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Have a great episode for you today. It is loaded. We are
first going to talk with Bach Reports Grant Hughes about the playoffs, just some
stray thoughts on the Celtics heat series to date. We go really in dept
on Lakers Nuggets in advance of their Game four, which hopefully you'll be listening
to this beforehand, but if you're listening to it afterwards. We did discuss
some evergreen content such as Anthony Davis and whether he's underrated, because it seems
like the discussion sort of shifted in that direction following his game winner in Game
two. We also talk about Lebron's comments about his receiving only sixteen first place
votes in the final MVP tally. We also talked about the news out of
the Clippers locker room. I guess you could call it that Paul George gave
this, you know, sort of ata boys speech after the Game seven loss
and let's run it back, Let's come back and win. And it was
met with per the athletics, Sham Sharania, a bunch of eye rolling,
and so we get into what's going on with the Clippers and their search for
a playmaker. After that, I bring in Salmon Ali. He is a
fellow Blue Wire podcaster. He hosts the Red Nation Hoops podcast and he also
covers the Houston Rockets for ESPN ninety seven point five in Houston. We talk
you guessed Houston Rockets. Just get into their future, their long term outlook,
trades that they could make, the season ending the way it did,
their head coaching search. It's a fun discussion. It's a long pod.
We're running almost two hours, but we cover a lot of content as always,
though before we get started, I have to shout out our sponsors this
week. We are excited to have Indeed and bet Online back. As always,
without them, this podcast would not be possible. I will not keep
you waiting any longer. Let's get into talking with first Bleacher Reports Grant Hues
and then ESPN ninety seven point five's Salmon Ali. Grant, welcome back for
what I think we've got to be in the teens with your appearance for a
Hardwood ox. So thank you for coming back on how are you doing?
I'm doing good? And like I said before, before we started taping or
taping, does anybody tape anything? Recording whatever? I'm stoked because in my
day to day life, I just don't get the opportunity to talk about the
NBA on a level that we can discuss it on like my wife for instance,
or just general acquaintances are not interested in, like what should Mason Plumbly
have done instead of running into Lebron on the last on ADS game winner?
Like what are your thoughts? What are his three options? Like that kind
of thing. So we don't need to talk about that specifically, But always
glad to do it, Always glad to be here. Let's try to get
to the twenties someday. Yeah, right, we're gonna get there. Rest
of short because I'll be pestering you enough. But you know, you know
you mentioned the playoffs. Let's start with some stray playoff thoughts before we get
into some news topics. I'll let you which series do you want to tackle?
Nuggets, Nuggets, Lakers or Heat Celtics? What have you been?
What excuse me, what have your impressions been for either of them so far?
Well so, And this was kind of surprising to me as it was
developing. But I've been I don't know about you, but I've been so
much more interested in the east side of the bracket than the west, which
like that's I don't know when, if ever, that has really been the
case, at least in the last what you know, ten ten years or
so. But like the Toronto Boston series was just for me, like as
good as things got, I love or I thought, and then and then
and then Boston Miami, I just have so I'll I had this thought the
other day. So there's a San Francisco Giants broadcaster who's done their games forever,
Mike Cruco, and like when there will be a play that, for
example, the picture throws like just a dart, like low and away,
the batter gets the bat on, it rips it up the line. The
third base or well, I guess first baseman whoever makes an incredible play on
like diving makes an incredible throw and gets him out by like half a step,
and he'll say, that's the big leagues right there, And it's just
like his way of saying like, that's about as good as this sport can
look, just top to bottom. And I've had that thought several times in
Boston Miami, which feels weird because it's a defensive series, but just watching
the talent, watching the strategy, watching the adjustments and the counter adjustments,
the level of competitiveness, it's just like it's the big leagues. And I
think that has been the most enjoyable part of all this for me, because
the playoffs are always more intense and just better played. But but this series,
this Boston Miami series, to me, I've just found myself just kind
of reveling in like the level hold that the basketball is being played at.
And I think it's only going to continue because you know, the stakes just
get higher with every game and these two teams are just so good. Yeah,
this is a series that I don't I feel like I've said this a
lot more during the postseason than I normally do. I don't have like a
great feel for it, and it was I think part of it is because
I didn't expect the heat to be here. And the other thing was you
watch the first two games and you're like, oh, Miami's like going into
zone. So I often kind of broke Boston's offense, and then all of
a sudden, like Boston is, you know, not just their office didn't
just perform well in Game three, but like they really put pressure on the
basket. They got to the free throw line, and now it's like,
okay, well now what is Miami going to do? And so it looked
like I wouldn't say that the Heat were going to run away with it,
but you have like one impression. But then Boston comes back and then they're
even like a lineup that they just barely trotted out in the regular season.
Gordon Hayward's back, and then they run out the Smalls like that all small
lineup where it was just you know, i'll call it five and kemba Walker
basically. So I'm very interested to see what people might be listening to this
before Game four, after Game four or whatever. But the rest of this
series, this just feels like something that's the extent of might feel for it.
I feel like we're in for seven games because I don't know that either
of these two teams is gonna punch far enough above the other teams wait for
a long enough time to delay it that long and it's like you said,
it's been a defensive series. But I'm also a part of me is wondering,
like, you know, did Boston almost kind of crack the code in
Game three? And like they missed a lot of they didn't take a lot
of three pointers in Game three. I actually think twenty six attempts was their
fewest of the postseason. But they also didn't shoot too well on them either.
It was sub thirty five percent. And You're like, you know,
Jason Tatum's not going to go two of seven from downtown forever and they're gonna
be nice where just Marcus mart gets scorching. And so I'm wondering if their
offense actually has like another gear against this Miami team too. Yeah. No,
I've had this thought about Boston several times, specifically that really I guess
just going back to the Toronto series because the first round was kind of whatever,
but it felt I have thought several times, like, man, Boston,
if they could just knock down some of these open threes, they'd be
up fourteen instead of six or whatever it is. And honestly, you know,
it was the boxing one against Toronto that yielded all those corner threes that
you know, it seemed like Marcus Smart would hit a bunch in the first
quarter and then the team would go cold. The quality of the shots they
got have gotten has been consistently really good against very good defenses, and so
I do think there is like another level to the Celtics offense, particularly sort
of having correctly adjusted to the heat zone, which to me this has been
There's another like overarching theme of these playoffs is that it's felt like this is
a so the question is like who can solve who? And clearly and that
started for me with the Bucks. The concern going in is that they are
solvable. They have been solved in the past. They got solved last year.
Miami solved the Bucks not a complicated problem. I think we all kind
as we all sort of suspected solved. And then you see in this series,
like you said, that zone looked like I had the thought of like,
wow, Boston is never going to score against this. There's just no
way they can't do it, Like they just looked totally hopeless, and then
like just obviously that's not the case. Because you saw that one play,
I forget who was actually doing the passing but it was just a cut from
the wing, and I think smart found maybe Jalen Brown cutting in It's like,
oh yeah, you can just cut against the zone that works, or
oh yeah you can sort of just pull Bam out of bio, away from
the bucket and now you get layups again. There's just all these The tactical
stuff is really fascinating, but also sort of the narrative I think is really
fun because you've got the heat, you know, the heat culture is so
buzzy, and you love that like this, they're not underdogs, but I
wrote I underrated them, and I think you probably did too, and they
just look like they could win a title maybe. And then Boston, I
think is you know, looked like they should have just rush the raptors.
Oh Giannaobi hits that shot, and now they're in a series. These young
guys get validated and a pressure cooker again. And I just love the young
players, the angles, the narratives. I don't know, maybe I was
just starved by the months off during the pandemic and then the bubble stuff,
but I just I just keep coming back to how how good this has been
from from really every perspective. Yeah, the thing that I keep coming back
to me with Miami is like, yes, I underrated them, but there's
also like that trade in the middle of the season really seemed to swing their
year. And I don't know if it necessarily happened in the moment, but
like Jay crowd is just the perfect example to me, is he ended up
being essentially the primary defender against Janis for those what like two and a half
games that he actually played or whatever. Spend a ton of time on Chris
Middleton even in this series, Like you just have someone now that you're gonna
put on Kemba Walker or Jalen Brown, Like that's all of a sudden,
you just have that guy. And so it's so like that helped them so
much just for their defensive optionality. I think because a lot of the lineups
that Jimmy Butler, bam Ada Bio were carrying, they were basically probably surrounded
by suboptimal defenders at all three spots, I would say, and so it
just didn't seem tenable. And to have him and then Igodala forever many minutes
that he can actually give you going going night tonight just turns out to be
absolutely huge for them, and it actually just I'm more fascinated by and I
don't need to get away from the actual basketball with it. But like how
this sort of just impacts what happens now with them because everyone's like, oh,
they're gonna sign Victor Oladipo in free agency in twenty twenty one, where
they're gonna go after Ghannas in twenty twenty one, and it's like, can
they even afford to sit on cap space for that long when their team is
this good now, and particularly when you have free agents and Crowder and Dragic
to entering the open market, maybe you can get them for really just one
year inflated deals. But like this, this isn't about the heat like wedging
open a title window now all of a sudden, it's about, oh,
they're in this window and they could like they are two wins away from the
NBA Finals and we're recording this, and that's just like something I've struggled to
apple with just just in the present, but then also just looking at their
future as well. Yeah, well they were the team that was most sort
of telegraphing their twenty twenty one names. I thought, you know, and
Janis or whoever, the good class but Yannis is obviously the top of that
list for everybody, and maybe that'll, you know, what might solve a
lot of their a lot of the uncertainty. Is he just, yeah,
just signs a supermax. And now maybe maybe I have time to hear my
quick theory on that. I would love to hear your theory on that.
If I'm be honest and I want to stay in Milwaukee, I'm still not
signing the supermax because two of the teams that want him the most or in
the East, in Toronto in Miami, So why not screw with them?
And if they're gonna, you know, remain and lurched while he remains unsigned,
the money's gonna be there for Yannis either way. Like it's not the
only thing that he actually gains by the laying it is salary cap clarities.
Maybe he knows whether he should sign actually a shorter deal, but he could
have and I don't want to name an injury. I don't want him to
get one, but he could have the most devis dating injury possible and they're
still going to max him out anyway, and so the money isn't in jeopardy
there. So if I'm honest, I'm totally doing that because you need to
mess with the competition in the conference. In my mind, so I think
I haven't thought of the if he's if he knows he's committed to Milwaukee,
he ought to do, you know, he ought to leave those other teams
kind of hanging out there because it could be a negative for them. But
but I agree, and I think that's that's smart. And if I were
him and I felt that way, I would do that too. But the
main thing, like the Kevin Durant example is the most obvious one, right,
Like I think you know torn Achilles, that's that's the injury that you
don't have to name because that's one that is just sort of on the very
short list of oh, this is a career ender and signs a max deal,
uh right away, so you're signing tray whatever, Like it didn't hurt
him. He's older than your Honest, he has not won back to back
m vps. I don't not comparing the two like who's better or this is
not a goat conversation, but like, yeah, so honest has just the
money is going to be their full stop. So I think if I'm him,
I don't want to sign that Supermax at all. The only reason you
sign the Supermax, I think is to not have to face a full year
of the same questions again. And like, I don't know what that's worth,
but that's worth That's got to be worth something because it's a huge distraction.
It's a it's just a whole thing, and it's just got to be
mind theming to have to deal with that. But other than that, like
I just don't know why you why if you're him, you you lock into
something because like what if I don't know, what if Chris Middleton gets hurt
this year or like what they're in twenty one? What if something else happens,
then you're you're stuck on a team that really has no way to change.
That's that's a whole whole other set of factors to consider. Yeah,
I mean you want to keep pressure on the organization too, to not be
complacent just because he still has leverage even if he's under contract for four or
five years. But the threat of three agency also means a bunch of I
did not mean to drag it into a free agency discussion that even those sports
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is my birthday. So you know, it's it is there? Do you
have anything else just the heat Celtics is there's been just anything you know that
you're gonna watch moving forward, specifically from from a player. So maybe that
can shift the tenor of the series. What is it going to take for
you know, because Boston is still kind of on the ropes? Here are
are you looking at? You know? How are do they need another you
know, three point debt nation from Marcus Smart and one of these games?
Just what are you still watching for in Celtics feed a couple of things.
I have a question for you too. But the first thing is I had
the thought during I guess it was game three maybe game two where I think
last time we talked, I was kind of I was like less, I
was very high on Jayson Tatum, but I don't think I was as high
as you were. And I and I'm ready to admit that you're right.
But I've had the thoughts several times during this series of like I want to
buy all of the Jayson Tatum stock, as in, there is a there
is a realistic scenario in three years where he's the best player in the sport.
Like I just I don't feel that way all the time, but I
think he had. There was a play on the right block where he basically
did a dream shake where he sort of had not not the like David Robinson,
you know, up and under, up and under three times thing,
but where he doesn't really establish a pivot foot like a la Juan used to
do, and did this just filthy fake one wave baseline spin where even like
right up to the moment he made the move, you didn't know what pivot
foot he was using, which is a vintage a La Juan thing, And
I'm just like, okay, that's cash me out right, like I want
every piece of Tatum stock. So I think one way the Celtics turn.
You know, I don't know if turn it arounds the right way, but
you know, take Game four and you know, sort of grab ahold of
the series again is if you just get a Tatum game where the attention is
still too strongly on kemball walker Jalen Brown's playing well enough to command a lot
of attention, and Tatum gets you at forty. I don't know if the
Heat are capable of letting someone do that, but I think that's that's a
that's your like you know, talk radio, we need a big Tatum game
to do this, like very surface level take, but I do feel like
he can do that, and I feel like that's possible. The thing I
want to ask you was going back to really starting in the Toronto series,
it seemed like Kemba Walker is a huge priority for every opposing defense, Like
you know, Toronto played the box and one seemingly to just avoid getting its
biggs involved in pick and roll and pick and pop with Walker, and then
the Heat have really put a lot of emphasis on keeping Walker out of pick
and roll and just kind of focusing on him, which seems weird to me
because you know, Tatum is obviously the best offensive player on the team,
but there must just be something about what Walker can do that has these opposing
coaches, good coaches, extra concerned. Have you noticed that? What's your
theory on that, Like, is it surprising to you that Walker has been
such a point of emphasis and he hasn't played well as a result? I
think, But but it seems like a weird thing to me. I wondering
if you noticed that. Yeah, so I guess I didn't give as much
thought as you, but it is, you know, looking back when Toronto
ran up and one against Walker at some point too, I believe, and
so yeah, I know they did, and so giving that focus to Kemba,
I guess it is bizarre with Tatum, but I guess it isn't Walker
if you end up switching a pick and roll more of a mismatch than Jayson
Tatum is technically like he's just quicker. I don't know if you're gonna you're
not gonna trust him as the same type of finisher around the rim, but
he is going to be the better passer anyway. And so it's more about
kind of taking those extra elements out or is it just you're confident more confident
that hey, we can remove him from the equation. He's just he's smaller,
and so if we're gonna be able to neutralize him, like Tatum can
do whatever. And we've seen variants in his game where maybe he's not going
to go all the way to the basket, or maybe he's not always going
to make the less obvious pass, which he's done he's done a great job
of for most of the playoffs, and he's averaging five point seven assist per
game in this series. That's I don't even that might just be total crap
thinking, I honestly have no idea, but that's that's like one or two
theories I could float out would be those. Yeah, it's it's felt like
it's like, at least the Toronto bit, it felt like a challenge to
Tatum to be to be a playmaker, which I think he's less comfortable doing
than just getting buckets. And that would be the difference where if you're saying
he's going to be the best player in the world in the next three years,
you know, when you look at the other players in contention for that,
they'll obviously be maybe Janice will probably still be in that discussion at that
time. But if you're looking specifically at let's say Luca don Chich, it's
because he's the primary engine of the offense as a passer, and because Tatum's
never going to be at that level even if he is, you know,
a peak passer to like the best of whatever you think he can be,
Like if he's averaging, you know, what does he need to average four
or five si per game to be like peak where it's you know, his
his offense if it's still efficient and what he does on defense, like that's
going to make up the difference, because I think really why James Harden is
just so good relative to a lot of other players is, yes, there's
the scoring, but he separates himself so much as a passer that you can
there are players that you could just you could throw their defensive cases just entirely
out the window because they're never even going to come close to sniffing value that
Hardened adds alone as just a playmaker. Yeah, I think that's right.
You would never challenge a guy like like Harden or Luca. Obviously it's totally
different because you just can't get the ball out of Luca Lucas hands really anyway.
But you would never challenge those guys to sort of beat you in a
four on four or a four on three by you know, hard trapping kembo
or doing a bunch of weird you know that that's like, And I think
it probably does speak to Tatum has you know, you know, things to
iron out. But I thought he handled that stuff pretty well. But I'm
just I'm kind of just waiting for him to really have one of those games
in this series, and again, the heat may just not let that happen.
But you know, talk about a narrative that could really get gone is
like this is the Tatum Arrival tour, just following up his regular season arrival
of Now, oh yeah he can, he can. He can carry a
very good team to the finals, like, you know, against a very
very good defense. I think I think I'd like to see that. I
don't just as a fan, but I don't know how realistic that is against
this good of a defense. This is like a good series someone's gonna overturn,
like a preconceived notion where it's you know, Tatum was on the rise,
but people were wondering and even you who you weren't even trying hot Tay
is he a top ten player yet? Like is he a best player on
a contender material? And then there's also there's been that same stuff with Jimmy
Butler, I think predominantly because he's been on so many different teams, which
was definitely an unfair stance if you just look at the track record of all
the Crumby front offices that he left, like yeah, you know what,
he might grate on some people, but it's not like he was in these
great situations either. But one of those two was going to the finals and
they're going to be the best player on their team when they yet, Yeah,
no, it's amazing. I think too that well, the preconceived notion
that's going to get flipped is I came into this series thinking, you know,
the heat, they were ready, they were better prepared for a Bucks
team that you just you know, I was just not that it didn't it
didn't elevate the heat to me to some higher level that they that they just
kind of cracked Milwaukee just because I was so foreseeable and I thought that Boston,
you know, they can do so many different things you can't. You
know, they don't play one way, they have all these you know that
Brad Stevens is a mad genius like all that stuff. I just I thought
Boston was gonna not have a hard time in this series, to be honest,
and really, yeah I really did. I just well part of that
was because I regarded the Raptors so highly. I really, I just I
have so much We didn't talk about this, I don't think, but I
have so much respect for the Raptors, even though they should have been down
three zero, and maybe because they should have been down three oh and still
pushed that thing to the brink with just that Game six was I mean,
like a chef's kiss for the entire game. And I just I love the
Raptors so much that I thought Boston beating that team really meant a lot,
and I thought that that Miami beating Milwaukee meant quite a bit less. And
I think maybe I just sort of was too high on one and too low
on the other. And it turns out these teams are both actually pretty evenly
matched. That's probably a fair that's probably a fair stance to land on it.
I mean, look, Milwaukee was Jannie was injured and the coach wasn't
playing his players enough. The coach I called him the coaches that have Mike,
like, I don't know who he is because he's still the coach in
your surprise. So I think a lot of people are playing that. But
I saw a lot of Celtics in five predictions. I don't know. I
didn't have to put a game number on it, but I really everyone I
talked to I was like, they're gonna win the series. I thought Miami
would get win game one because Boston played had all of it's starting five played
like ninety total minutes over the previous two games. But I thought that even
with Miami winning Game one, that Boston win the series. Still alive,
but the series has not progressed quite how I thought it would. You want
to talk West, I took Celtics in seven in this one, and then
I took out of I don't know what it was, stubbornness, but I
started to get not a lot of credit. But I picked the Nuggets to
win the title in the beginning of the season. I flip flop waffled on
that so much. I even picked the Clippers to win the series against the
Nuggets. I don't think I deserve credit for naming them as a title pick,
but I went with Nuggets and seven in this series because one I was
impressed. I thought that their death would end up being a lot more reliable
than LA's. Probably a flawed thinking of that is that Lebron and ad actually
haven't really had a play that much during these playoffs, so that, you
know, worrying about depth is probably stupid. Still, I feel like there
are I have a question ask you about Anthony Davis eventually, but I think
in the context of the series, I'm assuming you picked the Lakers or you're
probably in the camp of the Lakers are definitely going to win this series.
Do you see anything though, that's like encouraging for Denver and not just oh,
they almost won Game two that they can hang on going forward. And
what specifically is it like, is it you know they're they're going to shoot
better than twenty one percent on wide open threes during the rest of the series.
Is it's something like that or do you kind of just think that this
is Fay to complete lebron senses, it's his best chance to win a title,
probably with the Lakers, given that Golden State will be back next year
and all the up and coming teams, YadA, YadA, YadA. Well,
I think the answer, I mean, there's certainly undeniable, much bigger
picture reasons to be really encouraged by Denver. You know, that's obvious that
the resiliency they've shown, the experience that they're getting from playing in all these
elimination games. Murray kind of I think Murray has quietly just become the guy
that we kind of thought he was gonna be, you know, in the
last couple of years. Anytime he had a big game, I felt like
there was always this call to sort of be like, Okay, Murray's the
next guy, and I definitely have said that. I'm sure I wrote something
about that when he had a big playoff game in the last postseason. But
I think that's, you know, in yok it's just being you know,
not the guy that you can play off the floor with pick and rolls anymore,
and their chemistry together all that stuff, Porter Jr. Looking like a
really good third option, that type of thing, but sort of more micro
than Macro. I do really think that Denver should be encouraged by the fact
that you can just throw the ball to Yokich in the post against and all
world defender, and if he doesn't score over him like he did for what
we thought was going to be the game winner, he's going to find the
guy that needs to get a shot. And so when your offense can kind
of be simplified to that extent, it's very hard for even a good defense,
and the Lakers are one of those to kind of shut down your offense
for an extended stretch just because Yokich is always going to do the right thing.
And maybe that's not the right word. Maybe it's Yokich is always going
to prevent you from taking away all of his options because he can score,
and he's gonna find the passing lane that nobody else can see. And because
the Nuggets all know he's going to do that, they never sat running around
and finding those cutting areas and good spots to sort of set up shop for
a kickout. So I think the Lakers strength is still their defense. But
when the Nuggets know they have someone that can just kind of manufacture consistently good
looks, I think you can always be encouraged by that. But yeah,
I do think to get to your other point, you know, I picked
the Lakers. I just thought that, you know, Denver's more than a
nice story, but you don't you're still, you know, to come back
from a three one deficit. You're down three one twice, and you know
there's a realistic possibility that they don't even get out of that Utah series if
that crazy Conley shot goes down. So I think it's not it's still cliche
to be like, oh, the magic ran out or whatever, but the
Lakers are a different animal. The Nuggets just can't. They're not quite there,
is all I'm saying. And they've had an incredible run and they may
get there, but it just felt like, you know, this was about
as far as we could realistically expect them to get the finals. To me,
to feel like a realistic possibility. Yeah, And there's like there's still
something it feels like missing from Denver's wing rotation, even when you're accounting for
like Michael Porter Junior's learning curve, which on some nights it doesn't even feel
like it exists, Like you just make good rotations on defense or where he'll
be shooting the hell out of the ball, but like when you're playing PJ
doj and crunch Time, PJ Dozer and crunch Time. Excuse me, I
can't talk tonight, it's like there's something like he really did make some good
defensive plays, but he was one of five at the foul line, Like
you're if you're in that position, like that's not an optimal position to be
in, Like it's you know what, you know what they need, sorry
to jump in, but like they need they need good Gary Harris all the
time. That's that's who that guy needs to be and they get him sometimes.
And that's when the Nuggets I think looked really kind of special. But
they don't. Yeah it like to your point, and Dozer was in over
Harris, and Harris has kind of been a non entity so far. That's
what they need, is that other wing that can kind of do sort of
everything and defend, and they just don't have it. The thing I wanted
to ask you, though, is like, so Anthony Davis and look,
maybe that's something else. By the way that the Nuggets can kind of hang
their their hat on is that Anthony Davis is three or seven from deep in
this series. He's hit like some, especially in Game two, hit a
bunch of difficult jumpers like you probably on most nights would count on those not
going down. But it does seem that like this is now being turned into
like Anthony Davis is like find of finally writing his legacy and like, oh
he's he's so good, Like he's even been underrated to this point. I
kept seeing tweets that Anthony Davis is better than Janis and Nicole Yokich being retweeted
into my feed, and I'm just like, I'm not even trying to knock
against this isn't knocking stage, But was he underrated to begin with? Like
wasn't this someone who was just consistently in the top five to seven at worst
top ten discussion. Oh yeah, no, I've had this. I have
the exact same thought. It's I mean, you can get to that point
very often in like the whole concept of an underrated players, like well,
if we're asking if he's underrated, this is he just by definition no longer
underrated because we're all sort of agreeing that that was the wrong chance. But
like, but especially for him is it's it's almost you can almost tie it
to Lebron being pissed about the MVP a little bit in that, like,
yeah, man, I like nobody's gonna say that you're not the best player
in the world, like to your favor. He just I don't know,
it's it's sort of a it's an argument that no one's really making. But
I will say that probably like ten or fifteen minutes before he hit the game
winner in real time, I did have the thought of, man, Anthony
Davis is really good, like great, but I actually don't think he can
be your best player, or at least he can be your guy if if
if Lebron's not there, if it's put someone else that's close to Lebron and
Davis then is clearly the leader of the team, the best player. Like,
maybe I'm setting myself up for failure because he'll just prove me wrong in
a year or two when he's the best player on the Lakers team that wins
it all. But like he's just look, he's really great. Uh,
he is a top five to seven guy. But I don't think that's the
same thing as saying he can be he can do what Lebron does or you
know what Steph Curry did, or you know the very like very very rarefied
air of the guy that he is the best player and most important player on
a title team that I don't want to knock him either, because then he
hit the game winner surely after I had that thought. But I have to
cop to actually thinking that. It's a thought that's crossed my mind too really
frequently. And I think, look, here, you might call him a
top five player, but if you'll ask someone, who are you starting a
team you want to win this season? Like throw a future out of the
equation, who do you want to build your team around? I don't know
that he's going to be one of the first or seven guys that you name
because playmaking is so important. That's not something he's gonna do. And then
look, he has like he can put the ball on the floor, he
can take those those fadeaways, he can take those step backs, but he's
historically not hit those at a high clip. He's even not been like a
good set three point shooter. And so I think that's an easy way to
talk yourself out of him. What I do keep coming back to is I
almost feel like we then undervalue and this isn't you. I think. I
think it's even me when I have the initial thought, but it's people who
think that he's overrated. I feel like they're undervaluing what he actually does because
it's so tough to maybe sometimes quantify or maybe you take it for granted.
And so the two things I would point to is one, there's his defense.
And so a lot of people pointed out that the Lakers were better,
We're about dead even defensively with him off the court this season, and like,
there are so many things that go into that, like the lineups that
you're facing, but also a lot of his non Lebron minutes are coming with
Rondo and Kuzma, who's been okay defensively for like pretty quietly like two seasons
now, but like those lineups are tough to carry, and even if kcp's
and they're like, you're still dealing with a lot of then at that point
like overmatched, just defensive assignments, and so you're trying to cover up for
a whole bunch or you have to cover up for a whole bunch. And
then the other thing for me is like his offense. Yes, there are
those times where he devates, but he can score thirty forty points just completely
within the flow of the offense. And I don't think that you should take
it can be taken for granted, because I don't know that you realize it.
It's like there's there are these players where you're watching him and you don't
even realize that they just hung twenty five. And I sometimes feel like if
he's not always putting the ball on the floor, he's one of those players.
And so to get out in transition, to just be willing to run
the floor, to be able to score off all those passes, like there's
just such a convenience in that. But it's this high end convenience that very
few players have. And then the last thing I'll point out too, is
just he creates all sorts of mismatches at his position, and just the defensive
questions you have to ask yourself whether you're running small, whether you're running big,
And it's like the case with the Nuggets, is you know they're not
Paul millsapp has spent the most time guarding him in this series. But and
these numbers aren't perfect, but in the time that NICOLEA. Yoki just spent
guarding him, and he's been, by possession and minutes, the second most
frequent defender on Anthony Davis, the Lakers as a team are averaging one point
seven eight points per possession on the possessions that Yoka's guards Anthony Davis. And
he just creates all sorts of those matchup issues that yes, Yokis might be
an extreme, but like name another big you're mostly not gonna want them on
Anthony Davis. Yeah, it's it made me think of something, and I
think it's it's an oversimplification, but it sort of explains both how there's this
idea that he's underrated and are sort of half confident feeling that he isn't quite
like the guy you'd pick to start a franchise with and I think it's just
because he's not a guy that you know, gets his own that that often
in the in the sort of traditional obvious way of of a Kauai or even
like a Don Chich or you know, Jannis or all these it's it's it's
just a I think we, I don't know, overvalue, but we definitely
extremely highly value the guy that is going to create a shot for himself or
someone else. And Davis, like you said, he can get you thirty
garbage points and they still count the same. But I don't feel like it
seems the same when you're trying to evaluate a player and say, you know,
is he absolutely the best of the best? I think we just we
put such an emphasis on that on as feel set that he doesn't. Really
that's not his absolute strongest attribute, all right, it's not necessarily necessarily supposed
to be. But I think what I don't know if we overvalue it or
not. It's a good point by you, But the most important shot in
basketball I think right now is like the off the dribble three. Like you
can get more granular with it, like is it the step back? Is
it the escape dribble? Three. Is it just the regular pull up three,
But that feels like it's become the most important shot, and that's not
Anthony Davis's game. And even look like in the playoffs he's been absolutely dominating.
More than fifty eight percent of his buckets have come off assist. And
in the regular season, I think it was right it was even high or
sixty three point two percent of his baskets has come off assist and that's not
like, actually not that high when you just look relative to his position.
Most of those guys, if they're gonna be regular like traditional fours, or
if you're just gonna play the five, you're normally just not creating your own
shot. It's Yokich and maybe Karl Anthony Towns at this point and Joel Embi,
like you could start, you could probably count the players on one hand
or at least definitely less than both of your hands. So it's like a
it's like a it's not a criticism against him, but it's also like kind
of a fact of life. Like that does feel like the from scratch creators
are the most important building box right now. And then here's something to think
about and maybe we could we could wrap the Davis thing on this, but
you just keep making me think of things I think, apologize, No,
no, this is why we have to have these conversations. Otherwise my half
formed uh thoughts don't get aired. Think think of it this way. It
occurs to me that Davis might be if you're an opposing coach in a playoff
series and your whole your whole deal is, well, how do we take
away what player X does best and just use the Walker example, It's like,
well, we can't let him get downhill in the pick and roll.
We're go and trap him. Right, There's ways to scheme. So I
think Davis might be one of the most difficult guys to prevent from doing what
he wants to do and to or put it another way, to scheme against
because like we've we've said it already, he's just gonna get a bunch of
points in the flow. So like, okay, let's let's set our white
board up in the locker room for Anthony Davis and say like, here's the
three things we gotta we gotta do. We gotta be more athletic than him
so he can't get on the offensive boards. Not possible. We gotta be
I don't know, more skilled to so we can stay in front of him
as he's kind of running around screens and like a six ten guys trying to
can't do that, so you just go down the list and he's not schemable,
So I mean can consider the value in that as like an opposing coach,
you just sort of throw up your hands and say like, well,
I hope we box him out or I hope we can drag him away from
the basket. And he's not quick enough to recover to help on drives,
which he is and he always like there's just so that aspect of it is,
maybe we're thinking about this wrong, because what you want in a playoff
series is a guy that can't be prevented from doing the stuff he's good at
and and so far nobody has topped Davis from doing the stuff he's good at.
Yeah, that's a that's a great point too. I do find it
weird though that I just didn't think that it has Anthony Davis been underrated was
going to become a topic during by offs, Like I didn't see that coming.
We gotta talk about something. I guess the weight is finally over.
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experts. A few more things I want to ask you. We'll stick with
the Lakers for this one. So I'm assuming you saw Lebron's comments on his
receiving only sixteen I say only, but I mean sixteen first place MVP votes
really isn't nothing. So you saw those comments? Right? Yeah? Sure?
What do you make of the whole thing? Because where I'm gonna land
on it? And I'd rather you get more nuanced than I will. And
I'll corsrespond to you. He's like, right, because the thing that stood
out to me is he said, I don't know how much we are really
watching the game of basketball or we're just in narration mode. And so I
tend to agree with him that narrative does play a huge part. But he's
also someone in this case who benefits from it because there were the few people
it wasn't a lot, who were talking about, you know, leading the
Lakers through this pandemic, and then Kobe's death like that needed to booby him
up. And one he's not the only person leading his team through a pandemic,
and everyone's living through the pandemic. To the Kobe stuff, it makes
me cringe whenever it's brought up, like where every thing the Lakers do is
like, oh was this for Kobe? That stuff makes me uncomfortable to begin
with. And then also even though oh, look at what he's doing in
his age thirty five campaign, like well, why does that get evaluated differently
in the MVP this course just because he's older, So he does benefit from
some of it. But I do think what he really touched on is that
I would be in favor of them probably shrinking the voting process. I think
media are absolutely if you're gonna do it, the media are probably the best
people to do it, just because we've seen how seriously the players fake the
All Star voting and hint, hint, it's not very serious at all.
And then the other thing is that there probably needs to be whether it's a
separation of awards where you have a best player and then a Most Valuable Player,
or just a specific set of criteria because everyone's judging it differently, where
with Lebron it's you know, maybe the narrative matters, or they're looking at
Will look how bad the Lakers were on the court without him, and it's
like, okay, well, Jana statistically elevated his team by just as much,
if not more. The promise is that they were just still good without
him. Do we penalize him because he brought a good team to great and
Lebron brought what would be a so so to crappy team to like really good
bordering on great. And there it's such a confusing topic to discuss, but
I do think, you know, he's kind of the first player that I
feel like is really hit on it where it's like he's like pointing out like
Marc Gasol when he Defensive Player of the Year in two has team, but
he was in all defensive second team, So that stuff. You know,
the voting process, I actually do think that there's like an issue with it,
and the ambiguity I think does stand out more than anything else. And
the last thing I would say is I still think the right player won the
regular season award because it is a regular season award. Yeah, I think.
So let's before I kind of give you my two cents, do you
think that if let's say that we held the voting today and and and the
Lakers are up to Oho, Jannis is at home. We all saw his
Bucks get beat the way they did. We you know, the injury kind
of complicates things for him, But you have to, let's say you had
to consider the last six eight weeks or whatever it's been. Probably, yeah,
does does Yanna still win the award? And like, you still consider
his regular season numbers, You can still consider the bucksh record, but you
also consider what happened post bubble. Do you think he's still wins? I
do, because I do think that arguing look at the larger sample size will
eventually went out, but it's probably closer. But I still think that he
would end up winning the award. I think I agree, And I think
what that tells us is that we're actually seeing the parameters or the criteria for
the award reaching more of a consensus. And that is to say that as
resistant as I think a lot of like you know, bigger media personalities are
and the basketball community at large, are towards analytics and just numbers and looking
at the stats and all that stuff. I think what we're seeing and the
Honest's Award proves it is that, like that's the safest way to vote,
because if you did so, say you voted for Lebron or someone else,
you would get shouted down by everyone saying, look at the book's record,
look at Yannest's stats, look at look at his his BPM, his whatever,
catch all you want. We are in truly historic territory. If that's
not value, I don't know what it is like, and that's a really
like I don't like, I'm with you. I think he probably should have
won MVP. So I think what that tells us is that, like Lebron
saying, we're caught up in narrative I think I think if anyone benefits from
narrative, it's probably him for a lot of the reasons you said, a
lot of the sort of you know, additional factors beyond his play on the
court that would have made his candidacy more compelling than Janie's. But I think
what it shows us is that, like people are just looking at the numbers
more than more than anything else, because they're compelled. They're a very good
way to base a good thing to base your decisions on. It's a good
way to make sure you're being rational and not caught up in narrative. And
I think, to me, as much as anything, Jannis was just the
obvious pick, but only if you're focusing on the numbers. Because that's why
I asked the question about if we're talking about if we considered these last few
weeks, because you could not conclude that Yannis was the best player in the
in the league based on that. You might think it was Nick Joki,
you might think it was Lebron, you might you know, you could pick
a bunch of Jimmy, but whatever Junior, for a minute, it could
be could I mean, you know, Trey Burke had a hot run there
for a minute. It made me really think twice, like, yeah,
so I think that's kind of that's my take on it. I just seems
like the numbers are sort of starting to win, and I don't think that's
good or bad. I think the MVP is always going to be controversial.
But but that was sort of my takeaway from from you honest, and I
think Lebron kind of got it wrong, even though like, if again,
if we voted today, I probably vote for him. Yeah, I think
he got it wrong in this context, but I also like think that he
touched on like actual issues with it the yeah, but it's like the I
don't know how you necessarily outline more specific right to year. I actually think
there probably was a case to be made for Lebron, but the way that
some people framed it is I think what you know incites the outrage that being
said, I think they're you know, one of the things that we should
stop overreacting to is that one of the best players in the world, or
these professional athletes who need to have a ton of confidence to be at the
level they're at, thinking that they're the best and that they should have won
stuff, because that's just going to happen, whether you think whether they have
a valid point or not. And then the other thing is that we don't
have to react to outrage to everything, because not everything needs to be in
sports. When we're talking about the actual sport itself, the stuff happening on
the court, there doesn't need to be this consensus. Now, do I
understand when people get angry about the egregious stuff? Yes, And that's where
I might be in favor of voting, seeing like the number of votes shrink
for you know, the all NBA teams or the all defense teams and stuff.
The notion that Maria Taylor doesn't deserve a vote is that shit crazy?
But looking at others who maybe don't cover the sport consistently, and I'm not
I'm not trying to single anyone out, but it's like, does if you're
only covering the NBA, Like if you're just a general sports person, like,
why do you need to vote on the NBA stuff? Certainly I would
even consider like if you're affiliated with a certain team or your beat is to
cover one team, like how important is it for them to have a vote
on these league wide topics or awards? And I'm not trying to diminish the
work that anyone does either, because there are a team like Beat writers who
take it very seriously. And I'm not trying to call anyone app who doesn't,
you know, agree with the consensus or agree with my thoughts or people
who I respect thoughts, but if you know, there's like a disconnect if
someone's voting Lukadantis for all defense, like there's just a there's a disconnect somewhere,
and like I'm not even just trying to be mean there, So I
don't necessarily know what the solution is or but maybe being more selective with who
has votes would be a great place to start. Yeah, I think that's
right. I think it's just it's just a it's really hard to sort of
hit the middle of the Venn diagram of really follows the league incredibly closely and
does not have a bias because they follow one team closer than every other team,
right, you know, Like that's a that's a thin slice in there,
and I just I think maybe like this is maybe the best we're gonna
do, and we're just gonna have to live with it, because I don't
know how how you're gonna sort of parse that any anymore. Finally, and
that's like, yeah, there's no even on like this stuff, on the
stuff that matters where there shouldn't be two sides, Like I get it,
but like there's no such thing as like a non outrageous debate at this point,
like everyone shamed for it's actually like regular opinions. I'm talking specifically about
the things that are happening on the court. So yeah, I don't.
I think I'm with you. Probably can't fix it, but maybe if you
were more selective again with who has votes, that might do some of it.
But I also see where you're coming from too. Yeah, well,
I always think back to I think it was someone voted for Carmelo for MVP,
and I do remember the person's name. I'm not going to call him
out, but it was the only vote he got, Like I forget however
many years ago it wasn't it was it was Hurtine. I think, Yeah,
it was recent enough where it was like Carmelo is still pretty good,
but that's ridiculous. You know. It was the Knicks. Yeah, it
was that nixt fifty four win season whatever, the benefit from one being on
the Knicks and they were just better than you expected them to be like,
that's a like a narrative boom out. It wasn't even the Knicks guy though,
didn't make any sense. Oh yeah, anyway, you mentioned Paul George,
is that one real quick topic we want to hit. Did you see
it? I was gonna say stuff time for that or you want me to
to get you out of here? Yeah, no, let's let's do that,
because well, what are your thoughts? I think I'll just say that
it's it's real weird to me when the specifics of eye rolling gets gets leaked
and we're talking about shams. Trania's report that Paul George, you know,
tried to not rally the troops because the series is over, but sort of
say like the word I think preaching was even used, which feels like a
lot of editorializing to me. He was like you saying, let's run it
back and win the chip and it's like, you know, maybe you should
have given a similar speech like after game six. Well right, yeah,
I mean like I missed, Yeah, there's not a game eight, Paul.
But I feel like I feel like it's always fascinating to me to start
to think about, like why why did this come out? Who who who
decided to let it out? Uh? And and what's what what agendas are
at work? Right? Because clearly someone in the room decided that this needs
to be in the public. Uh, and it's gonna be bad for Paul
George and let's do it anyway. So that I mean as much as anything,
you we hear whispered about the chemistry and that was a subject of it
too. But it's like, if that's happening, that's rough. That that
tells me that whether the eye rolling happened or not, or whether Paul George
was quote unquote preaching, there is like a real problem in in sort of
the dynamics of that team. Uh. And I feel like maybe Paul George,
you know, I also like I kind of think that, yeah,
Paul George has just generally not performed well in the playoffs and that's his reputation
and it was solidified and there were I think, you know, to be
fair to him, maybe injury he did he said they been struggling with mental
health in the bubble. Totally understandable, but but it so I think there's
validity to what came out, but like that's a damning thing for the Clippers
if the goal going forward is to sort of keep a lot of these guys
around, because I don't know if you have sort of the lack of respect
for your teammates, if that's like a salvageable thing. Yeah, I don't
even know who has the incentive to leak it out. I know people sent
the screenshot of sham Shania interviewing Lou Williams and Montras Harrow way back. I
don't know that you got one and two. I mean, look, Carol's
going to be a free agent and definitely probably lost money in the bubble.
He wasn't with them the start, dealing with the death of his grandma,
so all that stuff factors into it. But then also just this is a
cap for free agency landscape. Paul George isn't going anywhere. I think there
are people that like spun this as like, oh, like Paul George for
Bradley Beal, and like that's not that's not a thing. I think it's
just more a sign of like there needs to actually be measurable change in this
locker room next season. Like, I don't know, you have the talent
to win it all, but I'm not sure if there's like that the synergy,
like the chemical synergy is there. And I'm not you know, I'm
not trying to overweight intangibles here, but if the first thing that happens a
couple of days after the season is that you have like Sham's getting a you
know, a second by second breakdown, Like there was eye rolling. Someone
twiddled their tombs three thumbs three times. Another person was picking his nose with
his left left left pointer finger, like getting so specific that quickly it seems
like something's off. And they said they're going to target a playmaker via trade.
I don't think they can offer a first round pick because their first available
first round pick is in twenty twenty eight, and so it's a seven years
out rule, and so I don't know how that would work. I don't
think you can then, but it would be imagine getting your hands on a
twenty twenty eight first round pick what like. So it's sort of like,
yeah, everybody thought Daryl Morey was gonna ditch Houston, and maybe that's not
gonna happen. So he was like, screw it. I don't care what
happens with these twenty twenty six picks. It's like a stand Eric Gordon.
I'm not gonna be here. Absolutely. This is like the reverse of that
is like what GM has has confidence enough in his job security to like acquire
a twenty twenty eight pick, but there's not gonna be there. So I
think you're you're better at this stuff than I am, or probably think about
it more. But to me, like if the Clippers are talking about changing
their options, feel like subtraction and like nothing else because they're just Yeah,
Harold's a free agent. I think Jamichael Green is going back into free agency.
You can correct me if and when I get these wrong. He's a
player option, which I'm for five million. That's like less than the minimlies.
I think you should opt out. But this this market is just so
weird, right, who knows what's happening, But like they don't have a
good if they sign and trade, they'll hardcap themselves, Like I just what
are their avenues to where does this playmaker come from? And like it's just
it's really difficult for me to see an impact guy getting there unless you trade
Paul George, And I also don't think that's going to happen. Yeah,
I think I'm totally with you. The one thing they have going for them
is that if they're willing to kind of like bust up their depth a little
bit, they can combine like some interesting salaries where it's you know, Lou
Williams is a usable player, Zoo Box is an extremely useful player. Patrick
Beverley, I'm still like three in d ish, whatever you want to call
him. There you have Rodny mcgruders as filler salary. You have Landry Shammitt.
I just don't know what that like get you. Like, I don't
know if if you gave Shammitt like as part of the deal, if this
was Beverly Williams, zoobots and shamm It, like, is that getting you
Drew Holiday? Oh? Man? I don't I think you need a third
team that would send the Pelicans at least another first round pick, like,
and I don't know what player. You know you could talk, You could
talk yourselves into any one of those players being good from New Orleans. But
if you're trading Drew Holiday, you don't necessarily need any of those players.
The other one that I've been a proponent of, and it's like it's so
wild and it's so out there, but and it would be mostly on Oklahoma
City wanting to just like save pure money, Like you can get to Chris
Paul with the Clipper salaries, Like if you just went Beverly Williams, Zubots
and Magruder, you can bring back Chris Paul. There's no way those two
teams are trading again. There's like, there's no how is that, There's
no way. I can't I can't even was it future considerations or maybe a
part of that deal where now Oklahoma City does Yeah, this is slid although
I'm not sure that I could like imagine Chris Paul in a locker room with
Paul George, Like there's if you insofar as you could have three polar opposite
players, Paul George, Chris Paul, and Kwhi Leonard would be hit.
Hey, you know what, Kawhi. It made me think of this,
like so Paul George seems to be getting the flat, getting most of the
flack to the extent that there's any flack being distributed or catching flack whatever.
How come we're not maybe this is out there? How come nobody's kind of
saying like maybe Kauhai is not that great a leader, Like I'm not saying
I think that, but it does seem like you maybe want to start at
the top if your team falls apart and it's Ken Street sucks, and it
don't feel like anybody really did that, maybe because Kawhi is just sort of
already demonstrated. You know, I got two titles with two different teams,
IM Finals, MVP to all that stuff, like he's unassailable. But you
know that Toronto team, there's like seven really great leaders on last year's Raptors
and it's not like Kauai was ever like the guy on a Spurs title team.
So I do wonder if maybe you know, obviously he's quiet. Obviously
his leadership style, to the extent he has one, is unconventional. I
do think maybe he's getting off a little light. Have you had that thought
or am I off base? No? I haven't really had a thought,
But I also don't think you're off base. Maybe it's just more so like
you you know what Kawhi Leonard is now, and like like you said,
he is, there is that level of unassailability because he has the two finals
MVPs. And also when you have someone who plays I know it's not necessarily
during the regular season, but plays so hard at both ends when it matters
most, like they're probably exempt from more criticism than like someone who's only going
to be super valuable on one end, like a James Harden. You know,
like we're not gonna destroy Kawhi Leonard when he goes like six of nineteen
from the floor or something like that. That being said, you mentioned like
Toronto with him having the great leaders and when you go to the Clippers locker
room, if that's not Paul George where it doesn't seem like his voice is
respected, then who is it? Because it does need to be someone amongst
the players, and it does feel like it would probably be Tres Beverley and
lou Will. You Lou Will. And it also feels like a lot of
what those guys might like runs counter to everything that might get like Paul George
and Kawhi Leonard going, whereas those seems like guys that want to go eighty
two and zero and that would be their leadership style. And I think that
I'm not even trying to you know, hashtag load management because Kawai really didn't
miss that many games to load management this year. I think it was like
sub fifteen, like he had natural injury at one point, and I think
it was sub fifteen that he missed to just like scheduled maintenance, and one
of those I think it was the final game of the bubble. So I'm
just saying that he's not going to approach like he's going to play the law
game more than these players who have probably been underdogs now for most of their
career, where Kawai was also born into this basketball wise, this system,
this culture in San Antonio where he hasn't had a worry necessarily about leading to
that degree either, and they always took the long view. And then you
go to Toronto where they really did take the long view even though they only
had him for a year, because they were resting him on the second and
of back to backs and they were giving him scheduled maintenance. And now you're
going into Clippers land where there's not necessarily someone who's like players who are I
guess okay with that if you're looking at Harold Beverly and Low Williams, because
there was the report at the beginning of the season that some of the Clippers
were rubbed the wrong way with how the stars were being treated, and you're
not going to have like, you know, Paul George isn't Kyle Lowry,
where it's Kyle Lowry seems like he would want to go eighty two and ol
but understands the long game, and whereas Beverly and lou William harrold As.
I keep saying, this is even a shot against them, but it feels
like they would play or want to approach every game like it's a do or
die situation, and I just don't see and this is not a shot of
Kawai see him being as emotionally invested that consistently or just in every game.
Yeah, No, I think I was kind of not whatever falls a little
short of being Devil's advocate, because I think I do send a fall towards
the Kauhi. You can't you sort of the way that he plays, you
really you can't help but fall in line, because there's never going to be
a point where you can say to him after a loss, like you really
could have done more, you know, like that just doesn't He's like one
of the few players were lead by example probably really well, yes, it's
didn't really like yeah exactly, so I think you know the reason he's probably
not getting a lot of Heat is because you know he's done it already,
and when you watch him play, even if he's having a rough game,
there's really not going to be a question of is he sort of cut out
for this? I think that's like beyond question at this point. But I
don't know. I think I do at the same time, think, you
know, the playoffs. I guess maybe this could be like a closing thought
like that. More than ever this year, the player the playoffs have minded
me that, like the regular season is its own thing, and this was
a super weird regular season, which makes it even more complicated. But so
much of what seems to matter during you know, eighty two games or however
many we played this year just is not meaningless, but matters so much less
in the playoffs. It's just everything changes. And I do think that what
we've seen, look at the team, look at the seeds that are playing.
Yeah, the Lakers are the one seed, but you know you've got
the what, the three, and the five in the East, and to
me, those are clearly the two best teams, just I mean top to
bottom, and I don't think anybody maybe the Celtics, but certainly not the
Heat. And it's just it's really I don't know. It's gonna make me.
I think, I hope maybe I get this feeling every playoffs, But
I really think it's going to change the way I think about and talk about
and write about teams during the next regular season, because there's always going to
be in the back of my mind, like the question of, well,
how much does this really matter when the games count? You know, the
balls would be especially for a team that's like kind of entrenched in that where
it's like the buck Yeah, big time, a big time, and like,
I think you could flip it and say, like, well, the
Warriors aren't looking so great. You know, they're on pace for fifty one
wins or forty seven wins or something, but you know, Draymond looks,
you know, like he's super washed now instead of sword of washed or maybe
not trying. Like I just think, I think, I'm I'm gonna have
to check myself and be like, but here's what we know. When you
get in a playoff series, X, Y and Z happens and these guys
can you know. So I really do think it's going to change the way
I think about the regular season, even more so than it used to.
That's I never really thought of it like that, and that's probably a good
way to look at it. Any great closing thought all of them. I
guess the last thing is like, I don't know how to view these playoffs
because the circumstances are so impressed dead where it's like if they had played straight
through, is it any different for the Bucks or the Clippers. I think
you could probably make the argument that maybe for the Clippers it is. But
I think you're right that it's become more clear than ever, and even based
on some of the decisions that teams have made that the playoffs they are their
own separate thing and you're going to make wholesale decisions off that small sample size
because it matters so much. Yeah, I agree. Well, I think
you know, Bob Myers, there's that clip from Sloan a year or two
ago maybe where he just talked about how maybe I'm just been in He incepted
me and now I'm just preparenting Bob Meyers because it was so so astute.
But he's just like, yeah, you know, we just look for guys
that perform well in the playoffs because that's what we care about. And if
you can perform well on the playoffs, you damn sure are going to be
a good regular season player. But the reverse, clearly, I think,
is not always going to be true. Grant, thank you so much for
letting me keep you fifteen minutes longer than I promised that I would keep you.
It's always a pleasure to talk hoops with you, guys. If you're
not following Grant on Twitter, please remedy that immediately. When he tweets.
It's not often, but it's it is often fire when he is tweeting at
GT Underscore, Hughes spelled exactly as it sounds, covers the NBA for Bleacher
Report. I will sure enough be pesturing him again in the near future.
Thank you so much, Grant, and I'll talk to you soon. Yes,
sir, thank you, Hello Solomon, thank you so much for coming
on the podcast today as a fellow Blue Wire podcaster. It's shameful that it
took me this long to get you on a Hardwood Knox episode, but thank
you for your time in advance. How are you doing today, Yeah,
I'm happy to be here too, and listen like it's not like this is
the first time we're talking or communicating, so don't don't even worry about that.
You were on my podcast, I mean just a couple of months ago.
So I'm pretty excited, Like I'm this is this offseason for the Rockets.
This is going to be really really interesting in terms of the direction they
choose to go from several different perspectives. Yeah, there are so many questions
with this team, and I think probably the it's probably best to begin with
the immediate fallout from them losing in five games of the Lakers, was Mike
D'Antoni just informs them that he is going to leave and explore other opportunities.
Since been linked to the Pacers and the Sixers. I mean, he was
linked to those teams before he even left the Rockets. And so my first
question to you would be how surprised were you buy the news or if the
news wasn't surprising, like, how about the immediacy with which this decision came,
because well, they've just been rubblings for a while and we're talking about
you know, probably you know, you're more you're way more plugged in.
So it might have even been before last summer when the like extension talks or
non extension talks started or whatever. Happened there. They're just been like those
sort of murmurings that something was going to happen, and so I'm just curious
as to what your impression was about obviously the outcome of him leaving, but
just the way that it also unfolded. So I was definitely in the minority
and that I didn't dismiss the idea that Mike D'Antoni would return next season,
and that's from you know, what I thought of what they were going to
do, and also like from what I've heard, like, I just thought
the Rockets were going to can really think about bring him back, and I
thought I remember hearing Darryl Mori say that he would make bringing Mike D'Antoni back
a priority. Of course, general managers lie all the time, but I
really did believe that they would explore the possibility to bring him back. And
the way the Lakers series played out was just shocking. I mean, I
expected it to be a six or seven game series, but LA just pummeled
Houston, and it's kind of the loss that makes both signed, both sides
of the negotiation kind of reevaluate things. And I just got the vibe and
the postgame presser like, yeah, this is a dude who was kind of
figured out what direction he wants to go in, and the presser was very
reflective about his time at Houston. He was very grateful to the organization,
and when I asked him about what the team needed to do moving forward to
improve, which is like a normal question ask to a coach, he gets
eliminated, like he dodged it. And I kind of thought, based on
how this series ended up that press conference and how much bad blood there seemed
to be between Mike d'antoni's agent, Warren Legarry, and the Rockets, that
D'Antoni was considering other options. And what I didn't expect was for him to
make his decision so quickly, like he had his mind made up by the
afternoon the next day. That was shocking, But listen, if he's gonna
leave either way, this was actually the right way to do it. It
was classy for him to put out a statement thinking the organization and the city
of Houston. The breakup was clean and it gives Houston a head start in
their coaching search. They no longer have to worry about whether or not they
can convince D'Antoni to return and they can chase some of these highly sought after
coaches on the market. I think D'Antoni did that on purpose, actually as
a favor to Houston, and he gets an early start the interview process because
some of these teams are interested in D'Antoni. And listen, like, after
his time in Houston, d'antoni's stock is way up. There are going to
be a lot of teams interested in the services. Remember, this is the
guy who's basically shunned out of league after his stints in LA in New York,
and he had to become an assistant with the Sixers, which is kind
of crazy for a guy with his resume. When the Rockets hired him,
they were mocked. I suspect the next team that hires him will be rightfully
celebrated, because this is a guy's a Hall of Fame coach, and I'm
happy he's finally getting that respect. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I'll
say is I thought them leaning into Microball might have just suggested that not only
was he more priority for them, but maybe they were just closer on the
same page. And I think also the weirdness comes from, like you just
don't see the coach team relationship typically end in this manner like we're always just
used to. There's either the mutual parting spin or for the most part,
they just end up getting fired. Like you never just see coaches leave in
what's effectively free agency. And so that was just kind of disarming a little
bit. And I will say it'll be objectively hilarious if he goes from coaching
a team that has like a six five six sixth center to then go into
the sixers, where you know their point guard is like six six six,
right, the smallest the smallest player in their starting line up plus season,
which Josh Richardson who is six six I believe, So that would be objectively
hysterical, and it would have to be a completely different style. I guess
he has some familiarity there from being an assistant, but that would just be
absolutely funny for me looking at it from the Rockets perspective though, And I
know these are sort of loaded questions, but are there any coaching candidates that
are available that still stand out to you that might be interesting fits for this
team or names that you've just heard bandied about that we should expect to take
most seriously as they begin their search yeah, So there's gonna be a lot
of games linked to the Rocket search, and I suspect that they're going to
do a long interview process. But I think the guys that go to the
top of the list are going to be guys with some head coaching experience because
listen, like Harden's thirty one years old, they don't they don't have time
to wait for a young head coach to learn on the fly. So I
think they're gonna look for someone with some head coaching experience. And I think
I think you really look at that former player of coaches, because I think
those guys can relate to James Harden in a way that D'Antoni was able to
successfully do, because like D'Antoni developed a really strong wish to which was hardened,
and like that's probably the most undercovered part about the Rockets in d'antoni's relationship,
Like those guys were tight, and like there were points in press conferences
where James would defend D'Antoni. Like those guys developed a strong, strong relationship,
and I think the next coach is going to be looking to do that.
And I think I think you look at guys like Tylu, like tylu
fits the guy fits the profile of a coach the Rockets would like to bring
in, because first of all, he's a former player, he's coach superstars,
he knows how to deal with egos. He's a really good offensive coach.
And I don't think Tyler got enough credit for what he did in Cleveland,
Like the Cavs were consistently a top five offense every single year he was
there, And that's not just Lebron, right, Like tylu is a really
creative, out of time out coach, Like he was really good with the
clip board, and for some reason, I suspect that's just Lebron right,
Like when when Lebron's on your team, you just tend to get less credit
for everything you do. And that's not just coaches, that's players. I
mean, look, you look at a guy like Chris Bosh, You look
at I mean Eric Spoelstra went when he was the head coach for those heat
teams, and it's just it's just a Lebron effect that goes from top down
the organization. But Tyludd does deserve credit for their offense. Their offense is
really good, and I think you look at guys who the Rocket have interviewed
before and had strong interest in, like Steven Silas, like associate head coach
of the Dallas Mavericks, the guy I think the Rockets will take an very
strong look at. He was a finalist for the job in twenty sixteen when
they hired Mike and the Rockets were actually considering making Silas the lead assistant to
Mike D'Antoni and they ended up going with jeffiz Delic instead. But that's a
guy I think the Packets will taking a look at. Chris Finch is a
guy the Rockets discovered about him. Yeah, he's a guy who the Rockets
discovered in Germany and they brought him into through their G League system. Very
very much a Nick Nurse type of higher if they chat, they choose to
go in that direction because they brought him up and he was an assistant coach
on Kevin McHale's staff, so he knows James Harden and they have a relationship
already established. He's been an associate head coach for three different teams already,
three good teams already, and he's regarded as like an offensive savant type,
like he's really really smart and a lot of people around the league talk about
him as the next head coach that just hasn't got his job yet, right,
Like he just hasn't got his foot in the door. But I very
much suspect that that's going to change in the next couple of years. And
he makes a lot of sense in that regard, right if they if they
weren't going to go in a former player kind of direction, those are the
assistants I would take a hard look at. Also as far as the former
player perspective, Sam Cassell for the Clippers, that's a you know, I
mean he was on the Rockets during their Clutch City days and he won two
championships with the team. They have a relationship with him. He has put
in his due. He's been an assistant coach for like twelve years and now,
So it make a lot of sense in terms of the relationship these organizations
have with each other. The fact that he's a former player and you know
the amount of time he's put in, so you know, those are the
kind of names I would say makes sense to the top. I think the
Rockets will also take a strong look at Jeff Van Gundi and that that that
to me, is the most interesting one, right, Like, I think
I think people regard Jeff as someone who may be out of touch with the
modern NBA, right, And I just don't think that's true. And I
think Jeff is a guy who watches a ton of basketball even to this day.
I mean when he was a coach, I was he was on another
level, right, Like, I'm not sure people remember how neurotic Jeff us,
Like this guy lived in the film room and watched a ton of basketball.
And I think you look at the rosters he was handed, right,
Like he had a roster with Patrick hu and he had a roster with y'all,
ming like these are rosters that can't play modern NBA offense. So I
don't I think it's unfair to regard him as out of touch. And if
you look at the defenses that Jeff coach, he never coached a team outside
of the top six and defense. That's insane. That's that's a ridiculous Like
that's nine seasons not one of those teams outside the top six and defense.
So from a defensive perspective, the Rockets could certainly use a voice like Jeff.
I mean, this is a team that's the middle of the pack,
defensively the past two years. I think one of the big reasons they haven't
been able to break through the conference finals again is the fact that their defense
isn't strong. So yeah, Jack is a guy that you just consistently here
attacked this organization every time it was an opening. And I think you look
back at two thousand and seven when the Rock has decided to part ways with
Jeff. I think, listen, MORI was just two weeks from the job,
Like he had to make a decision very quickly. He was promoted on
May first, three out and seven, had to fire Jeff May fourteenth,
two thousand and seven. Right, That's that's a very quick turnaround for a
young general manager. And I think he thinks back at that time, and
you know, I'm not sure if he regrets it, but I think he
regrets he never got the time to talk with Jeff and really break break bread
with him. I mean, these guys have a close relationship now, Like
these guys play tennis together. I think like they're really close, and they're
both Houston natives, like Jeff lives in Houston, so that it would make
a lot of sense to go with Jeff and I you know, I'm not
sure what kind of relationship him and James have. I think that's gonna be
pretty key. Like if if Jeff were to get the job, he would
have to reach out to James pretty quickly like D'Antoni did. Like D'Antoni first
thing he did when he got the job was called James Harden, and I
think that went a long way with him, and I think Jeff would have
to do something similar. Yeah, I think the relationship between Hard and D'Antoni
was one that was always on or played. And even like you know,
James Harden doesn't really give at least i'll say great group interviews or the TV
interviews, but even he gave D'Antoni an endorsement after the Game five loss,
and so I thought that just went like it was. I don't want to
say it was swept under the rug, but like we only look for when
players don't give strong enough endorsements of head coaches when we ask if they they
want them back, like if they give the answer of well, I'm not
in charge of contracts and this and that, and Harden seemed pretty definitive and
that he wanted D'Antoni back. You mentioned a lot of interesting names there,
and so one I agree with you on the point that I think Jeff and
Gunny's probably more interesting than most people give credit. He's just he's different when
he's sort of outside the ESPN broadcast, if you hear him talking on a
podcast or even at times during the broadcast where it's like he doesn't seem like
there were just moments where it comes across it feels like he hates the modern
day MBA, and so it'd be it would be I would laugh if he
ends up coaching a team that's leaning all the way into microball, assuming they're
going to stay that route. But he also like he noticed his stuff,
and like you don't you know, you don't take over, You don't take
the reins of a team as a head coach if you're not prepared to,
like especially now, and especially in a dal Moore's The Joys, where he's
going to outline the style that he wants to play specifically and then just try
and completely run counter too. And so I don't think he necessarily be a
terrible choice. It would be interesting to see them go with a defense first
head coach, because it's is their offensive ecosystem just so you know default because
it has James Harden and that's really all it needs. I would say this,
so if they do decide to go with a defensive first head coach like
Jeff Van Gundy, I would look strongly at who their assistant is going to
be, and I would look at Brett Gunnings, who's already on their coaching
staff right now. That's a guy who's going to be a lead assistant in
the next couple of years and then a head coach like he's on that kind
of a track. He's extremely intelligent. He's been with three Rockets head coaches
already, including Jeff Van Gundi, like he was on Jeff n Gundi staff
and he's still on the staff today, so that gives you a kind of
insight in terms of how long he's been with the organization. So I would
say you look at a guy like Brett Gunnings to be the lead assistant there
because he designed a lot of the offense under D'Antoni. So if Jeff is
going to be the head coach, I would I would look I would look
at who that leads it's going to be as someone who kind of leaves the
offense while Jeff leads the defense. And my last question on just that this
topic would be, do you think that they won't hesitate to go in the
direction of what would be a first time head coach, even if it's someone
like Chris Finch that they have pre existing ties too. Yeah, that's gonna
be interesting. So, like, I just you know, this is just
a gut thing. I think they want. They want someone with head coaching
experience to just considering their former public statements and considering hardened age and that they
don't want to, you know, mess around here. They don't want to
hire someone who's unproven only to find out he's not ready for the job.
But if they do go with an assistant, they're gonna go with someone with
a lot of coaching experience. Adrian Griffin is a guy who's been coaching for
you know, several decades now, right like that that's an assistant coach that
might get it. I mean, he was definitely on the Rockets interview list
in twenty sixteen, so that's definitely someone. Steven Silas, son of Paul
Silas, right like, it's been in the league for twenty one years.
So if they go with an assistant, that that assistant's gonna have a ton
of experience, and I think if they if they don't go, if they
don't go with that kind of a route, I think they're gonna just gonna
go with a former player. So either it's a former player uh turned head
coach, or they're gonna go with someone with a ton of assistant coaching experience.
I would say, if you were to narrow it down, I the
most interesting names of me and I honestly don't think they'll end up going with
him would be would be Sam Cassell there. And so if they were going
to go like with a first time guy, I kind of hope it's Sam
Cassell. But their head coaching spot's gonna be fascinating to watch. And I
do agree with your point that it feels like, yeah, MDA made this
decision, like for both his and the team's sake, Like now he should
have his pick or at least have a chance to interview for teams that before
the vacancies fell up, and then it gives the Rockets a head start on
and good for him, man, Like he gets out and he has the
most leverage now right like now, like he's not the guy who got fired,
or he's not the guy who waited around for the Rockets, he's the
guy who left early. And now every team in the NBA with the head
coach opening is at least taking a look at D'Antoni, which is, you
know, good for him, good good, good for him. So the
the actual basketball stuff, looking at the players, a lot of people are
spinning the second round loss as gloom and doom, and I'm just as as
sort of a harbinger that the Rockets need to do something substantial or that they're
missing this huge piece. Is that nova reaction given the circumstances where not only
were you you know, Russell Westbrook's dealing with the clod injury, but also
just looking at the season and Jen where it's just this unprecedented environment. You're
inside the bubble. Everyone's been away from their their normal way of life for
so long. The season is dragged on for approximately forever, and so I'm
wondering, if you know, is there amount of leeway that needs to be
given, or do you when you look at what happened with this team,
who, by the way, it was also missing Daniel House towards the end
of that series as well, Or do you look at this team and still
say that, you know what, No, something's off with the way that
it felt like they I don't want to belittle professional players efort, but it
just felt like they rolled over towards the end of that series. You look
at this team and say, you know what, there does need to be
a substantive change made. And I'm not talking blow it up Trey James Harden
because that's just not going to happen because of how good Harden is and he
doesn't necessarily see him unhappy in Houston right now. But you know, looking
basically at everything else, is this a sign that they need to make at
least a semi major move this offseason. No, you're not wrong about their
effort in that series. I mean there is there is a game where the
Lakers at fifty two rebounds in the Rockets at twenty six, right, Like,
that's that That's just ridiculous, And I language experts were having a field
day. Didn't. Oh, yeah, for sure, and they should.
I mean, the Rockets looked miserable and uh, it looked like the Lakers
figured them out. As soon as they went with a D at center.
They completely figured out the Rockets and they were closing out on their shooters extremely
quick, like the Rockets were attempting fifty three's a game in the series before
in that series, they're attempting like thirty right like they the Lakers knocked off
like twenty attempts from from their three point attempts, which is ridiculous. And
Uh, as far as like a major change, yeah, I mean it's
totally in question, like not out of the question that they would try to
do that. The problem here is so Westbrook's contract is going to be difficult
to move, right, Like, if that's the kind of the understatement of
the year, if that's the kind of change you're implying, Like, listen,
they don't have any draft picks, and I don't know what you do
with that contract, right, Like, I think you're stuck. Like Westbrook
is going to be back next season. And as far as James Harden,
you just he's thirty one years old and he's a top seven player in his
prime. You don't you don't trade those players. We have them in your
organization because listen, to rebuild is going to be solely dictated at finding another
James Harden, So you already have that person in hand, there's no point
in trying to go get that guy, and the roster is already very good.
I mean they may they may not be good enough to win a championship,
but they're already very good, so you know, deciding to tear it
down doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I think you look
at guys like Eric Gordon and Robert Covington. Those are guys with contracts substantive
enough for major trades if they decide to go in that direction. They don't
have draft picks, of course, so I don't know how they managed to
pull that off. I think they'll definitely explore the trade market. I think
you look at the draft, like the Rockets almost traded for Brandon Clark at
the draft last year, right, They almost traded Clint Capella for the pick
that ended up becoming Brandon Clark, and that's a deal that didn't end up
happening. So if you look at when the draft comes around, that's definitely
gonna be a time where I would watch the Rockets as a team that may
try to move up or try to get a pick and you know, maybe
use that pick as fodder for another trade. That's definitely something you have to
be. You have to keep in mind with the team with no draft picks,
and you know, I think the coaching change is going to be a
big part of that culture reset that we're talking about right, Like the next
head coach has to emphasize defense in a way that they're not accustomed to.
Because listen, man, like if you were to pin down one reason why
they haven't broke through the last two years, like to the conference finals,
it's their defense. Their defense has not been good enough. They're they're fifteenth
this year, seventeenth the year before. Yes, they turned it onto a
level we didn't expect in the layoffs, but I don't think you can you
can break bad habits like that. I think those habits are built in in
training, camping, and largely you are what you are by the time the
postseason comes around. So you know, I think a lot of their defense
and listen, I'll admit I was wrong here, like a lot of their
defensive smoking mirrors. Like I thought their defense will legit it was, it
wasn't. And I think their next head coach has to emphasize that. As
far as from a roster perspective, they're gonna need to use their non tax
pyramid level exception like Tilman, for Tita is a guy who for the most
part, most NBA fans know who he is, and that's because he has
not paid the luxury tax yet. And this is a year where it listen,
it's put up or shut up, you know, like you bought the
team four years ago or no, three years ago, and you you largely
walked into a contendership position. And what contenders do when they're at the point
where the Rockets are is pay the luxury tax. And I think if you
look at what the Rockets could do this summer, I think the most significant
move they could do to improve their roster is used that non tax payamid level
exception to get a real player like they did in twenty seventeen when they signed
PJ. Tucker. Right to sign that kind of a player, uh to
a multi year deal. And if if, if it's a good enough player
that's that's flexible enough and malleable enough defensively you can really fit into your your
scheme, your scheme of microball, and your idea of switching everything. And
I think you look at the kind of players I'm talking about I'm really thinking
of a a five that can space the floor and switch on defense, which
is extremely hard to find, right. Uh. And you know, like
you're really talking about limited pool players like maybe Jamichael Green, maybe you know,
Serge Ibaka, those type of players, and you know, ja,
Michael Green's not even a five, right, He's just he's would just would
be one in this system. So those are the kind of players I think
the Rockets should search for with their non Tex pyramid level exception. And it's
gonna be tough. Those players are gonna be highly, highly sought after,
and I think I think they have a legit chance at you know, some
good bargain basement deals. But I don't think you're going to find a bargain
basement deal that's going to make up of what this roster is lacking. Yeah,
there's the free agency market's really tough to read. I mean, like,
look, you mentioned to Michael Green, who's like a siren song for
me, and he has a player option for five million dollars that I'm not
even sure if he should decline, Like I'm assuming he'd get more than the
mini mL E, but like, I don't know, just because this is
such a cat poor market right now, and I would think that that means
you should be able to maybe you know, you'll get a bigger bang for
your buck if you're using the Nontax perramid level like the Rockets. But then
also that's roughly the money that two thirds, if not more, of the
league is going to be working with as well, and so that makes it
really confusion to really confusing to iron out targets. But you know, so
you delved into like two of the next topics that I was going to talk
to you about. And so if one I guess before we're asking you about,
like a certain player or anything, is do you expect them, like
per the report, no matter who who the head coach is, like to
really stick with this Microball model. Oh yeah, and listen, I mean
you sent me your rundown before the podcast, and that last question was gonna
be a I was gonna tackle this right, Like the biggest misconception about their
team is that Microball's experiment. Like I've still talked to other media people who
believe the Rockets are going are you gonna stop playing this way? And they
because they got eliminated and Mike Tony walked away like yeah, like like it
or not, Like they're bringing this brand of basketball pack. Like they might
make some tweaks the roster better accommodated. They might get bigger, bigger,
but bigger does not mean like a seven foot center. Bigger. It means
like a six to eight six and nine foot forward, right, uh,
which which would be bigger technically because they're that small, right, And that's
what I would look to. I don't think they're gonna get, uh,
you know, someone like I don't know, I can't even think of a
center. I'm the free agent marketplace right now. But I don't think they're
gonna they're gonna look for a traditional center. I think they're gonna go for
someone who is malleable defensively fits into this scheme. And you look at the
way Russ likes to play. I mean, he needs a space floor more
than anybody on this team. Like the Rockets really took off when or Russ
really took off with the Rockets when he had four shooters around him to really
operate and do his damage. Yeah. So I mean, like even in
I think names that will probably everyone will say that they just need a big
and like, look, that's not going to be their style, which I
think is fine because I think this style is disruptive and you probably need to
deepen the archetype of player that you want to make this work. But I
do feel like it can work, and it did. There were some interesting
results for the Rockets this year, and they made some teams visibly uncomfortable at
times. I we just even look at the Oklahoma City Series. I don't
win seven games, but like there were just moments where it was like,
well, why is Billy Donovan still Steven Adams on the floor. Yeah,
but Billy Donovan did not do a good job in that series. And it's
like you're making me get on my high horse right now because I had strong
opinions of that series. But that was not a well coach series. I
know it when seven, but I'm gonna pull out the process over results card
here like that that that that that was not a well coacht series. Like
like the way that series went, the thundershould have won, Like there were
there were advantages that they could have exploited and beat the Rockets, and I'm
really disappointed that they didn't go with a their best lineups and be they didn't
downsize at all. Oh against the Rockets, you have to so for something
like the Rockets, like let's say it's a I probably wouldn't give him the
philimly, but like it does a Paul Millsap. Is that like a type
of player that they would be interesting and trying to use it like their their
four or five spot. Yeah, that's interesting. So Paul Millstop is definitely
someone that would kind of fit this kind of a system. But you know,
like Paul Millstop's not probably not going to start for the Rockets if you
were to like, so that's what's most interesting to me. So like if
you look at Paul mill Stap at this stage in his career, like what
does he want? What does Paul mill Stapp want? Because if he wants
to start, I can tell you right now, Denver is not starting him
next year. They got they got a nice player and Jeremy Grant that fits
much better with what they want to do. And I think, I think
if you're Paul mill Stapp, you really have to reevaluate some things in terms
of what kind of role you have with your current team, what kind of
money do you want moving forward? And can you can you you know,
take a step back in both of those regards, because that's kind of the
bet the ideal path for Paul Millsap moving forward in terms of if he wants
to maximize his championship winning window. A player that this is just it's not
even suggested target because they can't get him. I guesses that'll get more than
m mL. You know, probably get it from his incoment team. But
Jay Crowder is a player where you look at and it's like, how is
he not played for the Rockets already? Yeah, that's interesting because Jay Crowder
was a guy who just looked not as good like two years ago, right
Like, this is a guy who value completely fell off a cliff until he
got to Miami, and Miami really revitalized him from a from a player perspective.
And I don't know, I kind of like where he's at, Like
if I were Jay Crowder, I tried to get back to Miami, and
I like, yeah, the Rockets could definitely use a player like that.
But I don't know if if Jay Crowder would want to leave his current situation.
I mean, listen, like the Heat might make the finals, Like
we're we're in uncharted territories right now, Like we have a legitimate chance to
see a Nugget Heat finals. Like that's a Q are making. The NBA
office is shake right now. Adam Silver's gonna make a call if it looks
like we're getting Nuggets. Yeah, I mean it is. It is crazy.
Full props to both of those teams for having the postseason they're having,
but yeah, I mean if the if the Heat make a legitimate pushed to
the finals, Like, I don't know why Jay Crowder would want to leave
that situation. You know, I think the only scenarraw that I could see
it because I absolutely agree with you. Just he's been shooting, like he's
had good shooting seasons before, but since he's been to Miami, he's been
just lights out. And then look even for their part, like to acquire
someone who was one of your primary Yannis defenders at the trade deadline, it's
like someone who was so important to the way that you defended Jannis through those
you know, let's say two plus games and against Milwaukee is a pretty big
deal. But I think the pathway would be, let's say Jannis doesn't look
like he's going to sign his Supermax, not saying he's demanding a trade,
but if he's stilln't play for twenty twenty one, maybe Miami really wants to
conserve cap space, at which point would Jay Crowder and even Dragic would fall
into this discussion of are they willing to come back on bloated one year deals
or someone like Crowder who is on the wrong side of thirty unless you're giving
him, you know, twenty five or thirty million dollars to come back,
or is he gonna want maybe if you threw a four year offer at him
to leave. But the kind of curveball you already mentioned this is they might
make the finals, and so that just up ends, you know, everything,
like that sort of a situation where it's like, well, you bring
everyone back and you figure it out later if you need to get Honestly,
so, he would be certainly out of play the in my mind if he
becomes in play that that would absolutely shock me. One of the other names
I'd written down, and I'm not sure that he's like he's a touch and
gohot shooter. But they also did bring in Jeff Green, but like a
mo Harkless seems like he would fit perfectly on defense with Houston. That's the
kind of player I think I would look more at more than a Jake Crowder
right like Mo Harkless definitely fits more what the Rockets want to do, and
like he like his situation is not enviable, right like, I think the
Rockets have a chance to really pry him. And if you really look at
what the Rockets would try to spend for a player like that, I think
you're looking at not you probably not the full tax non tax perramid, little
exception. I don't think mohrk has worked that, but I think you're probably
looking at Listen, if they decide to dodge the luxury taxis here, I
mean you're looking at something gonna be very angry if that affits right. You're
looking at their taxpayers in the mid level exception. As far as his price
tag, I don't. I don't think I was just kidding there. I
don't think they can. I don't think they can talk Dodd's luxury tax,
given their right up against it right now. So you know, I think
I think they might as well go for it and use all of it.
But I don't think. I don't think they would use all of their their
their non taxpayer mid level exception on mohark was I don't think that is necessarily
the best use of your funds. I think you'd use some of it.
I don't think you'd use all of it, No, for sure, And
you know the heat the Knicks could always overpay him for one year because who
the hell knows what they're doing at this point. But yeah, I have
the rockets within and I just could be off. But if you're you know,
guaranteeing your salaries and if Austin Rivers picks up his player option, which
I'll ask you about in a second, like that, I have them within
two million dollars with the tax before adding anybody that's with one minimum cap charge
based on their their roster stuff. So they absolutely, if they're going to
use their MLA, unless they're going to end up shedding salary somewhere, they're
absolutely going to go into the tax. And maybe that builds Fatiitas some goodwill
because he said it for the past three years that they would pay the tax,
but it's kind of yet to do it. But they absolutely, I
mean they have to, like that's the only meaningful tool you have to improve
your team, which this was the only other way, and you kind of
touched on this to do it would be in my mind is can you find
someone to take on the Eric Gordon deal which suddenly just does not like that
looks terrible, like that might be that extension. I think it's, you
know, the last year's fully non guaranteed, one of the most interesting like
non guarantees by the way that I remember in a contract and reason memory.
But he has three years and fifty four point seven million left. And I
know some people might say, well, you could like attach Dropper Covington to
him, but I look at Covington and Tucker as indispensable to this Houston roster
more so than even a Russell Westbrook would be, just because of how they
want to play and what you're going to need them to do on defense.
And so could you see I know Daryl Morey's ultra aggressive, but and unless
I'm reading I'm unless I'm reading their pick commitments wrong, because it's so bizarre
they're twenty twenty two first rounders should be in play since twenty twenty one's a
swap, and then they don't owe one until twenty twenty four. Could you
see them trying to go out there and like offer a Eric Gordon, Daniel
House, you know, twenty twenty two first rounder package, just to see
like what might stick for such an offer. I mean that's the kind of
deal you do when you're trying to rebuild, right Like, That's that's the
kind of deal you do when you're trying to just shed cap. And I
don't know if the rockets are you know, I mean they're not going in
that direction. I think you're kind of if you can't move Eric Gordon for
some value, you're probably gonna have to bring them back. And I agree
with you. Robert Cummington is pretty indispensable. I think they they made that
Clink Capella trade with the long term implications, right uh. And I think
if you if you can't find value, like if you can't find legitimate like
compensation for Robert now Robert coming for Eric Gordon, that gives you something that
can improve their your roster, or that can help you make trades that help
you improve your roster, I don't think they do it. So I think
what you're really looking at is the most likely scenario for Houston this summer is
they really spend it into the luxury tax this year by using their their mid
level exception. Uh, they use every tool available for them on the trade
market. Uh, at least they try to. Uh. And they and
they bring in a you coach, right, And I think I think that's
probably what you're looking at for It's it's boring, right, like it's it's
it's not it's not exciting. But I think that's probably the most likely scenario
for the rockets. Well, that was I was actually I wasn't even talking
about trying to dump his money, but it was like, is that you
know, would to see see what kind of value you can get, Like
let's look at a rebuilding team like Chicago, where if they have a chance
to get a first round pick in twenty twenty two, and they can talk
themselves in there saying well, if their protections aren't too heavy, like who
technically knows where the rockets will be at that point? And so if you
can turn a Gordon and there need to be filler there, I don't.
I don't think Gordon house alone work. There might need to be another small
contract, but you can guarantee is Clemens and or if you can get an
auto porter for that package. Like is that I meant, is that like
a type of deal that they would consider. I know people have mentioned there's
framework where you can get Al Horford, but I don't think he's He has
some switch on defense still, but I don't really think that he kind of
look in the truest, the most literal sense of the term, he doesn't
fit micro ball. But even like looking at if you want to forget about
his size and look at his play style, just really don't think that he
fits that mode. And so I'm wondering if, like a, you'll think
getting Auto Porter Junior in exchange for you know, they're dangling that twenty two
first, then they're just using Eric Gordon's money as an anchor. If that's
the type of framework that they might consider at this juncture. Yeah, that's
interesting auto Porter huh. So, I mean, I guess the question you
ask is, like who fits better for this specific Rockets team, right,
the idealized version of Eric Gordon or the idealized version of auto Porter, Right,
because both of those guys haven't played up to their idealized versions in the
past couple of years, right, And I don't know, honestly, those
guys are both at their peaks pretty good players and fit they both fit into
this this framework. I think, I think if you could find a way
to pry Auto Porter, I think, yeah, that's definitely a deal that
you'd consider, right, I don't see, see where would you pay?
Where would you play him? Though? Okay, So like I suspect that
Eric Gordon was going to start next year, right if if if you if
you get out a Porter, right, you're bringing You're bringing in James Hard
and Russ PJ. Tucker. Those are those three are starting for sure,
right, And I suspect Robert Cummington's gonna start there. So you think you
think you think Auto Porters become it's a fifth start in that situation that would
be my guests in large part because I mean in theory you're looking at that
trade wol technically cost you like two would be starters also in Eric Gordon and
Daniel House like two candidates at least. And so I think Roco can at
least Porter is probably better going up against the just I'm not saying the better
defender overall, but he's probably best suited to go up against the the bigger
wings maybe who aren't as quick and you know, defend more fours and then
you can trust Roe code to kind of go against the smaller players because he's,
like I mean in Houston, he's he basically gives you five position range
on defense. But I think he's always given you kind of four position range
on defense. So I think that actually would make it rather easy to fit
in auto porter alongside both he and PJ. Tucker. But I could be
wrong there. Yeah, it's it's definitely something like he makes a lot of
sense, right, Uh. I guess the question you have to ask yourself
if if you're the Rockets in that situation is like, do you want to
do you want to give a both air Cort and Indanuel House? Like,
because those are two players that you know fit in your into your your system
next year US and you're trading for one and that that one player can be
more effective than both of those two players. But how much more effective that
can you make up for what you're losing in Daniel House on the open market?
I'm not sure? You know, Like maybe maybe you can, and
then you can maybe you can use that that that mid level exception to make
up what you're losing in that in that case and you know, perhaps even
get better. Yeah, that's it. I think that's the kind of trade
the Rocket to do at the end of the rops. He's as opposed to
the beginning of their ropsas And if that makes sense, if they can figure
out what their roster looks like and then they make that trade, I think
it makes more stense in that situation. It almost has to be too,
because I don't even know. I am not like, I can't looking at
Eric Gordon's extension. I'm just not sold on it. So I don't know
how much it costs to basically eat, you know, the final two years,
because you know, he's cheaper than out of Porter or substantially this year.
And I think that's how you talk yourself in and giving up the first
end house is because then you're you know, this isn't about shedding money.
But Otto Porter Junior also comes off the books next year, and so if
you need to move on like it gives you a little bit more flexibility there.
But that it feels like that's the type of swing that this team would
make. I'm not even saying it's exact it's that exact one, but I
feel like Morey is all about optimizing the window around James Harden. So he
might take. You know, people look at Eric Wardons say, well,
you can't move him, but like I feel like Darrow Morey could maybe find
a way to take that. I'll call him medium size swing because you're not
going to turn him into this immense value in return. But that does feel
like the type of at least the nature of it. So I'm not even
trying to pat myself in the back here, but that seems like the like
the type of deal that the Rockets would consider at some point over the offseason
once they figure out, well, how much does it kind of cost for
another team to to take on the final two years of Eric Gordon's deal.
Yeah, and it makes sense. That is definitely the type of deals you
have to explore if Houston. And what what you mentioned about Auto Porter's contract
coming off the books is interesting to me because for the Rockets, PGA Tucker's
contract comes off the books next year, right, So you're looking at a
situation if you make that trade where you get Auto Porter and PJA Tucker off
your books next year. Uh, it's not I haven't even done the math
yet, Like you're bringing this trade to me, Uh, completely out of
the blue. Sorry, Like it came to me after I had I DMed
you, and I was like, that's like, because I've been trying to
find like Eric Gordon trades like in Fury, and not many have stood out.
No you, that is like I was definitely looking at the Al Horford
type of trades like for Houston, but this one makes a lot more sense
logically for what they want to do next year. So I'm gonna have to
I'm gonna have to sleep on this. I'm gonna have to think about this,
Uh, do some mats after this podcast is over. But yeah,
that is interesting. I will say if in that scenario, and they could
obviously add players, I'm with the year deals, but if you were dealing
House and Gordon and getting back Porter, you only have three guaranteed players on
the books for the twenty two season, and that's Russell Westbrook, James Harden,
and Robert Covington, and so you have no cap space because those three
players are costing you over one hundred million dollars. But like, that's still
plenty of flexibility under whatever the tax ends up being, and maybe you could
do other stuff. So food for thought. I did want to ask you
about the like current players who they you know, they have to kind of
make calls on their future. I'll say, so you have Austin Rivers has
a player option. I don't know whether you have a feel if you think
he's going to ex or sizes that because it's two point four million dollars,
Ben McLamore two point three non guaranteed salary. And then the one of the
players who there's Jeff Green who wass a free agent, they don't have his
bird rights, and then David Nuaba, who they kind of picked up late
in the season knowing he wasn't going to play. They got that club option.
I know he's coming back from an achilles injury, but he's always just
been like a I like the deal they signed him too. That was smart
because look, he's someone who's defended positions one through four for a few years
now, and like specifically during his time in Cleveland, like he was hitting
his catch and shoot threes, and so like those are the looks that Houston
would ask him to take. They're not going to have him do anything else
on offense basically, and so if you can count on his positional range still
because he is he's on the shorter side I think he's six four, but
he's defended four is like consistently, like not spot duty, but consistently,
And so that gives you just a ton of optionality defensively. So unless his
Achilles recovery is going terribly, my guests would be for this specific situation,
I would think that they pick up his team option. Oh yeah, for
sure. They signed that contract with the idea of picking up his team option
one. And you know, like he gives you You're right, he gives
you so many, so much optionality defensively, And I think it was smart
of Houston to sign this deal because first of all, you don't need him
this year, so I mean, and you you can afford to sign him
for whatever two year deal you want. And I think, I think what
he gives you defensively, it's kind of similar to like what Luke Imba Mute
gave you, Like this is the that Luke Imba Mute type of signing that
they signed. What was it in two hundred years ago? Now? Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's so. Yeah, it's it's a very similar
kind of deal because it's a bargain basement deal. It doesn't cost you much
and and you know, He's a guy who's proven himself at his peak ability
to be a really good defender. So let's talk about those three players you
mentioned. I think from a money perspective and a basketball perspective, they can
only afford to bring like two of those player three players back next season.
Let's start with the money. There's a strong possibility that Austin Rivers opts out
of his player option to seek a bigger, bigger role and more money elsewhere.
He turned down more money to return to the team last summer, but
he might not do that again. I think he negotiated his contract last summer
with that intentionality. As far as Jeff Green's concerned, look, there is
a possibility that it dumps. A dump team saw Jeff Green performing the playoffs
and is willing to overpay him. We know that happens every year. It
could very well happen with Green. I know the Rockets would like to bring
them back, but if they can't sign him back to a bargain contract,
I don't think they resign him at all. And from a basketball perspective,
they need to rethink their roster from a stronger defensive identity, because I think
in that case they can afford to bring two of these guys back. Like
Ben McLamore is a nice player to have, but he couldn't find playing time
in the playoffs. Jeff Green is fine defensively in moments, but you don't
want to depend on him. And as far as Austin Rivers concerned, the
way that Houston has necess hesitated it's bigger players, I don't know if he
really fits into what they want to do moving forward. I think he fit
in that Chris Paul, Clint Capella, James Harden framework. I don't think
he fits into Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Robert Comden framework of this team.
Right Like those are two different teams. I think I think people need
to shift the way they think of those teams. Uh as soon as they
made that Clint Capella trade, they were way past that old era of basketball.
They were not. They no longer ran pick and rolls, They no
longer they no longer needed heavy guard play because they had enough guard play.
And I think if you look at what the Rockets want in their roster next
season, I think they would like more sides than what Austin Rivers giving them.
He was also someone who struggled in Houston's packed guard rotation. So I
think they keep I think I think they keep two of those guys. I
don't know. I don't know wish too at the moment, but that's my
theory. I guess if you move Eric Gordon Austin, Rivers becomes more of
just like a no brainer fit there. But there's still the he would be
the one that I would be worried about cost the most. I mean,
look, they could just keep guarantee Ben Maclamore's two point three million dollars salary,
and so maybe that's just the move they make because that's still relatively cheap
and like not unmovable. If you need to go that rout, if you're
hard up for roster spots, obviously, then that's something to consider. But
Rivers with the player option, he did shoot over thirty six percent on pull
up threes this year, Like I could see ah, I don't see him
getting like a huge money deal, but if you have to tap into your
mid level exception to keep him, I don't necessarily know if that's going to
interest the Rockets at all. And there could be a team like Philly I
think could really just use him because he's someone who's okay doing anything off the
dribble in the half court. It might be a mutual parting because yeah,
you're right, more teams can use Austin Rivers and the Rockets can use him,
right, especially if they bring Eric Gordon back, because then you're talking
about bringing back that packed guard rotation where Austin Rivers just gets lost in the
weeds a little bit. And I think Ben McLamore is definitely the kind of
player for that for that option. I mean, it's it's so dirt cheap
that it almost doesn't matter if you can't don't you can't play him in certain
matchups, Like it's just why not, Like it's just a roster spot at
that point, and it's not like you know you're gonna you're finding like eight
players this offseason. You can't you can't fit in back Ben McLamore to your
framework. So I think it makes sense to bring him back. And Jeff
Green, I think if teams don't overpay him, I think I think he's
a fine player to bring back for a cheap deal. He's not like he's
I'd probably just say veterans minimum, Like I'm not even good. I'm not
even using like yeah, like if they can fidelap like, that's too much
money for me. So, since we already talked about what was the most
undercovered aspect of this team, is there anything that I left out you want
to talk about? We really it's funny we didn't touch on my card and
Westbrook that much because I just feel like it should just be known that they'll
still be there. I guess. I guess my own question would be that
without the Russell Westbrook trade has been relitigated to no end? Do you think
Houston still gets to this uh microball model if they ever make that deal,
Like, do they get to the point where they feel like moving Clint Cappela
is in the sessam and go down this route? And have you given any
thoughts too? Would they have looked a lot better if Chris Paul is the
point guard in this situation instead of Russell Westbrook. Yeah, what a great
question. So I don't know if they still choose to go this role.
I suspect that they bring Clint Cappela back, right, Like, I think
they made this trade with Russell Westbrook in mine. In fact, that was
their main talking points after they made the trade right, they talked about having
a space floor on Westbrook, and I think I think if they had Chris
Paul, they probably play more more traditional and have Clint Cappella back, and
they're they're better at playing more traditional if they if they have Chris Paul,
right, I think Westbrook forces them to think out of the box. Westbrook
force's most teams to think out of the box. He's just such a weird
and different player. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely one of those things
where I think, if you're a Rockets fan, you need to stop relitigating
that trade because it's unhealthy. Like it's it happened, It's it's over,
Like Westbrook's on your team. He's going to be there for the next three
years. I don't see any point like there's nothing material that can come out
of just thinking about what could be with Chris Paul. Like that's done.
Yeah, Like listen, Like the time to talk about that trade was when
it happened. Now, like like what are you gonna do like like Chris
Paul, Yeah, Like he's he's a better player, for sure. I
thought that at the time they made the trade, and I still think that
now that was the That's the problem with the relitigations is like, this wasn't
something that was up in the air at the moment. I think at the
time, the consensus was that this was not predominantly a basketball driven move.
Yeah, for sure. I think if you look at the way their playoffs
ended in twenty nineteen, there was definitely something that happened. And you know,
nobody's been able to properly ascertain what exactly happened between Chris Paul and James,
but they were cool up until Game six of that Warrior series, and
then during Game six and then afterwards in the locker room, there's something happened,
some sort of verbal arc altercation between the two players, and then they
came out in separate press conferences, right, So you can definitely make the
logical conclusion that that was not a basketball decision. That was definitely something that
they made knowing that these two players can't be together for the next season.
So I think all that the five stages of teaming with Chris Paul and Hard
just went through it a little bit more quickly than everybody else where. It
feels like he grades on his own teammates. And someone pointed this out that
maybe this was the best way for him to leave Oklahoma City after one year
because we're just all assuming he gets traded, is that there's still the good
vibes and like the young players still like him, because the next couple of
stages just include like them getting angry at him because he's too grading. Yeah,
so I have a question, So where does Chris Paul go from here?
Right like? Because I think the logical conclusion is he goes to a
content ender like like the Bucks, right, But I don't know if the
Bucks necessarily want to do that, right Like, So I think they're you
know, like as bad as they looked in the playoffs in the second round,
right Like, I think they're still better off with Chris Middleton moving forward
for the long term. But you still look at what they're lacking in their
guard rotation, like they really miss Malcolm Brockden, right like the Bucks,
Like they completely missed the ship with with Brockden Bletsoe calculation. But again,
very much, you can't relitigate this if you're if you're a Bucks fan,
you can this happened, it's over, Like you don't have Malcolm Brockden anymore.
Eric letzos on your basketball team. So what do you do moving forward?
You try and and and go for a player like Chris Pau Because Chris
Paul, I still think has at least one or two more good years left
in him, and his contract expires after twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one.
What does it When does this contract expire twenty twenty two? Chris Paul's
yeah, heyer option for the twenty one twenty two season, and so it
expires in twenty two. He's not going to turn down. I think it's
like, what is it, forty eight million dollars, It's it's something that's
absolutely nuts. It is forty four point two million. He's not turning that
money down. So it's not crazy to have him for a two year rental,
right, if you're not giving up too much, like Chris Paul is
better for your team for the next two years, and you can, you
know, you can shed his contract down for after those two years and then
you can figure out what you want to do from there. But you know,
I don't I don't know, Like, did you think the Bucks explore
that kind of a rental or do you think do you think there's another team
out there that would really suit Chris Paul there. I think there are actually
plenty of teams that could probably talk to themselves into it. I don't know
if the Bucks will because they're kind of in the like Tillman for It's for
Gas situation where it's like they said they've paid the tax, but like,
let's let's see it first. And there was a report from the Athletic that
they're not interested in Paul, and I get the price point. What I
think people are under selling here for the Bucks is that. And I would
even have cause for pause with this. Everyone thinks it's so easy just to
match the salaries for Chris Paul, Maake Milwaukee isn't gonna want to give up
bletso Lopez and George Hill in that deal. That's three major rotation players for
one. I don't care if Chris Paul's in his prime. That's a lot
to give up. And so the permutations that work best for them is built
around Eric Bletsoe and then like the poop poo platter of salary filler, where
you have Erson Elisova, Robin Lopez, DJ Wilson, you're probably willing and
have to give up Dante DiVincenzo in that scenario, and the key there to
me would be, well, why would the thunder want that trade? It's
can you find a third party to take on Eric bletso like maybe Atlanta would
take him into their cap space or something, because then you're offering a ton
more immediate savings to Oklahoma City, And that's the route you go if they
can't do something like that, Like if that's gonna cost you, I'm not
saying Chris Paul isn't worth it in a vacuum, but like Brook, Lopez
was all defense this year. George Hill led the NBA essentially in three point
shooting percentage. Like, those are two huge pieces to leave, and they're
also two of the Bucks's most important shooters. Lopez didn't shoot it too well
for most the regular season, but his volume matters, and so to remove
them from the rotation, I know center value is kind of easier to approximate
on the free agent market, but I think that you need to go for
the Bucks. They would need to be able to get Chris Paul in that
type of scenario where they're only giving up Bledsoe as opposed to Lopez, Hill
and Bledsoe. And look, I don't know if teams, it's the money
that's going to concern teams the most. Chris Paul's two years and eighty five
point six million left on his deal. We're dealing in a you know,
a mid pandemic where all was about say post pandemic world, but like where
we haven't had gate revenue for these teams and forever there probably won't be Gate
revenue for most, if not all, of next season. Who's willing to
bite that bullet because I think Chris Paul is worth it, and like you
know, you look at other teams. Miami probably doesn't come into play after
this season, unless again they know that Janniss is outside the realm of possibility,
and even then they might just pivot to an Oladipo type of situation.
I think, Look, people have mentioned the Clippers might be a worthy if
they're willing to go. I think it's Williams, Beverly, zoobots and McGruder
will get you Chris Paul back. That's a team that I think should actually
consider something like that. We know that's do they have to trade fall?
I'm sorry, what was that? What picks do they have to trade for
Paul. I don't you would have probably have to. They don't have picks
until twenty and twenty eight, and so you have you you might have to
look at Landry Shammit, or you're just hoping that you know, Oklahoma City
really likes like Zubots or Beverley. You're probably getting a third team involved in
that scenario. I think the two teams that arguably stand out the most though,
would be Philly and then Phoenix. With Philly, it's can you sweeten
up a package that's going to include I would guess Al Horford, but it
could be Tobias Harris. I'd think that it's easier to move Horford just because
of the length of his deal, But you know, can you sweeten that
up enough? And is it even worth it for Chris Paul. I think
Phoenix provides the easiest fit. I don't know if they'll go that route,
but you know, Ricky Rubio and Kelly Ubrey and then I would give up
number ten for Chris Paul, like I would absolutely do that if I was
them. Maybe you can get away with just including Tied Jerome in there,
even if you had to do Tied Jerome and number ten that's on that I
would consider, because Chris Paul is that good, like you said, and
even if it's just a season of a top fifteen player, that is ridiculously
hard to come by. And so I do think there should be plenty of
teams willing to trade for him, and the Bucks should be a top that
list. I just I think the money is what's going to give teams pause,
and it's you know, I'll spend billionaires money all day. I don't
care. That just wouldn't give me reticence his price point, and it just
absolutely wouldn't. Yeah, I guess the question you have to ask yourself if
you're Milwaukee is how quickly can you replace brook Lope as value? Right?
I think you know you're already replacing George Hill's value and that you're getting Chris
Paul, Right, you're getting someone who George Hill and Bledsoe. I think
Chris Paul is more value than both those two players combine. The tricky part
is how do you replace brook Lope as value? And you know, another
question you have to ask yourself if your Milwaukee is like how much how much
value does does brook Lopez provide you? In a postseason setting as compared to
your regular season setting, right, because I think you're starting to find this
out in the playoffs, like switch your teams seem to fare better in the
playoffs and Miami's you know, an a one example of this, right like,
and you know draw, It's not to say drop back defenses can't succeed.
I mean look at the Lakers, right Like, it's not to say
those those type of defenses aren't effective, but I think Brook Lopez isn't as
valuable as as like the kind of center you would like to have in the
postseason. So I don't know, like that that's a tricky question if you're
Milwaukee. The Sixers are definitely interesting. I think they really miss Jimmy Butler.
Uh, I mean in the playoffs, like they need someone who just
takes control of the offense, especially in fourth quarter situations. Yeah, that's
that that that makes a lot of sense of the question is like how much
are you willing to give up? Obviously, who are you willing to give
up? Phoenix is definitely interesting too, because you know pair and Chris Paul
next to Devin Booker. It just makes a ton of basketball sense, Even
if that's a temporary fit like that gets you, you know, probably to
the playoffs next year, right, And my thinking here was like, look,
the eight no bubble vibes, Like maybe there was a real but you're
like in this weird position where you're not a guaranteed playoff team, and like
any sort of substantial move that eats into your younger core like that could end
up setting you back. And so if Chris Paul is someone that you can
get where you don't, we know Booker is not going to be involved.
But like, if you're making a big swing, theoretically you need to make
an eight and a Kale Bridges even a Cameron Johnson available. And if you're
able to get Chris Paul without including those three players, I think that's what
makes that so appealing to me, is that you're getting that impact without really
mortgaging your future. Because how important is Ricky Rubio and Kelly Bridge junior to
your future? You can argue the number ten pick is you know, that's
something to give up, Like this year's draft class, you're probably not going
to get more than a complimentary player there anyway, And so I think at
this point it's it's fair to consolidate but you need to do it within reason
because you don't know if you're that sure fire playoff team. I think Chris
Paul gets you there. And again, aside from the actual financial cost,
I just don't think there's this huge opportunity cost when you're looking at like the
the asset equity you'd give up in a hypothetical Chris Paul trade. Now,
if you're just in love with Ricky Rubio and Kelly Erbridge junior, it's different.
But Chris Paul's way better than Ricky Rubio. And I think that Ubrey
has proved pretty good. He's good, but he's proved he proved replaceable to
me because you put Cameron Johnson in that starting lineup and you hummed and then
Dario Sarich off the bench as more of a shot creator. Just makes too
much sense, and so that kind of leaves I won't say Ubrey and Lurch
he could still help this team, but I don't think he's, you know,
irreplaceable, but by any means. And look, you have to worry
about paying him in twenty twenty one anyway, when he's going to be a
free agent. No, you're right, and you know this, This draft
is pretty weak too, so that that ten pick is not going to be
pretty valuable for you. And I think Chris Paul's value for the next two
years as far as growing with that young core, I mean, I think
that's immensely valuable, especially for a player that Devin book for, like Devin
Booker who hasn't tasted the playoffs yet. Having a player like Chris Paul buyer
side who's not only tasted it, thrived in that kind of a situation is
really really healthy for you moving forward, even if you only have for two
years. I think it's the kind of buy that makes a lot of sense.
It's kind of like, in a different way, it's kind of like
the Jazz buying in on Joe Johnson for right, Like it's obviously two different
situations, but it's like it's very much like that, Like having that kind
of a closure in your in your midst as you try to make your first
playoff appearance makes a lot of sense. Yeah, look, hey, look
you mentioned the Jazz. I think the Mike Conley plus sweeteners for Chris Paul
trade is staring him, staring him right in the face. Two One,
it's hysterical. How all my even team oriented podcasts that this is at least
ten gentily related to Chris Paul because it's it's the Rockets, but everything just
comes back to a Chris Paul trade at this point. I absolutely love it.
But Salmon, I really thank you for giving me so much of your
of your time. This was a great discussion. The Rockets are clearly one
of the more fascinating teams to watch during the off season, and just giving
that Darryl Morris in charge, even though they seem so inflexible on their books,
you almost have to prepare yourself for just anything happening, Like, no,
they're not going to acquire another star, but it just feels like,
look we saw Chris Paul flip for Washall Westbrook last year, like anything is
possible with this team. So I look forward to seeing what they do over
the offseason. And if you guys are not following Salmon on Twitter, please
remedy that immediately. He can be found at Salmon Ali NBA. That's at
SA L M n A l I NBA does great work, fantastic podcaster,
does great covers for the Rockets over at ESPN ninety seven point five and Broken
Record Style. Thanks again, so much for coming on, Sam and I
really enjoyed this talk. For sure, I did too. Man for the
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