Good morning Rockets Nation. Happy Thursday from your boy Meazy, aka Coach Omar, aka I got to rep my Cougars today. I I don’t know. I was just driving around um yesterday and I drove by U of H and I was just like man, I miss I miss I miss college. It was fun.
Um but I’ll tell you why a little bit later in the later segment. Um but you know, top of the show, definitely want to remind you guys to drop your comments. Make sure you’re dropping your likes. Make sure you’re dropping you know, if you guys want anything for me to research or talk about, you know, drop it. Like let’s talk.
Um but you know, happy to talk about just whatever’s happening in the league right now. Um not necessarily I guess rumors or or the game related, but you know, just anything that sort of pertains to basketball as a whole. Like again, earlier or later in the in the show, you guys will see that I’m uh I’m going to kind of go back to my roots and I’ll explain why or why I was even driving around U of H yesterday. Um but yeah, uh things that I’m just researching on, uh things happening in the league, uh LeBron rated related of course. Um just you know, league stuff, right?
Um big thing that I just keep seeing Rockets related um is Oh, and today’s goat conversation is going to be kind of fun. So, tune in, you know, definitely make sure you stick around for the entire show. Um things that I keep seeing in the league, right? At least related to the Rockets are um I keep seeing these these, you know, stories on on Sports Illustrated, uh ones by Amir Motamanni. Uh I hope I’m saying that right.
My apologies if I’m not. And then the other one is by a gentleman by the name of Abdel Adel Ahmad or Ahmed. Uh, I’m not 100% sure if I’m saying those right, but I hope I am. Both of those kind of contain um KD trade proposals. And respectfully, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible, >> [snorts] >> can we as I mean, I don’t know if I would be qualified as a journalist or anything, but can we stop with the KD rumors?
As far as I’m aware, as far as I’m aware, not that you know, Mr. Stone or Mr. Udoka or even KD himself, none of these guys have called me yet. I’m waiting for that call, and once I do, you know, I’m going to be ecstatic, but not that I’m aware, um has KD expressed that he wants to leave, right? I mean, burners notwithstanding, which I think got blown way out of proportion.
Albeit, yes, I’m not going to discredit that it it’s it’s shady and a little upsetting, but I mean, frustrations come out in various ways, right? I mean, players get frustrated, maybe he thought under the ruse of of you know, burner accounts or whatever, he could motivate some guys, right? I mean, that in and of itself is, you know, I think the shadiest part about all of this, right? Is that you couldn’t go up to you know, your your teammates, your comrades, or you know, brothers in arms or whatever, and and really just express like, “Guys, I’m I’m frustrated.” You know, maybe nobody was listening.
I mean, we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes on some Wizard of Oz stuff, right? But equally, equally, I would like for us to not, you know, fabricate stories or fabricate rumors or things that are going on. Right? I’m I don’t know what’s happening, right? But all I know is I don’t want KD to leave.
Me personally, right? I mean, I’m a Rockets fan. I don’t want, you know, any discontent or anything happening or anything like that. But I’m not going to sit here and act like KD’s an angel or anything like that. But equally, I’m not going to act like the Rockets are trying to get rid of the guy, right?
I don’t think so. Um Both of these articles that I read, most of them, you know, mentioned uh trade proposals for KD. Um We just We keep getting back like, I mean, if you guys want, I can I can talk about it. Uh this one is a three-team trade with that would send KD to the Cavs. We get It’s a three-team trade between us, the Nuggets, the Warriors, uh um and the Cavs or four teams, it looks like it’s on here.
Uh so, it’s like a four-team trade, right? And again, he he the the author prefaces this like, “Hey, look, this is just hypothetical. It’s not real.” Just want to make sure cuz I’m sure there’s people out here that believe it. Not me, of course, cuz I’m like, “This would never happen.
” Um Cavs receive KD and Clint Capela. Rockets get Jared Allen, Christian Braun, Jay- Jaylen Tyson, and two first-round picks. Christian Braun. Nothing against the guy, but he’s been kind of on a decline since this their championship run. Uh Nuggets receive Kristaps, Max Strus, and a second-round pick via Cleveland.
>> [snorts] >> And the Warriors receive Cam Johnson. Like, that’s it? >> [laughter] >> Like, that that’s their only missing was here? I I think they would need more than like Cam Johnson. Uh if anything, give them Christian Braun.
Like, him and him and he can learn his his shooting technique back from from Steph cuz he’s been he’s been cold, man. But yeah, that’s the recent like trade thing that that’s occurring in the league. Um I think I talked about it yesterday or a couple days ago, but Harden has expressed that he wants to come back to Houston. So if anything, why would we send KD back to to Cleveland? You would think we want to pair him and Harden together again, right?
That’d be kind of dope. So I’m not having it. Unfortunately, guys, um you know, people in the league, I’m not having it. Uh another article I saw talked about Houston’s like closing lineup, which I’ll get to tomorrow cuz I definitely want to get to something a little bit more um intriguing, not just about Rockets, but just happening around the league, right? But I’ll I’ll talk about this tomorrow um about the Rockets like, you know, prediction for the Rockets’ best closing lineup.
Um thing I want to talk about is this aspiration stuff, right? I >> [snorts] >> finally did a bit more investigative journ- journalism, right? Um and, you know, I I I don’t know if you guys how familiar you guys are with like pop culture or US history or anything like that, but there were these two guys, uh Woodward and Bernstein. Uh they were the, you know, journalists back in the tw- was it ’60s or ’70s now? That broke the Watergate scandal, right?
The, you know, wiretapping Watergate scandal or whatever, right? Look into it if you don’t know about it, it’s it happened, >> [laughter] >> right? It’s a part of US history, not just media history, but it’s a part of US history. And it’s a huge scandal, and it rocked the integrity of not just journalism, but politics as a whole, maybe even American culture. But anyway, look into it.
It’s great. Um this Aspiration deal, right? I mean, kudos to to Pablo Torre for for bringing it to light. Um because I’m sure it’s it’s way bigger than than what we know about it. For those of you that don’t know about it, I mean, what I discovered today about it, um but apparently uh this company, Aspiration, right?
Uh what it was was, I mean, what what Pablo Torre or what these guys kind of discovered, um is that Steve Ballmer, the owner of the Clippers, I mean, the words they used was circumvented, uh incredible word, uh the NBA salary cap by paying 28 million to Kawhi Leonard for a no-show job. Okay? So, I mean, ethics and and business practices notwithstanding and all that, um but it’s it’s kind of shady, right? I mean, I don’t know how these guys’ salaries work. I mean, I’ve I’ve I took sports law in law school and then we talked about it.
But you can only get a finite number of dollars, right? How it works, at least from what I understand, uh as far as structuring contracts and all that, you can only get a finite number of dollars from the team’s organization, and then any additional monies that come from like endorsements or revenue, whether it’s a shoe deal, whether it’s a product endorsement, or anything like that. I’m not 100% sure how this new CBA I haven’t read the CBA in in quite some time. But as far as I know, you can only get X amount of dollars from the organization, right? And I don’t know if these endorsement deals how how they work is that that that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame, no pun intended.
But how these deals like if they go to the organization, the organization distributes it to the player or if they go directly to the player or the agency or I mean it it it’s complex. But when you’re talking about millions, in this case tens of millions, 28 million to be specific, possibly more, it gets tricky. Now, if I’m Pablo Torre and I’m not saying, you know, the guy’s not doing a great excellent work by Pablo Torre. Like he’s phenomenal for for for uncovering the story. If I’m Pablo Torre, I would tread very very carefully because there might be some people out there that don’t want this getting out.
>> [laughter] >> That really don’t want this getting out. Um not that I’m I’m saying anything like suspicious or anything, but like Leonard signed a four-year 170 .176.3 million contract to remain with the Clippers. So, according to Torre, Leonard agreed to a four-year $28 million endorsement deal in April ’22 through his LLC KL2 Aspire.
The endorsement deal came 9 months after Leonard signed a four-year 176.3 million contract to remain with the Clippers. The maximum allowed at the time under the NBA’s collective the CBA, right? So, this is uh what? 2022.
>> [snorts] >> That was around the time I was still in law school, right? So, a clause in one of the documents reportedly obtained by Torres states that the deal between Aspiration and Kawhi Leonard to Aspire would be voided if Leonard left the Clippers. According to Torres, Leonard could also Leonard also could decline to proceed with any action desired by Aspiration and continue to be paid. An unnamed employee reportedly worked for Aspiration told Torres that the payment to Leonard was to circumvent the salary. So, we got a whistleblower.
So, someone on the inside of the organization basically you know, we kind of ratted this out. Um And I’m guessing that guy’s going to that guy or gal is going to stay anonymous. Um Cuz yeah, that this is deep, man. This is deep. If somebody is on record and if their testimony is admissible as evidence or whatever, >> [snorts] >> this is deep.
This is real deep, guys. Like I don’t know, but I’ll I’ll try to stay on top of it cuz I’ve I’ve kind of covered this a little bit too much and maybe have implicated myself by by some of the stuff that I just said on [clears throat] this podcast. But no, listen. I’m just like you guys. I’m just an observer.
Um If you guys want me to dig dig deeper into this, I can. Happy to do it. No no problem. But the other reason I’m talking about it is cuz apparently Kawhi is now in in talks with the buying like a soccer team or something. Um yeah, I I I don’t know what this guy is trying to do.
He is my favorite player like pre-this, you know, Kawhi. Um on the court Kawhi is my favorite player, but off the court, Kawhi? >> [laughter] >> We we got to look into this guy. Um Anyway. All right.
So, this next story that I want to talk about is kind of interesting. I I read it I read it. I got on Reddit and on the NBA thread, um there’s this really interesting story. If you guys do follow the R/NBA thread like I do, there’s kind of a really dope um it’s kind of a really cool story. Um Really, it’s not even a story.
It’s like a like the reason why I said going back to my roots or or why I was um I used to be pre-med, right before I switched over to pre-law. And so, I wanted to get into like sports medicine, sports science, and I used to watch um I guess it was ESPN or even like Fox Sports, but there used to be this this like segment way back in the day was called Sport Science, right? And they talked about like the statistics or or like the the science behind an athlete, right? Like how much force it takes to hit a home run. Uh how fast you need to run to, you know, like Usain Bolt, right?
Um I think they did one on Usain Bolt. They did one on um and at the time, Barry Bonds, but I think they did one with Ichiro, which was pretty tight because he had, you know, he was a slim guy, but he was hitting these like incredibly far like home runs. I think they did one on like Luis Gonzalez, uh at the time. Uh Berkman, Bagwell, like the Astros were really good. Anyway, uh maybe they even did one on on Altuve recently.
I got to look into I got to get back into that that scene, but listen. Sorry, not to get too carried away, but the story that I saw or the the article that I read, but it it’s this post um where this guy, Dr. Nirav Pandya, MD, he released a study. I don’t know when it or when it was released, I’ll tell you guys exactly. July 26th, 2026.
Okay, first published. So, it just came out a couple days ago. And the reason why it’s interesting is because the study that he did was they they studied every NBA I’m going to just going to read from from the post. Uh we studied every NBA article NBA’s Achilles tear from 2024 to 20 Sorry, 2014 to 2025, 19 players, to find out what happens in game in the games right before the injury. Right?
And so, the finding minutes the finding minutes played spiked significantly in the 10 to 15 games before the rupture. Even [snorts] though season-long workout load looked totally normal. Seven Achilles tears in 2024-2025 alone. Three of those teams occurred Three of those tears occurred in the playoffs. This is a real growing problem in the league, and I mean, I’m it it’s a science journal, right?
So, it’s a science study, so it’s definitely long, and I didn’t have enough time to read it. Otherwise, you know, something’s going to something’s going to give, but if you guys do get a chance, check it out. It’s on the RNBA thread. I guess just look up it was posted When was this posted? I’m going to say this was posted Oh, 16 hours ago.
So, it was posted last night. Or sometime yesterday. But, this is a really cool article. Definitely check it out. Um it’s fun.
I mean, if you’re into science, if you’re into sports science, if you want to research like what’s going on, uh definitely check it out. Definitely check it out. All right. And now with no, you know, all the serious stuff kind of behind us, let’s talk about my today’s goat conversations, right? In my personal life, I’m very silly.
I [snorts] like to, you know, I don’t know if you guys can tell. I’m a very silly person. I mean, I don’t know if you can see my my night bus. Right there, my Harry Potter night bus. Uh but um it’s a Lego night bus, too, so.
Um my fun my favorite thing to say to to in the in the group chat is whenever someone makes a really cool comment or anything like that, I’ll just post a GIF of or like a not even a GIF, sometimes just a meme of Mike Breen just going bang! I think it’s just so cool, right? And so, today’s today’s, you know, goat conversation is Mike Breen’s greatest bangs. >> [laughter] >> And you guys probably can’t hear it, but uh couple of Rockets made made the lead made the list. Uh I if you just Google, you know, Mike Breen’s greatest bangs, I think the best ones are like the double bangs that he does.
Uh some of the coolest ones that I saw on the list, uh Eric Gordon’s on there, he’s number 10. Uh Steph Curry, of course, the original the originator of the double bang, the 2016. Uh the shot against OKC. No, was it 2016? 2015?
I think it was 2015. Uh Jalen Brunson’s on there a couple times. Hang on. Jalen Brunson’s on there a couple times. Yeah, 2016 is when the Steph one was on there.
That was the [snorts] original, I think. I mean, the the mid the half-court shot that he had from from half court, that was pretty good. Marcus Smart is on there. Um Julius Randle’s on there. Vincenzo’s on there.
DiVincenzo’s on there. But again, my my top two are probably the Eric Gordon one or the Seth Curry one, the original. The Eric Gordon one, definitely. I mean, they’re just they’re just incredible shots. Marcus Smart is on there.
Um Jalen Brunson’s on there a few times. His his his from the from the playoffs. I think he got one. He was about to get a triple bang. If you guys look up Brinks triple bangs, like he almost got one this year.
So >> [laughter] >> Definitely check that out. Um Yeah, man. My my Brinks uh he’s he’s cool, man. He his his bang is just is just so tight. Um anyway, that that’s it for me.
That that’s it for me today. Uh thanks for tuning in. Um tune in tomorrow for more exciting, hopefully, news and and more fun topics to discuss. Um I have another fun topic, I think, for tomorrow for the for the goat conversation. So we’ll talk about that.
All right. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, guys. Um if you have anything, make sure you drop in your comments. Make sure you’re hitting your likes and the subscribes and you know, talk to me cuz I love talking basketball and I would love to talk some basketball with you. So anyway, guys, have a great Thursday.
Stay out of trouble and easy out. Count us down. 3 2 1. Peace.
Read More: Chicago White Sox vs. Houston Astros (07/24/26) | Game Highlights | CHSN White Sox
