13 Rules: NBA Rising Stars, Conference Favorites & NBA Tanking Fixes

Shot Clock Pod - Jan 18 2026 === [00:00:00] Jose: All right, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, Editor at thePeachBasket.net. He is Steve Purciello, longtime educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach, athletic director, and also the host of the Celtic Chalk Talk. Celtic Chalk Talk is a pod dedicated to the latest news and opinions surrounding the Boston Celtics from a lifelong fan. Steve. That pod will drop new episodes every Monday, but this is the Shock Clock Pod, the best 24 minutes of NBA random thoughts online. This podcast was born out of the content in Steve's 13 Rules, random b, A Thoughts articles which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 24 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the MBA today. We'll discuss his latest 13 rules, random NBA, a Thoughts article, what he shares, his random thoughts after week number 13 of the 20 25, 26 NBA season. Steve, are you ready? Let's do it. All right. Clock is. [00:01:00] All right. We'll start with an age old problem in the NBA and a possible solution. You have a fix to tanking. Tell us about it. Steve: but it's an attempt to start looking at it. I've been doing a lot of reading about different ideas and different thoughts and it just occurred to me that March 1st, if you only counted the records of teams until March 1st, 'cause teams are still trying to win a game. So on March 1st, you took all the records and that's your, God reorder. Let 'em play the next month Jose: Yeah. Steve: because that's when teams really tank. rid of players and all, which I'll get to the other piece, but, so March 1st, you put your order for the lottery and you've naturally have the order, but it doesn't, the games after March 1st have nothing to do with that draft. other thing you wanna do or you think about doing is people, [00:02:00] are buying out guys left and right. After the trade deadline. Hold that back. You can't buy somebody out till March 1st. So now if you, let's say I'm using a crazy example, but let's say you're the Nets and you wanna buy Porter out, okay? But. You might lose the rest of your games has nothing to do with the draft, so what you're doing is only up until March 1st. And a lot of teams are still somewhat trying. They haven't traded all their players, so it might give you a little bit better and it might eliminate some of the tanking and that would be good. And also there's nothing worse. Then let's say on March 20th, it a good team's playing an average team, and they've traded everybody and it just, it's not a game. It's not fun. So this might be able to take care of that and make those bad teams compete in the last month and a half. Jose: [00:03:00] Interesting. So I took a random team. This was a team that was guilty of tanking, allegedly last season. That's the Utah jazz. Between March and the end of the season, early April, that's 22 games. So 22 games. Those 22 games, they're just not gonna count Them. Steve: And what did they do in those, Jose: Interesting. Steve: 22 games? That's the key compared to their record during the regular, Jose: Yeah. Steve: of the season. again, Jose: Yeah. Steve: here last year, if I remember correctly, I could be wrong. Didn't they hold Laurie marking out a lot of games down the stretch? he's your best player, Jose: Oh, The tank was on last year. There's no doubt. Yeah. Steve: And let's think about it now if you are, if you're the Lakers, and see, I had to bring them up, but if you are the Lakers and you're fighting for fifth place, which would be a good year for the Lakers, but if you're fighting for fifth place, and let's say you're fighting with Golden State and [00:04:00] State's got Utah, and they look at it, they've already played Jose: Yeah. Steve: Got marketing sitting out and even George Keyshawn, George Kete George rather, he's sitting out geez, that's not right. that's crazy. So Jose: Yeah. Yeah. Steve: some of that and helps it. And you know what's really crazy to me, and let's use marketing again. Marketing is making big money. Over 40 million, I would think. I'm not positive. You are gonna sit him out. What a great job. Huh? Get paid and not do anything. That's ridiculous to me. It's an idea, something to think about. Naturally things can go further with that and people can come up with other ideas. But the tanking, it just ruins a great game and you don't wanna ruin basketball. Jose: Yeah. No, and it'd better have some idea than no idea. So let's take this information, send it over to Adam Silver and we'll see where it lands. Marketing. Yeah, he's a little higher, right? 46 million this year. His contract ends 28 29 at 53 [00:05:00] million. Steve: How Jose: So he's getting paid well. Steve: You have that? Jose: I, no, I don't have it handy, but I'll have it before the end of the show. But let's move on to our next topic. 'cause again, the clock is ticking and we've I think in the time we've been doing this, we've only met, we've only beat the shot clock once, and that's a hundred plus shows. Let's go to the east. You called out four teams with a legitimate shot to win the east. Right now, I want you to place them in order, most likely to win it. Second, third, fourth. You got the calves. The Pistons, the Nicks, and the Celtics. With a caveat you're expecting, right? Jason Tatum back at 80%. What's the order? Steve: very difficult to do because I think in the east, more so than the west, the trade deadline will play a part in it. If I were to be a betting man, I wouldn't bet, but no, I, I would. It's an Tatum plays or he doesn't, and if he's held good, Jose: Yeah. Steve: At 80% of his ability, but. [00:06:00] I, if you push me out there, I probably would say, oh boy Detroit. But that's not a very convincing or belief. But again, if they go out and get a shooter, then they become a favorite. Now, I don't know what's going on with the Knicks. I think they have the most talent in the division. I think they're legit. However. Last night they got beat by Phoenix. They're struggling. Carl Anthony Towns has become probably the biggest enemy since Hitler in New York. It's really not a pretty thing. He threw up an air ball in about a minute or two, left the booze you can hear. So it's a Jose: Wow. Steve: there. But they're talented and if they get Brunson back and so on I look at them as decent. Cleveland just swept Philadelphia and they stole the last game by one point, or by, in a close game, last shot game, but the point being. You don't, Cleveland, they were good last year, so you can't count them [00:07:00] out. Maybe they're starting to figure it out. You go around and round with that. I guess Detroit because of the record being the best record, but I'm not sold, I guess talk to me after the trade deadline and I'll have a, an 'Cause that's really bad. What about Jose: Yeah. Steve: think with that? Jose: You know what? I don't know, man. Again I haven't had an opportunity to watch the east yet. So I don't know. But you're right. At the end of the line, at the end of the day, teams. Are going to change. They're gonna add that one piece. There's lots of champions in the past who probably wouldn't have been champions except for that one piece that came in late in the season. I know the Lakers when they got clay Thompson's dad. That went a long way to getting them to the finals and to the championship. Right now it's an unfair question, but I'm the one asking the question, so I'm gonna ask. And I appreciate your answer. Let's take a look at the West, a little clearer in the West. So I'm gonna ask you this because we, we know who the top two teams are. Who do you think right now wins a seven game series between the Spurs and the [00:08:00] Thunder? Steve: I Jose: Really? Steve: gets knocked out, you gotta go with the Champ. And I Jose: Yeah. Steve: I think they will win. That's not what's good about this. Is that what looked like Oklahoma would dominate for the next five, 10 years? Now you see Jose: Right. Steve: coming where that's gonna get interesting. And you can't sell the other teams out short in this, Minnesota's legit, they can Jose: Yeah. Steve: got some, other teams that are, that, that can cause a problem if the right things happen. And, so it's hard to pin somebody, but of course you gotta go with the champions. How about you? What are you thinking on that? Jose: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. But the Spurs are just so good. I don't think it's an easy series for the thunder. Again, they're one in three this year, right against the Spurs. So they've already proven that they cannot beat the Spurs consistently. So I think that would be a just an incredible series. But you're right. Don't sleep on the wolves and don't [00:09:00] sleep on the nuggets, right? The nuggets have been without yo kids. They're keeping their head above water. They're gonna get yoic back, and this is all world player. That changes everything in the West, but those are the four teams with the wolves and the nuggets being probably significantly behind the Spurs and the thunder. Steve: makes me think they're not ready yet for San Antonio is the fact that they'll get beat randomly by an average team. And yeah, it happens to every team, but it's happening more to them than it should. And it Jose: no. Steve: you begin to think is, are they a year away? Because good teams of business. Especially now as we're getting into the second half of the season, they take care of business and move on. Although Oklahoma City last night was beaten by Miami. Things happen but that's another piece to Jose: Yeah. Steve: I think it would be really interesting if Oklahoma not Oklahoma. Denver was playing [00:10:00] San Antonio in the playoffs, that would be an interesting series. The old experienced team against. The upstart, Jose: Yeah. Steve: would be a fun series to Jose: Yep. I. Yeah. Yep. It, we're not close to the playoffs, which you can feel 'em coming. And there there's a story, a little bit of excitement in the air. Let's take a pause here for a minute. Number one, Lori Marketing. 47 out of 82. Last season, just over 50%. So there you go. And I also wanna call out if you've made it this far. Thank you. Consider subscribing, joining or not joining. There's not a join, but subscribe comment. All that stuff means the world to us. Thank you. Thank you. Let's move on. I love when you do this because it expands my knowledge of the game. You introduced this to a player who has been outside of my radar. Tell me and tell us about Caleb. Love Steve: He Jose: I. Steve: Any, he, he try he's a decent defender but he can shoot. He started, first of all, this guy was not undrafted. He went to North Carolina and [00:11:00] Arizona finished at Arizona and Portland signed them to a two-way contract. Beginning of the year, he didn't play much. What do I have? He played what 20 minutes or so a game average 10.9 in the last 13 games. Now he's getting more time. He's scoring 16, over 16 in 28 minutes, Jose: That's crazy. Steve: shooting over 40% from three. So this Jose: Yeah. Steve: who nobody had and nobody thought or drafted or thought anything of him and it was a two-way player, has now become, and Portland's got some guards that can play a little bit, but he's now become a pretty, a mainstay on the team. And he's going to get better naturally as the minutes get bigger and his shooting continues. What's really interesting, when I looked at that. Like how far the NBA's come with the three point shot. It used to be 37, 38 was good [00:12:00] percent over 40. And it just tells you how good these guys are at shooting a ball from a long distance. But ca this Caleb Jose: Yeah. Steve: love is a player and he's somebody that will get better in the future. And Portland just, they found something. Jose: And good for Portland. I know it's been a rough go for the Trailblazers the last couple of years, but good to see, that. That they're doing what you talked about before, and that is player development over just grabbing whoever's available. 'cause I think Portland fits into the same category you and I talked about before with teams like the Celtics it's harder to attract free agents to come to Portland and to come to Oklahoma City. And to come to Boston. Those teams have gotta develop within, that's what they've gotta do. Steve: The key here is you need to have, and usually a good draft pick, but you need a star or two, then you go from there. And when I look at games. [00:13:00] Obviously every team's got usually two good players, but you need to win on a given night, guys to go off. And by that I mean over 20, 25 or 30, you have to have that. Jose: Sure. Steve: about it, not many teams win when one guy gets 30 and the rest of the team's getting 10. So it just, it's very important. Like for Portland, they needed to draft or grab some guys that can score. And then work around those people. And they're doing that right now. And by the way, Jeremy Grant has been out a lot. Robert Williams has been out. Drew holiday's been out, and they're still holding their head up and they're right around the play. Jose: Yeah. Steve: And then that'll get better. Jose: Yep. Steve: Klingen will get better. They'll be, they'll get better as time goes on, and Jose: Yep. Steve: be something to look out for. Jose: Let's take a look at a, at another introduction. Now, this player, I actually know he is a [00:14:00] west coast. This Caleb's west coast too but this guy, I know somebody who knows Peyton Watson, coincidentally, and I'm really excited to see him doing well. The difference between Peyton Watson and Caleb Love, though Peyton Watson's doing it on a really good team. That, that's pretty impressive. Tell us about Pey Watson. Steve: in, he's gonna be a restricted, free agent and he's gonna make some money. He's all of a sudden in the last 14 games. And don't forget, yo kid has been hurt. So he's, so Jose: Right. Steve: for him to play in those games. He's doing well. He is scoring over 18 a game, and now he's getting 35 minutes, a game over 35. That that's, legit look at, and they've been talking about him since he was a rookie, that he'd be a player finally. It's coming and it's coming just in time, Jose: Yeah. Steve: it, for us, we're fans, but for players, they're thinking about contracts. And he's doing it Jose: Yeah. Steve: right time when, Jose: I. Steve: you know and Denver, after they won the title, they [00:15:00] didn't wanna pay Bruce Brown and people like that. Now they're gonna have some decisions to make with this guy. And are they gonna, fork up some money? I'm gonna guess if he continues like this, that's a $20 million player that's a nice contract for somebody to walk away with. Jose: Yeah, no doubt. It is easy for us to forget sometimes that this is a job for them. And we talked about that side of it. It's their job and they've gotta do what's best for them. And Peyton Watson is having a really great uptick at the right time for paying Watson. Steve: you think about it, when teams are put together, if you have guys on their first contract, their rookie contract was the first four years. If you have guys, they're hungry. A, they should be coachable. because, if they, people like them, it's gonna help. And B, Jose: Yeah. Steve: they should be playing as hard as possible and trying to develop as well as possible because it's that next [00:16:00] contract. That's everything. So you wanna Jose: Yeah. Steve: your team with some younger guys who haven't made the money yet that are hungry. With some, with some stars, Peyton Watson fits that real Jose: Yeah. It, it is GM 1 0 1, but it's a lot easier to talk about than it is to do. Steve: Yeah. Jose: Let's take. A hundred percent. And let's take a look at a team that maybe has got some challenges right now from a GM perspective, and that's the Timberwolves. This is a very good team, right? They're 27 to 16. We just talked about them in the mix. One of the four teams in the west their star just went off for 55 last night. This is a good team, good players, but they don't have a point guard, right? What's going on? How'd they get here and is there a way out for them? Steve: Rob Dillingham last year and he really hasn't he's not been good. He makes poor decisions if you watch the games. But they've been using Michael Conley, who's. what, 37, 30 8-year-old man. There's not, he's not going to be playing a lot. He still got something. He's playing what, [00:17:00] 18 minutes a game? 19 minutes. Also. Very interesting. As a point, they've put Bones Highland as a point guard. Now Jose: Yeah. Steve: is known as a shooter, but they're looking for somebody that can run the offense. Dillingham has tried, they've even used Dante di Vincenzo now Dante di Vincenzo, if you watch the game, he's not a point guard. He's out there to get wide open to raise and hurt you. they're trying to find one now. The sad part is they've got enough talent with Gobert and Randall and Edwards. Jose: Sure. Steve: Win the whole thing, but they have to get a point guard and they're also up Jose: Yeah. Steve: with money. So they're really in a bad spot. It's not a big marketplace, so they've gotta figure something out. To get that point guard. 'cause if they can get a legit point guard and by that a distributor, 'cause you got enough offense with just Edwards and Randall and Nas Reed Jose: right. Steve: so on and [00:18:00] de Vincenzo. So if you can get a distributor that can get them the ball you might be in business, but you need one point guard, not five. and because again, familiarity makes you better. So they have to go out and get one. I don't know how they would go about doing it. I don't, but they need to, the big thing that hurt them was with Dillingham not really panning out. 'cause I think he was a top, top 10 And that has really set them back. Jose: Yeah. And then again, that, that goes directly to what we talk about all the time, how hard it is, right? GM is easy. GM 1 0 1 is easy. Build from within, get your guys, grab the right free agent. Super easy on paper, but when you make a mistake or when a player doesn't pan out like this, you're stuck. You're absolutely stuck. Steve: go back about five years ago with the San F with the Warriors. When they had the number two pick in the draft [00:19:00] and they had another number one pick, they took James Wiseman, was the chance for Keep this going for a while. If instead of Wiseman, if they got a legit player in that draft right now, they'd be in great shape and they got commingle later in the draft and they're Jose: Yeah. Steve: him. the point Go back, that tells you everything. That mistake with Wiseman really cost the Warriors any future. Jose: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure that historically there's tons of stories like that. Is Ja Morant a fit in Minnesota? Steve: no Jose: no. Steve: more of a, a distributor. He's more of a guy that. That, Jose: True. Steve: he wants to play, pick and roll, and he wants to have the ball going as they would say, downhill or going to the basket. But, Jose: Sure. Steve: I, and I'd have to think about it, but you need somebody who's more of a distributor willing to get, to give the ball up and not, when John Morant, [00:20:00] he's not Jose: Yeah, Steve: giving ball up and those kind of things. So Jose: I got it. Steve: don't think so, Jose: chris Paul Steve: probably five years ago it'd be great. But what Jose: he played all 82 games last year. What do you want from him? Steve: and he was good. At times Jose: Yeah. And he's a distributor. Steve: yeah, but you're gonna get, what, 15 minutes? You're right. You're right. But don't forget the Jose: That's true. Steve: still have him on the roster, Jose: oh, you'd have to trade for 'em. Yeah. Steve: And I don't know what Jose: Yep. Steve: round pick maybe but that would be, Jose: Yeah. Steve: That's an interesting thought. But you still, if you're getting 20 minutes outta him, you still gotta find 28 more. Jose: Yeah. That's why that is a difficult job. Let's end with the last topic, and it's good news. His game has changed. He doesn't have the hops. He's not the rip protector. He was, he doesn't pull down rebounds like he used to, but Joel Embiid back. Steve: Nice to see it. It's Jose: Yeah. Steve: He's scoring lot of points, let's put it that way. The problem or not the [00:21:00] problem. you watch the Sixer games. He's playing around the perimeter. He's not rebounder at all. He is only got a little over six, re seven, six rebounds. Seven rebounds a game, which isn't much, it's the lowest in his career, I believe, or tied for the lowest. It tells you, somebody said he dunked a couple days ago and they were all surprised. Which tells you, yeah, it tells you that the lift isn't there. He's still a very good shooter. He can still hit that 15 footer all night. And he taken more threes, I believe. But it's a shame because he was a great player and he's still good. He can Jose: Yeah. Steve: Again, you are Philadelphia. Does, you got great guards. You need somebody that can be a rim protector, and I don't think he fits that anymore. So what do you do? Do you play bona a little more at M Bona using him as a five, and I guess MB becomes a four. That's crazy. [00:22:00] So there's a lot of different things that you Jose: Yeah. Steve: out, but you're losing that protection of the big guy, but he can still score. And they're paying him a lot of money Jose: This is. This is gonna cost us a shock lag violation, but I'm gonna ask it anyway 'cause I think it's interesting. Yes. First off, this is the lowest rebounding output for Joelle Embiid ever in his career. He averaged more every year even, at the start, even his rookie year. But here's the shot cloud, but we're going anyway. I think it's interesting. This is a seven footer, a big dude, and he's only pulling down six rebounds, right? It tells me that rebounding is more than just being closest to the ball. It's about attitude, it's about geometry and physics, and knowing where the ball's gonna bounce. There's so much more rebounding. And I know that Dennis Rodman famously said that he would study to see where the ball was gonna go. He, but that's what I'm trying to get at here. It's not the tallest guy. [00:23:00] It's the guy who wants it the most, isn't it? Steve: go back to Bill Russell and how he figured that all out too. But Jose: Yeah. Steve: I think this, I think MBI scared of being hurt again. I don't think he wants to get I don't think he, I think he wants to be healthy and play jeopardizing his future. And I think Jose: Yeah, Steve: you understand that because he's been hurt so often and it's Jose: of course. Steve: A horrible thing to a great player. But I, that's my sense when you watch them. I dunno if he's chasing the ball, but he's not. He's just not physically banging like he used to. That might be the best way to Jose: Yeah. Yeah. But regardless, good to see him back in, in some semblance of who he was. It's good for Philly, certainly good for Joel mb, but that's it. You heard the shot clock go off. We talked through it 'cause that's what we do. Another shot clock violation on our record. But thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire [00:24:00] 13 rules random NBA thoughts article. We will link it wherever you are watching or listening to this today. And remember to join us next week. As we discuss more random thoughts at the conclusion of week number 14, we'll talk then. Thanks Steve. ​