Matt Moore | Action Network NBA Writer

It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infiniti Sports Network. The NBA Finals are going on. Man, they may end pretty soon. We got coaches that have been fired, teams looking for coaches. We got players who have been traded.

We got free agent destinations and guys. It's just a lot going on. in the league right now. To talk about what we've seen, what we might see, what we can expect over the next few weeks, is someone who covers all things basketball, writing for the Action Network. Locked on NBA, locked on Nuggets National.

It is Matt Moore. Matt, good to have you back, man. How are you? Doing well, man. How are you?

I'm very well. Thanks for taking the time and joining us. How are you enjoying the finals so far? A great series, man. It's just been really high-level basketball and It's been fun to see these teams that haven't been on national television as much get a chance to really shine.

You're seeing what makes OKC so special with their defense, and the future of Jalen Williams is so bright. And you're seeing this Pacers team that just manages to stay in these games. It's been a very hard-fought series. It's been a close series. I've had a lot of fun watching this one.

When you think about what we saw last night, and even earlier on in the series with Halliburton going down with that leg. Yeah, he's going to get an MRI. There's only two games left in the season, if that at all, if we get past Thursday. What are your thoughts on allowing him to push it or play? Is he going to be the world's greatest decoy?

What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, I mean it it's hard to tell. You know, we'll get the results back of the MRI maybe. We'll see if they release it or if they leak it.

If it's a grade two, he can be at best a decoy. If it's a grade one, you know, he might be able to actually play and give him. A little bit of a burst. The fact that he was able to play in that second half, even though he had a rough one, obviously, two days of treatment, two full days of treatment, they can work wonders. And we've seen guys like Aaron Gordon off the hamstring be able to actually go out and perform.

It just kind of depends on. How bad? the severity of the of the strain is and the fact that You know, it's not described as a tear, which strains just a minor tear, but the fact that it's not described that way is positive. Um, we'll see kind of what he's going to look like. He's obviously not going to be 100%.

Big question is just going to be, you know, can he be able to shape the game with his passing? Is he going to be able to hit open shots if he's a decoy kind of situation? How much of the Thunder going to adjust knowing he's not 100%? There's just, I think, a lot we don't know right now going into this game six. We are being joined by Matt Moore from the Action Network.

Just this time last year, it looked like the Boston Celtics would be running the NBA. For quite some years, you got seems like the New York Knicks, who appeared to be building up just to compete. against the Boston Celtics. What are your thoughts on OKC, though? I mean, they're even younger than the Celtics, and they seem like they got nothing between them but more opportunity and championships.

Yeah, that's kind of the invoke thing to say right now: is like, how many championships are they going to win? And I'm like, well, let's get them won first. You got to do the thing once. And then, you know, look, we haven't seen a repeat champion since 2018. And on top of that differential year-to-year, We also have seen this new CBA come in and really wreck teams' ability to keep guys together.

And you're going to see this summer they're going to hand out big extensions to Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. And after they do that, we'll see how long they can stay in that level of tax, how long they can stay at the second apron, because it's going to get real restrictive really quickly for that team. And so I'm not necessarily just like sitting here going, oh, yeah, they're going to win three in five years.

Well, you know, we'll see. I think the best chance of them is next year before those extensions kick back in. But this league is really built for us not to have dynasties right now. And I'm skeptical, even if OKC, even with that upside. Too many things, there's too many plot twists in the NBA for me to think it's that simple.

Oh man, you talk about what we've seen in the league and people spending money. The Phoenix Suns have been a complete disaster. And we started to hear about destinations that Kevin Durant would go to, where he would not want to go, who's not interested in a team like the New York Knicks. Where do you think he ultimately would end up, realistically? I mean, I think Houston's the most likely outcome here.

Because Houston doesn't have to give up a premium value for him, but is able to give up enough to make it worth it. for the Sun. The Suns really want to center back in the deal. And they're not going to provide Alpert Shangoon. They're not going to, they've just signed Stephen Adams to an extension.

But. They're able, I think, to be able to put together an offer, whether it's Jalen Green, Jabari Smith, Fred Van Bly. To put together an offer that gets Phoenix enough for them to be able to go forward both with a good team around Devin Booker, if not a great team, and then the ability to trade out of it later. Plus, they own all of Phoenix's draft capital so they can send back a little bit of alleviation under that deal. The question's gonna be: you know, the way I understand it is that.

Front office wants to be more patient, wants to find the right star with their young core. Coaching wants Kevin Durant, wants to try and go for it immediately. And so that kind of battle I think is going to be interesting. If it's not Houston, I think Miami is going to be the second most likely, given that Durant leaked that he doesn't want to go to Minnesota last night. Oh, Matt, I know you're based in Colorado.

Keep up with the Nuggets, cover them as well. Russell Westbrook saying, I'll leave the 3 mil here. There's still a possibility that he returns. Is he waiting to see if the dust settles amongst free agency over the next month or so? What's the deal with Russell Westbrook as he just continues to chase a ring somewhere?

Yeah, I think there's a possibility he comes back to Denver. You know, I think for him, he's hoping the Denver runs out of options and then giving him the taxpayer MLE is their best. kind of their only real choice that they can make. If not, you know, look, he's still going to have suitors around the league. He has had interest, I've been told, from several.

Overseas teams doesn't want to do that, wants to continue his NBA career. But, like, the money's going to be pretty substantial for him to turn down in that kind of a spot versus the NBA.

Now, he's made enough, I think, he can. bypass that but it'll be interesting you know given that Both LLA teams, where he's from, not an option.

Now with Denver, it's just going to be a very interesting to see where he decides is the right fit for him to try and make another run at it. No, yeah, Russell Russell Westbrook is just uh Well, we'll see what happens. This is the fun part. What are you looking forward to the most?

now that we are almost done with the NBA Finals. Obviously, we have the draft coming up and this Kevin Durant situation and who knows if Giannis will move. It seems kind of quiet on the Western front there. What are you looking forward to the most?

I mean, I think this draft is going to be super interesting because you've got teams like Philadelphia. You've got teams like San Antonio with the number two pick. You've got teams like New Orleans looking to move up. You've got teams trying to move into the Rocket spot at 10. You've got Washington trying to move up.

You've got Charlotte open to moving back. There's going to be a lot of action, I think, on draft night as everyone kind of tries to clear their books and get themselves ready for that free agency that starts on July 1st.

So I think this NBA draft is going to be. Pretty exciting, not only with who goes where, but with all the trade that goes along with it. Should be a very active week next week, even as the NBA finishes up actually playing games. Matt Moore joining us here from the Action Network. It seems like on Sunday we got ahead of that with Desmond Bain moving on to the Orlando Magic.

It seems like he's going to be a great fit out there with them. What the heck is going on in Memphis, though? Yeah, Memphis, I think, is just simply dealing with the realities of the CBA. You know, a lot of executives I've talked to have said: you could have two guys, you can't have three. You can't have three guys making huge money long term.

It ties you up too much. The repeater is too prohibitive, and the second apron limits you too much.

So they're clearing space to give Jaron Jackson his extension. They're going to build around John Morant. And Jaron Jackson, unless Jaw comes to them and says, that's it, I want out, which they're working very hard to try and get that relationship in a good place. They've got Jalen Wells and Zach Eady, young guys. They want to kind of build from there.

I don't think this is a teardown. I think it was just the realities of what you have to do under the current CPA. Man, it stinks. I mean, is John Morant reliable, though? Forget all the off-court stuff.

Even from a physical perspective, he plays so hard, he's so athletic, he's up in the air, he's down on the ground. Like, is he? Can you trust him? I don't know if I would. Yeah, I mean look I think that's a that's a big question And when he comes up for his next massive deal, there's going to be a lot of Questions about whether or not Memphis is willing to commit that money because it's no longer like an automatic.

You just give the best player on your team that money. It's no longer like that.

So, it's going to be, I think, a big question, March. I think he's motivated to reclaim a spot amongst the elite. I think he's had. Obviously, you know, I think things started to go sideways with the off-court stuff, and that led into his conditioning, and that led into his injury problems. But a lot of his injury stuff has been random.

It hasn't been like a knee issue consistently. It's been a lot of different things for him, and he is going to have to adapt to playing less. Physically, and not being as breakneck. But I think he can do that. He's skilled, he's gifted enough, he's a great passer.

I still have a lot of confidence that Jaw is going to have a great career. Matt Moore is joining us from the Action Network. I don't know what the New York Knicks are doing, Matt. It's like they woke up one day, made a decision, didn't know what they were going to do after that. It's like they're rolling around.

Looking at a map, it just everybody's pointing in different directions. They don't know where the hell they're going. Yeah, the whole situation seems really fraught. You know, I think the players were ready to go to move on from Tibbs, not Josh Hart, but a lot of the other guys. They've got some chemistry stuff that they've got to work out too.

And that's one of the things that I think is going to be really interesting is the new coach can't just come in and try and give them better X's and O's. He's got to manage a lot of egos. There's a lot of money, a lot of egos on that team. And they've got to balance a lot of it with a lot of politics under a very big magnifying glass in New York. That's why I think it's very difficult to kind of find the right guy for them to hire.

And we'll be interested to see whether, you know, who's willing to take on that challenge. They continue to leave out guys that I think they should be looking at. Frank Vogel, Michael Malone. These are guys that have dealt with those kind of situations and won championships with a lot of big egos. It's weird to me that they continue to exclude those guys as they're looking for the next head coach.

Well, Matt, you talk about the parody that currently exists in the NBA. And knowing that we haven't had a team repeat since the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant. Is there a team that you look at for next year and go, oh man, they could make a good jump up? Or is it too early given the roster movement that's going to take place? Yeah, I think it's a little early.

I mean, look, I think Orlando is going to be better next year. Obviously, Add and Desmond Bain getting healthy is a big part of the equation for them. But there's a lot of dominoes still hanging out there. Giannis isn't definitely leaving. But he's not definitely coming back.

Golden State continues to kind of shop around for big moves. Toronto is looking for big moves. Everyone wants to know what New Orleans is. Is gonna do. There's all these teams, I think.

Facing very uncertain directions with a lot of talent. And whoever comes out of, I think, what's going to be a pretty wild next three weeks in the NBA. could have an opportunity, I think, to really contend for a title next year. Yeah, absolutely. The NBA built for parody, not built for super teams at this point.

In time. Hey Matt, thank you so much for the time. Where can people follow you and find all of your work with the Action Network and elsewhere? Yeah, you can follow me on social media at HP Basketball. I've got a sub stack you can find over there.

I'm on Locked on NBA daily, Monday through Friday at youtube.com/slash locked on NBA. You can catch my work on the Action Network app at actionnetwork.com. Amat. Thank you so much for the time. Enjoy the next couple weeks and the next few days, okay?

Anytime, man, take care.