The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets Are Back, One Word To Describe The Astros Start & Enjoying Sports

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

It's larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12-01 and 8th Town. What's happening at lunchtimers? Good afternoon to you, and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

Alongside Ross Villaryale and Brendan Riley, I'm Matt, it is very nice to have you guys with us and ladies as well, as we will entertain and form, argue with you, and talk about Larry Bird and that tomato that is making the world go crazy right now. And by the way, it's an absolute 100% dead ringer for him. It's crazy for somebody to be a dead ringer for a tomato, but you're absolutely right.

It's happened before. It will happen again. I've been confused for large amounts. I've been called meathead, so what's the difference if you're a tomato? I guess I'd rather be a tomato than a meathead. I would think you're right. All right. Ross, as you know, I don't smoke.

But I feel like I probably could have after watching 3.000. three Astro games this weekend and calling one Rocket game and then being Joe Citizen for the next Rocket game. Rockets, heart attack games. Hard attack. Both of them have been heart attack games. First of all, I don't think I've ever called, was it 302 points total, I think, somewhere in that range on Friday. Without the game going at least four overtimes. Well, you have, though.

Weren't you on the Washington Wizards? That's actually true. You're ruining my bit with accuracy. Sorry about that. Welcome to the Matt Thomas show. And by the way, if you'd like to join us today, we are open-line the entire way because we've got really a lot to get to. We'd like to have Monday guest-free just because we've got a lot to say. And we want to argue with each other. 7-13-21-2-5-790. If you want to visit with this through Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Brendan Riley underscore. All right, so back to what I was saying. 85 Dallas first half points. 85. Yeah, if you score 75 in the first half and you're on pace for 150 points, you are feeling fantastic. You should be ahead comfortably. They were down by 10. Correct. And it was a hot mess of a basketball game. It was. Quite frankly, they should have lost. Porzinkis was scoring at nauseam. You also had, Luca Dantzich was playing out of his mind. There were a bunch of Dallas role players that were scoring baskets left and right that I didn't even know who they were until about two hours before Tipoff. off.

What a mess. So the Rockets get that game on Friday by playing, frankly, really good defense at the fourth quarter. And in overtime. And by the way, it had maybe my favorite Matt Thomas call of all time. Which was that? Floats it out right side to Tucker to his left.

A Covington straightaway. Three is nothing but nylon. Oh yeah. 150 to 146. Robert Covington, the late game hero. Five huge points. The little,

The, oh yeah. You can't even tell there's not a crowd. I love that. I feel, did it sound like I was the Kool-A guy? That was the little Kool-Aid man. I loved it. I thought it was a fantastic. I played it like three times on the post-game show.

He's so good. That's a, thank you for doing that. You know, you get caught up in it. Yeah. I mean, you're working two and a half hour three games and you're watching this rocket team come out. I will say that good play-by-playman get caught up in it. And you're a good play-by-playman. It was great.

It was fantastic. I love that call. Oh yeah! I think I'll do it again. I played it on the sports TV show as well. So I just, I like it a lot. Well, thank you very much. It was fun.

So they got that. And then you watch, say, I didn't see much of Friday's Astros game because I was busy calling Rockets. And I heard that was just four hours of a hot mess, a lot of walks. It was just uninteresting. Four hours a hot mess with Houston Astros baseball. That's what it's become. Why am I not more fired up about the Astros?

I'm scared. I wouldn't say like an alley cat, but we've determined. that All right cats don't get scared. What's nervous as a cat is what I think is the actual phrase, but you would always say nervous as Allicat. Oh, yeah, I'll change things around. I never blinked an eye, and apparently you've made that up. But that's okay.

It's a Matt Thomas original. Yeah. All right. Saturday's game, I did work the On Deck show and the 10th inning show, and Zach Granky was throwing BBs. Well, not BBs, but like soft tossing and five and a third of perfect innings of work. And naturally, when Matt Thomas is on the on deck or in the 10th inning, there's extra innings.

X-rings. So there was that where Bunt guy just lost his freaking mind. Bunt guy, I tried to give you guys some credit after that Dodger game that went 13. Bunt guy is losing his damn mind. And if you recall, you're like, I think we're done talking about buntz and extra innings. Astros did not bunt in the extra innings on Saturday. They did not bunt yesterday. Actually, that's not true.

If you consider 380-foot fly balls to be buntz that did advance runners, those would be months. Rossi, how are we going to get past Bunt guy? Because Bunt guy's going to really piss me off this year. As Brian McTaggart, I think it was tweeted, possibly Chandlerone. We've seen all these extra inning games and neither team is bunted or I think there's been like one bunt if that. So these teams have analytic departments. These teams have looked at the numbers. They know more than we do.

And if they're not bunting, that's not the right call. you're still a fan of the Detroit Tigers, right? Sure. And they've won some games this year. Yeah. Do me a favor during a break. See how many extra inning games they have gone this year, if they have, and how many times have been buntz?

I mean, I got to be honest with you. Watching four-hour Astro games, I don't have much time for anything else. I'm completely vested in the Astros. I'm not invested at all in the Red Sox Yankees. Now, I will be come October when these teams play the Astros in the playoffs. but I'm not going to sit down and watch the Diamondbacks Padres. It's just not me. Again, I'm all about H-Town,

and if there's a game on, I'll put on the background, but I'm not going to spend hours watching. Like, I've been watching quarterback of the NBA, just kind of get refreshed on what's going around the league. And again, I did watch quarterback the Portland Boston game because the Rock has played Portland tomorrow night, and I want to get re-familiarized with who the Blazers are, which is a lot of C.J. McCollum, Miss three-point shots,

but that's under hearing or there. By the way, Carmill Anthony is not playing too bad. wasn't playing bad was a blazer when he got there kind of picked up where he left off he's solid yeah solid NBA player strange how this in lasted 10 games is the use of rocket franchises had some I mean some incredible superstars maybe a little bit past their primes but or maybe right in their primes but imagine one rocket team in the last three years has had Chris Paul Dwight Howard James Harden carmmental Anthony and Russell Westbrook Rockets ain't afraid to go get them they're just not That's what I love about the Rockets.

Now, you can say, well, how you materializing and putting together teams in drafts? And they've only had one in the last decade, basically. Postseason success has been not as where either of the owners or general managers or coaches would have liked. Sure. But, you know, it is what it is. So my point is this is that I would have smoked a lot of cigarettes this weekend. I did on Saturday have a couple of pops. A couple of Titos.

Yeah. We got Tito's and Cranberry? Ironically, yes. It was more like a cran apple. Oh, okay. It was crisp. It was refreshing. It was light.

And I was able to still do my job as the tentating host, despite the fact that Bunt Guy wanted to sneak in. Actually, Bunt Guy wasn't bad on the phones. Bunk guy was kind of irritating to me on Twitter. I saw you tweeting about Bunt guy multiple times on Twitter. I'd assume that meant you got like four calls about it on the post-neau. No, no. Miss Carroll called and a couple other people.

But it wasn't, it was nothing. think bunt wise. I was just feeling the wrath of bunt and blums like, this is ridiculous. Stop it, people. Stop. We have to, look, bunning will have a role and probably will have a role in these extra inning games when you're the home team, especially in a tie game. Never, ever, ever when you're on the road. Well, I wouldn't say never, but it's the numbers, because you're my stat guy in the show. You are big numbers guy. The numbers can't justify giving up and out on the road. They just can't. To leave a, yeah, I'm not what I'm saying. To lead off on the road, never, ever, and extra innings never, ever.

Good. Well, I'm glad the numbers banked that up. And again, I'm just not, I can live with that in a tie game. And I can also live with it. By the way, what has happened to our favorite Carlos Correa? I mean, not Carlos Correa. Jose Altovae. How long has he been batting in the one somethings?

He's a 1808. He had two hits yesterday. And he got one home run what a few days ago, right? Yeah. His bat always looks as long as he is. Yeah. And I was noticing a game yesterday. That's the same thing.

But I also was like, he's standing far away from the plate. Remember when you were kids in Little League and your dad would come up with a old plate, would say get up there, get closer, get further back, whatever.

I feel like some, like Dusty Baker could call a timeout. And take Jose's by each hip and scoot him up. You say how many Jose's? Like you can fit two more Jose between him and the plate. Yeah. I think one Jose would make the difference. He's always been a guy that's been stretched away from the plate.

That's how he always hits. And it seems like, so people try to pitch him outside and then he just sends it to the the way. He hasn't been doing that. I'm not one of the Astros multiple hitting coaches, Matt, but it seems like I'm going to play one on the radio. It seems like he hasn't been hitting it the other way. And it seems like sometimes he gets into these ruts. When he's in a rut, he swings it literally everything. And that seems like what he's doing as well. All right. But the Astros did at the end of the night win the game. They took two out of three. And now they're in Phoenix,

Arizona, which would be you would think in theory a wonderful place to spend an off day. Yes. There's probably two things that go. against that, you probably don't need to be leaving your hotel room. I think they're being told not to leave the hotel and probably not their rooms. And if you do do that, because you want to go out and play like apparently the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins and other teams, you're going to about there in 115 degree temperatures. I'm assuming that's what Phoenix is today, right? Probably.

So, I don't know. Off day, nice, being stuck in your room. Now, granted, these rooms are nice. So my guess is they're doing just fine. It's going to get up to 113 today. In Phoenix. Yes. With a dry heat, however.

Yeah. And a low humidity. Humidity, 26%. That's relatively low. 112 tomorrow? 1.11 on Wednesday. My dad lives in Palm Springs. Okay.

He texts me every day. 120 here, son. I'm like, Dad, they don't have you, like, nailed into the walls there. You can actually get up and leave them and move somewhere else if you'd like. Like Harbortown, Maine, if you want to, to get away from it. By the way, there's an excessive heat warning issued by the National Weather Service in Central. Arizona. Duh. So ESPN has its baseball rankings that we'll come back and tell you by that. We're not big rankings guys on the show. But you're going to be stunned where the asteros are. Okay. And if it's a good sign or bad sign for baseball where the asteros are through two weeks of the season. 12.12 is the Matt Thomas show. We'd love to have you on the program today. How you join us is very simple. 713-212-5-790. A lot to get to today. The Pac-12 has a group of of players that are making some demands.

Frankly, some of them are okay. There's a couple that are absolutely ridiculous, and it's more bark than bite. The Big 12 is supposed to make a big decision today about their season, and Deshawn speaks about his contract or lack thereof at this point. 1212 on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790, where Rockets and Astros play and real Texans.

Talk. He bounces it up the middle and through for a base hit. Racing around third and coming home is Spreger. He will score. Alex Bregman with his second RBI of the game and the Astros are on top 6 to 5. 1217 is the time. This is the Matt Thomas Show. Sports Talk 790.

Good afternoon, Houston, Texas. And that would be the final score as the Astros. What a bizarre, bizarre game for the local nine. First of all, Josh James. You might have flames, but what you don't have is control. Rossi, six more walks in three innings. Okay. Is that bad?

Is that a lot? You're supposed to have two and a half to one strikeout to walk ratio. And a whip of around one is really good. Like 1.1, 1.2 is solid enough. I don't know what his whip is. I'm not going to go. If you're walking to an inning, the whip's at 2.0 right there. So that was bad.

Shohay Otani was terrible yesterday. First inning was nice. Well, you know what? He got his ERA dropped. Did you notice that? It went from infinite to 37.8 to 37.8 or whatever it was. That's an improvement. By the way, I love the Shohei Otani story.

Yes. Except there's just one problem. He can never stay healthy. You can't be the dual threat. major league baseball player if you're spending 75% of your season on the angelus. And he's having an MRI today and got pulled yesterday. I mean, God love him, but if you can only do one thing, just go hit. I want him to do both, though.

I do too. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care if he needs to be on the men for like five years. I think the unicorn nature of what he does and how he excels on both sides of it. Excels is a strong term. When he's at his best. Okay, all right. We've seen him excel at both sides.

I think it's awesome. I think it's a great story. And so just get healthy. It's not like the angels are doing anything this year anyways. Were they two and three and seven? Three and seven. Yeah. It's just chalk this one up.

Let's see you next to your power. I don't know. I just, sometimes you just keep hearing stories. Yeah. In air quotes. Yeah. Everything in 2020 is an air quote at this point.

But yeah, I was like, man, again. Okay, so let's go to the aster's. We're done with the angels. So Framber Valdez goes out there. And Framber has been inconsistent to say the very least. Last week against the Dodgers goes what, four innings

and then gets into trouble in the fifth or is it five goes against the trouble the six. It's one of those. Okay. And he is the one throwing the flames. He's the one that's using his curveball. He's the one that's drawing a hit here and there, but nothing really severe.

Framber Valdez is pitching five. innings of amazing baseball. Game is tied. They go to the extra innings. Dusty Baker's like, I got nobody left. You're going out there for the 10th inning. That scared the

bejesus out of me. Because think about this, and I think Blummer brought this up on the TV broadcast yesterday, if you are mentally done with your day in the 8th inning thinking, all right, I've done everything I can to keep my team close, maybe it's hard.

to get revved up again. And he ran into trouble as soon as he went out there in the 10th inning. Got the one out and then went up walking a couple of people, a couple base hits tied game, or actually one base hit to tie the game. But I'd never in a million years would have thought, Ross, that Framber Valdez would have saved the Astros Bacon like he did yesterday. Not only did it give you quality work and kept the game close after Poo-holes hit the home run that I think has landed, I believe just north of San Francisco.

Poo-holes. We can talk about him later. James, James. Scrub comes in, gets into trouble because he's having a hard time throwing strikes, as is everybody else. And then our favorite astro player, Mr. Taylor, who we set on this show, was going to be a long, surviving, amazing, big-time, 10-year veteran left-hander coming out of the bullpen guy. Blake Taylor coming through. Is that one of your longtime, all-time favorite Astros? Well, he's going to be if he continues to pitch the way that he has so far. He's going to be one of the 76 guys to get their number retired.

He has pitched in five games as a Houston Astro. His ERA at this point is zero. You were talking about WIP, how it's good to be one or less. He's at a 0.55. Wow, that's amazing. That's really good. For a young man who's 24 years of age and doesn't really know much about Major League Baseball because, frankly, nobody else in the entire Astros' bullpen knows much about Major League Baseball.

So as awkward as this was yesterday and having another extra inning game in all the walks, the Astros have taken two out of three against the hated Los Angeles, Angels of Anahun. That was just a weird series. I mean, all together. I mean, the game Friday night was crazy because it was just so long and it was, I mean, the hitting and the Kyle Tucker was driving and runs and then two extra inning games. And it was just an odd weekend series? me, I have been an astro fan since 1979, okay?

I'm allowed to say this. Okay. As a former astro buddy. Okay. There's something that just ain't jiving right. And I think I can pinpoint what it is, multiple things. I think, first of all, this summer camp bit was a hot mess. For a lot of teams.

For not just the Astros, but a lot of baseball teams. The Rona is obviously playing a factor in this. But you, and you've got contract issues with, several astro players. This is just a very odd, almost like what's going to happen next for the Astros. We lost Roberto Osuna on Saturday night after getting it out in the ninth inning.

I mean, there's your base. So your team's lost its best starter and its best reliever in about seven calendar days. Not the greatest way to start a defense of an America League championship. So as crazy as all these things are, massive slumps in the top of the order. I mean, Springer and Altube have slumped very, very poorly. Alex Springman up until yesterday with that home run, he had been slumping poorly.

So MLB puts out its, ESPN puts out its power rankings. You know how we feel here on the show about power rankings. We don't give them too much attention. Unless it's the Rotten Five. Well, the Rotten Five is legendary. So the number one team in baseball, according to ESPN, is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hard to argue that. Kershall came back.

He was fantastic. Number two, the New York Yankees. Aaron Judge is hitting baseballs to New Jersey. Number three, the Minnesota Twins. They are probably one of the hottest. Well, they've got a hot line to begin with, and they just are not letting up. You know is number four?

The Oakland Ace. Your beloved Houston Astros. Really? Is that a good sign or a bad sign? that a team that is off to a 5-and-4 start with so many injuries in their bullpen, losing their number one closer, losing the number one starter, and having the top three in their batting order all batting under 200, and yet they are still the number four-ranked team in Major League Baseball.

Now, again, MLB rankings on ESPN don't mean a hill of beans at the end of the day, but it just must show you that, A, this Astor team is still raking, because 4 through 9 have done a very effective job in batting, the bullpen with all these rookies who we have no idea what their names are have done a spectacular job of keeping games close. You got Framber Valdez as your hero yesterday after Flames James couldn't, you know, was walking everybody left and right. And maybe also a byproduct of this, Ross, is that maybe the whole product of baseball is just really going to be atrocious this year. That we're going to see maybe an under 500 team not only get in the playoffs with this expanded playoffs, but probably be comfortably into the playoffs.

It's possible that somebody can make it run it. We'll see. Five and four now. Yep. Off day today, Arizona tomorrow. I guess my big worries are the pitching, but that's been the good side of it. The hitting's been okay. The hitting was improving over the weekend.

Starting pitching is so far a D. Yeah. The bullpen's been saving their ass. The Blake Taylor's of the world. The Blake Taylor's of the world have saved the Astros. I guarantee you at no point ever in the history of us talking about the Astros in the last calendar year have ever thought, man, if this Astro team can get some good work

out of Blake Taylor, they're going to be locked and loaded in for a long playoff run. What is it, Astro? Tell me, pinpoint it for me, Astro fans. What is it? Why do I have such, eh, about the first nine games when in reality, they shouldn't be winning as much as they are, but they are.

They are 10th in the entire majors in OPS, eighth in ERA. So they're top 10 in both of the, I mean, top 10 in pitching, top 10 in hitting. Thus a 5 and 4 record. Because McCullors has been okay in one and really good in one. We only see one Verlander. Zach Rookiee's been okay in one and better in the other. Yeah, he said, kind of bad in one. Bad at one and really, really good and then decent.

Yeah, we are noticing is that pitchers, when they get at the sixth inning, are running out of gas terribly. And that's unfortunate what Zach Grinke did. Zach probably talked more on Saturday than I had heard him. Not that he's giving you a full-inth conversation about his performance, but it's better than his good. You know why? Because we're a warm, comforting city. We hear in Houston speak Astro Baseball. You know, I was thinking that too on the rocket side.

I feel like the answers have been more thoughtful and long. Maybe it's because of the Zoom and it's less intimidating because there's nobody. in front of you. Right. It's easier. People have a fear of public speaking. And if there's really no one in front of you, maybe they're more comfortable. Hmm.

I think it's a great point. How can we add more Zoom to our life so we can be more comfortable in things? Monday night meeting. Sports Talks. That is tonight, by the way. We'll give you details on that. I want to get into the Rockets, huge win against Milwaukee last night. And again, huge is a relative term.

But the Rockets have two very impressive. so far in the bubble, and they've done it by absolutely not rebounding in either one of the games. I mean, massive, massive losses in the rebounding territory. But it hasn't mattered because the fourth quarter defense in both games against both Dallas and Milwaukee have been very good. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show today if you'd like to join us. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We have lots of get-to today on the show, but we want to hear from you as we talk about a very turbulent Astros weekend, up and down with the rockets.

But again, of the two teams, four wins and one losses in a 72-hour stretch. Not terrible at all. 1228 here on 7.90 with the message here for Improve Myerection.com. That is a website that I'd like for you guys to check out if you're in a position where you've had sexual intimacy issues. You spent a lot of time at home during this pandemic and you thought maybe the love life could get, you know, back going again to where you'd like it to be, maybe when you guys were single and then to worry about kids and other responsibilities. But if you're having

issues with erectile dysfunction, that's going to put a huge damper on things. And that's why I want you to call Dr. Rorick and his wife, Doty, at improvemyerection.com. Let them visit with you. Let them give you an opportunity to tell you about what they can do in terms of giving you long, lasting relief when it comes to that improving your erectile dysfunction. 281, 496, 3355 is the number. Get yourself a free consultation, visit with their staff, visit with Dr. Roak and his wife, Doty. Great couple, really nice people, and they want to put your mind at ease. You can do that today.

281, 496, 396, 3355, 281, 495, and online at improved by erection.com. This is James Harle. Wowing the crowd here at Toyota Center. Sports Talk, 790 is your home for Rockets Basketball. Thank you, Beard. James, frequent listen to the show. Appreciate his support. 1234, Sports Talk 790.

This show? Yeah, what do you think I was talking about? I don't know, the Dan Lebertart show. I don't even... My guess is James has not turned an AM side on his radio. Maybe ever. That's because he's lame. Everybody knows AM radio is coming back, and it's cool.

It is. Everybody's talking about podcast. It's an AM radio. Spoken word, every day, live. We're on the air 15 hours per week. Sports Talk 790. Your home for Houston Sports. Now, we'll pod like a mother when we need to.

It's for 15 minutes. God, I haven't done that in months or years. Probably a year. I think if I'm going to do a podcast, I would do something that would be nothing like you would hear on the radio show. Because why would I want to just regurgitate what I just said for three hours? Right? Yeah.

That sounds like Jim Rome. going on his TV show, regurgitating what he just said for three hours. If you did one, I would like to, if you talked to poker, I would like to, for you guys, I would listen to that. All right. Because that's something that we don't do on the show, but I know that you were a huge fan of talking about poker. I do like poker.

I would talk, I might be the only podcaster out there that would do a show on pro wrestling and game shows, all in the same podcast. I would dare challenge someone to find me another podcaster that would do with shows on both shows within the same show. What's a good name for a game show slash wrestling podcast? Oh, Plankos and Paule Drivers. That's pretty good. Although Pall drivers are now illegal in wrestling.

Oh, and I think Plinko is trademarked, right? Yeah. You're going to have to get a little cease and desist on that one. Okay. Y'all think of it. If I was to do a podcast, and I will actually do one or two if I have to to prove the point. Is there anybody else in America that can mix pro wrestling and game shows in the same podcast? If there isn't, then there's certainly a market for it.

They could, but they certainly wouldn't do it as well as you would, man. Well, that's very kind of you say that, and I didn't pay you to say that either. 713, 21, 2, 579. If you want to get in today, 713, 2,000 5, 790. Rossi, our beloved Houston Rockets are up to a 2-0 start. Daniel House has played great. Has? Ben McLemore has been hitting shots

James has been James Russ is attacking the defense has been I mean how I mean I don't know if I want to play Milwaukee seven times well actually the only

you don't have to you kind of have to at this point I still think they're the favorite I agree they're coming out of the east by the way Boston so was today Kendrick Perkins was talking about this

on the first take show or whatever show he was on And I happened to catch him. And I thought he was very good. And I don't watch a lot of pregame shows. So I don't watch what a lot of Paul Pierce or Jalen Rose or Kendrick. But I happen to catch Kendrick. And he's like here from my house in Houston.

And I didn't realize he lived here. He's from Beaumont. Well, I knew that. But it didn't mean he's living here. And so I tweeted at him and said, hey, heard you on ESPN today. I thought it was very good. And he gave me a fist bump and a follow and all that kind of thing. And I was like, this was very nice.

You guys are boys now. Meanwhile, I'm on this tweet thread of everybody calling him every name on earth. I'm like, first of all, you guys don't follow me. Second, I didn't invite you into this. You can filter your mentions to all the people who follow you. Because I'm getting people from here that don't follow me. And in all parts of the world, they're like, the guy's gutter, trash, we haze him. And then one person says he just placates to white media.

I don't know. Have you seen Kendrick Perkins? Do you think, do you think Kendrick Perkins like, man, what kind of? I do today to satisfy the white media? I don't think so. He's a man with his own opinions. Although Lou Will was mad at him, I think last week. Yeah, it's true.

But I think Lou Wills mad at a lot of people. Kevin Durant's been mad at him. Okay. So you're telling me that Kevin Durant's mad at somebody on social media? Yeah. There's a stunner. He and is, yeah, maybe those 15 accounts that are coming after you or one of Kevin Durant's burners. Yeah. If you're a Kevin Durant burner, at SportsMT, I'm only not away from 25,100.

So it is what it is. Okay, so the point was he thought that Boston, oh, he thought Miami could very easily beat me walking the second round of the player. Well, he's nuts. I don't know. But haven't we not said multiple times that there could be a super surprise team coming out of this bubble format? Well, I mean, that Bucks team that I saw yesterday. Say no, if you want to. I'm okay with it. Yonis is so unstoppable.

When he gets some momentum going to the basket. No air and blood so either yesterday. He's going to get a layup. It's going to be an easy two for him. he's pretty filthy. Brooke Lopez, too. Could you imagine if you were Brooke and Janice yesterday, you are the tallest players on the floor,

five inches comfortably every time, maybe even six? Yes. They got a lot of offensive rebounds out of that. How about the Rockets just not even attempting to go to the lane, unless it was like off of a turnover? It was all three points. They have such great paint defense.

And then Janus is roaming around as a help defender. Ross would go in. He'd see that traffic like, I'm turning around and getting out. out of here. He scored 31, though. He got to the hoop a little bit. That he did.

He's 10 of 21, only shot three, three-pointers, which was good. And a night where James was just kind of pedestrian. Rocket still win. All five players and double figures lost. Daniel House. The Daniel House we have seen grow up here can get great rotation minutes in the playoffs and doesn't get relegated to the men. Remember how last year again it was a Golden State?

He missed up on a defensive plane. We didn't see him again. I mean, when you go to the Dan Tony dog house. It's like the Mo Brian doghouse. You get in there, it's very hard to get out. Very difficult to get out. Which is interesting, Matt. I mean, because that's two straight games. Dan Tony's only

playing eight players. I would think we would have seen a little bit of Damari Carroll. Luke Bamute's probably got to work himself into shape. It sounds like to me that that's a lot further away, yeah. I mean, Tyson Channel is going to continue to be in moth balls and the other guys, who cares. I mean, but I am surprised that he's just

sticking with eight, and then hopefully that goes up to nine when Eric Gordon comes back. Is not enough for the playoffs? Yeah, absolutely. We've seen him going down to seven in the playoffs. So, I will pray for Mike Dan Tony. Took it to nine. Me too. Nine's good. I think it's great. When you're playing every other day. Yeah. And with very rare days off, I think it's important to lengthen the, uh, lengthen the rotation. David's on seven, nine of you, 1240. Hi, David. Hey, how you doing? Good.

Listen, you know I love my basketball team more than anything, and oh, what a joyous weekend. Not just to have sports back, but to see those victories, I mean, just did my heart so much good. And I love, I had that argument with you guys about whether or not they could win any basketball games of the importance with the rebounding problem the way it is. And you guys said they could. And I didn't agree. And I love being wrong. I'm so happy. Good.

Anyway, let me take some. We are not, I told you so, guys, because so rarely it happened. happens, but I'm very happy to tell you I told you so. Well, listen, I actually had a very specific question about officiating. It's just something I don't really think I understand right now, because James got called for a charge in the Milwaukee game, when clearly the defender, I forget who it was, it might have been Lopez, but moving, shuffling his feet the whole time.

Now, he was outside the circle in that area where he can draw the charge. That was, but they were going, whatever going towards the basket, That didn't make any difference if that's what you're talking about. The one that Dan Tony challenged? The way I was taught basketball when I was 100 years ago when I was growing up, you're going to slam them into a guy and you've got the ball. If they've got their feet planted, it's going to be a charge. If they got their feet moving at all, it's going to be called a blocking foul.

That's the way I always thought the game worked. That's not always necessarily. That's not always necessarily. Let's say somebody's backpedaling and they're going straight back, and I just bowl them over, that's a charge. You're still in that, you don't have to be planted in order to draw a charge. You're still entitled to your space. That's not the way I was coach, but whatever.

Okay, and I just didn't know if it had changed since they drew that little circle where it's important whether the defender's inside or outside the circle, whether that makes a lot. I also understand if you throw a forearm or something and knock a guy over, but James didn't do that. He just ran into a guy who was moving his feet. Yeah, but they're still entitled to their space. Like I said, if somebody's backpedaling in the middle of the court,

you would just go charge into them and knock them over and then get a charge called every time. That's not the way it works because they're entitled to their space as well. Well, that's what I needed clarified, and I still think it was a bad call, but whatever. Very happy again about everything and just, isn't it great to have all these sports on? Amen, my brother. Thanks for calling, Dave. We appreciate it. And that's the thing.

We've got sports back. My heart was so full on Friday night when I was watching the Astros and the Rockets. It was just, I almost wanted to shed a tear, man. Now, let me ask you this. Can you live with just two for a while? I really don't count hockey because you and I don't watch hockey. Can you live with just two? Yeah, I'll be okay.

Football will be nice, but let's see. I'm not saying it's a bonus because we need it. But it's almost like if they want to take a little break, separate themselves for a month, make sure they get over all these COVID tests and these people that are testing, yes, all over the place. NFL, college, take your time. Just give everyone the COVID and have them get it out of the way for a few months. Nobody can public ever say that, no chance. But you just did.

1243 on the Matt Thomas show. We welcome the newest sports owner next after a word for oops steam cleaning. I love oops. They've been with me since this show began in January of 2010. So many great stories from listeners have said, yeah, Matt, thank you very much for sending me over to oops. 281, 8220561. They have a variety of services for you, but most importantly, the tried and true formula for them is true steam cleaning done at a fair price by trained professionals. It's carpet,

it's tile, it's natural stone, it's area rugs, it's upholstery, it's drapery, it's air duct cleaning. It's commercial cleaning, too, if you have only a small business that you want your restrooms clean properly, you want your carpets clean properly, the folks that oops can do all that. Most importantly, do yourself a favor and call for that free quote at 281 822.0561. 281 8220561. You can also check them out online at oops steam.com. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790.

Baseball, football, basketball in Houston. Home for your home teams. The Rock says this, Michael Cole, Jabroney. How do you feel about the match? It doesn't matter how you feel. One of the top three greatest on the mic in the history of professional wrestling. Ross and I were debating this on our podcast. No, we weren't.

Plinko and Powell drivers. Who's the greatest on the mic? Give me your top three. In order. In order. You're probably going to throw a Rick Flare up there. One, rock. Ooh.

Stone Cold, two, Flair three. Wow. You know what's funny? Those are my three favorite wrestlers. as somebody so i mean your list should speak to wrestlers that are able to transcend their sport because i was never a really big wrestling fan but those are my those are literally my three favorite yeah probably and probably just know them because of how great they were on the mic um hogan was kind of rehearsed uh what about macho man randy savage not bad uh jericho's

really good on the mic uh there's a few but yeah i would have to say Rock's the all-time greatest. If you want to get caught up in a... And this isn't it for even non- Wrestling fans. Get yourself in a little YouTube rabbit hole by watching the best of rock, you know, on the mic and during his WWE times. Just non-stop entertainment.

I spent like most that last segment doing that. And... You know, I like wrestling for a while. Wait a minute. You thought that was more entertaining than our show? No, I was trying to find something good. He was during a break, too. Okay.

Go ahead. You were saying. But I thought it was all great, but I think you need just a little bit of context. I think it's hard if you don't like wrestling at all. But see, the problem was when Rock was wrestling, he didn't care if you liked wrestling. He had millions of people that would live on every one of his words. I will say, he like, his insults are incredible, whether or not you, but like some of them are good because of, like, the other character, I think. Let me ask you, Brendan, who is your favorite all-time wrestler?

It doesn't matter who your favorite wrestler is. You take your Rudy Poo, Grand Rapids ass back to me. I was kidding. Brendan, do you like game shows by any chance? I got somebody you can co-host a podcast with. Brendan, you want to host Pile Drivers and Plinko with me? I can only really talk wrestling from like the late 90s until like the mid-2000s. I got like maybe a 10-year window.

Fair enough. Okay, so the reason we're bringing up The Rock is Rossi, he and his ex-wife and an investor, not in the same people, but three of them, bought the XFL today out of bankruptcy, just before went to bankruptcy. Wonderful. I think? $15 million.

You know how we played the range game on this show, and you two were so off? If I would have said, what do you think the value of the XFL would have been? Or how much money he was poured into it? Yeah, I would have probably not said 100, but I certainly never in a million years

would have said $15 million. Oh, I probably would have said $100 million. Yeah. I might have said more. They don't know what they're doing with it, but you're not buying it just for blanking giggles, right? So the roughnecks live is what you're telling me, Matt. No, I'm not saying that. Let me, you know, I don't, I hate being this guy.

Oh. But I did, just to be consistent, tell you that this would be the last time that a successful separate league would ever be run, not affiliated with the NFL. I thought this, if this couldn't survive the pandemic and couldn't survive the pandemic and couldn't survive, Vince's never-ending checkbook, right? I mean, the deep, deep, deep pockets that nothing was ever going to survive this, that we were never going to see the XFL ultimately be a legitimate springtime football league. It seemed like it was doing okay until the pandemic, right? The ratings, well, the ratings fell after the first week.

But OK doesn't pay the bills. OK doesn't put money. I mean, again, Vince didn't care about that. He spent a lot of money. I'm just curious. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was done in order to create a new relationship

with the NFL. Some kind of... Spring minor league. Okay. What makes you say that? Don't know. Relationships does Rock have with the... I'm not saying he's got any.

But let me tell you something. If Dwayne Johnson calls Roger Goodell, Roger Goodell is going to pick up the phone. Okay. Just a gut feeling. I don't. think independent on its own. Because let's be brutally honest here again.

Vince McMahon was able to get these television deals. Why Ross? Because his Smackdown and his WWE raw were on those cable channels that carried the games and the ESPN relationship with them in the WWE. Because ESPN treats the WWE is a legit sport, which is ridiculously absurd. And oh, by the way, Smackdown is on Friday nights on Fox. and Fox carry the games. There was a strong television relationship.

The only way you're going to get that with the Rock is if the Rock pays for that. That's why I don't believe this is just, we're going to go into our own laboratory, create this new Spring League again, do what we need to do, come back bigger and better. I believe there will be some affiliation to the NFL. I would love for that. It doesn't matter, really. Well, it would help. It would help the strength in the long time.

But I mean, people that with the Rothnex games, wouldn't care if this was the sister team to another team, right? I think if it were to the Texans, yes, they would. Well, I guess they would actually care more, but they wouldn't be like, oh, no, I don't like the Texans, therefore I can't like the roughnecks. That's true. So, I mean, I think it's, I think the roughneck crowd

was a little bit of a different crowd. In what way? Just different. Okay. I mean, it's worse. I mean, it's better. I mean, it's worse, but it was different. Fair?

I guess. I didn't go to a game. I went to a game. My 17-year-old loves the roughnakes. He still wears his rough-nake shirt at least once a week. Oh, really? So if there's any team that can come back and play? He's roughnecks for life.

He has roughnecks for life. If you ain't down with roughnecks, you know what you can do. What's that? You can suck it. 1256 on Sports Talk 790. We're going to talk to our buddy Larry in Spring to open up the second hour of the show. A very quick reminder, tonight. is our summer finale of the Monday night meetings.

Are you sad? No. I mean, I'm happy because we have sports now. Yeah, so we don't need money. If we were still doing Monday night meetings, it means it would be pandemic and no sports

and we'd be clinically ill and sad. That's true. Tonight is the weakest link. We're eight of our 790 staffers, including Ross, Villarreal. Yes. And Brendan Riley,

you lose your Monday night virginity tonight. He'd never been on? Just in time for the last one. Yeah, never been on. Better late than never. The only other one I was offered, I believe, ended up getting canceled. No, you actually said you had to go to bed early.

That's true. Is that accurate? But I still believe it ended up getting delayed. I did. No, hold on, but it did. How would that if you declined? You declined because you wanted to get your rest. Well, that was when I was in here at like, what, six in the morning?

Oh, man, that'd be tough finishing up a Monday night meeting at 8.30 and then having to go to work at 6 o'clock the next day. That's tough. But I'm still pretty certain that got to. delayed. Okay, but I did invite you and you said no. For the record. Tonight, we're playing the weakest link. It's a little bit of an altered version of 7.9-8 weeks. I haven't seen that since you sent a YouTube video. So yeah, we're altering the version a little bit because we're not going to have a bank of money to spend. We're just essentially going to find out who knows. And it's not just three, I just didn't create 300 questions. I don't have time for that.

but we did some things just to kind of test your overall sports knowledge and a variety of things and if you get the worst, if you get the least amount of answers correct, you automatically get knocked out. But if there is a tie, let's say you two are tie with the most wrong answers,

then the other people vote to kick one of you out. Oh, cool. That'd be fun. So the weakest link tonight, 8 o'clock, Facebook.com slash Sports Talk 790. So please watch us. We'll have a good time. We'll laugh. And we'll find out who is the weakest link.

Goodbye. This is the Matt Thomas show. Tjana's into the pit. Euro steps. Hardin stole it from him. Hardin picked this pocket. Hardin. Bounce past Westbrook by Middle.

They lay up good. Nine in a row for the Rockets. 113, 112. They regain the lead. And the Rockets, say what you will. What? We can say a lot. Get out rebounded by a total of six.

65 to 36. Incredible. Make only 34% of the three-pointers. Shoot 61 out of a potential 91 shots from three. Only 40% of their field goals. Points in the paint, bucks 60, rockets 20. And they win the game. Mori ball.

Somebody tweeted last night, the bucks got morried. And also, the Rockets, oh, even that, highlight that we just pulled. That was a forced turnover by James Harden. There was 22 turnovers by the Bucs. They were sloppy with the ball here and there, but a lot of that was forced by the Rockets themselves. And it was just 15 steals by the Rockets. No, Pat Cunnington for the Bucks, no Eric Bloodsoe. Bloodsoe is a bigger loss than Connington is. Yes. But the Rockets didn't have... No, Eric Gordon. So, you know, kind of cancel each other out a little bit. I would say so. So, I mean, just the, the

beauty of the small ball lineup is while they do lack in size, they do give up offensive rebounds. They all have such great active hands, every single one of them. Wing span is great. Harden, Westbrook, Covington, Tucker, they're all good at swiping the ball. And when somebody wants to post them up, I mean, James Harden, it's something like 13% of the time somebody posts him up, he forces a turnover. He's got such great quick hands, and it's hard to score over him in the first place.

He's really good in those situations, and they all are at helping. and just knowing when to get in there and to force a turnover. And oh, by the way, when you are forcing a steal, a lot of times that leads to a fast break opportunity on the other side. So it's just it works double for the rockets in their favor. All right. So the rockets win to go to 2 and 0 in the bubble. They have moved up now to the fourth spot in the Western Conference.

Look, these things are very, very fluid. Between three and six now is such a jumbled mess that even if the rockets continue to play great basketball, Oklahoma City's playing just as well too. They're off tonight. Tomorrow they take on the Portland Trailblazers. We'll have the game for you. Is it here over on 7. Tomorrow, I believe, is 740. I can check on that for you right now. It's Rockets and the Portland Trailblazers, and it'll be Wex and I on the call at 8 o'clock tomorrow night on 740. 7.1.3.212.5.790.

Tomorrow is August 4th is 790. Oddly enough. Diamondbacks are on KTR. Oh, okay. So the Astros are on 740 and the rockets are on 790. Okay, so that's tomorrow night at 8 o'clock. 713, 212, 790, 7.19. I should say at any point, if you're looking for one and it's not on 790, it'll be on 740. If you're looking for one and it's not on 740, it'll be on 7.90, pretty much. Always look for both, folks.

We're going to have busy sports schedules. And we're in the family together. Yeah, we're all in sister stations. And we're going to do post-game shows. Yes. And we're going to get interactive with you guys. And we're going to tell you the way it is. Why are you laughing?

Because you're funny. I'm not that damn funny. 713, 212, 5, 790. Astros take 2 out of 3. I'll be it. Can somebody give me a definition of what the Astro season has been so far? I'll give you a difference. If you did one word, you need several words.

Underwhelming. I was going to give you a whole. Underwhelming is fine. Yeah. But they're 5 and 4. That's underwhelming for a team that's supposed to be significantly better than that. How about injured? I just, everything about this year's awkward.

from the extra inning games, so many of them have been three so far. This is surreal baseball that's happening right now. And the gimmick that is like the Astros have played nine games, and Marlins have played like four. I mean, the Cardinals have hadn't played in like three or four days. There's been rainouts. There's seven inning double headers. Confusing.

There's games postponed today. Top three in the Astros lineup doesn't hit for squat and they're still above 500 at this point. Right? Confusing. Awkward. Gimicky. gimmicky is definitely what's happening right now what we're watching and by the way

i didn't realize there was again two things i'm noticing today we'll go we'll go to the phones in a second first of all my kendrick perkins take is being just destroyed if you don't like him don't hit like don't they reply which is my opinion we got to get you filtering you we got to get you to your i've got to do it i've got to do it just for your own sanity it's because it's driving me crazy i have like nine more uh notifications here and probably eight of them are about Kendrick Perkins. You know, you can mute a tweet as well, though you can mute notifications for a singular tweet. Really? All I wanted to say, because let me be brutally honest with you, brutally. We don't say enough nice things about people in life. That's true. And so when I saw

something on the show today that I thought, he was interesting, him and Jay Williams were arguing about something, I liked it. And so I wanted to make sure he knew that someone wasn't crushing him. Like Doug Gottlie, the douche that he is. What did he put on Twitter? Do you see what he did yesterday? Oh, God. What is he up to now? Day. We'll get to them. But point being is that he was just being a talk show host that was giving opinions and this has become this just awfulness.

And then, on top of that, we got Dusty Baker screwing up this team this year. Dusty Baker sent Framber out. Dusty Breaker shouldn't be doing this. Why is he batting this? Why is he giving this that guy a day off? First of all, it's nine freaking games. I know it's 27 and a half

technically, but it's only nine. And ultimately, How would you manage this baseball team with the top three guys in your lineup, all batting sub 200? And every one of your relievers not named Ryan Presley are true rookies. Please tell me how you manage that. Ross. Can you do it? Blake Taylor. We just got words. It's going to be on the show tomorrow at 2.30. Oh, hell yeah. Thomas Sports Enterprises had little faith in him. That wasn't because we didn't like him. It was just that we just didn't know who he was.

So Blake Taylor, leading the Astros in war right now. 0.55. That's what I'm saying. That's Whip. Yeah. What's his war? I don't know what it's war. I don't care what war is.

He's number one on it. War sucks. He's been great for the Astros. And it'll be on the Matt Thomas show tomorrow. I'm anti-war. We're going to Larry in Spring at 109 on 790. Hi, Larry. Oh, Gary.

Hi, Gary. Hey, Matt. How you doing? Great, friend. What's going on with you? Same-o, same-o. Hey, I have a question for you. I know a little bit of the answer,

but I didn't know if y'all covered this or not. What was the viewership over the week, last week and weekend for the sports that are coming back, mainly the basketball? Did you all hear anything yet? T&T's ratings were double what a normal Thursday night was. But everything else has been down. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I heard. I heard the Lakers was like a little over 3 million, which normally would be a whole lot more than that. And the Rockets was 1.7 million, which normally would be more than that and everything. Do we have any failures out about why it's down? Because you would think of all the withdrawals we're having, it would be way, way up.

Do you have any? I know you don't like to tech talk about. Yeah, you're right. I don't, but I will be honest with you. I do believe that the political overtones in sports have hurt audiences. Absolutely, I believe that. Anything in particular? Or just overall?

Well, I mean, I would think the Black Lives Matter movement has been the, largely talked about thing. I don't see any Make America Great Again logos across the floor, so that hasn't turned people off. Yeah, you got that on every uniform and all that. So yeah, I mean, there's just going to be a segment of the population that just doesn't like that, and they've turned it off. And I'm not oblivious to that. I love sports so much that, unless they put white ball men suck on there, I'm probably going to watch the games. So, but I'm not the average person, so I can't speak to that. Hey, I have a trivia fact for you.

Sure. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. It's about the month of August right now we're in. What is going to happen this month that nobody that is alive right now will ever witness again? Do you have any idea? Something with the moon? No.

What is it? Saturday, Sunday, Monday. There's five Saturdays, five Sundays and five Mondays this month, and that'll never happen again in our lifetime. Why did I not get my farmer's almond? I got to finish that answer to that question. That's a bad move on my part. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

We'll see later. Yeah, I do believe that the politics have hurt. Absolutely. But that's not my decision. That's the NBA's decision. The NBA has said, and they have made it a concerted effort, they're going to put the political messages out there. Not who to vote for, but clearly go to vote and all the different things. If you've noticed in the game before last night's Milwaukee, Houston game, if you were watching the ABC version, they put out the social messaging.

The Black Lives Matter. on the floor. Lisa Sultors, who does their son-reporting, has basically asked a question about social reform in every one of her post-game business. I've been watching a lot of basketball. So I'm almost seen all of it. And it's going to turn people off. It is.

45% of America thinks it's the greatest thing they've ever done with all this social justice on sports. 45% of America thinks it's the worst thing that's ever been done. And there is 10% that can come or go with it. So it depends on what. category you're in. My philosophy again, and I want to make sure I'm very, very consistent about it is this, is that there hasn't been anything so overt to me that makes me want to turn sports off, but I'm just one old, regular old person. That's it. There are a lot of people that are turning away from it. There's also a lot of people that are also going to sports because they see

what's out there. Like I said, it's the 45, 4510 split. 113 of the Matt Thomas show, 713, 2125790 is how you reach the show. Deshawn Watson spoke over the weekend about his contract. And shall we interpret? Yes, we shall. After a word here for my friends at Deshaas's jewelry at the corner, West Gray and Montrose. Same intersection, not same building, but same intersection since 1966. They do a great job when it comes to taking care of your needs when it comes to fine quality jewelry at a very, very affordable price. You can get 0% financing for up to 12 months.

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Saturdays they go 10 to 6. At the corner West Graham Montrose, that's Shaw's jewelry. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 7-9. Your rockets, your Astros, your voice. Rest in peace to Wilford Bremley, who passed away over the weekend. I feel like if I would have asked you four days ago, if Wolframer Bremley was alive or dead, you would have said dead. You are, you...

No. Oh, go ahead. You bat about 250 on accuracy when it comes to dead or alive. Well, you know why I would have known he was alive? Because he tweets all the time. But that can't be him. Well, let's see. Well, we'll know for sure if he's tweeting the last few days. But I feel like that's got to be like his granddaughter or grandson doing that, right?

I mean, he's 85... How many 85-year-olds are tweeting? Wilford? Wilford? Wilford? Name the... Brendan, who's the oldest person alive that's out? actively tweeting. I mean, the one that comes to mind is any politician.

How old is Donald Trump? 75? Yeah, but they're not. Well, Donald's sending his... Donald is. I have no... I don't believe that Joe Biden is tweeting. Me, that's what I was going to say. I don't believe Betty White is tweeting. Probably not.

I think it's a great question. Who's the oldest person in the world, well, in the world, the United States, that we would actually know. We don't need, like, 91-year-old grandma Mildred putting on her cookies. But, I mean, like, someone that would be... Her pictures of her great-grandkids. Somebody semi-that-we would know, whether it be a politician, you know, maybe it's like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I'm just throwing a name of them up. Does she tweet? I don't know if she does. I kid you not, there is a Wikipedia page for somebody known as the oldest person on social media. There you go. However, she passed away in 2010. Yeah. Ooh, 2010?

But she was, but she was tweeting at 104 years old. May she rest in peace. Like, the oldest person that follows, that, that I follow on Twitter, it can't, I mean, I don't follow any politicians. I don't follow very many sports people. Who is, I'm going to have to go look

because I follow just under a thousand people. Who is the oldest? You'll just do a little think tank on this one. Who is the oldest person you tweet? All right. 121 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to join our show today,

713-212-5-790, on Twitter at SportsMT at SportsRV and at Brendan Riley underscore. Sean Watson's SportsRV spoke on Saturday. Yes, he did, talking about a number of things

including his contract extension. I'm going to guess this is going to talk about exact numbers, what's happening with the back and forth. No, I'm happy he is. No, no, no. I will say you will get zero stars out of that.

Well, that's a shame. My agent knows the time, the time limit and things like that. My biggest thing, like I've always been wanting to do since I was a little kid to just play football, win championship, win games and compete. So like I said before, that my agent is taking care of that. And that's, you know, with him, with him in the organization, like you said, like I said,

my main focus is being the quarterback and the leader of this team and making sure we're ready for September 10. Do you believe him? Yeah, that's his main focus, Matt. He can't get. No, I'm not saying. I'm not saying his main focus isn't trying to help a team. do you believe him when he doesn't call the agent every other day and say,

what's up? He probably is. I'm sure he is. Do you know, guys, and I've been more than every other day? And I've been doing this for 30 years, give or take, just short of it. Every time I hear an athlete tell me that they're not paying attention, their contract, they're letting their agent work it out, I feel like there's telling us the opposite. That they are saying that it's easier for me to push that question out of my agent or the other team.

because I don't want to answer really the way I want to answer it. You don't think Sean Watson walks in every day and stares Bill O'Brien and says, where's my deal? No, he doesn't do that. Once a week? No, I don't know.

Seriously. I think he thinks about it privately. No, he's not bringing it up to Bill. And they're not in a quarterback meetings and talking about the chief's defense. And he's like, hey, by the way, where's my money? 3.47. 3.47.

Fourth year worth $39 million Head, hut, hut. No, I don't think that's what he's doing. Be pretty funny. He's thinking about it. He's in contact with his agents about it. And I will say, every athlete says that. The only ones I believe would be veteran guys

on their fourth or fifth contract or something like that. They're not worried about it. If you're under 30, you are, and this is the first time you're ever able to test free agency? Well, I mean, it could be a two or three-year franchise tag. got to be thinking about it. Of course. As he should.

It's going to be his first... I mean, he's got good money. Deshaun Watson's doing okay. Do you not... Do you think that George Springer's not thinking about his future right now? Of course he is. Of course he is. Yeah, because you've got to figure out

what kind of house you're going to buy, how many bentley's. No, that's not what he's thinking. He's probably thinking where he's going to play and is his sub-200 average helping his cause. Gold-plated statues. I mean, you've got to... These things take time to get together, Matt.

You've got to have the money. All right. Some more on Deshawn here. Okay, more on Deshawn Watson. What makes him want to be a Texan long term? I'm here. I love this organization. I love them in their family. I love the coaching staff. I love the coaches. I love the coaches. I love the players.

I love the city. I love the fan base. So right now my main focus is continue to be a Houston Texan and making sure that I'm bringing everything I can and doing everything I can to bring the city in this organization, and its first championship. So that's my main focus. And right now, I'm in Houston, Tesson, and, you know, that, you know,

the future is going to, you know, tell itself. But, you know, I'm locked in on being a, being a testing. I'm locked in unless I don't get paid. And then I'm out of here in three years. Yeah, he's not going to have much of choice for a little bit there. Yeah.

What do you think about franchise? Do you think franchise tags are cool? I think the players hate them. I think they're going to want them gone. Is it going to happen? Probably not. Man, though, because I guess what you do want is your own freedom. And if you're good, you're going to get that money in your franchise tag and then some.

It basically gives the team that has you, the drafted you, a plan B. Oh, man, this thing is not working out well. We can't come to agreement. He wants his money. We're willing to give him some money, but we don't want to make it. We don't want to overcompensate. So let's give him this. and then if the conversation still doesn't get better a year from now.

Like Kirk Cousins was a great insurance policy for the Washington Redskins. All he kept doing was putting up decent numbers, but not numbers you wanted to give him a five-year, $250 million contract to, and they kept franchise tagging him, and he kept making more money, until ultimately he ran out of the franchise tags, and the Minnesota Vikings said, yeah, we'll take you. They gave him crazy, crazy money. Now, it benefits the players because you're getting paid as a top five in your position.

So that's good, but it's only one year. And it escalates, too. And there's no, it's not long-term security, which is what any player is going to want in a contract, certainly in the most violent sport that there is. So it's not like the players can necessarily cry too much poor on it, but I think the power balance, it does benefit the owners more than it does benefit the player. Yeah, because they're going to want them having to spend the money anyway. Guys that pick up the franchise tag, probably looking for that kind of money times four years. Yeah, it's probably a year of savings for the California. Cowboys.

That's true. Well, it's one less year commitment. Because let's say Dak Prescott next year just comes out and sucks. Well, he's not going to have the bargaining power. And then it's up to the Cowboys that decide, well, see, then it helps out Dakl. But even if Dak sucks next year and they want a franchise tag him again, he's going to make more money for not having nearly as a productive season. So it kind of works out both ways if you think about it. I think so.

Yeah, I think it benefits both. But the power, it still helps the owners more than the play. 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to get in on the show, this afternoon. 713-212-5-7-90. So Blake Taylor's going to be on the radio show tomorrow. That's a huge get by us.

Nice work, Ross. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Believe it or not, today is all things Wilford Bremley. Yes, and his storied acting career. Top three roles for you for Wilford Brimley? Wasn't he in Cancun? Yes, he was in the cocoon. Or a cocoon.

Cuckoon. He was on some TV show where he was a sheriff, maybe? Well, of course, everybody knows diabetes commercials. it's number one. That's not what I'd be one of known for, though, right? That's basically what he's known for, though, right? In the last 30 years? It's like the woman that falls down and she's in her bathtub, hits the little button,

help I fall on it. I mean, that woman, she's won like five Tony Award. Like, she's been nominated for Golden Globes. That girl, that woman Clara Bell was like, where's the B from the Wendy's commercials? I mean, you feel like you want to be a little bit known for more than what that is. I don't know. She probably made money. Well, like progressive flow.

She's a millionaire off of doing those dumb-ass commercials. Flo has zero talent besides that. She's very happy in her role. Like those Sonic dudes. Have you seen those Sonic dudes anything since then? No, because they're not funny. And then they moved on. 128, Sports Talk, 790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. The Rockets with two impressive wins. The Astros describe the Astros season and one word if you can do it. And we'll give you some answers that people will put on Twitter next on 790. A reminder tonight, Facebook.com

slash Sports Talk 790. 8 o'clock. It's our final summer Monday night meeting. We're going to play the weakest link. Eight of our 790 staff are going to be peppered with a variety of questions. And whoever gets them wrong will eventually be knocked out to eliminate the weakest link.

You're going to wear a black outfit? No, I'm probably wearing the same shirt. Which one of those Japanese collars? Didn't that lady do that? And she had glasses on and short red hair. Her name was Anne Robinson, I want to say what's her name? I think it's what it was? Can we get you a short and red hair wig before the show? I mean, you can dye my hair if you want

to. You're going to speak in a British accent? Yeah. And make remarks about how dumb we all are. So Ross, you thought that J.R. Richards started game six of the National League Championship Series for the Astros. Why do you sound like an old man on a rocking chair in West Virginia? Is that what I sound like when I'm in West Virginia?

I don't do British. I will change my voice, though, several times. Okay, that's amazing. I can't wait. Brendan Riley. Just how. Just how. stupid is sports a bee, but not known who the head coach of Arkansas football is. I forgot that. She did rope in the other contestants, didn't she? Well, part of this is to see who knows more sports trivia,

but part of it is also to see what kind of how people attack each other, right? Oh, well, I'll be prepared to do that. Facebook.com slash Sports Talk 7.90 tonight at 8 o'clock. It's Louis Gisling in our summer finale. We'll be back with the Monday night meetings eventually. We just don't know when because we're busy with rockets and Astros right now. We're moving to Tuesday during football season. We can do that for sure.

Astros and Rockets are going. Yeah. For Tuesday. Ain't nothing happening on Tuesday. No. Not a damn thing. Tuesday night meetings in the fall. Until they go to Tuesday night football.

But what if they have This is Us on? I can't give up that. Jeez. It's just DVR. Okay. Fair enough. 713-212-5-790. Let's go to Christian and Sugarland at 135.

Hi, Christian. Hey, Matt. How's going? Well, yourself. Love itself. Thank you. Good. Hey, I was just, you've mentioned that one word for the Astros season.

Yeah. And my word is promising, and here's why, because I think if this is rock bottom for the offense, I think you can only be up from this. And the young bucks that stepped in on the mound have, you know, surprisingly been well. I like this Blake Taylor guy, Belac, Scruff has been iffy. Javier's been great. So I think we need to quit worrying so much right now because I think it's only up from here. You know, because honestly, think about this, and Christian, it's a great point.

Most teams that have like nine rookies in their bullpen usually are two and seven. The Astros are five and four with their top three guys not hitting at least 200. So all things considered, I'll accept your word encouraging. I like it. Or promising. Thank you. Thanks for the phone call. Appreciate listening.

Let me see what other people have said. We got a Twitter question up on Sports7.90.com. Okay. And as soon as I find it, I'll be. happy to tell you what it is. Again, we're looking for one word that describes the Astros' first nine games of the season. By the way, again, Blake Taylor is going to join this radio show tomorrow. Oh, yeah, 17 responses. This scares me, sports, RV. Oh, yeah, as it should. Pitchers. Discomfort.

Ooh, I don't like that one. Huh? Huh, man. Unprepared, boring, artificial, buttless. butless is a good one uncertain me medic underwhelming trash

and by way someone said don't care give up an MLB wow then you responded everybody what giving up on the MLB what for

I like the giff of the clown hitting somebody over the head that is good it's not a word but yeah you can't

but words you can't do that on there but that's true um what What was your word? Did you lock one in yet? Vosophores.

What was so vociferous about this Astros season? I don't know. I don't want to change the thing. What's your word? Can I give a sound? No, it's a word game. But play the sound just for the sake of doing it. Go ahead.

Oh, that's your word? That's my sound. My word is... Strategery. Oh, geez. What's your word for the 2020 season, Brendan? I mean, it's a lot more plain than you guys, but I like confusing. Because it makes no sense how we've gotten to where we are with the Astros right now.

I'm going to, okay, my word is bleh. Blah. What's the difference between blat and meh? Same thing. Seminonyms. Similar. Eh. Bunt guy.

I hate this season. How about this? Lengthy. Ooh. A lot of long games. If we did two words They have to have more minutes played of baseball than any other team in the damn league If we eliminated it if we took it to a three-word season

We'd call it based on balls That's true So what are we can do about Josh Flames James Is he who we Is he who we thought he was going to be I thought the new shirt And the dropping in 10 pounds was going to help Does he have any other medical condition that we can uncover

And then prove him even further Has a baby now? I mean Help me out here What? He's not any different. No. Framber has had back to back really good performances. So anybody who's are Fromber, Framber, what? We have to leave him along.

Frumber. Frumber. Framber. Flamber. Flamber is flamber amazing. I just like that we got a good kind of Framber alert. Sometimes Framber alerts are bad. Sometimes they're good.

That was a good Framber alert. Yeah, I think, I think Josh James is inheriting the Framber alerts. What is up with him? He's Josh James. That's what it. Here's the thing is... Matt, you talked about this. This month, last month, last year.

It's inconsistent. It's... I think he's a guy who's better suited for the bullpen. He can come out. He can whittle his repertoire down to two pitches. He's going to throw flames. You're going to throw a breaking ball. And he can get you like a middle of seven, eight guy.

That's who he should be. And here's the problem. He's miscast right now. Yeah, if you're an opposing team, you have to sit and sit and sit and watch him throw strikes. Yes. But the number of walks so far in the Angels Astro series collectively.

It's taking people away from the sport. That's the reason why people don't like the sport. Nobody wants to watch base on balls. And Shohei Otani and his buddies are doing the exact same thing this weekend. That pitcher that went Friday night. Same deal. I mean, ugh, brutal.

Astros 5 and 4 in first place, American League West. Get your playoff tickets now or not. And by the way, did you catch Saturday's game at all where you are you doing family stuff? Saturdays. It was the Fox game. I was in and out on that one.

I watched some of it. The crowd noise is out of freaking control. It was so loud. It was blaring out the broadcasters. Not that we can live without broadcasters, but the point is that they're there for a reason. Like yesterday, I thought the crowd noise was perfect. It's like somebody is like in the laboratory.

And they're just kind of tinkering around of what's going on. And they thought Saturday, game of the week, Fox. let's put it at stadium concert level for Metallica. Yesterday it was the three-tenors are out there doing their thing. So I went to Twitter and said, hey, is that too loud for y'all? No, I love it. I'm like, how could you love it being blaring? I don't.

I don't have any of it. I don't like any of it. I prefer it loud. I think it's why. Why would you prefer it loud? It just, honestly, I know there's not people in the stands, but it feels more natural. I don't watch baseball super, like, I'm not all engaged. I'm kind of in and out.

So in a way, I think baseball sometimes can become background noise. And with no crowd or low crowd, it's not good at that. I don't mind crowd. That isn't the issue. The crowd was, it was just too damn loud. I thought it had been too quiet for Astros games. Hmm. All right.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We'll go to John and Galveston. I want to talk about the Astros. He's got one single word for it. We'll find out what that is. Plus, the PAC 12 has a group of athletes sports RV that are making some demands. Yes, they are.

Pretty interesting. They're not going to be all met. No, they're not. We'll discuss that momentarily. 141 on Sports Talk 790. It's Matt, and he's back. The Matt Thomas Show on 790. Houston's home for Houston.

teams. All right. You want one word to describe the Astros so far in five and four. What is it? I'm going with strategyry. Brennan's going with confusing. And you went with what was your number one word? Blah.

Blah. But Black gets the American League West championship. That's true. And as Brian McTaggart pointed out, the Astros are second in runs per game in the entire major leagues at 5.78. Last year, now it's short sample size, only nine games, but last year they average 5.6, 8 runs per game. I want to get to a call in a second, but do you think,

now you know, and I'm not hitting the fact, I don't like Bill O'Brien as a head coach. Do Uber Texans fans believe he gets criticized as quickly as said the other coaches in this town? Like, I like Mike Dan Tony a lot personally, so I root for him. I don't know Dusty Baker, but I think I would like him if I'd, I got to know him.

And he's got a terrific track record. He's been to, he's won a pennant before, has been managing from parts of three decades. I mean, the guy's got some really good, deep resume. Doesn't mean he's perfect.

Doesn't mean that managers don't get second guessed. But yesterday, there was a boatload of second guessing on the Astros. There was no other options. You had to go to Frambert and you had to pray that he's going to get you deeper in the game because Josh Flames James and every other starter hasn't gone deep in games.

So what, What is Dusty doing so wrong that I'm missing out on? Because I feel like there has been a lot of heavy criticism on him so far. Well, first of all, baseball is second-guessers delight. It is. Very much more than the others. Because you feel like you know the game a little bit better, where you don't know where to send receivers and linemen and running backs and routes,

and you're not sitting at home drawn up back. Rout concepts. You know what I'm saying? Offensive line sets and stuff like that. You're not doing that. Basketball, you're not at home, drawn up plays to get isolation for James Hardin. In baseball, it's ball is thrown. You hit it.

You run hard. Which reliever am I putting in? Do I double switch? Do I bunt and stuff? Certainly the bunting as well. Yeah, I think it is the, it's the second guesser's delight. I don't, I'm with you. I haven't seen anything where I'm just like, well, Dusty, what are you doing?

This is crazy. Maybe the bunting thing it felt like when they were home. Right. In the 13 inning game, I think is pretty much. The thing that I've questioned most? I would say yesterday, if there was anything, it scared me. They'd go to the 10th, and Framber is out there. What's the 10th inning?

I'm trying to remember how it was. Or it was the 9th, whatever. It was that there was nobody in the bullpen even warming up. It was his game. And I think it was either 9th and 10th inning. And I was like, man, Dusty, you were putting a lot of faith in a guy that has had a very mixed major league career so far. And it worked out because Framber's performance long term.

kept the team close. Did give up the run to tie the game and eventually did go to the bullpen to relieve him. But, yeah, I don't, I don't again. I think baseball managers get second-guess because I think of the three sports, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong,

people that watch the sport of baseball think they know the sport of baseball way more than they know the sport of football or know the sport of basketball. Would that be, is that a fair assessment? I agree, yes. I think that some of it, and I also think the fact they play every day,

day, you get people who, like, watching the Astros is part of their daily routine. So there's just so many opportunities to criticize them. Yeah. Yeah. Where at least in the NFL, if you hated Bill O'Brien's work, you watched him on a Sunday, then you get another six days to discuss whether he's done a good job or not. It's not the hardest sport to manage. It just has, it's just the most second guessing.

It's not the hardest sport to manage as far as decision-making. But, yeah, I think the chief, certainly in this day, in 2020, the biggest thing they have to do is keep the players happy. And it's still a lot of gut feel. It's, you know, like the other day, when Granky was on the hill, and Dusty goes out there, most times when managers go out, 90% of the time they pull their whoever's out there. Dusty went in there, went to Zach Grinky, can you get one more out?

He didn't get it. Then he went and got him, I think is what it works. And I think that's what we're going, well, you should have got Granky out. I mean, please. Yeah, it's the biggest. Look at this, I mean, really, really take a. step back and look at the roster and see what's there. Half of your lineup is atrocious.

And none of the pitchers can grow facial hair. Or rent a car. Or drive a car. You know young kids are driving less and less because of Uber and stuff. Yeah. Kids who are like 16 don't even, some of them don't even want to. When half of your team orders off the children's menu at a restaurant, you know it's a young team.

Kids eat free. Let's go to John and Galveston at 151. Hi, John. Hey, how are we doing? Well, thank you. Great. I've got two words. If you can give me the time.

One is Supercalifragilistic XPL adoption or umpah, dupe dee do da. And I'm surprised they didn't do what the NFL did. Team did. There's 14 of them placing lawsuits against their franchise for not protect. I'm checking them from a cobra virus. I'm surprised the Astros hadn't done that yet. Okay, John, thank you.

I didn't really get it, but that's fine. It's each his own. John, you know who thinks John's really funny? My guess is John enjoyed the call. John. That's fine. Let me take you something. He dropped an oompa-lumpid-dum-dum-de-do on us.

Do you think every one of my shows, I get off the air and go, God, I was fantastic today? I do. There are days like, oh, man, my, what was I doing? I embarrassed myself. I embarrassed this station. I embarrassed America. Today's not one of those days, but I'm just saying in general.

Well, there's an hour left, Matt. Give it some time. No, I think the show's moved brilliantly so far. While we were skipping, believe it or not today, not that we don't want to. Yeah, well, we just don't have to. The prize vault got robbed over the weekend, apparently. Well, I get Pilford. Truth be told, it's just hard to get prizes.

We've got a lot of businesses that are just not like, hey, come see us. So when we get prizes, we'll pass them along to you. We will not hoard them for ourselves. Previous years, we did a little skimming off the top. I wouldn't hurt anybody. I don't know what you're talking about. I would never engage in such activities. I go buy some gift cards somewhere.

What if I went got some arch cards like for a burger and fry? I don't know. We don't do it for somebody. Does McDonald spend money with us? No, it's free. Yeah, do somebody who spends money. Like go to Big City? Big City Wings? Yes.

But I ain't making that 2019 money. Frankly, nobody is. That's still way more than what I got. Remember, I don't care about you. Nor should you matter. I got other people to worry about. 713, 212, 5, 790. All right, real quick,

PAC 12. Yes. About 30 athletes, football players. That went to Players Tribune. Okay. And they wanted a variety of things from the Pact 12. They wanted, let's see. This is football players or it's this?

I think it's a variety of different athletes. They wanted, if you decided to quit this year because of COVID, they wanted their they wanted their spots and eligibility guaranteed for next year. Okay, pretty policy, but you know what? Everything's negotiable, right? Next, they wanted 2%. I'm getting, there's just some, this is a variety of things, but I'm going over the main points.

They wanted 2% of the revenues of the PAC 12 halves to be put towards financial aid for low-income black students. Nothing wrong with that. They wanted six-year scholarships as compared to the four they receive now. What? Why? No, don't take their time. A couple victory lapses?

Today's kids aren't rushing to graduate like they used to. Well, no, yeah. I'm still working on. I mean, it took me eight years. So, I mean... I'm on year 17. Actually, that's not true. I started...

No, it is true. I started in fall in 90 and got graduated in the spring of 98. But I was also... I was also working in radio at the time. Yeah, well, they're also practicing and playing football games and traveling and doing those and studying playbooks. I worked harder. Yeah.

And working out? I don't know. Who worked harder? Matt Thomas on the radio? 35 hours to 40 hours a week. I don't know. For most of it. it 40 hours a week as an office person beyond being on air.

Yeah. I'd rather be on air than being in workout rooms and learning playbooks. Same. Here's the funniest part of it all. These players wanted 50% of each sports revenue to be evenly distributed among athletes. Well, you know, that's nice. Okay. Well, first and foremost, what with the Pack 12 set of these kids was like, you know that's not allowed. I mean, even if we wanted to give it to you, we couldn't. We couldn't.

And so you know what the player's response was? Well, y'all are big enough. Break away from the NCAA. Be your own thing. Pack 12 ain't ready for that. We can't figure out what the NCAA does when it comes to football. Yeah, right. What do they do?

They're grandiose and come there and they basically just hand out punishments, but they don't really administer anything. If the PAC 12 said, you know what, you're right, NCAA, we're out. We're going to do our own thing and put it. Can't they do that? Is there some kind of agreement or breach of contract or would there be some kind of a huge lawsuit? I don't think it's a lawsuit.

I think they would have to get other conferences to come and join them. Yeah. Because I can't imagine a Pac-12 school that pays its athletes is going to play anybody that doesn't pay its athletes. So to the point of that could happen someday. There could be a breakout. I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but it ain't going to happen right now. and the funniest thing is these kids think that there's money to be spent on all the profits because I don't even know of every basketball and football program in the PAC 12 makes a lot.

Profitable? Probably not. And oh, by the way, I want you to go find out what those proceeds are from volleyball and put those up 50% to everybody in the conference athletes. Volleyball probably costs each school a couple million dollars. So whoever these... Why, though? There's high school volleyball. There's Division 2 volleyball, Division 3 volleyball.

Those aren't profitable either. No, but their football programs aren't subsidizing that. But they have cost to them associated with them. Well, they have the extravagance is the cost. It's high paid coaches. It's scholarships. Palatial facilities. Scholarships and facilities.

Okay. And running an operation. You have to turn the lights on in the arena to practice. You have to give them Gatorade. You have to have them gear on. They've got to go practice. They've got to hire coaches. They've got to travel.

They've got to play their games. Yeah, there's expensive. to it. Yeah, those same expenses are to colleges that don't even have football. Like Division 2 teams or Division 3 teams or NIA or whatever. They still manage to have volleyball, right?

I would imagine. I don't know. Yeah, but the only difference is the costs are just way higher. Instead of Division 1 UCLA going to play at Washington State, Division 3 Cal Poly I-45 is playing Cal Poly I-59. You know what I'm saying? That's the biggest thing.

is that everything from clothing to allowances, and scholarships are a huge cost of it too. A scholarship to go play at USC is going to be $50,000 a kid, a scholarship to play at Division III. Well, you don't give way of athletic scholarship. So that's a huge part of the cost, too. Point being is this. They're going to get some things out of this,

but most of the time they're going to get none of this. And the funniest part was that these kids were just put this emphatic thing together with the Players Tribune. and they're like, well, if you don't do all this, we're still going to play. Yeah, they need to strike. They need to put something on line if they're going to come out and say this stuff. They're not doing that. They've already said it.

As a matter of fact, the kid at UCLA, the top flight quarterback said, I'm with you guys all the way on this, but if you say no, I'm still coming to play. Because college football still gives them a chance to show out their talents. Yes. They'll get drafted in the NFL. That's why they have the leverage. That's why they exploit the athletes. 159.

Listen to you sneaking in the very last second. Final hour of The Matt Thomas Show. We're going to play, let's play some good music, some celebratory music as we play some highlights in both the Astros and the Rockets to open up the 2 o'clock hour here on 790. Yeah. Is the Matt Thomas Show. And he. 1 and Reddick rounds at left side and throw for a base hit. Straw on his way around third and coming home.

He will score. Josh Reddick ties the game with a single 4-4. Boy, it was wide. open. Floats it out right side. The Tucker to his left. A Covington straightaway. Three is nothing but nylon.

Oh yeah! 150 to 146. Robert Covington, the late game hero. Five huge points. Here's the one two. And Regman bounces it up the middle and throw for a base hit. Racing around third and coming home is Spreger. He will score.

Alex Breggman with his second RBI of the game. And the Astros are on top 6 to 5. To Janus, into the pick. Euro steps, Hardin stole it from him. Hardin picked this pocket. Hardin. Bounce past Westbrook by Middell. They lay up good.

Nine in a row for the Rockets. 113, 112, they regain the lead. In the bottom of the 11th, 1-2. Goodwin flies it into center field. Springer is under it, waiting for it. Now backs up, makes the catch, and that is the ball game. The Houston Astros take two out of three in Anaheim as they win the rubber game in 11 innings by a final of 6 to 5. Where do you put this song among music inside arenas?

This is good for the beginning of a game. Yeah, first quarter. I think the Rockets put this on, maybe pregame sometimes, or they have before, at least in years past. This is the final hour, by the way, the Matt. Tom a show at 205 with Ross and Brendan. I'm Matt. Nice to have you with us at 713. 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

I want to open up this hour with a very serious question. And there's no kidding around. We have spent five months dreaming of sports coming back. Baseball and basketball. And hopefully football, whether it be college pro, both. Now we've had a little sample of it. It's like Ross, that girl in high school that you guys dated. Yeah?

Then you went away for summer vacation. Mm-hmm. And it's now... And now it's the fall. And you saw her again. And you finally went out. Yeah. Are you having as much fun with her as you thought you were going to have?

Let me give this to you. We have done... And I don't think it's been unfair. We have criticized Major League Baseball for numerous, numerous missteps, right? The basketball ratings, except for the opening nights games, have been sluggish at best around the country. Not that the television mat ratings should matter to anybody. They just do it. But it is a system of what's working, what's not working.

I mean, what people are watching, what not people are watching. And again, ultimately, it's not a question of whether or not it's going to make us love or dislike sports anymore. but it is going to have to do with if there are less television viewers watching these games, that means ultimately it will be less availability because these networks are not going to want to put as many games on, which then means these networks are going to ask for money back to their clients. So there's a little bit of an economic impact on viewership being down. So I think maybe the three of us have to take ourselves out of it, but I think it's a fair

question, are we enjoying sports as much as we thought we were going to when we found out sports was coming back? Let's go over some of the positives. The NBA bubble is absolutely without a doubt working. Minimal if zero test. The NHL today just announced they had 7,000 tests over a period time, zero positive test. The bubble aspect is working. Baseball is being played. It's still nine innings, unless you're playing double-headers on Sundays. It is still with many of the stars. But our own lovable Astros team that everybody loves and respects and gives lots of credit to is off to a sluggish start.

The league is off to a sluggish start. They can't figure out, I think, on one night, if the crowd's loud, if it's not, they can't figure out if one team's going to play or not. They can't figure out whether or not tests are going to come back. And we've also had numerous injuries. So I want to know from everybody, including the three of us that are on this show, are we enjoying sports as much as we thought we were going to enjoy them when we found out around this time, late July into early August,

we were getting our Major League Baseball back and we were getting our NBA back. I'm good. I'll start with the NBA side. The NBA side, certainly the two first Rockets games have been thrillers. They've been hot-attack games. They were great. I've been, well, and I'm also having to do, in post-game shows, so I'm making sure to watch very intently, and I love basketball.

I think the Astros, initially there was a big pop, but I think some of it has been kind of waning for me, and I think it's because of I'm not knowing all of the, I'm still watching the games, but it's like, oh, it's Framber Valdez, oh, Josh James just walked six guys, and I think that's more, it's more of the on-field product, I think. So I'm still very interested in sports. I'm still going to keep watching, and I think, I think I'm doing well with it and I'm going to continue to because it's my job and because I like it because I love it. And when it's easy we have to say we're a little bit different than the regular population. We're not even normal because it is our job. And I've been watching

sports as I was six, seven years old. I love sports. There is nothing that that's going to preclude me from not enjoying the local teams. I want the local teams to win and be successful. I have certainly very much a vested interest in the Rockins as I work for them and call their games. I've loved the first two Rockets games. Say what you will about the lack of rebounding and the erratic shooting and the foul trouble and whatnot. It's been too highly, highly entertaining. You heard it in my voice. That was not artificial.

That was me actually calling a Robert Covington basket. And by the way, you should play the Robert Covington put back on the James Harden missed free throw. By way, did he miss that intentionally? Do you think? No, I don't think he did. I think he meant to make it. That would have put the Rockets down one, right? It would have been with 3.9 to go.

It would have put them down one. They still had one timeout, so they would have to foul super quickly, get a timeout and try to get another good. Which Portland and Boston were trying to do yesterday if you watched some of that game. I mean, Robert Covington taking that ball. Here's the call. Here's free throw, front, rib, side rib, no tip-up is in.

And it's a basket for Robert Covington to tie the game. Miss free throw for Hardin, put back for Rocco, And mine! What a game. That's genuine enthusiasm. They pulled that out of my ass. I just have to be lucky enough I get to call it.

I'm being completely sincere. If I got that broadcast on the TV games, I think I would be enjoying them a little bit more. Completely seriously. Thank you for saying that. Kevin Harlan brought it out Thursday night.

He was in top shelf mode, ready to go. But then he's with Reggie Miller. God, Reg. He had a tough night. Twitter killing him. But Twitter always kills Reg. That's like you're trying to go out

with like a super hot girl and you're like trying to bring your friend. You're like, oh, you know, she's got a great person. Who's this other girl she's with? And she's got a great personality. Reggie Miller is the not hot friend of Kevin Harlan, the hot girl. Like Kevin Harlan is the big man on campus. Everybody wants to hang around with him, and he's got to bring along Reg with him.

Because he feels he owes it to Reg. Reg knows something. Reg knows where the skeletons are being married. Reg does all his tests. And so he has got to, he's got to. treat him well and take him out and hang out with him and try to be cool with him. Yeah. Because he takes all his tests for him.

All right. So I'm not enjoying the Astros as much. How much is that is because it's just, I mean, I think it's, it's been long, it's been weird. Long, weird. Long games, a lot of walks. My heroes are slumping. I don't know 80% of the pitchers. And Bunt guy has pissing me off too.

Bunt guy needs to cool it for sure. But I, but there are other. that are listening right now going, Matt, the reason why I'm not watching is because of all the things you said, and I'm not a fan of the political nature of the, I mean, the NBA has gone 100% political. Every coach is wearing something. You're getting guys that are kneeling. These are things that are very polarizing the sport. And I think the sports are losing a little bit of that, too. Is the NHL doing anything like that? They did something yesterday where they all were around the rink. And one of the few African-American players, NHL has said something. I don't know his name my partner. I just don't follow the NHL. The NHL has no head coaches that are black, no front office people are black in a very small segment of population.

But they did it. And I don't know what they did after that. So I don't, again, I don't follow the NHL. But I think there's a byproduct of that too. Now, I would tend to believe that this, that's kind of stuff, the social stuff is going to dissipate a little bit. It just naturally does.

So again, 45% of you believe, bless you NBA, bless you majorly baseball for being social, social aware of what's happening. There's 45% of America that's going, stop it. I don't come to you for this and I'm never going. It's like, for instance, for me, Ross, I don't like watching award shows to see who my favorite actors win because they want to be talking politics.

That's just me. I don't like it. Joaquin Phoenix gets up there and talks about how cows have their children ripped away from them and they scream in the night. Yeah. It's like, Joaquin, all right, can you talk about your performance in The Joker? or are you just going to talk about cows and milk? But that's, again, that's 45% of America.

45% like sports. It's politics and its entertainment separate. 45% like, yeah, you guys got a powerful platform. You go do it because if you don't do it, nobody else will. Well, I'm in the 10% that doesn't care. And I'm in the 10% that give me the damn games. I don't care. 214 on the Matt Thomas show, 713, 212, 5, 790.

Now the sports is back. Yes. Are we feeling as good as we thought we were going to feel? A little bit better, a little bit worse. 214 on 790. Next time, tell Alexa. Playing 790 on I-Heart Radio. Wherever you are, so is Matt Thomas.

219. Sports Talk 790, the Matt Thomas show with Ross, with Brendan, I'm Matt. Reminder again tonight, we're going to have some fun. We're going to play the weakest link. These are not going to be straight, trivia questions, because I couldn't, Rossi, I couldn't think of 300 questions. That was just too many. So a lot of them are like, why not?

Because I have a life, Ross. Nobody believes that. Who do you believe will be the first person eliminated tonight on the weakest line? Brendan is raising his hand, so let's go with him. I'm so bad at trivia. Here's the thing. I thought of you, these questions are not going to be like you have to know Houston sports. There's a category of Houston sports, but we're not doing that until later.

Even national sports, I'll probably struggle. Trivia is not my thing, man. I'm not a memory guy. Yeah, and remember, again, it's the person that gets the most incorrect gets automatically taken out. But if there's like three or four of you that are tied, the rest vote.

And who determines who is? The weakest link. My goal is to be the second winkus link. All right. The early odds favor to win the whole thing is Wex. I would say so. Who's else on the crew? It is everybody except Indy,

who's his birthday and Sean is doing a Zoom meeting with his quarterback. So everybody else is involved. Joe George thinks he's an easy one, he's an easy, he's a gone or two. Hmm. Yeah, Wex is definitely the trivia guy. Great memory on that guy. So ultimately, if he know more, you're going to win, but if it comes to ties, we can see some bitterness among you host.

Michael's got really good recall as well. All right. So that's coming up tonight. 8 o'clock, Facebook.com slash Sports Talk 790. Let's go to Jason and Tomball at 221 on the Matt Thomas show. Jason, thank you for holding. What's up? What's up?

What's up, Ross, man. Well, hell of a weekend, man. I mean, wish we could have swept the Angels, but all the Astros and Rock is both at great games. They all were nail-biders coming in, extra innings. Friday night, Rockers, I believe, it was the first time, like, two out of 70011 games that, seven-point deficit.

That was a hell of a game, man. And one thing I want to say about the game last night, of course, I was watching the Four Alert Network afterwards. They're saying all the things that happened for the first time ever since. But they were saying the bucks allowed. It was really the Rockets Will coming back and doing all that, man.

I mean, every time to shoot threes, I get a little frustrated, I get always on the edge because I don't know, I mean, that's our game, but the way they play defense in the end, man, and just the way Yonis was saying like the all-star break out, Hardin don't play defense. Six stills last night. Enjoy the show, guys. I'll be left. Thank you

very much. It was interesting. Today I was watching that first take show and that's where I saw Kendrick Perkins on. The question was posed, and I hate these kind of questions, because there really is no right or wrong answer. It was like, did Milwaukee lose the game yesterday or did the Rockets win it? Well, I mean,

depending on who your team is and what their expectations are. But frankly, again, if you get out rebounded in a game by 29 and you only make 40% of your shots, then you must be doing something

around the defensive end that allows you to still win a basketball game that way, correct? Yes. Or you have low turnover count, which the Rockets have for the second straight time. You're not turning the ball over, and then you got 15 steals yourself, 22 total turnovers, and a lot of that turns into fast break, easy points. You also made 21-3s to only nine made threes for the Milwaukee Bucks. And you also, a big key of it, was you made 10 more free throws than they did.

So you add in all that, and that's how you get a close Rockets win. How the Rockets win games? They make their, they make threes. They shoot them. Don't necessarily have to have a spectacular high percentage, but if you make them, like, for instance, Rick Lopez Ross was getting dunks. Janice was a tank of the basket.

And they were two-point shots, right? Yes. 34% of your threes is more points per shot than 50% of your twos. Guess what the Rockets were doing coming back. I mean, Roco, Robert Covington, James had a couple. I mean, there were guys dialing up. The only person, frankly, that would have made it even a lesser competitive game. If PJ Tucker makes those open threes, and that's got to be, if you want to go the alarms off,

PJ was left open all night long and could not knock down. the threes. And then he shot some shots at halftime, and he started O of eight, and he finished, I think, three or four from there. Yeah. Do you see him at halftime?

He comes out early? Yeah. Just starts trying to knock down. And the best part was he knocked down his first three-point of that third quarter. And I thought, okay, maybe the things are turning. He still finishes the night with three of them,

but it was a labor of love. I think he's going to have to be the hardest decision that Daryl Morey has had to make in a long period of time. He's a free agent at the end of the year. it's going to be tough. Because he's also well into his 30s now. What is he? 34, 35?

Yep. Somewhere in that neighborhood? Yeah. Remember, it says he does only play in the league like eight or nine years, but he played overseas for several, so it doesn't really count. Heart and soul of team. I mean, heart and soul. Yes.

Never wants not to play. Longhorn, great. Okay, that's beside the point. Great wingspan for a guy that's, six five. He anticipates. He's a smart player. Takes a charge. He's, you know, bulldog. He got a little Mario Alley in and frankly. You need, you need guys like PJ Tucker to win championships. What's that worth? His three-point shot just isn't the same than when he first got here. How much money do the Rockets have? How much money they have? They have a lot tied up.

And how, I mean, he wants one more contract unless he wants to bounce around the rest of his NBA career going from place to place to place, which again, a lot of NBA players do. Trevor Rees has done that. Hell, Vince Carter did that for years. It's not uncommon for guys 33 and up. Corey Brewer. How many places has Corey Brewer been the last five or six years? I mean, these gets what they do.

They go get minimums. They make good salaries. They do what they can and they go on. He's 35 years old. He's such of a, he's the soul of the Rockets. Yes. Westbrook ain't far behind, but he's the soul. what do you do?

I would just depends on the numbers. I would, of course, like to have them back. I'm sure Darrymore wants it back. I don't know. What's he making this year? Like $8 million or something like that? Somewhere in that neighborhood? Yeah.

Let's go to, let's see. Jim was calling us from C-L-I-N-E. I believe that is Klein. Hello, Jim. Hi, Tim. How you doing? Oh, hi, Jim. Yeah, no, I just wanted to say,

like, I actually enjoying the sports more than I thought but I would because I'm a, and I live in Houston, I've been able to here for a few years. I like following the rockets, but going into the break, they were kind of looking like they were struggling a lot. Yeah. A lot better outside of that. And then on top of that, I'm a Spurs fan. Oh, eh, eh, eh, must eject call now, get off the phone?

I'm just kidding. Go ahead. No, I felt like they have also done way better than I expected them to do. I didn't think that they really had much of a shot of doing anything. And, yeah, they haven't secured anything yet, but at least they're in the mix right now. So it's making the games more enjoyable to follow, even though I haven't got to watch any of their games because they haven't been broadcast yet. And then the Astros are, even though they've won other games, all their games have been competitive. So they've been fun to watch.

Oh, yeah. I mean, this is, let me tell you some. As compared to what we had to go through the last five months dealing with that Astros and having artificial noise piped in, not having home. games, I mean, this is not the preferred world in which we live in, but I would generally think that it would be anybody that's like, I hate this means you just must hate life and must hate sports, and you probably didn't care if they were coming back anyway. Yeah, and I'm out of the opinion. I'm actually fine with the political messaging. You know, sports has always done that kind of stuff, whether it's honoring the military or doing

the breast cancer awareness stuff. I don't think that because, you know, this particular moment that they're focused on Black Lives Matter that that is distracting or turns me off at all. I'm fine with it. Yeah, again, for me, thank you for the phone call,

great stuff. It doesn't bother me, but it bothers a lot of my friends. It bothers an older generation, too. And I can't, I'm not responsible for that. So, just do what you want to do.

Just do what you want to do. It's up to you. I will say this. So Friday night, I'm working my first rocket, Mavericks game. This is the one that counts. And you know, you're calling the game off of a television, which is a little peculiar. And then the little sliding camera they have. Oh, gosh. The baseboard rolling camera? So that's terrible. That's kind of throwing me off a little bit, too.

It's horror. I don't like watching it. I'm sure you hate calling it when that happens. So I'm looking at Donchich's uniform, E-77. Yes. And Porzengis is six. Yeah. And you can normally go off of their numbers or what they look like, especially later in the game, because you know what they're doing and their mannerisms and where they are on the floor. But early on, you had the sliding camera. You had the names, you had the Russian or the foreign letters behind him. Yeah. And I'm looking at Wex and he's looking at me.

And I'm like, how the hell am I going to do this? Because when in doubt, if you don't recognize the number, you can go to the name. Well, Porzingis wasn't wearing Porzingis. It was something. It was something really, really weird. So I always feel like my first minute of calling a game is my roughest. But once to get past the initial, what the hell? as his camera angle, it's fine. Yeah, they had equality on all their, their native languages

on the back of their jerseys. It was confusing, for sure. Yeah, but that's just... And Maxi Kleba as well, or how do you say his name? It's Cleva. Cleba. Spelled K-L-E-I-B-E-R, right? Something like that, sure. They're good, too. I didn't hear a bell, so you said, there's a sneaky, there are, they're going to be very good. They're going to be dangerous for years. But man, they can, they can, they do wealth in the fourth quarter. There's been anything about that. I think they've given up more leads. I think it was what Gerard was telling you on the Rockets Wrap dinner night. Yes, he was. Gerard, by the way, is a 790 Rockets Wrap caller. He listens to the show sometimes in the day, and with that we appreciate it. But he comes in, he brings information. You know you're in a

good place in mind and your heart and your soul when Gerard's calling him with a full recap for Ross. That's true. Chris Dobbs, Porzing is 25, Donchich is 21. And James and Russ are both. In their 30s. Zion Williamson as well. what, 20. I ain't worried about it. John Moran. Why do the Pelicans even bother? They don't want to,

I don't think they want to make the playoffs. You know, tell me you can get brand- Zion plays less minutes in the second game and he played in the first? I mean, what? What are you doing? 2.30 on sports. They want a lottery pick.

That's what they want. 2.30 on Sports Talk 790. More of your phone calls coming up in a matter of moments with a first reminder of what's happening with the Shell Federal Credit Union. Shell FCU is now a part of my family because I wanted to go purchase a pre-owned vehicle for my middle son, Peyton, who just got his driver's license.

And so I needed a loan. And Shell UPSU is going to hook us up. 1.99% APR for 36 months. A little bit more if you go for 48 months, but it's just pennies on a dollar. That's how good the rate is. You join their union with just a dollar, or I think it's $5. I don't know what it is. But you join their union and you get great opportunities to get great low rates on new

refinanced vehicles. or pre-owned like I'm doing. Go to a local FCU location. There's 10 of them in the Houston area. To find the one near you, you go to shellfcU.org. You can also start the application process there. To skip a pace, $250 in cash back, and deferred payments are certainly an option. That's for getting yourself a new vehicle for your friends, your daughter, your son, your wife.

1.99%. That's as low on 36 months from ShellFCU. ShellfcU.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU. Houston, it's your home team. A lifelong Astros fan here. Anytime, anywhere. We got to love your home team.

The goal rockers go. Just tell your smart device. Play Sports Talk 790 on IHart Radio. Playing Sports Talk 790 on IHard Radio. I need to correct something because Ross and I are both thrown in the presumption that P.J. Tucker was done after this year. He is a free agent after next season. So I think we've answered our question based off of this. But, right Rossi?

Yeah, PJ Tucker's back for one more year. And then after that. Makes 8.3 this year, 7.9 next year. After that, I'm going to guess that he's not going to be Houston Rocket. Yeah. Which will be sad. Because I love PJ. PJs deserves a championship, too.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm just telling you, I don't know PJ. I don't really know any of the Rockets really well, but I've had nothing very pleasant dealings with him. Guy works his ass off, loves shoes, loves clothes. Yeah. fashionista probably the hardest working 6-5-4 to the NBA? Just one of those guys who would fit on all 30 teams.

You figure out a place to put him in. Does he start and play 35 minutes for everybody? No. But is he a rotation guy? Man, I'm glad he's on our side. You're happy to have a PJ Tucker on. Absolutely. All right.

Let's go to a couple more phone calls here. Matt Thomas with you till 3 o'clock this afternoon. Keith is on the west side on 790. Hi, Keith. Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are y'all? What's you up to? Man, I'm wearing my rocket t-shirt and my Yankees hat. Nobody could be happier than I am.

That sports are bad. Do you know Chris Gordy by any chance? No, I do not. Well, you guys would be besties if that was the case. Go on. Judge's got like six home runs already. Yeah, will you please tell Aaron Judge to stop using steroids? Oh, whoa.

Oh, wow. Oh, did I say that out loud? I'm sorry. Did you say that? I'm sorry, Adam, sorry. He does not use steroids. He is pure 100%. Sorry, sorry.

I was just teasing. I'm just teasing. Hey, I wanted to ask a question. Like, you know, last night when the Rockets played, they were supposedly playing in rockets like they had the home court advantage. Yeah. Do the players actually hear those virtual fans? They don't hear their friends.

virtual fans, but they hear the crowd noise. Or they hear generic cronies. They're not hearing the 30 people that are behind him cheering. Yeah, they don't hear that. So they don't do that in baseball. They don't hear the virtual fans or the Astros or Yankees.

No, that's all piped in crowd noise. Oh, okay. That's cool. That's just the question. I was wondering whether or not they heard that because the rocket fans were really rowdy. No, no, no. That was now some of their audio can come in, but no, that's more for the video purposes. Well, anyway, like I said, I am probably the happiest do here in Houston because sports are back.

I watch everything. Good. I'm glad to hear that, Keith. I appreciate you listen to our show very much, okay? Thank you. All right, y'all have a good day. I'll see you see, did you watch the National Anthem being done yesterday? No. The guy that did it, and I want to say he was an American Idol, like,

top eight, something like that. There's like thousands of those floating around. An American Idol 2011 semifinalists. America's got talent, the dance. I mean, if you have not made the finals of one of those shows, you probably just can't sing. Season four of the voice. Some guy you've never heard of.

Like, okay, cool. That was, that rendition of that song was recorded and done prior to game seven of the Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. Oh, really? That, however that guy's name is. Of 18? Of 18. That was the exact same rendition. Okay.

I remember that because it was so good. And then I remember he was going a little bit long. So I had to go right to the lineups. And that's when I crushed the Golden State Warriors. Yes. Politely, of course. Steve Kerr. So you thank that guy for your biggest national viral moment.

That guy that sang the national anthem? Yeah. He went so long. You had to go speed it up. So you owe it all to... Do you think I would have been? more polite to the Golden State Warriors have I had more time? I think the way that you went through it so quickly,

and we gave it a little extra punch, because you've done it dozens of times before. I have. I'm always rather sarcastic towards the other team, regardless who it is. That's why I kept telling Golden State fans who was arguing with me. I'm like, bra, it's nothing against you.

I do it against everybody. Are you new here? That was the funny part. Yes, all the fans that got upset. A totally unprofessional look by the rockets. They should be embarrassed. Shut up. Meanwhile, 90% of it. America's like, you get him.

You get them. All right. Let's say hi to CJ on the southwest side on 790. Hi, CJ. I'm great. My bad. No worries. We're doing great, TJ.

How are you? I'm great. You know, I'm doing good. Astero's one. Rock is one. It's a great time to be a Houstonian right now. But what I want to get people to look at is, Mike there, Tony.

Yeah, we won the game. We did what we were supposed to do. but let's be honest he's going to have to play Tyson Chandler a little bit. If he doesn't play him, eventually it's going to catch up to us in the playoffs. If Mike and Anthony doesn't play Tyson Chandler, we're going to lose.

Point blank. Tyson Chandler is the X-Factor? I mean, C.J., I'll step out, and I'll let you have as much rope as you want, but you know what Tyson-Chaylor has, like, played 25 minutes this year? I'm not I'm not twice in the channel to play 30 minutes a night. All I'm saying is you got to play them at least 10 minutes a night

to get you some extra rebounds that you're missing out on. You literally one of the worst rebounding teams in the NBA. And yes, we're running people up and down the court. Yes, that's fine. We're getting it. I get it. But at the end of the day, you have to play some type of size sometimes. Even when Westbrook is out, you can play him in spurts with Austin Rivers

and Hardin because they know how to run a pick-and-roll system. he can get a couple of easy buckets and he can get a couple of rebounds that we're missing out on and I promise the game would be so much moves. You know what? I wouldn't mind 10 minutes of Ties and Chandler. Over an entire series? Against another team when they have another big man.

But for the pick and roll, what he just said, if you pair him with James Hardin against a big man for a little pick and roll element for a few minutes, that's fine. But other than that, he's really just not going to serve a whole lot of purpose on this rocket's roster. I would say this, CJ, in very, very, very small

spirts against Uber big teams, Denver's Dallas would probably Post and Lakers. Lakers. But short of that, against a Utah,

you don't want that because what you do, all you do is bring Gobert out and he's useless at the at the free throw line and then some. And then you're going to have

to change of your defense. You can't switch everything and have him out there. The clippers, he can't stay with him athletically. Listen to the team that you're saying. The big team that you're saying, the big

teams that you're worried about are who? L.A., Denver, and other L.A. team. Who you've got to have to play in type of big. But you've beaten them all like that. I mean, the Rockets' record against the super elite teams is like $750,800 winning percentage. That's been so, what's been so nauseating about this. And that's actually what's been fun about this restart is... Thanks, see, Jack and roll. The Rockets played to their competition, there's no really bad teams in the bubble.

So if they're always playing to their competition, they're going to play well. I don't want to see what the Rockets record is against sub-600 teams, because I'm pretty sure it's fairly ugly. Oh, you know what? And we'll have to do on the other side. I also have a James Hardin take about James in the bubble. James in the bubble. A great take from Sports RV.

Let's not get crazy. Well, I'm willing to give you credit for it. Hey, it's Chicken Tender Monday at Big City Wings with eight locations all throughout the Houston area, soon to be a ninth. One dollar chicken tenders tonight. Real, long, juicy, delicious tender, sauced and tossed the whole. way that you want to with so many different flavors, dry rub, wet rub options, whatever the case may be. If you're looking for specials every single day of the week, you can get them today at Big City Wings. Lunch specials 11 o'clock until 3.

They've got a great dine-in service. If you want to take out or have curbside delivery, they can handle that too. And they also are doing a great job with the drinks to go as well. Their margaritas are spectacular. Did you have some of that ranch water when we were out there last week, Rossi? I did. Delicious. What do you think, huh?

Quite delicious. All right. So we're talking about great drink options, too, and again, $1 chicken tenders in any of the eight Big City Wing locations. To find the one near you, it's big citywings.com. 249, Sports Talk 790. Tomorrow, Blake Taylor's on the show. And maybe even a bigger, not to say that Blake's on a nice Astro guest, but even a really, really big Astro guest is part of the show tomorrow. Ooh, really?

Yeah. Okay. Don't want to jinx it, as the kids would say. Thanks, Matthew. All right, what is your hot,

James Hardin take? It's not a hot take. Well, okay, here it is. It may be a little hot.

Brandon, I want you to decide one to the 10 all the hot as take is, okay? On the sizzle meter. On the sizzle meter. James Hardin

in the first game against the Dallas Mavericks is certainly in the second half. He was being hunted by the Dallas Mavericks and they were, because as the rocket switch everything,

you can kind of dictate what matchup you want on the perimeter, and they were going after James Hardin with Luca Donchich. Same thing. In the Milwaukee Bucks

game, they were going after James Hardin with Janice at Tintocumpo. In both of those games, certainly in the second one, because he's a better post-defender, James Hardin played really good defense. He looked engaged. He's getting steals. He's not losing guys on the perimeter who are just going for basket cuts.

James Hardin is partying less in the bubble. James Hardin is more locked in and focused on defense in the bubble than I've seen in a long time. And you're saying that's because there's no strip clubs close by. Exactly. Well, that goes in to what I was saying earlier that the veteran team, the focus team, the team that sees their eye on the prize is going to have a much better run in the bubble than those that are just, this is my second year in the NBA, I'm footloose and fancy free, I'm just happy to be here.

Now, it's two game samples. Not enough, by the way. But he's been pretty good defense. Let me tell you something. There are things that he gets criticized for, but he has to take on his post defense. We've been saying this for three or four years now. He is afraid of no one.

To go against Dantich and Porzengis in the same game and then have to follow that up with Janus. And oh, by the way, you're always, when you're on the post defense, that's going to tire you out more than anything because you're just banging bodies down there. Because what they're doing is those other teams are taking advantage of the fact that they've got about a seven-inch size advantage. They're hitting them once, twice, three times, hoping to back up. and what does he do? He stands his ground. He's very stout. He's very strong.

He's got good quick hands. He's got a 6 foot 11 wingspan. He's a good post offender. I want to question one thing about Ross's theory. Oh, by way, you didn't give him on the sizzle meter. What's his one to ten? We're saying 10 is... 10 is ESPN. Ten is anything that has come out of Skip Bayless's mouth. Oh, call it. No, I drop it.

Okay. Oh, you man, you're tough. You're tough today. So here's the question. Here's where I'm struggling with it. All right. You think it has more to do with him not partying than the fact that they've been off for months and got fresh feet? I think, yeah, if they'd have been not off for months and he was still flying and jets setting around the country, he wouldn't be as locked in. So you think they go together? Yes.

Okay. Because he's in practice with the team. He's always around the team. He's more accountable. This is a good thing. This is like sending your unruly kid off the boarding school. That's what James Hart is doing right now. He is at boarding school in the bubble.

and he has the discipline that a Lou Williams is not because apparently James believes the wings are good in Atlanta but not enough good to fly up there and get them. Apparently they're quite fantastic. We're going to have to go. We're going to have to get Atlanta roadie at some point, Matt. I told you, as a civic responsibility to the Matt Thomas show and the Rockets by the Hawks next time, whenever that is, and I'm in Atlanta,

I will go and get wings. You were there in Atlanta for the Super Bowl as well two years ago, right? Yeah, we didn't even know about this place. Oh, I knew about it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't go. How many days were we there? And I wasn't there as long as you guys were.

I left early. You were there three nights, I think. Right. I was there four nights. We were looking for places to eat. Yeah. And you didn't bring up this place one time. Magic City?

Zero. Oh, I brought up Magic City. But why didn't we go? Me and, well, me and somebody thought about going. Somebody who shall not be named. Oh, I know who it is. No, you don't. Yeah, I do.

I don't think you do. I do. You probably do. Yeah, I do. be an unnamed 790 employee yeah I know exactly who it is but I'll make sure

we do not mention it because he didn't want his business out there we don't snitch on the show of course not by way speaking of snitches I don't want stitches is is Mike fires pitching this weekend against the Astros

that's a great question I have not looked that up hey am I going to win my bed if he does nope the rule was Houston Texas look it up real quick if you can Brennan's checking to see if win fires pitch last for the A's Because if he pitched this weekend, then we'll definitely see him for the Astros and A's this weekend.

Probable Friday is Zach Grinky versus Chris Bassett. Love Chris, great kid. Frankie Montas on Saturday. He's on my fantasy team. I hope he pitches well. And? And then Jesus Luzardo on Sunday. So wait just a minute.

We're not going to see Mike Fires? It's in the A's. I can see A's. He's avoiding the A's. He's avoiding the Astros. You think he's avoiding the Stroes? Mr. Avoider. All right.

So tomorrow, Blake is going to be on the show. Blake Taylor is going to be on the show. And maybe even another Astro can't confirm that. But I think you'll enjoy who it is if we get it confirmed for tomorrow. What else we got? Oh, tonight, real quick. 8 o'clock, the weakest link is our final summer Monday night meeting. 8 o'clock, Facebook.com slash Sports Talk 790.

Facebook.com slash sports talk 790. Wonderful. Who will be the weakest link? And you know what? you're also going to have to do. Everybody's going to have to put their hands up, make sure they're not Googling. Because I'll be at my laptop. I'll be able to Google. We have to have a 100%. We need to see your hands.

No, we have to have, like, growing ass, man, we're not going to cheat. No, there's some people who don't trust. Who don't you trust? Matt Thomas. I'm the host of the show. Oh. Who do you trust among your contestants? I trust Wex. That's it. The rest of you? I don't know this Brendan Riley guy. I don't know him well enough. Please don't cheat tonight on the Facebook. He was giving me a look when he said that. I was curious if he met me.

All right. Wexler. Clinton the A team they're up next. We'll talk to you guys at 8 o'clock tonight. Facebook.com slash sports talk 7.9.