You're tuned into Heat Check with Trystal Quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, we have a special interview with one of my favorites, Heath Smith. Keith is a senior writer at spot Track or spoke Track, one of my favorite NBA websites that I don't know how to pronounce, as well as the Celtics Insider. Keith joined me and my co host PJ Glass on bet
MGM Tonight. On a recent episode, we discussed the Trailblazers, of course, Miles Turner, why he may actually not be on the move, how Malcolm Brogden symbolizes the new NBA, fascinating conversation around that, what's going on with Kawhi Leonard, and why the Wolves might be the latest team to be taken by Trader Danny. One of my favorite interviews this season, Nick, So do me a favor. Let's drop
that beat. I asked Keith whether he thought the Cleveland Cavaliers were for real and what he thought about the Portland Trailblazers in this clip listening.
Yeah, it's still too early, but I think this is a case of water finding its level. They got out to that great start, but they weren't going to be that team all year. They've definitely got some holes in their rotation that they've got to shore up, and whether that's with development or they make conditions down the line, but they're going to settle into being a good team, which is probably a top six team in the East versus being a top two or three team in the end.
I saw that you went on Rip City Radio this morning and talking about my Blazers. What do you think about them and whether they're going to find their level or whether what they're doing is sustainable and kind of just your thoughts on what you are seeing from them because last three years, Keith, defensively, they've been abysmal and right now there's sixth in defensive rating because of really Jeremy Grant.
Yeah, I mean a lot of it is. I think two things. They got better defensive players on the court now, you know, I think that has helped a lot by Durreamy Durant, but I think they're playing some other guys Drew you Banks for the really solid defender when he's in their upfront. And then I think this is a year into what Chauncey Billips wants them to be doing and they've been more relatively healthy ish I think has also helped them, So I think there's some sustainability. They'll
drop offs. I don't think they're gonna, you know, be the top team in the Western Conference when all is said, don but I think again, this is a team that will. Of course, I had them in the playing tournament, they might be able to get themselves out of it because a couple of teams in the West that I thought might be ahead of them right now that look like they kind of can't get out of their own way.
So Fortan just needs to keep doing what they're doing and they're gonna put together a nice share of ten.
Indiana having a fascinating year. So I asked Keith about the Pacers and Miles Turner since he recently broke him down on spot track, he had a ton of great insight into his situation. I'm curious about your thoughts on Indiana because this is a team that everyone says wants to have the top five draft pick, and yet they're
above five hundred. Miles Turner has been awesome. He's on an expiring to you, what are the odds that Miles Turner he's been in trade talks for forever ends up actually staying in Indiana for the duration of this year even longer. The idea seems insane, and yet he is still there. Yeah.
I actually just wrote about him for spot Track yesterday because he's a candidate for the very rare renegotiation and extent, which is where you can actually up his salary this year, because the Pacers have cap space, and because he's done
a right kind of contract. So I think whenever a guy who's been in trade talks for like four or five years, like Turner has been, but then he doesn't get traded, I tend to think there's something to do that either he doesn't want to be or the team doesn't really want to move him, and I think he may
stick right there. I would not surprised that the Pacers, you know, after the trade deadline is gone and they see what moves are out there for them, maybe using that almost thirty million in cash space that they have, if they say, all right, you know what, let's give some of it as to Miles Turner as a bonus now and we'll tack two, three four years on in the new contract. That's still cheap of a tradeablasta just the case, but I don't think he's gonna go anywhere necessarily.
Malcolm Brogden went to the Celtics in the offseason for less than people thought that he would make, less than people thought it would take to get that trade done. Keith gives a fascinating answer. I want to delve more into an a later episode of The Heat Check. Incredible stuff.
I like Atlanta to win that division. I think they've got a better team Miami is that they're older. You are already putting a lot of miles on some of their guys early in this season. That's very worrisome to me for what they may look like when we get into February, March, in April. What's that going to look like. They don't have a ton of depths on that team. They have major holes up Fronte, They don't have anybody at the power forward spot. Their big band rotation has
been a little bit messy. So unless there's a trade coming, which is not an easy thing to do for them, because they're kind of out of tradable asset that I think they're gonna be one of those teams that might be down in the playing range and I think the Hawks will ultimately win the division almost by default because it's not going to be any of the other three teams. They're just looking to Don Keith.
Can you talk a little bit about the job that Joe Missoula has done this year, because WOJ says that he's coached his way into a long term deal. I think a lot of people think this is a team that already went to the finals, so how hard could it be. But the institutional chaos that was going on when he took over was immense.
Yeah, that's it. It's that part there at the end that he said is this could have gone completely sideways on the Celtics and you know, really been terrible because the players, I openly said, they had no idea any of this was coming. They basically found out right before the rest of us did that all this was going down. And that's you know, that's tough, especially you know right on the eve of the season starting off, that you're
gonna be in that spot. I think, you know, Joe Mazzola, yes, he's kept some of he May Udoka's stuff in there, but offensively, he's created more of a five out system than even Udoka ran that's opened up driving lanes for Jason Tatum and JAYLEB.
Brown.
I think he's really empowered the players. And what he's also done is he's kind of said, hey, these are my rotation guys. I know who my eight nine guys are. But the rest of you, guys, guys, you're ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, you better be ready because we know we've got a couple of injury prone guys. When we come to you, you gotta be ready to go. And that's what we've seen here over the last couple of weeks with like Peyton Pritchard and Sam Houser and Luke Cornett. Those guys
have been able to step in. You'll really do some stuff, and they're they're playing really good basketball, and they're they're gonna get Malcolm brogen back. Looks like tomorrow, Marcus Smart probably only a couple more games away, and then eventually Robert Williams is going to return. That's when I think you'll see the defensive takeoffs as well.
In your travels of covering the league, I've heard some things just kind of whispers about that Malcolm Brogden you talk about, you know, just guys that are injury prone. Something that I heard, you know, whispers about is that when Malcolm Brogden gets injured, it doesn't really matter how injured he is, he will miss miss time because he's that careful about his body. Is that something that's like pretty normal across the league? Is there a wide disparity?
Have you heard this?
Just kind of curious about that in general and how how gms think about players.
Yeah, I have heard that as it pertained to Malcolm Brocknen. I think there's a reason why the Celtics Gotum for as low a price as they did, which I think, you know, when you just look at the player in the talent, it was like, Wow, the Celtics really stolen. But when then you look at it, it's like, you know, the the guy who plays you know, forty to fifty games in some years, and that that could be tough
to work around. And I think for Boston the idea was we have Derek White, we have marcusmart we have Peyton Pritchard. Hey, if he needs a week off to recover from what teams like maybe a minor injury, we go. And that's becoming more prevalent around the league with players. I think players are looking at this and say, Hey, I don't want to have a eight good year career. I'd like to have a ten to twelve good year career. And the way they're doing that is by not playing
through injuries in the life. So I think that's where we're starting to see a little bit here if some of these guys are are taking a little bit more time to make sure, Hey, I'm not going to come back in ninety ninety five percent. I'm going to be one hundred percent before it retakes more.
Keith, you talk about guys playing through injury and not having injury prone guys on a team, what is happening with Kawhi because he was supposed to be ready to go a lot earlier and with all the hoopline la in Brooklyn, in Boston, Kawhi and his status has completely flown under the radar. Yeah.
Absolutely. I think the challenge with Kawhi Leonard is when the Spurs trade at him after he missed all of those games with them, they traded him to the Raptors, and then the Raptors really kind of said, hey, we're going to put you on a full on maintenance plan. Make sure we have what came out at that time was he wasn't dealing with a quad injury. It was a quad condition, and they said openly this is going
to last for the rest of his career. And I think what we're really looking at now is you're seeing the kind of totality of that plus the torn acl adding up to being a guy who when he feels something it's he's not gonna get He's not going to push to get back out there until he feels like he's ready. And I think for the Clippers, they're still kind of playing it. We have bigger goals. It doesn't
really matter winning games in November for us. We want to be winning games in May and June, and I think they're content to kind of make sure let's getting back. My worry is, is he going to come back for a week and they need to miss another month, because if that happens now all of a sudden, that changes the whole upside of the Clippers. And for what it's worth, I thought they were going to be in the NBA Finals this year.
Finally, I asked Keith about whether he thought the Rudy trade in Minnesota was going to work out long term. Hint he's not optimistic Minnesota.
I think I kind of with the Clippers that I thought they might get off to a little bit of a slow start, just because I did. I obviously didn't think it'd be quite to the extent of time Kawhi's mess, but I thought he might miss some time Paul George john Wall coming back after a year away. I thought they might just take a little bit of time to get going. But Minnesota just looks I mean, they look like a mess a lot of the time. And now I know they won the other night, so maybe they're
starting to figure some stuff out. But you know, when you're five six games into the season and guys are already talking about how these lineups don't work and this facing is a mess, that's a problem that's normally kind of reserved for, you know, thirty forty games into the
season kind of conversation. So I'm a little bit worried about what they are and I got to start to wonder if it all falls apart there Danny Age like he did with the Celtics when they made the trade with the Nets, did he outsource his tank job to another team and lets them do it and he builds his own roster the way he wants to stay in Utah.
See, that's a fascinating point Chest not checkers with when it comes.
To Danny Ainge. Yeah, he he really can be you know, in that in that position. And I think too, what I learned covering him for years, what the Celtics is. Danny Ainge is not the kind of guy. He might bottom it out for a year, but he is not going to do a multi year you know, tear down and take. He's far too competitive to that. It sounds good. I take to him to hey, let's have a million
draft picks. But I think he loves the idea of if I don't have to do my own tanking, let these other teams be bad for me, and I can build a pretty good roster like he did, you know with Boston when he rebuilt that team kind of on the fly with Brett Stevens into what became a playoff team and then into eventually a pretty good team as they added a few more talented players.
NMGM Tonight airs Monday through Friday, live seven pm to eleven pm Eastern Standard Time. It's available wherever you find your podcast. It's also available on demand on the Odyssey app a million thanks to Keith Smith, my co host Ryan Horbot, and super producer Cameron Gray, along with my other co host PJ Glasser. That's all the time that we have for the Heat Check. Check the feed please for past episodes of many episodes they drop almost every day.
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