The Deep 3 Podcast - We Made NBA Free Agency Predictions | Ep. 226

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Everything that may happen in NBA free agency! #nba   Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/   Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW   Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794   Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree   0:00- Intro 2:29- Lamelo Ball Trade 31:44- NBA Free Agency Predictions Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/   Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg   Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_   Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last week, we posted our weekly episode, ranking every single NBA team's young core. Thursday upload. Business as usual, right? Scheduled didn't change. But I had a little bit of traveling to do. So we had to record that episode on Wednesday, thinking, you know, we're a few days after the draft,

free agency not until next week, kind of an in-between period. Surely nothing massive will happen the morning of the Thursday. The episode goes up that'll make us regret recording on Wednesday night. Naturally. We do it all the time. Yeah, it happens. You know, we have travel.

We have lives. We move things around. to not give you guys any disruption your schedule all the time. Boy, were we fucking wrong. It messed up. La Mello Ball is on the Timberwolves. We messed up.

We messed up. Le Mello Ball is on the Timberwolves. I repeat that is a sentence I did not expect to utter in any way. But you know what? I mean, Michael Jordan missed shot sometimes. I've seen LeBron miss a shot. You know, stuff happens.

It does always go your way. I was butt-ass naked in New York, in the Bronx. Just looking at the news saying, I wish I was in front of the camera In the middle of the street Brother, there's no central There's no central AC in the Bronx

There's no central AC in the building where I was at so it was hot The trade broke 6 a.m. Thursday morning He's already naked. Yeah, strip down. So we're here today to talk about lamella ball being traded to the timber wolves

We're not going to do a full deep dive into every small move that happened because we're going to save that for our grading every single offseason move episode when that comes But we're going to talk about La Mello Ball and went to Timberwolves. what it means to the Hornets,

what it means for the aforementioned Timberwolves, all that. And after that, as you see about a title, we are here to give you guys our full NBA free agency predictions episode. Go through the top, I don't know, 15, 20 names that could or will move teams,

whether they are free agents or trades that we know we're going to happen. A lot of rumors coming this morning about Kuwait Leonard, Jailen Brown, LeBron James, lots to go into and tell you guys what we think will happen, we want to see happen, all of the above. Let's get into it, man.

Let's talk about a mellow ball And boy do I got a story to tell Me too Stank you one We're throwing it back That's crazy He was bragging He was bragging

I don't need The cranium is crazy Oh my god Thank you Crown eaters rejoice. Like we mentioned, Lamella Ball is on the Timberwolves. And like we mentioned up top,

we weren't here to record it on that morning. You don't know why. You guys know. You guys know. Audience people I'm talking to. You want to know why? This is going to sound made up. On Thursday,

the day Lamella Ball was traded. I was with Lovar Ball. Not only was I with Lovar Ball, father of, said Lavello Ball. I was at his home. Oh, wow. I was at the Ball Brother or Ball Family Mansion. The Day La Mello Ball was traded.

It's known that just as Ball a Mansion. Ball and Man, my bed. Oh, man. He knows every room at that. Actually, he's wrong. He's wrong. The front, there's a big sign that says Ball Estate. That's what is known as.

And there's a big BBB logo on the house like as a storefront. That's so hard, man. He's tough. I was there for a clash video, which I did a couple of videos. We got to start scamming, man. I got to get the estate. bro. That's so hard.

Yeah, I was in Brea, California, up in Chino Hills at his fucking mansion to record some clash videos with him, Carson from NerdSesh, OG, and I forget who else was there. We did a fan v. Hater. We did a video where we talked about ranking the best point guards in the league. That's why I had to travel.

Did not expect to be with him the day his son is randomly traded the Timberwolves. Insane. He must have been just limping all around the house so fucking I'm sitting mad. He must have been his. Or he must have been happy and self.

Hell yeah. We were running all up in Minnesota. Zoh coming. Leangelo coming. Everybody. Yeah. I asked him. I'm updating the people.

What are you? Yeah. So I asked him several questions about it in the videos. Like, obviously, I wasn't going to be like, what do you think about blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, it's a hectic day for him. But asked him a few questions in the video. I don't think he gave a fuck I don't think he was worried at all

I don't think not worry obviously he's not worried I don't think he cared at all that his son's not going to play for the Hordance anymore like why would he why would he care about Charlotte right? Yeah it doesn't it doesn't make a difference like I don't think honestly like once once Lanzo gets traded from the Lakers

it's like all right man listen you guys are in the league as a father I've done my job yeah I told the world that my three kids were going to be in the NBA Leangelo in and out whatever but like again I have fulfilled my promise to the masses. It's really on y'all now.

And I can understand, like, and this is a much better situation where he, like, it's crazy that the Hornets traded Lamello, but also he could probably spin in. It's like, this is just another team that wants my son. Like, he's going to take the Timbles back to the conference finals. Like, this is what we do. So I can understand the not worriedness about leaving the Charlotte Hornets. Now, I saw a little more, but let's talk about that.

Is Lamella Ball can take Timberwolves to the promised land? Are the Hornets dumbasses for trading their franchise point guard? A year after they had a magical run in the second half of the season that was like 50% sparked by Lamella Ball finally playing healthy, good, productive basketball? What do we think about the deal? So when the deal happened, I was like 95% sure that I knew exactly how I felt about it. and that 95% was the straight sucks on both ends. Nobody wins. Yeah, nobody wins.

As I have thought about it more, I think for the Hornets, it's fantastic because the Hornets did something that we basically do all year long, which is make fake trades and be like, oh yeah, they should trade this person and really get off of them, but they never do it because of all these other attachments to it.

He went number three in the job. draft he's been there for so long you're not going to you're not going to get off of of lemelo even though that he has some you know flaws in his game with the way that he operates and the horn is basically we're going to do it like we don't think that he is that level of a player so we can we can move off of the franchise cornerstone guy because we truly don't think that he is a franchise cornerstone guy so i commend them for being cutthroat in that way and making and making that deal. So I actually think for the Hornets, it's really, really good. You're not getting caught up in the fact that you went on this run in the second half of the year and you feel like you have your future in

Khan and in Brandon Miller and you're operating in that sense. And then for the wolves, I don't like it from the sense of you're really small now and you are really putting a lot of pressure on Rudy Gobert. But if you feel like your back was against the wall and you feel like you're being cornered because this team is, you know, deteriorating year over year. All right. Like if you went to the rest of the league and you said, I got one first round pick, couple pick swaps, and Nasree, what is that going to get me?

Lamello's probably the best. It's probably the high end, yeah. He's probably the best player that you're going to get for that specific package. Now, Moe asked you, he laid out his general framework for both teams. I'm sure we all relatively agree we'll get into the specifics. When I tell you, Anthony Edwards needs a point guard. He's a star point guard next time. You'd agree, right?

Absolutely. When I tell you, Lamello ball, needs to play with another player that's a better score than him. You agree, right? Absolutely. When I tell you both these point guards, or both these guards,

have very specific personalities and needs fit-wise to get the most of them to keep them in line. You would not say each other is the right answer there, would you? Fuck, no. How do you feel about this duo together?

Like, when you see Ant and Lamello Ball Photoshop together in one uniform, what goes through your mind? Treacherous twins, they are the definition of that, but on the court, I think it's going to be a beautiful duo. It's like specifically,

offensively they're going to wreak so much goddamn havoc this three-point ability the playmaking the ability for the mellow ball to just like create confusion sometimes in a good way but also in a bad way at times too you see in plenty of times this career i think this is a i like this trade for really the timber rules more so because for the as for the hornets i don't i'm not like a super big fan of moving off of the mellow ball not necessarily this early but for this package i would say Yeah. Like, I don't know if this is the absolute max value of the metal ball. I mean, right now, sure, it is fair to say. But considering, like, the state of your organization, I think it's very fair to you, very fair for the Hornets and their GM to, like, know who you are, you know? Because not every team has should be, should want to have the ability to just, like, let go of the guy who led them to arguably, one, historically, like, one of the greatest comebacks in regular season history in terms of where they started and how, like, down they were in the Eastern Conference. It had a special run. Fair.

We'll get to Timberholes. Let's talk about the Hornets first. You mentioned it. Historic second half of the season, special run. I think it's important to do two things. Ask ourselves, one, why did they do this? What's their plan? Two, where did that special run end them?

The playing tournament. Where they proceeded to get absolutely destroyed by a team that was more physical than them and punked them. Part of that is a lamello ball thing, to some degree. Right? Their lack of defensive identity building around him, the lack of physicality he showed, like some real flaws were showed

that you could understand at least why they'd look at that game and realize that even though they got best case narrow for half a season, there's some baked and downside with this version of the team as currently constructed. You can kind of understand

that aspect of it. Other side of it to me is last year we did an episode or segment, probably multiple, where we talked about players that should, in our opinion, get traded before this season

that just happened, right? We talked about Lamella Ball that after last year in which he had another injury plague season, I think that was year five for him, last year, not kind of the season just happened, four of those were injury-plagued.

We all had no faith in him anymore. He wasn't playing serious basketball after the injury. He wasn't available. There's obviously question marks with him as like a leader and personality and whatever, which we don't necessarily care about, but they're in the air, right? There were so many reasons to not believe in him as your franchise player that a year ago, we wanted him gone.

This move says they agreed. He just had no fucking value because everybody agreed with us. The second he had value, the second he had one slightly healthy season in which you could point to a team and say, Look, we fix his ankles. He'll be good next year, I promise. Come give us top dollar for him. They did it.

So that tells us the whole time. They clearly agreed and clearly did not see him as a vision for what their franchise should stand for. Like you mentioned, you got to commend that. Do they have an opinion about the guy? It wasn't a high one and they acted on it. I also agree with you.

I don't think they sold high. I don't think one first round pick and Nas Reid and some pointless pick swaps. I don't think that is selling high. I disagree. Clearly the market says it is. Yeah, and that's why. That's why.

Because I think anybody in this in this position that a majority of teams in this position coming off the season that the Hornish just had in somebody that has the like a city and a fan base that has the attachment to Lamello for them to turn immediately around and say we're trading you. I think for for them that is like yeah, we're we're done. And so I do think that this is selling high because if they think if if they feel comfortable trading trading Lamello, what do you think the rest of the league feels like? Like if they, they have all the reason in the world to be as invested in in Lamello more so than anybody else. And if they feel like they, like they should trade him, I'm sure a majority of teams around the league are also looking at at Lamello and saying, yeah, honestly, like, I'm glad he's your problem because we don't really want. I don't want to be in that business. So this is clearly the best I can get, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't shift in here.

It doesn't feel like selling high in terms of I'm a Hornets fan. I should feel great about the value. If they had gotten like an extra pick or two, I would tell myself, We had the unreliability factors and we cash the fuck in. I got to be happy. It's kind of more of middle ground where we got out of a business. We clearly didn't want to be a part of. The return is just okay.

So I would feel kind of strange and up and down if I was a Hornets fan seeing that, knowing the upside that we saw that we know the stat everybody talks about. He had the second highest on-off offensive networking swing in the NBA. He is one of the best offensive engines in the NBA and we're finally seeing a trio of young players play together. And we have this vision. We had the starting five that was so dominant all year. year, especially in the second half, I want to see that vision through. I would be left feeling a little bit strange about it all if I was a Hornets fan. Yeah. And also too, super strange because

just last year around this time, too, we were in, we found ourselves in a position where, you know, the Memphis Grizzies weren't necessarily shopping Desmond Bain. They just got a random call and they got offered four or five fucking first round picks. This is not one of them scenarios where they got offered the whole house. You know, that's not like, okay. Like if this, if you're, you're forcing the phone call and you're only offering me like one real pick that could be valuable, of course, because that's when it will be not necessarily up there, but towards the peak of his career. Like, I can understand that and that's like a TBD big. But if I'm again like the quarter to literally have nothing to show for over the course of the entire history of your organization

and also like over the last like five years and you had the most success that you've ever had pretty much in the most talented core players pretty much just to get rid of that off of like off of this. Well, but this is, well, yeah. It is like,

so like on paper it's nasty. Yeah, on the surface it's nasty. I think it's a very process driven more long term outlook of the team. And, uh, B.

Sol's guy, I saw his boy, Domo, he made a video saying that the horn is clear because they had this trade and then they shipped out Miles Bridges. And so they clearly looked at their team and said, we're going to get all of this buffoonery out of, out of the out of the team and when you look at you blame him for that no i don't i don't i don't

blame them for that you look at who they brought in as as the coach of this team a couple years ago charles lee you're coming from from a boston seltic staff hold on man you're right they brought in pat connington mason pundlea leon leon of course con can't exactly as soon as you're gentrifying the team right now in front of our faces as soon as soon as you have that high character guys yeah as soon as soon as you have that on on the team and you you look around and And again, you bring in Charles Lee, you're trying to build this. Four, the five stars are black. I love narratives.

They're also like, they're black. Yeah, those two guys specifically in terms of Lamello and Miles Bridges. And you're trying to build this thing up. And you look at what is winning in the NBA right now. And you have teams that are picking up opposing point guards 94 feet. You're looking at teams that play insane. pressure throughout the entire game. You're looking at teams that are physical teams that have, you know, two bigs on the,

front lines. And the Hornets are trying to have their version of that. Now you insert Knows Reed into the starting, yeah, into the starting lineup. And you have guys that fit the mold of what you actually are trying to create. And so from that standpoint, I do understand it because obviously Bridges has all the stuff that comes with him, Lamello driving all over Charlotte being, being, you know, reckless on the, on the roads. Yeah.

There's clearly reasons outside of just basketball where you can look at the Hornets making this move and say, I understand it and I get it. And that's all about basketball too. There's also reasons basketball wise to do this. I led with I'd be feeling confused and mixed feelings if I was a Hornets fan. I am not a Hornets fan. I don't feel mixed at all. I think this is a solid, defensible move. Again, like I said, I don't think the value they got for him is great.

Clearly great wasn't on the market. So I have to divorce myself from that, divorce myself from the sticker value of seeing one pick. and Nas Reid and that being underwhelming, the market clearly says Lamello's underwhelming and that's what you're going to have to take, right?

They're going to try to do the Hawks did. That's the one-to-one corollary for what they're trying to do. The Hawks traded Tray Young because they felt that he also is this offensive rating swing

engine of our team. Without him, we have no playmakers. How will we ever have a functional basketball team? Take the ball of his hands by moving him. You empower New Killers Under Walker. You empower Jalen Johnson.

You replace him of C. McCallum to give you guys another ball handler and not have absolutely nothing. Kobe White, you were now C.J. McCollum, Brennan Miller, you were now Michael Alexander Walker, Jalen Johnson.

They're trying to do the exact same thing because they were in the exact same scenario where they had a one-way star point guard that has its own downsides offensively because both of them, poor rim finishers, both them heavy three-point rate, which is very helpful, but the scoring is never going to be highly efficient to match that

because the interior scoring isn't good. Both their playmaking is the leading force of their value with very little on the defensive side. They're very similar players, one small, one short. That's why we like the metal ball a little bit more, right? but one's also more injury prone in the Mellow Ball's case. They have a similar circumstance to do that. Now they're going to have fucking freakazoid spacing with Nas Reid there.

And Nas Reid, congenital Brandon Miller, crazy shooting. They're leaning into that doing their same analytic-driven approach they did last year with the offensive rebound and three-point rate maxing. That all makes sense. Only question I have is that strategy makes a lot of sense when you're going from an offensive-sland-team to defense of slanted team like the Hawks did. They leaned into defense to say, by doing all this and redistributing our offense, we're maybe going to stay even there

but get better defensively because we're moving Trey Young. They got Nas Reid and Kobe White's. That does not make you better defensively. It's not a one season move. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Like this is very clearly,

we're trying to, Khan is going to go into year two. Brandon Miller is going to go into year four, year four, year five. Yeah, whatever. So you are, you are setting yourself up to have a foundation

of a team that you want to be. So I think for them, they're looking at this and saying, listen, I know it looks crazy right now. Talk to us at the end of next year. Talk to us going into free agency, going into the draft a couple years from now, because that's what we're actually building towards. And so I do feel bad for Hornets fans if it does go, if it does go south,

because this is a team that just last week when we were talking about how the heat stack up in the east. And I was like, oh, I forgot even Charlotte. They won 44 games. Their team that can win 50 games. I don't know if that's the case anymore. It might happen. In fact, I still think they're, yeah. It might happen, but I don't know if I feel as confident.

Maybe that's just because I saw what they were and now I'm a little bit unsure. But if they do take a step back and now they're like a 42 win team instead of 44, then for the Hornets fans like, damn, like we have to wait again. Like they've just been so, you know, so unsurious. I don't think it's a bad thing. Yeah. I think it's not, it just sucks. It does suck. It does suck.

Which is back to the mixed feelings for Hornets fans, right? You would expect the Hornets to double down and try to be better after that last season, right? Sure. You're coming this off season saying, now is your moment. Go get some upgrades. that try to be a contender next year. That would be your logical conclusion, right? They probably heard that.

They thought about it and said, we don't think it's worth it. We don't think if we try to take the next step and go all in on this core with Lamello. We don't think that there's a vision there to be as great as you would think there. So we're going to reset, play the long game, which the hornets are always playing the long game,

which is the unfortunate part. They're always in a fucking reset. What do you mean you're going to reset? You're driving be crazy right now. We're taking the positive steps and what makes it like a little bit different from the Hawks, is of course like, you know, I've seen the conference finals before.

I at least like seen the actual high of my team. I didn't get to, I experienced playing. I experienced the highs and lows. And I guess the Hornets did good, considering like they did solve at an absolute high. And I can envision a real world scenario where a couple of years go down the line, they maybe win 50 games next year or whatever. And then lamella balls value plummets. And the next thing, you know, he's getting trade for like a C.D. McCollum type or like trade package.

And now they have to like retool again. and it makes it way harder to do so, considering you have less flexibility. That's very true. But again, it goes back to you have to know who you are. You are the Sacramento Kings of the East. That's how the league looks at you. No one takes you furrow seriously.

And this is the first time where you're actually able to build your stripes and build real fandom, pack out your fucking stadium over there in North Carolina for the first fucking time. And I think solely based off the optics of, like, fandom and, like, building your respectability. I don't like this move. But that's the thing. That's the thing.

That thought process is how you become the Kings for real. Because they feel that way and they go out and get some bonus. They feel that way and they go out and get Lovine. They feel that way and they go out and get wherever the next middle tier distress. But we're just asking you to be regular though. That's it. Be normal. But that's the thing.

You're chasing regular and you chasing productivity is how you become the Kings. It takes bravery to say if we try to do that, we will still be mid. We still won't be reliable because we still think La Malleable will get hurt and all the downsides. We're going to take one step back. Now we have three. first round picks in 2033. We have assets. Nice. We're looking at 11th graders or not even 11th graders 10th. 7th graders right now. Six graders right now. Yeah, you say that. I'm looking at trade assets because I have all my picks. I have three picks in 2033. So I have a long window of having plus picks before they become due

and become regular picks. If there were 3 2027 picks, you would have to draft those players soon or trade them soon. Now we have a long window to have like seven tradable first round picks. We can have that foundation. Can't forget the new lottery odds. If we're mid and we win 42 games, so be it. We are 11 seed and we're in perfect spot to jump up into top four lottery. This is the perfect way to spend the next two years building what it could be a long-term vision that could actually contend instead of trying to maximize a middle-tier vision that might get lucky and have a conference finals appearance like the fucking hawks. Yeah.

And two things. One, you say, can you be normal? If Lamello's on your team, you're not going to be a normal team at all. That's not happening. Yeah. If you look at this tweet and you look at all the picks that they have, you have Minnesota in 2030 in four years in, uh, 23, 32, six years, 23,

seven years. And we could talk about the Minnesota side of it too. They clearly made this move because they felt desperate because people have said it and joked for a while, but as we've gotten into the summer, you start hearing it a little bit more and you start to feel the pressure and you start to look around and look at the roster.

And you say in four years, is Anthony Edwards going to want to be here? Right? Like, is he actually going to be a part of this team because we have not done a great job continuously building a championship roster. They had it the first year or the second year that they had Kat and Gobert. And from that moment on every offseason, we come up here and we doubt the Tim Wolves

because they lose a key piece. And they've lost, they've lost Nakiel Alexander Walker, they've lost Knows Reed, they've lost Kat, they traded Julius Randall for nothing. They don't have anything. And so if you're the Hornets and you're looking forward and by the time we get to, you know, year five of con then and brandon miller has you know come into himself as like a true true player oh we got picks that are going to be fairly valuable and especially if the lottery odds go back to to the way that they were i think it's a it's a good haul for for the hornets and for minnesota

yes i was hey man it's it's it's time there's multiple there's multiple things that you have to be good at as a as a gm you have to be good at at trading you have to be good at for agency you have to be good at drafting and this puts all the pressure on Minnesota to fill every single pillar of that job because you are now on the clock, you understood the risk, and this is part of it, and it's okay to gamble sometimes

when you feel like you have to go out and do something crazy, but it is legitimately now or never for them, and there's no more deteriorating. The next deterioration is ant leaving. Yep. Are the Timbool is more likely to win the championship with Lamella Bar without?

See, that's, That's tough. And right now, with the mell ball, yeah, I'm saying more likely to. Okay. Compared to the move. So you're happy with it. Given the fact that is clearly in wind now mode or everything Donovan just said, you're happy to move overall for the terminals?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I guess I agree. It's kind of lateral. I don't think it's lateral. It's maybe lateral in like a wider sense because we do have the built-in downsides of the mellel ball that causing to be traded.

On the court, they're better with him than with Julius Randall. Right. Like they're better now. It's unfortunate that they have the don't. Antivenso contract going to be missing for the whole season because of the Achilles

injury. So they're an incomplete team that feels a little weird. That was going to be the case regardless, right? They were in a tough spot because of that. Can't really factor them

to this deal and their idea of them as a complete team. I don't like the I.O. trade at all. I mean, I.O. signing at all anymore. Because now they're in a position where they want to get their best

players in the court. They've got to start I.O. Lamello, Aunt Jada McDaniels-Gaerbert. Tiny fucking team. I suppose Anne could function as a three defensively.

And it can be like, all right, the spacing should still be good. It can be like fine. It's a whole entirely different type of team that they've been for this double big era, counting Randall and Kat both versions. They're no longer going to be this defense,

brute force, specious size type of team. We're just off that. We're now going to be a run-up another core with the mellow, pace and space, maximize Anthony Edwards off-ball type of team, which we have been asking for. I've been saying for two years now that if you're going to get Anthony Edwards

another star, stop trying to make it a big. I don't want to see another cat. see another Randall. I don't want to see even a wing. Like people would like say like Kauai, KD, Katie could be fine. But like, you know, that's not my number one priority. I want to see him with a point guard, capital P point guard, passer, passer that will set him up and make me never have to think about a point guard version of Anthony Edwards like I saw in this past year where he's lead initiator. I want Ant being a amazing off the dribble spacer, cutter, runner in transition, getting elbow touches, running off of screens, being that spacer. Like all the shooting

guard stuff, I want Ant to do. I want him to have energy for defense. I want him to be Kobe Bryant and not James Harding. Yeah. And now we got that. We got the perfect fast-paced point guard for that. Yeah. I think the one part that and the reason why I say ladder was just because the bar for them now is basically what they've done for the last couple years, which is you have to win a playoff series to stay in this window to make it feel like you guys are actually building something. Because if you make, right or wrong, you know, write it wrong. If you go into the playoffs and you lose it in the first round, we're going to come back to this exact trade.

And we're going to go back to the two moves that you made and say, oh, it's the wrong move, right? You lost the trade, whatever. I just look at them and look at how, you look at how OKC and how San Antonio are building their teams. And they're going back and forth. And you have, you have Wembe and you just drafted Jaden. And so you have that front line there.

And the OKC says we have check, guess where? We're at Mara. And so you have seven footer, seven three, defensive monster, nine foot two, right? Like you have all, you have all these pieces that have insane size. And now being able to go against that and saying, okay, we got, we got, you know, six, six, five to six nine. I'm very curious to see how that goes. And I think it is a lot of glaze and risk on Jaden McDaniels because you are now, you, you now like are showing the world. we think that he can just be

one of the 20 best players in the world and we think that he can be OG yeah he can average 20 and still for this team even even better and if they if they feel that way and we've seen flashes of it cool if you think that that you're going to get the consistency

okay but that's a that's a big ask when it comes to being go ahead be souls nope sorry to cut you off because it's not important how does your throat feel crazy better can talk full sentences now man

I figured the people should have a nice update after the calamity that was the draft stream. The 10 piece. That too. Man, every time I post now, I'll get 10 piece comments. No, that's crazy. That's feeling good, though? Yeah, yeah, it's better. I can talk full sentences now.

We're here. It doesn't hurt to swallow? No. Good. Cool. I love that for you, man. Thank you. What are your thoughts on Timberwell?

To close out this section, what do you think? No, I mean, going back to... So foolish. Going back to what you said, Donovan, at the top of your spiel when it comes to being a GM is like hard. All that bullshit you're talking. Let's get to the important part. It was good. It was good.

A little bit of fucking functionality in that noise. It was good. Like, in order to be a GM, you got to be good at drafty. You got to be good at the free agency stuff. You got to be good at trades and shit. And like, I think looking back like retrospectively, of course, like everyone feels like they gave up. Although, like, the Rudy O'Bare trade, like, did work in terms of, like, they did, like, reach pieces of their franchise in which they haven't reached in a long time, making back-to-back conference finals and all that. They did end up losing the car on the Tyn Towns trade, but this is, like, the direct, like, outcome of that of that in the Miller Ball and all the flexibility that Tim Conley sold us in.

And then they also, like, ended up outside of, like, Anthony Edwards and Jane McDaniels, they lost every single fucking draft asset that they could have possibly had. biggest one, of course, being the Rob Dillingham stuff. And they've taken, like, a lot of swings and misses. And this is, like, the final output of it. And in my opinion, of course, like, if this is the best that they could do, this is the best that they could do. And this league is, like, built off a risk. And also a whole lot of luck, too.

And I can see and imagine a universe where they have something in their back court that no other team specifically in the Western Conference for now. I can say that they have the no-n-n-n-n-n-lose-dows-d which is, like, they have the best handle and creation ability compared to every single team. also shooting more importantly and also when it comes to the mellow ball the range of which he's shooting from which is like a super strength you know for back in the day not even back in the day a couple months ago and it's been happening repetitively over the last few years when it comes to teams and their simple way to throw Minnesota off of their fucking rhythm offensively he's like yo

throw two people at anti-elwards and make them get the ball out of their hands and let other guys make your decisions yeah nine times out of 10 that shit don't work you can't do that anymore with something like a mellow ball on your team so i like their odds when it comes to finding out what's going to happen next. And La Mello Ball is that. And that just creates a whole new world opportunity. Step in the right direction. They're going to need more, of course.

I think they're going to need to find some other bigger power force so they get some size. But this is like they're in the process of like literally retooling in their prime of their rebuild right now. Simple fact, having Rudy Gober's screens with two of the best off the triple shooters in the league is going to give you a pretty goddamn high floor offensively. We'll see if they can build up the roster the rest of the way

and give you one more big wing or power forward-sad body to make you feel good long-term about them being like an upper-level contender but you really can't be upset about the fit on paper routine those two guards. Yeah, I'm looking at the draft picks now. They have, in terms of, like, their own draft picks

that they have no protection, nothing. They have 2028 and they have 2032. And that's what they have for the next seven years. Yeah. It's two picks, two first-round picks that they are actually in control of. And I, for their sake, I hope that they can get it, you know,

get things together. because you don't have a lot of avenues after this to get better. Yep. So we will see. Risky trade for both sides, but you see the vision for both sides at least a little bit. You can quibble with the surrounding parts, but makes sense overall for both teams.

Now let's get over to our NBA free agency predictions. We're going to go through all the biggest names, talk about the latest rumors and updates reporting-wise for those players, let you know what we think about where we want to see them go or where we think they'll go. naturally we had to begin with the biggest reports from this morning LeBron James A lot of lot of smoke around LeBron James right now

Apparently the Lakers haven't given a single offer yet It was reported yesterday that they reached out to Rich Paul And said we're ready to we want LeBron James back LeBron James has not made himself available for Lakers to speak yet Dremont Green just opted out of his player option of $27 million And when Shams tweeted that out He added some reporting to it You got to read through the language of Shams

So understand where his sources are coming from what they're trying to say he basically said straight up that this is happening because the report that they are pursuing LeBron James and Anthony Davis is trying to come to fruition. And the implication here is that Dremont Green will probably take less money to make it happen. That there's a lot of smoke here that Anthony Davis and LeBron James will both play with the duo of Dremont and Curry. Dude, you know what's so funny. When it comes to, I got so curious the other day when after the, after the Wizards draft to Agent of Vance, I was like, okay, cool.

Let me go ahead and look at what A.D. what AD is up to and I see like his recent IG posts he posts about the Maverace of course there's been the old post about the Lakers and shit and then I see a whole bunch of like ads which is normal for someone who's late who's late stage in his career he hasn't posted Jack's shit about the Wizards at all

and honestly I don't even know if I've seen a real like photo of him in a Wizards of Jersey outside of Photoshop which is hilarious yeah it's it's been a very non-existent era so far and it we talked about it kind of makes sense that he'd be out the door you really can't pay Trey Young and Anthony Davis

and Anthony Davis is represented by Rich Paul. I guarantee you Rich Paul wants an extension right now for Anthony Davis. He doesn't want to go into the next year with only one or two years left on his deal. He wants more solidified money. And I suppose this makes sense. This is this going to happen? Are we predicting this is going to happen? I think, so I think it is.

Also, Draymond at age 36, declining a basically $28 million. He wants to win. That's tough. investigate everybody that's your thought I'm like respect he wants LeBron bad yeah

he's about what he said he's about he is but also at the same time once again investigate everybody because that that money's getting paid on the back that's crazy even if it's not like

he's been obviously been a huge LeBron fan for years now been kind of soft launch in this clearly it's not soft launch it's hard it's hard launch you're right you're not an idiot you see the picture yeah

he's not an idiot bro He's not just saying this is my friend. He's saying things in the media, because even though he's friends with LeBron, I'm sure there's some amount of massage in the relationship, and he knows that LeBron sees all the podcasts, sees the clips of how much Raymond loves him, and that I'll potentially make him more inclined to come to the Warriors. This has been the long game,

and now he's not only putting his reputation on the line, being the big LeBron fan, he's putting his money on the line saying, I will take less to make this happen and give me and Steph one last chance to win a title. He loves LeBron. That's so crazy. I ain't a lot.

I don't think I would do that. Graham is just like me in every way. I wouldn't give a $27.8 million for LeBron. That shit is OD to me. He's like a top line glazer. It's probably like $12 million you're giving up. What if they came with a clutch chain? No, I ain't doing it.

Well, Dr. Morgan probably has a clutch chain. So it had to come with a LeBron chain to pair with the clutch chain. Yeah. Does Jeremy only want a LeBron chain around his neck? He would. Yeah, he would. Maybe. LJ Crown.

A James gang. I'm James Gay, brutal. You can pick it up, bite it. LJ. Yeah, yeah. So that's obviously part of it is I think the idea is Dr. Mall Green takes less money

to make them dip below the aprons at the tax even and they can give LeBron the full mid-level exception which is $15 million a year. And to do that, they don't got a sign-in-trade.

LeBron can just come. You can say the Lakers, fuck off. I'm not going to get you anything in return. I'll take $15 million to play with my friends. Other side of that, though.

They got to trade Jimmy Butler plus stuff for Anthony Davis to make that money work. is that what you'd want to do if you're a Warriors fan? Knowing Jimmy Butler's going to be 37 coming off an ACL tear, knowing Anthony Davis is never healthy. Yeah, and also knowing that the ACLTAR happened like later in the season. So he may not be back until like February.

February. Maybe March. And at that point in time, you have like a month of real basketball, not even real basketball. Biggest basketball ever played. So it's like, yeah, no, like I 100% would be willing to move whatever it is, whether you're allowed to do the Yaxel stuff and attach him. and Jimmy Baller for AD.

Yeah, now as time goes on and knowing that AD would be a part of this conversation, that pulls me a little bit more because I'm like, okay, like, you're not sending LeBron out there to fucking embarrass himself at all towards the literally last legs of his career. I'm more of a fan of it now, and I think that if, I don't, when it comes to winning a championship of all that, that's just not in my head, my head. Of course, it is in their head because that's what they want. but when it comes to like what they still be missing it's pretty gaping they need more sides

so I think they in terms of like backup big and all that shit it'll have you figure it out but I like it. It's a good move in the right direction they're just still it's an unction man it's an auction for sure but this is the ultimate unction we've been saying this all year LeBron reasonable reasons to lead the Lakers

it's not a guarantee that he should stay there's reasons that think he should stay as well but he can leave he is a third fiddle and isn't an optimum fit there. Even when they get going well and maximize the three ball handlers and the Lakers at the same time,

he's never going to make them better defensively, which is really with the Lakers need from that spot. He knows this. He knows he's a kind of odd man out in this new Austin Reeves Luca pairing. If I can say I feel just as good

about my ability to win with the unction or this imperfect big three, and I can go play with AD again and my guy, Steph, and my best friend, Draymond, or best fan, Draymond? Why wouldn't I want to do this from LeBron? Bro.

I've been saying, this man. I want Curry and LeBron to do a tandem last dance. Come on. That would be devastating. First Brown Usher Tour type shit. You keep throwing that name out there. Every time you talk about legends. There's better duos to bring up. Stop comparing my kingdom

Chris Brown. What other duos are there? Any, pick whatever you want. Pick outcast. I don't know. Yeah, something like that, man. Just, you know, two to go to a generation just torn it up. Stop saying that. Chris Brown's out of go. Fuck, no, he's at a go.

Fuck no. He did a backflip on B. He's better than Beyonce. He made hits when he was 16. Come on, man. Real combos. Running came out 21 years ago. Give it up.

Real combos I've heard. So we're talking about A. All right, Chris Brown is smoking usher in that tour. My bad. My bad. My bad. All right, man.

You on back seat passes. Hearing about Chris Brown in 2026, you're disgusting. You're on backseat patches? I'm just telling y'all what the people have been telling me. You're talking about. the wrong type of people. I'm full, I'm feeling a Sean Marks right now. Did you go to the tour?

No, no, no. Did you pay for the VIP passes? I have not. I've just been consuming discourse about it. Fair enough. I can't consume discourse now. I don't know. I can consume the discourse I don't care about.

So I'm with you. That's funny. Steph Curry, Brandon Pajemski, LeBron James, Draymond Green, Anthony Davis, Yaxel off the bench. How else we felt the rotation? I would still, I feel like,

Horford's there. Needs to be traded. No, they're going to get multiple picks and, and do you have other, Quentin Post. I think if you're, if you're the Wizards and you get like, more Guy.

Two first time picks and a swap. Guy's good. That's cool. Yeah, Guy's nice. Yeah, Guy. So you have Guy, you have Yaxil,

you have Al Horford, and Gary Payton the second still there. Pat Spencer, okay. Pat Spencer, that's a team. Quinn Post, whatever he can give you, but you have Horford and AD

you don't really need Quinn Post, but it's good next. That's not a horrible team. In fact, it's a very good team. Steph Curry is still a top 10 player. Maybe he's only going to give you 55 games a year as well as the rest of those guys. We maneuver for that right.

We get his 55 and his 55 and his 55 and his 55. Kind of get some good overlaps there where you get pockets where everybody's healthy and everybody's healthy at the end. That is a dangerous team that can make some noise, obviously barring health, which is always going to be the question mark. The reason you can do this. I don't hate that if I'm a Warriors fan. No, because I think honestly if you're a Warriors fan at this point, can we just have a fun season? the last couple years have just been so so blah and you know that like you're not going to win a title and then it just feels like you've been struggling so much to to get to a point and you

had the run when jimmy butler first got there and they went you know 18 and three and you won you won the playoff series against the rockets and since then again it's been some more injuries it's been this incomplete lineup i do just want to have a good time because everybody does Everybody knows what this is. Everybody knows that we're at the end of Steph Curry's career and that we're just trying to make sure that he doesn't go out sad and that you want to make sure that he is in a Warriors jersey for his entire career.

So bring in LeBron will be nice. And if you're a Warriors fan, you can hold that up against all the other, like, best players of the generation of like, y'all all had to come to Steph. Y'all had to come to his team to play with him and do all that. So there's definitely some pluses. if you're a Warriors fan, seeing the unction come together in that way.

So final prediction, where do we think LeBron James gonna go? Yeah, Golden's Day. Golden's Day, obviously, Lakers and Cavs are the other fan favorites. That makes sense logically. Yeah. It is probably a safe assumption

he's not gonna play for any jerseys besides those three. Do you guys believe anything about the Bronn back to Miami? No. I don't know why. What sentimentality does he have around the heat that he'd want to retire?

I'd rather see him join the fucking Wizards before the Miami hero. I don't know about that part. I'm just saying his brain in the NBA team, but there's nothing for him in Miami. me at all. Nothing?

There's something there. There's something for him. At least if the jersey he's played him before. I think he probably is aware that he doesn't want a Wizards Jordan era. He doesn't want to have some fuck-ass random team at the end. I mean, that would be like with the words. Exactly. And I bet that's the one thing that's holding them up.

I bet if that was a heat jersey with all things would equal, he'd be there. I bet the idea of going to a last team for your last year to have your washed era to be a magic akim or whatever, like a raptors akim. I bet that is in his head. For me personally, my still my favorite outcome outside of like this, I think he's still on the Lakers. But outside of that,

I'll want to see him still like be a San Antonio Spurr. It would be cool as hell to see like the goat of the previous generation. You're chasing. Pass the baton literally and like help Wemby and all those guys like actually like learned a winning clothes. I'm not going to lie. How is it not nasty. It's not a lot.

It's good. It's nasty work. How? Bro, they just were in the finals. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, they were in the finals. He lost his old. He can win chase.

Yeah. You're doing a lot now. How, though? He can ring chase. He's a hundred years old. He's 52. Ring chasing. First of all, I have to see, I have to see what the money looks like.

Because, like, if he goes there and, like, takes, like, like, no, no money to go there. Then, like, that, that version of a ring chasing. You keep saying, that's such a weird stance to take for someone's like, if it's his last dance, who cares if he gets 10-miller or 2-mill? It's his last dance. In practice, it's better than joining the Warriors just to, again, you. you're doing the same thing, rain chasing, you're trying to build this insanely stacked team. I don't think LeBron would go to the Warriors if it's only him and not AD2. That wouldn't make no sense.

First of all, there's a big difference between insanely stacked team of the Spurs who just made it to the finals and the, and the Warriors and that, that unction. Like, those are two completely different things. Listen, first of all, I don't want to get caught up in this. All I know is that I do want it to happen. The Instagram stories are going to be hilarious and legendary, and I would like to see it. Okay. Hands down.

Yeah. The betting favorites should probably still be because of the Lakers, I guess. But they either smoke here and if the Lakers don't come with the offer he respects. As a Lakers fan,

I'm okay with it if he joins the Warriors. I hope he does a sign and trade to some sort. We get something for him, like the Cavs or whatever, like you know if it's getting Max Drus or whatever.

I would like some rotation player of merit. But if it leads for nothing, I don't really care. Yeah. If I was Brian, obviously you can get the money if you're doing like a sign and trade.

But just to, be petty to the Lakers. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that for you. I don't know if he has pettiness to the Lakers right now. There's been some weird stuff out there that like he doesn't love being third fiddle, obviously. Like that doesn't bother him too much.

But I don't think there's like animosity where he's like, they can't get nothing off my name. Like I don't know if there's quite that level of pettiness. It just like every every turn, the Lakers, especially for the last couple years, the Lakers are like, oh my God. Like we have to deal with LeBron. It's like, all right, fine. Like if you don't, if you don't want me to be here, I won't be here.

And I'm not going to, I'm not going to help you. He'll let a chip be on the shoulder, too. I'm not going to help you on my way out after it's just been such a burden to have, to have me here. I'm not going to do that for you. Go where you're love. You know what? Go where your love. Yes.

Yeah. But like you said, he'd be up in his pockets, first and foremost, because he wants to get that $30 million payday. And I don't know if those sign and trade options really there for the Warriors. It might have to be like you come for the mid-level or it's not going to happen because what would they even have the signing trade? I guess they can just do Actually no they can't do that I was not saying they can do it Just to make a trade exception for the Lakers

But that means the Warriors Not to have a cap space and they don't So It's kind of 15 mil or nothing Yeah Now another team could do the sign of trade Obviously because if you wanted to get 20 mil from the cavaliers

They can send back Struce and Merrill or whatever That could happen Without giving up like Jared Allen Yep That's your decision, LeBron This looks kind of gross It doesn't look good in practice at all

I like Aideagel in there Yeah, AD's mine, but given the lore of it all, man How do you even feel like AD will, like no one even knows how to talk about AD or what he would look like? We're probably underrating him, honestly. His 33 feels like 43 right now. And like he just feels like an afterthought at this point. And you're right, I think we do. We do a lot acting like he toured Achilles or something.

Just because also he was on his tanking team, like didn't play him for two straight years. Had like an eye injury that fucked him over. Like, we definitely act like his knees are cooked when they're probably not quite as serious as that. Well, we do that for him because he is who he is. You know, and so also these guys have been, they haven't looked this young in five years. Yeah, LeBron is a gray beard now. 80 doesn't have that haircut anymore. Yeah, it's much, it's much different.

Draymond's green is much grayer. Yeah, not quite as. Yeah, this is like a 2018 version of this core. Yeah. We're eight years past that. That's a good. I'm just saying, just LeBron and the Warriors is he's just. It just feels bad for his, like, career.

Like, can you imagine going on in his, basketball reference seen the LeBron the caviars and you see the Miami years back to the Cavalakes like oh fuck it and you see one year GSW, ugh, 15 points ugh. You won like 43 games?

What the fuck were you gone, man? 50 points? Yeah. Oh, what? Six or six. Yeah, what? Hang that shit up at this point. Sixteen games played at best. It's not necessary. No. What did they make the finals? Okay, that that would be That would be crazy.

That would be crazy. That would be insane. I want to see the limits to Dremont's recruiting. Yeah. Is Brown Warren 23? Yes. No, Dremont will get that shit.

If he gave up all that money, he would give it 23 too. Well, LeBron might be okay with six. Maybe he wanted to go six couple years ago. I think so, but what if Brown was just testing? Actually,

it'll be weird because Dremont is getting that 23 retired immediately. So I don't know. So is he not doing it? And then he just said, listen, I think it would be fair if Bronn, like, was like, okay, you gave a bought out money. let me just

Lebron went asked for it. I don't think he should. But if he did, Draymond would say yes an instant. Yeah. He might. I don't know.

I doubt it. I think LeBron likes to, he seems like he wants to go back to six. You tried it two years ago. They didn't let him. Yo,

Draymon's a top. Wait, can he, can he even do that anymore? Because isn't six retired league wide? Oh. Oh, for Bill? Yeah.

Oh, true. And so he's not six right now. So what number would he wear? Is he going to wear? He goes to the Lord. He's going to be in a 21 jersey? Like what jersey is this? Put the six upside down, nine, I guess.

32? Flip 30, 32, 32, 32. Yeah, what number is he going to be? You got to flip one of those numbers. He might be, Bronny wears nine, so would he wear the same number as Bronny? I guess, but Bronny's him with him. What's his Olympic number? Six.

Six. Oh. He can't, he can't do it. But we can't have some random number. We can't have number 40, LeBron. Yo, Bill. Rest your soul. But he got to understand this.

He will understand this. He will understand. He'd for sure understand. Bill, be cool with this too. He'll be like, is the only person I can wear ever again is LeBron? Yeah.

That's honor right there. That's respect. What number is he gonna wear? Is he gonna wear number one? 32 or nine. That's so weird. Probably nine. My money would be on nine.

Which, give him three. Yuck. Three. Three? Yeah. Ah, that's weird. That's 80's number. 80's number three.

Yeah, because AD can't wear 23. Adrian, I might give it up. You go wear 32. Jermon's gonna give it up Wow It's crazy I'm actually I'm actually

I'm really invested in this right now I really didn't know what number he's He wants to wear 32 Yeah I can see Dremont on like a number 42 jersey You know what I'm saying What is? He has to be a linebacker

Go on top Full linebacker mode 54 for Dremont Green This final year All right Dremont's Olympic number Is 14 It's a terrible number

So So just Let's say what what is Does Dremont move to 14 Brong gets 23 80 gets three I can see that Everybody's happy.

Just really embrace this last era. Okay. If Dremont gets it up, then I'll be down with it. Dremont will be honored to LeBron where he's yours. I'd actually be shocked if Dremont moves to 14. Don't be. I'm telling you now, don't be. All right, but that's LeBron as our first name of our free agency preview.

Let's fly through some more names now. That's not the main character of the NBA. Kauai Leonard is linked to trade talks. We talk about this as the season went on. Made sense that logically that you kind of have to trade. if you're the clippers. You sent out James Hardin, you're pivoting to a younger direction,

got number five pick, which blessed you to have another young pillar. It would be weird not to trade Kauai, honestly. They agree. He is linked to both the Spurs and most recently, heavily linked to the Raptors.

Seems like they are trying to make this happen. I also saw a rumor that Messiah, who's now with the Mavs, trying to make that happen with them. Could be cool. But Sean has reported this morning, there is serious trade talks to send him back to the Raptors

where he would once again be going there on an expiring contract. I read that this would only be a thing simply because, of course, I think he would prefer there, but he would prefer there mainly because, yeah, they'd be willing to, like, re-sign him for whatever the fuck he wants. Probably a two-year extension would be logical.

Yeah, and that makes sense, and I'm not going to lie, hey man, you get brand-a-ind him off of my hands, you got a deal. That alone can make it worth it. I'm assuming it'd be like Ingram. It was reported they wanted like three first and Calamory Boyles, which the kick-rocks. Probably like Ingram, two first.

and a swap? I do it. You do it? The clippers need all the picks they can get. The two firsts, the picks makes it like a little bit harder for me because Kauai is like, what, 34 years old? 35, 305 today. Fuck.

Happy birthday to Kauai, 35 year old man. 35 year old guy. That's tough. That shit looked crazy, bro. I'm not going to lie. Because last week I was talking about, yo, I want Kauai for Jill and Baum. We'll get into that too. I was like, damn.

Kauai's 35. That really just hit. I know. Yeah. So I, well, there's clearly in serious trade talks. I don't even know there's much predictions to make. Seems like he's probably going to be a rafter. Yeah.

And for the Clippers, shout out to you. Especially doing this before the punishment from the aspiration investigation comes down. What if it just never comes down? Honestly, honestly, I keep saying that. They might say there's no wrongdoing. Yeah. Maybe at this point, if you trade for, for Kauai, you deserve to be scared. Whatever, whatever happens next that is on you.

I can't out blame anybody. I've never seen anybody if the trade does happen. You are willingly buying a lemon. I can't get behind it. I can't get behind giving up assets to go get. Anybody who's just regularly 35, you're like, damn, he's old. Anybody who's 35 years old and it has the injury history that Kauai Leonard does, you're like, wow, that seems kind of risky.

And no new cartilage. Yeah. anybody who is that old has that injury history and is currently being investigated by the NBA, you're like, damn, we should probably not trade for him. What if, like, Adam Silver just did his thing in the background, waterboarded Steve Bomber and told him, don't do it again. Cool. But he got a waterboard him first?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, really, like, show him serious business. So what if he waterboarded, Steve bomber? What do I respond to you with? And you know what? Deal is done. No more talk about the Kwai Bang.

You know what? The Clippers try to keep secrets. can keep secrets. Yeah, exactly. Clean your hands. A little bit of waterboarding makes up for a lot. Yeah.

You pay your dues. If you don't want to keep it that serious, like, okay, go ahead and give him a swirling. How old Steve Bomber is? One of your million toilets. I hope he's Steve Bomber can take

five seconds of waterboarding. I don't know. He's kind of crazy. You're going to kill Steve Barmer. He's a tough to practice that shit, honestly. He's crazy. Yeah, he's insane.

Every more in the toilet. He watered himself. He's in one of the millions of toilets. To build a resistance. Yeah, every morning. tasers. Yeah.

So I mean, I guess if you're getting off Ingram's contract, I mean, the Raptor's just obviously you're always chasing like averageness. So I guess it's a better version of that team. Him and Scotty is like an awesome duo. I've been saying I want Scotty Barnes to go be somebody's pipin to their Jordan.

Kauai is the closest thing you can get to that, I guess. For the next two years, maybe hopefully three, that Kauai is really, really good and planning a top 10 player. Okay. Top 10 easily last year. At 38. I would do it.

I said two years. I'm not counting much in third year. I think you're at 37. The goal would be at two good years in the last year, you know,

that's the price we're getting the two good years. I guess quickly as a spacer, Kauai's a go-to-score Scottie Barnes is the perfect psychie. There's a bunch of little things.

I would need to feel good about their center position. Give me a Yakub upgrades somehow. Somehow. It's not happening. He asks for too much. I don't know.

Maybe like, I don't know like, Miles Turner's out there getable to try to dump his contract. So we're something. We're far away right now. Can you put your hand on his shoulder right now and just let him know.

Buddy, that's not happening. Why not? That's not going down. That's just a lot to ask. No, it's not. Miles is a bad contract thing is going to get dumped. Asking to get a bad contract. I'm saying to get those pieces and be like, yeah, we're going to get best version of all these pieces and move forward as a, as a, as a legitimate future.

I do think that that's a win a championship. But I can feel like okay about the vision. If it's Kauai and I'll just use Miles Turner as an example, but insert average starting center here. I would feel okay Is the vision If you're getting Kawai Especially at this stage

In his career I assume that the vision Would be Okay we can make some type A serious playoff push Yes And so if you have Kawai and Scottie

And doing all that That's what I'm saying Trying to get Best version Of all of those moving pieces And saying And you're saying

I'm not talking about winning a championship Then that's why I feel like What are we actually Doing here? Well I would say You keep saying All these pieces

There's one piece here that's moving and that's Kauai Leonard's health. That's the only issue here. Like, sure, other people can get hurt, quickly's gotten hurt, but it's not like he's a debilitating knee. If your lineup is quickly,

R.J. Barrett, Kauai, Scottie Barnes, Miles Turner. The only moving piece is Kauai Leonard. And he just had a healthy year, let's say, like it's not a horrible bet, I guess, to say, can he do it again, especially when like you said, you can shed the Ingram contract.

If he's healthy and he plays whatever amount of games, healthy means for him, he's available for the playoffs, why can't that be the second or third best team in the conference if things go poorly. No, somebody always gets hurt.

Like, why can't they be in the mix with the heat or whatever? Like, why not? That's the thing. I 100% agree with this idea if it, when it does happen, I don't know, but the Miles Turner stuff, but in general, I would do it because you are going to be, like, for sure in the mix. And that's all that's needed for them. No one's really expecting them to make a championship run.

But this certainly puts them closer to that. What's the other option, right? Rather than, like, before. Exactly. There is no other option. They tried to do, they tried to swing for a lame for a little ball. Obviously, they didn't want to give up the assets for it, which is understandable. And I think this is like a great backup idea.

Well, I just, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's a being attached to to it. I will see with what they mount would be. Yeah. And I think it that's, that's, that's really where I'm getting caught up where if we're, if we're barring a little bit too much from, from the future to go get Kauai, that's where it makes me uncomfortable. Because I, I do agree, obviously, like, if you had Kauai over Brandon Ingram, a hundred percent. That is much better than, than what we have now. But I think the unreliability of, of Kau makes me not want to go too far into the future and not take some of these picks where Scotty Barnes is still really young he proved last year like he you know you shut down the

scotty barn versus the emmobly conversations he is i shut that shit down my damn so you personally hell yeah i just like you want to argue about it come see me no discourse bitch you want to talk bitch i'll kill you You want to debate? That was your job last year. You want a debate? How about I get a gun? Sledgehammer into the fucking face.

Now what? And that's exactly what you did last year. And so seeing all of these pieces and seeing Scottie level up, that's where I'm like, I would like to be just a little bit more flexible in like a year or two as opposed to hitching my wagon to Kauai right now. And that's going to cost me something later down the line. Yeah. Last three years, 24, he said healthy, played through the final.

they lost, 68 games played, 25, he only played 37 games, that's when the injury flared up again, and last year, 65 games. It's not like it's too straight 37 games. He's 35. I know, I'm not saying, if it wasn't risky,

he would be a five first round picked up a guy. So it's baked into that. The fact they can get him and get off a bad contract like Ingram, the risk is baked in, you know, so. Honestly, not I think about it, too, if they didn't get, seeing what La Mello was traded for

and how the picks are, eh, the picks are probably going to be lower for him. It might be just one pick on. It might be a pick and swap. sense. It doesn't make sense for them to pass up on Lamello, who I would rather have than Kauai at this point considering age, if you're just going to, if you're going to give up less picks. Well, the idea would probably be the Ingram contract. They probably wouldn't take back Ingram.

True. True. Yeah. True. Yeah. So I, yeah. And that's worth, yeah, I like that. And that's worth one in a swap. You're given two picks to get off Ingram. Like, that's not a bad deal. Even if it is just to get off Ingram, like, that's not a just probably protection on the picks. I'm not terribly mad at it if they do this. Yeah. And so I, like, ultimately, if it gets done, I want to see, you know, what the, what the compensation is like, I just, we get to, to these guys and you start, you start getting older and like even, look at AD and somebody who, who historically has had a lot of,

a lot of injuries. And he gets traded to, to Dallas and plays two quarters, a quarter and a half. And then it gets hurt. You trade for, you, you send him to Washington. Immediately, we're already talking about him on, on another team. Jimmy Butler played well for in Golden State because he's 37 now. Jimmy Butler was 36 and tore his ACL. I think these with the way that the game is played right now, guys who are aging,

guys who have already had injury concerns. It makes me really nervous. For sure. A lot of baked and downside. It's very boom-rebuster. He's a franchise legend. He got them the first ring. It'll be a good storybook in this too.

I'll do it. Next name, B. Souls. What is the latest on Jalen Brown? Seems like he's all but gone. the reputation, I mean the conversation around his, you know, like feelings about the team, all but broken. A lot of teams linked to him. Who have you been texting with about the gentleman brown stuff?

Yeah, what do you, Bill someone's talking about on the side? We're cooked. We're baked. Brad Stevens. You're on fraud alert. Fraud alert. That's what it is right now. Fraud alert.

He's been missing a lot. He's been missing a lot. What are you missing? What are we missed on? Okay, not a lot. Not a lot. But he's had a lot of consecutive misses lately. A lot of consistent.

consecutive. What do you mean? Anthony Simons trade. That's one. Okay. The Yonis trade. Okay. Is that fair to call that a miss? He didn't get him, but like... I think the fact that you opened the door to get him and you didn't do it, now you're fucked because you literally probably have to move off of J.B. So I can understand that.

What if I want to do that anyways? Exactly. Fuck him. What if I already wanted him gone? What if I don't care about his feelings? I don't think they did want him gone now, but... I don't think they did. They wanted him gone for Yonis. Yeah. But if Janus wasn't on the table, I think they would have just reconfigured.

And then even after the Janus aftermath, they were heavily linked to Rudy Gobert and Nas Reid. That fell through two. There were some rumors about Lamello. That fell through too. I see what you're doing. You are having the same flaw. Every fan does is where you read too much on Twitter about Jake Fisher reports and shit like that and get yourself hyped up that they're going to happen.

I see what you're going through. As a Lakers fan happens to my team's fan base every summer, get too excited about what could be and start assuming these things are actually in talks, that's tough. Also, if you guys got Lamello, you would have considered that a miss, I think. If you traded Jaylon Brown for Lamello and he was just starting porn,

I don't think you would have liked that. That would be an interesting one. I think for me, post-Yonis, we are settling for any package, in my opinion. Like, there's no clear package out there that I'm like, yo, the Celtics are clearly better. Now, after this Jalen Brown trade versus before.

Well, let's talk about that then because they also could just keep him. He has multiple years left. He's a super max player. It's awkward. It doesn't happen a lot. They're in a situation they could say, yeah, let's make all this have dinner.

Go to work. Yeah. But there's a lot of smoke out there you might get traded. I think the Timberwolves are currently, my bad. I think the Trailblazers are currently the betting favorite. Where do you think he will go to question to everybody? Prediction time.

Um, there's a lot of smoke with Denver right now too. Yeah. I can, I can see Denver. The package is in that before you keep going. is Jalen Brown and Cam Johnson or for, my bad. Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson for Jalen Brown and Sam Hauser?

Yeah. Would that move you? I think it does. Yeah, I don't think he stays because even before the offseason hit and before it was officially reported that Jalen was put in the Yonest trade, we talked about how July 26th, he is eligible for an extension. And if you're the Celtics, knowing all the stuff that has happened over the last decade, if you are not willing to give him that extension right then in that day two months ago,

then you were going to have to trade him. So even if you try and make up right now, this is not something where Jalen Brown is going to be happy coming back to the Celtics after all of this, uh, yonest stuff has happened and potentially not getting an extension at the end of this month. You either have to give him the money or you trade them. I don't think that they're comfortable doing that. So I do think he will be traded.

I think Denver is probably the best option because as Tatum comes back, you have, you get two players that can keep you in a somewhat contending window. Yeah. Okay. Now, looking at these scenes right now, I think my favorite possible outcome, Denver is interesting. And I do think they do need to make something happen and shake something up. And this could be it. And it'll be interesting seeing just like a bunch of forwards, I guess, in Peyton Watson and Danlin Brown alongside Yokich. and Yokic can figure everything out because we're talking about him like he's the best

playing in the world. Just very much probably is that. I like that. Outside of that, I want to see the pisses to make a swing. But I don't know if the Celtics would do that. So we'd be knowing that this guy is like they're right here. If we give him, if we give them Jalen Brown, they could make the fucking finals next year. Yeah.

Which will take us out. So I don't know if that would be a good idea for them. There were some small rumors about like a sign-in trade with Jalen Dern that quickly died down. But still possible. Still possible. You think Joe Muzulu could fix Yon Dern? I don't think what Jayland Dern he's fixing for real though

So like I think I would like that If I was a Celtics fan Yeah I think I think I would like sell myself On Jalen Duren I want more Because obviously you need more Because Jalen Duren is always Like 40 mil

Jaylen Bram makes like 60 And that's the hard part His money is like insane To talk about So like I don't even know if they can get that together Like where's the other 20 mil coming from I don't

Yeah I don't know I mean because Tobias also It's a free gym as well So like Yeah so it's awkward And I guess that does make the Nuggets thing kind of likely because they have those big salaries. I'll go there.

Prediction needs a nugget. I do think that does happen. They need to get another guard in the door because I think Denver does. Your best player, offensive player to pair with Yokch doesn't got to be a guard, but you want some type of dribble handoff operator that can do the slithery stuff to help set up Yokch that Jamal Murray does. And I think Jaila Brown can do a little bit of that. It looks different.

It's a little more clunky, a little more power-based. But the off-ball movement of Jalen Brown off of Yokish can be so good that makes up for it. I'd want to pair him with a Peyton-Pretcher type. And obviously, they're not sending Peyton Pritcher. specifically. But if I'm the nuggets, I need to make the trade for Jalen Brown and then make another trade to get a guard. I think even early in our conversations about this whole Jalen Brown stuff,

outside of yon is there were two names that I threw out there, that being Kauai and Jamal Murray. So I don't know, I'm still high on Jamal Murray. There was a lot made last year about the Celtics being like a three-point heavy reliant system. And also I made the point of like, when you look down this roster, they don't have a lot of elite three-point shooters as much as you would think. Here comes too.

So I don't know Maybe adding Jamal Murray Who shot like 45% last year from three Would help And Cam Johnson You know what I'm saying So if you're gonna shoot threes At least have good three point shooters

That'll be my idea Jamal Murray Derek White Tatum Cam Johnson Insert center here Which is another movie they have to do Because they still need to get a center I can buy the vision there Yeah

I can buy the vision for sure That is disgusting And I can buy the idea of that You need to sell high on Jalen Brown Obviously the discourse Have been what it is on Twitter this week Don't want to get into that at all But the idea of him being

whether you want to call it overrated or just a guy who is at as high as value right now and it's worth catching it on, I think is firmly true. You've been trying to trade him for a decade. Get the job done. Yeah, you really do have to do it. I do feel like for Jalen Brown.

Like, and I wonder what the actual mentality for him is because obviously throughout this conversation we've been saying like, you know, he wants his own team and does he want to do that? I'm not sure if it's as much as I want my own team as it is, I just want to be respected in the place that I'm at. And from the moment that you've, from the moment that he's been in Boston, they, every two to three years, they're putting him in trade talks.

And he keeps doing really everything that they ask of him. And more. Yeah, and more. So even if he does go to Denver and it's very clearly Yolk's team, they will probably appreciate him a little bit more, or he will feel more appreciated there than what's happening in Boston right now. And that might be enough. That might be good.

Okay. I hope it is the Nuggets, but I don't have a good feel. Realistically, he might just be a Celtic still. There's a lot of traction with the Trailblazers specifically, but. Yeah. Coming from the Celtics side, I don't like what the hell of. As an NBA fan, that would be the most boring outcome, personally, because, I mean, I'll make the Trailblazers better, but, like, I don't think anyone thinks they're going to be.

So I don't think in that jersey, though. I can imagine him in that jersey very well. Yeah. Is the owner going to want to pay him that money? I'll be not. Probably want to give him a $40 million a pay cut. Yeah. Next names.

Let's link these two guys together because these are two of the most important players of free agency who are also restrictive free agents. The big man duo that Lakers are pursuing and Walker Kessler and Jalen Duren. What do we think is going to happen here?

Obviously, Lakers have at least $50 million in cap space. DeAndre Aden just opted in so that would not be ballooning to 58 with him. They can still have more mechanisms to get more, but he is opting in. So they're currently sitting at $50 million. A lot of reports, they obviously won a big man. Luca Danchich requested a list.

big man to make him happy for this summer in which, you know, the summer is the one year they can really build this team out. Duren's going to cost at least 40 mil. Any kind of a stalemate? Walker Kessler was offered 28 mil. He said, hell not. I'm guessing he's going to cost like 35-ish. Where do you guys and those two guys end up? Is it with their own team?

Or do you think the Lakers poachers one? The Lakers probably get one. It is funny. Like, I want to know if Luca ever be like, yeah, I just need a C-plus big. Like, I walked I walked upstairs personally requested a C plus big instead of instead of an A plus one.

I think he like eight last year I think he did like that C plus big C plus please I think he was like I'm cool with this right now that's funny but yeah

no they probably they probably get one of them just because and I would say I would say Kessler I think I feel Kessler

yeah it makes a little bit more more sense because you can overpay for him you can't really overpay for Dern because I think the Pistons are more inclined

to be able to match they just kind of don't want to pay 40 million for Daryin but like they can if it comes to it no naturally can do a sign and trade and make it worth their everybody but I think if the idea is giving an offer that the other team can't match I don't think the jazz like

we keep saying they can match Kessler and like I suppose theoretically they can County George is open for an extension now I think they like him a lot obviously and are going to pay him they could pay Kessler 2830 mil 35 to 40 gets tough

financially yeah you just got Darren in the in the building you want to be an apron team on your first year trying to make the playoffs? I guess. Probably not. But then also, too, you have to imagine

with life without Kessor would look like. A lot of Jared at the 5. And that's, you just can't, you can't live like that at all. You can't. You can't.

Philipowski still. It's a little weird. Flipowski, no, you can't live like that. He's good. Now, nationally not like a defender like that,

but he's a good back of five. I mean, and also in, at least in the Jazz Department, you had, you had life without Kessler last year. And so you got, you got to see just a little bit of what do.

You don't like that shit at all for real. But now, I mean, but now you're switching your entire philosophy to, oh, we actually do want to win games. Maybe it's like Mitch. Yeah. So, like, you have, you have a different outlook on how you're going to approach the season. You have a different incentive structure. So, yeah, they probably do go out and get another big so that Jaron isn't the full-time five. But that, that team is a little bit.

It's just clunky and, like, Lowry's still here in the, in the mix. If you're paying everybody all this, all this money, like you said, in year one of just trying to figure out what we have, that's a bad strategy. And also for either of these teams, let's say they get an offer, they don't want to match from the Lakers. And obviously they could just let them walk, right? Pretty unlikely you do that, just as a good general manager. You probably at least threaten matching and force them to agree to a sign and trade. You can get Aidan back to stopgap for $8 million expiring contract for one of these teams. That makes more sense to me for the Pistons.

I think if the Lakers were to offer during full four year, 40 million a year, and the Pistons just have no parts of desire for that, I suppose you could work out a deal where the Lakers send their two first and Aaten back. and you have Aiden as a stopgap center for you while you figure out the next pivot for Kade's Cunningham, Kaye Cunningham's running mate. I wouldn't hate that personally for the Pistons if they get two picks and Aiden for him. Yeah, I feel like that's probably more likely with the Pistons because we've seen the Pistons be super stingy before as of late when it comes to offseason moves and shit.

And if they were going to do something, I think that would make more sense compared to because they have options and compared to what Utah has going on. There's just a lot less like insurance there. I don't like the Mitchell Robinson idea because I think I view him as like a strictly like you could back up big 20 minute per game by same thing like you don't rely on them for 82 game season.

Yeah. What do we want to like to get for those two? Prediction wise or just your own opinion let's say they have the ability to get both who would you rather than pursue? It's weird. Kessler. I think Kessler's a better obviously defensive fit but he's not much of a lop threat for real. I think he's a lot threat. He's not much

of a creative finisher. But I think I mean he's he's huge frame and can jump. He's like a go bear type of loft threat where he's not like crazy vertical, but he's standing reach is insane. So he's like, I don't think he rolls super powerfully so like he has that speed. But under the rim, his standing reach is insane.

I think he's a perfectly fine lot of threat. Yeah, I think anybody as a lot, as a lot of bouncy either. As a lob threat, you'll get plus five attribute playing with Luca. True. So I think you'll,

you'll probably get a better version of him there. Yeah. When you have, when you have Luca, you have Reeves, everybody else, I would like for you. you to be better defenders.

Like, I don't need everybody on the team to be able to score 20. I don't need my center at this point to, like, I don't need to worry about the growth of Jalen Dern's game. And his offensive game. But if he does grow, he's so young still and so untapped, like, how often are you able to get an

I want to even say the All-MBA stuff because that's like, that was a team accomplishment thing? All-Star big at this age. Was he 23 or 22, actually? Something like that. How often can you get a guy with that much untow potential who's already this good offensively? and defensively

he's not perfect or anything he's not a great room protector he wasn't bad defensively this year I know the playoffs happened and we have this disgusting view of him right now he was on one of the best defensive teams in the league and obviously that's because he had elite perimeter defense he was very serviceable he's a solid

mover ability to read the field now and read the court not the vertical contester you'd like but he's not a horrible and has room to grow how often can you pair your two star all-star level guards with an all-star big like this you're right and that's like that's what I love about being in an NBA family. You could come up here and have the most hope in the world.

But then sometimes I'm like, what if he just like he is who he is? How often do we see big is just like get that much better noticeably, like defensively? I don't know. I think fairly, fairly often at this age, especially because he made a leap last year. If he hadn't made a leap at all, I wouldn't be fucking counting on it. But the fact that we started to see upper trajectory and the fact that he is such a uniquely young player in his class that like he's closer to the age of coming out of high school than he's to a normal one and done, that I have a little bit of faith in him to, I'm not selling stocking

him, I guess. I'll say that after the playoff run. I'm not giving up on Jlandering like at all. And he can, he can, he can do that. But even knowing what we have offensively and then knowing what Luca is defensively, what Austin Reeves defensively in the in the playoffs and having those two in your in your back court from my for my five, I would like my five to be like the, I'm prioritizing defense from my five. this team more so than anything else. And so that's why I would go with Kessler over. I agree.

You know, I will predict the Lakers get Kessler. I'll predict something good happens to my team in free agency. With Rob Polinka, it's not a good bet. Don't follow me. If you're able to bet on free agents, don't do it.

Don't bet on Rob Polinka getting his way because he's not good. There's not a lot of confidence in y'all resigning Rubin. Smart right now, right? Smart has been linked to the Rockets and they're trying to get him. I think it's because they're going to offer him a three-year deal. They're just fighting in Houston. I know.

They're trying to offer him. I think they're going to give him a three-year deal at the mid-level, which is like three-year, $45 million total. And the Lakers just can't do that. You know why? Because, spoiler, jump ahead. Let's just talk about the Laker shit, because they're linked to every free agent in the world.

Let's do all these predictions. They're going to sign Quinn Grimes. Mark it in fucking ink. I'm almost certain they're going to sign Quinn Grimes. You play with Luca, had a great time. They had a good connection. J.J. Reddick loves Quinn Grimes. He was talking about him in his podcast before he took the job.

There's a lot of connections there. I think they're going to give him the mid-level exception, like as soon as free agency opens. I think he gets the three year, a $45 million deal from the Lakers. So I think the Lakers are going to prioritize that where we're giving that deal to Smart because Smart's old

and obviously has that health issues in the past, it would be devastating to lose Market Smart to not be able to keep both of them. But if they can't give them that money and the Rockets are going to, so be it, get your money, would suck a lot to lose Market Smart because the vision there is having

smart and Grimes with your backup backward. That's pretty incredible. So if you only have one of them, let's say, so do you have Grimes? and you have Kessler, how do you feel about this team then? Well, that wouldn't even be, they wouldn't even be done there

because they have a lot of fucking money to spend. Yeah. Good start. If that's a mid-level exception and Kessler is that, that also probably means LeBron's gone unless you want to give him the rest of cap space,

which is $20 million. Let's say they do that. Okay. So you're starting LeBron, Kessler, Grimes, with your three of those two. It's all right, right? You still have your two first-on picks, assuming it's not a sign-and-trade,

to sign stuff to trade people. You have Aidan, Vanderbilt, connect and two picks to go get another good bench piece one one what playoff series win with that can you can you can you get

can you get to the conference finals with that yes can you win the finals i wouldn't predict it with these two juggernauts on finals you can definitely get the conference finals kessler moves needles a lot you can beat the thunder spurs with that TBD i don't know it's so tough because no it's hard to me when you ask you type of questions injuries are everything in the fucking nbbyn't

these days. So like, yeah, if Jdub and who else was hurt and AJ Mitchell are gone, like, I guess. But like, when healthy, I wouldn't pick them over them. Yeah. But nobody's ever fully healthy. So they could make the conference finals for sure. Yeah. If Kest was there, then I would give them that ceiling.

Okay. And LeBron one more year. Let's see around 20 million. And then, like we said, Grimes. And the bench, I don't know what the bench will be. Let's say to find a way to keep smart. They'd lose Rui. And you have smart, Cameron Carr, Theero,

Hayes is your back. big, well, and you still have Aiden actually in this scenario. Yeah. But I think we should assume they're going to use those first-owned picks plus Aden and Vanderbilt to go get another bench player. Let's say it's God for Herb Jones would be great, right? That salary plus two first. I mean two first for Herb Jones is that that's the value right? Yo, this is a fantasy man. Wow.

No, it's not. That's mad realistic. Two first, first of all, that's a lot for Herb Jones. I don't even know if I want that for real. But that's what it would cost. It's multiple first-on picks for them. That's probably what they try to do, some kind of wing like that. Maybe. Actually, they don't have the money for Andrew Wiggins in that instance. Lou Dorts an option. They're going to have to dump him.

I'm not saying anything as Atlanta's yet. No, it's just like. But that's their reality. It's all these moving parts is really what they're going to have to do. Like it does sound like fiction. They have, they can have $70 million in cap space

and no players. Like, it is going to be this crazy. Yeah, I get it's just funny because it's like, it's just like 12 moves. I know.

Like, yeah, this is like best case scenario. We're going to keep, you know, everybody here. Like, I,

I just say that's a middle of ground scenario. I can give you best case scenario. That's even more crazy. LeBron wants to go to the heat, sign and trade him for Andrew Wiggins. Oh my God. Just the Rubik's. Rubik's good. Fuck.

I've been in the shower outlining all these ideas. I know. There's many paths because it is that crazy. But let's say it's something like that. Would that move you if you're Luca Donchish and you're trying to see a team? The middle ground? Yeah. LeBron stays one more year.

You get Kessler. You get Grimes. Trying to figure out this. There's too many scenarios. So I don't want to say Herb Jones because that's like, I don't know if he's available for real. I don't even know if the Pelicans are answering any phone calls. Apparently, those are him and Tray Murphy are available.

Apparently him and Tray are available, but they're asking for like too many first jump picks. That's the Starbucks across the street. Who's another wing I can say for practicality's sake? Let's say Herb Jones. I think that actually is kind of realistic. Let's say they keep Marcus Smart because the Rockets throw themselves out of that because they can't give him the full mid-level, right? So you have that starting probably outlined.

Mark is smart. Cameron Carr, Theoro, Herb Jones, Jackson Hayes. Nice. I was about to say that shooting sucks. But you could do some with that. But LeBron and Grimes are in the starting lineup. Yeah. You could do something with that.

I don't know, but I don't know how high the ceiling is. I don't know if you're like a top two team in the West. But you know what that sounds like? That sounds like the Timberwolves is here. Interesting. Clearly not on the top level, but like you can mess around and beat Denver. You could leave someone with

and I think that's kind of what you need, right? If you're Lakers, that's kind of what you're asking for is to be like clear, solid second to your team that can make a run because you have the best back court in any playoff series

you go against. Yeah. I think that's kind of all you can ask for right now. They're not going to get some crazy team where they're like, oh, finals favorites. That's not in the cards.

So, yeah, feel like the Timberwolves is kind of what I want. We're feeling like the Nuggets. Two and a half years into Luga, that's where we're at. Two and a half years those numbers come from. This full year,

the half year, this next year. The after next year? Okay, after next year is where we're at. But right now, a year and a half in, I'd feel okay about that. Okay. You can definitely do much worse. Listen, we talked about the upgrade last year

from Hayes to Ait and saying, you know, we're going to make this jump. Going from Aiton to Kessler is going to change a lot of lives. And it is going to be very, very meaningful. And so if we're talking about all of these, all of these moving parts. If they can secure Kessler, that moves me the most out of anything.

And so having those two got, whether LeBron stays or leaves, whatever, like we're going into this week saying, we're getting Grimes and Kessler, I'm looking at them definitely, basically where they were last year, but with a more solid chance in terms of being at the top of Tier 2 in the West.

I would hope that they get Kessler, it's 35 mil, and then LeBron Leads for nothing, and they can get Wiggins. That's like what I would want in a customer scenario. Or even better, the nuggets are clearly going to have to salary dump somebody because they're going to pay, paid and watch them $30 million. If they can salary dump Cam Johnson, we get him for nothing.

Because they might have to give him away for nothing. Or even attach picks, which people are saying that, I think he's too good to attach picks. Maybe like attached second round picks. Because in general, if you're telling somebody, I need to dump salary, even if the player is good, they're going to be like, well, I'm not stupid. Give me something for that because you need it and I don't. So even if they get Cam Johnson plus like two seconds, which, They need to replenish your seconds.

And that's your backup option, is LeBron Lee's, you have Cam Johnson and Kessler. I'm cool with that, too. It's going to be crazy when Kessler comes out, firing threes again. The shooting's actually something. No, that'll be insane. They guys hurt for 10 games? Yeah. That's the hard part.

He's a very unproven commodity. That's like all theory right now. And it's good theory. He would have played more games if he was on a team that trying to win. Like they sheled them for the whole season year before that, they shut him down. So the injury proneness might feel a little more dramatic because the jazz are, were criminals, but he does have a lot of injuries. He's a big guy. He's never played a playoff game.

There's question marks that it could be a bad thing to give him $40 million a year just because you're that desperate. And if we are doing the Kessler versus Duren, the Pistons, like during during during shrinking in the playoffs, obviously baseline problem. Like it was an issue. That's not going to be the same issue because the Pistons needed Duren to be the guy that he was not only in the regular season, but they needed him to score 20 a night because they just had nothing else offensively.

The Lakers don't need Jalen Dern to score 20 a night. Like if he has a 10 or 11 point game, that's fine. Luca, especially the playoff, Luca, Luca's scoring 40. Austin Reeves, we'll see, let's just pencil in 23 right now. You're getting 50 to 60 points from that back court every single night. And the pressure of scoring from Dern is no longer there. So if you do want to go with the upside and have this young player, I can understand you selling yourself in your front office on that,

and you go that round instead of Kessler. Yeah, I'll be very happy with that, honestly. I wouldn't be upset at all. That would mean I need to have a strong defensive four there. I don't want Cam Johnson and Duren, where I would love Cam Johnson and Kessler. Let's just keep going Lakers' names since we're talking about them. You guys can tell me if you disagree about them being Lakers'Aker's names.

Tar Eason is a report only going to get the qualifying offer from the Rockets. I haven't seen a single report that the Lakers want Tari Yisen. I have been saying for six months that I need Tari Yisen, and it makes all the sense in the world to me. I hope Raup Polinka has that vision of what I see in Tarisen, of being that defensive four that can really thrive next to Luca and Austin Reeves.

I have no reason to believe in Rob Polinka have a vision of Jack Shit. So it probably won't happen. But that's the type of thing I would love to see. If you give Dern $40 million, and let's say hopefully that is don't match and you don't have to give up assets and you can go out and give Tarisen 15 mil

since apparently his market's jack shit, that would move me a lot. If that's the case, and kind of like, you know, you've said it kind of all years, And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. I'm holding somebody hostage so I can get Tarisan. Like, we're going to have to do something.

He's going to have to be a Laker. Dude, they're only giving the qualifying offer. That's crazy. Because Fred Van Vliy also opted in. The channel pay Mark is smart. Maybe there's a sign and trade opportunity here for Mark is smart. Shout up for it, man. But, like, prioritizing Mark is smart over Tar Heises is so like.

They don't fuck with him clearly. A qualifying offer is crazy. Like, surely he gets an offer sheet, right? Guitar? Yeah. He probably has to. But also, they don't have any guards. They don't have anybody who you feel comfortable dribbling the ball in a playoff series up the, up the floor.

And like, Rechepard is not that guy. Fred's coming off the ACL. We need somebody. A man is not a point guard. So when you, when you strip the roster down and you look at the entire depth chart, who's actually playing point guard for us? They couldn't beat the Lakers with no Luca or Reeves in the first round of the playoffs. Yeah. Now, it is a very, it is a very funny thing of like, man, this guy Friday's in the play.

else. Let's go give him a back. And the email connection? Yeah, but they are, they are desperate in that, in that way. They don't have, they don't have a lot of options. If they do that, though, I can very much see, like, again, a middling team cashing on someone like Marcus Smart and it just fall on their face in the Marcus Smart's career just like disintegrates. Yes, our part is.

I could see that happening. I'm upset about losing Marcus Smart. We also remember who Marcus Smart was before this year. Yeah. And how we got a healthy year of him. And that's great. he was incredibly important defensively. There's a lot of downside there.

I don't like Grimes as much as Marcus Smart. I can understand given the healthy 26-year-old the money over him, if that is the one-to-one option. I can understand that clearly. Or if it's Robert Williams, with the mid-level exception, or Mitchell Robinson, I can understand, given those guys the money over Market Smart and hoping you can get Marcus Smart for less.

And if he wants the money and has that option there for the Rockets, by all means, go for it. We want you back, but it's going to be a little bit less. Yeah. Man, I can't believe it's not going to be on my team. that's that's insane tar eason stay on him if it's not the lakers can the timberwolves get a signing trade done don't don't even chenz's money i don't know what picks they have left probably nothing i don't want tarison if i'm the if i'm the wolves i want someone bigger for sure

i gotta have some bigger fours he's like a six eight power for good defender he plays well under the rim i wouldn't hate that i mean jama dana was 611 they got a lot of height already you want you want you want like a like a center not a center just someone who has like more size Why do you want? Because he's 6-8. Like another rebounder. You want 6-10 exactly? Sure.

6-9 maybe on the low end? 6-9, yeah. You get on 6-9, of course. I think the fact that Jay McDaniels is so tall for O'3. Yeah. And also, keep in mind, Lamello ball is a good rebounder for his position. You have a lot of positional size now.

I think Tari Easton there would make a lot of sense. Maybe. The problem would be spacing before size to me. It would be if you think he's not a good enough shooter to play with Gobert and have it be good because he's not going to do anything with the ball in his hands. That would be the question to me. you talking about all the sides for the Timbles

you didn't you forgot they got your man Joan Benjay he's not my man what do you mean about it he's a good player you hate calling anybody your man when they are your man

you guys just put it on me for no reason just embrace you got some men I haven't said like two good words about zone before you really have I don't know why I said that maybe like one I'm just I'm just saying

I just let him be your man like just take it yeah but he is he is there and you know he could be something So scared to take it. In terms of size and somebody who is in a position to step up, he's going to be the answer. Because every team also is going to do that where you have a couple pieces internally and say,

this guy's going to break out. For the wolves, when they're thinking about, oh, we do need size. It is. Okay. It is with him in mind. Yeah. So that's why like Atari thing probably could be on the table in that sense. Okay.

Mitchell Robinson, mentioned him. I think that's a very realistic Lakers backup plan. if they don't get one of these big centers. That's my betting odds. I don't think they're going to get Kessler Adirn realistically. Maybe it's just me being a Dumer. I think they probably end up with Robert Williams or Mitch Robinson or both.

If it's not the Lakers for Mitch, and let's say he does get another 15-milled-type offer, where would you see it being? Man, he conversely fit on any team. My personal... I disagree with that. Really? I think he has to be on a contending team.

I think he has... Oh, yeah. Like, because I don't... If you're just like a middling team, Mitch is not going to play 30 to 35 minutes a night and be that starting center for you. So I do think it's only worth it if you are close to a title. He's a playoff series asset. Yeah, and you can maximize them there.

It's like in that Luke Cornett rule. Yeah, hopefully better. Better. Hopefully better in the playoffs. Much better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously the jazz, if they lose Kessler, I guess I suppose it could be an option. Spurs has drafted a lot of backup bigs.

So I don't think they're going to spend money on that right now. we know the Celtics need bigs and maybe if they dump Mitchell Rob I mean Jalen Brown and like get out of the tax situation they're currently in maybe they could afford to offer him but I don't know if they want such an unskilled big personally probably not

defensively it would help them a lot it would but you know if they only have so many assets to go around I don't know if they want such a antithesis of what they want to do offensively they also never mind actually know because they're offensive rebound maxing the try and one position to battle maybe they do want Mitch actually maybe it would be perfect If Mitch, if the year after we win a title,

and Mitch leaves us and goes to Boston, crimes will be committed. And I can't, I can't, I can't state that enough. I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it. Terriinald. It just like, it can't, it can't happen. Just going there?

Like, not even like winning, just going there. Just go in there. Why? It cannot happen. Okay. I think he's either a Laker or if he's not a Laker in an instance where Lakers get one of those expensive bigs, he might fill the gap in one of those teams,

whether be Pistons or Jazz. Yeah, I can see the jazz happening. Then Hawks and Bulls are obviously always linked to centers. I guess he bulls happening to, actually. Claxton and Mitch, that's a good duo to roll with if you're all with if you're the Bulls. The Hawks, it would be great if he was a hawk. Yeah, she would be ugly.

What do you mean? Like, he would look ugly in that Jersey or what do you mean? Just, that team isn't skilled enough. offensively for me to want to see Mitch there. I want to see Mitch surrounded with like a Reeves and Luca type where he can like beat a screen and dive guy. That's why they're not skilled enough to not going to make shots. He's going to get these off the kids.

Exactly. But like he's in a much stoned up a lot of fuck-ass layups that just clank off the backboard because nobody else is creating. I don't want to see that. You have to. You have to get his eye. I don't want to see him catching too many roles to the room. I'm going to make decisions.

Bro. Yeah. Let us get on a 10 game one shit last year and be insuffable or next year and be insufferable. I mean, they can be solid. Doesn't change the fact that that doesn't scream Mitch compliments this ball handling. Yeah, I wouldn't fiend for Mitch yet at all. I want something that can do some stuff offensively at the center position for you guys.

Yeah, I'm good on that. Miles Turner. No, I'm cool. I'm super cool. You name the worst possible option. All right, so we talked about LeBron, Kessler, Duren. Watson, apparently the Nuggets are willing to offer him $30 million year to keep him. That's actually your guy.

Ben Watson is actually your guy. I don't think I'd want to... Are you maxing him? No, but not maxing. Apparently they're going to give him $30 million. It seems like they're going to retain him. And to do that, they're going to have to dump some salaries. And maybe that happens via Jetham Brown machination or whatever.

Let's assume it's not. Cam Johnson's probably out of there. It's either him or Christian Brown. They probably got to pay to get rid of Christian Brown. Or they can just get rid of Cam Johnson for nothing. Lakers have cap space, nets have cap space, bulls had cap space. If you have... See, and like, I understand...

If you're to the Nets, this is something that you do. This is something that you like. You bring him back? Yeah, you fucking, trade him again. He was there. They train him to the targets. I think. We don't got to assume as a Capspace.

I take all that shit back. Yeah. And I get it. You give up less if you're sending out Cam Johnson outside of Christian Brown. He has to go. Christian Brown? Yeah, he has to go. I think Payton Watson should go.

I don't know if they have to pay him. If you're, if you're, if you're, if you are, if the decision is already made, we are paying Peyton Watson, right? He's going to be here next year. I think Christian Brown has, has to go. And I think that you go all in on this idea of we have, we have, we have another forward here. We have two of these forwards who can, who can do different things. We can have them flanking off with, with Gordon, with Yokage, with Murray. If those two are staying the same. And obviously like Christian Brown, he has his, is his, his value and his, and his strengths. in certain areas. I just don't think as a shooter and as an offensive player, he has not progressed well enough to where when we start getting into actual playoff basketball

and we start getting into the last five minutes and can we execute, I don't trust him to be out there. I believe you, here's the thing, he has a five-year contract that hasn't started yet. You're not traded Christian Brown.

You're gonna have to attach some pigs. Two pigs. Or you can touch all the picks. Yeah. And I don't know if that's like worth forcing at all. Hasn't started is insane. 25 million a year. And now I don't think Christian Brown

is a useless player. I think he had a bad shooting year dealt with some stuff. I don't think he's played 44 games like obviously the injuries factor into that three point fall off. Previous two years,

39% 38%. I don't think you forgot how to shoot. Now he's a level volume three point shooter so that could happen, right? You could have off years.

I wouldn't give up on him if you believed in him the year prior based on this year. You can't. I don't think he can. You can't, right? So yeah,

maybe we should be talking about that because nobody's taking his ass. But I mean like, if you're Rob Polinka and they want to dump a contract and they say, we have Cam Johnson and Christian Brown, you probably take Cam Johnson for nothing.

What do you have to get? What do you have to take to get Christian Brown? Like, they're not going to have two first-round picks to dump them. That's a lot of fucking assids. No, you don't do that. Unless like you're getting back a serious star.

If you're the Lakers, do you, is one first-on pick moves you like that? Probably not. For a five-year deal? Five years? Yeah, nah. So, like, there's,

how do you find any type of middle ground there? You can be a pick and two swaps? Like, now we're talking about, like, packages to dump a contract? His ass is a nugget for life. He's a nugget for life. Lifeers. And with that in mind,

I'm terrified of having $55 million a year for Christian Brown and Payton Watson. I appreciate the lead Penn Watson made. It's promising. Small ass sample size for $30 million a year. That's a lot of pressure on those two guys. Yeah. So now Cam Johnson,

who actually played well in the back half of the season. He could be a piston. Yes, you'd be pissing. They need somebody. like him but if you're if you're the nuggets and you're you're running this back and you go from you go from MPJ to cam johnson to um to Peyton watson in that in that role like i'm really really starting to get you know curious about once again these depth and these these pieces that keep just deteriorating and going off these teams and you really don't have anything to to show for it and they could

trade erin gordon too which is there's also rumors out there that he could be traded And if that's the case, actually, how does this sound, if they do do something with Aaron Gordon and they make a trade with the Dallas Mavericks involving Cam Johnson, maybe one for one swap? I don't know what the contracts look like, but for PJ Washington. Why do I do that from the Mavericks? You give me a pick? I'm giving Cam Johnson. Why would I just rather just keep PJ? Cam Johnson's a better three-point shooter.

I don't know if that moves me enough. I think if I'm going to trade PJ, I want like some kind of long-term assets. I don't know that I want to do it one-for-one swap. for someone who's 30. I can understand that. Do they, well, if you're the Mavs, how highly are you thinking of yourself this year? Because flags...

They're into Kauai. Highly. Yeah, so they might be... Yeah, they might be in a headspace where that's okay. Yeah, you clearly want some more like spacing and someone who's like more of a volume three-point shooter than PJ Washington who can, at times, be duplicative with super flag.

So, we'll see about that. Lou Dort. The Thunder are another big piece here to preview. They, to get out of the apron, they either have to trade away and just dump entirely. Sorber, Topic, and Heinrich Williams, all three them gone. That gets them out of the second apron. Soor's gone. It's tough. You can't do that.

Yeah, but you also have Mara, so you could do that if you need to. Trade him for another pick. That's just bad practice where they get rid of Sorber, but man. Is it bad practice? Just the unique situation they're in where they have Hardin'in'in for a few more years. They have Mara now, who's an older guy. Like is it crazy coming off an ACL tear? If you can just get another first of him,

you draft him mid-first, like you can get another average first round pick and kick the can down the road. I mean, I'm not them. I don't know what he looks like in practices and shit like that. And if he doesn't look like up to par at all, then I can 100% understand that.

If you just know, yeah, yeah, this guy's not going to be good, I understand. But with no insight to me personally, I'm like, hey, you have to see, you can't do that until you see what he looks like. And Thunder fans agree because the running theory

is that they're not going to do that. They're going to keep him and the other guys I outlined. and they're just going to trade Lou Dort. Salary Dump him. Now, if the Lakers lose Market Smart, I suppose that could make sense. Everybody wants to link the Dort to Lakers for that reason

because they have money and the need for defenders. I guess I do not want to give up a first-round pick for Ludeau, though. So if everyone's thinking this as a Sam Preciy rip-off and they can get a first-round pick for Lood-Dort, I'd be livid. Lou Dort for a change your life, man. Ludo could be a fine, he could be a fine, Marcus-Smart replacement for $17 million a year.

Like, he's, I do think that, obviously last year wasn't great and his three point shot is very like volatile but I think having having Lou Dorr alongside alongside Luka alongside alongside

Austin alongside two guards who can get into the paint at any moment and you're getting as many wide open threes as you've had in your in your career we'll see what the what the Lakers shooting tax looks like for Dore but that's a that's a good situation

I like it a lot I think it's salary done for just a swap. I'll take it. That's like a move like on the tail end when the best options kind of go away and you don't get a Kess or whatever and you get more money to spend on more guys. I'm cool with that. If it ends up being we start Robert Williams, Lou Dort, and LeBron or whatever, I'm cool with that.

But besides the Lakers, because we can say that's not everybody, everybody can be a goddamn Laker. Who else could you see LeBron? I mean, Ludo are going to? Considering that like they just did the most random thing ever and it's positive. this is good culture building. The Grizzlies would make sense as well. They already got Isaiah Stewart and they're clearly like trying to tear everything to the studs

and build up their culture again with guys who embody their behavior. And I think Lou Dort, big physical guy. Probably makes sense for them. That's one. That would just be fun of like we're just, we're just going to be. Bruising motherfuckers. Yeah. We're just going to beat, beat people up.

We're going to just lay wood. who else needs a defender like that on ball defender specialist fights over screens Charlotte can can take him um and I

yeah Charlotte could work it's like the king's good but like that's like what are you know what yeah why not let's do it fuck it I think they

if they're like a serious team exactly we did like opt into his contract but who cares about that at this point in time. Maybe if Andrew Wiggins is leaving and you do some kind of like sign and trade three team mechanism thing and like Wiggins is going to

we'll keep using Lakers as a Capspace example and he's Wiggins is going to Lakers you could send Dort to the heat and then the Thunder don't take back how much money Wiggins wants to leave from one to hear of your deal they can't pay him I guess he door being a replacement there can Philly get in on this

yes do they want to as a question because why not you have two small guards that. Dord isn't exactly big. And so... Six-four. He's just chunky. Yeah.

He's wide. He's wide for sure. That's what I mean. Like, Maxie is not, Maxie's not, you know, two something. VJ is still young.

Like, I think having, having somebody there, that even though that he is six-four, again, because he is so strong, he can play up a little bit. And you have,

you have those lineups, like we talked about a lot. Send him to Brooklyn, man, fuck it. I think Gris is a good call. I think we can say he'll be a Laker. Everybody should just go to Brooklyn?

Yeah. I think he's either a Laker or a grizzly or they have to dump the young guys. I think those are the options. I feel like, yeah, I like that. I like the Grizzlies a lot. But the Nets big sense, too, because they're dumpedville right now.

Everyone you wants to dump their, like, random role player, send them to Brooklyn. Nuggets did it. If Presti wants to give up one first round pick, give up an asset to dump him, then you could be a Laker. And maybe, where outlined is,

there's not a lot of fits out there for a guy that doesn't play much offense. Yeah. Maybe they do need to pay a pick to dump them. That's a lot. Now, I think, I think Presby will do that. If he does have to do that, though, he's probably not given to a Western conference team. He's probably saying, you're going to pay me to him, let him be a Laker, or I'm going to send him to bump fuck wherever.

The Nets can take him, and I'll get them a pick because I don't care about the Nets. That's probably how it would go, I think. I'll be done for that. I'll give the Nets like six second round picks. Because I can't. Something is hilarious. Money spread on the Nets. Yeah, exactly.

They're going to lose their minds. You can have all the guards. They might give me, Deming, just because. man that would be a big point of a free agency to decide if the thunder at the opera for the second April or not Rui Hachamora Probably going to lead the Lakers

Unless we see an outcome where they lose a lot of the priority people they want And have to go retain some guys Spurs are linked to them Okay That would be pretty cool I love him on the spurs That'd be pretty cool I honestly Rui can fit anywhere

He's one of the best two-point shooters in the league That's jack shit else He is Kyle Corpora that doesn't run around a lot and if there's anybody Listen, the San Antonio call is great Because if there's anybody that can Insulate somebody who doesn't play defense It's going to be...

And doesn't rebound. Yeah, it's going to be them. And you do need more, you need more shooting and you need just a little bit more size. Obviously, I wish that that size could help on the defensive side of the ball too. But that's why you go out

and you draft the way that you did. Yeah, the spurs The spurs make a lot of sense. Yeah, I agree. I like that. Clips? Clippers? Clippers.

could get him. Sure. Yeah, they could. If Kauai's going to be gone, assume they have a little bit more money to work with. Jake Fisher reported the Nets and the Spurs are the latest few teams that are showing interest. And this was a report from the Stein line and Jake Fisher. And Jake Fisher just talk sometimes when he's linked to the Stein line in his reports,

then we believe him because Mark Stein is reputable. Yeah. Okay. I could see that. Mark Stein co-signs are good reports. He's not made a call to you and said Jake's cooking this time. Can you imagine, like, instead of Kelden Johnson and the NBA final? You got Ruy Hachimura just like having the most wide open shots possible

Well based off the penetration from Stefan Castle and of course all the things that would be grabbed and Harper Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. You know, yeah, I think this happens. I didn't think he's gonna be a spur yeah Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense they are in his space where they can still spend some money people aren't expensive yet for real That you just outlined it perfectly they just need one guy who can make open shots for these certain lineups They don't go to close with him don't got to start him just a very valuable piece in the rotation for 17 million a year or whatever takes takes even more pressure off of Carter Bryant, you give him more time to develop and now it's not like, hey, you actually not only have to play, you have to be a 40% three-point shooter and still

defend at a super high level. I like that. Yeah, that's a rather simple one. John Collins, it's a name out there, still in free agency that can give somebody some power forward looks. I mentioned him because he's also linked to the San Antonio Spurs. They want all the biggest in the world. Yeah, they want to power forward, which thank God.

We talked about that in the finals, right? that they ran four guard lineups. I like what they got from those guards. Shout out guys who we didn't expect to be there like Champany and even Vassel to some extent. We still need a power four size guy. John Collins could be that for them. Also linked to the Spurs, Magic, and 76ers.

Steinlin-Line-certified. Stein-Line-certified. We respect Mark Stein's stamps on this side. I like the John Collins fit. I mean, the 76ers fit with John Collins. Yeah, also need a power for the exact same reason. Straight guards and bigs. Yeah.

And when we did our episode last week in terms of like one one of the biggest needs for every team in the off season. That was my thing for the sixes. Like you need, you need size on that, on that front line. Yeah. And, you know, and B is going to be in and out. Like, you have to be able to go into playoff games, playing games with, with guys who are better than a Dembona for 10, 15 minutes.

Yeah. Like, and again, a Dembona, shot to him, like, great hustle. But you need just a little bit more juice from that position. Yeah, my favorite outcome as a Hawks fan. I haven't seen John Collins play with a lot, someone who would throw a lot passes consistently in a long-ass time. And I want to see him definitely play with a mellow ball. Adds more size, gives him the same level,

not the same level of three-point shooting. Someone like Knowsery because it's a little different, but good three-point shooter, good rebounders as well, not a terrible defender, someone who's just like very solid and normal. I like him over there. I haven't seen reports, but like every other free agent, I have seen Lakers fans that want him

for the same reason with Luca catching lobs and space in the floor, giving a little more size. Okay. If it's like Robert Williams type and John Collins, I keep seeing Rob Will. Robert Williams. Where he goes and see him go if it's not the Lakers? Minnesota can need you need to bring him back.

Facts. That's the answer. They need to bring him back. Yes. Celtics are my guy, man. Time Lord. He shoots a little bit now, by the way. That's so weird, yeah.

He's shooting a little bit. If it's not, like I said, if it's not Kessler-Duron, he's the number one option. I want him as a starting center. Mitch can be the backup because split minutes there, flip money there. I want Robert Williams next to Luca. Steinline certified again.

Steinline certified! He's on the Celtics list. Let's go. Let's go. Set up Mark Stein. Everything he says is law. His Bible. Yeah, Lakers or Celtics. Prediction, which one? I'm going to say Celtics. I will go to Lakers, actually.

I think that's going to be there as day one starting the center. If they don't get good people, which I don't think they do, because, again, cannot mention enough times. Palinka is horrible at his job. I genuinely just can't get a read on Brad Stevens' mind right now. Like, I don't know what he can or can't will or won't. You're saying he's a fraud. He's an enigma?

Yeah, bro. Like, I don't know. No, he sees him. Just wait. Give him a chance. Okay, man. Have blind faith for now. You'll be all right.

Have blind faith. Okay. Believe in him. Yeah. Well, that being said, that is the end of our free agency preview. We will see what happens tomorrow as a week goes on. Yeah, man. We'll be here Thursday to react to some of those news.

Hopefully, hopefully all these, these dominoes dropped by then LeBron for the be a warrior man that shit so crazy shiths crazy shout to the ocean shout to jolaby we'll see y'all on Thursday