The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sneaky Sacramento, Free Agency Deal Guesses, and the "One More Time" Draft With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss some three-day-old NBA draft thoughts, including Cam Whitmore's slide to 20th, the Clippers, and the Mavericks' draft day moves (1:33), before wondering what the Kings are up to after clearing a sizeable amount of cap space and presenting the most logical Damian Lillard trade for all parties (19:53). Then, they figure out which teams are going to run it back "one more time" next season (43:20), and guess the contract and team for NBA free agents, including Dillon Brooks, Fred VanVleet, James Harden, Brook Lopez, Jerami Grant, and more (1:10:04). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a free agency primer, some fake trades, Dame, Clay Thompson. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the chargers are going to be

good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch your pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do.

Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. 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 gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer

with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatch of what's coming on Monday. We are doing a comedy from the last 20 years.

One of my favorites. So you'll have to guess. But that's coming on Monday night. If you missed the Prestige TV podcast, we have been doing The Bear and Black Mirror. I'm not on those podcasts, but two shows that people have really liked this month. So you can check out all the episodes on there.

We've also been experimenting with the Ringiverse feed as well. So check that feed out if you have some time. Coming up on this podcast, Priscilla and I are going to do an entire free agency primer. We're going to talk any big trades that could possibly happen over the next week or so.

And then some of the stuff we're still a little confused about from Thursday's draft. And we're going to play a gimmick called One More Time. And we're going to try to guess all the free agent deals that are coming next weekend. So this is action-packed. Let's bring in our friends from ProJet. All right, we're taping this mid-afternoon Sunday.

It's a calm before the storm in the NBA. Ryan Rosillo is here. We're trying to figure out a whole bunch of things that might happen basically a week from now. Although this stuff, the way it goes with the NBA now, it's usually like the 28th, 29th, 30th. You start getting some ideas. We know who has the cap space, which's usually like the 28th, 29th, 30th. You start getting some ideas. We know who has the cap space, which was very hard to figure out, Rosillo,

because the cap hold, I mean, there's people on cap holds where it's like, Miritich, why is he on a cap? It's just, I don't know. I don't understand the cap hold thing, but we think we have everybody who might have cap space.

We have a list of all the guys who might switch teams, and we're a list of all the guys who might switch teams and we're going to get into that in a second. Can we do some three-day-old draft thoughts first though? Yeah, I'd love to because I mean, even after I taped on Friday, there was stuff where I was like, oh, I wonder if this is a good topic, so go for it. Yeah, I listened to you and Sam and you were talking about how Whitmore dropped to 20 and the similarities and differences with that and Michael Porter when he dropped to 14 in that draft where the Clippers had two firsts and didn't take them two in a row. And I felt this way during the draft and I feel even more strongly now with these. I don't know what the medical issue is.

Maybe we'll never find out. Maybe it'll come out over the next few weeks. But once you get past the lottery and you have a guy who is a top 10 talent, it's almost irresponsible to not take him when it gets to the 15, 16, 17 range. And I just feel like we're going to be looking back at him falling to 20, that it was just ridiculous. And I felt that way Thursday night. And then on Sunday, I feel even more strongly. How are you feeling? How has that settled in for you? I got a little more info kind of asking around. I think teams are more forthcoming, uh, to at least to tell the truth on some of the medical stuff of like concerns. And there was a knee thing with him that was

fairly significant with some teams to the point of almost failing them or just, you know, look, if it's a tie with Cam Whitmore and the next guy up and you have the pick, that's a pretty good tiebreaker. There may be another lingering injury from this year. There was also the story going around, which I had heard during the process, that the Villanova coach wasn't exactly talking them up, which is kind of a no-no, especially if you're a first-year coach. And I think the Nova family was more pissed about that. And it's not great for recruiting because then people use it against you later on. That's why teams are reluctant in bigger programs to tell the truth about a prospect because it's like, if he gets out, you're dogging

your guy. And then the interviews are pretty bad. But look, other than him saying, I actually designed the sub, I just don't understand what you could say in an interview where you'd be as talented as him and you're still not taking him in the mid-teens. And I think to add to your point, like if you're Orlando and it's somebody other than Jet Howard, okay. But why not?

If you're Oklahoma City and you have 15 first rounders in the next seven years, maybe you get back in there. So to be fair to the teams, they're the ones actually doing the medicals. They're the ones sitting down with the guy. But I completely agree that when you do it right, you still screw it up half the time. So why not take somebody that was thought to be a top five talent, even with the medical flags? What do you think the ratio is? Once we get past 15, what do you think? It's like a one in six chance I'm getting a top eight rotation guy?

20%? It was really lean for a long time, way worse than I think any of us realized. And I was going through it the last five years, and there's actually more rotation guys the last five drafts in the 20s than history had told you but yeah maybe one in five like a real rotation guy like hey he's going to get a second contract he's going to get this maybe even like a grant williams like i like he was like the 22nd pick and he became a rotation guy that's a good example of how this goes right and considering what these teams do usually like a lot of times with picks the reason guys guys like the Thompson's go so high or, you know,

even going back to like, you know, Neil Akina or Kula Bali this year, it's like, man, if this guy has something special physically, like we might go this way. And yeah,

as I was watching it that night, I'm sorry to go on. Like, I think people are making a mistake, but who knows, you know, he hurts his knee. Then every team that passed on,

I'm going to feel like they were right for doing so. Like, what do you like? What do you think? Do you think Utah should have taken him? Do you think Orlando should have taken him 11th? No, I can see. I can understand why he fell out of the lottery. I'm kind of shocked that Miami didn't take him, which and we also don't know the thing.

And we said this Thursday night that you don't know if teams make promises to guys, right? If you're there at 18, we'll take you. Or Golden State's guy at 19. But I just thought once it got into that, what was it? The OKC, Miami, Golden State, that threesome, all the smart teams. I was like, oh, one of these guys is going to take him. And then none of them did. Houston ends up getting him at 20.

And it's not out of the realm that he ends up being better than the Thompson twin. And it would be surprising, but it's not like impossible, you know? So if you're Houston, you feel great about it because that's probably, they probably looked at Whitmore pretty seriously. So that was one of, that was one of my things was just like, man, I just find that hard to believe all these teams that have a million picks. Nobody tried to move back into the, you know, the 16 range to try to grab them. Um, the second one was that Porzingis trade falling apart and then it turning into the smart trade. And everybody talked about the smart stuff for two days. I want to know why the Clippers didn't make that trade anyway, just going in blind on getting rid of Marcus Morris and, you know, some pick, whatever.

And you get Brogdon for 22 million and, oh, I didn't get to, you know, get to run a physical on him. But the guy was the sixth man of the year last year. And he was just an excellent, you know, rotation guard. And he's making 22 million a year. He's on a good contract. And unless he's getting Tommy John surgery, if I could turn Marcus Morris, Marcus Morris has no trade value. Like he's in that Davis Burton's kind of, you know, you trade him

and you give up an asset to get rid of the contract kind of guy. And I wonder if the Clippers looking on Sunday are like, shit, maybe we should have done that. We're kind of stuck with Morris now. Morris was unplayable last year. I feel like he's washed. Well, I would agree with you on Morris. I thought it was

kind of interesting. He's like, I don't really like my role anymore. It's like, well, if you were better, you would have a better role. I'll tell you what I think went on there is that if you're looking at the Clippers saying, okay, they've got Kawhi and Paul George for this next stretch, I don't think they can add another piece that's as expensive as Brogdon if he plays. I mean,

think back to a year ago when the Celtics made the Brogdon deal. People thought that price was insane. And I still was a little hesitant going like, I get what he can be, but this guy's hurt a lot. And when he plays, he's terrific. He was terrific this year for Boston. But if I'm the Clippers, I think I have to know for sure that, I mean, there's no guarantees that I'm not adding another piece that's not going to play.

The fact that he lasted as long as he did and then got hurt in the playoffs, I still think it was a win for Boston. You get the sixth man of the year for that kind of price. But that price existed because of the concerns and now he's hurt again. I just don't't think the clippers especially when you go through their books and all the decisions that they have to figure out i mean they can barely offer westbrook anything i think it's only 3.8 million because they don't even have early bird rights for him they do want to bring back plumley they've got to make an eric gordon decision which feels like a

massive luxury as far as the tax is concerned so if they were going to do anything i'd agree with you on the talent part of brogdon but if they were going to do anything, I'd agree with you on the talent part of Brogdon, but if they were going to do anything, I think they had to be certain about a health risk and he's not that. I just don't know how they're getting rid of Morris otherwise. And maybe I just would have looked at it like that. It might actually be easier to move off Brogdon's contract if he can show that he's healthy down the road. That was my second one. The third one was the stuff Dallas did, which I think pretty much everybody liked except me. And I actually didn't mind the first part of it where they moved back two spots and dumped Bertans, right?

Who is making 17 million this year and then you can buy him out for five. And they moved back two spots and they got Lively who they probably wanted anyway and were probably seriously taking a 10. I would have taken Kaysan personally, for five and they moved back two spots and they got lively who they probably wanted anyway or probably seriously taking a 10 i would have taken um case on personally but whatever um my question is once they ended up with the 12th pick and they had the trade exception which then allowed that then gave them the full mid-level which was one of the reasons they had to get rid of that contract

but then they went back in and they traded for Rashawn Holmes and the 24th pick so they could get OMAX, who I really liked. But now you got Holmes at $12 million, then he's a $12.8 million player option the year after. You want to make the joke? Probably pick that one up. Yeah. So you're basically carrying $12 and $13 for Holmes, so you could take, you're basically carrying 12 and 13 for homes. So you could take OMAX. I, I might've just rather have had the trade exception and tried to figure it out later. Like you really have to let go max at that point. So, but I guess my question is the more I look at it, were they just better off trading

than two spots back, having the flexibility and figuring out over this next week, what they wanted to do. Cause now they're basically done except for the bringing back Kyrie in the mid-level. So you're talking about the traded player exception and the value of that or just the value of getting off of the money? Would you want Rashaun Holmes for $25 million so you could get the 24th pick in the draft? It's basically $5 million less than Bertans this year, but he's got the 12.8 player option the year after.

He could have gotten out of the Bertons. I think it's crazy that the pricing to move back to, where you probably still felt like you were going to get your guy, was that to get off of Bertons, but then to get off of Holmes, which is less money per year, but guaranteed in the second, right? Yeah. That was just the 25th pick. So the one was just moving down to, and then the other one was just straight up like, here's

the first. And they get a mid-level out of it, which was part of the key of getting rid of Bertans. Now that's an extra player that they wouldn't have had otherwise unless they shed that salary. So I get that part. I just don't get the second trade as much. Not sure I would have done it. Because Holmes becomes the tax for picking OMAX. So now OMAX has to be good.

That's got to be somebody who comes in next year and actually plays and helps them out. Because I feel like they're on a little bit of a clock with Luka. It also seems like everything they're doing is contingent on Kyrie's going to come back. They're the only ones that can offer him the most money. If you look at the teams that have cap space, there's really nowhere else for him to go

that makes sense. So now you're basically going in with this team. Your centers are Lively and Holmes. Omax is one of your swingman dudes. Your scores are Luka and Kyrie. And I just, I don't know where you're going, ultimately. No, and these are some pretty big assumptions, too, to be like, okay, O-Max will help,

and Lively will be a rotational big, like a year out of high school. Right, he's 19. Right, I really like Josh Green. I like Hardy when no one else is playing. You know, he's got some real Cam Thomas to him, where you're like, look at this guy. And you're like, yeah, but what happens

when the rest of the guys show up? Both coaches don't want to play him. But another year for Hardy, you figured the biggest thing with Hardy is just kind of like good shot, bad shot because the athleticism and some of the stuff that he can do is pretty special. Yeah, look, I'm not like disagreeing with

you here. I even like Rashawn Holmes a little bit. I think he gives you a completely different look. I thought Sacramento was so motivated to get to a number cap-wise where maybe they can scare the shit out of Golden State with a Draymond Green offer, where that momentum is at least picking up just on reports. I don't know if that's inside Intel or just theorizing on that, but you know what?

No, there's some momentum now. I think the pool of trade probably helped with that too. Yeah, because it's almost like the thing I think the pool trade probably helped with that too. Yeah, because it's almost, it's always like the thing I think about with Paul George and Kawhi, you're like, why would you have done that for Paul George? Why would you have done that and given Oklahoma City all those things?

It's like, well, actually, it's because it guaranteed you Kawhi. So you have to look at the price of that differently. So for Sacramento to do that, and I know you're talking more about the Dallas side. I totally get it because it feels like they can take a much bigger swing. Like, hey, if we sign off on this and we don't really need to add another young guy to this whole thing, we can be real players here. And maybe it's for

Draymond. On the Dallas side, I just think there's so many question marks around the two guys, even when they bring back Kyrie. Because I agree with you, going through it and trying to figure out who would actually pay him the kind of money to entice him to leave Dallas. Like, is there a number? There's certainly a number for what he's eligible for is an absurd number. Like, I don't think he's going to get that from Dallas, the five-year full thing. I mean, that would be crazy because you got to ask, like, who are we competing with? And I just don't know that the market is up. Yeah, you're looking at Rockets, Jazz, Spurs, Kings, Pacers, Pistons, Magic. I just don't think those are Kyrie Holmes. I don't see it.

So basically, the thing you're worried about is would he actually take the Lakers mid-level and have some sort of wink-wink thing with them for a couple years would be the fear. I don't think any of the cap space teams would be a fear. But it's interesting you said that about Holmes because he is somebody I liked, but I've also never seen him really succeed on a good team.

Right? There's these certain big guys who get their stats and they're like, ah, I like this guy. But I thought it was interesting that he just couldn't play for a really good team last year. Mike Brown wrote him off pretty much immediately. So why?

That would make me nervous if I'm Dallas. Why did Sacramento just say, yeah, we don't need this guy? Well, he's rebounds and he's good around the rim. You don't need it at all. Yeah, I think his defense, I think his defense, and he's still too small. You know, he's not a physical force. Right, his defense is not good, right? So how's he going to help Dallas? They have Kyrie and Luka. I thought they wanted to improve their defense. That's why I was just confused by that part of the trade. Yeah, you would have thought, you know, I kind of like, I've understood your point the whole time but it was kind of like hey

you got off of the burtons money to only move back that much it was a really nice deal for them unless you actually still kind of sneaky like burtons you know you're like well i think that's the okc piece of that right too right i think it's like you people may look at this as a salary dump but when he was pretty good this guy's like a real shot maker now granted he's got the shoulder width of a newborn and he also has like the immediate scar on the neck game where like he's immediately somebody cuts his neck and there's like a gash like nobody has gash arms better than yokich but like burtons i always used to love when burtons would spicy out there, you know, especially with Washington, you get like really pissed off, but there's a reason why he

ended up getting that huge deal. I mean, it wasn't just like the team was like, Hey, we're stupid. Let's give Bertans all this money. I'm with you. I think Oklahoma city may look at him and be like, we actually think we have like a real shooting, like a guy you have to worry about. Yeah. And they obviously put a big premium on Wallace too. I think Presti's at the point where on draft night, if he's calling me with an offer, I'm probably just turning it down. He's like, there's a guy in my AL Keeper League

who's won for three straight years. I just, we would never trade with him anymore. Like, what's the point? He knows more about fantasy baseball in the American League than we do. So if he's like, hey, I have this idea. What if, you know that pitcher you have that's not doing well? What if he gave me

him? I'm just like, I don't trust you. No, I'm not doing it. And then OKC moves up. That would be the other thing that would make me nervous. OKC has been basically batting 900 in the draft, right? And they're like, we want to trade up. And it's like, clearly they want to trade up to get Wallace. It would make me re-evaluate the Wallace thing. Here's my fourth one. I probably should have led

with this. So the Kings get that cap space. So why? This would have been a better lead. I'm still getting, I'm still learning on the job here in my early fifties. Why? Why did they clear this much cap space? Why was this important to them? Right now, the Kings could basically get to about 36 million. So who's that for? Is it a Draymond offer? Because you and I are both hearing the same thing. Now it seems like Draymond's going to go back. Is it Kyle Kuzma? Is it, I don't know, Brooke Lopez?

Like who's the guy? Why are they clear in this cap space? What are they up to? Russillo? Yeah. Cause I'm always, whenever I look at a deal like Middleton opting out, that tells me,

well, I don't, I don't know. It's Middleton, right? But I didn't mention him. I should have. When he opts out out when he has 40,

especially when you look at the guys with real seasoned agents, you'll go, okay, well, they already know. They already know mildly. Nas Reid has, I think, XL, which is really well-established. I think him re-signing before he even tests it, those guys have already made all the calls. They already know the temperature, right? And if they're going, hey, you're going to play.

Porzingis is another one. Right. Why does he opt into Boston that night? It's because Boston clearly said to him, two for 77 after this. We'll lock that down as soon as we can. Or his agents were like, that number's not out there for you.

So take this 30 plus million now and hopefully the numbers are not going to be the same with Boston that he had in Washington. They're just not. But stay healthy. Utah could have gotten to some, like they could have renounced Olenek

and maybe done like a three for 90, something like that. He's going to make more with Boston. Right. So like back to the Middleton point, and I don't know if Sacramento would go there. I still feel like Milwaukee would have a really hard time just losing him for nothing. You'd have to feel good about the personality with him.

I don't think Middleton's a drama guy. I don't think he's a pain in the ass guy. So if you're Milwaukee, you probably have a good idea of it already. But a lot of these things, when I see what a team's doing the same, whether it's Middleton or Sacramento, it's like, are they doing this just to get a place at the table or do they already know? Do they already know something? And I have a theory. I can't figure it out. Yeah. Go, go for it. And I'm going to throw it to you right after the break. 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. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research.

And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, coming back.

What is Sacramento up to? Right now, they have about $35.6 million in cap space. Thought bubble. I have no inside information. Don't aggregate this. It was just an idea. And it's preying on history of Vivek, where he came from as a Warriors minority owner, Sacramento's place in the Northern California ecosystem, and Clay Thompson, who was owed $43 million for the last year of his deal on a team that is going to be in the 200s again

once they re-sign Draymond. What would happen if the Kings called the Warriors and said, we'll give you Herter for Clay? You save $27.3 million this year, plus all the tax stuff. And we have the cap room that we can actually do that trade because we're so far under. We can trade you Herter.

We'll take back Clay. We'll take back the last Clay year, and then we'll figure out some extension with him. And now we have one of the three Warriors. Take us seriously. Clay Thompson is now in the Sacramento Kings. I don't think Golden State would do it. I don't.

Now, the gap between Herter and Clay is probably more interesting than you would think, like at least at this point. I think probably too much focus has been put on Clay during the playoffs, which is pretty bad, but I know, you know, what we do because I still feel like those two months in the regular season tells me, like, you know,

I feel like the players are more unfortunate than an example of, like, who he is now. But the gap between those guys is probably closer if you really want to dig into it, the age, the expense, the tax saving and all that. But it feels a little bit like Philly eventually saying, we can't see Iverson in a Celtics uniform. I just don't think Golden State would let,

especially knowing the Vivek thing between ownership, being involved in it, then him having his thing, getting Mike Brown in there. I don't know if the Warriors would want Clay running around in a Kings uniform. So that's where I landed. But it was the most interesting fake trade I could make up this weekend. Just from a, wow.

That's like, I think both sides have a meeting. And if you're the Warriors, you're looking at, with the price for Clay this year, which brings all the second apron bullshit into your season right away, plus all the tax stuff. Could you just talk yourself into maybe we'll be 70% as good as Herter

with Herter in those minutes, but there are all these other benefits we get out of it that make it worth it for us, not to mention with Clay, what's he expecting for the next contract right especially if they take care of draymond what's he worth with his next contract who are they competing against are they paying for past performance it's a trade that belichick would make in five seconds

and everybody would go my god belichick traded clay thompson that was the coldest thing he's ever done danny angel would make this trade right Would you? Would you do Klay for Herger? As you know, I'm a sap with the championship DNA era guys. It's really hard for me. The greatest one of, oh, I get to bring in the 80s Celtics into this. So excited.

Where Danny had that whole thing about how they should have traded McHale in 88, they could have gotten debt left shrimp and Sam Perkins for McHale and Red wouldn't do it because he's like, I can't do that to my guys. These guys like this whole era, I'm just not, I don't feel good about it. I'm not doing it. But then Danny, like 15 years later in retrospect was like, he should have fucking done it. Like that, that actually, that trade would have extended a lot of stuff. It was a smart trade. It made sense financially. Those three guys were getting old and you know, that this is not Perkins and Schrempf. It's much more of a,

you're saving 27 plus million dollars. And that brings in all this other stuff, tax savings, second apron. You might even get to use that little $5 million mid-level if you cut that much salary, et cetera, et cetera. And then also like the past performance thing with a great star gets tough. And we've seen it a lot of times with a lot of players over the years where the guy isn't the guy he thinks he is anymore, but still behaves that way,

which can be tough to manage. I thought it really hurt them in the playoffs last year, especially in that Lakers series. He took a lot of shots in that series that he really hurt them in the playoffs last year, especially in that Lakers series. He took a lot of shots in that series that he used to make in the past, but just wasn't making and it really hurt them. I have no problem with Golden State saying,

hey, we're a year off a championship, a disappointing playoff run, a brutal matchup considering the lack of size. I think this is where I have value or I would personally value going, give me at least a big option. I'm not saying he's even part of the eight-man rotation all the time, but just give me a big option in case in the playoffs

you run against a team that's a lot bigger. And the Lakers, for the most part in that series, just at will, at will whenever they want to get deep. So that has nothing to do with really on the clay thing but i think bigger picture the way they've talked about it the way curse talked about it it's clear like dunleavy didn't like the pool contract so as soon as you get rid of that he moves on from it chris paul as much as i love it personally because i think it's hilarious he is the opposite of the way they play so i still Yeah, we talked about it two years ago, or two weeks ago, remember?

We talked about the mechanics of CP for Pull when we thought that was a Phoenix Golden State trade. And you were like, I don't think he fits in the style. You talked about it in your podcast on Friday. I still feel like he's older and malleable and they really just need him for two nine-minute stretches per half.

And maybe in the playoffs that becomes more. But for regular season, it's just give us 18 good minutes, dude. We're saving you for April, May, June. Yeah, that's the difference. He's not coming in there going, all right, I'm the starting point guard and it all goes through me now and I'm playing 35 minutes and now I'm going to slow it down. They're not going to do that and I'm sure he's okay with it.

And him being with the second unit playing his style. And I would also point to even him with Harden. Like he had to figure out, even though they would, they would basically just stagger them, but they would close together too. And when they closed together, you know, I still think it was a little frustrating for Chris Paul, but it was frustrating for Chris Paul five years ago. I don't think it's going to be as frustrating now if he's closing with those dudes in certain spots.

I think he's still going to be, although the shooting has dipped, I'd at least think he's smart enough basketball-wise to find a way and not fight. I don't think he's going in there being like, all right, we're going to do my thing here. I'm going to default to it because he's going to have to be a different guy up there. Golden State,

we can talk about the Draymond part of it more if you want to here. Them, a tweak here and a tweak there, and Laker being fine with the tax bill, it feels like the right thing to go... To look at it one more year.

They have that with Clay's contract if they don't do the extension. We agree. I don't think... I just thought it was a really interesting thought bubble experiment. I guess the side question of it is, who do you think they value more, Draymond at 30 million a year or whatever, or Clay for 40?

I just thought Draymond was the only awesome defensive player they had last year. Right? And just losing him from the team they had last year, I don't think they'll get any stops at all. But I think you could replace Klay in some of his offense and patch it together, especially if Moody is better this year. Yeah, I mean, they really didn't get anything

out of the three lottery picks. Maybe Moody as a rotational shooter. It's weird because I still think there's moments with Kaminga, but every time I go like, hey, what's your track record with moment guys? You know?

Do moment guys really turn into something? And then Wiseman not being around. Look, we've covered all this stuff before, but Draymond was one of five players to have his defensive rebound, steal, and block rate. The differential with him defensively was still a staggering thing. He was great defensively.

I know it would feel like a real swipe to Golden State if Sacramento were to grab Draymond and then bring in that toughness, help their defensive numbers, which is why we kind of doubted them big picture. Could they actually win a title? I remember in March we did that pod where it's like, wait, should we actually talk about them as a real title contender? I just couldn't get past the defense, even though I think there were times in the playoffs

where they were better defensively. But I just want to ask you this. We saw what happened to Sabonis in that Warrior series where he was completely ignored. Can you play Sabonis and Green together? Wouldn't the smart teams go, oh, wait, you've got two guys out here we don't have to pay attention to? Could that actually make it harder, even if it felt like this emotional victory

by grabbing the heart and soul of the Warriors if you're the Sacramento Kings? So if we were going to do the wait, it's not totally fair because he was injured during the playoffs, guys, from last playoffs. Sabonis is on the first team, right? He had that hand thing basically from the midway through the season. And I didn't, I just didn't feel like he shot the ball the same after he got hurt.

And Jalen is the other one. I have a Celtic fan in my life. It was like Jalen cut his hand open. The thing was bleeding for half the playoffs and he was just even sloppier with the ball than usual. And it had to be because of the hand. I'm like, all right, I'm not going to rule that out. It sounds like an excuse,

but I don't know how hurt that hand was. I know that my dad was at the games going, why do they keep putting these extra heavy wraps on his hand? It doesn't seem great. So with the Sabonis thing, I just don't think he, I think he's better than he showed in the playoffs. I know it's,

as an excuse, but we both watched a lot of Kings last year. Um, he shot the ball way better the first half of the year. Uh, that's fine. You know, open to that.

You're right. It was broken. I mean, he, he played with an injury. Other guys were going to play with the J. He never used it as an excuse either. Like you've almost forgot he had it.

Right. The Jalen one I'd listened to if I didn't see the exact same thing in the playoffs last year. That's true. As long as you don't go on YouTube and Google 2022 and all that stuff. So, if you were Sacramento and Rich Paul came to you and he said, look, he wants to go back to Golden State. But if you gave him four for 180, he would come. Because Golden State's offering him like three for 100

and it's like escalating. If you went on the table with four for 180, I think he would come. So it's an $80 million tax for what he's worth. Would you do that if you were Sacramento? Because I would not. I'd be too terrified of those last two years. And I honestly don't think they're close enough anyway

to take a swing like that. But I would have a meeting. He's 33. We already talked about the defensive numbers. Unfortunately, he's not even close offensively to what he was in his best version. He's given us numerous examples. But I mean, I see a guy that's given us numerous examples, but I mean,

I see a guy that actually like, you know, I'll mention, you know, certain players that I'm like, I don't know if that guy's totally comfortable with the ball in his hands. Those guys are scorers. With Draymond, he can get away with it because nobody's expecting him to score,

but he's just, there's times you just see, be like, he just, I don't know what happened to him, man. It happened a few years ago. He just didn't want,

he didn't look at the rim the same way. It seemed like he was a little afraid to get fouled, too. Right. Piece of that. I'm with you. That number gets so big that it would scare me. Now, we could also say, hey, look, the number's going to keep going up,

but they're going to have to resign a couple of their own guys. This is all understanding, I guess, that Harrison Barnes isn't part of the picture at all moving forward. But there's a lot of teams that do do this. Sacramento would go through it. They'd sit in the room and they'd go, okay, are we ever a destination for free agents? No. No one's ever going to come here.

No one's ever going to demand a trade here. Even if this is the beginning of an ascension if they're like, even if this is the beginning of an ascension where they're actually like competing to get out of the West for multiple years. So when you look at the Gordon Hayward Charlotte deal, you're like, what were you guys thinking? And he wasn't even healthy. Like that was a crazy deal on top of the fact that he had an awful health track record. But if you're Charlotte, you're going, we finally have cap space. A potential top 30 or 40 guy wants to come here. So let's just do it.

You know what it is? It's a 25% nobody wants to come here tax. Yeah, right. I could say you can't do it. Those numbers are too huge. You're going to worry about all this stuff in the end. I think NBA teams are more likely to go, look, we're this good already. We have this kind of fluky cap space scheduling thing here.

We're able to move some things around. I just wonder if they did it because they know they're in play or if they did it just to give themselves a chance. And that's what I can't figure out. And yeah, I also wonder if they could grab a Kuzma Grant Williams combo for the same money it would take to get Draymond. Out of all the free agents, we're going to talk about them in a later segment. The one that you could talk me into 10 teams for him is Cam Johnson, where Cam Johnson is the classic on July 1st. He signed somewhere for some crazy number and it's like, yeah, yeah, we knew we were getting him for the last two weeks. And you could tell me that's 10 teams for him, right?

You could be like Detroit, Houston, Sacramento, because guys like that, they can kind of fit into just about any rotation. But Sacramento, so I'm flagging them. And then here's the last one. And I think both of us are annoyed by the Dame situation already. On the one hand, it gives us stuff to talk about on podcasts. But on the other hand, he's like the married woman at, you know, at the club who says how happily married she is. But then, you know, at the end of the night, it's like, why is she talking to the fucking

22 year old bartender again? What's going on with that lady? Dame's doing that. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. But then it's like, oh no, just randomly, the song Miami's playing in the background or he's giving these interviews.

He's got to pick a side. Either he wants to stay or he wants to go. But right now it just seems like he's a little eyelash baddie. And the problem is, we all think Miami is the most logical deal, but I don't feel like it's enough for him, even if he's a little older, which brings me to this question, Marcelo. The most logical deal, if we're just talking talent, what makes sense for Portland, where

they are now that they have Scoot, they have this younger team, they're certainly not going to compete for a title the next couple of years. It doesn't make sense for them to get a whole bunch of assets back if their assets aren't even that good. What if it's just Towns for Dame and there's some pick swaps in there? And that's the trade. And Portland says to Dame, you know what? This is actually your best chance to chase the title because you can be with Edwards

and Gobert and all these role players they have and you're um, and you're going to be in a better spot. And then if it doesn't work out there, maybe they flipped you. And if you're Portland, you get towns and you just put towns with all these perimeter guys you have. And you go like from a basketball standpoint, isn't that just the most logical trade or am I overthinking it? And neither you or I are towns fans. No, we're not fans. So, you know, the funny thing about the Lillard deal was is like man that's really expensive for a guy and then just time flies you're like oh there's only two years left on it you know um I am always hesitant to do anything to mess with Anthony Edwards I don't

know if that would take him off of the ball too much or yeah it would make his life easier because Damian Lillard is somebody you have to extend out on. You have to freak out on every high ball screen because you can't give that guy an answer. He's going to stick it. Well, think about going against them. You're like, oh, fuck, we're playing Dame and Anthony Edwards tonight. Fuck. Got to figure this out.

That team now has an identity. That's a really hard team to play against. And you'd think, wherever you're at with Edwards' defense, his attitude and the fact that he steps up where it's like, you know what, I've seen him close against some of the best players in the game, so I think that's only going to get better. And then you have Jaden in the mix, who was an afterthought because of the stupid injury in the playoffs. But defensively, that feels like a better 2-3 pairing around Dame

than we've had recently because you have to figure out a way to have the other guard pick up some of the stuff that you're going to lose with Dame, which is Portland's main problem. The Miami song. They'd have the McDaniels piece of it to guard the other team's best scorer. They'd have Gobert to protect the rim for both guys. They'd have Nas Reed as a backup still to replace some of the Towns minutes.

They have Slow Mo. I just think that's a team that becomes, you know, very contendery. I got to say, I was laying out, like, who would be in the rotation. I was like, ah, I kind of like this team. I don't like the team they have now. I think the Towns-Gobert thing is unsustainable

as even going past the first round. Yeah, I'll be honest too. The Towns stuff, it's not necessarily even the play. I'll just admit it. There's certain personalities around the league

where I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that guy. And he's a first round pick for me in that. Oh, he's a lottery pick. Yeah, easily. You know, I thought his interview with Pat Bev, I was like, you know, people can listen to this, right? Like, you know, him saying, you know, he'll change the game and people talk about him. Like, whatever.

People say dumb shit all the time. But then when he was saying that it was actually like more impressive what they did winning that play-in game and then he started explaining it he started explaining he's like denver was together for all these years and we had just you're like dude do you you actually think that shit that's that's where the next day you go hey man i gotta apologize i took some gummies before i did that pat beverly podcast i just said some crazy shit. My bad. I don't actually think the stuff I said.

Yeah. So I think I'd be for that. I think I'd be for it even if. Well, so think of it this way. If you're Portland. Okay. And you could get Tyler Hero and some contract and then some first from Miami, a team that's always good. Or you could get from Brooklyn all the Phoenix picks

and whatever else. And it's like, the Phoenix picks, Ishby has already basically slapped his cock down and said, I'm going to spend $200 million a year and money is no object to me.

We're basically going to be the early 2000s Mark Cuban Mavericks or the Paul Allen Blazers. And I just don't care about money. And whatever it is, year after year, that's going to be our advantage is I don't care about the money aspect of this. I don't know if I'd want all the picks from the Phoenix side. And I don't want the picks from the Miami side. I'd want to get a real player. And I don't think Brooklyn, like why would they trade bridges for him? That makes no sense. So you just go through all the possible Dame trades.

The other option is to just kind of wait until December, January, February. But now you have to talk Dame into that. I've got this weird team with Dame and Simons and Scoot and Shaden Sharp. And like, what am I doing? So Dame just go and score 40 a game,

and we'll try to figure this out in December. So I don't know. I personally, at gunpoint, would rather just keep Dame and figure I'll have a better chance in December, January. But I think the Towns piece is really, that would be a really fun piece for all the stuff they have, especially Scoots, like a real alpha. Maybe that's the kind of guy I should be playing with Towns.

Yeah, I think we only really talked about that Towns part of it from the Minnesota side of it with Dame and what that would mean because would you be shocked if Portland was like, now we're going to, like some of the stuff you guys said, you're going to add that to Nurkic and then do what? Go Simon Scoot? And then it's also with the Dame thing. It's like, can you give us a heads up

before we make a decision on Jeremy Grant? So there's all these different factors where it usually feels like teams just kind of run it back. And what I had said on the pod on Thursday too, or excuse me, Friday, is that you'd hope Dame has enough of a relationship

with some of the leftovers from the previous regime and the new pieces in that front office to go, hey, we would love to trade number three for a really great, impactful guy. But those trades don't really happen. A team with a good player that you'd want that still hopes to be good isn't trading us unless they felt like Scoot was going to be all world.

And even then, teams are afraid to kind of do that stuff for a guy that hasn't even played in the league yet. So whenever there's a do-you-think-they-blow-it-up-run-it-back thing, I almost always guess run it back because that's what history tells us in this league. Real quick, though, on the Miami song, as much as I would agree, and I'm sick of the Dame updates all the time because he clearly wants to be nice about it,

but it's getting Aaron Rogers-ish-y with me where I'm like, oh, cool, another status update? Here we go. Yeah, we both like Dame. We're good. We're good with the status updates. Yeah, but I still think the Miami song thing was like, wait, this has to be addressed. I think that one was

where I felt like, dude, could you just have not addressed it? And we'd be good? Yeah. Maybe they're so sick. Maybe they're so used to feeling like they have to say something about these. Yeah, look, it's just been going on

like two plus years now. That's all. And I think it sucks. I think it kind of sucks for fans. Like, I feel bad for fans with this because it's like, you know, there's plenty of times with fans I'm like,

you're out of your mind. Like, why do you think that? And it's like's like oh it's because you hope that that's what the outcome is and you don't want to see anything any other way but the when you're the guy and you've been that important to a city for that long especially like a city like portland this is such a great basketball history like those guys are so into it and you're kind of fucking with them emotionally for two plus years like i start to feel bad for the fan base. Even if it's a fan base, I don't like. They, it couldn't have gone better if Scoot fallen a third. It's just an unbelievable turn of events for them.

And it gives them so many options now. And you and I both thought Scoot should have gone second. We'll see if we were right. But for Portland, now you're set. As long as Scoot comes out and does what we think he can do coming out of the gate, now you have a whole bunch of options.

And Dane might say, you know what? This is great. I actually think Scoot's really good. Actually, don't do anything. Yeah, the least talked about scenario, which may be the most likely one, is exactly that.

And I'm glad you said it because it's just, what if he starts going through camp with Scoot and they bring back Grant? Maybe they add a rotational big or something like that. And I'm glad you said it because it's just, what if he starts going through camp with Scoot and they bring back Grant, maybe they add a rotational big or something like that. And they go, wow, wait, like this guy's going to be really good. But I still think it means Simons has to be something else. Yeah. Which shouldn't be that hard. I'd also be very careful before I started throwing around a nine figure contracture contract for Jeremy Grant. But that's just me. Well, that's what it's going to be.

That's what it's going to be. Without question, it's going to be over nine figures. Who am I competing against? Detroit, maybe? They bring him back. Sacramento? They're going to turn Harrison Barnes into Jeremy Grant? Are they much different at that point? They're a little different. Are they going to beat Denver because

they turned Harrison Barnes into Jeremy Grant? I don't think so. Are we doing this later. Are they going to be Denver? Because they turned Harrison Barnes into Jeremy Grant? I don't think so. Are we doing this later? We're going through our free agent picks and trying to guess contracts? Yeah, we'll do that later. All right.

I have more on that, but I'll save it. Yeah, let's take a break, actually. What does possible sound like for your business? It's the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash business platinum. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too.

Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right.

So you mentioned the phrase one more time on your podcast on Friday. Sorry, I'm grabbing ideas from your podcast. But sometimes when I hear other people's podcasts, I'm like, oh, he raced over that. That was actually a good gimmick. The Clippers are the all-time staring at whatever fucking whiteboard they have with other names and their salaries, trying to decide whether they're going to trade Paul George or not. And they kind of look around and they go, what do you think? One more time?

And everybody's like, yeah, one more time. Let's go. So we're going to try to figure out how many one more time teams there are. It's the cousin of one last job, the action movie gimmickick where the guy's kind of out. It's like, no, One Last Job, man. I know the guy who runs this bank. Oh, not the title. You mean just the overall... The concept.

Like, one last job. What could go wrong? What's the movie where the cop gets diagnosed with a terminal illness and he thinks, is that out of time oh denzel washington no no you gotta go way back for this one i forget this guy he's a white guy

he's around he's kind of a that guy award type of white guy i think he was a star maybe one of the few movies he was a star of um it was like a comedy but he just went crazy because he thought it was like i'm just about to retire it's because he thought it was like, I'm just about to retire. You know what? I was thinking I was screwing up. Like whenever the cop has mentioned that he's retiring soon in the beginning of a show or a movie, he gets shot within 10 minutes. Six weeks left. Yeah. That's the lethal weapon gimmick.

So we both think Clippers, this is a one more time team. especially with the new stadium opening in a year, that it's like, well, if it doesn't work out this year, one more year after that. I actually thought it was very conceivable and possible that they would trade Paul George. Because I don't think Kawhi has a lot of trade value and maybe try to turn him into something else. But I don't know what the market was for him, how serious the Knicks talks were,

whether there's a Sacramento element that could possibly happen. But all indications seem that the Clippers are going to just, you could talk, if you're them and you spend enough time and maybe have enough drinks, you can go through every season and talk yourself into, well, if that hadn't happened, and talk yourself into a bad luck angle for each season. But the problem is Kawhi and Paul George have just had a ton of bad luck angle for each season. But the problem is Kawhi and Paul George

have just had a ton of bad luck in their entire career. And you're betting on the two bad luck guys, which goes back to your Brogdon point. Maybe not bring Brogdon into that whole mix. So you agree that the Clippers are a one more time team? Yeah, we should call it the Daft Punk teams. This is a no-brainer like if we were drafting it which i'm actually surprising how gimmicky we can get here we're not drafting it but that's fine uh the clippers i just always think about the team i think about the guys

lawrence frank the whole crew they're going over everything and they go okay what are the options gang and you're like well the best options our guys are right so fuck it let's just do one more year maybe not extend these guys but do one more year they've got player options that total almost 100 million between the two of them they can figure it out uh you know i thought the paul george trey young thing was least interesting last week but then i started thinking about it more i got a couple couple texts. It was like, that's actually, even though I think DeJounte and then Paul George are going, okay,

positionally-wise, maybe you've got, like, considering he's 33 with his injury history and you have to make a contract decision on something else, like, it's actually whatever you think of Trey Young, that's not enough for Trey Young. It's not enough for Trey Young, especially when you consider kind of the Zion, New Orleans, Trey Atlanta thing of how important he is to that city

for that franchise. There's an extra bump in value almost like the Ewing stuff would do. When we go over these teams and be like, they can't run that back again. A lot of times I'm like, yeah, they probably will though and I don't blame them.

They probably sketched out a whole, what's the best possible next deal we could make conversation, right? And it's like, all right, at two o'clock, we'll deep dive OB Toppin. And they're just going to throw out the players. And then at some point you go, ah, when Paul George is healthy,

he's still really fucking good. Let's see if we can try to keep him healthy. All right, so we think the Clippers run it back. I still feel like they'll be more than willing to take somebody's longer contract for one of their one year and you can get rid of them guys. And maybe that's where they'll operate in. Oh, you want to get off money in 2024, 25? Well, we'll take that back because maybe they'll care a little less.

I really, really, really don't want people to sleep on the whole new building part with the Clippers because they're taking a huge risk. They're building this basketball only building that's in Inglewood where the Lakers used to be a long time ago. It's next to the football stadium. It's not really near anything, right? And they're the Clippers anyway. Nobody cares about the Clippers out here. They have their small, it's a lot like the Kings where they have their small loyal group of fans. And other than that, they kind of come and go depending on how relevant they are. And I don't see them going into that first season with that arena and not having star power. they're looking at that from that perspective you're better off keeping your fingers crossed with paul george would be my take i i also think this makes them a zion possibility because that's a star power guy right come to our new arena we have zion williamson maybe we might have zion williamson yeah we might he might play today or he might be in a jogging suit because it's also worth at least mentioning too like if you were to to trade Paul George, what happens with Kawhi?

And I'm being sarcastic because he's a super easy dude to predict. Although maybe he is in a non-sarcastic way, but easy to predict because you just, the predictable part is that you'll never know with him. But the new building thing, all those factors, much like, you know, Trey's importance to Houston and all this stuff that we've already talked about here. So you're right. I don't think they're going to want to go in there saying, we have the rights to Portland's pick top six protected in 2025. Are you interested in a luxury suite for your business?

Would you like to sign up for our first six rows club? All right, let's make it a draft. You have the second pick. Who's your one more time team? Golden State. You got me excited when you said the word draft. Yeah, I know. Golden State. Oh, really?

What you think, maybe our definition of the parameters here, I looked at it as going into this offseason being like, we're just going to run it back. No, I had them as well. I was just trying to make the draft more exciting. I do think if they trade Draymond, I mean, I'm sorry, if they re-sign Draymond, then you could say it's one more time,

but the heart of this team is Steph Curry and Draymond, and maybe we'll bring Klay back. But I think there's some one more time element with Klay. I think Klay is a really, really proud fucking dude. Not that a lot of these guys aren't, but I just don't see him. His price has been set in the 40s. He's not going to get that again,

but I don't see him taking the huge pay cut. Just like I don't see Draymond taking the huge pay cut. I think all these guys feel like they were part of this dynasty. They feel like it was a dynasty. It's like when Kobe took that giant contract the last two years and just destroyed their cap space. He's like, fuck that.

I deserve it. I deserve all this money. I keep this stadium. So this is what I deserve. And I think Clay's going to be like that. So on paper, one more time team because of the Chris Paul contract. But I still feel like the nucleus is going to be there for them. Okay.

But I also think it's important to bring up the pool stuff because, you know, it's a bit like the Beal thing where, yeah, I get it. That trade for Beal, like, of course, that price. Are you kidding? But it wasn't a normal trade. It wasn't like other trades because you get the no trade clause. And that felt more like him going to one of two places. So you're not even he's not

even a market you don't even have teams bidding i mean that's what's so terrible about that they destroyed his value i don't i still don't know why they did that yeah no something it's funny you bring that up do you just go daryl morey which is why i respected what he did with simmons so much with philly i don't think a lot of GMs would have allowed that to go as long as it did. And Daryl wasn't going to do it until he got his price. And thank God he got his price because he turned Ben Simmons, who doesn't play, into Harden. And no matter what you think of Harden, that's a massive win. And he got it

because he was patient. He's like, hey hey that the offers suck these offers suck and i'm not going to do it so you know whatever you don't want to play fine i think other gms would have given into that a little bit and that's why when i think about the beal thing you know that could have been over owner driven new front office coming in clean slate move on but if that's you have to wonder i'm so glad you brought it up because you have to wonder at some point if you were Michael Winger if you just go hey actually no no right

I actually like the trade they got I liked all those pick swaps and I like Jordan Poole I'd rather pay Jordan Poole the 30 and you get Tyus Jones you get to potentially flip him in February, but just,

I feel like Poole could match a lot of Beal's stats. He's not as good of a player, but production-wise, offensively, he could put together a lot of the same numbers. Okay, but the final thing- And he's 20 million less. The Poole thing, though,

like having those numbers then be gone later on, unlike Beal, where the numbers continue, you know, that's the part of the Phoenix deal where you're like, okay, are you sure? And they felt like they were so all in, and for the price that they got him, like, who cares?

And they still are on the line of teams that, you know, could this team be a contender? I think it'd be crazy to just say no about Phoenix. But with Poole, maybe his contract now being all those future numbers gone, whether it's Chris Paul after this year, not being re-signed for that kind of number, whatever they do with Wiggins, maybe they look at it as like, we can sign all these guys and whatever you think the tax calculations are for Draymond. Because I have those on different versions of what his deal is

and what him leaving for nothing versus him coming back at like 90 million. The gap between that is like the tax bill is so insane. And we'll run through it a little bit later. Like maybe they go, okay, now that pool's gone, we feel even better about extending out some of these dues, but hopefully not at the 40 and 30 million averages they're used to. And it's okay to get crushed this year. It seems like when it gets to two, three years down the road, that's when you got to be a little more careful. All right, I'm going to go with my one more time team draft. I'm going to say New Orleans,

but it's Zion specific. I think this has to be your last year doing the Zion dance. I actually think, I really do think that if there was a trade for him this week, it would have happened.

And I just don't know if any other team felt comfortable. There's such a disparity in what New Orleans probably feels like Zion's value is versus what the rest of the league looking at it from afar probably thinks it is that you have no chance. What was the trade going to be? You know, it's, it just wasn't going to happen. But I think New Orleans is like, all right, let's try to figure out how to make this go. Would it shock me if he wasn't on the team to start the season? No.

But I just always look at it from... With Tommy Shepard, when he gave Bradley Beal that no trade clause, he kind of felt like, I got to keep Bradley Beal here or otherwise I'm not going to have a job in here. And as it turned out, he lost his job anyway. If you're Griffin and the Zion thing doesn't work out after another year and now he's untradeable, who gets blamed after that? It's the GM. That's how the league works.

Would you have done three for Zion if you were Portland? I think I would have. I mean, Simons would have had to be in that too, right? I would have made them take Nurkic. I think I would have. But you and I are higher on Zion the most.

It's really tough because I love Scoot too, but I just feel like that's a tough. Cause I love scoot too, but I just feel like that's a better trade. Cause now I can keep Dame for versus what I'm looking at. 50, 60, 70 cents on the dollar for Dame because there's no perfect trade for him. Right. And I don't,

I don't have to give Anthony Davis for him. I don't mean to be dismissive of Simon's like as if he's a throne. Cause he's not, he's not, He's not. But then you've got CJ, Scoot, and Simons. Yeah, it just gets weird. So, you know, New Orleans- It would have been harder to then do the contracts. You're right.

It would almost have to be a Jeremy Grant signing trade or something. But that's the point. There's no trade that would have made it with the contract they would have had to take back. It's just there was no trade. Who says no? Ingram for Simons in three. So I wonder if that was discussed.

Sure, it was discussed, but... If I'm Portland, I would have had to really think about that. I thought Ingram was the last, second half of last year. I was really impressed by him. He's still pretty young too, right? Isn't he like 25, 26?

Is he 26? 26 in September. He's awesome. I think I would have done that. I think he'd be awesome with Dame. Like awesome. Yeah, that's it. And so I lose Simons.

Do I have to lose Nurkic in that too? Can I get rid of Nurkic? No too? Can I get rid of Nurkic? No, you want to get rid of Nurkic. Yeah, that's what I mean. Nurkic, you have to take Nurkic if I'm giving you. I'd be like, can we have Jackson Hayes, weird ass? Or run some streets for him? Right.

Can we get one of your bigs back? So New Orleans wouldn't have done that? New Orleans wouldn't have done that. New Orleans wouldn't have done that. I don't think they would have because they'd be like, wait, what if we trade Ingram and then Zion's hurt again? So our two best players are both out of the mix. You could argue, okay, Ingram doesn't play enough. He's only played 70 games once in his career.

That was his rookie year. Granted, a couple of those seasons were pretty close to full seasons on the shortened one. He only played 45. But when he came back this year, and he was a little slow when he came back because he missed some time. But, man, when he came back, I thought he was nasty. And I just think he'd be a perfect fit.

Now, Dame all of a sudden, it may be an investment into Dame being like, hey, now we don't have to get Miami updates every week because he's happy that he has Ingram on the team. But I think New Orleans probably says no because they're like, well, if we get rid of Ingram and then Zion's hurt again. But back to your original point, they're a perfect example of running it back one more time. I think leading up to the draft, that's what you're hearing more and more of. Look, just give it one more shot. Zion's young enough. They still have him under contractual control. If the offers aren't good enough, I don't know how different the market would be if he also misses even more time this year,

because I imagine it'd probably still be a little similar to what they were being offered, and they probably didn't like leading up. So I don't have a problem with it because he's a star in a city that's not going to get a star. You're the next pick. So far, we took the Clippers, Golden State, and New Orleans in the one more time, one last job draft. I'm going to zag a bit because I think they're just going to run it back and no one's going to be excited about it. I think Chicago is going to be a pretty similar team. Oh.

I might have been on the trade machine this weekend trying to figure out a Brogdon Caruso Celtics take back Lonzo and just how those salaries could work. And then all of a sudden I brought Charlotte into it and Gordon Hayward was involved and Lonzo was going to Charlotte. And I was just, I was just basically trying to figure out how to get the Celtics Caruso in a realistic way.

And I couldn't pull it off, but Lonzo's out for the year and he has some injury exception, right? So they can use half of his money on somebody else. They will, right. I think Chicago brings back Vucevic. I don't think Zach really has a market with the four playoff games in nine years.

I don't think there's a line outside the Zach door right now. And then DeRozan is on a good contract, and maybe you look to trade him December, December, January range. Now you're like, so what is, what is your training camp?

Like where you're like trying to get the fans excited. You're like, ah, Patrick Williams, you should see him go to his left now. Worked on it all summer. Like what, what are your,

we were so close to beating Miami in that playing game. People forget. Like we were right there. How do you get your fans fired up? Yeah, because blowing it up, you know, look, I actually feel bad for Chicago. They were right about the DeRozan thing when it felt like all of us were wrong.

I was wrong. I'm like, how much? How? Like, what? And then he takes it to another level. The Vooch trade was bad. The Vooch trade was irresponsible. Right, but they thought, like, i don't know it was ridiculous right but i'm just saying like part i'm admitting one of my flaws and that sometimes they're bad like no no no no no i don't think it's sympathy

it's just that we were so conditioned to think that every move like had to be oh does that mean like i just hate talk radio shit where the trade happens and it's like, does that guarantee you a title? You're like, no, dickhead, it doesn't. You win. How about the five seed? Is that good? Is the five seed good for you?

You win the argument, man. Let's take some calls. Or any move that's not tanking, if you're not in that. I'll just never forget like being on the set once with bob ryan where the celtics made some minor move and then i think felger may have said like yeah but is this is this like championship driven and bob ryan's like who cares this team isn't that good just being better would be nice be nice. It made an impression on me because sometimes I'll look at

these teams and just go, hey, we're just trying to get better. We're trying to compete. I think that's what Chicago did. Then everybody got better around them. The East got way better real quickly. The Vooch rule should be, does this guarantee you moving on a couple rounds of playoffs? No, it doesn't. The price looks even worse after the fact.

I get what they were trying to do. No, it looks better after they took Jed Howard. I think the price is actually now better. You lay out all that trade on paper. It's like, ah, they basically traded Franz and Carter for Vooch. I could talk myself into that. I'm trying to think of like the last time, but then it wasn't that long ago.

I think Johnny Davis was the most recent. Everybody's like, man, I don't know if I see it. Actually, people probably like Johnny Davis more when he was drafted than they did Matthew Chibnick. Well, it was weird because he had a teammate that everybody seemed to think was better than him. That was also a weird dynamic. Oh, Bufkin? Yeah. Alright, so you took

Chicago. The Celts are still on the board, and I'm going to take them from a, uh, one more time with, with the Jalen contract, which he's going to get, but they won't be able to trade until next July. And you know, it's, it's in the air. I, I sent you the Fandu odds and the Celtics are the favorites to win the title on Fandu plus 460 and Denver is plus 470. I just thought that was outrageous. I get it.

Maybe the East is worse than the West. But Denver, to me, is the most repeatable champ we've had since the 2017 Warriors. The style of play, the age of the guys, and the fact that they're going to be able to so easily add around on the fringes with rotations and all the guys who would want to play on that team. How are they not the favorites? I don't understand it. Yeah, I'm with you on that one.

I don't get it. I mean, Bruce Brown's a nice piece, but I mean, that's the thing. As soon as you go in there, you're going to be a better player because of Jokic. Maybe Christian Brown will play a lot of those Bruce Brown minutes and actually be pretty good. I really like Bruce Brown. I valued what he did, but Christian Brown might be ready to do more for that team too. So anyway, with the Celts, somehow the favorites, even though they've only made one finals, the Porzingis thing, Zach was saying how

the thing that made him nervous about the trade was they were already not a good passing team and they moved their best passer, whether he would call Spart a great passer, I don't know, that's debatable. But he at least would look for other guys. And Porzingis is another I need the ball guy. And he was just worried about

just that piece of it. I'm still so bullish on Derek White from what we saw last year, being able to step up and have stuff run through him, that I'm not as worried about it. But, you know, there's a world where the Celtics season goes sideways, as weird as that sounds, because they're prohibited favorites in of the East right you got Rob and you have Porzingis not exactly

Lou Gehrig and AC Green from a durability standpoint you have all of a sudden it's gonna be like Peyton Pritchard it's time it's hey Brogdon might be ready for the start of the season like there there's some little stuff and then giving Jalen

all that money which they they're going to do. What does that mean? Is he going to want to be there? He's going to want to be there. The Missoula piece. That's the year. Some of the restrictions that we've been talking about, too. They're not going to take place this season anyway.

As disappointing as the Philly series was, because they should have beaten them, they should have been down 3-2 to that team, and then even worse, the Miami team. To lose those series, whether it's the finals last year, the Eastern Conference finals this year, like you go into it being like, hey, that's still a really good team.

I'm with you. I wouldn't make them the favorites over Denver, but I think the statistical models have had a hard-on for Boston now for two years. I think Witt Grosbeck, I remember listening to him in a preview of this upcoming past season where he went on NBA radio and he said, hey, we were a little overrated. And the host didn't understand what he meant. What he meant was that I think 538 gave the Celtics like an 87% chance of winning the NBA finals against Golden State. And, you know, when you're watching all season long, not to knock everybody's models, because those of us that watch get it wrong, ignoring models or looking at them, but it's like, man, if you're 87% based on your model, those two teams last year, then something's wrong with the model. And that's what Wick was talking about. Wick was looking at it going like we had all of these different projections at times that we were this overwhelming favorite. So the fact that most of those guys are still around, I don't know if Vegas is looking at that and factoring in what the price is, but the models love Boston. And it's not going to be any different for a third year of this with the depth and the guys, although the defense clearly has

fallen off from what they were two years ago. I wouldn't have them be the favorites. I think the only thing that you would say for Denver, which I think is totally fair, and I've said it already way too many times, is the regular season profile was not of the team that you think of like Golden State. Like you can say

they're the most dominant since. Maybe we're in the very beginning of this. Maybe this is their 14 or 15 year. You know, 14 wasn't a title year for Golden State. 15 felt like they were ahead of schedule. Denver doesn't feel like they're ahead of schedule.

Can I go way back with the 77 Blazers and then the next year started 50-10 in the title? They were actually better the next year. I think that's going to be Denver. I really do. So you think they're going to go like 65 wins next year, better defense? I think they're going to be awesome. Yeah, I do. I really do.

Sometimes the title, the disease of more can happen or you can be like, man, we got lucky and then we lost this role guy and that guy I just think they're top four unless Porter got hurt or there's some sort of

injury variable that we don't know about yet just their style of play and how good Jokic is I think Jokic is that good and the history of the league says that was the start

of something not the culmination of something he is that good somebody who's that good. Yeah, no, he's that good. And I'm glad it's happened. He feels Tim Duncan ish where it's like, well, if your number one guy is wired that way and all this shit's real, then, you know, you have a better chance of staying the course

as a franchise because it's only like he couldn't wait to leave America. It's like, oh, is there a parade? All right, I'll stay. I guess I'll stay for that before I can get out of here. Like to him, it's like, is there a parade alright I'll stay I guess I'll stay for that before I can get out of here like to him it's like let's go let's kick everyone's ass we'll win the title and I'll get out of there and then he'll come back next year and kick everyone's ass

again well you see what's going on with our country politically can you blame them wait wait real quick though like you're a little too dismissive of it though i when i'm talking about denver and who they were this regular season and how weird the rest of the west was i think that's part of the pricing there that vegas is coming up with i think they agree with me more than you do three maybe teams then we'll wrap this up lakers philly and milwaukee because the Lakers,

the one more time thing would be just if LeBron, this is the last year of his deal, and if his son is good enough to come right out of the,

out of college and get drafted the first year, I think LeBron's just going to go to whatever team that is. The Philly piece, you know,

Harris, who know, Harris, the Harris trade coverage stuff this week was pretty hilarious. But it looks like they're going to have Harden back. I'm operating under that assumption. And if nothing happens with that team this year, then something will happen. And then, I don't know, Milwaukee?

It seems like Lopez is leaving. I know we're going to do that next segment with the players but it just seems like other teams have more money than the Bucks do for this and you know what happens then?

When he talked about Middleton opting out he was on TV this week and now all of us are like as soon as Windhorse leans a certain way we're like what does he know and he was I think it would make sense to any of us to pay, as soon as Windhorse leans a certain way, we're like, what does he know? What does he know? And he was, I think, who would make sense to any of us to pay attention to this stuff. The listeners that are super up on this deal, Middleton opting out may mean nothing. Brook Lopez, he was like, that might be a little trickier.

Well, here's the problem. Brook Lopez won a ring already. That's the part we always forget with some of these guys. When they have the ring, it's just a different already. That's the part we always forget with some of these guys when they, when they have the ring, it's just a different mindset. It's like, I already did it.

I already won the title. Now let me get one last awesome contract and get used in the right team, right situation. So, um, I think

those are the teams. Let's take a break and then we'll do, we're going to play guess the contract, guess the team with some of the free agents that we got.

All right, so cap space is 136. That is the limit that teams cannot go over. According to Keith Smith, who does a good job with this stuff on SpotTrack, Rockets, 60.9 million. Jazz, 47.2. Spurs, spurs 38.6 kings 35.6 pacers 32.2 pistons 30 and magic 23.9 there you go sir rudy now there could also be some chicanery of guys get rid of some cap holds like dallas could all of a sudden become a major player if they just renounce Kyrie, right?

They could go get somebody. So the big free agents, I'm just going to list all of them and then we're going to do like nine or 10. I'll do alphabetical order. Harrison Barnes, Dylan Brooks, Bruce Brown, Seth Curry, Dante DiFincenzo, Jeremy Grant, Draymond Green, James Harding, Kyrie Irving, Cam Johnson, Kyle Kuzma, Brooke Lopez, Chris Middleton, Jakob Pertl, Austin Reeves, restricted, D'Angelo Russell, Russillo's guy, Max Struess, Fred VanVleet, Gabe Vincent, Nikola Vucevic, who seems like he's going

back to Chicago. We'll throw in Russell Westbrook for shits and giggles and Grant Williams. That's the list. So if we go alphabetical, I bolded a couple guys. Like Harrison Barnes to me, he'll be a mid-level guy somewhere, maybe a little below, and probably a winning team. Dylan Brooks. What happens to Dylan Brooks, in your opinion? Because I've heard the Houston team thrown around.

It's like, really, that's where he's going to go is Houston? They need the veteran leadership of Dylan Brooks. That's what we're doing. See, mid-level guy, I had Dallas written down for him. Yeah, I know. Everybody hates him right now, but it'd be wrong. The mid-level for the non-taxpayer is what? 12 plus million? You can do four years on.

12.2, so it's like three for 40, something like that. I'm going to be honest. It still feels like a little low for him. Right? You're buying Dylan Brookstock? I'm buying that Houston's going to do something with this money. And if they don't get hardened, I think Houston's going to do something with this money. And if they don't get hardened, I think Houston's going to throw like pretty big numbers at three guys and just add them to this mix. You can say,

wait a minute, that's getting in the way of all of these draft picks. You know, I think the draft picks are going to have to start producing. I mean, I'm obviously, I'm not talking about talking about the King of Houston. I'm not talking.

No, like Jalen and Jabari and all this stuff. Like, I don't know. It's tough with the development stuff because it's like, okay, they have to go out there and make their mistakes. They have to learn through it. Well, Jalen Green's going to be on year three of this stuff. They have this cap space now before they have to make the decisions on the next guy. So it can feel like they're doing a bunch of different things at the same time.

But my guess would be they're going to be throwing a lot of money around. They're going to pay a weird bad tax on top of that, whether it's Bruce Brown, whether it's Brooks, whether it's an Austin Reeves offer. I think they're going to be in on a bunch of different guys. But then they may even over offer a couple of dudes to be like, you have to say yes or no now because we have to know so we can pivot to the next dude to use this $60 million worth of space. And obviously, I'm not talking about Eam Amen Thompson as being a dude that needs to prove himself coming out of Overtime Elite. But on paper, there's all this young talent. But the fact that there's all this cap space coming to, if they don't get hardened, they're

going to spend it on some of these dudes. So I think- Well, what if it's- Go ahead. I'll give you a second guy because I had Houston rid down next to Fred Van Vliet who is another guy who has a ring who could make a financial decision more than

a oh no I want to be on a good team I've never had that experience like well he had the experience he won the title in 2019 now he wants to get paid he's 29 he's 19. Now he wants to get paid. He's 29. He's repped by clutch. Declined a $23 million player option.

You've got to imagine he's looking at least at that Tyler Hero number of four years, $120 million. That was fully guaranteed by Miami. I was thinking like $440 million for him. That's fine. By the way, that makes me super nervous. I'd imagine the fourth year on that's going to be a player option

so they can hit the market again as a 10-year vet, which changes things. Because I think he'll age all right, honestly, just because you can shoot it so well. I know the smaller guards, you don't like them. The advanced metrics really like him. To me, I have trouble with the eye test versus the advanced metrics for him. Cause the eye test doesn't like,

I just feel like if he, if he's the guy with the ball in the last four minutes of a game, I don't, I don't know how many guys he's out dueling, but maybe on Houston, he doesn't have to be that guy. I thought that was a big reason why Toronto always seemed like they were in these two point games with four minutes to go and would just lose the games.

I kind of like him, man. I think his shot making is pretty good. It feels like he already got to be Jalen Brunson with the city before Jalen Brunson was with New York. I think Van Vliet's had some really good moments with them. And it was cool, too, in how he played off of Lowry, which I think is a great sign if you're another team that you feel like you already have a ball-dominant guard. It's like, well, can Van Vliet survive? And it's like, yeah, man, we already saw it.

I think that was one of the brilliant things about he and Lowry is that they were really compatible with each other by letting kind of the other guy take his turns, and it didn't feel like it was – we see a lot of ball-dominant players where it's like, oh, actually, you could just say it in Houston, Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green, where it's like, I'll go, you go, I go, you go. I think Van Vliet works better that

way. And even if it feels like he's getting in the way of some of these other dudes, you're going to have to use this money. So I don't think Van Vliet to Houston is all that crazy. I like it for them because I think they need an adult. year it was 19-4-7. He's played a ton of minutes the last four years and he's been reasonably durable. He's a good three-point shooter. I don't know.

It makes sense for me at that team. Good free-throw shooter. It's like, I know I'm not the guy, but I'm kind of the guy because I'm the adult in the room

and they have just basically all these talented perimeter dudes. So I would have that. And nobody brings this up, but Texas doesn't have a state tax. Hmm. Forgot that part. No one brings it up. So I have Van Vliet and I have Dylan Brooks for Dallas for three years for the mid-level and you have him and OMAX, you have Luca and Kyrie, you have all the, all the big guys they have. You still have Hardaway and Bullock. Maybe they could flip Hardaway for something. Those would be my first two. Where do you see Bruce Brown if he had to throw a nickel into the fountain on that one?

See a full mid-level guy for you? Yeah, easy. I agree. I think he's like three years, $45 million. The weird thing here for... He declined the $6.8 million option. He's CAA, so they already know who wants to offer him what. The most Denver can offer him next year is $7.8 million, so I think he's gone

unless he absolutely loves Denver and loves... He can love it. He'd buy a house there. Come visit. I just don't know how he comes back for 7.8 when I think he can probably make double that. So what team do you have for him? I wrote down Houston. I promise we're not going to name 20 players and say Houston for every single one of them. Cause it feels like to this start so far, that's where we're at, but it's not what I did. I promise. I wrote down Sacramento for him.

What do you think of that? I think Houston will pay him more, especially when they miss out on a couple of the other guys. Can we do Seth Curry quick? Sure. Can I just give you my dream Seth Curry scenario? The Denver Nuggets. I want to see him on one more good team with a big

guy that he can just basically do Jamal Murray impersonations around, bounce around. Remember that one year with Embiid? When him and Embiid were great together? I want to see that again. I want to see him on another team like that.

I'm just going to throw it out. I'm going to also throw out Dante DiVincenzo for the Knicks. For how much? I think maybe not quite mid-level, but close. Maybe like a three for 30. I don't know, man. They've got so many guards, and they still have to figure out this Josh Hart thing

where them extending his player option deadline, which is $12 million, and they extended have to figure out this josh hart thing where them extending his play out or excuse his player option deadline which is 12 million and they extended it to this thursday tells me that they're all on the same page about something and the thing you can do now in the new cba is you can you can extend before like before you had to be like straight up free agent there's like these other little tweaks i was noticing today when we were getting ready to prep all this stuff also there's one of the things when you're over the apron, you can't aggregate the salaries. So you got to-

It's a nightmare. Right. You can't do two $10 million players for the $20 million player. Like that shit gets crazy, man. You start digging into some of these limitations. I'm glad that you wanted to do that cap pod there because you start realizing like on top of everything else, it feels like a new hard

cap it's also I think gonna really stop some of the star player power movement stuff where you're gonna be like you can ask for whatever you want now we cannot legally do it you can want to go there

yeah they can't take you they can't take you. Tough cookies. Yeah. The reason I thought of him with the Knicks was they don't have a lot of fun to play with swingman guys. And I think however you feel about DDV, I liked some of the stuff he did for the Warriors. I thought in their closeout game

when they lost to the Lakers, he was one of the most confident guys they had out there. I value what he does. So throwing him out. What do you have for Jeremy Grant? So he's eligible. Right. He's unrestricted again.

He's eligible for a five-year $233 million max. I don't think he's going to get that. Nope, Jeremy. Cross that one off. He signed for three years, $ 60 million with Detroit three years ago. I couldn't believe that number when it happened and he ended up being worth it. I was wrong.

So like four for 100? So I looked at some examples here. Julius Randall's deals four years, 107, 117 million with all-star bonuses in there. So if we say it's down the middle, split it at 112, four for 112. If I'm Jeremy Grant grant's guys i'd say even though randall had some serious accolades this year i'd be like look our guy's healthier

plays better defense so i think it's i think it's a four-year deal um around 120 130 million and i think if you're if you're grant's people you're saying you've got to pay a little bit of a Dame tax here. You have to keep him to keep Dame happy. The rebounding numbers aren't there. The reason he was so good in Detroit is because he was the number one option. I think at one stretch, he was averaging like 20 shots a game for them. And I was like, man. So that's

why the numbers got such a bump. But I think he's kind of in that range. If he was $20 million a year three years ago with the new money and everything, it feels like he's a $30 million a year guy. I don't like it. What would you think it is? What was your guess? I'm just kind of out at that point.

Let somebody else do it. What if Dame's like, oh, wait, so you just let this guy walk? That's why I think he gets closer to that number. But it'll be a sign-in trade if they get rid of him, right? Unless it's Houston or the other two teams that have cap space.

Well, Detroit, it's the same people there that signed him three years ago. $30-plus million a year for him. He did have a really good statistical season last year. He was a 48-40-81 guy last year. Yeah, look at the rebounds. He's 29. I'd feel good in that when you said like Randall money, Brunson money,

in that range, like the four for 110. I don't know if I'd go higher than that. The reason I made it a little bit higher is I think if I'm his reps, if I'm his reps, I'm like, what are you going to do? Not bring this dude back?

Yeah. We'll take an extra 20 million. Slap it on the back. We have Draymond both going to Golden State. Maybe like a three for 115 with like a, it goes backwards type of type of contract. Three for 110. Where it's like 40, 35, 30, something like that. You think it's that much? like a it-goes-backwards type of contract? 3-for-1-10? Teldon Johnson style? Where it's like 40, 35, 30, something like that?

You think it's that much? I don't know. What is it? It's going to be more than 27. I was wondering, because he's 33, if they would do like, look, let's do, we'll do four years,

but we'll do it at a lower number. We've got to be in the 20 20 something a year annually for you. If you're the Kings, do you pretend you're all in just to fuck with the Warriors? Like do you poker it a little bit? Well, yeah, but then you're fucking with the agent.

No, it'd be like, yeah. I mean, we talked four for one 64 and potentially If we knew he wanted to come here. You do it, you know, it's like you're kind of hitting on them on text, but you're not actually buying them anything yet. I mean, if he's going to take that for going state,

I mean, we could probably scrounge in our pockets for 160. You have him higher than me. He declined the $27.5 million player option, which tells me... 160. You have him higher than me. He declined the $27.5 million player option, which tells me... I don't have him higher. I think he should get... I think it should be 3 for 100. I just think the fear of losing him is going to factor into this.

They're going to have to pay more than he wants. And also, what happens if Dallas says, fuck it, we've renounced Kyrie, come to the Mavericks? I had him at like three years at 80 plus. I have it at 100. But maybe they'll get you. Yeah, I have it like three years, 105 even.

And we'll see who's right. Yeah, that's 35 a year. That's an $8 million raise. Yeah. Off the player option. If you're him and Clutch is doing this correctly, he was the best player, defensive player in the league last year.

Who had a bigger impact on their team? And you have a whole 20 pages of stats backing you up. I know, but I just, Steve Kerr said it publicly. Yeah. I mean, Dunleavy also said he saw Poole being there four years.

So, his lips weren't moving though. Can I, can I run over this real quick? There's the, just to explain the Draymond tax thing, like say, say Draymond signs. And again, this is going to be off by a few million here or there, depending on the rest of the moves they have. But as things are currently constructed, a three-year extension for $90 million for Draymond would mean salary and tax bill, the total bill there is $457 million. If they let him walk, didn't replace him,

that number's $272 million. Can they defer? I'd heard that somebody told me that they could defer some of the salary to have it not kill them as much. Not Bobby Bonilla style, but something. That I just don't know the rules on that stuff. Well, the deferral that you're talking about, I don't know. I guess the cap figure wouldn't even matter.

Well, no, because you'd have to. It's kind of like the Harden thing where Philly can offer him five years, but with the over 38 rule, the last year has to be factored into the first four years of the cap. So they can go five years, but it's still basically the same offer as Houston, so it's irrelevant. Where the extra year if you were younger would be probably what would make the decision a lot easier for Harden, just take the extra year and stay there, but the over 38 thing. So as far as deferring money like that, baseball used to do it all the time, where the contract would be written out. I don't think basketball can do it. No, basketball doesn't do that, because I think you've got to worry about the cap part of it. James Harden, what do you have?

I think we both have Philly for this or do you have Houston? Even I despite my long history with Harden do not think that he would be like I'm good I'm just going to go to Houston and lose even I don't think he would do that so Philly can offer him four years to 10 we already covered it on why

the 50 years are relevant for them because of his age he's going to be 34 Houston can offer four years, $202 million, factor in the state tax part of that, which nobody brings up, pretty much even. I'd have a hard time going over four years,

150, 160, maybe a fourth year partial guarantee on that for him. But I think it's Philly. I'm going to say four for 180 in that the fourth year has to be triggered by games played in the third year. He's got to play in like 70% of the games

in the third year to trigger the option for the fourth year, something like that. Okay, we're around the same number. What if you're Daryl and I'm his reps and I'm like, you want to get cute in that fourth year where he's not making that up? cute in that fourth year where he's not making that up. Like if that fourth year is voided, whatever that number is today in a four-year contract, he's not going to make it up at 37, 38 years old. He's not going to make up that money.

Whereas, you know, when we're talking about guys that are a lot younger, it's like, well, who really cares to just make that up on a new deal on the front end? So what if I told you- Well, can I ask a more important Houston question why would Houston need James Harden for the next 3-4 years with the team that they currently have especially when they lucked out with the Cam Whitmore piece and they got the Thompson twin

they have Jalen Green Porter Shangoon Jabari Smith what is James Harden doing for me what's the point of that you already know the answer no i know but honestly after the draft played out the way it played out i don't i just don't know what the point of james harden would be like if it would seem like it would be way more sense to overpay brooke lopez and bruce brown and try to get like some winning players

around all my young i need the ball all the time guys or Van Vliet? You already know the answer. The answer is he is so important to Houston. I'm going to say this and it's actually a compliment, although I'm a little surprised. I don't know that I've ever seen a fan base care so much about a guy that's been gone this long than the Houston Rockets do about Harden. They fucking love that guy. They love that guy.

They defend him. Even towards the end of his Houston run, we're like, why would you defend a guy who was losing, like sucked on purpose just to prove his point, which then again, you don't understand him. Right.

Okay. Like, I'm not going to agree with anybody that's a Houston Rockets fan about Harden. This is, but to their credit, this is their fucking guy. They stick up for him

when he's playing for Philly. They stick up for this guy like when I would dog him about a Brooklyn thing, I still hear about it from all the Houston guys. I've never experienced anything like it with the way that they have his back. So if you're the owner and you're like,

we stink, business interests are lower, ratings are down, all of that stuff, him coming back actually means something to that fan base. And I don't like teams that make decisions this way. From a basketball standpoint, I'm with you. Add some nice role players and then continue to let the guys that you're hoping are going to be stars that you've picked in the lottery or picked at the top of the front of the first round.

I mean, you know, like these are high, high picks. Let those guys still make the decision with the basketball in their hands. Harden kind of fucks all that up. But I, I think he's just so important to that franchise in that city that they'd feel like they had a real thing, even though I get it.

But my advice, my advice for the rockets would be like, we're creating a new thing for you guys. The dis Thompson twins going to be awesome. We lucked out with Whitmore. Jabari Smith, watch him this year, and Jalen Green, and we have just a shitload of talent now. We don't need James Harden.

What we needed was a guy hitting his prime or in the middle of his prime, Van Vliet, somebody like that, who could be an adult who can show these guys how to win, and we're moving on. All right, so we both say Philly. Kyrie, we both say Dallas, but what's the money? He's eligible for five years, 272. I think he's going to come in a little south of that.

Maybe a hair under. Go over the cap space. Who are you competing with it would actually be irresponsible if this was over two years but it'll probably end up at three i have like three for 120 and i think it's i think even that's irresponsible i mean i would i'd have a hard time giving him a per diem. What did you have? I had the exact same number, but I threw on the fourth year because he's eligible for five, so I figured 40 mil.

And maybe, you know, look, so many of these contracts now, so many of them in the last year, there's a lot of wizardry going on. I mean, it could be just a straight player, straight team option. He may say no to a team option. The weird thing about the Nets deal is all they wanted him to do was play in games.

There wasn't anything weird about it. They were like, can you just play? Because your history hasn't been sweet here. And they were ready to give him the four years that he wanted on the extension. And he didn't want to do that. So I would hate, look, I just wouldn't let myself be in it. I just, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be in that business,

but I don't know who you're competing with. I don't know who else is going over 30 million a year for Kyrie. I wish them a lot of luck in the words of James Babydoll Dixon. Cam Johnson, I'm going off the board. We haven't mentioned this team yet. I'm going Indiana. And I'm going to say four years, $115 million. So kind of that Tyler Hero money?

Yeah. And he fits with kind of who they are and what they need. One more shooter. I still don't understand what they did with the draft. I didn't agree with the pick. But maybe it's because they knew this was looming. And they have the money to go get somebody good. And this is what makes the most sense to me.

So that's my pick. Restricted free agency will tell you history is that that is as much as you can offer because it's restricted. You're trying to scare the other team. And then if they match, you feel like, well, cool, they matched a bad contract. It's hilarious because teams will bitch and bitch and bitch when somebody does it to their guy. And then they'll go and do the exact same thing. And then I remember one time, I think Memphis offered Josh Smith a restricted free agent deal, and it wasn't that much. And the guys at Atlanta were just like, what?

What did they do? Yeah, okay. I guess we'll just match it. It was one of those deals. So when you're restricted and you're good, and he's good. I think he's good, and I think he's worth it, and I don't know why Brooklyn wouldn't match it. I think they do.

Yeah, look at Brooklyn's spreadsheet. After this year, and that's why all the Bridges stuff didn't make any sense. Like, wait, he's even better than you thought, which makes him cheaper, and now they're going to trade him when their books are clean, coming up here very shortly, which is why I think they'll match on Cam, even though it feels like in the high end. Kuzma. I could see him being like

the second choice for a bunch of teams. Like we've kicked the tires on Austin Reeves. We've kicked the tires on Cam Johnson. You know, we've gone down the road with Fred VanVleet. We didn't get our first choice, and now it's like July 8th, and that's when you call the K first choice. And now it's like July 8th. And that's when you call the Kuzma.

And Kuzma will wait until he can get a commensurate offer, I think. He's a tough one because he's definitely better than a mid-level guy. But to me, it's like, I don't even think he's as proven as Jeremy Grant was. And I don't even love the Jeremy Grant money. So it seems like it's somewhere in that like four years 90 kind of range. And maybe that's the Kings if they let Barnes go. He checks a lot of boxes for the Kings. I just don't know how high I'd want to go.

So it's like somewhere four for 85, four for 90. The other possibility is he just comes back to Washington, which I don't think can totally be ruled out. I know it'd be weird, but maybe they, you know, I don't know what Washington's up to and

I'm not willing to say that they're just going to throw the season away yet and be a tank team. So my choice is Sacramento-Russo. I like the number. Whenever I'm trying to figure it out, I'm like, oh, it's three for 60 too much for Kuzma? No way.

No way. He's still good enough. So then it's like, does it become four for 80 to win the bid with all these other teams? Because he feels like, hey, you could probably trade him later on. This number's not going to kill you. I know McDonavich is already in place.

They did that shorter extension for him. But if I'm Detroit, considering all these lottery picks that I have to make a decision on contract-wise, this is where you try to sneak in the vet now. Use the cap space now. So they got $30 million. Right. I think Kuzma, even though it might feel a little redundant

with some of the small forward stuff, and I guess you could argue in the draft, wait a minute, didn't you just do this positionally? But I think Washington's another one because you're going to have to pay somebody, right? Like looking at their books, it wouldn't be shocking if they brought him back. If the number's reasonable and he's a decent player, you know you're at least keeping the asset.

So it's obviously a bump from where he was in the player option thing. And I like him. I'm not in love with him, but I like him. He's all right. Me too. Brooke Lopez, hardest guy to figure out. You could give me 20 teams on this one. I landed on San Antonio.

He won a ring a couple years ago. I think they want to add one guy and I don't know. He's played with Giannis. He's had a really interesting career. He's been in the league for 15 years and they have the money to pay somebody like him.

I was thinking like 3 for 55, three for 50, somewhere in there. And now you have some Wemby Diama insurance. You can play them together. He can protect the rim. You have just immediately a really good interior defense. And then you start wondering,

are we like a playoff team? What is this coming out of the gate? Like we have scoring and rip protection. Could we be good right away? That was my team for him. What'd you have? I think those numbers are insane. Three

for 55? Yeah. He's 35 years old. He had a back surgery recently. I know this year he played. Team option third year? I just don't think he's over 15 million a year at this age. I mean, he got defensive player of the year votes.

I know he did. He played 78 games. Nazarene got 42 for three years, team option. He's got to be higher than that, right? Yeah, but I also, once I dug deeper into the defensive stuff, I feel like he really benefited from having the other two guys around him too. He was asked to just

park it in the rim. So what do you have? Three for 30? Because that puts him in the mid-level range. Yeah, I think he's a mid-level guy and I don't think he's going to go to a bad team. Some of you guys in the Spurs stuff, I don't quite get it. What do you mean some of you guys? Why am I in a you guys

group? I'm throwing you in this group that thinks like a tweak here and a tweak there and the Spurs are in the playoffs. I don't see it in the West. And I think Wemba Nyama offensively is not going to be like, I think he's going to do shit certain nights where it's going to be crazy, but I'd be pretty shocked if he was consistently like this nasty offensive threat. I think he's going to be a transformative defensive player right away.

I think defensively I'm with you, but I think offensively, I watched him play internationally here recently. There's some duds in there. So why is he? Cheryl will have a little bit more spacing in the NBA, but I think people need to be a little patient with him on the offensive thing. And then when I think about the rest of that team, I like Keldon.

I like Vassell. Obviously, I like Sohan. All right, throw Wemby into the mix. Yeah. Sohan, Wemby, and Lopez. Who's scoring in that team? They're like the 95 Devils. Richard Trout. I think they have Richard Brodeur out there.

No. So you think mid-level for Brooke. Interesting. Yeah, 35. Because I saw the Mavs there and that messed with my head. The Mavs makes way more sense. The Mavs makes way more sense. No, I said I saw the Nas read. Oh. I saw that

contract today and I just felt like he's going to get more than Nas read so that if Nas read was 3 for 42 with the team option, then Brooke's got to be in the three for 50 range with the team option. It's not going to make less than Nas Reed. 35 is the new 30. Austin Reeves comes back to LA,

but it is going to be fun to see what team fucks with them and offers their full 98.7 for four years, just so they have to match it. Do you think it's 98? Oh, if you're Utah, why, why aren't you doing that? How are you not doing that? Why'd you pick Utah? Because they have 47.2 million available

and we don't have a guy going to them yet. And he's white? What do you want me to say? But they need somebody like him. I'm just doing it. July 1st. Good match at Lakers. I have to beat the Lakers anyway. They're in my conference. Well, the best thing, too, is if you throw that out there.

That's what I think is important about the restricted stuff. A lot of those guys, you're like, wait, what? And then the team that has the rights, they get so pissed off. But, you know, the Lakers can match it, but they can only structure 11.4, 12.2 million around that in the first couple of years. So then you start talking about it. So you can blow it out.

Yeah. He's going to be like 25 to 30 in the last two. Just for the people listening who don't know this, they have, they're capped on what they can offer them, but somebody else can offer them four for 98.7 or four for 90, whatever, and go up to 98.7.

And you would do this because you're basically forcing the Lakers hand to match, which they would, but it screws up all the other free agency stuff they'd want to do. And if I was in the West, I would do this day one. So you'd offer them the 98.7. Oh,

in a heartbeat. Do you think that's what happens? Yeah. Oh, in a heartbeat. Do you think that's what happens? Yeah. I saw what I needed to see during the last two months and during the playoffs. That guy is absolutely a playoff starter on a really good team. As I told you, I thought the Lakers

were the second best playoff team. He was the third best guy in the Lakers. I know they got swept by Denver, but all those games were close. And you could actually make the case that they had exploited his mismatches that he had offensively against some of the Denver people. I think they might have done better in the series. I'm all in on Austin Reeves.

I love that guy. But the Lakers are going to match, so it's a moot point. Where do you see D'Angelo Russell going? And how much money? I have to ask. All right. I think he stays with the Lakers. I think the Rui price

is absurd. He had some really nice moments. Really? You think it's absurd? Yeah, $20 million for a guy you can only get a second round or four who's to the point prior to the Lakers playoff series, round one and three. I can't pay him $20 million.

Right. So I can't pay him $20 million. Right. So I can't pay him $20 million. No, no, no. Are you talking about Rui or are you talking about D'Angelo? I'm talking about D'Angelo, but you said you think the Rui price is going to be absurd.

And it's like, why does that price have to be absurd? Because he had a couple good games in the playoffs? That's insane. Like to me, that's like an $8 to $10 million a year guy. But I think you're right.

I think they're going to overpay him. Well, the reason I bring it up and I, I made it confusing. So that's, that's on me, but you know, whether they match Reeves,

which we both agree they're going to, um, you know, there's all these other things, but they can't just like let all these dudes walk because their core is still going to be so expensive. So I would think that they'd want to keep D'Angelo Russell over Rui. Um,

and I think D'Angelo probably comes in, you know, maybe you let him do a three year announcement, but it's really two years and 50 million total. You may have. No, really? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I'm not doing that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but man, I't do that i wouldn't do it i would do it but like i hate that you can't offer him two for 30 and think he's gonna stay should you make more than 10 million a year i would never sign the guy okay but i think la is going to look at it as he made some shots. I know I'm stretching. He was unplayable by the third round.

Right. But during the regular season, he shot the ball better this year than like ever before. Okay. Not going near that dude. Hey, look, this is the weirdest thing ever because I'm now arguing for. I love it. This is the highlight of the year for me on my podcast. You're defending D'Angelo Russell. You're like, you don't understand d-low he made some big shots i think

i understand him better than anybody you know the number of people that after the lakers playoff run that was like hey you know what you're right i'm like you guys think i just make this shit up you think i just turn on four minutes of a guy and then come to an epiphany on who he is and who he's been for a decade. Can I throw the bulls at you? You can. What? Full mid-level? Two for 30?

I just think he's going to cost more than that. All right. This would be a good one. That was our best argument of any of those guys. It's kind of like the Dinwiddie thing. Like the Dinwiddie, you're like, wait, who's paying this guy? And they're like, oh, wait, he actually did okay. That doesn't make any sense.

There's so many point guards now. That's just irresponsible. I think D'Angelo Russell, I think the announcement is going to be the initial thing where you're going to be like, what? And then it's going to be a bit like an NFL contract where you go, oh, wait, it's only like the first two years. Seven years for $180 million? Right. But then LA will have to pay a bit of a tax of like D'Angelo Russell and his team going, you know that you're just going to get traded, right?

Is there a world where Gabe Vincent should make less than D'Angelo Russell next season? No, but Russell will make more. But we agree that that's absolutely absurd. So Max Struess and Vincent, I just had them going back to Miami, but with these mid-level, and a lot of these teams have the mid-level, I think Struess is a really interesting mid-level guy

because he's played in a shitload of big games and he's hit or miss, but I don't know. If it's like two for 25 for him as a mid-level guy, if I'm a good team and I can add him, I'd feel pretty good about it. I liked how he played in the last two playoffs. Hey, both those guys, I take them both on my team because there's a toughness to them. Yeah. And I'm not worried about them. And you're right. It kind of feels crazy.

Although, look, the thing that the undoing of Miami was finding these guys who were like, oh, that guy had zero points last night. You know, where Vincent, Struis, Caleb Martin are all zero or 20. You're not surprised. You're not surprised. So I still like them. 0 or 20 you're not surprised you're not surprised so i see like if i told you if i told you max in the playoffs was 32 from three it felt way lower than what i watched for the entire playoffs because you're right he would have these games where he's just like he's 0 for 7 again right

well the problem is the celtics fan is everyone he made was so emotional felt yeah it felt like the biggest shot of the game, basically. But those two guys, they feel like they might be in that Grant Williams thing, even though Grant's restricted. Okay, we're almost up to Grant. Grant turned down something for what, like in the

40s, maybe? And he wanted, from what I'd heard, like the four years $74 million fully guaranteed. Yeah, it was like a four for 50? Yeah, the Kelton Johnson deal from what I'd heard, the four years, $74 million fully guaranteed. Yeah, it was like a four for 50. That was the, yeah, the Kelvin Johnson deal was what I had heard. So I don't know if Struess and those guys, they're not going to get the $74 million on that. I mean, there's no fucking way that's going to happen. But yeah, I get it.

I wouldn't want to be in the D'Angelo Russell business either. I just don't see how that number comes in lower than 20. Maybe it's three for 60. I don't know. But I still think like the last year will be like super fake. We'll skip Yaka Perto unless you want to do them. Let's end with Grant Williams. Where do you have one more Williams?

You have one more. Who do you have? Westbrook. Oh, I think that's decided in December. What do you think? I don't think anyone signs him this summer. Oh, no. He's going to get signed.

No way. I think it goes late. It's like when those baseball contracts sometimes where it's like March 17th and somebody the starter gets signed for like whatever. I don't think it is a first month of free agency signing would be my guess. You don't think somebody would throw a mid-level at him?

No. I think he's in that Carmelo late 2010 zone where his name will be mentioned a lot, but, you know, if you're Houston, you can't bring in like Russell Westbrook. Just go through all the teams. Who's like, ah, that Russell Westbrook.

You can't do it if you're Washington. Go through every team. Who's going to want him? Chicago off the bench. Probably end up on the Clippers. My assumption is they'll end up on the Clippers again, but it'll be like late August. Uh,

or maybe later. Yeah. But it's only 3.8, man. 3.8. You don't think you can do better than 3.8. Give me a team. This is the craziest segment ever.

Cause I'm sitting here arguing for some of my least favorite players. Give me a team. Who's like, you know what we need? Westbrook. Who's the team? Chicago just says you get to run the bench unit.

Oh. Yeah, so I guess maybe I had D'Lo with Chicago for like two for 30. Maybe that could be a Westbrook team. So either way, the Bulls fans are going to be bummed out by like November. Not in the beginning, though. In the beginning, it's awesome.

He gets 30 in the game early. When Russ has 28, 19, and 18. You know what? He is the perfect Bull. They start out like 10 and three. It's like, Russ, is he an MVP to be on the first take the graphic coming up next Westbrook MVP candidate. Perkins puts him ahead of magic Johnson.

It's November 3rd. All right. Grant Williams. Where's it going? The podcast has come down to this. Who do you got? Spurs four for 40. Oh.

So that was my Brooke Lopez team, and you're putting Gray Williams there. That's a great team for him. He's young. He can shoot. He gives them spacing. They like to keep playing through possessions. We make fun of Grant a lot on the pod. To be honest with you,

he deserves it, but he's a competitor. I think he's kind of wired that way for those guys. I think for Boston, he's too expensive. Maybe it's four for 48 or something like that. I think the smarter teams would go, hey, Missoula completely bailed on this dude, which is fine.

I was okay with it at times because there's certain matchups. If he's going to get stuck against a more skillful guy on the perimeter, it's just not going to go great for him. But I would imagine a team that doesn't know who their one through eight guys that has cap space and he's kind of cheap and he gets thrown into something else down the road or whatever. But I don't know that San Antonio is going to be able to package a bunch of

stuff for the next mad star. I think he makes sense to them because I think he's smart. I think he's a smart basketball player. I think that's what the Spurs like. I think he makes sense to them because I think he's smart. I think he's a smart basketball player. I think that's what the Spurs like. I like it. I had Utah for him. Like four for 50. Danny had him.

Danny's privy to some of the behind the scenes stuff. So it's not going to be a surprise. When he's annoying. When Grant's the, some of the behind the scenes stuff. So he's, it's not going to be a surprise when he's annoying, when Grant's like, here are my ideas. Had some,

had some thoughts on our half court offense. But yeah, so we're, we're in the same ballpark. I, I gotta say the team that's the most interesting to me is a free agent team that just never gets discussed ever is Utah because they're not that far away from being good you know like they have the lead guy

marketing they have a crunch time guy they have a style they have a good coach they have rim protection I like their draft you were a huge Hendrix guy right I really like him now I'm also not going to be shocked in three years it's, I guess he just kind of stands there, and he's not super into it, but I think, at least from what I saw in his freshman year, if he improves on that,

I love it. I love the pick because I think the other two front-line pieces are already in place, but there's also a really good chance him being that young. He's not... The other thing that we make this mistake of, it could be a while before we even see him in anything close to the rotation. They need more guard help. That's why, you're right,

we never bring up Utah on any of this stuff. Why wouldn't they go at Van Vliet for three years? Oh. Right? Well, so yeah, they're like, if they have 47 million, they could conceivably get Van Vliet and Grant if they want to be good right away.

Competitive, I think, is what we should say. Well, Danny's history is he is not afraid to push the timetable. Even when he made the Isaiah Thomas trade for the Celts, people are like, what's that trade? I thought we were tanking. And he's like, no, I just like the asset. Why are we trading the first round pick? Yeah. And he's like, no, I just like the asset. Why are we trading our first round pick? And he was free. Yeah. And he's like, nah, I like the asset. And it was a no-brainer. So I could see

him kind of zagging when he sees guys he likes with their cap space and maybe nudging their timetable a little bit. But yeah, Utah's kind of the secretly fun free agent team. To bring it full circle though from the start, Mul this i was a little surprised utah now i know they needed a guard and they missed out on anthony black with the first pick and that's why they took taylor i think they tried to move up they couldn't get to where they needed to or they didn't like the price um i'm sure they could have moved up if they wanted to considering all the draft capital they have coming up but it was hard to trade next year's picks because nobody likes the draft like

people hate next year's draft. So I'm going to put him for vacation now a year in advance. But I think if Ainge is fully running the show, which I think Zanuck doesn't get nearly enough credit because of how much he's actually doing a lot of the stuff. Anytime there's a big transaction, the Rudy Gobert thing, it's like, oh man, Ainge struck again as if Zanuck does nothing. But I think if Ainge were like

really really I think Cam Whitmore's the second Utah pick that would be such an Ainge thing because again Cam Whitmore style is an Ainge guy uh Ainge would like him even better if he had stayed at Villanova a couple years but when that pick was coming up I'm like I wonder if they're gonna do this and Ainge just goes what are we we doing? Just take them. Unless their medical was as bad as other teams, then all of what I've just said is moot. Before we go, I read a book about the

Portland Trailblazers called Jailblazers by Kerry Eggers this weekend. You've been sending me excerpts, by the way. You were so excited about this book. Well, I really want you to read it because I know, uh, by the way, you were so excited about this book. Well, I really want you to read it because I know you'll become obsessed with it for the next three days. I just forgotten 90% of it, including, um, Zach Randolph sucker punching Ruben Patterson. The Kobe stopper. And then, uh, and then Ruben being mad about it and just talking in,

in interview situations about like, look, we're on the same team and I'm on probation, so I can't really get revenge or anything, but I'm not happy about what happened. And this would be like months later, but there's just, there's 400 things. But the Ruben Patterson thing, you mentioned how trade market stuff, he wanted to get traded. He had this six year, $33 million contract. And he said, you got to trade me. There's not enough minutes. And then I guess Mo Cheek snapped in a practice and was like, look, we tried to trade you. Nobody wants you. And Reuben Patterson was like, damn coach. His feelings were hurt. But it's like 50 anecdotes like that. You'll love it. But the Blazers were one, were the team that was the all time. We don't care about chemistry team. Just

they had too many guys all over the place. And it was a fun reread. I'm going to read some old basketball books this summer to try to refresh my memory of the nineties and two thousands. Is there any Isaiah Ryder stuff in there? Oh, there's some Isaiah Ryder stuff in there, my friend. There sure is. Look, Isaiah Ryder was the first podcaster. Okay. That guy would show up to like whatever the NBC weekend game was. And you do kind of the sit downs and whatever that game was.

He sat down and just fucking human torched anybody. And it was unlike anything you saw, like an active player in the moment doing the sit down. And maybe I'm exaggerating how many times he did it, but he had some clips, if you go back and watch it, where they'd be like, hey, that guy sucks. He's trash. That guy's so much worse than me.

And I think he actually is the OG, all this stuff. And well, then they had Bonzi Wells who also felt that way about everybody in the league. But the book went into this whole incident when Chris Mills and Bonzi Wells got into it at the end of the game. And then Chris Mills blocked the bus and then was in a car following the bus and they had to radio head to the airport. And I mean, crazy shit that I, you know, in this day and age, 20, 25 years later, you know, we didn't have a lot of the social media mechanics that we have now that if anything like that happened, it would be the biggest story in the league for like a week. And just people would be like, oh my God, he followed the bus and they had to call head to the airport for

safety reasons and he ended up getting suspended. You can see that fight. It's on YouTube. Rasheed Wallace makes a game winner and then it's this full scale brawl and they almost go into the stands at one point. This is in 2003. It's like two years before the Artes Mele. You know what I also think is interesting to kind of bring up because whenever something happens in the league, let's just say baseball and football, It's like tears for their test. You know what I also think is interesting to kind of bring up because, you know, whenever something happens in the league, let's just say baseball and football, you know,

then kind of pivot into, well, the league has fill in the blank problem. Yeah. But then when you look at the national averages of some of the stuff that happens, the real data would tell you the leagues are below the national average for some of these things that are going to below the national average for some of these

things that are going to happen and look some of these things are going to happen but even with the recent jaw stuff which you know it depends on what you really think he did um and what the punishment you know i think both of us felt like we were leaning towards a lighter punishment for it but i don't really want to get into all that because we already talked about it. But it's easy to kind of lose grasp when you go back and tell those stories and kind of what we grew up with with the NBA and hearing stuff.

And this is, again, when we didn't even have access to information like we do now, the fact we have this much access to any information, and for the most part, the league is in a really great place with the people that represent it.

Oh, yeah. Well, you feel it when you read this book. Yeah. It's honestly taken for granted. You know, granted you know like okay look there's going to be a guy who's going to get arrested for something coming up you know what i mean like it's it's going to happen but yeah what never happens is like hey do you realize like how how many of these guys are like really good dudes and and don't get into any kind of trouble and granted we can be naive and go well that's just because you don't know anything or whatever i don't know man i i think every year when you're doing the draft and you you you hear about certain things it's it's actually pretty rare to have a group where it's like oh this guy's bad guy this guy sucks and all these different

things so it just it's so funny well maybe funny is the wrong word. As you tell those stories, like we used to feel like that was the norm. Dysfunction was the norm for a long time with the leak. So that's why it really does. You're right. It stands out now. And it's like, oh my God, really? That happened? Anyway, read the book and we could talk about it next week.

So free agency, what's the day? That's, it's technically Saturday. What's today's date? The 24th? 25th today. Yeah, yeah. So it'll be over the weekend. So by the time we reconvene a week from today,

we'll know some of this stuff. We'll see who's right, who's wrong. This podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton, serene married guy. Steve Cerruti joined us as well. I don't know how he's feeling about 6 and 11 and those picks. He's been really quiet since Thursday.

I don't think he's too happy about it. He's going to talk himself into it. Yeah, probably next month. Be back on this podcast on Tuesday. See you then.