The Bill Simmons Podcast - Beal to Phoenix, CP3’s Next Move, Fake Zion Trades, and Charlotte’s Big Decision With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Suns trading for Bradley Beal, and Chris Paul's future (1:03), before throwing out a plethora of fake trades and NBA draft scenarios (47:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, our first big NBA trade of the offseason, draft stuff, we're still up, Father's Day, let's go. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us, undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here, you're tailgating outside the stadium, it's a great time for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're

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know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. We're also brought to you by the ringer podcast network. I have new rewatchables coming for you, I think, Monday night. Yeah. And we might be able to get it up in time on Monday night. It is a franchise movie starring Harrison Ford. And that's all I'm going to tell you. Coming up on this podcast, we were hoping that there

would be a trade this weekend. So, Rizzo and I would have something to talk about. The NBA trade gods, they obliged. We have a lot to cover. NBA draft in four days. Lots of people on the block. What's your favorite ideal trade? We're going to swap some ideas. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this a little past 3 o'clock.

There was Bradley Beal stuff all weekend. Ryan Rosillo was here. We were hoping there would be some sort of trade, whether it was Beal, Dame Lillard, just something. Give us anything to hit on Sunday. Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. My kids didn't even get me a Father's Day present.

They just feel like every day is a holiday for me because I'm related to them. It turns out my Father's Day present was a Bradley Beal trade. And it was a weird, weird trade. We knew it was going to get weird this weekend, Ursula, because he was like, ah, Miami or Phoenix, those two sound good. And it's like, well, Phoenix doesn't have any first round picks basically for the rest of the decade. And Miami is too smart to go all in on a Bradley Beal trade. They'll do bargain basement shopping. And Washington ends up just settling for basically Chris Paul, Shamit, and between three and

37 second round picks. Where do you want to start? You take us. Let's start with this. I think it's stupid for Phoenix. And I think the other part that we have to get into that we can spend some time on is also who Beal is. It's like trying to talk through what we all think of Beal in the NBA as he turns 30 later this month. But the first part of this is, I know the way we've talked about super teams is that I felt like that was the norm. a team had to deal with Miami, right? They had to deal with Golden State. They had to deal with Cleveland. The Lakers part of their run of winning it with AD and LeBron a few years ago, a big part

of that story all season long was when are they getting their third guy? Because we were just conditioned to believe that whoever was the NBA favorite had to be a big three. And what happened is it just kind of stopped. It just stopped, even though other teams were trying to do it. Certainly, Brooklyn was trying to do it two different times. It felt like Philly was flirting with the idea. But we really didn't have it. It stopped because the league got too talented.

It's too hard to just have three guys and do the 2012 Miami Heat model, basically. You can't do it, I don't think, in this day and age. I think there could be some argument to adding Drew Holliday to Middleton and Giannis. Maybe Chris Paul towards the end when they were in the finals a couple years ago,

losing to Milwaukee with he, Booker, and then Aiton. I mean, that doesn't seem all that accurate, right? So I felt like we always watched going, well, who's the next team that's going to add that third guy? And what we've seen recently now is that we have these championships because there is no other team. There isn't a team with the established three guys

that obviously the best versions of it are Miami, Golden State, and then probably that second Cleveland run. So the other part is that with Jokic having this run, I think a lot of dumb things are being said, being like, that's the way to do it. It's like, yeah, if you have Jokic, it's the way to do it. It's so dismissive of who Jokic is. If we just start from the Phoenix part of this, even though the price is nothing, as you astutely point out, the no trade thing, I don't know if the market was going to be that hot for him without a no trade.

This package coming back feels like it's atrocious for Washington. But the Phoenix part of this, to now have these four guys, including Aiton, knowing that a Booker extension's coming in another year, the tax apron stuff that we covered where it's almost like the closest we've ever been to a hard cap, Beal's not the guy to lock yourself into this kind of financial commitment. You and I did not text about this

because I wanted, I figured we'd be somewhat aligned. I just don't like the trade for Phoenix. And I know in a vacuum you can go, well, look what we gave up and look what we got back. Sure. If you look at just like,

if we're putting together big threes, how the teams put them together since 2008, when the Celtics kind of were the first one to go really on the map with it, with the KG and Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. And they were like, big three. And the way they built those three together, all those three guys complimented each other. And then we've had different variations of it over the years. Brooklyn was probably the weirdest where they put Durant and Harden and Kyrie together and they're like, we're just going to outscore everybody. Our offense is going to be unbelievable. And we saw it for about two weeks and then

they had injuries and we never saw it again. And just to jump in on the Nets, would you agree that had they all been healthy, I still think that team would have been a contender despite what I think of some of the dudes. Yeah, which will be the case with Phoenix. I just don't love how the three guys compliment each other. And I think you

and I both feel like Beal is overrated as an asset. But, you know, this puts an incredible burden on Durant. He's going to have to be basically, I guess, I think the lead wing defender on this team, maybe even like a chip and rim protector guy. One of these guys, either Durant or Booker is going to have to be the facilitator. And we've seen this over and over again, when you put these three high usage rate guys together. The usage rate can only add up to 100%, right? It's just by rule, you can only get to 100. So if you have three guys who are like,

I'm usually 38, well, I'm usually 35, well, I'm usually 36, somebody's gonna suffer. We even saw Curry, who's one of the best teammates of the last 30 years when that first Warriors season got a little rocky there around Christmas. So it was like, man, I'm barely being used. And then they kind of navigated it and figured it out. I just think somebody's going to be unhappy out of these three guys.

And it's probably going to be Beal, which I'm going to throw it back to you. Goes back to how good is Bradley Beal? Are we sure he's that good? If he's your third guy, okay. But is your third guy with two other score first offensive players kind of creator, need the ball all the time guy? Now, what am I getting with him? He's going to stand in the corner? Who's going to set him up? Is he going to be happy? He scored 30 points a game like what, three years ago, he hit the ball all the time. He's not going to have the ball all the time now. I'm telling you that.

So I don't see how he's happy with this. Plus, he's making $50 million a year. Well, I'm glad you pointed out, like in a vacuum, when you look at the pieces going out, Chris Paul, who's guaranteed $15 million if you wave him by June 28th, and it sounds like he's going to be rerouted somewhere anyway. Then you've got $10 million on the books for Shamit next year and the second rounders,

which we still aren't quite sure how it's all going to shake out in the pick swap. If you look at that for Brad, even if you don't like Bradley Beal, you're like, okay, well, give me a break. I'll do that because this league is about town. Yeah, it's a fantasy trade. Right, right.

But for Phoenix, for Phoenix to then lock yourselves in this way and then let's get to it. I'm shocked the pushback I got this week from pointing out that Beal doesn't play nearly as much as you think he does. And then it was like, okay, well, there was the COVID stuff and they were shorter seasons and they were tanking and all these different things. You're like, okay, fine, let's do it this way. For his career, he's missed 19% of his games. He hasn't turned 30 yet. Again, he turns 30 at the end of this month. The last four seasons, he's missed 33% of the games. His first five seasons, he was about 39 to 40% from three.

The last five seasons, 36 and a half, 30, 35, 35, 35. So he's basically 35. But if you look at him on his 34% range from three in the last three seasons of all the players in the league with 800 or more attempts, which he is over three seasons, his 34% ranks 100 out of 109. I went through synergy numbers this morning and I looked at his catch and shoot stuff because now we're going to be looking at somebody who just because of Booker's amazing, like I am as high on Booker as I've ever been. I still think Durant figures it out some way, even though I didn't love a lot of the stuff I saw. We know his injury concerns going forward. But when I look at Beal on the catch and shoot stuff, for the most part, when you look at the points per shot efficiency, he's an average player. The free throws have gone down. The rebounding has always gone down. And I always feel like those years where he had 30 plus a game back to back years, he was top five in usage in the NBA those two seasons. And he's not going to get to do that. So, of course, he can score. Of course, there's like another level to his shot creation that you just don't get in a lot of players in the league. But if he's going to be a ball-stopping guy while Booker and

Durant are watching him, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me other than that there's a brand new owner going like, look what I did. And you're like, okay. I'm just not a fan of it because now this is who you are for like three or four years too.

Yeah, there's a Bradley Beal, I think, in people's heads versus the Bradley Beal that's actually existed the last couple of years. Like when he averaged at 30 a game, he just had the ball all the time. I had a house who, you know, has been my friend for 35 years. Who's come on this pod and talked about Beal a bunch. It's just like, this is not an end of the game guy. If he's your number one guy, you're going nowhere. Um, if he's a, you know, if he's in the Ray Allen 2008 role, Ray Allen was just a way better shooter. And Ray Allen was somebody who didn't need the ball a lot,

could still have a huge impact on the game. We haven't really seen that version of Bill at all. And he's also not an above-average defensive player. I would say he, where would you put him? Would you put him average or below average? I'd say below average. His box score plus minus, which again, doesn't tell everything, especially in a team that hasn't been all that competitive, but he's been a negative

defensive box score plus minus nine of his 11 seasons. But you know, the funny thing about like anybody- Well, and then get to the passing and can he create shots for other guys? That's not really there either. So it's somebody that he's basically a score first guy that I wouldn't put him above average in really any other category. Yeah. I mean, in this year alone, I don't know how it shook out the other years because it was something I was always looking at with Harden and Embiid, but in turnovers per however many possessions during clutch time, Beal led the league. He was the most turnover prone guy in clutch moments in those games. This isn't to say that nobody's saying he sucks.

It's that if I'm an owner, you don't get to pay A money to just A guys. You don't. It's not the way the league works. We look at these contracts, we're like, I can't believe this guy got this guy. Yeah, but it's the fear of not having anything is why you're paying a premium on the players that aren't necessarily a premium guy. But for Beal to turn 30, to not be a dude that

laces him up all the time, I don't know if it was just him in Washington and he was the good guy and everything sucked around him. But when you're the number one guy, I'd like you to flirt with the playoffs a little bit more, like a little bit more. I think that team was a little bit better talent-wise than the record. Porzingis had a really good year for what you would expect from a Porzingis year last year. Kuzma was like a borderline all-star for most of that year. And if you look at their bench guys, I liked Danny Abduja. I thought he actually, as a role guy, was pretty good.

Kispert, I think, shot like, what, 42%, 43% from three. He's not a bust. Their point guards weren't great, but for the most part, they were in the mix. They were 500, you know, in January and February and looked like they were going to at least be a playing team and then never got there. He hasn't really... Well, he missed a lot

of games. And he missed a lot of games, but he hasn't really... You know, in 2017, when they almost beat the Celtics in the Kelly Olenek game, Game 7. And they should have, they were a much better team than that Celtics team. And one of the reasons they lost was the Celtics just basically, they figured out John Wall wasn't shooting threes well. And they basically put the series in his hand and was daring him to shoot threes. Beal, I thought played pretty well. He didn't shoot that great from three in the playoffs, but I thought for the most part, he was laying the groundwork for like, oh, this guy, there's

something here. I just don't know as a third guy, like we just learned this with Denver. Denver had their three best guys complimenting each other so well. And Gordon was third guy. Gordon's not as good as Bradley Beal on paper from a talent standpoint, right? If you're in a fantasy basketball draft, you're taking Bradley Beal before Aaron Gordon. But Aaron Gordon is a much more impactful basketball player on both ends than Bradley Beal is. And that was one of the reasons I thought that Denver, I mean, Jokic is the key reason.

But I just, I look at all the moves that Phoenix made and there's Chris Paul stuff to get to and there's Washington stuff to get to that we can do after the break. But I look at all the stuff Phoenix had and I almost like this trade more if they hadn't done the KD trade. Like if they still had Mikael Bridges and they still had Cam Johnson and they still had all their firsts and then they're like, hey man, we just stole Bradley Beal. We barely gave up

anything for him. And Booker and Beal are going to be our two high price guys. We have Mikael Bridges on this awesome contract. We still have our picks. We have Aiton. There's one more move to be had, but we couldn't resist just grabbing Beal here. I like the team more if it was that. With this, where it's like, hey, we have these three super expensive guys.

The second Abrams is going to murder them. They're going to really have to rely on the goodwill of guys just being like, all right, I'll play for 1.6 just to try to win a title. If I'm doing that, I'd rather play with Denver. I'd rather be on Jokic's team. So we talked about new owner syndrome a lot. This is the most new owner syndrome-y guy we've had in a long time. And one of his lead advisors is Isaiah Thomas.

And Isaiah Thomas likes to zag. He did this with the Knicks in mid 2000s when everyone else was trying to get smaller and small ball and shooting. And the league was starting to shift a different way. And he was like, I'm going to get bigger. He said this, I'm going to get Zach Randolph. I'm going to get Eddie Curry. We're going to bully teams. We're going to play bigger. We're going to pound them. And he wanted to zag. And this to me feels like a zag where they're in the sun's brain trusting. And he wanted a zag. And this, to me, feels like a zag, where they're in the Suns' brain trust thing, and they're like, how do we get better?

How do we get better? It's like, we just got to outscore everybody. We'll get Bradley Beal. How are they going to stop us with these three guys? I actually think it'll be a little easier to stop them than maybe they realize. Well, they didn't have depth this past year. Depth was an issue before this happened.

They always needed another point guard, I thought, to just make it easier on Chris Paul so he could be healthier later in the year. That's something I thought they should have had for years. They didn't even have another big in that Milwaukee matchup, which may have cost them a title in 21 because they just didn't have another. This depth thing has been an issue when it

wasn't like this, and now you're going to have these four guys making this kind of money. They have rights on two other players. Do we think Aiton's on this team in two weeks? Because I would say no. I would say this would be

step A and step B is some sort of Aiton for multiple players trade. But like what you just said, if we watch that Denver Phoenix series that happened a month ago and you put Bradley Beal

in the shimmied spot, is that series different? Because I don't think it is. ago and you put Bradley Beal in the shammot spot. Is that series different? Because I don't think it is. I don't know how Beal changes the destiny of them because they couldn't get stops. They had no depth. Denver was just basically... I don't even think that series should have gone six. You had this

historic fluke event of an 86-point game from two guys. I don't know how Beal changes the destiny of that series. I just think it's so risky, man. I don't know how Beal changes the destiny of that series. I just think it's so risky, man. I think it's so risky and Beal is not somebody

I'd want to pay this much money to. He's just not. Now, maybe he's energized. The Wizards stuff is weird because, yeah, you can blame Wall. You can blame the front office. You can blame a bunch of different things i mean the coaching thing whatever they tried a bunch of different deals but like if you're truly that guy which none of us ever have thought like we never talked about beal as a top

10 guy i don't even know if he's top 20 and you're like okay can you can you at least flirt with you know always being in the back end of contention for the playoff spot in the East. And so I wonder, you know, I wonder how many people would feel like, well, maybe the reason the team wasn't all that competitive is because their

number one guy was Beal. So like, he's going to score, he's going to have some huge nights. I can already see the headlines, like three games into the season. He goes for like 35 and it's like, Oh,

so well. Wow. Yeah. We'll talk to me in four years when he's $57 million. So I, I think with the new CBA apron stuff, like this felt like a deal. Like, I don't know that I would have liked it in the previous CBA, but you throw it into the new one, you throw it into the new one. And you're like, did you guys not get the email? Like, did you not get it? And I love that you brought up the Isaiah part of it because Isaiah's biggest

thing with the Knicks is he couldn't stop himself from trading for bad contracts. He never cared. I'll never forget listening to him on Mike and the Mad Dog where Dog was like, I'm not going to do the impersonation, but he's like, you keep trading for these contracts. I mean, Isaiah, you keep getting these expensive guys. I just don't know what you're going to do with them. Steve Francis, 17 million, Isaiah. And Isaiah was like, yeah, but what you don't realize is that those contracts expire and they're valuable. And it was the weirdest defense of it. It's like, no, no, no. I'm just going to keep taking everybody's bad contracts because one day they expire.

And you were like, what? Anybody with any entry-level understanding of how salaries work in the league was like wait that's that's your position and so far like look durant durant gets hurt all the time durant's really expensive you know durant but he's still durant right maybe not peak durant but he's still kevin durant that one i understood even though that price retroactively looks exorbitant. I wouldn't want this tax bill. I wouldn't want this tax bill. I would need more assurances that I feel like I'm easily top, without question, top three in the West to do something like this. And I don't know that. And again, yeah, you're right. There's still moves to come.

We did last week, we did the, I wouldn't be surprised if you're another team in August draft. And we both had Beal number one. We went through the salary, which was 46.7 this upcoming season, 50.2 in 24-25, 53.7 the next year. And then player option, 57.1, 26-27. You want to do your joke? I think he'll probably pick that year up. Okay. I'm going to break that now.

It's just been a staggering amount of money. The one thing I would love to find out, now that he waived his no trade clause, is that waived forever? No, no. He still has it. Does he still have it? Okay.

And then I'm glad you brought up the Durant thing because he got hurt twice last year and he's had some major injuries. Major injuries. He's had a Jones fracture in his foot. He tore his Achilles. He's had his knee operated on in different ways multiple times.

He's seven feet tall. He's been playing basketball since 07. We've been talking about Jeff Green, your guy, congrats by the way, got his title. And it's been a lot of Jeff Green, your guy, congrats, by the way, got his title. And it's been a lot of Jeff Green, the old veteran. Oh my God, Jeff Green's been on so many teams. Wow, the old guy finally did it.

He was in the same draft as Kevin Durant. He's two years older, but same draft. So, you know, I just think because Durant, other than like his hair is going a little bit, but he looks the same. He always looks the same. It's like when Hulk Hogan in the early 2000s still looked like Hulk Hogan, but it wasn't Hulk Hogan anymore.

At some point, the Durant thing, he's going to not be one of the top seven guys in the league anymore. And a lot of this is going to go on Booker. To me, if Beal can come back and his threes can go way up again, maybe we'll feel differently about this trade. All right, we got to take a break. We got to hammer Washington. I really want to bring the, not even a small hammer out. I want to bring an ice pick hammer out and really go at them. Okay. But I have one, when we come back, I have one question for you because I could go on the

Beal thing. Like there's just so many parts of this that are so interesting. I still think there's more meat on the Phoenix bone, but I have a specific deal, 2008 Celtics, because I know we rarely bring up the 08 Celtics on the pod, so I just want to make sure we do that. Interesting. That's coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

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Alright, give me your 08 South Expo analogy before we move on to the pathetic Washington team were you surprised at the Celtics version of Ray Allen that first year yes because he had battled injuries and was in a pretty bad Seattle situation that year before. And I remember when they made the trade, I've talked about this. I was upset because I didn't get it.

I was like, even if he's healthy again, where does Rayon and Paul Pierce take us? And then they had the KG trade coming. But I thought he really reinvented himself. You know, some guys do this. Even somebody as great as Kobe, there was still a reinvention with him. He added

this whole 2008 to 2013 stretch of his superstar career that really made the career special. The way he was able to tweak his game, add stuff, add the little fall away, and just kind of change how he played for the better in a lot of ways, elevated his career. I felt like Ray Allen was a junior version of that. He learned how to not have the ball all the time and still have huge impacts in games. And he ended up, you know, he goes all the way through, basically through Miami in 2014,

but, you know, had seven pretty meaningful years there on really good teams. I don't know if Beal has that in him. I'm not ruling it out, by the way, are you? Like, he might have it in him. I wouldn't know if Beal has that in him. I'm not ruling it out, by the way, are you? Like he might have it in him. I wouldn't cross it off. Look, there's part of me as I've looked at this going, what if he's totally motivated by this? And, you know, knowing he was never a number one and then going like, I don't even think he's a two on a title contender. Well, here you go. What better spot to be a three with this group? And you're going to get to be the number one option in those games where Durant's gone.

You're right because there's still some TBD on the rest of this stuff with Aiton where it may be the rare trade that usually I don't like where you're trading the most talented player for three pieces. But they're kind of in need of that. And I don't want Booker to play point guard the whole time. I don't want Booker's drives to be taken away from him. I want him driving the way I saw him drive this year that to me like puts him at a whole nother level like i'm just i'm so in on him and his mentality and everything like he's one of the few guys that loses in the second round for a team it seems like it's going in the wrong direction where i'm like i'm more in on him now than ever before so i don't want anything to interfere with that but the reason i asked the ray allen question was that i think it was almost

always kind of surprising for us because he thought, hey, he's such a great shooter, but he wasn't really a catch-and-shoot guy because he was always used to kind of working off the ball a little bit more. Right. And I mean it like in the way we kind of define catch-and-shoot now where it's like you never move and you sit there and just wait. Like a Seth Curry. Yeah.

Right. Even though Seth can do a little bit more. Seth can do the other stuff too. Right. But I thought it was way harder for Ray Allen than the other two guys. And it felt like a strain. Then he's taken like eight less shots per game. And yet he's still at like 17 a game.

He's still like almost 40% from three. So the numbers tell you, oh, he just took less shots. But I thought it was like a real, a real, like, I don't know. I just think he deserved a lot of credit for, it could have been a lot of fun all the time, but there was a greater good there, right? It was, it was the goal of the team. And the other part of that team was that the three guys, we've already brought this up too many times is they were all collectively over the individual part of it. They were old enough in their career. They'd been through their old failures. So yeah, I guess there's part of me that wonders, can Beal go in going, all right,

dude, I've done a decade. I've got the money. I've got everything. I don't have any of the accolades. I've never done anything with a team. I need to find a way. He is talented enough. I don't think any of us deny that. He is talented enough, I would think, to find a way to fit in where it's not at the detriment of the other guys. But if he's going to do ball-stopping ISO shit and not make threes and then be less

available post-30, unless that's all Wizards-related, it's just... I try to see the other side of something, even if I don't necessarily believe it, but there's going to have to be some real sacrifice from him of adapting his game around it. And I wonder, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's in his makeup or not. Ray Allen in 2007 on Seattle, his usage rate was 29 and a half. And he went to Boston,

it was 21.6, 20.8, 20.2 the next three years. Even if you look at field goal attempts, he was 21 a game in Seattle in 07. He was 13 and a half a game in Boston in 08. That's a huge sacrifice. And you mentioned the bill, is he ready to sacrifice at this point of his career? I mean, we just saw him take a crazy contract from Washington, a team that he was going nowhere because it was a money decision. That was it. So that always makes me dubious. I think there's real red flags with him. Just from, if you go, just go look at everyone on basketball reference. I always make this point. Basketball reference, 78, 79 year history of basketball at this point. And go look at the stats. Go look at when people peak.

Like Beal had those two straight years in the 30s. When it drops to 23 and 23 the next two years, the history of basketball says that's usually a bad sign. You kind of end up where you are. Like Jermaine O'Neal was the best example of this. He was like a 20 and 10 guy. And then all of a sudden he was like a 13 and 8 guy. And it's like, oh, and then teams started trading for him. Well, we'll get him back. And then it's like, no, this is kind of where he is now. We'll hear stuff. Cause we hear this every year about the sons are going to stagger these guys. And you know, they'll always have, be able to have two of them on the court and it's going to be great. And here's all the ways it's going to work. But I'm sorry, basketball comes down to the last eight minutes. We just watched that Nuggets

Lakers series. I bet the Lakers were the second best team in the league. Every one of those games came down to the last eight minutes and my five against your five and who are we playing? And so we can do this whole stagger thing and maybe that'll help them in the regular season. But ultimately, it's going to come down to your best five guys. Do you have, can Beal or Booker guard the other team's best, you know, creator slash,

who's guarding Shea Gilgis-Alexander in round one? Is it Booker guard the other team's best creator slash who's guarding Shea Gilgis-Alexander in round one? Is it Booker? Is it Beal? It's Booker right now. Is it free agent $1.6 million guy? Who's guarding Jason Tatum in the finals? Is it Durant? I just think

this team has real holes still. I think we both agree. Yeah, cool. If you can get Bradley Beal for what you got on paper, it makes a ton of sense. But the contract is terrifying. It's terrifying because you have no outs now. And this is, we've talked about this before with the Gobert trade and other ones. I don't like trades where I have no outs. This is it. I'm fucking in now. My out now is like basically a Devin Booker trade, which I'm never doing.

And if Durant doesn't work on the Suns team, he's not going to have nearly the value what he gave up. And then the Beal thing, maybe this was his value. Like I thought it was interesting. Miami didn't want him. Miami could have beaten this trade, right?

They could have traded a hero and two picks for him. Probably could have gotten Lowry and two picks for him. They didn't want him. I wonder if the hero part of it was that the Wizards go like, look, we just don't want, we don't want the rest of the hero money, which is still significant. I mean, he got the four-year $120 million contract.

It was all guaranteed. Well, would you rather add Lowry and two firsts than what they got back? I would have. Well, two firsts, yeah they got back I would have well two firsts yeah I mean the funniest thing about doing this deal with Phoenix is you couldn't even get like this deal if Phoenix hasn't spent all their firsts on Durant it has two firsts in it

like it probably just has two firsts in it yeah because they're like come on just give us two we'll put some protections on them all right the Washington piece of this I hated this when they did it. Thank God there's records of all of our conversations. We're wrong sometimes, but I think for the most part in the big stuff, our batting average is pretty good.

I just didn't get it. I didn't understand why you're giving Bradley Beal $251 million when he doesn't change your destiny really in any way. You're giving him a no trade clause, which is just about the dumbest thing you could possibly do. Now you've removed all your leverage from the whole thing. And you're making your team slightly better when Wemba Nyama's coming in, who's the most important prospect in 20 years. So now they're picking, I think, their seventh or eighth

instead of being in the top three. They waste a year with Beal. They pay him $43 million. And then they gave him away for pennies on the dollar. Now they have to deal with the Chris Paul part of this. Now it's a new regime. The new regime clearly looked at this and was like, what the fuck are you guys doing? You either got to blow it up or you got to go all in, but you guys are in no man's land. You have been basically for a decade. This is what Joe House was talking about. But I think that bill contract, it was idiotic when it happened

and it looks worse now. I don't know. Is there any other way to look at it? Only to that, everything you said is right, but only that, you know, back to that rule of, well, what are you going to do?

Let them walk. You're going to lose the asset for nothing. I mean, that's why we have these B and sometimes even B minus players making this kind of money because you're so fearful of, well, wait a minute. Like, okay, fine. That's too expensive. And he's not that guy and we shouldn't have to pay this and it's going to screw us up. And then we're not going to be able to move them once we sign them. But where was he going? Nobody had cap space last year. He was going to go

play for Detroit, be in the same situation like where was he gonna go you're hey good luck though you know what i mean like good luck with that approach as a gm of like oh yeah fucking go to market i don't care but they just did it they just gave it took a year but they just gave away anyway they got nothing back they didn't pick for him the no trade part of it the bartlestein connection with his father you know uh josh bartlestein who's with the sons now and his father mark is is the agent so like they had all the info on on how to do this and if beal keeps going back to them saying nope nope nope nope nope i mean it's not even the money the no trades the thing that kills him which was almost historically stupid because nobody gives no trades and you don't give them the Bradley Beal. I could see giving it to like Jason Tatum.

Like, do you think the Celtics would give Jalen Brown a no trade with his new extension? They're never doing that. I would hope not. God help us. It's always funny though, like, you know, even when Kobe got that extension. Yeah. You know, granted, Kobe fans see things differently, but like most people were like, that doesn't make a ton of sense. All right.

And then the Lakers argument was this shows the rest of the league that this is how we take care of our stars. And then Kevin Durt didn't even have a meeting with them in 2016 so it didn't work right but the reason i'm bringing that up is not to not to criticize the extension it's that well okay you did it for kobe yes like the wizards gave beal the kobe treatment and he was bradley beal right there Right. Remember we made game seven or round two once with him? We got to take care of this guy. I like Bradley Beal. I just, I, it's me that would, no, no, I like him as a player.

We're like 40 minutes in and you're like, I don't like him. I don't think this is, you know, giving somebody who's like a disaster, but I don't think he's one of the top 30 players in the league. The red flags for me are the basketball reference thing I mentioned, where it just scares me that his stats haven't been there for two years now. The three-point shooting has gone sideways. It's been much chronicled. Then you talked about the health stuff. Those are three things that have gone the wrong way for a couple of years now. So you're keeping your fingers crossed and going, man, I hope we're getting the guy from two, three years ago. Not the guy from last year who didn't make anyone better and didn't really play that well. The free throws went down too. And you know,

I love free throws, free throw attempts. He was like in the eights, right? He was like a, like really getting to the line. Now he's in the, in the fours, low fives, which, you know, isn't nothing. Uh, I, if I was a wizards fan and fortunately one of my best friends is one, but I would be so mad. And how said this on Thursday night, like why do this the year after the Wimpy Yachtman year, the year to do this was a year ago. You had the runway sitting there. So now they're going to do it. And now who knows what's going to happen to the draft next year. Let's talk about the Chris Paul piece of this. Our guy, this fifth time he's been traded. He has not won a title. He made the finals once. He didn't win it. He's never won a ring. That's right. Never won a ring. That's what I heard.

And my estimation assumption, there was some great tweet about, don't be surprised if the Wizards keep Chris Paul. You know what? I'm actually going to be surprised. I will be surprised. Hey, first of all, the most recent thing that I saw right before we started taping this on a Sunday afternoon Pacific time is that

it was the Wizards want Paul, but will be willing to work with. Once I saw the willing to work with, I was like, okay, yeah. All right, keep going. Oh, by the way, just to jump in, this is why you and I were like, why would you report that he's going to be waived on June 7th? Even if he were going to be waived, which is still a likely scenario if they couldn't figure out a trade, that's why you and I were like,

this doesn't make any sense that anyone in place would know this now with three weeks to figure out if he's a piece of something else. So again, not waived. So it seems like they can still get out of this. And we might be wrong because the information is coming in. But all they would have to do is buy him out for 15.8. And then they could stretch that over the course of five years, basically take a three million, cap it. I personally would opt in with it. And I think he has some value, right? You get somebody who's

expiring back. He might be able to pick up one more asset. I don't know why they would need the cap space. It's not like a team like maybe the Celtics that would have been more appealing to because they're coming up toward the apron if they'd gotten him. But for Washington, I don't know why you wouldn't keep him as an expiring. I never, as you've heard me say many times, most recently with Kevin Love, I never understand why teams buy these guys out. I just don't get it. Nobody has been able to properly explain to me.

I have explained it to you, and I'm going to explain it to you again right now. Every time I disagree with it. It is front offices working with agents, working with players of a certain status where you want to be known as a front office that's willing to work

around the margins for you. Okay? So you're right. Just asset for asset. It doesn't make a ton of sense. But if Chris Paul, if I'm the Wizards, look, you got to pay somebody, right?

You got to get the 90% of the cap floor anyway. And it's now you've removed all the money and granted 30 million. So you're saying keep Chris Paul for 30 million? Yeah, I would keep him because I think he's going to have value when we get to December, January, February. I just think you can turn them into an asset. Right. Or- Buying them out to me is absolutely chaotic. Now I have no asset. Now it's like, well, now I have cap space. I'm Washington. Where am I going? They should be blowing it up. They should be the worst team

in the East next year. That'd be my goal. If I'm Winger and those guys that took over, how are we the worst? What can we do? Let's do Porzingis next. Let's do a Kuzma sign and trade next. How can we bottom out? Because that's the only way they're going to fix this. If you want to bottom out, you can't have Chris Paul winning you games in November, December, or January. Yeah, but I think he's

going to be there for seven, eight weeks max. And maybe you tell them, we've seen this in the NBA too, where they tell the guy, hey, maybe, you know, the Al Horford OKC move. Hey, why don't you just work out on your own there, buddy? Go to the gym, pull a Rosillo, do your thing, maybe get some surfing in. Chris Paul doesn't even want to do that though. Like he, when he went to OKC, they were like, we're going to just kind of bring you along slowly. And he was like, F that.

Let's play. Well, Chris, this version of Chris Paul might be delighted to work for four months. Maybe. If you're just February, March, April, May, June, I'm happy with that

if I'm Chris Paul and I've been in the league since 06. But back to like the part of 30 million for him, not knowing the rest of the stuff

that they're going to do, having to get to the cap floor at least yeah i guess there's a version where you say what if he plays well in the beginning of the year which is you know last year wasn't great so i don't i don't know what i could write down and expect from him the first few months of the season but is there a version of events where all of a sudden he's valuable and you're able to pick up some kind of asset maybe i don't know but dude there's guys like rui hatchamura can't even get you a first rounder now everybody's wondering if the lakers are going to have enough money to pay him 100 million dollars so

the league the league can be really weird at the the low and high ends of what a player's value is but to back to like the way business is done point that i always try to make with you is that you know winger has relationships with the clippers, right? He just came from there. You know, what if they're like, hey, you know, are you going to waive him? Like, what's going to happen there? Now, granted, Winger's running a new team now, but there's so many relationships.

There's so many things with agents. There's so much that goes on with the players that have a certain status level that Chris Paul still has, despite the diminished production of last season, that a team doing a guy a solid as opposed to wondering if they can get you know a protected first it turns into a second in 2029 I'm sorry I'm not doing them solid okay I'm just not I'm just trying to tell you why it works that way because it's a lot of the reasons why we see stuff like what happened

there and you're like this is happened. I just don't trust agents that much and I don't think you win that much goodwill with them. I think they're always going to do what's best for their client that makes the most money and that's fact. Like, for instance... Should we go on Rogan and debate it? For instance... I'm telling you, your numbers are off all right go ahead

if you're going state yeah do you feel good about the jordan pool contract not great but you know what i also like jordan pool being a major component to them and winning a title two years ago like like that's still real. That's still really happened. But you have Draymond, you got to pay. He's going to opt out, it looks like. I've got Klay Thompson for $40 million. There's some, Kaminga is actually going to be good this year, Buzz.

Curry's contract goes up every year. Like if I could turn Jordan Poole into a year of Chris Paul and figure out what that looks like on my... I don't think he fits with what they do. He doesn't really fit with what they want to do on offense. You think he'd play with Steph? I actually think that would be really interesting to watch a true point guard play with Steph. We've never really seen it.

I think it's gone well. Sean Livingston is like the... Sean Livingston? Who else? Iguodala. When the Heat initiate it. I think it's gone well. Sean Livingston? Who else? Iguodala? When the Heat initiate the offense. But it's about movement. And I don't think high ball screen pick and roll is while Steph watches

with Klay. I think it's pretty established how I feel about Chris Paul. I just don't think his approach is exactly what the Warriors... It's not even close. So I'll just say it that way. Like they're about movement. They're about passing and cutting and moving. I'm just trying to figure out, because it has to be a one-for-one trade if they spin them right now. Otherwise they can wait two months, then you can package them in different deals. Or the other way you do it is if you find

another home from now, you could expand this into the three team, the four team, but that always looks great on paper and then it never seems to actually happen. But I just feel like he's going to be on a different team either immediately or by November or whatever. Buying him out makes no sense to me. I can turn him into something. Like maybe I can get Kyle Lowry and Jovich from Miami. Cool.

I'll take Jovich. I wasn't going anywhere. I was cutting this check anyway. If you're running Washington, would you get rid of everybody? Well, I can't get rid of everybody. You know, whenever anybody wants to rip it down to the studs, they ignore like factors of, well, to my original part of it, it's like you got to pay somebody. So I waited out. I still have what? Nine days to make a decision's like you've got to pay somebody. So I've waited out. I still have, what,

nine days to make a decision here? I've got nine days to figure it out. They have a top 10 pick. They have Porzingis, who I think can either opt in. I don't know why he would opt out. Well, he might opt out to do less money annually to get...

If I'm Porzingis with his injury history coming off a really nice year, well, this is the part where his agent already knows, hey, if you opt out, we already know where you can go make $100 million somewhere else, right? We know that game. So if he doesn't opt out, that would tell you the market's actually pretty bad for him.

But the free agents aren't that great this year, or he's overpriced. But if he does opt out, maybe it's a really simple, okay, I'm not going to make 35 annually, but I can do something for less money. That's an awesome point about Porzingis. If I'm him, I'm getting one more contract in. Yeah. That's what I'd be doing. Yeah. Four years, a hundred million. I have no idea if my knees are going to be there two years from now. Give me a long contract. All right.

Is Chris Paul's big brother, is somebody who has been rooting for him to find the right team, to climb the mountain, to win a title. Where do you want him to go? Do you want it to just be where he gets, like, I'll just tell you now, I don't see the Lakers thing. I don't see how that's the best fit for him I want him somewhere where he can actually have the ball and pick his spots and do the 23 to 25 minutes a game but then have a couple

big moments in the playoffs but to me in my head it was like a Milwaukee made a bunch of sense because they can protect him on defense. I'd like him to go somewhere where there's already a guard in place that can take the burden off of him instead of running every possession throughout the entire regular season and then not being able to go.

I've wanted him to play with Tyus Jones forever. So Memphis, but Ja's only going to miss the 25 games. And if you look at Memphis's record without Jha, they're actually pretty competitive. The rest of the guys are healthy. So I think, you know, again,

the Memphis topic is its own topic. I think I'd like to see what it feels like rooting for heat culture. The heat for him. Why not? Can we, can we just talk out the Celtics for 45 seconds? I'd love to see him on the Celtics, but I

figured everybody would just think I was being a homer, even though I don't really care. I think the Celtics are definitely moving a guard. Maybe even this week. And I think they know they need to move a guard. And Brogdon and Chris Paul in a trade makes sense to me. And I don't know that maybe they would have to wait two months

to officially throw the second contract in there to complete it, but we've seen that happen before where they agree now. And then by the time we get to September 1st, when the 60 days is up where he can be traded again, you do it. But if you just flip him and Brogdon, and then when we make up trades later, I have a Marcus Smart trade that I'm pretty excited about. You're not going to believe this, but yet again, on this podcast, I've traded Marcus Smart. I think Chris chasing a ring, being the old guy who's been there in a bunch of different battles and a bunch of different ways,

being a fucking adult, I think could really help this team. And, uh, not that they didn't have that in a lot of ways before, but I, there's something different about it. I think him and Horford together is really interesting to me as these two

veterans. Plus they've, they've augmented the, uh, coaching staff. Finally, we're not going to have the augmented the, uh, coaching staff. Finally, we're not going to have the dudes from store 24 as our assistants. Um,

but the Chris thing's interesting. And then it gets them off the Brogdon deal, which a year from now, the, the Brown Tatum combo is going to be a nightmare. And they just, the fundamentally, they cannot pay Brown and Tatum a hundred million a year.

And then three guards, 50 million. And, you know, it's just going to give them more leeway. So that's the case. I think, Chris Paul, the Celtics make sense. In a vacuum, would you trade Brogdon for Chris Paul right now? Forget the contract, forget the second year of the Brogdon money. Player for player, the way you see those two.

I discussed it with my dad today, who loved Brogdon the regular season, but Brogdon got hurt again. Now it was a bad luck injury this time, but he's just hurt a lot. And that was why they were able to get him for the price they got him. He has trouble being on the floor. And I think for them, the injury, it was an unlucky injury. It wasn't like a structure of the body type of oh my god here we go again injury but it it is a recurring theme with him and uh and i would think about it because more because of the long-term part of the deal and having the brogdon years later if he got injured one more time now what do i do and stuff like like that. So I would. I think that Chris Paul chasing a ring thing,

being on one of these teams would be, you know, a really cool thing. By the way, another one is Denver. If he got bought out, I think putting him on Denver, just watching him use Jokic would be absolutely fascinating. I would love that.

So Miami, I mean, there's good teams that can need him. I don't think you can rule out the Knicks either because of his relationship with Leon and Wes. And especially if he went in there knowing, you know, I'm not the guy anymore, but I'm here to help. I'm a rotation guy. Not quite Sam Cassell in 2008 because he was pretty washed at that point, but maybe more in that Sam Cassell 2006 Clippers. Maybe not as many minutes, but that kind of impact where it's like, whoa, we have a fucking adult here.

This is great. Is this how this works? Teach me stuff. So I don't think he'll be on Washington. This is a long way of making the point. I have one point, though. Go. We just got to get Chris Paul out of this Bermuda

Triangle of point guards where it's the Clippers, Houston, and Washington. John Wall, Washington, Houston, Clippers. Russell Westbrook, Houston, Washington, Clippers. Chris Paul, Clippers, Houston, Washington.

Is there anybody else that was in that Bermuda Triangle? I feel like Ishmith isangle? I feel like Ishmith is available. I feel like Ishmith has been on all those teams. He hasn't been on the Clippers. Can we get Monty Morris

to the Clippers and the Rockets? That's pretty good. I like that Bermuda Triangle. All right, we're going to take a break. Let's make up some trades after this.

Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. after this. financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada, insurance designed for life. All right, so we have the draft coming up on Thursday, and there's some good balls that are in the air right now. Dame Lillard, who knows? Who does Charlotte take at number two? I'll tell you this.

Scoot Henderson was plus 160 four days ago. Now he's minus 140 on FanDuel. So that is flipped. And they came back in. I always think one of my favorite things of looking at the pre-draft stuff, especially this week, is you can find some stuff

with the way teams will invite certain people back. And then you'll look at who they took and you go, oh, look. Look who the last group they brought in to work out was. I just always, if you're really into the draft, pay attention to the next couple days and who the last visit is.

Zion seems to be available to be kind. Charlotte's number two pick seems to be potentially available. Indiana's number seven pick is reportedly available. Dallas's number 10 pick is available. Orlando has six and 11. There is a lot of flux from four to 10 where people like different guys and like the ceiling of different guys. And, you know, we say this every year, you can expect a lot of deals this week, but I actually think this could be one of those weeks where we do get a bunch of deals. What team are you looking at? Who are you putting your microscope on?

Well, I obviously had some Celtics ones lined up for you. Oh, I'm ready for those. But what, so just heading into this week is the Celtics ones lined up for you. Oh, I'm ready for those. So just heading into this week, is the Celtics the number one team? You're like, I wonder what those guys are going to do. So who's your number one? What is that team going to do, team? Charlotte. Yeah, I think it is Charlotte. Because it's a scoop Brandon Miller thing.

They still have the Bridges decision to make. Maybe it isn't I mean because we still have to figure out the Philly part of this like Charlotte doesn't matter enough so I actually shouldn't pick Charlotte you know because no I disagree I think Charlotte's the pick because

there's major players that would make sense especially with new owners coming we just saw this happen with Phoenix and new owners like to get frisky. And I don't know. I have Charlotte. I think Portland because Portland, as we've talked about for weeks now, could go either way. They could just do the full rebuild or they could try to build around Dame. The Zion thing is a real, real, real subplot. I had somebody tell me yesterday that I trust that

he will not be on that team on Thursday. I was like, really? I haven't heard that. And they're like, you watch. So there you go on that. And then Houston. One of the things that's really interesting about this week and just this summer in general is you have a couple teams that fundamentally cannot go backwards anymore, right? Houston owes OKC all these picks coming up. They owe their 2024 first top four protected and their 2026 first and then a 2025 swap, which is top 10 protected. But it doesn't make sense for Houston to stink in 24. Brooklyn owes their 24 and 26 first to Houston and 25 and 27 swap. So they don't want to go backwards, right?

Houston's getting their pick. And by the way, I always feel like it's weird when people are like, well, maybe they can get Bridges. You're like, why do they want to trade Mikael Bridges? He's good. He's like at another level that I didn't even think he would be on a bad team. And he's affordable. So like, why

like we just, if you're Brooklyn, you're like, we just got a pretty good guy. Like, why do we want to get rid of this dude? Not only did we get an awesome guy who got better when he had the ball more, but he's got one of the best contracts in the league. I had him in the top 25 for trade value. He's making $25 million a year.

He's a real asset. I would keep him. This is my first trade for you, and then you can throw him back at me. To me, Brooklyn's the Dame team. I've heard... I know people are like, no, if Dame... If he gets traded, it'll be to Miami, heat culture, all that stuff. I just think

Brooklyn has way more to give. Can't make fun of heat culture anymore, dude. I know, I can't. I just don't think the heat can top this trade. You put Simmons in there because you have to. And somebody, especially if we're a rebuilding team, I don't mind biting on him. You have all four Phoenix first, 23, 25, 27, 29.

And you have the Dallas 29 unprotected first. And Cam Thomas. And I'm putting all that stuff on the table for Dame. And I don't think anyone can beat that trade. Well, it's the picks. It's not about Cam Thomas at this point. Yeah, I'm just throwing people back. But I just don't think anyone can beat that trade.

Is Simmons even salvageable though? Like I think he's such a bad time now I don't even know that I'd want him around And the most recent thing Did you see that thing where they posted him working out And he looks jacked They altered, they photoshopped it A guy proved like look at how he's

In this picture And then he just added Thor shoulders And you're like wait That sounds like an LA high school girl yeah right like that's people can do that at parties where they can change what they look in the photo well that's why I threw in that Dallas pick

because I felt like you have to throw in a pick to get somebody to take Simmons because he's under contract next season the year after so it's two left but I still feel like somebody's gonna be like, yeah, fuck it, we'll take a swing at him. He made the all-NBA team.

He's 25. But if they put all that stuff for Dame, I don't know how Miami tops it. It's like, here's Tyler Hero and Jovich, and you can have three of our firsts, but I'm getting firsts from a team that's always good. I think that's going to be the best trade. And that's a fair comparison trade

to what Cleveland gave up for Donovan Mitchell. I think that's the price that was basically set last year with the KD trade, where it's going to be four to five picks, maybe one other piece, and something else. Well, I like Sexton way more than I like Sexton. I mean, Simmons is somebody I don't even know that I

can get in business with at this point even right but it might you know see who I could take out I can I could try to on the fly try to take out Simmons and put in who else do they have that makes money I guess I could I could give

you a little Spencer Dinwiddie Joe Harris combo rather than that I'll give you the choice you guyswiddie, Joe Harris combo. Would you rather have that? I'll give you the choice. You guys, you talk about it with your team. I personally wouldn't want Ben Simmons showing up saying, hey, I'm actually not ready, but I'm going to dress up. And then I'm going to tweet troller shit at other people while I never play in games.

And then I'm going to alter pictures of me to have big shoulders, even though I don't play basketball anymore. All right. So Dinwiddie. And then I'm going to go on the JJ Reddick podcast and talk about how awesome I am for an hour and then not play again. All right. So, Dinwiddie, Joe Harris, all four Phoenix

first, 23, 25, 27, 29, and the Dallas 29 first for Dame. I'm putting that on the table. So, really, what it comes down to is the Phoenix picks versus the Miami picks. Well, considering one team was just in the NBA finals, I think the easiest thing to be to say,

oh, I'd rather have the Phoenix picks. Miami can't trade four picks, though, is part of the problem with that. And with that Portland one, you get the pick this year to start. And I don't think Miami can even get to, with that rule about you can only trade seven years down the road, about you can only trade like

seven years down the road, so they can only put three in it. All right. We spent too much time in this. You go. What do you got? What's your first trade? Let's hear it. Pritchard and filler for James Wiseman. What is it really? That was my first one. What are you talking about? That doesn't fit contractually, but Pritchard makes like two million bucks. Yeah, I know. That's why I said filler. Oh, filler. So like Gallo?

Yeah, there you go. He picked up that option. You want Wiseman on the Celtics? I'm asking you if you do, because I know deep down that you're not going to give up on Pritchard. It's not your style. Oh, this is a Pritchard test.

Well, if they're going to trade Brogdon or Smart, I think you have to keep Pritchard just because of his price. When you were talking about Brogdon or Smart I think you have to keep Pritchard just because of his price when you were talking about Brogdon and that deal for Chris Paul and the money part of it yeah mapping it all out like Celtics the thing that sucks about it for them this year

this past season was like you had all of these contracts kind of line up perfectly and you had all this what we thought was incredible depth but if they're going to move a guard I think they need to get another bid like that should be the number one priority than switching out a guard for a guard because horford holding up like he just did this long into the playoffs is still pretty remarkable and i think it's like kind of been overlooked it almost as if it was assumed like oh yeah horford was pretty good like do you like a couple years ago it looked

like he was done and then he comes back and he's this big of a deal and then Rob Williams always being hurt all the time if they're going to do a guard move out I think it has to be for a big and well they might lose Grant too Grant's already getting floated around for different teams and that would be another technically a big that they would be losing so that's a no all right what do you got that's all right that was a real one I asked you a real one so what do you have for me I don't want Wiseman okay I'd like to see him

do it a little bit more I have a mega trade okay hold on actually it's not a mega trade it's just there's a this is I was really proud of this one it's Portland and Washington

Washington gets the number three pick in Anthony Simons and Yusuf Nurkic. And Portland gets Washington's pick, which I think is eight. Is it seven or eight? Eight. Pacers are seven.

Portland gets eight and Porzingis, who opts in, and Corey Kispert. So Washington moves up to three and they get who's ever left with Scoot and Brandon Miller. They get Simons and they get Nurkic. Portland moves back four spots. They add Porzingis. They add Kispert as a shooter.

And then they basically don't have to take Brandon Miller if they don't like him at three and they can take somebody else they like. What do you think? They get Przingis. Is he opting in? Yeah, he has to opt in as part of it. Kispert. Kispert getting a lot of mentions today.

His stats are good I actually I test wise too I was like this guy something's here for a wing guy who could shoot threes if I'm Washington I'm saying in a minute like excuse me I'm saying yes in a second because

I don't really even though Porzingis had a nice season there's no version of events where he's part of the future. None. Um, I, I like Kispert a little bit, but I don't want to move down from like,

the reason this is such a yes for the wizards is because I'm getting potentially scoot here. Like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I made this assuming scoots going to go to one of the things is Miller. Then you're like, I I'm thrilled to walk away from this draft with Brandon Miller, I made this assuming Scoot's going to go too. One of the things is Nurkic is kind of... Miller then.

I'm thrilled to walk away from this draft with Brandon Miller knowing that I'm moving eight and probably two pieces that aren't a big part of my future unless you think Kispert has this whole level that he's going to get to. I don't. One thing I liked about this for Portland is you get to dump Nurkic's deal, which I think is a top 10 or 12 worst contract right now. Nurkic has 16.8 next year, 18.1, and then 19.3 in 25-26.

It's just brutal. I mean, he's, to me, a bottom five starting center. And you're just getting crushed by that contract for three years. But they're not. You're basically flipping him into Porzingis. Right. But for them, they're not. Washington Porzingis. Right. But for them, like they're not.

Washington wouldn't care. Right. They're going to pay somebody anyway. I just think that the number three pick is worth it to take on. And you're actually getting

a talented piece back in Simons where, you know, he's not perfect, but he's only on that like lower extension for the newer guys. So I'd be okay with it.

All right. My, just for the record, I would, I would do that trade if I was Washington. I would say no if I was Portland. Yeah, we agree. Yeah.

Okay. Would you do Jalen Brown for Zion and Herb Jones? I get Herb Jones too? Well, Zion for Jalen Brown's a no, right? Straight up, if you're Boston. Oh, look at you. Look at him. You and I've, I think you and I are on the higher end of Zion believers. I just, there was two different points of his career where he was doing stuff I'd never seen before from somebody with his body and his size and his profile and both of us were like I think

you and I were about as focused on it as any non-Pelicans fans for like do you guys realize what's happening right now it was like this guy is completely unguardable. I just worry that he got the contract already and he doesn't seem to have any sort of maturity at all. Like at all. And if he was playing for something, I would feel better about it. But the fact that he already has the money makes me really nervous because we've seen this a few times. I would probably say no, but man, I would, I would have a three hour meeting with my staff only because I was, I've made five conference finals in seven years and I don't know, would you do it? No, I probably would. Um, and by the way, just for everybody that's going to like, cause I can already see the, oh, they proposed a trade that didn't even go through. Like if you'll allow us the flexibility of knowing that other contract

filler would be thrown into some of these things even if like the parameters of the deal like look yeah if boston new orleans wanted to figure out a zion jalen brown deal they probably could figure one out um yeah that after july 1st it gets, too. Well, not on the bigger number stuff. Like the new CBA, it actually is tougher to match up the salaries in the new one. But they could do, it could be Zion and Herb Jones for Jalen Brown and Gallinari, and you could get basically exactly the same numbers. You probably have to add more on the New Orleans side. So maybe, you know, anyway, look. So if you'll allow us the creativity of giving

you the the main points without having to or whatever so uh i'm gonna wouldn't you okay but here's the thing like jaylen brown going to the pelicans solves their zion problem immediately and if you're boston whatever you think of them now, and even kind of on the Phoenix thing, one of my number one things that I'll do is I'll look at what you're doing and go, okay, does this at least give you a chance? Does this having a legitimate chance to win an NBA championship. And messing with that and breaking that up, despite the flaws, like every other team, I wouldn't be in a hurry to mess with that. So if I'm boss, I'd still say no, despite you would have some real moments

being like, what? Imagine if we get Zion and he figures it out. But again, that's a huge... He's played 114 games in four years. Played 29 games last year. And he's had a couple of major injuries and just does not seem like he can stay in shape. Yeah, I did. I did a thing on my pod like six weeks ago about the almost club.

Like what, how long is a window for a team before you just kind of have to go, we got to try something different. Like we can't get over the hump. And it does feel like the Celtics are either there this season or they're one season away. Like if it doesn't happen for them next season, at some point you just got to go, look, man, this has been 80% of a decade. We got to like do something. We can't just be like, oh, let's run it back. I'm mailing you this trade because it's complicated.

Just so you look at it. I just texted it to you. It's a Zion trade. It involves New Orleans and Charlotte and Houston. Here's the trade. Thank you for sending these to me because now I can look at these. You're saying it.

Appreciate it. Houston gets Zion Williamson and the number 27 pick. Charlotte gets the number four pick, Jalen Green and Kira Lewis. They move back two spots four pick, Jalen Green and Kira Lewis. So they move back two spots and they get Jalen Green. New Orleans gets the number two pick and Terry Rozier and first round picks from Brooklyn in 24 and 26. So basically they flip Zion into number two, Terry Rozier, and two Brooklyn firsts. Charlotte moves back two spots, picks up Jalen Green.

Houston rolls the dice with Zion. They sign James Harden, and they go to war next year with James Harden and then Zion, which I think would be unbelievable for the restaurants in the Houston area. All the service industries. All the service industries, huge win all the service industries, huge win. The waiters, other people. Zion and Harden together would be kind of unbelievable. I don't know what version of Harden we're getting,

but I also wonder if they're getting Harden at all, which makes me wonder, do you just say fuck it and take a swing? I don't know if this is true or not, but there is, they said there's an in-game, you know, how like during the breaks in a game and they play the videos and they ask like NBA players trivia questions or like, you know, who's, who's the best on the team at this and who's the worst. I think there's one of Zion.

I've been told this, but I haven't seen it. So I don't know. But the in-game thing, it's like, what are your favorite road trips? And he says Houston and Atlanta. Okay. So he'd be happy. Right. So he'd be happy.

The part of the Zion thing is that he's actually, despite how frustrating it's been, he's their star in a market that has a really hard time keeping them or enticing anyone to go there. So you take Scoot, who is, by all accounts, a fucking grown-up right away who's going to work his ass off, who's going to will

himself to be an awesome NBA player, and you basically change your culture overnight with a guy who's like, I'm going to fucking kill myself to be your superstar versus the guy they have now. So again, so Charlotte, can we just go one at a time? If you're Charlotte, would you move back two spots and you get Jalen Green out of it? Probably. Well, no, I take Scoot. I take Scoot but the whole thing is you know what to say in a

vacuum i'm only moving two spots back and to do that i add jalen green but moving two spots back now moves despite the fact that draft history is going to tell us that there's going to be somebody that goes after five that maybe is better than one of the guys that goes in the top three probably not the guy that's number one but i I'm, I like Scoot. Okay. We're both Scoot guys. We've been saying it for a few weeks now, at least. I don't, I don't know that I'd want to give up the chance of having Scoot for Jalen Green, who despite his talent, I think is a high points guy on a team that just let him take

a million shots that he and Kevin Porter just get to shoot the whole time. I agree with you. I would rather have Scoot, but I could also talk myself into this trade because I feel like I could get somebody awesome at number four. And I'm just, I'm getting two swings at the talent apple

with Jalen Green at number four versus one. Houston, I would just do it. Like, fine. Well, I'm giving up Jalen Green and two Brooklyn Firsts and number 27. Sign me up. And then New Orleans gets the culture changer and scoot. This is a fun one.

Let's take a break and then I have a couple more to throw you. So we definitely said no then. We said no. We said no, but it's fine. Who's leading the charge on the no there? New Orleans? No, I think New Orleans does that. I think New Orleans is the most psyched.

Yeah. They get number two in Terry Rozier and two firsts. I'm doing that. I'm taking scoot. I'm delighted. That was a really good one because you're looking at Houston saying, all right, you missed out. I think Houston would say yes to that in two seconds.

I think they would too. All right, let's take a break. All right, more trades. What do you got? We'll just change it up. Change up the vibe. Would you do Clay Thompson for Siakam? I have to get something else if I'm Toronto.

Like you got to give me Kaminga in that trade. And I might have to have Moody too. And number 19, I'd also like that. Well, then if you're raising, I get what you're saying, because like you'd always be fascinated to see what Clay is like.

He still probably make a lot of shots. All right. And offensively, despite the most recent stuff being pretty disappointing playoff run, he had

two months there where he was incredible. All right. Like incredible this year. So I hope you're not saying that as if you're dismissive of who Clay is, even though the most recent playoff thing was super disappointing. I just see 43 million for one year and you might leave at the end of the contract

and I've just lost Siakam and I'm not going anywhere with Clay. I'm not winning the title. So let me ask you this. Does Clay fit your Porzingis thing that you brought up? Like if you're Clay, do you want a four year deal? Do you want to opt out of the 43 and get more money? Like and do a four for 120? So I locked down an extra 80 million because I have no idea what's going on.

I've had a torn ACL and I've had a torn Achilles. Like, I don't know what my legs are going to be like in two years. Like, do I grab more money now? Yeah. less annually. Yeah, he falls into that. I don't know if that's what he's going to do.

Yeah, I think he does too. Yeah. So if I'm Toronto, he would have to do that if I'm Toronto. I'm like, I need a new contract. Let's figure it out. $115,000 for four years. I'll make the number lower, et cetera. He has a pretty hefty trade ticker, too.

But from a basketball standpoint, Clay away from Curry, I think is a slightly different guy. All right. I don't think that's breaking news. And Siakam, younger, less injury prone, but mid-post with Steph Curry, that might not make any sense to them too.

I feel like Golden State just has to go, let's see if everybody's on the same page. I don't know if Draymond takes a little less on the annual. I don't know if Clay takes a little less on the annual. I don't know if that means they have to move out pool. Maybe it's coming or something like that. But it gets back to kind of the chance thing. Would you agree that there's a version of events where golden state's at least

a contender next year or is that over to you do you think it's impossible not over but i think they have to i don't think they can have pool draymond and and uh clay back okay they got to pick two of those and i also feel like Siakam in the playoffs is different too. I think because he comes a little bit more predictable like he's a slightly easier

guy to defend. It's just something I've noticed. I'm not sure if the numbers are backing up there or not. So he's not perfect either. I was just trying to pick two guys that feel like

they're. I like that one though. Okay. I mean I'm sure we could come up with some other fun clay one-for-oners. Would you get a Tobias Harris clay

thing? I am bullish on Tobias in a contract here and a different situation. He's been in a lot of big games. I went to those Clipper games when he was really good like I'm just I'm not crossing him off as an asset yet and I don't know man if you're on that Philly team and

it's just Embiid and Harden for four straight quarters playing the two-man game and everyone else has to stand around like who looks awesome in that well yeah I don't i don't think it's all on everybody else because i think i've noticed with tobias harris there's other times too with other situations where i felt like i forgot he was out there so i don't think it's just a philly i mean he's the originator of the joke of the i forgot he was out there too but if you were giving me if i'm flipping clay into tobias harris but i'm getting another asset like i'm not i'll at least have the conversation with my staff. I have a Siakam trade for you that I was super excited about. Okay.

Charlotte gets Pascal Siakam. And Toronto gets the number two pick and Gordon Hayward. And that's the trade. I think that's an awesome trade. Thanks. And if I'm Toronto, I just reboot with Scoot. Like, great.

Scoot, Scotty Barnes. I have like a real culture, hopefully. Hayward is an expiring, I think we both like. And if I'm Charlotte, I don't know what to do with this Lomelo Scoot thing thing um man who was I talking to about this about uh I was talking to somebody

about why Hal Burton and Darren Fox like why didn't that work and and it should have worked but I think everyone would agree it just wasn't great for whatever reason having the two of them on the same team. And then they went to separate teams and everybody was happy. And the question is, does that happen with Scoot and Lomelo? It's like, oh, this will work on paper. They complement each other. Lomelo can guard bigger guys on defense. They can share the ball, but it's like nobody's ever really going to be happy until one person's the guy.

I don't think Scoot's going to give a shit. I think he's just going to want to win. I actually like those two together. So I would, we're, I think we're aligned. I would keep Scoot, but if you're going to trade Scoot for forward because you're worried about

it, I think Siakam or Jalen Brown is about as good as you're going to get. Yeah. And if you're Toronto and you know, you're losing Van Vliet and free agency where he's going to opt out. But it sounded odd, like as if they wanted to kind of come close to running it back. And I know there was something about like, oh, you know, they didn't want to trade this guy. I didn't want to trade that guy.

You know, OG and Anobi, it sounded like, wait, there's a third first rounder going in it for OG and Anobi. Like we all like them, but Jesus. And then guess what? It didn't happen. Cause it still felt kind of ridiculous depending on what the protections would be on three first rounders for OG and an OB. But if you know Van Vliet's out, then I would go like, all right, cool. Like we're good. We had a really good run. Cause I was, it kind of brings us back to the Siakam thing. Like you'll look at some of his numbers and go, holy shit. Like, look what this guy is doing. He's definitely one of the

best eight, four, eight, nine forwards in the league. Right. Yeah. But every year he's around all NBA, but you never feel great about putting them in the top three teams, but he's kind of always honorable mention. Because when I watch, I don't go like, oh, that's one of the 15 best players in the game, which is one of the best 35. So same trade.

What if it was Jalen Brown for Gordon Hayward in the number two? As much as I like Scoot, I just don't think I'd mess with what I've already said twice now. Boston goes into a chance for the title next year. It's a little riskier for Boston. Toronto not as risky. All right. I'm going to go back to back on you because we were talking about Boston. This is my favorite trade of all the trades that I messed around with. By the way, I had a couple of good Bradley Beal ones that just got vaporized because they actually traded them before we were able to do the podcast. Yeah, I had two, but whatever.

I think this trade is really logical. I think it's exceedingly fair. And I don't know which team would turn it down. The teams are the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks. Tim Hardaway and the number 10 pick for Marcus Smart.

And that's the trade. Yeah, I'd do that from Boston. Would you do it if you're Dallas? Hmm. Not really, because now Smart's the third ball handler off of Kyrie and Luka, and he's going to be watching a ton.

You know, maybe you assign him defensively, but I just think Smart's better defensively against bigger guys than he's some lockdown dude against the other quicker scoring guards. So I'd say yes, if our boss, and just to get a pick to have a guy on a rookie scale, I mean, you got to hope you're right. Hope he's good enough to be in a rotation for a playoff team with big

aspirations, which isn't all that likely, but you know, you add some shooting. I think Hardaway is actually good, you know? So that was one of the reasons I let Hardaway is 18 million this year and 16.1 next year, but it solves the guard problem for the Celtics, right? Because now you're moving out one of the guards and you're replacing with the swing. And I felt like one of the things the Celtics struggled with last year was not

having that guy to bring, put in for Jalen Brown or Tatum. If one of those guys got in foul trouble or wasn't playing a game, whatever. His three-point shooting has always been pretty good. And from a Dallas standpoint, I just think Smart has a change of scenery. I can't believe they traded. I wouldn't underestimate that if I was a team looking at Marcus Smart trades. Him getting traded.

He's been in just a shitload of playoff games. I just think he'd be really motivated. And it sounds like I'm selling this to try to convince him to trip for Marcus Smart. I just think he's one of those guys that if he got traded, he would take it really personally. And at least for the next year, he would have his best season. And I think with him and with Kyrie, if you're going to bring back Kyrie, and you have Kyrie and Luka, you can't really have another score. You need a glue guy. I don't care if I have the ball that much and you got to win now with the team you have. So we keep hearing with Dallas, they're going to turn number 10 into a winning player, a wing. Well, who is it? Go through the league. There's not that many of those guys. There's not that many guys that have the right contracts to fit back. It's got to be somebody in that 15 to 19 million range that you can flip hardaway for. Nobody's taking Bertans back to get the number 10 pick. I don't see it. So that would be the other one if it was, Dallas came back and said, look, we're not doing hardaway, but we'll do Bertans.

So Bertans and number 10 for smart. We'll do that right now. What does Boston say to that? Bertans has, let's see, he is at 17 million next year. And then he's got an early termination option for 25. If he plays in 75% of the regular season games, shit kicks in. So you could get out of it.

It could be a one-year deal. Would you do it if it was Bertans and 10 for Smart? I'd hate to mess with what the Boston part of it is, but I really didn't enjoy Smart as much as I did last year, this year. I just didn't. I think White could take a lot of the stuff he did

and probably do a better version of it. They got to fix the White-Smart-Brogdon thing. I don't think they can bring that back again. I think White, if you're talking assets,

he's the number three asset on the team and considering his contract and what Jalen's about to get paid, you know, he's not that far away from being the number two asset. Cause the number 10 part of it's sexy.

It's new. It's exciting to be a high pick for him here. But realistically, like if it's Grady Dick, although that'd probably be popular in Boston, um, what's he doing? Like what's he realistically doing for a team that kind of knows

who their seven or eight playoff guys are as soon as he gets there? And Grady's more than just a spot-up three-point shooter. He lights it up. He can dribble. He can drive a little bit. He's actually pretty athletic. Hustles his ass off. But that's the kind of player that we're talking about.

Well, Grady was also a huge high school guy and fits the DNA of that the smart teams sometimes love Celtics Warriors we've talked about this many times he was like a high high high high

five star and has only been in college for a year I actually was looking at somebody else but I think I might like this guy more than most

I already have a favorite guy I forgot to tell you I have a favorite you have a favorite guy I have my to tell you. I have a favorite. You have a favorite guy? I have my Sohan for this year. I found him. No. I don't think there's any Sohan. Any guesses? No, no. There's a guy. This guy checks a lot of boxes for me. And I haven't done all my homework

yet, but I did my preliminary thing and there was one guy that I was just immediately head over heels in love with. Wait. So if you're talking about this year's Sohan, it's crazy because guy that i was just immediately head over heels in love with wait so if you're talking about this year sohan it's crazy because i think i was just talking to somebody uh team where they were like yeah it kind of reminds me of sohan and i whoever i don't i forget who i was just recently talking to about sohan and i stopped him and said there's no sohan there's no other sohan there might be a new so there might be a sohan 2.0 because sohan is against everything that like i normally want in a basketball player. Does he shoot it well? No.

What does he do here? Just let him sub into the game and impact the game. Just let him go in and impact the basketball game and get out of the way. And normally, if you're telling me that's the kind of guy you're going to take in the lottery, I'd say, well, that's kind of ridiculous. But with Sohan, we both love him so much. I'm trying to guess. I'm trying

to think who it is in the first round. Here's the answer. I'll give you the country. He's from France. Makula Bali? Yeah. That's my guy. That's my YouTube crush. He's got these freaky giant arms and i don't know that guy jumped out of the jumped off my ipad do you know his wingspan his wingspan measured at

seven three and he's six seven i'm aware seven foot three he's six foot seven. He's only 18. And I don't know. He's been playing and he's been playing in some playoff games over there. I don't know. He jumped off the screen to me. I'm going to do some more

deep diving on him this week. But 10 might be a little early, but I think he's going to be in the top 15. KOC has him 15 in the guide. Everybody really likes him, by the way. It seems like he's one of these kind

of late risers. And then I'd heard a team say, because I had sent this tweet out about, we've already discussed it, about how I thought it was really cool. I thought it was a great sign about Wimbanyama wanting to play in the playoffs throughout this entire time. And then it got turned into a labor thing. And I'm like, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, first of all, not everybody loves this game, especially the big guys. The number of big guys that play professional basketball only because they're big and hate it is a higher number than people want to realize. But their whole lives, because they were huge, everybody's like, you should play basketball. And then it's a pretty good life, pretty good life if you can do it for 10 years.

But basketball people will tell you more often than not, a lot of the really big dudes, I'm not saying it's over 50%, but there's a lot of those guys that actually don't love it. So that tells me Wimba Nyama absolutely loves it, even though, yes, he's under contract, yes, he's a professional, and he's being compensated for some of the other workout stuff. But to add to your Kulibaly point, apparently, like, during the playoffs,

he was still calling back to the States, trying to figure out how he could get in for workouts whenever their series, which they got swept by Monaco, whenever that was over. And teams loved it. And teams loved it. He doesn't shoot a ton. You know, he doesn't get a ton of opportunities.

I feel like he's left open a lot. I don't care about that when you're 18. I was talking with somebody about Scoot because we've been, KOC and I have been arguing about Scoot. And I was like, go look at Donovan Mitchell's freshman year. Scoot's going to be fine. Like these guys who are like, oh, I'm missing this. I'm going to spend the whole summer until I can do this.

Like Mitchell, his freshman year at Louisville, he sucked. And then sophomore year at Louisville, he added some stuff. And now he is who he is. I think Mitchell, I mean, I think Scoot, if you're worried about his outside shot, like don't worry about that. That dude will be trapped in a gym until he can get to where he wants to go. I mean, I think Scoot, if you're worried about his outside shot, don't worry about that. That dude will be trapped in a gym until he can get to where he wants to go.

Koulibaly, yeah. Grady Dick, if Dallas keeps that pick, that seems like a guy who would make sense for them, though. Yeah, but didn't they just... Wasn't there some leak two weeks ago that's like, we're not taking Grady Dick? Remember when Dallas, all of a sudden people were like, why is Cuban stacking this roster with white guys? What's going on with Cuban?

And it was like, remember though, that was like actually kind of a talking point. It was like, I don't know. I think Maxi Kleber's pretty good. But I think they had what, Kleber, they had Bertans, they had Przingis, Lucas worked out. Right. It was like getting real Hoosiers.

What do you have for a trade? Do you have any more? Yeah. Trae Young for Paul George. Making a face. I think I had Paul George higher than him in the trade value. Even with the injuries? I like it as a basis.

I think you're onto something with it. Think about it as if you're Atlanta. It's DeJounte, thenul george and then whatever what other pieces you like even though you kind of thought hey this dejante thing defensively helps the trey part of it and trey might be the zion rule where it's like look they actually have their local star so whatever you think of trey there's extra value to him being in atlanta that you can't understand when you're outside of that market so i think that's a real thing that you would have to factor in but

maybe it allows the Clippers to at least be like hey at least this dude plays all the time and positionally allows DeJounte to just kind of run it and then if Paul George is healthy still a hell of a player but I don't know if Atlanta would do it I think

the star point is a great point. Whether or not he's a promised land guy, he still fits in with the city and people do like him. I don't know. He had a moment against Philly a couple years ago and then it's like, here's Paul George. I don't know. He's got a good podcast.

Check it out. Could Murray be in that trade instead? could it be a Murray and John Collins for Paul George? is that enough for the Clippers? Murray with a year left? I don't know well you and I are aligned in that

I think the Clippers are kicking the tires a lot harder than people realize right now they have this new arena in a year and it is lingering over I think the Clippers are kicking the tires a lot harder than people realize right now. They have this new arena in a year and it is lingering over, I think, this whole summer and fall of decisions for them. Because on the one hand, it's like, can we win a title with the team we have? I think the answer would be no. Then it's like, what the fuck do we do with Kawhi? Well, you're stuck with them because whatever trade value he has isn't going to be worth what you get back. And how do we

open an arena in a year if we have another disappointing season? So I think for them, Trey would be like, this is great. This is somebody we could put on the fucking posters for the casual fans out here. People like us, maybe not as excited.

No, but my buddy Nathan's son, who's a huge Clipper fan, he'd be like, oh my God, we got Trae Young. He's 14, but he'd be super excited that they got Trae Young. It's like, I play him on 2K. This is great. Paul George, that contract's 42 million. Goes up next year and the year after and keeps going up. That almost seems like you'd want to get out of the trade young business if you're doing that trade. Is there any other Dame trade that you could think of? Because people are defaulting to Miami.

I think Brooklyn is a real possibility if he actually gets shopped. Is there anywhere else you've heard or you think makes sense? Because for him to go, it'd have to be a team that was at least veering toward being a finals team, right? Milwaukee, I couldn't figure out a spot. Philly, there's no way.

He's going down the line. I don't know what the trade is. If I'm Milwaukee, I don't really want to mess with it. It's easy to go, you lost to the eighth seed. What's wrong with you? The Giannis stuff's always going to be forgotten. Middleton was...

I thought he actually looked better. They have their own decision with Middleton. I always wondered if they would... That's your Przingis point from Middleton was, I thought he actually looked better, you know, and they have their own decision with Middleton. So I always wondered if they would. He fits your Przingis point from Middleton. Right. I want, give me some years, man. How about 120 for four and let's lock that down. But I still feel like I'd be a little hesitant to mess with it.

And I know I sound boring or I sound like stubborn about some of this stuff, but I actually think it's the way you kind of do the job. Like as disappointing as this was, if you're Milwaukee and things break your way next year, that's why even when you say, Hey, I think the Lakers are the second best team in the NBA after watching the Nuggets series. It's, it's not,

it's not wrong, but I think it's still dismissive. Milwaukee. Yeah, no, I thought, I thought they were the second best team if you remove the part where Giannis broke his back

during the middle of the game series. And they went sideways. So I kept trying to figure out what fits the Dame standard. And it's funny too, how the years go by. Dame's only going to have a year left after this year. So it felt like this absurd commitment not that long ago. And now we're kind of in the middle of it now. And you're like, all right, it's only two more years. And damn, when he plays, he's been really good, but he is so bad defensively. If I'm a contender and I kind of like where I'm at, I don't, I don't know if he, if there's a, and honestly, Drew Holiday is probably not somebody that they would want to bring back. I just... For a contender, I don't know.

Maybe the Knicks. I think the Knicks have enough teases that could at least get the conversation going and then it would be Dames. But then again, with Brunson, that doesn't make any fucking sense either. Having two guards that are ball-dominant dudes that aren't exactly defense-first, so the Knicks thing doesn't really make any sense with Brunson there. So it depends on what Dames, you know, how much he's willing to work with the team and all that kind of stuff.

There aren't a lot of fits. There just aren't. I had a hard time figuring out the Knicks for this exercise because I don't know what their goals are for next year. You know, like the Randall situation where he was really hurt his ankle. I think, I just don't think as a trade asset, you're not getting, you're much better off running it back with him and showing him that he's healthy again. And then think in January, February,

if you're trying to trade him. Other than that, they, you know, they have about as many picks as anybody from a team that would be motivated to trade. But a team that we didn't talk about that I just have to mention is San Antonio. From an asset standpoint, they have Atlanta's first in 25 and 27, and they have a pick swap with Atlanta in 26. They have Charlotte's 24 or 25 first, which is protected top 14. And they have Boston's 28 first, which is protected top four.

And they also have a shitload of cap space. And they have this guy coming in that by all counts is going to be special right away. And maybe not special like, oh my God, I can't believe he's in the Western finals. He's 19, but I think they're going to be good. I think if he's on the court, I think it's going to be really hard for them not to at least be like a 500 team, especially with some of the other pieces they have. And I wonder, like, could this be like a stealth,

go get a second star right now team and kind of see what it looks like with all the other pieces they have? Because they have the cap space to do it. They got, you know, McDermott's making like 14 for them. And they could go flip McDermott for somebody with a much bigger contract and throw some picks in and just see what it looks like. But what do you think about if you're San Antonio,

would you wait a year or would you be like, you know what? This guy's good. Like, fuck it. What I'd do is I'd offer, and I think Houston might do this too, the Jabari Parker stuff that happened with Chicago. You're like, why is Jabari Parker getting $21, $22 million for one year?

You're like, well, they overpaid. They used the cap space. They got to the floor, but they didn't want any commitment beyond that. So it might be higher average annual salaries that you could admit with some of these guys in the past, but no, I don't. San Antonio is not really like that. I mean, granted, again, they're going to have to spend it on somebody.

Do you know what their cap is? Do I know how far below the cap is? 79.8. They got Kelton Johnson at 20. McDermott at 13.7. Devontae Graham at 12.1. And then it just goes into the Zach Collins and then rookie contracts, Devin Vassell, Sohan. There's guys maybe they'd want to bring back like Trey Jones, but they have a lot of room to do stuff. They could also just, if I were them,

and I said this before, I'm going to say it again. could also just, you know, they, if I were them and I said this before, I'm going to say it again. I would just go max out Austin Reeves and make the Lakers match it. I would do that on the first day I could do it. Here's 98.7. Go ahead, match it. Cause Austin Reeves is like perfect for this thing. You know, and I really value that guy. I think he's a good player. And for that price, like, you for that price, if you can get a guy like that who could be in the fourth quarter of real playoff games and have the ball and you're only paying like 20 million for him, I wouldn't blink. I would do it. Rui, I would not. Rui, I feel less bullish on. I would have real hesitations of paying Rui that kind of money considering we

watched in Washington. We're like, what is the deal with this guy and then he was so good in different playoff spots in the series that it almost makes me feel worse about the contract if that if that doesn't make any sense i understand it but like we're like wait what and you could say well i was just i thought a lot of stuff was him doing it on his own and being determined and hitting shots i don't think it was because it was all of a sudden he's playing with yokich or something where you look at a guy and be like, okay, well, he looked better here because this situation was obviously a lot better for him. So the Reeves one, you know, to hear a hundred million dollar sticker price, there's probably some recoil, but look, if he's 80, that means he's a hundred, you know, if you think he's worth 80, oh, he's not more than eight. Yeah. Okay. That

means he's a hundred. So for San Antonio, knowing it's one of the younger player extensions that if you get it wrong, it's not crippling. But I don't know. Like, what's Austin Reeves wrong? Like, what's the wrong part of that? You know, his whole life he's had to fight and tell people and show people with his approach that, like, no, I'm into this. And it's not like he's really small. And he can shoot. And he can handle.

I think he flops a lot. But whatever. That was why he fit in so perfectly um i i don't know how that one three years from now you're going man what a huge mistake like we bought into the hype right yeah there's no way the really thing lebron sometimes it's a sink or swim thing with the roll guys and there's certain cases where playing with lebron it just brings out the best. It's like, I'm playing one of the best players. I've got to bring my A game.

And it really felt like it had an impact on Rui because I never saw him give a shit on Wizards like that. And he's a bigger spotlight. You're playing for another contract. There's real reasons for it. But if you just put him on Houston next year, does that happen? No. Reeves, I just think his game translates to different types of offenses. He knows how to play with the basketball. He knows how to play off guys. He can get to the free throw line, which I love. He's a good shooter. And we watched him in big games come through. So if I were them, I would think about doing that.

And I would think about taking a swing at one of these dudes. Maybe that's a Siakam team, you know, maybe just get two awesome guys, put them next to Wemby. And, and, uh, I think you and I both like Vassell. We both like Sohan. Like Kelvin Johnson's a fun guy to have on your team. I don't know if he's going to be the third best guy in a championship team, but he's a good guy. He's got a good contract. That's a team I would like to see do something. I was trying to figure out an Oklahoma City one with the picks, and I lost it here somewhere, so I reinvented it here on the fly.

But I'll admit, every single Oklahoma City thing that I think of, I just think they would say no to it all the time because I just don't think that they're going, all right, let's use our picks. They have to see who some of these other young dudes are. So I try to make it simple. Before you tell us the trade, what do you, what do you think they need? What would you be targeting if you were Presti's lead advisor? I think they have a philosophy.

I think it's, it's about guys comfortable with the basketball in their hands. It's very clear. That's what they've done, whether it's Jalen Williams or Giddey or Chet or even Dort a little bit there. Other people talk about this around the league, so when you look at it, even Usman Jang, I liked him as a prospect because he was so big. And towards the end of his last run in Australia's league, he was like, oh, he's actually figuring out some pick and roll coverage stuff here. totally raw the first half of the previous year before he got drafted you're like all right he's big and cool but then you're like oh wait he's actually like seeing something so if you look at their draft picks it actually all kind of plays out where you're like oh okay

they need they want to have multiple decision makers that are all huge on the floor at the same time so So I don't know that they're stockpiling all this stuff to make some big swing in it, but I still tried. So I had to fix it here. So sorry for the delay before. Would you do Dort and Trey Mann for Jared Allen? I wouldn't. If you're OKC or Cleveland? I wouldn't if I was OKC. I had Jared Allen in some trades, though, because he was so bad in the playoffs. It was like, I actually would trade for him.

I would trade him if I was Cleveland, and I also would be afraid to trade for him if I was somebody else, because it was that bad. Because the only thing I'm thinking about when I look at OKC is I go, they had the other Jalen Williams essentially playing center a ton this year. And you go,

okay, if you're going to play in the playoffs, I think you at least need the option of having a traditional big now with the way some of these teams are playing. Like, don't, don't be so obsessed with five out that you don't even have anyone on your roster that can handle another team that may be in the playoffs.

You're it's's big and maybe you feel like Oklahoma City is still a year away from having to plan out their playoff map of it. I actually don't. I really do not agree with that if people are like, no, no, it's a marathon not a sprint. That team was good last year. And you had Chet,

and I agree with you. If you add one more big guy to that, that's a fucking bitch in the playoffs. They have a go-to guy. And Giddey's just going to get better and better and better as this goes. He's not even 21 yet. I'm in on that team. Would you say yes if you're Cleveland, though? Because really, it's a Dore-Allen trade.

I mean, I guess I still have a... I value Dore more than Allen. I would say yes. Okay. I think Dore's a playoff guy. Dort would be perfect for them because of the guard situation defensively. You're like, okay, you're going to throw Dort

into the mix here. That's a fun one. I really think the Mobley-Allen thing was super scary in the playoffs because you're like, wait, does this mean they have two non-offensive initiating guys? And when they're rebounding, you're like, oh, okay, it's worth it. But I don't know that Nick

series, man, was like, that would, that would be haunting me. If I were, if I were Kobe, I'd be like, fuck. Well, I was thinking about them for Phoenix with Aiton because Allen makes 20 and Aiton makes 30. And if you're Cleveland, would you do Allen and some filler for Aiton because Allen makes 20 and Aiton makes 30. And if you're Cleveland, would you do Allen and some filler for Aiton because you feel like maybe you're upgrading at center with the guy who's had more success in the playoffs than Allen did. And if you're Phoenix, would you do it because ultimately you're getting Allen at 20 instead of Aiton

at 30. You're just chopping 10 million off with a, you know, and you're, and you're, and you're out of the Aiden business. I actually think I would do if I were Phoenix. Cause I think Alan is totally okay with whatever his role is. And I don't think you can say that about Aiden.

Just so people know from an OKC standpoint, they have Houston's 24 and 26 first top four protected. They have a 25 swap that's top 10 protected. They have 24 and 26 first from LAC, the Clips, and the ability to swap with them in 25. It's a lot of stuff. If they really wanted to go in, if they wanted to make a... Some of the names we talked about, like Siakam and people like that, if they wanted to go all in on a real guy to put with that team.

We talked about Beal. We can end on this, but we talked about Beal, that 30 points a game. What did that ultimately mean versus what we saw with SGA last year? I just thought what SGA did was so much harder and more impressive than just kind of casually putting up the 30. That team had no center. They had no size at all. They were super young and they really had no business

being around 500 and being like a bitch of a playing team to try to bat on. I, you know, I would like to see that guy on a really good team at some point soon. So maybe Presti's history has not been to roll the dice with trades. And like we saw, if you go through the, um,

the Duran era, I'm post-Harden, he just didn't really make moves. They didn't make big swing moves. Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins was probably, other than the Harden trade, the biggest swing trade. The Harden trade was an ownership. But Perkins Green was actually like, oh, this is a swing. They actually think they're going to be good. Other than that, they really didn't do much.

Like, they traded Reggie Jackson. Yeah, wait, wait, wait. They did an Ennis Cantor trade at one point. Oh, Paul George, though, was a big deal. That was a big swing. I'm talking about when Durant was there. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair. All right. And then the only other one we didn't mention was Utah, who has four Minnesota firsts and a 28 pick swap, three Cleveland firsts and two pick swaps. So just a staggering amount of assets, but I have no feel or idea what their plan is do you no other than the market and price is really high as it should be and now you wonder you know he's still young enough that i wouldn't get obsessed with this timeline shit i i thought he was so good this year you know it can be the opportunity but it was efficient though you know it wasn't just hey i'm gonna take a million shots he just became a much better player and he was part of the reason why, like OKC, for a while, you're like, how are they good?

Him and Kessler is the foundation of you're heading somewhere. But you need one more big-ass piece. They're probably going to draft a guard for whichever one is left. I mean, normally, you know, Ainge doesn't give a shit. Like, he's not going to draft based on need. But it's pretty clear they need guard depth here pretty quickly. Unless you think Sexton's going to be the guy, which is a nice contract. They got him on a decent deal because he was hurt.

You like him more than me. I think I'm okay with him. You know, I'm not. Well, you're doing draft stuff all week. I think I'm okay with them. You know, I'm not. Well, you're doing draft stuff all week and it seems like Scoot, at least the betting action, seems to indicate Scoot's going to go to Charlotte and Brandon Miller's going to go to Portland

unless there's some giant smokescreen shit happening. The real draft starts with Houston at four. And then I think four to 12 is really hard to figure out this year. And we have the Pistons at five who, my guess is they wouldn't take a guard. You have Orlando with two picks. My guess is they don't want both of them.

And if they take both of them, that will mean some deal fell through or something they want to do didn't happen. Like we didn't even talk about whether, if you're Charlotte, would you take six and 11 and Suggs for number two? I don't think you would. No, I don't think six and 11 gets you to two,

even with Suggs. Should we bring in Cerruti before we go Father's Day yeah Cerruti would you do would you do 6-11 and Suggs

for number two the word on the street is that the Magic are they like they like Scoot and they're trying

but I don't know if it's gonna be possible there's word on the street Rosillo listen this is just Twitter Twitter Reddit whatever I don't have there's no sources to be possible. There's word on the street, Rosillo. Listen, this is just Twitter, Reddit, whatever.

There's no sources on this. Kyle, turn on TikTok. Yeah, exactly. Breaking news here. I think I would now. I've kind of come around to the Scoot thing. And I think, you know, I know Ryan doesn't. Don't worry about the timeline thing. I think the timeline makes sense.

Everything you hear about Scoot is that he's a freaking awesome character, dude. And he's going to work his ass off. My only concern would be i just really like foltz as the point guard for like what those other two guys full uh franz and and paulo want to do as like offensive guys but i don't know man you get scoot in there like i think at the end of the day are you going to do better than scoot with with you know whatever assets you can pair together to get somebody else because i don't know if there's a veteran out there that i've died to do that for. So honestly, I think I would do that.

Would you do 6-11 and Suggs for LaMelo? Because I feel like the answer is no. I don't. Yeah, I'm just not a LaMelo guy. I'm sorry. Like, I like watching my Charlotte. I think Scoot has more value than LaMelo. It's weird.

I like Andy. I'm rooting for LaMelo. It's not. This is an anti-LaMelo thing. I just don't know that I like him with Andy I'm rooting for Lomelo it's not this is an anti-Lomelo thing I just don't know that I like him with this

magic team whereas I think Scoot might make a little bit more sense you know granted you know

I've never obviously we haven't seen him play an NBA game yet but the Lomelo stock is

sort of low I just feel like you could maybe do better than that what do you think

Russo this is always such a dangerous dangerous deal to be like valuing guys.

We haven't seen play over guys we have, but yeah, I still like Scoop better than Lomelo. As always, especially coming off the playoffs, I try to picture different guys in the finals and the series that we just watched. And Lomelo's game is just weird.

Not saying it can't happen, but it's pretty unique. Is this destiny going to be? It's like that joke I always have about when you see on Twitter where it's like, you know, white chocolate was a problem. And it's like a 90-second clip of white

chocolate. It's like, Stefan Maraberi was a problem. And all these dudes, Steve Francis was a problem. And all these dudes, Steve Francis was a problem. And I just wonder if LaMelo is a dot, dot, dot was a problem guy and not a guy I can actually try to win the title with.

The Jason Williams one is the best one because it was so much fun until you were like, wait, what's he shoot again? Like, who's he defend? Wait, why did he just airball that 29 footer? Wait, what? What happened? So when it was happening in the beginning, you're like, oh my God, this is amazing.

Like how this guy goes late in the draft. And then, you know, it was fun. But then the rest of the flaws of his game crept in and then teams kind of like figured it out a little bit. And that was kind of bad. To be fair, he did play on that 06 Heat team, but it was a different stripped down version of him. This is a version of a question you've asked me before because you asked me about this guy to be traded to the Magic 2.

Who, if you had to like buy low on somebody's stock right now and you're offered Lomelo or Jalen Green, who are you taking? I think Jalen Green's stock is a little lower just because he was on two bad teams. Nobody knows what's there, really. You're more likely to buy low on him, then.

If both guys are available, whatever you have to, like, you know, you're a bad team and you're just like, hey, we can take a shot on this guy, you would say Jalen Green. I'd probably say LaMelo, personally. I think I would, too. But I think it's a good argument.

I'd rather have Jalen Green. Fun argument. I'd rather have Jalen Green. Fun argument. Russillo, where are you on Cam Whitmore before we go? Has he officially reached the Westbrook 2008? I can't believe

this guy went fourth. But all of a sudden he went fourth. Is that in play for him? Did you see Sam Vecini had him ahead of Brandon Miller? He has Scoot 2, Whitmore 3, Miller 4. And I was like, whoa, that in play for him do you see sam vassini had him ahead of brandon miller he has scoot to whitmore three miller four and i was like whoa because you know we like sam does a really good job

but i've not seen anybody crack the top three i've seen different versions of scoot miller after wimba yama but i hadn't seen anybody he hasn't he, he hasn't third. I was like, man, uh, I love guys with a motor and cam has that man. He does not stop. He goes the whole time. He also goes left, but he goes by everybody all of the time. Um, it's really weird.

Cause I, I, no one has agreed with me on this. Did we talk about this last week where I'm almost like, is this actually going to work this well every single time? He just goes past the dude every time, but it's also a combination of quickness and his strength because even if you meet him,

he just goes into you and then he scores that way. So if he goes by you, he scores. If he goes into you, he scores. He is not super interested in passing though. 6% assist rate on 100 per 100 possessions. 6%. It's pretty low. That's a nice prize for you at 6. Cerruti.

But I don't think he's going to be there. He's not going to be there. I don't think so either. Yeah. Feels like he'll go 5 to Detroit, right? Yeah. I think he's in play a 4 or 5. But I just don't know

that he'll be there in six hmm all right we'll see what happens the Magic Field destined to get a Thompson twin that just whichever one is there I think Taylor Hendricks also fits the fits the profile um we'll be back on

this podcast on Tuesday thanks for Scylla all. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rosillo. Thanks to Steve Cerruti. Thanks Kyle Creighton for producing as always. And I will see you on the rewatchable speed on Monday night. I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. And if you missed the NBA trade value thing we did on Thursday on this podcast, we also ran it on the ringers, big rankings guide where you can find Kevin O'Connor's, uh, it's O'Connor.

It's our whole NBA staff. Our top, I think it's over a hundred players. We have trade value in there. We have the NBA off season offer sheet thing. Also the ringers NBA draft guide as well, which is being updated with mock drafts, player rankings, and everything else heading into the draft on Thursday. I will see

you on the speed on Tuesday. Take care. Happy Father's Day. I don't have feelings within on the wayside I'm a bruised I don't have feelings