Cavs Down Knicks + Spurs Expose Pistons? OKC’s Depth Showing Finals Repeat Chances?

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Tuesday evening. Joining me from New York City, which is under ungodly amounts of snow, Tim Bontemps. Tim Bontemps. Hello, everybody. This is actually, the snow is all pretty much melted. I'm over here at Barclays Center. It's all melted. Jason Kidd in town. Yeah, the streets are all clear. The sidewalks are all clear. It's all It's all back to normal. Did you take up arms like your mayor requested and take up a shovel and help clear the path? I did not. I sat in my apartment with the cinder block, who's got his first cold, and we looked outside at the snow, and we watched it. We didn't do anything else. That's the way to go. And in the magic of New York City, it was all gone by the time I needed to go outside. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, where if they get a half inch of snow, it's a big-time problem. I've been there when it happens, is Bam McMahon. Howdy, partners. I'm just glad they got that Mavs and Nets game in tonight. Don't know what we'd have done without that kind of entertainment. The Mavs has been a rough road trip. Travel delays, and they won two straight games. All sorts of reunions today. Kyrie Irving was in the building. He had all sorts of fans trying to get autographs from him after the game. Jason Kidd back here at Barclays Center, where he once intentionally spilled a Coke on the floor. You know, all kinds of memories. I think it was water. I think it was water. No, it was a Diet Coke. Was it really? I covered the game. It was a Coke. Trust me. So in case our viewers and listeners haven't told the story, you can tell that story because it's a good one. I'll tell the story very fast. I don't remember the specific context of the situation. He needed a timeout. Yes. I meant the rest of the situation. But the Nets didn't have a timeout. Jason wanted to try to stop the game. And so he had Tyshawn Taylor, who went to Kansas. as a young guard, I think in his second year at the time, bumped into him and spilled a Coke all over the... No, he pulled him. He pulled him into him. That's what I mean. Oh, he said, hit me, hit me. Yeah, he said, hit me. He intentionally caused a collision to spill his Coke on the ground and force a stoppage in play. And get a chance to draw a timeout. I can report that J.K.'s acting skills have drastically improved in the many years since then. he convinced millions of people that he was just absolutely shocked that Luka Doncic got traded in the middle of the night. That was only a couple weeks before Lawrence Frank, now running the Clippers, was told to go file individual daily reports, which is one of the most memorable press conferences I've ever attended. One of many in the same room here at Barclays Center, including one with Brian Wynhurst where... Oh, you're at Barclays. I didn't even say that you were at Barclays. I mean, I knew you were there tonight. That same room where Jason Kidd sat down and announced that Lawrence Frank was off to file individual daily reports on what was happening with the team is a few weeks later, or I should say a year before, was when Mikkel Prokhorov, the owner of the team at the time, came back from hell of skiing in Whistler and declared how he decided to fire Avery Johnson. Many memorable moments here at Barclays Center. I promise we'll move on from memory lane right after this. But I was at that press conference and when he was asked why he waited a couple of days to, the question was, when did you decide to fire Avery? He said, oh, last week. And then the follow-up was, well, then why did you not fire him until today? And he goes, oh, well, the snow was, and he pointed to his shoulder. He said, the snow was. He was about 6'8". He was about 6'8". So it was about high snow. Good snowpack up in Whistler. for a post game. Yeah, I respected the answer, even though I'm sure our former colleague Avery did not. All right, so let's just come clean here. I'm in Los Angeles. I went to the pregame for Lakers and Magic tonight. Any snow there? Window's been hobnobbing folks, and he didn't watch Cavs corner dominate the Knicks. I watched the first quarter or most of the first quarter of the Cavs. Part of the first quarter. I watched a section of the first quarter. And then he hobnobbed, as Wendell is known to do. Hobnobbed with the stars. It's known as reporting, Bontemps. I talked to executives. You might want to try it sometime, buddy. Executives. I talked to players. I met Noah. What do we think of this window look we've got going right now? It's like all black, get up. It's a good look. It is. Mysterious. It is mysterious. It's kind of got dark lighting there. You know? Yeah, so I'm not a fashion plate. But, you know, so anyway, here's the long and short of it. The Cavs won 109-94. And obviously 94 points is pretty good as far as defense. I don't know what happened. So I'm just going to be honest. I was at Nets Mavs and I was watching Dick's Cavs because nobody here was watching Nets Mavs. So I can talk about Happen at least. I believe McBad can as well. It was on the third TV for me. Cavs-Knicks was on the primary. And, I mean, honestly, if you want to sum it up, the Cavs played pretty well. The Knicks were atrocious. The Knicks could not buy a bucket. What were they from three-point range? I mean, this is the story of the game. The third quarter of the game, the Knicks were outscored 23-11. 11 points in a quarter. And by the way, the Cavs are not exactly light the world on fire in the third quarter. Again, they only had 23 points and shot 36% from the field. Not exactly ideal. The Knicks went 3-for-24 from the field in the third quarter, or 1-for-12 from three, and 4-for-8 from the line. And that right there, folks, is how you score 11 points in a quarter and how you get down by 20 going into the fourth and go on to lose another game to a top team in the East. Hey, I got some good news. I got some good news for the Knicks. Hold on. Let me pump some sunshine. Cat shot 100% from the floor. Well, that's what I was going to ask. Okay, so you're describing a quarter from hell offensively. The Cavs, I will say, you know, they've been experimenting. They did this earlier this season, but now that they're fully healthy with Evan Mobley back, Like, you know, Kenny Atkinson is trying to work with this big lineup where he's starting Dean Wade. So they start three guys 6'10 or so. I don't know if Evan Mobley is 6'10 or 6'11. But they start basically three big guys and trying to use size to their advantage. And I assume they started the second half with that. But anyway, Carl Towns just five shots. So you would think a guy who is such an offensive powerhouse when you need offense, that that would have been something you would go to. There you are being negative. I live with the 100% from the floor. You got right to the five shots. Yeah, probably not great when you're an all-star big man who his primary job is to put the ball in the hoop, has as many turnovers as he does field goal attempts. You know, I'm going to call him Catsper, the friendly ghost today, because he was gone. could not find them. How long was he thinking about that line? Since the middle of the game. These things come to me. Oh, sure they do. By the way, Jared Allen, after kind of a no-show performance in OKC, he was back on it tonight. Hey, you know what I was thinking about watching this game? No BS. I was watching the game, and Jared Allen was, again, getting buckets left and right. They showed a graphic during the game that with James Harden, he's scoring like 20 points a game or 19 points a game and shooting something like 75%. His numbers are like six or seven points lower without him. And because I'm sitting here at Barclays, what I was thinking about was if the Nets had not given Jared Allen away in the James Harden trade, training him for the 30th pick in the draft, in that trade, the last pick of the first round, and I just insisted they keep him in the trade. I think the Nets would have won the title when they played Chris Middleton, who was here playing for the Mavs and the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round and lost the seven games here at Barclays Center when Kevin Durant's toll was about that much on the line at the end of the fourth quarter. But they traded him because they didn't want to pay him. Well, they traded him because they allegedly needed to get another first round pick in the deal. And so they used Jared Allen to get one. I'm just saying. Right. But that was part of it, right? They didn't. They had Harden, I mean, Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They couldn't afford another $100 million player. I mean, I think they could have afforded to have Jared Allen on the team. They're owned by a guy who's worth plenty of money. They chose to train. Well, there was also the whole, you know, before that, what helped shorten Kenny Atkinson's run there was there was the whole, we've got to play DeAndre Jordan over Jared Allen, despite the fact that DeAndre was not exactly in his prime. and Jared Allen was an ascending quality starting big at the time. So that was great. Now, to DeAndre's credit, he's in the Pelicans starting lineup. Derek Queen is not right now. That's a whole other story. But that was part of the old Jared Allen story in Brooklyn. Well, that is what I was thinking watching this game. I was going, man, what could have been for the Nets if they had kept Jared Allen and not had him as a throw-in in that trade and had him on that team that year, when they got James Harden, I think they win that series and they probably win the title if they have Jared Allen on the team that year. Jared Allen, you know, with the exception of Dud and OKC, has been phenomenal since James Harden's got there. And, you know, credit to Jared Allen, but that's also not a coincidence because we've said many times James Harden will absolutely maximize a big who's willing to screen and roll hard to the rim. And so they've got that going for them. Donovan's still the franchise Evan Mobley's kind of getting his feet under him but this was to me this game wasn't about the Cavs this game was about just the Knicks stunk it up and honestly the Knicks stunk it up for most of the game the other night against the Rockets and got lucky that the Rockets were just at their worst in crunch time but the Rockets will blow a lead they can't close games the Knicks took advantage but the Knicks are not playing well This Eastern Conference is just really hard to read. It's just really hard to read because you're absolutely right that the Knicks, you would say, have had kind of a shaky seven days, but they had a win over the Rockets. Granted, it was aided by the Rockets' bad offense. They were also getting blown out for large stretches of that game, too. But they won the game. They did win. They did win. There's been a whole lot of Knicks getting blown out lately, though. They came back to win that one. They got humiliated by the Pistons. They got their butts whooped tonight. Right. Towns played really well in both games over the weekend. They went to Chicago. Chicago's, you know, in the middle of the... They're one of many tankers. They're one of many tankers right now. They had to squeak it out against the Bulls, which is as bad as getting blown out. Whatever. Towns played well in that game. Towns had two good games over the weekend. there was a relatively significant amount of, you know, his towns turning the corner. And then he has a game where he only gets five shots, which, you know, I didn't watch it, so I don't know if it's much on him or on the offense. Well, it gets back to, like, all season long, Katz not being featured in the offense has been a storyline there. Well and didn Mike Brown say the other day didn he Bontemps didn he say that there was more of an emphasis Like he was trying to I mean, look, this was a couple points. This was a close game at halftime, and the Knicks went one for 12 from three in the third quarter. Like, you know, they had a horrendous third quarter, or, you know, it was a five-point game at halftime, whatever. Like, they were right there in the first half. They had a horrific third quarter and missed a ton of shots. Like, this game, losing this game on the road to Cleveland, to me, is not like the loss they had to the Pistons without Jalen Dern and Isaiah Stewart the other day at the Garden when they'd already lost to them twice in bad fashion. Like, that was a bad loss. This was just, they had a bad quarter and they lost today. But in a game where the other four starters combined to go 18-56 from the floor, I would like Cat to get more than five shots. You know, he needs to be more aggressive. They need to find ways to get him shots. You know, Brunson had a big-time dud tonight. They're not going to win a whole lot of games, and Brunson goes 6-19. But the Knicks are a frustrating team. All right, well, a couple of notes on the Cavs. James Harden generally has been doing really well there, but he's not getting free throws, McMahon. I think he's averaging four free throws a game with the Cavs. He had no free throws tonight, but that said, he did have a number of assists. Donovan Mitchell had two 30-point games in the garden, and the Cavs lost both those games earlier this season with not as much extra help. Now that he's got a fully built-out team, he goes 5 of 18 tonight. He does get seven times to 14 free throws, seven fouls. Yeah, I was going to say, a game after he didn't hesitate to agree to a leading question about whether OKC hacks a lot and gets away with it. Yes, well, the Cavs were one of a number of teams that, you know, over the last few years has said that, you know, Oklahoma City, you know, is very aggressive and fouls a lot. But, you know, you know that going into the game. So it's, you know. also Jalen Tyson who has lost some minutes recently as the Cavs got fully healthy and made these trades I think it was something that the Cavs were trying to do was to get him going again he obviously has been one of the big stories for them he got 27 minutes tonight he had 12 points and 8 rebounds of steel and a block and the 8 rebounds especially important because the Cavs didn't have great rebounding in Oklahoma City the other day so yeah I can't offer anything more so I'll watch it here in a little bit and be ready for television tomorrow more Hoop Collective podcast after this So Monday Night Madness, Spurs and Pistons. I feel like going forward, we're not going to see these guys playing on Mondays, although I guess that's a national TV game now. It's national TV. We'll see them. National TV every day, man. Those will be a national TV matchup for a while, that's for sure. So this was a tremendous win for the Spurs to go up there to win their ninth consecutive game to go up to Detroit and win. Not as good of a showing for Kate Cunningham, who had probably his worst game of the year. Five of 23 shooting overall, one of 15 in the second half of this game. and I'm very glad that they will play again. I think they play again at the end of next week in San Antonio because I want to see the game plan that changes that the Pistons will make because, you know, what this game really illustrated is how a team may play the Pistons in a playoff series and I want to get an idea of how J.D. Bickerstaff and the Pistons would respond to this because not everybody's going to have Victor Wimbanyama. I was going to say, that's kind of a key thing. But the key is, Weminyama didn't have to leave the paint. Well, yeah, this was an interesting box score on both sides. The Pistons go 7 for 36 from 3, and the Spurs go 18 for 40, right? So 33 points plus. Which the Spurs came in 23 in the league in 3-point percentage. Like, that is a really good game for them. Right. Both teams are typically not huge 3-point shooting teams. That's a huge advantage, plus 33. Spurs actually were 39% on twos in this game from shooting-wise, which is interesting. But if you look at this overall in the big picture, the story of the game is, to go back to the conversation we had for Monday's pod about the Pates, about the Pistons, this game highlighted all of the concerns that a Pistons fan or someone who's studied that team closely would have about them in the playoffs. Like, Cade's going to have better games than this. he's a terrific player. He had a bad shooting game. That's fine. But part of it, listen, he had a bad game. I'm just saying, part of the reason he had a bad game is the entire Spurs defense was loaded up on Cade Cunningham. In part because, as you said, Brian, Jalen Duren, while a fantastic player, is not spacing the floor. So Victor Omanyama just hung out in the paint. And if they're playing some other team with another center, they could just hang out in the paint and clog up the lane and clog up any ability for Cade to really get to the basket, and that made life very difficult for him, and there wasn't a plan B for the Pistons to go to. I mean, Asar Thompson, who obviously is a very interesting young player, he pretty much disappeared from the game offensively. There isn't a lot going on there for him. He basically got benched in the second half. Right, well, because they can't score, and he's a zero threat to do much with the ball. So, you know, that is going to be something to watch, particularly for a guy who's going to be up for an extension this summer. Like, that's an interesting thing to watch. They don't have another guy who you really are concerned about putting the ball on the floor and making plays on the perimeter. And again, like, they have some three-point shooting on this team. But, you know, Duncan Robinson went three for 11. Cade went two for nine. Rod Holland went one for six. He probably shouldn't be taking six threes anyway. He got the minutes for over Asar Thompson. Yeah, I mean... And some of those threes were invitation threes, for sure. Yeah, this is what I was talking about the other day. Detroit's had a fabulous season. I'm not saying they can't make it through the East Blouse, but they have some real questions to answer on offense. And if you are either a Pistons fan or anybody who has any skepticism about Detroit, you watch this game and you're watching it going, these are all the reasons to be concerned about this team's ability to make a deep run this season. I agree with that. And also, there's not another guy who can do what Victor Winn-Manjama does. Cade Cunningham was five of them. Not many can do what Stefan Kessel does either, though. Yeah, that's the thing. You got to deal with DeFond Kaus on the perimeter, playing, you know, and a defense loaded up on you, and then Wimby's waiting for you in the paint. And they, you know, Cunningham was 5 of 26. You were actually friendly to him, Wendy. 5 of 26, three of his shots were blocked by Wimby. Half of his six blocks were on Cade Cunningham. And then he just, he affects the shots guy's attempt. like Cade there are many times where even if it's Jared Allen or Mitchell Robinson or like a mortal very good defense big Cade's attacking and trying to finish the rim and and like it's you can try against Wimby but good luck to you they showed a smash cut of shots that people were just flinging up around the rim with Victor there during the game and it was hilarious I mean it was like guys like we're seeing triple because there's this guy, there's Pterodactyl at the rim of seven six. And they just were like, where do I go with the ball? And how many times do guys dribble in there? And I say Victor leads the league and reconsiders by a whole lot. Guys dribble in there and like, let's. And so you end up taking like a tough 12 footer or like a, you know, like a long runner or like a tough fadeaway instead of trying to finish at the rim because he's that dominant. and the way you got to deal with Wimby on that end of the floor is you got to try to get him out of the paint and the Pistons don't have the personnel to do that. Maybe Beef Stew, if he's not suspended. He's not worried about Beef Stew shooting either. I agree with you. If they're playing the Pistons, he can just plant himself in the paint and say, come get me. And there's not a lot Detroit can do about that. And look, like, if they're playing the Knicks with Mitchell Robinson, he is not, he is obviously not Victor, but he is big and he is very good. They've outscored him by 84 points. Oh, you're talking about the Pistons. Sorry. Yeah, right. And if they're playing the Cavs with Evan Mobley and Jared Allen, like those are two really good defensive bigs that they could do the same thing with. Like when teams get into playoff series with them, the adjustments are going to be a lot more severe. Like you said, McMahon, they're going to be giving Asar Thompson and Ron Holland, some of these guys, shots. And, you know, this is all part of the learning process. I think part of the reason Detroit didn't load up at the trade deadline was they wanted to get a real look at what this team could do. wouldn't that? You know, we're going to find out over the next couple of months. Well, and this was also, this was also why I had Wimby above Cade on the straw poll. And honestly, Wimby did not have a good offensive game. They were successful in kind of bullying him and pushing him around. He's just so dominant defensively that despite it. That was the top 5% offensive game for the Spurs for this year. So I'll just say a couple of things. One, I watched, I thought was 23, but I watched all of Cade's 26 shots several times over. And one thing that right out of the gate, not that I am ever going to pretend like I have any idea what I'm doing when it comes to coaching, but one of the things I will tell you right out of the gate is when you set, if you're going to have a screen on Stephon Castle, you better actually set the screen. You know, so many in the, and this is common in the NBA, there's so many slip screens and so many sort of just sort of get in the way. Cause you know, you can create space without actually making contact a lot of times. Nah, doesn't work with Castle because there was repeatedly times where they would run stagger screens. This was a big part of their offense. And you can tell as the game went along and a single screen wasn't getting Castle off of Cunningham, they started running more stagger screens to run him around two screens. There was multiple times when Cade had two screens set for him and Castle got around them both. And a bunch of times they were half-hearted screens. So right out of the gate, I'm going to tell you that the Pistons next week are going to actually have to get physically in front of Castle and get him off of Cade. That's number one. The second thing is I'll never forget when I first was spending time with Victor in France. His coach, Vincent Collet, told me that he was the first player he'd ever seen who could defend the rim and the corner three at the same time. It's amazing. Which is a laughable statement. Which you did on Ron Holland. Which I was going to say. So while you do want to have a big that can stretch Victor out and force him to at least think about coming to the corner, even that is not a guarantee. No, there are no guarantees. But they're going to have to do a better job, and whether it's the Spurs or somebody else, when they have a really physical defensive team, they have got to do a better job of getting Cade open. You've got to screen. You just have to screen better. And we should say, too, I don't know what you guys are thinking for end-of-season awards, but the Spurs are going to have two first-team all-defense guys for me, assuming Victor's eligible games-wise, because I vote it's Devon Castle first-team. Like, he is one of the two best guard defenders in the league, for sure. I mean, all the guys, look at every guy that he's guarded. Like, he is an unbelievable on-ball defender, even only in his second year. Let me take an off-ramp here. I have a correction. We never do that. I have a correction. I need to issue a correction. I made a throwaway line the other day on the podcast about how Luka Doncic likes pie. Leave those lines to me. And I will, especially when it comes to Luka. I have been reliably informed that Luka, in fact, does not like pie. So I want to apologize for implying that Luka likes pie So I was just trying to be funny I should know better than that I apologize to Luka Just read The Wonder Boy It right there over Tim shoulder and you find out all you need to know about Luca right there That right I believe he likes beer I didn say anything about that. I knew. Can't confirm. But yes, Stefan Castle's numbers against the elite scorers in the league are remarkable. The eye test is all you need to see, man. I mean, he's just a monster. You can't get detached from him. He stays attached like nobody else. And he frustrates guys. And you saw that early in the game when he's up in Cade's stuff. Cade's off the ball and Cade had enough of it. And he just, like, it looked like a... He tackled him. Yeah, it looked like a right tackle trying to run block and just ran him over and then kind of try to stand over him. Like, listen, the Pistons punk a lot of teams. The Spurs are not very punkable. Well, they tried. And they tried in that game. Yeah, Kellen Johnson comes right over and says, you know, hey, get off my guy. And then Jalen Dern's doing the finger wagging and all, you know, but like the Spurs, you're not going to punk them. You might push Wimby around a little bit, but you're not going to intimidate him. No, you're definitely not going to intimidate him. I was wondering if we might see like the WWE and Beef Stew come running down the tunnel. We don't need that. Which, by the way, I will say, the other night, I believe it was in Memphis, an underrated action between Myron Gardner and Scottie Pippen Jr. Did you guys see this? They both got fined for this. $35,000. And Myron Gardner took a blatant cheap shot after Scottie Pippen Jr. hit a three. Scottie Pippen Jr. ran down to the other end and got up on him and let him know, we ain't doing all that. Yeah, so he hit Pippen from behind, and Pippen didn't see him coming. It was a blind shot. It was very reminiscent, actually, of the, I believe it was Marquise Morris, Nikola Jokic deal. I don't know about that. That was a devastating blow that knocked Morris out for weeks. I mean, he came up behind the guy and hit him in the back. I mean, it was the same play. Well, here's what I like. It didn't lead to an injury, but it was the same play. I like that Pippen just hunted him. He just hunted him, ran him all the way down the corner. He came down there and pointed to him and said, I'm coming for you. Went right at him. I know. I kind of respected him. Listen, Myron Gardner, if you've heard of him, it's because he runs his mouth a lot. I love trash talkers, but at some point, like, you got to be able to play a little bit before you're going to be doing it. Like, he's the one who Clay got into it with. And, like, Myron Gardner, you're on a two-way. You can't talk trash to a Hall of Famer. You can't. He got into it, I think, with, it might have been Draymond. A lot of people do that. But, like, the guy, there's a lot of yapping for a dude who hadn't done anything in the league yet. I liked it. It was probably the highlight of Memphis' week, which, by the way, of all the tankers that are tanking out there right now, elite work being done by the Grizzlies. Listen. Elite work. I don't want to talk about tanking. I just want to point it out. Every day I just want my idea implemented faster and faster. I don't want to talk about tanking. I have a suggestion. It's my own fault. I'm sorry for bringing it up. The league office should have to approve 10-day contracts for losing teams in the second half of the season. I'm serious about that. How about you just institute the wins matter rule, and then everything is fixed? I don't want to talk about that. We'll talk about that later on. Just there's some in a crowded field. You know who pulled off a really good tank? The San Antonio Spurs, baby. And they did it by personnel moves. They did it by trades. Well, here's the thing. But it's paying off big time. Here's the thing. For a tank to work, you got to get lottery luck, which they had. They got lucky three years in a row, especially the first time. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Speaking of successful tankers, the Thunder won. I'm just kidding. No, you're not. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I don't want to talk about it. Chet had seven points tonight. Nine rebounds. But he's, you know, all star. No, you know, so the Raptors hosted the Thunder tonight. Thunder did get Alex Russo back, but obviously no Shakers or Alexander didn't get to go home. Well, he probably got to go home, but he didn't get to play in front of his home fans. No Jalen Williams, no A.J. Mitchell. I will say, how about Isaiah Joe? If we're going to help out, we've got to go with Cason Wallace. We'll talk about Cason Wallace. Ryan likes to bring up Isaiah Joe every podcast. Let him bring him up. I agree. Isaiah Joe. Isaiah is a good player, to be clear. He's a nice ninth man. Kaysen Wallace, poor boy. He's like a fourth man right now. True. But Kaysen Wallace, this gentleman is going to get paid. The Thunder are paying a lot of guys now, and the money is all coming on the books soon. And you can block off some cash for number 22 because Kaysen Wallace is showing his remarkable value to this team. and he had a big... You don't think he's going to get paid? Well, no. The Thunder have a lot of decisions to make this summer. And one of the decisions is, are they going to be paying Case and Wallace? Because they do not have unlimited dollars to spend on their team. And they've got three max players who are all going to be on the books next year. And they've got to decide what to do with Isaiah Hartenstein, who has a team option for next year. They've got to decide what to do with Lou Dort, who has a team option for next year. They got to decide what to do with Cason Wallace, who is going to be up for an extension this summer. Let me tell you some of their salary situations. So this year, J-Dub, Jalen Williams, is making less than $15 million, I believe. So next year, Jalen Williams goes for making... I want to talk about this year. I know. I want to talk about next year. You're not... I'm going to read them to you. Jalen Williams this year, it's $6.5 million. Next year, he's making $41.5 million. Nice $35 million jump. So let's just do a little math. That's $35 million. All right. Chad Holmgren is making, to make the math easy, $13.5 million. Next year, he's making $41.5 million. That's a $28 million jump. All right. $28 million. Shea, it's not big, but he gets a raise from $30 million. Shea's making an extra couple million. Okay. And then she kicks in after that. Right. Okay. Okay, so. Here's the thing, though. They've not paid the tax under this CBA. Next year will be the first year they're a tax team. The year after that, they're getting an arena that was gifted to them by the city, essentially. They paid $50 million. That's fine. That's fine. But right now, hold on. Right now. And they're the defending champions, and they're the favorites right now. So I don't want to put a lot of energy into, oh, my gosh, the Thunder getting broken up. Let's see if they can defend their championship first. First of all, I didn't say they're going to get broken up. Second of all, right now, for next year's team, if they opt in Kenner Williams and they opt in Lou Dort and they opt in Isaiah Hardenstein, and they have the 15 guys on the roster, which, by the way, does not include their first round picks that they have, which they have multiple. They could have multiple lottery picks, depending on how things go. They currently have a payroll of $250 million. The tax line is $201 million. They would be more into the second apron than there is the difference between the tax and the second apron. So I'm not saying that the Thunder are going to get broken up. I'm not saying they can't afford to keep most of these guys. Maybe they'll have all of them on the team next year. But I can promise you that teams around the league are looking at the Thunder and saying, what are the Thunder going to do with their roster this summer? Because they have a lot of awesome players and they're going to have decisions to make on who to keep and what to do with their team. That's all. $65 million in new salaries, which, by the way, they got a chance to win the championship this year. We obviously haven't had a repeat champion in... Since 2018, eight years. When was the last time we had two years in a row where the champion wasn't in the tax? That's something I'm going to research. Probably before the tax started. I think it was, yeah, because the Warriors didn't win 16. I don't think that, I think they were in the tax in 18. but they kept not being into tax while having all those guys, which is a great deal. All right. Anyway, so the real thing is Isaiah Hartenstein has a team option for next year. Lou Dort has a team option for next year. Alex Caruso is on a deal that pays him $20 million a year for the next three years. And then Kaysen Wallace has one year left at $7.5 million, and then he's a free agent. So the question is, can they keep, because the thing about it is they can just keep Hartenstein and Dort and just leave them there. But, you know, then you risk losing them in free agency. And so the question is, do you try to do extensions with them? Is there a number that you can get with those guys for extensions? Because ideally, which you would, you would not want them. So that's just the thing. Like, it's not a four alarm fire. Their three all-star players are under contract for a long period of time. They have a whole bunch of draft picks in to replace, but that's the thing. Having said all that, Cason Wallace, at some point, by somebody, is going to get paid. And he's probably made himself some money this month, no doubt. Yes, he had 27 points, eight rebounds, seven assists. And he leads the league in steals per game. He only had one steal tonight. So he has now, and by the way, that matches his career high with 27 points. Matches his career high from February 1st. first. He now has six 20-plus point games in his career. Four of them are this month. And if you look at his assist numbers, he's got like five of his top nine or five of his top 10 assist performances this month. Now, there's a very clear reason, right? Shea's been out. Dub's been out. You don't have your MVP. You don't have your all-NBA secondary playmaker. You don't have a guy in A.J. Mitchell who's emerged as one of the best sixth men in the league this year, who's your third best creator. They've needed Cason Wallace, who's, you know, he's made his impact primarily on the defensive end. They've needed him to be an on-ball creator, and he has answered the bell. And this game, they were up out of 20-ish or so. Toronto came all the way back, tied it up with just over four minutes left. Three straight possessions, Cason Wallace had two drives for nice finishes at the rim, and then a steal, push it in transition, kick it to Isaiah Joe for a three. Boom, just like that, a 7-0 run. And listen, I understand focusing on what's to come for the Thunder this summer and looking at the financial forecast in the future. But the first order of business is defending a championship. In Cason Wallace's growth this month, him taking advantage of the opportunity that came from injury misfortune, this is a huge development for the Thunder's chances of repeating this year. I will just say, one of the things that the Thunder are doing, so they played, by the way, Jackson says this month he's averaging 4.7 assists and 1.3 turnovers. So basically he's almost at 5-1 assist to turnover. That's pretty good. Thunder are in a little stretch here. They played Cleveland at home on Sunday, win. Play in Toronto, again, without three of their best players, in Toronto on Tuesday, win. Oddly, the Raptors are a 500 team at home and one of the best teams on the road. I have to look more into that, but that is the case. Something to the Canadian currency rate probably But I will say that that a good win They go play in Detroit on ESPN on Wednesday the second night of a back Detroit's going to be looking for vengeance coming off that performance against San Antonio. But still, that's when I think they go home and play the Nuggets. So, interesting test for this group of guys. According to the timeline that the Thunder announced last week, Shea's probably going to be re-evaluated. Not that he's not evaluated every day, but the official re-evaluation is probably before that Nuggets game. So both for Shea and A.J. Mitchell, who sounds like A.J. Mitchell has pretty much recovered from the abdominal strain and then sprained his ankle working out over the break. And they said Jalen Williams would be re-evaluated in two weeks. Yeah, so another week to go for him. Anyways, at least with Shea and A.J. Mitchell, it sounds like those guys could be back pretty soon. But again, man, like the Thunder's depth, to be able to beat the Cavs and then the Raptors, missing your top two players and three of your top six or so, that's pretty impressive. And to have a 22-year-old blossoming like this, who's already an elite defender. Like, you mentioned Stephon Castle's an elite on-ball defender. Cason Wallace is at least as good. He is at least as good, and he is a big-time playmaker. Yes, at least league and steals per game. He just gets his hands on everything. But to have him blossoming like this on the offensive end, I cannot overstate what a massive development that is for the Thunder. This is, you know, and that's the thing. Like, who knows? If you get into a playoff series, maybe he is a non-factor in two or three games. But then all of a sudden, it's 2-2 or it's 3-2, and you're trying to close a team out. And then maybe somebody gets in foul trouble. Maybe somebody turns their ankle. And then up, here comes this guy, and he can go right back to this. This is the kind of stuff. You may say, well, it's just a February game. It's just some Tuesday in Toronto. Oh, yeah, well, this kind of stuff can sometimes matter when you're trying to build out a title. Like, once you get the primary guys back, it's not even going to be about the numbers, but it's going to be about his comfort with the ball in his hands. Like, just to have that one more guy who, hey, if he gets the ball and it's a late shot clock, you know, he can put it on the floor and make a play. Like, you know, it might be a critical late shot clock bucket here or there in the playoffs that can make the difference. For sure. All right. Well, ESPN, Wednesday night. So the other game on ESPN on Wednesday night is Celtics at Nuggets. Celtics are doing very well in their post-All-Star West Coast trip. They've won seven out of eight overall. Jalen Brown continues to put up strong games. And Bontemps, I've shouted out your poll a couple of times this week, from last week, because especially after this weekend when the Celtics just crushed the Lakers, I think held them to 89 points. after the game, LeBron gave Jalen a shout-out and thought he was being underrated. For Jalen, who's, I think, been fighting for recognition throughout the season, I think he liked hearing that from a guy who he's played quite a few times against in the playoffs. Am I being controversial if I say that I think Jalen Brown is being properly rated? No, not at all. He's a second-team All-NBA player who finished sixth in the last straw poll, got three third-place votes in the last straw poll, which has been any total votes as he'd had in the entire history of the straw poll before this season. And he finished behind Luka Dacic, who's better than him, Cade Cunningham, who's better than him, Victor Waminyama, who's better than him, Nikola Jokic, who's better than him, and Chagas Alexander, the reigning MVP, who is better than him. And he finished ahead of Jan LeBrunsen and Donovan Mitchell, who were both also awesome players. Like, the idea that he's, you know, being underrated or not giving enough respect or any of these things. Like, look, if you want to say, like, Jalen's obviously having a fantastic year. His numbers argument doesn't stack up with these other guys ahead of him. And if you want to say the narrative of carrying the Celtics team to places we did not expect is his best argument, which, by the way, is a very fair and good argument. It's not as good as Victor's argument. And it's not as good as Cade's argument. So he's properly rated. He's a hell of a player. He's going to be a second-team All-NBA player. He might be first-team All-NBA. He might be, but those five guys ahead of him, I think, are going to be the first-team All-NBA guys. Yeah, but some of them are close on the game. Sure, if people get hurt, then Jalen could end up higher. But I'm saying, based off the available information, you know, with Giannis out of the picture, those five guys are the first-team All-NBA players. and Jalen will be right near the top of the voting for second team, which is a hell of an accomplishment. And there's nothing to be insulted by. And it's not a disappointment or it's not some overlooking of his candidacy. It is what it is. I don't think it's fair to the rest of the Celtics to say Jalen Brown has carried them. That's not an accurate statement. Well, I'm just saying, if you're making the argument for Jalen Brown, he's their leading scorer, he's their number one option every night. I'm just saying, it's a powerful argument. It just doesn't stack up with the guys who are ahead of him. That's all. And look, people, and I think nerdy numbers can be misused, and I'm not saying that he isn't a driving force to the Celtics' success this season, but the simple fact of the matter is the net rating with him on the floor is plus 5.0. Their net rating without him on the floor is plus 12.7. Now, that's about rotations. It's about a lot of things. But my point is, like, you look at these other MVP candidates, like, Wimby's got a massive net rating swing in the positive direction. That's always been a huge part of Joker's argument. Same with Shea. I mean, Jalen Brown is a deserving second team all-NBA selection. He's on the fringe of the MVP conversation. But this idea that, you know, he told Melissa Rowland of the California Post something along the lines of like, I don't know what things that, I don't know if you have the exact quote. We don't even have to, we don't have to denigrate. He didn't play the game in the media so he didn't get the love. Like, dude, you're on a Supermax contract because you've been all-NBA before, right? That's voted on by the media. You were the Eastern Conference Finals MVP that's voted on by the media. You're the Finals MVP that's voted on by the media. There's not some media agenda against Jalen Brown. When he got All-NBA, it made him, he didn't make, you know, he earned it. But when he got All-NBA, it was in the year that he got the Supermax. Exactly. That's what Tim just said. His stats are not as good as the five guys in front of him. And the narrative argument is not as good as the guy whose team is leading the Eastern Conference and the guy whose team is a couple games out of leading the Western Conference. So, or the reigning MVP, by the way. Well, I understand that, but I'm just saying like narrative, like those guys have the best narrative argument, but he doesn't have the first or second best narrative argument. And he doesn't have one of the four or five best stats arguments. So he's right where he should be, which is no insult. So, you know, it's, it's perfectly fine. He's perfectly rated. Well done by everybody. Real quick on Denver. And now that I'm going to say this, they'll probably be awesome in the clutch. Denver, you know, lost a couple of clutch games recently. They now have a losing record when games go to the clutch. They're 14 and 15. Their net rating in clutch performance, clutch games is 26. Their assist to turnover ratio in clutch games is 26. You know, they are obviously struggling because of injuries, particularly defensively. They have no doubt they've had a lot of injuries all year long. Yeah, the Gord injuries especially. I agree. I'm just saying that, like, you know, Jokic and Jamal Murray, you have those two guys. Those guys have long histories of being great clutch performers, and it's just not happening this year. It's been baffling clutch misery for them, and they're 4-6 since Joker returned, including 1-5 in clutch games. and, you know, they're hoping, you know, David Adelman said this afternoon that they're hoping to get Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson back for the last 20 games, which would mean, you know, the next four or so games. It's been a wonky season for the Nuggets, but I still would say that they're going to be right there in the thick of things if they have a healthy roster come playoff time. I will say the teams around them in the standings, Houston, the Lakers the Lakers right now are in a neck and neck game with the Magic across the street from me so I don't know how that's going to play out but there's some teams around them that have been losing so they haven't really like they've lost ground for the two San Antonio's put some space out there but they haven't like you know you lose three out of you go three and six in the West in different times you could go from three to seven but they have gotten a little bit of grace because some of those mid mid-table teams. I've got a question. Yeah. You're out there in LA a lot. Maybe I've missed it. Has LeBron lobbied for Luka's MVP? You need to speak to McTen about that. Maybe I missed it. I haven't seen it. Well, I'm not going to say anything right now because, you know, he could have 25 in the fourth quarter. But he's so far to this point, he's not having a great night, but we'll see what happens. I think we should give a little attention to Jonathan Kuminga, who played his first game as a Hawk on Tuesday night and put up a season-high 27 points. They beat the Wizards, and I have to assume that he was very pleased to get that. It comes at the expense, unfortunately, of Jalen Johnson, who had a hip injury in the first quarter of this game. That said, I know it was a big moment for Kuminga, Pantams. Well, it's also, I mean, it's kind of fortuitous timing for Jonathan Kuminga. Obviously, you don't want anybody to get hurt in the Hawks. Obviously, Jalen Johnson's had a phenomenal year. They're all-star forward, but he left the game halfway through the first quarter, like you said, with a hip flexor injury, and And sort of the problem for Jonathan Kaminga is he landed in another situation where it's kind of an awkward fit. It's a little hard to play him and Jalen Johnson a ton together. And, I mean, if Jalen Johnson could only play six minutes with a hip flexor, you would think he's probably going to miss at least a little bit of time. And that's going to give Jonathan Kaminga a chance to step, presumably, into his spot in the starting lineup and have the ball in his hands a lot and get shots up and make plays and do all the stuff that he has been wanting to do for a long time. And to come back and have this game right out the gate, I know Quinn Snyder was intrigued about getting him on the roster and getting his hands on him to see what he could do with him. And now he's going to have a chance to have some runway, potentially, to have the ball and do stuff. So, you know, there'll be a lot of, I told you so, as I'm sure if we can make it camp today, is that the injury-depleted Warriors lost in New Orleans with a bunch of their guys out. And he had his best game of the season and got a win. I just, I dare someone in that Warriors beat crew to ask Steve Carr what he thought of Kaminga's debut for the Hawks. I dare somebody. We'll see if it happens. Friedel, you're the man to do it. I nominate Slater. All right. Thank you so much to Devon, Mark, and Jackson, our producers. Thank you to Bob Thompson McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to The Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you later this week. Adios, amigos. Thank you.