00:01I'm sweating bullets right now, Tyler. He's at the table.
00:04I'm sweating bullets right now.
00:06Don't you, oh my God, me.
00:08Oh my God.
00:09Don't you do that.
00:10Fingers and toes crossed.
00:12We could have got lined up for this showing on TV.
00:16You knew you was going to be on Inside the NBA.
00:18I mean, I'm not here with you.
00:20We've got plenty of barbers in Lawrence, Kansas.
00:22But you could have got lined up going on with this.
00:25If he was a real winner, he'd be going to play buckyball.
00:30Which one of y'all was that?
00:31There's some people who say that.
00:34That's true.
00:36Luke, man, Luke, that was a very disrespectful snicker.
00:40That's so natural.
00:42There is no more disrespect than a snicker.
00:46Than a small little snicker.
00:49Sorry, I thought the mic was off.
00:52There's nothing more.
00:53You jerk.
00:56Okay, buckyball in my ass.
00:57Aggie basketball program's on the rise, sucka.
01:00There's so much that can be said with a well-executed.
01:07All right.
01:08Coming up behind us, before we get to his thoughts on E-May Udoka being last on the blame chart.
01:18Coming up behind us, Texans All Access, Mark Vandermeer and John Harris.
01:24They will have the Texans general manager, Nick Casario.
01:28He will be live right at 6 o'clock.
01:31The mic's not working for the kid now.
01:34They've had to hand him Ernie's mic.
01:36But Texans general manager, Nick Casario, will be live with the guys right at 6 o'clock.
01:43So check that out.
01:44And then Area 45, live and local.
01:46They'll pick it up at 7 o'clock.
01:48We got it after Texans All Access.
01:52Sean Bajani, Patrick Creighton in the building.
01:55They got it rolling until 11 o'clock.
01:57And they will have a little postgame getting you ready and prepared for what happened with the Astros.
02:03By the way, you will be surprised to know in the first inning, Jordan Alvarez got a hit.
02:07But, so, shocker there.
02:12But we'll keep you updated on what's going on there as they will have that postgame for you a little
02:18bit later.
02:19So stay tuned right here, live and local, right behind us, right here on Sports Radio 610.
02:26All right, so you have said you feel like Emei Yudoka is somebody, because would you say it feels like
02:34he's taking a ton of heat?
02:36Yeah, absolutely.
02:36A lot of the heat.
02:37I would say, now, Kevin Durant missing these games has probably helped kind of quieted the waters a little bit
02:45on him.
02:46But it feels like Yudoka is the one that has gotten a lot of the heat.
02:50And you don't think he should be the one getting the most, correct?
02:55Correct.
02:56I'd put him almost, like I said, I think last.
02:58I think he's least on the list.
03:00And that's grouping all the players together, to make that clear.
03:02I'm not putting him necessarily above every player.
03:05Yeah.
03:06But I would put the GM number one.
03:08Not Dorian Finney-Smith.
03:09You don't have it yet.
03:10Well, he should be high up there.
03:13Poor Son.
03:14What a terrible Sonny.
03:15And then the players, too, as a group, the roster, the performance of the roster.
03:20And then I'd put the coach last.
03:21And some of that is, by default, just honestly, maybe my bias.
03:26But in the NBA, I'll always put the players above the coach when it comes to blame because I don't
03:31think the coaches play as large of a role in the NBA as they do in other professional sports.
03:35And obviously, it's a star-driven league.
03:37It's a player-driven league.
03:38So I always am going to lean towards blaming the players more than the coach in a lot of scenarios.
03:44But I put last, and I think a large part of it, well, I think some of it's similar to
03:49Joe Espado, like the injuries that this team has been dealt with.
03:53I know at one point during the season, they had, like, the most money on the injured list.
04:01But you had a team that lost Fred VanVleet and was unable to replace him at the point guard.
04:05And then you have a team that really wanted to build themselves around the double-big lineup.
04:10And then you lose Steven Adams so early, and that plan goes out the window.
04:15And then you have a 37-year-old star where a team has never won a championship with their best
04:21player that age or older.
04:23And Durant had a great season, of course, throughout the regular season, but now you don't have him available in
04:28the postseason either.
04:29And they still were able to win 52 games as they did last year, despite some of that adversity and
04:34some of those injuries.
04:35And so it's almost like, you know, we could go into a lot of the other numbers, too, bottom eight
04:39in turnovers and bottom eight in three-point shooting.
04:41And I think a lot of that falls on, again, the roster management and then the players and their performance.
04:46And some of the poor decisions made at the end of game three, I put more on the players than
04:50I do the head coach, who can only do so much from the sideline.
04:53But a lot of this roster is kind of like building a sandcastle at the beach, and one wave comes
04:58and wipes it out.
04:59Like, they did so much to build this roster.
05:01And then when you lose Fred VanVleet and you lose Steven Adams, only so much can be done.
05:06And yet they still won, you know, 52 games and made it to the playoffs and still fought hard the
05:10other night when they were left for dead and all these other things.
05:14I think Emei's a very good coach.
05:16That's why he was brought here to begin with.
05:17I think if the Rockets were to let him go, he'd get scooped up real quick because of his reputation
05:22as a head coach.
05:23And I don't put the majority of the blame on him, certainly.
05:27I'd put him last on the list.
05:31I think the best argument that you made there that I can get behind more than anything you've said,
05:39if this kid doesn't just hurry up and tell us where the hell's going on.
05:42I mean, this is dragging out.
05:43Where's the hat at?
05:44What is he pulling out?
05:45He put on a clip on his sunglasses.
05:48Just pull the damn thing out, will you?
05:50He pulled the present out of the box.
05:52Dog, man.
05:53Can't open the present.
05:54Just show it to us.
05:55Where are you going?
05:56We know it's...
05:58Yes!
05:58Yes!
06:00Lucky ball!
06:01I'm just kidding.
06:03He's going to Kansas?
06:04Yes!
06:05Hopefully he doesn't have cramping problems.
06:08Woo!
06:09Anyway, I'm sorry.
06:11No wonder Bill South came back.
06:13Sorry.
06:13You and Boss Lady somewhere celebrating, I'm sure.
06:17I've been looking at this roster like, if they don't get him, I don't know what they're going to do.
06:21Woo!
06:22How about that?
06:23To that person who texted, why would he go to Kansas?
06:27They suck.
06:27You suck it!
06:30Isaiah, Ron, nobody cares.
06:32Guess what?
06:33I do.
06:35Donkey Kong sucks.
06:36No, you suck!
06:37Anyway, the thing that you did say, and this is something that I kind of follow as well,
06:47is, yeah, the star gets a lot of the blame and a lot of the praise.
06:56The Kevin Durant angle, I can get with you on that.
07:01But, even within that, I still believe that Yudoka has had so, and his staff, and I like the staff,
07:14and I think you've got to put him in control of that.
07:17Yudoka and his staff have done nothing to make Kevin Durant and his life easier.
07:28Now, the star that I really look at is Alfred Shingun.
07:33He, the drop-off there, a lot of that is him, to me, as opposed to what Yudoka has done.
07:39I feel like Kevin Durant has played above what I thought Kevin Durant was going to be at 37 this
07:46year.
07:47Mm-hmm.
07:48But, I also don't think a lot of that has had to do with the scheme and how the offense
07:52is being run with them.
07:54And, my other big point is, I believe that Yudoka is a person just, I mean, you can look at
08:04this.
08:04You know, you can look at it, and you can look at organizations, and you can look at,
08:08there are certain coaches that you know have more power than others.
08:14There are certain coaches that, when I say power, have power to make decisions in their hiring.
08:21Now, I'm not going to say Yudoka's on the same level of these guys,
08:24but when he got hired, and where he got hired to, made it clear to me that, oh, like, this
08:32is a guy,
08:33the Rockets were outkicking their head coaching coverage.
08:36From the organization that they were, they were outkicking the level of who they were.
08:41Remember, Yudoka, that was, he was one of the most sought-after coaches.
08:46You said he would be sought-after, even after this.
08:50Yeah.
08:51He was really sought-after, after the Boston situation.
08:54He would still be the Boston coach had he not gotten himself into trouble.
08:59Damn, Nia.
09:00But, if he had not gotten himself into trouble, he'd still be the Boston coach.
09:03With that being said, guys like Steve Kerr, guys like, who else would fit into this?
09:15I think probably Jason Kidd now.
09:20There are several coaches that you can look at and you can say, all right,
09:25those guys have a little bit more power than the others.
09:29Like, they're not just, the GMs aren't running things.
09:33Like, even, you can look at it, Eric Sprolstrom, he would generally fit in that, but he doesn't.
09:38Pat Riley is making all the decisions.
09:40This is not a Pat Riley type of a situation.
09:43This is a situation where Yudoka, to me, would have more power than Raphael Stone.
09:49Right?
09:50I don't, like, there's not a scenario in which I believe Raphael Stone can go in and just say,
09:56hey, Tillman, I'm going to go ahead and fire Yudoka.
10:00That's what we're going to go ahead and do.
10:01I think he could have done that to Silas.
10:07I think he could have done that to Steven Silas.
10:08I don't think he could have done that.
10:09So, with that being said, I think that Yudoka has much more sway and power in what the roster is.
10:18And I just don't put 100% of the blame of them not getting either the big and what we've
10:25all talked about,
10:26the point guard, after Fred's injury.
10:28I don't believe that is just all on Raphael Stone.
10:33If you put a gun to my head hard or scrolling the places I don't want to get shot,
10:37I would lean to say that he was as much a part of them seeing if they can get it
10:43done with a guy like a man Thompson.
10:46And maybe Reed Shepard as opposed to going out and getting that done.
10:50So, I don't think this was a situation where he was just giving the groceries
10:53and now he's just doing the best he can with it.
10:56No, he is a coach that has more power than that.
11:00And they just do so many dumb things that, yes, you could blame on the players.
11:05But at some point, the amount of times that they do it, you've got to be like,
11:10all right, some of this is just coaching, right?
11:15Other teams aren't just doing that.
11:17So, I can't put him last, man.
11:19In fact, I'm the reverse.
11:21I've got him at the top.
11:22I can't ignore the track record for an injury-riddled season.
11:26I'm just talking about this year.
11:26I'm talking about this year.
11:28He's a good coach.
11:28Yeah.
11:30He's a good coach that has flaws, and his flaws have jumped up in our face often this year.
11:37All right, coming up behind us, Texans All Access.
11:39Stay tuned for it.
11:40Area 45 behind them as well.
11:43Luke, great job today as always.
11:45Clint should be back in the saddle tomorrow.
11:48Tyler, great job also.
11:49I am Ron, the show.
11:51And as always, Houston, we love you, baby.
12:00That's about it.
12:01But, Luke, you can be logical, okay?
12:06Oh, I forgot what it was.
12:08God, there was one you had, one that was real, that was real ridiculous.
12:11It doesn't like Taylor Mathis' best bets.
12:13Okay.
12:14Yeah.
12:14Which we know everybody loves those things.
12:17You better be talking about the betting portion of it.
12:21Walking bets.
12:21That's what it is.
12:22Not the walk.
12:23Not be talking about the walking part.
12:24The bet part.
12:25He's shit.
12:26Real bad, cowboy.
12:28He's shit.
12:29Working against gravity has never looked so damn good, man.
12:31I've just never viewed it as, I've never viewed it as recoil as a classification.
12:35But you're right, Tyler, it is one.
12:37Thank you, sir.
12:37Thank you, sir.
12:38Glad to open up some eyes out there.
12:40Brought to you by...
12:41Tyler Miller.
12:42You are the greatest producer in the world.
Comments