Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Kawhi Trade On Pause: What Does This Mean For Clippers & Raptors? + Blockbuster Top Pick Battle

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim MacMahon and Vince Goodwill to react to the Kawhi trade to the Raptors getting put on hold due to the Clippers investigation. The guys break down what this may mean about the potential punishments, if expectations are for the trade to still happen and what information was had on both sides. Then, we run through some wild Pat Riley stories before talking an interesting trend with elite talent of the 2028 NBA draft class. Finally, we react to the blockbuster battle between the top picks of AJ Dybantsa & Darryn Peterson in Summer League including what we learned about each player. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome the Hoop Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're going to be doing on Thursday afternoon, although we're coming back later tonight after this Darren Peterson, AJ DeBonsa game in Vegas. I don't like doing non-playoff post-game podcasts. Normally what happens is McMahon or Jackson will suggest them, and I just won't answer. I'll just pretend like, I'm sorry, I haven't introduced you yet, quiet. and then I'll just run out the clock.

But I am sufficiently excited enough for this Jazz Wizards summer league game that I will be coming back later to talk about it. So what do you think about that? All right, joining us from New York City from the studios that ESPN and ABC and all the Disney shows share is Vince Goodwill. What up, though, fellas? What up, though? Hey, don't you think it's totally amazing now that you're, hey, you've been with us for a season.

You've been in our studios a lot. and how, like, the NBA or, like, just, like, the ESPN people, like, mingle with the, like, ABC people, like, Good Morning America and the view and stuff like that. Yeah, just seeing, you know, Tammond Hall, Wobie Goldberg, just, it's just one big, happy family. It's funny. All right, I'll let you out of the cage. Join us from Dallas, Texas. This is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. I have not been invited to those New York studios. The closest I get to being able to hang out with Good Morning America folks is every once in all. while old Malika Andrews will say

howdy to me. When she's not being bothered, when she can't be bothered with doing tennis and well, did you see she did a feature? How Malika is this? She did a feature on the equestrian stables at Wimbledon. I look forward to when she comes back to this side

of the pond. Wendy, though, you're quiet quitting us. You're being rude. one of one of your regular co-host has already left you due to your unfair treatment, jackass. Okay, you might want to be nice to me. All right. Well, I'm just saying it's, you know, you know those this is sports center commercials and there's the mascots and everything, you know. But like literally in New York, like you'd see like Emily Bluntner, Adam Lambert like walking in the halls next to like a W.W.E.

guy in full face paint. Well, they say, they tell people how they got to run into Brian Windy, Winhurst. I've never, never, never, never seen that. I do not think Adam Lambert was impressed with me. Adam Lambert, now there is a gentleman who is tall. All right. So we had some interesting NBA news. Actually, I would say non-news on Thursday afternoon. And that was dueling statements put out by the Toronto Raptors and the LA Clippers over what is now, as of now, a Kauai Leonard trade on hold. And so the Raptors, I believe, made their statement first, if I'm not mistaken. where they basically, let me get the exact statement. And the thing about it is, is that because this trade has not happened yet, even though it's reported and, you know, widely circulated. In fact, Kauai, did you guys see Kauai was at Kyle Lowry's retirement ceremony?

As a quick aside, which I've been known to do. I've got their statement when you're ready, by the way. Okay, great. I thought what the Raptors did this week with Kyle Lowry was total first class. Like even the concept of the one-day contracts, which happens in other sports, it's a cool thing. Even by those standards that we've seen before, McMahon, did you see how well they treated Kyle Lowry for this thing? Yeah, I mean, listen, and he should be treated like that. He's a legend in Toronto.

They're going to put his number up in the rafters, but now it was absolutely a first-class deal. In the locker room, they put like, they made every locker like a Kyle Lowry locker, and they put like artifacts from different phases of his career in there. You know, they, like, they had all their employees. Like, I just thought it was so first class by the Raptors to do that. And you guys know that I don't, I'm not sappy. So, like, Bontemps, who was crime a day. I was going to say, we noticed on the bond tips, Bob,

I'm like, all right, dude, get out of you. We've got to talk about Donovan Mitchell's extension. Okay, here's a statement from the Raptors. Regarding our planned trade with the L.A. Clippers for Kwai Leonard, the NBA League office informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation involving the Clippers, we would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kauai. In light of this, we will wait until the league's investigation is complete. The Raptors remain eager to bring Kauai back to Toronto and look forward to a swift resolution for our players, our organization, and our fans.

Now, Vince, the way that that is written is, it kind of implies that they were just told. Yeah. Or that it's a development. Well, maybe that's a better way to say it. So I checked on this. And what I am told, Vince, is that it is not a development that before they entered into the verbal agreement to trade for Kauai, that the league office, the league lawyers basically told the Raptors exactly that. If you trade for him, the investigation is ongoing.

If you trade for him, you accept the risk of what might happen to him after you trade for him. And so they were informed of that. They made the deal. And I don't know, hoped, assumed, bet, speculated that by, you know, July 9th that the investigation would be wrapped up and that everything would be clear. But it hasn't happened. And now it's, I think they had to make a statement because we're four. days into the new league year and the trade hadn't happened yet. Something smells off here.

Look, for one, the board of governors has their meeting. What's that next Wednesday? Monday, Tuesday. Monday, Tuesday. And we're going to, we'll be in Las Vegas. We'll be able to get the post-mortem from Adam Silver. That is going to be one of the first things on the docket. It's almost like, and this is me just merely speculating here, it's almost like the

Raptors were under the impression. Go ahead and do the deal. nothing's going to happen, you're going to incur whatever penalties that are going to happen, but it doesn't seem that there's anything that's going to happen. And then they were told something different or led to believe something different. Uh-oh, what's that, what's that finger up band, McMahon? Well, and hold on. I'm not going to, the, the Clipper statement is like five paragraphs, but I'm going to read one paragraph.

On June 30, we reached an agreement and principle to trade Quiland into the Toronto Raptors. We have since been informed that the trade can only. be finalized if the Raptor's ownership group assumes the risk of penalties related to Quai's contract that could theoretically result from the ongoing investigation. The investigation is ongoing and we expect the trade to be finalized following its conclusion. Key words there, we have since been informed. Well, I went to a pretty high authority and was told that the Raptor, I can't speak to the Clippers, but I can speak to what the Raptors were told. I have been told that the Raptors were informed before they came to a verbal agreement of this exact set of

circumstances that this is not a change in circumstance. Yeah. And I don't know why the clippers wouldn't have been informed. I don't know why the clippers as they're considering trade scenarios for Coiland wouldn't have asked. It's just, again, back to your point. I'm sure they asked. I mean, they, this is not flippant. This is, you know, a trade for a 50 million dollar player that they intended to extend. You know, this is a most likely, uh, a $150-ish million dollar monetary deal

because Kauai is probably getting a multi-year contract, right? And they traded two first-round picks and a pick swap in two seconds, I believe. So four picks and a swap. This is not a minor interaction. You're not swapping two ways here. And Brandon Ingram, who

is just out there in limbo right now. Well, the internet sleuths were noticing, so the Clippers have been posting some video and stuff, you know, just various of are their standard stuff they would post. You know, they've been having training camp ahead of Summer League, et cetera. And they'd noticed, you know, the Clippers fans, the extremely online Clippers fans had noticed that Grady Dick,

who was also in the trade, had been seen in the Clippers facility, but Brandon Ingram had not been seen, which led people to speculate whether Brandon Ingram would, you know, be seen in the Clippers. Now, a player of his caliber isn't expected to do workouts with the Summer League team. And Grady Dick is fighting for, I'm not going to say to stay in the lead, but to carve out a role in a career. Correct. So, but I'm just, I'm acknowledging that there was some chatter about the absence of Brandon Ingram. The point about, the point I'm making here is this is a big giant trade.

Lawyers were involved with this. This wasn't something that they were like, yeah, we'll just, we'll just figure it out. So, you know, but what I am. This is a big mess. Like, I don't care what anybody, like, Wendy, Tim, Tim, the first. fact that whatever this trade hasn't been finalized, whatever it is, this is an embarrassment for the league at this point. The fact that all of this has come out, they got ESPN. Like, they know what's been reported about Kauai being traded there on, you know, whenever it, whenever the day that it was, the problem is the Raptors can now, cannot conduct real league business because they were operating under the guys that probably nothing was going to happen to Kauai Lundah. You're not giving up all that

draft capital and everything that they gave up if you are going to believe that Kauai Leonard is going to be heavily penalized for this investigation. They didn't, that's, that's not what this was reported to us by Shams. So the fact that the league let this go on for weeks or a couple weeks now, this is an embarrassment for the league. I don't care what their excuses or what they've notified the teams of. Clearly the message was not relayed clearly and this falls at the, feet of Adam Silver, bottom line.

100%. And, you know, I mentioned when the trade went down. The board of governors, what is it, chairman? Is that the right term when he is Larry Tannenbaum, outgoing governor of the Toronto Raptors? I just have a hard time believing there was no communication between him and the league office. None of this makes sense. And what did Adam Silver say the last time he talked about this investigation?

That was almost six weeks ago. Well, God. Like, can we get a resolution here? So officially, what we're, you know, we've sort of given the official positions. It does feel like that something has changed because the Raptors would, why would the Raptors apply the brakes when they were full? You know, you trade four picks in a swap and Brandon Ingram. That's not like a tentative move. Like, and not only that, but the Clippers have gone forward with the rest of their offseason.

they've signed players and not picked up contracts and things like that. There's some things that can't be undone here. I do think we should read some of the other parts of this Clipper's statement, if just for the record, McMahon, where the Clippers once again, for the umpteenth time, but just let it be known, they once again said on the record, we did not funnel money to Kauai Leonard through aspiration. We were victims of fraud initiated by Joe Sandberg, who's now in federal prison for defrauding investors, including Steve Balmer.

And they go on to say, we recognize the uncertainty this has created and the impact that it has had on our team, our fans, the Raptors organization, their fans, and the players whose futures remain affected while this process continues. We remain confident that when the facts are evaluated fairly and thoroughly, the NBA will continue. confirm exactly what we have said from the beginning. We have not done what we are accused of doing. And again, that's careful. That's careful language. It sounds like a very defensive statement. Well, they didn't say we did know wrong. They just said we're not accusing what we, we're not guilty of what we are accused of. Let's get a conclusion. We're six months of, six months removed, Madam Silver saying it's time. It's past time. Like you're holding up business for another franchise. This is a terrible look. There's a,

There's been two terrible looks for Adam Silver in the last year. This and the whole saga of bringing in an absolute cheap ass to own the Portland Blazers, Trailblazers. Both of those are embarrassing for the commissioner on the league. So let me get this straight, y'all. We're supposed to go to Adam Silver and another week, right? And he's going to less than that. Right. Oh, yeah, it's right.

Less like five days from now, right? and he's going to sit somewhere and fix his mouth to tell us we are still investigating this. Like, they need to have, they need to have this done before he meets with the media next week. I'm sorry. I feel like he will. Six weeks ago, it's time and then say, well, we're not done yet seven weeks later. I feel like he would, I feel like it will be done. And that's just me thinking how embarrassing it would be if you come back to us and say that it's not finished six weeks after saying it's time for this.

investigation to end. All you got to do is press the button, dog. Like, this ain't that hard. Either you got the goods, you get them, or you don't. And the longer it goes on, it feels like they don't. Okay. That's totally what you both are saying are reasonable. Let me just take this position. Because what you guys are saying is what people in the league that I'm talking to are saying. You know, like, when this went down today, I called some people. I'm like, what are you hearing? What do you think? And they said essentially this exact same thing. But here's my rebuttal. My rebuttal is, you are potentially entering into a legal battle with one of the richest men on the planet and his lawyers, who are the best. So if you are going to do something that, especially that involves any sort of punishment, you've got to have it nailed down, not buttoned down, nailed down. And so I don't speak that with knowledge of what they have discovered. I just speak to that with knowledge of the realities of the world and being married to. an attorney. There you go. And having lost a lot of arguments, it sounds like. Well, that's a whole another topic altogether. So, but anyway, this is, but you're, Vinny, you're right. It is a mess. It is a mess right now because two teams, whole off-season's hinge on this. And, you know,

one thing. On one hand, I'm told that they were advised, and I believe that. But on the other hand, it's hard for me to believe that they wouldn't have applied the brakes if yeah that that's what doesn't make sense i know that doesn't go with my information so i'm i'm i don't want to i don't like stepping out of that line from what i know you advise the office not saying how likely something is clearly the raptors i'm guessing asked a lot of questions like the clippers don't have any reason to be straight up with them if they feel like the clippers feel like hey we got to get a get out co-out while we can, right? Like, you're not going to necessarily, you're not going to operate in bad faith,

but you're not going to be fully for. Well, the Clippers can just say what they've always said. We're going to conduct business. We didn't do anything wrong. But it's upon the league to be that, like, you have to look out for the best interests of your 30 member franchises, including the team that is going to inherit a player that's under investigation. So if I'm surrendering all those draft picks and I'm making this trade

and the financial commitments that come with that, you better believe I went to the league and said, hey, what am I getting here? And if the league is saying, hey, it doesn't seem very likely, go ahead and take that on, blah, blah, blah. Cool. It doesn't sound like that that has been the case unless the league has magically discovered after how many months has been since, what, 11 months or 12 months or whatever it is, they magically discovered something under some magical rock in the last couple of weeks that they did not discover before.

Come on, y'all. This is ridiculous. It made us discover something on one of those trees that were planted. one of the four trees he's playing. And I like Adam. There was at least a dozen. By and large, and this is not an easy situation to inherit, especially considering Steve Balmer's the chair of the finance committee.

Steve Balmer is one of Adam Silver's biggest allies in the room, and you have to be very careful about going after one of your allies when you're Adam Silver. You get all these new dudes around. I completely understand that. But when you watch a transaction like this go down, you can't wait until they start following the paperwork to be like, hey, hey, you might want to slow down because something else not happened. Yeah, what did they get on the trade call? Like, by the way, but you talk about the risk associated with Kauai's contract. What are those potential risks?

One could be they say, hey, that contract's now Nolan void. And so then you're just, you gave up all the picks and guy who, I believe, England, let's, you know, let me. them in the score in last year. If not, he's one of their, you know, a guy was an all-star team last year. You gave all that stuff up for, you know, nothing. Two, the other risk could be that there would be some sort of suspension levied. I'm just curious. Well, the risk that you would have, I think, is that they would void his contract.

Well, that's what I just said. And that, that leaves you with nothing. I do wonder if they decide it's going to be a suspension. How long would the suspension have to be for the, for the Raptors to back totally out of the contract. Now, that is an interesting question. I mean, because it's kind of load management. You know, the other thing here is...

It worked for Paul George. It costs him a lot of money, but it worked for him. It played well after that. And this is just going down into the theoretical, hypothetical, all that. If there's going to be a suspension for Kauai, how much is this trade revised? How much is it amended? And, you know, what are we like, if I'm the Raptors, I'm like, hey,

we want back, you know, no swap. whatever, you know, maybe we want to pick back. Listen, like, I mean, not that this is apples to apples, but last year at the trade deadline, Kobe White got sent to Charlotte. I'm going to look up how many games he actually missed. He got sent to Charlotte and they discovered a calf injury and they took back a second round pick. Let me see how many games he actually.

I don't think he even missed that many games. I mean, you know, not that it's, okay. So he got traded. He missed seven games and that was worth a second round. one second round pick, seven fewer games for, I mean, maybe they didn't know exactly how long he was going to miss when they... Well, no, but you see trades get amended based on the, on physicals all the time. Right. Right.

Like when Nico made the second worst trade of February 2024 and sent Quentin Grimes to Philly for Caleb Martin. And then, you know, Caleb Martin, he was hurt at the time. He got to Dallas and I want to say it was a hip. But the fiscal was like, oh, he's going to be out for a while. The Maverick got an extra second round pick out of that. That was shrewd negotiating. Yeah.

It's certainly, I'm sure the Clippers were hoping that we're anxiously away in this trade call. And by the way, a trade call takes five to ten minutes or less. This is not something that would actually be flagged on the trade call. This is before the trade call would happen. They never went to that. the trade call. They never scheduled the trade call. So just, just FYI. I will say this.

In the Raptor's statement, McMahon, the Raptors did use the word eager. We're eager to do this. And Swift, Swift. Oh, yes. Maybe I was just a shout out to the Kelsey's.

I found that I know a Taylor Swift song. I didn't think I knew a single Taylor Swift song until one of the makeup girls in the room started singing a Taylor Swift song. And I was like, oh, that's her head, no clue. Like, you don't, you don't like Taylor Swift? I don't, I didn't say that.

Didn't say that. Didn't say that. Okay. Well, let me, let me tell you something. Don't you do that. Hey, haters going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Oh, I think that's a Taylor Swift reference. Okay, got it.

Woo. Awed it. You're smooth. Hey, I made a, I made a Kevin Gates reference the last time you were on and you didn't catch you. I didn't, the part of the joy is when he didn't catch it, but one for the plug, one for the load. Come on now.

Let's go. Got to be bursting with your musical taste here, Vinny? I'm sure the musical stylings of Timbantem's was very, very vast on the spectrum. Nails on a chalkboard, that's his musical. All right, so to be continued, I would just point out, though, they didn't have to use the word eager and swift. You know, I think those words were used, I think, to verify that they're not trying to back out. Also, like, moving on here. Right, right.

I think they're... Okay, let me ask you guys this. If it's the Paul George suspension, let's say it's a suspension and not a void. If Kauai... The standard for boarding a contract is outrageously hot. Right, right, right. That's what I'm saying.

I don't... I have a hard time with that. If he suspended for 25 or 30 games... I think they get back a first round pick and a swap. I think it's something like that. And I think the Clippers, what the Clippers is going to do. Like, the Clippers have no negotiation. power at that point.

They've got no leverage. I think they just drastically reduced the draft compensation. They have no leverage, I suppose, but I've got a statement here from the Raptors talking about how eager they want it they are to have them. You know, they could just say, okay, send them back.

You don't get them. I'm sure Brandon Ingram will be very excited to play for you. I mean, you say that they have no leverage, but you can start engaging some of these other teams who walked away empty-handed and say, hey, deal with, deal with Kauai and see if he wants to extend with you. Like, does Kauai lose leverage in all of this?

And him saying I'll only resign with the Toronto Raptors. Like, I don't know if that happens, but I'm fascinated by if this does not come out with Kauai's clean as a whistle, the clipper's clean as a whistle, what this looks like. I'm more starting to wrap my mind around the fact that, around the thought that there could be some real ramifications here for the clipper. at least ownership, maybe Lawrence Frank or whatever it is. This is just me spitballing. I didn't think anything was going to come out of this, y'all.

I'm starting to think now that there's something that's going to come from this. When general managers will tell me they have to bring the hammer down the clips, I'm like, are you all high? They don't have the goods. And if they don't have the goods, you're not going to do it. But now I'm starting to think that the league is going to at least try. And now you have to figure out what that actually looks like. Well, I've had this circular conversation for months where it's like, oh, they got him. Oh, they found something and then, you know, six more weeks will pass.

Hey, tomorrow, Friday, Friday afternoon. It's got Friday afternoon news dump written all over it now. Don't say that. That's true. Don't say that. That's true. But, you know, there's no law that says that Adam Silver has to announce it next week. I mean, we've gone through many Adam Silver availability where he's, you know.

You know what he should do. Wait for LeBron to announce his potentially final destination and say, oh, by the way, pst. Right. Ten minutes after LeBron, you know, releases a podcast from the golf course. I actually thought it was kind of, it was kind of, I was kind of brilliant that, of Rich Paul having Bob Myers on his podcast. Can he get Pat Riley? That would be amazing.

That would be amazing. That would be amazing. Raleigh Rambling on the podcast, like telling Raleigh's stories. That would be pretty, that would actually be pretty entertaining. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. So, you know, what's funny about this is I tried to talk Riley into doing a podcast last year. Should I make, should I make this, so-fi, get your money right, story time? Yeah, get your money right. Let's do that.

How Riley gets his money right? He does. He has for many decades. I told Pat, so Pat did a podcast with Dan Lebitard like a year and a half ago or so. And I, so next time I saw him, I said that podcast was really, really good. You should put all of your members, because he's got all of these amazing stories and memories. Like the thing about Riley that is so remarkable is when something happens in the league, like, no matter, like, even right now, I'll bet Pat Riley, you know, trade gets put on hold because. a team is afraid that a guy's going to get suspended.

I will wager that Pat Riley, like, has seen this happen before. And he'll be like, oh, oh, back in 79, you know, the San Diego Clippers wanted to trade somebody with so-and-so and the league put it a hold. He's always seen everything before. He's got an incredible, no matter what the drama is, he's always seen it before. And, you know, like I treasured the times where we could talk to Pat and he would tell us stories. A lot of times. He's been in the league since the 60s. I mean, the guy played with Will Chamberlain on a team that won 33 straight in championship, you know, and all that before he became coach Pat Riley.

What was the name of the movie about Utep, Vince, with. Glory Road? Pat Riley was in the game on the other side. I mean, seriously, you talk about that. No, Matt Riley's the only person, y'all. Like, seriously. And y'all let you get back. But this thought just came to me.

If you asked to random people, some people would know Pat Riley as the Knicks coach. Some people would know Pat Riley as the Showtime coach. Some people would know Pat Riley as the heat sort of godfather and nobody should be wrong. Heat coach. That's right. Everything, because once he got there, he became the godfather. Like he had the deal that included ownership once he got there. only LeBron has that many basketball lives.

LeBron has, so Tom Havester, our former colleague, now he was at Yahoo, he says LeBron has three Hall of Fame careers. I say he's got four. I say he's got four. I say, you're counting in the Olympics? I say high school. I mean, why wouldn't that count? Of course, Wendy, the St. Vincent St. Mary alum's counting that. Go on.

Well, I'm not saying just high school, but high school in his first time with the calves. A finals, a guy who wins two MVPs is not going to be in the Hall of Fame. Okay. Okay. And he went to two Olympics there and was on the Redeemed team, which is already, they're already in the Hall of Fame for that. Yeah, that's right. He is literally already in the Hall of Fame. 1999 to 2010, I think it's a Hall of Fame career, especially if you're going to count being on the cover, Sports Illustrated, all that stuff, right?

He goes to the heat for four years, wins two more MVP's, goes to four finals and wins two finals MVP's. you're telling me somebody who, if I said, yeah, they had a career and they won two MVPs, two finals, two titles, went to four finals. You're telling me that's not a Hall of Fame career, just those four years? That's a Hall of Fame career. Second time in Cleveland, four finals, come back. I mean, four first team. The first championship for the big city Cleveland in two generations. Are you saying that's not a Hall of Fame career? I mean, trust me, there are people in the Hall of Fame that don't have those credentials. And then the Lakers, you give them a

Hall of Fame career. One of the championship became the all-time leading score. One another Olympic gold medal. By the way. Again, how many finals MVP are not in the Hall of Fame? Very few. One thing Pat Riley and LeBron have in common, both had interest from the Dallas Cowboys to play a wide receiver.

LeBron, remember, Jerry tried to get LeBron during the lockout to come play a wide receiver. Pat Riley was actually drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the 11th round. That's crazy. I don't think I even know. If you ever want to go down to YouTube rabbit hole, go look at Stephen A's reaction when LeBron was talking about playing for the Cowboys. He was not happy. Dude, I, listen, I remember I was covering the Cowboys around that time, and I remember talking to like Jason Whitten and Des Bryant. And they agreed.

My take was LeBron could go into the NFL and catch 10 touchdowns in a season at the time. I mean, like, who's going to stop LeBron from catching a fade? Give me a break. Well, listen, I got to know and covered Antonio Gates when I covered Kent State University. Antonio Gates was a point power forward. I got a great Antonio Gates story that I cannot tell on this podcast. Wow, that's a shame. He's from Detroit.

He's a Detroit native. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. He bounced around several schools of Michigan before he made it to Ken State. We were happy he made it. Anyway, I said to Pat, you've got to, because, you know, he said, look, I wrote a bunch of books. He said, yeah, I understand that. But the written word, it'll be there, but it won't carry the next generation.

The next generation wants the audio word. And I said, I said, do a lebitard. I'm sure a lebitard, I don't know for sure, but I'm sure lebitard has had to suggest to this. I said, Pat, you've got to do podcasts. I was like, record them and then just say they can't be released until after you die. I don't care. You've got to make a record of these stories. There's just got to be.

And I was there with Alonzo Morning and Andy Ellesberg, the HATSGM. I was like, you guys got to talk him into it. You've got to talk him into doing a podcast. The Riley files. You can give it 10 different names. It would be amazing. And he doesn't have to talk about today's players. He doesn't have to, like, analyze what's going to happen.

You know, he doesn't have to analyze why he traded Tyler Hero. He can just talk about the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s. It's incredible. I mean, it's crazy. Anyway, sorry, got distracted. The man's on a seventh decade in the NBA and is still a power broker. For sure, absolutely. And still making big deals.

And by the way, did you see, he was, he had the press conference for Tim Hardaway, Jr. then he had a good take on this on first take today. So did you see this, McMahon? I saw that they pulled his dad's number out of the rafters after his dad originally decided not to. That's it. So the quote was Tim Hardaway Jr. First off, Riley, you can tell, was like, my name is Paul, this between y'all. He was like, I agree.

This is weird. He goes, and Riley, by the way, retired Michael Jordan's number. Damn Arena. the reasons I and Dan Marino. Why is Dan Marino? Dan Marino's number. You can still wear a 13 for the, isn't Marino 13? Yes.

Yeah, Bamato Bios. Bayam etabio wears 13. But for some reason, I mean, I know the reason, but it's just, it's a, what to tell you, Marino's jersey is up there. But Riley's like, whatever. So what Tim Jr. said was, well, my dad said no to me using his number. That was a personal decision. That was all this.

Me using it is a family decision. The first conversation or the first was a personal decision. The second was a family decision. And Vince had the following take on that. Go ahead, Vince. I said that was the power of Mama as in Yolanda Hardaway, Mrs. Hardaway, as I like. Big Timmy's wife, she probably pulled rank and said, my son is having that jersey. Deal with it.

That's right. And by the way, Pat Riley gave him the locker, too. Same locker, which is pretty cool. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Wow, they haven't renovated their locker room that long. I mean, it is sort of a classic locker. And there's not really one like it.

Maybe they spruced it up a little bit, but I saw the video where he's like, you know, we had the guards over here, the bigs over here. And he's in his dad's old locker. Yeah, that's not a surprise that Riley would like say, you're going to be in this locker here and whatever. It was sort of his way of doing it. Anyway, so we had some interesting news with one. of our colleagues at ESPN, and I'm not talking about Bontems.

Kendrick Perkins gave me the heads up this was coming. And I really want to know why Perk didn't get this done at Jackson State. I think the horns got a little bit better NIL package. By the way, when Michael Malone left us to go be the head coach at North Carolina, you know, he was really, really busy and like, you know, those of us who were his, you know, co-workers on countdown, you know, Malika, we text him, didn't hear back. I had text him because I knew he wasn't going to get back to me. But, you know, Perk had text him and some of the producers had text him.

You know, he was like, he was really busy. He was taking the job, trying to get recruits locked down. Sure. Malone's first communication back to us was basically to Perk saying, hey, how about you help me get Marcus Spears, Jr. to North Carolina. Yeah. So, no, but he's heading to Texas. Marcus Spears Jr., who was the number one player in the class of 2007 and, and the son of our colleague at ESPN, Marcus Beers, Sr., you know, former cowboy and Baltimore Raven defense lines.

I'm actually covered Marcus when he was with the Cowboys. Also, the son of Aisha, formerly Smith, who was the seventh overall pick in the WMBA. I had a very good WMBA career. And the sister, I believe his, or the brother, rather, of, I believe his sister's name is Kari. I hope I'm not watching that, but she is, she just finished her freshman year at Texas and is one hell of a volleyball player. My daughter actually played against her in a sand tournament.

I think it was the first time. They played basketball and sand? No, volleyball. Volleyball. And I think it was the first time she'd ever played Sam, but I remember telling my daughter then, I said, you see the difference between sports writer jeans and first round pig jeans.

Right. I think LeBron's daughter is a volleyball player. Sorry, I've seen that. Watch out. That's all I'm going to say about that. Watch out for Zeri James. But yeah, Marcus Spears Jr., reclassified and is heading to Texas. And it's an interesting deal. We've also seen this with a couple of other guys entering college at the age of 17. So these are two-year deals. They cannot. It's not like Cooper Flagg, who, I don't know what the exact cutoff is. but he's, I think you have to be 19 by the time that, no, it's not 19.

You have to be one year out from your high school class graduating. I believe that that is the. Okay, so I don't know exactly why Cooper Flagg was able to reclassify and spend only one year, but Margaret Spears is going to have to spend two. It's something to do with the birthday, but I'm sitting here and I wish I could tell you. But he's a, yeah, I don't know the exact rule on that, but he's got to spend two years. this guy who's going to UCLA on what I call a taxpayer mid-level deal. Well, so we got three players in the last couple of weeks here, big-time prospects for the

2028 draft, all of whom reclassified and have gone to or going to college in the U.S. early. Marcus Beers Jr., who I'm not sure where he's ranked or whatever, you know, he's. It's very highly ranked. Number one player in the class of 27. The high school was supposed to be the high school class of 27. Yeah. Potentially number one pick here, for sure.

Okay. 610 left you with big time skill and athleticism. Okay. So anyway, well, there's just a whole, yeah, there's a whole bunch of second generation star athletes coming through, obviously, as we see. For example, you know, I'm really getting messed up by this McMahon as I'm dealing with the sons of all these guys that I covered. So, you know, there's a five-star center. I'm not sure where he's going to college if he's committed yet, who I just saw was one of the stars of the USA Under 17 team. Eric Dampere Jr.

Oh, I've been seeing his clip for years. And he's a big kid with skill. Like he's Eric Jr., but his game is very different than his dad's. Yeah. Well, as I was watching Cameron Boozer knock down threes all week in Salt Lake City, I was like, well, dad didn't knock down threes like that. That didn't pass like that either. Right.

So anyway, so in addition to Marcus Spears Jr., we have Ruben Boomge, Boomge. You guys remember Ruben Boomie, Boomge? Yeah, his son. His son, Joachim. Boomje, Boomje, who's seven-footer. He played with FC Barcelona, I believe, this last year. He is, and he played very well. They just had the world under 17 World Cup in Istanbul.

The U.S. won. They beat Serbia in the final, the U.S. one by 20. Obviously, there's a bunch of big-time recruits on that. but Joachim Bumje, Boomjee, has committed to Duke. And he's got to spend two years there as well. Correct. He doesn't have to spend a boat at Duke.

Two years in college. Right. But yeah, he's going to start at Duke. And then this guy who you've been all excited about, McMahon, the next great young Serbian, it seems. Yeah. Nicola Kutzerica. Kuzerica.

And he is a like 6-9, 6-10, guard who has like Kuralinko kind of defense potential and is a put the ball in his hands, shoot it, create, pass, kind of offensive threat. Like I said, these are three guys who, they're all two years away from being draft eligible, but like pay attention. We will be talking about these kids and what has a chance to be a pretty loaded 20-28 draft. So Cootzer-Ritsa also was

playing for Barcelona's program. Now, you know, Luca Donchich came out of the Madrid school. You know, this Madrid, he was with Real Madrid, but, you know, was, you know,

obviously Slovenian sort of raised by the Spanish development system. Kutzerica, Serbian, raised by the Spanish system. In the World Cup Under 17 final against the Americans, all he did was have 37 points, nine rebounds to assist.

Now, he was 9 of 23 overall and 2 of 11 on threes. He mostly did it by getting to the foul line. So, you know, I don't want to overreact too much to it. Hey, it takes a lot of stamina to get those shots up. Like, not being funny about it, it takes a lot of energy to get up shots in that type of situation. So, yeah, the numbers don't look great, but I want to see the film. I want to see him be able to get it. shot. And by the way,

Boomje, Boomge, even though his dad was Cameroonian, Boomje, Boomje played for the American team and I believe was named the MVP at the tournament. Also, if you're scoring, if you see he scored 37 points on 23 field goal attempts, that sounds good. And if you're doing that, you're getting in the line a lot.

True. I don't know how accurate this is, but there was an outlet in Europe, Meridian Sport. I don't know their history of of reporting. But I should just note because McMahon

just said what it was. It's supposedly a two-year $12 million deal at UCLA. Yeah, that's been widely reported. Again, that's why I call it a taxpayer mid-level. I think Boomshey Boomshey is getting something similar. I actually had a scout in Salt Lake City telling me that the Serbian kid

would have gone on the top five in this draft. Whoa. Now, it's one scout's opinion, but you know it's a scout who is you know very versed in the international game said the kid would have been a top five pick or he would have had him top five at least in this year's draft that's when I started looking him up and saying oh and I told you in Bontz him he's my discovery now I do think it's interesting so boom Jé boom Jay grew up in the Tampa area but his father sent him to Barcelona to, you know, do his sort of high school.

To make some money and to be in a big time basketball program. Right. Like I think that, and he's obviously been, you know, benefited from it. So that is a, that is, you know, it's just, you know, noted that he would, that he would do that. When, you know, there's obviously a lot of, a lot of options. But just as long as none of them get paid to plant trees. We're all, everything's going to be fine. All right.

So we'll be back later on after we see guys who were taken in the top five of this draft. And I hope it lives up to the billing because I've been talking about it on TV. Basically, Vince, I've been trying to talk producers into letting me talk about Darren Peterson and AJ DeBonsa this week. So I don't have to give another non-liber. on update. Yeah, I've been on you some of those production because I get it Wendy and hopefully Philly fans will get off of my behind since I'm not

I'm not very popular in Philadelphia right now. Another place you're not popular? Where are you popular, Vinnie? I'm a journalist. So if I'm... You're kind of like me. You excel at pissing people off in multiple markets. Look, I went on television today and said the Pistons

didn't do enough to be a top five team in the East and people call me a Detroit. Homer and I'm like, no, nothing you do can hit me. I am an equal opportunity, you know, evaluator here. All right. You'll give you a participation trophy for that. I got an idea that I'm going to run by some folks before the start of the next season. You're going to see me have some fun.

Hey, if you give me one, I'll put it right here behind me. All right. All right. Thank you so much to all our producers. Tucker, Miles, Jackson. I'm sure Mark's working on this one as well. Thank you very much to Vince and McMahon. Thank you for listening. Oh, real quick. Before what McMahon says goodbye. I can't. We're not. We'll say it at the end of tonight. All right. All right. Well, I'll say it now because I probably forget it later. Maybe Jackson remind me later. Starting next week, we're going down to two podcasts a week, Tuesday and Friday. Is that right, Jackson? Unless there's emergency circumstances. All right, all right. There's an emergency podcast request. I'll ignore it.

We're aspiring for two pods. Oh, yes. We have big aspirations around here. Yeah. So we're going to, we're switching to a summer schedule. Let it be written. Let it be said. Starting next week.

Barring what, Jackson. We've got to claim some now, Jackson. LeBron News, clearly. Well, yeah. Kauai News, obviously. Okay. Those two big ones for sure. All right.

Great. All right. We'll be back with you later after we see these games. See you later, Vince. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Okay, we're back. McMahon. We just watched Darren Peterson, AJ DeBonsa, part one. They've played before, and they've played more entertaining games.

This was a... Well, it's a Summer League game. What was your expectation level? I've seen entertaining Summer League games. Okay, good for you. This wasn't one of them. It had a few glimpses It had a few moments

Listen I know there's been a lot of whining and crying About the little free throw rule You know the one for either two or three Whatever it is Thank God that exists in this camera We'd have been up way past midnight Right so look

I thought considering what I've seen From rookies in their first games I thought it was good work by both of them It was a four point game But it really was lopsided the Wizards won, the Jazz Closed at late. I'm a little bit concerned because DeBonso looked like he was holding his calf at the end of the game. I'm hoping, and I'm not trying to be funny or ironic here.

I'm hoping it was just a cramp. Yeah. I don't know. If it's a calf, we won't see him again. But anyway, forget about that. I would see him again anyway. Maybe right. Well, look, AJ DeBance had 27 points.

He had seven rebounds, two steals in a block. he was 7 of 18 from the field really shot the ball poorly outside but what I was impressed with first off he tied a record he tied with Blake Griffin for the most points scored for a number one overall pick in his summer league debut

and I remember I was actually at that Blake Griffin game on the same floor however many years ago the first time I ever saw him play was in that game so listen I think he's up there with like John Wall and some other guys who had about that many points in their first game. I thought he showed a pretty good all-around game to Bansa, and especially McMahon, a quick first step,

which is one of the reasons he kept getting fouled. He got fouled eight times, and he got most of his points at the foul line. I mean, he is an amazing athlete. He had one drive-and-dunk. He had a couple other finishes through contact. some of the shots that he missed, including one against Peterson, he's going to be able to get to that little off-dribble, spin, turnaround whenever he wants. And he creates a lot of space with that.

He's only going to get better as a shooter as he, you know, obviously gets more reps and matures. But man, like, he is a physical athletic specimen from the second that he stepped in to the league. It looks like he's a little bit bigger and stronger even than he was. at BYU. Not that I watched a lot of BYU. No, he definitely is stronger. And look, he played 26 minutes.

He had one turnover. And he was bringing the ball up a little bit. He had one turnover and one foul. Yeah. And he's just, he is got an NBA body and like top one percentile NBA athleticism. He's like all that stuff is there.

The shooting will come, I think. Well, he is at his best from the. mid-range. He's really got a great mid-range game. The long game has to develop a little bit, as this game showed, but he's going to score from day one. By the way, I should point out that Trey Johnson lottery pick from the 2025 draft, he looked pretty good tonight. He looked like a set, you want your set, especially your lottery picks, your second year lottery picks. You want them to be impressive. Trey Johnson was impressive, 11 to 20 shooting 26 points. Didn't shoot the ball well from three, but generated space and got in there. That should, that should be a good,

first impression there from the wizards for the wizards. As for Darren Peterson, not a great shooting night for him. And nine fouls, McMahon. He was one foul away from the dreaded 10 foul in your out summer league rule. And eight turnovers in 30 minutes. The jazz definitely were into him a little bit more

trying to be physical with him defensively. and it resulted in him having a very inefficient night. So I said nine fouls, eight turnover, he's six of 18 shooting. He threw in like a 30-footer at the buzzer to get himself to 24 points. Still liked the way he generated open shots like we saw in Salt Lake. They just weren't going in as much. Yeah, and Jemir Watkins also had nine fouls. And a lot of those were guarding Peterson.

Clearly, he was like, hey, I got 10 to play with. And he was just being physical 94 feet with him. Look, and this is, Peterson's had. an eight turnover game now, a two turnover game, and a nine turnover game. And there's a couple things there. Number one, he's more of a two than a one, right? And he's going to be sharing the back court with Keante George. He's going to be sharing ball handling and initiating responsibilities. Keante George will take more of those than Peterson's going to take early on. He's really a, he's more of a shooting guard who can make really good reads and really good passes than he is a guy,

who you want bringing the ball up the floor at this point in his career and you know honestly I think it's probably going to be the case um didn't shoot it well but you could see how easy it is for him to create space in the half for it like see he missed some threes they were off dribble threes yes that he did a great job creating space really good footwork I just way above that way above the norm footwork for a 1920 year old. Yeah, and just, I mean, really athletic. He also has, you know, he's not as big and tall as DeBanza, but he's got a big frame. He's, you know, he's strong. So, again, he shot it well in both of the two games he played in Salt Lake City, didn't shoot it well in this one. I wouldn't

worry about that one iota. The turnover is, you know, it's a bit of a concern, but also just understand he's not going to have as much initiate responsibility come to regular season. Right. And they had the ball in his hand. Like, you know, they wanted him. He played the, he played like the first, like, out of the first 16 minutes, I felt like out of the first 16 or 17 minutes, he played like 12 or 30. He was, they played in heavy minutes in the first half especially. And I, I don't know this for certain, but he might be done for Summer League. Like I said, he played two games in Salt Lake City. Typically, these high lottery picks only play two or three games now. So that might have been it for him. Well, I've enjoyed what I've seen. Obviously, the turnovers and et cetera, the fouls. But I'm very impressed with what I saw from Peterson. Like, you know, this is a bad, you know, quote-unquote bad night for him. He still had 24 points.

He got to the free throw line eight different times. Yeah, and he's going to score. Like, he's going to step in, like, he'll average 20. They're both going to score. Yeah, they're both going to score. They're both average 20s. I tell you, it'll be interesting to see how the Bonsa fits with the two guys on massive contracts on the Wizards.

Trey Young, despite being a three-point shooter, has never shown an interest or much of an ability to be an off-ball player. True. I don't know how that's going to fit with... He led the league an assist two years ago, so, I mean... Well, no, he's a great picking-roll creator, but... Yeah. You know, you don't draft DeBonson, number one, to have him spot up on the weak side of the floor.

You know, you want to check out with the ball in his hands, and you want him getting downhill and developing... that, you know, like I think he's going to be a guy who can score 25 or 30 a game pretty quickly. I agree. And then, you know, then AD, you know, AD is going to obviously want to touch. He's going to want to be involved. And AD is not at, like, you can't play five out with AD. You can't spread the floor that way.

I'm just curious to see how they kind of try to figure out spacing because when you draft that guy, number one, you've got to feature them right away. I just, I think there's some challenges with the other two guys. that you have to feature for the simple fact that one's making 50-some odd million, one's making 60 million. I did like the fact that I think they said on the broadcast that all 11 wizards who were on their roster players who were not on the Summer League team were at the game tonight. Yeah.

And they had a bunch of guys on the floor who lost to be on the roster. You mentioned Trey Johnson. There were a couple others. Will Riley? I thought it was good to see. AD there. And Chris Middleton, who's been there, a wizard for two days, was there. Well, he's returning, though.

He was a wizard for a little while. That's true. Made a pit stop in Dallas and a U-turn. All the way, that contract, five years, I'm sorry, three years, 17 million. It's like 900 guaranteed in the second year. Right, right. But it was good to see AD there. $900,000 guaranteed, just to be clear.

Right. It's like seven, six-ish-ish. million six or a half is million of the 17 is guaranteed something like that. Right. So some flexibility there. I'm curious to see how the relationship with AD is

once he's extension eligible on August 6th. Well, the wizards are expected and I don't mean by their fans but by their ownership and leadership to quickly rebound and contend for the playoffs this year.

Yeah. as are the jazz. I don't think the jazz, I don't think there's nearly as much expectation for the jazz. I agree, but they want to improve quickly. Yeah, they want to be competitive. The flip is on order. I'll put it like this.

There's real pressure on the front office and the coach in Washington that there's not in Utah. Totally agree. Totally agree. All right, well, I'm glad we stayed up for it. All right. Thank you so much. to Vinny, who was with us earlier, all of our producers, Jackson,

who's up late here, relatively. We've had worse. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to the collective. As a reminder, starting next week, down to two a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, except when I can get talked into emergency pods and whenever else we change our mind. But summer rules begin next week.

You know, that reminds me. I saw Quinn Snyder in Salt Lake City, and man, he looked fresh. and rested and relaxed. So I just saw Summer Quinn. We're about to see Summer Windy. The windy sleep updates are off for a little while. No, they're not off.

I did get up yesterday today, and I'm doing Get Up tomorrow. Well, next week, I think they'll diminish. Yeah. All I know is today, they came on to the production meeting at 5 a.m. Central, and they welcomed everybody in, and they welcomed me in.

And my first words were, when does football season start? Soon. Soon. All right, we'll see summer windy soon. And that's a, that's a beautiful beast. For now, adios migos.