Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Summer League Debuts, Huge Salary Cap Development + Kyrie’s Future

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss the summer league debuts for Ace Bailey vs. V. J. Edgecombe including some impressive flashes and where there is still a lot of room for growth before talking if the Lakers should be concerned about Knecht’s struggles. Then, the guys talk why Valanciunas’ deal with Denver has slowed, the most interesting players still available, Kyrie’s interesting comments and why the NBA cap had a massive change for the league. Vegas Summer League Live Show Link: hoopcollectivelive.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello and welcome the HOOP collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we are doing on Sunday evening. Hope everybody had a lovely July 4th weekend.

Joining me from New York City, it's Tim Bonteps. Brian, you'll be happy to know that Rob Polinkas said in a statement today that, quote, acquiring a starting caliber center was the top priority for us this off season, and we believe D'Andre is an amazing solution to that objective and is an ideal player to add to our current court. I will let you know that I received four press releases from the Lakers today. Oh, four of them. So their press, Don't spoil my bit, Brian.

Your press release operation is, in fact, just fine. Don't spoil my bit, Brian. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, freshly back from Salt Lake City, where he managed to go to one day of Summer League is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partner. Listen, you know, I'm just sitting a little in and out of Utah. I want to read to you, though, the full Rob Polinka quote on the LeBron James opt-in. Here we go.

I will say this. The Jackson Hayes, we got a Polinka quote on Jake Laravia. Jake is a high- IQ two-way player with ideal skills for a JJ Redick basketball system. What about another basketball system? Glad he fits that system. We got a quote on Aiton, and we got a quote on La Ravia. Jackson Hayes was not afforded a quote Jackson Hayes got the Lakers of re-signed Jackson Hayes

Yeah that's right What was the fourth press release? I know I got a fourth one I think summer I think summer league stuff Okay anyway Oh that the the uh the draft trade for uh Adu Thoreau the second round pick That's correct yeah throw the guy No quoting that either

No point in La Ravia got they got the blessing of the Rob Polinka quotes It's been a week since the opt-in. We have no press release. I do want to make one mention of my trip to Utah. I'll discuss a little bit later, but held on the campus of the University of Utah due to some renovations at the Delta Center. Alex Jensen, former Mavs assistant, jazz assistant, among other places. A gracious host.

Got me some freebie, baby. Ute's legend, most importantly. Congrats to Alex on his new gig. No, no. Not a legend. As I pointed out to him, a lot of retired numbers up there. He's ain't up there. Also, a guy I've known for over 20 years, West Wilcox.

Yeah. Former GM of the Atlanta Hawks, former assistant GM of the Kings, is now the general manager of Utah, the Utes. Wendy, you'll be happy to know that I had salmon in the hospitality room. Lovely. They knew you were coming. There you go. Well, we should just start right there since Summer League has started.

Okay, real quick, I don't mean to be a spoil sport. I've been known, I've actually been known to be a spoil sport, but I don't want to be a spoil sport here. But let's, before we get here, we talk about what 22 years of covering summer leagues has taught me. And I'm sure you two guys as well. You haven't covered for 22 years because I haven't seen you one in a while. That is actually correct. I haven't been there in about six years since pre-pandemic. You're right.

But many years of summer leagues have taught me. And if you guys disagree with me, please step in. number one being good at summer league is less relevant than being bad at summer league ding okay in other words if you which by the way sometimes you're good at summer league and it is an indicator that you're going to be a dynamic or impact player in the NBA donovan mitchell one of the best examples of that donovan mitchell went to went to summer league had a giant summer league and it was like wow this guy's something right and then he showed up and was great from the jump and and i will also say there are exceptions to

being bad thing. Like, Tray Young had a terrible Summer League and he's had a pretty good career. Well, there's exceptions to every role. But what I'm saying here is... Being bad at Summer League is not a death sentence either. But it means more if you're a high pick and you show up and you're not good. Right. It tends to be more relevant to the fall when you play poorly at Summer League than when you

play well at Summer League. Number two, if you're a sophomore or older, you really, really need to be dominating. You really need to put up good numbers. In fact, the baseline... If you're not showing up and playing a couple games and being really good and stopping, that's usually not a great sign for your long-term future. Absolutely.

Yeah. Not always, again, not always, but usually. Right. And third, while I understand that these teams were put together in the last week and they go through practices and there's a... You know, there are things that happen in Summer League that, you know, these teams are coming together and they're trying to win. And a coach can be sort of, can sort of show off their like in-game ATO plays and all this kind of stuff. Winning Summer League means zero point zero.

Not a lot. So doesn't mean that you can't have a nice July afternoon or evening taking in a summer league game. doesn't mean that you shouldn't go to Vegas and have a great time over there. Doesn't mean that there isn't value be taken out of it. Just be very careful at the play-by-play analysis that is done. That's all. Having said that, McMahon, you attended the big game to kick off the Utah Summer League that featured Ace Bailey of the hometown Utah Jazz going up against VGA

Edgecom, the number three overall pick of the 76ers. What did you learn from that experience? Well, I learned that Vijay Edgecombe with NBA spacing can get to his spots with relative ease. Didn't have the best shooting night, one of seven from three. But he got up 27 shots and knocked down 13 of them. And man, does that guy got a turbo button, which you knew. but I you know he didn't have a great year at Baylor the space was awful he's playing in traffic the whole year him and with some space and and the open floor especially is is fun to watch

you know Ace Bailey let's start with the positives he was there right yeah there was no drama there were no like indications of discontent or attitude like He was smiling. The jazz media reported... Ace Bailey, we should point out. Ace Bailey has always been known to be a very high-energy positive guy. It's not like he was some malcontent guy. I mean, that was a weird situation for a variety of reasons,

but nobody ever was like wondering if the guy was going to show up and be, you know, and he... And I talked to a lot of people with jazz, you know, including Will Hardy. And, you know, Will said, hey, every bit of... feedback that he's gotten from the, you know, from the time he showed up, you know, with Will met him at the plane, Ace wanted to get right at the facility, you know, get some shots up, four days of practice, you know, all the feedback's been good. You know, he had some defensive players that were impressive, some rebounding, you know, had a clutch rebound that sealed

it after sitting six minutes of crunch time, by the way, which was interesting. And that's not why he was the fifth overall pick in the draft. That's not why he was projected at one point to be a top three pick. You know, he was projected there because the guy's supposed to be a potentially, you know, big-time score. And you didn't see a whole lot of that. Eight points, three or 13, not going to overreact to an 18-year-old kid's summer league opener. I think that one really good thing about Ace Bailey is he can get his shot up whenever he wants to. Also, one bad thing about Ace Bay is he can get a shot up whenever he wants to. And there are times just like, you know, and, and, uh, Scott Morrison, friend of the pod,

a defender of all Canadians, a guy who really did not like me saying that Shea was the weak link of the Oklahoma City Thunder defense, which I meant as a kind of a back in and college. You stand by that statement, I believe. I do. And Shay will be the first to tell you, but I've been chastised by Scott Morrison, jazz assistant, uh, former Southwick assistant, very good dude. Utah Summer League coach and out Canadian. I've been chastised by him. But anyways, you know, he pointed out, like,

they can do a better job getting him involved. It's an interesting situation. There's a lot of guys that are on the Jazz roster that are playing for their Summer League team. Cody Williams, by the way, also sat out all of Crunchtime. But it's not like, you know, Ace wasn't a featured attraction necessarily offensively. They weren't like, they weren't, you know,

Scott said they could do a better job of getting him more involved offensively and then, you know, maybe he could do a little bit better job on shot selection, but those two things kind of go hand in hand. But again, they were choosing to emphasize the positive of, you know, the effort,

the athleticism, the link defensively, his ability to cover a lot of ground defensively to close out, you know, like to be able to help and close out big distances, you know, his willingness and ability to rebound, those kind of things. And as Will told me, he says, that stuff doesn't get talked about enough with him, and the offense will come as he learns a new system and new people and all those kind of

things. Yeah, he's a guy that's going to probably drive Will insane at times this year with his shot selection and, you know, the shots he'll take. But that's fine. That's the whole point. It's why Utah is such a good fit for him. They have plenty of shots for him to get. They've got plenty of playing time for him to have.

that's exactly the kind of situation he needed to go to, a place where he can grow into his game, grow through the mistakes, play for a great coach. I think, I do think, you know, he's obviously got a lot of upside.

I do think that's going to be as good as situation as it could have been for him. And it was good to see him out there playing. And all I'll say on Vijayette Edgecombe is, Chris DeMarco, another friend of the pod, coached the Bahamian national team the last several years, coached them in, in some international tournaments last summer.

And VJ was playing with Eric Gordon and DeAndre Hayton and several other NBA players. They were a win away from being in the Olympics. That's right. Beat Argentina. He was their best player. Yes, beat Argentina. We're a competitive game in Spain with Spain. And Vijay was, as you said, B'Baham, he was at times their best player and was really good.

and Chris came away from that experience just last summer. I talked to him when they beat Argentina, raving about how impressive he was. So, yeah, I mean, you can, he's got big time athleticism. You can see it in that game. And obviously, he's another guy who's got some growing pains to go through. But the idea of him and Tyrese Maxie long term in the back court together is pretty interesting for the Sixers. I mean, Edgecombe, just like you watch him, and he is a wow athlete. Like I said, the turbo button, the leaping ability.

It just felt like, I mean, he got up 27 shots. And there weren't a lot where he was like, ooh, that was a, he forced out one. Like, he was just getting the spots. 10 rebounds, he's in a, he is a high, high, high level athlete. Like, he might be a top 10 athlete in the league when he steps on the floor. We should point out, too, one new piece of news that just came in is that the Bucks re-sign ride. Rollins, young guard, a $3, or $12 million deal, according to Shams. I like that deal for Milwaukee.

It's going to go into the radar because he didn't play a ton last year, but he's a pretty interesting, it's a pretty interesting young player, and he might end up starting for them based off depending on what their roster looks like. So I like that move for the bucks. I would be remiss to talk about the Utah Summer League, which is pretty much two days old of their three days without mentioning Dalton Connect or just the Lakers in general. Well, they're not in the Utah Summer League, so that would probably not be a good idea. That would be the Sacramento Summer League.

Yeah, I think it's called the California Summer League. And it's in, and it's in San Francisco. We'll get there in a second. Jackson just had a nice little stat addition here. VJ. Edgecombe, fourth top five pick to have a 25-point-10 rebound game at Summer League since 2017. The others? Are you guys looking at this, or do you want to guess? Yeah, I see it, but go ahead.

I didn't see it. Who are they? Wimby, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum. That's a pretty good list. So no guarantees, but not bad company to be in. I also saw, well, there's one other thing I want to mention with the Ace Bailey situation. There were some eyebrows raised when it was revealed that Omar Cooper Jr. would be a guest coach for the Utah Jazz during Summer League.

His dad, Omar Sr., is the, I'm going to say advisor, because I don't believe he's officially. an agent, but the guy who's been advising Ace Bailey throughout the last couple of years, including a pretty messy pre-draft process, I would say. So again, there was some eyebrows raised there. It's an unpaid. It was an unpaid deal. And Omar Jr. did just wrap up his college career at McNeese State. He's going to go into coaching. I was told he'll be on Will Wade staff at North Carolina State next year. But some of those eyebrows, that were raised, we're at the league office.

They reached out to the jazz, and raised some concerns. And the unpaid internship, I guess you could say, was ended before Summer League started. That is, I actually didn't know,

that was the outcome. So good reporting by you. Well, thanks for reading. I read McBan's story today. I guess somebody didn't. I did not. What do you want to say? It was July 4th weekend.

He was too busy hobnobbing with Omaha mayor. He sure was. I had, I thought, Lakers were in the Utah Summer League. That's where I'm at. In the Utah Summer League and the Sacramento Summer League that's in San Francisco. I did see Nicola Topich play basketball.

All right. So Nicola Topich was the lottery pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2020 draft. He is a Serbian teenager. Regard as the best European prospect last year. had a torn ACL that he suffered during the season playing for his Serbian professional team. So he skipped this whole year recovering from that.

And so he played his first basketball in a long time, over a year, I believe. And so that's the backstory. During this year, they didn't have room really to play another young guy anyway. So they were able to take a flyer on a guy who sank in the draft a little bit. If he had been healthy, there's a decent... I mean, there were times where he...

he was projected as a top five pick. I don't know if he would have gone there. But I think the Thunder had like the 13th or 14th pick. They took him right at the back of the lottery. 12th pick. Okay. 12 pick. And, you know, 14 points, four assists, seven turnovers.

Like his stat line won't wow you. But you see, you see why he was a lottery pick. He's 6'6 and smooth and kind of get where he wants to go. you know, again, the turnover, I don't sweat those too much in a summer league situation. I don't know that there's going to be any minutes for him, but you see why people were so high on him, you know, in the draft and especially before he had the knee injury. And he's not, he's, Dagonal had mentioned during the finals that he hadn't played five on five yet. So he's like very, very fresh back into, you know, scrimaging and now summer league, you know, into five-on-five action. He also walked out there and was being guarded from the jump by a guy who finished third-mercad of year last year in Jaylon Wells,

who was good to see back on the court after his injury at the end of the regular season. And that's a, that's not an easy way to walk back into five-on-five for the first time in about 15 months, I would say, either. But a good test. Very good test. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. All right, so in San Francisco, Lakers have played two games so far, and Dalton Connect is, I believe, five of 22 in those two games. Five of 20, five of 20 in those two games. So I didn't watch them.

I'm just telling you the stats. So I couldn't tell you. Jackson was very excited to tell us about Cole Swider, former Laker. Who will see you play for the Raptors? for Miami. He's played for a bunch of teams. Yeah. He... Faxa probably knows all the teams by heart. He averaged 22 points and shot 63% on threes,

the first, these first two games. And Brony James played one of the games. He only played 10 minutes and went three of seven, had two rebounds on a steal. So scored 10 points. Hit two threes. Yeah, connect 0 and 9 from three point range. You know, I'm not going to overreact too much to a summer league, but for a sophomore who got a decent amount of playing time as a rookie,

he's certainly not passing the second summerly domination test. Well, the thing about Connect, actions over words, the Lakers have already traded him once. So that's number one. The second thing is, as the season went along, JJ Reddick stopped playing him. Yeah. And look, he's a rookie.

You know, I'm not, lots of rookies have struggled to get playing time. early in their careers. But there was a time where people thought this was one of the steals of the draft. I mean, LeBron was was mocking all the GMs who passed on them early in the season. That's correct. Yeah. Which again, like I'm all fine for a star player praising his teammate. Like that's totally fine. I'm not going to judge that. But, you know, for all I know, he'll hit his next 12 threes. But I just, you know, I'm monitoring that. development, especially since, you know, there's a chance he could be traded again, you know, depending on what the Lakers want to do with their roster. So, you know, this is not, this was not

a weekend where his value was boosted. Exactly. I think that's exactly the point. So I just got another Lakers release. Oh, great. What's it say about LeBron? Nothing. Oh, damn. Not mentioned. We'll keep waiting. What's this one on? This is another release about their. their second round pick. They traded for their second round pick earlier. And now they've signed him. Oh, great. He got two releases today. Wow. There will not be a release about the player option, just so people know, as we've talked about before, because teams don't do that. However, what I, well, hold on, hold on, hold on, that does not preclude Rob Polinka from putting out a statement about all this and ending all this.

So I'd like to see it. It'd be great. I'm waiting for it, too. Well, hey, LeBron's playing golf. a lot of coverage of that. I saw that. He was back in Ohio this week. I was trying to figure, I think I know of course he was playing. But I will say that I saw him play golf when he was with the heat. The heat had like a golf thing. And it was horrific. He has gotten he has gotten markedly better in the last decade as a golfer. I will. I will acknowledge. You can afford lessons, I think. Yeah, I'll acknowledge that I've never played a hole of golf outside of like put putt. I have done like top golf a couple times.

If I go back, I'm going to try left-handed. It's a shame because you could probably absolutely freaking move it off the tee with your body type. I'm a righty, but I did hit lefty in baseball. So maybe there's hope, but right-handed it, like there's swinging and missing going on. It's not good. Well, it happens. I'm just telling you, it's, you know, if you'd chosen golf instead of basketball, you might have been able to do something with your sports career.

Oh, you mean I didn't? I didn't do something. What I'm going to say? What I'm going to say? I'm just telling you, you could have hit it probably a ton. You probably could have absolutely routinely hit at $3.25. Based on my limited golf experience, I don't think I had a whole lot of it. All right.

Well, that's your opinion. All right. So today was the first day of the new league year. and there was dozens of transactions that were all lined up. They're still happening. But I will just say, as we're recording this, approaching 11 p.m. Eastern on Sunday night, doesn't mean that it won't happen tonight.

Doesn't mean whatever. But unless you guys have seen a release that I haven't seen or seen official data from the league, but I don't think the Jonas Valenshunis-Darjo-Sarge trade has actually happened yet. I don't believe that is among the transactions that have been announced yet, though. That doesn't mean much because it isn't technically the first day of the league year. That was a week ago, but it's the first day that the moratorium is over so transactions can happen.

So that, so like, as Bobby jokingly put out a tweet this morning, it's like there are 10,000 planes lined up at the runway to leave all at the same time. and you have to wait for everyone to go. Like, for example, this, you know, ridiculous 17 trade that was attempted to be made into a thing by people this week. That began with the Kevin Durant trade, which was on game seven of the finals, which feels like seven lifetimes ago, but it was two weeks ago today. So you have a whole lot of stuff, including a lot of draft trades that all happened before you get to any free agency stuff and any trade stuff that happened. So that's not necessarily, it's not done in chronological order. For example, I just mean there's, I just saying there's a million, I just mean there's a million things they have to do.

It doesn't, I don't mean the order. Okay. Well, maybe it'll happen tonight, but I mean, it was my way of getting into talking about Jonas Fallon Shunis. Yeah. I suppose that. So this is explaining to people. We could get a release in the next 60 seconds that that trade went through,

but it hasn't come through as of 11, almost 11 p.m. one Sunday night. And so there was this unique thing. And before we get into this, we are talking about a backup player here. No offense to Jonas, who, you know I have respect for guys who dominate international basketball, which he has. He's been his daughter for a long time in the least. He's had a great career. I am also, I would also, well, we'll get into this, I guess. I have thoughts on the actual impact he's going to have on the nuggets, but that's a, that's another thing. All right. But what I'm saying is we're not. We're not talking about transformational part of the league here, as we have a non-Lebron

James Janus Atenacumpo podcast on July 6th, okay? Sure. But we're talking about the biggest hole in the Nuggets roster for Joker's entire career. It is interesting that Jonas Valenzhenius within a day or two of being traded, which presumably the Kings didn't know he was thinking about leaving the NBA, or the Nuggets, didn't know he was leaving the NBA. Maybe they did, but I would be surprised. He is linked by multiple reports in Europe to be interested in offer for Panathinikos, which is

one of the large powerhouse teams in the Euro League, Olympiacos and Panathinikos are the two Greek legacy teams. Oh, do you know, pronunciation, Bon Temps? Oh, it just reminds me. It wasn't correct, but it reminded me of when McBan gave a swing at this on TV last week. No, no, it wasn't on TV. Oh, I was on the call. That's right.

I forget. I said like Pan Thanicos. It did. It wasn't Panathanos, which is what the team name is. But I enjoyed, I enjoyed Big Band's attempt. It was a game effort. Anyway, game effort. So, in fact, he, I believe it was even spotted in Athens.

Oh, he was. That is correct. So the interesting thing about this is, of course, he's under contract for another year. And his contract next year is non-guaranteed. That's one way you could get him to make sure he stays in the NBA. You could guarantee next year's $10 million. I'm sure he wouldn't. But let's spell it out, though. It's not up to him.

He can't break his contract. Like, people rules. That's right. So here, so this is, these are the rules on it. So Brian and I wrote about this in our piece on Friday, I laid this out. So if you're a player like Jonas Vounish and you want to go play, you're under contract and you want to go play in Europe. You want to go to Panathanaikos and play. You can't just, to McMahon's point, you can't just do that if you're under contract. So last year, Saseva Zankoff, who was a former Euro League MVP or one of the top players in Europe. He was on the Kings also, was traded to the Raptors. He forgo, he let go the rest of the money on his deal. I believe he was out $8 million. And he went back, I think, to play in Greece. I don't remember which team he went to play for. He was given a letter of clearance by the league saying, you can go back and play. It's okay. The Raptors were cool with him leaving. They took the money back. And then he left. So if you're for Jonas Valchunis, you can sign any agreement you want with Panathanikos. You can

go, hey, I want to go play for you guys. But to do that, the team has to say it's cool for him to leave. And then the NBA has to say, you're under contract, but we're clearing you from that so you can go back to Europe and play. By the way, it's the same goes the other way around. You are playing for Real Madrid and you want to sign with the nuggets. You got to get a letter of clearance. And the way you get that is by the NBA team sending money over there.

Yeah. Or the deal has a buyout in it and it's negotiate. Like last year, that's what happened with Gershon Yabaselli, who we'll probably talk about later. He was playing for Real Madrid and he agreed to a buyout so he could get out of his deal and go sign with the Sixers after he played well in the Olympics. Right. So, but the nuggets, at least ostensibly, which we're counting on, you know, part of the reason that the nuggets were getting such high praise for their off season was because they were able to acquire a well-reased. regarded backup center. And maybe he's not going to the Hall of Fame, but it's certainly a better regarded backup

center. Is it the best backup he's had since? Dude, it's the best backup of Joker's career, which... Well, what about when Yusuf Nerkich was there? The best backup of Joker's career. And also... He's not as good as... He's not as good as Nerkich was that.

In recent years. In recent years. Who was the problem? Nerkich was miserable and made everybody else miserable because Nerkich thought he was... totally disregarding DeAndre Jordan, but okay. You're a good player. I am. All right.

Anyway, so the Nuggets have their new backcourt. And, you know, I was told that, you know, and Mr. Yokic has not spoken on the record, at least in English about this that I've seen. But I was told through secondhand that Yokic was very pleased with the Nuggets moves. So they brought back his guy, Bruce Brown. Huge piece of the championship team. Hardaway is a nice shooter for the bench. And then, you know, this, like, Valentuna's isn't an all-star, but he's a, he average

10 and 8 and 19 minutes last year. Like, he can give him four. Yeah, he is absolutely. I do think he's an elite offensive rebounder. He has been. I do think it's very strange that they went out and traded for, when $400,000 into the tax, A, and B, traded for a guy who has no hope of being on the court in the playoffs. Like, it's kind of a problem.

Here's the problem. No hope. But I do think that you don't look at him as being a guy who is play eight and trust seven. I'm not sure he's in your trust seven. That's my point. No, Bantams. Here's the thing. They don't need the backup center in the playoffs because Joker plays 40 minutes and the other eight,

Aaron Gordon shifts to the five. What they need is for Joker to be fresh and not completely worn out by the time. Playoff start. Yes, I understand. You need a guy who can eat 14 to 16 minutes a night and they're not bleeding points like they've done Joker's entire career. Yes, I am. I am the biggest regular season rotation problem. I am aware of that.

I just find the combination of going $400,000 into the tax for a team that ostensibly did not want to be in the tax and getting a guy who is not, to me, going to make much of a difference, if any, in the playoffs, an interesting combination. I'm just going to school that here. You said ostensibly twice. That's a once a pod max word. Okay. And second of all, you've been about their depth for years now.

They address it and you b***ed about their depths. I still don't, I'm not sure they actually got much better. Well, I will say this. Yokich played 37 minutes in the regular season

this last year. It's the most he's played in his career. And he had to sit late in the season because he was just beat the hell up. So that trend has to reverse. Now, let me just say this. if they do agree to a buyout and Valanchunis does go to Europe

they would not only get out of the tax, yes, they would get access to their mid-level. Well, the part of this that we're leaving out, they would also get rid of Dario Sarich, who is absolutely not at this point an NBA player, and they would have got them off their books for free. Well, so here's the thing. I have not spoken anybody about this, but I've seen extensive reporting that this trade is going

through no matter what. So you may ask yourself the question, well, why would this trade go through? If Denver wasn't sure about this deal, why would this trade go through? And in the case of the Nuggets, they're getting rid of Dario Sarge, who did not have a role in their team last year, who's guaranteed $5 million this year. And they're saving $5 million for free in that case. Right. And if you're the Kings, you're trading a $10 million player for a $5 million player. So you're saving money to. And they've even been linked to be apparently trying to retrade Sarich already in other deals. And they needed that money to be able to sign Schrooter. So the flexibility that that created allowed them to sign Schrooter, which has been their biggest move of the all season. But as Shams reported today, the Nuggets have informed Valenciunus's reps that the franchise fully expects him to honor his contract.

They are not planning to buy them out. They're not planning to let them out. They're not planning to have anything but Valentunus B, Joker's backup center. Now, there has been speculation. It's not information. It's been speculation, hey, you know, with what you're talking about, are the nuggets lurking? Why isn't Horford signed?

Why hasn't Horford gone to the Warriors yet? Could he land in Denver? But all indications right now are the nuggets saying, hey, buddy, you're under contract with us and we need you. So we'll see at training camp to Valchunis, to be clear. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Yeah, so something to monitor. I do think Al Horford is one of the more interesting pieces that's still out there.

We have some restricted free agents that haven't signed. Jonathan Cominga being at the top of that list, though, the Warriors of all the teams in the NBA, the team that has had the least impactful offseason to this point has been the Warriors. But they have Cominga. But other than that, Horford, who has been tied to Golden State pretty significantly in the last week, Horford's a big domino. He's the biggest one left. Yeah, depending what happens.

It happens with Kamanga. Certainly if you're a contending team and you're trying to get a piece of- Al-Horford's the biggest domino left. John of the Kamik is an interesting long-term piece. Al-horford is the biggest domino left on the board. Okay. Yeah. Well, anyway, so that is something to point out.

Okay, so the first batch of player signings came in today, and Bobby sends us all the details. And this is one of the things that we do take a look at the ins and outs and all of the finer points of each contract to sort of see, you know, what's relevant going forward. Because sometimes when you hear, you know, contracts, you're like, oh, so-and-so signed for three years and something million. And then you, you know, get the numbers later. And it's like, actually it was only like a year guaranteed.

So some years they're interesting. Some years, they're less interesting. So there's a few, there's just a few things. First off, like DeAndre Aiton's second year of his contract is a player option. You know, he can become a free agent again in a year, which I actually think is a good thing for the Lakers because I think anything that incentivizes and activates Aiton to really press the gas pedal at all is a good thing. And the idea that he can play for free agency next year, I think that's actually a good thing. And if he opts out, then they'll deal with it. And stuff like Nikiel Alexander Walker, the four-year deal that he signed and the sign-in-trade

with the Hawks, the last year of that's a player option. He can get out of that. Stuff like that. I found it somewhat interesting that the Cavs gave Sam Merrill a three-year, $38 million contract, and it's fully guaranteed, no options at all. Four years, just for people listening. What did I say? Three?

I'm sorry. Yeah, four for 38, but fully guaranteed, no options. Yeah, so there's stuff like that. A real sign of faith in him. He's going to be a key piece for them next year. Yeah, the Lakers, I'm not sure what their strategy here is, but the contract that they gave Jake La Ravia and the contract that they gave Aiton do not have raises in them.

They're flat, which is an indication that they're keeping their eye on 2026. They're trying to, you know. Well, they have currently one player under contract, Nickwell, too. They have Jake Lavey under contract. and Jared Van dera bill under contract for next year. Right. So they're trying to maximize that, even if a agent picks up his option.

I know some people have been talking about the Lakers looking at 2027 as like a big free agent year. Well, their actions are indicating that they're also eyeing 2026. They've got to convince a certain dude to sign between now and next summer. So they should probably be focused on that. Oh, well, of course they are. But, you know, like they didn't, you know, everybody's got their story. You know, the LeBron's side is very clear that they didn't ask, you know, they didn't ask for extra years. I'm skeptical of that.

Whether they asked for it or whether they wanted it or two different things. But they expected it to be offered. Yes, right. So, you know, there's this whole term about offer and ask and all this stuff. Sure. Long story short, the Lakers don't have LeBron under contract for next year. and then the contracts that they have signed are protecting next year's money already.

So just note stuff like that. But, Bontemps, you noticed something that you mentioned earlier with Gerson Yabaseli that I think you went. Yeah, full credit to Stefan Bondi from the New York Post, O'Pow on the Netsbeat,

who reported this first, either today or yesterday. But Yabaseli took a couple hundred thousand dollars less on, he signed for the taxpayer is mid-level exception, which is supposed to be about $5.7 million. He took a couple hundred thousand less. He signed for $5.5 million this year, which the Knicks are bang up against the second

apron, again, like they were last year. You know, we've talked about Brock Oller, their cap guy before he does a great job, lining things up. And by taking that little bit of money less, I double-checked with Bobby Marks to make sure this is accurate. They now have the ability to sign an extra player to the vet minimum this off-season, which if he hadn't done that, they'd have to do some maneuvering to be able to do so. And for a Knicks team that, you know, getting Jordan Clarkson, you know, we'll see how much of an impact he can make.

I think Gabasselli is going to be really good piece for them. He had a really good year last year for the Sixers has gotten way, way better than his failed first stint in the league when he was in Boston after they dropped him in the first round back. I think it's 16. But I think it helped him a lot off the bench. But they've got minutes to play on the second unit. There's still some interesting players available for the minimum that they could potentially go get. And that gives them the ability to go sign an extra. guy, which could prove quite useful for the Knicks this offseason under Mike Brown.

And by the way, that contract that Yabaselli signed, which was two years and 11 million, he has a player option. So he can be a free agent next summer as well. Probably part of the give back on getting that done too. Yeah, I'm sure. So those are the kind of things that we're using about on July 6, 2025, to be honest with you. We're looking at these types of things. and there'll be more than that because not all the stuff are done. Yeah, this is only the first tranche of contracts coming through. Get a lot of emails next few days.

McMahon, in your corner of the world, something interesting passed through social media on Sunday. Maybe it was Saturday night, Sunday involving newly re-signed Dallas Mavericks point card, Kyrie Irving, which, looking at his content. by the way. He has a player option in year three, which we already knew. And it's for three years, $118.4 million. He will make 36.5 this year. He opted out of how much?

43. So he's taking roughly a $6 million reduction in the first year to add roughly $80 million in guarantee. Well, and more so the reason he took that reduction was to add DeAngel Russell to the roster. That was nice of them. I mean, that's why they needed him to take a pay cut. Did they need them? Did they need them to do that?

Did they need them to do that? I mean, I guess you can argue there were other ways that could have gone about it, but that's the way that. I also mean like what was the market for DeAngela Russell, really? Well, the market was taxpayer at me level because that's what he got. Clearly. All right, but Kerry was, something happened on social was a comment that he made during a, was it a Twitch session? I know he did. I believe so.

It was one, I think I don't know Twitch. I've never been on Twitch, but a streaming session, yes. Okay. Go for it. Go forth. Oh, you want me to read? No. All right.

I didn't realize that was the one who's going to be tasked with reading this. I don't have it. You are tasked. Okay. Okay. I don't have a ready to roll, but I will find it. and I will say that I've been informed that this is not like a fresh comment. He apparently made this comment weeks ago.

I don't know why the aggregation machine. I think I know why. I think because in the excitement over just the Mavericks in general and, you know, his contract in general, there was like some belief that I don't know who said it first, but there was like, you know, he could be back, you know, around. on the All-Star break or something like that. January is what Shams reported. Oh, Shams said that.

Okay. And not that he would be, but that he could be back as soon as if the goal, the goal was to be back by January, which always was like, man, that's a really optimistic goal. That's a nine-month window. And the people I talk to with Maver's like, hey, man, if he's back by the All-Star break, we'd be very happy with that. We'd feel good about that. But this is Kyrie.

He's asked if he'll be back by the playoffs. And he said, don't hold your breath on that. I don't want to make any predictions when I'm going to be back. I just want to be back 150,000 percent better. Me too. Yeah, that's tough math. So I'm taking my time right now to really get healthy. And, you know, listen, I think if, first of all, this is just Kyrie kind of like speaking

freely, right? It's not like he's not in like a press commerce mode. It's just kind of, you know, babbling as Bond Tim's might say. And I think, you know, if you ask him, his answer might change day to day. I would agree. And you know, hour to hour. But it is a, like, he's, he absolutely should take his time to make sure that he's completely healthy before he returns, however long that takes. And, you know, and for Jamal Murray, it, you know, very, very, very, very, you know, very, similar time frame in terms of an ACL, he missed the entire next season, including the playoffs. I'm not, you know, in no way am I trying to predict anything on Kyrie, but I'm just saying like, hey, you know, these things, there's the physical recovery, there's the mental hurdle that they've got to go to come back.

And I do think there's been a lot of presumption in the discussion about the Mavericks that Kyrie is going to be back to being Kyrie this season. season. Right. I'm seeing a lot of that. Like, oh, man. I mean, like, you know. We got asked about it. We got asked about it 17 different ways on TV last week. All three of us did. Right. Are the Mavericks contenders? There's kind of a, the fact that DeAngelo Russell is the only guard, first of all, the fact that DeAngelo Russell is the only guard on the roster, essentially at this point. Yeah, they did resign. He's healthy, too, but sure. I mean, Dante Exum is not an on-ball guy. I mean, he's a nice. role-playing defender at the guard spot, but he's not an on-ball guy. Can I interest you in Jaden Hardy? Like I said. The fact that DeAngelo Russell is the only guard on the roster, basically, it baffles me. It continues to baffle me that in February, when the Mavs made this trade, they then traded

Quentin Grimes for Caleb Martin, who couldn't walk, and they never went and got another guard then, which you could argue help play a role and what happened with Kyrie later, because he's playing the most minutes in the league over the next month. But they still haven't addressed it now, really. And now they're going to, in theory, go into next season with Cooper Flagg, running point. Jayes the kids talking about, like, I think that would be good for Cooper Flagg for a team that's allegedly got a three to four year window and we're a year two of it. That does not seem like the best way to try to have a contending team this year because they're

going to have to win games. Yeah. And one other thing on Kyrie, when you're counting up the months, which I'm sure people will, he did have the injury on March 3rd, bad day for the Mavericks. He didn't have the surgery until three and a half weeks later at the end of March. So, and look, there's much different reasons for that. But the key is he really didn't start his recovery until April. You basically got to count.

You got to start basically from April 1st, not for March 1st. Exactly. So even if you're going to count the optimistic window, just keep that in mind, you know. And look, the Mavs are a fascinating team. and if Kyrie can be back healthy, like if they're healthy in March, in April, they will be an interesting team.

I mean, I mean, they were going to be an interesting team last year. I mean, that's the craziest thing about the Luca trade to begin with is that, you know, we kept getting asked, like,

again, I'll refer back to TV last week. You can't get and asked about the Lakers and Mavericks roster. Like, the Mavericks roster is dramatically better than the Lakers roster. Like,

they got a bunch of good players. So, you know, like, it's like it's easy to forget because of everything that's happened. They were in the final. finals a year ago.

Like, it's not, it's not like they were bereft of talent at any point. So if they can get Kyrie back healthy, they are going to be awfully interesting. It just, again, it's why it's strange to me that we're sitting here in July and they did nothing to help the guard spot beside signed DeAngelo Russell. Well, and when you looked at the roster, you know, there was, like, it was reasonable to wonder, okay, hey, are they going to take some of this front court depth? and make a deal to address the backcourt. Are they going to trade Daniel Gafford for an offensive creator?

And they signed Gafford to an extension. It is an extension that makes him trade eligible immediately, but certainly seems that their plan is to move forward with Gafford, at least this season, which I get. Like, Derek Lively the Second is really good and has had some real durability issues. And then PJ Washington, you know, I'm not so sure PJ Washington is not starting alongside Cooper flag. Nico Harrison made a comment about, you know, Cooper coming in for his workout when he visited before the draft and PJ was there. And Nico said, you know, he looked over to PJ.

He said, you think he can play with this guy? PJ's like, oh yeah, I can play with him. And I think PJ, he's eligible for an extension next month. I think there's a pretty good chance. That gets done. So, you know, for the Mavericks to have any real hope of being a contender, they do need Kyrie back to being something close to himself. He's going to be turning 34 in March, coming back off a serious injury.

You know, I think, like, the most, like, realistic hope is that, hey, he can come back sometime around the All-Star break, that would give him a couple of months to kind of ramp up at the end of the regular season. You know, you can kind of steadily build him up in terms of minutes, you know, his rhythm, chip off the rust, and then hopefully come playoff time, you know, he's gotten himself to a point where he's playing at the kind of level that we're used to see him from him. But it's, you know, I just think to be fair to Kyrie, you can't like bank on that and count on that and considered a disappointment if he doesn't get back to being that guy this season. Fair enough.

All right. So as we watch the remaining things in free agency in addition to Al Horford, I'll just, Bontemps mentioned Quentin Grimes before. He's a restricted free agent with the 76ers, Josh Giddy, a restricted free agent with the Bulls, Cumminga, a restricted free agent with the Warriors.

There's one more significant one I'm forgetting. But we're not... The three most interesting. Yeah, we're not seeing anything get done there yet. Also, after we saw Jabari Smith Jr., whose contract came across today, too, he is five-year, $122 million, which is what it was to the penny extension. We haven't seen any of the other guys on their rookie deals coming, getting any of those done. And the only thing I'm going to say is, last week, something happened deep in the NBA,

in the NBA weeds that I think has chilled the market a little bit, a longer term, which is that after the projection was that the salary cap would increase by 10% next year, that it is now only projected to increase by 7%. Now, you may say, I mean, if you've stuck with us this deep into this particular podcast, you probably care about this. Now, you may say, well, 7%, 10%, whatever. But the thing about it is, is that right now is when the new media rights deal is coming in. This is the first year of it.

And the salary cap is only allowed to go up by 10% a year. And so the media rights deal is increasing by over two times. It's more than twice the increase is more than doubling it. And so there was like this belief that the NBA salary cap was. going to go up 10% for three straight years just to fit this in. And the reason it's limited to 10% by the way is because way back in 2016, the last time this happened, there was the famous cap spike where all of it came in. And the cap exploded in one year with the new media rights deal. Where the 73 win warriors got to sign KD. That's why. The famous cap spike.

This time there was planning. Right. So, but the fact that it came at 7% And so you may say, well, why did it come at 7%? Why not 10 if there's this new media rights deal? And the reason from what I have been told, and Bobby contributed to this, is that the regional sports networks, all of those that are struggling, you know, in baseball, it's been a big thing. But regional sports networks, uncertainty and lack of... It's not just, it's not uncertainty. It's the league, I mean, the answer is the league has lost a ton of money. Because the regional sports network have cratered across the board.

Yeah, you've got a bunch of these teams doing the do-it-yourselfers. Like the Mavericks, you know, their Bally's deal went up in smoke. The Mavericks used to get $90 million a year for their local rights deal. They're getting a fraction of that now. That's just $1 million last year. Right. That's just one of, there's probably half the league that is in a situation. like the Mavericks. Now, they weren't all making $90 million a year. Some of them were making less.

A lot of them were making less. The Mavericks had a really good deal. At least I think it was $90 million. But the point is, the league has lost a lot of money in that area, and they have not found ways to replicate it yet. And so because of that, the projections are in lower than they were originally going. Right. So initially, when teams were thinking about their next three years, Bobby talks about this a lot. is a front office, it's typical to think in three-year increments. And as they're negotiating these contracts, they were for a long time thinking that the cap was going to go up 30% the next three years, 10 this year, 10 next year, and 10 the year after that.

And now they're being told maybe only seven next year. And then when you think about that third year from now, like what if it's less? So I was talking to a team over this weekend that says they have revised all of their projections and they're now only assuming 5% correct. the next two years. Right. And just for just for hard math, right?

So people understand this. So if as this year, the cap went up 10%. So the tax or the salary cap was 154.6 million dollars this year, right? So if the cap had gone up by the full 10%, it would have been basically $170 million. So would have gone up about $15,000. million. Right.

Next year, the salary cap is at 165. So it's four or five million dollars less. And the luxury tax line is now almost 201 million flat. It would have been at 206.6.6. So when you look at when you're when you have teams trying to project forward on what they're doing and there's a lot of teams that are like that have a hard line of we're not going to go in the tax or we're not going to go much over the tax, five and a half million is the taxpayer's mid-level exception.

That's Gershon Yabasele, right? Or if you have teams that are banging up against the second apron, that's the difference between adding a player like that or not, or making a trade or not. So that's where this stuff compounds and matters, because all those things are tied to how much the cap goes up. And if it goes up less than people think, it sends a lot of stuff over to the side from where it was supposed to be.

Okay. But, like, Powell Bencaro, that's one where you figure, that's like going to be a, you know, soon as they can, boom, it's done type of deal. Like, are they negotiating? How can they? Well, on the case, the full boat. I suspect we're going to hear about that pretty soon. Well, the only thing that makes sense is if they're negotiating, hey, if they're holding

a firm line on a player option. I suspect we're going to hear about that pretty soon. Yeah, that has been floated. But beyond the Ben Carrels of the world, you know, like if you're thinking about, you know, what you're going to sign, you know, like if you're the thunder, you've been, you've spent a bunch of time computing how you're going to fit Jalen Williams and Ched Holmgren into your, into your planning with Shagosso and Alex Caruso and other guys that you have.

Well, their situation actually works a couple different ways because like their extensions are going to be a little bit smaller than they were going to be because they're going to go online next summer in what's a little bit less money environment. than you would have expected. Same for, you know, potentially down the road, Devin Booker, whenever he gets done sometime in the next few days. His extension will be a little bit lower than it was expected. Again, to put hard numbers on this, you know, for months now,

we've been talking about how Devin Booker was in line to get a two-year, $150 million extension. And there was that real simple, man, $75 million a year. Like, you know, richest, now it's Shegills and S Alexander, who's actually beyond that. but the revision of that salary cap number, Bobby said it's actually not going to be two in 150. It's going to be two and 138 maybe.

So a $12 million difference in that two years. So anyway, I just want to point out that's one of the things that's potentially, that staggered the league a little bit. Yeah. Well, it definitely made my eyebrows go up when it came over because that was not at all what people were thinking. You know, and then for guys like Holmgren and J-dub, like there's this super max escalator conversation as well.

And, you know, like Evan Moby is an example of a guy who there were super max escalators, but it wasn't like if you're eligible, you get full boat. I forget all the different clauses that were in there. But, you know, based on how you qualified, he was going to get, you know, certain percentages of it. He got defense player at the year, so he got all of them for all 30. But for all NBA, it was, it was this tiered thing. I don't remember the exact numbers either. Right.

went up by a team that he was on. Well, and, you know, J. Dubb just came off an all-MBA season. Like, certainly, he's obviously a candidate for that. And you've got two guys already off the board next year, and Jason Tatum and Tyre's Alberton, and frankly, a third in Kyrie Irving just off the top of my head, who are all not going to be eligible, who typically would have a shot at.

Yeah, and Chet's going to be, you know, if he can stay healthy, I think he has a chance to be in the all-MBA conversation. and he certainly has a chance to be in the defense player of the year conversation. As great as Lou Doord is, and he was first team all defense this year, Chet, if he stays healthy, will be their best defense player of the year candidate. Yeah, so interesting little tidbit worth monitoring. Who knows what will happen this week in the NBA? We really didn't get a lot of action over the weekend.

That's typical of the league over the 4th of July when it falls over a weekend. People need a little bit of a breather. Also just not that much business left at this point, really. Is McMahon. Breaking news. The Mavericks just officially signed Russell. Oh, good. I'm glad.

So, yeah, that's big. All right. Thank you very much to Jackson, who's back from his break. And thank you to McMahon and Bontemps. Oh, by the way, tickets still available. Oh. Saturday night coming up. Hoop CollectiveLive.

com. 6 p.m. Pacific at the MGM Grand, the Brad Garrett Comedy Club. McMahon will be there. Bontemps will be there What Bontemps is doing this next week is pretty remarkable. We won't give it away. We'll talk about it later. But Bontemps has got an interesting

schedule this next week. And special guests, right? Special guests. That's true. All right. The thousands. Yeah, the IT department. That's right. Another ones.

That's right. You can, well, I'm not going to say that. All right. Thank you. No, I was just going to Say somebody else is going to be there, but then I decided not to say it. That's all. Nothing to do with the IT department.

Okay, good. All right. Thank you very much for watching listening to The Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.