Listen to the podcast for this show here:
- I know it’s fashionable to blame Kyrie Irving whenever his team falters however the Dallas Mavericks problems don’t have Kyrie as the primary problem this time. Yes he has had problems blending with Luka Doncic but the problems are more of management’s. In particular Nico Harrison the General Manager and the owner Mark Cuban. The Mavericks let Jalen Brunson leave in free agency when he would have taken about half of what the New York Knicks gave him. They then traded two complimentary pieces for Irving. Whenever a team is in trouble they often trade for the best player out there while they pay no attention to how they will fit.
- It’s not fair to the fans, and I don’t understand why it is done, but why is Damian Lillard sitting out the rest of the season. It would take a bad injury to have him miss time next year.
- LeBron James returns way before anyone thought he could. My only reaction is only he could return that quickly.
- Jaylen Brown could be a problem for the Celtics. The team’s best hope is that he makes one of the three all NBA teams because he could then sign in the offseason for a large contract. If he doesn’t make one of those teams Boston has to wonder if he will re-sign when he becomes a free agent next year. This may mean a trade.
- What exactly are the Washington Wizards doing? They are talking about resigning Kristaps Porzingis which I have no problem with. The problem is if you don’t make real changes to this team you’ll be back to being a borderline play-in team.
- If you didn’t hear about it, Trae Young was tossed out of a game last week for throwing a ball hard to an official. The interesting part of that is that when he was tossed the score was tied at 84. The Hawks went on to win 143 – 130. That means the Hawks finished by outscoring the Indiana Pacers 59 – 46. Read into it whatever you want.
- Jaden Ivey is a player to watch in the future. Not many people are paying attention to the Detroit Pistons but he has been making rapid improvements throughout his rookie season. Jaden has become a late candidate for rookie of the year but I think Paolo Banchero is the leader by a nice margin. He and Cade Cunningham will make a formidable tandem in the future for the Pistons
