Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of NBA Basketball NBA Title Odds , and our players, stats and quotes of the week. Then they are joined by Matthew Tynan to discuss the San Antonio Spurs and Wemby's future, Stephon Castles rookie seaosn, and what the expectations look like for the Spurs future. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Matthew TynanExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the top NBA stories this week?
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking title odds. Our players of the week and Matthew Tynan joins us to talk about the San Antonio Spurs. But to start off, Al, tell me about the top stories this week.
Andrew, the top story this week was March madness. I'm not talking about college basketball, Andrew. I'm talking about the month every year when the NBA completely loses its marbles. Dude, March is the NBA's version of the purge, where for 31 days, there are no laws. Anything is possible. And teams and players conspire to create the most insane headlines.
Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets getting swept by the Washington Wizards? Sure. Those same Nuggets without Jokic and Murray beating the Warriors on the road, the hottest team in the league? As long as it's March, you can do that. Quinton Grimes averaging over 31 points per game in his last six, including a career-high 46 against Houston? Anything is possible.
Like Sandro Mamuchelishvili scoring 34 points in 19 minutes against the Knicks. Even for March, that's a little much. The Chicago Bulls championship banners getting damaged because of pyrotechnics at the Disturbed concert, the band best known for their famous lyric, that doesn't happen in February. Only in March. Suffice to say, it was a strange weekend.
The Cleveland Cavaliers' 16-game winning streak not only came to an end at the hands of the Orlando Magic, the Cavs would go on to lose their next two games as well to the Clippers and the Kings, tying their longest losing streak of the season. Those losses opened the door for the Oklahoma City Thunder, who without J-Dub won four in a row, including road wins over Boston, Detroit, and Milwaukee.
Their final win of the week came over the Sixers, who announced this week that Paul George would be out for the rest of the season. But it's not that big of a loss when you consider this stat. Mike O'Connor tweeted out that Quinton Grimes has had three games of 35 plus points for the Sixers this season.
That is the same number as Tobias Harris had in his entire run as a Sixer and three more than Paul George has had as a Sixer. Now, it's been a rough season for Paul George, but at least the Sixers now have a legit shot to keep their own pick. Another team that has a shot at keeping their own pick but may not be as excited about it is the Miami Heat.
The Heat are currently on a nine game losing streak after Cade Cunningham banked in a game winning three in their most recent game. The losing streak is the longest of Eric Spolstra's coaching career and the longest for the Heat as a franchise since the 07-08 season. The Heat are now the 10th seed in the East, a half game back of Chicago.
Something like, hey, remember when I made my bold prediction that Chicago is going to be the nine seed? Yeah. They're trying. Something I keep bringing up because it always sounds unbelievable when I say it.
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Chapter 2: How are the NBA title odds shaping up?
What a wild week of NBA basketball, Al. Our BetMGM line of the week brought to you by BetMGM is the odds for the winner of the NBA championship. I just thought we might check in. It's middle of March. We're a month out from the playoffs starting. And just see where we're at. And I just want to hear your thoughts on this. So the Thunder are the favorite currently.
Slight favorite over the Celtics at a plus 185. Celtics are a plus 220. And then a pretty big drop for the Cavs at plus 500. The next team in line after Thunder, Celtics, Cavs is the Los Angeles Lakers. And some of this is, you know, who's going to bet? Who's betting on these lines? Can we lure these Lakers fans in? Can we reel them in? And boy, I'm sure they are reeling them in.
Plus 1,000 for the Lakers. The Warriors are next at plus 1,200. And then the Nuggets are below those two teams. which is just really interesting to me. Specifically, what are your thoughts on these West teams? I think the East is correct. You have the Celtics and Cavs at the top, followed by a giant drop to the Knicks, who haven't looked great, the Bucks, who haven't looked great.
But what do you think about this order for the West, which is Thunder, Lakers, Warriors, Nuggets?
Well, the first thing I'm interested to see if it changes as a result of last night's Warriors game, because if you haven't watched, Steph Curry fell under the basket. And if you do watch it, watch it on mute, because if you listen to the sound it makes when it hits the ground, it is disgusting.
It's one of like the loudest sounds on a broadcast for an injury that I've maybe ever heard.
Yeah, it doesn't sound great. Hopefully he's fine, but that could potentially mess with the odds. I do think the Nuggets should have better odds. Like, I get that they had a terrible, like, goofy week. I guess it wasn't a terrible week. They did, you know, beat the Warriors with no one. So...
But I still think the Nuggets with a healthy Aaron Gordon could beat any West team in a seven game series. I'm trying to not put too much stock into what's happening in March because I remember someone a long time ago saying a stat that like what a team does in the first month of the season is actually more predictive than what they do in the last month. So I'm trying to ignore March.
And if you do that, you should value the Nuggets more just because they've been there before. They have Jokic and Murray. If Aaron Gordon's healthy, I just think they should be valued more. And then up higher, I think the Cavs should be valued a little bit more. I feel like they should be a little bit closer to the Celtics based on what we've seen. And again, it's another March thing.
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Chapter 3: What is the future for the San Antonio Spurs?
And I think another tough thing for these guys is in the past, I think it was much easier to point out the negatives of tanking. But this most recent class of tanking teams, if you look at Orlando, Houston, OKC, and Detroit, Out of those four franchises, I bet three of those four fan bases would say, you know what, that was actually pretty fun.
That was a good time, and we came out of it relatively quickly, and our team is in a better spot than we've been in a really long time. I don't think Pistons fans would say that, though there was obviously eventually a payoff after four years of Troy Weaver. But I just think we're seeing more and more. There's more positive examples of what the rebuild process can bring you
And so it's just harder to make that case. And I don't really understand like what case he's making. Cause what would be the plan given the current situation?
Well, I mean, James Jones came out and said that he didn't really care about the draft. Not that long ago. Yeah. You know, you don't have to, if you don't have picks. So it's, I don't know. I, That was jarring to me. That was jarring to me. In a league where I think that most teams understand the rhythm and flow of NBA teams. Most do not want to be in the middle.
We're seeing that right now with all the tanking that's happening across the league. Most teams understand that we need to try to get the number one pick. If we don't get the number one pick, there's other guys that can help us get out of the middle. But man, to be this unaware is scary as an NBA owner.
Andrew, I fear that he has bull's brain and you don't want bull's brain. Don't want bull's brain. Moving on to our favorite stat of the week. My favorite stat. Listen to this one. This was a stat shared on the Nets subreddit by user shadow underscore spinner zero. It's a stat that makes complete sense when you hear it and yet is still somehow incredible.
The question is, how many years has it been since the Brooklyn Nets had a lottery pick? Simple question. Start going back through the drafts in your head. Keep going, keep going, keep going. The answer is 15 years. Derek favors. Derek favors was the last time the Nets drafted in the lottery. Derek favors had a 12 year NBA career. He retired three years ago.
And during that entire time, the Nets did not draft in the lottery. Paul George is the only player from that draft class that is still in the NBA. The last time the Nets had a lottery pick, the freaking minions didn't exist, Andrew. We lived in a world... without the unending source of joy that is the Minions cinematic universe.
Kevin, Stuart, Bob, when the Nets last had a lottery pick, those were just names of regular guys, not cute little yellow guys wearing overalls, okay? And now that I know this, Andrew, and having watched the Nets engage in what I believe is the most ethical tank in NBA history, go look at their recent game logs. They're losing all these games by like two or three points. They lost on Thursday night.
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Chapter 4: Who is Stephon Castle and how is he performing?
Mikael Bridges, which is a little surprising because Mikael just doesn't just sit out and take threes. He does a lot more, but the guy does avoid contact at all costs. He's also a door dasher. 1.7 free throws per 100 possessions. Tumani Kamara is on the list at 2.4, Jaden McDaniels at 2.4, and then Dylan Brooks rounds out the top five for the season at 2.5.
0.7.
Just didn't take them. The year before that, in 22-23, Reggie Bullock, .8 free throws, .100 possessions. These are just incredible door dashers. Yeah. Royce O'Neal appeared. I went through a bunch of years. Royce O'Neal was on the list. Kevin Herter, Patty Mills. I don't know. I just don't know why no one talks about those guys. Everybody wants to talk about the free throw merchants.
No one wants to talk about the door dashers.
A lot of those guys you mentioned from this season, they're like 3 and D guys. It kind of makes sense. Mikael Bridges is kind of interesting, though.
Yeah, he was the one outlier because it mostly is. You're talking about Reggie Bullock and Royce O'Neal. Those guys just catch and shoot. There's a reason why they don't get fouled. Guys don't get fouled on three-point shots very often. And so, yeah, he was the one outlier where maybe he is the true champ where all these other guys aren't really doing anything.
It is definitely contactless for most of these fellas.
Moving on to my favorite player. I'm actually pivoting, Andrew, because I read this article. So there's a sub stack called the F5. It's written by Owen Phillips. It's a great sub stack. And he has a lot of good free stuff, too, if you don't want to subscribe. And he has this thing called the most underrated player that he does.
And basically what he does is looks at guys who have really good advanced stats, but who have very low page views on basketball reference. In other words, guys that are very good that no one cares about. No one's checking in on them to see how they're doing. And the guy he awarded it to this season
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Chapter 5: What makes Dyson Daniels' steal stats significant?
You look at the slate of games, you're saying, well, I won't be tuning to that one. There's no real reason for me to check that one out. There's better games on. But this was everything you would want from a random March game in the NBA. A good team unable to pull away from one of the worst teams in the league. Rookie having his best game of the season. Alex Saar went for 34.
Another rookie, Keyshawn George, hitting a huge bucket at the end. Jordan Poole dancing in front of the Nuggets bench after a made three and then hitting the game winner on the road. I mean, I was I was cackling watching this game. It was just so random and unexpected out of nowhere. It was one of those perfect NBA games in March that is probably meaningless.
Like you probably shouldn't take anything away from that game. But it was fun to live in that reality for 48 minutes where the Wizards are the Nuggets kryptonite. Jordan Poole is a hero. Alex Sarr and Keyshawn George are unstoppable. You know, I understand why people get upset with March basketball and how meaningless some of these games can seem.
But sometimes the absurdity of March produces some of the most entertaining moments of the season because they just wouldn't happen any other time of the season.
It's it was really fun. So my my son is 12 years old now and he is like he loves the NBA. And every morning he'll hop out of bed and he'll run in there. What happened last night? Like, tell me what happened in the league last night. And like showing him the highlights from that game was absurdly fun. Yeah. It was very fun to watch.
My moment of the week was that Cade, and you mentioned it earlier, the Cade Cunningham game winner against the Miami Heat. And one, it was impressive. It was over Bam Adebayo. It was like a pull-up three that he's just gotten much better as a pull-up shooter overall. Cade Cunningham had a triple-double in that game. Jalen Duren played really well.
He had a really big offensive rebound kick out to Cade down the stretch to help him win that game, but It's just so interesting just to think about these two franchises and the direction that they have. And really, preseason, I don't think that you would have predicted their records would basically be flip-flopped.
Where the Detroit Pistons are almost 10 games above .500 and the Miami Heat are 11 games below .500. It's just... It's just kind of wild to see these two teams go into vastly different directions. And it was just kind of fitting to see Cade hit that game winner over Bam in that game. And as you see, the Detroit Pistons have a lot going on for them. And we talk about it on this show.
We talk about it on the NBA Daily. I know that those guys love this Pistons team. But this team is for real. And they're young and they have a ton of development potential. going on within their team. They don't even have Jaden Ivey right now, and Dennis Schroeder's done a pretty good job of filling in for him for the most part, but they don't have one of their key members of their team.
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Chapter 6: How is Victor Wembanyama developing as a player?
He just adjusts on the fly, takes it in stride, and honestly, like, if he has... one terrible game and he's had a number of terrible games this year. He comes right back the next night. Like it never happened. And he'll go for 24 and four or 24, five and three, something like that, you know? So it's just been his ability to adjust on the fly and not let any of the rookie mistakes stuff bother him.
Are there, are there any player comps that like Spurs fans have for him in particular? Yeah,
You know, the one that I've heard, and it's not even just necessarily from Spurs fans. This is from people who I've talked to, whether it's been on podcasts or talking to scouts. There is a Shea demeanor to him in the sense that he's very certainly not comparing them as players at this point. But the sort of herky-jerky style, they're not like necessarily blow-by athletes.
They can get to their spots whenever they want to. Stephon Castle does not have the mid-range game that Shea has. He doesn't have the shot-making that he does at this point. But he has an ability to get to the line. He has an ability to change direction in traffic regularly.
really quickly and has this sort of physical, big physical presence that he can kind of get to the rim against anybody who's guarding him, big or small. And it's been... I think coming out, it was like one of those, he kind of seems like a drew holiday type. He's really well built. Uh, like totally has an NBA body, even at 19 and 20 years old. Um, really good sort of bulldog defender, uh,
There were a lot of those types of comps, but once the ball was put in his hands a lot more, we started seeing some of the Shea stuff, and this wasn't even anything that I was really looking out for. This has been, like I said, even in the last couple of weeks, I've had two or three different people bring that name up to me with Castle, and while I think he has...
A long way to go, obviously, in terms of getting to that sort of offensive skill set. You can see sort of the archetype. You can see the similarities in style, especially on like his best nights on his worst nights. It's it's not even close. But the archetype.
similarity is there and I think that would be absolute ceiling so I would probably say somewhere between like the Drew Holiday type bulldog physical type of point guard or even combo guard if you want to put it that way and then someone who does have the ability to score in traffic the way Shea does initiate contact get to the rim get to the free throw line and
Much like Shea, the Spurs really hope that his outside shot starts coming along more consistently. And if it does, if the pull-ups start to come along in the mid-range, then you're really cooking with something there.
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