The Ringer NBA Show - Were the Joel Embiid and Jamal Murray Extensions a Wise Move? | Real Ones

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Howard and Raja start off the pod with an exciting update regarding Logan! Then, they go through the recent extensions of Joel Embiid (6:00) and Jamal Murray (23:00) and whether both were wise moves from the Sixers and Nuggets. After, they look into whether the Miami Heat potentially resigning Jimmy Butler is a smart or stagnant move (30:00). Also, they look into whether the Nuggets’ turnover over the past years highlights how quickly championship windows unravel (39:00). Email us your questions at [e-mail]. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Howard Beck and Raja Bell Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, y'all. Sirot Sohi from The Ringer here, and I wanted to let you guys know about a new show that I'm hosting. The Ringer WNBA show. We're going to be talking about all the biggest personalities, breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings that make the W so fascinating, featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us on the brand new Ringer WNBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the real ones. Power Beck senior writer for The Ringer. That is Raja Bell. Logan Murdoch still on sabbatical and I get the honor. I have received permission.

I filed the proper paperwork. I get to say it. I have the honor of telling you all our faithful listeners that Logan Murdoch is a proud new father. Hey. A applause everybody. He and his wife welcome to baby boy recently and we're all very, very happy for them. Logan taking some time to just get to be a daddy as he should. Logan will be back just after New Year's,

and we, of course, are wishing him and the family. All the best. Logan, save up some good takes. You're going to carry us through January after Rajah and I are collapsing. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Little homie has a nice form on that jump shot, too. So Logan, just keep working.

It's never too early. Just keep working it. Yeah, Rajah and I got the inside scoop there recently. Photos obtained by the real ones text thread. showing the little dude with some good follow-through form there. Roger, you tell me, is that three-point range yet? Or is that like a quick turnaround like eight-footer? Yeah, no, let's never make the mistake.

Logan, this would be some fatherly advice, man. This is for years down the road. Don't let him start shooting threes, dude. Like, we're not starting at Howard. I cringe every time I walk in a gym in and I see little dudes like, and they all do it, hop out there and they're shooting 18-footers to warm up. man, we're talking form shots two feet away. We're going to ingrain that and then we'll build out.

That's good advice. There you go. Straight from Raja. It actually hit me like so because it's, you know, we've talked about this a little bit. Like everything that you're experiencing as a father now with your kids and their teens and all the responsibilities there and colleges and everything. My daughters, we've talked about went off to college. So it's been a while. But like, what do you remember about your early days of, of,

fatherhood in that that weary like sleep starved just sleep deprived just blur of stuff like any any quick memory memories of that yeah i mean i guess i remember like my wife still never like she won't forgive me or the doctors for like inducing her she had like a little scare it was probably like what do they call those uh what do they call the cramps that that that that women get right before pregnancy that that aren't necessarily labor So we went in. The false labor, yeah. Yeah, so we went in and it wasn't really labor,

but the doctors in Phoenix knew that we had a playoff game the next day. So they were like, yeah, we're just, we're going. We're just going to do it. It was against the Lakers. So my wife was, she will never forgive me or the doctors for prioritizing a playoff, a playoff game. So Dia was born May 2nd, the day before we played the Lakers. I think we closed out the series.

But what I do remember, Howard, all jokes aside is, you know, it was all fun in games. the hospital, you know, like my teammates were coming by to see us and Dia and my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, everyone was there and it was all good. And then, you know, as we were being, like, discharged, I remember the nurse, like, showing me how to lock him into the baby seat. And, you know, Cindy was getting kind of wheeled out and put in the car. And, and I remember as she, like, shut the door and was like, okay, well, we'll see you later. And, um, I don't know why it didn't dawn on me. Like, like, this was.

was all fun in games. But at that moment, I was like, wait, so like, we're in charge now. Like, I've got to do all the shit that you guys were just doing at this hospital. Like, she's cut wide open and has all these stitches. And this is my responsibility. And the, I mean, I was terrified for like a 15 minute drive home, Howard. Like, I did not know what was going on. Yeah. No, that is the terror is the part you remember. I mean, there's a bunch of good stuff we remember, too. But no, I had that same. We had only been living in New York for about a year and a half. And my daughter was born in January.

So it's kind of icy and snowy out. And like I'm driving this potty at Grand Am that was like a leased car that New York Times gave me. Everybody who had a beat where you were required to drive a lot, you got a quote unquote, free car. So like I'm not going to complain that it was this crap Pontiac Grand Am. But I'm driving, first I'm driving my wife to the hospital. And then, of course, a couple days later when she's released with our daughter and that moment of, yes, putting her in the car, putting her in the car seat and then driving feeling like every foot you move is just, it's all just nerves. Like I probably drove home like at five miles an hour through the streets of Brooklyn, just absolutely petrified. As if driving through New York, even in the best of times, isn't already like scary as hell.

But it's my first winter or second winter. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were, I mean, obviously, you pointed out some phenomenal times. Like, I remember first baths and first these and like, like, like, taking naps on the couch. Like when I would take my pregame, I'd have him like, you know, take pregame naps with me. And I like, those were cool memories. But I just generally remember being really, really scared leaving that hospital.

Like, wow. Yeah, I know. Like, what the hell do I know? What do I know? You're trusting me. You're interested me to take care of. I'm an idiot. What are you doing?

I was taking shots at the bar three nights ago. Like, I don't know that I don't know. I don't know that I was supposed to be doing this. Yeah. And yet our children somehow lived to tell the tale. They're all fine. They're great. Logan's little baby boy is going to be awesome.

Can't wait to see more photos. And we'll get to hear all the stories from him in January when he comes back. So all the best of Logan and family. Rajah, as we record this, so this is Monday, but this pod is posting Tuesday. So listeners, as you are hearing this, the Boston. Celtics will be holding Media Day. I don't know how that happened. Celtics Media Day, Tuesday.

The Nuggets Media Day is Thursday because those two teams are starting early. They are playing in Abu Dhabi, the first preseason games on October 4th and 6th. So their media days and training camps are starting this week. Everyone else is next Monday, September 30th. So we're here. The season, or at least training camps are upon us. teams are getting in some like last minute business. We just saw the Joelle Embedd extension happen a couple days back.

And I actually want to start there. We're eventually going to get to some other thoughts here about the nuggets and the fleeting nature of success in this league. But Joelle Embed three years, $193 million extension takes him through 2008, 299. He will be 35, turning 35 that season. Rajah, good move for both sides, logical move for both sides. Anything about this that struck you? No, I mean, this was, yeah, I think this one was, you know, win, win, win. Like, you have to, he's still at a point in his career.

They're still at a point as a franchise. When everyone's healthy and firing on all cylinders, that you could see a path to a championship. And I think as long as an organization and as a fan base, realistically, you know, that's a possibility with a player like Joel M.B., like a cornerstone of your franchise and all NBA MVP. Like, I think you get that done. Yeah. This one, there are some no-brainers. And when you've got a guy who's a recent MVP, still in his prime, I don't care how old he'll be when the contract ends. I don't care how often he's been injured.

Like it's almost like you don't have a choice. You don't have a choice. And I don't mean that in a negative way. they're like, oh, you have to do this like reluctantly. It's like, no, you have one of the five best players in the NBA at any given time. Things have not gone, obviously, as well as they've hoped. There's been a lot that's gone into that, including Joellen Beade's injury history and including a lot of things that were completely out of his control.

Some of those injuries were out of his control. And if you want to say some of them were also, you know, conditioning related other things, there's some of that baked in. But, you know, it's not just. Joelle and Beed's fault that Ben Simmons had his time there end as strangely badly as it did. It's not his fault that James Hardin ended up in a snit. Let's call it a snit with Daryl. That had nothing to do with Joelle Embed.

And then since then, you know, look, Tyrese Maxie has blown up. They've signed Paul George. They've completely restocked the rotation. They're in great shape. They're among the handful of, I think. true contenders this season. And Joelle and Bede went healthy is an MVP. And was playing better than his MVP season last year before he got hurt again.

So that one's easy and absolutely is a no-brainer. And, you know, look, a couple things break their way. They're right in it. And so, yeah, I have no quibbles with that one. No, no, I mean, and to all. To all the points you just made, you know, this has been kind of an unlucky kind of career for Philadelphia fans to maybe watch. And I always say unlucky, he's been, he's been brilliant when he's on the court, but unlucky in terms of all the other things you just kind of expressed that have kind of been, you know, around his career. Because that whole time, at least theoretically, should have been a window of opportunity to win a champion.

He's that good, right? So like when he hits his prime, your window is open. And it still is. And it'll be interesting to see, you know, what this new newly stock roster, you know, the new piece is how that chemistry gels. And then, you know, I've said this before. I'll continue to say it. It's not a knock. I mean, he's obviously made huge strides in this area. But we're ever evolving in the area of leadership and generally what you mean as the spirit and the emotional leader of a group. And so, you know, Joel has got to continue to grow in that space. Right. Like, and ultimately, even the MJs of the world in LeBron's and, and the all-time greats, they developed that over time at their own pace, you know, but like they developed it over time. And so he'll have to continue to do that because, you know, I think the window was propped open a little bit more with some of the moves they made. So yeah, for sure. By the way, also not Joel and B's fault that they chose Tobias Harris over Jimmy Butler several years back too. So like they've, there's been a lot that's gone wrong around him. And like, look, to his credit, Joel Embed has continued to show faith in the franchise. You know, it was only like a year ago, I think, at this time that people were talking about, well, you know, they're forced to trade harden. And, you know, some of that's Daryl's responsibility because that's where the tension is. And so is Joel and Bid going to lose faith in the franchise? Is he going to ask out? Is he the next

one to demand a trade? And like, that's a distant memory. You know, they had another disappointing finish this past spring in the playoffs. But Joelle Embed clearly believes in what they're doing. He clearly has faith in that front office, in that ownership group. I think they've rewarded that faith by being able to go out and grab Paul George. If that didn't happen, if the Clippers had actually decided to max him out, there's an alternate universe here where the Sixers are restocking with, like, DeMar de Rosen and Contavius called Will Pope or something.

And they'll, you know, they'd still be pretty good. and if Maxie becomes, you know, all NBA caliber, maybe they're fine. But like, you know, they did get Paul George. You know, they did make them most of their opportunity. And they created that option for themselves by, you know, creating the payroll to have that opportunity. So I think they've done right by him. I do. I think, you know, the sense that I got, I mean, I was never a superstar, but the sense I got from superstars as it related to whether or not they had faith in a front office, you know,

clearly it's layered like anything else. But I think first and foremost, are they willing to make moves? Like, are they willing to put their money where their mouth is in terms of getting the talent that they think can help? Not always whether that talent hits, right? Because, like, we understand we're all human in this, right? Your eval, your e-vow might have said one thing. And then for whatever reason, it didn't work. So it's not always the end result as much as it is, hey, are they willing to continue to move pieces to,

be creative to to find different situations to bring talent in and put around me until we get the recipe right. And I think most superstars, if you can demonstrate that to them as an organization, you'll have their trust. As long as you're just not inept and just throwing, you know, like just craziness at the wall, I think if you can prove to them that you're out there working and are not afraid to make the moves to put the talent around them, they're okay. Yeah, it's interesting because I think in previous eras, including during your time, Roger, like if a star asked out, and they didn't ask out nearly as often then, but if a star left the team that had drafted him and where he became a superstar, maybe there was a money dispute. Maybe the team just wasn't all in,

right? They had messed up. They didn't get the right guys. Or maybe they didn't go cheap on your contract, but they cheaped out on your co-star or the third best player or somebody else, and they let things Road. And they didn't give you the support that you needed and you thought the only way I can win is somewhere else. And even in the era that we're in now, if you want to say that the player empowerment era starts in 2010 with LeBron's decision and leaving Cleveland, like, okay, the Cleveland Cavaliers had won a lot of games, but they'd never had a true co-star for LeBron. And I said it in real time at the time. Like, I didn't blame him. Like, he saw an opportunity to get the stars as teammates that he never was going to get in Cleveland because guys don't go to

Cleveland. And he took matters into his own hands. And his career might be very, very different if he had not made that choice. And so I understood that one. Like, you know, you can't completely blame the Cavaliers, but you kind of can, right? It's a small market. You only get so many opportunities to either draft or trade for guys if they're not coming as free agents. But I understood that. It's interesting now because starting with like Paul George leaving Indy, Kyrie leaving Cleveland, you started seeing guys leave teams where they actually were successful, where the teams have done pretty damn well in building around them, right? Like, Pacers have gone to back-to-back conference finals losing to LeBron's heat each time. And, you know, Paul George left a winning situation or he was traded, but it was, you know, he had basically put up, you know,

the red flag saying, like, it's time to go. and the Pacers traded him to Oklahoma when he was trying to get to L.A., he eventually did get to L.A. But he was just done there. And Kyrie Irving had been to three straight finals and won a championship and decided, eh, I want to do something different.

And so it's interesting because the motives of players, and we're talking about superstars here, really, the motives of superstars, Max players, they're really all over the board now. Like, sometimes you can do everything right, and the guy still might want to leave. And so, yeah, there's there's always risk yeah no yeah they're today's today's superstar um yeah it's a little

different there are a lot of there are a lot more things that come into play um you know when when when they are trying to decide you know what their desire destination is for like the next four to five right like you and it's just you know it's the world we live in man there's there's so much more you know there's so much more exposure to different to different markets and and the ability to kind of want to be home because of free agency and the length of contracts. Like there's so much more that goes into it, Howard. Like when we played, like, you know,

that generation before me, they didn't have any of the flexibility, right? Like, so like, you are where you are, my dude, unless, you know, you become a free agent and then, and then you get to pick. But, but even when I came out, you mostly, you know, guys were, guys got drafted. And it's interesting.

Guys got drafted and you kind of, this is a bigger topic. Like, you've heard Barclay and all of those guys. guys got drafted and they wanted to win for that team. And they wanted to give it their best effort. And to some degree, even to their own detriment at times, would stay places and try to win, even though like it was clear it was never going to work. And like today's start just doesn't feel, you know, that type of pressure, I guess.

It's interesting. The good news is like two different aspects of this where I think fan discourse, fan and media discourse, the general conversation around these things, I think has evolved in a healthy way. So in 2010, LeBron makes that decision and the world just melts down, right? Like, people just had a mass freak out over it. And now it's considered just kind of the norm. And I think more fans than not and media kind of understand it and are not going to attack a guy. Like, we're not talking about disloyalty and all this kind of antiquated notion anymore.

It's kind of understood that it's a business. And similar to that, and this goes to the Embed extension. And we'll talk a minute about Jamal Murray's extension. too. But like when fans now, and again, I should say fans in media, when we, the, the chattering classes talk about an extension, it's no longer about, oh, my God, that guy's overpaid or, oh, teachers and, you know, plumbers are only making or whatever, or teachers and janitors and firefighters, like, it's just the norm now. Like, we're no longer hand-wringing over, like, Joelle and Beads now career earnings are going to exceed a half billion with a B. And I know you have to laugh because it's just, I think that's part of it actually, though, Russia. Like, it's so abstract. It's hard to even like get your head around.

Like, listen, listen, real quick, real quick, sidebar. We were at University of Miami yesterday. My godson, Aden, was in town. And he was going down to a visit to Miami. And my son, Ty went down with him. And so we visited. And Kyle Lowry was there working out. Like, and he'd say he's there every day at 4 a.m.

And he's busting his tail. And I was excited to see him because I knew him from back at Villanova. and when I was with the Sixers and stuff. And so we got home and we were having a few beers on the patio. My buddy was like, my buddy Gene was like, hey, man, what do you think he's made over a career? So we did that exercise yesterday and it was upwards of $200 million. Wow. Yeah.

And it was cool because I've known Kyle since he was in college. But like, so when you say a billion, a half a billion, I'm like, I mean, that's pretty crazy. But I just did that yesterday to some degree. And correct to Kyle Lowry, because like he bounced. around early in his career. He was what, was he a second round pick or late first? I don't remember. That that dude, you know, carved out a really nice career for himself. No doubt. Obviously, what a championship, respected vet and is playing, you know, deep into his 30s because he's valued for so many things beyond just, you know, putting the ball in the basket.

But we don't, we don't get caught up in that anymore. And I think that's, again, that's a healthy thing. Like, is this guy worth X amount? I mean, we talk about. it in terms of how it might hamstring a team's salary cap, and generally not with the superstars, right? The superstars, everybody just says, oh, that's their max? Yep, they should get their max. In fact, a lot of them are worth in terms of just pure market value, if there were no max salaries, they'd be worth a lot more. LeBroad would have been making $100 million per season. But where we get caught up and it might be like, you know, the mid-level guys who it's like, ooh, really you're going to, you know, I'm trying to think of a recent example, but, you know,

where you're given like a seventh man, you know, 50 million over three years and you think, that might hurt you a little bit. But I think people are just more intelligent now about the salary cap, the way it works, the fact that all of these salaries have to be viewed really as a percentage of the cap. And the cap just keeps climbing. And so when it's beyond, you know, 100 million, 120, 130, whatever, it's going to, you know, the salary cap's going to get to 200 million sometime within this next TV deal. So, you know, it's, you know, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you consider that players make 50%, 51% of league revenue, yeah, those salaries are going to be really high.

That's really cool, though. I mean, that's this cool thing. And I am too glad that we were at a place where, like, we're not going to do that silliness anymore about like who makes, come on, like that, come on. Yeah, it's obnoxious. Like, yeah, these guys are among the best in the world of what they do. And the, the collective public around the world spends, beyond $10 billion or whatever, you know, just to, for these games to be broadcast, for people to buy tickets,

everything else. Like, that's, that's what the league generates. And that's what these players generate, you know, the, again, no one's paying to see the owners, as we know. So, so let's talk about Jamal Murray for a second. And that'll take us into the Nuggets, who I wanted to discuss a little bit. Jamal Murray signed an extension recently as well. His is four years, 208 million. Also through the 2008, excuse me, 2012. 28, 29 season when he will turn 32. That is also a max extension, Raja. And this is one where it starts to fall into more of the gray area,

where Jamal Murray, everybody agrees, all-star caliber player but has never been an all-star. Maybe flirted with all-NBA caliber at times, has never been all-NBA, has been hurt in seasons where he otherwise might have received some of those honors. And at his best is, you know, It's absolute stud out there and is clearly the second most important nugget. And Nicola Yocuch doesn't have a championship without him.

But he has been a little more all over the map. And he did have a rather rough postseason, followed by a rather rough Olympics. There has been some discussion of or allusions to the possibility that he was still banged up over the summer. I, this is, again, I don't want to get backslide into like, is he worth it? It's not even about worth it. It's more a matter of, like, in this case, is he the right guy to invest max money in when the nuggets are a small market team that clearly is very payroll conscious?

We'll get to the KCP thing in a minute here too. But I do think this is one where I just had a little bit of hesitation. And if I were the franchise, I might have had a little. Yeah. So when you posed, when you kind of posed the question, I think initially, I was on a flip side it was easy it's easy decision like we're yes do it

and then I kind of you know got into it a little bit and started breaking it down and it got a it got a little more dicey for me like there were there were a few more things you know clearly you know injury history but like if we're going to give Joel Embed the benefit of the doubt on like that's an uncontrollable thing

then I'm good with that he's 27 um but he's a weird one because of the because of the because of the lack of like regular season awards, right? And, and general fanfare. But then what he can turn into when they are good in the playoffs. And I've seen it multiple times now. So ultimately, I'm going to say all this to say that yes, I think you extend him. I think that you at 27 with what I've seen him turn into both in the bubble when it was just electrifying and when they won a championship,

I mean, he is one of the better postseason players in the league right now. Granted, he didn't have the best one last year, but like he's shown me to the tune of a championship, mind you, that he can do that. And weirdly, and I don't mean this to be like a knock on Nicola Yokic, who I think is brilliant. But they feel like they go together for me. Like they feel like if you're going to be relevant as the Denver Nuggets, style of play, understanding how Nicola likes to operate. you know, all the success that you've had there together with the player like Jamal,

I think you have to do that. The more I thought about it, I came back. The pendulum swung back to where I started, which was like, yeah, I think you, I think you Mac, I think you lock him in and probably max him out. Because I see them, probably catch some shit for this, man, but I see them as a two-headed monster kind of. Like, I know Nicola is the dude. Don't get me wrong.

Like, he's the guy. But when I think about them and their success, I often think about the moments where, Jamal was really helpful and came up huge and clutch with Nicola. And that's why they're able to win, if that's fair. And the thing is, if you swapped out Jamal Murray tomorrow for another point guard, even if it were somebody who has won multiple All-NBA Awards or has been a multiple-time All-Star, whoever that may be, you know, pick a name out of a hat, there's no guarantee that that guy has the same chemistry, the same kind of intuitive

rhythm with Yokic. And some of that's not even intuitive. It's learned, right? It's years and years and reps and reps together. And there are point guards who are better than Jamal Murray and who might be quote unquote worth more in terms of a contract. But would they function as well or play off of Yokic as well? Would they have the same kind of almost telepathy now that those two have? And so sometimes the value is not even really about your talent or your stats.

it's it's just it's just fit and chemistry and all these squishy undefinable unquantifiable things no you're you're absolutely right like there's a there's a you know there's a kind of a collective there that like when you're doing those contracts you're like between the two of them this is what they're going to make right like it's not necessarily like whether one's worth this and one's worth the other it's like together like we're going to pay them X amount of dollars right and I mean you can only pay one so much. But the point is, you want that chemistry. That Toosome has done so many things. It's not unlike what you see going on in the NFL some places now, which is fit with quarterbacks. You could bring in a more talented quarterback into a situation that he's not fully comfortable in, doesn't really

love running the offense. And Denver's offense is a specific kind of offense. Like, you know, because Nicola is so good with the ball, you know, there are point guards that, that to your point, might not know how to play off of that in that way just because they're used to having the ball. And so you could take a quarterback who's of lesser talent and plug him into something that he's more comfortable with than the more talented one. And he looks like the better player.

And it's not necessarily the case. So for all of those reasons, and I said a lot of words to say that I do think that you, Jamal Murray at 27 with who he is as a as a talent, what he looks like in the playoffs. And, you know, with who he is with Nicola. Like that's, you get that done. Okay. All that said, and we agree on all of this. It was the right thing to do for all the things we've just discussed. But there's one of the wrinkle here I thought about, which is, you know, this is an extension. They could have let him play it out. They could have said, you know what? Jamal, you've been banged up. It's been a little up and down recently. Let's play a little wait and see on this one. We believe in you. We love you. You've been critical to our success. We want you here for the

long term, but we're not ready right now. And I think logically, as I say all that, I think that's a pretty reasonable stance for a franchise. But I wonder if the reality of it is much different than that. So I was curious about from your standpoint, just having been through various contract situations yourself and watching teammates go through it, like how risky is it, especially when it's your second best player, All-Star or not? How risky is it to just say, you know what? we'd like to wait. Like, what is the risk in terms of the players now belief in the franchise or feeling loved enough? And that may vary by, you know, from one player to the next.

I don't want to generalize too much. But if I had, if I were Calvin Booth or if I were the Cronkies and I had gone to Jamal Murray and said, you know what? We want to wait. We're not quite ready yet. What do you think the risk to that is? It's the blast radius, I guess, of the decision. Like, right? Because I mean, Jamal's going to have his feelings towards it for sure.

What level of pro he is and how he comports himself in the locker room and what that does to the team is part of that blast radius. What it does in the conversation we had in the previous segment, Howard, about what that does to Nicola looking at the franchise saying, hey, man, like what the fuck are we doing here, man? Like we won a championship two years ago. How he then acts is part of that blast radius. And quite frankly, your fan base. Like, you're in a sweet spot as a Denver Nuggets, like, organization right now in terms of the fans. Like, how many years would you say, Howard, of grace do you get as, as a organization after a championship? How many years of grace from the fans? From the fans.

Oh, I think you get at least a couple of years, right? Like, you could, like, the Lakers are still, I think, in some ways, drafting off the championship they won in 2020, which is already four years ago. Right. So, so I mean, like, while I guess what I'm saying is like you could, you're in that window of time. And if you can keep that window open with the fans and prove to them, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm taking the other side of that stance. Like, you're in a sweet spot as an organization. Don't start doing shit right now before, you know, before there's real, real, like, loads of data to suggest that he is falling off that cliff.

And I don't think he's at that point yet. I don't think so either. Obviously, he's his late 20s. he's, you know, injuries aside, he's not old. He should have plenty of great years left. But, I mean, it's an interesting contrast with, say, Jimmy Butler, where the heat made it pretty clear that they weren't prepared to extend him. Now, Jimmy is several years older, turning or just turned, either turned 35 or is about

to, and has got a pretty extensive injury history of his own and plays a pretty punishing style. And in his case, he's got a player option next summer. So this is potentially a walk year for him. And I am curious among the subplots of this season where training camps are about to open next week. And Jimmy Butler is going to be asked for sure on Media Day about the lack of extension and whether he has thoughts about possibly opting out next summer. That's hanging over that team. You've got thoughts because you're smiling.

Well, I do because I'm sure he'll get up. Well, I'm not sure anything Jimmy will do, right? He's an interesting dude. But like there's part of me that says he'll get up there and make nice at the podium. and do what a professional is, at least from an organizational standpoint, supposed to do, right? But, I mean, I live in Miami and I run into people that are in that building sometimes. And I don't think it's all good.

I think there is some tension because of the situation that they find themselves in contractually with him right now. And, you know, what that does to a locker room, you can never predict. You just can't. Like, you can run all the numbers and do all the risk analysis. and sober, but what it cannot quantify is what that person drop back into that locker room does when he's not happy on a day to day. And that's interesting. Where I would say they're a little different, though, like, so like Jimmy is a, is a,

maybe the at the apex of number two status in the NBA for me, trying to be a number one. Yes. So, so like that hasn't bore fruit. Like, yeah, they've been to the championship a couple times. Like, yeah, you're giving them. finals appearances, man. But like, those are, those are, those are tough, gritty? Like, are they even supposed to be their kind of finals appearances?

While Jamal. Right, both times. But where Jamal is like, hey, man, I'm the number two. I'm just like, so you got the one in place? It makes more sense to spend the money when you got the one in place because you know when it's good, it's going to win the championship. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm fascinated by the, by the Butler one because like, like, Jimmy's, Jimmy's awesome. Jimmy's a badass, and I would love to have him on my team if I were running a team or if I were playing on a team. Like, I would love to have Jimmy as a teammate. But he hasn't been durable. If you take Pat Riley's comments after the season for what they were worth, it certainly seemed like Pat thinks that Jimmy's not taking the regular season seriously enough. And that's, did I soft pedal that too much, Raja? Yeah, it's all good, though. I'm a diplomat at heart.

So there's that. And, you know, that can create its own tensions as well. And I do think even predating the decision not to extend him, I think there was already some existing tension, to be honest. So it's just laying there in the background. And this is a team that already has been kind of wonky, kind of like flirting with greatness one second, flirting with irrelevancy, the next, right? They've been, you know, finishing toward the bottom of the playoff bracket. It's admirable that they made the run from the bottom of the playoff bracket to the finals. But it's also like not something. you can replicate most of the time. And the East has only gotten better, right? Like there's a solid four up top, solid four or five up top that I just don't think anybody's breaking through, right? Like, you know, health willing, Boston, Milwaukee, Philly, and the Knicks, and then you can throw Cleveland there, but at least those first four teams in some order or the top four in the East as we discussed recently.

And Miami's not breaking through that, not as currently constructed. And so what does what does one more year of, I'll say failure, failure meaning you're not a contender anymore, two years removed from the finals? What does one more year of not being a contender do, especially when your best player is 35 with all those miles and wants it to max extension? Like it's, that's a really fragile situation, I think. Really tough spot. An aging, an aging, like, like an aging number two, like an aging two, right? And a phenomenal player. Like I'd love to be his teammate too.

I think the heat, Howard, like I think the heat are a victim of their own success and expectation to some degree, right? Absolutely. Because you just because your floor is so high, if you will, like you always think you can be relevant in this way and you could come from eight and get to the finals in a way that that makes you feel like you're closer to it than you are. and you're really hovering in a mediocre spot. You're just outplaying that because Spoe is so good, the culture is so good.

You know, quite frankly, and I'm going to give Jimmy credit, like, Jimmy is too good to allow a team. But like, it's kind of fool's goal. So, like, you know, they are in a really interesting spot moving forward. Yeah. When you're a year and a half removed from the finals, again, you still have this veneer of a contender where people look at you and go, or even you may look at yourselves. or your fans may look at you and think, well, you're supposed to be in that tier. But it was fleeting.

It was not something that they could replicate after that run. That was magical. It was awesome. It was impressive. It's one of the cooler things we've seen. But it's not going to happen again. And if anything, I'd like to see, you know, I'd like to see Jimmy in a place where, as you said, he is the top percentage of a tier two player, right?

He is not quite a one. He is a phenomenal two or a one B or whatever you want to call it. I'd love to see him somewhere where he could be that guy because we've seen it before when he was in Philly with Joelle and Bede. If the Warriors were able to make a play for him, if the Clippers made a play for him, if, I don't know, the Sacramento King, somebody, if he went somewhere where there are other guys who can carry the majority of the workload and the office. offense and Jimmy can just do all the other things that he does best. Because I don't, I don't,

I don't think he wants to be that guy night in night out. It's not, it's not the ways that were played in it. That's to his credit, by the way. That's not a criticism. He's, he's a selfless player who also is not the most natural 25 a night score in the league. Yeah. No, I think that is it is a compliment, although it's going to come across to people who don't know as maybe a slight. It's not a slight. Like, his game isn't predicated on scoring. That's not the essence of his game. You know, he's a winner. He's a dude that you say, yo, you know, coach, what do you need? I got you. And that's a, you know, a Swiss Army knife of winning is what coaches like salivate over, especially coaches that have a guy who's who's, who's a 25 a night guy rolling out of bed,

like a true, a true number one that just can just get you buckets regardless. Like you pair Jimmy with just about anybody and he's taken. It's an excellent pairing, maybe not personality-wise. but in terms of what he's going to do around the edges and fringes, overall toughness, competitive spirit, checking all the boxes in terms of rebounding, guarding, you know, tough buckets, getting to the free throw line, X, Y, and Z. But I'm in this market, Howard. And so the reason I say it is because I hear the fan. I hear the fan when, you know, on talk radio when I'm in a car.

I meet the fan who's coming out to me like, yo, what do you think of the heat? And I'm like, I mean, they are brainwashed to it. expect a certain level of, of, of, of winning. And I just, I don't think they realize like that, that they're not as close as they, as they think. And that, you know. Hashtag heat culture. That's right.

Hashtag heat exceptionalism, too, for that matter. All right. So that brings us to my other big thought for today, which is just the fleeting nature of success in this league. And like, we know it. everybody sees it right now too because we've had six champions in six years and it's funny we've spent you know this whole pod or most of it talking about the two teams that were in the finals two june's ago not this past June we have not talked about Dallas and boston at all we'll

certainly get to them as training camps open but but it is because like all the other teams that have been in the finals the last few years it's not just the teams aren't winning championships back to back. They're not even getting back to the finals. They're not even getting back to the finals two years later or three years later, although Miami has a couple of appearances in that span. But the Lakers, the Bucks, the heat being in the finals, the Nuggets winning a championship, the Warriors with their last championship, it's all these teams that have had recent high-level success, either winning at all or at least being in the finals, and there's doubts about just about all of them. We have very few doubts about the Celtics right now, other than Porzengis getting healthy sometime in the first couple of months. But there's just the fleeting nature of success to me is really interesting. And I want to talk about it real quick through the prism of the Nuggets. Out of their seven top players that won the year they win the championship, three of those seven are gone. Now, they weren't the one, two, three, right? Maybe they were the third, sixth, and seventh,

or whatever, wherever you want to slot KCP and all that. But they lost Contavius Caldwell Pope because they chose to. They chose not to pay him. They lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green a year ago, mostly through just cap circumstances. Those weren't ones where they could just match or exceed. But I just wonder, like, look, you've been on a finals team, Raja. You've been on Sun's teams that made deep runs in the playoffs that every year, year for a while there was expected if one thing goes you know a couple things break their way they could be a

finals team and then you wake up one day and it's just all over and i always think of it as like just kind of pulling the loose thread on the sweater right like i don't know if bruce brown and jeff green were the loose threads that you pull where all of a sudden the nuggets aren't the nuggets anymore but once you've pulled those two threads and now you've you've pulled out the thread that is contavius called well pope you may still have yokech and murray and michael porter junior and erin gordon and some young guys with varying levels of potential, but it's literally not the same team that it was. As important as those core four guys are,

it's literally not the same team. And I just wonder, like, from your experience, like, how easily does it unravel? How small of a piece is big enough that the loss of that guy changes the entire complexion of a team? People had the answer to that. They never get it wrong, right? Like, it wouldn't happen.

Like that's, you never, you never know. Like you don't know what piece you're pulling at, whether that's like the little ancillary piece that like, you know, when they were stitching the garment together, it just wound up being extra and you pull it out and there are no ramifications or if it was like a critical thread and now your whole thing's unraveling. So, you know, what I'm so. Welcome to Sewing Circle with Howard Rajner.

We'll be here every week talking about embroidery. Thumbles, the whole night. you know Howard as let's go let me start with Denver right Denver I think specific to them like you lost too much

wing defensive like that is a huge hole in today's NBA roster to be to be trying to fill like the 3 and D so to speak like and you know it's going to be interested to see

of like someone like Christian Brown can continue to develop and continue to take and make more threes, defensively continue to develop. What you have to do when you're a team like the Nuggets in today's NBA, where people get really expensive real quick and these aprons are in places.

You've got to have great scouts, great people assessing the talent. You might not be situated in the draft to get first round picks that everybody knows are going to be hit, but you've got to be. able to find those kind of diamonds in the rough. Miami does a great job of this, finding people that other people are going to miss on, bringing them in, developing them for a few years,

and then having them turn into players that can be, you know, contributors. They're indoctrinated into what you want to do, how you want to play. They know Nicola and Jamal. They know how to play off of them. They know their role. Your player development's got to be excellent. Like, that's the formula, I think, in today's NBA. Like, we're going to have a core, but man, we got to be really good at digging through the bins that are college basketball and European basketball and not finding the ones that everybody knows about, but the ones that we can get in here on the cheap and really develop and trust our people to turn them into something that can be productive for us. Yeah, so really like in the old NBA, like with my Sixers team, I was just

kind of thinking about that team and trying to figure out the 01 to 02 finals to like, I think a really speedy first round exit to the Boston Celtics the next year. And it does kind of plan to what I just said, Howard. Like I did not take a step that year as a someone that they found that had contributed, you know, in the finals and in the Eastern Conference finals. And I did not develop at the pace that I needed to develop for me to step in and produce. There probably were some others like me on that roster. Losing George Lynch. And I think when people think of the 0-1.

Sixers that went to the finals. I don't think, you know, George Lynch gets nearly enough credit for being that kind of swing, three, four, big body defensive, puts out a lot of fires, kind of backbone of what we did defensively kind of guy. Clearly, DeKembe was defensive player of the year, but George, George was great in his own right. And so you just never know what that piece is, you know? And there's a level of fatigue, quite frankly, that goes along with some of that. Like some teams, and I've said this before on this pod,

getting to the finals is the win. Like you're so excited to break through and get to the finals. And you expend all of that energy and just take your foot off the gas just a little bit in that offseason. And in a league of the best of the best, that's all it takes. You take your foot off that gas. And now you're behind, you know, 10 other teams in your conference. And so I don't, you know, I don't have, that's not a great answer, but I think it's a, it's a bunch of things that factor into that.

Can you recall just, you know, whether it was, um, whether in Philly, whether in Phoenix or just maybe one of the teams that you guys just competed against where like a KCP level player, right? Your third, fourth best guy, the guy that like everybody praised him when you won it all because you know this, this, you know, this is a key kind of role player, right? Like, he just pulls everything together, right? when somebody of that caliber left and suddenly everything started. Can you think of one where in your own time where that happened? Because I feel like sometimes like the exact example lose me. You were mentioning George Lynch. Your team also lost Tyrone Hill from 01 to 02.

Two of the different guys. Yeah. But same value. Same type of stuff. Yep. And so Iverson and DeKemba are still there, right? The defensive player of the year and the MVP. and but it's it those those were arguably the two most important sixers to go to to take the

team of the finals and it's like it is the guys in between third fourth fifth most important player I don't know I just I think this happens more often that people realize like the 2020 Lakers it was too dramatic right they just flushed the entire roster essentially aside from LeBron and AD that was just way too much change period but I I just I think people People underestimate how important the Raja bells of the world sometimes are, right? No, like you need that connective tissue and you can't always just plug and play and say, well, you know what, Christian Brown will be what KCP was. Like, maybe, maybe he'll put up the same stats.

Maybe he'll defend at that level, maybe. But it's not the same guy. There's always some undefinable aspect. Yeah, so off the top, you're 100% percent. right. I would say, and I'm, forgive me because I'm kind of doing it as you're talking about it. Our son's team that exceeded a lot of expectation going into that 06 playoffs without Amari, right? Well, first of all, let's backtrack. They really wanted to keep Joe Johnson from what I was told. Like, I was brought in not to replace Joe Johnson. I'm not nearly the player Joe Johnson was.

but like they saw the pairing of a player like Joe Johnson on the wing with someone like me as being what they ideally thought would help them win a championship. So he's one that you don't get locked up. He takes the bigger deal in Atlanta. And, you know, who's to say what we look like if Joe's there too? Like, that's an incredible roster, right? But like you fast forward, and we still made a deep run into the playoffs. We have Tim Thomas who comes in and between him and Boris and tricks.

Steve, like those are our guys that are playmaking. Like those are guys, Tim was getting buckets, right? Like, I was always a piece that was going to eat kind of off of everybody else eating. Do you know what I mean, Howard? Like there were sometimes you could give me the ball and get a bucket. Like, but it wasn't going to be like consistent enough to win you games. But Tim was another like super talented dude. And so the next year, you know, kudos to Tim.

I think he not mistaken, played his way into another deal somewhere. But we lost, we lost that piece. And we were still really good. but you just kind of lost that piece. And you might say, well, you got stat back, and you did, and you did. But, like, Tim was a big part of that run we made in those playoffs, you know? And so, you know, it just wasn't exactly the same as we had had. And I want to say, I went to the Western Conference finals with the Mavericks in 03.

And it was Dirk Nowitzky, Steve Nash, Michael Finley, Nick Van Exel, Walt Williams, Adrian Griffin myself, like we had a bunch of people on that team. The next year I go to Utah, and the sons have a really down year of that next year. I know that because we beat them in Utah and they just weren't nearly the same. But I think they lost some of the pieces, not Steve, Mike, or, or Dirk. I think they lost like the Nick Van Exel. They lost the Walt Williams. I didn't mean that much to them. They lost me. But I think it was more like the Nick, the, the Walt Williams, like that level of player that. that it was just enough for them not to be the same.

Yeah. All of which is to say I'm worried about the nuggets. A year ago at this time, the defending champs coming into the season, everyone's talking about them being a potential dynasty, which even at the time I said I thought was incredibly premature. But it was understandable. It was, hey, their core is still young. They're under contract.

This group should be together for years to come. they've got the best player in the game. And yet here we are. Now, listen, they may well go back to the finals in June. They may win another championship in June. I'm not here to prematurely bury them, just like I was going to prematurely declare them a dynasty. But when you've lost yet another piece,

and you're relying very heavily on just kind of this leap of faith in the Christian Browns and the Julian Struthers, Peyton Watson's, like you are absolutely now invested in not just the idea, but the reality of these guys popping. One of those guys needs to pop. And if they don't, I'm sorry, but an aging Russell Westbrook and Dario Sarich, the guys they picked up as veterans, are not replacing what they've lost, literally, figuratively or otherwise.

And I'm not even sure Westbrook makes much sense here. You can tell me if you disagree. Hey, hey, hey. Howard. Okay. You're treading on thin, you're on thin ice. I was just said I'm not sure he's the right fit. No, I don't know either.

I don't know either. I know. I know. You can't, it's always dangerous territory when we talk about Russell West. But the West is a lot better than it was. We saw what the Thunderer are capable of. And they've added Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein and all their young guys just got their first touch or playoff experience.

They're just going to be better. The Timberwolves are intact, and they're the team that knocked the nuggets out, albeit in seven games in the second round. The Mavericks went to the finals and added Clay Thompson and some other pieces. Memphis is healthy. It was a top four team, a top two team two seasons ago, and you could expect they're going to be, you know, bouncing right back into the thick of things near the top.

And that's without getting to the phoenix. Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Kings, Pelicans, tier, which is a big-ass tier. There's just a lot of really good teams. And I'm not saying any of the teams I just listed are demonstrably better than the Nuggets or would beat the Nuggets in a series. All I'm saying is the gauntlet is a lot tougher. And the teams at the top are a lot tougher. And the Nuggets are not the team that they were 18 months ago, or excuse me, 16 months ago,

whatever it was. And I'm worried. Like, I'd be concerned for them. And if, if Yokets were a different, you know, wired a different way, I'd, you know, we'd already be talking about, you know, how much more is Yokic going to put up with? How many more teammates is he going to lose before he starts carping, you know, and maybe like agitating about, you know, trade demands or whatever? That doesn't seem like a Yokic kind of thing, right?

Like, I don't think he's wired that way, although the dude is obviously incredibly competitive and wants to win. But in this league, you always have to worry about whether your star is, happy. And keeping your star happy as we open the show with means keeping the teammates that he values. And the nuggets right now are not doing the best of jobs there. On top of that, by the way, and I don't want to minimize any of these things by talking about them through a prism of basketball because it can trivialize. But these are real world, real life issues. Aaron Gordon's brother died over the summer in a car accident, just a tragic, awful thing. And, you know, Aaron Gordon is, of course, still dealing with that grief.

They're very close. Michael Porter, Jr., both of his brothers, have been in trouble in various ways in the last several months. One of them sentenced to six years in prison for a traffic incident. The other one, of course, banned for life from the NBA for gambling. There's just real-life stuff that is, you know, kind of bearing down lingering there. And so sometimes when we sit here and we, you know, sketch out. depth charts and rankings and all the stuff. And we go, oh, Nuggets, you know, they're here, they're here for the next five years. They're going to win more titles. Things happen on and off

the court. You just, you just cannot anticipate. And again, I don't want to trivialize anything I just talked about with the guys personalized. But those things, those things matter too. They affect your play. They affect the season. And the nuggets are going to be very interesting. Quite frankly, I didn't know all of that. So it's kind of registering right now. But those are very difficult real-life problems to navigate, not just for the individual sometimes, but for the people trying to support the individual.

And, you know, so, yeah, we'll be definitely interesting to watch them. Did not mean to close this show on any dour notes, but there we are. Apologies for that. We are still determining our exact schedule as the NBA ramps back up, but we will communicate that to y'all out there as soon as we get that settled. Mailbag, too.

We do not have a mailbag today, but we would love to have one for the next show. So what's that email address again? Real onesmailbag at gmail.com. Real onesmailbag at gmail.com. Real onesmailbag at gmail.com. Yeah. There we go. All right.

We'll be back soon. Take care of y'all.