Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Patience For Spurs & Rockets? Kawhi’s Best Season Ever? Disaster For Magic? Don’t Sleep On Charlotte

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk if the Spurs and Rockets should be making moves at the upcoming trade deadline or if they should continue to practice patience and prudent spending. Then, we discuss the resurgence of the Clippers during an incredible stretch of dominance from Kawhi before talking what is wrong with the Magic including if major changes are needed in Orlando. Finally, should we be paying more attention to the success occurring with Charlotte’s exciting lineups.  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 Tuesday afternoon, joining us from the arena.

I don't care of the name of the Ex-Findy Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, his home away from home, moments beat, not moments, a couple of hours before the big bucks at Sixers game, not as big as they thought when they put it on the schedule as Tim Bontops. Yeah, not quite the Barnburner NBC, I think, was hoping for, at least potentially, though, a couple weeks. ago, the nuggets were here without their top, I think, seven guys in one. So, you know, we'll see if history repeats itself or not. Join us from Dallas, Texas, where the man hasn't left his home

in days is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners. Listen, I'm here in the comfort of my own home and a little chilly outside still snow on the ground. Kids home from school. Bontempts, meanwhile, looks like he's in a holding tank. Not sure what he's done to earn that. Well, Philly venues are known to have holding tanks. That is true. That is true. I think, I've been, In Scots in a dressing room to do the pod. Thankfully, the Sixers have a room, so here we are. Yeah. Last time, it got edited out of the podcast, but last time you got Heave Ho in Philly. They came in and said...

Yeah, the first time I've ever been tossed out of a room. It happened to be this same room, but I made sure to get it cleared this time, so we're good. He's got a guy outside the door. That's right. Don't even think he's coming in. All right. So we have some interesting games coming up on the day this podcast is coming out on Wednesday. All of you listeners and viewers will be smarter than us

because you will have seen what happened in the NBA on Tuesday night. But one of the games, I believe it's on ESPN, Spurs, Rockets, potential playoff matchup down McMahon way. And an interesting moment for these two teams because while both of them are in the top four in the West, both of them are potential movers at the trade deadline because of the assets that they have McMahon, And also, neither one of them are playing great basketball right now.

They've played, put it this way, they've played better. And so I know the Rockets have won their last couple games, but before that it was a little shaky. And we'll talk about Victor in a minute. But this is an interesting time in the season for this game. I would say both are potential movers at the trade deadline because they have a lot of ammo, a lot of flexibility, all kinds of draft picks to play with, et cetera, et cetera.

and I would also say that both are unlikely, at least in terms of anything, that would be anywhere near blockbuster scale. And we love Perk. I know Perk was on TV, you know, today on Tuesday morning, talking about Janus to Houston. I'm just telling you that is not in play. I did check in, you know, and this has been the Rockets patient approach. They've been sticking with it. Even the KD trade was not a departure from that because they waited until the price was low. It didn't have to shorten their runway.

But I checked in any budging. And I got a forward response that was as patient as ever. So don't hold your breath for the rockets to make a big deal. Yeah, I will say that the rockets were saying the same thing as you said about Durant, about two months before they traded for him. So that's one thing. Thanks to Bobby Marks, we have, Bobby Marks provides us so much information just because because we talked about it and we're going to mention it.

I have in my hand all of the tradable first round picks that teams have. And the key thing here about picks and tradable picks is you obviously can't trade first round picks in back-to-back years, the Steppian rule, unless a couple of things. Unless you've already made your pick in a year. So, for example, if you have traded away your 20-27 first-round pick, you can't trade your 20-26 first-round pick. unless you've already made the pick. Certainly you can agree before the draft that you will draft a guy and then trade the pick. And also, you could only trade picks seven years into the future.

You can't trade picks in 2045, 2056, otherwise the suns would have tried to do so. But every year, every July, the league year rolls over and you get access to another year. So oftentimes you will hear teams, you will hear teams talk about how they will have one tradable pick today, but at the draft will have two tradable picks or three tradable picks. For example, the Lakers, today, if you were to call the Lakers and said, hey, why want to do business with you, they'd only be allowed to trade one first round pick. But as of draft night, they can trade three. And so to bring it back around to where we started here before I talked,

to Bontems, because you mentioned San Antonio in Houston as assets. And by the way, the team that has the most, do you know, McMahon, you want to guess, who has the most tradable first? It's either OKC or Utah. It is Brooklyn. Wow. Okay. By the way, maybe the Rockets most primo draft asset being 27 swap rights with an edge. Oh, I take that back. I want to correct myself. Both Brooklyn and OKC have 13 picks in the next seven years. Both of the, OKC has 11 tradable

picks right now. I want to apologize. Brooklyn has 10 tradable firsts. Utah has 11 future firsts over the next seven years, only seven of them tradable.

As for the two teams we're talking about here, San Antonio, San Antonio has seven first round picks in the next seven years, but only three of them are tradable right now.

On draft night, five of them are tradable. And as for, for Houston. Houston has nine current first round picks over the next seven years, five of which are tradable. Which is why you hear Houston always being suggested, because if Houston wanted to be aggressive, they have the capability of making an offer for anybody in the league. I'm just telling that's not their mind frame right now. Their mind frame right now is we've got a group in place that is competitive now and has a chance to be competitive for a long time. I'm not saying they'll

never trade those picks, but I think it's likely that they'll use those picks to manage their payroll as a Min Thompson's on a potentially max contract. You know, Al Bish and Goons, obviously on his second deal, so on and so forth. All right, Bond Temps to your ball. Oh, Bond tempts. You're muted, and this is the best moment in Bond history. So Brian's point, I was, I didn't want my typing to be heard while I was looking up something else on the Spurs. But as, as to Brian's point earlier, Like, yes, the Rockets were saying this until they traded for Kevin Durant. However, let's remember what they traded for Kevin Durant, a actively bad slash, I would argue, toxic salary in Jalen Green. And Dylan Brooks, who is a nice player, but again, not a, you know, a solid asset and the 10th pick in the draft.

Like, they did not, for a team that already has a ton of young players. They did not offer up some sort of overwhelming package to get Kevin Durant. took advantage of a soft market to get a very good player and then signed him to a smart contract. This has been a team that has repeatedly been prudent in its use of draft picks in terms of not striking out and swinging on a big deal. And also in there, as we've talked about many times, in their negotiations with players and getting guys onto good contracts, which is, to McBan's point, as they try to navigate the aprons and these teams getting more expensive. They're going to be able to manage that in a way a lot of other teams currently

are not able to, who might talk about later in the pod, because they did not give Alprinchangu a max deal when he arguably could have gotten one. And I would bet now they won't give a M. Thompson a max deal. Not that a M. Thompson isn't awesome, but I would suggest I would expect them to negotiate, just like they did with Kevin Durant. We heard Kevin Durant was definitely going to get a max extension. He did not get a max extension. So everything that Houston has done has been prudent and methodical and planned out. And in a market where there's not a lot available to be bought to begin with, I would be very surprised if we saw the rockets push their chips in right now when there's stuff that could be available down the road. And they have only shown

they're going to take a patient and prudent approach in everything they've done over the past few years. And by the way, the spurs are in the same boat like the Rocks with Durant, the Spurs made their, you know, big swing without necessarily giving up a ton. They did give up multiple picks, but they were their own picks instead of the Hawks, which are probably going to be more valuable, which certainly were considered more valuable at the time, when they got Deer and Fox. And, you know, Bond and Timbs, I know you've got some concerns about the spurs that have, you know, they've been playing 500 balls since Christmas, which I find humorous because you bet that

they would be 500 or worse from the course of the season. And I'm going to dine very well because of that bit. So a little 500 stretch over, you know, 20% share of the season, and now we're going to press panic buttons? Oh, I wouldn't say I'm pressing any panic buttons. The Spurs, I've obviously outplayed everybody's expectations, including their own. They're having a great season.

But when they're 8 and 8 over, I think, a 16-game stretch, that is 16-day stretch. But 8-8 since Christmas, I believe. Yeah, on Christmas Day, they beat the thunder in Oklahoma City on Christmas Day. by 15, if you remember. Third time in 12 days. And that moved them to 23 and 7. And so they are now going into this game in Houston, they are now 31 and 15.

So I believe that is 8.8 and 8. Very good. And like we've talked about before, you know, it will be interesting to see how the season continues to progress for Victor Wimbunyama, who, since coming back from that knee injury against the Knicks, has taken more threes.

and has blocked less shots and his free throws are slightly down and he has been more of a perimeter-oriented player which by the way, I think is totally understandable because he's had his legs rolled up on him a couple of times and like we've seen with Kevin Durant in the past he's got a body type that's susceptible

to getting tangled up in the paint and getting rolled up, his legs rolled up on which causes knee injury. So I obviously can understand from that standpoint why he'd be more focused on trying to take some more jumpers right now. But when they have been at their best this year, it's been with Victor dominating inside like we've talked about and still taking some threes,

but getting to the rim more, dunking more, focusing on being a big man more and a perimeter player less. And if he's going to be more focused on being on the perimeter for a while, it's going to be an interesting thing for these guys potentially navigate because I do think it lowers their ceiling a little bit. Well, and I went back and looked at the threes that he's been taking. By and large, they are good looks. There are a bunch of trailer threes.

There are a bunch of catch-and-shoe threes. There have been a few not great ones in there. And he's shooting at during this stretch. He's shooting at 38%. Right. 38 and changed from three on six plus the game. From the floor, he's almost 50%. 49.6, averaging 25 points per game.

And I hear what you're saying. I definitely think, honestly, there's some of like the tough fadeaway mid-range twos that I would like to see a little bit more aggression, getting better position, getting attacking the basket a little bit more in there. But really the drop-off

for the spurs, Wimby's been playing at an all-M-VP or, sorry, all-M-B-A-MVP type of level. It's the young guards. Castle, during his stretch, his shooting splits are basically 36 and 25. Average of 14 in game,

his numbers are down. Dillon Harper's hit the rookie wall. Average in 7.8 points per game over those 16 on 38% from floor, 21 from three. It's those guards who, let's be honest, those guards were awesome. And those three wins over the thunder, you're thinking, man, if those young guards can handle that pressure now, like, watch out, they're experiencing some growing pains. And I think if the young guards can kind of get out of the little funk that they're in, then you'll see the Spurs, you know, winning 70% of their games again. And to your point, I love Stafon Castle, but we're now a year and a half in, and he's shooting 28% from his career from three.

Like, that is not going to be a tenable thing long term if it continues at 28%. In the playoffs, the opposing team will just not guard him. Right. Well, in that, you just, in today's NBA, it's just extremely difficult to be a perimeter player shooting 28% and to be a, you know, huge. hugely impactful player. And so Fyne Castle is a fantastic defender. He's got better as a playmaker.

I think he's going to become a better shooter. He's awesome. But that, to your point, Big Man, the young guards have looked like young tired guards in the dog days of the season. And I think in general, you know, the biggest question about him, Fox and Harper going forward was can those three guys consistently play together?

And Castle last year shot 27, high, I think 27.8% in this year he's at 28.5% or vice versa. Like, that's just not. if you're shooting five a game at that kind of number, I mean, that's just not going to work. Like you said, Brian, in the playoffs, it'll become a real problem. Yeah, so it's hard to look at Victor's season and kind of assess it because before his calf injury, he was routinely playing mid-to-high 30s minutes per game

and since the calf injury and then the knee injury, he's been routinely playing in the low to mid-20s. And he's coming off the bench in a lot of cases. So if you look at the numbers side-by-side, of course, his score. scoring will be down. He's on the court list. But if you remember way back in October and November, when all of us were like gasping about Victor, when he came out of the gate and he was averaging, like, you know, he was throwing dunks down. He was only shooting in the paint. And he was, you know, averaging 30 points a game. These are, like, if you look at the first eight or 10 games of the season,

this is the number of three if he took per game, back when he was playing high 30s, two, three, six, zero, five, two, two, two, five, zero seven, okay? Now you go look at these recent games. And again, remember, this is, although the last couple of games he's been in the 30s, but a lot of these games, he's in the 20s, 10, 7, 7, 12, 9, 6, 1, 9, 4. There you can just see right there, he's shooting more threes. And his scoring is down. The percentages are good.

Like, he could look at you and say, well, why don't you want me to take it if I'm shooting 40%. And it's not that we don't want you to take it. But, like, especially when his teammates are also struggling from the outside, they need that interior presence. Well, and in the three best games of their season, those three wins against the Thunder. And yes, I know he's coming back from the injury. But in those three games, he went six for 11 from the field, five for nine from the field, and six for 12 from the field.

So 32 shots in those three games, he took 27 shots from two-point range. and took a total of five threes. Like that is, that's the formula for that, that ultimately, I think, is the kind of formula that is going to lead to the highest ceiling outcome. I mean, this is what Durant was saying, right? McMahon, I mean, when the Rockets beat the, beat the, when they played last time, what was it about a week and a half ago? And Durant basically, I don't remember the, basically he was like every time he

essentially said every time he shoots a jumper, that's a win for us. And I agree. Yeah. Even if he hits a 75 athletic, right. He's a 75 athletic freak who could. dunk from the free throw line. So like, it's not that he's not a good shooter, but the more he is oriented towards playing in the paint

and getting fouled and getting into free zone, he's a phenomenal free throw shooter. Again, like it, the calculus has changed a little bit for a team that at the start of the year, we would have said, hey, if these guys are in the top six, that's a huge win. So now they're on pace to win 50 plus games and like they could be a threat to get out of the West.

And so then it's like, all right, if you're going to beat the Thunder over seven or the Nuggets over seven. It's going to require pretty high-level stuff. Here's Durant. He's still working on his jump shot, you can tell. He's more dangerous when he gets layups and dunks. That's more his game than floating around the perimeter shooting threes.

When they go in, it looks amazing, but when you put a hand up, he had a couple of bad misses. And again, I don't think you want Wimby passing up the great looks on the trailer, freeze, and a nice catch-and- shoot. Like, they're not a hand in the face. Right. But you do want him. doing a lot of damage around the rim.

I do think that's also directly related to the guards playing better because you know, you want Wimby getting dunks and layups that are created for him, ideally. And Wimby had a terrible game in Houston, just to be clear. I read you the percentages, which are pretty good overall for those 16 games. Imagine if there's not a 5 of 21 in Houston where he was old 7 from 3. 1 and they lost by 5 points. Yeah, he was awful. Just imagine if he was a little bit more judicious.

in that game. And we're also coming off a game on Tuesday or Monday when he played the Pelicans and went two for 10 from three and he got you know beat up inside by Zion and they lost to the Pelicans too. And Wendy you're talking about how he's he's ramping up after missing time with injuries. The Houston game was a back to back and you know talking to somebody in San Antonio they felt like it was a fatigued performance by Wendy especially in the second half and that there was settling and not necessarily on the threes as much as like there was some really tough, you know, like off-dribble, fade-away 16-foot type of shots that are just not going to be high-percented shots. Well, Victor is a guy who likes motivation. By the way, we mentioned, I think, on the pod last week about how his block numbers had taken a dip since the injuries. He went through a stretch of about 15 games where he only had more than two blocks, like once or twice. He's got nine in the last two games. So he's rounding in a form there. maybe that's an indication of how he's feeling. But knowing how Victor likes motivation and likes to sort of answer things, I'll be interested to see how he plays in this game about whether he tries to shoot threes

over the top of Durant and try to prove a point or whether he recognizes that maybe Durant had a point. Because like I said, when Victor plays 7-5, he's very hard to beat. When he wants to prove that he can be a wing, which we know he can be, as Durand says, his advantage lessons. That's just the truth. You want him to be a dominant big man who can shoot threes. Correct.

But even, it's not even just shooting the threes. There are times when he wants to put the ball on the floor on the perimeter and cross guys over, and I know he can do it. But again, that's a win for the defense. If he's out there trying to put on a dribbling show and trying to, you know, create off the dribble. Look, at least as of right now,

Now, my vision of the ideal Victor Wembeyanama is Rudy Gobert, his countryman on defense, and Dirknevinsky on offense, which, by the way, there's two Hall of Fame players. Hold on. So do you want him dunking and Dirk, Dirk wasn't a dunker? Dirk wasn't a dunker, but Dirk was a play finisher, not a play creator. How often did Dirk dribble? Early in his career a lot. And in the prime of his career, which extended well into his 30s,

Dirk was one hell but catch it out to nail and go ISO. Correct. Well, yeah, but he couldn't cross over and like try to step back. He would catch the ball up the nail. There was a lot of one, two dribble isos that were. Yes, it was. It was really effective. He was in a elite ISO player.

Dirk was a play finisher. Yes. Dirk was a play finisher, not a play creator. And if Victor leaned, at least for now, leans into that, I think that's got the potential to be unstoppable. Particularly, like he had those two shots in the Celtic game where he was at the nail and rose up and, I mean, he shot it from like 14 feet in the air. just impossible to do anything with. He was shooting down.

Yes. Like that's the kind of stuff that over time, if he develops, I just think that will be utterly unstoppable, utterly unstoppable for him to, for anybody to try to hit. Tim Bond Tim's trying to put his fellow Frenchman in a box. Bon Tom.

More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Okay, I don't want to assume anything with the Utah Jazz because they lead the league in making you look silly. But thankfully, Larry Markinen is returned from his illness, then he needed multiple days to return to conditioning,

return to conditioning. But don't worry. Do not worry, Utah fans. In tonight's game against the Clippers, Kiante George needs a rest. And NERC, right? Yusuf Nurg has had three straight triple doubles, baby. Now, there is this thing with the Clippers

if they win tonight, and that's an F. We'll see. Is this, McMahon, is this the magic fifth? No, it's happened. The tweet has been eaten. He actually ate it?

Okay. Yeah. Bring our listeners and viewers up to date on this. Hold on. Let me make sure I'm getting the fillers. I think that's right. It was to give people the background. Somebody, some fan of the Clippers or who it was tweeted,

if the Clippers go 15 and 3 in a stretch this season, I'll eat this tweet. Like literally physically eat it. It's a fan blogger slash podcaster. A fellow's name is Robert Flom. He's got a great Twitter handle at Rich Homi Flom. And, you know, he ate the tweet, printing that thing out and ate it, you know,

live streaming and all that. Good for him. He tweeted that when the Clippers. There were fans in the, I wonder if the Clippers provided this, but I don't know, but there were fans in the stands the other night when they played the Nets holding, you know, mockups of that tweet when they were when they needed to beat the nets which they did by 30

to go to 50 by the way we're up by like 50 in the in the first half as the nets twice in the last week have ensured that the tank is well underway and that's when jordy fernandez is saying there's losing and there's being losers and and that's the danger of tanking by the way but no this tweet occurred when the nets i'm sorry the clippers were six and 21st were six and 21 And that was their nadir. Yes. Since that point, they are 15 and 3 going into, you know, by the time this runs, probably 16 and 3. That is the best record in the NBA during that span.

And look, you can tie it to Chris Paul's departure. The turnaround didn't start right after. But whatever, they felt like they needed to move on. I mean, that's, I know. I don't think that. That's not, that wasn't. That's not the reason. They felt they needed to move on.

They did. I mean, we can go over the reasons. The biggest reason is Kawhi Leonard has been playing at an MVP level. I mean, during this stretch, he's averaging basically 32 points on 50, 43, 92 shooting and, you know, filling out the box score, playing big-time defense, making all kinds of plays. You know, 2.4 steals per guy.

We're watching a two-time finals MVP playing at that level. Now, how long is it going to last? Will he be available come playoffs? Might be the best season of his career. Regular season-wise. It's crazy. Yes, Kauai is playing at peak Kauai levels. Okay, so as we do this, they have 24 losses, which ties.

There's some teams that have quite a bit of different number of games played, partially as just variance, partially because some teams had games canceled because of weather recently or other things. But they are two games in the loss column for being an eight. There are five wins in the win column from being eighth. And Golden State is four games over 500. The clippers are under. But the thing you can control is the loss column.

And there are two losses from being an eighth, which would be even out of the first play-in game at this point. And so, like, and the teams that are behind them, like... Don't worry about those teams. Yeah, just look up. Don't look back. They've now got a three-game lead on Dallas for the playing line. The 10 teams in the play-in are set, barring something very strange happening.

The question, I think, that's relevant is how many teams above the clippers do we think are better than the clippers today? Certainly not the Blazers. The Blazers are in ninth. Well, the Blazers have been hot recently, but they are on an East Coast road trip right now. So let's check back in with them in a week or so. But the Blazers have been playing very well. Danny Obie has been awesome, obviously. But I would say the clippers are...

He's been doing the back stuff for a while now. He's been in and out with the back stuff, yeah. But I would say the clippers are better than them. To McVan's point, I think the Warriors, without Jimmy, barring a trade, are definitely not as good as the clippers with their guys, which obviously is a big if. I would say they're better than Phoenix. Like, the clippers' high end, I think, is to me pretty clearly better than Phoenix.

By the way, Jalen Greene came back from the hamstring injury that he's had twice. Yeah. He immediately aggravated it again and immediately went back to the MRI. Yeah, that's not great. That's been a rough situation. And I look, like, I think Minnesota is better than the Clippers, but I'll tell you what, the way Minnesota's been playing, yes, they got a free win when the Warriors sat everybody on Monday, but they lost five in a row.

They have been very funky this year in general, wildly up and down from game to game. I'm not sure the Clippers are not better than them too. Lakers? Well, they might be better than Minnesota. But I don't know if they can catch Minnesota. Well, but I'm just talking about in terms of looking forward, in regards to where they land, like, where do we rank them? Like, they're probably at worst fifth in the West right now or six in the West right now.

And we all thought that's about going on the season. We thought there were a top five or six team in the West. Let me check on Zubotch's all-MBA status here. Well, listen, Zubots and Brooke Lopez, Brooke hadn't been shooting the ball great during this stretch, but they've become their very solid, big men. tag team tandem for sure. But I thought strongly going

in the season, they were the best team in L.A. and a top six team in the West. I think those two things are true right now. The standings don't tell you that, but your eyeballs over the last month and a half sure do. And look, it's funny because...

The Lakers have won four out of five in the team that they lost to was the Clippers. This is true. It's funny because there was a time when the league was in a pretty strong pan. state about the Clippers pick situation, given that it is owed to OKC unprotected this year and next year via swap. I don't think it's going to be a lottery pick this year. At a time, it looked like it was a top five pick.

You know, I was talking about AJ DeBance, a plane for the OKC Blue next year. Well, and listen, that all being said, were one misstep from Kauai away from being right back in the same boat that they've been in. I mean, that is the problem for as great as they've been, and they've been awesome. Like, if you could start the playoffs today, like, yeah, I would say the clippers are probably somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of the West playoff teams, and I would not want to see them in a series. But we have seen this too many times, and if Kauai disappears because of injury again, all of a sudden, they don't look nearly the same.

And then, you know, maybe they do end up with the 11 spot in the lottery like the Mavs last year. And we know what happened then. The Orlando Magic lost a home and home with the calves earlier this week. I'm sure they were real happy to leave Orlando and fly to Cleveland for that game. Franz Wagner is, after coming back from his ankle injury, in time for them to play over in Germany, has been put back on the shelf with ankle soreness. And that, to me, is actually pretty worrisome.

They play in Miami, which I'm sure they were happy to get to from, Cleveland on Wednesday night. They've lost four in a row, and frankly, they're having trouble scoring right now. But although while you want to look at their scoring, because they've got, they have failed to crack 100, like three times in the last two weeks, the big number that is blasting to me is that last year when the magic kind of announced themselves, they were the number two defensive team in the league, I think, were in the top three behind Oklahoma City. That was what Jamal Mosley hung his hat on. For all the issues that they had scoring, they were great defensively.

They played tough. So take it even a step further. They were third two years ago and second last year. Okay, second last year. So this is what their identity has been as a team. That's right. So they go out in the off season and they spend four first round picks to get Desmond Bain. The concept being we are going to upgrade our shooting while not downgrading our defense.

This was a move to put them in contention to win the Eastern Conference. They are now past midseason here, 16th in the league in defense. That is a devastating drop off in terms of their defense or production. And by the way, they have not finished inside the top 20 in the NBA in offense since Dwight Howard was on the team. Which is an amazing stat. Which Desmond Bain was supposed to fix. And where do they rank right now? 20th.

Yeah. Well, it's technically top 20. If we're going to talk to the Orlando Magic struggles. And frankly, if we're just going to talk to Orlando Magic period, we've got to talk about Paula Bencaro. And, you know, there's a lot of talk around the league that Paulo and Jamal Mosley might not be seen eye to eye. The one thing I would say about that is I know Jamal and Mosley well. And I know that every stop of his coaching career, he has been absolutely beloved by players who's in Dallas for a long time. And I would watch pregame every single game.

there would be guys from the other team who would come up and hug them and love on them because he was their favorite assistant coach. He was Luke's favorite assistant coach. He was a lot of guys in Dallas's favorite assistant coach. So, you know, I don't know exactly what's going on there, but I do know Jamal Mose's track record. And Paulo Bancaro is an extraordinarily gifted player who is not impacting winning, who is negatively impacting winning. The magic are worse offensively and defensively with him on the floor. You know, he's a, he's six foot 10, powerful body, all kinds of skills. He's a ball stopper who does not make his team better.

And he is still, and he's young. Look, he's 23 years old. There's a lot of room for growth here. And he's been an all-star already. He's still not an efficient offensive player. Well, I wrote about it in my mid-season lessons learned. for all 30 teams. Powell, in his career, every single year,

the magic had been worse when he's been on the court than on the bench. Like, that's a fact. And it remains a fact this year, to your point, McMahon. And here's the other, just broader thing about the magic, right? Like, Brian, you mentioned

they make the trade for Desmond Bay. This is a team that's typically been extraordinarily patient under Jeff Welk. They made a series of moves in about two weeks and moved out Nick Bucidic. They haven't made a trade, a non-draft night trade in like four years. Right. They moved out Aaron Gordon and Evan Fornier

and Nick Vucevich in a two-week span a few years ago to start this rebuild and then essentially have drafted and just let it percolate for several years. Well, then they go all in and make the Desmond Bain trade, trade the first, go do that. And now they are both a, as of right now, going into the game on Wednesday, one game over 500. And they're also very expensive. There are a few million dollars into the tax this year, which is not a place they've typically been.

and next season, as of right now, with seven, 10 guaranteed contracts on the books as of right now, there's several million dollars into the luxury tax, which, by the way, I think there's at least a world where the projections are a little lower than what they are now. It's a 7% increase in the cap because of how the RSNs across the league have tanked. So we'll see where that lands, but let's assume the projection is accurate.

They're right now several million dollars into the tax, And that's if they just cut Jonathan Isaac, if they have him on the team, they're bumping up against the second apron without a full roster. And that is before you, that's while being a team that right now is 500 and

not very good compared to what it was supposed to be. They signed Powell. They signed Palo to an extension. His salary goes from 15 million to 41 million, which that's money that you're happy to pay a superstar player. But when he's not, getting the results you need, and you have Franz Wagner at 41 million, and Desmond Bain

at 39 million, and Jalen Suggs at 32 million. That's a thing. The other thing is Wendell Carter, they also assign him to an extension, extension that I think the league felt was a fair extension, but his contract is jumping from 11 million to 18 million. So you're looking at an increase of these guys, of your core players, you know, the same players are coming back and you are paying them $35 million more, just in those. Those two guys are getting $35 million more. And then one of the success stories of this year's team is Anthony Black, who actually was kind of underachieving his first two years. He really a lottery pick.

A lot of people were excited about him. He's having a breakout season, averaging 16 points, you know, has led them to several victories. Also very defensive player. Yes, it's extension time for him. So you're looking at him. he's going to be expecting or hoping to get taken care of this summer. And I don't know how they're going to be able to with this team that's this expensive that is, that to this point is not delivering. Yeah.

And listen, we open this up, open up the pod talking about the Houston Rockets. And really, if you look at the builds here, there's some pretty stark differences. Okay, number one, the Rockets' big move was waiting until it was a, a buy low. situation for a proven superstar where it was only one pick for KD where the magic it was throw four picks in and go get Desmond Bain, very good player, but

never been an all-star, much less a superstar. Also, both Franz and Paulo got full-boat max extensions and no negotiation, like full-boat max extensions. I mean, Paulo got a supermax they didn't end up qualifying for. neither of those guys are max players

it's just it's a simple fact I mean Paulo is his effective field goal percentage this year is 496 he's shot he's had a 50% effective field goal percentage once in his career that was last year when it was 50 on the dot that that is middling efficiency

that's not a max player you know I watched him play on Monday night against Cleveland he looked great he had 37 points 10 rebounds, like he would get, you know, they would switch on to him. He'd get a smaller player. He'd just bully them. His mid-range was working. Like, if you watch that, you know, you watch that game, you're like, man, this guy is a stud. And then you look up at the end of the game and they have 96 points and they lost by double digits. Yeah. And again, that's sort of the Palo experience. And the talent is

not the question. I mean, he is 6'10 with a big, strong frame, athletic. There's big time, big-time talent there, but for whatever reason, the Palo potential is a lot greater than the reality right now. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Well, and look, again, this is where the finances and the financial situation, the reality the league sets in. Like, when you make a move like the one the Magic made, you're expecting to be a top three team in the east.

Like they were talked about as a possible finals team coming into the seasons. Right now, they're sitting at 500. they're looking like they're going to be a playing team. You're not going to be a playing team flirting with the second apron in Orlando. I would not think. So therefore, you would expect things to change. I would expect Orlando between now and the trade deadline

to get out of the luxury tax. Maybe they won't, but this is not to be 18. That would require a midseason move, which we have not. The last time they made a midseason move was to trade for Markell Fultz. Right. Like in 2021. Which was several years ago. Right.

So, like, there's, you know, it will be interesting to see what happens with them between now and the trade deadline. It will be interesting to see it happens with them this summer. But they're on pace to be very expensive. You mentioned Anthony Black. Like that extension negotiation will be interesting. And, you know, Orlando is going to be, I think, one of a lot of teams that we're looking at this summer, especially if things don't go well over the back half of the year, that, you know, the trade deadline, I think might be quiet. But the summer, I think,'s got a chance to be pretty spicy around the league on a lot of fronts. And Orlando is a prime example of that where if you go into a season with big expectations and they don't pan out, that usually leads to some sort of changes, whether it's roster or otherwise.

And that, I think, is going to be a question in Orlando in many other places, especially if we get through the trade deadline. A lot of teams are left in the same boat they're in now and they can't make any changes now because we just don't see a lot of movement period. Earlier in the podcast, I talked to you about the Bobby Mark's list of tradable first, super valuable. Glad just showing it there. guess who has 10 first round picks the next seven years, eight of which are tradable, which is... Oh, oh, I bet she's the Charlotte Hornets. Well, you were paying attention when we went to break.

Congratulations. A rare moment. Hornets have won six of their last nine. They play in Memphis if they can land based on the ice situation there. The Denver Nuggets had the game over the weekend canceled and then still couldn't leave Memphis for like a day and a half. They won three in a row. they beat the Sixers by an absolute bludgeoning. They played an early game because of ice conditions on Monday and just they beat him by like 40.

They've had a bunch of blowout wins lately. They beat the thunder like that. They beat, I believe the war. I mean, they've been playing some good basketball. Yeah, so they've won four out of five. We had them on their only national television game was last Wednesday. We had them on. I, you know, argued for, you know, having some, some horse.

Hornets content to focus on them, and they were playing the Cavs. So let the record show that I argued for Hornets content over Cavs content on national television. I, you know, brought this big thing out where I compared Con Cunupple to Steph Curry when they were rookies. And then they got down like 15 to 2 to start the game. And the Cavs won, and they only scored 87 points that night. Having said that, they've been really good all the other times. and C Cniple is just having an amazing rookie season. In fact, their whole rookie class has been looking good.

And look, they are still 10 games under 5 or 9 games under 500. But in the Eastern Conference, that is fluid. And this is a team that is, its books are in decent shape. Lots of first round picks. Bontems like put the Hornets on the watch list. Yeah, I mean, they've had a pretty nice season so far. I mean, yes, they're still on the way up. But, you know, I've talked about a few times.

Lavelo Ball has been good for Charlotte this year. He's been their most impactful, positive player. There's several points per 100 better when he's on the court. What? Statistically, Musa Diabate has been. Sure, no, he's been really, he's a really nice piece soon for sure. One of the best offensive rebounds in the league, the moves. No, go on.

He's just in the bigger conversation. But Lamello, we have had a lot of criticism of Lamello. And by and the Cleveland game was not his finest work to say to least. No, it's not been perfect. But he has been a positive winning player for them this season. Yes. And again, another guy, the talent, oh my goodness, six foot eight, those kind of skills. It's just, does he take it seriously?

You know, the culture concerns. but they've done a good job of putting together young pieces around him who are, you know, are guys who are serious players. The Hornets are good enough now to where, you know, you can make a case, hey, should they be aggressive at the deadline? I still think it's more likely that they're sellers. Specifically, I think it's more likely that Miles Bridges ends up getting traded. But you want to talk about pieces that you feel good about.

moving forward. You know, Conkinipple is a stud and is going to give his college roommate Cooper Flagg a run for his rookie of the year money. The guy's got an effective field goal percentage over 60, averaging almost 20 points per game as a rookie and rebounds and has some playmaking ability. Brandon Miller is having a very good season. And then, you know, they've done a good job finding role players. Musa Diabate, a guy who is on his second team was a two-way guy.

he's been their starting center and is there they've been very good with him in the lineup. Coltrenner, second round pick. He's a very, at least a very solid backup.

If you look at their draft, so they end up with with Knapple at the fourth pick, right? Yeah. So, you know, there was all this focus on the top three. Like,

they end up doing really well. Then in the second round, they drafted two old guys. So Zion James has not, he's been a start. for them. A 23-year-old guy who, you know, not a guy that you look at as, you know, a high-upside guy. And then Ryan Kalkbrenner, who I think is 23 or 24, again, two high second-round picks that they drafted older guys. You know, these are guys that sometimes you don't see teams go for. And then they

sign them to contracts that are, you know, favorable. Kalkbrenner, I think, was, two plus two. Like they have optionality on Colk Runner. I think James, the same thing. They signed them both to like, you know, four year, like nine million dollar contracts. And the moose, I think, is on a, on a really good contract. So like, I just told you about the way they've traded for extra picks.

Look, they're 10 games, they're nine games under 500. I'm not sitting here saying that this is a team that you need to clear your calendar in May. But look at, you know, they're putting up wins. They're putting up Ws on the board. And they're playing a fun brand of basketball with young guys who have a chance to grow up together. And they've got a bunch of picks with a front office led by Jeff Peterson that's proven that they know what they're looking at in the draft. Yeah, no, for sure. They've put themselves in good position.

We've talked for a couple of years how since Rich and Allengay Plotkin have taken over there. And they hire Jeff Peterson and hire Charles Lee and it built this franchise out, that they've done a lot of smart lock and tackling things. Now, they, you know, Concanuple was a huge win for them at four. He's been great. The question will be, can they get one more high-level pick in this year's draft, which is a loaded draft? Like, you know, they could easily be Atlanta from two years ago or Dallas last year, where they jump up from 10-11 into the top four.

If that happens again, and they get a Caleb Wilson or a Cameron Boozer or an AJ DeBanza or Baron Peterson or one of these guys at the top of this draft, with what they have, they could take a really big leap next year. Even if they end up with the eighth or ninth pick and they add one more piece to this group, like they're in position now to really go forward and try to start winning a bunch of games next year, and they'll be in good shape to do that. So they've done a really nice, pathetical job of not rushing things and being patient and finding guys on the margins and doing a lot of smart, solid things.

And it's got them in really good shape. I think the biggest thing is what you said, man. They play a super fun style. They're flying up and down. I mean, they've been routing teams lately. It is the dog days of January. They're probably about the worst team you want to play on a day when you're off because they can put up a buck 35 easy.

Like they have to Oklahoma City and Philly and the Lakers and the Nuggets. Like they've been playing great. And it's a pretty exciting situation. And again, the next three or four or five months going into this summer, They've got a chance to really make a leap forward if they get a couple lucky breaks and they take advantage of the situation that they're. Before we go. So my 8-year-old needed new shoes. Now, he plays basketball in Aunt Edward's shoes.

And he previously had Lucas. He picked out, McMahon. He came home. I didn't know what he was going to get. He came home with signature basketball shoes that he's going to wear to school every day. Wait, you let him wear his game kicks to shoot or to school? No, no, no, no. But he went out to pick a new pair of shoes, and he picked shoes that were signature basketball shoes to go to school in.

Chuck Taylor's. That's what you would wear. Lamellos. Oh, no. I got to tell you. Where are lamellos? Antas? No, they're Pumas.

They're Puma. It says right on the side, one of one. They are one of one. Those things are loud. He will be noticed. I can assure you a bad. He loved them. He is so excited.

I mean, they'll be torn to pieces in days because he's, is hard on shoes. But yep, he came home with those Pumas, and he couldn't wait to show him off. Wendy, fire? Fire or not fire? I mean, you know, I'm the wrong person to ask. I can't tell what's going on there.

For all I know, there's, you know, there's all kinds of thought they were fire. That's for sure. He thought they were fire. That's all that matters. So, all right. Thank you very much to our producers, Jackson, Devon, and Jake. Thank you to Bonn-Tempson McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to the Hoop Collect.

We'll talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.