The Athletic NBA Daily
Mavs Get Cooper Flagg, Tatum Injured + Where Will Giannis Go?
Tue, 13 May 2025
The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Draft Lottery and the opportunity to snag Cooper Flagg. Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni are here to react to the Mavs’ incredible luck, the Spurs’ trade chips for Giannis, the Knicks’ win and Jayson Tatum’s injury. Then, Christian Clark from the Athletic joins the show with his reaction to the Mavericks lottery surprise and whether they would trade the number one pick. Finally, Anthony Slater and the guys take a look how the Wolves closed the door on the Warriors.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Es Baraheni, Christian Clark, & Anthony SlaterExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moody Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened in the NBA Draft Lottery?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, oof, draft lottery was chaotic. Jason Tatum went down, the Knicks went up 3-1, and the Warriors lose to drop to 3-1 against the Wolves. So we got Anthony Slater here to talk about that. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, S. Good morning. Chaotic. Oh, my God. Chaotic night.
Yeah. I mean, look, this is the NBA. I feel like the Jimmy Butler meme of him being tired during the NBA bubble just because of how much that's happened over the last 24 hours.
I feel like we jinxed Monday by saying that the second round had been a little bit of a letdown because of injuries. Oh, man. Continued, actually, last night. But before we get to that, we've got to talk about the draft lottery. Obviously, the shocking news. First of all, I wanted to thank everybody who hung out on the Slammin' Jam lottery live jam session, I think. I'm just going to call it that.
I just made that up on the spot.
uh over on our youtube um andrew select and alex spears who host slam and jam you know they cover the draft for us so they did a really good job it was a lot of fun i hung out in the chat so uh thank you guys if you were there for that uh don't forget wednesday morning we're gonna do another one of those shoot arounds that's at noon eastern nine pacific so we're gonna have a live stream and and we dropped that in the feed last week so if you enjoyed that
Bit of a 35,000-foot view. Come hang out with us. Yeah, come hang out or catch it in the feed. But give us some feedback. Let us know if you like that. But anyway, lots of stuff to get to. Massive. Back to the actual lottery, the winners of the lottery. And, I mean, this is just a shocking development. The Dallas Mavericks, as you probably know by now, win the lottery. I know that your Raptors –
You were hopeful, but certainly this is at least the more entertaining outcome.
Yeah, look, the Raptors are not the only losers in this draft. I think a lot of the tankers are losers in this draft. You think about the Washington Wizards, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Utah Jazz, the Brooklyn Nets, all of these teams that, especially towards the end of the season, were methodically trying to lose, lost out methodically.
flattened lottery odds more even lottery odds have helped some of these other teams with lower chances to get opportunities to land the number one pick and somehow in a weird basketball gods type of way although you know it just it doesn't make sense how the basketball gods work in this scenario they bless the Dallas mysterious way
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Chapter 2: What is the impact of Jayson Tatum's injury?
Yeah. They got a 3-1 lead. Yeah. Looking like no Tatum. Knicks Pacers. How do you feel? How do you feel about Knicks Pacers? I was going to say, if I had told you we would be sitting with two series and it was 3-1, would you have guessed that it would be the Knicks and the Pacers? I would not have, no.
And this is why, if you're the Spurs and you can make the trade and get Giannis, you make the trade and get Giannis. Really, there are no perfect teams right now.
There's so much parity. I mean, look, you've mentioned this, that this is like the parody era. And if you have an opportunity on any given season to give yourself even a 10% more chance at winning a championship, you do that. And Giannis is more than a 10% chance. Giannis is, he elevates the Spurs to a different level contender-wise. If the Rockets go after him, he's the missing piece for them.
Basically is the equation for a lot of these teams. And then when it comes to the Knicks and Pacers, you got your 90s back.
He's back, right? I'm excited about that. Although I think we're going to get some pretty high scoring games. It seems like the Western Conference has the 90 scores now and the East. It's like they flip flop for the era. Guys, stick around after the break. We got Christian Clark, who covers the Dallas Mavericks for us at the Athletic with his initial reaction.
Thank you.
The Dallas Mavericks have had a rollercoaster season. Christian Clark covers them for us. Christian, you have had a rollercoaster season. First of all, congratulations on the baby. That's great news. And congratulations on the Dallas Mavericks winning the lottery in spite of only a 1.8% chance. How do you feel?
There is, there's a lot going on at the Clark household right now. A lot going on personally, a lot going on with this team. I mean, look, maybe this, this helps. Maybe this goes a long way towards this incense fan base. I mean, I was just dreading having to cover this team at the start of next season here in the fire, Nico stuff, just dealing with anger from like day one of next season.
And, and maybe just, maybe this helps with that.
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Chapter 7: Who are the winners and losers of the draft lottery?
Yeah, prior to the night, to tonight, honestly, I hadn't been that impressed. Game one, they lost basically with Steph out. I know they were down 30-20 when he went out. But, you know, the Warriors were up 22 at one point, like the fourth quarter of that game. They didn't really, like, foot on the throat. Like, they could have lost game three.
And honestly, behind the scenes, you had Warriors people kicking themselves about the idea that if Steph was there, like, they really believed him. Again, I'm not saying this, but there is a strong internal belief that had Steph not got injured, they felt really good about the matchup. And even that Houston might have provided tougher issues to them.
But I will say, even going into tonight, it was like, if the Wolves are who they want to be, if they are a true threat to go past this series and beyond, and maybe even to the NBA Finals, a good team like that, you know, kills off a, an under man team without its best player. And tonight they did that, right?
Like they just came in and, and took the hearts and, and all the motivation out of the warriors in the third quarter. They went on the big 17 or run to me. Edwards was that type of superstar tonight. I don't know what he finished with point wise, but 30. Yeah. Pretty easy. 32. which is, you know, his kind of combination of just powerful rim drives and deep, tough threes, right?
He's hitting really tough threes. McDaniel's statistics don't pop off the page, but I think he's just been such a factor. And then Julius Randle's having a huge series. Had a great playoffs. Yeah, yeah. And he's giving Draymond some trouble. You know, we're like, more than Sangoon did, I would say. So, yeah, like...
They've been impressive, but also, and it's not like the Thunder have just been rolling through the nuggets, and we don't even know if it will be the Thunder in the next round. But I will say, the Timberwolves haven't done enough for me to believe. Like, I wouldn't pick them against the Thunder at this point.
Do you have a finals prediction now that we're here? Sure. Thunder. Are we here?
Wait, wait a second. We're not doing this. We're not writing off Nikola Jokic yet. I'm just asking. That series is two, two. Are you telling me you think that you think the Thunder just have this?
No, I would say I don't think they necessarily have this, but all he asked for a finals prediction. I could have said Nuggets against Cavaliers. It's true. I could still say that. I think I covered the Thunder second round series last year where they went. It played out pretty much exactly the same where it was 2-1 on the road. They went and got game four in Dallas. Shea was awesome. That was big.
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