Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Shocking Contracts: Wemby Gives Back Money To Help Spurs Pursue Titles + Bucks’ Bold Deal

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim MacMahon to react to Victor Wembanyama’s decision to give back some money on his extension to help the Spurs’ pursuit of titles. The guys break down how this could help San Antonio before talking the strong reaction against this from the NBPA and if this could be the start of a trend. Next, we discuss why the Bucks’ Gary Trent Jr. contract is getting an interesting response around the league. Then, we tackle the Bam Adebayo & Tyler Herro altercation including the back and forth with Udonis Haslem & Draymond Green. Finally, we discuss some of the biggest standouts from the NBA Summer League so far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility.

Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters, July 31st. Hello, welcome to the hoop collective podcast. talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Monday afternoon here in Las Vegas for Summer League. What I'm trying to do is be here for four days and see if I can avoid going to the gym at all. Do you think I can do it? And that is Ban McMahon from Dallas. Howdy, partners? I'm actually in Los Angeles, but you were close. Oh, Los Angeles. You're right.

Yeah. No, I don't live in a hotel room when I'm at home. I've got faith you can avoid the gym. I've also got faith that you're one of the few who can actually be extremely productive without stepping foot in the gym because you're going to be moving and shaking. You'll meet for dinners. You'll meet for lunches. You'll go play a little bit of golf. You'll be just hob-naving with all kinds of power brokers out there. Yes. So I spent most of Monday at the To the Max Foundation golf outing at TPC Summerlin.

Great event put on by Scott Morrison, assistant coach with the Utah jazz. We've talked about. That's what we wear the shoes for. It's for autism awareness. and projects. And listen, McMahon, there was like five NBA coaches,

three or four general managers there. Like, no basketballs were in sight. There was no necessary. There was, you know, I was working the entire time. I just want you to know that.

How'd you play? Not bad. Not bad. I'm just going to say that some of these guys, they play a lot of golf. They play a lot more than me. And it's going to leave it at that. And I'll leave it at that.

Well, I did take the liberty of informing Will Hart. while I was out at the Salt Lake City Summer League, that you were a better golfer than him, and that you'd been telling me just how much better you were than him. And I got him fired up there for a little bit, so I hope you played better than him.

I really appreciate you having my back in that regard. Like, you're really, you know, we've already lost one of our teammates. I feel like it was an opportunity for us to come together, and I want to appreciate having my back like that. Because, you know, Will doesn't get like, you know, he never has emotional swings and wants to take it out on somebody. So it's all fine.

Oh, that reminds me, did I tell you the best moment of the Salt Lake City Summer League, speaking of Will's temper occasionally running hot? Gucci, Maine, our pal, James Williams, about five foot, eight and a half on a good day referee. He's out there, and he's, you know, a handful of rests were out there, and they're evaluating the rest work in the Summer League, which all these are like NBA hopefuls. Well, old Jazz Bear bus house. the four-wheeler and invites Gucci back onto the floral. Okay, so here's the backstory.

Like two seasons ago, during a jazz game and a timeout, James Williams, the referee, got on the Utah Jazz's mascots little, I guess, four-wheeler, right? Yeah, four-wheeler. A little thing so you can reach the pedal. You're the worst. And, like, you know, sometimes, like, over the decades, there's been jokes where they'll like dress up somebody.

as a referee and like all of a sudden, you know, it'll look like there's a real referee and all of a sudden he starts dancing. So, you know, like it wouldn't be like completely impossible for a referee, like or someone dressed as a referee to get on and drive the four-wheeler around the court, except for this was in this case, the actual referee drove the four-wheeler around the court. And the jazz were down 30 by the time and a lot of folks were entertained by this. Will Hardy was not one of them. Gucci is well aware of this and is as soon they're out. after I believe he called Will and said, hey, my bad, probably should have done that. But so I spring into action.

I get it on there and I'm recording this just behind the broadcast table. And Will Hardy is sitting just on the other side of the broadcast table, just on the other side of half court. And I, oh, I can't wait until he drives past Will. I think there might have been a felony committed had he done so. Let me tell you. Oh, Gucci, you know, he's got a little awareness about him because what he did was he went right up to half court, hung a right, loop back around, went right up to half court, hung right, loop back around, never went past Will on the four wheeler. That's spatial awareness, and that's spectacular. And I just want to compliment you on being at the top of your reporting game, even in Summer League, when it's so easy for us to.

to let down our chops, you were on top of your game. I just want to cop much. When I saw the four-wheeler and I saw Gucci walking out there, I damn near pulled a hammy getting in a position to record this thing. It was worth it. Even if you did, it was worth it. All right. So I want to talk about, obviously, we're all waiting on LeBron.

I can just tell you, look, this is Monday afternoon. There is a dearth of information on this. The people in the league are all talking to each other. trying to find out what LeBron is thinking. There's not a lot of information. A whole bunch of NBA owners were up at the Sun Valley Media Conference last week in Idaho. Were you up there? Man, I can't remember.

Did you get invited to that? No, but you tend to be a little bit better with a billionaires than I am. Well, I will say that I wasn't there. But one of the cool things that happened there, apparently, is the final negotiations took place to sell the Seattle Seahawks, which sold for over $9 billion. Like it went down there in Sun Valley. But anyway, you know, a bunch of the owners are there and they were chatting. And some of the owners who have who are trying to get LeBron were talking to each other.

And they were like, hey, have you heard anything? Nope. Have you heard anything? Nope. What, you know, LeBron is reaching out and talking to players on some of these teams. And, you know, they report back to their GM with their coach. Like, hey, hey, LeBron called. well what did you think you know so i mean there's you know who knows maybe we'll do an emergency

podcast soon i know that there's this um there's this real desire to push the story to the next level and um that desire often spills out an aggregation um and i know that especially this week of the year it's like the deadest sports week of the year and i know that there's like this god there's got to be news and you know we're already into mid-july there's no news there just hasn't been You know, as we're recording, there's just hasn't been news. Certainly nothing that I can pass on. So I know it's not satisfying, but that's what we've got. We've got that there's no news.

Yeah, a lot of weight and a whole lot of speculate. That's what we got to discord. And like, you know, I'm not even going to say anything further because the aggregators can't. And a whole lot of aggregating. It's like the scorpion and the frog. The aggregators like the scorpion and the frog. I'll just leave it at that. But I do think one of the most interesting things that's happened since we last spoke,

man, Victor Wenbanyama signed a contract extension with the Spurs. That was not a surprise. We expected that to happen. It took a little longer than we expected. And we have our answer why. Basically, it's this. Victor Wenbanyama, he agreed to five years and $250 million. 250 some odd number.

We won't know the number for a year, but something in that range. 250-ish. Great contract, but it does not have... the escalator in it, what we call the Rose provision, which means if he had won the MVP award, one defensive player the year again, or made the all-MBA team this upcoming season, he would have gotten the bump 25% of the cap to 30% of the cap. And that's going to be worth around 50, potentially, $53 million, somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 plus million a year.

Wendy. You said the fun max is. dead. Yes, it's back, baby. It's back. Oh, my gosh. The Fun Max returns. We thought it was dead.

We had just had a memorial service for the Fun Max. The Fun Max returns. McMahon, this has been hailed as a incredible move by Wembeiyama to help the Spurs build their team. But it hasn't been received in great, you know, in happiness in all corners

of the NBA. Well, it's been hailed by Spurs fans, the Spurs organization. It's been hated by the union. And like, let's get to the hailing part of it first. Okay. It doesn't create cap space, but it does create significant flexibility in this apron era where the second apron is so dreaded. And it's a partnership. Like, you don't just give a discount from the bottom of your heart and not a kindness. You give a discount and the deal is, hey, I'll take the 25% and, you. I'll take the 25% and, let's be honest, the only way he wouldn't have been eligible for 30%

is if he didn't play enough games next year. He's obviously going to at least be all-MBA. I'll take less, and it is about 10-mil a year less, if you promise that you're going to put together, or maintain, I should say, because it's together now, maintain a championship caliber

supporting cast around me. And that's the partnership. That's the promise from the spurs. I think this delays any potential Deer and Fox decision probably at least a couple of years. You know, it will allow them to contain. When you say delays a deer and fox decision, what you're saying there is that... What I'm saying is they're not going to be financially pushed to trade Deeran Fox for at least a couple of years. You know, now there might come a time where, you know, because of the fit with Dylan Harper and Dylan Harper needing the ball and all those kind of things.

I don't know. That I don't know. But I'm saying this really eases the financial burden of having Deerrm Fox, who's going to continue to be the highest paid player on the roster. That's true. On the roster. So it does that. I think it'll also position them to be able to sign guys like Tobias Harris in future off-season.

Now, and look, I understand despising if you're in the union, if you're another player despising that, okay, I've got to take a discount, a star is going to take a discount to benefit a billionaire owner. Like, I get that. But I also want to give Wimby credit. He's putting his money where his mouth is, right? He says he wants to win, and he's taking less to position the Spurs to win. He wants to be the best player of all time.

You've got to win a bunch of championships to do that. and he's prioritizing, he prioritizing championship parades over his paycheck. So I'm just going to say this. And that can be hailed and like it's a huge, it's a huge vote of confidence in the Spurs to continue to make good decisions around him. Because, you know, not everybody who gives money, leaves money in the table or gives money back to the organization, ends up being happy about it. And we'll see whether he's happy about it or not. But Jaylon Brunson just was. Correct.

And he saw it with his own, his own two eyes. Now, you know, the comp, you know, Tom Brady routinely took below his market value and, you know, basically revenue shared with his own teammates. And he did that because the NFL has a hard salary cap. And so Tom Brady wanted the Patriots to be better, like essentially wrote some of, essentially wrote a check that he could have gotten to his own teammates to try to help them, you know, to try to help the Patriots win. and they won a lot. And you could argue that Tom Brady's international stardom is, you know, maybe they, you know, who knows, maybe they win two or three Super Bowl, maybe they win two less Super Bowls if he doesn't do that. Maybe they just win one.

But look, I think Tom Brady would say that financially he's done okay. But that's obviously not what the league wants. But I have to say this, McMahon, if you're in the league office or you're an owner, you love this precedent. You know, you love the idea that Brunson, already did this and Victor is doing this and that you've had eight different champions in eight different years. Like this is trending exactly the way that they wanted it. And you've got an owner out there in Tom Dundon who is controversially, but leading a, well, I shouldn't say he's leading a movement. He's trying to start a movement to reduce spending. He's zagging where

everybody else is digging. Right. And who knows whether that catches on or not. But if you're, you know, The owner's meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, the day this comes out. You know, they've got certain challenges, but, you know, we're expecting to hear expansion updates. Like the Seattle Seahawks just sold for $9 billion. Like, I don't think that there's going to be a lack of interest in NBA expansion teams. They're looking at a potentially really big expansion check and look at how well things are going. And you mentioned Tom Brady as a cop. You don't have to look, Wemby didn't have to look far away to find a comp.

I mean, Tim Duncan did similar things for years for the San Antonio Spurs, right up by 35. Dirtmanvitzky did something similar for years with the Mavericks, you know, right before he won his only championship, as a matter of fact. So there's a lot of connecting this to this apron era and this CBA, but it's not like this never happened before this current CBA. It's just that this current CBA really kind of magnifies the issue because of how massive the luxury tax payments are and because of how restricted the aprons are. I saw our man, Bontemps here yesterday in his new role. How much hock swag was he wearing? Head to toe? No, no hawks gear. He was totally professionally dressed. And no hawks gear. He was on the job, though. You know, can't be bothered with his media stuff.

Oh, no. Happy about this media stuff. No more polls for Bon Tim's at Summerlee. He said, boy, do I have some incredible inside information and I'm not telling you any of it. That's a first because usually, usually bond tips can't wait to run his mouth. He pretty much said those exact words, and he didn't. I'm being dead serious. He's like, I can't tell you any of it.

I was like, all right. Well, forget me buying you dinner. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. At Volvo, safety is not a feature. It's our purpose. rigorous crash testing, decades of learning from real accidents, innovations that help prevent accidents before they happen, and help protect you when they occur.

Going above and beyond industry standards, a vision of zero collisions. Volvo's legacy revolves around you because safety is about helping to keep you and everyone around you safe for life. Learn more at bolvocars.ca.ca.com. All right, so last Friday, a day or two after Wembeyanma, sign this contract, and he has not given an interview yet, so we'll hear from Victor, I assume at some point, about this. So the NBA Players Union, they negotiated this CBA that

had the second apron in 2003, I should say. And they agreed to the apron system in like April of 2023. And the executive director of the union, Tamika Tremaglio, who was only on the job for a little over a year. By November of 2023, she had left the position to, according to her, pursue other opportunities. Probably a sign that they weren't real happy. I do not know all the details there, but I will just say that this deal got signed and six months later, the union

executive was out. Andre Aguadala filled in an interim role in that job, and now there is a new head of the NBA Players Association, David Kelly, who was a long-time chief legal counsel of the Golden State Warriors, Andreie Waddell obviously had a big role in hiring him. And he gave his first interviews since taking over the job last week. And he said, quote, we are not fans of the second apron. We did not propose the second apron.

We should have done a better job fighting back against the second apron. In the future, we will have a much more unified union and we will do a better job of fighting back. We are seeing the apron system decimate teams and force decisions to be made that are not basketball decisions. And what I will just say about that is the current CBA has numerous years left on it, and the second apron is not going away anytime soon. Well, Ann, listen, who likes the second apron? Do fans, do players, do coaches, do GMs?

Who likes it? Owners. The owners like it. And that's why it got pushed through. And he said, I don't have the direct quote from me, basically said that he wants some kind of at least softening of the second apron. Number one, I do not believe that that's going to happen on this CBA. Number two, I agree with him.

And I've got a simple proposal that I think would solve a lot. Because the whole point of the Supermax is to position teams to keep their stars, especially your small market teams. You know, your teams like Oklahoma City. I mean, the Supermax basically was hatched in part because of Kevin Durant's departure from the Thunder. Teams like San Antonio. I don't think the extra 5% should count towards the cap. I don't think it should count towards luxury tax.

And I don't think it should count towards aprons. So, for example, what I'm saying is I don't think Wimby should have had to take a discount. He is without question a Supermax player. He should sign the Supermax, and then in this case, the Spurs would only have the 25% of the cap count towards all these things. Legislate in the Fun Max. Yes. Yes. And again, same thing, like, same thing with Shea, Gildjus Alexander in Oklahoma City.

And, you know, we can go on down the list. But teams shouldn't be punished for drafting well and developing well, or even drafting fortunately and developing well. or in the case of Shea, you know, identifying a talent and developing him when he's on his rookie contract. You have to, you have to, the extension has to come off of your original contract, your rookie contract, to be eligible for the Supermax. So it doesn't apply to a whole ton of people. But again, it's a counterproductive thing. The Supermax becomes a penalty against teams, more than a weapon. for them to be able to keep their own stars or build around their stars, keep their teams together.

Okay, that's all reasonable. And maybe they can bring it to the table, but this is in place through 28, 29, and that won't be changing. Before we move on here, the one thing that I want to say is this. The players associate, the players are guaranteed 51% of the basketball revenue. So no matter what the aprons are, no matter what happens, they're guaranteed to get their. money. For every $100 that the league takes in, and the majority of what they take in comes from their TV deals and their ticket sales and stuff like that. But for every $100 that the league makes on basketball income, the players get 51% of it. They get 51 cents. And if in one year, they end up getting 48 cents, every player gets a check to equal it out. And if some years they get,

you know, 52%, then the players have to write a check each player. has to write a check to the owners to make it square. They hold their salaries. They hold 10% of their salaries in a reserve during the season so that they can square the books at the end of the year. So even though the second apron, we see teams being careful what they're spending, the players are still getting all of their contracted money.

None of them are making an aggregate less money. The point of the second apron is to, and by the way, a lot of other things happened, they raise the floors that each team has to spend. they raise the lower level contracts, the minimum contracts and stuff, so the bottom gets better paid, but they force the talent to be distributed. And maybe just the nature of the league and the cyclical nature of things, we would have had eight different champions in eight years, because some of these rules were not in place when the eight different champions started.

Some of this is just the nature of the league. But it forces the redistribution of talent, which forces parity, which is why it acts like a hundred, salary cap. And that is what the owners want. And getting star players to take less than their market value is also something owners want because a star player is already worth way more than what his salary is. Yeah. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if this does set a precedent, although you could argue Brunson set a precedent. And you could argue this is, this is Wimby's response to seeing Brunson celebrate on his home floor in San Antonio. on here after winning a championship.

But I would just be cautious in thinking because Wimby did this, that when Steph Castle's negotiating next summer, he's going to accept a similar deal. And when Dylan Harper's negotiating two summers for now, he's going to accept a similar deal. Nice problem to have for the Spurs that they might be doing this dance three straight summers. But I don't know just because Wimby did it,

those guys will follow soon. So let me ask you this. This is a 20-23 draft class we're talking about. So there's only been one extension so far. The deadline for those guys to extend their contract is about October 15th. It'll be relative to the start of the season. It'll be somewhere in mid-October. Do we think anybody else from that class is getting a max contract?

Boy. Here are the options. Brandon Miller, who, you know, Charlotte is clearly investing in. That's what they made clear by trading Miles Bridges and Lamello Ball. Scoot Henderson is not. I mean, he's doing better, but, you know, he's not. You have the Thompson twins. Those are interesting.

A men in particular is interesting. But the Rockets have a history of negotiating hard with their own restricted free agents, especially. They just negotiated hard with Tari Yason. Yeah. Now, Amin Thompson is the guy that they value the most by far on that roster. I will just point that out. agree but but if it was easy it'd be done well listen part of the reason the rockets have been so cautious with their extensions is because they know they had to pay amen and part of the reason why the pistons have been so cautious with their spending and you know when they do spend spending short is because they know they've got to pay a sara alongside jayland durran and alongside kade cunningham i'm saying like you know there are some good players in that draft and i don't think we're going to see another max no um you know kia Dante George, if an extension is reached, it's because he's taken significantly less than Max.

And, yeah, I'm struggling to find anybody else who, Case of Walls will get paid. I don't know that it's going to be on an extension that might play out in a restricted three agency. We'll see, and I don't think it'll be max. They'll get paid. And I'm struggling to find another real candidate. Some of these guys are going to get paid, you know. A Jaime Hockey is going to get paid. Brain and Bejemsky is going to get paid.

But, you know, it sets the agenda for the whole class. Over the weekend, McMahon, we saw a big contract given out in the NBA. And it was to Gary Trent of the Milwaukee Bucks. What did he get paid? Well, you know, I just want to say that, you know, he's played for Milwaukee for the last two seasons. How'd those seasons go? You know, two years ago, he played. You know, reasonably well, all things considered.

Shot, you know, not great from beyond the arc outside, which is one of the reasons why he was signed. But, you know, a quality role player two seasons ago, averaged 11 points as mostly a role player, shot 42% on threes. That was, that was, you know, pretty good, you know, for a role player coming off. And then last year, he, you know,

he had signed a big three-year deal with the Toronto Raptors. His previous three years at the Raptors, he had averaged, his salary was an average of $17 million. And then he signed a $2 million minimum with the bucks in 2024, which was a surprise. A lot of people were surprised that the bucks got him on a minimum contract. And then again, he averaged 11 points and shot 42% from threes. And he played 70-something games. You know, like, that's a, that's a, you know, a production that should probably get you around 8.5%. figures, don't you think?

I think that's a stretch, but how do you play last year? So this last year, he also signed for the minimum for $3.6 million. And this last year, he played 65 games. He did not have that great of a year this last year. He had the worst year of his career since he was a rookie. He averaged eight points. His three points shooting went from 42 to 36. and he had only 39% overall,

which was the worst year since his rookie season. He, like, if you look at the analytics of it, he had negative win shares, a negative box plus minus, a negative VORP, and he got a mid-level extension base, or mid-level exception, basically, a full mid-level?

Come on, Wendy. This contract stinks. It smells, awful. Four years, 64 million. Were you surprised by that contract? Oh, are you pleading? On the advice of counsel, I'd like to plead the fifth.

Oh, were there whispers that he was going to get something in that ballpark? Now, on the advice of counsel, I'd like to invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege. I'm afraid to fire my fingers because I've had issues with this camera. I'm going to fire my fingers up. I'll keep them low, but I'm firing my fingers up. Why would they do that? Why would they give a guy coming off a really bad year a full mid-level? Why would they agree to that this summer?

I'm just going to tell you, Wendy, I'll answer my own question. There is no logical explanation for the Milwaukee Bucks agreeing to this contract this summer. So the only logical explanation, unless they are just complete buffoons, the Milwaukee Bucks front office, which I do not believe. I don't believe they're buffoons. The only logical explanation would be something nefarious. And boy, oh, boy, if I'm Adam Silver and some of those head honchos in the league office,

I'd just go, I'd sniff around. Sniff around a little bit on this one. Well, in the wake of what happens with Kauai Leonard, I think that's a, I don't know. I don't know what's going to do here, because if you look at, here's the thing that's that's the thing that

that is tough about it. Even if you wanted to give Gary Trent a mid-level contract, $16 million a year, very, very few contracts have been given out this year that have guaranteed longer than two seasons.

And if this contract comes in, and I don't believe it's been signed yet, but if this contract comes in as a four-year guarantee, that's tough. Because if you look at it, like, with a player option.

Austin Reeves got a long contract guarantee, you know, Victor Wenbenyama. But really, like other than the Lakers, like the Lakers gave Mamu like four years, didn't they? The Lakers did some longer deals,

but there haven't been many deals. Yeah, I think Grimes got the full four years too. But like, and also there's not many full mid-level contracts given out across the league anymore. Number one, a lot of teams don't even. Tarisen got five.

five years, but it wasn't fully guaranteed. Yeah, and it's, and it's, it's just right under the mid-level. But, like, there, there was not going to, he was not getting this in the open market. It's a completely inexplicable contract if you just look at it on his face. And it's a, it's a terrible deal for the bucks. It's just a, I mean, awful. Honestly, in terms of value, it's the worst contract since Trey Young, at least, if not worse.

Right. And I got on the Wizards for that contract. And I was said that I just don't think it's tradable. And I don't think this contract is tradable at all. And so the bucks paid Gary Trent over the last two years. They paid him a shade under $6 million. Okay. Give or take $6 million. And they got production. They got more production than the $6 million for that. In the first year, not last year. Okay. But in aggregate. Okay. So if you gave you. him a two-year $30 million contract, and you looked at basically paying him $36 million over four years, and he gives you what he gave you the last two years. That's $9 million over four years. I could justify that. It would still be a tough contract to trade, but it's the four-year guarantee, and if indeed that's what it is. And the contract hasn't been signed, at least as we're recording this, it hasn't come in yet. And so that's where that's where the, that's where I, I think people are looking at it sideways. I really eagerly anticipate

John Horace explanation of why this contract makes any sense whatsoever for the Bucks as they're pivoting to a rebuild. This is the only thing that I'll say. Because I don't want to make any accusations because I can't prove anything. I'm just asking questions. One of the topics in the league over the last 10 days was when are the bucks going to announce this contract? Would they announce, people were joking, would they announce it at the half time of like the, would they announce it at half time of the,

of the team of like a USA, like, you know, in the middle of the first half of a USA soccer game. They should have waited until either the Kauai, you know, Aspiration saga was ruled on or LeBron announced his new team. Right. Now, I do think.

Was it a Friday news dump? It was on Saturday. Okay. Even better. I do think that they were looking to see if they could, roll it into a yon to steal. So that was part of the reason why it didn't happen. They were looking to see if there was a sign and trade package out there,

but it just wasn't for him at this level. I wonder why nobody wanted to just have a sign and trade with him making $64 million over four years. So anyway, that's... It was one of two just completely inexplicable contractual situations that unfolded over the weekend. The other was certainly nothing to fail. various about it, just incompetence.

And you know what I'm talking about. The New Orleans Pelicans giving DeAndre Jordan a fully guaranteed two-year minimum, which, listen, you want DeAndre Jordan to be your vet mentor for the next two years? Cool. The problem is, when you give him a fully guaranteed to your minimum, you don't get the savings

that come with giving a guy a minimum. So basically, you just burn $3 million over two years. if it's a one, I think even if it's a one plus a team option, you get the savings. Certainly a one year. Yeah, so let me explain this. If you have a veterans minimum, which right now is about $3.9 million and you sign a player to a one year deal, the league office picks up a big chunk of that. This was put into this.

About 1.5. This was put into the CBA years ago. It was done so that they wouldn't. You know, teams wouldn't sign young players because they were cheaper. They wanted to incentivize veterans to get signed. So if you sign a player for $4 million, you get about $1.5 million. It's paid out of a fund from the league office, and they only count against your, against your, like LeBron. If LeBron signs a $3.9 million minimum contract, and it's a one-year deal, he will only count 2.45 or something against the cap.

Okay. But if you give more than one year, it doesn't. It doesn't count. It counts. You have to pay the full amount. And not only pay the full amount, not only is it more money, but. It counts towards a cap and taxes and all those things. Yes. And so it just was questioned. It's not like, with all due respect to DeAndre, it's not like seven teams were competing to sign him. It's a $3 million accounting error or like language error. We don't know if it was an accounting error. They could have actively made the decision. Well, then it's a continuation of a trend of bad decisions made by this front office. I would say questionable decisions. We don't know.

Derek Queen could end up being a Hall of Famer. I don't want to be cruel. Oh, gosh, I love the diplomat. In full disclosure, McMahon and I have broken and both eaten lunch in the interim here. You, everything go okay there in L.A.? Yeah, right into some more MBA today staff folks, had a nice little lunch at a local establishment. That's great. All right, good.

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It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit Scotia Bank.com slash h-I-S-A to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. All right. So speaking of nice little interactions, how about Bametabio and Tyler Hero? Getting together and talking about old times here in Vegas. So the teams stay at several different hotels out here.

They're spread around several different hotels. and when they have workouts, like some of what's going on here is the veteran players will come out. And I mean, I don't really think they're doing hard workouts here. I think it's all some level of, for the veterans, it's all some level of boondoggle. Now, not for all of them, but, you know,

I was talking to a high-ranking executive of a team today who was telling me, you know, next year we may just tell the guys, we'll fly out here for the camaraderie, but we're not going to rent a ballroom. And we think you're, we trust that you're working out hard, you know, at the other time. But anyway, what happens is teams have practices in ballrooms where they like put down a court. And so in the, well, you may know more about this than I do, McMahon.

But apparently Tyler Hero had thrown some shade of Bam at a bio on social media or vice versa. So he, in the DMs and then somebody's screenshot of the DMs and those got posted. So basically Tyler Hero got caught talking some, you know, smack about Bam behind his back. And he did post a little thing like the worst mid-range efficiency guys in the league and Bam. And Janus just happened to be on that list. So yeah, a little social media shade being thrown. You know, in there, look, at the end of the day, the heat were actively looking to trade Tyler Hero. And they traded him for Janusz Sinakumpo.

But they cross paths in one of the ballrooms a couple of days ago. And look, you're an expert on what do you call them? What do you call it a dust up? What are your words for it? Bruhaha's fracas. I think this one was more of a dust up than a fracas or a brouhaha. Bruhaha certainly is the highest of those three. Okay.

Look, man. Tyler Hero was able to show up to the game the next day. day and do an interview without anybody noticing and, you know, like people didn't know until Shams reported, hey, Bam punched the guy. And I think you could see a little discoloring under the eye, but let's just be real. If Bam wound up and like through a haymaker, Tyler Hero wasn't going in any damn summer league game the next day. Okay. Well, look, NBA players are generally, Okay, generally, the top 1% of humans in terms of physique. Because, you know, most of them are, like, the average player is 6-6.

What's, you know? Yeah, Bam is closer to the 1% of that 1%. Okay, right. In terms of like physique, Bam is up there. So I tend to agree with you. Nothing against Tyler. Nothing against Tyler. Yeah, and like, Hero by NBA player standards is pretty slight.

By NBA player standards, right? He can be a player standards. By your average person, he's very highly up there because he's very tall relative to your average person. Anyway, what my favorite is that this turns into a proxy battle between Dreymond Green and Udanaas Haslam. Eudan, our former teammate at ESPN. Dremond. A teammate neither of us crossed for good reasons. That's correct.

Well, I just love Dremond, like, you know, uses his podcast to, you know, he's being a veteran of punching a teammate, which is what he said. He goes, well, when I punched Jordan Poole, like, you know, he has some commentary. And he just for, you know, just for old-fashioned score settling, just somehow blames Udana's Hazam. But yeah, and it was like, I got all this flack when I punched Jordan Poole, which, by the way, it was an absolute haymaker, was a knockout blow. and I guess UD had said something about criticizing Draymond for like punching one of the young guys. Like a guy was supposed to be like one of his young bucks, a guy under his wing or whatever. And then he went back at UD and then he was like, what about this?

And, you know, it was all pretty entertainingly ridiculous, is what I would say. Okay, listen, I just only brought this up for one purpose. because Udanaas Haslam clapped back on X. Oh, yes, he did. It was four paragraphs, probably like 175 words. I don't know, maybe even longer, 250 words. I just want to read one line. Okay.

From what Udana said back to Draymond. So to be honest, it's the whole point I'm even bringing this topic up. I like it. Because Udana's was talking about the differences between, you know, what might have happened between Tyler Hero and Van Metabio and what happened between Draymond Green and Jordan Pohl a couple years ago. He said, you fight, this is Udadasazum via X to Dray Mungrin. Quote, you fired off on that young boy like it was a club punch and you never met,

you never met him before in your life. Here's what I love about it. In addition just to the sentiment and the language, like there's a certain number of, there's certain people that, they have such a distinct way of talking that when you read something that they wrote, you can hear them saying. Like Bob Ryan, when I was a kid, Bob Ryan, he was always on ESPN on sports reporters or whatever,

on a PTI, whatever. And he wrote the exact same way he talked. And if you ever read a Bob Ryan column, you could hear him in your ear talking to you. Reading this whole thing, you can hear UD. I could hear UD. saying these words. This was not, this was, I will tell you, one billion percent, AI did not

write this. No, no, no. All you D, no AI. Right. Often these days we hear, oh, man, AI, that was AI. This was done by AI. Not this time. AI, there's, there's no way, um, uh, the bleep you pull in Golden State and that bleep he pulled in Chicago talking crazy to Hoyberg and disrespecting his teammates in practice in Minnesota ain't gone fly in the 305. He's talking about Jimmy Butler there because, you know, UD and Jimmy had. AUD indicated it didn't quite rise to fist a cuff level, but they had some heated interactions. Listen, I think that this is a situation that needs to be taken seriously

and used as a way to boost the revenue in the NBA. And I'm serious about this, Wendy. I've got a solution. Okay. You're going to have hard feelings sometimes when guys get traded. And I do believe that Summer League could use some good halftime entertainment. And so what I suggest is in a case like this, what BAM does is he challenges Tyler Hero to a boxing match.

If, for example, Jaylon Brown feels a certain sort of way about Jason Tatum as he's kind of hinted. He could challenge Jason Tatum to a boxing match. These would be done at halftime when their teams meet during Summer League. And I've came up with this.

I suggested it on NBA today. I've done some further thinking because I am a deep thinker. Not only would have boost ticket sales, but we'd still have the normal halftime show on TV, and then you'd have the pay-per-view. Could you imagine the pay-per-view

if you knew Bam at a bio and Tyler Hill were going around? I heard that Connor McGregor fight, I heard it was $26 million for the gate here in Vegas the other day. God knows what the pay-per-view was, and that's totally could have gotten done during a halftime. And that did, yeah, good Lord, that could have gotten done during freaking 20-second time out.

But I'm just telling you, the pay-per-view halftime entertainment of, you know, teammate, former teammates with beasts getting in the ring against each other. This is something the league, if it is serious about maximizing revenue, needs to commit to and implement next year. Well, listen, I believe one of the highest rated regular season games of the last 25 years in the NBA was in 2004 when Shaq played Kobe on Christmas Day after their breakup. Oh, yeah.

So people were just watching it, the concept of it. So, yeah, I think beef definitely drives ratings. Anyway, I just wanted to read that thing from you, Donis. So I just want to suggest my half-time entertainment at Summer League idea. We both accomplish their goals. I am not ready to declare my any sort of superlatives from Summer League, but you apparently are. Listen, what good is Summer League for, if not absolute ridiculously premature, knee-dric reactions? All right.

Caleb Wilson, rookie of the year, MVP, Hall of Famer. Lock, knock down, three-point shooter all the sudden? I tell you what, no. I'm obviously being a bit facetious, but the guy felt like he should have been the number one pick, which all the top four picks did. He's been working clearly on a shot, came in with a chip on his shoulder, and dropped 35 in a summer league debut. Like, I'm intrigued.

Working on his shot, he said he's taking between 2,000, 2,500 three-pointers a day for the last several months, ever since his wrist got healthy from the injury. I'd have to do the math. That might be like Will's 20,000, where I'm not sure if it's mathematically possible. And I don't mean, Will it didn't take any three-pointers. Those didn't exist.

I don't think the mathematics was the difficulty there. I think there might have been some other challenges. All I'm going to say is that it's early, but I will just say that, like, in the case of A.J. DeBonsa and in the case of Darren Peterson, they're going to be on teams that intend to be highly competitive and have veteran multiple veteran former all-stars on the roster. That is not the case with the Chicago Bulls.

So when it comes to putting up numbers, it's very possible. And I think this will be certainly true for Cam Boosier to a certain extent as well. I was going to say, nor is the case with the Grizzlies. But it would not surprise me if Wilson puts up enormous numbers and makes his case that way. just from Shraddette. In all seriousness, I think it's going to be,

it's obviously been a rookie class that's been hype for a while. And I think the rookie of the year battle is going to be a ton of fun. It was last year and ended up being a two-man battle, even though Dylan Harper and V.J. Hedg. I'd take either one of those guys in a heartbeat. But I think all four of these top four

are going to hit the ground running in the NBA. All right. Before we go, Jackson has the official weights between BAM and Tyler Hero. Do you want to take a guess? I think BAM is listed at 260. Okay. And then Hero, I think he's a but 92 soaking wet.

All right. You're awfully close. Tyler is listed at 195. Bam at 255. Okay. My quick math, that's 60 pounds. And I'm just going to tell you, most of those pounds are in muscle. No effect.

There ain't a whole lot else with BAM. Look, Tyler Hero would throw me through a wall. I'm not, I'm not, I'm just, I'm just saying, my money's on bail. That's all. All right. Thank you to Mark Miles Tucker and our man Jackson for putting us all together. Thank you very much for listening and watching to the Hoop Collective. Thank you to Ban McMahon.

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