Wednesday, November 29, Hour 1

This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzale Son Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions kt z R TWU SA in iHeartRadio Station. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jagonzalz. We got Sammy with us today on a Wednesday. Welcome, everybody. Have a nice show. It's gonna be centric to maybe a little thanks

area. Yeah, yeah, but that's cool. A lot of stuff going on up there, good stuff going on. We you know, if you've been paying attention to the in season NBA Tournament, the Phoenix Suns are in the quarterfinals of it. So we invited Tom Leander, their TV studio host, to join us. Tom's a good friend of ours from way back in the day when he was a Channel thirteen. So he joins us and talks

Suns with us about it. Yeah, and then we're gonna get hold Robino from a shoe some over the weekend at the game, uh, you know, kind of exchange. Pleasant reason that was about it. But there's a lot of stuff going on beyond the football program, they too, looks like are having financial issues mostly I think in the athletic department, not so much the school. But we'll get to that. Yeah, I just maybe get

some clarifications on that. See what they're doing at a issue because they just lost the offensive coordinator, right, he's been dismissed or let go or whatever word you want to use. Yeap so, and oh it's been a good guy, you know, he's Yeah, the publisher or editor of Devil's Digests doesn't pool punches, right, he gives us a good perspective from up there, which we like. I want to know what they're thinking after the beating

that they took because you know, no torque for the fork man. Well you know, and and for them, it's a different situation than when the seventy to seventh thing happened because Arizona, what's stuck with, had a coach that they just wanted to get the hell rid of. I think ASU feels pretty good about sure Kenny Dillon him even though he got his beans break. Yeah yeah, no, no Saturday. It's a lot like this place down here. You hope you put your hope in a new guy, a young

guy and see how he does and hope he turns into Jeed Fish. I'd love to hear what he thinks about telling him and what you know. Okay, so maybe they've that was their rock bottom and so we'll see, you know what, you know, how they feel about the direction that they're headed going into next year. Right, Okay, so we'll talk to him as well, still talking about Arizona stuff. Anybody want to call please do five to two oho four one six, seventy four forty. We love your calls

you if you haven't called before, please do. Hey, And just a kind of like a selfish side note. Today's Wednesday. Uh, the our competition, our friendly competition is off all next week, so we're on. We're low next week on the air, all right. So if you haven't heard us before, or you want to listen to Dave too, we love you listening to Dave, you know, stick with us for this next week.

Yeah, give us a shot if you like our conversation. We're always you know, we're just a couple of guys been here for a really long time, and I mean like a really long time. Well I think about seventy, well seventy in the business about seventy years together. Yeah, because I was thirty five years and now thirty six years. You were in for a while, but you're still in it now, so you know, seventy

years of a BS writing and whatever else you want to do. So yeah, so we've always got you know, I think we we give you sort of a pretty good just a fan perspective of local. Well some of us do. I'm not. I'm not as delusional as you you make me out to be. Steam you're the fan in the room. There was something that something that came up yesterday about the fans, and I was gonna say, it might come to me about you being the fan. But you know,

we need that perspective. You know, that's what you are. That's what you know, That's what our show is about. Right. You try and keep me grounded unsuccessfully, you know, I kind of do sometimes you say, Okay, you're right. So I was at l to it right a couple of weeks ago and one of my Facebook friends who I've never really met in whatever, Hey are you Steve Vera. You're a big u a fan,

right, And I said, what gives you that impression? He got me confused with somebody else, Well, give you that, Well, you always write about them. It's as well, there's a difference. There's a difference of writing about him and being a fan. Yeah, so people kind of still don't. Well, And it's funny because really that's I feel like that's what readers and listeners have come to expect. They've come to expect that

the media that covers the team is also a fan. And and old guys like you were trying to hang on to the thing that no, we're you know, we're we're impartial. Yes, we cover this team, We carver them all the time, and in a sense we root for them because covering winners is better than covering losers. But in your writing, you're trying to be pretty level headed, even handed, unless you're a columnist or whatever.

Did you guys see I don't know if you guys saw. It was late last night, but Jason Kidd and journalists and reporter last night kind of butt in't butt heads, And so Jason Kidd and it was probably the guy that covers the Mavericks. He's been around. They obviously knew each other, and he asked them something along the lines of Carrie Irving and Luka Doncic's the last couple of games not performing in the clutch as well as maybe they they should

expect. And Jason Kidd was I mean, he kind of took it maybe the wrong way, but it was more kind of like he even said, like, why don't you guys write something pos but in your guys are conversations Like he's trying to just do his job of like report level headedly as though like that journalist he may I don't know where he's from. I don't know who he is, but he may be a Dallas Maverick fan for all we know. But his job is to report on what he's seen and what people

are talking about, and that's what that's why he asked the question. I think sometimes coaches and even players don't even wrap their head around like this is our job, this is their job. That's kind of strange coming from Jason Kid, who's been in a short and I think he may have just been like kind of ticked off because maybe the question because maybe he's ticked off because

those butt heads didn't play very well. But to be fair the reporter, I mean, Luca and Kyrie have been very good in of course this year in this year, and so I think the question was phrased a little poorly, so he had a problem with that, But it still kind of brings back to the point of like he's just trying to kind of get to the

bottom of what that is. Like what why I mentioned this yesterday because because I follow the Warriors, Kyle caught me at the Athletics had the same issue with Thompson because Thomson he hasn't been playing, has been playing the well. Him and Wigans haven't been playing well. So he brought that up and Thompson, who's you know, Kevin like is just a shy, yeah, quiet

guy. He went off on them and he wrote the kit was fantastic called because it was like, you know, two paragraphs of quotes, but how how he isn't this guy and he's you can tell that he's his season is way, his career is wayne right, and and how he needs to step it up. I mean, whether he believes it or not, it's true, sure, but he does. You know, you get and when you're

in a corner, what do you do? You fight? Exactly fight, And that's what he kind of did out of character, but he gave him credit for doing that, because maybe that'll kind of bring him out to Yeah, And I think with when it comes to players, especially like Clay who he knows he hasn't been playing well and there's a lot of expectation on him to get back to quotes this splash brother, Clay Thompson. I think a

lot of that in athletes. It just comes out all at once. There's a lot of pent up like I'm not anger aggression, but it's just like, man, I want to do my job well too, Like I don't I don't need anyone telling me more. And that that's the part of being an athlete, though, sure have to they have to live with that, sure, and and and and you know, in all fairness, the media that that athletes have to deal with today, there's one, there's far more

of them. There's far more of them who don't know what the hell they're doing because they've never been through journalism school or that. And and then you know, then there's some confusion about who's really media and who's a fan site. So there's a lot of things that these that these athletes are having to deal with. And you know, they see these fan sites writing nothing but nice stuff about them, and they kind of expect everybody should be doing that

when it's not your job. Sure, it's not my job. It's not Justin spears job or or Michael Lev's job or Doug Haller's job to do that even handed. If you're a columnist, that's a different diffeent thing, right, And you knowists, Steve, you know they have positive and negative things about but they're not they're not. They get to have an opinion, they're

swayed. They get to have an opinion. I think as as someone and you guys do to that read a lot of really good sports reporting, like that stuff sticks out, like the Athletic does a really really good job. And a lot of fans like all my friends that root for you of a are all my friends that root for the Cardinals or the Suns. Like they're not going to the Athletic to read the Phoenix Suns news or NBA news. They're going to, like you said, the fan sites have been like,

oh is my team succeeding? Oh awesome, and let me read about it. They don't really want to read what's really happened, but it could be positive or they don't want they don't want to read the as as uh as I said, the even handed stuff that that kind of gives you the good and the bad side. But that's what makes sports fans great, I guess. And then they come in sports fans are and then they come in with their little comments. You're a tool anyway. You know you're a tool anyway,

take the sky high. You're on the R and I and the all. Hey, gentlemen, and I say that loosely, and missus Steve, this's got to be written. It's got to be ritted. I love your brothers. Hey, I want to just listen to your intro here. You know, Jed Fish had a great year, totally uninstanted, and coaches and people they're familiar with sports. You always want to have high expectations of your

team for this year, next year, or whatever. But I would like to warn the fans we're going into a whole different environment playing football next year, and probably football more so than other sports because you play so many fewer games. Your competition is going to be different, recruiting is going to be different, and have more All I would ask about fans is to have realistic expectations of the ball team next year. Yes, you want to expect him

to do the best. But on the flip side is you've got to give him an opportunity to continue to grow and so that hopefully Jed will be around, Hopefully university will figure out a way to pay him and keep him afraid. He may go to Florida in a couple of years. But long and short of it is, I just wish the fans would have more of a realistic expectation of the football team, not to deny them expectations, but also it's a different environment, so we work around that. Well, well,

I think it's like Miss America, what are your wishes? Well, world peace? Good luck with that, Rick, Good luck with that Rick, because I think realistic expectation is where you kind of mess up. And you know this. You're saying this because that's what you wish for. But fans here and anywhere, realistic has nothing to do with anything. Well, I know, but unfortunately, if you're not realistic, then you have tennessity to

say things. Really don't have information on comments and that's where we you know, And here's the stepbok Arizona one games that here they weren't effected by something more than five maybe six and so, but we still couldn't fill the stadium right. Well, and you've seen this, You've seen this. You've been here a long time, if not forever, You've seen that happen forever. Well, when I was a Jim LaRue with football coach, when I was a kid growing up. Okay, so you guys don't even know who he

is. I know who he is. And he tells me how old you are? Yeah, all right, thank you anyway, that's my limited knowledge for the day, gentlemen, thank you, good week. Appreciate you, thank you, thank you. Uh yeah, Rick realist. I think he would have said, you wish that would happen? Yeah, you know, but but yeah, yeah, but so now you know, look I've been

saying that too. You know that that Arizona fans have to realize who we are, right and and and that you know, Arizona's not you know, Michigan, Ohio State or any of those, and you know, things happen, so you know, you just you just you just have to come to grips with that. And you know, can Jed sustain what he you know, what he did today or even improve on it? Maybe? You know, Arizona's had some shots at it before and hasn't been able to do it.

So, you know, just have a have a realistic expectation of you know, what you can see now. I for one, am excited about what I what we might see next year. Right, you know, we were just talking about that today at lunch. You know where we sit today, Where we sit today, I think the favorites for the Big TAALP Championship next year are Utah, Oklahoma State in Arizona. Yeah, I don't disagree. Who else besides that, you know, maybe a Kansas or Kansas State,

Right, but Kansas and Kansas State are kind of like Arizona. Wait a second, so you how long has it been since you ever said Arizona isn't a hunt for a conference title? Nineteen nineteen ninety eight, or after the after the ninety eight season, right after the nineties. So I thought

that after the after the twenty fourteen season. In fact, I remember going into preseason of twenty twenty fifteen when Arizona had everybody back from the twenty fourteen team on new Solomon uh Scooby, right, you know the receivers that I thought, why isn't anybody talking about Arizona because they were not, and then they were. They went into the pooper. Yeah, it's not into the pooper. They got into a bowl game, but they weren't. They didn't

contend for the Pack Belt championship. Yeah, if the season will win, the season ends, assuming if you ever wins their bowl game, they may get a bumper two in the ranking. But as it stands now, you of A would be the highest is the highest ranked out of the teams that would be in the conference next year. And so if you're just talking about it, theoretically, sure, you of A would be the best team in the conferences and certainly among the favorites, which, as you said, Steve,

we never get to say. You don't get to see how know, which is great, Which is great. Okay, Well, we're gonna go to break. We have a different show today because we have Tomney under at three thirty five ish, right, so we don't have to rush away, but we will right take the break. Now come back for a shorter period. We'll take your calls. Yeah, and then come back at three thirty

flight with Tommy. It sounds great. Play on play, play on play, Ye Joe Trump the verse, It's going down fake it's a flax streak. The Homi's got that we collab creations black gas and they don't doubt. I'll put it down, never slouch as long as my credit can vounce.

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to azypast dot com to schedule your free evaluation today. Steve Rivera and Jacob Solids they have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports Station SAT Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to you. I'm involve on Fox Sports forteen fifty on Steve, He's Jay send me with us to about eleven minutes. If we got a call before we get to Guliander. On the other side, it'd be interesting to hear what you guys have to say. What are we talking about before Fafita and t mac sec Oh yeah, nobody it

buzz that was that was during the break. Yeah, but the rumor mails already started. Stupid. Yeah, I don't remember, Steve, already we were talking about uh, mainstream media sports journalism. You don't know what yeah, what that looks like? Now? Yeah, no, I think you hit it on the head, especially for like you said with or we said last week with the Fox girl, what's your name, Chris Thompson, what I asked? I think it was, Uh, it was it was Kevin.

I said, is she a journalism major? She's not a journalist. And that's part of the problem, right, they don't know the things, the standards that you Well, there's lots of people who call themselves journalists or media that are certainly not trained, right, I mean right, anybody can call themselves media just by having a website and you're out there and you've got a little bit of a platform or whatever. But you know that's not doesn't make you a journalist. Yeah, and you know, I hate to be

hoity toy about this, but I'm going to be hoity toy. I went and studied how to do this. There's a way to do it, in a way not to do it. Sure like anything else. Well, here's another issue for Sammy, because you're going to get out into the real world and have to find a job. And I've said this to other internts before. You're not competing against guys like USh, You're competing with former athletes who are or taking that Joel's jobs too. Don't get me started about that,

because they're not journalists. Rob Gronkowski is on is on one of the one of the NFL. It's like he show yeah and that there's a guy that looks like a complete fish out of water. I love Rob. He's a great guy thing, he's a great personality. But he starts talking and you go, yeah, guy, dude, you're kind of goofy, you know, but that's what they're shooting, shooting exactly. Well, I think it's different if you get like, I don't know if you're on Sunday nights or

Monday nights. If you guys watch the Manning cast. When you watch that like that, that's cool because they know and have played the game for so long and they know the intricacies of the sports so well to where if you're trying to learn or get new insight, that's cool. Or like Greg Olsen in the Box, he's played it and he's able to articulate it intellectually to where people watching can be like, oh, he knows this is good.

But there are so many other people and and I like what, it doesn't matter the platform ESPN, ABC, Fox, whatever, that just because they were an athlete or a famous act or a famous other They think they can break down the game or give people their two cents when it's not really good. Right, Like they're going, like, who is it that's gonna pay Tom Brady three hundred million dollars? Fox, I think you know to be you know, to be a a an analyst. Okay, he was a

great quarterback. He's been great at all the things that he's done. But how do we know he's gonna be great at that that he should be getting paid three hundred million dollars. He's gotta paid three hundred bion dollars because he's Tom Brady, not because we think he's gonna be any good at what they're gonna ask him to you. It's it's similarly, sorry, similarly to win,

and maybe it's a little different. But when athletes try and go back and coach, right, Michael Jordan tried to coach su Magic Johnson tried to coach Bill Russell. He was kind of coach. He was kind of in the middle. Pete Rose, yeah, you know, he was never a

great manager. And it's like there there are very few people that are able to be able to do both and a lot of it in the NBA you see are point guards or in football, it's a lot of quarterbacks that can go back and coach because they they see and know the game so well. It's like Jason Kidd is a very good basketball coach, but he was a way better basketball player. Yeah, well he looked more, you know more recently, after three games, people thought Dion Sanders was a great coach,

and nine games later they're like one dream, how good it is? Good? She will find out. Yeah, we will. She find out. And you're seeing a lot of people jump ship they are purposely or otherwise. That was in my breaking news on Monday. Oh yeah, we didn't get to it. So we talked about James are still no I know, yeah they're yeah, but they're jumping from everywhere. Well, well the transfer portal has opened, and it's like, yeah, I mean they're like horses running

out of the barns and including a bunch of starting quarterbacks. Another one. Yeah, and so this wasn't bringing us today. But since we're talking about it, the FBS came out and said that twenty point five percent of all rosters are now transfers. Wow, so so about a fourth of each team are guys that hadn't been there. The fifth I can do a fit man and see, I don't go to that. I don't go to school for Matt. I didn't either, but I have that man. That's embarrassing.

They didn't mean to embarrassing. Oh no, it's it's kind of fun. No, it is. But I think that's crazy. Like five years ago, people would transfer and it would take them a year, if not two years, to be able to play for the program, and now it's so many years. Do you have one guy here, specifically a guy who transferred in now we'll transfer out, not his own undoing, but you know, de Laura, we expect him to be this to be gone. So he

hasn't announced or anything like that. But you know who's going to be shocked if he's in the transfer portal? Nobody? Probably not a lot of people. No, So here we are. Anybody want to call five two four forty will take your calls? Uh today? Yeah, so you know, I it's I guess it's just one of those things, Dave, where you and I as the old guys, have to be like, this is just different, and I'm accepting of it. I mean I don't. I'm not

gonna sit here and say that. I like the way things have have become. You know, Uh, the transfer portal is as some as somebody says, it's not. Basically it is free agency. It's whoever's going to give you the most money, and that's where that's where you're gonna go, you know. And and and these guys are gonna, well, some of them are gonna want to get paid, but some of them are going to resist that. Like like you think somebody who's doing well at a school, you

know, bringing in whatever he's bringing in. But if he stays there, he gets more visibility than if he goes somewhere else where he becomes just another one of the guys aka a Dorian Singer. Right. Imagine if he had stayed here and been a part of this. First of all, uh, almonious Craig probably doesn't come here, right because if they've got if they've got t Mac and Cowen and Dorian Singer, who's going to transfer into Arizona that

wants to play right now? So you'd have had those three guys, Dorian Singer. At the way things turned out, Dorian Singer would have gotten way more visibility here at Arizona, you know, playing in a better bowl game, playing for a better team than USC and you know who's gonna pay attention

to him in the bowl game because us. He's gonna go play in the Independence Bowlers somewhere like that, the Sun Bowl where Arizona's gonna play against Oklahoma, and that's gonna be a game that people are gonna pay attention to. And he probably would have had I just saw a stat that both team act and and Colween had over eighty catches this year? How many how many of those would have gone to Dorian Singer? And where would he be? Did

he get a million dollars? Probably not? Did he get maybe a couple of hundred thousand that he wasn't gonna get here? Maybe? So what's the long term benefit of what he did? We'll know. We won't know for another He's got another year to play. No, he's got another year to play. Maybe in the end, maybe in the end, if he doesn't decline. You know, he in the end he gets uh, you know, he he gets the the focus and attention in the offense he was hoping

to get and he becomes that guy. It after this year He's not that guy who's getting more attention Dorian Singer or team act Dorian Singer take him calling and they and they benefited from his departure as well. They did do it. They absolutely did. My thing is if you have money and this is no knock on Dolor, but he's you got someone il right and someone else. Uh, he didn't. He didn't play that much. What are you thinking if you gave that NL if you're the businessman or the whatever the deep

pockets. It depends on what you were asking him to do for right, I mean, if you're asking him, if you're asking him to endorse a

product, yeah, that you know you didn't get your money's worth. But if you were just giving it to him and saying, you know, because you wanted to give it to him, and saying just come and do this and I'll give you this, you know, if you want to ask him to go do some community to work or come and work you know, uh whatever, then you know, I I Steve, I think most of the NL money, not the big n NL money, like you know the Heisman

House and you're seeing Shador Chador and Shilah Sanders on car National. Uh was the Toyota or one of the car you know, that's a that's a whole different level of ni L. I think in most cases ni L is just where you've got boosters and supporters wanted to give some money so that these guys

will have some money so that they'll stayed at whatever school they're supporting. I don't think there's an expectation that by getting Jade and De Laura to promote my potato chip company that I'm gonna make a lot more money because he's promoting my potato chip company. I want a potato chip company and I like Arizona football, so I'm gonna give some money so De Laura gets it. I answer, what a lot of the nil is? Well, there's a lot of

it out there. Yeah, there's there's way a life. Well, we talked about the slash with the Oklahoma quarterback who no, no, the local Courtencato cars. A couple of cars. How many cars you need? Right, he got a couple of cars. He didn't materialize. Williams stepped in was the quarterback, and then he took him away and then he left too.

Yeah. Well, the transfer portal is tough, but it's also I know because you've been watching you of A forever and this team wouldn't be as good as it is today without the And I think that's where it's tough, because we're we're so good right now where one to nine games. Jedfish is a great coach, we have what seems to be a really close, tight knit group. So now it's like, okay, it's still you have a football and as a fan you're thinking, are these guys gonna you do?

But it's also like, okay, we've had this season because we got some guys here, will more guys come here? It's a very o as a you of a. We're very middle ground in terms when it comes to football, at least this year. We're not We're not in the national team, but we're not We're not the bottom of the barrel like we had been before. So being a middle ground team in the transfer portal is tough because your your top guys may leave, but you may be getting so guys coming from

a like little lower levels that are good. This is outside of the names Jed and lout back in the eighty three years when he showed up, had the reputation and being a great final you know, good, great coach. Jed doesn't have that, but he could have eventually. But if if Jed stays and he establishes this, he could have that moving forward, you know, as a building block to moving forward and can continue it. But you

haven't had that. The continuation hasn't happened. But he he, I think he has a better opportunity at that, a better chance to get to that. I've been in the Big twelve. Oh, going back to back to the conversation we had, oh the chap possibility, yeah, and his success. So right, all right, let's take our break. Tom Leander, studio host for Sons TV, will come on. We'll talk a little bit

about the end season tournament and then just how the Sons are doing. Devin Booker is back, So they're doing really well right now eating one with Devin Booker in the starting lineup. There you go, folks, Hey, Sammy has all that information I locked up in. All right, we'll be right back. I know you didn't buy Lockdom, you baby, don't even try that at you day bomme. Yeah, if you're an Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now, take a

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Sports yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean I Odd Radio wap Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's jacins offskind of Guys Sammy with us. Now on the phone. We have Tom Leander from Son's TV. How you doing, old buddy O'palell? Well, yeah, you're a buddy in Old Pal. But I can't believe Samy's working with you. Man, he's got to be carried guys. Yeah, he carries a lot of weight too. There's

there's some big guys in this. He worked for you, did he work for you? No? Tom, Tom, you know we we worked together a little bit with the Sons, maybe help get him in the door a little bit along with Tim Kempton, and then he just did the rest of his own on his own. But you know, Brophy guys, they're so smart anyways, and they're going to succeed pass up. Oh my god, everybody. Yeah, sure, I wanted him on. I see. So you're must be covered a pretty good team this year. Finally, Well yeah,

people weren't saying that in the first couple of weeks. You know, everybody's panicking and Frank Vogel wasn't smiling as much as he is now. But still, I mean, we really haven't had the big three together, but apparently with just Devin Booker were okay. I mean, that guy's unbelievable on it wins. Another Western Conference player of the Week Award hits the game winner in New York. Kd's been out the last couple of games, but man,

he's just taken his game to another level. My fear is when the big three are together, how does Frank Vogel will pick out who gets to shoot that shot? I guess for right now, it's got to be book And then KD takes a back seat and Bradley beals a third option. So you guys, they're into the quarters of the of the n Season Tournament. Just for a novice like me on this has the n Season Tournament been kind of what they hoped it to be from an interest standpoint, an interest among

the player's standpoint? What's that been? Jay? Were all novices. I'm still trying to learn out what the heck went on in terms of qualifying for the tournament. But I do know they're in. They're taking on the Lakers, and I definitely think that it's become, you know, almost a master stroke by the NBA. I say, I was pretty skeptical to begin with.

I wasn't all in on it. I know the NBA was really trying to push this through their teams and broadcasters and players, but the more it went on, the more curiosity it lent itself to, and then you start seeing teams piling up. At the end, we were playing Portland and Chauncey Billips was getting all rough around the edges because he was wondering why our starters were still on the floor, and they had to go over and explain to

him. Kevin Gurant did, Hey, it's all about point differential, and you know, Steve Kerr had to, you know, figure that out to Billy Donovan didn't know. I mean a lot of the head coaches weren't even aware of some of the schools. But I think when all was said and done, I mean, the wild, colorful courts and then the players being out there competed a little bit harder, and the curiosity factor and certainly the competitive level increased. I mean the players, they're doing it for the guys

at the end of the bench. If whoever wins this thing, all those players get five hundred thousand dollars, that's going to double. Some of the guy's salaries who were at the end of the bench are on two way contracts, so that definitely perked up the player's interest. I was just going to ask you what's the purpose. I guess that's a pretty good purpose. That's a really good purpose. I mean, you take a half a mill, even if you're making you know, thirty two million like you are right now,

Steve, you know you still still take a half mill. You TV guys. I'm not a TV guy. I got jail in my hair. You know. You know that's a lie you got so at least it still got hair. Yeah, that's true, very very so. So tell me, Uh, DeAndre Hayton, we got to connect it to Arizona. Right, how's that been? He's gone? Uh? He played recently there? What was the reception? Like? Uh, you know, it's smattering a

booze, But I don't think it was too bad. I mean it was actually a little even more awkward when Chris Paul came back because he was ejected by Scott Foster and he wasn't even around to watch his tribute video. So, you know, we've had a couple of homecomings back here, and I think, you know, life is going to be better for DeAndre in terms of being able to spread his wings a little bit more. In Portland.

He's got a lot of young players, so he kind of becomes one of the leaders on that team because they're probably going to get rid of Brogden and any other veterans that they have on that team. But you know, for me, you know, I even said it on the air leading up to the game, I really was hoping that there would be a bunch of applause and a lot of support for da. He's a good kid, you know. Certainly he didn't play as hard as everyone would have liked, night in

and night out. He'd give you a week or a couple of weeks of just oh my goodness, this is how good he could be. But then he couldn't sustain it. But I look back on that finals, running in the playoffs, and we never would have gotten there without him. I mean, his defense throughout the course of the playoffs, getting into the finals against the Bucks, I mean that was critical for the Sun to make it all the way to the finals against Milwaukee. So and I just I really enjoyed

him. He's he's a fun loving guy. I mean, he's not always like the most intense player. He doesn't get to the free throw a whole lot because he doesn't initiate contact. But off the court, he's a fun guy. Yeah, tom So going back to the nd season tournament. So, whoever wins this thing, if it were to be the Suns, they'd be their first championship in franchise history, per se. What what would it feel like in the building, Not necessarily with the team, but it's fan

bases, those who work for it. But it's still would it still means something? I guess, by the way, that's the best question that anybody's asking. Yes today, So that well known standards, you know, I think you know, a guy like Frank Bogel who's won, you know, in an NBA championship. It's probably more about, you know, the players

and the success and building on that and gaining momentum. I don't know that's a good question because seriously, they don't know until they actually go to Vegas and they're standing mid court and holding up the cup and you know, again counting all the money that they win. But I think in terms of like the franchise and the history of it, it's not going to mean a whole lot. I mean, this whole season is not going to mean anything unless

the Suns win at all. When you collect this kind of talent on the team, you know, winning an intern in tournament in Las Vegas is nice and hopefully that's a step in the playoffs into a championship. But at the end of the day, at the end of the season, it's not going to mean anything if they don't win the title this year. Well, Tom, I know you have to go, but could you tell the the the people inside the bilding to turn the music down. It's a little too low.

Okay, Okay, there's Steve Kerr, Steve Verver, all the Steve Well, you guys all have hearing problems. We're just we're just old man. I know it is. It is really loud in there. I do have to agree with Steve, especially on Native American Night when they got the drums pounding. Can't make everybody happy. Tom, thanks for making us happy today. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Tom. All right, guys, take care of Tom. Cool, cool guys. That was funny about Kurve

when Yeah, by the way, he plays basketball in year. The funny thing about it, he was he was embedded with them for a long time. Yeah, the g l Yeah, you probably helped create that. Turn it down. I love Tom. He's always been a great guy. He's always been super nice. Yeah, okay, we're not gonna go to break in the time. So we have eight minutes, nine minutes, do you guys want to call? Well, you know, and he makes a good

point. I mean, yes, it'd be nice to win this tournament all that stuff, but you know this franchise, it's it's about time and had a championship. And so who's on the other side of the West. So so okay, so it's Suns Lakers. We go to the Sons go to l a and then it is King's Pelicans. The Kings will go to New Orleans, and then in the East it's Milwaukee and New York Knicks, and

then you have the Celtics going to the Pacers. So you have kind of like the Celtics, the Bucks, the Suns, the Lakers all expect to be in it towards the end of the season. But then you have the likes of the Kings, the Pelicans, the Knicks and the Pacers. You haven't seen a lot of success that are still this This maybe means a little bit more to them, can It could be? Especially for the Pacers.

You could see them if if if one of them wins, it sort of giving them kind of acting as a springboard for them for the rest of the season to kind of feel good about themselves, say hey, we're good enough, and give them a whole lot of confidence the rest of the year. Which so you know, I was like Leander, I I didn't think. I thought, what are they doing with this tournament? But as it's gone along, I have paid, you know, I paid attend to games that

these are part of the tournament. I was looking at the standings, you know, then I saw the bracket. I'm like, wait, wait a minute, this is actually kind of cool because these guys are competitive. They're competitors. You know, you say, we're gonna have a Tiddley Wings tournament, No, no idea, No, okay, well we'll explain that off

air. You know, we're gonna have a Tiddley Wings turnament. These guys would be competitive, and I think the main goal of this was to limit load management and get the best players on the floor and for them to care about what the regular season is, right, And I think when you look at it, you look at the Indiana Pacers with Ben Mathrin, Tyrese Haliburton obi top of mouse Turner, those guys aren't necessarily household names, and now

they're gonna be They have one television one nationally televisionvised game a year, now they're gonna get three because they're in this n season tournament. Like that's that's important to those guys. It's important to that market. And when you're the Lakers and you're the Celtics who have won champions championships after championship, it's still kind of cool because this is the first And like you said, these players

are competitive. They wouldn't be here if they weren't. And so if you say anything as a tournament or anything means more naturally, they're gonna maybe play a little bit harder. And I don't know if you guys got the chance to watch some of the games that were on last night, they were they were fantastic NBA games. I saw. I saw they just pissed that game away. Oh man, that was in some of my breaking news, but

it was. It was awesome. I'm not a big Warriors fan, never have been, but to watch those two teams compete and what what has felt like now like maybe the biggest rivalry in NBA right now because the seven game series they had last year in the playoffs, and this year they play such a fun style that when you watch it, it feels like they're going blow for blow and it's it was great. And those guys cared last night and it was the end of November. And that's the thing. Yep, that's

the thing. That's cool because a guy like me who doesn't really watch a lot of NBA, I don't watch it because I don't feel like those guys are all in, you know, week to week, game to game because what it's ending pretty soon and then to go back to what they that's true,

but at least you have a segment for a while. But the the thing, the timing of this is unique because you have this in season tournament and then it's a couple of weeks before All Star Break, which maybe those guys take maybe it doesn't do the job of maybe guys take time off, But as soon as the All Star break's over, it's all these teams that are in position to go compete for the playoffs and that play in newly playing game. They're gonna be there, stillingna be playing hard. So I like

the timing of it too. Yeah, I mean, it gave you a few weeks of guys, actually yeah hard and you and you get to see as a Suns as a Suns fan, like you get to see what maybe these role players or new additions are gonna play, like when it when the lights are a little bit brighter, and there you have a feeling of a playoff game, like I don't know how Grayson Allen or Eric Gordon or Nurkic is gonna be able to perform in a game six in a in a playoff

game, but this next couple of weeks you might be able to get that feel a little bit of a feel of like, Okay, the Kings, they haven't gotten over the hump in a long time and made a push in the playoffs. Let's see if they can play when when pressure matters in the games means something. And and as a fan, if you're a Kings fan or even man, I'm a Suns fan. And like I said, we

haven't won anything ever. Conference championship. No, we're talking titles like man, Western Conference like this that the other the Diamondbacks just into the World Series and I'm still mad that they lost in the World Series and we weren't even so supposed to be there. So it's all about holding up trophies at the end of the day. And if you can win the first in season tournament, I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, okay, I agree you fan

boys, sure, as as fans as we love sports. Yeah, you love sports and you know it, you deny it, but you know, like even if even if your team isn't in the top eight, like these are still gonna be high quality basketball. And as an NBA fan, I'm interested, well to your point, I'm interested in the Pacers now given Ben and uh, I'm right trying to come up with the name, Oh god,

Steve Trunk Kennedy, but I got called on that again today. But you know, you think of Lebron James and the competitor that he is. He's going out, He's going out, yeah, in that in that quarter of final game to bust some butt. She wants to win that. Yeah. And you look at it as the Sons and Lakers very well, or the Kings Pelicans very well could play each other in the playoffs, and you don't think whoever wins this Sun's Lakers game will have some loose ends the tie

up. If they do play against each other, you never know what's going to happen. And I'm just thinking of the point. If the Knicks going to win this thing, the New York faithful won't stop talking about it, right, And that's that's as of until they don't make the play exactly the playoffs. They're actually not that bad. But that's that's as a fan that that's even delusional or not. And New York nick fans are some of the most. But that's something you you can root for, and it's around it's

around the holiday time. You can be with your friends and you watch games and you and you care well well again, you know, let let's put it in more of a local perspective. You know, the way Arizona basketball fans react when they win a MILEI imitation or they win whatever tournament that they're in. When they would win the preseason n I t right, people are immediately saying, we got to shout at the national champion. That stretches out

until the season, until they get to until until they don't. We see this year, this is the worst, the worst thing that happened with this team. They beat Duke and they played the great in Kains Michigan State. The best thing is they beat Duke in the Yeah, Michigan State. Yeah, and it's going to be really up to those guys. By those guys, I mean the guys on the team to block out the outside noise and

just keep playing both as we have a minute and a half. Okay, now that you've seen five six games, what's what's the worst case scenario for them moving forward in March? What's going to be a disappointment anything getting to the final four? Right? I was gonna say the second weekend, No, the expectation, No, are you kidding me? If they only get

to the sweet sixteen with this team, they're gonna be a disappointed. It's like it was two years ago there, unless they unless they follow over themselves the rest of the year, they're gonna go in as a probably a one or two seed, and which you go in as one or two seed, you're expected to get to that. It's March though, like last year we were two, party was a one. They lost in the first game of

their See, you get it, you get it. You're not a typical fan who's gonna jump off a ledge in March sixteenth, because I hear everyone's like, oh, you guys didn't win the National championship. You know what, only one team wins a Nationals still, of course it is, but but everybody that follows these guys sure feels that way, especially after a couple of big wins. Yeah, I agree. I mean he was talking about

brick for football. What more unrealistic fans in basketball? Yeah, there's a lot more though, a lot more of those, right, a lot more because it's just because there's been some success, that's why. Wow. All right, okay, cool. We went in a lot of circles there, we did. We still into a lot of stuff and we're back where we were, alright. Country music, Yeah, take our break, ord to come back. Sammy's loaded up with breaking news. So will I lose my

dog and my girlfriend? In this song? No, he talks about Jesus. We need to find Jesus here. Let's get out of here. We'll be right back. Right outside of this wan Church town, there's a gold dirt road to a whole lot of northern gotta d to the land. But it ain't my ground. This is God's country.