Might the Thunder trade for Naz Reid or Mikal Bridges? Plus, NBA Finals predictions

Tulsa World columnist Berry Tramel joins me on The Jenni Carlson Show to talk about the latest in the NBA.

With the NBA Finals about to start, that means the offseason is close. What moves might the Thunder make? Trades? Draft possibilities? Plus, a preview of the NBA Finals and why basketball’s best backcourt might have trouble with basketball’s best defensive backcourt. All that and more with Tulsa World columnist Berry Tramel on The Jenni Carlson Show.

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Episode highlights

1:15: Does the Mavs’ performance in the Western Conference Finals add more context to the Thunder season?

2:30: Where would the Thunder rank in a Western Conference playoff power ranking?

3:30: Where has the Thunder positioned itself in the West heading into next season?

5:45: Who should the Thunder take in the NBA Draft?

6:45: What about adding another Jalen/Jaylin Williams? 8:00: Any reasonable trade targets for the Thunder?

9:40: Luka vs. SGA?

12:55: Dallas has played better in the playoffs than Boston. Will that matter in the NBA Finals?

14:20: Best backcourt vs. best defensive backcourt?

15:05: Is this a dumb question: would you rather have Luka or Tatum in the Finals?

17:15: Predictions! Who you got in the Finals?

Producer: Jacquelyn Musgrove

Creative Director: Michael Lane

Jenni Carlson: Well, Berry, the NBA finals, like I said, seems like a minute since we've even had an NBA playoff game. But you had a piece on tulsaworld.com about the Mavs, which got into a lot of different things about the Thunder. … Seems like that Western Conference semifinal performance against the Mavs just continues to … add more and more context to where the Thunder is. Isn't that sort of the bottom line to this whole thing?

Berry Tramel: Yeah, I would say so. Makes Oklahoma City feel better? Makes the Thunder feel better? I don't know. I think it makes them look better. When you come out of that series, you're thinking, ‘Now this was opportunity lost.” This was a case of as many Western teams as you've passed, others have passed you. Minnesota. Dallas. But then we have that Timberwolf-Maverick West Final and it’s dominated by the Mavs, winning close games, giving up the gentlemen's sweep, going up 3-0 and then winning 4-1 and the Game 5 is a total rout. 

And you look at it, and the Thunder fared much better against Dallas than Minnesota fared against Dallas. Now playoff matchups, they're hard to compare because of individual matchups, stylistic changes, those kinds of things. But the truth is if you power ranked the teams in the Western Conference playoffs to this point, you'd have Dallas one, the Thunder two. 

And I think the way the Thunder played Dallas, same amount of points over six games, one blowout in the series by the Thunder. you know, Thunder looks pretty good when you look at it. 

I don't know if Dallas is going to win the NBA title, but if they do even more bonus points for OKC.

Jenni: You mentioned power rankings in the West, and that brings up an interesting question I was going to ask you about. As we look at the West, before these playoffs started, even though the Thunder was the No. 1 seed, there's probably a thought that they were maybe fourth or fifth best. Now that we've sort of seen these Western Conference playoffs play out, thinking about next year — I know we don't know draft picks, we don't know off season acquisitions — but is Dallas No. 1 in the West now? Has Denver fallen into somewhere closer to four or five? How would you sort of rank the West heading into next season?

Berry: Well, I'm going to need to see what the rosters look like for one thing, and I don't know that it matters. How would we have ranked the West a year ago at this time? How would we have ranked the West on October 1 last year? How would we have ranked the West at the trade deadline earlier this year? 

I mean, Dallas was 29-23, I think, at the trade deadline, in eighth place in the West. Nobody even considered the Mavs as an NBA finalist contender, but they make the deals, they revamped their team, they catch fire, here they go. 

So the NBA changes at such a fast rate, but clearly the Thunder's on the incline. Clearly, the Thunder is ascending quickly. Other teams have done the same. Dallas. Minnesota. Denver has kept that high status, winning the ’23 title. But the Thunder will be among the contenders. No doubt about it. 

The question is who's going to join them? Will it be a crowded, potentially crowded, race for the West title next season? It always is. How crowded will it be? Will it be four teams? Will it be five? Will it be eight? I mean, Dallas came from nowhere, from way back in the pack. 

It's like a horse race. Mavericks won the West from way back. When you're on the far turn, way too early to know exactly what it's going to look like, but the Thunder's in great position, great roster, young, lots of assets. No reason why the Thunder can't be there coming around the last turn in great shape to win it.

Jenni: You said you want to know what the rosters look like. I'm going to put you on the spot. The draft's coming up here later this month. The Thunder's got the No. 12 pick. Who knows? Maybe they move up, but let's say they stay put. Who do they draft? Who should they draft? Or is there a prototype of maybe what they should be looking for in this draft?

Berry: I have no idea. So many international players are now involved, and I know zero things about the internationals. Don't claim to. But I will say this, sign me up for Cody Williams, Santa Clara Williams’ little brother. As far as I'm concerned, the Thunder team cannot have too many Jalen Williamses and they cannot have too many Williamses period. I mean, when you have two Jalen Williamses on the roster. The confusion just explodes, and I'm all for confusion and chaos and slapstick fun. 

And by the way, out there potentially in the second round, not that the Thunder have a pick right now, but out there in the second round, maybe in the free agent market, undrafted free agent market, Auburn's Jaylin Williams. Now how much fun would that be? Would that be the funnest thing of all time? The Thunder go to camp with three Jalen Williamses? I gotta believe that the Thunder would have the busiest training camp in the history of NBA media with people coming in to write about the three Jalen Williamses.

Jenni: As it relates to trades and free agents, I think you and I are in agreement here — you can't go breaking up the core. The Thunder doesn't need to do anything crazy. Reasonably though, is there anybody out there that you feel like the Thunder could be targeting, should be targeting as it relates to free agency or trades?

Berry: Well, there are two major guys I've always wanted them to go after. Can't go after both, but one's much tougher to get now than he was say two months ago. That's Naz Reid of the Timberwolves. I don't think Minnesota wants to trade him. I don't think they will trade him, but they could because they got all kinds of salary cap issues. And if you give them a lot of tools that help them alleviate that crush, maybe they'd think about it.

But the other’s Mikal Bridges at Brooklyn. Just a wonderful all-around player. Naz Reid’s the big shooting or outside shooting big man that the Thunder needs. I also think, Bridges is just an all-around player who just adds to this arsenal of guys like SGA and Santa Clara and Aaron Wiggins and all kinds of guys that just are Swiss army knives that do everything. If you get a team full of those guys, opponents just have to throw up their hands. 

Both would cost a lot. Both would cost probably Josh Giddey, probably multiple draft pick, first-round draft picks, and probably another valuable hand. Somebody like an Aaron Wiggins. But I do think either one of those things would make the Thunder really, really tough going into the ’24’-25 season.

Jenni: Hey, before we talk NBA Finals, I wanted to ask you about something that you mentioned in your post about this at TulsaWorld .com. You were talking about how we went from a month plus ago talking about how Anthony Edwards was the next coming of Michael Jordan. But now we're talking about is Luka Doncic the best player on the planet? So obviously, things can move pretty fast when it comes to proclamations about player greatness. 

But you drill down into the numbers of Luka and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when those two were on the court together — obviously Luka's getting lots of love right now and rightfully so — but what should people remember about what we saw when those two were on the court together?

Berry: Well, look, Doncic might be the best player in the world. I don't know. I mean, everybody said it was Jokic four weeks ago, and it probably still is Jokic. But if you want to vote Doncic, he was unbelievable against the Timberwolves. So he might've been the best player on the planet. 

He was not the best player in the Western Conference semifinals. That was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They went head-to-head, sometimes covering each other, usually not. But … nobody came out of that series thinking, ‘Wow, look at Doncic.’ I don't know that anybody came out of it saying, ‘Wow, look at SGA’ because SGA is not flash. His production is high level and very, very even. He doesn't have monster games. Bad game for SGA is 27 points on 11-of-23 shooting. That's a bad game for SGA. A great game for SGA is 39 points on 15-of-22 shooting. I mean, his variance is unbelievably low. 

But if you look at his numbers through that series, he was trumping Doncic and virtually everything except assists and rebounds, and he was close in both. And he blocked, I think, 14 shots in the series. His turnovers were incredibly low compared to Doncic. Shooting was way more consistent. Scored more points than Doncic. 

He's just a wonderful player. He just played the way we always seen play. Literally, he’s more consistent than even Kevin Durant, which I'm not sure we ever thought we'd see, but he's far more consistent than Durant. Durant had bad games. SGA has like four bad games a season. So same thing in the West semifinals. He was remarkably consistent. He gave the Thunder a chance to win.

And if the Thunder had won that, everybody would be talking about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. To the victors, go the spoils. We know that Doncic went on to the West Finals. Unbelievable performance. Deserves everything he gets. He is a transcendent player. Dallas luckiest team on earth that not one, not two, but three teams passed on him in the NBA Draft of a few years ago. I think that was the ’18 draft, but Dallas got him, they've ridden him to the NBA Finals and now they might win it. So power to Doncic. Power to the Dallas. But don't forget SGA.

Jenni: Definitely not. Let's talk about those Finals. Dallas playing better, has played better than Boston. In these playoffs. We’ve seen Boston have some clunkers and Dallas has been just pretty darn consistent in how good they've been. Does any of that matter heading into the NBA Finals?

Berry: I think it's all matchups. Dallas was a bad matchup for the Thunder. The way they could protect the rim, the way they would allow the Thunder to drive. Most teams try to shut off the drive because that's the Thunder's lifeblood. Dallas was OK with it because they had those two big guys inside. 

Boston is a difficult matchup for Dallas because of the way they play, particularly if Kristaps Porzingis is healthy. Boston switches all over. Boston has five outside shooters on the court most of the time. The Thunder, Dallas was able to play off of Giddy, put those centers on Giddy, get them closer to the rim. Can't do that against Boston, which has Porzingis and Al Horford. So it's gonna be a difficult matchup for Dallas. I think Boston is equipped to take advantage of that. Still think it'll be a good series, but so much of NBA basketball is about the matchups. And I think Boston matches up with Dallas much better than did Minnesota or the Thunder.

Jenni: Yeah, I like a lot of those defensive guys Boston can throw out there.

Berry: Unbelievable, unbelievable defensive team. I mean, when somebody like Tatum and Brown are not even your two best defenders out on the court, that's crazy. You’ve got Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. We spent the last two weeks talking about a best backcourt in history, offensive backcourt, Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic. Boston might be one of the best defensive backcourts when you look at Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. So yeah, it's a tough matchup for Dallas.

Jenni: Berry, it comes to my mind that when Thunder media day happened before the season, I asked several guys about who's the toughest defender they've ever faced in the league. And a bunch of guys mentioned Jrue Holliday. So just, just a stacked defensive team. 

You mentioned Jayson Tatum. We've talked about Luka. Is this a dumb question: who would you rather have in the NBA Finals? Would you rather have Luka? Would you rather have Tatum? Is there an argument to be made for Jayson Tatum?

Berry: Well, Tatum's a better defender, but that's about as far as I'd probably go. Doncic is a transcendent player. Tatum's unbelievably accomplished. I mean, he's a multiple time first-team all-NBA player. So he's an absolutely qualified superstar. There's not a question about this guy. He's one of the five, six, seven best players in the world. 

But Doncic is one of the two or three best. So it's a small difference, but it is a difference. I guess to me, the difference is probably that Doncic is more likely to just go off, 20 points in the first, was it eight minutes, nine minutes in Game 5 against Minnesota? Something like that. Tatum can do that, but Donkich does it more often. So I would favor Doncic on the superstar realm in this one. 

But don't sleep on Jayson Tatum. He's a wonderful player. He's basically Boston's SGA. They're similar in age, not similar in styles, but similar in age, in production and just sort of stability. The kind of superstar you want to build around. Boston's in great shape. Not only with that great roster, but Jayson Tatum.

Jenni: He’s a guy that I've loved since basically draft night. He was very human, his mom, just the whole thing. I I would love to see him play one day in Oklahoma City the same way I always wanted to see Al Horford play in Oklahoma City. Now you disagreed with me on that, but I always liked Al Horford's style. Glad he was here for a year. But anyway, love Jayson Tatum. But yeah, Luka can go nuclear at any point. 

All right, let's do predictions. Who you got in this one, Berry? It sounds like you're leaning Celtics, but what do you think about this series?

Berry: Yeah, it just goes back to the matchups. I like the Celtics. I love their team. Just one of the most well-rounded lineups you'll see if Porzingis is healthy now. It gets a lot more dicey if he's not healthy, but with Porzingis, with the dual-star tandem of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum … if Jrue Holiday is your fifth-best starter, you got yourself a team. Cause he's one of the most valuable players of the NBA in the last 10 years. A bedrock of a character, bedrock of a player, wonderful defender. And yeah, he can score on occasion in high dosages. So just a wonderful player is Jrue Holiday. Derrick White is a budding star. 

The matchups, I think, favor Boston’s style. I'm going to take the Celtics in six. Would get their first championship since 2008. How's this? Their second championship since the ‘80s. So when you think of the Celtics as one of the all-timers, since Larry Bird's days, they've won one title. I think it becomes two.

Jenni: I'm going Celtics as well, and I think it's a minimum six-game series, but I could see this being a seven gamer. Just the way that Dallas has played, I’ve been really impressed by them. We don't talk a whole lot about their defense, but they've defensively been pretty darn good in these playoffs. I think the series does favor Boston, but I could definitely see the Mavs pushing them, even to that seventh game. So I think it should be a great NBA Finals.