Halford & Brough in the Morning - Is Tanking Damaging The NBA Product?

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

In hour two, Mike & Jason discuss the dilemma of tanking in the NBA with ESPN's Bobby Marks (1:25), plus the boys answer some listener questions about the Canucks and also look around the NHL (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brough, SportsNet 650. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by up to 80% with no up front fees. This is it today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Bobby Marks, our NBA insider from ESPN, is going to join us in just a moment here. The kickoff hour.

Two, hour two is brought to by Jason Homnock at Jason. dot mortgage. If you love giving the banks more your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason.com. We're coming to live from the Kintech Studio, New Year, new opportunity for comfort with orthotics from Kintech. Guests on Sportsnet 650. Call in on the ABLE Auctions hotline, email sales at abel auctions.ca to get your business assets sold and your building cleared. Our next guest covers the NBA for ESPN. Bobby Marks joins us now. Bobby Marks joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sports 9-650.

Morning, Bobby. How are you? I'm good, guys. How are we doing? Great. Great to have you on the program again. This is awesome. Because we are, and we're delayed in this one, the tanking story. The hot button issue in the NBA right now is many, many teams that are out of contention for the postseason try to race to the bottom to get a better chance at a high draft pick for what is a loaded 2026 draft class. But to give our listeners a sense of how hot button an issue this is, Bobby, how big a problem is tanking in the NBA right now?

Well, I mean, I think it's kind of like the perfect storm right now. I think this is kind of the earliest that we had seen it in a long time. Usually it's kind of, you know, teams jockeying, whether it be in March and April. The lottery odds have certainly discentivized, you know, as far as bonding me out, just because you get the number one pick in the draft. Going into the lottery does, I mean, you always get the number one pick. I mean, Detroit's falling back to five multiple times here. I think what we've seen, and you've mentioned it, is that this is potentially a really good draft class that's going to come out.

There are certain teams out there that have picks that are owed to other teams if it falls outside of a certain range. for example, Utah is a team that goes to Oklahoma City to fall out of the top eight. So there's a priority to retain that pick. I think, you know, what's probably drawn the eye or why the tanking issue in the forefront certainly is that, you know, a game that happened, I guess, it's probably over a month ago now, where Utah rested their starters in the fourth quarter and wound up losing a game in Orlando. They did the same thing the next night in Miami and actually won the game and wound up getting fined $500,000 because of that. And that's kind of ignited certainly a debate as far as, you know, tanking and, you know, the draft and, you know,

what rules are going to come into place that dissentivized teams from doing that. I would say this. The system that the NBA has set up allows you to do this. I mean, that's the reality. You know, when you have a system that, in. incentivizes losing because that's how you can build your roster by getting a really good draft pick. Teams are going to kind of continue going about that now that's the matter of to what lengths. We've seen, you know, Washington go out and trade for two players that I doubt will see this year.

And Trey Young and Anthony Davis, Utah, traded for a player that's hurt. There's Chicago has traded for multiple players who are hurt. I think they're one in 13 in their last 14. games. So there's always ways to go about doing it. And unless the league is going to come in and put a different system in place, how the lottery works, we'll

continue seeing it here. But I do think the league has, I think they're serious about making change. There was a call last week with the commissioner and the general managers that got somewhat heated during that, you know, the commissioner basically said that, you know, change is coming

just a matter of kind of what the remedy is going to be. Is there any way that the commissioner would go with the, I suppose you'd call it the nuclear option and just be like, no more draft? No, I don't see it. I don't see it. I just don't. Why, you got to get the player association on board too. So I don't see it. I think it would basically be like NIL on steroids. I mean, I don't know how you do it. I mean, I guess you could say like, hey, every team has based on where you would be picking. you have a salary slot. But what's to say that, for example, Cooper Flag would have said, you know what, I don't want to go to Dallas, you know, and I'm willing to take $9 million less and go play

for Oklahoma City. So, yeah, I don't think the, I don't think the nuclear options is going to go there. I do think there's going to be, you know, whether it be, you know, wins counting more in the second half of the season. So if you're a lottery team that you'll have better. chances, you know, to get a top pick based on if you win more games and everything. So I think there'll be some changes there. Maybe some adjustments to the pick protections here.

I do think, I think you have to be careful a little bit, too, though, because, listen, the 27 and the 28 drafts are not that great. We're projected not to be that great. So you don't want to do anything that's dramatic. That's going to have some unintended consequences long term. The other thing, too, is tough, is, like, you do want to help. the legitimately bad teams. Sure.

And you don't want to create a system where there could be a good team or a mediocre team that gets the first overall pick too often while a team that has been like, we're doing our best here. Yeah. And we're going to get screwed. It's really tough. What measures do you think they will consider? Well, that's a good question. I mean, like, you know, for example, like Indiana is an interesting situation because here's a team that was one game away from winning the NBA championship.

They lose Tyrese Halliburton in game seven with the Achilles. They're sitting in the bottom three because they've had a ton of injuries here. And they potentially could get a top four. They keep their pick if it's top four, five to nine, it goes to the clippers. If they get a top four pick and then you add Halliburton back, I mean, that's almost. like kind of what happened with San Antonio, I guess, back in 96 with Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Yeah.

So that's, you know, we've heard some scenarios where maybe if you, if you reach the conference finals that even if you, you know, suffer injuries the next year that you can't draft in the top four or something like that. Or maybe if you're, if you pick again, you can't pick in the top four consecutive years and everything like that. But yeah, there's a lot of different. You know, there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of tweak this here. There are certain teams that have jumped in.

You know, San Antonio's built the roster with Victor and Stefan Castle and Dylan Harper because they've gotten lucky in the lottery. I mean, the ability to move up to kind of where they were originally were going into, in there to get a, you know, top franchise player in Victor. And, you know, when you talk to teams, and I knew that, you know, Ryan Smith, the owner of the jazz kind of got mad at me when I said this is that teams teams will write a blank check to get at the number one pick or number two pick and fines I'm in unless you know let's start getting your draft picks taken away

that's a little bit of different story because you know how much that how much has Victor Wenbanyama created to the valuation of the San Antonio Spurs I don't know million an extra billion dollars maybe yeah sure you ever put that team up for sale So that's why when you're looking at the draft, the draft matters, it's one of the probably bigger ways to build a roster outside of probably traits. So I'm glad you brought this up

because I did want to ask. I alluded to it earlier in the show that there was a bit of a back and forth between you and Utah. Well, one way. It was a one-sided thing. I just kind of sat on the sidelines there. To be fair, you did.

That's right. Yep. Go ahead and explain it for us. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't, you know, I had said earlier in a week, And it really wasn't just the opinion of myself, but it was an opinion of a lot of teams that, you know, based off that game I had mentioned that, you know,

listen, Utah's screwing around a little bit with the integrity of the NBA when you're resting players down the stretch of games and everything. And that certainly caught the attention of jazz fans, not in a good way, I would say. And then they get fined, I think it was that Thursday night. And I said, I said, listen, owners will write a blank check for to get a top pick unless the NBA is willing to take away roster resources the system is going to say it's a drop in a bucket for billionaires i mean it really is

yep and ryan got upset with that rightfully so and he has the right to you know to um to do that and um you know and so that kind of draw you know a little bit of a you know uh i guess from him uh i guess he was upset for what i said and everything but i was just really i would have said the same thing if uh my son was running the jazz too it didn't it just because that's how as i said that's how the system is as far as it allows you to try to get the best pick possible. And by doing that is by losing. I know you can't get into his head,

but was he upset about the suggestion that they were tanking? Like now you're saying the quiet part out loud or that, you know, $500,000 isn't it a drop in the bucket? I was just really confused because when I saw what you wrote, I didn't really have that much of an issue. That kind of seemed straightforward. I think what he was saying, and I went back on TV the next day, said it. I think he said I had amnesia too, which I, you know, then I'm thinking,

wait a minute, what was you referring to there? But I, it's hard to argue that, right? Like, you might. No, I, I said on TV two weeks ago or a week ago during trade deadline, like, when we're talking about Janus in Milwaukee, and I said, listen, if you're, this is when Janus was hurt and Milwaukee was really struggling and they're old and they haven't been able to build a draft, I said, if you're in Milwaukee, probably the best thing to do is probably put Janus on a shelf and get the best pick possible. And I said that, and I came back on after Ryan had commented, and I said, I said it. I'll own up to it and said, I'm part of the system, right? I'm encouraging you to put players on the shelfier. So I think, listen, I think Ryan is very protective of the jazz, of his hockey

team, of the state of Utah in general, and he has the, and he has the right to do so. And I have no ill feelings as far as, you know, as far as what he said and everything. We're speaking to Bobby Mark's ESPN NBA analyst here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. So the big picture thing here, Bobby, is how it's damaged the product. Covering the NBA as close as you have, especially this year, I'll just say how bad is the product gotten? Because there's a lot of complaints about the quality of the regular season right now. I mean, listen, there's probably a third of the teams that are probably not watchable right now. I mean, it's the reality.

And a lot of it is, like, there's so many injuries. And you look at where Sacramento is right now. I think they're one in 14 in the last 15 games, and they've got four players that are basically shut down with injuries here. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's damaged to product a little bit here. You know, there's certainly, there's a lot of great stories, though. You know, it's certainly San Antonio and Detroit and some of these other teams out there. Cleveland's been a really good story of Lake Boston, of course.

But, yeah, there is a, you know, there is a third of the league that is basically kind of, you know, as I said, jockeying for lottery position right now. We don't, some nights guys are playing, some night guys are not. I just read a story that, um, that Larry Marketing in, um,

in Utah is injured and the league is sending out there, like an independent doctor to make sure the MRIs are clean. You know, like, like, I think you get into, um, I think you get into a little bit of slippery slope as far as,

uh, with when the league has to be a big brother on everything here. When they're analyzing, okay, why is a guy not playing? playing in the third quarter when he started the first quarter and you're analyzing game and rotations and you're finding teams like that. I think you run into some trouble with that here.

But yeah, I mean, it's a hot button. And as I said, it's probably just because it started a lot earlier than we usually see in March and sometimes towards the end of early April here. Is the NBA ever going to come down on the L.A. Clippers for the Kauai Leonard contract situation? Well, eventually, I think there's got to be a resolution, right? I'm sure they're paying a lot of money to a law firm to do that investigation here. And we'll hear one way or another.

I mean, you certainly hear whispers as far as, you know, what could happen or maybe what might not happen and everything like that. But yeah, I would think, I mean, we're almost into March. So we're, what are we six weeks away from the playoffs starting? I would think there's a, there's a. resolution here as far as where which way it goes. It's going to be fascinating, you know, for a clipper team that went out and got a lot younger at the deadline and they added a lot of more draft picks.

It's something they didn't have. Kauai's going into the last year of his contract. He's played at a high level. I've never seen a situation like this. Besides, I think it was when I first started in league with the Joe Smith stuff in Minnesota. People aren't familiar with that. They should go look at it where there was basically a side deal. And the league put the hammer down on Minnesota.

Now, I'm not saying that's going to have with the clips, but I think if there's going to be penalties and if they're found, you know, to doing harm to the league with salary caps or convention, I think it's going to be something of significance, whether it be suspensions or loss of draft picks. Hard to say with what happens with Kauai with that. But yeah, I do think there's going to be, you know, eventually some type of resolution here.

Is the one thing that they have to prove, or the top thing they have to prove what Balmer knew, the owner of the clippers, and that might make it even more complicated because he is such a rich and influential figure. Yeah, I mean, I think, listen, I think you've got to prove that there's,

that there is actually salary cap circumvention and there's, that there was money funneled to Kauai Lenter outside of the, you know, the salary that he's earned there. It's, the circumstances of it, It's just so peculiar because this is a player that this was not, you know, going into free agency of like 2000, was it 2019 free agent class. This is when he was already on the roster and he was hurt. So I'm going to think like it doesn't make sense as far as to basically funnel money and give him extra incentive when he was already on your team and everything. And he was hurt.

It wasn't like you were trying to convince him to stay and everything. So as I said, the facts will come out eventually here. You hire a high power law firm to go out and find information. And I'm sure they've dug up a good enough, and we'll see what happens. Which team is the biggest problem franchise currently? Is it the – you could go off the board here, but I'll give you three. New Orleans, Memphis, or Portland? Well, Sacramento, you could probably put a fourth.

Are they a problem, too? I thought they got their arena. I'm out of the loop. Oh, I imagine. I thought it's probably just as a basketball organization. in general. Yeah, I think, you know, it's just a good question here. You know, Portland, as far as with the ownership change, you know, Seahawks too, of course,

is going to be going through that with the, you know, the Paul Island estate there. That's a big thing. I think I think certainly focus on, you know, the arena and then you get the ownership. New Orleans just based on, I was just there in last week there, kind of like treading, you know, fan support is average, average at that. Who is the third team, you mentioned? Memphis. Oh, Memphis.

Yeah, Memphis. Listen, Memphis is a unique situation just because you've traded, you know, certainly Jaron Jackson and Desmond Bain, and they've tried to trade John Morant the face of the franchise who's beloved in Memphis. And you've got to be careful when you're, when you hit the rebuild in certain, you know, certainly in a city like that there that you don't take major steps back because you'll lose, you'll lose that fan support. Seattle and Vegas, do you expect them to get teams this offseason?

I would think expansion is going to, you know, the commissioner has already said it's going to pick up. I would think they're the two favorites. I would think so I think certainly Seattle is, I don't think how it can't be a favorite. We went through a taught a class two weeks ago in L.A. during the All-Star Week, and we went through an expansion draft process, and it was amazing what our students were able to kind of put together, you know, 10 different teams. was one of them, you know? I mean, everyone forgets about how Vancouver once had a team and should still have a team and everything

like that. So, I would think, yeah, I think Seattle is and certainly I have probably Vegas and then what does that mean to realignment, who moves to the east. So I do think that when we get through the summer here, I think they'll probably be you know, full steam ahead as far as

where we see expansion. I should have taken a class like that in university. I was doing boring things like accounting. It was one of it. Today is the NBA expansion class. Sweet. The best part of it was is that, and they weren't even these were teenage, college students,

even adults who took this week-long class in LA. They had to build the brand the team and put a name and a logo and colors and uniforms and jerseys and has like, I love this. I want to buy some of these t-shirts and stuff. And it was a really cool exercise. So the point is, and this is the beauty of social media

that I posted some of the pictures on there. And people actually thought it was like a real thing. And I was like, no, this was just an exercise here. So it shows you the power of social media how it can kind of persuade people in a different way. We got to get Bobby more on more often. This was awesome, man. Always great talking with you. We covered a lot of good ground today.

Hopefully we can do this again real soon. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks. Yeah, have a good one. Bobby Marks, ESPN NBA analyst, former assistant general manager of Brooklyn. He's a pretty sharp guy when it comes to the business of the league, having covered as closely as he does. and he can give you answers on pretty much

every single thing you need to know about. There are a lot of pressing questions facing the NBA right now because the product on the court is, I'll say it, it's miserable. I watch enough basketball on a regular basis where if you're not watching 15 teams and you can pick them off real easy,

the rest of the games are kind of unwatchable. I mean, there could be a classic playoff series this year with San Antonio in Oklahoma City if those two teams were to be. meet in the Western Conference finals. Yep. But the problem's not the playoffs. And the problem hasn't been the playoffs in a while.

The problem is the regular season. And what they're discovering and what you as hockey fans might want to pay attention to is the calls are getting louder and louder to reduce the number of games in the regular season from 82 to 70 because there's so many injuries in the NBA right now. But will owners ever accept that? That is a lot of revenue that they just say, bye, bye. The flip side is that they are wondering how much revenue. knew they're losing. We have so many star players are going down with injuries, which the league is pointed to with the amount of research that they've done.

It's directly tied to the workload that these guys have during the regular season. Yeah. And maybe with fewer games, they could raise ticket prices. And what did we see this year in the National Hockey League? And I know it was a condensed schedule and it was a unique year, but injuries were rampant through the first half of the NHL season. Okay, I got to do the one to watch brought to you by Limitless AV before we go to break. Limitless AV, of course, is Vancouver's most trusted audiovisual integration. experts. I'm going to go to Los Angeles where in the second of a back-to-back, the Evanton Oilers are going to play tonight. It's another 7.30 start for Connor McDavid and the Oilers. I'll set this tone for this one. We talked a lot in the intro about

the Oilers and that awful loss they had last night in Anaheim to the Ducks where they blew two, two-goal leads and then a one goal lead late to lose six-five. Tonight, in the second of a back-to-back, they take on a Los Angeles Kings team. I don't know if you saw this one yesterday. Who's their backup goalie right now? Ingram? Ingram came in last night to replace Jari. So he might start tonight.

He might. The Kings in Artemmy Panarin's debut also blew a lead to a shell, a husk of the Vegas Golden Knights. All the Vegas Golden Knights start players weren't playing because they were participating in the Olympics. I think they were missing five regulars last night. Okay. And they still managed to get a win against the King.

So the Oilers, having just lost a really bad game in Anaheim, now goes to the Olympics. to an LA team that is smarting from a pretty disappointing loss last night. So there is your one to watch. Oilers Kings, the late night game tonight, 7.30 puck drop from L.A. It is your one to watch. Brought to you by Limitless A.V. Specializing in seamless video conferencing

solutions and hybrid workspaces. Book your personalized tour of their experience center today at limitlessavie.ca. Okay, we got an open segment on the other side. Randip is going to join us at 8 o'clock so we can talk about last night's Canucks game, potential Tyler Meyer. trade and look ahead to the Canucks

next game, which is Saturday in Seattle. We've got a few NHL stories that we want to get into on the other side, but feel free to text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650 650 with any questions or comments. We don't

really want to get into what happened yesterday on the show. Like, we're kind of done with that. But I understand a lot of you aren't. What happened yesterday? The Parker Berges hit. The Parker Burgess hit. Right. Right. It made a lot of waves. Very controversial. Yes, I know. Very controversial. His remarks on Michael Buble were

questionable at best. You put Bubley in a box. It was, you know, so feel free to text in on anything sports-related, hopefully not. You know what. You're listening. It's the Simpsons thing. And I understand I've already answered all the questions about my hair. All the hands go down. Thank you. You're listening to the Alfred Impruff show and SportsNet 650. It's Kinnock Central on SportsNet 650. From exclusive interviews to insider scoops and post-game breakdowns,

we've got it all. Tune in weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. on radio and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 7.32 on a Thursday, happy Thursday, everybody, Halford, Brubbs, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brub of the morning is bratsby by Sands and Associates. Do you have credit card debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by 80% with no upfront fee. visit them today at sands that's trustee.com. We're an hour or two of the program with the midway point of the show.

Hour two. It's about Jason Homanoch at Jason. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason. Dot mortgage. So I watched quite a bit of hockey yesterday. Oh, yeah.

I watched Toronto and Tampa Bay. Then I watched the Canucks game, and then I flipped over and watched the end of the Ducks Oilers game. We've already talked about the Canucks game. If you miss that, download the podcast. And also we're going to talk to Randeep coming up in about half an hour. We're going to talk about the game again. We already talked about the Oilers game and their issues there defensively.

The Toronto Tampa Bay game was significant for both those teams. Tampa Bay looks incredible right now. and they are winning at an unbelievable clip. And I don't know if anyone watched the game, but they score such nice goals. They didn't score on their power play, but their power play was incredible to watch with the puck movement,

how quickly they can develop chances. And the Leaf's goaltending was actually quite good last night. Tampa Bay ended up winning that game four, too, but the score could have been much bigger. I still, like, there's one player, I know I'm kind of probably in the minority here. I've never respected Kuturov's game enough. Like, he is just, he is an absolute magician with the puck. And he's one of the guys that I really enjoy watching. And the lightning, and I know we all.

all talk about Colorado being the heads and tails favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year. And I'm not saying they aren't. But Tampa Bay is probably number two. Like I would take Tampa Bay over Dallas or Minnesota or Vegas or Edmonton. Carolina is another team that I think people wonder if they can finally get over the hump this year. but what Tampa Bay has done to go 38, 14, and 4. Like they've got the Atlantic pretty much wrapped up at this point. They're eight points up on number two Montreal,

and they've got a game in hand on the habs. They've got a plus 61 goal differential. And I don't know what happened with the lightning narrative. Maybe people just got tired of them. You know, they're like, yeah, they're good. And they've also, they haven't made a deep playoff run, relatively speaking for them for a while. But man, they are a good team. So the story, this is interesting.

And by interesting, I mean, it's going to be a tire fire that will blaze throughout the day. In the aftermath of the loss, the narrative coming out of Toronto was that the Leafs may finally get that trade deadline clarity that they needed. because last night's loss, if there was any question whether they were going to make the playoffs last, or make the playoffs last night solidified it. Now, I think that was a little too reductive, but it was one of the headlines.

It was on Sportsnet.com. And they looked like the second best team by a wide margin yesterday. Well, things took a turn this morning, and I'm seeing this blaze on social media right now, in an article that got posted about an hour ago to the Toronto Star, website.

Oh, no. Damien Cox, a contributing columnist. Oh, no, double no. Has an opinion piece titled Austin Matthews made his choice seemingly putting Trump ahead of the Maple Leafs.

The article then goes on to say that Matthews chose to represent the U.S. Of course, he served as the captain of the U.S. team that won gold at the Olympics. and enjoy in all the post gold medal festivities, including the partying in Miami and the appearance,

the state of the union address, ahead of his responsibilities as Maple Leaf's captain. He played last night. Ah, yes, he sure did, Jason. He played 23 minutes last night. Now let me read the part of the article, which addresses that. Oh, okay.

Looking tired, going pointless, and taking a lazy third period penalty. He had an assist. as the sloppy Leafs lost their first post-Olympic game four to Tampa Bay made the optics even worse. Okay. Well, that's a Damien Cox column. I would like to say, because I have merely read these remarks on the air, it is in no way a validation or promotion of the opinion stated. However, it would be neglectful of me, not to mention that this is out there. And it is.

And some people will agree with it. And some people will absolutely agree with it. Yeah. I am not one of those people. However, I would be remiss as my job as a big J. Journalist, not to point out that there are our opinion pieces and one of the most prominent newspapers in the country right now,

lambasting Austin Matthews. And I knew this was coming. Oh, yeah. I knew this was coming. And I don't think it will be the last. It's a low hanging fruit. Well, I'm very curious to see the reception that Brady Kachuk gets in Ottawa.

Very curious to see what's going to happen there. because right now there are people with the knives out ready to skewer. I knew Matthews was going to get hit with this. Matthews came back and played. If he hadn't played, the,

you know, rhetoric would have been ratcheted up even more notches. But he went out and played, and as you mentioned, would he have 23 minutes in an assist? Looking slow, though, apparently. The whole Leafs team looks slow. Slopped mentally in the third period.

Anyway, that's out there right now. Did you know, though, the lightning? are, here's the stat that NHL posted. Do people know how well, they are 21 and 1 in their last 22 games?

Just one regulation loss in their last 22 games. That is absolutely wild. I was going to point out something about the Leafs because... Is it Austin Matthews? It wasn't. Oh.

They sent out, they sent out one of those letters to the to the season ticket holders. And it said the season for the Leafs so far has been a series of ups and downs and unfortunately with a number of key injuries that affected the team.

Oh, they borrowed something from the Canucks. They blamed injuries. We are not currently in the position we had anticipated, but that is professional sports. Being able to witness and be a part of the passion and commitment that Leafs Nation has for this team is an honor and we will not stop until we deliver a championship

to our loyal Leafs fans in the city of The Toronto. Okay, that's kind of the boilerplate. It's unexpected. Yeah. Tell me if this part is a little bit weird or unusual. I'm not saying it wrong, but tell me if it's weird to include this part and what do you think it means. Okay. Okay. We understand this team's strengths as well as the areas we need to address and we know that with the support of our fans, we will achieve this ultimate goal together. While we always strive to be as open as possible, I know that you understand in the world of professional. sports, protecting competitive advantages is paramount and limits our ability to reveal team strategy until the appropriate time. That was weird. That's weird, right? That's weird.

Everyone listening? That's weird. That's weird to put that out there. I'll read it again. Okay. I know that you understand in the world of professional sports, protecting competitive advantages is paramount and limits our ability to reveal team strategy until the, you know, the appropriate time. So is this

a allusion to Chris Drury and the New York Rangers and what they've done where they are very open and transparent that they're having a fire sale and we're ready to move on from certain guys? Are the Maple Leaf suggesting that they don't want to diminish their negotiating power by telling everyone what they're up to?

Is that what we're taking away from this? Or do you think they're like, we don't know? It's like you don't know, do you, Homer? No, sir. All of those are like we're not going to put because they are in a very awkward position because they still do have some very good players including William Nealander

and the aforementioned Austin Matthews but they don't have enough depth they've got a guy in like John Tavares who's been a good player for them and statistically is having an okay season for sure but he's getting older. It doesn't have many years left. Their blue line needs to be

completely redone. I don't know how easy that's going to be. I don't know if Chris Tannav's going to play anymore. Oliver Ekman-Larsen is certainly getting older. So I

wonder if they are I wonder if they do have a plan and if they do are they going to like, are they going to do something big? Because the predictable thing for the lease would be kind of what the Canucks have attempted over the last two years.

Not right now. What they've attempted. And it's just like, well, we've got a couple of good players and we'll just try and keep getting it and keep getting better. Remember the like the brick by brick approach? Brick by brick. Row by row. How did that brick house end up, by the way, in Vancouver?

Kind of fell apart. A little bit. They ended up using the wrong type of bricks, I think. By the way, on the subject of the Vancouver Canucks as we're jumping around here, there is a slight approach. update, slight update to the Tyler Myers situation. So for those that missed it yesterday, Tyler Myers was out there for warm up ahead of the Vancouver Canucks game, returned from the Olympic break against the Winnipeg Jets.

But that was it for Myers. Myers did not play on Wednesday night against the Jets for what the club called roster management purposes. In layman's terms, it's because there's a trade in the hopper. And right now, it's up to Myers and the agent, J.P. Perry, to decide. if he's going to waive his no trade clause and accept this deal that the Canucks have apparently already received and presumably would like to move ahead with.

Ryan Rashog out of Edmonton, one of the teams that I think both of us thought might be interested in acquiring the services of Tyler Myers has put on Twitter this morning that he does not believe that the Edmonton Oilers are one of the teams in the mix. And that's really good. That's the next part of this right now is figuring out which team wants to acquire Myers.

And then, of course, what they're willing to. willing to pay for his services. But Edmonton sounds like they are not the team that has made the offer for Tyler Myers. Do you think the Leafs could do something significant? Like, would they consider trading a guy either Nealander or Matthews? Would they consider doing that? I mean, that's the type of forward thinking, except your situation that, you know, we've had our chance.

it didn't go well for a, or, you know, like, we had a decade of being a pretty good team, making the playoffs, there were seasons where we were certainly a cup contender, and we all know what happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now they're in a situation where they've got a few good players left, for sure. And there's a, like, you know, a young player like Matthew Nyes. That's, you know, a good complimentary player.

But Morgan Riley on the back end, his best years are behind him and he gets a lot of criticism there and I already mentioned some of the aging defensemen like I feel like sometimes these GMs just take the role of like well I'm just going to do my best and maybe we'll sneak into the playoffs and it's just

I mean in some ways it's noble you know we just talked about tanking in the NBA but in other ways you're like hey why don't you just get real with your situation and try and get a haul of futures, not by trading the obvious ones where you're going to get a third round pick or a fourth round pick,

but like, be aggressive and trade some of your stars. I'd love to see it happen. I don't think it will happen, and I think it speaks to the ultra-conservative nature of most of the general managers. And the fear of losing the star power for marketing purposes in some ways?

Like your Bradtree Living, you came into this job, and it hasn't exactly been a series of home runs for you, to put it mildly. I mean, I would say that he hasn't, in terms of Canadian general managers, he hasn't done as poor of a job as Bowman's done in Edmonton, but he hasn't been great for Brad Tree Living. They haven't loved the work. And he already saw one piece of the puzzle leave in Marner.

And to be fair to Tree Living, I think his hands were a little bit tied with that one. He tried to move Marner. I think that decision to keep Marner ultimately went back to Shanahan Yeah You know we were going back a couple years ago

Marner wasn't interested in going to Carolina That was kind of the one Yeah yeah yeah right so I mean Again they probably wasn't ultimately interesting In coming back to Toronto Yeah so they tried to they tried to move I would say too late But I don't put that on

Too late But I'll put it on Too late I'll put it on your living If he had The boldness And the brass ones to It kind of adopt all the ideas that you're suggesting.

I think it'll be a master stroke for him because at the very least you could say did I do something to alter the course and alter the path as opposed to just accepting my fate that I got to go down it. Like the Leafs are, they're kind of screwed. They don't have a first round pick this year. They don't have a first round pick next year.

We've, certainly in Vancouver, we've looked at situations. Like the Canucks, in around 2014, right? When they fired Mike Gillis, they should have looked at that situation and said, well, and we still got some good players, including the Cedians, although they were getting older.

But they should have looked at that situation and said, look, we are screwed. In terms of being a cup contender, and then just really, really lean into that. And it's a lot easier to do, I think, when you've had the success, you just put it out there and you say, listen, we had our chance, we came really, really close. But now the NHL, this league, it comes in cycles.

And sometimes, the good times are when you get to lean into being a Stanley Cup contender. And that's when you trade futures for rentals at the trade deadline. And it's very exciting. and you try and go win a Stanley Cup. There are other times where you're not going to be a cup contender and things are trending the wrong way. Some of your key players that you've depended on for years are starting to get a little older,

they're starting to get a little banged up. The league has taken a toll on them. And now we have to lean into the other thing. Now we lean in and we take advantage of the other teams who are in their contender status and we say, okay, we're going to help you try and win a Stanley Cup, but we're going to do it for a price.

And the price is, we're going to take your futures off you because you don't really care about your futures right now. But some teams, and the Vancouver Canucks have been one of those, have just been like, yeah, we're going to ignore the natural cycle of the league, and we're just going to do our best

to build this thing brick by brick. And again, there is a nobility in that, but it's like being stuck in quicksand quite often. Yep. And you just, the harder you struggle, the worse it gets. Because sometimes you're like, okay, well, we'll go out and get a player in free agency. For example, a guy like Louis Erickson, right? Good player. Yeah.

But a player, you know, free agent years, once you get to under strict your free agent, you know, you're getting into your late 20s. It might be even a little older than that, so you've got the age risk there. And not only does the acquisition of a player like that not work, it actually becomes another problem to deal with. Instead of just leaning into it, and the Leafs are at that stage right now. They're at that stage where they had their chance.

Now, what are you going to do about it? I bet they don't think that they're there internally. I bet that they think, And this is often a lot of general managers, and I'll use the word guilty because I think they're guilty of doing it. They're guilty of saying, let's take a step back, let's take a deep breath.

We still have Matthews. We still have Nylander. We have Nyes and we have Tavares. And we can do this with those guys. All it takes is for me to make a couple of moves. And then I get to win the Jim Gregory Award for General Manager of the year because I turned it around. They've only got two years of Matthews after this, by the way.

Yeah. there are a great litmus test for I think a lot of teams that are on that precipice of are we legit or are we not are we in our window or are we out of it do we have a chance or do we not the leaves are right on it if they're healthy and everyone's available they're a playoff team and who knows what happens in the east which is wide open this year wide open although Tampa Bay is kind of proving now that they might be the class of the conference but but I think their blue line is downright bad yeah and the question right right now as currently configured Yeah, and a part it has to do with it's banged up. Yep. The other part of it has to do with it. It's not that great. Okay. Adam, the former bath guy, has a question.

We'll take this to break before we do. The smart decision brought to you by Crow. Would you guys be upset if there was a trade for Myers on the table and he used his no trade clause to stay in Vancouver? I'd be upset that it happened, but I wouldn't be upset with Myers, if that makes sense. I wouldn't blame him because he specifically wanted that no move clause or whatever he's got.

You know what my smart decision is? It's an idea that I came up. It's not quite a hot take, but it's an idea. Remember how the NHL used to have buyouts, like amnesty buyouts, where you could just wipe a contract off the books and it wouldn't count against your cap and everyone was free to go and all that?

I think they should bring those back and give the Kinnock's five of them. What if, Jason? What if they made one of those for no trade clauses? that you were allowed to eradicate, wipe out one no trade clause. Think about it. It's like, you're not, you're not wiping out somebody's contract.

They're still getting paid and everything. But you get like one mulligan on a no trade clause. We're like, we shouldn't have given it to you. Because right now, right now there's an epidemic. There is an epidemic of no trade clauses and no movement clauses. They should have a no, no trade clause day in the NHL where for one day, all no trade clauses get wiped. That would be amazing.

And you have a single day to trade those players. If you can't get it done, the NTCs go back on the next day. But that would be incredible. So now we're thinking. We're coming up with ideas. Like, these are very restrictive. The NHLPA would be like, no, we're not doing that. Like, wait, it's hilarious to me when you hear about some of the guys that have no trade

clauses. Doesn't Manjiapani have one? When we were talking about that yesterday? Columbus is like, why is everybody calling us right now? In what world does like, like, this has no disrespect. Maybe some to Andrew Mangiopani. but why does he have a no trade clause? They're just giving him all like Chris. I think every member of the New Jersey Devils has them.

So here I'm going to put it to Gary Bettman and to the NHLPA, Marty Walsh, friend of the program. You guys get together and maybe even this summer just open up a limited time window that you can wipe out one no trade clause. It's just a small little adjustment that could go a long way. Or limit how many teams, how many NTCs a team can give out. Like maybe you're only allowed to have three guys. eyes with no trade clauses. The issues are already out there. The majority of them have been granted.

Like, I'm sure there'll be more in future contracts and everything else. Everyone's texting in, the purge. The purge. So you want a day like in the movie purge, but with hockey trades. But, okay, the one day that Andy's talking about, hopefully less violent.

The one day that you're talking about would be too difficult. Maybe the same violence. Maybe one. You're allowed a little bit of violence. Just for a treat. So now it's not just the smart decision singular. It's the smart decisions plural,

courtesy of the Halford and Brough show, brought to by Crow. Your trusted accounting and tax advisors for over 55 years. Crow, smart decisions, lasting value. Learn more at crow macaille.cai.com. Two hours of the program in the books. Back to the Canucks talk on the other side. Randibe Jan at the Play-by-Play Voice, or sorry, the color analyst, sorry, batch of the Vancouver Canucks is going to join us next.

Also, at 8 o'clock, we're giving away a pair of taking. Yeah, that's what Randipe is privately told us he wants to be. Yeah, sorry, badge. Did he just let that slip? Yeah. Double sorry to badge. Speaking of purges. Yeah.

We're going to. Sorry again, badge. I'm so sorry. A reminder, we are giving away a pair of tickets to the Vancouver Giants game this weekend. Friday. Hey, that's tomorrow. 7 o'clock puck drop from the Langley Event Center. They're taking on Seattle.

Caller number five, right on the nose at 8 a.m. We'll get the ticket. 604-280-60. That number again, 604-280-650. You're listening to the Halford & Breft Show on SportsNet 650.