Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of headlines in the NBA, and an update on the surprise teams and post All Star Break Leap players. Then they are joined by Dan Devine of Yahoo! Sports to discuss the NBA Playoffs, matchups they like, and then the guys do a contender draft taking the teams they think are most likely to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy at the end of the season.Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Dan DevineExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Gonzalo Torres Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're going to give an update on the surprise teams. Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports stops by to discuss the playoffs, and we do a contender draft. But before we get to all of that, Alex, tell me about the top stories this week.
Well, Andrew, our top story this week was the end of the 24-25 regular season. The Phoenix Suns, owners of the league's highest payroll, missed the play-in completely, finishing tied with the Portland Trail Blazers at 36-46. In response, the Suns quickly moved to fire coach Mike Budenholzer, who was only hired last summer.
Now, assuming Devin Booker is still a Sun next season, their next coach will be his 8th head coach in 11 NBA seasons. Matt Ishbia met with the media this week and was defiant, promising that the Suns would win championships, quote, with an S at the end. Another word with an S at the end is picks, which the Suns do not have until I'm like 45.
The expectation is that Kevin Durant will be traded this summer. And while many have assumed Houston would be a likely suitor, Mark Stein reported this week that a Katie trade would be unlikely for the Rockets because he does not fit with the team's timeline. Now, it took all the way until game 82 to decide who would finish the season with the worst record.
And this year's reverse champion was the Utah Jazz, who finished with 17 wins, only three more than last year's Pistons team. The Jazz secured the worst record after the Wizards got a dramatic win in the final game of the season, a 119 to 118 win in Miami that ended on an impossible Bub Carrington floater at the buzzer. The Wizards finished the season with an average scoring margin of minus 12.4.
That is third worst in NBA history behind only the seven win Bobcats and the 92-93 Dallas Mavericks. Now, speaking of the Mavs, as we do every week, some good news finally happened for Mavs fans this week. but not before the Mavericks franchise could make something bad happen first.
The day before the Mavs 9-10 play-in game against the Kings, Nico Harrison offered to sit down with the local media for an interview with the stipulation that there would be no cameras or recordings made of the interview. Thankfully, he did not exclude writing utensils, and so the entire interview was still widely available.
When asked about Mavs fans' biggest misunderstanding regarding the Luka trade, Harrison said, quote, Defense wins championships. When asked about how creating a three to four year window after trading away the team's future first was in the best long term interest of the team, Harrison said, quote, defense wins championships.
When asked why he didn't believe the team he built last season, which went to the NBA finals, was a contender. Harrison said, quote, defense wins championships. Somehow, none of those answers were as bad as Mavs CEO Rick Welts comparing the Luka trade to Golden State trading Monte Ellis for Andrew Bogut.
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