Speaker 1: Well, we were hoping on a Monday edition of the
Speaker 1: program to be previewing a game seven tonight between the
Speaker 1: Knicks and the Pacers at Madison Square Garden at Midtown, Manhattan.
Speaker 1: But that MSG is dark tonight unless they have a
Speaker 1: concert or whatever's going on, there's no basketball. NBA Finals
Speaker 1: begin on Thursday. Let's do some NBA with our next
Speaker 1: guest on a Monday. Tom Haverstrow, Buddy, how are.
Speaker 2: You doing good? How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. So let's let's be let's be
Speaker 1: reductive right off the start. Why are we not previewing
Speaker 1: eight game seven tonight between the Knicks and the Pacers.
Speaker 3: Well, the defense of the Knicks just couldn't keep up
Speaker 3: with the Pacers. Karl Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson as
Speaker 3: your rim protectors. It didn't bode well for the Knicks.
Speaker 3: They've got Jalen Brunton and Karl Anthony Towns, who are
Speaker 3: two one way superstars. They are superstar offensive players, but
Speaker 3: defensively Josh hart ogn and Obie mckel bridges and Mitchell
Speaker 3: Robinson to a lesser degree, he was coming up off
Speaker 3: the bench for most of the season. Those three wing
Speaker 3: guys were supposed to be more than enough defensively to
Speaker 3: cover up and hide Jalen Brunton and Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 2: But you can't.
Speaker 3: Excuse Karl Anthony Towns having one block in that entire
Speaker 3: conference finals. It just can't happen. And it's the first
Speaker 3: time that we've seen a player that size in the
Speaker 3: conference finals, play that many minutes and have that few
Speaker 3: number of blocks. It's just very difficult to win when
Speaker 3: your best center is not a rim protector and a
Speaker 3: good defender. Now Nikola Jokic gets away with that. He's
Speaker 3: not as soft as Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 2: Is as a rim protector.
Speaker 3: The defense for the Knicks was really their undoing is
Speaker 3: that they just were not able to get enough scoring
Speaker 3: in order to compensate for that end of the floor,
Speaker 3: and the Pacers they moved the ball, they'd exploit matchups.
Speaker 3: Pascal Siakam, Tyrese Haliburn were excellent at creating mismatches and
Speaker 3: taking advantage of the Knick slow defense. You know, like
Speaker 3: Karl Anthony Towns, how many times was he jogging back
Speaker 3: on defense or complaining about a foul call on his
Speaker 3: back and the Pacers just ran him out of the
Speaker 3: gym and ultimately og Ananobi Josh Hart mckel bridges had
Speaker 3: to hit shots had to be not just d but
Speaker 3: also the three, and they couldn't do it. So the
Speaker 3: Indiana Pacers move on after being the This is a
Speaker 3: crazy stat the Indiana Pacers. Before this season, sportsbooks had
Speaker 3: projected that the New Orleans Pelicans would have a better
Speaker 3: shot at making the NBA Finals than the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 3: So that is how much of an underdog this Pacers team.
Speaker 3: Even though they went to the Eastern Conference Finals, they
Speaker 3: were just I think it was plus twenty to win
Speaker 3: the East and make it to the NBA Finals. And
Speaker 3: when you compare their title ads, they had the same
Speaker 3: or worse title ods than the New Orleans Pelicans. So
Speaker 3: this really is one of the most unlikely NBA Finals matchups,
Speaker 3: and that's mostly coming from that East side with the
Speaker 3: Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1: Your point about the next defense is spot on, and
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing that I've been talking about on
Speaker 1: the show because the two games where they guarded, they won,
Speaker 1: but they only guarded for two games, Tom, And you
Speaker 1: know I said on Friday before we signed off, prior
Speaker 1: to that game, six on Saturday. Like, I know that
Speaker 1: the Pacers were getting you know, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of credit, a lot of love for their shot making.
Speaker 1: The game one comeback where Nie Smith went crazy. You
Speaker 1: go back and watch the final few minutes. The Nie
Speaker 1: Smith shots were practice shots. He was stepping into mostly
Speaker 1: wide open threes. Given credit for turning into Ray Allen circu.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety eight or whatever. But I don't fully understand
Speaker 1: how a team who's head coach is all defense was
Speaker 1: such a sieve on that side of the floor more
Speaker 1: often than not.
Speaker 4: And I do think it comes down to cat. I
Speaker 4: do think you have a cat problem. Now.
Speaker 1: I also will say the cat was better in this
Speaker 1: playoff run than I've ever seen him play in playoff basketball.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make this like I'm only crushing Cat.
Speaker 1: But you look at their books, Tom, They've got their
Speaker 1: five million guys signed for a while.
Speaker 4: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you do need to figure something out with
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns because he just does not play defense
Speaker 1: and commits some of the dumbest fouls that I've ever
Speaker 1: seen watching NBA basketball.
Speaker 4: So if you're Leon Rose and you look.
Speaker 1: At a season that I think a little bit is
Speaker 1: twenty dollars in the back pocket of jeans that you
Speaker 1: pull out of the dryer because you did get to
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals. You did block Boston from winning
Speaker 1: a championship. But I don't know that this group has
Speaker 1: more in them than what we saw. I don't know
Speaker 1: that this is an NBA Finals group. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would pick them to make it back to
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals next year.
Speaker 4: What does the offseason look like in New York Town?
Speaker 3: Well, the tough thing here is a couple of things. One,
Speaker 3: they put in five first round picks and cleaned out
Speaker 3: their cover to first round picks tradable first round picks
Speaker 3: to get mckel bridges.
Speaker 2: And he just wasn't good enough to justify that price tech.
Speaker 2: He just wasn't.
Speaker 3: He was softer defensively, not as physical as you would
Speaker 3: want someone point of attack defender. He's a guy who
Speaker 3: loved the mid range and hit a bunch of mid
Speaker 3: range shots, but became kind of Ben Simmons esque yips.
Speaker 3: He and Josh Hart just did not want to take
Speaker 3: a layup, and for that you gave up five first
Speaker 3: round picks. And the only tradable first round pick that
Speaker 3: you have is Washington's top eight protected pick next year,
Speaker 3: and that's almost certainly not going to convey. And then
Speaker 3: it becomes two second round picks. So really, the Nicks
Speaker 3: don't have any tradable first round picks. They have a
Speaker 3: couple swaps that they can do. But when let's say
Speaker 3: you're offering the Milwaukee Bucks Karl Anthony Towns and two pickswaps, well,
Speaker 3: when you're acquiring Jannis Anadakumpo, how valuable is a pick
Speaker 3: swap if you're offering it to to you know, Milwaukee
Speaker 3: as a as a as a carrot in that trade.
Speaker 3: Milwaukee looks at that and says, I really, how much?
Speaker 2: What are the odds that.
Speaker 3: We're going to say, Yeah, the Knicks with Jalen Brunson,
Speaker 3: Michel Bridges, O g n andob and and and and
Speaker 3: Jannis Enatakumpo are going to have a worse team than
Speaker 3: the Milwaukee Bucks with Karl nthing Town. So it's like
Speaker 3: you look at a potential blockbuster trade, you put it
Speaker 3: on the on the table for for Jannisanda to coompo.
Speaker 3: If Janis even wants out of Milwaukee, Leon Rose has
Speaker 3: to a convince Jannisana da Cumpo that the New York
Speaker 3: Knicks are the team for him. He's not a CAAA client.
Speaker 3: And we've talked about this before, is that the New
Speaker 3: York Knicks have aligned themselves with Leon Rose's former agency CIA.
Speaker 3: He used to run the basketball side of CIA, and
Speaker 3: his rolodex is super deep in terms of the clients
Speaker 3: that he had in the NBA, including Lebron James and
Speaker 3: Dwayne Wade. You go on down the list, he had
Speaker 3: an incredible stable of NBA players on his list. Karl
Speaker 3: Anthony Towns might have been the most lucrative. One of
Speaker 3: all is that when you look at the contract that
Speaker 3: he signed, Leon Rose was the biggest benefactor there and
Speaker 3: it was his largest client when he was on the
Speaker 3: agency side. But Jannis is at Octagon and so the
Speaker 3: CIA link that he has with Jalen Brunson, his son,
Speaker 3: Leon Rose's son is Jalen Brunson's agent at CIA, Sam Rose.
Speaker 2: If you look at.
Speaker 3: Og Annobi CIA, if you look at Josh Hart CIA,
Speaker 3: Karl Anthony town CIA, the New York Knicks have allocated
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty million dollars of their payroll this
Speaker 3: year to CIA clients at the largest sum in the
Speaker 3: NBA for any team an agency. So it's very closely aligned.
Speaker 3: The bonds between CIA and the Knicks are very strong, right,
Speaker 3: So you got to convince Jannis, hey, we are the
Speaker 3: team for you. If you want out of Milwaukee, we
Speaker 3: are the team for you. But that's not the hard part.
Speaker 2: I wrote for.
Speaker 3: Yahoo Sports yesterday in a column. The hard part for
Speaker 3: Leon Rhodes, are you really going to portray Karl Anthony
Speaker 3: Towns like that? He was Karl Anthony Towns' agent before
Speaker 3: he was picked number one overall. He was close with
Speaker 3: Karl Anthony Towns and war Why West. When Karl Anthon
Speaker 3: Towns decided to go play for the national team, the
Speaker 3: Dominican national team, the coach was John Calipari, who then
Speaker 3: coached him at Kentucky. Like, they're very close and they
Speaker 3: go way back, right. So, now that you're on the Knicks,
Speaker 3: is Leon Rose going to be able to look at
Speaker 3: Karl Anthony Towns and say we're going to trade you
Speaker 3: to Milwaukee for Yiannis. That's going to be a tough proposition.
Speaker 3: Even if Joannie is like, I want to go to
Speaker 3: the Knicks. Leon Rose has to just like say, all right,
Speaker 3: this is a tough decision for me, but I am
Speaker 3: going to send you to Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be tough.
Speaker 3: The other thing is like KD. What happens with KD.
Speaker 3: You know his rich Climban, his agent is the New
Speaker 3: York guy, and KD if everyone expects him to be
Speaker 3: on the market this summer, whether it's Minnesota or somewhere else, Houston, Miami,
Speaker 3: New York, New York again, Karl Anthony Towns would have
Speaker 3: to go. As is that trade money wise, you have
Speaker 3: to bring in a three team deal, and that might
Speaker 3: be a possibility. And the way that you might you
Speaker 3: might argue, if you're the Knicks, all right, we get
Speaker 3: KD and we get off of Karl Anthony Towns's long
Speaker 3: term money. We're going to able to get a better
Speaker 3: center to go next to KD, who probably can't guard
Speaker 3: four as consistently at this age. But you get up
Speaker 3: the long term money because right now he's going to
Speaker 3: be an expiring deal next year. If Leon Rose looks
Speaker 3: at this and says, all right, maybe.
Speaker 2: I don't trade you to Milwaukee, but you get.
Speaker 3: To reunite with Devin Booker and Phoenix he gets to
Speaker 3: take care of his client. There there's other options for
Speaker 3: the Knicks.
Speaker 2: They run it back.
Speaker 3: Maybe they move mckel Bridges to Dallas or somewhere else where.
Speaker 3: They can move mckel and try to get maybe Daniel
Speaker 3: Gafford and Caleb Martin from Dallas and Dallas upgrades on
Speaker 3: the point of attack defense next to Anthony Davis.
Speaker 2: And we know.
Speaker 3: Nico Harrison, we know he wants defense wins championships, and
Speaker 3: right now their point of attack defense is like Klay
Speaker 3: Thompson and Cooper Flack. I don't think that that's going
Speaker 3: to work out for them this year if they want
Speaker 3: to win, and so maybe you propose that trade. But
Speaker 3: even then it's very likely Spence, that the Knicks just
Speaker 3: decide to run this back.
Speaker 2: I think Knicks fans would love to have you. I
Speaker 2: think they would love to have KD.
Speaker 3: But it requires a CIA team to trade away their
Speaker 3: top caa guy in Karl Anthony Towns. And that's it matters.
Speaker 3: More than people realize, is these relationships over time, and
Speaker 3: Leon Rose has always been a very loyal guy. Uh
Speaker 3: Jalen Brunson's father, Rick Brunson, was his first client, NBA
Speaker 3: client and now he's the coach for Tom Thibodaux, another
Speaker 3: CIA client, so this of course gets his son to
Speaker 3: be the star in New York. These bonds are very strong,
Speaker 3: and if they are going to upgrade next season, it's
Speaker 3: gonna mean that the CAA link is going to be tested.
Speaker 3: And with Karl Anthony Towns, the CIA client, Josh hart,
Speaker 3: ogn Andobi and Jalen Brunton all CA guys, I mean,
Speaker 3: are they gonna be willing to move one of those
Speaker 3: guys to upgrade the roster or are they just gonna say, look,
Speaker 3: we're gonna run it back next year and we're going
Speaker 3: to improve. Everyone's got to improve in different ways. And
Speaker 3: that's what the Knicks are looking at, is I mean,
Speaker 3: is Karl Anthony Towns the guy or do you move
Speaker 3: him to try to get a superstar in KD and Yannis?
Speaker 3: So that's really what's on the table for them is
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't know that Giannis is going to
Speaker 3: be a trade target this summer, but I can tell
Speaker 3: you every team does these contingencies after the season. Is
Speaker 3: if we're going to upgrade this roster, how do we
Speaker 3: do it? And I wonder how willing they are in
Speaker 3: moving Karl Anthony Towns considered. I mean, he wore that
Speaker 3: jersey with so much pride and playing through that visibly
Speaker 3: playing through that that knee injury.
Speaker 2: But is the ceiling maybe.
Speaker 3: Eastern Conference semifinals and finals. If you have Karl Anthony
Speaker 3: Towns as you're starting four and maybe you're starting five,
Speaker 3: that's I mean, that's good. That's better than the Knicks
Speaker 3: have had in the last couple decades. But is it
Speaker 3: enough to win a championship?
Speaker 1: And I say no, Do we talk enough about how
Speaker 1: elite Rick Carlisle is. I mean, I was going over
Speaker 1: some of the stuff this morning, and look, I'm a
Speaker 1: big Tom Thibodeau guy, and Tom was an assistant for
Speaker 1: Jeff and so was able to get to know him.
Speaker 1: And to your point about where the Knicks find themselves now,
Speaker 1: it's so much better than anywhere they've been for decades
Speaker 1: that if you run it back and Tom's the guy,
Speaker 1: then I think most Nick fans would say, Okay, like
Speaker 1: sign me up. It's at least nice to have a
Speaker 1: team that's relevant as opposed to what it's been for
Speaker 1: a while. But I think I think Rick took him,
Speaker 1: took him to the cleaners I thought this was a
Speaker 1: series where Tom was out coached. I thought some of
Speaker 1: the challenges didn't look great early on.
Speaker 4: I don't know what sort of.
Speaker 1: Adjustments you make when it comes to Indiana's ability to
Speaker 1: get him down. But I'm just imagining Tom watching tape
Speaker 1: of Game six and seeing four runouts off of makes
Speaker 1: for dunks and layups, and he's going, what, like, what
Speaker 1: are we doing? So you know, Rick gets his championship
Speaker 1: with a twenty eleven Dallas Mavericks team that was interesting
Speaker 1: with Dirk being peaked Dirk. That was Jason Terry six
Speaker 1: the Year award, that was Tyson Chandler Defensive Player of
Speaker 1: the Year. But they won a couple of series where
Speaker 1: they were underdogs and they beat.
Speaker 4: The Heat in the finals.
Speaker 1: And now he has this group that nobody thought was
Speaker 1: gonna be relevant outside of maybe winning a series, and
Speaker 1: they're in the NBA Finals. I mean, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I feel like the maybe the public conversation surrounding Rick
Speaker 1: Carlisle needs to start sounding maybe a little bit different.
Speaker 4: Give me your thoughts.
Speaker 3: Well, the best ones always adapt. And it reminds me
Speaker 3: of Greg Popovich and how he regarded the three point
Speaker 3: line or regarded zone defense, or regarded different styles of play.
Speaker 3: And Rick Carlisle that twenty eleven team. I covered the
Speaker 3: NBA Finals in Miami, and it was amazing to watch
Speaker 3: this veteran team rally together. Sean Marion, derk Novisky, Jason Kidd,
Speaker 3: Karn Butler, like this is a very old team. This team,
Speaker 3: the Indiana Pacers, couldn't be more different. They're They're led
Speaker 3: by Tyrese Haliburton, only a few years into the NBA,
Speaker 3: and the average age on this team is barely twenty
Speaker 3: six years old.
Speaker 2: Or that that.
Speaker 3: That Dallas team in twenty eleven was a bunch of
Speaker 3: dudes whore at the end of their careers. And so
Speaker 3: the ability to adapt in the NBA as a coach
Speaker 3: is something that I think is in direct contrast to
Speaker 3: Tom Thibodeaux this series where you know, you look at
Speaker 3: Tibbs and Tis TIBs.
Speaker 2: For better or for worse.
Speaker 3: But he played that five man lineup all season long
Speaker 3: about forty minutes a game. Basically the Brunson Michel Hart
Speaker 3: and Nobi and Karl Anthony Town started them and played
Speaker 3: them into the ground and they never got to a
Speaker 3: good defense. They never did and then in Game three
Speaker 3: he had to switch up and put Mitchell Robinson into
Speaker 3: the starting lineup, and I got to give it to
Speaker 3: TIBs like he did expand the pitation and he did
Speaker 3: make that lineup change, But it did feel like a
Speaker 3: little bit too late, a little not enough. When you
Speaker 3: talk about how stubborn Tom Thibodeau is, or I guess
Speaker 3: just hard headed when it comes to who his guys
Speaker 3: are and what his beliefs are, it seemed like Rick
Speaker 3: Carlo in the opposite direction all year. It was like,
Speaker 3: we're gonna win by playing up tempo and running teams
Speaker 3: out of the gym with a deep roster, and we
Speaker 3: are going to no matter what stay tued or our
Speaker 3: playing style, and not rely on two guys to win
Speaker 3: us games. We're gonna rely on Nie Smith is gonna
Speaker 3: win us a few games, nemhar You saw him in
Speaker 3: game six, how well he played in Game six, and
Speaker 3: how well he played in previous series. This is a
Speaker 3: team that really just believed Rick Carlile believed in these
Speaker 3: role players to play like stars when they needed to,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately, on the Nick's side, the role players just
Speaker 3: felt apart.
Speaker 2: I mean, Duce.
Speaker 3: McBride the og McHale Josh Hart. They did not step up,
Speaker 3: whereas the Indiana Pacers and the belief that Rick Carlo
Speaker 3: imbued in these guys. It really did seem like two
Speaker 3: very different coaches on different ends of the ends of
Speaker 3: the spectrum. And you know, fourteen years ago, when the
Speaker 3: Dallas Mavericks are winning the championship, and I told you
Speaker 3: that in twenty twenty five, the Indiana Pacers are going
Speaker 3: to win the East. I can't imagine you're gonna say,
Speaker 3: Rick Carlisle is gonna be the architect of one of
Speaker 3: the best offenses in the NBA with a team that
Speaker 3: just runs teams out of the gym like seven seconds
Speaker 3: or less. But that's what Rick Carlisle did, and I
Speaker 3: really appreciate how he's been able to adapt as a coach.
Speaker 1: Indiana's consolation prize for making the NBA Finals is a
Speaker 1: matchup with a team right now, Tom that just feels
Speaker 1: like they've found a little something, well, not just found something.
Speaker 4: They've been historic all year.
Speaker 1: But I was resident, I should say hesitant and reticent
Speaker 1: as I canbine those two words in one question to
Speaker 1: just anoint them, because I'd never seen them make a
Speaker 1: long playoff run and then jokes on me because they're
Speaker 1: just they're everything you want and they've been able to
Speaker 1: stay healthy, which this time of year is a massive thing.
Speaker 1: So what sort of chance do you give Indiana to
Speaker 1: make the NBA Finals interesting?
Speaker 4: And with Shay the MVP on.
Speaker 1: One side, I am blown away with how many players
Speaker 1: Mark Dagnold has at his disposal. I heard somebody use
Speaker 1: the term he's like a starting pitcher with six different pitches.
Speaker 1: I mean he can he can bring whatever the night needs.
Speaker 1: He can say, how do you want to play? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine, we'll beat you playing that way too. So
Speaker 1: can Indiana make this interesting or does it feel like
Speaker 1: it's pretty overwhelming in Oklahoma City's favor.
Speaker 3: Barring injury, they have a slim to none chance of
Speaker 3: making this a serious Yeah. Okay, See, he's just that good.
Speaker 3: When you look at the regular season point differential between
Speaker 3: these two teams, it's one of the largest we've ever seen,
Speaker 3: if not the largest, in NBA history, And in terms
Speaker 3: of the finals matchups like the Thunder had one of
Speaker 3: the biggest points differentials meeting. They outscored the opponent by
Speaker 3: over twelve points a game in every game this season
Speaker 3: on average about twelve points a game. The Pacers were
Speaker 3: good this regular season, winning fifty games. But when you
Speaker 3: look at what the Pacers like to do, the Thunder
Speaker 3: are well well equipped to match that. You know, the
Speaker 3: Thunder do not turn over the ball. And the Indiana
Speaker 3: Pacers are a team that really likes to run out,
Speaker 3: like you said, get out and transition and take advantage
Speaker 3: of a team that can be careless with the ball.
Speaker 3: And the Thunder just do not turn over the ball.
Speaker 3: And they're well coached. And I just think that this
Speaker 3: is a team the Thunder with all their weapons, and
Speaker 3: how much rest they've gotten coming into this series, how
Speaker 3: healthy they are coming into this series, how confident they
Speaker 3: are coming into this series. They just dismantled the Minnesota
Speaker 3: Timberwolves that were a top three defense in the in
Speaker 3: the NBA this season. I just think that the Indiana
Speaker 3: Pacers are a really good story, a really good team.
Speaker 3: But the Thunder, and I've been hammering this and beating
Speaker 3: this drum all season long. This Thunder team is all
Speaker 3: time good, like all time good, like one of the
Speaker 3: ten best teams we've ever seen put together. And of
Speaker 3: course that final chapter of winning the NBA Finals will
Speaker 3: seal that. But I everything I've seen from this season
Speaker 3: has told me that this is one of the best
Speaker 3: teams we've ever seen. I mean, they've already won eighty
Speaker 3: games this year, and there's only three other teams in
Speaker 3: NBA history who have won more in a at this point.
Speaker 3: And it's like peak Jordan and peak Warriors. So this
Speaker 3: team is so good. I'm going with Okac in five.
Speaker 3: But honestly, my brain is telling me heat and four.
Speaker 3: I mean, Okac in four.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like my brain.
Speaker 3: Is telling me, okay, see in four, but like my
Speaker 3: heart is saying, okay, see in five. But I really
Speaker 3: do believe that this could end up in a suitep
Speaker 3: I just if a name eight to paper, I'm probably
Speaker 3: gonna go Oka see in five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, man, all right, before I set
Speaker 1: you loose. Kind of a surprising piece of news. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hadn't caught wind of any rumors in this direction,
Speaker 1: but the Utah Jazz have hired Austin Age as their
Speaker 1: president of basketball ops. So of course, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear Austin speak here coming up in a bid. According
Speaker 1: to the statements that were made by Ryan Smith, Danny
Speaker 1: no statements. He stayed completely out of it. Sounds like
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a scenario where Xanik is still
Speaker 1: the GM and he works with Austin on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis, and both those two report to Danny,
Speaker 1: and then of course Danny reports to Ryan as the owner.
Speaker 1: So what we have here is a team that's locked
Speaker 1: up their head coach through twenty thirty one, potentially now
Speaker 1: has a front office that they've locked up for the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future as well, without a lot of results so far.
Speaker 1: And yes, they're three years into a rebuild. We'll see
Speaker 1: what the coming years bring.
Speaker 4: But what are your.
Speaker 1: Thoughts on the direction of the club out here? Bringing
Speaker 1: in Austin Ange as the president and kind of having
Speaker 1: their front office and their coaching staff locked.
Speaker 4: In for a while.
Speaker 3: Well, this is NBA front offices and power structures across
Speaker 3: the league. If people want to say nepotism, then I
Speaker 3: would say is this is very common in the league.
Speaker 3: The Lacubs and Kirk Lacub in the front office, the
Speaker 3: owner's son in the front office.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: You look at the Colangelos and Phoenix, and in Toronto
Speaker 3: you look at you look at the Airsons in Miami,
Speaker 3: similar story. You look at across the league, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have this this And I'm not saying that Danny Age
Speaker 3: is the owner, but I think people are crying foul
Speaker 3: at the idea that the CEO, Danny Ainge would hire
Speaker 3: his son to run basketball ops. And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I mean, this has been the NBA for a very
Speaker 3: long time. Is We've seen this kind of relationship and
Speaker 3: it's just another one of these father son combos in
Speaker 3: ownership and in front office. Austin comes very highly regarded
Speaker 3: in the Boston front office, of course, from Danny Ainge,
Speaker 3: of course, But I would also say that I think
Speaker 3: it's important to have a younger GM or someone who
Speaker 3: has a lot more ties to like the grassroots level
Speaker 3: NBA when the league is getting younger and in order
Speaker 3: to draft these guys you don't have as much tape
Speaker 3: because of nil and all the transfer portals. You need
Speaker 3: someone who has their boots on the ground and have
Speaker 3: a lot of intel, and that typically comes from a
Speaker 3: profile of like Austin Ange, who's younger and has a
Speaker 3: lot more relationships on the younger side than maybe Danny
Speaker 3: Ainge did. And you see this in the NBA. A
Speaker 3: lot is in the Charlotte Hornets organization with Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3: Mitch cupcheck with the g for Michael Jordan, Like Mitch
Speaker 3: Kupchak isn't going to every gym and going to all
Speaker 3: of the European and going to every AAU tournament, because look,
Speaker 3: the guy is the guy had a.
Speaker 2: Great run with the Lakers.
Speaker 3: But you need someone younger to burn that midnight oil
Speaker 3: in ways that Austin Ange will be doing that for
Speaker 3: the Utah Jazz. So it's a People might say that
Speaker 3: this is kind of a corrupt thing to do because
Speaker 3: the CEO just hired his son to run basketball ops,
Speaker 3: but Danny Ainge has earned that right. And I would
Speaker 3: also say that this is nothing new in the NBA,
Speaker 3: and that you see these types of things all across
Speaker 3: the league, and that is a story as old as
Speaker 3: time in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Well, Tom appreciate the time. Was hoping to talk Game
Speaker 1: seven at MSG tonight, but hopefully the NBA Finals carry
Speaker 1: some intrigue. Where can everybody go get that great work
Speaker 1: of yours?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yahoo Sports.
Speaker 3: You can check out that column about the three Trades
Speaker 3: that I wrote wrote out about the new York Knicks
Speaker 3: where they go from here. And also you can check
Speaker 3: out Basketball Illuminati, the NBA podcast that we do account
Speaker 3: the things with the me and Al Hassen and of
Speaker 3: course Top Chef. You're a big fan of that show.
Speaker 3: I get my Pack Your Knives podcast as well as
Speaker 3: my newsletter Tom to find. Are lots of places, but
Speaker 3: it's always great to spend time with you, Spence, but.
Speaker 1: Great Tom Aberstrow. Monday afternoon, we'll catch a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're gonna bringing Richard Smith live in studio Austin h
Speaker 1: currently is speaking to the media. We'll bring you some
Speaker 1: sound in about an hour from now. But Tommy stops
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