Welcome back the drivetime on ESPN seven hundred order Larcen Tony Parks filling in for Spence check Its on the drive, of course, recapping the Super Bowl championship for the Philadelphia
Eagles hometown Britton Covey now a Super Bowl champ. We'll get to all of that as the show goes along a bunch of NFL guests to close out the afternoon, Omar Ruiz of the NFL Network, Robert Johnson, the former NFL safety and ute, and then Stevenson Sylvester of course, the former Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker played in a Super Bowl himself and now covering the utes and joining the station regularly. But now we're talking oops with Tom Haberstrow, the NBA
daily assist Weekly with our guy, Tom Haberstrow. Tom, how's your weekend, my friend? Crazy?
Another crazy weekend in the NBA. Maybe you know last weekend was even crazier. Of course, Luca Doncha's trade. But the fact of the matter is, you know this next rescinded trade. Mark Williams. I was on the air once again with the Blazers broadcast when that news broke. It is a never a dull moment. Do I dare say Porter that the NBA stole the stage during Super Bowl Week from the NFL after the NFL tried to take that corner on Christmas Day.
Well, I was gonna I was gonna ask you, what is the what does the need to look like on a on a Super Bowl Sunday for a guy who I know is very hoop centric. I know I'm a football guy, so for me, I'll be honest with you. I didn't even there was no NBA anything on Sunday, But it look like for Tom Haberstraw on a Super Bowl Sunday, is it it's still all hoops? Are you a watching? Is it in the background? It is?
Uh.
Luckily for the NBA, they had the matinee game, so there were three games on the NBA schedule, but they're all programmed to get over and done with before the festivities begin over there in New Orleans, and so they typically do this where they all have like one or
two games on Super Bowl Sunday. I had written my Tom's title Tears, which I do every Monday at Tomdefinder dot Com on my sub stack, where I will rank into tears the title contenders and usually that goes out Monday morning, but because it was Super Bowl Sunday, I was like, you know, I'm going to get it out early. So I stayed up late Saturday night, early into into
Sunday morning writing that piece. And so once that piece got out to my subscribers on Sunday morning, I kind of put the NBA to bed and it was full, you know, with my kids. My wife went over to her friend's house and watched the Super Bowl, and my friend is a big Eagles fan, so that was a
lot of fun. But it really was interesting how at the topic of conversation at the Super Bowl party, a lot of it was about Luca and and the and the Lakers and the potential move to Vegas, all this stuff that we talked about on Basketball Luminadi Life Week. We had the guy that the Dallas attorney who concocted the theory that this Luka Doncic trade was not about
basketball reasons. This was all about the Adolesen family from Vegas that buys the team in Dallas wants to build leverage with the Texas legislature to push through resort casinos and sports gambling. That's why they traded Luka Doncic in this guy's opinion, and all of this has kind of
taken a life of its own. This idea that Luka Doncic was traded as part of this larger scheme to tank the MAVs franchise and build leverage to get the Texas legislature to cave and allow sports gambling and resort casinos. We heard from Patrick Dumont, who's the governor there for the governor of the the Dallas Mavericks, who pooh poohed the idea that no, we are here to stay in Dallas. But of course Porter, that's what Clay Bennett said about Seattle before he picked up and moved the team to
Oklahoma City, his backyard where his businesses were. So until Porter, until that Las Vegas expansion team is awarded by the NBA. I think this whole Mavericks Luca trade will still be in the shadows, just existing, because otherwise, ma'am, it really doesn't make much sense from a basketball perspective, especially hindsight
twenty twenty. But now that we learn that Anthony Davis is out for the foreseeable future, according to Mark Stein, indefinitely, potentially a season ending injury, it just adds more way to the idea that this was a really, really bad gamble by the Dallas Mavericks to trade Luca for Anthony Davis.
You mentioned obviously that the Anthony Davis going down maybe indefinitely part that doesn't help the case for the Dallas Mavericks, especially when you're talking long term right there, play is this is our long term future. They didn't they didn't want to invest in Luca in that way. Well, if your long term future is on this guy, and Anthony Davis, who we know is prone to not being on the floor for large parts of the year outside of last year really was the first year he played seventy plus
games in the last half decade plus. And then Kyrie Irving, who again, whether it's off the floor or on the floor, stuff we know is outside of the last calendar year sometimes not as reliable. So for you, from my standpoint, I agree, it's it's hard to find much sense there. You saw Mark Cuban come out and say that like he is obviously not as part of the basketball operation stuff.
There are conspiracies everywhere, Tom, I wonder, I wonder personally why we're not hearing maybe more on the basketball side, from Jason Kidd, from the the Mavericks. Maybe the only thing I can think of, Tom, is that there is something that they know about Luca basketball wise or medical wise, that maybe they made a deal with the Lakers not to open this up to the market, make the deal happen, and there's something behind the scenes that is was the
reason you got this deal across the finish line. Because like you, I just I don't find any reason on the basketball side for it. Where where have you landed on the on the conspiracy needle or do we still have a lot to learn.
I'm not convinced by the basketball reasons. I just can't believe they not only traded Luca, but for fifty cents on the dollar. The Lakers did not put in multiple first round picks, the twenty nine or the thirty one. They put in the twenty nine, but not the thirty one, and then that one went to the Charlotte Hornets, which has now been nixed. So the Lakers do get that back, and the twenty eight swap that they had traded originally
for Mark Williams now is backing their coffers. But the idea is like the Mavericks could have extracted way more value for Luka Doncich than they did, and it begs the question why didn't they? How is it possible that they were the ones who called the Lakers wanting so badly to trade Lucadntich for Anthony Davis that they were willing to not even get extra picks in the deal or Dalton connect in the deal, and they were willing to settle for what I said on this program last week,
the B minus package from the Los Angeles Lakers. Look, Dallas fans are holding on to the fact or at least they did that Anthony Davis the last two years has been healthier than Luka Doncis. But that seems to me like arbitrary endpoints, Like if we look at the scope, the larger scope of Anthony Davis, he's had six times in his NBA career in which he has had a severe enough injury that it has knocked him out for
at least ten consecutive games. Luca Doncis and it was this year that's it one on his ledger in seven seasons he's had won In the last seven seasons, Anthony Davis has had six and potentially now seven with this new adductor injury that could be knocking him out for the rest of the season. This idea that Luca was more of an injury risk based on what we know, based on his his injury history, and he's chubby, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, it's asinine. It's asinine. The fact of the matter is Anthony Davis last seven seasons, basically overlapping with Luka Doncicic's career, has played in seventy two percent of his games and Lucas Dontich has played in eighty percent of his games. So Anthony Davis has been more reliability from a physical standpoint, Even forgetting the whole
he's older, He's five years older than Luka Doncic. Then when you throw in the fact that he's five years older than Luka Doncic and the fact that he's a guy that is going to be dependent on defensively a lot more than Luka Danvich's and so there's just gonna be a lot more on his shoulders going forward. It seems to me like this was not totally about basketball reasons. There's got to be something else. And Patrick Dumont has thrown cold water on the idea that this is a
larger scheme to move the team to Las Vegas. But until there's a team in Las Vegas, I just don't think that that theory is going to die.
Yeah, well, here at MRI, we haven't seen like that's what I'm wondering. I don't know.
Every time this came up, I just kept thinking, Yeah, there's something I'm missing here, Like, there's really something I'm missing here. So we'll see what happens going forward. As far as what happens with the Lakers, they played the Jazz coming up tonight. Going forward, how do you see this changing your view on how you rank them big picture, whether it be pre tender like contender contender, and when this is all said and done, where they fit.
It's a great question. I love the fit between Lebron and and Luca. I think they will both benefit in the same way that Kyrie Irving kind of took some of the should the weight off of Luca Donci's shoulders. I think Lebron can do the same thing for Luca, and Lucan can do the same thing for Lebron. There's such elite passers, they're so gifted in terms of how they get their shots. Lebron and Luca you can put them on any place on the chessboard and they will
be effective. Lebron could be a screen or Luca can be a screener. Lebron is six 's eight two eighty. Same thing with Luca Doncis. He's huge. He can play multiple positions, not just the point guard, but he could probably play the five in certain situations, just like Lebron. And they might need to because now that the Mark Williams trade has been rescented and Mark Williams is not a great defender. He's one of the worst defenders at the position in the NBA. I wrote about this for
Yahoo and at Tom deefiner dot com. Is he's he They might have dodged a bull here in the sense that like it might be a blessing in disguise that that trade got nicked because he is not a good defender.
If you look at Anthony Davis had forty and twenty against Mark Williams in the Charlotte Hornets a couple of weeks ago, Niko Levushovich, Daniel Gafford, Evan Mobley all season highs against Mark Williams so the idea that Mark Williams was going to be there kind of Grek Lively or there Walker Kessler, a guy who can protect the rim and be an anchor for them at the five, it
was a pipe dream. He has never been that in the NBA and he's only played forty percent of his NBA games, So from a health standpoint and from a defensive liability standpoint, not a great fit. But you know what, they don't really have much of an alternatives because on the roster they have Jackson Hayes and that's about it. They have some two way guys and Christian Wood who's been out with a knee issue all season long and doesn't seem to be any closer to return. So it's
Jackson Hayes and Lebron James. Those are your like centers on the team. And so Jackson Hayes, interestingly enough, was
the guy that went to dinner. According to Dave McManaman of ESPN, he had a great story of great report today on ESPN dot com talking about how Jackson Hayes interestingly is becoming a focal point of this Lakers team, not just because he's like the only living and breathing center on the roster, but also he's a guy that is represented by Bill Daffy, who is Luka Doncis's agents,
And so they all went to dinner. The three of them went to dinner, and apparently, according to Davic Menamon Lebron, James is not the biggest Jackson Hayes fan and had questions about whether he could be the anchor of a playoff contender, a title contender as the starting center for the Lakers. And this is kind of this interesting dynamic where the Lakers right now are leaning on Jackson Hayes to be their defensive anchor and lob threat, which he
can really do. But defense, I'm not so sure that's his strength. And so I in all of this context, I still have them as a two star contender on my tom title tiers. I don't have them as a three star, four star, five star. The only five star title contenders I have in my book are the Oklahoma City Funder, Boston Celtics, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Lakers are far beyond that. I don't think that they're close.
And this Mark Williams trade, the upside of him figuring out defense, I think it was worth a swing like the upside. It's a high risk, high reward move for
the Lakers to try to get Mark Williams. But the alternative after the trade deadline, they can't go and make a trade until the end of the season, until the summer, and so I think the Lakers They're gonna have a lot of fun offensively, but defensively it could be a disaster unless Jackson Hayes becomes this all world defender, which I'm not betting on it, but you know what, I wasn't gonna bet on Mark Williams be in that too.
You mentioned obviously that the center is kind of what they have to figure out long term. What does it look like tonight, because although as of this instant, Tom Lebron James is listed as days day and Luca Doncics has now been upgraded to probable, folks on the ground are telling the station that there are Lucas shirts draped over all of the seats in the arena, So I think he's gonna play. I think you're gonna see both Lebron and Luca tonight. What does it look like on
the floor for the first time. Does it takes some time to gel or as you mentioned, with these two guys being so interchangeable, the passers the shooters that they are, is it something that you think should be pretty seamless.
Well, is Dalton Connect playing? Question?
What's the rules there? Is he technically weird?
You know? I saw Dalton Connect on Friday in Charlotte outside the Charlotte locker room walking into the Charlotte locker room because he was the newest member of Charlotte Hornets. How was that shoot around the Spurs? Victor Rebana was in town and you know, there's Dalton Connect. I was like, oh, yes, he just came over. The trade deadline was, you know, less than twenty four hours ago, and I was like, oh,
he's already here, he's ready to play. And if he had played in that Friday night game, I think league rules would say you can't rescind a trade if the player is already playing.
So it's it's a very fascinating little subplot, is you know, if if they it's somehow cleared enough to allow Connect to play, this would all be moved.
But of course Jackson Hayes's likely starter for them going forward. They have no real depth there, So what's really concerning from a minute standpoint is Lebron James will probably have to play some at the five. He doesn't want to do that if they Davis didn't want to play at the five because it was so grueling and it beat him up, so which.
Was ridiculous to me, by the way. That's the one.
That's the point when it comes to that twenty twenty run where they had a starting five next to him. But Anthony Davis is not a good three point shooter, not a good spacer at the four. So when I'm looking at the Lakers, I think they're gonna have to basically make sure that Lebron and Luca are happy that they find some sort of synergy there. I don't think
it will take long. But in terms of beating the Thunder, beating the Grizzlies, beating the Houston Rockets, it's gonna be really hard to do that with Jackson Hayes as your starting center. If he gets in any sort of foul trouble, which I'm sure the Utah Jazz were a great foul drawing team. They get to the free throw line, a ton Isaiah Collier is gonna be going right at this dude every time he gets an opportunity because they're so thin at the center position that that is what teams
are gonna be doing. They're gonna be hunting Jackson Hayes and trying to get the Lakers to go to their bench because they are remarkably thin and the and the buyout market is not going to be strong. It turns out that Alex Lynn, who is weighed by the Sacramento Kings, to facilitate some of these trades, he's going to the Indiana Pacers. And so you're looking at like Daniel Tice, You're looking at some random dudes around the league that you know have been just sitting on the waiver wire.
Do the Lakers try to to, you know, in a flyer on some of these guys, or do they just say, look, it's not worth it this season to spend the kind of money or wasting a roster spot they have to waive someone in order to add another center. It might be a situation where they look at this and say, let's just wait till this summer rather than giving up any sort of financial or roster assets to make this happen. Let's just roll the dice here, see where it gets us.
But of course, that's another year of Lebron James not competing at the highest levels. And of course, you know he could be a free agent, and Luka Dancisch is a free agent in twenty twenty six, So the Lakers are on the clock right now, all right.
So by no means am I picking DeAndre Hunter to someday be a captain for the NBA All Star Weekend. However, that move with him going to Cleveland with Donovan Mitchell and company, I did like this in terms of what they're trying to do to get as many of those final pieces needed to become a championship team. How much of this kind of changed your trajectory of what you think can be in that battle, because we all know trying to top the Celtics in the postseason is no easy task.
You know what's interesting is the Atlanta Hawks traded a couple of starters, bog Don Bogdanovic at leasing core members Bogdan Bogdanovic and DeAndre Hunter. They lose Jalen Johnson for the season and they don't have their pick this year. So Utah is looking at this like, man, we're in the Cooper Flag sweepstakes. The Atlanta Hawks traded two of their better players, if not their best players. You know
in this deal that we're remaining on the team. Trey Young is a question mark going forward, Accordey to Chris Haynes that his future in Atlanta is murky. And DeAndre Hunters good man, he's really good and he's a guy. He's shooting thirty nine percent from three. He's excellent on Dho's handoffs. He's the number one most efficient scorer off of the handoffs in the NBA. The only one who's close is Darius Garland of the Cleveland Cavaliers. So they
already use that action a ton. He can space at the four, potentially even at the five in Spurts.
They don't need it.
They've got Jared Allen and Evan Mobley at the five position. What they need is a guy, a big wing who can shoot and be a really strong defender next to Jason Tatum, you know, guarding him in the playoffs. And Isaac Carro, George Niang, these guys are not big enough Max Druce to reliably guard Jason Tatum as much as they would need to in a playoff series. But now DeAndre Hunter, he's an above average defender, he's big, he's strong.
I think this is a really sneaky, underrated move at the deadline with the Luka Doncrich trade, with the Darren Fox trade, I think this deal with DeAndre Hunter is not going to get much play right now, but I wrote about it on Tomdefinder dot com how much I love this deal for them because if those Celtics go small quote unquote with Christaps Zingis at the five five out system, the Cleveland Cavaliers had a tough time matching up because of that three, that big wing they did
not have. And if they want to go Jared Allen at the five and DeAndre Hunter at the four, where Evan Mobley at the five and DeAndre Hunter at the four, that's really interesting. Now. Before that was kind of a blind spot, but now they're doing much better on paper with the talent they have. I think the Cleveland Cavaliers
should be considered co favorites in the East. I think they're that good and Kenny Atkinson is We're that well coached, or that team is well coached with Kenny Atkinson that I think the Cleveland Cavaliers have a great chance of coming out of the East now even better chance now that they got DeAndre Hunter.
Before we set you loose, I'll let you get going here here shortly, Tom zoom out on that last answer. You just gave a little bit post trade deadline now that rosters are outside of maybe a buyout or two, which we've always discussed on the show, usually amounts to very minimal as far as is moving the needle for a tea team on the roster. There are some buyouts that you know, proved to be rotational guys in the postseason,
but by and large, these rosters are set. Give me a list of teams from the East from the West that you think has a plausible chance of winning a name NBA championship and if anything at the trade deadline change those opinions.
Yeah, So for me, it's OK, see over Cleveland in the finals. That's what I have right now. Cleveland's just humming. They're young, They've got guys who were playoff tested last year, learned a lot, got a new head coach. Boston just looks like they are in a malaise, like they look like they're bored. Maybe this is just the dog days of the schedule that they just can't wait for the playoffs to come around. I think it's not just those two out of the East that have a chance at
getting to them a finals. I think it's a three team race. I think it's it's not Indiana, it's New York. I think it's three teams coming out of the East that have a real chance at winning the East and meeting Oklahoma City in the finals. But on paper, I don't think anyone's gonna have a chance at this Thunder team. Okay, they were so good without chet Holmgren. They are forty
one and nine without them, they get them back. They're forty two and nine right now, and they have basically one of the best point differentials in NBA history, and most of the season they didn't have their second best player in chet Holmgren. I just think the Thunder are running away with the season. I think they are so good and they're about to get way better with chet Holmgren, who's one of the best young players in the NBA
and fits perfectly next to Isaiah Hartenstein. I think the Thunder are the team to beat, And if I could put them, you know, on a six star tier, I would. That's how much I really believe in the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Wow, So what happened even just between now and last year. Obviously, you know they've drafted well and they have a lot to still draft as far as assets go. But what changed even between now and last year? Where Nicola jokicch Lebron James with with Luca on a roster, you still have some of the best players on the planet in the Western Conference where you think they are out front the.
Favorite well, First of all, Isaia Hertenstein is one of the best two way bigs in the NBA. He's a guy who is an amazing passer rebounder, like kind of a demonis sa bonus hub where he's just he's a great passer, energy guy. The Knicks just hated to lose him in the offseason. That's a great addition. Secondly, you know young this team is. They're one of the youngest teams in the league. They're the fourth youngest, the Jazz of the third youngest team by minutes played minutes weighted
average age. They're just a hair younger than the Oklahoma City Thunder. They're getting better. Their team, their players are on that curve where they're developing and getting better year over year, So every year they're just gonna get better. Jalen Williams took the made the leap shake, Gildris Alexander made the leap from a from a playmaking and from a scoring perspective, got even better. Chet Holmgren is even better in the ten games that he are eleven games
that he's played is better. I think they are not only just personnel wise better with Isaiah Hartenstein. Internally, those young guys have gotten much more improved, and so with every game they're getting better and better. And I just think the sky's the limit for that team.
Yeah, it's it's fun to watch, and that's what the Jazz now have to contend with, regardless of how well Danny Ainge and co. Navigate these next few years in the NBA Draft and the like, You're gonna you're gonna be looking at okay see for quite a while. Tom, Let the folks know where they can find you, what they can find and and where to go at the moment for Tom the Finder and your.
Other work, Yeah, Yahoo Sports national writer for them at Yahoo is where I do most of my nationally writing. In addition to Timdefinder dot Com, I'm the basketball analytics insider for the Point and Trail Blazers on their broadcast. And we have a game tonight against the Nicoli Yokitch ten Ver Nuggets at nine pm Eastern. So this is not only that Basketball Illuminati Every Wednesday you're gonna want
to check out. This week, we have David Purdam of ESPN dot com, the sports betting and reporter for ESPN. We have questions for him about Terry Rozier and that potential scandal and the allegations there. And then of course this Mavericks trade and the Adolesen family and the potential for them to move to Vegas. We asked them about that too, So that'll come out on Wednesday. Basketball Illuminati, Basketball Illuminati, Basketball Basketball Illuminati. I say three times, keep
your third eye open. Thanks so much guys for having me on. I love it.
Tom appreciate it. Man at Tom haberstro of course, Tomdefinder dot com. Of course we're talking about the much anticipated debut of kJ Martin.
Yeah, well, I tweeted out yesterday. I mean, if that news about the game being moved to ESPN doesn't, oh yeah, it's a dead givel. Come on, I mean, that's confirmation, no, and I love it just having some fun obviously ignoring the Luca debut and all of that. I think it's interesting. I like the way he broke down the Lakers. You know, in the contention, the right there, but there's still some things you've got to get sorted out. They are not
a finished product. And then his breakdown obviously the Cavaliers. I think that's an eye opening one. I think it's unique with Cleveland now changing at this time of the year, but now having more of what they needed to be a better contender against Boston.
I like that he, as you mentioned, brings up that on the margins is where you a lot of times win titles. You go back to the Celtics title and some of the signings they made in the off season, bringing in Drew Holliday, right, the little things that they did, although I think that's a much bigger deal Drew Holiday
than many people maybe made it to be. That's how you win a title, and you make those little moves incrementally you build up to as the Calves are now the number one team in the East, I think there's I think the East is going to be a lot more interesting than just those three. Tom is pretty confident with the Knicks, the Celtics and the Calves. I think I think the East is going to be absolute chaos in twenty twenty five, but we shall see switching gears
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