Speaker 1: All right, and now we have a special guest, Keith Smith,
Speaker 1: the guru from spotrack and the best NBA follow on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Keith Smith NBA. He joined my other show
Speaker 1: bet MGM tonight. I was joined by my co host
Speaker 1: Nick Ashew and Ryan Horba. Let's get right into it
Speaker 1: was a dope ass interview.
Speaker 2: Keith Smith jumps on with us. Haven't talked to our
Speaker 2: buddy Keith Smith in quite some time. Good to see
Speaker 2: your face again, my friend. What do we expect from
Speaker 2: the Grizzlies? Let's just put away tonight because it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's the first game with job back, But like, what's
Speaker 2: a realistic expectation for this Grizzlies team just moving forward
Speaker 2: now that John Morant is back with them, I.
Speaker 3: Think just to be competitive the rest of the way.
Speaker 3: Really just make these games solid, try to get a
Speaker 3: sense of what does this team look like with John
Speaker 3: Morant and Marcus Smart because he's also going to be
Speaker 3: back at the end of the week, and get a
Speaker 3: real sense of where do we want to go from here?
Speaker 3: For them, just to get to five hundred, they'll need
Speaker 3: to go thirty five and twenty two, and that's like
Speaker 3: a winning percentage that would be mirrored out of the
Speaker 3: top six teams right now, and that's just to get
Speaker 3: to five hundred, and that's even knocking on the door
Speaker 3: of the play in tournament. So I'm just not sure
Speaker 3: that where we're headed this year for this team. They're
Speaker 3: seven and a half out of the last playin spot
Speaker 3: in the West right now, but you can't make that
Speaker 3: all up in a week. So if I was Taylor Jenkins,
Speaker 3: I'd be saying, hey, let's try to make up a
Speaker 3: game a week. That's even that is really difficult, but
Speaker 3: let's try it and see where we landed when all
Speaker 3: of a said and done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gonna be interesting to watch that progress, especially since
Speaker 1: they have, you know, really no centers there. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on this Donovan Mitchell situation. Obviously
Speaker 1: he's mom, Darius Garland out for significant time, Evan Mobley
Speaker 1: out significant time. I think the rumor was that the
Speaker 1: Cavs might even look in the offseason last offseason to
Speaker 1: move Jared Allen, and now no Donovan mental extension coming,
Speaker 1: and now the trade rumors are starting to pile up.
Speaker 4: Where are you at.
Speaker 1: In terms of likelihood of Tree this season? Before the
Speaker 1: deadline and where he could potentially go and the probability
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the no extension stuff is getting way overblown.
Speaker 3: It's the exact same situation that Daron Fox is in
Speaker 3: in Sacramento as far as extensions go, and everybody was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: Daron Fox turned it down. That's smart because he can
Speaker 3: make way more money later. So that's exactly where Donovan
Speaker 3: Mitchell's in the same spot. So that part I'm not
Speaker 3: overly worried about there because that was always going to
Speaker 3: be a delayed thing until he either knew what his
Speaker 3: all NBA future was and Kenny cash in on the
Speaker 3: Supermax or not. As far as trades go, I think
Speaker 3: the Calves they've won a couple in a row without
Speaker 3: those two guys, but they're probably going to be a
Speaker 3: team that's going to be hovering right around that six
Speaker 3: seven line and the assured playoff spot or the playing tournament,
Speaker 3: and then that's a major step back from where they
Speaker 3: were a year ago. But I just can't see them
Speaker 3: trading Donovan Mitchell roughly a year and a half in
Speaker 3: to this experiment. I think that's something that drags into
Speaker 3: the summertime and in the summer. If it's starting to
Speaker 3: look like, yeah, he's not staying here no matter what happens,
Speaker 3: that's when you have those conversations. I assume it'll start
Speaker 3: right back up again with the knicks and the nets.
Speaker 3: The Heat will be involved, the Lakers will be involved,
Speaker 3: because they're always involved on any superstar. So that's where
Speaker 3: we'll be, is you know, the kind of typical teams
Speaker 3: that we heard involved last time. And then does some
Speaker 3: other team jump in and say, you know what, We'll
Speaker 3: grab him because we think he can put us over
Speaker 3: the top of the next year or so, and that'll
Speaker 3: convince him to stay here with us. That's always a
Speaker 3: you know, tried and true thing that teams try to
Speaker 3: do and try to make work. But we'll ultimately see
Speaker 3: where that goes. But I don't think this one anything
Speaker 3: happens in the next couple of months. I think this
Speaker 3: goes into next summer at the earliest fur trade.
Speaker 4: All right, Keith, I'm so glad to have you on
Speaker 4: because I haven't talked with you in a while here
Speaker 4: and I'm looking at Boston plus three seventy five and
Speaker 4: you're just the man to talk to. I've done it
Speaker 4: two years in a row. They're gonna make fun of me,
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking about doing it again. They're eight and
Speaker 4: two in their last ten twenty and five this season.
Speaker 4: I love this team, actually, man. I like the KP
Speaker 4: move more than I thought early thoughts on the Celtics
Speaker 4: right now, the way that they're trending in any concerns
Speaker 4: that you have moving forward in the East.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when they have their top guys together, they're great.
Speaker 3: Any combination of their top six when they're all in
Speaker 3: there is really good. It almost doesn't matter which five
Speaker 3: of the six are on the floor. When they're missing
Speaker 3: one or two of them, it starts to get a
Speaker 3: little less great. They're still a good team, but they're
Speaker 3: not that great. They're really dominant at home. I believe
Speaker 3: now fourteen to no at home. I have been absolutely
Speaker 3: just hammering teams in Boston this year, and they've been
Speaker 3: kind of just okay on the road so far. They're
Speaker 3: about to start tonight in Golden State, a long four
Speaker 3: game road trip, kind of key road trip. They've got
Speaker 3: the Warriors and the Kings back to back, and they've
Speaker 3: got a couple of days off before they play an
Speaker 3: afternoon game in Los Angeles. That always goes really well
Speaker 3: for the visiting team, get a little bit of that
Speaker 3: La flu going on, and then they've got the Lakers
Speaker 3: on Christmas. So this is gonna be a stretch where
Speaker 3: we're gonna find out a lot about this team and
Speaker 3: how they look. Chris apps Porzingis isn't gonna play tonight.
Speaker 3: It looks like they're kind of going to manage the
Speaker 3: back to backs with him. They already do that with
Speaker 3: Al Horford, so we'll see what that looks like. But
Speaker 3: when they've got their main guys, they're really good. They're
Speaker 3: kind of thing that's still out there is what happens.
Speaker 3: If a couple of those guys go down, then they're
Speaker 3: probably in trouble because they don't have they have good
Speaker 3: functional depth. Their top six to seven eight guys are
Speaker 3: fine for the playoff period. We we're long ways off
Speaker 3: of that, so that that could be they lose guys.
Speaker 3: They started losing a few games, that's how Milwaukee, maybe
Speaker 3: Philadelphia could catch them and pass them in the standings
Speaker 3: in the regular season.
Speaker 2: Talking to Keith Smith bet MGM tonight, Hey, I'm watching
Speaker 2: the Knicks recently now and I see a team that
Speaker 2: you know, no Mitchell Robinson is obviously a major loss
Speaker 2: for them. They don't really have a lot to go
Speaker 2: with it in the in the middle now. But Julius
Speaker 2: Randall has been great. H Jalen Brunson has been playing fantastic.
Speaker 2: I mean at a fifty spot the other night. When
Speaker 2: you look at this Knixt team, obviously we know they're
Speaker 2: gonna be in the market. They've been in trade rumors
Speaker 2: for another star. You mentioned Donovan Mitchell. That'll probably be
Speaker 2: a summertime thing there. But when you look at this
Speaker 2: team right now, where do they stack up from what
Speaker 2: you've seen on the court with the rest of the
Speaker 2: Eastern Conference. It's kind of just where they're sitting in
Speaker 2: the standings, or do you see a possibility where they
Speaker 2: could maybe climb a little bit higher as the season
Speaker 2: goes on.
Speaker 3: I think they're about where they are. I think their
Speaker 3: record will improve, but I think they're a top six team,
Speaker 3: but they're not in the category with the top three.
Speaker 3: I think the East, the Celtics, the Bucks, and the
Speaker 3: Sixers have really set themselves apart as the class of
Speaker 3: the conference, and then the Knicks are in that next
Speaker 3: group of teams, and that's got teams like Miami, Cleveland,
Speaker 3: the Magic. Those teams are all kind of in that mix,
Speaker 3: and that's fine. That's not necessarily a bad place to be.
Speaker 3: It's just kind of where they're at, and I think
Speaker 3: what limits them is Jalen Brunson is really good, but
Speaker 3: some teams have figured out ways to kind of scheme
Speaker 3: and take him out of things a little bit. Julius
Speaker 3: Randall's still very hit or miss. RJ Barrett is, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe the most inconsistent guy in the league. He can
Speaker 3: drop thirty one night and then have ten the next
Speaker 3: and it looks good because on the overall season stats
Speaker 3: it's twenty points per game. But yeah, you kind of
Speaker 3: when you see how it got there, you're you're kind
Speaker 3: of left, uh, puzzled a little bit. And then I
Speaker 3: feel like they've just got too many guards and wings
Speaker 3: for the minutes they want to play. We've already heard
Speaker 3: Josh Hart and Quinton Grimes both grumble a little bit
Speaker 3: about their roles. We heard Emmanuel Quickly a little bit
Speaker 3: when he came back after missing a game that he
Speaker 3: was feeling a little left out out in the cold
Speaker 3: wood minutes. So I think that's just gonna be something
Speaker 3: they're gonna have to work through until the trade comes,
Speaker 3: and it really comes down to they're going to be
Speaker 3: the group they've been over the last let's call it
Speaker 3: about four years now, which is extremely patient and is
Speaker 3: waiting and biding their time. They're not chasing. They chase
Speaker 3: the A level guys if they don't get them. The
Speaker 3: old Knicks would have said, all right, let's get three
Speaker 3: C level guys and call it good. Now this group
Speaker 3: has been a lot more patient. They wait, they hold,
Speaker 3: and they try to see what develops for them. So
Speaker 3: I think we're in a spot with the Knicks where
Speaker 3: it's probably what you see is what you get. But
Speaker 3: maybe that big move is just around the corner, because
Speaker 3: they do get the sense they've been piling up assets,
Speaker 3: they've been retaining players, waiting and biding their time to
Speaker 3: make that big move.
Speaker 1: Atlanta Hawks Keith off to a very very disappointing start.
Speaker 1: They're eleven and fifteen, just one game better than the Bulls,
Speaker 1: who actually been a lot better now that Zach Lavine
Speaker 1: hasn't been playing, and one game better than the Hornets.
Speaker 1: What can Quinn Snyder do to fix this? Or is
Speaker 1: this roster fixable?
Speaker 3: I think it's more what can the front office due
Speaker 3: to help Quinn Snyder fix it now? Part of it
Speaker 3: will be fixed when they get Jalen Johnson back. He
Speaker 3: was playing really, really well for them. He was arguably,
Speaker 3: you could say, their second best player behind Trey Young
Speaker 3: in the early part of the season. I think Clint
Speaker 3: Capella is where to the territory now where we should
Speaker 3: be having a conversation. Should in Yaka kong Wu replace
Speaker 3: him in the starting group and where does that go
Speaker 3: moving forward? I don't know. The cityqe Bay DeAndre Hunter
Speaker 3: forward pairing just doesn't really work for me. They're there
Speaker 3: are two guys who were just kind of averaging just
Speaker 3: about all ways. They're neither one of them is a
Speaker 3: bad player, but neither one of them is overly special,
Speaker 3: So you're you're real messy. The offense. I think that's
Speaker 3: where Win Snider could do some stuff. And I thought
Speaker 3: their game, albeit it was against the Pistons last night,
Speaker 3: you did see some semblance of we're gonna cut out
Speaker 3: some of the Dejonte Maury running the offense type stuff.
Speaker 3: We're gonna really we're gonna let Trey kind of lead
Speaker 3: us there, and and Trey got his shots, but he
Speaker 3: also was really got the ball moving. It was sending
Speaker 3: guys off up, and they put Murray into this off
Speaker 3: ball secondary creator role, and I think that's better than
Speaker 3: the all right, we got to give Dejonte a few
Speaker 3: possessions here, and then Trey Young goes and stands out
Speaker 3: around the logo somewhere and doesn't move, and there's multiple
Speaker 3: clips you can see he just doesn't move. And then
Speaker 3: the big thing is their defense stakes, and it's just
Speaker 3: not gonna get any better with the personnel they have.
Speaker 3: So it's probably something where Quinn Snyder can do only
Speaker 3: do so much, and maybe they make a trade and
Speaker 3: do something to balance the roster a little bit better
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 1: That's all the time that we have for the Heat Check.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Keith and the whole gang at bet
Speaker 1: MGM tonight. Come back tomorrow for an all new episode.
Speaker 1: Check out the feed for past episodes of many episodes
Speaker 1: which drop unexpectedly, like Jalen Hurts calling out as teammates
Speaker 1: for not being committed to winning. Do not forget to
Speaker 1: follow the Heat Check as we go through this new
Speaker 1: NBA season. That means tea, that means X's and O's no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. That means breakdowns. That means download, That means subscribe.
Speaker 1: Tell your friends, enemies, neighbors, all of them. Even at
Speaker 1: Karen at the resale shop who tries to fuck you
Speaker 1: over on a price of a barstool because she thinks
Speaker 1: that you're some sort of rich mark. Hey, bitch, I'm
Speaker 1: not rich.
Speaker 2: Tell her.
Speaker 1: Hey, Trista has a podcast called The heat Check. Maybe
Speaker 1: if you download and subscribe, should get her subscribing it
Speaker 1: up and maybe be able to afford those little barstools
Speaker 1: that you're trying to charge your eight hundred dollars for.
Speaker 1: They're probably worth fifteen bucks. Follow us on socialie at
Speaker 1: this heat Check and interest to click on Instagram, Twitter
Speaker 1: and TikTok will see the