A.D., how are you, man? I'm good, brother. How you doing, Jeff?
Listen, I'm living and breathing. I got nothing to complain about. That's good, huh? I hear that. Ain't that the truth. How about that?
I got to start here. I know you've heard the comments made by Nico Harrison earlier today. I know you know everything that was said last week and months before and Patrick Dumont. Am I living in the Twilight Zone? Are the Mavs fans being punked?
Is Nico just being sent to the front lines to take a beating? What's going on with the Mavs? Listen, I'm trying to think. Well, you know how long we talked about this on our CSXM show? I struggle with this. I really do. Because I think there has to be a 30 for 30 that comes out about the Luca trait. There has to be.
Because there has to be something behind the scenes, J.R., that we just don't know about. I have a hard time believing that on a random night in February, Nico Harrison just woke up like, you know what? I think I'm going to trade Luca this evening. No way. No way. You don't just trade somebody away like that. I don't care if, even if you don't think that the Mavericks fan base would have responded the way that they responded, you still don't do that.
Because that's the first time in history a player of that magnitude has ever been moved mid-season without asking to be traded. Come on, man. I have a hard time believing this is solely on Nico. Maybe I'm the foolish one.
Maybe he did do that. But I just have a hard time believing that this does not start above Nico and that now Nico is the man that has to fall on the sword. Yeah, well, Nico said today, and maybe he's fallen on the sword more today, he said, hey, I made the decision. Okay, but we know where the buck stops. What else can he say?
Let's just throw a hypothetical scenario, right? If they told him this is what he has to do to keep his job, what else can he say? The thing that he can never come out and say was, look, I was told that I was told to move Luca. This wasn't my doing.
I was told to trade Luca. He can't do that. So what he has to do is stay politically correct.
And when he's sitting in a room with all Dallas Mavericks media, just continue to say, you know what? I'm passionate about something. I have no problem articulating it. No problem explaining it. It's when I let passion for something that I struggle with it. And when they put Nico in that room, because they continue to parade him out in front of the media, just him. He's having a problem explaining why he traded Luca.
That's what I struggle with. If you were all on board with moving Luca. It wouldn't be a problem articulating your thought process as far as what you were thinking and why you chose to move a top five player in the league.
But when it wasn't your doing, you're going to struggle to articulate it to try and put the pieces of the puzzle together. What the heck is going on in Dallas? A.D., if we if we take a flip over to the team that's actually playing right now, the Los Angeles Lakers, they took that that game one loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves 117 to 95. Look, this was a Lakers team that was rolling.
Size was always a concern. How do you think they match up with these wolves? I don't say what I said last week before this series even started. I feel like out of all the teams in the Western Conference, the way they're constructed, Minnesota will be the toughest match up for the Lakers. I feel like Minnesota will give them a tougher match up than Houston would, then Oklahoma City would, then Denver would, then the Clippers would. Because a lot of what Minnesota has is what the Lakers struggle with.
One, they got a star in Anthony Davis, and they're going to be the best team in the country. I mean, and the Edwards that can attack anyone. The Lakers have a lot of different guys that you can target that you can put in the action. You can put Luca in action. You can put Austin Reeves in the action. You can put LeBron in action, and you can attack those guys. And second, Minnesota is big. You can put Luca in action. You can put Austin Reeves in action. You can put LeBron in action and you can attack those guys.
And second, Minnesota is big. You know the thing that the Lakers cannot do? They can't play big boy basketball.
They're not constructed to. So if it's a big team, Jackson Hayes is your starting center and he's long and he's athletic and he can run. But I'll tell you what, to tell him to keep Rudy Gobert off the offensive glass, to tell LeBron James to go down there and bang with Julius Randle or Rui Hachimura and the fact that you have a star in Anthony Edwards that can take advantage of isolation situations. Listen, this league to me is all about matchups. It's all about matchups. I'm not saying Minnesota is the best team in the Western Conference. What I am saying and what I do believe is Minnesota out of all the teams in the Western Conference presents the most issues for the Los Angeles Lakers. Antonio, you bring up the Oklahoma City Thunder. We know on the course of the regular season, they were the best squad, 68 wins to only 14 losses. Typically, you get that many W's. People are looking at you as the team that should go out there and win a championship.
Forget that for a second. Do you believe that the Thunder will be the team that will come out of the West? Man, as much as I love the OKC Thunder, I am in a you have to show me stage because I don't believe in skipping steps. I believe in every team has to kind of take their bumps and bruises along the way to an NBA championship. Two years ago, they didn't make the playoffs. Last year, obviously, they made to the playoffs lost in the second round.
What's the next step? Now, are they skipping the Western Conference Finals and going straight to the NBA Finals or do they lose in the Western Conference Finals? I I struggle because they check a lot of boxes. They really do. They had issues this summer and they went on to address them by getting Isaiah Hardinstein again. Now they can play big boy basketball, too. I have a I have a hard time seeing a team in the Western Conference that can beat the Oklahoma City Thunder four times, four times. See, it's crazy how worse they are because I feel like like the Lakers would give OKC problems. But OKC would get Minnesota problems and Minnesota gives the Lakers problems. You know what I mean?
So it's almost like a triangle here. And I'm not forgetting about the Clippers in Denver, but it was almost like two years ago when the Lakers couldn't beat Denver. Denver couldn't beat Oklahoma City and Oklahoma City couldn't beat the Lakers. It's all about matchups. Yeah, well, we're right in the hell of a matchup we're getting. You talk about the Nuggets and the Clippers, they'll be in action in about 90 minutes from now. We're being joined by Antonio Daniels, NBA champion, a co-host on Sirius XM's NBA radio give and go to kind of flip over to the east. We know the Celtics are the presumed favorites, but I got to ask you this. Unfortunately, Tatum's mom was caught on a hot mic just saying, hey, do you want me to go over to Orlando's locker room?
OK, a whole lot of nothing about nothing. But if I'm in the locker room and maybe if I walked away with a W, I'd be having a field day with that. Like I feel like there's a little mark against Tatum. His mom is out here trying to defend him like this is Tatum is such a great player, such a great guy.
But it feels like he's always getting beat up in a court of public opinion. And now mom helping him doesn't help. Well, I mean, I didn't I didn't have a problem with it. I mean, obviously, she's not going to you know, as a parent, you always going to defend your baby.
I'm 50 years old. My mom always tells me all the time you always going to be my baby. So I get it. I completely understand. I completely understand what she's coming from.
Obviously, she wasn't serious, but you're right. He's constantly getting beat up in the court of public opinion. But that that comes with the territory.
That's something that comes into territory. I tell you what, if you want to talk big picture here, can you see another team in the in the NBA finals from either side? He's a conference Western Conference that is constructed to beat the Boston Celtics four times in the seven game series. Now to the non on me neither.
No me neither. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please struggle. Go one with their top three players struggling, struggling, big time. They still smacked Orlando like they have such a deep team, and you have to be able to match them. Offensively when you've gotta team that's out there now shooting 55, 63.
How do you keep up with that? If your team is not constructed that way. And no team in the league is constructed like that.
You can, especially one of the guys is seven for three and block shots on the other end You can't, you can't do it. Antonio Daniels is here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show. Just to kind of flip gears a little bit, we heard earlier today that Cooper Flag, no shock, is going to enter into the NBA draft.
He's going to go number one to whatever team ends up with the number one pick. When you've seen Cooper Flag, it's hard to draw comparisons. He's a do-it-all type basketball player. But what impresses you about his game?
You know, for me, it's the fact that he does everything well. Like, I haven't seen like a real weakness thus far. Not yet. And you know what's wild about college? Like, I'll give you a few players and think of who they were in college, right?
And tell me if you saw what is in front of you now in college. Did you see Kyle the hero doing what he's doing right now in college? No, not to the extent. Devin Booker? Oh no, coming off Kentucky's bench? No, no, uh-uh. Right. Donovan Mitchell?
Oh no, no, uh-uh, no. You can go down the list of different guys and when they get to the NBA and now it's about space and opportunity is where you see a lot of guys take that next step. You know, I feel like, I feel like this is Cooper Flagg's basement where he is right now. This is his basement.
Because when he gets to the next level and now he can use all the tools that the Lord has blessed him with, but now he has space. The thing about college is there is no illegal defense. You know, everybody sits in the lane. Everybody plays his own. So now you obviously have to adhere to whatever team that you're playing on. In this particular instance, Duke and their zone offense.
But when you get to the next level and now it's you one-on-one against somebody else, like I heard he really shined when he played in the USA with the USAT. You know why? Because there's space. There's space. There's opportunity. So now all the skills that he has along with the side that he's blessed with, now he has the space to put that, like put that in the forefront. He couldn't do that in college. I'm excited to see what this young man becomes. Well, absolutely.
A.D., last question for y'all. I know you call the the Pels games too as well down in New Orleans. We got another guy who came out of Duke and Zion is there's so much being changed around in Louisiana. David Griffin now out. Do you think Zion can stick with the Pelicans or is that just about done?
Do they need to just move on? Everybody need to go their separate ways. I'm definitely not there. I'm I'm definitely not the obviously I'm the color analyst.
I don't make any organizational decisions. But what I saw from Zion and the games that he played this year and what I've seen from him since he's been there, like he is, man, that that dude is a game changer. And when I say a game changer, he instills confidence in everyone like his teammates, the crowd, the coaching staff. When he is on the floor, whoever you are playing against, you feel like if he's playing, you have a chance to win that game. You can't say that about a lot of guys. You cannot say that about a lot of guys. So I mean, again, now you have Joe Dumars that is stepping in for David Griffin and it's his show to run him and Willie Green.
It's their show to run Blyson Graham, Swin Cash. And for me, it's my job to sit back and call games. But what I saw out of number one this year, as far as his ability to take over games against incredible defensive teams, his ability to problem solve on the fly. I don't know what the future holds, but I know that young man is about as talented as they come. And we're going to find out sooner than later. A.D., always a pleasure to have a chat with you.
Where can I told them a bunch of times, but you tell them where can people follow and listen to you and everything that you're up to? Well, I'm on Sirius XM, NBA radio every day from one to four Eastern Standard Time with me and Rob Perez, World Wide Wild and Twitter, A.D., A. Daniels, 33. That's about it.
That's about it. I love the sport. Love to talk about it. So let's chat.
Appreciate it. No chance that you're going to be back on the court helping nobody no time soon running the show, right? Them days are over. Oh, them days is over. I actually played for the first time in three years. I pick up this past weekend and I pulled my groin.
Yeah, that should tell you enough. Oh, boy. Don't go. Hey, listen, we want you to be Antonio Daniels, not Anthony Davis. So chill out, A.D., OK?
Exactly. I'm back on the sideline. As long as I'm I'm on the sideline, I'm good with this. I need to be right where I'm at. I feel better. We'll catch you on down the line, A.D. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, brother. Always.
