Bill Reiter, CBS Sports HQ NBA Insider

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We promise you. of the writer the new program in this time slot right here on cbs sports radio bill how you been i'm better now buddy what's up i'm doing fantastic can't complain i am annoyed though at damian lillard dame has been my favorite player in the league i've always admired his loyalty but it seems like now this loyalty to portland is insanity and i don't get why he keeps on giving the trailblazers the benefit of the doubt well look i think it's an open question whether or not he is my understanding talking to folks is he's willing to stay if they can build a winner around him and bring in the pieces that would make that at least feasible and that's an open question but i think that he's also willing to go if he thinks they can't so i'm with you but at least he's at a point now where he opens the idea of going somewhere else and that at least is progress for one of the games i think the game's best player not to have had any legitimate chance to experience postseason success i got a chance i don't want to look too much into social media but he liked some posts about having zion land with the portland trailblazers is that really going to be enough for him to say okay a guy that's never available now is enough for me to stay to go win a championship yeah never available and some issues on twitter look i i think it would be enough if it could happen as a marker of opportunity and a potential level of feeling for that player for zion that that said everything i've heard and this is all in flux we'll see is that it's likely that scoot henderson who who is really coveted by new orleans will go to to charlotte which means the pick that portland has and presumably would need to send to get zion will not have the same value to the organization that currently has zion williamson so yes i i think if zion came in that would be enough because you're right dave wants to err on the side of staying there as i understand it but i is i don't think it's going to trend that way i don't think they're going to land him if it's not zion williamson i saw that jake fisher was throwing out bam out of bio or paul george do you think that is at all likely the bam one really made me scratch my head because we keep on linking dame to miami you wouldn't think bam would be joining him in portland all right so i don't know jake fisher at all i have a lot of respect for his work though i think he's really good i'm sure that people in portland are preparing an offer but i'm also if i ever bump into taylor swift despite being happily married preparing an offer to take right on a friday night i'm not sure you know what i'm saying i'm not sure that makes it a realistic possible outcome i can ask i think we all know kt what's up it's bill rider i think we all know what the answer is going to be so i i everything i've heard from people in miami and i'm pretty well sourced there for my time covering that team a long time ago is that they believe i think rightfully but they believe that they have a window a championship window that is you know one to three more years with jimmy butler as the crux of that and i just can't imagine a scenario where they where they trade away bam because what they get in return is is one or two of those young guys in that roster in the third overall pick that's a nice return for a rebuilding team or maybe a team that's looking to sort of transition to being competitive in two or three or four years as i understand is that that's not the timeline that miami's on so i don't think that makes any sense and i think like me asking tay tay if i bump into her she wants to have dinner the answer will be a very quick no well can you just come clean to everyone listening audience you've dated taylor swift before and you're the guy that she keeps on talking about when you when you broke up with her look i wish i was i'm not but i did want to have a moment with ree ree and that's a real thing that happened for about 13 magical seconds on the floor of stable center now there are sources who think she might have had indigestion but i gave her a confident head nod and i felt like we had a moment to act but no no taylor swift yeah but i haven't met taylor so like maybe when we meet there's some charm in there that i haven't tapped into yet bill writer here with us how likely is it that dame winds up in miami i know what pat riley said today about how much they love taylor hero and he's not going anywhere but i kind of rolled my eyes at that stuff yeah look so taylor here i think you're right i think you're right to roll your eyes because look i think the answer to your question is what's the odds 29.5 i think it's possible i think that portland wants to hang out of damian lillard and i think lillard is now gone so far down this rabbit hole of i don't want to leave then it's going to take a lot because he for him to go to miami he doesn't just have to decide he wants to leave which is one step he's never made that he also has to go that rowry forces his way bradley peele style where he says i want to go here that's the only place i want to go i don't care where your return is this kind of hero a bunch of you know future picks is fine it's probably not enough and that presumes that the portland values hero at that level that said i mean you're right the miami heat were better when taylor here was without offensively in the postseason maybe it's coincidental maybe it's not they went from being the 27th best three-point shooting team in the regular season with hero mostly around to the best three-point shooting team in the postseason with him mostly gone there are certainly people this is this is not agreed upon a hundred percent but certainly people in the heat for office who think maybe hero as good as he is isn't the right fit and they're better without him i think they move on for him for a guy like like dame i really do i'm just not sure portland is going to do that unless lillard forces their hand why hasn't he forced their hands yet because that's the part to me bill writer that's still confusing i get it he didn't want to just dip and not be loyal to the team but at this point everyone would understand if dame was like okay they're wasting my prime years i got to go somewhere else i honestly man like i think it's sort of like i know it's sort of naive i think he loves portland and the organization i'm gonna forget the name but do you remember in the sopranos where tony's rival was the mafia boss in manhattan and tony was the mafia boss in in jersey yeah and that mafia boss in manhattan for lack of a better term had a wife who was not the ideal that is presented to she was a larger lady yes a larger lady and it was like it was like a but he loved her and they make right the whole thing for two seasons you can you can describe portland as an unattractive woman or man but in this case woman and that can be real that can be true and everyone can see it i think dave actually loves him and that's a hard thing to push through it's it's a very good comparison right there you almost went down the road of of uh charles barkley talking about san antonio woman as well i'm trying to be polite but also give you the facts uh how did you react to the the deal bradley beale going to the suns like okay i get why the suns would do it you basically gave up nothing to go get him and chris paul your best friend will wind up somewhere else because we know he's not going to stick around with the wizards but i don't look at the suns as this team now that's all of a sudden to be a lock to go win a championship because those three guys do a lot of the similar things and there's availability problems yeah i'm 100 with you look i think they're obviously dangerous and there's an amazing feeling and they're gonna be fun to watch and it's a great big three but there's a lot you're right there's a lot of question marks durability especially feeling durant but devin booker missed a bunch of time this past year is one of them defense is certainly one of them chemistry is one of them and death is a really serious concern as good as as good as if katie had it with with with clay and step there's a lot of depth on those warriors teams and as poorly as kevin durant performed with harden and kyrie and then just with kyrie there was depth on those teams too there is none in phoenix they don't know each other they haven't played together durant booker and beale basically occupy the same idea the same role on that team now the flip side of that i know and i know matt ishby on people in that phoenix organization as you noted said dude we're already all in on durant we trade away our first run pick to get katie this price was too good we might as well have gone for it i get it and they'll say they're probably right that those three guys can get 100 points a night some nights between them but i'm with you i i think there's a championship upside there no doubt there's so many question marks that it's just as likely to go the way as the brooklyn nets as it is some successful super team bill writer what is the role of isaiah thomas in the sun's organization because i saw those comments by your best friend chris paul about how isaiah had a role in this deal well this is sourced this i know for for fact this is certainty it's extraordinarily impactful and isaiah who full disclosure i wrote a story about i don't know 12 years ago when he was banished from the nba and coached at fiu and i was covering the heat and i spent a lot of time with him i like isaiah thomas i just do i know him in the minority in new york city maybe elsewhere i like the guy he is but that you know whatever whatever that's worth he is incredibly influential he is i think the second most important voice in that organization absolutely after matt ishby of the new owner i think james jones has lost a remarkable amount of power and while i believe there's a chance speculating here that i think he'll have a real and probably substantial title in the next three to six weeks i don't think it matters matt ispia is bold and impatient and ornery and trying to make moves now and the person who has it here is isaiah thomas so what i'm hearing from that explanation is that you don't like chris paul and you advised isaiah thomas to trade chris paul so look i actually don't like chris paul as you know but i think the way if you look this is a big if in my experience with chris but if chris is telling the truth and he probably is that james jones told him nothing to worry about and then a short time later chris paul jr called cp3 the old man said you're traded that's not how you treat people you can trade a guy you can trade them against his will that's not how you treat people but yeah i think chris paul has had trouble staying healthy i don't know if this is true but i heard some rumblings and him and kevin durant weren't best friends right now that it was awful or toxic but it wasn't great he's obviously chris paul closer to 40 and 30. i certainly would have moved on for chris paul but i'm not sure it would look i i get why they went for bradley bial and if they trade deandre aden for for some depth if there's value there it makes sense but for me chris paul's not the issue i would have moved on from him although you're right zach it does make me smile because chris and i don't like cp3 and i don't like each other but i think the issue is is depth but i did not a i wouldn't listen to me and b i did not advise him but i do but i do think it's telling i do think it's telling that in the media tours yesterday chris paul said james jones told me that i was fine and that i wasn't to me that reflects what i've heard which is james jones who's technically president of basketball ops and gm has lost a lot of power i thought adam silver was going to drop the hammer on john marant did you find 25 games to be a little bit surprising i thought it was going to be more than that um yeah we're on the same page i thought it was the low end of what needed to happen but i thought 30 or 35 or 40 was appropriate and i am not the commissioner but i would have punished him more and not out of any need to be punitive for the second being punitive i just think zach is clear i'm not sure your take on this but the guy's already been suspended he did the same thing he hasn't learned he's jeopardizing his career what he can be to the nba i thought they'd do more by the way the happiest person today has to be zion williamson because mariah mills his twitter account got suspended um do you think zion by the end of the draft on thursday will still be a pelican oh man by the way that that twitter account that is now suspended it's such a shame because reading it was um was magic even if it was darkness you know what it was entertaining like the first two days when it went on for a week i think it it out wore its welcome a little bit did you look i i want to agree because you're correct morally your moral compass is pointing to north but i read every tweet and i couldn't stop reading it what makes me a bad person i mean yeah she went off the deep end or whatever you're right um i think he will be i think it would take a really special circumstance and as i understand it they love scoot henderson they're probably not going to get him he's probably going to go number two even if scoot fell to three and there was a deal with with the portland as we discussed i don't think it's a slam dunk for for new orleans by any stretch so i think that they're going to keep him but the fact that it's out there and it's clearly been considered if not offered by portland i think tells you something about their understanding of how unreliable you know this is upside huge but how unreliable he is the uh the victor when bin yama sweepstakes obviously won by the spurs the immediate impact for victor when bin yama in the league is what look i think in the short term it's like cool it's exciting also spurs have a ton of cap space it's real like it'll be fun for a year or two we're gonna see what he evolves into i mean the consequence for me zach just selfishly no offense are you on the air in san antonio san antonio i'm sorry i love you just not in june the consequence for me is i'm gonna spend a lot of time in san antonio covering the finals in or conference finals in like three to five years assuming he's healthy everything i've heard from people and people that are sober and that are that are straight faced and that's in the 10 nights not to be hyperbolic is that the dude is just an app like everything we've heard he is times 12 right he's just he's that good they're obviously well run maybe it's positive three years from now maybe it's not not him but the the impact is going to be as far as they're going to be a force if he's healthy let's just like put the asterisk there and he is going to change the game he is a unicorn even among unicorns hey by the way was this toy gun excuse actually a toy gun because i saw some video the other day that it looked like it was a toy gun we're going back to john moran yeah i don't think it matters right like i think like that i think it's actually worse honestly because he's kind of posing to be that you're 23 years old why are you using a toy gun for after what you just did and that's my thing it's like hey hey buddy the issue is the image and your disrespect or at least perceived disrespect to adam silver after he after he met with you i look i've seen the same videos i i'm not an expert on toy guns versus real guns i know you can get really good replicas i just is it a distinction without a difference for me but if you made me bet i'd probably go minus 120 it was real and then finally bob huggins you see what his daughter said that he's a recycling enthusiast and that's why he had all those cans in his car so i covered bob huggins back in the day i wrote a really aggressive investigative story about him when he went to kansas state and his response was i don't care you want to hang out i mean he's cool man like i love huggy i mean he's great but he obviously if i can speculate on something that's serious as a problem as a drinking problem as i mean look with all respect to his daughter and i mean it as kindly as i can because if i ever have demons hope my daughter loves me enough to say something that's stupid even if she keeps up i would rather she keep it to herself it's not a recycling issue the old man obviously had problems and it is a shameful appropriate but sad accident for a guy who was awesome at his job and obviously terrible at something that's a lot more important last thing i'll ask you bill writer what's the story right now in the nba world that that really gets you going where you want to see how it's going to end out from now until the draft oh that's a girl that's a great question you know what for me and i know we've already we've already talked about this i want to know two things i'll give you like an obvious one and under the radar one damian lillard and his destination i think he's going to stick around but i don't think it's a guarantee i actually love game and i love portland it's like my fourth favorite city in america double happy hour nothing like it i love orland dude but he's been loyal it's time to move on i also heard a while back and heard this again that lebron lebron's moody little piece right back lebron changes his mind on people and you hear something that he thinks it can be true one minute but at times sources tell you it's changed but i've heard he's over anthony davis he's frustrated with the guy he doesn't believe in his toughness for obvious reasons so i'm extremely curious if the lakers i don't think they will but do anything really bold maybe move ad i think they're going to i think they're going to i'm just saying lebron's angry he's put out he doesn't believe in his number two i think la he's under a lot of pressure or something big from lebron lebron will be back with the lakers though next year this stuff of him joining kyrie in dallas with luke is a bunch of nonsense right yeah have i given you my me dating taylor swift comparison because it's still a plus yeah kyrie is is more delusional about lebron going to dallas than i am about wooing taylor swift with my tennis skills yes he's not going to dallas is kyrie though in dallas next year i think he is in the short term because i think they value him financially right and i guess otherwise but they're gonna pay him what but almost no one else will i don't know if that'll remain true at the deadline but as you know zach i think kyrie irving is a straight loser i think he's talented i think he's massively amazing at basketball i think he's individual star i think he's a loser by the definition of he loses and like the staff fact is up so i don't think it's gonna work and i think dallas will eventually move him but my guess is he's there that's where he resigns in the off season so just going back to what you said about ad then we'll let you run bill writer you think there's a chance like an actual legit chance that he could be dealt at some point this off season i think there's a one that's not true i think there's a three and a half percent chance so does that is that i think look i think that if ropa here's what i'll say i because i first heard this before the trade deadline if ropa linka hadn't pulled off such a i think really impressive plate of moves at the trade deadline and brought in these random guys that became not so random and made beleger's team beleger's team that obviously made the conference finals if that hadn't happened my percentage would be higher there's a bit of a power struggle or a political struggle going on between lebron and polinka lebron obviously wants what he wants but i think polinka's got some political capital now with genie bus and that organization and frankly with all of us who thought he was just an idiot dot he's not as it relates to being a gm so i don't think polinka is just gonna bow down to what lebron wants especially moving on from anthony davis but i do think that lebron's over ad and i think there's a you know not zero percent chance that something like that could happen bill writer appreciate it make sure you listen to him of course monday through friday 10 to noon eastern and you can always watch him on cbs sports hq thank you bill thank you buddy there you go bill writer how about that joining us on cbs sports radio always love our conversations with bill writer and by the way i'm actually shocked about something and i know that uh hickey is basically like french kissing bill writer right now through the phone so i have to stall for a few moments until bill shuts up and hickey shuts up and then i get the attention of ryan hot take hickey i am shocked 20 minutes with a conversation with zack gilbert and bill writer not one shot at hot take hickey that those odds would have been through the roof but no one took a shot at you there hickey i'm kind of surprised that that does not happen anytime bill and i are together well i didn't be able to talk about but usually bill or i would go out of our way to to bring you up into the conversation and no mention right there 20 minutes of radio gold with bill writer taylor swift has surpassed me i'm actually a little hurt a little hurt by it you're really hurt by that i thought i was above taylor swift yeah clearly not uh he would bill would say hot take hickey who trace who if if he had a chance to go on a date with taylor swift all right we'll take a timeout tech help show cbs sports radio