The Jason Smith Show with Mike HarmonJason and Mike weigh-in on Lebron James “Ring Culture” comments. The guys explain why someone needs to tell Shedeur Sanders he's taking a test every day until the regular season. And we react to the Buss family entering into an agreement to sell majority ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers!
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Greetings, Welcome in Side our three of The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon.
Uh.
Dodgers lead the Padres three to one in the bottom of the seventh Andy Pater has the red hot future All Star. Andy pa has his hit up near his head dirty and it seems like everything is okay now kind of gave a nod of the pictures taken out of the game. Wandy Perralta now in for the Padres. I'm telling you, Dodgers and Padres are gonna brawl at some point this season.
They're gonna have to just go sprint into the dugout and start beating the hell out of Shildt at some point bypass the pictures. The catchers whoever may be in on the what's being called from the dugout and just go straight to the source.
Uh, that's frostburg actually fighting Mike Schildt. When I say I'm gonna fight this guy, I mean.
That would be even more than the White Sox fans going after the Royals first base.
Coach off these years. Yeah, no, this would be Frostburger. Here comes with Here comes a guy in a Chargers hat and a sandy kofex Jersey going after Mike Schiltz raining Haymakers down. I'll stab them with my Vin Scully bubblehead tack with a Vin Scully bubble Now that makes Monsey an accessory though, Oh yeah, yeah, you brought her into it, Mike. Yeah no, no, no, yeah. If if Moncy provided the weapon that, yeah, no, I would, I would, I would back off. I back off it. So again, Dodgers lead the Padres three to one. Now, Dodgers continuing to back in the bottom of the seventh inning. Fan favorite keyk Hernandez legend for La not called on to pitch just yet. No, maybe they get up big though you might see him the ninth inning. This game gets if it gets to like you know, ten eleven one, you might see keyk and the ninth, especially with those glasses he's got on. Come on, that's balling. You saw what it was eleven nothing that weekended. Hang on a second, got escalated quickly, it was I blink. I mean really, you know, I'll give you a big bull prediction. Now, the way the Dodgers use Key k to pitch the end of these games, this is gonna. This is gonna for some kind of change in Major League Baseball because you know, Baseball doesn't like that. No, no, here's position player coming, especially when Dodgers brought him in the sixth inning. Yeah, he gave him the sixth inning. And now he's closing out of the ginnings. Yeah, yeah, closing out of the game. That that's eleven. Nothing like Baseball does not want this, and there's gonna and it would be great because if baseball had some kind of rule that says, hey, we're gonna we're gonna increase the active roster by one or two positions strictly for you to be able to bring out two more bullpen pitchers. Okay, great, Right, if all of a sudden it becomes Hay instead of you know, twenty six man roster, it's gonna be We're gonna have a certain amount. You can have x amount of position players and x amount of pitchers. Great those extra two spots so you can't manipulate it, so you can have enough relievers. So we can see that happen. And again you're creating jobs, right, you're creating sixty more jobs and make get League Baseball. Everybody wins. Everybody wins. Union would like it.
Veteran players maybe not so much because you're already talking about that that divide when you're trying to go younger. I mean because we talked to John Paul Morosi about that a couple of weeks ago. Right, of all the call ups and that not just the star power call ups, but a lot of rosters where like, wow, you got a lot of guys in the first ninety days of service and we're in June. So the good and the bad of all I had to say. But it would be the key k Hernandez rule. So he'd get like a little shrine in Cooperstown because of that.
Oh that's nice. At least, you know there's his goggles and his no no, no, they would take that helmet that he has. It goes around his head and it's not a full helmet because you know the top of his head gets hot, so like like that would put in the oh yeah, the nachos wild fall out of the bottom though I don't know I you can do that. You have to turn it on its side and then have the nacha okay, turn it out.
Okay, well, but you have better scoop than your catcher trying to h grab the ball earlier today.
I'm not dropping nachos. I'm not dropping no. Uh yeah, you know, got to take care of your It's funny because that play that happened the Mets game where Louis Torrens tried to grab the ball with his mask, which is which he can't do. You can't do yet, and it's it's technically a balk like you know how many times I've seen that in my Facebook feed go for like craziest baseball plays in college? What's the ruling on this? What is the what is the umpire? Because for some reason, my wife Pam is like obsessed with this, like the last years, with coaching all different things. I wanted to rules. She asked me, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why couldn't you do this? Why couldn't you this Whenever something crazy comes up rule wise, she's on it on Facebook going, hey, why does this happen here? Why? Why is that?
Maan?
I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm suddenly it's like she wants to rewrite the Major League rule book. So I've seen that a hundred times before. Yeah, why was this? Why why was this play allowed to stand? Why was this guy allowed to come in and score? Because? Yeah, because you can't touch the ball, can't grab the ball with your catcher's mask, and that put the first run of the game in for the bravest.
Yeah.
Reminds me of a clip I saw earlier with it was Guns and Roses concert where the drummer started playing mister Brownstone and actual keeps yelling no, no, no, bad obsession. That's what I'm taking bad obsession for Pam. Right there, Bell we go into bad obsession and he's.
Like, no, no, no, and he keeps drumming. If you can't play the right song, you can't be in this band. I will hire Stephen Adler again. And I can't stand the guy. At least he knew what songs to play Happy Birthday, Dizzy Read and my mom and Paul McCartney. Oh wow, that's pretty that's pretty good. Triumph. Yeah, that's all right. Dizzy might have been yesterday and I only saw it today, but either way, that's okay. I'm Paul eighty three today. Yeah. So other big headlines from the Lakers today despite in addition to the fact that they were sold for ten billion dollars. Lebron James did a podcast with Steve Nash in which he bemoaned ring culture. Says it fans and media, everybody is obsessed too much with players having to win and getting rings, and you can't quite appreciate their careers the way you should. Here's Lebron from the Steve Nash podcast about ring culture.
Funny, I don't know, I don't know why I've discussed so much in our sport and why is the all be all of everything. You sit here and tell me, you know, Alan Iverson and Charles Barkley and Steve Nash, you know, you know, wasn't unbelievable, like, oh, they can't be talked about or discussed with these guys is because this guy won one ring or won two rings or one like it's just it's just weird to me, it's like Sam Peyton Manning can't be in the same room with Brady for mahomes and because he only has one ring, they don't never discuss that any sport, right, or telling me that Dan Marino is not the greatest slinger of all time, or he can't be in a room with those guys because he didn't win a championship. They don't discuss those things.
Wow, Okay, so, first of all, Peyton Manning has two.
Rings, but and categorically untrue because that's said all the time.
Do we include Damn Britton? No, he didn't win.
This is.
Without a doubt for his entire NBA career. Okay, this is without a doubt. Lebron James's biggest fault. He is too sensitive. He has wanted from the moment he has stepped on the court to get that universal love that Michael Jordan got when he played, and it's just not gonna happen. But he thinks he should get it. He thinks he should be celebrated for everything he does. Doesn't understand why he's polarizing, doesn't stand why people love him, why people don't like him. Hey, you know what if Michael Jordan came around in this era. Guess what he'd be polarizing too. The first time he didn't win a championship, it would be Michael Jordan's done. He's never gonna win again. Oh look at this, he's playing baseball. This is ridiculous. It's a different life now that Lebron was in than Michael Jordan was in. Michael Jordan is so happy that that he played before the age of social media with some of the stories that we know about in the God out There. Lebron is playing in the social media age. He's the first big superstar whose career is that great and it spans the entire time from the early two thousands where Facebook exploded, then you had Twitter in the late aughts to where we are now with Instagram and TikTok and where we are this is Lebron's But he has wanted the universal hug that Michael Jordan got. He feels he deserves it and he's not getting it. Yeah, I'm sorry, but you're polarizing and are you really obsessing over conversations that other people have about who the greatest is of all time? I'm sorry your name is not at the top for every conversation. Sometimes your name is at the top. Some people say you're the greatest of all time. Other people say Michael Jordan's the greatest. Are you really that upset at the conversation people have. Yeah, winning championships is kind of how we parse things out right. It's about winning. That's why the scoreboard is up. That's why fans watch. Fans don't watch because I just want to appreciate greatness. Now, fans want to see their teams win. We are in a winning culture, right, we want to see winning. I can't watch the Jets and just be excited that, Hey, they get together on Sundays and do something together, and the uniforms look good. The throwback logo is great. But I don't care that they lose forty four to three. They get to run around the field and high five each other and look like they're in it. No, we want to see teams with this is how it goes. And this shows you his sensitivity to something like that. You're really you're so upset because people say, you know, you don't have enough ring. You have enough rings, you have enough rings. But because you know Jason Smith won four eight seven six, Hey, hi, JJ Reddick says something about you or somebody else. Oh, I don't like I don't like this as being debated that so and such a player is not as good. These are the debates to keep sports going. This is what keeps you paid like you have for the past twenty five years. Because fans want to pay money. Do they want to spend money to go to the games? They want to spend money on the NBA packages. This is what keeps the sports world going around. You really want to lose it over conversations that are had about who the best player is. I just want to make sure that this is where I'm at with Lebron. You don't like conversations about who the best because you feel like we don't appreciate their careers. Nobody who thinks you're better than Michael Jordan doesn't appreciate Michael Jordan's career. No One who thinks that Michael Jordan's better than you doesn't appreciate your career. It's when you're putting the best of the best up against each other you have to pick somebody like Pacers. I'm sorry. When you're playing the Thunder, the thunder out of better record, people are gonna pick them when you're playing the Cavaliers. Cavaliers had a better record, people are gonna pick them. Like the fact that he chooses to be upset about this, this is his entire career. He has been too sensitive to things like this, and this is a shining display of it.
Well, I mean it's parenthetical at the start is look, I'm never getting like that ship sailed, so faux outrage. Also, if you had you know June seventeen slash eighteenth is the day that Lebron would you know pop up during the playoffs. Congratulations you hit that on your Bengo card. NBA Finals not quite done yet.
But all of this to.
Say, yeah, you're concerned with it. Do you want to fight Windmills is a full don Quixote thing, like you're not gonna convince everybody. This is what happens in you know, the barber shop, which is you know, your your opportunity that you've had with your buddies and all the the lawsuits when you were trying to trademark Taco Tuesday everything else. It's all about the discussions and debates that lend to the legend players and over time, guess what the people that watched Lebron James career.
They're going to be the majority.
Over the old guys shouting, you know, get off my lawn.
Who watched Michael Jordan play? Right, I'm old enough to where I remember it, But is it is it clear as day anymore?
No?
I was in the middle of it, and I enjoyed the hell out him.
Went to as many games as we could possibly go to early before it became the hardest ticket and we didn't have the market places like you had now. You had to go find a guy on a street corner to get a ticket. Otherwise it was go watch it on TV with Lebron. Eventually, those are the people you know, who lives, who dies, who tells your story. Eventually, it's gonna be the preponderance of folks unless someone eclipses Lebron. That's younger. Lebron James is gonna become the de facto king. Michael Jordan's just gonna be that ghost that they talk about of. Yeah, well, he's gonna be like Wilt and Kareem are now. Well, they're in a whole other era, right, the game was so much different, So we don't even include them in those discussion. That's where Jordan's gonna be in fifteen to twenty years because everybody that watched Lebron and loves Lebron and are gonna cite his record.
They're gonna jump in.
He just needs to be a little more patient and and and develop a little thicker skin.
Yeah. And the other thing too, to button this is that I also feel like he's looking for an excuse why he hasn't won in four or five years. Sure, because he knows he's probably not gonna win again, and okay, because it didn't work with Luca this year, He's probably got one more year with the Lakers, and then who knows the team was sold and who they're gonna want to keep him. But I feel like he's looking, Hey, I haven't won since twenty twenty, and people, a lot of people don't count that. And here's my except, why aren't people just appreciating my greatness even though I haven't won. Right for a guy who's been measured about go getting the finals and winning his entire career, has been fine with that, but now that he's not winning, Oh now I want credit even though I'm not getting the finals. Like I feel like he want. He's looking for an ext year. Well, I don't win, but it doesn't matter. I'm still great. Why why why can't we do this? He's irrelevant? Exit out about a Fresca exit swollen dome. Jason Smith, Mike Carle. If he had given up the fact that he's never gonna get that universal hug that Michael Jordan got his career, maybe he's got another couple of times he could have gone on the blank You Tour like Caitlin. But speaking of basketball, coming up next, what does Vegas have to say about what's gonna happen tomorrow night in Game six of the NBA Finals? What about who's gonna win some big time quarterback derbys in the NFL? Keep it right here, that's next, Jason to Mike. Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with My best Friend Mike Harmon. Dodgers lead the Padres three to one, LA batting in the bottom of the eighth inning. Love more in this game coming up in a bit, but big day today in sports. The Lakers are sold for ten billion dollars. We got Caitlin Clark playing tomorrow night. We have the Indiana Basers playing Game six of the NBA Finals. Which game is gonna be moved? Joining us now in the hotline for all the latest from Vegas. Our man. He's on Twitter at Todd Furman, former ozmaker at Caesars. Check out his Bet the Board podcast. See him on CBS as well. Todd, what's happening man? How are you tonight?
Everything is good, gentlemen and smith. I've been out for a good portion of the night. So I just want to know if the Knicks land to the head coach yet or are we going to WHOOPI Goldberg ro out?
We are well okay. First of all, Whoopy Goldberg would be fine. I saw them win big and Eddie. Secondly, we're just starting the interviews now, We're just getting to talk to people now. As long as we're not talking to Doc Rivers, I'm okay with that.
I mean, that's maybe the only candidate left to try and coach the Knicks going into next season. But if the Knicks aren't a lot of things slow calculated and very sought constructively out this entire process.
This is a Nick in a microcosmy.
Dude, if they said, Okay, you're getting Gannis, but Doc comes with him, I really would have to think about it. I'd have to think about it.
Do you think Giannis wants to continue playing for Doc rivers?
Your question and all of this, Well, that was trying to sell last week Todd was that Doc was going to be the guy going to Giannis to convince him to stay.
That seemed kind of odd.
It's a weird state of affairs around the NBA, But you figure some of these dominoes will start to fall, whether it's Kevin Durant's landing spot, the Knick's head coach Jihan is staying or leaving in Milwaukee, and it'll make the de facto hot stove all that more intriguing as you look at some of the dynamics in play. But given the trade hall that we saw for Desmond Bane, apparently Kevin Durant may go for about thirty seven first round pick, naming rights to unborn children and maybe even get his name on a street and whatever county ultimately lands in Okay.
So before we get to the finals. We know Kevin Durant has been mentioned with the Spurs, but potentially the interest may or may not be mutual. What's the favorite right now for Kevin Durant's next team.
You know a lot of books have taken those numbers down, but when they were up about sixteen eighteen hours ago, and I haven't done a full survey to see if a couple of the offshores are still trading that particular market. It was basically throw a blanket over the heat, the Rockets, and the Spurs as the three most likely landing.
Spots in all of it.
The one market that was intrigued in kind of going back to Giannis, that did catch a little bit of buzz with the Oklahoma City Thunder at around thirty to one, their number came down a bit. Wouldn't that be something if the Thunder go on to win the NBA title and land Giannis to make them that much stronger next year. But Yeah, this Durant situation continues to get more and more bizarre. It feels like from a basketball standpoint, Houston makes a world of sense because Durant won't be asked to guard a traffic coning on the defensive end of the court, and he may be the only guy on that roster capable of getting them a timely bucket and crunched on.
So let's start to the finals curiosity with the calf and is your injury to Tyrese Haliburton. As best I could tell, he was worth about a point to a point and a half in the point spread.
Okay, see at a minus six and a half last I looked at.
It, yeah, and I think harm that's folks looking to try and get ahead of it. We saw the number for game six open as low as four and a half, five get bet up as high as seven, and there was a little bit of resistance that came in on the underdog. I have to imagine if Tyres Haliburt gets officially ruled out that that number will leak up to seven again and you may actually see an appetite from professional betters.
To back the home underdog.
I'm not going to say that the Indiana Pacers have a good secondary option from a minute's allotment, because I don't think TJ McConnell can log forty five minutes on court as the primary point guard from start to finish.
But I do think Rick.
Carlisle is smart enough to try and figure out some unique ways to mask what could be a gaping hole, especially in the backcourt. But given what we saw in the fourth quarter of Game five, you know, Tyrese Haliburt operating at about what appeared to be forty percent capacity. Probably better to be sitting in his street clothes than out there logging minutes in a high leverage situation as a pacers trying to do everything they can to stave off elimination.
Dude, TJ McConnell can't play twenty five minutes without looking like me when I walked to the mailbox.
All right, I mean I'm.
Done at the break.
He's paying at a breakneck pace, and there's a good chance at TJ McConnell and you may have been classmates.
You know when you look at TJ mcconnald's age, So.
I can understand why he's not able to go out out there and play forty plus minutes at a breakneck pace.
All right. Now, outside of that, last night we saw the Stanley Cup ghetto and now it's dinged up. Awarded to the Florida Panthers after they beat the Edmonton Oilers, And it was really weird that right after this was over, we saw all the sports books seem kind of split on who the favorites were for next season, Like, obviously the Panthers got some run, the Oilers got some run, but the Stars get some run. The Carolina Hurricanes got some run. Why is it so split right now?
I think there are kind of five teams that oddsmaker's believe are in that de facto top tier, and you mentioned all of them, the Hurricanes, the Panthers, the Oilers, the Stars and the Avalanche. So there will be slight nuances and additional opportunities if you continue to shop around. Should you want to tie up your money for nearly three hundred and sixty five days on any of.
The short shots on the board.
But this is a Florida Panthers team that does have a couple of key decisions on me to make in free agency. Aaron eck Blad, Brad Marsham and Sam Bennet going to be the three biggest. We'll see if they can retain one, two, or maybe even all three of them. Who knows what direction the Edmonton Oilers will look to go as they retool their roster, because anybody who watched that Stanley Cup Final had to come away with a similar thought process that there was a chance that the Oilers could have lost all six of those games if it wasn't for a bound here or there, and they felt further away from winning a Cup this year than they did when they went down three games to nothing last year against the same Panthers. And then, of course, the NHL is a league more than any of the other major sports, although maybe I can't say that given the improvalle run from the Pacers, that does lend itself the teams coming from off the pace. So I think if you have the foresight to identify, you know, some of the longer shots, and never a bad idea to start to build out that portfolio before some of the key names hit free agency officially when we get to July.
First, Arman in Vegas, Todd Furman, our guest at Todd Furman on Twitter, at bet the Board pod as well as bet the Board Podcast, longtime friend of the show here Jason Smith and me Mike Garmon here from the Fox Sports Radio studios in La Todd one of the giant storylines yesterday, the Franks chaos.
In the WNBA.
Are we getting some kind of handle now when we talk about game to game odds or is it still a very small market.
It's still a small niche market, but it is no doubt grown in popularity from a betting perspective, and the Indiana Fever, as we see in the TV ratings, generate buzz in the betting markets as well. Anytime Caitlin Clark is out there, healthy and able to play at her full capacity, it's going to grab eyeballs and her prop markets, whether they're points, rebounds, or assists.
Definitely a market.
That has grown in popularity amongst recreational betters. But watching that game last night, it's amazing that the Fever don't have an enforcer on the roster.
There has to be a female.
Equivalent of Rick Mahorn out there somewhere looking for minutes at a key juncture of the game to try and go out there and inflict physical harm. Because if the league's not going to do anything about it, the Fever coaching staff and the players on that roster need to do everything they can to protect their face of their franchise and make sure that she's not getting tossed around like a rag doll on a regular basis.
Well, what of her MVP odds done in the last few days as you come back from injury.
You know, it's always interesting because when a player misses as much time as she did, you're going to see that number drift out. And when you look at the fisha Collier she asserted herself and as a heavy odds on favorite or price tag right around minus three dollars. But Klin Clark's price when she was dealing with that quad injury drift drifted as high as five to one. Numbers come down substantially, so if you look around, you can find her in that two to one, you know, five to two price range, and that's where you fall off a cliff to the likes of Brianna Stewart, Asia Wilson, Sabrin nine ESQ and everybody else in the league.
So it clearly appears to be.
A two women race atop the board, and you can understand why given the impact both those players have had and the Indiana Fever now third on the odds board to win the WNBA Championship behind the Liberty and the Minnesota Link.
So todd as we hit these summer months, right, NHL in the books, we still have the NBA Draft, at least one more game for the finals. Where do people start investing their money? We see more baseball, we s, more golf racing, or do they just spend it on lavish vacations.
Yeah, international table tennis. No.
This is where sportsbooks try and figure out how fast they can get people that were betting some of the more traditional stick and ball sports to start playing in the online casino, to blow through their bank rolls long before.
Football season gets here. But this is no doubt.
The dog days of summer when you look at the betting calendar and some of the events that are there. You mentioned golf, and golf has one hundred percent grown in popularity, you know, kind of really burst onto the scene as a betting vehicle during COVID when people were looking for other avenues. Motorsports a much smaller niche.
But until we get to the Hall.
Of Fame game in early August, and of course regular season college football and the start of the NFL season, you know, these are the slowest month on the betting calendar, and it's why sportsbooks no doubt celebrate the years that they have a euro international soccer tournament, and of course, next year here in the state's the World Cup, which which did do all sorts of record breaking handle, assuming that the Red, White and Blue are able to get out of the group stage.
He's on Twitter at Todd Furman. That is Todd Underscore Furman. Check out the Bet the Board podcast as well. See him on CBS Todd as always, Buddy, appreciate it, man. We'll talk to you next week. Have fun.
You got it, gentlemen. Hopefully we catch up next week.
The Nicks may actually know who's calling the shots on their bench, but I'm not optimistic about it happening that quickly.
No chance. Very good, Oh any good? Tod's Todd Furman, not Todd Underscore froman Todd Firk got it bad fuck Nick show. Now he had to take the swipe. Yeah, it's nice there. It's a low hanging fruit at this point.
As the draft creeps ever closer, getting deeper into that, we've got a bunch of players that are saying, I don't want to go work out with this guy, LaMelo Ball. We've got Ace Bailey, I'm not really gonna work out for the Sixers. So we have some intrigue at the top of the draft, but otherwise it's that Nick's head coaching job that really gets a lot of headlines. Buddy, now to find out what's trending in the wide world of sports. And someone who had the over on Arkansas lsuto and celebrated the walk off.
I didn't have the over. I feel for those Arkansas fians. Man, that Omaha curs is real. Yeah, So LSU came back to defeat Arkansas. As you guys are just mentioning, they're gonna face Coastal Carolina on Saturday in the first game of a best of three championship series. Coastal Carolina eliminated Louisville earlier today, eleven to three. They've also won twenty six in a row. In baseball, the Dodgers left the bases loaded in the seventh inning. In fact, they the Padres struck out show Hey O Tawny right now. They had an opportunity to score again, but the Padres held them up. With Andy Pajz at the plate, Dodgers are still up though it's three to one and they're about to start the ninth inning in La Astro, still on top of the A's nine to two. It's the top of the ninth inning.
Where are the A's playing Sacramento, sacrament.
I keep wanted to obviously say Oakland, But in Sacramento.
It's the top of the ninth inning.
They did had call that game that I was complaining about because of weather. Yeah, well guys, because I complained.
Yeah.
So, the Reds did beat the Twins four to two and six innings because of the rain delay or the weather delay. The Braves shut out the Mets five zero. The Royals had a sixty to three win over the Rangers, and the Guardians defeated the Giants board to two in San Francisco. The Phillies earlier today took down the Marlins four two. In the Red Sox defeated the Mariners three to one. Red Sox making a trip now to San Francisco to take on the Giants and an old friend by the name of Rafael Devers in the NBA. Yeah, the Lakers are being sold ten billion dollars to Mark Walter, who is also the CEO of the guggenheind Gret.
Great Mark Wahlberg is buying the Lakers Mark Walter.
Wow.
First first Coldstone, now Mark Wahlberg. Now, I'm just gonna saying all the wrong things.
That's gonna be a lot of good vibrations. Get up the Lakers this year? What was the game show host to Mark?
Mark too right?
Same w Yeah yeah, Well Mark wahlbergs yeah, yeah.
Ten billion dollars to Mark Walter, who is the CEO of a bunch of places, apparently including the Guggenheim group that owns the Dodgers, But Jeanie busses expecting me to remain with the franchise. And in college hoops, ESPN reporting that Rutgers star Ace Bailey has canceled his workout with the seventy six ers. Bailey remains the only US based prospect yet to visit any NBA teams, but the Sixers have not ruled out selecting Bailey with the third overall pick. In NFL news, the Ravens signed cornerback jay Air Alexander to a one year deal. And in the NHL, the Panthers are going to hold their Stanley Cup championship parade on Sunday, but the Stanley Cup is already cracked and the bottom is dented from their celebrations, but it will be fixed. In time for they're parade.
Yay, they have a guy on call. We need you all right, I'm ready to go.
I'm ready to go.
Come with a toolkit the guy that has to go around with Yes, absolutely, shoulder.
Crack the top of it. Yeah, and they dented the bottom already. You had it for twenty four hours. You cracked the top of it and dented the bottom of it. Yep. It might pass through thousands of hands at this point. And come on, it's impressive that it's still even intact. Yeah. No, listen, I get that, over the course of a summer, with every player getting one day with the cup, something's gonna happen. But now this is twenty four hours and it's already been We got to release a book. Yet we're gonna crack in a dent, all the stuff that if I were to tell you they don't have the real cup. Who's got the real cup?
We don't know what if they don't though, it's next to the ark at the Covenant, Oh, one of those government boxes at the end of.
So they have that guy who yelled at me once for picking up the Stanley Cup travels with you. You you did what the guy yelled I didn't tell you that told you that story. Oh you did. I don't remember. Stanley Cup. It is my best story. Okay, it's a good story. So the guy who travels with the cup, right, he's been traveling with the cup now for I think thirty years. Okay, this is nineteen. No, it's two thousand, two thousands and and uh this this is when I was producing for KABC TV, right, worst job I ever had.
Uh.
It was Bruce for KBC TV, and the Stanley Cup came in. They brought it to the newsroom and we're doing it. Was doing part of this. Uh, I don't know why it came in with coming through Los Angeles in the off season and the guy with the travel the cup had the cup. So he comes into the newsroom. They bring it into the sports office. We we do we do a bit with it with Bill Weir was the was the Bill Weird Yeah, now he's like the climate control guy. Uh, but he was the la you know, anchor Rob Fukazaki has been on the show. So we take pictures with the cup and everything else. We go on on set with it, and you know, we got to do it and we put it on on TV. That night on the news, and so the cup, can you get to it? Okay, you know, I'm sorry, but the Russ distracted. It's a great saw. It's really distracted. This is the longest lead up to I'm gonna tell you something that all of our advertisers say. The music's too distracting. It's distracting me. I'm saying the music's too low. So he brings it in. It's in the bullpen and I go, oh my god. I've always wanted to see if I could pick up the Stanley Cup. So I pick it up and I put it over my head and I go wow. And the guy goes, what are you doing? And he tells me, I go what, just what do you do? You can't pick up the Stanley Cup. I go, oh, I'm sorry. I was I gonna do. No, there's gotta be something for the players. And I go, okay, it's not like I devalued the Stanley Cup by picking it up. Okay, sorry, And he got mad at me. Val he may got mad at me, like you ruined the sanctity of the Cup. There's something for the players. Yes, the NHL went out of there is not there. I wanted to see if I could pick it up, What am I gonna do? I'm the first guy?
What did you think it was one hundred pounds? He could looked a one hundred pounds right over his head. It's like thirty seven pounds.
Like it's heavy, like like Julia Luise dry fist as a lane.
Yeah, they hit you with the white glove.
No, no, I challenged him to a duel. He walked up and he slapped me with it and dropped the gard But he yelled at me. You're like, you're surprised that he yelled at you. He should have kicked your ass. How is that?
Yeah?
He could now it was a bigger deer than he was. Why is that such a big deal? Really, I earn it. It was in there. I picked it all touch What do you mean? What do you mean? We talked like you did not earn it, like you know the Stanley Cup rules. I've touched the Stanley Cup, don't okayned it? And oh you earned it? But I didn't. Oh okay, now I see. Well he didn't yell at me. That doesn't Yeah, he I don't know why yelled at me. I don't know why yelled We know why if he said, hey, just don't drop it. I was like, oh, okay, I get what you're saying. But he goes, there's got to be something for the players, like what the players aren't allowed to pick up the Stanley Cup? Like I don't know, like the players are I don't get.
It because you were the kid. You know, you carry the Stanley Cup with you.
What have you done? You carry the cup? I see you hold the cup and carry it. What if you do.
In the last crusade, he's been challenged with keeping that thing safe and there's raft like you, a.
Lot more to this than he's done. Is not more? There absolutely is more. He told you that there's more.
Yeah, no, he yelled at me. So I put it down. I said, okay, she's a lot of do it now. Did you try to, you know, pour some mad dog in there?
Yeah?
I don't want to say, hey, you know the stories I heard what's been done to the Stanley Cup by players, by the precious players who lost the cup or put stuff in it that you don't want me even to say that I know was in there. Now you're med that I picked it up? Yes, okay, you know what? You know what you stop as well, jus kind of losing his hair. Mike Harmon live, he's fall radio studios. What are you talking about? Continuing his reference nicely?
Do it?
Okay?
You know what?
And he's powerful. Yes, this whole show, this whole show needs a time out. The entire show. All of you need to tie straight over his head. How's their hair? Is their hair good? Coming up next, Piggy best news for the Lakers, ten billion dollars sale, Blank you blank you like you? Blake Hugh? Do you think she's attractive? That's next? Fox Sports Radio. Taking my headphones off, I can no longer hear this. My sponsors, just a quick memo, we appreciate you.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific, Fox.
Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon. Dodgers Padres now tie that three in the ninth The Padres put two across, So we got drama Chavez ravine. Meanwhile, the drama today in Sports courtesy of the Lakers, who are being sold. The Bus Family are selling the Lakers to Mark Walter, who also owns part of the LA Dodgers for a valuation of ten billion dollars. Walter, Yeah, you know, Walter, he did his homework. Jeenie Buss is going to stay on as governor and so she's going to run the Lakers for at least the next few years. The Bus family is going to keep a minority share of the team just over fifteen percent for a period of time as well. Uh So again, Mark Walter, the franchise valuation approximately ten billion dollars. Is this your team, Walter? Is it's not as bleeping team man. Uh Two things on this, one bigger than the other is it's a little sad because I kind of like the the what we've seen in sports and what you and I have grown up with that that certain teams have a hierarchy and they have a succession plan where it stays in one family and it's run this way, and it's a beloved owner who the fans love and they wanted to keep on and stay in the family, and then someone's son or daughter inherits it and it goes on there. And that's why we saw Indianapolis, and I like that it's not always great because you know, sometimes the owner is not a great owner and they don't win, but still it's going to stay in the family anyway. But I kind of missed because that's going away because it's all hedge fun guys and people that now you're worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars because it's no longer well, this guy's worth five billion dollars, but now this guy's worth three hundred and twenty billion dollars and he bought a team because he felt like it today. So I do miss that a little bit. But I feel nothing but excited for the Lakers and Laker Nation because my big takeaway is maybe now the Lakers will be good because since Jeanie Buss and her brothers and her family took over the team from after doctor Bus passed in twenty thirteen, they ain't been great. Man, this last thirteen years has not been good. Yes, they won the title in twenty twenty, mainly because Lebron decided I want to come to LA because I want the Lakers brand. Right, Okay, great, And I'm not dismissing that because they won the title as a very difficult title to win. They didn't have any home field advantage in the bubble very hard to win, and they did it. But overall, when you say, okay, look at the last thirteen years, what do you have. You've had Kobe into Lebron, now into Luca and you have a title, and you have a five year stretch of not making the playoffs. You have three first round exits, you have one conference finals. Right, make it to the finals. That's great, and you have a title. But by and large, last thirteen years, with the superstars they have had, they have not been able to figure it out. The bus family not great at running the team. When Lebron came in, he took over. He and Rich, Paul and Ad were the shadow gms of this team. They were calling the shots. Only finally have the Lakers sort of moved on from that into hey, now we're moving to the Luca era and Lebron, you don't have as much power as you did. But man, I'm telling you, the Lakers have just they've not been run great. And so yeah, the one thing I always say you can't get passed if you're a fan is a bad owner owner that's not winning. And so, okay, the bus Fers had a lot of missteps. They haven't run this team very well. You know, they've had talent come in. So my big takeaway is that, yeah, maybe things will be better now, maybe they'll win a little bit more than they have in the past years, because maybe it's a new way of doing business. Maybe it's a new way of saying, hey, we're not gonna let the players call the shots and we're not gonna say, okay, Ad and Lebron, you want Russell Westbrook coming in, which a Lakers still are still getting past that really bad decision from three years ago. Like, maybe it's a different way of doing things, different way they're gonna spend money, different kind of player they want to go after all. That's I think if possibility now because I saw what the last thirteen years are, maybe now things can be better for the Lakers.
Well, it's the good and bad of running things as a mom and pop. That ownership, that equity, that familiarity, and that familial space that you've had right that long time, long tenured and depending on where you're who you're a fan of, and which teams you support, that can be a good or a bad thing. Think about my love hate relationship with everything Ryan's Dorfian. There have been some great moments. There's been a lot of bad moments along the way, right in the way those businesses have been operated. But he's always about the bottom line with But he's had money to spend if he so chose. With the Bus family and with the changing economics of the NBA, you have you know, been hamstrung at times, and certainly letting and going star power bring in Lebron and Clutch Sports in Yeah, they seeded a lot of power over roster construction, et cetera. But they were also hamstrung in terms of the valuation of the team being the only real asset they had. Not that they didn't have some monies, but you didn't have money. Yeah, And that's what Walter and the Goggenheim Group and all of this they bring to the to bear is all right, money's never an object to buy yourself out of a problem or to go into the marketplace and say, second, Apron, who cares, we're about winning titles. You've seen what's happened with the Dodgers, the string of success, the implementation of a structure that brings you just star after star, and you think we need one more into an ocean's eleven coach, best to breed in terms of your management, in terms of your executive and now you bring that to the Laker brand that's so global.
As it is. Yeah, you have to be excited about where this this heads. If you're a Laker fan. Yeah, optimism is great. Now Genie bus running a team, you're like, okay, how much is gonna be more of the same. But they didn't. He didn't buy the team just to say Okay, the old owner is gonna do this. But that's just it. So it hands off, but not hands off. You gotta know what's a new day coming here, right, We're gonna get Luca taken care of. We're gonna get it. And that's when all of a sudden, Okay, thank you, great, Genie's gonna step down and it will be you know, Walter and whoever else is running the team.
Put in your structure and go and win again. Maybe maybe things can be good now, maybe the Lakers can be good.
Think about it. Maybe you're remove Bomber. Hey, big celebration. Will Smith will walk off home run for the Dodgers they beat the Padres four to three. Will have more on this game coming up in a few minutes. And the biggest NFL story of the day coming your way at over one hundred miles was an hour Jason and Mike Fox Sports Radio
