All-NBA Team of the Week - Let’s Take a Step Back

Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. The Finals are in full swing, the Golden State Warriors have regained home court possession and this series moved back to San Francisco for Game 5. If the Warriors can win this one, I think the series will be decided but the Celtics haven’t lost 2 games in a row yet these Playoffs, they always manage to bounce back. I think we’ll be seeing 7 games in this series, so we’ll zoom back in on the NBA Finals next week. This week, we focus on some of the other news coming out of the NBA lately. Coaching positions are opening up, trade rumours are starting to float around and we’re less than 2 weeks away from the NBA draft! Get ready for your All-NBA Team of the Week!

PICK #1

Our first pick of the week is the NBA Draft. The NBA news cycle never stops. As soon as the NBA Finals are over, we’re only a few days away from the NBA draft, two weeks later teams can start signing players and we’re straight into Las Vegas Summer League. That’s why I’m taking some time today to touch on the draft because I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to discuss it later on. This is not a segment where I’ll be going into detail on some of the prospects, I don’t know these kids well enough to go deep on some of the lower tier prospects. But I do enjoy the intrigue that surrounds the draft. The last minute trades, unexpected picks, you know, just about anything that throws off the so-called experts.

And this year will be no different. Mainly, I’m looking at the Kings, Pistons and Blazers in the top 10 to surprise us. If everything goes to plan in the top 3, the best player left available for the Kings at 4 should be Jaden Ivey, and another guard is the last thing the Kings need so they could be trading that pick or draft someone who’s expected to go a bit lower on the board, like a Keegan Murray or Jeremy Sochan. The Pistons would have been really disappointed with their 5th pick, at least 2 lower than anticipated in Detroit. They were hoping to put another generational talent next to Cade Cunningham but now they’re more likely to trade that pick alongside Jeremy Grant to secure a generational talent that way.

And the Blazers are in the same boat. When Dame decided to pull the plug on his season and get surgery, the Blazers front office traded away CJ McCollum and went all in on tanking for the season to secure a good pick. Whether or not that pick would be used in a trade or to land a talent to put next to Dame is now irrelevant. The Blazers should be trading away the number 7 pick, and try to secure a big name to keep Dame happy. Because right now, Dame has nobody left on his roster of value. Nurkic is there but is he really the guy to help Dame to win a title? I don’t think so. And the 7th pick is not exactly the most coveted pick in this draft. It’s going to be hard for the Blazers to put together a competitive roster for Dame in the coming season. Will he be the next superstar trying to get out of his franchise?

PICK #2

Our second pick of the week is the Coaching Carousel. I won’t touch on Quin Snyder leaving the Jazz in this segment, I go into detail on the Jazz situation a bit later in the show. But there are plenty of other positions to talk about. The Charlotte Hornets let go of James Borrego at the end of the season. The Sacramento Kings let Luke Walton go during the season and replaced him with Alvin Gentry as interim coach but did not offer him the position full time. And then there’s obviously the Lakers firing Frank Vogel after a disastrous season, none of which Vogel or any other coach would have been able to avoid.

But the Lakers moved on from Vogel, and I’m sure he himself is not too sad about that. It didn’t take long before the Lakers announced his replacement, they signed Darvin Ham. Ham played 8 years in the NBA, and a year in Spain. He was most successful in Milwaukee, where he played for 3 years, alongside Ray Allen and rookie Michael Redd. It’s his first assignment as Head Coach, but he has worked alongside Mike Budenholzer for the last 9 years in Atlanta and Milwaukee, winning the Championship last year. But Ham is only the first and smallest part of the puzzle for the Lakers, who obviously have to figure out the Westbrook-piece and they’ll have to rebuild the majority of the roster with most players on veteran contracts likely not to return next season. Whether or not Ham can fix this Lakers team is something we’ll see develop during the season, but he has already said that Westbrook will be part of this team going forward. So I’m not that confident that the Lakers will look any different next season.

Meanwhile, the Hornets have signed Kenny Atkinson to take control of the roster next season. A great move, in my opinion, because Atkinson is a fantastic development coach. He lifted a young Nets team, with D-Lo, Dinwiddie and Allen, to such a level that KD and Kyrie wanted to be part of that culture. That didn’t end well for Atkinson, but he gets another chance to prove himself. This move will only benefit the young Hornets roster with Ball and Bridges, who are already one of my favourite League Pass teams. And the Kings have sneakily made a good move too, I believe, signing Mike Brown. Brown currently sits on the Golden State Warriors bench, next to Steve Kerr. He has plenty of experience as a head coach, even winning Coach of the Year in 2009 with the Cavaliers and LeBron James. Is he the guy to break the Kings’ Playoff spell? He’s going to get them very close at the very least.

PICK #3

Our third pick of the week is Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz. I wouldn’t exactly call it turmoil but the Jazz are going through something right now. It’s pretty obvious that their star players Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert don’t get along, even though they sit at the same table sometimes. This week, head coach Quin Snyder has decided to leave the Jazz, even though he was offered a very generous contract extension. It is expected that he will take the year off and start looking for a new coaching gig the following season. That might fit with Pop’s retirement and Snyder could be taking over in San Antonio when that happens. But if that doesn’t work out, Snyder could get a job anywhere, he is one of the best coaches in the league. I sneakily expect he might wait a year and then take the OKC job, when they’re ready to start winning. Apparently, Snyder has a good relationship with OKC GM Sam Presti.

But in the meantime, the Jazz are looking for a new coach. Now, normally they’d want to sign someone as soon as possible so they have time to prepare for Training Camp. But in their situation, I would actually take a bit more time. The Jazz front office, is it led by Danny Ainge? I don’t know. Anyway, the Jazz front office needs to make a decision on the roster and how they want to move forward. Do they want to keep both Mitchell and Gobert or do they only want to keep one of them? If so, which one? I’m sure Danny Ainge is going to be calling pretty much any team in the league to see what he can get for either player and base his decision on the responses he gets. As long as they’re not sure what the roster will look like, they need to hold off hiring a coach. Otherwise you might have a similar situation as in Houston where Stephen Silas signed on to work with Harden, but he decided not to show up. A predictable move that the Houston front office should have expected.

In the meantime, the rumour mill for both players is running at full speed. Gobert is linked to Chicago, which would be a great move for the Bulls, but not so much for the Jazz who rely on Gobert’s defense and replacing Gobert with Vucevic only makes their defense worse. Mitchell on the other hand is linked to Miami and New York but could end up anywhere really, he still has 4 years left on his contract. I believe the Jazz would get a better package for Mitchell than for Gobert, but Mitchell is possibly easier to build around. Maybe the Jazz need to take a page out of the Celtics’ book. They have 2 stars that everyone said they couldn’t play together and one of them needed to be traded. Then they changed coaches and all of a sudden they’re in the NBA Finals. I’m sure that’s a path the Jazz would love to take.

PICK #4

Our fourth pick of the week is LeBron James and the Vegas Cavaliers. LeBron is now officially a billionaire and he told us this week what he is planning to do with all of his money. He wants to buy a team. That in itself is not a surprise, he is part owner of Fenway Sports Group, and the group owns the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and Liverpool in the English Premier League. He has made it clear in moves he has made in the past that he loves owning sports franchises so owning an NBA team at some point is the logical next step. It’s also not like it hasn’t been done before, with Michael Jordan owning the Charlotte Hornets. The surprising part of his statement was that he said he wants to own the team in Vegas. What does Bron know that we don’t?

Every time commissioner Adam Silver talks about the expansion of the league, 2 cities are mentioned: Seattle and Las Vegas. Seattle had the Sonics in the past but that franchise moved to OKC and changed their name to the Thunder. So that in itself would be confusing if we ever have another Seattle Supersonics, unless the new Seattle franchise would play under a different name. Las Vegas never had a franchise in its city but has been hosting the Summer League since 2004. The city will be building a new major arena and is already home to the Las Vegas Aces, the WNBA team. But it is not likely that the league will approve any new teams to join the league before the current TV contract is finished after the 2025 Finals.

Let’s go back to Lebron. He has already told the world that he wants to play with his son, Bronny. Now, Bronny is draft eligible in the 2024 draft. That means that Bronny’s first and LeBron’s last season will be the 2024-2025 season. So technically, the year LeBron retires will be the last year of the current TV contract. It’s not hard to imagine that LeBron is already having talks behind the scenes to secure the franchise in Las Vegas and he can basically walk into that when he walks out of the league. This is succession planning at its finest. And if the league decides not to add any teams in 2025, what’s to stop LeBron from buying the Cleveland Cavaliers and move them to Las Vegas?

PICK #5

Our fifth pick of the week is Zach LaVine, Bradley Beal and Free Agency. They are the biggest names on this season’s free agent list. Obviously, there’s Harden, Westbrook, Kyrie and John Wall, who all have a Player Option and are very likely to take that option but if they don’t they could go and test the market too. Bradley Beal has a Player Option as well and could stand to make over 36 million dollars if he chooses to take that option. But is Beal really happy in Washington? Are they going to be able to finally surround him with players that can lift them into the top 4 of the East? I don’t see it, I’m sure you don’t see it and I think that Beal doesn’t see it. This is the time for him to make a move and move to another team, like Miami, Portland or even the Hawks. He’ll be 29 soon, his time in the league to win something as a star player is running out.

And then there’s Zach LaVine. The Bulls have done what they could last year to surround Zach with quality players and give him a taste of Playoff basketball. But they peaked too early in the season, barely made it in the Playoffs and had no chance against the Bucks. Yes, they had to cope with a fair few injuries but are they really going to count on DeMar DeRozan having another exceptional career year? The Bulls started the process of building a championship team, but they are far from finished. This offseason they have a decision to make, do they believe they can build that championship team around LaVine or do they decide to move on? And how does Zach feel? Does he think that his front office can find the right players to surround him or is he better off somewhere else? This could be interesting but I’m afraid that, as usual in the NBA, both parties will settle for mediocre, sign LaVine, keep the current roster and end up nowhere.

Other interesting names on the free agency list this offseason are guys like Ricky Rubio, who was fantastic for the Cavaliers until he got injured and was traded away to Indiana. There’s Joe Ingles, who will very likely end up back in Utah. Deandre Ayton and Phoenix need to come to a decision, there was some bad blood there after they were eliminated in the Playoffs. Memphis has Tyus Jones and Kyle Anderson they would like to resign but they might not be able or willing to compete with interest from other teams. Mo Bamba for Orlando is a free agent this offseason and if the Magic pick either Chet Holmgren or Jabari Smith Jr, it could mean they’re looking to move on too. A lot of names on the list year and surely the majority of them will have a landing spot before they’re officially allowed to be signed, you know, because tempering is basically allowed now in the league.

This is our All-NBA team of the Week. Please share our podcast and give us 5 stars. If you have any questions, you can contact the show on eight2fouroffice@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, ballers out!