The low post is presented by Amazon music. Did you know you could be listening to this episode of the low post ad-free on Amazon music? And now the low post. Welcome to the low post podcast that I'm on day morning in Chicago is slightly delayed podcast due to some travel snafoos, but those travel snafoos allowed me to watch the entirety of the much anticipated, much anticipated game seven between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers and my fellow patrons at the Little Westchester Airport coffee shop were probably concerned for the mental health of the person banging his head on the table when Joellen Bead and James Harden combined for a back court violation, which was the low light of a disastrous third quarter filled with turnovers and missed shots and Jason Tatum with one of the greatest performances in the history of the Boston Celtics franchise and think about what that sentence means.
The history of the 17 time world champion, world champion, world or world champion, I don't know Boston Celtics, 51 points, zero turnovers, just a bonanza from the field and broke the Philadelphia 76ers defense in the third quarter broke it, broke it. When at Joellen Bead you drop back, I'm crossing you over. You switch, I'm stepping back for a three, you blitz, I'm hitting Marcus Martin in the short roll and he's gonna kick down, or he's gonna do this and that and we're gonna get another open three, you go zone, I'm hitting a three. No answers for Jason Tatum in all time great performance.
And the latest in a series, I just don't even know what to say anymore about either guy, about either guy. The best thing I could say about James Harden in a elimination game was that he was three of 11 instead of two of 11. Two of 11 has kind of been his like jackpot number in these games, three of 11, five turnovers, nine points after a series in which the final tally will read two incredible games including the greatest of his career in the playoffs in game one without him Bead. One normal game and four absolute stinkers.
And Joellen Bead, five of 18 continuing a trend in which A, his teams lose in the second round and B, he underperforms his regular season statistics, often by a lot and we're whatever years into this and the Sixers do not have a play off, a signature playoff series win in the MB Dira. They have a bunch of cute wins over Frisky or not so Frisky first round teams that had no shot and the minute they're faced with real competition, they lose. They lose in demoralizing fashion when the bracket opens up for them to the Hawks in the Simmons, oh my God, pass game to the Heat. In a series of which Joellen Bead missed the first two games and that's a continuing theme too, but they lose to the Heat and the James Harden the ball never found me as if the ball was brain.
The ball had a brain and the ball decided with the season on the line, I don't like that dude with the beard. I'm gonna, I'm gonna veer in other directions in midair. And now after losing a chance to close the series at home in game six in front of a lusty and loud Philly crowd, here we go again, the Sixers are plunged into an existential crisis summer, James Harden heading into free agency, a massive flight risk. And no real cap room to replace him unless there is some major salary dumpage by the Sixers.
Tim McMahon, you watched the game, you've seen the movie before. I know everyone's expecting me to go bananas, like here we go James Harden, you said, blah blah blah. I just don't even know what this is, this is just what happens. This is just it now.
And like I said, after game one, nobody will ever be able to take that away from him. That counts, even if they lose the series, I said worst case scenario, and Bead never plays, they get rolled, they lose four one, that game still counts because this team has the chance to win a title and that game stealing that game on the road before the heroics of game four, stealing that game on the road, put them in position to win this series, potentially make the finals, potentially win the title, nothing could ever take it away. These two consecutive fart games that end this series do not take it away, but it doesn't quite mean the same when you finish like this. Where do we even want to start with this, Tim?
Hi, how are you? Howdy, howdy. Howdy. You know, I would like to start with Jason Tatum and just rave about this historically spectacular performance, this guy who was awful through three plus quarters of an elimination game in game six, turned it on a Coneys backer classic and then filed that up with 51 points, there's going to be plenty of time to talk about Jason Tatum.
He's going to be playing for at least another series, likely two more series, just an epic, epic failure by Philly. And like man, like James Harden, as you said, this is kind of what he does back against the wall, the guy melts. We've seen it time and time again. To this point in a Hall of Fame career, that is, I don't want, well, his legacy is a little strong maybe, but it's certainly when you have the conversation about James Harden, it's going to come up pretty damn early in it.
And if he leaves for Houston, then he's basically saying, who would that be my legacy? Winning is not that important to me. I just want to have a whole lot of fun and no pressure and run a franchise again. So, you know, that's a decision that he has to make this summer, but we've got to talk about him.
And unfortunately, injuries are a huge factor in his playoff history. This year, no exception, the guy was playing on a bad knee. But this is a guy who's on the path to being an all-time great and has never played in a conference finals. As you said, his playoff production is down significantly from his regular season production.
Can I read the numbers before you go? Yes, sir. This season, regular season, MVP, Joel Embiid, 33 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, three turnovers a game, 55% shooting, 33% on threes, 59% on twos. Play-offs Embiid, again, dealing with the knee injury, and we don't know, we just don't know, how much in amortum.
23.7 points, almost 10 points lower, 10 rebounds, and here's the killer, here's the killer. 2.7 assists, 3.9 turnovers, a wildly negative assist in turnover ratio, 44% shooting, 18% on threes, fine. We know big men threes, it goes up and down, 49% on twos. And when you're going to turn the ball over that much, 49% ain't good enough.
For his career, regular season, 27, 11, 3.5 assists, 3.5 turnovers, 50, 34, 54 on twos. Play-offs, 24, so three points lower, 11, three assists, three and a half turnovers, so the total is 148 assists and 193 turnovers, 46% shooting, 28% on threes, 51% on twos. And look, lots of stars, their numbers take a little hit in the postseason, because guess what, you just play the best teams, and all those teams are doing is gearing up for you. Some stars, including the two-time MVP and Denver, don't have that happen to them, their numbers just get better.
But a little ding is not atypical. That's a big ding, and it's a consistent ding in that we just keep waiting for the Embiid scorched earth playoff run, and it keeps not happening, and injuries are part of it. But look, I mean, both of them, that's an all-time double-dud yesterday, please. Yeah, and when you're having the MVP discussion this year, one of the themes was man and beads a dominant defensive force, Joker's a liability on that and the floor.
I just watched Joker hold his own defensively in a series featuring two of the best scores in the league. Now, I'm not saying he was dominant, but he held his own while dominating offensively, and they spanked the Suns in six games and sent them into a summer of massive change that we'll probably get to later. They put a bull's eye on him beat in Game Sutter. I mean, you said it time after time, they're picking a role and just going right at him, and a lot of those 51 that Tatum had were right over Joellen Bied, so it's not just the offense.
You know, he had a really shockingly terrible performance on both ends of the floor in a game Southern, and then look, you go back to game six, how does the MVP of the league, when you're in prime position to close out a series on your home court, just he's seven foot tall, 280 pounds, how do you disappear like that? Thank you. Down the stretch of a closeout, game six, I don't understand that. Thank you.
So before game seven, I was texting with them, a few people who are kind of close to the Sixers, and I was saying, can you imagine the level of regret that whoever loses this game will feel? Because championship chances don't come around every season. And if you're Boston, you lose game seven at home, you think back to game one, man, we f'd around without Joellen Bied and lost. You think back to game four, five point lead with two minutes and change to go, all sorts of time out and non-time out shenanigans, puzzling defensive decisions, game winner from Hardin, two games that you let slip through your fingers.
And if you're Philly, you think we had the best win, the single best win of this whole era, in game five, in Boston, had a chance to close this baby out in home in game six, had a lead, and our offense completely hit the bed for 16 second minutes. And I re-watched those 16 second minutes twice. The big fella doesn't touch the ball. And we all know that.
We all know that. I went through the lack of post touches everything with Doris last Friday. And you watch that, and you're like, who's fault is that? Isn't it everybody's fault?
Isn't it Hardin's fault for being like, I'm the f***ing point guard, my job is to get someone in the ball, isn't it in Bead's fault? For not going into a huddle and being like, get me the ball, me? Isn't it Doc Rivers fault? And there's gonna be all sorts of scrutiny on Doc Rivers.
I don't think yesterday was on Doc Rivers. I thought the one big adjustment choice that he had to make going into that game was whether the start PJ Tucker or not, based on how they were defending. He stuck with PJ Tucker. It was the right move.
His players let him down. Now Doc's record in these three one and three two series is becoming like comical. Like is this a cosmic joke? Is it Karmic revenge for the ref shenanigans that seem to happen in every one of these series, every every year?
But why is Doc not saying, hold up, it's been three minutes. Get in the ball. I just don't understand how a meltdown of that type happens. And to me, it's on everybody.
But to your point, that game you look back on, that's the turning point game. Because overall in this series, you want to say, you know, oh, the refs cost us a couple points from game six. Boston was plus 62 for the series, plus 62. They beat your ass and point differential.
And yeah, you want to say, well, that's because they had two blowouts and we won a bunch of close games. Yeah, over a course of a long series, that's the marker of a better team. Who wins the blowouts, who eks them out? And that game six, I was at the game six.
I thought I was going to maybe see sort of the breakthrough moment and instead I saw that in. And now Tim, James can walk. And if you don't think the teams with trade assets, like the nicks, for instance, I don't think the nicks have been watching this situation from afar. They've been watching like this, rubbing their hands together, are you kidding me?
And I don't know what is going to happen. I know that the Sixers are not going to do anything with Envide. I know that we know Darrell Morrie has seven plans already in motion, ways to maybe dump Tobias Harris or dump quirk maz and this and that and open up this exception and that exception. And you know he's been waiting for this in planning for it because he understands the crisis at hand.
As for Joel, he loves Philly. Philly loves him. He loves being loved in Philly. He understands what that means.
I think it would be very, very hard for him to follow the superstar. Like I'm really forcing my way out of here model. But if James leaves, you're relying on Maxie to take a giant leap and put in some pieces together. And I mean, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know that these teams with assets are looking around saying, whoa, do we, like if I'm the nicks, all these Carl Anthony towns rumors are going to start now, forget that.
I have a good team if I'm the nicks. I have Brunson, he's an awesome point guard. Like why am I upending my team for Damian Lillard if Damian Lillard ever becomes available? I got a point guard.
I'm not putting all my, I missed my chance on Mitchell. And that's fine. We rebounded from that. That turned out to be an OK decision.
I still got all these chips. Towns eight, the guy that I'm playing those chips for. I'm waiting for the next guy. And Bead, that's the guy I'm playing all the chips for.
Yeah, and look, you can say they missed their chance for Don for Mitchell. They decided not to go all in. They were willing to go a lot in. They did not go all in because they, you know, they did the calculus or whatever you want to say.
And did not feel like getting Don for Mitchell to pair with Jalen Brunson put them in a championship position. I am pretty confident in saying that they feel like putting Joellen Bead on that roster with Jalen Brunson as their second best player would give them a legitimate chance to win championships. And I believe that to be true, despite the fact that what we just said about Joellen Bead and his history of playoff disappointments. And look, if him Bead wants to go the Dame Lillard route and beat him toes down, respect it.
You know, right? I mean, hey, I respect if he wants to be loyal. If it means that much to him, it worked out for Dirk. It took a while, but it worked out for Dirk.
What's the name? What do you think the current Dame toe count is right now? Is it down to eight and a half? Is it nine toes?
Do we know for sure it's not? Anyway, listen, some of the there's some hang nails on those toes right now. I can tell you that. Those things are getting beat up.
But the other thing with him Bead is, unfortunately, I don't think you can project him to have an extended prime, right? This is a guy who's obviously had a lot of injury history, really, even before his career got started. But then throughout his career, he's 29 years old. What are we looking at as a window for him to play at this superstar level, at this MVP level?
And if it's going to be, rebuild's not even the right word. You don't rebuild. But if it's going to be like a major, whatever period of change, trying to get back to the point of having a chance, choose loyalty or choose a chance to compete for a championship. That might be the decision in Bead has to make in terms of whether he goes banging on Darryl Moore's door this summer.
Well, and look, to be clear, if Hardin walks, and I don't know what Hardin's going to do, I don't know what the hell James Hardin's going to do. The Rockets think he's coming, but go on. I know the Rockets think he's coming. I don't know what he's going to do.
I don't know why he would do that. He would do it for personal reasons. And that's fine. That's his prerogative.
They have still about $125 million in committed salary to the guys on their roster. The cap's going to be 134. So just do the math. They have no cap space.
They're going to have to dump Harris somewhere to open up any sort of replacement thing. Ironically, the only team with enough room to just absorb Tobias Harris is the Houston Rockets, who may use that room, on another player that you have already named. So again, Darryl's been planning for this. I'm sure he's got a million contingency plans.
But this is, there will be a day to do the process autopsy and to talk about Julia Olkafor and Markel Foltz and Ben Simmons. And the Hardin trade is still a win, obviously, for Philly, a huge win, even if James Hardin walks for nothing this summer. And all of that, and the Michael Bridges and Zaire Smith, my forgetting his name. I think you got it right.
But it's a forgettable name. It ain't McAlbridge's. I'll tell you that. Well, Zaire Williams in Memphis is like, that's also another.
That's also, we don't talk about that. That's a big, like a magic to grizzly side trade Murphy this year. It'd be a lot easier for them to, they've decided to move on from Dylan Brooks. They'd have their replacement in place.
They don't right now. There's a day for that. There's a day for that. But right now, this is now a potentially pivotal summer for the Sixers and another just playoff disappointment.
And by the way, can I tell you who I didn't want to hear from yesterday? Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons, delete it.
Shut the laptop down, man. This is not the time for the Ben Simmons petty revenge tweets. My man, you are afraid to go into the paint and get fouled and you don't play. That's not the time.
That might be the last playoff victory of Ben Simmons career. Let him enjoy it. Sit this one out, buddy. This is not your time to shine.
Sit this one. When I saw that, I was like, I know, assume everything I see is fake. I'm like, is that? Did he actually do that?
No, never, never, ever discourage NBA internet trolling. Well, there is some internet behavior that we should probably discourage. We'll talk about that. I said trolling.
I'll make it out. What's rolling? Who knows? Look, this is all prelude to I think the next year in the NBA could be an unbelievable period of superstar and star player movement, because you've just got a lot of sort of roiling situations.
You have a year left, one year left before the really harsh trade rules kick into place after the 23, 24 season where teams over the second apron, like the Clippers, for instance, can't even aggregate salaries. Like they can't add up money to bring in a big money player. That's starting after next season. I think we can see a ton of movement in the off season enough to the deadline and a ton of big names moving and that's not to say on beat.
But I just think this is going to be a hot and heavy off season and people should buckle up. And for the six, what else can you say? It's just a crusher. It's a crusher.
The better team won the series, but it was there for Philadelphia and they couldn't grab it. Just like they couldn't grab it when the Hawks somehow made the second round and it was there for them. The brackets broke right. Just like they couldn't do it when the brackets broke right with Miami for them and they dodged like heavy weight fights on the other side of the bracket.
And this is now, we'll see what happens with Doc. We'll see what happens with James. Like it's all, it can get up in the air real fast. Well, talking James should sound like they'll be together again, whether that mean maybe neither one's in Philly next year.
But James being asked about Doc and their relationship and saying, oh, it's OK. And then ending his media availability, what was that? Yeah, how was that shrimp tacos? You guys are all right.
It's OK. That was the guacamole. It's fine. Don't want to order that again?
Nah, it's overpriced. Not a great review. The Philly post-law's press conferences. They're just like as much as you watch the game.
You just never know what's going to happen. And then the shameful aggregators, by the way, who took in beads quote, which wasn't awesome, but took it out of context and made it look like he was throwing everybody under the bus. And then everyone falls for it because no one bothers to actually do any 10 seconds of like, let me actually see what the guys said. It's just awful.
It's just like what's happening with some of this stuff. It's so bad. Any last words on this? I mean, Tatum, we should talk about Tatum.
We should talk about the Robert Williams adjustment, which I thought was long overdue. I've already mentioned that it worked. And it's not surprising that it worked. And Tatum was transcendent.
I mean, transcendent and totally unstoppable and just gorgeous to watch. It was an all-time great game. It's on par with anything, any Celtic has ever done in any game. Now, it turns out that this lineup that was dominant all last season and allowed them to get to the NBA finals, once you dust off again, is still dominant.
So I might want to stick with that one. And look, Tatum, like every superstar is going to have some duds and play-offs, but boy, he's had some phenomenal performance. I mean, you could talk about the elimination game on the road in Milwaukee last year. I'm as impressed with the way he was able to drag himself out of an awful performance, three plus quarters into a road elimination game in Philadelphia, game six.
And just light it up down the stretch, the shabbos to extend the season. That to me, it's one thing when you're cooking all game long, like he was in game seven, but the way he was able to maintain his confidence and turn it into a only factor class in game six, that's as impressive as the 51 of game seven to me. There's this line of thought that a possession in the first quarter is just as important as a possession in the fourth quarter. They all count the same.
And there's some truth to that. Just like there's a line of thought that game one of a playoff series can be just as important as game six of a playoff series. There's some truth in that, too. You win a game one, you shouldn't win, it changes the tenor of the whole series, whatever.
I don't buy all the way into that. Game six is more important than game one. A fourth quarter possession is more important than a first quarter possession, because you're running out of time, you're running out of margin for error, you're running out of any available wiggle room that you have. And to your point on Tatum, Hardin doesn't have a game like that in that spot, ever.
And when you have a game like that in that spot, when you have a game like game six in Milwaukee against the best player in the world after a heart-wrenching game five loss at home with your season on the line, and you put up 46 points and single-handedly win that game in that moment in Milwaukee. Yeah, you know what? I can forgive a game three-dud in the second round, because you have proven it on the biggest stages, you have never gone to a level with five turnovers, let alone done it four times in elimination games, you have never said the ball never found its way back to me, what the hell am I supposed to do? In those games matter a little bit more, and that's fair, and that's the verdict on that.
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It's all to the ESPN all in one place. Sign up, or activate now. Let's change gears. Western Conference, round table, round about whatever, starting with, I don't even know how to talk about the Morant thing, honestly.
For people who have been living under Iraq, his buddy filmed him in a car waving what appeared to be a gun, a bigger gun, the gun got bigger. And as soon as they realized it was on Instagram live. The gun got bigger than IQ got smaller. As soon as they realized it was on Instagram live, which, look, I might be too old.
I just might be too old. I am too old. Why? Anyone would ever go live anywhere on any app for any reason.
What is the upside? The upside is you want attention. You want attention. And like, you got attention.
You got attention. There you go. You got a whole bunch of attention. It's going to cost you millions and millions and millions of dollars.
Right? No. Your previous Instagram idiocy cost you $39 million. And deservedly so.
When you get yourself suspended for eight critical games, never mind that your teammate was able to overcome it. An eight game suspension should be held against you much more than a longer injury absence. He did not deserve all NBA. And I don't think he's going to be eligible for all NBA.
I think he's going to get the kind of suspension that's going to put that 65 games played limit in serious jeopardy, if not just brush it from the start of the season. I, look, man, it's. Right. So let's slow down for a second, because we do have to say, we don't know everything.
Just like we had to say, we don't know everything. The first time, we didn't know everything. The only hope here is that this is a fake gun. That's what I've heard from the people who are trying to figure out what happened here.
The only hope here is that this is a toy. It's a fake. It's a replica. It's not a real thing.
Other than that, and look, you can go back. We did this the first time. The hope is that, I mean, come on. Why do you drop the camera?
Whoops, come on, man. I'm just saying that's a reasonable hope. Don't believe. I mean, OK.
I'm not saying it's a reasonable hope. I'm just saying that when I've been cautioned by people saying, just don't go overboard so fast. We're still gathering information blah, blah, blah. And I said more.
This is gather information quickly enough to suspend him yesterday morning. They did. It's easy to suspend a player indefinitely when you're not playing, right? So he's suspended from all team activities, which is like, I don't know what team activities there are right now.
But he is also easier to say, hey, we're aware the social media posts are looking into it with no further action. But the gris is clearly wanted to send a message that they are sick and tired of this crap. As they should be. Look, I went over the previous gun related suspensions last time.
Raymond Felton, Steven Jackson, pled guilty to various firearms charges, got four and seven games, respectively. But this is now embarrassing for Adam Silver. It's embarrassing for the league. It's embarrassing for the people he looked in the eye and said, I'm going to be a changed man.
I'm not going to do this anymore. And as you said, he got eight games, which was really two games with six already for retroactive during his rehab stint for anxiety and stress management, which was very, very short. And again, unless you take really meaningful coping mechanisms and regular, regular, regular, weekly check-ins out of that, it's not going to accomplish much. You got to be anyone with any kind of, it takes years.
I don't know what, if it's a real gun and all that, I don't know what the number is, people can just sort of blindly throw around numbers willy nilly if they want. It's going to be bigger than eight. I would imagine it's going to be bigger than 15. And at this point, we're going to talk about some of these veteran teams like Phoenix and the Warriors in a second.
At this point, it's just six months ago, the future of the Western Conference was Memphis and New Orleans. And because of the top two picks in the 2019 draft, and Marant is putting his team into a crisis again, and Zion never plays. And these veteran teams who seem to be at the end and oh my my god, we got a pivot, they can look around and maybe we can squeeze one more year out of this. Because like, who's, yeah, the Kings will get better, maybe the Wolves find the right form or whatever it is.
Like there are other young rising teams, but I don't want to overstate this. Like it's not like it's over for the Grizzlies, not like them, but Rant Ira is a failure. And this is what's going to define it. He's young, he's got many years of life on his contract, the nucleus around him is largely young.
It will probably be fine in a year and six months. Well, look, but now you don't know. Now it's like, what is going on here? Yeah, will he ever grow up?
You cannot, you cannot contend for a championship with a child as your leader. John Marant is a child. I mean, this is middle school, ridiculousness over and over again. He's not a child and it's not middle school ridiculousness.
It's actually worse because people could actually get hurt when your meth, if that thing is real and it's loaded and you're messing around with it, like it's actually really, really dangerous. What I mean is this, this guy is so worried about being cool. Look at me, man, life's like a rap video. I mean, it is total poser crap.
And so from a maturity standpoint, yes, he is a child. He's absolutely a child. Darren Fox is a grown man. I will take Darren Fox is a leader of my team 100 times.
I have 100 over John Marant. Jalen Brunson, I will take him 100 times out of 100. You can't have a point guard who needs a babysitter and expect to contend for championships in the NBA. And John needs a babysitter.
And he needs to get the Vontay Pack d-tap to the guy who got banned from home games in FedEx Forum, the guy who jumped the high school kid, that job decided he needed to beat up because of his career threatening injury. He almost suffered when a ball got thrown at him. Dude, this guy, he's got to go. He's got to go.
John needs to figure out his own problems, but he can't, like I'm sorry, my brothers, no others, him being, oh, we're loyal. Okay, keep being loyal to this dude and ruin your career because you want to hang out with a dude who's mooching off of you and making you, not making you, but contributing to you being a fool on a consistent basis and costing you dozens of millions of dollars. Hey, man, that's cool. You're keeping it real.
Congratulations. Well, look, ultimately, it's all on Marant. Like, it's all on Marant. And the thing that I just, I, for many, many reasons, can not, I just literally cannot comprehend it.
And there are lots of reasons for that. What makes John Marant cool is how he plays basketball. That's what makes him cool. To me.
And I think to lots of people, like, you've got cool lockdown, man, the dunks are cool, the flying floaters are cool, the Nolip passes are cool. You don't need to be cool in any other way. Now, why, why he might disagree with that? There are reasons for that that again.
I'm not the right person to comprehend or talk about necessarily, but like he's got cool in all the ways that mattered coming out of his ears. You know what's cool? Have something. It's just dumb.
Yeah, having a signature shoe, that's pretty cool. And having, you know, I don't know what Nike's paying him, but it's a whole lot of money. And guess what? That's going to dry up real quick.
Yeah, I said on the hoop collective, I think it's going to be the job one and done. I don't think there's going to be a job two because if you're Nike, why would you stick with this guy? You're trying to market to kids and teens and this whole campaign is all family friendly and you want to go to strip clubs and wave guns around and then two months later. I want to keep it simple because there are a lot of issues swirling around this that I am not qualified necessarily to comment on.
I want to keep it simple. You have made a large professional commitment and a team has made a large professional commitment to you to try to win basketball games. You have other players on your team who most of them make significantly less money than you who have dialed their lives into trying to win basketball games. You are undermining that entire enterprise of winning basketball games by doing this.
We can talk about all the other stuff if you want. There's lots of things to talk about. But ultimately, this isn't enterprise that is designed to win games. Everyone is signed on to try to win games and win championships.
And you are undermining that. That's the discussion to be at here on a basketball podcast. And if you're undermining that in any way, you're short changing your commitment to the team. And the team has to, like this all has to be remedied.
You're just not going to win. The team is not going to win at the level they should win until this is resolved and changed and everyone can trust each other to like dial into the right stuff. You're screwing up your teammates. You're screwing over guys like Desmond Bain and Jaren Jackson Jr.
Entirees. Like playing with him on the floor, by the way. That's what you said. Yeah.
But great. You're not going to be on the floor. I mean, that's basically. And look, he was either.
I know he was in Atlanta the other day. So they were driving. He was either in Atlanta, Alabama or Tennessee at the time. They all have open carry laws.
Like, he wasn't doing anything illegal. It doesn't matter. Adam Silver is not law enforcement. He's the commissioner of the NBA.
He brought you to New York to make it very clear to you, dude. You have got to cut this out. We're going right on you this time. Don't make me come back with a hammer.
And he's got wide ranging leeway to suspend under the conduct detrimental to the league. And Jives put himself in a situation where Adam Silver's either going to come down firm on him, come down hard on him, or is just going to make himself a complete joke. Let's hope everybody gets right. And nobody ever gets hurt.
Or as you mentioned, prior allegations, nobody gets hurt again. And we all can move on from this. Were you surprised at the rapidity with which Matt Ischby and James Jones fired Maddy Williams? Matt Ischby and James Jones?
I mean, I ordered the names the way I did for a reason. Yes. No, because look, Zach, you heard it basically from before that the ink was dry on Ischby's deal to buy the team. You know, and I knew, and people around the league, who Maddy Williams is in trouble.
Like, it's going to take a hell of a run for Maddy Williams to hold on to that job. And so for them to go out in the second round in such embarrassing fashion and basically a sequel to the home humiliation that ended their previous season, like I wasn't surprised. I thought they might give it a little bit more time. But I did not walk out of the footprint center after game six, expecting Maddy Williams to have a coach for the Suns again.
I didn't walk out of there thinking down great and was ever going to play for the Suns again. And I'm, you know, I don't know, percentage wise, where I am on Chris Paul, but certainly that's in question. I was a little surprised by the speed, because the speed suggests his mind was essentially made up. Like you fire a guy that fast.
You already have decided this guy's not to coach for me. I don't want this guy is Michael. Yeah, I think he decided that a while back. I voted Maddy Williams coach of the year twice, the year that the middle one and then the year that he won.
So it's hard for me to sit here and say, well, I think Maddy Williams did a bad job. I voted and coach either twice. The record speaks for itself. The franchise was a joke and he was one of the main pernocities, one of the main drivers in turning that around, along with Devin Booker and Chris Paul and other people.
I thought he designed a really sophisticated pick and roll offense. Chris Paul and I talked last year about Moneys calling these really well choreographed set plays and Chris, who's a basketball genius, being like, man, I never seen that one before. Moneys, where'd you come up with that? Like Chris Paul's saying that about you.
You're doing something right. The culture was largely right. The defense was good. The shot selection was antiquated.
A lot of that was about personnel. The Dallas series? Yeah, I mean, would you have liked to have seen them come up with a better answer for Lukadansha's running wild? Yeah, but what's the answer?
It was a hard question to answer. The Warriors answered it better than the Suns did. Wasn't great. And obviously there was a COVID running through the team in game seven, but you can't lose like that.
You just can't. You can't lose like that again. And I will say, and I've said this before, I was a little disappointed with the lack of creativity in how they used Durant as a chess piece once they got him. And I think I was wrong in underestimating how much time they would need to figure it out.
I just, I just. Well, Andy got hurt. So what little guy got a lot smaller? And he's just such the ultimate plug and play superstar.
I've called him many times the most fiddable malleable superstar in the history of the league. And it didn't prove to be that. I mean, like their offense was great. The numbers were great.
But I thought it was a little simplistic, a little Chris Paul heavy before Chris Paul got hurt, not enough to rant as a screener, all that kind of stuff I've talked about. I thought in the Denver series, they kind of seemed unready for the Nuggets to put Yokoch on Josha Kogi. And they were slow to kind of adjust and figure out how to counter that in a way that it surprised me considering that was an obvious thing that was going to happen. So yeah, you can quibble with Monte's playoff record the last couple of years in playoff adjustments and all that.
The guy can coach. And you damn better well nail this hire. Because I don't want to overdo the Phoenix thing. I did it a lot less week going solo on Friday.
The window is ain't going to be open long with these guys. I want to go back to Chris. Can I say something real quick though? If you're going to fire a coach, a coach, especially coach that respected and out accomplished, don't drag your feet.
Do it. And let Monty Williams have a chance to interview with a Toronto a Milwaukee. Monty Williams is a held coach. And he's going to be a held coach next season, probably, for another franchise.
So doing it this quickly really gave him a chance to move on and be a prime candidate for other really good jobs. And to your point, they lost Aiden. The Aiden situation has spun totally out of control. Yeah.
And Fire and Money doesn't say that. He most sides need to move on. And the organizational discontent. There was well publicized like Monty and DeAndre didn't talk for a while in the offseason and all of that.
The organizational discontent impatience, eye rolling, whatever with Aiden and the quirks in his game. Go way beyond Monty Williams. Like there's a lot of people in that organization that are tired of DeAndre. You can see it in the game.
You don't even have to be at the game to see the body language, the eye rolling, what is this guy doing? I do think there's going to be a tendency to pile on Aiden and say that's his fault. He's immature. He wants to be a certain type of player that he can't and shouldn't be on this team with three players who are better than him who all need the ball.
And a lot of that is fair. Like if you're DeAndre Aiden, well, whatever. OK, fine. If you're DeAndre Aiden, like, yeah, tough buddy, you're not going to get 10 post touches a game when Kevin Drey and Devin Booker on your team.
Welcome to life. Welcome to real life. Like you're the one picking the draft. You're the guy your whole life.
Not the guy anymore. This is not the way it works. And you've already proven, you can get 18 and 10 screen, roll, dunk, screen, roll, not maybe not. It's screen.
Let's bring it down. Roll, pin it into a dumpling. Everyone's like, can you just go up big fella? You're like, yeah, there's a little bit of that later.
Orm rim there. Go rip it off and get fouled in the process, everyone's like. You can get your numbers doing that. But amid all that piling on, when a relationship spirals this badly, like that's not everybody.
That's on Monty, too. Like you couldn't get in a room and hash this out. That's on Durant and Booker. Like you're trying to win the title.
You can't have any of that lingering in the air. That's on everybody. It's not just there's going to be a tendency to pile on Aiden and he is the main character in this relationship gone bad. But that's on everyone to put their arms around it and figure it out.
And they all failed. Look, they didn't want to keep them, but they didn't want to lose them for nothing. So they match the offer from Indiana. Once you've matched that offer, you better make the best of it.
They didn't. That is not everybody. That's not like, dude, how do you not talk to the guy all summer long after you had a very strong phone call? If that's true, and I believe they both confirmed that it was true on the record.
Like, just talk, man. Right. It's weird. Just get on the phone.
It's not that hard. Like I know it's their stubbornness and pride and you get tired of people. But if you're trying to win, it's too hard to win. It's too hard to win for a playoff series to have anything like that in the year.
Yeah. And look, say what you want about the Andre 8 and he was the starting center and a really good starting center on a team that was up to well in the NBA finals. And 24 years old, average 18 and 10 is a dominant defender, but a, you know, he can anchor a defense. There's going to be a market for right now.
It's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be like multiple picks and prime, you know, cross that. But I think for a team that wants to move on from the Andre 8 and they will have plenty. They don't need multiple picks and prospects unless they're going to flip those for players who can fill out this roster now. And that brings us to Chris Paul.
And you reported last week on the hoop collective, I'm not going to say Brian went horse to the hoop collective. So it's not going to be a winning skip in our last episode. That they were planning to quote unquote aggressively shop Chris Paul. Chris has two years left on his contract at 30 million a pop, half guaranteed, next season, nothing guaranteed in the final season.
And they're definitely going to look to trade eight. And like that's out. We know that. The Paul thing is interesting because clearly Booker and Duran are going to control the ball.
And Chris is just not going to be like a high volume lead at fly, catch a two, three point shooter. And he's still a very good player when he's healthy. He gets hurt every year in the playoffs. That's baked in two.
He's still going to be 38 soon. The reason it's interesting is if you just do the math, this is a team that badly needs to fill out a supporting cast, almost all of whom is entering free agency. And it's going to be very hard for them to do that if they're over the second apron, the lead apron, that is about to kick in starting this summer. Although it's interesting, the CBA has not actually done yet.
It's been written in full. It's not public yet. With Chris Paul's first amount. With Chris Paul's full amount.
They're already up to 160 million for like five guys, with eight. Unless they move eight. And if they move eight, and they're bringing back money. And the second apron is going to be about 179, 180 million.
So do the math. They're close to it already filling out the team. And that's like you can't use the mid level. You can't use that.
And so I think this is a money thing as much as it is a talent thing. And the other reason it's interesting is because that's what I mentioned earlier. The aggregation rules that don't kick in until after this coming season. And a team, there are teams that can use Chris Paul.
Lots of teams that can use Chris Paul. For a short term contract that you can get out of after one year. And I mentioned the aggregation thing only because of one team that I would look at. And this is through no reporting.
I have no inside sources. The Clippers have telegraphed that they think they need a point guard to run their team. Russ worked out much better than I expected. He's a free agent.
They're going to have handicaps signing him that they don't have in aggregating salaries to get up to $30 million. That's just common sense. Again, no reporting. That's a team I would look at.
And can Phoenix kind of spin that into like three guys that are better than Tori Craig? Like that's the four. Three guys that are like better than campaign. That's all.
And what the sons don't need more star power. They've got two guys that are capable of combining an average 60, 70 points per game during the playoffs. The sons need to surround those guys with quality role players who fit well. And they need depth.
But I mean, look, it's not fair to Kevin Durant in his 30s with his injury history to say, hey, play 45 minutes per game during the playoffs. Wait, hey, no, we need you to be efficient for 45 minutes. Well, you can't shoot 10 to 27. You got to be efficient and play 45 minutes.
It's not reasonable. They've got to improve their depth. But they don't need to do it with star power. They need to do it with role players who really fit well around two superstars, compliment those guys in the hands of the game.
And so if you can break Chris Paul into, like you said, a couple of those guys, I think you do it. If maybe it may be ideal materializes, maybe it doesn't. But they've got to explore all those options. And then with DeAndre, I'm pretty confident saying that there's going to be a deal to materialize.
I think they're going to have some options there. Well, tell me more about what you've heard about Chris specifically in the landscape. If anything, that might be out here since you've kind of broke that, essentially, less that's less than that. Just that the sons have to, like I said, they've got to explore their options.
And the other thing is, you're talking about, as you mentioned, a pretty small window with Kevin Durant, while he has three years left on his contract, hopefully he's playing at this level for the next three years. But, you know, well, CP3 is 38 years old. Unfortunately, it's not surprising that he's going to break down during the playoffs. It happens a year after a year after a year.
Like they've got to really pounce on this. There is an absolute urgency and it's been very upfront. We want to win a championship every year. That's the goal of a year.
Well, it's especially important when you go all in to get a superstar in his mid 30s as they did with Kevin Durant. And so, you know, again, whether there's something that makes sense or not for Chris Paul, you know, that's the job of James Jones and Mattish Bia and, you know, the rest of whatever that front office is going to look like here in a few weeks to figure out. But that's the job. It's going to be tough, but the window is going to be narrow and they got to figure it out now.
Let's pivot to a quick Western Conference Finals review, right? Because you got to go in about 15 minutes. I might have to carry it for a little bit at the end. Nuggets, Lakers, bubble revenge.
And I have always to McMahon, always since before the bubble, Ben on team, the bubble is totally legit and anyone trying to retroactively discount it and say it's a fake title for the Lakers, fake playoff run for Yogich, fake playoff run for the Heat is totally wrong. And every team had to play the same circumstances. No fans, no travel, better shooting backgrounds, like loneliness, whatever. Like everybody, every team had to play it.
Those four teams did well. And there's going to be up and downs after that, but they're all back. I never was like, I, I, for the sake of the Lakers, the Heat, all of it, if anything I've viewed it as almost like a badge of honor that you went there and got it done. And so I never needed any sort of post bubble credibility for the bubble teams, but now they've got it.
They're all back and Boston never went anywhere. This is going to be a fascinating match up between two teams who are big and tough and don't shoot a lot of the green and smart and do a lot of damage in the paint. And everyone is going to focus rightfully so on the matchup in the middle between Yogich and Anthony Davis. And I think honestly, and if you look back at like, I rewatch some of that 2020 series just to remind myself who's wearing, what's happening.
The Lakers played most of it with like actual centers on the floor. Dwight Howard and Javiel McGee. Yeah, which they guarded Yogich and not Davis and Yogich guarded them and not Davis. Well, this Lakers team million play center like unless my bomb, I mean, listen, Anthony Davis is a center.
I understand they don't play a bull key, behemoth center like that. The only players left from that nugget steam are Porter, Yogich and Murray and Vlato Chanchar, Vlaco Chanchar. Don't forget Vlaco. And the only players like the league right now.
Yes. The only players for the Lakers are LeBron James and Anthony Davis that said, Contavius called Pope guarded in that series. And now he is starting alongside Jamal Murray, Jared Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley were on the nuggets in that series and are now on the Lakers, one of whom plays one of whom doesn't. It's just a funny little intersection of talent.
And to me, I mean, we can just start right away with who do you think the Lakers start? Is it Jared Vanderbilt again? Or are they just going to go all in with Schruder? And I think a lot of the match ups kind of flow from that decision.
I don't know. I'm really, I have not put a lot of thought into that. I could see them going with Vanderbilt just because I could see them wanting link. Because Porter, like, and what's crazy is Porter didn't really cook in the conference in my finals against the sun.
He had a couple of games. It's certainly first quarter, I believe it was in game five, if I'm not mistaken. But I think you need some length against him that you don't just want him to have the easy ability to shoot and not see a hand in his face. But we'll see.
I haven't really dug deep in that. I'm just, I am so excited about AD versus Joker. Like, I know that's the obvious match up. But man, this is what AD has done just on the defensive end during these playoffs has been like unbelievably dominant.
He has been like defensive player of the year level on a consistent basis in playoffs, just shutting the paint down. I covered him against the grisps. He's the grisps who are one of the best paint attacking teams in the league could get nothing going when he was on the floor. Guarding Joker, I think is going to really challenge him.
And it's going to pull him away from patrolling the paint like that because Joker's obviously he can run kick and roll, much less be the screener. He's as good as ever been working from the elbow with the pass and the back door cuts and all that stuff. I can't wait to see that match up. I'm glad you just said what you said about Anthony Davis because there has been a lot of deserved attention on the trades, Rob Polinka made or the trade, I guess Rob Polinka made at the deadline, Russ out Russell in Beazley in Vanderbilt in that trade worked.
The longer we go into the playoffs, the more it appears to have worked because of the subtraction of Russell Westbrook, more so than the addition of anybody else. The single biggest reason the Lakers are here again is that Anthony Davis has rediscovered his defensive player of the year, although he's never won it level form. And that is every night. Now, yes, the offense, some nights it's 35, some nights it's 15, some nights it's 22, would you like it to more consistent?
Sure, life for a big man is hard if you're not Yo-Ketch, they don't join LB, just at 15 points in elimination game. You don't know he's not an on-ball creator from the perimeter, you're depending on post touches and pick and roll stuff and transition. But the defense is there every night. And if he guards Yo-Ketch and I suspect he will guard Yo-Ketch for a lot of the series, if not all of it, we can talk about some of the chicanery we might see.
I do think he is the best position defender to do what Dremon Green did so well against him, which is on the pick and roll with Yo-Ketch, the Murray Pick and Murray, Yo-Ketch Pick and roll, that's the dance, that's the centerpiece. I can drop back, not too far because Yo-Ketch is a threat out there, but I don't have to come all the way out like I did with Curry. I can meet you 20 feet from the rim and I can, I'm longer than Dremon Green, I'm super long and super athletic, I can disrupt Murray's drive, disrupt the pocket pass and meet you Yo-Ketch on the catch and be big enough and tall enough that those little floaters you make are at least difficult. They're not little easy gimme shots.
And if you talk about when Joe-Ketch is running pick and roll. Well that's a different story and he'll do that five times again, that's not going to be the centerpiece of what they do, but that's just like, it's really difficult to guard. You know what the answer is to that? You just hope Aaron Gordon doesn't dunk it.
I mean that's usually the end game of those plays. And if Yo-Ketch pops out for three, which he will do, Anthony Davis is fast enough to get out there and wave and he's nimble enough to stop on a dime when Yo-Ketch does his little slow motion pump fake and drive and slide back with him. I think he's like, because he's Anthony Davis, he's gotten more of a shot to just make it hard. You're not going to stop him, you're probably not even going to make him that inefficient, you just got to make it hard.
And the Lakers, when they have Vanderbilt and LeBron and Davis on the floor, they're so big and so fast that you at least, when you get into the paint, it just looks crowded. It looks crowded and there are arms everywhere and I think that's important against Nugget's butt to your point on Davis. He's the number one reason they're here. And the second reason that they have surpassed expectations is not this trade really that happened.
It's that they get just enough from everybody else. And the biggest reason for that is that Austin Reeves is a legit player and it's turned into a dependable 15, 16, 18 good defense good passing. But yeah, Davis, Yo-Ketch is going to be a lot of fun and we're going to see a lot of it on both ends of the floor. Yeah, and Jokers have just a ridiculous playoff run.
I think I just have basically a 35 point triple double and I have decided that I know who he is now. I finally figured out he's the love child, the basketball love child of Durk and Nash. He's a combination, a beefy combination of those two. There's so much Durk in his game.
People think of Durk as like a three point shoot. You know, Durk was a mid-range killer who then was just so good at getting off all these kind of, you know, ended up being the one they could fade, but all the kind of funky angle shots like as long as he can get his arm parallel with the rest of his body's doing doesn't matter. Jokers the same way. He's just creating contact, taking contact, that baby soft loader.
And then obviously the passing. He, Jock Landale, he was talking about, he had a line that I thought really summed it up. That's when he said he has a point guard's touch in the big man's body. I mean, just unbelievably fun to watch.
And like I said, the way he's been playing, I can't wait to see that matchup. Let's talk about the matchup match ups real fast before you go. Let's say Vanderbilt starts and if I were the Lakers, I would actually start Vanderbilt just to get size on the floor. They could put him on anybody.
I think Michael Porter Jr. makes the most sense with LeBron on Aaron Gordon and they're going to dare Aaron Gordon to shoot and Aaron Gordon's going to have to make some shots and he's going to have to kind of slip and slide into open space sometimes when people aren't paying attention to them. And he's really good at that and Yolkich is better than anyone on earth at finding him when he does that. They could put Vanderbilt on Jim All-Marie and say we're going to try and switch.
So Murray Yolkich pick and roll, we just saw him guard Curry. So I'm going to bring it. Here's an out of the box one. It wouldn't surprise me if in flashes, I don't think they'll do it a lot because it's not going to work.
If they tried him on Yolkich and put Anthony Davis on Aaron Gordon, just as a way to protect Anthony Davis from getting it foul trouble. Because if Anthony Davis, foul trouble to either of these guys could swing an entire corner which could swing an entire game. Let me be clear. I looked at the film of possessions of Vanderbilt guarding Yolkich.
There's probably like 60 from the last two or three years in Minnesota and Utah and other places. It didn't go well for Jerry Davis. He's got stuck in the basket. He's too little, he's too skinny.
And I always think back to the 2019 playoffs in the series that the Nuggets lost to Portland when Terry Sott tried to put Alford Camino on him and invert the matchups like that and Yolkich was like, oh this little guy? No. I'm not having any of this. But I can see a world where they try like maybe we can front him and load help behind him and protect Anthony Davis.
I don't think it's going to work. I think it's going to come down to AD and his ability to withstand Yolkich's postgame. And Yolkich can bully AD a little bit. And AD has the length and the hops to like, all right, you back me up but maybe I can get up and challenge a shot and the Lakers will send a little help.
On the other end, if Vanderbilt starts, I can see the Nuggets and they've done this here and they're toying with Yolkich on Vanderbilt, Aaron Gordon on Anthony Davis. And then that raises the question of wait a second. If Aaron Gordon's on Anthony Davis, we can get that score over there. They've done it before with KCP and said, let's see if he can bully us.
Let's see if he can bully us. And I think for the Lakers to win this series, LeBron is going to have to engage his bully ball mode at the level he did when they needed it against the Warriors almost every game in this series because the Nuggets are a level up in competition. And if they play around with putting Bruce Brown and Christian Brown and KCP on him and they will, he can exploit that. And you know he's going to try to find Jamal Murray.