FIRST TAKE | “This BIG 3 will ruin NBA”- Stephen A. claims Mavericks will win NBA Finals next season

FIRST TAKE | “This BIG 3 will ruin NBA”- Stephen A. claims Mavericks will win NBA Finals next season

to stay in the bay but Golden State wasn’t having it ESPN Ramona shelburn Kendra Andrews reporting Thompson’s Camp made one final offer to the Golden State Warriors for two years roughly 20 million per season before he pursued other offers in free agency the team did not accept it clay eventually accepted the Maverick’s three-year $50 million deal and of course despite signing clay 4-time Champion one of the best Shooters in league history the Mavs odds of winning the NBA Championship next season did not increase though on ESPN bet remaining the same as they were before they acquired Thompson at 11 to one uh CC you think the addition of clay um let’s say have a Major Impact yeah on the Dallas Mavericks uh winning it all now absolutely absolutely I I think it will and I’m I’m shocked that those numbers stayed the same and those numbers may have stayed the same because everybody else in the west is getting better but when we look back at the NBA finals what did we see we saw a team that loved to shoot the three all season long Mavericks were second in the league and three-pointers attempted this year behind who well the Boston Celtics and the problem was they were 13th when it came to actually making the shots and the Celtics defensively did a great job on the perimeter in the finals but the Mavericks just were not knocking down shuts and those those numbers were entirely too low in the low 30s to have a chance I think even high 20s at one point to have a chance to win those games what’s Klay Thompson going to do he’s going to come in and at the very worst he’s going to shoot 38 39 40% from three they can use him in the perfect way with Luca and with Kyrie and he could take some of the pressure off them as well Klay Thompson makes a team that just got to the finals even better are they immediately definitively a championship favorite obviously not but at 11 to one I could see putting down a couple of bucks on that because that does not feel like a an an accurate representation of what the Mavericks championship chances are who do you think War I I mean I agree the I was surprised to see that the odds didn’t change and when you talk about the shooters that Lucas had around him throughout his career he’s never played with somebody like Klay Thompson who shot 40% from three in eight different seasons throughout his long NBA career the up grade is Major like I I have a hard time thinking about Klay Thompson though at 34 years old being part of something that like has that word huge associated with it but it should drastically change the odds because he’s going to be part now of if you want to call it a big three to where his role is different from what it was I mean the off ball movement and what he can do what he did in Golden State vastly different styles between the Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks but that’s an upgrade there the corner three I mean Dallas is a team that attempted did the most Corner threes last season throughout the regular season and they only hit 36% of them that’s one of the worst marks in the NBA Klay Thompson on his own was right around 42% so the movement element there for me and what this does for the offense Chris you mentioned I mean this takes the pressure off of Kyrie and Luca dones who was doing that in the in the five game series against the Boston Celtics not many players and on top of that I mean I think with Marshall with Grimes now with Klay Thompson going into a starters role where he doesn’t have to take a backseat to anybody the way that it was primed to play out for him had he resigned with the Golden State Warriors the Mavericks coming out of the West I think you probably end up putting Oklahoma City you put the Denver Nuggets you put the Minnesota Timberwolves but right there very firmly in the mix as the Dallas Mavericks to get back to the place where they were last season you know it’s interesting Wendy because Klay Thompson not only is going to get shots he’s going to get a lot of open shots because of the kick when Luca and those guys got into the middle of the lane they got doubled those guys had wide open shots and still couldn’t knock them down and Wendy last time I checked the Dallas Mavericks went through Minnesota went through OKC the two teams everyone’s been talking about probably the top teams in the west don’t you think the addition of Klay Thompson means that these guys are right back in the NBA finals next season I mean I wouldn’t I wouldn’t guarantee him back in the finals but this fit is just tremendous because the Mavericks are a high volume 3 shooting team they want to shoot a lot of Threes clay fit they don’t have great three-point Shooters clay fits into that honestly if he stays healthy he’s going to take 600 threes and know how many of them are going to be open I mean because he puts up huge volume and they want that not like they have to bend their offense that’s why this fit made so much sense there was an emotional fit with the Lakers the the basketball fit with the Mavericks is perfect um there’s only one thing I’m going to say about this um so there’s two reasons two core reasons really why Clay is not a warrior anymore one is obviously the contract issue where he and the Warriors run different pages and that shouldn’t be ignored that’s a primary issue the second thing is last year Clay’s role collapsed a little bit they took him out of the starting lineup for a while they stopped playing at the end of games and the reason they did that was because he struggled defensively on some of those perimeter players and it was a better option at times to have Brandon pky out there defensively so the thing that poured Rocket Fuel onto the Mavericks last year after the All-Star break was putting Derrick Jones Jun derck Jones Jr in there as they’re starting small forward defensively and letting him run around the perimeter their their defense took off as soon as that move happened it wasn’t just Jones but he was a turnkey that that really had their defense clicking so essentially what’s happened here is they’ve replaced Jones with Klay Thompson from a three-point and offensive standpoint that’s a spectacular upgrade and everybody’s excited about it but they are probably going to play a pay a price defensively and that should not be overlooked and there could be a time this upcoming season when Jason kid has to make a decision about whether it’s CL the same situation that that Steve Kerr was in this year does Klay Thompson fit defensively under certain circumstances at the end of games and the answer May overwhelmingly be yes because of the damage he can do on the offensive end but there is a defensive downgrade that they’ve made here swapping out Jones for Thompson and I think that has to be baked in to look at the Mavericks chances as well I mean to your point Wendy at that you’re looking at the Mavericks and we’re killing them all season long for not being a good defensive team and then what happened in the second half after the trade deadline they all of a sudden they shot way up we playing much much better defensively there’s no question that Clay is not the same player defensively that used to be because even if he had off nights he knew you were getting very good defense I’m interested to see that too and I’m with you I think he’s most of the time back down there but uh back out there at the end of games but the Mavericks can’t get away from that that that has to be a big factor in realizing how they got to the finals this pastas you have to lean more on lively Gafford obviously protect R’s a good defensive player too PJ Washington as well you’re going and and listen Kyrie Irving showed in the final I can play defense and he did it on both ends of the Court him down a little bit absolutely you know that by the way Wendy I got to get to you on this one because where didn’t do the Warriors where they go from here now you know Steph Curry said look I still want to win and he’s playing at a very high level Clay is gone now where does Golden State go now the Warriors have had a very functional off season I know that it’s you lose a guy who you’re going to build a statue to and raise his number under acrimonious circumstances no one feels good about that I promise you but if you look at what they’ve done you know when you lose Klay Thompson you lose a great high volume three-point shooter well they are trying to acquire buddy heeld buddy heel is not playay Thompson but if they execute that they will have replaced a big chunk of those three-point shooting they went out and signed De Anthony Melton who is a frankly at this point in his career a better perimeter Defender than Klay Thompson is now he had injury all last year and they don’t have the healed acquisition done so let’s not assume everything but those two Acquisitions in theory should cover up what you’re losing for clay they went out and added Kyle Anderson who is a sort of a stop Gap guy who plays a bunch of different positions you’re you’re wagering on Brandon psky and Jonathan kuminga getting better which I think is a fair bet and they’re still holding four tradable first round picks and some expiring salary that they could potentially use in a bigger deal later now they’ve sniffed around Lowry Markin and that would be a kind of a home run acquisition I don’t know if they’re going to be able to pull it off right now but if it’s not markeing in in July it could be another player foreign speee spee back spee for [Music] [Music] spee speech fore [Music] for fore spee spee spee spee for spee for for [Music] for youe speech speech spech for [Music] fore fore

FIRST TAKE | “This BIG 3 will ruin NBA” – Stephen A. claims Mavericks will win NBA Finals next season