Who do you think shut it down?
My curiosity is obviously always with Okay see, because even when they're teetering on success in prior years, they've been very reluctant to keep success going, right, Like they shut down Shay last year, they shut down Giddy last year, they shut down.
Like even Kenrick Williams.
I think at one point, like anybody who had a pulse wasn't playing for this team. Obviously we mentioned Portland. Portland is not on a trajectory for a play in spot, despite what Dame thinks or what Chauncey Billups thinks, like who do you think goes or do you like full I'm going to sell mode like for the rest of the season, I'm just gonna whether they shut down players or they.
Just lose games, like semi intentionally.
I think it'll happen. Can I pinpoint where I'll pinpoint where I don't think it will. Orlando seems pretty content on trying to win games and trying to compete, and Magic want to take steps forward. The Pistons, I mean, they haven't had the bench guys to be the worst team in the league. So I don't think. I don't think. I don't think we'll see that either. I think don but are still going to be chasing thirty every night.
You know, San Antonio has lost a good amount of games after selling Josh Richardson and taking on Dwayne dead Bean into salary and waving him. I don't think the Spurs have a ton of interest in competing for the postseason Utah. I would expect to see some more youth movement, some more minutes for unproven guys, some boggy opportunity. I mean, they just moved Vanderbilt and Lake Beasley and Mike Conley
out the door. Russell Westbrook obviously is not going to be playing for the Utah Jazz, so those are probably the two teams I would how it's the most the Thunder I never I've gotten into plenty of trouble speaking about the Thunder and positions where I don't one hundred percent know what's going on there. So I'm gonna I'm gonna abstain from that.
Battle out on that that makes sense.
One thing about the Thunder I thought was interesting was a recent article that came out that I don't know why even they would do this, That they promised Jabari that they would take him number two overall, if he was there, obviously they take chet Jabari ends up in Houston, like how how normal is something that would be very blatantly not true. Obviously was not going to be a fit there.
I think two things. One, I think teams say we're going to take you here if you're there, and that can be one of two things. One it is a promise and the guy they thought wasn't going to be there as all of a sudden there. Or two they could say to someone, if you're there, we think we're gonna take you and that or we're gonna take you or whatever, and then the player and their parents just take it as an ironclad promise when it really wasn't.
And then there are promises where you know, we promise this guy, and then that's the guy they take because they they are men and women of their words, and that's what they said. So with Jabari's circumstance, I don't know what it was, but I just know that from my reporting, chet Holmgren wanted to go to Oka see okay,
so he was obviously very interested in chet Holmgren. And the second that he did knock on number one, I was not expecting him to not go to like it was kind of a sliding doors thing where either Pale or Jabari we're gonna go one or three depending on what the magic decided. So I don't know where Jabari Smith's camp got that impression. Could they have thought that they got promised and it wasn't a promise?
Sure that is a Houston maybe bro think he seems like he's not himself. There's new articles about how he cried on draft night when they took him, which I guess I understand given that this is going to be a losing situation in.
The post Hardened era.
To me, my opinion, is the only way he gets out of this jail sentence as if James Harden somehow wants to go back. Feels to me like Houston is a mess, but I don't exactly know why. Like I kind of know why, but I don't exactly know why, outside of say Stephen Silas being obviously the wrong coach for this type of group.
What do you in your estimation is wrong there?
You know? It's it's a question that I want to make more phone calls about and potentially even go to Houston to learn more about. In the coming weeks. But all I can say, what I will say is that I mean there hasn't been a clear direction to build this thing forward, more so than just adding top level rookie talents into the mix here. I mean, Eric Gordon has been, you know, in the fold, Christian Wood was
there a year ago. But in terms of like, it isn't just like you draft guys, then you add pieces and then things just materialize, Like there needs to be some type of commitment towards winning as opposed to just throwing minutes at particular players that your front office is invested in and actually like coming in with strategies on how to develop these guys and winning roles in a particular greater team environment. That just doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like they're back to the John
Wall situation. From everything I had heard last season, it was just we want to play Kevin Porter junior and Jalen Green X number of minutes you X number minut it's off the bench, and like take it or leave it, and obviously he left it, and it didn't seem that there's any more of a of a I mean, I don't want to discredit the coaching staff there for not having more of a plan, but just from the way the conversations have gone, it just hasn't sounded like there's
been a collective universal like we're all moving in this direction together, which a concerted thing is important, like to have your owner and your front office and your head coach and your like the player development guy all aligned on what Kevin Porter Junior, Jalen Green or kJ Martin need to be doing to JB Jamari Smith to become this player that you envision your overall team to be than like any second you're not doing that. It's kind of just a waste of time.
Yeah, I saw this, and I don't know why this is happening, but this is some tea It's like a team related question. Why do you think there's this like uprising of chatter that there's some sort of problem between a D and Bron?
Like what's I feel like that's very weird.
It's just the body language doctors are out. She clearly was not thrilled the evening of Lebron's all time record setting performance. And he's kind of been poudied ever since. I mean when he was when the Lakers were here in New York. It was like a week before he broke the record. At MSG they were talking about how Lebron is going to inevitably and Lebron was in New York like a week before he was gonna break it. Of course he was going to be asked about it.
That's just how the media scene works here, and Ady was kind of chuckling about it and saying like, oh, Dan, that's cold or something like that when Lebron said, I'm going to break it just like a matter of time. So, I mean, this hasn't been like a long winding whatever it is, I'll say I can say that, but yeah, I mean the situation hasn't been perfect.
So do you think it's real?
I don't know. I don't I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of this has been just a tough season on the whole, where it's just it's a it's a drain generally to be in the center of that storm all year long, where there's headlines and headlines and headlines and people asking about it, and it's not just the headlines. I see things are happening behind the
scenes that are not exemplary either. So when when it's just not a fun environment to be in, Like you can understand why things can kind of snowball and grow a little bit.
Yeah, I mean I've heard for years that the Lakers are one of the least fun environments to play in, Like not.
Just you're winning, it's great, and you're winning it's great.
Yeah, it's like a worst version of like New York sports because it's just different, right, Like there's just different trappings. I saw this factoid the Celtics are on pace to lead the NBA with fifty eight wins, and that'll be the first time it's that a team hasn't broken sixty wins in the NBA since like two thousand and it's the second time that that would have happened in forty
four years. Like I just kind of like finally, because I know we got to both go just kind of get your estimation on, like why why that there is no team that's maybe going to get to sixty and what that actually means for the league.
Yeah, there's just so much talent in the NBA right now and there's no absolute juggernaut Warriors or even like wasn't just the fact that the Warriors were such a juggernaut It was the fact that it was kind of a foregone conclusion that Golden State and Cleveland were going to meet in the finals for four straight years, and that might before that, Miami was going to make the finals for four straight years, and San Antonio was there for you know, pretty much every year they were and
in the finals every single year, but they were they were a threat every year for the better part of two decades. There's the Warriors are still here, Lebron's still here, There's still you know, the old cast of characters that
are knocking on the door. But it's just there's It's considered in the league right now that any goal you want to accomplish, whether you're a rebuilding team wants to make the plan, whether you're a playing team and wants to make the playoffs, whether you're a team has been a first round roadkill that wants to make move further into the postseason. Everyone's under the impression that we're one
move away from getting there. Yeah, and that's because the talent's so deep, so everyone's given the shot primarily, and the parody's been I think a result of those compounding factors where the playing tournament has clearly helped a lot in that regard, combined with this influx of young dudes where like you know, Pallo for example, is contributing winning
type of basketball right now. It's not like Luca was immediate William Dallas, but very rarely do these rookies come in and impact winning let alone, like Anthony Edwards is all of a sudden an engine in Minnesota. And you know, there's just there's just a lot of really good young players in the league right now, while we still have so many players like Lebron and Chris Paul and k D and Steph who are playing at such a highlight game at you know, in the into their mid and late thirties.
So let's get a prediction. So we got twenty seven games left, who is in the finals? Are our Dubs still?
Okay, I'm going Dubs to the Western Conference Finals. However, I'm gonna right now, I'm gonna tip my hat to Denver. I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick Denver, and I'm gonna pick Denver. Milwaukee a little small market finals that the NBA will love.
And uh, what do they play in the Eastern Conference Finals? Then?
I think the Sixers had the talent to be in that top tier with those two teams, they're clearly ahead of Cleveland when they put it all together, but they just don't put it all together on a consistent enough basis. I think to make it through four rounds, let alone three. So I think it's going to be Boston.
Milwaukee and then who wins.
Give me honest and the Bucks.
Let's do it.
Many thanks to Jake Fisher on this episode of The Heat Check. We'll be back on Friday. Keep it locked, Please subscribe, please download, Please tell all your friends, every single one of them, and follow us on at this heat Check, on TikTok and at trist to crick, everywhere you get your social media. We'll see you next time.