The Ringer NBA Show - How Did the Celtics Turn Their Season Around? | Weekends With Wos

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

Wos is joined by The Athletic’s Jared Weiss to talk about the Boston Celtics. They discuss the Celtics' early-season struggles and what looked different about them during their nine-game winning streak (1:49), the chemistry between Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum (11:45), what this team’s potential is in the playoffs, and much more (22:53). Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Jared Weiss Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, I'm Evan Mack of the MacMania podcast with my two fellas. I'm Brooklyn's own, Flobo Voice. And I'm the Hall of Farmer, Jack Farmer. Follow and listen on Spotify and catch us on the Spotify Green Room after major wrestling events. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Weekends with Woz on the Ringers NBA podcast. Of course, I'm Big Was, aka Wazzy Lambray, and I'm joined by a very special friend of mine all the way from the bean. Jared Weiss of the Athletic What's going on, brother?

How did you get them to convince you to work on the weekends? All right. We can give the people real talk. I got a call from Bill Simmons. He called my phone. That sounds compelling. And he said, Yo, we think there's an opening on weekends.

We think you should do it. I was like, cool. Let's do it. Can I record it, Poppy? Relax. You better relax. Hey, man, listen, the Boston Celtics going into the NBA All-Star break, one of the hottest teams in the league. Obviously, they just recently lost their last game going into the break.

But I think they had won nine straight games before that, if I'm not mistaken. And it seems like they basically righted the shit after starting off the season pretty shakily. And a lot of grumblins and rumblings out there, right? about the coach, about the Brown and Tatum thing, about, you know, a myriad of stuff. What was the, what was ailing them earlier on in the season when they seemed to be struggling? I think it mostly starts with right at the beginning,

big change to the defensive scheme from Mimi Odoka. They're switching everything. And he actually said the other day that he was overdoing it, which is kind of what I thought all along is they were overdoing it on purpose to try to learn. And when they first were starting to switching at the beginning of the year, they were screwing up like every single game. And teams were just running past them all the time, getting uncontested layups.

So they kind of got that down. They got good enough at it that they could read when to switch and when not to switch. So they weren't just obviously automatically switching every time. They started mixing different coverages. Defense got more complex. Defense started to get pretty good. About a month ago, he made a key change of the scheme, which is he took Rob Williams off of the center.

And Rob Williams now basically kind of plays a zone on the back line of the defense where he's guarding the shooter in the corner or whatever else. But it allows him to stay near the rim. And they have Al Horford or Grant Williams defending up on the ball and the pick and rolls. So now they're pretty good at stopping pick and rolls. And if they let anybody get through, Rob Williams cleans it up every single time. And Williams has gotten very, very good at that. He's turning into one of the best defensive centers in the league now. He's still got a little ways to go before he's at the top tier.

but he's been really damn good this year. And they just, they really have the defense completely balanced out now. And so that's kind of the biggest difference, at least on that end. And then we can get it to the offense. Offense was a disaster for a while. And they've made some pretty good strides there. Yeah, I do want to talk about the offense because I feel like the offense is what gets the most attention on this team. And rightfully so because of the two young studs, right?

And, you know, of course, we all remember Marcus Smart's comments. earlier in the year about basically guys aren't passing the ball, saying that the offense was predictable in crunch time. And, you know, people were basically, he was basically complaining about Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. I thought it was pretty rich coming from a guy who had, like, taking 22 shots that game or something ridiculous like that. But at the same time, when you did sort of go in and watch Boston

at the end of games, there was a bit of predict. to what they were trying to do. So aside, and we, I want to get into the acquisition of Derek White a little bit later, but aside from that, because obviously he just got there, what did they do to sort of goose some level of change to what they were doing offensively? Yeah, Derek White is a big part of that solution. But it's funny, I was the one that asked that smart that question. And his answer was exactly the stuff I had been saying the entire time.

And it was just, I guess it was refreshing. Okay, go ahead and catch yourself on the bat. Yeah. But it's, I don't even mean so much to humble brag as much as that. Like what he said is the stuff that everybody else was basically saying. And it just took somebody to have the balls on the team to say it. And he should not have said it publicly. He should have kept that in house.

But the reason why he did it, I think, is that he wanted to force change. And it sort of did, I guess, at that point. And for him, he came into the year expecting to be the point guard. And they were talking about him being the point guard. And then the last seven minutes of the game, it was Jason and Jay, and Jalen running point most of the time. And that forces him to be a shooter or attacker out of the wing, which isn't quite his strong suit.

When they had Dennis Schrooter out there with them closing games, and then Rod Williams is at the five, they got no shooters around the guy handling the ball who's one of their best shooters. So it really goes to that January 8th game, I think it was the 8th, against the Knicks, where they're at MSG, they're in control the whole game, and Jason Tatum's going off in the second half.

But besides him, nobody else is scoring. Tatum is carving the defense apart, kicking it out to smart, smart swings to Dennis Schrooter, front rim. Other way around, smart shoots it, front rim. Meanwhile, Knicks are hitting every single shot. They're not getting any stops. Evan Fournier is getting his revenge on the Celtics, and they end up somehow losing that game, even though they were up huge.

And after the game, I asked him, Meodoka, you got Grant Williams and Josh Richardson, who are both shooting over 40% from three. How come they're not out there at the end of games when you have Schrooter out there bricking everything? smart. You can see why he closes games. He does so much else right. But he's not shooting well either. And that was kind of the first time we took as like, you know, those we maybe need to get our shooters out there. They make the change after that. Smart got hurt so shooter was still closing because he was running point. But they actually had shooters around the ball for the most part. And they actually

started winning from that point on. So I think it was fixing that crunch time offensive issue was the big thing for them because they were generally playing fine for most of the game throughout the season. and we just have these insane epic collapses, like not hitting a shot for seven minutes, being up by 20 and blowing it or like 25 or whatever it was against Chicago that prompted them to say those things in November. So it was just that they were having such dramatic losses just because they could not figure out how to score in crunch time

and because they're offense slowed down so badly in crunch time. And I do want to get into the Eme, Udoco part of it all, right? Again, new coaching. Everybody comes in when they're new. new to a place and they want to sort of make their imprint and try to implement a sort of culture that is unique to whatever it is that they bring to the table, right? You mentioned what he did with the extreme levels of switching because he wanted them to be a switchier bunch and, you know, there was some stops and starts and hiccups to start.

The offense can't really say he was adding any real level of innovation there when it's like at the end of games we're letting Jalen and Jason. and do everything. Now that we're, shoot, 50, 60-something games into the regular season, what's your sense of how he's been able to settle down? And, like, has he found a sort of footing here with the team? Because, you know, you get those examples, like last year with Indiana, for example, where the guy comes in and everybody's like, immediately,

get this guy out of here. I remember LeBron's first season or no, it was the second season afterwards with David Blatt and it's just like they tolerated him for one year and then dude was like 30 and 11 and they got him out of there, right? So we see this.

Like it doesn't matter how early into your contract you are. Sometimes you could be a new coach and if dudes aren't filling you, it could get really hot under your seat really quickly. It seems like Doug has sort of found an equilibrium there. how has he been able to do that? I think by staying true to himself

and just kind of holding through the really tough part of the break-in period because he, I mean, they presented him pretty clearly as a straightforward guy who was going to tell you exactly what he thinks and he's going to think things that you're not going to want to hear a lot of the time,

but he's going to give it to you straight and he's going to do enough to establish a trust that you don't take it as antagonistic. And everybody around the team keeps saying, like, yeah, he's hard and he's direct, but we respect it. And now it's working finally. And it's really working because they've just, he's made some tweaks that I don't think it would be working if he had to make the tweaks.

And the roster changes definitely help a lot for sure. Getting rid of Dennis Schroeder helps them a ton. Bringing in Derek White helps them a ton. But really, I think it's just at the end of the day, he kind of stuck through doing what he wanted to do for the most part. And then when they finally got healthy and had some continuity, like they actually started playing really well. Yeah.

And, you know, it's interesting because, again, you're hearing the stuff out of boss, like, oh, maybe this guy doesn't know what he's doing or maybe he's this. And then you talk about the personality, the personality, he knows, of course he does. You talk about the personality quirks. And I remember guys, if not publicly, making sure that media people knew the important guys on the team were super behind the higher. And so, you know, it struck me kind of weird that there would be this beef with a guy that, everybody wanted in there. And it seems like those guys, he has their ear and they've fallen in line with what he's trying to do.

Yeah, I mean, this team has just enough runway with Jaylen and Jason on their contracts that those guys can be a little bit patient. So I don't know why, I don't know why the whole breakup, the Jay's thing picked up Steam so much earlier this year. I think probably just because it was the second straight season of them struggling. And, I mean, I was saying before the season, like if Jalen Brown is, it doesn't think this team is going to be on track to win by the end of the season, then next year is going to be the year where that stuff really happens because you're not going to keep him as a lame duck,

or at least once he becomes in his lame duck year last year of his contract, he's no longer under-restricted free agency coming up, then obviously the vulture starts circling. You've got to start figuring out what to do from there. So, you know, this year was that the year to panic was really next year, but they were just so bad at the beginning of the year. And they had made all these moves that basically made it so that they're stuck with all these contracts, but the point is to try to make a big trade in the off season, but who the hell do you trade for.

It didn't seem like Bradley Beale was going to fix this issue. Zach Levine probably isn't going to be getable. Dame Lillard, especially now with the health issues, it's like you don't really know if that's really a move there. So it seemed like there just was no long-term solution for this team. And now we're seeing, especially with this Derek White trade, where they gave up a lot of assets to get someone who's getting paid a good amount, like a lot for a six-man essentially.

They're basically, it seems like for now leaning into building completely around just the core of Tatum and Brown and thinking that Rob Williams and probably Marcus Smart and Derek White will be good enough around them that they don't need to have a third star, which is looking like a pretty decent bet right now. But obviously, the way that they're playing, it's mostly against bad competition. So we'll see if they can keep dominating against better competition coming up. So again, this is why I'm so happy I'm talking to you today because you basically read my mind where I wanted to take this.

Because I did want to do a bit of a vibe check, if you will, on the Brown and Tatum arranged marriage, right? Because look, I was watching Tatum on the JJ Reddick podcast in preparation of talking to you today. And, you know, two things I thought was super interesting. One, he was like, I'm in constant dialogue with Jalen about how we feel about what we're doing here. Do we believe in the mission that we're taking part in over here? Do we want to be here together? To get doing this. He said some incredible things. One, he said, look, the grass isn't always greener.

Like, players like Jalen Brown don't grow on trees, right? Like, are we just going to get a guy in here who's just much better than Jalen? I don't feel like that's the case. And he was like, look, you could trade me. I think I'm one of the best guys in the league. Are you just easily going to be able to get another guy in here and again, he's saying that in a public platform, but you're on the ground, Jared.

You're as plugged in as anybody is over there. Do you get that sense, like that's honestly where these guys are coming from, where they're locked in in a belief of what they get still accomplished together? Yeah, it's people try to pull them apart because they think they see it not working and they think that there must be some sort of issue between them for it not to work.

And because we live in a world that exaggerates everything to such dramatic binary polarizing ends. Or it's either they're the close. They're either DeMaris and Kyle Lowry or they're Kobe and Shaq. Like there's nothing in between. It's like most of these partnerships around the NBA of guys that are great teammates together.

Like they don't like they have their own camps. They, you know, they have their own crews. They probably chill together a decent amount. But they have, you know, they kind of they do their own thing for the most part. And like Jaylon and JT do not hang out a ton together when they're out outside.

Because honestly, like JT is, at home with his kid most of the time or he's doing really small dinners with a few of his people and like a couple teammates and jb kind of has his own crew but they're so cool together i've seen them chilling together outside where uh you know where like the cameras are gone and like everything's completely normal at least everything i've seen everyone i've talked to in the camps is like yeah they get along fine they work really well together they've been talking they've been like creating a pretty strong narrative and storyline of like us talking and having conversations and working through things together and all that stuff and like even with smart it's like smart it's like smart has

caused so much drama publicly and even privately, but they're all still cool with them and they all still work together pretty well. It's just that it's they also have their styles of working and that doesn't always click and create results the way you want it to. But like at the end of the day, as far as I see it,

the issue is really just about, like Tatum is entrenched in Boston. It's pretty clear that he's the primary guy for the franchise. He's the one closing and running the offense at the end of the games. Why do you say that it's pretty clear that Tatum is the guy? because he's running the offense more at the end of games. He makes, I think he makes a bigger defensive impact

because he is around, because he makes plays around the rim more. Brown, also it's, Brown is really good at guarding guys one-on-one in specific matchups, probably better than Tatum is a lot of the time. But now that they're switching and helping,

I think the individual ability to shut a guy down throughout a game isn't as useful as it was in their older scheme. So I feel like that gives Tatum a bit of an edge. But it's really, Tatum's the one making the All-Star team over and over. And, like, Jalen just cracked through. Jalen seemed pretty pissed off he didn't get it this year. It's like if the team was just better earlier on,

he probably would have been the one to seek in. But he hasn't been shooting the ball that well this year. His numbers haven't really improved since last year. Tatum's haven't really improved since last year either. But you're seeing Tatum's playmaking is becoming kind of central to their offense now. And it makes sense for him to be an all-star. I don't know if he's quite a starting level all-star. Like he ended up being because of an injury replacement.

but he's been he's been good enough this year to make it so i think those are the main factors and at the end of the day jalen his contract's going to expire sooner he's not on a max deal they somehow got him for submax which at the time i was surprised by even though so many people thought he was being overpaid and uh it was pretty obvious right away that he was being dramatically underpaid he's clearly a max player and so jalen just at a certain point might decide that he wants something different where he could be the he could be the clear face of a franchise he be in a community that he can really take a larger role in, which I think he has a pretty good opportunity to do that in Boston, but maybe he wants to end up back in Atlanta or another city

like that. So there just seems to be a little bit more, a little less stability, or I guess Brown feels little less entrenched as the clear franchise cornerstone than Tatum does, even though I think Brown's done just about everything he can do to earn that. Okay, Boston fans. I hope you heard that Jared Weiss is kicking Brown out of the town. He's shipping him off to some free agent destination where he could be the man and take over the community. I hope y'all know, remember y'all heard that here first. Hey, I like Jay.

I don't want to leave. Weekends with Waz with my man, Jared Vice. But, no, but seriously. And, you know, just because I know people are going to say, oh, media, breaking them apart. No. Another thing that I thought was important about Tatum's conference. with JJ Reddick, which I would implore everybody to go listen to. He talked about the 2019 team, and he literally said there was an obvious rift.

Not to say that between the Gordon Hayward, Kyrie sort of veteran faction, and the young guys who felt like, well, we took a team to the brink of the finals last year, we should be getting stuff. And I only mention that to say that, like, these guys have been part of the final. of a team rift before. It's not beyond them, either one of them, to participate in a rift.

So it's nice that they have it together right now, but it's not, you know, they've participated in a team fraction before. And so I think it's relevant to ask. Although they were aligned, you know, they were on the same faction in the previous iteration of a Boston team, you know, fracas or whatever.

But things can change. We've seen that over and over in the NBA. I think that's the number one thing we know in the NBA is that things can change. So I do want to move on, though, to the Derek White situation, because I'll be the first to admit, I sort of poo-pooed the trade in the sense that,

I mean, the guy shooting 31% from three. He's not this on-the-ball playmaker right? So it's not like he's changing their lives doing that as far as finding guys and creating four other guys. But what I didn't realize

what I missed at the time and watching them play recently is how unsticky his hands are when he gets the ball. That thing is in, it's out, it's moving, he's cutting, he's shooting,

he's figuring something out. Which is important when you play with Jalen Brown, when you play with Marcus Smart, when you play with Jason Tatum, it's important to have one of these connector type of guys, and it struck me watching Boston play recently. The ball is whizzing around now

in a way that I don't remember the last time I saw this team play that way. What can you say about what Derek White's done to the team? Because I'll be the first to admit, I got this one wrong. Yeah, they're actually starting to look. He reminds me of Gordon Hayward in his role with the Celtics,

because Hayward, and that was part of the issue with Hayward going back to what you were talking about. I mean, the whole riff thing was back was just, Kyrie was on his, like his high horse kind of situation. And then there was so much frustration that we were. Cairoid being like a dick to the people that he works with. No, we've never seen that before. I have no idea what you're talking about.

He was always great to me. So he, you had Hayward. The problem with Hayward was that he just couldn't play. He just was not good yet. he had like three good games in the whole damn season. The next year he was great and things worked out really well. But he just wasn't ready and Stevens was, Stevens just in Stevens at some point should have been like,

all right, Gordon, you're not playing well. We got to, we got to scale you back a little bit and give more opportunity for other guys. And so that was really where the rift was. You come back now and you go to that bubble run. And he was actually heard for a lot of the bubble run.

But throughout that year, Heward was just the guy that they never, they very rarely really. ran the team through him, but you would get to that second action in the play. Yeah, he was like their point guard, basically. But he was like a secondary point guard sort of. It would be like the second part of a play, he would be a big part of that. And him being both one, he's a good shooter, but a really smart playmaker and not just being

able to get downhill, draw the whole defense, kick it out. But like you're saying about Derek White, just knowing when to very quickly zip that swing pass to the next guy, when to take two dribbles in and then make the pass, when to wait for the closeout to come so you can get around the close out. That's the stuff that Derek White does really well. And also cutting and rebounding. That's another big part. Derek White,

I think his big impact is going to be that when the Celtics are getting shut down on one side of a play, he's going to know when to sneak down towards the rim and be the cutter that gets the ball past to him and then pass out of that. He's going to be able to come up high when Jason Tatum is getting blitzed and give him that outlet so then he can go make a play. He just kind of gives them a good decision maker in, every single part of the play.

And really, their big thing they need to figure out with him is that right now, he's spending a lot of time out in the corner and he's breaking shots from there. And that's the one rule you don't want him. And you don't want him out towards the corners because he can't really do that much of what he does well out from the corners. So they have to figure out a way to get him closer to the ball and get him more involved, more consistently, especially in crunch time. And that's when they'll be really good.

But I am a little bit worried now that if they're closing games and it's him out there instead of Grant Williams, who's shooting the ball really well, then they're not going to have enough shooting out there and they're going to run into some of their similar problems. But the big difference between what they have with Dennis Schrooter before and what they have with him now is that he he just, he is a more active player and he's a more willing passer than Truder is. And he also takes smarter shots than Schrooter.

Actually, with White, he doesn't really shoot that much. He doesn't seem to really like shooting. He doesn't really get to, he doesn't really get to, he doesn't really have that many good finishing moves in the paint. So for him, it's like he only really wants to shoot if he's like, got a clear mid-range look or if he can cut and hit a layup in the paint, stuff like that. But he's really looking to cut and move the ball as much as possible, and they really need that.

Man, I know you saw that 538's model has the Celtics current as the team to beat, the team that's going to come out of the east. That's what they got. Yeah, data's not always data. There is an art form to Dana, that's for sure. Okay, well, you know, I'm just saying I was just giving you an opportunity to be an extreme homer and agree with them. Yeah, that ain't mean, sorry. To spin it forward, Jared.

What do you think they can do in the Eastern Conference playoff, spinning it forward? Because, look, man, Tateham and Brown are kind of known commodities. But it's the other stuff. It's the ancillary pieces that I think make them more interesting. thing now. The stuff that you said that they're doing with Time Lord now on defense, where he's manning the paint and always around the basket where teams can't do the smart thing and be like, oh, you want to, you're a great rim protector. Let's get you on somebody and bring you as far away from the paint as humanly possible. The fact that they're scheming up ways to keep him

over there doing what he can do, all the things that you mentioned that Derek White is bringing to the team, Mark is smart seemingly being in a great place. mental health-wise. And so he's doing all the things that he's capable of doing. Of course, man, I remember seeing Grant Williams at the Chicago pre-draft stuff. The Combine, the year that he entered the draft. I guess that would have been 2019 is when I would have seen him.

And he was just bigger, better than everybody at that combine. And everybody came away going like, Dan, like, this dude is obviously a pro. hopefully he can make a shot. And he's proven that he can make shots now. You know, when he's open, he knocks it down. So it's like they have something there. Obviously, their coach is improving, especially within the playoff format.

What do you think they can do, you know, in the playoffs this year, against the big dogs in Milwaukee, in Miami, in Philly now? I still think Brooklyn is going to make noise once KD is back to being healthy. What do you think they can do in the playoffs. I actually, I like them for the playoffs because they play a playoff style brand of

basketball. Like they already switch their offense. They already, they already, they already, guys. They got one on one guys. They, they already mismatch on a ton, which is how it just goes in the playoffs, even if it's hideous a lot of the time. And just the way their offensive, like, the way their playbook is designed, it's the kind of stuff that you would do in the playoffs. It's a lot of running that, like run a pick and roll to the right side and then bring the ball back around to the left side and the attack from there and then try to find a kick out. Like, those are the kind of simplistic plays that you run a lot in the postseason. And so I think that they're already playing the kind of basketball style that they're going

to play at that point. They have a bunch of guys that are pretty well experienced in that regard. And everyone's getting better. Like you can see clear improvement in the way Tatum and Brown are playing the way Rob Williams is playing. Smart has finally hit a hot streak and he's playing some of his best basketball the last few years, but he just rolled his ankle. So we'll see how much it affects him.

He's probably going to be back in one of the first few games. coming back from the All-Star break, but obviously he might be playing through some discomfort, so we'll see what happens there. But I think the big thing is, now that they have white, they, I don't think teams can really scheme

against their defense because they just, they have, when they close games with smart white, Brown, Tatum, and Rob Williams, like they have a really good defender at every position.

There's no one to target at that point. And so I think they just don't have much defensive vulnerability. They're probably their main factor is going to be, will Brown and Tatum the progress they've made as playmakers, is that going to get stunted when they start facing really good defenses scheming against some of the playoffs? And will their poor shooting talent bury them?

Because the big thing they didn't do with the deadline is they didn't acquire plus shooting. Daniel Tice is not a good shooter. Derek Wright's not a good shooter. You got Rob Williams and Al Horford out there most of the time. Both those guys don't really shoot the ball well outside. Al at times has been a good shooter, but pretty bad this year. so Grant Williams, Jalen Brown,

Jason Tatum are your only reliable shooters in the rotation. And then Peyton Pritchard, who knows if he's going to get out there? He's a skilled shooter, but he's pretty erratic. And Aaron E Smith, so far, just not showing me anything that makes me think he's going to be in the rotation. So right now, unless I'm forgetting somebody, I think that was everybody because smart, you know, smart, smart,

some nights, like fourth quarter of a game six, he might be Clay Thompson, and then the rest of the series he's going to be Marcus Smart. So you never know with them. But so that's the big variable. And that's why, even though they're playing, playing so well and they just killed Philadelphia, like the humiliated Philadelphia. Then Philadelphia next game came out and beat the buck.

So it's like that Philadelphia team, it wasn't like they were a hoax. Like that was, that was a pretty impressive win. But we haven't, we just, we haven't seen it enough against enough full strength, really good teams. They beat Denver. That was a good game. They got Memphis coming up. They have, uh, they have a few good opponents coming up.

We'll see if Brooklyn has some of the, I don't think Benson is going to be playing at that point, but, you know, maybe, and I don't think Katie's going to be back at that point, but maybe Brooklyn will be, have some of their guys back. that'll be a real test Thursday. But either way, it's like we've seen, even though they're playing mediocre opponents, we have seen some very clear schematic changes and some changes in the way these guys kind of like,

the way that they're playing out there, that I'm pretty sure this is going to carry over well enough that they should still be one of the best teams in the East. And I mean, they have, I think they still have the best net rating in the Eastern Conference right now, which is insane. So, you know, I want to get you out of here on this last thing. Danny Aange departed from the team.

last year, the wonder boy Brad Stevens takes over in his job as basically the president of basketball ops. And obviously, it's different now. What have you noticed since Brad has taken on this role? What has it meant for Brad to now be the boss of the operation? And what's the contrast between him and Dan? there's got to be some differences there, not that the new guy is running things,

besides the fact that he's going out and he's doing the classic former Celtics coach, Doc Rivers, thinking bringing his old guys back. Yeah. So I think the big thing with Stevens is his moves are coming from what seems like a former coach. Getting Derek White, I mean, the Tice one is obvious. Like, you know, they just got a guy in a long-term deal,

who's making almost 10 million as a backup center who can't shoot the ball. Like that's a pretty obvious coach move there, right? But the Derek White move, I think, was the one where he very clearly confirmed the difference between him and age. Aange was someone who tried to squeeze all of the value he could out of everything

and he would sit back and wait until he could find something where he could really maximize value. Brad Stevens has made a bunch of kind of negative value moves, basically. What do you mean by negative value? So here's what I mean. So like the Al-Horford deal, they traded away Kemball Walker and his giant contract and got rid of the 16th pick, which is a really good first round pick, turned into Al-Pr

Shangoon, who looks like he would have been a really important piece of their future. So basically, sacrifice an important piece of their future just to open up salary cap freedom next year, essentially. And because we're seeing with Al-Horford, Al-Horford's been good, but he hasn't been good enough to be worth giving up a middle. what they did justify giving up shangoon so that is that is a that's a that's a value sacrifice move in order to make an important what they seem what they thought was an important financial move and make some improvements to the rotation this year honestly if if horford was just shooting like 34% from three then he would be good he'd be everything they want it's just that he just continues and not be able to hit his shots otherwise he's been really good and we'll see horford every year in the playoffs like dramatically turns it up he plays way better in the playoffs so we'll see if that happens this year um that And the Derek White trade is the other big one. Derek White, they give up a first round pick in Josh Richardson, which right there, if it's

just that, you're like, okay, that's a really good value trade. But then, and I asked Stevens about this in his presser, and he's like, yeah, that was a doozy. They give up an unprotected 2028 pick swap, which is far enough into the future that Tatum and Brown could be gone. They could be like the worst team in the NBA at that point. And it's top one protected, but they could lose like the second round, the second pick in the draft at that point for Derek White. you have to win the title.

Derek White has to win Finals MVP basically to justify that. At the same time, you can justify and say, what's the last time the Spurs had a freaking top five pick or, you know, or weren't, you know,

whatever, middle of the pact. You know what I mean? Like, it seems like they've been running the treadmill of mediocrity anyway. You know what I mean? So, you know, I kind of... But that's the point that

that means that they're more likely to have to lose their pick if they have a better pick. So... Sure. So the point is, it's like, there's a good chance.

they are going to lose that draft pick if they are not, if Tatum and Brown are still not here and there, because at that point, if Tatum or Brown are still there, they're probably one of the best teams of the game. I think you make the argument that the Spurs aren't going to be picking in the 30s, or the 29th pick. That's what a coach is going to tell themselves,

like, whatever, they're not going to be that bad. They're the Spurs, you know? That's how, but that's how coaches think. Yeah, but, you know, the point being is they paid a big price for Derek White,

who is making $18 million for a few months. years as a sixth man in his prime. Like that's, that's a lot to pay a sixth man. It basically means it seems like they have taken themselves out of the running of trying to make a huge trade for a star. That's, that's what it seems to mean.

So basically, Ainge kept holding out year after year, he couldn't get it. He thought he was going to get A.D. And then A.D. did not. And he went to the Lakers. And he continued to try to stay as flexible as possible so that they could make a huge move.

And Stevenson said his. been like, screw this. Let's just keep incrementally building and get really good around Tatum and Brown and bet on Tatum and Brown hitting that sub MVP level where they're good enough that they can actually win a championship around that. And I like it because the team I'm watching now is pretty fun to watch honestly right now. And it's honestly, it's really annoying covering a team where you're just talking about a potential huge swing in the future because it creates higher stakes and higher pressure and people get more and more pissed off when it doesn't work out. And so, you know, like at the end of the day,

Ainge got screwed because Kyrie got hurt and Hayward got hurt. You know, age might look like one of the greatest GMs of all time if both this guy stayed healthy because they would have had a really good chance of winning a title if they had stayed healthy. And they didn't. They got really screwed there. They brought in Kemble Walker. I really like the move from a basketball perspective.

We don't know how much Charlotte and Boston knew about Kemble Walker's knee issues, but Kemble Walker was everything they wanted him to be and they were really good. And then his career fell apart. So they've gotten horrible luck with injuries. and now Stevens is thinking like let's just bet on guys that we know we're going to be good and are making pretty close. Even if they're a little bit overpaid and it's not great value,

we know it we're at least going to be good and we can really bet on our young guys to keep growing. And Rob Williams now too is showing like the promise, there's still a lot of ceiling left with those guys. So this team can still grow from the subcontender level to the clear contender level with what they have now. I love it, man. Thank you for coming on the show today, Jared, man.

and tell people where they can find you and your work because you're excellent at what you do. Jared Weiss MBA. I am over at The Athletic for all things writing and talking. I love it. We'll see you guys next week. I'm Big Was. This was Weekends with Was on The Ringers NBA podcast.

We out of here. Peace.