The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets vs Pacers With No KD, C.J. Stroud Is Projected Big Money 

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Rockets vs Pacers With No KD, C.J. Stroud Is Projected Big Money 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm here in Indianapolis, Indiana, where tonight your Houston Rockets will be taking on the hated Indiana Pacers. And speaking of hate, Rossi, I miss the warm weather. Is it like 75 in Houston right now? Please tell me it is. No, it was a little, it's warmer than it was yesterday. the weekend. It was like chilly. It was like in the 40s

over the weekend. I don't know the exact weather right now, but I'm going to say it feels much warmer, like maybe even close to 60? So you're going to tank top of thong as you're telling the audience. Oh, 54. Sorry. I am in sweatpants mode until further notice. I think I'm going to be in sweatpants mode

until I go to the home. Sweat pants and hoodie mode. My Manchester City hoodie, even though they let me down yesterday. Yeah, peeling the the curtain back, the oldest of my three children, decided to spend some quality time with his uncle Ross yesterday. Yes, yes.

You were up to a 2-0 lead. Were you cocky when it was 2-0? No, I was not. We literally were telling him, here comes the city collapse. Because your son got all sad because you know he's a huge Tottenham fan. He was getting all sad because it was 2-0 city.

And literally me and the other city fans were like, dude, it's fine. The collapse is on, and it happened. Well, it was a 2-2 tie. Yes. The over-under at 0.5 on goals, you should take the over-on-down. Yes.

And good times were had by all, I'm assuming. Oh, yeah, it was a good time. Your son crushed some fish and chips. We watched some English football. So, I mean, what goes better with English football than fish and chips? Please tell me you put lots of vinegar on those fish and chips. It's funny, you say that. Uh-oh.

Because they brought the malt vinegar, and then he went to go sit down and he left, they put it on the bar table, and then he went to the go to the eating table to sit, and he left the malt vinegar. I was like, hey, man, you can't leave the malt vinegar. He's like, no, I'm good. Oh, no. Then literally someone else. said, oh, hey, you forgot the minute. And we were both like, what? You can't not get the vinegar. And so you literally brought it up.

That's so funny. Yeah, this is all organic, by the way. I just checked with him yesterday. I said, how did you and have Ross have a good time? You have it a great time? And he didn't mention fish and chips. He didn't mention the vinegar. He didn't mention that stuff.

Yeah, he paved pretty well. I mean, he was talking some trash when they scored the second goal, but that's warranted because we were talking trash when City got their goals. I mean, that's all fun in the game. Police tell me he wasn't swearing at you. No, no. He just said we own your small club, and he was clean. Wow.

I mean, Tottenham is, Tottenham owns city. It's so bad. All right. Now that we've got the 10 o'clock soccer audience taking care of. We got the Rockets and Pacers tonight here in Indianapolis, and there will be no Kevin Durant in the lineup tonight. He has been ruled out with a bad ankle this evening. Oh, great.

It's Indiana, right? I mean. You got, you know what? Sometimes this guy's going to put the big boy pants on, right? Let's go. The guy's involved. Alper and Shingoon? Yes.

Stephen Adams? Nope. Not going to happen. He's got his big boy boot on. You know what? Let's get some big points from a Dorian Finney Smith, if you will. Okay. When's he getting, when's he coming off a minute of restriction?

I don't know, but he's going to be playing a lot of minutes tonight, I'm assumed. Josha Koch doesn't play well. Got another double digit scoring last either night. Saturday night's game was fun inside Tota Center. Six different rockets and double figures, including one Josh Akogi, so it's all good on that. So, yeah, the Rockets will take on this Pacer team today. Pacers are playing a little bit better.

They were atrocious to start the season. Now they're just bad, but they're still well under 500. They're not going to have any hopes of a playoff. The Rockets need to beat them up because they've got a Wednesday, Thursday, back-to-back at home. Wednesday, Boston is playing, and that's the most surprising team in the NBA at this point. And Thursday, it'll be Charlotte, who, by the way, beat the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. They've been playing some really good basketball.

last two weeks or so. They have won six in a row. The Charlotte Hornets. The Charlotte Hornets. Dang. I've got to worry about these pesky hornets. I've never worried about a pesky hornet in my life. Oh, really? You never got the hornet stings? Not since Grandma and Alonzo morning. I think I've worried about the Hornets. Okay. R. Reed. Grandma.

Grandma. All right. A lot of little things to get to today. I want a drop of you just saying grandmamma. Grandmamma. I'm out of Italian. I got a pizza. Hey, mama me. Get the meatballs in the Bolognaz. Speaking of pizza, we went and had pizza last night at Girodano's, which is a Chicago place in general.

Yes. It's Indianapolis. So this isn't the mecca of food. It's also tourist trappy. Giordanos. Go ahead. But it's also about 35 steps from our hotel, and it was 7.45 at night. It was cold.

So we're like, hey, let's go get some pizzas. We did. I'm a Luman Nattis guy. I don't disagree. in lomaal notties in chicago is the is the definitely go-to but it was good i'll just say this again a deep dish to me is overrated oh jesus it's delicious heavy it's delicious and yeah you just that's what's beauty about it first of all you do have to wait like 40 minutes to get it which is kind of annoying that is true that is true i'll give you that i would certainly give you that but

you get two slices and you're full while you're waiting for those 40 minutes you get a soup and a salad, you fill up, and then you only need like two slices. Well, I did not get a soup and salad beforehand. Others in our party did, and they regretted it immediately when their pizzas came out because those things are Oh, you eat it for six weeks.

We're also on the, I mean, you're not traveling from the arena to your hotel room, back to the arena to the plane back home. No, no, no, get a Ziploc bag, take it to the arena. It's all good. Ross, I get breaking news for you. They do feed you the arena as well. Maybe not as good as Giordano's. Yeah, I think Giordano's. Yeah, I think Girodano's and Gino's east are, I mean, they're all tourist east,

but local Chicagoans will tell you, but I'm a Lou Malnani's guy, but everybody's like, oh, no, we like Chicago Tavern-style. The locals, they get all mad and pissy. We did have tavern style yesterday, as a matter of fact, one of the pizzas did. So that's the one I went with, not nearly as heavy. Not like thin crust, but a step above that. And that will also take care of our pizza talk for the day. But I just want to give you a little heads up of what's happening here.

It's February, folks. Yeah. is. What do you want some bad radio roll gas? We can do that too if you want. Okay. Coming up, Carl Mecklenburg. Hey, come on, man. That's disrespectful to Carl Mecklenburg. Brunco's legend. Eric Hipple, former Detroit Lions

quarterback. I know who Eric Kippel is. When I had him on about four or five years ago, I was like, this is pretty cool and I'm thinking of myself. My God, no one in Houston knows who Eric Hipple is. Is Ed Too Tall Jones still making the rounds? Is he even alive? Oh, okay. Let's guess. I will say yes?

I'm going to say alive. Yes. Okay, we're both right. All right. Harvey Martin, still alive, yes or no? Harvey Martin? Yeah, I don't know that, brother. Dallas Cowboy, 70s.

Okay. And Harvey Martin is dead, 2001. Ooh, I never interviewed him then. It was a false memory. Yeah. I just get mid-80 players, and I'm like, okay, can you come on the show to promote some diaper changing service or something? Yeah, it's usually pretty good.

Kyle Turley, come on and talk about his CBD oils. Ryan Leaf, how are you feeling this? week. I've had better weeks. He was surly during the interview, like, just blow us off. Just don't show up. Yeah. I was so mad. Well, the reality now about Radio Row is it's now, it's called Media Row

because people are doing podcasts, and guess who's doing the podcast? The Stars. Well, I have another question about that. Yeah. You know, we had sometimes issues getting the premier, premier guest, because we're Houston, we're not L.A., New York, Chicago. Correct. Now, when these booking agents are booking

podcasts, do they literally ask you for download numbers? Like, what do they do? How do you politely say, uh, yeah, you only have a thousand podcast uh, downloads? You suck. We're not going to go on your show. That's what they're doing. Man, that's, you got to get your feelings hurt. If you have some kind of little middling podcast and you go up there. Well, I'll say this. Uh, there's a former Astro, uh, no, won't name his name, Rustin Rurlander that would, you know, would politely decline our show because we weren't, didn't have a big enough audience.

Mm-hmm. So they do, some of these guys, they're savvy to it. Now, again, I would think if you're Rustin Rurlander, you should definitely go on a Houston radio show. We're in Houston, and we have the most Astros fans in Houston listening to us. For sure. I mean, among Astro, again, Sports Radio in Houston, people are coming to us for the Astro stuff, and we greatly appreciate that. But Rustin didn't understand those things, but that's fine. He was looking for more of the Rand Rattricks and the Rollin Boulthard's kind of shows like that. Rollin Bauer. Yeah, but they don't talk baseball on those national shows. So it's kind of

anyway. Anyway. Okay, so I got a lot of little things. You know, when you get on a flight and you're figuring out what you're going to do for the Monday show, we'll have to tell the truth coming up today at 1130, looking forward to that. Well, the news at noon, and then we'll obviously have our, believe it or not, at 150. I was thinking about a variety of little things on there, and then a couple things popped up. There is a story, speaking of Italians. Is it Graziani or Grazioni that writes for ESPN?

Dan? Dan. Crazy Dan. Dan Graziano, I thought. Graziano. I don't want to be a stereotype on the show. What did he say about the Texans and C.J. Straub. You're going to have to wait because I'm going to need you to get a small...

If you're inclined to smoke or drink at 10.30 in the morning, I'm going to let you do that. I don't endorse it. I don't certainly want you to do overcompensate and do too much of it. Okay. But there is a Dan Graziano story out there that's going to melt your minds about the Texans. Great. So I'll get that going on.

Did you watch any of the NBC basketball last night? I did not. The 17th night basketball doubleheader. You know what? I have to get a better grasp. And honestly, the NBA needs to do this too. I used to know, as we were talking about this, like it's NBA on TNT on Thursdays.

It was ESPN on Wednesdays. Like, I had the calendar. I don't know what the hell is going on with the calendar now. Yeah. Well, first of all, the NBA has done a terrible job of pushing it. I know they put little mentions out there. They should do this on every social medium over and over and over again because the schedule is so inconsistent.

This Sunday night package of games just popped up, and it was a big deal for NBC. That's part of the reason I even hear about it. And I follow, it should show up in my 4U tab. I follow NBA accounts. I closely follow the NBA. And I didn't know. It was a huge double-headed. It was the Lakers against the N.

and then it was the Thunder at the Denver Nuggets. And they had a pregame show on yesterday, which featured Carmel Anthon, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, and they had a special guest, Caitlin Clark. And she was actually pretty good. And it was kind of just talking big school back. Oh, Reggie Miller was on there too for some reason.

Caitlin did a side eye to Reggie Miller, and you're like, what could she possibly have, he said that got Caitlin Clark a side ice we'll tell you about that coming up a little bit so that's that to get to. Today, Rossi, in San Francisco

you know there are uncomfortable press conferences you have to have when you're CEOs of things, you know, like let's say your company is down 11% in profits or you've got the IRS coming after you or any sort of legal issues. You've been sued and you have to, and if you're

the leader of the company, you have to come up and have these uncomfortable press conferences. Well, there's one uncomfortable press conference per year in sports, and it's when Roger Goodell speaks to the media at the state of the NFL at the Super Bowl. This might be, you know, people complain about how much Roger Goodell makes, but he, because he's the fall guy for the 32 owners, so that's easy to say, right? Yes. He's going to have a bunch of things to get to today that's going to make him feel like, you know, I earned my paycheck this week, and we'll discuss about some of the things that could be causing him some angst today as he meets with the national media.

If you would like to join our show today, and we certainly invite you to do so. Again, it's not the most piping hot sports week. We do have a Super Bowl coming up, but I'm going to just, I know you guys, because we're family here. I know the Houston sports market. We've been doing it a long time.

I don't think you're getting into a deep dive conversation of the Patriots tight ends versus the linebackers that may cover them for the Seahawks. I mean, we can do that if you want, but I don't feel like that's a primary goal of the show this week. So if we've got a variety of little things to get to, I want to get to it, but again at 1030 this morning, coming up in the second segment of the show,

third segment, a very uncomfortable piece of commentary has come from an ESPN NFL writer. We'll tell you about that as well. 713-212-5790 is how you reach our show. 7-13-212-5-790. Rockets and Pacers tonight. We'll get to that as well throughout the course of the show. We have to tell the truth, the news at noon,

and believe it or not, all on a busy Monday. It is a Matt Thomas-Jow-Ross here in Indianapolis on Sports Talk 790. And again, reminding you to we, Thank you, Julie. Welcome to call us all during the show today. 713, 2,1, 3,21, 2, 5, 790, whatever's on your mind. If not, Ross, I'll just sit back and relax, talk to sports and pontificate life here on the show. A couple of the NBA notes. All-Star game announcements were made yesterday for reserves.

Kevin Durran in. Outburn-Shingoon out. My first blush response to that sports, however, he was good. His ankle's on 100%. He has shot woefully in the last three games. He needs some downtime. I'm all for him not playing. Yeah, myself as well.

I think the production has been down as of late, and this shouldn't be shocking, but many on Rockets' Twitter are upset with him. But you have to have the context, as you mentioned. He came back, it was supposed to be like a, they thought it was going to be a multi-week ankle injury. He came back. Was it five days, right?

Or something like that. A lot sooner than it was supposed to be, for sure. So he's out there. He's gutting it out. As you said, it's the middle of the season. He's playing fairly well, considering the fact that he has been dealing with an ankle injury. And box score watchers,

Don't like that context, but it's true. And he needs, absolutely, as you say, he needs the All-Star break in the worst way. And Ross, maybe it's just because I'm becoming older, and I don't want to be that older guy, but I mean, that's how life works. I despise All-Star stuff. The Pro Bowl game, the flag football game is tomorrow night in San Francisco.

This All-Star thing where they're doing three, I know, see, I'm giving you breaking news. there are three all-star teams of five. I don't even know what the hell the NBA is doing, and I don't particularly care. I am going to stay. You and I'll be busy down in Florida, but I don't care, and it just irritates me.

There's nothing to fix the All-Star game. You can give them $5 million apiece. You can make them go on one leg. You can do International versus USA. You can do a horse contest. I don't care what you do. I hate it. and I love the NBA.

You are listening to someone right now that loves the NBA and I hate the All-Star game. I don't see a reason to hate it. Just don't watch it. But also, I guess the USA versus the world has me somewhat intrigued.

And also the fact that Wemby said he's going to play really hard. Maybe I'll try to body on the court again and break every bone in his elbows and rib cage. We don't want him to do that, but we do?

We don't? I don't want him to be. I don't want him to be. but if he gets hurt like a small sand also hey it's out of my control if he gets hurt and it allows the rockets to climb up to standings it is what it is it is what it is he tees what tis by way rockets are climbing up getting closer to that two spot san antonio oh man they'd be even closer if they could have beat him and that collapse in the fourth quarter hey hey we can't win every game rossie wouldn't they be tied with them or no no they'd be no all right all right one more thing before we get to uh some callers in this and this NFL story about the texans

So I mentioned last night I was watching Sunday night NBA, and I think NBC has done a fantastic job. They do a great job on football. They give a damn about basketball. People just don't remember it, but they do really do a really nice job. There were two problems with it,

and I'm going to give the lesser the two first. So at halftime of the second game between Oklahoma City and Denver, they went to Maria Taylor, who's the host of the show, and she was on the set at Madison Square Garden with McGrady and Vince Carter and Carmel Anthony.

and they were talking about all-star snubs. I don't know if this was live or tape. It doesn't really matter what it was. Maria's like, man, who do you guys think are snubs? And they brought up one player, I can't remember. Oh, somebody from Toronto, I forgot. They wanted to get him in there. And they said, there was somebody else you had, too.

None of the three guys knew, remembered who they forgot about, they thought was being snubbed. You're on national television at halftime. She throws you a question that you already knew was coming, you didn't have the answer right off the top of your head? That's pretty bad. I thought it was, it goes to what those guys don't do

and they don't prep for their job. They're basically getting their job because of name and their greatness of it as a player. And look, a lot of those guys get those jobs. But it was a softball question. And it was like 10 seconds of awkward silence because none of the three guys remember who the second snub was.

That's horrible. Is this really true? It was horrible. But that wasn't the worst part of the night. So Caitlin Clark is on this, pregame show and she's done doing it a couple times and she was very good she uh i like her a lot i'm not a huge fan that i'm bnba i mean i might down the road if the team gets someone in houston we can actually care about it but she's she's really pretty good on this thing so it was her and i want

to say carmello or somebody and reggie miller on this day set and maria says hey reggie well who's your comp on who kately clark is in the nb a nb a go a variety of different directions. But needless to say, Ross, is not Caitlin Clark probably the most talented and certainly the most recognizable player in the WNBA, correct? Certainly most recognizable. Now, she didn't play a whole lot less than she battled injuries, but, you know, her rookie year, she was fantastic. Yeah, I think Asia Wilson seems to, who's winning the MVP every year? Isn't it Asia Wilson or something like that?

Your guess is good as mine. Sure, why not? We have four-time MVP. We'll go with Asia Wilson as the most talented. So Reggie says, hmm, I'll go with the Celtics Peyton Pritchard. What? That's what America did. Not that Peyton Pritchard is not a fine NBA basketball player and certainly has elevated his game as a score and it's an outside threat.

But you're Reggie Miller and you are traveling on his NBA streets and the best comp you can come up with for Caitlin Clark, a generational franchise league changing player is Peyton Pritchard Hey now, Peyton Pritcher's having a good year He's having a great year But if Peyton Pritchard

Walk into a grocery store in Houston, Texas And got in the line And the woman says, how are you doing, sir? And he says, great And the woman says, what do you do for a living? What is your name, Peyton? What is your name? My name is Peyton Pritchard.

She'd go, what do you do for a living, Peyton, Pritchard? I mean, he's known in Boston, but not many, not many other places. Yes. I just was like, I heard that cop. I'm like, are you kidding me? Payton Pritchard? I just, and so she side-eyed him.

Oh, really? She didn't mean to, but you need to go look at the video of it. It's hysterical. She's like, I am, I'm getting chartered planes and full arenas and television revenues, and we're about to go on strike because of what I've been able to bring in the league, and you just call me Peyton Pritchard of the WNBA? That's pretty bad. It was...

Well, Reggie Miller, not knowing ball. Well, Reggie Miller, the number one analyst on NBC. So let's see. She averaged 16.5 points per game last year. He averaged 16.8 this year. Wait, maybe Reggie's on to something. Wait a minute. Maybe he is. Maybe she is a big.

Reggie does know ball. WMBA. Come see the Peyton Pritcher of the WNBA in a game near you. She only shot. Well, she heard a lot, I guess, right? Last year she was, yeah. Her rookie year, she was really good. Yeah.

She sought 30. 37% from the field last year. Come on now. Is that terrible for WMBA standards, though? Matt. No, I'm seriously asking questions. It's not terrible, I think. I mean, I'm going to assume there's very few 50%

or 40% three-point shooters in the WMBA. Don't look it up. No, I did. Most of everybody's, the worst team in basketball was the Connecticut son. As a team, they shot 41%. As a team from three? No, no, I'm sorry, from the, from the field.

I'm talking about three-point range. Oh, from the, From the field as a league, they average 33.8%. That's not bad. NBA is like 36. Yeah, it's not dramatically different. All right, let's go to a phone call before we get to our NFL talk that you're going to just go. What?

Gary on 790 at 1028. Gary, good morning. Hey, good morning, guys. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay, yeah, these times they are rather slow right now when we've got a segment on the WNBA. But that's what I was calling about, but minus 6. W. That game Saturday night, that was really a good game. I haven't had a chance to see that

who's that rookie flag, see him play. Man, I'm so impressed. He's going to, I don't know if he's going to break all the records or what he's going to do, but he's going to be the highest paid player when his time comes, and he's going to, man, he's going to make all the all-star games. He, his career is set barring injury, of course. He is really a great player. really glad to see the rockets win. They're really hard to beat at home. One thing I wanted to mention, because they had, it was on, I think, Channel 13, I believe it was on. And they had Charles Barclay and his crew on there.

And, of course, Barclay, he hates Houston because he thinks they screwed him out of some money back in the day. So he hardly ever says anything good about Houston. But did you hear at the post game what he said when they asked, it was his turn to, for him to rate Houston as far as the playoffs and the title goes. Did you hear what he said? No. Yeah, he said, and he might have a point here, and I kind of agree with him a little bit. He said he doesn't put him in the elite.

They don't think they have a chance in money because they don't have a point guard. He said that Thompson is doing a good job trying to be one, but they might wear him down and he's out of position. So once they go to the playoffs and it becomes a slowdown half-court game, then that's when Houston will get over. took. So he'll never give Houston any props or anything, but he might have a little point there, but

I just want to see what y'all thought about his comment there. Thanks, Gary. It's frankly easy on the national scale, and we can do the same thing locally, Ross. It's easier to tell you why somebody's not going to win something as compared to why they win, because only one team at the end wins, right? I mean, you could find flaws in every one of the 30

teams, and you'll feel like you're right 99% of the time, because you are going to be 99% correct. It's the beauty of sports punditry. And then you say you say you're right for months and then you end up being wrong and then you say you're sorry and everybody moves on and forgets about it yeah i don't know uh that's why i don't we don't do a lot of prediction segments on this show because so if we get it right we're going to overly brag and if we get it wrong what is going to forget we said it that's how

that's how that's how the national folks are i mean it'd be easier i mean you go up and go give charles barclay seven or eight teams it's a lot easier for him to tell you how somebody's not going to win it's compared to why somebody is going to win all right let's take a quick time I'm out. We've got a lot of folks that want to come in and say hello. And for that, we thank you. We really appreciate you. Ten o'clockers being a part of the Matt Thomas show. Ross, 713, 212-790. I'm going to read you parts of an ESPN NFL story about free agent or, excuse me, current contracts for the Texans involving their two most high-profile contracts upcoming. And it's going to boggle your mind, 1030 on Sports Talk 790. We have to tell the truth coming up today at 1130.

It's Matt and Ross. I'm here in Indianapolis. Kevin Durant will not play tonight for the Rockets against. The Indiana Pacers will have the broadcast beginning with the Rockets launch pad at 5. 530 network pregame. 6 o'clock will be the tip time here from Indy. All right. So Rossi, I'm reading ESPN yesterday.

We're playing you some Bad Bunny, Matt. Yeah, I don't know his music. Congratulations to Bad Bunny for Album of the Year at the Grammys last night. Should I download it? Sure, why not? I guess I'm going to give it a try. Yeah, not my music. And also congratulations to Kendrick Lamar

for his three Grammy wins. He's a Barry Manolo of this generation. 27 Grammy Award wins. That's a record, no? It's a record for a rapper. He passed Jay-Z. He's won short of Quincy Jones. He is fifth on the all-time Grammy award-winning list.

All-Arts is. ever. So congratulations to Kendrick Lamar. Yes, congratulations to him. Very proud for him. All right, back at it. Dan Graziano does five teams about contract extensions. He just picked, I don't know he's doing

five at a time or he just happened to pick five. One of the five teams he brought up was the Houston Texans. Okay. And the two key extension candidates this year are, of course, C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson, Jr. We'll do the easy one first. Will Anderson, 12 sacks season, one of the best defensive players in the NFL. He was the third pick in the 2003 draft, defensive rookie the year, all this kind of stuff, and he has been everything as advertised.

Now, Micah Parsons, we talked about last week. Rossi is at $46.5 million a year. And then you have what, Hutchinson for the Lions is what, at 45. Watt, that's T.J., not JJ, $41 million a year. And then, Garrett, at $40 million. Okay. So it sounds like to me that Will Anderson, according to Dan Graziano, believes that Will's going to be in that $40 million club. Now, whether he gets to Micah Parsons level, they don't know, because as you talked about a few days ago, that contract just completely put the whole pay scale out of whack.

Yeah. But the anticipation is, according to Dan Graziano, that the Anderson will sign a four-year contract, $176 million, with $126 million. of that guaranteed at signing. Aiden Hutchinson was around, was a 4-180 or 185, I think? Does it say in that? Yeah, it doesn't say in this story. Okay, okay. All right.

So four years, 176, what is that, sets, uh, 44 a year, basically. Am I right about that? Four, 43 somewhere in that range? Okay. Now let's get to CJ. So, yeah, that would be, I think, Hutchinson was 45. I don't think he's going to want, I don't think he's going to get worse than a Hutchinson deal. No, and look, the Texans have always taken care of their first round.

Yeah. And good second rounders, too. I mean, Petrie and Stingley have been well taken care of. And Nico Collins, for that matter, too. All right. So we got now the Texans one, and there's a big story about what do you do about CJ and how do you, you know, how much money do you want to spend on him and how much do you want to spend on a guy that had two horrific postseason games?

So reading this story, and I don't need to tell you about what is in there because it's all the stuff that you've seen over the course of the last month or so. The prediction that Dan Graziano has, four-year contract for C.J. Stroud, $224 million, $110 million guaranteed at sign. This off-season? I'd presume so. I don't think you're talking about next season.

Yeah. So the next two years, the last two years of the rookie contract, it would be years four and five. The total amount of money the Texans would be spending on C.J. Stride will be $32 million. It's like just shy of six this year and just over 26 in year five. So 58, that's 58 a million. No, I'm sorry, no, 56.

If you're taking Ford about it by 224, yeah. 110 million guaranteed at signing. 56 million a year would be more than Trevor Lawrence. It'd be more than everyone but Dak Prescott. Correct. Now, here's the question. Is Dan Graziano doing this because he's a legitimate NFL writer? Or is he trying to get into the good graces of David Mulageta?

I don't know that. I mean, Nick Casario is not reading this article. So I don't think so. I would imagine this is. Well, I guarantee you he's reading the article. There's no way. Nicky C is? The PR department.

Oh, somebody sent it to him, but it's not like he's seeking it out. He's not seeking. That doesn't necessarily mean he's like, you know what, Dan Graziano's making some good points. Right. But no. I guarantee you Nicky C. this morning when he got to his desk and they have the clips of everything that's the word Texas

involved has this story in front of him. So just, I want you know, again, we don't think about this money situation because we're not salary cap people. We're not the general manager with the team. And frankly, when you win a Super Bowl, we don't care what we pay our players because we want a Super Bowl.

But you're going to put him in beyond rarefied air for a guy who is looking to make north of $55 million a year. Ooh, Lorde. If he doesn't pan out, Ross, that doesn't annihilate your franchise, but it hampers you badly.

You would be in, I mean, that's what, let's think of the ones that pay, you would be in Arizona Cardinals territory, yes, New York Giants territory, because they were talking about Kyle Murray and Daniel Jones. I'm trying to think of who else got paid and it really didn't work out. recently. Well, I mean, you can say

this. I mean, Jacksonville was really good last year, but the early portions of the Trevor Lawrence money hasn't paid out for them. That's true, but they got him a great play caller and a better offensive line and run game and weapons, and look what happened. They still bounce in the first round. Yeah, but they're still a much better football

team, and there's no doubts about Trevor Lawrence being a potential, you know, at least their franchise quarterback. He's not all-time elite or anything, but he's looking a lot better. funny how that works. So I was just curious when I gave you that number

did you cough like I did. 56 million a year seems insane. But it seems right because the cap keeps going up and it's going to keep going up. That's why you're always like, this guy reset the market and that guy reset the market and this guy's getting this deal? Because it's all about timing of when you get paid.

Because Will Anderson's going to get paid more than Miles Garrett. And we love Will Anderson. He's not better than Miles Garrett. And we love Will Anderson for his value, but defensive ends don't get the same. Miss amount of's quarterbacks. Quarterbacks get the number one salary, usually year it and year out. Yeah.

40 million a year is not bad, though. He's not picking crumbs out of the couch. No, no, no, no. He's not looking for buy one, get one free day. I am. We all are. I just saw that stat and I'm like, what's, is Graziano just trying to be a realist and saying, hey, Houston, get ready?

Or is he saying, this is what Mulligetta's whispering to me and I need to put that out there because I not kind of know what he wants because I guarantee you, Nicky C. ain't thinking about this kind of money. I don't think they are. Honestly, I mean, you'd have to probably, you'd probably start at 50.

50 a year is around Jalen Hertz, Lamar Jackson, Herbert, Goff is making 53. Oof. Rossi, I cannot think. The Holmes is 45. I cannot think of a worse PR

move this offseason than for the Texans that re-signed C.J. started this crazy number. And stay with me on this and you think I'm nuts. Just tell me Matt, shut up, okay? This is the offseason where they're going to start talking about refurbishing NRG.

Put this and dumb this down to its lowest common denominator. You're giving a mid-quarterback $50 million a year and then you're asking for public money to help refurbish a stadium. You know what's... You know what's funny is my initial reaction was to try and fight you on mid, but I can't. It makes me sad. He's around like 15th. But I'm telling you, when you go to barbershops, okay?

Yes. This is what barbershops talk about. Okay. We don't get into deep weeds of conversation about how players are good value or salary cap. They get to, does it make, they're just ask for public money and they're giving CJ Stroud of $50 million a year? That's what the barbershops talk about. Well, you've got to fill out the cap somehow. Yeah, but the barbershop doesn't know that.

The barbershop's going to want to make sure Will Anderson gets paid. The barbershop's going to want to make sure the Neil Hunter doesn't go away, right? Yes, but you shouldn't run your organization on what the barbershop's talking about. I know, but you're going to need public support for facility upgrades, and that's why you have to probably tell CJ, we'll take care of you, bra. B-R-A-H, brough. Or br-r-U-H. But we just need, we just need some time.

And then he's going to say, wait a minute, you're giving Will Anderson his money. Why don't you give me my money? And then you have that uncountable conversation. I don't think C.J. Shroud knows. Daly Moogetta has to know. They have to see these memes. I don't think David Mulligata knows.

He does. He's seeing these memes. Come on. Are you sure? Yes. Maybe we should start sending him. Does he have a Twitter account? He does.

He used to be fairly active on it. I don't think he is. anymore. All right. Just throwing it out there. We'll go the phones next. Our time is 1043. It is the Matt Thomas show at Raw.

7-13-212-5-790 if you want to get in. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 10-52 on the Matt-Talbys show and Ross. Guys, we have to tell the truth coming up today at 1130. I will have three truths and one lie. Three truths and one lie. Okay. Yes.

So how many things in mind not telling the truth about? Jonathan? Uno. There you go. Three truths, one lie on to tell the truth today at 1130. And I've already written these up, and I really think at the end of the day, if you don't get this, especially you, John, because you don't bat nearly as good as Ross does, you got no chance. Hold on. I'm up on the year.

It's 2-1. Oh, it is 2-1. It's 2-1. I'm up. I stand corrected, Ross. If you don't get this right, you're doing great, Jonathan. All right, 713, 2-1-2-5-790. talk to our buddy Roger on 7-9 in the Matt Tom.

Michelle Ross from Indianapolis. Hello, Roger. Good morning, guys. Oh, good afternoon. Whatever it is. 10.53. Good morning. All right.

So, yeah, I'm getting a little pissed about this, you know, generational towns that's spread around Texas except for Houston. So tonight I fully expect the Rockies to get Molly Walk by the Indiana Patriots just because that's just what they deal against lower teams. They just lay down and take it. That's what they do. We love them, but that's what they are. So, yeah, I just hate the fact that, you know, here comes Dallas again.

They got Cooper Flag, generational talent. They gave away Jeddah Branson, another generation talent. Gave away Luca, generational talent. And before that, they had dirt. So, yeah, same thing with the Spurs. You know, Duncan, Robinson, Genovo, Lee Park. We all know about them, you know. And, you know, Houston has a guy with Tithelaguan.

You know, we had, yeah, but yeah, sir, it's a lot. is David Bowley, real quick, or a bowie, uh, a bowley, uh, he turned into Zambole and then he got injured. That was, that was good at all together with it. Uh, so, yeah, we had to trade from a Grady. He was a general establishment establishment. He was, you know, pretty much damaged good when he got here, uh, you know, a couple of years in, but it's just, I'm, when's our turn again?

When's our turn? I'm waiting for our turn, Matt, but yeah. And if I get, if I'm wrong about tonight, then we got the, I'm sorry, later on the week. All right. Have a good one. So let me get this right. Roger's upset.

We don't have generational players in our town. Let's see. Do we call up, does James Harden count? Absolutely. Very much the primary of his NBA career. Very much. He won an MVP. He was a sixth man in Oklahoma City and became a megastar for a decade, give or take.

Yes. You went and got Justin Verlander and helped you win two World Series, especially one. Yes. You wouldn't got Garrett Cole. Well, you, I mean, stop. He's here for a couple years. Stop feeling sorry, and I love you, Roger, but stop feeling sorry for yourselves. That's ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, Jose Al-Tuvae is one of the greatest, especially for his size, talents in baseball history. In the history of the sport. We're doing okay. Not every city is supposed to win four championships per sport. Go out of Detroit. It'd be nice.

They ain't feeling great. It'd be nice if we want more. Well, every city's saying that. How do you think Atlanta's feeling right now? We got one. Beat our Astros, sadly. Yeah. Falcons suck. Hawks suck.

They lost our hockey team twice. Look. Okay, we're doing better in Atlanta. Yeah. Suck in Atlanta. Yeah. I mean, out of our friends in, let's see, another city that's got, oh, Phoenix.

How's Phoenix feeling these days? Cowdies left. Sons aren't any good. Well, they're better this year. Okay. Cardinals blow. The D-backs lost the damn Rangers and their one-world series hope.

All right. I'm pulling it up what cities were doing better than. The four major American sports with NHL counted. Okay. One and two, you should be able to get. Actually, one, two, three, four. New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago. No coincidence on those.

Houston at 22nd. with four. Yeah, we're fine. Tied with Indianapolis. Ooh, I've only got two teams. Head of Milwaukee. They've got three. Seattle has three.

Do they count Green Bay as a team? Yeah, they have to. Yeah, Green Bay's got 13 championships. So, come on. Okay. Let's see, we're worse than San Antonio. Worse than Dallas. Dallas has nine.

We'll be fine. We're beating rally. Rally's only got one. Suck it, Raleigh. Raleigh. Raleigh. Whatever. Rochester.

Rochester's got one. The Rochester Royals back of the day. Are we better than Tampa Bay? Buccaneers won one. We're worse than Tampa Bay. Well, because the lighting have three. Oh, geez. Okay.

We're fine. Remember, sports is about this appointment. Behind Cincinnati. All right. Behind Kansas City. Oh. Behind Minneapolis. Ouch.

That's because they're counting the Minneapolis Lakers, though. Yeah, see, this little poll you got going is, but we don't have a hockey team. Whatever. We don't have a hockey team. Okay, San Antonio only has one and they're ahead of us. Matt? Got a lot of calls.

A lot of, Greg Popovich just beat the hell of those officials to give them calls. And they claim the Dallas ones probably. So the fans are happier. Denver's kicking our ass. Miami's got nine Orlando Orlando is not even this list so they have zero zero

okay we're behind Cleveland what because of the Cavaliers I think they're counting like Cleveland Brown's like 1955 championships I'm just saying get out this list St. Louis because the Cardinals have 11 by themselves

all right We're doing just fine, Houston. Texans are going to get us the Super Bowl someday once in the year or sell. Fourth biggest city, 22nd in championships. Not great. Well, a lot of bad of fishing. I agree. All the lot for decades, for centuries.

Lots of bad of fishing. Lots of bad. Hey, Joe West didn't like us. That's for sure. Yeah. All right. Let's get the second hour started. Speaking of baseball here, Rossi.

We could. Also, did you have the, did you hear the Jason Kid audio from the weekend? we have that too. Can we play it? It's bleeped. Oh, did you bleep it already? Let's call production value. Yeah, I'm working on it. All right. I looked at the calendar. I'm starting to pitch in. Good for you. We have Jason Kid bleep video, audio.

And we have a John, Jim Bowden, guest at front of the show, right, Rossi, Jim Bowden, front of the show? Sure, why not? With an off-season scorecard on the Astros, 2006 off-season. Now, I'm going to preface this by saying Jim Boughton used to employ Dana Brown back in the day. Did he like the Astros offseason? We'll talk about that next.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Sports Talk 790, 713-212-57790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. That's how you reach our show. We always welcome you. Thank you to the 10 o'clockers that listen to this show, especially welcoming those of you that are 11 o'clock is going to be out for early lunch.

Come on and be a part of the program. Again, 713-212-1-2-5-7-90. Headline today out of Indianapolis, where I am tonight for the Rockets and the Pacers is that Kevin Durant is out with a bad ankle. Hopefully, it's precautionary. I have not heard whether it's serious or not. I would deem it's not going to be.

And frankly, we can't be rude, but we're going to be rude for the sake of this show, Ross. It's the Indiana Pacers. Only five and a half-point favorites right now, the Rockets. That's not that meaty, Matthew. Well, thankfully, I'm not betting on the game, Ross. I know you're not, but interesting. Give me an idea.

All it takes is one point to win. One point better than the United of Pacers, and it's a Rockets win. They lost it. I think there were 13.5 point favorites against the Kings. I'm a little wary. How was that line against Atlanta when we went there in a back-to-back? Oh, I think it was around five and a half as well.

Okay. And they won. They did. They crushed them. You like use some Jay-Shaun-Tate. You get some tonight. Yeah. J.

had five blocks in that. It was in the Hux game, right? We had five blocks? Yep, and he had three the following night against the Dallas Mavericks. Speaking of Dallas. Okay, so Cooper Flagg, for those of you that do not know, it was the first overall pick in last year's NBA draft. He put up 49 earlier this week against Charlotte,

and what did he finish with Rossi against the Rock? It's like 34, 35 somewhere there. I want to say 34. I can go, yeah, 34, 12 rebounds as well. By the way, he's 19 years old. He's excellent. And there's Captain Avi's statement of the day. Rossi, I love him.

I mean, not Glove love him, but I love his game. He's a baller. So he's 6'9. He can handle the basketball. Yes. And because of the fact that they have had injuries, Kyrie being the number one, they don't have a real ball handler.

So Jason Kidd has asked him on occasions to run point. Well, he was asked again about Cooper Flagg running point recently against the Rockets. And here was Jason. I'm going to assume the audio is not great on this because it was kind of on an off mic. Am I correct on that? Oh, hey now. You got good production.

Who got you the line audio, baby? Oh, baby. Here it is. Jason Kidd talking to Dallas media about if he's worried about about Cooper flag playing playing too much point guard. Coach, you got a lot of national criticism for playing flag at point guard

for the last two games. He's wrong. The criticism. That's your opinion. You guys write that book. That's not, I've done this. I've played this game.

I've played it at a very high level, and I know what the fuck I'm doing. But I don't give a fuck what you guys write, because you guys have never played the game. And so I've built players, so I know what the fuck I'm doing. So to take criticism, it only makes me better.

Because if I wasn't doing it right, you guys wouldn't be poking holes at what I've done. That's it. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. He got up. Woo. Oh, man.

Jason's, he's liked in Dallas. He just got a new extension as soon as they moved to Luke away from him. Here's a nice consolation prize. Yeah, he's still reeling for that. Yeah. From that, I'm sure. he's been about a 500 coach in the NBA, I want to say, right? He's not been nearly the coach that he was as a player,

but he's been around the NBA game for 30 years as a player and a coach. Yes. Taking two teams in NBA final, I want to say? I'm trying to pull up the coaching. Ten-time All-Star, by the way, as a player. One of the greatest point guards ever, period. Yeah. Period.

as a head coach he is 362 wins 339 losses so above loss in the finals in 24 with Luca and that's the only time he made the finals conference finals with Dallas as well okay

well it's a slippery slope on this because what he said publicly is certainly talked about privately why do I have a bunch of dudes who've never played the game wearing plaid shirt jeans that are too small

with huge bifocals telling me how to run my basketball team. Clearly that's talked about behind the scenes. But, Ross, you can't put it in front of a microphone. You just can't. I don't care how upset you are. You just have to be salty. You have to be diplomatic about it. You just do.

I like the emotion. And it's fine. I understand that it's a certain like, it's on the bingo card of defense mechanisms for players and coaches when they get criticized. I mean, I have been trained to be a broadcaster. Yes. There are a lot of ex-athletes that are broadcasters. Do I go run to tell them every one of them?

You don't know how to do this business because I've trained and learned and gone through the ups and downs of being a young broadcaster. You get to get a large microphone and do your thing. Yes. I mean, I guess I guess we get to do that too. Yeah, we make fun of a job. John Wall's podcast and Dwayne Wade's podcast. Ooh. Well, there's a probably obsolete by now.

And also, I mean, it's obviously a multi-layered conversation. Just because Charles Barker played the game at a Hall of Fame level, but sometimes he spouts out a bunch of craziness and doesn't know what he's talking about. So it doesn't, just because you played the game doesn't mean it's baked in that you know exactly what you're talking about and your opinions are correct. And just because you haven't played the game, it doesn't mean you study the game. You're smart and you watch trends and you, have an objective eye to it. It doesn't, you can have a credible, respectable opinion

despite the fact you've never played the game. Yes. And I don't think either side understands that. Yeah, and I think, well, because what they, what coaches and players will focus on are the people that didn't play the game and have horrible, terrible, bad opinions and don't know what they're talking about, of which there are many in the media. Correct.

Now, if you have someone that agrees with you, then you're not going to take a little pot shot. Exactly. The reason why you took the shot was because this guy who, again, is probably never played a game in his life, and it's probably 20 or 30 pounds overweight. It's telling you that you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. I'm eating cheese doodles on my couch, saying this guy's out of shape.

Yeah. Well, they got gas to the fourth quarter. These guys are bums. We all do that with everything. We don't know what we don't know, but yet we want to tell you what we think we know. Well, same thing. Have you ever criticized any ever sitting president? Of course. Yeah.

Do you know how to run the country? hell no. Yeah. But we criticize. That's what we do. Yeah. We say, oh, the service in this restaurant is terrible. There must be, you know, this, I'm never going back.

Well, maybe there was a bad night in the back. Well, hold on. I can do that. Yeah. We're just in a situation where we, generally speaking, and includes myself and you, everybody. Yeah. We can criticize just about anything in life without having a real firm foundation of why something is the way that is. You also don't have to, to what you're bringing up, you don't have to have been a waiter to know

good service is. Yeah. But anyways. I thought it was great. It's like emotion. I like when guys get all mad. So I mean, I don't know what that guy wrote. I don't know the pre.

We don't know the pretext. That sounds like that's been context. You just don't randomly do that on a Saturday after a close loss of the rockets. I mean, come on. Yeah. Let's play it again. Just to put it in context. This is Jason Kidd.

His team was very competitive. it had a chance to win late, Cooper flagging an amazing game. Look, they're not going to make the playoffs this year. It just is what it is, but there's for a variety of reasons. Anthony Davis being one of them, Kyrie Irving being out of all the year. They lost Brandon Williams in the game.

They're very talented backup. And, you know, they're just, they're in a rebuild mode. And the Cooper flag is 19 years old with a heavy lifting of responsibility. Here was the question and answer again. This is just, this was a culmination of something for sure. Coach, you got a lot of national criticism for playing flag at point guard for the last two games. I don't get me about the criticism. Criticism, that's your opinion. You guys write that book. That's not, I've done this. I played this game. I played it at a very high level, and I know what the fuck I'm doing.

But I don't give a fuck what you guys write because you guys have never played the game. And so I've built players. so I know what they're So to take criticism It only makes me better Because if I wasn't doing it right You guys wouldn't be poking holes at what I've done That's it

Thanks It's dropping disc tracks out here in the press conferences I just refused You never played the game That's the lowest of lowest hanging fruit It really is But we all do it we all do it

in everything I mean people will come after me and they'll say you know I didn't like your segment on this or why y'all talk about this we do 20 hours a week we kind of know what we're doing so as much as you want to crush him for just saying it and it's again

it looks makes him look bad something he's going to just kind of bite your lip and just move on because I don't think again I think Jason kid largely in this situation is probably not feeling too much heat because of all the massive changes. I mean, just the general manager got fired. He's got to be on one of the coldest seats in basketball.

Yeah, I mean, you'd be like, man, so you don't like it, huh? That's all right. We'll try to prove me wrong. Have a nice day. I would have actually gone the other direction. Yeah. You were saying there's criticism of me? There's no way.

I'm trying my best. Don't you understand? I felt like the reporter was actually going to say there was national criticism. Like, do you feel validated with how well he's playing or something like that? Yeah, he was going to, I think he was going to flip. I don't know. like I said, I don't know the reporter, don't know the context completely. But I feel like he was going to say, hey, there was a lot of national criticism.

It felt like he was setting up a softball. There was a lot of criticism, but he, Cooper Flagg's been playing well in the point guard role. Yeah. Something like that. All right. 1115. It is a Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713, 212-5-790.

If you want to chime in, 7-1-3-212-5-790. The most uncomfortable press conference of the year coming up today. What is it? And what the topics might be? We'll discuss it next. 1116 on 790 1120 I'm talking about

this Monday here from Indianapolis 713212 575790 713 2125790 A little bit of breaking news Ross what do you think Breaking news

Sure why not That's one That's funny right You know what Let's give one more why not All right sure one Jeremy Pena is going to play for his native country, Puerto Rico, in the World Baseball Classic. No, Dominican.

The Dominican Republic. Excuse me. So, you know, I feel about it. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, those guys like it. I'm not going to tell Jeremy what to do and not do. He's young. Just don't get hit in the hand.

Just wear like Knights armor on your hands. Yeah. Just don't treat these games like Game 7 of the World Series. Yeah. We're going to age in late October. Yeah. He wants to play for his country. But it is interesting.

Those that have injury histories don't get the clearances because they can't find insurance to back it up in case he doesn't get hurt. Jeremy Payne doesn't have a history of injuries, so it's probably a little bit easier to insure that. Maybe I had to talk to the actuaries. We'll interview the actuary who signed his contract

coming up in the next segment. That's a huge get for us. Maybe he's on Radio Row right now. Actuary's. also known poon hounds, Matt. Is that right? Like the guys at Pro Football Focus? Yeah.

I didn't know that actual is the kind of poll. All right. We have to tell the truth coming up a few minutes. Okay, so Commissioner Roger Goodell visits with the media once a year. Wonderful. State of the NFL press conference. It usually happens at the Super Bowl or all the national media going. And I don't know if they, everybody's going to raise their hand because they all have a question.

So I don't know if the NFL chooses who gets to ask questions based off of seniority or who they like and who they don't like, yada, yada, yada. But there is a, he doesn't go for three hours. It's probably, what, 45 minutes or an hour maybe you would think in the pass, I think, give or take. Sure. So this might be the one of the more the most uncomfortable ones. Let me just throw a variety of things that he may be thrown at today. You want to play pretend you're the commissioner? Okay.

Let's go. You ready, Ross? Yes. And I'm not giving these to you, so this is going to be as organic as a guess. We'll start with an easy one. The owner of the Patriots recently on a podcast said that there's going to be an 18-game schedule, Roger Goodell. What are you hearing about that? And what do you need to – how do you want to reply to that, please?

Okay, quick question, though. Am I being honest, Roger Goodell, or am I being – No, you're being what Roger would say. Cover my ass. Okay, what Roger would ask – Not honest Goddell. Okay, you know what? Can you do both?

Yeah, sure. CYA first. You know, we've had a lot of internal discussions about growing the game because, you know, I mean, the ratings and the fans, they want more football. They love football. And our priority number one is the fans. So we're going to have those discussions. We have had those. Obviously, you know, Robert Kraft is somebody who's been pushing for something like this because he's one of the great owners in NFL history.

And we love Robert. But that is a discussion that we'll have further down the road. All right. The real answer? Straight cash, homie. We need to get more revenues somehow. We're trying to get more games in Europe. And look, more money means more cash from prime video, more checks from Netflix.

And revenue's got to go up, up, up and up. That's my job number one. And more games would mean more money. Let's keep it simple, folks. All right. Got three more here. One more easy one and two more difficult ones. Yes.

CYA, the NFL through government approval now officially owns 10% of ESPN. CYA. You know, that's a great. I mean, ESPN, when you talk about sports entertainment, they are the heritage number one brand. And we are proud to be partnered with ESPN. And it quite frankly is an honor to be with them and all the great content they provide and continue to grow our great game and grow ESPN's reach as well. Real answer? Look, we've got to control some of the media.

I mean, we have all these injuries and all these other things happening and stories and firestone. when it comes to backhanded dealings and that Pablo Tori guy is always investigating us. So we do need to do a little bit of controlling of the media. And this partnership with the ESPN is going to help us do that. Hmm. All right. Not bad there, my friend. Are you ready?

Yes. Here come to two difficult ones. Ten NFL coaches have been hired. Only one minority in the offseason. C.Y.A. on that one. Look, we've obviously with the international. institution of the Rooney rule and trying to enforce that and making new measures in terms of draft picks and adding incentives.

We can do more, certainly, to try to help with the diversity in the NFL, but we feel like we've done a lot. And sometimes that just happens to have, has to happen with the pool of candidates. And we're looking at avenues to try to increase the diversity of the NFL because we know the player pool is diverse and we want the coaching. Everything is better with diversity. and that's what we want here in the NFL. I think he's had, oh, okay, do you want to try the real answer?

I don't know if there's a real answer. You may want to pass on this one. The real answer has been redacted. Yeah, that's probably too. All right. This last one's going to be a really good one. The real answer is, eh, whatever. All right.

The last one. Okay. Commissioner Goodell, there is a report that New York Giants co-owner, Steve Tish, is in the Epstein files. C-YA, please. Yeah, that's something. obviously we're aware of and we're looking into, I would caution anybody to take certain things out of the files as gospel. I mean, we're just talking about stray emails and this could be gossip and idle gossip and things that have been made up. So we're looking into that certainly, but I would just caution the public to not take everything at their word when it comes to a criminal like Jeffrey Epstein.

And now what's he really thinking, Sports Harvey? I cannot believe. Oh my gosh. Tish. I mean, come on, man. I've had your back. Keep it in your pants, Tish. Goodness gracious, man. What are you thinking?

Yeah. Why didn't you let me know about this? Unfortunately, and not that I spent a lot of time looking at the Epstein file on my news feed, but it feels like it's going across every landscape, politics, entertainment, and sports. Is it true? JZ was in there? I don't know. I don't want to say. Why don't want to get sued?

Hold on. Let me Google this. I want you to have to delay. button on that bad boy. Just to make sure. I know he got passed by Kendrick Lamar for all-time Grammys. Now he's in the Epstein files. It's not good for Jay-Z. How's Beyonce feel about this? J. Z. This is from Variety. That's got to be legit, right? Oh yeah. Jay-Z, Harvey Weinstein and push a T, Matt.

Push-a-what? Push-a-T? What does it push a tea? He's one-half of clips with his brother Malice. Also a rapper in his own right. He got to be... He was the original guy, to win a rat beef with Drake. Is all that you just said is over my head completely. Okay. Well, it's a prominent rapper. He was nominated for...

Are we going to eventually do us sadly? Believe it or not, is this person the Epstein foul? I'd rather not. Let's not. You know what, it's a pass. You know, it's not a pass, Rossi? Plan to tell the truth. Yeah, that's a smash.

It is. Three truths. One lie. Three of the four, I believe. One I do not. 1128, Sports Talk 790 But the great thing about this radio show is

I can tell you the truth And I will tell you the truth But I will also lie about one thing Now, Ross, tell the audience How much I do lie in general I mean, I can never truly know the depths of your lies Yes, that's accurate If I'm taking you at your word all the time

But it's a lot Yeah I'm more of a fibber than a liar But I can lie if I need to Okay But I don't know what you always say this on air It's not good for your reputation But three of the four things I'm about to tell you

These are sports takes not opinions or Some may be predictions but these are like basically opinions Okay I believe three of these four opinions One I do not Okay Which one am I not telling you The truth

Number one I have no inside intelligence But in my core, in my NBA brain, if the Rockets make a move before Thursday's train deadline, the only move I really seeing them make is going to get a big man. All right. Okay.

Number two, even though the NFL announced a bunch of international games, and I once told you that everybody's going to play at least one international game long time ago, We first started doing this. Maybe during gut feelings. I still believe Ross, there will not be a European team in the NFL in the next 30 years. 30 years? 30 years. Okay.

That's number two. Number three. Back to the NBA. Janus will be traded by Thursday, the deadline. And number four. There will be a lot of concessions. Coming up in baseball. Now, hopefully there will not be a work stoppage in 2027.

It's all signs show there's going to be. But when the dust settles and they resume baseball post-2020-six season, whenever that is, you will see the Major League Baseball schedule reduced by six games from 162 to 156. That's six more off days during the course of the season. That's only three home games per. That's one season. series a team they're losing out on. They'll make it up in other ways. Television dollars,

maybe they'll give and take on negotiations on things. I see a reduction from 162 to 156 of the baseball school. A 156, okay. You know how you play everybody in the other league once? You'll take two teams you will not play three games. Okay. All right. I believe three of those four. Which one am I not telling you the truth? Which one's a lot? Well, I'll tell you what I believe, I believe it's four. Let's run through them though. If the Rockets make a move, yeah, Big Man, that sounds reasonable. European team in the NFL in 30 years. I mean, that's a wild card. I don't know if Matt believes that or not.

I mean, probably not. It just doesn't make sense. Although they are looking into those super high-powered jets. So maybe it is going to be possible. But it also just seems like with jet lag and all that type of stuff. 30 years, it could happen. Certainly not within the next 10. I don't know. 30 is going from 19.

How much of the NFL changed from 1970 to 2000? I mean, it's a lot. They were, y'all were in love their helmets, really, huh? Hey, I wasn't alive in 1970. What's this y'all business? I was in the Ryddell. I was in the scut or whatever it was. I was just making a point.

I wasn't the thought of my mom and dad until December of 1971. All right, anyways. Yonis could very well be. traded by Thursday. I think he will, even though the Knicks are apparently bowing out. Apparently the Warriors and the heat are very heavily involved. I believe that. Can he not go? There's no way the owners are going to say,

eh, we're good. Take away a home series for us to make more money. And what is four? I forgot four. Yeah, the dust settles, the schedule will reduce to 156. I actually thought Matt was going to say something about the salary cap one way or the other, and I honestly don't know. That would have been a toss-up.

But I think there's no way the owners shorten the season. even if the revenues are minuscule to what they're going to be losing. And they're adding robots into the game as well. So, I mean, I don't know. They got to pay for that somehow, too. I'll go four. I'll go too.

They're all, I mean, none of these are crazy. Normally, Matt says some crazy hairbrain stuff. Normally. Like last week, they're never going to go more than 16 in the playoffs. College football, God, college football, Gordy shot that down immediately. So, yeah, that was ridiculous. But this week, nothing's too ridiculous, but I'll go with four. I'm going to go with two.

I think Matt's very big on the European and other countries. Yeah, you're right. That's a good one. All right. I do believe, number one, I believe the Rockets would go for Big Man over guard if they were doing anything at all. Not that I don't love Clint, but Alpi's ankle, you know what? They're not a whole lot of time to rest that bad boy. Adding another big man to help with this team that relies so much on offensive rebrand.

gunning to me would be a huge part of it. Go get a big man who can rebound. Don't worry about scoring. So, yeah, I would believe the Rockets would be better served if they were to go get a big man. I do believe Yonis is going to get traded by the deadline. Because I think if the numbers work out, it's to Yannis's advantage if he doesn't. It's to the team advantage if he does now. It's to the team's advantage is to Milwaukee to get the most value, especially if you've got

seven or eight teams still involved. Even though Knicks aren't really heavily involved, you still got, you mentioned the Warriors, you got the heat, you got Toronto. I think when there's so many teams out there that there's going to be a deal that Milwaukee ultimately can't refuse. Plus Milwaukee needs to rebuild. They just do.

Then it comes down to the last two. I've said this over and over, Jonathan, and you've got to listen to the show. I've said the NBA ain't taking games away and Major League Baseball ain't taking games away either. They're not turning down three games and three opportunities to televise three more games and beer and parking and ticket sales.

they're going to keep it at 162. I do not believe that they're going to reduce the schedule. So Ross is correct. I don't believe the NFL is going to bring a team to Europe in the next 30 years because, guys, honestly, logistically, that's going to be a horrific mess. You'll have to play three or four games in Europe, then play three or four games in the United States. It could be a hot mess when it comes to logistics.

And they're doing just fine putting a week game of the week games out there. Every team will play overseas. and that should be satisfying with anybody in the European team so there will not be there will be no NFL team in Europe for the next 30 years there will still be a 162 game schedule

at least as I see it. So Ross, you win. Sorry, Jonathan, you're no longer in first place. It's time, it's okay. It's okay. It's not okay. You've enjoyed having the 2-1 lead. I'm a competitor at the end of the day, okay. Oh, I see.

Okay, got you. And you lose. I do believe Ross for the health of baseball. You know what that was rude. I'm sorry. I think six off days would be a game changer for the overall health of the game. Owners are too greedy. And frankly, for that matter, Ross, the players are too greedy.

They don't want to turn, they're going to, they're going to wind up having to lose three 162s of a contract. They just are. I don't see either side budging on that. Yeah. I don't see it either. But I think six off days in the season would generate much better quality competition. Instead, we're going to see more guys taking days off. We're going to see sick man rotations,

and we're going to see guys that are going to get the Randall game off anyway. So nobody's trying to play 162 anymore. That's just a thing of the past. So we're not looking for streaks or anything, and they're not going to turn down gates, even if the gates are poultry. So that's to tell the truth of this week. Nice job, Ross. You're back on the winning trails.

Thank you, Matt. All right. What else we got going on? Let's see. Mention Kevin Durant. Cass says check the tape. Didn't I pick four? Yeah, you're right.

I don't know. You did pick four. You're correct. By the way, we have the news at noon coming up, and then after that, we're going to go through the Jim Bowden report card of the Astros off season. So I guess, Ross, I'll ask you this question. Well, you know, we'll save it for that, but I want you, first blush, don't even need to explain. A to F, describe the Astros off season and agreed. You want me to say it now?

Sure, why not? Or when we come back? Oh, when we come back. that's what we'll do. The news at noon. What's today's edition of Believe or Not at 150? Bad Bunny? We already did Bad Bunny.

Let's see. Kendrick Lamar got five Grammys. Grammy Awards in general? What else happened? But who's Kendrick Lamar going against? Jason Kidd. What do you mean? He's winning Grammys against whom?

Record of the years against everybody who's ever made a song? This is in a year? I don't know. This is a loaded question. Go ahead. I mean, most of his Grammys are rap album, rap performance. Record of the year is like literally the best song of the year. There's song of the year and record of the year, I think.

Did he win best song of the year? He won record of the year. But what was the best song of the year last night? It was Luther by Kendrick Lamar and Sizzia. So you're telling me that if I went got 50 cars. What? If I got into 50 cars. Okay.

How many would have Kendrick Lamar on their phone listening to that song right now? If it's the best song of the year. I want to say, yeah, it was number two in the end of the year Hot singles, Matt. Die with a smile, Lady Gaga. Bruno Mars was one.

Luther, Kendrick Lamar, and says it was two. And you got to think about the average person, Matt, is all listening to just the most popular music of today. So that's going to be replaying in people's cars over and over again. Billboard, end of the year. Hot 100. Kid the Camar had the number two

song that won record of the year. Okay, yeah, I mean, it's fine. Pullets are winner. 27 Grammys. Beyonce has the record with 35. He's coming for Beyonce. I don't think he's going to catch her, but congratulations to Kendrick Lamar.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, the awards are the awards. It is what it is. I can't, I mean, again. I know. Kenny Loggins didn't win five this year. I understand. He should have. I know he's got your vote.

You like jelly roll? Jelly roll, one? Matt? I'm not even a jelly roll. I don't like anything current. Oh, see, this is this, okay, we got to answer. That's right, it's right. I should be disqualified for music takes. I get it. Yeah, record of the year, it's two different things for whatever reason.

I think record of the year is more about the production of the record as well. So he didn't win Song of the Year, but he didn't win record of the year, Matt. Well, that's most important, right? I think it's a more prestigious award. Like, you know what I'm going to do for you, and I'm not going to do it today or tomorrow. I'm going to try to give you the last song that I regularly listen to. That won record of the year? No, that was hot in this decade.

I can give you, let's see. Record of the year, tears in heaven, Eric Clap, 93. I will always love you, Whitney Houston, 94. Okay, yes and yes. Let's see, Change the World, Clapton, 97. I know the song. My heart will go on, Celine Dion, 99. Good.

Keep going. Oh, smooth, Santana in 2000? Great. Beautiful Day, you two, 2001. Yes. Walk on YouTube. Dang, one again. What is that one?

How's that go? I don't know. All right. Nora Jones, don't know why. I mean, I'm trying to think of the last time a song was released that I've like, oh, I love this song. You got to expand your horizons, Matt. No, you don't. There's no need to.

I have 400 songs in my phone. You know what? You don't have to. 400 is nothing. I know it's nothing, but I like those. 400. You said you only had 400 songs? Probably yeah. Oh. I know. I disappoint you so. I get it. I'm actually surprised. You know what I just downloaded a new song? This is like just eating chicken, tenders and french fries every night, Matt. You got to diversify, maybe. That's an excellent

poll. I just downloaded a new song, guys. You did? It's not a new song. It's a 30-year-old song. It's the song, I know what you're doing. Um, uh, no, not, the 90s during the OJ trial. I heard it a lot. That's 30 years ago, Matt. Yeah, I know. I just downloaded that song.

So your modern pull for downloading is 30 years ago. Pretty much. Okay. I mean, I don't listen to a bunch of pop music. I mean, I know most of these songs. Lady Gaga Abercadabra. I mean, it sounds like every other Lady Gaga song to me, but what do I? Oh, oh, that's the song I downloaded.

That's the last song I downloaded from a Star is, born. The song with her and Bradley Cooper. Okay, that's a very good song. I'm going to give you that, that's a good taste. I'm on, what is it called? I'm on the something. We'll play and we come back.

Deep in, deep in. We don't have to. 1147. I'm being made fun of my music choices and I fully accept. That one? Shallow. That's a jam. Yeah, that's the last song I downloaded that I remember recently hearing.

Good job. That's a great song. Yeah, right? It wasn't 30 years ago. That's nice. Five, right? Five. We weren't doing using dial-up internet then, so that's proud of you, Matt.

You hear this, folks? I said, I'm proud of you. What? You said dial-up. Yeah, I said, yes, I'm proud of you. 7-1-3-2. Can somebody come be nice to be done? We have the news and news coming up shortly.

Rossi, 10% of ESPN is now owned by the NFL. Are we to be alarmed by this at all? State-controlled media is never a good thing. I don't know about the alarmed look. It's like, what are we going to do? They're going to combine the NFL network of ESPN. They probably, my guess, will probably abolish the NFL network ultimately. Really?

Or put ESPN personalities on the NFL. They could just have ESPN. It's like ESPN for NFL. Right, right. The NFL has games. They will give ESPN as part of it. So if you're a fan of Lewis Redick and Danerlowski doing more games, you'll probably get some more of those guys doing them.

I wish I'd say I'm surprised, but everybody's merging together and whatnot. I don't know. I think people lose their jobs. I don't know. I'm trying to think of like some kind of precedent where the league owns.

They're not only broadcasters, but they should be, they're reporters. Yeah. Well, I mean, think about this. Ian Rapaport's works for the NFL. Yes.

But he also. also he shills for them all the time. Just like how Adam Schaefter was while he was working. I guess Adam Schifter already shills for the NFL anyways. Right, right. There's only going to be 60 seconds of spots on Red Zone. Five weeks later is eight minutes.

I still take it. I mean, the problem is that I still love it. Yeah, but he used to be zero. Scott Hanson would come on there and he would say seven hours of commercial free football. And it meant something to me, damn it. Yeah. It's nothing.

I don't think the average person is going to necessarily notice a change. The average person is not going to notice any of these changes. And that's why everything's getting worse. And that's why prices are everything going up. 32 ounce tomato sauce cans go down to 20, 30 ounces and 29 ounces. And now they're 28 ounces. There's no recipe that says I need 28 ounces of tomato sauce. Everything's getting shrink-flated.

Double-stuff Oreos. Don't even look double-stuffed anymore. It's all going to hell, Matt. Oh, I got one for you, Rossi. Go get you a bag of chips. Oh, yeah. 80% air. 80% and how much dust is on the chip.

Doritos used to have this wonderful, delicious dust all over the chips. You know what? I feel bad for people like Jonathan. I was actually talking about them last week. Like, fast food used to be so much better. And where we ate last week used to be so much better. You got ruined it for us, man. When I worked at McDonald's in the 80s, the Big Mac was bigger.

Now they're not, it's like a decent-sized Mac. They're all small, right? Yeah, it's half the size and costs four times as much. It's not right. Waterberg on top. And nobody's going to notice. Yeah, the NFL is going to try to sweep all these stories under the rug. Journalism outlets are losing money and closing.

Hopefully our friends at the Athletic. I'm doing my part. I mean, I do subscribe to the Athletic. I just got hit with that. You're yearly charge. It's worth it. You're welcome, Chandler. Yeah, Chandler, if you're listening, you're welcome.

Paying your bills. You know what? We own Chandler now. Yeah. You know, he should buy his dinner in West Palm. Yeah, man, Chandler, if you're listening, we just got, we just bought your subscriptions. Dinner on you in the, in the Palm. Mm-hmm. At the Palm, probably.

We'll take that too. Yeah. And it wasn't that 99-cent introductory offer I got either. Yeah, they got, they squeeze you, don't they? Yeah, it's fine. All right. Yeah, I don't know. Well, but you know of something salty for the ESPN.

If Goodell gets attacked, you know there's going to be a phone call lob to ESPN. Yeah. It's going to be soft played. Absolutely. Or not necessarily good direct, right? It's going to be, there's also going to be implied pressure. But even so there was implied pressure before because they're all television partners. I mean, the NFL has partnerships with every television network.

And if you don't play nice by the NFL rules, they'll say, you know what? We don't care much money you have. We'll just ship these games to Apple or to Netflix or we'll give Fox a more games. And the influence can even be subconscious. Oh, yeah. How are they going to feel when we say this? we're in a difficult different time I should say in journalism yeah and my guess is Ross this would be like give me a news comp on this would this be

Congress only 10% of CNN I don't know I mean it's not too far off from that you're tell me there's not going to be conflict of interest both direct and implied always been implied now it's direct yeah what if somebody goes and digging up a bunch the NFL stuff and all of a sudden they get reassigned by ESPN or laid off. They're doing WMBA coverage or something. Matt, they're trying to build it up. No, I mean, maybe it'll be fine. I'm saying, you know what I'm saying.

You know what I'm saying. Going from the NFL to cross country. Super cross. Maybe they're doing the handball championships in Zurich. Yes. On Bundes League of coverage. That's right. All right. 1157. Time for the news.

Let's get to that next here on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-7-90 if you want to join us. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Trouble 3 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross stepped away for a few minutes. He'll be back with us here in just a matter of time. But while he steps away, the show must go on.

We want you to be a part of the program at 713-212-5-790. If you want to join us, you may do so. It's just me and you. you for just a few minutes until Ross gets back. 713-212-5-790. That's 7-1-3-212-5-790. Right now we present to you, like we do every day at this time, the news at noon.

And we will start with the Rockets. I'm here in Indianapolis, where tonight the Rockets will take on the Indiana Pacers. Houston trying for their third consecutive win, beat Atlanta on Thursday, beat Dallas on Saturday. And tonight it's Indiana. And they will be doing it without Kevin Duran, who's got a sore ankle and will be out and not available tonight.

Rockets have a busy week. They've got the Boston Celtics on Wednesday. Thursday, they've got Charlotte and then Saturday a game in Oklahoma City. So a lot of games coming up in the not too distant future. So no surprise that Kevin might need a night off to rest that ankle. And at this point, Kevin Durant will not be in uniform tonight for the Rockets against Indiana Paster. Speaking, Kevin Durant, going to the All-Star game named as a reserve. Alperin Shengoon was not named as.

a reserve despite scoring 21 points a game. Nine rebounds about six assists assists per contest. Personally, I'm more than okay with that. Get that ankle rested up. The Rockets need some downtime. So if Katie goes, that's good. You just be for plays. I don't particularly care because I don't like the All-Star game, but

Alpy being home is a very good thing. Other things going on in baseball, Jeremy Payne, officially announcing today that he will be taking part in the World Baseball Classic representing the Dominican Republic and Janard Diaz. For his Aster teammate will be on that squad as well.

And that coming down from the athletic just about an hour ago. Also, in sports today, we have the NFL Super Bowl getting underway with all the media activities in San Francisco. Roger Goodell will be speaking to the media for his state of the NFL press conference among conversation pieces will be the proposed 18 game schedule coming up. ESPN, 10% of the NFL owning ESPN. and obviously some folks are very upset about a non-black head coach this offseason being hired among those 10 jobs that were available in the off season. What else we got? Oh, by the way, more international games on the way. Five already have been announced for the 2006 season, including a game for the Saints in Paris,

and two teams, don't know who they're going to be just yet, will be playing in Australia during the 2020s season. And that, my friends, at 1206, is the news at noon. So I'm trying to think what the hot button topic of the conversation was. And I watched the NBA last night. I did not watch any of the Grammys because I didn't, frankly, know any of the songs. So don't rip me on that too badly. It is what it is. Now, I should go back.

You know what I should do, Jonathan? I should go back and watch the 1978 Grammys because I'd know all those songs, would I not? No, Matt, I think from moving forward, I want you to... Oh, diversify. Yeah, just be uncomfortable. okay to be uncomfortable. You got to learn something. The performance is really good yesterday. You got to go look back and watch it. I'm sure they were great.

But yeah, I'm not good. Like, I don't know if I only watch halftime. I mean, I think I need to watch Bad Bunny to see if I like Bad Bunny. That's fair. But if I don't like it on Monday, are you going to crush me for now? Are you a Bad Bunny guy? Yeah, I love Bad Bunny, but I'm not going to crush you because you don't like the music. I mean, you're subjective at the end of the day. You know what I mean?

That's right. It is subjective. And guess what? Do not check your social media. because 50% of the country is going to think Bad Bunny was the most incredible halftime act and 50% is going to say it's sad. Yeah, don't go on Twitter, guys. It's going to be. Yeah, because that's what we do. That's what we are in 2026.

We are 50-50. We are 50-50. All right. As far as the Rockets are concerned, they beat the Mavericks on Saturday night. It was a very fun game. Good atmosphere. Rockets picking up that second straight win. And I'll tell you what.

The NBA trade deadline is coming up on Thursday. One of the things I brought up during the show today on the television, on to tell the truth about a half an hour ago was I have a gut feeling and I should save this really more for tomorrow but you know what in the sake of this time slot I'm doing it right now I do think the rockets

should severely kick the tires on getting a big because as I said before about a half an hour ago so much of what the rockets need to do and what has been their strength in their core is keeping possessions alive

and we've got some really good offensive rebound Stephen Adams made this team an elite offensive rebounding team. And not that Clint Capella can do it, but Clint's not going to be able to do it with nearly the veracity as, say, Stephen Adams did. So if you get me one more big body, I'd be more than happy with that. Because I think, honestly, it'll be probably easier to get a third big, a reserve guy that you probably either a little longer in the tooth or doesn't play a lot for another team and giving something up as compared to, going to get a superstar point guard, which would be very hard to do because, again, the rockets are kind of tied into a lot of contracts.

You know, I know that Charles Barkley said, I guess is what a previous caller, Gary said a little while ago, that Charles Barkley wasn't satisfied with a guard position, point guard spot. To me, watching a lot of NBA and calling a lot of NBA games, you do want good ball handling.

You do get troubled by some nights where the Rockets turn the ball over 16, 17, 18, 19 times. But on Saturday, as part of their victory, they only turned it over six times. Now, that may be a one-off, or that may be something that the Rockets may do ultimately down the future and starting to reduce their turnover count.

If they do that, that'll be even better. But athletically, a man Thompson can guard any point guard in this league. Jabari Smith can certainly do it. Josh Akoki gets in the people's face. I don't want to say it's overblown because if you have a great point guard, you are certainly at a significant advantage.

That's why the loss of Fred Van Vlee cannot be over-discussed because of the fact that he was a prototypical, true point guard that directed the offense, both with his emotions and his play. But there aren't guys sitting around the NBA dishing the ball out seven times a game,

scoring 14 points, and locking down defenders that are readily available for any team, much less the Rockets. So if you're going to improve something and really put together some sort of stretch, you might as well try to improve something you're already pretty good at to begin with, and that is going to get somebody that can grab some more boards and continue this trend of the Rockets as a top offensive rebounding team in the NBA.

So that's why I kind of said, Dirling, during earlier today on to tell the truth, that if the Rockets are going to do anything, it probably would be a lot easier to go grab a backup big as it would be to go get another guard. But you never know. Rockets have shown no interest in Yonis than the Gupo. That comes to really no surprise there, because I think you'd have to give them a plethora of draft picks and a plethora of current players.

And it feels like to me that somebody's going to do it. And I just don't think the Rockets would be the team that would be the ones that would want to do that. So two remains to be seen if the Rockets do anything at the deadline. I still think the favorite in the clubhouse is the Rockets do nothing. Followed by Rockets, Big Man, followed by Rockets getting a backup point guard or some sort of guard that can handle the basketball. mentioned again the Astros with Jeremy Pena going to the DR. Spring training coming up in a handful of weeks. In fact, they're going to have the trucks leave for West Palm Beach in just a handful of days.

Ross and I, two weeks from today, will be in West Palm Beach for spring training coverage, 2026. Very excited about that. We'll be there for three days and give you many interviews as we can as we get you ready for spring training coverage. And, of course, we are the proud home of the Astros here on Sports Talk 790. We'll carry a bunch of spring training. games and then the full 162 slate. College basketball from over the weekend, the Cougars destroyed Cincinnati, have not seen where they are in the latest polls.

I don't care about polls. All I know is that I do look at the Bracketology, and the last thing I saw in the brocotology is the Cougars would be a number two seed in the South region, which is a very good sign because the South Region championships will be held at the TOTA Center in downtown Houston, so go Cougs on that. 1212 on Sports Talk 790. Speaking of the Astros offseason, Jim Bowden, who has been on the show,

did a story for the athletic, grading all 30 major league baseball teams when it comes to their off season. A is the best, obviously. F is the worst. I didn't see any Fs. I did see some Ds. D's what?

Don't answer that question. Don't answer that question, Jonathan. Don't answer it. I knew as soon as I said D's, you were going to chime in. I knew you were going to do that. Don't do it. What grade did Jim Bowden give the Astros offseason?

We'll tell you about that in just a minute because I do respect his mind. He does follow all 30 teams and he has a good feeling of what to be said and done during the offseason. So how do the Astros offseason look according to one baseball mind? We'll have it for you coming up next. 713-212-5-790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross joining us back here shortly. I'm here in Indianapolis for the Rockets and Pacers here on Sports Talk 790.

A couple of weird tweets. I got sent Ross, Jimmy. May I mention them quickly? Yes, you may, Matthew. So you're talking about your guy, Kendrick, right? Yes. So Cher is announcing the Academy Award. Not Kennedy.

Share? Okay. She's reading out the nominees, and then it's time for her to announce the winner. I'm reading this is from a tweet called a Twitter account called Hustle Bitch. That's interesting. All right. 79-year-old chair freezes on stage, stares at the teleprompter, then realizes the winner is printed on the card in her hand.

She reads it anyway. Then she says Luther Vandross wins. Well, the song is called Luther, and it samples Luther Vandross. But he is dead. He's been dead for 21 years. Yes. Then she blurts out, no, Kendrick Lamar. the actual winner.

Oh, share. Mm-mm-mm. All time for me, Goat. Don't even respond. Don't just say nothing. Let me move on to my second tweet. You know, NBA athletes are resilient, Rossi. They are.

Some. The San Antonio Spurs beat the Orlando Magic last night. Yes? They had their game pushed back twice because of flight issues. Oh, wow. They beat the magic last night in San Antonio 1, 12 to 101. three. Wonderful.

So they were supposed to play the game in the afternoon, and they were delayed because their flight from Charlotte, because they got snowed in and Charlotte, was running super late. So they were flying from Charlotte to San Antonio. Uh-huh. They had to make a pit stop in Atlanta. What?

Mm-hmm. They lost cabin pressure on the way to San Antonio. Oh, dear. Like the masks drop down for everyone? Here is what I was told from a San Antonio broadcaster. They descended 20,000 feet in five minutes. That's straight south, right? That's not good for your heart or anything, is it right? Jacob Toby, who is the voice, the television announcer for the Spurs, says the following.

I definitely felt a little lightheaded and made your ear popping. Give credit to our flight crew who took great care of us and kept us informed as best they could. Oh, my gosh. What happened? I don't know. I don't know how you, what happens when you lose Kevin? pressure. I mean, obviously, mechanical there. I mean, why are they diving so much? Yeah.

I don't know, but... Going around a storm or something? I would need shots. I would need probably a new pair of pants. All of the above. Don't mess yourself, Matt. Are you going to stink up the whole... 20,000 feet in five minutes? You're going to stink up

the whole plane. They'll understand. No, they won't. I will be screaming at you. What would you be saying? Stop soiling yourself. Yeah, come on. I would hope not. Then you'd be known as pooping pants the rest of your life.

But under just fable reasons, right? 20,000 feet in five minutes. That doesn't sound fun at all. No. That's like how tall is Mount Everest? Okay, let's change the topic. I've got to fly home tonight. Mount Everest is 29,000 feet.

Crazy. Not great. But they were obviously able to rally. Got a new plane in Atlanta, flew, landed, got to the arena, and kicked Orlando's ass for a couple of hours. Hmm. It didn't seem to affect them. No, they're fine.

All right. So Jim Bowden in front of the show. Yes. Rides for the Athletic. I believe he's on MLB Network, got an MLB Network radio for sure. And he was asked to grade the off-season of baseball teams, all 30 of them.

And we don't want to get into a deep dive of how the Rays did or how the Angels did. We're going to care about the Houston Astros and how he thought the Astros did. from the time the season ended to where we are right now. So, A being the greatest, F being the worst, I asked you earlier, grade out the Astros offseason, and the grade you gave or won't want to give right now is C plus.

A what? C plus. Are you serious? Why not? Because that's what Jim Bowden gave him. What? Yeah. That's funny. Free agent signings.

Tetsuya Eme, three years, $54 million. Of course, other votable years. Yes. Nate Pearson, one-year deal, 1.35. Ryan Weiss, friend of the show, one year 2.6. Trades. Nick Allen from Rizzo Dubon. Mike Burroughs for Jacob Mountain and Anderson Brito,

who then eventually went to the raise. Kai Wei Ting from the Giants for Hansel Villarreal and international bonus pool money. His key takeaway, stay with me on this, the Astros will let free agent Framber Valdez walk and are replacing him by gambling

on two pitchers who played overseas last year. They also bolstered their rotation by acquiring Mike Burles and the Pirates. How much success that trio has this year might ultimately decide whether Houston can get back to the postseason. Here's the biggest question he has. Will the Astros extend the contracts

of general manager Dana Brown and manager Joe Spotted during the season or make them wait until the season ends. His season prediction on the team to finish second place in the American League West. Any arguments on that? It feels about right. I like the arms and I mean, Dana Brown's not going to get a. You get a A, it's like you make a bunch of big trades and big signing. That's in flashy, splashy moves, and he just doesn't have the farm system or the funds to do that kind of thing.

Yeah. The Mariners, by the way, not getting a deep dive of what they've done. The Mariners were given an A-minus, and they are predicted to finish first. The Rangers were given a grade of B, and they are expected to finish third in the American League West. The Angels were given a C-plus. They're expected to finish fifth. The whatever we're calling them this week. A's were given a grade of C-minus, and they're expected to finish fourth. I honestly I don't think the future Dana and Joe are the biggest questions

I think you always had that question if a team either underperforms or overperforms you're always thinking about who's going to be the leadership so maybe he was just talking talking with a painting with a broad brush on this to me the biggest question marks always will revolve around what's happening on the field. The biggest thing for me is how is this outfield going to produce this year? I'm going to go with that right there. I'm going to stop right there.

I got a pretty good feeling with so many arms the asteros have. They're going to find five or six guys that can do a decent job. I'm not really worried about that. I agree. I'm not worried about decongested infield because I think it's going to it's going to either be decongested or someone's going to get hurt or they're going to figure out to play nice with all these extra guys.

I'm a little worried about it. Well, I mean, you're, is it you worried because you're going to have somebody sitting on the bench that you don't want, that you like that should be playing? Is that what you're worried about? Yeah. Okay. That's fair. I mean, especially if it's Esauk Paredes, who I think he's one of their top three bats, works pitches. I mean, how often we talk about when he, especially when he went down last year, how big he of a miss he was from the lineup because he was the only one with any patience.

Yeah. But as much as you, I'm agreeing with you on that. Zach Cole, Jake Myers, and Cam Smith. That's all. Now, that's, now Jake's been doing it. But you know what it is? As soon as I said it, you're changing your tune a little bit.

And not changing my tune. What do you mean? I said the outfield was great. When did I say that? No, but that's the biggest concern for me. I'm going to say it again. And then I want you to add a different sound effect because you can't do it.

Zach Cole, Sam Smith. Should be great. With a little bit of Jose Altuve maybe. And a little bit of, a little bit of Jordan out there. Let's go. I love you, Zach Cole. That was a nice little lightning in a bottle you caught last year.

But let's get some Jordan out there. What I always tell you? What? Don't trust March numbers. Don't trust September numbers. Okay. Unless. No, I've got Zach Cole in the Hall of Fame.

I'm ready. Unless the Zach Cole of September. was the start of something big. Yes. Because that's what you had to be thinking. And on Cam's side, it's even Joe Espada told us last week at Astro Fan Fest. You know,

he needs to understand that every rookie goes through his ups and downs. Sadly for Cam, there was probably more downs than ups, especially because everybody in North America that ever called this radio show or any Astro fan went to Twitter account said, you've got to have Cam Smith in the lineup.

He must make the Major League team. This is a can't miss. Well, he missed quite a bit. He played well defensively. He did an excellent job defensively, but that's only half the grade. The other half was OPS Plus of 87 folks. And the scale starts at average at 100. I'm trying to

Should I even Dare I even look up to second half Oh Don't don't even say it Oh Don't tell the audience Don't We're trying to get people

In a good mood on a Monday Don't do it 489 OPS Second half Look Ross He's the first round pick for a reason He's gonna be fine He's gonna be fine

It seems to the old guy Finns are projections You want the baseball reference projections When we come back Oh look at this guy Give me Zach Cole, too, by the way. Oh, I've got to pull these up. I know Jake Myers' projection.

What, yeah? Five-star catches. Yep. Bat speed. Lofted singles over to second, over second maze. Helmet falls off 80% of the time. Infield singles. Grindr.

Yeah. Works hard. Has plenty of your friends. Ooh. Hmm. All right. Projections when we come back. All three or just the two?

Oh, you want, oh, you want Jake, too? Well, you don't have to. I'm just saying, because you were sounding optimistic. I was thinking you were talking about Jake. We'll see. We'll discuss. The projections? What's believe it or not real quick?

Somebody said the last cast member of Sanford and Son died. Oh. Lamont. By the way, A. We can do Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar. We can do Grammy winners or Grammy Facts in general. Do Grammy Fax. Yeah, Chick Correa has 28.

Grammys all time, Matt. Your thoughts? I don't know one of his songs. Okay. It's more of a, like a Latin jazz guy. All right, that's fair. 1230, sports talk, 790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-790. We will start taking out some phone calls. And then we had a couple of folks that dropped during the last timeout.

So if you want to get back in, we will get to you. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. Matt and Ross with you here on 7-9. I'm coming to you today from Indianapolis, Rockets and Pacers tonight at 6 o'clock. Ross, who's making these projections, just to put this in context here? These are from baseball reference. I mean, Fangraphs does their own baseball perspectives, has their pagoda projections.

They base it on certain metrics and things that they've seen and what could possibly happen at the, these are usually like, I guess, baseline or average projections. Like the players always outperform or underperform these projections. This is like basically what the median projection is for, a certain player for the season. All right. Give us the good news. Zach Cole projected. Now this is only

200 played appearances, so it could be more. We could maybe triple these numbers if he's going to play a full season. 250 batting average. 770 OPS. Six stolen bases, nine home runs. So if you triple that, it could be 27 home runs for Zach Cole if you

please be a everyday player according to these projections. Okay. That gives me incredible optimism. I'm feeling good. Now, there's a very short sample size. You only got 52 plate appearances last year. But I think they look at minorly stuff, too. If you're not concerned about the Astros outfield, it doesn't mean

concern doesn't mean things can get, well, who said they're not concerned? But you've got to be, I'm saying, generally speaking, you should be concerned. I am. We're handing, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the general. We're handing a left fielder, the left fielder spot with 52 plane appearances. He's ready to go, Matt.

I hope so. Let's see. Sam Smith. Yes. Eleven home runs. Now this is more of, this is about 450 plate appearances. Okay. They're projecting for him.

11 home runs, 715 OPS. If you're getting elite right field defense in 715 OPS, that's not terrible, but it's also not a superstar. But you're getting, at this point, you've given a zero power out of the outfield. Maybe mega power. Correct. Okay. Well, thankfully, Jake Myers is going to fill that void for us. 10 home runs and about 450 played appearances.

696 OPS. So you're looking at an OPS of your outfield of 700-ish, where 800 is considered good. And this is, yeah. 725 is about average. You get to 7.50 and above. You're thinking he is a pretty good ball player. Hmm.

I mean, I think he gave us some good news. I like this 770 number for Cole. That's found. Look, 770 OPS is. better than what Jose L. Tuvei did last year. Just saying, hey now. You leave him alone. I'm just saying. He's playing second base now, by the way.

Oh, wait, I lied. He was 7.71. Oh, then you need to apologize. I do. I apologize. To Jose. Yeah. Okay, so the power's going to come from whom? Jorn on Alvarez. Christian Walker

slash Esak Paredes. Jose L. Tuvei, didn't he get like 25, 26 home runs? He still wakes up with about 10 leadoff. home runs per season? Yes. Carlos Correa? He can get you 25. Pena, close to 20, probably.

Yeah. Nobody's going to end. You need 40 from Yordaugh. Yeah, this team is not going to slug a lot. Which, by the way, Yordons never hit 40 home runs. Well, once it gets past 130 games, we're going to be a good shape. So need not worry. 40 home runs, 144 games played in 2026. And it'll be a gut feeling that I will get wrong.

And I'll be more than happy to say I'm wrong. Oh, wait. If he plays, no, we bet. What's our bet? Oh, chips? Let me go look. Mm-hmm. How about we start betting on stuff involving healthier foods?

Like, how about it with some fresh fruit? Okay. Yeah, I'll do a fruit basket. That's right. We'll do a fruit basket. Orange, grapes, plums, apples. Okay, this bet runs until 2036, by the way. Wait a minute.

It's a drive-through lunch bet. The Yordon bet? Oh, let's get, okay, we'll go to smoothie King. We'll get, we'll get a low sugar smoothie off of this. That counts as drive-thru lunch, technically. That's fine. It does. Anything in the drive-thru works?

Go to Kava, too. We can knock that out. Let's talk to Steve online one of the Matt Thomas show. Ross at 1240. Steve, good afternoon to you. Hey, good afternoon. Did somebody say that we're going to get how many home runs from Walker? Was that a joke?

He had 27. He had 27 last year. Did he? Yeah. And how many RBI did he bring in? I don't know. 8590 or something like that? He led the team in RBI's, did he now?

Was it? Well, I guess my point of calling is, is, you know, 88. 88. Okay, well, I guess that's not bad. It just seemed like, it seemed like every time Walker came to bat, there was either one, two, and even sometimes three people on base, and his home runs always seem to be with nobody on base. And I think what the Astros are doing here is they're trying to make you feel like they're really doing something.

Because last year, we missed the playoffs by one game. If we just had half of the games, our 10 games, or 20 games, where we had bases loaded, our people on sit on two on base, and we did nothing except pop out, we probably win the division, but we definitely would win the division, and we would have been in the playoffs. There is nobody on this team that you guys just mentioned that I would guarantee is going to have over 20 home runs. And Alvarez, my God, I don't know, what if he steps on a base again and sprains an ankle

or hurts a quad or pulls a muscle in his, I mean, there's just so many things that's going on, and what they're worried about is pitching. I understand pitching is a crucial part of it, but they're trying to give us the old, well, you know what, we know we suck as a hitting team, so what we're going to do is we're going to try to out pitch everybody, which I hope it works. I don't think it's going to work. Last year our pitching wasn't the problem. It was our hitting.

I'll hang up and listen, guys. Thanks for the time. You got it. I thought last year was a lot about pitching. How many people do we never hear about that made meaningful starts, i.e. Jason Alexander, one. He had 14 home runs with men on, 13 with no men on.

So about half. Our friend was wrong. What's that? I'm looking for his runners in scoring position average. 238, 737 OPS. I mean, that's consistent with about what he was in the year. Yeah, so there wasn't a whole lot

difference. Actually, you're better. He was 717 overall OPS. Ops. Yikes. 737 with Risp. So slightly better. I'm not trying to spin it like he was good He struck out 100s No, no, because I look You don't have to have a computer in front of you

You look at games that you go Oh, there's another strikeout with the bases loaded I mean I know that was seen And it happened more than once Did it happen once a week? No, but it did it happen a lot of times? Yes Did it happen?

Because if you look at this Ross You tend to remember the missed opportunities more than the solo blast And the six inning of a game against the ace You know what I mean? That's what people do What's we all do? I would say if you wanted to say, how can Christian Walker be better in 2026 than he was in 2025?

You would say you would want him to be more productive in clutch situations. I would say that for a lot of different. I would just say more productive overall, yeah. Yeah, more productive overall, but how many men did he leave on base, especially with runners in scoring position? You said what is the batting average 238, you said? With risk, yes. Yeah. What is the, I guess the question is what's the average person?

a career 250 guy. I mean, he hit 238 overall the whole season. I mean, he just wasn't good. Yeah, not enough. Not enough money to make you say,

well, thank God the Astros got the first basement spot fixed. Maybe he's going to be better. Maybe he got that oblique injury last year. And maybe that's the reason why they're holding on a parade is. They're like, you know what? If we're really seeing the ultimate downfall

of Christian Walker's career, we need an insurance policy. Yeah. Any psych parties would be that insurance policy. 1245. Matt and Ross with you today until 2 o'clock. If you'd like to join us, you may do so. At 713-212-5-7-90.

7-13-212-5-790. So Jason Kidd went off on Saturday night. The NBA has responded to his said comments. We'll tell you what they've done next. 7-13-212-5-790. Jason Kidd is $35,000 in the pocket. book. He swore a lot at a

reporter and he also apparently was not happy with the officiating, which I thought was exemplary in the game on Saturday for the Rockets against Mavericks. Did you? Is that as you got your Houston Rockets glasses on? Did you think the officiating was bad? Good or different? I actually only

caught the extended highlights. I'm going to be honest. What'd you be doing? Extended highlights were good though. Look good for the Rockets. Got close and they won. Yeah. Cooper flag is pretty good. Kevin Durant's pretty good. Men Thompson doing all right. Rockets moving up the ladder.

Western Conference, baby. Let's go. No Kevin Durrins. Six of 20 from the field. So, you know what? I don't have my notes in front of me. Shame on me. He's about 30% from the floor since he went 15 to 17 against Memphis one week ago yesterday.

Well, that's fine. He takes a lot of threes, perimeter. Nope. No player. No, no. Nope, nope, nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. It's not like he's a Go big fellow It's not like he's a big man in the middle of the paint Taking Right It's not like it's been like short hook shots and bunnies No he's a jump hook machine

Oh okay Crafty passer Zero threes And went six for 20 Wheeh Hey they won the ball game That's what's important That's what's important

14 rebounds seven assists Only two turnovers All right let's play guess the scorecard for him tonight What's he going to do against the Indiana Pacers, no Kevin Durant playing tonight? 27 points? Yes. You know what? Nah, triple doubles a little much.

Record it. Record this, Jonathan, for tomorrow. 27 points? 50% field goal percentage? Oh, he's going to get harassed. Nine assists, 15 rebounds. Almost a triple double tonight. Almost.

Okay. Jay Huff blocks a ball. lot just saying that's where the rebounds come in okay it's gonna be rebounds i didn't say whose shots he's gonna be rebounding if you're close tomorrow would gloss you nostril rossus that's right now that'd be weird why would i give myself a nickname from getting one random prediction right that i pulled out of my ass that would be ridiculous it works for some i mean could you imagine no well yes i can actually okay i mean i don't know i don't know I don't know. Intimate details of the book.

Could I imagine it for sure? All right. One more thing we've got to talk about here. I've told you I love the AIs. The Bob Barker AIs are becoming too much. Oh, my God. Oh, here we go. People are sending them to me still.

Great listener to the show. Great friend, Kenny and Katie. Sends me them almost on a daily basis. Wow. This one he sent me here. I've got to turn this down. Hold on. Let me turn it down.

You're all right. This one is Bob Barker talking to Jimmy Kimmel, and it's a Kamala Harris pan. That's all I'll say about it. Pan? Pan, like frying pan. Okay. Let me send it to you? No, I'm good.

I think I need a break from the... I think I need a break. They were funny for a while, and now they're just being overdone. When C.J. Stroud makes it to the price is right with Bob. That's a trouble spot. Jump the shark is what you're saying. When Jared Stidham... Poor Jared Stinnom.

All he wants to do is win one playoff game in his first start in three years. And he's on the box. He's on the Price is right AI. They had Stiddy on there? Yes. Anybody and everybody is on the prices right now. There are generations of 19-year-olds that have no idea who Bob Barker is. Like, who is this gray silver guy hosting a game show with my favorite artist on there or sports athlete?

This isn't the one of the legacy I want to Bob Barker? Why don't they go after somebody that? Why don't they go like Pat Sajak AI? Why they attack and Bob? I don't know. Poor Bob. No, he's not getting attacked. He makes the punchlines on all these.

Well, the voice is eerily similar. Yeah. Well, first of all, AI is eerily similar with everything. But God Almighty. It is weird watching the NBC games. You know, they have the voice that used to do the promo reads during the game. Like, whatever that guy's voice, that guy has been dead for years, too, and they still use his voice to introduce the NBC game of the week.

Yeah. It's kind of, well, it's not going away. That's why you must listen to our radio station because we are not AI. We are true human beings. Guaranteed. Guaranteed human as the kids would say. Yes. Thank God.

There was a way to AIS. They probably figure out a way to do it, save a little bit of money. But that's a different issue for a different time. Yeah. We'll cross those bridges where we come to them. All right. 1257, final hour of the show. Did you hear what?

But Caitlin Clark, the cross-reference for her as an NBA comp, I don't think she was pleased by that. We'll get to that. We'll mention Rockets, a little baseball talk, and NFL festivities are underway. Ross, do we have a preview for tomorrow's Pro Bowl? Yeah, actually, Jonathan's going to give us full position-by-position breakdown. He is not.

The Pro Bowl? I don't even watch that. Nobody watches it. Ratings have been good. No, you're wrong. Say no, the Pro Bowl. Pro Bowl ratings? I think, actually, they did go down last year.

What's going to have lower ratings? The All-Star game of the NBA or the Pro Bowl? Ooh, wait, 225, record low. Thank God. I mean, they're playing flag football. They don't even playing anything close to what they normally do. Yeah, I want them to run each other, crack each other's Achilles and ACLs and Skulls. Come on.

Perfect. For my own entertainment. Yes. And if you're not willing to do it, then don't play it. Be like having an NBA All-Star game and just playing games. and just playing horse for two hours. No, it's different. Basketball, they're basically playing horse out there on the NBA All-Star game.

That is true, too. Just, you know what, we're a better world to eliminate all of it. No more All-Star games for any sport. Let the guys have some downtime. You know what we ought to do? We ought to read a book during All-Star break. I will. I'll.

I'm sure to do that. I don't believe you. It's probably fair that you don't. 1258, Matt Thomas Show, a Ross, another hour to go. All things about Grammys, I'm believing or not today coming up in 50 minutes. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

104 on Sports Talk 790, coming up in about 15 minutes. Listen to me very carefully. I'm going to read you the cops of an ESPN reporter on how the Texans should handle the off-season contract conversations with both C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson, Jr. We're also to be fair to say that the audience should brace for the numbers. I'm braced. Tomorrow's gut feelings are going to be based on what we talk about here in about 15 minutes.

Okay. Just keep that in mind. We'll save it for the gut feelings for tomorrow, but I at least want to lay out what Dan Graziano had to say earlier today. Matt, I'm with you here from Indianapolis, where the Rockets are going to take on the Indiana Pacers tonight trying for their third consecutive. It will be without the services of Kevin Durant, who has got a sore ankle. I don't know how severe it is.

My guess is, and I've not seen EMA yet, that would be helpful, hopefully just a one-game thing because you frankly need them this week. Rossi, an important week coming up. Boston tomorrow night or on Wednesday. Thursday, it'll be Charlotte and then Saturday in Oklahoma City to see the thunder for the third time this season. Must win games coming up for your Houston Rockets this week. on Sports Talk 790. Not true. I've asked you

countless times since the counter your turn to soften your stance on must wins. Four games this week, Matt. Are you going to be all right? It's been four games for like three weeks in a row. It's in the city for more than one days.

You're right. Well, yeah, it's back to back. Yeah, the yo-yoing it's, there's been a lot of yo-yoing cities lately. I've been yo-yoing a lot these days. Rocket stand in the fourth spot in the Western Conference. They are a game and a half behind three-seated Denver. Denver lost at home last night to Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City led from start to finish in that game. I think the Thunder are back to being the awesome team that we thought they were going to be. Isaac is back. Well, you're saying December swoon's happen. Yep, just like the Rockets. Rockets have finished maybe a game or two of a 500 for the month of January, something like that. Not bad. Could have been worse.

So the Rockets are the two seeds in their sites. They're two back of San Antonio. San Antonio has the two games to one lead in the season series. Then the three seats, Denver. And I think Denver is up to one of the series. Rockets have the four seed. Minnesota's the five seed. They're a half game behind the Rockets.

The Lakers have dropped to nine back, a game and a half behind the Rockets as the sixth seed. So the playoffs would begin today, which they don't. still have 30, let's see, 45 games left. The Rockets would be the four-seat and would host the Minnesota Timberwolves in a seven-game playoff series. Your thoughts? Rockets in six.

Thunder in five or six. If you want to be honest, I'm going to say five. If you want to be a homer, I'm going to say six. I would like you to be a complete liar. Oh, okay. Rockets in four. That's what I'm talking. They're going to sweep the thunder out of the playoffs. No doubt in my mind lock at a week.

and Shea Gilders-Alexander's only another free throw lines four times per game. Yes. He's going to stop foul baiting. He's going to have an epiphany. Falbating. Falbating, as Eme Adoka calls it. Funny, Emey said this two weeks ago. Falbating was talked about for four or five players when he played.

Yes. Now it's four to five players per team are foul baiting. Yes. Ethical hoops. That's what the word Victor Wimbunyama uses. Do we have a foul baiter on the rockets? I don't think so Shingoon a little bit

Yeah Because I think he feels like Every time somebody touches him There's contact He does a lot of flailing He wants everything reviewed Tell you how you stop that You put the index finger up in the air for review

Boom there's your review Thank God the NBA doesn't let the players decide Because everybody wants to view everything Yeah it's just I would say Kevin Durant's not a foul baiter But he's crafty And gets to the foul on

I think Shaggill does how like is the definition of a foulbator. And look, James Hardin was a foulbator. For sure. Denny Advia. Adda shoots more free throws than anybody I've ever seen in my life. Yes.

Yes. James Hardin was he was looking to get to the foul line. Yeah, yeah. All right. So Caitlin Clark was on NBC basketball last in the pregame show, and there were people on the dais or on the stage or whatever they're calling it. They're not on a stage, but they were in the front of the, whatever they call it thing.

Desk? Desk? Yeah, that's good. and Reggie Miller was asked for a comp on Caitlin Clark's impact if she was in the NBA. And his response, well, people were thinking he was going to see Steph Curry. And that may be a wee bit extreme, but among the elites for what Caitlin has done as a young NBA player for her two seasons. His comp was Peyton Pritcher of the Boston Celtics. and that has gotten the social media world

not up in arms but like what the hell are you talking about how does Peyton Pritchard feel about all this hey what did I do he's dragged into this he's catching straight as Ross he just is and six man of the year 17 points for game this year

he's a good year you know what we do and it's we've done us our entire life we can't put a white person's cop into a black player in a black player in a white we just don't do it we just can't do it i can do it i can do it but the general population can't do it yeah and i would say general yes it's it's funny how that works uh we're getting better matt as the years go along we're trying you know maybe maybe the easiest

thing would be to do it was just not to cop anybody and i ask you all the time for a cop i maybe i'm the guilty party maybe i should be asking for comps of things okay but man bitt bitt richard i mean Nice player. Yeah. But by far, by no means a household name. I think if you're going Caitlin Clark, and again, last year she was injured a lot, so she didn't play a whole lot. But you can't comp the most dynamic college player maybe ever in women's college basketball to the rookie, to a superstar young player through two years in NBA and call her Peyton Pritchard. She sighed out and she's like, I'm going to beat your ass as soon as the interview is over with.

I don't care who you are. Peyton Pritcher was balling at Oregon. he was I guess she is the face of the sport Peyton Pritchard is not I guess what's the natural comp then Steph Curry I guess Steph Curry is what people were saying that that should have been the comp because she can hit it she can hit shots from anywhere on the floor and that's what Steph Curry's been known for

that would have been the comp she's got to get those percentages up well I don't know I don't know if women's percentages typically are high to begin with well she went from 34% as a rookie to 27.9 as a Yes. Second year player. Third year bounce back.

Yes. Even if they play. Like C.J. Stroud. Oh, you're calling, that's your comp on Katelyn Clark. It's a C.J. Stroud. No. That is not my comp. I was a little nervous there.

Relax. Is the Clark Hive going to come get me? Or the Stroud Hive are both. I am in Indianapolis. This is where she plays her games. Just saying. That's true. You're going to go?

When's the season start? It's both start in May, but they are they still having CBA issues? Yeah, they haven't had their draft. Are they locked down? Are they an expansion draft? Yeah, they're stuck. I think there's confusion or apprehension about how much the league is really worth. Your thoughts on the labor strife, Matt?

I have no thoughts whatsoever. I don't do that. We should get a labor attorney on. Maybe we can do a deep down, breakdown. Yeah, we'll say that for your podcast. That's true. By the way, the game show podcast will be coming this summer to a podcast near you. Wonderful.

Because I think the game show and wrestling podcast mixed. It wasn't going to work out. Especially since I don't watch any current wrestling. Did you catch in the Royal Rumble this weekend from Saudi Arabia? Oh, man, it was insane. And I thought it was great. And were you happy with the decision?

Who won the men's side? Yeah, I thought Cody Rhodes should have won. That is an excellent poll. Yes. You were a little apprehensive about saying his name, but it works. Man, I thought it was so great. When all you thought one thing was going to be? to happen and the other thing happened with that one

oily guy that muscled up in on roids through the other oily guy who's muscled up on roids him with the chair. There's no steroids in wrestling anymore I'm talking about. And by the way, ESPN stop treating it like it's a news event. They're doing this again. Breaking

news. Who won? They're doing it. Somebody should just say, look, the WWE can send you the scripts. They'll tell you who's going to win. This is not breaking news. This is not a, you do not bring a wrestling analyst into, to break down what is going on. You don't even mention it. Wrestling is not a sport. It's acting.

It involves athleticism, but it's acting. You cannot, but unless SportsCenter is so bored with talking about the, about the Cowboys and LeBron that they have to bring up wrestling. It's embarrassing how they, they treat it as a legitimate sport. And I love wrestling, but I know what it is. Live coverage from Saudi Arabia post-match result. What? It's ridiculous. Speaking of French sports,

did you catch the Australian Open final, Matt, at 3.30 a. Who won? Carlos Alcarez defeated Novak Djokovic in four sets. And how much of that did you watch? I watched the extended highlights of that, too. You know what I'm going to start calling you Mr. Extended Highlights? Dude, I love extended highlights. You know what?

I want you to watch the Rockets game tonight, so we can have a decent conversation. I watch almost every Rockets game. I'm going to say probably under three, I've had to extend it highlights them. Are you on the wrap tonight? I am not. It'll be Dan Matthews' eyes. Shout out to my niece, Violet. It's her birthday.

How old is she today? She's 11 years old. And what did Uncle Ross get her? Firm handshake? Sorry about my son. Surprise you didn't say side hug. Oh, no, I didn't get a big hug. Pick her up.

But when it comes to gift giving, you've given her nothing. You know, I don't normally get the kid's gifts. They actually, their parents tell me not. We've actually argued about this on air before. They tell me not to because they get so many toys and gifts. Like she gets, she has too much stuff. Their parents tell me. That is ridiculous.

What kid has too much stuff? Yeah, exactly. She's spoiled from all, dude, for all the grandparents. Trust me. She's doing okay. You know what? Give her 20. Give her $20.

I'm going to give her a card, maybe a little cash in it. That's what Uncle. First of all, uncles are supposed to spoil. while they're their nieces and nephews. No. You've got to learn life is hard. This man said a firm handshake, man. I couldn't believe it.

Firm handshake. I'm just kidding. It's probably shouldn't give her a high five. Hey, birthday. Oh, we high five all the time. You go to her parents' house. You eat their food. You sit on their couch.

You drink their drinks and you give their kids nothing. That's not true. Normally we're at Mama's house. My mom's house. Oh. So grandma's going to shut your mom ass up. You don't what you're talking about. All right.

This is a hard week, a hard month. My sister's birthday is next week and then the week after with my other niece. So pray for me. Should we set up a GoFundMe account? Actually, you should. Oh, my God. February hits hard.

It's a short month, that's true. All right. Is it going to be a short month or a big busy month for a couple of NFL potential contract extensions when it come to the Texans? We'll discuss that next 116 on Sports Talk 790. Dan Gresiano will be ESPN put out a story over the weekend about certain teams in their contract situations. The two brought up with a Texan. No surprise were C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson Jr., both guys finishing up their third seasons. He projects, does Graziano, the Will Anderson will get a four-year extension after he finishes his fourth and fifth year.

That will pay him $176 million over four years, 121 of that guaranteed. That feels about right. That's not as much as other defensive players, but it currently puts him in the top five for sure and the likes of T.J. Watt would be in the mix in that around that territory, Miles Garrett's in that territory. Micah Parsons is number one. Aiden Hutchinson is second. That's 46.5.

Hutchinson 45. After that, T.J. Watts at 41. Miles Garrett at 40. And by all accounts, Will Anderson should be in that category, which would put him around to above $40 million a year. I don't think it's worth arguing at this. point, correct? Yeah, I think he's going to be Hutchinson deal around 45

a year. Just a gut feeling. And if you want to read this article, certainly available for UDSPN, but there was some story about obviously CJ's lack of progression since his rookie season, and obviously he went from bad to worse in his two playoff games, and we're only

dealing with what we most recently saw, but this is when teams start talking about picking up fifth year options. Next year will be his fourth season. And then you start, obviously, getting into a conversation about whether or not a guy is worth all the money, that you would ultimately pay quarterbacks. He's going to make decent money this year, $5 million, $5.697 this year.

The fifth year option if it's picked up, boy, he gets a massive raise to $26.53 million. What other jobs in life, Ross, can you make five times what you make from one year to the next? Goodness. Probably pretty rare. That's crazy. And he's going to get that picked up. Unless he completely falls apart and is skittish for the rest of his NFL season, i.e. 226, you're going to pick that up.

Even if he's just performed like he did during the regular season, you pick that up. Then you start thinking about whether or not you're going to franchise tag him, which you could do for a couple of years, which would put a lot of money in his piggy bank because it would be the average of top five players at his position. So he can't, he wouldn't, I know he wouldn't want it, but he can't bemoan it because it's going to put him in a rarefied air. I'm going to put him in that in that deck, Prescott, Josh Allen type money. Yeah, they have to decide.

I think it's May 2nd. They have to decide if they're picking up that fifth year option. Which they will. Man. They will or they're going to try to negotiate something? I don't know. I think you can pick it up and then still negotiate, of course. Yes, yes, yes.

So how do you think it's going to be before May, when they pick it up. How the city's going to react to that. Paying your quarterback in year $5, $27 million. You're like, wait a minute. He ain't worth $2,000. But that's just reality. The economic sports says you've got to pay the guy. Look, the news stations

is going to put this out there on their Instagram and Facebook, she's trying to get reaction. Unbelievable. CJ Stroud gets big raise for fifth year. And then the people who know nothing about football, I can't believe this. Why would they do this after playing? It's going to happen. They would be

idiots not to pick up his fifth year option, I think. So just know that when you see your Facebook of your local TV station do this, that somebody, some 20-year-old twerp in the social media department put this out there. Oh, there's something going on outside. Oh, this Giordano's looking good. Speaking of Facebook, you made me open up Facebook. It was good. We had Rite, Ross, you didn't like it?

Ryan went with pineapple on his pizza, which I like. Oh, they were arguing about that on the broadcast. Did they talk about it? No, this was last night, so no, they couldn't have. No, they were... For me, it's fine. No, they were arguing about on the TV broadcast a couple games ago. Oh, what do you think?

Pineapple on pizza. What do you think? If you want it, that's fine, but it's not for me. And generally, my problem is the pineapple. Like, pineapple is my favorite fruit. But there's good pineapple and there's not so good pineapple. And generally, from a pizza place, you're not getting good, fresh pineapple, which, by the way, is only in season from February to July.

Yeah, I went with pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, and onion on my... That sounds good. Yeah, I figured you'd appreciate that. All right, you're making me hungry now. All right, so back to my point on this, CJ. So while they're anticipating Will Anderson getting his money, there was a number floored out by Dan Graziano that says, he predicts C.J. Stroud, four years, $224 million.

dollars, one hundred and ten of that guaranteed. That's north of $50 million a year. So here's what got to do. You have to say any quarterback worth his salt, is it the term? Salt? Yes.

Gets paid abnormally high. I guarantee you when Trevor Lawrence got his mega deal with Jacksonville, Jaguar fans lost. their mind. But that's the going rate for starting quarterbacks in their second contracts.

It would be more than everyone not named Doc, Dak Prescott, in terms of average annual value. Allen, Burrow, Lawrence, love two. Yeah, we were thinking of names of the guys that got paid. Daniel Jones, Kyler Murray, two would be on that list. Guys who got paid, didn't earn it.

$5 million a year. For a guy who, who's skittish in the pocket. Concussion issues, i.e.I.H. No, if you get more concussions you get, the more like you already get more, so you can go IP on that. Oh, may I go IPI? So I make sure I'm okay with that.

All we're doing here when we discuss this and as we pregnant pauses occasionally is think about what's coming up because this storyline, Rossing ain't going away. Even if he bounced back next year individually, if this team falls short of an AFC championship, game. Everybody's going to be out of the microscope on this. Because it feels like to me, not that we sit there and

I call individual people at their home and say, how are you feeling, Texan fan? I only go off of what the listeners say and people tweet at us. This team is fatigued about divisional playoff losses. It's fan bases. And my guess is the team as well. And

are you rewarding for work done over and over again? Or should you reward based off of what you've done for us as an organization and exceeding expectations. The expectations for this football team next year are AFC championship. I don't want to say AFC championship or bust because the bus means you get to, you'd implode everything. Oh, you said they're finally general manager if they don't. I'm glad you listened. Nick Asario is on AFC championship or bus watch.

There ain't no way Hannah is going to watch another divisional loss this year. She's done with it. She can't go to Neiman Marcus and have her lunch and like, hey. They're not harassing her and Neiman. Okay, Sacks Fifth Avenue. None of those places, they're not harassing her. She's going to Hermes. When she's a T.J. Max.

When she's an off fifth. No, I don't think she's there either. Chances Hannah McNair has walked into an all fifth before in her life. In her life? Probably good, right? She didn't pretty good. They didn't grow up, Rich. T.J. Max?

I don't know. Marshalls? Like T.J. Max. Last time, Cal McNair has been in a Walmart. Name it. I used to be the T.J. Max next to the Dollar Theater. That was a one-two combo. That's your evening right there, Matt.

Has Cal ever been inside of a Walmart? Cal McNair? Yeah. Oh, no. There's no way. Dollar General. Now, he was at UT. Maybe he had like at a frat, like a frat.

They made him to spend eight hours in a Dollar General as like a frat initiation. They have lots of candies I've never seen before. Cal has been to an Old Navy. Yes or no? Old Navy, no. Maybe wandered into one in the mall? Is there an old Navy in the Galleria? Nah, no, not Cal.

No chance. Does Cal even know what a Stymart was? No. All right. Yes, we've combined talking about CJ's contract with apparel needs of people in the middle class of America. Don't be jealous. So what is the cheapest thing that Cal wears?

I imagine all this suits are probably custom. Oh, for sure. The cheapest thing he wears? Those SpongeBob slippers he wears at home. I just envisioned that. Good for you. Remember, radio is theater of the mind for sure. Yes.

And you just did it. Our time is 132. Believe or not today, all things about, is it Grammy winners or the Grammys in general? and Grammys in general. Grammys in general. Maybe some winners. We'll see how desperate we get for questions. One thing we're on the show, we're not.

We're not desperate. Call it, please. No, just kidding. You can call if you'd like. If not, we're just, you know, we're throwing ourselves here. 7132-1-2-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. 132, Matt here in Indy.

Ross back in Houston. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 7-9. 7-1-3-2-12-5-7-90. All things about the Grammys, believe it or not coming about 15 minutes from now tomorrow back in houston we'll hopefully celebrate a rocket's victory against the pacers also uh pro preview coming up tomorrow jonathan you got an assignment pro bowl preview and we might do a segment called guest we wouldn't be booking on radio row i need gordon to send me all the different people he was asked

hmm it'll be a what is it what is the opposite of a who's who is a who's not It's a who's that. Yeah, that's what it is. The biggest problem is, and look, I would like to go back to Radio Row someday. The biggest detriment is it's the wrong time zone. I mean, morning shows 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. I don't think Emmett Smith's going to walk through those doors at 645. You know what I think so?

What about 445? 445. Yeah, you can get the older guys. Like 90-year-olds are up then. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like Marve Levy up there. You get the ghost of Tom Landry. You could be a guess.

That'd be a huge guy. Yeah. like where's super bowl next year do we even know i'm sure we do it is i do is it Atlanta or is it uh we because we've talked about this literally last week our Atlanta's the two years it's now you're making me mad because i can't forget I'm looking it up hold on the year after is Atlanta oh I remember now I have it oh it's in it's in L.A yeah it's in L.A not going next year either what if the Texans go you'll have a great time Dan and Cole can stay.

Well, I'm going. You're going to go. I will build a go because of Rockets. I'll maybe join you for a couple days. You never know. And then you and Cole can do a show. The three being to do a show. Call up to your shows of three amigos.

I'm not getting up at 4 a.m. for that. No, I'm talking about they can do your, they can do our show. Oh, okay. You know, we can do that. We can kick you right off. That's no problem. You get Rocky Blyar on and everything. Yeah, he's good.

Vince Pappali. Franco Harris can be on the show. I like that. William Montgomery. What are the rando players? Ryan Leif is still available. Who? Ryan Leif?

Ryan Leif's available? We get Mark Summers back on from from Doubledere. That would be a bad get. He's still alive? Mark Summers, of course he is. Oh, I thought he got, did he get sick or something? I'm sure.

Everybody gets a flu case. I'm just making sure he's okay. Oh, here we go. We have health. James on 790. James, good afternoon to you. Oh, thank you, gentlemen. except for my call.

Enjoy the show. Listen, I got a two part, I don't know, my opinion, is that if I was Hunter, the edge Russia for the Texans, I take a fly on an extension contract. Because if they give him all that money, the team's going to feel like it. They don't necessarily have to compliment him or any other player financially

because that's a big pool of money. money allocated to one player. It's the same thing that happened with J.J. White and Andre Johnson. When J.J. White came up, his contract came up, they gave him the $50 million deal. And after that, on defense, they had never ever tried to improve the defense because they were scrapped for money. Same thing considered with Andre Johnson. So you got two players that is,

allocating most likely half of your payroll, there's nothing left to attract quality championship players to play on your team. So if I was Hunter, I go to the team of my choice that I would think that had the best possibility to reach the Super Bowl because he won't get it here in Houston. but that ain't really what I called for. I really called because there was a certain talk show host wanted Jalen Green out and Durant in. Hindsight 2020.

No one saw the Van Fleet injury hampering their back court. I predict this. That trade is going to come back to hunt the rocket. Durant is no more than a score. He's like a Tracy McGrady. He's like a James Hardin. Never won a championship. But they can score.

They can light it up. If you take Durant away from Golden State two years, he will not have a championship ring. Because he has Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, and Green on that team. And all he did was shoot. He didn't have to do nothing else. My prediction is this. That trade, I think, that was really pushed by a certain talk show host on 790. Yes.

Don't come back. The mic the rocket in the rear end, in the gluteus maximum. James, I got one question for you. Remember you talked about Kevin Durant with that warrior team? and all he did was shoot. I'm just curious. Do you remember who the MVP was at the NBA Finals in 2017 and 18? Oh, was it Kevin Durant?

It was Kevin Durant. Oh, was it Kevin Durant? Well, let me ask you this here. Okay, okay, since, since, let me ask you this. So he came up with Oklahoma. Yes. How many teams that Kevin Durant played on and how many teams did he win a championship with?

He won two in San Francisco. Francisco. By being the best player in those finals in those two series. With all those stars, he was the best player, the best of the best. Okay, but he can't duplicate it no way else. He haven't duplicate that any way

else. So so, so I got to go to a break. Thank you for the phone call. Thank you. And make sure the Astros hit the outside pitch this year too. We always appreciate and we always will accept your call. We rarely agree with it, but we'll

always accept it. And by the way, I do have the power to make things happen. You do? He said a certain 790 host. You better say my name. Record this. Go ahead. I got Kevin Durant here because my conversations with you said if you need to give up Jalen Green to get Kevin Durant, you make the move.

Yes, Matt Thomas, weekdays, 10 to 2, Sports Talk 790, Houston, Texas, been in the radio business since 1991. I've been on the air in three different markets, hosted a current show with my partner, Ross, Villarral, for 16 years and two months. Yes, I made that happen. And you're welcome.

Believe it or not, up next, 713, 212-570. 7-13-212-5-790. All things about the Grammys next on 790. Thank you to Bunn for his everlasting support of this radio show. Thanks again to the Associated Press. Cougars are now eighth in the poll. Where were they?

Ninth or 10th, I think. We are right now second among Big 12 schools. Arizona 1, Iowa State is number 7. Cougars at 8th. You know what I don't care about none of that. Do you all be in Oklahoma this weekend? They did, down as much as 14. Came back in one. You're going to get in.

Yeah, didn't cover versus Auburn middle of the week. Number 34th in Kim Palm, you're fighting Texas Longhorns. What was that about a 9-8-9 seed? Yeah, nine in. You're one of those playing 12 games. We're going to see you in Dayton, Ross? Sad. Not that sad.

Hush-up. You got a brand new coach. Yeah, I know. It's going to take time. The recruiting class top five next year. You mean the NIL top five? Who cares? So what?

Oh, okay. So all the Houston Cougar players are playing for fun, huh? And a great education. Don't forget that part. That's true. Great education at University of Houston. I don't need to get more people mad at me. Yes, you do.

You know. University, Tier 1 research institution. It is the best university in the history of time. I love U of H. With a new medical school. Thank you. Forever and ever. Show.

What should we do? Cougar 6. Ken Palm. Six? That's really good. I'll take six. That's nice. I'll take that real good. Let's play America's fastest growing sports radio game. Show we simply call it B, believe it or not.

And here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe or not is all things about the Grammy Awards. I'll read your statement about the Grammy Awards. Statements is completely notarily accurate. You'll say this. Believe it.

If the same is erroneous full of bunk and made up, you'll say this. Not. Two believe or nots in a row. We'll a variety of prizes today here on today's edition of Believe it or Not. And that will include the following. A 790 T-shirt or a pair of tickets to see the Black Crows and Whiskey Myers on their Southern hospitality tour, August the 8th of the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets go on sale this Friday at Ticketmaster.com. 713-212-5-790.

Let's start with our buddy Bill on 790. Bill, what's your favorite black crow song? I got Kevin Durant to Houston. The first ever Grammy Awards were held at the Hollywood Bowl back in 1955, believe it or not. That sounds like a bunch of bugs, but believe it! Not. Nope, Beverly Hill, 1959. Bye, see you. That's a great pleasure with that.

713-212-5-790. Let's go to line number one. Terry on 790. Terry, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Record executives conceive the Grammy Awards after getting inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Believe it or not? Not.

Believe it. This feels very Wikipedia so far. Come on now, friends. Wikipedia is your friend. Let's go to Joe on 790. Joe, you ready to play, believe it or not? I am, man. Joe, good luck to you.

The Grammy Award statues used on stage are props. The real statues are personalized and given to the art. artist later. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win, Joe. With 35 wins, Beyonce holds the record for most Grammy Awards.

35 and Beyonce, believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. Believe it is correct. Congratulations. Believe it. We mentioned that earlier. Yeah. Joe is like the Washington Generals of Believe it or not. He's played like 648 straight times and never wins.

until today he won let's go to Howard on 790 Howard your favorite part of today's 10 to 2 radio show all of it the Latin Grammy Awards have been held since 1979 with Tito Puente's 31 victories

being the most all time believe it or not Believe it Not No we've been around since 2000 Thanks for playing though Sammy on 790 Sammy You ready to play believe it or not Believe it.

The Grammy Awards have voted on by board members of the recording industry of America, plus 50 industry executives and members. Believe it or not? Believe it. Not. No, the National Academy of reporting arts and science. Duh. That is an easy one.

Kevin on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. I'm a Harle Grove Trouton. Since 1975, the Grammy Awards, statues are made by Tiffany and company and use 14-carat gold believe it or not. Not.

Uh-oh. All right, Curlin Neal, here we go. The 1984 Grammys were the highest rating in history with Michael Jackson leading the way with 12 nominations and 8 wins. Believe it or not. Oh, God, believe that.

Believe it. You have a hand in a way to teller. That was a way up. He never loses, Ross. There it is. All right. Back with you tomorrow for 10 to 2, getting you ready for a four-hour recap of the Rockets Win against the Pacers.

That's our show tomorrow. Four hours of preview, actually three hours of preview, is up next with Adam Wexler and Adam Clinton. They are the A team. They're going to entertain the heck out of you next here on Sports Talks of the night.