You're tuned into Heat Check with Trista Crick.
On this bonus episode of the Heat Check, We've got a special guest, folks, Chris Miles of NBA TV, here to break down the aftermath of the Draft as well as the latest on free agency buzz. I'm joined on this episode by my co host Nick Ashew. It was recorded on our national radio show bet MGM. Tonight comes out Monday through Friday, seven to eleven. If you like betting, so Nick, do me a favor and drop that motherfucking beat that should be Rihanna.
Chris Miles, NBA TV jumps on with us. Let's start with Damian Lillard here. We've heard his name certainly mentioned at least in whispers for years, but it was always no, No, he wants today, he wants to stay. Could this offseason finally be the difference? Could this, finally, Chris, be the time where he either asks for a trade or at least says fine, if you can find a good spot for me, I'll take it and go. So were like, I don't know the Miami heat.
Perhaps you know what this seems like when two couples are about to get a divorce but everyone wants to keep the friends, right, That's what the Blazers and Damian Lillard are. They're like, I'm trying to keep the friends. I'm the good one here.
I didn't I didn't. I'm not the one that pulled the trigger on this.
So you're my friend, right, NBA fans and fan base, that's what they're doing. And I think we're starting to get to the point where one or the other is gonna be like, you know what, I don't care what people think.
I'm ready to move on.
And it feels like the Blazers are there more so than Damian Lillard as far as saying it publicly, like you said, oh, they're taking.
The billboard down.
Really, Oh, they drafted the guy that's going weird double zero right, like, oh okay, and they they're drafting your position, and they are keeping guys you know who are showing signs to have value on a trademarket.
Like, think about it, if they were planning.
On keeping Damian Lillard, Anthony Simon's right, someone you could get a veteran at a different position for so you could kind of bring in Schoot Henderson and say you're doing this thing or Shaden Sharp had an excellent rookie year and a sense of like value on a trade market. If you were keeping name you and you were gonna draft Schoot Henderson, then you could have moved those pieces and kind of got some veterans. John Collins on the market for two and a half dollars.
Like he went for a second round.
And Rudy Gay even I was like, wait, Rudy Gay has another year on his contract, Like, Rudy Gay is my age?
What's going on here? You know what I mean?
So it's like all of these things that if you're dam You're like, what is We're not going to get drafting? These young guys were developing. Come on, everyone knows it. We can all see it. And they are teams that would love to have Damian Lillard. And you know what, the NBA would love to have Damian Lillard on the East Coast. I say you that much.
Yeah, you're right. And the thing that I thought was interesting and Chris is the Dame came out through Chris Haynes, which we know they're very close, they've been close for a long time now, is that he says he doesn't want to play on a team with multiple All Stars he just wants to be on a team that has a shot. He says, I don't want to be on a team with three All stars. That's Miami baby, Like, if he was to go there, it's Jimmy, it's Bam, it's him. So that feels like maybe not the right spot.
I am curious though, from Portland side, if Dame were to go, and I still have hope that maybe they just couldn't find a deal during the draft and that maybe they can figure something out in free agency. But is Chauncey Billups won the right coach for a rebuilding team? And two do you think he is the coach if Damian Oller does ask out.
Well, First and foremost, I am not going to say anything bad about the champion Chauncey Billups.
And whether or not he's we don't know.
The verdict isn't in on whether he could be a good coach or not right, and we don't he there's not enough of a samp side to know if he deals with a veteran team or young team. The one thing I do know about Chauncey Billups is that everyone that's played with him or that's been around him, there's a level of respect there, right, And it's not like if you mentioned a different coach and can're like, well, I've heard this about him, or a different player kind of heard this about him.
With Chauncey Billups, it's all like leadership.
He's the guy, you know, different teams want him, whether it's the front officers or a coaching position. So I kind of feel like any coach, though, you want to put your stamp on things. And with Damian Lillard, he had been there so long that that's Dame's team, right.
He kind of has that power that if Dame's gone, I think Chauncey has a better chance and a better opportunity to mold these guys into what he wants, kind of like ima Udoka and Houston as well, getting a bunch of young guys in there as opposed to having, you know, guys who had some success before he became head coach.
You know you mentioned the John Collins trade. He's got three years, seventy eight million dollars left on that contract. Utah absorbs that deal. Atlanta just gets Rudy Gay in a second round pick, and you're going, right, You're scratching your head going it.
And I don't.
John Collins isn't a great big man, but he's pretty good. Are we going to see more of this offseason of just maybe some moves where teams are just trying to clear some cap space, keep themselves away from that dreaded second apron It feels like like even if people aren't and most people aren't well versed in the CBA because it's millions of pages and it's boring and nobody actually wants to read that stuff, but it does have a direct effect on the way some teams are treating this offseason.
Do you think this will be an offseason that does have maybe fewer big moves and it's more based on like the deal we saw today with Atlanta and the Jazz.
And you know, it also gives Atlanta some flexibility that they just had zero flexibility with the contracts that they had and the decisions they've made, and now they have the what twelve million dollar exception they can use and four and a half months they can go get guys who may be out there on a bargain that kind of fits that veteran leadership that they need in the
locker room. Also, also they have that twenty five million dollar trade exception now that maybe some of their young developing guys that really haven't proven themselves, they can take money back for a player that fits more into what they're trying to do. If John Collins, to your point, is a really good I would call him like a top tier role player could be an All Star with the right team, and you would think with Trey Young that that would be the case, but it just never
fit in that way. I think the Hawks waited for that to happen. And with the Utah Jazz, it's like he's their highest paid player, so like he comes in and immediately, like when you talk about cap flexibility, they just had it to absorb that.
So it made sense for.
The Utah Jazz, where as the Atlanta Hawks, it just was like this handcuff of a contract. So I want to see what else the Atlanta Hawks are up to. I think that this was the first in three or four moves that they are about to make to try to make this team one that can really compete again to get to the Eastern Conference finals, because right now that feels like a fluke, and I know that's not where.
They want to be. De Jontay Murray is one of my favorite young guards, Chris. He obviously is up for an extension. They can't offer him until free agency, probably what he's worth on the open market, but there's been some whispers that maybe it's just not working with him and Trey Young, despite the fact that they wanted to play together. Do you think that he is one of those three or four moves that you're talking about where maybe they send him somewhere else?
Man, it's crazy because I enjoy watching him in person, so I would like, absolutely hate for that to happen. And truly, when I watch Trey Young and de Jontay Murray, I think for Trey he's the perfect compliment slash backcourt mate that if he's moved, I just don't know how it works out right in the sense of, Okay, so you move the defensive guard that can also put up big numbers and be an All star as well, then what are you looking to put next to Trey Young?
So to your point, it would be more of a business decision.
If they think they can't resign him, that he's gonna go elsewhere and they won't get anything for him.
Which would be really sad.
So I guess objectively, looking at the Atlanta Hawks, I hope that doesn't happen for them. I hope that they're able to keep him, that it works out between he and Trey Young, because I do think that the way that they play should compliment each other more than it did this year.
Talking to Chris Miles NBA TV Warriors and Chris Paul, it just sounds weird. It's gonna look weird. It's gonna take some time getting used to. And there's also some of the extra curriculars, right Steph saying it's not twenty fourteen anymore to Chris Paul, and then Draymond's got some beef with him and then he had the fake life
after Steve Kerr? Is this gonna be one of those situations where when it's all set and done, everybody gets in there kind of just puts it all aside and says, we're trying to win a championship or did you kind of look at this and go, wait, what, how in the world is this all gonna mesh when it's all said and done?
What years it again? Like twenty fourteen? I know that. Yeah, And.
To your point, right, guys on that twenty fourteen team, like one of them works with me, Jamal Crawford. The other guy that backcourt, JJ Reddick, is a star on ESPN. It's about that time for Chris Paul, you.
Know what I mean?
Like the Warriors won four championships in an eight year span since then, Like this is what we're talking about when you say something like that, Like, yes, Chris Paul, his apex was probably, you know, twenty and eight to twenty fourteen. I think at this point Chris Paul knows that, Right, there's a time where you go, oh, like I was moved just for my contract being one that they didn't want anymore.
He has to know that. He has to understand that.
And it's a matter of is he willing to come off the bench and lead a second unit and be like Golden State's Kyle Lowry, Because if he is, the league is in trouble.
He's good enough to do that.
If he is, if he has that mentality to get that championship, then the league.
Is in trouble.
So you covered NBA draft Chris for NBA TV. Other than Cam Whitmore, who slid for like really inexplicable reasons they said they had to do with his medicals, but he was doing windmills in the one on zero workouts. I saw it on Instagram myself. He looked pretty explosive. Who else besides him? Were you really surprised to slide down in the draft?
Well, you know, I wouldn't say I was surprise where they ended up being drafted.
But a guy that I'm like, I just don't know if I understand the draft anymore. Ben Sheppard out of Belmont that went to the Pacers at twenty sixth.
It's like I spend all this time objectively watching guys see who pops. I mean, I called the Nike Hoops Summit, right, that's where like the first time they get a name, like Nicole Okitch and Jamal Murray play together, Like I watch them from that stage and Nick.
Knows this about me until it's time to get to the draft, and so I see guys as levels happen.
And then I get to the draft and I'm like, wait, Ben Shephard is awesome, Like he's a basketball player, and I'm like, why is he going twenty sixth?
And then I look up some of the other guys and I'm not.
Gonna disrespect them, and I'm like they play the same position, they're not as good.
What is happening? Is it a an age and upside?
Because I see this every year and I see guys get drafted and they just like never never make it, and they're like, oh they're eighteen, they're nineteen. The upside, I'm like, I would take the twenty one or twenty two year old that I know can play in the NBA immediate, Like, I just don't get it. I understand it's some guys the upside and they end up being there. But that's the kid that I look at, like, how how is twenty six where he goes like I look at.
You, no, no, no disrespect? Is that is that person Jet Howard? That you felt like, wow.
He really went a lot earlier.
And I expected, well, yes, he's one of the guys, but he doesn't play the same position. So Jet Howard I kind of got from Orlando's perspective, right because they got all of these young guys who and then who they drafted at six Anthony Black was was kind of like, okay, interesting because they have like eight guards.
So like I kind of looked at the value on the board.
And kind of thought they need shooting the Orlando Magic just need guys that can shoot. So like I saw it, and I'm like they probably were trying to figure out Look at what Grady Dick is wearing here.
We don't need too much. We don't need too much, right, Like we need a professional.
Like God is just gonna come in and just do his job, and we know his dad, we know what this is about. Let's get safe here, because we might have made the splashy pick at six, So I get that, But I'm with you as like, man, that's pretty high for a guy that you think is gonna come in and just shoot three pointers. So yeah, but there are a couple of other guys that I just kind of look at and I'm like, I don't know.
I thought Ben Sheppard was better.
Chris got about a minute here, Bradley Beal, the trade finally happened. You and I have talked about this for years. The return was not nearly what they could have gotten a couple of years ago. Your thoughts on that in about a minute.
You've had my thoughts on it for five years, right, Yeah, And it's like this is exactly what I said would happen. I'm like, no, first of all, I have to talk to Bradley beal right, Like, he's a guy that I know in real life, and I'm happy that he's gotten as much money as he had. Having said that, I'm like, why Wizards are you signing him to these coins? Like once you dealt John Wall and then you had Russell Westbrook that next season it didn't work out.
That was the time to cash hit. You could have got like Shay.
Gildess Alexander in six draft picks for him. Instead you got Landry Shammitt in second round picks.
It's just, oh, you wait till you give him a no trade clause and then you give him as much money as possible. He fleeces you, He holds the organization hostage, and then he gets to go where he wants to go, and they get him for pennies on the dollar. Chris Miles, NBA TV. Always good talking to my friend.
Appreciate it.
That's all the time that we have for this bonus episode of the he checked. Many thanks to Chris, my bet MGM co host Nick Ashew, and my producer Scott Lynn. Check out the feed for past episodes and many episodes which will drop unexpectedly like the manna from heaven and follow the Heat Check as the off season is now
in full swing. Do not forget. Please to download, to subscribe, go to an Apple store, download the podcast there and tell all your friends, every single one of them, and follow us on social wete at this heat Check Tristan Crick on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Many shout outs also to my producer Nick Berlanski for putting this thing together, and of course thank you all for listening to the pod. We'll see you next time.