REShow: Hour 1 (7-3-2023)

This OMG is the Rich Eisen Show. No other way to put it. With guest host Brian Weber.

Oh my gosh. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I'm not talking to you. I talk to anybody out there like haters. Rich Eisen. I talk to the haters right now. And now, sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. Welcome to the program. Always outstanding to have the opportunity to sit in for Rich, interact with you in the midst of a long holiday weekend. But we are live. We're not playing tape and we have a ton to get to. But the goal is always to be interactive. I give out the phone number for a reason beyond the fact that I am a radio guy who is projecting on the 3rd of July.

It's 844-204-7424. In all candor, if you've had to adore me in the past, I take this opportunity seriously. Hopefully I don't take myself too seriously, but I'm probably not that self-aware. So I have four hours of content that we're piling up going back to Friday with the start of NBA Free Agency. And then everything changed once Dame made it official. He wanted out. Phone calls taken selectively. But I'm open to the notion of having a conversation with you. 844-204-7424. Hit me up on Twitter if it's still operating.

And I got a 39 out of 100 in the last math class I took in graduate school. I'm not your quad computer guy. I have no idea what's going on in the Twittersphere.

But I know it's been a little bit choppy as of late. The handle is B.W. Weber.

Weber with two B's. I also have a promise to you. If you're not a huge NBA offseason fan, I understand it's not for everybody. I'm not just doing three hours of Damian Lillard. Watch, watch, watch, watch, watch. Now we're going to jump right in talking about what the future looks like for the soon-to-be former star in the face of the franchise in Portland. But I do my best to be comprehensive and versatile. We're going to get to some NFL in 20 minutes.

Does anybody want to sign a marquee running back like Dalvin Cook, Ezekiel Elliott? We've got some college football on the way in 40 minutes. I'm going to talk baseball. At least I'm going to try because we're going to do it in an entertaining fashion. Yeah, he did it again. Otani Mania is sweeping the nation. Home run number 31 yesterday. Why are we not talking more about one of the greatest achievements we've seen in our collective lifetimes?

And I try not to deviate too much from what I believe is a winning mindset. Only two guests along the way coming up in the second hour of the program. Allow me to not have to go through all the Damian Lillard minutia on my own once more. We'll bring in Curt Haylen, lead NBA writer for NBCSports.com.

That conversation comes your way at 1 20 Eastern Time. Final hour of the program, we talk NFL with Jason Cole, long-time football scribe, author of Elway, A Relentless Life. So with the notion that we're going to make sure that this does not become all NBA radio all the time.

Now, arguably I should do nothing but all of the exotic what if dot dot dot scenarios that exist out there. First, let me take a moment and acknowledge that the content gods were smiling upon everybody who's working this week. Because if I had to start the program with the obligation to talk about what was quote unquote the biggest story of the weekend and it was only NBA free agency.

Theoretically I'm a wordsmith and I get paid to come up with interesting angles and not just follow the crowd. I don't think I could have nor what I've wanted to do three hours of Kyrie Irving radio. So thank goodness we don't have to get into all of the details of what was largely uneventful transactions when it came to free agency.

It was all about two trade requests slash demands that evolved as the free agent frenzy got going. And I'm Brian Weber trying not to be frenetic. Looking to have a dialogue with you.

844-204-7424. Open for business on Twitter. B. W. Weber. Weber with two B's. It started with James Harden. I don't find that situation that interesting other than it's now linked to Damian Lillard. So let's start with an overview as to how we have arrived at this place in which Dame finally wants out. I think the key word there is finally.

What took so long? And I'm based in Southern California like Rich. I've covered West Coast sports for better than 30 years.

Yep, I am damn old now. So there's no East Coast bias on this program. I have a wonderful sense of appreciation for what Lillard has meant to that franchise. Also, Portland is a great basketball town. But if the goal was to win, why did it take this long for Dame to force his way out? Now you could say he was being loyal, which is a noble concept. You could say he was trying to give Portland as much time as needed to build a winner around him. But he should have flexed his muscle like every other NBA star has done in the past. And we can have a conversation about what loyalty truly means in the modern sports context if you want. But Dame was way too patient.

Once they traded CJ McCollum, he should have demanded at that moment, it's over. It's been a great run. Now it's time for a divorce, as Arnold once said. That was a horrible Schwarzenegger.

I will not do Danny Ganz radio the rest of the way. So on some level, I'm just surprised it took this long. Just think about the TikTok chronology as of late. You had the statement released that indicated the organization had the quality meeting with Damon Lillard. They were all copacetic and aligned in their perspective. And then everything changed.

So this is long overdue. And now it becomes very interesting because if the organization is going to do the right thing, don't they have an obligation to send him to a winning situation? Because it's clear. And you go back to the podcast that Dame was a guest on when he was asked the hypotheticals, where could you go? And he made it very clear he wanted to go to Miami for all the understandable reasons. And you can certainly get why Miami should be all in to get him. Here's a team that wasn't your typical eight seed this year. Remember, they were the top seed last year and took Miami-Boston all the way down to the final minute of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals with more superhuman play from Jimmy Butler. You put Butler now in more of a complementary role. People forget Jimmy Butler's in his mid 30s.

I think about all of the minutes he's been piling up with these deep playoff runs. But Dame plus Butler plus Bam Adebayo and the term we've all kept using as a crutch over and over again, heat culture. Now we're looking at a Miami team that is top three, top four, depending on what sportsbook you're looking at.

They've already adjusted the odds. If Dame takes his talents to South Beach, you're looking at a heat team that would not have gone down in a gentleman sweep Denver, clearly, if they had Lillard. But the Blazers have their own obligation. Because now that this is the endgame, and we're getting to finality, Blazers really don't owe Damian Lillard anything.

Now, you want to be accommodating the Stars because if you screw a marquee name, nobody is going to want to do business with you. And it's all about player empowerment in the NBA. And this is not a new development. People forget, go back to Kareem forcing his way out of Milwaukee in the mid 1970s. The NBA has always been driven by superstars. And that's not a bad thing. Because if you have a singular level of talent, you're going to lose your talent. You should be able to dictate your future. I understand the sanctity of contracts.

And I don't want to get into the tired conversation about reciprocity. But I think Damian Lillard was too loyal. And he burned years in his prime. He's been there over a decade.

He's 33 years old. Now, if you look at, say, Chris Paul, and you're a believer, I don't know how you can tell. I'm not saying he's not going to the Hall of Fame or if you want to slot him top five, top seven point guards of all time. If you're a Chris Paul fan, and we're going to talk about the Warriors coming up, we'll get to the Lakers, the Bucks, I think, with the most significant sneaky moves, especially keeping Brook Lopez. I didn't think Chris Milton was going anywhere.

But Giannis and Middleton and Lopez in another year of holiday, if Giannis doesn't get hurt, Milwaukee doesn't lose in the first round of Miami. But if my aunts had a mustache, dot, dot, dot, I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, I'm with you all week long. And to prove my versatility, tomorrow, we're not just doing hot dog radio, okay? We have hot take radio, but I'm not spending the entire program on Joey Chestnut.

I have crafted, I think, a different slant on how to handle holidays, and that's why I always feel very fortunate when the phone rings and they say, come on in. 844-204-7424, the number to call. Twitter is probably the best way to slide in. BW Weber, Weber with two B's in 15 minutes. What is going on with veteran running backs in the NFL? But if Portland is just looking out for what is the best result for the franchise, maximizing value for sending Damian Lillard to another team, and we know Dame's end game, it's to get a ring, I think we have to talk about the Utah Jazz, because I could just sit here and say, okay, Portland and Miami, here's how it lines up, but I'm assuming a degree of sophistication and a general knowledge of what's going on out there. Miami has Tyler Herro as a linchpin, Duncan Robinson and a bunch of picks.

Is that that sexy for Portland? Obviously not, because if it was enough, the deal would be done by now. The reason I think we're going to be talking about this all week long is that Portland has leverage. Yes, they're going to accommodate Dame, but they don't have to do it right now. In fact, they could slow play this all the way until the start of training camp in October. You don't want it lingering over the franchise, but there's no urgency.

There's nothing coming up on the NBA calendar that says this has to get done right now. So beyond the usual suspects, namely Miami and Philly, the Philly angle is intriguing on a variety of levels, because then you get hooked up to James Harden wanting out, and now you're starting to have a collection of power brokers who understand how to do these deals and have a body of work getting involved. In addition to Pat Riley trying to come up with the best swap and minimize what he has to send to Portland in return for Lillard, where you throw a skilled negotiator and team architect like Daryl Morey, who's done it in Houston, done it again in Philadelphia with mixed results, but he's a cerebral dude.

He understands how to think creatively. Now we're talking multiple teams getting involved, Harden winding up potentially on the Clippers as a cynic and a long recovering Knicks fan. I'd love to see Harden in New York on the Knicks just because the chaos factor would be fascinating, but let's keep it grounded in reality for now. Harden winds up on the Clippers. Lillard lands in Philadelphia, and that also assuages Joel and Bede, because if you've been listening carefully, there's been more and more murmurs that, and Bede is tired of losing in the second round of the playoffs. Now some of that's on Joel.

Your best ability is availability. Unfortunately, he just can't stay healthy. We saw it again against Boston when Harden had that phenomenal game for the ages, game one on the road at the Garden, and you think, okay, this is the year Harden is finally going to come alive consistently in the postseason, and then we saw the wild undulations game by game, knocks down the three when they go back to Philly for another heroic performance, and then Harden disappeared towards the end of that series. But if you put Lillard next to Embiid and you keep Maxey, Philadelphia is ready to take the next step. And oh, by the way, they extended Boston to a game seven in the Eastern Conference semifinals. But that move I think primarily would be driven to hammer home to Embiid. We're committed to doing everything it takes to maximize this window for you, because unfortunately with Embiid's body of work, we can't presume he's got another 10 to 12 productive seasons in front of him, because he's made of glass and he keeps breaking down.

The Miami outlook is straightforward, feels like, plug and play, and because I've had the great opportunity to be in for Rich over the last few July 4th, how many times, hopefully you're hanging on every word, has a fella like me said, Miami is one star away. That was the thought process going back to last year's playoff when they lost in the final minute of game seven as the top seed in the Eastern Conference final to Boston. And I kept saying, okay, Butler can only do so much. Who's the second best player on that team offensively?

It can't be, bam out of bio. At times it was Gabe Vincent. And a quick sidebar, I find it very interesting. And I don't know if we're being trolled at all by the NBA media, or maybe they're trying to suck up to LeBron and Rob Palenka, but I have no life.

I spend a lot of time looking through blogs and listening to podcasts, not to steal material, but to come up with the wisdom of crowds. Just about every NBA pundit has given the Lakers a B plus or an A minus for their free agent moves. And I'm not bashing what they did. The key development was keeping that core intact. Although remember, I thought the primary reason why the Lakers had the radical transformation after the trade deadline really came down to jettisoning Russell Westbrook. Just getting him off the roster was a huge advancement. But Reeves came alive and became a consistent three-point shooter. Ajomura had productivity nobody expected because really nobody wanted him prior to the renaissance with the Lakers. They keep DeAngelo Russell.

Yeah, they did it on a discount, but that's where they lost me. Because if you paid any attention to the Western Conference Finals, Russell was MIA. He was such a liability. They had to get him off the floor towards the end of that sweep.

And losing Schroeder is a big deal. And you can say, okay, well, they got Gabe Vincent. Aren't they the same player?

I'm not sure. Because Gabe's a great story. Undrafted out of UC Santa Barbara, back to that notion of the Heat culture. Seven undrafted players, part of Miami's run to the NBA Finals. But is Gabe Vincent really going to be the difference maker? And if the goal for the Lakers every year is to win it all, but it's even more pronounced given LeBron being a year older, his nonsensical flirtation with retirement when he was emotionally spent and I think wanted to shift the narrative after the sweep at the hands of the Nuggets. And just like Embiid, you can't count on Anthony Davis because you are what you consistently do.

Unfortunately for AD, he's always hurt. I thought the Lakers did fine, but did anything really change from where you would slot them in the balance of power in the West? Especially because Phoenix got much better with the Bradley Beal deal. I understand the Nuggets lost some complementary players like Bruce Brown. To me, in Vegas concurs, they're still the team to beat. So I don't fully get the euphoria over what the Lakers did.

It was alright, as the kids say, but nothing that would move the needle. But as we wind down our Damian the Lord thoughts here, we're going to get back to it coming up in the next hour of the program, but I don't want to bludgeon you with nothing but hypotheticals. Miami should do whatever it takes, although Pat Riley will rarely overspend when it comes to future assets, but this to me is the move. You do the dance with Portland, you go through every negotiating tactic, but ultimately give them what they want.

And if it means the Go Bear package, remember Go Bear to Minnesota yielded four number ones. I don't think Portland's getting all of that, but they better ask and they better be willing to be patient to get as much as they can in return. Philadelphia to me might even be more interesting with Lillard on them. Don't overlook the Nets, but again, if Lillard wants to win anything, you're not going to Brooklyn. Still, the Nets, because they blew up the team, have loads of trade assets in return for sending Durant to Phoenix and Kyrie to Dallas. San Antonio's been mentioned.

I get it in the abstract. Dame plus Wembanyana would be fascinating, but they're not going to be ready to win this year. I think the Jazz Bear monitoring, because I mentioned that Go Bear trade. Remember who pulled that off? That was Danny Ainge. Danny Ainge showed us consistently in Boston with all the creativity to get Garnett and assemble that championship roster.

Danny Ainge is a brilliant basketball mind. Again, if we're trying to assuage Lillard and we want to end this relationship on a positive note and send him to a place that can win now, that's not Utah. But does Portland really have that responsibility or do they owe it to themselves to honor the request to get Lillard to a better situation? Because candidly, anything's going to be better than Portland, and I'm not bashing the Scoot Henderson pick and I understand what they're doing. They're blowing it up to rebuild, and that's what you have to do in the NBA when you've been stuck in the middle. But I do think, and we're going to talk about it with different slants and different perspectives, that's after all, will they bring me in in the midst of a long holiday weekend? The Jazz should be on that next year beyond the usual suspects of Miami and Philadelphia. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen.

I'm going to give myself a self-high five. I managed not to do anything in depth on Kyrie Irving just because I find the topic so tedious and because we saw how badly it was from a basketball fit, the pairing of Kyrie and Luca as that team imploded. All right, I'll throw it out there, I'll throw it out there to you.

Tell me why anything is going to be fundamentally different with a bigger sample size moving forward. Now that we know that Irving is not going anywhere, signing the three-year deal in Dallas. If you're an NBA fan, I'm here to have the conversation with you.

844-204-7424. Hit me up on Twitter, B.W. Weber, Weber with two Bs. We'll get back to the NBA to tip off the next hour of the program, talking the brilliance of Shohei Ohtani as well. We'll bring in our first guest an hour from now, that's Curt Heedlin, lead NBA rider for nbcsports.com. Straight ahead, no show talks football from a more sophisticated perspective than the Rich Eisen show. Remember, Rich was employee number one when NFL Network signed on to 2003. Quiet time in the league currently, but the silence has been deafening for marquee running backs like Dalvin Cook. Melvin Gordon is unemployed as well.

Is he correct in saying running back is now the worst position to play in all of football? That's on the way, just getting warmed up here on the 3rd of July. Looking forward to having the conversation with you. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich. It's the Rich Eisen show. The average on farm income in the United States was a loss of eleven hundred dollars. Sixty percent of U.S. pork comes from one company wholly owned by the Chinese, and farmers are more likely to commit suicide than veterans.

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Moinkbox.com slash yum. I guarantee you're fixing to say oink, oink. I'm just so happy I got moinked. Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So no, that's a good thing.

That's definitely not a problem. Reese's, you did it. You stumped this charming devil. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show radio network. Ryan Webber with you. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solution for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you. Call clickrainger.com or just stop by.

844-204-7424, the number to call. Twitter is percolating. Last time I checked, BW Webber, Webber with two B's, with the understanding this is a holiday week. The whole thing going back to Friday.

In fact, if you were smart, write this down from the guy you don't know on the radio, BW Webber, Webber with two B's. Next time you see July 4th landing on a Tuesday, Wednesday, middle of the week, back it up, take a few days off, heading into the weekend, then you supersize things or just mail it in. You have my permission as the fill-in host.

This is part of the FCC handbook. If you're actually at work today, first of all, you have my admiration because I'm sitting in a building in which there are only two people and I'm 50 percent of that representation. I understand nobody's working this time of the year.

And if you have showed up, I'm guessing your boss is not there. So you have my authorization to kick back, enjoy what's coming your way. Talking college football in 15 minutes. There was a news dump on Friday.

That is a technical term in the PR business. You get something out there, especially heading into a long holiday weekend. Typically, the NFL does it magnificently. But there was an important event in college football on Friday. I think most of you missed it.

I'm going to give you the significance of what that decision means and what the implications are moving forward. Coming up in 15 minutes, back to the NBA top of the hour with a little bit of NFL. This is the most fallow time if there's ever, quote unquote, an actual offseason in the NFL. But we're just on the cusp of training camps. Three weeks from now, training camps ramp up and then we're all in. Hall of Fame game next. Preseason games nobody cares about, but that's a device to talk about what's coming up. And then the regular season gets going the weekend of September 10th.

Going to be very interesting to see how these rosters come into shape, namely at the running back position. Now, no need for a bake sale or a GoFundMe for a player like Dalvin Cook. But the fact that he is unemployed after four consecutive thousand-yard seasons, and that's a metric we need to add more layers to. A thousand yards now in a 17-game regular season is not that impressive, but that's the benchmark. Plus, and here's something that has even less meaning, four straight Pro Bowls for the former Viking running back who did not want to take a pay cut. Now, he's going to get a job.

The question is, what's the best football fit? I think Cook on the Dolphins would be phenomenal, but how much of a discount is he willing to take to play for a team that has a chance to do much better than any team that has Kirk Cousins as the quarterback? And that was the dilemma Dalvin faced during his outstanding tenure in Minnesota. But it points out a larger trend.

And you can certainly quibble with all of these names that I'm going to list, and I'm not defending any one of the individuals. But here we are on July 3rd, and I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen. You can hop aboard at 844-204-7424. Hit me up on Twitter, BWWeber, Weber with two B's. In addition to Cook, who is still a dependable, versatile running back who can do enough coming out of the backfield, and that's really where we're at now in terms of the big picture at the running back position. Christian McCaffrey has become the prototype. And the fact that San Francisco was able to get him for what they gave up, which was significant, but it wasn't the Herschel Walker deal, certainly, just reflects that Carolina was all in to get the number one overall pick, thank you very much. But we got Dalvin Cook. We got Ezekiel Elliott, who made a ton of money on that second contract because Jerry Jones doesn't know what he's doing. I mentioned Melvin Gordon, still a serviceable running back. Leonard Fournette, Kareem Hunt. These are known names with an established body of work.

So what's going on here? And Gordon, I think, said it best recently on a podcast. He was asked about the state of the running back position, and he said, in the most play language, being a running back now sucks. Because if you just take a step back and not only factor in all of those veteran names I just rattled off, think about the situation Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs are in. But if you think about it, both got slapped with a franchise tag, which is significantly lower than quarterbacks make. Remember, the tag is the average of the top five salaries at your position. Well, because of the class system in the NFL now and the perception that running backs are plug and play, virtually interchangeable, franchise tag is good money, but it is not even close to quarterback money. And it's even more galling if you're running back because you're paying the price. Who gets more hits every time they touch the ball than a running back? That's the very definition of their job.

Three yards and a cloud of dust, put your head down and try to run through the A-gap as we break it down in detail on a holiday eve. So I'm not saying let's have a pity party. I'm not trying to establish a GoFundMe for these running backs.

I'm just wondering aloud, and I think I have some rationale behind what's happened. Why are these fellows finding it so hard to get a job at a level of compensation they believe is fair? Well, some of it is they're used to making big money. And we're talking about Melvin Gordon, for example. Remember, he landed in Kansas City after he got cut by Denver. He was not even on the active roster for the postseason.

Still got a ring, though, as a player on the practice roster. Melvin Gordon is not going to change the overall magnitude of your roster. Dalvin Cook is going to. But how did we get to where we are in the modern NFL? I think a lot of it hinges on what happened with the Rams, and namely Todd Gurley. Because Sean McVeigh essentially said when they moved on from him, and remember just how impactful Gurley was as the marquee running back during their first Super Bowl in which McVeigh got out coached by Bill Belichick and Jared Goff played like the Jared Goff of Los Angeles, not the slightly improved Jared Goff of your Detroit Lions. After all of the fallout from that Super Bowl loss, McVeigh basically said, we enjoy Todd Gurley. Offensive player of the year put up big numbers for us, but we think we can replicate that production with several running backs.

And remember, Gurley was banged up going back to his college days in Georgia. But we have now gotten to a place where it's almost like Logan's run. If you can go back to that's a very contemporary reference, I know. But the you're 35 in the sci-fi universe and they're going to come get you.

That's your shelf life. In the NFL, it used to be 30, some of these dudes aren't even moving to the cusp of that next decade. And I don't know what's going to change because the league becomes more and more like college football, which is four wides all shotgun, but just something to track moving forward because these guys are going to get jobs at some point. But think about Aaron Jones. He took a $5 million pay cut. He didn't volunteer the Packers came to him and said, Hey, if you like playing here, how about you give us 5 million bucks back?

And he did. And to his credit, he said, I'm still making 11. That's a lot of money in the real world, but we've reached a place where running backs just don't matter.

Not only from a schematic standpoint, they're not even part of the conversation. How many running backs do we talk about? Derek Henry in Tennessee. I gave you McCaffrey.

Who am I missing? I think Bijan Robinson is going to be a terrific asset in Atlanta, especially with Arthur Smith's creative play calling. But he's the exception that proves the rule going in the top 10 after his terrific year to cap his brilliant career in Texas. So a little bit of NFL just to keep your appetite satiated on a big word Monday, we'll get back to the National Football League final hour of the program when we check in with a longtime NFL writer, Jason Cole, author of Elway, A Relentless Life.

He's also contributed to outkick.com. Coming up, more NBA top of the hour, more thoughts on Damian Lillard. Miami appears to be the destination. Is that though going to be the best outcome for the Blazers?

Are they going to get the kind of hole that they should get for a player of his magnitude? Up next, I mentioned just a smidge of college football. There was a very important decision that was made on Friday. I bet you missed it because you have a life.

I think it's going to impact two of the power five college football conferences. What was it and what does it mean? Questions will be answered coming up. I'm Brian Weber, always having a good time for you. And for Rich Eisen, it's the Rich Eisen Show. Are you currently enjoying the show on the Stitcher app? Then you need to know Stitcher is going away on August 29th. Yep, going away.

As in Kaput gone dead. Rest in peace Stitcher. And thanks for 15 years of service to the podcast community. So switch to another podcast app and follow this show there. Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Brian Weber back with you. We're live on the 3rd of July. It's the Rich Eisen Show.

Your voice can be heard if you put the phone. 844-204-7424. My Twitter handles B.W. Weber. Weber with two B's in just over 15 minutes. We ease into hour number two of the program with much more NBA conversation. Also going to talk baseball in an entertaining fashion.

Otani remains superhuman. Home run number 31 yesterday. He's got a share of the RBI lead. He's also top five in strikeouts when he's on the mound.

But in a lot of ways, it feels like he's still underrated. We'll talk about that. The Mets actually won a series for the first time in over a month. And there are several really interesting teams in baseball. And if you've had a deal with me in the past, you know that I've been allergic to talking baseball on this platform because while I'm 110 years old and it was my primary passion that got me into the business, it just does not translate to a national perspective anymore. But this has been a damn good year for baseball. Not telling you what to watch, but if you're a lapsed fan like I have been because I don't have to pay as much attention because I'm not in clubhouses anymore like I was when I was a local TV anchor. Just flipping around, watching MLB Network primarily because of the rule changes.

Baseball's a much better watch. We'll get there coming up in 15 minutes. And I mentioned the Twitter handle.

I could demonstrate that I do read your tweets because as I was sifting through the old Twitter machine, just saw a Woge bomb in the last 10 minutes. Anthony Edwards, former number one overall pick. Minnesota gave Denver as much trouble as anybody had to head. You'll recall in that brief playoff series after Minnesota survived the play-in, Edwards, a very good young player. Averaged just around 25 points a game this year.

He got the bag, as you kids say, no surprise. Max Steele, five years, 260 million dollars. You and I should have worked on our vertical leap. If you're of a certain age, when you bought, say, Street and Smith, it wasn't in Sports Illustrated, it was in the quarterly periodicals.

The college football preview or the NBA preview. They had these shoes, and I'm going to paint the word picture precisely because we're not streaming on the Roku channel today. Basically, they had a giant platform up on the sole and a lot lower on the heel. And the whole point was to build up superhuman quads with the claim, and I had a buddy who spent the money in the shoes, that was not able to live up to the hype.

But the claim was, you're going to pick up four to six inches on your vertical leap. And A, I think the guy blew out his Achilles. B, he looked like a clown.

C, magically he could not dunk, but we all should have focused more on our hope skills. Brian Weber, in for a rich eyes, an A442047424 coming up in the next hour of the program. 120 Eastern in addition to the NBA. I'm going to handle with the next adroit monologue. We'll expand the conversation. Say hello to our first guest, Curt Haylen, lead NBA writer for nbcsports.com. Talking Lillard, James Harden, and overall takeaways from the burst of activity we had early on in free agency as things now have gotten much more tame.

The same frenetic pace has waned a bit moving forward. I mention primarily because I want to do my best not just to be a slave to NBA talk. And if you want more NBA, hit me up on Twitter. BWWeber, Weber with two B's. But I think after a while, just going through transactions becomes repetition.

So on Friday, I was always thinking about other things I wanted to cover in our time together this week. I saw this one and maybe this is a little bit of west coast bias, but college football is the second most popular sport in terms of TV ratings. Second only to the NFL. College football has become a multi-billion dollar industry and thank goodness the players now are participating with name, image, and likeness and they deserve in my opinion, not speaking for any of my employers, namely the Pac-12 network, I think the players deserve a hell of a lot more because they're responsible for the revenue. You have coaches making eight, nine, ten million bucks a year. You have strength and conditioning coaches making over a million dollars a year.

The quarterback should be participating in that revenue and I think we're getting closer to that, but that's a conversation for another day. We're getting more clarity as to how the overall landscape is developing. So here's the item on Friday you may have missed. San Diego State decided for now to remain in the Mountain West Conference.

What does that mean? Well, I thought it was very interesting based on the timing because after the Aztecs remarkable run to the Final Four and Brian Dutcher is a phenomenal coach, it became conventional wisdom that that was the tipping that was the tipping point that was going to get San Diego State into the Pac-12, which is soon to be the Pac-10 with UCLA and USC walking away from over a century's worth of tradition just to get more money from the Big Ten. That's all that the underlying motivation for especially USC. UCLA is following the Trojans because they have real financial challenges as a public school and part of the UC system. USC, and I say this as an alumnus who wrote a check for grad school, where do I go to get that money back working on a holiday eve? USC has the ability to print money. They have as deep pockets as anybody else with the endowment and the alumni base. This was flat out greed.

They wanted more and they betrayed their partners. I'll say it again, teams and universities and relationships that date back over a century, they're throwing it all way to get more. And I guess that's the point of what we do in capitalism, but you think 100 years might mean something. It leaves the Pac-10 coming up scrambling because 10 is a functioning number, but it's all about inventory from the television networks. And 12 is better because 12 gives you two more teams times the 12 regular season games.

That's 24 more games to sell. So the Pac-12 at some point is going to have to do something. The fact that San Diego State is staying in the Mountain West for now has these implications. It gives them more time to decide, do they want to flirt with the Big 12 because the Big 12 has been highly ambitious. And if you haven't been paying attention as of Saturday, July 1st, Big 12 now has Cincinnati, now has Houston, now has BYU part of that conference as they're getting ready to say goodbye to Oklahoma and Texas. And the Pac-10 soon to be is scrambling, but conventional wisdom said that the most straightforward way to replace, just from a numerical standpoint, not from a perspective of impact or money, but just to round things back to 12, say goodbye to USC and UCLA, hello to San Diego State. It gives you a team in Southern California. And the other likely addition to the conference, conventional wisdom says, is SMU. Seems like an odd fit when you first hear that, but if you take a step back, what does SMU bring any conference?

The Dallas TV market. So the fact that San Diego State is staying for now has these consequences. The Pac-12 is going to announce a new television media deal. In my opinion, I have no sourcing on this.

I'm speaking for myself. They're going to do it in three weeks when they have Pac-12 football media days. Because if they don't, that becomes a very challenging afternoon, couple afternoons from a PR perspective. Not only do you have the commissioner and administrators having to fend off questions from the media, then you have coaches and players being asked about the tenuous future of the conference. So I think the Pac-12 will have an announcement from an overall standpoint saying, okay, moving forward, you can watch some of our games on these networks.

That is the first step. Then they're going to take their time and do even further due diligence to figure out what are the best two schools to get them back to a dozen and make the Pac-12 remain the Pac-12. I still think it's going to be San Diego State and SMU. In my view, the reason why San Diego State did not make the announcement on Friday, they were leaving the Mountain West Conference, is it's going to take longer than they would hope it would take.

Because the league is going to be as meticulous with the planning year. There's also negotiation. When Utah came into the then Pac-10, they didn't get a full share of the media rights for the first few years. And San Diego State, in my view, is probably at the negotiating table saying, well, we're bringing, wherever we go, be it the Pac-12 or the Big 12, whatever conference we join, we're bringing a basketball program that just made it to the Final Four, a decent football program with a brand new stadium, and you're getting a piece of the Southern California TV market from an expanded sense. San Diego is in LA, but there's an overlap in Orange County. And the whole point of this exercise is San Diego State wants to get paid and they're not going to take a lesser deal.

So if you're thinking about the dominoes falling, the fact that San Diego State on Friday announced that they are not leaving the Mountain West Conference for now means the Big 12 is still in play and the future of the soon-to-be Pac-10 conference is still very much in doubt, which I say from a standpoint of self-interest. Please, let's get some clarity because I have soccer, volleyball, and baseball games to call, I hope. But today, my focus is the Rich Eisen Show. One hour down, two more big hours on the agenda.

Plenty of time for you to get involved. 844-204-7424. Hit me up on Twitter. B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, coming up as we jump into the second hour of the program. Many more thoughts on Damian Loward, plus Otani Mania running wild, but his show, hey, owned to Raiden. That's coming up. I'm Brian Weber.

We appreciate the company on the 3rd of July. It's the Rich Eisen Show. How wrestling really works and how you get the ratings. Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson explain on 83 weeks. Collision has been struggling a little bit out of the gate with these ticket sales. A little bit out of the gate. This was a major show announced on a major network with what everybody thought was this huge star, CM Punk. I said he was going to be the biggest financial flop in wrestling history and I think I'm being proven right every minute of the day. 83 weeks on YouTube or wherever you listen.