Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Full NBA Trade Deadline Reaction

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to break down all of the biggest storylines and moves from this year’s NBA trade deadline. The guys talk about a unique trade with major implications as the Clippers sent Zubac to the Pacers including if this could mean the end for Kawhi in LA and some massive draft pick implications. Then, we discuss the race for lottery odds across the NBA before talking if anyone has a clue what the Bulls are doing. Plus, Giannis remains with the Bucks and Ja remains in Memphis, what is next for both of their futures? Finally, we talk if the Wolves did enough for Anthony Edwards and a Knicks homecoming deal prior to giving our final thoughts on the deadline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday evening after the NBA trade deadline. Joining us from New York City is Tim Bontas.

Oh, everybody. Join us from Dallas, Texas, where they saved money and got some first round picks as Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. It might not be plural on the first round picks. We'll see how that plays out with the top 20 protected one, but it was a great day for the Mavericks yesterday. Saved a ton of money. I know everybody loves that. A little flexibility, some draft capital.

And the bucks and grizzlies both won, baby. Yes. All right. Well, we're going to start off with what I think was one of the most fascinating trades of the deadline and certainly of deadline day. And that is, and I know that you might be surprised we're starting with this, but I can't stop thinking about it. Vizziah Zubach being traded from the L.A. Clippers to the Indiana. the Pacers. Now, why would we start with that trick? Well, here's why. So obviously the clippers are, I was told not to use the word rebuild, but I don't know what you want to call it,

whatever you want. Retooling for sure. They were 17 and 4. James Harden all of a sudden is declared out for personal reasons. You know, he was in Arizona. He's got connections there. I don't know. There's a lot of different reasons guys get to personal. Yeah, personally, he wanted to get traded. And they came back to L.A. And James wasn't there. And next thing you know, James Hardin was a calf. Okay. So then, a couple days later, Vitz's Zubots out for personal reasons.

Had a good reason, though, the birth of his child. Congratulations. You're getting sent to Indiana. That's, by the way, that's a tough hand to be dealt. It's a tough business. You've got a relative newborn. He's getting old. He's getting big and old.

But, uh, bond temps. But, you know, imagine having to move or leave. your wife. If I was making $20 million a year, K'Bahn would deal with me moving. I can tell you that right now. She'd probably tell me to move tomorrow if I was making $20 million. Give me that check. She would outsource your duties. She would just, she'd go buy herself a Chanel bag and wait until I could come home between games. Okay. Anyway, so Zubach was out for good reason, but he gets traded on deadline day. And so the Pacers, good piece of business.

Zubach has two years and about 40 million left on his contract. Borderline All-MBA. Oh, hey, I'll say this. If you had just said an All-Star. Now you know, I don't make predictions. This boosts his future All-Star chances going west to east. All-MBA is a stretch, but hey, he's a solid starting center. Let's go back to that podcast and talk about how I was on the Clippers that night.

Oh, my God. Listen, if you take that 17 and 4 stretch, you look brilliant. Yeah. So this is the replacement for Miles Turner, and I got to say on that just little piece of business, it's a quality replacement for Miles Turner talking about, you know, he doesn't stretch the floor, but we're talking about one of the best defensive bigs in the league, and he's on a good contract. And showed with James Harden that he can be a really productive pick and roll partner, despite not being, you know, necessarily a vertical threat, but big time screener.

Yeah. Good field. I mean, it's a really, really, like, he's a really, he's a really good. upgrade over Miles Turner. I like Subots a lot. I definitely think he's a better player than Miles Turner. I am curious about his fit with the way the Pacers play because of his lack of shooting. And look, like, Zoo isn't molasses going up and down the court, but like the Pacers are flying up and down. It's not necessarily the style I would expect him to play. But look, we know Indiana's not going to go in the tax. He has got a very good deal making around $20 million in the next couple

years. That's a big part of why they paid this very hefty price to get him, is that he fit within their books. It's why, you know, we kept talking about Daniel Gafford is an option, right? Same reason. Like, he is a player that fits both from a positional need and a contractual standpoint. They weren't going to keep Ben Matherin, so I get why they moved on from him. But this draft pick situation. Okay, let's get to that. It's fascinating. So when I heard the trade live on TV, I was like, okay, what's really, Shams reported just one side of it. And our phones, I'm sure all of our phones blew up, like, what's the other side of?

What's the other side of it? And so Shams like literally read it on TV live on air. He got the info. Well, and for background, after the clippers had seemingly made him available, the expectation was it was going to need to be at least two first to get them out of the clippers. Those people in the league were expecting. Right. So, okay.

So I wasn't really thrilled with the Clippers trading him, as you can. imagine. And I said so. And then there's two first. I was like, okay, well, they got their price. And then I heard the details. And this is what we're building up to. So, 2009, Unprotected First. Okay. Unprotected First are tough. Unprotected first for players that are sub All-Stars are tougher. But okay, it happens. Second pick. It's protected. Oh, okay. That makes sense. What year? 2026. Wait, they're bad this year. That's an interesting. I almost thought to.

Shams misread it because he was literally doing it live off of his phone. He goes, 2029, I go, okay. And 2026. I was like, no, I mean, it can't be, can't be their pick at 2026. I mean, they've got the number three pick right now. I can't be their pick. And he goes, top four protected. And I was like, oh, and 10 through 30. So basically, the clippers will get the pick this year if the pick falls between five and nine. If it's one through four or 10 or above, the Pacers keep it. I've only seen one other trade like this, which was like in 2008 or nine,

Kyle Lowry getting traded to Toronto, was when he first went to Toronto, I think, from Houston, where it was sort of like protected in this way. Yeah, it was a little bit later than that, but that was the protection. It ended up being the Stephen Adams pick. Okay, so, Bontemps, you were all over this immediately,

and your thoughts on this aspect of it. Well, I mean, it's a fascinating situation because you've got the Pacers who, you know, as Big Band has hinted at several times this year, have a coach in Rick Carlisle who, you know, is, I don't know if he's, I don't remember if he's their president or not, but he's obviously heavily involved in their leadership

with their basketball operation with Kevin Pritchard and with Chad Buchanan, their longtime front office. And they have been very clearly trying to take advantage of this gap year and be as bad as possible and take advantage of what's a loaded draft. So they right now are sitting in third place in the reverse lottery standings. As we're about to go, through. There are a metric ton of teams that are going to be trying to lose every game possible over the next couple of months. So I find the pacer situation right now to be fascinated because

they have a very clear choice in front of them. One of those choices is to try to remain in the worst couple spots in the league and try to have roughly a 50% chance of either losing their pick at all at five or staying in the top four and getting Darren Peterson, A.J. to Antsac Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson, insert, you know, the other stud in this draft. Yeah, whoever they have is those top four. Whoever they want to get, right, with the fourth pick. The other option they have, which I think is a viable option, is to try to get to 10. Now, you sit here and say, well, the paces are in third.

How are they going to get to 10? Well, let me just tell you, there's a lot of god-awful teams, and there's a lot of god-awful teams that are going to be trying to lose every game. You've got the wizards. You've got the nets. You've got the jazz. You've got the pelicans who remain awful. You've got the kings who are awful.

You've got the bulls who we're going to get to in a bit who now are going to try to lose. You've got the Mavericks. You've got the Grizzlies. You've got the clippers themselves who aren't going to be very good. And that's before we see what happens with Quai Leonard. Yeah, the clippers are not tanking, but they're not going to be flying. They're not going to be good. So I think there's a real chance that if the Pacers decide to, they could get to 10.

And the reason why getting to 10 matters is if they get to 10 and in the lottery standings, they guarantee themselves of keeping their pick this year, one way or the other. And just last year, we saw the Mavericks go from 11 to 1 and get Cooper flag. The year before, two years before, we saw the Hawks go from 10 to 1. And I'm just, listen, I'm not saying they're going to do that. I've asked a lot of people in the league about this the last couple hours.

And some people think it makes sense to try to go to 10. Some people think it makes sense to stay at the top. But I don't think it's a certain answer either way. And it's why this is fascinating because typically, You wouldn't have a chance to get from three to ten. But if they just try to win with Zubots and Andrew Nemhart and Aaron Neesman's Pascal Seaccom, I think they'll get to 10 because there's going to be wins to be had over the next couple of months. I just think that is a short-sighted, silly way to go about things.

I can't imagine they'd take that route, especially they played the jazz the other night. They had a hard fought, and I mean they fought to lose, a hard-fought loss in a game which they started Jarris Walker, Jay Huff, Ben Shepard, Cam Jones, and Johnny Furphy. That's, well, two things. One, that's before they made this trade. And two, what you're saying is fair, but let me ask you a question.

Why is the pick protected at 10 and beyond? Why would you bother? Why would you bother to pick? Because you could just say. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? Because, again, if you want to... The Papers of the clippers insist on that protection.

One through four is obviously the Pacers. Did the clippers insist on the 10 protection? I don't know. By the way, if it doesn't, Did we say this if it doesn't convey, if it's not 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, it becomes a 20, 31 first, unprotected. But look, man, I just, it would be so short-sighted, and I just can't imagine they would do this if you're the Pacers to, you're over halfway through being awful, an awful season. In a gap, you're without Tyre's Halliburton. You have the exact number if you're a bottom three team, you've got a 52.1% chance of being top four.

Let me go over the percentages real quick here. So right now, let's say the lottery was today, and their third worst record, 52% chance of being top four, aka keeping their pick, 48%. So it's slightly better than a coin toss to keep their pick. Correct. If they were to fall the 10th, okay, they would have an 11% chance of getting into the top four and 100% chance of keeping their pick. And also, just the other part of this is, in the reason,

and like I understand your position, McMahon, I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, But to your point, I would love to know who put this backstop in on the 10th pick. Was it the Pacers or was it the Clippers? Because that's an interesting thing to know, to your point. And the other part of it to me is if you're the Pacers and you have this team that's trying to win now, like you've got Pascal Seyakum, you've got Vizu Bacch, you've got Tyrese, like they're trying to win next year. Would you rather give up the pick this year in theory? Or would you rather get, whether it's, would you rather,

guarantee yourself getting one more high-level player to go with this group for the next few years and have them part of this team? The short answer, and it's not a direct answer, but the short answer is I would rather do everything possible to take advantage of an unfortunate situation where you have a chance to add a bona fide star alongside Tyrese Halliburton, Pascal Seyakum, and now, Vita Zubots. Now, I will say this, you know, as you said, It was well known that the Pacers were in the hunt for pre-agency, big man, right? You mentioned Gafford.

They were also, they had extending conversations with the Utah Jazz about Walker Kessler, and that would have been a classic, like, you know, the flip type of move. Kessler's out the rest of the season. They did not, they did offer, my understanding is they did offer multiple picks for Kessler. It was not this, the picks weren't this sweet. Imagine the jazz giving up those, the half of their pick stop, A protected. Imagine the Jazz saying four through eight, we get it, eight through nine through 30. Yeah, and I don't know exactly what the picks were.

I don't even know exactly how firm of an offer there was or wasn't. My understanding is it wasn't this exact pick. It wasn't quite this attractive. But it does reinforce the Jazz's desire to keep Walker Kessler, despite. the fact that they are far, far, far apart on what they perceive is value to be honest. Also, the other thing is Zubots is under contract, a favorable contract, and Kessler wants to get paid big this summer. Which is why I would guess that this same deal was not on the table for Walker Kessler, because I would assume Pacers would not be as comfortable with paying Walker Kessler the number it might take to get him,

whereas they know they're going to be able to afford getting a Vizu Bac on this deal, which is why I would guess it wasn't the exact same offer if I had to guess. was not. More hoop collective podcast after this. You need a scorecard to keep track of the lottery. We're going to give it to you real quick here. So, okay, the number one pick is right now is Sacramento. They've lost 10 straight games.

And they're playing their young guys in crunch time to develop them. Good decision. All right. Number two right now is New Orleans, which pick goes to Atlanta via pick swap. Certainly not tanking, just they stink. Unprotected pick swap. So that's, okay, so you know that. No, unprotected pick.

Unprotected pick. Right. The better of them or the bucks and the bucks get the other one. I apologize. Unprotected pick. Number three, Indiana. And we just went over it. 1 through 4.

It's theirs. 5 through 9 is clippers. 10 or above. It's theirs. Number 4, Brooklyn. Nice and clean with the asterix. It was originally traded to Indiana or to Houston. They got it back, but now it's clean.

Brooklyn gets to pick no matter where they are. Number five, or number, I should say tied for number four, Washington, who just traded for Anthony Davis and recently traded for Trey Young. Washington, currently with 13 wins and tied for fourth, their pick is top eight protected. If it falls nine or higher, it goes to the Knicks, which is why I wonder if we're going to see Anthony Davis play in red, white, and blue this year. What about Daniel Russell, another former All-Star that is traded for?

Correct. Do you believe the ender vessel will be picking up that $6 million player option? The Maverick certainly did. That's why it was in the deal. All right. Sixth, Utah, as we've heard, 16 wins, three games back of, or three games ahead of Washington. It depends on you look. Utah's picked top eight protected. Otherwise, it goes to the Thunder, if it's nine or above. We've talked about that a lot. 7. Dallas. 19 wins. Three games back of Utah. They're trying to go up. They're trying to climb. I don't know how aggressive they're going to be, McMahon. It is their pick cleanly. And as we've gone over many times, the only pick that they have of their own clean until 2031. Number eight with 20 wins, Memphis, who has traded two of their three best players in the last, what, seven months, including Jaron Jackson this week. and fought off some serious intrigue about John.

Number nine, Milwaukee, 20 wins, tied with Memphis. Actually, I guess they're tied for eight. We will see what happens with Janus now because one of the things that came was reporting that came out from out of Milwaukee today when Janus wasn't traded was that he'd like to play. The other day, Doc Rivers was on countdown before our game on Sunday. I asked him and he said, Janus is going to play. Hey, you know what? I just heard celebration in Memphis. I just heard celebration in Dallas.

I just heard celebration out of Salt Lake City. That sounds like a great plan for those teams. They can't wait. They're four and five. I think they won Wednesday. So I think they're five and 14 without them and they're 500 when he plays. Okay. 11th, and I should point, or 10th, I should say, point out,

unfortunately for Portland, who was on a nice winning streak, they've lost six games in a row. They came out east and they've gotten knocked back to Earth. Their pick, by the way, is lottery-protected to the Bulls. Right now, it wouldn't be conveying. So, you know, just thought, as we're talking about the Bulls a little later. In this misery over the last few weeks, that pick has gone from, you know, baby conveying to the Bulls to not conveying,

but you should keep an eye on it. All right. Charlotte, they've won seven in a row. They're on their way up. traded for Kobe White. They seem to be trying to at least make the play-in. So maybe this sound an issue, but... I think they're a playoff team this year. Okay, well, their pick is free and clear.

They own it, haven't traded it. Congrats to them. 12th pick. LA Clippers. Ooh, boy. No, wait, who's that going to? Okay, well, 23 wins right now, okay? And that is tied for...

That is tied for 12. Okay. Portland, Charlotte, and the Clippers all have 23. wins. And if the clippers finish the worst out of those, they'd be ninth and have a... 10th. They'd be 10th. They'd have an 11% chance to go into the top four. If Portland, or if Milwaukee gets the honest back and starts to play 500 basketball again, it's not out of the possibility that you could see the clippers, if they don't continue to win, which I would say is going to be hard, they're going to potentially hand a top 10 pick over.

over to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Ooh. Chicago at 13. Chicago's got a chance of two picks up here, but this pick is clean and clear and they have it. Well, and they, finally, after all these years of all roads leading to 39. Literally one minute. Oh, go, go.

Fourteenth pick right now is the Atlanta Hawks, which goes unprotected to the Spurs. So as of right now, and like, you know, we'll see what happens with Atlanta. But as of right now, if the lottery was tonight, the Thunder would have a 7% chance of being in the top four. The Spurs would have a 2% chance of being in the top four. And goodness knows what that Clippers pick might be in a couple of months. Okay. So just keep in mind if you can, all of that shenanigans and how much things are going to be fascinating,

especially on lottery night themselves. And so many tanking teams has been. buyers before the trade deadline was a wild twist, but go on. By the way, I've had some people give me some ideas for what I'm calling the flip, which is what Utah, Brooklyn, and Washington are trying to do. Maybe Dallas to a certain extent, too. They'll bring back Kyrie, but, you know, get as low of, you know, as good of a pick as possible, but also prepare to immediately get better.

Dallas for sure is trying to, yeah. Yes. Our friend at ESPN Radio, he does its morning show on ESPN. and Evan Cohen, he is calling this the trade-ahead line for Washington and, you know, Utah making trade-aheads. It's not bad, but I need just, I need to, the concept of trying to go from a lottery team that's tanking to a team that could, like, make the playoffs. I just came up alone.

How about sit and soar? No, I like to sit and then you soar up the standings. I don't like the flip, but I'm going with it. All right. Okay. Well, then you ask for suggestions. I don't even know how many trades, the Chicago Bulls. You can sit and do something else.

Right. I don't even know how many trade the Chicago Bulls made in the last three days. I know that they acquired nine second round picks, and then at one point they had 10 guards on their roster. They ended up acquiring two sort of undersized big men, Nick Richards, and Gerson Yaba Selle. But the Bulls are like, why? I actually don't know what the Bulls are doing. Tim Bond Temps, can you explain to me what the Bulls just did at the trade deadline? No. I am so, our tourist Cornichevis had a press for today, and for the second year in a row at the trade deadline said, we don't want to be in the middle.

This guy five years ago said, yeah, you don't want to be aiming for 10th place in the standings. That's not what you're trying to do. He then traded for Nick Vucevich spent the last five years sitting in the playing tournament, literally in the middle of the standings, outside of the glorious six weeks where the Alonzo ball team played above its head. and had a pretty good record in the East and then plummeted and won one playoff game in the first round. It is embarrassing the situation that Chicago Bulls are in. 18 months ago, they had Kobe White and I have a sumu on their roster on cheap deals, good players on cheap deals, the kind of players that can get you,

maybe multiple first round picks, at least one first round pick. Real players, or real assets that you can build around going forward and maybe not be in the middle. What did the Bulls do? They didn't trade them. They kept them on their roster until the very end of their contracts before the trade deadline. And what did they trade them for?

A handful of second round picks. When second round picks have never been less useful in the entire history of the NBA. And the Bulls traded for a bushel full of picks and have a team that makes no sense to, in theory, start to lose now when their 10th place in the Eastern Conference and probably can't get higher than 10th place in the lottery. And now our tourists is getting up here saying, oh, we have. have a plan. We're trying to, we're sick of being in the middle. We want to actually try to build something. You don't want to build anything. There's no plan. There's no plan for anything at all. This is absolutely unbelievable. Nicola Vucevic has been on the roster for five years, got this insane extension three years ago. And the whole time, team has been on a treadmill to nowhere,

the whole time. It's absolutely unbelievable. The Bulls, by the way, we're in position to make the trade the Atlanta Hawks did and get this pick. That might be the number one pick in the draft. Did the Bulls make that trade? No. I'd love to hear from our turn. We're in. We're in a why the hell they didn't make that trade? Where was the plan then? They drafted one spot ahead of Atlanta when they They sure did. And they drafted Noah Senke, who might be a good player,

but heard his shoulder earlier this year. He's out for the season. Like, the idea that this team has some grand plan to get out of the position they're in is lunacy to me. And it's just, it's unbelievable that they have chosen now as a time to make all these trades. By the way, they had all these expiring contracts. They could have taken on money for assets.

They didn't even do that. They just swapped out expiring contracts for expiring contracts. the last couple days. Like the one guy that took on was Rob Dillingham, who, I mean, speaking of Minnesota, yes, Minnesota got Ayadishumu for four seconds. You know, they could have maybe had Iodosumu and Kobe White for the price that the Bulls did it for at the way things are going.

So, look, I just, it's just insane that we're sitting here with Arturis at this point in the cycle and we're having the, like I just literally went and looked it up a year ago. I looked up Jamal's story from February 6th a year ago, after they moved on from Zach Levine. There's more to come. We're committed to being a sustainable competitive team. We're not okay with being in the middle.

Curating a team that competes at the high level and can compete for a championship has been our goal. Today, what did Arturis say? We're, quote, not satisfied with being in the middle. Quote, being in the middle is not what we want to do. We've seen that for the past four years and we want to change that. I mean, what are we doing here? Relax, dude.

Hey, I'm looking at the ESPN standings. we have in three little sections for each conference. There's the top six in a line. There's playing in a line. And then there's the bottom five. And I do think the Bulls are going to be able to get out of the middle. I think they're going to just swap spots there. Shar is going to zoom right past them.

They'll be right there in 11th place. So they're getting out of the middle. They sure are. They sure are. This is, this is my, I think one of my favorite moments of the last few days in the Bulls. So they traded for Anthony Simons, guard. They traded for Colin Sexton, another combo guard. Traded for Jaden Ivy, combo guard.

Traded for Rob Dillingham, point guard. Combo guard, just a tiny one. It's my favorite. And then they signed Mack McClung to a two-way contract. At least the lay-up lines are going to be cool. No question about that. Get there for lap lines. That's the most entertaining part of the game. MacMachlung is like having a really good season. He's not

finally, he's not dunking in the dunk contest. I mean, he's obviously a tremendous dunker, but, you know, whatever. Congrats to him for his 11 dunk contest titles. Mac McClunk, he's like averaging like 28 points or something for the Windy City Bulls. He finally gets the call. Mac, get on the Kennedy. Come down to United Center. You are getting that two-way contract.

He's like, God, another, this is going to be great. He's riding down there his phone. He's ninth or tenth on the depth chart. No, he's not. He's starting at Power 4. it sounds like to me. Hey, it's just insane.

We can hammer away at the Bulls buffoonery, but that's an evergreen topic. Did they do any three-way trades out in the last day or two? Because they're, I'll say, they do always finish just a spot ahead of sack when they do the three-way trades with the Kings. But anyways, we zipped, we went straight in Tankathon, and there's a lot of meat there,

but Wendy, we did, we zipped right. past a fascinating predicament situation that the clippers are in. Like the clippers, and I credit their front office for saying, you know what? Yes, we owe our pick this year and an unprotected swap next year, both through the Oklahoma City Thunder. But that's a sunken cost. And basically, you know, they've made, like, they've made moves that are making them worse right away. But clearly they think there's going to be long-term benefit, whether they give up the first pick or the 12th pick, the trade's done. But what does all this maneuvering mean for the guy who everything has revolved around with the Clippers for the last several years?

You know, Quiet Leonard this summer is going to be going into the last year of his deal with a $50 million salary with a roster that's been kind of stripped down around. I mean, not kind of. Like Paul George has been gone. James Harden, gone. Zubot, their next best player, gone. on what are we thinking there? Well, that certainly was something that my phone was asking from league folks when they did the Zubatch trade. Would they entertain trading Kauai Leonard?

Now, that's a very complicated trade. And since they basically just decided to trade hard in Zubach in the last few days, I can see why we didn't see any of that. But he's having a very good year. And as you said, as one year left, if their goal is to trade. you know, truly acquire as many assets as they can, I think because especially his contract is short, that you wouldn't be taking, I think it's something that, you know, teams will consider as the summer approaches. Yeah, I would be curious to see what kind of market there would be. Honestly, I'd be a little bit surprised if they don't at least get a feel for that. They've never considered a quiet trade

before. Obviously, they got him and he's been the silent face of that franchise since he arrived. Everything's revolved around him. But I would also say the Clippers front office has a pretty extensive track record of making

emotionless decisions when the time comes. Well, and I've done some preliminary just asking of people like, hey, would you have interest in Kauai and it's always been met with some trepidation about what that would look like and what his interest level would be and being outside of Los Angeles. And look, the other thing we haven't talked about with the clippers that we have to

mention is the sort of Damocles, it's hanging over the franchise's head with this investigation into potential salary cap circumvention. The what that's hanging over their head? Just relax. It just means that they're going to, they're going to have the potential to get in trouble in the coming weeks. And what is that punishment potentially going to look like? I have never heard that word before. Damocles? St. Bonaventure, he took a metallist. You didn't learn about it.

You didn't learn about it in North Texas. I'll send you some literature. And the Clippers have to, that, the subject of the Clippers potentially facing ramifications from that investigation is hanging over the whole franchise at the moment. And, you know, when this last came up,

with the Joe Smith situation 25 years ago, there were suspensions for the owner and the lead executive, and there were five first round picks lost. So if something is found in this investigation, what's the punishment going to be? Like that hangs over all this stuff that's going on with the team. I don't know what's going to happen. I will just say that,

and I'm not even sure that the Joe Smith thing 25 years ago, is something that will be referred. I know it's the easy default because it's the only, you know, comparable thing. Joe Smith's contract was nullified, but he wasn't punished. I mean, his contract was nullified, but like, he wasn't suspended. Just, I'm not saying that way, I don't know what's going on in this investigation. I'm just saying, like, you know, just for the record.

Well, I just meant, I wasn't even saying Kauai was getting in trouble per se, but I just meant with the picks and everything else. Yeah, well, that's the other thing. No one knows what it's going to be, if anything happens. If the clippers get caught and, like, found guilty, like, if they indeed find, you know, incriminating evidence and the, and they punish them with draft picks, would they take the picks that they owned from another team? What if they lose the fifth pick on the draft this year?

Well, what if they only take their picks and they don't take picks that were acquired from another team? Yeah, and if they only take their picks, then it's going to be a while before the Clippers could even benefit from being bad. And they're still in a situation where while obviously they made, especially the Zubots trade, like the Hardin Trade, okay, he didn't request the trade, whatever. obviously there was some pressure there. So they did what they had to do there and got a recent All-Star Guard in return, whatever. But the Zubot trade is something that makes them significantly worse right now despite the fact that they owe their pick and they're in a swap next year.

But at the same time, like, if they had their own pick, then I think you would say, hey, of course they should try to trade Kauai this summer. Of course they should try to get some value. And part of the value would be bottoming out and benefiting from their own pick. but they're not in that situation. And, you know, after they get done paying off,

after they get done paying off OKC, they've got to pay off Philly, right? They go picking a swap to Philly in 28 and 29. So it's still going to be, you know, a traditional rebuild is not an option for the Clippers for a while. All right. Well, to be continued, that whole trade was super fascinating.

More Hoop Collective podcast, after this. All right. So those are some trades that actually went, that actually went down. You talk about some trades that didn't go down. So Janus didn't get traded. The Bucks, we mentioned their draft scenario.

I will wait and see what happened. You know, Janus is injured. He is on, you know, he is not on the inactive list because of any reason. He's on the inactive list. He's on the injury list, really. and he's had multiple calf injuries over the last two seasons, I think four. It is not unreasonable for the Bucks to protect him regardless of their... If he plays again this season, multiple people should be fired on the spot.

It'd be incredibly stupid. Again, what if he says he wants to play? If he plays a season, multiple people should be fired on the spot. I would just say that I know that Yannis announced that he was out four to six weeks. Doc Rivers said there was no timetable and the Bucks did not put out a full. formal injury report. They just put them as on the injury list. Look, what needs to happen, what needs to happen is the box needs to sit down with Yannis and say the following. Look, you and we have the same goals here in that you have said publicly

you want to be here if we have a championship level team. The best chance for us to potentially have a championship level team with you on the team is to maximize our draft pick in this year's draft, which could be as high as the second pick in a loaded draft. You have had four lower leg injuries in the past 18 months. You just played through one a month ago. We understand you want to play. The season is not going anywhere. You need to prioritize your health for the next two months and get yourself healthy and

ready for next season. And we need to prioritize seeing our younger players and trying to maximize this draft pick. And then we can sit down in the summer and look at the situation and have a real discussion about whether you really want to be here, whether you really want to be elsewhere, and what the best situation is for everybody involved. But what's unquestionably true is the best situation for everybody involved is for you to get healthy and for us to get our draft pick as healthy as it can't be.

That's the conversation that has to happen. I think they should just record that and just play it for him. I mean, that's what has to happen. Only bad things can come out of Janus returning this year. Either they screw up their lottery positioning or he suffers an injury that's going to damage his value. but nothing good can come out of it. But he will be fulfilled playing basketball.

That's a good thing. Well, I tell you what, kissing Janice's butt over the last several years sure has put him in a great spot. All right. Another trade that did not happen was John Morant. There was some rumors out there about what it was going to take.

And really, I just think right now, John Morant's value is just incredibly low. And I'm not so sure it was, well, I'm not going to make a speculation. It's negative. It's negative. It just is. And what do you mean by negative?

What does that mean? What I mean by negative is I believe the Grizzies would have to attach an asset to him. They'd have to attach at least a pick to him. Trey Young's value was neutral, expirings. You know, we went in the season, early in the season, the discussion, there was the three guards, right? It was Trey who ended up getting traded for expiring and whatever you want to call Kisper, you know, okay young player. there was Jah who they could not generate any sort of a market for it. I don't know, I don't know that teams told the Grizzies will be interested if you attach a pick.

I just know, like, I talked to a team that they were linked to and they said they'd have to attach assets for us to even think about it. I heard that as well. Lamello is the other one, and to Lamello's credit, Lamello is playing very good basketball. And at this point, I don't even think is about restoring his trade value. But I think it's more about, hey, Charlotte's got something good going on. and like there's no reason to be looking to move on from him at this point. That's a credit to him and it's a credit to Charles Lee and the group that got in Charlotte. But for Jha, the party in Memphis is over.

Jah is like the last guest and he just doesn't have a ride out of there. But for either he's going to be sleeping on your couch or you've got to get him a ride and they didn't get him a ride. So he's going to be on on your couch farting and burping for a while. Sounds like a command's junior year. Which one? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the way out of that. I think if Jaws' contract was a year shorter, he's got two years and 87 on it. If his contract was a year shorter, I mean, you know, the funny thing is like, as I've been talking about Jop for the last couple of weeks, month, whatever, the analysts who are here at ESPN, who I work with, you know, who just think very highly of Jaws game, guys like Amman Shumpert, Danny Green, Kendrick Perkins.

they just are stunned that there's no value for Jha. Like Shump was like, when I said on TV, like I didn't think he had much value. Shump was like, he couldn't believe it. He thought I was just talking about somebody else. And even Perk, I mean, Perk, you know, understands, but like he's just can't believe how far he's fallen. Because, you know, he was a player that other players was just in awe of. And they respected his fearlessness, you know. Which is diminished, whether that's due to motivation or whether that's due to, you know, he's alluded several times to he gets hurt a lot when he attacks and the rest aren't protecting him.

But, you know, he's not available a lot for a wide variety of reasons. It gets hurt a lot and he does stuff off the court from time to time that means he can't play. And there's a lot of baggage and a lot of risk. This year he got suspended for, you know, being out with his coach. One of the questions about Jha around the league was, is his athleticism declining? Because, you know, you look at all like the rim attacking numbers and all that stuff, they've just plummeted. Or, you know, was he kind of quiet, had he quiet quit on? Was he just a lack of motivation?

I will say the two games he played before we got hurt again, you know, he came back in London. He looked pretty athletic in that one. Played, I don't remember who they're playing, played the next game in Memphis. had like two or three ridiculous chase down blocks, one of which he heard his elbow on. He's still that sort of athlete. Like, that question's been answered. But again, it's blinking you might miss it because he's out again.

Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is the guy is a small guard who can't shoot and doesn't guard anyone. And like the way the league is gone, that is a hard archetyte to square. And you factor in everything else on top of it. And, yeah, it's not a surprise. there's not a lot of value in him around the league. Like there was a lot of talk about Miami having interest.

I don't think Miami really had any interest. I don't think there was any interest. I mean, I'll just go to Shams's tweet. There were no, what do you say, serious offers? There were no formal offers. There was a lot of intrigue about the town. Let me read the actual tweet. The actual tweet was,

John Morant remained with the Grizzlies passed today's trade deadline. Multiple teams were intrigued by Morant's talent, but none were willing to make a serious offer. sources said. Like that's, I mean, we spent the last month going, who are the job teams? And it was like, maybe Sacramento will do it to save some money. Like, there wasn't, there wasn't really anybody.

And look, this was not a lack of effort on the Grizzlies part, on Zach Klin's part. And he got a great price for Desmond Bain. Boom, did it. He got a great price for Jared Jackson, Jr., boom, did it. He tried to get a great price for J. and I believe at the end he would have taken a bag of peanuts for him. But there's not a taker. So now what?

So now, come on back, John. Everything's good. I don't. Look, the answer is he rebuilds his value by being great. I know that's what you said before, McMahon. It's Lamello ball. Like, there is a path to him looking like a good NBA player again, which, look, a year ago, I thought at the beginning of season Lamello was the guy would take the chance out of those three

guys for a variety of reasons, but there were plenty of people around the league and were like, I don't want to deal with him out of the ball. I don't want to have him. I don't think he's that good. Well, I kept here not a serious player, so unsurious. Whatever the reason, right? There was not, his value was low. And he's played really well. The Hornets have played really well. And he has a much different standing, even if it's not like, you know, he's not like become prime Derek Rose and the eyes of people in the league. But like, he has played really well, has driven winning. and his standing in the league is much better as a result of that. And if John Morant box in and plays well for the Grizzlies for some period of time,

his value will change. If it remains what it's been with him going in out of the lineup and getting hurt and all the stuff that's gone on, then it will stay the same. And at some point it will just be a matter of when this partnership comes to an end. Yeah, and there's other complications. Number one, you don't want them to play well for the rest of the season because you are trying to tank for the rest of the season

to get another star who can replace him as the face of the franchise because I like Cedric Coward. He's not a face of the franchise. I like Zach Eadie. He's not a face of the franchise and there's, you know, obvious major durability issues there. So Jock taken a while to make sure this elbow gets right, makes sense for the Grizzies.

And then the other thing, you know, They smooched jaws behind for years. And we've talked about all that. But then when you go from just, hey, well, how can we support you and like making excuses and enabling and all that stuff for years? And then you try to come down hard and discipline. And he knows you don't want them. He knows you try to dump them.

There's already friction with a coach. Like the relationships with the front office clearly are complicated to say the least. you know, he's going to, if he's still on that roster next season, it's going to be a very difficult situation if he can't just swallow his pride and be a pro, be as professional as possible with the intent of getting the hell out of there as soon as possible. Because the only way he can get out of there at ASAP is to be a pro and to be productive. Oh, Minnesota. Okay, Fair enough. Fair enough. Because the other day when Minnesota dumped salary, where I was like, what are they going to do, especially at the guard position,

they take I.O. in there. They use four second round picks as the freight. You know, Iyo is having a very good year for the Bulls. He's averaging 15 points, which I think is a career high. He's shooting 45% from three. And, you know, he does fit somewhat next to Ant. I mean, you know, the player that they had in that role was Nikiel Alexander Walker who they you know they just sort of drew the line on their spending with what they've

with what they owe the rest of their roster. They chose Nasreed over him and you know I've had people around the league suggest to me that that in hindsight was a poor choice. Well they've now paid they're now going to have to pay to keep them now IO is extension eligible I believe can he be can he sign now?

I think he might be, be able to sign now. But I think Bobby said that, but he's unrestricted. That's one of the reasons why the Bulls traded him. Yeah, and in a vacuum, getting four seconds for Iowa for the Bulls as an expiring deal was good business. But it's, you know, it just goes to the rest of it. We're like, where was this two years ago? And he could have like really reset this thing and actually rebuilt. But look, I get, I get what Minnesota did here to a degree. I would still say that they just saved a ton of money on Mike Connolly, and they could have used that salary slot to get something else that helped them too.

And yes, they're going to get Mike Connolly back, but, okay, you saved a bunch of money and did this first-round pick swap to get rid of Mike Connolly to bring him back. And then you give up four seconds when you don't have a lot of assets in general to get I. And are they going to pay I.O.? to stay on the team when they're already bumping up against the luxury tax line with like eight players? I don't know. maybe.

The other thing that they did was they dumped Rob Bellingham, which Tim Connolly has done a phenomenal job in Minnesota. He did a great job in Denver. He's a great executive. The Rob Dillingham decision that they made to jump into the lottery

to give up, help me out, was it a 2030 pick and a 2031 swap? I think the swap's top one protected, the picks unprotected to San Antonio. That was a major swing and a massive will. Dillingham was a complete bust for them.

I mean, have four points and two assists per game and fell out of the rotation. And it's not just that he was, it's one thing to bust on your own pick. It's another thing to bust when you give up the future draft capital they did, which is the future draft capital they had. And knowing that's your big swing. And then, look, he's tried to get creative.

He made a big play for Kevin Durant. Hard to do that when you don't have draft capital. Same thing with Janus this year. Like, I mean, I'm not saying if you have that to pick the other spurs and the swap. I'm not saying that they would have KD or that they'd have Janus, but you at least, they don't really have chances to make that kind of, clearly they need a co-star alongside Ant. They don't have the ammo to do that in large part because they took the big swing on Rob Dillingham. that was just a massive width. The wolves are in a spot where how they finish the season

is going to have significant consequences on what the team's going to look like next year. So they were under the gun a little bit here to make a deal to acquire some help. They did. So by the way, Mike Conley already did his buyout. He's free. And we'll see where he ends up.

I wish I could tell you how much where he's going. He's going to end up back in Minnesota. I mean, because he got traded twice, he can resign with the, wolves and I'll be very surprised if my Conley's not back in Minnesota. Well, I also haven't talked to Conley after the last time he's traded in Minnesota. Family guy does not enjoy the did season relocation. Yeah.

It makes a lot of it, the way it was sequenced out, it makes a lot of sense for him to go back there. And look, like I do like I owe in a vacuum for the wolves. I do. It was another guard the Bulls traded for briefly, by the way. We didn't count that one. but yes uh in i will will help them i think though goes back to the same question we've seen the wolves shed a lot of money over the past couple of weeks and or a couple of days i should say

and are they going to really pay the number to get io re-signed this summer i think that's an open question and if they don't they're you know they're going to be that much more hamstrung with how to build out their roster by the way this so this is a loophole that's being a that I don't think has been exploited before. You know, we had a rash in the 2000s of players getting traded and getting bought out and returning to their teams. And so the league put a stop to it. It said if you got traded, you couldn't re-sign with your team for a year. But if you could trade it again, then you could.

I mean, you know, we're not talking about, you know, a guy who's going to, you know, be a massive difference maker. No offense to Mike. He's a great guy. But it's kind of a loophole they're jumping through there. I just thought I would, you know. Yeah, it's an interesting. I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's a little quirk. I don't think, you know, so many guys are you going to get traded twice like that.

But unfortunately, it's probably not to, you know, might be a guy toward the end of his career. And under those circumstances. So the Knicks made what I thought was an interesting move today. And then there's sort of the other end of it. You reported on this, uh, Bontem's live on television. And they picked up a guard of who was a very big fan favorite, but they had a setback as well. Yeah, got Jose Alvarado, New York native from the Pelicans. And then on top of it, Deuce McBride, it's a key reserve off the bench for them.

Kind of miss some time with the core muscle injury. Unclear when he'll be back, probably going to miss a good chunk of time. Made a little more sense. I mean, they've had interest in Jose for a while, but it made a little more sense why they would have given up a couple seconds to get them in the deal today, given they're not going to be without Duce for a while. I will be interested to see if when Duce gets back, Alvarado plays over Tyler Colick,

who has had a nice emergence this year as a second year guard, and frankly, I think might be better than Jose. But it'll be a fun story having him back in New York, and I do think, you know, his ability to push the tempo, to play, you know, press full court, kind of get some steals, get the crowd revved up. Like, I do think for the next couple of months. Yes, I do think for the next couple of months,

especially with Deuce injured, he will be a boost. And he also replaced Kirsha and Yabaseli in the rotation. Another guy who wound up in Chicago, interestingly, I believe it's turning down his player option for next season to get a chance to play and have a shot to play with the Bulls. And, I mean, who knows, maybe he'll end up going back to Europe if he doesn't have something in the NBA next season. But yeah, for a Knicks team that was looking to do something to Yabaseli for a while,

tournament Alvarado overall makes sense for where the Knicks are at. You know, the Knicks feel pretty good about where they are, especially with eight-game win streak and they had a high-energy victory at the Garden over the Nuggets

on Wednesday night. Putting some playing some pretty good, Yokic is not 100% right now, obviously, but still got to give credit where it's due. The Knicks played some good defense on them, and especially Mitch Robinson, who played 45 minutes and was pretty good in the game. So I think Yolkich is going to be.

You know, you know, the thing about Yokic, he was one of 13 on three-pointers, and that's a very Yokic thing to do, because a lot of guys, when they got to be one of 10, would be like, but Yolkich, he does not care. He almost made a crazy shot. He almost made a crazy shot to win the game, rimmed out of three that would have won it. But, yeah, no, look, the Knicks have turned things around, eight in a row. They got a huge game Friday night in Detroit against the, against the, against the, uh, against the Pistons, battle the top two teams in the Eastern Conference this season. I think it'll be the first game Kevin Herder played for Detroit, so it'll be interested to see his role there

with the Pistons. But yeah, it, you know, Knicks, a lot of talk about the Knicks over the last several weeks about were they going to make a big splash, where they're going to get, you know, really be in the Yonis mix or whatever. And were they going to trade Kat? Right, which I only thought they were ever going to do

any honest trade. Hey, how about Kat, you know, has been accused of not being the tough guy at times. How about Kat, like, got a huge gap. He banged heads with Spencer Jones from the Nuggets. By the way, won the fight. Spencer Jones got knocked out. Yeah, I saw, I think Kat was hiding a little catch-up packet there. Is that what you think? Because he tweeted out the photo of the gash on his Instagram. He wanted to make sure everybody. But it was ugly. I am a tough dude. But Spencer Jones got a concussion. Like, you know, they stopped the fight for him.

That's as much blood as I've seen in an NBA game in a little bit. It was a nasty cut. But he gets stitched up, then comes back out and then fouled out. But he had 24 and 12. Listen, hey, you know, of course he found out. He only had one eye. I couldn't see that well. I'm just saying, like, you know, let it be known.

The cat played through blood like he was Eudonis Haslam. He's had a good stretch label. Are we just, we're just going to zip past Janus, just like to be continued in the summer with more memes and, you know, passive aggressiveness and disingenuousness. And the only thing I will say about the Janus thing is by now, people have probably seen this video of the tweet that, yeah, the tweet that Yonis put out, which if for some reason you didn't see it,

I'll just read it for you. So Janus put out this tweet that said, Legends Don't Chase, they attract with a hundred emoji and a sunglasses. his face emoji, and it was the, I'm not bleeping, leave and clip. And as somebody in the league said to me this afternoon, they said, well, it should be stated that in the video, in the movie, the guy left. Oh. It might be, like, the honest probably is not aware of that, I would guess.

I haven't seen it. I've got to, now I've got to figure out time to watch it. I'd love to watch that movie tonight. It is, it is worth pointing out that the guy does leave in the movie eventually, so. Hey, you know who else eventually left after a long, drawn-out saga that I'm really looking forward to discussing? Jonathan Kaminka. Free. He's like, he escaped from Alcatraz.

Jonathan Kamenga, boy. Oh, my God. Do you think he paid his own airfare just to get out of there early and get to Atlanta? Man, well, listen, I wish him the best of luck in Atlanta. I got to actually analyze what his role is going to be there. I haven't quite figured it out. It should be said, too, it's worth pointing out that of the 10 best teams in the league by record,

so the Thunder, Pistons, the Spurs, the Knicks, the Celtics, the Nuggets, the Rockets, the Wolves, the Lakers, and the Sons. Only one team, the Thunder, used the first round pick to get better. And they've got a million of them. And they've got a million of them. and I believe, what, Phoenix got out of the tax, Denver got out of the tax, Boston, after a lot of gymnastics got out of the tax without ever giving up a first round pick this year. I will say this. The Mavericks getting off 100, I don't know, how much was it?

70 million? What was it, McMahon? Dude, it's like just next year, just between AD, Jaden Hardy and Danes Russell, it's $70 million. And like literally, when you include their luxury tax bill, they about slashed their payroll in half. All right. So that was good.

But how about the Boston Celtics, who at one point had a half a bill on the books for this year, half a billion, $500 million in tax and salary and got out of the tax in our in third place or second place. I don't even know where. Without even giving up a pick. It's pretty impressive. Does that right?

Did that ever give up a pick? Out of first round. I mean, I think maybe a second place. But, oh, first round picks for sure. Wow. It's pretty impressive. Hey, hey, the Mavericks got two first round picks kind of sort of. You're right.

I was just going to say, it's just an interesting trade deadline in that basically all the movement was by bad teams. And the teams at the top either duck the tax. I mean, Minnesota got better with Iowa, but they also saved a bunch of money. You know, the Lakers got Luke Kennard, like he's a fine, you know, bench player. No, but the big buy. are the bad teams. Yes, like all the teams at the top

are essentially the same. Again, Nick Busevich, like backup center. The Cavs were the most aggressive contender, and it was because they've been the most underachieving one of the most underachieving contenders.

I guess the Clippers were an underachieving contender, too, but they were selling, so it's not quite the same. I mean, I would, yeah, I mean, but yeah, that's the, of the teams in the top 10, you know,

several of them got out of the tax and most of them didn't get better. It's just an interesting state of where this trade deadline was. It made kind of a weird beak where all these bad teams stocked up on players who are there for next season, not this season. All right. Well, that'll do it.

Thank you very much to Devon, Mark, Tucker, and Armand Jackson, who announced that he'd rather go 0 of 30 than go 0 of 9, because if you went 0 of 9, that means you stop shooting. I've played pickup basketball, Jackson. I can confirm that.

That is a Syracuse attitude, if I've ever. Yeah. I will also say real quick before we go, because I meant to say this for it and I forgot. Sorry. When he's tired. I'm also tired. By the way,

you're like your voices, why was worried your voice wasn't going to hold out? You need to take the weekend. That's my hope. But I just wanted to shout out Brian Keefe, the coach of the Wizards, who before tonight's game, gave kudos to the Wizards, beat writers from the Washington Post that have covered the team the past several years because my former paper is run by feckless cowards, and they made some very bad decisions,

in my opinion, this week, as in opinion of many other people, to decimate the newsroom and in part dismantle the post-legendary sports section in newspaper history, arguably at the Washington Post Sports section, which I was very honored to be a member of for a short time. And I just thought that was cool of Brian Keefe to do that in a week where it's been pretty rough for people who were at the Post, either now or in the past. That was a nice little moment from him. And it would have been nice, I would say, for the Washington Post to have local sports coverage on Wednesday. afternoon when after a few hours after they say their sports department is irrelevant, the franchise trades for one of the 75 best players in the issue of the sport.

It might have been a good idea to cover that. But what do I know? I'm just a guy. Like, man, I wasn't good enough to get hired at the Washington Post like Bontas. No, but Cleveland Plain dealer? I tell you what, Washington Post is great. Dallas Morning News back when I was there, we'll use for when those APSC triple crowns just on an annual basis.

So I'll give you the arguably The best section. The DMN was a hell of a hit track record, too. I'll give you that. McMahon relitigating that. All right. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you to Bon Temes.

Thank you for watching. Listen to the Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you next week. Adios amigos.