Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - A Historic Disaster For Dallas + Playoffs For Blazers? Suns’ Struggles

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk the impact of Kyrie Irving’s injury in Dallas, why this season is one of the biggest disasters in NBA history for the Mavs, the Suns’ struggles including a major concern, if Portland can make the NBA Playoffs and if the Lakers can keep up this hot streak. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello and welcome to the Hoot Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing, I guess it's afternoon, early afternoon here on the East Coast on Tuesday. Joining me from New York, down the boulevard from me is Timbottom's.

Not sure which boulevard. Avenue, I meant to say Avenue. I don't know why I said Boulevard. We're both in the same city. Hello, everyone. Joining us from Phoenix, Arizona, where he's out taking a look at the red hot Phoenix Suns is Band McMahon. Howdy, partners. tough times for the Phoenix Suns and certainly tough times for the teams or the team right above

them in the standings, my hometown team, the Dallas Mavericks dealt some devastating news this morning. So it's time for another funeral, McMahon, and that's for this season. Look, when you have your two best players get hurt, it's incredibly unfortunate. Like, we've seen it in the NBA. It derails seasons. It costs people jobs. It changes NBA history sometimes. When you get your two players hurt and one of them has a catastrophic injury that will impact two seasons. It's horrible. It's, you know, the game of basketball is so important with individual talent and when you potentially lose a player of this quality, Kyrie Irving with a torn ACL, when that happens, it's beyond upsetting.

It can, again, it can totally derail the direction of a franchise. When that happens in conjunction with a historically unpopular trade that already threatens your medium, short and medium term future, you enter into, unfortunately, original unique territory. the last month, because I think it was a month ago today, I think, or a month ago tomorrow maybe, the trade was made on the fourth. I mean, a little more than a month ago. It's a little bit more than a month.

I submit it's in the realm of the worst month for an organization in the history of the sport. I mean, it's got to be right up there. And look, like you said, not only was the Luca trade historically unpopular, it was historically unprecedented. And we've gone over all that territory. but to give up a 25-year-old five-time first-team All-MBA selection, a generational talent who wants to stay with your franchise, nothing like that has ever happened in the sport before.

Now, that trade was made. It's the only way that you're going to kind of salvage things with a heartbroken and outrage fan base is to have tremendous success very soon. Anthony Davis, a player who unfortunately does have a significant injury history, was injured at the time of the trade and immediately became re-injured, has not played since then. And at this point, frankly, it doesn't make sense for him to play again this season. Kyrie Irving has been dealing with injuries. And as this trade happened, and really even before the trade, because Luko obviously was out, but he was playing the most minutes of any player in the NBA, a third.

32-year-old undersized guard who's, you know, dealt with his fair share of injuries during his time. And you can't say, you know, A leads to B, but there's a reason that minutes are a concern. And then, you know, last night, he makes a move where he splits two defenders on a, you know, in transition, gets a little bump from Jonas Valenzhenius. Nothing dirty, you know, but Valenzhenius is trying to cut him off and give him a bump. lands extremely awkwardly on that left foot. And you knew that the second you saw, especially the replay, you saw the way his knee buckled. I mean, there wasn't going to be good news coming out of it. It was just a matter of how bad the news is going to be.

And Nisham's first reported this morning, it's a torn ACL. That's all of this season. We'll see how much of next season. And I do think, like, we need to just first give Kyrie some flowers here. It was a Kobe-like moment where he knew, like Kyrie knew he just suffered a major injury, right? But he is helped to the free throw line. Anthony Davis and a Maver, you know, he's got his arms around. They help him to the free throw line. He sinks the two free throws with the crowd on his feet, tears streaming down his face.

And then he has to be helped off the floor for the final time this season. And this is costing him. He was going to probably be an all-MBA player. You know, there's business ramifications, a million-dollar bonus he's not going to get. You know, we can get into the contract stuff later on. But Kyrie, especially this season, but last season as well, and really even the year they had to tank after the trade, he's been nothing short of phenomenal on the floor for the Mavericks. And he has become a spectacular leader for this franchise that kind of kept this group together. during historic chaos after that Luca trade.

He was the one major face of the franchise who had consistent good messaging after the trade, both internally and to the public. And man, this fan base that was already gutted by the Luca trade, now loses Kyrie for a while the rest of this season. And then we'll see moving forward. It is dark days and Dallas, man. Having to experience that for Kyrie, for the rest of the Mavericks players, and for the Dallas fans is torture. Because obviously if you're watching the game, you know Kyrie's badly injured.

Even if it's a sprained knee, like even if it was a best case scenario. Best case scenario is probably out the rest of the season. You know, there's a month left in the season, a month and change left in the season. So like you're watching that, it's like getting your fingernails ripped out if you're a Mavs fan. And meanwhile, the Lakers are winning every game. Yeah, without Luca even playing at his normal levels, which is we'll get to that later. I mean, the Lakers are scary. And, you know, honestly, Mavericks, like, I was thinking about today, if I'm a Dallas

Morning News editor and I'll give them free advice, even though, well, anyway, I'll give them free advice. I'll give my former employer some free advice. I would assign a reporter to cover the Lakers playoffs. Like, that's the biggest, the biggest Mavericks fans, again, a lot of them are. I don't want to say they're transferring into becoming Lakers fans, but they're definitely loyal to Luca. They're Los Angeles Lucas fans, that's for sure. And they're just not going to be playoff basketball in Dallas. You know, at this point, you know, Anthony Davis is supposed to be re-evaluated on Thursday. So is Derek lively? Lively's working out, but he's got a boot on when

he's not working out. Neither one of those guys is going to come back this week anyway. But there was hope of getting them back for the final two or three weeks of the regular season, you know, establishing as much chemistry as you can in that short of a time, you know, going into the playoffs with that group. At this point, why have them come back? Like, honestly, this team tanked two years ago late in the season, and that's a strategy to make sense right now, because without Kyrie, what's getting into playing going to do for this team? They're not getting out of the plan, and they're certainly not going to make any kind of playoff run. I mean, there was a lot of symbolism in the Dallas Maver's raising season ticket prices yesterday.

And this happening a few hours later, I think it just underscores Brian's point for how catastrophic the past month has been for the franchise. And I'm going to be honest, I don't think Anthony Davis should ever play for the Mavericks again. You shouldn't play the rest of the season and they should trade him this summer. I mean, that's aggressive. It's not aggressive. Nico Harrison talked about they're having a three or four year window with this group that included this season. Okay. Kyrie Irving is going to be a 33-year-old guard who just had a catastrophic knee injury.

was a player option for next season. You basically have to write him off at being a major contributor for next season. Maybe he can come back and do that. You have to assume if you're running the franchise, he's not going to do that. At that point, Anthony Davis will have one year guaranteed left on his deal.

He's going to be approaching his 33rd birthday. This team has really no ability to contend as it stands now without a proper star next to Anthony Davis. You're correct that they should tangy third, for this year's draft because there's nowhere this team is going now anyway. Also, it's kind of like whether they try or not, they're going to be losing. Yeah, they're going to because again, this goes back to the trade deadline where, I mean, look,

I would say it's because as you said, this was a sort of a freak accident. And I would say that the minutes limit or the minutes low that Kyrie has had is not necessarily a contributing factor to this injury. We'll never know. However, we'll never know. The point, but that's not the point. The point is they got through the trade. We talked about it when they made the Luca trade.

If you're going to make the Luca Dachia's trade, it was frankly insane at the time to get through the trade deadline and have one reliable ball handler on the roster. And frankly, they traded, not that Quentin Grimes is a primary ball handler, but he was a guy who was playing well for them offensively as a guard. For a guy in Caleb Martin who hasn't played for him, because he's been hurt.

Caleb Martin was assigned. the Texas Legends today to, you know, get some practice time in. Quentin Grimes had a 44 point game last, last week. Oh my God. I mean, look. I haven't even computed that, McMan. I mean, Jesus. You know, but when you talk about Kyrie's minutes, like if Grimes is on the roster, you know, he can at least. He's not even a ball handler. They needed to go get, if you're going to make this Luca trade, you had to go get another high look. Because again, the whole point was, the whole, the argument for the trade was, we're better right now. We're going to be good right now.

Well, and the other argument for the trade was, oh, my gosh, we can't give that guy the supermax. And again, that's the part. Like, I get the conditioning concerns. I don't think you trade a 25-year-old generational talent because of that. But the supermax thing, that's already water under the bridge. That part's water under the bridge. That's why to me.

Well, my point is this. If you have him on a supermax deal in a year and a half, you still feel the same way, you put them up to the highest bid. Of course. Making the trade now was not necessary. No, but that's all water under the bridge. Now, that's why we have to look at the situation they're in now, which is why Anthony Davis should not be on the team next season.

He should not be. The prudent thing to do for the Mavericks, as insane as it is because of what's happened over the last month, is to trade him this summer for a giant bag of stuff and start over. Because this group is not going to win. Well, again, like, you could argue Nick Harrison shouldn't have a job in a month for how this is gone. Like, that probably won't happen either. But like if you're asking what should the Mavericks do, there's no question what the Mavericks should do.

They should trade Anthony Davis because they do not have a chance to win with this team. And the whole point of putting this together was to win now. Well, the other problem though, and this was a problem when you made the trade of Luca. And this was because you actually managed to build a contender around him. But in doing so, you gave up control of your draft capital from 27 to 30. So like pivoting into a rebuild is, it's like the Phoenix Suns right now. Pivoting into a rebuild for the Phoenix Suns doesn't make sense unless you can get back your draft capital. Now the Suns, it'd be a lot easier.

There's one team that's holding it. For the Mavericks, it's the Hornets, and then it's your closest geographical rivals, the Thunder, the Rockets, and the Spurs. Well, and I'm not saying they're going to get their draft capital back. But, I mean, it's sort of, it's, it is analogous to what I've talked about at least with the Sun's situation where, like, there's not a a realistic path to contention with this group. I guess you could argue to me, if you want, that Kyrie Irving will come back at 34 at 100% off this knee and he'll be a star guard and you'll play him with AD and that'll be the core of a contending team. I just, I don't think that's, I'm sorry, that's not a prudent way to approach running a franchise when you're talking about already a small

guard who was already dealing with back issues. It's had a lot of health issues over the years. now has had a bad injury to the same knee hurt eight, nine years ago. And Anthony Davis already gets hurt a lot anyway and is only getting older and is only getting more expensive. Like it's it, it just the only argument for the Luca trade was we can win right now. And all they've done is lose since then, have these guys get hurt since then. And it's like, I mean, I think I agree with you, Brian. It's hard to imagine a worse month for a team, especially when you're talking about

self-inflicted wounds for most of it. Well, the thing about it is is that you can have bad injury luck. And, you know, there are many teams that set themselves up beautifully for three, three, four years in a row. And maybe only one of those years, they are truly healthy. The thing that they did with Luca, as you've pointed out, is that they tightened their window. Three to four years by Nico Harrison's own words.

So the problem is, is that when you have, when you lose a year due to injury, which, you know, the Warriors are the classic example of this. They were totally derailed due to injury. They retooled and they won. Now, obviously, that doesn't happen to every team, but that's what you're looking at. You lose a year. I mean, I've talked about this in the past.

When you go to the lottery and you look at those 14 teams in the lottery, there's two types of teams there. There's tanking teams and there's injured teams because there's been plenty of well-constructed teams that end up in the lottery because of bad injury luck. And we just, something that we just sort of happens in basketball, you just see certain teams have a string of injuries. Like some teams never get hurt and some teams, their whole team gets hurt.

It's a nature of basketball. But because they traded the 25-year-old for the 30-year-old and banked on the other 30-year-old, they now cannot withstand injury. They just can't do as much. If you have a younger team that does it, like, I don't want to be accused of drinking something. But let's say last year the Celtics had some injury concerns, like a couple of players got hurt. they'd still be back this year with a window wide open. But when you've jammed the window shut, you've forced,

you've just given yourself no margin for error. They announced they had a three to four year window. And in the first year of the window, the guy blew his knee out, probably knocks you out of the second year of the window. Now the window's closed. The window's closed a month later. Yeah.

And so I'm just saying, like on one hand, it's terrible fortune. On the other hand, they have put themselves in a position where they have no ability to withstand terrible fortune. Yeah, the injuries are terrible misfortune. The trade was your decision.

And it's a decision that was, you know, immediately shocking and outraged your fan base. And more than a month later, honestly, it's only gotten worse. Yes. And this fan base, the outrage is turning into apathy. And that is, and like they announced yesterday, the raising season ticket prices. And it's just like, wow. Like I said earlier, the combination of that happening, the day this happened with Kyrie is just like the icing on the Sunday for this thing. McMahon, we were in Dallas for the finals.

Just on beautiful sunny Dallas days. You know, like, yeah, they were losing and whatever. But like. Had one of the best players through age 25 on the roster in the history of the sport. And less than a year later, the entire thing has gone up in smoke. That night in Minneapolis. where they won the series in five. Yeah.

And Kyrie is just totally redemptionville. Luca triumphant. Patrick Dumont accepting the trophy, you know, congratulations. Nico Harrison, like being argued for executive of the year because of the trades. Like Derek lively. Derek lively tossing down these lobs and like, oh my God, what a perfect player for Luca. Yes. had it set up.

I mean, that wasn't nine years ago. And the moves that they made. Nine months ago. Drafting lively. Drafting lively. The tank was totally worth it. You got the perfect big to pair with your generational star who hasn't hit his prime yet. You get Gafford.

Okay, you've got a tag team of those guys now. PJ Washington. Hey, we didn't think it was a good trade at the time. We were wrong. He's been great in Dows. And he, you surrounded Luca with this big, long, athletic group, you know, Kyrie and Luca, the chemistry was, I mean, was phenomenal. You know, the, the, uh, Hermanos, I mean, they had something and things went,

things got really, I mean, the relationship between Luca and specifically Nico Harrison really went to poop this year. But man, to, to, for that to lead to a trade. And, and again, the condition concerns, I get it. But my goodness, I don't get. You wait a year and a half. You supermax the guy. You see if you feel that one, eight.

Here's what the situation really is. You have extreme sympathy for Kyrie Irving. Yes. You have, I got sympathy for Anthony Davis. Yes. Who probably came back too soon when he was hurt because he was trying to get the world off of Nico Harrison's neck. Okay.

There's, by the way, I'm not a doctor. There's no doubt he came back too soon. Yeah. I don't think that's questionable. You know, it was a connected injury. you have extraordinary sympathy for the Mavericks fans. Well, some of them, not the ones who say really mean things. Okay, fine.

The in total, Maver's fan base in total. Yes, the fan base that had poured their heart into this franchise that thought they got the perfect successor to Dirk, that the torch had been passed, they were going to get an entire career of another generational star as a face of the franchise. Yes, it is as big a gut punch as you've ever seen in basketball. But for the team itself, despite it not being, quote unquote, their fault that Kyrie and Anthony Davis got hurt, there's going to be an absence of sympathy.

Well, there is no sympathy because this, again, this is the situation that they, you know, frankly, Nico Harrison sort of boasted about. It's like, we built a team for the next three or four years. And look, the bottom line is, again, like, I know people are going to hear me say this about Anthony Davis and it's going to sound hyperbolic. but it's really not. Like, it does not make sense for him to be on the roster next season. I mean, you keep saying that, but we're dealing in fairy tale land. Well, it's not fairytale land. I'm saying what they should do. I should not have traded Luca, obviously, but they should, if you're really running the team properly, if you really are, if you're really doing the job, he shouldn't be on the team.

Well, the reason I completely disagree with that is because pivoting into a rebuild makes no sense. mean you have to pivot into a rebuild. But where are you going? Where are you going with into his mid-30s, Anthony Davis, and no perimeter players and no draft picks? That's a decision that I think could be in the summer, but not the summer 25. I think that's a decision for the summer of 26. Again, I'm not saying the Mavericks are doing it.

Nico Harrison's clearly, if he's still in charge, he's clearly not going to trade Anthony Davis two months after he traded Luke from for Luka Donchage's form. So I'm not saying that's what he is going to do. But if you look at where the Mavericks are at, the situation is so bad, so fast that the correct thing for them to do would be to do that. The really difficult decision this summer is going to be Carrey Irvin's contractual situation. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. So here's Kyrie Irving's situation contractually. He has a $44 million player option for now.

next season that I think a lot of people assumed he was going to bypass and enter free agency with the likelihood of just resigning in Dallas. It was really going to be a question of how much could he get from the Mavericks, you know, or at least extend off of it. Right. That's true. He could opt in and extend off of it. Now I think it's pretty elementary. He's going to pick that up. I suppose the Mavericks could work something out, but it's hard to know what the future is going to be. And I think that I think it would probably be prudent just to pick it up. Well, you say that. I don't want to assume that. Kyrie was in a position where he was going to have as much leverage over the Mavericks as you could possibly imagine. You make the Luca trade.

He's, you know, the franchise weight is on the shoulders of him along with AD. But he's the clear leader like you were going to have to take care of him. Honestly, they might still be in a position where they have to take care of Kyrie Irving. Why? Well, because if you ever want to get players in Dallas, if you do Kyrie wrong after the way the Luca trade went down and let's just be frank, the franchise dumped on them on the way out, boy, that's going to be awfully tough to overcome from a reception standpoint with players throughout the NBA.

This is not, this is not corporate America. This is not Nike. It is not the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. This is a business that is built around the players. And I'm just telling you, if after everything Kyrie is done for this franchise, if they don't take care of him, I think that would be a pretty damaging blow to the reputation of the Dallas. Define take care of him. I don't know what that means. Yeah, I mean, this is an insane position to take.

I mean, you can't be signing this guy to some long-term contract this summer when you have absolutely no idea what he's going to look like off this injury. Like, you just, you can't do that. Well, you hope he picks up the player option. You know, you hope he does that. Well, look, the comparison here is to Kyrie is to Kobe. Yeah. Kobe tore his Achilles and the Lakers gave him a two-year $48 million deal.

Famously took the free throws, just like Kyrie. I mean, it was a Kobe. After playing insane minutes. although Kobe's minutes. Kobe was playing like 46 a night. Yeah, he was playing basically every minute of every game. It's really not comparable. However, there is some parallel.

Kyrie, Kobe's idol. You know, Kobe was Kyrie's idol. I don't think it was a mistake or an accident that he did that, you know, in the moment. No, I mean, the visual of him at the free throw line with the tear running down his cheek is, unfortunately, the image of the Maverick season. 100%. And it'll be. This is a man who has one of the most indelible memories of the last 20 years in the NBA of hitting that three-pointer. In fact, when he was back at the All-Star weekend and there was the events at Oracle, whatever it's called now, I think he was with Cassidy Hubbard for an interview.

And he was kind of reliving like the spot, you know, because he hadn't been back, you know, in years. He was kind of reliving the spot. So this is a guy who's already got, you know, this incredible moment. but the memory of Kyrie Irving, one of the memories of his career now is going to be that moment. But I don't think he's Kobe. They can't give him a thank you for the five championships. That was a dumb decision at the time, too. But I understand why they did it.

I mean, no, this is, again, like. I'm just saying if Kyrie ops out, the Mavericks are in a very, very, very tough spot. I don't think they're in a very tough spot. It would be, I mean, again, look, we're talking about somebody. who has done some delusional things, it would be a delusional thing to have $42 million on the table and opt out of it after 44, sorry, after you blew out your knee. Like, I mean, if he does that, then okay. Like, if somebody wants to pay him a max, fine.

Well, I'll say this. This contract, there was not a real free agency market for Kyrie when he signed this contract, which was not a max deal. you know, he took enough under Max to leave the Mavericks some wiggle room to operate and try to make upgrades. But if you recall, the big question after the trade with Kyrie in terms of, after the trade to get him from Brooklyn, I'm saying, in terms of that summer was, are the Lakers going to make a run at him? They chose not to. They re-signed DeAngelo Russell and Ruy Hotchamura and, you know, whatever. The Lakers could have made that

a difficult decision for Kyrie. They wouldn't have been able to get to the same numbers the Mavericks, but they could have gotten to a point where he would have had a decision to make. They didn't. There was no market for Kyrie and Free Agency above mid-level, and the Mavericks gave him a three-year deal for $120 million and change. But it wasn't coming off. But it was also because they understood, like, dude, when you're dealing with players, it's not corporate America where you get what you get. And, you know, that was a, that, Kyrie Irving wasn't hurt.

This is a totally different situation. No, it's a different situation. I agree with that. No, I think he's opted into that contract, and then they're going to re-evaluate everything where they see the lay of the land different in a year from now. That's what makes the most sense. And look, if he comes back and plays well, like, look, if Nico is still in charge of the team, despite the fact of what they should do with the roster, I'm sure they're not going to trade Anthony Davis.

And if Kyrie comes back and by the end of next season is playing like Kyrie Irving again, then I'm sure they will pay him. if all of these factors are all still in place. If Nico's still there, if the same plan is still in place. You being so convinced that they just, like, trade Anthony Davis for who for one? No, look, listen. Well, I'm not, I'm not going to start laying out hypothetical anything. I think analytically, analytically, I understand his position, McMahon.

I understand. Anthony Davis's value is only doing this, only going down. You created a three-the-four-year time frame, the first two years of that, probably, certainly And those were realistically the two best years of the time frame. That's that's the problem. Like, again, but the point is, like, whatever you want to say about what they should do with Kyrie Irving, like, he just blew his knee out. Extending him on some huge deal right now would be insane to do. You have to see what he looks like. The only thing that would make any sort of sense on any sort of contract is if Kyrie were to take a big pay cut off of that $44 million and sign a multi-year deal that adds, guaranteed money to him that would give the Mavericks flexibility for next year.

And I mean, again, it's kind of like trading Anthony Davis. I can produce a white paper. I can produce a, you know, a deck that, you know, explains why that would make sense. But practically, I don't say it happens. And it's not like they can do anything salary-wise anyway. They're way over the tax or they're way over the cap. It's not like they could go sign free agents if they did that. And if, like, I'm Kyrie Irvin, talk me into it.

Like, I'm going to give money back. You know, Kyrie's still, like, one of the most skilled players in the history. I understand the age and all that. But if he takes his money next year, there will be some level of market. The other thing is Kyrie's reputation has been completely repaired during his stint in Dallas. And I'm not saying it's smoke and mirrors. I think that is a credit to him, a credit to, you know, the growth that he's made, the maturation, the work that he's done.

You know, like I'm talking about like mental health work. he's done? Like, I know the history with Kyrie, but I'm just telling you, in Dallas, the guy has been nothing short of an ideal leader for that. Yes. And he's been actually a really good, at a time when they need an ambassador, he's been as good of an ambassador as they could have while also keeping respect towards Donchich. Their relationship has not suffered at all. I would just say that no matter what, no matter what is, no matter what's going on, Kyrie will believe he will bounce back from this because his game, while he is not, while he is a guard and guards getting hurt, getting bad injuries in their 30s is not great.

As you said, McMahon, his game is predicated on skill. It's not predicated on speed, on athleticism. Obviously, you have to be able to move at an NBA level, but he will be able to work wizardry with the ball when he recovers from the AC. So if I'm him, you're focusing on getting better and you're betting on yourself, which means you pick up the option and see where you are in a year. Okay, so the Mavericks right now, as we record this podcast, are in 10th place by a game. They are only two games out of 6th, which was an interesting conversation 24 hours ago, but is not really now. So now let's look at the teams below them.

The Sons have lost 8 of 10. you're there in Phoenix. You've been there for several days, McMahon. They've, there are three games back in the loss column of the Mavericks. They are and they're spiraling. And, you know,

Kevin Durant, Tafflis, honest, I mean, he said it perfectly. They embarrassed themselves the other night against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The only transition defense they played the entire second half was when Bradley Beal pushed Aunt in midair when Aunt was going Harlem Globetrotts.

on them trying to throw down a dunk off the, you know, Divenchino. This was moments after Ant danced in the paint after hitting some free throws. You know, I had 44 points. By the way, also the only time, I'm going on tangent here, but this is just too good. The only time I've ever seen a review that turned an out of bounds on the offensive team into a flagrant one. Like the ref, you know, it was a little fella at the vantage point. He's looking way up.

But how do you miss that call? First off, Bradley Beale is out of line with that foul. Anthony Edwards could have gotten hurt. If you don't want him to dunk, then you get back there and you give a real foul where you get up there and you foul him on the catch. You do not push him in the air. Yeah, two-hand shove. And I know Beal said after the game that he was just, he didn't want to let that happen.

He thought it was, they were, I don't know. They were showboating. Yeah, basically they were showboating. So absolutely unacceptable from a guy in Burr, Bradley Beal who does not have that reputation. Right. But it's indicative of the frustration throughout the genic Sons organization real quick, though, and we talked last pot about the 16 T's and all that.

So you can imagine how upset Ant was that he didn't get a whistle immediately on that. If you see he got up, Beal actually helped him up, he got up and Ant bolted toward the bench with his hands up. And according to one of his teammates, he said, just take me out of the game now. Take me out of the game. He was not going to talk to the refs. I didn't understand. I was watching it, and I didn't understand they didn't call the foul.

I thought, oh, they're just going to check to see if it's a flagrant too, which I thought it might have been, quite frankly. They called out of bounds on the, on the woods. I didn't understand that he wasn't. Again, there was no foul call. That was a moment that was indicative of just how frustrated the Phoenix Suns are. You know, Kevin Durant postgame talked about how they embarrass themselves. Devin Booker has talked about Booker's postgame media session last, I believe,

73 seconds. I don't think it was that long. I watched it. I thought it was under a minute. According to my time, I was there, 73 seconds. Well, that's a good source. Yes. I looked at this thing.

But in the week prior, he's talked a lot about the poor communication with the Phoenix sons. Our buddy, Chris Haynes, reported that Mike Boodenholzer had gone to Booker and basically said, hey, stop talking so much in huddles, like, tone it down. And the Booker was shocked by that. I can tell you that report is 100% accurate. That did happen. There's a lot of friction between the coach, you know, between Bud, who is the third coach in two and a half years under this ownership group and the players on this roster. You still got all the kind of lingering stuff

from the trade deadline that's hovering. You know, Wendy, you've said, and it's common sense, the anticipation is that Kevin Durant will work with the Sons this summer to find a trade destination. It's, even though the window is now open, it's hard to imagine that the suns just kind of sweep all this stuff under the rug and go on a little run here. Like, I will say this. Like, this is, you would think this is not that you ever want to look at one of your peers' injuries as a rallying point. But if you're looking for an opportunity to put your foot in the ground and say, let's find a way to, pivot here, you know, looking at the team directly in front of them, having this injury situation, like, this is the moment. I just don't know if they're equipped to do it at this point.

I mean, they're actually healthy. For all their lack of health, they're actually healthy right now, the suns. It's hard to put the air back in the balloon, you know, and this, this franchise feels like a big, bright, deflated balloon right now. Look, they're seven and 13 in their last 20 games. They've basically been healthy for every game. I think they've easily been, the most disappointed team in the league. When you look at the situation they're in, coupled with the fact that their guys have been healthy. And if you look at what they've got coming down the stretch, they have 21 games left. 18 of them are against teams of winning records.

One of those games is against Dallas. You want to say Dallas is a bad team now. Fine. 17 of the 21 games are against playoff teams and teams of winning records. I mean, how many of those games are they winning? And the unbelievable thing about this is there is a world where the Houston Rockets get a better draft pick out of the Phoenix Suns out of the trade they made with the Brooklyn Nets.

Yeah. To give the Nets back their pick and take back the Phoenix Suns pick. Oh my God. It's unlikely, it's unlikely, but there's a real world where the Phoenix Suns

have a better pick in this draft. Just real quick, I want to unpack what you just said because I hadn't thought about that. This kind of stuff, the reasons we keep Bontems around, McMahon. Every now and then we get ready to throw them out, we decide to bring back.

You don't think I know the Rockets and Sun's pick situation? I would give it. Bontems for that. as a reminder but uswb moment here for sure when the sons did the deal for kevin durant they traded away their control of like seven straight drafts to the nets the nets had those picks which are obviously very valuable

the nets wanted to do their own tank job but they couldn't tank because they had traded away control of their next few drafts to the rockets in the james hardin trade so last year there was a unique trade made where the nets reacquired the control of their next two drafts by trading the Sun's assets, two or three of the Sun's assets to the Rockets. And the Rockets were betting on sort of the Sun's struggling more medium range as opposed to short term because they figured, well, the Sun's pick in 25, 26, probably not going to be as good as it potentially as 27, 28, or 29 or whatever they got. And so what Bonn-Thames is

pointing out is that despite that, that the Nets who have significantly overachieved and are messing around and, you know, potentially making the play in, despite multiple tanking trades might by their front office, the suns could sink below them. And the sons, the sons are likely to fall behind them fully, but they're right now tied for 11th in lottery standings with Atlanta and their San Antonio has that pick. And they're a half game up on Portland, we'll talk about in a bit. and, you know, they're very real chance that they have a, they potentially are sending a top 10 pick to the Rockets at minimum,

which is certainly not what the expectation would have been when the season began. Well, and they got, the Rockets got this year, that swap. They got the. Is that protected, that swap? No, it's not protected. My God, what if the Suns hit into the, the top four. Nor is the 27 pick that they got. Okay, but 27. That was my point about nor is the 29 pick that the Rockets got from the Suns and the Suns and that end. Nor is the Mavericks

pick that the Rockets got from the Kyrie trade. The Rockets got four draft assets for giving back two. I'm pretty sure Atlanta jumped up from 10th last year to the number one pick. It'd be quite something if the Rockets end up a Cooper flag. We've routinely seen teams outside the top eight jump into the top four. Since the lottery odds were rebalanced with, I think, the Zion J. Amaranth draft, we've routinely almost guaranteed to see at least somebody from beyond seven and down getting the top four. Like that's- But, you know, we're talking about the Mavs misfortune opening up an opportunity for a struggling sons team. Just to put in perspective, the sons have won three times since February 1st. They beat the jazz at home. Let me just tell you their three wins. They beat the

Jazz at home in overtime. Oh. They beat the late to the game tanking bowls. And then they beat the Pelicans, the second night for back to back, after the Pelicans smoked the sun's night before Zion sat the second night. Those were their three wins. And then they opened March by, again, KD summed it up well by embarrassing themselves against the Timberwolves.

More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Okay. On January 18th, the Blazers lost their fifth game in a row and fell to 13 and 28, which is not- Flag, baby, here he comes. Which is not that far from where we thought they would be. Then they began a stretch where they won 10 of 11 games going to the All-Star break. And they, going into tomorrow night's game in Boston, which, you know, not feeling so good about that, but you never know.

they are now 28 and 34. So since that stretch, since January 18th, they are 15 and 8, okay? And which is their best friend of basketball probably since the Lillard trade. And so now they sit at four games out of 10th place in the Western Conference with the Sons and the Mavericks ahead of them. and the team that's tied for them with them is the spurs. So the three teams around them are either badly injured. By the way, Stefan Castle's been putting up huge numbers since Victor went down. I don't know if anybody's paying attention.

He's probably, this is time for another pod, but he's vaulting himself toward the front of the rookie of the year. I was going to say people with a rookie of the year vote need to pay attention. But yeah. So listen, number one, a lot of people pounce on the Blazers for not making a traded the deadline. But you know what? They wanted to see how this young group would Well, I questioned it too, but they could not have predicted the teams all around them to fall the pieces. But go ahead. But it was absolutely fair to question. You know, I think you can still

make the argument that it would have been in the long term best interest, but they gave this young group a chance to, you know, to see what they could do together. And this team has responded. Chonzie Billups all season long, or at least the first half of the season, there There's all kinds of noise, speculation, whatever you might be about his job security. Chonsie Billups has done one hell of a job coaching this team. And a trade that the Blazers made last summer has paid great dividends. Denny Obdia is proven to be a really, really, really versatile. Yes, that was an excellent trade.

Another trade that they made before last season has paid dividends. And look, DeAndre Aitin is a polarizing player. But to get to Moni Kamara in that deal, It was a great move. Let me just tell you, during this 20 game, the last 20 games since, you know, last 21, he's played 20, this stretch that you referred to. He's averaged almost 13 points on 55% shooting, 47% from three point range, seven rebounds, almost two assists, almost a block per game. He's a great defensive player. They've got some nice pieces.

Scoot Henderson is certainly, after a rough rookie season, has shown some flat. And the best thing for a young team like this in terms of development is to be able to play meaningful basketball games late in the season. You know, perhaps in the play-in, that's one of the benefits, I think, of the play-in scenario. And Portland, to their, you know, to the Blazers' credit, has positioned themselves where they get to play meaningful basketball for the final month and a half of the season. I think they're going to make the play-in. When you look at the way the Blazers have played over the last several weeks,

15 and 6 in their last 21 games. Over that stretch, they have the second best defense in the league. They're sixth in net rating, plus eight points per 100 possessions. These young guys have all taken steps forward. You just laid out some of them there, McBan. It's been an awfully impressive turnaround. And you look at the disaster that the sons have been, and you look at the seemingly impending disaster that Douse is going to be,

like, yeah, they've got to make up three or four games over the next six weeks, but Portland's playing better than all these other teams, for sure. The Lakers woke up at the beginning of the week on Monday and the second seed. They've got the Pelicans and the Knicks at home this week, and then they come east, and Bontemps, you're going to see them Saturday against the Celtics. They are, got a couple of guys down right now, but they avoided major injury with Hachammer and Austin Reeves. So by Saturday night, Bontems, is that a finals preview?

I mean, look, the Lakers keep winning games, they keep guarding. You know, like I've said a couple times, I want to see how they go through this whole stretch. But every game they win, you got to give them more credit and have more faith that they could be a real threat in the West. And while I still do wonder about their defense ultimately at the highest level, when you've got Luca and LeBron playing together on the wing, two huge wings who are incredibly high basketball IQ guys who can set up their teammates as well as anybody. who's ever played, you're going to have a shot. And, you know, it's just unbelievable to look at where the Lakers are today and where the Mavericks are today compared to where they were this past summer. It's, it's frankly remarkable. How about go back to Christmas, the day that Luca went down and the Mavericks were playing as well as anybody in the league at that point, certainly anybody

in the Western Conference. And look, the defense with the Lakers, will there maybe be some aggression probably. I mean, the three-point shooting numbers tell you probably, but they are locked in. They are believing in it. And, you know, defense wins championships. Nico Harrison says, well, the Mavericks were the number one defense for the last quarter of the season. Luca can be a functional defensive player, especially when you protect him and you put him in a position to be a help defender where you can use his hands, he can use his anticipation. So will the defense slip a little probably? But I promise you this. you have not seen the best of Luca in a Lakers uniform. He has had two games so far that are what I would say are typical Luca offensive performances.

Two, the guy is still shooting under 40% from the floor in a Lakers uniform. He is going to average 30-ish points on good efficiency. They are rolling right now with him nowhere close to that. Lakers exceptionalism exists for a reason. So I'm going to say. Well, I will say this. this road trip will be a really good test. It's Boston, I think Brooklyn, Boston, Brooklyn, Milwaukee,

and then they get the rematch in Denver after they, you know, use that defensive game plan against Yokic. And, you know, everybody's leaving Russell Westbrook open. I'm sure that the Lakers who are leaving all three-point shooters, they don't respect open, will be doing that again. But let's see where the Lakers are at the end of that road trip. I'm not putting anything past them right now. because if you defend, you give yourself a chance to win every game.

So second place. Let's see the next time we talk where they're at. All right. Thank you to Jackson, our producer. Thank you to Bonn-Tempson McMahon. Thank you for listening and watching the HOOC collective. We will talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.