The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA Summer Movement Preview With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the upcoming NBA free agency, plus some big deals that already came from the Rockets and Timberwolves (2:07). Then, they talk about their favorite free agents, Yang Hansen, and the Collin Sexton trade (35:33). Finally, they talk about the possibility of a LeBron trade, the Pelicans’ mess, and the most desperate teams (49:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is presented by State Farm®. Dishing the assists you need off the court. State Farm® with the Assist. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by State Farm. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I have a new rewatchable coming for you on Monday night. It is the last installment of New York City Month. Five movies, because we had five Mondays in June, so this will be the fifth one. We did Working Girl, we did Die Hard with a Vengeance, we did Marathon Man, we did Out for Justice with Steven Seagal. This is going to be After Hours.

It is a cult classic directed by Martin Scorsese. It's me and Sean Fantasy. And we dove into not only all the reasons why this is a great New York movie, but why this is such an important Scorsese catalog movie and such an important time of his career. So you can watch that on Monday night as a video podcaster on the Ringer Mov, YouTube channel. All right. By the way,

you can watch all the stuff on this podcast on the bill Simmons YouTube channel. We have an Instagram and a tick tock as well. And, uh, and we're going to talk to Ryan with solo in one second because basketball threatening to heat up. I can't say it's red hot right now. It's pretty lukewarm, but there's been a lot of, uh of fascinating subplots and things to look for as we headed to July. So Priscilla coming up next, we're going to take a break, get into Pearl Jam and then Priscilla.

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Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the Assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility. Vary by state. All right. 5.30 PM Pacific time on a Sunday night. You know, in years past, and we've been doing this since I think 2018 range, and there was always something either a massive event, Rossello, or like something we didn't expect right around like in that 36 hour stretch before July 1st.

I don't think the Jabari Smith extension has really qualified for me. I don't know if you feel differently. It's just nothing's really happening yet. And yet there are all these moving pieces right now. And I was just going to throw a bunch of stuff that I'm fascinated by so far since the finals event and I'll start here. I really like everything Houston's doing. It's getting a 10 out of a 10 approval rating for me from the Durant trade, which we've already talked about.

They signed Jabari Smith today to a five year, $122 million extension. They renegotiated with Van Vliet, got him at 25 years, 25 million for two years each year. And I just like the roster they put together. It makes sense to me. I'm not sure they need to do anything else. And I think they're a real threat in the West now and they have stability and assets. I think they have flexibility to do more stuff in December, January, February, if they need to. And I think they're in the mix. I really December, January, February, if they need to. And I think they're in the mix. I really do. What, what did you take on the rackets?

Love what they've done. I think we've kind of touched on just a bunch of the things, even going back to like last year where they were one of the rare teams that spends a top pick on Jaylen Green and then just doesn't give them the full max because he scored a million points, you know, they structured that deal in a way where it was like, we like you, but we're still not sure. and then just doesn't give him the full max because he scored a million points. They structured that deal in a way where it was like, we like you, but we're still not sure. And so I think that showed you the rare,

I wanna get into some of these other deals where it feels like the overriding sentiment the last couple of days has just been teams doing players' favors, but they've been really just smart and calculated about it all. Like when the Van Vliet signing happened, you looked at the total numbers, you're like, well, that's nuts.

And it's like, what are they going to do with that player option? Well, or excuse me, the team option. So they declined the team option because it didn't really make a ton of sense. If Van Vliet was going to make 45 million for one year, they do the new deal. Two years, 25 million. So that's a win for them. Probably a little more stability. It's also kind of a win for him too, right?

Yeah. Because they were going to decline the option and now he's out kind of a win for him too, right? Yeah. Because they were gonna decline the option and now he's out in the open market and not looking at 45 million anyway. 25 million would have been the range. Yeah, and even then it was gonna be tough to find a landing spot as everybody sits here. Every article you read, it's like,

other than Brooklyn, other than Brooklyn, other than, you know, so some of these numbers. But even the Jabari deal, it's five for 122, but seriously, he's probably kind of like in a make or break season, but 20 plus million a year for him at this age, knowing that if it doesn't work out, you can trade them. And then I was looking at, this is where it can get a little confusing on like, if they do this or they do that.

And, you know, they had to get cute with, with some of the restructuring of how they were working their books, but I think they can still use a full non-tax payer mid-level if they want to get greedy. They kept for 14.1. Yeah. Yeah. So they've positioned themselves really well. They'll probably do the Durant extension, I'd imagine, which is always going to be a little scary. But hell, I was even like thinking, man, if I'm another team and Jayshon Tate is available, I loved him when he got minutes and then they find a way to keep him. So, uh, I'm incredibly impressed. So I don't even know other than what Stephen Adams, three years, 39 million.

Is there anything to really go like, Whoa, I mean, yeah, it was like, if it had been three years, 30, I would have been like, nice deal 39. It was like, ah, a wee bit rich, but you know, splitting Harris, they're number four on the, uh, on Fandel's champion odds right now, nine to one. Okay. So he's the favorite Cleveland is six to one. Nick's are nine to one and the Rockets are nine to one.

And I think that's, I think that's fair. I Minnesota is. Uh, 14 to one, which I thought Minnesota and Houston would have similar odds, but the better is like, uh, Houston a little more than Minnesota. I mean, and that's the second story that we have to hit that ties in Houston. And also ties into the big picture of all of this. They keep Nas read, which I thought was impossible in February. And I didn't realize what was going to happen with the market.

They kept Nas read that contract next year starts at $21 million. He's a $30 million player. Like in, in normal times, like basically what this new CBA has done is like when you buy a car, there's like this new car tax that you're basically paying for the moment you take the car off the lot. The, the number of that car decreases by 25%. Right. You're just basically paying cause you want a new car and NBA free agency has

had this forever where it's like, well, Nazred's not worth 160 million for five years. He's worth probably 120, but now you got to pay the extra 40 million to get Nazred. It feels like this new CBA has eliminated the new car tax and Randall is a hundred million for three years. It's not 125 for three years. The last deal that we have that I think teams are, a team would regret is that Brandon Ingram deal where Toronto trades for him and then gives

him, what was it, 120 for three years. It's just out of whack. He's not, I don't think he, I think he should be in that Randall range of three for a hundred. So we've seen a resetting and we've seen the smarter teams kind of locked down these contracts. And I think it's going to be a free for all of these free agents. We've seen a resetting and we've seen the smarter teams kind of lock down these contracts. And I think it's going to be a free for all with these free agents where we're just a

bunch of guys who are like, wait, I thought I was worth this. And it's like, no, you actually aren't. The numbers have moved down here and that's just the reality of it. Yeah. Minnesota is a big part of this because you had a figure with the cap trade because how big those numbers get at the back end. and then Rudy did an extension, which was less annually than what he was building towards. It was like, okay, they're, they're probably trying to figure out a way to

like lock in this number that doesn't prevent, you know, total flexibility here. Uh, but, but did, but did you think they would be able to keep Randall and Nas cause I would have thought that would be impossible in February. Well, I mean, who's going to pay NAS more than 25, 30 million a year. Nobody, nobody has the space. Yeah. That's the thing. Like you, I just, maybe I didn't look at it hard enough four months ago, but I

just assumed they would be the way the league works where it's like somebody creates space or there's a sign and trade or there's some suit and it's like, Whoa, Indiana's getting Naz read. How did that happen? It seems like that era is over. Nobody can do it. Well, I don't know that we're going to have a year where there's one team with major cap space and then nobody else does, but I, I think there was also

teams that were like, you know, where do I park my shit? Where do I park it? Oh, there's nowhere to park it. I mean, think about like Brooklyn. They have their five picks. It's like, what are you gonna do? Offer them another first to take on a contract. And Sean Marks is like, hey boys,

you know, open up the notebooks. We got six. Ball handling guard. And even then they took on, um, Terrence man's deal. So there it's just such a rarity that you really didn't have anybody, especially with whether the Detroit stuff worked out. Like at one point you thought could Detroit get a $25 million player in there where their cap space, but then Cade gets the bump. So then that kind of eliminates that so Nas when I had heard the first like offering like four years for a hundred

I just assumed whatever number I hear you like tack on a little bit more to it So when it came out, I wasn't entirely shocked the Randall one. I was really looking at it this morning So he goes three years for a hundred Ops out of the player option, 35.8. All right. Now too often I will look at a deal and go, uh, I hate to be in the Randall business for a hundred million dollars, or I'd hate to be like two. There's too often I say with too many players where it's like, Hey dude,

like I have to check myself and go, well, at some point you have to sign somebody and you can't just let assets just walk for absolutely nothing. Yeah, if the top 60 guy, you just got to blink and suck it up. Yeah, right. And so if you think of Randall's, because I think there was still a little sticker shock and that's probably just the recency bias of the last series

and you could say, well, hey, he was really good in the first two rounds. Well, was that potentially the matchups that he was going up against? I don't know. I mean, all that stuff I think is totally fair. But I went back to 2021 where Randall signed a four year deal with the Knicks for 117 million. So it is four years, 117 million.

And that's when the salary cap is at 112 million. Well, now the salary cap's north of 150 million and you're getting Randall for like, you know, depending on how they stagger with 8% raises over the years, it's kind of the same contract. And this is somebody four years ago, you were wondering before he was actually, excuse me, we were thinking back to last August, if he was going to do a four year like $184 million extension. Like that was one of the things that was on the table. Like what if he puts up this huge grant and I don't know with Brunson he was gonna get the same number of touches.

But three years for 100 million, even though I don't love the guy, that kind of puts him in the 70th highest paid player range. That's kind of what he costs. This is what's changed though where it's become a little more like movies. The star stars are gonna get even more money. Like Booker's going to get 75 million a year for two years or three

years, whatever that extension is. That's where. Whatever Luca wants to wait for. To Luca SGA Tatum already signed the, especially if you have some sort of OMBA, you're looking at 65 million and up, but then there's that class right below and we're seeing like some of those Toronto contracts that we, none of it, neither you or I really liked. And you go back and look at some of those deals now, like what quickly signed for,

what Ingram signed for. And I just don't think, I think those guys would be 20 to $25 million guys and whatever this new version of the market is because- Quickly got five years, 162 fully guaranteed. Which was my thing with Nas read. It's like, if, if that's quickly as price, how is Nas read, not a $30 million a year guy, but apparently those days are, those days are over. Um, but I looked up some of this other stuff too, like Nick

Claxton was four years, 97 million. So like you get sticker shock over Randall. And it's like, well, there's way more to Randall than what Nick Claxton is at this point to buy his Harris granted it was shorter years, but it was two years, 52 million. Cause Detroit was like, well, we've had him in here before. Make some shots. John Collins. I mean this deal was in 21. That was my favorites. Five years, 125 million fully guaranteed.

He's making 26 this year. Well, that's why Reeves turned down, what did Reeves turn down for for 97? Cause he's gonna, he's one of those guys that actually can get to the 5150, I think. Everybody knew that was getting turned down. Even the Lakers were like, we knew he was going to turn it down,

but we just wanted to make them know that we were interested. But that was like a done deal cause it doesn't make any sense for him to do it. Knowing what's coming or he's potentially eligible for, but, um, yeah. I mean, when Collins picked up his player option for 26 and a half million, do you know how old Collins is by the way, off the top of your head? Isn't he still in his twenties? He's 28.

Yeah. He's just, he came in the league pretty early. Yeah. He's just, he came in the league pretty early. Yeah. Cause if you look at the, the, uh, the big free agents that are left, because everybody basically got locked down and then hardened looked like he did a deal. So Kyrie's three for 119, Hardin's two for 81. So for that caliber, it seems like 40 million a year. Randall, it seems a little light, but it also seems like he wanted to

lock down a little long-term security. So that Randall range is like 33 to 35 billion a year. Then that Nas Reid range five for 125, that's about 25 a year. And that seems like that's where that's the hierarchy now. So if you have a guy who's not one of the best three players in your team, but it's super valuable, like Nas Reid, it's in the 20 to 25 range. Jabari Smith, right? That's another one.

I don't know if this is going to last, by the way, the cap keeps going up 10% of a year, so it might, as we keep going, there's more teams with cap space. Next year, there's going to be a bunch of them. Maybe this will flip, but this was the reality of this year. Uh, Davion Mitchell two for 24, which just seems like a normal free agent contract than the other year, but that's probably the price now for a roll guy, 10 million, 12 million, maybe shorter money. So when I look at Phinney Smith opting out with the Lakers, which I thought was

interesting today and really speaks to the, how weird the Lakers situations right now, but I don't know, is he getting more than that? Probably not. Maybe he'll get more years, but he's looking at that 14.1 million free agent exception, which half the teams in the league have, and maybe you can add three years to that it's three for 50, something like that, but in the old days, he might've gotten like four for 75, like some really dopey Max Drews, remember that contract?

I think those contracts are done. Max Drews four for 64, that's not happening anymore. It may happen in the way that a team is not worried about the apron, they're not worried about the tax, and they go to, we don't want to lose the asset for nothing. I mean, I think you're still going to see some of that stuff happen because I think there's another part of this-

This summer? No, no, no, no. I'm talking down the road. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's very rare that you have, like it was two forces fighting each other. One was one team with cap space that doesn't want to do anything with it, and then also not a ton of available free agents.

So I think that there are teams that probably could have held a much harder line if they wanted to be way harder. That might be happening right now. Okay. But think about the Hardin deal. Hardin has a player option of 36.5 million. He signs for 81.5 million. So he gets a raise of like maybe a couple million for one year. I mean, you could envision a scenario where the Clippers go, Hey, if you opt out, you really want to go to free agency? Well, who's, who's signing you. So why don't you just pick up the player option and granted all this stuff has worked out ahead of time and I'm sure they're very happy with how productive he

was, he was all NBA in a way that he didn't really expect. Like this isn't about the playoff part of it. Are they happy? Well, they gave me one and a half million, so they must feel pretty good about it. If we were at dinner with the Quippers people before they agreed to that contract and wine was going around and it's like 10 30 at night at the table. Do you think somebody would have been basically just like, I just gotta say this game seven.

Are we sure we want two more years of this? Like there's no way they didn't have that conversation in the room at some point over the last four weeks. Like, are we sure we want to do this? So why did they do it? Game seven again? Cause I think it's so hard to find guys in the top 50 that you just got to suck it up and you start going glass half full instead of glass half empty.

But there had to have been a moment in the last four weeks. Like Ty Lue, there's no way he didn't crunch that game seven tape one more time. And just like, my God, he won't fucking look at the rim. Like we're going to do this for two more years. He won't fucking look at the rim. Like we're going to do this for two more years. He won't fucking look at the rim. But they did it because they're teams are so scared about not having an asset. They'd rather have the asset they're not happy with. Like, all right, we'll just get them figured out.

But I don't know. They said them in the open market. What was he going to do? Where was he going? That's my point is there are multiple examples these last couple of days where a team could have been like, all right, you want to opt out? Like you want to raise from us and you want to throw in another player controlled second year? Cause the 81 and a half, the first year is fully guaranteed.

The second year is partially guaranteed, but it is a player option. So we can be right back to this. So he was never opting out. Worst case scenario, he's opting in and grabbing that, making sure he gets that one thing. So that was always how this was going to play out. And the same thing for rando. I think rando was ultimately, he had topped in and that's, that's the leverage the team said now, whether this will be the case in three years from now when the cap is way higher, right. And everybody has recalibrated their books to some degree. I don't know, but I think this is the, this is the weirdest summer since

2016 for just looking at either in 2016 was the opposite. People had so much cap space. They were like fucking at three in the morning, just Evan Turner, Llewellyn, like that could be like a documentary. Think about that summer. All those guys made more money than most of the free addresses are gonna make this summer. Yeah, right.

And then the players didn't understand for the most part what was going on. And then once they realized it was like, Hey, so we were told not softening the cap would be good for us. And you know, the way that story goes, the people were trying to explain it to players leadership and players,

you know, association was like, absolutely not. And, you know, I can understand it too. It's like, what does that mean? Like, no, we want all of our money and the money that we're just like, the way it works is this is how it goes. And then all of a sudden everybody's just flush with cash. And you're right. Like the Evan Turner contract, when that one happened, I just remember thinking like, well, that's wrong. There's just no way Evan Turner got, what was it, 70 million bucks or something? I don't even think that was the one I was the most upset about or most stunned about.

I think the Noah one was the most shocking one to me because they were real signs that he might be headed toward the downside. It was like nobody had watched the previous season. Speaking of Cavspace, this is another story I have my own Rosilla. And this has multiple tentacles to it. Uh, Detroit now is going to have cap space. It looks like because everyone thought they're going to resign Malik Beasley.

And apparently they had, uh, it was reported that they were thinking about three years, 42 for them. For him. And that was going to take them out of free agent cap stuff, right? They're probably going to let Schroeder go. Tim Hardaway Jr. who knows, but Beasley, so Beasley was going to be their free agent. Then we get, we wake up this morning and he's in a gambling, uh, being

investigated, Detroit is backed off of the thing he's now in some sort of, God only knows what's going to happen with that. We could talk about that piece later, but now Detroit is going to have like 17 million. And then if they can trade some contracts or, you know, get somebody to take somebody out, they could probably get to 20, maybe even 25 if somebody took font neck. Um, and all of a sudden they're probably the biggest suitor out of all these dudes. I don't know if there's anybody left, but, uh, that could be a finished Smith spot. I don't know.

I think we've talked about in the past, like the East, who knows indie Boston, you know, Detroit could have a chance to be like a two or three seed. This is a really big decision for them who they're going to add. And there's a lot of guys that I like too. So what do they do? Well, I mean, how, how many guys do you like? How many of you guys do you like that are playing in their playoff rotation that are worth a multi-year investment knowing that there's other players

that are going to have to pay soon? All right. I'll give you some. I do like Alexander Walker a lot. I don't know if he's a top three guy, but we watched him play in a playoff series that liked how he played. I still like Ty Jerome. I'm not going to get thrown off by that weird Indiana series. I watched too many games during the season when he was just incredibly.

And I know you're an even bigger fan. He was just too impactful off the bench too many times. Finney Smith, Yaviseli. Then it starts getting, those are probably the top four for me. That's why I was surprised that you said you liked that many people. There's probably a conversation about Jerome allowing Cade to be off the ball a little bit instead of just having him run high pick and roll like 90% of the game and providing spacing.

Cause Cade clearly, I think this one year proved, like he would give this guy a little bit of spacing, which you could potentially lose the Beasley thing. Because, you know, Beasley's another guy, even prior to all this news, like, I don't know, I don't really want to pay you $14 million a year. And he may have just because he shot it so well this season. So who knows?

I mean, teams are always desperate for shooting. I think I would have done that. Not knowing. You would have done it? Yeah, I mean, teams are always desperate for shooting. I think I would have done that. Not knowing. You would have done it? Yeah, I think, I thought he was really good last year. I know the playoffs, he was a little up and down, but I really liked how he played last year. I thought he was important to them.

Thought he was feisty. Ty Jerome on Detroit, I liked the feisty factor. I could see him holding back Ron Holland. I could see him convincing Beef Stew not to charge back at the other team subtle, but maybe also trying to agitate things too. I could see him in there. I could see stew being like, well, now that ties here, we have two dogs,

but Jerome can initiate the offense. He can play off a guy's, Kate could play off of him a little bit. And I, I do think they tried to find ways to have Schroeder initiate some stuff to give Kate a break from just being the same every single time. But it's very, it's very clear that you need to have spacing around him. So I think that's more important than them having another big guy. Even if you felt at times, you know, it's asking a lot of Derns just hold up the entire time against some of the bigger teams, you know, it's asking a lot of Durrens just hold up the entire time against some of the bigger teams if

they're going to go a little bit deeper. So yeah, I just don't think it's really that long of a list of $14.1 million guys for the non-tax payer mid level. Would you rather have Ty Jerome or Malik Beasley, no gambling scandal next year for the Pistons? I'm not saying this because of what happened today. I don't really trust Beasley. I think he's the guy that hits shots and then the last two minutes of the game, I don't expect him to go in. It would have been funnier if you said, I trusted him before today.

Now I don't trust him as much. I went on an amazing rabbit hole with him. I was all the way into the 2023-24 season game logs. I was, I was all the way into the 2023, 24 season game logs. I was looking at splits. That's the one that's being investigated. I actually think it's awful. Yeah, that was reported. Look, I mean, this is not a rant about the innocent until proven guilty or the guilty until proven innocent way that it seems to work now where people can just be charged with stuff. And then it's just like your entire reputation as Tarnish.

I just think there's a lot of dudes out there that see a bad play and then they post it and everybody's so excited to be like, yup, look at that. He didn't get back on defense. That happened after that. Yeah, that was rough. Oh wait. So I thought that's what you said you were watching. No, I was watching the, I was just, I wasn't watching. I was looking at the game logs and trying to figure out cause they was reported on ESPN

that they were studying January, 2024. And I'm like, huh, walk, let's lock in here. Went, went through and, uh, who knows. But um, it sucks because first of all, shitty story. I feel bad for him cause he played really well last year. Um, and you know, it doesn't seem great when the feds get involved. Not awesome. So we'll see what happens with that, but they're going to have

cap space to do whatever. Yeah. And it might, you know, sometimes teams go, let's use it now. No matter what, like just make sure we use it before we lose this and then we'll worry about the asset management part of this a little bit later. But the length of the commitment to the guys that are left over, there's only a couple names that I'd feel really comfortable about going like a bunch of years with. Alexander Walker?

I like him, but he's a bench player on a good team. I mean, he could close with you maybe if he gets hot. You know, it's not the worst thing, but you know, with the way Detroit is trending right now and hoping between a Sarr, Cade, Ivy coming back healthy, Duran, Harris when you're paying him north of 20 million a year. I'm still trying to figure out what you have with Holland. You know, no, I, I'd rather pay Alexander Walker than cominga.

So you, you agree with me that tie Jerome would be the move. It makes the most sense. I can, I can already see it. Now we also could be like overrating them a little bit, but he was so, like he was so impactful in so many different games. And I'm sure like, you know, best case scenario, it's like, does it become a tie Jerome Thompson debate of what they were doing even against the Knicks? It's like, well, what do we want to do? Do we want to close with defense or do we want to close with shooting?

Because to this point, Assar is just not somebody anybody's going to close out on, nevermind a playoff game, even in the regular season. So at least Jerome, I think, brings that respect and probably clear up some of the stuff for Cade and what he wants to do driving. Trey Lockerbie The free agent, 14.1 million free agent spot teams. I think I have this right. 14.1 million free agent spot teams. I think I have this right.

Indiana, Indiana, Atlanta, Philly, Milwaukee, Washington, Charlotte, Chicago, Sacramento, New Orleans, Utah, OKC, Houston, Portland, San Antonio, and Golden State of Camingo goes. It's more than half the league. And then you have Brooklyn and Memphis have that 8.8, a couple other teams too. I don't know how many people get the 14.1. What would you do over or under on Fandl? How many guys get the 14.1? Would you say more than five from the list you've seen? I can give you the list too.

No, it does feel like it's a low number, but it's how many teams think that they're in it, our teams in the West going like, Hey, let's go to ownership and be like, Hey, what do you think we're going to do? We're going to win 48 games and be like, okay, now let's use our $14.1 million tax. So Houston was the one. Like, I don't even know if they need Phinney Smith, but that one made me think about it.

Right. Like let's go for it here. Right. It's like, if you have Phinney Smith with Tari, with Amen, and it's like, just, I don't know that, that did, that was floating around a little bit today and I was like, Oh man, I don't even know if they need him, but that, if that, if they're going for it this year, uh, for the people listening, the U F A's, Phinney Smith, miles Turner, technically right now, but everyone thinks he's going back to Indiana, Ty Jerome,

Alexander Walker, Capella, Bruce Brown now underrated. I don't know if you want to join me on buying some Bruce Brown is now underrated stock, Post Jokic. Okay. Yabacelli. Can I answer you in a, in a, can I pour you a glass of Yabacelli? Maybe 8.8? Yeah.

Yeah, of course. I mean, to me, like anything under 10 is like, and you can play, you can be a rotation guy. Luke Kennard. Yeah. Where's the range for him there? 8.8. The thing is, is like, if you go, Hey, we'll give you four for 40. And then every agent is just going to say, we can get 14. And then with as many teams as you just listed, like good luck being the GM.

That's going to call the bluff on a guy that you actually want. So you're probably just going to pay him to 14. I think I've said this to you, but my dream Luke and our team is Denver. Putting him with the Oak edge, I think would be really fun. Shrooter who I think is probably not a 14 guy, but might be an 8.8. Man, this one hurts. I, Luke Cornett, I think teams like them. Like, uh, I don't think this is going to go well for the Celtics.

I thought there was going to be a way that they were going to bring back Luke Cornett and Horford and I don't see it. So far, everything is working out for him. So I'm not going to rule out anything. What do you mean? I still, I still can't believe that they were able to dump Drew's contract and get back Anthony Simons. And I still can't believe that it's another fan base that holds out hope that Przingus is going to be healthy. contract and get back Anthony Simon's and I still can't believe that it's another fan base that holds

out hope that Persengus is going to be healthy. I said it was a borderline miracle on my Thursday pod that they shared $28 million with those two guys. It was incredible how it turned out. I was getting texts like, yo, what's up with Brad? Is he like a fucking wizard? Like what's, how did he do this? I still like KP, but I, you know.

Why? To cut 22 million, I thought was a, was a miracle. Can you expand on why you, you like Przingus? I think for what Atlanta gave up, like whatever it's one year, it's a one year flyer in him when he played last year, he was really, really good. I have no idea what happened to him in the playoffs. Nobody's been able to answer it. And we've all agreed never to talk about it again.

For some reason, the guy was unplayable and looked like he had like a, like a virus, I don't understand what happened. And now he's fine. He's playing for the Lafayette team. It's really weird. When he's healthy, he's good. And the idea of what he can be is a rim protecting stretch five is still really valuable. But even when the Celtics had made that deal, even though I liked them a lot, I was like, so you had a tack on like two more years at 30 plus million for this guy. And then I still feel like Celtics fans revisit 24 being like, you know, he was huge.

It's kind of like the guy that's getting laid off. And you're saying it like the lunch where people are getting cake or whatever. And it's like, although there's usually not a lot of cake. That's where Perzegas was for you. Is the guy getting laid off at lunch? Yeah, but people just like pat him on the back and be like, you know, this department just, none of this would have happened without you.

When the reality is if he was that valuable, then he probably would have still been there. And it felt like that's what people were saying about Prozegas in the 24 title run. I was like, well, that Dallas, that one Dallas game, do you really think? He was great during this season though, come on. He was great during the season, but I'm.

He got hurt. He got hurt like everybody was worried that he would get hurt and he got hurt. All the time. He got hurt again. Right, and so the way I've seen the Atlanta part of the acquisition is like, oh my, you know, like sure, maybe, and at least for them

it's only one year, then Celtics had to make that extra investment. But it becomes one of those transactions that's going to be remembered as a win because they won a title when they didn't need him for the title run 24 whatsoever and not having him again this year and having this version. I understood why Missoula tried to play him. It was clearly he was trying to get something out of him. But I actually feel like that transaction was a loss, but no one will ever remember it that way because they want a title. I think it's a win because they want a title last year sucked and then

they were able to get out of the contract. So I think ultimately the fact that they were able to escape, but they escaped because it's weird. I don't, I didn't do a good job of talking about this the other day. I still don't know what Brooklyn was doing. Getting the 22nd pick and Terrence Mann, who makes a real, real amount of money. Like 15 million. We just were, I was going through those UFAs with you.

Terrence Mann was a free agent. I don't think he's getting 15 million. Right. Like I said, the other guys I was going to mention was Schroeder, Cornett, Kavanluny, Batum, Porter, Gary Trent, Tim Hardaway, Brogdon, Chris Paul, Laverte, Horford, Duncan Robinson. Now you go on and on, but, um, a Terrence Mann for 15 million is not exactly a bargain and I wasn't that excited about the 22nd pick in the draft.

So I don't really know what Brooklyn was doing with that. Did you understand that? So when they already had, when they already had all those picks to take on the money, I mean, for fucking first rounders already. Yeah. And especially the way people felt about this draft, I guess there's all sorts of like man, but Donovich net stuff that I don't understand like collectively about the whole transaction. It's like, okay, so you didn't want to lose Bogdanovich.

You were sick of him. Granted, he just sucked this past season that he was with Atlanta. Yeah. And so it's like, all right, let's get this guy out of here. So they trade him at the deadline and don't forget Bones Highland in that transaction. And then they take on man's contract. And then it's like, now we have to dump it. And granted, you know, leadership had changed and everything.

So, uh, it was just a weird series of transactions. It's like, why did you trade for him? Yeah. Five months ago, Atlanta basically trades, Neang, Terrence Man, and the 22nd pick to take a real flyer on poor Zingas with some flexibility to do some other stuff. I still kind of like it. This episode is brought to you by Verbo Private Vacation Rentals.

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Just send them a couple. So you can save time and still stay connected. Share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague and everything in between. Try loom today at loom.com. That is loom.com. So we're talking about those, uh, there's six RFAs and it seems like Grimes is going back to the Sixers for in that 14 to 60 million range. Yeah.

It seems like a pretty big number. I was surprised. He had like one big month for them. We've got to watch him for the last four or five years. And it just seemed a little aggressive. Didn't you think I thought it would have been like around 10 unless they thought he, there was some team that was just going to sign them if they didn't give the money.

Yeah. I think sometimes too, it's like anybody, like you're only making so much. They go, well, he, you know, he's going to make that much after the fact. And I've always kind of liked them a little bit, even going back to those next years, and then it was something else to get on Dallas's case about by. Getting rid of him and then bringing in the Caleb Martin contract where you're like, why are you bringing in this? How about that guy?

Huh? People starting to understand the vision because the lottery just worked out for you. There was a vision all along the vision was we're going to, we're going to catch it on 1.8% chance with the lottery just worked out for you? There was a vision all along. The vision was we're going to, we're going to cash in on 1.8% chance to win the lottery. We've had a vision all along that we would have a miracle in May. Sixers has been busy though, cause Ubre picked up the option. Yeah. I thought you were going to report that. I was waiting to hear that from you.

Well, honestly, from another reporter, he hasn't been one of my favorites, but for 8.4 for him, that's kind of a win. But that's- For Philly. Yeah, that's one of the differences though between what's Uberay's representation saying to him about what's out there for him. And if they're coming back going, hey, we didn't even think you could get the 14, then that's clearly why he's picking that up.

Lonnie Walker, see Eric Gordon. I mean, I don't know. There was some rumor that declining the 3.4 million means they can get them at a lower number, bringing them back. Certainly that's still in the ballpark, but the Grimes number, he was really productive. But yeah, I think we're in agreement that I was like, man, that thing's going to get north of like 15 million for him. I was surprised. I would have guessed in the tense. There's some other veterans like Russ is back.

I know you're excited about that as a free agent. I can't wait. GP2 is out there. I like him. Brook Lopez, who I did not think was good last year, but I think there's so few centers out there that he'll get one more. Where do you stand on Larravia? I like Larravia. I kind of like them too. It's a one more shot, probably short years.

Maybe I'd overpay for a year to give it a, but I'd have to have like a club option on the second year maybe, and then maybe his reps are like, absolutely not. It depends on where he's going to go and what kind of options he's going to get. Do you have any key on Ellis excitement? Very active player. Didn't we? Do I know you're not a fan? Um, we know where you're standing on D'Angelo Russell, who's available.

Ties Jones, not acquit himself great in Phoenix. It really starts going downhill from the, from the RFAs, uh, Santi Aldama, I think is an interesting one and I wonder if he could slide into that 14.1 potentially for somebody trying to pull them away. I think Memphis will match. Well, they'd be psyched. They'd be thrilled if they took an offer sheet at 14.1, cause I think

he's a $20 million guy. If Jabari's 20, yeah, I do. I think that Bain. You'd put him in the Jabari level. He's more productive than Jabari's 20, yeah, I do. I think that Bain. You'd put him in the Jabari level. He's more productive than Jabari is. I actually think he's shown more than Jabari has. In my head, I am a notch lower, but maybe you're right, I don't know.

Yeah, I think Aldama's actually pretty underrated. I'm not telling you, like, that I think he's like a two on a really good playoff team, but the Bain contract and that deal, even though we had a lot of fun as soon as it had happened, it seems pretty clear that it was about flexibility for whatever is coming for Alabama, a Jaren Jackson extension, and then figuring this thing out on the fly again. And maybe they get a rotation. There's another piece. I think they were excited about, maybe they knew they had a

chance to get coward in the draft. I think they love Wells. They have all these other dudes. I think they just seems like they felt like wings by committee. We can replace Baines stats, which I'm not against. I still don't think they should have traded them, but I get the logic. I'm not against, I'm not against the logic of it. I just wouldn't have traded them. But it does feel like they're, and look, they're one of the smarter front offices. I think what they do is they go, okay, you know, this is a hall for Bain and we really like them, but we're getting in front of this and then we can clean up our books.

And now we're going to have multiple chances here to fill things in around how, you know, we identify the top three guys. You know, maybe Aldama is that third, maybe he isn't. Wells is certainly more of a defensive guy. Yeah. Okay. But I, if Aldama were, there's no way he's going to sign an offer sheet for 14.1 million because the Grizzlies would be pumped.

I would think their reps would already know like, Hey, part of the plan is getting you settled. You think he would sign that? No, I just, I don't know anything anymore with these numbers. I don't know who I can't get a handle on it. I'll be the first one to admit it. But so the difference with that Bain trade versus how I felt about the new Orleans trade a couple of days ago, the Bain trade, I get the logic.

I just personally would have done it, but I get it. And if you feel like you can replace them with the wings, like I get it. The new Orleans not putting a top five protection on that pick. I don't get, you're never going to convince me that that was a good idea. And I know you feel the same and I know everybody else who follows basketball. Like nobody will ever understand why you played it that way. It was poorly done and that's it. And it has nothing to do with whether you think Derek Queen's good or not.

He might be really good. The point is you put this crazy price on moving up 10 spots that you didn't need to do and is absolutely reckless and incomprehensible. And I still don't get it. Five days later, four days later. I don't get it, man. Everybody's talking about it too. Still.

Yeah. It's the, it's the, them and LeBron are the, been the two kind of stealth topics right now, but the, what the hell is the world is doing? There's been a lot of nets in there. But they really did it. A lot of ball handlers. There's some, there's some, your guy Yang. I definitely feel like, uh, I think your guy Yang.

Bill, I want a couple of minutes on him. The floor is yours. Well, here's the thing. And this goes back to your New Orleans point. So if they're really calling around, trying to move up for Dairy Queen and they have for Portland, can we move up to your spot? Uh, to number 11, before they trade back to 16. Can we move up to 11? Cause we really want Derek Queen and you can have 20, 23, whatever it was.

And you could just, and we'll give you this crazy unprotected pick. They could have taken Yang at 23, whatever it was, and you could just, and we'll give you this crazy unprotected pick. They could have taken Yang at 23, right? Nobody would have, nobody would have taken him from there. Before that? You really feel like he would have gone before 23? He was killing it, the combo, dude. Uh, chances are, no. Chinese joker? Yeah, yeah, because I was getting a few of the picks

like ahead of time. Yeah. And so, all I got was oh my God, waiting till you see 16. So the guy wasn't gonna like give it to me because he wanted me to experience it live. Did you have any thought in your head Yang could go in the top 25? No, no, but I did get a few texts of like your guy.

The back door shit was really high level. I mean, I couldn't watch enough of it. Oh, I watched all of it. I was, I was, uh, he, I got in, he wasn't on my radar going into Wednesday night, but he, he jumped into the radar. I tell you, if you watch his mixtape, you're like, how did he last until 16? See the future of basketball. I heard that at the very least,

they just feel like there's revenue from him because of the China pipeline. When you, when you have these guys on a team, you just make money from them. You make real money and if he's good, it's a bonus. But then they obviously liked him as a player too, as a project. But if you can get this guy and keep them on your team for five years, there's real revenue that comes with that. It would help if he's good too. Hollinger does a really good job on just pointing out there's a lot of international start up stats that are good indicators. They're better than college stats and how they translate to what you should expect college player becoming an NBA player. And his argument was like, Hey, look like the league he played in, he wasn't

exactly killing it there. And that's a little alarming. NBA castoffs are crushing it that can't even stick in the NBA and they're killing it in this league. And like, now granted, he's really, really young, but for somebody that big that moved that well, that these little flashes of like, well, that was kind of cool. Like I figured, okay, this guy's definitely going to get drafted now. But I didn't, yeah, there's no way I thought it would be 16. It's so funny that he went to Portland, the team probably that you and I talk about the most

that just makes no sense, that should be in our lives in any way. And now, the true thing, I still feel like there's some real benefits with the leadership stuff and the veteran stuff with him and just having a real adult in there and he's a beloved teammate. There's reasons beyond just trading Simon's for him.

Pretty expensive beloved teammate, man. Two years. Listen, they're trying to change the culture. They're trying to build around a defense. Wow. I mean, two years ago, they're trying to tank as part of the trade. All right. But I don't know.

Yeah, I get it. Right. All right. They're taking that. I just, I'd rather not pay a 37 year old guy. Two years from now, 37.4 million for vibes. Here's the other problem is the playoffs. I think made us all nervous with him.

It wasn't awesome. If he's moving toward a slightly different phase of his career, that 37 year contract, but listen. I thought it was a big price to pay. And I still like when we were talking about more on the Celtics side, but I can't get on Portland. They took my guy, Lobbs, scoot to Yang. And then here's the thing. I don't even know. He was, he was Hanson Yang at the combine and now he's Yang Hanson.

So who knows opening night what his name's gonna be then. Gonna be Dave. Dave Yang. No, I'm serious. Like there's so many times with international guys you just go through the cycle of what the fuck's this guy's name again? So potentially we could have Scoot,

Drew Howaday, Kamara, Denny, and Yang out there all at the same time. I don't know. I'll have a good time. I can't wait for the first eight and quote when Yang's getting his minutes. Because they still have Klingon too. I assumed as teams got desperate for centers that there would actually be an eight market that would materialize. And I'm not going to count it out because I mean, let's, we should talk about the trade that sextant Nurkage trade today. I thought that was a dumb founding trade.

I didn't understand that at all. Utah traded sextant with a second round pick to get Nurkage back. And I can't tell if this means centers have become more valuable or what's going on because Phoenix tried to trade Nerkage for two months last season and nobody wanted him and they finally had to attach some stuff to get rid of him. Sexton, say what you want about the dude. The guy's like a 40% three-point shooter and scores 18 a game in like 28 minutes. Like he's a real guard. He's a real offensive player that would help a bunch of good teams.

And Charlotte just basically took them. I didn't understand that trade at all. The only thing I can understand is between Collier and County George, who, you know, you still have hope for with Utah and then, you know, you just feel kind of guard heavy and Clayton jr heavy. And Clayton jr. is coming in. Clayton jr. the draft pick who was awesome as we all know. Um, you know, they clearly, they don't really know what they are at this point.

And we'll see what happens with ACE and all these different things. Like they wanted to make some room, but I would tell you like the player you're getting back in Nurkic versus the player that's going out and they're both expiring around 19 million and you can get on their case for having to attach a second round or, you know, whatever. Uh, it just feels like player for player. Charlotte got the much better player. And I have an extra reason that I think that trade happened, but we have to say goodbye to, uh, loom by Atlassian because that special portion of today's episode

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That I now feel like Utah, that was the trade before the trade. I really do. I, I, and you know, there's been rumors about them trading Kessler, the Lakers have wanted them for two years, but, um, I was just in a trade machine rabbit hole trying to figure out what the next move was and there's a, well, there's a LeBron piece we have to talk about because there's not LeBron to Utah. I don't, I don't feel like that would happen, but I think Utah is a facilitator

in a three team trade with Utah and Cleveland. I just feel like I, it just sent my shit detector off and that rarely happens with trades. And I'm like, huh, I'm pretty sure Danny age knows basketball and I know Austin does, and they just traded Colin Sexton with a pick to get Nurgage. And I just feel like that means something else is going to happen. I was in the trade machine trying to figure it out because they could send a bunch of stuff, they could take contracts back. And the bigger question is, is LeBron going to stay with the Lakers, which is the other topic that has been a big behind the scenes thing.

Um, he did the thing today where he opted in for the 53 million. Had to put out, um, through Rich Paul that, um, he's going to be monitoring closely all the movement. I don't know what he thinks the movement's going to be because they're paying him and Luca combined $98 million. The cap's 154. They're keeping Reeves. They have $70 million more in contracts.

There's not a lot of movement. They're not going to be able to trade Reeves for a center. Um, they can't extend Reeves either. And I don't know what he thinks is going to happen with this team. And I don't, I don't know if he's staying and I don't know what the move is because once you opt in, you're basically saying a trade and at that point it's Cleveland. There's a bio possibility,

which I don't understand in a million years why they would ever do that. And I don't know how this plays out, but it feels like we're going to be talking about it for the next three weeks is my guess. When he first opted in, like the first thing I was looking at was like the Dorian Finney Smith decision on where that would put them between a full mid-level and a taxpayer mid-level, which is, you know, you're talking about some of the names you've already covered or maybe Brook Lopez, you know, for the taxpayer mid-level.

So when I was looking at that, I was thinking, did he really take like the full boat and now they can't bring in a full mid-level guy when they desperately need a center? Are they gonna be left? With the no trade too. Right, right. And so after Finney Smith opts out,

and then I looked at it again, it looks like they're gonna have the full taxpayer mid-level. So like the angst that I think LeBron, some of like the early angst was, is this going to cost the Lakers a decent center option versus here's the budget benefit of centers because however, now it still could get a little weird. I'm sure there's, there's moves to be made, but I don't, I don't really know

like why it's not about him taking less money, because I don't know that I ever feel comfortable being like, hey, you should take less money, you should take less money. But what he can't do is be upset. You can't act in and be upset, which we've seen over and over again in the NBA. You've chose to re-enter this situation,

you can't then be kissy about it. You can't get mad about the lack of options that the team will likely have. And you know, like Kobe got that massive extension at the time when none of us could ever believe it. And if you don't have the pieces around it and you're kind of just paying a collection of guys that aren't very good, and then you're kind of stuck financially, and then it's like,

man, nobody wants it more than Kobe. He's like, he can want it all he wants, but there's no outs. There's no outs where any of this talent coming out. So, I mean, unless there's a Reeves deal where they feel like, Hey, we're less like dominant on the perimeter or it's three guys taking turns, you know, maybe, maybe there's something there. It's beyond that though, the three guys, because none of them are good defensive players.

I mean, LeBron is sometimes a good defensive player, but when you're thinking about a team built around those three, we saw it in the playoffs. It's not going to work if those are your three guys. I don't think. And especially LeBron is going to be 41 next year. This is only going to get worse. It's not going to get better. Even though I thought in the regular season, he exceeded expectations, but he got hurt in the playoffs in the first round. You get better, even though I thought in the regular season, he exceeded expectations, but got hurt in the playoffs in the first round. You get older, you're just going to get hurt more often. It's the way it goes. And they're paying him and Bronnie together is 55 million.

You add Luca, Luca has a big extension coming. There's just no way to improve the roster. And every Laker fan I talked to says, well, you just got to trade Reeves for a center. It's like, well, who's the center. Go through all the teams. Who are you getting? Like, are you going to be happy with like a Kang Wu?

And why would Atlanta do that? Like he's just, I, I just think they're stuck with this roster and they're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place and it's going to lead to, um, some sort of move with him. I don't believe for a second that he doesn't want to win another title and that he doesn't care about rings. I think he does. I just don't believe it.

You don't believe what part. When he's talking about ring culture, that stuff doesn't matter. Like I think he wants to win the title again. He's going to try to go to a situation where he can win the title So you think this is this is the precursor to him actually moving on because that Cleveland thing I do I think it's in play. I really do okay. All right. I'm not disputing it But when I look at the Cleveland side of it, that's the one that I don't understand and you know a third team I know that's always our kind of default of like hey to make this happen. Who's gonna third team this thing?

But why would I move out Garland in Jared Allen? No, it wouldn't be. I don't think it's Garland and Jared Allen. I think it would see there. I think it would be Jared Allen with Hunter and that you could get a third team involved and make something work with that pretty quickly. But the Garland piece is weird because I think he is out there a little bit. But the Garland piece is weird because I think he is out there a little bit in, in like, uh, I think he's, I think teams feel like he's attainable.

Like you're going to have to pay for him. You're not just going to steal him, but I don't think he's not, I wouldn't say this. I don't think he's untouchable. Um, the, the stuff about him being the Durant trade was wrong. I think that was something Phoenix wanted, not them, but I do think, you know, I do wonder from a Cleveland standpoint, do they worry that this is the guy who gets hunted in the playoffs and can we change our team if we change our team in some way, that's who we should do with, you know, where I stand on Garland. I would not trade him.

Um, I think his two injuries He he had a fucked up toe which could happen to anybody and he broke his face Like it's you can't say like he's injury-prone And I just think he's really good if I was another GM I'd be trying to get him right now if there was even a shadow of an opening that he might be available like if I'm Name a team. I would be like going hard after trying to get him. Sacramento ironically.

Well not that Orlando did the Bain thing. Right. Yeah, I don't know what Sacramento has that's enticing at all. Chicago already traded all the other guys. But even when you look at the Lakers, like is there a Rui deal out there for somebody? Does Vando have any trade value at this point?

Does anybody care about Gabe Vincent at 10 million for the one? So if this team is going to, cause there was that stretch there, right? They figured it out defensively. Like the funniest thing about the Lakers timeline is as soon as they make the Luka trade, you're like, okay, well, this is for the future.

It makes all sense in the world. You're one of the best players in the world who cares about 25. And then they figure some stuff out. Then they get this great seat and you're thinking defensively. Then people are actually talking about it. I think it was a bit of the overvaluing, just the Lakers part of it, where everybody's picking them in that first round series against Minnesota.

That seems like one of the most absurd things ever now in hindsight because you're like, why did they think they're going to be able to hang with them? Jackson Hayes is so bad that JJ just pulls the plug because like if you're telling me that Jackson Hayes getting more minutes would have solved your problems in playoffs, then I would say that we're just going to disagree and move on from that whole thing. And they were really physical with LeBron in a way that was surprising. Randall was excited when LeBron was on. Yeah.

That was a weird thing to see. But that's the thing when I talk about building around those three guys, I mean, we will see what kind of shape Lucas in next year. But if those are your three, with what we just watched from Maho Kooma City, I don't, I don't think it works. And I think LeBron is smarter about basketball than just about anybody on the planet. And he has to see that. Like his, his supercomputer brain has to look at like, all right,

if these three guys are out there in crunch time for us and I'm one of them, and we're playing a team like OKC, who else needs to be on our team? Well, we need like an awesome rim running center, defensive shot blocker to protect all of us. Well, how the fuck are we gonna get that guy? We've already traded all of our at, like that guy doesn't exist.

Oh, is it gonna be Kessler? That's going to be, that's going to change you from being in one playoff game to four rounds. I know, but it's still so much better than having no one. But also why am I trading Kessler from Utah? That's the other part of that. I want to get something back. Like there's nobody has centers like that anymore. Even like somebody like Klingon, I feel like has more value. So I think you're looking at like a Deandre Ayton type of you know moving a bunch of contracts

Attaching a pick and trying to roll the dice with like somebody like him and is that gonna get you four rounds? No So I I just think he's trying to figure this out because I don't I just don't believe him I think he wants to win the title again Good luck on the Aitin thing. I do want to see it happen. It's just that, I mean, that's such a massive, it's 35 and a half million for him in this final year. Yeah, but you could do the Kleber, Vincent, like you could throw some,

you could patch some contracts together and attach an asset, maybe, I don't know. I just want to see him go somewhere to watch that fan base talk themselves into it, and I'll sit back and be entertained. Fair. Like Miami would be my favorite. Can I walk you through a fake trade I made?

Please. I probably don't have a choice, but I do want to hear it, so. I think it's in your wheelhouse. LeBron and his son go to Cleveland. What if his son is like, actually no? Does he even trade Vito? Utah gets Darius Garland and Rui Hachimura.

The Lakers get Kessler, Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins. And, Kessler, Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins. And Utah has to throw a pick or two, has to sprinkle some picks around because ultimately they're getting Darius Garland. The youngest. This is your sextant thing. This is tied to the sextant thing. You get Nerkage because you know you have Kessler going in this other trade.

I don't know. I was excited about it. It's like, bane goes to the magic. I'm like, is Jaren Jackson better with the Lakers or the Clippers? I just am on the record. I don't think Cleveland should trade Daris Garland, but I'm just saying, like, I wonder if those types of deals are being talked about, or could you do like a Daris Garland to tour team, Toronto for who with Max Struce and the Lakers

get Pertle and RJ Barrett and LeBron just goes to Cleveland. Like that, the reason I'm bringing up these trades is like, if LeBron's actually leaving the Lakers, these are the type of trades that would have to happen for this to happen. And the other option would be where the Lakers buy him out and he just jumps on a team. And I don't know why they would do that in a million years. So I think this is the whole reason I'm talking about this is I think this is

going to be really hard now that he's opted in for any other outcome, then he's just on the team doing that. I don't know. We'll see what they do. I'm monitoring it. It's like, okay, glad you're monitoring it. Like we're not going to be able to get a center. Like, do you want us to trade two unprotected first rounders for Kessler?

Like why we have the Lakers have Luka. Don't just now. Why are they doing that? Like they, they're in Luka mode now for the next 10 years. How do we build around Luka? So it's really awkward. I, and I'm surprised it's not a bigger story. I think this is pretty strange.

Okay. But what do you think should have happened? You think you should have taken less? Do you think they should have, well, he has no trades, so he's going to be able to veto anything. Do you think they should have tried to figure out what else should have happened? Well, I think that's what he wanted. I think he wanted a longer commitment.

Well, I mean, come on. He's 40 going to be 41. That's, this is why I'm talking about this. Like, I think this is a really weird situation. And on top of it, they just sold the team and they didn't give his whole side a heads up on any of it. Which you can argue, well, how do you not get a heads up? That transaction has been talked about for two years.

I get it. Just, I'm just telling you the stuff I've heard. Um, so I don't know. It's a weird one. And you could feel the Lakers shifting toward Luko, which is a situation he's never been in before. And granted he's been in the league 23 years, so it's maybe time for some new situations.

But I think they have a new owner, the guy paid a lot of money, and they're gonna gear this thing toward Luka. And they have to figure out the Lebron piece, and I don't know how they figure it out. And maybe this will turn into like, you know what, actually, I'm good here. Let's stay. But I think it's worth monitoring.

Yeah. But the likely outcome is what? They figure out some sort of center. We don't know which world they'll be in. They probably get the benefit. I don't know who the center is. Okay. But I doubt they're going to go into it without one again.

Do you have Laker fans in your head for his like, we just gotta get bam. Not in my life, but I'm, people just think like, well, just, well, we'll just get Clint Capella. It's like, okay, you seen Clint Capella the last couple of years? That would have been a huge, Clint Capella would have been a much better option than the Jackson Hays. Yeah, fair. Okay, so let's say.

It's pretty clear that Capella's on the decline here and why Atlanta went the route that they went with the compu. But the likely scenario here is what? He doesn't, does he really wanna leave LA? He makes his 50 plus million, his son's still on the team. Luca comes back even better shape. You know, they're, they're able to out support teams.

Luca's in such good shape. LeBron's reinvigorated. That's probably how it's probably, I would bet on that as the maybe most likely scenario, but I still think there's a lot of smoke, like 47 and a half, 48 and a half. I mean, we still got to figure out. Yeah. You got to add the extra two. They always pad the it's like the Red Sox over under for wins.

There's certain teams where they pad the over under because they know the fan, the team has a huge fan base. So I'd say probably like 47 out of 48 and a half. Here's the thing. Luca could come show up and look like, like, look like the best shape. We were all in disbelief how good he looks. And he's one of the best five, six, seven players in the league. And maybe that's 50 wins if he's just an awesome shape playing great.

You know, we've seen guys just be like so good that they're just in the 45 to 50 win range because they're on your team. And really what they need is they need like a 28 minute a night center who can run all night, can run for Luca. You don't have to necessarily be a stretch. I mean, they're not going to be able to afford the rim protecting run all night. Young guy who's also a stretch five. Okay.

So that's, that's not going to happen, but considering what Luca has done in the past with some of those Dallas teams, and you figure offensively you're going to be fine. Uh, they ran into the worst matchup. If they had, if they had faced Golden State with their lack of size, you know, maybe Golden State's like, Hey, this is great. We actually don't have to worry about the Laker size conversely, but it, it's probably, there's probably like two matchups there with how weird the seeding was just shuffling throughout the last couple of weeks of the season, where

something that looked like it was a benefit of the Lakers to fight to get a three seed. So I still think they're probably even with their flaws last year, just anything that's a plus, anything that JJ Reddick can look down at the bench and go like, okay, well, at least I feel okay with this guy for 20 minutes. And if there's nights that we want to go small and he doesn't necessarily have to play because he's not a guy that's a $20 million a year center, because that transaction is not going to be able to happen. I still think they'll be like in a

decent enough spot if everybody's healthy again, that it's going to feel like they're somewhat competitive and that'll probably be enough, I would think. But you seem to think that there's much more like there's some really. Potential. Like you've the reason you keep bringing this up is you think there's potential for something crazy, all like some crazy scenario. I think crazy is in play now. There's also like there's regular season versus playoffs, which we talk about a lot. Whatever happens in the regular season with that, with whatever team they end up with

versus what we know is going to be needed in the playoffs that we watch every year. And we're like, Oh yeah, defense. Oh yeah. You need depth. Like they're just have a lot of shit that they need to pull off. Um, that's a big one for me. This episode is brought to you by Dzone. That's a big one for me. Kane and Moore are all taking part, and you can watch every match for free on Dazone starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazone.com slash fifa.

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Grocery delivery? On repeat for just $2 and 50 cents a month. Learn more at PCExpress.ca. Atlanta's $25 million trade exception. I think is fascinating because in some ways that's the best spot for, um, I don't know what, like whether you could that be like a Demarozan spot if Sacramento just wants to get off his deal. Could that be part of like, they help out with the trade package in general? And I know people have talked about it all week.

I think Atlanta is an unbelievable shape with the roster they have and the assets they have to put, you know, they're not at, they're not at where Houston is from a close to win the title standpoint, but it's a little similar in that I just like a lot of their pieces and they have flexibility and they don't have to, you know, they have some extension stuff coming. You're going to have to pay Trey in a year. Um, they're going to have to pay Dyson. But for right now, they actually have the flexibility to do a couple more things.

And I think they should, I think, I think the East is, as we've talked about many times, is sitting there to make a move. And that's a team that I think I'm really interested to see what they do over the next 10 days. Yeah, it could be. Um, you know, they're probably going to end up having a decent record if they get this group right, um, with what's happening in the East. I do think it was funny too, when you were mentioning miles Turner, it's like,

okay, this patient's team never pays the tax, never pays the tax. Turner's going to be free agent. It has to be north of 20 million. You know, if Randall can get 30, if, if Nas gets a five year deal, he's somewhere between those guys, right? Yeah. You have to feel like he's north of whatever the number is that puts them in the tax. And then I was like, I wonder if because Halliburton's injury, they could be like, well, you know, since we're not going to have Halliburton,

like does that turn into some weird Turner thing? But I doubt it. I highly doubt it. But yeah, I could see a scenario where the Hawks every year they disappoint me with, like, I think we've spent three summers in a row going, I kind of like a lot of the pieces, you know, look at all this depth and look at all these different options that they've had.

This is the most excited I've been about them. I really like, I really like the nucleus. It makes sense to me. We're going to find out once and for all about Trey Young, I think this season. What's actually there. This is the perfect roster to have around him for the most part. Although it still feels like they're one kind of reliable score short that would, uh, would help them out if he didn't have it.

Um, is Cleveland standing Pat? We talked about Garland earlier. That's another one. Are they just going to be, are they going to feel like they need to do something? Or I was thinking about, especially in the eighties or nineties, when a season doesn't turn out the way you think it's going to turn, you know, the Lakers had a couple of those seasons in the eighties where they weren't like, Oh, now we have to trade Byron Scott.

We lost in round two, you know, and they're just like, no, let's stay with the infrastructure. The smartest teams kind of didn't panic if a season didn't turn out the way they thought. Cleveland, I don't know. I, I could, I think they should stand. I would roll it back with this team. You're going to lose Ty Jerome, but I would just be like, you know what?

The East got worse. We won 64 games. That was fucking weird. Garland was hurt. Moby missed the game. We lost a fluky, crazy Halberd and Buzzerbeater game. Let's not overreact. Let's just run it back. But these teams in 2025 and the 2020s aren't wired that way. They always overreact. So would you overreact or you'd run it back? No. I mean, even when they lost, I was, like, you were ready to fire up the trade machine.

You had two laptops open, like an oil's future guy. I did. Oil futures. Yeah. So if anything, I mean, after what just happened with Tatum, Halliburton, throw Dame into that mix, what's going to happen with Milwaukee, I think it'd be irresponsible to not run it back and give this group one more year together. And granted the Sam Merrill deal means Jerome's probably gone.

So Sam have to see my guy Sam getting paid. I thought I got to say that was a little rich. I was surprised. Yeah, it was. Would have guessed like, uh, it was basically Hauser money. Be 1 million more than drew Holiday makes in three years. You really didn't like that trade. I didn't and I like Portland too.

I just thought it was really expensive. You know what we didn't do? We didn't really even finish any of the Pelican stuff. We kind of teased at it. No, let's do it. We'll add that next. Let's go. All right.

So if I understand this correctly, so Joe Dumars comes in, let's go, right? Brings in Troy Weaver. Troy Weaver has spent the previous year with the Wizards as a consultant. So there were rumors before the draft, even the day of, that they were gonna take Queen seven. All right? They don't, they take fears, but at that point, everybody in the NBA world knew like

Pelicans love queen. They love queen. All right. So then Yegor goes eight for the Nets first piece of their adventure, their five-part adventure. Right. Bunch of picks go off the board. You've got the coward trade. So that takes out 11. Essingay for him to leave his team to come to the draft meant that somebody high up enough, like was telling you, we don't, we are going to draft you. And he's like, I'm in, I'll get a suit. So then it gets to the, the Derek Queen pick.

So it's like, okay, so the Pelicans clearly liked him and boy, did they really like him. Uh, and they, they moved back. Well, they move up 10 spots for the unprotected. When I first saw the trade, I, and I know you've already touched on, I talked about it on the first day I could do it on Thursday, but I kept waiting to think I was wrong. I was like, is there some language in this that I'm not understanding? I don't quite get. Right. Oh, it was the second of the two picks. Yeah, there's a way.

They keep the better one. Yeah, yeah. By the way, I think Atlanta might've done. So we get the worst of the Milwaukee or New Orleans. All right, still we're done. Right, right. And it's right, still we're done. Right, right. And it's like, I'm going, because the other thing too is like to move up 10 spots because I don't even know if the Nets, if the Nets wanted to move from eight to six,

does Washington say yes for the other four? Like, I don't know, that might be a no. Washington might not take four extra first rounders just to move back two spots. Because the NBA draft, it doesn't really work that way. So you're moving back, you're moving from 23 to 13. And so then you go, okay, so Weaver did really like him. And then there's the Weaver part of it.

They've already traded for Jordan Poole where you're like, all right, you want to tell me it was just a bad roster and he got shots up and he didn't take it seriously. Like the tape isn't very good. Um, you know, these stories, he was great in the locker room and all this different stuff. It's like, okay, but that means you're paying an extra 30 million. You've got an extra $30 million a year for the CJ expiring that sent out.

You want to tell me you think CJ's on the down side of everything. Fine. But he was kind of like the whole point of him being there was the adult in the room, the guy that got it, the guy that wanted to be in New Orleans, which is pretty rare, you know True holiday in Portland. There you go. Exactly. A little cheaper.

But you trade out CJ fine, but for Poole, who, no, I'd rather have CJ on my team, but now Poole's an extra year at 30 million. Another wizard's guy. Okay? So you've taken a Maryland kid that you've done this unprecedented trade for because we just still can't believe it. You traded for the extra $30 million here in pool. You brought in Micah who played at Georgetown. You brought in the undrafted Hunter Dickinson who was a Demathic kid. There's an alarming connection of like how regional this is becoming, whether it's the wizard

stuff or anybody in that area. I got to tell you, I know Dumar, since I was looking for it, when he did the press conference, he was like, once pick seven went off, they had fears. They take him seven. Then we started calling everybody. I don't know. Do you really think that like, does Memphis say no, if they offer that unprotected in 26 because they've already done the deal with Portland? Maybe. Do you think Phoenix says no because of Malawatch for a pick next year?

The extra pick, they could have taken somebody at 23 in the movement. Maybe they desperately want to. By the way,. They could have taken somebody at 23 in the movement. Maybe they desperately wanted. By the way, why would Brooklyn have said no? At eight? I would have done that in five seconds. Maybe because Brooklyn was like, can we use one of these picks? You know?

That's in the lobby. I just thought that Milwaukee, New Orleans pick was such an amazing asset. Because God only knows that Milwaukee, New Orleans pick was such an amazing asset. Cause God only knows with Milwaukee and then New Orleans that, that, you know, that team's going to be, that team's going to be a mess. Uh, Chicago at 12, it would have been criminal if they turned that trade down. Like that's, everyone should be fired if they turned that, if that was offered to them and they're like, no, we have our guy, like you should quit. You think Toronto would have turned it down for Murray Boyles?

Well, as we found out, we don't even really know who was running Toronto. They fired their, they fired their guy the day after the draft. That actually happened. Yeah. Honestly though, I think that happens in sports more than people realize. It's like, we're going to get ready to you, but because you've already worked with this entire staff the entire year, prepping for this draft night, like you're going to run the room, but there's probably still somebody else who, because his number two is still there.

Oh, and by the way, like the guy that, that Atlanta dealt with here was Bryson who came, come over as the assistant GM who used to work with New Orleans. Right. So that makes me go like, who also probably knew that they like Queen. Right. He was under the hood with that. So I just, I can't, I tried to just figure it out. What are you trying to land the plane on here that you feel like that it's

actually even more dysfunctional than it seemed like from afar? I don't know why Brooklyn would turn it down. I don't know why Toronto would turn it down. I don't know why Toronto would turn it down. I don't know why Phoenix would turn it down. I guess I can understand why Portland in the Memphis deal would have said, Hey, we already did too much work on this, but that's where GM probably goes, are you fucking serious? Hey, Portland, guess what?

Or, Hey, guess what? Zach and Memphis, like we're out. Chicago. It's like, Oh, we promised Essengay. Hey, you know, I mean, the guy just flew and left his team. So there's, there's maybe individual step-by-step stuff. You're like, yeah, this is why all of these teams turned it down. I have a hard time believing all of those teams turned down. What so many people around the league are like, I can't believe they threw in the unprotected pick.

Now, the reality is, as I land the plane here, is what if Queen turns out to be really good? Awesome. What if- That doesn't matter with the trade discussion. Right. Okay. I know, but you know what happens is that we end up only evaluating stuff historically turns out to be really good. Awesome. What if- That doesn't matter with the trade discussion. Okay. I know, but you know what happens is that we end up only evaluating stuff historically based on the results.

This is the same as the Luca thing, not to the same magnitude, but it's like if things were to work out for Dallas, it's like, yeah, but still the fundamental issue is you decided to not build a market for Luca Doncic. Whatever happens from that point on, that is the inexcusable part. I think in this transaction, again, not nearly the same magnitude, but the likelihood that this, this unprotected pick in 26 turns out to like, you know, whatever the odds and the way the lottery goes is like, all you guys freaked out about that a year ago and it ended up being the 11th pick.

And it's like, that's not the point. The point is, is that the internal discussions at some point, somebody in the room has to go, hey, is there a chance as much as we like Queen, we're moving up from 23 to 13, and hey, we all like Queen a lot, but is there any chance that the unprotected 26 pick that we're including this, like say we in the West

and things don't go well and Zion gets hurt. And I know you already saw all this on Thursday's pod, but like, is there a chance we're giving up like the number one, could it be like worst case scenario? Could it be the number one pick of the 26 draft when the answer is yes. That's why so many people have freaked out. There's one other, there's one other extra question to that. If we just top five protected, are they still saying yes to the deal?

And the answer is yes. Yeah. We have to move back 10 spots and it's just top five protected. There's another crazy piece that I didn't even realize when I did my pot on Thursday, they traded, they got that 23rd pick by trading their Indiana 2026 first rounder, which they traded during the finals before Halliburton got hurt and then Halliburton got hurt. So they're in 23 by using a pick that then became way more valuable that they

didn't know that it was going to be more valuable and Atlanta somehow ends up with Indies first and then they, the bucks first or the, I mean, it's just like insane how that played out for them, which is why I was joking on Thursday that they're like spraying champagne on each other after that second trade. Yeah, and the smart part about the Pacers thing, because you get back to the tax thing and the Turner decision and they're probably going,

hey, we like the 26 draft better. Anyway, we're already a super deep team. And even with the Turner discussion, we still have probably a couple other decisions that we have to make on something like, hey, it's awesome. We're one of the deepest teams in the league. Downside is now we have to keep figuring this thing out

because we can't always keep it together. So let's just go into next year's draft. So I actually thought it was smart from the Pacers side of it. Did you? Atlanta has a lot of assets though. What were we going to ask? When the Pelicans official feed came after you, did you feel,

what was that like for you that day? Laughter. Did you feel, what was that like for you that day? Uh, laughter. Laughter? I laughed. After pain? Did you feel like, you could have been a social media guy. Seriously, if it's 21 year old Bill, 2025. I mean, granny, you don't make it a season.

Cause you'd be too clever, but they'd be mean. I'm gonna get fired. Yeah, you 100% get fired. Especially early 20s, I'm definitely getting fired. But I feel like these early 20s guys running team sites, they're like, they're your spirit animal. So it's almost like you're getting mad at yourself. They retweeted, what was it, a Shams thing?

Shams on McAfee, yeah. And it was an absurd, it was an absurd rationalization. Shams knows way more info than us both put together, but it's like, what if he's a Hall of Famer? Yeah. It's like, okay, fine. What if he does become a Hall of Famer? It's still a dumb trade.

You still gave up too much to get Derrick Queen. It was like, yeah, what if he's a Hall of Famer? And the Pelicans feed's like, yeah, fuck off, Ringer. It's not what they said. They were like, this take won't get you a podcast on the Ringer, but was a pretty clear directed fuck you. And I just, I retweeted it immediately. I love it down there.

I love it down there. You know, this hurts. It's a tough segment for me to do. What's funny is I was looking at their roster and I do kind of, I kind of like all the pieces and they make zero cents together. Like you actually look at all the things they have and it's like, I don't know what this is.

It's like, it's almost like a team you would put together in 2k. Like, I guess Jordan Hawkins was probably fired up for five seconds after they traded McCollum, right? Like if you're Trey Murphy, how are you feeling right now? Well, thank God he's not from like Russia. You know, he's, he's from, he's from North Carolina. So, you know, like, hopefully that's close enough to the, the DMV to keep them aligned with some of the recent decisions.

Well, what's weird is the team they're putting together as a team you'd put together, if you didn't care about next season, you actually secretly wanted a really high lottery pick. It's just this whole weird collection of assets, but they don't seem to think that way at all. They seem to feel like we're going to be good next year. Yeah. And it's like, they haven't noticed to think that way at all. They seem to feel like we're going to be good next year. Yeah. And it's like, they haven't noticed what conference they're in or that the

talent of all the other teams and also how unrealistic it would be to have a good team with the point guards they have and with Murray coming back from this injury and was how unreliable Zion is. And it's just like, you'll be kind of fun to watch on league pass, but you're, you're not going to be good next year. Like they can't actually think that. Right. The overriding messages were going to be aggressive.

It's like, all right, well done. But certainly were aggressive mission accomplished. Yeah, you did it. You pulled it off. Um, a couple other things. I was going to do the July desperation tears with you, but let's, let's take one more break and then we'll do that. All right.

July desperation tears. Is this a real thing? I think Milwaukee, would you, would you have them one with how do we make this roster better? I don't believe it. I still don't believe any of the honest stuff about he's undecided. Like I think he's going to be back in Milwaukee, but I also think there's pressure on them to have a good roster. They're bringing back body Bobby Portis, but it's a little bit of make or break.

Yeah. I think for. Yeah, honest in the bucks this season, if we're not going to be a contender within this season, now you have to really reevaluate. So I would put them number one on my desperation tiers for we have to get better right now. Is there anybody you would put ahead of them as the number one desperation team? You're treating this like the 25 draft though, like Hooper's in his own tier.

Cause if you're telling me Milwaukee's in their only tier. I have them. Number one, I had a couple other possibilities in this conversation with Milwaukee, right? Had them down as well. I had Phoenix because of this Beale situation that they just, what do you do? You can't buy it out. That'd be idiotic. Do you hope he's going to be better?

You can't trade them. Do you bury him? You'd be like, you know what? You're just not going to play basketball anymore. We're not going to play you. Uh, getting ready for the road trip. We have you in B 21 Southwest. We have you in B 21 Southwest.

We have you in a room with two double beds. Um, so I don't know what they did. They probably just suck it up this year and then it's an expiring contract, even though it's $57 million. But he still has the no trade clause. Yeah, I know. It's an expiring contract that you can't move. Um, I think the Lakers are in there from a desperation standpoint on getting

some sort of person that makes them feel different than they were last year. I'm putting Sacramento in here because I think they're just a no man's land and they've been in there somehow back to who they were for the entire 2010s. And they just have this weird team that doesn't make sense. And are they capable of anything? Like Zach did his little thing for us yesterday. And he was talking about, uh, didn't think Jaylen Brown was going to get traded, but he was like, you know, that Sacramento is a team I'd watch for that. There is this team every summer.

That's just like, fuck it. It makes some crazy trade. And I think that would be my number one draft pick for that category. But would you put them in a desperation tier or no? I don't know. They changed management again, even though I think Monte McNair did a really good job there. Um, but now you're paying $90 million to Zach Levine and Savonis.

Uh, I know't like that plan? No. I mean, I know I could get dumped on from being like, look, they traded Halliburton for Sabonis. Although the Halliburton-Sabonis, that was like a 1,200 page book. It was like, oh my God, this is the worst. But like, hey, look at this, maybe good for both teams. Oh my God, like look at Sabonis.

I mean, Sacramento- Everyone's happy. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, disaster. But Sacramento was judged based on Sacramento's history. And considering their history, I felt like it was actually like a really nice stable competitive run. They're in that game seven with the Warriors and they smoke them in the play-in. And nobody was like looking at them going,

can they make some noise here as they flirted with playoff seating. But for that organization, like that was a real improvement. And so now you look at it and you're like, man, this got bleak quick. I just don't like paying those guys that much. I guess DeRozan's the asset, but he's 36 years old and he's, you know, look, his number at 25 million is totally fine. It seems like he's just going to age really well. I remember the Bulls doing the first deal with him, bringing him in years and years

ago was like, man, that was a lot for DeRozan. And it just seems like this guy, the way he plays, like he still could bring something to a team. But what would be, what's like a realistic tier of player based on the, I mean, unless you want to start talking about Keegan or Devin Carter having a market, you know? Not that teams wouldn't trade for Keegan, like he's, but you got to pay him after next year. I don't think the Celtics are trading Jaylen and I don't want to, but Zach did make me wonder like what kind of Sacramento crazy trade was sitting there? Like how crazy would they get? Um, because we've seen them do it before. Uh, I hope it doesn't happen. I would put my in Brown for Trey Murphy.

So I did look at, I know that doesn't work, but no, you'd have to, there'd have to be a third team. There'd have to be a third team where I think Jaylen goes to a third team and Trey Murphy would be in the Celtics will cut salary. There's ways to figure that out. But, um, I do think when they lopped off the $28 million, it kind of ended the jail and any sort of entertaining a phone call. I think that they, they already got to their objective.

I'm going to put Miami in the desperation tiers. We can figure out the tiers after I go through all the teams. I don't know. I said this a couple of days ago. I just don't know what Miami, what are they, what are they trying to do? Like even if they get comingo, which I think is a good idea. And I like comingo. I like their draft pick.

I like to, they got a 20 on Wednesday night, but I still don't know. Like, uh, they're going to pay hero. I guess a ton of money, which now when you're seeing some of the other money going it's like as he See should he be making 15 million dollars a year more than Julius Randall. I don't think he should I just don't know what's going on with that team. Do you have any handle on it better hang Sacramento a Great hang bad hang. No, I'm just saying like, are they Sacramento in a more desirable NBA city? That's interesting. So if you did it, if you did a draft of let's draft guys from Miami and Sacramento,

bam goes first. Yeah, bam goes first. Sabona second. guys from Miami and Sacramento. Bam goes first? Yeah, Bam goes first. Sabonis second? Yeah, but Sabonis is like, you know, I think it's pretty clear against certain matchups in the playoffs, it's probably not going to go great for you. He still goes second though. Over Tyler Hero? Hero's third.

Who's fourth? DeRozan's got to be fourth, right? You wouldn't have Levine over DeRozan? Dude, that's me. Sorry, I forgot who I was asking. I believe like Pell Larson. You'd be like, Zach Levine's still on the board, Rusello. I'd be like, yeah, I'm aware. All right.

So we'll go, we'll go De, the Rose and Levine four or five. Then who's the next guy in Miami you would have. I love Jovich, but I mean, nobody should like them that much. So did Miami. They wouldn't include them in the Durant deal. I didn't think Jovich was good last year. I don't, the times I watched Miami, I just felt like I didn't really see it. Maybe it's, maybe it's lurking under there somewhere.

No, I mean, look, I, there's guys I still hold out hope for. I mean, we spent probably too long talking about Lavravia and as I was doing, I was like, this could also be a huge mistake. Um, maybe if Lavravia stays in Sacramento, he goes higher in this draft. Malik Monk's got to go before Roger. Does he go before Davion Mitchell? Yes. Keegan goes before Davion Mitchell.

Oh, no. You know, and then it's like, we were doing this two years ago with Hakez, there he goes a lot higher. I don't know what, what, I mean, they, they were like done with him. He couldn't make a three last year. Couldn't make one in college. And that's why he lasted so long in the draft too.

Then he started just being really good. So Miami, Miami is a higher end Sacramento. I'm too online. Let's start there. Not news to anybody. But what happened is, and I ended up like getting too much of it, but I always think it's funny when people are in social media and be like, how come I keep getting these posts?

And it's like, well, that's the danger before you thread as opposed to the one that you're following, you dip your toes over to the for you, and then you start hate watching stuff and then next thing you know, you're watching high school fights for half an hour, you know, like I don't feel like a good person right now. I do. And by the way, I don't watch them anymore. It just got to me, it bothered me. I was worried about the future of society. But people fought in high schools. I mean, do you ever see Greece? I mean, so this isn't new. Anyway, so back when there was the Embiid Jokic thing, I couldn't stop. I would just hate read every Sixers guy that had a few thousand followers and it was just

always like insane MB arguments against Yo Kitchen. I just couldn't get enough of it. Then all of a sudden my feed was just Sixers stuff constantly. I finally was able to wean myself off of it years ago and I was all in on this heat thing. Just every guy with a couple thousand followers with a little bit of a heat page, and again, I still think it's all teenagers, but if there was ever a nationwide need for editors, that's the problem is nobody has an editor anymore. I could probably use one a little bit more often.

The number of heat trades that were so preposterous and were just so fucking terrible where the heat were never giving up anything and all of them. Then it was always like, hey, 72 hours Durant, 48 hours Durant. Like, hey, we're like a day away. Durant thing's going to happen in a couple of hours. It just was like guys kept doing it over and over again, sourced all this stuff, Durant, Durant, Durant. Never happens.

Clearly, they didn't even really want them that much. They must just not have wanted them nearly as much as, you know, maybe Phoenix was- Or how about this? Never wanted them in the first place. Yeah, right. So you're sitting here and looking at all of these options and it's the reason I compared to Sacramento.

It's just, there's not a lot here to get you excited if you're like, let's do a deal unless it's Wiggins, but Wiggins, I mean, Wiggins still has a player option next year for $30 million. The other problem is their 2027 first goes to Charlotte. So it can't be like blowing up rebuild cause you don't have your first a year from now, so there are no big things. Riley at this stage of his life is going to go, all right, reset button time. Wouldn't you say he's more in the stage of let's get a guy and pay as many assets as we possibly can and just try to be better right now?

That's what I would have thought the Durant thing would have made sense. Do you think there's lower marketing? I'm sidetracking now, but do you think there's lorry marketing trade possibilities now? Yeah. That's been another thing floating around right now. What's your favorite lorry marketing team? San Antonio. Had that as well.

Vasell and Barnes. Yeah. Couple firsts in there. Yeah. I mean, there's got to be some sort of enticing pick there. And Ainge is probably just going to... That know, that's the other thing with Ainge is he's just going to go, I'm not, like, you don't think you're giving me the extra pick. We figured out the Ace Bailey thing a week ago.

Was that a we thing? It was a you thing. I signed up and I jumped in the car in the passenger seat. We talked it through. We did his pedigree, we had a whole thing. It was great. It was good, it was really good. And then you talked about his high school pedigree.

So it was great. And now Ace is super happy to be there. It all worked out great. Is there a James Harden and Derek Jones for Zach Levine? Anything that excites you? No, I don't know that you could have presented anything that I'd be less excited about. Just for those, like as a trade.

What was the point of that? I just don't think the Quippers are gonna roll into October with the exact same team. I'm just not convinced. Maybe not, but like, hey, how about me? Sticking up for Hardin? I think you're a little dismissive of just the comfort of, Hey, look, it's a little more expensive.

We probably could have played a hard ball. He made all NBA last year. He'd probably going to play a ton of games. It doesn't even need to be in great shape. He's going to put up numbers and it helps us, you know, at least like have something that we can depend on because he's still better than a lot of the players out there. And we'll just do that and give them a little bit of a bump and then whatever happens, we can figure this out in 26.

Like, don't you think, but it's not like they gave him a four year contract. Can I have a counter? Yeah, I want the counter. All right. So let's say I'm thinking of one of your friends that I've met, Timmy Walsh. You guys drive cross country. You and Timmy Walsh. We thought about doing it, yeah.

Gets to Arizona and something horrible happens. Like he gets in some sort of road rage incident or like just a bad driver by the time you get Arizona, you're like, I'm never doing this again with this guy. I'm never, never going cross country with him. I think game seven was that bad for Harden. What are you talking about? He's not even fazed by these. He's got a million.

I'm not saying he's fazed by these. I'm saying if you're the Clippers and your goal is to win the title, this is all Steve Ballmer wants He built this fucking wall that they they genuinely and I think they're right feel like swung three games They studied all the fan behavior in the wall and flew those people out to Denver like they're all in they're spending every Dollar they possibly can and after watching hearted in game seven, I just refused to believe with this, whatever window they have left with Kawhi that they're like, well, maybe it'll be different this year. They're not getting in the car with him again.

Just like in my Timmy Walsh example, I just want to shout out Timmy Walsh, one of my favorite conspiracy people. Um, I just don't think they want to get in the car with him for another road trip because they know what's going to happen when they get to Arizona. I don't think they care. They clearly don't care. It's a smart front office. They know everything that you just said, and I don't think they thought they were going to tax him because of his history in those huge spots because the value over

asset that they're there, whatever he's in, they now have them under contract, but this allows them to potentially do something. Sure, yeah. Right. Instead of just going. That's my take. Right. Asset management, which is a lot of what we've seen over the last couple of days.

It's like, oh, that number seems a little higher. That was kind of my overriding thing. I know I'm repeating myself from the very top of the podcast, but there were multiple examples of, they probably could have said, kind of fine, cool, go to free agency. You're never getting anything north of this. The agent relationships, the history here, and then the fear of, okay, but now if I lose this piece and ownership is like, Hey, cool, like our, our payroll's

lower, I mean, Balmer would never do that to them, but it's just, well, we can't just let a bunch of these stuff, we can't just let stuff walk and play hardball with everybody. And then if there's actually something available in November, December, January, February, now we don't even have any of those pieces. So yeah, maybe it is as simple as an asset management with just the one year, but I do think that you're overlooking a little bit of the just from October until April, like Hardin's probably going to be pretty good for us.

I am so happy. I just got to defend James Harden's probably gonna be pretty good for us. I am so happy. I just got to defend James Harden for like three minutes. I've done it twice in my life and that was the second time. Felt good. What about Westbrook? Where's he going? Who's left? Why you have a team? Can't find him. I mean, I imagine it'll be one, but.? Can't find one. I mean, I imagine it'll be one, but.

I can't find one either. Does Brooklyn just say fuck it for a year? Is there a world where Reeves gets traded into Atlanta's $25 million trade exception? For players and assets? But it has to be one player that makes a huge difference. Would you do a Kang Wu and, and some picks for Reeves? Would you have a meeting going, Hey, we got for Zingas and let's keep our fingers crossed.

And Reeves is a better player than a Kang Wu. Yeah. He's a better player. He gives us a second creator than with Trey. We might be able to patch together the center position. We might be able to make a real run here. I don't know. I just, it was the only thing I can think of with the Lakers where to get a center.

I think they would have to, that's the only thing that made sense to me. And I have a, by the way, please, anyone listening, please don't aggregate these trades and say, please, whatever. I'm just throwing dumb shit out. Cause I had a, I had a Jalen one that I'm just not going to do. Cause I don't want it to become like one that I really liked. I'm just going to tell you offline. You know what?

I'm depriving. I'm depriving the people for the pod. I hope that I really liked. I'm just going to tell you offline. You know what? I'm depriving. I'm depriving the people for the pod. I hope that gets aggregated. Simmons doesn't tell Rossello, Jalen Brown trade in fear of aggregation. Simmons tells Rossello Jalen Brown trade after podcast. Um, and then I was thinking of available, available trade guys. Would you have George last or Beale last right now? Oh, Beale.

So Beale is still number one. He's been number one for two years now. That should be some sort of wonder lick like NBA thing. Like here, here's a hypothetical. You make $50 million a year, but the team hates you and they never play you and you have a no trade clause. If that happened to you for two years and you still have like a year left in your contract, what would you want? And if you answered like, I'd be totally fine never playing

and then keeping all my money. It's like, yeah, but you're still going to keep your money. Like, would you eventually get sick of this? Would there be some competitive part of you that was like, Hey, I'm a pretty talented player and I don't want to go out like this. And if the guy at the combine answers, no, I'm totally fine. It'd be the deal answer. It'd be like, okay, we've got to take this guy off the board.

We've seen some, we've seen some people in the sports media world. Checkout like that. Oh, yes. It's, it's, I love, I love when it happens. I love getting to see it. I'm just gonna get so jealous. Is it tougher for you and I, I think to check out, like I've wanted to check out for years. It was your checkout date, like age 58.

Yeah. You know, whatever that one last deal where you could just completely check out. Yeah, that know, whatever it is. That one last deal where you could just completely check out. Yeah. That'd be fun. I don't, I just need more of a team. Like the anchors get to check out. It's awesome. Cause the scripts can be written, the segments are produced.

They'll even have people that produce the questions for them to like, hey, we have this person like, you know, just make sure you ask that, you know, Alex Bregman's, you, we have this person, like, you know, just make sure you ask that, you know, Alex Bregman's, you know, nine for his last 18. You know, so, I think there's, you know, we're trying to carry these podcasts on our own.

It's a little tougher. Like, I think it'd be pretty obvious if you start to realize it, because this guy waking up 15 minutes before he does these now. Can I get, can I ask you for, I want to one you for, can I ask you for your take on the dumb team hierarchy now, because I mentioned the dumb teams during the week on the draft. Um, and I think it's Sacramento, New Orleans, Brooklyn and Chicago

in some order right now. That would be my four. Is there anybody I'm omitting for you? And I think that the qualifier is you have to be from afar going, what the fuck are those guys doing? Cause Chicago is a good example. I don't know what that Lonzo ball has a coral trade was. Like I just, that was one of those where you're just like, I just don't

understand what just happened. You already have Patrick Williams. Why do you want Isaac Okoro? Now they're different in theory because Okoro like there's some shooting numbers of people be like, Hey, and you're like, yeah, but that's not really. He's that he's not really a shooter. Um, there's some defensive metrics per 100. Like they actually show up pretty good.

What do you bring? So you think they can play them together? No, no, but I can't, but I can't. I'm saying like Ok Coro just by himself. There's a little bit of a discussion at 10 or 11 million dollars, but Cleveland not when you have Patrick Williams. No. And when you're getting rid of Lonzo where you're like, all right, this is an

expiring 10 million dollar deal and we're bringing back a Coro for a similar number, but then he's 11.8 next year. I don't, I don't know what they're doing. Lonzo. How many, I read five stories last year about like, this is the best story in sports. Everybody loves Lonzo. Amazing teammate. I thought he was really fun to play for, oh, for, yeah, for the teams. So that's our, that's our five right now.

I remember a GM told me a long time ago. I just need seven of these teams. And as long as we always have seven, I'll be fine. Although if I'll always have somebody. So right now it seems like we have five. Maybe there's more coming. It's sad that the Lakers aren't on this list anymore. Um, all right. That's really all I have, except't on this list anymore. All right.

That's really all I have except to bend the UFC in Vegas yesterday. Yeah. Tell us about it. Awesome fight, huh? Main card. Tepori is like, I don't, I just don't know. I'm too casual of a UFC fan to put him against other guys from the past, but that guy's just an animal.

He's just now he's still undefeated. I don't, he moved up in weight, which sometimes can go one way or the other, more in boxing than UFC. But I mean, wow. It just, he just has it, man. You know, the guy is at the final level when they have the knockout and they're not fazed at all by it. They just kind of walk over and like, they want to like wave to Dana White. You know, the guy is at the final level when they have the knockout and they're not fazed at all by it.

They just kind of walk over and like, they want to like wave to Dana white. Like they just knocked somebody out that they'd been training a fight for three months. And it's like, they went and got a latte. That's when you know, it's like something really crazy, but he's, he's, I think he's the biggest star they have right now. They haven't been able to blow him up as a star. Like he's not anywhere remotely close to Connor domestically, internationally, maybe, but I think he's the guy right now.

How into it has been. He was really bummed out last night because he likes Charles. Him and his, him and his friend Enzo, uh, really took it hard. They just like them. They didn't want to see him. They, they, they had slim expectations. They didn't want to see what happened happen where he just got fucking his clock cleaned.

They were not happy. Um, but that we have a new Simmons family as a new guy though. Okay. Joshua van won us over completely. Just an incredible performance by him. Did you see that fight? It was the first fight. Did you see it last night? No, I didn't.

I, I know. I took the boat out. Oh. Yeah. I took the boat out late and then you'll, I don't know if you'd be proud or disappointed. I actually think you're going to be disappointed, but I was like, hey, lighter schedule,

not a ton of prep, you're on this. Like, I can go out for a little bit. Yeah. You know, cause I won't drink on the boat cause I gotta dock that thing. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna ever have like. There's been one or two bad incidents over the years with boats and alcohol that I've read about.

Yeah, right. So you're kind of like, oh, you know, but then I get so, even though I've done it a bunch, right. So you're kind of like, oh, you know, but then I get so, even though I've done it a bunch of times now, I never want to be comfortable enough, you know, where somebody's like, oh, well, hey, it doesn't matter. You know, cause I know, look, I'm not trying to act like some fucking prude about how.

I think it's the right way to think. Right, right. But anyway, so I'm like, okay, I'm running home and I get an invite and I was like, all right, don't even give yourself a chance to shut down. Don't even give yourself a chance. Like you have to go out, you have to go out tonight. And I changed, I ran the shower, I looked at my bed

and I went, nope. Like the window was three minutes. There was like a three minute window where I was like, I'm doing it. I'm going out, I'm, nope. Like the window was three minutes. There was like a three minute window where I was like, I'm doing it. I'm going out, I'm going out. And then I was like. That's an official sign you're moving in a different phase of life.

Yeah, but that's been happening a lot. Like there's a lot of, depending on how the week works out, because I don't go out very often, but they'll still be like, don't become a guy who just never ever does it. And I'll get up and like my day will be going great. And I'm like, you know what, I'm in great mood, whatever, whatever. And then you just know like, Hey, I ate, it's shutting down. I want to work out tomorrow.

Whatever. I don't care. I'm not missing anything. And then I just, I had this like peak energy, like spike where I just went, I'm going to, I'm going to do this, like fight through this thing. And then, you know, you got that brine on you, day at sea, and it, it this thing. And then, you know, you got that brine on you day at sea and it takes it out of you, you know? My stepdad's big boat guy.

It's a lot of work. It's really like separates the men from the boys in the sense of it's not just like getting a car. Like you really, if you're going to do it, you got to do it. If she's a queen, you got to, there's just some real thought and care. It's like adopting, adopting a dog. Like if you adopt the dog, it's like, Hey, I adopt the dog. It's like, okay, your life's going to be different now.

This dog's always going to be around. You're always going to have to figure out what to do with it. The boat is kind of like the dog. Yeah. At least I can, I don't feel bad leaving it. Right. Yeah. Where I think some people are going to be like, I'm going away. Somebody's got to watch my dog, but you still have to put in this extra time into it. Right. That I don't think people realize when they don't get it until they get a boat. Yeah. I think if it's, if it's on your, like you have a lake or something or the people down in Newport beach where they have docs in the backyard. Yeah, I think if it's on your, like you have a lake or something or the people down at Newport Beach where they have docks in the backyard. Right.

Yeah, whatever. Right. That's sick. You don't have to hose it down immediately, although it would be nice. You don't want that salt to build. But when you have to go into Marina and the check-in and all that kind of stuff and then get the thing untied, and I did it by myself too, so there's always a little extra of just being on it, on it, on it every

time you have to do it. So then I got really artsy though, instead of watching fights, I watched Casablanca. Really? Are you guys doing that? The rewatchables? Because I'm ready. You're ready for Casablanca? Yeah.

It's considered the greatest screenplay ever written. And listen, that sounds like an amazing idea for the summer for us. It's on the list. It's funny. It kind of lives on now in when Harry met Sally because it has like these two big parts of when Harry met Sally for, so for like the under 40 generation, unless you, you know, your parents like forced you to watch it or tell you to watch it or whatever.

Um, it came out in that, what was it? 1942? Great recall. 1943. 1943. So that's now 83 years ago. Like think how fucking long that is. Right.

And so, it's nuts. Like Jaws is 50 years old though. Yeah. Shout out to the Vineyard. Speaking of boats. Oh, you know what? It's a big Jaws summer.

I was going to call you in for Prestige TV because Amazon has the the vineyard. Speaking of boats. Oh, you know what? It's a big jaw summer. I was going to call you in for Prestige TV because Amazon has this show set on Martha's Vineyard. It's a YA show, but it's just, my daughter was out in 20 minutes. So I didn't tell you about it. But yeah, fully vineyard. Like they went all in. Do you know the name of it? Because I forget where I was. It was kind of like one of those deals where you can't find the remote in a hotel room. So that means the channel's just not gonna be changed

forever. And- I'm looking as you're talking. There was this crime series that takes place on Martha's Vineyard. It's all shot in Canada. And I think even the actors are Canadian. But I think the true story behind it

is that it's these fictional books where all of these things take place on Martha's Vineyard because the author's father, father-in-law, uncle or something was actually a police chief in Egger town. So I could be sort of mauling this, but I don't know if it was the same thing. So I ended up watching, I never watch that kind of stuff, but I was like, all right, I gotta see what happens here.

Well, my daughter's home right now, so I can't say I'm watching, I'm not watching a ton of stuff, I can't. Oh, it's called We Were Liars. I have not seen that. You might wanna give it a test run for the Martha's Vineyard footage. I will, no, I'm in, I'm totally in.

But I would tell younger people that are listening about Casablanca, like, don't give it too hard of a time on the action scene at the end. And I think Bogart, I think that's an over under a four, four and a half. Here's looking at you kids. Like you might. I don't know if you get away with that today. Got rid of like two of them.

Yeah. You know, like Bruce Willis has said, you know, Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker, five times in Die Hard. Yeah, they tacked it on in Die Hard 3. We just did that one. I do think about people like Bogart sometimes. Like when I work on rewatchables and you think about how famous these people were.

Like when we do movies from the 70s and Redford and Newman and like they were just so, so so famous and they still are famous because there's a lot of people. But then when you go way back and you go to like, sir, Lawrence, Olivia, this is the reason I was thinking about it. Cause he's a marathon man. We did that one. And he's one of the most famous actors in the world. Right. And he was married to Vivian Lee, who was the lady in Gone with the Wind and was like one great stage actor was dead by like 54. And I was thinking to Vivian Lee, who was the lady in Gone with the Wind. And was like one of the great stage actor was dead by like 54. And I was thinking like Vivian Lee, probably one of the two, three

biggest actresses for 20 years, right? No longer discussed. Not in the mix in 2025 and there's no conversations. Like there's some sort of shelf life for when you're just not discussed anymore. Right. Ava Gardner. Um, you go, like, I don't know what it is. Like the Mariska Hargitay has this documentary now about Jane Mansfield, who probably not discussed unless there's documentary, but it does make you think like, all right, I'm going to die someday. And then everybody's going to forget who you were. Not you. They'll be, no, they'll bring it and forget. Maybe five

years after they'll be a doc. Chris Ryan's's gonna be old in a rocking chair and be like, he wasn't the easiest to get along with, but it was worth it. They've been a lot of people like, Bill was Bill. When they say my name twice, you know, Bill was Bill. Like the main Ramirez corner. So cast a blind guy. That's your recommendation.

And it is, it's, it is pretty cool. Like when you think about, all right, Bogart is this mysterious guy who's in occupied, you know, Africa, and yet there's the dueling, the Vici and you've got the Nazis and he's kind of his own man. He's almost like this Han Solo type. And it's Bogart who's not exactly the most dashing guy ever. And yet I was reading about him after the fact, cause I was trying to figure out like if there's a biography that it was worth, I'm sure there's plenty of really good ones, but like for me to do a biography on somebody, I'm like, I don't

really like doing that all that much anymore. But then the Duke of all people, John Wayne, being like, that was the leading man that like I thought about when I pursued my career. Like to your point, like you can say, hey man, Bogart was really famous. And I remember like the first time I saw African Queen, it was like, you know, a movie my parents wouldn't turn off or something when I was a really young kid being like this movie sucks. But then even as a kid, I kept, because you know, we didn't have any channels back then. It was just on TV. I think there were three channels. And even as a kid, I kept, because we didn't have any channels back then. It was just on TV. I think there were three channels. And even as a kid, I was like, man, this African queen's like kind of crazy. Like this is a crazy movie and he's so good at being the perfect, like, you know, she

would have never thought she'd be with him. A lot of the standard kind of like rulemaking that you have in storytelling. And there is something to Casablanca that certainly you know, holds up in the sense that it wasn't just this super simple, straightforward love story of will they or won't they. And with the backdrop of him owning his cafe and everything, it was just cool. I hadn't seen it in like forever. And so, yeah, it's funny how I wish I w I watched Sabrina a couple of months ago with Audrey Hepburn.

Right. That's the one they did on the Vineyard with Harrison Ford. Yeah. They redid it. Yeah. This was the original one. Tons of shout outs today. That movie is just, when you watch it, like just through the context of now, but when

they made it back then, it's kind of amazing. And just the premise of it, it's just like great story. Two brothers. She was always where her family worked for this super rich family. Yeah. But she always had a crush. She would have had a crush on one of the brothers. He never realized it. Was it kind of cocktail, right?

She went away. She went away to, and then came back a woman and the brother didn't realize it was her and then loved her. But he was kind of a rube. It was like, I was like, this is, they fucking nailed it with this. Every piece of it is just really smart. It's going to be a real art house summer over here. Cause I watched Lawrence of Arabia a couple of weeks ago and you know, I don't know

what's going on with me, but I was like, I'm just going to start running through all of these like all time classics. Uh, they became classics for a reason. You know, it's like the Godfather and Jaws and moves like those moves are running through all of these all-time classics. Especially with the travel coming up. Well, they became classics for a reason. It's like why The Godfather and Jaws and movies, those movies are fucking incredible. That's why they became classics. Peter O'Toole, though, laying on a little thick.

Dialed it up a little bit, yeah. I wanna hear it. That was that era. The guys were very, very over the top with the acting. Well, they were a lot of theater guys. I would love a Lawrence of Arabia rewatchables. I don't want to be on it. I want it to be UCR and fantasy. And I would love to hear just CR breaking down

to a tools passion. Really going for it. Yeah. Well, I think we're doing, we did after hours that's coming to Monday. And then I think we're doing jaws too. Ironically, another vineyard shadow. That's the next one.

You're the vineyards on fire right now. You don't have any jaws, two thoughts. I don't try to just wouldn't do it. He wouldn't be in. Which was the terrible one? Three? Jaws 3. It was for 3D.

Three was 3D. It was Jaws 3D. That makes more sense. There's been two eras of movies when they got really excited about 3D. That this is the next thing. Here we go, 3D. And then people are like, nah, this kind of sucks.

They tried it again. Um, we're wrapping up. So we're back next Sunday. Do you think, what do you think the, if you had to make one prediction for the biggest thing that will happen in the seven days before we see each other again? Just give me a team. You don't have to make a prediction. Don't say Boston. Please. No, I don't. I'll say Spurs. I like it. It's a good one. All right. Good to see you, Rossello.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rossello. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well. Don't forget new rewatchable is coming tomorrow night after hours and then you can watch all the stuff from this podcast and Bill Simmons' YouTube channel. And I will see you at least once more this week. Probably Wednesday, but not sure of the day yet. But you will see me one more time this week. See you then. I'm gonna see them run away so I never run away I don't have feelings with them For a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org

in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 Support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.