Stephen A. says a ‘healthy Dallas Mavericks’ team can be a THREAT to the Thunder 🗣️👀 | First Take

Stephen A. says a ‘healthy Dallas Mavericks’ team can be a THREAT to the Thunder 🗣️👀 | First Take

that is the one and only Stephen A smith that is Brian Winhorse marke Morris on the big screen from down south and I’m Molly Kum good morning everybody good morning good morning how y’all doing amazing all right have my eggs and berries and I’m ready to do this wendy’s warmed up all right let’s get it on Monday you mentioned food the Pacer hey I don’t skip meals Stephen A and I’m not ashamed of it the Pacers confirmed that Tyrese Halurn suffered a torn Achilles during the fourth quarter of game seven of the NBA finals Halley decided to play despite being diagnosed with a calf strain heading into the game and being informed of the risk of further injury if he chose to play hi had surgery yesterday and released a lengthy statement saying in part “At 25 I’ve already learned that God never gives us more than we can handle i know I’ll come out on the other side of this a better man a better player and honestly right now torn Achilles and all I don’t regret it i do it again and again after that to fight for the city and for my brothers for the chance to do something special stephen I love that statement um it felt very from the heart yeah and he certainly said all the right things all things that I respect do you think Hi should regret playing in game seven not at all not at all i mean it was a game seven with a championship on the line there isn’t an athlete that I’ve ever met in my life on any level who would say you don’t take the chance and you don’t play in that particular situation it’s about your teammates it’s about a championship it’s about the city you’re representing it’s about you and everything that you dreamed of your hope is that you get through it you don’t care what it takes if you could do anything there’s no athlete that I’ve ever met particularly on an elite level that doesn’t believe there is something that they could have done or they could do to help their team win and if there is something anything then you do it i’ll never forget the story that I was told and I think I saw it in a documentary that was being that was being done and they were talking about the Knicks when Pat Riley was coaching the Knicks and Charles Smith was hurt and while they were having a team meeting before a game Charles Smith walked in with a suit on and Pat Riley looked at him and he said “If could you do you think if if it was an emergency and it was absolutely necessary that you could give us two or three or five minutes and he said “Yeah.” He said “Then what the hell are you doing with your suit on?” What the hell are you doing with your suit on three to five minutes two minutes it doesn’t matter if you’ve got He has got his contract thank goodness over $200 million contract he’s been an all-star he’s been an allNBA player Olympian he won a gold medal in the Olympics he’s got a shoe deal got his own shoe got his own logo and everything the only thing he doesn’t have in his life is that championship so the opportunity to play for it and by the way one of the biggest heartbreaking things about this whole situation is he was playing great yes and you know the thing about Hallebertton that we know is that when he gets off to great starts he can do anything like finishes great i I hate to even say this but he might have scored 40 points in this game like I don’t you know we’ll never know but he had nine points in seven minutes the Thunder were looking a little shaky okay it’s possible he has a game that is all-time classic so I totally get it and what I would say is this Tyrese I know that you did not win this game and I know that you are facing a long recovery but you did win something you won over millions of Bless you you won over millions of new fans because if you didn’t know Tyrese Allebertton and the type of player he is and the type of clutch player he is you know you know him now after seeing those shots the second thing is you won over the respect of everybody in this league because I’m watching on social media as all of these players are reacting to seeing this moment and the the the uh the folks that we work here with here at ESPN like Markeath and like the NFL players that we just talked to on Get Up they all respect all respect what you’ve did and so there may have been this little moment where there was this overrated thing whatever that poll is and look he put a good face on it but I’m sure he felt a certain way about it of course he had those that wasn’t that wasn’t media that was his own colleagues his contemporaries who did that to him well that’s gone over that’s a great point Wendy so Tyrese may not have gotten the championship but he made a statement for the rest of his life and the way he handled himself under this situation and over the last two months listen we walked into walking into game seven we’re doing NBA countdown and I’m on the air and I’m saying I don’t want to hear anything anymore about this this calf injury because the way he had looked in two games playing with it he was moving so well i was like that don’t look like some dude with an injury i was speaking facitiously of course but I was just saying he was moving that well we all knew he had a calf injury he had suffered an ankle injury earlier on in the series before the calf injury came to light and to see him go down like that obviously it was eerily reminiscent of Kevin Durant against Toronto in the NBA finals in game five he had missed a couple of games he had been out couple weeks actually been out comes into the finals um and he goes out there and Kevin Durant was putting it in he was putting in work against Toronto before he went down he was looking spectacular that’s right and when you saw Tyrese Hallebertton and then he went down that was where the reminder came in not just because of the injury and how it happened in the middle you know in the middle of action but how he was playing leading up to that moment that transpired so again it’s respect and you know ultimately you know we we want to give all the respect in the world to Oklahoma City the great season that they had and how they look but because of the way Hallebertton was playing and the way they started out a little tight you did find yourself saying “Whoa this who knows what could happen in this game seven indiana might win this bad boy and then he went down and you just said “Oh damn.” Because that’s how much it hurt because you want to see him so badly you know push them to the limit but the positive Keith uh to Wendy’s point and obviously he mentioned in the statement when you go through adversity right you do come back better and stronger and he’s just 25 years old so plenty of basketball life ahead of him yeah he has his future ahead of him man you know he gets a chance to you know scale it back and know actually get a chance to work on his body so this never happens again because it’s a soft tissue injury so it came from something right uh and just the aspect of the game man when Hollandberg went down and you know the game went the way it went man i just think like I said it the other day we we were kind of cheated out of a classic because the guy was going to work man he was he was literally about to go off and you know playing under those circumstances anyway was just like you know it was it was great to see so you know we just hope hope the recovery is is is great and we just looking for him to come back next year better than ever other thing too that we all have to remember Molly Wendy knows this keith knows this you just brought up he was 25 kd was 30 when he tore his Achilles and look at how KD looks look at how he’s been looking over the last several years so Halle Burton’s got got plenty of time in his career to recover from this and to reemerge yeah but it’s still devastating dame Tatum all of them and we’ll get into the injuries and how that affects the West moving forward let’s get into the victory and that is the Thunder so that parade in celebration of winning the NBA championship will be held today in Oklahoma City before the parade the team will gather inside the Paycom Center for a ceremony featuring player speeches and the team hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy the Thunder are the seventh different franchise to win the NBA championship over the last seven seasons marking the first time in NBA history that seven different franchises won the title over a seven season span the Thunder are the favorites to repeat at plus 210 team is the biggest threat to a Thunder repeat i would say there’s a bunch of teams in the West right you got you got the Timberwolves that could get better you got the Lakers you got the Clippers you got Denver you got Houston like I think all those teams are are are going to be contending and it’s going to be a tough west you you got the Lakers that I thought if you know and a lot of people thought if they was the match up with the Thunder in the playoffs last year that the Lakers would win i also believe the Clippers had a great match up with them and also now you got KD and Houston so it’s it’s it’s wide open as as it ever been i don’t think that uh I think there’s a couple teams that will be able to challenge them next year in the Western Conference so there’s an interesting event happening today references this question Molly and that’s in Denver today they are introducing their new front office uh they’re going to have co- vice presidents uh Ben Tenzer um and and uh and Wallace um uh John Wallace is going to be being introduced as co- vice presidents and I’m very interested to hear from them because while the one team’s having a parade the team that I think that can really challenge them is the Denver Nuggets because of Nicola Joic i have so much respect for them and let’s not forget they went to seven games with this championship team this year and if Aaron Gordon didn’t have that hamstring issue who knows how it might have gone differently i respect the Thunder of course they won it they deserve it but this team is close and quite frankly over the last couple of years the Nuggets have not done a good job of maximizing Jokic um and they have allowed several key players to lead they have now moved on from a championship head coach and a championship winning general manager and I want to see what they say about how they’re going to improve this team because I still think Denver I mean I want to be real denver’s lost two sevename series in the last two years i think if they win either of those game sevens there’s a chance they could have three three trophies because I really respect how good they are and again that’s not taking away anybody from the East that’s not taking away from the Celtics last year the only team that in the league the Celtics didn’t beat last year was the Nuggets nuggets were two and0 against them we’ll never know what would have happened but I think a big thing this summer that’s an underlooked at thing is Nikolai Joic going to sign his contract extension he’s got three years on his contract there’s no real stress he’s never been a player who’s uh who’s ever done anything but sign right away but if I was Jokic I would want to be hearing from my front office what we’re going to do i’m watching an arms race in the West i’m watching teams that are maybe going to finish seventh eighth or ninth try to staff up i hear you and if you want to look at the and you want to look at the organization let’s be very very specific look at the organization not the players because had you kept Bruce Brown had you kept Jeff Green had you kept a Kentavius Cwell Pope who obviously struggled in Orlando this past year but had you kept those guys instead of letting them walk out the door what would have happened to the Denver Nuggets they may very well have won at least one if not both of those game sevens okay because they’ve clearly shown they have the ability to do it their depth was what we question in terms of what they gave you in terms of with their starting five and with Russ whether he was starting or coming off the bench depending on which game it was you looked at them and said that they had some of the pieces but you questioned their depth and how much you were asking of uh Nicole Joic in order to bring to deliver the day we know what Jamal Murray can do come postseason time we know what he is we know what he has shown himself in too many big moments and you’re absolutely right about the health of Aaron Gordon but since we’re bringing that up if we’re going to look at the organization you got rid of the coach and your GM so now you’re replacing them and then you got dual you got dual individual you got two individuals playing a certain position in the front office okay let’s see what they do with that but I’m going to throw out this name and obviously health predicates everything we understand that a healthy Dallas Mavericks would be my answer to this question because when I watch OKC over the last two years I watched the Dallas Mavericks take them out in six games last year and then I watched the Dallas Mavericks without Luca one game beat the Oklahoma City Thunder this year when they were rolling against everybody else they were derailed by the Dallas Mavericks i’m looking at a Dallas Maverick squad we talk about Chad Homegrren and Isaiah Hartstein well what you going to do against AD Anthony Davis with Lively okay with Gaffford what you going to do when you got to deal with Kyrie if you Shay and Jay Willing a Boys and Dort let’s not forget Dort and Caruso i understand how electric they are defensively a healthy Kyrie Irving with the ball in his hands i’d like to see that haven’t heard the other name they’re going to call tomorrow night excuse me there of course of course of course coop cooper flag that’s a good And I was there for all four of those games this year i was there for all four of those games this year and Dallas are definitely one of those teams that Yeah that pushed them to to And a player you didn’t name was PJ was PJ i was I was going to go there but no Wendy Chomp did but I was going to go with PJ Washington i get mention him really quick though the two teams with the second best title odds are actually the Cavs and the Rockets i understand that but that’s because they’re healthy and Dallas is not dallas come back you better watch out for the Dallas well real talk the team from the East the if you’re in the Eastern Conference right now you’re kicking back and you’re ordering a cocktail cuz like the West are beating each other over the head and the Eastern Conference because of these Achilles tendon tears which are crazy right these teams are you know the Celtics are are are scaling down i don’t know what the Pacers are going to do i don’t know if they’re going to keep this whole team together and pay the luxury tax i don’t know what the Bucks are going to do because of they’re scaling down in the East if the answer to this question in all honesty is probably whoever wins the East because whoever wins the East might have a much easier road than whoever has to go through the Thunder in the West i don’t view it that way i view it is that the tougher the road the more conditioned you are to deal with adversity come championship round so that’s how I view it that sounds good but when you look at these guys falling down and and they going through these six seven game series and you can maybe go through the East a lot easier it sets you up totally different break the tie on that what would you say it’s easy you’d pick someone out of the east just because the path’s easier or would you go west because they’re battle tested the Thunder lost one game to Eastern Conference team this year one game it’s the teams that’s in the West that’s going to compete they They can’t compete with with the East can’t compete with the West [Music]

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Brian Windhorst and Markieff Morris join Molly Qerim to discuss if Tyrese Haliburton should regret playing in Game 7 of the NBA Finals despite playing through injury and debate who is the biggest threat to the Oklahoma City Thunder next season.

0:00 Should Haliburton regret playing Game 7?
6:19 Markieff’s thoughts
7:56 Who is the biggest threat to a Thunder repeat?
11:34 Stephen A. says Mavs can be a threat to the Thunder

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