Fixing All-Star Weekend, McMillan Fired And Russ Back In LA

You're tuned into Heat Check with Triste Quick.

On this episode of the Heat Check.

All Star Game is over, folks, Yes, sir, it's time for us to move forward. We are gonna break down the good, the bad, the ugly. Speaking of ugly, Nate McMillan.

Gets fired another one bites the dust. Atlanta is now looking for a.

New head coach, and Russ and Kevin Love also changed teams. Just over twenty games left in the regular season, Nicks, so do me a favor and drop that generic gass beat. All right, So this extravaganza in Salt Lake City, Utah has come and gone. Everybody's take pretty much from the game is that's stunk.

I also thought it stunk.

I thought, what are you gonna really ask for when there's multiple stars that are out for injuries and the injury reserves and all of these things, considering.

That it is just a game. It is not just a game. It's an exhibition game. Let's be honest.

I listed players who one hundred percent would phone it in, and every single one of them did. Nicole Jokich had four points, Luca had four points. Do I hate on them for not trying?

No like Luca sometimes needs a break.

Okay, he wanted to go to Mexico and he went to your little event and he played. Okay, he showed up better than you can say for Trey Young. It is a great opportunity for late nights hanging out with other superstars.

It is like an NBA convention. That's basically what it is. It's like a trade show for the NBA and people who are around the NBA.

The fact that there's fans there and that there's a TV event that's basically subsidizing this little party. They do not care about the person or people responsible for some their party.

They just want to party.

I do not also buy into the fact that the ratings were so bad that they're gonna hurt the league in the next round of the media negotiations. That is bullshit. That is absolute poppycock. The All Star Game is not It is not the corner stone of a season, and it took a back seat to the trade deadline, which is, if we're being honest, what's even more important than the All Star Game.

So, yeah, the game wasn't fun to watch.

People had ideas about how to fix it. I also have ideas, as usual about how to fix things. One of my ideas went viral a few days ago. My tweet was this the only way to fix the All Star Game. You pit the US versus the rest of the world and see them duke it out like hunger games.

Think about it. Team USA, who's on that team?

You got Steph Lebron has to start, Kevin Durant, Tatum ad That's like pretty standard starting five. And then for the bench, you've got jaw Jaylen Brown, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker, Kyrie At, Daron Fox, Kawhi, Jared Allen. So that's my that's my All Star team for the US.

And then Team World. Man, this is a squad.

You got shay Giljes Alexander, you got Luka, Doncic, you got Jannis Embiid and Jokic my god. Then on the off the bench, you got Demonic Sabonis, Marknen, Ben Mathern, Pascal Siakam, Andrew Wiggins, Rudy Gobert, Jamal Murray, og Annon, Nobi, Josh Giddy, Franz Wagner, DeAndre Ayton, from the Caribbean, christ As Porzingis, Jeremy Sohan, Steven.

Adams come on, now, come on, now.

I think at that point you'd have to put it in a city where there was nothing else to do but whoop. It would be have to be a separate week There is zero chants that Luca and Jokic would mail it in if it meant they were fighting for their country. They were fighting to say that the world was better than America. They've got competitive nature running through their veins, and you know what they don't want to do is to make it seem like America is the

So just do it.

Fifteen American All Stars, fifteen non American All Stars. Winning team gets bragging.

Rights for the year. Make it a whole thing. This is the only chance that you have.

As for the rest of the All Star weekend, it was pretty good. What except for the skills competition. That shit's gotta go. We gotta have some sort of substitute for what that was. It's confusing, it's on the wrong night. There's no drama. I honestly don't know who thought watching the Antitukunpo brothers throw bounce passes into a tire would make for a great TV. Like, I don't know why we wanted to Team Utah other than the fact that they were in Utah. There needs to be another replacement

About that either.

Yeah, I mean, the only reason I'm even slightly optimistic is because I am hoping that someday maybe I can play in it. That's the only reason is I can get on TV just to play basketball. Other than that, I could take it or leave it. The Rising Stars Game, that was probably the best thing that we saw, besides maybe the dunk contest. Jose Alvarado is being micd up the entire time, which was great. He gets the MVP

In the All Star Game. You could have had Victor wam.

Nyama play right now. Would have been very interesting, wouldn't it. And like listen, you got to see the G league play and realize why they're not.

In the league yet.

Let's be honest, these you gotta while to go. You're like fresh chicken out of a pack, you know what I mean. You're still a little wet behind the ears. We gotta put a little seasoning on you. We gotta put a little uh just marinate. You gotta marinate in the bag a little bit more scoot before you play in the NBA.

The three point Contest was for me a highlight.

I did predict that Damian Lillard was going to win it because he went to Weaver State.

That's not why I loved it, even though that was a nice little piece of vindication.

But lots of guys were struggling, and I love to see pro struggle in any sport. Tyler hero looked not like a hero. Kevin Herder looked like he had no business being in that contests.

Randall looked like he snuck in to the tournament. He did.

It was so painful. His son cried and then boot him. It was so bad.

That's not even a joke that happened.

Tyrese Halliburton, which his shooting stroke. I understand why scouts were like, I'm not sure if this kid can can.

Do it, but he can. He can really shoot.

Tyrese Haliburton set a record with thirty one points in the first round, and his little hitch was so ugly. I don't even know how he makes shots.

Honestly, I don't. I don't know how he does it.

It takes so long to get the ball. It's almost like there's a glitch in the system, you know, and he's trying to re get the system to work smooth.

But it was all daytime.

Man.

He came out crushed it.

He lit through the final rack to win his first three point contest.

Then he rolled off on the Sunday.

He's done.

He's never probably doing it again. He wanted one for the resume. I'll probably never.

See him back.

And then a quick little question I have for people who make these little cute T shirts and sweatshirts and stuff. How come there weren't any parody shirts made that I could have bought that said twenty twenty three NBA All Star slut like Salt Lake City Utah slut like that should have been an easy thing for the people on the internet to do, but they didn't. But they didn't, And Finally, the Dunk Contest was awesome. No one on earth wanted to watch the Dunk Contest and it ended

Now.

You come out and we know your name, we know what you look like, we've seen your face. We're happy with you in here now, and now you have to come back every year, and so I think he will, but the question remains.

Stephen A.

Smith talked about this, which is wild. People are asking why the Dunk Contest doesn't have major stars in it anymore. Stephen A thinks Lebron killed it because Lebron didn't do it. Now all the other stars are following suit, so he ruined it himself. His one decision set the dominoes off. But people are now asking everyone, hey, Dunk Contest is kind of fun Are you going to enter it next year?

Say now, Reggie Miller, are a lot of guys want to know, could you plausibly get in the dunk contest one of these?

Nope?

No, come on and stop playing. Nope.

I just like dunking ok people.

Man, whoa you heard that?

Reggie like dunk old?

Yeah, I think that sounds about right. I just like dunking on people. Ditto for Ja Morant. These guys want to be dunking in game. They want to fly down the lane. They want to stuff the basketball down your throat. They want to embarrass who's ever standing there. They want to posterize you. They want to demolished your ego, put it into a little package, wrap it up in a bow, and take your ego home with them and put it on another night stand.

That's what they want to do.

If there's nobody standing underneath the rim, what fun is it really to dunk? If you're someone like Ja Morant and Edwards? I actually kind of get that everything else is kind of like a fake dunk. A real dunk is what you do in a game when you murder somebody. The rest is kind of pageantry. Frankly, far more interested in seeing that than I am watching the dunk contest.

But those McClung dunks were.

Sick, and he's probably gonna end up our little poster child for the dunk contest for the next fifteen years.

So good for him.

The big news this week in the league.

We got some tea. Now, we got some things happening.

We got some butts that are hot, and the butts that are hot finally, now get the boot. Nate McMillan fired in Atlanta. So I have a history with Nate. He coached the Blazers for a really long time. I had to watch those ugly offenses for I don't even know how many years.

It was too many.

They walked the ball up the court like you had to walk it to half court. That was his mandate, and that was just what they did. Had one of the slowest paces in the NBA. But what happened to Atlanta, Let's talk about that, because that's what's important, and it's not in my opinion, Nate's fault. In fact, I think he has adapted much better than new NBA that I thought he would ever would.

Yeah, the problem is you got stuck with Trey Young.

That's what it is.

He got stuck in Atlanta.

He had a really incredible run based around some luck and some help and some skill, and they went to the Eastern Conference finals, which they never were ever going to do again.

And then they hired him.

They hired an interim head coach that maybe was gonna work with Trey Young, maybe not.

And we talked about this before Atlanta fired.

One of the most respected NBA executives in the league in Travis Slank, and they brought in the owner's twenty year old son. That's a little, as my mom would say, little nepatis at work. And so what you thought, what you thought they weren't gonna fire Nate McMillan. Come on, now,

Do it again.

Show the rest of the world what's going on. Show the quinn Snyders of the world what kind of organization you are. And you kind of get a sense of what happened from John Collins because John Collins said, uh, yeah, Nate would have been a good coach, a great coach for a quote more mature team. And so people want to read that as older, and I don't. I don't think that means older. I think that means more mature. You know, like how there's old souls and youngs.

Like I believe Trey Young is a young soul.

I think he's going to be thirty five doing this bullshit. I think we can pretty definitively say now that Trey Young is a coach killer. He could be considered a certified coach killer. He has a shift in his back pocket at all times, and you know what, he's killed more coaches at this stage is in the NBA than Hall of Fame coach killers have so far. He is now working on his third head coach interim and then

I don't know. So look at his track record.

He's now had two coaches fired in three years, both that he had personal conflict with. Right his team has gotten progressively worse since the surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals. He had beef with Nate this year, and everybody knew that. Anonymous sources within the Hawks claim that the majority of players actually sided with Nate in their season long dispute, and so you usually don't see players side with management over a teammate.

So now what does that mean.

That means that uh Trey Young is unpopular with coaches and unpopular with teammates.

Not a great combo.

So the question is who is the new regime that twenty seven year old Nick Wrestler and his best friend Landry Fields are tasked with trying to keep this shit from sinking? And who are these people. Let's look at the crop of candidates. We've got some that we need to discuss.

Quinn Snyder.

Quinn Snyder there are working on having discussions as we speak. And Quinn Snyder, as you know, former coach of the Utah Jazz, and so at first glance, this might seem like a perfect fit. Trey Young is his new Donovan Mitchell, Cappella and John Collins can play like Rudy Gobert except for less lobbs in Utah obviously, because Donovan Mitchell wasn't giving any of Rudy Gobert. But where Mike Conley was. That team was first in the West. That team had

But let's be clear number one, that Utah team was not a success.

That team style does not benefit in the modern NBA. This is a wing driven league, not a guard driven league anymore.

And this is not going.

To work in one of the most dysfunctional places in the NBA, which is Atlanta. I do not think that Quinn Snyder will want to build a team around Trey Young and his bullshit. And I do not think he will build a team that cohesively works with Trey Young. Not because he's a bad coach. He's a good coach. Not because he can't make the roster work and the skill sets on the team work. But this guy, Quinn Snyder rumored And you may say, oh.

This is not important, this is not an important fact. I think it is.

Quinn Snyder is rumored to be the type of coach that has seating charts on his bus, has a very strict style of leadership, close to what Lloyd Pierce and Nate McMillan had. Do you believe that Trey Young will like someone who has seating charts on the bus.

I do not think he will respond well to that.

This has rebuild written all over it, And if Quinn Snyder is smart, he will stay all the way away. Moving on to Charles Lee. Charles Lee well respected Buck's assistant. He's gonna get a job soon. This could be it, This might be it. It's known as the player's coach. He's worked really well with superstars, which is very important on this Atlanta Hawks team. He's an ego manager, Yannis Drew, Chris Middleton, so he knows how to do that. And let's be real, like, this is probably the best fit

So why not Charles Lee?

Why not the guest start somewhere? Next up is Jordi Fernandez. Jordy Fernandez shows you how far the Kings have come. Assistant for the Sacramento Kings.

Finally getting some love.

I don't think I've seen a team try to poach and assist it off the Kings in my lifetime, So that just shows you how good nobody's like, Hey, how do I get a little of that juice that the Sacramento Kings have?

How do I steal a little piece of what the Kings are doing? Now? That is the case.

That is just another sign the Kings are on the rise. Other franchises trying to take a little bit of your pixie dust and try to reconfigure that magic on their team. He is a really great coach. All that you need to know about him is that when he filled in for Mike Brown. The entire team rallied around him. They celebrated him.

Like it was Game seven of the Finals.

They had champagne, they had goggles, they were spraying them like it was the Gatorade. I mean, the whole thing screams respect. Speaking of respect, Next up on this list of candidates as Kenny Ankinson. We know him from his brief time as the Nets head coach before Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving killed him. Currently a Warriors assistant, he took the job for the Charlotte Hornets for like, I think eleven minutes, maybe twelve.

He woke up out of.

A panic and said, oh no, baby, I can't take this shop. Oh no, oh no, no, no.

I got to go.

I'm going back to the bay. My mom, my family, whoever he said was there. Oh, it's a business family decision, and we love Santa Cruz whatever. He is too smart to hitch his wagon to being on the verge of a glue factory. Kenny Atkinson knows what it's like to be on a team where you could be cut and discarded at any given time.

Do you think he wants to do that?

No, I would be shocked if Kenny Atkinson even agrees to interview for this dick ass job. This situation could be worse than the Hornet's job. At least the Hornets job, you know, is a rebuild. They think they're better than a rebuild. That's the crazy thing.

I think there are a lot of other jobs that Kenny Atkinson would be suited for.

Mitch Johnson, Miles Simon just a couple of randoms that you gotta throw in there. Johnson is one of Papovitch's assistants to San Antonio, and I think it's like mandated anytime you have a new opening, you just have to interview a San Antonio Spurs assistant because I don't know why, that's just how it goes. And then Miles Simons, who coaches the South Bay Lakers G League. I'm not even sure why his name is bringing up like the regular Lakers.

E may Udoka, dark horse.

I would love nothing more than emy Udoka to get this job. There's not even any joke in that. I think he would be the best person for this job. I think he is the only coach who could fix this team defensively. I think it would be phenomenal. He would destroy Trey Young in the media. He would tell you everything that was going on, Like, can you imagine when Trey Young didn't show up to the game, what e may udoka?

What is said about him to the.

Media, And Trey Young'd be like, Oh, it's my personal business. I keep my private business to myself. No, no, baby, not what he may u Doka. He knows what it's like to have his business down on the street, and this is all about the game right now. He would see two practices of Trey Young not playing defense, doing his bullshit, not getting John Collins involved, just icing out teammates, and you know what he.

Would say it, Trey Young needs.

To pass the ball more, he needs to play some defense. His demeanor is perfect for a young team. He won't get the job because politics, I guess, but it would be highly entertaining if he did. And also from the Hawk's perspective, And maybe they're not even thinking about this because I don't think they're particularly smart.

What do I know?

Do we really trust you? May?

You don could just be in a city like Atlanta all the time, where there's like more strip clubs prey capita than anywhere else.

It's like it's popping in Atlanta.

Opportunities for mischief are high. The big question, though, is who Tray Young prefer. I guess that's the only question worth asking at this point, because Atlanta seems committed to keep Trey Young happy for God knows why reasons.

You will never guess, though, who Trey Young wants. Just guess, just guess.

It's really funny if you had to guess the most funny place, the most funny coach that Trey Young would be clamoring for in the most subtweet thirteen year old boy kind of way. Who would it be? Think about it? Think about it. Coach who has no idea what he's doing.

Think about that. A coach who gives no accountability to his players. A coach that does not run practices at all.

A coach that wants you to throw up thirty footers with ten seconds into a shot clock max.

No not, d'antni. I know that's where you were going.

How about d'antni's next iteration, his next little robot Steve Nash people, no joke.

No joke.

Tray Young on the wake of how did he even get this jersey? By the way, in the wake of Nate McMillan's firing, he posts a photo to his fucking Instagram with the Steve Nash jersey on an old school Phoenix Suns Steve Nash jersey, and I don't even know what to say. First of all, the fact that he had that waiting to take that photo like an angsty girl right outside of Claire's is crazy. It's crazy, but it's also funny. I think there's no more perfect combination

What about client client Kapila.

It's client Kapila here, that's Steve Nash right before practice. He doesn't know who's who, where anybody's at. Remember when all that Harden shit was going down, He's like, I haven't even talked.

To James Harden. Remember well the Kyrie thing went down. He's like, I haven't even spoke to Kyrie. People were like, do you not have their number? Or do they not call you back? Do they not answer? What is your deal? Steve Nash?

And now you got a twenty seven year old sign in checks down in Atlanta. I honestly see this happening. I think it happens. I think it happens. If it does better, believe I'm getting Hawk season tickets.

I might move to Atlanta. I might be a new Atlanta Hawks beat reporter.

I need it.

I need it.

Those two together, peas and carrots.

So I guess we gotta talk about Russ right, he's taken the buyout from the Utah Jazz. He signed with Los Angeles again. Yeah, shocking works out great for him from a personal standpoint, because we know that he did not want to live anywhere else. He brought his family out there, He's got his friends out there. That's the only reason he went to the Lakers to begin with. He now has the perfect spot for him. He doesn't

I don't know.

No, I have concerns like why is Russell Westbrook more skilled at more things right now in his career than John Wall? Are kind of similar, like the John Wall minutes with Kawhi Leonard, which we'll get to in a second, because I have the facts, weren't good.

He doesn't shoot as well as Reggie Jackson. What is this pairing? I don't know.

I'm going to because I love TYLERO suspend judgment until I see how it goes. I need to call Jerry west and figure out what is happening. I forgot all about that.

We need to find out what is happening.

Tylero, though, is one of the most underrated coaches in the league. If anyone on earth could make this work, I think it's him.

First up.

Zachlow said this on his podcast The Russell Westbrook Tylero talked about yesterday, He's gonna have the ball in his hands. He's mister t double. Those comments frankly shocked me. And if that's their vision for what he's gonna be, this qualifies as one of the biggest late season gambles in the history of the NBA.

Zach Wows facts. That is right.

And then here's another thing that people always say too, Russell Westbrook's.

Come off the ball before.

If if I hear that another fucking time, they are trying to gaslight us. We have seen it year after year after year, and yet we keep hearing Russell Westbrook can play off ball.

What is Russell Westbrook gonna do off ball? Besides just stand there in the corner. What is he gonna do?

What is he going to do? Is he gonna move without the ball. People tell me that he knows how, People tell me that he can. I don't think so, but Tyleru has pushed all of his chips into the middle. It is to me fascinating. People are banging on the Clippers for trading Reggie Jackson and John Wall, but the.

Stats, really they were a disaster.

They were Reggie Jackson or Wall when paired with either Kawhi or Paul George had the highest net rating of any of those combos was plus one and the lowest was negative ten. Keep in mind Kawhi and Paul George together have a net rating of plus ten, so they needed to do something Terrence Man they were already doing. They get Eric Gordon, which that helps them a ton, I believe. But then you say, well, we're buying Russ.

Russ or six Man of the Year Russ.

It can't be worse than John Wall, right, can't be worse than Reggie Jackson.

What right? And they're right, John Wall was a disaster.

He's fucking terrible. And Russell Westbrook as six Man of the Year was incredible. This year and it shows us. Now we're going to see this is where the rubber hits the road. The number one thing that this is going to do is tell us, Tyler, what you got?

What are you made of? Are you elite like we know you are?

Or have you been blessed with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George and Lebron James and Kyrie Irving and Nick Batoon.

I'm joking about Nick patob uh. But the Russ.

Experiment is going to show us everything that we need to know. If you can make russwork on this team, TYLERU, you are going to be a legend, not just in the LA, not just in the NBA, but it also will make the Clippers the most dangerous team in the West.

Yes, I said it. Moving on a little tea for the fans. I love the tea. I love Kevin Love tea.

The whole Kevin Love saga in Cleveland has been many years long and it has now come to a close, which I think is a little sad because you were just wondering when it was gonna bubble and boil over like it did a couple of years ago. The biggest name on the buyout market next to us. He has exited stage South South Beach. He is now a Miami Heat. I thought Kevin Love and Rubio were tight. I thought that was the reason that Rubio came back to the Calves. Actually,

The exit.

The breakup that they supposedly had was a love affair, flowery posts, ig reels, I.

Love you, I love you. No, I love you more.

Kiss kiss, kiss.

You mean so much to me. No, he means more to me.

Kevin said he'll never forget all the memories he made in Cleveland.

He'll always have love in the heart of the city. YadA, YadA, YadA. Right, happy ending, happy ending. No, not so fast.

Kevin Love and the Calves, apparently, according to new reporting, might not be as friendly as they are pretending to be.

Rumor out of Cleveland.

Say that the Cavs were like, we gotta get this guy out of here. We are motivated to make something happen and doing something that they had no interest in doing before, which is buying out his enormous contract.

So why is that?

Well, according to this reporting, they were worried Kevin Love was gonna go ape shit basically like he has done in the past. Do you remember Kevin Love at Kevin Love's peak of anger with the Cleveland Cavaliers organization. Do you remember when he chucked the ball at his teammate during an actual game? Do you remember when he was in a game and refused to shoot even when wide open for an entire regular season game? Do you remember

Yeah, you're not gonna be on the floor for the rest of the year.

Now, we've got some young guns, We've got things too good going on to be messing up the vibe to be you know, ain't no love in the heart of the city kind of thing. Ain't no love in the heart of the basketball court. And so there he was like, well, you gotta get me the fuck up out of here.

Love posted Drake lyrics on his Instagram.

These grown men doing little girl things is like my favorite part of the NBA.

Like this, there's a couple of these in this episode. But who posts Drake.

Lyrics to your Instagram unless you're Lebron James. Honestly, unless you're Lebron James, you can't really do that without me just burning you up. So he post this tables turn bridges, burn you live and learn. Tell you what doesn't sound like it was all hearts and flowers. Kevin Love better be on his best behavior in Miami. The Heat don't

And as for the Calves, they asked Jared.

Allen like, hey, did you know Kevin Love had been bought out? And he says, I was not aware. I was told he was going for milk and cigarettes just never came back. Perfect description of the end of the Kevin Love era in Cleveland. That's all the time that we have for this episode of The Heat Check. Check back Monday for an all new episode.

We've got an all.

New interview that I'm not going to tell you who it is, but it's gonna be a fire one. And do not forget to watch the feed for past episodes and interviews. Bonus episodes they drop unexpectedly throughout the week. Please follow us on this Heat Check as a twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three NBA season Heads towards

We'll see you next time, knuckleheads,