Why Kevin Durant TRANSFORMS the Dallas Mavericks’ Texas Rival Houston Rockets into a Contender

Why Kevin Durant TRANSFORMS the Dallas Mavericks’ Texas Rival Houston Rockets into a Contender

On today’s show, the Rockets. Are they really contenders? I They’re very good, but I don’t know if they’re complete contenders. I got a couple questions. I’m going to ask Jackson Gatlin of lockdown on Rockets about them and more on today’s lock. Stop it. Stop. The number one pick will go on Dallas Mavericks. Cooper flag will fly in Dallas. You are locked on your daily Mavericks podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network. I still can’t leave the old your team every day. I’m going to get a city like that. And welcome. You are locked on to the Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Rockets. Your team every day. My name is Nick Angstead media member covering the Mavs for 10 years. Thanks for being an everyday making lockdown maps your first listen. Locked on Rockets your first listen. This episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use the code lockdown NBA at monarchoney.com for 50% off your first year. Joining me, I’m joining him. It’s Jackson Gatlin from Locked On Rockets. native Houstononian, covering the Rockets for how long now? Six years professionally. Six years doing it. Still grinding away over there in Houston in the in the sweltering the sweltering humidity down the highway. Just I every time somebody talks about Houston, they mention humidity around here. Hey man, you’re not that much further north of me. Okay. There’s plenty of humidity to go around Texas and there’s plenty of it going on in Dallas right now. I’m sure. At least you have a beach that’s really nice, right? Absolutely. It’s pristine. The water’s clear. You can see straight to the bottom. It’s not murky or muddy or any of that stuff. I’ve been to that beach so many times. I know I know every word of that is a lie. Oh man. Today we’re going to talk about the two Texas teams and maybe the Spurs as well. We’ll talk about the Mavs and the Rockets. We’ll go through um I’ll ask Jackson Rockets questions. He’s going to ask me Mavs questions and then we’ll go freeforall in the third and uh talk about whatever we want in this. So here’s one to start off with. We had our squad show recently and people were going in on the Rockets. really wanted to talk about them and Matt Moore specifically of locked on NBA locked on Nuggets really wanted you to convince him that they were a contender and that they were like they were legit going to be number two. So do it right now. Convince me the Rockets should be number two in the West again next season. Shout out to uh Matt Moore. I hope he made it back home to the uh the old people’s home after that uh squad show. But uh look, you know, ever ever first of all on Matt Moore, uh we did a Mavs villain draft last Friday and Matt Moore got picked. Isaac Isaac with his last pick picked HP basketball. He picked Matt more when we were diet. That’s an incredible pick. I love the same list with like Nico Harrison, Dwayne Wade. Wow. Salvatore who like the finals and then it’s Matt Moore on the same on the same level. Wow. That’s actually incredible. Kudos to Isaac for that pick. All right, so look, you know, ever the the pot stir is Matt Moore. Um, so look, you know, the the argument shouldn’t really need to be all that compelling. You know, I know that in the squad show, you know, everybody kind of, you know, lost it a little bit and there was some laughs being had when I said that the Rockets, they they did overachieve a little bit last season. I think they overachieved relative to their expectations going into the year. But by no mean do I no means do I think that last season was a fluke because the year prior Emeoka’s first year they went 41 and 41. They turned their defense around. They became a top 10 defense. They kind of you know answered some questions about can Alper and Shingun be the the five the backbone of a good defense in the NBA. And then they took that 41 and 41 season in which they they lost Tari East for three quarters of the year. They dealt with a lot of inconsistencies from the young guys playing winning basketball for the first time in their career and then they elevated that success even further, right? Won 52 games, finished number two in a bloodbath of a Western Conference. And so, while I do think they overachieved relative to where we thought they would be going into the season, I think optimistically I had them at like maybe a five or six seed if everything broke really really well for them this past year and then they far surpassed that. So, you’ve kind of see this seen this as a rise like you you’ve seen the like you’ve seen what built them to be this point and that’s why it didn’t seem like a fluke to you. Pretty much that. And and the reason it’s not a fluke is absolutely the defense. It’s not like there’s some flash in the pan overnight success where they just they they buried you with a volume of threes and they’ve got this like wild variance on a game-to-ame basis. No, the defense is legit. The defense is legit every single night. Their biggest holdup has been the offensive side of the basketball. Right. We’ve talked about it a lot. You’ve clowned on me for this, right? Having a worse offensive half court rating than like the Blazers and the Jazz and like they were worse than the Jazz last year. It was It was bad. I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t bad. And you know what they did despite it being so awful? They found ways to still put points on the board. They finished as the 12th best offense in the NBA because they were far and away the best rebounding team in the NBA. The running joke with the Rockets was sometimes it was better for them to just miss the first shot and go get the ball and then put an offensive rebound up in it. So now you add Kevin Durant to that mix, right? You didn’t sacrifice your depth. In fact, you actually bolstered your depth by getting guys like like Dorian Smith, uh, Dallas Mavericks fan favorite. It’s my guy. I’m going to Dodo is in a Rockets jersey. Now, I’m so sorry, Mavs fans that y’all got to deal with. Luca in a Lakers jersey. I don’t know which one I hate. Where’s Dorian in a Lakers jersey or Dorian Rockets jersey? If I’m a Mavs fan, you should. You know what, Mavs fans? We want to hear from you guys in the YouTube comments. Tell us which one is worse. It’s probably going to be Luca in a landslide, but there might be some Dodo fans out there that feel some kind of way about seeing him wear Dorian was a Laker. Like, I don’t know which is worse, like if somebody walks by me with a Dorian Lakers jersey or a Dorian Rockets jersey, like which one makes me like get irked a little bit. Oh, you know what? All right, that’s fair. You know, answer that question instead. That’s a better one. Um, that’s that’s why Nick gets paid the big bucks, guys. All right, so look, you do that, right? You get Dor you get DFS, you add Clint Capella, you know, return of you know, Clint Capella is awesome. you know, he was a Houston fan favorite. He’s now your third string center. He could be starting for some teams in the NBA, right? The Rockets have a legitimate amount of depth. And then you add Kevin Durant as their tip of the spear, right? He is now your alpha, your number one, your go-to bucket getter, which is what this team was sorely missing last year. They had that beautiful awesome mantra, sometimes you, sometimes me, always us. But that kind of, you know, played against them at times last year because they really didn’t know on a night basis. That was a beautiful mantra. It was. is I mean they were bought in on it man like on any given night it could have been Shingun was your best player or Jaylen or Amin Thompson or Dylan Brooks or Fred Vanmple but the downside the catch 22 to that was who was going to take the big shot at the end of a game right if somebody wasn’t hot that night who were the reps going to right who was taking all the shots the sometimes you’d see Fred get a possession then Dylan would take a turnaround then Jaylen would try to iso then Shingun would get a post up and like it it didn’t work sometimes and it played against them at the end of games a lot because they didn’t know who their go-to guy was, who their what their hierarchy was offensively. Now, they’re going to have a clearly defined hierarchy, one of the best scorers to ever touch the ball. And and I think that on paper, they look like they should be the second best team in the Western Conference behind the OKC Thunder. Yeah, I think I’m with you on that because I think that that they have the the legs to to run. Like there’s going to be some teams in the West that are a little too a little too old. Clippers, Mavericks, like there’s going to be some of those teams that may not keep up in that way. And the Rockets do have, you know, young guys. They have guys that are still rising. They have young talent. And I am high on the Rockets, if anything, turning the shot selection of Jaylen Green and Dylan Brooks into Kevin Durant. As a guy that covers the Mavericks and is personally invested in the Mavericks success, anytime they played the Rockets, I was happy anytime Dylan Brooks went off on any of his like, I’m going to take 15, 18 shots in this game because I am Dylan Brooks. Hear me roar. like those moments. Sometimes he he went off, but every once in a while you you watch the shots and go, “Oh my god.” Like, “What?” Yeah. Every every once in a while you get the you’d get the Dylan Brooks like CTE game, unfortunately, where he would just like take the worst shots imaginable. He actually did a pretty decent job of cutting down on those games. They were fewer and further between than his Memphis days for sure. And he had his, you know, two best shooting years of his entire NBA career in Houston. He he cleaned up the shot profile a little bit. But you’re right, they they don’t have to bank on like bailout Dylan Brooks turnaround fadeaways, which were cool when they went in, but it was like, dear God, is this the best offense that you can run, Eay? Like, what’s happening here? And it’s because he didn’t have that certifiable go-to guy or if if Jaylen was getting clamped on the perimeter, he somebody had to try and do something. You know, Fred Van Vleet was try, you know, tried to be the savior at times of the offense by necessity. And and his percentages took a hit because of that because Fred Van Vetle was never supposed to be the big gun for the Rockets. supposed to be an ancillary piece, a supporting act to the main guys. And you know, because they moved on from Jaylen Green, they added a certifiable main guy in Kevin Durant who can shoulder that burden. I think it’s going to look really, really good. The thing that I get stuck on with the Rockets is their guard rotation. It’s Van Bleet starting, Aman Thompson probably like at the two. Then you got Reed Shepard coming off the bench, and I got Aaron Holiday coming off the bench, maybe like Josh Kogi, and then I don’t know who else is playing a guard type role. Are we are we sending KD back to his supersonics days and sending him back down to the two? Like is Tar East playing a big two? Like I mean I mean basic like yeah look it’s KD is the two on offense, right? You know it we’re in the era of positionless basketball, right? We can throw around, you know, point guard, shooting guard, small forward power. It it kind of doesn’t matter, right? The Rockets basically have their primary ball handlers which it’s gonna fall heavily on Fred Vanble and Amen Thompson which I think paints the picture that they’re expecting a significant step forward from him as a ball handler this season. And then Reed Shepard is supposed to be you know year two Reed Shepard year one was pretty underwhelming to put it lightly. Um he really wasn’t ready to you know play at the NBA level and certainly not the level that the Rockets were trying to play at. So he got a quarter of the season to try and showcase himself. They swapped him out for Aaron Holidayiday. Didn’t really look back. um he’s going to be expected to be able to hold down that backup point guard role in the minutes that Fred isn’t on the floor, but they’re also going to play a lot through Kevin Durant. The ball will be in his hands a lot. Alper and Shingun’s going to have the ball in his hands a lot. You’re going to have to playmake a little bit by committee, but I also don’t expect the identity of the Rockets offense to suddenly shift. They were dead last in the NBA last season in passes made per game. There’s not going to be anything flashy about this offense. It’s going to be quick, short, to the point. They’re going to get to an alp post up and a kick out for a three or let him go to work down low. They’ll let Katie operate from the elbow, get to his ISOs, maybe run some pick and roll with him. They’re going to make quick, efficient reads. And the difference is now they’ve got guys who can actually convert at a very high level taking some of these shots, which should help tremendously with the offensive rating and whatnot. Interesting. It’s a lot on Reed Shepard, and I’m curious. I’m curious to see how he takes that this season and and how he he leads in it. But he was the number three pick. There’s got to be some kind of expectation. You got to bring something eventually if you’re going to be that guy. Coming up, let’s get into the Maverick side of things. What are the Mavericks? Maybe that’s just the question. Maybe that’s just the question. What are they next year? Let’s talk about all that and more coming up. Locked on Mavs, Locked on Rockets continues. Today’s episode of Locked on Mavs, Locked On Rockets, brought to you by our friends over at Monarch Money. I enjoy Monarch Money because I like charts. I like flowcharts. I like to see different things. I’m a visual learner. I like to see where things are going. I like to see uh and especially charts that are about me and about what I do and about my decision-m because there’s so many different ways that I can spend money now with credit cards, debit cards, you’ve got uh 401ks, you’ve got student loans, you’ve got all kinds of things. Money is going in and out all over the place. And I love that Monarch Money puts it right in front of me. Gives me a great flowchart, shows me exactly where I’m spending, shows me exactly where my wealth is basically, uh where it’s not in a lot of ways and where where it is. Monarch Money is more than a budgeting app. It’s a complete financial command center. You can track all your accounts, investment, and spending all in one place. So, in addition to managing your money, you’re also building wealth. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use that code. It’s locked on NBA. All one word. Locked on NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That’s monarchmoney.com. Code lockdown NBA for half off your first year. [Music] Thanks for hanging out with us on Locked on Maps, Locked on Rockets, being part of the show, part of, if you’re listening to Locked on Maps, it’s called the Raccoon Squad. That’s what we call our listeners. Did you call locked on rockets bands anything? The hounds. We release the hounds over at l h o u n inds. I knew that. I didn’t want to say it out loud though. Thanks for listening every day. We’re back here locked on mine on rockets crossover. And I asked I didn’t come here to have pot shots taken to me, Nick. All right. We You got your thing. Have fun with the raccoon squad. Your little Oh my god. The cotton candy the podcast. You know, you run into it. Yeah. We got the hounds. All right. We got some dogs over here in Houston. All right, Nick. All right, ask me about the Mavs and don’t talk about Luca at all. I’m gonna You know what? Hey, that Look, that’s Do the ding. That’s already our one Luca mentioned. All right, you used it. You burned it on that. How dare you? You took the pleasure away. All right, so anyways, look, here’s my here’s where I want to start. The Mavericks, you know, the the the line about defense wins championships. Yeah, you’re in Dallas. TBD. We’ll see if that’s the case for Nico Harrison. Um, last season the Mavericks ranked 20th in defense. They were also just 18th in offense. Um, you know, a little below middle of the pack in both regards. They dealt with injuries. They dealt with, you know, a lot of guys missing time, all that good stuff. But you’re adding Cooper Flag. You’re still not coming into the season likely at full strength. But I want to ask you, between the offense and the defensive numbers, which do you expect to increase more next season, and why? Oh, the defense for sure. The offense may go down. the offense like from 18th. I don’t know that they’re going to be better than that. That’s my big concern for the Mavericks for sure. Their defense, I mean, you just think about the players they’re going to throw out there. Like Cooper Flag is going to come in as maybe like the third best defender in in the starting lineup between Anthony Davis and Derrick Lively. Like Derrick Lively is a very good rim protector. Anthony Davis is a defensive player of the year, like perennial contender. He is going to raise the level of this defense for sure. And then you bring Cooper Flag and you’re like, “All right, well, you just got to roam around, guard some perimeter guys, be be yourself.” And he is a tenacious defender. Like his defensive game is probably better than his offensive game. And that may start at the beginning of his career. I’m curious to see how he looks for sure. And then you have Derrick Lively. You’ve got size and Daniel Gaffford coming off the bench, too, where he was a pretty good rim protector. Struggled in some other areas defensively, but you’ve got rim protection all over the place. PJ Washington coming off the bench. Naji Marshall coming off the bench. uh maybe their best perimeter defenders are also coming off the bench in Caleb Martin and Max Christie. And so you can put together some really good defensive lineups that bringing back Dante Exom as well, a bigger guard that can defend. And Clay was like not terrible last year, too. So like you’re you’re putting together like a really good defensive lineup right there outside of a couple of guards that I won’t won’t mention for for other reasons, but the defense may get worse, but the the offense is the the the defense will get better. The offense is the one I have concerns about. My bonus question for you then is I I don’t know if you’ve done your board bets yet or if you haven’t gotten to them yet, but where do you think they finish defensively next year? I think they’re a top five defense. I think it’s hard to imagine an if you’re getting enough games from Anthony Davis for sure, which is always the big question. It’s hard to imagine a team with Anthony Davis and Derrick Lively as the starting like you know as the starting front court not getting to to top five status to me and then adding Cooper Flag to that. The Cavs were a top five defense at one point and they have Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland starting right at the guard spots. If you got two bigs like that, you can put together a really good defense and so I think that’s where they’ll finish and they and they kind of have to like if they want to be be successful, they have to rely on that defense because I don’t know if defense will win championships, but it’s going to have to win them games in the season. Yeah. If you’re going to want to if you want a shot at the playin tournament or or a legit playoff seat outside of the playing tournament, right? If you’re gonna be a bad offense, you better have a top five, top three borderline kind of defense. Do you know anything about that? Uh, yeah, something something about that. Hey man, look, if AD and Derek Lively can crash the offensive glass, anything like Alpar, Shingun, and Steven Adams, then maybe the Mavs have a chance to salvage, you know, a top 15 offense. There you go. That’s the the the recipe is there. It’s tried and true, Nick. Just copy the Rockets from last year. Put it up on the board. Now, we’re going to be the off the Mavs are going to be the offense that is like not not me, it’s we. Not not first shot, second shot is the best shot. Like we’re getting we’re getting me bounds over here, too. It’s like that meme where like the guy’s cheating on the test and just looking over at the paper. That’s Nico looking at the Rockets. He’s like, “What did they do last year to have the all that defensive success?” Yeah, Eay’s cooking. All right. So, you we talked about, you know, maybe some of the offensive, you know, I guess not issues, but just the the lack of offense this team is going to have. Where does Cooper Flag kind of fit into that offensive hierarchy of this team? You mentioned him, you know, potentially, you know, being like the two for this Mavericks team. You know, how is that going to look and kind of what are your expectations for rookie year Cooper flag? Yeah, Kyrie Irving is not starting the season. May not even play during this season. Uh if he if he does play, it won’t be till February, March even. And so they bring in D’Angelo Russell. He’s going to start at point guard and so he’s going to handle the ball a decent amount. Anthony Davis will get his shots, too, right? I think he’s going to lead the team in shots. He’s going to be the one that that gets a lot of offensive flow. And then you’re like, “All right, well, where else is the offense coming from?” It’s going to be Cooper flag. The summer league couple games that he played where they put the ball in his hands was not a fluke. That was not on accident. They wanted to put the ball in his hands to show what he could do to prove to them, all right, this is where he is offensively and to kind of play that a little bit because they’re going to put the ball in his hands a lot. He’s going to get a lot of opportunity. Nico Harrison has said this, Jason Kidd has said this about what Cooper Flag’s role is going to be and they were excited about being able to put the ball in his hands because Kyrie is out. And so you’ve got a ton of play finishers. Klay Thompson, Anthony Davis, Derek Lively, Daniel Gaffford, PJ Washington, uh you know, Max Christie as a spot-up shooter, Caleb Martin as a spot-up shooter. Like a lot of play finishers. You don’t have a lot of setup guys. And Cooper Flag is a setup guy. He he ran 300 pick and rolls as the ball handler at Duke and because they decided, all right, we’re best with putting the ball in your hands. And so I think he’s going to work out some of the lumps of his offensive game early in his rookie year. And so the ball’s going to be in his hands a lot. Obviously, it’s gonna be in D Russell’s hands a lot. But, um, as many concerns as I have about the Rockets offense like in ball handling, I have more concerns about the Mavericks for sure. Let me be clear about that to Rockets fans. I was not I was not trying to tout the Mavs as like this great offensive juggernaut team anymore. That’ll be that’ll be a fun bet to see, okay, which which offense. Hey, look, with with Katie, I think the offense will be top 10. I think who has more passes per game, the Mavericks or the Rockets next year? Oh, that that’ll be a fun one. No matter. You know, we’re going to have we’re going to have to tally that one up as the season goes on. Um, I’m excited to see what rookie year Cooper flag looks like. Um, you know, I know there was, you know, some maybe some people that were less than enthused with his performances at summer league. Um, or or felt like it left a little bit to be desired. Um, I thought he played awesome at summer league. I thought you saw exactly what you wanted to see out of a number one overall pick. Um, so we’ll see what it actually looks like once it translates to real NBA basketball against NBA level competition. and the fact that like he’s not even going to have Kyrie, like once you get Cooper and Kyrie playing alongside each other, that could be really dangerous um in in what is a dangerous Western Conference. Um speaking of the rest of the West, right, you’ve got you’re dealing with a a stacked Western Conference. And I know we’re going to talk about, you know, maybe talk a little bit about the Spurs here in our final segment coming up, but just as it relates to the Mavericks, what does an actual successful season look like for Dallas? Like what is the MO going into the season knowing that you’re likely missing Kyrie for all the the entire year? I think if you asked Nico Harrison, it’s to make the Western Conference Finals or to maybe go to the finals. Like I think that’s maybe okay. Can we ask somebody other than Nico Harrison? He staked his reputation on it basically. Um for me it’s just make the playoffs. Just make a playoff series and get Cooper Flag playoff experience. I don’t care if it’s five games, six games, like get him playoff experience. That to me would be a successful season to develop Cooper flag to build chemistry with some of these guys to get to the playoffs to get and see that environment because I don’t I mean I don’t really expect Kyrie to be fully back for this team even if they do. And that could be fun and like we we’ll he’ll hype it up and we’ll have some fun watching him come back and the Mavs will have a puncher chance against anybody if Kyrie is right and hitting some hitting some shots and stuff, but I’m not going to expect them to go in and win a playoff series against a lot of teams in the West next year. And so to me, it’s just get there, play some games, get Cooper flag that experience. To me, that that’s the number one thing. I got one. No, no, no. I got one more for you. I got one more for you, Nick. How dare you? You know what? Fine. I’ll get I’ll get you in the next segment. Go. We’ll tease it then. All right. Coming up, who’s the name most likely to be moved, if any, on the Dallas Mavericks? Plus, what do we think of the Spurs, the that other Texas team floating around? Is there a chance that the Spurs actually finish ahead of the Mavericks in the standings in the Western Conference? We’re going to get there in just one moment. Today’s episode of Locked on Maps Lock on Rockets crossovers brought to you by FiveHour Energy. I don’t know about you, but when I go golfing, just never don’t tell Five Hour Energy I don’t golf ever. They were like, “Tell talk about your wildest golf shot that you made. Talk about the golf group.” I never go golfing, but just between you and me, like when I go golfing, I get to the back nine and I’m like, “Man, feel like my feel like my stroke is needing a little bit of a punch. It’s needing a little bit of an extra juice.” And so I take a fiveh hour energy and you can get them as well right now and you can get the bold grape, ginger, and lime flavors of your favorite golf drink minus the alcohol into a quick energizing shot with 5h hour energy. Go check them out and see what you can get. They have all kinds of like different things you can do. You can get a subscription to 5-hour energy so you can get them sent over and over again which is great. But if you go to 5our Energy today, that is the number five. So 5 hour energy.com, you can use the promo code locked ongolf to receive 20% off your order of anything except for a subscription. 20% off your order of anything. So, go check it out. See what you can get. This offer is only valid until September 30th and cannot be used with other promotions. Use that whether you’re meeting up with friends or trying to turn 18 holes into 36. Get the energizing boost you need to power through. Order transfusion flavored 5hour energy shots today. [Music] Thanks for hanging out on Locked on Mavs. Locked on rockets crossover. Hanging out here having some fun. And uh the Maverick that’s most likely to get moved, Daniel Gaffford signed a contract that is able to be moved. Even though he signed an extension, he signed a contract that is like within a dollar like of being able to be moved still and being able to be traded. And so to me, that is still my answer is because I think optimally Anthony Davis plays a lot of five for this team. And as of right now, as they’re constructed, he won’t be playing a lot of five because you’re probably getting 20-ish minutes of Lively, 20-ish minutes of Daniel Gaffford. leaves like what eight minutes of of Anthony Davis at five potentially and I think the Mavs may need more of that cuz the spacing is going to be an issue for them and so Daniel Gaffford is one is one of my answers for this. So when are you when are you and uh John Carales from Locked on Celtics going to do the Anthony Simons Daniel Gaffford trade crossover. Oh my gosh. Well, we’ll see. We’ll see. Uh it needs to happen. I John Cross is banned from the show after the finals. Still banned. Come on. Get over it. It’s It’s been well over a year. Right. You guys have had plenty of other trauma to revel in since that point. So, if there’s anything that Mavericks fans don’t do, it’s get over stuff. Let’s Let’s be clear about that. Go look at the comment section probably from like yesterday and see that I’m not getting over things. Oh, Lord have mercy. All right. Um, look, I want to I want to steer the conversation towards the Spurs a little bit. Is that okay? I had a couple Rockets. More more Rockets. Okay, then we’ll do that and then we’ll talk a little bit about the Spurs at the end. True or false? Did the Rockets double down on bigs to match up with the Mavericks because they’re scared of their size? False. I just The idea that they’re scared of the Maverick size is funny. I I will say I’m going to say false. Like a resounding false. The Rockets doubled down on bigs because they like what they’re able to do with that lineup, which is crazy because they didn’t discover it until March. Yeah, they they didn’t discover it until they played the Mavs and Anthony Davis was manhandling him in his first game back from injury and he actually played himself into another injury of all things. Um but he was dominant in that first half against Houston and then he had pro a procedure on his eye too. Yeah. So look, at at the end of the day, look, I you know, I remember asking Emeoka all the way back in training camp like, “Hey, like Alper and Shingu and Stephen Adams, like maybe some double big lineups.” And he’s like, “Yeah, you’d like one of those to be a spacing big and like Alpie has the touch, but he’s not really a confident shooter and like maybe he can get to that point.” And then they just literally didn’t touch it all season long until it was like kind of one of those break glass in case of emergency things against the Mavs. They’re like, “You know what? Screw it. Let’s throw him belt out there.” And it worked really well. And then like that became the thing over the next few weeks. We were like, “Wow, the plus minus on this lineup is crazy.” And so yeah, they doubled down on it. They resigned Stephen Adams and they went and got Clint Capella so they have a certifiable uh lob threat to pair with Alper and Shingu and I have a drop for this lob threat. There it is. Good old Steven Silus. Um so yeah, no it’s not because of the Mavericks. It’s because the Rockets think they can play really really well with that big lineup. And a big part of what unlocks that is Shingun’s versatility on both sides of the floor actually. Yeah, that it was fascinating to me that like like they barely used that Steven Adams Shingun lineup and then all of a sudden in the playoffs it was like the go-to. It’s like sometimes it was their best lineup. It’s crazy. Sometimes all the regular season stuff doesn’t matter. Coaches just throw it all out and like have these ideas in their head and they just flesh them out in the playoffs and it’s like wow we could have didn’t see this once. Like as a random aside, I do love that the NBA is trending back towards the big man. Like I know that for a while there it was like it’s still it’s still going to be a you know perimeter player dominated league, guards, forwards, whatever. But the fact that we have so many teams that can confidently trot out like not just bad not just like oh he’s a third string center. they’re throwing them out there for like some, you know, we need the additional size. It’s like, no, a lot of teams in the NBA have two legitimate bigs that can actually play minutes together. And it’s I love that trend and I love seeing the direction the NBA is going with that. Oh, I mean, I had a tweet that was getting some traction lately that was like the West has so much size now. You have the Mavs with their three centers basically. The Rockets have three centers. Uh the Clippers bring in Brook Lopez to add to Zubos. You’ve got uh Yonas Valentunis playing with Joic now. You’ve got Goar and Nas Reed and then uh Johan Bearinger if he gets some if he gets some time. He was blocked at the shop in summer. Oh, and the the Grizzlies are still massive in their front court, too. Grizzlies have, you know, have some guys for sure. You’ve got uh Klingan and Yang over there with with the Blazers. We wy and they add Cornet. Uh like you just got size all over the like uh and look, I know Kelly Lynn’s not like massive, but like Kelly Olen, another very serviceable, versatile big to pair in San Antonio. Like I mean, yeah, things are look things are looking crazy in the front court in the Western Conference. Yeah, you have to have centers in the West. Like you’re gonna get destroyed. Like if you’re a team like maybe the Sacramento Kings and Sabonis is your center. Like you’re gonna have a hard year. Like that is gonna be a hard year for Sabonis. I think I think the Kings are going to have a hard year for a lot of reasons besides Sabonis. But let’s just we we don’t have to take shots at Sorry Matt. Have fun. That’s not even a shot to Matt. Like he feeds off of that. Like he just gave him a show. Honestly, there it is. Where’s Where’s the title? Locked on Rockets host takes shots at at Sacramento Kings. My colleagues My colleagues attack me. I defend the Kings coming out. There it is. That’s a YouTube title for sure. How excited are you for our guy Doring? Because he was my favorite Maverick throughout his time, the 2022 run. Just he had so many memorable moments and was just such a culture guy and loved him and was very upset to see him go to the Lakers and now now he’s with the Rockets and that’s gonna be weird. You know, it’s first off, I know that DFS is one of those guys that like, you know, you love to have him on your team. He’s such an easy guy to cheer for. He’s been loved by every fan base that he’s ever played for, basically. Um, and I know Mavs fans were like really distraught when he got traded, right? Like very sad. Happy to get back Kyrie, but very sad that he left, right? Conflicted. All right, fair. So, but like, you know, for Rocket fans, it’s also kind of a tough situation because a lot of Rockets fans really fell in love with Dylan Brooks. Like Dylan Brooks is one of those guys that’s like you love to hate him when he’s not on your team and then he’s an instant fan favorite at the moment you’re going to war with him every single night. So losing him, you know, there’s some sting there. You know, he’s stepping into some pretty sizable shoes to have to fill. He’s not going to bring that same kind of Dylan Brooks fire and intensity, you know, which is maybe for for the better cuz sometimes that fire and intensity from Dylan Brooks gets the better of him and sometimes it it, you know, lights the wrong fire under the team. But the fact that he’s going to get to slot in, you got another, you know, great defensive presence on the wing, a guy who knows his role offensively. And he’s not just right, like a, you know, spot up 3 and D, whatever. Like, he can, you know, attack off the bounce a little bit, slasher, that kind of thing. So, he brings a little bit more to the game as opposed to like some of the questionable offensive decision-m that you would get from time to time with Dylan Brooks. I’m excited for DFS in a Rockets jersey. A lot of Rockets fans are. He’s going to fit in seamlessly. I’m I’m excited for him to see him play next to Durant, see him play with those bigs. I think it’s I think it’s going to be great. Am Thompson and him are going to find some chemistry. I feel like that’ll be fun. Who’s a player on the Rockets nobody’s talking about that they should be that that nobody’s talking about that they should be? Yeah. I’m going to say I think I think Jabari Smith Jr. gets overlooked a lot. like he obviously hasn’t quite lived up to the same level of play as his two counterparts in the in the 2022 draft with Paulo Beno being like the guy for Orlando. Remember he was going to go number one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like and then and you know Ber already an all-star like and then right and then you got Chad Homegrren just won his first NBA title with you know one of the youngest teams ever assembled. Maybe the youngest. I can’t remember if that’s like a factoid or not, but um you know, so there’s been, you know, a little bit of I guess you know, I don’t want to say let down for Jabari, but because he was drafted, he was thrown into such a bad situation with the Silus era Rockets. Very little culture, accountability, no structure. He’s basically just told, you know, park him in the corner offensively, right? His his development was kind of stagnated by that first year. And then Eay comes in and Eay has to try to make do with like the sloppy leftovers of that Rockets team. And then he has to try and find roles for everybody and make things work and play winning basketball right out of the gate. And so Jabari got kind of relegated to this like, you know, 3 and D role, unfortunately. And he’s excelled in that role. He’s done really well with it. He doesn’t complain. He’s a team first mentality. When he got moved to the bench for Amen Thompson to go to the starting lineup, you didn’t hear a peep out of him. He’s such a nice guy on and off the court, and he’s a vocal guy. Um, I really feel like the addition of KD, and Jabari’s talked about this a lot. He loved watching KD growing up. One of his favorite players. Every tall guy wanted to be KD, right? You see his dribble moves, see him get to his spots on the floor. If Jabari can learn even like a little bit of like get just like 25% of KD’s bag, Jabari has a really special chance to be like an actual offensive weapon and not just like a role player plugandplay sit in the corner, wait for your spot. Like him at the elbows when he elevates over a defender. There was one game I want to say it was not this past year but two seasons ago where Jabari hit like eight midis against the Mavericks. I don’t know if you remember this. I remember that cuz Were you there? I was. That was I drove you. You were at the game and I looked at you and I said, I think if Jabari can do this, I think he might be the best of the young Rockets. I think that was that was like my take away from that game cuz it was he looks so good. There’s there’s a lot of polish to his game. There’s also a lot that hasn’t been really refined, right? And he’s working on the ball handling this off seasonason. He’s really working on his fluidity. I don’t know again that he’ll ever be as graceful as KD is on the court at 7 feet tall. That’s like that’s why KD is who he is. But being able to be in the lab with him every single day, really learning from him, having KD, you know, over his shoulder say, “Hey, when you do this, or when they guard you this way, don’t do this, make this move instead, or do this differently next time.” That’s going to be so huge for his development. Katie is going to help the development of all the Rockets young players. But I think specifically Jabari is going to learn the most from KD because their their skills, their styles of play are so similar or I guess in what Jabari could achieve or could become is similar to what KD is right now. We didn’t talk about the Spurs at all. I’m okay with it. Hey, I want to I want to just ask you one. Just one. Just one. Go for it. No, you got to say you got to say the thing, though. Do I got to say what thing? What thing? Say one more thing. Oh, one one more thing. One more thing. Sorry, Isaac. I took your bit. Um, do is there’s a chance I don’t I if I if you ask me, I think I’m taking the Mavericks over the Spurs in the seedings race. I won’t ask you where they’re seated, but like there’s a non insignificant chance that the Spurs are better than the Mavericks this year, right? Or is that just me? The Mavs are better than Yeah. I mean, if Anthony Davis is healthy and we don’t know about Victor Romanyama, like let’s be like, no, no, I said Spurs over the Mavs. That’s what I’m saying. Like I think the Spurs could be I would not be I would not be surprised by that because we’re going through our locked on top 100 right now. There are not many players I’m putting ahead of Victor right now. like he’s so good. He’s gonna be defensive player of the year if he stays healthy like that. He just it just is his award right now. I think there’s a case that Anthony Davis could get it, but only if Victor Romanyama doesn’t play enough games. Like that may be the only chance that he gets to get defensive player of the year. And so he’s that good. They added so much talent. They just got so much going on that maybe if like it’s it’s too clunky. The Dear Fox Victor Ryama thing doesn’t work out as well as we hope. They have all these young pieces and it’s like too many mouths to feed kind of deal too much development that needs to happen that that isn’t young players don’t always lead to wins and our teams both know that in certain in certain instances. Yeah. And so maybe that’s the case for the Spurs not being better than the Mavs. But when you have a player like Victor Romany makes everything so much easier for everybody else. Like I don’t know watching Carter Bryant defend like him and WBY defending is just going to be unfair I think sometimes. Yeah. But getting Yeah. like you said, getting those reps for, you know, Dylan Harper, is he going to have enough developmental runway with like the Aaron Fox and Women trying to find their chemistry and all that? And Carter Bryant’s kind of plug and play, but like still, I don’t know. That’s the the race between the Spurs and Mavs to see where they both finish in a stacked Western Conference is going to be a ton of fun. Uh, we’re going to have to do one of these re we’re going to have to revisit this little Texas crossover at some point in the season for sure. Definitely. There you go. Check out Lockdown Rockets, Lockdown Mavs. Great stuff all the time throughout the offseason. We’ll be here, guys. Thanks for watching. Locked on maps locked on rockets crossover. Peace out.

The Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets face off in a Texas-sized NBA showdown. Will Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis, and the Mavs’ defense be enough to overcome the Rockets’ offensive firepower?

Nick Angstadt and Jackson Gatlin @LockedOnRockets break down the Dallas Mavericks vs Houston Rockets matchup, discussing Cooper Flagg’s potential impact, Anthony Davis’ defensive prowess, and Kyrie Irving’s absence. They analyze the Mavs’ defensive improvements, the Rockets’ offensive challenges, and debate whether the Spurs could surprise both teams in the standings. The hosts also touch on Klay Thompson, Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford, and PJ Washington’s roles in the Mavs’ rotation.

0:00 Why are the Rockets Contenders? Kevin Durant?
8:30 Will Houston’s Guards Hold Them Back?
13:27 Cooper Flagg’s Role & Mavs Expectations
20:41 Rockets’ Big Lineup & West Size Trend
27:20 Dorian Finney-Smith on Rockets

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