Keith Smith Joins the Show

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]This New York Knicks run, man.

[00:00:02]I I think that they may have had somewhat of an easy path, but they won't when it get obviously now being in the finals, but when you think about it, it's impressive what they've done. People mocked them the Bridges trade, right? Um when they fired Thibodeau, people mocked that.

[00:00:18]Their owner they've mocked. Their GM they mocked. You know, bringing the Villanova guys together.

[00:00:23]Keith, I'm very impressed with the New York Knicks and I called it tonight. I think they're going to win the NBA championship.

[00:00:30]It It this point it wouldn't surprise me. I they they are playing so well and they have they're like eight, nine guys that they trust that they're going to put in the rotation. They're going to run with Jalen Brunson, full-blown superstar. He's been great. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, the way those guys are defending is out of this world. Uh they're just playing you really great basketball and and what's interesting, you know, I'm with you a little bit where it's like All right, path is what it is. You don't pick who you play. All you can do is go out and beat them. I think about when the Celtics won the title a couple years ago, there was a lot of uh the path, the path, the path.

[00:01:07]Well, they went out and they beat all those teams and beat them pretty handily. The Knicks, they've won their last 11 games by a margin. No team has ever won 11 straight games by in NBA history. Not just playoffs, but playoffs and uh regular season combined. They've been absolutely incredible and I don't care who you play if you're beating them all by 30. Oh, yeah. [snorts] And I think that I used to say that the Celtics made teams top out during their run. Look what the New York Knicks have done and I think that the Spurs and Oklahoma City are going to beat each other up so much.

[00:01:37]Maybe that series gets extended to seven games and you know, the Knicks will be there waiting for them. I I just I know you know a lot about salary caps and the future and how it's how how how you can look down the line with teams, but are the Knicks going to be this competitive for a while now? Like how does it shape up when when comes to them and the luxury tax and can they continue this kind of pace that they've been on?

[00:02:01]Yeah, I think they can be cuz this has been a franchise that's never shied away from paying the luxury tax. They don't have a ton of holes that they need to fill right now. They they've got an interesting decision point this summer with Mitchell Robinson, who's a free agent, and if they let him go, it's only going to be because of money. There's no other reason why they can't retain him, but if them, like every team, is going to be cautious of dipping into that second apron territory for too many years in a row cuz nobody wants to end up like where Boston did with the frozen pick and all that. But it is a little bit different if you're defending a title, you you feel I think a little obligated to run it back and bring those guys back again. So I think this team's going to be in place for a little while, and then we'll see how they handle when they're the the hunted instead of the hunter. That that always changes things a little bit, too. Keith, I'm somebody that comes on the radio every night, spouts opinions that may or may not be true.

[00:02:56]Uh I said that the Celtics the the NBA needed the Celtics this year.

[00:03:01]And I was wrong. Take a big L on that one because now they have the New York Knicks in the final. It's it's huge for them. I do think it's good for basketball.

[00:03:09]But moving forward here, uh I think the Celtics have fallen a tier probably behind the 76ers, too.

[00:03:16]What are your thoughts on the Celtics, the way things that uh the way things have ended, Jaylen Brown's outbursts.

[00:03:23]It it just feel like although they won four awards, executive, coach of the year, somebody on the all-NBA defense, and I believe even um all-NBA in Jaylen Brown, they won a lot of awards for a team that got bounced in a game seven in the first round.

[00:03:40]Yeah, I will remind everyone any of those awards were for the regular season. So it had, you know, nothing really do with the had nothing at all to do with the playoffs, but yeah, it is a interesting place for the Celtics to be in because had they gone out in second round in a tough battle against the Knicks, I think most Celtics fans would have said, all right, it was what it was. But Brad Stevens, I'm going to kind of paraphrase him a little bit here and throwing a little bit of my own thinking is yeah, they were they overachieved, but once you overachieve, you reset the bar. And the way the playoffs went, blowing a 3-1 lead, you know, falling apart the way they did, that just leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I mean, we know how it works in Boston. If you're not contending for a title, it's not good enough. And in this group, I think people have seen they've seen them win a title. They've seen them change.

[00:04:31]It now was, all right, I thought we had a chance again and we're not really there, so where does it go from here?

[00:04:37]But I I trust in the front office. I I think, you know, they did overachieve throughout the course of the regular season. They did choke in the playoffs.

[00:04:46]Both things can be true, but let's see, you know, now what they do this summer with a little bit more flexibility than they had last summer. And and I trust these guys to make good decisions to put this group back into contention in the East.

[00:04:58]Joe Mazzulla, coach of the year.

[00:05:01]Um, I think I crashed out a little earlier. Uh, I get it. They won 56 games. He had a great season with the the the roster he was given and all that.

[00:05:10]Um, it's hard for me to sit here tonight and celebrate the award. He he kind of [clears throat] said, hey, this is an award for the staff, which I kind of agree with and and all that, but man, it's just hard to we were we brought up Dwayne Casey. Remember he was coach of the year and got fired?

[00:05:26]>> Sure.

[00:05:27]Just I don't know. Analytics seemed to get the Cavs yesterday in that series.

[00:05:32]Did they get Did analytics get the Celtics? And you know, you you just brought up Brad. Do you think they'll change maybe some of the way that the the ways that they play, uh, especially around the rim?

[00:05:42]Yeah, I think coach of the year often comes down to coach of the team team that overachieved the most. Like it just that's just the way the award seems to go if you look in the history and I think a lot of people had the Celtics as a team 500 or maybe a little bit better going into the year and they were the second best record in the conference and and I think that goes into it. I I do think that Joe Mazzulla has a style of play that he believes in and he believes will win games more often than not. He's been right. Um at least in the regular season. I think though Brad Stevens made the point in his post season presser where it is hey, you know what? We do shoot a lot of three pointers, but what we'd like to do is get a lot of dunks and layups, but we don't have a roster that's built to get dunks and layups. That was maybe a precursor to what some of his plans are for this summer is hey, I want more balance and I think that's what they want especially when you get into the playoffs where teams can kind of scheme for you. What we saw the Sixers do was fully sell out. Hey, we're going to take away as much as we can at the at the arc and we're going to make those contested shots. And when you do when you're playing in the regular season, you just don't have time to scheme for every opponent. You do what you do, you do it to the best of your ability. When you get into the playoffs, team has a few days to prepare for you cuz they know they're going to play you several times over a week or two two long period. You scheme for them and you build something that you hope will work. And for the Celtics, they didn't I'm not going to say Joe Mazzulla didn't adjust cuz he made adjustments more on the defensive end than the offensive end cuz I don't know what else he was going to pull.

[00:07:17]There there weren't a lot of yeah, guys who were just going to get downhill over and over and over again and get you layups and dunks. So I think think there's a combination there of coaching and the roster. I think the roster's going to change and tweak and adjust and I think it's going to be up to Joe Mazzulla to change and adjust to what he's given for a roster for next year.

[00:07:35]All right, we're talking with Keith Smith. He knows everything about the NBA literally.

[00:07:39]Spotrac, he has got his own podcast as well. Um Keith, I know you look at every team and here in Boston I think a lot of people are we question Joe Mazzulla.

[00:07:52]Just looking at the voting for coach of the year, does the rest of the NBA look differently at Mazzulla and even some of the players, right? Giannis said he likes playing with him. Other guys said they like or would want to play for him.

[00:08:05]Other guys have said it.

[00:08:06]Are we just the media in town? Do we think differently of Joe Mazzulla or is he really well respected across the league?

[00:08:14]Yeah, I think in Boston there's a high expectation level of, you know, hey, if you're not winning championships and you're in that kind of tier of teams that should be winning like it's not good enough. It really isn't. It's I laughed when Laker fans were like, "Ah, we went further than the Celtics did in the playoffs." I'm like, "Have some pride. Like what are you talking about?

[00:08:35]Like like you you second round you're celebrating that now? You're the Lakers.

[00:08:39]You're supposed to be on par with the Celtics where the only thing you care about is banners." And so for me I think yeah, I think uh you know, Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics, I think all the teams in town are judged relatively harshly on, "Hey, if you don't win a lot and when win at the very highest levels, it's not going to be good enough." I think around the media world it that covers the NBA it's seen as, "Hey, this guy consistently wins. Every year his team's one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and each year they've they've they won a championship with him and the other years kind of know why they lost, but but it's seen as like, "Yeah, if you give him the right kind of guys like they did that one year, they went out and got a title." So I think he has a very high level of respect both from the media and definitely from his peers within the league. There's a lot of people who really like what he does cuz they like how fiery is and he's not afraid to stand up for his guys and that goes a long way with players, too. Yeah, I'm glad you you answered it that way. I I think we see it differently here. Um just seeing the number of the amount of people that voted for him.

[00:09:45]And maybe they did overachieve, and you're right. Maybe it's an overachievement award. Just maybe he's more respected than uh than we all think here. Um can you explain to us, I know you know a lot about the the the salary cap and the luxury tax?

[00:10:00]Do you think it's in the best interest for the Celtics to go another year under the luxury tax with Tatum and Brown, and then once they've gone 2 years in a row, then they can go for it, or do you think you'll see the changes this season with the Celtics?

[00:10:16]I think too, I'm going to answer this two ways. If you can give me a time machine and I can hop a couple years in the future when the team's ready to really make a real run again, if there's no qualms about paying the tax, then absolutely it's the right idea. If they don't feel like they're they're a title contender right now, to to avoid It's just at some point every ownership group has their spending limits. Um as much as Bill Chisholm will say, "Hey, I believe you know, we could pay the tax and do X, Y, and Z, and all of that." He's only the the majority owner, and he doesn't own like a 90% majority of the team.

[00:10:54]There's a lot of other people involved, and if they're like, "Whoa, wait a minute, pal. Like, who else is writing these checks? Like, where are we going to go?" So, I think you've got that part of it. But, I also will say, if this year is kind of going along, and it's let's say they build a pretty good team this summer, and we're heading into the trade deadline, and it is like, "Man, we could get under the tax, but it's going to hurt the team." Or we could go get player X, but it's going to put us in the tax, but getting that player will put us in the finals. I'll have a whole level of criticism if they don't do it, because really it's only about money.

[00:11:27]The apron stuff was different, and I and I and I I trying to hammer that to to uh Celtics fans is getting under the apron was basketball reasons for that. You didn't want to continue to have the penalties that limited your flexibility, frozen draft picks, a million things you can't do and and you're just stuck with this team that all of a sudden it's like, boy we're really expensive, we're not good enough. But boy so that was a different thing. Just the tax if it comes down to, yeah we just didn't want to pay you a luxury tax bill and it hurts the team's ability to win. Yeah, I'm going to be very critical of that cuz I don't think I don't think it's so necessary that they do that just to save money. Got it. And I think that's again another Boston opinion. New owner comes in. They made it there this year, they made it so that they could get under the tax.

[00:12:15]But they also thought that they won, right? Because they had a successful season and Tatum was coming back. I know I'm I'm still I'm still trying to process it Keith. It's still uh Well, I'm not I'll just jump in real quick to say I think they thought the Nikola Vucevic trade was really going to work out and I think they thought, all right, we're getting rid of Simmons but we're bringing back Tatum. We don't really need Simmons, what we need is another center and it just didn't work. It just didn't go the way anybody wanted it to go and it didn't work. So I think in that case it was, all right, hey we can save some money and get a player who fills a hole while getting rid of a guy who seems like at that point might have been an extra piece and it just didn't work out and that's I mean God, we could spend the rest of the week breaking down NBA moves that didn't work out that seemed good at the time and it it kind of is what it is. So I I didn't have a huge issue with what they did cuz then people are like, and then they just gave away Theis with was Theis make a difference in the Philly series? I don't think so. I think that was just, hey you know, once you're that close you might as well get out of the tax and and yeah and if they do turn around like they did under Wick Grossbeck's ownership where they had a bunch years in a row of dodging the tax but then when it was time to spend, boy did they spend, right? They poured everything in the seam. If they do that again, nobody can really complain too much about it. All right, Keith, what are you hearing on Jaylen Brown and Giannis?

[00:13:34]Yeah, it's so kind of you're hearing some things that are linked together with the two of them and then things that are separate, obviously, with both of them. Giannis, if we get to the point, which seems like we're kind of there where it is, he I don't think at this point even needs to ask for a trade. I think it's just we're going to move on. If if he doesn't say he's extending within the next few weeks leading up to the draft, I think the Bucks are going to do what they need to do for the franchise and move on.

[00:14:02]So, you're going to get 29 teams reaching out with, "Hey, here's what our best offer is." For the Celtics, yeah, there are paths to get there without including Jaylen Brown, but then you're going to have a team that is Tatum, Brown, Giannis, and me and you left you out there. Like it's just you won't have anything left. So, so it becomes, "How do we get there?" So, I think what we're going to see is if there's a Jaylen Brown-Giannis swap, I think what you'll see is more likely there's a third team. Jaylen Brown is routed to that third team.

[00:14:34]Atlanta has been mentioned, Portland has been mentioned. Those are teams where Jaylen Brown would play a massive role in helping them take the next step, and they route the package of young players, draft picks to Milwaukee that Boston can't really match. So, I think that's where we're we we could see that play out. There's also Houston Rockets rumors, which I don't think would be part of a Giannis thing, which I think that's a little bit of connecting the dots of Jaylen Brown and Ime had a great relationship. They, you know, did good things together before.

[00:15:05]Maybe there's something there. I think the Kevin Durant ship has sailed, but there are other players of interest on the Rockets where maybe the Celtics could say, "All right, hey, if we we got to do something with this." But I I I tend to think it's probably more likely we don't see anything as far as trading Jaylen Brown. But you you never know.

[00:15:22]It's I think if they're going to do something big, it will be trading Jaylen Brown.

[00:15:27]All right, Keith. Uh anything What do you got on the NBA draft? I know that's coming around. Local guy here, A.J.

[00:15:33]Dybantsa. Sounds like he's going to be the number one pick. Any surprises on that end? And I know I'm looking ahead down to the Celtics of where they where maybe they could. But do you think there's outside of those top five? This is a good draft, obviously. But is it a deep draft to where maybe the Celtics can find some some guy You said if they make the trade, it's going to be us out there. Maybe they could find somebody else they could play out of this draft.

[00:15:58]You think so? I hope so. I hope they can find somebody better than me at this. I don't know how your game's shaping up, but mine mine's not so hot right now.

[00:16:05]But yeah, I um I think given their track record of drafting in the late 20s and getting good players year over year over year, I'm going to trust whoever they pick. I I was super critical of the Hugo pick a year ago cuz I was like, I don't know. This guy just he played didn't play a lot. I don't know what they're going to get out of him. And he Now I think he's going to be a big part of whatever they build moving forward. And I think he's you'll become became over the course of the year really nice young prospect. Baylor Scheierman was a good player. Payton Pritchard, obviously he's become a really good player. So I'm going to trust whoever they pick will probably be pretty good. But at the top of the draft after the combine, my conversations with teams and agents really started to settle into two decision points. The first the one-two picks, Dybantsa or Peterson. Whoever goes one goes one, the other guy goes two. Then it's Boozer and Wilson in three in the three-four range.

[00:17:02]Whoever goes three, the other guy goes four. Then after that, it opens up into there's a lot of guards. I really like Thierry Darian Sekou. I think he's going to be awesome in the league. I think he's going to be really, really good.

[00:17:14]But you You Keaton Wagler, you got Kingston Fleming, uh there. You've got Mekel Brown Jr.

[00:17:20]Needa Mentis a forward that's going to be in there. A lot of people like Edey Mara, who is this guy from Michigan who came on as the year went along and he's absolutely massive. So, I think there's going to be a lot of really kind of good uh players all the way down into the to to the 20s um in this draft cuz the nice thing about NIL is while it can weaken, sometimes guys go back. When they do come out, they're a little more prepared and ready to go. Um and I think we're going to see, you know, maybe Boston if they're like, "You know what? We feel pretty good about our roster. We can go with a little bit of an older player who can maybe step in and give us minutes."

[00:17:55]They may go that direction. But yeah, it's going to be a really uh loaded draft class and a lot of fun to watch it all develop here over the next few weeks ahead of the draft. Well, we're we're efforting to get Alex Karaban on the show and hopefully UConn guy, maybe he'll uh I'm probably a second-round pick, but you know, uh local guy, 6'8", can shoot a little bit. Why not? Right on the uh yeah. On the Celtics. I have By the way, um but as I told you, I listened to you on a podcast.

[00:18:22]How do you fix the NBA draft? What what what do you think they can do? Ping-Pong balls? What other strategies do you have in mind? Yeah, I'm very curious to see how this new process plays out. It's it's kind of confusing. I am I I I think they're overreacting to what was an extreme year of tanking. Teams have tanked every year I've followed uh this league since they had the lottery and I I I have vague memories of the Patrick Ewing lottery um and the way that played out and then they keep continuing to tweak and adjust and try to change things up. But I think what this year was Yeah, it was egregious cuz there's a lot of really good players and a lot of teams wanted to be in position to get those good players and I think everybody's kind of looking around and saying, "Man, if you don't have good players, how you going to beat Oklahoma City and San Antonio?" Like it's You know, those teams don't look like they're going anywhere for the next decade. So, you're going to have to figure that out. So, I think teams did everything they could, but I'm curious cuz I I'm little worried really just teams that are just actually bad, they're not tanking, they're just bad, will get stuck and maybe not be able to get the best players, but I like the idea of hey, you can't just starting on October 1st say, "We're going to be terrible on the opening day of camp and stink all the way through and then just be, you know, absolutely awful and put a terrible product on the floor for everybody watching games. So, I I get why they're trying to do it. We'll see and now there's this other rumor about how the how draft pick trades will work and draft credits and all this other stuff that I got to dive a lot more into uh to to understand. The Athletic broke that story. I believe that was either today or yesterday. So, so we'll see how that goes forward, but I think they're going to continue to tweak and adjust to try to try to have as many teams, you know, incentivized to win as Adam Silver said. So, I'm okay with trying something new, but I don't know. I I didn't really have a lot of issue with the system was already. Man, this could open up a job for you, man. You know, you could be the guy to actually [laughter] explain this thing because I don't know how else we can, but uh Keith, great job, man. All the stuff you do with Spot Track, your front office show, you're talking to people, agents, people around the NBA. It's going to be a busy one, man. And uh we're almost at halftime here. Looks like uh Oklahoma City's up 65-52 right now. So, we'll see if uh the Spurs can mount a little bit of a comeback. But, this is why I think the Knicks win. I think both of these teams are going to beat each other up and the Knicks are going to have time and they're going to win and they're going to party like it's 1999.

[00:20:49]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, the Knicks are again sitting home with their feet up. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:53]Hey, go seven. Beat each other Beat each other up. Beat up Wemby. Beat up SGA and and we'll we'll pick off whatever carcass shows up for the finals. So, yeah, I'm uh I'm I'm fired up. This series has been great. I think it's going to be a fun finals and yeah, nobody should be just assuming the Western champ. Just crown him already.