Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Luka & Lakers Make Statement, Future For The Nuggets & Suns

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to Luka’s emotional return to Dallas and the Lakers’ chances for a playoff run before talking the fallout from the Nuggets’ firing of head coach Michael Malone and decision not to extend GM Calvin Booth. Then the guys break down what the future holds for the Phoenix Suns after a disastrous season including what could be a very interesting summer.   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, welcome to the Hoot Collection's podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon. Joining us from New York City, where by the time this podcast airs,

the Knicks hope to have secured the number three seed, because it ain't yet, is Tim Bonteps. Hello, everybody. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, which was the heart of the NBA world on Wednesday night. Our man was outside with security before that game doing television. and I respected it. It's B. Ed McMahon. About to give them some of these. Howdy, partners. Havala.

Shaddlebox. Yeah, Havala. That means thank you. In Slovenian. I would say thanks for everything, but that everything is like ESE, and I'm not sure how to pronounce that. Probably not Bersi. See, I don't know. But that's what the Maverick's organization expressed to Luca, and he returned that gratitude

by absolutely lighting the franchise on fire, igniting many, many higher Nico chance. But I tell you what, man, I wasn't sure. Luca wasn't sure how he would deal with the emotion. And it hit him. It hit him hard during those pregame intros, that tribute video. The tears were flowing a minute there and some embraces from LeBron and his other Lakers teammates to regain his composure.

And then it was a four-blown Luca performance. Holy moly. I think the Mavericks might have made a mistake trading that guy. I'm not quite sure yet. Time will tell, as Nico and Pat Ceylon told it. Yeah, I mean. First off, before the game, and I mean, like, I don't, I couldn't talk about hockey, like, or anything like that. But when Jason Kidd, I think it's, I don't want to make too big of a deal of it because he's not a baseball official.

But when he was like, oh, people are comparing it to the Babe Ruth trade. That's kind of cool. I was like, oh, my God. Well, first of all, Jake Kidd knows baseball. Jake Kidd was actually a hell of a baseball player. Correct. His teenage son is actually one of the best prospects. I was trying to do him a favor here.

You're not helping. He doesn't need any favors. Okay. Now, listen, the trade was made, and Jay Kidd says he didn't know about it until the 11th hour. I'll just say, my understanding is he didn't exactly toss himself in front of the oncoming train to try to prevent it from happening. Now, I think what J.Kidd was trying to do was to take a shot at around the horn legend,

Tim Kallesha, long-time Dallas Morning News columnist. His column the day before, the headline was, as Luke returns to AAC, MAP's tragic trade, has become disaster of Babe Ruthian proportions. Now, while Kallisha is quite well read, I don't think the vast majority of the NBA following public knew he was jabbing a local column. Of course not. Of course not.

But honestly, like, hey, What else do you compare this to? What else do you compare trading? He hasn't won anything yet. It's in keeping with every single other aspect of how the Mavericks have handled this over the last two months, including, I'm just going to say, the asinine stuff they did yesterday. I'm sorry. You traded this guy two months ago, kicked him on the way out the door,

said all these reasons for why we had to get rid of this top five player in the league in his prime, who everybody in the league is saying, what in the world of these guys doing, trading him for $0.25 on the dollar to the Lakers and not even getting everything the Lakers have for him. Then he comes back for this game. You have these ridiculous shirts on the seats saying thank you for everything.

You do this tribute video, like it's the final game of his career and they're going to retire his number. What are they supposed to do? Hold on. They're not supposed to celebrate coming back. It's ridiculous. It was the most touching moment at the American Airlines Center since exactly six years earlier, which was Dirk Givinsky's final game.

By the way, that's the last time. There were those sort of emotions. But here's what it felt like. To Wendy's point, though. You can't trade the guy. Hold on. You can't trade the guy the way they did. Spend two months.

Period. saying why the guy, his work habits are poor, we didn't want to pay him, we didn't want him around, then bring them back and say, oh, man, Luca, oh, you're the best. Of course they had to do that. All this was great. This is a strange position. This is a strange position, yes.

It's not a strange position. It just goes with everything else. The Mavericks for two months, they made this trade, and for two months have done everything wrong since. And how they've handled it, how they've reacted to it, All of it. It's ridiculous. I'm speaking. I'm speaking. It's a self-inflicted strange position.

When you said they couldn't have traded them the way they did, you could have ended her right there and been completely right. And you were right with everything else you said. But here's the thing. If you trade them the way that they did, the only way to attempt to justify it is to explain your reasoning, which by doing so, you were going to be dumping on him. You were going to be complaining about his conditioning.

You were going to be complaining about the culture. And by the way, they did this on the record, too. This wasn't just sources said. And then when he comes back, your choices are either, hey, really welcome them and try to be, you know, celebrate them and be respectful about it. Or be perceived as being completely petty. So it was a hell of a tribute video. You know, the T-shirts. Yes.

And our people did a great job, by the way, watching. It's extremely awkward because it was an inexplicable decision. And then you put yourself in a no-win situation. And it's been nothing but no-win situation since you made this decision to dump a generational talent. Who wanted to spend his whole career in Dallas? And if you didn't believe it when he said it, you saw the tears flowing. And the one thing I love about Luke, you know what he said? Somebody afterwards, I think it was Mike Curtis for the Dallas Morning News,

asked him like, hey, what about that tribute video really got you? And Luke said, that shot I hit on Gobert. But his thing was like, dude, like, you know, it's like, you know, it was like that, that, that ruthless moment where he's ripping the guy's heart out and yelling those words, nobody knew where he was still beating in his face. But Lucas' point was like, dude, we believe, like we believed all year. We believed through the finals run. We knew we had a team. And he really, like, they believed, he believed that they could get back to the finals. He believed he was going to win championships in Dallas,

and he feels that he was robbed of that opportunity. Speaking of Rob, Bill, Rob Palinca, boy. He was strutting around courtside last night. By the way, sitting right next, court side, right next to Laura Bessager, who was longtime business manager, Dirkmaneckesky's publicist before that, and Bill Duffy, two people who I did not see greet Nico Harrison yesterday.

Yeah. The Bill Duffy had a great seat sitting right there at Courtside. Tony Romo seats, McMahon? They're not Romo seats, but when Romo comes to games, he sits there. By the way, it's right. Yeah. Dirk was not courtside, but Dirk, the man who's the inscription on his statue says loyalty never fades away. Dirk was in the building last night for the first time since the trade, his first time back at the American Airlines Center, sat up in a suite with some Amazon folks.

also our buddy Scooter Tomlin, former Mast PR man. It's the second NBA game that Dirk has attended since the start of February. You fellows might remember the first, do you? I do. I do remember the first one. Yeah. It had a little better seat for the first one. It was in Los Angeles, and it was the night of Lucas Lakers debut.

So Dirk didn't say a word to anybody on the record, but his actions spoke pretty loudly. And by the way, you know his actions also spoke loudly on both sides? Luca Dachich and Anthony Davis because... Hold up, hold up. I know. I know Luca could say, hold on. Stop. Stop.

Whoa. Podcast. Just stop. Stop. Okay. I just want to say something about before we get into the game, I know, before we get into the game, we know Luca is emotional because we see him emotional angry all the the time.

So, of course, he's going to be emotional the other way. You know what I thought was interesting. I don't know. I don't know if it was presented to him. Sometimes in situations like this, when a player's coming back, which we now see regularly, because there's tribute videos every 15 minutes. The player will watch the tribute video before.

The team will let him see it. And I've seen this where the player then will not watch it in an effort not to get emotional. They'll get emotional on their private time, and then they will, you know, they'll be on the screen and they'll look down and they'll turn their back. Clearly, Luca had not seen it yet. And I don't know if that was a choice or not,

But he did not choose to look down. He obviously chose to look straight at it. And he knew within one second, McMahon, that he was going to cry. Because as soon as the video started playing, he asked the ball boy for a towel. He didn't have a towel, and he got the towel. And he also could have put the towel over his face. All of that would have been acceptable. But nope.

And I thought it was very interesting that the Lakers and everybody gave him space. backed off of him. They let him decide what they wanted to do. And that was, I thought, and I thought, by the way, our presentation of it, we had these incredible camera angles, which showed the lip quivering. I mean, the lip quivering with the tears on the face while he's watching the video, that's going to be a Luca defining moment. I don't care if he goes on and wins four championships. And we have Luca holding Larry O'Brien in one hand and Bill Russell on the other. The crying video with the quivering lip is going to be a thing. So I think it was incredibly humanizing for him for a guy who a lot of his emotions are negative emotions or you know arrogant emotions anger

and wrath you see that a lot you see anger wrath joy and this was sadness yeah well i always think of the great luca moment when he had the incredible put back off the miss free throw last year where he's so happy he doesn't know what to do with his hands yeah that was that was triple double to force overtime against the nix yeah he's he's dancing and he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't know what he's just it's so much joy he doesn't know where his limbs are going. So I will say, like, I, you know, I've long believed that Luke is going to win at all. He's going to win championships. You know, I, you know, Kendrick Perkins is the same last night.

He doesn't think he's going to win at all. I'm like, I think this guy can win it all. I don't know what's going to happen. He's 26, and he's been pretty damn close. Okay. So anyway. Yeah. You're going to be just fine.

I just want to say that before the game, that was a very special moment. In the game, Luca had two things going for, and one that we've seen a little bit this season and one that we have. haven't as much. He hit his threes. When he's hit his three to the Lakers, he's had big games. He's been he's been totally hot and cold with the Lakers with these threes. That was big. And then he went to the basket, McMahon. Luka was more of the Luca himself, his typical Luca self when he was a scoring champion when he mixed up his game and didn't just settle for stepbacks and, you know, catch and shoot threes. He actually attacked the interior in this game,

which is good because the Mavs had size and he could have said. settled, but he attacked the interior and obviously then had a huge game. And when the threes are falling and he's attacking the paint, when he's got that combination, like, you can't guard him. Now, I did have a Mavericks assistant last night basically say, I can't believe we didn't double team the whole night. Like, you've got to get the ball out of his hands. Having said that, you get the ball out of his hands.

You let Austin Reeves and LeBron James attack downhill four on three. That's not a pleasant option either. But you knew when Luca got the switch on. Ad, midway through the fourth quarter, and he already had, you know, he had, I think, 11 points this time. And it was like that Gobert step back where he's dancing, he's got the big fella dancing. And the same thing. He didn't step back to the left like he always says. Kind of went back a little bit to the right. When he hit that three, I was like, okay, it's going to be one of those kind of nights.

31 in the first half, Jay Shea Reddick did pan post game. I thought he was going to get 50. I'm disappointed. But man, oh man. And, you know, the thing, like, we, this was the first full-blown four-quarter real peak lucre performance in a Lakers uniform. He's had some good ones. This was the full, like, by his standards, great scoring performance. But you've got to remember, he not only was dealing with, like, just the emotional gut-wrenching and uprooting of his entire life and all that stuff, he was coming off the longest injury layoff of his career.

he's ramping his way up and if Lucas ramps up to peak former close to it come playoff time like the likely three seed Lakers are absolutely going to be a threat and this is not just reacting obviously to beating a 10 seed

preparing for Cancun version of the Dallas Mavericks I guess I'm Mac 10 at this point but dude what we saw Sunday in Oklahoma City, where they just torch the best defense in the league. And what we saw right up until Luca got tossed for barking at a fan that JT or the ref thought was directed at him, probably because JT, the just technical or the ref had heard a whole lot from Luca all night long, gave him the second T's out.

All decade long, buddy. Exactly. Right up until that point, though, that was a neck and neck game. the Lakers look like a legit threat despite the obvious roster flaw of not having a starting caliber big man. Okay, now I'm going to slow you down and go back to Bontemps. The Lakers are a threat because they have a top five player in the world. And you saw it yesterday why this trade was so insane. Luca Dantzic, his entire basketball life, has delivered in massive moments.

He won Eurobasket with Slovenia. He won the EuroLeague with Real Madrid, was MVP of the Euroleague, Final Four, as an 18-year-old. has got the math to the finals, has countless times delivered in massive situations. Western Conference Finals. He might not have known how he was going to react yesterday. I knew he was going to have 45 yesterday or some massive game. Of course. He wasn't going to show up and he wasn't going to show up and have 12 points in this game.

He always delivers. And by the way, Anthony Davis, invisible. Invisible the whole game. Playing against the Lakers, huge moment. you know, constantly talking on the broadcast, why isn't Anthony Davis getting more shots? Why isn't Anthony Davis more involved? Why is he doing anything in the game? Finishes with 13 points on 13 shots. Just to be clear, the Lakers, you know, they didn't double team them every time, but the Lakers

aggressively played Anthony Davis. They played. His defense was poor, and he was not involved. I'm sorry. It was not a good night for Anthony Davis. Listen, AD, honestly, I don't know why he's playing right now. I mean, I know why, but there's a reason people within the Mavericks try to talk him in the shutting down. He's coming back off of the six-week layoff. You know, obviously when Kyrie went down, any hopes the Mavericks had been doing anything this season went kaput.

He's had one AD performance since then. That was against the Hocx where he had the game winner, the game-winning stop on Trey Young, a 34-point night. Other than that, he's just been okay since then. But I'm not going to make this a big judgment on AD. Well, it's not a judgment on AD as much as it's just it's a recognition that the Lakers got a dramatically better player and they have been gifted. Well, I know, but it's just this whole game and how this played out. Yes, AD's coming off the injury. Yes, Kyrie is hurt.

Yes, the Mavs aren't the team they hope they would be. This game also was just a 48 minute reflection of in every way why this trade was so ridiculous from the beginning and why it's given the lake. an entirely new lease on life. And they still have these flaws, as you mentioned, they don't have a center. I'm curious about their ability to really guard in the playoffs when everybody's playing at a very high level of effort and focus, the way the Lakers, to JJ Redis credit, have the last couple months. But when you have Luca Donchich playing like this and diamond guys up for open shots,

and you've got LeBron James, who still, even at 40, has an aura of presence and an effect on the game. of one of the top 10 or 15 players on the planet, you have a shot. And this team did not have a stop. And LeBron is benefiting from playing with Luca exactly how Kyrie did last year. LeBron is going to be an awesome closer, just like he was last night. Why? Because for three quarters, he can kind of pick and choose. And I'm not saying necessarily coast, but Luca's going to carry the load.

You get to pick and choose, and suddenly you gas tanks full come the fourth quarter. And when the Lakers get a franchise center, Luca's going to make that guy thrive to. Oh, look what he's, he's making Jackson Hayes thrive. I know, I know. That's one thing I'll say. So I agree with you. Right now, the Lakers, I think BPI has them over 90% to get the three seed. Right now it's Memphis, but of course, Memphis has three games to play, you know, whatever.

But the Lakers are going to get the three, which means home court in the first round, which the first round is going to be a bleep show in the Western Conference. They could lose it, but they're going to have home court. they've been great all year. They're going to potentially get on the same side of the bracket. Not potentially. They're going to be on the same side of the bracket as Houston. I'm not underestimating Houston at all.

I've been guilty of underrestive in Houston before. I'm not going to do it again. But still, if you're going to pick a team, you're going to want to pick a team that doesn't have experience. Obviously, they've got some guys on your roster. They're just picking not Oklahoma City. They're on the not Oklahoma City side of the bracket. Forget who else they get it.

Like they're going to have a hard matchup, but they're not going to have Oklahoma City until the conference finals. If we're putting our money down, that's the conference finals, right? And that's what we're anticipating. I do want to touch on one more. I think it depends on matchups all across the board. I would agree. But my point is that the Lakers are in a decent position in this, you know, for all that

is they're in a decent position. They're playing well. But I'm going to say it's my way better than decent. They're in great position. Okay, great position. I continue to believe that the size is going to be an issue and it's going to show up. And I know JJ Reddick has worked very hard to find systems that mitigate their size. And last night we saw it again.

They were double teaming on AD and basically like forcing the Mavericks and daring the Mavericks to pass their way out of the double teams and saying we think with our, we have, we're small inside, but we're big on the perimeter. And so we think that by the time you beat our double team, we can help and recover out of our way doing it. That's a playoff style offense. the situation, our playoff style defense in a situation. I'm not sure it lasts forever, especially since they've showed their hand, but I'm not going to disregard it either.

I will say this, the Lakers fell behind in this game in the fourth quarter when the Mavericks went super big and their size disadvantage showed up glaringly and the Mavericks were able to get the lead. It didn't last because they have offensive playmakers with the Lakers and maybe it won't last. But it's hard. I want to be able to say I respected Lakers as a threat. I respect where the Lakers have worked to put themselves in the standings and still say, I think that their roster is inbalanced enough to show up to win three playoff series. I mean, their starting centers, Jackson Hayes.

Of course, the roster is imbalanced in a likely scenario to win three playoff rounds this year. Like, that's okay. They've had a great season and they're in the best position they could hope to be in. They're sitting in the three seed. They are on the opposite side of the bracket as the thunder. And now we'll wait and see what the matchup is. I mean, look, maybe they get, you know, if you're looking at the five teams that are tied as of this moment, or in the mix for four to eight right now, Denver, the Clippers, the Grizzlies, the Warriors and the Wools,

all those teams present different challenges. And, you know, like, I think I'd probably pick Memphis of the five, if I'm the Lakers. If they could get Memphis in Houston, yeah, I'm picking them to get to the, conference finals. If they get Denver, even with the weak Denver's ad, or Golden State, or if Kauai is healthy, the clippers, like those are Minnesota with their size, like all those series could be pretty fascinating. But yeah, look, I mean, the Lakers are, the Lakers have had an incredible season and they're going into the playoffs in as good a situation as they could hope to have been in when they made the trade. And they're a lob catching, you know, rim running,

Rem protecting Big Man away from having just a holy smokes. This is a stacked roster. That much is true. I've heard JJ Redick make the point, though, that this is not a small team because, you know, you look at, you look at their five on the floor in a lot of closing situations. 6.5 Austin Reeves, 6.7, 6.8, Lucidant, 6.9, LeBron James, 68, Dorian, Finney, Smith. So my point is there's six, five, six, seven, six eight, six nine, you know, Rue Hatchmur, six eight or whatever. Like there are a bunch of these six five to six nine, you know, type of guys that, you know,

that can rebound, that there's some switchability there. There's also some huntability there with Luke. I'm going to say, that's the other thing that I worry about, too, is individual man defense. But there are, to your point, one to four, we talk about them being small at the five. If we've, you know, we've also brought up before, you know, positional size across the board can make up for a lot of that. And they are huge from the one to four spots. And, you know, that can that can certainly help them as they get in the playoffs. But that's what's going to make the West playoffs so fascinating.

A lot of this is just going to come down to these individual matchups and how they play out over the next three or four days in terms of who gets who. And, you know, again, where the Lakers were when they made the trade, you knew they were in. a great position long term, and they put themselves to have an opportunity to have a great run here over the next couple of months. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. All right. So speaking of Western Conference playoffs, a good pod moment the other day, by the way, when Bontem saw first that Michael Malone had been fired, listening back, we were a little

bit out of sorts and how that all turned down. So now that we've had a moment to hear more about this, McMahon, I know you talked to a lot of folks in and around Denver over the last couple of days. I don't want to rehash everything we've heard. I sort of want to look forward here. But I was kind of surprised. We're sitting here on Thursday.

The nuggets bounced back, broke their losing streak in Sacramento on Wednesday night. Yokic talked about the firing for the first time. I saw some pushback on the idea that he claimed that he was given a heads up, but that was all. People thought, people didn't like that. They thought, you know, I don't know what they thought. But what's some of the stuff that you've learned? Because I know that you've spent some time around the Denver team.

Yeah. And so Ramona and I will have a story. I believe it will be published by the time this podcast, the outcome on this whole situation. And I want to preface this, first of all, by saying, I have great respect for Michael Malone, winning his coach and Nuggets franchise history, a championship coach, a guy who I,

I've greatly enjoyed my interactions with. I like, I like his fistiness. I love the way he comes. Ready to roll. I'm ready to score. But in talking to people around the organization, I frankly haven't heard sadness that Michael Malone is no longer the Nuggets head coach. It's been pretty much a consensus.

And I've talked to several people that his time had come. Like it had run its course and that this, this extended Cold War or battle or, you know, whatever you want to call it, between Michael Malone and Calvin Booth had drained the joy from the entire organization. You know, a lot of, I mean, people, one guy used the term freaking miserable. And that they felt like those guys had prioritized their own situations and their own egos to the expense of the team that Malone had lost the locker room. including Joker, including Jamal Murray on down, and that, you know, that they needed just

fresh air. They needed, you know, it was a plane that was experiencing great turbulence and headed towards a crash, and they needed to get rid of the co-pilots and get someone else in the cockpit. And that's exactly what Josh Cronky did. When it happened in the moment, I couldn't believe they did Michael Malone like that. And I still think it's a really disrespectful thing to do for a guy who had so much success. I would just say on that, not to interrupt you here, because I just, I'm trying to channel people are thinking. They would say, well, then how come nobody was saying this three, four, five months, three, four, five weeks before? And I want to get to that too. So one, you're not going to like give the people within the Nuggets organization credit for not

airing their dirty laundry throughout this whole process, although everybody in the league knew. and Ramona wrote a story going in the season about the Cold War between Malone and Booth. That's true. Now, what I did find out is that Josh Cronkey intended to make this move at the All-Star break. He was planning to make this move at the break. And you know what happened before that? The Nuggets won eight straight games. And so that's why it happened now, you know, when they were coming off a four-game losing streak.

He said, you know, he hasn't said much, but, you know, I was talking to an executive in the league. You know, Josh Cronky did an interview with team media. And it was like in front of this black backdrop. You know, it was like, oh, my, it was like the black curtain talk, you know. But in that interview, he said winning can mask a lot of things. And that was sort of a vague reference to what you just referred to. Yeah, I'm going to read that. I'm going to read that quote.

You know, during the podcast, right as this happened, I said, we need to hear an explanation. And honestly, like, Kronky hasn't done a press conference, but by in-house media interview standards, I thought that was a very revealing interview. And he said, well, I'm trying to get to this. Oh, crap. They've rearranged. By the way, when I talk to people in the organization, one of the things that they said was the eight-game winning streak was, it was obviously a good couple of weeks,

but that the quality of the opponents was also a factor. So I'm going to tell you who they beat from the end of January to that break. They won in Philly after Embed shut down when they were beginning the top sixers run. I was at that game. They were a mess. Then they won in Charlotte. Then they won back-to-back games at home with the Pelicans. I don't know who played in those games.

My guess was it was a mess for the last two. It doesn't matter for the Pelicans. They won 12 games. They beat the magic at home When the magic were in their deep dive Another bad team Then they won in Phoenix Historic Letdown

Another bad team Then they beat the Blazers Twice in a row at home Right Blazers were beginning to play The Blazers were beginning to play better But still None of those teams have a winning record

Several of them are awful Then they beat the Hornets at home Sure Yeah So it was actually a nine game win streak Those were the nine games Right but eight going into the all-star break And then home from the All-Star Break again

So eight games going into the time that he pinpointed is what would be the best time if you've got to make up midseason massive organizational change and cronkey said there were certain trends that were very worrisome to me at certain points in time but they would get masked by a few wins here and there in the world professional sports where winning and losing is your currency winning can mask a lot of things and again i've talked to several people within the organization I've gotten a lot of, hey, really surprised by the timing, but I haven't gotten people who have told me that this doesn't make sense or this shouldn't have happened or this was a poor

decision. Honestly, I've gotten a lot of the feeling of, hey, we needed fresh air. We needed a change. And frankly, also optimism that David Adelman is a guy that is going to be a damn good head coach. is going to have, you know, it's a tough situation to throw a guy into, a few games left in the regular season on a team that has the best player in the world, but has the respect and, you know, from joke or from Murray, you know, and those guys like him. And there's just feeling that maybe the roster rallies behind this guy, but that it was time for there to be a new voice there and a voice that wasn't always yelling and screaming and doing some of the things that Malone did during the most successful tenure by a coach in Nuggets history.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's just okay for there to be a change. And I don't, I think, like you said, I would say it was disrespectful to Michael Malone to do this the final week of the regular season. And he's, but, you know, ultimately it's their decision to make. And the guy's had an incredible run there. And he's a great coach. He's, I'm sure, I'm sure going to get his pick of jobs over the next year. I mean, we'll see what comes actually available this summer. Maybe he takes a break.

He's got a couple of years left anyway. But he's going to have his pick of jobs to get back in. And 10 years in the NBA is eternity. I mean, there's only three guys that, there's only three jobs that have been in place where the guy's been in place since before COVID, Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich, and Eric Bolstrow. So, you know, for the vast majority of the league, now 90% of the league has changed coaches in the last five years. So, you know, at some point, things come to an end. And I don't think that should diminish the job he's done or take away from, you know, like we talked about the other

day. Like, he deserves an immense amount of credit for really seeing before just about anybody the ability of Nicole Yokachian and empowering him and believing in his ability as a player and prioritizing playing him over a first round pick, which is a hard thing to do. But at the end of the day, you know, we'd all heard, like you said, throughout the year about the internal friction in Denver. And so the timing certainly was very surprising, given their aspirations, but the ultimate outcome, at least from that standpoint, does make some sense. And I think these two sentences from a team source sum it up. The situation was just unsustainable. Coach Malone and Calvin couldn't fix it because they made the situation all about themselves.

So it's one of those things where there's a massive power struggle and they both lost. We'll say David Adelman in his first comments when he was coaching the game in Sacramento, he was very respectful to Michael Malone who hired him, I think, in 2017 or 18. I mean, he's been around him for a long time. Obviously, they have a relationship. But he made it clear he wants there to be some more positivity around the team. So this always happens. By the way, happens in every sport.

First off, general managers and coaches clash on things at every sport. And especially about the particular things of young guys playing, draft picks playing versus Edgers playing. Absolutely. I mean, I can go down, like, for example, I mean, and I'm not looking to create some sort of issue, but for example, you look at like in Miami, Eric Spolster didn't play Khalil Ware very much early in the season. Now he's like a core player in what they do because Kalil Ware, and this is just, I'm just pulling a random example. I'm not looking to try to cause a problem aggregation machine. Eric Spolstra, there's almost no alignment in the modern era of the NBA between front office and head coach like you've seen in

Miami. But there are times when even Eric Spolstra doesn't prefer to play the rookie and he would prefer to play a veteran player and he has to make the rookie here in his spots or whether it's a rookie or a young player. It happens. It's natural. The other thing that happens historically in all sports, but particularly the NBA, is when you have a change at coach, you often will see a vast go to the other end of the spectrum. If you have a analytical coach who was a video coordinator who gets fired, a lot of times you're going to see a former player and vice versa.

You have a former player, you may see an analytical coach who came up through the film room. David Adwin made it very clear. Michael Malone was fiery, angry, used motivation through rage, a lot more frowns and fire on the sideline than smiles and laughter. It's not exactly the way Steve Kerr and Michael Malone's sidelines look, but quite different.

So in comes David Adelman, and he, With all due respect to Michael Malone, says, we're looking for some positivity here. And so I think you've described it also, McMahon, as a breath or fresh air type of situation. And look, when it comes to Yokic, there's nuance here. Yes, Yokic knew early, of course. If they had come to Yolkich, and by the way,

there's the other thing. When you're the owner or you're the general manager of a team, it's not like a television show where there's like this big moment, whether it's like this big meeting. Should we fire the coach or not? You know by being around the team and having conversations how players feel.

And look, could when they call, I think Yokic said that Josh Kronki called him, but let's just say it was in person. If Yokic had like gone crazy and like destroyed the room, which by the way, it got out pretty quickly in the NBA that Michael Malone's reaction to being fired

was not calm, which is a shocker. Not a surprise. I don't blame him. Don't blame him. If Yokic had flipped out and said absolutely not, of course that would, have happened. That doesn't mean that Yokic was, you know, driving the bus here. And I've seen this again for decades and we'll see it for decades more. And Yokic, you know, he didn't go into detail

about the chat that he had with Josh Kronky, but he said it was a decision. It wasn't a discussion. And to quote him, he said, he told me why. And so I listened and I accepted it. And, you know, if Joker says, hell no, it doesn't happen. But listen, man, Joker's, it's, it's, you know, I think I don't want to put words in Joker's mouth, but the people I've talked to felt like Joker was at least very understanding of the reason that people, that Cronkey thought it was necessary to make this change. Well, Brian summed it up, right? I've talked about this a lot before, but the most important thing, obviously the number one thing for an organization to have is a top five player in terms of winning a title, right? The second most important thing is have an alignment from ownership to the front office to the coach to the star player. And what we all can agree on and what I think the whole league would agree on is that that vertical alignment, like you mentioned Brian in Miami, like from ownership to front office to coach, there's no more stable place in the league than Miami.

That vertical alignment in Denver, but the coach in the front office, it was horizontal. It was totally sideways and it was a real problem. Despite the fact that they have, I think we'd all agree, the best player on the planet, if you don't have that kind of alignment, it makes it extremely difficult to get where you want to go. It's not impossible. We've seen crazy organizations win in the past. You go back to the last dance, right? Certainly there was all kinds of stuff going on with that team.

Good, good point. But typically. You saw it for two years ago. Well, yeah, but and look, the other thing to factor in here, too, when you talk about alignment, right? Tim Connolly hired Michael Malone. And those two guys had personalities that mesh really well, and they were a great partnership. Calvin Booth didn't hire Michael Malone. He inherited Michael Malone when he got the job when Michael Malone inherited him when he got the job, however you want to phrase it.

And that mix just was never great. And, you know, despite the fact that in Boots' first year, they were right, Malone super fiery, Tim Connolly, super chill, those two guys. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I mean. They really, they balance each other out really well. And that was an incredible working relationship. And they built an awesome team.

And you don't have to necessarily have that kind of relationship to make this work. But there's got to be alignment. And what there was, there was clearly not any in Denver. And that is ultimately why this happened. I do like obviously Calvin Booth You know he got caught up in this and he made the battle a priority and all those things And it ultimately cost him his job I do want to make sure the Calvin Booth getting his fair share of the credit for that championship team

Yes Tim Connolly did the majority of that team but Calvin Booth trade for KCP signing Bruce Brown They like these were the finishing pieces of that championship puzzles So what's crazy is the first year of Calvin Boots in that GM role, they win a championship. And here we are two years later. And after a bunch of bitterness, they're both gone. And I'm going to say that even if everybody is singing kumbra, whether they're brawling in the aisles or whether they're singing kumbaya, if Jamal Murray doesn't come back and play well, this is all going to be secondary.

I mean, that's just that's one thing we've seen. When Murray is healthy and playing well, the Nuggets. are potent. When he's not there, they're just less than. And the way they're built right now with not much depth, they just don't really have much recourse. The other thing I'll say is the one thing I noticed from game one, my new sample size is Yokic looked to be much more of a distributor and much more. It took, take a lesser role to get his teammates going more. This guy coming into this game was averaging a 30 point triple double. So he always gets his teammates involved in every game. But the higher

Yokic's scoring is typically the less potent the nuggets are. For example, in the last week, he's had a 60-point game that they lost and a 40-point game that they lost. They played a game last night. He's what, 22 or 24, and they won. It's not an ironclad rule. Obviously, he's had 50-point games where they've won. But when Yokic plays in a more balanced scoring system, they're harder to guard, they're harder to predict, they're harder to deal with. obviously their defense is important too.

Also the way he's most comfortable. We've seen that forever, you know. But he wants to be diamond guys up and getting guys involved and sharing the ball. He doesn't want to be going for 60. I mean, he'll do it if he needs to, but it's not his preferred style of play. The fact that the nuggets are, you know, quote unquote, struggling. They're still sniffing 50 wins. The fact that their production level this year was down and that this was Yokic's

highest ever scoring average, I think it's related. I think it's related. And in this first game, he took the, he took the fourth most shots on the team in the first game. You remember when we had Mike Brown on the podcast before those finals, Mike Brown, another damn good coach who was fired this season. But we had him on the podcast. And I remember asking him, hey, how do you deal with Joker from a game planning perspective?

And he said, you tried to make him purely a score. Like you can't let him be doing both. So you try to, you try, because he doesn't want to be purely a score. You know, he would rather be a guy who's facilitated and kind of getting his buckets in the flow than just basically having to try to score possession after possession after possession. And so you try to make him a score. You try to make sure nobody else is in a rhythm. And if he scores 45, 50, 55, you can live with that.

And, you know, you remember that was this, he had, I think, a 50-something point game in their last loss to the Suns in that series. Which is, is that the Sun's last playoff? Damn, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? We might want to talk about Phoenix a bit too. But yeah, you try to make Joker a one-dimensional offensive player, and that dimension is going to be scoring, because if you let them facilitate, he's going to find buckets in the process of that.

More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. All right, this is a developing situation. Let's take a look at the Suns, because the Sun's 2024-25 season is over. That situation developed poorly. They were eliminated on Wednesday night, although they were de facto eliminated a long time ago. I mean, their Cancun flights have been booked for a little bit now. Yeah, we've done an analysis on why they failed. I think the big thing is what happens now.

Bye-bye, bud. What has been alarming, alarming, alarming. No, alarming, no, alarming, alarming is a good word. What's been alarming is how easily they went down. I mean, they have quit. Yes. They've quit. And look, that it's concerning from a character perspective, but they've quit on Bud.

And how many straight years can you fire your head coach? I don't know, but we might find out in Phoenix. We're testing the theory. I'm pretty certain it's going to be three in a row. I'll tell you that. Again, the best thing I can say about that situation is there's not. a luxury tax on coach salaries, plus the Pistons bailed them out on Monty Williams salary. Well, that's true. But five years and $50 million was what it came. I don't know if the 50

was guaranteed, but it's obviously a big number. You know, but to collect that somewhere else, almost certainly, like it hadn't happened yet, but it will be shocking if he's not dismissed. I don't know who you can hire that can fix this situation, but it's not, they're not a coach away. It wasn't Frank Vogel's fault last year, you know, clearly. They're still paying Frank. Bring them back. Bring them back. Can you double dip?

And then, you know, none of us think Kevin Grant's playing for the Sons again. We will see what they're able to get there. It's not going to be what they gave up because Katie's going to have a whole lot of say on where he goes. He's entering the last year of his contract and eligible for a two-year $122 million extension. I cannot imagine he approves a trade destination without that extension on the table. that will be very interesting to see how that plays out. Again, the only thing... He does not have to approve the trade destination.

I mean, ideally, you want him on board. He doesn't have to. I think it's going to be very difficult to get anything close to reasonable value without his okay, because if I'm a team trading for Kevin Durant and he's going to the last year of his contract, if I'm giving a value, I need to guarantee that this is going to be... This is what I... This is what I think is the big thing with Durant.

Yes, this could end up being a conventional trade, and I'm not going to get trapped into talking to which teams because the market for Durant may change wildly from the end of the regular season until the end of the playoffs, depending on how some of these teams play. Yes, this could be a conventional star player trade where the star player says, I like these two teams or this one team or these three teams, and the team gives him permission,

and he goes and says, hey, how about that two-year 120? You got it, man. When's the press conference? They negotiate the deal that happens. That absolutely could happen. I'm just telling you in 2025 NBA, the teams that are going to want Kevin Durant are going to be apron teams.

And it's going to be two apron teams making a deal of this size. It's going to be hard. There might be an exception or two, but we'll see how things develop there. Of course. And like I said, it could end up being a team that gets Durant,

puts them with a couple of other good players. Signs of an extension, everybody's happy. But it could be that the Sons have to look at making a trade where flexibility is their number one priority. Not necessarily because they want to be their number one priority, but because their way out of this is to be able to change and be flexible with the roster. Just what happens with Bradley Beale,

who obviously does have to approve any trade. And I don't know what if any interest there will be or what if any value you'll have with that max contract and a no trade clause. But the plans to retrofit the roster around Devin Booker and be all in again next year. To retrofit anything, you need flexibility. Well, there's so many problems here. One is obviously the Bradley Beale situation, which, you know, again, going back to when they made that trade to get him, they made that trade and it was all, they didn't give up any first round.

picks to get it. It was like, well, they gave up a bunch of seconds and a bunch of swaps and they locked themselves into a guy with a no trade clause that other teams would not have taken him if he didn't waive it. Mark Bartlestein, obviously, having gotten that no trade clause, made sure that he kept it. Now Phoenix is sitting there with a guy that they can't move. And unless he wants to leave Phoenix, we'll either be having to be waived to leave or will be there. So we'll see what happens with that. Kevin Duran is a great player. However, he's about to be 37 years old. He's going to want to make $60 million. And he was just part of a train wreck of a team where he and Devin Booker were both

healthy for the vast majority of the year. And I think they're even more disappointing than Philly. Like I've said to you guys before, at least Philadelphia, as awful and disastrous and horrible as their season's been in the position they're in going forward, see what happens with Joelle and Bede's knee, all that. If we'd said before the season, Joel and Bede's got to play 19 games, we would have said, yeah, the sixers are probably going to have an awful season. Devin Booker has played 70-some games.

Kevin Durant played 62. If we'd said that before the season, we'd said, oh, well, the sons are probably going to be in the playoff mix. Might not win the West, but they're going to be pretty good. And instead, those guys were healthy for most of these games down the stretch when they've just been getting demolished on a nightly basis. And you talk about flexibility, Brian. Part of the problem the sons are going to have is there's very little cap space out there

of this summer. So if you're making a trade with Durant, because of all these apron rules, even in the summertime, you're still got to find teams that have the ability to take on that kind of number that he's making $50 million or more, which means even if you're making a deal with getting flexibility at some point in the near future, you're still taking back a ton of money. So, you know, there's just no good path out of this thing on any level. What I'm saying is... It's as bad a situation as we've ever seen in a week. If the Sun's come into a trade negotiation...

It's extreme. Dude, they don't have control of their draft picks for the rest of the decade. They have no money. I'm sure there's been worse. What situation's worse, honestly? Well, look, they've traded away all their draft picks. Right. Okay, I don't want our views.

It's not hyperbole. Where's the mute button? The thing is, if the Suns enter into a negotiation, expecting that they're going to get the classic star package back picks prospects players are going to help you now that's the magic Johnson shaking's head meme I'm not sure and that's the plan right now is they're getting that kind of trade maybe they get it yeah and I will I congratulate them they do maybe they get it they may have to make a trade what with with what they get back is someone else off of their

books or something that could help them do it. Because again, I would say study the Clippers. The Clippers essentially traded Paul George for flexibility. And of course, you might say they didn't trade Paul George. They let Paul George walk in free agency. Yes, but of course they could have signed Paul George. He was prepared to sign. They could have signed and traded Paul George. They were willing to let Paul George leave for nothing because in return they were able to get access to their exceptions, get access to making trade. get access to, you know, aggregating for deals. And the reason I think the Sun should study it is because the Clippers had two guys on their

roster who were in long-term contracts. Well, I guess they had to re-sign Hardin, but they had two star players on their roster and a roster that wasn't serving them anymore and was maxed out because they were a second apron team. They were able to exit the aprons and then able to put pieces around Hardin and and Kauai Leonard that lifted them up. Now, part of the reason why...

And Zubach's your first name you can't pronounce. Right. The reason they were able to rise up potentially to be the number four seed was because they had some guys in house that were already in position to do well. But when they took Paul George out, Zubach and Norm Powell thrived.

And so that was a good analysis by them of where they could do that. I don't know if it's going to be that clean. but the move that the Clippers did was they traded Paul George for flexibility and were able to retrofit the team. The sons can't retrofit the team if they're in the second apron. Yeah. Now, they gave Paul George. And it's nearly impossible to make a Kevin Durant trade and not be in the second apron.

Like the difference of Paul George is Paul George was a free agent and could walk out the door. And there was a place he was willing to go that had max cap space to sign him. If your price for getting Durant back is the flexibility, you may be able to find a way to do it. I mean, sure, I guess. It's just the way the trade rules are, you just, you have to take back $40 to $50 million. All I'm encouraging our educated listeners is to don't think about a Durant trade in terms of a typical star for packaged deal. that there is another path that the Sons may have to examine here. I'm not going to get into aggregation here about what I think.

If priority is flexibility, it opens up a lot of other things. And that's where you want to fix the situation. You may have to roll your sleeves up and go that route. The problem with that, though, is Matt Ishpah is all in, maximize everything right now, right now, right now. Well, that's true. Have some patience, microwave, Matt. I'm telling you, you've got to have a little bit of patience here.

It can't be about everything to maximize next season because, brother, I know you don't feel you're as far away as standings indicate, but damn, those standings are ugly for the Phoenix Sons right now. So, you know, it's got to be a two or three years. Well, the other thing is that. Like, I know that Matt Ishby has thrown money around and he's acted like it's no big deal. He missed the, he missed the playoffs with a $400 million payroll. he may just have to flat out reduce the money.

Because like at some point, I don't know if you guys have paid attention to American business. The billionaire class, it's been a little bit of a rough go here. So I would just say, sure has been a world for the thousandaire class too. I can tell you that. Agree.

You know, assuming that they're just going to keep spending, spending and spending when you've just had a $400 million team that missed the playoffs is not, I would not say that's a safe assumption. They are 31 games back in the Western Congress. from standings from the Oklahoma City Thunker. 30.

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a very bad situation. And I think your advice and your thought on it, Brian, is very smart in terms of looking at trying to have a more flexible situation going forward. I just would reiterate that the way the rules are now constructed makes it extremely difficult for a team like Phoenix to do that. Like they can maybe get out of the second apron, but to get like where the,

Clippers were, which is from the second apron to out of the tax and having the full mid-level and all this other stuff that they had. Like doing that kind of jump in one off season when nobody has cap space, I'm not going to say it's impossible because we began this podcast to talk about Luca Dotsich getting traded a couple months ago. But it's an extremely difficult ask to make before you even get into the stuff that McMahon just mentioned about how Matt Ishbia, including on the record of Big Man, by the way, a month ago, declared that we're always going full steam ahead no matter what every year. This would not be full steam ahead.

It would be a philosophical shift. And again, Ishbhby has been adamant that his philosophy is concrete and will be consistent despite the fact that it has been counterproductive so far. Well, the other thing that they should honestly consider is they, they should be having a totally different discussion about Devin Booker than they have been. Well, we may get there, but let's not be premature. Everything that you just said, Bon Temps may rear its head, but let's just, including about whether they can do it, but let's not be premature.

And that would be a complete 180 pivot from where they are. Right. Sure. I'm not saying that's happening. It's what I think they should do. Before we go, I just want to take a second to acknowledge, we're the most public announcer-friendly podcast, NBA podcast. I want to acknowledge longtime Orlando Magic public address announcer Paul Porter, who is

leaving his position after 36 years. It's not by his choice. Paul Porter's voice is the voice of every Orlando Magic game, basically ever. And back when they had like, they only had like very limited back at the overall. arena when they had very limited things they could do to do a voice. Paul Porter was was, you know, they would they would make his voice like an echo type thing. Good night, good night, good night, good night. So I would just like to say, Paul, uh, you've got my respect, our respect. Um, it wasn't his choice, which, um, and then the magic tried to make some sort of, they made a statement saying he

was tired of driving up I4 because he lives in Tampa. It was a strange press release, but forget about all that. Congratulations to Paul Porter on a great run. It's like the Denver Nuggets. Sometimes you decide you need a new voice. All right. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you to Bon Tempts. Thank you to Jackson and Rafah, our producers out here in L.A. With me this week.

We got a big 72 hours in the NBA, and we'll be back with you Sunday night slash Monday morning to figure out where the league looks. Until then, we'll talk to you soon. Adios amigos.