one to the players is good because weeks ago we didn't know if there was going to be anything.

Now there's a proposal. So that's... Even if it gets rejected, obviously that's horrible. But the fact that there are parameters in place, the owners have agreed to it and they brought it to the players. That's good. That's trending in the right direction. It's very encouraging. Yeah, I feel good.

between that and then the rumors and speculation that Silver is going to make a decision within the next two to four weeks. I just kind of started to appreciate also that it feels like there's the light at the end of the tunnel is here. So what decision does he have to make? Does he just have to say the parameters aren't in place for us to play basketball? No matter how bad the players want to do it, I'm sorry players. I'm the commissioner. I'm acting on behalf of the NBA. I just can't see us going out there.

I can't imagine a player saying I want to play and the commissioner says no it's just not going to happen. Yeah, it would have to make sense for everybody. Basically safety, money, and willingness to play and willingness to host the games. A lot of things do have to fall in place, though. But I'll say this.

And I know Shaw mentioned this with Jeff Van Gundy. If the players would have gotten together yesterday and said, we don't want to play. I think his, now he's the boss, and the players have to do what the commissioner wants, but I think in basketball, if you got a large section, we talked about this a little bit on the show yesterday,

you get a large segment of the population that doesn't want to play. You're looking at a watered down, tough to watch, hard to believe, finish to an NBA season. I mean, I think it means a lot that Kauai Leonard wants to play, that Chris Paul is leading this. and that Jason Tatum wants to play.

Russell Westbrook's on the phone. What is Donovan Mitchell, I have to say about all this? Well, Donovan Mitchell's like, as long as you keep me away from Rudy Gobert, I think their relationship is better now. Well, I heard it was unsalvageable. Then now apparently it's salvageable, so hopefully things are trending in the right direction. You knew it was going to be salvageable. I just, you knew it was going to take a little bit of time.

I don't think Rudy Gober starts next season on that team. I think Rudy Gober is traded too. Yeah, I think he'll definitely get traded. You gave me the COVID, and now you get to go to what, like, Minnesota or somewhere. I guess they have a carlainty town. He was so cavalier about it. He was so cavalier that not only did he get it,

but he spread it on to somebody else, that's why about him got so sideways with him. Is that, you know, if that would have happened, you go, man, this is terrible. We were all in these close confines. But he was, he just didn't treat it very seriously at all. And instead of treating it seriously and telling somebody about it

and not doing the stupid microphone thing, he made a joke out of it and then not only did he get sick but he got his teammate sick and then he had to put the whole team in a little The whole league came to a halt. Yeah, yeah. So I hope that you had a good hearty, hard laugh

on that Rudy Gobert. You know what I'm saying? Here's the thing, guys. He has an outstanding. I mean, he's a two-time defensive player of the year. But he's got no offensive skills. Cluncapella is a five-tool offensive player compared to Rudy Gobert.

Rudy just flushes. He can't even finish layups very well. It's okay. You can be like your number three on a championship team. I mean, there'd be people that would want him for sure. Take him on the Rockets. I feel like the Jazz have peaked too with that roster. Oh, don't you say that.

You'll wind up on Salt Lake City Radio. I think they peaked. And it makes more sense to trade Gobert for younger assets to build around Donovan Mitchell at this point. Like, they've got to be concerned right now about Donovan walking. already. So they got to make some big moves. Here's, in all reality, there are about 10 NBA franchises that have to really worry about having, you know, you build the draft, those guys eventually leave. Very few of them, and I'm sure there's examples, but very few of them stay in those smaller markets that don't have the megastar powers, superstar players next to them. Very few of them wind up staying in those cities.

Donovan Mitchell. I mean, every single day, Utah Jazz fans got to be thinking, is Donovan Mitchell going to stay with us long term? Because even if Donovan stays, how many free agents, Ross, run to Salt Lake City to play basketball? Not a lot. Mike Conley? Was that a trade?

That was a trade. When I first moved to Salt Lake City in 2004, they were so excited. Remember Carlos Booser? He signed there as a free agent coming out of Cleveland. And the whole NBA is like, hey, ha, ha, look what we did. difference was Carlos Boozer was probably paid 200% of what his real value was. That's true.

And he put shoe polish on his head. Well, you know, people cover up hair spots that way. That's true. But if you're Milwaukee. But not how bad he did it. Yeah. Well, like Tim Duncan used Grecian formula for a while. I know, but like when Booz did it, you look like it was next level.

It looked like he was getting ready to be in a play. Yeah. And like play a nutcracker or something. I will never forget. Like Darren Williams was signed when I was working at, you know, It was either Darren Williams or Chris Paul. And nobody thought Darren Williams, if he became the star card, he was going to stay in the Salt Lake City long term. Darren Williams speaking of, I mean, he fell off a cliff quickly.

That he did. Got a little pudgy. Hot wife, though. Really? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. How do you know this, Matt? We went to her breakfast one time and he was there with his wife.

And I was, I just couldn't formulate a sentence, which is normal the case for both days, including 12 to 3. All right. 713-212-5-790. That's how you want to get in on our show if you'd like to do so. 7-13-21-2-5-7-9. Cole Kubelik. I've better get that name right before. Now you've got me all weirded out about how to pronounce his last name.

You say call him Cole World. Call-W, how about double-sees with us on the show. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. It's how you reach a program on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Joe George Radio. Right now, a message for Cromberg Flanks and Flagpoles. Very happy they have sponsored this radio show because they believe that taking care of Houstonians when it comes to great flags and flagpole needs. Well, you can stay with a Houston-based company.

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How you doing Matt? Peachy. I like that Rocket shirt. Nice. You know what? As I said before, I'm wearing the same six t-shirts and watching the same six pairs of shorts. Same. I mean, is there any reason to change?

I went for a good solid three weeks there where I was just alternating a couple pairs of sweatpants. I finally had to get into some jeans. When they started wearing themselves, it's kind of a problem. I was wondering if you guys were noticing the same mustard stain on my jeans every other day. For those of you don't know, George, Monday wears his Bulls jerseys. Tuesday, it's Bears. Wednesday's Blackhawks. No, no, no. Thursday. Chicago Sky. It's the Chicago Sting of the old NASL. And then Friday he wears a... You forgot about Wolves jersey. Chicago Wolves, the AA. Is there any such thing as an A-HL anymore? Oh, they just canceled their season, actually, yes.

They were just like they're going to cancel the rest of their season. They'll play next year. So we've lost. Oh, you know what you're supposed to do? It's time for Joe George's story time. Oh, yeah. It is story time. Wait, I got to find the tweets.

What was happening? Vince McMahon explains why Oliver Luck got to hook. Because I really don't know. I thought he was going to tell us like a cool story of where he got into some crazy. No. He doesn't have stories. Hyginks with some people in college or some. In a filing today, Vince McMahon's lawyers claimed he fired Oliver Luck for three reasons.

Okay. Gross neglect of his job during the early days of the pandemic. Signing, should I keep going? Well, is there a great detail on that? No, that's all the tweet says. Signing Antonio Calloway, despite XFL policy against hiring talent with legal troubles. And this last one, personal use of an XFL issued iPhone. So that's why he's claiming he fired.

You're firing your CEO? Is this going to hold them in court? Let's go back to the three. Let's go to the first one again. It says he had gross neglect of his job during the early days of the pandemic. There's obviously going to need more details on this at some point. So let's guess. Gross neglect.

I would say that Vince McMahon wanted to be updates every hour on the futures of the franchises. And Oliver Lux, like, we just had to cancel the games this week because every state in America was told to staying inside. I mean, I guess he just, what could have Oliver have done? What did Oliver Luck not do that Roger Goodell and Rob Manford and Adam Silver do during that time? Come up with a strategy of if it's safe to play, how they would protect their players, are they going to have fans? Do you know the three commissioners and right now don't have an idea of that? Well, I know, but that's what Vince is saying that he didn't actively work on that, probably. Can you either one of you buy that at this point?

yes because when the XFL was being canceled not canceled we were getting fans here in Houston but there was reports of like a vendor in Seattle getting sick with the virus and it never felt like there was any action plan put out or how they were going to handle this they were just kind of going forward as normal with their business apparently I'm also reading that Vince McMahon wants his termination letter public and Oliver Luck wants it sealed. Is this going to get juicy?

Yes! Now there's definitely going to be a 30 for 30 on the XFL again. XFL too. Awesome. And let's make ten parts out of it. Over five consecutive Sundays. McMahon's side argues in court. Luck improperly seeks to seal

not only generic terms of the contract but also letters addressing the reasons for luck's termination. There is no reason, let alone a compelling reason, for sealing such information that would outweigh the presumption of public access due to judicial documents. So luck wants it sealed. So maybe there's a little something in here. So here's the question then that none of us have the answer to.

If we didn't have the pandemic and the XFL was going along still to this day, wrapping up their season or whatever it is, would Oliver Luck been fired? Were the things that he was doing wrong? with the things he was doing wrong so bad that you fire your commissioner halfway through the first season. If you're Vince McMahon's lawyers, yes. If you're Oliver Lux lawyers, no. Man. Now right now, if we were to, if this was a three-round MMA event, I give round one to Vince McMahon.

I agree. Yep. Why do they, why does he want contract terms sealed? Why does he want the termination letter sealed? if Andrew Luck I mean Oliver Luck If Oliver Luck thinks he's wrongfully terminated How can they How can they judge that without the terms of the contract

And the termination letter? Yeah, something's fishy Something is a miss Something is rotten in Denmark And Vince McMahon runs a Fortune 500 company If he wants to get rid of a high-ranking officer He's got documentation well before the Letter of Termination, correct?

Yes, but it's curious the timing of it Two days before they close the league What was it two days ago? Something like that? Very close to when they were closing the league. It was all happened almost at the same exact time. Hey, you're fired. And by the way, we're shutting down the league.

And since you're fired, I do not have to put your name in the bankruptcy courts. All right, what's number two? Number two was signing a player with legal troubles. And that was something that when Vince McMahon announced the league two years before it started in that initial press conference, he said they would not be doing. What was his name? Something Calloway? Antonio Calloway, right?

Yeah, I'm trying to look at what. Okay. If Vince McMahon says that, the boss says it, and you do it anyway, that's a violation of what you're supposed to be doing as a leader. Oh, yeah, that was the guy with the Browns with all the issues. That's right. Yeah, I mean, that to me is very cut and try. Now, I don't understand why Vince would allow him to be signed and play in the league. Maybe he just didn't know.

This is according to Wikipedia, so this might not have the whole story. Calloway was cited for possession of marijuana and driving with a suspension. licensed. The drug charges were dropped and he paid $900 for the license violation. That's it. That was the extent of how what his wrongdoing was? It's got to be more than that, right? He had problems in college.

That's why he fell in the draft. He definitely had problems in the NFL. Okay, well then that's the case. If Vince goes out, which he'd said the day one, the XFL was announced, we're not putting people in. Then I go round two to Vince McMahon, right? Now, we've got a minute left in this segment. Round three is what? What is the third violation?

In proper use of personal XFL cell phone Or using XFL cell phone for personal use Is he just like texting Andrew? Yeah Is he FaceTiming because they've got unlimited data on the XFL? Why is he worried about what's on that phone? Well, maybe there's something bad on the phone. Well, that's true.

That could be in the termination letter. But you're not used, there's no such thing as 900 numbers anymore, right? Maybe there's a little funny, well, yeah, no, no. Or 976, remember those? I don't think so There's not a number that there's not a number Or a son that would be so Maybe he's

Oh I got something for you Maybe he's calling NFL team saying Look what I'm doing over here in the XFL You want me to come over and work with you Try to get a job on his XFL phone Does I'm saying is he go Is he job searching on an XFL phone I don't know

Okay And is that a fireable fence for a CEO Well What if I was What if I was on a company phone here at the station? I was calling our station in town saying you want to hire me. They probably wouldn't fire you over it. Well, it could be the final straw.

It could be the straw that broke a camel's back, if you will. Yeah, and we will. Second hour, the Matt Thomas show starts at a matter of moments. We have some generally speaking, not definitively good news, but it feels like a better feel of sports. The PGA tour is going to return. You've got NASCAR this weekend. And I guess the question would be, is this all coming too soon?

I would say no, because we've been doing this for two months. We're pretty damn miserable. We need a little bit of sports, even though it's going to be just at a fraction of what it used to be. 713-212-5-790, if you'd like to be a part of our show. Coming up in 20 minutes, the visit with Jeff Van Gundy, later on in 2 o'clock with Mike Stanton from AT&T Sports. It talks in baseball and Kolkubelik from ESPN at 2.30 about college football

and how they might have to play a fractured season with fractured conferences. Right now, a message for Berkeley Ice Center. If you want to get LASIC and you've been worried about getting into see the folks at any of your preferred doctors, then you know what? No need to order anymore because the folks at Berkeley Eye Center are now open and they're ready to visit with you when it comes to getting the perfect vision for your life. Avoiding classes in context of you. So choose can now be a thing in the past if you want to get the LASIC today through Berkeley Eye Center. Right now they've got the Welcome Back LASIC savings offer,

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then think about LASIC today through Berkeley Eye Center. 7-13-5-2-6. EYES online at BerkeleyI.com or text LASIC to 48484848. Is the Matt Thomas Show. With the hour number two of the Matt Thomas show. Great to have all of you with us on this Wednesday afternoon. Book for Friday in our people we miss hearing from series. We have our next one coming up in an hour with Mike Stanton from AT&T, the Astros analyst.

You guys see. Ernie Johnson, host of Inside the Inside the Indes, NBA on TNT. Ross and I have gone back and forth on this. I believe the two greatest pregame shows, halftime, post-game, whatever you want to call it, in the history of sports, one is inside the NBA for pure entertainment purposes.

And if you were to give me entertainment slash information slash great features, it's ESPN's college football game day. And I think number... What did we argue on that? We didn't argue. I would sweep to... You and I've talked about those are our two favorites.

I didn't say the NBA is definitely number one for me. I feel like there's not really a close number three. To me, the NFL shows on ESPN Fox and CBS are all the same. None of them are special. Calliando was funny for a time doing the skits on the Fox, but that's gone. And now Rob Riggled, it hasn't made me laugh. Riggles just not as good.

Some of them have been okay, but yeah, I hadn't missed to me. The reason why I've said it's harder for me to judge on NFL pregame shows is because on Sundays, I go noon to 6, noon to 7, watching football nonstop, dinner break, and then you get to watch the Sunday night game. I feel like if I'm going to be in front of a television for 10 and a half hours, if I got to skip an hour of television, it's going to be those pregame shows. I'm normally waking up right at 12 anyways, so. I don't really catch the pregame show. Yeah, we should take you out of this conversation. Yeah.

But you're right. The NFL today, Fox NFL Sunday, the ESPN. Now, ESPN Game Day or whatever they call it, the countdown show. It'll be out of the background if you're making breakfast or something, but it's not one of those things that I have to sit and watch and hear what Rex Ryan had to say. I'll tell you what I do put on. I put on the fantasy football show on ESPN 2 with all their experts and going through tight-in rankings or whatever. Who are playing a game?

Yeah. I'll watch that. But in terms of you, the all-time, because you had NFL today, way back in the day with Phyllis, with Brett Musburger and Jimmy the Greek. you had Bob Koss is doing NFL and NBC for a while, the pregame shows. Yes, there hasn't been a great NBA pregame show, except for the TNT.

I mean, ESPN has not been able to find any combination. You go, man, I got to hear, first of all, Paul Pierce, I just think is this, I mean, first of all, they're just openly rooting for the Celtics. They came to Boston when the Rockets play the Celtics, and they were doing their countdown show right there. it was like go I mean it was like basically he had green pom-poms in his hand during the show sort of like how a rod is when the Yankees are on Fox I will say that I feel like I do feel like

inside the NBA is kind of grandfathered in is great I think the fastball has been lost a little bit because the analysis is never ever good and you never really came there for analysis but I feel like it's getting worse that's why I think ESP in college game day is maybe has jumped NBA inside the NBA because of the fact that they do the features. Now, granted, their staff's a lot bigger. They have like 10 people on the air. They have two to three hours where those three guys essentially go in there. But if I need to be entertained, there's never a week, Ross, where inside the NBA

on TNT is not enjoyable. You never come away going, man, I wasted 30 minutes of my time. I could do without Lee Corso in college game day, though. He's kind of at that point where watching Kirk Herb Street, help him through a moment is like since we more know what's going on, it's incredible, but I can do without it.

I like that they added Barron and they added the gambling aspect now to some of the college game day shows. That's me why it's my favorite. I think they cover just everything. But inside the NBA, sometimes it's just pure comedy. It has nothing to do with basketball.

And that's like I love Shackton a Fool. I love when they make fun of Charles. I love when people tweet at the show and those guys lose it and Shaq and Charles are good for two or three pretty good knockdown, dragout arguments during a show.

Usually they're both wrong. It's pretty incredible. Well, here's the thing. They have biases. Yes. Because they're not going to change their opinion on things. If Shaq never loved James Hardin, he's never going to ever love James Hardin. If Charles is mad at the Rockets

because Charles thinks the Rockets owe him money, for taking a lesser deal when Scottie Pippen was here, then that's never going to change either. They're going to be not very flexible in some of their opinions. But I think the way Ernie kind of navigates that show, keeps on some sort of path. Ernie does make it fun. Ernie grounds the show a little bit.

Yeah. Because he's always making little comments or actual coming in with facts. And like, well, you know, they did. Like when Charles would just say, well, jump shooting team will never win a championship. like the Warriors just won a couple and the Spurs one one before that like just get out of here

he'll bring up a little facts to dispute what they're saying which is always good yeah it's for me it's those guys love each other and I think very few times you can find shows

that they really do at the end of the day we'll hug it on and say we gave our audience 30, 45 minutes an hour of really great material yeah it's just three hours on the Matt Thomas show yeah

and we don't hug. I think Ross and I hug what three to four times of your tops. Yeah, you know, if you're really down, I'll give you a hug. Thank you. But maybe not now in these times during these unprecedented and uncertain times. Yeah, you're social distancing me right now

from the hugs and that's fine. But yeah, I'm very excited about Ernie Johnson joining the show coming up on Friday. I don't know how much they'll know more than they will know. But you've got to realize, guys, these TV networks have got to start getting involved in this. because I feel like the NBA is going to try to. I think Major League Baseball do the same thing.

They're going to try to give us television angles, give us some sights and sounds that they normally wouldn't get a normal game broadcast because they want it to be as, I guess, I mean, we're going to be interested, but they're going to really want to take it to another level. Put cameras in spots that normally wouldn't put in. I don't know if they'll put mics on players or whatnot.

We're going to hear everything anyway with no crap. That's going to be interesting. I want to hear defensive callouts and the trash talk and the yelling of that, yelling at the referees, they might even have to tone that down at some point. I want to hear Mike Dantonie screaming and cursing at the referees, but I don't know that he wants that. Can I give you a Mike D'Antony impersonation?

Of course. Mark! Mark! He first of all screams the officials name three to four times because it takes that long for them to acknowledge you. Then he goes, they're doing the same thing to James down here. On! Look at the... And then the obligatory, look at the replay. You should know, the big giant screen at TOTUS Center.

Yes. Then he puts his hands on his hips, starts looking up. Yeah. And then he drops his head. He shakes. It's why I love him because it's consistently no matter who the game is. But yeah, there are some coaches that, like I said, get away with a lot more than he does. I mean, Mike doesn't ever swear.

I've heard Mike maybe in the four years I've been with him on his, with his coaching. I think I've heard him swear at an official maybe two or three times. And I think of those two or three times that he did it intentionally because he wanted to get a technical foul. Sometimes coaches do want to get the T to get guys, let his players know that he's willing to give up a point to make his point. He's got their back. But there are some, like Luke Walton, you think Mile Man or Luke Walton? You'll get to meet Luke Walton. Who's the nastiest coach in the NBA, you think?

as far as with the referees. Well, Tibod was for sure. He was swarring in everybody. What about Popovich? Don't hear much about Popovich. Okay. There are coaches in the league that will psychologically try to get in the referee's ears, and I think Greg's one of those guys.

Rick Carlisle, the Mavericks, is one of those guys. So the smart good coaches. Steve Kerr probably is, he's more of a he's more of a swearing than you would think he would be trying to get some other coaches around the league that you guys would recognize

Spolster's cool as a cucumber Michael Malone cool who else you want to know about oh Brad Stevens he'll drop a little quick S bomb once in a while but it won't be anything

you know again I will see him in person once or twice a year so it's hard for me to I'd like to think of the Western Conference coaches more J.B. Bickerstaff No he's just happy

happy to be here. By the way, he's a new coach. Where is he now? Coach Cleveland, full time? I think so, yeah. I think they give him a three-year deal. J.B. Bickerstaff, just, he's like the guy that goes to the restaurant and doesn't order the appetizer, and then you do, and then you're not hungry.

He winds up finishing it for you. He goes places where obviously the head coaches in a tumulture of a situation. He winds up getting the job. That's happened multiple times now. How many times he's been an interim job? Memphis? Yeah. Houston? Cleveland?

There's got to be somewhere else he's been to. I mean, he's done well for himself. All right, 113 is a time. When we return, speaking of the NBA, Jeff Van Gundy was on with Sean Salisbury this morning. If you missed it, it's a really good conversation. The best of it is next on 790. Right now, if you want to join us before then,

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They also have a great selection of pre-owned Rolexes, and you can get zero percent financing on most of those purchases for 12 months. All you've got to do is stop on in, because, look, you can go online to buy jewelry, but sometimes you're making a huge emotional and financial purchase, you want to see it for yourself to make sure the lady in your life thinks it's the best. Or if you're looking to get a new pre-owned Rolex watch, then you want to try it on for yourself. Do it today at Shaw's Jury. Open Monday through Friday, 10 o'clock until 7. They go 10 to 6 on Saturdays. West Grey Montrose, the home of Shaw's Jewelry. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. We're going to talk to baseball with Mike Stant-Av of AT&T sports coming up in about 40 minutes

in our series of people we miss hearing from. We'll also get an update on what's happening with college football and how they could have a fractured season, fractured teams, and will there be a college football year if only a handful of Power 5 conferences play? It's coming up with Cole Kubelik from ESPN in about an hour and 10 minutes from now. Really interesting conversation this morning. Sean Salisbury, Howard, you can catch 6 to 10 here on Sports Talk 790

with Jeff Van Gundy from ABC and ESPN. And Shaw went right after him with a question that is on the minds of a lot of basketball and NBA fans. Should we play an NBA season knowing what you know now as a broadcaster? Well, I think everyone's going to have to assume some level of acceptable risk to them, everywhere from, you know, NBA office all the way down through the teams, because there's no doubt that when we play again, if it's saying, this year, it's going to start without fans.

And it's also without question that when it starts back up, somebody from some team is going to get infected. And I heard that Adam Silver said that if that happens and we're going to lose our stomach for playing because somebody gets the virus and we shouldn't really restart at all. And so they've got to figure out like how they're going to deal with that. I think the one thing that I'm a little concerned about is what if a star or two decide not to play? They're just so fearful of potentially contracting the virus that they decide

not to play. Does everybody else continue on or does that spur more fear? I think these are going to be really hard questions to answer before you restart. And so I think Adam Silver, I think he's done everything right. I think he's been cautious. But I think everybody wants their money, the league, the networks, the teams, and the players. And so I think they're going to try to restart. I'm just not sure how pragmatic that is. Okay, Jeff, let's play it. I picked up the phone back call you on Adam Silver. And he trusts you enough to say, I need you. You Your word's the final word. Do we play or don't we play?

What are you telling him? Well, it's easy for me to say to err on the side of caution because, well, I guess my salary is sort of intertwined, but it's easy to say when you're not having to pay the ultimate price. I mean, the owners who he works for want the money, and I don't blame him. They've invested deeply into this. All the science would tell you right now, that there's concern, that I think, you know, there's time to wait and make a decision. But I don't think anyone could say to Adam Silver if he decided that it was too risky to play,

that he's being too cautious. I don't see anyone being able to say that that would be the wrong decision. And I think they're going to try to push the regular season next year, it seems, back into a later start date, potentially around Christmas. I think they've wanted to explore that to begin with. I think this gives them the opportunity because I think ultimately what they want to do is have as many contests competed with fans in the stands.

I had no idea, Sean, until Adrian Wojernowski reported yesterday, that 40% of all basketball revenues is generated on game night. I didn't either. I had no idea. It was that significant. So I get it. Tough decisions, hard decisions, no clear-cut, easy decisions. I feel for Adam Silver because he's got compelling reasons on both sides for whatever decision he makes.

And he'll take backlash whatever decision he makes. And that's part of being the commissioner and the boss here. Exactly right. Jeff Van Gundy here. What would it be like? and what will it be like? Because if that's the way we start, we're going to start without fans to watch Harden play Janice in a stadium with no fans.

What will it be like? Well, I think initially it'll be both, you know, strange, but I don't think it will detract from the intensity because I think players are going to be so into having the opportunity to compete again. And most likely we're going to either start with a very brief, regular season and go right into the playoffs, which would enhance the intensity. Where I'm concerned about it is starting the next season, if we start without fans, and we try to play a whole regular season without fans or a good part of it,

just how odd that will be. You'll hear things that you probably shouldn't hear, and I think it'll be interesting how they try to camouflage some of the real sounds of the game, I think the interactions between, you know, players, officials, coach officials, player, player, those would be heightened, and you'd have to be more careful if you're a TV entity or if you're one of those people involved because things are going to be more easily picked up. So I don't think initially it would be bad. I don't think it would detract from the intensity, but I think over time,

if it had to continue on into next season, it would be rough. Jeff, let's use the New York Knicks, for example, or a team like the team that wasn't in playoff contention or isn't. And we come back. Isn't the only way we could come back is that everybody's got to be in a playoff? Because what incentive would it be for a team that's not going to make the playoffs to come back and play five games and then to go back home? Yeah, I would hate to see, I understand the plan. but I would hate to see our playoffs cheapened by a gimmick to try to interest players who are getting paid huge money to play to actually compete hard. I agree, though.

It would be difficult. I'm not even sure teams would play their best players if they're completely out of contention. I mean, if you're New Orleans and you don't have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs, are you going to play Zion Williamson? Absolutely not. Right. So, again, I think there's a lot to try to decipher. The one thing that I hope doesn't happen, I hope we are able to crown what's recognized as a legitimate championship

in this incredibly unusual season. I don't like gimmicks in the playoffs, but I understand what you're saying, and I would understand what Adam Silver is saying, to try to get the most people involved and the most fan bases re-engaged to include everybody in a playoff. I would understand that. That's far different from me having to like it. Jeff, I want to go back to you mentioned what if a couple superstars decide not to play.

I don't think they would play to you, Jeff. I think superstars control this sport more than any sport we have. I think it would be interesting. because it would throw off the complete balance of power. And it goes right back to the idea of are we crowning a legitimate champion? And so you'd have to be very, very concerned if one of the top 20 players, you know, in the NBA, who you would think would be in the playoffs decided not to play. And or, you know, couldn't play by contracting the virus.

So I think fortunately when you look out at the landscape right now, you haven't had anybody say it yet. In fact, you've had LeBron come out and say when it's safe, he can't wait to get back there. And I think the star players have a lot of sway, not just over NBA policy, but how their teammates and other players feel about, you know, the risk. And I think Adam Silver, if I read this correctly, said something, you know, really good. It's not going to be perfectly safe. It's got to be acceptably safe. And I think, you know, that's a big distinction that I think for every player,

coach, referee, they're going to have to decide for themselves. and it just concerns me about the possibility that some may not want to play. Jeff, let me leave you with this and get your opinion. Have you been watching the last dance? I have not. I've heard it's very good. Sean, I lived it during that time, so I don't feel like the need to, like, you know, revisit it. It's very rare that we get a guy.

I don't think in our lifetimes we'll ever see a guy like him. I'm not saying talent-wise. I'm talking about the talent. the refusal to lose and will to win, the preparation, but the mental, the blatant disregard for anybody's feelings along the way other than winning a championship, I don't know many athletes that combined all of that since I've been watching or playing sports.

No, it's, first of all, today it wouldn't be accepted. Right. Either by the media that covers it, by the other players, it would be, in many, ways termed harassment or bullying, whatever your term may be. So, you know, the leadership style of Jordan or Kobe Bryant, you have to have incredible talent. You know, not any player, not even a good player could get away with that. You have to beat Tom Brady, you know, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant to be able to have that type of leadership style. I think what's more

acceptable today to players, to the media, is more of the Steve Nash, Tim Duncan leadership style of, you know, grab a guy, you know, hug him, pat him on the back, encouragement model. Jordan's model was not encouraging. It was driving. It was seeing if you could withstand the mental heat that he would bring on an everyday basis. And like I said, I agree with you. You have to be so exceptional as a player to have that type of leadership style, but I just don't see it ever coming back into vogue, and I don't think it would be accepted in today's game.

So many good layers with that conversation that Jeff and Sean Salisbury had. I appreciate again, Sean Grabbing Jeff. You can catch Sean weekday morning, 6 to 10 right here on Sports Talk Saturday. We'll get to a couple of things. We'll start with what he ended with, and that was about could Michael Jordan's brand of enforcement motivation work in 2020. I think it's a pretty simple answer to that. We'll tell you about that.

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136. If you're a baseball fan, how do you think an ex-player long-time major leaguer would adapt to a 2,0282 game schedule? Mike Stanton's going to join us from AT&T Sportsnet. in about to 25 minutes. So guys, Jeff Van Gundy said in conversation with Sean this morning that Michael Jordan's way of motivation would not fly in the year 2020.

I 100% agree with that. Could Kevin Durant be motivated to play better if Michael Jordan was to attack him the way that he attacked his teammates? Or do you think that Michael Jordan was selective in who he went after, knowing that if you went after Rodman the way that he did, or Horace Grant, or Bill Cartwright, or Scotty Pippen, those guys would tell him to go take a flying jump somewhere.

I never really got a hurt of him getting in a fist fight with most of those guys. Nope. I don't know. Obviously, it's a different time. It's a little bit of softer time, and it's more of a... I mean, like, coaches can't do certain things. The kids, starting from, like, Little League and high school and all that type of stuff, there are a lot of restrictions that are on basically what you would call tough love.

back in the day. Now they call it abuse. And what Michael Jordan did probably at least psychological abuse. It was verbal abuse is what it was. And verbal abuse, yeah. I'm trying to, I mean, can we think of anybody? I mean, Kobe Bryant was that kind of way and he played in, would you call that this era or not? When did he retire?

In 2016? 17? Somewhere in the I even think the difference between 2016 and now is dramatic. Because let's think about some of the great S-talkers in the last 30 years of the NBA. Gary Payton KG KG

Larry Bird would do it to you Michael Jeffrey Jordan would do it I mean there is just you could go on and on and on I bet you Clyde Drexor

was a pretty good S-talker if you think about it who are the great S-talkers in the NBA in 2020 probably Russ Russ Westbrook Chris Paul probably

Dave Chris Paul maybe Dame Lillard I don't know he's waving bye-bye to the uh... Draymond but

in Draymond's case he's just he's just doing it because he wants to well he's Draymond's a good I think Draymond's a talker I guess I'm not trying to I guess I'm trying to overjust or underjustifying

no he is he would be in the group but it feels like to me it's much more of a difficult chase to find those guys today than it would be even five or six years ago would Draymond Green be a well-adapt would be able to handle a verbal tongue lashing

by Michael Jordan at the two of those guys are teammates That'd probably be fist fighting And Draymond Green's a little too tall for Jordan to go after him I think the difference is like I think Jordan would like Draymond I think he would too I think they would get along really well Yeah

So then so Michael only picks on guys that Or smaller than me Aren't that kind of a hole on the court 24-7 Yeah like he's talking about Scott Burrell How he's the nicest guy in the world And he tried to get him to hit him or whatever And he just wasn't That was just his personality

I think I mean there were those guys on his teams in the 90s I think he just picks on the little dudes. But what do you take for about Draymond Green and Kevin Durant getting sideways the last couple of years in Golden State? And that was the reason why they thought at the end of the day those two guys would never be able to finish their careers together. I think they knew Kevin Durant was looking to the next stop.

And like Michael wouldn't fly with that. Michael would never be able to handle a guy thinking about where am I going next? I mean, they've... None of those guys in that generation never thought of that. No, they acted like the Pippin thing wasn't a big deal now. But I feel like they really were being nice to Pippin when he took his time off and delayed his surgery. Like, I feel like that was a very different conversation. And how about this, guys?

How about the fact that Michael Jordan basically gave the unofficial clearance for Dennis Robin to go take 48 hours off? Yeah, Michael Jordan did that. And Michael Jordan, Pippen literally didn't want to mess up his summer, so waited, I mean, what's Michael Jordan going to do? So basically, Michael Jordan was a selective bully. Yeah. Yep. And I don't know if in 2020, you can be, at 2020, you can be a selected bully. How much did Scott Burrell factor into their championship success?

Not a lot. I think the thing with Michael... That's the guy that he's pushing to new heights. The thing with Michael is, look, my generation, which is the guys that are in the NBA today and a little bit younger, I'm 28, so I grew up in the generation that was handed, given trophies for everything. And that's what these NBA guys were. They were also loved on at the AAU levels at 12 and 13 years old, where even Michael Jordan at 12 or 13 wasn't considered. I mean, the first player that comes to mind to me that was treated like a super megastar,

way before he ever stepped on a professional court was LeBron James, right? When any point, when did LeBron James, do you guys think, first became a rock star? Had to be what, freshman in high school probably? Probably somewhere around then, yeah. Yeah, because before, like the elite. phenoms. They weren't treated nationally. Yeah, gyms of 3,000 people

didn't go watch Kevin Garnett play. Did they? I remember going to a game when I was young watching KG and Ronnie Fields fill up a 10,000 plus Cedar arena with Michael Jordan sitting courtside. But was that a special event or was it just a regular game? It was a regular game, but they made a special event because Ronnie

Fields was supposed to be the next Michael Jordan. What's he doing now? Well, he never played college basketball. Fair enough. But, like, Michael wouldn't work today because these guys, look, they're soft. They are. Like, whether they all want to admit it or not, a majority of NBA rosters are soft. The worst guy in their bench was treated like a god in AAU.

Michael would crush these guys. Mike, here's what Mike, you know why Michael couldn't work here? Because if you said load management to Michael Jordan in 2020, he would lose his mind. I mean, they did it to him when he broke his leg, or broke his foot. They monitored him to what, 15 minutes or whatever it was? And how did he like that? He didn't like it, but he did it. But he went to North Carolina while he was hurt and he played full pickup basketball games.

He did load management. Michael was load managing in the 80s. But that was one season. He was never considered a load management guy for a decade. No, he wasn't. Think about this, Russ Westbrook, as great as we love him, is probably going to load manage the rest of his NBA career. Yeah, like, what Michael did that season

That's also smart. You're trying to extend his career. Chris Paul should load management the rest of his career. Yeah. Like, I don't view what Michael did that season is anything different than like what Blake Griffin did. When he broke his like, he could have come back as rookie year. They chose not to play him. Probably the same thing was Zion.

Zion could have come back sooner. That to me is what the difference is between Michael's load management. In all, honestly, I'm not against loads of management. I'm just telling you that I think Michael Jordan is. Yeah, I agree. And I think that's part of the reason. And I also think part of the reason when you are so good, if you're the greatest of all time, it's hard to be a leader of men that aren't as good as you are.

He's never had a player, whether he was a Wizards executive or now as a Charlotte Hornets executive, that was ever as good as he was. He was never going to either. And that may be, Ross, that may be impossible for him to handle. That if you are expecting everybody to play as hard and be as successful as you are and make the sacrifices and learn the game and shoot 35,000 jump shots, that's just not going to be him. And that's why maybe that's part of the reason why he will not.

Because I don't think he's got a bad basketball IQ. But let me ask you, why has Michael been as awesome as he has a player as lousy as a front office person? It's a different skill set. Maybe it takes, I mean, a burning passion to win and all that type of stuff. And immediate results in the court are a little bit different than something that's long term and scouting and making draft picks and making moves and massaging the salary cap and all that type of stuff.

It's a completely different skill set. And by the way, if you dare tell him he's not as good as that, he won't speak to you. I mean, if you want it to play a pickup game between all the general managers, he's going to do okay. But they're not playing basketball. They're building teams. Yeah. Darryl Morey's going to lose every single time. But Darryl Morris is going to have a much higher success rate as a general manager.

Darryorne's got a good old man game. And he's like 6'5 or 6.4. He's kind of big. And he's a ping pong guy. Yeah But he's got a On the basketball court He's got a little

He's got a little jump hook game Does he play a good? Yeah In the three on threes How high were his socks that? Well Not that high Did he wear elbow pads?

I don't think so Headband No don't think so Well that must have been a long time ago It was years ago Yeah They haven't done the media Three on three in a while

People are getting heard And stuff like that He had to say You have to sign a waiver Because somebody toured their Achilles one year. Really? Yeah, Jerome Solomon tore his Achilles.

I don't know, 10 years ago. So if you Terry, do you get to go to the Rockets Doctors or do you have to go to your own doctor? You have to go to your own. Yeah, and probably this big all in caps. Do not sue us. It's kind of like the old man game in the NBA, how they got rid of that on All-Star Weekend because everybody's just getting hurt. One of the thing I will get to when come back, the thought of playing a round-robin,

don't get gimmicky and run the playoffs. We've talked about this before. Let's have a regular playoff series. going to bring everybody here and finish out the season, don't make it a all-in-30 team tournament. I'm not going to complain if they just bring basketball back. That's right. We don't care. Play a game of horse to determine NBA championship.

146. 713, 212-790. Mike Stanton, AT&T, on the Astros in 15 minutes on 790. Hi, this is former running back of Herschel worker. You're listening to Matt Thomas on the Sports Talk 790. 150 on the Matt Thomas show. Anthony Dreamweaver spoke to the media, and I don't know if Gordy is in a lunch break or whatever,

but we'd like to have some soundbite soon if you're listening. Joe George, what's up with Gordy? What's he doing? Is he catching Tiger Talk on LSU's? He's probably booking guests for his... He's booking guest for the 10-to-noon show. God, since Gordy's up at 10 o'clock show, we hardly ever see him. It's just I'm prepping for tomorrow.

But Anthony Dreamweaver's talking right now. Oh, well. Mr. G. G.S. Sports sent us a tweet. Since at this point, I want the NBA season. canceled and for them to have an NBA jam-style tournament for charity. Something like the big three tournament, but with active players, that's logistical. The Rockets three would be. Westbrook, Hardin, and PJ?

Or do you want to go for an outside shooter? Cove. Oh, Coveington. A four-man roster, because it's two-on-two. Okay. No, I don't want any more charity stuff. Guys, can I just be honest with that? I don't want any more charity.

I don't want any made for TV events. Because let me tell you something. That video game thing was a disaster. Horse was a disaster. I want real games. I don't care if they're in empty gyms or not. Give me games that count. Well, it looks like the NFL's big charity thing for draft night might be a scam.

What? Well, they, Dave Portnoy won an auction from the NFL for $250,000. And Joe's getting a phone call. That's Gordy. Guys, I'm just working in the cuts right now. It's hard. His press conference just finished. It's got to be him.

We love Gordy. Anyway, so what was he talking about? Oh, the NFL charity team. Barstool Sports. Yeah, apparently he won an auction to watch a game with Roger Gadel. I don't know. Is that not happening right now? I think he paid $250,000 for that.

How is that guy worth? He did. and Dave Porter is worth like a couple million. Not really like $30, $40, $50 million. Oh, wow. They just got bought out. But he says that he doesn't think Roger Goodell is going to go through with it because it's supposed to watch a game in Goodell's basement and on ESPN.

So why does he think it's going to happen? Because that's what he said he's hearing already. The NFL's not going to go through with it. Well, now, don't you think that's a little presumptuous him to do that? Probably. If they're taking his money, they have to abide by it, right? I don't think so, yeah. Do you want the breaking news sounder?

Yes. Chris Gorses says go to hell. I mean, I know the man loves this Baton Rouge sports talk. He said there's nothing good. I'll take a look at it. He says there's nothing good from Anthony Dreamweaver? God, that's terrible. Ross, he's our new defensive coordinator.

There's nothing good at sound bites at all. I saw some of the quote tweets from various people who are Texans, followers or Texans, covers on my timeline and it didn't seem like anything interesting. Ross Blacklock and Jonathan Granard are going to contribute. Romeo Cornell is a great mentor to me. But we are the unofficial home of Texans football.

People are thirsty for Anthony Dreamweaver sound bites. Well, you want me to just read some of the quotes? Sure, why not? Let's see. It's 20 minutes. We can just hit play. Go Pat Star. Ooh.

You want to listen to 20 straight minutes of it? I want to hear who's on the Zoom call. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Your connection's bad. Here we go. Anthony Weaver says the Texans are starting an install of the defense. Some terminology changes are happening this season. Your thoughts, Matt? None. Rex Ryan was a huge influence on my career, says Anthony Weaver. Go ahead. These are all Pat Star tweets?

Yes. Weaver says he takes a big picture approach from Rex Ryan. Okay. He expects Ross Blacklock, Jonathan Gernard, and John Reed to quote, come here and contribute. You're right. We're not playing these. Gordy, don't cut these up.

We are excited about Eric Murray and Michael Thomas. These are really what he's saying? Anthony Weaver... Anthony Weaver says he likes past rushers. In favor, to be fair,

what will we expect otherwise? Schematic changes have created a level of excitement among the group. The Texans will be more, quote, exotic to improve their third down defense to get off the field. Like Joe Exotic?

Maybe. Are they going to sick tigers on the opposing offenses? That would help. Like, if you want to install a Carol Baskin defense, I'm all for that. Yeah, if you have a Tiger Mall Pat Mahomes, he put some sardine oil on its feet. That's the key, is that you, before the game, when you're playing Pat Mahomes, sneak some sardine oil on his shoes. J.J. playing the full 16 is critical to our defense, says Anthony Weaver. I think Lonnie is a corner talking about Anthony Weaver, possibly moving Lonnie Johnson to say.

I know, Joe, I know Gordy's list. Let's apologize. I didn't say anything. I did. I'll apologize. On Texans pass rushers, I've got to find ways to put them in the best place to be successful. Yeah, I apologize, Houston. You don't want to hear these things. You're an ass.

Anthony Weaver on Ross Blacklock, quote, he's twitchy. Aren't we all? A little bit. depends on if I've eaten recently. Yeah. Man, you just, you just depressed me. I was hoping for like some gregarious, you know, really thoughtful comments, and they're all just kind of what new defensive coordinators would say.

Mm-hmm. I wonder if Bill O'Brien got to him before the president. Like, does a, does Bill, does Bill say, look, don't say anything. Be generic. Remember he did that on Hard Knocks for years back, so this would not be out of the realm of possibility. probably. I mean, what else is he going to say? Is he going to talk trash and say Pat Mahom's sucks?

Here's what he should have said. Hey, week one, get ready. Because the Dreamleaver defense going to come stomping on you. He's going to do a promo. Could you imagine? Anthony, Dreamweaver! Could you imagine before games, and this is a little passion time,

but back in the day, when they would try to promote wrestling, when promote shows, they would have, all right, coming up tonight at the same Houston, Coliseum at 8 o'clock, you're going to see the junkyard dog take on the Iron Sheik, here's Y.D, and he would spout off about how he's going to destroy the

Iron Sheik and come out the same Houston Coliseum. Could you imagine if he did the same promo thing with a player? Like Thursday night, opening night at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, it's the Texans and the Chiefs. It's Pat Mahomes defending his MVP, the Super Bowl champions. Man won't

stop him. Here's J.J. Y. And then J.J. gets the mic and starts yelling. That's what the NFL needs. He's going to have a bunch of lame lines. Like when he said, we turned Andy Dalton into the red rifle or with the red rifle into the whatever that gun is from Christmas story. Okay, maybe we don't use JJ Watt then. Who would be the, who could be, is Justin Reed got enough Moxie to be the guy that you give the mic to for the promo? I think it's Lonnie Johnson.

You think so? The guy who got scolded for putting something on Instagram? You mean luscious, Lonesh, Lundy Johnson? But I think Lani might be a guy. This is wrestling, man. That's his money. be Deshawn, he's just going to tweet out rap lyrics and pretend like it's getting everyone excited. So let's do this. Come on, roll play this. I'm luscious Lonnie Johnson, and you best be ready, Kansas City, because your team is going to get a crushing by our defense.

You buy your tickets now, you bring the pretty girls there because I'm going to steal their hearts, and I'm going to steal your team's soul because I'm luscious Lonnie Johnson. And it drops the mic. Okay. Who's speaking for the Kansas City Chiefs? Oh, Tyron Matthew is. That's true. Tyron Matthew could probably pull it off. Honey Badger here? It's not like I'm Dusted Rose, American Dream.

I'm not going to intercept not one, not two, but three passes. I'm going to get it for two pick sixes. So get ready to Sean to throw the ball right to the guys, one of the red shirts. Deep Steel Red this ass. Bye. Buy your tickets now. Arrowhead Stadium. Texans Chiefs.

Be there. See, that's how you sell the NFL. You do wrestling promont. Let's say how to our good friend, Mike Stanton, AT&T Sportsnet, will join us in a manner of moments on sports talk. Well, there would be a lot of energy in those promos, but how are you feeling energy-wise? Are you got low energy, you got a lack of motivation, maybe there's a little lack of excitement in the bedroom. How you feel it? Maybe you have low testosterone, commonly referred to as low-tie.

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Tell them you heard about synergenics, testosterone clinics right here on Sports Talk 790. Yeah. Is the Matt Thomas show. Basically final hour of the Matt Tom. Thomas show people we miss hearing from. And we miss hearing from our next guest. Longtime Major Leagueer, current analysts on AT&T Sportsnet, does a show MLB on XM Radio.

He is a man that I think Mike Stanton, I've seen every one of your playoff games ever because that's all the ESPN puts on a Yankee postseason games. How are you, sir? I am doing well. Thomas, how are you today? No complaints, no complaints. First of all, thanks for joining us. How have you been biding your time? I mean, this is you're supposed to be your

your heaviest work action of the season of the year. Right. Yeah. It's obviously been a weird start of the season, or well, lack thereof, started the season. And yeah, we've all had to make it justice. I have no complaints. We've been blessed.

I don't even know anyone that's being sick, been sick. So really more than anything else, I'm just trying to stay sane and not get cabin fever. I think you're joining a large club with that. So let's get over the most recent news about an 82 game schedule trying to play in the home stadiums. And there's so many layers to this, obviously. But when you first heard of this reduced schedule, what were your initial thoughts? And give it to me from the player perspective.

It's obviously you spent your entire career as a major leaguer and been able to speak to what guys are doing back in the day and then what they're doing now in 2020. The first time I heard it, you know, as a former player and as someone that was heavily involved, part of my career, heavily involved with the players association and negotiations with Major League Baseball for CBAs, you know, I was, I was telling the truth, I was a little upset. But then I have to remember, you know, this is a negotiation. Okay. So what do you do in those situations? Well, you shoot for the stars to get the most.

And I think that's kind of what's happened here is, you know, they, the owners want to play fewer games, so they don't have to play the players as much. They want to expand the playoffs because they get more money in the playoffs. And that's just smart business. So we'll have to wait and see, you know, how the back and forth, how the negotiations go between the two sides. But I was a little surprised with the 80 games. I was expecting a minimum of 100, maybe even 120. But like I said, we'll just have to wait and see what the final number. for falls. You were a part of the strike in 1994 where revenue sharing was put into play. You

as the players said, no chance, no way, no how. How much have things changed in 26 years? And does the virus play a significant role into maybe accepting maybe not necessarily a 50-50 split, but some sort of revenue share for this 2020 season? You know, Matt, I don't know how revenue sharing would work in this situation. I mean, if this was truly going to be on the board, this is something. that should have been negotiated and talked about a long, long time ago. Because in order for the, if you were going to do a 50-50 split of revenues, does that mean the players don't get paid until the revenues start coming in?

I mean, I don't know how that works. So, you know, the issues of the financial part of this industry hasn't changed. You know, the owners still want as much as they can get. The players still want their fair share. And that's always the discussion. Now, does the virus play a part of this? 100% it does. I mean, you know, when you have two sides in an industry that's as big as baseball,

you start complaining about money. I think this is something baseball, both sides, both of the owners and the player's side, they're going to have to tread lightly here, you know, because what's going on in this country, there's a lot bigger things going on than, you know, the financial part of the sport of baseball. And I think that, you know, where people are already maybe a little short-fused, you don't want to tick off your fan bases because you're talking about, you know, billionaires and millionaires making money. Generally speaking, none of us like lockouts, none of us like strikes. We just think, you know, if you don't give us live games, we hate you. But in theory, most labor, sports labor negotiations, typically the fans will favor the players

because it's billionaires versus millionaires. And, you know, you always want to root for the, I guess, millionaires in that particular case. I had the sense that if this becomes a really, really can tanker a situation in 2020, that the players may not win the court of public opinion. How much does Tony Clark think about that type of thing? Or does he have to close off everything to make sure he's doing the best of the best? of his union and not worry about what the fans may be saying, especially during this time of year. Well, I don't think he can close it off. I think that he has to keep at least a partial ear

on, you know, what the fan bases are saying. But, you know, Matt, being a long-time player and being on that side of never being on the other side, you know, negotiating with Major League Baseball, I actually think it's the other way around. We always felt that the fan bases were more against the players because the players are just trying to be greedy. And so, you know, that's, and I feel like it can be the same situation through this. That's why I said, but I think, you know, both sides, you know, everyone knows, with information on our fingertips, no, everyone, with information on our fingertips all the time, everyone knows that this is a $10 to $12 billion industry.

People, you know, on both sides are making good money. And I think that's where the treading lightly has to come, is that, you know, this is an industry that has done nothing but grow over the last couple decades. And now you have one year that maybe it doesn't get to grow because of what's happening, not just here in the United States, but happening all over the world. You know, maybe this is a situation that both sides have to suck it up a little bit and just get on the field, help the nation, help the world recover. and then you can try and get back on track later. The thought of, and we're visiting with Mike Stant from AT&T, is having the spring training in your home buildings as compared to going back to Florida or going back to Arizona.

Does it make any difference to the player? Does being in home, being in their own beds after being gone for as long as they have been, or do you think if you're going to be in this sped-up process of trying to get ready for the season, that maybe being down with six fields and being with the huge cages and multiple places to throw, may be an advantage. Is there any advantage of staying home as compared to going back to the

spring training facilities? You know, man, in these situations, really try to look at both sides. And I understand, you know, the owner's side of this. I mean, that is a, that's another huge financial hit, getting everyone down to Florida and everything that has to happen to have those spring training sites open. So I understand, and they'll disagree that, you know, it may be, easier and it's definitely a reduced financial hit in the home ballparks. As far as the players are concerned, I think that, you know, I don't think I would have a big issue with it, especially if I lived in the town that I played in. You know, I think that I would be okay with that. I mean,

you may have to do things a little bit differently. I think the key to this is, and basically what we're looking at for the people that haven't heard, is basically about a three-week spring training between the middle of June to the beginning of July. So the big question was, you know, how is everybody getting ready? Three weeks is plenty of time, especially since now that you can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel, they're doing the negotiations, it does look like we're going to get baseball in some capacity back. Guys can start ramping it up.

And, you know, you start, I can remember go back to spring training 95. There was no ramp up. It was like one week, hey, we're going to spring training. And, you know, so you really did have, you know, three weeks to get ready. I think the players now, since they've already been through spring training, and most of them have still been, nobody shut it down completely. You know, I know several players, they're still hitting, you know, they're trying to get, you know, the workouts they can get, they're still running.

So, you know, it's not going to be like starting from scratch getting ready for the first spring training. So I don't think it's going to be a real problem getting everyone ready, including the starting pitching, you know, getting them ready for, you know, the start of the season, which hopefully is at the beginning of July. But if you are active right now, how would you prepare yourself? What would you, what would be your routine right now, not knowing when the season is going to begin, not knowing when you got spring training, and knowing that we're already basically two months into this.

What would you be doing right now? Well, I would still be, I would still be running. I mean, I wouldn't be doing it, you know, all the time. I would be getting my exercises in. I would be lifting when I can. I would still be throwing. I mean, that's the one thing, you know, yeah, we're supposed to be sheltering in place, but that doesn't mean I can't go in the backyard and throw.

Matt, there were a few off seasons towards the end of my career. I was still living up in New Jersey, and I'm throwing in the basement against the cinder block wall. And that's how, for the most part, that's how I prepared my arm to go to spring training. You know, now that, you know, spring has sprung, it's warming up all over the country. Guys can get out and throw. You know, they have to be, you know, a little bit creative with how they do it, with who they're doing it with. Maybe it's with, you know, a high school kid. Maybe it's with other professionals, whoever it may be.

But you can get your work in. And, you know, this situation, this generation is different than mine. I mean, these guys grew up, you know, working out all the time, even in high school. you know, going to personal trainers, doing all that. It was a different mentality. You know, when I started back in the late 80s, I was actually told Matt when I was drafted, don't lift a weight. Do not lift at all.

You can run, but don't lift at all. And that was because of my body type. They felt like I would get too big. I'd lose my flexibility. You know, and now it's like if you don't work out, you're not keeping up with the Joneses. You're not keeping up with the next guy. So, you know, these guys have been working out.

Yeah, they're going to have to change a little. little bit. You want your infielder start taking ground balls. But even if they weren't able to do that, position player-wise, three weeks are plenty. For a reliever, again, three weeks, that's plenty of time to get ready because I don't have to extend my pitch count. So if I were working out right now, I'm still throwing bullpins. I'm still doing my running. I'm still doing everything I need to do. Last question, because your career spans, I think, every best-of-game on the MLB network in ESPN. Has there ever been a game that you've accidentally turned on like, I'm not watching this? I know what happened and I'm not interested.

Because you pitch from all the 90s and into 2000s, and that's, I feel like, when ESPN's putting on the MLB networks and putting on the last two months or so. You know, last night they were playing on ESPN. They were playing the, I think it was game four of the 2001 World Series. And I had a buddy of mine text me and saying, hey, I just saw you got out of the inning game for, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he texted me back, oh, sorry, because the next inning, we end up losing the game. And he thought that that was going to upset me.

No, I don't. I don't have any game that I don't feel good about, you know, whether we won or lost, whether I gave it up or pitched well. You know, I've been out of it long enough now. I've been able to take the emotions out of it and kind of enjoy it. Well, it's good to hear your voice. You are missed on television, and we thank you for spending some time with me today, and hopefully we get you back on television very, very soon. Thanks again for joining us on the show today.

Matt, thank you very much. Everyone stay safe. Continue to wash your hands. Take care of each other and we'll get through this together. Perfectly said. Thank you, Mike Stanton. AT&T Sportsnet. You see him on the pre-and-post game shows with Kevin Ashenfelder and Julian Morales,

and we look forward to seeing him back on very soon. 215 is our time. Guys, what is your favorite movie involving a mannequin? I think there's only one, right? Manikin 2? Well, mannequins are in play in American restaurants. We'll tell you about that next. 2.15 on Sports Talk 790 with a message once again for hoops, basketball goals and sporting equipment.

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Pro dunkhoops.com for a lifetime of outdoor play with the best basketball goal manufactured right here in Houston, Texas. It's Hoops. 851.9822 and ProDunkhoops.com. Load up on those napkins, straws, ketchup, hot sauce, mustard. Oh, and don't forget duck sauce. It's the Matt Thomas show for lunch on Sports Talk 790. Kim Cottrell, really hot in Manichin. Extraordinarily hot.

Didn't see Manichin, too. The movie that taught us all about mannequin sex. If you had sex with the mannequin, seven months? Please don't call. Please don't call. Call another station. I don't care. I'm glad you're playing this.

I'm going to just play this. A highly rated restaurant says it, this should be a this should be a non-flora story. Matt, I bookmarked it for non-floor stories. So what's going to be, you scooped them, Matt? I did scoop you.

A highly-rated restaurant says it plans to fill empty tables with mannequins to make social. distancing rules less awkward when customers are allowed to return. It is called the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia is a three-star Michelin Restaurant. It plans to open for dinner on May the 29th, and it could start welcoming guests for half-capacity outdoor seating as early as Friday when coronavirus restrictions are eased. When the restaurant gets the green light to start serving customers inside its dining room,

chef Patrick Oricano plans to seat empty, with mannequins. O'Connell says, O'Connell says the mannequins will be decked. O'Connell says the mannequins will be decked out in vintage 1940-style outfits. This sounds creepy as hell. The eatery also has the plan to capitalize on its 20-acre property by offering picnic lunch and garden tours.

The end at the Little Washington has four and a half stars on Yelp, 466 reviews. Guess how many dollar signs it has, as in how expensive it is. Five? $4 signs, which I think is the max. Oh, okay. Well, if you're a Michelin restaurant,

it can't be cheap. Let me ask you this. I have been to two restaurants and had two meals since we've been able to have a little relaxed rules around here. They were both empty. And I was more than comfortable with that. They've been really empty.

I've been to one place. It's been to one as well, and it was fairly empty. I under no circumstance, I want to have lunch with a mannequin. Ooh, this Tomahawk steak's looking good. You couldn't pay me to eat at this place. Yeah, I could.

I know your palin. No, I'm not sitting next to a mannequin. Pistachio duck, crested duck breast? I just don't know... This place is fancy. Why Patrick O'Connell would think that putting mannequins of the 1940s would not creep people out when they're having their five-star dinner.

And I apologize, Joe. This would have been a perfect non-flora story. It's okay. I'll get over it. I wonder if there's comments in this article in the paper. Oh, you can get a tasting menu there for $248 a person. What is tasting? Is it like a bunch of appetizers and stuff?

I don't know, but it's $200 going to run you $250 a person with wine pairings and $180 person. So if you want a tasting menu with a wine pairing, that's going to run you about $430. Don't, have you tipped them to? 20% is another $86. That's five bills right there. A tip a full 20% on spending $400 bucks? Sure. Why?

I don't tip 12% in high-end stake houses. You should. No, I shouldn't. Because that's not a $40 piece of beef. It's a rip-off. High-end stakes are a rip-off. I will say this. I do have a little bit of an issue because my wife will drink a bottle.

We'll be at dinner with friends and they'll order a bottle of wine. Yeah. The bottle of wine's $100 or $120. It probably cost them like $15. Point being is this. It takes them the same amount. an effort to carry my iced tea or my glass of beer, then it would be to carry the bottle of wine. I got to tip 20% on $120 of wine? Oh, hell no, I'm not. Now, I'll tip on the...

Do you? Well, I do. I tip really based on if you suck at your job or not. Like, I don't care how much my meal costs. If you're not good at your job, I'm not tipping you. Now, I'm not tip you zero. No, I'll tip you some. But I might not reach the full 18% or whatever supposed to be. You and your wife go have two steaks at $50 a piece. Yep. And you get a, do you drink wine? Yes. Okay.

You buy a bottle of wine at $80. Okay. That's 180. You got to get some sides and you got to split a dessert. You're looking at... A little cream spinach, little truffle mac and cheese. 220. Yep.

You're looking at a $44 tip. You're okay with that. Yeah, I'm okay with that. If the service... Well, the service is usually good at these high-end places. It's usually immaculate. I dropped like $2.50 last week. I do the exact same thing.

My point is, though, is, is there any significant... significantly more, is there any more of a difficult effort to carry a bottle of wine to the table, then it would be three iced glasses? In theory, no, correct? No. So that's where the waiters and wait are really, they want you to order wine because on a 120-hour bottle of wine, you're in theory giving them an extra $24 just to carry that wine. It's a rip-off. All I'm saying is I'm not going to a restaurant with a mannequin.

Okay. I don't care how good the food is. Are you going to call before you head over? Hey, we wanted a reservation for four at six o'clock. And by the way, do you have mannequins sitting in some of your seats? Do you want to sit in the mannequin or mannequin-free section? Yeah, that's true. Maniccan free, please?

I hope that's not a thing. If possible. And then the freaks are like, can I sit next to Christine? Oh, geez. Christine, who is, she doesn't know what you're mannequin, the blonde. Buy her food. Buy her dinner, talk to her. What if you go by yourself?

Do you do this mannequin? I'm actually sit with you? That's made my stomach hurt. This is uncomfortable conversation. This is real talk. It's not real talk. It's not real talk like we do. There's only one.

I can't imagine this is going to be a trend, but I'll be miserable if it is. I'll just go back to eating at home only. The Inn at Little Washington's Yelp reviews are about to go down. I am not afraid to eat by myself. I am not afraid to go to a movie by myself. I'm not afraid to go to a sporting event by myself. and Ross does not want to go with me to Lake Charles

so I may go to Lake Charles by myself. I see how you are. I have reservations. Well, let's put some, let's put a mask on and call it a day. Yeah, but I still have to touch chips. I still have to touch dice. I still have to touch all the cards.

That's fine. Am I going to be able to sit next to people at the, at the poker table? How many people are we going to get on the poker table? What about the dealer? I know. I think what is. Is the dealer wearing a mask?

Is it a dealer sanitizing? Everybody is. Everybody is. Is there Purell everywhere? Everybody is. Now what? It's 24-hour up here. Now what?

If five people put chips in the pot and then I win the pot, I've just got five people's germs on my hands. I don't know about the poker room. I don't worry about the poker room. I am. I should. That's pretty vain of me to think that. That's fine. I'm used to it.

Well, let me, let's do this. I'll read up on what the gold nuggets's doing and then we'll have an honest and true conversation about it tomorrow. Honest and true, like sneaky snake Jake. I'm going to try to convince you to go. That is a old. school phrase of the Matt Thomas show. Cole Kublich of ESPN. We'll join us next.

It's 228 on Sports Talk 790s. Speaking of things opening up soon, the Woodhouse day spa will be opening up soon, and you want to enjoy the experience of having a potential of up to 70 different spa services for your choosing. Then you need to go to Houstonwoodhouse spas.com and print out a gift card to give yourself the gift of relaxation, your wife, your kids, your grandmother, anybody that's been working extra hard. How about a first responder?

How about people working? If you have friends that work in the hospitals that are putting in amazing hours, taking care of all of our sick folks out there, give them a little something, something about a little gift card from the Houston Woodhouse Day Spas. Manicures, pedicures, facial, sleep treatments. I've done it all there. It's such a relaxing experience. In fact, as soon as they're open up, I'm going back because it's been a while.

And sometimes when you have to work with sports RV, you need a good massage after it. Houston Woodhousepaws.com to print that gift card out right now for the gift of luxury to be used all year long. Houston, Woodhouse Spas.com. Sports Talk 790, available everywhere with the IHeard Radio app. Now number one for podcasting. 233, Sports Talk 790, the Matt Thomas show continues. Our next guest is a guy that you see on ESPN covering the SEC,

very successful radio host in the Birmingham area. But I want to say, Colcublick, the man, that reason you became a Houston cult figure is because you interviewed a certain man in Memphis, Tennessee before a game at the Liberty Bowl. Do you remember that conversation you had? I do remember that conversation. And that was with one Tom Herman, correct? It was, yeah. Are you guys besties still to this day, or is there still a little intense conversation when you two of you meet up? No, I mean, I have no issues with Coach Herman. I do not believe that he has forgotten about it. And I do not believe that he has completely

forgiving me for it, but we also haven't had a direct conversation about that. I did have the Alamo Bowl this year. He was gracious with his time, and everything seemed to be headed in the right direction. Yeah, you know what? It was a great end conversation. I used to work coach Herman Show, still consider him a friend of this day. My partner here, Ross, is a big-time U.T. fan, so he just likes to just pour salt on my wounds, and that's fine. But we move on. Cole, you are in the hotbed of college football territory, where you probably talk college football 90% of the season at minimum. The stories of the last 24 hours are very interesting to me. First of all, the closures of schools in the state of California is going to ultimately impact the Pact 12.

And then you have the NCAA coming out, I guess, in the last 24 hours saying, we're not going to tell these conferences how to conduct their business. First, give me your thought on the California closures and how in the world that state can have Division I football this year. I'm not sure that they can have it on time this year because of that. I do think that you could look at a delayed season, maybe from the Pack 12 in the Mountain West, one that could begin maybe towards the last month or two of the year, and maybe even one that begins early next year. I think those are possibilities.

I think those are things that are real. I don't think any league Matt is going to want to realistically cancel a season and not have a season, especially after what was just missed out on with the NCAA tournament. So you've got to get that revenue in. If you read the article in the New York Times from the president of Brown, she said that if we don't get students, now this doesn't include athletics. If we don't get students on campus this fall, it's not going to be a matter of when these colleges shut down. It's going to be a matter of how many. And she's not talking about for a semester or two.

She's talking about for good. So I think a lot of campuses, colleges, administrators, they understand the importance of getting students there. And then they understand the importance of athletics. Of course, geography is going to help the American, the Sunbelt, the SEC, Conference USA, maybe even the ACC outside of Boston College at Syracuse. So the Big 12 obviously will be aided greatly by geography. But I anticipate we're going to have a season. Is it going to be normal or close to normal?

Probably not. And I think it can be separated to a certain extent where, like we mentioned, the Pact 12 starts a little bit late. What's your time frame if you're the SAC. SEC or the Big 12, if the Pact 12 says, we can't start on time and you go back and say, okay, cool, we're willing to wait, but when can you start? And the answer to that is, I don't know. Well, at that point in time, you don't wait.

You go, you play. And then the college football playoff and bowl games are going to have some very difficult decisions to make. Because if I'm a college football playoff map, I'm putting four teams in no matter what. I don't care if the Sunbelt, the American, and the SEC play. I'm putting four teams in that playoff and I'm having it. We're playing those games. There's too much money on the line.

There's too much, there's too much influence. There's too much history, tradition. There's too many people who expect it. And if it's different, so be it. Everything else has been different. Who cares if that's going to be different. We're used to things being different now. I mean, things are just different.

So I don't know if people are going to go bananas and pull their hair out if the college football playoff is a little bit different. You want to put an asterisk next to it? So be it. Go ahead. Say five leagues, four leagues, two leagues weren't playing. and this is the team that was the national champion that year. But if I'm the college football playoff, I'm finding four teams to put in there, and we're going to go.

All right, using that scenario, if the SEC says we're going in September, if the Big 12 says we're going in September, if the American says we're going in September, PAC 12 and Big 10 say, we got to wait until January. Are we going to play a fragment in college football season and then bring the top four teams back to play the first week of March to play for a national championship? Hell no. There's no way. There is no way that can happen.

And it's because right around March, what are the two big events that take place? The NFL Combine and the NFL draft. And there's going to be too many players that are too important to those teams for them to even show up and pretend like they're going to go do that. I would not anticipate if the majority, and I mean 51% being the majority of college football plays and the other 49% percent weights that the college football playouts still says, we got to go and have this on time and you guys can play your season out and you can decide what you want, be what you want, have what you want. Hell, maybe they play two of them.

I don't know. But I would not think that there's any way possible that a team that finished their season at the second or first weekend of January, as far as conference championship games were concerned, would come back three, four months later to play a, especially. especially to play teams that had just finished playing a season and whose bodies were physically acclimated to it, there's no way you get the first team, that first set of teams to be able to do that.

That makes complete sense. This one to throw it out there. What about massive realignment of non-conference opponents? I'll give you my alma model of University of Houston as example. Our two non-conference road games are at BYU and at Washington State. Do you envision teams, whether it be SEC, Big 12, maybe finding some closer regional opponents and scrapping non-conference games against maybe some sexier opponents like who I mean I don't know what Ohio State's non-conference schedule is but

Oregon they've got there at Oregon. All right. That's a great example then. Could Ohio State and Oregon say let's table this for a few years? Well, I think there are a couple of avenues that you could go. Is there a way you could move it in the season and still play it? If there was a way to rearrange a game or two on each schedule and play it later in the season. And that's one that's going to be so good for both schools you'd like to try to get it

done. Do you flip the home team and try to play it that way? Do you try to move different years, like you said, and play one, you know, play at Columbus this year, maybe you have to go two years out to get the return trip to Eugene. You know, the Alabama-TCU USC carousel is the one that a lot of people are talking about right now. That game's going to be played in Dallas. And USC looks like, and here's the thing. People get a little consumed with, well, they could still travel to go playing Texas, well, if they can't get on campus, they can't practice. So they're not preparing for a season. How are I going to go play? You're going to play Alabama when you haven't been able to practice? That's not going to go well. TCU, obviously, plays a

Pact 12 opponent on the road that weekend. So that would be an automatic flip. You fill TCU right in. You would anticipate if you are having fans at the game, that would allow you to sell a pretty decent amount of tickets because of the proximity to Fort Worth. So you could probably make that happen. And I do think that you could look at a bit of a juggling act there. I think when you hear leagues like the Pact 12 reference going to a conference-only schedule, and some people have kind of brought it up with the SEC if they start, nobody else does. I think people get a little consumed, Matt, when they hear that with extending or expanding the schedule.

I believe personally, if you're hearing a league talking about doing that, you're most likely shrinking the schedule. They're not going to do that in an ad games. I think if you're talking about playing a conference-only slate, you're probably concerned not only when you're going to start, but if you're going to be able to finish. So you just want to get the games in. So if the Pac-12 is not going from 9 to 12 or even 10 conference games,

if anything, I think they might go down to 6 or 7, say, listen, we're going to get these games in, we're going to try to have a conference championship game, and then let the tips fall where they might. may, but this could almost guarantee us that we actually get a season in. If the SEC had to do it, I just don't see it going to 13 conference games. That's just that doesn't feel realistic. So when that conversation is brought up, I almost feel like it's automatically the

assumption should be that those leagues are looking to subtract from their schedules as opposed to add. Cole Kubelik with us from ESPN on the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Final question for you, Cole. Look, I don't know the finances of college football. NFL can survive with limited fans in the stands for one year. I think they're kind of mentally preparing for that. Tell me what it would do to your alma mater, Auburn, or Alabama, or in the schools that in your state or all across your region that have 85,000 people that eat, tailgate,

pay big prices for these tickets. How are they going to damage other sports at the school if Alabama is not playing six home games a year with 100,000 people in it? There's a brilliant man out there named Wright Waters. And Wright Waters used to be the commissioner of the Sunbelt. He attended Alabama. He's worked in the SEC office. He works with the college football playoff now. He is a fine of a human being as you'll ever meet.

And right now we're having a conversation one time. This was during the BCS era, towards the end of the BCS era. And we were talking about scheduling and home games and different things. And he said, what you need to understand is, you remember back in the BCS days that the quote-unquote BCS payout was a big deal? Remember how big a deal that was? and all you got to get to the Fiesta Bowl and play, you know, in that last BCS game to get the BCS payout because that 7 or 8 million would go to your conference.

That used to be a real conversation. You used to split up with all the schools, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So he told me and he said, when you take Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, Clemson, when those big boys schools get a home game, what that does that weekend is the equivalent to eight BCF payouts. So you can imagine, and I almost didn't believe it then, and I had a long conversation with Jay Jacobs, the former athletic director at Auburn one time, and he told me how much of his budget is derived from concessions and memorabilia and merchandise that was sold at home games. You add on to that parking and then everything else around the town that you discussed, be at restaurants, food, bars, hotels, which are price gals and everybody. all of that impacts not only the city, but the state,

and obviously the local economy and the school's economy and everything else that goes with it. So it would be a major, major, major blow. And that doesn't even get into what it does for home field advantage. That doesn't even get into what it does for recruiting. Imagine if you're LSU and you don't get to bring recruits to a home game against Texas or a home game against Alabama this year, how's that going to impact recruiting? So the trickle-down effect is massive. and there are a bunch of branches that come off the trunk of that tree.

However, to just get it in and get it on television, I think there are other creative ways that you could help make up some of it. You're not making up all of it. You're not going to get all of it back, but you could make up some of it. And if you had it, I do think that it would be more popular on television to the point that it could offset a few of those things we're talking about. All right, I said one last question, but I'm going to throw one more. if the college football season does not conclude and wrap up like it normally does in the second week of January with the national championship,

would you advise Trevor Lawrence to not play a full season at Clemson? I'm assuming that we're saying that it's going to play a little bit later. Let's say that they say, look, we're going to go October 15th and we'll crown a national championship on February 15th. It would be about a month delay, which still would be a couple of months away from the NFL draft, combine, all that kind of thing. I guess the bigger point is not necessarily Trevor, but just the athletes that could potentially be top 10 NFL picks, how late can they go without potentially hurting their chances for risk and risking injury and affecting the draft status? I think the only way you see a massive holdout or a mass number of guys pull out of actually

playing games is if a portion of the season went past the NFL draft. And I think the NFL draft would move for the college football season. So if they took your model and they came back and they said, National Championship game April 20th, I think you'd see the draft after that no matter what. But I think if a kit was drafted 1, 5, 25, 55, health 75, I don't think they're coming back and playing. Because they know they got that money in their pocket.

Why are you going to risk it? Unless you get some sort of stipulation in your contract that everything is guaranteed barring some sort of injury in the next game, two games, three games that I play, I would imagine that would be an instance where those guys would not go out play, but there's just, there's such a, there's such a small amount of guys that cannot really improve their stock by going out and playing, that I don't see many of them sitting out. Now, see, here's the thing that you need to understand about the bowl game scenario is where guys

sit out. Some guys have high ankle sprains they've been playing with all year. Some guys know they're flunking out of school. Some guys don't like their coaches. Some guys don't like their teammates. Some guys are tired of college. Some guys that's already signed with an agent and their coach finds out about it and tells them Hey, man, you're done with the bowl game.

We're going to make this look good in the media. Go ahead and just act like you're prepping for the draft, and it's all good if we're not going to say anything. There are a lot of instances other than Joe Capoto tailback thinks he's a top-tive pick, therefore he's not going to participate in a bowl. So a lot more goes into it than just guys thinking they're the best thing that's ever put on paths. Makes a lot of sense to me.

Cole, congratulations on your success at ESPN. Looking forward to seeing you on the field very shortly with those games. Thanks for spending some time with us. and don't be afraid to call if we were want to talk Rockets basketball because maybe we get some NBA basketball before you know it. We're going to get it in. I think it's going to happen. I'll be right.

I really appreciate it. Thanks, Cole. Take care. Cole Kublich with us from ESPN and WJOXFM in the Birmingham area. Back to wrap things up, 247 on 790. Hey, guys, how's your energy? How you feeling? Are you sluggish?

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Home of your Astros. Once again, bit stealing happening here on 790. So the A team is going to use through the Fantasy 5 today. It's the Wednesday's BS. known as the bit steal. Is it Wednesday? I never know what day is anymore. Is Wex okay?

I think you guys just pissed the flies. He's going to flip over a table if there were one. Just pretend you didn't say that last part. We're going to do bit stealing today. That's all you know. Oh, is that not supposed to know what it was? Is this supposed to be a secret? I'm sorry.

I didn't want to give way company secrets. We spend the wheel to see what bit we're going to steal. Oh, we didn't even know that. That was very, very important. And now Lex is mad. and I have to deal with it. On the show tomorrow, Matt Buller, we're with us for a half an hour.

Yes. Jeff Blum for 40 minutes. Yes. Channel Rome for 20. Yeah. Well, we had them yesterday on the trench. Yeah, I heard. You notice this show doesn't bit steel

and take guest steal from other shows? I don't know about that. You would like to. You should. You wanted to get McTagger on, didn't you? Yeah, but I didn't do it because I respect the borders between shows. All is fair and love and pandemic. That's true.

All bets are off. I am grinding. You're going to be on 957 the game, the 9845 central time. Yeah. Who owns them? Is that... I think it's... Are the independents?

No, I think it's an intercom station. Oh, okay. We can still listen. I won't. I mean... Oh, I'm listening. I'm making... I thought we're going to have the highlights of it tomorrow on the show.

Well, if it goes south, this is a night show, so I don't think it's going to be a big deal. Is it safe harbor? It's still prime time there, 645? But I'm telling you, man. I give props to their producer for reaching out to a boss of mine, my wife, and me, when neither of the hosts had the balls to even tweet me. Oh, is the producer doing it? Yeah, the producer did all the work.

Who's the host? I don't know. Is it Damon Bruce? It's just some brony, gibrony? Is it Damon Bruce? I go on Damon's show all the time. He's not bad. He'll be fine.

I'll find out for you. It's very important. They are Bay Area's number one sports station. Are they? Are you sure that's? Damon, Rado, and Kloskey, 2 to 6. So you're on the show after that again? Oh, because, okay, I'm on Damon Bruce's show typically.

Oh, you do drive time is what you do. No, he just happens to call me. I go on all the shows. When the Rockets and Warriors were playing for those playoff years, I was on like every one of their shows. I felt like it was something called a Ryan Covey and Butcher Boy 415. Butcher Boy 415. Well, tell him the show before years is the Matt Thomas 281.

He's got 4,2009 followers. He is not verified and he lives in San Francisco. Whoa, there's nothing wrong with not being verified. Right, Joe? Are you not verified yet, Ross? No. Who's here at the station that's upset that's not verified? I'm not happy with it.

It's whatever. I should be verified. Why? Who cares? I do. Why? Why don't need a check mark next to my name? I don't care. Status.

Clout. Why don't you put Sports RV Esquire? That's better than the checkmark. Okay. Neither one of these guys are verified. What am I even doing on their show? You're entertaining. You're informative.

You're informative. Oh, Adam Wexler not verified. How are you not verified? He changes his avatar in his name like six times. You worked at two different entities. And you had their call letters in your handle for forever. Why don't you get on the microphone? Wex is an American treasure.

So we can all delight in your curmudgeon. I am so happy that Wex is here along with Adam Clinton. Together they're just separate their ordinary people. But together, they're the hey team. And they're up next. Talk to you all tomorrow at noon. Nightcap with Sports Harvey at 6 right here on 790. Oh!