You're tuned into Heat Check with Triste Quick.
On this episode of The Heat Check, I've got a special end of the year interview with Yes Keith Smith, the one and Only. I was joined by my BEDMGM co host Ryan Horvot and Nick Cashew. We recorded it on a recent episode last week of BETMGM Tonight. I love Keith so much. He's a real deal insider. He works for spoke Track. Had a ton of insight actually on the latest from the Knicks, the latest on the Hawks, Warriors, and more importantly right now teams that might be sellers
at the trade deadline. A lot of fun. So drop me a favorite Nick and drop that generic ass beat. I got things started by asking Keith about the train wreck that has been the Chicago Bulls but has been absolutely insane and what he thinks is really their future. From there, Keith gets into the Warriors and whether he thinks they are going to be sellers at the deadline.
Yeah, I think there is the possibility the Bulls are gonna start looking at what they've got to do differently. This is unfortunate because a year ago or so this was one of the best teams in the league. They've gotten off to a great start. They were playing really well. Then Longo Ball got hurt and everything kind of went sideways on the Bulls and they just have not been the same team without him. They struggled towards the end of last year and they've opened this season very poorly.
And you get a sense when you watch them it's not that Zach Lavine and DeMar derozen are playing selfishly, because they're not. But there's just a lot of your turn, my turn offense. There's not a lot of cohesion. Things don't really flow. Their challenge though, with moving on from pieces is they owe a pick to the Orlando Magic.
It's only top four protected this season, so you can't really bottom things all the way out or you're just gonna hand a good tick to the Magic because that's not enough protections to feel great that if you land one, two, three, or four, then you're not gonna get bumped back in the lottery if the team moves up. So they've really got some tough decisions to make in Chicago.
I'm really interested about how this has changed because last year around this time there were all these articles Keith about how much chemistry Damar and Zach Lavine had and how they are very unselfish players, and you know how you know Damar wanted to play off the ball and both of them were willing to sacrifice for each other. Is it as simple as that Lonzo Ball was the connecting tissue or is there something else that sort of changed that.
I think it's a lot of Lonzo Ball being that guy. He was the guy who facilitated the offense. He gets very underrated having a point guard who make sure that everyone feels involved, to make sure everyone is getting their touches, get skuys the ball in the spots where they like it the most. And when you don't have that guy, that falls to the other players. Like I said, I don't think Derozen and Levine are by any meat selfish players. I just think their score first, guy. That's what they've
done their entire careers. And when they don't have a point are there to organize and set things up. That makes it a little bit tricky on that, and I think that's what we're starting to see.
I've been reading some reports. First and foremost Bob Myers obviously hasn't gotten his extension yet, but hearing some rumors that, given Steph's injury, that they might be willing to part with a bunch of these role players to try to get a star. Now, Steph's windows obviously very short, and it might be difficult for the Warriors even to get into the play in tournament given how bad the Warriors road record has been. You know, what do you think happens?
And how real? I guess is this sort of new fear moving around the Warriors organization.
Yeah, I think they're very much reading the league right now and saying, hey, the West is jam packed and it's tight, but we're not part of that top group right now. And I think they know we may not get into that top or group. But they've been in the Playing Tournament. They were there a couple of years ago and they got knocked out. I think they know they have a bad game, two games in the playing Tournament, all of a sudden, your season's over and you're not
going to defend your championship in the playoffs. So I think they'd like to do what they can to try to get there. And I think part of that is
going to come down to now making a decision. They have trumpeted and told everybody wants to listen of Hey, we had our gap years when Steph was out and we got those great draft picks, and we ended up in a slab where now we landed our guys who are going to be our bridge players, and we're going to go from our core of Curry, Green and Thompson into this Jordan Poole, James Wiseman, Jonathan Comminger group that's
going to lead us forward. And that's how we're going to stretch this into a two decade long window of contention. And I think they're starting to realize James wisen is not going to be that guy. He just isn't for them. He may eventually bloss him into being a really good player. He's very young. Young centers often take a while to figure it out in the NBA, but I think the
pressure on him in Golden State is too much. And when you sit down and look at it, a twelve million dollars salary, which is what he's sitting on, that's a nice piece of salary, man, to go get you a player. Their bench has been awful this season for the most part, so they need to do something, and I think they're going to start to give up on that whole idea of we've got our second group behind our core, and they may break that up no.
More two timelines. One of the most disappointing teams probably in the NBA this year, has been the Miami Heat. Keith gives a fascinating look at their future and let's just say it's not very good.
Yeah. I think Miami has turned it around because they've mostly gotten healthy, They've gotten some of the guys back that have missed some time. But when you look at that roster, it's very flawed. They have a whole bunch of guards, a couple of wings and one big man and Bam out of Bayo, and they don't have much else.
And I think if they could find a way to go get another forward with some side that could come in and play alongside Butler Lowry and Bam and Tyler Hero and those groups, they'd feel pretty good about that. But the challenge is they don't really have tradable contracts. Robinson has fallen way off the mask. He's not even part of their rotations on most nights anymore. He only
really gets in there when guys are hurt. He's out of the rotation by the end of last season, and they've got payroll concerns moving forward to they they gave hero a big deal. You've got Bam on his deal, Butler on his deal, Lowry on his deal, and you've got Tyler Heroes new contract kicking in. So they're in a spot where they're going to have to really figure that out. And you got to pay Max Shruce if
you want to keep him around on next offseason. So it's tough for Miami to see how they're going to get their way out of it. But it's a good smart front office there. They may it wouldn't surprise me if they do something to rebalance that roster a little bit.
In this clip, Keith gives his take on two teams going in opposite directions, explaining why the New York Knicks are the hottest team in the NBA and why the Hawks are in absolute turmoil and what it might mean for coach Nate McMillan.
Yeah, they're getting back to being that team they were a couple of years ago when they were one of the surprises of the league and they made it to the playoffs. That playoff series did not go well for them, and they really said, all right, we need more offense
because we're not there. But what they did was they traded what made them special, which was being such a good defensive team, by adding a couple of guys in there, like Evan Fournier into their group that just weren't quite ready for what they needed to be defensively and wasn't enough of the list on the offensive end. So what's happened now this season after some struggles, hope in the year. I think Tom Thibodeau basically I'm assuming with the front offices.
Blessing said, I'm getting rid of the guys who don't defend. We're gonna take those guys out of the rotation. Evan Fournier, Derek grows, cam rettis, They're all gonna be out of the rotation. I'm gonna go with guys who will get after it and defend and hope, you know, hey, we can win a whole bunch of games one hundred and ninety eight and that'll be who will be. That's who we are, and that's probably the best we can hope
for right now, and that's starting to work. They're really playing great defense and they're doing just enough on offense. To have really turned their season around.
Jeez, what do you make of the rumors that they're strict in between Trey Young and Nate McMillan. There was obviously some things that got leaked out into the media, but also there were, you know, rumblings that that was one of the reasons that Lloyd Pierce was fired from Atlanta is that he and Traye didn't see eye to eye.
Yeah, it feels like the old poomi wance, shame on me foromy twice, shame on you kind kind of situation, or maybe I might have that backwards, but whatever the quote is, it feels like we've been fooled twice now where well, once you one coach, all right, fine, a coach and a player may not get along. Get into that second coach that's starting to be all right, who who is this really on here? Is this on the
coach or is this on the player? And I think in the case of Trey Young and Nate McMillan, you have a point guard in Trey Young, star player feels like, hey, I should be the guy here. It should kind of, you know, really kind of go my way. And then he's got Nate McMillan, who is a long time NBA player himself. He was also a point guard, a little bit headstrong. He ran into into some of the stuff in his prior stops with players a little bit before, and I think they they've run into a tough spot.
And then I think the team's not winning at the level they want to be. They thought that de Jontay Murray trade was really going to give them this identity of a right we can defend, we can play multiple different kinds of lineups. We've got two guys who can attack on the ball now, and it just hasn't come to fruition. They floated around five hundred all year. And that's the people, you know, kind of you know, looking
for what is the answer here? And I think when we get in those situations, the easy answer always is we'll blame it on the coach and put it all on him. And I think Trey Young maybe bought into that a little bit too.
Yeah, follow up on that. Do you think that the original hire for Nate McMillan was the was the right move or the fact that he had all that success as an interim coach kind of forced management to make that decision. And then secondarily, do you think John Collins finally does get moved.
Yeah, as far as the Nate McMillan park goes, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it was a situation where you're going to finish out the year and then it was wow, he really turned things around, or the players turned around, but whatever it was, Nate McMillan was there when it and around, and it's hard to then say thanks for that, we're gonna move
in a different direction coach wise. They made it all the way to the East Finals that year, in a little bit of a weird season in the Eastern Conference, but they were still there, and I think what we're looking at then was all right, you can't move on from now. You gotta give him that chance, and they get kind of back into a corner. As for John Collins, he feels like they kind of knew. I hesitate they knew because Miles Turner and trade rumors are still flowing
out there. But he's just another version of Miles Turner where we hear trade rumors every single year of this guy's career and then he never goes anywhere. But I do think there is a chance, because that one seems the Turner stuff is always seems like more teams approaching the Facers because they like Turner. This one seems like the Hawks and John Collins very much want to separate and go their separate way.
Finally, we get into some trade deadline talk. Keith tries to figure out who possibly might be the big sellers out on the market this year. Give it a listen.
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, Jay Crowder's gonna get traded because the Suns aren't going to let guy go beyond the trade deadline. Then they'll definitely move him at some point. It may be John Collins, because there's there are teams who aren't necessarily contenders that are interested in Collins, with teams that are kind of in the spot where they're maybe a year or two away from figuring out what they are, that might jump on Collins. I know we've heard him mentioned to the Utah Jazz.
I know Danny Gage liked him and made a couple of different runs at him when he was running the Celtics. So yeah, I think we could see Collins get moved, and then there'll be some player that none of us are really thinking about now that between now and a month and a half, when the trade deadline comes up, after we get past the holiday period, when some guy's gonna look around and think, yeah, this is not going the way I want it to be. He's going to let it know be known he wants to go, and
then then that's where it'll move. And I think what we may also see because this is a very weak free agent class, So this coming summer, you're going to see some teams basically get a jump on their offseason by saying we'll go get the guy. We'll have them for the rest of this year to really see what he is, figure it out, figure out how he fits with whatever we have left over, and that'll be kind
of our big acquisition just on a few months earlier. Yeah, the challenge for there to be a very good, busy trade deadline is you have to have sellers. And the issue right now is some of the bad teams are naturally bad. They're just young and bad. Houston, Detroit, Charlotte to some extent, Orlando, who's put them playing better lately, but they're still not a very good team. Oklahoma City
if they eventually fall off. Those teams are bad but they're bad with young players, so they don't have a ton that they're going to start selling off and moving.
They've got a couple that are indeed. But what we may see is you may see some team that's kind of sitting on the borderline and then we could really make a plan and run, or we might be a playing team that's not really where we want to go, and they may say, all right, hey, if we can get this great package in return from one of our players, let's move this. Now. What I think we may see
kind of happen here is the early movers. If someone makes the trade in early to mid January, a few weeks out from the trade deadline, or even a month out, that may be something we see happen here. And that does happen on occasion when the league is bunched up. But I was talking to folks around the league. Ten different teams tell me, Yeah, we have a chance to win the title if we get into the playoffs and
we're healthy. And that's crazy. We're never at that many teams, even Neil this far into the season, it will usually down to seventy teams at most. That kind of feel like in him right now, everybody feels like, hey, we have a real shot at.
This last question about thirty seconds, Keith, I want to know there's obviously a lot of information and rumors about All Stars. Do you think that Dearn Fox is an All Star this year?
I think he has a chance. He won't get voted in, so that's just an impossible popularity contest for him to win. But if the Kings keep winning, it's either going to be him or Demonstas Sabonis who gets recognized for that. So it's gonna be one of the two of them. Now, I think there's a chance that'll be Fox. See, I don't think it'll be both. They don't think they're gonna win at quite a high enough level, and I don't know that that they'll win. So what will probably come
down to is what does the guardline look like? What does the big man line look like? Who doesn't get voted in? Where do they have to kind of fudge a position to get a guy in that maybe should be in there anyway? Now, it ain't trying to go that way, especially if there's like a weird quote like Clashier or Andrew Wiggins.
Kevloaded, that's all that we have for the bonus episode of The Heat Check. Check back tomorrow for an all new episode, and do not forget to check out the feed for past episodes and interviews. Please follow The Heat Check across all your twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three season download subscribe, Please tell your friends and follow us on sociale at this Heat Check and actress to crik on TikTok because the Heat Check never sleeps, even on Christmas Day.