We're back on the drive with ESPN's Dave mcminimon joining us for today's NBA Daily Assist.
You know, Porter, I'm gonna try not to get emotional here, but this is a proud moment. It's also been a long time since we've had our next guest, oh for sure.
But one of the things I love about.
This business is when I get to mentor young media members and interview them and teach them the ropes and you know, sometimes make them uncomfortable. Then watch them rise up the ranks to what I call celebrity journalists. And my list is long. You know, Coward Stephen a Isola. You know, they all came to me, you at some point. But you know, when Dave mcminnimon canp me with a sincere desire to join the show consistently, I warned him. I said, well, here's what I said. I said, are
you ready to be great? Is this something you want? And now we fast forward a few years later and we can't even book our guy because he's such a big deal.
Yeah. I had to go through his assistant and then his assistance assistant, and then they sent me through like a booking agency. But we we.
Did it so, Dave mcmanhamon on a Thursday, I'll ask the question that I asked you a few years ago.
Are you ready to be great? Is this something you want?
I think I blacked out after you called me a young journalist. Everything after that was just start shining rainbow. So I mean, I'm just basking in the age domination you gave me. I want to be young forever as far as greatness concerned. If I'm young, it doesn't really matter for great or not. I'll just be happy being young.
Fair enough. Well, it's been too long, man, So how are things everything good?
Yeah, everything's great. Happy to join you, and yeah, I was of a bonehead getting back to the Porter the last couple of weeks, so I'm happy to rejoin.
No, not at all, Not at all.
And I'll just get one thought from you on the Jazz, because there's really nothing interesting about them other than the fact, Dave, that it looks like they're finally doing what they should have been doing all along and going all in on trying to just make sure that they're in a good
position to draft somebody potentially special coming up. They're going to need a ton of luck draft night every lottery team does, but last two years they've waited up until the trade deadline to break it down, and they're drafting like ninth through twelfth, which is no man's land, and it looks like they at least have a plan in place.
But it's a tough ask of this fan base.
To watch what looks like it's going to be really bad basketball all year long.
Yeah, they were not competitive for the bulk of their game against the Lakers the other night. Obviously their record in the standing reflects that. I think they're going to end up being centers r us for the rest of the league, calling about you know, guys like Walker Kessler, Philapowski and Drew you Banks. Because there's a lot of contenders out there, Lakers included, that need another big man.
And this is a.
Year, you know, maybe not quite as enticing as the Wendy year, but certainly a year where it's considered to be a really deep draft. And so if you don't end up with number one, you know, I think there's top five are all considered to be pretty much blue chip talent that you're looking at, and I think it's
a good strategy. Now. On the other hand, Will Hardy I'm a big fan of and I think he's going to be a special coach, and it's kind of tough for his development here to go through another year where being competitor is really not going.
To be on the table.
So you reference the centers on the roster, I wonder, and look, I'm not going to ask you about John Collins all year, Dave, I promise I will not do that.
Well, you throw him to the list too, Yeah, exactly, But.
Yeah, John Collins, Jordan Clarkson, Collins, Saxton, like maybe outside of market and of course some of these young players, do you think we are going to see real movement? Our team's going to be calling about some of these vets that the Jazz have and maybe other teams could use. I don't know if John Collins the guy, but you know, I guess I'll say, who's safe as far as you know outside of market?
And who do you think is safe on this roster for now?
I would say, yeah, obviously you start with marketing in I think, yeah, I don't think they're going to be given up on a guy like Cody Williams anytime soon. Probably Kessler and Filapowski would be part of their long term plans. But I asked well Hardy about that the other day and he kind of admitted that there are some redundancies in what they do. They're not exactly a
clone of one another. But in today's NBA, where you know, most teams are playing basically one and a half centers in the rotation, you know, one of those guys could end up being movable for the right offer, certainly if it's an offer that would include a but at the apple in this year's upcoming draft. And outside of that, yeah, I do think you're looking at, you know, a lot of players that could be had for the right price.
All right, Obviously the Lakers one of your main, if not your main responsibility, And I want to start with the macro question. You know, they're ten and four, and there's the narrative that JJ has found some things and other coaches have not been able to find with this roster. Where they didn't do much, they added some. I mean, Dalton goes for nine to threes the other night, so
they've got some different pieces. But what has stood out most to you about what this coaching staff has quote found with this Laker roster?
And I think the buy in from Lebron James and Anthony Davis has been a parent and you're going to need that to have any cancer success with this group. And it wasn't that Darvin hen didn't have that. I think it just waned over time and I personally think that a lot of that had to do with some bad injury hands that Darwin was but in today's NBA like you just got to find a way to make it work, not use excuses. And JJ has had some injuries to role players just like Darvin had last year.
You know, Ruy Hatchimore has been in out of the lineup. You've had Cam Reddish missed some time, but he found a way and they have a clear offensive identity. And you know, when you have a team that's theoretically when healthy, about twelve deep, that's important because it makes sure if the ball is being shared and it's moving that even if your minutes are limited, you feel like you're a part of what's happening when you're out there on the court.
So that's been really good defensively. There are still some limitations to this roster, and I think the addition to Jared Vanderbilt whenever he can get healthy in return should help that somewhat, but it's not going to completely fix the idea that you know, as great as Lebron James still is, this is probably not going to be a good transition defense team with him on it. They might not be as bad as they've been if they all buy into the roles of what they're supposed to do.
But you know, Lebron is in energy conservation mode and outside of the perfectly timed chased down block, and you'll see him do that, you know, about once a week. Still at this stage's career, he's not going to be getting back and forming a wall in the lane. So there will be some things that JJ will continue to
have to work with with this team. But you know, starting off ten and forward does a lot towards building confidence in what he's trying to instill and keeping the guy's attention as they move towards the latter part of this schedule.
Could Redick open up like a new pathway, I guess it wouldn't be new new because he played in the league and he did and he was a broadcaster for everybody simply never coached outside of his kid, right, like it's the fourth grade coaching whatever, We've seen some other situations in other sports. Our local soccer club had a player transition to coach right away.
But you know, there was a lot of noise.
About JJ getting that job without having.
Any coaching experience.
It's still early, but do you think this is something that maybe could be a break the mold type moment of how NBA coaches are typically higher, You know, I.
Think it will allow teams to look at it with more open mindedness. I do think JJ's pretty unique, and I also think that the Lakers did themselves a lot of favors by adding two guys who have been head coaches in the last couple of years in Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan, who have plenty of experience, and also has they have the respect from what that experience meant
from the guys on this roster. So I think it could happen, But I think you're gonna it's really come down to just how special the guy is, right, because you know, Steve Nash and Derek Fisher were pretty special players who got out of the game and then rather quickly became head coaches. And I probably would have bet that both of us would have been success stories, but they weren't. You know, really it's Jason Kidd and JJ Redick the guys recently that come to mind. There could
be another guy like that, you know, JJ Redick. You know, it's kind of if you want to see who the next guy is going to be, watch pregame and see who from the layup wine of the opposing team, JJ Redick goes in chats with. Those are the type of guys who gravitates towards So that's probably a good list to try to figure out who could be the next guy to do that. But I still think it's going to be more on the individual than just like a
rash of them that will be qualified. I think where we will see a change is more people like that getting interviewed because it's a copycat league, and more teams will want to find their JJ Reddick.
All right, So I haven't watched every Laker game.
They're on national TV a lot, so I'll tune in, you know, TNT or ESPN or whatever. But of course we're watching the jazz around here. And Dalton connect looked like Ray Allen circa you know, nineteen ninety five.
But he was doing it against the defense that.
Will Hardy with a great line after the game said, everyone knew he was gonna shoot except for a few people, and they happen to play for us. So look, it was it was Stan still Dave mcminnimon back in the day, buckets, because you could have made those threes, Dave, you could have I mean, he was wide open. But how how real is his addition? Does it make them a little bit more dangerous? Taking the jazz game kind of off the table because the defense was so pathetic?
I mean, the last three games as a starter after ruiy Hachemar dealt with an ankle injury, he's having like twenty six points on sixty two percent of the field, Like six from three is got a sustainable? Real thing? Absolutely not. But the guy plays with a ton of confidence. And the stakeholders in this team being JJ, Anthony Davis and Lebron, they have confidence back in him, and so
I don't think this is a mirage. He'll be a part of this team's success moving forward, and quite frankly, some of the moments he's already been thrust into make me think as the games become more consequential, whether we're talking.
Playing for five hundred thousand dollars in in NBA Cup title or playing in a you know game down the stretch that will factor into playoff seeding into the actual postseason.
I don't think the stage element too big of a moment is going to affect him the way it would with other rookies. To me, it will be as team scout him and figure him out a little bit more and put more of an emphasis on him. Will he be the next level thinker to be able to counter
what these NBA high level defenses are doing. And you know, quite frankly, when you talk about how the hell did this guy fall to number seventeen in the draft, some of the kind of murmurs around it is, you know, maybe his basketball IQ isn't quite where it could be. And so I think that will be the next stage of his development, seeing whether he can actually become a sustainable star.
With Lebron leaving social media, how do you plan on getting scoops?
So let me ask you this. If someone tweets that they're leaving social media and later on that day posts on their Instagram story, what does that mean?
It must mean that he's only leaving Twitter or ax.
Would be my guest because you're You're right, he was heading over to Instagram. And look, I'm rarely on Twitter anymore, and it's part of the gig. I sent out the work, you know, after the shows, and I send out links interviews, but I rarely just like tweet away I used to, So I'm not judging. I wonder, Dave, though, from your advantage point, does this have to do with how cruel people are to his son? And you know how kind
of this story has unfolded? And look, he's a six to one combo guard that doesn't appear at this point to have an NBA skill set. That's not a knock, that's an analysis, and that's the job. And I don't put any of this on Bronni. And look, I also don't feel bad for him. He's in the NBA making millions of dollars. But Lebron had to know that if this was how they were going to roll, that people were gonna come out of the woodwork and take some vicious shots.
And I've seen a lot of them.
Do you think that's kind of the issue with Lebron taking off from Twitter?
I could see that being part of it, you know, I do wonder, and I haven't had a chance to kind of talk to Lebron about so I'm just speculating, but I do wonder if the kind of the political season had something to do with it, the owner of X becoming a government and pointe on decide that he did not vote for, did not endorse. I'm sure that's part of it. I do think this is a evolving conversation I had with him over the years just about
the discussion around basketball. Why is it always about comparison? Why is it always about this guy doesn't do this well?
Why don't we celebrate the game more? And that was kind of part of the point that Rich Kleiman was making, the longtime friend and business partner of Kevin Durant, that these are some of the greatest players you're going to see today or in any era, and it seems to be the discourse around them, particularly on online, where it's a bunch of non to miss people who there's no consequences for for being negative and showing that side of them that have we just kind of lost our way
and like kind of that was part of the point of the JJ Reddick and Lebron James podcast. Mind the game was supposed to be let's embrace the minutia of the actual game of basketball and kind of get away from the discourse that it seems to delve into toxicity quite so often. So certainly, you know, I I gotta
live online, you know, for for my work. And I've seen, just by being someone who carries the news of what's going on with Lebron James, the same trolls that would attack Lebron well orbronni will latch onto me sometimes and it's not it's not a pretty place. But I also like, I take it with a grant assault that Lebron is actually off the social media.
Yeah, he'll he'll back, you know, he's taking a break, and that's fine. But I've got to say, Dave, that the crap you get is an ultimately it's the ultimate compliment if you can understand what they're saying, because the only thing I hear about you is you don't deserve to be married who you're married to, and that means you're winning.
That means you're winning, Dave. That means you're winning.
Yes, I'll take that, but that's fine. Yeah, and I agree with it. So it's all good.
How many names, uh, you know, I kept walking out to the mailbox when I heard the news, and I'd open the mailbox, and then I'd go to work and I'd interview you and it's like, hey, maybe we're friends.
He's in town for the All Star breaks. Say what up?
Do a live hit hangout? And you know, was I close to making the cut? That's all I want to know.
I could just say this that Lebron did ask where his invite was. Okay, so you're in good company when it comes to that.
I feel better. I feel better day.
It's a tough thing, but it was a wonderful day, great thing to look back at.
Very happy for you.
Hey, before I set you loose, we are doing this thing around here where the fact of the matter is the front office told the fans last offseason big game hunting, and there are rumors that they wanted to sign Paul George and trade.
For mckel bridges.
I'm like, yeah, okay, right, so do I you know, Like, okay, I don't know that any of that was real. But every time they're front facing with the public via the media, they talk about wanting to add good players as soon as they can. And with this era of the Second Apron with this era of teams that have a lot
of talent, they can't afford them moving talent on. One thing you can latch onto is the Jazz are in a position to capitalize with cap space and draft picks if a team decides to shed a really good player. It's only fifteen sixteen games, but any candidates you think prior to the trade deadline of good teams with a high budget, they want to get out from under some money.
Oh, I mean, I wouldn't go back to kind of where we started with this conversation with the Dad, I do think it's in their best interests for lack of a better term and bottom out this year. Agreed how attractive that the draft could be. But I think there's any number of guys from Brandon Ingram to Jeremy Grant to even you know, someone like Terram Young. I'm not convinced that he'll be in Atlanta long term, just because they're floundering around five hundred still and he's a defensive liability.
Like there will be names that I'm sure will be moved, maybe even Zach Lavine, maybe Jimmy Butler, like and you know Jimmy Butler. Okay, there's a relationship between Wade. You know, you could maybe make that makes sense in the jazz structure. I'm just not so sure. Again, they would be best served doing that this year.
I agree, Dave. Thanks for the time, man, great to have you back on the Shoe Show. Have a great weekend with Chattoon.
Okay, thanks Bess, all right. Great.
Dave McManaman covers the NBA for ESPN. You can get him on Twitter at mc ten is where you find him. Yeah, he married Millie Andrews this summer looked like a lovely event. We could never like talk about that on air. I heard they were dating like three years ago. I'm like, oh, dude, we should talk with me. He's like, no, no, don't want anybody to know. So that was the wedding I was talking about. And if you search Dave mcminnimon on Google, the first result is Malik Andrew's husband.
So our guy just gets cracked on. But he's a good dude.
Man.
Appreciate Dave's time today.
On this Thursday afternoon, Jazz are in action tonight they're taking on San Antonio. I do not think we will see Victor woman Yama, So I guess you could watch Chris Paul against Patty Mills.
I don't know.