Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Dan Patrick Show podcast. Be
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Speaker 1: Welcome in Dan Buyer alongside, of course, you got Jay
Speaker 1: stew John Ramos. This is my crew, Rick Buker from
Speaker 1: Fox Sports. We'll give us his thoughts on whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call the All Star Game, and we'll get
Speaker 1: you ready for a kind of the stretch run. As
Speaker 1: NBA teams are only now seeming like they're focused on
Speaker 1: getting it together for the postseason. What are the new
Speaker 1: look Lakers is going to look like? When le Bron
Speaker 1: plays what do you say the twenty three most important
Speaker 1: games of his career? Okay, we're broadcasting live from the
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Speaker 1: the way that tire buying should be. So there was
Speaker 1: there was some discussion from All Star Weekend about load management.
Speaker 1: Load management. Kyrie Irving gave a lot of thoughtful answers
Speaker 1: when he's asked questions. Here was his answer in regards
Speaker 1: to load management. I don't know who created the time
Speaker 1: load management or you know, guys sitting out games, or
Speaker 1: you know this narrative that continues to play on about
Speaker 1: star players or guys not being available. I don't know
Speaker 1: who started the narrative, but it's completely run amuck. I
Speaker 1: think it's the humanized some of us in terms of
Speaker 1: just the way we prepare ourselves day to day. This
Speaker 1: is a twenty four seven job. We have cameras on
Speaker 1: us all the time. Okay, I'm not really so because
Speaker 1: there's camera Again, I'm trying to piece together what he's saying.
Speaker 1: It's dehumanizing you. He loves the dehumanizing. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a big fallback on it that anytime there's criticism of
Speaker 1: him or people in the NBA, we're dehumanizing it. I
Speaker 1: guess is that is that objectifying? Are you're dehumanizing something?
Speaker 1: Are you objectifying? You're making them more of an object
Speaker 1: than an actual living being? That that that that's honestly
Speaker 1: that it's the most millennial word word ever. Actually, there's
Speaker 1: nothing more human than I'm really tired. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to work, but I have to go to work.
Speaker 1: I'm really tired, but I don't want to go to work,
Speaker 1: but I gotta go because other people are depending upon me, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the old Can you imagine if the
Speaker 1: school bus drivers like, I mean, you know, I'd like
Speaker 1: to go take your kids to school, but I just
Speaker 1: I got a load manage because that way I can
Speaker 1: perform my best when dropping your kids off at school. No,
Speaker 1: that's not the way it works. I mean there are
Speaker 1: teachers we wish would have had a day off because
Speaker 1: they're just you know, you run on a teacher that's
Speaker 1: had a bad weekend and had a bad night whatever,
Speaker 1: and they're a little little punch you with you. I
Speaker 1: get it maybe to my job, which I'm well, I'm okay,
Speaker 1: saying I have the cakes cake job of old time.
Speaker 1: I watch sports and talk about sports, and interview other
Speaker 1: people about sports, and talk about live sporting events as
Speaker 1: they happen. Don't get any better. But I also do
Speaker 1: I do a lot in a given day. Do the show,
Speaker 1: do a podcast, do a basketball show on stadium. I'll
Speaker 1: go and do games like you know, I just guys today.
Speaker 1: I'm not people do that in their industry at the end,
Speaker 1: not early on, when they're just holding on collecting a check.
Speaker 1: Here's Adam Silver, Okay, here's some quotes. I hesitate to
Speaker 1: weigh in on the issue load management as to whether
Speaker 1: or not players are playing because playing enough, because there
Speaker 1: is a real medical and scientific data about what's appropriate. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: to me, the premise of the question as to whether
Speaker 1: players are playing enough suggests that they should be playing more.
Speaker 1: That in essence, there should be a notion just to
Speaker 1: get out there and play. Having been in the league
Speaker 1: for a long time, having spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with our great legends, I don't think that's necessarily the
Speaker 1: case he's doing. These aren't the droids you're looking for
Speaker 1: the world that we used to have where it was
Speaker 1: just get out there and play through injuries, for example.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's appropriate clearly. I mean, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, they're human beings many of you
Speaker 1: talk to and know well who are playing through enormous pain,
Speaker 1: who played through all kinds of aches and pains on
Speaker 1: a regular basis the suggestion I think that these men,
Speaker 1: in the case the NBA should somehow get out there,
Speaker 1: get out there more for its own sake. I don't
Speaker 1: buy into what so because their bodies hurt from playing basketball,
Speaker 1: they shouldn't play basketball. The expression I always use his
Speaker 1: basketball players to play basketball, Like what else are you
Speaker 1: get to do? So would you get paid to do?
Speaker 1: I had this discussion a friend of mine is I've
Speaker 1: become Actually one of the ways I became friends with
Speaker 1: him was through dan Is Darius Rucker and see all
Speaker 1: the idea of like there was a time in his
Speaker 1: life when he's like, man, I only want to be
Speaker 1: with you. I can only play so many times. But
Speaker 1: if you if you have bills, if you have kids,
Speaker 1: if you want to play at these shows, people want
Speaker 1: to see. People still want to hear the Hootie songs.
Speaker 1: They just dot whether you feel like or you don't
Speaker 1: feel like it. That's what a job is like. I'm
Speaker 1: actually more offended when I read it from Adams when
Speaker 1: I hear it that I see it from Adam Silver
Speaker 1: than I am from Kyrie Irving, especially when this is
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards. Who what is Anthony Edwards twenty two? Here's
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards unload banishment. If there's anything I could change
Speaker 1: about the league to make it better, probably just all
Speaker 1: the guys sit and resting. That's the only thing I
Speaker 1: probably don't like. Um just play, man, if you, if you,
Speaker 1: if you, if you you got to play. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like all the sitting, missing games and stuff
Speaker 1: like these people. These people might have enough money to
Speaker 1: come to one game, you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: that might be the game that come to and then
Speaker 1: you're sitting out, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 1: take pride in trying to play every game because I
Speaker 1: don't know. It might be one fan that has never
Speaker 1: seen me play and I'm trying to play, So I
Speaker 1: don't That's the only thing I don't like, guys just
Speaker 1: sitting out. Let me just speak for all of America
Speaker 1: and say thank you Anthony Edwards. Adam silver. What world
Speaker 1: do you live in? Like Bro, you live in New
Speaker 1: York City, You have a great job that you work
Speaker 1: really hard to get. I get all of that, But
Speaker 1: the rest of the real world is do you have
Speaker 1: any idea how expensive it is to go to your games?
Speaker 1: You have any clue what that does to your fan?
Speaker 1: And you are telling your fans that you value a
Speaker 1: guy getting paid an exorbitant amount of money to not
Speaker 1: play because he doesn't feel perfect like sports science. Listen,
Speaker 1: here's the reality of sports science. It has a value. Okay,
Speaker 1: it absolutely has a value. But I'll draw this comparison. Okay,
Speaker 1: the comp is with head injuries. Right, we have the
Speaker 1: same protocols for head injuries in basketball that we do
Speaker 1: in football. Here's the problem with it. Tell me the
Speaker 1: basketball player who's suffering from dementia because of repeated head trauma,
Speaker 1: they don't actually exist. And yeah, there are some NBA
Speaker 1: players who like you see him try and run. I
Speaker 1: played that celebrity game like thirteen years ago, right, And
Speaker 1: I'll never forget Rick Buker, who's going to join us.
Speaker 1: He was in my head the whole week. He kept
Speaker 1: telling me, Dude, I talked to Tim Hardaway he knows
Speaker 1: who you are. He's coming for you. And then we
Speaker 1: watched him. I watch him run up and down the
Speaker 1: court one time, and I was like, oh, Tim Hardaway's
Speaker 1: he's an old man. Now he's out of shape. This
Speaker 1: is fine. I was completely freaked out by it. I
Speaker 1: get that playing eighty two games and the playoffs for
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years, that can that can do some
Speaker 1: damage to your knees, to your hips or whatever. But
Speaker 1: the reality is that football players, those guys they're walking around,
Speaker 1: they're maligned, They're mangled, They're a mangled mess. There aren't
Speaker 1: former NBA players who are worse off because of their
Speaker 1: time exercising every day, playing eighty two nights and sitting
Speaker 1: in ice buckets. Like we take medical science at its word.
Speaker 1: You spraying your ankle, you're out for four weeks, Like
Speaker 1: that's not how it works with. These guys are superhuman
Speaker 1: and yet maybe their performance isn't as good. But like,
Speaker 1: what are we what are we doing? You have a job,
Speaker 1: you signed up to do the job. You can't shorten
Speaker 1: the season because the idea of shortening the season, you're again,
Speaker 1: you're forgetting what it does to everybody else. Those arenas
Speaker 1: have leases. Those leases have forty one nights plus preseason
Speaker 1: games of the potential for postseason. It's not just the arenas,
Speaker 1: it's all of the restaurants, all of the bars, all
Speaker 1: the tax breaks that were given in order to build
Speaker 1: the brand new arenas, all the people that work in
Speaker 1: those arenas. You're gonna take ten games away from them?
Speaker 1: Are five games away from them? Are you going to
Speaker 1: give them that money? And oh yeah, by the way,
Speaker 1: do you think NBA players are going to give back
Speaker 1: any of the money that they get guaranteed based upon
Speaker 1: in an eighty two game schedule. You have a smoldering
Speaker 1: dumpster fire of a mess on your hands, where even
Speaker 1: one of your young stars sits there and goes, I
Speaker 1: just wish guys would play. I want. I came to
Speaker 1: the NBA to play basketball against the best, and I
Speaker 1: don't know who's playing. And even he has the general
Speaker 1: sense of, hey, you know, there's lots of nights when
Speaker 1: we go out there to play and the best player
Speaker 1: on our team or the other team might not be
Speaker 1: playing because he doesn't feel perfect. What are we doing?
Speaker 1: I expect Kyrie? Kyrie, that's on brand. You're dehumanizing. But
Speaker 1: Adam Silver to go, Kyrie, you know I think they're
Speaker 1: human beings. You're saying, where do you know we're not
Speaker 1: the most human thing you can say, Adam Silver is Hey,
Speaker 1: I get that you're sore, that you're tired, all right,
Speaker 1: but you have to have some perspective in that. You
Speaker 1: fly in private jets, you stay in the best hotels,
Speaker 1: you be out the best medical treatment. We're not at
Speaker 1: if you don't want to play this, we do not
Speaker 1: want hostages. But if you want to play, you got
Speaker 1: to try and play eighty two Knights, right, we want
Speaker 1: to play, got to play any two Knights. Karl Malone
Speaker 1: was up there was it ten straight years? He played
Speaker 1: every game and I'm not a Karl Malone fan and
Speaker 1: the like there's I said this before the show to
Speaker 1: Jay's two. There isn't a human being alive that ever
Speaker 1: patterned their game or Karl Malone And there were no
Speaker 1: moves there's like now, his game was kind of weird.
Speaker 1: He ran the lane and John Stockton found him. He
Speaker 1: developed a really good keyhole jump shot. He's a good
Speaker 1: solid post player. But like a Keem has the dream shake,
Speaker 1: Kareem has the skyhook, nobody emulates or even names any
Speaker 1: of the moves of Karl Malone. Carl Malone just played hard,
Speaker 1: that was it, and he played every night. And you
Speaker 1: have Adam Silver trying to convince us this isn't really
Speaker 1: an issue. Medical science backs it up. You are dehumanizing him. No,
Speaker 1: we're not, or they're human beings. But the whole, the
Speaker 1: whole idea go ahead, go ahead's gonna say. Isn't Adam
Speaker 1: Silver part of the problem because when we you know,
Speaker 1: we started, we start hearing the segment and Kyrie's like,
Speaker 1: who came up with load management? The NBA did because
Speaker 1: they didn't want to put rest on the injury report, remember,
Speaker 1: like that was there was you know, the people don't
Speaker 1: like to hear that guys were resting, so they came
Speaker 1: up with the term of load management, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I think you could have figured out better terms. But
Speaker 1: like that's so so to sit there and even make
Speaker 1: it seem like you're out on your own. No, the
Speaker 1: NBA is catering at least that to you. I just
Speaker 1: I'm I'm dumbfounded by the messaging from the NBA, the
Speaker 1: disconnect in the NBA from what the fans and people
Speaker 1: in sports actually believe that's the big thing. It's like,
Speaker 1: are we are we on the same planet here? Do
Speaker 1: we not understand this is a problem? It to me
Speaker 1: is you know it really what it started with the
Speaker 1: Spurs right when Papovitch would rest guys like Duncan. It
Speaker 1: really wasn't known, you know, it wasn't throughout the league,
Speaker 1: but they would do it at times. Duncan's not gonna
Speaker 1: play at night. You're like, oh, okay with the resting.
Speaker 1: I mean then it took it took another step when
Speaker 1: guys started missing that Saturday night ABC game when you
Speaker 1: know you have you know, just take for his Warriors
Speaker 1: and Tim Duncan and Kwhi Leonard aren't playing and Steph
Speaker 1: Curry and Clay Thompson aren't playing, you know, or you
Speaker 1: know whatever the matchup is, and all of us have
Speaker 1: been saying, well, now, what about the advertisers, And we've
Speaker 1: talked about the fans before, but now it's like, well,
Speaker 1: if they can do it, then then we can do
Speaker 1: it here and then we'll just blame it on the
Speaker 1: back to backs and then we'll just such a bad business.
Speaker 1: Nobody runs a business this way. You don't run a
Speaker 1: bit like this is the customer is always right? Is
Speaker 1: the number one thing in any customer service business, right,
Speaker 1: and that that's you. You're an entertainment business. It's about
Speaker 1: the customers. Like how many times can you piss off
Speaker 1: the customers before they go like you, No, I'm just
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. I'm just not gonna I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Not not gonna do it. And by
Speaker 1: the way, what kids see what adults see in the pros,
Speaker 1: they emulate at a lower level. You do see this
Speaker 1: in some in high school games. Lebronze kid, they lost again, over,
Speaker 1: they lost again last last Friday night. But there were
Speaker 1: games at the the end of the season where suddenly
Speaker 1: he was like, he's got a knee injury, Like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? High school basketball? He's not hurt.
Speaker 1: He just played load managing. Excuse me, what what are
Speaker 1: we doing? I mean, has any of you ramos have
Speaker 1: you been to a Laker game? When the last time
Speaker 1: you're a Laker game? Uh gee's twenty fourteen? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: did you get the tickets or did you pay for
Speaker 1: the tickets? Um? I paid for him. I took Sarah.
Speaker 1: She was like, actually was earlier than that. I think
Speaker 1: Sarah was like ten, so it was a while ago. Yeah, wait,
Speaker 1: she was ten. Then I'm trying to think of how
Speaker 1: old she was. She was young, so probably wasn't twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: She's born twenty five and he goes like twenty she
Speaker 1: was like seven years old. Was like, what was that
Speaker 1: twenty eleven? How much night cost you? A geez? I
Speaker 1: don't know. It was just me her and Suzanne, my wife,
Speaker 1: So I can't remember, but we sat up in the rafters.
Speaker 1: It was it was pretty high in the extent. Definitely,
Speaker 1: three definitely three to twenty dollars, three hundred twenty eight dollars.
Speaker 1: Go to your online banking and scroll to twenty eleven
Speaker 1: if you can. Okay, So look, so I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. The Lakers play the Warriors upcoming, right, they
Speaker 1: play the Warriors. So parking and you can go to
Speaker 1: like StubHub and you can get a parking lot sea. Well,
Speaker 1: this one's nineteen dollars. Most of them are thirty eight. Okay,
Speaker 1: But the tickets in section three thirty two, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: at it's not it's not in the court. It's like
Speaker 1: in that kind of angle sort of up in the
Speaker 1: third deck. Yeah, you can get two unrestricted view good.
Speaker 1: I can see the whole court eighty bucks a pop,
Speaker 1: so on a pay forty bucks for parking, one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty for two tickets to sit away the hell
Speaker 1: up high plus again. And we know you either go
Speaker 1: out to dinner or you get some food while you're there.
Speaker 1: You're in it for two to fifty plus. You gotta
Speaker 1: fight traffic. That's the cheapest possible ticket for the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: and the Lakers, right, and the worst seat in the
Speaker 1: house or one of the worst seats in the house.
Speaker 1: And you show up and your kids are excited. Oh
Speaker 1: you want to bring your kids? Okay, that's another two
Speaker 1: fifty five hundred bucks. Like pick pickstead star player not
Speaker 1: playing tonight. Lebron's not playing night Lebron. You want to
Speaker 1: give him a bit of a pass, you like, dude,
Speaker 1: he's been doing this a long time. But Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: you don't. I just it's an awful way to run
Speaker 1: a business. They have understudies on Broadway, but they also
Speaker 1: offer refunds if the understudy is performing. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine if how many nights off the league guys to
Speaker 1: Hamilton take off I don't know. I just the the
Speaker 1: idea that it's not that big of an issue. People
Speaker 1: are making it a bigger issue, and you go with
Speaker 1: the sports science and we're dehumanizing people like no, look,
Speaker 1: we under I actually think every human being who's ever
Speaker 1: played any sort of athletics or works totally gets it.
Speaker 1: It's not dehumanizing. It actually dehumanizes us. It's trying to
Speaker 1: make us feel bad. That's what it's doing, Trying to
Speaker 1: make us feel like we're some sort of neanderthal. You're
Speaker 1: going to play. We're the dad on the sideline that's
Speaker 1: forcing a kid to play a sport that he clearly
Speaker 1: doesn't want to play. Like that in it, dude, we're
Speaker 1: paying customers. You have the best in the world. There's
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty days in the year we're asking
Speaker 1: to play eighty two nights. They get treated like absolute kings.
Speaker 1: It's basketball. It's aerobic exercise with some physicality blended in.
Speaker 1: And oh yeah, by the way, do you know what
Speaker 1: the best thing to do if you're a basketball player
Speaker 1: when you have a cold, you want to the best
Speaker 1: thing to do is play basketball, opens up your capillaries.
Speaker 1: You feel great. You know the best thing to do
Speaker 1: when like, the answer to every single problem in your
Speaker 1: for your body is generally exercise, and yet we're they're
Speaker 1: telling don't exercise because I've talked to former players they
Speaker 1: have eggs and pains and do any of those Foreiger
Speaker 1: players like man I wish I only played sixty games. No,
Speaker 1: you have your job because you're competitive at your job
Speaker 1: and you're great at your job, so you want to
Speaker 1: do your job less. Fox Sports Radio has the best
Speaker 1: sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our
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Speaker 1: The twenty twenty three mercedies Ben's range of SUVs. Every
Speaker 1: member is waiting to Impressler more at MBus say dot Com.
Speaker 1: It's MBUSA dot Com. Doug Gottlieb and the Doug Gotlieb
Speaker 1: Show crew in for Dan and danets here on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio. Rick Buker joins us. He's covered the NBA
Speaker 1: for years. You see him on Speak on Fox Sports One.
Speaker 1: He covers the NBA for Fox Sports dot Com as well.
Speaker 1: Buke you know it's it's been since Magic hit his
Speaker 1: step back jumpshot over. I guess they're friends again. But
Speaker 1: former best friend Isaiah Thomas. I think that was in Orlando. Yeah,
Speaker 1: think back to our limit ninety three one. Sure had
Speaker 1: to be ninety three because Magic retired. Uh in the
Speaker 1: what was it the fall of ninety one, I believe
Speaker 1: for ninety two, so he had to be ninety had
Speaker 1: to be ninety three three. Um. Anyway, that was the
Speaker 1: last time I watched the NBA All Star Game live,
Speaker 1: and since then it's gotten worse. I don't know for
Speaker 1: at a breaking point, but I'm just the clips you
Speaker 1: watched in the highlight just just bad. Ye have Mike
Speaker 1: Malone saying it's the worst basketball game I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: You have Jalen Brown saying that's not basketball. Yep. Um,
Speaker 1: And and you know me, I think that I think
Speaker 1: the basketball when you actually go watch it in anyway,
Speaker 1: it's better than it's ever been. Players are better. The
Speaker 1: game is really good to watch, really fun to watch.
Speaker 1: But it does the league a disservice. Is there anything
Speaker 1: going to be done to try and fix that mess? Well,
Speaker 1: they have, they've tried, and it hasn't It has had
Speaker 1: its moment over the last what thirty years, thirty years
Speaker 1: that you watched. It's the devices that they've used to
Speaker 1: make it or to infuse more competition into it have worked,
Speaker 1: but they've only worked for a time. And obviously the
Speaker 1: latest where it's quarter by quarter, that that put a
Speaker 1: little juice back into it. But now the players really
Speaker 1: don't they don't care, and I believe that it's part
Speaker 1: of a larger problem where winning every game no longer matters,
Speaker 1: and it's just confused itself at the All Star game
Speaker 1: because it's the least meaningful game in terms of what
Speaker 1: produces things for players. Yes, winning All Star MVP and
Speaker 1: you see guys, certain guys will go for it, but
Speaker 1: in terms of defending or collectively winning the game, especially
Speaker 1: now that they're being picked by captains, you know, every
Speaker 1: action has a reaction. So now it's not East versus West.
Speaker 1: You don't have the conference rival re or reputation or
Speaker 1: pride on the line. Uh, now you're playing for a
Speaker 1: particular player. They're all individuals, uh, sort of playing for
Speaker 1: themselves and so all of that has been lost and
Speaker 1: I just don't know. I mean, I've often said it
Speaker 1: and the NFL has gone to this, which is, let's
Speaker 1: just make it a weekend of competition of individual skills
Speaker 1: the game. It's because the three point contest, the dunk contest,
Speaker 1: thank you mc McClune, those still have some some value.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm more interested in those than than I am,
Speaker 1: but even the dunk contest, Like I love the mc
Speaker 1: McClung story. Yeah, you can't get any NBA star to
Speaker 1: be in the dunk contest. Yeah, well, I mean there
Speaker 1: that is a problem. That is a problem too. But again,
Speaker 1: we've gotten to this point where player we are rewarding
Speaker 1: players regardless of whether they win or not. We're correct
Speaker 1: content we're doing. We're giving they have guaranteed contracts, the
Speaker 1: guaranteem all right, so which which gives It's not just
Speaker 1: guaranteez though, like we're making them into stars. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: talking about guys being superstars who had whenever come close
Speaker 1: to winning a championship. And so it's and it's human nature,
Speaker 1: like if I don't have to win to be considered
Speaker 1: a champion, then why would I have to Why should
Speaker 1: I am risk being embarrassed in the Dunk contest or
Speaker 1: not winning the Dunk Contest When everybody thinks I'm a
Speaker 1: great in game dunker. Oh, why should I compete in it?
Speaker 1: I have to laugh with Somebody asked Lebron James, like,
Speaker 1: what do you think of mc mcluch' winning the dunk contest?
Speaker 1: That was whatever? Whatever he said, I'm like, why are
Speaker 1: we Lebron? He's never competed in the dunk contest. I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest with you. He's the problem. He's the problem.
Speaker 1: He's the problem. Okay, it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: I'm not doing the Skip Bayliss Clutch Geen crap thing, Like, dude,
Speaker 1: it's your league and it's devolved, and you take the
Speaker 1: dunk contest. And again, when we were kids, Jordan and
Speaker 1: Dominique Wilkins and Clyde Drexler, who were the best scorers
Speaker 1: in the league, and there was a conversation there for
Speaker 1: a while that Clyde might be creeping up on Jordan
Speaker 1: and you know, right, and Dominique Wilkins do we pay him?
Speaker 1: And they were in the dunk contest? Yeah, and Lebron
Speaker 1: it's a write of passage and Lebron never did it,
Speaker 1: never did it. Yeah. But but but so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to put all that on him. I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: that on us because we accepted it and still put
Speaker 1: him in that pantheon without him taking the normal course
Speaker 1: of a player of a superstar. We've made him into
Speaker 1: a superstar and put him at the very top of
Speaker 1: the league, and yet he bypassed a lot of the
Speaker 1: rights of passage for a superstar player. And I found
Speaker 1: it interesting in yesterday's game because I did watch with
Speaker 1: one eye closed because it was it was challenging, and
Speaker 1: Lebron was actually trying to play a little bit of
Speaker 1: defense in terms of some rundown blocks, like it wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, straight up or whatever, but and nobody was
Speaker 1: following him on like he made a couple efforts, and
Speaker 1: I was like, huh, that's interesting too. So I look,
Speaker 1: this is going to sound like I'm I'm bagging on
Speaker 1: on Lebron, and that's that's not my intention. I don't
Speaker 1: know that he's the cause, but I think in some
Speaker 1: ways he's the result of how we had have changed
Speaker 1: the dynamics of what it is to be a true
Speaker 1: superstar player in the league. Okay, Kyrie Irving said that
Speaker 1: you know that anybody I'm kind of paraphrasing here that
Speaker 1: people who that don't like load management or guys sitting out,
Speaker 1: you're dehumanizing players. Yeah right, he loves that dehumanizing. But
Speaker 1: Adam Silver also said like, hey, they're human beings here.
Speaker 1: He's doing the dehumanizing thing when talking about load management.
Speaker 1: There's lots of science behind it. But what world are
Speaker 1: these guys living in that they don't realize that this
Speaker 1: is an issue that the paying customer doesn't know who's
Speaker 1: going to be playing on a given night. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I thought that Adam's comments at the very end are
Speaker 1: the bottom line, which is ticket sales are up, renewal
Speaker 1: sales are up. So how much do they really really care?
Speaker 1: How much is it affecting the bottom line. When it
Speaker 1: affects the bottom line, I can assure you that there
Speaker 1: will be changes made. And what it This is such
Speaker 1: a complicated thing, and I've gone back and forth. My
Speaker 1: initial position was, well, of course, like well, how is
Speaker 1: it that we have load management, we have guys resting
Speaker 1: just to rest, and yet we have just as many
Speaker 1: injuries as we've had, Like whatever we're doing is not working,
Speaker 1: and so why is that we have all this this
Speaker 1: science and this sports medicine knowledge and these improved conditions
Speaker 1: and training and all of that, and it's not changing
Speaker 1: the bottom line in terms of the number of injuries.
Speaker 1: So what is what is it that we're not doing?
Speaker 1: And I talked to a number of veteran players and
Speaker 1: they're like, the game is more physically challenge athletically challenging
Speaker 1: in terms of it's faster, there's more you're you're changing
Speaker 1: direction more often. It's more of that, And and I
Speaker 1: believe that there's also the ball and the demand on
Speaker 1: the star players is greater than ever. The usage rate
Speaker 1: of the players is greater than ever. Teams don't score
Speaker 1: utilizing team basketball as much. It's more direct line be
Speaker 1: going over the top of you, etc. Than we've ever seen.
Speaker 1: So you're you're making more demand that way. And so
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, you know what, there's some legitimacy
Speaker 1: to this. There's a reason you need to incorporate it.
Speaker 1: But then I had a conversation with a with a player,
Speaker 1: former champion, now an executive in the league. And I've
Speaker 1: been hearing this complaint from executives forever. They will never
Speaker 1: put their name on the record because it's a sure
Speaker 1: way of getting fired and never being being given it
Speaker 1: a job again, and they feel like the medical aspects
Speaker 1: because they've high hired all of these uh these these
Speaker 1: medical experts and trainers, etc. It's crazy. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: undue influence. But the player, the former champion and now
Speaker 1: executive that the problem is that nobody practices, and when
Speaker 1: they do practice, they don't scrimmage. So how can you
Speaker 1: go from individual workout stuff and no practices and now
Speaker 1: you're playing games and as you know, Doug, like the
Speaker 1: movements in a game, the demands on your body in
Speaker 1: a game, there's there's there's almost no way to replicate
Speaker 1: that other than playing the game. And the real difficulty
Speaker 1: is now. So let's say that tomorrow they all wake
Speaker 1: up and say, you know what, we need to get
Speaker 1: back to scrimmaging five on five. You're going to have
Speaker 1: in the short term more injuries as a result of that,
Speaker 1: because the entire league's not used to doing that. But
Speaker 1: it's also like they have to go through that to
Speaker 1: get back to where guys are going to be conditioned
Speaker 1: to play more games. And then and then there's just
Speaker 1: the difference between the guys who really need that to
Speaker 1: be able to play and the team's telling them, you know,
Speaker 1: like the guys I talked to. Mike Conley was like,
Speaker 1: or Kavan Looney, it was like, no, I gotta fight.
Speaker 1: I gotta fight. The medical staff, they're like, you should
Speaker 1: take a game off. It's when I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker 1: So you have guys being encouraged take time off, and
Speaker 1: then you're going to have guys who are, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: still getting paid. They say I should take a game
Speaker 1: off if I'm feel a little bit sore. Why why
Speaker 1: do I want to go out and play if I
Speaker 1: don't have to? And we could say that about the
Speaker 1: All Star Game. I mean, it's all the same thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: even encouraged players by rewarding them even when they don't
Speaker 1: play or they don't win. Lebron said the last twenty
Speaker 1: three games are the most important twenty three games of
Speaker 1: his career. Yeah, that's a bit of an overstatement. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I believe that he believes that. But I'm
Speaker 1: going to go back to the game that he set
Speaker 1: the record in. He set the record in the third quarter.
Speaker 1: He played eight minutes in the fourth quarter straight. There
Speaker 1: were thirty seven seconds left when he sat down because
Speaker 1: of his ankle. It was a two possession game with
Speaker 1: thirty seven seconds left. That was a very very important
Speaker 1: game for the Lakers and their attempts to get to
Speaker 1: the playoffs, to the play in. You couldn't give me
Speaker 1: thirty seven seconds, you could I could score thirty eight. Well,
Speaker 1: then he took the next two off, and then and
Speaker 1: then took the next two games off. So um, and
Speaker 1: I you know, for the last two years, like he
Speaker 1: stayed in games that um that we're already decided. And
Speaker 1: because he was, he was trying to win the scoring record,
Speaker 1: the scoring title last year, like he's done things he's
Speaker 1: never done before in the last couple of years, as
Speaker 1: far as as trying to score instead of how do
Speaker 1: I best utilize the energy that I have at age
Speaker 1: thirty seven thirty eight to win? So I know the
Speaker 1: narrative that he wants us to believe, and I'm this
Speaker 1: is difficult because I do think that titles and championships
Speaker 1: do mean something to Lebron without question, but his actions
Speaker 1: don't fit with the narrative that he's trying to sell us,
Speaker 1: and I just I will I can't. You got to
Speaker 1: explain the Oklahoma City games to me before I'm going
Speaker 1: to buy in that. Yeah, I think he want Look,
Speaker 1: I think now that they made all those moves, I
Speaker 1: think he does want to get to the playoffs. It's
Speaker 1: on him to get him to the playoffs. They gave him.
Speaker 1: They changed the team for the fourth time. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that that responsibilities on him and I'd love to see
Speaker 1: him do it. I'd love to see him in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see the Lakers in the playoffs. I
Speaker 1: want to see that. But when he starts to tell
Speaker 1: us this is what I'm all about, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: want to believe that, but you've given me a ton
Speaker 1: of evidence that that's not always the case. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's the juxpicion of last year when he opened out
Speaker 1: the possibility of returning to Cleveland when they're in the playoff,
Speaker 1: when they're in a playoff hunt at the All Star Game, right,
Speaker 1: it's just and that went over like a leat balloon. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it was like, I'm disappointed we didn't get Kyrie Irving, Like,
Speaker 1: now you have to change out the team. You just
Speaker 1: looked at your you look at your walker room and win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what these guys an't doing enough for me? Correct? Correct? Correct?
Speaker 1: I thought We had a championship for a while, but
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna do the best I can with what
Speaker 1: we got. We gotta go. I appreciate it, buddy, you
Speaker 1: got it. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
Speaker 1: lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: search f SR to listen live. Doug Gotliemen for Dan
Speaker 1: dan Z Dan Patrick's show. We got some breaking news.
Speaker 1: Let's go to our guy, Dan Buyer Ramos, do you
Speaker 1: have the there you go? Breaking news from Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Doug Once, who's buyout is finalized with Utah Jazz. Guard
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook is expected to sign a deal with the
Speaker 1: La Clippers. That's according to ESPN. Well, that's fascinating, right,
Speaker 1: So he doesn't actually have to move at all, and
Speaker 1: now he is in the same building and the Clippers,
Speaker 1: who are searching for a point guard, had John Wall,
Speaker 1: had Reggie Jackson, and now they have Russell Westbrook, who
Speaker 1: I believe Dave McManaman said was a was a a vampire,
Speaker 1: So it's called a vampire sucking the blood from the
Speaker 1: Lakers locker room. I mean, there is no more perfect
Speaker 1: Clippers story than Russell Westbrook playing for the Clippers, maybe
Speaker 1: against the Lakers in the plaffs that would be remarkable. Remarkable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. Russell Westbrook isn't a point guard. But okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how that makes them what
Speaker 1: it does to make them a championship caliber team. No,
Speaker 1: he's not a great shooter, and he's not a great
Speaker 1: a good defender, and you know, he's a guy who's
Speaker 1: been about Russell and been in Russell's head. Now, can
Speaker 1: we give him the benefit of the doubt over the
Speaker 1: next what is it two months? Yeah, like Kyrie Ivering's
Speaker 1: gonna be perfect next DeAngelo Russell is gonna be perfect
Speaker 1: for the Lakers for the next couple of months. The
Speaker 1: question is afterwards for the Clippers, this is just a
Speaker 1: two month trial balloon, right, But did they actually get
Speaker 1: better over this trade deadline and now acquisition. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't believe the answer is yes. But they do
Speaker 1: have Kawai and they have I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: two best coaches are Kerr and lou They have one
Speaker 1: of the best coaches, if now the best coach in
Speaker 1: the NBA. They got a really really good roster when healthy,
Speaker 1: but they're the Clippers. Let's get to a game. Um,
Speaker 1: what's what's what's what's what's this game? Now we have done? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've taken a one on lead on John Ramos in
Speaker 1: this best of three. This game is called the Dwight
Speaker 1: stuff again on this President's Day. You have to decipher
Speaker 1: if the tidbits that we give you last hour was
Speaker 1: Warren g or Warren G. Harding this one Dwight Eisenhower
Speaker 1: or Dwight Gooden. So I'll give you and John Ramos
Speaker 1: facts you have to determine was this for the uh
Speaker 1: former Mets pitcher or was this for the thirty fourth
Speaker 1: president of the United States? All right, John, you are
Speaker 1: up first? Are you ready? Yes? All right? Nicknamed Doc?
Speaker 1: Was it uh Dwight Eisenhower or Dwight Gooden? That would
Speaker 1: be uh ike, was by the way, Dwight Eisenhower. That'd
Speaker 1: be a Dwight Gooden? That is correct? That is that
Speaker 1: is the nickname for Dwight Gooden. John Ramos off and running,
Speaker 1: all right, Doug, who had a like this is this
Speaker 1: is like what was the female basketball player the basket
Speaker 1: player for Yukon when she heard her knee So to
Speaker 1: become like, no, the previous one like to become the
Speaker 1: all time scoring leader. She won bucket, so they like
Speaker 1: threw up the jump and she's standing by the basket. Yes,
Speaker 1: and she made the layup. That's what you just did
Speaker 1: to dramas. We're crunched on time, so we have to
Speaker 1: get a winner here sooner rather than later. Doug who
Speaker 1: had a tree named after him, Dwight D. Eisenhower or
Speaker 1: Dwight Gooden, Dwight D. Eisenhower, That is correct, no longer
Speaker 1: than it was a seventeenth hole of Augusta National was
Speaker 1: not a sequoia. But good guess you got the half
Speaker 1: point for that one to one. Just kidding. John who
Speaker 1: wanted a telephone thrown at his head by a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Was it Dwight Eisenhower or was it Dwight Gooden. I
Speaker 1: don't think Maine would ever throw into Dwight Eishow, so
Speaker 1: I'll say Dwight Gooden. That is That is correct. Presidency
Speaker 1: the United States. By the way, if you can hear
Speaker 1: the music, all right, Doug two one. John Leeds at
Speaker 1: one time smoked three to four packs of cigarettes a day.
Speaker 1: Is that Dwight Eisenhower or Dwight Gooden. Who what the
Speaker 1: answer is? Push, I'm gonna go. Dwight Gooden. No iked
Speaker 1: like smokes apparently, Yes, he was a big smoker back
Speaker 1: in the day. John Ramos, you get this right? You
Speaker 1: win Game two In Dwight stuff. A song was named
Speaker 1: after him by a band called the Mountain Goats. I'll
Speaker 1: say Dwight Eisenhower. That is Dwight Gooden received Doug received
Speaker 1: an honorary degree from Hofstraw. Dwight Gooden. No, that was Eisenhower.
Speaker 1: His nephew was a major league baseball player. John Ramos,
Speaker 1: that's Gary Scheffield, right, Doc Gooden, That is correct, John Ramos,
Speaker 1: wins the Dwight Gooden game. I missed the Mets championship
Speaker 1: parade because he was at a drug dealer's house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not Dwight Eisenhower. Just clarify that was not
Speaker 1: Dwight Eisenhower. Yeah, well that was not good that one.
Speaker 1: That one I definitely would have missed as well. I
Speaker 1: would have missed that one as well. Coming up next
Speaker 1: to the Dan Patrick's Show Live from the tirect dot
Speaker 1: Com Studios, All we'll give them that news that Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook is a Clipper is a Clipper. Why that's perfect
Speaker 1: Next to the Dan Patrick's Show. You're on Fox Sports Radio.