The Ringer NBA Show - Firings, Accusations, Rifts: This Is Why We Play? | The Ringer NBA Show (Ep. 196)

Episode Date: January 23, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor review the recent dramatic news in the NBA: the Milwaukee Bucks firing Jason Kidd (2:19), the seemingly imploding Cleveland Cavaliers (16:18), Kawhi Leonard’s rift with the San Antonio Spurs (29:25), and Damian Lillard’s reported discontentment with the Portland Trail Blazers' front office (35:05). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every Tuesday. Now from Los Angeles, no less. Whoa. It is Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer.com, aka Kevin Obama, aka Kevin O'Conter. A-C-O-A. Kevin O'Calley. Wow. What up, Verdo.

I don't have internet yet. I don't have TV yet. I wasn't able to watch any NBA yesterday, which is okay because we have so much to talk about. It was like the most drama-filled day in the NBA this season. It's perfect timing. Did we ever? We do need to get on a personal note because you have, as many people know, moved out to Los Angeles. How has the move gone so far? It's been good. I'm packed a lot of stuff yesterday. And today hopefully we'll get internet and cable, except I don't have a TV yet. I'll work on that this week so I can watch NBA on a TV and not just on my laptop,

but that'll do for now. Did you find a place or are you living in Simmons' poolhouse? Actually, I am living in Bill's pool halls right now. No, I found a place. Oh, you did? Oh, okay, good. Just wanted to make sure that you went. I didn't know if Simmons said, you know, he's moving you out there.

And I was like, well, is he going to just let you stay at the pool house or is he got to find a place? I'm not much of a swimmer. I don't know if a pool house is a place for me. Understood. I missed you last. week, but I am deeply appreciative of Chris Ryan filling in. And oh my goodness, did we have stuff breaking over the course of the last 48 hours? Let's start with the biggest news, and that is that there is going to be a new person on the sidelines in Miliwakei Algonquin for the

good land. The Milwaukee Bucks fired Jason Kidd yesterday, and at the beginning of the season, you mentioned this. I saw my notifications went off on Twitter yesterday, and it said, Verno, you called it. At the beginning of the season, we did the first coach to get fired. Now, I was wrong about that because Earl Watson got fired like two days into the season, right? And David Fitzdale got fired. I mean, we went through an entire season last year where nobody got fired. And now we may get to a handful.

We may get that, you know, five, ten by the time it's all said and done. Who knows when we get through this season and then the off season? But kid was the one. And were you shocked? Yes and no. No, in the sense that, I mean, they are completely underachieving. Yes, in the sense that it feels soon in my eyes, just because he hasn't been there that long. But at the same time, I appreciate them making the decision when they did because they have an opportunity with the roster that they have to do really special things.

So if they don't feel like kid is the right coach, it's time to find that guy. And what an appealing job it is with Yana Sentin da Cumpo. I said at the beginning of the year, they've got new guys there, right? They were going to have somebody come in and run that organization because their general manager took off and went to Orlando. And so that always creates a circumstance where it's not necessarily your guy anymore. And it's a little more difficult for the front office and the coach to be on the same page. All these front offices want coaches that they can control. The other thing is I had been told by a couple of different people that he was not the biggest Jabari Parker.

fan in the world. That goes without saying, but he was not. And they've got a big decision to make, as does Jabari, in this upcoming offseason. Beyond that, Ed Stefansky, who was a friend of mine who works in the Grizzly's front office, he, many people would know it was reported, and I'm not speaking out of school here. He interviewed for that job in the off season. And I recall at one point having a conversation where he told me he was in a big building in, I can't remember what city it was, and he was talking to the powers that be there. And he was. And he was, he, He is like big buddies with kid back from the New Jersey days. Like they like golf together and stuff, right?

And I remember him telling me that he told them, if you think I can control Jay Kid, I have as good a chance of walking out this door and moving that building with my hands. Like it's just, that's the kind of guy Jason is. And he is an old school guy. And I do see this across the board happening in NBA where I've told you that a lot of the general man. there's a lot of the front offices, want to have this, quote, open dialogue, walk, step in step with the coach. Some coaches take that as wanting to be controlled, being told who to play, when to play them, et cetera. And kid is intrinsically old school. And he's not going to do that. And I do wonder if the old school coach is going to become totally extinct.

I have a couple thoughts on what you just said, Chris. I mean, in terms of the old school style, I mean, we talked about Tibbs last month, you know, with the amount of minutes he plays guys. Well, you have Janice, right, who's had a nagging right knee issue that's kept him out of Saturday's game and last night's game. And he is arguably the most valuable player in the league because of his age and talent level. And you don't want your piece, you're a key to a championship playing 37 minutes per game if that's going to be bad for his health. That's what the front office is something. They probably care about that. Whereas if you're a Jason kid, you're like, I'm coaching for my job.

Like, of course I'm going to play this guy as much as I can because we need to win games. But the fact is, the front office also needs to think long term. And perhaps what they're going to seek out is a coach that also is going to share that same mindset. And, you know, the other thing that I've thought about is you had their front office changed this summer kind of unexpectedly. I mean, it's a good gig, right, with the talent level on that team. And yet someone left. And then a couple months later now they fired their coach. There's no alignment.

There's no alignment within the organization. and that's something that they defined, especially, you know, looking long term when Janus reaches free agency, you need to have organizational alignment. And right now, it seems like they don't have that at all. It's very difficult to have that, too, given how often people fire their coaches. You inevitably hire somebody and you want it to be long term, but over and over again, and I've lived through it covering teams, and that is that these coaches then think, like, in the end, the record, it goes next to my name. Yeah.

Right? The record goes next to my name. And so it's hard to, unless you give said coach total assurance that we're sticking with you no matter what. I was at the Sixers game last night. And I was thinking about this with like Brett Brown. And I credit them for, you know, I mean, they're winning 10 games. They're winning 20 games.

And they stick with it. And it's okay if he loses throughout seasons because he has some level of confidence. that he's not going to lose his job. But over and over again, we see coaches that are always constantly coaching for their jobs, that they feel like they could get blown out if they don't win enough. And so now you're working on two tracks, right? So I've got some crappy veteran that at least I can trust and at least is going to run the plays and I feel good about them. Or I've got these young guys in the front office wants to see what they've got in the young guys because they've got to convince the owner that they're good at drafting and talent evaluation, right?

And that there's promise for the future. And on the other hand, the coach doesn't give a crap because he'd rather run the crappy vet or not there because it gives him a better chance to win that night. And so while we do have so many front offices that want to walk in lock step with the coach, the way to do that is to give them the confidence that we're not firing you if you lose by playing our young guys or doing what we ask you to do or whatever it may be. It's a tricky situation. And that's kind of the tough part for Milwaukee in terms of building this team because, you know, as much talent as they have.

You know, Janus is one of the best players in the game. I really, really like Jabari Parker, but he's had the injury issues and we'll see how he returns. You know, Malcolm Brogden, good quality young player. Chris Middleton, very good player, having a great bounce back season after the injury he had that kept him out most of the last season. They have a lot of talent on that team. Sterling Brown, a young player who, one of my favorite, you know, sleepers in this year's draft, he's starting to play and he's playing quite well as well for that team. But they still need another guy.

So the decisions that they make within the next two years or so, whether it's with the coaching, whether it's with personnel decisions, trades to come, whether they're able to create cap space or make free agent signings using mid-level exceptions, the decisions that they make these next couple, this next year, really, the 2018 off season and the 2019 off season are really going to set the tone for the next five or so years. And you're not thinking about Janus leaving. but the fact is is that you need to set yourself up to keep them, right? That needs to be the priority, building a contending team around him because he's a contending level player.

Janus is ready to compete for a title, but the rest of the team isn't yet. You and I are keeping up with teams on a regular basis, but there's a limit. You can only see them so many times. You see them here and there as you're trying to keep up with everybody, but it seems to me that those that are big bucks fans that do live and die with it and watch all the time, Like, they all couldn't stand, kid. They hated them. Right. I mean, I concede to a fan base.

They're rejoicing today. Yeah, that nobody is sitting around that's a huge Bucks fan going, oh, God, this is dumb, or I don't like this, or this is crazy, whatever it may be. In fact, overwhelmingly, it seems to me that when this happened, that the reaction from Bucks Nation was intensely positive. I just opened up Bucks Reddit, and some of the top threads are kid, kid, fired up vote party. He gone. There's an image. Image on the side. Friendship ended with Jason Kidd. Now, Joe Prunty is my best friend. You have this amazing reporting done by Ramona Shelburne yesterday that comes out after the firing saying that Jason Kidd found out about him being fired from Yannis onto Tukupo. So this would, to me, signal that they called him. They called

Janice and they talked to him before they were going to do it, which in and of itself is intensely interesting to me, right? That they would have called the star player about this before they even called the coach to tell him that the star player, you know, because evidently, according to Ramona, Janus called kid and said, is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call the owners? Do you want me to call my agent? What can I do? And he says, just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. And he says, just tell the truth. Okay, so that's a lot to unpack, right? That they called Janus first.

That's uncommon. How weird is that the kid would go to the media and spill the beans on what happened? Right. I mean, that's kind of odd to me. I mean, look, it's a type of thing where if you are a coach or a GM and someone else in the organization, you feel is actually to blame. Maybe that's true. Maybe that is true. But the fact is going to the media about that, I feel like that's going to limit a lot of opportunities for you in the future.

when it comes to head coaching, whether it's in the NBA or even in college. I don't think it was a great long-term decision by kid to do that. Well, it's also fascinating that Yannis swore by him and loved him so much. Because say whatever you want, he ushered in Yonis to the NBA. You can say no matter what situation Yonis would have been in, he'd be what he is. I don't know, though, right? I don't know. I mean, you never know.

I think kid does deserve credit, and he coached him harder. He benched him, and he, so you have one of these great players in the NBA. that was ushered into the NBA by the coach, a coach that evidently he said, Yana said he was devastated by. Do you know what the, when I read all this yesterday, you know what it reminded me of?

What's that? It reminded me of Mark Jackson. Huh. It makes sense. That may be on the other side, right? Golden State clearly turned out better for it. For sure. But they had the old school coach that they swore by.

Those guys were all mad. That's a great analogy there for this. Because, I mean, look, Bucks fans can be happy about him being fired, right? But at the same time, he did help Janus. And that's the key to everything. Janus's development, his happiness level, the guys who put around him specifically is what matters most. And Jason Kidd overall was good for Janus. And I think you're right.

Whereas Mark Jackson, like, he kind of laid the foundation. He kind of helped along those guys develop. Giving him no credit would not be fair, Mark Jackson, because if nothing else, he made them defend. It's like a relationship, right? I mean, not every relationship's the best, but sometimes you learn something from people you meet along the way. And for Janus, Jason Kidd was an important coach for him to have. And I think on the flip side with Golden State, while we can all admit that Steve Kerr was a better fit for maximizing that Golden State roster, I think early in their careers, there was a level of importance that Mark Jackson played. And they did all swear by him,

and they did defend, right? They weren't. going to get to play unless they defended early in their careers. And the same goes with Milwaukee, which is why I was told once upon a time that he was never particularly in love with Jabari Parker, which stands to reason. Parker's not exactly, you know, Kauai Leonard out there in terms of effort and intensity on the defensive end. And so I know that there is a lot of rejoicing, but I, that's what flashed through my mind yesterday because Mark Jackson's also that kind of old school guy right he was not without success it was just a matter of was he the guy that was going to maximize that golden state roster and he also butted heads with people regularly and so we'll see

i don't know who they're going to land on i guess they're just going to ride out this year as an interim or do you think they bring somebody in midseason i believe i read somewhere yesterday that they're going to ride out the rest of the season but i mean going into the off season i'm sure it'll be appealing job for guys like david fizzdale david blat you know mark jackson jeffan gundee i mean why wouldn't she be interested in that job to coach Janus? And I also think much like how Kerr's kind of, you know, like a player's coach, he's not a dogmatic guy, right? I do think it would suit them well to get that type of a guy, more of a player's coach, because being that they all were coached hard and seemingly he was really popular within his own locker room, right? I think it's hard to bring a guy in there that is going to be really hard on them too, because they might turn on him.

think you want a likable guy within that locker room, again, with just maybe a different skill set than what kid brings to the table. I like David Blatt. I'd like to see him get another opportunity. I think his style of offense, I think maybe if things were a little bit different in Cleveland, if the LeBron circus didn't exist, maybe things would have been different for David Blatt in Cleveland. I would like to see him in a new situation with a supremely talented player like Yannas, who is quite a lot easier to coach and deal with it because there's not all the extra stuff, which you're fine with LeBron, but it's not there for really anybody else because the magnitude of the player he is.

I've wondered if that killed Blatt, though, that having a toxic relationship with LeBron James is just like- He's a good coach, though. It doesn't change the fact that he's a good coach, a good accomplished coach who's really one at every level. In the NBA, they underachieved, but when has Cleveland not underachieve during the regular season? I mean, I'm sure Blatt deserves blame, and he does deserve blame.

But just like now with Cleveland, there's a lot of blame to go around. Yeah. And in fairness, LeBron may get his coach now blown out. We'll see what happens. Who he likes. Yeah. Or at least did. Right? He did like Ty Lou.

Let's move on to that story, which is a wild one. You have this story that Agent Wojianowski broke about the Cavs holding a team meeting, including accusations against Kevin Love as well as the defense from Kevin Love. I have been to hundreds of NBA games, Kevin, and I will tell you, that there is no way that one player is responsible for, you know, for this. We have had all-star games where 148 is not posted. It is, as someone who has been to hundreds of NBA games over the years, it is literally impossible to try and give up 148.

There's just no way you can do it. You can't. There's a time constraint on it. As I've said, we have had all-star games, and you've seen the level of defense in all-star games. Where teams don't score 148. That is just, I mean, it's so startling. And then to see that, like, oh, really? We're going to make the scapegoat for this.

Like, Kevin Love's. You gave up 150 fucking points. Like, I don't care. I don't care what's going. I got a whole team meeting and somebody pointing fingers at one guy seems unbelievable to me. It's silly. I mean, let's go through the roster right now. Isaiah Thomas is such a poor defender that the Celtics designed an elaborate zoning scheme

to hide him in the playoffs last season. Derek Rose isn't much better than Isaiah. Dwayne Wade's not the same anymore. J.R. Smith, Eamon Shumper, they just forgot how to play defense. Jay Crowder's solid against forwards. Jeff Green solid against forwards, but they're not guys who can lock down guards on our switch. Kyle Corver can't either. Tristan Thompson forgot how to rebound, forgot how to defend.

I don't know what's going on with him. Kevin Love's solid, but he gets exposed and pick and roll. They're deep bench players. Channing Fry is not a good defender. Jose Calderon is not a good defender. A lot of their younger guys, like Zizich is still learning how to defend. Jetty Osmond is not quite a defender yet. And then LeBron, he's not setting a tone either.

I mean, he's been laxidaisical on that end. So it's like they don't have a single player on that team who is a consistently plus defender. So if you're going to point the finger at Kevin Love, sure. But you also have to point a point out yourself. if we're going to point it at Isaiah and say, oh, yeah, our defense has been horrible since you got back. It's like, yeah, and it was bad before he was ever playing. Maybe it's a little bit worse now because he's such a bad defender, but the fact is that you were bad before and you're bad now. They need to make serious changes to that roster.

That is certainly can rear its ugly head in terms of their lack of defensive talent. But what I would tell you, or at least my opinion would be, is 148 is not having that talent deficit on the defensive. event. That is not giving a crap. It's not talent and it's no effort. It's a mixture of both. Well, and I guess there was something about it wasn't really sick or whatever. I don't know. It's all strange. You know, it's almost like a symptom where everybody seems to be playing for themselves right now or thinking for themselves, right? There's just so much dysfunction right now with that team. I don't know exactly what the solution is, and this is something I wrote about today on the ringer where you look at the options that have been reported, George Hill, DeAndre Jordan,

you know, those guys would theoretically help. But for what they might cost and what they might bring, I don't know if it's worth it. I don't know if I would go for that. And then you look at the other options. Kemba Walker is reportedly available, even though Michael Jordan said today he would only trade him for a star player. How about Kevin Love? You know, CJ McCollum, Mark Stein speculated that the Blazers might trade him, breaking up the Lillard McCollum back court. But McCollum doesn't help your defense.

Boogie's not available. So it's like, what are you looking for? I mean, you got to look at kind of the guys who maybe are flying under the radar that not everybody's thinking about. And the thing is, is that might not get you to where you need to get. The team is just so far off defensively in terms of effort, in terms of talent, that I don't know where the solutions are for that team. And that's what's so troubling. I think they went the wrong direction in terms of trying to get firepower, that that's how they're going to be able to – because in the end, the ultimate goal is to be able to win a championship and to have a – Another rematch with the Warriors.

I agree. And going and trying to get more firepower to deal with the Warriors is just insanity. In fact, when you look back and when they did have their success, go look at the scores. Their wins, they were holding that team under 100 points, 90 sometimes, right, when they were able to win. In fact, you need to, instead of trying to match their firepower, you need to be almost the antithesis of that. The only one that might be able to pull it off firepower-wise and by style of play is as we have seen the rockets, right?

You need both to be in cold state. Yeah, but what you do, you do need both, but you've got to be able to hold that. You've got to get them to play a game that's not in their zone, right? When we have seen teams that have had success over the years, whether it was the Grizzlies, whether it was the Oklahoma City Thunder, whether it was the Cleveland Cavaliers, those games are not played in the hundreds when those teams have won. You know, the way is to be the tougher team, be the better defensive team, kill them on the boards. Put your hands on them. That's your chance. You're not going to outscore them.

You're not going to win a race with them. And so I would, you know, in terms of what you were talking about, I don't know, I think the strategy is misguided. If that's what you're building towards, if you're trying to be able to knock them off, what history has told us over the course of this warrior's run is the way is to be able to hold. them down defensively and smash them rebounding. And that's just not what they're equipped to do anyway. So their external manager, David Griffin, the decisions that he had to make, they were all, you know, thinking short term, you had to maximize this era with LeBron James. And they did. They won the championship. Every decision that they made was worth it because they won that title. It's all worth it. However, you know, they're kind of paying for that now with the short-term decisions

that they had to make, whether it's trading first-round picks for guys like Channing Fry or Kyle Corver, you know, guys that everybody knew in a couple years from now that they would get some regression from those guys. But it was worth it for the short term. And right now, they're just paying for that in terms of the fact that they have no roster flexibility. And that's not on David Griffin. That's not on anybody.

It's really just the fact that LeBron James held the team hostage until they paid those guys a lot of money, right? Fellow clutch sports clients. So that ruins your cap flexibility. Then with the short term decisions that they've made, they had all these old, slow players who can't defend well, can't defend consistently, and maybe they can't defend on some nights, but it's hard for all of them to put it together at the same time. So you don't have a lot of assets. I mean, you could put Kevin Love out there theoretically. You could deal the Nets Pick.

I don't think dealing the Nets Pick would be very smart because of what's out there. And dealing Kevin Love, I don't know what his value really is. Earlier this morning, I looked up and down the rosters thinking about who would want Kevin Love. And I was looking at some of the players that we talked about a little bit earlier, like C.J. McCollum, and it's like he's not helping your defense. You know, I mean, where are the options for if you put Kevin Love on the table? I don't know what Cleveland can do right now that actually really moves the needle for them in all this season. It has to be a great defender who is a role player, honestly. Yeah. I mean, you've got enough firepower. You've got enough shots. Yeah, that's what I think they should target.

Like, you know, in the article, you know, I mentioned maybe you go for someone like Hawk Center, Dwayne Deadman, or maybe you try to pluck Nerlens Noel from the Mavericks and get Wesley Matthews with him or something like that. Maybe you go for Tyson Chandler from the Sons, right? You know, maybe you go for Julius Randall from the Lakers, who's been inconsistent, but he's shown a lot of flashes where maybe he puts it together. Hey, I'll give you one. What if you went and you tried to pluck Winslow away? Yeah, he's another one. Winslow, Stanley Johnson, a guy like that. Yeah, but if you got Winslow and you got, because the heat, they want to get a star anyway, right? Boy, that made the heat really interesting. If you had a Kevin loved of their mix with

Whiteside next to him? That would be interesting. Oh boy. Or even White Side. You go from White Side too. But then again, it's like... They're not giving up White Side. But could you get something with Winslow for Love? And that could actually help both of those teams. Yeah. At the same time, even if you're Miami, maybe you still want to stick with Justice Winslow.

Maybe you're not giving up on him. Because I still really like Justice Winslow. That's not giving up on him. You're getting fucking Kevin Love. Yeah, but if you're Cleveland, you're giving up Kevin Love for Justice Winslow. I don't know. I don't know if that's worth it to you. Maybe not. It's really hard to find a deal for Kevin Love when just a couple of years ago, it was quite easy. A couple years ago, he was traded for two number one picks,

Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, and a couple other things. I mean, it's amazing how quickly his value has gone from very known in terms of he was a star player who would get a lot to pretty much unknown at this point, where it's so hard to figure out a deal, and everybody values him differently. Maybe you get like a another, maybe you get like a wing, like a James Johnson in the deal or something, right? I don't know. I don't think Miami's dealing James Johnson. I mean, again, if you're getting Kevin Love. But what is Kevin Love? Kevin Love is awesome. Seriously?

What do you mean? What is Kevin Love? Don't take the wrong way, but what is he going to do for your team? Kevin Love averages. What is he going to do that Kelly Olick doesn't do? Oh, what I'm saying is, they have a linic playing the floor spacing forward role on about $10 million per year. If you get Kevin Love, you're going to be paying him $20 million plus. essentially doing a little bit more than what Kelly Linnick does. I don't know if you want the post-ups.

A little bit more. Yeah, a lot more. But what I mean is I don't know. He doesn't help your defense if you're Miami. But you've got a last line of defense in Whiteside. What you want Kevin Love to be doing is more post-ups, but you already have Whiteside clogging the paint. So then you have two guys clogging the paint.

I don't know if it's the best roster construction. You can still spread him out. I think Love is perfect next to White Side. What? Yeah, but then he's doing the same thing he's doing in Cleveland. just maybe getting some more shots. Well, he would be perfect next to the theoretical Tristan Thompson, but Tristan Thompson sucks. And so, like, I actually think that Love would be best suited next to an awesome athletic big.

Offensibly, he might be perfect, theoretically. But then you have defensive problems. Because if you have Kelly Olinick and Kevin Love out there, I mean, you are asking. No, no, you have a son White side and Kevin Love out there. Yeah, but you can't do that for 40 minutes per game. And even if you do, even if you do, then you still have the issues that Cleveland has when you have Kevin Love at the floor with him defending faster fours. When loves at the five, like Cleveland's been doing a lot lately, they still have issues, but it's a little bit better with him at the four. No, that's terrible. I mean, obviously,

they would need, you go back and you look at that 16 finals, they had a good Tristan Thompson, right? And I get that they have Durant now, but you look at those scores and the ones that, when Cleveland was able to win, they held Golden State to 90, they held Golden State to 97, they held Golden State to 101, they held Golden State to 89. I mean, and they were, would have literally zero percent chance of holding that team to those kind of numbers now. But again, like I said, Thompson was good. You know, Ben, I mean, he was getting double doubles for you. Guys just, he's terrible now.

On Thompson, I don't think we should give up on him because of the calf injury he had earlier this season. I mean, that's the type of thing where it could take time to get back to full health. But at the same time, I mean, he has dropped so far, man. I mean, he doesn't even look anywhere close to what he was. Kardashian curse, man. You said it not me. Kardashian curse.

You know what I mean? Yeah. That thing is real. Yeah. All right, Kev, we'll get to the Kauai story next, but first I want to tell everybody about ZipRecruiter. Are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates?

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One more time, try it for free, ZipRecruiter.com slash Ringer. All right, so now we've got to move on to somebody that does help your defense quite a bit. Kauai Leonard. Kawhi Leonard reportedly having a rift with the spurs, the rehab seemingly a factor in the strained relationship. You have R.C. Buford saying in an interview like there's no problems with this, but I think we all admit this is an intentionally strange deal that has gone on in San Antonio with Kauai Leonard. Most of the time, there is a reasonable timeline on all this, right? What happens is you get injured, you rehab, or you have. surgery and then you rehab and then you play again. That's the way it works, right? Like, here's my injury, here's how we deal with the injury, here's how long it's going to take,

and then I'm back on the court. And nothing about that timeline has been applicable with Kauai Leonard. And now you have this story that there might be some kind of level of discontent between Kauai and the organization about this. What do you make of the ESPN report regarding this possible rift. So a couple of weeks ago, I heard something, and don't take this as fact, it's just something I heard, that Kauai was seeing almost exclusively his own doctors. And maybe that's a source of the rift, or maybe it's just part of it. But I heard he was seeing his own doctors, not San Antonio doctors. I don't think it's like a Tom Brady, Alex Carrero situation with the team, but maybe there's some elements of it like that. I don't know exactly. It's just

something I heard, but it's interesting, nonetheless, because within their report, there was nothing pinpointed, right? It was just that they're having a rift. There's a strained relationship. So maybe something with the way he's handling the injury could be part of that. And the fact that there is a rifts, you know, I mean, I don't think it's too big of a deal long term because of the fact that he's under contract long term because of the San Antonio, the success that they've had. But it's certainly an interesting subplot this season for San Antonio. They've been terrific. without him, but at the same time, like, they've shown some of their weaknesses as of late. It's a shame.

It's a shame. And how about this? It's kind of the first time we hear about Kauai Leonard having a big camp, isn't it? Yeah, I've never heard of that. I must tell you, I did laugh yesterday as I was reading the article, and it said, Kawhi Leonard has appeared distant and disconnected. And I was like, how can you tell? Like what?

Like, he wasn't his typical jovial self. Yeah. I mean, like, he has never seen anything. but distance and disconnect. The guy hasn't smiled in a 10-year career. I know. It's like you read the article. It's like,

so what's different? What change? Is this the story? He doesn't seem like his typical happy go lucky self. He's not bouncing around the facility, you know, cracking jokes with everyone. And then his uncle Dennis Robertson talked to the San Antonio Express News and said he denied.

There's nothing true about the story. It's like, wait, so you're telling me Cole? I's not distant? No, they just said, Like, oh, I guess I just took that the wrong way when you didn't smile for the last eight years. It's so funny. Like distant and disconnected.

Okay, man. I just don't know how with a guy that shows literally no emotion, you can read his emotions. Yeah. But somebody can. Or maybe he was showing emotion and that was the change. Yeah. And the other thing that made me laugh was, as I read the Kauai, I couldn't help, but at least a part of me. me think to the Patriots article, right?

And think, oh, wow. Because I'm watching on Sunday against the Jaguars. I'm like, man, imagine if they didn't all hate each other and it wasn't all coming apart at the seams. It's kind of when you give, like, I think the Patriots, you give like the spurs the benefit of the doubt on this stuff. I get that there might be internal turmoil. But it's a results business.

And while we see, like, say, I don't know, the wizards. Or we see the Cavaliers. Like, we see it show up on the court. And so we say, well, this makes a lot of sense. Something is awry here, right? Whereas when you watch the Patriots, do you watch the Spurs? Like, do you ever get the impression that there is a lot of problems behind the scenes? Like, I don't know.

It is funny how, you know, the greatest dynasty in human history, the New England Patriots, and then the greatest dynasty in the century in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs, both of them are having little rifts with their star players. Tom Brady with Belichick and Robert Kraft and then Kauai Leonard with whatever, you know, fill in the blank. It is interesting how you can't take for granted, right, this century for the Patriots and for the Spurs. You just can't.

If you're a fan of those teams, or even if you're not, you know, it's fun to hate the Patriots. A lot of people probably don't like the Spurs because of their success. Or a lot of people used to think they were boring. But one thing you can't do is you can't take for granted the success. of those franchises in the model they set within their own leagues and within sports in general. But the point is that nobody is invincible. No player is invincible. No team or coach is invincible. No organization is either. You know, every organization has problems just last summer, right? Lamarcus Aldrich asked for a trade. And that was the first time Greg Popovich said he ever had a deal with that.

And they handled it. Every organization, even the best ones, go through difficult moments, difficult times. And that's why, you know, with this story, it's, yeah, I mean, It's a story, but it's like San Antonio is equipped to handle it. It's not something I'm that worried about. I don't think anybody should be that worried about it. All right, two things to touch on really quickly. The Portland situation and the reports that Damian Lillard and the owner, Paul Allen, met to discuss the team's direction.

This was a headline that was going around over the course of the last 24 hours. And you had just mentioned in passing the McCollum idea that maybe McCollum would be available for somebody else. What do you think? It's interesting. I think perhaps there could be some changes in the front office in the nearer future. I don't think Dame's getting traded. That's kind of what I took from it more than anything else. The fact that he was questioning the decisions that were made,

the answer is pretty simple. It's a business. But it is interesting that Dame is looking at that roster and hoping for more. Because again, it's kind of like we, just like we talked about with the Bucks, you have a player in Damien Lillard who right now he's not being maximized. The Blazers are 25 and 22. They're on essentially the playoff bubble in the West. they should be better with the player of Damien Lillard's quality.

But the fact that it's hard to build a roster in the NBA, you had Yusuf Nurchich last season when they got him. He just exploded. And he's still a good player, but he's not quite the guy that everybody fell in love with for about a two, three week period last season. Really good reporting on this particular story. Because, I mean, ESPN.com, Chris Haines got really in depth on this.

He said in the meeting, you know, there was this meeting, and Alan had feared that Lillard was going to request a train. trade. The two-time All-Star made it clear, though, that his championship aspirations were to fulfill his lofty goals in the remaining years in his prime window. He said, this is the first time Lillard and Allen have spoken in such a capacity, however. The meeting, which sources described as productive, open form to share opinions and express concerns could also lead to more sit-dons in the future. During the gathering, Alan also sought answers. Alan acknowledged the roster imbalance, but questioned why the team had suffered through an inconsistent first half. Lillard issued a

heartfelt vote of confidence for head coach Terry Stott's sources said. You know, one of the things Haynes put in there, and that's also in my article this morning, is that it again relates to what Mark Stein said, that the Blazers might try to go for a front court player, and DeAndre Jordan's name was thrown out there. And one of the ideas I put in the article related to Cleveland today was, hmm, you know, maybe send DJ to Portland to McCollum to, you know, Cleveland and picks to L.A., LA, but you could also just cut Cleveland out of it and maybe you do a DJ for McCollum swap, something with a foundation of those two players because they need a defensive oriented center.

I mean, Yusuf Nurkish is better than he was in Denver, but he still isn't the answer. He's not, he's just not the guy, and they need the guy. And I don't know if it's DJ. I'm not the biggest DJ fan personally when he's going to be 30 years old this summer, a guy reliant solely on athleticism who's going to get a big money contract. I don't know if I do that, but at the same time, they do need to shake things up in Portland. the back court with McCollum and Lillard, if you have championship aspirations, isn't going to get it done. Well, that Nerkitz thing feels like fools gold, huh?

Because we had wondered those last 30 games, they were, I mean, they were unbelievable, you know, leading into the playoffs. And obviously they got the injury and it wasn't able to happen during the playoffs because he was not available. But they were on fire those last 20, 30 games of the season. Like post-trade, it looked as if that it worked out famously for both Denver and Portland. We had said, wow, this is actually a trade. that really has improved both of these teams. And you wonder over the course of a whole season. It feels like Nerkich is a good fit with these other guys.

And it's just not meant to be. You know what? I watched them the other night and I was thinking of myself like, it helped about two teams two summers ago, probably two or three teams. But that summer killed franchises, like just all over. I mean, listen, I cover one every day with Chandler Parsons. They signed Evan Turner.

You know, I saw Atlanta here. last week and they've got Kent Baysmore on that contract and I saw New York and they've got and I know that was his past year but they've got Hardaway on that contract and I saw who was it the Pelicans and they got Solomon Hill on that contract

it just all got it all got so goofy that one summer and I do think like you look around and there's one of these guys on so many of these teams that they spent their money on when that free agent money came available and it really hurts it does it

hurt your roster construct. It hurts your ability to be able to be a really good team unless you nailed that summer, which almost nobody did. It's almost like the stock market or Bitcoin, right? Salary cap is going up. Everybody's buying, buying, buying, and then the salary cap just flattens out. And then you're stuck with these guys who are diminished value. Actually, that Bitcoin's a bad analogy. Yeah, especially because you don't want Bob Volgaris all on top of you. That's a bad analogy. But with the salary cap, I mean, you almost expect. You almost expect. the cat to continue moving up, but no, that has not happened. It's flattened out. And that, you know, that's an interesting subplot for this trade deadline coming up. I think it's going to be

relatively quiet. I mean, we've got a lot of noise now, and maybe it'll be a little bit louder than expected, but just last week, you know, talking to NBA people, a lot of people think it's going to be quiet. Maybe that changes. But because of the nature of the cap with how it's flattening out, we're going to kind of return to, you know, you remember in the mid-2000s and even the late 2000s, how you just saw a lot of those, you know, deals with salary dumps for expiring contracts for teams trying to open up cap space. That's what you're going to see a lot more of going forward because the cap isn't going to just skyrocket up every summer like it has the past couple years.

That's been unusual. It's going to go back to the norm now. Maybe more active at the deadline will be the Eastern Conference, simply because they look and see, you know, Cleveland is a little more susceptible than maybe they have been in the past. Yeah. And so taking a shot at this thing, you know, having a, the idea that we could be in the Eastern Conference finals is not that far-fetched if we, if we make a move here or there.

Because that seems a little more wide open, I would think, than the Western Conference. There's a pretty radical divide in the Western Conference. Speaking of, last thing, do you know what I read yesterday, which I was stunned by? I don't know how many people know this, because I watched the Warriors and the Rockets over the weekend. I read that when Chris Paul, James Hardin, and Clint Capella are in the lineup, that they are 17 and 0. They have not lost a game when those three players were available at the same time. I was like, oh, my God, 17 and 0, they have not lost when those three guys have all simultaneously been in the lineup. Houston, they are the threat to Golden State.

And Golden State is still, you know, maybe not quite a heavy favorite, but they are a significant favorite still. But Houston certainly has the ability to make it a hell of a series. And I hope we do get to see that. But, you know, then you get Oklahoma City, you know, they are going to get a lot better as well over the course of the season, you would think, right? And Minnesota's not going to be an easy out either because they can play defense. And yes, there's a real possibility that, you know, Jimmy Butler or Carl Towns could be the best player in a game at any given time, right? no matter who you're playing against. I mean, those guys are elite-level players.

So who knows? I mean, while it may be decided in everybody's mind, and it may be a foregone conclusion that the Warriors will just be there again, I do think that this year, watching so far, they're not going to blow through and be 15 and 1 or anything again. They'll get tested.

Yeah, and even with Minnesota, like, it's not just cat. It's not just Butler. I mean, Andrew Wiggins has been better lately. Tage Gibson has been one of the better defensive players. in the entire league now that Tibbs is starting to play the bench a little bit more, which is beautiful. Marcus George's Hunt, good role player, you know, Tyos Jones, solid backup point card. They have a lot of talent on the team that's really starting to click. And really, I mean, hopefully Jimmy Butler's knee soreness isn't a problem.

Hopefully that's something that they get figured out by April May. Kevin, it's great to talk to you again. Let's catch up next week. It was fun, Chris. So hopefully we get more NBA drama to talk about next week. Thanks, brother. He's Kevin O'Connor from the ringer. That's going to do it for another ringer NBA show.

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