Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - NBA To Fix Tanking? Celtics Most Intriguing Team in NBA? + Draymond Drama Continues

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss the NBA brainstorming measures to combat tanking including how viable various solutions are to actually be put into place. Then, the guys talk if the Celtics could remain dangerous enough this season to make a return for Tatum make sense and how much that could impact the rest of the league. Plus, the Pelicans find some success and drama makes headlines for Draymond Green and Steve Kerr. Finally, the guys break down the Christmas Day games they are most excited for. 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 with the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which you're doing on Tuesday afternoon. Joining us from San Jose, California, where you spend in the holidays, is Tim Bonteps.

Hello, everybody. Join us from Dallas, Texas, where he's always on some level of holidays, Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners? I believe I'm the only one who's actually really doing some work this week. You look very, you're very nicely dressed. Like, what a professional. I mean, fresh off NBA today. Head to Nuggets Mavericks.

Wendy, where are you? What NBA city are you in? I am not in an NBA city, but there's a lot of NBA fans here where I'm at. I'm going to go to Warriors practice on Wednesday. I'm going to do one thing. I will be attending. I'm planning to attend Pistons Clippers on Sunday in L.A. Nice you to have a little layover there.

Yeah. Well, you know, I'll spend some time in L.A. All right. So, okay, I'm going to take a deep breath here. And we're going to begin to talk about tanking. This is one of those topics that gets people into their feelings, okay? Shams has a story that came out on Tuesday. He referenced it, I think, in a report last week,

about a discussion that is being had amongst NBA owners about potentially some new anti-tanking measures. There have been tanking measures, anti-tanking measures put in over the years. There was apparently a board of governors, meeting, which Pontemps is out of sequence, right? That there shouldn't have been a board of governors meeting. Yeah, I don't know if there was, I mean, they have calls periodically. So I would guess this was like a check in on stuff.

Yeah, they didn't get together. Yeah. There's there's like four meetings a year. One in March or April at the end of the season, one in July and then one in July in summer league and then one in the fall before the season starts in New York. But they do have calls to like check in on stuff. So I'm sure this was one of those. Okay.

And so, look, before we discussed this, I just want to say something. I don't care if you have the best, I don't care if you've got a nine-point plan that looks beautiful in a PowerPoint. I don't care if you can prove that it is a panacea for everything. Before you suggest or you get behind any sort of anti-tanking stuff, you've got to realize you've got to pass it through 23 owners. 23 teams have to agree with you. For a change at this material, you need that to happen. So if you have some situation where you're not going to get pretty much the entire league to say yes to, you're wasting your time, energy, and lawyers.

Which is why, for example, just to explain how this works, right? People have said for a long time, what, that there should be 1 to 30 for the playoffs. Just let's get rid of conferences. Let's just have it be. Doesn't matter if you east or west, seat at 1 to 16. Top 16 teams make it, put them in order, figure it out, right? There's nobody, because it's so far recently has been historically imbalanced towards the West, nobody in the East is going to say, hey, I'm going to make my path harder.

By the way, five years from now, perhaps there's a world, well, that flips around, and it's way harder to get into the playoffs in the East. Well, then if you're in the West, you're not going to have teams like, oh, yeah, well, now we're just going to make it harder for us to get in. That's just one example of this bigger thing. You need to have three quarters of the teams agree on something. It's not so much the quality of the idea. It's the ability to actually get it implemented.

Okay, now that we have that as the top layer, now we can have a discussion about this because people are in their feelings. We have seen in the last couple of years teams turn themselves into pretzels a little bit, primarily because of pick protections where they've traded picks that are the top four protected or top eight protected or top 10 protected and we've seen teams do this. By the way, this is not new.

When the Golden State Warriors were building their team out, 12, 14 years ago, they tanked at the end of a season to get the pick. What that? Harrison Barnes. Harrison Barnes. Okay. There's the infamous Mark Madsen game where he shot seven million. and threes for the wolves 20 years ago so they could keep a draft pick as another example.

Right. It's not new. The league has tried to do things to address it, the flattening of the lottery odds being probably the biggest change of late. And it's an issue now because of the gambling stuff, right? That's the primary reason that it's become such a front burner issue for the league, But just from a the perspective of somebody who likes basketball,

it should be an issue anyways because March and April NBA basketball is a bad product because so many teams are trying to tank. Okay, so three provisions that Shams says that they're discussing. We will talk about them now. Keeping in mind that 23 would have to say yes. Okay. So the first thing it's under discussion,

limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher, which would, in theory, eliminate teams like the 76ers last year, losing 19 their last 34 games to make sure that they kept their pick, which was top eight protected, which they kept by the skin of their teeth, top six protected, which they kept by the skin of their teeth and ended up being BJ Edgecom, and those losses were absolutely smart under the circumstances. You can disagree about the strategy for the whole league,

but their strategy that they employed produced them VJ Edgecom and was a bad piece of business for the Thunder who would have gotten that pick if they did not tank. Yeah, and the other famous one or infamous one in recent years is the Maverick, so when it was a top 10 protected pick owed the Knicks, and they punted on, it was a slim chance, but they punted on a slim chance to qualify for the play-in. You know, sitting all their guys, including Luca and Kyrie, ended up keeping the pick by the skin of their teeth. It was top 10 protected. They got the 10th overall pick, traded back a couple of picks and ended up with Derek Live at the second, who the very next year helped them go to the finals. Right. And so this year, the team that people are watching, although, you know, there could be more tanking situations.

later on, are the Jazz, who have a top eight protected pick also owed to the Thunder. And they've performed pretty well early in the season relative to expectations. Too well. And I would say that one of the things when you watch the Jazz, they are hard to beat in Salt Lake City. So, I mean, within three weeks of this season, I identified that this was going to be a problem spot because the jazz are good enough, particularly at home. Now, they're, they're schedule. Some of these other teams have been bad. Like the Mavericks got off to a horrible start.

That's right. Clippers have been horrible. Pelicans got off to a horrible start. So they have to not only, not only are the Jazz winning some games you were surprised by. There's also been a lot more competition for spots in the top 10 than we necessarily would have anticipated two months ago. Okay. Of these provisions, this is the one provision I actually think could pass. because, you know, if your team is top four, it's a little bit different than if you're trying,

if your team's trying to get inside top 10, inside top eight, inside top six. This I actually could see happening of these. I don't know if you guys agree. I'm not sure how it would make a difference. Because certainly some of the most egregious tanking examples come when they're the mid-lottery or late lottery protections. And, you know, this is the third straight year for the jazz. Also, if you're mid-lottery, you're in a situation where you have the ability to win some games, but you are, you know, probably maneuvering not to.

Like, if you are 8th or 10th, you know, the possibility is you could make the play in if you, you know, so it's even a worst look. If you're a horrible team, okay, maybe you might do some stuff to make sure in the bottom four. But, you know, you're not going to be, if you're aiming for bottom, if you're in the bottom four, you're probably not a playing team anyway. So I could see this happening. The second thing that Shams reports is that, and this one, Bont Temes, I don't know how you feel about this.

I think this is DOA in the cradle. Just as my opinion without like canvassing all 30 teams, no longer allowing teams to draft in the top four two years in a row. I don't think there's any way 23, Now, again, you could say you could give me your 10 reasons why it makes sense. I don't think there's any way 23 teams are saying yes to this. I know one team that will vote for it. I bet you the Spurs will vote for it after they got one, four, and two in the last three

drafts. I bet you can get Stan Antonio. Oh, yeah, nobody else. Nobody else can do this. Yeah, I don't think that one is happening. And what I would say on the pick protection thing, while I agree, that has been obviously a sore spot in these discussions. I would also say that there's a lot of times where being on the margins and negotiating on the margins has really worked out for teams.

One example I'll bring up that Bobby Marks mentioned to be on the phone this afternoon that I had forgotten about was when the James Hardin trade to the Clippers happened a couple of years ago, we did a pod, me and Pelton, Brian. And on the pod, you talked about not liking the move the Thunder made. this is not exactly a pick protection deal. Hold on me for a second, where they traded a what was destined to be a late first round pick for a pick swap. You didn't like the move

and the way they did the move for a variety of reasons. Set that aside. I don't recall, Senator. Yeah, that's fine. You didn't like the move. By forcing themselves into the trade and getting a pick swap with the clippers, they now have an unprotected pickers pick,

clippers pick swap in 2027, on top of having their pick this year. By the way, I think it's safe to assume the Thunder would be better than the Clippers next year. Now, that is not a pick protection thing. Obviously, it's a different thing. But if you're a good team or you are a smartly run team, particularly in this new system, winning on the margins like that is how you can continue to get yourself in prime positions to get better players to improve your team, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't know if we want to be removing tools from the toolbox for teams because of this other stuff that's gone on.

The other thing I will say that we sort of have not talked about in this, right? The Sixers last year, let's say there was some liberal use of resting players down the stretch of the season, right? I would say there's been some liberal use of resting players at times in Utah over the past couple of years. Yeah. And let's go to Cavs Corner for a second. Cavs Corner is very unhappy, I would say, Brian, you can disagree with me if you want, that the league has come down on the Cavs on multiple occasions for having players rest during the season and getting dinged for...

They've been fined twice for $350,000 total, I believe. Right. And they're resting guys for the benefit of trying to be as good as they can be this season. Correct. They're trying to win games, right? So, like, let's just pull this back. Let's go back to the summer. Austin Aynch, who I've known a long time, think he's a great guy,

he's going to do a great job in Utah. He comes in and his introductory presser. First thing he says is, we're not doing any of this roster manipulation stuff anymore. We're full steam ahead. We're doing our thing. He trades all the older players. Actions over words.

Well, the actions at the time were, we're trading Colin Sexton. We're trading these veteran, John Collins. We're trading these veteran players. We're going to play the, young players and we're going to be bad. Right. And we're going to keep the pick. Now, we come into the season, Keonti George is taking a big step forward.

Larry Markin is still really good. Yusuf Nerkich has given them some minutes. They've got Kevin Love, you know, playing to have it some big games occasionally, right? All of a sudden, now the jazz are in danger of losing this pick. And, you know, there's some interesting stuff going on with the roster. Like, if the NBA is going to look at the Cavs and the winning teams. You got to look at the jazz. You got to look at the losing teams.

And the jazz were fined last year for... Well, I'm just saying I feel like if that, I think, is as much of a fix for some of this stuff as anything. I don't know if you're going to be able to find teams 25 times. But look, I would say that, for example, the Sixers have gotten hit multiple times for fines for Joel and Bede, you know, going from out to in or whatever for games, right? I'm not sure how many more times that's going to happen. Because at some point, the owners look at it and go, why am I spending half a million dollars on injury reports? Right? I'm sure Dan Gilbert doesn't want to pay half a million dollars for injury reports.

And I don't think Ryan Smith would want to pay half a million dollars in the future for injury reports. So that is another way to look at this stuff that, you know, it goes beyond changing the rules. I don't know if you necessarily need to change the rules on. some of this stuff? I think discussion or rule change is merit because I do think the tanking epidemic, honestly, I think it's the NBA's biggest problem. The not allowed in top

four consecutive years, to me, as an interesting idea, I would even say how about a team is not allowed to have top four odds in consecutive years. Like, hey, if you're a worse track in the league, two straight years, the next year you've got the fifth best odds. And you're still, you know,

it plays out how plays out, we see teams jump every year. You know, last year the Spurs didn't have the best odds. They jumped into the number two spot. Obviously, the Marlbicks doing the same. Would 23 teams say yes? I don't know. That I don't know.

But that's me as a compromise that would increase the odds of 23 teams. I think here's what I would say. Part of the reason we're in this new situation with this stuff is because of the flattening of the lottery odds. And it's created a lot more spots where you can jump up in the lottery. We've seen the Mavs as part of the grand plan jump up from 11. We saw the Hawks jump up from 10. We saw the Lakers jump up from 11.

We've seen a lot more. Like Derek Rose for the Bulls was like the one time a team outside of like the top eight jumped up in 20 years basically, right? Yeah. The last five or six years since this changed, there been all kinds of teams jumping up from the mid to late lottery into the top three or four over and over and over again. So that's part of it.

To your point, McMahon, hold on, just one thing. The rule change that I would like to see implement. If you're going to talk about rule changes, so we've talked about before, where you pick a point in the year when losses become wins, and then your teams are going to be incentivized to play players and to be competing until the end. Now, I'm sure there are some people who would say they should be doing that anyway and why are they not doing that now? but the system is not incentivizing teams to do that when the best path to getting elite players, especially in small markets, is to get the highest traffic you can.

And if you turn that strategy into for the final two months of the season, when to your point, McMahon, the product stinks and the most egregious part of this stuff is going on, and you have it affecting playoff races also, for example, because you have some teams that are just not trying to win, and you have other team, and they're playing teams that are trying to win,

as opposed to the playoff teams playing each other, which is all random. And now it's, well, everybody has incentive to play from, you know, whatever, the All-Star break on, or whatever time you said it. Yeah, you could maneuver that a little bit. But it's a lot harder to maneuver that than you come back from the All-Star game, like, say, Portland a couple years ago, and you go two and 30, or whatever their record was, and they just plummet. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this.

So I like that idea. And Wendy, the third thing, Sean's a problem. reported is a half measure of that. And not to go breaking bad, but like, don't do a half measure. They're saying basically, I think it's March 1st. They identify the date to like lock the lottery odds in. No, incentivize winning after that. Because you lock the lottery odds in and then it's just you mailed in for the rest of the season.

incentivize winning for these franchises the rest of the way. You know, the other thing, I think there's some other things that are worth discussing. How about just playing the lottery out? Because what you see is teams not just tanking to increase their odds, but they're tanking to make their floors low as possible. In other words, there's a difference between having the worst record and the second worst record. The odds are the same, but the difference is your floor with the worst record is the fifth pick, not the six. So get rid of the floors, I think, is something that's worth discussing.

And then as far as things that would never be approved, I think if you're in the lottery, there should be like a lottery repeater tax or reverse repeater tax. At a certain point, you're not getting a full percentage of the revenue share. That's an interesting concept. That's an interesting concept. Here's all I'm going to say about any of these changes. And like, I get the merit of what you're saying, Big Band, with all these things, right? However, let's look at Washington and Utah as two examples, or Brooklyn even, right?

But Washington, Utah, I think, especially. Yeah, these teams have been somewhere in the mid-lottery the last couple of years. Washington's been lower. They haven't had luck in the lottery. Right. They've landed fifth. Well, Washington got the number two pick. But they did get the number two pick once, right?

But like, with these new rules especially, you can be in the middle or the top of the lottery year after year and still get the fifth pick, the sixth pick, the seventh pick, over and over and over again. And like, yes, you could certainly turn those into great players, no question about that. But like, for as much as for as well-run an organization as the San Antonio Spurs are, getting the first, second and fourth pick and three straight lotteries, put them in a position that no other team could realistically be in those same odds. And we wouldn't be talking about the Spurs in the same manner if they got the six, seventh, and eighth pick in those three years. We'd be talking about the spurs, mired in a rebuild, and where are they going from here, right? They might have three picks like Jeremy Sohan, who looks like a fairly washed out, for them at least, mid-Lottery pick.

I mean, that's where the Jazz had been. They've whiffed along there. Kante George is not even a lottery pick. He's been their best guy from these last few drafts. They drafted Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks. Taylor Hendricks had the rough foot injury last year. He's trying to come back from that. Cody Williams has struggled so far.

Like if you, so my point is if you say, okay, we're going to start, you know, we're going to remove the floor for these bad teams. Well, if you have the worst, say you have the worst or second worst record in the league and you end up with the ninth and tenth pick two years in a row. If you're like Washington, you're already making a difficult path to try to rebuild under these new rules that much harder. And you're only compounding the problem of there's going to be bad teams. and now you're making it that much harder for bad teams to have any real path to get better. Yeah, okay. So I don't know where this is going to land.

My guess is there will be half measures. I will say this. The league did make a change last week to their rules, which was the injury reporting rules, in the wake of the FBI indictments, where teams have to be more aggressive in announcing day of game status changes, basically like update after shoot around.

And it's already making a difference. And so there may be a half measure or two that may be in here that can make a difference. But the radical stuff, which is, you know, in my mind, the idea that, you know, most teams, if you got there and looked at the last 10 or 15 years, most teams have been a situation. where they've faced a rebuild. And they've faced, maybe they didn't get a top four pick two years, but that was something that they wished that they would have gotten. And those teams will remember where they were.

Okay. So just keep that in mind. So I don't think a radical thing is going to work. But I do think you may see a tweet so that they can say that they did something. I also just feel like a lot of this discussion ignores the fact that there has to be some path for bad teams to get good. And there has to be a plan, an ability. for teams to rebuild, especially in small markets and that, in all this discussion of tanking,

and I'm not saying that like tanking is good, but that part of the reality of sports that there are good teams and bad teams, I do think sometimes gets set to the side when we talk about this stuff. Like, there has to be some mechanism for a bad team to improve. Regardless of how the folks who own teams acquired their wealth, the NBA is a very much of a social socialism system. They, the richer teams pool money to send to the poorer teams, poorer in quotes, the poorer teams. The, the best players in the league take a cap on their salaries in part to fund the lesser than the middle to the bottom to get higher salaries.

And the worst teams get taken care of. It's not a complete Darwinism situation here. The worst teams are given, you know, if they, unless they bumble it and trade it away, are given the opportunity to improve. That's the situation. And the reason is because there are 30 teams and they're all partners and they all have an equal vote. And they all vote to protect themselves to protect their floors in all honesty. And that is just a reality. you can, again, you can come up with the greatest position in the world,

but that is just a reality of the way the thing is designed. All right, welcome back to Hoop Collective with McMahon and Bontemps. As we sit here and do this on Tuesday afternoon, the Boston Celtics on a three-game winning streak and winners of, I believe, eight of their last 10 games, are 18 and 11 and third place in the Eastern Conference. Jalen Brown, who, before this season, and was one of these guys where, you know, if you had a fantasy team, you would want him on the team

because you knew he was going to be putting up numbers. But he has answered that bell tremendously. And he has scored over 30 points, I believe, in seven straight games. I mean, he's averaging 29 and change. And, you know, the one thing about Boston is they've drafted pretty low, obviously now, for the better part of maybe seven or eight years. They've only had a pick outside. I mean, they've traded away some of their picks. I don't think they've had a pick outside the 20s.

And they've dropped it very low since they ran through all the Nets picks that they had. That's right. Well, talk about a team not wanting to draft, you know, two years around the top four. As a team that drafted number three two years in a row when it was a basis for their rebound, it wasn't their pick. Yes. That's the best way to do it. Actually, we're first and third two, and they traded back to three. stadium here. Correct. So, like, if you look at the guys who the Celtics have drafted recently,

and you see how they're getting contributions from them, like, you look at, you know, okay, so you look at Jalen Brown, he's having a great season. Derek White has warmed up recently. Peyton Pritchard is, you know, most improved player candidate again. Can you, you know, what's the status? I wouldn't, I wouldn't quite go there, but he's, but he's playing well for them. He's, he's a, he's a proven, very good player. So, and you look, some of their picks, their recent picks, So they're, you know, they're getting good production from Hugo Gonzalez. Their first-round pick taken with the 28th pick last year. They're getting, you know, rotation minutes from Baylor Shireman.

And Bobby Marks, I think was Bobby, who just did his top 25 best-performing, you know, guys who were outperforming their contracts. He came out with that a couple of days ago. Top 15, you're mixing on lists up, but yes. I'm sorry? He top 15. He had the 15 best value contracts. Okay. And I know that Nimi Keda was on there, who they're paying, like, he's on a minimum. Yeah, he's on a multi-year minimum. Yeah.

And there was, I think there was one other Celtic on that list. I would assume Jordan Walsh was also on the list. I have not read through the whole list. Jordan Walsh, yeah, he was a second round pick. But what I'm saying here is the Celtics have just done, they've rolled up their sleeves, and they've done a really nice job of on the margins. And yeah, you're not 18 and 11 without the powerhouse as Jalen Brown, but like they're getting terrific production up and down. And that's a commentary on, you know, Joe Missoula.

It's a commentary on their development system. It's a commentary on Brad Stevens. It's a commentary on their front office and their scouts. Like, you know, forget about what's going to happen with Jason Tatum because that's, you know, that's, you know, this is where this goes. It's like, well, when we Tatum. just this is a this is a reminder of how a good franchise

handles their business and you know they're you know this hasn't been the toughest portion of schedule but still they're putting themselves in a great position and listen

Bontemps like I still don't see a team in the Eastern Conference that is going to keep teams awake at night you know there's certainly things that the Pistons do that are going to be hard to beat them four out of seven the Knicks continue to put up impressive games. But Boston's got

is got to be sitting there thinking the table is still all there for them. It's all set for them. Yeah, I mean, it's why I've said a couple times recently. You know, one of the biggest questions of the rest of this season is can Jason Tatum come back? And what does he look like if he does? Because if he can come back and be even okay

and be a bigger body that they could play at the four and get some rebounds and make some shots and make some plays, especially for a team that does not have a lot of size, all of a sudden, the Celtics are really going to be a team. Nobody's going to want to play in the playoffs because they have championship experience. They've got a mad scientist coach who is hell bent on proving people wrong and has a giant chip on his shoulder in a good way. And like I've talked about it before, going back to training camp. Those guys had no interest in hearing about, oh yeah, the Celtics should try to get AJ DeBancor, Darren Peterson. They should

take a year off and, you know, let these guys rest up and get Tatum back and then come back in 26 and, you know, try to win then. They were like, yeah, look, we're going to go for it now. We're going to try to win every game. We can now. And, you know, they believe as an organization, that's the approach they should always take. They should try to be as good as they can be all the time and see where it gets them. And like you said, it's a real credit to Joe Missoula and his player development staff, Craig

Luschenat and the other guys they have doing that. where you're talking about a rookie and Hugo Gonzalez playing real minutes for them. Jordan Walsh, a guy who has barely played the last couple of years, hitting 40% of his threes on limited volume and doing a lot of, you know, garbage pale, you know, defense, hustling, offensive rebounding kind of stuff to help them win games. And, you know, they're developing from their perspective, the next group of role players to surround those three or four core guys with, Peyton Pritchard and Derek White and Jalen Brown and obviously Jason Tatum when he gets back.

And they're still going to have work to do to catch up to the thunders of the world and the other, I would say, power teams in the West in order to really get back to being a true championship contender. But you said it, Brian. The Eastern Conference is wide open, probably as wide open as the conference has ever been. There's nobody you're going to sit there and say, I am positive. They're breaking through and winning. and the Celtics are the one team of that whole group that's gotten to the finals, has won a title,

and has guys that are going to walk into any situation in the playoffs, feeling confident about what they can do. Okay, so they've got, at least you can squint and envision a way for the Celtics to make a deep playoff run, maybe even come out of the east this year. How does Amphoning Simons fit in all this? A guy who, when they made the trade, it was a financially motivated trade to get off of Drouwate's salary. You bring in Simons on a- We're trying to retrade him almost immediately from when they got. On the $28 million expiring salary explored trading him immediately to further slash salary.

And look, he's not putting up the numbers that he did in Portland, obviously. That's not his role. He's a bench bucket getter. in Boston, if they can find a deal that's just slashing salary with Simon's involved, is that something they do? Or do they look at this and say, you know what? Having that kind of firepower coming off the bench in the playoffs has some value to it. Let's not do anything that would compromise our chances of making a playoff run. I don't think that's the question with Anthony Simons.

I think the question with Anthony Simons is this. the Celtics have the Celtics started the summer on pace to be the first $500 million team in the history of the league when Jason Tatum got hurt that was never a scenario that was going to happen maybe it would have happened if they got to the finals and won the title maybe even if Jason Daniel got hurt they would have done it for one more year or hadn't gotten hurt when he got hurt that was obviously not going to happen so as Brian said as they started making these trades moving off Chris Esper Zingisingis moving off true holiday they were trying to move off Anthony Simons again to keep lowering that tax bill right

I think the question is not, do they keep Anthony Simons for the playoff run or do they try to shed salary? I think the question is, do they shed salary or do they use Anthony Simons to get another piece to be part of their long-term outlook and sort of say, well, we're going to be in the repeater tax anyway? If we can find a big or some other player that we like here for the long term and use that salary slot, is that something we try to do and improve our check? of making a deep playoff run this year and having more firepower going forward. Because frankly, I don't think Anthony Simon is going to have a very big role in the playoffs. Either way, they're going to be playing Derek White and Peyton Pritchard a ton of minutes. He's not at all a good defensive player. I think it'll be a liability at large part in the playoffs anyway.

But that's a $27 million expiring that if they want to use it to maneuver the roster around and get some more depth or get some more size or do some other things and get a guy under contract who they like, that's the thing I'll be curious to see if they do, or do they just try to get that extra $12 million down lower and get out of the tax completely and reset the repeater clock? I think that is the question with how good they've been and where the east sits that I think it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next six weeks. I think that comes down to what's Jason Tatum look like when we get to February 1st, where they have in the standings. They kept this momentum going. I think, if anything, what it does is, is it pushes the decision off, which is a victory for. their organization on their roster, that that they've performed well enough that they can push that off. And I think it's worth pointing out that while Tyrese Halliburton has been ruled out for the season

and Damien Lillard has been ruled out for the season, I'm not saying Jason Tatum is definitely playing, but Jason Tatum has definitely not been ruled out. And every time Brad Stevens or anybody has talked about it, they've said everything but Jason Tatum is not playing. So the action there is pretty clear. They're leaving the door open for him to play. Well, he is, and he is determined to play. Yes, that is obvious. Whether he's allowed to play is a different question. That is obvious. And I think that discussion becomes a more complicated one, the better the Celtics are. Like, I would probably say it's just better off for them to just wait until next fall anyway. Give him the 18 months, let him heal up, let this team make as much of a run as it can and come back. I am not, however,

having to sit down across with Jason Tatum and tell him that. And I'm not. in with the doctors, and I don't know what the doctor, you know, Martin O'Malley, I know him. He's been the Nets, one of the Nets doctors for a long time. He's the, you know, preeminent orthopedic surgeon, one of them in the country. He did Jason Tate him for feet and ankles. Right. So he's done, he's done, he did Jason Tatum's Achilles like maybe he says in March, hey, this guy has had an incredible recovery. He's 100% ready to go. Let him play. I don't know. But all of those discussions, to your point, Brian, are a lot more interesting if your third. in the East than if you're 13th in the East.

If you're 13th in the East, that conversation is no-in-voyed. You're just waiting. I would say if we were ranking the most intriguing teams for this season, like, hey, let's, you know, who are you, who are you, like, watching closely for happens this season? I think the Celtics would be at or near the top for me. Well, and the team on top of the East is right there, too, the Detroit Pistons, because if the Pistons want to be aggressive before the deadline, they have the ammunition, they have the flexibility.

They just came through Dallas. I can tell you they're not looking at it as we have to be aggressive before the deadline. They're not going into the deadline with an aggressive mindset. They're going into it with an opportunistic mindset. And they, I think it's probably more likely that they use the flexibility to collect another asset or two. I think they're more in the Sam Presti of a couple of years ago mindset. Yeah, they're finishing their breakfast sort of thing. And they don't want to block the development of these young guys that have put them in a spot.

I understand. But again, this is a February 1st situation. You can say whatever you want to say. When you sit down with your organization, your owner and your scouts and your personnel people and you look at things and you go, okay, on February 1st. Yeah. Do we have a chance to win this thing? And even if it's just winning the Eastern Conference, you know, and like that's where the, that's where this rubber meets the road. is you know, forget about the actual trade that they might make for this team.

And the Celtics fall into this bucket, too. The most important evaluation they can make is their own team's chances. And what goes into that. And the other thing with Detroit, too, that makes them so interesting in this discussion, is it's been 20 years since they've added a success, right? Yes, they made the playoffs last year, but they lost in the first round. They haven't won a playoff series since 2008. if they're sitting in first place in the Eastern Conference on February 1st, you're right,

McMahon, you can certainly make the argument that they should be the thunder and they should finish their breakfast and maybe accumulate some extra assets, right? But this is not the thunder in that they don't have a guy running the team who's been running it for 20 years who was completely secure in his position and basically can decide what the course of the franchise is going to be, right? And everybody's going to be on the same page. This is a Detroit team where the Pistons are desperate to have, like, their fan base and everybody's like, hey, we got a chance to win the East.

And I'm not saying they're going to go out and trade all their draft picks either, but you could do some sort of an in-between and make a move to get better without damning the torpedoes and trading everything. And that's where if they're sitting in first place in the Eastern Conference and it's February 1st and you're looking around, and even let's back up even further. Let's say Cavs Corner is still like in the play-in then. And you're like thinking about like if you're in first place, you've got to think about a scenario.

Or like, let's say the Cavs get healthy in March and are in the play-in and the calves wind up in the eighth seat. And you're playing the Cavs in the first round. You got to do like Cavs Celtics Knicks to get out of the conference, right? Like are they really going to sit there and say, yeah, we'll just let the young guys play and we'll see how this goes and we won't add anything? that's a hard that's a hard discussion to have when you have your first real chance to make a big run

I'm just talking part of the consideration will they they do not want to do anything that will disrupt that young core that they feel like can have a long runway ahead of it for sure I'm say three things one I always love when you say deal the torpedoes because it's a tom petty reference of nothing else true I'm very happy to announce that I have that I have plans to go to Detroit in the near future. It's not been announced yet, but we have something's ESPN's planning something. Okay. I want a pregame media buffet review.

Go on. Three. I can review a buffet. More hoop collective podcast after this. Three. So the Pelicans do play tonight in Cleveland. The Cavs finally got a win, beat the Hornets on Monday. So this is potential jink zone, but even if the pelicans on the second night of a back-to-back stub their toe and the calves stay hot from three-point range.

New Orleans, finally some good news to talk about here. They won on Monday for their fifth consecutive win. James Barago has been making some changes there since he became the interim head coach. One of the interesting things, Zion goes down with the hamstring issue. issue. And it was like, oh, my God. I mean, they were like three and 15 when that happened. You're like, oh, my God, he's out again. Well, he ended up recovering from a relatively short order because it was indefinite. Then, when he's, since he's come back, he's come off the bench. And in addition to Derek Queen, having continued success, putting up big time stat lines, points,

and rebounds based. Anisys. Enis. Zion has had an unexpected, terrific stretch of games. Now, one of the wins is Portland. One of them's at Chicago, Indianapolis and Dallas are the last two.

This is not Murderers Row. They came back from 25 down and beat the rockets as well. And over time, I'm not going to be parsing out their wins. They've won five games in a row. They're one of the hottest teams in the league. It's a crazy tournament. Right.

Here's what we can say in the Pelicans. They've got a couple of rookies who are very productive for rookies and look like guys that can be part of their core moving forward. And Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen, the trade for Queen was a bad process, but they got a good player in it. I think the Pelicans hope is that they're giving up the bucks picking that deal and not their own because that means they've continued to win a little bit here. then they've got like Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones they've got some good vets on this team. Zion

is sixth man is an interesting thing and I'm curious to see if this is something that has staying power if this is something Zion's going to be satisfied with because it's a way to get him to impact games, to do what he does

well to be just you know one of the most dynamic offensive forces in the league while also managing his minutes. And his performance against the Mavericks was kind of a perfect thing. You know, he played, what was it, 26 minutes in that game? 25 minutes in that game. But he closed and he dominated down the stretch.

He dominated the fourth quarter of that game as a guy who was getting to the line, who was putting a ball in the hole, and who was creating for his teammates. I will say this. So we talk about the Achilles guys. There was the Achilles trio, I'm sad to say. Tatum, Lillard, and Halliburton, who had all happened during the playoffs. But there was also another prominent player towards Achilles last year. That was DeJante Murray.

And DeJante Murray is soon to return. I believe in their targeting January. Now, I do not know what he will be able to give them, nor do I know what there is left to do in this season. But if you are looking for nothing more than to get momentum, proof of concept of this roster, and if shut people up about that trade and get ahead of the bucks, so it's that the bucks pick that gets taken, that gets swapped out,

you know, that is an interesting development. If this indeed has staying power, that DeJante Murray will be back soon as well. You know, the other thing, though, it kind of becomes pretty crowded because Jeremiah fears is, I believe a guy is, you know, again, going to be part of that core for a long time to come and has done a lot of good things as a rookie. Jordan Poole's been coming off the bench and doing Jordan Poole type of things, which every once in a while is a big game, but, you know, not real efficient. But are you going, like, whose minutes is Murray getting? is he is the and and the thing that we found out in Atlanta the idea of playing Murray alongside another point guard that that didn't really work in Atlanta so I'm you know I'm not saying DeJante Murray coming back is a bad thing for the Pelicans but I don't know that it's a clean fit either well let me tell you something if the Pelicans are in a situation this year where they've got too much talent they're trying to figure out how to play them that would be a big step forward so we'll

see how they perform against the cabs. I don't know if you guys are aware, but Thursday is Christmas. The NBA has a couple of games on the slate. Which one are you looking forward to most? I-35 McMahon. The one that's going to fly just right over my head. I think the Spurs and the Thunder might even share a plane

because they're playing, as we record us, getting ready to play on, I already know what today is. Tuesday night. Tuesday night. And then a little rematch on Christmas. So, yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen, are the Thunder, it's the second night of a back-to-back, are the Thunder playing everybody in this game this Tuesday?

A.J. Mitchell's in Concussion Protocol. Oh, okay. But the both seven-footers are playing. Okay. You know, Isaiah Hardinstein sat out, you know, pretty clear it was a planned night to rest when they beat the Grizzlies. Chad Holmgren was sick, met the team at the plane. They kind of quarantined him in the back with the staff.

But that's appropriate. Get back there. Who cares if they get sick? That's a competitor, though. You know, he might not talk to Wemby, but he'll sign up to play against him, especially when Wemby just got the best of, I'm not going to say that matchup because they don't necessarily match up against each other. That's true. Of the Spurs Thunder.

So, you know, whatever happens Tuesday night, it's a fascinating matchup. Either, you know, it's 1-1 this year and kind of a temporary rubber match type of deal or, or the Thunder might really have some motivation. Yeah, it's an unexpected three-game series because they played in the semifinals of the Cup. Spurs had the big win to break the winning streak. And then you got these two games with a day off in between, like, you know, no reason why there shouldn't be

bad blood more festered there. And the lead needs. Glad by more festered? What was that? Yeah, well, I want to see some bad blood. Yeah, bubbling, boiling. The league needs rivals to emerge for the Thunder. and the spurs are as well positioned as anybody

with obviously the talent of Victor plus the young core around him. You know, the proximity, there is some history between the franchise. You know, Mike Wright and I wrote about this in a deal that ran Tuesday morning. And so hopefully this is another log on the fire of what will burn into a rivalry. Lovely. Bond temps. Yeah, and that's obviously the highlight game of the, the day for many reasons. I was at the last one. Vegas, excited to see what that one will look

like at Christmas. If I have to pick a different one, I'll pick Rockets, Lakers. Obviously, the Lakers have had a very interesting start to the season. You know, as we've talked about many times, the record sort of outstrips what their resume would say on paper. It also may be, you know, could be the last time we see LeBron James playing on Christmas, certainly one of the last times to see LeBron James on Christmas playing against Kevin Durant. I've personally been it. Some Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Christmas Day games. It'll be interesting to see how that one goes. And let's see if Luca Dantridge plays, Austin Reeves.

You know, again, we're doing this Tuesday afternoon. Austin Reeves is available to play Tuesday night against Phoenix. That'll be an interesting game after the last time these two teams played last week. Is Dylan Brooks available? Because that's what I care about. Dylan Brooks will be available. LeBron has started to look better. So, yeah, just, you know, two good teams in the West, both top six teams, excited to see how that one looks.

The Rockets have had sort of an awkward year where they have some really nice wins and some really like, why'd you lose that game? I mean, if you're going to be one of these, if you're going to be a top four team, you can't lose some of these games they're losing. Two terrible losses recently. You know, we mentioned the 25 point lead that they blew in New Orleans. And then they blew, what was it? It was a two possession lead in the final minute of regulation in Sacramento. We didn't talk about this. We have to talk about this game for a second.

the Rockets have the ball up five with two minutes and three seconds to go in Sacramento. The Rockets had the ball for 115 of the final 123 seconds of regulation. So to say the other side of that, Sacramento, down five with 203 to go, had the ball for eight seconds the rest of the game, and the game went to overtime. It's almost impossible to do that. With Russell Westbrook of all people hitting the three to send in an overtime. And look, it was a game where there are times where you look at the Rockets and their struggles closing game. You say, man, Fred Van Vlee, sure would be nice to have running the show out there.

That was one of those for the Rockets. So, you know, I like the Rockets-Lakers matchup. Looking forward to it. We'll see if Luca plays on the one-year anniversary of his final appearance in a Maverick's uniform. So crazy. I would say rushing back to play on Christmas last year. or didn't necessarily work out the way that he hoped? So I have a sad story to tell you guys.

Oh, no. Baham bug. My workaround to full league pass is to my, maybe I shouldn't have been so brazen talking about it. My workaround has caught me, and I wasn't in the location for 30 days, and Amazon said, why haven't you been to this location in 30 days? And so I had to declare my home as Omaha,

and so, womp, womp, womp. So you can't watch that the league. The Nuggets have been stripped away. I should just ask for the jailbreak code from the league. So on Christmas Saturday, on the Christmas evening, Nuggets play the Wools, National Television game.

You have to watch it. This is a game that has been stripped away from me. I thought I had it for a, for about six glorious weeks. What are you talking about? It's back to you. It's on national television. I'm saying I get it.

Oh, you get it. You get it back. I get it. I get it back. I'm excited. I thought that was lined up to. I can't watch the game. I can watch the game.

I can watch the game. It's like a Hershey kiss in your stocking. At the very bottom. At the end of the day. The wolves are coming off that really good win over the thunder. pretty much, you know, like the, pretty much every night, something crazy happens with the Warriors. We're not even touching them recently.

About that. And pretty much a lot of nights, something interesting is going on with the wolves these days as well. So, but obviously these teams go back two years. This is a really good, you know, Western Conference matchup. They had the seven game series two years ago. I'm going to watch Yokach on Christmas, long story short. So I'm looking forward to that. And where I'm at, Cavs, Knicks will be very early.

I might miss that one by the time. So I might not be available that early in the day. He's not missing Cav's Corner on Christmas. We know that. Where are you right now? I'm not on the continental 48 states. Worldwide window going from Europe to parts unknown, circumnavigating the globe in two weeks. That's how I roll.

That's a good life. It's a good life. It's a good life. It's a good life. It must not be Alaska. Yeah. Have a great Christmas and joy. I hope everybody enjoys it.

I have no idea what the next 12 or 24 hours will bring in the latest chapter of the Steve Kerr, Draymond Green saga. He left the bench of his own volition getting into it with Steve Kerr during a timeout on Monday evening. A Warriors blowout victory that, you know, they were under 500. coming into the game, they have a blowout win. And then the entire post game is dominated by another Steve Kerr, Draymond Green thing that's, you know, going on year and year and year. A blowout went over a good team, by the way. Like beating Orlando.

Unexpected. Unexpected blowout win, regardless of the magic injuries. Yeah, 100%. So I don't even know what to say. Like, Dremont is not having a great year by his standards, but Steve Kerr has pretty vociferously repeated how important he is to them. He said two things after the game I felt interesting, Bond Temps, because you're Mr. Stock report, you and Slater.

One, that even if Draymond was wanted to come back into play, he was not going to play. He basically said you were not going to play again after that act. And two, he said that we need him, which is what he's been saying for years, but he reaffirmed that. Well, here's two things. One, I was watching NBA today earlier, and I literally gasped when I saw this sound, which is that Draymond Green has 72 made field goals this season, 75 turnovers, and 80 personal fouls, and is the only player who's played at least 250 minutes, who has more fouls and turnovers than points.

I know he's not necessarily a scorer. However, do we have used this phrase with Jimmy Butler in the past and other players? Is the juice worth to squeeze anymore? the juice has been worth to squeeze, arguably for a long time with Draymond Green in Golden State. There have been times I certainly would have moved on from him over the past couple of years. I would not have kept him around after the Jordan Pool thing personally, but on the record about that. But as you said, the Warriors have stuck by him over and over again. I think it's starting to get to an interesting place because Dr.

Mark Green has just not been very good this season. You know, when Steve Kerr says, we need Draymond Green, do you have to say that publicly because you can't say we don't need him? otherwise then things are over. But as the Warriors look ahead to either the next six weeks or the next six months and they try to make one final push around Steph Curry, like let's say they don't make any trade soon on the trade deadline and Draymine Green's on a $25 million-ish expiring contract this summer.

And you could put him in John of the Gumbenga, be still on the team this summer and some other salaries together to go get a star. Is that not a way for the Warriors to get better? I would argue it is. So I just think we're getting a lot closer to, is it time to move on from Draymond Green in some form or fashion than the Warriors would like it to be? And incidents like this coming up on top of him not playing well this year

are only going to speed up that discussion, in my opinion. They made the decision a long time ago that the production was worth all the pain in the ass stuff. Now, you can argue that that ratio has been thrown out of whack, but I will also say I don't know that the warriors while chasing a very unlikely fifth ring

need to be having another messy divorce with the franchise icon. That's all I'm saying. I would just say that the franchise icon is very capable of making it messy himself and that might precipitate it. That's more of the point. Like, you know, it's not like it would be,

oh, hey, this guy's a model citizen, we're just going to have him ride it out here a laudas Haslam. Like, Draymond is not, I mean, this is a prime example. Like, it's the third quarter of the game. He just gets up and stops off the bench.

Like, it's just, we talk about anybody else. We'd be like, what is going on? That's crazy behavior. And instead with the worries, like, well, yeah, Drayman's had yet another thing. It's like, you know. And then you just look up and say, over the course of his career,

it's been worth it. Well, because you're looking up at four bannels. That's the calculus of words. It's just different when he's not a very good player, which at this point, he's arguably not a very good player. So, you know,

there's a lot of guys better than Jermann Green who didn't finish their career with their teams. That's all I would say. I think both of you are making very compelling points. And therefore, I would say it's something on the horizon that bears keeping an eye on. And so that's what I advise doing.

Yep. All right. Thank you so much for watching the Hoop Collective throughout the entire year, but especially here at the end. Thank you to Jackson and Devon for putting this together. Thank you, McMahon and Bontumps. And enjoy your holidays, and we will be talking to you after what is hopefully a wonderful NBA Christmas. Adios amigos, Feliz Navidad.