Speaker 1: Who do you think shut it down?
Speaker 2: My curiosity is obviously always with Okay see, because even
Speaker 2: when they're teetering on success in prior years, they've been
Speaker 2: very reluctant to keep success going, right, Like they shut
Speaker 2: down Shay last year, they shut down Giddy last year,
Speaker 2: they shut down.
Speaker 1: Like even Kenrick Williams.
Speaker 2: I think at one point, like anybody who had a
Speaker 2: pulse wasn't playing for this team. Obviously we mentioned Portland.
Speaker 2: Portland is not on a trajectory for a play in spot,
Speaker 2: despite what Dame thinks or what Chauncey Billups thinks, like
Speaker 2: who do you think goes or do you like full
Speaker 2: I'm going to sell mode like for the rest of
Speaker 2: the season, I'm just gonna whether they shut down players
Speaker 2: or they.
Speaker 1: Just lose games, like semi intentionally.
Speaker 3: I think it'll happen. Can I pinpoint where I'll pinpoint
Speaker 3: where I don't think it will. Orlando seems pretty content
Speaker 3: on trying to win games and trying to compete, and
Speaker 3: Magic want to take steps forward. The Pistons, I mean,
Speaker 3: they haven't had the bench guys to be the worst
Speaker 3: team in the league. So I don't think. I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think we'll see that either. I think don
Speaker 3: but are still going to be chasing thirty every night.
Speaker 3: You know, San Antonio has lost a good amount of
Speaker 3: games after selling Josh Richardson and taking on Dwayne dead
Speaker 3: Bean into salary and waving him. I don't think the
Speaker 3: Spurs have a ton of interest in competing for the
Speaker 3: postseason Utah. I would expect to see some more youth movement,
Speaker 3: some more minutes for unproven guys, some boggy opportunity. I mean,
Speaker 3: they just moved Vanderbilt and Lake Beasley and Mike Conley
Speaker 3: out the door. Russell Westbrook obviously is not going to
Speaker 3: be playing for the Utah Jazz, so those are probably
Speaker 3: the two teams I would how it's the most the
Speaker 3: Thunder I never I've gotten into plenty of trouble speaking
Speaker 3: about the Thunder and positions where I don't one hundred
Speaker 3: percent know what's going on there. So I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: gonna abstain from that.
Speaker 1: Battle out on that that makes sense.
Speaker 2: One thing about the Thunder I thought was interesting was
Speaker 2: a recent article that came out that I don't know
Speaker 2: why even they would do this, That they promised Jabari
Speaker 2: that they would take him number two overall, if he
Speaker 2: was there, obviously they take chet Jabari ends up in Houston,
Speaker 2: like how how normal is something that would be very
Speaker 2: blatantly not true. Obviously was not going to be a
Speaker 2: fit there.
Speaker 3: I think two things. One, I think teams say we're
Speaker 3: going to take you here if you're there, and that
Speaker 3: can be one of two things. One it is a
Speaker 3: promise and the guy they thought wasn't going to be
Speaker 3: there as all of a sudden there. Or two they
Speaker 3: could say to someone, if you're there, we think we're
Speaker 3: gonna take you and that or we're gonna take you
Speaker 3: or whatever, and then the player and their parents just
Speaker 3: take it as an ironclad promise when it really wasn't.
Speaker 3: And then there are promises where you know, we promise
Speaker 3: this guy, and then that's the guy they take because
Speaker 3: they they are men and women of their words, and
Speaker 3: that's what they said. So with Jabari's circumstance, I don't
Speaker 3: know what it was, but I just know that from
Speaker 3: my reporting, chet Holmgren wanted to go to Oka see okay,
Speaker 3: so he was obviously very interested in chet Holmgren. And
Speaker 3: the second that he did knock on number one, I
Speaker 3: was not expecting him to not go to like it
Speaker 3: was kind of a sliding doors thing where either Pale
Speaker 3: or Jabari we're gonna go one or three depending on
Speaker 3: what the magic decided. So I don't know where Jabari
Speaker 3: Smith's camp got that impression. Could they have thought that
Speaker 3: they got promised and it wasn't a promise?
Speaker 2: Sure that is a Houston maybe bro think he seems
Speaker 2: like he's not himself. There's new articles about how he
Speaker 2: cried on draft night when they took him, which I
Speaker 2: guess I understand given that this is going to be
Speaker 2: a losing situation in.
Speaker 1: The post Hardened era.
Speaker 2: To me, my opinion, is the only way he gets
Speaker 2: out of this jail sentence as if James Harden somehow
Speaker 2: wants to go back. Feels to me like Houston is
Speaker 2: a mess, but I don't exactly know why. Like I
Speaker 2: kind of know why, but I don't exactly know why,
Speaker 2: outside of say Stephen Silas being obviously the wrong coach
Speaker 2: for this type of group.
Speaker 1: What do you in your estimation is wrong there?
Speaker 3: You know? It's it's a question that I want to
Speaker 3: make more phone calls about and potentially even go to
Speaker 3: Houston to learn more about. In the coming weeks. But
Speaker 3: all I can say, what I will say is that
Speaker 3: I mean there hasn't been a clear direction to build
Speaker 3: this thing forward, more so than just adding top level
Speaker 3: rookie talents into the mix here. I mean, Eric Gordon
Speaker 3: has been, you know, in the fold, Christian Wood was
Speaker 3: there a year ago. But in terms of like, it
Speaker 3: isn't just like you draft guys, then you add pieces
Speaker 3: and then things just materialize, Like there needs to be
Speaker 3: some type of commitment towards winning as opposed to just
Speaker 3: throwing minutes at particular players that your front office is
Speaker 3: invested in and actually like coming in with strategies on
Speaker 3: how to develop these guys and winning roles in a
Speaker 3: particular greater team environment. That just doesn't seem to be
Speaker 3: the case. It seems like they're back to the John
Speaker 3: Wall situation. From everything I had heard last season, it
Speaker 3: was just we want to play Kevin Porter junior and
Speaker 3: Jalen Green X number of minutes you X number minut
Speaker 3: it's off the bench, and like take it or leave it,
Speaker 3: and obviously he left it, and it didn't seem that
Speaker 3: there's any more of a of a I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't want to discredit the coaching staff there for not
Speaker 3: having more of a plan, but just from the way
Speaker 3: the conversations have gone, it just hasn't sounded like there's
Speaker 3: been a collective universal like we're all moving in this
Speaker 3: direction together, which a concerted thing is important, like to
Speaker 3: have your owner and your front office and your head
Speaker 3: coach and your like the player development guy all aligned
Speaker 3: on what Kevin Porter Junior, Jalen Green or kJ Martin
Speaker 3: need to be doing to JB Jamari Smith to become
Speaker 3: this player that you envision your overall team to be
Speaker 3: than like any second you're not doing that. It's kind
Speaker 3: of just a waste of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw this, and I don't know why this
Speaker 2: is happening, but this is some tea It's like a
Speaker 2: team related question. Why do you think there's this like
Speaker 2: uprising of chatter that there's some sort of problem between
Speaker 2: a D and Bron?
Speaker 1: Like what's I feel like that's very weird.
Speaker 3: It's just the body language doctors are out. She clearly
Speaker 3: was not thrilled the evening of Lebron's all time record
Speaker 3: setting performance. And he's kind of been poudied ever since.
Speaker 3: I mean when he was when the Lakers were here
Speaker 3: in New York. It was like a week before he
Speaker 3: broke the record. At MSG they were talking about how
Speaker 3: Lebron is going to inevitably and Lebron was in New
Speaker 3: York like a week before he was gonna break it.
Speaker 3: Of course he was going to be asked about it.
Speaker 3: That's just how the media scene works here, and Ady
Speaker 3: was kind of chuckling about it and saying like, oh, Dan,
Speaker 3: that's cold or something like that when Lebron said, I'm
Speaker 3: going to break it just like a matter of time. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, this hasn't been like a long winding whatever
Speaker 3: it is, I'll say I can say that, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean the situation hasn't been perfect.
Speaker 1: So do you think it's real?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of this has been just a
Speaker 3: tough season on the whole, where it's just it's a
Speaker 3: it's a drain generally to be in the center of
Speaker 3: that storm all year long, where there's headlines and headlines
Speaker 3: and headlines and people asking about it, and it's not
Speaker 3: just the headlines. I see things are happening behind the
Speaker 3: scenes that are not exemplary either. So when when it's
Speaker 3: just not a fun environment to be in, Like you
Speaker 3: can understand why things can kind of snowball and grow
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've heard for years that the Lakers
Speaker 2: are one of the least fun environments to play in,
Speaker 2: Like not.
Speaker 3: Just you're winning, it's great, and you're winning it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a worst version of like New York
Speaker 2: sports because it's just different, right, Like there's just different trappings.
Speaker 2: I saw this factoid the Celtics are on pace to
Speaker 2: lead the NBA with fifty eight wins, and that'll be
Speaker 2: the first time it's that a team hasn't broken sixty
Speaker 2: wins in the NBA since like two thousand and it's
Speaker 2: the second time that that would have happened in forty
Speaker 2: four years. Like I just kind of like finally, because
Speaker 2: I know we got to both go just kind of
Speaker 2: get your estimation on, like why why that there is
Speaker 2: no team that's maybe going to get to sixty and
Speaker 2: what that actually means for the league.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's just so much talent in the NBA right
Speaker 3: now and there's no absolute juggernaut Warriors or even like
Speaker 3: wasn't just the fact that the Warriors were such a
Speaker 3: juggernaut It was the fact that it was kind of
Speaker 3: a foregone conclusion that Golden State and Cleveland were going
Speaker 3: to meet in the finals for four straight years, and
Speaker 3: that might before that, Miami was going to make the
Speaker 3: finals for four straight years, and San Antonio was there
Speaker 3: for you know, pretty much every year they were and
Speaker 3: in the finals every single year, but they were they
Speaker 3: were a threat every year for the better part of
Speaker 3: two decades. There's the Warriors are still here, Lebron's still here,
Speaker 3: There's still you know, the old cast of characters that
Speaker 3: are knocking on the door. But it's just there's It's
Speaker 3: considered in the league right now that any goal you
Speaker 3: want to accomplish, whether you're a rebuilding team wants to
Speaker 3: make the plan, whether you're a playing team and wants
Speaker 3: to make the playoffs, whether you're a team has been
Speaker 3: a first round roadkill that wants to make move further
Speaker 3: into the postseason. Everyone's under the impression that we're one
Speaker 3: move away from getting there. Yeah, and that's because the
Speaker 3: talent's so deep, so everyone's given the shot primarily, and
Speaker 3: the parody's been I think a result of those compounding
Speaker 3: factors where the playing tournament has clearly helped a lot
Speaker 3: in that regard, combined with this influx of young dudes
Speaker 3: where like you know, Pallo for example, is contributing winning
Speaker 3: type of basketball right now. It's not like Luca was
Speaker 3: immediate William Dallas, but very rarely do these rookies come
Speaker 3: in and impact winning let alone, like Anthony Edwards is
Speaker 3: all of a sudden an engine in Minnesota. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's just there's just a lot of really good young
Speaker 3: players in the league right now, while we still have
Speaker 3: so many players like Lebron and Chris Paul and k
Speaker 3: D and Steph who are playing at such a highlight
Speaker 3: game at you know, in the into their mid and
Speaker 3: late thirties.
Speaker 2: So let's get a prediction. So we got twenty seven
Speaker 2: games left, who is in the finals? Are our Dubs still?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going Dubs to the Western Conference Finals. However,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna right now, I'm gonna tip my hat to Denver.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick Denver, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna pick Denver. Milwaukee a little small market finals that
Speaker 3: the NBA will love.
Speaker 2: And uh, what do they play in the Eastern Conference Finals? Then?
Speaker 3: I think the Sixers had the talent to be in
Speaker 3: that top tier with those two teams, they're clearly ahead
Speaker 3: of Cleveland when they put it all together, but they
Speaker 3: just don't put it all together on a consistent enough basis.
Speaker 3: I think to make it through four rounds, let alone three.
Speaker 3: So I think it's going to be Boston.
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and then who wins.
Speaker 3: Give me honest and the Bucks.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 4: Many thanks to Jake Fisher on this episode of The
Speaker 4: Heat Check. We'll be back on Friday. Keep it locked,
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