The Ringer NBA Show - The (Sort of) Brawl in the Hall and the Broken Cavs (Ep. 192)

Episode Date: January 16, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Kevin O’Connor review the various altercations in and around the Rockets-Clippers game (1:13), answer fan questions regarding the aforementioned incident (17:56), and analyze the Cleveland Cavaliers’ issues, as were on display against the Warriors (24:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer MBA show is brought to you by Seekkeek. Seekkeek is the best app for buying and selling tickets to sporting events, concerts, and more. For $20 off your first Seatkeekkeek purchase on any game or sporting event, all you have to do is use promo code Ringer NBA. Maybe you want to take yourself to a little clippers game. Download the Seatgeek app or go right to Seatgeek.com. And welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I am not Chris Vernon. I am Chris Ryan filling in for Chris Vernon.

There was snow-related problems in Memphis. They don't really know what to do when the white stuff comes falling out of the sky down there. So Chris is not with us today. I am here, though, filling in for him. And I am joined, as always, on every Tuesday by Kevin O'Connor. What up, Chris? Not Verno. Chris Ryan.

How are you doing? Kevin, everybody knows where we're starting right now. It's Hornets. It's Pistons. It's 118-107. It's the classic of Martin Luther King Day, right? I mean, what else are we going to talk about, Chris? What else are we going to talk about?

Is Smith had 19 points. come on let's talk about clippers and rockets what a night what an advertisement for the game and you might think that I'm kind of being facetious there but this is one of the reasons why I love the NBA man because the stuff that happens off the court is almost as important as stuff that happens on the court

and you get such a picture of the personalities involved so you're able to sort of invest yourself in these narratives and sometimes they might be BS of course but like it wasn't BS last night man there was some real real drama on the floor and off the floor last night starting towards the end of that

game. It was the type of thing that you never expected to boil over into the locker rooms after the game. But the fact that there's a secret hallway that players often meet and talk to each other after games, the fact that we know that that's there now, that makes me think about what about in other arenas? Where are the arenas with all these secret passageways where players can fight or talk or meet after games? I want to know more about that. It was just an incredible event across the board. You had stuff happening on the floor. You had Blake Griffin. getting into it with Mike Dantone. You had Trevor Areza getting into it with half the Clippers. You had Austin Rivers and Patrick Beverly in street clothes on the bench screaming at the

clippers and screaming at the floor. So we're going to break it all down. Obviously, the Clippers did come away with a victory last night based mostly on the performance of their go-to player, according to Chris Paul, who's Lou Williams, 31 points three boards nine assists. The Clippers win 113-102. The Clippers are putting together a playoff run against all eyes. I can't even believe it. We're going to get to the actual basketball, but let's talk about this altercation. It was one of the most chaotic moments

in recent basketball Twitter history because you've basically got Brad Turner, you've got Woge, you've got Ashley Brewer, all these people who were sort of in the mix, Jonathan Fagan from the Houston Chronicle, I believe, and you've got all these people tweeting from the scene and tweeting things, and it just became such a like,

you're just refreshing, refreshing, Twitter, the memes are starting, the jokes are starting. There's a moment there where we think maybe Hardin and Paul are fighting. That was sort of a thing for a second, but that was obviously misinformation. But basically what happened was there was a lot of drama on the court, and it spilled over at the end of the game, Arisa and Griffin, who had been jawing all game, and Eriza had torn Griffin's compression sleeve at one point when Griffin was going up for a shot, which is a perfect metaphor for Blake Griffin in a lot of ways.

and after they got ejected at the end of the game and at the after the game, Eriza went to go look for Griffin to continue their conversation, their thoughtful dialogue, and by all accounts, Harden and some other players went with him to discuss this.

After that, it's all a little bit chaotic, right? Like there's some people, there's some reports that they were going after Austin Rivers, who had been jawing from the bench. There is also my favorite, absolutely my favorite detail of this whole story.

is the idea that Clint Capella reportedly went up to the Clippers locker room while all this stuff is happening in secret hallways and staple center Clint Capella just went up to the locker room and knocked on the door and they opened the door saw it was Clint Capella and shut the door on him I'd love to know who told Capella to do that

or if he did it on his own. Was he a decoy? Was that an orchestrated plan? It's also like there's something adorable about Capella being Swiss and just being neutral and just saying like let's make peace. Like what are you guys doing in here? You guys want to have a snack? He was actually.

He's actually telling them about what was about to happen. He's like, don't open the back door. Don't open it. Or like in Game of Thrones. Hold the door. Hold the door. Hold the door. That's right.

One of the most fascinating things about this entire conflict is the fact that so many of these characters have either played on the other team because they went one way or the other in the Chris Paul trade. Right. So Lou Williams, Sam Decker, Harold. They were all rockets. Patrick Beverly, of course. Trevor Reza and James Harden grew up.

up in LA. You know, there's so much overlap here that I think you could really palpably feel a sense of familiarity and maybe, and I don't mean that necessarily in like there was any love loss. I just mean like these guys know each other. For sure. And I think that was probably part of it, part of the beef here. I mean, and Lee Jenkins had a story on s.i.com where Austin Rivers spotted Areza and then said, let his bitch ass come in, according to a source Lee Jenkins cited. And it's probably the type of thing where some of these guys have beef. A reason wasn't a clipper, but the fact is is that there's a lot of common teammates on each side. And Austin Rivers was really barking from the sideline the entire game.

It seems like Rivers and Griffin were especially the guys that the Rockets had issues with. And honestly, I mean, like, we know that Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are probably two of the more disliked players in the NBA. So in some ways, it's not so surprising. What is surprising is the fact that we have the president of the Players Association leading his teammates. through a back hallway, that's probably not the best look. Yeah, and it was also that, oh, it wasn't Griffin's compression sleeve,

it was his tights, but they were, like, kind of dangling from his shorts. I forgot about that. But, you know, that thing with Griffin and Paul is there was obviously no love loss. Like John, Gonzalez wrote, like, an interesting piece yesterday about the idea of, like, you know,

how will the clippers sort of commemorate Paul and what will happen down the line with that? And I don't, I think they may have put any plans to commemorate. great ball on hold going forward. I would say so. But there's something really interesting about the fact that these are two teams that can be tested, right?

They are two teams capable of breaking under pressure, right? They have in the past in playoff series. The clippers have obviously been very unsuccessful in the postseason. The Rockets, they're still trying to shake free of that collapse against the spurs. These two teams do not want to give up easily. But I think that there was like an interesting element where it's like, yeah, man, you know what? Like, who's going to break here?

Because these two teams are often the ones that fold under pressure. Yeah, I mean, honestly, Chris, I don't know if I, if I look at the fight last night, and I wasn't really thinking about, you know, perhaps that this is a sign of how in those clutch moments they might get tight. But you know what? I mean, you bring up an interesting point. It is kind of a symptom, perhaps, of some of the issues that do pop up in the playoffs for these teams or these players.

But the thing is, I don't even know if I would go that far just because the sheer talent level for Houston is just on another level this season where I don't even know how much of a correlation there will be with this year's team compared to past teams when you have both Hardin and Paul. And then with the Clippers, for them, it's still about health to me more so than what's going on in between the years. Yeah, the Rockers did not have James Hardin last night. Yeah. And even though the Clippers did not have DeAndre Jordan, who had a DNP left ankle, aka trade deadline issue going. and we could get into that. We should note that since Hardin didn't play, you know,

like we're not, this is not like a one-to-one basketball conversation necessarily. We're really more talking about, you know, what I saw from the Clippers last night, and I think one of the things that were kind of, was kind of getting under the rocket skin, was as the game went on,

and the defensive intensity level stepped up. Like there was one play where Montres Harrell was guarding, I think, Eriza on the wing, and he was doing a pretty good job of shutting him down, like a really active hands and didn't go for a pump fake and Rivers, Austin Rivers and Patrick Beverly and Sam Decker and D'Andre Jordan on the bench were just like screaming at the top of their lungs like they were in 300 at Risa and

Harold. And I think that it just kind of had this playoff atmosphere. And I kind of wonder whether or not the Rockets would have been fine losing, but they didn't want to get punked. And that's how things kind of got ramped up because there were some moments. where Blake was obviously playing super physical at times. And I think the Rockets were just like, do your thing, but don't act like this is, you know,

you just had a walk off touchdown in the national championship or something. Yeah, I think that was something Bobby Marks touched on Twitter this morning. He tweeted out that he wouldn't be surprised that the NBA started enforcing conduct on the bench going forward, especially after this incident last night. I mean, with players getting technicals, DeAngelo Russell got a tech for clapping at a referee the other night. I mean, I do wonder if maybe the NBA will start cracking down on that. Moving forward with this, maybe this will be the trigger to make that happen.

But at the same time, I don't know about you, but like, I'd be disappointed. I like that join. Don't do it. Right? Yeah, it's fun. No, don't mess with. There's already a sense of like, all these guys are basically friends anyway about the league. And I don't want to see another malice in the palace, obviously.

But there is something to be said for rivalries. And the Clippers and the Rockets now have one officially. these iterations of this team people are going to be tuning in for the next one they're hoping that we're going to see this in the playoffs don't don't legislate competitive fire out of the game like let's just trust these guys to be adults

and not be ridiculous about like you can't clap you can't taunt exactly and not to mention I mean I've been thinking a lot about an article Bill wrote with Malcolm Gladwell last year in 2016 about the second conversations in sports right in the NFL you have concussions and like in the NBA there's really not a whole lot of second conversations that kind of loom over the league.

And this just seems like such a overall minor thing to me. And I hope it's not blown up into something that it's actually not. Yeah, I think that you just, I think that for me, I've noticed that the MVP conversation starts happening earlier and earlier. I think a little bit of that has to do with the Warriors and the sort of the way they block out the sun and the way that we sort of feel like it's kind of like just we're assuming that they're going to walk to the title. And we're going to talk about the Golden State Cleveland game.

Cleveland certainly did not put up much of a fight in that argument that Golden State's not going to repeat this season. And because of that, I think we start talking about things like, well, who's the MVP or who's the best unicorn or is town's good or not, like as good as we thought he was going to be. So these kinds of little single game flare-ups where we can get really invested in a night-to-night basis is always really fun. Let's talk a little bit about the basketball,

because the Clippers are 11 and 3 in their last 14. They're the 7th seed in the West. They're the 7th seed, okay? They are 11 and 4 with my guy, Milos Tia dosage, with an Eastern European cigarette dangling out of his mouth throwing pocket passes to, you know, psychic pocket passes. Eating cheeseburgers in the morning. I love it, man.

It's just like, they're like an ABA team or something. I don't even know. And then you've got Doc, you know, has changed his offense. It's a run and gun. It's transition. The defense is Switch happy. I think that, I don't know. I don't want to say that they got,

I don't know how they have done this other than, Milos being in there and getting Blake consistently to play. What are you seeing from the Clippers right now? So last month on the Ringer NBA show with Chris Vernon, I apologized for taking the over for the Clippers, right? But this month I'm going to say, I told you so. I told you they'd be really good. Because with the Clippers, it was all about health, right?

Right now, I mean, obviously they missed DJ last night. Gallinari is still out. But they're getting key guys back. Blake Griffin is really, really good. I mean, extending his range to three. hit a three last night, but that has kind of added a new wrinkle to his game to take him to a little bit of a higher level. We'll see how the shot develops over the course of the season, but the fact he's shooting almost six threes a game helps open up the floor. Doc Rivers deserves

credit for really, I think, helping change the system. Like you said, more ball movement, more passing, less just dribble, dribble, dribble, and part of that was because you had one of the greatest point cards ever and Chris Paul on the team before. But the fact is that with the systematic changes, combined with some solid contributions from young guys and the team, the two-way players, Tyrone Wallace, Jamil Wilson, who they had before. Yeah, I was going to ask you to tell us a little bit about Tyrone Wallace. Yeah. Tyrone Wallace, he's interesting because he's a guy at a lower level.

He had issues with his jumper. That was really the one big flaw that he had in his game. But he's shooting the ball well now. This season, things have started to click for him. I mean, for the clippers, he's shooting 44% from three. He's doing really everything on the floor. I think after losing Wilson, a guy who, nobody, nobody could have expected to be a contributor early in the season.

After losing him, it suddenly became a concern. But the fact is, they found a guy who was probably the best G-League player available. Yeah, there was a couple of really pointed cutaways to Jerry West there last night. And you wonder whether or not his fingerprints are just like a different front office initiative is B is starting to show up on the floor where they're trying different guys. And this was a Clippers team that was defined by, we're going to go to war with these three guys. with Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, Blake Griffin, and we're going to surround them with whatever we can find around the league. But whatever we can find pulling from a pool of either they used to play for Doc Rivers

or Doc Rivers saw them in a game once and they were pretty good. That was sort of the scouting network that they seemed to be putting out there. Not to put too final point on it. They are playing guys now that are just a little bit different and a little bit more interesting or they're using guys in slightly different ways. And you could tell that the energy level last night. night was through the roof. It reminded me of Clippers series against Memphis that I used to see a couple of years back when it was

sort of like just coming out of like the original Lobb City, like starting to be like are the Clippers a real contender and the way that Staples could unite around a Clippers game. It was pretty impressive. I mean, it's like Beverly tweeted in the wee hours of the morning on East Coast at least. Late late night West Coast, no more soft stuff here. That's the way it feels. Yeah, well they need an identity. You know what I mean? And I don't I don't know if they can necessarily build an aggressive bad boy identity around Blake Griffin and Milo's Tia dosage, but they can try. And they can certainly reestablish themselves as the underdogs of L.A. Like, even though the Lakers are the Lakers, the Clippers can use the sort of nobody respects us in the Western Conference thing as a chip on their shoulder.

Like, that can be a motivating factor. They could get themselves into a little bit of a postseason drama going, you know, and that's what I think that they have to do. The question is, is this the Clippers team that we're going to see after the All-Star break? Because everybody's talking about Jordan. Jordan is the trade piece. He's been rumored. I've seen it to the bucks, to the heat, to the calves. What do you think, man?

Are they going to move Jordan? And if they do, are they going to look for young pieces back or a like-for-like replacement? So I think, you know, if you're the Clippers, I wouldn't want to be paying DeAndre Jordan what he's going to want going into this off season. So right now you have to balance making the playoffs versus maybe doing a little bit of a reshuffling. However, with that reshuffle, it doesn't necessarily mean that your team gets worse, right? I personally am on the side that DeAndre Jordan maybe is a little bit overrated. I think maybe the Clippers would be a little bit better off having a lower cost center and maybe playing Blake at the five for longer extended

minutes. Maybe that is something that could actually help their team, addition by subtraction, with whatever else that you're getting back for DJ. So I think, you know, if you're, if you're the Clippers and the Cavaliers are offering Thompson in their own first round draft pick, I don't know if that's going to be enough for me to want to do it, but at the same time, I don't think we should necessarily forget the player Thompson was before this recent, you know, really weird, you know, low-end rebounding performances from him where effort, just not there. He's getting back from injury as well. So if you're the Clippers, I think Thompson and the Cavaliers' own pick has to be a little appealing,

but I don't know if it's enough for DJ. Something up, Isaac? Well, I was just, you know, blown away by how wrong that take was. Thank you, producer, Isaac. I want to know, Isaac. Like, what, as a Clippers fan, what would you be willing to deal DJ for? Would you be willing to kind of take a pick and a replacement player? Or are you thinking, no, no, no, like, it needs to be a great hall.

He's 11 years old. As far as he's concerned, D'Andre Jordan is Wilt Chamberlain. First of all, I'm 23. Second of all, I would take the Brooklyn pick, but nothing less than the Brooklyn pick. Yeah, but why would the Cavs... DeAndre Jordan is an all-star. Why would the Cavs ever give the Brooklyn pick for a soon-to-be 30-year-old center who can't space the floor? Because LeBron told them to...

Uh, yeah. That makes sense. We just talked about before the pod how many stories are coming out of Cleveland about how basically the Cavaliers are breaking up. There's such internal turmoil. that maybe it's coming from LeBron, maybe it's coming from another source, but they might need to make a move. We'll get into all the Cleveland drama, but before we do, Kevin, I do have a bunch of questions

from Twitter for us today that turns out that this kind of drama activates the senses. People wanted to ask us some questions. So starting with At Fail Comedian, do you see this as a positive sign for the Rockets, given that they rallied around their coach by way of planning a tactical infiltration of another team's locker? What I want to know is, is there a seven seconds or less? for getting into another team's locker room. Like, do you have, is there like a fast break idea,

or are you trying to set back screens or what? This is also in reference to the fact that Blake and Dantone got into it last night. Dan Tony said that Blake hit him or bumped into him on the way up the court. They were really drawing. I don't think I've ever seen a coach curse out, a player. It was pretty vivid.

But I do see it as a positive sign for the Rockets. I mean, I think that they really did rally around one another in enemy territory. What do you think? Oh, absolutely. I think any time you have these character building, or chemistry forming events. I think it's a positive thing for your team.

I mean, with Harden Out, the team really rallied around their second star with Chris Paul. They rallied around their coach. I think that's a positive thing. For Houston, whether it has big implications in the playoffs or not, probably not. But the fact is, is that as you're developing team and as you're developing camaraderie over the course of the season,

these things can be good. You know, when you're bringing guys closer, that's what you want. Chemistry matters a ton. At matter, dude wants to know on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does CP3 hate his life? clippers teammates. Here's the problem. The CB3 doesn't have that many clippers teammates. There's basically DeAndre and Blake, and other than that, Wesley Johnson and Austin Rivers, but other than that, the guys who were on the Clippers now were on the Rockets last season.

And then a bunch of rookies and G League players and Juan Evans, Tyrone Wallace. I mean, there's really not a lot of overlap, like you said. So I guess what we're saying is where would you put his hatred of Blake? Ten. Yeah, not a lot of love loss there. Matterdue has another question, which team would win if they had their starting five compete in a no-holds-barred battle royale? I would not get in a no-holds-barred anything with Patrick Beverly. So I'm going to go Clippers. I'm going to go with Houston, just because the depth of big guys, Ney-N-A, Montres, Harrell, Clint Capella, got a lot of size on that side. Kickpuncher wants to know, is it possible that CP3 was able to access the back hallway

because they forgot to make him turn in his keys when he left? The key card is real, brother. You got to turn in your key card when you leave your work. I have no idea. You know, I think that the idea that there are these secret passageways in that this is some episode of Lost and maybe the Clippers could go back 10 years and, you know, like make better draft picks. I don't know. This is hilarious to me, but JJ Redick, our co-worker and shooting card for the Sixers

tweeted that he was going to need to do an emergency pot about the schematics of the Clippers' locker room. I hope he does that. Jim Viol wants to know, and this is a number. other Sixers question, so I really appreciate it. Jim Vial, if the Sixers ever find themselves in the Houston Rockets position, would storming their opponent's locker room be a team activity that Markell Fultz could

be integrated into? Jim, I'm going to find you. I'm going to hunch you down. Would Fultz have a smile on his face while doing it? No. Would Fultz have a hitch in his punch? Oh, God. I'm going to say no because throwing the punch,

he wouldn't be thinking about it while he's doing it so it would come naturally. That's my dead J.M. Karam, let's note. J.M. Karam says, I'm all in on Pat Bev against any non-professional fighting human, but what are his chances against a wild jaguar? I'm willing to give Patrick Beverly two large knives, and I'm setting the odds at 50-50. Oh, my gosh. Got to be honest, I'm not familiar with the specs on the jaguar.

Like, I don't really know. Every once in a while, you come across a, you know, like a predatory wild animal that's actually apparently, like, enjoys eucalyptus trees. I don't know. I'm starting to sound like I'm on the Kyrie, JJ. I don't really know what I'm talking about. Let's just say I'm taking Patrick Beverly. Is this like with Aryan Foster

saying he could beat a wolf 101? Yes, it is. That is. I'm going to go with Liam Neeson in this one. Moves like Judy wants to know, biggest question for me, would anyone have had Austin Rivers' back besides his dad? I'm not sure his dad had his back.

I'm sure the clippers were probably bringing out the boxing gloves, you know? They're ready to go. Yeah, right. I probably bringing out the boxing gloves from the back room. inviting some people in to play around. I think they would have been ready to go. Another question, which team benefits from this fight, quote unquote, more going forward? Clips or rockets?

Can I say both? Can I say like it's an equal thing? I mean, it's character forming for both. I think it brings guys together. Unless there's a lot of details that we don't know, I think it can bring guys together on both sides. I think with Houston, obviously Harden coming back, coming back to, I think he's supposed to come back this week, according to a report. And then with the Clippers, I mean, they're a team that a lot of younger guys on the roster.

I think it's a good thing for both sides. Okay, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. And then we're going to come back, talk a little bit of Cavs Warriors, and kind of summarize the rest of the MLK Day action that we had on Monday. Today's episode of The Ringer MBA show is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates? The Internet is crowded with job boards,

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finals rematch, possibly a finals preview. But I have to say, man, I kind of hope it isn't. I love LeBron. I want to see him get to another finals because I think that would just be an incredible achievement. But I would rather watch Toronto or Boston get swept than see another Cavs Warriors series. I mean, the fact is, is that Cleveland was old and slow in October when their problems were first apparent. They're old and slow now. And unless they make changes, they're going to be old and slow. they make it to June. And I'm not sure that would be the most appealing thing to watch. I mean, they played pretty much evenly, statistically, in the half court in both games this season in here and there in the finals.

But at the same time, I just think Golden State is just on a higher level athletically. I'd rather see a matchup against Toronto and Boston as well for that same reason. Yeah, I mean, this was a very good game for about three and a half quarters. And it was exciting to watch. and you felt like if Crowder's shots were falling, that you would get a situation where maybe the calves come away with it. But saying if Crowder's shots were falling is starting to sound like if it doesn't rain in Seattle.

You know, I mean, like, it's just not going to happen. So I don't know when Crowder is going to rediscover his stroke, but his 3-and-D play. Yeah, I know. I know. But he has this 3-and-D reputation, and he just doesn't have the three. You know, this is something Bill and I talked about on the pod

sometime last year, maybe during the playoffs or something, something like that. But Crowder, Crowder's reputation for whatever reason just blew up into something, into something that he wasn't. I mean, sites, I believe ESPN and NSA, both had him ranked above Demarda Rosen in their top 100 rankings, like, which I'm not knocking those rankings, but I'm just saying, like, that's, that's what people thought of Crowder before the season. But the thing is, is he wasn't that guy.

His defense declined after he had a sprained MCL a couple years back with numerous ankle injuries. His shooting was completely fake. Last season, he shot like 44% from three before February. And then after that into the playoffs, he shot his same rate that he did over his entire career, low 30s. And that's kind of just who he is as a player. I once thought he was better than he actually was. And I was wrong about that. And this is kind of the guy who he is now.

And it doesn't help matters that he's playing for Tyron Liu and not Brad Stevens. So for the Cavs, they're getting a guy with a 3-IndD reputation who isn't quite the 3-Indie player. that they need because Crowder can still defend forwards very well and he still makes good plays on defense but he can't defend on switches against guards like you need him to and he's not being able to space to fall like you want either

and we got to talk about the other guy who came to Cleveland via the Kyrie Irving Trade and that's Isaiah Thomas who everybody in the world is pulling forward to make the full recovery from his hip injury from last season and I don't you know I'm not a doctor and I don't know really the details of his specific injury

but you know one for seven from three last night is bad. Taking 21 shots is, I guess, in the Kyrie zone, but I feel like it is having a direct... It seems to be that Isaiah Thomas and Kevin Love are getting the shot or Kevin Love are getting the shots, and it can't be both. So Kevin Love goes five for nine and scores 17.

Isaiah Thomas goes eight for 21 and scores 19. He only gets to the line twice, which is another thing that you really want him to do because he's such a good free throw shooter. But you've been talking about this, man. He is all about getting around the other player and getting on that turn and exploding to the hoop or getting that pull up. And if he can't get that burst to get around the player, he is really a negative on the defensive end. So you're really giving up a lot.

I think with Isaiah, you know, to your point, Chris, we're talking about a guy who relied so much on, it's just an excellent first step to get past guys than just excellent burst to really get to the. rim. And then let's not forget, Isaiah doesn't dunk, but he is an elite athlete, completely elite, for his ability to get up to the rim, for his ability to athletically draw files and get to the free throw line. And if he doesn't have that same first step or that same burst or that same explosiveness at the rim, he's not going to be the same player, right? His shot might fall eventually. And I think that will come in time. But everything else needs to be there for him to be the difference maker that he was not just last season, but over his entire career, Isaiah has been a

really good player ever since he came into the league with the Kings. Granted, his usage has gone up, his volume has gone up over time, but he needs that to get back to at least like 75, 80%, I mean, right now watching him play, he doesn't look anywhere close, anywhere close at all at this point. And that's the fear because even if he gets back, he's still going to be limited defensively. teams are still going to attack him relentlessly on the defensive end of the floor. And if he can't make it up offensively, then you have real problems for Cleveland where you're asking is the benefit of having him on the floor when he's such a limited defender worth it if he's not bringing it offensively when you might have better options, when you

might be better off feeding the ball to Kevin Love. Maybe Isaiah is not going to be able to give them what they wanted. I mean, Kevin Love, I think, showed flashes. You know, you think about that victory over Miami in November 38 points. You think about some of the games you put together on the Cavs' winning run that they had in December. And, you know, 28 points, 25 points, 27, 31, getting, you know, 18, 10, 12, 11 rebounds. He was putting together reasonable facsimiles of Timberwolves loves numbers, even though. And I also felt like he was being used in a more creative and central way in the offense.

And last night I saw a lot of Kevin to the corner, Kevin to the corner, Kevin to the corner. Kevin to the corner. Look, you can't have, I just think that the fact of the matter is, I don't think a team playing Isaiah Thomas and Kevin Love on the floor at the same time is defensively good enough to get to the finals. That's just straight up what's up. And especially not if you've got Dwayne Wade, who's going to be good every other game, maybe an uninspired-looking Tristan Thompson,

Crowder who can't shoot, and an erratic JR. I mean, you're just not going to go anywhere with that team. So here's the thing. Dave McMeneman reports this morning on ESPN, several, prominent players speaking on condition of anonymity to ESPN. These players, I don't know if it's the same ones also apparently spoke to Cleveland.com and The Athletic, which gives this story an almost like Trump White House AIDS vibe. But basically someone or someone's on the Cavs, prominent players, are briefing that they don't think the switch is going to get flipped or that they are worried

that the switch is broken. Traditionally, the Cavs have had stop and start regular seasons that at some point, they flip it, they're able to cruise through the playoffs. We saw that last year. They currently have one of the worst defenses in the NBA. I think it's 29th last time I looked. I don't know, this is one of the most fascinating front office questions to come along in a long time because basically they are sitting on this Brooklyn pick, which is depreciating in value as Brooklyn gets better and better. And they are facing down the prospect of LeBron and Isaiah Thomas being able to leave next year. Trade interest in Thompson for DeAndre Jordan is moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Do you agree

with that? Yes. I still think it's a sinking ship anyway. That's why I wouldn't move that next pick. Got I have something for the future, something to sustain success with whatever happens next. Yeah, and you can get somebody interesting. You can get, look at the past few years of draft. Good players are available at nine or ten. You know what I mean? Like we've seen great players get drafted out of those spots. You can find a Devin Booker there if you're lucky. You know, that it's not necessarily like, well,

now that it's not top three, now that we're out of the Donkich, you know, sweepstakes, just like, let's just trade it for DeAndre Jordan, who could also walk, by the way, and just based on what little I know about him, doesn't seem like the kind of guy who wants to, like, live in Ohio all the time. And I've known disrespect for Cleveland,

but DeAndre, I think, really likes the L.A. lifestyle. Yeah. I mean, and if you're, if you want to talk about the LeBron connection, DeAndre Jordan was being pursued by Clutch Sports. He had at least one meeting with Rich Paul. And at one point, a lot of executives thought that he was going to sign with Clutch, and he didn't. So if you want to look at the LeBron connection, maybe it's not as strong there as maybe Cleveland would have hoped for when it comes to resigning him this summer.

But even if you, I keep going back to the fact that he's going to be 30 and he's a big man that relies probably 90% of his success. is on just his elite athleticism. And if that deteriorates at all, then what does he become for you? So I wouldn't feel good about paying DeAndre Jordan $30 plus million over the next four years. I feel like that can end up being a mistake went. Whereas you mentioned it's the Luca Donchrich sweepstakes. It's really not.

It's also the DeAndre Aten sweepstakes and the Marvin Bagley sweepstakes, the Michael Porter sweepstakes, the Moabamba sweepstakes, the Trey Young sweepstakes. There's six players who arguably... Yeah, the group is growing, man. Yeah, the list is growing. It went from... This is a top...

draft to now we've got six. Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. Look, the big question is, no, go ahead. Oh, no, I just think like, and it's not like, even if the Nets have the, the Cavs have the eighth best odds with that Nets pick, it's not like those odds couldn't win the lottery and end up being the third pick, you know, it doesn't mean it'll be eighth, ninth or tenth. I just think you have to hold on to that for the chance you get a franchise changing player who, guess what, you could have playing alongside the braun if he stays or guess what he's your guy moving forward in the post lebron era i think he got to keep that pick unless it's a franchise changing move and i think they will i don't think they'll trade it for dj and i don't think they should either so at what point

does this become untenable because the lebron free agency thing is looming you know i mean if if the calves my thing is like i think lebron can actually leave next season and have his head held high he came back they won a title, they went to the finals. He did what, he finished the unfinished business, right? If he leaves and he decides to go to Los Angeles or he decides to go to Houston or decides to go to Philadelphia or any number of places, I think that everybody there can be okay with it. But if he, what's that?

I'm trying to speak it into existence. But if he does, if he pulls a Shabazz Napier, if he says, you guys should trade the Brooklyn Pins. get DeAndre, that'll shore up the defense. You know, we need to make a run. And then he leaves, I think it's going to leave a bad taste in everybody's mouth. I think if he does anything or if he is seen to do anything that hurts this franchise going forward, he's going to, it's going to just leave a bad taste in everybody's mouth.

I mean, that's kind of the dilemma, right? Because, you know, as Isaac alluded to earlier, right? you know, if you're the cavaliers, maybe, you know, you do trade for DJ because maybe it does help your chances of increasing LeBron. But at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean it have any impact. It could also have a negative impact. It's kind of a big unknown. And that's where I kind of just fall into the bucket where you keep that pick, you know that

there's a percent chance that it goes into the top three if you win the lottery. Or you're in a position to draft a good prospect in the, in that. that mid-lottery range, whether it's seven, eight, or whether it's even 10 or 11, there's good players to be had there. There's some good talent. Guys like Colin Sexton at Point Guard, Robert Williams from Texas A&M, Michael Bridges, Jaron Jackson. There's a lot of talent to be had.

So I think if you're Cleveland, you have to think long-term. And this is something I wrote last year before the playoffs where Cleveland, Cleveland for years were in a position where they had to think short-term. Every decision they made was about winning now. because perhaps maybe they knew that they only had a certain amount of time to win with LeBron James, so they had to maximize that time by trading for Corver, by trading for Channing Fry. Those are good decisions to make based on their circumstances. But now it's not because you're entering an uncertain future.

And I think you have to start thinking long term and not short term. Whether that's with LeBron or not, you have to think about sustaining success. Because you can't go to the bottom of the barrel like last time when LeBron left. You have to think about continuing to build. a good team that can be appealing to other players that continue adding pieces. I just think trading that pick would be a devastatingly poor decision unless it's for a franchise changing player.

So one other thing I just wanted to throw out there, and I'm not being flippant about this because I don't want to make it sound like this is an inevitability, and you don't like joking around about people's jobs, but we're coming up right to the point when David Blatt was fired in 2016, January 22nd. and there was the Tailu quotes from last week about, you know, he came out and he said, you know, if people have agendas, if people have, you know, we have to sort of fix that. And it was, it was a strange, like, well, what agendas or who has agendas in Tailu? It was like, I'm not saying or, you know, I can't remember what he said, but he basically, like, deflected. And now you've got

this week with McMeneman's story and these other stories about a prominent anonymous Cavs player or players saying that they think they think they're, the switch is broken, would one break in case of emergency move be to bring in a different coach? Is there a coaching issue here? I still think it comes down to the personnel. They're old, they're slow. They need changes on the roster.

There's no solutions from within. Isaiah Thomas isn't going to get better defensively. Kevin Love is who he is defensively. Jay Crowder is who he is. JR is not the same anymore. Emon Shumper is not the same. Kyle Korr's old. Jeff Green's average.

I mean, just go down the line, man. like Tristan Thompson. So David Fisdale can't turn this team into a final team. It's the personnel. I mean, you could get Greg Popovich and he's going to probably make these guys play better. You can get Brad Stevens. They're going to help this team, but it still doesn't change the fact that the team has personnel issues. And that's where the changes need to happen.

But the problem is, is how do you make those changes? Right. How do you make them? If you're not going to deal the Nets pick, what are you going to give? I mean, we threw out Thompson and the Cavs' own pick for DJ. but is that really going to get it done? I don't even know. I'm not the biggest DJ fan,

but I don't know if I do that if I'm the Clippers. I don't think I would. I think you can do better than that. So where are the change is going to come from? You can't just pluck a great 3-D wing out from the G-League because they're not there. Everybody's looking for 3-D wings. So I don't know where the solutions are,

unless you're doing a major shakeout. Yeah, and as you saw last night, Isaiah and LeBron are still learning how to play with each other. There were some nice moments, but there were a couple of moments where I felt like LeBron was, you know, setting picks for Isaiah and Isaiah, I wouldn't use them. It was just sort of like that getting to know you, period,

and it's coming at a crucial point in time. And we'll see how far they can push this without having to make some serious moves. But they're going to face some stiffer competition in the Eastern Conference playoffs this season than I think they have in seasons past. And I think Kevin Love, he's the guy, everybody for the first two, three years,

always said, well, maybe they should move Kevin Love. And does it go back to that? Maybe Kevin Love is the guy that you move, not the Nets pick, because Kevin Love will be, 30 next season. Maybe and he'll have, I believe, that'll be the last season on his contract, if I remember correctly. He'll be a free agent in 2019. Maybe he loves the guy that you move. I mean, what's the market for Kevin Love? Yeah, exactly. Like, what, what is the market for Kevin lover putting him out there? Because who he is today, right? If he goes back to the Minnesota version

of Kevin Love, I still think you're going to want him shooting more threes than you did back then when he was still primarily a post-up player. So even then, I mean, you're talking about a defensive liability. who was average at best on that end of the floor where I don't even know what the market would be for him. I mean, I think maybe if you're the Cavaliers, you would target a team that's trying to push into the playoffs, a team that's a little bit desperate to get in or hold their spot where they're not necessarily concerned with beating the Warriors or beating Boston or Toronto or even Cleveland. They're just concerned about staying in the playoffs. So maybe that's the type of team that might cough up a little bit more for a guy like Kevin Love, who clearly is, is capable of more on the offensive end of the floor

when provided the opportunity. Okay, we'll wrap it up there. It was a crazy night of NBA drama. You can hear more about it tomorrow on Sources Say with me and Juliet Lippman. Thank you so much to Chris Vernon for letting me fill in today. I hope you dig yourself out of the Memphis snow. Kevin, talk to you soon, man. Talk to you soon, Chris.

That was fun.