Hour 2: Patriots HC Mike Vrabel and ESPN NBA Reporter Brian Windhorst

21:10Brian Windhorst:So this is what the new information is, which is that Damon Jones and Chauncey Billups use their positions as coaches of teams to tell people who may be available in what appears to be Damian Lillard and LeBron James, potentially also Anthony Davis. I'm not 100 % sure about that. So wait a minute.

21:31Rich Eisen:Let me just jump in here. So you're saying Chauncey Billups, it's not just the poker thing? that he is also in this indictment alleged to have given out information as to who's playing and who's not?

21:41Brian Windhorst:Yes, that's correct. And that's what, you know, I'm not downplaying the poker thing, but the NBA isn't concerned today with whether people who are playing in illegal poker games got defrauded. I mean, you know, they may feign that they care about that, but you know, they don't care about that. They care about sensitivity information about their players and their games. And so what Chauncey is being accused of is, you know, there was a tanking job going out in 2023 going on because people were really interested in getting their hands on Victor Wimbanyama. And the Blazers weren't participating in that tanking situation.

22:19Brian Windhorst:And there was a moment in March of that year where the Blazers basically seemed to have decided to put their tank in overdrive. And they decided they were not going to play their regulars anymore, but specifically they were not going to play Dame Lillard. And there was this day, I can't remember who they were playing, maybe the Jazz.

22:42Brian Windhorst:But Damien was listed as probable with a calf tightness. And according to the indictment, I'm not saying it happened, I just said according to the indictment, Chauncey told somebody that Dame wasn't going to play amongst other players, even though he was listed as probable. as the day went along he was then switched to questionable and then out and then he never played again the rest of the season and the Blazers lost 15 their last 17 games and ended up with Scoot Henderson the number two pick but not the number one pick um and then uh Damian Damian uh Jones uh Damon Jones sorry not Damian Damon Jones um who was um sort of a volunteer assistant with the Lakers for several years.

23:24Brian Windhorst:They accuse him of saying that LeBron was, and they don't say LeBron's name, to be clear. They just say, they call him player one or player two or something like that. But they reference a game against the Bucs in 2023. It was the game after LeBron broke the scoring record, Kareem's scoring record. That game was against the Thunder. and LeBron was a relatively late scratch in that game and obviously not having LeBron who was really close to the peak of his powers at that point at least for that age didn't play and that information was used by people that Damon Jones told about it before it was public information then a year later Damon apparently according to the indictment told these co-conspirators again that LeBron or Anthony Davis, it's not clear which, because both were on the injury report for a certain game against the Thunder, that they would either not play in that game or play less than normal minutes.

24:27Brian Windhorst:At the time, the Lakers were under 500 and the Thunder were a very strong team. They had Chad Holmgren. He was playing. They had Jalen Williams. He was playing and Shea Gildas Alexander all played in that game. And in fact, LeBron and AD did play in that game, did play their regular minutes and the Lakers pulled the upset. They had been not favored and they came back and won. And the betters, according to the indictment, the betters were pissed off at Damon and asked for their money back that they had paid him for the information. So it doesn't even imply that this information was always accurate, but just that it was given.

25:03Brian Windhorst:And there's also another game that was referenced between the Cavs and Magic game also in 2023. Now, what I think I just want to point out is that this is, So what the NBA is going to have to deal with here is obviously players with pulling themselves out of games with unders. But that's we frankly have known about that, unfortunately, for 18 months. That's John Tate Porter thing from 18 months ago. The thing that the NBA is going to have to deal with, and they already have dealt with in a certain extent, Rich, is that for decades there has been this soft spot where people involved with the team, whether it's the players or the other people, support staff, know well before the injury list has changed that a player is going to play.

25:47Brian Windhorst:So let's just say you have an average Thursday in November. There's a shoot-around in the morning. A player is listed as questionable. Everybody at that shoot-around sees that that player can't walk. He's still listed as questionable, even though everybody knows he's not playing that night. That has happened for decades, and there have been people who could have passed that information on. Now, since sports betting became legal, the NBA, they recognize that this is a soft spot. And so they very vastly tightened their injury reporting. They now do injury updates all during the day. And they find teams that they don't accurately tell injury situations.

26:24Brian Windhorst:But that said, there is still this soft spot, largely in some cases because the teams don't want to let their opponents know who's going to be playing. and and also sometimes it's genuinely a game time decision sometimes you don't know whether a player is going to be able to play unless until he gets out there and warms up and how does that calf feel how does that you know wrist feel and so but there's this gray area there and so what i suspect will happen out of this i don't think that this is something that is a scandal that is going to rock the foundation of the league i mean i'm sure that some people will get on television and say that.

27:01Brian Windhorst:This is a problem that the NBA has known about and has been trying to address. There are instances now where it's coming out that people are exploiting it, but they were going to probably have to tighten it up even more and pressure teams more to be more honest about player availability so that a volunteer assistant coach or anybody else may not be able to give inside information, that the information is much more transparent.

27:27Rich Eisen:Well, I mean, in the few minutes I have left with you here that the the just at first blush um the issue i think the nba has got to square for a lot of those who are observing and fans is how does terry rozier get arrested for something

27:43Brian Windhorst:that the nba apparently cleared him of that is absolutely going to be me is going to have to answer that question and as you probably know there's a player under investigation for irregularity right now and Malik Beasley. And there's been, I think, frustration from people that Malik Beasley hasn't had it cleared one way or the other. And this is part of the reason why that, you know, I think the NBA is going to be extremely careful with this going forward. And you are absolutely right, Rich. The NBA at some point is going to have to explain why Terry Rozier was allowed to keep playing. And I just want to point something out.

28:19Brian Windhorst:The sports books caught the irregular regular betting on Terry Rozier the day it happened, the morning it happened, when all of a sudden there was hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in on Terry Rozier unders for a relatively meaningless game in November. I'm sorry, in March involving the Charlotte Hornets. The sportsbooks caught it. They told the NBA right away. And guess what? The NBA, Rozier didn't play the rest of the season and he had faked the injury. So it wasn't because of the injury. The NBA pulled him. They pulled Jonte Porter too. They flagged Jontae Porter and pulled Jontae Porter.

28:52Brian Windhorst:The NBA's measures, their protection measures, the sportsbooks protection measures triggered this. They caught it. The issue, I think, is Jontae Porter, they caught, convicted, and tossed him out of the league within weeks. Rozier didn't. And in this investigation, and I don't know if Terry Rozier is guilty. The NBA obviously didn't feel that he was. They wouldn't have let him play. But this indictment implies that there was a swath of conspirators. There was like his cousin, his cousin's friend. I mean, all the way down to like low level guys who won money on this bet and then immediately bet on other games and lost all the money and had to tell other people, man, I lost the money off to get it to you.

29:35Brian Windhorst:Like the really low level people who were betting hundreds of dollars on this game. In addition, people were betting tens of thousands. So my point about saying that is that there was a wide swath of people who were benefiting from this inside information on Rozier, according to the feds, and that the NBA either didn't discover that or knew about that and cleared him, they're going to have to answer for. But this is not like, you know, I hate to bring up the name. This is not like Tim Donahue. This is sloppy stuff that need to be tightened down. I know the people who are going to attack the league and people who are against gambling are going to be able to hammer on this.

30:14Brian Windhorst:And there's some points to be made there. I do not think this is going to rock the NBA to its foundation based on the information that I have. Obviously more information could come out, but it is definitely very interesting, particularly the poker aspect.

30:26Rich Eisen:Certainly, you know, it involves a head coach as well, Brian. I mean, that's particularly shocking.

30:33Brian Windhorst:It involves inside information about whether a player is going to play. I think the key is, did Chauncey tell the guy and say, go make a bet on the game? Got it. Or did Chauncey tell the guy because he was having loose lips and then that guy went out and made money on it?

30:50Rich Eisen:Understood.

30:50Brian Windhorst:That's the question. I don't know the answer to that, but that nuance is going to be important.

30:56Rich Eisen:All right. And I know your time is limited, so I do want to give you the floor on Wemba and Yama. I mean, that was insane. Like an actual conversation about an actual game that actually happened. And, I mean, 40 and 15, no turnovers. That is exactly what you're, everybody, when you first were visiting France to check it all out, was envisioning that type of performance right from jump, Brian.

31:19Brian Windhorst:And when I met his coaches who coached him when he was 12, 13, 14 years old, one of the things that they said was that they begged him, Victor, please go buy the basket. Every step away from the basket, you take your height advantage, gets mitigated a little bit more. And Victor really didn't want to hear it. Victor wanted to be a big man with guard skills. He didn't want to be defined by his height. You may have noticed that just this week, he complained about people focusing on his height and the Spurs have been, Rich, Victor is very, very tall. He's taller than he's listed. Okay. The Spurs looked at him at 7 '3 coming into the league.

31:58Brian Windhorst:He was not 7 '3. He was taller than that. Then this year, because the NBA cracked down on it, they corrected it to 7 '5. I think 7 '5 is still wrong. I think he's taller than 7 '5. I started talking about it on TV. Victor started complaining about it. And the Spurs changed it from 7-5 back to 7-4 in the last few days and said it was a clerical error. I don't think there was a clerical error involving his thing. But he doesn't like being defined as somebody who's really tall. He wants to be defined as a great basketball player. So throughout his life, he wanted to focus on being a great basketball player, not just a tall basketball player.

32:27Brian Windhorst:And by the way, that's one of the reasons why he's so special, because he is this big with guard skills. But here's the problem, Rich. it still is very helpful to be very tall so last year he averaged nine three-pointers a game and he did okay on them he shot 35 that's okay that's not bad but when you take 19 shots a game and nine of them are three-pointers and you're seven foot five or whatever that is not the best use of your of your skill set and so victor has come around and now the league is in trouble already in the preseason the scouts started flagging it because they noticed last year 40 percent of his shots were in the paint through the season in the in the preseason i know it's a small sample size sure 75 percent of his shots were in the paint okay do you know how many so last night he took two three-pointers do you know how many times last year rich he took two three-pointers in a game go for it zero he took under five three-pointers once okay he had 11 free throws last night okay Do you know how many times last year he took 11 free throws in a regulation game?

33:39Brian Windhorst:Yeah, a couple of them.

33:40Rich Eisen:Same number? Okay.

33:42Brian Windhorst:So now we have a guy who's seven foot whatever who has decided, I'm going to play like that. I'm going to play bully ball. And he's also stronger. It's not just that he's come around on it. He's also gotten more bulkier and stronger. You look at photos of him from two years ago and now. Yeah, he's not going to make you remember the rock, but he is much stronger. and this same thing happened to Giannis except for Giannis came around on it in about his eighth year okay like last night for example Giannis took 21 shots in the paint because Giannis knows he's unstoppable but it took you I mean he one one of the years that Giannis won MVP so I'm not exactly criticizing him he took five threes a game it's insane he's a terrible three-point shooter last night he took three he probably shouldn't have taken any Giannis figured it out and has become unstoppable now at age 21 victor i think has figured it out that he needs to play like he's seven whatever and the league could be in trouble because of it as you saw last night thank you

34:41Rich Eisen:brian winhorse really appreciate the time i know uh you've got a lot going on let's do this on the

34:46Brian Windhorst:regular as you know take care of yourself rich see you soon bye-bye right back at you our favorite barn on our favorite barnard wow because he just he can boil it down just like that

34:57Rich Eisen:it's a simple to basically say the rest of the league's in trouble how about that he calls him 7 foot whatever because he doesn't want to hear it from the Spurs or from Wembo Nyama that he's calling him too tall but we know he is tall very tall kind of like how we lay off the show I said this dude's a problem and everyone else we don't have to deal with this problem Winhorst has confirmed it and we can confirm he's tall because we saw him at the Fanatics that's my son Coop with Jack Schuster of fanatics. Coop was about six foot right at this time, if I recall. He's now six two. He was literally six foot tall right here.

35:36Rich Eisen:Not even to his shoulder. Yeah, I mean, come on. He's a big guy. That's it. Coop is six one at that time, let's call it that. Let's, you know, six foot whatever. Yeah, come on. We don't need Susie getting upset. That's Coop's height. Susie is fluent in French like Wembe and Yamaha and you got Wembe who's 7 '13 in that picture you know he's 6 '16 you could do it that way too in that photograph I think point being imagine taking your greatest blessing and deciding nah I don't want to use it no that is your blessing he did like an up and under reverse dunk and his feet were like 2 inches off the wall But I can understand what Windhorst just described is that if you're 7 '5", right?

36:28Rich Eisen:Let's just. Only about 3 % of the people that lived can relate to this. I've never started a sentence that way. If you're 7 '5", and have the handle like he has, you're sitting there going, that's my differentiator. I'm 7 '5", and can do things that somebody who's 5 '11 can do. I love that Wendy pointed out something that I've said on this show before. Shout out to my boy, Keith Perry from Pittsburgh, a big man with guard skills. Because that's what he is. He's got a handle. What can you do to stop this? So he's sitting there thinking, that's my differentiator. So, of course, I'm going to, if I can hoist threes like I'm Steph Curry at my height, that's my differentiator.

37:12Rich Eisen:And people are telling him, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Your differentiator is you're just 7 '5". Yeah. That's your differentiator. The other stuff is, yeah, that's nice that you can do. But in this sport, you're not guardable closer to the basket. The further you are away, you're mitigating, as Windhorse is pointing out. And to basically tell this to a young kid and say, no, no, no, no. You've got to reconfigure the way that you've been thinking about yourself. He says it took Giannis eight years to understand it. and he's done it already. I think we just broke down what just is occurring in just one game.

37:57Rich Eisen:Let's take a break. 844-204-RICH, number to dial here on the show. We'll take your calls when we come back.

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39:11Rich Eisen:the rich eisen show the podcast sono sound go ahead and get sono suzy and i have it in our house you will love it studio quality sound makes you feel like you're right there in the stadium we were watching a game you can play music one in the kitchen one in the um you know in another room in your house for instance okay so and you got you know listen um when you get one kid who loves taylor swift and another kid who does not you need to do you need to have different to keep peace in the house. Who gives you keep the peace? Keep the peace. Yeah, my goodness. So whether you're cheering on your team, binging your favorite show, or just listening to the hottest song, Sonos fills every room with incredible sound.

39:47Rich Eisen:Just plug it in, open the Sonos app, and you're ready to go. So setup is that easy. Explore soundbars, speakers, and more at Sonos.com. Sonos, they look as good as they sound. Drew in the great state of Michigan. Let's take your phone call. What's up, Drew? Drew, you got to hop on air. Drew, turn off whatever you're listening to, and what do you got for us, brother? You're on.

40:11Brian Windhorst:All right. Well, Rich, I'm a lot like you. I know you talk about fancy football a lot and how it affects your mood for the week. Yeah. And I'm in three leagues right now. Who was it? Michael Buble? Talking about he's in eight. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

40:29Rich Eisen:He said that last year.

40:31Brian Windhorst:Crazy like that.

40:31Rich Eisen:Yep. Okay.

40:32Brian Windhorst:Well, this week's going to be crazy.

40:34Rich Eisen:What's going on?

40:35Brian Windhorst:Because I was looking at Lamar Jackson for Justin Herbert to start. So that's my big dilemma this week.

40:41Rich Eisen:Chris, you want to handle this one? RS Consulting wants to – you've got to start Herbert, right? Herbert had almost 400 last week, and I know Brian Flores' defense. But I don't know. I feel like – You've got to start Herbert. I feel like you go Herbert, especially at home. Actually, we have – here's John Harbaugh giving you information on Lamar Jackson. Drew, we'll play it for you. Hit it. It's hard to put a number on. and I think it's just part of the process right now. I really don't have any shareable injury intelligence for you guys at this point. What do you think of that? Well, yeah. What do you think of that?

41:15Rich Eisen:No shareable injury intelligence. No SII for you, Drew. Right. Okay.

41:23Brian Windhorst:Well, that gives me nothing, but I appreciate it. That gives me nothing. Start it.

41:29Rich Eisen:We'll go right back at you. Oh, man. What a big weekend. this is going to be just go up to East Lansing and lay it on Sparty and just keep laying it on.

41:38Brian Windhorst:Well, Bryce had his best game throwing last week. So I'm pretty hopeful that we finally... We'll see.

41:46Rich Eisen:I don't know. They haven't really been able to put it together for four quarters like that. But thanks for the call, Drew in Michigan. Hopefully start Herbert. I think that's your advice, Ryan. Yeah, I think so. I think you want to see what Lamar looks like when he's back and if he does play this week. And the Bears are on the heater, so I would just chill, start Herbie, feel good about it. Go on to the weekend. In our number one, we were talking about saying truth or not into a microphone at a podium in the National Football League, believe it or not. And as we were saying, hey, you don't believe Aaron Rodgers saying it's not a revenge game.

42:20Rich Eisen:Sean Payton's like, I wasn't referring to Russell Wilson when I told a story about telling the owner of the Giants you couldn't make that move after you played us with Jackson Dart and yada, yada, yada. And I basically said, you know, those who tell the truth sometimes get crap for it. Certainly if you're a head coach whose quarterback keeps throwing interceptions in bunches and you're Mike McDaniel and you say, Tua's still our starter. Let's just hope he doesn't throw 10. How does the quarterback take that? Well, Tua was at the podium on Wednesday and was asked about that. That's true. No, like you don't want anyone that's going in there to hinder the team from being able to win a game.

42:59Right. and as I said earlier for me I go out there with the expectation to help our team win. You turn the ball over you turn the ball over the way I've turned the ball over this year. You can't expect to help the guys win the game.

43:15Rich Eisen:I just want to root for this guy to do well man. I feel you man. He hasn't done a lot to help himself out over the last couple years. He's being as honest as he possibly could be right there. Obviously he'd want to be one of those guys steps to the podium and go yeah I've got this team with the six and one like daniel jones can step to the podium and and say without really saying instead of being oh yeah i know we're the exact opposite one and six and a lot of the reasons why is i keep on turning it over in bunches as a matter of fact he started his press conference remember i said somebody how he bristled at turning it over in bunches back in week one he started his press conference saying so so who said uh i turn it over in bunches something like that.

43:54Rich Eisen:Like he's trying to, like McDaniel, use humor as the umbrella here. And then there was this, what everyone's talking about, about, hey, let's get the ball to Jalen Waddlemore. How come you're having trouble getting that? I think with that, some of it has to do with being able to see guys. With their guys also up front and our guys. And I'm not the tallest guy in the back there. either so being able to see and then you know sometimes when that happens you don't want to just throw it blindly and you got to progress so i think that that had uh some merit to reasons as to why that happened for waddle because you know that's always the knock against guys who aren't that tall that that's why you shouldn't be playing quarterback in the nfl because the guys in front of you are tall or giant yeah i mean it helps if you're having joe alt for instance if he's questionable for tonight's game if he comes back hopefully for the charges block for you it helps to be justin herbert's height to play quarterback beside someone behind someone like joe alt pushback is also drew breeze wasn't you know uh breaking any vertexes and he's going to be a first ballot hall of famer in um a few months look at baker mayfield this year not a big guy not a big guy but again it's just a i i don't want to criticize anybody for being honest i mean it's his honest he's being honest his answer could have been you know what i'm we're looking at this on film we're noticing some things that i could do better and that's what we're going to do instead he's just like, hey, I'm not the tallest, and it's tough to see him.

45:40You can't get mad at him for saying that.

45:41Rich Eisen:Well, you can't get mad at him for saying that, but the general manager who's on the hot seat who drafted him and then paid him all that money, it doesn't help him either. You know what would help everybody is just winning a game and not turning it over in the process. And the Miami Dolphins this week are at Atlanta before taking on the Ravens on a short week. So the next five days after this weekend are pretty huge. The Ridge Eisen Show Podcast. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside?

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