Welcome to this league. I'm cutting in the rule of twenty four hour NBA news. This's you, Chris Haynes. It's so time, work's time, It's so time. This league uncut is underway and on fire. This should be a good one. Hey, everyone, welcome in to the latest addition of this league uncut. An instant reaction addition to some breaking news in hashtag this league. Because the Lakers on Friday, they have made the expected official formally parting ways with their coach, Darvin Ham.
I am coming to you in solo audio dispatch form in the wake of Ham's dismissal Friday, because Chris Haynes and I we've both been running around all over the place on playoff assignments. Chris has been working the Eastern Conference in Round one. I've been going back and forth between Dallas and LA covering the Mavericks Clippers series, so between travel, time zone clashes, we just haven't been able to connect since we recorded Monday's pod the way we
had hoped. We will rectify that. I promise you we will fix that asap. But in today's pod, doing it this way, solo essay style, hopefully we can catch you up on everything happening, starting of course, with the Lakers firing of Ham, and the signs were building that this is where it was heading, given the Lakers inability to get out of the first round, given the Lakers inability to hold several leads in the Denver Series, even after a trip to the Western Conference Finals last season, winning
the n Season Tournament as recently as December, pressure had been mounting on him four weeks now. He certainly had no shortage of detractors this season regarding lineups, rotations, and more recently, how he was connecting with Anthony Davis given some of the stuff that we heard a d say. But look, the Lakers, not unlike Phoenix. They've got roster issues to address, not as many as Phoenix maybe, But a coaching change is only going to fix so much here.
And that's especially true because the list of established championship coaches out there available to the Lakers, it's very, very short. You're already hearing tons of talk about ty Lou as a potential Lakers coaching candidate. Tylu is still under contract
to the Clippers. No matter what happens later tonight in Dallas, Tylu is not available to the Lakers as we speak, and don't forget that the Lakers passed on the chance to hire Taran Lou in the first place, back when they ended up hiring Frank Vogel, offered the job to ty Lou, couldn't come to terms with Tylo, and Tylu
ended up coaching the Clippers. Mike Budenholzer, three years removed from steering the Bucks to a championship, he is available, and what the Lakers will ultimately have to decide here is do they narrow their focus to coaches who have not just experience but title experience like Budenholzer, or would the Lakers Fresh off these last two seasons with Darvin Ham, are the Lakers prepared to seriously consider another first time
coach like JJ Reddick. The ESPN broadcaster Lebron James podcast partner, I've been writing about JJ Reddick's potential candidacy in Lakerland since Tuesday, but again, we don't know yet whether the Lakers would be willing to hire another first time coach after moving away from Darvin Ham so quickly, even a first time coach like Reddick, who, obviously, by virtue of their new podcast, he's already got a working relationship with
Lebron James and wherever and however this thing goes. The NBA off season coaching carousel just got its first significant nudge. The pre existing openings before this one, we know Brooklyn has already hired Jordi Fernandez from Sacramento staff to be the next new coach. So the only other openings at the moment are Charlotte and Washington. Those teams, of course, at the bottom of the East standings much lower profile
jobs than the Laker job. And when we talk about the Laker job, we are talking about one of the hottest seats in professional sports. You heard Darvin Ham the other day, right after the Lakers were eliminated with a game five loss in Denver. Two straight seasons the Lakers are knocked out of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets. You heard Darvin Ham say that his two years in that seat had been quote a hell of a time. He was already speaking like a coach, like a man
who knew what was coming. And Ham's dismissal it's just the start of what I expect is going to be a pretty frenzied off season because we had so many teams We're going to talk about this next. So many teams came into the season with big expectations and lost early. And just think about what we've already seen here as the first round of these playoffs dribbled to a close.
Let's go through it. Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Clay Thompson and the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and the Phoenix Suns, Lebron James, Anthony Davis and the aforementioned Lakers, Jimmy Butler, bam Adebayo and the Miami Heat, Janna Santetokumpo, Damian Lillard and the Milwaukee Bucks, and finally, last night, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia seventy
six ers. Now, you guys know, I am no Vegas expert, so I'm not quite sure how to calculate this, but just imagine the odds you could have gotten in Vegas, Let's say around Halloween if you had made a six way bet, assuming that's even league. I really don't know if it is, but let's assume that you made a six way bet. Did I get that right? One? Two, three, four, five, six teams that none of those Star Layden six teams, not a single one of those six teams would reach
the second round of the NBA playoffs. That's where we are in this league. After a pretty chaotic Thursday night, you had Milwaukee and Philly the latest marquee teams to be ushered straight into an early offseason. And yeah, it's going to be wild, stressful, complicated when you look at all those teams and the difficult pathways almost all of them face to really improving their rosters. I really should
include New Orleans in this conversation. After Pelicans GM David Griffin, he came out after the Oklahoma City inflicted sweep of the Zion Williamson lists Pels. David Griffin all but promised that the Pelicans are going to be very active in the trade market this offseason, so that instantly as you start asking questions about who is likely to be moved there brandon Ingram, is that a trade scenario that the
Pelicans are going to look into. There are so many significant and tricky decisions that will have to be made by all of these teams leaving the playoffs early. And look, we cannot forget and we shouldn't forget, we should never put this to the side. Injuries have absolutely overwhelmed the whole league in the first round of these playoffs. You know, I mentioned Zion there not being available for New Orleans,
and we know what's happened in Milwaukee. Game was able to play in Game six, but Ya was not for the Bucks. And we can go on and on and on because there are that many injuries and they're really you struggle to find a first round series or any team in the postseason that has gone unscathed here. I mean,
not even coaches are safe right now. I am absolutely sick for Minnesota's Chris Finch about the knee injury he sustained when everyone's favorite Timberwolf, the newly minted the NBA's newly minted teammate of the Year, Mike Conley, plowed into Fitch on the sideline in the wolves sweep clinching win over Phoenix, and it inflicted a serious knee injury that
required surgery. It will absolutely suck if Finch's ability to coach against the Nuggets in the Tim Connolly Bowl is comp and it almost surely has to be given how serious this injury was. It is so brutal and unfair to Finch and look cruel as this is. We will have time to come back to that series to laser in on the second round and discuss the Wolves matchup with the defending champions from Denver that is to come. The immediate focus this week is what's been happening with
all these headliner teams that have been ousted. And we got our answer in terms of Darvin Ham in Lakerland. But again, I'm not sure that a coaching change is going to drastically alter and raise the Lakers overall ceiling Lebron James is affected at this point. All the signals suggest that he will stay with the Lakers. We don't know yet what the contract structure will be. But the real curiosity, yes, the Lakers have a coaching search to conduct right now, but the real curiosity what kind of
trade can the Lakers make to upgrade their roster. Remember they didn't do a deal at the trade deadline in February with the one first round pick they had available to move at that time. But I thought that was the right call, and we're seeing exactly why now because they have to do something significant now and now they will have three first round picks at their disposal to make a significant trade at the June draft or is it early July. Atlanta's Trey Young. We've been talking about
him as a potential Lakers trade target since February. But will that list expand I suspect that it will. I think it's too early in the postseason for the trade market to really have crystallized in terms of potential players the Lakers can go after. I think in the next four to six weeks there will be another name or two or three who emerges as a potential Lakers trade target.
So and honestly, we could have started this rundown this portion of the discussion with Phoenix because Frank Vogel is under no shortage of pressure in terms of his job security in Phoenix. And that's because, unlike the Lakers, the Suns don't have easy pathways to improving their team. And that's why there's been so much talk already about Frank Vogel after a forty nine and thirty three season in which he only had his three star players Booker, Durant
and Beale. They only played together in forty one of the eighty two games. That's why you're hearing so much about Frank Vogel's job status because meaningfully changing this underachieving roster is going to be incredibly difficult for the Suns because of all the restrictions they face as a second apron luxury tax team. With apologies, of course, to Sons owner Matt Ishbia, who had the temerity to proclaim the following at a news conference Wednesday.
Oh, it's extremely fixable. I mean, let's just be real. Although this isn't a cool narrative and the national media really won't want to play it out there, but like ask the other twenty nine gms, twenty six of them would trade their whole team for our whole team, and our whole in our draft picks and everything as it is, Like, the house is not on fire. We're in great position. It's not hard to fix it. It's not like we're like, hey,
we don't have enough talent to win a champion. We have enough talent to win a championship, right, Do we have enough continuity? We have time together, Like, there's a lot of things we can look at. Do we have like the right leadership in place? Do we have to add some pieces around? It's not like we don't have people that can score the Babel not that play defense and have one chance, like we have all the things, and so how fixable is it? And I mean, if I read the media, I would think we have a
lot of problems. But luckily I get to spend time with you know, the best players in the world. In my opinion, the best coach is GMS see all these people, and I get to spend time with our people and say, we're in really great shape. And I wouldn't trade our team or our situation for anyone else's except for I'd like to be playing right now. But besides that, for like, how going into the offseason, I feel great about it.
It's not like there's a lot of other teams that have good players that have to resign them or they're going to lose them, or that they might they're unrestrict your free agents. Like our starting five's coming back.
I feel very good about it. Some truly impressive and fascinating defiance there from matt Ishbia, But no, dare I say that twenty six of twenty nine teams would not trade situations with the Phoenix Suns, And no, the Sons of Phoenix are not regarded to be in a great position, as he also claimed there, and I would also suspect that Ishbia will soon be able to confirm all of this for himself once this offseason gets going in earnest and the Sons try to make roster changes if they
don't want to trade Kevin Durant or Devin Booker, and I strongly doubt they want to do either. Can they trade use of Nurkic? Can they trade Grayson Allen after they just extended him? That couldn't even happen until October. Grayson Allen is not trade eligible until next season starts, So just very limited options for the Suns going forward
roster wise. Miami, the Heat's response to an early exit will start with extending Jimmy Butler's contract or not extending Jimmy Butler's contract after a season in which, yes, Butler only appeared in sixty regular season games, but he all so performed absolutely heroically in the play in Tournament. Remember, he played out the opening game of the play in Tournament against Philly on a badly spraying knee, and he nearly led Heat culture to a win over Philly in
that one. The Heat don't have to extend Butler. He turns thirty five in September, But what will it do to the relationship if they don't extend him after For so long now, Butler has been the central figure of the whole heat culture movement post Dwayne Wade the Bucks. I am absolutely relieved for them that Jannis Antetokumpo did
not try to play in Game six. Hearing Yannis speak to reporters in Milwaukee on Friday on the day after the Bucks elimination, he really didn't sound close, But I have to say I was also I was flat out frightened for Milwaukee that Chris's guy, Damian Lillard did insist on playing in Game six with a less than pristine achilles. I'm super relieved for Dame on the Bucks that there was no apparent further damage. And I mean, look, I understand they had a shot to if they could have
won Game six in Indianapolis. This thing is now a Game seven decider in Milwaukee, but man, that I felt like they were risking a lot just to have Dame on the floor. And now that it's over, this was an absolutely nightmarish season in Brewtown. It began with such promise no, there will be no comeback from three to
one down for Doc Rivers. And now that they're heading into the offseason, I wrote about this as well earlier in the week, teams are already hope, crossing their fingers tightly wishing, praying that Yannis is moved to rethink his future as a Milwaukee Buck, even though it was just last October that the Yanas response to the Damian Lillard trade acquisition was to immediately sign a three year max
extension with Milwaukee. But that's not gonna stop potential Yannis trade suitors from lusting after the idea that he is somehow unsettled. There anew and then the Sixers. I mean, it's been more than twenty seasons now since we've seen Philadelphia in the Conference finals. This time they didn't even get the chance to slam into their usual second round wall,
losing to the Knicks in six games. But when we look at Philly, first of all, this does not have the feel of another playoff face plant, a feeling that the Sixers and their fans know all too well. I mean, this time Philly lost a series filled with haymakers and bonkers endings. Okay, they lost it to the Knicks, but they did so with Joel Embiid rushing back from a knee injury, probably faster than he should have, and that knee injury it dropped Philly from second to seventh in
the East. And unlike pretty much every other team we've talked about here so far, the Sixers really do have some tangible hope for the future because they're gonna have more than fifty million in cap space this summer to try to find that third star to pair with Embiid and the rising Tyrese Maxey. And look, the free agent market is not teaming with wonderful options. But when you have cap space, you can also make trades. You can
trade players into cap space. And I think we know that Darryl Morey loves to make a trade or two when he has the chance. And so I think all of Philadelphia right now is trying to work out how Tobias Harris could go scoreless in twenty nine minutes, everyone naturally concluding that this will be the last time we see Tobias Harris in a Philly uniform. But look, the Sixers as we speak, Yes, their season is over, but they are seen as the foremost threat on the NBA
map to swipe Paul George away from the Clippers. The Orlando Magic also have to be in that conversation, but it's the Sixers who have the clip most concerned here, and I'm talking about long term concerns, of course, the immediate concern for the Clippers. Just in a few hours after I finish recording this, I am headed straight to the American Airline Center for Game six in Dallas Friday night.
The Mavericks will have another opportunity just hours after this episode drops to bring the Clippers season to an end and finally avenge those first round playoff losses to Kawhi Leonard and Paul George and the Clippers in both twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. And I have to say it is this is such a wild night in Dallas because Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are in town
for Caitlin Clark's first WNBA exhibition game. That's happening here in town or in the Greater DFW area same night as the Maverick's chance to close out a playoff series at home for the first time in twenty eleven. Unfortunately, these two massive games are in completely different places. It would have been wonderful if somehow this could have been a doubleheader at the AAC with Caitlin Clark playing in her first exhibition game in the WNBA, followed by mas
Clippers game six. How amazing would that have been to have both of these games in the same place. There's
no way to be in the same place. And I will be at the playoff game again as the Mavericks try to close out a playoff opponent at home for the first time since they're run to a championship in twenty eleven, and if it happens tonight, then the Clippers concerns they immediately shift fully to trying to hang on to join Origin free agency and trying to do a new deal with Tron Lou because they need to extend Tylu.
Tylu should not be in the last year of his deal, and Kawhi Leonard he was only healthy enough to play in two games of this series. This is the Clippers third series against the Mavericks in the space of five years, and Kawhi is the only member of that Clippers corps who is signed for the long term. Paul George, James Harden, Tylu all of them need new deals as LA's other team prepares to relocate to Inglewood. Of course, next season they'll be playing in the new and two at Dome.
And basically now Orlando has to win a Game six at home against Cleveland, or the Clippers have to find a way to steal another win in Dallas without Kawhi. That's the only way we're going to get a Game seven in this first round. It did look like the Knicks and Sixers might be heading to go the distance after Maxie and Philly found a way to steal that crazy Game five at the Garden. But now we're just down to two outstanding series. Calves lead the Magic three
to two, Mavericks lead the Clippers three two. Those series could be wrapped up by end of business tonight, and look, soon enough, Round two will be here the Tim Connelly Bowl. We will be talking about that a lot Timberwolves Nuggets in the second round. We know we're getting Nicks Pacers in the East second round, and that one, of course
serves up a delicious subplot of Jalen Brunson. Remember he only played ten minutes in a Game seven in the last game he ever played with Rick Carlyle as his coach in Dallas, and now Jalen Brunson will be leading the Knicks, although they are still the banged up Knicks. He will be leading the Knicks against the Carlisle led Pacers in round two, the Thunder and the Celtics. They
still await the identities of their second round opponents. But before we go, we do need to point out that the Celtics, after months and months and months of anticipation that Boston would potentially reunite with Milwaukee or Philadelphia, or maybe even both in the playoffs, the Celtics now have to beat neither to get to the NBA Finals again, which is probably a good thing given that Christops Porzingis is now out indefinitely with a calf strain, because of course,
we needed yet another injury. I do think the Celtics can win two more rounds and get back to the finals without Porzingis, so they can play it safe and give him as much time as possible to recover, because they do need something close to a full steam poor Zingis if they're matching up with Denver in the NBA Finals, or even if Minnesota gets there with all of its size in the NBA Finals. Boston's gonna need Porzingis and the length and versatility he brings both to their offense
and their defense. All Right, I think that will pretty much get us caught up for the week that was heading into Friday nights games. As I mentioned, been kind of a whirlwind for Chris and I. He's been traveling. I've been traveling. But Sunday night or Monday night at the latest, we will reconnect and we will dive further into all of this. The coaching carousel, the offseason chatter
about potential player moves. You watch, this stuff is going to start to really spark up now that so many of these teams that were expected to do big things this season, now that so many of them have been sent home. And I mentioned the Warriors in there. We didn't even get a chance really to touch on the complicated decisions they face when it comes to trying to enhance their roster. Let alone, the Kings and the Bulls and the Hawks, the other three teams that exited this postseason.
In the Play and Round, it's about to really start getting busy again on the transactional front. And I know you guys love hearing that the draft lottery is fast approaching. We know six first round losers, many of them prominent. They have to start plotting their next moves immediately because of what happened this week. And you're gonna want to stay dialed in with us to stay on top of all the activity that's going to take place over the next two months and change. The Darvin Ham dismissal is
only the start of it. That is going to do it for this edition of This League Uncut. As always, please follow the show via Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate the show, review the show for Chris Haynes and producer Ryan and for me Mark Stein. Your support is very much appreciated. We will be back together again very very soon. Thanks everyone for listening, and that'll do it for us. See you next time. This League Uncut is and iHeartRadio production Chris Haynes and
Mark Stein. I didn't