After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

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That's betterhelp.com positive. Good morning to you. Happy Wednesday. I hope it's a happy Wednesday. A bit of premonition, if you will.

It's going to be a happy Wednesday. If you're a fan of Shohei Ohtani, well, he is all the rage on this Wednesday morning. And I suspect he'll be all the rage many mornings moving forward in the 2023 Major League Baseball season. Of course, the final year of his contract with the Angels, which means there are major questions around him. Now, if he doesn't stay with the Angels, we could end up with more matchups between Shohei and Mike Trout like we got to end the World Baseball Classic last night.

If you missed it, man, electric atmosphere in Miami. 36,000 plus in a one-run game. And for the first time in his career, Shohei coming out of the bullpen in the ninth inning in a save situation.

Not since he became a pro baseball player has he closed out a game. So a lot of fun. We're going to go through all the big moments.

There are a lot of wasted opportunities for the United States. Because it's an exhibition, you know, harp on the team. It was just fun.

It was a lot of fun. And I think the deeper we got into the WBC, the more people really got into it. I'm anxious to see because last night's game was earlier. Did you notice that a lot of the games that Team USA played, they started at seven o'clock Pacific time, but 10 o'clock Eastern time, which meant you were missing a good portion of the audience that wouldn't stay awake that late for a baseball game, especially not one in March.

But this one started at seven o'clock Eastern, four o'clock Pacific. And it was really an opportunity for people to watch if they hadn't yet to this point. And all of the pomp and circumstance with the flag procession and the national anthems and the intros and the lights and the fireworks and everything else going off there in Miami. And if you missed it beforehand, Shohei Ohtani stood in the locker room, really nice locker room, nice digs there in Miami. And he delivered this impassioned speech to his teammates. He says, hey, we do admire the Americans, but let's stop admiring him for one day.

Let's throw away our admiration and win this championship and think about beating them. And it was just really neat. I enjoyed it. Again, an exhibition, we're not talking about the World Series. And yet the buzz was there. The Americans were into it. We know that Team Japan was desperate to reclaim, well, to have an opportunity to win, right? To be there in that spotlight again. And I really enjoyed seeing the smiles and the excitement in the stands as well. There were plenty of Team USA jerseys and people who were expressly rooting for the Americans.

But I would say there are just as many people, or maybe it was a vocal, who are really enjoying the show put on by Samurai Japan, Team Japan. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. On Twitter, ALawRadio, that's where you can find me. And also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. So we did just get through Ask Amy Anything. If you didn't hear your question, I always go back over the course of Wednesday. It's likely to be Wednesday afternoon once I sleep.

And oh, it's not been a great week and a half for sleeping. But drugs, I'm telling you, drugs on this Wednesday morning, that's the secret. This is not really a secret when I speak it out loud. So don't tell anyone. So once I wake up on Wednesday afternoon, I promise to answer many of your questions, the ones that I can get to really quickly.

But we also have a question for you on our social. I'm claiming Shohei Ohtani as my answer to this question. But I want to know who else, what else are the biggest enigmas in sports along with Shohei Ohtani? Because he really does defy logic. The definition, it's mysterious, hard to understand, confusing.

I just think he's amazing and he's unique. And so that's kind of what I come up with when I say enigma. But yes, definitely mysterious, difficult to understand how a man can be as good as he is at both of these skills, both the hitting and the pitching and the fact that he can do both seamlessly.

He can morph from one to the other without really having any trouble. Puzzling is another word that is used to define an enigma. So it's a noun. Who or what are the enigmas in sports along with Shohei Ohtani? Again, it's after our CBS on Twitter or on our Facebook page. We got fireworks right off the top in Miami last night. Listen to that atmosphere.

The horns and the noise and the din. As much as I'm a radio junkie and that call came from TV with Joe Davis on FS1, I could sit and I did. Well, I was doing yoga part of the time. It was really funny.

I had the TV on behind the computer screen so my yoga instructor didn't realize that I was cheating on her. But I couldn't miss this. And so just watching the atmosphere there in Miami was glorious. But then to hear it behind Joe Davis and that noise, it doesn't sound like March. It sounds like October. It sounds like a World Cup game for heaven's sakes.

But really cool. So yeah, you have Trey Turner who homers in five of these WBC games and then Japan with the answer. And there were multiple opportunities. There was a GIDP by the Americans with one out and two runners on. So double play wipes out the threat. Kyle Schwarber had, it was a pop-up of sorts, a sky-high ball with a couple of runners on too. Not going to get too uptight over the fact that they didn't take advantage of their chances.

But it was a close game and there did seem to be that tension and that intensity that you wouldn't expect in March. And the double digits in this at-bat. The 10th pitch. Fly to right field. Kondo turns. There it goes.

Straighten it out. Second deck. One run game. That's Kyle Schwarber. You don't hear his name there, but can I tell you, if you didn't see it, you've got to go back and watch this home run. That ball got out of the stadium in what felt like half a second. As quickly as Tyreek Hill can turn the corner and blast by a defensive back or a linebacker, that's how quickly that Kyle Schwarber blast left the yard.

And it was upper decks. It was a screamer or a screecher. Is it screamer or screecher?

Screamer? I think both could apply. It's an enigma. No, it really wasn't.

It makes perfect sense. When Schwarber tattoos a ball, that puppy is gone. And he did.

There was a tad bit of posing. I wouldn't say there was a real bat flip or bat chuck or anything like that. But from the second he connected, he knew that it was gone and it got out of the stadium very quickly. By the way, that was the top of the eighth inning and that home run was off Yu Darvish. So Yu Darvish comes in as a relief pitcher in this one. And over the course of the last couple innings, what you had was Yu Darvish up in the bullpen. Then Otani would join him and would warm up only to turn around and run back to the Japanese dugout because he had to hit. And then he went back out to the bullpen to warm up again.

I'm telling you, enigma, you don't see this with anyone else in Major League Baseball. So here he comes in the ninth inning to protect what is a one-run advantage for Japan. Jeff McNeil works a walk off Otani and he didn't like that that ball four. He kind of felt like it should have been strike three. But Jeff McNeil works a walk. He gets Mookie Betts to ground into a double play. Jay, what are you doing?

Just shaking his head like oh such a disappointment. Rough double play. It's a rough double play. Yeah, there are a couple of double plays that wiped out Team USA threats.

So here we go. Couldn't have asked for a better final at bat. Now bases were empty but a deep shot by Mike Trout would have tied the game. Top of the ninth, two out for Trout. Six pitches in total. Trout works a full count against Otani.

We've reached the limit. Three and two, two outs. Top nine. U.S. down a run. Otani set. Trout ready. The three-two pitch. Trout swings and misses and Japan wins the 2023 WPC. Otani fires his helmet towards the dugout. He's mobbed on the mound by his teammates and Japan goes undefeated in winning the championship tonight.

Three to two. I swear he said cowabunga there at the end. I did hear WBC. That was awesome.

But again, listen to what it sounds like behind that Japanese call. You would think this was for a world championship in Major League Baseball. The World Series. Game seven.

Nah. This was March. It was mid-March.

The team Japan celebrates like it's their greatest accomplishment ever and I don't mind it. I was there for it. I loved the atmosphere, the electricity, the buzz and how cool to see a pair of teammates who are both former MVPs facing each other in that final at bat. Four of those pitches. Six pitch at bat. Four of them over 100 miles per hour as Otani gets the save.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Now Lars Neubauer, at least for the American broadcast on TV and radio, has been the unofficial spokesperson for team Japan because of his ease with speaking English, of course. In fact, he doesn't speak Japanese and half the time just was nodding and smiling when the Japanese were doing their pregame speech. But he loves to talk about his team Japan. Team Japan? Samurai Japan.

Samurai Japan teammate. You knew who it was going to. As soon as you saw Trout up there in the third, the script was written, man. It was already written and that's how it was going to be with Trout versus Otani.

Three-two count, two outs, ninth inning. Unbelievable, man. No, no, no, no scripts.

There were no scripts here. Stop spreading rumors, Lars Neubauer. After the game, Mike Trout stood in front of a bunch of reporters and talked about that battle with Otani. He won round one. Round one?

No, you can't take it any way for it. Just to be able to come out of the bullpen, you know, as a starter and, you know, show time. So it's, you know, hats off to them guys over there. It was a tough, tough night for us, but we'll be back. A tough night for us, but we will be back. Yeah, they were fired up too.

The spirit, the energy, I think the exaltation really told the story. Not to mention how excited the fans were to be involved in something like this, and Rob Manfred has indicated that he wants more of the MLB stars to take part in the World Baseball Classic, although it certainly seemed like Team USA was loaded. Not sure how you could work more stars onto the team. I suppose we could put an Aaron Judge there. I'm trying to think who else you would, who else would you really want to see, Jay, in the World Baseball Classic? More pitchers maybe? Yeah, I'd put like Max Scherzer in there would be cool and Clayton Kershaw. I don't know.

Something along those lines would be cool. Justin Verlander. We don't need two Mets pitchers. No, we don't considering one Mets pitcher who was in there is out for the season, so. Edwin Diaz gone for the season. Lightning strike twice.

Shoei Otani, he can't speak English. He prefers not to in interviews, I understand that, but with an interpreter, he offered this pitch-by-pitch breakdown of that final at bat against Mike Trout. So first pitch slider. The way he took my slider, I felt like he was anticipating something soft, so that's why I started attacking with my bat. That's why he went back to the fastball, and then you get the 3-2. I thought you were going to reach back and throw 100 miles an hour and you threw a slider. So you're saying that the more you attack, the more you're going to throw the bat.

So I understand that. Yeah, I felt like that was exactly according to the game plan with me and Nakamura, the catcher, and I made that pitch right in the corner. It was the best pitch I made. Basically, he was doing what he was doing basically because he knew Mike or because that was going to be his approach against Mike.

It's a little bit of both. I mean, playing with Trout for a long time, I probably know the best how great he is, how much of a great baseball player he is, so I need to get my 120 percent to get him out. Oh, I love that. How fascinating that is, and you hear Harold Reynolds with Pedro Martinez on the MLB Network stage or desk, and then you hear the responses of Otani through the interpreter. But yeah, the fact that they're teammates, he felt like he knows what Mike Trout would fall for, and that he thought that that slider was nasty. I said it was wicked earlier. Jason, it was nasty. He had thrown four fastballs that were over 100 miles per hour and then slider at the beginning and gets him on a whiff with a slider, a wicked slider at the end, and he says that was the best pitch that he threw.

That's super cool. Mark DeRosa, the manager of Team USA, definitely enjoyed the experience himself and didn't want to focus on the negative or the loss, but man, how can you not rave about Otani over the course of the last couple weeks and certainly last night? You know what blows me away on the stage? There's the fact that he seems to like, no moment's too big for him. I mean, he did not seem like rattled by walking Jeff McNeil on a close pitch down.

Not rattled. Like you said, three MVPs were coming up to bat. Like you said, I've analyzed him for years since he's come over here. What he's doing in the game is what probably 90% of the guys in that clubhouse did in Little League or in youth tournaments, and he's able to pull it off on the biggest stages. He's a unicorn to the sport.

I think other guys will try it, but I don't think they're going to do it to his level. Mark DeRosa uses the word unicorn. I use the word enigma.

In this case, they are interchangeable. So Otani is my answer. Jay swears to me he's got a great answer, so we'll get that before the end of the show. Already seeing your responses.

Who or what are the enigmas in sports? On Twitter, ALawRadio. Also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

I get that the WBC isn't for everyone. I actually really enjoyed it, and I don't mind it being in March. We're not going to have that kind of buzz in March for anything else on the baseball diamond, and here we are now just eight days away from all 30 teams launching into their seasons.

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You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Gave it to Watanabe. His pass stolen by who? Liverpool. And Mitchell.

In the right hand. Donovan Mitchell with a thunderous dunk, and the Cavaliers are up 18. I looked at Vert, you know, and he just kept backing up and, you know, I just felt good enough to try and get up there and then dunk it and figure I just used my body and then just finished and it worked up. It was crazy. He said he'd done that before to him, so I mean, I guess he had a flashback. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. If you haven't seen the Donovan Mitchell dunk in which his teammate, Karis LaVerge, just kind of backs off and there you go, man.

The world is your oyster. He jams it down. The reaction from the benches is always one of my favorite parts of a monster dunk like that. Maybe we can retweet it. From Cavs Radio, that's the call. Donovan Mitchell, the star of the show from up close, rocking the rim but also clanging down some threes from deep and the Cavaliers are able to best the Nets who've now dropped four in a row but are still part of that Eastern Conference playoff picture. So about eight, nine games to go in the East End. The top three teams have already clinched playoff spots but still will be jostling for position.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. The Celtics have no trouble with the Sacramento Kings just a few hours ago. They wrap up a road trip four and two but you want to talk about an enigma. They spanked the Kings, a team that is headed for the playoffs as well. A real good team. They've been playing great this last month or so but the Celtics on the same trip lose to the Rockets and also blow a near 20-point lead to the Utah Jazz. So to get 36 points from Jason Tatum last night to have Robert Williams come off the bench, that was a big deal and Jalen Brown recognizes what he saw from his teammates.

That looked like the team I recognized. We came out, we played 48 minutes, we didn't take our foot off the gas. We took care of business.

Ended the road trip well, get back home and take care of business again. You know we dropped a couple games on this trip that we probably shouldn't have. You know the Sacramento Kings been playing good basketball so we wanted to come in here and make a little bit of a statement. On NBC Sports Boston, Jalen Brown talking about the Celtics getting back to who they are and protecting fourth quarter leads which has been a problem. They've had some pretty enigmatic, boom, enigmatic fourth quarter collapses but not last night.

I had a chance to catch up with Sean Grandy. So he was still in Sacramento, presumably his back in Boston are getting pretty darn close now but I had a chance to catch up with him and mention these fourth quarter collapses didn't happen in Sacramento but highs and lows on this road trip. I asked him how he would describe the way the Celtics are playing right now.

Well it's up and down like you just said. You can't be, you can't overreact or be what's the new term everybody using the kids use prisoner of the moment right but you're coming off a game in which I really thought this was teed up for the Celtics to play well. You're catching the Kings on a back-to-back. When the Celtics lose some of these leads and they lost a big lead they had to lose some of them that were really ugly but when you lose the game in Cleveland for example and you lose the one in Milwaukee a couple weeks ago and you lose the one in Utah that's the second night of a back-to-back on the road playing at altitude at Utah playing without a lot of your starters playing without. So those are games that happen in the regular season and for some reason there's the psychological thing that says being up by 15 and losing by one is somehow worse than being down by 15 and then coming back and losing by one when it's all the same thing at the end then when you get to the playoffs and you have Al Horford and Jason Tate and all these guys going hard and not playing back-to-back so they are you're not going to have those in the playoffs and this team has been there before and had the long run last year and if we step back as much as it feels like it's the reverse of last year where they were dominant late and really struggled early and this is the reverse of that we've seen teams that have had long playoff runs have really good starts and then it's like okay when do the playoffs start so I think there's an element of that too and if I think that the outliers are going to be those leads that they lost in the back-to-back games I think selfish could finish pretty strong here the interesting thing is there's not enough time I think to get back to the one seed so you're looking at arguably the three best teams in the NBA right now are all in the east so a really good team is going home in the second round. And the top three have all clinched right the Bucks the Celtics and the Sixers are all into the playoffs that we know but it's real tight there between the Celtics and the Sixers if you're saying that's the case and these are isolated incidents even as dramatic as they were does that mean nobody around the team is worried about what's happened in the fourth quarter at times? Oh I think people are absolutely worried about the fourth quarter and that the efficiency drops off and that the turnovers go way up in the fourth quarter that's a it's a significant problem the question is when you've been a dominant team the Celtics for the first only the first third of the season were not just the best team in the league they were the best team by a wide margin right and I think we have to retrain ourselves Amy from looking at the season the way we used to that the 82 game season would tell us everything we wanted to know and the team with the best scoring differential was the team that was going to go on to win the championship because this is whether we like it or not the reality is this is the load management era and so the regular season doesn't offer us as many comfortable predictions as it has in years past and let's go all the way back and I mean all the way back to 2022 Golden State was not good down the stretch last year they were basically a 500 team Celtics for example went to San Francisco and crushed them late in the regular season last year and they had a game in which I've heard a lot of people say look at some of the games Celtic lost and they'll go oh championship teams don't lose games like that well I seem to remember Golden State losing by about 80 to Memphis in the playoffs last year and I know that they won the championship because I was there I called it and I saw them win so I saw a team that lost by 50 whatever in the second round of the game win the championship on the stealth explorer in June so we may not like the load management era but again we have to be a little more conservative in using examples from the regular season specific example saying oh teams that do this don't win the championship because all three of the teams at the top of the east at times this year have had some real takers so that's some real bad games but here we are and again I don't think you can argue it they may argue it in Denver or in Memphis or maybe even in Sacramento but the three best teams are all knees. We talked about the roller coaster that the Celtics have been on as a team kind of up and down a little bit uh Jason Tatum himself has been on that same trajectory now he did have 36 points tonight he's still a superstar but again how would you describe the season that he's had coming off of that NBA Finals trip? I thought he was the MVP for the first third of the year since then not so much you know he's had certain games and tonight the game in Sacramento was certainly one of them that made you think like okay he's snapping out of it since the all-star break has been probably the longest stretch of Jason Tatum and not looking like Jason Tatum in a couple of years and the on-off numbers he is a plus minus net rating monster and has been for the first day he walked into the league this three week stretch it's not a two-game stretch anymore it's you know been 13 games going into tonight since the all-star break and the Celtics actually have been better with him off the floor and that never ever ever happened so he has played a ton of minutes he leaves the league in scoring in terms of total points which is all people really should be I'm on a big campaign to get that get all of our mindsets changed from averages particularly in the low management area never been more important to look at totals you know Sabonis leads the league in total rebounds Jason Tatum leads the league in total points I'd rather have total points you know than someone who plays half the games and averages another point or two a game and I know this because I know Amy that Aaron Judge did not lead major league baseball with 0.41 home runs per game last year like it's should be totals not averages but the big total for Jason Tatum is minutes he's played the fourth most minutes in the NBA and you keep trying to get him rest and get him rest here but you know he's playing 38 39 minutes a night with all these games being close enough that'll wear on you too so it's difficult to sustain a year he has had it's difficult to sustain a 21-5 start the same way it's difficult to sustain when you jump out to a big lead particularly in this NBA when you go up by 20 the next progression everybody watches these games you don't go up by 30 the lead gets cut to 12 that's how it happens so uh again for the Celtics like everybody else competing for a championship is this group healthy from the playoff start and as difficult as this stretch of the schedule has been everybody forgets that you get to April the schedule is light anyway Celtics mostly have home games and then what nobody's factored in yet in the new NBA is that the top 12 teams in the playoffs are getting a week off because of the play-in tournament so you're getting an extra you know week not to mention there's no back-to-backs you have a first round stretched out to 16 days and a week off beforehand the Celtics last year swept Brooklyn in the first round they played I think four games over 16-17 days Sean Grandy long-time radio voice of the Boston Celtics though also moonlighting on TV games carried on NBC Sports Boston and he told me that he is radio only the rest of the way I've missed him I usually follow Celtics games on Sirius XM from my house and so it's it'll be good to hear his voice again but also fourth quarter woes have plagued the Celtics at times and they are likely to miss out on that top seed looks like the Milwaukee Bucks will protect it or should protect it so the playoffs are coming they are on the horizon great answers by the way who or what are the enigmas in sports we'll get to those before the top of the hour Jay tells me he's got an answer to on Twitter after our CBS my Twitter and then our Facebook page you are listening to the after-hours podcast SGA drives left fence off step back 18 footer short George with a good rebound oh George just goes down hard a foul is going to be called George just got undercut and he's in pain dork got into his landing space and this is the last thing the Clippers were looking for later caught out by dork seven seconds retreat well beyond the arc five seconds Leonard gets an on-screen from Morris slashes right spins one second grinds left perfect and fires didn't get up and down the Thunder wind ludar locks up Kawhi Leonard Thunder winning in Los Angeles 101 100. Oh Lou brings the torture chamber to the fray and straight jackets Kawhi Leonard mano y mano preserving a Thunder gutty 101 100 victory over the Clippers wow this is after hours with Amy Lawrence the double whammy for the Clippers last night in LA they lose at the buzzer Kawhi Leonard misfires on the game what would have been the game winning shot you hear that call on Thunder radio but before that about four and a half minutes left in this fourth quarter Paul George goes down in a heap on the court he collided with Lou Dort it was an accident there was nothing dirty or intentional about it but hit his leg and it appears as though George was grasping at his knee not only could he not put any weight on it had to be helped off the court but I saw in the tunnel as they got past the court and beyond the fans they actually picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to the locker room so that is not good news really scary as you can imagine uh Tyloo short on details I saw it but I mean they still see it being re-evaluated right now so but I did see it um I didn't even know it looked like that until Dante just showed me so I didn't even know did you get to talk to him at all I haven't seen him Kawhi Leonard later said that he thought George had hit his head or his face or something like that but instead it was very clearly a knee injury so this is scary as we're talking about the Clippers who you want to use the word enigma that's a perfect example sometimes they are world beaters sometimes they're not I suppose that could apply to most of the western conference but with their situation uh right now being one where they're in the fifth spot in the west but only a game and a half out of that 7-10 tournament in fact the Oklahoma City Thunder are now a game and a half behind them again an enigma the entire west really but the Clippers don't have much of a margin for error now with eight nine games to go for the rest of the regular season it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio I've been talking about the NBA the Sacramento Kings the Boston Celtics last night uh we got that Donovan Mitchell dunk in there as well as the the Paul George news uh what was the other piece that we're gonna do Jay that was basketball no was it oh yes thank yes thank you for reminding me uh it's the hump show and I'm holding it together I think I've been doing pretty well not getting scatterbrained although Jay may have a different perspective but I feel like I've stayed on point for most of the show tonight uh I'm yes is another basketball uh storyline topic which Ja Morant's return uh supposed to be playing for the Grizzlies tonight spoke to the reporters the glut of reporters that were there for his first practice with the Grizzlies yesterday and he was asked about the counseling in these last couple weeks away from the team that's been good um obviously you know a lot of learning um pretty much you know that honestly you know took that time to uh you know better myself you know get in a you know better space missing not sure exactly how the Grizzlies coaching staff will handle his return apparently he told them that he'd be happy to come off the bench because they're going to gradually increase his minutes he's been away and wasn't able to work out for over a week and a half and they're they want to be careful they don't want anything to happen to him um but Morant did say he's a little uncomfortable with the idea how fans could respond to him as he returns from an eight game suspension he deactivated his social media for a while though he is indicated that those accounts on insta and twitter are active again he says he is going to refrain though from putting his whole life out there on social the way that he has and it was the instagram live video from inside a club in denver in which he appeared really intoxicated and was waving and a gun around that he swears wasn't his there were no charges that were pressed but adam silver looked at the tape determined it actually i believe he interviewed jaw as well they talked to jaw determined that he was drunk and while morant went away for counseling he went away for a little help he says it was not for alcohol instead it was about dealing with stress and anxiety and some of these pressure situations that makes sense to me he's 23 years old and he's been thrust into the spotlight not that different than many superstars who enter a league where instantly the spotlight is white hot because of where they were drafted or their potential and he has lived up to that potential on the basketball court but it's been a series of poor choices and bad decisions so i hope these two weeks were a reset or a pause maybe an indication to him maybe a gut check realizing how precarious his position and how quickly all of this could go away if he doesn't make better decisions and the team reportedly is planning on changing some of its travel arrangements i'd even heard the the city miami they don't want jaw moran to be out they don't want him to have the opportunity to to be on south beach and get into more trouble or make poor decisions but you can only protect him for so long i i don't mind the guidance thing that the guidance there he is your superstar you've made a major investment in him i believe that a few more guardrails would be good for jaw but they can't do that forever you're talking about a grown man and then you're talking about a roster full of guys who are older than him and don't want to be limited or told what to do or feel like they're grouped in with these team changes that are serving more as a babysitting type of a situation for jaw now he's going to have to do this on his own so good for him that he went to counseling and he said that it was his decision and also he's made some changes over the last couple weeks just being you know more responsible you know more smarter um it's pretty much it for me um obviously you know i made mistakes in the past that you know caused a lot of you know negative attention not only to me but you know my family as well you know my team you know the organization i'm completely sorry for that um so you know my job now is like i said you know be you know more responsible more smarter and you know don't cause any of that i hope that he can find some solace and peace but also find some focus some health some mental health on the basketball court very often when we apply ourselves to what we were born to do what we were created to do in his case at this stage in his life it's basketball he is damn good at it i'm hoping that he finds that that piece that solace i know that i do in a radio studio regardless of what hell is breaking loose around us and trust me it happens a lot or sitting at my piano those gifts and talents and abilities when we use them as humans often it brings us to a place where we can focus and we find some mental health there and i hope that that is the case with jaw he does indicate basketball is his priority that he wants to be a healthy contributing member of the grizzlies and certainly understands that they've got a major opportunity now sitting in that two seed in the west it's after hours with amy lawrence on cbs sports radio want to get to some of your enigma responses but really quickly if you hadn't heard this i just i want to make sure we get to it before the end of the show austin eckler speaking out about the los angeles chargers and it would be a very speaking of poor decisions a very poor decision by the chargers in my opinion to let him go but he tells chris long on the green light it's the green light podcast that right now the chargers have indicated to him that he's got a salary and that's where it stands i hope he gets a new deal i hope that the chargers see the light because if they lose him they lose a major piece of versatility but also a guy who can really offer some protection for justin herbert because defenses have to game plan for him i'm so underpaid right now as far as my contract and when i contribute to the team it's like i am i am relentlessly pursuing this like i want to get something long term done i want a team that wants me long term yeah right because look i i'm at the peak of my game right like i'm i'm gonna score you another 20 touchdowns as long as i'm healthy i'm gonna score you 20 touchdowns i'm gonna have you know another 1600 all-purpose yards yeah right i'm getting half my value of what i could be getting right so it's like i am relentlessly pursuing someone who wants me and if that's not the chargers that's why he and his team ask for permission to secret trade they ask for permission to find a taker but at this point there are a few running backs that have changed teams we know uh ezekiel elliott is out there too how much would you pay for a 27 year old austin eckler definitely in the prime of his career except the track record for running backs is that you want to get rid of them and i know that sounds very it sounds very flippant of me you want to move on from running backs before they start to decline that's always the trend in the nfl but he's had back-to-back seasons in which he's been over 900 yards rushing and he's led the nfl in total touchdowns the last two years even hitting 20 in the 21 season that's a lot of numbers it's after hours here on cbs sports radio again really interesting stuff on the green light podcast with austin eckler says he holds no grudges against the chargers but is woefully underpaid and is not gonna let this go so who are the enigmas in sports producer j what do you think before i read some of the other answers on social i got one we haven't heard you got one we haven't heard yet which i think would be a common one but you should see there that's connor mcdavid oh yeah oh my gosh yeah so talented but his big mouth really ran contrary to his talent and got him into so much trouble oh not mcgregor mcdavid oh mcdavid oh i'm sorry but yeah i heard connor and my brain went right to mcgregor so why mcdavid oh just that he's just leaps and bounds ahead of anyone in the nhl right now and it's just crazy how he's on that different level which no one seems to be able to get to except for him is it mysterious it's an enigma and another one i got which i don't think we'll hear how about nelson cruz huh guy's 42 years old he's about to be 43 in july he still plays he's on the uh padres right now hits about 30 home runs 25 home runs 80 rbis every single year he's got like 460 career homers right now he gets no love but he's an enigma the guy just plays every single year and produces i like it i like those two um i added connor mcgregor unwittingly to the list some of your responses on twitter a law radio kaitlyn clark she's the sharpshooter the incredible player for iowa women's basketball uh other ones here on uh twitter the alabama crimson tide not producing a winning qb well what's bryce young wait i'm confused what was mack jones stop it i don't want to hear it uh on our facebook page a bunch of you have gone with kyrie irving some of you have gone with aaron rogers it's been pretty funny to see some of your answers like jerry jones or cam newton enigma mysterious makes no sense dennis rodman mike trout it's after hours on cbs sports radio boom