Cooper Flagg to the Mavericks, Levi Weaver of The Athletic joins the show

It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia.

Thank you to our producer in New York, Chris Persianin for holding things down on the boards in New York City. And thank you for being here. Man, we've already been hanging out for an hour. Where have you been?

We talked about a lot. Found out that Jason Tatum officially ruptured his Achilles. Out for the season, whatever is left of it for the Boston Celtics next season as well. Probably no timeline on his return.

Just unfortunate. We talked about Pete Rose. Now that he's passed, Rob Manfred removed him from the ineligible list. He's clear to be reinstated and maybe even have a pathway into Cooperstown. Yeah, Pete Rose might get into Cooperstown. Who would have thought?

I think it's going to take a long time. And then speaking of somebody else having some dealings with Cincinnati, Trey Hendrickson basically said, listen, I got one year left on my contract. If the Cincinnati Bengals don't pay me, if they don't pay me my money, I'm not showing up to work. I need that extension. He might as well make enough money, pay him.

Cincinnati Bengals, they either don't spend the money or they spend it stupidly. So there you have it. And we have so much more to get into. How about this? In about 20 minutes, we're going to have a chat with Levi Weaver from The Athletic. I want to get his thoughts on this situation involving Pete Rose. What's next? Does he have to wait? He's gone. And we'll talk some other things.

Major League Baseball as well. Hey, next hour, we will be joined by Kevin Gray Jr. Kevin will come by. He covers all things Dallas Mavericks for the DLLS podcast. I know Dallas Mavericks fans and in quite the mood. Night and day versus what they felt early this year up until now. The trading of Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. And then last night being awarded with the number one overall pick.

And then is that's that's later. We got Cooper Flag coming later this year. Tonight, a matter of fact, minutes from now, we have the Indiana Pacers trying to close out the Cleveland Cavaliers. And then tonight in a series that's tied up at two games apiece, we have the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets. Jokic, man, they've been giving that guy fits. Let's throw a Hartenstein at him. Let's go ahead and throw Chet Holmgren at him. Let's throw two defenders at him.

If you get by one, there's another seven foot of just hanging out in your face. So we'll see what happens with Jokic. I'm expecting a big game. I wouldn't be surprised if the Denver Nuggets went ahead and took the lead tonight as Jokic can't be this bad. He has been stinking the joint up. He's still putting up some of his Jokic numbers, but he is shooting percentages and getting the ball out.

And some of these passes is certainly not what he's been used to. If you want to give me a holler, you can. The phone number here is 888-710-4ISN. That's 888-710-4ISN. You can find me online. I exist all over the internet. I am at J.R. Sportbrief. That's at J.R. Sportbrief.

Every place online on social media. Still trying to wrap my brain around just everything that took place in basketball last night. It was absolutely wild to see the Golden State Warriors go down.

Not a surprise. Steph Curry hurt. But to see how Anthony Edwards elevated his game, dropping 30 points to get them to that space, the game before that, just the New York Knicks just coming back to beat the Boston Celtics and then Tatum going down. And we might really have an Eastern Conference Finals between the Pacers and the Knicks.

It's like it's the 90s. And then before we even got to any of the basketball, we got all the news about Cooper Flag and the fact that the Dallas Mavericks with a 1.8 chance to ultimately win the NBA draft lottery. They come out on top. And not only do they come out on top, you would think that Niko Harrison feels vindicated. He got a new lease at life.

I know, Chris, I mentioned it briefly yesterday, but there's an entire video of the Dallas Mavericks in their war room as they awaited the results. Niko Harrison just kind of, I've never seen somebody jump up that fast in excitement knowing that they got this number one overall pick. Did you see the grin on his face? Like the face he made, he turns around and the camera's behind them. So it's actually perfect for the viewer, for the fan at home to see Harrison's face. That guy has a grin. It's a real like, ooh, I got away with this type grin. Yeah. That's one of those things that you just thrilled and happy.

You got away with something and now you got a new lease at life. I mean, they were having mock funerals for Niko Harrison outside of the Mavs Arena in downtown Dallas. Like they were chanting to fire Niko inside the arena while he was there.

Somebody yelled at him directly into his face that he should go ahead and get the boot. And a lot of his responses and a lot of the responses from the Dallas Mavericks have just been disastrous from the new owner coming by and telling everybody that, oh yeah, we got rid of Luca because he doesn't have a work ethic. Like Shaquille O'Neal, what? The guy that pretty, I don't want to say he tanked the Lakers, but the guy was out of shape and they could have won more. Shaquille O'Neal will go ahead and tell you that out of his own mouth. You have Niko Harrison who's sitting around doing selective press conferences with members of the media and is not allowing the entire situation to be recorded.

It's just, it's too much control. And then some of the reasonings as to, well, we got rid of him so we can bring in Anthony Davis. We want to win today.

We want to win into the future. It just made no sense. I want you to listen to Niko Harrison and tell everybody why he got rid of Luca. And part of it, not just he wasn't in shape. He ain't playing no defense and he thinks defense wins championships. Well, that's what the hell he has, I guess, coming his way in Cooper flag.

Listen to this. Jake and I, we've had a vision in the culture that we want to create since we've been here and the players that we're bringing in, we believe exemplify that. And we think defense wins championships and we're bringing in one of the best two-way players in the league. A lot of people don't talk about what he does defensively and offensively, but if you guys, you can name first team all NBA players that are also first team all defensive players.

That's a unique unicorn to try to find and we're able to find that. And as well, you look at Max Christie, he was their starting two guard, guarded all the top players in the league and he's young and athletic and bouncy and gets his hands on lots of balls. So we really feel that they're bringing in, they're adding into the culture that we're trying to create here. We feel that defense wins championships and we're excited to go. We feel like we're built to win now as well as in the future.

Oh my goodness. That was obviously right after the Luca trade. He didn't know he was getting a number one overall pick. He didn't know that he was going to be able to draft Cooper flag. He knew, and we knew at that point in time that he just moved Luca Doncic for Anthony Davis.

And like, why the hell would you do that? And by the way, yeah, you're describing Anthony Davis. If he's, if he's healthy enough to play, like he was really betting on Kyrie Irving, who has his own injury history. Unfortunately, he blew out his leg and then Anthony Davis who showed up, played and was hurt when he was acquired and then went out there and got hurt again by tweaking his groin. Like this is what we're believing in.

And so yes, all things considered, if the Dallas Mavericks are actually healthy, they have a viable team. Now nobody's expecting anything from Cooper flag because, well, he's a rookie. You know what he did in high school, what he did in Duke, what he did against team USA and a scrimmage is all admirable, but it's going to take some time. You can expect him to contribute.

It's going to take some time. It's not like, Oh my God, now the Dallas Mavericks are going to win a championship. You would expect them to make the postseason if Kyrie and Anthony Davis are healthy, but that's, that's asking for a lot in the first place and now throwing Cooper flag in the mix. Excuse me if I'm a little too optimistic and we we've heard through the grapevine, there were some reports that, Oh man, Oh, you heard Nico. He wants to, he wants to win now. He wants to win into the future. Well, maybe with the number one pick, he's already made one stupid trade this year getting rid of Luca Doncic. Maybe just maybe he'll trade the number one overall pick.

Well, that's been shot down. Dallas Mavericks are going to take Cooper flag and keep it moving. And since Nico Harrison values defense so damn much Cooper flag on ESPN last night, you might recall after the Dallas Mavericks, everybody found out that they have the number one overall pick Cooper flag said, yeah, that's, that's what I do. I play offense and I play defense and I'm not Anthony Davis. I think, like I said, this isn't this entire experience for me has been amazing. So going forward, I'm just going to look forward to that. Like you said, being a two way player, that's something that I've done since I was a little kid.

So I'm just going to try and keep doing that to the best of my ability. A little kid, what, what the heck does that mean? I know the guy is six nine is even, I don't even think the guy's 19 years old yet.

You can't buy a beer, can't have a drink. It's probably not done growing and turned into Duke at six foot nine. What is he going to be six, 10? He'd be taller than that. Maybe we'll see. He's already being competitive in team USA scrimmages.

Yeah, this is, this is great. He'll turn 19 in December. Man, I'd be 18 years old running around in the NBA already. Good for Cooper flag and good for the Dallas Mavericks. You think about the team, PJ Washington, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, Kyrie, if, and when he comes back at the end of the year, beginning of the year, middle of the year, all star break, who knows?

It looks good on paper. I wouldn't hold my breath on Kyrie and Anthony Davis. You'd have to have lightning strike twice on that one. I'd be content with what we just saw last night. I'd be content here. If I was a Mavericks fan, I'd be content with the number on overall pick. I'd be content and sleep well at night knowing that I'll be able to draft Cooper flag. Who's just, he, he's a unique player.

I don't, I'm not going to go, Oh, we never seen anybody like this, whatever. There's some similarities between him and a lot of players. Whether you want to put him in the Andre Kurylenko space, whether you want to put him in the Kevin Garnett space, this guy can handle the basketball. He's a great passer. He plays defense. His offense is going to improve like a lot of players when they come into the league and a great thing. He's not some isolation idiot who's either a jacking up dumb shots or B thinking they're the next coming of, I don't know, a combination of Isaiah Thomas and Steph Curry. Stop, stop the dribbling. He'll be able to fit in and would have been able to fit in anywhere that he went and he's going to play hard. I mean, in a league where we got a lot of dudes who are running around based off of their athleticism, I can run, I can jump. I'm faster than you. Like Cooper flag has, has that nobody's going to confuse him with, I don't know, when Ben Yama or Anthony Edwards, but he's an athlete.

The guy, his offense is going to go out there and continue to grow. Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks. They have basically hit the jackpot here and no folks, I explained it last night. There was no, there's no cheating involved. There was no scamming.

Adam Silver didn't write a note. He didn't send, Chris, how else do people like a carrier pigeon, right? Is that, does that still work?

I think it works, JR. I gotta say maybe it's, maybe now they've got like drones, you know, maybe have a drone take it over. Oh, from what, New York to Dallas? If a carrier pigeon, if that was, if a carrier pigeon's in the discussion, I feel like a drone, a little more efficient, no? Well, I don't know. I know pigeons, they stop, right?

How do they take a break? A drone can just go. It doesn't need a charge or nothing like that. You're not talking about no military drone here, are we? I'm from New Jersey, JR. Whatever they had flying above. Okay. That's right.

Yeah. What happened, whatever happened with that? Did we find out? We never heard about it again.

Never heard about it again. Nobody ever even said what it probably was and we all just kind of moved on. So it was not, that wasn't E.T. or, I don't know, Phil in the, that wasn't E.T.?

I think the most likely thing is it was a warning from wherever Nico Harrison came from saying, hey, this guy's, this guy's about to do you guys in, you got to watch out and we see what happened. Okay. All right. I didn't, you write science fiction? Not yet, JR. Okay. So it's a possibility.

It's the first time for everything. Listen, it makes a lot of money. Well, this isn't science fiction. This is, this is reality right now. Indiana and Cleveland, they are underway. Obviously, if the Cleveland Cavaliers lose this game, they are done. Indiana has a 3-1 series lead. They are both shooting ugly.

Okay. Both about two of eight and two of 10 are from the field respectively, Indiana and Cleveland. The shots are not falling. Donovan Mitchell is playing. We talked about a lot of these unfortunate injuries to some of the stars that we've already seen here in the NBA playoffs. Donovan Mitchell is giving it a go on that bum ankle that kind of held him out in that last game. And we saw what the Pacers did going up by 41.

I hope that we don't have that tonight. We'll keep you up to date on this game as things continue on. We just talked about the Mavs. Next hour, we will be joined, as I told you, by Kevin Gray Jr., who covers the Dallas Mavericks. And then we're going to take a break. When we come back on the other side of the break, we'll have a conversation with Levi Weaver, Major League Baseball writer for The Athletic.

There's so many questions that I have for Levi. It's going to start off with this man named Pete Rose, who is no longer on the ineligible list for Major League Baseball. He's gone. Unfortunately passed away. What does this mean for him, his legacy?

Will we ever see Pete Rose in Cooperstown? We'll get into that with Levi on the other side of the break, amongst other things. You are locked in. You are listening. It's the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network. It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network, a busy day in a sports world. We found out about Jason Tatum and unfortunately that blown out Achilles and then a little bit of a random surprise. We found out that Pete Rose, Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball commissioner says. Ineligible, no more than Pete Rose passed away in September of last year at 83 years old.

And does this mean that there's a pathway for him to eventually get into the hall? Well, we're going to talk about that right now with our next guest joining us from The Athletic. He's a staff writer, covers the Rangers, does newsletters, does it all for The Athletic. It's Levi Weaver. Levi, how are you, man? I'm good. How are you, JR?

I'm excellent. Thank you for taking the time to join us. We heard this news a few hours ago from from Rob Manfred about Pete Rose. Was there any significance to today? Is there anything going on? Why this moment? Why are we getting this news in this kind of muted period? As for the timing of it, I really don't know. I mean, this has been a topic of conversation for quite a while now.

I mean, for goodness sake, it's been a topic of conversation for 30 years. So I don't know why now is the time. I'm sure that, you know, Rose passing away made some difference and maybe there was just sort of a period of, you know, giving it some thought and trying to figure out how he was going to handle it. But, you know, timing wise, I wish I had a better answer for you.

I just I simply do not know. When we move forward into the future, now that he's he's off the ineligible list, do you think there is a pathway for him to get into the hall, whether it's another decade ish or a few decades from now? What do you think ultimately happens?

I mean, there's definitely a path. The Hall of Fame chairman, Jane Forbes Clark, has issued a statement saying, like she explicitly made it clear, like Rose and the other players who are reinstated are officially eligible to be elected. Now, the path that they would take towards the election would not be the normal path that you see, you know, when a player retires and five years later, the Baseball Writers Association votes on them. It would be the Veterans Committee.

The Veterans Committee is made up of 16 members and it's sort of a rotating cast, but it's members of the Hall of Fame, it's executives and then, you know, veteran media members, historians. And you'll see players like, you know, this year it was I think Dave Parker was Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, you know, John Dawson, Steve Garvey, players like that. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. I think I made a mistake here.

Anyway, yeah. So Dave Parker was was one of the ones from this year that the Veterans Committee inducted. So the era that Rose played in, that committee will meet near the end of 2027. So the earliest that he could be in the hall is 2028. Levi Weaver is joining us courtesy of the Athletic. We heard about that news.

We got to wait and see. I guess this is a one one shoe to drop and one step forward as it relates to Pete Rose. Levi, I do have to ask you about an active player in Major League Baseball right now. He seems kind of disgruntled now.

It's Rafael Devers. I can't remember seeing a player this ticked off when he's earmarked for more than three hundred million dollars. What's the latest with him in the Red Sox? And is there a real possibility a contract that big can get moved? Boy, yeah, not an easy contract. Frankly, if you're the Red Sox, you're not going to trade him right now.

You know, teams, other teams will see something like this and come swarming like sharks and whatever if they smell blood. So they're not going to sell low on Devers. He's going to be there for a while. And especially if he's playing the way that he is, he won American League Player of the Week last week. So on an on field standpoint, he's he's doing great.

But you're right. There's been some very unusual levels of back and forth where, you know, this this spring, the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman, who, by the way, was the Gold Glove winner last year at their base. Devers was the incumbent to the baseman and the previous general manager had told him when he signed the contract, hey, you're going to be our third baseman in the future. So Devers came out and said, I'm not moving. I'm I'm staying at third base.

This is my spot. And then a few days later, you know, the manager was like, hey, buddy, that was the old guard. There's a new front office now.

And you should maybe reconsider. And Devers came out and said, yeah, I'm going to play a designated hitter. And, you know, their first baseman, Tristan Costas, is injured for the rest of the year. They need somebody to fill that spot. They've got a couple of journeymen, you know, utility guys playing first base. And it would be very convenient if Devers could play first base, because that would allow them to bring back Masatake Yoshida, who can hit right now as he's recovering from a shoulder injury, but he cannot feel, he cannot throw. So it would lengthen the lineup. It would be good for the team if Devers could give it a shot.

So you can see why they would ask. And Devers kind of just basically said, no, I'm not doing it. They told me to put away my glove. I'm not picking it back up. This is not an easy thing to do.

So I can see it from both sides, right? Like Devers is right. It's not an easy thing to just learn first base on the fly. The team has not really set him up for success there.

What would have been really great is if they had had him do some drills at first base during spring training so he could be a little more prepared. On the flip side, I couldn't tell you what part of playing in the big leagues isn't hard. It's all hard. It's all difficult.

So for him to make the statement like this instead of giving it a shot, I can see both sides of this. And Levi Weaver joining us from The Athletic, you talk about baseball being hard. Is it harder anyplace else right now than out in Colorado? I mean, to try to win seven and eight games. How could a team after what we saw last year from the White Sox actually be worse at this point in time? And then they get rid of Bud Black. What are the Rockies going to do?

Suffer for a few more years? Probably. I mean, there's execs around the game and anytime the topic of the Rockies comes up, it kind of turns into a head scratching conversation. We really don't know what they're doing over there. Somebody described trying to deal with the Rockies as the most confusing part of the job.

If you're trying to hook up on a trade, I don't know what they want. It doesn't seem that their direction is very clear. So it's not Bud Black's fault. I mean, Dave Roberts said, I'm not sure Casey Stengel could have fixed this team this year. I don't know how much of this is on the GM.

I do know that ultimately it falls at the feet of ownership if they have been mediocre for a long time, which they have. And their strategy has been very confusing. A couple of years ago, they were losing. They had an aging closer with Daniel Bard and everyone's like, okay, well, this is the most obvious, like they're going to trade Bard. He's 35 years old. They don't need a closer because they're not games.

They didn't trade them and they find him to an extension. I don't know, man. It's very confusing what they're doing. And I don't think if this is the first step, then great. If this is the first step of really trying to turn things around, fantastic. If this is just, you know, one move and they think this is going to fix anything at all, then I think they're woefully mistaken. Yeah, I think they don't know what the hell they're doing. Levi Weaver here with us from The Athletic on the J.R.

Sport Reef show. Teams that do look like they know what the hell they're doing. What teams have impressed you out of the gate? I know we got a lot of players who are putting up some big numbers, but what are some teams that have really captured your attention for positive reasons? The two I've been really surprised by are the Seattle Mariners and the San Francisco Giants. The Mariners last year had a really good rotation, but for whatever reason could not hit. They were just abysmal at the plate. Well, they've been hitting this year and they are winning games.

Go figure. You start to hit the ball well. With that rotation, you're going to win some games. You know, another A.L. West team too, the Oakland A's. Well, sorry, not the Oakland A's.

The A's. You would sort of expect that they would eventually have to get better and they have. They spent a little bit of money this year.

They extended some of their stars. They've been pretty good. I didn't think the Giants had any shot in the A.L.

West. The Dodgers, you know, clearly the favorites. The Padres were very, very good last year. The Diamondbacks brought in Corbin Burns and it's like, man, you know, good luck Giants keeping up with that. Well, they have been. They've been keeping up just great. Their pitching staff looks really, really good. They've kind of had a little bit of a lull with their offensively. So let's see how that goes. But those are those are some of the teams that for me, I've been pleasantly surprised by. When you talk about the A.L. West, we know it's crowded already with the Dodgers, the Padres. What do you expect?

How do you think this is going to shake out? Oh, good question. It's like May 9th, May 10th right now.

I have no idea. Very good baseball teams. I will say this, like it wouldn't surprise me if we see four teams from the A.L. West in the playoffs this year.

That would be really weird. Now, listen, the A.L. East is no slouch either with the Mets and the Phillies and baseball. So you got the Braves who got off to a rough start, but they're going to get Ronald Acuna back. They're going to get Spencer Strider back. So do I think there'll be four A.L. West teams in the playoffs? No, but it's a possibility.

Everything is a possibility. Yeah, you talking about it's May. We haven't even hit Memorial Day yet. We got some we got some time speaking specifically of players. Every day I look at the numbers of Judge and Nautani and I go, what the hell is going on?

And then we got Judge who just he come here. How do you improve? The guy continues to improve every single year. He's like, hey, number one O.P.S., number one home runs. I got a 400 batting average. I got all the RBIs and who's playing around me? OK, Goldschmidt is hitting the ball. Maybe he's not.

Is Judge an alien? Does it help to be six, seven and 280 pounds? How can I be like him? Yeah, that is a great question. I think there are a lot of major league baseball players asking themselves the exact same question.

How can I be more like him? It's man, I don't I don't know. I remember being a little kid and I grew up in the 80s and 90s watching baseball. And I remember wondering, like, man, what must it have been like to watch Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the league at the same time? Like that must have boy, that must have really been something something else. And I don't really wonder that anymore, because now I'm writing about baseball in an era where we have Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, two of the greatest baseball players of all time.

And, you know, for as long as those two are with their teams, I mean, Judge is a little older, but like, you know, good luck finishing in first place for an MVP vote. Like, I think it's a race for second place behind those two guys. Just it's it's truly special to watch. And for me, like, I it's I just it's just enjoyable. Like there are very few things in this world anymore that you can just watch and be like, this is great. And I have no reservations about enjoying it. Watching those two guys play baseball. Absolutely a joy to watch. Yeah, no, no drama, no nonsense.

They just show up and go to work. Hey, Levi, last question for you. We know about Judge. We know about Ohtani. What else should we pay attention to as the season continues on?

Anything that we should that that captures your attention that doesn't get talked about a lot? Well, the Royals are in Kansas City, so they don't get mentioned a ton just because, you know, that the the central divisions are the flyover divisions. Right. But they've got Bobby Witt, Jr., who might be the second best player in the American League. They got off to a little bit of a slow start, but they've been they've been winning more games lately. And I think that AL Central is actually a really interesting division between the Royals, the Tigers, the Guardians are still good. The Twins have started to bounce back from their really horrible start. I think that's going to be an interesting division for the rest of the year. And, you know, I also the St. Louis Cardinals, this was supposed to be a rebuild year for them. The biggest disappointment they had was that they couldn't trade Nolan Arenado in the offseason, trying to get rid of all these salaries. Well, now they're on a nine game winning streak and they're not far behind the Cubs in the NL Central. So that's a fascinating storyline to watch.

I don't I don't think they have the horses to do this long term, but who knows? Yeah. And it's it's May.

We'll see how long all of this lasts. Hey, Levi, thank you so much for coming by with the perspective of sharing some news and information as it relates to Pete Rose. Where can people follow you and all of your work with the athletic? Oh, man, it used to be easier when I was on Twitter. But it's just you could just Google my name at Levi Weaver. I'm on the athletic. We have a free newsletter.

It's myself and Ken Rosenthal. You don't even have to be a subscriber to the athletic to get the newsletter every day. It's called the wind up. And I think if you just sort of Google all those terms, you'll you'll end up in the right place. And Google is a great thing. Hey, Levi, thank you so much. A pleasure to have this chat with you. Thank you.

Happy to do it. No doubt about it. That Levi Weaver, you just heard him courtesy of the athletic drop some gems and some tea like nobody. He's right. Nobody talks about the Kansas City Royals.

Nobody does. And then this I feel bad. Think about the athletics of formerly of Oakland. By the time they get the hell up on out of Sacramento, are they going to be a decent team? Like this is bittersweet for everybody up in Sacramento. I can't predict the future. I think that they'll eventually, you know, kind of bottom out like they typically do. Not not like what we have now right now with the Colorado Rockies.

But you imagine they're actually good. And then the next thing you know, it's like I'd see it by we only sleeping on a couch for a couple of weeks. It's time for us to go out to Vegas. That that very well might be a possibility. It's the J.R. sport show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Levi just talked about the central divisions in the NL and the AL being just kind of flyovers. We're just going to go up. OK, whatever. Not West Coast, not the East Coast.

OK, whatever. We got a football team from the Midwest. They're about to spend a good amount of time in the regular season playing overseas in Europe. Yeah, an NFL team doing double duty. It's the Minnesota Vikings. I'm going to explain on the other side of the break what the Vikings will be doing this upcoming season that has never been done before in Europe. It's the J.R. sport show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.

It is the J.R. sport show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, thank you so much to Levi Weaver for joining us from The Athletic to talk about this news where we have Pete Rose now eligible. He's off the commissioners ineligible list. We can act like he exists now.

Maybe he'll get into the Hall of Fame in due time. Everything in due time. 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN. That's 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN.

You just heard it from Rich Ackerman. Here's a little bit of an update for you right now in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavaliers are trying to stay alive against the Pacers 33 to 19. Just getting underway here in the second quarter.

About two minutes have gone by. Donovan Mitchell. What what ankle pain, huh? What ankle pain does Donovan Mitchell have now?

I don't want to know what they decided to shoot this guy up with before he went out there. Scores now 36 to 19. Donovan Mitchell is trying to keep them alive. Indiana leads three to one. Now, would anybody be surprised if Cavaliers picked up a victory tonight? The answer is hell no. And as it stands right now, Donovan Mitchell, he has 13 points and it gave him something real strong before they went out there.

As we continue on with the show, we have so much to get into. One point that I did want to make based off of what Levi shared. He's just like, yeah, people aren't paying attention to the Kansas City Royals and playing a Midwest flyover city, not on the East Coast, not on the West Coast. It's not New York. It's not Los Angeles.

It's not Chicago. They're not going to get all of the love and attention and recognition that they deserve. He said flyover. A lot of things in the middle and a lot of cases tend to get looked over. Yeah. And it just it made me think tomorrow we actually have an entire release of the NFL schedule. Of course, everything that the NFL does has to be done big.

The NFL doesn't do anything small. You're not just going to get a tweet out here or there. We'll certainly get some leaks throughout the course of the day. But the NFL is pretty much planning an entire show on the NFL network in the evening time, prime time. So you can find out when and where your favorite team is going to be. Now, we did get from certain networks yesterday some of the matchups that we will have for this upcoming season. But the full slate is for tomorrow.

And so if you want to know what days you need to call off for work, you want to start preparing for when you want to make that trip out to Vegas and go ahead and pay attention to tomorrow. But one thing that we do have and have information on is something that I don't want to say is controversial because why would the NFL not want to do it? But it's the league slate of international games for the first time ever. This upcoming season, 2025 in the NFL, they are having a record setting seven international games across five different countries. OK, we got England settled.

We have Brazil, Ireland, Germany, Spain. The NFL said, you know what, we want everybody's money. And let's be real, the NFL has been dropping seeds in Europe. This sounds crazy to me because it feels like yesterday I remember NFL Europe for more than 30 years now.

OK, and so now they're making money. It's nice to wake up, if you ask me, I don't care. It's nice to wake up and just have some football on. It's like, oh, yes, 9 a.m. is 10 a.m. on the East Coast, but there's some football. Now, do I want to sit down and watch all of the games, especially if they're garbage all day?

Hell no, I got better things to do. I'm not watching these bum ass teams, but it's a good start to the day. And then we have one team in particular. They're going to be out doing double duty. OK, we have the Minnesota Vikings who will play two international games during the 2025 season. They're going to be in Dublin, Ireland, in week four, September 28th, taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then the very next week, the Minnesota Vikings are going to take on the Cleveland Browns at Hotspur Stadium. That's in London.

That's on a Sunday. Now, we've seen the Jacksonville Jaguars kind of hang out and say, oh, here we are. You know, we're we're in London, we're in the UK, but we've never had a team. And it's not that far realistically. I mean, it's one thing to stay in versus making some some travel into another country is not that far. But we've never had a team say, here I am in Ireland and now here I am in England.

It's still UK, but a little bit different. And so earlier today we had coach Kevin O'Connell of the Minnesota Vikings. He spoke to the UK media. I don't know if he was a little sleepy there at the end. He said he was excited.

You be the judge. We're very excited to have the opportunity to once again get to play Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It's been something that we've been able to do two out of my first three years here. And we've just enjoyed everything about the process of going to going to the UK. We feel very strongly about our fan base over there that we've been able to grow and build and always feel such a genuine warmth and welcome from everyone when we get over there. And it just so happens that we'll be pairing it with a trip to Ireland as well and then make the short journey over and get to spend a little bit longer this time around.

Almost a full week on site there to to truly embrace our time there, which we're very excited about. And it's cool if you ask me, I got no problem. I'm fortunate enough. I'm very fortunate. I spent I spent the entire summer of 2012 in London at the Olympics just covering the Olympics. Shout outs to Google and YouTube. Like I loved it.

I loved every moment of it. Every second of it. If you're an NFL player, you trying to go out there for four weeks, two weeks and you're getting paid, you're getting paid handsomely. But these guys are creatures of habit. I don't know if they want to move around.

In certain cases, they're reticent to do so. And I've even gotten callers over the past several years, like people complaining about why we send the games overseas, football, the NFL, it's American. Why don't they just play all the games here? Just like, well, it's a multibillion dollar business like the name of the game for the NFL is to make money. And the fans that they have here in the United States of America, unless there's some ridiculous catastrophe, NFL fans in the states aren't going anywhere. You want to make more money.

It's like everything else. You want to scale the business. You want more customers. You want more eyeballs with more eyeballs. You can create more revenue, drive up more interest and make guess what? More money. Look, if it was viable for the NFL to go, hey, let's have a game in Australia.

There wasn't a pain in the ass in regards to distance. They do it. I mean, I don't know how long it'll take, but if the NFL felt that they could make money in Africa, damn it, then they'd go out there and do it. If the NFL thought that they could have games in China and Asia, they would do it.

The name of the game is cash and it's money. Now for the Minnesota Vikings, I really wonder what type of effect this will have on a football team. You go out there, we'll see JJ McCarthy out for two weeks and I got no problem. I like the Europe games.

I just really wonder how the teams will adjust, especially being there for almost two weeks. Hey Chris, you like the NFL, all these international trips? Any thought?

Any idea? You hate it? You love it? Oh, gee. I mean, I'm stuck here just trying to... JR, I'm stuck on the miles.

I'm just stuck on the mileage. Like we talk about these guys, you know, we talk about the ACC, oh, how are they going across the country, this and that. They're going across the world, JR.

I know they have a week between games, but you know, they come back the early week Thursday. It feels like a lot. I love it.

I love it. But logistically, it's difficult to sustain. I'm impressed by whoever's grinding the Excel spreadsheets, figuring out how to send the Broncos to New England and then to Jacksonville and then to Scotland. I mean, this is insane. It's not something I think is too much, but it's something that I do think if we see injuries go up, we may have to look into what rehab is able to be done. We'll take a break. When we come back on the other side, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the injury risk. Is there an injury risk for these players going overseas to Europe? And then you talk about injuries.

Damn it. We've seen a whole hell of a lot of them. A lot of them are here in the NBA. And so we'll get into that as well as we learn that Jason Tatum, he officially has torn his Achilles, already had the surgery to repair. We'll have a chat with Kevin Gray from DLLS Mavs. We got a lot to do. NFL, NBA, more. The JR Sport brief show, the Infinity Sports Network.