Next on the drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your NBA Daily assists.
Van McMahon, Van McMahon, that is duding old Land, Texas flood as it gets mud. He's man, Van McMahon, Van McMahon, the man Man.
He is, indeed, Van McMahon. Two hundred and twenty thousand X followers. That's a large number. You are a celebrity reporter, Man, There's there's no, there's no at this point you are on that level.
Tim, you are a celebrity reporter officially.
Well at least one hundred ten thousand of those people I wish would just go away and not follow me based on someday some of the comments I get on that particular hellscape of a of an.
App fair enough. Well, it obviously means you're doing something right, buddy.
I don't know that we should equate social media following to any sort of value, but that's neither here nor there. Let's talk about basketball.
Let's talk about Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Alex Jedson, who, according to a number of different reports, including John Rothstein from his CBS and our very own Sean O'Connell, is high speed ahead. To take the head coaching job at the University of Utah. You covered the Dallas Mavericks, Tim and the inside here.
Yeah, obviously when that job came open, Alex immediately became the number one candidate. And you know, it's my understanding be essentially he could have had that job the last time that it came open. Now, I think one of the big differences between the last time and this time is, you know, Alex's pats of the different head coaching job in the NBA is not nearly is a lie at this point, but he you know, look, he had a great run as a player for the Utes. Obviously, you
know it was on a final four team there. Obviously he has a strong feeling of loyalty to that university. And you know, in some cases he said, well, can an NBA guy succeed in a college job? I would say that Alex is a Utah guy with significant NBA experience. You know, there's also concerns, well, you know, a guy who's an assistant coach, can he move in our head coach and seat. Look, it was for the Canton Charge and the G League. But Alex has been a very
successful head coach. You know, this is not going to be his first time in that seat. Now, Look, d n I l the recruiting, all the things that come along with college basketball. Obviously, you know he's going to have to get up to speed on all that stuff quickly. Shouldn't take that job, But I think it makes way too much sense for this not to happen.
Only because you're very plugged in.
I'm gonna ask you a follow up, because nobody around here seems to know what sort of timeline we're looking at.
It's ironic.
Utah Basketball plays a game tonight and they do have an interim head coach, and the MAVs are and we'll get to the poor Dallas Mavericks in a moment, but they still technically are playing basketball. Do you tim have any insight as far as how far along they are in the process to get this deal done.
I don't I know that. You know, I know that Alex had had conversations with people at the highest level of the university. I don't know I could. I'd just be guessing if I said this is something that could happen and become an immediate type of deal. You know, obviously he's still in a contract with the Mavericks. I don't know if they would expect him to finish the season if he accepts his job, all all that stuff I'd just be doing guessing.
On and I would imagine you'd be guessing.
So I'll just ask and if there's nothing there, we can move on whether or not the MAVs badly want him back, and whether they would, you know, try to retain him despite an offer from Utah.
I think that I know Alex is valued by the Mavericks. I don't think they would stand in the way of him taking this job, gotcha, And so you know, I would just leave it at that.
Fair enough, fair enough, all right?
Man? Like oh man, I just I'm not a Mavericks fan. I am a Kyrie fan when he is focused on basketball. And this could not be worse if you're a Dallas Mavericks fan. First of all, you trade away a generational talent at the age of twenty five, and the guy you trade him for it goes down. And now the guy that kind of stepped in as your leader and the ball dominant lead guard goes down.
Kyrie with a torny a CEO. How's it going down there?
Man?
What's the reaction and kind of what's next for the Dallas Mavericks.
Well, I'm in scenees right now, so I can't tell you exactly what the reaction is on the ground in Dallas, but you can imagine. I mean, this is just a devastated franchise, a franchise that has been through so much, some of it of their own decision, make some of it just medical misfortune this season, and there was still hope.
And the hope was a Kyrie's plane at it all. Ada, if you can get any from the Davis back, if you can get Dereklively back, you know, get a two or three weeks into the regular season, go into what it wouldn't have to probably be the play in scenario, but maybe catch lightning a bottle builds up them innum. They were still hope they can make a run this year. That obviously is completely gone at this point. At this point, it doesn't make sense to bring back Anthony Davis and
Derek Lively. I mean, you know, it wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Often Iver just decide to prioritize a lot of odds at this point, and unfortunately, man this is something that's going to have an impact on next season, right an ACL. You know we've seen like Jamal Murray be Coerceps buzingis when the stuff at ACL injuries around this time year, they missed the entire
next season. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen with Kyrie, but I don't think it it's reasonable to have the expectation that he's going to be back from the beginning of the next season. It's uncertain at best. And you know, a fan base that has just had its guts ripped out by the trader. Luka Doncic, you know, has developed his great love and appreciation for Kyrie too. Frankh was the was a phenomenal leader throughout all the chaos.
Was the one person prominence in the organization that I would say was completely on point with his messaging in the aftermath of that train. His performance has been at all NBA level all season long. You know, such an emotional moment last night where you can like, if you saw the replay, you knew, like this is the best case scenario was probably going to be a season ending thing.
There's not that much season left. Clearly the knee buckle, you know, like you know, his mentor and Idol Kobe with the Achilles the limbs out of the three the line you know, gets his showered appreciation from the crowd makes the two three throws in that moment, though he knew, he could tell, he knew that his season was over. And you know, it's just, I mean, another heat of misery on top of what's just been a brutal month plus stretch. And I've expanded to that franchise.
How safe is Nico as far as his job goes? I mean, obviously he had the backing of the new ownership group or he would not have done the deal. And I know this is kind of unfair because we're analyzing it in a vacuum, and I guess you'd give it a year to see if these guys get healthy and they do something together. But based off of just how catastrophic the last couple of weeks I've been in Dallas, do you think he's safe as far as his job goes?
What I can tell you is Patrick Dumont, the governor of the franchise, his voice strong public support or Nico Harrison. But you know there's no guarantees that come along with that. I'm you know a lot of people around the league are asking me that question, and that's the answer that I give. He has a support of the ownership group as of now. If that changes, I'll report it. But that that that's where it stands right now. But hey, everybody understands this is a very results or into business.
There was a massive risk with it with the trade that they made. The reward so far has been nothing and but backlash. And I don't think the ownership group understood the financial ramifications of trading Luca Dontags like they did. I really don't. You know, there's this fear of the supermacs. From a financial perspective, this is going to cost him a lot more than what a Supermax contract would have been.
Oh yeah, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. And you just you just you just feel feel bad for Mass fans. I saw the story that, uh, the Mass have raised ticket prices, and look, I'm a I'm an adult, I'm a grown up.
I know the deal.
This is a front facing, revenue generating entertainment product and more off of the not ticket prices are going to go up. I just wasn't on board. I guess with the timing of that announcement, I think you probably sit on that maybe until the offseason.
I mean, again, there's been one pr misstep after another in the wake of what you knew was going to be probably the most unpopular trade that an NBA team has ever made, if not a professional sports team. So you can add the ticket price hike on top of a lot of other things.
Fair enough, all right, Golden State eight and two since the Butler trade, and you know, every time you hear Draymond or whoever talk about what and Steph has been next level as well. I wonder how much of that has to do with Jimmy Bean in the fold. But are you buying kind of this resurgence. They've beat some pretty good teams with Jimmy, and we'll see what they do against the Knicks on the road. But your your thoughts on the latest with the Warriors after that Jimmy Butler di.
Oh, yeah, you mentioned eight too. One of those losses, obviously, Leaves, was when Jimmy took a night off and I believe this was sore back. You have to kind of, you know, respect the the category of the players that are the core guys there, and you know, have your eyes open. It's a very small sample size, but it's clicked quickly. I do believe that step has been rejuvenated by this deal. Jimmy Butler has not won a championship, but it's proven
in the driving force in playoff success. Obviously, when you talked about Draymond and and and Steph, you know, we're we're talking about guys who have won four titles, and and and one as recently as just a few years ago. I think you have to at least acknowledge that the Warriors are going to you know, I don't think it's to have a great chance to come out of the West, but I think at least have their knowledge that they are on the list of beams that has some sort of a chance there, yell.
Laker, as long as they don't face the upstart Utah Jazz and Salt Lake City with Luca on the roster. Obviously, tongue in cheek, but my goodness, Tim, if it's gonna look like this now, look if like Jokic shall go for ninety, if you're gonna guard him with Alex lenn and Jackson Hayes, or whatever. So certainly the front court issues are still there. But when you have those two, Mark Dagnold has to be looking at what the Lakers are doing, and at least, you know, at least they
have to have his attention. And you're the guy for this covering Luca, writing the book on Luca. What do you make of the early returns, how it's worked when those two have been on the floor together, when JJ staggers the minutes and your thoughts on them winning six straight.
Now, well, you know you mentioned Joker. They played the Nuggets and blew them out, and Joker only got seven shot attempts in that game, which was a game plan win. Plus that was you know, Luke had actually a good offense performance in that game. So I'm fascinating to see I don't have to look the schedule see if they have the Nuggets again and the regular see in the horse that they meet in the playoffs, but kind of the the adjustments to the game playing and the chess
match there. But the Lakers for a span of over a month and a half, now I have the number one defense in the NBA, and that obviously was before the Luca trade during eighties injury absence and then coming out of the Luca trade, and you're gonna give JJ Redditt credit. Man, he's doing a great job coaching. He's come up with a you know, with this scheme that makes up for the lack of the traditional 'm protector there.
And he's got buying. The most important thing is he has bying from forty old Lebron James on down to that roster. Luca's fully bought in. You know, when he's engaged, he can be as a help defender, a good defensive playmaker. Then you get obviously protect him, you know when he's on the ball and trying to keep him out of those situations and protect him when he is. But they're having this success and Luca, by his standards, has only had a couple of decent scoring performances. You know, he's
every twenty two points on some shooting. The guy's going to give you thirty points on good efficiency when once he gets a rhythm. And as far as like to sit with him and Lebron, it's been phenomenal. I mean, you know, Lebron said that he's a natural boor and wide receiver. Luke's a natural born quarterbacks and you know, Lucas spoon seed Lebron easy bucket after easy bucket. Lebron's playing. You know, I think Lebron might play his way on the MVP ballants at the page of forty, which is insane.
But tell me five better players, five guys are having better seasons than him right now in the NBA.
Yeah, it's it's it's pretty remarkable. There's no doubt about that. Aunt Edwards sixteenth technical, so he will be suspended and Minnesota continues to kind of be up and down. It's been an interesting week regarding Anthony Edwards when asked about, you know, being the face of the league, he kind of pumped ficked on that Lebron with his comments on, well, why would you want to be the face of the league when everybody talks about our game just takes a
bleep on us all the time. Where are you at right now with the growth of who a lot of people believe is the best young domestic player in Minnesota?
Yeah, and look the technical stuff, like, he's got to get that under control. I thought what Chris Finch said before the game he served that answered for suspension in Utah. Actually I thought what he said was on point where like ant has to get the outburst under control, but he's not an angry guy. He's not a guy who's berating the officials. You know, from the opening tip to the final buzzer. You know, he has to get his
emotional outbursts under control. But he doesn't want Anthony unfairly labeled, you know, as a you know, just an angry, malcontent type of guy, you know, the face of the league stuff. Honestly, like, I don't know, man, what you know, what is the face of the league. Is it a polished spokesperson. Well,
that's not going to be Ann Edwards. And honestly, like, dude, his team's in the play in right now, you know, coming off with a Western Conference Finals trip last year, he's focused on trying to get the Minnesota timber writing it. He doesn't need to have the weight of the lead on his back if he ends up reeling off a few titles and all those things and kind of organically
becomes to face the league. Cool, but I don't know, again, I just think this is kind of like this media pigment that is, it's it's like a it's like a fictional beast. It's like a like a unicorn, like the face of the league. I don't know, man, right, you do you do? You grows things somewhere. It happens organically, so like it's not it's not like you're not running for may or if what's supposed to do have a campaign speech.
As someone who talks about the league on a daily basis, what did you make of Lebron's comments of folks such as yourself? Up, I'm not sure who you're talking about, but taking a bleep on on the league every day.
Yeah, I don't think he had me in mind, but I've certainly been accused of being critical of guys and look, man like, the NBA is a multi billion dollar business in the media plays a role in that, and I think that it's the media's job to appreciate greatness when appropriate and to criticize, you know, shortcomings or you know, when that's appropriate, And those can be with these same people. You know, I covered Luka doncons for his entire career
in Dallas. I wrote and talked a lot about all the awesome things that he did, and then you know, I pointed out and wrote and discussed the very obvious flaws that he has There are Laker goals. Those are the cheerleaders, right, there are fans. Those are people who you know are I don't know. I don't even think fans should be expected the cheer regardless of the circumstances.
But it's not the media's job to kiss guys. But regardless of the circumstances, it's also not the media's job to go out of our way looking to rip guys. There's a blend. There's a lot of nuance and those there's a lot of gray. There's it's not just surely you know you're you're either on their side or or not. I'm not on anybody's side. I'm on the side of the truth and explaining. You know, we'll explaining and reporting
and discussing what's actually happening in the league. Good bad and ned wives.
Well said, hey, before I said you loose.
You recently wrote about Darius Garland the Cleveland Cavaliers. Look, man, they're fourteen and one in their last fifteen and they went into Boston last weekend and Donovan, oh my goodness, Donovan was so good and that was such a great comeback, and Boston played well. It's not like Cleveland capitalized on
the Celtic scrumbling. But at what point do we just start to say, like, look, maybe it's not Boston and everybody else and we have to look at Cleveland in a way that maybe we haven't started looking at them yet.
Well, you need to start looking at Cleveland as a legitimate challenger. They're going to be the number one seed. You know that they won fifty of their first sixty games, you know all the stuff about does that core full fit together? Absolutely it does. I mean we've seen that they've proven that. Can they beat the Celtics in a series? I don't know, but I think it's going to be all of a series. I think they're going to get the opportunity. I think it's going to be a hell
of a series. And you know, I know there's there's mixed feelings about Donovan, I'm sure in Utah, but I you know, I've covered Donovan since the beginning of his career. I wrote about this rising star when he was a couple of months in his rookie season in Utah, covered everything that happened there, and you know, I've kept up with things in Cleveland. I think Donovan is a perfect point of his career. Where he is mature. You know,
he has grown. There was certainly some diva stuff with him in the past, caring about fats and fats and all those things. I think he's grown past that. He's in his prime, but he's not worried about stats and status.
You know, in that story, even acknowledges like, hey, his stats dipped as part of empowering Garden, as part of empowering Mobile, you know, playing a few little bit fewer minutes in the interest of the long term health of trying to keep them from for the playoffs, and he acknowledged that's something that he couldn't have he wouldn't have been okay with in the past. He's gotten to that point, and I think the Cavaliers, his co stars have benefited greatly.
The Cavaliers is an organization, have benefited greatly. And I do think that part of Donovan Mitchell's case for being on MVP ballots, I mean, he's not going to win MVP, but for being you know, if you want to put him fourth or fifth on an MVP ballot, part of his case is that he's the leader of the team with the best record in the NBA and as part of his leadership. He's been willing to see his stats dip a little bit in the greater, you know, the interest of the greater.
Good tim You're the man. Appreciate the time today, have a great week.
Enjoy Phoenix. We'll chat soon, all right.
Appreciate you.
Troyler and McMahon covers the NBA for ESPN covers the Jazz. Not as much this year because you know, get him on Twitter. Out of yes being underscore. McMann is where you find him. Brought to you today by Burt Brothers with over thirty years of experience and near thirty locations. Burt Brothers, as certified technicians, bring expertise and professionalism too every interaction industry leading warranties and low price tier guarantees.
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