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

That's Mickey Mouse, okay? That is Mickey Mouse. But sometimes you are playing, you are expanding your role and playing in competitive minutes that you otherwise would not. Certainly the, like, Washington Wizards pulling Alex Saar from the game can lead to some Mickey Mouse nonsense.

But I do think there are just competitive games, like the Blazers have played some good teams who play their guys, and you see, okay, in an expanded role, you can do some other stuff. I think maybe the box score, if you just watch the box score, the Mickey Mouse stuff is real.

But if you watch the games, the minutia of it, and I am blessed and cursed to watch every minute of the Trailblazers, I think you could see real things. That said, all of this Shane Sharp stuff in March is bull. It's all Disney magic. He's been good. The big difference for him, and I think this is the challenge that they will have going forward, is that

they've had a lot less Amphrey Simons and a lot less scoot consistently, which has meant more on ball reps for, for sharp. And he just looks better with the ball in his hands. When he's an off ball guy, he can get lost a little bit and his maybe aggression wanes a little bit, or he, or he's like, I got to shoot because I'm supposed to score. And he takes like stupid shots.

But I think he's had the ball in his hands more. And he's just, he just has, he can build a comfort if he knows he's going to have on ball reps. Like he just looks better that way, which is something they're going to have to figure out going forward because Denny's going to have the ball and scoots going to have the ball. And, probably not every time it's, but another guard will have the ball too.

And they'll, and they'll, they'll have to figure out sort of the balance with that.

You know, they need shooting. So it's like, is con canipple that guy, um, Maybe I'm not super excited about con canipples overall upside as an NBA player, but I bet he'll play in the league for 10 years because he's the right size. He's got good physicality and he can shoot like that's, um, that's an NBA player.

Like, I don't know if it's a really good NBA player, but when I watch him, I'm like, yeah, that dude's gonna play in the league. Um, so he's, he's a name that's probably in that range that makes some sense. I think we're sheer Fleming is a name that kind of makes some sense if the shooting is real. Cause they could use like a stretchy, big, um, I think that's the skill set.

Maybe Liam McNeely, but I don't, I'm kind of, I've kind of soured on him a little bit, but those are the names. Cause I think they need shooting, but I don't know that they're in a spot. I don't know anyone who's going to be drafting the lotteries in a spot where they should draft for a skill sets, but just like thinking about the Blazers needs, those are their needs.

You know, I think one of the most interesting scenarios for the Blazers is if they do jump up and it's like Vijay Edgecombe and Dylan Harper are choices where they land. It's like, What do you do? What do you do? Do you believe in your guys or do you bring in the talent? I think that would be a really fascinating scenario. And for the content purposes, I am obviously rooting for it.

Yeah, I mean, they have a bunch of dudes who can defend, but if Shaden Sharp and Scoot are their future in the backcourt, I don't know that you can have enough defenders, right? I think Scoot has improved a lot on defense, but he's 6'2". What are you going to do? There's not that many guys who are really good consistently on defense of that size, and Shaden Sharp's pretty bad on defense.

So I think that is a question mark for him.

Oh, man. My hope is that they make the big structural changes that they have resisted making for several cycles now. I don't know that you can trade, as I mentioned earlier in the show, I don't know that you can trade DeAndre. I don't know that that's an option. I don't know that you can trade Jeremy Grant because he forgot how to make two-pointers. But at some point you could. He was tradable.

I think every Simons is tradable to some extent. I don't know that he has this. That is not the type of player that has a lot of value in the trade market. But movable, without a doubt, movable, depending on what you're asking prices. But I think it's time to really clear the decks to let the youngsters play.

But there is a weird world, and I think this goes to what I think they will do, is where they took a step forward this year. are they willing to take a step back? Are they willing to trade those guys and get a little bit worse in the immediate term? Or are they, or, or do they say we, we won 37 games.

We sure as hell don't want to win 31 or 28 or something, you know, like they, they are where they're resistant to make necessary moves because they're worried about the sort of outward appearance of the rebuild heading being non, being nonlinear all of a sudden.

Yeah, I mean, I think it just would be really, really, really bizarre if year three Scoot Henderson is not your starting point guard.

It's just good, bad, whatever. It's weird. It'd be weird. You draft him third overall, and he goes into his third season, and it's like, well, yeah, he's going to be a backup. It's like, okay, well, you drafted a backup at three. You know, like that's I think that is one of the things that they need to they need to look in the mirror and decide what what the deal is.

I think the way that would be palatable is, I guess, if Dylan Harper was your starting point guard or whatever. But, you know, like I don't think. You know, I don't think there's if DeAndre Ayton and every Simons are back, that means that you have two recent lottery picks who have at least shown some promise in Scoot and Donovan Klingon who have been coming off the bench again.

And that's just weird. That's weird. That's a weird way to run a basketball team.

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