Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 52 points, but it wasn’t enough to hold off Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors as the Thunder drop their 9th game of the season. Dave DuFour and Zena Keita react to the Warriors win and then Sam Amick stops by to give the latest on De’Aaron Fox, Jimmy Butler, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Then, the Athletic’s Law Murray joins the show to discuss Kawhi Leonard’s progress, the Clippers success thus far, and their potential moves at the trade deadline.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita, Sam Amick, & Law MurrayExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodyRead Sam’s report on Fox: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6095410/2025/01/28/deaaron-fox-kings-trade-open-nba/Read Law’s latest on the Clippers at the deadline: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6093053/2025/01/28/clippers-nba-trade-deadline-tiers/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened in the Thunder vs Warriors game?
In an L. In a loss. To the 23-23 Warriors. Now 24-23 Warriors.
He had 54, what was that, last week? So it's his second 50-point game. They mentioned on the broadcast that he's only got seven. He only has seven games of 40 or more points this season. Do more, Shay.
Right, yeah. Please score some more.
But look, let's talk about the Warriors side of this. Because the second half, it was like... A little bit of Jekyll and Hyde. You know, the Thunder get out to a nice lead. Steph Curry scores four points in the first half. And you start thinking, hey, this is – maybe they're going to be waving the white flag kind of early. But Steph got hot.
And so hot, he hit a 35-footer after the buzzer kind of out of rhythm toward the end of this game. Like, it was one of those things. I wonder if the Thunder – None of the players remember what it was like to be in those battles, but I wonder if there's people in the Thunder organization that just every time they see Steph touch a basketball, they get flashbacks. It's like PTSD.
I'm sure there's a little PTSD on the Thunder side. There's PTSD all around the league when it comes to Steph Curry getting hot. And what's so...
obvious is that when he gets hot he injects life into the warriors because not only did he get hot and start making abnormal threes excuse me abnormal for other people not for everybody else um but it also picked up the pace of the game you saw the warriors start exchanging buckets with with okc in a way that most teams aren't able to keep up with okc at one point
There was literally 24 points for the Warriors, eight points only for OKC. They end up winning that quarter 36-26, but that's when the tides shifted for the Warriors. They were feeling themselves. There was a crazy dunk, GP2 over Isaiah Hartenstein. I am still out of my body thinking about that body dunk.
He bodied him, but that was the essence of the way that the Warriors were playing in the second half.
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Chapter 2: What are the latest updates on De'Aaron Fox's trade situation?
The Lakers, I'm told, are not a place that De'Aaron or his camp is trying to push him towards, even with the connections between Fox's agent, Rich Paul of Clutch Sports, LeBron James, Anthony Davis. This is a whole different conversation, but probably not a great sign For the Lakers, the clutch camp looks at their operation and says, no, let's go elsewhere with a young all-star level talent.
But again, that's a conversation for another day. Orlando comes to mind. They have interest in Fox. They've been doing some due diligence on him for quite some time. And I think formulating their own opinion. I don't know if they're jumping in immediately right now, but it wouldn't shock me.
They've had so many injuries this year, and you can tell that they are trying to hold on to all of that positivity that came with the strong start they had while also trying to figure out how do we take the next step. So Orlando comes to mind. I'm leaving somebody out, but I mean... Go ahead.
I was just going to ask, do you feel like this is a thing? I mean, again, we're a week from the trade deadline. Yeah, I understand De'Aaron Fox wanting this to happen before the deadline. But is this something where maybe the Kings just they're starting the process now and this plays out in the summer when they're probably going to have.
I mean, even though I think he's the best player available right now for long term.
that you can go and trade for that we know of but in the summer maybe you have more of a bidding war perhaps and it is very difficult to get these teams to a place yeah to your point mid-season yeah to pull something like this off again i already said like houston's out of the running because mid-season doesn't work for them the other two teams that i was blanking on miami and the clippers are frequently mentioned with fox um you know now the miami thing
You know, that's kind of interesting. You know, you never know. We could see, does a Fox and Butler situation kind of run headlong into one another? You know, I think whatever the Butler situation ends up being is potentially a three, four, five team deal. Tough to put together. But, you know, you have two big time pieces in Butler and Fox now in play.
But yes, to your question, the summertime is easier logistically. But the question becomes, do the Kings lose leverage by that point? I don't love the gun to the head analogy, but the point gets across. It's even more intense in the summer where you are running out of time. Absolutely, for a small market franchise like the Kings, you cannot run the risk of losing Fox for nothing.
And I'll also say that if you think about the Kings' history with this front office, with Monty McNair and Wes Wilcox, when they traded for Damanis Sabonis,
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Chapter 3: What are the Clippers' plans for Kawhi Leonard?
We just got to see what the market looks like at that point and go from there.
Yeah, and Jimmy Butler, another guy that really wants to get moved for a contract extension that is going to make him a lot more money. I guess before I let you get out of here, I mean, the Milwaukee Bucks seem like they are trying to do something. I have heard Zach Levine as an option. I'm interested in both of those things.
I'm interested in the Milwaukee Bucks and their plans and what you think might happen with Zach Levine.
Um, yeah, Zach's a tricky one. It's like, man, one day he wants to be in Chicago. One day you can't wait to get out of Chicago. Um, I'm in that camp, you know, just, I don't weigh in opinion wise that much. Cause I'm just following the information, but like, man, Zach, he's had an incredible year. He's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing.
And I actually think some of these teams we're talking about should go ahead. And you're going to roll the dice when it comes to his health. But he has been able to put together a good stretch right now where he's mostly been healthy. And it makes a lot of sense to me why Milwaukee would be thinking about it. Chris Middleton is a problem. And I like Chris a lot.
But it's just the difficulties he is having. Physically, performance-wise, even now that he is back going scoreless the other night, this is something the Bucs look at it like everybody else. And you talk about ceilings. They know we are not competing with Boston, OKC, Cleveland, any of these teams with this current group.
But they are also already so out over their skis from an asset standpoint, you know, all in as much as anybody in the NBA when they made the trade for Damian Lillard that, you know, I think the internal discussion there is like, my goodness, are we really doing this again? Whether it's Levine, whether it's Butler, I think those are all real conversations that are being had.
And I'm very curious to see what they do because standing pat seems problematic to me. They're not good enough. Yeah, you got Giannis to sign the long-term extension, but if they stand pat and they bow out in the first round again, and I know it gets tired from a fan standpoint, but it's like we're just going to restart the whole is Giannis happy discussion again.
This is the best this team is going to be, Sam. It's only going to get older. They don't have any sort of high-impact young players that you expect to break out in any significant way. They've got young players who are contributors, but I just feel like they're, they are the team. There's a few teams maybe, but I feel like they are the team in most desperate need of a move.
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Chapter 4: What impact does Jimmy Butler have on trade discussions?
What I love about this game was it felt a little bit like a big brother, little brother game, like the little brother with being the Spurs, but the pace that they had going, they forced a lot of turnovers.
You saw them running in transition a lot, but the efficiency, the big brother of Kawhi and James Harden and how they worked off of the screens with Zubats in the middle, Norm Powell, like it just felt as if they were calm and comfortable throughout this entire game. I've actually been shocked at how quickly they've gotten comfortable with Kawhi back on the floor.
Have you felt just a shift in the way that they've incorporated him into their mix?
The thing with Kawhi and Zeus, he doesn't want to talk about even this part anymore. He's a high floor player to go along with a high ceiling player. And what that means is... High ceiling, he elevates his teammates and does great things, things that, you know, max players do, right? But he's a high floor player because he just doesn't make mistakes. He's the adult in the room on an old-ass team.
OK, the big brother team. Exactly. So James has six turnovers in the first half. You mentioned that the Spurs were getting out and running. They were pressuring the ball. The Spurs don't pressure the basketball like their bottom five team when it comes to forcing turnovers. And here Jeremy Sohan was on back-to-back possessions, ripping James in the backcourt.
The second one finished with an and one. I don't even think he made the free throw, but still, you know, the crowd gets hype. And one, stop the game, put the replay up, everybody lineups. You know what I mean? Right. James goes into halftime and he apologized. And we've had this thing all season with T. Rulu where it's like, You tell these guys, they turn the ball over too much.
And he's like, you show them, you tell them, and they just say facts and go on with their day. So James, he goes in at halftime and he took responsibility, accountability. And it's great when guys say it, but it's even better when they actually implement it. James didn't have a turnover in the second half.
The Clippers operated like they were playing a bottom five turnover defense in the second half. They only had six turnovers. That was huge. And so I'm not surprised because Kawhi is easy to play with. There's a reason his win percentage over the course of his career is as high as it is. He had a great example set in the city of San Antonio. And he's carried that as he's grown his individual game.
He always brings his team along with him. That's why he's worth it. That's why, you know, and when I say worth it, you know, I know that correlation, that connotation always comes down to, you know, guys who have attitude issues or guys who just, you know, personality wise, you need to make adjustments. Kawhi is not that person. We all know what the,
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Chapter 5: What are the Milwaukee Bucks considering for their roster?
Chapter 6: How might the trade deadline affect team strategies?
And I actually think some of these teams we're talking about should go ahead. And you're going to roll the dice when it comes to his health. But he has been able to put together a good stretch right now where he's mostly been healthy. And it makes a lot of sense to me why Milwaukee would be thinking about it. Chris Middleton is a problem. And I like Chris a lot.
But it's just the difficulties he is having. Physically, performance-wise, even now that he is back going scoreless the other night, this is something the Bucs look at it like everybody else. And you talk about ceilings. They know we are not competing with Boston, OKC, Cleveland, any of these teams with this current group.
But they are also already so out over their skis from an asset standpoint, you know, all in as much as anybody in the NBA when they made the trade for Damian Lillard that, you know, I think the internal discussion there is like, my goodness, are we really doing this again? Whether it's Levine, whether it's Butler, I think those are all real conversations that are being had.
And I'm very curious to see what they do because standing pat seems problematic to me. They're not good enough. Yeah, you got Giannis to sign the long-term extension, but if they stand pat and they bow out in the first round again, and I know it gets tired from a fan standpoint, but it's like we're just going to restart the whole is Giannis happy discussion again.
This is the best this team is going to be, Sam. It's only going to get older. They don't have any sort of high-impact young players that you expect to break out in any significant way. They've got young players who are contributors, but I just feel like they're, they are the team. There's a few teams maybe, but I feel like they are the team in most desperate need of a move.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But also they don't have, it requires, you know, I think the guy, the player wanting to be there. Right. Because they don't have much to offer. You know, they can't compete with, we didn't mention Memphis, by the way, that's another good one. Yeah. And from an asset standpoint, they can't compete with teams like that.
But it was reported, and it's true, that Jimmy, his camp has sent word several times to Memphis that he's not interested in playing for the Grizzlies. That was not the case with Milwaukee. So, okay, can you kind of use that to your advantage, the idea that Jimmy might actually want to be here? Can you make that happen? With Zach, does Zach want to be in Milwaukee?
So they do need to do something, you know, or else, you know, again, big fella might get a little restless again, but there's a lot to consider.
Everybody's thinking about 2026. Everybody's thinking about 2026. Sam Amick, thank you very much. I know you're going to have a busy week. We're going to get you back next week to set up the trade deadline itself. Guys, stick around after the break. Zena and I are going to catch up with Law Murray. Clippers are in San Antonio. And he just released his midseason power rankings.
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