Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - John Gonzalez wonders were Caleb Wilson falls in a post-Summer League draft

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Rahimi Harrison Grody Wow, no playoff baseball in Chicago is what Rob Parker says Man, we got things to talk about Rob, I love it. It's like a hit and run now you've got to go. We know we've been told you have more important things to do with your life. I got to go to MLB Network and bash

or some other cities. Okay, I'm not in Chicago. Middays 10 to 2. Equal opportunity matcher. I love that. On 104 3, the score. This is this. This is what we want to see right here. Wilson for 3. Cut of all!

Come on now. Come on. Let this game go. That was the encouragement of Teresa Weatherspoon on Amazon Prime. Love teaspoon. Caleb Wilson with the highlight. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043. The score, that's all summer league, Caleb Wilson to you. And we are happy to bring in a special guest.

He is the analyst of the NBA for CBS Sports and CBS Sports HQ, our former colleague at NBC Sports, Philadelphia. John Gonzalez. He is at John Gonzalez on X. Thanks for joining us. This is so nice. Like what a fun little reunion. He's laughing already. We went to dinner the other night.

We missed you. But it's wonderful to see both of your smiling faces because I haven't seen you in person since we were in Philly together. Hadn't seen Marshall since the 2019 finals. And now look at us. And look at you too. Look how successful and talented Chicago. Adam, does Chicago realize how lucky they are to have the two of you here? We got another one too with Devin Cainty.

The pipeline is strong. Oh, that's right. I heard about that. Shout out to Devin. She's here now. Is she here here? Yeah. In fact, she's across the street.

She's a Fox 32. Okay, fantastic. Right across the street. Philly taking over. This is good, though. We like the cross-pollination between Chicago and Philly. Well, yeah. People in Chicago really enjoyed that cross-pollination last year on Black Friday.

That's where they celebrated the cross-pollination. How did that go for you? You know, who can remember that far back really? Right, right. Who can even remember, yeah. Here's something you do remember, Summer League. Yes. Just a minute ago.

First team all summer league, Caleb Wilson. on the scene. He said everything right, but it's what he did physically out there that I don't think anyone was quite prepared for. What was your reaction to seeing the skill set that he offered as the Bulls were playing Summer League basketball from threes to stepbacks to taking people to the rack and dunking on them? You know who said people weren't ready? You know who wasn't ready? I was not ready. I'm blown away. You guys should be so excited by this because there was this consensus that the first three guys were the three guys, right? And then, you know, Caleb was going to go four. And then after that, the draft was supposed to start, right?

But nobody was really talking about him. Everybody was talking about the first three guys in AJ DeBanza and Darren Peterson and Boozer, who I think is going to be amazing. I didn't, nobody told me that he could do all these things, Caleb Wilson. Like, I was informed that he was athletic. He could play defense. He was going to run the floor. You know, like he would do those types of things. And then he'd be a project. And then he's got a bag. He's doing stepbacks. His footwork looks good. Why didn't anybody tell me he could shoot? I wasn't informed about this. Dremont Green did try to tell you and the rest of us when he said that his floor was Kevin Garnett. Okay, which is like, come on, but Dremont can be a little hyperbolic, right?

He's been known to be. But we should give him credit when he actually, you know, he hits on a scouting report. But so my thing, a lot of people who cover the NBA for a living, we don't get around to watching these guys till they get to summer league. Because there's a lot of professional basketball to watch and we have draft analysts for that. I was really shocked, though, that he has that kind of game. And how encouraging is this for the Bulls,

especially, you know, apologies to what's happened over the last 15 years or so. It hasn't been great for you guys. You would not be, not 15. Well, okay, there was that little moment where like Zach Levine and Vooch and DeRos. You're talking about the half a season?

Are we going 15? Sure, if we go back to, I mean, how far back are we going, right? But so you get rid of AK and you bring in Brison and you land on Caleb and now it's all of a sudden, like, and I'm a big fan of Tiago and, man, this is exciting for you guys. Okay, I want to touch on that. We're talking to John Gonzalez. He is an NBA analyst for CBS Sports. Funny that you say nationally, the discussion didn't have Caleb Wilson involved because we were obsessed.

You know, we're here talking about all those things. We were not discussing the three-point shooting. Sure. That was a debut of Summer League. And it's funny because even Hubert Davis, you know, laughed about that because he's his former coach in North Carolina. Wasn't what he was asked to do. Didn't let him. Yeah.

And I think that's part of it too is there is some element of that for us. But when it came to Wilson being practically the obvious choice, there was no secret with this Bulls front office. We had a very good feeling that he was going to be the dude and we knew why. Yeah, well, okay, two things can be true at once, right? Like he was going to be the guy. Everybody realized that he was going to be guy for the Bulls because the other three guys were going to be off the board. If you could redo it now, would he be the guy or would he already be off the board? That's the question.

Like, that's how exciting he looked and how you're looking at me. You're squinting out of me. But I'm saying would he have gone higher? I'm asking you if you were a front office guy, would you be advocating for him over one of the other three? And if so, who's the guy that you take him in front of? Therein lies the rub, because I have been known. You know me going back to Philadelphia where I would be watching Summer League and

breaking down videos. You're a basketball sickle like us. We were even talking the other night, I think, about how high I was on Mario Hazzonia, who's coming back to the league, by the way. That was a mess on my part on Mario Hizone. But I tend to get a little over-excited about Summer League, so maybe we need to pump the brakes, or I need to pump the brakes a little bit on Caleb Wilson. It's hard because he looked that good.

So if I was going to redraft right now, I mean, I'm really high on Boozer. I think the situation for him in Memphis is going to be phenomenal. Darren Peterson, I think, has all the skills. I'm less sold on his usage rate in. Utah and pairing him with Keante George. And AJ DeBanza looked really good as well in Summer League. There's a case, though, if you were just going on Summer League where you'd go, would you take him over AJ DeBanza?

It's at least a conversation. Would you take him over Dianne Peders? It's at least a conversation. I don't know that I'd take him over Bozzy because I like Bozzy's skill set overall. And I think it's going to translate immediately to the NBA. But if you're the Bulls and you're a Bulls fan, you've got to be excited about this. You're listening to NBA addicts on Rehby, Harrison Brody. You brought me on.

This is such a. This is what happens. Like with all due respect to the True Who podcast, this is never more a True Who podcast moment, I feel like, than asking if you're redrafting based on Summer League. Yeah. That's crazy, by the way.

I love it. We've just gone to the extreme of the CBS or the NBC Sports Philly Newsroom. So here's why I say it's crazy. It's not crazy to say, I think about it, but to like lean in that favor because of what you saw in Summer League. I'd rather just say, I think he has a higher ceiling than the other three guys.

Now, if he gets to that ceiling, that's the question, right? The question is why do I like Caleb Wilson more than you two? I mean, like, you got all I'm hearing is somebody who comes in from a national perspective and says, hey, Chicago, I'm excited about Caleb Wilson. And these two are like, I don't know, I think you're crazy. I don't think you're crazy. This is what happened in Philly, by the way. You guys are getting this right now.

It really was like this is a slice of the newsroom where these debates. Like, where's Dario Sarajeh talk that we have completed the trifecta? You know? I don't know. He's not dead. I mean, RIP to my guy, you know?

He's not dead. I want to point out that Dario Sharge is still with us. I mean, you know, he's still with us, Ben Simmons. I mean,

there's an whole path you could take here. He said his own yet earlier. Well, that too. That's true. Okay, okay. All Mark El Fultz talk aside as a former number one

overall pick, when you look at where this league is right now, tanking is supposedly on pause because if you finish in the bottom three, there are repercussions for your chances of getting a top draft pick. How do you think that's going to change what we see next season as far as night to night basketball, or will it?

I don't know because, first of all, nobody knows what the ripple effects are on this thing, which is the reason why the league is only having these rules in place through the 2029 drafts, and then they're going to reevaluate it. I thought this whole thing was a gross overreaction by Adam Silver. Now, the two of you, who know me from Philadelphia, as somebody who covered the process up close and personal, when Sam Hinkie was there when they changed the rules, for tanking initially, and now they're changing it again.

I thought that tanking was not a bad thing for the NBA. This past year, a little bit of a, like, sort of a perfect storm because you had eight teams really getting into it. It took the Chicago Bulls a second to figure out that they needed to be doing that. Took a second for the Milwaukee Bucks to figure out that they were doing that. But you had more than a third of the league that was hard competing to be at least in the play-in and then in the playoffs proper. And then you had this little subset of teams that were like,

we want to improve our draft position. We want to get better that way because it's hard for us to compete with teams that are already that good. So I thought Adam Silver had one hot light put on them. They had some people, some talking heads, not you guys, obviously, the bad ones, who were like, oh, you know, like tanking is, but you guys are the good talking heads. And then tanking is no good. And Adam Silver caught some heat for that. So at the All-Star break, he had to answer questions about that. And I thought it was a gross over correction.

But we'll see how it manifests during the regular season. I just think it was much ado about nothing. It would have been fine to just leave this whole thing alone. Well, I think you bring up a good point, though, is that we still don't know the ripple effects. Yeah. And the hardest part about this is I think we're still feeling the ripple effects of the new CBA. I don't know that we can call it new, but the quality of basketball overall in the league diminished when the CBA took place. And we've seen that.

We've seen more competitive playoffs. It's not as reliant on the three ball. I understand those things. But at the same time, the combination of the two, the incentive to tank plus the second apron, I think that was the perfect storm that you'd speak up because it really was 10 teams and that's a third of the league at that point and we saw some really egregious steps

taken in game to essentially lose and I think that's what really did it in. Yeah, and I get some people like, okay, in March and April you want to see teams compete. You know, if it's the Wizards and I don't know, the Bucks, is it that big a deal if these teams are like kind of jockeying with each other to tank? But to your point about the second apron,

multiple things can be true at the same time. it has brought on this era of parody where we've now had eight different champions in eight years. And I love that because earmuffs for warriors people in this chat. That whole thing about when the warriors were in their dynasty, it kind of got boring. When it was LeBron and Cleveland and the Warriors killing it, you knew that the regular season didn't matter. We knew that we were going to be in Golden State at the end of the year and LeBron was going to be there. And maybe he could beat them and he beat them one time. But for the most part, it was going to be the Warriors.

And it kind of like took any of the intrigue out of it. I love the parody now, but also what you're saying, like, you get less free agency movement, guys want their money up front. Fewer trades. There's more trades for, like, player movement, but less free agency movement, like, for guys deciding, hey, I'm going to just decide, like, Paul George might have been one of the biggest. Now we're waiting on LeBron.

LeBron's 41, going to be 42 in December. He's got the league by the neck because he can just go, well, I'm the biggest name. I'm going to sit around and wait. So I hear what you're saying. the CBA was sort of like a way to make sure that the bombers of the league weren't going to just buy a championship. Not that the Clippers could ever do that. But there's ripple effects for all of it.

The NIL Clippers? So you brought up LeBron James. You have an interesting approach to maybe what you think he should do at this point. Oh, yeah. We talked about this before we came on a other. Thank you for jogging my memory. He doesn't really have to do anything right now, right? We're all, all of us, you know, who love basketball, and especially those who cover it are just like

kind of on LeBron watch and it's gone on for a while now and we were talking about how this is one of the longest decisions ever certainly longer than his original like the original decision happened in early July the return was July 11th uh Lakers when he went in 2018 that was in june here we are in late july he could just sit on this he doesn't have to make a move he and rich paul his agent figured out something about that new cb a which was that there's not a whole bunch of player movement of big names and free agency once those names moved early LeBron and Rich Paul looked around and went, it's just us.

We've got this whole thing. We could just have the spotlight on us as long as he could wait into the season if he wanted to and just pick the team. Like a quarterback waiting to see who gets hurt or what's the best opportunity. And then sometime in, I don't know, December or January, make a decision on which team to join. Is that what you're suggesting? If he wanted to. I don't think that's going to happen. Right now I think what's happening is he's jockeying for potentially.

There's been new reporting about could he force like an Anthony Davis to the Warriors. Could he force a Kyrie Irvin to a situation in Cleveland? Maybe they do James Hard and Dirty and ship him off, although James would just get a bunch of money. But maybe he's trying to position to get some of his guys with him, but he doesn't have to do it right now. He could, in theory, if he wanted to, push it into December, January, February, save his body, what team's good, who's healthy.

It's just about saving a roster spot for him because he's not getting max money anymore. So you could do that if you wanted. And now we've got content through the season just about LeBron. I love an NBA nightmare conspiracy theory. I love, I miss this. John, I do want to highlight your work. You're here because it's WNBA All-Star Weekend. And we haven't heard a lot about a lot of the events that are going on, the skills competition.

Is it Win Trust tomorrow night? What can you tell us about some of the things you're keeping an eye on it and you're covering over this weekend? Well, so, I mean, Marshall's wearing the W show. We were talking about this last night. I'm just a casual WNBA fan. I don't actually do it for my job. but I do enjoy the league a lot. And the storylines with the W have been pronounced.

I mean, you know, people have been talking about how Sabrina and Yaneska was really upset about how, oh, she supposedly turned it down. She said, how can I turn down something that I wasn't officially invited to? How do you not have Caitlin Clark in it as well?

It's a disaster, John. Yeah. It's all a problem. But that's the thing is, is you're here because you love hoops. I do. And I want to know what sticks out to you.

Well, that. I mean, the conversation around the league, I think invariably, somehow always comes back to Caitlin Clark. And that's a, here, I was talking to our friend Trista Crick, who you guys have on frequently. Shout out Trista.

Shout out Trista. Who's also in town for WNBA stuff and All Star Weekend. But this morning when the debate was happening over the three point contest and it was like, oh, okay, they couldn't get Caitlin involved as well. I'm like, can we have one conversation about the W that doesn't involve her somehow? Right? Like, and this is when you know that you like the W when you're like, oh, now you're just like, I can't have any more Caitlin Clark content, but it all kind of does trace back to her in the fever

where this morning I was looking at the five highest rated games this season in the league. Guess what the common denominator is. Caitlin Clark. All five games had the fever in them. Yeah. And I think that speaks a lot. Or as I like to say, all five games had Kelsey Mitchell on them. There you go.

Because she's a bucket. Because she's better than Caitlin Clark. It's a good team, too. There's that part of it. They are a good team. That is John Gonzalez. John. Thank you so much for stopping in.

This has been great. This was wonderful. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled that you guys have reunited together. I'm thrilled that you're so successful. I'm thrilled that Chicago gets to have you. It's wonderful to see your smiling faces. Thank you for us.

And I think we've got to call you back at some point because I do miss our conspiracy. The NBA conspiracy theories that ran rampant in the Philly Newsroom were incredible. The conversation is like, think about where Jabari is now. Jabari was a part of those. Jabari Young and now he's a national reporter. It was an incredible time to be alive. It was a good room. It was a good room. It was a good room. Still is with you two. Thanks for having me.

Oh, you too as well, John. That is John Gonzalez. Check out his work. He's an analyst for the NBA, CBS Sports. CBS Sports, CBS Sports HQ. He is at John Gonzalez to Zs on X. Coming up next, I don't know how to do this. There's a bad flashback that I need you all to join me to be a part of. We're going to do this together because I hate myself. Next.