It's @HowardBeck talking NBA Draft Lottery, Jazz No. 5 pick, playoffs round 2 + more

me to. But the fact is people will believed what they want to believe. But let's make it very very clear. There is no proof that anybody has. There's no reason to believe this other than suspicion. Than suspicion alone, as you have just noted alluding to some other events of the recent past, including an election, you don't have to prove anything. You can just say it with stolen an election was stolen and believe it, and you don't need

any proof. So if people want to say that the lottery was fixed and they have no proof, and they have nothing but their suspicion, I can't do anything about it. All I can tell you is I've been in the

lottery room twice. I was not this year, but I've been in there for this exact version of the lottery, this procedure where there are all the balls that go in the machine, and there's a thousand combinations or a thousand and one combinations, and there's a guy in the back of the room with his back turned who every I think thirty seconds puts his hand up and that is the signal to the person running the machine to

then hit the button that sucks up one of the balls. Like, there's no way to fix this thing, and if there were, it would be a fraudulence of epic proportions. It would involved probably multiple felonies. And everybody who works for the NBA and for Ernst and Young Global accounting and finance firm, they would be implicated in this. All these people are putting their careers and their lives on the line so that Cooper Flag can go to Dallas. Come on, people like,

grow up, get a grip. This is stupid and the amount of ink and time that has been spilled and spent on it this week is and just foolish. It's wasted. And I'll just close with a couple other quick thoughts on this. When people think it is fixed, is it fixed by the NBA itself the league office, in which case it's a fraud perpetrated on the thirty owners, the same people who employ Adam Silver, who hire and could fire Adam Silver. If the owners on themselves are in

on it, why would they be in on it? Why do the other owners want to reward the idiocy that happened in Dallas this year where they gave away their franchise star. Why do the Memphis Grizzlies and Indianapolis Indiana Pacers and everybody else, why do they want to participate in this? Why are they participating in a fraudulence in felonies to help the Dallas Mavericks get a player who, by the way, by all accounts, is going to be

very very good. But according to scouts I've talked to, they're not absolutely certain he's going to be a superstar. So none of this makes a lick of sense, suspence.

twenty nine to one in favor of doing so. The one dissenting vote was Sam Presty and Oklahoma City, whose point was the best way for cities like Oklahoma City to acquire talent is via the draft.

were most likely to land four or five. Okay, so forty seven percent chants at five fourteen percent chants at one for all the hand ringing and you know, pearl clutching, the Jazz actually landed where they were most likely to land. But is this the best way to do this, Howard in your opinion?

is unfair. You should not be able to game the system, even though the worst record still only got to a twenty five percent chance at the number one pick. People didn't like the idea that it incentivized losing, that it perverted the entire enterprise because if you weren't a good team, then it was too alluring to just be really really

bad for the possibility of getting a great pick. And so that was the consensus opinion out they're ten years ago, and in the wake of this week's lottery, I feel like everybody has flipped around to, well, this system's unfair and the teams that needed the most help aren't getting it. Well, okay, but yeah, this is the problem when you go to a strictly reverse order draft draft. If you had no lottery,

then there's ultimate incentive the tank. So you bring in a lottery, and the first lottery was you know, however, many teams in the in the hopper with an equal chance. But that wasn't the best system as far as the

NBA was concerned. And if we went back to that, then you would have a different trigger point where teams would be opting out of the playoffs and the play in saying, well, if I've got as good a chance as the worst team in the league of getting the number one pick, I'm better off being the sixteenth best team in the league rather than the fourteenth best team like I or excuse me, the fourteenth best and wow, whatever it is. You see my point. I'd be better

off out of the playoffs than in the playoffs. You don't want that either, So it's a quandary and I am not. I don't have any strong beliefs on what is the quote unquote right system Spence, I don't know that there is a right system. I'm not particularly upset about anything that's happened in this lottery or the last several but I have no rooting interest, so it's easy for me to say there are competing objectives here clearly,

and it is a difficult thing to manage. But I would say to the extent that the league is trying to discourage tanking, and yes, tanking still happens, including in your city. The fact is, when teams keep falling out of the top three, as it's happened a lot since the lottery odds were changed, that is the distancentive the tank, or it should be. If teams don't change their behavior and still say, you know what, I don't care, let's just go for the fourteen percent chance. We'll take our chances.

It's still better than only having a ten percent or eight percent chance. Maybe teams will keep doing that in perpetuity, but I think the collected results of the last several years should suggest to teams, don't do this. It's probably not going to pay off. You're better off just trying to be respectable.

all year long. But you know, the message that Adam Silver and the league sen in twenty nineteen is if you don't approach this with integrity to put your best foot forward and compete, we don't believe you should be rewarded. And a bunch of articles making the rounds this week that people in the league were actually glad the Jazz and the Wizards did not get the number one overall pick and therefore be rewarded for their unseerious approach about competing.

So do you think we see something different from pretty much everybody, like, at the very least, don't make up injuries for lowry marketing. And when you get fined, don't then have Walker Kessler shoot eight threes a night, Like, maybe put your best foot forward and try to compete. You think we'll actually see that.

worst thing. But still, in the very first year of the new odds, the team of the worst record did not get the top pick. They fell to three, and I think Cleveland might have been one of the bottom three and they fell back, and you know, and New Orleans jumped up from like tenth or ninth or whatever that year. So right off the bat, there was an indication that, ooh, you know what, this is a risky gambit for teams that are just trying to lose in

order to gain the system. You can't game the system, and that again, that should be enough to discourage tanking. But here we are six years later. Whatever it's been, and it's it, it hasn't changed behavior. The Jazz and the Wizards are proof of that. And you know, the Sixers did a different version of this where they were supposed to be a great team. They you know, fell apart and they decided to lean into tanking because they

owed a top six protected pick to Oklahoma. And so even though they weren't tanking it at the same level or for the same purpose, they were tanking to protect the draft pick because they wanted to keep it. And they succeeded, and they even moved up. And you can say, well that rewarded them. Well, okay, that's a lottery. That's the thing. Like you know, at some point the you know, the odds don't go according to the odds. That's not the way it works. It's a hopper, it's a bunch

of ping pong balls. They're bouncing around. We don't know what's going to happen. There is just luck involved here, including bad luck if you're the Jazz or the Wizards. So I think it should discourage tanking. It hasn't. I don't know what will change that. I don't know where the league goes from here.

right now. And you know, I don't know what this means for Cleveland, but it's more of a compliment to Indiana for just the way they fought.

else and Rick Carlisle. I think people thought they were a fluke when they got to the conference finals last year because they, you know, got through some some injured teams in a week east And this time, I don't think you can knock this at all, like this is an accomplishment. This is now a team that's been in

back to back conference finals. Halliburton's for real, his his you know, his overall game like it's it's it's just so interesting because he's he doesn't project as the prototypical NBA superstar, right and he's never really been in the running for m VP. I think he's gonna make third team All NBA this year, that's my best guess, but we don't know yet. We'll find out, I think probably next week. But you know, he hasn't put up monster numbers every night he does lead the league an assist

or is always near the lead and assists. He's just a guy who's got an incredible amount of tracker and confidence about him. I think that that helps lift up the rest of his team. And you know, his his running mate. You know, the two stars. Halibert and Siakam are two guys that I think everybody would like and go, yeah, really great players, but they don't have a honest, they don't have a Luca, they don't have a lebron orous

Steph in their prime. But they they just they beat you up a little bit defensively, like they really get after it for a team that wasn't known for their defense, like Meee Smith and Nemhard really get after you. Turner's obviously a great shot blocker, and they really locked down in the playoffs. And then on offense, the pace is really high, they shoot threes at a high rate. They're they're just it's they're the classic ensemble where there is

no one who leaps off the page. But collectively they're just really really good. And they have now you know, they've sent the Calves home and sent the Calves into an offseason where they've got a lot to think about.

Indie Indian Pacers. As you know, you know, Howard, I've been talking about this because before Game five, I made it a point to record the coaches, Missoula and Thibodeau to see what they had to say before the game,

and Missoula said something that really caught my attention. He said, we're gutted about what happened with JT Jason Tatum, obviously, but it opens up a schematic opportunity for us, and I went, oh, okay, interesting, And then watching the game, essentially what that meant is Tatum, for all of his brilliance, and I love Jason Tatum. He's a bit of a ball stopper, and he's like the only one kind of

on that roster that is. And so the ball was moving, I don't know who the hell Luke Cornett thinks he is, but my goodness, poor Zingis is not ready for this.

losing my hearings for other purposes. It's been a really interesting series, to say the least, and the Celtics, you know, if they lose this thing, there's going to be an off season of just serious naval gazing, and not just because they lost Jason Tatum for the foreseeable future and

probably all of next season. It's also just that they kept blowing twenty point leads, and they're clearly the team with the better array of talent and with the championship experience, and they should have never found themselves in this position. Is certainly one way of looking at this. But all credit to the Knicks for being the team that's always steadier, grittier in fourth quarters, Jalen Brunson in particular. And here we are, it's three to two, Nick's home game, second

chance for them to close it out. They absolutely should given everything that we know, including the fact that Jason Tatum is not playing, including the fact that porzingis apparently still having issues with whatever the viral infection or whatever he had was. They said he didn't he wasn't breathing well the other night, like they could have used him in a emergency in the second half, but they decided

not to. I don't know if you're getting another seven block Luke Cornett game, but the Celtics, I will say this, and it's the one reason why I think that this is going to be a true battle tonight. I don't know who will win. But you know, Jalen Brown was the Finals MVP and the Conference Finals MVP last year for a reason. Maybe he's not quite at Tatum's level, but he's just a slight bit below, but he's really

capable of doing a lot. And sometimes it simplifies things for NBA teams when you lose your star, it's, you know, everybody, you know kind of rallies around if you've still got a star, which they do in Brown. Now it's clear we've got to ride this guy. And then if that guy in Jalen Brown's case, you know, remembers their best principles of basketball, which is like, I've got a lot to carry, but I can't do it alone. I got to make sure to leverage my teammates. I got to

move the ball around. I've got to you know, draw to to the ball and pass. You know, this is the simple basic basketball principles, right, And you've got guys like Derek White and Drew Holliday who have been and Al Horford who have all been there and done that, and Peyton Pritchard who was six Man of the Year, like you have plenty of talent. Still, Like I actually think this is not a knock on the Knicks, but without Tatum. I don't think there's some massive talent gap

between these two teams. Because Jalen Brown's that good, and because Karl Anthony tw is that unreliable, and because the Celtics have a bunch of guys who, if they haven't been you know, all stars are least like right there a cut below it, Like Drew Holliday could have been. He's been an All Star I think once he could have been multiple times. Derek White could have been multiple times. They have that kind of talent, but they've played roles because that's what they needed to do and that's how

they're built. So I think the Celtics have a real chance to win this and send it back to Boston for a Game seven. I think what I would expect is the Knicks to close it out. But in this postseason, I'm through trying to figure out anything.

talent was always there. And like Julius Randall, you know this as a Knicks fan, Like he's a very frustrating player at times like high highs and low lows, and he can be a ball stopper. By the time we got to the end of part of the season, it seemed like he had really found his place with them not forcing it, and certainly in the playoffs, Like Julius,

Randall's been fantastic for them. And so you know, we already knew they had great wing defenders McDaniels and Nick Kayle, Alexander Walker and Anthony Edwards himself can be a you know, great defender on the perimeter. Like they had all the requisite stuff. I think we just weren't sure what to make of them after swapping Towns for Randall and Evincenzo, and because they had a rough start, they did beat

a more than wounded Warriors team. Like you know, there are a lot of teams would have beat the Warriors without Steph. The Rockets would have beaten the Warriors without Steph. So you know, you don't place a ton on that, but Minnesota earned their way here, just as I was saying with Indiana and and again Minnesota was in the conference finals a year ago, and that they're doing it now with a different core, you know, I mean, same

basic group, but you know those were significant changes. Is a real testament to them and to their coach Chris Finch. And whoever they get Oklahoma or Denver will find out after that game seven. You know, Minnesota iss gonna give him a tough time. It's like the conference finals in the West. I would be shocked if it were any fewer than six games, and it's not gonna surprise me if it goes seven, no matter who they draw.

be thunder Celtics. Then, of course you never know, injuries happen, and I give Denver a lot of credit for showing some championship medal. I thought Russell Westbrook was trying to point shave last night when he came in. I mean, Denver overcomes what appeared to be just a intentional sabotaging of that game and the game seven it's in Oklahoma City.

I will not right off a team with Nicola Jokicic, but I wonder what you make of what we've seen so far and your thoughts on an exciting game seven comes Sunday.

such a massive letdown if they don't get there. And the Nuggets have been written off I don't know how many times in the last couple of years since they won the championship, and they've they've lost players, they fired their coach, they fired their GM and yet here they are in the verge of the conference finals and we've got the two MVP candidate's going against each other, still waiting for that announcement from the NBA. It's gonna be awesome.

The game is gonna be awesome. The th underneath Jalen Williams, you know, the the guard Jason Williams or the guard forward Jason Williams, not the taller one. They need him to come through. He's obviously had a bit of a shaky series. On the Nuggets side of it, you know, there's the roller coaster that is Russell Westbrook because you just never know he can shoot you in and shoot you out of a game. And their rotations not particularly deep. Julian Strawther a great game last night, but can he

repeat it? That's that's you know, they may need it. And there's one thing to flag. There's one other thing to flag on the Nugget's side, which is that late in the game, there was a point where it looked like Aaron Gordon might have pulled his hamstring and was he was, he was rubbing it, went out, came you know, went to the bench, came back in finished the game. But I'm just putting a little flag there because I don't I don't know what that might mean. Right, we

haven't heard anything. I'm not saying, you know, he he's not gonna playsund or anything. I'm just that kind of thing is concerning this deep in a playoff series, because if he's at all limited or for some reason, if it's if it if it's really a pull and he can't play, obviously, like the Nuggets have no room for error, they have no depths. But Game seven should be just be incredible.

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