The Shot Clock Pod: Mavericks Fire Harrison, Beal Out for Season, and Clippers Struggle

Untitled project from SquadCast === [00:00:00] Jose: All right, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, Editor at thePeachBasket.net. He's Steve Purciello, a longtime educator, vice principal, high sChalkol basketball coach, athletic director, and also the host of the Celtic Chalk Talk pod. The Celtic Chalk talk is a pod dedicated to the latest news and opinion surrounding. The Boston Celtics from a lifelong fan. That being Steve the pod will drop new episodes every Monday, but this again is the shot clock pod, the best 24 minutes of NBA random thoughts online anywhere. This podcast was born outta the content of Steve's ~random NBA thoughts~ 13 rules ~rather ~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, a b, a thoughts article where he shares his random thoughts after a, let's call it tumultuous week four of the 20 25, 26 NBA season. We're, I'm ready to start the timer. Steve, are you ready to talk? Are. Steve: I am ready. Jose: Let's do it. [00:01:00] Let's go. Clock is ticking. Alright. We called it tumultuous and it has been, every season has two things that we, at least I don't like to talk about. And that is injuries and firings. And we've had a bunch of both already. In the yang season, we'll start in Dallas. Owner approves a move by the gm. GM makes the approved move. Owner fires gm. That's what happened. Now, nobody's gonna argue that Nico Harrison's move was the right one to make. I think, change, usually you look at, two, three years down the line. But this was a bad trade, but it was owner approved. Why did Nico Harrison get the get the blame ultimately for it? Steve: First of all I, the owner did approve it, is ironic, when you think about the whole thing. You are trading a guy, one of the top three players in the league. Jose: No doubt, Steve: You didn't go out and see, [00:02:00] let other teams match or see what they can give Jose: right. Steve: did it. The owner is new. You can get into the mess around that with Mark Cuban and everything else. And the fact that the owner didn't even talk to Cuban while this was going on. Not saying that Mark Cuban is a sage, but he could have helped. And he probably would've explained that you don't mess around getting rid. Luca and he would've been vehemently against it. So you have that. You have Nico Harrison, who the owner's got, doesn't quite understand the NBA yet. He's new Jose: Sure. Steve: allows Harrison the autonomy and okays it without thinking the whole thing through. And you have to wonder what kind of, if he, this guy followed the NBA before or not. Dumont is the man we're talking about, Jose: Yeah. Steve: It's a whole mess of things. The owner didn't wanna talk to Cuban. Now Cuban's getting involved again, [00:03:00] but it's like, the horse leaving and then you shut the gate, it, it just doesn't make any sense. So all of that. Now did Nico deserve? Probably did. And it's probably crazy that they went into the season because it wasn't fair to the players. When PA fans are chanting, get rid of Nico and Fire Jose: Yeah, Steve: it's it was a whole mess. It could have maybe been avoided this year. Nobody wants anybody to be fired, but that's the end result of it. And it Jose: over here. Steve: the Dallas Mavericks right now, if you think about it, Anthony Davis, who I thought could help them with Kyrie. Kyrie's gone Anthony and Anthony Davis is back to being what Charles Barkley referred to as Street Close. 'cause he's Jose: Yeah. Steve: much. So what's the answer? Obviously, what do you do? You have to begin to think about trading him. Kyrie. over. They do have Cooper flag there and maybe you can get something for Gafford and [00:04:00] some, and they also, Jose: Sure. Steve: the keeper. So that might be the only way to Jose: Yeah. Steve: My question then becomes, what are you going to get for Davis? What are you going to get for, by the way, Davis' contract will be due in a year and a half. What happens? You're gonna give him big money. You're crazy. We're gonna talk about Bradley Beal in a few minutes and it's a similar type thing and I'll Jose: Sure. Steve: that, but then you get maybe Kyrie's gotta be healthy before you can trade him. So what do you do? They do have their first round pick in 26. But then they're out. They got not many picks after that in 27 in the years after. So the only thing they could hope is get a couple number ones for Irving and Davis and try to build something. And by the way, if they tank this year, maybe they get one of the three best college players are supposed to be great. Now you got and him, so you got a fighting [00:05:00] chance, but in the future. But Jose: Yeah. Steve: It, and it's sad for the fans also. Jose: Yeah. Yeah I just, you mentioned the fans. I don't think there's anything tougher. This team was set. They had a, one of the greats in Dirk Nowitzki, who handed the baton. It was perfect the way things went. In in, in Dallas handed. He had a season, I think at least one or two for sure, with Luca handed the baton to him. It's mature team now. Luca takes him to the finals. Everything, just looking, he's a young superstar and then it all just gets taken away. One fell swoop it is mind boggling. The one thing I will put out there before we go onto the next topic is. One possibility. Because you were high on the Mavericks at the start of the season. I was high on the Mavericks at the start of the season. I still think, right? Hear me out, they're gonna, they're gonna have a bumpy, first half of the season. No doubt about it. But what if Kyrie comes back, which, he might, right? I think he's expected to AD comes back and all of a sudden, the last half of the season, this team goes, [00:06:00] 28 now storms into the playoffs and has an amazing run. This is still a good team. If you put in a healthy idea, a healthy Kyrie a Cooper flag with three quarters of a season, under his belt they could do some damage. That's the best case scenario, isn't it? Yeah. Steve: I will answer it very simply. Anthony Davis is over 30 years old. Do you think all of a sudden he's gonna play 75 games a year? Jose: No. I just want him to play 30 this season. Healthy 30. Steve: no. Kyrie is 32, I believe. Jose: He can play 30. Steve: Do you? What I'm saying to you is it's diminishing returns. Jose: Yeah. Steve: you do this, you gotta think about this. If you do that's fine. I don't think you're gonna win a title, but you could be in a playoff and be a problem for, think anybody's beating Oklahoma City, but that's something we'll talk about, but. But what? What do you do here? You, I don't think you can beat Oklahoma City [00:07:00] and next year, this year you have your pick. Next year you don't. So now you get a 15th pick This year, a 20th pick. Jose: Yeah. Steve: Kyrie and Anthony are a year olden. Probably play less games. Where are you going? Jose: Yeah. Yeah. Steve: It's over. So you've gotta, you've gotta you gotta sit there. First of all, if you're ownership, you gotta look at the, put an article out of something and say, we messed up. We'll be A Jose: yeah. Steve: Give us time. Probably the smartest thing you're doing is bringing Mark Cuban back into the picture because. could be somebody that can calm the masses Jose: Yeah. Steve: and that's what you have to do. That's really a sad situation. Really. There's Jose: doubt. Steve: Chalkices there. It's not a bad idea what you're saying, but then you have to take him out. The draft picks Jose: Yeah. Steve: nothing Jose: You're right, Steve: Whatcha gonna do win 15 games for the next 10 years and have no draft picks. Jose: Right. It's a tough situation when [00:08:00] even the best case scenario gets shot down. So it's a tough situation in Dallas. Let's hope for the best moving forward. You brought up the thunder you unceremoniously called out that they just dismantled the Lakers for a half, but your point, wasn't that your point you just threw that in for giggles. Your point was that this is the best team in the NBA and there's no close second. What makes him so good? Steve: Oh God, their 13 and one and their second best player hasn't played and. Jose: incredible. Steve: I was just looking at something and just it's in incre. It really incredible. Next year they have three first round picks and now you really wanna think about Jose: Wow. Steve: have Utah's pick. Utah's gonna be in the lottery. Let's just play a game here. Let's say they come up with one of the first three picks. Now they also have another, they have Philadelphia's pick. Philadelphia is a border, like a seven, eight C type guy [00:09:00] team, so that's not a great pick. That'll be, but the way they draft that might be a great, they might turn it Jose: sure. Steve: In 27. They have three more first round picks. Just, like this isn't gonna end if they do things right. They're gonna Forever. Jose: yeah, Steve: long as they stay healthy. The, like with the Celtics and teams that have won titles, Denver, they had to get rid of players because they couldn't, they didn't wanna go in the second apron. these picks work, they just move on from guys and Jose: Right. Steve: you keep Che Gil this Williams and home gr and just work around it. Jose: Yeah. Steve: keep this thing going forever and you might not even ever get into the second apron. It's, if you make good picks, it's remarkable. So that's why I think there's no end to this. There's this could go on and the BA with the second apron wanted power with putting in the second. Jose: Yeah. Steve: Defeated a parody Jose: Yeah. Steve: done.[00:10:00] Jose: Yeah. And, good for him. It's a small market team. I'm all in. I, I love to see what they're doing. I love the teams are trying to emulate what they're doing. But we saw it happen in Dallas. That perfect plan is just one bad decision away from going all haywire. So hope that doesn't happen in Oklahoma City. I'm a fan of what they're doing and right now, yeah, they're scary. Scary, good. Steve: If you watched the Laker game the other night and I turned it off quickly, but Lakers are a pretty good team, Jose: Yeah. Steve: for me to admit, but they're a Jose: Yeah, Steve: team, not great, pretty good. Oklahoma City was toying with them. Jose: yeah. Steve: And just toy, it was like, the great boxer fighting this, a mi middle of the Pack fighter just playing like Ali. It is prime, just toying with Jose: Yeah. Yeah, Steve: it's not a pretty thing to watch. And this is a good team, the Lakers, Jose: yeah. They're good. And we'll see how the season plays out. It's a long way to go. Speaking [00:11:00] of injuries we started with that. Injuries and firings, things we don't like to talk about. There's injury in New York, the Knicks Roth to a pretty good start. Dylan Brunson injured. What does that mean for the Knicks? Steve: So I don't think I, they played well against Miami the other night. I don't know. I think it'll hurt them. They've been home for a while. They're gonna go on the road. It's a little harder. Carl Anthony Towns is still a great offensive player. I think the irony of this was there was a little over two minutes left. They were down double figures. Mike Brown left him in. He got hurt when Tom Thito did that. Jose: Yeah. Steve: The news and there was a little inkling, a couple questions to Brown, but when Tibs did that, oh God Jose: Yeah. Steve: media went crazy. The minutes police were out all over the place checking on him and seeing what's going on. So I think and here's the irony in my mind, if you were to rate head coaches in the [00:12:00] NBA or coaches in the NBA, I'd put tib. A notch below the big couple guys like Spra and all, but right up there. You think about it, Mike Brown, better than average coach. Jose: Yeah. Steve: So they traded an outstanding coach probably because of a lot of what we're just talking about, the minutes police and all the other stuff. For a guy that's not as good a coach, and he's doing the same thing as Tim's did. Jose: Right. Steve: Do something like that. Jose: Yeah, it is tough though. You your reputation once it's cemented, just follows you and earned or not. That's what you're held up against because you're absolutely right. If that would happen under tibs watch, he gets thrown under the bus, whereas Mike Brown gets a couple of questions about it. But, on we go hoping for the best, for the Nicks and Jalen Brunson. Another injury, unfortunately was. Low risk, high reward [00:13:00] signing by the Clippers. They brought in Bradley Beal. It didn't cost him a lot in NBA terms but it ended up being the worst possible outcome for both Beal and the Clippers. What does Beal's injury mean for the Clippers? Steve: before we, one of my pet peeves with the NBA is you get teams like the Clippers who go get a guy that's older that has an injury history. If he gets hurt every year, what would you expect? Oh, I know Phoenix had to buy 'em out. So he got big money this year and the Clippers signed it for two years, 11 million. And it's not that, it's not a big hit, Give you some numbers. It'll make you think. In 18 nine, 2018, 19 season played, Neil played 82 games from that. In 20 he played 57, 21 60. Now it gets real good. 22, 40, 23, 50, 24, 53 [00:14:00] year, 53. Now, Jose: yeah. Steve: If you're a gm, and I like Lawrence Frank, but if you're a gm, how are things gonna, you think things are gonna change? Are you kidding? Jose: Right. Steve: absolutely no sense. And if you want, we could talk about the Clippers as a group in a second, but any comments about what I just put out there? Jose: No. History has a way of repeating itself, and when you've got that kind of consistent long-term result, that's what you've got to expect at the best. Moving forward, I think the Clippers were counting on 50 games from Bradley Beal. And they didn't, they're not even gonna get that. Yeah, no, no argument from me. Steve: The only time I saw that work was 85 86 when Boston got Bill Walton, and he was always injured. He played 81 games that year when they won the title, but Jose: Yeah. Steve: year he was hurt most of the year. Jose: Yeah. Steve: it very rarely [00:15:00] works. History's gonna repeat, Jose: yeah. Steve: that's what happens here. Jose: Let's take a let's pause on the deep dive for the Clippers. 'cause you brought 'em up twice. So we're gonna come back to the Clippers. But unfortunately, Bradley Beal is done for the season with hip surgery. Let's see, you know where he ends up next year. Or if he ends up anywhere at all next year. We talked a lot about the Sacramento Kings here. Just the oddity of what they're doing, what they're trying to do. I look at them as a group of really good players. They're good individual players, but they're not a team. And they haven't been a team. And as long as I can remember now you suggested a path forward for Sacramento. What is that? Steve: First of all, if you study sports, not just the NBA ownership's a key. Jose: Sure. Steve: there's no secret that certain teams are always near the top. They're always pretty good because they have great ownership and great management. [00:16:00] Sacramento's got Vivek iv who is, I guess the nice way to say this is very impatient. He fired Mike Brown two years ago, the year after they had their best season in many years. And he goes through those people. Like people go through shirts. He just, Jose: Yeah. Steve: He just fires people left and right. Right now they have a team of misfit toys. They're nice players, but collectively Jose: Okay. Steve: work well together. he also took a guy like Zach Levine, who really, it's gonna be interesting. He's gonna be a free. I know what he's gonna make because a lot of teams really aren't interested. So the Rosen's getting old. He took a gamble on Schroder, and now Schroder I hear is not starting, or I read, he's not starting. And they've got Simon bonus. They never really sat down and said maybe we ought to get a five to go with Simon bonus and make Simon bonus the four. Maybe that'll make us better. Never did that. Jose: Yeah. Steve: He's got Perry, I believe is his GM [00:17:00] now after firing one last year. If Perry's the right guy, Scott Perry, I believe. But if he's the right guy, you gotta sit back and you gotta give him a couple years. Jose: Yeah. Steve: you gotta let him go. And Doug Tri was getting frustrated with his effort of his team. If you've been reading, you gotta let him coach for a couple years. The only thing I'll say is if you give him three, four years, okay? The first year is gonna be not pretty. year, show some improvement, and then into the third year improvement. Again, not saying playoffs or title, Jose: Sure. Steve: better in incremental steps Jose: Yeah. Steve: making the right steps. Not just trying to, oh, that's a big name, Zach Levine, let's get him. And Jose: Right. Steve: of doing that, doing it in an incre, sensible way and try to make something that will last a long period of time. Jose: Yeah. Steve: I don't see that happening in Sacramento. I feel for the SIT fans, 'cause they're pretty good, Jose: Yeah.[00:18:00] Steve: but that's the best way to build a team and hopefully. If you deal these people that I've mentioned just now, maybe you can get couple ones and maybe off the draft do well, but that's trusting your GM and not Him. Jose: It is time for a reset in Sacramento, unfortunately. And I'm really hoping to get it done. 'cause like you said, great fans, great environment. The whole, like the beam thing. It's just, I'm watching the game, I'm getting hyped up watching that watching how hyped up those fans are for their team. So hoping for good things out of Sacramento. We talked about the Clippers, now let's. Talk about them a little deeper dive here. Many called them the winners of the off season. They had a really good, they lost Norman Powell, who's doing great things in Miami, but they brought in people, what people thought was a really good hall of players, a really good group of players. There was some optimism around the Clippers, but their age is showing. You called that out. I think [00:19:00] you have some incredible stats about their youngest player that has key minutes. What's going on in la? Steve: I'm gonna just run through some numbers here of age Which is 33. Collins is 28, Dunn is 31, harden is 36. He's your best player. Jones is 28. Brooke Lopez, 37. Jose: yeah. Steve: Paul, he doesn't even play much, but he's 40. Zoo box is 28 and Jose: I. Steve: Collins is 28. Leonard is 34. A lot of times with sports like the Clippers, Steve Bomber doesn't wanna lose, especially with the new arena being built and all that stuff. they keep selling out and selling out. And where are they? they got some problems. They don't have a draft pick in 27. They don't have a draft pick? No. Rather than they have a draft pick in 27 and 29, 26 and 28. I don't believe they do. [00:20:00] What do you do? They're gonna, they're headed for a downfall. It might not be this year. It might be, you know it, but a big downfall where it's 20 win seasons and if you don't have draft picks. If you look at that roster, who the heck you gonna trade? Harden? What you gonna get back? I don't think you're gonna get a number one at all for him. 'cause he's 36 years old, he making a lot of money. He's still good, but. Again, it's not, unless some team is close and they think he can bring them over the top and even that team might not give up a lot. Jose: Yeah. Steve: is a nice player. It's 28. Maybe you can get something for him, again, you're not gonna get a stack of number ones or anything for him. So what do you do? It's very difficult. I don't know what they're going to do, but I don't know if there's a way out of losing a lot of games. Jose: Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately I think that is the only way out. They are the oldest team when you look at their entire roster, [00:21:00] just over 28. But when you add in the players that are in rotation, that number goes up into the thirties. And the scary thing, I hate to circle back to our number one topic. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the sixth youngest team, which it just boggles the mind. Steve: add something to that. Let's go back a couple years. And I know Kauai wanted a trade made for Paul George Jose: Right. Steve: who got traded for Paul George. Besides draft picks, Jose: Yeah. We should. Yeah. Steve: think they didn't sign Leonard and didn't and just didn't give away all those draft picks and stayed with. Would we be right now? Jose: yeah. Steve: we wouldn't be talking about Oklahoma City, which we spent a little time talking about them before, so that would've been perfect. Jose: I I'm confident when when I speak for all Los Angeles Clipper fans that we just don't wanna talk about it. So on we go. [00:22:00] The last topic. It hurts too much. It hurts way too much. The last point that you covered was that Epic Warrior Spurs Showdown. Now, I think, two games both won by the same team. Told us a lot about both teams. What were your takeaways about both the Warriors and the Spurs after that? Two game Showdown. Steve: There were a bunch. First of all, it was fascinating to watch Draymond Green trying to get in, get into what man's head. Jose: Right. Steve: work but that's, this was classic the upstart against the Fading Champion Jose: Yeah. Steve: classic. It's what every Hollywood writer writes about and all that good stuff. Jose: Yeah. Steve: What I saw was interesting. Golden State just stayed with it, and play it and beat them. For San Antonio, they still have to figure out how they wanna react at the end of a game. And they have to learn how to execute down a stretch. And by that this, and I think back to our podcast a couple weeks ago with the people from San Antonio.[00:23:00] Jose: Yeah. Steve: They talked me about the Aaron Fox and Web B and all that. They're good players. Nobody's arguing, but Aaron Fox have to. Aaron Fox has to sit back and realize he's making a lot of money, 60 million or so. But Weby, he's the meal ticket. So you come down, don't bounce the ball for a half hour and then draw up something. Get the ball to Weby, Jose: Yeah. Steve: go to, and you go down, but you go down the right way. There's one more piece to it. The second pick in the draft is Mr. Harper from last year. Jose: Sure. Steve: Is he playing? No, a future star. He's hurt. He's a future star. If they had him, what would things have been a little different. You wonder. It also says to you, San Antonio's gonna be very good. be great, Jose: Yeah. Steve: It's time. There's still getting better. Getting better, and then Jose: Yeah. Steve: have one more problem right [00:24:00] up the road a couple hours away, about six, seven hours away. Oklahoma City, you have enough to ever beat them, Jose: Yeah. Steve: that's. Jose: The wise words of Joel Embiid are circling in my brain. It is a process and the San Antonio Spurs are going through that process. I think they're gonna be really good this season. I think they're gonna be fun. They won't be an easy out in the playoffs, but they've got a little bit more growing to do. And I think they learn if they're smart. And this is a very smart franchise. They learned a lot. By seeing what the Warriors did to them. Because the warriors, like you said, they got that mentality that the spurs want, that the Spurs need. And hopefully they learned a little something. Steve: Don't forget, new coach, Jose: Sure. Steve: team. And if we go back, I don't know if San Antonio expected to be this good, this quick and the coach would grow into it. He did. He is, but also. I don't know if Popovich [00:25:00] in his day would've made, he might've bought him home and that's important. The other thing too, I don't think Golden State's gonna win a title. If you look at all the other teams that get in the playoffs, don't think one of them wants to play Golden State in the playoffs. Jose: No way. Steve: You never know what the old gang can do. Jose: And what Steph Curry is doing right now is absolutely incredible. He just he looks like he hasn't missed a beat, which is really odd. Guards tend to do what? Kind of what Chris Paul, we're seeing Chris Ball happen. He just he falls off a cliff. That's what generally happens with guards. We're not seeing that with Steph Curry, and I hope we don't. Because it's fun watching him play. Steve: is he in your mind one of the 10 greatest players that ever played? Jose: Oh. I'm gonna have to sit on that. One of the 10 greatest players. He is one of the 10 most impactful players. 'cause he's, he changed the game the way, he shot threes in a way. Most people shoot layups. That changed the game because everybody started doing that after him. So he impacted the game. He's incredibly impactful. [00:26:00] But when you say greatest Steve: Yeah. Jose: I gotta let that simmer for a bit. I don't know if he cracks the top 10, but if he doesn't he's on the bubble for sure. He's that good. Steve: Okay. It's just something to kick around because Jose: Let's kick it around. That's an interesting thought. I. Steve: I'm an older person. I've seen a lot of basketball and I'm always stick up for the old timers. But what he's doing now. Incredible. He's Jose: yeah, Steve: he, how many 40 point games at his age and all those Great things. And this guy, he could be Tom Brady, play him forever. I'm just each game I watch him, it just, and he's still just as good as he always was. Jose: yeah. Steve: he's a little more fragile, but he's just as good as he always was. Jose: Yeah. Steve: I'd have to think of 10 guys and where and so on, but because I just threw the number 10 out there, naturally you get Jordan right away and Wilton Russell and those people, bird and Johnson. Jose: Kareem, Steve: just, five off the [00:27:00] Kareem is six. I knew you'd come up with a Laker while we talked about Jose: That's my goat. Steve: No, you're right. Kareem is, but what I'm saying, okay, that's six Jerry West, seven, Oscar eight. Jose: So I'm saying it, it's tough. And then is magic, better than It's so subjective, man. Yeah. That's why I'm not a big fan of these lists, but they do make you think, right? Yeah. I don't know. Let. Steve: But. Jose: It's a good thought. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna probably think about it all week and I'll, I'll give you my, my, my end result next week, which is a good teaser. Come back next week and I'll let you know where I think Steph Curry lands. Steve: If Harry does this two years like this, who's better? Him and LeBron, Jose: Come on man. You can't, the buzzer already went off. You can't hit me with these now. Steve: why not? Jose: So you're saying he has these, okay. Does he win a, does he win a title? Does he win any title, any more titles in the next two years? Is he just good [00:28:00] individually? Steve: I don't think so. Jose: So you're just saying he continues to excel as an individual player for Steve: doesn't he Jose: years? Steve: Doesn't he have Jose: Yeah. You could argue that he's better than LeBron now without those two years. But again, that's where the subjectivity comes into it, right? All right, next time. Let's throw these out at the start instead of at the end. Because now you know the flag already gone up. I know there's no flag in basketball, but the buzzer went off. We're done. We've gotta we've gotta do, we used to do a 13 rules over time and I think we probably need that again for these kind of conversations. 'cause they're interesting. But that is it. Our time is up. You heard the buzzer go off means literally nothing to us. 'Cause we just keep talking. But thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 rules, random BA thoughts article. We will link it. Wherever you are watching or listening to the show today, please as always subscribe, comment, follow all that stuff means the world to us and we're grateful for all of it. Join us next week for more random NBA thoughts as we recap week number five, we'll talk then Steve. [00:29:00]