‘WHERE ARE YOU?’ 🤨 JWill CALLS OUT Jimmy Butler III after Game 4 😳 + LOTTERY REACTION 🏀 | First Take

‘WHERE ARE YOU?’ 🤨 JWill CALLS OUT Jimmy Butler III after Game 4 😳 + LOTTERY REACTION 🏀 | First Take

close. So without Steph Curry, the Warriors lost Monday’s game for 117 1110 to the Timberwolves down 3-1 in the Western Conference semis. The Warriors now must win in Minneapolis game five to keep their season alive. In all likelihood, we’ll have to do so without Steph Curry. Meanwhile, the Dubs need more from playoff Jimmy and Steph’s absence. All right, Jimmy Butler attempted just nine field goals in 34 minutes in game four. That was his fewest field goal attempts in a playoff game in which he played 20 plus minutes since 2020. All right, UD, did you expect more from Butler, especially with Steph out? That’s why they brought him in. Hell yeah. I mean, I’ve been front row and center to see play off Jimmy Butler and I know what he’s capable of. But what I do know about Jimmy, he’s a very calculated offensive player. He prays on guys making mistakes. If you have a weakness, he’s going to find it. And I think what Minnesota did was they just didn’t show any weaknesses. They guarded him with length. They stayed on the floor. They didn’t go for any pump fakes, any shot fakes. They didn’t put him to the free throw line and they made other guys get involved. So, you know, with Jimmy, he’s going to watch film. He’s going to figure out the weaknesses. He’s going to figure out how to get those guys to make mistakes. He’s going to figure out how manipulate the game. I think he will be better the next game. But Jimmy Butler is a very, very calculated offensive player. Probably one of the most smartest offensive players that I’ve played against. So, they didn’t make mistakes. Shout out and kudos to Minnesota for just being solid defensively and not giving Jimmy anything easy. I Oh, do you mind? Do you do you mind, Perk? You go ahead. Um, no. M, go ahead. I I I I I’m know what to say about this one. This is crazy. I mean, this is why Jimmy Butler was brought to Golden State, right? For moments like this. And what did we see last game? We saw Jimmy Butler, the pace was incredible. Even though they gave it away, UD and Per, my man took 23 shots, he was hunting his shots. There was nothing that was calculated about the way he was playing. He had to let loose. He had to be aggressive because that gave his team the best opportunity to win. Nine shots in 34 minutes to me feels like you aren’t the aggressive Jimmy Butler. It feels like you are not even really on the court. Now, I look, I know I’ve never been in playoff games to this magnitude. you guys have. But I can tell you from somebody who is competitively an ass. That’s that’s how I am. KP, ain’t no way in hell I’m taking nine shots in a game where my team is without our star player. Everybody is looking at me to be the guy. Kaminga is a good talent, but he is young. Everybody is looking at me to be the old veteran guy who has carried teams to further places in the Eastern Conference like the Miami Heat. To me, this is a sign of somebody I get worried about. Where are you? What is happening in this game where I need you to be him. You and I talk always about if there are Tatum, if there are pictures or commercials of Jason Tatum being Superman, Jimmy Butler’s Batman. He’s supposed to be in the trenches. He’s supposed to be one with all the gadgets doing all the dirty stuff to get into your head. And by the way, when there’s another man that’s on the court that is punishing people through traffic, saying and one, screaming, flexing on people, when there’s another man after making a three, after he’s yanking Gary Payton a second from side to side, making a three in Draymond Green’s face, and then saying you can’t blank with me. Yo, what is happening? Now, I know people can say we might be tired. We might be a little bit, you know, their ailments, injuries, sick, whatever it may be. I don’t want I don’t need to hear any of that. That this is a game which is molded perfectly for Jimmy Butler to show up and for nine shots. That’s not a sign of somebody showing up when the team needs him to be aggressive offensively. It’s not KP. Come on. I tell you what happened. I’ll tell you what happened to Jimmy. one UD when you when Jimmy when Jimmy Buckets earned that playoff Jimmy name with the Heat. He was 33 years old, 32 years old. He’s 36 I believe it is right now. And what’s happening is we’re watching these what you call them these young Thundercats. That’s what we’re watching get on this get on their asses like back pockets. And I’m talking about apple bottoms. You remember apple bottoms? You know what I’m saying? those back pockets that damn it. Listen to what I’m trying to tell you. These young bulls around the league, they sending all these old heads home packing. And it started with Anthony Edwards. What’s happening to Jimmy Buck is is that he’s getting older, but he’s facing some damn dogs. Jay McDaniels, right? Anthony Edwards, you got Big Rudy down there anchoring the defense. You got Nas Reed coming in off the bench. You got Julius Ram who is playing the best basketball of his career this postseason. That’s what’s happening, right? And Jimmy, listen, Jimmy has never been the most athletic guy, right? So, he’s never been a guy to get real great li uh lift on this shot. All of a sudden, you take Steph Curry out of the game, right? He’s out of the game. Guess who’s the primary defender on Jimmy Butler now? It’s Jaden McDaniels, 69, long arms. The man could scratch his ankle standing straight up, picking up 94 feet. He doesn’t have the same lift. And that’s no knock on Jimmy. He was brought there to give this organization life to be the robin to Steph Curry, right? As Steph Curry allow him to be the Batman. Steph Curry is not there. And let me say another thing. We’ve been giving Steve Curry a lot of flowers lately and rightfully so. Right. He’s been maximized players. They made a hell of a run the last part of the season. He won a gold medal. Believe one of the best coaches to ever coach the game of basketball. 30 seconds. But somebody need to But somebody need to address him. What he did to Jonathan Kamingo to start this postseason. If I’m Jonathan Kaminga, I’m on the first thing smoking up out of Golden State. Have you been seeing Jonath Jonathan Kaminga lately? I believe he had 23 points last game, 30 the game the game before that, 18 before that. The man is balling, but again, this is Steve Cerr willing to allow young players to be great, especially guys who have the potential to be allstar caliber players. But this is no knock on Jimmy. He just ran into a bunch of dogs on the Minnesota Timberwolves minus 30. Yeah, we got to leave it there. Hey, Big Perk. Uh, great job. Thanks for being with us this morning. I know it was a early morning for you. We appreciate you. Came in hot, but I’m told you got a roll. So, we will talk to you soon. The NBA world this time by winning the NBA draft lottery just months after trading away Luca Donuch. Dallas now has the opportunity to draft a potential new face of the franchise in Cooper Flag. So, the Mavs won that lottery with a 1.8% chance to win. That’s the fourth lowest odds to win the lottery since 85, which is when the lottery began. Dallas jumped 10 spots to win it. the biggest jump by any team since the NBA changed that format in 2019. Brian Winhorse, all I could think about was you last night, my friend. So, tell me this. What did you think when that went down? You know, it’s been an unbelievable year, an unbelievable story for the Mavericks. Um, also, by the way, for the Spurs, who’ve had an incredible up and down year with Greg Papovich and Victor Wimyama, uh, their setbacks, they get a rookie of the year and then they get in the top two. like the Spurs, the book on the year in Spurs is almost as fascinating as the book on the year in Dallas. Uh the the book, the Texas year is crazy. Um it’s I know that there were people who were stunned and shocked by this. And I would say that that’s why they call it a lottery. It’s a lottery because um you get these kind of results like that. And um the the percentage chance is obviously very low, but the percentage chance for the teams to win who had the highest percent, 14%. That’s very low. Nobody has a great chance. That’s why that you go through this. And so now the big thing in the league, Molly, that lit up my phone and I think was the big question across the entire NBA last night is what do the Mavericks do? What do the Mavericks do here? and and I’m sure the Mavericks have put some thought into it, but I’m sure they didn’t even allow themselves to dream. Um, and now they work up with a whole different set of circumstances. And when you look at what happened in the NBA yesterday, May 12th, 2025 is one of the more momentous days when it comes to changing things in the NBA because you have this lottery. You have Giannis Satennakmpo, you know, with Sham’s report about Giannis, you know, doing what a lot of people were suspecting that he may do, which is look at other options and then the Boston Celtics with this potentially devastating injury to Jason Tatum. A lot of fortunes changed yesterday and the Mavericks definitely could be one of them. Absolutely. Wendy, would you rather see the Mavs draft Cooper flag or trade for a Giannis? Do you think that a franchise could trade Luca Donuch and Cooper flag in the same calendar year? That is the question people were asking last night. Honestly, I cannot see that they would I cannot see how they could trade him. And um I’m going to give a technical answer. I will listen to the the two pro aletes here in a second, but I’m going to give a technical answer as to why I believe that. And this is not a fun answer, but this is a reality in the modern NBA. In the modern NBA, it is very dangerous for your team to have three big salaries under the in the apron era. And this is what I’m saying. I know people I can feel people going, I don’t want to talk about aprons, and I get it. But in the apron era, to have three big salaries on your team, it handcuffs you. And it means that all three of those guys got to be studs. And I offer you no more than the than the Phoenix Suns who are the biggest culprits on this. They invested humongously in Bradley Beal. And Bradley Beal has not been performing like an all-star and has handcuffed their team. If you have Anthony Davis and you have Kyrie Irving who can be a free agent this summer and I expect will get a big contract if he opts out. But even if he doesn’t opt out, it’s a big contract. If you then trade for Giannis, if you use Cooper Flag as your centerpiece of your trade for Giannis and you have three salaries, it’s not a way to build a team in 2025. I’m sorry. Especially when those three guys are in their 30s, you it’s just not advisable. So, the idea that you could have a potential impact young player in Cooper Flag for the next four years on a rookie contract, a rookie scale contract in addition to those two players, just team building wise, regardless of what you think Cooper Flag ceiling is, regardless of what you look at two-time MVP Senakmpo, from a team building standpoint, I think you have to take the 19-year-old on on the cheaper contract and hope that he turns into a stud. Wendy, is there any world And and I I get what the repercussions of this could be, but we’ll throw it out there for the sake of having these are the type of conversations that we always have collectively, frankly, between friends. Is there any world that you can imagine that if you are able to get a centerpiece like Giannis for a Cooper flag, what the asset of Anthony Davis could be on the market and what you could get in return for that if you are Nico Harrison? I’m just throwing it out there because it’s fascinating. Giannis at his age, his durability, how he plays, the numbers are MVP like numbers, right? If you can have that for another four to five years at that level, knowing AD’s injury history and but still his talent, what you can get in return for that that could be, you know, value to replace and still give you the size and the length and still be one of those great defensive teams in the Western Conference for the next three to four years and potentially get younger to match Cooper Flags timeline. the idea of trading Anthony. Yeah. Yeah. So, like look, I don’t know what Kyrie Irving is going to look like coming off of this injury in seven or eight months. So, that’s an uncertain thing, but your your timeline now potentially changes. Also, it depends on what the Mavericks evaluation of Cooper Flag is. Like, if if the Mavericks look at Cooper Flag as a guy who can be a top seven player in the league by year four, that’s one thing. And certainly you’re going to say, well, if that’s the case, if that’s who we think he is, then maybe we should make decisions that put us in good position to go for year three or four. And and you may say, well, wait a minute. The Mavericks have been all in on trying to win for the next couple years. Well, the Mavericks world just changed. You know, all of their planning just changed, just like the Lakers planning changed when they traded for a 26-year-old in his prime in Luca versus having a guy in his 40s and a guy in his 30s with Anthony Davis. So, if you evaluate Cooper Flag to be that, if you’re the Mavericks, you may have to look at something like that. If you evaluate Cooper Flag as a guy who may not be a top six or seven player, but maybe a top 15 18 player, and that to win the championship, you’re going to need another top 10 player or top 15 player to be alongside him. A guy like Giannis to that group is fascinating. So, they they’ve got to have their own set of uh thing. I think the number two pick is just as important. But before we debate on one versus two and whether either of those teams should cash in and go for Giannis, remember Giannis gets agency here. This is going to be Giannis’s situation. He does have two years on his contract. And if he elects to be traded, which is not a guarantee, I suspect he’s going to do that, but it’s not a guarantee. He is going to get to say, “I would rather play here or here.” And so part of this might he might not want to be in Dallas. He may have just seen what they did with Luca and say, “I don’t want to do that. You know, I saw how they treated this guy and I don’t want to do that.” Or he may see, “I’m going to come in and be alongside Kyrie and be alongside AD and I think that’s perfect for me. Let’s do it.” But assuming that, you know, there’s going to take a lot of alignment to figure out whether something like this is possible. Hey Wendy, great point about Phoenix. But I will say I was a part of a team that had three pretty big not in the aprons. Not in the aprons. different. I know you’re right, but not in the aprons. Yeah, I agree. You wouldn’t have been able to be on that team because they wouldn’t have had the ability to keep you and Mike Miller. You would have been gone. Well, I was about to be gone anyway if you remember the story. So, well, thank God for some guys taking less money, but uh I I agree a thousand% with the things that you’re saying, but I also just come from a situation where if you have a chance to get a player that is guaranteed now, Cooper Flag, as great as he might be, he is not guaranteed. Luca, excuse me. Giannis is guaranteed and at 30 he is in his prime and we’re talking about two MVPs, defensive player of the year. Nico said defense wins championships. This is a guy who can lead the charge for your defense onto way to winning a championship. So, I understand everything we’re saying about Cooper Flag and he could be that in four or five years, but I’m a guy that’s going with it now. I ain’t passing up that deal if I get opportunity to do Wendy, before we go to break really quick, earlier, uh, when Perk was with us, before you joined us, he said that, uh, Giannis doesn’t want to leave the East. I wouldn’t want to either. I wouldn’t want to either. In fact, guys, like all these players going to the West and not just these draft picks going west, but like stars moving west and moving west and looking at the East, like look at the back end of the East. I I would want to go to the East, too. I think Perk is exactly on to something there. I think that is a compelling thing, which is why I say before you get in the trade machine and debate whether you would trade the number one or number two pick for Giannis, remember Giannis is going to get agency on this. Don’t forget that as we go through this process. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

On First Take, Kendrick Perkins, Jay Williams and Udonis Haslem join Molly Qerim to talk about Jimmy Butler III’s Game 4 performance as the Golden State Warriors fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Then Brian Windhorst joins the show after the Dallas Mavericks secured the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery

0:00 Playoff Jimmy
5:28 Perk sounds off
6:51 NBA Draft Lottery reaction
12:15 Mavericks’ top pick options

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