Suns Owner Blasts Former Head Coach (Hour 2)

It is the JR Sport Brief show here on the Infinity Sports Network. Thank you to everybody tuned in all over North America, my friends in California, my friends in Michigan, my friends here in Georgia with me, people in New York with super producer and host Ryan Hickey. This show gets started every weekday, not now at this time.

It gets started 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. We've already been hanging out for an hour and we've discussed a lot. We talked about Aaron Rodgers. He spoke today for the first time in months. He said he still doesn't know what he's going to do and has no deadline for it.

Okay, what a shock. Aaron Rodgers indecisive. Hey, we talked about some of the NBA play-in, playoff action. The Sacramento Kings, still a joke of an NBA franchise, fired their GM like minutes, an hour after they got eliminated and then we got the NFL draft a week away.

Everybody is kissing the backside of Travis Hunter. We have more to do. How about this? Next hour we'll have a chat with someone who won himself an NBA championship with the San Antonio Spurs. We'll be joined by CBS Sports analyst Avery Johnson. He'll be here with us next hour.

We'll talk about Nico Iamaliava. What's next for him now that Tennessee said, no, we ain't paying you more money. We'll find a job somewhere else. His job might be at UCLA or maybe it won't be. UCLA has a great health program by the way. Speaking of health, Damian Lillard.

Apparently he is no longer on blood thinning medication. That's good for the Bucks. We got John Morant game time decision tomorrow against the Dallas Mavericks. The winner of that game goes on to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder and good for them. We'll find out what happens. John Morant a game time decision tomorrow. So we got a lot to get into. Yes, more football and basketball and everything in between.

Tonight's the last night of the NHL regular season as they start to get ready for their playoffs and march towards the cup. Baseball is going on. I don't know. Here's a guess. I don't know.

Hickey or the Yankees playing. Do you have any idea? I don't know.

What are you doing? Am I right to guess that Aaron Judge will just hit a home run again? Uh, yes.

That's a very fair guess. It's like, yep. They're going to play in a few minutes actually. They're down.

How about this on Amazon Prime Video? Great. They're playing in their minor league stadium, which is now the home, the temporary home of the Tampa Bay Rays. It has to be interesting, right?

Probably the most familiar opponent ballpark they'll ever play in. So I think, I think I'm right. Aaron Judge is going to hit a home run tonight.

I don't think I'm out of the ordinary on that one. Let's see what he, what he ends up doing. This guy's batting average is over 400 already. I'm like, damn man. It's just, well, that's not to say, well, he sucks in the post season.

So what can I say? All in between his ears as well. Maybe Aaron Judge one day he'll get his Rory McElroy moment and end up winning the big one.

We'll find out and we'll get there sooner than later. That's Aaron Judge. That is a monster of a man. We just talked about a smaller man right before we went to break that dude's name is Travis Hunter. He's slightly small. He's going to play wide receiver. He's going to play defensive back. The Browns are just like, Hey, we like him out wide out. And ultimately I say, he's going to have to gain some LBS. He's going to have to get bigger. And that's, that's natural.

I would throw him on defense before I put him out there on offense because I don't want anybody hitting him. And I want to talk some more NFL in a second, but it just, this is, I guess this is ironic. Like I'm looking at the news in between the break, you know, figuring out, Whoa, what we Hickey, the internet is a terrible place. Oh boy. Yeah.

Anyway, I lost, I lost my story Hickey. Anyway, I told you this before we went to break, there was a report from the BBC, uh, BBC news in the United Kingdom. And this is from last week.

It just popped up on my feet. Apparently it was so windy in China last week, there were wind gusts of 93 miles per hour. A China advised people to stay inside. They, they informed light people, people who don't weigh a lot to stay inside.

So they don't blow away. This is a real story. 93 mile an hour winds. That's insane.

Yeah. This is last week. Workers were told to stay home.

Classes were suspended in Northern China. They braced for extreme winds last weekend. Millions have been urged to stay indoors with some state media outlets warning that people weighing less than 110 pounds may easily be blown away. You know what I laughed when you told me the break, when you hear 93 mile an hour winds, which is close to gal force, I get it. Yeah. Wow. Right. He's gal force hundred. Yeah.

For the first time in a decade, Beijing has issued an orange alert for gales, the second highest in a four tier weather warning system. Yeah. Yeah. The weather dropped crazy. Temperatures dropped 13 Celsius. I don't know. Sounds like 30 something degrees to me.

Fahrenheit. Wow. Yeah. So Travis, well, Travis Hunter. He'd be okay.

He'd be, he doesn't weigh 110 pounds, but, uh, what do you know? Thank you. One thing that I did learn, what, what, I forgot what day was it too. It couldn't have been yesterday.

It wasn't here yesterday and Tuesday you weren't here and now we're back together. But on Tuesday, uh, Nico Scarlato's helped produce the show and I don't, for whatever reason, we were talking about food and eating and talking about somebody's diet that the rocks diet came up again because we know he eats five eggs, 20 pancakes and eight sausages and eats more on top of that. And Nico said that he weighs, I think 110, 120 pounds. I think that's what he said. He's a thin dude.

I was going to say if he lived in China, he would absolutely be under this advisory. But isn't there a point in time where you're so skinny, the wind just kind of passes you by like it can't pick you up. It just goes, whoosh, just blows by. Oh, cause like there's nothing like grab onto and hold on. There's nothing to catch it. Just whoosh. Those are like a, like you, like a cartoon. You think about two gusts of wind, how you would illustrate it. The breeze would just go right, right, right by you.

It has nothing to pick up, nothing to go up against. That's fair. Yeah.

I could see that happening. Yeah. Yeah. Trust me. I'm not a scientist people. I don't know anything about that stuff, but I just hope nobody in China blew away.

I guess if they did, we'd find out by now. Huh? Hickey Chinaman blown to the San Francisco. Oh, you, you blowing him the other way. I was blowing him clear across the Pacific, but that's too long way to go.

I was going to say Japan too far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And we haven't had anybody blown over the, the ocean yet. I did see what's that other rich, you know what the guy from Amazon, what's his name? The bald head man with the muscles. Now he Jeff Bezos. Yeah. That's that's what you see what money does. Hickey you have you seen the old photos of him?

I have. And the new photos. He's a new man.

He went from being a librarian to being, what's that guy on the, well, you Mr. Clean, he looks like Mr. Clean. He invested in a good personal trainer. Yeah. Yeah.

Couple of some good supplements, a couple of billion dollars to do that for you. I've seen, he sends people into outer space. Did you see that? He sent Gail King and like these other women to space. Michael straight. They're women. Katie payers on board. Oh, I'm sorry.

Hickey out the name, the other ladies then who the other ladies, Gail King, like you said, Katie Perry, his girlfriend, his girl. Okay. Well, we don't know who she is.

Yeah. I don't. Lauren Rivera.

No Sanchez. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

And I don't know the other, was it three or six total, right? Yeah. We don't know. I don't know his, his girlfriend. Is she going to be his wife one day? Probably not. Didn't he have a wife?

She's very rich. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder why. Yeah. I wonder why he's not getting married again.

Maybe he will. None of my business. But they went to space.

I don't know what, what part of the stratosphere that is. I don't know what things would you for like 11 minutes. Would you do that? I would not. Yeah.

I'm not doing that. Not now. If it became normal and that's like, okay, like flying to space is like flying on an airplane from here to California, I would definitely consider it. But would I be one of the first people to try this new space capsule? Hell no. Michael Strahan went up there.

It's not good enough for you. Yeah, he did. Not, not at the same time, but I think in the past, he's one of the first people to do it.

One of the first, not good enough. It's like the driverless cars. I got it.

Like I need thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people to try it first. Then I'll feel safe. Nicky, I was down here from the studio. There was a guy walking his robotic dog. What? Yeah.

I'll send you the video. He was walking his robotic dog. He was playing the, the dog was playing with a ball. They would, they would, of having, you don't have to take the dog outside for a crap. But there's no love there. Don't you get a pet specifically a dog for love because you love them. They love you back.

There's no love with a robotic dog. It's a great conversation starter. Everybody outside wanted to talk to this guy. I stopped and I said, Hey, can I, can I get video? And he's like, yeah, sure. So that's a guy that wants to be seen.

That's that's someone I don't like. He was outside with his two human kids. He had two human kids. These kids had to be, I don't know, five, six, and they were playing with the robotic dog and the dog was playing catch. So is it for love or is it for a toy?

He got two kids, him and the kids love each other. He got a robotic dog. It's a toy. What's the difference between that and a real dog. If you just need to go outside and have something to play with, get a video game.

If you want a game outside, we want to get people outside. What are you playing with a robotic dog? Like what are you doing? Fetch. Yeah, real fun.

You playing with the ball, the ball, the dog was chasing the ball around. It was, let me tell you, I've seen the dogs with, have you seen the dogs with the lasers on his back? No. What? Yeah.

Yeah. They have. So instead of sent, you know, they use these, these, you've seen a police dog.

Are you kidding me? You ever seen this with a laser? I've seen police dogs now with lasers, these dogs, you could put a camera on it. Hey, it's a fire, right? You put the, instead of sending police chief Bob inside, you throw the robot in there, right? Because nobody loves the dog. It's just a piece of machinery, right? So you just throw the dog in there. If it burns up in flames, good.

Who cares? Right. That I agree with. Yes. I'm on board for that. Right. So you could put a camera on the back of the dog, or you can send the dog to war and you could put a laser beam on his back. Also, no problem with that.

Okay. Well, we, well, I told you that's what they do. If you're saving, if you're saving lives, like again, you're saving people from going to a dangerous fire. If you're putting them out in the line of fire to save some lives or your explorer, you know, exploring like the moon and you have also now this robotic dog walk in the moon to see what's out there all for it. But when it comes to like, now all of a sudden, this is your pet. This is now like, you know, you buy a robot and now he's living or it is living with you. I saw a robot putting the line. Hickey, I saw the, I saw another robot. He was putting dishes away.

He was putting dishes away. No, thank you. No, absolutely not. Do you understand by the time we're old, it's going to be more commonplace. Do you understand that? Oh, I do.

I see that's where the world is going and I'm going to, I like to embrace change as much as I can. That is something I will never embrace. No. Okay. I can confirm the robot won't kill me, which is why thousands of tests by people having in their house. You've seen iRobot, right?

I have not, but I get the premise. Oh yeah. Yeah. One day some mainframe robot just goes, you know what? I'm hitting the switch.

That's it. I'm hitting the switch. The driverless cars, the robot in your house, your little fake, uh, robotic dog. One day a computer will hit the switch and then, and you know, you're going to go outside for work and the robot in your house is going to go, no, you know, I'm going to work. Like, uh, you don't need to go to work. Why? Because we run the planet now.

You don't have to work. We run you just sit down. It's just like, we're taking over. I don't know.

Thank you. Maybe you got a good point that we've been warned about this for the past, I don't know, 100 plus years. So as long as a human is in charge until the robot is smarter than the human, it will be cooked. What is this going to be for NFL games? We're going to have robots out there too. Well, I mean, look, we're already replacing the real human rest with robotic cameras and I'm maybe sure we'll get a few robots on the field soon.

Why not? They're going to have robot on robot action on the field. Robots will be calling the plays for robots. I mean, humans call plays for humans. You're right.

The old crap. There was that. You saw that three point shooting robot. You've seen that one, right?

He'd never misses. I did not know. Oh God.

I got to send that to you. The robot actually goes around. He can pick up balls from the rack and he does it like swish every time the robot does not miss from downtown. Like he has the angle, the trajectory.

I want to say flick of the wrist, but whatever the heck he's working with, he's automatic. So that means if we ever see a professional robotic game, it'd be so boring. Oh, because they'll never miss. They got to miss every now and then, right? No, maybe not.

I mean, if they got the calculations down. Never miss. Wow. Steph Curry is a closest thing to a robot we have, right?

Closest. Wow. What a world. Technology is good until it decides to take us over. I'm still here for some of the human decisions.

It's the JR Sportbree show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. When we come back, we'll talk about some decisions that a human will actually make like the Steelers. Now that we know Aaron Rodgers is still taking a sweet time, what should the Steelers do in the draft next Thursday?

The same thing for the Minnesota Vikings. Their GM, Quasi-Mensah Adolfo, he basically said, yeah, we're here too. He explained his strategy about what they're doing at quarterback as it relates to JJ McCarthy, the draft and more.

We'll get into that on the other side of the break. It's the JR Sportbree show on the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the JR Sportbree. It is the JR Sportbree show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. This portion of the show is sponsored by Hyundai. The Hyundai getaway sales event is going on now. Get deals so right it almost feels wrong, but don't wait.

Visit your local Hyundai dealer and do it today. It is the JR Sportbree show, the Infinity Sports Network. We've talked NFL. We've talked NBA. We got Avery Johnson, former NBA champion with the Spurs.

He'll be here in about an hour. But right now, and then we talk robots in the last break. Beware of the basketball shooting robots. Beware of the robot shooting dogs or dogs. Hickey, it's dog shooting robots, right?

How would you say that? Robot shooting dogs or? Yeah, robot shooting dogs. Yeah, because they shoot, yeah, the dogs are shooting.

Anyway, beware. If you see a robotic dog, just go the other direction. Anyway, decisions, decisions that humans are making to be replaced by machines. Now, having said that, in the NFL, we still have decisions that are made by general managers, people who make up draft boards and make the selections and put their behinds on the line to figure out what they need to do. What's going to make the team better? And we heard from Aaron Rodgers last hour, pretty much hasn't made up his mind as to what he's going to do, where and how he's going to finish his career. Is his career even done? We have no idea.

None. You know what? Even with the Minnesota Vikings, like we don't know what they're going to do. We know that they got JJ McCarthy. We don't know if he's going to be ready. But Aaron Rodgers did say this on Pat McAfee show.

He says, you know what? I'm not waiting for the Minnesota Vikings to do anything. Listen, there's been a lot of narratives that have not been anywhere near accurate, starting with the Jets continue with something I just read about, you know, me pitching something to the Vikings. Ben was on the show talking about me waiting around for the Vikings.

That's not accurate either. But no, I've known Kevin forever. I've known Kevin O'Connell 17, 18 years and we got a good friendship. Yeah, he's talking about the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings and Kevin O'Connell, who at this point, he's not just the coach. This guy used to play quarterback. He was a backup quarterback in the NFL for years. He's still a relatively young guy.

Kevin O'Connell, I don't think is even past 40 years old. So yeah, they, I'm sure they have a relationship. And Aaron Rodgers says, I'm not waiting on the Minnesota Vikings. Well, we do know what they don't have. That's Sam Donald. Sam Donald is now going to be throwing passes at the Jackson Smith and Jigba out in Seattle and team is going to go absolutely nowhere. And the Minnesota Vikings have JJ McCarthy who, you know, tore the meniscus in his knee last year.

And we've never seen the guy throw a pass in the NFL. So you would think that the Minnesota Vikings want some type of safety. They want a security blanket for a team that won 14 games with Sam Donald at the helm. And so what do we do next? What do the Vikings do next? Well, let's listen to their GM. The Vikings have the 24th selection.

What are y'all going to do right now? At this point in the draft, we try and make sure our board is correct in terms of how we view things. You got to prepare yourself. There's you're picking 24th. You better be able to call 24 and a half, 24 names that you're willing to stand up and clap and feel great about. So that's the first and foremost and the foundation of how we build this thing, the trades and all those things scenarios they come. Oh my God, he said a whole lot of nothing.

The art of saying absolutely nothing. Like they still don't have a veteran quarterback outside of JJ McCarthy. Like they don't have one behind him. Obviously JJ McCarthy's never even thrown a pass in the NFL. They don't have a veteran in case he goes down. And you'd have to imagine the NFC North is just going to continue to get better, be better. You think about the Chicago Bears moving into a second year with Williams in his sophomore season.

He got a new head coach, God bless him now. You would think that the Detroit Lions are still going to be good. You would think that if the Packers can go out there and stay healthy, if love is healthy, they can go out there and do some damage. Like the NFC North might as well be blood sport.

It's every man for himself. They're going to beat the living hell out of each other. And the Minnesota Vikings, they're going to take the biggest drop. Fourteen games? Man, they might be lucky if they win nine or ten with JJ McCarthy full time.

So I'd be surprised. They have to bring on another veteran option. And are they going to get one in the draft?

No. You have to sign somebody. And where that guy is at this point in time, I have no idea. I know Kirk Cousins, he might be crying himself to sleep right now that he's no longer in Minnesota. He's going to be a backup.

Looks like he's going to be a backup here in Atlanta, Georgia. And then we also heard from the Steelers. Aaron Rodgers says, well, I had a great conversation and told them I'm waiting on some personal things.

I don't know what's going on. Well, Field Yates was on ESPN the other day, and he believes like I do that ultimately Aaron Rodgers is going to end up in the Steel City. The Steelers are going to bypass a quarterback at number 21 overall and instead move up in the third round to grab Jalen Milro, the electric Alabama signal caller who needs some time to develop. Well, if you play behind Aaron Rodgers, you're going to have at least a year to develop because Rodgers would be the starter for this upcoming season. I truly believe Jalen Milro needs to land in a place where the team is determined to maximize the very good traits. He's the best running quarterback in the draft by a mile and be patient and work to develop the traits that are not there yet. He needs to be a better short and intermediate rhythm game passer. Can that be developed? Some around the NFL are optimistic, which is why I do think he winds up going somewhere in the first 60 to 70 picks.

Could be quite a bit higher than that. Pittsburgh needs to be patient with Aaron Rodgers in tow. Jalen Milro would have a runway to develop over the 2025 season. Oh, so you wouldn't take him at 21?

I mean, why not? We saw what Jalen Hurts did, and he didn't have no, I don't want to call him a tutor, but he didn't have the runway. When you think about like a wince in front of him, we know Aaron Rodgers is going to be the starter. Aaron Rodgers is not going to be sticking around for more than a year or two max.

If that, I would take Milro at number 21. I'd let him develop. I mean, let him learn how to throw.

I don't think anybody's concerned about his physical gifts. It's what he can go out there and do with his arm, his decision-making that needs to improve. I mean, just last year at Alabama, the man said he has 20 touchdowns on the ground. They're not happening in the NFL.

You got to have that match up with what your arm can do. I think the Steelers, go ahead and take Milro. Get a quarterback of the future, especially you think about how the Steelers already play football.

They want to ground and pound and beat you down. Get Milro, develop him as a passer. We can always get a running back. Running backs, I don't want to call them a dime, a dozen, but for the Steelers not competing for a championship, they can develop a running back and keep trying it too until they get to that certain point.

I think Milro and Steelers, it's a good luck, especially if Aaron Rodgers is a starter. Let's get to the phone lines. 888-710-4ISN.

That's 888-710-4ISN. Chris, he's calling up from Virginia. Chris, you're on the JR sport brief show. What's going on?

Hey JR, Nick. How are you guys doing? Excellent. How are you, man? Look, I'm very good. Good. I know. I've not been listening to this for weeks because I listened to you guys and all the, you know, I listen to it all the, I just, that's why I listen to sports radio because it's changed over the years. It's not just stats and all that kind of stuff. It's fun.

You learn a lot of stuff. Yeah. So I'm going to say two things to you, man. One, and I really don't want to go out there and defend. I'm not defending Aaron Rodgers. I'm just saying, I don't really know if the dude actually said anything. I don't know.

And I'm a Steelers fan. I don't know if the Steelers said anything. I don't know if he said anything.

Nobody has actually said anything, but we're, we're making news out of, I'm not sure because we're upset that he hasn't signed. Well, I mean, that's up to them really isn't it? And I'll leave you with this. So no time too much of your time. You're not wasting my time. I mean, this is, I'm here for another two and a half hours. I got no time to waste it. Look, I don't think anybody is, is making a deal. The Steelers are waiting on him.

He ain't waiting on the Steelers. That's just what it is. Um, I kind of feel like the narrative. Uh, and I, so I think he kind of took a page out of the, uh, I mean, I know everybody's comparing him to Brett, but he has, he can do whatever he wants, right? So I'm not defending him.

I'm just saying he hasn't really done anything. And we all know that in 2029 that the, uh, machines are going to take over the world. It was Terminator spelled it out. No, not in 20, not in 2029. That would have happened. That would have happened already. Now that that would have happened a few years ago, not 2029. Well, this is 2025. No, no.

It would call me there. I was like, Oh man, am I misspeaking on the radio? Yeah, no, from, from terminator. Are you sure about that? August 13th of 2029, uh, the machines are going to rise up. They're going to take over the network and then we're into the time thing. Yeah. No, we're waiting.

No, we would have, we would have been, Oh my God, Chris, hold on a second, man. Wait. It would have been 1997.

It is 2025. Yeah. We would have been toasted. Oh my God. No, Chris.

Terminator did not come out in 1990. Oh my God. Hickey, help me. I need a robot to terminate me. I need to be terminated. I need to be terminated. Hey Chris, stop, stop, stop talking and listen for a second, Chris. Okay.

The terminate one of the terms. Oh, he's gone. He hung up himself. Good.

Hickey. Oh my God. Is he a robot himself? Is he malfunctioning? What was this problem? I think you're right. Malfunction.

I don't even look, I don't. I Googled this, but I know this for a fact. One of the terminator movies came out in the eighties. I want to say the first one came out, I don't know, somewhere between 84 and 86.

I would bet my whole life on it. I'm not even going to Google it. The other terminator movie, the second terminator movie came out sometime, I want to say between 90 and 92. It did not come out any later than 92. That's terminator one. That's terminator two. All right.

They made a whole bunch of stupid other terminator movies after that. Now, having said that the judgment day, the day that the robots woke up and said, we're just going to destroy the human. Screw y'all.

That was in 1997, not 20, 29. Hickey, we would have been burned to a nuclear crisp more than 20 years ago. Okay. That would have been bad.

That would have not been very good. Yeah. Well, so I'm glad, I'm glad we survived, I guess, survived it. Right. Is that fair to say? You're glad it didn't happen in 97? Yeah.

Very. Not to say that it won't happen in another year, though, right? Well, I mean, there are those doomsdayers out there that always think the world's ending, you know, on certain dates that we've thankfully so far have survived. Hey, we made it through Y2K. How about that?

That's true. And there was like, was it 666, right? 6606. That was another big date.

Whoa. When was that? That was, what year was this? I think it was 06, wasn't it? 2006? June 6th.

June 6th. Man, Hickey, I don't even remember that. Do you remember something about that day? Not that day, but I remember that was a talking point leading up to that day of just like, this is it. I don't remember nothing about it. And there's one other, at least that I can remember, it's been twice, nothing recent, where people said the world's ending on this day. I feel like I want to say 2011 was another date, I believe. 11, 11, 11, I guess? I don't know.

I don't even remember what happened on Y2K. I couldn't tell you if I was awake. I couldn't tell you if I was asleep. I probably woke up and was just like, oh, everything is fine.

Like, what's the big deal? It's the year 2000. I don't remember Y2K. I remember nothing.

Hey, Act, do you remember what you were doing when we went from 99 in 2000? Were you celebrating? Were you asleep?

Yeah, I was at a friend's house and I looked at the phone, my cell phone at the time, a flip phone, to see if it would change. I was like, yeah, we're still here. Yeah, still here.

Yeah. VCR changed. Stove changed.

Cell phone changed. Man, we're still here. Here we are in 2025. This is weird stuff, man.

I feel odd. I want to go back to 1997. I don't know why, but just take me back.

Well, yeah, take me back there with no Terminator judgment day. It's the JR sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break when we come back. Coming back might be Damian Lillard. We're going to give an update on his health and what's going on with him and his leg. And then Matt Ishbia of the Phoenix Suns, the owner of the Suns, he might as well be the Terminator in the NBA. This guy's going through, he's going to have four different coaches in four years. And I'm going to tell you, a matter of fact, you will hear on the other side who he has to blame for how bad the Suns are.

And take a guess, it's not him. It's the JR sport re-show on the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the JR sport brief. Yeah, I love Tulane. I love Louisiana. Shout out to all my people down in New Orleans. It's the JR sport re-show on the Infinity Sports Network. 888-710-4ISN.

That's 888-710-4ISN. Thank you to Chris from Virginia for calling in the last break to talk to us about Aaron Rodgers and then the robots who will eventually take over planet earth. We appreciate that.

Maybe the robots will have better decision making than some of our NFL GMs, some of our NBA owners who just draft bums and busts and fire people left and right. But before we get to that, here's a little bit of good news on an actual human being. Damian Lillard, who last played a basketball game on March 18th. I don't know.

Wow. It feels like he's been gone for like two months, but almost a calendar month here. Damian Lillard, we found out he has that blood clot in his leg.

I love nowadays when we talk about sports, at least the guys who deliver the news, all these Twitter guys and news breakers, the end rapper ports and Shom Charanias. They always deliver the the medical terminology now. A deep vein of thombrosis in his leg, a deep vein thombrosis in his arm, in his armpit.

Like, man, just just call it what it is. He got a blood clot like everybody understands that. It's like, oh, he has a hematoma. He got a bruise. He got a he got a bruise on his arm, his leg, on his face.

He got a big old bruise. It's a not done. Everybody has to show off how smart they are. These people deliver news. Don't even know these things themselves.

They got to Google it, just like everybody else. But anyway, the Milwaukee Bucks actually did well without Damian Lillard. They went ten and four. Giannis is handling the basketball. So we get a lot of bull in the China shop. And then when he wants to pass the ball, he can pass it when he wants to dunk over a guy. He can travel and go ahead and do that. So the Bucks are getting ready to take on the Indiana Pacers in the first round, which starts on Saturday. Bucks. They're going to be starting in Indiana, but Damian Lillard won't be there for that first game. But we found out today he's off of blood thinning medication, which is great.

It's spectacular. Now, what that means for his conditioning, I have no idea. Does this mean we'll see him a few days after that in game two? Like, is he gone for the first round?

This is a good move. But when you don't play for a month and you're on blood thinning medication, did he lose weight? Did he get smaller? It's like, what's the deal? We have no idea.

Here's Shams. I wonder if you'll say deep vein thrombosis. He was on ESPN earlier today and he gave us an update on Lillard.

Listen. Just over three weeks ago, Damian Lillard was diagnosed with a blood clot in his right calf. Now in an unprecedented fashion, not three and a half weeks later today, Damian Lillard has been cleared from the blood clot in his calf.

He's off blood thinning medication. He's cleared for full contact workout starting today. He participated in a full practice with the Milwaukee Bucks today. And Bucks officials have been told by doctors that this is really remarkable, unprecedented recovery for him to do this.

This has really never happened before in this length of time. Now, what does this mean for his status for game one against the Pacers on Saturday? I'm told he is still out for game one. He's going to use the next several days to ramp up, do more workouts, get his car to you.

He has not played, obviously, in quite some time. Man ain't no ramp up for that. Like the only ramp up you can you can ramp up your workouts, but actually going out there and playing in a basketball game, a playoff basketball game where you're Damian Lillard, you're going to be one of the smallest guys out there on the court. And even if he was one of the bigger dudes, they just going to run him ragged like they just going to run him up and down the court.

The only way he can go out there and get better is to play. And so they play game one on Saturday. That'll actually be the game that starts off the playoffs.

That game takes place at 1 Eastern 10 Pacific 10 a.m. Pacific. And then we don't see them again until Tuesday. Game two is on Tuesday. So don't be surprised if we see Damian Lillard, I would say maybe on Tuesday for a few minutes and then they get back to action. Game three isn't until Friday. That's a hell of a stretch out like Saturday, Tuesday and then Friday. And so he can actually say, hey, I can I can split.

I can make my debut at home. I don't know. This is so up in the air. It's not like he sprained an ankle like John Moran. And he's just is he going to play?

Is he not? It's like the dude needs to get his conditioning up. And that's the thing, like I have truly no idea like what a return looks like, just because it's been what, like three weeks since he's not played. So like how quickly can you get back into shape? How quickly? Like is it just this, you know, today's Thursday and he got cleared. So where's that Friday, Saturday, Sunday month? Like can he get into shape in five days enough to play a playoff game? And then just over a week play, you know, basically the full minutes that you would like 40 minutes.

I don't know. Heck no. We know you have, especially for the playoffs, you're right. They're not going to roll you out there for, hey, you know, here's 30. Maybe in Damian Lillard's case, they want to use that as a ramp up. They figure some Damian Lillard is better than no Damian Lillard, but it's still going to be tough. And you think about the style of play with the Indiana Pacers, they go up and down the court.

They are not going to give a damn. This is not a team like the Orlando Magic who really take things slow, operate more than a half court. The Indiana Pacers led by Tyrese Halliburton, they are as run and gun and move as you can possibly imagine. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Pacers win this series. A lot of it's going to hinge on what Damian Lillard can do. And, you know, obviously Giannis is going to be leading the way, but who's going to pick up the slack after him?

I'm supposed to believe in Kyle Kuzma? I mean, I'm going to think that Bobby Portis and Lopez is going to knock down those J's all the damn time. I, I don't, I don't think this is the Bucks, the Bucks year. It'd be interesting to see how the season ends and, you know, what do we hear when the season ends? And Walkie Bucks just, I guess everybody's just waiting to see if Giannis ever decides to say, I want out or whether the Bucks ever just go, Hey man, you know what? It's, it's time to move on even in our own right.

We'll see. Speaking of moving on, I did mention the Phoenix Suns. That's all their owner knows how to do. Matt Ishbia just got rid of Budenholzer. He's now had three coaches in the past three years, Monty Williams, who went to the finals. You got Vogel, you got won the finals with the Lakers and you got Budenholzer who won the finals and championship with the, who the heck did he win with? Oh, the Bucks. Like Matt Ishbia is just firing everybody.

It doesn't matter what your accolades are. And so he spoke to the media. You might recall Matt Ishbia last year basically said, we, the Suns have everything that we need to move forward. And this year they fell on their face, 36 and 46. Budenholzer only coaching for one year.

He has $40 million left on his contract. Matt Ishbia said what we all know. The season was a joke. First off, embarrassing season, right? Disappointed, awful.

I watch every game like all of you guys do. No one's proud of it. No one's happy with it from me to the front office, to the coaches, to the players, to the marketing executive, to the security guards. Everyone's disappointed, embarrassed, and it was a failure, right? We, we struggled. We didn't do a good enough job and we got to do stuff different and change to be better.

So there's no running from that. Obviously I'm very disappointed. I think all of you guys are. It wasn't fun to watch.

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't. You gotta be disappointed if you're a Suns fan. You gotta be disappointed if you're him spending all that damn money. Now when it comes to Mike Budenholzer, you know, if Bradley Beal is a bum, which you decided to draft or excuse me, trade from Washington with a no trade clause, if Kevin Durant is spraining his ankle, if the roster doesn't have depth, why the hell did you fight a coach? The team and the roster that was constructed by James, Josh, the scouts, the front office is much better than 36 is much better than 36 win roster. So there's a lot of reasons why coach Bud's not here. I'm not going to get to all those reasons, but definitely believe we should have won a lot more games and been a lot more competitive during those games as well.

And so wish him the best, but it was the wrong coach for our organization and for that team. And at the end of the day, you know, you can, you can blame me for it because, you know, I'm the owner of the day. Yeah. So why are you passing a buck then? Don't do that.

Which one is it? You going to blame Budenholzer or are you going to blame yourself just because you own the team? Like you can't have a little bit of a cop out. Well, he wasn't the fit for us. So that's why we fired him.

And we think with the talent on the team, we should have won more than 36 games. Not when the guys are beefing, not when you bring it in three guys and then it doesn't work and Bradley Beal is ass and always hurt. Like this is what you get. It's not about the talent.

It's about the chemistry. Like this is the part that you don't get. Well, you can blame me. No, we can't blame you. Well, we do blame you, but you know, you blaming a coach.

It's a shame. And to think about what happens next. He says that the guy that I'm not going to trade Booker, he says, Oh yeah, we, we, we together some party call. Devin Booker's an amazing player. He's been here longer than me, probably longer than most of us here.

Right. I think, you know, and so he's a franchise player. He's done amazing things. And, you know, I speak with him and we're very aligned on what we want to do and what we're going to do. And, you know, his mission and my mission are very similar. Let's bring a championship to Phoenix. And, he understands the vision and what we're going to do. And I understand his vision and how we're going to do it. And now we've got to go execute. All right, Bradley Beal, we hope you decide to leave and Kevin Durant, we just want to trade your ass. And I'm just going to hang out with Devin Booker and he's going to sink or swim with us for the next forever. Yeah. That owner sounds lost. It's not about the talent, man.

It's about the chemistry. It's the JR sport reshow here with you coast to coast on the infinity sports network. We're going to take a break when we come back. Hey, how about this in about 30 minutes, we'll have a chat with Avery Johnson, former NBA championship point guard. We'll talk more play and we'll talk some NFL and even Nico Imeleava. Don't move.