The Mavs offered a CLEARER PATH for Klay Thompson than the Lakers – Brian Windhorst | First Take

The Mavs offered a CLEARER PATH for Klay Thompson than the Lakers – Brian Windhorst | First Take

MZ remain 11 to1 to win the title after yesterday’s news broke about Thompson joining the team all right CH I’m going to start with you on this one how close does clay put the Mavs to a title oo this is a good one uh it’s twofold just like Wendy’s first answer and I by by the way Wendy I love the unqualified successful uh celebration day that was a bar that was a bar um how close does clay put the Mavs you know the Mavs were truly the Dark Horses of the NBA season especially after the trade deadline and dark horses are very fitting for Texas a Texas team now getting Klay Thompson is a step closer to True contention for them and I’m talking about like big contention getting back to the NBA finals because if there were two major criticisms that the Mavs had during the NBA Finals it would be how would the most dominant player in the NBA Fair against the most dominant team and Luca did struggle when even though he led the postseason in points and rebounds and assists and best you know if you think about it there were countless opportunities that Luca had based off of the gravity that he possesses that he generated for his teammates and they got themselves in a hole I remember the number they shot N9 for 31 in the first two games of the NBA Finals they shot 24% from three the worst in a series in 10 years now enters Klay Thompson now you have a guy that is one of the if not arguably the best catch and shooters in the NBA Klay has made the most catch and shoot threes over the the last 10 seasons so he will help plug in and fix that hole but I think the other big criticism that the Mavs had was not just their catching shoot off of Luca it was also their defense our research team at ESPN had some wild numbers that I think set the internet on fire talking about defensive blow buys and historically bad defense the Mavs their number one priority has to be to fix that because as much as clay we knew earlier in his career he’s that three and D guy things have sort of changed so you will fix the offense but how will the mass fix the defense if they can solve those two points they could be back where we just saw them a few weeks ago well Clay is such a good fit in Dallas and that’s the reason he picked the Mavericks and that’s when you know when free agency started that’s why Nico Harrison and Jason kid were out here in La meeting with him because they wanted to show him what he already knew clay knew he was going to leave uh the Warriors for months it was not a surprise to anybody there and so he spent the spring shopping for a new team he was watching the way the Mavericks were playing he saw the Mavericks missing all of those threes in the finals and he obviously saw he’d be a perfect fit there so I’m not surprised the fit the thing about it is when you look at different situations with different teams what clay was doing for the Warriors last year may not have been the the type of thing that the Warriors needed but it is exactly what the Mavericks need it’s not just because he’s a perfect fit for the Mavericks doesn’t make him a perfect fit for the Warriors especially if he had wanted a salary that was much much higher than this this salary this role this team this time really does make sense because what you saw them need as CH was talking about is exactly what clay can provide the guy is going to take 500 catch and shoot three-pointers or something next year and he’s going to make hundreds of them he is going to have some nights where he just kills the opposition he’s going to look great um for the Mavericks it’s going to be a really good fit the reason you just want to see a little bit more first off when it comes to the whole West it’s a very competitive situation is not it’s not a commentary on the Mavericks it’s just look how good these top teams are look how good the Timberwolves are look how good the nuggets are the Oklahoma City Thunder have had the best off season in the Western Conference they’ve absolutely smashed it out of the park and they are only going to get better the thing that you that you look at this transaction and you worry about a little bit if you’re Dallas they had he is going to replace drik Jones in the starting lineup that is where his role is going to be and he will get those minutes Jones is a terrific athlete he’s gonna go play for the Clippers now um the trades that they made they had to make three trades to make this Klay Thompson transaction work and they moved out Josh Green who’s a you know quality backup they they moved out Tim Hardway Jr and they lost uh A Jones and so you take a really good Defender with great athleticism who was a rim Runner who was that that lob threat and you put clay in there is a loss there there is a defensive penalty there there is an athleticism deficit there so the there there’s definitely ads with Clay but there are going to be some concerns especially the defensive end for Dallas well we we know that Clay is nowhere near the defensive player that he used to be but I think this puts them much much much closer to a title when I factor in everything that you guys have talked about what the numbers looked like in the finals I mean these were Boston and Dallas the two top teams this season in few in threes attempted during the year there no accident that they ended up uh in the finals from that standpoint but Boston was second in terms of three-point shooting percentage and Dallas was 13th you saw all the misses in the finals part of that is because of outstanding perimeter defense from Boston part of that is because we know that Luca wasn’t anywhere near 100% in this so I think you add clay somebody who has been there before and now is at a different juncture of his career and can be very very effective if they employ him in the role that he’s going to fit in the most and that’s playing 30 minutes a night that’s likely being on the you know on the floor at the end of the game in terms of needing somebody to make a big shot and it just takes some of the pressure off of Kyrie and off of Luca two guys who have come together in the last year after that failed initially and they seem to have found the right chemistry together and now they add somebody who has been there and won four championships all of those are very good things the one thing I I do think that we need to remember is that you know second half of the year really after the trade deadline the Mavericks were much much better defensively and it was a surprise to a lot of us because it had been bad very bad as Chan is talking about historically bad at times I I’m not going to sit here and expect them to be a dominant def Ive team I will expect them to be more consistent in that regard uh I want to ask you Wendy because there was a lot of conversation about the fact that that clay could end up in LA with the Lakers what does this say about the Lakers that he chose the Mavs over them I I just think that it says the Mavs are in a better spot and that’s not a controversial position the Mavs were just in the finals um you know and the other thing was the Mavs were more aggressive about this the M like I said they made several trades to clear this situation out the Lakers made no trades now that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have some things on the runway that if clay had given them the nod they couldn’t have done otherwise they wouldn’t have made the offer to him but um I I just think the MS are in a better place there’s a better spot for him there’s a more clear path at Dallas I don’t know exactly how JJ is going to coach with the Lakers JJ could end up giving the Lakers a terrific bounce and the and the changes that he has made could end up really changing their situation but right now it’s a little bit hypothetical and if you’re clay and you’re really trying to win because you’re taking less money here you know the amount of money that he still could have gotten from the Warriors he’s gonna get less than than than if he had I think the off I know they hadn’t really given him an offer in the last few weeks but I think if he had prioritized money he would have gotten more so he’s taking less money he wants to go to a place that can win and Dallas is just that and I also want to point something out because I’ve seen people comparing the Lakers offer to the Mavericks offer like they weren’t close I think you know the it was reported that the Lakers were offering 80 million and he ended up signing for 50 I just want to be clear about this the Lakers offer over for 80 was over four years this this this offer with Dallas is over three so it’s not it’s not years to years if if clay had demanded four years I think Dallas would have gone there and the differences in the in the in the annual value when you configure in the taxes are really not there so financially there wasn’t significantly a difference between the Lakers offer and the Mavericks offer maybe a few dollars I don’t think money had any really at the end of the day had anything to do with it I think he just liked the opportunity in Dallas to win quickly now uh Wendy yeah you probably uh could have been what a Financial Manager cuz you got those numbers all in order no you still have one hired yes no um you know to me what what this says what this says to me about the Lakers I think we had this Stark realization when it went to entering the playin and even the postseason this was the first first time that we saw I believe KD in the sixth spot in the west we saw LeBron in the play in we saw Steph in the play in and there is a transfer of power happening right now in the NBA I mean it’s the young guys it’s the young squads it’s not the collections of the big threes it’s actually teams built off of chemistry and ethic and so when I look at playay not choosing La I do think that me being in LA and talking to a lot of Lakers fans on the day-to-day basis fans it’s hard to process the reality when expectations don’t meet it because you know I was just thinking yesterday that the Lakers franchise has been so good when it comes to the transference of power and still winning championships from welt to Magic to Shaq to Kobe and now we’re in the era of LeBron even though LeBron is trying to transfer powers to Anthony Davis there has still been this reality that they can still pursue championships but the truth is as Wendy alluded to earlier the West is just lined up different it’s hard for them to compete particularly with the way that their roster is built and the fact that people are not choosing La I don’t think it’s necessar like oh I don’t want to play for the Lakers the reality is is that they don’t want to play probably for a team that is still trying to fight to get out of the playing that has a lot of questions versus Klay Thompson looking at a team like the Dallas Mavericks that has a lot of upside that has Luca donic who if Luca is not coming off of this last NBA Finals run more motivated than ever before because we saw him respond to a lot of the criticism but it was too little too late you have a lot of key pieces of this new guard of the NBA and I do think for the Lakers it’s tough to process that you have LeBron James you have ad but still it’s hard for you to land free agents because in generations of the past it’s like you want to come to Hollywood you want to come to LA because this is where your game will go to Supernova levels but that’s not the way the NBA is designed now as Wendy said there’s OKC I think the Nuggets will have something to say the Dallas Mavericks are coming you know coming the transfer of power for one Lakers franchise has shifted to a transfer of power to new guard in the NBA that I think clay sort of realized hey I have a better chance at winning here versus this expected reality of what the Lakers had been you know it really doesn’t say very much good about the Lakers right now and I I know that we’re going to talk about the Lakers all the time because they’re the Lakers and it’s LeBron and it’s Anthony Davis but didn’t Klay Thompson just tell us a lot about the Lakers situation like there have been little hints here and there along the way about whether or not they were a true legitimate Contender let’s look at some of the history here when was the last time the Lakers were higher than a five seed it’s been like 10 11 years and I I know they’ve got the summer camp Championship from a few years ago and maybe I’m downplaying that a little too much but I’m looking at clay he’s got got every reason to want to be a Laker you’ve got a chance to play with LeBron you’ve got a chance to play with ad you are exactly what they need your father is still calling the games for that team you could not have more ties to an area than clay does to LA and yet does this really ever feel like the Lakers were a a real consideration in all of it it it kind of it really doesn’t it doesn’t feel like that at all and I I get it with state income tax the money is not really all that different because it’s only a three-year deal but if you clay and you want to show the Golden State Warriors that you still have a lot left and that they did you dirty your best opportunity to do that is with the Dallas Mavericks [Music] he

On First Take, Brian Windhorst, Chiney Ogwumike and Chris Carlin join Christine Williamson to discuss Klay Thompson signing with the Dallas Mavericks over the Los Angeles Lakers.

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