Too late for Clippers to capitalize on the Kawhi - PG Era? + Malone's Nuggets experience

Ty Lou, though, hopes to finally make the Clippers into heavyweight contenders this season. And I want you guys to hear what he had to say about a conversation with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George about managing this season. One thing I do, you know, one thing I told Kawhi and PG this summer, like, we do got to approach the regular season in a different way. Like, we got to be, you know, most of regular season, like, let's be serious about it. Let's not wait to the playoffs. Yeah, because it matters who you get matched up with. Having a home court advantage, not fighting the last 10 games of the season. So we won't be in the play-in. So now you can get rest. Now you can get yourself together and be ready for the playoffs. And so they both understood that as well. All right, the Kawhi and PG era for the Clippers definitely hasn't gone the way they've hoped. But when they both have been on the floor, the results have been good. The only problem, of course, has been availability. The Clippers have played 345 games since the duo joined the team in 2019, but have had both in the lineup at the same time for just 142 of those games. Now joining NBA Today ESPN NBA reporter Oum Young-Masouk. And Oum, in this Paul George and Kawhi Leonard era for the Clippers, how does this upcoming season feel different than the previous four, if at all? Cass, we are entering year five, can you believe it, of the Kawhi-Paul George era. It just seemed like it was a couple years ago when they made that announcement that they were going to get these two guys and the earthquake shook throughout the West Coast. But they have not been able to live up to the expectations simply because of their health. And it's become a source of frustration within this organization at times. I remember there was a time when they had both were out for a couple games. And I think it might have been like a four or five game stretch. They came back and practiced on a Friday and on a Saturday afternoon, there was supposed to be a game December 3rd against Sacramento, one o'clock tip. I think the organization was excited to have their two stars back. And that morning, Tyloo announced both of them were out. And I remember just frustration throughout the organization. I remember someone even saying to me, what are we doing? It feels like we're just throwing away games. And the Clippers have to get rid of that attitude. Yes, do they want to have their healthy star, their stars healthy come playoff time? Absolutely. But they saw what the Denver Nuggets did last year. They definitely took note of it. Lawrence Frank saw that they held on to the number one seed for the entire season, the Western Conference. They don't want to be fighting for seating at the end in the final two weeks or even trying to stay out of the play in game. They need to take the regular season more seriously and also make sure their two stars are healthy. So they're going to need to make some tweaks to their approach to the regular season. Zach, you said heading into last season that it was the most important Clippers history. So what is this season? So Ohm said, this is year five of Kauai and PG and like year 80 of the NBA. So it's nice that now the Clippers have decided to have a conversation about maybe we should take the regular season seriously. I don't know, guys. Do you think we should have another meeting about it? It's about freaking time. And this season, if last season was the most important in Clippers history, this season feels like the first one in which you have to ask the question, is it too late? Is it too late already? Even if we decide to take the regular season seriously, even if we're healthy, because these guys are now 32, 33 years old, they're not 28 and 29 anymore. Can we even bank on them being healthy? And out the door has gone Eric Gordon. And yeah, they brought Russ back. Yeah, they brought Mason Plumlee back. And K.J. Martin will be a nice addition. But in terms of who they're bringing back, Marcus Morris and Robert Covington kind of disappeared from their rotation late last year and in the playoffs. They don't appear as deep as they did a year ago. Right now, they're just a year older. Other teams in the West around them have loaded up. And it's great to hear that the Clippers have decided to try to figure out this concept of the regular season. But this is the first season where they have to answer the question, is the window already closed? Perk, is it too late? No, it's not too late. And I think when you listen to Talu comments, Talu is not a person that speaks out a lot, right? We hear him talk to the media during the season, but he don't really do interviews. And so I thought this message was more so not just to Kawhi and PG, but to the Clippers organization, basically saying, hey, man, listen, Talu haven't signed a contract extension. I believe he has one year left. They could be in jeopardy of losing him because, you know, if he hit the market as a head coach, I know a lot of teams that will be knocking at the door to sign him. But again, it comes down to them being healthy. They have more than enough pieces. This, even without Paul George this past postseason, I picked him to beat the Phoenix Suns in the first round. And if Kawhi wouldn't have got injured, that series would have probably went seven games the way he was playing. Again, Kawhi and PG, they got to make sure that they get with the medical staff before the season start. I know they always look at the schedule and say, okay, we're going to quote unquote load management this week or these games. But again, like Talu say, I'm not here to come in and coach every single night, not knowing what players are going to be available. And they have legitimate injuries and had legitimate injuries, but still in all a coach to Talu standards, he wants to win the championship and he wants to coach a team that's healthy to give him an opportunity to win the championship. Perks, Zack and Cassidy, the Clippers are at a crossroads here. I mean, they, they clearly know that their championship window is shrinking. Paul George even told me in the sit down entering last season of training camp in Las Vegas, that he understood the assignment. They had to start get going and try to win a championship because he knew that window was closing. Now it's year five. Look, the Clippers also have to figure out what are we going to do with the future? Steve Ballmer here is sitting. He's on the doorsteps of opening his new arena after next season, but also guess what? Kawhi Leonard is eligible for a contract extension right now. Paul George is up for a contract extension in September. What do the Clippers do? Zack and I've had the discussion here. I think if the Clippers looking at the availability, their two stars, the age, and also how punishing that CBA can be for luxury tax paying teams like the Clippers, they have to be smart about this. So the victor goes to spoils and the nuggets are acclaimed to the crown as reigning champions. And Caesars has the nuggets with the best odds to win the title next season followed by the Celtics, Suns, Bucks, and Heat. So with the new expectations ahead for Denver, Zack had a chance to catch up with Michael Malone on the latest episode of the wildly successful Low Post podcast. It seemed like that night went on and on and on, and nobody wanted to leave the locker room and no one wanted to lose the moment of winning the first championship in Nuggets history, 49 years in the making. The number of people I heard from that I had not heard from in years was just incredible and how proud they were of not just winning it, but the journey, all the different steps along the way. And that was a really cool part of this celebration, if you will, is hearing from the people that care about you and have a lot to do with you getting to where we are right now. I'm not a big social media person. My two daughters, I have two beautiful girls, Caitlin and Bridget, and they're on social media and they'll share with me sometimes really funny comments. The one thing I did see that cracked me up was Nicole Yogich might be the MVP of the NBA, but Malone was definitely the MVP of the parade. Tomorrow's not promised for anybody, and getting back to the NBA finals is certainly not promised because things change quickly in this business. My wife was on the fire truck with me, with my girls, with Brian Bowen and his family, and she was doing her best. She was trying to get me to slow down. You got a big speech to make. You don't have to chug every beer they throw up in the fire truck. That was a cool part. You talk about people who reached out to me, Zach. I heard so many people reach out and said, Hey, that's the Mo Malone that I know. I was on the phone with Steve Kerr, and Steve Kerr, who's won how many? Four. He was like, I loved every minute of it. Good for you. All of us felt if we could ever get Jamaal and Michael back and add the right pieces, because this year was not just about getting Jamaal and Michael back healthy, because we knew the last time that we were fully healthy, we made the Western Conference Finals. If you look at the life and the arc of every great team and player in the NBA, you have to go through failure. You have to go through certain teams to reach the mountaintop. We knew that if we got back to the Western Conference Finals, our guys will be better off for the first experience, a little bit more seasoned and ready. And I think this year we showed that when we played the Lakers and the Western Conference Finals. Health is so important. I mean, you have to be lucky to win a championship. You have to be talented, but things have to break your way. When did you first know that Jokic could maybe be, if not this, worse than like a first or second team, all NBA player? He was a center, first team all rookie as a center. And I'm playing him at the four. What am I doing? And from that point in time, the whole franchise changed. We're going to play through you, play your game, be unselfish, make everybody around you better. And let's just see where, where this goes. And we've gone the right way. An incredible listen, make sure to download it, where you get your podcast. I was just hoping that you were throwing him beers during the podcast. So you can get, you know, a lot of information out of him, but it was just a small snippet from your nearly hour long interview with coach Malone. What was your biggest takeaway from the conversation? Just the patience that it took. The fact that they all realized once they traded for Aaron Gordon in 2021. Oh, wow. This is working really, really well. We might be a championship level team. And then just like that, eight games later, Jamal Murray tears his ACL. Michael Porter later suffers injury issues and the patience to wait those two years for Jamal and Michael to get healthy for that team. That looks so promising for six, seven, eight games to be whole again. It had to be agonizing. You had to feel impatient. Like, can we get there? Can we get there? And you also had to question it. Are we ever going to get that back? Was it a mirage for them to wait through that and just kind of soldier through and lose in the first round and lose in the second round and wait and wait and wait and then have it snap back the way it did. That's a pretty rare thing. And I think it made them all kind of cherish the championship more. I mean, for most of them, it's their first one for Denver. It's their first one. But that waiting was both agonizing. And I think in a way, exciting for the nuggets in the interim, because they knew there's a light at the end of the tunnel. So if we can get those guys back, we just got to get them back and kind of resume where we were. Oum, what do you think is going to be the biggest challenge ahead of the? Yeah. Zach, you're absolutely. Michael Malone's absolutely right. I walked by that locker room at about 2 in the morning, and I heard the party was still going on. I went in. I heard music. I saw the Jokic brothers dancing. I told the scariest and most intimidating Jokic brother that he was my favorite Jokic brother. He gave me a hug and squeezed my head, kissed me on the cheek, and all I felt was beer and sweat. But I think Jokic is still actually celebrating. We see him online singing, karaoke-ing all the time. Once he gets back, though, listen, the Nuggets are going to have the best starting five in the league. They just got to make sure they keep them healthy. Jamal Murray almost kind of made us forget that he was even out with that ACL injury as good as he was in the playoffs. And he told me in the locker room right after they won the championship, I said, what happens now that you and Joker finally have a taste of a championship? He said, this is the first of many to come. To me, the question for the Nuggets is the bench. Can they replace Jeff Green? Can they replace Bruce Brown? Does Reggie Jackson have enough left in the tank? I think he will. Christian Brown obviously has earned a bigger opportunity after a great, solid rookie season. Is Peyton Watson a guy that the Nuggets are very excited about? Can he take that next step? Or will it be one of these rookies that they drafted? Can they find another Christian Brown? The bench, to me, will be the question. And also, can that starting five stay healthy?