Mike Richman

speaker

65 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard Apr 2025

Mike Richman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Athletic NBA Daily · NBA Awards "The Slammies" + The Blazers Future | Slam N Jam · 12 Apr 2025 podcast

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here to make my debut.

it's so mixed his overall performance, right? Like, I think he did a pretty good job of getting out from under the Damien Lillard mess that he also created. Um, I, I think, uh, yeah, The recent trades to acquire Denny Avdia and also Toumani Kamara, who was part of a larger trade, which maybe didn't have the best headliner that you could imagine, and DeAndre Ayton.

But, you know, I think Toumani and Denny have been good enough as wings and young wings that you're like, yeah, that's a part of something that could be a good basketball team.

And I think for the first time this year, particularly second half of this season, his lottery picks in Shade Sharp and Donovan Klingin and Scoot Henderson have all shown enough promise that you're like, okay, I started to see the vision. And yet he still has every Simons on the roster.

Rob Williams never got traded, not when he first arrived, not after he stuck around after an injury and not before he got injured another time. DeAndre is probably untradeable. Every Simons, you know, still there. And Jeremy Grant, who he gave a massive contract to, even though both him and Jeremy knew Damian Lord was out the door, they still gave him one hundred and sixty million bucks.

So it's like you kind of see where they're headed and why they're headed there. But I think the overall the vision from like pretty decent, competent team, which they've turned into to like actually competitive basketball team remains like a bit mystifying. Is it deserving? I don't know. No one deserves anything in this world. And we all deserve everything at the same time.

So I'm not surprised he got I'm not surprised he got a new contract by any means.

I do not expect Chauncey Billups to be the coach of the Blazers next year, in part because when they announced the future of the franchise and the multi-year contract for the GM who's going to lead the vision into the future, they didn't mention Chauncey Billups, and they also didn't announce a contracts extension for Chauncey Billups. He has a team option for next season.

He's coached four years here. I think it is misleading to judge Chauncey Billups by his win-loss record, which is horrendous because the Blazers lost on purpose for a good chunk of that. Um, and undoubtedly the best stretch of, of Billups his career has been the last three months. Like he's been that he's been pretty good.

Although I do think often we say coach win good coach lose bad, um, which is maybe a little too simple, but I, if the Blazers were going to keep Billups, I've had a lot, a lot of opportunities to do so. And I believe he will probably be a coach in the NBA next season, but I would doubt it would be for the Portland trailblazers.

It's a pretty, pretty simple one for him. He's got to make lapses. The finishing is just not quite there for him yet. His, they, you know, people used to say when he, when he couldn't shoot and couldn't make shots, like, well, at least he gets to his spots. What does that mean? He doesn't have spots. But he's shooting well enough from the outside now. And a lot of it is teams going under screens.

They say, shoot it. And he's kind of cut out the step back out of his diet. And instead of just said, he doesn't have to step back. just wait till you, you go under and he can shoot a three because he doesn't have to go anywhere. So I think he's taken, he's taking smarter shots.

And hopefully at some point that three point shooting translates to the respect that allows you to drive a little bit more, but he just is still a below average finisher. And if he's going to be a really good player, the scoot that is a really good player makes layups at a pretty high level.

it's feet. A lot of it. Um, he is, he plays a little bit small when he has, when he, uh, jumps off two feet. So like if he has runway and he can spring off of one foot, he's, um, he's pretty athletic. Um, but he's not maybe the athletes, um, that he was billed as like, he's not quite, he's probably not John wall. Um, and he's not, he's certainly not Russell Westbrook, right?

Like he's not one of, he's not that tier of athlete. He's an athletic point guard to be sure, but he's probably not in that, you know, whatever that percentile is, the 98th and above percentile. So sometimes he plays a little small when he has a jump off two feet, so he gets caught and can get in a crowd. And he was really bad with his left hand early in his career.

He's really improved his left hand finishing. That's like a thing he can do a little bit. But I think a lot of it is getting his footwork and his balance when he gets around the rim becomes a problem for him.

He is a real MF-er. Like, he is... Donovan Klingin is down to brawl. And I don't know that you always see that with rookie big men trying to find the way. Sometimes you see, like... You know, there are some Stephen Adamses out there, right? Like, Stephen Adams kind of came to the league and was like, I'll fight. Like, I'm down to fight. I'll fight everybody. But a lot of young big guys are like...

I got to figure out where maybe they commit hard fouls, but they don't like beef. And I think Klingon's competitiveness, particularly not backing down when guys go right at him and draw kind of silly fouls on him. I think that is an appealing part of his game because just that, just the willingness to like to mix it up speaks well for what they're going to need him to be.

Cause like his future is being gigantic and physical and he's already willing to do that.

You know what I think is a myth? I think Mickey Mouse March is a myth. There are times when it is very obvious that you are racking up stats against nonsense teams. There was a game, Shane Sharp's rookie year, where he had 37 boards, 7 assists. 37 and 7. And the team kept pointing to it all the time. One of the only rookies to have 35-5 before his night. They lost by 42 to the Kings that night.

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