Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Change Coming In Phoenix? Minutes Concern For Knicks? The Finals Favorites

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk the significance of the Thunder downing the Celtics, if those two teams are the favorites for the NBA Finals, a huge game-winner for the Knicks, interesting comments from Mikal Bridges on the minutes for starters, some NBA Player Participation Policy fines and what the future holds in Phoenix. 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. the Hoop Collective podcast, we talk about the NBA, what you're doing on Thursday afternoon, joining us from his family's homestead in Tenafly, New Jersey, Tim Bonteps. Hello, everybody.

I like that hockey stick he got back there. You do some cross-checking as a youth. I do have a high. I did play a year of hockey when I was very small. There's VHS types of me just falling down and getting up when I was, I think, in kindergarten playing for a year. He's from the Canadian border. I mean, you have to kind of have to. joining us from Houston, Texas, where he was at the Rockets game last night. I don't remember who they played. They're playing the Mavericks tomorrow. He's Ban McMahon.

Howdy partners? They play the Sons. You might recall the heavyweight wrestling match that broke out between Steve and Mason Plumley. Let me just say. We're going to talk a lot about the Sons later. I was very focused on the Thunder Celtics game last night, so I didn't see it. But I saw the who do you, who gets in, you know, Olympic style Greco-Roman wrestling? Does Mason Plumley get the points for the takedown of Stephen Adams there?

Because it looked like he had top position. He definitely ended up on top. Now, should the thing have continued, you know, without interference from others trying to break it up, I don't like Plumley's odds to emerge as the victor. But, hey, Stephen Adams was on his back. Plumley was on top. You know, I'm now. I've got to see Stephen Adams tomorrow.

So I don't want to come. Listen, I'm, no, I got you. Those are two big fellas, but there's few fellows bigger than Stephen Adams. I was with, we were doing TV in L.A. I was with Kendrick Perkins. And, you know, Perkins has a special place in his heart for Stephen Adams because they, when Adams was a rookie, I mean, Adams took his job, quite frankly. Yeah.

They drafted them to replace Perk in Oklahoma City. And Stephen Adams told me this amazing. I did a feature on Stephen Adams, like, after his rookie year, he told me this one of my favorite stories, which was like the first day of practice. you know, Perk knew he, they had drafted his replace, but he was a lottery pick. And, you know, there was this, you know, he was obviously a big ox, but they didn't know anything about him yet. And so they're guarding each other.

Stephen Adams on the second team. Perk's on the first team. And Perk catches the ball in the post and turns around and like slams Stephen Adams with an elbow in his chest. You know, we know now that the man is virtually immovable. But at the time, this was all, you know, Perk thought he was going to intimidate him. And Perk growled at him. I'm the only silverback,

which only endeared Perk to Stephen Adams. I think Perk was trying to, you know, establish dominance. But anyway, I was surprised to see Stephen Adams be taken down by anybody, but that did happen in that game. I do remember that feature is a great feature.

The most memorable line was when Steve Mabbs set his hometown in New Zealand smelled like farts. That's right. Rota Rua, New Zealand. There was sulfur in the water. And I believe I'm not a very good mimic, but I remember the quote very well. He's like, yeah, it smells like farts is what he said. I was like, wait a minute, did you say it smells like farts?

He's like, farts. Anyway, love Stephen Adams. He invited me to come to his camp in New Zealand, which I would love to do. Oh, that'd be interesting. It's only 18 hours away. It's a long trip. Okay, so we did have an interesting game on Wednesday night, and I know it's going to be a couple of days old. by the time his pod comes out, but I don't think we're doing it justice if we just let it say in the past.

Bontemps, you were there in Boston. When Jalen Williams was ruled out, you know, the Celtics became the distinctive favorites for that game. And the thunder never bent. Chet Holmgren had a great performance. Shea was awesome as usual. And, you know, Jalen Brown was not. So when you walked out of the TD Garden on Wednesday, night. What were you thinking? I thought the thing I've thought all season, which is that that will be

the NBA finals, and that was the first time I've walked out of a game there in a long time, thinking the team could beat Boston four out of seven games. I didn't feel that way when they beat Denver the other day. I didn't feel that way when the Cavs beat them. You certainly aren't going to lose to the Knicks, any of these other teams. But Oklahoma City is deep enough and good enough and can do enough things to beat the Celtics four times out of seven. Not sure they will if they face off in the finals. I still think I'd pick Boston to win because I think they are deeper and more versatile overall than the Thunder. But as you watch this game play out, like you said, even though Jaylon Williams didn't play, I think this was a good reminder of the way Chet Holmgren

was playing at the start of the season. I don't disrespect to Jaylon Williams, who deserved to be an All-Star this year and very well may make an All-N-B-A team. Chad Holmgren is the second best player on the Thunder, in my opinion, when he's right. I think you saw why in this game. And certainly if you go back through and look at it, the Celtics missed a ton of wide open threes. They generated a lot of really good looks in the game. They scored at Will and the paint on an awesome thunder defense. When they shot it in the paint, which was not very often. Which they didn't shoot often, which we'll get to.

So there's things you could certainly, I don't think it's a sky's falling thing for the Celtics that they missed some open threes and ended up losing to the thunder. But for an Oklahoma City team that is still maturing and, has not been in a lot of big spots. You know, I know they were a little disappointed. They weren't going to have their full team to see what they look like in that game last night. And to go in there and play the way they did against the Celtics and take that game in the fourth quarter. It was incredibly impressive.

And like I said, walking out of there, it just reinforced my belief that the Thunder are far and away, the best team in the Western Conference and should be in the NBA finals and should be playing Boston. And McMahon, you were covering a game. I don't know how much you got to see of it. If I'm a Celtics fan, I'm just saying, eh, we shot 5 of 27 on threes in the second half. That's not going to happen often in a playoff series. I can see the Celtic fans,

I mean, I'm respecting what you're saying in Bontas, but I can see the Celtic fans batting it away going. If we just have an average three-point second half, we win the game. And Porzingis was out. I mean, Porzingis was out, but so was Jalen Williams. It was a gut check for the thunder, and they dealt, and they delivered. Yeah, I was covering a game,

but I definitely had Celtics Thunder on the TV there. Bon Temps, he's got this ability to look at like two or three screens at once. As you guys know, I can't do that. You guys do that all the time. Bomb Temps is good with it too. You're right.

And look, this was a game like you had to keep an eye on this game. And I'm going to take a little victory lap here because bomb temps, when we were discussing in the Thunder before, and you talked about the need for Jalen Williams to prove he can be that legit number two option, you know, at the highest level of the playoffs for them to be able to get where they obviously want to go.

I said, I think Chet Holmwin also has to be considered as a candidate for that role. And I don't, you know, who's two, who's three, whatever. 2A, 2B, it doesn't matter. They've got two all-star caliber guys in Shade Gildes-Alexander's supporting cast. Jailene Williams has been an all-star. Chet Hongren certainly started off the season. like Chet started off the season, playing at an all-MBA type of level. And, you know, whether he's playing the five, whether he's playing the four,

he's a seven-footer who has perimeter skills. He's a seven-footer who has the ability, last night he shot three well. He has the ability to, especially if he's attacking closeouts, to, you know, to put the ball on the floor and to, you know, make plays. He's a good passer. that Chet's performance, because, you know, he's still pretty early coming back off of obviously a very serious injury. Chet's performance in that game to me was by far the most important thing. If they get that guy come playoff time, Thunder are going to be extraordinarily difficult to beat. They're still going to need another guy on the perimeter to make plays and create shots.

That's not really what Chet does. Chet was awesome in the game. They're going to need Jay Williams to play a lot better than he did in the playoffs. last year. But look, a huge part of that game last night was when Jayle Williams, with him not there, and in the non-Shay minutes, which have been a huge problem for the Thunder, at least by Thunder standards, they don't have a lot of problems. They were plus three in those nine minutes, and that was a huge part of why they won the game. I will say, because I was looking up on off stuff, just thinking about MVP stuff the other day, and they are like, I mean, it's an insane

number with Shea on the floor. For a while, they were about even. with Shea off the floor. When I looked the other day, their net rating was plus 2.9, which is, you know, it's pretty good. It's like plus 17 or 18 with them on the floor. Yeah, it's a minor problem. Certainly a minor issue. That's plus 2.9 with Jay and Williams almost always being on the floor in those minutes. So the fact they're able to win those minutes without Shea and without their other All-Star is,

you know, honestly impressive and really surprising given the competition. So the Thunder started small in this game. They started a lineup they hadn't played, I think. Maybe they've played it, but they hadn't started it. I don't think they played it all. Oh, sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. There you're talking about the second quarter lineup. Sorry.

Oh, well, you can to let me on that because I didn't really realize that. Well, I think the lineup they used at the start of the second and fourth quarters with the two bigs. And then I want to say it was Isaiah Joe, might have been Wiggins and another guy. I don't think they played it in any game all season. And then they played it in both of those stints and it did just fine for it. As a separate topic, Mark Dagonal has said, you know, they've got an 11 or 12-game lead. He has said that if they have to experiment with lineups and stuff, he actually used, he had a good quote that a league executive pointed out to me. He said it would be irresponsible for us to not know what we could.

all the limitations and pathways. He didn't use those as that quote, but it was the quote irresponsible. He gave me a similar one last year. That's they've, that's 100% the way they've approached these regular seasons. And by the way, the Celtics have done the same thing under Joe Mazzua. These two coaches

all season are tinkering and experimenting and trying stuff. And Kenny Akinson has been too. Now you have the ability to do that when you're in the position these teams are in, but they're thinking ahead to what May and June are going to look like all year.

They started small. Alex Caruso was also out of this game. He was under the weather. So the Thunder were missing two perimeter players, but they still started small. They started with Wallace, Kason Wallace. And then they didn't play the Arkansas Jalen Williams, the big man, Jalen Williams. They went with Kendrick Williams, who was a-kin Rich. Ken Rich Williams, who's more of an undersized big.

So they kind of played small. Boston, the thing about it. is the challenge when Oklahoma City plays Boston is Oklahoma City, the basis of their team is the two bigs. They prioritize getting Isaiah Hartinstein because they saw this way they could play with two bigs. I'm not sure that two bigs works against Boston because of how they stress you out by looking and hunting switches and looking for threes. In fact, the thunder of the number one team in the league against the three. They're number one defense. So staying the number one in almost every defensive metric, top three and almost every one.

But when Chad Holmgren and Isaiah Hartinstein have been out there together, they actually had been giving up almost 40% on threes. Yeah, their defensive numbers actually, it's still tiny sample size, but their defensive numbers, that duo have not been impressive. Their offensive numbers have been. Okay. So they start small, and the Celtics take a record number of threes in the first half, literally a record. They took our 33, I think, three is in the first half. They did not challenge. 36, Jesus.

They did not challenge that, you know, in the paint. When they went in the paint, they were successful, but they didn't really challenge it. So I don't know what that means going forward, but I think it's worth noting that that's how the game played out. And look, at the end of the day, I think you said this in our group chat, Bontems. It's not like Chet Holmgren and Jalen Brown were going head to head. But the Celtics best player, shot five of 15, fouled out with four minutes to play. And the Thunder's second best player had one of his best games since he came back from injury. Yeah. No, I mean, that was the story of the game. Jason Tatum

was awesome. Chegowns Alexander was awesome. Chad Holmgren was awesome. And Jayne LaBron was awful. Jayne LaBron admitted after the game that the physicality the Thunder play with gave him some trouble and he didn't get to the line. He got all out of sorts, you know, missed some open threes. Drew Holiday's finger, I think clearly was bothering him. He's got this messed up finger. He's got a sleeve on it. Clearly, he didn't look comfortable playing with it yesterday. I think that will improve in time. And I think just in general, these two teams are very similar in that they pretty religiously live and die by the way they play and they believe in what they're doing. And if the shot quality works against them, they'll just say, we got unlucky today. and if you go back to the game Monday, they play Denver. Denver shot 20% over their expected

field goal percentage on threes in that game, shot a billion percent from three. Jamal Murray was awesome. They run away and win that second night of the back to back. Last night, in the second half, the Celtics went four for 20 from three point range on catch and shoot shots, and they were expected to make over 40% of them. So the one game to the next, the shooting luck went in the opposite direction and not surprisingly the Thunder one get one game and lost one game and that's Dagonald said after the game in the first quarter when boss was getting up 22 and 24 shots from three and went nine for 22 he just kept telling the team look we got to stick to what we do we know we just had this rough game on monday it's going to come back the other day other way the rest of the game

to Celtics i think we're 11 for 43 from 3 or 11 yeah but i mean even after that hot shooting Oklahoma city never lost touch and then they were ahead at the half right so even No, they wasn't a hard sell. They played great. Yeah. You know, I do think that the dual bigs or how to employ having both Hart and Stein and Holgren is a pretty fascinating thing for the Thunder. And, you know, they planned on kind of having the full season to tinker and experiment

and have a large sample size of basically study time to evaluate. And they've had, you know, they've had to microwave it because, until right after the trade deadline, those guys did not play a single second together. But I don't think that they're going to go into the playoffs and saying, hey, this is our starting lineup. We're starting both bigs or we're, you know, we're starting. I don't think anything with that team won't be set and stuff. No, because I think it's going to be very much.

It's going to be while show starts. Their best player is going to be out there and he's going to be cooking. Number two is going to score 30. I'm prepared to set that and stuff. But seriously, the three guys. guys will start for them for sure. And it's, you know, it's Shea, it's J-dub, and it's Chet Holmgren. And then the other two, it could be series to series. It could be game to game. It could be half to half. You know, we've seen them operate like that. And, you know, Bond Tim, you said you think

Boston's a deeper team. I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure because they've got a lot of Canada. The Thunder have a lot of good news. I mean deeper. I mean deeper at the top. The Celtics have the best, still have the best six-man group in the league. And one to eight, the Celtics are, when they're healthy, I think they're better than anybody. The Thunder obviously go one to 12 or 13 or whatever. But when you're talking about playoff rotations, the Celtics won the title last year. And you know their eight guys are rock solid in those games. Over the course of a playoff series, Peyton Pritchard might have been flow.

And Isaiah Joe might have been flow. It's not definitive. But they've got like, there are like, eight guys who I can realistically see starting playoff games for the Oklahoma City Thunder. There's quite a few teams that don't have five guys they want to start. Right. And it's about matchups. It's about, you know, optionality.

And when they have both their bigs healthy, they're always going to have one really good rim protector on the floor, sometimes too. And again, it's just like I think that the starting lineups could vary significantly, depending on a lot of factors, primarily matchups, but also just kind of the flow of series and games and all those kind of things. One other thing I want to point out

about this game that was interesting. We've talked a lot about the Thunder free throws on the spot throughout the year. Thunder shot 35 free throws in the game. Now, 6, 8, 10 of them were late when the game was basically over. But still, there was a very significant free throw disparity in their favor in this game.

And I think Jalen Brown's quote about the physicality was correct in that the Thunder took the physicality to the Celtics and gave them problems. And I think in general, to use football turns, we've talked about this with the way the Thunder play a little bit in the past. The Thunder play like the Legion of Boom Seahawks defense where they're fouling on every possession, which again is why I don't really care for the we're getting out free throwed all the time thing because they have one guy who generates a ton of free throws. The rest of their guys are catching shoe players. Shea leads the league and free throws. And J. Dubb has really made it an emphasis to try to develop that part of his game this year.

Correct. But my point is, they're fouling all the time. And it's, it's depending on how the game is called, matters a lot to the way they play. Hey, who was the crew chief in that game? Tyler Ford. They were letting them go last night. And that's a credit. He hand out any tease? He did not, though. One of the other refs did give Jason Tatum a technical after he was very unhappy about a very obvious miss call, which I thought was not a great move. Hey, did more than comment on the free throw disparity post game? He brings it up. He did not, believe it or not.

He wasn't asked about it, nor did he comment. I will say this. The Celtics and the Thunder are bottom three in the league in free throws per game by themselves. Well, this is what I wanted to get to just real quick. The Celtics are like. He said, and so. He's mid-sentence. Let him finish.

I wanted me hear it. He had a good point to make. interrupted me. Yeah, I know, but that's okay. We can't interrupt Wendy. The Celtics play like the Kurt Warner Marshall Falk Rams, the greatest show on turf team. When they get out in, they're in free space and they're hitting threes and they're moving the ball, they are the best team on the planet. If you can get them out of rhythm and be physical with them and get them off their game, you can get them out of sync. And that's often when the Celtics get sideways, when they start playing isolation ball, when they don't move the ball as well, when the game bogs down. And when you saw how

this game played out. Yes, the Celtics missed a lot of open shots, but that if these two teams do play in the finals, that physicality matchup from game to game and whether Boston can keep its cool and not allow that to bother them is going to be a thing to watch because the thunder are going to play the same way every game. How many more football references is Bontep's going to make? They play defense like the steel curtain, like the purple people leaders. Here's the thing. Nobody wants to hear football references in Oklahoma. right now because after the fall season for the old Sooners, man. It wasn't any boomer sooner.

It was bummer sooner. I can tell you that. It wasn't much better for the pokes, as they call it down yonder. All right. There was a very fascinating game, actually more fascinating in terms of competitiveness than that Thunder Celtics game, which even again, even though it's going to be two days ago, I don't want to let it pass. It was in Portland.

There were 43 lead changes? 43. So did you see the stat on this? Go on, but it was 43. Yeah, well, it was 43 lead changes. And McHale Bridges had a double-bang Mike Breen moment, buzzer-beater 3 to win the game. It was one of the games of the year in the NBA. Before the game, I was texting with Mike Breen because I was expecting to be at Southwunder. And I said, I'm sorry not to see you here today. And he was like, yeah, you know, I'm in Portland for this next game. I'm sure it's going to be epic. So I texted him after the game. I said, sir, it was a double bank game. I'd say it was pretty epic.

Yeah. What was that, McMahon? So this from Jonathan, I hope I'm pronouncing last name right, Macri, one of the guys on Nick's film school, which I'll be appearing on. He's a former ESPN employee. He's one of our co-former co-workers. So Nick Blazers featured 42 lead changes. That's the second

most since the NBA began tracking play-by-play data in 1996. The game with the most, Nets versus Hawks in 2003. It had 43 lead changes and ended, guess how? I know the answer, so I won't guess. On a game winner by Macau Bridges.

Did Ryan Rucco or Ion Eagle make a great, did like, was there like, you know, connects, that's our guy Rucco. We don't know her. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. We'll have to go back and look. Okay, that game was fascinating. Bridges had 33 points and I'm sure he was 30.

41. I'm sure he was very glad that he had a great game because we had an interesting moment in the Knicks universe yesterday when after a shoot-around Mikhail Bridges on the record stepped to Tom Fibodeau

and his heavy minutes of the Nick starters. Quote, and this is a guy who has played 539, I believe, consecutive games to start his career. I just did this for a story that's running on unbreakable records this week. He needs to do it for eight and a half more seasons to catch AC Green for the most consecutive games.

He had over 1100. Yeah, they got a banner up. I'm pretty sure there's a banner up in the American Airlines Center Rafters for always chilling green. Well, it was, it's one of those records that I think will never be broken. But, you know, Bridges is almost halfway there. All right, quote, sometimes it's not fun on the body. He told, I saw it from Steph Bondi of the New York Post.

So I'm going to give Steph Bondi the credit. It was one of those guys from that media cesspool that is New York. We love stuff. It was Bondi. We've got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away minutes, which helps the defense. It helps the offense. It helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It just helps keeping fresh bodies out there.

Okay. This is a guy who never complains about anything, plays through everything, and is, you know, one of the reasons why they traded all those picks for him was because he plays every day and is low maintenance. For him to, and I have to assume, I don't know, I have to assume that this wasn't a flippant comment. I know Mikhail not to be a flippant guy. He's a thoughtful guy. I suspect, I don't know. This is not a report. I suspect he was thinking about saying this for a while. Now, Tom Thibodeau was caught off guard by these comments.

I wouldn't say he was caught off guard. I would say he flat out argued that the conversation that Mikhail said happened. Oh, Tom Thibodeau. We never had a conversation about it. Well, yeah, I just caught off guard. I mean, he was surprised. I mean, he had all. My point is he heard it.

It was in the morning and that this other thing was seven hours later. He just flatly said, we never talked about it. When he heard the quotes that Mikhail had said on the record, I'm not, I'm not sure he expected that to happen. I don't know how you want to frame it. I'm had his answer ready. I'll put it that way. Okay.

Well, he set up the quote. Yes. We've never had a conversation about it. You can take it however you want. I take it as he wasn't expecting that to be said by Mikhail Bridges. The facts are the facts. When you look at our team and the way it works, Jalen Brunson plays 35 minutes and I think he's 20th or 20th.

and average minutes played. Carl Towns, who is a primary score, plays less than Jalen. He's like 25th in the league in average minutes. Now, in average minutes, that may be true. In total minutes, the Knicks have four guys like in the top 20. Tom has been saying this repeatedly. They also have number one, who's the guy who's saying these things, Macau Bridges, number one by over a thousand, I'm sorry, over a hundred minutes. And number two is Josh Hart. So they've got one and two. Well, but this is, this has been Tibbs thing over and over again, which is that your wing players are supposed to play really heavy minutes. I'm going, this is his explanation, not mine.

I'm to what he has said over and over again. Your point guard and your center, like your primary scores, I'm not going to play them 47 minutes a game. But these wing players are playing against the elite players on the other team. They have to play heavy minutes. They prepare to play heavy minutes. They're going to play heavy minutes. That is his, that is his explanation for.

the ongoing discussion about minutes, which has happened for years in which he gets annoyed about. But Brunson is 17th in the league in total minutes. And an OB, despite missing some games, is 16th. Like, listen, and nobody is on the run for the minutes police like Tibbs over the years. Like we get going back to Chicago and obviously now, you know, last year this team, what's the correlation between all the Knicks injury issues in the playoffs? versus, you know, the minutes, I don't, you know, you can't prove it, but like, the minutes are always a concern with Tibbs teams. It just is what it is. Well, look, it's one thing for people in the

media or other coaches or other executives or even people within the Knicks to talk about and speculate. This is a player saying I'm being tired out. What if Tibbs says, hey, if he needs a night off, we'll give him that. Well, anyway, I said he played 41 minutes. He did, but it wasn't overtime game. So, you know, he added some minutes. And the other thing I'll say, because I am, I, this whole discussion is just at this point, it's been going on for years.

I'm just sort of tired of it to begin with. Obviously, this is, I am fatigued by it. The one thing that, you know, Tibbs defenders have always said in his defense on these things, and which I think is fair to point out, like, you can keep saying that the total minutes are high. It's also because all these guys are playing all the time. And for the most part, he's got a pretty good track record of guys staying healthy and playing while playing minutes. Now, again, like, yes, Jalen Brunson broke his wrist in a playoff game last year.

I don't think that was because he played a lot of minutes. Yeah. And OJ. I know he heard of his name. Well, I understand that he landed on somebody's foot and sprained his ankle. Right. That's not a minute's issue. Now, the soft tissue stuff, you know.

Sure. My point is just that you look at, like, Ogen and Obe has typically missed a ton of time. He's playing more games than he's basically ever played in his career. Josh Hart's only missed a couple games. Brunson and Towns have not had any injury issues. And like consistently over time, guys have been able to play a lot of games and therefore play a lot of minutes playing for him. So there's at least, I think it's fair to say some method to his madness when it comes

to how he proportions these minutes out. But this is obviously a different situation and interesting. because you have Mikhail Bridges saying, yeah, I talked to this guy about this and told him he needs to play the bench more. And Tom then saying, no, we didn't. Well, and I would love, and it won't happen, but I would love to get Casey Smith's thoughts on this. Casey Smith, who's running their medical and performance group now, ran the Mavericks for 20 years before, shockingly getting the heave-ho before last season. I would love to get his thoughts on it, which won't happen because he's not going to be talking. He's not going to be discussing this issue with the media.

Well, it was interesting. Keep an eye on that one. And we'll see. Now, Ian Begley, who's our former colleague at ESPN, and he now covers the next really well for SNY. He reported today that Tibbs and Bridges had a clearing the air. Oh, oh. So, you know, who knows? Those high-maintenance Villanova guys.

McMahon has a really good story out today, but before we move on to it, I do want to take note. Turned out that Wednesday was actually like a pretty interesting day in the NBA. Oh, take note. That's clever. Go on. Well, well. You didn't even mean to do that one. That was a, that was an accidental one.

The Jazz got fined $100,000 for basically being convicted of tanking. by sitting Larry Marketing on a regular basis when he's not hurt. Well, the best part of that was, so they sat marketing for nine games. I don't even, there was like two or three different maladies that they listed. They lost eight of the nine games. Especially losing to the Sixers and the Raptors, both. And the Wizards. So the league fined him $100,000 basically for sitting a game against the Wizards,

but then it was other, including other games. They've been openly tanking openly. So the best. As have several other teams, including the two teams I just mentioned. Hold on. So they announced the fine, which is a pretty stiff fine for a player participation policy. Basically, you're convicted of tanking. And the jazz responded by immediately upgrading Markin into available.

I can put out a new injury report. Markin and Clarkson and I think another guy. Right. But Markinen is the guy. He was subject to the player participation policy. All right. So that interesting happened. But in other tanking measures,

I have to take a moment to highlight the game that took place in Toronto, where, you know, we have talked. What did you brand the Sixers? What was your recent nickname? The Top Sixers. The Top Sixers. They have to keep being the, they have to finish the top six pick to keep it.

Otherwise, it goes to Oklahoma City. By the way, they're going to. Hugely important game in that fight against the Raptors. The Raptors are one of the teams ahead of them that they, that were catchable. And the Raptors are doing enormous efforts to tank, but they keep winning because they're playing an easy schedule. They have the easiest schedule, like we talked about in the other league, by a country mile, including this current five-game stretch with two games against Washington, which they managed to lose one of them by Jamal Shed, having the ball on the easiest part of his finger. So a game-winning buzzer-beater didn't count. one of the few times that a game winning buzzer beating game waved off as a win for the team

that had it waved off and two games against Utah plus this game against the Sixers. All right. Now let me just tell you. So, okay, so last night, Brandon Ingram has the worst sprained ankle and the history of sprained ankles. He hasn't played in months. Apparently he's never going to play again. Not until next year.

Emmanuel quickly was out last night. I think they called that rest. I think they've been resting the max. I think you can rest two guys a game. they've been resting two guys that came during this. Scottie Barnes out. He had some malady. So I'll miss you.

This is the starting lineup. And I just want to say, I am not criticizing these players. And I am not implying that these players were not trying to win. Listen, if you saw the celebration, I went before that shot got waved off when Jamal Shed made that shot the other day, they were trying to win that game. Players don't tank, especially guys who are playing like these guys are playing to stay in the league. 100%. Here is the team that Toronto started against Philly on Wednesday night. Jamal Shed, who was her second round draft pick.

Good player. Second round draft pick. Rookie starter. He didn't even play that many minutes. I'm not sure if he got hurt. The point is he started. Okay. A.J. Lawson ended up playing 35 minutes.

He didn't start, but he's a two-way player. Okay? So they played A.J. Lawson 35 minutes off the bench. Orlando Robinson, they just signed. I'm not sure if he's on a 10-day contract, but he just was signed. he played 35 minutes. But here's the starting lineup. Jamal Shed, okay? Jameson Battle, who I believe was a two-way player that they

recently upgraded to a regular roster player. Okay. He started and played 39 minutes, when 4 or 15, but Arco just kept him out there. Colin Castleton, who is, I believe, in his second or third year in the league. Yeah, he's a two-way guy. Robinson in Battle. No, he's not even a two-way guy. He was on a 10-day contract. I was going to say, Robinson and Battle both have been given full contracts in the last. few weeks. Okay. Castleton is on a 10-day contract. Jared Rodin, who is a two-way player. Yeah.

Who had 25 points. They also started Yacca Pertil. He only played 17 minutes. You know, we can't go crazy here. So they played eight guys. Garrett Temple was one of them, who's, I think, the second oldest or third oldest player in the league. Shout out for Garrett Temple, man. Still still in the league. One of the best dudes in the league, too. He played hard. And then a bunch of guys who were either two-way players, just off two-way contracts, 10-day guys or rookies. Like it was, they were trying real hard and they won by double digits because the Sixers had $150 million of salary. Well, it's not just that because the Sixers were already starting to fall apart when

all those guys were playing. The Sixers have lost 16 of their last 19 games, which is going to put them in position, I think, where they're going to finish with the fifth worst record, which is a remarkable thing. and it would only be the Sixers' luck slash karma maybe for them to get to the fifth worst record and then give up the seventh pick to the Thunder. It feels like that is the most gut-punched way for this to go for the Philly fans. But they have won two games since February 1st.

One was the Quentin Grimes' 45 or 44-point game against the Warriors, where they've won by a point or two at home a couple nights, a couple weeks ago on ABC. And the other was Sunday against the Jazz, where the Jazz are just like the kings of the tank at this point. Yeah. They're losing. And if Kyle Philpowski hadn't been in foul trouble that whole game,

I think Utah might have won that game because every time he was on the court, they were good. I am not going to talk about some of the starting lineups that the Jazz have started recently. And the jazz at this point, the last two years, have been aggressively tanking. The difference is they've done it. If you're going to do it at the end of the year, you've got to be a full in, full season commitment. This is the first full season commitment. But listen, when the Mavericks did the egregious tanking in the final week a couple

years ago, you know, the Kyrie trade year, when they had the top 10 protected pick that they had to keep and turned into Derek lively. I called somebody with the league office and I'm kind of inquiring like, hey, you know, is there going to be any action on this? And they were like, why haven't you called me on the jazz? I said, well, remind me when Ryan Smith publicly to admitted tanking in recent years, he got a $600,000 fine. Is that what it was?

I couldn't remember. No, that was when Cuba. I'm talking about Cuban when he went on. Right. But I didn't remember that the fine was that. Yeah, because he got the fine for saying the quiet part out loud. And that's what they were doing. Now, the Nets last year, when they sat all the guys against Milwaukee in that infamous

game that tanked their season right after Christmas, they also got $100,000 fine. I think that's the standard fine when you violate. PPP, which is part of what they do to try to get you to not violate it in the first place. But look, this is going to be something to watch over the next month because there's a lot of teams in the league that really want to get Cooper Flagg. These teams at the bottom, you've got the Sixers who are trying to keep their pick, which is always the most egregious example of this tanking stuff that happens. And, you know, Toronto is certainly desperately trying to get one more high pick.

They want to flip this thing around quickly. They made the Ingram trade. They've got quickly. They've got Scottie Barnes. They had, you know, Dylan Harper, Cooper Flack. or somebody to that. They feel like they can jump right back up again. I think this is just going to get worse over the next few weeks.

And it's going to be interesting to see how the league reacts to it. And the fact that we're already having them find teams a month before the end of the regular season for openly doing this, I think it's just a sign of things to come. And by the way, the Pelicans have put some wins together because primarily, I mean, almost solely. But not that many. Well, no, but they've bumped. They've bumped themselves up to four, and it's because Zion is playing unbelievable basketball.

The guy has been awesome. Yeah, he's averaging 25 points since he came back from the hamstring, 25, 7, and 5, which are good, but you have to calculate he's only playing 28 minutes. Yeah, I remember Bobby and I wrote a story just as he was about to come back and kind of like, what's coming with Zion, like, you know, what the trade value and market might be for him. And, you know, somebody told us then, like, the goal is to ram them up and restore his value, whether that's for the Pelicans or another team. And he's handling the first part. To his credit, he is absolutely handling the first part. I still don't know how much they could actually get for him based on, you know, his injury history.

I, I, there are some teams that would have significant interest. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Well, that's another topic for another day. I want to talk about the story that you published. You know, you did a couple of podcasts last week when we kept saying you were in Phoenix. And here was why. You were putting together a story that's a whopper. If you ever read this story yet, pause the pod and go read the story because it's an awesome story.

And there's a ton of incredible quotes in it. Yeah, that's why. The reason the story is so good. I thought it was because it was extremely well written. No, it was just an awesome story, period. it. But there's a ton of incredible quotes in it. There's several multi-syllable words in there. But yes, there was there was alliteration I saw. There was some beautiful alliteration in there. It's it's challenging to get quotes that are, I guess, maybe not critical, but.

But here's the thing. It's not challenging to get great quotes from Matt Isb. You just have to get him to agree to talk. And the guy is a fascinating. he is. No, he is. Yes, but you had good quotes from Matt Ishpia. You had good quotes from Bradley Beal. You had good quotes from Devin Booker. You had good quotes from other sons people. I'm just going to toss you the ball and talk about this story, McMahon. I mean, look, the sons are a team that as you're talking to people around the league,

let's be honest, there's a lot of shade being thrown at them. And Matt Ishpia is an extraordinarily brash billionaire who, bought this team and has been just, you know, all kinds of big splashes. They're the most expensive team in NBA history. You know, they don't control their own draft picks now through the 2031 draft. And as of right now, they are sitting in 11th place, two and a half games out of the final play in the Western Conference in a season in which leading up to the trade deadline, they certainly engaged in discussions about dealing Kevin Durant, you know, despite the fact that Bradley Beal still has his no trade clause, he was in trade discussions for most of the first half of the season.

And the whole is nowhere near what some of the parts are. And, you know, Ishpia is like, hey. And also like Ishbia, you know, the whole 26 and 29 thing that he said at in the last season, 26, 29 teams would trade plays. I mean, I asked him straight up, like, do you regret that? Do you still believe that? And he's like not based on the results this season, but the Ishbia, you know, the people working for him in Phoenix, there's a lot. They don't think they're as far away as these standings indicate.

And, you know, I'm just making that what you will. They're all, they're not like giving up on the season, but of course this is an extraordinarily disappointing season. They're kind of hoping that they're miraculously clicks and they get it together. just in the nick of time, but we understand where, and they understand where this season is right now. It is a colossal failure to this point. And essentially, this summer, everything is on the table for Phoenix, with the exception of a Devin Booker trade. Devin Booker, to borrow a Damian Lillard term, is 10 toes down in Phoenix. He really takes immense pride on being a one franchise guy.

I'm not saying he's definitely spending his entire career in Phoenix. I'm saying he definitely wants to spend his entire career in Phoenix, and he's determined to see this thing through and get this thing back on the right side, and they are determined to do that with him. You were asking, I should be out of this exact question, and he cut you off. Yeah, and listen, like, you talk to people around the league, pontims, you, and, like, there are definitely people around the league who are like, hey, you should absolutely listen to what the Rockets have to offer for Devin Booker.

Because the Rockets have what looks like is going to be a lottery pick from the Sons this year. And then they've got 27 and 29 as well. And so if the Sons want to rebuild, then they need to make a trade with Houston Rockets and get the draft capital back. But I don't have the exact quote right in front of me. but it started off with something. I got it right here. Okay, the like to rebuild ding. Oh, that one, yes.

I thought this was, I thought, there were two quotes that I thought summed up the entire Matt Ishbia ownership experience. I thought this was one of them. This is about, this thoughts on rebuilding. Quote, it surprised me that other people, other fans, they actually like the rebuilding process, Ischbia said, and McMahon had an emphasis on like. Yeah, no, he said, they actually liked the rebuild. process. He almost spit it. He said process. Like, oh, let's rebuild it. Are you crazy? You think I'm

going to go for seven years and try to get there? You enjoy the 2030 draft picks that we have holding. I want to try to see the game today. I want us to win today and we're going to try. Although, let's say this doesn't work. Guess what? Maybe next year we won't be as good, but we're going to try again. The next opportunity we have, we're going to try and compete. And it might work. We will win championships here in Phoenix. It might not be this year, but I promise you we're going to do it, and that's what we're focused on. Yeah. And look, as somebody, as somebody close to Isbia told me, there is no trust the process from Matt Ashbya. And he is like, dude, there's no patient rebuild here. It is going to be, I don't give a damn what it costs.

We are all in every single season, put on the gas, trying to be as good as possible, every single year we're going to win championships. And I think a lot of other people around the league would be like, that's counterproductive. If you don't have patience, you're not going to be able to put yourself in a position to win championships. But, you know, Ishbiyah, you know, the people in the front office there, the thing they push back on, there's a couple things they push back on. One, this idea that it's just Isbia saying, do this, do this, do this. He's responsible for the philosophy, all in, and he's responsible for the financing. But as he said, do you think I'm studying film? I'm not studying film. They tell me they like Ryan Dunn. I say, how can we get them? So they kind of, the picture of new owner syndrome dictator,

that portrayal, they definitely push back on that. And then the other thing they push back on is that they say, hey, we have a lot of options. And I think a lot of people look at the draft capital that they've given up. Tell me what the options are. Second APN restrictions and all that and say, No, you really don't. Now, so, I mean, hey, one option that they've explored before the deadline, and certainly they are expected to explore again this summer, is trading Kevin Durant. Yes, that's one option. What's the second option?

Now, Kevin Durant is going to have significant influence on potential destinations, going in the last year of his contract, eligible for a two-year extension. You know, the Beale thing, obviously they have to work with Beale. They have no options on that. He has a full no trade clause. That isn't an option. You know, they have the from, they gave up the 2031 pick to Utah. That's probably going to be three firsts from Cleveland.

So they've got, they gave up one of those to get off. They have two, they have three extraordinarily low value draft picks. They already gave way one of them to two now. That's right. Now they have two. Again, we get, like, the facts are laid out. It's the most expensive team in NBA history. Unless they get things right soon, they're not even going to make the play in.

And, you know, they have major, major handcuffs in terms of blowing by the second apron, the roster of building restrictions that come with that, the future draft capital. I'm just telling you, Matt Ishbia, and the people that are working for him, the people that are in Phoenix on a daily basis, they feel like they can, to use this to be his term, pivot and reload. It's not rebuild, pivot and reload around Devin Booker. Okay, you also have very interesting comments in this story from Bradley Beale. Again, the best parts of this story are not McMahon's words.

They're the primary sources words. Beal, I thought he had two interesting things to say here, McMahon, but I will let you who did the conversation talk about what Beal said. Again, do you have the quotes of front of you? Okay. Well, my favorite Beal quote is he's talking about how he feels like, you know, I have a great job, you know, but I'm a human being. And he's like, you know, I enjoy the game. the game is fun. I try not to let nobody take the joy out of the game from me. But it's hard. We're all human beings. We have every right to shut down. We have every right

to question what's going on. We have every right to say, why me? But I feel like that just drags you down a little bit more than you need. And this is my favorite part. I'm still playing in the NBA. I still have the best job in the world. I still have my no trade clause. So I'm smiling every day. That was that was one quote. He talked more about the label about that he's never won anything, but I'm going to leave that alone. The key thing here, and I mean, this is, you tell me whether you think this is newsworthy or not. You were asking him about the no trade clause, which he apparently smiles every day that he has. And you reference that he was really not interested in waiving it at all, the idea of being traded mid-season.

No, yeah, he did not want to be, and just like Kevin Durant spelled out, I believe when he talked to Malikin again when he went on the Draymond Green, show. He didn't want to have his life uprooted in the middle of a season and be thrown into that and all that. And Beale certainly didn't. Beal, a husband, a father, young kids, he didn't want to uproot his entire family in the middle of the season. But he said, it is a different deal in the summer. Everything is kind of more laid out on the table. You got more options. And he's not saying I'm out of here this summer. But he's saying, listen. Well, and he's saying something obvious, but he's on the record. It's a different deal in the summer.

Yeah. He's saying, look, this summer, like, yeah, you know, he's going to consider what some potential scenarios are, whether there's something that makes sense for them. And look, like this team, the 10 seed in the West, like the Mavericks, are literally scrambling to put together enough bodies to have the NBA minimum for games right now. And the suns just can't make up any ground. still two and a half games out. The sons are six games below 500.

I mean, yeah. You know, they had a game the other night against Memphis where they lost. Durant had a shot at the buzzer that would have won the game. It was not the greatest shot in the world, but it's Kevin Durant. He could have made it. And it was the fourth time this season

that Durant has had a shot in the last 30 seconds to either go ahead or beat the Grizzlies. And they're 0 and 4. Yeah, and listen, the suns got off to an eight and one start, and I was there the night they went eight and one. It's when Durant had suffered a calf strain that nobody knew about until the next day. But in that eight and one start, almost every single game where these clutch wins, and you're thinking, well, okay, they're winning games in clutch. But that's why point differential, especially early on, is oftentimes a much better indicator than even the win-loss record. But think about that.

There were seven games above 500, a couple weeks into the season. Now they're six games under. I mean, that's how rough. And, like, Beals missed some games, Grant missed a little bit there, but certainly compared to last year, they've been relatively healthy this year. And, like, dude, they, you know,

like the Tias Jones signing this summer on the minimum, we all thought that was a great move. You know, it addressed their biggest roster flaw from last year. Frank Bogle is the fall guy. They bring in Bud. Honestly, there's been a lot of friction between Bud and players on that roster. I would say most importantly, Devin Booker, because that is the guy who they will build around moving forward. And, you know, like, Isbia said, hey, if I knew what the problem was, I'd fix it right now.

They don't think they're that far away, but they don't know exactly how the hell they got in this situation now. Well, the problem, the problem is Matt Isbia. That's the problem. And I appreciate him. I think it's a little bit more complex than that. It's not more complicated than that. Because here's the thing. I very much appreciate Matt Isbia talking about all this on the record.

And I very much appreciate a guy buying a team and wanting to win. And whatever else you want to say about Matt Ishbia, he wants to win. And he is spending draft picks and spending money. And he's committed to trying to win. Like he had a great quote in here. about fans don't care about the luxury tax. Every fan should want to hear the person who runs their team saying that, right? He's put his money where his mouth is.

He spoke on the record about all this stuff. He defended his actions. That's all well and good. He is passionate and he cares. Yes, which is great. Well, truly, that's what you want for the person running your team. But I want to go back to the quote about rebuilding because it sums up the situation so perfectly for where this team is at. Are you crazy? You think I'm going to go for seven years and try

to get there. You enjoy the 20-30 draft picks that we have holding. I want to try to see the game today. I want us to win today, and we're going to try. This isn't baseball where you can just spend money and spend your way out of problems. There's a salary cap. There are rules governing transactions in basketball. You can't just throw more. after more after more and fix the situation you're in. The problem for Ishbia and the sons is they have dug themselves a gigantic hole and they can't dig out of it. And they dug themselves that hole because Matt Ishbia was saying we're going to be as aggressive as possible. We're going to trade everything else we have nailed down to get Bradley Beale. After we traded everything we had

nailed down to get Kevin Durant. Now we have this incredibly top heavy team. We can't make any moves to deepen out the roster. They could be on their fourth coach in four years in about three or four weeks. Like these are all moves that point to, yes, he's incredibly aggressive. Yes, he's incredibly ambitious. Yes, he really wants to win. But you have to have some level of patience and discipline in running a team. And the sons for the past two years, he's only owned the team for two years have had hit the foot fully down to the floor the entire time. And that's why they have absolutely no assets and they have nowhere to go because they could say, yes, we have options on what to do. And he's right. Like he's let his basketball people handle the draft and they've done a decent

job in the draft. They also don't have any draft picks going forward. So it's going to be hard to do well in draft. And like, yes, they could trade Kevin Durant this summer. He basically said, we'll look at trading Kevin Durant this summer. Like Kevin Durant, as you said, Tim, has one year left on his contract. He's going to have a lot of say in where he winds up. He's also 37 years old. They're not going to get the kind of haulback that they need. Well, he's going to be 37 this fall.

They're not going to get the kind of haulback they need to rebuild this team around Devin Booker with no other salary with other flexibility going forward. And if Bradley Beal is willing to go somewhere, it's because it's a place Bradley Bill really wants to go and he likes the team that's like. leftover afterward because he has a total trade clause. And frankly, they might have to, they might have to incentivize a Bradley Beal trade. I mean, that's the thing.

They just, they don't have any options. We can talk more about the Suns later this summer. I just definitely read this story. Stories a go. But it's interesting also that I'm in Houston. I saw the Rockets beat the Suns last night. You know, the Rockets also have a brash billionaire, still relatively new owner, but they are complete polar opposites in terms of the approaches of the franchise.

And, you know, the Rockets who now hold significant draft capital from the Suns moving forward, also have the Mavs 29 pick. You know, they've got. Having said that, I don't want to go down to a long road here because we've got to end the podcast, but they made it a very aggressive trade for Russell Westbrook that mortgage their future. Right. And then they learn from it. Right.

And what did they do? They traded James Hardin. Well, and they had to, right? They didn't want to. They had to. But when they did that, they said, okay, it's time to go through some pain. It's time to be patient. It's time to go through.

Yeah, they went through what Ishpia said he would not, which is the rebuild. And Tillman Fertita had to be talked into it by his son Patrick, by Raffelstone, and he had to be convinced along the way to stick with the plan. They did it. They're good now. and now the story that I'm working on with the Rockets is, okay, now you've got, you're a good team, you're a star away, how aggressive are you going to be in the trade market

versus kind of continuing on the bets of maybe it being homegrown. And that's going to be a fascinating thing to keep an eye on with the Rockets over the next, you know, certainly this summer and perhaps over the next couple of years. And David Bowman, Bocon's a ton of credit for saying, on the record too that he has no desire to go anywhere and he wants to be a one franchise player too. I know he said it. It's not like it's a new message, but like, given the state of the, yeah, given the state of the sons, like, you know, he, he, there's no wavering there. He's an easy got to root for it from that state. All right. Thank you, McMahon, for a great piece. Definitely check it out.

Our producer, Jackson is back. Thank you to Jackson. Thank you to McMahon and Bontems for joining us. Thank you for listening and watching a hoop collective. We'll talk to you. next week. Adios amigos.