The Mismatch - Media Day Revelations, From Zion Williamson to Ben Simmons and Beyond

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Media day is upon us! Verno and KOC discuss the vaccine hype at the various media days across the NBA (1:10), before getting into some of the other revelations from Monday. First up, they talk about Zion Williamson’s secret foot surgery (15:10) and the recent reporting in The Athletic with some extra sauce from KOC that Ben Simmons is truly done playing with Embiid in Philadelphia (22:15). Then they talk about Michael Porter Jr.’s max extension with the Nuggets (38:15), what could happen with John Wall in Houston (45:45), Klay Thompson's comeback from injury (50:30), and The Athletic’s report about the Lakers’ offseason recruiting strategies (55:00). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? I'm JJ John D. Stramski. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines.

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, thank you for listening to today's episode of The Mismatch. Just a quick heads up by wildly irresponsible and inexperienced co-host, Chris Vernon, at the start of the show, forgot to hit record. So for the first 15 or so minutes, you're going to hear his Zoom audio quality, which isn't so bad. It's fine. But his pristine, beautiful sounding voice will be in your ears about 15 minutes in.

And don't forgive Chris Vernon for it. Enjoy today's show. Welcome to The Mismatch. Chris Vernon and join him as he does every Tuesday from the ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, a.k, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Colmer, Kevin O'Crym, Kevin O'Crym, Kevin O'Crown, Kevin O'Candyland, Kevin. Berdo, are you vaccinated? I am. I am. I am. You got to remember, look, anybody who listens to this show, I've been pretty much an open book. My parents are in their 70s and they live about 100 yards away from me. So in the interest of being able to go be around my parents with

out an extreme level of anxiety and worry, that was never in question. Not to mention, you know, you have seen everything that has taken place over the course of the last 18 months. And it's unfortunate that as NBA season was getting kicked off unofficially with media days yesterday, that this did become the huge story. I suppose it was inevitable, given that has been a massive topic in our country for so long. But with the comments of Andrew Wiggins and Kyrie Irving and Bradley Beal, and who knows what all will come out today, because everybody didn't have their media day yesterday, I'm sure the NBA is bracing for the comments of LeBron James, one way or another, whatever he is going to say, as we are recording this before, he has his opportunity to say. speak. But the stories did come out yesterday, and you did have some players making their statements about how they felt, most importantly, Irving and Wiggins, who play in cities

where they would be unable to play and participate with their teams if they are unvaccinated. And so what was your biggest reaction yesterday as you saw this start to feel? filter out and it became rather clear, rather quickly that this is going to be headline stuff out of the unofficial kickoff of NBA season. I mean, two things. C.J. McCollum is right. The NBA having around 90% of their players vaccinated is impressive overall. But the fact that 90% of the NBA is vaccinated and we're only hearing about the

loud minority that are unvaccinated, I think is a sign that the vaccinated players, aside from really Carl Anthony Towns, John Morant, I thought what Damien Lillard said yesterday was really smart. Very few vaccinated players are speaking loudly saying that this is something that you should do, that this is something you should not just for yourself, but to protect others. I think more players need to be loud and speaking about this. I thought yesterday there was one tweet I saw from Warriors training camp from Curtinbach saying, Bialita was in the hallway with Andrew Wiggins and just told him, get the shot. Ed Wiggins was like, tough crowd.

So, I mean, I wonder what are these conversations happening like behind the scenes with players who are vaccinated with the players who are vaccine hesitant? Like Damien Lillard said, it's perfectly okay if people have hesitations or questions and want to do action. research. But, you know, the fact is, is that if you look at, I don't want to get into vaccine talk here, Chris, necessarily, but to go to elementary school, you need to have a chickenpox shot, you need to get a meningitis shot. You're going to get hepatitis A, hepatitis B. You're going to get the mumps vaccine. You get a polio vaccine. You're going to get the D.PT vaccine. You've got to get these shots to go into elementary school. That's a requirement in Texas. In Texas, it's a requirement to get these shots.

for a COVID shot to be required, it's just because it's new. People are hesitant. But this is normal and has been normal for years. And for the holdouts here, like Beal, you know, like Andrew Wiggins and many other players,

I'm sure. The research here says that this is okay. And I hope players do come to that. And you know what? I wish that, and look, it's your personality. And I wish as a,

I've said before, I wish more people did have your personality, because what I see unfolding is an opportunity for people to call somebody an idiot, call somebody goofy, call whatever it may be, call somebody selfish, whatever it may be, right? And I always take a step back on things like this, and I say, all right, what is for everybody out there? And I'm not attempting to criticize all manner of people, but this is just the world we live in. And what is your desired result? What's a desired result here? So let's just say you are very pro-vaccine

and you believe everybody should be vaccinated, right? Well, then your desired result would be that Andrew Wiggins and that Kyrie Irving and that Brad Beale or whoever else that they will get vaccinated and that hopefully they would tell others about getting vaccinated. Okay. So that's your desired result, right? For whatever reason, maybe it's because you believe that it is a big thing for public safety. Maybe it's because you're a big debt fan and you want a chance of winning the championship.

Maybe it's because whatever it may be. Whatever your motivation is for believing that. Okay. So how do we achieve that desired result? and I find it extremely far-fetched that dragging someone to the mud, telling them they're stupid, telling that, whatever it may be, just getting roasted for somebody speaking their mind, whether you think it's ignorant, goofy, whatever term you want to use, or not, all right, how are you going to get your desired result here?

And unfortunately, so many times at America, I feel as if we immediately turn to trashing people, and then what happens is they dig their heels in even more. This is why we've become so divided in not just this particular case, but in everything that goes on, that when people then feel attacked, their general reaction is not to say, you know what, I hear what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. And I think I should do that. Or I think I should believe what you believe. With social issues, there certainly isn't much strategic thinking in recent years. That goes, that's, that's how do you get the desired result that I would just say, hopefully you do have people come out to them, people that really care about them

and say, now look, I say this all as someone who, I live in the South, Kevin. You don't think I know people that are unvaccinated or have been unvaccinated. I've lost family members. I've lost people that are close to me. And these aren't bad people. These aren't horrible people. You know what I'm saying? But I try my best to encourage them. Look, man, I want people to get vaccinated because I don't want them to suffer, right? Take everything else away. It is preventing people from dying. It is preventing people from being on ventilators. That's the end of the story. That's the key thing there.

You said it right there. The problem right now, in my opinion, is the whole last year and a half when in last March we're being told by leaders in our country not to wear masks, that masks don't do anything. And then weeks later, we're told to start wearing masks. Like everybody, like right from the start of this here in the United States, people are confused with the messaging, flatten the curve, this and that. Right, right, right. The truth is, like, if there were transparency and honesty from the jump,

I don't think that we'd be in a position now where people would have reason to question the science here quite as much. And I think also, along the lines of what you're saying, right now, this is media's fault, too, but also public officials as well, largely public officials. We need to stop talking about cases. cases, breakthrough cases of vaccinated people. What matters is hospitalizations and death. And hospitalizations and death is largely 95, 99 plus percent unvaccinated people.

Because the point of this shot is to prevent hospitalization and death. It does not stop cases. And what it does stop is serious cases. And so I think when you hear someone like Bradley B, he'll say, you know, you can be vaccinated and still get COVID. It's like, yeah, you can. But you can be vaccinated and get COVID and you have a higher percent chance of it doing nothing to you.

Or even if you're out of shape, you're way overweight. Like those are the older people, older and obese are the two people that are most seriously affected by COVID. If you are overweight and obese and you're vaccinated, you have a pretty good shot of being protected from this damn thing. All I would say is no matter what side you're on and everybody ends up fighting about everything. And I don't think there should be a side of this. I would just say for those that you want to convince going at them with a loving heart and someone that legitimately, the reason that you want it to happen is because you care about them. You care about the greater good.

You care about others. Whatever it may be, most normal people will be able to sit down to talk about that. and then they can make up their own mind. But in terms of trashing someone, making them feel horrible for what you feel like is a goofy opinion, it's just not, it's not going to get the desired result. These guys are just going to dig their heels in. But, of course, that's the way, that's the way the internet is. That's the way people are.

I think like when it comes to strategy here of how to get people vaccinated, you know, I don't have an easy answer. I don't. I mean, I think Adam Silver, maybe could take a page from Roger Goodell in the NFL here and say, if you have an outbreak within your team, we're not rescheduling games. You're forfeit.

You know, you get fined X amount if you have to miss games or you cause your teammates to have to miss games, like make it a financial penalty and a penalty in the standings. The NFL was harsh with that from the start. The NBA has not been. So maybe something like that could incentivize an Andrew Wiggins to just get the freaking shot.

So his team, so maybe not for his protection, maybe not for the protection of his family. But, but for the protection of his own team, maybe that'll end up happening. But we'll see how this plays out. The shame of it all is at 90% on.

90% are, right? That's pretty good. And look, and look, and I know that it's a lot of focus because it's a professional sports. Like there's a lot of jobs that are requiring it now.

There's a lot of cities, a lot of places. It's a lot of, like if you want to talk about, like, you know, your freedoms. Like, there's a lot of places now. We haven't been able to be truly free in 18 months. Like, what are we talking about? Chris, I just listed off earlier, like 10 vaccines you have to get to go to elementary school in Texas. I mean, seriously, like this has been a thing since you were a baby. And someday COVID might fall into that

category where you're required to get a COVID shot in order to go to elementary school. I don't know. With all politicized, this damn thing is, if that's never going to happen. I don't know how things are going to change in the next two, three, four, five years. But this is my guess. My guess is all these guys will get vaccinated and it'll be, you know, dust in the wind. That's what I guess. The fascinating thing is going to be what LeBron has to say, Kevin, because that is, that's going to take over all the news completely.

Because last year, when he talked about it's a personal decision and he didn't want to talk about it, now obviously, given the circumstance, of the headlines from Kyrie and Wiggins and Beal and the amount of questions that they took and talked about yesterday. His answer, obviously, if he says, I got vaccinated, then it's just going to go away. If he says, I don't want to talk about it. If he says it's a personal decision, it will not go away. And he is the guy in the NBA. He's by far the most famous player in the NBA.

and what he says is going to elicit a tremendous amount of headlines, no matter what the answer is. And so we will see. Fortunately, there was a lot of basketball news that also came out yesterday, not the least of which was the most... By the way, one quick thing, Chris, let me interject before you move on. One thing to note, though, Chris, is Rob Polenka did say last week that the Lakers are going to be 100% vaccinated by opening night.

So, I mean, whether LeBron is today or not or whoever is, but Rob Polenka did say they will be 100%. Maybe he's just saying that. But we'll see what we hear today. Yeah. And that would go, whatever, whatever he says is going to matter. Great. The most shocking news yesterday was as these media days start, you had from the New Orleans Pelicans Media Day, a revelation that Zion Williams

or Zion Williamson is overcoming surgery that he had had surgery on his foot in the off season. He will be unavailable for the preseason but they're hoping to have him back for the regular season. This is one of the big young stars in the NBA and the idea that this was completely under wraps and the idea that this was never reported by anyone that a star of that magnitude

could have foot surgery in the off season without anybody knowing until we get to Media Day was rather shocking. When I saw that come across and it said Zion Williamson is recovering from surgery, I was like, wait, what?

What? It just was not made public until yesterday. And so, of course, everybody's got to scramble, they got to come up with previous instances of which guys have had this same kind of surgery, most of which have had good results.

But that being said, finding out that Zion had surgery, Kevin, was rather shocking. You know, I'm scared, Chris, he had surgery, his senior year of high school. He had surgery his freshman year of college. He had surgery his rookie year in the NBA. And now between his second and third season, he's having another surgery. That's worrisome for a guy who's almost 300 pounds at 6'4 foot 6. and plays with more force than maybe anybody than NBA history. You just can't help but wonder how all of these surgeries,

all of these injuries are going to add up and affect his just otherworldly athleticism, the player that we see today. And maybe he'll be able to, you know, stay healthy for the next 15 years and have a Hall of Fame career and win MVPs and win championships. But I don't know, today, today, you know, just thinking about that news that we, like you Chris, I can't believe we didn't hear a peep about that all off season long. We didn't hear a peep. And for that to come out the way it did, I don't know.

I just can't help but just feel worried. That's all. That's my main thought here. I don't know where you're coming from. And it's always tough. You know, you do know he is, he's a freak of nature in terms of his size combo with his athleticism. And when from another planet.

But guys, so often during the off season, you know, you know, I was probably more expecting, especially when you're coming into extension year, not that that would ever be within question with Zion. But in not making the playoffs, I think I was probably more on the side of he's going to come back and people are going to do the whole, he's in the greatest shape of his life. He changed his eating. He ran all, you know, whatever he did, right? This happens all the time with guys.

they grow a little bit older. Maybe they change their diet. Maybe they change their workout habits. Maybe they change whatever. And they want to get in the best shape of their life and look at slim down Zion. Well, being off your feet always causes weight gain. Always. And he did look bigger at me today.

Maybe it was the camera lens that was used and made them look thicker. But he did look a bit chunky. And it's a concern with him. It just is. Right. When you're that size and you play with the amount of explosiveness that he plays with, you know, you're putting a lot of pressure on those feet, on those knees, on those everything else. He's almost 300 pounds.

I know. He weighed in at 284 specifically last year. Before last season, 284. It's 6'7. Well, he plays above the rim. Yeah, and he plays above the rim. He plows through guys. he uses his power and his weight to his advantage. The question is, is all that power and weight

going to put too much stress on his bones on his legs on soft tissue and cause these nagging injuries or serious injuries that require surgery? And so, I don't know, dude, I deeply worry about his health and how it will affect him in the NBA. And maybe that's irrational and maybe he'll stay healthy. But news like this just, you know, it's not the first time. And it's it's not a great, it's not a great start if you're Willie Green because you're starting off. You want to install your new system. You want to get these guys. You can't do any of it. We saw this his rookie year, right? Like they started implementing some stuff in preseason and then he's out until midway through and like they don't really get back to a lot of that. So you don't get the training

camp. You don't get the preseason games. You don't get to work out at least some of the kinks in. Here's how we're going to play. You're going to get into the regular season and then you're going to say, oh, let's drop in the guy that we think can average 30 and 10 and is the most important player on the court for us. We're just going to drop him in the mix now, now play. And you've been practicing without him. You've been playing without him in a new system with a new coach. And you're just going to drop him in? That is tough. That is tough when it's your best guy. And so that was, that was crazy to read that yesterday. And for what it's worth, they did say that David Griffin said he should be back on the court in time for the regular season.

That would be our hope and our view. But then you miss all of it. We'll see about that. But you still miss training camp. You still miss preseason. You're right. And I mean, the type of injury he had, this is from the ringer.com, Dan Devine had a great write up about that. Griffin said that Williamson broke the fifth metatarsal on his right foot.

and the other guys that have had that injury, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Ben Simmons, Powell, Paul Gasol, Brooke Lopez, you know, and the average time loss for that is about 42 games or six to 10 weeks. So maybe he could be back based off the timing that we know of sometime around start of opening night. And for those guys, they were able to have that injury,

have that surgery, and go on to have long productive careers. So in that sense, hopefully same case for Zion. But the fact that he has the history that he does on top of this new injury and the fact he's 284 pounds way more than any of those other guys. What is that? About 100 pounds more than Kevin Durant, Chris.

Yeah. And then you're off for two months, two and a half months. And then you have to go right back into it, right back into it mid-season. Hey, yeah, go get in shape. Yep. And then that can cause other potential injuries because you're not totally in game shape and you're asked to go right out there, play 30 minutes. It's just scary.

It's just scary, man. So that was a big revelation that came out yesterday. All eyes were going to be on the Philadelphia 76ers Media Day. And Darrymory came out and he said that he started comparing the Ben Simba situation to Aaron Rogers. And he had said, look, last night I saw there was 3,000 pounds of ink or whatever the term he used was used on Aaron Rogers. And there I just watched Aaron Rogers lead his team. to victory in the final minute of the game last night. And so we expect Ben to be here.

We're hopeful that he's going to be here on and on and on. You knew that we would get the other side of the story. And Sam Amick from the athletic put out a story this morning saying with, I love, I love sources with intimate knowledge of Ben Simmons thinking. Intimate knowledge. Yeah. said that Darrell Morey's press

coverage yesterday was bullshit and that he's out and that he doesn't want to play with Joel and beat anymore and he was looking for houses in Houston last year and it's you know, look, we are

water under the bridge. You think the source is Rich Paul or Kendall Jenner? I don't know. I don't know. intimate intimate knowledge come on she's with deva booker now

oh yeah that's right well a salty X maybe spilling news that could be it too I don't know I don't know but I do know chasing out sources here

I do know this that someone told Sam Amick Ben Simmons thinks it's all BS so so this touches on something I got a report coming out today on the ringer I can confirm what Sam said

Ben Simmons does not believe that he can maximize his potential playing alongside Joala Bede. What I learned with conversations yesterday and over the weekend touches on what Daryl Mori said at Media Day. Mori said that about six or seven weeks ago, they went out to L.A. and met with Ben Simmons. So here's what I've learned from that meeting. It was Doc Rivers, Darry, Elton Brand, and their team owner, Josh Harris, and they went out to meet with Ben Simmons over Rich Paul's house.

So it was just Simmons and Paul. side and then those four guys from the sixers and from my understanding is that they came all prepped you know with like stats video thoughts and ideas on how to convince bill convinced ben simmons to stay with the sixers come back to training camp or at least understand why he wants out and that whole time that whole meeting he didn't say much at all he wasn't given them anything and he basically it just seemed like rich paul and Simmons were just not giving them anything so they had nothing to fix, nothing to convince them of. It was really just the four Sixers guys talking. And at one point, because he wasn't saying it was because of the fan reaction, it wasn't because they tried to trade him. He wasn't saying it was because of the Doc Rivers and Joelle and Bede comments after the game. They asked them, Doc Rivers asked them, is it because of your offensive role? You know, can we do something else for you with your offensive role to get you happy here? And Simmons simply responded with no.

But Doc then responded anyway saying how they plan to use Ben Simmons this year. And he told them that Embed and Simmons are going to stagger more often. And then when Embedd is off the floor, they're going to put Simmons in positions that sort of resemble what Janice has in Milwaukee. Tobias Harris and Georges N. Yang would play at the four and the three with Simmons at the five. They'd have shooting like, you know, Seth Curry playmaking like Tyrese Maxie in the backcourt. And they want him to be in positions.

to just thrive, attack the rim, and score like Janus. And that's what Simmons wants, too. The fifth thing is, is as Sam reported for the athletic and as I'm reporting here, Simmons just wants more of it because if he's in Philadelphia and B's always going to be the number one, as long as Embed is healthy, he's always going to be in there at the end of games and meaning Simmons can't offer much because he can't shoot because he can't run pick and roll. So that means Simmons is going to just be Jaliel Okafor out there doing a whole bunch of nothing while Ambide is posting up.

And so for Clutch and Simmons, you know, over the, over the weekend, I was just thinking about this situation, Chris, which is why I started talking to people about it. And I remember during Simmons' rookie year back in 2018, he had a big game against the Cavs. He had 27, 15, and 13. This was the game in April where he basically just clinched rookie of the year over Mitchell.

And I texted someone from Clutch the following morning about that game, just saying, wow, you know, amazing what Ben Simmons could do without a jump shot, an incredible year for him, incredible performance. And they responded to me, quote, going to be the face of the league in four to five years. Clutch believed then, and they still believe now, Ben Simmons can be a face of the league. And so obviously that hasn't happened now over three years later.

He hasn't met those expectations that Clutch had for him. But my understanding is their belief in his potential has not changed at all. It's just a matter of where he goes and when it happened. and whether the opportunity and the situation and the environment is there for him that they believe he deserves. The question here is, will there be a team willing to build around Ben Simmons? Is a team built around Ben Simmons even a good team? Is that a contender? Is it a good playoff team?

What are they a team that's built around Ben Simmons? And so with all of this, though, with the reporting this weekend and today, we're getting clarity on why exactly Ben Simmons wants out. And it's not just because he's salty about him Bede and Rivers. It's because of the belief that he can be the number one.

Can I add to your report? After they got no response from Ben Simmons, Elton Brand walked over and started playing the piano. Because he had heard it worked so well for David Griffin. Did you see Griffith say, I don't even play piano? And then Zion's like, I'm not going to let no grown man into my hotel room play piano for me. That was all just made up, fake news.

Oh, my God. I wish it was real. Anyway, back to your original. What I thought was most fascinating about what you just talked about was the whole Yonis thing. Because I would play that card if I'm a massive Ben Simmons believer. I just watched the guy score 50 points. in an elimination game. He can't shoot. Is everybody sitting around talking about Ayanna's Hantz de Kumpo can't shoot?

Does anybody sitting around talking about Ayonis can't shoot? If anything, people are saying Yana shouldn't shoot so much. Right. That's what people say about him. And I'll tell you that, Chris. They might say that about Ben Simmons this season. If he comes out just firing from the perimeter, people might be saying stop shooting. That could be the case this year.

Well, I did talk to Jared Jackson Jr. yesterday because I had seen his clips playing in the summer. He was with a group in Los Angeles that was working out with Ben Simmons. And I said, look, on Instagram, you see the four clips over and over again. And I was like, but you're playing in all these games. I was like, does he really shoot? Like, is he shooting a lot? Like when y'all are just playing?

And he said, he's like, I'm guarding him most of the time in these games. We're never like on the same team. And I'm guarding him. And he's like, so I know what he wants to do. He goes, A, he does shoot. And B, he tries to get to that mid-range a lot now. But he does, he said that's not just four clips. Like, he does shoot.

How much is he making, though? And he said he's been working with that guy. I can't remember the guy's name. There's a guy, a bunch of them work out with in L.A., so forgive me. But that he's been working on the shot all summer. That's what he told me. It's taken for what it's worth. We'll see how it plays out.

See if we even see him play, this could take a while here, you know, because through my reporting, one of the things that was interesting to me is, you know, it doesn't seem like anything's close right now. So many teams at this moment are sticking with what they got, as has been widely reported, offers to Philadelphia has been just draft picks and young players. And the Sixers want somebody who can help them win a championship right now. So, you know, we'll see how this plays out. I personally wouldn't expect anything to happen until December. It's just a matter of if before that point, Ben Simmons decides to say, I don't want to be fined tens of millions of dollars.

I'm going to play through this until I'm traded and try to improve my value. Or if he does indeed decide to sit out the whole freaking year or as long as it takes for a deal to happen. This could get ugly. Chris, ugly. It may just be a massive game of chicken, but he did in that Amick article of the. Sources with intimate knowledge say, Kendall John.

They say he is not showing up. They seem rather resolute. If you read that article, at least as up today, it's like they're delusional if they think I'm showing up. I'm not showing up. I buy it. I buy it. I think it's an odd strategy.

But maybe this is- You think you really won't, even if it starts costing them a lot of money. I don't know. I mean, once you start seeing that money get drained. I know. Especially, I mean, I forget. who reported it, but I guess he gets paid half of his contract

over the first X amount of months. So, like, the way the contract is structured like clutch front ends a lot of their deals. So he could get fined like a huge percentage of his contract because of the way it's structured at the beginning of the season. I don't know.

You know, we'll see how this plays out. Ultimately, though, like you said, Chris, there are relievers in Ben Simmons who do, I mean, look, they're not wrong. playing with Joel Embedde, the pro of that is that you're the best defensive combination

in basketball. Because of the rim protector than Embed is, Simmons is allowed to just roam on the perimeter and be aggressive as he is to be the dynamic defensive playmaker that he has become. On offense, I mean, it's not perfect, but it works

at a high level because Embed is such a dominant low post score. Ben Simmons is so dominant in the open floor, it can work. but and being in the low post, especially late clock situations, fourth quarter situations, Simmons doesn't offer anything there. The question is, you know, that the believers say, okay, you put him in situations where he can play, make more, play more in the open floor.

The doubters say, okay, sure, plug him into a Yonah situation. Yannis is an all-time level finisher at the basket. He shot 63% on shots on drives to the rim last year. Simmons shot only 53% when driving to the rim last season, only 46% in lineups in which he was the center on drives to the basket. He is not an all-time level finisher like Janus. In fact, he's been below average statistically. If you plug him into Milwaukee in place of Janus,

does that change all that much? That's what the skeptics say of him. So I look forward to seeing how this plays out in the sense that there are a lot of teams that would love to have a mid-20-year-old all-NBA guy and Ben Simmons, but how many of them wants the future for Ben Simmons that Clutch and Ben Simmons want for him? That's where I look at this situation. And I'm not sure there's going to be a lot of teams that are aligned in that sense. There's going to have to be some compromise with his new team if a trade does end up happening.

You know what I was thinking about last night? I do wonder if this one is a little bit different. that, I mean, clearly we know because it was mentioned from one side and the whole I was shopping for houses in Houston thing, that that still, that that was the beginning of the end, right? There's part of me that sets back and wonders that if we all didn't know about that, maybe it was just something that was assumed, but now it is presented as fact and has been presented as fact for a long time that Darrell was,

he was going to give up Ben Simmons, but he wasn't going to give up anything else. Like if you're getting him, you're getting him. That if that is such a sore spot and a regret

for Daryl that if you gave him truth serum and he went back, he said, I should have just added something to it. I should have. I didn't think that they were going to move him to the net.

or I should have known that Tillman Fertito was not actually going to do the deal with me or whatever. They might have been used for leverage in that deal. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah. But all I'm saying is that if that didn't exist, that now it's like, yo, at one point we're talking about you trading it for James Hardin and that's what you got. Yeah. That is, I can't do that now because that's going to make me look foolish. You know what I mean?

I was the guy that didn't do the deal for James Hardin. And so now fast forward a year, I've got a disgruntled player who's sitting out. And a year ago, we're talking about James Hardin. And now I just got, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. I don't know. You know, certainly it's got to play a part in it, right? We'll see, though.

I mean, look, the fact is that the Sixers still believe they could get Damien Luller. they still believe that's a possibility. They hired his shooting coach, his longtime trainer, Phil Beckner, to be an advisor for the Philadelphia 76ers. And that doesn't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. Dame still needs to want to leave Portland. But like they're doing all the little things.

And they're also doing the big things. And that's allowing things to get ugly with Ben Simmons. As of now, holding out hope that at some point, Dame or Beal wants to be moved. And if that doesn't happen, maybe the flip side happens. Some of these teams with great expectations entering the season end up falling short of those

expectations and then decide we're going to make a quote unquote panic move for Ben Simmons here. Maybe a team that we've talked about like Sacramento or Golden State or San Antonio, these teams that want to make the playoffs, maybe they underwhelm and then they choose to make a move. Or maybe it's a team that we're not even talking about. And let me clarify this. This is not me reporting this name that there's any interest, but I'm just thinking about teams flying under the radar like a Chicago Bulls. They may have this big off season.

They have Demardo Rosen, Lonzo Ball, Caruso paired with Zach Levine now and Vuccivich. What if they underwhelm? Maybe a team like that would be like, we need to not only make Zach Levine happy. We also need to make the playoffs. Maybe somebody like that would go for Ben Simmons. So I think the Sixers personally, I think they're right to wait.

I think the upside outweighs the downsides here and waiting, no matter how ugly things get. This team is still going to win games during the regular season as long as Embed is healthy. They don't need Ben Simmons to win during the regular season. What they need is the best return to maximize their potential in the playoffs. They should wait. Let's rapid fire a bunch of other things that happened during BDIA days.

We found out that Michael Porter Jr. got an extension, a massive extension. if he makes an all NBA team, he's got a chance to make over $200 billion. But even without an all NBA team, he is going to make, you know, 180. Unreal, huh?

Yeah. After falling in the draft from a guy who could have been the number one pick because of injury concerns, pretty good. I didn't see the, the max extension coming with him. I really didn't. I really didn't.

I thought just because just because of the injury history that there would be a level of concern in signing him up to a five year max extension. I'll tell you what, Chris, that Mark Bartlestein between the Gordon Hayward number that he got for him and Michael Porter, you know, that guy seems to get his guys paid, doesn't he? Well, look, there's no question. Michael Porter Jr. has been one of the very few players in the entire NBA with the attempts and shooting over 40% from three. He has done that.

His minutes increased from 16 to over 30 last year. And he averaged 19 points and he averaged seven rebounds. Of course, you know, he didn't play that first year in the NBA. I just, my thing was last year, when they got into the playoffs and they were without, you know, Jamal Murray and they needed him badly. And they played against Phoenix and they got swept and he shot, you know, he scored 15 and 5, but he shot 38% from the field in that series where they got swept.

And even in the series before, when they played against Portland, you know, he's pretty good, but I mean, it wasn't like Yokic's wingman. And I think we were kind of thinking that there might be an explosion, right? They're like, this is the guy. Now this is the time to really, really step up. And I'm not going to act like he was terrible, but I mean, he was. He was bad in the Phoenix

series. I'll tell you what, Chris. I think he deserves a pass. I mean, over the postseason this past year, he still averaged 17 points per game on 40% from three. And as a 22 year old, guy. He's going to be 23 this season. If you're Denver, you're paying for projected future performance, not past production. I understand. And like, I think if you look at that stretch that he had for 25, 30 games or so to close the year without Jamal Murray. And he's averaging 25 points per game on 40 plus percent from three doing it off the dribble, doing it off the catch, cutting to the rim, you know,

getting baskets off this chemistry with Nicola Yokic. If you look at that guy, that guy was worth the max. And I think for Denver, they're probably projecting more of that guy moving forward. And I'll tell you what, with the full, we talked about the lack of training camp for New Orleans earlier in our conversation today. What about the training camp that Denver is going to have now without Jamal Murray there? Think about all the actions they're going to try to install to get Michael Porter Jr. To be like a 25 point per game guy every single night. things might look a little bit different when Jamal Murray eventually comes back and they're starting

to ease him in. Porter could be that clear number two and stay that clear number two at 610 with his shooting ability. I can see why they paid for him. I think he's totally worth it. I do. Even though there's risk because of the injuries, I think he's 100% worth that risk. The talent level is insane, dude. Yes, I agree with you. All I say was, I'm surprised he got that. number. Me too. That's all. I am too.

Yeah. I thought in the world of, you know, the guys that get the maxes are the Lucas and the trays and, you know, Gilges Alexander, you know, got the max. and he was unreal last year prior to. I'm just surprised that he got the max. I'm not being critical of Denver in doing it because like all these. things. In many cases, you don't know until it plays out.

I just thought because of his injury history and because of out of the three years, one of those years, he played 15 minutes and the other year he missed completely, I thought that he was a guy that you might actually get on a good value contract. And that's just not the case. Definitely not. I mean, it's. You got a good. You got a wildly, you've got to perform like an amazing player to perform up to that contract.

And there are other guys that have performed at an extreme level that we have seen that have gotten that contract. And he has not yet performed an extreme level outside of those whatever, 20 games that you talked about. I mean, it's three years in the league, one of which is missed and the other one played 15 minutes a game. So it's just a small sample. And you're betting, you're betting big. I think, I mean, he missed his real year one with the back injury. And then his, you know, rookie season to his second season playing. The jump was pretty dramatic, man.

In terms of offensive production, movement on the cord, ball handling, but also his defense. He went from a zero, an absolute zero, a nothing on the defensive end of the floor as a rookie to a guy who's at least passable. and that that to me is a huge jump for a guy to make young in their career with some of the the mindset that he's had like he's always been a scorer for him to become a competent to defender that's a big jump and so i think for denver projecting forward here like i said that deal as you said earlier chris it's likely going to be the what it was it a 172 million amount worth up to 207 million like it's tough to make all NBA there's a lot of great players in the league right now. There's a lot of great

players. But would it shock you if Michael Porter Jr. averages like 26 points per game? Would it shock you if he did? And maybe like he's at least on the bubble, at least like the 13 bubble. I think it's hard with Yokic and Murray. Well, Murray's out for a while.

No, I know. I know. Would shock you? It wouldn't shock me. I mean, he's been a special talent. I mean, we've known about my offense is ridiculous. We've known about Michael Porter Jr. to do with 13 years old. Yeah.

So, I mean, he has been a special talent. Roll it down. To me, it's simply a injury history, small sample size thing. That's it. It's the back stuff. It's the drop foot that he has. I mean, he has legitimate injury concerns, but I'm sure for Denver, I can't imagine they would have given him the money if they still had major concerns.

Oh, of course not. I can't imagine that. if they did, well, that's kind of nuts. All right. Other things that took place yesterday, you had the real weirdness of John Wall talking. Like, I don't even know why they rolled him out there to talk about just like, this is not the business of basketball. Adam Silver just has to be watching this being like, oh, God, like where they're talking about him and Raphael Stone having conversations about how to get him out of there. And like he's going to be with the team the whole year,

even though he's not playing very strange. I'm going to be a men. very strange. Very weird. Wait, you're going to pay him $40 million to tell Jalen Green how to be a, I don't know. Is that the largest contract for an assistant coach in the history of sports? It's got to be right. I mean, what did Coach K make? I mean, as a head coach.

What was like Coach K's top salary? I guess like 12 million, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what Coach K got paid. $7.1 million. it says. Yeah, it's a private school, so you don't know, right? Yeah.

Coach came in a lot more than $8 million coaching there probably. Yeah. It's got his radio show down there. Maybe that's where they funnel him the money through the radio show. Maybe so. Look, here's what I know. I don't know how that comes to an end. You know, we always say, look, once upon a time we said the John Wall

the contract was untradable and then he was in a Russell Westbrook deal for God's So there's nothing that is impossible when it comes to these contracts, so it seems, but very difficult to see a scenario in which outside of a buyout, someone is paying him the full amount of that contract that is also in a situation of which he would like. I mean, if you're John Wall, your prayer, and as I've said, the guys, he's in San Presti's attack to have every pick in the NBA draft for the next 10 years, you know, you pray that there's somebody like that or somebody that's sorry like the Rockets that's there in a rebuild and that will just buy you out. They'll take the asset, they'll take the contract, they'll take the assets. you package with that contract and then they just buy him out and then he ends up on another team.

But doesn't that feel like that's, you're either buying him out or you're finding a deal to a team that will buy him out because nobody's trading for him and paying him $40 million. I just can't, I can't fathom that. Yeah. There's no way. It's, it takes some extreme circumstances for a deal to have. happened before the deadline, which is why, you know, Tim McMahon said on Zach Lowe's podcast a couple weeks back that he would anticipate a buyout in the 2022 off season. Because at that point, John Wall just says his player option remaining for the 2022-23 season.

So maybe John Wall sits out this entire year, gets paid, $44 million to be a mentor for Christian Wood and Jalen Green and Kevin Porter and all these young guys. and then gets bought out. But, you know, maybe a team gets desperate at some point. Maybe they do. I just, I don't see it happening. Maybe at some point, John Wall is so antsy to play and an opportunity pops up to be a starting point guard on a team that's missing a guy. And he says, you know what? I will swallow, you know, $20 million in a buyout to go play for another team.

Maybe something like that could happen. I mean, I guess, look, you're preventing yourself from possibly getting injured, but I'm not sure not playing basketball helps a situation. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how. John Walls missed a lot of time in recent years, dude.

A lot of time. If you're hoping somebody does want to trade for you or does want you in the case that you get bought out, I would think you'd want to play some basketball, but what do I know? Mentorship has its value. In the last four seasons. John Walls only played 113 games and he missed an entire year already in 2019-20. So if he misses this entire season, let's just say it's no games played this whole year. That'll be five seasons playing an average of 22 games per year.

He's played 41, 32, 040. Could be another zero coming up. It's not a lot of time. Clay Thompson, you know, when he was talking about his injury, he talked about late November, December, then Bob Myers had his press briefing and he said January at the earliest. So, you know, you get the difference between player and management on this. Obviously, they have a tremendous amount of money that was invested in Clay Thompson, that they invested him even though he did have another injury.

And then, of course, you had this horrendous, you know, freak accident before the season where he popped his Achilles. You saw the extreme amount of time Kevin Durant was out before he got back in the mix and he is without question the greatest success story of someone coming back from Achilles.

There's no question. And you've got to believe that the extreme amount of time that he had between, you know, that tear and then playing again helped lead to that unbelievable return to form that we saw Durant have.

And so it's going to be hard with the Warriors, especially if they're small forward sitting out because he doesn't want to get vaccinated, you know, to hold the fort down until you get him back. But, you know, to me, I look at it and I just say, play this thing as cautious as you can, try to make a run. And you're one of those teams that as long as you're one, of those eight at the end,

if you've got a healthy step, you've got a healthy clay, you've got a healthy Draymond, you've still got a chance. But I would be very careful. I'd be very careful because we just saw so many guys come back from Achilles and never be the same guy. I think there is maybe a small lesson in how much longer

Durant took to come back and then the results. Yeah. I mean, we'll see what happens. If you're the warriors, you're in a position now where Clay Thompson could be out until January. You got Andrew Wiggins saying he's going to fight for what he believes in. And when he's asked, what do you believe? He says, none of your business.

Part about these guys, they never have anything to say. You know what I mean? Like, it's almost as if, like, I don't know, you just feel like so many of the guys that fight for not getting back today. One of them needs to just come like crazy prepared. You know, like even if you don't, even if you think it's, like, like, say even if it's saying it's a microchip from Bill Gates, even something like that. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, it could be kind of funny though. Yeah, it would be funny. Like if Andrew Wiggins had like a poster board, like a elementary school presentation. Yeah, right. If you showed up at media day with that, that would have been pretty funny. I would like that. Well, just any of them like well prepared with like the research that they've done and saying here, I know that people are going to bash me for this, but let me explain myself. Well, what I would have loved is if a player when I, I would have loved if an anti-vax player went up there and was like, we're not talking enough about nutrition, about how it's older,

it's older and obese people that are getting hospitalized and dying from this. We should be talking about eating better. I want to make a health conscious decision to protect myself. I would have loved if an anti-vax player went up there and said that. Don't just say none of your business. Yeah. Come on. Something Wiggins.

That's what he said. none of your business. Hey, you want to make the Wiggins trade bet again? I'm good, Chris. I'm good. All I needed was a pandemic. For listeners of the show who aren't a long time listeners. A couple of years ago, Andrew Wiggins' first half season with Gold and say,

Chris and I made a bet that he will not be with the, Warriors again in one year. I said he will be. Chris said he won't be. Wiggins still was. Chris gave me a hundred bucks. Benmoed it to me. I'm a hundred dollars richer because of Chris's bet. But I will not be making that bet again, Chris. He will still be on the Warriors in a year. I will not make that bet. That's hilarious. You want to bet the opposite, the inverse? No. Last thing before we get out of here, um, the athletic had this big write up about the obviously he's worth of the Lakers. I'm not going to get into it too much.

It was called superstar shopping, LeBron, Russell Westbrook, and the Lakers summer of recruiting. Bill Orham, Sharm Sharania, Sam Amic wrote this article. It's like 700,000 words. But I'm just going to tell you a couple of quick things. So one of them was that they have this triumphant in L.A. with LeBron, AD, and Jared Dudley was the other guy. and they kind of like it's almost as if like it paints this picture of them being GMs you know and it's like okay and then they they bring demar de rosen over and they talk to him and they talk to him about how they'll be used it's just it's what you would think is actually happening except you're reading about it right that how kind of Rob Polinka yeah he deals with you know he always includes LeBron and AD but like there's no mention of like anybody from.

management being involved with this stuff, right? It's like they go out and they try to figure out. And so the whole story is that they've got this Westbrook thing, right? And they've convinced Westbrook. Westbrook has wanted to be out in L.A. And now they've got him and he's going to go to L.A. And then they find out like, oh, man, they might really do this like King's deal. And then Westbrook gets a wind of it.

And he's like, hold on now. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. know. I'm not getting, this happened to me last offseason with Kauai, where I called him about teaming up, and then he called Paul George and said, hey, come jump with me. I'm not getting screwed again. So do you know what they reported Westbrook did and how this all happened? This is wild to me. And you do wonder where Tommy Shepherd is and all this. Westbrook went

straight to Ted Leoneses. And he said, please, find a way to get me to the Lakers. Because they thought the buddy deal, Buddy Healed deal was going to happen. That morning, according to the athletic, Westbrook thought, oh,

no, opportunity's gone. And he went straight to the owner. He went straight to the owner, and the owner made it happen. I'll be damned. I've heard that happened fast. Like the morning of,

like it happened within hours. Seriously. That's kind of, wild. That's kind of a wild story that, you know. I didn't hear nearly as much. Like, I only heard that it happened fast. The details they had in there were incredible. And it's a well reported story. Really well reported. I've never, I mean, the player calling directly to the owner. Yeah. And saying, look, I know you guys aren't engaged right now with the Lakers. And Leonas, I guess you could say, did right by him if that's what you want to say. But I mean,

I think they did right by the Wizards, to be honest with you. That's a pretty, good deal for them what they got. Pretty good deal. They turned John Wall into a year of Westbrook and then got a good amount of quality players and a pick. That is so, but we also know it was dead. Yeah. It wasn't going to happen. Yeah. They had disengaged. So if we're saying those conversations were the conversations that were happening with the general manager, Thomas Shepard, those were dead until Westbrook called the owner and said, do something about this. And he did. Yeah, that's a tough spot if you're the GM. Because now you've got to call Rob Polinka back.

Okay, actually, we do want to trade with you. Yeah, I thought it was interesting. Why the change of heart? Russell was a question. And then our owner called me and told me to trade him to you. For whatever reason. Oh, okay, well, let's figure out a deal. Hey, hey, Rob, my owner just,

call me. He said, I got to trade Russell Westbrook to you. So what will you give me? I'll give you the buddy. He'll deal. Okay, cool. I thought it was interesting in there that they said Westbrook tried to convince Beal. Yeah. He should also ask out. I wonder if that's going to come eventually or if Beal's going to stick around. I don't know. Beal see maybe, maybe you see Zach Lowe said last week on his podcast that he's heard about, you know, teams, saying to players take the money, take the max succession now. And if you want out in a year or two, we'll trade you. That's right.

I feel like that could be the path for Bradley Biel. He takes the money and then if the wizard stink or if they're still average, then a year into that contract, he'd be like, I want a deal. I might be so. I could see that path working out for him. We'll see, though. Well, we will for sure have a bunch of news coming out the rest of the week to say the least. Thank you to our executive producer, Sasha, as always.

Kevin, I'll talk to you. you on Friday.