The Jim Jackson Show: NBA Insider Marc Stein

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Not available in all states. Welcome in. Another great week to have the Jim Jackson Show.

Why? It's because it's NBA playoffs. We're in the heat of it right now. My Clippers, I'm able to take a win on the road at Denver, which is always a great thing.

We should have had the first game, but too many turnovers early. Couldn't close the deal, but it just got me to thinking about kind of where we're at in this cycle with the NBA right now. A lot of talk during the course of the year, a lot of player movement, coaches being fired, GM got fired, a lot of head scratching, but we're at the point now where we're in the playoffs, and it's a great mix. It's a lot of chatter going on about what some of the next moves are going to be in the NBA, certain players in the mix, coaches. Who's going to be coaches next year? I mean, I don't think we've seen this in quite some time, the number of coaches or the GMs making moves like this, the number of free GM or open GM jobs. I know Scott Perry just got the Sacramento job that had been open, and I think it says something too, maybe about the changing environment of the ownership on how they value and view winning and maybe a little bit of impatience at times with the current organization, who probably some have chosen to put in place and not having the patience to kind of see it through. It's a weird time at the NBA from a organizational perspective, but I think when you talk about on the court, the product is beginning to speak for itself in a lot of these series.

I mean, what Golden State was able to accomplish near the end of the season to get themselves in the situation, especially after with Jimmy Butler. Hopefully Jimmy is OK too, because I think that's it. You know, you want to see your best players playing. You want to see your best players on the court and that injury to his hip last night going to be a tough one. You know, he's going to be sore for a couple of days. Can Jimmy fight through it? Yes, but will he still have the same impact is yet to be seen, but I'm looking forward to it. But you know, as I was thinking about the show this week, I want to get a good friend of mine on Mark Mark Mark Stein on to really dig into the Dallas situation. See, he's boots on the ground.

He covered the members from nothing 1997 to 2000. He's been on ESPN as an insider and a writer, New York Times. But he has a lot of insight and he has some different takes. Even conventional conversation is going on out there that will dig into. That I think will enlighten and provide a little bit more perspective on why some of the moves this year have happened while we're still scratching our heads, so to speak on why some moves happen, but an overall assessment to a kind of where we're going in the NBA in the league itself in general going to be a really great conversation. So buckle up. I hope you enjoy it.

Hope you have a great time with this conversation because there will be a lot of information to download as promised. A longtime NBA writer, formerly at ESPN, New York Times. Once upon a time to also at the Dallas Morning News, located in Dallas. They're currently with has his own. You got your own thing going, right?

Mark Mark Stein. That's that's on Substack, right? I published my own Substack, do a lot of podcasting, but now I can say I finally made it. I'm on your show. Oh, come on, man. That's a low level, low bar right there. But congrats, man.

Always want to get in front of you and talk to you. I know you got a lot of insight, a lot of information. So thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. How things in Dallas, man. That's a tough question. You know, that was a that is a tough question.

You really did. You have firsthand experience with a Dallas based firestorm. But I'm going to say that this is levels past anything, even you saw in your time here.

This is this is my 32nd year. And I have honestly never seen an NBA fan base this angry, loud and heartbroken. I've never seen a trade have this kind of effect. It's it really is new ground for me. You know, I was going to start with the playoffs, but since you kind of introduced us to the groundswell and kind of how the climate there hasn't dissipated at all.

And there's a couple of things I'm going to pick your brain on with this. One, what's your thoughts on these press conferences that Niko Harrison, Niko is a good friend of mine, not like I talk to him all the time and I didn't want to know he was going through a lot right now. But with these press conferences going on, in your opinion, I know the postseason press conference was necessary, you know, after after the season post conference. But it does it seem a little manufactured in the information that's being given out and how it and how ownership management wants to kind of douse the fire a little bit.

Does it seem a little forced to you? I mean, that's one of the major issues here is they're not dousing any fires. They're just stoking it. And look, the trade is the trade. But, you know, and you can't really say separate the trade because it's all part of the trade. But there have been so many mistakes since the trade on our DLS podcast.

I described it as if, you know, for the soccer fans out there, it is own goal after own goal after own goal after own goal. And the press conference situation. They needed to address this locally right after the trade. And they didn't. The only press conference Niko Harrison did right after the trade was in Cleveland very early in the morning on a Sunday, you know, 12 hours after the world found out about the trade.

That's you know, your local market cannot get to Cleveland that fast on a Sunday. You they had to do something in Dallas and they didn't. And they waited. And it just kind of this this impatience to hear from them was building and building and building.

You're totally right. They were always going to do an end of season press conference. It waited. The delay was so long. They should have just waited for the end of season press conference.

I mean, realistically, even if the Mavs won a couple playing games, they're not going to beat the Thunder in the first round without Kyrie Irving. You know, if you're the Mavericks that the end of season press deal is going to happen soon enough. So to do that session they did on April 9th with basically 12 invite only starters, no cameras. The optics of that was terrible. And that thing got so contentious.

And then when to do that, when you know you're doing the end of season thing anyway, baffling. I mean, it has been it has been. Yeah. You know, like I said, there are lots of mistakes we can point to, but certainly on the PR front, it is it has not been a great run. Well, let me ask you this, OK, since you're on the ground and you've kind of been through a lot, you've seen a lot during your course at a time covering the NBA, nothing like this.

I think this year is one of the craziest years with with the Luka trade, with the firing of coaches and GMs and in season and everything like that. And I'm a get to that. But how much of this, in your opinion, information that you know, how much is it ownership?

How much is it, Nico? Now, look, Nico Harrison was the driving force behind this trade. I mean, there's there's no there's no dispute about that. I mean, I know because it's so shocking and because people can't believe it, there's been this tendency to say ownership must have made him do it. No, ownership did not make him do it.

He took it to ownership. You know, there was frustration within the organization that wasn't exclusive to Nico Harrison. But Nico Harrison was the driving force behind this trade. But where ownership comes in and where I feel like not enough focus has been placed on Patrick Dumont, the new Mavericks ownership, he only took the word of his GM. If you remember when the sale happened in November of twenty twenty three, Mark Cuban was very vocal that he was going to retain operational control in the basketball department that was met with tons of skepticism. People didn't think that would be the case. They certainly didn't think it would last.

And I have to say I was among the skeptics, too. But I also never thought it would get to the point that the new owner, Patrick Dumont, who routinely calls Mark Cuban a family friend, that it would get to the point that they wouldn't be discussing this at all. And Patrick Dumont has no NBA network. He's got he knows Cuban. He knows Dirk Nowitzki. He's got his GM. That's it. And so he took his GM's recommendation without challenging it properly, without examining it properly.

And I guess the best comparison I can make would be. If you buy an NFL team. And within a year of buying the team a year and change, your GM comes to you and says, we want to trade the quarterback. And you don't like your antenna should go up that you want to trade the quarterback, but we really need to dig into this and make sure we're making the right decision. And the Mavs didn't the map, you know, they didn't.

Based on everything I can see and understand about where how this went down. They didn't properly assess the impact it would have on the fan base, the marketing impact, the business impact, what was going to be the messaging that was used after a trade like this was made. And so that's why I say the trade is the trade. And everyone on the basketball planet has an opinion about the trade. But there are so many other layers and so many other missteps here.

And that's why this is. I really do. I mean, you said it. There has been a lot this season. I mean, there were there were a lot of trades.

I mean, Jimmy Butler, De'Aaron Fox. I mean, that was a lot of stuff happening. Coaches being fired with less than 10 games in this left on the schedule, like a lot of stuff happened this season.

But the Lucca trade in the aftermath, again, I just I've never seen anything like it. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance, fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance.

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Visit chevy.com to learn more. And Mark, so let me go back in and that's great information because you said something very interesting. You said the frustrations with Nico within the organization. Now I've heard some things about the relationship between the general manager and Luca was relatively soft.

It was, it was, it wasn't a good one. Now I've also heard too that the ownership wasn't really didn't have the appetite to pay the $350 million moving forward. I don't buy it. I don't buy it.

Okay. I'm just saying, so that's what I, so these are the things that are out there. So from your perspective, what you're saying, what's that frustration? What, what, what would lead a Nico Harrison to say, go to the owner demand and say, listen, we need to make this trade and hear the reasons why. I mean, the real stuff you've heard, all everyone has heard all this stuff that the Mavericks didn't like the conditioning situation. They had long-term injury concerns, but you can, you can say, you know, we can go through all that if you want. But, but what this really comes down to was the Mavericks at the behest of the GM no longer wanted this franchise to orbit around Luca Doncic.

He preferred ad to be the centerpiece. And that those are the real reasons why they made this trade. And again, it just stuns me as much, as stunning as that is. And that is like, we both came in, we both entered this NBA universe around the same time.

So like you and I are basically the same age. Like we've, we've, we've seen the last 30 odd years. I mean, you know how rare it is to see a talent like Luca Doncic, whatever issues the Mavericks had with him. And they can say whatever they want to me, you have to run out every ground ball twice and try to find a common ground before you trade a player like that. He is just so good and 25 and didn't want out. He wanted to be here for his whole career. And it is just, it is too hard to get a player like Luca Doncic. And I don't think the front office appreciated that fact. And I don't think the Mavericks new ownership with a lack of experience appreciated that, but they're going to find out now how hard it is to recover from a trade like this and saying all this stuff. Like I really feel for Anthony Davis here because he didn't ask for this. He is a tremendous, he is a hall of fame player in his own right, but he's also 32 now. And you don't trade a 25 year old generational talent in this era where playmaking and three point shooting are so important. This is not the nineties. You're not trying to build around a big man. It's very rare that we see that Jokic, Giannis.

Yes. But, but by and large, that's not what you see in the modern NBA. You need the, you need the quarterback. But those who are nominees, you just talked about too.

I mean, those who are bigs, but they're so different and they're so unique and they do the playmaking like they do the quarterbacking. Yeah. Like, and again, Luca on his supposed worst day is in the top three with those other two guys. They are the three best players in the world on his worst day.

And so you just cannot trade that player. And now, you know, fascinating is probably not the right word. Cause I'm, I mean like this, I have never seen a fan base wounded like this one and the climb back to, to recover from this.

Like it's really hard to see how, how that's going to go. Yeah. You know, and, but again, I'm still associate myself with the Mavericks because that's where I kind of began my journey in the NBA. That's where I kind of cut my teeth. I learned, I grew as a young man, the ups and downs. I learned a lot about the business, good and bad. When I had my time with the Mavericks, but I think it goes to show to that with everything going on in the world, I don't care whether it's economics, we got a lot of racial tension.

We have a lot of questioning about religion and race and school and culture and all this kind of stuff. But yet and still a lot of people in our society have enough time and enough mental capacity and to still invest that emotional content into sports because they need it. And I think when this trade went down, it kind of showed the buy in the, the support. And this, again, this is not an American born player. We're talking about a foreign player, kind of like the Mavericks bought into dirt and events, Newinsky, when he kind of finally got into his own, a passionate fan base that was behind it.

So I get it. I get why the fan base, because they're not only thinking about now, but with the future of the franchise, okay, where does it go from here? We had a once in a lifetime generational type of player, despite some of the flaws he may have had, that still got us to a to a championship game last year, you add a couple more pieces, maybe get over the hump.

But my bigger thing is this. And you said that with the changes to Mike Brown firing, okay, the trade with Luca, you had you had booting holes are being fired. But then you know, with GM with Calvin booth and also Michael Malone.

And I have Frank I sold on the show a couple weeks ago. And I said, Is there a shift in mindset, in your opinion with ownership and their lack of patience with not winning right away? By making moves like this? Well, look, if we're looking at trends, I think on one hand, you have to put the suns in their own category.

Because Matt ispia. I mean, whether you are a fan of his or not, you have to say the man is willing to spend money like we've really never seen. I mean, he fired money Williams after his first year of ownership money had three years left on his deal. Now money went on to get a deal with Detroit, but then he hired Frank Vogel, and Mike boot and Holzer to five year deals and fired them both.

After one year, I certainly got eight years left to pay those two. That's what I'm saying. Like in my in my 30 something years of covering the league. I don't remember many teams that were willing to eat multi year deals, expensive contracts on three coaches in a row. I mean, that is like so the suns are in their own category. I do think what we've seen this year, though, is a lot of teams went all in and are feeling the squeeze feeling the pressure reacting to pressure.

But what's real the trend is I mean, we there are four GM openings, you know, we've we've seen four GM changes. That's a lot for right after a regular season and what you know, I'm a historian. So I was when Memphis fought fired Taylor Jenkins with nine games left to go in the season. And then Denver fired both Calvin Booth and Michael Malone with three games left in the season. We had literally never seen that. Never before in NBA history had teams with winning records fired a coach with less than 10 games to go in the season.

The only there is an asterisk there that I got to throw in in 1983. Larry Brown was forced to resign. It was it was a firing, but it was recorded as a resignation. But the reason was, he was the Nets coach. He had negotiated his job to go back to the college game at Kansas.

That's why they fired him. It was not it was not a performance thing. The Nets made the playoffs that season to see Taylor Jenkins and Michael Malone fired like this with nine and three games left to go in the season. We've never seen that.

Well, was it a one time thing that we see this or will we see it again? That that's really, you know, we need to see more than one season before we call it a trend. A lot of people said after the Luca trade, I can't be surprised, but I think people were surprised to see both the Jenkins dismissal and the Michael Malone dismissal. And the Michael Malone was a little bit different just because generally when a. If a GM and coach are tied together into the season, they both get fired.

OK, we get. But to see that aspect because of a lot of the noise that was coming out of Denver with regards to the lack of relationship between Michael Malone and Calvin Booth and how that filtered down to the locker room. OK. And ownership was just like, forget it.

I mean, neither a right, neither a wrong. But we got to get this out of here in order to clean this up a little bit. And I do believe that ownership. Because of the amounts of money, you notice, Mark, with TV money and the shifting dynamics are starting to evaluate one match deals, what that's going to look like in the future, how that's going to tie up our salary cap to what is our time frame for actually achieving our goals. You know, some I give it to and I'm with the Clippers of Steve Ballmer, one of the great owners from this perspective, he understands that how he built the business is not how you build the business of basketball.

There are some components that make sense that you can incorporate systematically that help make the operations, you know, go a little bit smoother. But the day to day operations, how you bring in employees being the NBA players, a lot different than how you bring in an employee, you know, at Microsoft or somewhere else. And I think he he he has a keen understanding of that, even when some things didn't go right with Paul George and Kawhi and some things that happened.

You never really felt the tremors, so to speak here in LA with regards to whether a coach or GM job was in jeopardy, because I think of Steve's patience, but confidence in the people that he bought in that it would eventually pay off. It's great that you brought Steve Ballmer up because it's a perfect example. Because Dallas, the Mavericks new ownership, they have no shortage of resources. They're like the Ballmer and Ishmael ownerships.

They have plenty of money to spend. What did Steve Ballmer do when he bought the Clippers? He instantly wanted to bring in Jerry West, the one and only Jerry West. Yeah. As his sounding board, besides the front office team that he assembled, he wanted someone with Jerry's wisdom, Jerry, who had literally seen it all since the 60s to be his sounding board because he knew I'm new to this world.

I want as much wisdom and experience as I can have to teach me how to do this. And the Mavericks have none of that infrastructure. And I think it served their new ownership very, very badly. And again, Mark Cuban has fans. Mark Cuban has critics. Whether you like Mark Cuban or not, he's been doing this for nearly 25 years. So why you wouldn't seek his counsel, Patrick Dumont, the new Mavericks owner, he during his first season, I think it was March of 24. He invited Dirk Nowitzki to sit with him courtside at a game. He can get Dirk on the phone. He could have asked Dirk's input on this, like. And that, you know, that's why, you know, Balmer has done I mean, obviously everyone talks about the arena and he's always been willing to pay these high luxury taxes and whatever.

But now it's not, you know, now the issue is not paying the luxury tax. It's all the restrictions that you have on team building when you go into the first or second apron. But yeah, that's something great. Balmer did is that he's he's always had a lot of people around him because he wants he wants to learn what he doesn't know. Yeah, that's and that's the beauty of I think, you know, and I'm a transition over a little bit to the playoffs right now because my Clippers play tonight at Denver.

I mean, we're at home and this is going to be like bananas because this. I think it was the. When you were covering it was the Ron Harper, Danny Manning, Charles Smith, Mark Jackson. Early 90s at playoffs over at the old sports arena.

Right. I just I started on the Clipper beat right after right to their two. They had two playoff teams in a row. And then I literally 10 days into my beat writing career, the Clippers traded Danny Manning for Dominique Wilkins, which to me, to me, there is no comp really for the Luca trade. But the closest comp I have actually is the Dominique Wilkins trade.

Now, part of it is because it's personal to me because that was literally the first major story I covered as an NBA writer. But also now, Dominique was in his 30s and Dominique had sustained. He had sustained an Achilles injury, which is obviously the worst thing a basketball player can go through. But Nick was still an all star.

And also, Nick was still he is still to this day. He is the Hawks. When you think Atlanta Hawks, there is still this day, nothing more synonymous with the Atlanta Hawks than Dominique Wilkins and the Hawks. Same thing without warning, just traded into the Clippers for Danny Manning when they were first in the East that year. And this is the first year Jordan is out of the league. They finally have a chance to win the East. Michael Jordan is playing baseball and the Hawks stunningly traded Dominique. And to me, like I said, I'm biased because it's it's a it's a trade that personally meant something to me. And that's a great point you said about Dominique because you had an older, established, all star Hall of Fame type player to a younger Danny Manning who had his injury issues, but was still considered to be on the rise as a younger player in the league, even though he's been that was probably what his fifth year, maybe something like that six years.

I want to say seven or eight, but it didn't. Yeah, this is going to be the first time Clipper fans get a chance to come into their own arena and experience a playoff game with everything about the Clippers. Now with this series, Mark, when you saw the match up immediately, what do you think?

What was the outcome in your mind? I was worried for the Denver Nuggets because the Clippers have been. And again, because this season has been so crazy as we've been talking about this whole conversation, the Clippers story has been really under covered. I think it's very much like Detroit in the east. Detroit went from 14 wins to 42 and we really haven't talked about it as much as we should have. And for the Clippers to make the decision to let Paul George go sign guys on shorter contracts, focus on defense, bring in Jeff Van Gundy and still have this kind of team. It's really been an amazing story for the last six weeks of the season.

They were, they were really the best team in the West, not named Oklahoma city. And look, because of my background covering that team, because that was my first beat, I've been dying to go to Intuit all season long. I have not been able to make it there. I had a trip scheduled there at the end of the regular season. I had to cancel it. I will be there for game six.

I've planned that. I'm pretty sure this series is going six because I think every series in the West apart from Thunder Grizzlies is, is going to be a long one. But look, I mean the Clippers, the Clippers got the split in Denver and they easily could have won both games and to see Kawhi Leonard now playing the way he is playing it with this great defense around him.

What Zubat has become hard and obviously can still cause a lot of problems. Nobody wanted to see the Clippers and yeah, I mean it's not just Denver. Any team that drew the Clippers would have not been happy about it. Well, but also too, you got to keep in mind, you know this, when it comes down to making in game adjustments and stuff like this, and this is not taking anything away from David Adam and his father was one of my favorite coaches. I mean, when we were with Sacramento, but the end game experience he doesn't have yet, you couple a healthy Kawhi with a improve you beat your shoe box inside that can guard yo yo cuz I'm not saying stop.

I'm not saying stop guard him and try to make him less affected by the seven turnovers the other night. Okay, the defense around them and then you have the brain trust on the bench from a defensive perspective and offensive with Jeff and then tied Lou manipulating game plans and line ups and make it work. That's where I think that the strategic co advantages that with the Clippers because from a talent perspective, our roster may not jump out at you, but collectively as a group along with the coaching puts us in a situation where you can go on, you can take care of business at home and win another game, you know on the road at Denver.

Now speaking of which in the West and we were talking about it. Minnesota Lakers when you first saw it, did you say Minnesota? Did you say when the Lakers are rolling right now? No, I actually liked the Lakers, but I also thought it was going to be a long difficult series because so many Minnesota's another team that we like the narrative about the wolves all season has been they had their best season in 20 years. They immediately traded Karl Anthony towns automatic step back. The wolves finished the season 17 and four and that only got them up to number six, which again tells you what kind of circus this Western conference is and the wolves for this supposed step back they took. There were only four teams in the league this year that were top 10 in offense and defense and that list. It's your 360 win teams, Thunder, Cavaliers, Celtics, and then the wolves. The wolves were the only other top 10 team in both offense and defense and we've already seen it. They can cause the Lakers a lot of problems.

They can very easily win this series. The look, the Lakers season, the Lakers season in their future was made by getting Luca Doncic. They are not built to win it all this year. Now I think the Lakers at their peak when Doncic, LeBron and Reeves are clicking, that is a lot of playmaking and a lot of offense that can cause teams problems, but obviously they are so small.

The depth isn't there. And Minnesota has personnel that can exploit those, those situations. So all the other series in the West, pretty much warriors, now warriors rockets. We got it. We're going to have to hear what Jimmy Butler status is after his injury in game two, but any going into these playoffs, warriors, rockets, nuggets, Clippers, Lakers, wolves, you could have given me any outcome in those three series and I would have said, yeah, you can see it. I mean, these are all very evenly matched teams. Yeah.

It's not a lot of separation between those two. And I was, I was thinking about the young Houston rockets team as deficient as they were offensively at times during the course of the year, especially when you look at the bottom, the ranked in the bottom half offensively, um, how hard they play and the, the mindset I thought would email you Doka by getting Dylan Brooks, by getting the Fred Van Bly by green, kind of like what Detroit did by getting a Malik Beasley by getting a Tim Hardaway jr. Tobias Harris. What you get is a tough mentality. Some veterans who've kind of been there a voice in the locker room that can help impact the younger players. And I think both via Detroit by, by doing that and what Houston was able to do with that, it both added so much substance and value to what they ultimately wanted to accomplish, which was to Houston wanted to be at the top of the West Detroit wanted to get into playoffs and be competitive and both are at that apex thinking about that too. You see this up and coming with Houston and Detroit, of course.

Okay. See, but what happens in this golden state series? Let's say Jimmy comes back.

He's healthy. They get past Houston, but they can't get past the second round. They take the stench in for Jimmy two years, but it's another year for Steph getting older. It'd be 38, none of the year for Draymond.

Where do you go from here? If you're, I don't think they're going to win it at all. They can, they can be messy, just like the Lakers. They can mess up somebody's playoff pitcher, but where do they go when, and if this doesn't take place this year, I think we're going to see that core just continue to, you know, plate they're all kind of lined up contractually. So look, it's, it's, it's similar to what I said about the Lakers, the hard move, the big move for the warriors was getting Jimmy Butler there, but they obviously have a decision to make with Kuminga going forward and Kuminga has basically lost his rotation spot.

Now he's going to get minutes back if Jimmy stays out, but where is he going to leave in a sign and trade? What will they get back? If Kuminga moves on, can they get players who maybe fit this core better and round out their team? But look, I, I think they're insanely happy with how it's gone so far with Jimmy.

And I think rightfully so. I mean, they've been very good with him and he's, you know, breathe new life into that group. And, um, like I don't look at this as this is their only shot, you know, what, what, what can they add?

See, that's the thing is that, but I think, I think, I think, but if they Trey, if Kuminga leaves in a sign and trade and they can bring back a player to who fits what they're doing, like I said, Stephen, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Jimmy Butler, that is going to be the core that is going to be the star core. And they're all under the same contract lengths. You know, it's time time that way specifically, but they're going to have to round out the team around. I mean, they need size. I mean, size is dependable.

Size is an issue for them. I mean, so they're going to have to get a more well-rounded roster, but they were going nowhere as they were. And so to get Jimmy Butler and, and I think they finished 23 and eight with him or 23 and seven with him after the trade, I mean, that's a, that's a pretty loud statement when you're just putting it together on the fly. You know, it's, it's, it's in season trades are never easy.

I mean, you've, you've lived through it yourself. I mean, it's just not that easy to, for a team to just click after an in season trade, but I, you know, I, I'm more bullish on what those guys can do in the future. Just cause I just have, I've, I spent a lot of time around the warriors in my, in my last, my last few years at ESPN. And it's just, I just feel like those guys know how to win. And Jimmy Butler is one of the best winners in the league. The guy just, he, he raises your ceiling because he's so he just, he just makes winning plays, winning decisions.

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Get started at linkedin.com slash jobs, finding where you fit LinkedIn knows how. No, I agree. It's going to be interesting to see because cominga, whether, I mean, I know Steve Kerr came and said, it's tough. He can't play cominga, Jimmy Butler and dream on green together just because it's not enough course space, but it's been tough to play cominga on that second unit as well.

Even when maybe only one of those guys are out there, those minutes haven't been dispersed enough for a community. So that's going to be interesting. And we haven't touched on the East yet. I think we all kind of figured that it was Boston, Cleveland, everybody else. Indiana is going to make it interesting depending on what happens in New York and Detroit. They'll make it interesting. But with Jalen Brown, I mean, he looked good the other day with Jason Tatum out, but with the recent injury with Jason Tatum, hopefully, you know, that fracture, that tiny fracture, he'll be able to get through it.

But let's say he does. I don't care if it's Eastern Conference, Western Conference. Is there a team that can beat Boston in seven games? Well, look, I mean, their health issues are not small. I mean, if Tatum is healthy, if Tatum and Brown are now look, Jalen Brown was ridiculously good in game two.

So, I mean, the need did not look like it was any kind of issue. But, you know, over the course of four rounds, if Tatum and Brown are playing compromise to any significant degree, that obviously is going to be a factor. But look, I mean, the Cavs and the Celtics have been a clear level above. The Knicks are already having trouble with the Pistons, which, you know, I don't. The Pistons, again, as great a story as they've been.

The fact that they're already causing New York this much trouble. That's a that's a worry for the Knicks who have a considerable experience advantage over this team. I was looking forward to Bucks patients because those teams so openly don't like each other. But the Bucks are going through so many issues that that hasn't been much of a series. But look, the Cavaliers face the same thing that the Thunder do.

The Cavaliers regular seat. You can't do much more in a regular season than the Cavs did. OK, they didn't win 70 games. But other than that, I mean, they started 15 and oh, they had three streaks with at least 12 wins in a row. They basically led the East wire to wire like you can't do much more in the regular season. But also, we're going to doubt you. It's not fair, but it's just this is the this is NBA law.

It's the way it's always been. And the Thunder had an even better regular season resume than the Cavs. And you still will hear hear people say, prove it to us on the big stage. The Thunder will probably sweep the Grizzlies and people will still say what you haven't done anything yet. And that's just the curse that the Cavs and the Thunder have to live through. But look, I think in the east we are headed for a Cavs Celtics Eastern Conference finals.

And and I think, you know, if there's such a thing as neutrals in basketball, I don't know that there really are. But that is the series that the basketball public wants to see. Let's see the Cavs, the team of the season in the east. And can the two can the champs keep their run going? And can we finally see another team repeat, which we haven't seen since the Warriors in in 17 and 18? I just think that this Cleveland team won from a mentality perspective is different than last year.

Contracts being signed guys being solidified. The different mindset and this is not taking anything from JB bigger stuff. I think he set the table set the foundation for the way the Cavs are now. But what would Kenny accident coming in kind of kind of like when Steve Kerr came over and took over Golden State from Mark Jackson, kind of read to read looked at the lineups. We looked at how they wanted to play individually.

What he's done to open up Evan Mobley Mobley has been fantastic. Now, keep in mind, always say this to my Golden State, both of those teams and those rosters got another year of experience and maturity. So they matured another year by going through whatever they went through that year before.

Now the new face comes in with a new idea and philosophy. They're able to adjust to it, implement that game plan and execute. That's the same thing Cleveland did this year. I believe they're a different type of team mentally tough than they were a year ago, which lends me to believe that if Boston is not completely healthy, that this Cavs team the way they're built in the way they can play big and small just, you know, just like Boston that they could beat them. Now again, that's if they're not completely healthy. I still think that Boston is a notch above but a small notch, but I think that, you know, with the way the playoffs are playing out Jimmy on one and getting injured, but you've never seen injuries, but with Jason as big especially on the shooting wrist because you're talking about a player that needs to get to the basket to finish at the rim, but to also to be able to shoot it.

And if you're having issues with that wrist, we all know it's going to stop you and implement it is going to impede your progress on how you think how you want to attack how you hit the floor, how you play defense, how you rebound all these things come into play. So it's going to be interesting my man and I'm glad I'm here for the ride to see this Boston Clippers final. Oh, guarantee you guarantee. I guarantee you to be a final.

How about that? I just I just I just think that in the West the if Kawhi continues to play ice playing and James and the components we got definitely get to the Western Conference. I think we get to a championship.

I really do. Well, look, I mean, Jokic is the best player on earth. That's what you know, that's the the league consensus, but that's thing when Kawhi played the way he did the other night and narrows that gap so significantly. You like so many other things about the Clippers, like, I mean, Kawhi was that was back to his playoff Kawhi best and it now it will just be a matter of how long can he sustain it? And yeah, the Denver Nuggets would not have it back to back with having days, but I know it's going to go to every other day once we get through this other one. But hey, listen, he's still going to have another time period.

We got a little rest. I think that's the key to me is that he's mentally fresh. His body is fresh and he has the right pieces around him defensively. Now, he doesn't have to be.

You know, on both ends of the court, the old Kawhi, he can still be impactful defensively, but still have enough energy left in the tank that he's not overexerting himself on the defensive end to be able to do what we saw, you know, in game two. Yeah, I. I told you I haven't been there all year. I cannot wait. I do think it will go at least six and I just hope selfishly for my sake it does because I want to see I want to see a playoff game at Intuit and I will come find you and you will which one of these days. I mean, one of these days we got it. We got we got to get into another like a great piece of NBA history that is also undertold. The Jim Jackson holdout. I want to look at that.

Oh, yeah. 30, 30 something years later because like that was a huge story in NBA history. Your agent Mark Turman and I still reminisce about it on occasion. Like that is a chapter in NBA history. We got it.

We got a review for the youngsters one of these days. Anytime and I'll get you my information after the show at any time you want to do it. I love to. Sounds good. All right.

All right, my man. Well, enjoy the game tonight. Enjoy the rest of the playoffs. I look forward to catching up with you.

I'm selfish. I don't want to go to game six, but it would be great to close it out in game six at home and into it. So bones. We close it out. That'd be great. But I'll see you soon, my man. See you next week. Be good. OK, you got it.

Bye bye, man. What an interview. I mean, Mark Stein, years and years of experience.

I didn't even think about that. I forgot about the Danny Manning, Dominique Wilkins trade. Again, it's we're not saying Dominique is Luca and you know that Danny Manning is Anthony Davis, but it gave you a scenario of a team that was ready to kind of turn the corner because Michael Jordan one wasn't there, but they made a decision to trade their franchise player for somewhat of a younger player on kind of a head scratching deal.

But I mean, great information, great stuff. You know, as I close the show, I just hope everybody's really enjoying these playoffs. I know a lot was made during the course of the season about because the regular season really matter. Does it count? Well, it does because being able to put yourself in a position, let's say like the Clippers, my Clippers to give it up to a five seed. That's a lot different than being an AC where you have to play OKC knowing that first round.

So it does matter and. The playoffs are reflection to I think of a lot of work that a lot of teams put in and shout out to. No, the Pistons and and the Rockets for kind of retooling getting their season together, but I just want people to take away that I know there's been a lot of talk about the NBA and where it's going and it's not watchable or some people love it.

But right now you've got to be loving some of these games. I know the outliers, you know, the OKC in Memphis right now not being as competitive. In Milwaukee and Indiana, maybe not being as intriguing as it was in the past. But you got six other series that have some some stuff to it. They have some legitimate.

Interest backstories. That is when everybody enjoy it because we have some outstanding young talent mixed with some a lot of veterans that are either seeking their first title or to get another one under their belt. And it's just a great time of year to really, truly value the NBA and what it is, because I think you're seeing a high level of basketball right now, a different physicality in the playoffs. So as we go into these next few games and going to the weekend, a lot of intrigue, a lot of drama, a lot of questions, a lot of answers are going to be solved during these next few games in particular. You know, the teams that have won on the road for teams have now rolled. Road teams have won, which kind of shifts the dynamics Clippers being one of them.

You know, can those road teams hold home court advantage is going to be the question as we move forward. So my thing is, get ready, pop the popcorn. I may have a cigar somewhere watching and when I'm not calling the game, have you a little adult beverage on the side, give us some friends and really enjoy watching some of these games that are coming up because they're going to be, I'm talking about these series are going to be competitive, physical, and I think a couple may be a little surprising at the end of the day. If you want to hit me up with any comments, thoughts, or should I have on the show, questions, Jim Jackson, 2-2-2-4-I-G, Jim Jackson, 4-1-9 on Twitter, right? Hit me up.

Love to hear, get some feedback, what your thoughts are, what you're thinking about the season upcoming and the other questions as well. All right. Appreciate it. Enjoy it. Enjoy this Thursday, Friday, enjoy your weekend. Enjoy the game. All right.

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