The Los Angeles Lakers land Dorian Finney-Smith in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, and Es Baraheni breakdown the move for the Lakers, react to Mike Brown’s firing in Sacramento, and Pat Riley’s stance on trading Jimmy Butler. Then, the gang go through some “NBA New Year’s Resolutions” and reveal the new leader in the MVP award race.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita & Es BaraheniExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodySubmit your questions to The Athletic NBA Daily mailbag: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5939460/2024/11/25/nba-podcast-mailbag-athletic-daily/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What trade did the Lakers make?
They also pick up Shaq Milton, who can help their guard rotation a little bit. And they only had to send out D'Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis, and three second round picks. So they got to keep the first rounders. So the powder's a little bit dry. Zena, look, I want to start with the Lakers side of this because this is a move for a team that's trying to win.
What do you think about getting Dorian Finney-Smith out there? 3 and D guy. I mean, they needed him.
Chapter 2: How does Dorian Finney-Smith improve the Lakers?
I love this for the Lakers. This is a significant upgrade to their defense. He's a sturdier, he being Dorian Finney-Smith is a sturdier defender. And I like this alongside Max Christie, who has kind of emerged as a great defender, an agile defender. He's a little bit smaller than Dorian Finney-Smith. So expect him to kind of be on the more agile assignments on the other side of the ball.
And then Dorian Finney-Smith can match up against those bigger assignments. But then I also like the fact that Dorian Finney-Smith is not a bad shooter and when you think about LeBron James penetrating in the middle of the paint or setting up a two-man game with him and AD being able to have a reliable 36% shooter like Finney Smith is on the outside to kick to nice upgrade for them
Yeah, I mean, look, when you look at this move, S, they send out D'Angelo Russell, and he was doing a pretty decent job, I think, running those bench units. And you worry about the Lakers and their lack of playmaking. You think now with this sort of move, it's going to be a lot more LeBron with the ball in his hands. Obviously, Austin Reeves has come on this year.
But you expect the Lakers probably to be looking to make another move and maybe to fill that playmaker gap?
Yeah, I think this is one move that has to follow another. whether that be adding another playmaker or I know they've been looking to add more size next to Anthony Davis. You know, they've been poking around with Jonas Valanciunas and the Wizards.
So maybe that's something they address together, like maybe about Malcolm Brogdon, Jonas Valanciunas kind of package to get the ball handling responsibilities and a big man coming to, you know, Brogdon has that veteran presence. I would be interested in something like that for what it's worth. I think from the Lakers perspective,
when you have a player like Austin Reeves that is stepping up the way that he has, I thought he'd been great as a pick and roll ball handler. He had six game winner against the warriors on the game winner against the warriors had 16 assists the other night. So I think he's really stepping into his own this year.
And so maybe shifting away from D'Angelo Russell, you're now giving more opportunity to Reeves to really blossom and stretch his legs. So I think the Lakers are in a position to really take another step here. They're, they're like, they're a game and a half away from fourth in the West. which is crazy to say because it feels like they haven't been that good or good enough to do that.
They haven't been consistent on both sides of the ball. Right. And, you know, we've talked about this a lot with with Yovan. I mean, basically been an ongoing theme for them this season. It's when the defense is good, the offense is doing nothing. And they had that stretch to start the year where the offense looks so much better. And that might be a little bit of fool's gold.
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Chapter 3: Why was Mike Brown fired by the Kings?
Yeah, De'Aaron Fox made sure to mention that, right?
Sure, but the way that this happened, the abruptness with which it happened, you heard what Mike Malone had to say about his firing, what he had to say about Coach Brown's firing. This is also setting a standard for what coach wants to come to Sacramento next? Who wants to be treated that way, right? And so the sensitivity that was lacking in this whole decision was,
Just, I think, showcases a larger situation between the organization, the front office, and all the way down to coaching, to the players, to the philosophies across this entire organization.
Yeah, and there's tons more reporting to come out of this situation, obviously, and with De'Aaron Fox possibly asking out. So go and follow Sam Amick and Anthony Slater over at The Athletic. They're going to have this covered. We're going to get Sam on the show, hopefully, in the next couple of days to break down the behind-the-scenes stuff. Speaking of front offices and...
Star players and possible trades. Guys, the Jimmy Butler saga, is it over? Pat Riley came out last week and said the Miami Heat are not trading Jimmy Butler. Now that smells like leverage to me.
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Chapter 4: What does the future hold for the Kings after firing Mike Brown?
Until they trade Jimmy Butler. Until they trade Jimmy Butler. They're not.
So listen. Butler's been out. He's had an illness. He did, you know, he did posts about the Tyler hero and a men Thompson dust up in that rockets. Who couldn't make a post on social media about it. In addition to some workout videos.
And so Xena, usually when guys are out and they start posting videos, you know, ramping up to come back, it means they're, they're coming back and he's going to make this push. And should we just expect Jimmy Butler to wear a, New hair colors to let us know that there's more teams on the list. Like, what are we looking for here with Jimmy and his comeback?
Definitely a definitely a factor of do I want to be here? Because remember, the rumors were that Jimmy Butler asked out, wanted a trade from the team. And then Pat Riley, in a very uncharacteristic mood, made a very clear declaration that, no, we are committed to Jimmy Butler, but we haven't asked him. Is Jimmy Butler committed to the East? How rare is that? That's very rare.
And so now it's just going to be a matter of let's see how he's committed through the level of his play, how he continues to play not only for himself, but for his team. I think that what happened with Pat Riley is very strategic. Being able to come out and say, we are not trading Jimmy Butler, even though his player just recently had rumors saying that he wanted out. I think it does three things.
One increases his trade value. If
a team is hearing that a tree like if another team in the association is hearing that the heat don't want to get rid of this player don't you want the things you want more that you can't have right increases his value a little bit it also can deter other teams from making offers so maybe they have a team they're already locked in on and it's making other teams turn away because pat riley said we're not trading him but they might have some conversations going on you never know and then the third is it could also
help in the relationship when a trade does happen. Where if Jimmy Butler still wants out, but the Heat look like they're really locked in on him, maybe it will make the conversation between another team and what Jimmy and his agents end up wanting to do a little bit more favorable. And that, you know, they feel like this is an organization that was committed to me.
I want to make sure that I go end up treating the conversation better overall. I think it's a good move for the Heat to have said that out loud.
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Chapter 5: Is Jimmy Butler being traded?
Amin Thompson just really, Tyler Hero did not think that was going to happen. Whatever was going through Tyler Hero's head, he had no idea that Amin Thompson was going to execute a almost textbook Keith Rowe over his hip.
He would have braced himself a little bit more. Yeah.
I'll also just say, can Tyler Hill retire the sunglasses post-game? That just is not a vibe. Not a good look.
Also, the pencil mustache, just not cutting for me.
We are not coming for Tyler Hill's throat right now, guys. No, we're not.
We're coming for that mustache. For sure. We're definitely coming for the mustache. Guys, Kawhi Leonard. posted a little video on social media. I'm not sure if you guys saw it. It basically alluded to the fact that he'd been fishing while he was in his downtime, which is great. Great pastime. So for me, guys, I was thinking about New Year's resolutions. For Kawhi, it's Not to get hurt.
Please. That's always a great resolution. Don't get hurt.
The Clippers have been such a great story. They've been so good and they're missing a guy like Kawhi Leonard S. And if he can come in and give them that extra scoring punch, you know, if he's at 23 a game and now you've got Norm Powell, who's playing like, you know, starting level two guard, you've got James Harden. We know what he's done all year. The Clippers might make some noise.
The Clippers are also a great defensive team this year. And when you add a guy like Kawhi, who we know what he can bring on the defensive end when he's fully healthy, that just takes them up a different level. You talked about the mid range scoring. That's an added level. The one thing I'll say is like maybe Kawhi is their midseason addition.
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Chapter 6: What are the New Year's resolutions for the NBA?
I just want to push to the finish in the regular season. Look, and I will say this until I'm blue in the face. This has been one of the most compelling and fun basketball seasons since I started doing this job. I started doing this in 2016. This is the games are great every single night.
And like you said, there's so many guys that are out right now that we're not even seeing these matchups at full strength. So hopefully we just let's just spread some health. Around the NPA for the next few weeks.
Santa took them from us.
Christmas Day was terrible. It was not good.
I mean, we got Aaron Gordon, Anthony Davis. I was like, Santa, what are you doing? Yeah, it was tough.
It was tough. Guys, stick around after the break. We're going to do our first award season check in now that we're in the new year.
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Well, we're almost halfway through the regular season. So I figured, why not check in on the awards race? So our good friends over at BetMGM, they've got the updated odds. And I mean updated as of tonight, like right when the games ended, the odds update. So we wanted to talk about it a little bit. And I think we got to start with the one that's just over. Defense Player of the Year is done.
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