The Shot Clock Pod - Dame's Return to Portland and Ranking 10 Franchises Still Chasing a Ring

13 Rules_ Dame Returns and more === Jose: [00:00:00] Alright, it's time to talk 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. This is The Shock Clock Pod, the best 15 minutes of NBA random thoughts online anywhere. This is your first time listening. Welcome. We're glad you found us. This podcast was born out of content in Steve's 13 rules Random NBA Thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 15 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA today will discuss his latest searching rules, run an NBA thoughts article where he shares his thoughts on Dame Lillard's return to Portland, which is pretty cool. And then interesting topic. He lists the 10 franchises that have yet to lift the Larry O'Brien, ranking them by order of the best chance to win it all. Interesting list. Lots to talk about when we get there. S Steve, you ready? Ready? Let's do it. I'm gonna start the clock and before we get to [00:01:00] your list, top 10 list, 'cause it coincidentally happened to be 10 franchises. Let's talk about Dame. You wrote that you were excited. It, it's a feel good story certainly to see Dame come back. I expected him to go to Miami, not Portland. That's where he wanted to go. And so instead when he got chained to to Milwaukee, but in Chad, instead he chose Portland. So it's absolutely undeniably a feel good story. He had his greatest years there. It'll be nice to see him go back. That's gonna tug on some heartstrings for NBA fans. And certainly be a big, big news event in Portland. But what kind of team do you think Dame returns to in Portland in the 20 26, 27 season? Because he's not playing next season. Steve: I think Portland would make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, but in the Western conference they got a problem. They're just not good enough. I think they're disillusioned in thinking they're close to winning and they're not. They're pretty good. Denny, AA and grant, Jeremy Grant and, and then the young centers clinging and the [00:02:00] young the Chi Chinese man Hansen, they played well. They have a future, but right now, I don't know if it's there. Scoot, Henderson's just starting to figure it out. It's still a little ways away. And, I don't think they're as close as they think they bought in holiday this summer. And my question, my next question becomes, okay. In a year, Dame comes back, last I looked, holiday's, got a three year contract, three more years on his contract. Now you have Henderson Sharp. Two guards that are young, need their time, and then you got two more guards in holiday in Willard. How are you gonna do this? I'm trying to understand that. It's a nice story. Believe me. I'm glad he is back. And it, it really, it, it says something about him. 'cause he gave up hope probably for winning a title unless something crazy happens. But Jose: yeah. Steve: But it doesn't make sense in the way. Why would Por Portland did it? Probably for the emotional, all the good stuff there. He is not gonna play next year, so who knows? In two years, and [00:03:00] maybe the deal idea is to dump a holiday after a year. That's what I was gonna say. Holiday. Yeah, but you know what? He's making 30 million, two more years after this year. I don't know many teams that are gonna wanna pay 30 million for that for two years. Jose: I Steve: think Boston would be able to get rid of him that easily. Jose: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if this is how it all went down. Of course, I have no inside knowledge, but it seems to me like Portland was taken aback here because how do you say no, you don't say no to Dame Ard. So it's just like Dave says, I want come back. Portland says, okay, of course, come on. We weren't planning for you, we were going in another direction. Yeah. But, we'll obviously take Dame Lillard on. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out in a couple years. At the end of the day, feel good story, which is always cool. Cool to have another day. Steve: I think the other thing that I pointed it out was his kids are there, right? And, going home to them at a very, when they're very young might have been more important. And I admire that at him. It's good. It's a good thing. Jose: A hundred percent. A [00:04:00] hundred percent. Alright. Which takes us now. To the list, which I think is fascinating. There's 30 NBA franchises. 20 of the 30 franchises have won it all. 10 have not. So what Steve did this week is he took those 10 and he ranked them by order of most likely to win it. First. Okay. I think I'm gonna read this from the bottom up, right? So I'm gonna start with the teams and what we're gonna do here is we're gonna go through the whole entire list, and then I got three questions to ask you. Sure. There were some things that baffled me a little bit. Let's start from the bottom. No argument for me. The New Orleans Pelicans. This would be the team that hasn't won. One that has the poorest chance to win it in the recent in the near future. Moving up. Number nine, Charlotte Hornets. Number eight, the Memphis Grizzlies. That's a little bit of a head scratcher. We'll talk about that. I think. Number seven, the Utah Jazz. Number six, the Brooklyn Nets. Number five, the Indiana [00:05:00] Pacers. We'll talk about it. Number four, the Phoenix Suns. Number three, the Los Angeles Clippers, number two. Now, these are the top two teams that are most likely to win it out of the 10 that have never won. Minnesota Timberwolves and number one, the Orlando Magic. Alright, interesting list. Let's talk about a couple of things. There's lots to talk about here, lots to unpack. Let's talk about one, the Pacers. The Pacers are the defending Eastern Conference champions. They just played in the finals. This is a really good team and you've got them at number five, middle of the road. I would've expected to see them at number one or two. Why is such a good team not higher in your list? Steve: You can't, when you are evaluating something like this, in my mind, you cannot look at the players all the time. You have to look at a couple things and the way I look at this, ownership is very important. You have to have [00:06:00] ownership that is willing to go into the tax and pay the tax. Now a according, first of all, Indiana has never been in the tax. That tells you something about ownership. The word was before Halliburton got hurt, that they were going to go into the tax to sign Miles Turner. Halliburton got hurt. What did they do? They didn't go, they got rid. He signed somewhere else 'cause they weren't bringing, offering him the same money. I when I did this, the first thing I thought about are these teams willing to pay? That would be the first thing. Now, again, we could talk about Memphis. Now I know that's a head scratcher. However, I'm sure you are aware they traded Desmond Bain so they can pay Jar Jackson. What is that telling you? You're losing one of your best players. Are you going to ever win when you do things like that? No. You might win 50 games just on Jaw's greatness a couple years ago. But don't forget they [00:07:00] also lost Dylan Brooks. Now, Dylan Brooks is not, the night Mr. Nice guy. But he was a key part of that. That team didn't wanna pay him, let him go to to Houston. So you gotta look at this, not just say, oh, they're so talented. But do you have ownership willing to do that, or do you wanna do what Michael Jordan did live on the tax and make bundles of money. In other words, when that, and for people who don't know, when the tax is paid, every year, the team's below the tax split all that money. So Michael Jordan is able to live off of that, and sell it for a lot of money. But also why win? I can just do this. So people need to pay attention to that. That's why the Clippers were third, because bomber will do anything to win and he will pay. Paying the tax is meaningless to him, so he will try to win no matter what. Jose: Yeah. Alright, [00:08:00] so let's dive into that a little bit, right? Leadership is important, right? More so than players. 'cause leadership kind of dictates, who the players are gonna be. So I get that. Now, and this wasn't on the list who, we weren't gonna talk about this, but I think it's interesting how are the jazz then solo? They've got good leadership. Danny h had great success in Boston and now he goes to Utah. And you've got them bottom of the barrel at number seven. How make that make sense? Steve: I think you have to analyze now, the owner, we don't know if they'll put the money up here. I think he will. Jose: True Steve: however. Has Danny Age been very successful? They've been terrible for how many years now? Jose: Yeah. Steve: They haven't shown any strides to getting better. In fact, this year they won under 20 games, so they've gotten worse. He traded the two best players. He had Gobert and Mitchell as soon as he got the job. And from that point on, it has gotten worse to the point where they hold guys at a [00:09:00] game so they have a better draft pick. I know he got a bunch of drafts. One of the things people need to understand too, when you get draft picks, let's say you trade to a team, that's pretty good. Even if you get their draft picks, you know what that means? You're probably gonna pick between 20 and 30, so you're not gonna get the top guy out there. And people need to realize that teams that are good make those trades. 'cause that player might get 'em over the top. They're not worried 'cause they plan on being a top five or 10 team. That goes with the thing. Know, angel got a whole mess of draft picks. However I, I don't see anything coming out of this mess. And it is a mess when you look at the team. In fact, this year they traded John Collins, probably one of their offensive players. Jose: Yeah. Steve: What are we doing here? And then you read Walker Kessler is a nice player. Yeah. A's NBA, as a center. He doesn't score, but he does all the little things [00:10:00] that center big men do in the NBA. He wants two, two first round picks for him. You know what, when a person's like that, like different, I guess was a nice word to put it, why would anybody wanna make a deal with 'em? Come on. That's just, it's absurd. So that's why I don't think they have the chance. Angel has hired his son and Austin Ain did a good job at Boston, but he's hired his son to run the team. And he is like president or whatever it is, but his son is running it, so maybe there is a hope. Jose: Okay. Let's see how things play out in Utah, because yeah, these are all long suffering teams. I was gonna say that's a long suffering franchise, but these are all long suffering franchises. Let's focus on the top two, right? These are the two teams that you think are most likely to win it. So a couple questions. Number one question. You've got the Orlando Magic number one, the Minnesota Timberwolves, number two, is it a coin flip [00:11:00] there? Do you think they're really both really close? Or are the magic. The tried and true number one. That's number question number one. Question number two, how close do you think these are, these teams are? Do you see them potentially winning it within, next season, within five years? What do you think? Steve: Let's take 'em one at a time. At my age, I have a tough time remembering things. Gotcha. The first thing was about the magic. Ben Carroll's been playing in the league two years. Wagner's been playing three years. They're only gonna get better and better. Yeah. Ownership has gone out and paid them. Ben Carroll's gonna be a top 10 player in the NBA. Wagner's not gonna be far off. Did someone say Jalen Brown and Tatum Comp comparison? Jose: Wow. No. No. Steve: Ben Carroll's good. He's real good. Now you also have ownership willing to go out and get Desmond Bain. Desmond Bain's good. He's a solid on all ends of the court and he can shoot. The ownership. Has got some, has a decent bench built around them [00:12:00] and other starters around them. Wendell Carter's a nice player. Isaacs is a tremendous defender. They've got players all over the place. They are close. Now, the only way it can ruin, and we don't know this answer, where other things is if ownership decides not to pay money when these contracts come up, they've already taken care of Wagner and bank car. So it tells you they're willing to do what they have to do to win. I think when I look at the potential of that group. I just think they are destined to have a good shot at winning a title. When you look at that's why I am with them. What was the second question? Jose: How close are the magic and the timber? W or do you see these both as one A and one B? No. No. Or is there a big separation there? Steve: I think the whole thing changes. The Timberwolves need one more player. Okay. They need one more player. They've been waiting for Anthony Edwards and he is good, but they've been waiting for him to take off. He's not, he's good. Yeah, he's a real good [00:13:00] player. You need a second, Randall. They just paid, they just, I think 33 million. So they just paid him and he's good. I don't know if he's in number two. He might be in number three. They did sign NAS Reed. They need a point guard. And they're hoping Dillingham comes into his own and can do that. 'cause Connolly is near the end, but Right. I just think there's one more player. They when you watched them in the playoffs this year and last year, they just didn't seem like they were good enough to beat those teams and Right. One more player. If they make the deal for one player, I'm the first one who'll say, I don't know how they're gonna do it though. 'cause they're taxed. Jose: Yeah, Steve: they do have new ownership and new ownership. Prob most times we find with new owners they'll spend money 'cause they wanna win. Sure. So that might work out for them. But that's why I put them number two. They're close. They're close but that team is constituted. Are they good enough to win it? Now, I'm gonna say something to you to think [00:14:00] about. This year is a very interesting year. You got Boston, forget it without Tatum. Jose: Yeah. Steve: The re Oklahoma City's a big favorite. But if you go away from Oklahoma City, this might be a year where a team, this won't be one of the most talented championships. Most talented championship teams you'll ever see, meaning a team like the Knicks who still need a little bit of, they did okay in the summer by bringing Marks in and Elli, but they might need a little bit more. But you know what? In a down year, they might have enough and let's say that about Minnesota in a down year. But the thing is, I keep looking at it. Unless somebody gets hurt on Oklahoma City it's not gonna be easy. Jose: Alright. You heard the buzzer, it went off, but I wanna hold your feet to fire on this one. You said Orlando Magic are close. Let's just focus on the number one team. Yeah. That's your number one team. They're close. How close do you see them potentially [00:15:00] winning it this year? Are they e are they an Eastern Conference finalist this season and by this season, 25, 26. Steve: I, I think Jose: there Steve: were two years. I think I it's, the Eastern Conference is really interesting this year. There's so many questions that you really can't determine. You think about Philadelphia. Who knows? They could win 60 and they could win 30 and anything in between. Yeah. So you don't know. You don't you just don't know what's gonna happen. The Knicks have a new coach, who knows, yeah. I do think Orlando can defend and they've got those two guys. Yeah. So they're in business, and they got their defender coming back who's been hurt all last year, most of the last year. So that would be another another thing. The name is escaping me but, but that's one more thing they'll have. So they're gonna be dangerous. Really good. People don't realize how good they can be. Ben Carro is just such a good, such a good [00:16:00] player. He could score. He still hasn't learned to make a three consistently. He'll get there, and Wagner plays off of him real well. So that's why I like them a lot and like I said, when, and I'm gonna use Tatum and Brown. When Tatum and Brown were in their second and third years, I don't think they were as good as this group, as those two. Jose: Wow. All right. All right. That, that collective applause you heard was the the entire Orlando Magic fan base cheering. That's a great report card. And I'm excited to see success in Orlando. This is a team that, if I remember right they drafted Penny. They brought in Shaq. They had success right away. They got swept in the finals, I think, against Houston. So this is a team that had been there before, at least a franchise that had been there before but I was as close as they've got. Some of these teams I'm looking at the wolves. The clippers have never even made it to the finals, but would love to see success in Orlando for the magic interesting list. [00:17:00] Interesting conversation. Had a great time. But that's it. You heard our clock go off. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read that Steve's entire 13 rules random BA thoughts article. We'll link it wherever you are watching or listening to this. And of course, please join us next week and consider subscribing, liking, sharing, all that stuff matters and means the world to us. Thank next week on the pod, the best 15 minutes of Random NBA talk anywhere we, Steve Care.