Deni Avdija's Back Injury Is Putting Award Season in Jeopardy | What Makes a Good NBA Owner?

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What up world at your past, first point guard in Trailblazers reporter Mike Richman,

you're listening to another episode of Lockdown Blazers, part of the Lockdown podcast network

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Lockdown Blazers, your team every day in today's show.

We're talking to any obvious decision day, Tom Dundin's dollars and some day dreams I've

had about Damien Lillard when I sat down to do the show.

I don't think I realized how illiterate it was going to be, but once I realized it's

sure we're leaning in.

It's D-Day.

Welcome to Lockdown Blazers.

I want to talk about Denny Obdiah, he's listed as doubtful.

It probably means that this sort of decision on whether he should push it and try to play

has already passed.

We'll get into that, we'll get into Tom Dundin's dollars and we're pocket peeping.

He sold a portion of his stake in the Carolina Hurricanes as he appears to be going liquid

to actually purchase the Blazers, but I have some real thoughts on what it means to be

an owner of an NBA team and what's actually important for owners.

And with Jason Tatum set to return from a Killy's injury likely on Friday on this evening,

I can't help but let my mind wander a bit to Damien Lillard.

We'll talk about that's close.

Let's start with Denny though.

I will, it probably will never happen while I'm hosting this podcast, but I'm one

day, we won't talk about the injury report when we're talking about basketball games,

but that's what we're doing.

Denny Obdiah officially listed as doubtful heading into Friday's road trip, Ender and

the last game of the road trip in Houston against the Rockets.

Denny was, of course, doubtful for the two prior games heading into Wednesday's showdown

with the Memphis Grizzlies, but he was upgraded to questionable heading into that game.

And it seemed like he was set to return because typically the way the Blazers had handled

long-term injuries is out doubtful.

Then you get the questionable tag, questionable means you're going to play, Denny, of course,

does not play in that game, which was, you know, a notable, a notable moment.

I don't know if setback is the right word, but a notable absence because it seemed like

all the signs reporting to him being available to play.

And then now he's been downgraded from questionable heading into the next game to doubtful.

Bummer, bummer because he just can't get his back right.

He just can't get it right.

It's just been bothering him since early January, we first happened on the court in a game

against the Knicks in early January or middle of January, the 11th.

And so it's like, you know, we're closing it on two months and he just cannot get fully

healthy.

He's not even able to get out there and play basketball games when they probably thought

he would on Wednesday based on all the signs we have.

And now it looks like he's going to miss Friday's game or at least it would be no one

has gone into a game with the Blazers this year and shaken a doubtful tag to play.

So if he gets upgraded during the afternoon, prior to tip off, that's good news.

But if he gets, you know, gets ends up in the arena with a doubtful tag, that's pretty

much out in the way that the Blazers do injury designations.

Chris Murray also listed as questionable for this game against the Rockets as he continues

to deal with an illness, bummer.

So we've kind of passed the decision day for Tenioftia assuming he sits on Friday, he'll

be, he'll have missed 16 games this season.

He's actually only missed 15, but you the way the NBA does awards is you have to play

at least 65 games, but you get two near miss games, but those near miss games you have

to play in at least 15 minutes, the game that's 65 games with at least 20 minutes in

each game.

It should just be total minutes.

It's a stupid rule.

It's a stupid rule to begin with.

It's an even stupider rule that it's 20 per game and not in total minutes, like average

of total minutes.

It's just, it's, it's beyond awful.

The NBA will get rid of this rule because it is beyond awful.

We're going to end up with some real janky NBA, all NBA teams and some, just some straight

up, probably undeserving folks.

I importantly, some really deserving folks missing out on, on all NBA honors because of

this.

It, it, it's, it's a bad rule.

It's not some bad, it had some, you know, bad consequences on the back end that the,

the NBA maybe thought they were not going to run into.

They thought they were making getting players out there to play and curing load management.

Instead, they're just going to ruin guys' legacies.

We're going to make us remember them wrong.

So basically, because Danny has, has, because Friday would be his 15th game missed, but

he played in that one game for 59 seconds and then left for a minute and then left.

He's actually over missed 16 games.

He can miss 17 total and still qualify for end of the season, end of season awards.

That would be the most improved player award, which Danny was the, the strong betting

favorite for and like, frankly, deserves.

He's been, he's had a breakout season.

He's exactly who the, the sort of, in my opinion, the MIP should go to, he's, he's like

the really fitting of that award with the sort of the season that he has had.

And he would not be eligible for all NBA.

So like I think he's fringy for all NBA, right?

He'd be a third teamish member, but like he would get votes.

Like he's been that good.

And I think there was a time when it seemed like he was like headed in that direction to,

to have this team, you know, if they were going to be like a 500-ish team and Danny was

going to put up 27 with seven boards and five assists, like, oh yeah, he looks pretty

good.

This is a 13 mile NBA guy, you know, we, we, we shall see.

But and I think the blazer slide a little bit makes his, his chances of getting all NBA

a little bit lower.

But MIP was going to be a lock or at least a very, very, very good chance.

But once he misses an 18th game, it's over for him.

And so the decision, the like, it always should have been about Danny's health.

But if there was ever any other part of the decision that would have been like, hey, you

only get one shot at winning MIP.

You only get one shot at its ends, you know, and, and if the, if you want to be honored

for the special season you had, you know, can you kind of gut, gut through being hurt

and playing, not injured, but hurt and, and, and play enough to get the deserving honor

that, that, that, that your playup till now has, has warranted.

But you know, if he's at 16 misgames, that means he, he can miss 17 total and still be

eligible.

That would be one more game after Friday.

The blazers to close the season, they have 19 more remaining of 18 after Friday.

During that stretch, they have two back-to-backs.

Both that include travel.

Is Danny really going to play and push it on back-to-backs and play 20 minutes in those

based on like, we're now closing it on two months of him not being able to just like

get his back to be at a place where he can be the level of player that he has, he has

shown himself to be this season?

No, it's where we've, we've moved beyond the decision day where Danny could make a decision

for selfish sort of like not even selfish for award-based reasons.

This not selfish to try to win awards quite frankly.

He's, he's deserving of it and the league is kind of punishing him.

Then the league has made a rule that if it doesn't allow that makes him have to make

this odd decision, right, to push it when maybe he's not physically right to.

So like we're beyond it.

It's just, it's not realistic that he is going to be eligible for the awards because he just,

because of these, basically because of this week.

If he had played, I thought he was going to play Wednesday and then it was going to be like

he was going to be right on the cusp, right?

He was going to be like, okay, you could miss a couple more but you got to play for the

rest of the year.

But because he missed Wednesday and because now he's downgrade a doubtful Friday, it seems

like that, the Danny decision day has passed and that decision has happened.

We'll play a basketball game though.

We might as well talk about that for a moment.

They'll be facing a Houston team who's playing the second night of a back-to-back after

an overtime lost to Golden State at home.

Kevin Durant had a tough one at the end of overtime.

Down three gets fouled, misses, misses makes two and misses the, and misses the third

one that would have tied the game and potentially forced a second overtime.

Here's go down and score quickly.

The Anthony Melton gets a bucket and then they foul.

They foul up three.

What Kevin Durant needs to do is make the first one and then intentionally miss the second

one and they can maybe have a chance to have some magic happen but instead he misses the

first one, makes the second one, ball game, rockets lose.

They still in elite offensive rebounding team but it used to be a super power before

Stephen Adams got hurt.

The rockets were rebounding 41% of their own misses, 41% of their own misses.

If the rockets missed, they had a greater than 40% chance to grab their own miss shot.

They are now down with the mere mortals among the elite teams since Stephen Adams got hurt,

like tracking from then in the, where the other really good teams are like 35, 36% of

your own misses.

That is an offensive rebounding rate of 35, 36, 6%.

Same kind of level as like the Blazers and the Hornets and the Pistons.

All those teams are about that level.

Those are the very, very good teams.

So the rockets are still among the best teams in league but before it was just this like

other world-leaf type of like their best offense was a miss shot type of thing.

Still a good team.

I think they can get a little clunky if you get into a close game.

That's your best bet.

They can get a little clunky because like how do they get Shenguin the ball and blah,

blah, blah.

They haven't released injury reports.

They played only eight dudes in a game that went over time.

Three guys played more than 40 minutes.

Six guys played more than 33 minutes like they they they racked it up.

We will see what their availability is like but because they just played before I recorded

this they have not released an injury report for for Friday's game.

So we shall see.

What I want to talk about the second segment is Tom Dundin.

He sold a portion of the Carolina Hurricanes today.

He's an outward.

He was a sole owner of the Hurricanes.

A portion of his stake in the Hurricanes made a whole bunch of money and I'm instead of

just pocket peeping.

I want to talk about what it means to be an important owner.

We'll talk about Tom Dundin's dollars.

Join me in the second segment.

Won't you?

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Okay, Tom Dundin is going to buy the blazers later this month.

At least that's the timeline supposed to be the end of March.

He'll become the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers and it seems like he's liquidating

some of his assets in order to have the cash to close the deal.

According to Sportico, Tom Dundin reached an agreement today.

That is Tuesday, March 5th, you'll listen to Friday, March 6th program.

I appreciate you.

And on Thursday, Tom Dundin reached an agreement to sell 12 and a half percent of the Carolina

Hurricanes, the NHL team he owns in beautiful Raleigh, North Carolina.

And the valuation for the canes is $2.66 billion with a B good gracious, 12 and a half

percent at $2.66 billion is like $330 million.

That's a pretty good, pretty good deal for Tom Dundin.

Tom Dundin became the majority owner of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018.

At the time, there was a valuation of $420 million, he bought 61%, according to Forbes

and a report published at the time of the purchase.

The deal included an option to become the sole owner of the team in three years.

He would just have to buy the rest of the of the stake of the remaining stake at a higher

valuation by the remaining shares.

And he did do exactly that.

He became the sole owner of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2021.

At the time, Forbes projected the Carolina Hurricanes value to be $550 million.

Sportico had it at $545, about half a billion dollars.

Now, some five years later, there were $2.66 billion.

Sports, listen, great investment, good gig if you can get it, right?

Making a billion dollars is hard, seems like once you've got it, it gets a little bit easier

to make some money.

You're playing a different game, but the sportico reporting on this says that year over year,

their valuation of the Carolina Hurricanes jumped 49% to like over half a billion dollars

in valuation.

And then their valuation in October, when that was when they did their last NHL team

values, they had the Hurricanes at 1.92 billion.

They sold today for a valuation, another 700 million from it above that number, that

sportico published in October, it's almost like sports valuations operate outside anything

that could be considered a typical economic system because they are a scarce asset operating

in a closed ecosystem that only matters on the whims and the desires of other extremely

rich people and how many billionaires have access and interest in purchasing a team.

It's just not an economy that makes any sense to anyone who has anyone who, look, in my

real life, I work a little bit in the space of cash flows and understanding how basic

economic concepts work.

In my basketball life, I just think about things like Tom Dundin and this pretty often,

like sports valuations do not make sense in a sort of normal economic setting.

It's just, they're just bonkers.

The fact that the sportico said, oh, there are valuation of the Hurricanes jumped up 49%

year over year.

It just means that it's all fake.

It's almost like projecting this sort of scarce asset as something with a market value

is totally nonsense.

In any case, congratulations to Tom Dundin for being super duper rich.

I don't, I did want to do a little bit of pocket peeping.

I'm glad we got to look at Tom Dundin's giant wall and say, wow, we don't have that.

But I think like the reporting around Dundin up to this point, including his purchasing

the Hurricanes and the lawsuit with the alliance of American football, it all pointed

to him being a little bit cash poor, like not poor, not like someone who's not very wealthy.

You know, he made something like $750 million from subprime auto loans, like it's dude's

rich, but not like liquid, right, like doesn't have a bunch of cash.

Being able to cash out 12% of your stake in the Hurricanes for basically the same price

you purchased them for less than 10 years ago, dude's going to not have any problem going

liquid when he needs to, right?

I think that's not a concern.

I think the sort of concern, maybe the, on a different scale is how much access to cash

does he have?

Because what matters for an owner is not their portfolio and not whether they're willing

to give Jeremy Grant $160 million, because I think salaries are pretty much baked into

owning an MBA team.

There's a salary floor pretty much every team in the league spends in the same like 10 to

15% salary band.

There's seven teams that are paying the luxury tax this year.

That means 23 teams are below the luxury tax line and above the salary floor, you know,

that's more than two thirds of the league is paying basically, you know, like, player

salaries are basically baked in and there's a bunch of like meaningful strategic reasons

why you don't jump into the tax early until you're competitive because of the way the

league works.

So like, I'm not really worried about spending, you know, there's max salaries, like you

can't, it's like you're not going to, you know, it's not soccer, right?

Like you just kind of are subject to the way the league works in terms of paying players,

you know, paying players what you can and operating within the salary cap.

But like, it's the ancillary spending is what matters with with owners.

So like why I would be concerned or why like the thing that I will monitor with Dundin

is all the, all the ancillary spending.

Do you spend on coaches?

Do you spend on medical staff?

Do you spend on scouting?

Do you spend on like Oklahoma City famously has this sort of very large department of,

it's not, they're not even like basketball people.

They're like player liaisons staff.

They're people who improve the quality of life to like take care of players families.

Get guys set up with housing when they moved to Oklahoma City, like they have a large

staff of people that just like straight up are, their job is like quality of life stuff

for the players.

They, you know, lot of it as a good organization because they do things like that to take

care of their people when they are there.

They're also a wonderful development team, wonderful scouting team.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you spend the money, but you know, you expand your staff

because there aren't rules about how big the staff is.

And then like if you do make a mistake because you are at some point, if Tom Dunton owns

a team for, you know, 20 or 30 years, like you do at some point, make a mistake, hire

the wrong people.

It's the, it's being having enough cash on hand to say, get them out of here.

We'll pay a salary to kick them off the team, right?

Like we got the wrong coach.

We screwed up.

Now we're going to get it right.

And we're going to get the right coach.

Like that is, that's, you know, kind of what seems like Matt Ischbia did in Phoenix,

right?

It's willing to spend to fix your mistakes.

So like I, I think the thing I'm going to be watching with Dunton is not like, you

know, free agents and all that stuff, that's all baked in.

He doesn't really have any impact on free agent appeal here in Portland.

Most of the league doesn't have, doesn't operate in, you know, nobody, no good players change

teams and free agents anyways.

It's not a few, so few secondary stars, James teams and free agents anyways.

How are you, salaries baked in, you know, that stuff's baked in.

It's, do you spend on coaching?

Do you spend on scouting?

Do you spend on medical staff?

Do you spend on upgrading quality of life, both as staff members or, you know, like upgrading

a practice of facility, making sure like when you do get a free arena renovation built

for you that you either spend or take the taxpayer money and to like upgrade the space

inside the motor center.

So it's nice.

Like that quality of life stuff matters that that is, that's not attracting players here.

But it's, it's a retention thing.

It's like when you are here, you make sure that the, that you are having the best basketball

experience possible.

And there is no salary cap for that stuff.

That is where being money matters.

That is where the money matters.

And while Tom Dungeons does appear to be a little bit cash poor, he sure does have a nice

little avenue to create money if he needs it, considering that he can just sort of whole

cloth make 300 million dollars appear by and still maintain the 87 and a half percent

share of the Carolina Hurricanes, which if you believe Sportacos nonsense numbers have

jumped up by $1.5 billion since, excuse me, since 2024.

Hold on.

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Of course it doesn't because it's all nonsense.

Okay.

Enough pocket peeping.

Give me a load of daydreams.

Join me in the third segment.

Won't you?

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Silipaz for his point guard, I'm still Mike Richmond, you're still listening to locked

on blazers.

The end of our D day episode stops here day dreams and Damien Lillard Jason Tatum is set

to return from a torn Achilles on March 6th Friday evening.

They're going to play the Dallas Mavericks Tatum's going to be back in just 298 days after

surgery.

Well, Jason Tatum got surgery 11 days after Damien Lillard, so Damien's at the 3-10 mark.

No, Damien Lillard is not coming back.

No, I am not daydreaming about that, it really has nothing to do with the specifics of

Jason Tatum.

I was reported today by ESPN that Tatum could return.

It's been long reported by the local media embossed and the Tatum could return and it

was, you know, speculated even as recently as last week, I believe on Sunday of last

week that maybe Tatum is going to make a return, but notably Tatum has been upgraded

to questionable on the Celtics injury report.

That was not reported by ESPN because that's not what they're doing.

But like all signs point to Tatum's return and I'll tune in.

I like the NBA.

I'll watch.

I'm curious, but I cannot help.

I will not be able to help when I am watching Tatum play.

Think about Damien Lillard in his return, not just because they have, you know, sustained

the same injury and they sustained it in the playoffs and it's, you know, and it's

a bummer in so many ways, like, but because of their standings within the team, franchise

icons, rights, the best players on their team in recent history, the meaningful, you

know, big usage cogs in the offense, right?

What I don't think Tatum's play or return is particularly meaningful.

Like, I'm not going to be tracking Dejante Murray's return and thinking that it means something

very specific for Damien Lillard's body.

In Tatum's case, he's seven years younger than Damien, and regardless of, you know, age

certainly matters, but like, they're just different bodies, it doesn't, if Tatum's ability

to return has no impact on Damien Lillard's ability to return.

Even Tatum's interest in returning has no impact or like makes, there's no value judgment

to place on Damien in terms of like Tatum obsessively returning about as fast as anyone

has ever returned from an Achilles injury from, from my quick look at it.

I'm not sure anyone has returned faster than Wesley Matthews did, tearing his Achilles

in March in Portland and then being ready for opening night after signing contract with

the Dallas Mavericks in October.

That was like 235 days, 236 days.

That is something Kobe was right in the same range when he was a little bit older as

West, but I believe West was the fastest ever to come back from Achilles injury.

And it, it wasn't quite himself ever again, but it's like it's, Damien is going to take

longer.

That's good news.

Take as much time as you need.

It made no sense for him to try to come back this season.

It was always the right move.

And I won't use Tatum as a barometer or as a measurement for what Damien is, but I am

going to, it will be impossible for me not to watch Tatum play and think about Damien

load.

And the main way I will be thinking about it is not the lift on his jumper and acceleration

and all that stuff, it's, it's the, how do they use him?

When the Celtics get in a close game here in the final 20 games of the season, 15 or 20

games of the season, however many is going to play, into the playoffs.

Is Jason Tatum the guy they go to in crunch time?

Does he immediately step into the role and the, you know, and the pantheon of, of the

order of packing order, I should say, of like, what do we do when we need a bucket type

of thing?

Is he still absolutely that dude?

Is, and if he's not, right, if it's Jalen Brown a couple times, is Tatum, what is Tatum's

sort of emotional response to reintegration into the, how it all works in bigger moments?

Because I think that, like, Dam's health and his return is, like, how he's going to

play is unknowable, even how he's going to react emotionally is unknowable.

But I am going to be so curious in sort of the, um, like the interpersonal and political

stuff that goes into saying, like, okay, you're back.

Let's go.

Because certainly Jason Tatum thinks he's going to be awesome.

The same way Damien load thinks he's going to be awesome.

Do you know Jason Tatum thinks he's going to be when he returns the court?

Jason freaking Tatum.

You know, Damien load thinks he's going to be when he comes back in October, Damien

Le Mans, Ollie Lillard senior, he's going to be, you know, one of the three greatest

blazers of all time, um, any eight, three, um, like, and he's, there is, it is that sort

of emotional balance of, I know what I believe I can be.

I know what I'm supposed to be.

I know what I've been.

And then it's the sort of functional basketball stuff of like, how does that belief translate

on to the court?

And like, again, like how the, the Celtics use Tatum is not predictive, uh, nor indicative

of what will happen with Damien Lillard in Portland, they're, it's just not the same thing.

But this is what I'm talking about daydreaming.

It will be impossible for me not to watch Jason Tatum and think about the implication, even

though it doesn't really exist.

But think about the implication for Damien Lillard in Portland.

I'll watch him and think about it.

There's no doubt about it.

I will sit down on my couch, Mav's, Mav Celtics on a Friday night, I believe it's a

national TV game and it moves on the four letter network.

And I will, my mind will wander there.

I will, I will think about what might be when Damien is back on the court in the fall.

I think allowing yourself to daydream a little bit in our current world is about the

safest thing you can do.

Take care of yourselves out there, come back for more shows next week.

We'll do five of them is what we do five days a week, wherever you get podcasts, also

on YouTube.

Uh, I appreciate your listening, tell your friends about the every day or club.

And then yeah, come back for, come back for more shows next week.

Blasers play the rockets on Friday.

They play the Pacers on Sunday, um, the next time you hear my voice after the Pacers

games Sunday evening.

Look for it.

Uh, I appreciate your listening.

I will talk to you soon.

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