On this episode of The Heat Check, it's officially game time in Milwaukee.
And I am in my fields.
We also get into the recent reporting that is spilling the tea on the cold war between Dame's camp and the Blazers front office, all the latest on the.
Jew Holiday trade.
We also have a fun interview with Jonathan Zaslow of the Zazlow two point zero podcast straight out of Miami to get to the heat view of how things went down.
Hint, not great, Bob, not great?
All right, William drop that generic asid beat that should be Rihanna Break was breaking down all the biggest NBA storylines, So the Heat Check.
The Heat Check was.
Sista Trade's the best podcast covering all the drama around the association. All right, last time we talked about Damian Lillard, he just been traded.
In the entire basketball world was in shock.
Let's rewind for just a second and basque in the glory of this monumental trade.
Shall we shall we shall we we shall?
The Blazers get Drew Holiday, which has he has been traded, but the beginning of the trade was Drew Holiday, DeAndre eight and Tumani Kamara, who is very good.
I actually like him a lot. A twenty twenty nine first round.
Pick unprotected and two pickswaps in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty. As I would say, twenty twenty thirty, the Sun's got Yusef Nurkic, Grayson Allen Nicer Little and Keon Johnson and the Bucks get of course, Dame Dame Time Lillard. That happened and if you hadn't had or heard, how triggered.
The Miami fans are.
We've got a short interview at the end of this episode with Miami radio guy Jonathan Zaslow, friend of show, who will break all that down.
But in essence, we have two things to do on this episode.
Really, as media begins to roll around today, by the way, breaking news if you're living under a rock shocker, James Harden did not report today to Sixers Media Day. We will talk about that next episode, but for now, the first really is to discuss the other non hardened breaking news Portland has traded you Holliday to the Boston Celtics.
We'll get into all of that in a minute.
And the second thing we have to do talk about the Cold War still being waged between the Blazers for an office and Damian Lillard's camp because we got not one but two massive I guess, think pieces, if that's what you want to call him, that dropped over the weekend and they tell, as you might imagine, radically different stories.
This is rare, radically different.
But first, let's talk about the Jew Holiday trade, which was an absolute haul. When the Blazers acquired this four time All Star All NBA Defensive First Team guard in the Jew for Dame trade.
It was a massive win for Joe.
Cronin personally and the franchise as a whole. Because why because, according to Miami Heat fans, the Blazers had no leverage to get anybody other than someone like Tyler Hero, who is a no time All Star. Probably pat Riley in the front office thought that the best deal was Tyler Hero and two first round picks.
And that was the best the Blazers were ever going to get.
Even after the trade, a shocking number of Miami people were saying that the Heat still had the better offer because Tyler Hero was worth as much as Drew Holiday, which they thought would be a first round pick.
And of course that was bullshit because there.
Were twenty teams calling for Drew four three, four teams that seriously Drew would re extend with, and the second the trade was finalized, half the league was beating down Crona's door for just a chance to get Drew, who has proven that he can be the final piece to push a team over into a championship. We saw that with the Bucks when he in late twenty twenty, and
they won a title shortly thereafter. The reason that many teams wanted Drew is because he's the Dame Stopper right Because Dame de Milwaukee forever altered the NBA landscape, particular.
For the teams in the East.
Not only did it make the Bucks immediately the best team in the East in the NBA and the favorite to it, it all also removed Giannis from the board for the teams that were salivating at the thought that maybe they could get Jannis to ask out and snatch him away from Milwaukee.
Now that's off the table, I think.
And the other teams in the East, particularly Miami, Philly, Boston and Cleveland all needed to make a significant move to stay afloat, and that meant a bidding war. So take that, Miami Heat fans who are still trying to push the narrative that Tyler Hero is the same as Drew Holiday. But it turns out the one team that was willing to pull all their chips into the middle was the Boston Celtics landed Drew in this blockbuster deal.
Here is the details. Portland gets Rob Williams Time Lord Defensive Player of the Year candidates, Malcolm Brogden sixth Man of the Year, a twenty twenty four first round pick via the Golden State Warriors, but it came via the Memphis Grizzlies to Boston in the Marcus Smart trade, a twenty twenty nine unprotected pick from Boston in the first round. Boston gets Drew Holliday. That is a holy shit trade.
Proof that Joe Cronin knew what was up. He knew what he was doing, which is I'm gonna flip players and listen he It wasn't like he wasn't down to flip, right, he was just not down to take a risk on what Tyler Hero was worth. A perennial Defensive Player of the Year in Time Lord. He's always in the mix, hasn't won it, but he's certainly in the mix. The reigning six Man of the Year and two first that's
that is now. What the Blazers are going to do is now trade Malcolm Brogden, probably for another first and probably another young piece. The Dame deal is looking sweeter by the minute. It is looking better by the.
Moment for the Trailblazers and Joe.
The move makes a ton of sense because, as some Boston insiders have said, if Dame had been traded earlier, Marcus Martin never would have been moved. You need somebody to stop Dame, and they had no guard on the team that could really stop Dame. And they knew that they had to figure it out, go all in and what a big bass trade.
From Boston's perspective, they had a.
Directive from ownership to do whatever it took to win a chip asap Rocky, and that's what they did. I'm sad for Boston fans kind of because I know how much you love time Lord. That was like, oh yeah, we'll give you Peyton Pritchard and the ghost of aaron Ne Smith. And I mean, they just wanted to give nothing. Right,
that's what fans wanted to do. And they are rightfully split because now as we see Brad Stevens has traded sixty percent of his starting lineup that most people thought last year were favorites to win it all and some people thought were favorites to win it all this year, and they are now poof gone time Lord great defender, defensive Player of the Year caliber, whn't healthy, like I said, but his plate less than half a season every year
he's been in the league. I know that may sound like it's bad for the Blazers, but he's very young. Brogden six Man of the Year, He's gonna get flipped. But from Boston's perspective, he's also been injured a ton. And on top of that, reports are that Brogden wanted a fresh start after the Celtics look to trade him back in June to the Clippers, and he was like, yeah, I would like out.
I don't want this bullshit anymore.
Because remember Brogden publicly criticized Boston for how they handled things when they lost in the playoffs. Lots of Instagram videos prior to the trade at camp and guess what none of those videos showed Malcolm Brogden none.
It was been icy over there four months.
It was a heavy price to pay, but ultimately what they had to do to keep up with the Bucks. Now, the Celtics team is down Rob Williams eight eight and two, Marcus Smart twelve three and six, Malcolm Brogdon fifteen four and four, Grant Williams eight five and two, all down from last year, all accounting for thirty six percent of their scoring, forty five percent of their rebounds, and fifty two percent of their assists.
Oh that's a lot.
More importantly, those four players represented sixty percent of the team's blocks and forty five percent of the team steals. A lot of defense is gone, which is why drewam was so important to get Drew Holliday.
Lockdown point of attack defender.
Yes, he did get cooked by Jimmy Butler, but that was just what you had to do to stop Dame.
The move had other ripple of effects, of course.
Let's talk about Miami, Uh cause yeah, I have to.
They get left with their dick in their hands.
Yeah, yeah, they do, and they got to run it back without their two key starters and Vincent and Strus who got replaced by Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant. Yikes, it's now so bad in the Miami streets that Barry Jackson, longtime Miami reporter who everybody was saying was one of the most respected reporters in the business, but he had been chilling for pat Riley for the entire summer and Dame's agent for the entire summer.
Remember he said, no matter where.
Dame went, Dame was gonna immediately ask out to Miami. Right. Remember that, And now Barry is back on his bullshit, except for he is tired of the Miami Heat organization doing Miami Heat cheap things.
Because this is what he said on Twitter. Miami won their titles.
My impression is they're happy fielding competitive, good teams and selling out every team, which they do. We're selling out every game, which they do. If they can win another title without losing tens of millions, great, If not, they won't be losing sleep. Whoo. Then he said if he reported half of the things, because peop.
Were like, that's bullshit, Barry, that's bullshit.
Then he said, if he reported half of the thing he knows and can't say about what's happening behind the scenes with the Heat, he would lose his fucking press credentials. My god, Barry this is what we want to see, scorched earth journalism. Meanwhile, in Philly, they are still trying to figure out how to get in the mix as well, given that the fact, like I said, James Harden has not reported to media day, he is not going to
Colorado where they have their training camp. We're still trying to have a sense of what's gonna happen with him. As Windhorse said on The Hoop Collective earlier last week, James Harden is owed.
Nine million dollars, one quarter of his salary.
Today we'll have a lot more insight on what's happening with the Sixers this week. But the truth of the matter, the best opportunity to move Harden was in a multi team trade involving Drew, and now that that ship is sale, they must get into the Malcolm Brogden sweepstakes.
People try to move.
Hard into the Clippers, get Malcolm Brogden, do some sort of salary magic, but it is very shaky in Philadelphia right now. The big winner, though, is young first time GM Joe Cronin. Joe Cronin was seen as a guy that they could bully, right everybody on Miami Twitter, everybody on NBA Twitter said Joe Cronan would have to get fleased.
Dame Lillard had all the leverage. He had no leverage.
And now his new nickname is Trader Joe and it's Jover. I like it Crover more than I like it's Jover. But people are now putting out memes of Joe Cronin as Doctor Manhattan, complete with a giant hog.
Not only did he yeah, that's memes that they're out there, they are out there.
Not only did he get three firsts, one from Golden State in twenty twenty.
Four, which could actually be sneaky valuable.
Draymond Green, which I didn't mention, is out for the first month of the season with a sprained ankle. CP three old. Who knows what this team's gonna be. They also have two first round pickswaps. Also, later in the decade, when Giannis is going to be older, Dame's probably not gonna be there anymore. Brook Lopez will be retired, Chris Middleton will have no need, so those pickswaps could be valuable. The former number one overall pick in the draft, DeAndre Ayton,
and two starters from the finals two years ago. He still has the opportunity to get even more back because there's no chance that Malcolm Brogden plays a second as a trailblazer. They're calling Cronin also the Flipper or the Dolphin, which is like a shot at Miami because he just keeps flipping players for more picks and more players.
He's like that kid.
There's a kid who uh started trading with a paper clip, ended up with a house.
That's Joe Cronin. He's gonna be the new Sam Presty.
He's gonna take Dame Willard and he's gonna turn him into like five starters and seven picks.
This is better, by the way, than the Donovan Mitchell trade, or.
At least on par Donovan Mitchell was two first and two pick swaps and multiple players.
This is very much on par with that. You look at the.
Trade and you say, okay, wow, Lori Markinen, oshaiak Boji, Colin Sexton, and those were all very young players, right, So that's not the same caliber player. And I love Lauri Markining, but he wasn't that player at the time. You've got Rob Williams, You've got DeAndre Ayton, and you've got too Mani Tomorrow and then they had three first round picks twenty seven and twenty twenty nine and two pick swats. So really that's basically what it's gonna be.
It's gonna be equal to that of the Donovan Mitchell trade.
Very interesting.
Like I said, Brogden six man of the Year, really good defensive presence, and he can shoot.
Often hurt, a bit moody.
Kind of a some people say, a little bit of a cancer in the clubhouse. Ask a lot of questions. People get upset when you ask a lot of questions. I call him a tree shaker, and that might explain why he's been passed.
Around the league quite a bit.
I won't make a Brittany Renner joke there, but that's where my mind went. What Brogden should bring, most likely another first round pick, probably some more young players. Where could he end up Probably Miami, but I just don't see that they are so damn salty. I wouldn't blame Cronin for offering Brogden to Miami for the original.
Dame Weller deal.
Hey give us Tyler Era and a couple of firsts late in the decade and we'll see nobody needs a point guard guard more than the heat. They also will take Lowry off your hands too, how about that. Also, Philadelphia, they need a point guard as well with the James Harden deal being kind of up in the air, and Brogden could have a revenge tour against Boston Anyway, What a while few days where Portland was in the eye of the basketball hurricane and came out smelling like the city of Roses.