The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Rockets Wake-up Call? Aaron Wilson on Tunsil

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 3/6/20Is Losing To The Clippers A Wake Up Call? (0:00)Corona Virus, How Worried Are You? (20:05)Aaron Wilson Discusses Laremy Tunsil Contract Negotiations (1:02:02)Brian T. Smith Discusses The Rockets' Loss To Clippers (1:21:33)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. In H-Town. Good. And welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We split the show today.

Ross is in our Houston studios on the West Loop. I am over here at Hobby Airport. Coming up a little bit later on, I will be heading off with the Rockets to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Rockets and the Hornets. It's a busy weekend for the Rockets. Tomorrow at Charlotte, Sunday home for Orlando. And Ross, by the time you and I get together back here on Monday,

hopefully the Rockets will have found the three-point shot because it was M-I-A last night. It was... Look, the New York game was back. because the Knicks suck. You were kind of hoping a couple days off, feel better about yourself, some downtime, home crowd, good energy that things would have been fixed. And in many respects, it was a worst night for me because, man, the Clippers came in here

and just beat them for two and a half hour straight, basically. It was a disappointment, especially in a game that you thought would be a clash of Western Conference powers. The Rockets were going for another tiebreaker. They got it against the jazz a couple of weeks. ago and these things are going to matter when it comes down to these Western conference standings as tightly packed as they have been or maybe they won't. I don't know if the Rockets fall back or something like that because what are they now

two and a half games or three and a half games behind of the LA Clippers who are now firmly by themselves in the two spot? Yeah, Rockets and Jazz right now are tied at the fourth spot. Rockets would have the tiebreaker if the season ended that way because of the 2-1 series advantage. But yesterday sucked. It just did. It was bad.

bad. I mean, even if they were making their threes at a regular clip, it would have been somewhat of a struggle. Just because of the way that the clippers were playing and they were getting some good shots on offense and Kauai Leonard, my God, Matt. That guy is just so smooth. He's such a killer.

And he's just, to me, like the calm, smooth, uncaring killer presence. It's hard, I don't know who exactly to compare him to. Some people have even said Michael Jordan, but I just, what we saw last night from him, and it was kind of a ho-hum. What did he get, like 25, 27 points or whatever it was? He just made it

look effortless. Yeah, and the thing of it is, is that, you know, he knows his body. He, you know, he gets kind of a lot of grief nationally because of, you know, taking days off or load management or limited minutes, but he makes the most of it. If I would have told you last night, Ross, that Paul George went five of 13 from the floor and 0 for 5 from 3, and that you would have held Lou Williams to 1 of 5 shooting, including O of 2 from through you to thought, hell yeah, the rocket's got a nice win, right? I mean, those would have been too easy numbers, too easy stats to push along to the audience. Yeah, things went well.

But Kauai Lundner was smooth. Ivats Azubats had just way, way too many easy looks. And again, this is where size matters in a rare situation like that. Montres-Harrel is really what the Rockets would like in a five, if you really want to be honest with you, what that is. so he matches you mono-a-mono for your lineup versus his and he was better and the rockets just could not hit a three to save their life it was one three after the other after the other some were contested

because look the clippers were also a good team they're a long team just like the rockets are they will get a hand in the face they're not going to make it easy for you to take three point shots there were a few open looks but the way that the clippers move around from perimeter spot to perimeter spot the Rockets, they had a film session about an hour ago. I'm guessing it was not an easy watch for those guys looking at how the Clippers got the Rockets to make things as difficult as possible. Thus, a team that shoots about 36% from three shot one of the worst percentages I've seen really since that, what, 0 for 27 game in the Western Conference finals. No, don't bring that up, Matt.

But yes, 0 for 20 at one point from 3. You're not going to beat anybody shooting like that. You're just not. And so, I mean, yeah, we can talk about the Clippers, and I've talked about how I think they're a bad matchup for the Rockets because they have, I mean, they just have a plethora of good perimeter defense, good to solid perimeter defenders, which is what really makes it hard for the rockets to break down defenses. And I mean, they have one of the best defensive players, probably the best defensive player on the planet when he's at his best in Kauai Leonard. I mean, Rudy O'Bo Bear probably would want a word with that. But you have him and Paul George and Patrick Beverly and even. though, I mean, James Harden went by Marcus Morris a couple of times, but a couple of times he had tough contested stepback threes. So, I mean, I thought he held his own defensively. And so when you have all those guys on the perimeter, it's hard for the rockets to break them down because that's what you want to do in this five-out small ball offense. It's predicated on you getting by that first man and then that opening everything up.

If you can't do that, then you're not, you're not going to do anything. Yeah. I think last night, you know, everyone wants to know about, well, wins a wake-up call. I think losing to the Knicks sucks, losing to a Phoenix team after a back-to-back sucks. I mean, there have been, as we've talked about, a few losses that you just shake your head at. I think yesterday, honestly, Ross, to me,

was more of a wake-up call because that's who the Clippers are at full strength, and that's a type of team you're going to have to beat in a seven-game series to advance to where you want to go. And the Clippers came in here and knocked down three from the early going, knew that they could use Evits of Subots early on in the low block if they needed to. Kauai's hitting everything. And they're from a defensive standpoint just put a lot of extra pressure on the rockets. And frankly, the rockets have not seen.

Rockets have missed, you know, you used to leave Sinem Ross. They miss, they lose games when they don't hit threes. But a lot of it's just because it's off night. What the Clippers did, hand in face, getting right up. I mean, if we say what you will about how Pat Beverly plays the game, he doesn't make James Heron life easy. under any circumstance. And we saw full throttle Clipper team do what they've been doing the better part of all season long,

but really the last couple weeks as their winning streak has hit six games. So I would hope, and I'm getting some of the quotes over from Rockets practice as they are starting to start it right now. I'm getting the feeling of, yeah, yesterday was pretty sobering. Now, either you move the ball around a little bit better. Maybe you have, you know, maybe, you know what, Ross, I don't know. Was it defensively was the big issue yesterday? I don't know if Zubots has any problems against anybody. I mean, Covington has gone against some centers.

Rudy Gobert most notably in the last couple weeks in his own them. Why did Zubat's have so much freedom yesterday? Because I can't figure it out. Well, I mean, he made six buckets. It's not like he was just going completely crazy. And a lot of them were putbacks. And some of them were some, like he made like one hook shot over Austin Rivers because that was a mismatch.

And he was about five feet from the basket. That's okay. I mean, it is what it is. going to happen in the switching defense. I mean, overall, I just wouldn't expect that. It kind of was an outlier night from him for me. I mean, they did everything else. They didn't get massively out rebounded.

The turnover battle, they actually won. You just look at everything else besides the shooting. And it was a closer game than you would think. I mean, it's not like the Clippers. I mean, they scored 120 points, but it's just, it didn't seem to me like everything was falling apart for the rocket. A lot of it was misses, and a lot of that was leading to easy transition buckets for the clippers as well.

Yeah, yeah. The turnover was one an issue, and they really haven't been much of an issue since the clinchapelitra. I think it's just kind of ironic more than anything else. So if you guys want to jump in, it was a bad basketball night. My Cougars lost at Yukon yesterday, Rossi, and they're going from a six-seed to perhaps maybe an eight or nine seed.

And I think that's a huge difference in the NCAA tournament, whatever that comes into play. That's a shame. You don't care. That's fine. My cuckoo brethren will tell me how it went, because I didn't see any game yesterday. Obviously, I was working the Rockets game.

But a bad night for basketball. A lot of other things to get to. We will get an update later on on on the show about what's going on with the Texans and Laramie Tunsell and Free Agency with Aaron Wilson from the Houston Chronicles is going to join us. Brian T. Smith with his normal Friday appearance as well. And Rossi, we've got to go over some more TV broadcasting news.

What in the world is ESPN thinking about trying to overspend for Al Michaels. I mean, he's the goat. And I'm a play-by-play guy, Ross, right? These numbers I'm hearing about for a trade of broadcasters so they can create a super Monday night football team? It's absolutely insane. It's also an anything goes Friday here on Sports Talk 790.

If you'd like to join our show and vent about the Rockets' defeat last night, 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-9. If you want to reach out via email, you can do that at MT at Sports790.com. But the best way to get a hold of us is through Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, at Pornicklow. And again, it's 713, 212, 579. If you're mad as hell and I don't want to take it anymore, well, that'd be just over to the top. But if you're just mad about what happened last night, about either the Cougars or the Rockets,

we'll take your phone calls on it. Anything goes Friday. Back to the Mad Thomas show on Sports Talk, 790. 90. For the corner, and that's not. Home of your Astros. It is the Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 790. Ross and Matt with Nick back out of producing our show today.

We really appreciate you all spending some time with us. It is that anything goes Friday. Ross, explain the essence of what anything goes Friday is here on the Matt Thomas show in Sports Talk 790. Well, Matthew, normally Monday through Thursday here on Sports Talk 790 and the Matt Thomas show, we have the longest leash in the biz when it comes to bad calls. I mean, listen to the show for a show. a couple of days, you'll get the gist of it. Yes. But on a Friday, the leash gets

even longer. And you know what, man, I think it's been a long time since we've had a really off-the-wall, anything goes Friday call. And it could be anything. It could be sports. You would talk about the Lakers or the clippers and the loss last night for the Houston Rockets. Or I don't know how you thought Zach Grinkie's outing and spring training looked.

I'm sure Matt is ready to break that down for you. Probably not. Let's see. Let me give you some topics that are not anything goes Friday. Colin McHugh is a Red Sox. Coronavirus. Oof. What do you want to talk about that?

Oh, I got something for that. What do you got? Oh, boy. So this morning when I got into the elevator, a young lady entered the elevator at the same time as me, and when she went to hit her floor button, instead of just pushing it, she bent over

and then leaned in with her elbow to hit the floor button. Would not touch an elevator keypad. Oh, geez. Did she have a mask on? Nope. I thought about just starting to cough violently to freak her out but i didn't do it can we have a can we have a real talk us three gentlemen here okay sir because i actually it's on it's on it's on a roundtable it's i'm asking you two guys

in all seriousness because nick you're bitter one to ten where are you on the i'm worried about this coronavirus infiltrating every part of my life i'm not 80 years old so i'm i'm good i'm not Can I tell you my number? Go ahead. And if I'm wrong, y'all can call and it cost me if you wouldn't. I'm at about a two and a half. I'm in a negative four. Wow.

I'd say I'm like a three. Okay. I mean, as long as, yeah, as long as you're not elderly or really young, it's, I mean, it's worse than the flu. Watch this. I know Donnie T says it's just the flu and it's okay because he wants stocks to go back up, but I'm a little more bit more worried than he is. But it's not good. I'm a little bit worried.

I'm not hand-shaking people as much as I should or would. Are you really doing that? Because here's the thing. Everybody's using hand sanitizer and soap and all that. I'm thinking, why didn't we do this six months ago or six days ago for that, man? Because there wasn't a global pandemic six months ago. So are you doing the kid and play toe tap instead of shaking hands now? No, I'm just doing the nod and the wink.

I hear that. You know what I got yesterday? You know what I got the game? at the Rockets game yesterday, I got two, you know how you do fist bumps? Yeah. I got elbow bumps. Really? Yeah, it was really weird.

Oh, I did that as a joke earlier, like a couple days ago, but I'm doing mostly fist bumps. I did. I shook somebody's hand in Fort Bend County where they have like three cases yesterday, accidentally, but hopefully I'm okay. Like right now, I'm battling a cold, but it's something close to, you know. How do you know? It might be coronavirus. It's not because I'd be shut down. traveling a lot, Matt, internationally.

No, I'm not traveling internationally. I mean, you're going to international airports. The rockets still have heavy dealings with China? No, there's... Do you have an appearance in Wuhan coming up? No, no, no. And I'm going to a non-international destination, Charlotte, North Carolina, home of beautiful North Carolina women and country ham and pulled pork.

Yeah, nobody from outside of the country would ever travel to Charlotte, North Carolina. You should be fine. Yeah. It's just to be really, really bizarre. And again, I guess what is it going to take me to get from two and a half to five where I really should be? I mean, should you be at a five though? No. I mean, I know people personally who have gone and stocked up food for a couple of weeks.

What? Now, I'll say this. Anybody traveling internationally? I wouldn't go. There's the level I'm at. Gordy canceled his trip, not because he was worried about the virus, but because he was worried about getting stuck in Italy. Yeah, Ross, I'd be damned.

First of all, the Rockets put an international game, we would cancel the game. There's no way anybody's going sports-wise to Italy or to anywhere. Yeah, I think it's really bad in Italy. So if they had like the Dan Tony invitation over there, the Macadentonee invitation, the Maca-Dentony! Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Macadentone and the International Special. I have to ask him when we get on the plane what he thinks about this stuff. My guess is, look, everybody's taking it somewhat seriously.

I'm just, I refuse to let it, you know, change my altered, you know, my daily life. Oh, you refuse. Well, you might not have the choice, Matt. But I'm not around people that are getting this stuff. Well, you don't know. Not yet. Okay. Exercise caution.

You lose, you lose nothing by exercising caution. That's why I want to talk sports because I got coronavirus. Now you're making me jump the number up from two and a half to about a three and a half four. Can we talk sports? Let's talk some sports. Okay. Line one. You want to talk some sports?

Let's go to line one right now and see if this person wants to talk sports. Line one, you're on Sports Talk 790. Must be technical function. Line two. Talk. Line three? I tried Ross. Back to coronavirus.

Aye, aye. So this bad rocket loss last night, huh? Well, the post game show was lively. I did listen to the post game. show. You had one guy call in who wanted to just fire, let's say he wanted Darry fired, he called him stupid.

You had Mike Denton, Tony, to be fired. How many times in the last few years do you think Darry has been called stupid? Not often. You know what? Probably since he was an infant, Darrell was probably like a genius baby talking within two months. Let me tell you something.

Daryl Morey was winning $10,000 on Super Jeopardy when he was two months old. Yeah. He's probably doing some kind of bottle analytics. Let me tell you, the last person that called Derrimori stupid was probably his wife. You know how your wife, when you get mad at you, you're being stupid. Yeah, but he probably did something stupid, but he's not a stupid person. No, no, no, no, no.

But yes, we had Ron, who was immediately as he got in, I don't know if you, well, you said you were listening. When he got on, I was like, do you want to congratulate Mike D'Anne Tony for his coach of the month? Because I knew he's going to want him fired. I just knew it. And then he did. Yeah. Yeah, Ron, our good friend, Ron. listens to the station all day.

A little over the top of his sports takes. Yeah. Derrimori is not stupid. And oh, by the way, Maya who listens to show occasionally, she wanted what? She wanted to see Tyson Chandler get minutes. Let me tell you on something. Tison Chandler to juice up the squad. Oh, she wanted Mike Dantoneone to bench

all the starters so that they could get, you know, rattle some cages. Yeah. Let me tell you something. I travel this league with these gentlemen. Russell Westbrook and James Hardin being bench in the fourth quarter is not going to rattle their cage. what's going to rattle their cage is the first run exit of the playoffs that will rattle the cage hopefully it doesn't happen i mean this is not this is not high school you don't need to you don't

need to get in everybody's faces these guys are making 35 and 40 million dollars yeah that's the one thing i'll take tony's job to to motivate them to play basketball let me just tell you and i hope that you'll believe me when i tell you this and ross you can back me up on this the professional athlete is 95% self-motivated that five percent's important from a coach from a teammate, from an owner, a general manager, it's fan base, whatever. But 95% of what makes an athlete the kind of athlete they are and how successful they are and how determined they want to win

is what's in their own DNA. And I mean that with all. I'm not trying to be glim. I'm trying to be, I mean, this is as sincere as I can get. Self-motivation, especially in the NBA, with 82 games and all the different places they travel, and all the minutes they put in, and all the miles they run, and all the baskets they shoot, whether it's in the practice gym

or before the game or during the game, it's about self-motivation. Mike Dan Tony is not going to will them to shoot better three-point shots. If the shot doesn't drop, it's not because Mike Dan Tony did not properly motivate them in pre-game conversation. He didn't get them going enough, Matt.

He didn't give them a speech. Because let's play the role of caller. Mike should have gone in there and said some at halftime. Okay, let's do us pretend. Everybody go in that room. Shut the door. I'm Mike Dan Tony. I'm the coach of the Rockets.

James, no more three-point shots. Russ, keep driving the basket every once in a while. Austin Rivers, you know what? These little lay-ups you've been making the last month. Stop it. No, this isn't how it works. And changing things up with giving Bruno Caboclo major minutes isn't going to change the tender of a basketball game against the L.A.

Flippers. Hashtag free Bruno. Daniel House actually had a good fourth. quarter yesterday. Yeah, Jeff Green was... I want some of that in the first three. Jeff Green was going off, too. Yeah, that's funny.

All right, 713, 2125-790. It is the Matt Thomas show. It is in anything goes Friday. It's either sports or coronavirus. You choose, my friends. Are you ready? Your teams. I love the Astro.

Your town. I got all my buddies with me. Your Houston Sports Talk, 790. Time is 1234. It's the Matt Thomas. Show me here from Hobby. We're going to Charlotte later on the day. We've got Aaron Wilson.

It's going to join us in an hour from now on all things about the Texans. And Laramie Tunsell firing his agent. What's going to happen in the free agent market? We'll get Aaron to give us a little update on that. And Brian T. Smith from the Chronicle Lawson will be with us in the 2 o'clock hour. Let's go and say how to some folks. It is that anything goes Friday at 713-212-5-790. 7-19.

Steve's in Missouri City on 790. Steve, good afternoon. Good afternoon. How are you? Wonderful. This is Steve. I've got some questions. I want to talk a little bit of sports. The Houston Rockets. I mean, it's at the end of the day.

I got some concerns with what's going on. I like the idea that Russell Russel, Rushbrook is bringing a lot of energy to the game. But, you know, everybody keeps pumping up James Harden. James Hardin is more of the problem than anything else. Can you guys kind of enlightening as to what direction that these guys really trying to go? Well, they would like to win an NBA championship. They would like to hoist a banner in the Toyota Center,

and they would like to get championship rings. That's the direction they'd like to go in. Do we realistically think that they'll even get to that point? Because James Hardin, we brought in multiple people to work to play with James Hardin, and every one of them fails. I'm just afraid that the situation with Rushbrook is going to fail. he's got more heart than anything else. He plays 150% each game.

Can we honestly say that James has given us 100%? Well, I would like, I don't know if I would have the stones to walk up to James Harden and say, James, do you give 100% every single night? My guess is the answer will be yes, I do give 100% every night. Now, just because you give 100% doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be successful. I watched James Hardin yesterday play as hard as he possibly could. it just didn't work out well because his shot wasn't falling. But I'm not sitting there watching James going, eh, he'd rather be somewhere else.

But that's just my opinion. Matt, you said you watched him. Yesterday, he did not play 100%. If your shot, you're supposed to be a super star. What percentage is he play at yesterday, Steve? I'm curious what your number would be. I wouldn't give it 100%. I saw him multiple times after his shot missed,

just kind of lazy, kind of walking back down. court. He's not hustling. If your shot is not working, you're supposed to do something different, especially if you're the team leader. Would you say that's the truth statement? In general, sure. Sometimes your shots aren't falling doing other things. Unfortunately, it was the collective group that was not doing the gym. Yesterday's Rockets' loss, as easy it would be to pin on James, and he was obviously a huge part of it. It was a team collective effort of a guys that could not, you know, shoot the

three ball under any circumstance. Okay, well, I'm going to sit back here and listen to you guys, and hopefully I guess we have some other, we have some other fans out there that's concerned that James Harton is not the answer. I honestly believe right now it would be a great time to maybe consider us too late to do it this time, but great time to trade, we might get something for him when we can build a real team around Westbrook. Okay, so hold on, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on, Steve. Yes, there? Hold on.

So if you've just come on my radio show and told me that James doesn't give full effort and that James is not very good, then why would other teams want to trade for him then? Well, first of all, I didn't say he wasn't good. I said his issues is he's not given 100%. Okay, I can stop right there then. All right, that's good. I'll accept that. So I want you to go trade for a player when you tell me that player that you're,

want to trade, in your mind, is not giving 100%. I don't know. I'm just thinking in terms of the direction of the team in itself and what we can get. If we wait too late right now, his stock is definitely, everybody thinks it's going up, but in actuality, it's going down. It's to the point right now where they're not, you know, they're not winning. And when they start winning, it won't be 100% because of James. It'll be 100% of the team has just decided that, okay, now it's time to go away from getting.

Let James be the decoy and let everybody else step up. Okay, so you think to the Rockets at the end of the day will be better if James plays like a secondary third type of role? Yes. Okay. I would disagree with that, but Steve, I thank you for the phone call. So, Ross, I think what Steve is asking for is for James to play like a, I don't know, a Tavo Cephalotia type role in the team? A glue guy? No, not glue.

No. Well, Tabalcephalosha didn't have a role on team. He didn't even play last night. Let's go to Austin Rivers. Okay. Or a Jeff Green type role. Is that fair? Okay.

And that means more shots for Daniel House Jr.? Yeah. Because I got news from a man, Steve. Let me tell you, I appreciate Steve calling it. It was good debate. It made a great debate. No, it wasn't. It wasn't good.

It was fair. But the Rocket Steve, and this is going to be very hard for him to hear, are not going to win a championship. if James does not play well. Giving the ball to other people to shoot more is not going. I can guarantee you if all of a sudden Robert Covington shoots 18 times a game, that's not going to win a championship. I do not believe giving Austin Rivers 14 shots per game is going to help the Rockets win a champion.

Well, I don't know, Matt. You never know until you try. You can't prove it wrong. Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just conjecture. And Austin Rivers is waiting in the wings for his time to shine. Matt, I know anything goes Friday. Matt, what do you got today?

Well, first of all, anything go, two things. One, I would maybe try to get you guys to be Cardinal fans, but I don't think that's the work. No. No. No. It's a great organization. I mean, you've got, you can't. Great's a strong term.

Pardon me? It's a great term. They're probably the best. There's not a better organization of baseball over the last 50 years in the Cardinals. and there's a bunch of ones, maybe a couple equal. But listen, the reason I'm calling is there's a grassroots movement, and Batman's involved, the NHL commissioner. There's a lot of Canadians from Alberta.

There's a lot of northerners here in Houston, and also a lot of the local folks anyway. The fact that Houston is the fourth largest market in the United States and doesn't have a hockey team, which watching hockey live is better than anything. I play hockey for a while. But anyway, watching hockey live and also playoff hockey is the most exciting thing, you know, during the whole playoff run. And I just, I don't know if Houston would be able to, you know, run out and support an NHL franchise.

Now, there's a couple of franchises that may be moving. They're not going to get an expansion franchise. That's for sure. It's many years out for the next expansion. And Batman's, you know, been here. He's been to Houston. He's been there twice in last night. You probably know that.

Don't you know that? Yeah, I know. I know he's got some relationships here in town. Here's the reality, Matt. I appreciate the phone call and your hard effort for us to become Cardinal fans. I just don't know if the corporate community is going to buy into the NHL here. I just don't know. You could fill up a few games.

It'd be hard for me to fathom 17,000 seats. every game sold out, hard from a television perspective, and certainly hard from a corporate community's perspective. And this is just one little hunch I have. I don't know if Tillman's actively searching for a team, but if Timman wanted to be a landlord for an owner that wanted to come here, I bet he would entertain the offer a lot faster. That's just me.

That's just a pure guess. I've been given no incident information. That's just me. I think he'd rather be a landlord than an owner. and then that becomes, you know, is the deal good for that particular team when they come in rent-wise? That kind of thing. Remember, when the arrows were in Houston, you know, the arrows were paying, I think that they were paying less Alexander or two for rent and everything. So, you know, again, I, unless, you know, look, Tillman's buying things left and right.

I just don't know if hockey team is run on the top of his list. Now, he and I'm not talking about it lately, but I just, I, from a corporate community standpoint, that's how these organizations become uber successful is what kind of corporate dollars I can find and it'd be hard to find multi-million dollar deals for hockey when it's never been successful ever long term here in Houston. 1243 is a time. It is the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-79 if you want to get in.

7-1-3-1-2-5-790. A message here for the billiard factory. We are very excited coming up in one week. One week from tonight is our big remote. have it on the Cypress Creek Parkway. We're going to have a big nine-ball tournament. Ross and I are going to compete against a lot of you. And if you would like to register for your chance to compete in our nine-ball tournament, it's absolutely free. Go to our website, Sports790.com, sports-790.com, go on the contest page and register. You have a chance to win a superfoozball

table or an air hockey table. Plus, there's baseball tickets have been given away. And dinner is for L-TEMPO. It's a free event. We're going to draw six people. So if you're available to compete one week from today, five o'clock until seven, come be a part of our big Billiard Factory first ever nine ball tournament event. You simply go to sports seminary.com. And if you play, even if you don't win, we're going to feed you locatellis. Have a good time. And we'll tell stories about each other. That's going to be the big nine ball tournament one week from today at Billiard Factory on the Cypress Creek Parkway. Look forward to seeing all of you there. Register on contest page at sports 790.com.

Back to Matt Thomas. Drives the state to left center field. This is Sports Talk 790, home of Astros baseball. 1249 on Sports Talk 790. You know, Ross, how often do we get to trade James Hardin's call once every three or four weeks somewhere in that range? Yeah, never after he goes off for 40 or 50 or 60 or has a 30-point triple-double. or beats the Boston Celtics

or beats the Lakers or beats the Toronto Raptors or beats one of the best teams in the NBA it's always chirp time when they lose a game and a big one as it was last night and he went O of 8 from 3 and he did not perform well I'm with you on that he was not good no and here's the thing he's not perfect

but do you understand how hard it is to get a superstar I want you to go look at the Knicks. Remember in the night the Rockets put the Knicks? And yeah, the Rockets lost to the Knicks, but that's, that this isn't the point of the conversation. Look at that team, Ross. Julius Randall,

R.J. Barrett, Dennis Smith, Jr., who was hurt and didn't play. That is a team that is an organization that has been littered with good players. Maybe average players, whatever you want to call it. you have to if you're going to compete for a championship you have to have superstars the los angeles clippers became superstars because they got kawai leonard and paul george shegild gilges alexander is a really

nice basketball player he was never going to leave the clippers to a potential championship so here's the deal ladies and gentlemen and i mean this in all sincerity about any team we talk about you're going to have to take risk with superstars. They're going to be amazing a lot of times, and they're going to suck sometimes. I'll take my chances with teams always trying to find the next best combination with one or two superstars. Because if you're not doing that, you're Charlotte. You're the Knicks for 20 years.

You're the Chicago Bulls. You have to have in the NBA in 2020. Teamwork will only go you so far. You got to have the alpha dogs. Now those dogs will make you mad sometimes. And when James slumps, it's painful to watch. When he's missing 26-foot three-point shots on a regular basis, you are cringing. You have to take that balance for what he has done for the most part in helping this team win, I don't know, on average of 55, 60 games a year.

Now, the other day, regular season accomplishments don't mean squat. It's about what you do in the postseason. He knows that, the organization knows that. But I'm telling you, no one in New York is going, here we go. Julius Randall, nice NBA player, we're into the playoffs in two years, three years, and we're going to win 60 games a year and compete for an Eastern Conference championship. You've got to build with stars. So if you're going to trade a star, you better get stars back.

unless you want to be Charlotte, Chicago, Sacramento. That's just the reality of it. And that's another thing, Matt, is the entirety of Darrell. Okay, Darrell Moray has not won an NBA championship. I get that.

That's a valid criticism. He's been in place a long time. But he has also never had a losing season. He has also had an owner, both of his owners, and Les Alexander and Tilman Fertita have demanded excellence. He hasn't been able to just go out

and tank and have a bad season. And even if in a dream scenario of people who want him, James Harden, trade it away, the only thing you're probably going to get is a number of draft picks. And Tillman Forteat is not going to spring for that. Like you said, you're going to need star power in return. And you're going to need that star power to somehow outperform what the Houston Rockets have done. And we can have all these conversations about whether or not you can win a championship with James Harden.

I still think you can, and I think the 2018 team is a perfect example of that. You need the right pieces in place, and you need them play correctly, but you can win a championship with James Hardin. It's just all about the pieces around them and how it's going to fit. Now, are they going to win the championship this year? I don't really think so, but we'll see. But I think it's just like everybody gets getting all mad and saying, throwing the baby out with the bathwater and Trey James Hardin and fire Mike Danton. They're 39 and 22.

They're number four in the Western Conference. They're a really good team. Even with the way that they are, like this is a fun team to root for. This is fun to watch. And like you said, New York Knicks, and we can go on and down the list, and the Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Sun.

How about the Minnesota Timberwolves who are 19 and 42 right now after making the playoffs last year? They have a bunch of nice players. They have Carl Anthony Towns. Nice player. Not a superstar. Never going to take Minnesota to a championship.

Never. Not going to happen. You probably say the same thing by James. I get that. You got scoreboard if you're in that philosophy. But I feel significantly more... James got a hell of a lot closer than Carl Anthony Towns has. Ever has.

Kelly in Jersey Village at 1254 on 790. Hi, Kelly. What's up? Was that your head I saw at the game last night? Excuse me? Were you down on the floor? Usually I am, yeah. I'm usually there.

Yeah, I saw you from my calls. I'm a huge rocket fan. Like, huge. I was very disappointing to see a recent from 3 30 degrees shooting. Do we lose her? Turning to St. Martin, who's carried us on his back year after year.

Like, you know, he's losing clums. It's not, have they not been watching? We're going to let you run, Kelly. Got a bad connection there. Thank you for the phone call. I mean, I think we've kind of already exhausted everything on this. I just

I hope that today's film session when they just got finished with it a little while ago was a brutal honesty check because that's the type of team the Clippers look like a team they wanted to win a championship yesterday. The Rockets did not bring the same intensity. And that's not me saying that

that they haven't already heard. They had to have watched what they saw on film and were a part of on the court and going, you know what? This Clipper team is damn good, and we've got to be better than that. We've got to find the extra pass. We've got to find a higher percentage shots. Maybe we attack the Glassmore if the three's not falling. Got to get back defensively.

The pick-and-rollers Zubots was doing his thing. You've got to get a second body on Kauai Leonard, whatever the case may be. That was a really good Clipper team that really stretched themselves out from being a team that was kind of in that fight for two, three, four, five in the Western Conference to a team that said, you know what, we're going to be the second best team, and we ain't afraid of the Lakers. So the Rockets are in a position where they know what they have to do. There's no if, ands or buts about what is ahead of them. They saw what the playoffs are all about last night for 48 minutes.

This is the Matt Thomas show. Here we go in the second hour of the Matt Thomas show. promise show it to anything goes Friday here on 790. Rossi the Astros made some cuts today. Their first round of cuts, currently 52 players are made in Major League Camp. C&L Perez has been cut to the minor league camp. Christian Javier has been sent. And you know our buddy, Brandon Miami, who doesn't call us anymore?

Yes. Do you know who his favorite pitcher is? That would be one Brendan McCurry. Brendan McCurry has been sent to minor league camp again. Brad's got to be devastated. Brad, I've never openly invited you to the radio show, but I think it's time for you to call. What are the Astros doing with the arm of Brendan McCurry?

He once again, I don't know, what the four straight year has been sent to minor league camp. I have this little document that I've been keeping Matt called Brad Takes. Oh, yeah? On my desktop. You made a run through some of it for you? No, because we like Brad. No, I'm going to run through it.

You don't like him. I like it. Brad, I like you. Brendan McCurry will be on the roster in two months. This was from like 2018. Okay, so three years. I was off by here. Maybe this is from 2019. I'm not sure.

Daryl will be fired if the Rockets don't win the championship in the 2018-19 season. Still here. Tim Tebow is going to make it in Major League big in Major League Baseball. Well, remember, the bet it's still there. I was going to give him a trip for two anywhere in America to watch Tim Tebow play once he received 100 hits. Max Stassie is going to take over the number one catching job for the Astros. You're making that. This is on my document, Matt.

And one more. J.D. Davis is going to also be a beast at the major league level. Yeah, that didn't happen. That's fine. AJ Reid, by the way, he retired. There's still time. J.D. Davis is a young, a spry 29 years old. A.J.

A.J. re-retired, in fact. What? Yeah, no. Former minor league player of the year? Untouchable in trades? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things are going to happen. Now, he had the bat speed like he was swinging under water.

Anything goes Friday. 713, 212, 570. We're going to talk about the television networks losing their mind over a play-by-play guys in a minute. Okay, good. I'm about to explode over these James Harden on Twitter takes, Matt. You know what I'll do? I'll back my topic off. We'll go to your...

I think it's better off for my voice that I don't yell to these people. Yes. All right. Hi, Kevin and Comroy. You're on 790. Good afternoon. Hey, how's it going, Matt? Good.

Hey, uh, I, uh, I kind of caught in on the end of the deal. I was something that I was going to say something about hockey. But I, but when it comes to Hardin, I think the sentiment is that, like, man, Hardin's averaging 30 parts of game and all that. And, you know, the MVP and everything that we've dealt with them over the last two years, the, you know, the awards he's gotten and all that. But Hardin has consistently had his worst games when we have big games. You know, it's like even with that game against Boston, man, Hardin had, he, yeah,

he had 30-something points, but he really helped put the Rockets in. needing overtime because he had three bad sequences right there together when that Rockers had a six-point lead. He shot a three missed, shot a three miss, then had a turnover. You know, and so it's like this is, this is, you're the, you're the man. This is your team, you know, and we've seen the Rockets lose, but we haven't had that game where you say, man, he laid it out on the floor, but the Rockers, they fell short. It's always a situation where James is three for 20, three for 15.

You know, he has a terrible day, and we lose by three or four points, you know, and it's just that that is what has been so frustrating with the fans. Sure, he's had games where he's had 50 or 60 points. sure all of these things have happened. Then why don't those, let me ask you this then. Then why don't those fans ever call and appreciate on those nights where he has those 40-point triple-level games? You know what I'm going to tell you? Because it hasn't happened in a big game, man, that we need to show.

It hadn't happened on a day where we're on TMT when you got up when they played in the Clippers. It hadn't happened in one of these games. He's had two good games. I'm going to tell you, he had that big shot. over Kerry a couple of years ago. He had that big shot over Durant. You know, both times he's had a big, during a big game, he's getting a golden state.

Other than that, James has consistently let us down on big games that we need, man. You know, and so that's, you know, we was, look, we, you, we had a dream, dream were laying on the line. Look, and, of course, not, not saying a hard on his dream, but your superstar player, your marquee guy, you need him to step up in these big games. You need that from James. And it's not like everybody just picking on James. Yeah, they are.

That same sentiment is around the league when it comes to James. You had last night against the Clippers, you had Lou Williams, you had Montreal, you had those guys played with the Rockets. So they knew how to defend James. But James continues to try to beat these double-takes. For the last three or four years, they started attacking James the same way he hadn't figured how to get himself out of there yet. He continues to try to do the same thing to beat the defense. That's not working.

He's averaging 35 a game. James, but that's not 35 a game. You know, you've got. You just said he's not beating defenses, though. He's not beating defenses? Well, I tell you what. Tell me. Every time James, yes.

No, he's not beating defense. He'll be in the big games against the top teams. No. Okay, was the game against Utah? Was the game against Utah on the road a little while ago when they were going for the tiebreaker against him? Was that a big game? That was a big game. He scored 38.

He scored 38 and went 6 of 11 from 3. You need this. We need him to step up to the plate more than every now and then. Look, man, you're a superstar. you know and that's every now and then you're not playing top teams every night come on man you know exactly what i'm talking about man i'm saying i'm telling you right now you have taken a uh a looking glass and you're pointing out at one or two games i think you are incredibly short-sighted i've been a rocket fan i've been i don't care how long you've been a rocket fan i'm talking about

2020 don't tell me i'm not pointing out one or two games man yeah you are you are yeah His career. Let me go find some games. What if he's done? He's done a lot of things. He's number one in scoring. He's top 10 in steals. He's been top 10 in assists.

That don't mean a zero, man. That don't mean zero in the playoffs. I'll see, I can guarantee you I can name more games where James is folded in the playoffs than when he has, then he's come around and took us to a victory. Well, you can say it for a lot of athletes. James. You could say that for a lot of athletes not here. What's that?

What's that? We're talking about a lot of athletes. We're talking about James because he's a rocket. We're talking about James. Not a lot of athletes. We're talking about James. Well, but you could put in any person's name. I mean, do you think Utah fans spent 15 years talking about how bad Caram alone was?

No. They didn't go to the final. They didn't win a finals championship. I mean, there are a lot of players. A lot of players. Charles Barkley. Charles Barkley, one of the greatest players ever to play in the NBA, didn't win an NBA finals. Do you think Phoenix and Philadelphia fans spent 15 years?

years talking about how Charles Barkley sucked? No. You know, because Charles laid it on the line. He took care of business. He wasn't three for 20 from the field during those games. He laid it in the line, Matt. What do you mean? What does that mean?

His percentage was better? That's crazy. You know, yeah, shoot better, play better, man. I've seen dreams score 40, but the rocket still lose. But that's year your superstar. He stepped up to the plate, man. So as long as James Hart, hold on. So as long as James Harden scores 37 points and a Rockets lose, you'll be okay with that.

My end game to me is the Rockets win. That's my end game. I want James. I want James to stop melting down with these three for 20 games in important games. That's what I want for James. That's what I want for him. And then he won't get the heat that he does. He gets the heat because it's warranted, Matt.

Nobody's looking out just to find out some of the best pick of James. He's earned that. Hey. Hey, I'm looking at it. I'm looking at a box score. Hey, Rockets play the 76ers before the first the year, I think. You think the Sixers are a pretty good team? Yeah, they're a pretty good team.

44 points, 11 assists, 11 rebounds. Why don't you bring that up to me about two minutes ago? Hey, look here. What? I'm telling you the reason why he's getting a heartache. Look, he's had games like that, man. Well, of course he has. I'm not blind to that.

I'm not blind, but I'm telling you're taking three games or four games or whatever it is. I got to get to a break because I'm running late. Thank you for the debate, Kevin. I appreciate it. I won't accept that. He's had some horrific games.

He's a clown. He's had games where he has been woefully bad from three. But the ones that the people that will call this show and others that can't wait to pounce on Hardin never bring up the Philadelphia games or the Golden State games. or when Miami comes in. And I'm not going to spend the rest of my show looking at box scores to prove my point. If you've watched James Hardin in the sum of the parts, some of it is atrocious.

Some of it is painfully hard to watch. Just like some of it is absolutely amazing. Most of it, frankly, is. And again, I want you to go run around the NBA. If you are so anti-James, go run to 15 or 17 or 19 other teams in the NBA. that don't have the megastar $35 million plus guy and see where they are. Give me a team, really, frankly, I'm not the top of my head here. Give me a team outside of, say, Toronto that doesn't have either a top five pick on their team leading their way on a rookie contract

or a team that's making, spending a lot of money on their players. Well, Janice wasn't a top five pick, but I mean, I know where you're going with this. Toronto's not winning the championship either anyways. And so in the eyes of people who are Rockets fans, that's a failure, right? The Rockets are a failure because they haven't won a championship. James Hardin is a failure because he hasn't won a championship. He's no good. He should be traded away.

So, I mean, everybody on the Celtics, failure. Everybody in the Raptors, failure. Everybody in the Heat, failure, everybody in the NECATES. Failure. Either Kawhi Leonard and Paul George or LeBron James and Anthony Davis this year. Failure. Nicola Yokic, failure. Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Goeer.

Failure. All failures. You know, and look, if you live by those parameters, I can't fight you on that. I just can't. It's fine. I mean, I don't mind the debate. I'm just telling you that I just think if you are on that side of it, it's really. Really easy to go, well, James sucked last night.

Let me tell you the reason why. The Rockets didn't lose last night because James sucked. It's because James and his buddy sucked. That's what it is. That's the problem. Everybody was woeful yesterday. Russ was way below his percentage. He's been one of the most efficient players in the last 45 days in the NBA.

It wasn't last night. Team defensively took the first half off, frankly. But let's, again, I'm not going to. let you with that looking glass only pinpoint one or two games or four or five, whatever you want to compare to the hundreds of games that James has had 40 point triple doubles or played against good competition or won big games. We've made no mention of the two rocket victories against the Lakers and Clippers in Los Angeles. Okay.

Nobody seems to even want to do that. And people are talking about what came up about the playoffs. Everybody's getting upset about that and defending him in the playoffs or something like that. Yeah, I don't know. So anything goes Friday. Why doesn't that be in a good movie? James, yeah. No, I'm pissed.

It's fine. No, that's all right. 713, 212, 5790. 713, 212, 570. By the way, I'm not defending him in the playoffs. Y'all are so damn selective with what you're listening. When did we defend his playoff performance? That's what I'm wondering.

I mean, just the fact, he averaged 35 points a game against the Warriors. He was fantastic in that series. They lost in six. I don't know. I guess I was his fault, too. That's just the fact. He's had some dog games. In game six against the Spurs.

Let me tell you. The San Antonio Game 6 is a game I'll never forget. For all the wrong reasons. All right. We've got to get to a timeout. We're getting all hustling. The Matt Thomas Show. Back to it.

On Sports Talk 790. Escalated. Close. What they do. They smile it in your face. 121 on 790. Matt Thomas from Hobby Airport. Ross is back in our Houston studios.

I'm drinking on the plane, Ross. I'm just telling you that right now. I'm going to start drinking during the show. That's all right. You know what? I don't mind the passion. I just disagree with the narrative that James sucks. I just...

Oh, he's terrible, Matt. He's a no-show in the playoffs. No show. And look, the easiest way to... We're going to move on something else here. The easiest way to fix that is one championship. It's easier, sudden, down. Is this what you have Salt Lake City sports radio?

was like in like around 1999. Yeah, yeah. Malone and Stockton suck. I wasn't there, but I listened to it. Because the rocket, remember the rockets during those championship years were going to beat the Utah Jazz. So what Philly Sports Radio was like when Alan Iverson couldn't win a championship over there? Well, I mean, think about Philly Sports Radio when Andy Reed was coaching the Eagles. Guy can't coach championships.

Impossible. He's not the guy. Dan Tony Reid runs into some of that too, right? the only way that most fans ever judge whether somebody is really successful is the number of rings on their finger. And you know what? We are all ultimately judged by that. If you're going to tell, look, like I said, there's the bad playoff games that we can point to for sure. The Spurs one, and there was another one against the Warriors where it was an elimination game and he turned the ball over 13 times. Yes.

Yeah. There are some dogs. I mean, over 27. That was a rough one. To say he has been a complete no-show in the playoffs. It's just, you're stupid if you're saying that. You're stupid. It's just an easy.

It's just a lazy narrative. Against Golden State last year, he was not poor. He just wasn't. Well, not 35, 34.8 a game against so Warriors. But when you are the face of the franchise, you get this. And he has to wear that, whether he wants to or not. That's just the truth. All right, 713, 2, 1, 2, 5, 790.

We're going to go to Aaron Wilson, talk some NFL and a little bit on the Texas. But real quick, speak in the NFL. Rossi, why in the world does ESPN want to trade for Al Michaels? I mean, Al's really good. Al might be one of the five greatest play-by-play announcers in the history of the business, okay? That's how good he is. But he's also like 73 or 74 years old. He's 75 and he's lost his fastball the last couple years if he asked me.

A little bit. But by no means is he porous. Okay. So what ESPN is doing, and they're trying to once again, trying to reinvent the wheel on the Monday Night Football coverage. And they would like to get Peyton Manning to come be on ESPN Monday Night Football. And they think the only way for that to happen is to grab Al Michaels for the two of those guys that come together.

So essentially, you're going to pay Tony Rummel type money for Peyton Manning. And then you're going to try to convince NBC to let Al Michaels out of his contract So he can make Tony Rummel similar type money working Monday Night Football. What do they have to offer? I mean, you're talking about a trade or whatever. Well, I think it's more metaphorical than anything else, honestly. What would be the trade? I don't know.

Mike Tariko's already over there. Dan Shulman or something? No, my guess is you would trade a sports property, an event. Ah. Well, it wouldn't be Monday Night Football. Would I like some basketball? Okay, so look about this. ESPN has just about.

They should give some basketball coverage. Then we can get NBA on NBC. See, no, my guess it would be one, it would be something along the lines of a, like a cup stacking championship, Scrabble championship. Some of those ESPN2 classics back in the day? You know what I could see them giving up is maybe a round of the master or something like that? Oh, what about like cornhole? No, let me tell you, Al Michaels does not want to be traded for cornhole.

Those cornhole championships are Liddy, Matt. maybe they give up the world maybe they give up the World Series of poker for them there's been a stream. I'm not I'm being all serious like that. Like the preliminary Omaha events yeah who even plays Omaha anymore? I've played Omaha many years

but it is a lot of a fun game it's alright what I want to know is in the ivory towers I told us that we were having dinner at the Rockets game last night Ross if the Pittsburgh if the Pittsburgh's

bad example if the Cleveland Browns are playing the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night football, what's going to make you watch that if both teams are under 500 and you don't have a fantasy football or a betting angle to the game? I would have some of those angles, so I would be watching anyways. But if you had none of that,

would there ever be a would you be like, I have to absolutely watch because Peyton Manning is going to break down Baker Mayfield's performance. No chance. And as much as a play-by-play honk as I am, Ross, you know me, I like to critique my play-by-play,

guys because I'm a play-by-play guy. I'm not watching a game for Al Michaels. Al is the goat. He's one of the five greatest of all time. But I don't watch Sunday night football on NBC because Al and Chris are doing the game. I watch Sunday night football on NBC because usually the games are kick ass. Those Chris Collinsworth slide-ins are pretty nice, though, Matt. I do like, I mean, you know what?

I know there's a lot of hate for Collinsworth out there. I like him. He doesn't bother me at all. But I just don't get what these networks are doing. Now look, do you need her overhaul, Joe Testator and Booker McFarland? Yeah. But you mean to tell me the 90,000 guys are ESPN employees on Monday on their NFL coverage. They can't find one or two guys to go in the booth and make it a better combination?

Like, is there an NFL go-to? You know who they should get, honestly? If they want a good analyst that's pretty entertaining too, I think Dan Orlopski would be the perfect fit for Monday Night Football. but the problem is he doesn't carry a big enough name but if you're using that as an example why the hell would you put booger mcfarlane people don't even know who booger mcfarnen was 16 months ago sounds like a made-up name quite frankly well again i'm not going to tell a grown man his name buger is a bad one because he'll squash me like a grape but i don't get why they would worry about name recognition when orlopsky does his homework is interesting and on the college games that I've seen him do this year there,

he's really good, really good. So, again, it's not my money, but ultimately, Ross, if you're spending all this money on these analysts, who's paying for that? It's the advertisers. And if I'm Coca-Cola, am I going to spend three more million dollars

on Monday night football because Payton Manning's doing the counter commentary? And Out Michaels is doing the play-by-play? I'm not privy these negotiations nor do I ever want to be, but, man, it seems really, really awkward that they would put them selves in a situation of overspending. Like, again, Tony Romo, bless him.

$17 million next year for CBS games. But if the CBS game he's working is between, say, I don't know, Miami and Buffalo, that's a hard pass for me. Tell them you'll do it for $2 million, Matt. I'll do it for like, I'll do it for $1,000 and some chick, chili dogs. No, I don't do that.

Joseph and Pearland on 790. Hi, Joseph. I mean, I got a serious problem going on in sports now. How can you take Tony Romo and pay him all that money, and Troy Akema's been an announcer for years. I don't understand what's going on. It doesn't get me out. I didn't catch this question.

I'm sorry. How could you, he wants Troy Akeman to make Tony Romo money, I guess. Tony Romo's better than Troy Eichman at color commentary. Yeah, he is. And we'll leave it at that. Troy, I'm sure, is getting paid very, very well. Let's go on the NFL beat next. We'll do that with Aaron Wilson.

Talk about exactly Laramie Tunsell firing his agent and what the Texans can do from a free agent standpoint and how laborsome it might be trying to get Tony Rombo to get Laramie Tensel signed this offseason. The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790, where Rockets and Astros play. Real Texans talk. Let's say how to our friend Aaron Wilson,

Sports Talk 790 in the Houston Chronicle. Aaron, a long time, no talk. First of all, congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I'm great to hear that you found a special lady in your life. It makes us all very happy. Congratulations. Shannon is awesome. And I got engaged right before Valentine's Day.

I went to Austin and popped a question of the rooftop pool at the Weston Hotel there. We had a great time and really excited. Damn, you're romantic. I like it, Aaron. This is the side of you we didn't know about. So congratulations. There were balloons or rose petals.

What? There was a big diamond. And I put it on Instagram. I did it all, social media, all that good stuff. Good for you. First of all, firing of agents is not abnormal. It happens actually more often than I think it probably should. Have you heard any problems between,

Condon and Tunsell before this? Well, Jimmy Sexton. Sexton, I'm sorry. Jimmy was his agent ever since his college days. He left, went to the Miami Dolphins, and they had old gas masks incident. They had some damage control to do there. And yeah, Jimmy was involved with all of that.

And then did his rookie deal. And then they just didn't have a lot of contact. And, you know, recently, and Laramie has some other things he's interested in. that he was looking for, wasn't sure necessarily does he want an agent or does he want someone just to advise him on agent? He talked to a lot of agents. A lot of agents are trying to sign him and he had some different ideas about what he was

looking for in representation and eventually, you know, even though CAA had met with the Texans twice, once at the Conminer, once in Houston, he decided to move on. But it's not just about his contract. He has some other interests involving fashion. you know, sort of an off-field marketing, branding type of things that are of interest to him that are important to him. And he wasn't feeling it with CAA at that time. So he decided to move on. I'm told he's in no rush to hire a new agent.

So that could possibly slow down any prospective contract negotiations. And he still wants to make, you know, 19 and 20 million a year and be the highest paid tackle. So that's kind of where things stand with Laramie. and, you know, he's going to, you know, kind of try to have a normal off-season, you know, as much as possible. All right, so Ross and I are debating this the other day. Who has the leverage? Is it Laramie with one with, he's, you know, he's the one that wants to get paid, or is the Texans who've got him for at least one year,

and the theory could franchise him for two years after that? Where do you see the leverage in this situation? I think that the leverage, you know, it kind of, it fluctuates, but he had leverage, and I think by this, he's kind of, you know, created the ripple effect where, you know, the Texans have to rethink things about, you know, who are we negotiating with? How much do they ask for? Do we have a good relationship with this new agent?

Whereas, you know, CAA, they represent the coach, not Jimmy specifically, but, you know, the other branch of CAA in Atlanta, so they have a close working relationship. So it depends. who winds up hiring him or are you dealing with a situation where Laramie negotiates his own deal which has not been ruled out and then he has advice

where the Players Association and maybe a registered agent is doing it on a fee basis helping him with it, field proposals, that type of thing. Ultimately, I think most players find once they dig into that, it's nothing that they really

enjoy doing and it means that you're going to have to hear you know, whatever the team, if you think they're low-balling you or you don't like your offer. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, you know, again, this is a still free country left on Jack. And that's his right. If he wants something different, there's nothing stopping him from doing it.

Yeah, he followed the termination papers. I heard that he was unhappy. That was as of my last day that I was at the combine, which was Wednesday. I left on Thursday, well, left on Thursday, my last night there. and that was after the Texans had already had the meeting. So they, you know, I met with him, and then he moved on. Now, you know, he made it official. The termination papers hit the union, and they confirmed the firing.

But I think it just kind of pushes it further down the road where maybe the deal doesn't happen as fast. Visiting with Aaron Wilson on the NFL beat and the Texans beat from the Houston Chronicle here on Sports Talk 790. Before I let you run, because I've got to get going here, Let me ask you when this upcoming free agency periods comes up, who's going to do the heavy lifting on this? Is this Bill O'Brien selling this? Is this Jack Easterby? Is it a combination? Who's going to go in and beyond the dollars sell the Houston Texans to prospective free agents?

Well, Bill O'Brien, yeah, he's head coach and general manager. And Bill does talk to agents. He talks to players. He's, you know, the boss. And he has lieutenants. He has Jack Easterby. they have a cap guy and Kevin Kravovich that replaced Chris Olson, but yeah, the buck stops with him. He's the guy.

And, yeah, when he was at the combine, he met directly with agents and he was, you know, he's heavily involved. And there's nothing that's going to happen without him signing off. He's immersed in all the details. And, yeah, there's some delegation. He has a team of people to help him. But, yeah, if you're asking who's going to be the point, yeah, it's him. I mean, there's other guys that might have initial. But when things get serious, yeah, he's going to be rolling up his sleeves and involved in it all.

And behind the scenes, directing what his other guys do. Like, you reach out to him, you talk to him, this guy. And this is the office season. This is the time for all that. But it's similar to where, like, a Bill Belichick, you know, he's talking to Tom Brady. He's talking to agents. He's doing all that stuff, too. And he still cooks in the team when the Super Bowl.

So it can't work. It's not like, and now he's not to play callers. So he's, yeah, I think, you know, to answer your question, specifically, he would, with anything big, that would be him. But is he going to, like, you know, be the one saying, you know, in a third, you know, year, this amount? And, yeah, if he had signed off on anything. I mean, that's why they have a negotiator for a cap specialist in Kravivich, who has been there for a while. But it's just, you know, it's different. It's a new setup.

and this is their first year running it under this setup. Because last year, Brian Gain and Chris Olson ran points on the free agency with Bill signing off on things and having his own opinions. They didn't have autonomy, but they have, obviously, you know, more juice than anybody else does now. So now it's just, you know, it's the Bill O'Brien show, and he's got a bunch of guys that help him with stuff, but everything ultimately goes back to Bill.

All right, I got 15. seconds. Give me Tom Brady's locale in 2020. What's your best guess? I think the Titans have a very good chance to get him because of the relationship with Mike Brable. I think if they move on from Taney Hill, that would probably be the

spot. And they've got the skill players that Brady would be interested in. Doesn't sound like the Patriots are doing anything aggressive to assuage Tom's concerns about the roster or make him feel as more than if he wants. I would

rule them out, but they're going to have to obviously make up some ground here, and reports are that Brady and Belichick, that conversation didn't go very well. Aaron, great stuff as always. Thank you, Frank. Congratulations again on the future nuptials, and we'll visit with you soon, my friend. Take care yourself. That is Aaron Wilson

from the Houston Chronicle. Ross takes you the rest of the way. Brian T. Smith will join him in 15 minutes. First a message for the billionaire factory. Reminder, please go to our website, sports790.com. Register for our billiard factory nine ball tournament. We're going to have it one week from today at the Cypress Creek location.

So if you are a good pool player and think you can beat Ross and or me, great prizes, which will include a foosball table or a ping pong air hockey table or a chance to win some Astro baseball tickets and or certificates to LTMPO. Great contest. That's our first ever nine ball. It's all brought to you by the billiard factory with way they got game with four Houston locations. To find the one near you, you go to billiard factory. Go online, get yourself 10% off your first purchase.

And while you go to the website, Sports790.com, you can register for a chance to be in our big tournament coming up next Friday. So if you like to play pool, want to play with Ross and myself, we'll have some Locatelli's pizza there for you as well to eat Nash on. And more importantly, a chance to hang out and talk shop and play some pool. It's next Friday. Go to our website, sports790.com. Sports 790.com. Ross has your next. I'll talk to you guys from Charlotte tomorrow here on Sports Talk 790.

Craig Ackerman here. When I'm not calling Rockets basketball, I'm following at SportsRV on Twitter. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Well, thank you, Craig. That's very nice of you. That's really just supposed to be a dig at Matt Thomas. But you should follow at SportsRV on Twitter.

I just put a Twitter poll up there. Hi, Ross Villarreal, back with you. on the Matt Thomas show now Sands Matt Thomas come out up at 2 o'clock We will have Brian T. Smith on the show after that One of the Adams is going to join me, I believe, Adam Wexler of the A team, so it'll be me and him taking the rest of the way

until 3 o'clock here on an anything-goes edition of the Matt Thomas show. So I put up a poll because we've been getting a lot of this today on Twitter and a couple of you guys calling in and Tray James Hardin, get rid of them. James Hardin needs to go. The Rockets are never going to win a championship with them.

They need to trade them away. Okay. And when you start to hear some of that, you think, is this a vocal minority? Or is there a lot of people out there who want James Hardin traded? So I put a poll out, and you can answer it at SportsRV. Should the Rockets trade James Hardin? And I put two different sides. If you're a Rockets fan or if you're not a Rockets fan.

Well, let's just focus on the people who are Rockets fans. I am not a Rockets fan or I am a Rockets fan. and yes I want James Harden traded is at 17%. I am a Rockets fan and no, I don't want him. Is that 75%? So, okay, it's about where I was hoping. Because I was thinking it was like a 50-50 thing

or something like that. Just the way that everybody was going nuts about wanting James Harden traded. Look, and I get it. I understand the frustration and you're, how long in now? He's been here since, what, 2011? Somewhere in that neighbor, 2012?

I don't know. They went to the 2012 finals. So the year after that, 2013, James Hardin has been a Houston rocket. And there's been a lot of trials and tribulations, a lot of ups and downs. To me, that 2018 team was definitely championship caliber, where you won 65 games. You had one of the best defenses, and you got up three, two, against the best team in the planet and the Golden State Warriors. And then Chris Paul's hamstring failed you. And it's just pretty much been downhill from there with the Chris Paul.

era and now the Russell Westbrook era where they're not struggling, right? They're number four in the West against a very good, tough Western conference. So the Rockets are still a really good team. But last night's game is a lot of the reason why people have problems with James Harden, and I get it. He went 0 of 8 from 3. He was terrible. He hadn't been shooting well from 3 as of late. I think he's something like Jackson Gatlin, who is a producer up here, and also does the Lockdown Rockets podcast has put up. He's like four of 29 from three since hurting his wrist in Boston. So is something wrong with his wrist?

Or is he just having a patented James Hardin's shooting slump? Not sure. But a lot of you people are upset with him right now, and I get it. 7-13-21-2-5-7-9. Let's go to Wayne. Let's go to Wayne. In the southeast side, he's been holding patiently for a while. Wayne, go ahead. James Hardin is a fantastic player. He'd be crazy to trade him. But I think the Rocker's problem is

they just, you know, their offense is not dynamic enough. They just run that same offense, a three-point shooting type offense. You know, if Plevington was like a six-foot, 10, 11 guy that could shoot the three and run the floor and play good defense, great. But he's just like another, you know, player that fits in that kind of offense. And any time you take an offense like that to the playoffs, the other team is going to figure that out out. If you look at the history of NBA champions, they are balanced teams.

Dynamic offenses, they can shoot the three, they've got a big man, you know, they're very dynamic. I think when you run a mosaic-type decent offense, like the Rockets do, that is not a form, that's not a formula to win or ring. I'm going to disagree with you for a little bit, with a little bit of what you said there, Wayne. First of all, the Rockets' offense, I mean, by every measure, it's one of the best in the league. It's number two in points per game. It's number two in offensive rating is what I really look at. That's points per possession. Every trip down the floor, how many points are you scoring?

That, to me, is the true test of a good offense. Rockets are number two. But to what you're saying, Wayne, that's the key of the Rockets problem to me, is you said balance, right? If you look at the Milwaukee Bucks, they are, like, they're number six in offense and they're number one in defense. If you look at the clippers that the Rock has played last night, and I'm talking about this is just between ratings, right? Not necessarily the points per game, because I look at the ratings, like I said. You look at the clippers. They are number three in offense.

They are number five in defense. You look at the Lakers. They're top five in offense and defense. the Rockets are two in offense. Like I said, their offense is really good. Defense is 14th, or at least it was as last night. It might be 15th. So defense is middle of the pack.

And that's the thing. And a lot of people want to complain about all this offense. Three and three and getting in the hoop, three and getting the hoop. The offense is fine to me. The offense is really good, especially when Russell Westbrook is humming on all cylinders and when James Hardin's shots are falling, which they weren't last night, this offense has no problems. The problems with me is the inconsistency of the defense because you

can have them play good team defense and they're switching everything, they're communicating. But then you have a lot of instances last night. Like there was a couple of times where they just completely lost everybody and it was a layup drill for the L.A. Clippers. To me, Wayne, I don't really have a big problem with the offense. My problem is the defense and the inconsistency there with the Rockets. And that has been that Tony, you know, weak area in his coaching career that he seems to not be able to coach a team that plays really good.

and, you know, I take a valid team any time over a team that shows really good in the offensive stats, but when it comes to the playoffs, you know, teams play different in the playoffs. They play harder defense. They take more risk on defense and things like that. They're going to try to do things. It doesn't work. You got to be down. You got to have a dynamic offense.

You got to play some really good defense to win a ring. That's just how it is. Yeah, I agree with you, Wayne. I think you have to be balanced on both sides if you're going to want to win an NBA championship. Bottom line to me is the Rockets got to play better defensively. I mean, you look at those teams that I mentioned that are up there on the top of the defense. I mean, they have a lot of really good individual defenders. Rockets don't have a defender as good as Kawhi Leonard.

They don't have a defender as good as Paul George. And, I mean, Anthony Davis would be the guy for the Lakers. And unfortunately, as much as some Rockets fans hate to hear this, Yanis Santacompo is, I mean, that guy was second and defensive player of the year. He is a game changer with the length that he brings. And the Bucks have a lot of good lengthy defenders that play passing lanes, and they play really good sound defense. And the Rockets just don't have those types of horses.

I would guarantee you, if Mike D'Antony were coaching the Bucks, they would be a really good defensive team. It's not that Mike D'Antony just doesn't care at all about defense. That, to me, is just, it's a perceptive. that people have that is not necessarily with reality. You can even go back to the seven seconds or less days of the Phoenix Suns. And that book, I think it was by Jack McCallum. I've read that book years ago.

And it was actually, it burned Mike Dantone up inside that people thought that he didn't care about defense because he cared about it a lot. They just had guys on that team that weren't good defenders. I mean, Steve Nash, for as great as he was and multiple-time MVP and all that type of stuff, the guy was a saloon door on defense. I mean, I think me and Nick could go by by Steve Nash on the perimeter. And a lot of those other guys in Amari Stodemeyer

and those, they just weren't, they didn't have good defensive players, so they didn't have good defensive teams. And you look at the teams under Mike Dantone and the Rockets, when they were their best defensively, no surprise, no shock. They had good individual defenders. You had Chris Paul multiple time first team all defense. You had Trevor Areza, a younger Trevor Arisa,

still in his prime as a good person. perimeter defender. You had P.J. Tucker as well. And then Clint Capella was playing well defensively in those days. So, I mean, you had, when they had their really good defensive team, the Rockets, and they were sixth in defense that year in 2018, it's a lot of it's because they had good individual defenders. So you can try as you might and play good team defense in the NBA. But a lot of times, I mean, it doesn't matter how good team defense you can play. Look no further than last night. Kawhi Leonard had guys draped all over him on a lot of those shots at ESank. You can have good

D, but in the NBA, sometimes it's just better out. And you need those guys, those lockdown guys. And if you don't, and if you don't have them, which are rockets don't, you're going to have to play very, very tightly on defense. The margin for error

is a lot thinner. You have to be communicating. You have to be talking. You have to be switching. You can't just lose guys on corners. You can't just let guys drift open or hit basket cuts or miscommunicate on switches. You can't do any of those things. And the rockets do that far too often. And that's where their defense suffers. And they need to get better if they're going to win the championship. Well, we'll

see. All right, time for a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show. 713-2125. 790 is your phone number 7-1-3-2-1-25790. Coming up next, Brian Smith of the Chronicle, here as the final hour of the Matt Thomas show gets started after this short break. is the Matt Thomas show. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show. Here on Sports Talk 7.90, Matt Thomas, off doing fancy Matt things as he is jet-setting to Charlotte, North Carolina. So I guess that doesn't sound as fancy, but that's okay.

So he is off the show for the remainder. My name is Ross Vio Real. You have me. I'll be joined by Adam Wexer in about 15 minutes, but right now, we've got Brian Smith feeling the void. I'm sorry, Brian. I know you're very sad that Fancy Matt had to duck out on you. Honestly, Ross, I'm used to it by now.

I no longer associate Matt Thomas of being Matt Thomas. I just know him as Fancy Matt. So it's just kind of, what is it, you know, what's the term like part of the parcel or some term like that? It's inherent. Yes, yes. Matt Thomas is Fancy Matt now, so I would expect nothing left.

It's just one of those absolute truths that you're just going to have to deal with, Brian. All right, but happy to have you here on the show. First off, I guess let's go ahead and talk about the debacle that was the game at Toyota Center last night. Seemed like a big game. The Rockets were going for the Western Conference standings. They're going for the tiebreaker against the Clippers. They're on national television, all these great storylines. And then that happened.

Yeah, you know, I was driving. driving around town, as at Toyota Center earlier today, I've been driving around Houston, listening to all the callers today. And that's a disappointing loss. There's no way around it. And in a lot of ways, the Rockets team this year, that loss captured this team. I mean, they started slow in the game, and obviously, you know, this season, they got it going this season. Russell Westbrook has been absolutely fantastic. James Harden has gone through periods this year when he's been better than he's ever been.

But whether it's the defense, whether it's the four-quarter intensity, whether it's just simply starting the game, the execution, James Harden himself, whatever it is. All the issues the Rockets have had at times this year came out in that game. And yeah, the last thing you want to do is over at 2082. But at some, and Alston Rivers said it today, you know, we can't have a lull anymore. And if the Rockets, and it's still an infros, if the Rockets are going to put it together this year, that doesn't mean winning 50 games or winning their division or getting the third seed or making it into the second round. It is all about a championship.

Mike Dantonie's job is on the line. Daryl Morey's might be, this is the year that you traded away Chris Paul to get Russell Westbrook. And it feels like right now Russell Westbrook is holding up. his end of the bargain. I have nothing bad or even critical to say of Russell Westbrook the last couple months. If there's anyone, and I heard all the callers, and I heard you and Matt going back and forth, and I've seen it all on Twitter. But I'm writing about this on Sunday's Chronicle, and I feel like I've written this 50 freaking times in the last six years. But James Hardin's got to be better. Now, I'm not saying he's bad. I'm not an idiot. I'm not stupid, as you were

saying about one caller earlier. But he has to be better. not about scoring 35 points. It's not about making the second round. This team follows its leader, and James Harden is still the leader of the Rockets. And I didn't see it from James Harden last night. There have been too many times this season when he has appeared nonchalant, whether it's defensive lapses, horrendous shooting. He has got to be better. And I tell you, Ross, he knows that. If there's anybody who knows it, it's James Hardin and Tullman for Tita and Darryl Mori on down. And if the Rockets are going to get it going this season. James Hardin has got to be much better than he was last night.

Yeah, absolutely, Brian. And, you know, it's been a weird season for him in that fashion. I mean, he started off like gangbusters. He was averaging 30s having a game. He was knocking down threes at some point, like in November or whatever it was. And then he hit that lull, and he had, you know, the toe injury. He took that big knee from Carl Anthony Towns, and that seemed like that was slowing him down. And then now, I guess, I don't know how much you're taking,

I want your thoughts on this. You remember, going into the second half, going into the second half against Boston, he hurt his, he fell on his shooting wrist. And since then, he's like four of 29 from three. So it's kind of hard with him because even when he's 100% healthy, he can go four of 17 from three. So it's like, is he 100% or is he just going through one

as his patented James Hardin's shooting slumps? It's hard to make sense of everything that's going on with him. Yeah, it really is. And people who know hard and people around all the team, I mean, someone was telling me today, and it was, that's the thing, there's always a theory, right? I mean, whether he's doing this or doing that. Or it's his girlfriend or it's a Kardashian or he just, he, like, there's always some kind of storyline with him.

Yeah, too much extra-cricular time. And maybe they're all valid. I mean, he might be dealing with an injury right now. And he's, look, they're going to play Charlotte on Saturday. They should have beat the freaking Nick. So that kind of ruined the whole, you know, they should, they should win the next game against a bad team, but they should beat Charlotte. And I posted this earlier, as much as I was, I and everyone else was killing the team last night,

their next eight games outside of at the Lakers, and they recently beat the Lakers, are incredibly favorable. They should at least go six and two, if not seven and one. This is still a very good team who had an off-night across the board. And so that's the thing with Hardin. I mean, every time you want to come down on him and be like, my God, they're never going to win a title with James Harder. and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. James Hardin can go off for 50 on Saturday at Charlotte and shoot really well and bring it. You just, you want to see it consistently.

And I heard the earlier call, and all the points weren't correct, but the ultimate point was right. You have to see it at some point against the clippers, against the Lakers, not just one round against Utah in the playoffs for the entire playoff run. And so we end up coming up all these theories about Hardin. Maybe it's the risk. Maybe it's the knee. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's that. At some point, Ross, every Rockets fan knows it.

James Hardin has to be better consistently in big games. And most importantly, throughout the playoffs. You can't do it for six games and not do it in game seven. And then your team gets outshot by Stefan Curry and Clay Thompson and a bunch of pieced-together warriors. So it's where we're at with the Rockets. I'm not anti-small ball. it's ridiculous to overreact to one game. But that was a disappointing loss,

and I felt like I was watching the Texans last night instead of the rocket. Oh, don't drop that on us, Brian. Come on, man. That's the truth, man. All right, Brian Smith here on the Sports Talk 7-90 could follow him at Crombryd Smith. And actually, I was, before you even did that,

Brian, I was going to change gears a little bit to the Texans because we got the Laramie Tunnel thing going on here. So just tell me, I mean, dude, does anybody know? How much is Bill O'Brien? Is he at the negotiating table? Is he at the forefront? Is he like the tip of the spear when it comes to these negotiations

of how much money we're going to give Laramie Tunsell or not? Ross, it's a great question from everything that I have heard, and this goes back to last year. The answer is yes. And I feel like as much, and my gosh, do we, you and I and I, and 790 and all the callers and the Chronicle readers, how much do we talk about Bill O'Brien, Bill O'Brien, Bill O'Brien, Right. But I still feel like it's underreported locally and nationally how much he is involved.

And that's why I've always gone back to him. That's why I've said ultimately, I mean, just like the Rockets come down to James Hardin, ultimately, you can say Westbrook, you can say Dan Tony, you can say Mori, Furtito, luxury, whatever it is. It's James Harden. The Houston, the Houston Texans ultimately come down to Bill O'Brien. And yes, everything that I've heard and continued a year for a year is that he is at the center of this. Chris Olson, their longtime cap guy is gone. He used to handle all the nitty, gritty, you know, dollars and cents and all of that. He was pushed out. Jack used to be, I've been saying for a long time, is heavily, heavily involved and has his fingers everywhere in that organization, but nobody has more power, nobody has more say, nobody is more directly

involved in the day-to-day than Bill O'Brien. So, yeah, when it comes to Lerner, me tons so when it comes to how much we're going to get them. I will swear until I'm blue in the face. I mean, Cal McNair might give the ultimate, you know, final yes or no, hey, I'm going to, all right, I'll write him a check for $100 million, fine, Billy. You know, Cal McNair will sign that check. Bill O'Brien will decide what the Texans do, how far they go, how hard they push. He has all the power and all the say, and the Texans have given them that. But yeah, he's, he's directly involved in the day-to-day with these things. Yeah, but the confusing thing to me, though, Brian, is when you trade two first-round picks for

Jeremy Tunsell, you are saying he is our guy for the next decade. So now in these negotiations, you're going against it. You're not saying that this is our guy for the next decade, so I'm just confused, by the way, this is playing out. I 100,000 percent agree, and that's why, and, you know, good rockets. I'm all four rockets last night. drive us all crazy. Good Texans, I'm all for. Crazy Texans drive us all crazy. I thought at the time the tonsill trade, and it always blew my mind. It's like all the blind, you know, blogger,

hardened rocket supporters who, you know, they always find some way to explain that the way. There were always people who would initially say, Ross, well, you know, Brian's been a great GM, and, you know, you had to make that consul trade. Part of that is true. We all knew they needed a left tackle. yes, they let Dwayne Brown go, and that was the Texans' fault ultimately. They needed a left tackle, and Laramie Tunsell was good last year. He wasn't great. He was good. But they did it brought in such an orthodox way, last minute, huge trade, giving up first-round picks,

and they did negotiate a contract with him. You know, he didn't have a five-year deal. So they have no leverage right now. Laramie Tunsell has all the leverage. If they don't give Laramie Tunsel what he wants, and he said, screw it, I'm walking. You're going to allow it to happen because you already gave up first-round picks for this guy. He's your left tackle for the future, so you can't really play hardball. Nobody in the NFL would operate like that except for the Houston Texans in this situation.

It makes no sense, and they're going to basically have to cut a check for whatever Laramie Tunsell wants. Yeah, I agree with you, Brian. All right. We've got to hit a break here. But you know, as Matt doesn't do, I do do. What do you got going up with The Chronicle? Anything you would like to shamelessly plug? So much better than the other guy.

You know, Matt, Matt Thomas, again, his toenails painted, and you're doing grunt work here. Houstoncronicle.com, that's it. And I got to say, Ross, when I was driving around, I almost crashed my car again. Because I think I heard you say, now I'm not young anymore. Liddy? Yes, it was a joke. I said it ironically. Yeah, I don't know about that. Like, I can do lit. Liddy is way...

It's way worse. That's what makes it so terrible, and that's what makes it so great. I know. Is that like a Cardi B term or something? I don't even know. Exactly, yes. That's what we're going with, Brian. Thanks. Talk to you next week. All right. Brian Smith of The Chronicle. Check out the stuff at Houston Chronicle.com. All right, time for a break here on the Matt Thomas show. You guys want to get in. 7-13-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. The Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas, but with Ross Villarreal, and with Adam Wexler continues next. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790.

Baseball, football, basketball, and Houston. Home for your home teams. Matt Thomas Show continues here on Sports Talk 790 and we continue without Matt Thomas here on 790 Ross Villarreal and now Adam Wexler joining the fold Is this now what are we calling this one?

We were on earlier It's the pregame show to the pregame show It's a pre-pre So you know when they have the Super Bowl This is the 18 launch pad Exactly exactly You had like a five-hour pre-game show That's what we're looking at today here

I couldn't help it We got Astros baseball on tonight, so it'll kick us off a little early. And we've put in some early shows. We've had some shows where we come off early, so just trying to make it all work out. I don't know how much fun it is to hang here between 12 and 3. You're just trying to get your hours.

Just trying to get log my hours, clocking in. I see that. Time card work. Well, let's go ahead and get your fresh take on it, since you haven't been here the last couple hours. Just let me go ahead and fill you in and what's been happening. Basically, the rockets are terrible. Darryl Morey needs to be fired. Mike Dantone can't coach.

James Hardin needs to be traded. Your thoughts? Yeah, I don't know, man. They looked awful. And I said it yesterday on our show. I thought they would catch a break because Steph Curry was coming back, because they were the early game, and Steph Curry was the late game. So when they got to inside the game, they'd still be slobbering over whatever Steph Curry

did. And so the bulk of the hour's worth of normal, we told you, the rockets are terrible, would be lessened if they lost, but I never thought they were going to trot out another. Hey, look, Marv, Albert, and Chris Weber are doing the game, and it's on national TV for the Rockets. Maybe they'll list 20 consecutive three-pointers or more again with those two behind the mic at Toyota Center as the only game in town with all eyes upon them. And that's what they did. That's just about, I mean, coming into the game, I mean, I've talked about this, and I think maybe even we've talked about this. I just don't like the Clippers as a matchup for the Rock

I just think that this five-out small-ball offense is predicated on James Hardin and Russell Westbrook beating defenders on the perimeter. Problem is the Clippers have a plethora of good perimeter defenders. Of course, Paul George, Kauai Leonard, I mean, Patrick Beverly isn't a stopper to me, but he's at least going to slow James Harden down some. And even Marcus Morris, even though he got beat a couple of times, I think he's a solid defender on the perimeter as well. So I just don't feel like the clippers are a good matchup for the Rockets. And if they are going to win, they have to hit their shots. Not only did they not hit their shots last night, it was just, it was almost comical. At one point when they had missed like 15 in a row, whatever it was, I was like, just miss every single one.

I just want to see some kind of history. I don't know what the NBA record for most consecutive misthrees is. Is it that 27 in a row? Okay. Well, I would like to have seen them beat that last night. Just for the comedy of it. Like, if you're going to stink, if you're going to be this bad on this big of a stage and this important of a game, just be as worse as humanly possible, which they were pretty close to.

It's hard to watch because it just kept getting further and further away from them. And while the Rockets were setting a new season low for the second time in a week in points in a first half, they were also watching the other team score 67 points. A couple nights after the Knicks had 73 points. So right before we went on the air, Ross was saying, I mean, their defense is not very good. And I'm on the other side of the table saying, man, their offense is not very good or consistent enough to withstand these games.

And that's the biggest problem of all. You put them both together on the very same night. You kind of were able to push past it against the Knicks because your offense wasn't terrible all night. And all of a sudden a game that was 17 points, 19 points, you got it to within one possession at the end. You're also playing the Knicks. Last night, your offense was about as bad as it's been all season.

and your defense certainly was about as bad as it's been since you've employed this look. And that includes games where Capella missed before Covington arrived. I mean, the one other game that looked like last night since the Terry deadline was the Phoenix game. And of course, we have the excuse that Eric Gordon got hurt in that game, like he got hurt in this game. And Russell Westbrook didn't play against Phoenix. Everybody started this game healthy. And you played that game healthy. You got smoked.

Mike Dantony was pretty much nails. for the game. They punched first. We didn't punch back. We had no responses. Once things went badly, they got worse. They got crushed. They got their asses whipped, I believe is what he said. Well, they did get their asses whipped. Have we heard anything on Eric Gordon? I know that was it been, if that were a five-point game with six minutes left, would it have been a situation where Eric Gordon is out for the remainder of the game? Well, he's not going to play Saturday. Oh, great. Neither is Westbrook. First game of back-to-back. They're in Charlotte on Saturday, and then they're coming back to the game against Orlando.

me take James Hardin in my DFS lineup because he's going to drop minimum 40. I think that's a pretty safe bet. Yeah. I think Eric Gordon, they've got to consider doing something besides what they've been doing, which is giving him a couple days off and bringing him back. Yeah, it's got to be. I'm with you. Yeah, it's time to address it in a different way because not only does he keep coming back

and getting hurt, he keeps coming back and playing terribly. His offense is awful in 2019, 2020. He had the 50-point night and essentially the rest of his season. has been terrible, and I'm not really exaggerating. He's shooting under 33% overall downtown on the season. That's, like, unplayable. If you can't shoot 33% from deep, you can't shoot threes. That's why Russell Westbrook doesn't shoot them anymore.

He can't do that. Everybody else on the team can at least do that. And Eric Gordon, that's his forte. He's 37% career three-point shooter. You can't have that. Yeah, and we've seen this from him before, and it's kind of almost difficult with him. and as Kyle was talking with Brian T. Smith is you don't want to take a shooting slump because he's prone to slumps.

James Hardin is prone to slumps. And sometimes we're saying, oh, it's because his knee hurt. Oh, it's because his toe. Or it's just because the guy's a streak shooter. So, I mean, it's hard for us to tell. Is Eric Gordon completely healthy? And I'm with you. I think he just needs, if the rockets are going to make any noise in the playoffs, they absolutely have to have Eric Gordon.

It's just, yes, Russell Westbrook has to play well. Yes, James Harden has to play well. But for them to go above and beyond against the best teams and the best contenders, Eric Gordon has to be a factor. He just has to. I mean, even with Covington, he should be your third leading score. And that's more like 15, 16, 17, 18 points a night, not 12. I mean, Daniel House can do that.

Jeff Green can probably do that. They need somebody else, especially with Capellagons. Somebody else got to put the ball in the basket. Chris Clemens. A lot of time where Hardin Westbrook aren't on the court together. You can't count on them to do everything. they're not that unbelievable or that unstoppable. We have eyes.

We saw last night's game. That was not a good game for either of them either. It was another bad shooting night for James Hardin. In a string of bad shooting nights, second long slump he's had this season. It's just been ugly to see. I mean, can we get a point of the season? We've had like flashes of like a couple of games where both Westbrook and James Hardin are playing well. I think I continue to see the potential of this team where,

If they're firing on all cylinders, Eric Gordon's healthy and playing well, James Hardin is playing well, Russell Westwood's playing. They're a dangerous team, but it just hasn't materialized for any sustained period this entire season. And it looked like this was when it was going to happen because you can lump the Clippers lost in last night with the previous 12 games. And you can say, yeah, they have a loss to the Clippers and a win against the Lakers and a win against the Celtics and a second win against the Celtics and a win against the Jazz, all in a 14-game span. Right. So it just shows you the inconsistency still sits inside this team's psyche. Yeah, I think that's the frustrating thing to watch is the inconsistency, is the, I mean, just getting off to these bad starts and not recovering all the way or falling to the Nix.

It's just that to me is you can see the high highs. The high highs are they can play with anybody. And then the low lows are you can go and lose to the NICs. Yep. So if we wanted to pretend that you are the Rockets and you're a third grader and you just took your test. Okay. So what grade do you think you got last night? Last night?

I got an F. So like a 45? 50 maybe somewhere in that neighborhood? Give me a 55. Okay. Well, I'm your teacher and I just graded it and I'm going to hand it back to you, but I don't want to make you feel bad. Okay, that's good. So I'm going to tell the listeners what I'm going to put on the test, write a little note to you and say, it's not so bad.

It's going to get better. You're going to be okay. Okay. I'll tell the people about that on the other side. All right. We're going to take a break here. That's Adam Wex. I'm Ross Viorale.

You guys want to get in a couple of y'all and hold. We'll get to you coming up here at 713, 2125-790. 7-19. 7-19. 7-190. 2-1-2-5-7-90. Short break here. Don't go anywhere.

Your Rockets, Your Astros, your voice. 233 at the PM here. Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas show, or I'm sorry, the 18 pregame show. Adam Wexler, Ross, Rearreal, and you, 713, 2,1,2, 5. 790 tweets also to at SportsRV. So I mentioned earlier, because I thought I was taking crazy pills to a quote, Mugatu. When everybody was calling in and there, I got several tweets saying,

trade James Hard and trade James Hardin. I was wondering what the percentage would be, so I put a poll out on Twitter. And the pertinent answer, the question is, I'm sorry, should the Rockets trade James Hart? And the answer of yes has overall about 19% of a yes. So not as nearly bad as I was thinking it was going to be, because I thought it was like a 50-50 proposition the way the people were going. Has it sent you to the trade machine?

It has not. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. First of all, the trade deadline has passed. You're going to have to wait. You're looking for a deal made before February of 2021. Yes. After he, or during the offseason. And what, I mean, what would be, somebody tweeted me, I think, Devin Booker and three first-round picks?

That's what the Sons are going to offer you? That's what somebody tweeted me that they would take, I guess. Yeah, the Rockets would take that. The Sons wouldn't offer that in a million years. That's unfortunate. I mean, Devin Boker, I mean, James Hardin's awesome. He's going to finish in the top five in the MVP race again, and deservedly so. The Phoenix Sons would not offer Devin Boker and two first-round picks for James.

James Arden, let alone three. Well, that's unfortunate. All right. Let's go to the phones. A couple of you guys have been holding in a while here. 713, 2-1-2-5-7-90. Adam, take a load off. Girard, Southwest Side here on Sports Talks.

What's up, Drod? Hey, how's it going? I'm well, sir. What do you got? Quick thing, man. You know, you guys remember the Seattle Super Sonics. Of course. Detliff Shremf?

Herson Hawkins. Yeah, Debtless Shrimp. I had a lot of long defenders used to give Akema Lodge 1 in the Rockers a lot of problems. They could double down on the Lodge 1. They were out of living enough to get back down on the three-point shooters, man. It was just a bad matchup for the Houston Rockets. The two times the Rockets had a championship that didn't have to play Seattle. Seattle got upset, I think, by Denver, one year and the next year, Lakefield.

They didn't have to beat them. The third year, they had to match up with Seattle. They got beat. They got swept. I think that's what we're looking at with the clip. I'm not saying the Rockers can't beat them up if they play a great four games out of seven, but it's going to be tough, man. The matchup is not good playing the clippers.

Like you said earlier, man, they have, you know, our strength is our best shrimp, no. We're looking to break people down off the dribble with James Hardin and Russell Westbrook, and they have two of the best perimilar defenders in the NBA and Paul George and Co-Wi Leonard. It's a tough matchup. And then they can go small with us and put Montrez-Hara at the 5, and he gives a fix with the offensive rebound, and he's a load inside to deal with. So it's a tough, tough matcher, man.

You know, I wouldn't mind, like I told you last night, I wouldn't mind seeing the Lakers in the second round rather than seeing the clippers. With that being said, James Hart, man, one thing I noticed about him compared to other years, you know, when he's been, you know, winning the MVP's or been in a run of MVP's, you know, with the three-point shooter, man. This year seems like it's been more peaks and baddest with a three-point shoot. It's been a little bit more erratic this year than it's been in the previous season. I don't know what the tributted that two. He started the season and out shooting bad three, and then he kind of got high and kind of got back toward his career averages for a three-year. point shooting percentage.

But to me, it seems like this season, his three-point shooting has been a lot of peaks and balance, man. A lot of dips in it, man. It's been more than the other season, man. I kind of noticed that. Another thing I know with him is his penetration game that's been as potent as has been in the past. He's still able to score at the rim, but he don't seem like he's able to get by his defenders at ease as easy as easy as he's done in the other seasons.

I know earlier, like he was saying, he got hurt against towns, kind of need them in the thigh. that might have slowed them down. But just overall this year, his finishing hasn't been as consistent as it's been in the past. He's still a great player. Don't get me wrong. But there's some things I kind of notice about him.

Hopefully you can up the end a little bit closing the season out in the playoffs, man. But the Clippers, man, it's going to be a tough matchup, man. I wouldn't mind seeing a knuckers or somebody knocking the clippers out the way, man. We don't have to see them, man. Lakers, not so much. What do you guys think about that? I would agree. Better match up against the Lakers,

because the Clippers are a better basketball team. I know their records don't indicate that, so I think everybody's been confused and doesn't really understand how people can say that. You said it Gerard, I agree. I know a lot of other people think the very same thing. The Clippers are doing things differently. They're doing things like they're trying to win a championship

and not trying to win the number one seed. It's very common now in the NBA, so I shouldn't even be saying they're doing it differently. But last night was only the 31st time all season. that Kauai Leonard and Paul George has started together. That's it. What's their record on those games? They're 24 and 7.

It's pretty good. That's second best record in the league if it's played out over the course of the season. That's my point. And I don't think we saw anything differently, especially with how they're playing now. They didn't come into this game, not on a hot streak.

They were exactly the opposite. Playing their best basketball of the season, clearly at the right time. The Bucks are at an 85.5% winning percentage. The Lakers actually are slightly ahead of that, but I mentioned for the Clippers. At 78.3, the Clippers just in that scenario where George and Leonard start, 77.4, which is much better than they're 69.4% over the course of the season when either one of them plays and the other doesn't, or they simply don't play at all. They're just a much better team. The Rockets lost to the best team in the West last night.

They lost by a lot, and they played like garbage. But they lost to the best team in the West. And I don't want to say there's no shame in it because there's tons of shame in the way they played. But can I put that sticker on your test now, Ross? Go ahead. What does it say? It makes a little bit better. So you didn't do very well.

Correct. But you could take that test 206 times. And I could feel very confident that last night's test was the worst one you've ever had. You won't ever do that again. Okay. The Rockets have taken 40 or more three-pointers under Mike Dan Tony, 206 times. Last night was game 206.

They've never shot below 20% before. And last night they were at 16.7. The absolute worst three-point shooting performance in a regular season game under Mike Dan Tony with that high volume of shots. And this is a massive sample size. Almost three full NBA seasons worth of games over 200 times.

And this was by far. the worst performance they've ever had. And as some of you have seen on Twitter and even last night, it wasn't because they were tired, or they were playing too hard on defense, or they were running to the ground, or they were playing the third game in a row on three nights, or that the clippers were in their face.

These were wide open shots. Half of them, uncontested. And they just didn't make them. It was so bizarre. It was just weird. and I did have echoes of the O for 27 run there in game 7 against the Golden State Warriors a couple of games going. I was wondering about that. I wanted to go look that up, but I found it difficult.

I'm glad you found that because, I mean, 7 of 42, I just couldn't remember seeing anything that. And they made that quite a few. In the fourth quarter. Yeah. It was three or 34. So it was going to be under 10%. It went up late in the game. They went white hot from three.

I'm just saying they actually made a few. late in the game. What was it? I guess four of eight. They went there in the fourth quarter probably because there was three or 34, I think, going into the fourth quarter, which is just, I mean, ungodly bad, absurdly bad with Eric Gordon snapping the streak with them missing 20 straight. I mean, it was just unlike anything I'd ever seen.

Because you've never, it's never happened before. Okay, good. I mean, it's literal now. We can tell you that with a literal sense of just how bad it was. So the expectation that that ever happens, it's. not there. So it's out of their system for the playoffs. Chris Weber will dog them and the anti-analytics people who don't understand what it's all about will say this is why you don't do it. No, that's exactly why you don't care that you did it. It's an outlier and it's so far out there

that it can't readjust how you think about things. Maybe you want a few more guys taking it to the basket after seven straight misses. Maybe you want this guy shooting from that spot. But he was Weber specifically, which just given Daniel House the business last. I was at the game, so I didn't hear Chris Weber, which is a blessing. Yeah, I didn't, I've not been anti-Weber for, I'm not sure why, not now have to listen to him. Exactly. But in specifics, last night, Daniel House took a step back three and missed. And he's just railing on him and railing on him.

Other end of the court, Jamichael Green hits a corner three-pointer. And he's just going on and on and on. And so I thought, okay, in this whole sequence, one of these guys shoots 37% from deep. And the other guy shoots 36.9%. It's almost the same. but House was a tiny bit better. So the guy that missed and plays for the Rockets on a night where everyone's missing, it's the dumbest shot ever.

You can't do that to your teammates. Stop shooting shots like that. They can't trust you to make the right decision. 37%, especially on this team, it's actually pretty good. He's actually been one of their better three-point shooters. And he's just kind of clue list all that. And a stepback three is something that Daniel House has been adding to. He's added to his game last year.

He's been taking step. He doesn't know that, Ross. Oh, I'm sorry. He's been taking step back since last year. He worked on it all offseason. We had him on during Media Day. He talked about working on the step back. We've seen it.

And we've seen him make them. So, sorry, Chris Weber. Maybe you should have called the timeout. All right, time for a break here. We've got to take a timeout here on the Matt Thomas show. A couple of you guys on hole. We'll get to you coming up at 713, 1-2-5-790. The Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas slash a team pre-game show continues next here on Sports

Sports Talk 790. Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson. here. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Final segment of the 18 pregame show here on Sports Talk 790. A couple of you have people on hold, so don't want to mess around. Ross Villarreal and Adam Wexler with you. Let's go ahead and go to Brian in downtown here on the phones. What's up, Brian?

Hey, what's going on, Adam? Ross, man. Hey, just had a question for you guys. Hey, did you get to helping a decision on what color now was going to paint his toenails in? Ross? I think he's French manicure, French pedicure. Oh, great, great.

Hey, no, quick question for you guys, seriously. You know, I was just asking, Nick, who do you think is going to make

that last roster spot on the assholes and who would you like to see make it? I'm sure open for a mile straw. I like having that speed back

in the lineup. And plus he's showing a little popping his back. And, you know, that inside the park moment,

and it kind of gives a little reminder of when we had camp It gives us a little speed on the base, and I like that. I mean, what do you guys think? Who do you guys think should make it? No, hang up and listen.

Go ahead, Go ahead, Wex. I think Miles Straw is the guy. Okay. Again, I don't really know how we get to, which is technically the last guy that makes it, or the 26th spot, but Kyle Tucker's on the team. They've got their starting outfield.

Yordawn's in the mix a little bit, so both Tucker and Straw are part of that group, the lead miss, all those. Most of the rest of the roster is really going to look the same. You'll have one different name at Catcher. Beyond that, I don't think there's going to be much difference. And Miles Straw has to make the team because we had him on in spring training.

He said he wants to race the freeze. I think that's later in the season. So hopefully at least by that point, there's a lot of Miles Straw. He's got value. I think the free's will take him, though. He's like an actual fringe Olympic type runner. I mean, as silly as it sounds, how far off do you think Miles Straw is from that type of speed? I mean, can't be that far, right?

I think so. Like if he ran the 100 meters in a group of eight finally, for the 100 meter, how far back would he be? 10 meters, 15 meters? No. You think so? In such a short race for a guy with speed? 100 meters?

Yeah. It's only a 10 second race. If he's 10 meters back, that's a pretty good distance. Yeah, I think, I mean, Olympic speed is something else. For sure, you'd finish last. I think so, yeah. In the Olympics with the so-called eight fastest men in the world. There's always some white guy from Norway,

There's some white guy from Norway who's usually pretty slow or something like that. So maybe he can beat him. I don't know. Yeah, I would think that's probably in that air. I mean, some of these guys, we just watched at the combine drop these four-fours and four-three-twos. That's borderline, Marquis Goodwin, world-class speed. That's true. On the block, apparently.

Oh, is that right? Yeah. Longhorn, great, Marquise Goodwin. I wonder what team could use a speed receiver if they can't count on the one that they already have. Goodwin didn't do much of anything last year, though. He says he's always injury, he's always hurt, too. And everybody on their roster passed him. Unless between the two of them, they get at least 16 games out of it.

Maybe. There you go. Let's get Howard Memorial here for some more light and air he takes here in the sports world. Howard, how are you? The Rockets lost two games this week. They should never have lost. They should never have lost to the Clippers? All right.

They should be able to be and the Knicks. Yeah, I don't get that at all. What do you mean they shouldn't have lost to the Clippers? Clippers are A better than them, and the Rockets played very, very badly, so under what scenario should they have not lost? If the Rockets had played well, don't you think they could have beaten them? They could have beaten them. They were capable, but they didn't put that on the court last night.

Well, that's part of my point. They are not playing well in games. They should be winning. All right. Like the Lakers game and the two Celtics game and the jazz game, they all won within the last 200 hours. Well, I guess the point I'm trying to make, I think that the country, coach and the GM, that their time with the Rockets will hang very much on how they do in this

playoff business. That I think is fair, and I think it's accurate also. If the Rockets head to the postseason, catch a team they can't beat in round number one. I think we're going to see some significant front office changes after the season. And having given up all their draft choices, like the Texans, I don't know how much they can do about for the next year or two if they don't have draft choices. Also another good point, and we appreciate it. I think they are up against it if they're, you know, what's the new guy going to come

in and do? I can't wait to reshape this roster. Well, good luck. There aren't a lot of assets to move. You got two super expensive players, one of whom still very, very close to his peak. The other one's clearly past it, but still playing very, very well. It's major concerns moving forward. They went all in as their window was closed.

not at the very most opportune time, but it's fair to say they went all in two years ago also when their window was wider open than it is now. Terrell Mori goes all in like crazy. And at some point when you keep doing it and it's not succeeding, you're left with less to work with each time he's had less to work with. Each time he's mortgaged the future. I mean, they don't have a whole lot of assets going forward.

They don't have a whole lot of wiggle room going forward. He keeps going all in. And understandably so, because, I mean, they're trying to capitalize on James Hardin and the window. There's a, like, on his Twitter, on his Twitter bio, Darryl Morey's Twitter bio says, Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. So it's obvious that's something that's always on top of mind of him.

You have a superstar player that you can win a championship. I know there's some people who disagree. You can win a championship with James Harden. You have to have the right pieces around him. He keeps going all in. And so far, from a championship only standpoint, he has not succeeded. Fair enough. All right, Howard, good talk.

Go ahead and take your mid-afternoon nap. Appreciate it. Thanks for getting it. We didn't really have a chance, so I know he was trying to sneak in some Texans talk there. Oh, was he? Just about them, like the Rockets, having no future.

So they should trade away Doshan Watson? Well, the point is, what does the next GM do if Bill O'Brien signs Laramie Monsel and Dishon Watson and let's say Chris Harris this offseason, all to long-term deals? and then next year he gets fired. What is the next GM do to rebuild this team? Trade everybody.

I mean, what's he got? At that point, you're starting to get back your picks because this is the year of the first year. You miss that first. Trade them all. Yeah. That's what you do. You hope the guys you have can win. That's what everybody wants.

Everybody wants James Hardin. Not everybody, but a lot of people want James Hardin traded, so trade them away. For what? Do you think that Tillman-Fertita is going to take? If the Rockets get mired in mediocrity or even worse for several years, I mean, that's just, it's just not an option for Daryl Morey in the Rockets and Tillman Fertita in the Rockets. It's not. There's too much talent there.

They really would have to gut the team and intentionally take a capable team and turn it into garbage. They've tried a number of different ways. They've failed. Whether it's been an internal issue and the injury was a part of it with Paul or they've been doing it during an era. I mean, in the last 20 years, what's the best team that's been out there? It's the Warriors. Yes. Any of the other 15 years, if they had a Hardin Paul or Hardin Westbrook or Hardin Howard-led team,

they probably would have had a better chance to win a title. But it happened to coincide with the best years of the most recent dynasty that was arguably the best we've ever seen in terms of a collection of top five talent. They have five top five guys, five All-Stars. So you're telling me there are the Love You Blue Oilers going up against the Steelers dynasty. They are the astro, the late 90s Astros going up against the. the Brave Dynasty, and now the Rockets going up against the Warriors Dynasty. I think the Oilers comparison is true, because

I've said it many times, and I have no doubt that it's true. It's an opinion. The Oilers were the second best team in the NFL and back-to-back seasons in 78 and 79, but the best team was the Steelers. They played them in Pittsburgh in back-to-back years, competed with them the first time, got embarrassed by them the second time. But they would

have won the Super Bowl if they would have gotten there. They were the second-best team in the NFL. They just couldn't beat the team that was better than them. Well, I just want to cry. Thank you. It's Friday. Crying your beer. That's true. I am off.

I don't have anything to do it until tomorrow, the sports RV show in the morning. Sports RV show. Last weekend of the college basketball season. It's going to be a lengthy 50-minute show tomorrow ahead of spring training baseball. Did you see the fan video of the last 30 seconds of the OU Texas game this week? I did. It was awesome. The one where they're crying.

Oh, I love it. They were up and they were at the free throw line. Texas sucks. All you had to do is make some free throws. You make it a four-point game. You missed them both. Coleman drains the three. That was beautiful.

And the phone falls. And then Toby Keith Tears. Keep me alive. Appreciate that. All right. Well, that's going to do it. Thanks for... You know what?

I am. I'm in a better mood now that you mention that. There you go. Now the Longhorn just have to beat Oklahoma State. You can hear that game on KPRC, 950 a.m. tomorrow starting at 2.30. All right, that's going to do it. For the Matt Thomas' without Matt Thomas

slash 18 pregame show. The guy's got to go a whole hour and 15. 50 minutes. Hopefully you can handle. Jeff Blum will help us with the second of those two hours. Oh, geez. I mean, are you even having a show at this point? Adam Wexler.

Adam Clanton, you know it's going to be entertaining. Do not go anywhere. They are next right here on Sports Talk 790.