The Shot Clock Pod - 2025-26 Season Preview, AD's weight and Steve Kerr's Future

13 Rules - 10_5_2025 === Jose: [00:00:00] All right. It is time to talk to basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, Editor at thePeachBasket.net. He's Steve Purciello, a longtime educator, vice-principal, high school basketball coach and athletic director. And this is the Shock Clock Pod, the best 24 minutes of NBA random thoughts online anywhere. This podcast was born outta the content of Steve's 13 rules random NBA Thoughts articles which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 24 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA today. We'll discuss his latest 13 rules, random NBA thoughts article where he shares his thoughts on a top 75 NBA player. Probably a lot for the Hall of Fame. And a top NBA coach. And then gives us thoughts on the remaining five Eastern conference teams we've yet to cover. I think they're all Eastern conference. I didn't even notice actually. But we'll talk about the last five teams for sure. As the NBA preseason has officially tipped off. Let's talk basketball. Steve, are you ready? Steve: Ready. Jose: Let's [00:01:00] go. I'm gonna start the clock and we're off. All right. Anthony Davis, we start with ad. I haven't talked about him in a while. We haven't talked about, any particular player in a while. But ad's an interesting topic. Right now he's in the news 'cause he's a top 75 player. A lot for the Hall of Fame, I would think he's also 15 pounds heavier at the start of this training camp than he was at last year's training camp. Why is that a big deal? Why are people blowing up about this? Steve: We could, we can name a bunch of things. I'll start with this. How does it look for his teammates? You have a team. If you have Kyrie Irving healthy, you have a shot at the whole thing. You're, you've got a good team. If the Kyrie Irving we know comes back and plays it plays like he always does. He comes in 15 pounds or 20 pound, whatever it is over. You've got a rookie there who's a pretty good player, Cooper Flagg. What's he realizing? [00:02:00] What's he saying? It's all about the money. Jose: Yeah. Steve: It's not about the game and then we get to Anthony Davis himself. How professional is that? How professional you just got traded for a great player. Do you wanna show that you're good and you were worthy of being traded for that player? He doesn't it just, and then he offers a weak excuse that, he loses weight during the season so he figured he'd come in bigger and all that stuff. That's weak. Yeah, it's real weak. And the other piece, there's so many pieces to this. He's got bad feet, he's got an Achilles problem and things like that, right? You tell him 15 more pounds is great to carry around. It just, it's just not good. It just doesn't speak well of him. And then the other thing too, the fan, the average fan sees that now the NBA is maligned by a lot of people and they like college basketball and all that good stuff. When they see a guy like this, [00:03:00] they just laugh and it just makes the NBA look Jose: bad. Steve: Don't forget, these are guaranteed, this is guaranteed money. Davis thing he has to do is stay alive and he's gonna get paid. If they cut 'em, they do anything. So this money will be given to him. And when you give somebody that much money, which is 50 million, I don't know his exact salary, but when you give them, it's almost implied that you expect. The best outta that person. He's made a joke of the whole thing and it's wrong. It's wrong on so many levels. Jose: Yeah. Yeah. When I first read about it I didn't give it much, weight because, I feel like I gained that much weight, o over Thanksgiving. It just doesn't seem like a lot to me. But then you, you're right, this sends a bad message to his teammates. You expected somebody who has a team that is, legitimately went healthy, has a shot to make some noise, come in, motivated come in, excited to be there. I know that this [00:04:00] was a point of contention with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, right? It's the exact same thing. And we're, we're not saying, and not suggesting, and haven't heard that any of his teammates, are having a problem with Anthony Davis. That's exactly why. Why Kobe and Shaq, at least one of the reasons Kobe and Shaq didn't get along. So yeah, overall, just not a good look for Anthony Davis. Steve: Look at the opposite here. He was traded for a guy. Why did they trade Lucas supposedly. That's a good point. Now you get this guy who got That's wild. Done with those problems. And he came in and he pulls a Luca. Wow. And the same token. Has spent the summer getting himself in the best shape possible. And it's crazy. But again, it, it just it, to me, it tarnishes Anthony Davis. I thought how good a player defensively, he's got a, within 15 feet, he can shoot the eyes out. He could do some good rebounder [00:05:00] to me, it talks to him. And to me, top 75 no. Those 75 players are players that took the game seriously and wanted to play. I don't know if I can say that about him. So if he's top 75 I don't agree. Jose: Okay. Okay, ma, what Major Black Eye really tarnishes his legacy, it seems all over 15 pounds. Something that was easily fixable, but tough start to the season for AD and and the Mavericks. Let's see how things play out. Maybe it wasn't Ad and Luca, maybe the problem is something going on in Dallas. I don't know. I didn't draw that line like you did. That's why they traded Luca. Then they bring in ad. He's 15 pounds heavier. That's wild. That is, that's interesting. Let's see how it plays out. Let's stay in the west. As matter of fact, this whole entire show is about the west. I don't know. I was way off with the east. We're talking to West Western Conference, five championships as a player. Four is a coach. This is another all time great. But despite those accolades [00:06:00] is the coaching career of the warrior, Steve Kerr over, at least in San Francisco, you wrote about it. What's going on? Steve: It's really interesting. He's got another year in his contract this year. This is it. And obviously if you're Golden State, you wanna keep him, so you're gonna try to sign him. He's saying I'll make decisions at the end of the year and all those things. So you almost wonder, he's pulling a Phil Jackson, and by that I mean he's there while the getting's good. Now it might not be as good. He's out or he's thinking about getting out and that's, that to me that's, not a great thing and it's not a great look. Maybe he doesn't like the coach. I don't know. He took a lot of beaten from the Olympics with Tatum and those things. And maybe he's had a, maybe, who knows? I'm sure he is got plenty of money it. That could be it, but it really, it makes you think about it, okay, you were there for the good [00:07:00] times and tho they had some great teams. Now things aren't, might not be as good in a year because again, Curry will be 38 next year and Jimmy Butler, 36, 37, whatever. And Draymond's gotta be up there also. At some point their skills are gonna be diminishing, so maybe it's time to get out while they're getting's good. And it's just not a good look. It really isn't. He's an all time great. And. He's gonna walk away possibly. And you would think, by the way, last piece on that cur Curry's got one more year in his contract after this year. I think he would, align it with curry and walk away if he's gonna walk away with curry. So it just doesn't it just, it doesn't, it smell good. And I hope that, at some point maybe he sticks around. Jose: Yeah, I don't see him, leaving the game. But, it does seem like the riding's on the wall potentially in San Francisco. At the end of the day, it's probably his call. We will see how it plays out. I think the warrior might be a sleeper team. I don't [00:08:00] think they're gonna, they're not a champ. They don't have championship potential, but I think there'll be pretty good this year. But I do have to call out one thing, Phil Jackson. Did take over the Knicks, didn't he? That was not a good team when he took them over Steve: as the gm and he had nothing to lose by doing that, because if Knicks get better, he's a genius. And if the Knicks don't get better, what do you expect? So this wasn't as a coach and you don't want to, if I think about great coaches naturally, Jackson and are back and those people. Actually took great teams. He had the best player in the world, Michael Jordan. He had a pretty good one in Kobe. He did that. Red Auerbach did it with Bill Russell. And he was great, but he did it with, he liked to see coaches that are able to coaches in different, in different situations with different groups and continue to win. And, Jackson was in a different situation, but. He got the best players on his team and [00:09:00] so it tarnishes things for ker. Maybe he is gonna move on and maybe we'll find out how good he is if to get win titles with another group of players. Jose: Yeah. Yep. Yep. It'll be interesting to see how things play out. We'll see. What's in the future for Steve Kerr? Let's talk some NBA team. We covered all of them. You did in your articles. We got five left. They're all Western conference teams. Let's talk about each of them. First off, in the Tough Western Conference, we're gonna mention, we're gonna discuss the Memphis Grizzlies. Now, for my money, John Morant is as exciting an NBA player as there is in the NBA. Watching him, with the ball with Ed Steam going to the hoop, you just don't know what he's gonna do. He's got elements of Dominique Wilkins to me, right? 'cause he has a human highlight film. But is he good enough, Dominique? Never was, to take a team all the way to the finals. Is John Mare good enough to make any real noise in the playoffs? Is it John Morant led team? Good enough? What do you think? Steve: What's the most best part of the [00:10:00] ability? A player can have, I'll ask you availability. I gave you the answer. Oh, okay. I was not gonna say that. So thank you for it, the will play 65 this year. Yeah. Jose: Yeah. Steve: So now you've, he still got value in the NBA. Sure. You've gotta look at that. Now. I know the fans would be upset, and I understand all of it. The object is to sell tickets and Memphis isn't one of the hot markets in the NBA. And they're reluctant to spend a lot of money. That's why they traded Desmond Bain, and they gave Jaron Jackson a lot more money. And obviously they're not going to be as good without Desmond Bain. Yeah. So with all that being said, you're going to put yourself in that play in every year Chicago bull type situation. I don't know if that's a good thing. So right now you [00:11:00] need to make some decisions. One of them might be if we're gonna keep Jah, odds are he is gonna play less games every year. In a year, what's his value? And in two, and so on and so forth. So there's some decisions that have to be made. They do have a decent group around him. Jaron Jackson can play. And he's those guys that's one of the least known good players in the NBA. And they just took care of him. They paid him pretty good. They have a Zach who, is a pretty good he's got a future, would be the best way. They did get Al Pope in the trade for Desmond Bain who's a, he's aging, but he's still a decent player and they got Jaylen Wells a good rookie. So they got a couple pieces to build from. Again, that's not nearly good enough, especially in the West to get any further playing team. What exactly. And if Ja plays 50 games, I don't even know if there'll be a play. Yeah. So that's the situation. And [00:12:00] by the way, Jah is an exciting player, but because he's so exciting and is in the air and can do so many things, that's why he gets hurt that often. I don't, I hope he doesn't get hurt, but. It's just, he's the type of player that just the way he plays leads to injury. Jose: Yep. Undeniable. Still only 26 years old, which blows my mind. It is in my mind's eye. It's prove it Time for John Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies. Let's see if this is the year another team that has to prove it. And it took an interesting step a few years ago, about three years ago now, the hus the Utah Jazz rather. Blew up a good team right when they traded away. Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, you mentioned this and when you do that, when you blow up a team, you expect, a couple of rough years, right? Just that's how it goes. But you expect a lot of picks and then, two, three years, four years down the road, you expect to be competitive again. Here we are three years later. The jazz are not what? The rebuild has been a bust. Why, what went wrong in [00:13:00] Utah? Steve: I don't, and Danny Age did such a great job of Boston with the GT trade, and now his son has taken over, and angels like moved up higher, whatever. But I don't I tried to figure that out. They gave Will Hardy a longer contract. Their winds have diminished each year. In the three years since they traded John Collins this year, who was one of their better players. He had a nice year last year. What exactly are they doing? They do have warrior marketing, and I would think they're gonna deal him if somebody will take him. Sure. He's making a lot of money and he gets often but and they have Walker Kessler, who they couldn't reach an agreement with in, in salary, and he'll be restricted at the end of the year, restricted free agent. So they have a couple pieces. But they it seems like everything you're doing is just not working out. Ate George is another nice player they have and they just took Ace Bailey in the draft who is [00:14:00] talented. I don't know, you know where his head is at times, but Yeah. But he's a talented player, so there, there are pieces, but it's not getting much better. And with that, the people I just mentioned as your best players. I don't think they can compete. And I think the best thing shot they have is get the lottery pick and hope it's a high one. And and hope, I don't know who's out there, but next year that high pick is another real good player because, I don't see like them getting better to the point where, oh, look out in a couple years, I can't even say that. Yeah. Jose: Yeah. Which is tough. They're good fans in Utah. I I was in Utah once for work. I was actually texting you and you said, Hey, there's a game tonight. You should go. And I went and I wouldn't have gone without your nudge. And I had a great time. It was a random Tuesday against the Orlando Magic sold out crowd, enthusiastic crowd, just great fans in Utah. And I have that connection with them because I went to one game and I hope [00:15:00] things work out well for them. Let's move to no, we're not moving anywhere. We're staying in the West. This is a team man. This is a team. Baffles me a little bit. And that's the Phoenix Suns. When I look at the makeup of the team this season, they strike me as a middle of the road team. I think they'll have some, really good wins, some really bad losses. This isn't a team that's going anywhere. They seem directionless. Rudderless. What do you make of the suns? Steve: It's an interesting thing for two years Matt, the owner came in and decided that he's going to, and like most owners who've made a lot of money, they think they're gonna be the smartest guy in the room and right. He decided that Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant would make them a champion. He went through Frank Vogel and then he went through Mike Budenholzer as coaches and fired both. He's still paying him and it's a good life if you can get paid and stay home, but he, he hasn't done that. So now he's just reversed course. Got rid of Bradley Beal, bought him out, [00:16:00] and then he traded Durant. He did get two players back. He got Dylan Brooks, who I think is the guy you don't want on your team. You don't want on the other team. You hate playing against, but you want him with you. He's tough. He can defend. Yeah. And he's a clutch player. And it's a good deal. It, and he likes to win. So he plays hard. And they got Jalen Green. Jalen Green's an interesting case. He's averaged over 20 a game last year the problem was in some big games, he didn't show up. He didn't play well. But with Devin Booker, you don't know. He's gonna get more open books through Booker. He's gonna get more of a lot of things, and if he develops, then puts Phoenix in a little better situation. They don't have they do have Grace and Allen from the old group. They're not bad. They did get Mark Williams who was traded to the Lakers, and then see we got the obligatory Laker mentioned. But again, from you, not from me, let's be honest. You've been telling me Lakers but. [00:17:00] But they got Mark Williams who could be a decent big, if he's healthy, we don't know his health because of what, all the things that have gone on. But you've got all those things that makes them. Devin Booker, maybe a little better than average, but again, they're in the west. Western division the Western conference. Yeah. And that's difficult really to see them get up there with the top five or six teams again, play in at best, that's not a great situation. And green does emerge. They might be a little better than playing, but I really don't see that. Jose: I agree. We mentioned a little bit ago that, there's great fans in Utah. There are another place with great fans and unfortunately not a good team is Sacramento. The Kings have, to me, probably one of the coolest venue experiences when they do that, like the beam at the end of a win. But this is a tortured [00:18:00] team. You, when you wrote about 'em, you said after saying some really good things about 'em, then you prefaced it all or ended it all by saying, but they are the kings. Which is rough, but it's a tortured team. What do you foresee for the Kings this season? Steve: When I look at the Kings, I see a round peg in a square hole. They go out and they amass talent, and they do have some talent. They have DeMar de Rose who's getting old, but he can still score. Sure. Zach Levine who on given nights when he gets hot he's really tough. These aren't great defenders. These are players. Malik Monk, who's a pretty good guy off the bench, although they've been trying to trade him. Keegan Murray, a good young player who was hurt, but he can play and naturally saboni and Saboni, great rebounder, not a good defender. One thing a lot of these guys have in common, none of 'em are great defenders except for Keith Murray, and they've got Keon Ellis who can defend a little bit. But what I do see. It's a bunch of parts that aren't bad. [00:19:00] Unfortunately, they can only play with one basketball, and they do need a big, because they need. Saboni is a better four than a five. And if Saboni can play the four, suddenly you got something in. That's interesting. But they've not gone out and gotten the big two to do that. Now they have a new coach, Doug Christie. But they go have new coaches as often as I change my shirt. So that doesn't, it. It, we will see, we'll see what happens. What he's done is he's has an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator, I believe, like Larry Bird did 20 years ago, 25 years ago when he, which is an interesting thought. And, so he is giving them some responsibility, but I, it is just, it's the kings. So if it could go wrong, it's gonna go wrong. Yeah. And if I were Christie. I hope, I hope he is renting because you never know with Vic, who's the owner. He [00:20:00] goes through people left and right yeah. That, that's the situation. They have talent, but I don't know. I don't know. Jose: Yeah. Yeah. You've gotta be a good team, right? Not a bunch of individuals. A team is gonna be good players that aren't a team. Every day of the week. We saw that in 2016 with Detroit. That was a better team. Or 2006. Sorry. Steve: That Jose: was a better team. Steve: If you think together a team you need to begin to think about where each guy can flourish and you can't have two guys doing the same thing. Yeah, and the kings seem to just say, the guy could score 25 points. Let's get him, and that's great. But, do they fit. And case in point would be der Rosen Monk. And Levine can shoot when he's on a roll. He's unstoppable, but he can't defend. And him der Rosen's more of a 15 foot in player foul line area. He is, he's really [00:21:00] good. But he and Monk is a big shooter. He only got one basketball. How are you gonna figure this one out? So it just, you gotta think about putting, and I'm gonna think about the Spurs and the old Great Spurs. They had a guy who wasn't a shooter at all. He was the fifth guy on the team and can defend Bruce Bowen. When you need to have players like that because again, I would think Monk wants to get his 15 to 20 a game. The Rosen wants his 20 plus and so does Levine and Saboni. That's gonna be difficult. It's gonna be difficult and so it, it just doesn't work to me. Yeah. By the way, or the same, he did sign Dennis Schroder. I wanted to mention that. Yeah. And Shruder's now there, he's gonna be, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer because of Feba and what he's done in the world world Cup or whatever. But, and Schroder's not the most [00:22:00] lovable player by his teammates. And that's just one more interesting thing to throw into the mess. Jose: Yeah, you gave me a nice softball for a segue here. Shooter is a point guard. He did sign with Sacramento. Here we've got the last team. We've got about 10 seconds before the shot clock goes off. But we're gonna talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves. A good team, exciting team that desperately needs. There's the shock clock. It's, I've gotta change the the noise here because that is not a good shock clock buzzer. But time is up, but we're gonna keep going. Timberwolves, good, exciting team. Desperately needs a point guard. What do you see for Minnesota this year? Steve: First of all, I think Anthony, the Edwards the talk is over. Everybody's been saying he's the next Jordan and all he's gotta become right Jordan. And he does a lot of things can happen. They've got talent, but, and just to name Julius Randall, NAS Reed, these guys can play Dante di Vince. I miss somebody but they have some player, Rudy Gobert. Of course, [00:23:00] they've got players. So they could be good. And Chris Finches does a great job with this team. However, they may need Edwards to move along. And then he also have a little problem with point guard. Michael Conley's getting old. He could play, he was a real good player in his day. A hundred percent. They drafted Rob Dillingham last year in the first round. He only played about 40 something or 50 games maybe last year, and sparse, 10 minute game, 10 minutes a game or so. We average, I believe. So they were hoping he could become the guy. One problem is he's six one, which in the NBA today, defensively, that. That kind of hurts you. But they've hoped that he would, but he really didn't show much last year. They're hoping that he does. The other thing they've talked about is making Dante di Vincenzo their point guard, which to me. He flourished with the Knicks when he was like a role player shooter who can just shoot the heck out of it. And now you're asking, you're taking away that [00:24:00] ability on the swing of the ball or different things where he's got, or the penetration and kick where he's got the open three and he can hurt you. I don't know. I don't know if that's a great idea, but that tells you their need right now of right. Guard. So I think a couple things. If Dillingham comes along or if they get something outta Conley, which I don't see naturally but yeah, then you gotta hope that Edwards emerges and by that next tier and takes them to the finals, which I could see I don't see. Yeah. The one thing I will say for those people betting, this is a team, those guys play every night. When you look at the when you talk about betting on winds for a season, they have a chance to amass whatever the betting number is, where when you look at Golden State, they might have a number and people, oh, that butler and so on are so good. The odds of Curry playing 75 games are slim. [00:25:00] Yeah, the odds of Butler playing 70, 75 games are slim, so you're gonna have a lot of nights where Golden State's not fully, they're full team. I think a lot of nights a team like Minnesota will have everybody. Jose: Okay. Alright. Alright. A little a little nugget there for people that are interested in betting an interesting tidbit. I I didn't, I wasn't aware of, but I got a call out another show, another shock clock violation is what we do on the shock clock pod a little over time. But, we had to talk about the wolves and I'm glad that we did. Anthony Edwards, only 24 years old. 24 years old. Just blows my mind. And definitely time for him to take another step up. But that's it. You heard the shot clock go off again, we kept talking 'cause it's what we do. But thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 rules around NBA Thoughts article. We'll link it wherever you are watching or listening to this today. Of course, please subscribe, follow, comment, all that stuff matters. We appreciate all of it and we're grateful for it. Join us [00:26:00] again next week for more random NBA thoughts as we count down the start. Of the 20 25 26 NB season. We'll talk next week. Thanks, Steve. Steve: Take care.