FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith: Jokic & Nuggets are favorites next year despite Luka great playoffs
sure are good day what’s going on everyone welcome into First Take No Stephen A today I let him take a day off just one but don’t you worry we are crewed up good morning everyone welcome to First Take Molly car Udonis Haslam good to see you Monica mcnut Brian windhorse and Wendy we let you go home so I mean I’m I’m sure your family was excited to see did you did did they recognize you did did your wife and kids recognize you yes well no there was a there was a long list of chores waiting on arrival tacked to the door oh I love it we call that the honey D list the honey D list you know what it is I’m glad you got to be at home all right guys and as you just saw Championship parade will be tomorrow in Boston again huge congrats to the Boston Celtics they were knocking for a while finally got it done meanwhile on the other side the Maverick season may not have finished how they hoped for raising a Larry O’Brien but let’s not diminish the run that Luca Kyrie and the Mavs had from a fifth seed all the way to a finals appearance now despite his much malign defense Luca donic led the Mavericks to their first NBA Finals appearance since 2011 becoming the first player in league history to lead an entire postseason listen to this in scoring rebounds assists and steals in the process but obviously not enough to complete the job versus a talented Celtics team so Monica I want to come to you on this do you feel like these playoffs increased or diminished Luca I really want to say it’s a neutral Molly because I don’t think anything was revealed that we didn’t already know so I’m going to go increase I’m going just choose to be optimistic there’s no way that the Mavs get to this point all the stats that you just rattled off without Luca in the finals ultimately you saw a team that just was overmatched or outmatched I should say luk and Kyrie were fantastic but again because of the path that the Celtics had to get there I think most of us did not give them credit for how um challenging they could be on both sides of the basketball like they were uniquely poised and skilled and have the roster to match up with what the Mavs were looking to do so to me I’m going to say it increase because Luka got you here right we talked about it for the Celtics in terms of the opportunity to grow and learn and how many times they have been close but not quite so I think increase because they don’t get there without Luca and the things that we saw that are areas of growth for him I think we already knew that if you’ve been following him through the regular season you D what do you think did he move the needle either way well um Stephen A in the building today so I got my suit I got my SU game right game right I got to agree with Monica I say increased I mean we talk about Dallas is not there if LCA is not on that team and we talk about the statistics the first to lead in points rebounds assists and steals so what we saw in that finals is we just saw some immaturity but what we saw from the Lakers was maturity we forget about the sleepless nights we forget about the losses we forget about the immature Jason Tatum we forget about the immature Jaylen Brown they had to go through this process Luca is just going through the process I don’t think he diminished his his players U ratings or any of that at all I think he increased it Wendy what do you think has the narrative changed on him I The Narrative hasn’t changed but I think he was terrific in the postseason and I think one of the things that’s most impressive about him is how many upsets he’s now got on his resume in the playoffs obviously the one with the Suns two years ago I thought that Suns team was headed to the finals for sure and had a great chance to win that was as prepared of a team to get to the finals as I’d ever covered almost six I think they had 62 or 63 wins or something like that and Luca just took him down and now he comes into this postseason now I know I know that saying that there was a big difference between the five seed and the one seed in the west you know that’s not really true because of how tightly packed the talent is there but they were they w three straight Series where they won as the underdog as the as the lower seed I’m telling you I went to game five in La when they played the Clippers in the first round and I know the Kawai was banged up but it was two too and that series certainly felt like it could go either way and he was brilliant um you know the the Timberwolves were is riding as high as they have in their in their franchise history uh coming off that series victory over Denver they had homec court they had huge momentum ant was playing the best basketball of his career and Luca came in there and totally LED that charge in taking that team down in five games all of that stuff is incredibly impressive um you know to to have you know already you know four Series in your career where you’ve won as the as not having homecourt Advantage I mean that’s LeBron James type stuff at this point in his career um I think what it comes back to is what we know about him which is that he struggles defensively when he has to give Max Energy offensively and what I mean by that Molly is in the second half of the Season down the stretch of the Year Luca had played some of the best defense of his career he was downright at times a plus Defender as a as a postup Defender there were time you know because he’s big and strong um and then I think what happened was when you got into the later stages of the playoffs and they were asking so much of him on the offensive end both in terms of the usage rate and the minutes he just took he took it easy and took took breaks on the defensive end and that’s something we see players do literally at every level you see high school stars do the same thing and that was a regression from Luca and that’s why you hear people from the Mavericks and elsewhere talk about his conditioning and you know I you know and and so but that was already there but I think all in all Luca had a tremendous postseason certainly elevated himself and uh you know the the future is very bright for him in the Mavericks yeah I think he showed us even more that he can get it done and what you alluded to the other day on the show and just now obviously the issue being what he can control he needs to control in terms of the refs and the conditioning to obviously take it to the next level all right so we all agree on that one so I want to push this conversation forward because I find the West really interesting it didn’t go exactly as how we expected it to play out several teams looked to be contenders again this season Wendy I’m going to come back to you on this who do you feel like should be the favorites in the west next season Molly you are so right this next month is going to be so fascinating for some of these Western teams that have big things going on in this off season and because everybody is so tightly packed individual moves that happen uh in the next few weeks could very well determine the title next year I mean it was right about this week last year where the Chris ABS porzingis trade started getting going and arguably that was one of the biggest moves that happened in the whole NBA last year so My pick on this question is the Nuggets I think the nuggets are still very formidable I think if the Nuggets had reached the finals against the Celtics I think we’d still be working the the NBA Finals right now I think that series is a seven game series but I also want to point out that the nuggets have some stress sitting on their plate every team has some stress but the nuggets have some stress sitting on their plate over the next couple weeks and the first I want to talk about is cavius called well pooke he has a player option for $15 million that he can pick up for next year by the end of the month he is widely expected to turn that down and become an unrestricted free agent the nuggets are under a significant amount of pressure to keep him and that’s because that after they lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green into in free agency last summer they did not have any of their young players really step up over the development process this year and present themselves as an alternative starter now if kentavius cwell Pope walks and I’m going to tell you right now I can think of eight to 10 teams that would instantaneously want him all of them contenders not all of them can pay him more money than the Nuggets would be able to but certainly several will make him significant offers you could say that Christian Brown could step up into that role but then that creates a hole behind him the nuggets have got to get contavious calwell Pope locked down and it’s probably going to cost him a lot of money especially in the luxury tax and I don’t think they have much of a choice other than to pay it and so that’s it’s not a a headline in the NBA free agency in the next couple of weeks but if you’re asking me about Denver they’re a contender if they get bring if they bring back that starting five which for most of the season was the best starting five in the league the other thing I’m going to say is they’ve got to get a Jamaal Murray extension done Murray has one year left on his contract he’s not a free agent he elected not to extend last summer they need to get that done and you know because they need to make sure they have Murray and joic into the future they need to get Jamal Murray in a place where he believes he’s comfortable I would assume that’s with a four-year Max offer um he could wait another year he doesn’t have to sign it now but he’s going in to play for the Olympics for Canada uh the Canadians are strong candidates to medal if he is on that team I I would suspect he may want to get that settled before he goes over to France and plays so the nuggets are my answer but let’s see where they are in July 15 Minnesota timber Wes for me yeah Minnesota timber wolves and Ant-Man I’m looking at those guys and I’m looking at Ant-Man who we say is the closest thing to m on and off the basketball court if you look at what the Boston Celtics were talking about when they got the championship this year the pain the pain of the loss the pain of the disappointment the last couple years Minnesota has felt that pain they have felt the pain of the loss they have felt the pain of the disappointment if Ant-Man is truly truly the heir to Michael Jordan if he is truly that type of guy that pain will drive him that pain you think that narrative changed though because we were leading up to it but then once they finally lost do you feel like that narrative still continues that he could be the next Michael Jordan I do yes definitely he’s still young too and he still has time I still think he has time to grow but what what will they get from cat that is the answer will cat be the cat that they need him to be because if cat was the cat they needed him to be then we could be having a completely different conversation about who wins that Series against Dallas so my question is if cat is the cat they need to be then I like Minnesota to be in the finals Nation because they will be driven and they will be up at night Sleepless because of that pain of losing that’s what drives you golly those are two great choices for the sake of the discussion I want to toss in third but I actually believe that it’s going to be the Nuggets that should be favored I look I think the nuggets are now experiencing sort of the same thing we did to Dallas yes this year was a difficult run but I think it reiterates how challenging it is to become a dynasty or to run it back right like they had a monster Target on their back the t-s were playing fantastic they don’t get it done this year but essentially if they could protect their core La I’m old enough to remember last year the way we talked about this team like in terms of their window being open and so I just think that there’s an experience there that you kind of just can’t get until you get it um but I’m with you in terms of the Wolves being right there I think OKC might be one of these teams that surprises us and does it before they hit Prime of your career age since they are such a young group uh to me Shay gilders Alexander and Jaylen Williams are the closest duo we have when you talk about pairs to compare a guy to what we’ve seen from Tatum and brown but for me for this question I’m going back to the Nuggets because I still think nickola yage is that dominant in the league okay so I’ve heard nuggets I’ve heard te- wolves I saw see getting getting my final answer hold on time out who was just in the finals the Dallas Mavericks so no no love for Dallas in terms of repeating getting back I think D I think no no disrespect but I think Dallas caught lightning in the bottle I think with yeah I think with that trade I think they surprised a lot of people I think those guys and those pieces fit a lot better than people anticipated that they would fit I think they brought in those dogs so that change the mentality and and what how we View Dallas um but I don’t know if they do it again next year right away right the Dallas thing is interesting and one of my favorite numbers from the postseason run was if you looked at their defensive rating from February to the end of the season it was only like a 7 margin between what Dallas was able to do and Boston was able to do and Boston’s defense was vaed all year long but I kind of think back to the year the Lakers got to the Conference Finals after LeBron was sitting out and then they had that run with ad and he got healthy and then they made some trades and it was like a shorter span I do wonder what it’s going to look like through the duration of a year now on the one hand you could get better more continuity all of that good and on the other you got to extend out your consistency at being great there’s no way they get back to the finals next year if luuka doesn’t fix his habits and these are things that we talk about the maturity being challenged by your coaching staff in your locker room you caught lightning in the bottle this year you’re not going to get there the same way you did like you got here this year you’re gonna have to get better you’re gonna have to do better Yeah Wendy where are you on this yeah so I definitely put Dallas very high up there I might even have him second I I I think it would have been amazing if Denver had had beaten Minnesota to see how that series went because I don’t think Minnesota quite handled the success of that very well they just didn’t start that series out at home with the same momentum you felt their inexperience in those first couple of games in Minnesota and they went down 02 I don’t think that happens if it’s Denver so I think Denver Dallas in the Conference Finals would have been remarkable I don’t know who wins that series if they’re in a full power Dallas can improve their roster they they still have some trade assets that they can use and I think they will use it they have they have shown that they’re willing to go right now they have traded away draft Assets in 2029 2030 um I think that they will keep doing I think that they could use another Wing Defender um they’re still kind of missing the you know the Dorian finny Smith roll and they traded it away was still was a great trade it was for he was in the deal for Kyrie Irving they don’t have that type of player that you’d need against a team like Boston so I think they’ll be out in the market I don’t think they’re getting another star but I think that they can improve this team and and Elevate themselves I will say something about Oklahoma City here one of the most interesting things in this offseason that won’t be something that’s discussed routinely on our shows right at the start is that the Oklahoma City Thunder have $30 million in salary cap room wow now I can’t remember the last time we saw a team Finish First in their conference and that’s what they were they were the number one seed that goes into the off season with $30 million in cap room now they’ve got a bunch of players on their roster they’ve got to pay into the future Jaylen Williams I think is is going to be a high earner Chad holgren is going to be a high earner they they can’t go crazy also they’re not really a free agent destination but there’s a lot of different ways to use salary cap space you can use it to absorb players in trade specifically so I think one of the big things out there as you look at the West for next year what do the Thunder do with that $30 million is it something that gives them a shortterm or medium-term bounce that changes this conversation so again I say this is a this is a really good topic here June boy is it going to be interesting by mid July that’s a lot of money the books to be that good yeah great Point Wendy yeah and speaking of that Wendy obviously free agency right around the corner June 30th about 10 days away and one Allstar who has option oh for e knif goes in guts come out first Blood an enemy has been defeated out of this aeration you have defeated an enemy now is gone an enemy has been [Music] defeated poon golden scen men break too easily not fun at all been defeated an enemy has been defeated obliteration ultimate double kill triple kill must is tingling your team has destroyed a tower dominating double [Music] kill your tower has been destroyed our base is under attack defeat [Music] Hereafter your heart only beats for me all got for shall we enter a covenant you will be mine forever care
FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith: Nikola Jokic & Nuggets are favorites next season despite Luka & Mavs have great playoffs
