Celtics sweep Pacers, Kyrie Irving and Mavs, Bill Walton’s legacy | NBA | THE HERD

Celtics sweep Pacers, Kyrie Irving and Mavs, Bill Walton’s legacy | NBA | THE HERD

with that Nick Wright joins us live I will say this you have been I think I have questioned at times Tatum you have at times have questioned the Celtics I said this earlier that history tells me the alpha wins whether it’s momes in the fourth quarter Brady LeBron Steph Kobe MJ the Celtics are more collaborative their more 2024 basketball is that sometimes Tatum floats he’s off ball he doesn’t have usage and I say to myself this this final is a classic matchup of modern collaborative basketball and a little old school Luca Kyrie give me the ball get out of the way set me a screen do you have a strong opinion about this series going into it when the Mavs finish off the t-wolves yeah yeah I mean I’m biased because going into the playoffs I think I was probably one of the only people in the country that was picking the Mavs to win the championship and so yeah I like how the maps look and I like that they’re getting healthy I know Lively is out but they’re going to be getting or Lively’s out right now but he should be back for the finals they could be getting Maxi kba who was a big loss for them they just haven’t shown that back as well and your point about going with the alpha is the best player in the series does not always win but if the best player if you’re going to overcome the other team having the best player you need to have a legendary or at least legendary adjacent team or the other team needs to be going through significant injury issues or turmoil and so the Celtics have the resume of a legendary team they have the point differential of one of the 10 best teams ever they have the record of one of the 15 best teams ever I don’t see that when I watch them and maybe part of that is because all of the teams that are on those lists have a guy who is a guaranteed statue in front of the Arena when the moment he’s done playing guy and this Celtics team does not have that they have a Hall of Famer and Jason Tatum and awesome number two in jayen brown and obviously a very well- constructed roster and maybe the best starting five in basketball but as you and I have discussed previously if Jason Tatum is the sixth or seven seventh best player in the league NBA history tells us typically that doesn’t win the championship in the last 40 years the only teams to win the championship with the sixth or seventh best player in the league as their best player are the 04 Pistons where you had the Lakers lose their entire uh Wing not Wing pardon me power forward rotation to injury and they were clearly sick of each other the’ 08 Celtics that did it with kg Ray Allen Paul Pierce three awesome players but none best player in the league level beating Kobe when he was on that level and the 2011 Mavs those would be the examples and the 2011 Mavs we attribute to LeBron melting down as people call it in that series that’s the entire list of the last 40 years every other Champion has had a guy like Luca a guy who is going to be in the top top 20 at a minimum alltime discussion so that is my hangup with Boston and Boston’s gudy record against three middling teams with all of which without their best player for part or all of the series was not enough to sway me from that initially so um you know it’s interesting and maybe I shouldn’t juxtapose this but it just popped into my head we celebrated and honored the very unique outspoken Bill Walton in his passing yesterday anti-war um anti-establishment um never antisocial uh siins politically at UCLA and we celebrated it uh Kyrie Irving similarly pushed back on our government in a vaccine I may disagree with him strongly and agree with Walton’s stance on the Vietnam War extensively but it is interesting is that the NBA has always been the sport that allows for some social opinion and there was almost no market for Kyrie Irving out of Brooklyn and in retrospect is that fair is that fair because he took a stance many did on the vaccine the Boston thing didn’t work but let’s be honest not every Star to a new Team Works in the history of the league Michael Jordan ran through coaches he just stayed in Chicago what is your view not today on Kyrie because it’s working but sort of going into today Dallas how did you what was your opinion on how it would work in his career pre this so listen I the I have I don’t even know if it’s adjusted my opinion so much as I have new information yeah I the Mavs were my pick to win the title last season and then they traded for Kyrie and I was so down on it I said well now they can’t win the title because Kyrie had been a negative when it came to winning for six consecutive years he that is not who he is now so I think the fair reading of Kyrie’s history if I may this will take a moment is this Kyrie before LeBron got to Cleveland hadn’t been a part of winning basketball at the professional level he gets to Cleveland they have this Dynamic partnership that seems to work brilliantly and beautifully in the press conference after the final game they played together in the finals in 2017 Kyrie says basically put some respect on LeBron James’s name he just averag a triple double in these finals I can’t wait to continue playing with and learning from him before they set foot on a court together again he reportedly said I so badly don’t want to be here I will have knee surgery if you don’t trade me so that seemed to be a very quick SW you know kind of flip of the pendulum out of nowhere he then gets to Boston and it flatly does not work his first year there he’s oddly not on the bench for their playoffs when he’s hurt his second year there he demands to guard Giannis in the playoffs and they get cooked he then he releases a commercial saying I hope to be here forever then demands another trade in that time frame right he scolds the media for saying how dare you say Kevin Durant and I were plotting to get together in that hallway at the all start that was just two friends talking when it turns out they were exactly doing what he said they weren’t doing gets to Brooklyn says we don’t need a coach we’re all coaches Steve Nash’s co- coach that doesn’t work out while in Brooklyn yes the vaccine but then also the very odd stubbornness about not backing down about that documentary that he promoted that to this day I don’t think he actually watched and I don’t think he believes those awful things that were in that documentary I just think he felt by boxed in and was like I’m not going to apologize because that’s not who I am so all of that was the data we had about a player who had dealt with injuries who hadn’t been a part of winning outside of the three years with LeBron that’s the data we had the data we have since then is getting to Dallas teaming up with Jason kid the relationship with Luca and his own personal maturation and evolution as a person on and off the court you are getting the very best version of Kyrie IR a socially conscious thoughtful good-hearted guy who is not letting so much of the other stuff kind of tear him off the basketball court yeah and when you have that version of Kyrie Colin he’s one of the most dynamic under 6 fo4 players in league history and so I have massive respect for what Kyrie’s uh done I have massive respect for Kyrie Irving kind of finding in the public eye who he wants to be and the Kyrie Irving the basketball player when he’s been available has always been special to watch and so yeah this is a you know into his 30s kind of evolution and reinvention and of course he deserves enormous credit for that so I grew up in the Pacific Northwest uh the first team uh I fell in love with was probably um in in my region was maybe the the sonics and then it was the BL there the 70s that was very kind to the Pacific Northwest downtown Freddy Brown Jack s m Gus Williams into Bill Walton Jeff Petri Dave toric all that stuff Jack Ramsey the legendary coach and but the league was not televised to the level it is today you I I live between equidistant between Seattle and Portland but I was in Washington state so I got Sonic stuff but I would occasionally hear Bill Shanley the Portland radio announcer who was much more colorful than the Seattle broadcaster so I and Walton was this 1974 75 76 he was this quirky figure myth mythological almost cuz you didn’t see him in the regular season you just heard about this hippie in Portland who nobody could stop and you’d seen him in college so this is the really the beginning of me watching television in the early 70s and he was against the war and outspoken and iconic clastic and all this stuff I said this morning I believe he’s several Generations ahead of his time not one that he was yic but better Defender 50 years ago is that if the injuries didn’t play place and this is hyperbolic perhaps we would say he the second best center ever to Kareem he would never score like Kareem but the second best center ever oh I think that’s legit you think so too go ahead I’m sorry I think he was on that track I just listen I if I may about because you and I have oddly different formative experiences with Bill Walton which I’ll get to but the his playing career I saw none of but because I consider myself a bit of an NBA historian and basketball historian what should be noted is this if you ask someone who is the greatest college basketball player of all time and they give any answer other than Lou Al Cinder or Bill Walton they’re wrong right those are the only two eligible answers Bill Walton did not lose a basketball game from the middle of his junior year of high school until the middle of of his year of middle of his senior year of college he had an 88 game Collegiate winning streak he was the most outstanding player in back-to-back final fours he played arguably the greatest game ever the 21 of 22 44 points he then W in the national championship game he then walks into the league and in 1977 is the best player on the champion beating Kareem and then beating Dr J when Dr J might have been the best player in the world the next year is the NBA MVP and he breaks his foot and the career is never the same so my experience with Bill Walton Colin and I don’t think I’ve ever told you this is and you’ll laugh at me when I you’ll laugh when I tell you this when I was a little kid and I told people what I wanted to do when I grew up I wanted to be Bill Walton because I didn’t know that to be the color commentator you needed to either play or coach but what he did on the NBC broadcast with Steve Snapper Jones I thought was the coolest thing ever and it is part of me falling in love with basketball he’s the soundtrack of it I like and I it I’m sad that I never once got to cross PA with him to tell him this anecdote I remember vividly being a little kid watching the NBA Playoffs watching a Bulls game and my mom saying like seeing a look on my face that I was upset and she was like what’s wrong and I’m like man Steve Jones is being so mean to bill again because I didn’t know they were like good friends and they were always giving each other a hard time and so he is and for his broadcasting career the stories that he has the stances that he took that were dangerous and risky and he stayed true to himself and oh yeah by the way was the greatest passing big man ever until joic and maybe including joic a legendary life and a legendary career yeah it’s um he was so perfectly connected to the Pacific Northwest you know which I grew up in the Pacific Northwest it’s grainy it’s it’s uh it’s got you know it’s it’s a little counterculture you know what I mean there’s no no question he grew up in California which has always been left of center in America and then he went up for the Pacific Northwest that’s the only place more left than California more left yeah yeah and uh and then he got Jack Ramsey very one of the great teachers I mean can you imagine that your two coaches he may have literally had the perfect coaches oh left right John Wooden the ultimate teacher who kind of brought him back on The Fairway bill could get a little sideways brought him back on The Fairway and then Jack Ramsey who is ow from his dress Jack Ramsey legendary for these wild like disco pants that Jack Ramsey kind of leaned in to the unique personality of Bill and the pro game’s always been a little bit more about the player than the coach but it’s fascinating that Walton loved both the restrictive Mentor in college the conservative mentor and then the colorful NBA coach and it shows the dexterity of his personality that they both loved him and he loved both it would be like going Andy Reid to bich and you got along with both and I just I I think that speaks so well 100% And then the one other kind of Final Act of his playing career he wins Sixth Man of the Year for what a lot of people consider the greatest team ever the 1986 Celtics great and adds you know and and finds a way to fit in with that very unique culture absolutely seamlessly this is you and I talked about this a couple weeks ago oddly on your podcast that he’s one of the reasons why when Damen Lillard left the Portland Trailblazers and every story R was written as greatest Blazer ever I was like you’ve got to be kidding me like Bill Walton played for them and not to mention Clyde Drexler no he and he was he more so than Grant Hill more so than Tracy McGrady more so than Derek Rose he is the biggest what if he healthy in NBA history is Bill W yeah that’s a great way to put it in the history and I’m trying to think you know Roberto CL in baseball uh the plane crash I didn’t grow up with Roberto Clem although I love those pirates teams uh that were extended Beyond him for years and years and years but I think people look at Roberto clementy and go oh that would have been maybe the greatest player of all time uh and we’ve seen this with musical stars who have either taken their life or there have been tragedies uh beyond their control but think in sports it’s very rare that you have an athlete and everybody summarily agrees oh God if he would have been healthy and nobody fights it like every basketball historian like yeah like like he was 21- 22 against Memphis in a national championship game 21 of 22 to go by the way by the way after that was after being undefeated on the freshman team and to finish his second straight undefeated year for the you know the varsity team at UCL he had never lost a game was going for his second straight title was 21 of 22 yeah there is a there the other athlete that comes to mind I guess would be Bo Jackson where people are like oh man what would have been but Walton absolutely was on that level and that to me is a testament to his the beauty of his spirit and I’m really glad we’re spending the time on this uh is that that he didn’t become bitter or jaded because of that he instead transition to okay I’ll make the most of what’s left of my NBA career and then be Associated he went from calling the NBA Finals to doing Pack 12 after dark and just loved every minute of it yeah and so God bless him and his friends and family I went back uh uh yesterday and watched 30 35 minutes of old Blazer and UCL anything I could get my hands on he was on the Clippers uh and and I’m glad you gave them credit the the best iteration of that Celtics team could have very well been the 86 team and uh he was I mean it just Walton was just a phenomenal player and you know the only positive that ever comes out of a sudden death or one that surprises us is that it becomes a history lesson and Walton is teaching us so much about uh getting along viewing the world uh willing to compromise your own goals sacrificing for others build is a bit of a walking history lesson and there when the more you read about him the the better person you want to be like I read things on Bill yesterday I’m like you know I got to be better at that I I got to be a better teammate and I think that’s a great acknowledgement of Bill is that you read things about him and think I need to be a little better person and he might be and I know we got to go he might be the main character or he is the main character of what might be the greatest sports book ever written WR breaks of the game by Tom howon and so if people want to kind of they followed the 77 Blazers around for a year and Walton’s at the center of that and so now I mean goodness that’s a you know almost a 50y old book at this point but I don’t know that any sports books ever topped it it’s definitely worth people’s time if they want to know more about that era of basketball and also Bill Walton and that Blazer give that book one more pop because I’m going to buy it on Amazon what’s it called oh breaks of the game breaks of the game I mean it’s probably the most famous sports book of the at least I don’t know man pre Friday Night Lights maybe ever breaks of the game by Tom H how I’m going to mispronounce the name habram pardon me is probably the greatest sports book ever written yeah there you go pre plug hey uh great seeing you buddy hi everybody it’s me Uncle Colin subscribe here to get the latest from the herd including exclusive behind the scenes videos and more wherever you may be however you may be watching thanks again for making us part of your day

The Boston Celtics swept the Indiana Pacers and are now in the NBA Finals. Colin Cowherd and Nick Wright discuss the Celtics’ path to the Finals, and if they can win it all with this core. Plus, they discuss Kyrie Irving’s impact on the Dallas Mavericks’ series with the Minnesota Timberwolves, as well as Bill Walton’s legacy.

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Celtics sweep Pacers, Kyrie Irving and Mavs, Bill Walton’s legacy | NBA | THE HERD

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