The Shot Clock Pod - Week #23

[00:00:00] Alright, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, editor at thebeachbasket.net. He's Steve Percielo, a long-time educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach, and athletic director. And this is the Shot Clock Pod, the best 50 minutes of NBA Random Thoughts online anywhere. This is your first time listening. Welcome. We are so glad you found us. This podcast was born out of the content of Steve's 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 15 minutes to discuss what's on the show.

[00:00:30] On his mind around the NBA, today we'll discuss his latest NBA Random NBA. I'll get it right. Today we'll discuss his 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts article, where he shares his thoughts after week 23 of the 2024-25 NBA season. I'm not ready. Steve, are you ready? Yeah, but did I mention there's a friend of mine that could help you with speech. Maybe it can help make you a little bit better at it. I'm ready.

[00:00:55] Send me that contact info, please. Let's do this. Starting the clock now. All right. This NBA season has been full of shockers, right? Probably the biggest one was Donchich to the Lakers. That was a shocker no one saw coming. So it's the firing of Taylor Jenkins. It came out of nowhere. It's not like this is a team that was necessarily struggling badly. This is a playoff team. What do you make of that weird move so late in the season? You try to read between the lines.

[00:01:24] There's a lot of things. First of all, Memphis is a small market, so it's not as big a deal as Luka going at the Lakers. But first of all, last summer, GM Zach Kleeman, he decided to fire five of Taylor Jenkins' assistant coaches. Now, if anybody follows Memphis, they know last year they were killed with injuries.

[00:01:47] But he decided to do that. He also wants somebody in to build a new offense. John's not happy with that. He wants more screening on him, so he frees up room to go to the basket. There's less of that this year.

[00:02:00] And obviously, Taylor Jenkins went along with that. But when you read into it, read between the lines. When a GM does that, it's saying to you, they're not in harmony here. There's not a good thing. Now, a lot of coaches, if something like that happened, have quit in many sports because they don't want their coaching staff taken away from them. Jenkins allowed it.

[00:02:20] But Jenkins had to be aware that he really shouldn't even buy green bananas. There's not much time here. And as soon as things fell a little bit down, he'd be gone. And that's what happened. The ironic thing is, there's only a few games left. Teams are going to be shocked. Are they going to be happy about it? Or are they going to just say, to heck with this? It's a very tenuous point. Last night, I know they lost to the Lakers in a close game and a tough loss at home.

[00:02:49] So it becomes interesting in the next week or so how Memphis responds to this thing. But evidently, Clemen and Taylor Jenkins weren't on the same page. And evidently, this was inevitable in meeting between the lines with coaching staff being fired. So that would be the bottom line to me.

[00:03:09] GMs are like the umpire of baseball. I know you've got a background in baseball. You follow the sport, right? When an umpire does his job, you never realize that they're there, right? They call the balls and strikes, everything. But when attention is brought to an up, it's usually because of a mistake. I'd never heard of Zach Clemen. Never.

[00:03:30] And this guy won Executive of the Year, apparently. I didn't know that. So this guy, he's been doing a great job and he's been doing it the way GMs should do it, under the radar, right? All of a sudden, he does this and the spotlight is on him. This could go really bad or really good for Memphis. But it's not the kind of thing you want as a GM, is the spotlight on you.

[00:03:51] And of course, don't forget, last year, the injuries, he's made a few trades in the last year or two. Before, the old thing is, if you're a GM, before the blame hits me, I'm going to get rid of the coach. Right. And that, he might be getting heat above. Yeah. Above him, ownership or whatever. And this is the obvious thing. I'd bail on the coach. I'd buy myself another year or two. And hopefully things turn around by then. But that's the old thing when things are breaking down.

[00:04:22] Yeah. Another reminder that the NBA is a business. Hold that thought because we're going to go back to that in a minute, too. But before we do, let's talk about the Cleveland Cavaliers. They're struggling in a way that, again, I didn't see this coming. They were dominating, really dominating, beating everybody and making it look easy. You called out one interesting key statistic. That's a big reason, if not the reason, they lost five of their last eight games. What's going on in Cleveland? Well, first of all, they've won 16 in a row twice this year.

[00:04:53] Twice? Well, man, I think that's about 39% of the total games. It's unheard of. Some teams have had longer winning streaks, but never like this. You got to put that aside. I earlier thought this team was destined for the whole thing. Now, as I watch it, I'm wondering. And what really happened is all of a sudden they stopped defending. They're giving up 100 over those five losses. Now, right now, they give up 112 points a game over a little over 112.

[00:05:22] And that's gone up, obviously, from what's happened. So they were playing much better defense before. And the defaults has gone slow. And that's been probably the biggest reason. We've been resting guys here and there. Mitchell's been out a couple games and so on. But not to the degree of giving up so many points. And obviously, when the defense slips, I don't know if the players mentally, they're not playing. You don't turn that on and off that easily, especially at this time of year.

[00:05:52] The defense is really the game. And the other night against Detroit, if you watch the end of that game, Detroit, they came back. They cut like a large 18, 20-point lead, I think, to four. And Mitchell was on fire in the fourth quarter. It was down by about four with about two, three minutes left. And Detroit couldn't score. And they scored. They got a three or a layup, whatever it was, or maybe during a dump.

[00:06:17] But once that happened, it was over. Because all of a sudden now, Detroit got the ball again and hit a three and put the game away. And you really wonder, like they said, okay, we're going to do it now. And they couldn't get over to home. And you wonder what's going on. And by the way, to win the title, they're good. But a lot of this is mental. And I'm one of the psyches really hurt. It's made me reevaluate the Eastern Conference.

[00:06:47] Because I don't know if they believe they can. And don't forget, Mitchell's history has not been good. Yeah, it's been a foregone conclusion, really, that the Celtics and the Cavs would meet. Listen, that was my foregone conclusion anyway. Now, not as foregone. It's up in the air. It's not as wide open as the West, which is wide open. Well, that's crazy. But the Cavs are tenuous right now.

[00:07:13] It gets interesting. And let me just lay it out. Let us pretend Orlando is the eighth seed. Orlando plays them hard. It plays them well. Okay, let's say Cleveland gets through. The four and five seed right now are the Bucs in Indiana. Indiana's a four. If Indiana plays Cleveland, that will be an interesting series to watch.

[00:07:39] And I'm not saying there's going to be an upset or anything, but I'm just saying both series would be interesting if they play those two teams. I guess Orlando matches up real well with them. And it's just a pain in the neck for any team to play. It gets interesting. It gets very interesting for them. Very wild. Very wild. And after such an easy ride for so long to face these bumps in the road when you're this close to the playoffs is rough. Other teams are excelling. The Cavs are struggling.

[00:08:05] One more quick point. There are four games, I believe, ahead of Boston right now. Tiebreakers are interesting because things happen if they lose. That ain't over. It ain't over. It should be over. And if the Cavs wake up, it is over. But unless they wake up, that gets interesting also because they have some tough games ahead. They play the Knicks twice. And the Knicks are going to be out there establish that they can play with the big boys. So, yeah.

[00:08:34] Actually, that's saying Boston wins the rest of their games or what do they got? Eight? Seven out of eight or so. And that's saying a lot too, but it should be over. But it's not. Yeah. And that is, that's the title for the Cleveland Cavaliers right now. It should be over, but it's not. Let's talk about a team that is pretty much over this season. That's the Miami Heat. They're clinging to the final play spot right now.

[00:09:01] But another shocker, kind of, when they let go of Jimmy Butler. I guess that was a really big shocker. But again, we talked about this. Not that we need to remind it that the NBA is a business, but Jimmy Butler reminded everyone this week by calling out Pat Riley. Broad brush question, okay? Was he treated fairly in Miami? Of course he was. That's the most ridiculous thing you can ever say. Think about this. The guys got paid, he got paid, and he didn't try. He went out and wouldn't shoot the ball, and they had to suspend them twice.

[00:09:31] He complained. Why? Because he didn't get paid. He did have a contract for this year and an option for next year, and he just decided, no, I want more time and more money. And you know what? He's been missing a lot of games. Pat Riley's right. But the kicker was what he said about seeing Riley. He better not see him. Are you? What, I guess what really gets to me is the arrogance of an athlete. You, Chris, you ruined the team.

[00:10:01] You got where you want to go. You don't even care that you ruined that team. That doesn't even affect you. You got what you wanted. That's all it's about. And if you're a fan and you're a Miami Heat fan, first of all, I feel sorry for you. But worse yet, being a Miami Heat fan, you love Jimmy. He brought you to the finals twice. He was great. And then he pulls this crap. And you just, there's something wrong here. It's wrong. And you start to sit there and wonder.

[00:10:28] Jimmy would do the same thing with any team he played with. As long as he got paid, he plays hard. So me rooting for the team, I'm rooting like hell, but he's not. And it's really something a fan is going to look at and say, man, this isn't right. It's not right. These guys don't care about it. And it's not good for the NBA. It's not a good look at all for the NBA. And the NBA has got to think about this and do something. And by the way, if the Heat said, we're not training you, it's the way it is. You know what they would have had?

[00:10:58] An unhappy guy who just didn't play hard. And here, nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do. And the NBA, that's a bad mark for the NBA. And I do truly feel for the. Yeah. They had a good week. They were 4-0 this week after a couple of rough weeks. So hopefully the dust is settling in Miami. But yeah, things did not end well. And Jimmy Butler has a lot to do with that. If you watch the end of that game against Golden State, Butler left the court.

[00:11:27] You would think Tyler Hero and Bam, he might have said hugged or whatever. And he didn't. That, it just, it's ugly. It's ugly. Again, a great segue. Speaking of ugly, the NBA teams, or NBA teams, at least the ones that are going to be making the playoffs. Miami doesn't necessarily fall into this bucket. But the teams below him do. They're taking. This is a great draft for some great players. And teams want their best shot at those players.

[00:11:56] You wrote a really interesting piece about it. This is not a good look for the NBA. Not a good look for fans hoping to catch some really competitive games near the end of the season. They might see two tanking teams if it's working to lose over win. You offer up a solution. What is it? If you think about it, 16 teams make the playoffs. Four teams are eliminated in the play-in. There are 30 teams in the league.

[00:12:22] So 10 teams are out of either the play-in or the playoffs. If you take those 10 teams and you run a lottery and you give each of them a 9% chance of winning. And it could be any of those 10 teams. So that means it could be, what is that? The 20, 21st best record in the league could get it. Now, you take the four teams that lost in the play-in games.

[00:12:50] You give them a 2.5% chance of winning. It adds up to 100%. They can win the lottery as well. And you have the lottery. You do it in a fair way if one of those teams is first or second. That isn't one of the bottom three teams. After you do that, whoever, if one of those teams cracks the top three. But when you do it in your inverse standings, one of those teams, the worst record could end up with four or three.

[00:13:19] They won't get hammered in the draft. But by the same token, you're giving everybody a chance. Now, I don't know about you. I turn the TV. If I look at what's playing tonight, I don't know if I see Toronto or Charlotte. They're all of those teams. I don't want to watch. I'm looking for two decent teams to play. What it would do is, what's the difference if I come in 15th, 14th in my conference or 15th in the conference? I still got the same show.

[00:13:47] You won't see things like Toronto sitting Emmanuel quickly today. Why? He's getting rest. He's got all summer to rest. You won't see that. And teams might actually, and coaches might try to win. Because if you watch Toronto, they played rookies in the last couple minutes in the last couple games. Or younger players, less experienced players. It's not fun to watch. You see these teams rolling over, and you know what's going on. It would be better. The NBA can get rid of the problems.

[00:14:16] Last thing on that. If you're a person, and let's, you know, innocently before the season, you bought tickets in Miami to go see Steph Curry. And let's say Miami was a tanking team. They come into town. It's a blowout. Or Curry might not, he might be sitting up for rest. That's just, it's horrible.

[00:14:39] And yet, you're talking about $150, and if you took your kid, $200, you're going for a lot of money for a night. And when you're seeing half a team playing, it's just a horrible thing. Yeah. Yeah, so to encapsulate it, because it took me a couple of times to understand what's going to say. Wait, there's one more piece I didn't add. Go. When you think also, everybody gets bored out after the trade deadline. Move the date to February 1st.

[00:15:07] That means there's over 30 games left for every team. So, not many teams are going to say, we're quitting and we're dumping. So, now the buyouts won't happen. And that makes it even better, because a bad team keeps their best players. Yeah. So, in short, what we're saying is, if you didn't make the playoffs, you have an equal shot. Or the play-in, where you have an equal shot of getting the first. So, there's no benefit to the team at the end of the day. That makes so much sense. It's so logical.

[00:15:36] It's such a good idea that it probably never, ever, ever had. Usually. You're right. Let's see. Let's see where that goes. I thought that was incredibly fascinating. Make sure to read that and more in this week's 13 Rules Random NBA Thoughts article. We did not get a chance. You heard the buzzer go off, right? You did not get a chance to talk about everything Steve wrote about. He wrote about more after week 23, the 2024, 2025 NBA season. I still need that guy's number. I'm having some trouble today. Please consider subscribing.

[00:16:05] Join us next week on the Shot Clock Pod, the best 15 minutes of NBA Random Thoughts online anywhere. We'll talk next week. Steve, thank you. Thanks. Take care. Abby Davis – 2 Stephen Beckport