The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Best TRADE ideas for every East playoff team + Giannis & Bucks | NBA Trade Deadline

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

Jason reacts to the latest NBA trade rumors and gives ideas for every important East team to improve their roster including Lauri Markkanen to the Detroit Pistons, Nikola Vucevic to the Boston Celtics, Ja Morant to the Miami Heat, exploring trade options for Karl-Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks, as well as Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I got a jam-pack show for you guys today. We're going to start to shift our coverage a little bit more towards the NBA trade deadline in the next couple of weeks. And so I've got a couple of pods playing one today and then another one next week that are going to focus on each conference in the NBA and some of the, trade landscape there. So today we're going to be focusing in on the Eastern Conference. I've got, we're going to be hitting on six or seven teams today, a bunch of different potential trade ideas within those teams, just kind of working our way down through the

standings. Do you guys know the joke before we get started? Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video that helps us a lot. And then last but not least, if you want to get questions into our weekly mailbag, which will be recording tomorrow, make sure you drop those questions into the YouTube comments underneath this and underneath our other full episodes throughout the week. So if there's a trade that you had in mind within the Eastern Conference that you didn't hear me mention or if you disagree with the trade that I pitch or anything along those lines, drop them in the comments underneath this video and we'll get into it in more detail tomorrow. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So we're going to be working our way down through the top, starting with the Detroit Pistons. And for them, I think it's a pretty obvious need. It's scoring at the power forward spot. We talked about this with Tobias Harris the other day. This is a team that when they get scoring pop out of that position, they win. And when they don't, they become much more vulnerable. I would also argue if they could get some help on the defensive glass here. That would be a plus just because this team can struggle on the defensive glass at times. As a team, they're 18th in defensive rebound percentage.

And then some shooting at the position would be helpful too. Tobias can hit shots there, but he's very streaky, not a, uh, a super high percentage guy. So 26th in three-pointers made as a team, 18th overall in three-point percentage. So there's several different directions that could go to go in here, depending on how much they want to spend. So like, if you want to go super expensive, like multiple draft picks and then have to tie up a large chunk of your cap sheet moving forward, you can go for a guy like Lori Markinen. If you want to go super cheap and find like a big power forward that can shoot that's not

going to cost you much, you could find a guy like Rui Hachamuro that the, Lakers are looking to trade at this deadline, or if you wanted to find the sweet spot in the middle, that's where I look at a guy like Michael Porter Jr. So my favorite trade would be the Michael Porter Jr. It'd be something like Tobias Harrison, some filler, probably someone like Paul Reed and a first round pick. Then if you're Brooklyn, huge win because you've got a first round pick trading for Michael Porter Jr. And you got another first round pick trading Michael Porter Jr., right? Detroit would get Michael Porter Jr. in this case. MPJs made 128 threes this year. That's the ninth most in the entire.

NBA. He shoots 40% on them overall, 44% when he's unguarded off the catch. 72% at the rim brings real movement shooting that can help as a release valve on offense, a second side guy that can come off of a screen and make reads as the defense reacts to him. And I think he's a very good help side defender, like kind of like a secondary rim protector that can help when your bigs end up stepping out to the perimeter. Also a very good defensive rebounder. I think he'd be the perfect fit in this particular instance. Again, if you wanted to say super cheap, you could do something like Rui Hachamura for Karris Levert and Javante Green. Ruiz shooting 42% this year and catch and shoot threes,

49% when he's wide open. Like if Rui's open, that thing's going in. And he would step in and immediately be the second best shooter on the team. So he'd help in that sense. The problem with Rui is he's not a great rebounder slash defender the way that Michael Porter Jr. is, but that's why he'd be cheaper. Like you wouldn't have to give up any sort of draft compensation in that type of deal. And then obviously for the Lakers there, you get some perimeter athleticism and a little bit of ball handling, both of which they could really use.

An example of the super expensive version would be the Pistons get Lori Markin and the Jazz would have to end up taking Tobias Harris and probably Isaiah Stewart in that case. And then I'm thinking you're spending probably at least two first round picks there, considering you're not giving back any sort of talented young player. and Detroit having to pay multiple of their talented young players for Lori doesn't make a ton of sense to me. So if you're going to go heavy on salary filler,

then you got to go heavy on draft picks. That one could end up being really expensive. Now, Lori's an incredible player, basically just a much better version of Michael Porter Jr. I think he'd make the pistons amazing, but he's just so expensive. I mean, he's making $53 million in that 2028, 29 campaign. And then again, you're going to have to give up a lot more

in the way of young players and draft compensations. in that case. He would just severely limit your flexibility as the years go by and you have to start like extending all of those younger players. So the Michael Porter Jr. trade is my favorite for Detroit because it's a legit talent play that really raises your ceiling that addresses some specific needs that you have, but you also have a lot more flexibility with what to do with him in the long run. So for instance, he has $40 million non-guaranteed on his contract next season. you can just guarantee that or you can use it as leverage to try to work out a longer term extension with Michael Porter Jr., but it's probably going to come in at a number much smaller than

that $50 million number that you're going to have to pay a guy like Lori Marketing in. So that's why I think Michael Porter Jr. makes the most sense, but they do have options there. I think that specific position that jump shooting forward is one of the deeper classes in this particular trade class. It's just there's not a lot of perimeter defense in that group, but dudes who can like rebound that have good size and strength that can knock down threes in various different ways and attack a little bit of mismatch type of stuff one-on-one.

There's actually several good options in this class. The Boston Celtics, this team needs frontline size. They were a bottom 10 defensive rebounding team so far this season. I think that they could use like a big swing, whichy Ford or like a, you know, kind of like a Ford center hybrid that's kind of bigger and stronger or just a big strong center. Strength and rebounding are going to be key here, but without sacrificing too much in the way of their offensive spacing. There's also the added complication of money. So for instance, it doesn't make sense to trade for a player if you're Boston

that you're going to have to resign and keep on the books for 20 plus million a season year after year because of the realities of their cap sheet. Boston in the 2028, 29 season has Tatum Brown and White on the books for $167 million, just those three players. So that takes like the foundational more expensive centers essentially off the table. So you're not going to go for like a guy like Sabonis or a guy like Claxton. I know that there were Celtics fans that wanted if he's a zoo bots, for example. Those guys are just going to be too expensive under their circumstances. So here are a couple of examples. I have three options for a type of big, either forward center hybrid or center that I think could help the Celtics. One, and I've talked

about this guy on the show before, but Nicola Vucevich, he's on an expiring. So you could re-sign him on a discounted deal. You could probably get him around three years, 30 million after this season. He's 35 years old, so he's not going to go fetch some massive, like I would be shocked if someone went and offered Busevich three years 90 million. You know what I mean? Like that that kind of feels off the table for me. So like, I think you might be able to get him at a discount. I think he would personally love the opportunity to contend. And he brings that power, strength,

rebounding, jump shooting, and also that matchup attacking in the post. I look at him as essentially like what Al Horford was for them without the defensive versatility. Obviously, he's going to come with issues defensively, but that's a big part of why you can get him for cheap and why you can extend him for cheap. But again, like the thing that's nice with the Vucevich is you still have a Neme Kada as like a traditional rim protecting vertical spacing type of option as an alternative if there's a matchup where you're struggling to get stops with Vucevich on the floor. But he's

an option that I really like for them. A couple other guys that I really like for the spot, Jalen Smith out of Chicago, very good rebounder can shoot the ball a little bit. He gets him up. Eight attempts from three per 36 minutes this season, 35 percent. That seems like a lower percentage, but he's 45% when he's spotting up. So when he's standing still, he's been knocking it down at a really high rate. Where he struggles is like when he's running up the floor in transition or when he's popping out of ball screens, anything that involves a little bit of movement, but he's lower volume on those. I think that he would still be very useful offensively. And then Daron Sharp out of Brooklyn is another guy. Doesn't bring the shooting, but he brings

the size and the physicality and the rebounding. Vucevich trade would be pretty simple. You'd basically just trade Anthony Simons for Vucevich. You give or take some amount of draft compensation. I don't think Boston would have to pay anything in that case. If anything, you could work out a three-team deal that reroutes Simons to a team that needs some ball handling and shooting and maybe even get some draft compensation back if you're Boston in that case. But honestly, what you're targeting there is Vouch is expiring because then you can

resign him to some team-friendly deal after the season. You get a starting center for the next three seasons that fits the system really well. and you still have your kind of Kada look as a different look, plus your small ball looks. Jalen Smith, this one would be a little bit more complicated with the salaries. It would be something like Anthony Simons and Chris Boucher, and you'd get back Jalen Smith, Isaac Coro, and Dalyland Terry. Jalen Smith has $9 million on his contract this year and 9.4 next year.

I think that's a perfectly fine type of contract for Boston to absorb in this case. Daly and Terry's on the last year of his deal, so you can extend him, or you can let him walk if you want to. And then Isaac O'Coro has another year on his deal at $12 million after this season, but he's an athlete, and I think he'd be incredibly easy to dump if you want to. Like I can say for 100% certain that if you called up the Lakers and asked for Gabe Vincent's expiring contract for Isaac Acoro,

they'd take it in a heartbeat, and then all of a sudden all that money falls off of your books. And most importantly, I just think Jalen Smith would be really fun for the Celtics. again, just a spacing big that can also really rebound. That can also be retained long term at a discount. That, to me, just kind of checks a lot of boxes for a team like Boston. The Knicks, this one's really top. It's really difficult to come up with trades that make sense for the Knicks for a variety of reasons.

One, I think they only have one tradable first, and it's this kind of funky top eight protected pick from the Wizards that will most likely convert into two second round picks. And in general, it's just hard to make trades with the way they're rossom. is put together. Like they have all these massive salaries at the top of their cap sheet, right? Like OG and Anobi, Mikhail Bridges, Jalen Brunson, but they're vitally important to the team's construct. We're not trading any of those three guys. Kat is such a massive contract that it's difficult to find any trades that actually makes sense for both sides where a team would be like,

yeah, sure, we'll take on Kat's behemoth of a contract for this incredibly flawed player. Like, it's just going to be hard to find anything that makes sense there. Josh Hart is kind of in that sweet spot where he's making around 20 million, but he's, in many ways the heart and soul of the team. I mean, like, it's just difficult to find a real value add to the team. Like a type of player that comes back for Josh Hart that you can justify the improvement

for what you'd be sacrificing in terms of team chemistry and just how important he is to the roster. And Josh is having a great season. He's shooting 40% from three this year. And then after you get after Josh Hart, it's just a bunch of really small salaries. And if you start training smaller salaries without draft compensation,

just not going to bring back any sort of real needle moving type of player. So if I had to come up with just a random example for a Nick's trade, it'd be like calling up Phoenix and offering Gwreshan Yabouseli plus a second round pick for a guy like Nick Richards. If you just wanted to have a different

option that you can play as a backup big. But I don't see anything big and splashy for New York from this deadline. It just seems really difficult to find trades that makes sense for them. Toronto is another team that has that I have a difficulty finding some trades for.

They also have several massive contracts at the top and then very small contracts. Like it's difficult when your roster set up that way to find trades when you don't have those kind of middling salaries in that like 10 to 25 million range. It's hard to send out one of your major rotation pieces. Like RJ Barrett, for example, he's been injured for chunks of this season.

But like when he's been healthy, he's been very good and has helped the Raptors a lot. And so it's difficult to find trades that make sense where you're getting back some real pop in an RJ Barrett trade, for example, like Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, Yacapurdle, it's Emmanuel quickly. It's hard to find like trades that makes sense sending those guys out. But the team does need some shooting. Their bottom 10 and three point volume, their bottom five and three point percentage. So ideally just like this puts you in that class of like the smaller contract wings that can shoot. So basically

they need to be looking for a better version of. some of the RJ Barrett replacements that they've tried this year during the minutes when RJ Barrett's been out like a Jacoby Walter for, for example, right? So like this, in this department, I'm looking somewhere along the lines of like Keon Ellis or Ia Desun Mill, right? So like Keon is on the last year of his deal making 2.3 million. So it basically just be any minimum contract plus a pick to get a guy like Keon, but then you have to also resign him after the season. DeSummo is a little tougher to match at 7.5 million, but he's also a better, uh,

shooter specifically. And D'Soum was actually been a sneaky good ball handler this year. He's run a lot of pick and roll successfully. So those are the kinds of guys that I'd be looking at if I was Toronto. Today's show is brought to you by a presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. What's better than the sound of the ball on the hardwood? Sneakers squeaking and the swish of the net.

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Looking at the Cleveland Cavaliers, another team that could really use some help on the defensive glass. But I think it's more of a depth thing than a core lineups thing. So, for example, like, this development of Jalen Tyson popping the way that he's been popping here in his second season, it's resolved most of my concerns for them at the three because you also have Max Trues eventually coming back into this situation, right? Jalen Tyson rebounds the hell out of the basketball. He's just shy of eight rebounds per 36 minutes. And he shoots the hell out of it. He can guard like he's just, Jalen Tyson is just everything that they need at that three spot.

And unfortunately, we've barely seen it in terms of sample size. But him at the three alongside the core four guys has been amazing in 72 possessions. And again, that's a very small sample. That's like less than three-fourths of a basketball game. But in that small sample, they've been unbelievable on offense, unbelievable on defense, unbelievable on the offensive glass, unbelievable on the defensive glass, actually plus 43 net. So 43 points per 100 possessions, albeit in that small sample.

for the core four plus Jalen Tyson. So I don't think this group has stands to gain a ton by looking to upgrade that specific spot when all four of their core four guys are healthy. So for them, I'm looking at more of like a marginal upgrade somewhere probably along that backup center spot. So like if you could turn Thomas Bryant, for example, if you just call Brooklyn and you offer Thomas Bryant

in a second round pick for a guy like Dayron Sharp, like a bigger, more physical, a higher floor option at that backup center spot than a Thomas Bryant. Thomas Bryant's going to have games where he goes out there and he shoots the ball really well and it looks great. But more often than not, that's not been the case. And the calves have not been very good this year with Thomas Bryant on the floor. So bringing in a guy like Dayron Sharp would just be a marginal upgrade to that backup center spot. But again, like I think the idea of them making some of some sort of ultra aggressive trade for a three doesn't make a a ton of sense. And then after that, then you start getting into like the fundamental reorienting

of the roster. Like, yeah, like, do, could they get into the Janus sweepstakes if they wanted to include a guy like Evan Mobley? Like, yeah, they could. But it's like now we're talking about fundamentally altering the entire identity of this team. Like, if you start thinking about trading a Darius Garland, if you start thinking about trading a Jared Allen. And now it's just a very, very different conversation about completely reorienting the team. But If you still believe in the calves and you still believe in what this team is capable of when they're fully healthy, which we keep seeing that data. Every time they have been healthy, they've looked really good. They've just struggled to stay healthy.

And here we are again watching Donovan Mitchell try to carry the team without Darius Garland. It's just difficult to watch, right? So like it just depends on how you feel. If you believe in the healthy core, very slight tweaks like something like turning Thomas Bryant into Dayrun Sharp. If you want to go big, like, you know, it's, it's, I'm not the biggest Evan Mobley believer in the world, although he's started to show some signs of, of, uh, gaining some rhythm on offense this season. But like, if for me, like, if I could turn a guy like Evan Mobley into Janus, I personally would do it. I think that the East is wide open enough. And I think doing something big and splashy like that could end up rewarding you with a finals appearance or even a chance to compete for a championship. But those are just so that we. That we. We don't know if Janice is going to be available at this deadline. We don't know if he's even interested in playing for Cleveland. There's all these different kind of variables there that make that sort of thing really difficult to work out.

All right. Three more teams that I want to get into today. First, the Miami Heat. So obviously we've seen reports that they, that there's some mutual interest between John Morant in the heat. I think there's a lot of like basketball synergy there in the sense that you have this Miami heat team that is kind of devoid of high-end offensive talent, like true defense breaking offensive talent. Like, they've got a lot of guys that are capable of doing things on offense, but it's either inconsistent based on just how well they shoot on a night-to-night basis,

or it's inconsistent based on matchups and whether or not they're able to get the types of favorable matchups they need to succeed within their system, which relies a lot on one-on-one dribble penetration, right? Like, you catch the heat on the right night. Jaime Haquez looks absolutely amazing. Norman Powell looks absolutely amazing. Bam's hitting threes and looks like an all-MBA player. And like there's all these different variations of the heat that look great, but there's nothing there that's like consistently amazing on a night-in-night-out basis regardless of the type of matchup that they, that they're facing.

And so having a guy like John Morant who has this singular gift of the ability to beat people off the dribble, which again, we saw in this system at the start of, of last season lead to quite a few wins, even if it wasn't necessarily the most statistically impressive John Morant stretch. And Jha individually prefers to play pick and role, but I don't think he's really, it's kind of in a little bit of a beggars, can't be choosers situation here where like he needs to find a place that'll take him and that will actually give him an opportunity to continue to develop into the player he's capable of being. And so that's why I think like Miami, you know, would have some leverage to be able to

look at Jod and be like, hey, welcome, but hey, hey, you're playing in this. system. But at its core, the idea of Jah bringing the ball up the floor and beating his first defender off the dribble to kind of get things started on offense is something that I think makes a lot of sense. Now, Miami does have two tradable firsts. I get why they would not want to include a first round pick in a situation for a guy like John Morant, specifically because of a potential Janus trade down the line or a different type of star trade. There's also some concern and we've heard that like Memphis, for example, would not be interested in taking Tyler Harrow's salary back in this case. And so it's like if you have to dump salary as part of the process to get job, then you have to

start including draft compensation and that's where it gets complicated. And you know, you want to keep as many of your first as you can for a theoretical Janus trade. So I actually came up with a crazy little three teamer here for you because I know the Lakers really want Andrew Wiggins. So what have you used Andrew Wiggins essentially as the salary piece to bring back a guy like John Moran. So a kind of idea of a structure for this trade is the heat would get John Morant. They would get Maxi Kleba's expiring from the Lakers. So that's just an expiring contract, a contract that's going to come off your books after the season.

And then you get Dalton Connect, a alleged shooting prospect that hasn't really been able to make shots. He has a lot of talent. It just hasn't really come to fruition. it's kind of, I'm kind of out on the guy. Most of the league is out on the guy, but he makes $4 million. And so, like, you could, you know,

get rid of him if you wanted to after the season. In this case, the heat would also get the Lakers' 231 first round pick. So I'd get a first round pick in this case. The Grizzlies, they would get Rui Hachamura, and they'd get Gabe Vincent from the Lakers, just another expiring. And then they'd either get two second round picks from the heat, or maybe the heat would reroute that Lakers first to the Grizzlies

if they got stingy. It just kind of depends on what the Grizzlies are asking for in terms of the price for Ja Moran. But like preferably if you're the heat, you want to keep that Lakers first because then you have three tradable first for an eventual Yannis trade. And you can, you know, if you can convince Memphis to get rid of Jha for two second round picks, then you can maintain that third first. But worst case scenario, you could also reroute that first. In this case, the Lakers would get Scotty Pippin Jr. from the Grizzlies, Andrew Wiggins from the Heat, as well as Davian Mitchell.

And so then John Morant basically just slots into that starting point guard spot there at, there in Miami. And so in that case, like the Grizzlies get some draft compensation for John Morant. They have a shooting four that can give them a little bit of size in some different looks alongside

Jaron Jackson potentially there. And they get off a jaw. Most importantly, the latest. Lakers get their Andrew Wiggins that they want so bad. The heat end up getting John Morant. And again, it just is really fighting over draft compensation there. But that's going to be the trick. If it's not the Lakers, some other kind of third team to reroute a Tyler Harrow

or maybe someone else wants an Andrew Wiggins and you can use Andrew Wiggins as a salary filler there. But it just gets a little tricky. If the Grizzlies aren't going to take back like Terry Rozier's contract and they're not going to take back Tyler Harrow's contract, but those are your best vehicles with which to achieve getting John Morant, then you're going to have to start to get a little creative with involving other teams. The Orlando Magic. So this is actually my favorite Clay Thompson team.

I think that Orlando has such a specific need for reliable catch and shoot shooting on the wing. And they have so much athleticism in size to support and anchor a guy like Clay, they love to run inverted ball screens where they have Franz or Palo catch a screen from one of their guards kind of slipping out of it. Clay Thompson's just amazing at that specific thing. And Clay's just been in a lot of big games. He's just a kind of guy that if you injected him into a locker room like this,

he could work wonders for just having everybody feel more comfortable and confident in big game settings. I just think he's the kind of guy that wouldn't cost much. but that could potentially do a lot for this particular Orlando Magic team. And so the deal would be pretty simple to construct. It would be like Jonathan Isaac plus a minimum. So something like Noah Penda or something along those lines. I don't think you'd have to include draft compensation. It would more so just be a favor for Dallas to allow Clay Thompson to go play somewhere

where he can compete for a title. And once again, I just imagine a scenario where like you could have, you know, lineups on the floor where you have Desmond Bain, Clay Thompson, Franz, Paulo, and Wendell Carter Jr. And it's just a lot more shooting than Orlando's ever had in that specific instance. And because of the ability that Desmond Bain has to guard on the perimeter, and they do have other guards that can go with there. Anthony Black can still play, you know, start and close games.

But Clay can anchor those lineups when Anthony Black is off the floor. Clay can give them an option to have more shooting in more of their lineups in different spots during the game. the bucks. This is, this is, I want to kind of start big picture surrounding Janus because the bucks end up getting absolutely annihilated

by the thunder last night. And it was embarrassing from the start. Like, I think at one point in the first quarter, they had seven turnovers and three made field goals. There were possessions where they couldn't even get the ball across half court without turning it over. Like just a little basic things like,

you know, AJ Green's curling around the screen. and a pass gets thrown a little bit behind him and A.J. Mitchell, stealing it going the other way. And, like, AJ Mitchell, by the way, was absolutely amazing in this game. And him just exploding into a reliable, offensive weapon for Oklahoma City has just been such a godsend for them with how bad the injury stuff has been with J. Dubb

and just how inconsistent he was when he was available. But Oklahoma City just goes into Milwaukee and wrecks them in the opening quarter. They were up 40 to 18, I think, at one point in that game. and they just crushed them right out the gates. And Janus talked after the game about how, like, no one's playing hard and everyone's playing selfishly and everyone's just kind of looking out for themselves. And it got pretty negative and pretty dark coming from Janus in that game.

And so to be clear, before we get into any of these ideas that I have, I think the buck should just trade Janus. Any of these other deals that I'm looking at here? because what I'm looking at is offensive creation. Like I'm looking at some sort of high upside ball handler that could come in and maybe just add enough juice to this team to get them to buy back in to where they start actually playing hard every night. And maybe they have some puncher's chance,

a puncher's chance to make some sort of run in the Eastern Conference. But like any sort of ball handler that you bring in, it interferes with the development of a guy like Ryan Rollins, who I actually really like. And I would argue that, you know, just in general, having Kevin Porter Jr. kind of come back into the picture and the way that this team has just completely tuned Doc Rivers out and started playing bad basketball, all of that already is bad for Ryan Rollins's development.

Like, Ryan Rollins needs to be playing in a, like a serious environment where he has a real opportunity to grow into the player he's capable of being. which we saw flashes of early in the season. And so I think you, there's some reality to Milwaukee, to Milwaukee situation where it's like, if you acknowledge reality and you move, Janus, you open the door to FireDock Rivers, get a new young head coach in there that has the opportunity

to kind of build a new culture and a new environment. You can get rid of all of the players on the roster that you don't like for one reason or another in terms of their influence on the culture and you can start to build something and you can really get quite a bit back for Janus in that process. And so I just think

this is a disaster and I know it sucks for Bucks fans because this isn't how you wanted it to end and no one ever wants it to end. But like the more you drag this out, the nastier it gets the each passing year even like Janus's own trade

value diminishes. You're not competing for anything right now and you're actually stifling the development of your own young players. And you actually have some guys on this team. Like, I really like A.J. Green. I really like Ryan Rollins. If you could like, if you could, you know, make a trade and bring back a guy like an Evan Mobley in a, uh, in a deal with Cleveland. Or if you could bring back, you know, someone, a couple of like a real talented young pieces from Miami, whether it ends up being a, you know, Jaime Haquez or it ends up being a Kelle Ware or something along those lines.

Just something that resets your environment so that you can actually start to take the steps towards what the next iteration of the bucks will be instead of just kind of hanging in this purgatory. And obviously get a bunch of draft picks. Draft picks that you can use to continue to head in that direction.

But for the sake of this kind of exercise, the kinds of guys that you're looking at if you're Milwaukee, if you're trying to try to maximize this version with Janus, again, is a distressed ball handler. So a ball handler that won't cost you much. The favorite guy that I have when I look at the landscape is actually Anthony Simons. I think that whoever Anthony Simons gets traded to by the Celtics, because the Celtics are going to trade Anthony in pursuit of a big and some financial flexibility in the future. So let's say, for instance that Boston trades

Anthony Simons to Chicago for Jalen Smith, which is one of my favorite kind of self-ex-oriented deals we talked about it earlier. In that case, I would then call Chicago and try to get Anthony Simons. Anthony Simons is the type of guy that really high-level pull-up three-point shooter,

a guy that especially in the last month and a half or so is really starting to pop for Boston, like so much so that it's made Boston at least think about not trading him, even though the answer is that they obviously have to. Anthony Simons is a guy really like. Demarder Rosen is another option they could look at. I don't love the fit there,

but again, it's just a distressed ball handler. Kobe White, you'd have to extend him. But he's the kind of guy, too, that just kind of fits that mold of the pull-up shooting, kind of speedy, bigger guard. And then there's also Tyler Harrow, who's distressed. And you could get him for almost nothing.

Like, I think you could probably call them an offer or like Kyle Kuzma and Cole Anthony for Tyler Harrow if you want. And one of the things with Tyler Harrow is like, I do think he would have some natural two-man game chemistry with Janus. So it's at least an option there. Really good pull-up shooter, a guy that if he's allowed to work in drop coverage, which you basically would have to with a Janus matchup

because you don't want to give up switches to him. I think that he could have some success there. It's like it's hard to find a Tyler Harrow team that makes sense, but it's got to be a situation like this where you're kind of desperate and you have to make something of an aggressive move that has some upside. So again, like, I think Milwaukee should trade Janus. My favorite option for them if they do try to keep Janus is to target the team that gets Anferni Simons from the Celtics and see if you can't get Anferni in there. All right, guys, it's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely

appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again, we will have another version of this that focuses more on the Western Conference coming out next week. Tomorrow we're going to have some game reaction. There's fun slate tonight, some big national TV games. So we'll have game reaction tomorrow with the second half of the show being kind of a mini mailbag and then we'll be done for the weekend again as always i appreciate you guys for rocking with us we will see you tomorrow morning hey guys it's us the jonas brothers i'm joe i'm kevin and i'm nick and guess what we created our own podcast called hey jonas we invented a podcast well we didn't invent it we just contributed to it first people to do podcasts we get to ask other people questions because we're sick and

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