- 4 days ago
The Locked on Heat podcast host joins Gelb, Appel and Crowder to share his thoughts on LeBron James choosing Philly over Miami, and where that leave the Heat.
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00:00Gelb and Appel in for Hockman and Solana.
00:04Channing Crowder here as well.
00:06Move over, Solana, because the best voice talking Miami Heat
00:09is Wes Goldberg, locked on heat,
00:12and he joins us on the Toyota of Hollywood hotline.
00:14Chop over 2,000 Toyotas on sale at one location.
00:17Toyota of Hollywood on 441 between Hollywood and Sheridan.
00:21Toyotaofhollywood.com.
00:22Wes, how are you?
00:23Good. How are you guys?
00:25Doing fantastic.
00:26So, should Heat fans be annoyed at LeBron?
00:30Do you feel like maybe the Heat were a little misled here by King James?
00:35I don't think they were misled.
00:37I think they actually were pretty straightforward with the whole process
00:40the entire time.
00:41It helped that, you know, his agent had a podcast
00:44that they were talking about this the entire process.
00:46But basically, let the teams know, hey, make us your pitch,
00:50and we'll get back to you.
00:52And it's sort of interesting to me how LeBron James
00:54lets everybody else know what his plans are,
00:56even the teams that are wanting to sign him.
00:58You know, these teams leave a roster spot open,
01:01and eventually they just, they, you get to a point where you said,
01:04all right, are you coming or are you not?
01:07And these organizations, just like all of us,
01:09kind of watching this play out,
01:11are just sort of waiting for LeBron James to make his announcement.
01:13So, I do think that the Heat had a chance, right?
01:16Like, both things could be true.
01:17They had a chance.
01:18I think they were a legitimate finalist.
01:20I think LeBron James gave them some legitimate consideration,
01:23but ultimately just picked to go somewhere else.
01:25Is there anything with the relationship between him and Pat Riley?
01:29I know it was presented recently that all was good there, right?
01:32The key is under the doormat.
01:34But in the 11th hour, it was like, LeBron, like, eh.
01:37You know, I know how that ended between Pat and I,
01:39so maybe you don't want to go back to South Beach because of that.
01:41Yeah, I can't say whether or not that actually mattered for LeBron James,
01:45but I did find it interesting that when Rich Paul was talking about Miami
01:52after LeBron had made his decision, that he said, like,
01:54look, he did consider them.
01:55And there was even a point where Rich Paul thought
01:57that he was going to end up playing for the Heat again.
01:59But at the end of the day, he decided that he wanted to kind of leave
02:02his Heat tenure as his Heat tenure and just not taint it,
02:05kind of leave it as what it was and not come back.
02:08You know, there was no feeling of unfinished business.
02:11And I thought about that when Rich Paul said that.
02:13I thought immediately about Giannis and his reasoning
02:16for changing his number from 34 to 7.
02:19And the reason he gave for that was, well, I was 34.
02:23That was its own thing.
02:24That has its own legacy.
02:25And that's maybe an underrated thing that, like, normies like me
02:29don't really understand among superstar athletes is the legacy,
02:33the storytelling, the myth-building of all of this stuff
02:36and what these even sort of, like, just sentimental things mean to them, right?
02:41Like, for Giannis, just that was an important thing for him
02:43to close the chapter from 34 and start a new one with 7.
02:46And I think for LeBron, he looked at, look, I don't want to continue
02:49that Miami Heat chapter.
02:50I did that.
02:51I accomplished two championships there.
02:53What more is there left for me to do in Miami?
02:56I kind of want to start this new thing in Philadelphia.
02:58And, Wes, we heard all the variables, his kids,
03:02and they're comfortable on the West Coast, and they love L.A.
03:06And, okay, well, go to Cleveland like you did before, your hometown.
03:10Like, everything that we were actually, the media was talking about
03:13with LeBron, does it seem as if he's, you know, ring-chasing?
03:19Because is he on the best roster to go and compete for a championship?
03:23And is that what the ultimate thing was with his decision in your mind?
03:31Yeah.
03:32I think he is ring-chasing, and I think that's fine.
03:34I think that has, like, a negative connotation.
03:36But all of us talk about, what do we talk about all the time?
03:39We talk about rings.
03:39We talk about LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, all these guys.
03:42We talk about rings.
03:43And so we hold these guys to a standard of championships is the end-all, be-all.
03:49And then when they acknowledge that with a major decision,
03:54then we criticize them for doing that.
03:56It's sort of this funny thing.
03:59Like, I think he's ring-chasing.
04:00I think that matters.
04:01I think he said it.
04:02You know, I don't think that I'm, you know, it doesn't require any reporting.
04:05He said it in his tweet.
04:06He's like, this is the spot that I think can give myself the best chance to win.
04:10Now, I disagree.
04:11I still think the Miami Heat were the better option.
04:13I think the Heat gave them a better chance to win than the Sixers.
04:15But also, LeBron James has been right 100% of the time he's made a decision like this.
04:20Every place he's gone, he's won a championship.
04:23And so I defer to LeBron James at this stage.
04:25Like, he's got a knack for making these decisions.
04:28So, yeah, I do think that he made this decision to win a championship.
04:31But I don't have a problem with it.
04:33Wes Goldberg here with us.
04:34Why do you think, still, that the Heat would have been a better destination for LeBron to win a championship
04:41than the Sixers?
04:42Best player, best coach.
04:44That's it.
04:46I think with LeBron, he's so capable of lifting so many ships.
04:51I think we saw this with the Lakers winning that series against the Houston Rockets, right?
04:55Like, that team was just not as good as Houston.
04:56And yet, LeBron James was the best player in that series.
05:00I just don't think that Philadelphia has that number one option.
05:04I really like Tyrese Maxey.
05:05I think that's their best player right now.
05:08I don't think it's Jalen Brown.
05:09I don't think it's Jalen Beat.
05:09I don't think it's LeBron.
05:10I think Maxey is.
05:11I think there's a lot of depth on that team.
05:13I just don't know when you're going head-to-head against some of the best teams in the NBA.
05:18If you're going up against Wemby, Jokic, Shea.
05:23That's when I have my questions about who's raising their game to that level.
05:26And Miami has that guy.
05:28They have Giannis.
05:28They're not as deep.
05:29I get it.
05:30But they have the best coach who is a playoff performing coach.
05:34They have the best player in Giannis.
05:36And I do think they have a front office, ultimately, that would have figured it out.
05:39And a defense that would have been able to cover up for LeBron James.
05:41Because I have also major questions about that defense with the Sixers.
05:45LeBron is going to have to guard every single night.
05:48And that was not going to be the case had he come to Miami.
05:50But like I said, that's my take as somebody who is close to the Miami Heat, covers the team, and
05:55is here in Miami.
05:56And LeBron James, he's been right every single time he's made this decision.
06:00So I could totally be wrong here.
06:02No pun intended when I ask this question this particular way.
06:05But what is the pivot for the Miami Heat?
06:07No LeBron.
06:08What is next for how they address some of the holes that they still have on the roster?
06:14Yeah, so I think if there's a silver lining here is that it kind of cleans up the goals here
06:19if you're the Heat, right?
06:20LeBron James is going to be 42 when the season starts.
06:24That's a different kind of timeline now that you're operating in.
06:27As Philadelphia is going to learn here, you are going to be under pressure during this two-year win.
06:31The Heat don't really have that pressure.
06:33They want to win now.
06:34But Giannis is 31.
06:35He's still in his peak.
06:36I know people debate that.
06:37But this guy was playing at an MVP level in January, right?
06:40Like this was only a few months ago.
06:42This guy is not washed by any stretch.
06:45So, you know, I think if you look at some of the other options there, you're just looking at people
06:49who I think just fit a Giannis team.
06:51Whereas if you had LeBron, you're looking for guys who fit a LeBron and Giannis team.
06:54And a lot of those guys are duplicative.
06:55And it doesn't really matter.
06:56But not all of them are.
06:58You know, Barry Jackson from the Herald is reporting that Klay Thompson is still near the top of their list.
07:03You're going to wait to see if he negotiates that buyout.
07:05The Heat have a portion of their mid-level exception now that they had earmarked for LeBron James.
07:09Now somebody like Klay Thompson or maybe another player that's out there that is perhaps thinking about negotiating a buyout
07:15with his current team.
07:15Is looking at that and saying, well, I thought those $7 million were going to go to LeBron.
07:19Maybe now I can walk into those $7 million.
07:21So it clears things up not only for the Heat, but for other potential free agents, whether that's Klay Thompson
07:26or somebody else.
07:26So I think they wait on that.
07:28I think DeMar DeRozan is definitely a name worth monitoring here.
07:31Maybe not as a LeBron pivot, but almost as like a replacement to backfill what you're losing with Jaime Hacquez
07:36Jr.
07:36Who went out in that Giannis trade.
07:38Just a guy who can come off the bench and score.
07:40Pat Riley has talked about the need for a guy who can go get a bucket at the end of
07:44a shot clock or at the end of the game.
07:46DeRozan is not a lot of things at this stage of his career.
07:48He still is a guy who can go get you a bucket when you kind of have to throw the
07:52grenade at somebody at the end of a shot clock.
07:54He can convert on that.
07:56So I think those are the names that are out there.
07:58And then they're going to have to go get another big.
08:00But yeah, I think really the ultimate pivot is let's just be a Giannis and Bam team and see how
08:03far those guys can take us.
08:05Hey, Wes, it's DeRozan, Beal, and Klay.
08:07Those are the names that come up every time I look it up.
08:10Like what's the perfect case scenario?
08:13Because I love Bradley Beal.
08:15I don't know if he's too old.
08:16So DeRozan, I'm not a big fan of the midi committee because all he's going to do is shoot twos
08:20all game.
08:21But if he can hit all his twos, we're good to go.
08:23Best case scenario, Pat could land DeRozan, Beal, or Klay.
08:27If you're going to pick one of those, I've actually come around to DeRozan.
08:31I think he just fills a need.
08:33This is a guy who can run, pick, and roll for you with Giannis.
08:36He's not an elite playmaker, but he's certainly capable of it.
08:38And he just gives them a skill set that nobody else has.
08:41Giannis is not a mid-range shooter.
08:42Bam takes mid-range shots, but only because he's really forced to.
08:45He's not a great one.
08:47DeRozan's still a great mid-range shooter.
08:49And the Heat are going to be a physical, eat-up space type of...
08:54They're going to thrive in transition.
08:56They're going to do all these things.
08:57DeRozan is good in all of those instances.
08:58Not great in transition, but can trail those transition plays and kind of bail you out at the end of
09:02a shot clock.
09:03I think that's a good option.
09:04And then obviously, if you can get Klay Thompson.
09:06If you can get Klay and DeRozan, I think that makes a lot of sense.
09:10Because it fills two very separate needs.
09:12Because the other thing this team needs is a floor spacer.
09:15They have good shooters.
09:16There's a difference between being a good shooter and being a spacer.
09:20Those are two different things in the NBA.
09:21A spacer is somebody who commands respect from the very start of the shot clock.
09:25A shooter is just somebody who can convert a shot.
09:27Klay is a spacer.
09:29Like a number one.
09:30Like we cannot leave this guy alone.
09:31And I think the ripple effects that that has for guys like Giannis and Bam to help open things up
09:36for them would be really helpful.
09:38But Tim Hardaway Jr. also provides some of that too.
09:40So if I had to rank him, I would say DeRozan number one.
09:44Klay number two.
09:45If you can get both of them, great.
09:46I'm not as big of a fan of Beal.
09:47I like his game.
09:48I just think the injury concerns are just too big for me when you compare those to the other guys.
09:54Wes Goldberg here with us.
09:55I don't think this is a team this year that wins a championship.
09:58But not debating the ceiling.
10:00How about the floor?
10:01Because I find it fascinating after missing out on LeBron.
10:04There's people that are talking about the heat.
10:06And I get it.
10:07The East is better now than it was last year as a play-in team.
10:11Like what is the floor for this team?
10:14Because I got to imagine getting Giannis here, as long as he's healthy with Bam, they got to be out
10:19of that play-in tournament, right?
10:20It's the expectation.
10:21It's the goal.
10:23I think a play-in appearance.
10:24Barring anything crazy like Giannis misses 50 games or something and you still make the play-in.
10:29I think the play-in tournament is a disappointment, right?
10:32Like if you make all these moves and you're still sort of where you were, that's a disappointment.
10:36Now I'll say this, though.
10:37There's a lot of teams that are thinking the same way as Miami and the Eastern Conference.
10:41There's only six just auto-bids to the playoffs, right?
10:44Everybody else has either got to fight through the play-in or you don't even make it that far.
10:48I counted it this morning, guys.
10:50I think there's nine teams who, if you ask those fan bases right now, they're like, oh yeah, no, we're
10:55definitely one of the top six teams.
10:57We're not going to be a play-in team.
10:58There's going to be nine teams.
10:59That means three of those teams are going to end up in the play-in tournament probably.
11:03If you think about Detroit, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Toronto, assuming that they get Kawhi, Atlanta, Philadelphia now obviously, Miami,
11:10Indiana is going to be back in the mix.
11:12Orlando is hoping to get this little bump from their new head coach.
11:15That's nine teams right there that if you ask their fans, if you ask them, they're like, oh yeah, no,
11:21we're going to be, we're thinking about home court in the first round.
11:24We're not thinking about the play-in.
11:25That's our goal.
11:27Three of those teams are going to be disappointed.
11:31Wes Goldberg here with us.
11:33When the news came out on Friday that it was Philadelphia, were you surprised by it?
11:39Because as someone that's sitting here in New York, I never bought the Cleveland stuff in the last week and
11:45a half.
11:46And the pendulum, it kept on looking like it was shifting to Miami.
11:50How surprised were you when the news came out that it was Philly?
11:53Shocked.
11:55I had to do the same thing that everybody did with the Luka trade.
11:57I'm like, is this a fake Shams tweet?
11:59Because I got the Shams tweet before I saw LeBron.
12:01For some reason, I didn't have my LeBron notifications on.
12:03That was stupid of me.
12:05But then I went bad.
12:07Then I saw LeBron's Twitter thread.
12:08I'm like, oh, this is legit, right?
12:10And I did not think Philly was really in the mix.
12:15But it was notable that Philadelphia was never out of it, right?
12:18The way that Minnesota and Denver and these other teams were kind of in it and then fell out of
12:21the reporting and stuff.
12:22Now, Philadelphia was always reportedly in the mix.
12:25And we see, obviously, why here.
12:26But then the more I thought about it, the more it does make sense.
12:28Like, Zach, he can live near you, right?
12:31He can live in New York.
12:32And still, we heard Rich Paul say.
12:34He's doing the J.J. Reddick play.
12:35And J.J. lived in Brooklyn.
12:37And would just live in Philadelphia.
12:39Well, we know that went over with Philly fans, right?
12:41They kind of resented J.J. Reddick for doing that.
12:44But, you know, J.J. Reddick and LeBron are two different cats.
12:47I guess you don't necessarily hold LeBron to the same type of standards there.
12:51But, yeah, I know when Rich Paul said that, hey, it would have been the Knicks if the Knicks didn't
12:55win the championship.
12:56I should have.
12:56Like, to me, that was maybe the most obvious thing of all that nobody was really talking about is, oh,
13:00he could just train ride.
13:02Not that he would take the train.
13:03But, like, he's going to take a helicopter, basically, between from New York to Philly.
13:09Like, this allows him to kind of live where he wants.
13:10He has roots in Los Angeles.
13:13Now he can put roots down in New York if he wants.
13:16And that makes a lot of sense for him, too.
13:18Wes, earlier in the show.
13:20It's the best.
13:20Oh.
13:22Guys, you're looking at it.
13:23I was going to say, it's the best roster he's in.
13:25Dogs with leashes in the park.
13:26Jeez.
13:26Yeah.
13:27It's the best.
13:28Yeah, me and the Pella running around fighting for a question.
13:31The best roster in the NBA.
13:35Maxi, Vijay, Embiid when he's healthy, LeBron, and now Jalen Brown.
13:40Isn't that the best starting five in the entire NBA right now?
13:47It's a good question.
13:49Denver still has a great starting five.
13:52People just, like, don't count the Nuggets because they had such a disappointing year.
13:54Jokic might still be the best player in the world.
13:56Jamal Murray was all NBA last year.
13:58I like their upside on that starting five more than Phillies, you know?
14:03My biggest question with this, I think the Sixers are up there.
14:05I think they have one of the best starting fives in the league.
14:07I'd have to think about that a little bit more, Channing, but I still, the thing that
14:11I keep, ah, gives me just, like, this queasy feeling is, do we really think Joel Embiid
14:15is going to be out there?
14:16And when he is out there, what kind of Joel Embiid are we getting?
14:18Because it was very up and down last season for Embiid when he was out there.
14:22And that's why, ultimately, I can't go all in on Phillies' championship ceiling is because
14:30as deep as they are and everything that they've added to that roster, they still need Joel Embiid
14:35to stay healthy for four playoff series, or at least be available at the very end.
14:38And I just, I don't know how you count on him to do that.
14:42Wes, earlier in the show, we were talking about Brad Stevens and the Celtics offseason.
14:46And Gelb has hosted shows up there in Boston, and locally, he's catching some heat.
14:51But from my view, it seems like he's kind of skating nationally for the offseason that
14:56the Celtics have had.
14:57They don't get Giannis.
14:59Then Jalen Brown goes to Philadelphia, and in a way, that kind of engineers LeBron going
15:03to Philadelphia.
15:04How do you evaluate kind of what Brad Stevens has done this offseason and where the Celtics
15:08are at?
15:09Yeah, you're speaking my language.
15:10I'm like leading the Brad Stevens is overrated committee.
15:14You know, I always joke all the time, like, oh, coaching was too hard for him.
15:18That's actually why he left.
15:19And he just went into the front office.
15:21But you're not wrong.
15:23It was in the NBA.
15:24He didn't want to deal with the backlash anymore.
15:27And he kind of want to be out of sight, out of mind.
15:28Right.
15:29And like the guy drew up like a couple of nice out of bounds plays.
15:31And we're like, oh, this is the next red hour back.
15:33It's like, can we calm down on this a little bit?
15:37It's congrats on your success at Butler.
15:41It's anyway, not just Josh, to your point, not just this offseason.
15:45I would argue if you look at the way that that roster is completely dissolved since they
15:50won the championship 2024.
15:52I mean, that is not long ago, guys, really.
15:55And you think about that roster they had in 2024.
15:57I understand Tatum had the Achilles injury.
15:59I get it.
16:00But everything from that roster, which we were talking about after those finals, we all remember
16:04it.
16:04Like, how many more can Boston win?
16:06Like, that was the conversation we were having back then.
16:09And they haven't made it back to the Eastern Conference Finals since then.
16:13And you look at the talent that they've lost and what they have really to show for it.
16:17They trade away Christoph Sporzingis.
16:18They trade away Drew Holiday.
16:20They let Luke Cornett walk, who was a really important part of that team.
16:23Then the Jalen Brown trade.
16:24And like the lack of really anything that they got for him and the weird way that that all
16:29played out.
16:30You can argue that they really bungled what could have been maybe a dynasty here.
16:34And there is no guarantee, by the way, that the Celtics ever get back to where they were.
16:38That is a really hard thing to do.
16:40We saw how hard it was for them to get to it in 2024 and all the disappointment that they
16:44had, whether it was the Heat or the Warriors that they had to face and couldn't get over
16:48the hump.
16:50Does Tatum ever win another championship?
16:52Again, that sounds crazy considering where we, what we were talking about regarding the
16:56Celtics in 2024.
16:57And now I just don't see a very good roster in Boston.
17:02I think it's a very middling roster right now.
17:04There'll be a playoff team.
17:05I'm confident in that, but making it out of the East, I don't know.
17:09I think they do deserve quite a bit of criticism for how this whole thing has been handled.
17:12He's Wes Goldberg locked on Heat.
17:14Wes, appreciate the time.
17:15Thanks so much for doing this.
17:16Thanks guys.
17:17Hockman, Crowder, and Solana, Gelbidapel in for Hockman and Solana.
17:21We're coming on back.
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