Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Emergency Pod: HISTORIC NBA Draft Lottery – Mavs’ CRAZY Jump

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk a historic NBA Draft Lottery including the Mavs climbing all the way up to the top pick, the 76ers lucky jump and the Spurs rising again. Plus, with the flattened lottery odds what are teams like the Jazz & Wizards supposed to do? All that and more! 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 this emergency edition of the HOOP collective podcast. We talk about the NBA McMahon. Somebody's got another book coming out, joining us from Madison Square Garden.

We broke him off from doing the next Celtics playoff game in the John Condon press room at the Madison Square Garden, Stimbonteps. The book is going to be on the fixed 2025 lottery if my text messages are going to say about it. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, where he's soon to get on a plane for Oklahoma City for game five of the Nuggets, Thunder series of Van McMahon. Howdy, partners, listen. There might be a bunch of conspiracy theories out there, but that dumbass one about the Mabs are moving to Vegas, I think, went complete tonight. Okay, let me ask you this. Because my phone is blowing up, too.

What is the conspiracy? I mean, I know the conspiracy theory is that allegedly was fixed for the Mavericks. Please explain the conspiracy to me. I mean, the conspiracy is that look, okay, I don't want to explain the conspiracy. No, I understand. We can explain. The conspiracy theory in 10 seconds would be that a team that's fan base had completely turned on and shut off the franchise just with given a complete lifeline by getting a generational prospect to show up immediately after. The fan bases in Washington and Utah and Charlotte that have to shut off that franchise, those don't care of.

I have a very long speech about the lottery rules, but I will. We'll save that for a second. Wendy, there's a little bit of a difference between, hey, your team's just been bad or recently got bad, has been bad for a little while versus you traded a generational player months after the finals as he's approaching his prime. And there's one thing if it's apathy, but the outrage in Dallas was pretty unique. Having said that, I don't want to discuss. I've heard some reachies conspirators and theories.

I think people don't need to spend time on this. Let's talk about it's not a logical conspiracy theory. Okay. So here's here is the logic. Here's the logic. The NBA changed the lottery rules a few years ago to flatten the lottery odds and make it less advantageous for teams to tank. It's been a colossal disaster and a complete failure. And this today is the nail in the coffin to me for this whole thing that they have put in place.

Why? Look at the teams that got the first, second, and third picks. Those are teams that have playoff caliber rosters that were in the lottery because they had injuries. Yep. And in the Maver's case, they had the trade and then also catastrophic injuries. Right. You have a situation where you have multiple bad teams that were trying to get high draftics for the past couple of years to get the kind of player that could turn their franchise around. They're picking fifth and six.

in the draft. You have teams that already have loaded rosters getting elite prospects in this draft. Like the bottom line is, Sam Presti, hold on. The NBA did this to discourage tanking. So yeah, if you're in the league off, you said, hey, you chose to tank. Right. Right to ride to, we've outwired it. We've tried to discourage it. I think this means it's working on attempts. I think they like this. I disagree because if you're a Utah, let's, let's just take to Utah Jazz, right? The team with the number one lottery odds in the draft. Yeah, they got miserably miserable luck. They have no chance to get a player like Cooper Flag unless they win the lottery. And they did everything by the book in terms of giving themselves the best chance to do so.

That's not true. That's not true. No, they had two all-in-been, they had two all-star players that they traded. And they went down this path to tank. I mean, yeah, they did everything by the book, but the book has been banned. The tanking book is you can't get at the library anymore. It's been banned. Look, I don't see how we could sit here today and say that after several years in a row of the eighth, ninth, tenth, 10th, and 11th teams in the lottery, jumping into the top one, two, or three. Last year, the 10th team won the lottery was not a good draft so people didn't really talk about it. I don't understand. So what you want is, we're the Mavericks 10th or 11th this year. So they were 11th. Yeah, one point a chance moving up. The 10th and 11th team won back

back years and the teams those teams weren't tanking the teams that blatantly tanked lost yes i'm saying that for small market teams the draft is the is there one consistent and reliable way to get access to elite players and the new system there's a reason why sam presby went on a crusade to try to not have the rules be changed several years because he was tanking at the time because if you're in oklahoma city well yeah listen he was not tanking at the time when they first tried to do it. It was when they had Kevin Durant on the team. And if you are in Oklahoma City, the draft is the one way you have a chance to get elite players.

Clearly it's not. Clearly it's not. They have a guy named Shade Gildes-Alexander who was a 10th pick in a draft and that they traded for. So you tell me it's the one way when they have a guy who's probably going to be named MVP on their roster that is proof otherwise. What are you talking about? Okay. I would just say the reason this is. this lottery is crazy is because of the storylines. Yes. More than the odds. The storylines of the

Dallas. By the way, do you think McMahon instant reaction here? You think they're keeping Cooper Flagg, right? You're keeping Cooper Flag. Do I think so? Yes. Yeah, me too. I would just say I have not been told with 100% certainty we're drafting Cooper Flag. Right. I would say never. I would say never say never because I didn't think they can't trade Luca on Cooper flag at the same calendar year. I wouldn't think so. I didn't think they were going to trade Luke despite understanding all the frustration there was. So my assumption is you draft this generational talent who would be number one in the vast majority of drafts. You know, and by the way, I just, I'm however many weeks removed from really,

kind of pressing Nico on the long-term logic of the Luca trade. What about these picks you traded 27, 28, 2930? Well, this kind of mitigates that concern. This mitigates that concern. It doesn't totally eliminate it, but it certainly mitigates it. And also, you know, the other thing that honestly, I think had really cranked the heat up on Nico Harrison to the point where, like, I was sniffing around after the season. Like, is his job in immediate jeopardy? The answer was no at the time, but it was the business ramifications of the lucid deal. The fact that they could, you know, they were projected. Yeah, that's all wiped away.

It's all wiped away. And Cooper Flag is going to be an extraordinarily, first of all, we, if Cooper Flagg is the player, everybody believes he will be. He's going to be an extraordinarily marketable guy. And folks who might not have wanted to renew their season tickets are probably ringing up the ticket office right now. The bad vibes around the Mavs disappeared the second they won the lottery. I'm not saying they, I'm not saying it, Luke Dodger is going to be forgotten, but they got

Cooper flag. They can reset everything. There's a reason why Rick Welts had a Joker like grin sitting at his seat because he, Rick Wals is the president of the Mavericks. That's right. The guy who's in charge of selling, selling tickets for the team and selling a new arena and everything, all that stuff. And they fell ass backwards into the solution to all their problems.

If the Mavericks have a sense of human. the highlight reel that they put out on social media and all that, athlete draft Cooper flag is going to be nothing but defense. Defense wins championships and that dude can definitely play some defense. I mean, honestly, one of the comps I've heard for him is a Kauai Leonard type of two-way talent. I mean, look, he's an incredible fit next to Anthony Davis long term. Like, it's a dream landing spot for them.

More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. And my point on the draft, to which I don't think you guys got. The point of the draft is to distribute talent to the worst teams in theory. For having a draft, that's the point of the draft. And by making it a free-for-all... Well, if you're in the lottery, you're one of the worst teams. But, okay.

I mean, to sit here and act like Philly, San Antonio, and Dallas where among the worst teams is foolish. You want to get rid of the lottery? That's why they call it the lottery. Also, like, dude. The tanking continues to be a major, major, major problem in the NBA. Yes, this just made it worse. All of these teams tanked down the stretch and the Sixers case flavorantly.

Well, the Sixers are a different story. We haven't even talked about them yet. We're right. Utah, Washington, the full-season franchise strategy tank jobs have not been rewarded. And if you're Adam Silver and you're in the league office, I think your answer is, listen, we flatten the lottery odds to discourage you from taking that. What are the Utah Jazz supposed to do anyways? That's your problem.

They're not supposed to trade Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. Well, okay. They got their stars in the draft. They're never allowed. They're just like, sure. Okay. They would have to trade Donovan. We all know that thing was coming to a head.

Donovan did not want to. Okay, but they didn't have to trade him for, for, to take. They could have traded him for assets that could have played. Yeah. And listen, Rudy would have. I'm not even criticizing that. Like, they probably did the right thing. But, you know, like the whole point of this is that you don't want to reward a team's going for 15 wins.

And tanking was the right strategy and it was a risky strategy. You can say this is bad luck for the jazz. It was also, by the odds, the most. I saw an interview real quick with, by the way, the Wizards got screwed too. They fell from number three to number six here. Number two to number six, not number three. Both of all case scenarios. So I saw Will Dawkins.

He gave an interview real quick to Josh Robbins from the Athletic. And what Will said was you come in knowing there's a 50% chance you're going to be five or six. You have to accept that. Of course. Of course. Of course. So, you know, that is painful. But I am, it is a unusual set of circumstances and it is probably not healthy for the league that the-

That's my point. This isn't, this isn't a healthy system for the league at this point. It's every single year. Okay, but I don't think, I don't think tanking is healthy for the league either. Let's move past that. The Mavericks wake up with a whole changing situation. Still, Kyrie is going to be out for most of next season. So I don't know how it's going to affect next season.

Let's talk about the Spurs getting this number two pick. If anybody is screaming. Real quick, one thing I will say about the Mavericks is they are, also pretty well positioned to be aggressive in the trade market. And Nico has made it clear. He thinks he has a championship caliber roster, right? This, and let's go with the assumption they take Cooper Flag. Let's go with the assumption that they make the obvious decision there.

They've got some interesting trade pieces. They can trade one of their own first round picks, I believe, 2031. They've got some swaps. They've got the Lakers 29. Daniel Gafford's going on the last year of his contract. We've discussed him as a potential trade chip. you know, PJ Washington, a similar situation contractually. You know, is he a guy who maybe you explore the trade value of now that you have

Cooper flag coming in, presumably walking right into a starting position at Small Ford? There are a lot of interesting scenarios for the Mavericks to discuss and explore leading up to the draft. Well, I think. They have craved Yonis. for a long time. They one time had Kostas on their roster. Is that still, do you think, a driving force here? Well, it's, you know, it's interesting. AD and Kyrie are in their 30s. I heard you mention, I'm not going to say the thought didn't cross my mind. I definitely heard

you mention that. I will point out that it was the previous regime that drafted Janice's little brother with the last pick in the draft where they got some Slovenian dude and then I think the other guy that got in the dress playing for the Knicks now. Yeah, Luca Brunson. That was a successful evening one would say. Luca Brunson and Annan Coupa was their draft hall. So, but that was the Cuban Donnie Nelson regime. Again, I'm never going to say never because I've learned a hard way not to assume.

I would be awfully surprised if, especially because Patrick Dumont has to sign off. I think Patrick Dumont's got a lesson in NBA. business. Well, we need to move on. So the Spurs. Now, if anybody's going to be screaming, scream about the Spurs, three consecutive years in the top four.

Victor, Castle, and now number two pick here. If you're screaming conspiracy, I mean, if they're going to fix the number one pick, you got to fix the number two pick, right? We don't need to fuel conspiracy stuff. I mean, it's going to be taught. I understand.

I understand. Got it. Why are you yelling at me? Because I just stopped. He's making bad jokes. Let's just move forward. I'm just saying like you can't, I'm just making the point that you can't pass it.

Move past it. You can't just conspired for the number one pick. You also must conspire for all the picks, right? Just move fast. All right. So the Spurs now with the number two pick, Yon is potentially available. Yon is potentially amazing fit next to Victor and Deeran Fox. But you drafted a 19 year old that fits a lot closer to, if you want to you keep Castle

and Victor together. It's an amazing situation for the Spurs. They now have picks two and 14. Man alive. That could be a real choice. My hot take could be that Deeran Fox and Yannis would not be a great fit together and that I would consider trading Deer and Fox personally if I was the Spurs. Now I would roll forward with the super young core you've got.

You would have Dylan Harper be the long-term point guard with Victor Wimony. Would you at least think about it? I mean, Deer and Fox, I didn't love to, I mean, we talked about the time. I didn't love the Deer & Fox speak of time. I'm sure they're not going to trade them. Well, I'm okay with the, I thought the trade was good value. I don't know about signing him to a max contact extension. That's what I want to say.

That was part of the trade. But, yes, you're trading, you're picking him as one of the core guys you're rolling with. That's what I didn't really like. And what, Dylan Harper, I think he's got a chance to be a monster player. I mean, 6-6 guard and handled the. ball. Like, a pretty intriguing fit with Victor long term on the timeline. Remember, you got to sell that to number one.

Well, also, if you're asking about Janus for the Mavericks, which I would be shocked by, I wouldn't be shocked if San Antonio uses this picking a Janus deal. And then, you know, if you use this picking a Janus deal, you can probably hold on to some stuff down the road. You know, I'm just saying, if you've got a, if you've got that mix and just the Yonis Wimby fit and knock on wood that, you know, that Wimby's fully healthy next year and Ray roll. But to pair Yonis with, I mean, like, Wimby is everything that Brooke Lopez is and a whole

a lot more, but just in terms of like these spacing, monster rim protecting fit. Oh, my goodness. The Mavericks just put out a press release. The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have moved up to the first overall pick. I'm glad they announced that they. Thank you for announcing that. This is the first time in franchise history that Dallas has moved up and went in lottery position.

Wouldn't one argue that it was due? All right. Yeah, they're like, hey, we lost out on Shack. We had the, we were awful. Like, come on, we're doing this one. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. All right. The big situation that happened other than the Mavericks was the 76ers going up from fifth to third. And the reason was, by the way, the top sixers could only keep their pick when the two teams behind them jumped if they jumped up.

That's right. This was the scenario of the Thunder needed. That's right. So I want you to think about being in the room. So I'm sure we'll hear about this later. But the first pick is the Mavericks pick. So the Mavericks win the pick in the drawing room. Okay.

Going to be a lot of reaction there. By the way, Sam Presti, Thunder president, is in the drawing room because it's a 36. second, 36% chance that he gets the seventh pick if their Mavericks move back. So Presti's got to be like, oh, oh, look at this little situation here. I'm not sure I like Cooper Flag coming to the Western Conference, but that's interesting. Then they draw the second pick, San Antonio Spurs. Not another top player in the West. My God, wait a minute.

For some period of time there, the Thunder had the seventh thick because two teams jumped up. Until the next team. Right. Right. But I know, but there was a period of time where the Sixers were like, oh, my, you know, I can't remember who was representing the Sixers. But the Sixers like, oh, my God, this is a catastrophe. We don't get our pick. Presti's like, I got the number seven pick.

I shouldn't say what he's saying. I don't know what he was thinking, but I know what I would be thinking if I were him. He read the bubble over his mind. Yes. They tried to, these guys tried to tank all season to deny me my lottery. pick and now the karma's going to get oh bam oh my god i mean talk about a bailout a bailout for the sixers and a jump up um and i got a what do you think they'll do bontemps are they holding or trading i mean i would assume they're going to draft a player third but i don't know i mean after

the way the last six months they have what the hell's going to happen for any yeah with the big salaries they have having a rookie scale contract would be very valuable there. Yeah, I mean, it's an opportunity to have a long-term building blocks. Again, you've got Terry Smaxy and then you've got a bunch of older players. And now you've got a chance to add a potential long-term stud with it. Ooh, two timelines. Work for Golden State. Maybe you've seen commingalately two timelines.

Well, look, I mean, look, I mean, they could trade for Giannis too now. I mean, you could do, you can say anything you want for what these teams are going to do at the top of the draft with these picks. I mean, you know, like it puts a lot of things in play. Having that pick gives Darry optionality to do a lot of different stuff. So I would guess the odds are they make a draft pick, but I mean they will. I will say this, Ace Bailey today. And like, look, I'm not, I, this is Gavoni's game.

This is not mine. Ace Bailey, who is possibly the number three pick out of Rutgers, was listed throughout the year. on Rutgers roster at 6'10. When you hear about it, people compare him to Tracy McGrady because he's got great size. People compare him to Kevin Durant. He measured in today at 6, 7 and a half at the combine in bare feet. They don't play in bare feet.

You play in shoes. So maybe put shoes on. Unless he's wearing platforms, he ain't 6'10. So that certainly drew some reaction today. But not that he's not an elite prospect at 6, 7.5 in bare feet. So anyway, I thought that I'd point that out. But you saw Darryl Morey's reaction when they knew they were in the top four. It was incredible relief.

It was incredible relief. They spent months having absolutely got off a miserable season. And this was the hope was that they could fall their way into keeping this pick. And they succeeded. And, you know, that's where, again, I go back to. I don't think this system has helped tanking at all. And honestly, like just for my, to go. go back to what we talked about on the pod yesterday,

I think this is a disaster at the top for the league because they desperately need some of these high-level prospects to end up into Easter conference. Well, that is a great point. That is a great point you made yesterday. And I'll tell you something else. You know one of the things I was thinking about? That was a great point you made.

I thought about it a lot after the pod. And it's really something I'm thinking about now. And now I'm thinking about when there's expansion, because when there's expansion, Cooper Flagg, potentially in two years, could be a monster. And now you've got potentially Dallas rising up. The fight to get into the east, because there's going to have to be a team,

you know, if indeed expansion is Vegas and Seattle, there's got to be a team go east. There is going to be a brawl to see who can get out of the Western Conference among Minnesota, Memphis, and New Orleans. It's going to be Minnesota. I would be, I would assume it's going to be Minnesota. I would not assume.

We talked about this. I would. We talked about it in our expansion piece. It's by far the most logical team from a, from a travel. What is logic? to do with that. What is logic I mean, I mean, it doesn't have to do with a lot of things we're talking about this podcast, but I would think it's not logical to have the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Pacific Northwest Division or whatever.

Wow, I mean, they should certainly abolish divisions. I was going to say it's not logical to have divisions. Yeah, well, all right. If you're the I'm doing countdown tonight, in fact, I got to go because I have to get ready to do the halftime show. I haven't watched a lick of this next Celtics game. the guy who is the executive analysis the executive producer of the of the countdown show a guy named greg condis he's a lifelong Utah jazz fan and he was directing the show tonight watching the lottery and crestfallen and i so i feel the jazz is pain through him the jazz have like never moved up i think the one year they got enous canter yeah got in a scanner with a next pick from the darren

Williams trade. Right, but their pick has never moved up. And they go the full tank this year. Some of the lineups they played down the stretch were terrible. And they go all the way back from one to five. You know, Dwayne Wade, who's a part owner of the jazz, he has a fractional ownership. He tweeted afterwards. You can get great players at number five because he was drafted number five. And you can. Like you don't have to necessarily get the number one pick. But look, we've seen several years, now of teams in the middle to back end of the lottery odds leaping up to get these generational potential players. I mean, I think the one exception that ironically was the Spurs when they what I think had the worst odds are the best, the worst record and got the number one pick

and got Victor Wyn Binyama. But it's hard to sit here and look at this and feel like it's a win for the NBA to have two teams with a lot of talent on them lined up with these two players and have them lined up in the Western Conference. It's just, it's incredible theater and storylines for the lead from that standpoint, but from an on-court product standpoint, it's hard to feel good about it. I'm just concerned what Jersey number of Cooper Flag will get when he comes to Dallas. Had number two at Duke. Number two used to be Kyrie Irving's in Dallas.

Now it's Derek Lively's. Kyrie went back to 11. I don't know. I mean, what's Cooper Flagg? to do someone someone didn't remind me that 77's now available i i promise you that will not be he's probably got the ability to get to if he wants to hey ralando blackman who is the mavix representative uh tonight on the on the stage at the lottery he wore 22 it's up in the rafters maybe maybe as a tribute to row roe roled at a jackson has the information right here that flag oh he wore 32 in high school okay okay

is 32 available uh believe so Oh, it used to be OJ. Is 32 retired at Duke? Is that late at Nors number? Yeah, that's right. That's a great pull. I would not have thought about that, but I think that is right. Yeah.

I'm checking that quick right now. Well, let's see. 31 is, okay, okay. Yeah, no, 32 is retired at Duke. So yeah, maybe he will be, maybe he will be 32. Yeah, a good question. 32 is available. Okay, okay.

That might be problem solved. Well, if that's indeed his jersey, it'll be printed up by the end of the, the week available in Dallas they can't print it up by the end of the week they've got to draft the guy first yeah well i don't think they're allowed to do it until june i understand i'm i'm making any joke uh all right um well i still can't believe that happened i really can't i still around that was absolutely incredible i mentioned i mentioned it i mentioned it on the on mba today today i was going over some crazy scenarios that could happen i just sort of mentioned it in passing like oh my

gosh wouldn't that be amazing if they got the 11th thick on the open up the envelope. But it's not even that it's just Dallas. It was Dallas jumping up and the spurs jumping up and the sixes jumping up, all of them. It was just crazy. It was three of the four teams in the lottery that had the best chance to do playoff damage if things break right next season. The other one obviously would be the Rockets. Yeah, the Rockets are the one Texas team that can't jump up in this lottery. I know. The Rockets went backwards, two. spots from 9th to 11. So. Sun's, son's laughing at them.

I don't think that's the case, but yes. All right. Well, until we meet again, we'll talk to you on the hoop collective. Thank you, to Tomp. Thank you to Jackson for scrambling quickly. Thank you to McMahon. Get on that flight to Oklahoma City. It's going to be a long one. And we'll talk to on the hoop collective later this week. Adios megos.