Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Biggest NBA Offseason Winners & Losers + A Major Update On NBA Ownership

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim MacMahon and Bobby Marks to talk about the biggest winners and losers of the NBA offseason. The guys break down why there were some interesting moves, some surprising decisions and unique trends creating the best & worst offseasons. Finally, we talk two of Brian’s favorite stories from the week including a fascinating update on the future of the Portland Trail Blazers.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Try the Creamy Parmesan and Bacon Quarter Pounder today or treat yourself to your Dreamburger lineup with our original Quarter Pounder with cheese or Quarter Pounder BLT. At participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada, product availability varies by restaurants. Hello, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon. Joining me from Naples, Florida, is our front office man, Bobby Marks.

Hello, gentlemen. How are we doing today? And joining us from the Eastern Time Zone, Bobby. Actually, from the basketball offices at Wake Forest University is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners? Bobby doing well. I know when you didn't answer that, but kind of rude to them. Hey, not just the basketball offices.

I am in the office of the general manager, Steve Wyman, long time, friend of the pod, better friend now that he has delivered, some free swag. He is now hosting an unofficial recruiting visit with my daughter. Actually, she's not a hooper, but taking a college tour, and I'm hoping he's got some NIL, an NIL deal for his tuition here is tough. But beautiful campus and looking forward to getting a tour of the facility here in a little bit. You're pretty far from home up there in the northern part of North Carolina there, buddy. Well, and we started off at Tulane, Auburn, Georgia, brief stop at Clemson.

Now we're awake, North Carolina and Duke to come, and, you know, we'll see where she ends up. I kind of like hook them. I like hook them. Are you driving all these or are you flying? We flew into New Orleans, drove, you know, it's been a long road trip since, and then we'll fly home after. I can't drive more to four hours. I got a four hour timer on me.

I just can't. Like, that's it. Well, any more to four hours, I got to fly to. Bobby, I don't have to tell you how to, how to dad. You've done awfully well for yourself. But a dad tip, especially with teenage daughters. time in the car, that means you've got a captive audience.

Or quality time. So I don't mind the five-hour drives in between some of these places. All right. You're going very ACC and SEC there, no Texas flavor whatsoever. Well, TCU is on her list. Texas is on her list. She's seen those schools. So this is a chance to see some other schools.

Dad wants her to be a longhorn, Bobby. I like in state tuition. I ain't a lot. Tell you what, in-state is a lot easier than applying out-of-state. I know that for a fact. As you spent yours all the way across the country, USC. To a private school in California. We were just talking.

He could have went to Florida, Florida State for free, but I didn't send him out to SC. Yeah, who would leave Los Angeles to come to Florida? Like, maybe LeBron. That's the beginning, end of our LeBron. I hope you enjoyed it. All right. So we've reached a point in the same. See, Bobby, the league is essentially frozen at this point with Labrower.

You know, there could be some extensions, I suppose, but in terms of players moving, the league right now is essentially on hold until LeBron makes up his mind. Would you agree? I would fully agree. I mean, we saw Jordan Wall for a little minor, three years, $15 million on Thursday morning. But everyone else is the transaction page has not moved at all over the last week here.

Hold on. The Mavericks. Well, Mugwisian, yeah. Hey, and that's a good contract for them too, right? By the way, I believe the Mavericks have 16 contracts now, McMahon. 16 guaranteed contracts? They'll figure it out. I would say, well, how about Memphis's got 21? They still haven't signed Cream Lopez, I don't think.

So they're, you've got some teams got to figure out their roster a little bit here. I don't think in both cases, veterans are available. Well, that's what I'm asking. What about Clay Thompson? Make an offer. What if Clay Thompson makes his own offer? I mean, I'm sure that they would be willing to listen. Okay.

You know, I'm like, listen, I don't know if Clay Thompson's on the Mavericks come training camp. I don't know. I don't know that. Well, let's just think about and see what happens with the Mavericks. They've got to move a player at some point. Yeah, the only thing I would say on Clay Thompson is like any kind of buyout, you are losing a nice size, expiring contract. that could be diable in the trade market would be my only hesitation there.

Absolutely correct. All right. So with the league pause, you know, we'll wait on Demarder Rosen. We'll wait on Jonathan Cominga. Heard from Jonathan Cominguez agent, Aaron Turner, after my comments the other day. Did that get your hands going? Did it get the hands going? That's just an indication that I need to take time off because I'm on edge about things.

I'm at the end of the rope. I had someone text me. Speaking of On Edge about LeBron and someone reputable and I texted back, I could care less. I do. I mean, I care. I don't want Rich getting mad at me. But I was just like, I don't really care. Right now I'm just like, whatever happens happens, you know?

Let's be real. Like at this point, it's like it'd be nice if you make a decision. I don't know if Adam Silver trying to hurry it up, did anything, but slowed it down a little bit more. Real quick on that. I don't want to discredit anybody. I don't want to get into this game. LeBron is not waiting because of Adam Silver saying that, okay? I just said it didn't hurry him up.

No, I know. I'm just, nobody knows what LeBron's doing. There's an incredible amount of crap out there. Nobody knows. Not even people close to him, no. He's making up his own mind. Whether he wants to do, whether he wants to articulate why and what he's thinking about later, fine.

If you want to speculate as to what you'd be thinking about if you were LeBron, cool. If you want to make an argument for which team would make more sense or less sense or whatever, absolutely fill the time. I'm telling you, nobody knows. The teams don't know, the coaches don't know, the players don't know, the owners don't know. Not even people close to them know. They don't know.

Do you know? I don't know. I know that this is it's not it's totally not what anybody wants to hear they don't know okay let's move on anyway on Thanksgiving

what I said about what I said about Jonathan Cummina the other day was not personal Jonathan Cumminga it was in reaction to people saying that they were going to sign and trade him with the Hawks getting players back that's not happening

the Hawks are $4 million. I'm not going to go over it again. I hope I think Kamika has a great season. I hope the best for him. I hope he gets paid. Good luck to everybody. I hope everybody does great. Okay.

Cominga is waiting. DeMara Rosen is waiting. Bradley Beale is waiting. Who else am I forgetting, Bobby? The restricted guys continue to stay in limbo. That would have happened. I don't think that would happen either way. No.

I'm not on the genetic math room. Benedict Matherin, yeah, restricted. Okay, my point is we're in a lull. So let's take this moment. Let's have a deep breath to relax. Talking to myself. By the way, the heat social media team didn't know either. Okay?

They don't know. They didn't help the situation out, though. I understand they didn't help it, but I promise you they didn't know. Okay. After not five, I don't know if you guys remember this, but LeBron had an intro presser. in Miami before and not five, not six, not seven has trailed them ever since. Well, listen, though, he got two and now he's got a chance to get not five, six. I mean, he might play till he's 50 and win eight, nine, pen.

Who knows, in Miami? He has not done, quote, unquote, intro pressers in Cleveland or Los Angeles. There's very likely not going to be a intro presser. So don't even worry about it. I've had to talk about on ESPN for three days. How many more days will I have to talk about it? Okay. I thought that at this moment...

You got to talk about it on ESPN. Thank God. I thought we should take a look at this juncture at some of what we think are the winners and losers. So we're going to each call a winner and each call a loser. And Bobby, I'd like for you to go first with your winner. You know what? And looking at that shirt that Tim's got on, that Wake 4 shirt,

he's inspired me to pick the team. The team that Tim Duncan once played on, Wake 4th, and formerly played on in San Antonio. Tobias Harris, two-year contract, $15 million, and more important, the old five-year, $252 million, without any escalator clauses. And Yama that drew the ire of David Kelly, the executive director of the Players Association, as far as the ability to, I guess, give back and not put that escalator clause in there that could earn him, potentially another $50 million that will help keep Stefan Castle and Dylan Harper in a Spurs uniform for the foreseeable future.

I would say that would be my big winner of the offseason. What does it say that you're a big winner is that they got an existing player to take a below market contractor? Yeah, and they got a quality vet addition. He didn't mention the couple first round picks, although the big from Kentucky probably isn't playing this year. But listen, it is a huge deal when you got a guy who gave you a 50-some-odd million-dollar discount in a summer where, and I might bring this team up in a little bit, where your chief rival is shedding contributors purely for financial reasons, purely to deduct that second Abram. Well, I will tell you that Zach Cram, our colleague at ESPN, gave his off-season grades. It's kind of hard to give offseason grades right now with, you know, a couple of teams, what they do with extensions are really going to define their offseason. For example, the Knicks, Carl Towns, you know, he's extension eligible right now, Bobby.

And we have no, you know, we have no agreement on this extension. I would argue, I know they lost Mitchell Robinson and all this stuff, but I would argue that the Knicks offseason is defined by what contract they get or not get Carl Towns into. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. And, you know, the heats, you know, the heat, you know, they certainly have had quite an offseason by getting Yon Sanacupo, but if they get LeBron, it takes to another level. Having said that, you know, Zach Cram did grades. He gave out six A's. Mm-hmm. And the San Antonio Spurs got, I should say, he gave out two A's and four A minuses.

So I guess two A's. And the San Antonio Spurs got one of his A's. Did the other team get the A, were they your winner banned McMahon? Should I say who the other team was? No, just say your team and then we'll... I'm going to go with one of his A minuses, though. And this is controversial because they didn't get better immediately, but I think they set themselves up to have a higher ceiling down the road.

And that's the Charlotte Ornance. You know, getting... Look, that son's first round pick was getting traded. They won a race for the Sun's first round pick. first round pick in what was it, 2033, Bobby? Yes. I mean, I talked to teams.

It's like, man, you know, they got to do before we could. And to get that pick for Miles Bridges, that's like, wow, that was really good work. And then the Lamello trade is going to be a polarizing deal, and there is a chance that he could make them look very bad for it. Nobody doubts his talent. Maybe, you know, his second,

and he is, he's coming off his best year. And maybe with a change of scenery, sliding to kind of the shotgun role in Minnesota, A mellow's career very well could take off. But I haven't heard anybody tell me they thought that was a bad deal for the Hornets. You know, on the contrary, I've heard people say, hey, they did a great job of letting him restore his value and pouncing as soon as they got an opportunity to get a first-round pick and return. And they, you know, look, Jeff Peterson's not going to sit there and say it,

but he has a very clear vision for the culture that he wants for the Charlotte Hornets, and La Mello Ball and Miles Bridges did not fit that. And so, you know, they're going to have the culture that he wants as they build around Brandon Miller and Connipal. Not that I'm disagreeing with either of you. I would just say that, you know, your two winners, one team is getting rewarded for resigning its own player. I mean, Tobias is a good addition, but the other is getting, you know, rewarded for taking, making deals that potentially make it worse in the short run, which I think just goes to the complex nature

of how you look at offseason moves in the NBA, more than anything. I wanted to say Atlanta, but I don't want to get Bonham's a big head. No, we're not talking about it. I drop Atlanta, and they did, they got an A-minus year. I automatically drop Atlanta two-letter grades for bringing in that bozo bond temple.

Yeah, is cram, let me just see here. Did he credit that transaction? Did he knock them because of the bond temps higher? Yeah, how did it affect the grade? He did give them a minus. Didn't even mention bomb temps. How could you discuss the Hawks offseason and not mention their biggest transaction?

Well, they got a whole bunch of players for bait. The Hawks got a whole bunch of players for basically free. Yeah. Like they got they got Lou Dort. What did they send out in that deal? They sent out two seconds. They did not re-touchet to die. Yeah, three.

Okay. Really, they decided that he wasn't. Well, the thing with Risha Shay is they were going to have to decide by October whether to pick up his $17 million player option for next season. Right. And they probably would have had to because he's the number one pick. But I don't, they decided they wanted to trade him. They didn't want to do that. Sure.

And by the way, it wasn't Ansi Salas pick. He wasn't in charge. They made him the number one pick. If that was Stefan Castle, they're not. shipping them out. Well, I think a big part of Houston, or said Houston, because I was thinking of Kingston Fleming's, a big part of Atlanta's offseason will be judged on how, what kind of a season Fleming's has. Because that's a very important pick for them. He doesn't have to be great right away. But like, when you evaluate it, that's, you know, that was a very important move for them.

You know, they gave, they moved back in last year's draft. It could have had an impact player in last year's draft. So anyway, my winner, I'm just going to have to go with Philadelphia because while they gave away the pick and the swap, they took a, they took a 36-year-old Paul George who had two years left on his contract at the max, you know, a, I don't know if I'd call it a toxic contracts, but certainly one of the worst contracts in the league. Okay, well, I'm trying, I've offended people this week. I'm trying to. I'm trying to. That's a draft pick to it just to get off it. Right.

And maybe they would have to draft the draft compensation that they ended up giving up. And they got an all-N-B-A player in return. Right. I mean, Paul George played 37 games last year. Got a 25-game suspension. And people were like, and I think not unreasonably, people were like, boy, that time off might not have been the worst thing because it got him healthy. Yeah. And it did.

He came back and was good. So, you know, like Jalen Brown, whatever you want to say, he's under contract for three more seasons. He's top 10 player in the league, you know, top 15, depending on what's your viewpoint. It's certainly somebody's not saying he's not a top 15 player. And he's looking for revenge. And it was a phenomenal addition as far as just a talent upgrade for the Sixers. I am curious about the fit with or without LeBron. I am very curious about how it all fits.

Well, I mean, just what they turned Paul George into, regardless of how it all may work out, because it's not an ideal fit, as you said. I mean, you've got to give the Sixers front office, Mike Gansy, first year as general manager, credit for that one. And I like the Dean Wade edition. I mean, they paid a little, you know, a little bit of money for Dean Wade. But, you know, in terms of length of contract, they gave him 40. years. Yeah. So, but I'm not quibbling, you know, not quibbling. I mean, huge win to get Jalen

Brown and that could end up changing their entire horizon. Really, it could. So I'm calling them a winner. All right. Regardless of LeBron. All right. For every winner, there must be a loser. And McMahon, I will start with you. I'm going to go with the Oklahoma City Thunder. And it's not because I think they did anything that was illogical, but it's a loss when you have to or decide to or a pressure to by ownership make a series of trades that are motivated purely on dumping salary in dropping your luxury tax payment from. Bobby, what was the final number in salary and luxury tax that they shed 300 some odd? $500,000 to like $2.34, something like that.

$320-something million. But here's, and look, they backfilled, they spin a first-round pick on a guard, Bennett Sturtz, a lottery pick on a big man, a day Mara, the, who I think's got a chance to be really interesting. He's going to need some time in terms of getting physically ready for NBA play. The Isaiah Hartnstein deal was great value for them and it was great value for them. because Hartnstein understood the crunch they were in and was willing to work with them to take a reduced salary to get to get locked in. But look, it's a loss when you have to trade a year and change out of one in the championship, three guys who were significant contributors to that championship.

And I understand Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins fell to the fringe of the rotation of the playoffs. But their depth took a big hit. Lou Dort, you know, you can argue whether he was playing too much against the Spurs, but he's been a huge piece for them for years. And then this summer for them is really going to be judged based on do you get Casein Wallace signed? Do you get A.J. Mitchell signed? Because shedding the salary now, you know, Sam Presti went on the record with Justin Martinez with the Oklahoma and basically saying this is to set us up to be able to keep this team together moving forward.

So you've got to keep those guys, those key guys. You know, I assume Wallace probably moves in the starting lineup. You know, you've got to keep him. And that's not going to be cheap. A.J. Mitchell, whether he's in that starting spot or a six man, he's not going to be cheap. But you've got to keep those guys or this is just a bad situation. And the other thing is, culturally, this was a loss. because, you know, this kind of Boy Scout utopia that the Thunder had,

you know, NBA business has interfered with that. You know, one of their favorite stories during the second round series against the Lakers was Isaiah Joe pretty much lost his spot in rotation to Jared McCain. And Isaiah Joe, great team guy. He's standing on the bench, engaged in the game, and he's yelling to Dagonal plays to run to get McCain to ball because McCain was cooking, right? But then, you know, that guy, you turn around and that guy gets dumped, right? He gets salary dumped.

And, you know, Wiggins, great team guy, he gets salary dumped. Lou Dorer. Tied with Shea for the longest tenured guy. And Shea did not want Lou to go. I'm not saying Shea's going to have, like, hard feelings or anything, but trust me, they didn't want him to go. But, like, Lou was as big a piece of the culture as anybody aside for him. from Shay to lose that culture and now it becomes like, okay, hey, we're fighting for our spots. We're fighting to be able to stick around.

You know, money's coming into the equation. I think that's a loss. It's a big cultural loss. The body's going out the door and just kind of the business being right there in your face. It's a big cultural loss for the thunder. You know, one thing I will say on the flip side, Sam Presti can absolutely look every guy in his eye and say, we do right by our guys because he did put Isaiah Joe in a good situation with the Pistons. Both Aaron Wiggins and Ludo went to a very competitive situation,

a good situation with the hawks. So, you know, it's not like he sent these guys to Siberia. That's the one thing from a cultural standpoint that is at least still in their favor regarding these moves. All right. I think Cram gave the, what did he give them? You give them a C something? Yes. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing.

The Hartenstein extension was one of the best contracts of the sign. Great work. Great work. So he's got a B-plus. Also, I didn't want to, I didn't want to, like, there's a couple of teams that we pick on all the time, and I don't want it. I didn't want to pick on those teams anymore. I understand.

I respect that. I respect that. We said plenty about a couple of teams. bottle. I feel you. All right, Bobby. Cool, man, I could have gone a lot of ways here. I wanted to pick Portland just because their owner. I think we're going to talk about them in a minute, but I'll leave them off

the offer right now. I'm going to pick New Orleans. They got a deal. They got to do. They didn't do anything. They got a D, which is comparable to my freshman year at Maris College. That was a number

that was right up there. They hired Jamal Mosey, who I like a lot, but they went 26 and 56, and they're off-season signing with DeAndre George. And they sent them to a two-year deal instead of the one-year deal. Yeah. So, it was a financial club. I could be totally wrong three months for four months from now. And Jamal Mosey could take this same team of Zion and Herb Jones and Trey Murphy and Jordan pool and DeJante Murray and Siddique Bay and, you know, this whole group, Derrick Queen,

who they drafted a lot year ago and get them into contending for a lottery position. I could totally be wrong with it, but I just look at it when you're 26 and 56, it's probably not the right group to roll back. And I just think it was also they had a lot of people out the door in terms of the front office, I think the way that this front office is operating is ill-advised. It's a very insular front office. Like, you know, you've got Joe Dumars, Troy Weaver, and their bloodlines. And that's the people that are in the mix. And that's a tough way to go about business in the NBA. Yeah. They would sign a two-way guy today. Great. Yeah. I mean, look, I think they would argue.

that their improvement is that their team is hopefully going to be healthier. I mean, it could be. It probably will be. And that Jamal Mosley is a great hire and that he's going to help turn everything around. You know, they would argue that they made that change. I would argue you look at the Western Conference and, you know, you either need to get better or you need to do things to position yourself long term to have a higher ceiling. That's fair.

All right. So I have said stuff about the Trey Young contract, and I am not going to go over that again. That's the other one that I didn't want to. I wasn't going to be hit on. Listen, I just want to say this, even if Trey Young has a first team all NBA season, I hope that he does. It's not a commentary on him. It's a commentary on paying him that under these circumstances. That's what's a commentary on.

But I really I'm not sure Bobby do we think the Detroit Pistons got better this summer? They didn't You set it up for them to get better than the night of the second round of the draft You put you you set the expectation for them I don't remember

Yeah I don't what did I say? I don't remember No listen they were in position to strike Yeah And this was after decided not to strike last year before the trade deadline, which I didn't mind. Right. See what you got.

But clearly they needed another big-time score. They needed number two score, number two creator. Isaiah Joe, I do like for them as far as bringing another shooting. Yeah, they re-signed Kevin Herder and they brought in Isaiah Joe. I mean, those are guys who are, without question, two of the NBA's best shooters. The Jalen Dern thing is going to probably end up with him on the roster and some hard feelings that need to be smoothed over. They traded away Isaiah Stewart. Yeah.

So they had a lot of flexibility. They kind of kicked the ball down the field a little bit because they took John Collins, who's at the end of his, he's on a one-year contract. They basically swapped out Tobias Harris for John Collins. And if they could have gotten Tobias Harris for $15 million, which is what the Spurs got him for, then that would have been a terrific signing. But, you know, it's just, it's hard to get, it does happen, but it's hard to get your players to come back to your team on big pay cuts. Yeah.

And the other thing is, if they could have got Norm Powell in there, I actually would have liked it for them. I would have liked it better if they could have landed a trade for a, you know, for Kauai. That would have been sticky, obviously. So, yeah. So they lost Tobias Harris. Carus Lavert, they traded Isaiah Stewart. Now, they obviously

believe Paul Reed will fit into that role. Like, you know, I'm not, I mean, and, and look, Trayson Langdon's track record of making decisions with this team has been pretty good. But I just, you know, and I think that they're just, they're very cautious of

what they're paying Kate Cunningham, what they're going to have to pay a Sarr Thompson, and what they're going to have to pay Jalen Duren. They're just very cautious, I think, of taking on another big salary. And that may end up being a correct assessment of the situation. But I felt that they were a team that was the number one seed in the Eastern Conference and had a chance to seriously upgrade. And I don't think they seriously upgraded. Maybe they would argue that they upgraded. I think they,

you could argue they downgraded. Well, I don't know if they would say that, but you could argue. But what they did at the trade deadline, I compared to the Thunder the year before the Thunder won the championship, where it's like, okay, hey, ahead of schedule is the number one. seed, see how it plays out, see, see where your holes are, let guys prove what they are or what they aren't, and then you can be aggressive. That next summer, the Thunder went out and signed Isaiah Hartnstein and traded for Alex Caruso and got their two finishing pieces. The Pistons did not get their finishing pieces this year.

Mike and Sir Troyd is just like, if they were a marathon run or they're at Marathon, they're been stuck at mile 15 and everybody else is just coming up from behind and just, you know, like just based on what. And listen, they could say they got to the second round and to a, you know, into a game seven and everything like that. And they'll be better. But it's, the cost is going to get up there. I mean, when you had with Cade and Duren and then Thompson, like you're going to,

that's going to be your three guys. And they still have their picks to do something. But I just thought that where everyone else was going, there was probably another move out there. All right. Let me just say something about a team. I think a team that could swing either. way. I don't know if you guys have anybody in this category. So I focus a little bit on the Cavs, Cavs Corner. They got Donovan Mitchell into this contract extension, which is a certainly

something that was not 100% guaranteed and they locked him down. It's a bunch of money, Bobby, I can still close my eyes and see you tweeted out the whiteboard of Donovan's year-by-year contracts when it was agreed to in the last year was- Funny with that? 272 is the number. So I'm writing a factor fiction article, and one of the things is about players giving back a little bit. And, you know, Victor and Brunson, McHale Bridges, guys like that. But then you go through the guys that, you know, listen, it's their money. They have the right to do whatever they want. But, you know, this is, you know, Donovan signed.

I think this is the second time he signed extensions in two years, right, 24 and then 26. Yeah. The only concern, like, and I just, I never think those contracts age well. I just know, especially when there's 75.5.5 in the last year. What are you going to do? What's your options? Well, no. You got to do it, but I.

Well, it was a win. I mean, Donovan otherwise was going to be an unrestricted free agent next summer. So, you know, that, I don't think the cows wanted to be in that position. So, um, so I felt that that was, you know, it wasn't like a resounding, humongous victory. but it was a good, I think a good moment for the franchise. Maybe that'll end up not looking like that in four years, but I think the calves are going to wager that they'll take the next two seasons of two, three seasons of Donovan

and understand that they may have to deal with it on the back end, but certainly the guy's been all the NBA two years in a row. He's entering his prime. What are you going to do? James Hardin opted out, and they're going to come to an agreement with Hardin that is going to keep them out of the second apron. So they did lose Dean Wade and they did lose Kean Ellis.

And I would just say that, you know, one of the things that's interesting, I wrote about this a little bit earlier this week on ESPN.com about how so many teams are dodging aprons that now it's a whole thing that you can evaluate the apron dodgers. You know, like I was talking to a GM this week and they were like, well, you know, if you look at what Boston had to do to get out of the apron last year, Oklahoma City did better to get out of the apron this year. It's like a whole subcategory. Seven second round picks to trade three guys.

They didn't have to attach anything. They were getting stuff back. Right. So what I'm saying is that's now a whole subcatech. It's a whole subcategory. So the fact that like the calves didn't haven't added anybody. But the calves haven't added anybody, right? But they're going to bring back all their core pieces probably.

Haven't added anybody yet. And have gotten. Right. This is when we're judging. We're judging now. I'm saying the calves haven't added anybody, and they're out of the second apron. They didn't have to trade away starters.

They didn't have to, you know, they didn't resign role players, and it's going to hurt him a little bit, and they need some guys to step up. But the thing with Cleveland is, if LeBron comes, it changes your whole viewpoint of it. And if LeBron doesn't come,

I think there's still a move to be made. Correct me from wrong, but part of the logic letting Dean Wade goes, like Jalen Tyson's proven he's ready for more. Well, they hope he's proven he's ready for more. Or at least he's giving you hope that he's ready for more. Their 24 first round pick. So the cats could swing either way on this, I think. All right.

So to be continued. We didn't mention the heat is a big winner, despite the fact they pulled off the honest deal. I mean, that that is a, you know, obviously that was a big win. So cram, cram didn't give them an A. Word cram. I don't know. Do you know, I don't know. I don't know.

He gave him a B. He gave him a B. He gave a B. Well, there's everything that they traded for Janus, which was a bunch of draft assets and Tyler Hero, you know, Kelle L Ware. So, you know, one of their, probably their second best player and their best prospect and they lost Norman Powell to free agency. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a good point. I do like the Hardaway signing, Bobby. You know, the guy hit 223s or something last year for the Nuggets. And they desperately needed shooting. Yeah. So, and by the way, like, this is another team that could swing. Like, if they don't, if they get LeBron, I think it's going to be an A. I don't want to speak for Zach, but I think it's going to be an A.

If they don't get LeBron, they might be able to get DeMartner. Rosen, you know, we'll see. You know, that would be a decent fit for them. So they have, they have three roster spots. I looked up, I looked up cramp. Hold on, according to his LinkedIn, Washington University in St. Louis.

Oh. That's a 40 good academic school. Good school. Are you going there next on your, you're going to drive across the 70? No, like you said, we're looking at, at schools that have some, some good athletics programs,

even though she's not an athlete. All right. Well, I was saying it's too really. Unnecessary shot at Washington. Wash you. Let me circle back to Miami and real quick. I would, I would, hopefully one day Pat Riley does his own podcast because I could listen to him tell stories. Like, you know, he went on Dan Labitard and went back and rewind the clock with LeBron and all that stuff.

And what's amazing. And Brian, you know this and you lived it, is the 2000. when these guys all did those signing trades and what they had to give up to get them, you know, the six first round picks where they could have basically just signed them into cap space. And they could have, you know, back then the rules were a lot different sign and trades benefited you. You can have more years. All the states of rules have now changed. But what those got, what Miami had to give up to get those guys in sign and trade, which eventually bit them in the rear end because LeBron left early anyway. Well, I have posited the concept that.

that the Cavs started getting LeBron James back the day after the decision. Because the day after the decision, Chris Grant, the general manager at the time, somehow, remember what Dan Gilbert, where Dan Gilbert's head was at? I was going to say, remember the letter published. Was that the day of or the day after? The day, the night of within an hour. Okay. If it wasn't within an hour, it was within 90 minutes.

Okay. And in the morning, remember, it was like in the evening. It was like 8 o'clock at night. the morning, the Cavs got a sign and trade where they got two first, two seconds. And I agree that the first that the heat sent them were deemed to be not very valuable first. Well, they traded one of the firsts in the package for Kevin Love when they got LeBron back. So obviously a lot of things happened. It wasn't like that was the key.

I'm just saying that it was a very responsible thing to do for the Cavs to get LeBron, get assets for LeBron. If I ever said to you, if I went to even a very good, strong NBA fan, and I say, was LeBron James ever traded? They would say no. In fact, he was. He was traded for two first round picks and two second round picks. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Prime presents perfect pairings.

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SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every. system and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running bring it with SAP grow AI cloud ERP for any size business so anyway okay I want to talk at this point about by the way do you guys have any other swing teams you want do you want no all right in the last week there have been two absolutely incredible stories written about about NBA. I can't say NBA owners, but NBA leadership. NBA governor. No, I can't say that.

Definitely one governor, but I can't say who the other person was because I don't know. One was written by Motoko Rich, I hope I'm saying that correctly, who was a writer for the New York Times. And I know I sent this story to both of you because it's one of my favorite stories I've read this year. This is a potential borderline legendary story. Jackson, do you have any idea what I'm talking about? It's about an NBA owner. Jackson says yes in the chat. Jackson.

Jackson's always on top of it. The viewers and the reader or listeners can't see. I was hoping he would see what step in. All right. There was a legendary story in the New York Times that came out a couple of days ago on Tillman Fritita in his role as ambassador to Italy. Is he acting as the governor right now, McMahon?

I mean, his son Patrick runs the rockets on a day-to-day basis, you know, working hand in hand with Raphael's Don't. So Patrick is the daily ownership presence. By the way, Zach Cramm gave the rockets a B-plus, Bobby. He did. They didn't do much. I mean, well, the Tari's signing was really good. Marcus Smart. Yeah, that's good.

Good business. They dumped Dorian Finney Smith. It cost him three seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Timo Fritia has been, you know, he's been focused on, on, you know, being the ambassador at Italy. He's been focused on chilling on his yacht in Italy. So this story, the reporter and the photographer are welcomed on to the yacht and

give a day in the life of Tillman living in the summer. Not a day in the life, a day in the life of the U.S. ambassador to Italy. Yes. The headline of the story was, as Trump scraps with Maloney, who was the prime minister of Italy, his envoy to Italy is at sea, which is an incredible thing. And so I don't even know where to begin, but I highly encourage anybody to go find this story. I'm going to put the picture up.

It's this Tillman trying to look all pensive on the yacht in a nice little sport coat with like this beautiful background. I mean, come on, man. Did this get there was a driving range on that thing or something? There's something golf related. You got to stop on the yacht. In the first paragraph, it is described, he's on a months-long tour of Italy's coastline aboard his $450 million super yacht. And then, in the next paragraph, it describes it as a 384-foot seven-deck yacht. This thing's not just a yacht.

It is a super yacht, a 384-foot seven-deck yacht. And it is gorgeous. Pool, hot tub, is a saw that offers. facials and pedicators, movie screening room, putting green, multiple bars, and two helicopters.

What do you need two helicopters? Well, that reminds me of one of the all-time, my all-time favorite stories about NBA owners. And it was a story about the late Paul Allen, who was the owner

of the Portland Trailblazers. He, in the summer, sometimes liked to go to Antarctica. And his boat, he had a 400-foot super yacht that I think had like scientific equipment on it. And I remember reading a story about how there had unfortunately been a helicopter accident. The boat had been sent down to southern tip of Argentina. Paul Allen

had flown down there and he was leading, he was going to lead this expedition to Antarctica in the summer. And he had flown down and landed in this city in the bottom tip of Argentina. And a helicopter was dispatched from the yacht to come to the airport to pick him up. And unfortunately, the helicopter crashed into the ocean. Now, as I recall, it was okay, the pilot, everybody on the helicopter survived and was rescued and was okay. And then there was just this line in the story that said, the yacht's backup helicopter then picked up Mr. Allen and took him out to the yacht.

So, which the question is, what happens when your yacht's helicopter crashes into the ocean? The answer is you use the backup. You know, it's like what happens if you're starting point or pulls a hand? You just put the backup in. You think that helicopters came with the yacht, or they had to buy them separately? I'm sure it's separate. So Tillman is incredible in this story, these seem of these quotes. And he said that he had recently spoken to both President Trump and Prime Minister Maloney, Georgia Maloney.

And he said, quote, I listen to them both. No, I got to both. I do better tell him. You do. I listen to them both, he said, speaking in this heavy Texas twang. And they both make sense to me. Somebody said that that's how I was with you in Bontems. That that's how I used to say.

That he also says that doesn't affect my relationship or the American-Italian relationship. Yes. But there's... The best quote. How many people ever get to come on a boat like this? People love successful people. Everybody wants to be successful. And anybody who says they don't is just lying to you.

Like, what? Yeah, being successful is cool. I don't know. I don't know that that's got a whole lot to do with the role you're in as far as helping things. Okay. By the way, it's a six yacht that he's given the name Boardwalk. Bobby, did you hear that? The 60.

Sixth yacht? Sixth yacht that he's given the name Boardwalk, which is a shout out, I'm sure, to his hometown of Galveston. Okay. So he, at one point in the story, he gets off the boat and goes to this little town. I can't pronounce this town. I would botch it, but it's a small town. And the mayor is summoned to meet with him, and the mayor meets with him. Actually, I think at this point, he meets with the bishop.

And they meet with the bishop, and they talk about it. I'm the ambassador of America, whatever. There's all these dignitaries around him. And he gives him an engraved silver dish, Bobby. That's nice. And it says, this has my name on it. I don't want you to forget me. What else did he give him?

What else did he give him? I don't remember. An Italian translation of his book, shut up and listen. Oh, that's right. Of course. Yes. By the way, this is a paraphrase here by the writer, but he says, the way Mr. Fertita sees it,

given Italians a glimpse of how the 0.1% live, helps to make the kind of people-to-people connections that ambassadors are supposed to foster. It's just amazing. It's amazing. And it talks about how he and his wife are just, you know, going up and down the Italian Riviera, stopping in towns and spreading the American way. I will say this. He is obnoxiously rich and, you know, very proud of it.

Now, I will say this. if you have a conversation with Tillman Fertita, you're probably going to end up like laughing and smiling. No, I am not, I am not making fun. This story is, this is a story.

These are his quotes on the record. I'm just pointing them out. I'm making fun of it a little bit because it is like a cartoon character. But, well, anyway, Tillman is, he is a character.

He is an all-time character. Anyway, the sign-off quote is, is just very honest. I loved it. And he, he said, quote,

to me who the president was. Because he's like, I want to come back and be the ambassador, even if someone else is a president in a few years. Who knows? Maybe it'll be a 70 out by then. Maybe. Maybe it'll be 500 feet. Maybe there'll be a third helicopter.

He said that he has no desire to run for elected office himself. Why? Because, quote, there is no job that I could hold and be on this boat. and listen this is this is a man at large at sea and in the NBA off season it's it's as far as the rockets go like Tillman's obviously still the final word but he's not involved he's not like I think there were the concern when Tillman bought the rockets from some people including by the way some people who worked for the rockets at the time was that he was going to be meddling, that he was going to be

Cubanesque, that he was going to be a lot like we've seen in Phoenix with Matt Ispia. And Tillman learned some tough lessons early on. I mean, boy, did he learn when that Chris Paul trade blew up in his face?

You know, and he's gotten out of the way. And again, his son, Patrick is really in charge of the franchise, but he very much is aligned with Rafael Stone. And by the way, Patrick, along with Rafael, were the one who were really responsible for talking Tillman into that brutal, painful, long-term rebuild that Tillman didn't want any of. And he had to be talked into to sticking with on a frequent basis. I remember I wrote a story. I think this was

after the second year of the rebuild, I wrote a story where I went down, I visited it with Patrick and, you know, and visited with Raffel. I visited Rofel. And then I had a call. I don't know if this was the fifth or, I don't know if there was this shot or the previous shot,

but I remember I was talking to Tillman about that, or about the rebuild. And he made a comment about how he was looking at the, what is it, the Tower Bridge in London? just hanging out on the yacht back then. So, you know, the man likes his yachts. Listen, man, if you got it, live with it, man. It's got to flaunt it.

Yeah, listen. Let us see how that 0.1% lives, baby. Yeah. By the way, speaking of Mark Cuban, he just bought into a team coming to Vegas. Did you know that? The opening, oh, the soon-to-be Las Vegas is. I saw that pop up there. I actually did not do that.

Well, you've been touring colleges in the southeast and your old friend, Mark Cuban. I guess you're in danger of being banned from Las Vegas A's games. Well, my daughter does plan to apply to Indiana as well. I don't want Cuba to know that because he might make sure she wasn't being in. Yeah. He does have a history of banning McMahon's. He does.

That is true. Okay. So the second story is not as fun, but just as amazing. And that is a story written by Bill Orm of the Portland Oregonian about the Blazers situation, which is getting worse by the day. We talked about it about a week ago, McMahon, you and I. It's getting worse by the day. The rhetoric between the politicians and the Blazers organization is deteriorating.

And Bill Orham got a hold of what he calls a top Blazers official. Okay. I don't know what that means, but the freedom with which this individual, speaks with is with the kind of thrust that leads you to believe it's a very, very high Blazers official. And that it was certainly with the full blessing of Tom Dundon. It's spoken with a lot of authority. Let's just put it that way.

I don't know who this top Blazers official is, but it's with a lot of authority. and there are some incredible quotes attributed to this top Blazers official in this story. I think it's important, you know, there's been a lot of back and forth and machinations that have happened here, and if you're a Blazers fan, maybe you followed them. There's no way that I could completely summarize them here. But I will just say that on Monday, the Blazers Board of Governors, which is essentially, I should say, board of directors,

which is essentially their owners, have a meeting. And I have no idea what's going to come out of that meeting, but it could be the declaration of all-out war. And, but this is, this is a response to the city sending the Blazers what they wanted in the lease. They want the Blazers to sign a lease

to get the money to renovate their arena. And, the quotes about this are tremendous. Let me get them, and I want to get them exactly correct. Quote, why is the city sending this thing knowing we're not going to agree to it, said the official, who expressed particular antipathy toward the unionized workforce and annual payment provisions. They want there to be unionized workforce and they want the Blazers to make annual $3 million payments. What does Antipathy mean? They don't like it.

He expressed the opposite of support for the idea that they would have to use unionized labor. Good word. You went to Montana. Further quotes, quote, the city of Portland doesn't even recognize they got a sweetheart deal. And they're making it complicated. And if they want to say no, if they don't want us, then that's fine. Well, there you go. I mean, and then what else have the Blazers,

what else is Blazers ownership done this week? Well, they fired their, White Clean of the TV group, right? I mean, they, I mean, pretty much. I'm not done with the quotes. I'm not done with the quotes. We can talk about that in a second. All right.

Quote, it's not like we lose money moving the team, the team official said. We might spend money, but we won't lose money. It might be okay to spend a billion dollars on a relocation fee if the value of the team doubles. Of course you would do that.

This is like they said it's okay for you to say this in the paper. And isn't there something about them not having a Jersey sponsor being the only team? And I think rank and. Yeah, they complained. It was complained about the lack of sponsorship, local sponsorship and stuff. But that's relatively small. And they also said that this deal is going to only get. It sucks is what they're saying.

They're like, if you don't want us fine, we're going to move. And if we pay a billion dollars. I mean, like this is on the. I mean, it's not quoted, but it's on the record. And this is someone who very clearly is speaking for the organization. Bobby, I can't remember this. Bobby, I can't, I mean, I have to go back and look. There's no way that this was ever said coming out of the leadership of the mouth of the Seattle.

No, and that was what I was going to say is like, I need to go back and look at that. I don't think it was like this. I mean, there was at one point Aubrey McClendon who was since passed away. he was Clay Bennett's like friend and like partner. There was an email that was sent in between the owners where they basically were saying, okay, we got the team. Now let's move it, essentially. And that was seen as, you know, you know, inflammatory.

But that was a private email that got released. This is on the record in the newspaper. And especially that market sucks and we don't want to be in anyway. Clearly. This relationship has not been good from the beginning. Like soon like there wasn't like there was a period of time like an intro usually when you there's a grace period in the beginning. But man, there's been one after another besides what Brian just talked about. But you know, all going all the way back to April, right, with playoffs and travel and who traveled and who didn't travel.

And certainly that, you know, Mike Anori's contract. Like there's been so many different mass layoffs and constant like threat. of, hey, if you don't give us what we want, we're gone. He's made no attempt to ingratiate himself with the community in Portland, with the Trailblazers fan base, which is, you know, a very passionate fan base, unique, quirky, he's called, but passionate for sure. You know, he's a complete outsider and doesn't want to be a Portland insider. I don't want to be part of Portland community.

And honestly, what he did, like, what he did with a very popular broadcast crew is, you know, it's like he's actively trying to make the fan experience worse. Right. So their broadcast crew, a lot of whom had been there for a lot of years, they let the radio voices go. Kevin Calabro, who's been with them for 10 years. Kevin Collabro was the voice of the Sonics. The Sonics moved. He became an ESPN.

He called games for ESPN, college and NBA for ESPN. Actually left ESPN because he wanted to call games for a team again. And with the Blazers job came open. And I remember talking to him when he left. He was like, yeah, this is a tough decision. And some people would say that this was a step back. But I love being the voice of a team. And I'm going to go do it.

And he loved living in Portland. And they offered him a contract. He wasn't fired. They offered him a contract that he said on the record was, quote, subprime. Now, why would he say subprime, Wendy? Because Tom Dundon was known for giving subprime auto loans. That's one of his business comes businesses. Yeah, that was shot across the bow.

He's got a way of words. Our guy, Tom Havastrow, his contract wasn't renewed. He was like the stats guru on the broadcast. but again, it was a very popular broadcast crew, whatever. Fans like it, nobody cares. Well, this thing is, this thing is, we are in, I'm afraid, like, you know, just the first or second quarter of this fight. But I'm just saying, you don't come across stories like Tillman Fretita

going on and on and about his yacht and, you know, bringing a photographer with him. There's video, too, in that story. And him, like, sitting, by the way, him and his sitting in the yacht, like with his everything sprawled out like you just don't see this every day okay and you don't see quotes like this from a top team official like this every day you think we could get tilman to let us do a live show from the yacht hey you're the rockets connection let's see what i'll see what i can do do you think he's taking the yacht to macao for the rockets mavericks exhibition

games, the Mavericks, and they just announced their schedule. This, it was previously announced, but they announced their schedule last couple of days. Will Tillman take the yacht to China? I got to look up a map. I don't think he, I don't think he is. It's going through a war zone to get there. I'm, I don't actually want you to look it up. Maybe there's another boat in, in that area of the, in Asia.

Maybe he's got another. Well, that reminds me, Bobby. Monk, a lot of one. that reminds me Bobby of one of the the you remember the 60 Minutes profile on your former boss mikhail prokroff jet skiing right off that thing yeah i think um who was the was a woman right wasn't it leslie stall who did the 60 minutes profile and if i'm not mistaken and i didn't prepare for this i'm just saying she's walking through his house in moscow or his apartment or something and there's a there's a a huge huge model of his yacht, like sitting there on the table. And he says, this is my yacht. And she goes, oh, and she's like, well, where do you keep it? He goes, to be honest with you, I don't know where it is.

I misplaced it. I would say this about my former owner that probably out of one of the greatest things that I did at the Nets was the ability to have we practiced at the Kremlin. in front of the gym. What was the worst? That's another thing that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen every day. Winners and losers. What was the worst thing you did with the Nets?

Great for Pierce, Garnett. Oh, yeah. All right. That's all we got here. We can't wait until LeBronin announcing. and we'll be back with the emergency podcast. So thank you to all our producers. Mark, Miles, Tucker, Jackson.

Thank you to Bobby and to McMahon. Thank you for watching. Let's see the Hoop Collective this week. I don't know when we'll see you. Maybe it'll be next week. Adios megos.