← Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective
Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective
Luka & Lakers Make Statement, Future For The Nuggets & Suns
01:03:31
Hoop Collective: Luka & Lakers Make Statement, Future For The Nuggets After Coaching Change & Suns Elimination
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- [00:01]
TaxAct Representative
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Bam Adebayo
Tax Act.
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TaxAct Representative
Let's get them over with.
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Tim Bontemps
Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collectors Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon. Joining us from New York City, where by the time this podcast airs, the Knicks hope to have secured the number three seed because it ain't yet, is Tim Bontemps.
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Brian Windhorst
Hello, everybody.
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Tim Bontemps
Joining us from Dallas, Texas, which was the heart of the NBA world on Wednesday night. Our man was outside with security before that game doing television and I respected it. It's Bam McMahon about to give him.
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Bam Adebayo
Some of these howdy, partners.
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Brian Windhorst
Havala. Shadow boxing.
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Bam Adebayo
Yeah, havala. That means thank you. And Slovenian. I would say thanks for everything, but that everything is like VSE and I'm not sure how to pronounce that. Probably not Bersi the Sea. I don't know. But that's what Mavericks organization expressed to Luca and he return that gratitude by absolutely lighting the franchise on fire. Igniting many, many fire. NICO CHANTS But I tell you what, man, I wasn't sure. Luca wasn't sure how he would deal with the emotion. And it hit him, it hit him hard during those pregame intros, that tribute video. The tears were flowing a minute there and some embraces from LeBron and his other Lakers teammates to regain his composure. And then it was a full blown Luca performance. Holy moly. I think the Mavericks might have made a mistake trading that guy. Not quite sure yet. Time will tell. As Nico and Patrick.
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Tim Bontemps
Yeah, I mean, well, first off, before the game, and I mean, like, I don't. I couldn't talk about hockey, like, or anything like that, but when Jason Kidd, I think it's. I don't want to make too big of a deal of it because he's not a baseball aficionado, but when he was like, oh, people are comparing it to the Babe Ruth train. That's kind of cool. I was like, oh, my God.
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Bam Adebayo
First of all, Jake Kid knows baseball. J. Kidd was actually a hell of a baseball player.
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Brian Windhorst
Correct.
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Bam Adebayo
His teenage son is actually one of the best prospects in his.
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Tim Bontemps
I'm trying to do him a favor here. You're not helping him.
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Brian Windhorst
He doesn't need any favors.
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Bam Adebayo
Okay, now he listen, the trade was made and J. Kidd says he didn't know about it until the 11th hour. I'll just say my understanding is he didn't exactly toss himself in front of the oncoming train to try to prevent it from happening. Now, I think what J. Kid was trying to do was to take a shot at around the Horn legend Tim Calashaw, longtime Dallas Morning News columnist. The his column the day before the headline was, as Luke returns to AAC Mavs tragic trade has become disaster of Babe Ruthie in proportions. Now, while Calshaw is quite well read, I don't think the vast majority of the NBA following public knew he was jabbing a local column.
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Brian Windhorst
Of course not.
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Bam Adebayo
And it was not. And but honestly, like, hey, what else do you compare this to? What else do you compare trading.
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Tim Bontemps
He has a one.
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Brian Windhorst
Listen, it's in keeping. It's in keeping with every single other aspect of how the Mavericks have handled this over the last two months, including, I'm just going to say, the asinine stuff they did yesterday. I'm sorry, you traded this guy two months ago. Kicked him on the way out the door, said all these reasons for why we had to get rid of this top five player in the league in his prime, who everybody in the league is saying, what in the world are these guys doing trading him for 25 cents on the dollar to the Lakers and not even getting everything the Lakers have for him. Then he comes back for this game, you have these ridiculous shirts on the seats saying, thank you for everything. You do this tribute video like it's the final game of his career and they're going to retire his number.
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Tim Bontemps
Like, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to.
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Brian Windhorst
They're not supposed to hold on.
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Tim Bontemps
Celebrating coming back.
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Bam Adebayo
It was the most. It was the most touching moment at the American Airlines center since exactly six years earlier, which was Dirk Nowitzki's final game, by the way. That's the last time there were those.
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Brian Windhorst
Sort of felt like.
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Bam Adebayo
But here's.
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Brian Windhorst
That's what it felt like.
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Bam Adebayo
To Wendy's point, though, you can't spend.
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Brian Windhorst
You can't trade the guy. Hold on. You can't spend. You can't trade the guy. The way they did spend two months, period, saying, why the guy. His work habits are poor. We didn't want to pay him. We didn't want him around. Then bring him back and say, oh, man, Luca, oh, you're the best.
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Tim Bontemps
Of course they had to do that. Strange position. This is a strange position for you. To. Yes, yes.
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Brian Windhorst
It just goes with everything else. The Mavericks, for two months they made this trade and for two months have done everything wrong since. And how they've handled it, how they've reacted to it, all of it. It's ridiculous.
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Bam Adebayo
I'm speaking, I'm speaking. It's a self inflicted strange position. When you said they couldn't have traded him the way they did, you could have ended it right there and been completely right. And you were right with everything else you said. But here's the thing. If you trade them the way they. That they did, the only way to attempt to justify it is to explain your reasoning, which by doing so, you were going to be dumping on him. You were going to be complaining about, you know, his conditioning. You were going to be complaining about the culture. And by the way, they did, you know, they did this on the record too. This wasn't just sources said. And then when he comes back, your choices are either, hey, really welcome them and try to be, you know, celebrate them and be respectful about it, or be perceived as being completely petty. So it was a hell of a tribute video, you know, the T shirts. Yes.
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Brian Windhorst
And our people did a great job.
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Bam Adebayo
By the way, watching it. It's extremely awkward because it was an inexplicable decision. And then you put yourself in a no win situation. And it's been nothing but no win situation since you made this decision to dump a generational talent who wanted to spend his whole career in Dallas. And if you didn't believe it when he said it, you saw the tears flowing. And the one thing I love about Luke, you know what he said, Somebody afterwards, I think it was Mike Curtis for the Dallas Morning News, asked him, like, hey, what about that tribute video really got you? And Luke said, that shot I hit on Gobert. But his thing was like, like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like that, that, that ruthless moment where you're ripping the guy's heart out, yelling those words, nobody knew we're Slovenian in his face. But Lucas point was like, dude, we believe, like, we believed all year. We believed through the finals run. We believe we. We knew we had a team. And he really, like, they believed. He believed that they could get back to the finals. He believed he was going to win championships in Dallas, and he feels that he was robbed of that opportunity. Speaking of robbed, oh, Rob Palinga, boy, he. He was strutting around courtside last night, by the way, sitting right next courtside, right next to Laura Beth Sager, Luca's longtime Business manager Dirk Kavitsky's publicist before that, and Bill Duffy, two people who I did not see greet Nico Harrison yesterday.
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Brian Windhorst
Yeah, Bill Duffy had a great seat sitting right there courtside. Those Tony Romo seats.
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Bam Adebayo
McMahon, they're not Romo seats. But when Romo comes to games, he sits there, by the way.
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Brian Windhorst
Right?
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Bam Adebayo
Yeah. Dirk was not courtside, but Dirk, the man who's. The inscription on his statue says, loyalty never fades away. Dirk was in the building last night for the first time since the trade, his first time back at the American Airlines Center. Sat up in a suite with some Amazon folks. Also our buddy Scooter Tomlin, former mass PR man. It's the second NBA game that Dirk has attended since the start of February. You fellas might remember the first. Do you? I do.
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Brian Windhorst
I do remember the first one. Yeah. Had a little better seat for the first one.
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Bam Adebayo
It was in Los Angeles, and it was the night of Lucas Lakers debut. So Dirk didn't say a word to anybody on the record, but his actions spoke pretty loudly.
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Brian Windhorst
And by the way, you know whose actions also spoke loudly on both sides? Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis. Because.
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Tim Bontemps
Hold up, hold up.
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Brian Windhorst
I know, I know. Luca could say.
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Damian Lillard
Hold on, stop.
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Tim Bontemps
Stop. Okay. I just want to say something about. Before we get into the game. I know. Before we get into the game, we know Luca is emotional because we see him emotional angry all the time. So of course he's going to be emotional the other way. You know what I thought was interesting? I don't know. I don't know if it was presented to him. Sometimes in situations like this, when a player is coming back, which we now see regularly because there's tribute videos every 15 minutes, the player will watch the tribute video before the team will let him see it. And I've seen this where the player then will not, like, watch it in an effort not to get emotional. They. They'll get emotional on their private time, and then they will, you know, they'll be on the screen and they'll, like, look down and they'll turn their back. Clearly, Luca had not seen it yet. And I don't know if that was a choice or not, but he did not choose to look down. He obviously chose to look straight at it. And he knew within one second, McMahon, that he was going to cry because as soon as the video started playing, he asked the ball boy for a towel. He didn't have a towel. And he got the towel. And yeah, he also could have put the towel over his face. All of that would have Been acceptable, but nope. He and I thought it was, I thought it was very interesting that the Lakers and everybody gave him space. They backed off of him. They let him decide what they wanted to do. And that was, I thought, I thought, by the way, our presentation of it, we had these incredible camera angles which show the lip quivering, I mean, the lip quivering with the tears on the face while he's watching the video. That's going to be a Luca defining moment. I don't care if he goes on and wins four championships and we have Luca holding Larry O'Brien in one hand and Bill Russell on the other. The crying video with the quivering lip is going to be a thing. So I think it was incredibly humanizing for him. For a guy who a lot of his emotions are negative emotions or, you know, arrogant emotions.
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Bam Adebayo
Anger and wrath. You see that a lot. You see anger, wrath, joy. And this was sadness.
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Tim Bontemps
Yeah. Well, I always think of the great Luca moment when he had the incredible put back off the miss free throw last year where he's so happy. Does he know what to do with his hands?
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Bam Adebayo
Like that was triple double to force overtime against the Knicks. Yeah, he's, he's dancing and he, he doesn't, he's, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's just, it's so much joy. He doesn't know what, where his limbs are going.
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Tim Bontemps
So I, I, I will say, like, I, you know, I've long believed that Luke is going to win it all. He's going to win championships. You know, I, Kendrick Perkins is saying last night he doesn't think he's going to win at all. I'm like, I think this guy can win at all. I don't know if it's going to happen.
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Bam Adebayo
He's 26 and he's been pretty damn close.
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Tim Bontemps
Okay.
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Brian Windhorst
So anyway, yeah, you're going to be just fine.
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Tim Bontemps
I just want to say that, that before the game, that was very special moment in the game, Luca had two things going for him. One that we've seen a little bit this season and one that we haven't as much. He hit his threes when he said his threes to the Lakers. He's had big games. He's been, he's been totally hot and cold with the Lakers with these threes. That was big. And then he went to the basket. McMahon. Luka was more of the Luka himself. His typical Luka self when he was a scoring champion, when he mixed up his game and didn't just settle for step backs. And you Know catch and shoot threes. He actually attacked the interior in this game, which is good because the Mavs had size and he could have settled, but he attacked the interior and obviously then had a huge game. So.
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Bam Adebayo
And when the threes are falling and he. And he's attacking the paint when he's got that combination, like you can't guard him now. I did have a Mavericks assistant last night basically say we, I can't believe we didn't double team him all night. Like you got to get the ball out of his hands. Having said that, you get the ball out of his hands, you let Austin Reeves and LeBron James attack downhill four and three. That's not a pleasant option either. But you knew when Luka got the switch on AD midway through the fourth quarter and he'd already had, you know, he had I think 11 points this time and it was like that Gobert step back where he's dancing, he's got the big fella dancing and same thing. He didn't step back to the left like he always does. Kind of went back a little bit to the right. When he hit that three, I was like, okay, it's going to be one of those kind of nights. 31 in the first half. JJ Redick did pan postgame. I thought he was going to get 50. I'm disappointed. But man, oh man. And, and you know the thing like we. This was the first full blown four quarter, real peak Luca performance in a Lakers uniform. He's had some good ones. This is the full like by his standards, great scoring performance. But you got to remember he not only was dealing with like just the emotional, gut wrenching and up uprooting of his entire life and all that stuff, he was coming off the longest injury layoff of his career. He's ramping his way up. And you know, if, if Lucas ramps up to peak forma close to it come playoff time, like the likely three seed Lakers are absolutely going to be a threat. And this is not just reacting obviously to beating a 10 seed preparing for Cancun version of the Dallas Mavericks. I guess I'm Mac 10 at this point. But dude, what we saw Sunday in Oklahoma City where they just torched the best defense in the league. And what we saw right up until Luca got tossed for barking at a fan that JT or the ref thought was directed at him, probably because J.T. the, the just technical or the ref had heard a whole lot from Luke all night long, gave him the second.
- [14:37]
Tim Bontemps
Tease out all decade long, buddy.
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Bam Adebayo
Exactly. Right up until that point Though that was a neck and neck game. The Lakers look like a legit threat despite the obvious roster flaw of not having a starting caliber big man.
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Tim Bontemps
Okay, now I'm going to slow you down and go back to Bontemps.
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Brian Windhorst
The Lakers are a threat because they have a top five player in the world. And you saw yesterday why this trade was so insane. Luka Doncic, his entire basketball life has delivered in massive moments. He won Euro basket with Slovenia, he won the Euroleague with Real Madrid, was MVP of the EuroLeague Final Four as an 18 year old, has got the, got the Mavs to the finals, has countless times delivered in massive situations, Western Conference finals. He might not have known how he was going to react yesterday. I knew he was going to have 45 yesterday or some massive game. Of course wasn't going to show up and he wasn't going to show up and have 12 points in this game. He always delivers. And by the way, Anthony Davis, invisible, invisible the whole game playing against the Lakers, huge moment, you know, constantly talking on the broadcast, why isn't Anthony Davis getting more shots? Why isn't Anthony Davis more involved? Why isn't he doing anything in the game? Finishes with 13 points on 13 shots?
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Tim Bontemps
Just to be clear, the Lakers, you know, they didn't double team him every time, but the Lakers aggressively played Anthony Davis.
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Brian Windhorst
They played his defense poor and he was not involved. I'm sure it was not a Good night.
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Bam Adebayo
Listen, A.D. honestly, I don't know why he's playing right now. I mean, I, I, I know why, but there's a reason people within the Mavericks try to talk him into shutting down. He's coming back off of the six week layoff. You know that. Obviously when Kyrie went down, any hopes the Mavericks had of doing anything this season went kaput. He's had one AD performance since then. That was against the Hawks where he had the game winner, the game winning stop on, on Trey Young, a 34 point night. Other than that, he's just been okay since then. But I'm not going to make this a big judgment on AD well, it's.
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Brian Windhorst
Not a judgment on AD as much as it's just, it's a recognition that the Lakers got a dramatically better player and they have been gifted.
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Tim Bontemps
They.
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Brian Windhorst
Well, I know, but it's just this, this whole game and how this played out. Yes, AD Is coming off the injury. Yes, Kyrie is hurt. Yes, the Mavs aren't the team they hoped they would be. This game also was just a 48 minute reflection of in every way why this trade was so ridiculous from the beginning and why it's given the Lakers an entirely new lease on life. And they still have these flaws. As you mentioned, they don't have a center. I still am curious about their ability to really guard in the playoffs when everybody's playing at a very high level of effort and focus the way the Lakers to JJ Reddish credit have the last couple months. But when you have Luka Doncic playing like this and diamond guys up for open shots and you've got LeBron James who still even at 40, has an aura and a presence and an effect on the game of one of the top 10 or 15 players on the planet, you have a shot and this team did not have a shot.
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Bam Adebayo
And LeBron's going to is benefiting from playing with Luka exactly how Kyrie did last year. LeBron is going to be an awesome closer just like he was last night. Why? Because for three quarters he can kind of pick and choose. And I'm not saying necessarily coast, but Luke is going to carry the load. You get to pick and choose and suddenly your gas tank's full come the fourth quarter.
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Tim Bontemps
And when the Lakers get a franchise center, Luka is going to make that guy thrive too.
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Bam Adebayo
Oh, look what he's. He's making Jackson Hayes.
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Tim Bontemps
I know, I know. That's one thing I'll say. So I, I agree with you. Right now the lakers, I think BPI has them over 90% to get the three seed. Right now it's Memphis, but of course Memphis has three games to play. You know, whatever. But the Lakers are going to get the three, which means home court in the first round. Which the first round is going to be a bleep show in the Western Conference. They could lose it, but they're going to have home court where they've been great all year. They're going to potentially get on the same side of the bracket. Not potentially. They're going to be on the same side of the bracket as Houston. I'm not underestimating Houston at all. I've been guilty of underestimating Houston before. I'm not going to do it again. But still you're. If you're going to pick, if you're going to pick a team you're going to pick, you're going to want to pick a team that doesn't have experience. They have, obviously they've got some guys just picking.
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Brian Windhorst
Not Oklahoma City. They're on the not Oklahoma City side of the bracket. Forget who else they get. Like they're going to have a Hard matchup. But they're, they're not going to have Oklahoma City till the conference finals.
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Bam Adebayo
If we're putting our money down, that's the conference finals. Right. And that's what we're anticipating. I do want to touch on one more.
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Brian Windhorst
I think it depends on matchups all across the board.
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Tim Bontemps
I would agree, but my point is that the Lakers are in a decent position in this. You know, for all that is, they're in a decent position, they're playing well. But I'm going to say they're way better than decent.
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Brian Windhorst
They're in great position.
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Tim Bontemps
Okay. Great position. Agree. I continue to believe that the size is going to be an issue and it's going to show up. And I know JJ Redick has worked very hard to find systems that mitigate the size. And last night we saw it again. They were double teaming on AD and basically like forcing the Mavericks and daring the Mavericks to pass their way out of the double teams and saying, we think with our, we have, we're small inside but we're big on the perimeter. And so we think that by the time you beat our double team, we can help and recover out of our way doing it. That's a playoff style offense in a situation or a playoff style defense in a situation. I'm not sure it lasts forever, especially since they've showed their hand. But I'm not going to disregard it either. I will say this. The Lakers fell behind in this game in the fourth quarter when the Mavericks went super big and their, their size disadvantage showed up glaringly and the Mavericks were able to get the lead. It didn't last because they have offensive playmakers with the Lakers and maybe it won't last. But I, it's hard. I want to be able to say I respect the Lakers as a threat. I respect where the Lakers have worked to put themselves in the standings and still say I think that their roster is imbalanced enough to show up to win three playoff series.
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Brian Windhorst
I mean, their starting center is Jackson Hayes. Of course the roster is imbalanced in a likely scenario to win three playoff rounds this year. Like that's okay. They've had, they've had a great season and they're in the best position they could hope to be in. They're sitting in the three seed. They are on the opposite side of the bracket as the Thunder. And now we'll wait and see what the matchup is. I mean, look, maybe they get, you know, if you're looking at the five teams that are tied as of this moment, or in the mix for four to eight right now. Denver, the Clippers, the Grizzlies, the warriors and the Wolves, all those teams present different challenges. And you know, like, I think I'd probably pick Memphis of the five if I'm the Lakers, if they could get Memphis and Houston. Yeah, I'm picking them to get to the conference finals. If they get Denver, even with the week Denver's had or Golden State or if Kawhi is healthy, the Clippers like those are Minnesota, with their size, like all those series could be pretty fascinating. But yeah, look, I mean the Lakers are, the Lakers have had an incredible season and they're going into the playoffs in as good a situation as they could hope to have been in when they made the trade.
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Bam Adebayo
And they're lob catching, rim running, rim protecting big man away from having just a Holy smokes, this is a stacked roster. That much is true. I've heard JJ Redick make the point though, that this is not a small team because, you know, you look at, you look at their five on the floor in a lot of closing situations. Six, five, Austin Reeves six seven, six eight Luca Doncic 69 LeBron James six eight Dorian Finney Smith, you know, so my point is there's six, five, you know, six, seven, six, eight, six, nine, you know, Ru, Hatch, Mer, six, eight or whatever. Like there are a bunch of these six, five to six, nine, you know, type of guys that, you know, that can rebound that there's some switchability there. There's also some huntability there with, with Luca.
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Brian Windhorst
I was gonna say that's the other thing that I worry about too, is individual man defense. But they are, to your point, 1 to 4. We talk about them being small at the 5. We've, you know, we've also brought up before, you know, positional size across the board can make up for a lot of that and they are huge from the one to four spots and you know, that can, that can certainly help them as they get in the playoffs, but that's what's going to make the west playoff so fascinating. A lot of this is just going to come down to these individual matchups and how they play out over the next three or four days in terms of who gets who and you know, again for where the Lakers were when they made the trade. You knew they were in a great position long term and they put themselves in to have an opportunity to have a great run here over the next couple of months.
- [23:36]
Bam Adebayo
More Hoop Collective podcast after this.
- [23:41]
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- [25:13]
Brian Windhorst
Foreign.
- [25:18]
Tim Bontemps
So speaking of Western Conference playoffs, a good pod moment the other day by the way, when, when Bontem saw first that that Michael Malone had been fired. Look, listening back, we were a little bit out of sorts and how that all turned down. So now that we've had a moment to, to to hear more about this at McMahon. I know you talked to a lot of folks in and around Denver over the last couple of days and I don't want to rehash everything that we've heard. I sort of want to look forward here. But I was kind of surprised sitting here on Thursday. The the Nuggets bounced back, broke their losing streak in Sacramento. On Wednesday night, Jokic talked about the firing for the first time. I saw some pushback on the idea that, you know, he claimed that he was given a heads up but that was all people thought People didn't like that. They thought, you know, I don't know what they thought. But what is. What's some of the stuff that you've learned? Because I know that you've spent some time around the Denver team.
- [26:14]
Bam Adebayo
Yeah. And so Ramona and I will have a story. I believe it'll be published by the time this podcast is out. Cut on this whole situation. And I want to. I want to preface this first of all by saying I have great respect for Michael Malone winning this coach in Nuggets franchise history, a championship coach, a guy who I've greatly enjoyed my interactions with. I like. I like his. His feistiness. I love the way he comes ready to roll. I'm ready to.
- [26:42]
Brian Windhorst
We all do.
- [26:43]
Bam Adebayo
But yeah, in talking to people around the organization, I frankly haven't heard sadness that Michael Malone is. Is. Is no longer the Nuggets head coach. I. It's been pretty much a consensus and I've talked to several people that his time had. Had. Had come like it had run its course. And that this, this extended Cold War battle, or, you know, whatever you want to call it, between Michael Malone and Calvin Booth had drained the joy from the entire organization. You know, a lot of, I mean, people. One guy used the term freaking miserable and that they felt like those guys had prioritized their own situations and their own egos to the expense of the team. That Malone had lost the locker room, including Joker, including Jamal Murray on down and that, you know, that, that they needed just fresh air. They needed, you know, it was. It was a plane that was experiencing great turbulence and headed towards a crash, and they needed to get rid of the co pilots and get someone else in the cockpit. And that's exactly what Josh Kroenke did when it happened in the moment. I couldn't believe they did Michael Malone like that. And I still think it's a really disrespectful thing to do for a guy who had so much success.
- [28:08]
Tim Bontemps
I would just say on that, not to interrupt you here, because I just, I'm trying to channel. People are thinking they would say, well, then how come nobody was saying this, you know, three, four, five months? Three, four or five weeks before.
- [28:18]
Bam Adebayo
And I want to get that, too. So one, you're not going to like, give the people within the Nuggets organization credit for not airing their dirty laundry throughout this whole process. Although everybody in the league knew. And Ramona wrote a story going in the season about the Cold War between Malone and Booth.
- [28:34]
Tim Bontemps
That's true. She did.
- [28:35]
Bam Adebayo
Now, what I did find out is that Josh Kroenke intended to make this move at the All Star break. He had. He was planning to make this move at the break. And you know what happened before that? The Nuggets won eight straight games and so that's why it happened now. You know, when they were coming off a four game losing streak and it's.
- [28:59]
Tim Bontemps
Like, okay, you know, he hasn't said much but you know, I was talking to an executive in the league, you know, they, Josh Cronke did an interview with team media and it was like in front of this black backdrop, you know, it was like, oh my God, like the black curtain talk, you know. But in that interview he said winning can mask a lot of things. And that was sort of a vague reference to what you just referred to.
- [29:28]
Bam Adebayo
Yeah, I'm going to read that. I'm going to read that quote. You know, and during the podcast, right as this happened, I said we need to hear an explanation. And honestly, like Cronky hasn't done a press conference, but I by in house media interview standards, I thought that was a very revealing interview. And he said, well, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get to this thing. Oh crap. They rearranged.
- [29:54]
Tim Bontemps
By the way, when I talked to people in the organization, one of the things that they said was the eight game winning streak was it was obviously a good couple of weeks, but that the quality of the opponents was also a factor. So I'm going to tell you who they beat from the end of January to that that break. They won in Philly after Embiid shut down, when they were beginning the top Sixers run.
- [30:15]
Brian Windhorst
I was at that game. They were a mess.
- [30:18]
Tim Bontemps
Then they won in Charlotte. Then they won back to back games at home with the Pelicans. I don't know who played in those games, but my guess was it was a mess for the Pelicans.
- [30:24]
Brian Windhorst
Doesn't matter. For the pelicans. They won 12 games.
- [30:27]
Tim Bontemps
They beat the Magic at home when the Magic were in their deep dive.
- [30:31]
Brian Windhorst
Another bad team.
- [30:32]
Tim Bontemps
Then they won in Phoenix. Historic letdown.
- [30:35]
Brian Windhorst
Another bad team.
- [30:36]
Tim Bontemps
Then they beat the the Blazers twice in a row at home. The Blazers were beginning to play better.
- [30:42]
Brian Windhorst
But still none of those teams have a winning record. Several of them are awful.
- [30:46]
Tim Bontemps
Then they beat the Hornets at home.
- [30:47]
Bam Adebayo
Sure.
- [30:47]
Brian Windhorst
Yeah.
- [30:48]
Tim Bontemps
And so here's it was actually a nine game win streak. Those are the nine games.
- [30:51]
Brian Windhorst
Right.
- [30:52]
Bam Adebayo
But eight going into the All Star break and then one coming out of the All Star break again. So eight games going into the Time that he pinpointed is what would be the best time if you got to make up mid season. Massive organizational change. And Cronky said there were certain trends that were very worrisome to me at certain points in time, but they would get masked by a few wins here and there in the world. Professional sports, where winning and losing is your currency. Winning can mask a lot of things. And again, I've talked to several people within the organization. I've gotten a lot of, hey, really surprised by the timing, but I haven't gotten people who have told me that I this doesn't make sense or this shouldn't have happened or, you know, this was a poor decision. Honestly, I've gotten a lot of the feeling of, hey, we needed fresh air, we needed a change. And frankly also optimism that David Adelman is a guy that is going to be a damn good head coach, is going to have. You know, it's a tough situation to throw a guy into a few games left in the regular season on a team that has the best player in the world, but has the respect and, you know, the. From joker, from Murray, you know, and those guys like him. And there's this feeling that maybe the roster rallies behind this guy, but that it was time for there to be a new voice there and a voice that wasn't always yelling and screaming and doing some of the things that Malone did during the most successful tenure by a coach in Nuggets history.
- [32:24]
Brian Windhorst
Yeah, I mean, it's. Sometimes it's just okay for there to be a change. And I, I don't. I think, like you said, I would say it was disrespectful to Michael Malone to do this the final week of the regular season. And he's. But, you know, ultimately it's their decision to make, and the guys had an incredible run there. And he's a great coach. He's. I'm sure, I'm sure going to get his pick of jobs over the next year. I mean, we'll see what comes actually available this summer. Maybe he takes a break. He's got a couple years left anyway, but he's going to have his, you know, his pick of jobs to get back in. And 10 years in the NBA is an eternity. I mean, there's only three guys that. There's only three jobs that have. Have been in place where the guy's been in place since before COVID Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich and Eric Spoelstrom. So, you know, for the vast majority of the league now, 90% of the league has changed coaches in the last five years. So, you know, at some point things come to an end and I don't think that should diminish the job he's done or take away from. You know, like we talked about the other day, like, he deserves an immense amount of credit for really seeing before just about anybody that the ability of Nikola Jokic and empowering him and believing in his ability as a player and prioritizing playing him over a first round pick, which is a hard thing to do. But at the end of the day, you know, we had all heard like you said throughout the year about the internal friction in Denver. And so the timing certainly was very surprising given their aspirations. But the ultimate outcome, at least from that standpoint, does make some sense.
- [34:05]
Bam Adebayo
And I think these two sentences from a team source sum it up. The situation was just unsustainable. Coach Malone and Calvin couldn't fix it because they made the situation all about themselves. So it's one of those things where there's a massive power struggle and they both lost.
- [34:22]
Tim Bontemps
I will say David Adelman in his, his first comments when he was coaching the game in Sacramento, he was very respectful to Michael Malone, who hired him I think in 2017 or 18. I mean, he's been around him for a long time. Obviously they have a relationship, but he made it clear he wants there to be some more positivity around the team. So this always happens, by the way. Happens in every sport. First off, general managers and coaches clash on things in every sport and especially.
- [34:47]
Bam Adebayo
About the particular things of young guys playing draft picks. Playing versus playing.
- [34:53]
Tim Bontemps
Absolutely. I mean, I can go down like for example, let me I'm not looking to create some sort of issue. But for example, you look at like in Miami, Eric Spolster didn't play Khalil Ware very much early in the season. Now he's like a core player in what they do because Khalil Ware and this is just, I'm just pulling a random example. I'm not looking to try to cause a problem. Aggregation machine Eric Spoelstra. There's almost no alignment in the modern era of the NBA between front office and head coach like you've seen in Miami. But there are times when even Eric Spoelstra doesn't prefer to play the rookie and he would prefer to play a veteran player and he has to make the rookie earn his spots. Or whether it's a rookie or a young player, it happens. It's, it's natural. The other thing that happens historically in the, in all sports but particularly the NBA is when you have a change at coach, you often will see a vast go to the other end of the spectrum. If you have a analytical coach who is a video coordinator who gets fired, a lot of times you're going to see a former player and vice versa. You have a former player, you may see an analytical coach who, you know, came up through the film room. David Adelin made it very clear Michael Malone was fiery, angry, used motivation through rage. A lot more frowns and fire on the sideline than smiles and laughter. It's not exactly the way Steve Kerr. Michael Malone sidelines look were quite different. So in comes David Adelman, and he, with all due respect to Michael Malone, says, we're looking for some positivity here. And so I think you've described it also. McMahon is a breath of fresh air type of situation.
- [36:24]
Bam Adebayo
Yeah.
- [36:24]
Tim Bontemps
And look, when it comes to Jokic, there's nuance here. Yes, Jokic knew earlier. Of course, if they had come to Jokic, you know, and by the way, there's the other thing. When you're the owner or you're the general manager of a team, it's not like a television show where there's, like this big moment where there's, like this big meeting, should we fire the coach or not? You know, by being around the team and having conversations how players feel and look could when they call. I think Jokic said that Josh Kroenke called him, but let's just say it was in person. If Jokic had, like, gone crazy and, like, destroyed the room, which, by the way, it got out pretty quickly in the NBA that Michael Malone's reaction to being fired was not calm, which is shocker, not a surprise. I don't blame him. Don't blame him. If Jokic had flipped out and said, absolutely not, of course that wouldn't have happened. That doesn't mean that Jokic was, you know, driving the bus here. And I've seen this again for decades, and we'll see it for decades more. Yeah.
- [37:24]
Bam Adebayo
And. And Jokic, you know, he didn't go into detail about the chat that he had with Josh Kroenke, but he said it was a decision, it wasn't a discussion. And to quote him, he said, he told me why, and so I listened and I accepted it. And, you know, if Joker says, hell, no, it doesn't happen. But listen, man, Jokers, it's. It's. It's, you know, it. I think. I don't want to put words in Joker's mouth, but the people I'VE talked to, felt like Joker was at least very understanding of the reason that people. That Cronky thought it was necessary to make this change.
- [38:00]
Brian Windhorst
Well, Brian summed it up, right? I've talked about this a lot before, but the most important thing, obviously the number one thing for an organization to have is a top five player in terms of winning a title, right? The second most important thing is having alignment. From ownership to the front office, to the coach, to the star player. And what we all can agree on, and what I think the whole league would agree on, is that that vertical alignment like you mentioned, Brian, in Miami, like from ownership to front office to coach, there's no more stable place in the league than Miami. That vertical alignment in Denver, with the coach in the front office, it was horizontal, it was totally sideways, and it was a real problem. Despite the fact that they have, I think we'd all agree, the best player on the planet. If you don't have that kind of alignment, it makes it extremely difficult to get where you want to go. It's not impossible. We've seen crazy organizations win in the past. You go back to the last dance, right? Certainly there was all kinds of stuff going on with that team.
- [39:03]
Tim Bontemps
Good, good, good point.
- [39:05]
Brian Windhorst
But typically, you saw Denver two years ago. Well, yeah, but. And look, the other thing to factor in here too, when you talk about alignment, right? Tim Connolly hired Michael Malone, and those two guys had personalities that mesh really well, and they were a great partnership. Calvin Booth didn't hire Michael Malone. He inherited Michael Malone when he got the job, or Michael Malone inherited him when he got the job, however you want to phrase it. And that mix just was never great. And you know, despite the fact that.
- [39:37]
Tim Bontemps
In Boots first year, Malone, super fiery, Tim Connolly, super chill, those two guys.
- [39:44]
Brian Windhorst
That'S what I mean. Yeah, that's what I mean. They really, they balance each other out really well. And that was an incredible working relationship and they built an awesome team. And you don't have to necessarily have that kind of relationship to make this work, but there's got to be alignment. And what there was, there was clearly not any in Denver. And that. That is ultimately why this happened.
- [40:08]
Bam Adebayo
I do. Like, obviously Calvin Booth, you know, he got caught up in this and he made the battle a priority and all those things, and it ultimately cost him his job. I do want to make sure that Calvin Booth getting his fair share of the credit for that championship team. Yes, Tim Connolly built majority of that team, but Calvin Booth trade for kcp, signing Bruce Brown, like, these were the finishing pieces of that championship puzzle. So what's crazy is the first year Calvin boos in that GM role, they win a championship and here we are two years later and after a bunch of bitterness, they're both gone.
- [40:51]
Tim Bontemps
And I'm going to say that even if everybody's singing Kumba, whether they're brawling in the aisles or, or whether they're singing Kumbaya, if Jamal Murray doesn't come back and play well, this is all going to be secondary. I mean, that's just, that's one thing we've seen. When Murray is healthy and playing well, the Nuggets are potent. When he's not there, they're just less than. And the way they're aligned, the way they're built right now with, with not much depth, they just don't really have much recourse. The other thing I'll say is the one thing I noticed from game one minute sample size is Jokic looked to be much more of a distributor and much more and took take a lesser role to get his teammates going more. This guy coming into this game was averaging a 30 point triple double. So he always gets his teammates involved in every game. But the higher Jokic's scoring is, typically the less potent the Nuggets are. They, for example, in the last week he's had a 60 point game that they lost and a 40 point game that they lost. They played a game last night, he scored what, 22 or 24 and they won. It's not an ironclad rule. Obviously he's had 50 point games where they've won. But when Jokic plays a more sort of balanced, in a more balanced scoring system, they're harder to guard, they're harder to predict, they're harder to deal with. Obviously their defense is important too.
- [42:10]
Brian Windhorst
Also the way he's most comfortable, we've seen that forever. You know, he wants to be diamond guys up and getting guys involved and sharing the ball. He doesn't want to be going for 60. I mean, he'll do it if he needs to, but it's not his preferred style of play.
- [42:24]
Tim Bontemps
The fact that the Nuggets are, you know, quote unquote struggling, they're still sniffing 50 wins. The fact that their production level this year was down and that this was Jokic his highest ever scoring average. I think it's related. I think it's related. And in this first game he took the, he took the fourth most shots on the team in the first game.
- [42:41]
Bam Adebayo
You remember when we had Mike Brown on the podcast before those finals, Mike Brown, another damn good coach who was fired this season. But we had him on the podcast and I remember asking him, hey, like, how do you deal with Joker from a game planning perspective? And he said, you try to make him purely a score. Like, you can't let him be doing both. Yeah. So you try to, you try to. Because he doesn't want to be purely a score. You know, he would rather be a guy who's, who's facilitating kind of getting his buckets in the floor flow than just basically having to try to score possession after possession after possession. And so you try to make him a score, you try to make sure nobody else is in a rhythm. And if he scores 45, 50, 55, you can live with that. And you know, you remember that was this. He had, I think a 50 something point game in their last loss to the Suns in that series. Which, gee whiz, is that the sun's last playoff win? Damn, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? We might want to talk about Phoenix a little bit too. But yeah, you try to make Joker a one dimensional offensive player and that dimension is going to be scoring because if, if you let him facilitate, he's going to find buckets in the process of that. More Hoop Collective podcast after this.
- [43:57]
Tim Bontemps
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Tim Bontemps
And you know what happens?
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- [44:25]
Bam Adebayo
The world by storm.
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Brian Windhorst
Yes, there's some big bread out there.
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Bam Adebayo
And you're gonna help me stop it. Us. Why? You got someplace to be on May 2nd?
- [44:35]
Tim Bontemps
Avengers are gone.
- [44:36]
Bam Adebayo
No one's coming to save the day their time.
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Tim Bontemps
I think we could be the people.
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Bam Adebayo
That are coming has come being the hero There is no higher calling.
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Let's do this.
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Bam Adebayo
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- [45:28]
Tim Bontemps
All right, this is a developing situation. Let's take a look at the Suns. Because the sun's 20, 24, 25 season is over.
- [45:38]
Bam Adebayo
That, that situation developed poorly.
- [45:41]
Tim Bontemps
They were, they were eliminated on Wednesday night. Although they were de facto eliminated a long time ago.
- [45:47]
Bam Adebayo
I mean, their, their Cancun flights have been booked for a little bit now.
- [45:50]
Tim Bontemps
Yeah, we've, we've done an analysis on why they failed. I think the big thing is what happens now.
- [45:55]
Bam Adebayo
Bye bye, Bud.
- [45:56]
Tim Bontemps
What has been alarming? Alarming?
- [45:59]
Brian Windhorst
No, alarming. No, alarming. Alarming is a good word.
- [46:02]
Tim Bontemps
What's been alarming is how, how easily they went down.
- [46:06]
Bam Adebayo
I mean, they have quit.
- [46:09]
Tim Bontemps
Yes, they quit.
- [46:11]
Bam Adebayo
And look that it. It's concerning from a character perspective. But they've quit on Bud. And how many straight years can you fire your head coach? I don't know, but we might find out in Phoenix.
- [46:25]
Brian Windhorst
We're testing the theory.
- [46:27]
Bam Adebayo
I'm pretty certain it's going to be three in a row, I'll tell you that. Good. Again, the. The best thing I can say about that situation is there's not a luxury tax on coach salaries. Plus the Pistons bailed them out on Monty Williams salary.
- [46:41]
Tim Bontemps
Well, that's true, but five years and 50 million was what came. I don't know if the fifth year was guaranteed, but it's obviously a, you.
- [46:46]
Bam Adebayo
Know, a big number, you know, but to collect that somewhere else, almost certainly like it hadn't happened yet. But it will be shocking if he's not dismissed. I don't know who you can hire that can fix this situation, but it's not. They're not a coach away. It wasn't Frank Vogel's fault last year. You know, clearly they're still paying Frank.
- [47:05]
Tim Bontemps
My. Bring him back.
- [47:06]
Bam Adebayo
I was. Bring him back. Can he double dip? And then, you know, none of us think Kevin Drant's playing for the Suns again. We will see what they're able to get there. It's not going to be what they gave up because Katie is going to have a whole lot of say on where he goes. He's entering the last year of his contract and eligible for a two year, $122 million extension. I cannot imagine he approves A trade destination without that extension on the table. That will be very interesting to see how that plays out. Again, the only thing, he does not.
- [47:39]
Tim Bontemps
Have to approve the trade destination. I mean, ideally, you want him on board, you want him, he doesn't have to.
- [47:45]
Bam Adebayo
I think it's going to be very difficult to get anything close to reasonable value without his okay. Because if I'm a team trading for Kevin Durant and he's going to the last year of his contract, if I'm giving up value, I need to guarantee that this is going to be.
- [47:58]
Tim Bontemps
This is, this is what I. This is what I think is the big thing with Durant. Yes, this could end up being a conventional trade and I'm not going to get trapped into talking to about which teams because the market for Durant may change wildly from the end of the regular season to the end of the playoffs depending on how some of these teams.
- [48:16]
Bam Adebayo
Right.
- [48:17]
Tim Bontemps
Yes. This could be a conventional star player trade where the star player says, I like these two teams or this one team or these three teams and the team gives him permission and he goes and says, hey, how about that two year 120. You got it. You got it, man. Let's. When's the press conference? They negotiate the deal. That happens. That absolutely could happen. I'm just telling you in 2025 NBA, the teams that are going to want Kevin Durant are going to be apron teams and it's going to be two apron teams. Making a deal of this size is going to be hard.
- [48:52]
Bam Adebayo
There might be an exception or two, but we'll see how things develop there.
- [48:57]
Tim Bontemps
Of course. And like I said, it could end up being a team that gets Durant, puts him with a couple of other good players, signs of an extension, everybody's happy. But it could be that the Suns have to look at making a trade where flexibility is their number one priority, not necessarily because they want it to be their number one priority, but because their way out of this is to be able to change and be flexible with the roster.
- [49:22]
Bam Adebayo
Just what happens with Bradley Beal, who obviously does have to approve any trade and I don't know what if any interest there will be or what if any value will have with that max contract and a no trade clause. But the plans to retrofit the roster around Devin Booker and be all in again next year.
- [49:42]
Tim Bontemps
Retrofit to retrofit, anything you need flexibility.
- [49:45]
Brian Windhorst
Well, there's, there's so many problems here. One is obviously the Bradley Beal situation, which, you know, again, going back to when they made that trade to get him. They made that trade and it was all they didn't give him any first round picks to get him. I was like, well, they gave up a bunch of seconds and a bunch of swaps and they locked themselves into a guy with a no trade clause that other teams would not have taken him if he didn't wave it. Mark Bartlestein obviously having gotten that no trade clause, made sure that he kept it. Now Phoenix is sitting there with a guy that they can't move and unless he wants to leave, Phoenix will either be having to be waved to leave or we'll be there. So we'll see what happens with that. Kevin Durant is a great player. However, he is about to be 37 years old. He's going to want to make $60 million and he was just part of a train wreck of a team where he and Devin Booker were both healthy for the vast majority of the year. And I think they're even more disappointed than Philly. Like I've said to you guys before, at least Philadelphia, as awful and disastrous and horrible as their season's been and the position they're in going forward, see what happens with Joel Embiid's knee, all that. If we'd said before the season Joel Embiid's going to play 19 games, we would have said, yeah, the Sixes are probably going to have an awful season. Devin Booker has played 70 some games. Kevin Durant played 62. If we'd said that before the season, we said, oh well, the Suns are probably going to be in the playoff mix. Might not win the west, but they're going to be pretty good. And instead those guys were healthy for most of these games down the stretch when they've just been getting demolished on a nightly basis. And you talk about flexibility, Brian part of the problem the Suns are going to have is there's very little cap space out there this summer. So if you're making a trade with Durant because of all these apron rules, even in the summertime, you still got to find teams that have the ability to take on that kind of number that he's making $50 million or more. Which means even if you're making a deal, we're getting flexibility at some point in the near future, you're still taking back a ton of money. So, you know, it's there's just no good path out of this thing on any level.
- [51:53]
Tim Bontemps
What I'm saying, it's as bad a.
- [51:55]
Brian Windhorst
Situation as we've ever seen in a week.
- [51:57]
Tim Bontemps
If the sun's come into a trade, negotiate if the chain, if it's extreme.
- [52:02]
Brian Windhorst
Dude, they don't have control for the rest of the decade, no money.
- [52:07]
Bam Adebayo
I'm sure there's been worse.
- [52:09]
Brian Windhorst
What situation's worse? Honestly? Well, look, they traded away all their draft picks, right? Okay, I don't want to argue hyperbole.
- [52:18]
Bam Adebayo
Where's the mute button?
- [52:20]
Tim Bontemps
The thing is, if the Suns enter into a negotiation expecting that they're going to get the classic star package back, picks, prospects, players are gonna help you.
- [52:32]
Bam Adebayo
Now that's the Magic Johnson shaking his head meme.
- [52:37]
Tim Bontemps
That's what they say.
- [52:38]
Brian Windhorst
I mean that's the plan right now is they're getting that kind of trade.
- [52:41]
Tim Bontemps
Maybe they get it.
- [52:43]
Brian Windhorst
Yeah.
- [52:43]
Tim Bontemps
And I will, I congratulate them. They do. Maybe they get it. They may have to make a trade with, with, with what they get back is someone else off of their books or something that could help them do it. Because again, I would say study the Clippers. The Clippers essentially traded Paul George for flexibility. And of course you might say they didn't trade Paul George. They let Paul George walk in free agency. Yes, but of course they could have signed Paul George. He was prepared to sign. They could have signed and traded Paul George. They were willing to let Paul George leave for nothing because in return they were able to get access to their exceptions, get access to making trades, get access to, you know, aggregating for deals. And the reason I think the Suns should study it is because the Clippers had two guys on their roster who were in long term contracts. Well, I guess they had to re sign Harden, but they had two star players on their roster and a roster that wasn't serving them anymore and was maxed out because they were a second apron team. They were able to exit the aprons and then able to put pieces around Harden and, and Kawhi Leonard that lifted them up. Now, part of the reason why, first.
- [53:56]
Bam Adebayo
Name you can't pronounce, right?
- [53:58]
Tim Bontemps
The reason, the reason they were able to rise up potentially to be the number four seed was because they had some guys in house that were already in position to do well. But when they took Paul George out, Zubac and Norm Powell thrived. And so that was a good analysis by them of where they could do that. I don't know if it's going to be that clear, clean. But the move that the Clippers did was they traded Paul George for flexibility and were able to retrofit the team. The Suns can't retrofit the team if they're in the second apron.
- [54:30]
Bam Adebayo
Yeah, no, they gave.
- [54:32]
Brian Windhorst
And it's nearly impossible to. It's nearly impossible to make a Kevin Durant trade and not be in the second apron. Like the difference of Paul George is Paul George was a free agent and could walk out the door and there was a place he was willing to go that had max cap space to sign him.
- [54:48]
Tim Bontemps
If your price for getting Durant back is the flexibility, you may be able to find a way to do it.
- [54:56]
Brian Windhorst
I mean, sure, I guess it's just the way that, the way the trade rules are, you just. You have to take back all I need $50 million.
- [55:05]
Tim Bontemps
All I'm encouraging our educated listeners is, is to don't think about a Durant trade in terms of a typical star for package deal. That there is another path that the Suns may have to examine here. I'm not going to get into aggregation here about what I think if priority is flexibility, it opens up a lot of other things and that's where you. You want to fix the situation. You may have to roll your sleeves up and go that route.
- [55:32]
Bam Adebayo
Problem with that, though, is Mattish B is all in maximize everything right now. Right now. Right now.
- [55:40]
Tim Bontemps
Well, that's true.
- [55:42]
Bam Adebayo
Have some patience, Microwave. Matt telling you gotta have a little bit of patience here. It can't be about everything to maximize next season because, brother, I know you don't feel you're as far away as the standings indicate, but damn, those standings are ugly for the Phoenix Suns right now. So, you know, it's gotta be a tour.
- [56:03]
Tim Bontemps
Well, the other thing is that, like, I know that Matt Ishby has thrown money around and he's acted like it's no big deal. He missed the. He missed the playoffs with a $400 million payroll. He may just have to flat out reduce the money because, like, at some point, I don't know if you guys have paid attention to American business, the billionaire class. It's been a little bit of a rough go here, so I would just.
- [56:27]
Bam Adebayo
Say sure has been rough for the thousandaire class too, I can tell you that.
- [56:31]
Tim Bontemps
Agreed. Let's you know it. Assuming that they're just going to keep spending, spending and spending when you've just had a $400 million team that missed the playoffs is not. I would not say that's a safe assumption.
- [56:42]
Bam Adebayo
They are 31 games back in the Western Conference standings from the Oklahoma City Thunder 30.
- [56:48]
Brian Windhorst
Yeah, I mean, it's a very bad situation and I think your advice and your thought on it. Brian is very smart in terms of looking at trying to have a more flexible situation going forward. I just would reiterate that the way the rules are now constructed makes it extremely difficult for a team like Phoenix to do that. Like they can maybe get out of the second apron but to get like where the Clippers were which is from the second apron to out of the tax and having the full mid level and all this other stuff that they had like doing that kind of jump in one off season when nobody has cap space. Not going to say it's impossible because we began this podcast talking about Luka Dotich getting traded a couple months ago. But it's, it's an extremely difficult ask to make before you even get into the stuff that McMahon just mentioned about how Matt Ishbia, including on the record of Big man by the way, a month ago declared that we're always going to be going full steam ahead no matter what every year.
- [57:54]
Tim Bontemps
This would not be full steam ahead.
- [57:57]
Bam Adebayo
It would be a philosophical shift. And, and again HP has been adamant that his philosophy is concrete and will be consistent despite the fact that his it has been counterproductive so far.
- [58:12]
Brian Windhorst
Only other thing that they should honestly consider is they, they should be having a totally different discussion about Devin Booker than they have.
- [58:20]
Tim Bontemps
Well we may get there but let's see not be premature. Everything that you just said bond temps may rear its head but let's just including about whether they can do it but let's, let's not be premature. So.
- [58:32]
Bam Adebayo
And that would be a complete 180 pivot from where they are, right?
- [58:39]
Brian Windhorst
Sure. I'm not saying that's happening. It's what I think they should do.
- [58:43]
Tim Bontemps
But before we go, I just want to take a second to acknowledge we're the most public announcer friendly podcast. NBA podcast. I want to acknowledge longtime Orlando Magic public address announcer Paul Porter who is leaving his position after 36 years. It's not by his choice. Paul Porter's voice is the voice of every Orlando Magic game basically ever. And back when they had like, they only had like very limited back at the arena when they had very limited things they could do to do a voice. Paul Porter was, was, was you know, they would, they, they would make his voice like an echo type thing. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. So I would just like to say Paul, you've got my respect. Our respect. It wasn't his choice which and then the Magic tried to make some sort of. They made a statement saying he was tired of driving up i4 because he lives in Tampa. It was a strange press release. But forget about all that. Congratulations to Paul Porter on a great run. It's like the Denver Nuggets.
- [59:42]
Bam Adebayo
Sometimes you just decide you need. Need a new voice.
- [59:46]
Tim Bontemps
All right, thank you to McMahon. Thank you to Bon Temps, thank you to Jackson and Rafa, our producers out here in LA with me this week. We got a big 72 hours in the NBA. And we'll be back with you Sunday night SL Monday morning to figure out where the league looks. Until then, we'll talk to you soon.
- [60:02]
Bam Adebayo
Adios, amigos.