“The title window never closes in Boston” — SGA MVP case & is KD a fit in Philly? | NBA | SPEAK

“The title window never closes in Boston” — SGA MVP case & is KD a fit in Philly? | NBA | SPEAK

Paul, how much longer will the Celtics title window stay open? The title, the title window, as long as you got our franchise guys still there, Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and I’ll even go as far as to say Derek White. Those are pretty much the core guys who will be there for the next at least four, three to four years. So, I figure around four years the window is pretty open. I I would like to hope so, but then again, I think the window never closes in Boston cuz when you have franchises like Boston, Lakers, Yankees, those type of cities, they compete for championships and they’re always going for it. So, the window will definitely 100% stay open as long as those guys are there. But when you have great ownership and great franchises, the window is always open. Yeah, it’s gonna be Who you being shady about, right? He knows it. He knows it. You giving that bombastic side eye for Paul sitting up over there talking about Boston always. I’m like, man, it took him a minute to get the one that they just got. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, but no, they do have they do have plenty in the Yeah. No, they got the history and and I believe the window the window will always be open to what I don’t know what that is. What is that? Steel steel toe boot. Steel toe boot. It’s a Timberland. We got stoked down on the streets of New York. What is it though? 30 What’s Where’s MSG? 30. What is it? 35th. Yeah. 3 38th or 37th 3. You think I could get a ticket to a Knicks game? That’s That’s took to the Celtics. I can get out of there. You going to get out of there. You going to get some stuff thrown on you and you going to get you going to get a lot of swearing. You’re going to get a little bit more than uh the ticket than than Rick’s uh side eye. Yeah. Don’t don’t put on the green hair or nothing like that. But look, I think um the windows open for them. Like Paul was saying though, when you got Oh, did you say open or over? No, open. Okay. Open for them. You got Tatum, you got Brown, Derek White, you know, and and whatever other pieces they feel like will be there in the next four to five years cuz Tatum is under contract for the next five and Brown is under for the next four. Yeah. So, you know, they got something. You just got to they what they’ve got to try to figure out between now and let’s say 2027 season is what are they? Because you want don’t want to have a complete overhaul and now all of a sudden you get Brown I mean you get Tatum back and you’re trying to figure out how to fit things in for him. So, what I would do if I was Brad Stevens and I had some decisions to make on certain guys, I’m g try to figure out how to keep things the way it is, even though I may have to move some players, but I want to keep everything kind of the same cuz when Tatum come back, I don’t want him to have to learn, you know, everything all over again and try to change the way we do business. So, I think the window’s open for him for the next three years or so. I say that the window is open as long as Brad Stevens is the GM because the questions that you asked, I don’t know what the answers are, but I’m confident that Brad Stevens will find them because if I look at first of all, just what they’ve done over the four years since he’s been the GM. All right. They have been to the conference finals every single year. The last four years, they’ve been to the finals twice and they’ve won a ring. That’s an amazing run. and and whether it’s a combination of when he was coaching and now that he’s the GM, there have been several iterations of this team. There was, you know, one once upon a time there was Kyrie Irving was was part of this mix. Um went and got a Drew Holiday. Uh move Robert Williams got got Porzingis. I mean, he had to go and get Derek White. So, when I look at all the the the moves that they’ve made and his understanding of what it takes, yeah, they have some challenges, but you guys are right. Like, I said it the other day, like outside of Drew Holiday and Al Horford, who are certainly part of the mix, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily put them at the core of this team, everybody else is 30 and under. Derek White is the oldest player among their rotation this year, uh, at 30 years old. So I, you know, we always do this, right? And I think it’s in part because Boston went out earlier than we expected. And usually when teams go out earlier than expected, we look at it and go, “Oh, maybe maybe they’re not as good as we thought.” Injuries. Injuries. Yeah. And that and injuries or age or whatever it is, uh, satisfaction. Luck. Luck. What’s that? Luck. Yeah, that probably wasn’t as much. I think this is probably a bigger factor than a steeltoe boot. We got the steel toe boot head in our head. But but here’s the other part. Winning backtoback championships is hard. Like we we take it for granted. Winning a championship is hard. Exactly. And then I think winning two is doubly hard because now everybody knows you’re coming and that’s why it’s only it’s only a handful that has done it. Right. That’s it. And so they’ve been on the doorstep and actually got it done once out of the last four years and have been on the doorstep for four years. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s nothing to sneeze at. And I think that Brad Stevens has been the architect of making that happen. Yeah, I I would agree with you. I think it’s I think it’s open. I don’t even think it’s anything to consider. Their core is under contract. Obviously, Jason Tatum’s injury makes things a little interesting for next year going into the playoffs and what they’re going to look like and how they’re going to have to retool. What are they going to do about Porzingis? Obviously, he missed a lot of games this season. What are they going to do about, you know, the expiring contract that they have, Al Horford and and and whatnot? But they’re a team that is always competing for a championship. They’re always retooling. They’re a well-run organization. They’re not dysfunctional. They have their coach. They have their core. I think the window is is wide open. I think it next year will be interesting because I know they want to still compete and they’re not going to have their top guy. So, do you just, you know, what kind of moves you make because you don’t want to mess everything up for the year after. You don’t want to completely change the style of play that you have. So, I think they’ll have to be strategic in that regard because you don’t want to uh to take away from what you will need when Tatum is back. I’ll throw this out there, too. When I look at the Eastern Conference, like I I’d feel different if they were in the West. I think the West just has a ton of teams that you’re you’re looking at it and going, “Man, we we can’t we can’t half step. We can’t miss a step. We got to keep getting better.” Eastern Conference feels wide open to me as as you know now I don’t know what to make of Cleveland because they’re young and I assume they’re going to be better but maybe they got exposed. Their feelings got hurt this year. Okay, that happens. But but I there’s nobody that scares me in the Eastern Conference. The Boston Celtics did coming in. I thought they were the prohibitive favorite. So maybe they should still still beat. Well, Shay Gil just Alexander averaged nearly 30 points in the series went over Nicola Yokoic and the Nuggets, including 35 in game seven, Rick, uh, you voted for Joker for the MVP, but did Shay prove that he is the MVP in this series? No, he proved that he’s the he’s the leader of the Oklahoma City Thunder uh the team that had the best record uh in the in the league. Some people define that as MVP. Right. I don’t what is I believe I believe it is a little more nuanced than that. What? No, I was reading the prompter. Word salad. Go ahead. Go. Um it I I believe you the success of your team uh is how indispensable are you to the success of your team and under that definition Nicola Joic fits it more so than Shay Gilders Alexander. So you think under that definition you tell you you can’t see through the clouds when you’re making this decision right that that who you going to vote for. So you’re indispensable through the success. Yeah. You can’t see you can’t see the future the through the clouds saying, “Hey, OKC has a number one seed and for them to even be at the table in the Western Conference final or in the final, yeah, their number one guy in SGA has to do SGA type things.” You couldn’t see that because if he wasn’t on this team, they wouldn’t be nowhere near Okay. the number one seed. It’s It is a regular season award, so I’m not anticipating what he’s going to do in the playoff. You couldn’t you couldn’t part of that. Oh, I don’t need to see that. I’m not looking in that direction. Don’t you think you should be though? No, no, no. I’m looking even though it’s a regular season award. Well, let’s put it this way. Where where would the Denver Nuggets I mean, we’re going to compare. Where would the Denver Nuggets be without Nicolas? They would be exactly They wouldn’t have even been in the playoffs. They would be exactly where they’re at, which is at home. That’s right. But they would have been home a lot sooner. Okay. Well, and that’s my point to me. That’s the definition of MVP. They would have been a hell of a lot. I I count their values. You take the top three or four MVP candidates and they weren’t on the team. The team on the team. Most likely those teams will be borderline playin teams. Yeah. Uh I would say that Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma City Thunder still would have been a playoff team. Playoff team. Yes. Playoff team would have been would have been one of the top 16. I don’t know about that one. As who as the best player as Jaylen Williams as Jaylen Williams. So is so as So this is what you believe. Jaylen Williams as their best player as a playoff team. I’m just Say that again. Jaylen Williams. Jaylen Williams as OKC’s best player for the whole Western Conference throughout the whole season as their best player. They’re a playoff team. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Do you think he proves he’s the MVP? Yeah, absolutely. And this is my thing on it. I feel like moving forward, I feel like the MVP, like it hasn’t been announced yet. Right now, it’s probably going to get announced pretty soon. I feel like you should throw in the first and second rounds as part of the MVP voting because if you’re the true MVP, you should at least make it to second round or conference finals. That’s just what I feel. And I think looking at this series and the reason we asking these questions is because he did beat Joker. And so now I feel better like, okay, he’s the MVP now. Because if Joker had have won this series and then he’s on to the next round and then Shay’s at home getting the MVP, it would have been a lot of conversation about that. Do you think that he beat Joic or do you think Joic’s supporting cast simply came apart? Can’t do that though. Why not? Because why not? I want to put I want to put the responsibility on that in the right place. Because he’s part of the team. We all clearly see that Jokic was averaging whatever he was averaging. Had 24 games. You know, we saw that seen this guy get 35 in game seven and dominate. He showed up when I needed him to show up. I saw Joker take nine shots in game seven. This guy is the MVP right here because they they they waved the white flag. I was juggling. I was juggling between SGA and Joker. In game two, I was like, Joker’s no game one, I was like, Joker’s the MVP. 40 and 20. I was like, oh, damn. That’s he’s the And then game two, I’m like, okay, shade. Now, after after the series, I’m like, that might be why they didn’t give you a vote cuz you got to scratch it out. You got you got the the vote, but I think you should always take into consideration, even if they tell you don’t. Mhm. What are these players going to look like in the postseason? No, I I will say this. You got to be honest. In my mind, In my mind, I do that considering that the votes are public and I do consider like what’s the potential of this team, what’s the potential of this player. Absolutely. But but like what to what degree do I put that as part of my process? I mean it’s tricky because and if the if the league gave the MVP out when the regular season ended then we wouldn’t be having we wouldn’t be having this debate at all. So, I don’t know why they don’t do that, but they should as soon as the regular season is over, announce the regular season award because it’s a regular season award. And if you let it it in some ways it can pot it, it can lead to a potential watering down of the award because yeah, if SGA had won the MVP and Yoka should moved on, we’re going to look at the award differently than than we will now if SGA ends up winning the MVP. And and listen, Joic, it’s to the point where this these are this is just what Joic is. His numbers are his numbers. He is going to get unbelievable numbers. His numbers are going to be better than the year before. Like that. That’s the type of player that he is. And it does translate to winning. And he is absolutely should be in the MVP conversation every single year. And I get that there’s voter fatigue for voting for the best player every year and all these things, but I I really think the issue is when they announce it because if it’s a it is a regular season award. I’m with you. the postseason should not have any bearing on the award because it’s it’s not about it’s not a postseason plus what you’re going to do in the playoffs award. It is a regular season league MVP for the regular season. So announce it when the season’s over so we know who won the regular season award and then we can move on to the kind it’s kind of like the Heisman Trophy. So who was your who was who was your MVP at the end of the regular season? It would have still been SGA and yours? Yeah. SGA? Yeah. And yours, Paul? Man, what you gonna tell me, Tatum? Man, I think I had Joker. Them numbers was looking You got the numbers. I know you had Joker. Yeah, them numbers was looking too crazy. It was like 30, 14, and 10 cuz he had to though. And then I mean when he went when he went into Oklahoma City and put 20 and 22, I remember and he had a 40. Some of these numbers were like these numbers were biblical. I mean, they were just they was 2K numbers some nights. I was just like, geez. If you want to say did SJ SJ or Shay prove that he um he deserved to be in the conversation with MVP or that it a battle with Jokic. I’m I’m fine with that. And I was fine with that the entire way. It’s just the idea that because of this game seven when I got Aaron Gordon playing on one leg, when I got Michael Porter Jr. playing with one arm and I already had a thin Denver team, which is why I gave Joic extra credit for where they got that now that’s going to determine that SGA deserves the MVP over Joic. That’s just hard for me. But see, I’m looking at them going headto head which is which is unfortunate for the voters because that’s that’s why we’re talking about this, right? Always necessarily get that. I got to look at all that though. Everything you just said though, right? Injuries, all of those sort of things. But I’m also looking at the number one seed, where the team is at today. Even though it’s a regular season award, it’s almost like the Heisman, like I was about to say. You know how the Heisman the votes over bowl games start? Then usually the dude who wins the Heisman plays poorly in the bowl games. He it’s just like this is a sort of the same thing with the MVP trophy. If you give out the MVP trophy for the regular season, then all of a sudden that team that that player is on goes home in round one two and don’t get to the final. It doesn’t look good. But that’s what I’m saying is the second like, okay, tick, the regular season’s over. Announce the MVP. I think this cuz it’s a regular season award. Yep. And then we don’t have to have these get the rules changed, man. You got the You keep screaming and hollering and you got the vote sometime. You have the juices. You have the emails. I’m gonna put it all your little buddies and send that coming for you, bro. All your little I look like more of a Ugg than a steel toe. All right, I’ll work it out. He drew a That’s a Ugg. Looking at former Thunder Kevin Durant this was already Celtics got it have already rumored moving KD and now they might have a trade partner. According to reports the 76ers are expected to be involved in trade conversations after landing the third overall pick. And one player might they might consider is Kevin Durant. Paul would Philly be a good landing spot for Durant? Not at all. I just don’t want to see Kevin at this stage go to a mess of a franchise that’s like not doesn’t understand what direction they’re trying to go in. In my eyes, I’m not trying to get Kevin Durant because they will probably have to give it a pick and probably Paul George and now it’s like a lateral move to me. You got MB Maxi. Clearly, what they should do as an organization should trade MB and rebuild. And this is not a knock on MB. It’s just that I think the process is over in Philadelphia. What I want try to trade Paul George and Bill and get younger. I don’t want to see this team disappoint me uh like they’ve been the most disappointing franchise over the last five or six years being that they have top tier talent. Uh I just think they should start over and stop trying to put band-aids on some of these these these wounds and cuts that Philadelphia has been having over the last few years. But what you going to get for Embiid though? Like if somebody get some draft picks and a team in the Western Conference that’s looking to get a Golden State. What about Golden State? But you got salaries and you got salaries. You got salaries and stuff. I mean, you got to understand who can use Embiid. But like Kevin Durant, he’ll look good in Orlando to me. You know, pairing with a young couple superstars, be a veteran presence, give him some scoring punch. I like him over there more so than Philly. Yeah. Philadelphia just seems it seems like a harder deal to do because you got you’re asking at least salary matchwise you would have to give up one of those two guys right Paul George because you’re not giving up Tyrese Maxi so you would give up Paul George R&B both have a history of injuries and both got large salaries so you now got to find a trade partner who says I want to take on that salary plus those injuries and then Philly’s got to be willing to pass up that three spot for whatever players players in the draft that could be part of their future and be able to say, “Okay, I’m taking an aging superstar that still has a pretty large salary on tack, then we may have to commit some more long-term money to him because he’s coming up on uh the end of his deal.” So, all of those sort that’s why I don’t really think at the end Philly will be the right match for them. I just don’t. Good God, no. I mean, any way you slice it, I have in Philadelphia, I have a team that is talented without leaders. So, the expectations are always oversized. And I’m going to take another talented player and add him to that equation. I wouldn’t want to do that to Philadelphia, and I wouldn’t want to do it to Kevin Durant at this point. If I’m looking for a great place for Kevin Durant, I want him, to Paul’s point, I want him to go to a a franchise with an established culture where I can just say, Kevin, just come and be part of us and and and be your best self. Oklahoma City, Golden State, Miami, San Antonio, and I don’t know what the what the tradeoff would be. Houston, I think, is is still in the incubator in terms of developing theirs and that they don’t have I don’t think it’s quite there and I don’t think they have the uh you know, Kevin goes in there and immediately has a big imprint on it. I don’t know that that team’s ready to absorb that. In all the other other franchises, there’s already somebody established, whether it’s the the way that the coach and the GM operate or whether it’s the star on the team that I think he can come in just come in and play. But Philadelphia is a quagmire. Like that’s where that’s where that’s quagmire. What’s that, Paul? That’s that’s a swamp. That’s a swamp. That’s quagmire. Quagmire there in the east, in the Midwest, down my vocabulary. You want to try and spell that one? That’s that’s that’s where great players go to die. I mean, how many how many players have we seen go in there in their careers? Like just they got to get out. I would I don’t want to do that to Kevin Durant. Okay. As much as you talk bad about him, like I don’t don’t don’t don’t get that. Don’t I don’t want to don’t start. I barely want to talk basketball cuz I play football, you know. Want to stay in my lane. KD, I got your back. Don’t worry. No matter what you say, I got your back. 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Joy Taylor, Keyshawn Johnson, Paul Pierce, and Ric Bucher debate whether the Boston Celtics’ title window is still open. They also discuss if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has proven himself as the MVP and whether the Philadelphia 76ers would be a good fit for Kevin Durant.

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“The title window never closes in Boston” — SGA MVP case & is KD a fit in Philly? | NBA | SPEAK
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