Lakers To Lose LeBron (Hour 2)

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That's BetterHELP.com slash positive. Alrighty, we're number two of our radio program. It is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. Will Middlebrooks is going to join us. Coming up in 20 minutes, we'll talk about the new pitch clock in Major League Baseball. Pete Bursich is going to join us at 8.20pm Eastern, 5.20pm Pacific, do a little QB Carousel with the Vikings, and we will double dip on the QB Carousel at 9.20pm Eastern, 6.20pm Pacific. With Kadre Ismail talking about Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens.

But I did see a report today from Adam Schefter, and I think this is pretty obvious and what everyone's kind of been assuming. But once Schefter says it, then it's all by goodness gracious, Schefter said it, and we all know how great of an NFL insider it is, and then it creates these types of conversations. But according to Schefter, the Bears have been approached by multiple teams about trading the number one pick in this year's NFL Draft, and Chicago is said to be leaning toward moving the pick, sources tell, ESPN's Adam Schefter. So, two things on this, I guess we could finally end all the nonsense, and that's what it's been for, I don't know, the last month or so, about, oh, maybe the Bears will trade the number one overall pick, or maybe they'll keep the pick and they'll trade Justin Fields, and they'll draft Bryce Young or whatever quarterback your preference is. The only thing the Bears should do is trade that pick, you keep Fields, and then you build around Justin Fields and you get more assets, and you could move back a few spots and still get that defensive player or an offensive stud that's outside a quarterback if you move down the draft board, and also gain another first-round pick, maybe more, moving into the future depending on what team moves up to where and how many spots you would fall. But you just look at the top ten, like the Bears are one, the Texans need a quarterback, they're at two, the Cardinals, they already committed to Kyler Murray, so I don't think they're going to do okay, they gave up on Josh Rosen, go to Kyler Murray, and they didn't pay Josh Rosen, they paid Kyler Murray, so the Cardinals aren't moving up to one. You got the Colts at four, who we all know that they're going to be looking for a quarterback. I can't rule out Seattle because we don't know what's going to happen with Geno Smith, and maybe they only re-signed Geno to like three years, they look at bringing in someone and moving up and then benching that guy or making that guy learn for a year or two, where that Geno Smith now becomes a mentor, but off the year that he just had, that's the conversation.

Same could be said for the Detroit Lions who are in at six, you have the Raiders at seven who need a quarterback, they don't get Rogers, maybe they want to move up, the Falcons, they could use a quarterback, the Panthers, they could use a quarterback, and then the Eagles, they don't need a quarterback. So I just went through the top ten pick, Sikhi, and you take the Bears out of it, because they're looking to trade the pick, you got seven teams in the top ten, the Texans, the Colts, the Seahawks, the Lions, the Raiders, the Falcons, and the Panthers, that you could make a legitimate case, I'm not saying all those teams are going to be interested in moving up, but there's reasoning behind that to say that they could move up and eventually snag that number one overall pick to draft, whoever the quarterback is, I would think the decision would be between Bryce Young or CJ Stroud, but who knows with the combine, I think Chris Chapasso when he joined us on this show and started talking about Anthony Richardson being the number one overall pick, now that's starting to be, I don't want to say a popular thought, but more of a discussion point in other places, and who knows then what people think about Will Levis, I'd be shocked if Will Levis is the number one overall pick, I'd be shocked if Anthony Richardson is the number one overall pick, but if it is a quarterback going off the board at number one, it's either going to be Bryce Young or CJ Stroud, and I think there is tremendous upside in CJ Stroud, even though I didn't love how he played this year in the regular season, the semi-final game was enormous, but the reason why also CJ Stroud could go number one overall is because there could be teams that are skeptical about the size or lack of it with Bryce Young, and this is what I hate really, Hickey, about the whole draft process, all throughout the year, any Tom, Dick, and Harry that watch college football would rave about how great Bryce Young is, right? We did segments that this past year for Bryce Young may have been more impressive than his Heisman Trophy winning year, which was a year ago because of just the fewer names that were around him, and there wasn't any great talent that he was throwing the football to, take the running back Jamere Gibbs out of it obviously, but he did not have elite wide receivers this year, and now all of a sudden, a month before the combine, you heard the rumblings, and now the combine is here, and it's like, oh, Bryce Young's size is a big concern.

I always wonder, Hickey, how much is this just a media narrative? How much is this actually team concerns? I'm not saying it's crazy to have concerns about Bryce Young's size, but I do believe that this is being made a bigger deal than what it actually is, because if you turn on the tape, and I hate to be the turn on the tape guy, watch the games, but if you watch the games this year, I didn't have a problem with Bryce Young's size in the college game, with how great that he played the last two years at Alabama.

I mean, you know me, I am with you. I love Bryce Young. I hear what teams are saying, because it's not just really the height, it's also the weight as well when you're talking about, is he 6 foot, is he 5'11, is he 5'10? Also, when you look at his weight, he's in like the one high 180s, low 190s, so I sort of understand a little bit why teams would say, ooh, that's really small on both sides, height and weight. But doesn't the play have to ultimately win out?

That's, for me, absolutely. And you watch how he plays. He doesn't play small. He plays to his ability. He had no problem seeing receivers down the field at Alabama. He had no problem making plays, avoiding big hits at Alabama. Even with, again, an offensive line and a wide receiving core that is not up to Alabama's normal dominant standards, I'm with you.

I have no problem, but also, too, as you know, that's probably the reason why I hate this time of the year. Too much analysis. Right. There's too much time, so you've got to find flaws with guys you love. What's the Arians saying?

You've got to pump up guys that you don't like. What's the Arians, Bruce Arians, saying? I don't know. What is it? The analysis.

I can never get that one right. Analysis by analysis. Thank you. That's what this is. This is too much analysis about a guy that you end up talking yourself out of that quarterback. And I'll read you the odds in just a second. But I also wonder how much the odds actually mean for the number one overall pick.

Because, remember, two years ago, well, obviously you remember, we had big time debates about this, and we both ended up being wrong. How they were like, odds and all, Mac Jones is going to be that pick at number three. And all the conversation, we all thought it was Mac Jones or it was going to be Justin Fields.

And then it ended up being Trey Lance. So it's like one of those things, how much do people actually know? And then you also have to decipher how much are people putting out information from these teams to try to make you think that they're going to do another thing to behoove them and maybe make people concerned that end up trading into the number one pick spot.

Like, there's so many games that go on where you just hear, like, an assassination about someone's character or something like that. There's always these anonymous stories, and sometimes they're true, but then often, most of the times, they end up just being these ridiculous storylines because there are teams that are further back that are trying to create this storyline to just fall and then make a guy fall, like, four or five spots and be there in your landing spot. Like, I'm not a big let's trash anonymous sourcing because I do think anonymous sources are very important, especially with stories where players don't feel comfortable or they feel like they can't put their name on something publicly, but they want the message out there. When it comes to the draft process, and I know that this is never going to happen, so I'm not saying that I ever expect this to happen, but I do wish that every criticism about a player or a report about a player would have a name attached to it because then that would allow us to decipher how much is that legit or how much is it just BS trying to benefit an individual team's needs. And I get it. It's part of the process. You end up making a lot of money, but I don't think it's fair to the athlete when their name is just getting dragged through the mud because there's a GM or there's a scout or someone trying to get their guy to fall four or five spots so their team could ultimately land. And it's just infuriating when it's like three months of this garbage of just like what is true, what is that is going to take everything with a grain of salt that you mentioned you're going to talk about the odds to go number one now and I'm sure after the combine and once guys throw and run and weigh the odds are going to change again and then the next week you're in here one tip is going to change again another mock draft going to change again. It's just like it just everything.

It feels like it's almost like a day to day process where one day. Oh my God. Bryce is the best prospect since Joe Montana.

The next day. This guy's not going to go in the first round. Then it's Anthony Richards is gonna be the best quarterback we have ever seen. Then it's actually will even get drafted.

I'm not really sure. I don't think some people I'm talking to don't even think he's worth a two. You know, a top 256 picks.

It's just it's so infuriating how back and forth and extreme. A lot of these reports are. Everyone thought Malik Willis was a slam dunk first round pick. He wasn't even the second quarterback off the board.

Forget the first. He wasn't even the second quarterback off the board. He ended up going in the third round.

Or did you see this Todd McShay stuff? I think this was from a few months ago where he said there's character concerns about Jalen Carter. And I'm not going to pretend to know everything about Jalen Carter. We know how great of a football player he can be, but I can't really tell you much about the person of Jalen Carter. Never met him, never talked to him, any of that stuff. But then you see this article that Jalen Carter brought bought all of his Georgia teammates that are walk ons meals with this scholarship.

You know, Hickey, that sounds like a dude that's a bad dude that has a lot of character concerns when he's going out of his way to buy the walk ons meals with with, I guess, some of the perks of his scholarship or NIL, whatever. Like you said, it's just like you got to take everything with a grain of salt and just like it's so hard. It's easy to say now, right, as we kind of enter into the season to say, oh, just don't overreact. Take with a grain of salt in one ear and out the other. Once you're actually in it, once you hear stuff from the combine and once you hear stuff from, you know, pro days, it's like, oh, my God, this team actually like this quarterback or that one.

It's it's easy to get stuck in the moment, but, you know, it's just it's so inferior. And then the questions people ask about their family, like didn't Dez Bryant, I think it was Jeff Ireland, like asked if his mom's like a prostitute or something like that? Like, oh, there's always like these weird things that get asked by these teams as well.

And I know that the NFL, I think it was last year or two years ago. And correct me if I'm wrong, they go, oh, like you could be fined, you could be penalized if you ask these like crazy questions. And if we find out about it, you know that these questions still get asked. It's just the whole process to me. It's really stupid. And and what I can't stand about it is it it loses the importance of what a kid or a college athlete, let me say, has done for two, three, four years on the field.

And if you go run a good 40 time, you go to being like a 15th overall pick or you could have a squeaky clean resume, never done anything wrong. And then all of a sudden there's character concerns about you. That that whole process really does agitate me.

It's the worst. And that's why I kind of I would love just fast forward this time to now in the draft, just because it's just so infuriating. Also, the odds of the first overall pick. Now, there's that report by Schefter that the Bears are going to trade the pick. If I'm the Bears, you would think that they're going to wait here. Like I remember a bunch of years ago when the Rams traded up to get that number one overall pick and they drafted Jared Goff.

That did that happened in advance. And then eventually the Eagles made a move following that to move up twice to get into the number two spot to select Carson Wentz, who got released today by the commanders, the 13 that wanted to get rid of Carson Wentz. But in this case, with how many dominoes there are to fall in the QB carousel hickey, like Rogers, Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, maybe even Lamar Jackson. If I'm the Bears, I would wait a little bit because you get to dictate the trade market because you have the number one overall pick. I would wait for some of the dominoes to fall because then if there is a team that was looking to get a Rogers or Carr, Jimmy G, and I know they're all different quarterbacks. Then maybe they entertain getting into the number one overall pick conversation and maybe they get desperate.

And you know what happens when people do desperate things, they then sometimes provide desperate offers to you to really give you the most amount of picks possible. And you just highlighted before, seven teams in the top 10 that could be interested in drafting a quarterback and moving on up. So if you're the Bears, absolutely you wait now.

You let everyone just basically have a feeding friend to say, who's going to, you know, offer, kind of blow it with an offer. But there's no reason why you should make a deal now, a week or so, like, let it go up to Wednesday before the draft. And if I had to take a guess, the four teams that probably would be the most likely to trade up to the number one spot, the Texans and the Colts are clearly the leaders there. Then after that, the Raiders and Panthers are also really intriguing to me. Because the Panthers just brought an offensive-minded head coach in, Frank Reich.

They're at nine. You know David Tepper's looking to make a big splash because so far his tenure as the owner of the Carolina Panthers has been a disaster. And I look at the Raiders, they're the one team I have no clue what they're going to do. I think they want Rogers, but if they don't get Rogers, if you're Zeigler or McDaniels, I know what Zeigler said the other week about patience, pretty much.

I don't know how much patience you're actually going to get. And that fan base already can't stand you guys right now. And the way that you kind of calm that animosity, which I think a lot of it is realistic too, is you go basically move up to one and get what would be perceived as your franchise quarterback of the future. And the question for the Bears is how far are you willing to fall? You talk about the Panthers, they're sitting there at nine.

Unless they blow you away with an offer that no one's even coming close to. You really want to go from one to nine and miss out easily and probably the top three defensive players on your board. You would think when you talk about them drafting Will Anderson and Jalen Carter. You're only going to do that if you trade either at two with the Texans or four with the Colts. Even seven with the Raiders probably lose out.

Ideally, you know what I would do? You probably trade back to two with the Texans or it's four with the Colts. Now, I don't think this is possible where they trade down to two, the Texans come up to one and then, you know what, they could do this. And then they fall back to two and they open back up that trade market for a quarterback. And then maybe you get a team like Indy come up because you threaten a team like the Raiders or the Panthers that want to come up.

And then not only do you move back once and get a big Kings ransom, you move back twice, go down to four. And you get all those future picks and you can still get Carter, Will Anderson, whoever the Cardinals don't take. I 100% agree and that's where I think the only scenario would be okay if you're the Bears to fall back to let's say seven or nine. If you basically make two trades in one, like I said, you get a first time pick from the Texans or maybe a very high two. You trade down once and then it's okay. The Raiders say, we're in, you know, they take let's say Bryce Young and they like C.J.

Shroud. Alright, come up to two, that's yours and then you drop down, maybe get your third or fourth defensive guy on the board. But now you have maybe a better bundle of picks in the second round especially that you would have gotten if you just trade down once from one to seven or one to nine. So the odds right now for the first overall pick, Bryce Young is at minus 125, C.J. Shroud at plus 250, Anthony Richardson, thank you very much, at plus 600.

Will Anderson plus 600, Will Levis plus 600, Jalen Carter plus 650 and that's where we will draw the line in the sand there because the Miles Murphy, the defensive end out of Clemson is plus 8,000. It is the Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio, we'll take a break when we come on back in five minutes. Will Middlebrooks will join us, former MLB player, now does a great job, Nesson and also CBS Sports HQ. Talk about all the latest with this new pitch clock in Major League Baseball.

Well, I appreciate you coming on. So big reaction with the ending of that game over the weekend with the whole fallout from the pitch clock. But the part that I find fascinating is when there's eight seconds left, the batter must be in the box and has to be alert. Like I'm still trying to figure out what all that stuff means, but overall, I'm happy with the game and the shift that the game is starting to make.

Totally, totally. I think everybody's still trying to figure out the broadcasters, the coaches, the players, you know, there's a broad outline of all these rules. But as far as the timing of everything and actually implementing it within a game with game timing and everybody has this internal clock as players and they're having to completely rewire themselves. So like you said, I think I think it's gone really well up until this point. I thought I was going to hate it as far as the pitch clock goes.

And I've actually really enjoyed it. The pace of play has been phenomenal. Games have been cut down by, on average, 23 minutes to this point, which is not less baseball. It's less standing around in dead time. It's the same amount of baseball, maybe more.

Who knows? But it's the purists standing on the mountain yelling, this is ruining baseball. It's not. If you think about it, all these purists who are, let's say, 40, 50, 60 years old, we're taking the pace of play back to how it was when they fell in love with the game.

So that kind of kills that argument. It's ruining the game. Yeah, there's a clock. Yes, there might be some dumb penalties here and there.

But the pace of play has been phenomenal. If this is foreshadowing for the for the rest of the season, it's going to be a really great season of baseball. I can't stand the commissioner of Major League Baseball and Rob Manfred. He is not a friend of mine.

I don't think he'll ever send me a holiday card. But I'll give him credit here because I like the pitch clock so far. And then also eliminating the shift. I think it's important to put the ball in play and you keep the two infielders on the left side, two on the right side. I think that will be good for baseball as well.

Absolutely. And I left out something on the previous question about the pitch clock. You said it early on about the eight seconds of a hitter having to be alert, you know, alert and addressing the pitcher.

I think that is the one part that I cannot stand. I hate it because every well, if you're a big league hitter and if you watch, if you go back and look at all of the hitter violations that have happened this spring, every single one of them, the hitter is in the box. It'd be different if he had a foot out of the box. He's doing his no-mar gloves. He's tying his, whatever, whatever. If he's out of the box at eight seconds, boom, bang him for a strike.

That's fair. The guys in the box, that's a big league hitter. He knows the pitcher can legally throw the pitch at any time he wants. He could quick pitch you.

And if he does and you're not ready, that's your fault. If he throws a strike, it's a strike. But we can't end games how we saw it. We can't see games being ended that way later down the road. Now, be aggressive with forcing the rules upon them and the violations right now because we don't want to see it in April. And we really don't want to see it in October come the playoffs.

But to your point about the shift, I love this. Now, I was a hitter, so of course I love it, right? You know, there's not three infielders on one side waiting where the computer spits out a piece of paper and says, 70 percent of time in a 2-0 count, he hits it in this spot of grass.

You know what? Most of the time it works out and there's a guy waiting for it every time you crush the ball. That's frustrating. It takes the athleticism out of baseball. Now, you can still shift.

You just can't overshift. So we're still going to see second baseman and shortstop playing up the middle. They just can't go past second base. So you can still crush the ball up the middle and not get a hit. But there will be more hard hit balls that are hits. You're not going to have the dribbler shift beaters that the old school baseball crowd says, just go the other way.

It's that easy. Just go the other way on that hundred and two mile per hour super sideways sinker that these guys are throwing nowadays. Pitching is really, really good right now. They can pitch you into a shift. But my main thing with the with the banning of the shift is I want to see these athletic infielders. I want to see the Bogarts, the Tatis. He's an outfielder now, but just all these all these infielders that are the most athletic human beings on earth.

Let them show that to me. I want to see diving plays. I want to see the Jeter throw in the hole. I want to see fun double plays and not just right where guys are standing. The ball's hit right at him. Let's have fun.

Well, Meadowbrook's here with us. You bring up a good point because how many times when you do a show like this in the NFL preseason, we're all sitting here bitching and complaining about officiating, but they're making it a point of emphasis in Major League Baseball right now. They're clearly going to be strict with this. I can't wait to see how this will be called, especially on that eight second part like you were talking about in the regular season. And that to me is just going to be a really compelling part because this is an unprecedented and uncharted territory. It is.

It is. There's got to be a little bit of feel by the umpires. I feel like in certain situations at the end of games from the seventh, eighth inning. I mean, I'm not saying get rid of it at that point of the game, but have a little bit of feel. But, you know, really, like if you're if you're striking guys out or causing walks because of these violations, you're changing the back of a guy's baseball card. You're changing history of the game with wins and losses and playoff decisions and teams that make the postseason or not.

That's a big deal. And I don't want to see that because of this this rule. I think you can improve the pace of play without that eight second rule. And now everyone's going to say, oh, well, only the pitchers have rules. The pitchers have adapted seamlessly.

It has been phenomenal how fast they have caught on. Now, I do want to see once the starters are throwing more than two innings and twenty five, thirty pitches when they're getting five, six, seven innings and they're getting 80 plus closer to 100 pitches. How tired are these guys going to be? Because we really took baseball from a weightlifting, like a weightlifting competition and turned into CrossFit, right? Everything's timed, everything's faster. These guys are going to be tired.

This is abnormal. The Boston Red Sox have Kenley Jansen, one of the best closures of all time. He led the league in saves last year before he won. But he's the slowest to throw the baseball ever. So is this going to change the way he looks? He's saying it's an advantage. I don't know.

I need to see it. He was by far the slowest in between pitches. And now he's going to be forced to throw it at times under 15 seconds in between. So we'll see how he adapts.

Well, Middlebrooks here with us. So when you get to who the advantage goes to, I think it's more of an advantage to the pitcher even with what all you just said, because it requires them to think less and sometimes thinking too much in baseball can hurt you. Do you view that as a bigger advantage with this pitch clock to the pitcher compared to the batter?

I think so. I think the pitcher controls the bat. I mean, the hitter can only call time once.

So let's say a guy is fast, fast, fast, like too fast, where I'm uncomfortable to hit her because you do have to think. You do have scouting reports. You do need to look and see where the defenses line. Sometimes the shortstop will, right before the pitch is thrown, will take a step to his left because he's given away pitches because he's trying to get a step closer to get the off-speed pitch that will be pulled in the hole. Like there's things like that I need to be able to see.

And sometimes I have to call time and I can't anymore. So there's a little small intricacies within the game that the batter is going to lose. They are taking a little bit of the thinking out of it, which to a certain extent will help. It'll be for the product of the game. I think for the fans, for the for the younger generation, I think will be great. You know, it's the constant stimulation of the brain. There's got to be something going on, something on your phone, something, you know how it is.

It's phones and tablets and iPads and people need entertainment nonstop. And so in that case, it's really going to help the game. But yes, it is going to be a major adjustment for these players. And I think it's mainly we talk about the pitch clock for pitchers, but the hitters, I think, have the disadvantage here. If you were still with the Red Sox and you were in spring training at Fort Myers, Will Middlebrooks, what would you be doing now?

And what would you have maybe done in the offseason to prepare yourself to try to make this an easier transition? Yeah, when you're what you do in the offseason, you know, face college kids, anybody, brother, pro guys, you're around. You're going to implement this. You're going to have a timer, even if it's somebody staring at a stopwatch, telling you the time because you're not everyone doesn't have the ability to have a pitch clock in the backyard, you know, at the field they're at. So literally in the cage, practice it in the cage. What I worry about are all the players going to the WBC where these these rules aren't being implemented.

They didn't inherit the rules in the WBC. So you're having these pitchers and these hitters go play on old school rules. So if I'm a manager, I'm telling my players, hey. Practice and play just like we're doing here and continue to just be in the box longer, get in the box. Don't come back with bad habits because let's say you play the whole tournament, which the Dominican team may do because they're maybe the most stacked team of all time.

You're going to show up at the end of March for the beginning of the season and you're going to be it's going to kind of throw you off. Your time is going to be completely off if you're not accustomed to that eight second rule or as a pitcher, 15 seconds with nobody on base. So they have to continue doing that in the WBC, even though they're not supposed to. And you wonder if players are actually going to do that, because if you're playing with the old rules, it's like, all right, that doesn't enforce you to go by the new rules that they're trying to incorporate into Major League Baseball. I think we see I think we see at least the players that are in Major League Baseball working faster. I think already, even two weeks into camp, it's becoming habit. And like like I said before, guys were practicing it before they got to camp, especially pitchers. So this isn't something that I don't want to say it's not so foreign.

It's definitely so foreign. Watch a game and it looks a little uncomfortable and rush, but it's starting to get ingrained into these guys. Well, Middlebrook's here with us. I was surprised over the weekend to see Manny Machado get an 11 year deal for 350 million dollars.

Not that he's not deserving of it, but with how much money that the Padres have already dished out. Did that catch you by surprise this weekend? Not at all.

Not at all, man. Who knew money grew like this in San Diego? That's insane. Good for Manny. I think it was a good play by Manny day one of spring training. Oh, hey, media, come talk, come talk.

By the way, I'm opting out. Like we all knew he would, but for him to do that right then and there, that sets a fire under the front office. You go, man, we got to get something done now. We're going to talk about this all season because agents, players, front offices, they don't like to have those talks during the grind of 162. So they're that put a little more pressure on the front office and say, well, I guess we got to get this done now. So it was a good play by Manny and his and his squad. But what a team.

I mean, they say that they view themselves. In my opinion, I think they see like a five to six year window for them to win a World Series, if not more than one. So in order to secure elite talent for that five and six year window, they have to overextend themselves both financially and in the years. You're going to have some old players and only one DH spot for Zander Bogarts when he's 41 for Machado when he's 42. Tatis, he signed his deal early.

He's only going to be 35 at the end of his 14 year deal. But the question all offseason was, it's either who's he going to be? Is it Juan Soto? Is it Manny Machado? Which one are they going to sign? Well, they just signed Machado. I think Soto is a candidate for one of the biggest bounce back seasons.

I think he has an MVP type season and top three and MVP in the NL this year. So how do they not resign that? So if they do sign him, count them out of Shohei this offseason if he's a free agent.

So there's a move in pieces. But regardless, the San Diego Padres are the best team in the West right now. I don't think the Dodgers got any better this offseason. Are the Padres, when you look at the entirety of Major League Baseball, do they have the most pressure on them entering this season or is it a team like the Yankees or the Mets? I think it's the Mets. I mean, I think it's the Mets. Just because of the splash money that they had and Cohen being one of the owners who's actually in the media and talking and saying, hey, I want to spend the money.

I want to I'm paying this money to win now. And you're getting you're getting Cy Young winners. You have all these studs you spent. I mean, they're spending so much money on pitching, which you should. And they let Jacob DeGrom go.

Basically said we don't need them. So I think the pressure is on the Mets. But I mean, the Dodgers used to be the West Coast version of that. And now it's the San Diego Padres.

So the pressure is there. One hundred percent. It's funny to me. There's so many people that complain, oh, Steve Cohen's bad for baseball, but in the Padres do what they do.

A hundred percent. I'm a met fan. All hail Uncle Stevie.

Spend Stevie spend. But no one says a word about the Padres and how much spending they've been doing. No one pays attention as much to the West Coast teams because on the East Coast, when they start to do it, though, that's what everyone tells me. Right.

Well, the Padres. Yeah. Yeah. They completely put that to bed. The small market, big market thing. I completely put it to bed because, yeah, you look at like TV revenue and all that.

They're not even in the top half. So it's it's what your owner how much money do your owners want to have at the end of the season versus how bad do they want to win? And a lot of these owners, too, we make so many excuses for them. Like we make it seem as if these owners have no money. They're all billionaires. It's like crazy to me.

Totally. You know, and a lot of people have been all over John Henry and Tom Warner for the Red Sox. But honestly, like they will from the point they bought the Boston Red Sox, they've won more championships than anybody in the game. We forget that because they're a bad off season here or there.

You don't sign Zander Bogart also increases the standard, though, with the fans. One hundred percent. You know, they didn't win for forever, it felt. And then they rattle off four since 2004.

Well, now the expectations are a lot higher than when you haven't won in 86 years. Wrap it up a little Middlebrooks before we let you run. Here's the multimillion dollar question. If you had to make a prediction next year, Shoay Ohtani is playing for what team in Major League Baseball? Well, I can tell you it's not the Los Angeles. It's not the Angels. It's not the Angels.

There's no shot. They retain him. Well, number one, I think he wants to leave because he wants to win. Secondly, so this year he's making 30 million. The last two seasons, he was making four point two million dollars. And they couldn't add enough talent around him and Mike Trout, the two best players in baseball, to get to the postseason. What are they going to do when he's making 50 million dollars a year?

I mean, really? Like it would be an organizational failure, in my opinion, to spend that much money on a player knowing that he's your cash cow. But you're just not going to win. But you're going to bring fans in because of him. That's your money.

You're going to sell tickets, but you're not going to win. He doesn't want to be there for that. He's smarter than that. His agent knows that he's gone. If I had to guess, I would say the Los Angeles Dodgers. Wow.

How about that? I don't think he goes to the Met. I don't think so. Not the Mets. I think Japanese players, I mean, they have Sanga, Masataka, Yoshida is with the Red Sox on the East Coast. But if Japanese players have a choice, they like to be on the West Coast because that flight's a lot easier to get home.

Interesting. So before we let you run, just going off that, I guess then the Angels, they should trade him before the deadline, right? You can't just let him go. I think I think the Angels will be better this year. I think they'll be in the mix for wildcard if they're not, if they don't view themselves or they have injuries there here and there and they don't think they're going to be a wildcard team. They have to trade him. They have to. You have to get something, even if you're in the mix, if you're borderline. I think you trade them and get something just because I have a good feeling he's not going to stay. I don't think they can financially give him what he wants and be able to add enough around them.

I just don't think it happens. Will Middlebrooks does a great job for Nesson and also CBS Sports HQ. Will, appreciate the time as always. And oh, actually, one more thing before we let you run. Where's your confidence out with your quarterback? I know you're a fan of those drama Dallas Choking Cowboys.

There's a report out today. Don't talk like that to me. It's the truth that your team chokes in a big spot. I was born into it, OK?

I was born there. We could still have fun at your expense. Do you have belief that Dak Prescott can one day win a Super Bowl for that cockroach organization? I do. I do. We talk we talk about it by him.

We talk about it. Zeke, we never talk about the offensive line that used to be the best offensive line in football. And they have struggled big time the last couple of years. And with he's not as as mobile as he was. That's not good. That's not good because we're not seeing him tuck it and run as much. We see him just kind of force balls and try to make the perfect throw. And that's just that's not smart in the NFL. I mean, corners can actually catch nowadays. They're not just, you know, they're actually good.

So I think if they build up that offensive line, they look a lot better. Well, Meadowbrooks, appreciate the time. Thank you, my friend.

You got it, buddy. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. So the Lakers yesterday were down 48 to 21 in the second quarter against the Mavericks, and they ended up completing the biggest NBA comeback of the season. And they won 11 to one away victory over Dallas. Now, in that game, LeBron James goes down with an injury. And you saw him mouth. I heard a pop.

I heard a pop. We all know LeBron eventually came back in and, you know, they win the game and had this great comeback like we're talking about. But now Sham Sharania is reporting that there is a fear that Lakers star LeBron James is likely to miss an extended period of time with his right foot injury. James suffered the injury and Sunday's win over Dallas played through it and belief is he will be sidelined an indefinite amount of time.

So I guess first off, it's it's bad news, obviously. But secondly, Hickey, I'm sure there's so many people that just do these screaming shows on ESPN and Fox that are all of a sudden starting to make a push for the Lakers and all the Lakers back. Like, let's have this conversation after winning three games in a row and having a great victory yesterday up against the Mavericks team that, quite frankly, I know they were in the Western Conference Finals last playoffs, but they're really all not that impressive this year.

And like there are two games above 500 after yesterday. I know they have Luca. I know they have Kyrie. But the fact that we were so quickly or some were so quickly going into, oh, like now we have to have a topic. So are the Lakers a threat in the Western Conference that will start to really put out any of that fire and calm the flames and cool the flames a little bit when it comes to that conversation?

Absolutely. And the sad part is, it's like it's not even that surprising. Like, even when the talk about the ball, the twenty three games are the most important regular season games. They're playing a joke. The big question is like, OK, are the Lakers can even rely on LeBron and ADB to play in these last twenty three games?

And the resulting answer is no. And so it's only a matter of time before at least one of them gets hurt. It's unfortunate how great Lebron has been. And, you know, still even this year, despite the injuries and missed time, he's still playing at a very high levels on the court. But it's like you can't rely on him to play on, you know, play even 70 percent of the season. And now he's outside of the bubble year. He's missed at least twenty five games every year. He's been the Lakers again outside of the one year with Kobe because the season was canceled, you know, without fifty five games in or whatever was sixty games in. But now that seemingly that streak is going to continue yet again with this injury.

Two things. By the way, it's crazy that this is Lebron's fifth year with the Lakers. Like, does it seem that long, Hickey, that he's been in L.A.? Not like, yeah, no, I'm kind of with you like I was doing the math for him just to make sure I'm like, oh, yeah, it's been that long. Yeah.

So I'm looking at the games played right now because we always used to praise all LeBron really doesn't participate in load management. And that's like the thing. There's a lot of things to respect him for. But that's one thing I love.

I never really catered to it. But I think people forget just with how we view these athletes as robots and how with all the science and all the protecting of the body. A lot of these guys that are great players in multiple sports, not just the NBA, we see them play longer and longer now. The guy is 38 years old and he's been giving you signs really since what, 2018? That his body, even though he's still Superman and what he does in the basketball court is unbelievable. But the body is starting to show you signs that it's breaking down, even though when he's on the court, he plays at an unreal rate.

It's still signs that we don't know how much longer, even though LeBron has been great on the court, how LeBron is going to be able to beat LeBron just solely relying off of his body. Like you go through games played, 2003, 79, and I'll just go 80, 79, 78, 75, 81, 76, 79, then 62. But that was the strike year. 76, 77, 69, 76, 74, 82. That was just in Cleveland and Miami. Then going to LA, 55, 67. Now, I know there were some injuries in 2020, but it was also COVID where the regular season did get cut short.

45, then 56 and 47. And wasn't it that first year, if memory serves me right here, Hickey, where he was, when he was in LA, that they were like the fourth seed and then he got hurt. Was that on Christmas Day against the Golden State Warriors? He hurt his groin and I think barely returned for a little bit before getting shut down again.

And they missed the playoffs entirely, where they were the fourth seed and then he goes down and they weren't able to recover. So we keep on seeing these signs. It's a shame it stinks for either the greatest or second greatest or third greatest, wherever you fall in that conversation, we're not going to debate that player of all time. But it's just a reminder, we can't really take these players for granted and we do that a lot. And I think we look at these athletes as their robots, even though LeBron on the court, still, he's in the midst of a season where he's averaging almost 30 points a game. Like he is still ridiculous, but his body's showing you, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to hold up.

And I really can't hold up for an entire 82 game season. An important thing to remember, this is his 20th year, which is just incredible to say the least. You add up his playoff games, he's played in 266 playoff games, which is basically three seasons and a quarter. So he's really on his 24th year in the NBA, averaging almost 30 points a game. It's incredible in one instance, just that he's still playing this high of a level to begin with, with how many years he's been in the league. But then also at the same time, we're talking about injuries again and how his body's breaking down. The guy's on what is, if you just go by games played, his 24th season. It is insane the fact that he's still playing this high of a level, despite the fact he's been here for what seems like forever. So I think they played 61 games this year, the Lakers?

Yes. When you hear an indefinite amount of time, I know this is all speculation. You're probably late 70s, mid 70s, late 70s, so maybe coming back if that, most optimistic, I would say? I mean, extended time with 21 games left. Not a lot of time. But extended time is what, you say bare minimum 10 games?

Like bare minimum? Yeah, like several weeks, you probably think. Like at least a month, I'm thinking. Extended time is not like a week or so, and they'll reassess now. Now, I have no inside information on this. This is just pure speculation.

I wonder if he even comes back for a regular season game. Now, they just have to get to the 10 spot, and then you ask, what is it really worth anyway? This team's not going to an NBA Finals this year. They probably won't even win a playoff series. You don't want to see Lebron in the first round, obviously. But they just got to get to the 10 spot. Right now, they're only a game back of the 10 spot, but now you lose Lebron. I know you just got D'Angelo Russell, but then there's always health concerns with Anthony Davis. I'd be surprised if they get to that 10 spot. And it would not surprise me at all if we don't see Lebron again in the regular season. Zach Gilp's show, CBS Sports Radio.