Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Luka’s Future In LA? Warriors, Suns & Deadline Teams To Watch

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Bobby Marks to talk a unique trade that the shocking Luka blockbuster reminded them of, if Luka’s future is in LA and how the Lakers can build around him. Then, the guys talk why the Warriors and Suns are getting a lot of deadline attention before diving into some other teams you should be watching closely in addition to some moves that could be coming this summer. Plus, Bobby’s experience at Kim Kardashian’s wedding. 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, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on, what day is it? Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles here. I'm here with our front office insider. I don't like calling you Front Office Insider. It sounds like you only can talk about their front office stuff. Bobby Marks. Hello, Brian. Good to see you. Again.

We're in our LA podcast studio here because we're here for trade deadline. And it's been an eventful week so far. And I'm very scared that by the time people watch and hear this, that things will have happened. And we'll even have junk this podcast and had done another emergency one or it will sound foolish. So it is Tuesday, February 4th in the afternoon, just to timestamp it. When this Luca trade went down the other day, I thought of a trade you were a part of. What year was Darren Williams trade? 2011.

Okay. Post. Yeah, that another one of the. trades, not the Darren trade, the Carmelo potential trade, you know, those take years off your life because we had been chasing Carmelis in September of 2010. And then, of course, you know, New York comes in and the Knicks wind up getting him. And that's when All-Star Weekend was in L.A. So I remember meeting with Carmelo in, I don't know, some fancy restaurant and Jay-Z was there and all that. And then get an indication Sunday that he's going to New York.

And that's when All-Star weekend was before the trade deadline. Right. So there was some crazy stuff that went down there. And we go, so Monday we all convene. And I go up, and with Darren Williams was not on our radar, trust me. I go up to Billy King's office and he goes. Billy King was a gentleman manager at the Nets at the time. He goes, what do you think about Darren Williams?

I said, heck of a point card. He goes, I think we can get him. I've talked with Kevin O'Connor, who was their GM at the time. And Darren had a little bit of falling out with Jerry Sloan, I think, the week before. Right, but nobody thought he was going to be traded. I mean, unless my memory is off, the last time an All-Star was traded completely out of the blue was Darren Williams. Yeah. And, you know, you guys had put the package together to offer the nuggets for Carmelo.

Yeah. You were pursuing Carmelo. Carmelo goes to the Knicks. and so everybody knew that you were willing to trade. Yeah, it was basically kind of a reduced package. It was like the beat. I mean, they're still good players. It was Derek Favors, who poor Derek Favors.

We had picked him third in the draft the year before, and he was in trade rumors since September. I remember going down there in training camp, and Carmel's name was being mentioned, and Derek Favors and Devin Harris was part of the trade, and we traded two ones, one turned into Ennis Cantor freedom at the time. That was a lot or high lottery? Yeah, three.

I think the third pick. But the thing, what that trade was is that we slept on it. Okay. Didn't leak, right? Did not leak. We slept on it and the next day pulled the trigger and then it's, but it's similar. I mean, not listen, what happened on Saturday night is

seismic. It's similar to the point where we didn't, we never had discussions with I believe Jeff Schwartz eventually became his age. I think Jeff might have been his agent at the time. Darren had a year and a half left on his contract. Right, kind of like Luca does right now. We had no indication. We were still in, we were playing in New Jersey. Right. The Prudential Center.

Eventually going to Brooklyn in 2012. Right. And then the lockout was coming. Right. Too. Yeah. We had no idea if Darren Williams was going to resign with us, but we swung for defenses there. And that's how that kind of deal, that's how that deal transpired. Yeah. So that was just, that came out of the blue. I always envisioned that, You know, the jazz called up and said, hey, that trade, you offered for Carmelo? Yeah. We'll take it for Darren Williams.

What? And, yeah. The funny part is that we had a, when we were doing the Carmel stuff, we had a binder. Because Pete, what happened was, so Maasai, Ujuri, who's now the president of the Toronto. He was running the nuggets at the time. He, um, he had, that was his first job. Messiah was a scout. Right.

And I just remember all these different things that happened. I was in Disney World with my younger commander. They were little. And I remember Billy calling me, hey, there's this guy in Toronto, I mean, in Denver named Maasai. You know him and stuff. What happened was is that the negotiations between Denver and us, Billy and Maasai became so hostile that basically myself and Pete Del Sanger, who's now with the magic, were

the lead person, people in this. Yeah. And that's how we were. And so we had this whole binder with everything. And then we eventually, as far as just, you know, it was like kind of a water down, Not a water down. Utah still got good value out of that, but that's how that kind of transfer.

Well, I will say, since we're telling stories at the start of this, which I don't even know why we're doing this on trade deadline week, but it's my podcast, so I don't care. The general manager of the Nuggets

who M. M. M.S.I. replaced was Mark Warkin. Yeah. Mark Warkentine and I were friends. And Mark Warkentine had been let. He was executive of the year and got let go by the,

many executives over the years who have been very good by the Nuggets had been let go basically because the standard Cronky, the owner doesn't like to pay executive. Long story short. The most recent one was Tim Connolly. But Mark Warkentine was one. Massi Uri was one.

Tim Connolly was one. We'll see what happens with Calvin Booth. So Mark Warkentine had been let go. He couldn't come to terms on a contract. He had been executive of the year. He wasn't like fired. He just contract ran out. And Mark was essentially working for the Knicks. I mean, this is all secret at the time.

But I remember having dinner with Mark in Portland. He lived in Portland. and he had his full sheet out of how he was advising the Knicks to deal with the Nuggets on how to get Carmelo. Yeah. And he was later hired by the Knicks and worked for many years in their front office. Mark passed away recently, which is why I had no problem telling the story. The running joke, and this is, I never told this story. The running joke was about seven months later, my wife and I had gotten invited to the Kim Kardashian, Chris Humphrey's wedding.

This is, this is, this is, I'm here for this. And this is how we're going to get record numbers on this podcast. Jackson's going to say Kim Kardashian. Listen, we had at one time in New Jersey, we had Kim Kardashian and Maria Sharpova because she was dating Sasha Woochik. We had both of them. And so we had gotten invited to the wedding

in Santa Barbara. I think it was at Oprah's. Oprah's house? Yeah. And it was black tie. Isn't that Ohio? Isn't that like technically Ohio? All right, forget it. I'm not interrupting you anymore. And it was black tie.

and I remember going and I wore white tuxedo jack because I wanted to stand out. Good move, Bobby. And I pulled up and Carmelo was there with a white tuxedo jacket on it. And I said to him, it was bad enough that we didn't get you. Now you just stole my moment. Right. But the wedding is another podcast in itself. But yes, we were at the Cardiff.

I'm here for that. I'm here for that podcast. With Chris Humphreys, the funniest is always people ask me, would you get them? And I said, I didn't get anything because I knew in three months they were probably going to be divorced. So there's like kind of that unwritten rule. Well, I remember at the time, Woj was writing for Yahoo. And, you know, he was breaking stories left and right. He was, you know, he was writing these columns that were like flaming missiles. Like, you know, he was a great columnist. He was ripping David Stern. And, you know, Yahoo was a major, you used to work for Yahoo,

obviously. Yahoo at the time was like a major portal site, you know, one of the leaders, probably more hits than ESPN. And his number one story that he ever did, not like whatever trade he ever broke. I can't even remember what his great trades were with Yahoo was when, I think it was very basic that source, colon, Chris Humphreys did not know Kardashian was filing. Some Humphrey's divorce story, like got 275 million. Yeah. Like Shams, Schaum's tweet. 93 million, I think. I think it's might even higher than that. You know, like he made, never show if they break a thousand stories and not add up to well well that night we'll go in for that saturday night or sunday morning will go and down as i mean i mean like yeah what did you think when

you saw that you know i'm desensitized yeah to everything i was still okay it did it did kind of no to me it was i cannot believe that the mavericks yeah traded luka and as i you know as i thought about it more i mean we did the podcast shortly thereafter yeah but at the minute i saw it i was just like wow, like there's something happened with Luca. Right. And the more I worked on it, I didn't know, they just, they just didn't like them. And, you know, I had this guy who's an All-Star, who I know who's an All-Star, current All-Star now, he texts me.

He's like, wow, they really, really hate him. And I won't say anything more because I don't want to reveal. But this person has a very large contract. Yeah. And I was like, can you imagine if you were about to sign your contract? Oh, man. That was the first thing I thought of when he got traded. It's supermax.

I've been like using general numbers. Would you tell me the exact numbers we're talking about here? Five for 345 largest contract in NBA history. That's what he was eligible for. This actually is a spin-forward. So today, Luca had his first press conference. He didn't say a whole heck of a lot. One thing that he did say was that because there had been some speculation or maybe

somebody reported it, but there had been speculation that the reason he didn't, the reason that they traded him was because he had indicated he wouldn't sign that Supermax, which I found absurd. But I don't know. I don't know everything. And he was like, absolutely not. He's like easy question. And of course, easy question.

Excuse me, sir. Would you have accepted that $350 million contract? Yes, I would. Okay, thank you. But now the Lakers don't have that. Once you get traded, you lose the ability to get the supermacks. Yeah. Once you get, if you're traded in your first four years in a league, you can still carry us

with you. But once you get, he's basically just like any other person. Right. And there's still some incentive, certainly more years and more bigger increase. But no, as I said yesterday, it's basically kind of a level, a little bit of a level playing field. The reason that that rule exists is they don't want somebody to get their first max contract and then force a trade and then still get the supermax. They want you to have to stay through your whole first contract to get the supermax. And then once you sign the supermax, you're not allowed to be traded for a year.

So they want to prevent you from even like getting the supermax and going, ha, ha, now that I got it, I'm out of here. Well, remember, it used to be too, that you can only have two guys on per team. That's right. So that went away with this CBA. Right. So by the way, I had an executive time the other day, you know, with the new CBA, there's really only 10 max players in this league. Yeah. I mean, that's a good point.

I mean, there's certainly circumstantial max. Right. Like, no offense to Paul George in Philly. I mean, I think that's kind of a circumstantial based on everything that happened there. But yeah, I mean, there's probably, you know, handful of guys. Yeah. But I would thought Luke was on that list. Yeah, I thought too.

Like even like we were on Tuesday, we were talking on TV, like, you know, like certainly the list of guys. And I would like, you know, Shea and Janus and Yokic and Curry and certainly LeBron and, you know, that group. And then you're thinking like, well, wait a minute. Like, Luca just got traded. Like you can, you know, anybody could, right? I think it could. I just, man, it is, it's hard to keep it under wraps. That's the big, that's the biggest.

That's one of the bigger takeaways from this. Well, one of the things I think the athletic reported this, they reported that one of the reasons why the Lakers were able to keep. their second first round pick is that the Lakers wanted to talk to Luca and say, hey, if we trade for you, will you sign here this summer? And the Mavericks didn't want Luca to know. They wanted to get this deal done. And so they said, no, you can't. So Lakers said, well, you know, we may, you know, if we get here and Lucas says, no, I got to have

this player or this, we need something to trade for it. And the Mavericks, if that is indeed true and I, you know, I don't, I believe it. The Maver's like, okay, keeping this quiet is worth maybe even giving up another Laker pick. because I think they were worried about what would happen if it got public. And so the Luca contract now becomes a little bit of a topic, which you brought up in our meeting. We had a production meeting and I haven't been stopped thinking about. Not that I don't want to make it sound like the Lakers should be stressed, but what can Luca do this summer now that the Supermax isn't around? Yeah.

Starting on August 2nd, he could extend for four years, $229 million. That's the most that he could extend for. the fifth year the year they's got plus he's got another you know so you're probably getting over 270ish somewhere around there so the difference between 350 and 270 well yeah I mean we'll add no but add another three 350 and then add another 50 so 400 400 yeah so so the difference between 400 and 270 that doesn't include that Texas has zero percent state income tax and California on the highest bracket I think is over 14 right yeah so he could do that I think that the logical decision would be If he extends, would be to a shorter deal.

Similar to kind of what Donovan Mitchell did this summer, where you're basically doing a three-year deal with a player option, the third year because that would take him to 10 years of service. And what 10 years of service means is that he could sign for 35% of the salary cap, which is essentially the super max. Right. So what the super max really is, is that you know, you're allowed to get a certain level of max with four years or three years experience.

It's three years experience, right? Then with seven years experience, you get the next level, which is 5% more. And then at 10 years, you get 5% more. And that 5% is a lot. Oh, yeah. Okay? So what you're basically able to do

what the supermax essentially is for that second max contract, what I call the stress max. Right. The fun max, the stress max, the legacy max. If you sign for the stress max, you get the legacy max price. So you get a 10 year price at year seven.

So it's basically incentivizes you. It's like speeding up. You know how Shaq says, I'm G15. certified or whatever. It's like speeding up from G10 to G15. Anyway, so, you know, it's not nothing that the Lakers, you know, in August 2nd's key. Yeah. Because he will get to see what the Lakers do in July. He'll get to see how the season plays out. What the Lakers do in July, he'll know what their roster is when he gets to have that put in front of it. Yeah, I mean, and the roster

is pretty much, you know, certainly things can happen on up to the deadline. Really, the only players that are free agents are the guys on the minimum contracts, Christian Wood, Jackson Hayes, Reddish. You know, those are, everyone else is under, certainly LeBron is going to be, you know, certainly that we'll circle him because he's got a player option here. But the roster is, it is what it is. You've got your, you know, certainly Dalton Connecticut. And as we, what we'll learn is certainly how does the back court work, him and Austin Reeves. Because Austin Reeves at the end of days, their biggest outside of that pick in 2013. That's their biggest trade chip. So there is work to do. Rob Plinka in the press conference on Tuesday said that. Like he's self, he's aware of what they

need to do. But as much as we like to talk about trades, like it takes two to tango, right? He got to find a partner out there. How much do you think Rob Polinka's jacket cost? Malika, who knows fine clothing, she pegged it at 4200. I wish I had his style. I wish I had his like four more inches of height. You know, I could be that height. But, but no, but I mean, as I said, like, he's self-aware. He said it. Like, he like, and I, it was great question. It was like, does there feel like added pressure?

And like, no, like, he's like, I felt pressure since I've taken the job here. Oh my God. I got to look at this text. I want to get it right.

So I was, I was texting another high ranking executive about, about the Lakers today. And I go, hey, what did you think of Rob's jacket? Just joking? Because the whole league was watching that press conference.

He goes, he could be wearing a speedo right now if he wanted to. He's got a lifetime job after that trade. So I, I appreciated that. Yeah. So just the Lakers do have to, you know, they, you know, right now, as we do this podcast, we'll see what happens tonight with the Clippers, but they are tied with the nuggets in the loss

column for fourth. So like, they're in good shape. And they got Luka Donchich. And I don't know how their team, I think if they don't have a big man, they're going to be in trouble. But I do think, Palinka said that the center market was dry. Yeah. It's like, I agree with that? I do.

I because I think the biggest name out there is, is Miles Turner. And Miles Turner is an interesting. name because there's certainly a priority in Indiana to sign him. Yes. He's one of these unique cases where he's not extension eligible. Usually you get to a point. Like him and DeAngel Russell, Brooke Lopez, kind of three guys that are just, they're not, you know, he, he doesn't fit to criteria. But why I mentioned Indiana, Indiana, is playing really good basketball.

They really believe in their team. Yeah, they're, you know, top six in the Eastern Conference. They've kind of gotten back on good footing. And in the Miles Turner situation, they can figure that out in the summer. They're $20 million below the luxury tax. They potentially could go into tax, but also they could make some moves to give them some more flexibility. I don't think their intention is to go into tax. Yeah.

No, no, no, no. Not next year, I don't think. But the reason that people, you know, I just spent some time with the Pacers in Paris and they love Miles Turner. I think they want to keep them. But there is a bit of a crunch there because they signed Andrew Nemhart to an extension and his money comes on. Plus, Tyler Hero is on a Super Max, Tyler Hero. Halberton, two Wisconsin guys, Tyrese Halliburton, sorry. And Pascal Seacom is on a max.

And so those contracts go up a lot. Well, the funny thing about Indiana is that, and this was a team executive had mentioned this to me last year, like with this new CBA, like they're the perfect team, right? Two max guys and then like everyone else between like zero and 20 million. Yeah. And then, but then those 20 million, like it keeps on adding up and everything. $20 million.

No, when someone, that's 26, that was 29, now it breaks through that barrier. So now if you're Miles Turner and you're 25, now it's like all of a sudden getting expensive. But I do think that the center market is is somewhat thin. Listen, you know, Robert Williams and Portland's another name. Yeah, you always Fallon shooting. Yeah. But are you, I mean, you've got one, you've got one big trade asset. You're limited on your seconds.

Yeah. So that's the hard part as far as having the patience to maybe wait and maybe there's something better comes. Don't worry, Laker fans at all work out. That's my thing. After 22 years covering the NBA, I'll just say, it'll all work out. Don't worry. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. The team that's fascinating, and I am openly admitting that things could all be different by the time pod posts, but are the Golden State Warriors.

After the game that they had, they played the Orlando Magic on Monday night. They won, and they're about to go on a long road trip of them. I think it's seven games. Starts here in L.A. on Thursday. And Draymond Green said after the game, and I'm paraphrasing, he said, Joe Lakeep, the owner is not happy. We're 500. And when Joe's not happy, things happen. And there's tension right now. And, you know, he's smile a little bit, but you can see it on his face. There was tension. And I know that we've gone through these phases with the Warriors, and it was just a

couple of weeks ago where Steve Kerr and Steph Curry were like, yeah, we can't do anything desperate. Ladies and gentlemen, that is out the window. The Warriors are being uber aggressive. Now, They were aggressive last year when they tried to get LeBron James. They were aggressive last summer when they tried to get Paul George and Lowry Marketing. Just because you're being aggressive doesn't mean they're getting the star. But they are absolutely being aggressive. And I really can't predict what's going to happen or nothing, Bobby. Well, and that's the beauty of the trade deadline is because it's, you know, what games impact.

I mean, your decision is not in July in Las Vegas at Summer League, right? You have real, it's like real life situations here. A Golden State team that's hanging on, that's, you know, trying to hang on for, to get into the playing. I think they're tied with Phoenix as of Tuesday. As of right now, 9, 10, and 11 are all tied. Yeah. Sack, Lakers, Sons, it's a real strong Pacific Division. 500 basketball showing there.

Yeah, I mean, and they have, like, I said this on TV on Tuesday. Like, there's a part of you that says, you know what, hey, just pick up your chips and walk away. Yeah. Right. Come back. I'll see you in five months. But then there's the other part is, like, you've got, you got Curry. on your roster. How do you add to what you can, what you can add to the roster and not knowing

that someone else might be there and we don't know who's going to be available come, come July. So if it is Jimmy Butler and there's no guarantee that he's going to extend or sign, I always say that he's got that $52 million player option. Don't forget about that. And they've got all these expirings. Like they're like once you get in, once we get past the deadline, like the expirings don't mean anything anymore. And the Wiggins contract's huge. That's your big, that's your big number. Right. Wiggins is playing better recently.

The body of work is pretty big right now. It's not like, oh, maybe Wiggins, you know, you know what you're getting with Andrew Wiggins, but he has been playing better in the last few weeks. Yeah. And you've got your younger players, Kaminga's been hurt. And you've got, you know, they're one of those few teams that has most of their draft picks. I think they can trade three in the next seven years.

So they are sitting in a pretty good spot if they want to just pounce on it. And listen, does it change, I don't know, does it change, move the needle? We'll see. Yeah. I mean, that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing. Well, the thing with Jimmy Butler, he's telling everybody he's not going to extend. And he's doing that, not because he hates the Grizzlies or hates the Warriors, but because he's trying to force that way to the sons.

And the sons are trying like crazy. We'll talk about them in a few minutes. The sons are trying like crazy to pull off this miracle. But at some point, if that door closes, they just can't do anything, Jimmy doesn't want to be in Miami. And at the end of the day, as you mentioned earlier, a team might call Jimmy's bluff that he's really going to walk away from $52 million into a market that doesn't have that many teams with CalfSpace. And, you know, if you get Jimmy and he's motivated because he has to make sure he gets his contract,

and even if he picks up that $52 million option, he then becomes a $52 million expiring contract, teams could talk themselves into that. And there's also the possibility of this. You could trade for Jimmy Butler now, play him out for the rest of the season, and then he could opt out of his contract. You could sign and trade him in the summer. If he found a place he could go to, you could sign and trade him. And, you know, the Warriors have to consider that.

They've had difficulty getting this star player because they haven't been willing to include all their stuff. They have been willing to include Pajemski. They haven't been willing to include Kaminga. They have first-round picks to trade. They haven't wanted to give them all away. And the Jimmy Butler price might be low enough that they say to just do it, regardless of whether they can get them to the extent.

But it may not just be Butler. Like, look, it's out there. They've called on Durant. And, you know, I can tell you that there's a debate out there, like, did the Kings or or did the Sun's call or did the Warriors call? I don't know. I'm not trying to say who called whom. They've discussed Kevin Durant.

Well, yes. And I think there, as I've said before, there has to be that conversation. Just because of where Phoenix is, they're right where Golden State is. Right. They've lost three at her last four. They just lost in Portland. The Portland team was playing really well. Nine out of ten.

We can punt them out of the Cooper flag. Can I just apologize? I want to apologize to two teams right now. I want to apologize to the Grizzlies who have won nine out of ten. And I want to apologize to the Portland Trailblazers and their fans. We never talk about the Trailblazers. I'm sorry. We will get to you, but there's too much belief going on.

I'm sorry that the Blazers and Tumani Kamara and so there's something. Denny Advia, who's, they made a really good trade to get him. DeAndre Aidan had 20 and 20 the other night. I'm sorry. We don't have, we don't, I can't do it. I can't do it right now. But, yeah, I mean, if you're the sons and you just took it in the teeth twice in Portland, you're not feeling too good about your situation.

And if you can't turn Bradley Beal into Jimmy Butler, if you exhaust yourself and do that, you're looking at a reality where Kevin Durant is going to be one year left on his, on his contract and you either extend him this summer or what. And so they've kind. described it as if they can't trade Beal and this team isn't working and Durant is one year left. You're not sure whether he's going to extend. Next thing you know, you've just painted yourself into a corner. And so if somebody calls you or you have a call and wants to talk about Kevin Durant, you have to listen to that.

Well, yeah. I mean, the reality of it is is that if you are Phoenix and you're sitting at 500 and you got swept a year ago, what makes you think things are going to be different a year from now. And the reality is, if you don't, if you can't find a home for Bradley Beal, you're basically, it's the same. And they, I mean,

they have some more optionality, I said, you know, with the picks and they're trying to trade NERCage and, you know, but they're still a second, you know, they're still a second apron team a year from now.

I think it's, it's worth exploring as far as what, because when this thing ends in Phoenix, like it's going to end bad. Well, unless they do something first. And here's the other option. Just the concept of possibly trading Durant, you get a lot of stuff. And even if you can then trade that stuff.

And even maybe go acquire another player who maybe doesn't sink you down. Like you're not breaking up a championship roster here. You know, you pick them to, I don't want to. I did. I don't want to poke you. I was a big believer in them last year. Yeah. But I was.

Well, I liked what they, you know, certainly I liked what they did in the offseason. and I like getting Tyos Jones and Mason Plumley. Royce O'Neill was a good pickup last year. Yeah, I thought there was a lot of things that you could like about it, but then you watch like, you know, the game of Portland, Tyos Jones plays 17 minutes, right? Like, you know, Duran and Booker and, you know, they're playing 40 minutes plus.

So, you know, Bud's trying to maximize as much as he can. And the depth I thought they had is not as not as good as we probably thought. We said for the second consecutive year. Yeah. Yeah, the sons and warriors are the two teams that are very volatile where anything could happen. And by the way, they could find a Jimmy Butler. They could find a Bradley Beal trade. There are some dim but realistic avenues out there for Beale.

I'm skeptical after all these weeks. But they could land Butler and have their new trio and have a fighting chance. But they could also not and have to face some hard realities. So if you're a Suns fan and a Warriors fan between now and Thursday afternoon, buckle up. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Bobby, let's talk about some teams or maybe some players that we're still not sure what's going to happen with that might come down to Thursday. I'll start. How about Brandon Ingram, who we've heard almost nothing about?

Yeah, I mean, certainly we have not seen Brandon Ingram since he's sprained that ankle. We knew we would eventually get to this point right before the trade. deadline. Certainly when they didn't, did not agree to an extension in the offseason. And I think if you're, if you're New Orleans right now, you have basically essentially two choices. You could keep Ingram and figure out something in the offseason and a signed trade. Or you could look to move him, but probably at a less than desirable package. I think the biggest thing for them is that when you have the Jonathan Murray and C.J. McComb and Zion and Trey Murphy extends, like they're not like they're not, Like, they're not in a position to take money back that extends long term here.

So that's, that's certainly, as I said, I said this last week, everyone got a kick out of. I go, they're going to make a trade 100%. Yeah, I agree. I agree. They're getting another luxury tax. I would almost argue that that is the biggest guarantee for Thursday because this is a team that's never paid the tax. Yeah. And they sure are as heck are not going to pay the tax for this team.

No, no. And, you know, the thing about the taxes, even if you're just a little bit into it. Let's say you're $5 million worth of tax into it. It's more than that, right, Bobby? Yeah, it's $7.5 million. That's actually going to be changed, though. They're doing, and when the July rolls around, they've basically adjusted the tax rule where it's for the first bracket,

the zero to five bracket is going to be dollar for dollar. Right, but if you're a dollar into the tax, let's just say for the sake of argument, you're a dollar into the tax. Yes, you may only be paying $3 in tax, but you don't get the distribution. That was a big thing. Teams had fought for.

Or certainly what they wanted was that if you just dip in, maybe you get 60% of the tax distribution back here, but you do not get anything. Right. So last year, how much was the distribution? Last year, I think it was like significant. This year is the most ever. It will be almost 16 million. I mean, it could go down. We'll probably go down a little bit once every time a team. We've had the clips came out of it.

We saw, well, Dallas came out. Yeah. Teams will come out of the tax. But yeah, but basically here's the thing. If you are in the tax, you're not only paying the tax, but you're losing everybody else's tax money. So if you dip out of the tax, it can be a $20 plus million move, even if you're just a couple million in. So New Orleans is going to get their $20 million. Yeah, they're going to get out.

When you're 1.4, when you're 1.4, you're going to get out. When you're Philly maybe, you're at 6.5 after the Quentin Grimes trade, hey, you've got, you know, Kelly Ubre, right? And if you're a team that thinks you're going to lose guys of. a free agency, he's got a player option. Yabaselli's another guy like you and you're kind of, I was joking with a team. I'm like, you know what, Philly's going to probably make the plan based on process of elimination. When you look at Chicago, who knows what happens with Atlanta, but you, the goal is, yes, it's a nice chunk of change that you get back.

Well, the thing about Brandon Ingram is that he's a high level player and you can get him for this year and help with your team this year. It may help your playoff positioning. and then you get his rights. And, you know, the price for him is probably going to be pretty low. I was what I would guess. And you might even be able to get New Orleans to take some money, especially if you give them even a little bit of draft capital.

I'm keeping an eye on Atlanta. Atlanta is no incentive to lose because they don't have their pick. Their pick is goes to San Antonio. They've been losing ever since Jalen Johnson got hurt. They have expiring contracts, but they also have a guy like Bogdan Bogdanovich who they owe money to next year. that they might like to get off of. And if you get a guy at Brandon Ingram,

maybe helps you this year getting the play in. You know, they have a great record against the Cavs and the Celtics. You know, maybe they can do something. And, you know, that helps their young players with the experience. And then maybe you can re-sign and trade them. Toronto is another team that's been linked to Brandon Ingram. Well, they've got all those expirings. They've got Bruce Brown, Bruce Brown, Chris Boucher.

You know, that gets you a $32, $33 million. And it's, you're right. I always said this to an agent. I said, the most valuable thing you can have is bird rights. We went through that exercise with Chris Paul, who had bird rights forever until he, you know, until he signed with San Antonio. And he was waived by Golden State and signed with San Antonio.

Because once you don't and you go into free agency, it's just like the land of the unknown. Yeah. And there's so many things that you can do with bird rights, you know. Well, yeah, I mean, certainly sign and trade. I mean, that's the biggest thing. if that team doesn't want to sign you as far as, you know, kind of relocate you to somewhere that doesn't have cap space and you can get something back for it.

So, okay. So in addition to Brandon Ingram, who may be else that is not on the front line of all this stuff, are you keeping an eye on? Well, I mean, I think from a team standpoint, I think certainly Detroit, right? I think that's, I mean, I think there's $15 million in cap space. Yeah, about 14. 14. I mean, there's different ways.

Certainly as a third or fourth team facilitator. And you brought it up on TV, like the new CBA with the new. CBA's done is we don't see the the two team trades anymore unless it's Charlotte and Oklahoma City at night and they're swapping the second round they're swapping second round picks here that was a crazy very interesting trade well because they both had that like Denver pick in 2030 was like a different they're different layers to that I think certainly I think Detroit is a team certainly to certainly to circle here you know the teams that we call them like the middlemen, the Utah's, the Charlottes, the Charlottes, the, as you mentioned, the Toronto,

the Wizards. Wizards are another team. Right. Just because they've got some big exceptions and they're well below the luxury tax. I would say Brooklyn, but Brooklyn's not in a position. I don't see a Cam Johnson trade out there. That was the player, I would say three weeks ago we thought was guaranteed to be traded, but there's been nothing with him.

Yeah, nothing. You know what's hard, Brian is that when you have Brooklyn and Oklahoma City and San Antonio and Utah, Houston, some of those teams. When you have all those teams that monopolize the first round picks, like it's so hard to pull from because most teams have, they got two picks or maybe some has one, that the ability to get multiple ones in a deal is really hard. Yeah, there's an imbalance that is happening with too many teams having too many picks.

And as a result, you're going to start seeing deals like the Sun's made with a jazz where they do a three for one where the volume of picks, will matter less than the quality of the picks. And teams will make moves to more balance out their picks. These teams that are pick rich, they don't want to have four rookies in one year. They have to move them around. And it has to balance.

You know, the market demands it. You can't have, you know, four teams with four picks alone in each draft. Like, it's not going to work. Oklahoma City is going to, they can't, they can't draft that. many first round players. They will not be able to... Well, that's why, yeah, that's why Utah did the trade with Phoenix where you basically

you're consolidating. Right. You're trading, I'll give you three of my lesser for one really good one. Right. So I think that's what you will see is more picks like, more picks like that. Washington is guaranteed pretty much to have a bottom three record, but they are not guaranteed to avoid history for being the worst team of all time. They did get a big one over the weekend against Minnesota.

I think you're playing tonight now that we'll reverse jinx them into victory tonight. Well, and it's, you know, just, you know, 2009, 10 in New Jersey, we were 12 and 70. Oh, my God, Bobby. And that was, you mean, you look up in the standings and you're like 6 and 40 and you still have that 35 more, 35, 36 more games. Yeah. It wears on you. And I know where the wizards are certainly trying to. And we wound up getting the third pick in the draft.

The lottery odds were different then. Yeah. We got up picking Derek favors. John Wall went number one. Evan Turner, I think, went two. And it's a, yeah, it saps the life out of you when you're, when you're, when you're, that's a lot of bad days. Oh, my God. We could write a book on that.

I mean, like, listen, we had a voodoo, someone who practiced voodoo come in and do stuff with our players. Like right out of that movie The Natural. Like, we had a fight in a locker room between a coach and a player. I mean, we had our general manager, Kiki Van de Waite, become the head coach. That's right. Oh, my God. We had a lot. There was a lot of different, yeah, that was one of the most bizarre years.

And then Kiki, I mean, funny, not funny story, but we were in Chicago for pre-draft. And Kiki had found, we were sitting in a meeting, Kiki had found out that he had gotten fired. Oh, my God. From a press conference from Mikhail. He got fired his coach or GM? Both, yeah. And, yeah, so, yeah, listen, when you're where the wizards are, the goal is certainly to get a top pick. but it does, this year does, it saps a lot out of you.

Yeah. So the, the wizards are maybe potentially a little bit incentivized to avoid infamy. And they may not, like, they're not going to like trade for a player to get better. But, you know, I think the wizards, the wizards, quite frankly, they're not that far from the hinky zone. They didn't, they didn't name it. Trust the process. So it's not, but like, they're, they're really bad. and they're a ways away.

Yeah. Two years away from two years away. And if you have the third, that's right, if you have the third worst record, you have the same odds as the first worst record, and they're guaranteed to have that 14%. So it wouldn't stun me if knowing that they need to do something to take on some money,

that they have to spend something to get some assets that they would get a player or two that might actually help them win a little bit more and maybe not lose, because they're losing every game by double digits. Like maybe make a couple of more palatable nights in the back half of the season. Well, that's right. I mean, and then even if it's a guy in the last year of his contract,

and then as we were talking before it, and maybe you can kind of flip it into something else. Yeah. So I also, you know, there's a couple of teams that are just going to be generally active. Utah is probably not done. John Collins is an interesting name. Collins was a guy who we thought was going to Sacramento that was strong out there before they, you know, traded Deer and Fox.

Collins has value and is having a good year. That's a player who, you know, Utah could sell that could end up with a contender. It's funny when John Collins signed the contract in Atlanta, you're thinking, man, this contract's never going to be traded. And then he goes from Atlanta to Utah. It took him a while to trade. It did. He was basically in the block. And then certainly he's having a really good, a really good year in Utah right now.

But yeah, I mean, there's another team that's kind of. positioning for a top three top three pick in the draft. For sure. Anybody else? Yeah, I think Milwaukee, we talked about that a little bit on TV today. Maybe it'll be the deal even be happening by the time of it. Yeah, Milwaukee's interesting

just because where they are with the apron, second apron, you get under their second apron, you get the flexibility of having your, heck, they've lost their last two games by 55 points total. Yeah, they didn't play anybody against OKC on Monday night. And the night, I guess a couple nights before San Antonio,

drug them by 26, 27 here. They're interesting because there are nights where they look really good and then some nights where they look anything close to being a top three team in the Eastern Conference here. And Milwaukee's an interesting because they've been in attacks for so long and they're spending here that they've got, as you said, like some hard decisions coming up. Certainly Brooke Lopez who could become a free agent.

Chris Milton, who's still there. Bobby Portis. The two main guys, of course, are on touch. for now. I mean, it's funny, I said untouchable, and then I think of Luca. Oh, my God. Everything's changed. Everything, perspective just changes so much. Bobby, there's going to be some stuff that doesn't happen by Thursday that's going to set up things in this summer. It always happens every year. Sometimes it's failed deals that end up leading to summer, but some teams that end up leading to deals in the summer, but some teams

are going to need to do some business based on this. What are you looking at leading into summer that may not get settled right now? Well, I mean, certainly the Lakers, right? I mean, I think if they don't get a center, and they basically go by committee for the last 35, 40 games, that's going to be a priority. The beauty of the summer is that there's always, what you don't know right now is that there's going to be a couple guys and there's going to be a couple teams that lose. Losing in the first round is always a reactionary decision. Or maybe if you lose in the NBA finals, it's a reactionary decision like Dallas here with Luca here.

But I think that's the biggest thing as far, certainly the Lakers, as far as what they're able to do. Dallas is interesting, certainly because Kyrie could become a free agent. That's a huge thing. I mean, so Kyrie signed for significantly less than the max, a pretty big pay cut.

Yeah. And he's played really well. And now he's their star guard. Right. They traded their other star guard. Yeah. I mean, he's got a player option in his contract there.

I mean, certainly, you know, Brooklyn will be the wild card, of course, just because they're sitting on, not just the draft picks, are sitting on, you know, $65, $70 million in potential room.

Average at best free agent class to say, but we always say it's average at best and then all of a sudden things happen. I know. I know. Milwaukee, of course, right? I mean, like, hey, you losing the first round again. Of course, we're going to probably hear whispers, of course, as far as what happens with the future.

Janice has made some comments over the last week that are, make you scratch your head a little bit. Yeah, it's funny. He made the comments about European players being in big markets. And the first thing I thought of it, the people, my friends in Denver were probably thinking, like, why are we, how did we get left in this? He took a stray. It's like, your guy likes it here. Yokic should be in New York. Yokin should be in Los Angeles.

Huh? What did you say, Yonis? Yeah, I don't even know. I had to go back and like, try to find the whole interview because I was like, that had to be out of weird context. Yeah. The honest had a couple, the last week has been some interesting, you know, he wanted to, you know, you had the Chris Paul situation. Then he wanted to meet with Chris at half court to kind of like talk things over. And it's, and then he had the comments.

Yeah, he's like, he's like, I'll see after the game. Chris, like, yeah, no, I'm good. But yeah, that's, you know, those are, I think Philly will be interesting. You know, we'll see Embed, who's scheduled to play on Tuesday, come back. And like, I mean, that extension hasn't even started yet. He still has 240 million left after this season. That's an interesting discussion to have. Right, for sure.

Yeah, I mean, I actually think Kyrie is going to be a fascinating one. they're going to, and also Dallas, like they are in super win now mode. Yeah. And they may do some, they did a deal today with Caleb Martin. They may do some more business this summer. But I promise you when we do our next podcast, which is supposed to be on Friday, unless there's an emergency one before it, we will have a lot to talk about what could happen with this summer. So Bobby, I'm looking forward every year.

Most years you've been in Bristol, but you have not here before. You have this whole setup that you do on trade deadline day. I used to, well, besides, you know, my shoe collection that I brought out here, I had, you know, about nine pairs of shoes. I heard the podcast when you read McMahon on about his shoe collection. So, yeah, I got inspired. I usually, in the past, I had a big monitor that I would actually have a certain bag and I just wheel it because I need a monitor. You literally would bring a giant monitor. Yeah, in a bag, in a travel bag.

And I, because I need two monitors because I need to see things. Yeah. And then I went on and then I bought a gadget. I think I might have been talking to it with my wife at dinner and you know how things are on like Facebook when you talk about it. It's like all of a sudden things pop up. That's free. It's a connector that connects to my into my laptop and you can pull double screens from the side.

Yeah, yeah. It's a cool little device. Exebit, I think. I know I'm probably butchering the company. It's a lot better than having a suitcase full of just shoes and then a bag with a separate giant monitor. Four bags as far as. Bobby, when you're a lot of. at ESPN, there are literally 6,000 monitors.

But you know what? The beauty, why I love, I like being out here too, is that I feel like when we're in Bristol, no offense to Bristol, it's like you're like, you know, it's like you're there. Like you're not leaving, I'm not going for a walk, you know, I can't, you know, here, it's like at least there's the moment of freedom. I do miss the big chicken sandwiches from that cafeteria. I'm sure Shams is, I don't know if he's eating chicken sandwiches, but he's probably gotten accustomed to there.

Yeah. I'm sure. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's good to be out here. And we'll have a great show on, on, on Thursday. Hopefully, some of the bigger stuff. Jackson wants to know if you missed the hotel cookies. I do. That is my biggest arch nemesis, is that rolling into the hotel at two in the morning and

then eating two cookies. That's probably not good for you. There's a lot of stuff that goes on trade on that week. That's not good for you in ESPN. Yeah, we sent Shams to Brist. You said, Shams in your first year at ESPN, you're not allowed to be in L.A. you must go to Bristol. It's a right of passage.

You have to be there. And make sure there's a snowstorm you have to fight through on the way. All right. Thank you, listen to Loop Collective. Thank you to Jackson and Rafa, our producers. And Josh, she's our special producer for the day. And Devin, all those guys.

Thank you to Bobby for coming out and all their hard work this week. Who knows if this podcast is actually going to run in the form it was run? I really hope so because I need to rest tonight. And we'll talk to you later this week after the trade deadline.