The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 1-21-20

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 1/21/20Rockets blew a 15 point lead in the 4th qtr (0:00)Will Astros Cheating Scandal Affect Hall of Fame Voting? (32:29)Kelvin Sampson : "Playing For Something Bigger Than Ourselves" (42:35)The Astros continue the search for a new manager (53:27)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12.03 in H-town, what's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. If you had yesterday off and weren't joining us, well, you missed an amazing. program we had the following guest on. We had Michael Jordan on. We had

Hank Aaron was on the show. We had Eric Dickerson on the show. Really? I don't remember that. LeBron James made an appearance on the radio program. LeBron James. James Harden spent 40 minutes with 40 minutes with us. That's actually not true. That's all a lie.

Well, if you had yesterday off, the Rockets had the fourth quarter off yesterday as well. So, you're going to have to help me with this. What do you need, Maddie? Because I'm profoundly disappointed. As we all are. As what that fourth quarter was yesterday. It was not good. It was Danilo Golanari and Dennis Shrewd, you're the PA guy, Shruder?

Shruder. Shruder. It looks like Shrater, but is Shruder. Right. Dennis Shruder going crazy. Layup after layup. It was a layup drill. With the left hand. He didn't even cross over.

He went left hand every single time. And the Rockets had, they were up 15 with seven minutes to go and basically just blew it all of that and then lost. One for 17. Hmm. One make 17 tries. That's. There's not a sport in the world where one for 17 is good. Because again, very few players in the history of the NBA would be allowed to try 17 shots.

It's very rare. for anybody. I wonder how many times this year somebody's taking 17 or more 3s people not name James Harder. I think James is a 2 for 18 in his repertoire

in his resume. The resume. He's got a couple of 4 for 20s. It's amazing over his career. I mean, one of the most prolific scores. I mean, seven fastest player to get to 20,000 points. So he's doing more right than wrong.

But my goodness. As good as Russ was, James was the other side of things. And frankly, the other guys just aren't helping the cause. It is a team full of conundrums. Would that be fair to say? There are arguments of, well, if James isn't shooting well, get somebody else the basketball.

Okay, if that other person is Russell Westbrook, Russell can't take 40 shots on its own. Then if you say, well, if James, you know, passes the ball out, are you going to take your chances with Ben McLemore or Eric Gordon, who weren't hitting much yesterday. Maybe the third best score on the team yesterday was probably Daniel House. Players to take 17 or more threes this season.

James Hardin has done it 11 times. Nobody else has done it more than two. Buddy healed twice. Zach Levine once, Damian Lillard once, Ben McLemore once. DeAngelo Russell wants, Marcus Smart once. James Hardin 11 times. more shot the time of four field goals yesterday p j Tucker four field goals uh clint couldn't stay out of foul trouble unfortunately last night so that's why his minutes were down uh eG was two 12

uh like i said house was all right even sef even tibolosha knocked down a couple of field goals yesterday i hate when teams go on losing streaks and i hate when the easy narrative is you have to fire the coach some people on the post game show yesterday disagree with me, but I don't think Dan Tony is holding this team back. I think there's just issues with them being up and down. And part of the reason, and part of the problem is

you finally have Russell Westbrook playing well, playing efficiently, doing a great job in that second unit, and there's so many times where he's getting to the basket. Last night he only took one three-point attempt and that was at the very end of the game when he was trying to win it. He took zero on Saturday. And so you take those two games.

I mean, he's playing the absolute, absolute right way the Rockets want him to play and Mike Dantonie would want him to play. Attack in the basket. Right. The mid-range jumpers, by and large, are taken on decent spots on the floor. Has not used the backboard as much as he has

in maybe the first 25 or 30 games as a rocket. And you know, Matt, I bring up the stat potential assist with you sometimes. He had 27 potential assist last night. So he is distributing the ball. He's finding people to open. James missed. Yeah. People are missing shots. I mean, he was great. He only turned the ball over three times. Sometimes

he can get a lot out of control and start turning the ball over too much. Three against 12 assists is great, is a great ratio for him. That's right. So he was great. And James Harden was not. I mean, think about it. If James Harden knocks down just a couple of more of those, one of those 17 threes, of which he only made one, we're talking about a different ballgame.

Yeah, I'm, they got to figure this out. This is, this is, and not that America believes it's an open campaign, but there isn't the Golden State Warriors and everybody else. The Lakers are exceptional this year, but there is a certain notion of, you know, can they win an NBA championship of Anthony Davis is not on the floor on a significant period of time? The clippers on paper look like they've got the deepest team in the NBA,

but I think mentally at times they're pretty fra. I mean, everybody's got little hiccups along the way. Right now, the two biggest hiccups of the Rockets is you're not finding a third consistent perimeter shooter for a team that relies a lot on threes. And Ross, the thing that probably would drive Mike Dantonie, who will join us on the show tomorrow, bat-blank crazy, is the defensive lapses are just glaring. Again, Dennis Schrooter, fine player,

got into, forced James to take a further step-backs on threes than he wanted to, didn't get the open spaces in the threes. But more importantly, Dennis Schroeder in the fourth quarter, kept going to the lane over and over and over again, and was able to make labs. The inside interior defense just wasn't there. You know, I think Mike has tried to make a concerted effort to keep PJ's minutes down. He can't because there is no low pro's presence.

Tyson just hasn't been relying on. Isaiah Hartnstein just hasn't been a consistent go-to guy. And again, I don't think this is, and I hate to tell those of you that are, you know, that are the ultimate Mike Dan Tony Batchers. but you have to realize that everything is calculated in the Rockets organization. They know who matches up who well with whom over a certain period of time. Now, sometimes you may have to buck that system, which certainly would be fair. But I just don't want PJ playing 40 minutes a game.

I don't know what he finished with last night. 41. And I think one of the reasons why he played, well, first of all, he played a lot because Clint Capella was in foul trouble, only played 25 minutes. And then when he got out there, he had the five fouls. And that's why Shruder was able to get down there and do what he was doing. Yeah. And PJ, they were using him as a small ball five.

And that small ball five lineup, they went to a lot in the third quarter. It was working. They were spacing the floor. They were scoring. And Oklahoma City went from only scoring 14 points in the third to 41 in the fourth. And I want to say Danilo Galanari was like three or four from three in the fourth quarter. And Dennis Schroeder was going off. and it was just a really, really bad collapse.

It was hard. I wanted to have fourth quarter just thinking, okay, this game's won. This is a nice little bounce back win. It was a chance to go bounce back. It was a chance to get their mojo further separate themselves between the six and the seven spot in the west. Yeah. And as you mentioned Anthony Davis out Saturday, Stephen Adams only played two minutes yesterday because what was that when Clint Capella just launched into him and got a flage or foul for whatever reason,

but knocked him out of the game. It was really weird. what happened on that because so what they had to do is if if he left the game yeah and somebody replaced him he couldn't have come back well they didn't know if he was going to come back or not they obviously did not but he left the locker room they called the timeout they bring him out bring him back out there he missed the two free throws and he goes right back to the locker room and then he doesn't come back yeah not only would he even miss the entire game I believe the rockets would be able to choose who shoots the free throws that is correct they were trying to figure

that out when they called the time out uh yeah 41 to 20s was the fourth quarter discrepancy in a 112-107 loss. So y'all tell me, because I mean, I think I know it's a lack. First of all, when James slumps, he slumps badly and it hurts. And James is the kind of player because he's done it for much of his NBA career. He is a guy that thinks, all right, I'll pick up, it may not be the prettiest stat line, but at the end of the day, I'm going to have four or five three-pointers to do my repertoire. I'll go on some sort of personal run where I will get eight, ten, eleven points in a row.

I'll knock down a couple of three-pointers. and he kept trying to shoot his way into a position to get the team back. And unfortunately, with the extra step that he has to take on that step back to get separation against Oklahoma City defenders, primarily Dennis Schrooter, those shots were just not falling. And I mean, they were 9 of 45. That's the first time, and I want to say Ross, about a season and a half, they didn't make 10 three-pointers in the game.

They had had a long streak. Oh, I didn't even realize that the streak was over. Yeah. February of 18, I think, was the last. time against Portland, they didn't have 10, three-pointers in the games. And it wasn't like Oklahoma City was shooting that well, particularly. Especially Chris Paul. First half, Chris Paul didn't miss.

He didn't feel like he made a shot. I don't think he did. I think he had 27 points at half and ended up with 28. But Golanari was sporadic. But when he was on, he was hot in the fourth. He hit. And he rebounded. And, um, yeah.

Eric Gordon, I think, has to be mentioned. He was only one of eight from three. And he's trying to get his rhythm back from his, his injury and they're keeping him on a minutes, minutes restriction and all that stuff, but he's got to be better as well. And the Ben McLemore, who got the deserving spot to be in the starting lineup, has got to be better now. I mean, he's, you know, you're getting not much from that three spot, whether it's been Daniel House or Ben McLemore starting. Yeah, three points from McLemore and five from Eric Gordon, you're not going to win a lot of games that way.

All right. 1213 is our time. 713-212-5.7. If you just want to just call and be mad and yell at the phone, well, yelled at us. We're here for you. we're like your therapist. We've got other things to get to, including today, the MLB's Hall of Fame vote is going to come out. Will Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens be the ones to get in this year? It feels like the steroid-era players are getting better votes and getting more acceptance. And it does bring up the question about how whether or not the Astro situation,

with the stealing of signs and the cheating, is going to help guys that were a part of that. steroids era because you're trying to compare the steroids era to what the Astros did and others probably have done in the last couple of years. 1214. 713-212-5-790. It is the Matt Thomas show and this is Sports Talk 790. Hi, this is former running back of Herschel Walker. You're listening to Matt Thomas on the Sports Talk 790. We will have some winning college basketball talk on the show today. our good friend Kelvin Samson, we'll be with us coming up in the 1 o'clock hour.

Cougars in the top 25, both in the coaches and in the media poll. Ross, we want to give the update on the Longhorns game against West Virginia last night? I think they lost. Was it a nail buyer? Was it a buzzer beater?

It was a close one. Well, they were down at one point, what? Relatively, you know. I mean, they could have lost by 1,000. They only lost by 38. It was only the worst loss in the history. of Texas basketball as a big 12 school. And Franfichella basically said he looks like

a team out there that doesn't want to really want to play very hard. So things are going great. What happened? Shaka was the guy. That was the only thing that Steve Patterson did right over there at UT. I really liked the Charlie Strong hire and then I like the Shaka Smart hire. I thought everything was going to be all cool in Austin. And?

Shaka Smart is underachieve. It's a lot of what, honestly, What Rick Barnes was doing towards the end of his career was having guys who were going in the first round of the draft and not making the tournament or not doing very well in the tournament, but they were playing hard and playing decent defense, but there just wasn't enough going on offensively, didn't have good shooters. And that's basically what's happening right now. The shooting is actually better this year, but I don't even know what happened exactly went haywire. I was watching the beginning of the game at the end of the Rockets game. But then once I saw it was like 40-something to 15. That's when I kind of stopped paying attention.

was doing the Rockets Post game. I figured I'd go watch it when I got home, but once I saw the score, I went ahead and scrapped that idea. And that will conclude today's edition of Texas basketball talk on the show. They could still make the tournament, though. They still can. They have to win the tournament.

If they don't make the tournament, he's going to be fired. All right, Mike Dan Tony on all the hard-de-miss-threes last night. You could tell him not to do, and then, you know, we've won a lot of games. So that's his game and kind of live and die with what you got. Now, he has to understand, does he feel confident? doing? Because he's driving, too. It's not like he just, that's back every time. Sometimes

that's what he has. He feels good about it. Yeah. I mean, I could, I mean, if I'm going to sit here and say, oh, great when he does, and then, you know, no, that's, that's fine. That's not our problem. So is he saying it's more on the defensive side of things? We'll talk to Mike

about this tomorrow on the 2 o'clock hour, but do you think when Mike Dan Tony put his head on the pillow last night after probably having a couple of glasses of wine, maybe the bottle. He's thinking our team just defensively from a rotation standpoint can't stop anybody right now, or is he more concerned about the fact that James is in this pretty decent slump he's in,

especially from the perimeter? I think maybe there's a little bit about the slump. But I mean, he said many times, and James Hardin has slumped many times over the years, so he's the last guy he worries about. So maybe not worrying about that as much, but probably worrying about the health of his rotation, getting guys like Eric Gordon right. I mean, Austin Rivers is out. Tabo Cephalosius has been out of mothballs in the last couple of games.

I mean, let's be really honest as far as James goes, so will the basketball team. That's true. Very rarely does James Harden go one for whatever from three, whether it's one for 11, two for 14, whatever, and they win. I mean, it happens sometimes. But this franchise was built around its core play. It's like in football. You know, you can have Carlos Hyde and Duke Johnson each run for 75 yards and do their thing. And you get the tight ends catching four passes.

But if Sean Watson's 14 of 31 with a couple of picks, Texans aren't winning football games. It'd be great if the 8 and 900s in the Astros lineup were spectacular. But if 2, 3, 4, top of the order is 0 for 11 with 4 strikeouts, they're not winning. And that's what when you build around in today Superstar League of the NBA, superstars have to be great. And in most cases now, you have to have both your superstars great every single time. I mean, the Lakers have been able to survive it because of the fact that, you know, Kyle Kuzma stepped up in Anthony Davis's absence. But LeBron was very good on Saturday 9. I mean, how many times do the Clippers win basketball games, lose basketball games,

when Kauai Leonard and Paul George are, you know, both, you know, two for nine with five turnovers. The league of the world of basketball, especially in 2019-2020, is about who you're paying the most and how much responsible are they carrying. And right now, James carries the world on his shoulders, and that may not be fair. That may not be the right thing to do long-term, but it is what the Houston Rockets are right now. I think part of it is also those other teams have better pieces around their two superstars. I mean, Montrez-Herald and Lou Williams are better than what the Rockets have. Or Eric Gordon is supposed to be up there,

but he's just not playing well, and he was one of eight from three last night. I mean, you got Danny Green, and like you said, Kyle Kuzma, and we make fun of Javelle McGee, but he's a solid big man and down low and knows his role. I can't believe I'm saying this. I would,

Danny Green and the Houston Rockets would be such a fantastic addition. They're not going to move him. No. They don't need to. They wouldn't want to. You're not going to try to help out an opponent, but that kind of player. There's got to be,

I know there's a website, There's a bunch of fan websites that have a bunch of guys out there. You know, does T.J. McConnell of Indiana do anything for you? They would take a T.J. off their team. They got like four TJs. It would be less confusing for me. But, you know, it's a play-by-play guy. But you know what I'm saying?

I mean, that was just the first name that I saw. There's going to be jump shooters around the NBA that would absolutely fit the mold of the Houston Rock. It's a problem is, what do you have to give up in return? As I said on the show yesterday. And Eric's one of my favorite people on Earth. So I don't want Eric to go. But to be realistic, the only thing you get back in return for anything is Eric Gordon. You just signed to a max contract extension.

I mean, you can move Clint Capella, but then you have no center. I mean, you know, you're not going to invest all that into him and then move him along. Let's go to Drew and Meyerland on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Drew. Hey, how's it going, fellas? Good. What's going on? Oh, man, I'm beat up about my Houston team, man. hoping that the rockets could kind of ease the pain a little bit last night, but that didn't happen.

And I'm just, I mean, I know it's early. I'm not going to panic, you know, still got two weeks before the All-Star break and whatnot. Still a lot of basketball left, but I'd be lying if I didn't say this losing streak wasn't concerning just with the way that they've been losing. So I think you hit on some bad lapses, defensive lapses and lack of energy on the defensive is in. I'm seeing that a lot, and I think that has a lot to do with why teams are able to get back in games, because I've watched pretty much all the losses of stuff or maybe two.

We'd be up big, and we'd have some sizable leads, and we just let them creep back into the game. Some of it is the defensive glasses, but also some of it is our officers' philosophy. I mean, I'm loving the three-point, you know, I don't want them to completely change that philosophy, but when we're up big, I think the point needs to be to score, keep that lead growing. I mean, if we're going down missing three after three after three and creating fast break after fast break after fast break, and our defense is lasting on, you know, technique and

communication and energy, I think our offense needs to further complement our defense, especially with it, you know, being so lacking. What do you guys think? Well, there's nothing more of a bounce back than hitting it. Thank you for the phone call, Drew, that it made three-pointer. It allows you to get back on defense. It gives you positive momentum. It's just human.

Miss shots, usually mean long rebounds, which means transition. But I don't think last night, Ross, this was a game that Oklahoma City tried to run the rockets out of the building. I think it was a lot of it. I'm not trying to point out Dennis Schrooter in particular, but it was Dennis Schroeder at the top of the key, left-hand dribble drive, got by a defender who was in foul trouble in Clint Capella. There was no help to get to him,

and he was able to attack the lane and go over and over and over again. And on top of that, their long-distance three-point shooter was better than a rocket three-point shooter last night. Danila Gowanari was hitting contested deep three-point shots. James just didn't last night. And I don't want to, I'm not going to let this season be defined, by what happened yesterday because one of 17, it just doesn't happen that often.

But in the midst of a losing streak, it becomes an even sore or thumb that's sticking out right now. 1229. It's a Matt Thomas show. This is Sports Talk 790. We will get by this. We need some good news. The Houston sports scene needs something positive. It has now going on to about eight days of this. Thankfully, Kelvin Samson's Cougars in the top 25. And we'll talk with him about that in about 30. five minutes from now. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 7-9th. Your rockets, your Astros, your voice. Lots of other things to get to today between now and three o'clock.

We are the Schmorgasborg of Midday Sports Radio. We're not going to show a topic down your throat. And you want to get to from the Super Bowl matchup between the Niners and the Chiefs. We'll get to that over the course of the show. Ross, you could make a good debate for both teams to win the game, which is, I think, on paper, we're going to make it a very fun game to watch on Super Sunday. Best defense in football against the best offense?

Sign me up. I can envision both ways having the fun on a Super Sunday. I can see Pat Mahomes not being able to complete those deep downfield passes to Tyree Kill. I don't know if he's going to have time. Oh, that's right. Is that Casey offensive line going to be able to hold up against that front seven of the Niners. Will Jimmy Garoppel will have to throw more than eight passes to win a football game?

Jimmy Garapolo. I'm going to say yes. What's the over under? I mean, I bet it's low, but I would still take the over, whatever it is. I'm going to say, like, I'm going to just guess. There's going to be so many prop bets that we need to talk about over the next week and a half. Ooh. What is it?

Wow, it's 54. The scoring a point hole? Yeah, I was guessing 47. I was way off. So they're anticipating this to being a 30, 24. game or a they're anticipating about 20

basically 27 and a half to 26 and a half. Okay well make it those half points put in the NFL, let me know because I'm just telling you this way. All right. So we got a very close game. We're anticipating on that. We have the Texans, if you did not catch

yesterday's events, Romeo Cornell apparently is going to be no longer the defensive coordinator and Anthony Dreamweaver will be the new starting defense a new defensive coordinator, which makes it probably the youngest coordinator duo in the NFL, right? Tim Kelly's done it for a couple of years, although he really doesn't play calls. And then you've got Anthony Dreamweaver doing it for the very first time in his life.

So here's what you got. You have a young offensive coordinator who doesn't call plays. You got a young defensive coordinator who's never done it before. Probably could be good. We don't know. And there's no reason why we can't think he'd be good. And then we have the youngest general manager in the NFL. Less than a year's experience running the football side of things.

Or is it the committee? Yeah. The GM is, how old is Bill O'Brien? I'm not talking about experience. Okay. Right. I guess he's only been doing it since when was Brian Gamefired, June or something? Yeah, it was before the season.

So it's been only a season long. You know, I always talk about this committee. Is this committee when they come in the room and they all sit down and they all have all these great plans about this is what we should do about this, this, this, and then O'Brien comes in and says, screw all that, here's what we're going to do. No, they're all taking orders from him. So they don't even... Yeah, they don't mean without him, probably.

Well, no, that's for sure. But they don't come in with ideas and expressions and thoughts and beliefs that how they can, how they believe the team can be better? Yeah, but probably. No. But they probably report... I'm sure they directly report to Bill O'Brien. Like, for instance, if Ross, our program director is Brian and Eric, if he didn't

believe in a word we said, would we come into the office with ideas, or we'd just come in with a blank... Yeah, it would be our... job, if it's our job, yes. Like, that would be more if, I mean, Gordy would go, if Gordy goes with an idea. But, but, but, but Brian shoots it down. He might. Rightfully so.

Well, it depends. I'm just wondering if, you know how he says, well, we meet every day. We talk a bit stiff. Yeah, he's got people. I mean, he trusts Jack Eustry and whatever that, that guy with a weird name, whatever his name is. Oh, yeah, I don't know that guy. Brass, brass, brim, or whatever.

So there's basically two people that Bill O'O'Brien trust and the rest of the ideas are, that's the worst thing I've ever heard of. Get out of here! As John McLean believes that all the organization walks on eggshells over there. Yeah, he's the final say. They'll come to him and say, hey, we like this player, we like this, we're like whatever, and we're going to do this. And Bill O'Brien will say, okay, and this is what we're going to do.

And he makes his own decision. I'm sure he takes suggestions from his underlings all the time. That's what my question was. They probably pass him off as his idea. Do you think he takes suggestions from his underlings? Yeah, absolutely. I don't think he thinks he knows everything. Oh, I do.

he's not he's not scouting every single player out there he gets reports from people well as long as it passes the easterby test clearly he doesn't have time to do all that i don't know do you see him out and about playing golf is he playing cards i don't play golf so i wouldn't see him out there do is he at top golf you know i don't think so do you think he's uh having a pint is he the dog park walking his dog oh that you remember like the dog track i don't think he's out there either they shut that down right um or is it still the confused. Do you think he said the horse track this weekend, betting the ponies? If he's got a problem, yeah.

Why do you think people that go to the dog truck have, the horse track have problems? Well, not all of them. Some of you are. Just most of you all there. All right, let's go to Ben and the Woodlands at 1238 on 7.D. Hi, Ben. Hey, guys, I was going to talk about the Rockets. But, yeah, real fast with Bill O'Brien. Of course he's doing all the scouting himself. I mean, look at the offensive line picks we've had over the last three years. Look at the secondary this last year. Of course he's doing all the scouting himself.

He's doing all the world. Yeah. Yeah, nobody tells him anything. He tells people what to do. But my question is what the Rockets is that, so you know, all the losses, I'm not talking about just the last week, all the losses we had, you know, this year, and then you look at some of the playoffs the last year, two years. I mean, they always jump out to that, you know, 10, 15, sometimes 20-point leads in a lot of these games.

And then my question is when they go, when they go cold, why is, why is Dan Tony or whoever his defensive guy is coming in saying, hey, we need to slow the ball down just a little bit during our cold spells instead of just jacking up shot after shot, after shot, after shot. You know, I played basketball back in the 90s, you know, in high school and stuff, and you didn't take a shot unless somebody was under the basket. So, you know, where is that gone in the transition of basketball today? Because in the playoffs, it becomes more of a possession game instead of just running gun.

I would have to say, Ben, in the last five years, this whole notion of the, postseason basketball changing from regular season is a little overstated. I think are whistles a little harder to get? Yeah. But if I took a piece of tape of a Golden State Warrior playoff game as compared to a regular season game, I don't think you would see a noticeable difference. So this whole thought of, well, you know, things change come postseason. Yeah, a few things do.

Defenses are better. I would say Golden State probably in the... their possessions has more passes than the rockets have over the last five years. Yeah, that's true, but that's also on the regular season, too. They're not changing who they are come postseason-season-wise. No, not explicitly. But, I mean, it's like, you know, Dan Tony is running the same thing. He ran with Nash almost, you know, what, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

And it was innovative then, but they could never go past that hump. And now we're in the same exact place we are. We're hard and, you know, yeah, he's an amazing player, but we're not. So let's dumb it down. Let's dumb it down. So, okay, so Hardin's not

making three-point shots. So he is going to attack the rim. And he does that quite a bit and is very fluid at it. But sometimes that dries up because teams are going to collapse on him defensively, right? I agree with you.

So the next option is to go to Russ. I thought that's what Westbrook was supposed to be there for. For him to attack the rim. Okay, that's right. And Russ does a very effective job of that. So let's go to the next angle. If all of a sudden Russ can't get that open look, or he's having to make a lot of contested shots, where he's having to kind of flip the ball over his right shoulder and put English on it or whatever,

what's the next option after that? Then you're looking at the pick and roll with Capella. But what if Capella is infallible, not on the floor. I mean, I'm not trying to throw a bunch of what ifs at you, but I'm saying that it's just very difficult to all of a sudden in the middle of January say, you know what, we got a couple of guys that are cool from the perimeter. it's time for us to redevelop the Houston Rockets offense. There isn't a time or a training camp that's happened. Well, I'm not saying redeveloped the Rockets offense.

What I'm saying is that you have to have, I mean, I'm sure Dan Tony does, but in the game at some point, if your shots are highly contested every single time, you've got to run something a little bit different, pick and roll, something to change it up to where you can get a couple open looks. And then the guys are missing and the guys are missing. There's nothing you can do. But I'm not talking about this losing streak right now. I'm talking about over the last two to three seasons,

there are so many times they've lost games where they've been up 15, 20, 25 points. I would over, that's an overstatement. I don't think they're doing this on, I don't think they're doing it on a double-digit occasion. Thank you for the phone call. And this year has been pronounced. There's no argument to that.

They have given up way too many fourth quarter leads. But I would not, I mean, a rocket team two years ago won 67 games. 65. 65. to this you got it if not for Scott Foster. I'm just throwing that out there. I mean, we're talking about a basketball team and has won, what, 200 and something games

in the last three and a half season? And the offense hasn't necessarily been the problem over the Mike Dan Tony era. I can try to find the exact numbers. They're second in offense this year. They were second in offense last year. They were first in offense in 18 when they won 65 games. and they were third in offense

Mike Dantonie's first year in 1617. So they've been third, first, second, and second in offense. I was more troubled. Sounds like a pretty good offense to me. I was troubled by open looks from Golanari when he had him and making him. I was troubled by Chris Paul making all of his shots in the mid-range Jimmy. And I was very disappointed in how Dennis Schroeder was able to attack the glass in the fourth quarter. Only one time in the Dantone era have they had a top 10 defense.

They had the number 6 and 18. and helped to have Trevor Reza and PJ Tucker and Chris Paul and Clint Capella all playing fairly good defense and James Hardin, at least in the low post, doing well defensively as well. So, I mean, that's basically what it goes back to. The personnel right now is not performing up to par. Shots aren't falling and defensive lapses are increasing. 1244 on the Matt Thomas show, 713, 212, 790. Load up on those napkins, straws, ketchup, hot sauce, mustard. Oh, and don't forget duck sauce.

It's the Matt Thomas Show for lunch on Sports Talk 790. 1249. This is the Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. We take this program today until 3 o'clock. We'll have head coach Calvin Samson from the Houston Cougars with us in about 15 minutes from now. Believe it or not, returns at 255. and tonight is when we find out the latest installment of those that get enshrined into baseball's Hall of Fame. Tonight, tonight, tonight.

I didn't ask you to do that. That was not the second. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. That's awful. All right. So it feels like, and we brought this up last week that a lot of the younger voters, the early advance, were putting in bonds and Clemens into the baseball Hall of Fame. And those are usually the ones that are releasing on Twitter. and making their votes public, and usually the older fogies are the ones that don't do any of that.

So, look, it's just a guess for all of us. They'll obviously be a lot closer because there's been too much publicity that says otherwise, but will there be enough to get to 75%? Will there ever be a number? Because let me tell you something, if you keep hitting the 56 to 61 to 65, that's cool, but you've got to get to 75. and is there 24% of people out there that previously said no chance, no way these folks that have been accused in the steroid era of being using it are ever getting in,

are they going to flip their minds, flip their thoughts, or are we waiting for those people to lose their vote, waiting for a new generation? But at the same time, Bonds and Clemens may be running out of chances here in the not-too-distant future. I think that people can change minds. And also, you can only vote for 10, correct? Yes.

Maybe somebody who got in last year. year, they can replace them with somebody else who they, and say, you know what, didn't like him last year, didn't think he made the top 10 last year, so I'll vote for him this year, something like that. All right. So Bob Nightingale from USA Today did a big story about how this comes full circle with the Astros. And before I tell you about that, his list this year is Bonds, Clemens, Derek Jeter,

who's a first-time eligible player. He's 1,000% getting in. Larry Walker, Kurt Schilling, Omar Visckel, Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa. So that's a pretty controversial list because of Bonds and Clemens and Sosa. I always thought Sosa had no chance in the world. And then Kurt Schilling probably didn't do himself many favors with his non-baseball stance. And it was also, you know, did he have the stats that would be worthy of a whole thing? He doesn't have the bulk numbers.

He has the big game moments. the bloody sock game in itself puts him in legacy territory. Yeah, as far as like wins, strikeouts, all that type of stuff, he's not necessarily there, but if you look at, you know, six-time All-Star,

the big games and the big moments, and how many times he win World Series twice? Yep. Or two or three. He won a number of World Series. Once with Arizona and once with Boston, right? Yes, I think so. Okay. Now, on this group,

the Nightingale, and I've known Bob for a long time, he doesn't have Alex Rodriguez and Manning Ramirez on there because those guys did get tested for P.E. Right, they got popped in positive. The insinuation on Bonds and Clemens and Sosa's there, but no guilty test. You're but to say something. But Bonds said he, like Bons said he took the clear and the cream. He just said he thought it was something else.

Something else. Oh, he said he took it. No reasonable person. No reasonable person. I don't care if you're the biggest giant fan. If you're the Pittsburgh pirate fan of the early 90s, no reasonable person would ever think in a million years that Barry Bonds grew the way that he grew

on that Chorin. There's just no chance. And by the way, I'm totally okay with putting Barry Bonds in personally. I just don't like the distinction of saying Barry Bonds in, Alex Rodriguez out because one guy popped positive and one didn't, even though we know for pretty much a fact. He said he took it. Barry Bonds was juicing as well.

But the pitchers were juicing as well. And then that all becomes, you know, then you go back to the greenies and all that other stuff. And it just becomes so muddled. Barry Bonds is a Hall of Famer to mean no matter what. Right. So the question that comes full circle into this article, and we'll get some more phone calls here in a second at 713-212-5-790 is how do the Astros that are projected to be at least on the cusp of becoming Hall of Famers, how does the stealing signs and cheating? mesh with their potential vote. And then a secondary argument on top of that is, what's worse?

A steroid user or someone knows that a particular pitch is coming ahead of time. A lot of pitchers on Twitter have been putting out they'd rather go up against a juicer than a guy that knows what coming and they're all upset about all this. But one of the beauties of this situation, well, I mean, it's not a beautiful situation, but I mean relative to Hall of Fame and all this type of stuff, Jose Altuvae is... How old is Jose Al-Tuva? 29, something like that? Alex Bregman is young. Carlos Correa is young.

There is nobody's career... Justin Verlana wasn't at the plate. There's nobody's career who was put over the top by that World Series championship. So if Alex Breggman falls off a cliff and he's not an MVP guy for the next decade, he's not going to make the Hall of Fame.

Jose Al-Tube completely falls off a cliff and he's not good the next several years, he's not going to make the Hall of Fame. So if he continues to hit 3.30 and content for batting titles and all that type of stuff? There's no argument that Jose is on a fast track. As I said before, when he hit the home run against Erold his chatman, he's 29. He's the greatest aster of all time. And I'm a huge Craigbizio fan.

I mean, ridiculously big. But Jose put himself in rarefied air. But if he knew the pitch was coming. It was 19, though. 19 was their claim, I think. We hope. Probably. We really hope.

So this could, I mean, it depends on if a writer wants to say, hey, I'm going to let him hold them off for a couple of years before this. I'll tell you this. None of them are going to be unanimous. Well, put this way, you can't as a baseball voter, unless Jose is individually called out like Carlos Beltron was, you can't hold this cheating thing against the individual, I don't think. No, I wouldn't. Because again, according to Rob Manfred, no player will be suspended because of the situations

that happened in the last couple of years, or 17 in particular. Bregnant is 25, Eltuve is 29. Is Springer on a Hall of Fame path? I don't think so. He's going to have to do this. He's going to have to do it pretty, yeah. He's going to be the most prolific leadoff hitter

for another four to five years, comfortably. Jose Al-Tube is already on the path. He'll be in the conversation. So let's talk about the guys that are on the conversation right now of this current roster. Altube for sure. Yes. I would say no on Correa. I would say yes on Springer, but it's going to have to take another couple of super spectacular lead-off seasons,

where home run, stolen base kind of thing. I think Bregman clearly, with the way he's been able to come through the last couple of years, is on a track towards that. But again, a lot of meat left from that bone for that to happen. And they're all young. They've got something to prove. You come out next year and you're mashing and the lineup's great like it was in 2019 when allegedly none of this was going on.

You're going to be fine. And then 10, 15 years from now, then it's not really good. I don't think it'll come up as much as far as when it comes to Hall of Fame voting. I think maybe they'll get dinged and have to sit out a year or two. But I think it wouldn't keep them from getting it. You know, it's the easiest thing to erase everything of this is to win the World Series this year. win, or even if they win 100 games, make the ALCS or something like that. You mean like a deep playoff, right?

Right. Okay, that seems fair. Before we get to the top of the hour, Ocho's on 7. Ocho, what do you got today? Hey, what's going? Hey, real quick, you have in Coach Samson on one, if you could relay a question for me. He recently made a lineup change, and he has his two leading scores coming off the bench. Could you ask him if this could be a permanent move,

is he just doing this to send a message to underachievers like Grimes and whoever else he may be underachieving? Okay. Because he's starting now with Jereau and the freshman Marcus Sasser, and of course the great Robert Nathaniel Hinton. You got the middle name in. Thank you, Ocho. Yeah, I can do that for sure.

Dejan Jouro is a guy. He started the starter, went to the bench, and now he's back in the starting lineup. So he's moving things around. I think in college you can do that. NBA, it's very much a dance with who brung you, right? Basically kind of thing. Yeah, the only ones aren't as big.

Yeah, a lot of chains of rockets have made it this year, realistically, is inserting Ben McLemore for Daniel House. Was there a little yo-yoing of Eric Gordon or not? I guess they were thinking about putting him in the starting lineup when he came back, but that hasn't happened. But there he was yo-yoed just last year. Yeah, I think he's more along the lines of. of being a firm six man.

All right, second hour, the Matt Thomas show starts in a matter of moments. Come on and be a part of it. 713, 212, 5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790 with Ross and Nick. I'm Matt. We appreciate you listening to Sports Talk 790. Is the Matt Thomas show. 104 on Sports Talk 790, the second hour of three with Niccolo, our producer.

Ross, my co-host. I'm Matt. And we are very happy to have you with us here on this. beautiful day, crisp, clean, fresh. Yeah, nice. It's like a cold beer, it sounds like. Like a chill in the air? Yeah.

It feels like a January day. We can handle this. As opposed to what Saturday was muggy and nasty. Rainy. Cold front blew through, and now it's nice and chilly and less humidity. You know it was great on Saturday? What? Well, you get stayed at home.

I didn't go to that. What I did was, and we're going to get coach here here. I want to hear him just when he joins us here in a second is, sitting down watching 15-16 college basketball games and having a great run of things with the Houston Cougars. America's basketball team. They are? Yeah. Since when?

Since they're going to win the American this year? We're going to have Calvin who joined it here in just a second. Okay. We're going to go to Wood. That's true. I guess if you win the American, you are the American team. You are the America's team. That's how it works.

Coach Sampson, I was telling the audience, a minute ago. Nothing better than watching a little Houston Cougar victory in Wichita State. First, thanks for joining the show. Secondly, that defense of yours was phenomenal in one of the most difficult buildings to play. How are things? Matt's been a while since we've

talked. How's everything going to your world? Oh, everything's very good. The teams I'm covering, eh. But things going all right for me. How about yourself? You know, always good. Some days better than others, but always good. No, I'm really proud of this team.

You know, we're, we've got a lot of youth. We've got some youth and experience. They take their lumps. They keep coming to practice every day, practicing the right way. We've had some guys in and out with some injuries, just like every other team. So we've had some good wins this year. Obviously, being a great program, a team that we have such great respect for in which is state on the road,

you know, it was a good way for this team because it kind of put their stamp on the program. They've heard a lot about last year's team and been asked questions about it and people want to compare teams. But, you know, I was just happy that this team finally broke through and got a significant win. And it shows them they can be a good team. And now the challenge is to not let up.

We've got a big game coming up Thursday, and, you know, Wichita State's kind of in our rearview mirror, and that we go to windshield in front of is Connecticut, and that's kind of where our focus is. You mentioned a couple weeks ago, Coach, about your team was searching for an identity. Was that a code word for, I'm going to shift some guys in on the starting a lineup to try to find a combination that works? So what exactly did you mean by that? Well, I think every team has a culture. or bads, you have one. Good bad or indifferent, you're going to be known for something.

And, you know, we've chosen since day one here to be a team that plays extremely hard, played for each other, understanding that what we're trying to accomplish is bigger than ourselves. And, you know, when you've got a team full of juniors and seniors, that message is received more clearly and a lot sooner. You know, young kids, they're trying to figure out what time is Chick-fil-A clothes so I can get by and get number one. Or, you know, aren't these cool shoes we're buying? They're not really interested in a lot of the things that you focus on.

But then as they get older, season goes through, they get a little more maturity. Experience keeps starting in it. They start understanding. But, you know, we want our kids to compete every night. and play for each other. And I didn't see that on the road at Tulsa. And sometimes a loss can be bad for you. Sometimes a loss can help you because you can learn from it.

So we just shook some things up. Starting lineup for us is really insignificant because we play nine or ten guys. And you may start and play less minutes than the guys coming off the bench if they're playing well. So for me, it's more important that we get 10 toes and not two feet in and buy into what we're doing. And I knew that once they did that, our team would take off. And one of those players, I think, coach is Dejean Jou, he has been really good for you the last couple of weeks. You know, he broke his hand at the end of October. Matt at a really bad time because he had such a – he had a really good trip to Italy this summer.

He played well there. It was good in September and practices in October. And then he missed 35 consecutive days. Now, think about that. That's five consecutive weeks that he didn't dribble or shoot a basketball with his right hand. And that just set him back. When he came back, you know, if they had two or three weeks of practice for him to, you know, get comfortable, get his confidence back. But nice thing you know it, we're playing BYU at home.

and we're right back on the road at Oregon. And, you know, he just didn't play very well. And our team was right there with him. We didn't play very well either. But, you know, you learn never to overreact to losses or wins in this business. You just don't. You know, how do we learn from it? How do we get better, especially games in November and December?

The ones that count are in January, February, March. You know, you're going to have some ups and downs with young kids. in November, December, in college basketball. But as long as they're moving in the right direction, and I could see that with Deshaun. He's such an important piece for us because we play him at point guard. Now, he's not a true point guard, but he handles that position for us. And I thought his toughness, his leadership, is moxie.

You know, I thought it was really good on the road on Saturday. Quentin Grimes was obviously a young man that you thought a lot of the transfer and a lot of folks are very excited and I would say there are some moments that you watch and go, wow, he's everything is advertised and there are some times that he struggles. Is that typical for a young man that goes from one

program in the next in a certain adjustment period? And how would you evaluate his time with you so far this year? I think that's fair. You know, he played for such a great coach and a great program at Kansas. But, you know,

don't always fit. You know, we've all had, in this day and age, kids transfers, it's not a surprise. You know, Dejohn and Bryson transferred from UMass. Justin Gorham transferred from Towson State. Every team has transfers. But, you know, Quentin's continuing to get better. I thought he played well against Wichita State. But there's a, that word expectations can be it can hold you hostage, but it also can create problems because, you know, even though you've never seen someone play, you read about it. And you're reading someone's opinion, so you're basing your judgment based on what someone else says.

And that's not really fair to the young man. I'm not saying that's wrong to do because people that follow sports, you know, listen to Matt Thomas gives his opinion, and some people base their judgment on your opinion. That's just an example. But I think Quentin's kind of been held hostage by unfair expectations. I see him as who he is. I didn't see him in high school. Since we've gotten him here, he's learned to play harder.

He's learned to play tougher. He had five rebounds on Saturday early in the season. He had games where he had no rebounds. So I think he's improving for us. And that's the most important thing. Before I let you run, a big picture college basketball, why has it been so difficult to be number one this year in college basketball? Any thought or belief on that?

I just don't think there's any senior-dominated teams. You know, a lot of it has to do with the schedule you play. If you play a tough schedule, you're going to get beat. Michigan State plays the toughest schedule in the country, and they may be the best team, but they already have five losses or six. I don't even, you know, five, whatever it is. Yeah. You know, and sometimes who you play in your next game, you know,

if you're right, number 10 and you have three or four soft games and you went three or four in a row, and the people ahead of you play three or four tough games, they're going to move down and you're going to move up, and that doesn't mean you're number one. You just kind of inherited that spot for this week, and your next game may be at Maryland or at Cincinnati, and you lose that. That doesn't mean you're, when you're number one, you weren't really number one. And when you're lost, that doesn't mean you're any worse team. It's just the way it is.

Well, hopefully you keep moving up these charts in the top 25. You've got Yukon coming up this Thursday at Fortita Center at 8 o'clock. Wrap things up. Neil is to say, Coach, I'm assuming that a new arena of yours has done a world of wonders when it comes to bringing kids to come visit our great campus. And the Guy V. Lewis Development Center. The resources we have been twice has really helped. and we have great fan support, beautiful, beautiful arena, great atmosphere.

And we have tremendous kids. You know, character means so much, so much in sports. When you have kids that do things the right way on and off the court, it really matters when game time comes. And that will be next up on Thursday, and then you've got the game coming up this weekend against USF. It's always a pleasure to visit with you. Congratulations on the great season.

Look forward to visiting with you again before we get things going here, too soon. Okay, thanks for having me on. You got it. Calvin Sampson, head basketball coach, University of Houston with us here on the Matt Thomas show. And his conversation is brought to you by our friends at the joint chiropractic, the official chiropractor of the Houston Cougars. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. For the corner and let's go. Home of your Astros. 121 on the Matt Thomas show. Nice to have Coach Sampson with us. Coach is great. I used to the coaches radio show. And I could ask one question, and he could go 12, 14 minutes.

How does he feel? Does he like Austin? You're in segment suspension. What? Nick, nice to have you with us on the show this afternoon here. Good to be here. Even Nick wouldn't do something that rude. Oh, I just asked the question. How does he feel about Austin, Texas?

I think he would say it's a nice place to visit, but he can't win there because nobody wins there. It's a football school. Rick ran there. It's an alma. It's an Alamo bowl school. A Rick won there for a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry, what bowl did the U of H football go to? Well, if we were, if we would have gotten some better officiating,

and our quarterback decided he didn't want to quit the middle of the year. Yeah. By the way, if those of you that were trying to keep track, another Cougar update brought to you by the joint chiropractic D. King's going to Miami where he's going to finish six and six in the ACC. Well, that's better in finishing three and eight or whatever in the AAC. That's not true. Three and nine?

And I would be completely biased, I'm going to tell you right now. He would have a better chance to go to a better bowl. Oh, come on. Stop. You stop. The fifth place ACC team over maybe playing in a New Year's Day six bowl. They're not going to New Year's Day, sit, whatever. You don't know that.

I do know that Miami's going to finish seven and five tops. All right, I will guarantee 18,000 star selection. U.S. doesn't go to a New Year's Sixth Bowl next year. Conference championships at Sports RV, conference championships. They wins the last time they won one. They're going to go 10 and 2. They're going to go 10 and 2. They even win.

Well, they did win it with Herman. Thanks for the coach, by the way. That's working out. If I gave you a chance to get Ed O right now for the University of Texas, would you do it? Oh, please. No. So why is he successful at LSU? Well, because he's born and he's recruited well.

Let's see what happens after everybody's left and all his coordinators have gone too. Dave Iranda is at what? It was a perfect mix. Okay. Joe Brady's gone. Dave Iranda's gone. Like, nine players declared. So you're saying basically six and six next year for LSU? I didn't say that.

Everybody on Tiger Beat or Tiger Paw or Tiger Tracks or whatever the hell y'all's stupid message board is? Sports RV, successful midday host says six and six. It's not get crazy. Gordy, where are you at? I didn't say that. I feel like any time we bring up LSU, there should be like an automatic buzzer in the building. He'll be running in here soon enough. All right, 713.

He's a great recruiter. he's a smart CEO and maybe he'll if he can knock it out of the park with some more with some good hires then LSU will be fun You just described Mac Brown I've been saying that for

this whole year Mac Brown Mac Brown's wasn't some X's and O's guy No he was an administrator Mac Brown's got a bunch of five-star recruits he hired good defensive coordinators and had media people in Austin fired if they said terse words about the University of Texas

and they just out talented everybody Yeah. Mac Brown's not some coaching genius. You don't think Eddo knows the X's and O's? Coach O has Credence on his headset while they're playing games. He's not calling plays. Do you think he's got the song Louisiana Saturday Night on this song? Like, put that song.

He's listening to Washboard music during the game. Put Louisiana Saturday Night on. Do you think this song is in Coach O's earpiece? Is Credence Clearwater Revival, Born on the Bayou on a loop during games for Eddo in his headset. No. Kick off your shoes and you throw them on the floor. Dance in the kitchen till the morning.

I don't have this in my headset. Maybe this and born by you. Like if the Rockets, God forbid ever lose a game by 20 in the road in the next month. Yeah. Put this song in my earpiece. I'm calling the game. I'll be in a much better mood. Were you having issues with your microphone yesterday, by the way?

Yes. How did you know? I'm observant Will you watch me hit it? Yes Yeah Well I saw that it didn't pop When you were talking

And you said something In the first couple of words Didn't go Yeah there was a short in the microphone Okay It'll be fixed I figured I'm observing me

Are you spying me? What am I spying? Ross is lurking me at the Toyota Center How is that spying? That's just weird It's not weird I just notice

Do you have binoculars on me? No I don't have binoculars I didn't even I just noticed that the microphone was acting funky and like I said I'm a observer. You're on segment of suspension.

Again? Twice and work? You're not until 2 o'clock. I was just curious. I meant to ask you off here. I forgot. Well, I bet I can get on segment suspension pretty quick too. Yeah, and shut up. You wanted to play something else, didn't you? You weren't ready. I wasn't ready. I forgot I had Louisiana

Saturday night. I went to a phone call. Joseph and Pearland at 126. Hi, Joseph. Yes, sir. I got a quick question on what to answer. y'all doing. We're well, thank you. Do you think in your mind that Dr. Baker will be a good fit

with Houston Astros? Thank you. I hang up. Thank you. I'll answer that question for you in a moment. I like that. Because there's a new name we need to add to the Astros managerial mix. There is? Yeah. It's Matt, and he's back. The Matt Thomas show on 790. Houston's home for Houston

teens. 132 on the Matt Thomas show. Still having nightmares about one for 17. We'll get to that in a little bit. 2 o'clock we will try to figure out and hear from Coach, hear from James about exactly how to fix this terrible losing streak. Not season ending, not fire everybody, but sucks losing streak. And how to figure out, I mean, honestly, Ross, there's no more one for 17 for James.

It just can't be. Well, they can't It's the only one for 17 game this year from three. They just can't afford. They're going to have to get somebody to step up or just tell, or something to be really polite and say, James,

excuse me, Mr. Hardin, you just can't take 15 step back, 28-foot three-point shots because they're just not falling right now. It's not good. It's not good at all. The best way to get out of a slump is to shoot your way out, though. That's what I think he has to be thinking.

More on that coming up in the next half hour. Dusty Baker. I don't know if Dusty's a good manager, but I'm only basing it off of the time he was as a major leaguer. He's got a winning record, right? He's taking multiple teams to playoffs. Yes. He has no World Series rings to his honor. Winning record everywhere he went.

Has been in every sort of clubhouse imaginable from having to manage a young team to a veteran team to a team that had Barry Bonds chasing after a home run record when the constant conversation of steroids. was being talked about. And my guess is that Barry Bonds was a super diva as a baseball player. I'm guessing, I'm going to tell you that he was. And it was very difficult for him to work that clubhouse, especially when guys like Jeff Kent probably were just turning sideways to Barry Bonds. So if you want to check the boxes, been there, done that. If you want to check the boxes of working in non-normal situations,

because this year is going to be non-normal. For every city that the Astros go in, they're going to be pepper with questions about what happened in 2017. And if you're making a managerial hire this time of year, are you really thinking this is the guy that's going to be the manager of my baseball team for the next five to seven years of your Jim Craig? I mean, what are the biggest, I mean, I'm trying to think. The biggest complaints about Dusty Baker were what, overusing pitchers?

Is he a Sabremetrix guy? Well, he's 71. I would presume most 71-year-old. people are not the definition of old school. Is he open to changing his tune? I mean, he was with the Nationals most recently. But it's hard for me. Like, if you would describe A.J. Hinch's managerial style, what would you say it is?

Is there such a thing? I would say, would you describe a Joe Madden's managerial style? What, like McDonnelly runs a fast, uptemple offense 3 and D? I would say A.J. Hinch is analytics forward, loyal to his players, almost to a fault,

and a player's coach, manager. Yeah. What was Tony LaRouca like? Hard ass, my way of the highway? I guess. But that doesn't necessarily describe,

like he doesn't go in and say, today I'm going to manage differently. We're going to, like, you know, for instance, I'll also say smart for you, Frank Vogel coach the Lakers, okay? And their thought was this past weekend, we're going to double team James Harden. We've seen other coaches do the same thing. Eric Spolster said, all right, here's how we're going to combat the other team. Dusty Baker's not going, or any manager, you're not going, all right, so the Astros are facing this particular pitcher today. The only thing I guess you could probably say was you're probably going to try to maybe coax a few more walks.

maybe take a few more pitches, but he doesn't all of a sudden say, well, today we're not going to rely on the stolen base, but tomorrow when we play, we're going to try to run them out of the building. Well, I mean, if there's a pitcher who's slow to the, to the batter and stuff like that, perhaps, but you'll have those, but you don't have to, he's not going to be one breaking down those numbers. He's going to get a report. I mean, AJ Hinch would get information from Luno and the staff, hey, this guy's slow to

the mound. Hey, this guy hits lefties. Hey, this guy can't hit the breaking ball, et cetera, et cetera. anybody who's going to be with the Astros, I would presume, would get that same type of information. But the thing about the differentiates baseball managers from NBA coaches and NFL coaches. Like Andy Reid, I got an aggressive play. We're going to play up-tempo. We're going to go no huddle.

We're going to try a few trick plays. NFL coaches can definitely dictate the style of which their team is going to play that particular day. The Astros, you write the lineup card out, and you hope that George Springer gets on first base. You hope that Jose Al-Tube and Alex Bregman and Yordon Alvarez and, you know, Michael Brantley follow up. But I think you can say, hey, guys, you should keep an eye. This pitcher we're facing today. He struggles early in counts.

But that's a much smaller nuance than a basketball coach drawing up players in football. So you're agreeing with me that I've always said that the managers doesn't matter as much. But the one thing I have said is you have to have a manager that is even keeled that relates well to the clubhouse. Not necessarily acquiescing to what the players want, but knowing when to push and when not to push. You just need somebody who's not an A-hole. And gruff. In 2020. Yeah.

You have to be able to have somebody. I mean, I think, yeah, you're sent up the lining card. You're giving the scouting report. And then what else are you doing? Yeah. I mean, you've got to have some feelings about, do we want to go with this pitcher or is my pitcher gassed or, you know, are using the bullpen and not taxing the bullpen and stuff like that.

So I can't tell you if Dusty Baker is better or worse than Jeff Bannister, a ranger manager, currently a senior advisor with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who is apparently going to be interviewing for the job. I have a notion of what they sound like in front of a microphone, but there's no way I can go to, remember that time in July of 2007 when Dusty Baker was managing and, hey, did that? Yeah, right. That's, to me, that's just baseball managers in general. Correct. So if you're going to give me a list of the people, who is going to make the clubhouse as normal as it possibly can be when it's going to be

one of the most controversial years in baseball history. Dusty seems like a guy that could do that. Can Buck Showalter do that? I mean, guys get older, they change. That's true. Especially they want to have a job.

Right. You're going to have to say, hey, if Buck Showalter does not, yeah, if Buck Showalter does not embrace analytics, which he hasn't. He will not be the manager of the Houston Astros. I would hope not. I don't know if Dusty Baker at 71 is.

I don't know if Dusty Baker is the guy that's going to be here four years from now. 140 on the Matt Thomas show, 713, 212-5-790. Matt's and Tomball on 7-90. Hi, Matt. Hey, good afternoon and thank you for having me on your show. Sure, sure. I'm the guy that pastors you a handful of times of year. I'm from St. Louis and a diehard Cardo fan, but, you know, I have got a passion for the Astros.

And I think Dusty Baker would be a disaster. He's a good guy, but he would not assimilate to the, you know, brand name of the Houston Astros and all the analytics. I just don't see that happening. Plus, he doesn't take any crap, and you're right. It's a tough year for the Astros on the road. And, you know, if he gets asked three or four obnoxious questions in a row like you media types can do, he may not respond well. But in my opinion, this year should be about, and I already used the word, I regret that. But this is about a brand name repair year for the Astros because they're a great organization.

You know, something went wrong. A handful of people were involved in a whole organization that's hurting for it. I saw something in the Wall Street Journal the other day, or just two days ago, about the market value of the franchise itself went down a lot. And so, in my opinion, you have a lot of great alumni, Houston Astro alumni. apparently one or two may have thrown their hat to ring. So I think it's important that whoever does come in, you know, have some astro history. I disagree. I don't think astro history is going to do with that.

I think you have to find somebody that, frankly, Madding, and you can choose to agree with me if you'd like, I think that has to know what it's like to run a turbulent clubhouse. And I'm not saying if they're fighting with each other, I'm not saying that people don't get along. I'm saying that this is going to be the most abnormal year in the Astros Clubhouse in the history of the franchise and maybe in modern baseball because as you said it, they're going to be going to every single town and the questions are going to come in. And not that Dusty Baker walks into a room and says, hey, media, stop asking. But there are going to be some guys.

They're going to be like, hey, Dusty, how would you handle this? Or how should we handle this? And I don't know if I want a first-time manager having to go through those types of situations, not having gone what it's like to be in a clubhouse is going to be very atypical. But see, you've got a great point there, and I'm not going to, you know, because this is all opinion. But I think that might be the perfect time

to have an articulate, solid baseball guy that has his first turn, but he also has, he's got an astro blood in him. Because it is going to be tough. And, you know, Datsy Baker, I mean, like I said, three or four questions, they didn't do it, he'll lose his tolerance. And he will not be a good ambassador.

And, you know, that's a good word. You guys need an ambassador this year who also have to still baseball. And you know what? That very well could be the case. Matt, I got a roller break. I thank you. I don't think Craig Bizio is interested in this.

And so you and I talked about last week, Ross, I think he's very comfortable in his retirement life. Yeah, and I don't think it has to be, I mean, wouldn't the best way to repair your brand be to win? Yeah, that's number one. We said that yesterday. I mean, we said, yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you don't need to have somebody.

I don't remember like Hall of Flame players for every other team just coming up and managing them. Yeah. Like it's fun for us to say, hey, Craig Bissio should be manager. Hey, Lance Berkman. How about Jeff Bagwell? I mean, we don't know that they want the job, one. And number two, it doesn't lead to anything. You need to find the right person regardless of whether he has any astro history or not.

Yeah, I don't think it's a particular situation that makes you say to yourself, I've got to have Bigeo at first base, Berkman at third base, and Larry Dirk are coming back. You have to find the best team at win that's going to help you win. And oh, by the way,

this is still on paper the best team in the American League West. It just is. And you just, I think you, you know, if Lance wanted to be a full-time employee of the team and wanted to be a bench coach or whatever for the new manager,

I would take Lance Burtman in a heartbeat. I think he wants to be in the game like that. I just don't know if I want a first-time manager who's going to make a lot of mistakes just being a manager to have to handle the pressure of what is going to be a, in theory, a PR nightmare for an entire season, unless you win and then it becomes a PR. What are y'all talking about again? Back to Matt Thomas. Drives this date to left center field.

This is Sports Talk 790, home of Astros baseball. The Matt Thomas show. I have to tell you this and you don't want to hear this because it will do you know good but my material off air is so much better than it is off. Off air than is honest. I'm inside. I blew that. The things that Ross and I discuss

would be an amazing internet only show. I'm trying to rain in Matt. Matt, people don't know this. Matt Thomas is just, he's just a crazed wild man. I'm savage. He needs to be rained in. Yes. A lot of bad thoughts in these streets.

713, 21, 2, 1, 2, 2, 5. 790. 713. 2.1.2.5.7.90. More on the Astros throughout the course the next hour and change. Dusty Baker, believe it or not today, right? No. Why? Was he hired? No, I'm just saying. I mean,

we may not be able to use him. That's true. Dusty Baker. No, Dusty Baker is a jazz band the late 1960s. We've already discussed this. Okay. And more on the Rockets. And they got to get out of this funk. One for 17 for James.

Rossi. They've sure. shot less than 30% from the three point and made less than 10 three-pointers for the first time in a year and a half. And they gave up a huge lead in the fourth quarter. Huge. It was bad. That fourth quarter, I mean, I didn't believe my eye. I didn't believe what I was seeing. It was like, there's no way they blow this.

There's no way. And then it kept getting closer and closer and closer than Oklahoma City took the lead. Danilo Garinari. Adelino Galena. A deniolaniari is a tiny little pizza pie. And he destroyed the rockets in that four-quarter. And he's the three-pointers. It's like Pablo used to do once in a while.

Although he's really not from Italy. He's from Argentina. It's okay. Italy and Argentina have close ties. And then Dennis Schrooter. Dennis, I showed. No, it doesn't work. No, it doesn't work.

Just left-hand lay-up after left-hand lay-up after left-hand lay-up. Twelve-hand lay-up. They were... What? Sheaildedges Alexander and Dennis Shreux. were a plus 21 in the fourth quarter only. Well, everybody played the whole quarter. If I would have played in the fourth quarter and for a minute plus.

Yeah. Rockets, Nuggets to him all night. And then the rockets go on the road for four straight. Well, the nuggets have been struggling too, right? But they're still, where are they now? I know there's like a three-way tie for the two spot. Yeah, nuggets are in that. How far are the rockets in the two spot right now in the west?

Three and a half games. Okay. So. Yeah, but you got four teams to hop. Yeah, but tonight. but there's going to be some hopper. There's hopping tonight. Clippers in Dallas play.

Somebody's going, they're going to think you're going to gain a half game on somebody. You know, they're only a half game out of the two spot. Oh, they're only a game out. Oh, they're only two games out. Now they're three games out. And then there's more teams between them. I don't want to keep saying they're close. And then the next thing you know, oh, you know, at the end of the season after 82 games

are played, well, there's only three games out of the two spot. Well, they should have won three more games during the season. It's going to be close. We're going to be able to say this the entire season. Oh, they're only X amount of games left. I want them to say they're only X amount of games ahead. Then they're going to steal some games. They're going to have to go three and one on this road trip coming up

and beat Denver to make it four out of five. Mavericks are on everybody's on a win street. Mavericks have won four in a row, Clippers have won three in a row, Jazz have won a couple, and they had that 10-game winning streak. So they've won, I want to say, 12 out of 13. So if you're going to be trying to, you're going to have to win games and catch people, other people are going to have to lose games. That's the hard part.

not only you're going to have to turn it around, other people are going to have to fall. Well, I think it has to be done internally. Of course, yeah. No more spending time looking at scoreboards for a while for me. Yeah, you win the games in fronty, and the chips fall where they may. But let's win the games in fronty.

Do you bring McLemore back off the bench eventually, do you think? I don't know. We're splitting hairs on this, unfortunately. Whatever combination you just hadn't been working out right now. Terrence and Pearland. Hi, Terrence. Hey, Matt Thomas, yeah, man, I listen to y'all. Talk, man, I got three comments I want to make on all three of my H-town teams, man.

I'm starting to start with them Rockets. Okay. I think Tillman needs to go ahead on. And, man, I've been watching this since I've been a pup, man. It's just rush fans getting tired of all this, this bad stuff doing in the organization, man. I think he needs to clean house. He needs to get rid of Darrymoreland. He's been here over 10 years.

We ain't did nothing, but two West Conference finals, and we didn't lost. Then he need to get rid of coach, and I think it's time for Jane Hardin and Westbrook to come up out of here. He need to break it down and clean house, man, because I'm tired of Hardin with all this. Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, you know, you up and down, you score 50, 60 points, but we take L. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's my thing about the Rockets.

Then I'm going to jump on the Texas. I then won't Bill O'Brien here just like I ain't want Dan Tony here. And Bill O'Brien, man, I don't know what he'd be doing. Would he be thinking about it or what? He's a little baby Billichick. He's trying to be a Billichick, but he can't because he's not smart enough. Man, I think, and the Astro, man, I just feel like, you know, it's sad to what happened to the baseball team, but, you know,

you can't throw away all the good apples because of too bad apples. Now, I like me personally, I like with the owner did, crane deed. You know what I mean? because it looked like he could be okay with the cheating. You know, this city here never. I've been out of my life. This city never known for cheating. If Houston teams suck, we suck.

We win, we win. We know how to win championship. You know, we don't have very many, but we know what that feeling is, and we don't cheat down here. So I feel like, you know, you can go find your smart guy that's on numbers with analytics and go put them in the manager, a general manager position. And when it kills all, Matt Thomas. Once you start winning, everybody going to swipe out all this old back,

comma, or whatever. Once we start back winning, I think the city will be back crunk. I don't think fans going to well, we're going to be all right, because once you start winning, you get your fans back. You know, fans and us are fans. But, you know, I feel like it's just don't give up on the astrope. And, you know, that's a good organization. And it's a high-class organization.

And I think it's going to be some smart moves being made. You know what I mean? Duster Baker. and Perez, I think them will be some nice. But I'm like you, man, earlier what you said. I really get somebody here who can handle the media, who know how to talk to the media, not fly off the handle, you know, get out of twos like a Bill O'Brien and talk to people, you know,

and be calm. And just because when any coach that come in, any manager that come in, you've got talent. It's talent all on this roster like crazy. So you come in to an easy, easy, this is an easy job. and in, you know what I mean? Guys know what they roll live and do their job. So, you know, I just want to get us listening to y'all on my way to work.

All right. And see what y'all think about. Thank you, Terrence. Terrence, let me tell you something, Terrence. I don't agree with much of what you said, but I like you a lot. You talked to me. I talked to Terrence on the postgame last week. I could talk to Terrence on a weekly basis.

Terrence crushed the Rockets and the Texans on the post game show. Just to recap this very quickly. He wants Dantonee gone, Morrie gone. Morley. No, Daryl, Morley gone. Whatever. And he wants Westbrook and Harden gone. Start from scratch.

Like 20 and 62. Like Atlanta Hawk, Charlotte Hornet basketball. Right. That's what he wants. Okay. I don't agree with that. And the Rockets are 4 and 1 when he score, when James scores 50 points this year. So he's not dropping 50 and 60 and they're taking L's.

Yeah. Or they're just the ones. And that was to San Antonio's first. He has some 40 point triple doubles and lost, right? Something like that. Probably. I can look that up. Point being is this.

Terrence. Don't be afraid to call the show. It was interesting. Again, I didn't agree with everything, but that's okay. Is the Matt Thomas show. You are getting quite a bit of positive publicity on these Twitter streets today. The people love Terrence. I got like 10 tweets about him.

I just got a text. I want to tell you where the text is from, but they like Terrence. Darry Mory? Was not Darry Moore. No, he probably, no, I guess Darryl Morley. Darryl Moreley did not like it. Darry listens every once in a while. Appreciate him.

It's surprising who does listen to the show. We're just a little midday radio show. We don't do much. It's an all-star list. We just give opinions and have a good time. We don't treat this like this as a science or a lecture. This is the most important thing in the world. Most important thing in the world is good food, good women in your health.

Do you know what the boardroom is? Yeah, it's a place to get your haircut. Okay. Well, on Twitter, it's an inside look at what's really changing the game created by Rich Klyman and Kevin Durant. Apparently, PJ Tucker is going to be running their Twitter account, and he has a hashtag out, ask, hashtag ask PJ Tucker. And? He's going to be answering questions, I guess, in a little bit.

Speaking of PJ. For Twitter Q&A. He spoke to Mark Berman this afternoon at Rockets Practice. You know, PJs has been logging a lot of minutes, Ross. Mark Berman wasn't at the airport? No, that's not during practice. That's during other times of the day. which by the way he chased down Dusty Baker at the airport didn't he?

Yeah. He must... Does he get like a baggage claim guy that's like an inside-blank? Here's the problem with that. You can't... If he had a baggage handler, buddy, he wouldn't be able to get from Fox,

which is over on 59 and, what, Newcastle to the airport in time. Maybe he lives by the airport. No, here's what I think Mark does. Mark must have an insider at the air. airlines. Like the ticket claim, like a ticketing? Somebody that would be able to get to the reservation system.

And he hears a name. Mm-hmm. Like he hears XYZ player is coming to town. He'll call his buddy at United and say, can you find him on a flight? Because most times people, like if you're interviewing for any sort of coaching job or player, you're not flying on a connecting flight. wherever that person is coming from they're coming from a nonstop destination

the United has more non-stops than any of the airline here in town, right? So that's what he has to do. Do you know what happened to me one time? Mark Berman chased you down? No, but he was chasing down somebody that was sitting next to me. There was a former Minnesota Timberwolf

named Gerald Green that signed for the Rockets when I was visiting to come visit my family when I used to live in Minnesota. Yeah. And he and I sat together in the same section of the airplane. It was me and Gerald Green. Get off the plane, and there's Mark Freaking Berman.

And he didn't recognize me very well because I had lost some weight. But I'm like, Mark, what the hell are you doing here? He's here to get Gerald Green. You mean like Gerald Green, who's been like with five different NBA team? This is not the current version of Joe Green. This is like the early, early Gerald Green. You know, America, you would never say for a team more than about two weeks. Right.

He says, you got to catch all these stories. I said, I don't see 13 here. I don't see 11 here. That's why he scoops. That's why he does it because he can always say I was at the airport when it. So if you're the United person that's giving Mark information and having to listen to this show, why don't you'll have a phone call me. I'll give you my son number later.

You're not going to go down there and interview people. No, I'm going to be cool to see who's there. See, then you're not, then why are they going to help you? Actually, that's not true. I could be from my house and Intercontinent and I can be there in 25 minutes. Okay. So I guess I could if I had the energy. But I'm probably napping.

Probably. Working nap? Have mercy. PJ, on it's tough. Fighting, playing all these time with injuries. It's tough.

It's hard. It's really hard. You got nerve damage. It's really tough. But like I said, it's something that I don't complain about. I just play. And that's it.

Like, there's nothing else to talk about. We were struggling and I fight through it. He's hurt. Nerve damage. He's in pain, Ross. And you can stay on the floor.

He's just not the same player. But there's nobody else. that it's got the moxie in that position on the floor for the team. Nerve damage doesn't sound fun. How would you like to walk around on nerve damage? I would not like to play 40 minutes of NBA basketball with nerve damage. He is such a tough son of a gun. I couldn't play shuffleboard with nerve damage, much less play an NBA game.

I appreciate PJ. As long as he's helping the team, not hurting them. Yeah. All right. Here's James Harden last night. I'm talking about, well, the one for six. So not tonight. Tonight we just didn't continue to do it.

We didn't really shoot the ball world entire of the end, but defensively we were engaged and locked in. And we were on the string. And that last seven minutes, it was the same. The last seven minutes was awful. It was terrible. Jaw.

I mean, you know, I can look at the crowd. You know, I can see people's faces on the other end of the floor. I mean, there were like everybody's jaw was on the floor. Right. Literally. Yeah. well not literally they're like well not literally

figure it unless they fell down unless they just have very very bad dental work but Dennis Schrooter and James going from 263 point Adam Clinton gets on the jump are you kidding me

was he oh it's probably his tweet his tweet got on there you're the one that tweeted it first I know and Adam is taking all the credit that's fine no it's not fine

you're upset about this and he retweeted himself from the 798 cup that's okay I'm just hoping he's listening. Adam Clinton, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I'd expect this of others, not from you. Ross, here's the bottom.

He's got almost a million views that video. If James doesn't get this fixed, quick, the rockets are in a massive amount of trouble. He'll be fine. Massive trouble. Look at me in my eyes, Matt. He's going to be fun. He's going to turn it around. And by the way, and you know what?

Truth be told, I'm close. Mike Dantone is not the problem. I know that that's going to be unpopular for some people. Too bad. I'm with you. Too bad. And I'm not even employed by the team. I'm employed by the team, Ross?

Am I allowed to have an opinion about this? I think so. So, I mean, look, he's had, I mean, we were talking about how he was shot for December, like 40% from three or whatever. You knew he was going to come back down. He's that guy when you're taking that volume of threes. I mean, he's got games where he was going, you know, 10 of 15 from 3 or 9 of 19, like there were a lot of, yeah, 10 of 18 as well. There were games where he was just white hot from three, and he got his average close to

like 40%. He knew he was going to come down some. It's just how it is. James Hardin's going to be fine. You can blame the braids and the, or people are blaming his, some guy, he's got a girlfriend or something like that or his headband. Whatever you want to blame, you can blame. Fact matter is, he's going to be fine. Well, you know, we here in Houston do blame girlfriends for a lot of things.

Yeah. We blamed Mrs. Ms. Kardashian for a while. We blamed Kardashian. We blamed what's J.J. Watts' fiance's name? Kelly, Ohio. I mean, Mrs. Correa has been just destroyed by America. Well, actually, just Houston.

Keelia, Ohio? Yeah. What's Carlos' wife's name? Oh, Daniela Rodriguez. We're blaming Daniela? It's Daniela Correa now. They got married. Oh, good for her.

Stop blaming wives and girlfriends. and just general friends. Let me just check on her Instagram, see how she's doing. I'm sure you will. Rodney and Alvin on the Matt Thomas show. Rodney, good afternoon. Good afternoon. How you doing? Great. Thank you. I haven't heard the names that aren't out there with the Astros.

It was on, I think, Boston's manager search list. But he was a former Astro, and he reminds me a little bit of, bitch because of his age and he was a catcher. But what about Brad Osmus? I've not heard his name.

Brad has experience. Brad also has a losing record as a manager. Zero postseason appearances, I want to say, right? I'm not totally sure. It was with Detroit and the Angels. Yeah. He even less than. Yeah, I just haven't heard his name being banning about, and I've heard

Bannister's name a bunch. Eduardo Perez's name is being talked about. Joe Espada, really haven't heard much after the initial announcement. Again, how much does the wins and losses play into this? I don't know. Again, we're trying to guess based on what Jim's Crane's preferences. He's not sent out text to all of us said, here's what I wanted to manager. I do believe he has said, at least officially, he'd like someone that has some experience before.

So that probably would knock out a guy like Joe Espott. And the thing about, the names that have been brought up are names that have all had at least majorly experience. Maybe Brad's just not one of those guys that there's being seriously considered. But yeah, he's a two-term manager in two different cities. So he would fit the prerequisite, that's for sure. And he's an Ivy League. What does that have to do anything? Well, I would say he would fit into the airport.

analytics deal pretty good. I think it's more, and honestly, thank you for the phone call. I appreciate it, Rodney. I think it's more about the temperature of the clubhouse. Because even if the person gets hired Ross that's not super analytics, they'll get that person in two years. Or three years, whatever. Whoever's going to sign this deal is not getting a long-term deal, right? They're getting two or three years max.

Awesome's got a three. I was just looking it up. He got a three-year deal with the Angels and didn't even... last a season. So, I mean, maybe three-year deal isn't necessarily something out of the ordinary. I mean, first of all, managers aren't hired in late January. I think you're trying to get it right as much as possible. And that's why I even think like a three-year deal for like Joe Espada or something makes a lot of sense.

Let him figure it out if it's that much of a disaster. He's probably, I mean, Joe Spot is probably not in a position to be commanding a ton of money and asking for a lot of money. you give him some deal that's probably in the lower third of the major leagues you keep the continuity but has he been officially even interviewed I'm not sure I mean all thing I've seen is

Dusty Baker's been in town Buck Shawalter and there was somebody else we're talking about you got you got Bannister who's going to be next on the list and who was the guy you teased that was going to be you were talking about earlier Jeff Bannister

okay yeah those they all John Gibbons would be another guy. Former Blue Jays manager, lives in San Antonio, I think. Apparently, Michael was saying that John Gibbons used to in Toronto, he would prank call the postgame shows. So I think John Gibbons, I'd welcome him with open arms. Let me tell you something right now. I would be glad to have John Gibbons' post game, prank call the post game shows. That'd be great. 214. The Matt Thomas show,

713, 212, 5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. The Matt Thomas Show. Back to do it. On Sports Talk 790. Home of the Straws. A Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790. Thank you for being a part of the program. Whether it be on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRvey or at ProNic Lowe.

Mike Dan Tony with us tomorrow for a half hour between 2 and 2.30. That should be a real peach. He's trying to snap a four-game losing streak. Pressure mounting. Still in the sixth spot in the West, but obviously not fun to discuss. the night where your major superstar misses 16 to 17 three point attempts tomorrow two o'clock on 790 um NFL draft people run generally speaking hot and cold on it either they watch all of it or they're like wait me up when the season starts probably more

towards the people watch it because it's the first real spring glimpse of you who your football team's going to be in the fall would that be fair to say well they're going to have the draft. They've been moving the draft the last handful of years. It's been in Chicago before. It's been in Radio City Music Hall much. Where else has it been besides? Was it in Philly? Philadelphia had it one year. Nashville had it. Didn't Nashville have it? Yes, I believe so. Didn't the girl supposed to have her engagement party or something? She got mad because there was thousands of people in the streets. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they were, she were doing her bachelorette. Bachelor's party.

Nashville's probably not a bad spot to do the old bachelorette. This is This upcoming draft will be held in Las Vegas A purely genius idea It's dangerous No But your young 20 year old millionaires

Out in Las Vegas 21 year old Right that's what I'm saying Unless they're agents Get drafted Let's go party tonight Like six of them get arrested What you do is you get a bigger suite

In a hotel I mean every suite in Las Vegas Vegas is going to be booked So they're going to have this at the in Las Vegas and it's going to be very successful. Well, they're always trying to figure out ways

to add more dramatic effects to it. So Arresh Marcosi of ESPN no, excuse me, of the LA Times, announced... You used to be with ESPN, right? Yeah, I think he did. It says

the players will be transported to the stage by boat. where and you're saying to yourself wait a minute i've been to las Vegas since the middle of the desert they're going to the hoover dam they're not going to hoover dam they're not going to is it lake me out that's that the one that's out there okay i think it's more like me where pamela anderson did her video not that anybody should know about that you know a lot of pam am ederson video trivia

so the the boat is going to be at the bellagio you know where they have the fountains On Las Vegas Boulevard. Oh, they're not going to be on a Venetian gondola. Now, that would be cool. Or the Treasure Island pirate boat? That would be, the Buccaneers traffic should actually go there. Exactly. Do you know that there have been a lot of people that have been on that Belagio?

That's where James Corden and Celine Dion reenacted the scene from Titanic was on that boat, is she saying. I didn't know that. Yeah, I know that because I watched that stupid show. So it's not stupid, but I just watch it. So they're going to have this long platform, and these players are going to be announced. With the first pick in the NFL draft, the Cincinnati Bengals take Joe Burrell out of LSU. And he's not going to walk up on a stage. He's not going to get a firm.

Well, he may still get the firm embracement commissioner Goodell. You know how Goodell stare is lovingly in the eyes of every draft. Yeah, it's very awkward. He's going to be on a boat first. That's really going to stretch this out. not? Because I'm assuming they're not speedboats. They're probably small pontoons.

Just try to imagine this in your mind. Somebody was tweeting that he should go out on a Louisiana airboat. I like that. And look for gators? Yeah. Have you ever done one of those? By the way? Airboat, yeah.

I did airboat when I was a kid a couple times. But it's been a long time. Far East Texas. Because when you walk in New Orleans, you can see go on an airboat ride. Go find gators. I'm like, that's a hard pass. First of all, I'm on a boat that I don't trust with a boat leader, boat commander. Doesn't have all his teeth wearing a white t-shirt.

Who's wearing a tank top. Barefoot. Basically, forest gum. And there could be gators that could just snap up pieces of my body. I thought it was fun when I was a kid. They give you a life vest. Does the gator mind the life vest? Do you think you can chop right through that?

I hope not. Things I will never do. Hot air balloon ride and airboat ride in Louisiana. I think we're an orange. Texas. That's just about the same. But just imagine this for a second. The first pick of the NFL draft is on one end of this man-made lake in front of a hotel. He's going to go from the other end of the lake where he's then going to walk onto a stage, lovingly embrace the commissioner, put the uniform on. Every pick's going to take 15 minutes. You better pack a lunch for this draft.

Are we going to put on life vests? How deep is the water? It's only like a couple feet, right? I don't know. I'm trying to look it up. You know, every time I go to Vegas. Oh, it goes down to eight feet? I've been to Vegas. Can everybody swim? I've been to Vegas 35 times.

Is they going to put life vests on them? Yeah, what if one of the dudes falls out? Does that mean that the team can then rescind the draft pick? This is a dangerous situation. Yeah, what's the insurance say about all this? Why don't they put them on the helicopter on the roller coaster up there in Stratosphere? Have them ride that three or four times, then come down and introduce themselves the media. Wait, this has increases to 13 feet

by the jets. Oh, hell no. They should just have a bunch of jet skis, and every time they get picked, just let them jet ski over. That'll be fun. Well, they're going to use a boat. I think they should get some Venetian gondolas, but those are two different properties. One's owned by Caesars and the other one's owned by Las Vegas Sands. But you know what? You can cooperate with each other. And it's true. And then have good-looking women on the boat feeding the draft picks,

grapes and cheese. Okay. On the gondolas? I mean, if you're really going to do this, you're going to put these gondolas out there and you're going to have showgirls out there from the nude strip, the topless over the Tropicana. Hmm, I like this. They're not doing... In fact, I'm wrong about this, Ross.

They're not doing enough. You don't put these people on pontoon boats. You put them in gondolas and you have women feeding them grapes and cheese. Okay. And they're doing strip club and they're having... Wayne Newton's on one of the boats, singing.

I don't think he played... Does he play Vegas? Yeah, he's still alive? Okay. and George Wallace, all the staples. He's alive. Here's what you do. Pick, like, who's the most famous? Donnie Marie.

Who's the most famous Las Vegas performer right now? Lady Gaga was out there. Lady Gaga is doing a show. She's got a show. The Doobie Brothers have a show out there now. Elton John's done it. Celine D. on his day. You put people on the boat.

No, Elvis is dead. He can't do that. He's not available. No. And then if you're like the Pick 26, you have the guy, that does the one face, one direction, one face the other guy. That's how you do it. Are they going to do this

like up to the seventh round? Are they going to run out of boats? Yeah. If it's... Or like fuel? If you're a six-round pick, you get a drag queen of Liza Vanelli. Vanelli doing it. No, no, like the first round pick to get the Bellagio treatment, the six-round pick, like you're at the Orleans. Oh, you're talking about

hotels? You're at the four queens. Oh, I was thinking about the Las Vegas escorts. Are they going to be taking live prop bets at the Bellagio fountain? You know on who's next to be drafted? Right. Can you make your draft propets? Yeah. Yeah.

So, okay, so round, so draft one, if you're in the first round, you're being escorted in front of the Bellagio. Monty Carlo round two. Okay. I'm thinking Vegas. Harris, three. Okay. Ballet's fourth round?

Ooh, it's getting rough. fifth round Topicana Six round Hooters Six round hooters Seventh round You're at Circus

Circus Oh no Excalibur I already mentioned Excaliver Oh you did No you're right If you're a seventh round

draft pick You get drafted out of The Excalibur hotel Where they haven't I'm sure they have not Well let's like it there Yeah The better draft grade you are

The better entrance You are In front of the hotel Of your dreams Seventh round picks, get free Sir Camelot buffets at the Excalibur. Oh, yeah, they're not doing this well. We need to go help these people out.

We can do a much better job. Next time, tell Alexa. Playing 790 on I-Heart Radio. Wherever you are, so is Matt Thomas. Breaking news out of Los Angeles. Ross, are you ready for it involves the Astros? Oh, no. The Los Angeles city.

Council has unanimously asked for Major League Baseball to rescind the Astros 2017 World Series Championships and give it to the Los Angeles Dodgers. More details to come, but who cares? First of all, who effing cares? Number two, you ready for this? The city of Los Angeles is a hot mess. crime, construction, smog, high home rates. It's just a mess.

LA is beautiful, but it's a mess. The people that elected those members of the LA City Council should be mad. The resolution originally presented by council members Gil, Sadiio, and Paul Gorenz today last week, notes that sign-sealing allegations brought against the Astros and Red Sox. are now asking for Commissioner Rob Manfred to, quote, recall the World Series Commissioner's trophies and award them to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Give me a break. Whatever. You wasted.

They all should lose their jobs. There are way, construction and freeways and smog and crime are way bigger issues to the city council than worrying about pulling a World Series trophy. This has to stop. Look, we as Houstonians are embarrassed by the situation. I can speak for all of us, except for the fact that you can't take it away. You just can't. You can't take the memories from us.

They're going to put it in the record books that the Dodgers wore World Series champs. No, they're not. Rob Manfred's laughing his ass off. It's a waste of everybody's time. Waste of time. And all, by the way, y'all is Houston Astro fans, you're ready for 2020. You know it's going to be dicey. you know that it's going to be

turbulent, especially when the Astros on the road. I'm telling you, Ross, this might hurt traveling Astro fan going other cities. Like they're going to yell at or stuff thrown at them? Yeah, I guess I haven't thought about that. Not a lot, but a little bit. No, I think you're right. It could be. It could be problematic.

Now, they won't be like, go to the city hall and bang on a bunch of walls. I'm starting to think, okay, so this is obviously much different degrees of stuff that happened. But remember when Roberto Osuna first was traded to the Astros and it's all we talked about for like a week.

Correct. And then eventually nobody talked about it. This is different scales, different issues, this is way bigger, this is all that type of stuff. I still feel like though, when games start getting played, especially if the Astros are winning and playing well,

if they win 9,500 games, I don't think we're really, talking about this much in October. I hope you're right. But I can't tell you that right now. Because even if they do $195 to $100, are people still going to be bouncing around. Oh, they must be cheating.

I don't think they're idiots. Well, have you met America? Well, I guess that's not a big if. Yeah. There will still be people. But I mean, I don't know if it'll be as bad as far as, you know, traveling and players or people who are going to other ballparks and stuff like that. Because I wanted to, I made one of my New Year's resolutions

was to go to at least two different ballparks that I haven't been to this year. Where do you want to go? I'll go with you. How about T-Mobile Park in Seattle? We need to go to the new... Let's go to the new Arlington Ballpark this year. Yeah, that's an easy one. We can drive there and do some shows from up there.

Make sure it's April or October. No, it's a roof. Oh, that's right. They got a roof. Yeah, I can play in the middle of July. I forgot. Yeah. In my mind, I keep thinking Texas Rangers baseball and it's going to be hot as...

Yeah, you don't want to go after like May 15th. But yeah, now they've got a roof. It's fine. Yep. Let's go to Jeff and Magnolia on the Matt Thomas show 238. Hi, Jeff. Hey, guys. How are you good?

Okay. I know I want to talk about the question. You didn't give us a chance to answer the question. Doing horribly. We're doing terrible. I'm sorry. What was the question? You said, how we're doing?

Oh, well, I was excited to talk to y'all. Okay, go ahead. We're just teasing you. Okay. I will say this, too. I am so glad that y'all allow callers to talk and vent and all that. It's been a long time since I've done. I know a lot of Houston has got the call.

They're great sports radio stations and, you know, able to give their two cents without having to text in. So I highly appreciate that for the fans of the city of Houston. But anyway, we're going to have to boycott MLB network because every morning when I turn it on, it's bash the Astros, and I'm afraid it's going to be that way until we win another world series. bottom line, it's sickening. So I don't watch the MLB network anymore until that changes. Because that's just the way it's going to be. I'm afraid.

Yeah, you know what, I got Jeff news for you. It's the best sports TV network out there for its own individual sport. Go to it. It's going to be fine. I know you're mad at them right now, but it's okay. The game coverage and the insights are very, very good. They're just not being... Oh, no.

No, I loved that. I watched it all, you know. I watch it religiously for the last four or five years. But the other thing is, too, that a lot of my friends, okay, now I get to the draft, a lot of my friends don't like boats. And they're like, I say, I want to go fishing? No, I'm not getting nowhere near a boat or on a boat. So how they're going to work that out for the draft?

I'll be anxious to see. You know what? I cannot wait. But I think we should probably do it. And thank you, Jeff, for the phone call. Rossi, we got to help the NFL out. They didn't make this a serious production. Some speedboats, some pontoons, some sailboats.

Got to get sponsors? You have to change it up. Jet skis. Like a progressive boat that talks about progressive boat insurance? Yeah. For one with a Geico Gecko on it? Yeah, that's what we got to do. We've got to change this up.

Got to ham this up. All right. We have the audio from the LA City Council. Remember, are you serious? Crime is high in Los Angeles. Yeah. A lot of poverty. Okay. High unemployment. Sure.

Smog and terrible traffic. This is what L.A. City Council is working on. Councilmember Sadiou and I introduced this motion to acknowledge that the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox cheated in the 2017 and 2018 World Series and made an effort to steal those series by cheeses. from the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is significant because not only is it a black eye for the national pastime, the worst scandal since the Black Sox scandal a hundred years ago, but it's significant because we seem to have a culture of cheating in this country, and it's time to say, no, this is not the new norm.

Can that guy talk with any less? any less base in his voice. How many Dodgers games has that guy ever watched in the last five years? I just, you know, look, Tom Milosorta, I really respect you, and I think that you're great, Steve Sacks, and I'm doing this for everybody that was a Dodger fan, because I know that you want to go out and see Fernando Valenzuela pitch next week and next season for the team, because they should have won in 2017. And Kirk Gibson is my favorite. And whatever. Thanks for wasting everyone's time. L.A. City. Council. I would ask for impeachment. If we're new impeachment in this country, that should be with the LA City Council. The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790,

where Rockets and Astros play. And real Texans talk. 247 on the Matt Thomas show. We visit with Mike Dan Tony for 30 minutes tomorrow, between 2 and 230 right here. Rockets will take on the nuggets. And James got a... What do you think about?

him taking those extra shots while you're doing the show yesterday. It was interesting because I hadn't, I mean, I'd seen him. I get it. He said that was the first time he went through his whole pregame routine after the game. You have to put a hand in his face. Shooting open threes isn't the issue. The amount of contested shots in the game yesterday was the problem. Yeah, okay, but he's still practicing. Not everybody in practice. Do you want to, do you want John Lucas to go over there and get in his face? What I'd rather him do is go get some rest.

There's nothing he can do that can prepare him for an NBA game with getting contested by length and all that. Outside of running an actual practice, there's nothing he can do. But he can go out there and get some shots up and work on his form and see if there's anything wrong there. He was making a lot of those shots when he was putting up those threes. He made more than one of 17. I'll tell you that. We need it bad. Yeah.

Because Russ is smart. Is wise into a word? Sure. Yeah, it wizened up to taking way less threes than he did in the first. 25 games of the year. You give me Russ right now and for the better part of the last month, and then the Rockets will be fine.

You've got to get a third component, whether it's Capella every single night, but Clint's been up and down, if it's the heel or foul trouble or combination of both or good defensive matchups. I just want this team to do better than what they're doing. It's just aggravating to watch them right now,

and I don't want to be aggravated. Nor does anybody, Darrell, Mike, fans, you, anybody. It's just really frustrating. to see what this team has done in the fourth quarter of games. Everybody is frustrated. Everybody. Plenty of time to turn it around.

Hopefully. Yeah, there is. You're not even the All-Star break yet. You just pass the halfway point of the season. So there's plenty of time to get this fixed. We should have done our first half grades then. Let's go and do it now. I give myself an A.

713-212-5-790. Howard at 250. Hi, Howard. I'm going to ask you a question. And I apologize. if this is too snarky. But do you think Hardin is sulking on back-to-backs because the other star is not being asked to play back-to-backs?

Sulking, no. No. In fact, the Rockets will love for James to miss a back-to-back once in a while. He just, it's just not his DNA. So if they told him, we want you to sit back-to-backs on the back-to-back when the other guy isn't playing, you play, and when he is play, you don't play, on back-to-backs that he would raise a big fuss? Yes.

Okay. Well, because it seems to me he's just... And part of that, honestly, Howard, depending on how you take it, a large part of that is commendable. Because we as a sports society that love the NBA think these back-to-back days off, things are kind of ridiculous. Because when we used to watch games 20, 30 years ago, these guys played back-to-backs all the time. They never took days off. So now sometimes guys have injuries that have plagued them and they need the downtime. James is the opposite.

James is, you know, say what you all about his inefficiency in the last couple of nights, but James is the guy that, you know, has been actually a guy that has scored more points on those back-to-backs because of the responsibility he carries. And so he's used to it. He wants to play and he wants to compete. So there is a level of respect I have for that. because it was my impression on some of these back-to-backs he's just not there. I mean, he can't, he's not performing the way people have come to expect that of him.

Well, thank you for the phone call. I don't even know if it's, we've already discussed, he scores more on those back-to-backs than he does in the first game because he's having to carry the load. Is he as efficient in those games? That would have to take some checking. We just, we're short of time. but what is he like on back-to-backs? Does it take him 10 more shots, 15 more shots?

I'm going to assume that since the rockets haven't played well on back-to-backs, that he isn't nearly as efficient as he's been on nights where James, where Russell's on the floor at the same time. But yesterday wasn't a case, and the rockets will have it their next back-to-back will be this weekend. They'll play Denver on Sunday and then Minnesota on, I mean, excuse me, Utah on Monday. Sunday, Denver, Monday, Utah. I'm trying to find if I can search by days of rest.

To try to find a... I don't think he's been a guy who's just been a no-show. The last two back-to-backs, yes. Yeah, I don't think you can find a trend with James. He's a guy scoring a majoring 20 points tonight. It's hard to find a trim for a guy that scores 40 points a night. It's the headband. You think that's what it is?

It's the headband and his girlfriend, according to Rocket's Twitter. Oh, goodness. Five minutes left to go in the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game show. We simply called it. Believe it or not. And here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by Houston Woodhouse Spas. Print out your gift card for the gift of relaxation in Houstonwoodhousepaws.com.

Category today is, is this casino still operating? We were talking about the NFL draft being held in front of the Belagio. I'll give you an end of a casino. If it's still around, you'll say this. Believe it. If it isn't, you'll say this. Two, believe it or not, on whether or not this casino is still around and won your prize.

Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I've got a pair of tickets to totally 80s featuring the motels with Bow Wow, and Wend in Rome, February 27th at the House of Blues, Live Nation.com for tickets and information. Kelly on 790. You ready to play, believe it or not. Kelly? The Yankees lose?

Yeah. The Sahara in Las Vegas, believe it or not? I'm sorry, she's hearing you. The Sahara in Las Vegas. Still around, believe it or not? I believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win.

The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino. Still around, believe it, or not? Not. Believe it. Oh, it still is. Rates are probably less than 50. It's the oldest one in Vegas. Okay, how about that?

Line number three, let's go to Joe on 7. Johnny. Hi, Joe. You ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it, Mike, Matt. Sorry, Matt. Star Dust, Resort, and Casino. Believe it or not?

That's not. That is correct. That's where I went to the, by accident, purely, the Swingers Convention. Statement number two for the win. The Riviera Hotel and Casino. Believe it or not. Not. That's right.

Close in 2000. 2015 congratulations i was here man nice congratulations let's go to line number two bill on 790 bill you're ready to play believe it or not yeah let's go mike i mean matt i'm sorry the l cortez believe it or not never heard of it not believe it got god bye do some more traveling bill yeah bill or whatever name but don't stay at the l cortez what do you think he uses on his id bill or whatever are the names. I think it's Dwayne. I think it's a middle name. Dan on 790. Dan, your favorite part of the radio show today. I love it. I enjoy it all, Matt.

Thank you. Tropicana, Las Vegas. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yeah, it's still there. Statement number two for the win, the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino. Believe it or not. Nata. That's right. It's called Park NGM now. I didn't even know that. Congratulations. Is it nice? Money Carlo used to put in oxygen for the clean the air in the hotel. Made it very fresh smelling. Stayed there with Matt Jackson.

Matt Jackson. Yeah, we had one of our rowdies there. A lot of things we can't talk about. No, we can't. James on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it, swinging, Matt. The Klondike Hotel and Casino. Believe it or not.

The Klondike bar. Not. That is right. 2008. Congratulations. Nicely done. Let me tell you. If you're an Adam Clanton follower and don't follow me.

Follow me at SportsMT. We get to 30,000 and then we're all going to go to Vegas. Adam, are you going to throw a party when you get to 30,000? He's already at 30. Oh, he's already there? No, I'm not there yet. I've got like, what do I have right now? He's got a lot of porn bots.

No. Yeah, you do. No, he's got a lot of cloud from the ESPN tweet. Yeah, how did that have? You bit stole, you tweet stole SportsRVee. I didn't know that he had tweeted that. And B, I posted video. He posted a still shot.

Uh-huh. Why isn't Ross verified, by the way? We've got to fix that. Let's get the 30,000. Me, you, Wex, the whole 790 crew. Everybody gets to go. Was the 20,000 party that you had when I was out? Yes.

Yeah, let's have this. Well, I was out. You were out. My agent said I couldn't come to your party then. January, that's January sale going on at Beck and Massachusetts Buick GMC. We're right now they've got some 20-20 vehicles in stock that are simply amazing. the 2020 Sierra $2,500, $9,000 off the MSRP, $7,000 off the MSRP on a 2020 terrain, and how about $14,000 off the MSRP on a 2020 Sierra 1500?

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It's Clanton and Wexler, the A team, and they're next on 790.