The Best of The Dan Patrick Show

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.

00:00:04
Speaker 2: Kurt Warner, NFL MVP, and Super Bowl Champ. A little bit later on Brian Winnhorst on a couple of NBA items, including Yannis, and Jannis got injured in the first quarter of the game last night and then didn't come back, but they're hoping he wants to come back to Milwaukee for the long haul. But Wendy brought this up at the start of the year that Jannis had expressed an interest in being traded to the nick So Whendy, you will join us. There's been a lot of talk about, you know, where Yannis is going to go. I think he turns thirty one tomorrow or the next day. But you know, when you look at a franchise and you think you got it set up, you think you did it right, and you know, I can give you credit for boldness, but the league is too deep and too competitive to sit still and just say, oh, we got draft picks and we're going to grow. Aggression cuts both ways. When it works, you get to hang banners. When it doesn't, it's a disaster Milwaukee with the Dame Lillard big swing and miss and that was exposure that was supposed to extend a championship window. Instead, the Bucks under five hundred. Dame Lillard's gone, and now Jannis reportedly asking out how about the Clippers. They spent years flipping picks prospects, and you know they wanted to have a veteran super team. They're six and sixteen, no first round pick on the horizon, and a harsh reminder what happens when that bill finally comes due. You also have Dallas, the Mavericks. They empty future draft picks, they build around Luca, then they trade Luca. They bring in an aging, injury prone big man. They're eight and fifteen. You take a swing, you take a miss, and sometimes it can hurt a franchise for a long long time.

00:01:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, Paulin twenty twenty one, the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA finals, Mike Budenholzer. Two years later they have a first round exit and they fire him. And it's one of those situations where your expectations get heightened and you get rid of the person who caused those expectations to happen, and you have.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: A window of opportunity here, and they thought bringing in a guy who can help in the pick and roll with Jannis with Dame Lillard, but it didn't work out the way it was scripted. And now Dame is done and Joannis could be as well. But this is what you don't want to do. If you're Milwaukee, you don't go, now, who could we trade him to? Okay? Once you go to the Knicks, how about we bring in Karl Anthony Towns. That's not an answer. That would not solve the problem here. If you're Milwaukee, then can you get X number first round picks for Joannis? I mean, Oklahoma City doesn't have enough roster spots for all of the draft picks they're going to have. What if you said to and Okasee can say, well, we won a title without him. Right now, we're twenty one and one, we don't need him. But if you think about it, if you're OKAYC you got three picks in the first fifteen this year, right now, what if you said, we'll give you these three first round picks and maybe a player two and you bring in Yanis at age thirty one? To me, that would be intriguing from Milwaukee's perspective. I don't know what Okac would think about this, but you bring Janis in with that group, and you don't want to mess with chemistry as much as we like to go, oh well, man, imagine that you put an All star on that team and you've got great chemistry obviously. But other teams that are mentioned San Antonio Spurs pairing him with Victor Wenden Yama, Okay, the Rockets names just another team that's come up. So there's going to be a lot of teams that would be interested. The Miami Heat, they seem to come up, you know all the time when it comes to trades, potential trades. But we'll talk to Wendy about that that what can you get in return? Because you got to think of it two ways. It's we always think of the player going to the team, and you go, yes, but what about the team who's giving up that star player. It's like Luca, you know, we celebrated man, he's going to the Lakers. Good for the Lakers, And I go, okay, what's Dallas getting? And that's the bad part of the deal. If you would have said that they got a couple of players you could build on and that we're younger, then you go, okay, I kind of get it. But Anthony Davis and then you have a GM and goes, well, you know, you win with defense. Yeah, if the guy's healthy enough to play defense, then maybe you do. But you did get to an NBA Finals with a guy who was out of shape, and now he goes to the Lakers. It's what do you get in return? That's what I would want to know. You know, if I'm the Knicks and I can get Jannis, hell ya, you gotta win a title. I mean, it's been a long long time since you won a title. So now you get a chance to put Brunson with Jannis. Okay, now, I know you're gonna give up you know, players, But what I mean you get an opportunity to get a guy like this, And yes, it might be a window of three years or four years to win that title. But the Celtics are down this year, like now is the year to take advantage of that. With no Jason Tatum, I mean, who are you going against Detroit, Miami? Indiana doesn't have Halliburton, So take advantage of the window of opportunity, certainly in the East, to get to the NBA Finals. Yes, Marvin, all right.

00:05:44
Speaker 4: My issue is when the Knicks get eliminated if they get Yannis because they don't have enough depth. It's because you traded Karl Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Landry Shammitt, Deuce McBride. That's how you win an NBA championship. That's how the Bucks, that's how the Nuggets were an NBA championship. That's how a thunder win NBA championship with depth. Johannis and Brunson aren't gonna win an NBA title just with them and just a bunch of guys.

00:06:09
Speaker 2: So that's my only you think they're Do you think they're winning a title with Karl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson and Landry Shammant.

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Speaker 4: I don't think they won a title eat away, Josh ar Okay, Yeah, Paul.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: It's one of those things though.

00:06:24
Speaker 3: When I think about Giannis, I think it was two years ago he signed a three year, one hundred and eighty six million dollar extension, and it is right after they went out and got Lillard to convince him to stay. It'll almost be sad if he leaves the Bucks.

00:06:36
Speaker 2: They had it.

00:06:36
Speaker 3: They had an international superstar for a long time and and they're not going to keep him the whole way.

00:06:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he gave them a title, right.

00:06:46
Speaker 3: I guess it's more about what they could have done for the second half of his career and a series of missteps, which I don't think people criticize a Lillard acquisition at the time.

00:06:56
Speaker 2: You look back with different view of it. Well, you know, we looked at Milwaukee and we said their best, second best player would be Chris Middleton or Drew Holliday. At the time, with Dame Lillard, you were getting, you know, a sniper. You were getting an elite score to take the pressure off Jannis.

00:07:14
Speaker 5: Yes, Like I don't think the Dame move was a bad idea. It just didn't work. There's no reason that on paper it wouldn't have been perfect. It just for some reason, it just didn't click. But I don't think it was a bad idea necessarily.

00:07:28
Speaker 6: No.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: I thought it was a great swing. But you know what, I'm not the GM, I'm not part of the fan base, and I can only see it from my perspective. And I thought, okay, because I thought, you know, there's these teams in the East were loading up and you had to do something as well. Chris Middleton's a good player, Drew Holliday, really good player. Dame gave you something a little bit more, it just didn't work out. And now Jannis is looking around, going, we're not winning anytime soon.

00:07:57
Speaker 6: Here.

00:07:58
Speaker 2: I may not get another opportunity to play and win. And you can tell when he plays, he plays hard, he plays with passion, and I think it's hard to accept losing, because at some point in your career, when you play in your on losing teams, you have to kind of accept that you may lose tonight. And that's hard to do because most of these guys come from programs where they don't lose.

00:08:22
Speaker 6: You know.

00:08:22
Speaker 2: I remember players from Duke would go to the NBA. They'd lose more games in two weeks. You know, Christian Latner, he'd lose more games in two weeks than he did in you know, his entire senior year. But I think that's the part that you have to factor in. Jannis wants to be mentioned with Luca, with Joker, he wants to be mentioned with SGA. He wants to be and he's not. You know, it's almost out of sight, out of mind. And he's having another great season. He puts up incredible numbers, but we've gotten to that point where we go, Okay, you know you average thirty and you average twelve. Oh yeah, ever you know six, yes, Morvin.

00:09:03
Speaker 4: And now Giannis is playing for something different than being the best player in the game. He's playing for a top ten all time spot now with his numbers. And you can't be an Al Theimer at least a top ten all timer without more than one ring. So he's playing for more than just the best.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul, I went back and looked it up quickly because you mentioned late in there. In four years at Duke, he lost twenty six games as a rookie with the Timberwolves. In ninety two he lost sixty three games.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: Steat of the day, Oh thank you day bonus the day stat.

00:09:35
Speaker 6: Of the Day? What Stat of the Day?

00:09:42
Speaker 2: Top Bob Brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cords to the Dan Patrick Show. NBA title odds As of this morning, it's the Thunder overwhelmingly followed by the Nuggets, Rockets, Lakers, Calves, Nicks, and then the Pistons. You're looking at the West Thunder, Nuggets, Rockets, Lakers, four best odds to win the title. Then you have the Cabs, Knicks, and Pistons. If you're Detroit and you added Jannis, I mean that's a good team. I don't know who you have to give up. But Detroit has become a really good team, and we saw them be a tough out in the playoffs last year. The Knicks, well, you want to get clicks. Talk about the Knicks and getting Janis as well. I'm sure the Lakers are going to be interested in Jannis. I saw that yesterday and I'm like, okay, are you giving up Luca?

00:10:36
Speaker 6: Like?

00:10:36
Speaker 2: Who you get Austin Reeves? And I don't know how many draft picks. I don't think they have too many draft picks here to give up. But I did see that there was also and I don't know if it's true or not, but was Golden State interested in Well, I'm sure they were in Yannis last year because I had heard that from somebody affiliated with Golden State and they even said, hey, we're trying to kick tires on Yannis. But once again, Wendy had the story and he said the Knicks that was the place that he thought Jannis was gonna want to go. If he was able to be traded, all right, that'll be coming up poll question today? Did I already ask that Seaton?

00:11:16
Speaker 7: You have not?

00:11:17
Speaker 2: You have not?

00:11:18
Speaker 5: We have many, many options, you know where you can find them after the break, after the break.

00:11:25
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, let me see, still working on this cough here, so bear with me if I have some silence here a little bit. But you know it's todd said, you're unbelievable. What does just dramatic pause, dramatic coughing? Held it?

00:11:42
Speaker 3: No, nothing gets attention like silence.

00:11:50
Speaker 2: Oh, I know when the best part of the show is silence. It says a lot, right, Toddler, okay eight seven seven eight seven seven three DP show email address. I got this medicine ball from Starbucks. It's just a bunch of tea and some honey and something something. I don't know if it helps, but it certainly tastes good. Yeah.

00:12:15
Speaker 5: See you ever when you're sick on golden milk. No, it's great, it's like the best in milk. No, it's it's like a turmeric and I forget what else is in there, but you like heat it up and drink it.

00:12:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it helps a lot.

00:12:33
Speaker 3: It's turmeric latte with turmeric and other warming spices.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: It's an Indian beverage. It's really really good. It's really good. Yes, Todd, I think you gotta get one of those holiday cake pops.

00:12:44
Speaker 8: You know they have like Frosty and Raindyer and stuff like that.

00:12:47
Speaker 6: There's cute cake pops and Starbucks. Get that on the side. I'll make you feel better.

00:12:50
Speaker 2: How do you think you're doing?

00:12:51
Speaker 6: So I'm not doing that great, but there's a lot of time left.

00:12:55
Speaker 2: There's a lot of time left. Well that could be good and bad. I'm gonna jump in during those pauses and better kill it. Also, when you since there's a pause, I'm ready to call worth anything. You'll come to the rescue. Well, great, we're all in great hands. Okay, we're gonna take a break because after the break, we're gonna find out our poll question Today uh National Signing Day, we'll talk about who did and who didn't. And Penn State is still looking for a head coach? Are they swinging for the fences? Because man, I'm exhausted my sources with this, like what is going on? And both of them yesterday said we don't know, and I don't know if they know. But if you're gonna promote you can't fire James Franklin and then say we're gonna promote from within, and you know, without doing that initially to say no, we have our guy. We've we've already had him. They've had some people who have decided to take other jobs.

00:13:53
Speaker 3: He asked Paulic refreshingly, the Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm, who was a hot prospect.

00:13:57
Speaker 2: He's staying at Louisville.

00:13:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's refreshing.

00:14:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen some coaches who have stayed Vandy, Missouri, Louisville, so not everybody goes. And I think I think the Mississippi Police Department is pushing back on Lane Kiffin saying somebody tried to run him off the road when he was going to the airport to fly to Baton Rouge. And then I love that Eli Manning put out a tweet and he just said oops, as if he was the guy who was trying to run Lane Kiffin off the road. Uh, Lane, just go to LSU.

00:14:39
Speaker 6: Just go.

00:14:41
Speaker 4: Time Before we applaud all the coaches that stayed, do we know the whole story as to what they will operate and what schools were involved as opposed to.

00:14:47
Speaker 9: I think I should just stay here because I want to live forever here at this time.

00:14:51
Speaker 2: Stile, I'm gonna guess Vandy, Missouri, Louisville. Yes, they had opportunities to go elsewhere, those coaches, I'm gonna guess they did.

00:14:59
Speaker 6: Yes.

00:15:00
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

00:15:10
Speaker 7: Hey, it's Rob Parker and Calvin Washington from The Odd Couple on Fox Sports Radio. And in addition to hearing us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on Fox Sports Radio, we are excited to announce brand new YouTube channel for the show.

00:15:24
Speaker 2: That's right, you can now watch The Odd Couple live on YouTube every day.

00:15:30
Speaker 7: All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube again YouTube, just search Odd Couple FSR. Check us out on YouTube and subscribe.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: Kurt Warner joining us the Hall of Famer. He'll be on the call in the radio booth for Westwood One Monday Night, the Eagles and the Chargers at so Far They kick off at eight fifteen Eastern. You can also see them on NFL Game Day Morning before I Talk NFL let me ask you about the whole situation with your son. Ejay played at a couple of colleges. I believe he'said right now at Fresno State. But you know, you got nil, you got transfer portal, you know, all the recruitment. What do you make of the college football situation right now?

00:16:13
Speaker 9: You know, I think when you look at it, there's obviously definitely issues there, whether you're talking about the calendar, which everybody's been talking about this whole Giffern thing, when you're talking about nil.

00:16:25
Speaker 6: You know.

00:16:25
Speaker 9: But I've also seen the transfer portal work for actually two of my boys, and I had one son that was at Nebraska, went to Kansas State for some particular issues and had a great finish to his career there. With EJ, it was some opportunities as he played really well at Temple to see if he could parlay that into a bigger opportunity that he didn't get out of high school. And so I understand the NIL. I think guys should definitely get paid. I think they should get what they're worth. I love the opportunity, but I think there has to be reasons on.

00:17:00
Speaker 6: Why you're making the jump. You know, the.

00:17:03
Speaker 9: Idea of just jumping one place to another solely for money, I think is always going to be a problem. I think the fact that some teams have way more money than other teams, even within conferences and those sorts of things, creates a whole another issue there. So obviously I think there's some benefits to it, some negatives to it, and I just think it has to be it has to be monitored and set up in a different way to make it successful.

00:17:31
Speaker 6: I think for everybody you.

00:17:33
Speaker 2: Got football coming up tonight, do you have a better handle on the Lions or the Cowboys?

00:17:41
Speaker 9: I think I still have questions on both, but I think Dallas is maybe showing us a little bit more of what they can be or the consistency now that they've got some guys healthy on defense they made the trades. So still not sure there are a great defense, But with that offense, I think, you know, we can like Ei, their defense has done enough to show us they can consistently play at a certain level. Yeah, I'm still I have a lot of questions with the Lions coming into the year, I think we all thought we knew what they could be and now.

00:18:14
Speaker 6: It's been a roller coaster ride.

00:18:15
Speaker 9: Both offensively and defensively with them some of the injuries that they have. Yeah, I would say I'm probably have a better feel for what I'm going to get from the Dallas Cowboys than what I'm going to get for the Lions.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the Lions situation here. I know they've got some injuries here, and they do run the football and Gibbs is great, but they just seem like they've hit their ceiling. And I thought that they, you know, that was a team that, all right, it didn't work out last year because the injuries now were really going to show you and it just they really disappointed here, and they might be the third best team in their own division right now.

00:18:56
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think you're right, you know, but it's hard also to sustain the level of success that they've had over the last couple of years, and specifically what they had last year.

00:19:05
Speaker 6: I mean, fifteen wins is crazy, and you.

00:19:09
Speaker 9: Know, I would have to go back and look, but I would guess that they were in a lot of close games and somehow find found a way to win those close games last year. And it's hard to sustain that as well, because we know in the NFL, so many games are decided by one score or less and it comes down to one play here or there, or one.

00:19:28
Speaker 6: Mistake here or there.

00:19:30
Speaker 9: And you know, I think we're seeing it, like with the Eagles, pretty much the same cast of characters, but they're not playing as well this year.

00:19:37
Speaker 6: I think the same thing holds true for the Lions.

00:19:40
Speaker 9: A lot of the same characters, especially on offense, and not playing as well this year. And trying to put your finger on exactly what that is. Maybe it's just the ability to sustain a high level of play year after year after year in the NFL.

00:19:56
Speaker 6: It's just not that easy. Owner.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: He'll be in the radio booth. It'll be the Eagles visiting the Chargers. That'll be next Monday night. Are you planning on Justin Herbert playing in that game?

00:20:09
Speaker 9: I'm planning on him playing, you know, being that it's his left hand, you know, knowing the toughness of Justin Herbert and the things that he's played through before, Understanding what you know this stretch run means for this Chargers team in terms of.

00:20:25
Speaker 6: The playoffs and things.

00:20:26
Speaker 9: I'm expecting that, you know, and I expect that from most players. If we always ask the question, can it get any worse? Is there something that can happen if I'm playing that makes this worse, and that you know, like if I play Monday, is there a chance three weeks from now I'm more injured and can't play when it really matters.

00:20:47
Speaker 6: If the answer to that question is no.

00:20:51
Speaker 9: Most players are going to do everything that they can to get out there.

00:20:55
Speaker 6: You know, I've talked about it.

00:20:57
Speaker 9: You know, Jaden Daniel suffered, you know, that tear in his you know, in his elbow. I had the same injury back in O seven, and you know, I had just gotten back into the starting role and it was my first game back. I played the next week and I played the rest of the season with that injury simply because it was, Hey, it can't get any worse. You know, you're just gonna sit and do rehab, So let's just brace it up and go. And you know, I had to hand the ball off everything with my right hand because of that issue, where I could see Justin Herbert possibly having to do some of that stuff. I was taken out down in the tight red zone because we had to go under center and some type. So I could see some adjustments being made to help protect that hand.

00:21:40
Speaker 6: But as long as that hand's.

00:21:42
Speaker 9: Not going to get any worse, I believe Justin Herbert will be out there playing.

00:21:47
Speaker 2: I asked this question yesterday to Andrew Whitworth, the former lineman. Do you want your quarterback to be smart or tough? If you have to choose between those two, smart or tough?

00:22:00
Speaker 9: I mean, I guess the question is when you say tough, what what are you talking about. I know yesterday when you were talking, you were talking more about Jackson Dart running down the field and taking big hits. In that case, I want my quarterback to be smart more than tough. I think there's a toughness factor to kind of what we're talking about with Justin Herbert, or a toughness to standing in the pocket and you know, and delivering a throw, you know, to the last second when you're getting hit.

00:22:30
Speaker 6: There's a level of toughness.

00:22:32
Speaker 9: That I go, Okay, I want my quarterback to be tough in that way. But I probably would say overall, you know, less people are gonna worry about us being tough, and more people are gonna worry about us being smart. I want a smart quarterback that makes good decisions. That's out there and available to his team and gives them chances to win every time out. Although I do understand the idea of toughness, I just don't need it. When you know, when you can run out of bounds or you can gain two more yards, I don't need you to take that big hit. I don't need you, you know, to run through a defender instead of slide. I don't look at quarterbacks, you know when I watch film and go, oh geez, you know, I wish I had that guy that was running.

00:23:15
Speaker 6: Through a linebacker. No, I'm like, slide, slide, be smart and get back up and help your team. Yeah.

00:23:25
Speaker 2: That was my point is you're going to get a yard. What does it matter. You're coming off concussion protocol, you got two wins on the season. Get out of bounds. You guys can build on something. You have something here in the embryonic stages. I don't need to show you know, play all seventeen games. If you survive seventeen regular season games, you're tough. You don't need to tell me show me you're tough. That will tell me.

00:23:50
Speaker 9: Just there the availability, and I think, you know, we could go back to another Giants quarterback in Eli Manning, and you know Eli, there were times that he was going to just go down, like, hey, if the play was over, I'm just gonna fall down in the pocket. And he became known as a tough quarterback why because he was never out Like he played so many games in a row for the Giants and it was like, that's what we want, is the guy that's going to be out there and play.

00:24:20
Speaker 6: And so he understood when the play was over.

00:24:23
Speaker 9: And there's no doubt that people get excited and your sideline gets excited if your quarterback runs over a linebacker, you know, down the field. I understand that aspect of things, but I think you're one hundred percent ride is that more importantly, your team wants you, if you're the leader and if you're the guy to be out there ever snap and they're not going to worry about you sliding or falling down every once in a while as long as you do the things that your team needs you to do on a weekly base.

00:24:49
Speaker 2: Help me understand from your perspective as a Hall of Famer Drake May's development and contrasts that with Caleb Williams development. Because the Bears are playing well I don't think they're playing well because because of Caleb Williams. Where the Patriots are playing well, and I believe that is in large part to Drake May.

00:25:07
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I mean, I feel like Drake played well last year, but I feel he's in a system that really fits what he does as a quarterback. I think Josh McDaniels does a great job of designing plays. It's what I call full field plays, where it's drop back, read the coverage. When you know what the coverage is, I've got a concept that can attack that coverage and you just have to get your eyes there, read it, and it speeds up the game for Drake May because he's really good at doing those things and so the system really fits who he is. And when you talk about development, that to me is the first step in development. Do you have a play designer, a play caller that sees the game like the quarterback sees the game like You can have a lot of really good plays in an offense, but if it doesn't connect to how the quarterback plays the game, it makes the game harder and they're not comfortable with what they're doing every snap. I believe they've got a great comfort level together to go along with the way Drake is throwing the football. I mean it's like effortless, it's easy, his ability to throw the ball down the field. But I think Josh has really sped up those reads for him so he can play fast, know what he wants to do with the football, and that just makes him more confident. On the other side, with Caleb, I think Caleb is a guy that you know, hasn't had to process information as much as maybe a Drake may or some other quarterbacks. He's been a guy that been able to rely on the athleticism. You know, we watched him in college. You can make all the throws, but he would buy a lot of time and he would create because he was more comfortable with that. And so what's happened is he's got to the NFL is We're trying and everybody's trying. Ben's trying to get him to play more conventional quarterback, go through his reads, his progressions, stay in the pocket, and it's a battle for him. It's a battle for him right now to change the way that he's played the game. He's gotten better at it from last year to this year. Last year wasn't processing very fast, holding onto the football, you know, almost too much, and taking too many sacks. This year he's gotten better with those things, but still not there yet where I believe it's a comfort level for him to go, oh, I got this one, two, three, and work through those things and feel comfortable in that place. So that's where when you talk about the process of the two of them. Drake more comfortable in that setting through college and where he's at now. Caleb not as comfortable, but working through it and fighting through it. And so he's gotten much better from last year, but still has a ways to go in that arena. And I think as he gets more comfortable, he'll also get more accurate. That's the other part of it is Drake has been extremely accurate throwing the football.

00:27:56
Speaker 6: Caleb is not. Caleb's made a lot.

00:27:57
Speaker 9: Of big, explosive plays, but he's also a lot of layups, and I think a lot of that comes with knowing exactly what you want to do with the football, being comfortable with that, and then being able that a read.

00:28:10
Speaker 2: This may sound strange, but it just came to my mind. Can you have too much talent as a quarterback?

00:28:18
Speaker 6: Well?

00:28:18
Speaker 9: I think a lot of talent I say this, Dan, and I didn't have this, so I'm just speculating like everybody else. But yeah, I do believe the more talent and the more skills and gifts you have, the more it's going to kind of open up the possibilities of what you could do on every play. You know, that the throws that you could make, the ability to be creative instead of staying in the pockets, you know, those sorts of things I think open up more possibilities for a guy like me. There was one possibility you're going to stand in the pocket, You're going to read the coverage and you're gonna have to throw it to the right guy, and so it simplified things for me from that standpoint. I've all always wondered how an athletic quarterback decides when it's time to run, like when is it time to take off as opposed to staying in your progressions, you know, and even forcing that issue. You know, I've talked a lot about it that I believe, you know, athletic quarterbacks, we've got more and more of them now.

00:29:16
Speaker 6: They kind of grow up not being forced to learn.

00:29:20
Speaker 9: How to read the field or read defenses and progress through their reads. Their you know, their coach, drop back, see if your first guy's open. If he's not, go create a play for us. And so that becomes their norm more and more and more. And these guys are such great athletes they get further and further and further in their careers without having to learn the opposite. So, like with Caleb Williams, now we're getting into the NFL level against the best players in the world and we're saying, hey, now you have to change the way you've always played, and you've got to learn to process better, and you've got to learn to stay in the pocket, and I mean that's got to be a really hard thing to do.

00:29:58
Speaker 6: So to your point, the more skills you have, the more.

00:30:02
Speaker 9: You and I don't even want want to say get away with, the more things you can do on a given play through the majority of your career. And then when we try to find tune that and say we can't do this as much anymore, and you can't do this as much anymore, it's always going to be I think a struggle for those guys for at least a period, and then it leads the question can they ever get to maybe the point we want them to get to in terms of, hey, you got to be able to process and create at the same type of level. I think that's really hard and we don't see a lot of guys that can do that.

00:30:34
Speaker 6: You know.

00:30:34
Speaker 9: Lamar Jackson is one of the guys that I think does that really well. Josh Allen has shown at times he can do that really well. But I think that's a tough dynamic to fight for these guys that are just incredible athletes for the majority.

00:30:48
Speaker 6: Of their lives.

00:30:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I always bring this up because it's not necessarily Michael Vick or Kyler Murray. Steve Young was like this. Steve Young said, Hey, I had one read, not there, I'm running and then all of a sudden, Bill Walsh is like, what are you doing? Stay in the pocket, go through your progressions. And he became a Hall of Fame quarterback because of that. He had the ability to be able to extend plays. But Bill Walsh would say, will you stop doing that, go through your progressions. You've got great receivers, and he became one of the most accurate quarterbacks in NFL history.

00:31:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it makes the game easy.

00:31:24
Speaker 9: You want the offense to work for you, Like I still think even with some of these great athletes, and maybe Lamar is the exception, but it's hard to win games in the NFL week in and week out, trying to be athletic. You're trying to run around it and make plays. You've got to allow the game where the offense and it.

00:31:46
Speaker 2: We lost you, We lost your connection there. We can see you, we can't hear you. That's weird.

00:31:53
Speaker 5: How often does that happen? It is the audio and not the video often. Yeah, Kurt, we'll catch up with you, but thank you.

00:32:01
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live.

00:32:12
Speaker 2: We bring in Brian Winhorns to the Mothership, ESPN senior NBA writer. How did we get to this point? Ryan? With Jannis in the bucks?

00:32:22
Speaker 8: Not one hundred percent sure where we are because one of the things that I've been talking to the league executive types about in the last twenty four hours is do we think that this time the honest will actually go all the way and formally say it's time to trade me because he's rattled the saber before and you know, one of the more fascinating stories that came out of this whole summer, and it didn't come out in the summer. It came out in October and Schamstrania, my colleague at ESPN, reported it. But in August Jannis talked to the Bucks. And different people can use different verbs here, and I'm not trying to like step on anybody, but he showed an interest in wanting to be on the New York Knicks, and to the point where the Knicks and the Bucks had trade talks. And I know what Doc River said yesterday, said, Giannist didn't ask to be traded. Okay, he may not have said those words. I promise you the Bucks it wasn't their idea, okay. And I know that it caught the Knicks by surprise, Dan. And you know how I know, because like two weeks before, they signed Michale Bridges to a contract extension, a really good contract extension, nice one. And it's not that they wouldn't have signed him or that they absolutely were going to trade him in that deal, but once you signed him to that, you can't trade him for six months. So if you were thought that you were about to potentially enter a very important negotiation. You wouldn't take one of those guys off the table. So I think it caught the Knicks off guard too, And so what I think happened was it was honest his idea. Now you can bring people on here and have them testify or whatever. It's fine. The talks took place, okay. And the important thing is Jannis watched what the Bucks did over the summer, which was do this crazy move. It was a two hundred million dollar move. They cut Dame, making one hundred million dollars in dead money, and then they signed Miles Turner for one hundred million. So they took one hundred million dollar problem, which was a player in his thirties recovered from Achilles, and they made it a two hundred dollar investment for a Miles Turner, who is a quality player, just helped the team to get to the finals, excellent, a high quality role player, but not a star player. He saw those moves and then he said, I have some interest in becoming a Nick. Okay. So that happened, and it didn't come out until October. And at that point, Jannis, they had signed his two brothers, you know, and Janness was playing for the Bucks and everything, but like that was a real indication of what y where Yannis's head was at. Here's the other thing. Yannis's family moved to Greece. If you know anything about Yannis, the family is extraordinarily important to him. It's one of the reasons why the Bucks have signed his two brothers, because they know how important it is to have his family with him. That he sent his fam He might have had ten reasons to send his family to Greece, but again, these are actions that you're looking at going you know, So what the league is wondering is knowing what happened in the summer, knowing about the other stuff, knowing that the team is not doing well, although they had their best win of the year last night they beat the Pistons without Yanis. Will Janis actually go forward and say, Okay, I wanted to because I don't think the Bucks are going to get there Dan, because the Bucks are so mortgaged and so deeply invested in keeping him, and I actually don't blame them. And so that's really what the question is is will Yannis take the next step besides the saber rattling that he's.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: Done before why the Knicks?

00:36:12
Speaker 8: Good question, you know, he he really, you know, in all of the all of the discussions from Jannis and from John Horst, their general manager and doc, no one denied those talks took place. The Knicks certainly didn't deny it. And I thought, I know that they happened. And you know, I will say that if you were in a vacuum choosing where to go, you would want to go to the Eastern Conference. You know, I think you know, you know you we want to stay East. And so if you looked at the Eastern Conference and you said, well, where would I want to be as a player, where do I think I can you know, make a big impact? Where could we win right away? Like New York rises to the top. You could make some cases for some other teams, you know, Miami for example, you know, maybe Atlanta, maybe Boston. All that that type of trade would be a lot more complicated. But like you know, if you go through that process, I could see how you know, Toronto would be as it would be an interesting team. Now that's actually kind of an interesting team because you know, you know, national players seem to like Toronto. But I think you know, in August, I think New York made some sense, and it may not have made some sense from what the Knicks were in position to trade at the time. And I certainly don't think the Bucks were motivated to do it, like they probably wanted everything the Knicks could possibly offer before they would even get mildly interested. But that's the other question is if Jannis does so that There's really three questions that have been involved on my phone for the last twenty four hours. One, will Jannis actually go to the point where he says I want to be traded because he hasn't gotten to that point yet or before. Two, if he does get traded, will the list be longer than the Knicks than it was just a one team thing over the summer? And Three, if Yannis has a let's let's say there's three teams, let's say there's six teams, whatever, do the Bucks have to do business with just his list? Because he does have one year left on his contract plus a player option, so next year you'd be faced with having Giannis in a walk year. So typically in that situation, you would if you were trading for a guy, you'd want to know he is staying, especially if you're given a lot of stuff for him. But it's funny Dan, As I've talked to people in the league, people don't necessarily think that would necessarily be true with Yannis. So I'm not sure. But those are the three questions and the topics that are going around the league right now.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: I'm guessing Brunson would be off limits with the Knicks. That'd be the only guy that'd be off limits.

00:38:50
Speaker 8: I would advise them. I haven't. I don't have insight on I don't have insight on that, but I would do.

00:38:54
Speaker 6: So.

00:38:54
Speaker 8: The challenge with the Knicks is they really don't have meaningful draft assets to give. Some of these other teams we could mention have their own draft picks, and other teams draft picks that they can offer. The Knicks don't have draft picks, so you would have to make it a player based trade. And here's the thing about the Bucks that's important to understand the Bucks, and this is this sort of backs up why they've double triple quaudripled down. They don't control I think their next three or four drafts. They've either traded the pick away or they've traded the swap away. Certainly this year and next year, I know for sure, I think even twenty eight two.

00:39:30
Speaker 2: And so when you're in.

00:39:31
Speaker 8: That position, you really can't enter into a trade thinking, well, we're gonna rebuild because you don't control your pick. And there's a few teams in the NBA right now who are in bad shape but don't control their pick, and they're in hell. And so Milwaukee would probably have if they you know, Milwaukee's probably doesn't want this to happen at all, but if they get to the point they have to trade them, they're probably going to look to make a player based trade or the draft asks that that they're gonna get are going to be third part teams. In other words, if you do a team with if you do a deal with the team that you're trading Giannis to you and you're getting their picks for the next couple of years, that's not that exciting because that team stayed going to be good. If that team has a third team's picks, yeah, you'd be interested in that so that it doesn't rely on your performance or that team with Giannis's performance. But now you're threading a needle. So that's another reason why New York would make some sense. They have some players that the Bucks could get that would help them retrofit their team.

00:40:27
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm talking to Brian win Horst, ESPN, senior NBA writer, help me understand the Chris Paul situation of why it had to happen on the road in Atlanta.

00:40:40
Speaker 8: Well, that seems crazy, you know, And one of the things that Lawrence Frank So, first off, Lawrence Frank had this press conference yesterday the general manager of the President. I think it's the president is its title, And first off, he said, puts all the blame on me, which maybe Lawrence wanted to do it, but I promise you it was not only him who wanted to do it, but doing it the way they did it. He said that they made the decision on Sunday. Dan, Okay, let's just let's just take that for the truth. Why was he in Miami on Monday. They're starting a long road trip and you know, Lawrence explained that the reason this happened in the middle of the night was because their flight was delayed by five hours, which it was. They didn't land in Atlanta Airport until nine thirty. You know how long it is to get from Atlanta Airport to downtown. It doesn't take five minutes. They met at eleven o'clock. In the meeting went several hours. So why do you do it at eleven o'clock? You know, I don't you know? So like the actual functionality of the way they handled it is wretched the decision. You've been around sports for a long time. When you have a player who is very vocal, who all of a sudden has a small role, it doesn't work. Chris Paul's whole career, he's been very vocal. He's been vocal with the officials, He's been vocal with his coach, the opposing coach. He's been vocal with the opposing star player, with his star play, with his role players. Imagine what he says off the court. You can just see what he says on the court. And when you're the star player and the point guard and you're playing all eighty two games and your team is competing for conference titles or whatever, that's one thing. When you're doing that and the team is sinking and you're of a much smaller role, it doesn't work. I knew this twenty years ago when I started the NBA. This is a bit of a classic case situation. And you could say well, then why the Clippers bring him in knowing that he would have a small role and that this was possible. That's fair And I would just say that of the Clippers miscalculations this season, it's on the list, But there's a long list of Clippers' miscalculations so far.

00:42:57
Speaker 2: When do you feel like we'll get a true sense of le Bron's role with the Lakers? If is he a third option now? And you know, I guess the future of how long does he want to play, feel like he can play and being a maybe a third option for the Lakers and what role that plays.

00:43:17
Speaker 8: It's an interesting set of circumstances. It's happened because I thought Lebron was awesome last year. He was second team All NBA. I thought he looked great. You know, the Lakers had a disappointing end of the season. There was a bad matchup for them with Minnesota. But I thought that they really achieved in the regular season. They got the three seed. I mean, I know, the difference between the three and the six was really tight, but they got it. And you know, people were saying to me, why do you think this is it for Lebron? And I'm like, no, like look at him. He's still one of the top ten to fifteen players in the league. And then a couple of things happened. First off, he had two injuries dan So he sprained his knee in the last playoff against the Wolves. In fact, had they extended that series, I don't know if he could have played. He missed training, he was out for weeks. He had He's never missed a playoff game in all you know, twenty years in the playoffs, He's never missed a playoff game. I'm not sure you've been been able to play in the next game. So he had this knee injury. Then he hits the sciatica. So he has the most injured offseason he's ever had, which maybe isn't a surprise at age forty, but it's still completely new. Also, they get Luca, so Lebron was already having a great season. Lebron played well when Luca after Luca got there, but the Luca thing happens. Then he has the injuries. Okay, so these are two things that we've never seen. We've never seen him not be the a one A guy on his team. We've never seen him have off season injuries. Before then his team without him plays really really well. Absolutely never happened. Maybe his team has been able to keep their knows above water when he's been out, whether it's been for you know, a week or a month, they've never achieved. You've never looked at a team that has missed Lebron for multiple games and gone, man, they're doing great. And Austin Reeves is having a career year. So you've got this series of circumstances that he's never experienced before, not to mention not getting able to start a season, not having to have a training camp, So we are in completely unknown territory for him. It would be unknown territory if any one of those things was true. Now the whole menu is true. And by the way, he rejoins the team as the number one score in the history of the league. Where the two guys on his team are in the top ten in scoring, Reeves and Luca are like one in nine. I don't have even checked it today. Maybe Reeves dropped a little bit, but when he came back, I think they were one in eight. So you're asking, you're this is a completely different situation he's ever done, and the team's winning. You know you're not coming in and boy, the team's struggling, and now you got so I think he is absent, absolutely in a little bit of the deep end of the pool that he's never been in before. I mean, how long has it been since Lebron's been in a situation that he hasn't not only seen but mastered. So this is awkward and he's showing his age. You know the other night in that game was really a game where I really looked thought Lebron looked like an older player for the first time where he wasn't getting left. I mean he had no rebounds, no steals, no blocks. That's never happened in twenty three years, thousands of games. So you're asking a really relevant question. I don't think anybody knows. I think he's going through this day to day trying to figure it out.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Would you be more surprised if he played another year or he retired at the end of this year?

00:46:46
Speaker 8: I am. I thought, you know, even as recently as last spring, he has years left. I was not entertaining that this was going to be it regardless of the contract, which as that's also something he's never experienced before. But it's not really relevant. I don't think that's affecting his day to day.

00:47:06
Speaker 1: Now.

00:47:06
Speaker 8: I'm just I'm just in the middle of I don't know, and I know it's an unsatisfactory answer, and I think Lebron has pretty much said the same thing. He said, I don't know. I think Rich Paul, his agent, has said I don't know. I don't know. But that's that's a departure from me because I was in the camp of this guy could Tom Bradiot like I mean, and he still could Tom Bradiot, but if you watched him play last year, there's no way you said that's a guy about to retire.

00:47:33
Speaker 2: Wendy, thank you. I know you're busy. Thanks for joining us.

00:47:36
Speaker 8: Have a good day.

00:47:36
Speaker 2: That's Brian Windhorst.