The Mismatch - The Most Disastrous and Perfect Fits of the Offseason

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Verno and Jacoby recap the latest string of free agency news, including Paolo Banchero’s contract extension, where Jonas Valanciunas will play, and more. Next, they discuss which offseason moves they think will turn out disastrous and which moves are perfect fits. (0:00) Welcome to The Mismatch!(0:50) Summer League Takeaways(4:20) Reaction to the Norm Powell-John Collins Trade(8:55) Expect Jonas Valančiūnas to Play for the Nuggets?(13:53) Paolo Banchero Signs Extension with Magic(17:08) Grizzlies Trade Away Jay Huff, Sign Jock Landale(23:50) Why is Malik Beasley Still Unsigned?(28:15) More Free Agency & Trade Reactions(31:17) Disaster Fit: Pelicans Draft Derik Queen(34:17) Disaster Fit: Deandre Ayton Signs with The Lakers(39:15) Disaster Fit: Jrue Holiday with the Blazers(44:03) Disaster Fit: Bucks Waive Dame to Sign Myles Turner(46:35) Disaster Fit: Spurs Sign Luke Kornet(50:48) Disaster Fit: The Brooklyn Nets(53:12) Perfect Fit: DFS on the Rockets(55:35) Perfect Fit: The Atlanta Hawks(57:48) Perfect Fit: Former Grizzlies on the Magic(59:48) Perfect Fit: Mike Brown Coaching the Knicks(1:02:30) Perfect Fit: Kyle Lowry Signs with the 76ers(1:05:40) What's Next for Chris Paul?(1:07:15) Perfect Fit: Nuggets Offseason Leave us a message on our Mismatch Voicemail line! [phone] Hosts: Chris Vernon and David JacobyProducers: Jessie Lopez and Tucker TashjianSocial: Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon. Join me as he does every week from the ringer.com is Dave Jacoby. Jacoby. What's happening, Bruno? Man, we are, I can't believe how we have not had any kind of downtime. It was like we went straight from the finals, straight to the draft, and now Summer League has already started, and we've had all manner of transactions going on in the week that has separated the draft up to Summer League.

And so there is no rest for the weary when it comes to basketball. I think I had like maybe a few down nights where I was like, man, no NFL, no NBA. And I actually even watched the Summer League games starting this weekend just to check out the rookies that I, and especially the ones that I'd never seen before. I took a look at some Summer League this evening. I watched a little topitch. It was good. You get past. You can't get past.

You know what? I was disappointed. I might as well get this one out of the way. I was disappointed. I tuned in tonight before we were recording on this Monday night. Yeah, me too. I wanted the Vijay Edgecombe experience. I was wondering why he wasn't playing.

He's not playing in this one in this Utah Summer League. I watched him in his first game. Oh, dude. Oh, hey, I'm just going to tell you this. Grand, massive overreaction. Jacoby. I feel safe in telling you this. I've been going to Summer League for a decade.

I have seen all manner of Summer League games. It's gross. Guys don't look like that, though. They do not look like that. This dude was snatching the ball off the rim, going end to end and cracking it. He was blocking shots at the rim. He was knocking down threes.

I was like, yo, I don't know about all this Ace Base. stuff that went on leading up to the draft. But it looks like Philadelphia has got them one in this guy because I was blown away with the first seeing him on a court with some size against some guys with some bigger speed on an NBA court, even if it is just Summer League. He was mega impressive. It is just Summer League. And everyone will tell you, like, don't read too much in the Summer League.

It's not the NBA. It looks different. Blah, blah, blah. But when you see something like that? Why not overreact? What's the point? No. He watched NBA basketball.

He looked like just like a superior athlete to all of his peers. To everybody else. Why does he look so much better than everybody? Exactly. I mean, I've had this happen a lot over the years. And sometimes it ends up being duds, especially with the guards.

You could be either the bully ballers that are just bigger and stronger than guys, you know, kind of the perimeter guys that could just muscle their way to the rim, or like the shoot first guys. guards. A lot of times they could put up some big numbers or whatever. But it was reminiscent of years ago. I saw Donovan Mitchell have 10 steals in a summer league game. And me and Kevin O'Connor came back on the mismatch and I said, I cannot believe what I just watched.

Likewise, Jalen Johnson, the kid from Atlanta a few years ago in Summer League, like just jump. It just better than everybody. And it's like, when you see the guys that play like that, you're like, okay, they're different. As a next guy, I was watching Kevin Knox and I was like, oh, we got one. Oh, no way. He got one. No way.

Remember his Summer League? His Summer League looked good. No, I was at his first game ever. He looked good. He looked good in Summerlee. No. Zion. I'm not going to look up his stupid stats, but he looked good in Summerlee.

I'm telling you, Zion ripped the ball away from him and dunked it. And I was like, give me that bull bitch. I do remember that. I do remember that. That was the first game ever. I was at the summer I was like this is different Do you remember Zion's first ever NBA game

He hit like four threes In the first like 15 minutes It's like who is this guy So we've had a bunch of transactions And then some just some odd ones come in In fact the one that broke this morning As we record this on Monday night Monday morning

Led to a lot of people Via social media being like What is this? You had Norm Powell going to the heat You had John Collins Going to the Clippers and then you just had money going to you talk. Kevin Love and slow-mo.

You see Kevin Love on social? I did. He's having a ball with this. Calling it a math problem. Yeah, he's posting clips from movies and stuff. I really enjoy what he's doing with this. I thought Norm Powell was absolutely awesome for the Clippers last year. Could have been an all-star last year.

And I know that the heat are going to have to pay him after a year. But Norm Powell has got one of the great deals going right now in terms of production versus what he gets paid. And I was surprised that the Clippers bid a dude to him. But I actually really like the John Collins fit. I'm down with the John Collins revival. I'm down with the John Collins becoming the Clippers Aaron Gordon. Oh.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. One of these guys that, like, you know he could get you 19. and eight if you need him to, but now just kind of a little later in the career can fall into a role with them as an athletic

big, and I love the Collins, as long as he can, the fingers fine and he can knock down the threes. Oh, I do remember that. That got weird. That got really weird. And it really like almost took his career out. Also rumors of

how do I explain, I'll be nice, chemistry problems between him and Trayon. For sure. There's a, there was, There wasn't rumors. Don't you remember that whole story that came out? And somebody leaked their entire locker room fight with like Nate McMillan and Clint Capella and all trash and tray. I was like, oh, God, this is a good. They got somebody that's literally giving word for word what happened in the locker room.

That's not great. It's easy to be glass half full on John Collins. Oh, I like him. And he's just been, you know, he's been wasted away in Utah anyway. Utah stats like shouldn't even matter. It's not even worth looking at, you know. I don't even understand. Go look at Utah's roster and you're like, I mean, is this where you expect Ace Bailey to become the best version of himself?

Like this is going to be terrible. I know they didn't hit the lottery with Cooper flag, but my God, look at that roster now. And it's like, this is, this is pathetic. They're tanking in July 8th. Summerlee. They're taking summer. The tanking, it's July 8th. Like, even like the, you look at like the teams, like, how do I expect?

The Hornets or the Blazers, you're just kind of like, all right. Like, maybe you put together something and, you know, like maybe improve on last year. But the Jazz is like, nah, we're out. We're gone. We're good. Well, it's like Isaiah Collier. I mean, look, you are going to, hey, for everybody that wants to get a beat on what the jazz are going to do, just watch Summer League.

That's their team. Yeah. Isaiah call your ace Bailey, Cody Williams, Kyle Filipowski, just watch them in Summer League. I mean, at least they had,

like, guys, there were guys that, like, on nights where they'd have to bench them just to make sure they didn't win because John Collins and Colin Sexton would,

like, be trying. And then Will Hardy's like, all right, yeah, enough of that. Like, yeah, right.

They don't have those guys anymore. No, they don't have any of those guys. They don't have those guys anymore. It's like, They don't have to at all. The heat, who knows, I mean, they're kind of like, you know, the quest to the middle. And then they'll figure it out whenever they can make a big offseason splash, which obviously isn't going to be this offseason.

And then John Collins to the clippers, I like. I mean, I like them adding for their front court, they've added Brooke Lopez and they've added John Collins. I do think they will miss Norm Powell. I do. Yeah. They will miss Norm Powell, but I do like the Collins edition. Do you think these players will be on these teams next to you? That's kind of when I saw this trade, I was like, huh, because they're both expiring.

I said, I wonder if these teams will be in these uniforms next season. Probably not. No. Yeah, I think the answer is no. It was kind of like, I'll trade you're expiring from my expiring and Utah will get worse. Everybody wins. One of the moves that we really liked when we last spoke was Valentunis going to the Denver Nuggets with that trade. And now that seems to be impossible peril, though the Nuggets have kind of dug their heels in.

And they're saying, we fully intend on him honoring his contract, which I suppose is code for. We don't care a Greek team if you want to try to buy this out. We're not interested in buying out his contract to go play in Europe. We want him to play for the Denver Nuggets. And we thought, boy, this really gives them a save in those non-yokic minutes because he's one of those guys that could certainly be very productive, especially in a less than 20-minute role, right? You got 18 minutes of Jonas Valchunis, I promise you, he's going to get double doubles in that amount of time. He has done it over the course of his career. This guy might be the king of the 24-minute, you know, 17.12 rebound.

game. And so that would, it stinks that this is going on. Obviously, he's met with the Greek team. It's all so bizarre. The oddest part to me is that he was in Athens. Right. Right. That part is, we can do a Zoom.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't have to fly to Memphis every time we record a pod. And I don't know if it's part of his vacation trip. I don't know. Right now he might be in the Mediterranean on a yacht that was part of his plans or whatever. But I found it very odd that he was physically in Athens, which means in my mind if it's inconvenient, which I'm assuming it is, that he was pretty serious about this, which means he's unhappy about his role in the Nuggets.

Well, the other thing is under contract player. It's not like he's a guy that is done with this contract and now, okay, now I want to go play overseas. He's like, bro, you just got traded. He's not trying to start a bidding war. He has another year where he has to play in the NBA. And I don't think the Nuggets are going to be like, you know what? We'll just charge it to the game.

go explore your journey. Like it's Love Island. We're open. You know what I mean? It's just like, like, what are we doing? Like, I don't understand. I don't understand him flying to Athens for this

unless he is really unhappy, which makes me a little concerned about the addition. For the same time, you can be unhappy for one year. We need you to like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe playing for the Wizards and the Kings just ruined his will to play in the NBA.

I can't happen. You know what? I can't take this anymore. guaranteed for him either. He'd make a $10.3 million. I don't know what the salaries are like in the Euro League. I can't even pronounce it. Palo Panayakos, I don't know, Euros, Chiros, whatever.

You did good. But I don't think he's getting, I did. I don't think he's getting more than $10 million. Right? No. Maybe he'll get a bigger deal. Maybe he wants like four years. Maybe he just wants like a longer deal.

He's happy to be in Greece. Yeah, he just what, yeah, he wants to be in Greece, right? He's got a chance, a legit chance to win a championship. Yeah, I don't know who. You were on the Wizards. Dude. Honestly, I don't know who reps him anymore, but back in the day, you'll love this. This is from Summer League, no less. So Memphis acquires Yonis Valchunus, and Jonas Valchunus shows up at Summer League to sign his deal. And so I call PR, and I'm like, I've got to interview him. And so I get it, we do it from my hotel room and walk.

Walking into my hotel room, of course, is Jonas Valcius, who is absolutely monstrous. His wife, who looks like a new age version of Dragho's wife, right? She's beautiful. And his agent, Leon Rose, now running the Knicks. So I don't know who his agent is anymore, but that was one of Leon's big clients back in the day, was Jonas Valchunas and so I don't know who reps him now

but this is just a very, very strange situation and one that we just don't deal with in the NBA. I thought you're just going to stay on the nuggets. I understand you might be interested in playing Greece or whatever. Maybe that'll happen next year. But when I heard he was in like boots on the ground

in Athens, I've spent the summer in Athens before when I've worked in the Olympics, it was lovely. But like, it's just a weird spot to be, like to fly to Athens for a meeting. Well, obviously like also but for the Wizards and the kids, Kings last year. He's about to go back up Yokic. Like this is going to be...

That's what I'm saying. He's got a great spot for him to be. He's got a chance to win the title. I mean, they got this... We loved the Cam, Bruce Brown, Valentinus offseason. Like, that's a good one. That's a good one for Denver. And so kind of strange. And hopefully they could get that thing

worked out. Obviously, they're trying to dig their, dig their heels in on it. A couple other things of note, Palo Bancaro. signed his extension, locking him up with the Orlando Magic. And I think most importantly, not just locking him up, Jacoby, they've now got Paulo, Franz, Suggs, Bain, all of them are locked up through 28, 29. So that core.

They're committed to this core. Yes, yes. I mean, it's got to be good enough, but they've got their four guys that they are paying and they're locked in and through 28, 29. Now, this can really get dicey if what happens, what I think is a likely thing to happen, does happen, which is he signed for five years, 237 million. But if he makes all NBA, it triggers the auto upping of the contract all the way up to 287.

And after the All-Star break, he averaged 29, 8, and 4.5 assists. If he's healthy, he's all-MBA. If he's going to be all-M-A, he's proven that when he plays, he's on an all-M-V-A player.

But, like, I get it if you're the magic. Of course, you have to lock him in forever. Well, also Suggs is on a good deal. Yep. And I think, you know, I think Boggers is a little bit of a question mark with shooting and defense. But having that core in the building for the foreseeable future puts you in the

Eastern Conference firmly in the playoff, assuming health. Especially at their ages. And with Bencaro, interesting, think about how highly they think of him, that they're willing to do whatever. He is the first guy since 2021 to get a player option on the end of the. this rookie max. Luca and Trey both got those. Nobody's gotten one of those

since. And Palo got it for the 2030, 2030, 2031 season. He got a player option for the last year. It's just very uncommon. And also if things go well, they'll probably extend them before that. Of course they will. So it's like, listen, I think they're like, we drafted you number one. We are in the

Pablo Vancaro business. We want you to be here for the foreseeable future. And I do not blame them based what he's put on the court. And his injury history is more fluky than it is sort of like problematic. If you ask me. Yep. I agree with you. And I've seen the pit. I've seen season one of the pits on the doctor.

Oh, you think now that you have a very good medical acumen? Is that right? First of all. It's going to be coming super handy during the NBA season with all the injuries. I've got six ER doctors, high level ER doctors on my reckoning basketball team. So I've got that medical knowledge to rely on. And I watch season one of the pit.

So I'm basically. Basically, that's medical school. Yeah, I agree. I just try to follow doctors and trainers on social media, and then I act like I know what I'm talking about. I only got one text from you over the weekend, and it was lamenting the loss of Jay Huff. Oh, God, that was tough.

That was tough. As you went out of your way to watch Memphis Grizzlies games last year because you're a great friend. Yeah. You fell in love with Jay Huff. Well, hold on, hold on. There's a couple things happening here. There's a macro and a micro

thing that I want to say about this transaction. On a macro level, it happened a bit with the Bain trade and our text thread with Bill and House and then you end up ending up on the Bill Simmons podcast. When someone gets traded

for, and we'll discuss this later in the podcast about other players, all of a sudden, like, they're amazing. like Jay Huff. I saw, I saw like a patient's account being like, this is our new center.

And it was just like all Jay Huff dunks. And it was like all of his highlights. I loved J. Huff. Because he, because he dumped backwards. Every time.

In October and November. And then I said, I texted you, I texted you in like early November. I was like, we should do a thing on the show called the Huff date where we just update J. Huff news.

And guess what? There was no huff dates after that. Because he didn't do anything in the second half of the season. And you watched, every single grisies game. And you know there weren't a lot of Huff dates. There wasn't a lot of big J. Huff games. And the Pacers are replacing Miles Turner with J. Huff.

And people are acting like it's like a one-for-one swap out. Okay. I'm just going to tell you this. I love J-Huff. He's great. Jay Huff's awesome. Great family. The whole thing.

A fun guy to have on the team. A guy that can come in, it might get you nine points in 12 minutes. Might get you nine points in four minutes. Light the arena on fire. Yeah, trailing threes. And he's going to make some shots for sure. But he is a backup center phone. That's what he is.

Barely. And he's a fun. He's a really fun guy to have on your local team. If he's on your team in your market, he's so fun to have. But the idea that you're going to replace Miles Turner production with Jay Huffin, I'm not even a big Miles Turner guy to be honest with you. Like, that's not going to happen. And you can put together a soul.

social media clip that's like a minute and 10 seconds long, they will convince you that Jay Huff is like better than Carl Anthony Towns. Oh, hey, you can't. Hey, hey, you don't have to tell me because in the absence of Jay Huff. Which there's a lot of because I watch Grizzlies games. I'm like, where's Jay Huff and he's on the bench next to Yuki? Yeah, but once that happened, once Jay Huff was gone, it was like what is going on here.

And then when you talk about watching videos, Don't let me fall down a wormhole And don't let me talk You know We have one of the most popular Podcasts Outside of the United States I think our biggest country

Is Australia Oh yeah Australians loves basketball I was there last year Hey hey Our listeners hit me up And they say Verno You are gonna love

Jock Landau It's Londale but sure Londale. And I turned, boy, I cued up, I fired up YouTube. I couldn't be more all in. I love this guy already. I love the accent. I love the grit.

Oh, he had like a Mohawk when he was on the sun. I love this guy. He reminds me of like a Stephen Adams type. He does. Oh, God, please. No, no. I'm saying when you watch these. No, no.

He will flatten guys with screens. He will crash boards. He's got that edge. I'm telling you, these guys from, I'm telling you, these guys from New Zealand and these guys from Australia have got a toughness to them. That's because they wake up and they got frigging, you know, rattlesnakes outside their door when they wake up. They got to, like, fight off stuff going to school.

They got all these, like, venomous, poisonous animals everywhere. Oh, you know, I went to Australia for a week. Like, you're two years ago with the food news podcast with Julia. shout to her. They, I was, they've got wasps that are like six inches long.

I remember this thing was flying around. It's like a wasp. It's like, it's like weighs two pounds. It's nuts. It is a different world. There's inhuman,

alien stuff over there. And Joccalandale's an alien and he's going to turn into the next Stephen Adams. Yeah, don't you, I'll just tell you, don't, don't you dare try to quell my excitement.

Don't you tell you. Oh, no, I was so excited about Jockeland. He was on the spur. I mean, like two years ago, right? Last year was the Rockets. I didn't see a lot of him on the Rockets.

It's interesting. I watched a lot of Rockets games. You know why? You know where you should have gone? You should have gone to their practice court because there's a whole interview about how he went there and he said some programs I've been at, they haven't done this. But the guys that don't get to play, the most important thing you can do is to keep your edge. Yes.

So what we would do, I put together the other guys. And it was all the guys that didn't get to play. And we would play hardcore. He said it was wars for an hour. And we had a championship belt for the other guys so that everybody was staying ready. Whenever they got their opportunity, they were ready to go in. He goes, and then we would get done and we would go do film. And then we would go lift weights.

And then we had a boxing trainer come in. And we would box. And I'm like, I'm all in. I'm all in on Josh. First of all, that's a fantastic story. I'm excited by your excitement of Joccalandale. And you will be disappointed by Jacques Laundale. But I love the way he looks.

And I have read similar stories about like NBA players that don't play. Because you can't really like go 100% before the game during the, during the day. So they have to do like two hours of working out between like 10 and midnight. So I've heard bench players in New York City will be out. until four or five in the morning because they kind of get up work at like one. They also for sure never play if you play for the Knicks. Well, Jack Laundale stayed ready for his opportunity. I mean, yeah.

If you were, if you were player 10 through 15 for the Knicks, Tyler Colick could go out until six in the morning every night and it wouldn't make any difference. But that would be annoying to me. If you had to like, I can work out in the morning, but if I have to work out like six o'clock after work, I just can't do it. I was like old and washed. But God, I would not want to work out between like 10 and midnight every day.

A couple others. Duncan Robinson to Detroit. I mean, just stand out there and knock down threes. I thought it was a kind of a lot of money for a 31-year-old, but whatever. I'm just curious about this Beasley thing. Like, can you not sign Beasley at a discount right now if you're the Pistons? Yeah. Like, no, not with what's about to come down.

What's about to come down? Nothing came down for Terry Rozier. Oh, this dude's getting hammered. hammered. Look, did Terry Rozier owe everybody in the world money? Did you not read that article of the Detroit News?

I was like, oh, my God. Bro, his barber, his landlord, he owes every single person money. His agency, like, he was getting, they were going to like, what do they call it

when they take a lien basically against your, Your salary. Garnish your wages. It's happened to me before. What? You got your wages garnish? I was about 20s. I wasn't paying taxes. I was getting paid as a freelancer.

That's fair. I mean, I was like 25. Okay. That's like the IRS is super cool. So you were a victim of irresponsibility, not a victim of. If you'd call the IRS, just anybody out there is having tax problems, they are super cool about payment plans. honestly, they're like, what can you pay? I was like, $50 a month.

They're like, cool. What day of the month do you want to pay? I was like the 20. The other thing was, I mean, you got to go, you got to read the article at some point. That's what I'm saying. This dude's getting hammered. Like, I feel,

this, you know what this feels like, when you read all the things that are like known that he's been sued for, he gets sued every time. Everybody sues him and wins, right? And all of these that were listed or no, bro, imagine how much money he owes to people that you don't want people to.

Exactly, yeah, yeah. And those are the people that turn you in. I think the only way. Those are the people that ruin your life. Yeah, I promise you, the barber ain't ruined his life. But dude, who has ever owed a barber $27,000? How many haircuts is that? Oh, God.

Seriously. The haircut I'm currently have, which is absolutely terrible. I got in a pinch in Chinatown, it cost $8.8 goes into $27,000. Hold on. Obviously, Jacoby Aircuts. Hold on. 3,000. We're going to do the quick, we're going to do the quick math on this.

All right, 27,000. I'm going to say 3,000 divided by eight. It gets you around there. I'm good at math. Yeah, 3375. Yeah, I told you. I'm good at math. I don't know if you know about me.

I can do math on top of my head really well. You could get 3,000. 375 haircuts for 27 grand. Unbelievable. I was looking at my phone during the haircut. I looked at the mirror. I was like, oh, God. This is awful.

The other thing is like, Malibisley's not a guy that's well known for having the best hair. So, right? It's not something like intricate. I can imagine if you had some kind of intricate, you know, haircut that maybe, you know, cost a ton of money.

But, come on. Well, I think it's also worth, it's also worth understanding that the people in the decision-making offices for the Detroit Pistons have a lot more information about this case and Malik Beasley than we do. And the fact that their actions are so loud that I can't hear their words. And if they felt like this was going to be cleared

and this wasn't a big deal, they probably wouldn't have signed them to a smaller deal. The other thing is all these NBA players and former NBA players talk all the time, and you've got players that have like come out and be like, yeah, he's, he smoked. It's too bad because it was such a good year last year. Oh, he had one of the best three points.

Like Norm Powell had a year like broke out at like 31 years old. Millie Pizzi is the same thing. I don't know how old he's, I'm a guess like 27, 28. But he had a great year last year. He's ready to get paid. 42 million. Which makes me think, which is what I said in the last pod was why the timing of the information getting out, I don't think was coincidental.

I don't think so either. Yeah. No. A couple of, things. Movaugger. Resigned with the Re-signed with the Orlando Magic. Certainly brings him an edge. And he was really he was really good off their bench last year. I thought that

that had like a pro him when they lost him and Suggs, you know, for the extended amount of time. Because you remember, they got by without Pollo. They got by without Franz. They like kept getting by and it was like, what is going on? And then the Mo Wagner and J. Lynn Sugg's losses were more proficient. found that even they were able to get by with one of the stars being out. But having those two guys out really took an edge away from what they did. I watched a Magic Lakers game.

And I was like, is Mova Hager having a revenge game? I was like, you don't get fired to play your old team or whatever? I was just like, I think the first half, he had like, I don't know, 12, 14 points. I was like, what is going on here? He's spicy too. He's a good, a good 17, 12, 14 minutes a game player. He's feisty and he's one of your best players brothers. Exactly.

His brother's on two. Yeah. So that's cool too. And then the other one that is worth mentioning, we talked about Denver a little bit earlier. Tim Hardaway Jr., just another, like, vet. Go out there. I mean, again, it's, can you go in there and knock down open threes? Can you do that?

Because you're going to generate a bunch of corner threes and open threes when you're play with Nicola Yokic, can you knock down some corner threes, and even at this stage. And I thought, you know, and he's a good vet. He's a good vet. Then again, you're not asking him to be a starter and play 30-something minutes for you, but there are certain

nights for sure that I'd say that the people in Detroit really loved him. He did. He had a tough series against the Knicks. And like I said, I worked with his dad, so I kept close attention to him. He's like a, you know, I'm a Game of Thrones guy. they say like when a Targaryen is born,

the gods flip a coin. It's like he's either going 0 for 3 or he's going 4 for 7 from 3. You know what I mean? Like it's one of the two. It's one of those things where it's like you put him in his first rotation and if he gets the open shots, he's the God or he doesn't.

The days that he got it, it looks great. The days he doesn't, guess what? You're not going back in the second half. I think that's fine for Denver. That's all you need him for. And again, he'll get the Yokish bump too. He'll get the Yokish bump. Yokish creates open shots for his teammates.

Absolutely. All right. Let's get to, we're going to do some perfect fits and we're going to do some disasters in terms of moves that have been made this NBA off season. We got three each. I want to say something about this. This is how I approach this. I'm not evaluating the transaction because I think a lot of my disastrous transactions,

I probably would have done the same thing if I were that team in the moment. I'm forecasting how it's going to play out. Okay. me too you're going to start with fits or disasters disasters come up please all right my first disaster

the pelicans trading and then drafting Derek Queen which was already stupid right we hated it on the surface like everybody did you think you traded your unprotected lottery pick next year

to move up to draft Derek Queen I started looking at a bunch of Derek Queen tape I was like, what are my missing? Like, what did they see? Well, no, no, I don't think I'm not, this is not to me a commentary on what Derek Queen's going to be. It is that you already have Zion. Then they back it up.

And I liked, I thought there was some promise in Missy, the kid they drafted last year from Baylor, right? Long, athletic. And like, I was like, you know what? Maybe this guy's going to be able to play us in Zion. Oh, no. They went out. And they did not only are we going to draft Derek Queen and use that.

And so now, I guess, where are we playing him alongside Zion? Is he playing? Who cares? We're bringing in Kevon Looney. So then they go and they sign Kevon Looney away from the North Ortiz, or I'm sorry, from the Golden State Warriors. He's been there forever. And it's like, okay, so now I have Zion Queen Looney.

I got Herb Jones and Trey Murphy, right? Like those guys are going to be playing. You got to find a way to get them on the court. And then I had this promising guy that came up in Missy. And it's like, are you expecting it's going to be Looney and Zion together? Where does? Okay. All right, Joe Dumas.

No, not only that is they trade the pick because they knew that both, that they'd be great. next year and that pick. Their own pick is probably going to be so late. And it was the bucks picked? The better of the two of them? I'm just so. It's.

I'm so confused. I'm so confused as to why you would use that manner of asset to go up and get Derek queen, right? Mm-hmm. And then your free agent move is to go get Kevin Looney. Okay. If you,

how do I explain this? Right around like mid, late September, I can pretty much look at every NBA roster. I'll say 26 of the 30 NBA rosters and kind of like glass half bullet. You know what I mean? And be like, well, you know, if such and such takes a leap,

and if this works out, but I can't do it with the pelicans. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe it, you know what? I don't think so. I don't think so. Maybe he's just looking at it and he's going, my big rotation is going to be Looney and Missy,

and then I'm going to have Zion and I guess Queen's going to get on but how am, and then okay, all right. This is something that I want to explain early on that I probably would have done the same thing where I this team.

This is not a criticism of the transaction. I think DeAndre Aiton on the Lakers is going to be an absolute disaster. I think it's been an absolute disaster. And for me, watching Luca

with Gafford and Lively, it just all made so much sense. It's like, set me a good screen. I'll go around it and you just roll to the hoop and I'll put pressure on the defense to help with they're big. If there's room to shoot, I'll shoot. If there's room to lob, I'll lob, and you finish up

the lobs and I'll make life work so great for everybody. I especially love Lively because he could kind of like Hartnstein operate from the short roll and pass out to the corner, pass out to an open wing. And I was like, this is, this makes sense to me. They went to the NBA finals. And there wasn't a long list of centers available for the Lakers that could match that. And they all ended up on other teams.

So when Aiton gets bought out, I was pretty surprised. I'm sure the Lakers were too. They're like, we need a center. There's literally like no one else available. So I'm not, I'm not mad at them acquiring Aiton, at the number they did. What bothers me is his fit with the team.

This is an extremely defensively challenged team. DeAndre Aiton is not a defensive big. And in my memories, we all remember Aitin from the Sun's final run, right? And my memories of him are

hitting like 15 footers, 14 footers, just like it has really good mid-range touch for someone of his size. He can catch a lob and dunk, but he does it. And then I had to do some research for this one. He was also an opposing big when Yonis Adjad de Kupo had 50-something points to win the title.

Yeah, like I said, but I had to do some research. I looked at his shots last year. Because I was like, let me see if the numbers match like my thoughts about him. Last year, he had 76 dunks, 69 hook shots. I don't really know how they classify hook shots on basketball reference, but I assume it's like sort of like baby hooks. Yeah, baby hooks and sort of like just kind of shoulder pushes. 63 layups.

So 76 dunks, 69 hook shots, 63 layups, 227 jump shots. And he made six for 32 threes. So basically he's like a mid-range jump shooting big. That is not what the Lakers need on offense. And he does not provide anything that they need on defense. I think that DeAndre Aden will be. an absolute disaster.

And I just gave you a bunch of numbers, but there's also like the whole reputation that he doesn't work that hard. That ain't going to work either. It's going to be an absolute disaster. The idea that the Lakers, the three seed in the West from last year, have now fixed their problems

by losing Dorian and Finney Smith and adding La Ravia and Aiton. It's just, that's not. That's not. No, that's no. All right. Three things on this. Number one.

The biggest problem is they're counting on him. This was the Jackson Hayes deal last year. It's like, okay, we need you. Like, the problem is not as much Aiton as it is. I need you to be good. Like, this is a very important role on this team. Secondly, JJ Redick is going to hate his ass. Hate him.

Hate his guts. He punches the competitor. Over under physical altercations. between JJ Reddick and DeAndre Aiton. I'm going like 2.5. Three, one of my proudest moments on the mismatch is something that still to this day, people bring up to me. And that is that I watched DeAndre Aiton play, and I came on here. And now every time everybody that listens to the mismatch watches him thinks about it,

I said he plays like he has in AirPods. AirPod Aiton. He looks like he's just got the AirPods in and he's just jogging up and down the core. with really not that much to do with the rest of the game. He's just kind of going back and forth and it's a ball half of the like, whatever, all right. But yeah. He's a great mid-range jump shoot. I honestly think that Chris Paul is so cerebral that he's like,

sort of like takes him a couple months playing with his team to read what every buddy's spot is and what everybody needs and what's going to work with him. And he elevated Aiton to a starting center in the finals level player. And we've never seen anything like that from him since. Next one. Disaster. Holiday to the Blazers. All right.

So I've let this one settle. I hate this. I hate it. $104 million for three years. And you're going to pay him at age 37, 37. This is a team that went 23 and 18 the rest of the way and started to think that they're like, okay, now we need to go and take the next step. And it's like you've got sharp and you've got Kamara and you've got

clinging and you've got scoot and you got these young guys and you're kind of like building up. And now you're going to throw like the amount of money that that takes up on your books. And not only obviously they got off of, you know, they moved off of Anthony Simons in this deal. It's like, I don't understand why this is. the move now. Not that he is, he's certainly not going to actively hurt you. He shouldn't actively hurt you. What I'm saying is, where does this get you in the Western,

if you were in the East, the acquisition of Drew Holiday would at least possibly be palatable. You're in the Western Conference. Where is this putting you? Like, name the, name the best players you've got. In the end, it's just a team that sped up its timeline. This happens all the time. It happens all the time. The patience runs out and then they get a little high on your own supply, right? Look, they were 23 and 18. Two reasons. Number one, everybody missed every three against them. Did they get better defensively for sure? But the numbers tell you that everybody started missing threes against them. They had like the lowest three point percentage against. That wasn't just because of their defense.

Teams just started randomly. And the other thing is, you know why teams start missing threes against you? And you know why you start winning a bunch of games in the second half? And I say this is someone who has covered a mid-team. Okay. Nobody gives a crap about that game the second half of the year. You've already established that you're one of those. You're table for seven the night before.

You are a table for seven. And guess what? Teams come in. They don't shoot as well against you. you're catching the wait like you come out you're still playing hard you're feeling yourself you're doing good you're trying to maybe we could get to the play in though they ran out of time on that but i promise you that that second half is a bit of a mirage because once you establish yourself as not very good the first half of the season people stop that those teams that's the break game yeah that's the

break game and now look credit to you you're playing great down the stretch but now you you're You started to believe that you're like on to something. And so you're going to try to speed this up by getting this vet point guard in there. And it's like, where is that going to get you? Seriously. What is the best you could possibly get to? And your best players, theoretically, are still a couple of years away from becoming your best players. I didn't really think about it like that, sort of like the visiting team coming in.

But it is one of those games where it's like the West Coast road trip games where it's like you have to play the Warriors before them. or you're like coming from like the Denver. You know what I mean? Like these like real teams that you really have to get up for and you're looking at Portland like, ah, we'll be fine. And it's marked down.

It's marked down as a win. And then a hard playing team, I like Chaunty, well coached can, can beat you, especially if your team is not in a position where they need to win games latencies. You know,

because that happens to a lot of the teams. A lot of teams, it's like they're either locked into a high seed or they're not going to make the playoffs at the play in. So it's kind of like, whatever. Break game. And they caught a bunch of teams.

Yeah. It's like, hey, look, if we would have played like that for both halves of the season, we don't have 46 games. Bro, you're never playing like that for both halves. Like, you weren't that good. And veteran in locker room. You've gotten, you've gotten, you've gotten. I love a veteran in the locker room on a young team that's like PJ Tucker.

You know what I mean? Or like on a minimum? That's great. That's a great role. Look at James Johnson for the Pacers. But paying him $33 million to be like the adult in the room. No, no. Especially that third year.

I'll be shocked at the team at that point. But yeah, it's a tough one. That'll be a disaster. We're saying with disasters. All right. Let me look at my notes. This one's obvious. This is obvious.

Waving Dame Lillard to make room to sign Miles Turner. It's an absolute disaster. Terrible. It's just like, bro, I've, I really liked Miles Turner when he was defensive player of the year candidate Miles Turner who could also shoot threes. But like, I think there's this bump that you get when you get traded to a new team that your perception becomes so much better than the reality of who you are.

Like all of a sudden where it's like Miles Turner, like he'll replace Brooke Lopez. He's more active and like he can do all of this and that. Like Miles Turner was a really good player on the Pacers, but here's what he scored in the finals, 15, 16, 9, 12, 13, 3 and 6. And every time he talks about how he can shoot. He played 23 playoff games, 23 playoff games.

He had six of those games where he made two or more three points. That means in the other 17 games, he had zero or one made three-pointer. Like, he is not as good a shooter as you think he is. And he is not going to take this team and replace Brooke Lopez and Dane Lillard's production. It's just, it's just not going to happen. I like, I like Miles Turner and I like, I like the fit with Yonis. No, no, no, yes, I do.

This is going to be disaster. I'm saying it's going to be disaster. We'll check back in. We'll check back in on this February. I don't like their guards and their wings. And I don't like, I mean, again, this is only palatable if the only thing was we're losing Janus if we don't do something like that. The only thing that makes sense if Janus says to me, if Janice doesn't end up on our team in the next two weeks, I'm out. But there's no way that that happens.

There's no way that happens. I just think this is desperate. Of course it is. And you're going to be paying Dameda $22 million. Like when my kids are graduating high school and they're 20. right now. Like, what is happening? No. What is happening? In five years.

In five years. Five years. How old's your daughter going to be at five years? 17? 17 years old. Yeah. My son's going to be 17. Can you imagine that? My son's going to be shaving and they're going to be paying $2,000 a year. What is this? My last disaster. And I'm going to be honest with you.

I'm doing this not because I totally foresee disaster. I'm being honest, all right, on the front of you. I'm doing this mostly. out of spite. If I have to hear or read one more thing about what a win it was

for the spurs to get friggin' Luke Cornet. I am going to throw a... Who gives a shit? Seriously! I know he played for the Celtics.

I know they were awesome. But I know he had the seven blocks in that game against the Knicks. One game. But, like, dude, he also, all right. He's like a big, it doesn't shoot through. He's like, oh, my God, Luke Cornet. You would have thought that they signed a 10-time All-Star,

the way people talked about this. It just falls into the same line of every big Spurs white guy that they've had for the last 20 years. If it ain't Zach Collins, it's Drew U. Banks. Or it's Yacup. Yacob. or Tiago Splitter or Davis Bertons or whatever. And it's like, oh, Luke Cornett's really going to make a huge difference for the sport.

Like, dude, all right. Enough. He had one impactful playoff game on a national stage and everything. That's his like regular modus operandi. It's like this guy, there's a reason that he was like a Westchester Nick, which is like the G-League team. And the Vodge, like, oh, he can hit three.

He's like he's the future of the Knicks franchise. He gets to the Knicks and everyone's like, oh, he sucks. Yeah, can't move. Can't move. He is like, Jay Huff needs better PR. He can once again, $40 million.

It's the trade bump. Like, once you get traded, you become so much more valuable than you actually are. Jay Huff is not valuable. I watch so many stupid Grizzlies games and he couldn't get on the floor and they're down by 20. And the other day,

they signed it for $40 million, what do you get $40? $44 million or something like that. No. No. Luke Cornett. Yes, he did. Let me look at it.

No, no, no. He got over $40 million. No, no, no. If the Celtics would have brought it back for five, everybody wouldn't be like, oh, my God, what a bargain. They'd be like, oh, yeah, fine. Like, you got, Luke Cornett. I have to look this up.

This is insane. Luke Cornet got to set. He got $40 million. No, he did not. Yes, he did. That's why. That's why I'm saying this out of spite. And there's for sure a bunch of people out there be like,

Luke Cornet is really good. You don't understand. I've got to look Cornetta. Like, come on. Enough. Oh, no. Oh, my God. I just Googled his name.

He is not. $41 million for four years? Yeah, dude. The last three years team options. It's not a bargain. Oh, my God. I've, I've watched Luke Cornett play a lot of basketball.

They did that. He was on a great team. He's on a great team. And I'm not saying he's a bum. I'm not saying he can't be impactful. I'm saying, He is a 15-minute basketball player. Who doesn't stretch the floor?

What did they ask him to do on the Celtics? What was his role? Just like, I don't know, contest shots and get rebounds? Set a screen from time to time. Let let 65-year-old Al Horford breathe for a minute so we can go put him on the ventilator. Oh, wow. That was a good one. The thing is, it's like, you can't even call it.

a disaster, it will just have no impact. No impact. Just stop. Whatsoever. It's just over, it's just overrated. Come on. It's like, it feels like the smart thing to say. Like, I watch so much basketball.

I know Luke Cornynda. Same thing with Jay Huff, too. Not explaining. Same thing with Jay Huff. Yes. I, like, I need to explain to you how, how you don't understand how awesome J. Huff is. Yeah. Jay Huff was awesome for like three weeks in like late October.

He was awesome. And since then, I don't remember anything Jay Huff did. Oh, that's a good one. I'll make my last one brief because the whole thing is just a disaster. It's just a disastrous franchise doing disastrous things. Whatever that is going on with the Brooklyn Nets is going to be a disaster. It's set up to be a disaster. It's on purposely a disaster.

And if this is the plan is to be young and terrible, then God bless you. but to drive to draft five first rounders who can't shoot or do anything is just hilarious and then like trade for Michael Porter's contract oh yeah Michael Porter Jr.

Like no, I don't know, he's not going to fill the seats. He'll get the Nets bump like McHale Bridges did where it's like early on Michael Bridges was cooking when he was on the Nets and he'll be fine. But like they extended to qualifying to Camp Thomas.

I guess I think they need Camp Thomas to be a thing. Sure. Like, Cam Thomas, Porter Jr. Claxton, and like, Yeager. I just don't know what there is to be excited about in Brooklyn. I mean, you can, the thing to get excited about is that you,

Jacoby, can affordably watch. That's what I was thinking. Visiting teams. As I was putting this down, I was like, oh, do you know what this means? Yeah. It's only an extra. Hell, you could probably get season tickets. Q train. It's only an extra four stops on the Q train from where I would get off to get on Madison Square Garden and where I

would get off to go to Barclays and my kids are all going to have Nets jerseys and T-shirts. They're not going to know that Nix exists. Yeager's. Yeager's jerseys. That's what you need. Yeager jerseys. I try to convince myself into him.

It's tough. It's tough. It's like he can pass. Get him a Danny Wolf jersey. Danny Wolf. He's a fun one. He's a look, he knocks down some shots and some nerds going to have him making $41

million in a couple of years. I saw that he's going to make $9 million, and Cornett's going to make $9 million yesterday, next year, and he's made $9 million in his whole entire career up to this point. Correct. Shouldn't that tell you something before you give him $41 million for four years? They found the

diamond in the rough. All right, perfect fits. These are easy. Yeah, easy. Let's go quick. So, all right, so Durant's gotten all the headlines, but Finney Smith is the one. Finney Smith is the, he's the one to me. That guy is a flat winner.

Do you know that in players that played over a thousand minutes last year, on off court, on off court, plus minus, right? Like, when I'm on the court, when I'm on. Number one, will be totally unsurprising to you. It is Nicole Yookish. Number two is Finney Smith. Huh. He is just a flat winner.

He just is. He's the perfect kind of role player for the 2025 NBA. In the absence of, that was the one thing that I worried about when they made that Durant trade was losing Brooks and losing that perimeter defender, like that true wing defender. Like I can go guard the- Eastern and Thompson.

I, but I'm going to go and I'm going to reliably guard the best. player and be able to knock down a shot when you throw it to me, right? I'm not going to take that many, but I can. And I love Finney Smith. I do. I love Finney Smith. And I think that especially after the move that they made, that was a very important

acquisition because even I'm in Tom, Sittari, Ease, whatever, like, you're now, you're going to be playing high level basketball. You're going to be in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Second round. No, I'm saying. And you're playing somebody really good in that second round of the Western Conference playoffs. Well, do. Hey, let's get them to the second round.

Okay, because. But they get, they get Duran. I understand. And they've got DFS. Do they have enough cumulative playoff scars for your taste, Mr. Vernon? Oh, yeah. They got a bunch of bets on that. They got, okay, good, good.

Yeah. A bunch of bets. Good grief. Jeff Green. They got Van Fleet, Capella, Stephen, Adams, Durant, Finney Smith, that's a team of vets. They got, their young guys

are gone. I'm really excited about the Rockets potential. I'm really excited about the Rockets Potential. Finney Smith was the one that I thought was a, that was a big one, especially after the whole deal when they lost Dylan Brooks, I thought they still needed to replace that kind of switchable,

malleable perimeter, awesome defender. And they got one. Again, this one's easy. We can go quickly through it. Just the entire Hawks, just like, low up this offseason. Oh, wow. Like, it's just like, it's like they were on OZempic.

They changed their hair color. They got a nose job. Like, they, Dave's just like, I didn't expect this from this team. It's a home court advantage team. Oh, that's,

that too, that too. Don't you think so? No, no, no. No, I'm saying, I think they have a chance of being one of the top four scenes. Oh, I think they meant they have a home court advantage.

Of course they have a home court advantage. They didn't midnight the night before and don't even put their, their back. bags down in the hotel lobby and just go out. They have that home court advantage. They do have that. But I mean, this to me is, this is like, the sky is the limit.

And I just didn't see, I didn't see this stuff happening. I didn't see like, I didn't, you know, with the, you know, aprons and CBA and, you know, and the mid-level exceptions of all this. But like, Nikila Alexander Walker, adding him and adding Chris Dasporzengis,

if he gets over, whatever he's got, like, Trey Young, Dyson Daniels, Jaylon Johnson, Riesa Shea, who had some moments last year. Draft Newell, I don't expect too much for him his rookie year. In Okongwu, like, apparently the Lakers really tried to get Okongwu last year, and they kept him, which I like. They were like, you know what, this is our guy.

The Rockets and the Hawks, I'm going to say some really, really irresponsible things about them when I make predictions for next season. I just think they have a chance, as I said, of being, look, you would say you have to give Cleveland and New York their spots. But you know that the other two that were in the top four were Indiana and Boston. And they're

going to move down. And you've got this group of like Orlando, Atlanta that have made big moves. And then you could foresee maybe Detroit taking another step forward. Obviously Milwaukee still has the honest. But I mean, again, they're going to

be in the mix for a home court advantage spot if they're able to stay relatively healthy. They could be the two seed. They could easily. Okay, you are going to get irresponsible with this. They can be the two seed. They can be the one seat.

My next thing that I love, speaking of Orlando, the former grizzlies in Orlando. So, look, I will just say this to all the magic fans. Not only you're going to love Desmond Bain, and he is absolutely perfect

for what you've got there, then they went and got Tyos Jones, who is absolutely one of my favorite players. You love Tyos, I wish it would have gone better for him at Phoenix. But this is a team that was last in the league and assist, Jacoby. The thing I love about Tyos Jones is Tyos Jones is a total throwback. He actually makes people better.

He is the point guard. He knows where you want to catch it. He knows where you are in best position to score. He's never going to turn the ball over. And he's just going to be solid. He's going to be solid. He's going to be able to run your team. And for a team that it was like last in the league and assist,

adding a guy that is that great at turnover to assist ratio along with them, I think is going to be, he's one of the best backup point guards in the league. He is miscast as a starter, but he is a great backup point guard. And beyond that, unbelievable locker room guy, great teammate. And you're going to have that alliance. I mean, I covered both those guys in Memphis. The Bain and Tyos Jones thing is going to be phenomenal guys to bring into that locker room, which was already a good locker room with a good, with a good team.

They're going to help that. I love it. If Stugs misses games, you've got someone there. And Cole Anthony's gone. He, he, ties Jones saved two grizzly seasons. That's why I love him so much when John Morant went out. Yeah. He was great.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. One of the sort of weird stats about John Moran is the team plays well with that. I don't know how that has to do in Ty's Jones. A lot of it was Ties Jones. Yeah. And bang, which it feels like it happened three weeks ago. But you're right. This is going to be a perfect fit.

I've got two to pick from. I'm going to go Homer here. Mike Brown. That would be funny or if you said Mike Brown, you got the perfect fit after a month. Did you see? What they said at the press conference? What?

Was he the perfect fit? They did a very thorough search. When everybody says no, the search better be thorough. Thorough. A very thorough search because no one wanted to do it. Mike Brown, Yabousseli. It wasn't nobody wanted to do it. It was nobody wanted to give the Knicks their coach.

And Jordan Clarks. Oh, Yavuseli of Jordan Clarkson. You love it. I do too. I do too. Love it. I love that for, I mean, good grief. It's because they're going to play more players.

They're going to play, they're not going to play everybody 45 minutes a game. It also gives you eight, like, awesome players, like to be able to put in the game, depending on the situation. I think it's going to make a dramatic difference for the next regular season. Absolutely. Regular season. Jordan Clark's been playing Utah so people don't really notice, but he's still a bucket. And Yavasail was, like, phenomenal in the Olympics.

and really good on a Sixers team that people stopped caring about right around the turn of the year. But, like, I love these two for this team because they're going to go to a regular rotation. If you follow Tom Tibido, you have to change things up. And part of that is playing your bench. And I just think that...

I'll tell you that. These two will fit in really... They've got, like, ten legitimate basketball players that can play. There is going to be that night where they bring in Deuce, Clarkson, Yabo, and Precious, and they run somebody off the court. Seriously.

Yes. And then the starters, the starters started looking at the clock, being like, I'd normally come back in right around this time. They just catch fire because they, Deuce could get on a heater, Clarkson could get on a heater. And Yabo's like one of those guys that you could look up and he's got you nine points in six minutes.

And they were a very healthy team last year. I think they had good injury luck outside of Robinson. He was obviously hurt. Yeah. But like, you know, OG played and Brunton played and Cat played. You got to have 10 guys in your rotation during the regular season because you don't always have those guys available. And I thought they were really lucky last year with that,

which gave them the high seed and gave them the playoffs success. My last perfect fit is really because I wanted to give this guy a shout out because I saw that he signed the one-year deal for like $3 million. So he ain't doing it for the money. He's made more money than he could ever have. And that is Kyle Lowry coming back for a 20th year with the Philadelphia 76ers. You go into very rarefied air when you have played 20 seasons. So 22 is Vince and LeBron, okay?

21 years is Robert Parrish, Kevin Willis, Dirk, Garnett, Kareem, and Kobe. That's it. And then the 20s are Jamal Crawford, Eudonis Haslam, Chris Paul, Moses Malone, James Edwards, Stockton and Malone, Charles Oakley, Shaq, Jawan Howard. That's it. In the history of the NBA. In the history of the-Juant 20 years?

Yes. And now what I love is that Kyle Lowry, you're only doing that to be an awesome veteran leader. He does not need three million bucks, right? And he's there. And look, and they've got Edgecombe, and they've got Maxie, and they've got McCain, and they've got these guys, right? Like, that was a dismal season last year. So you know what his role is, right, to kind of be keeper of the flame.

And we now have a dearth of vets in the league. Like, true OGs. They're just few and far between. And it is so hard to have a career for, I mean, 20 years is unbelievable. And I love the guys. that obviously are not what they once were. They've had their day in the sun. They've made their All-Star teams or whatever else.

And they're doing it to be the vets for the younger players. That's the role. It's not just for the vets. It's also like I want to continue to play NBA basketball. I still think I can contribute to a basketball team. And maybe I'm not as valuable as I used to be. And I've humbled myself about that. Their value is even greater.

Their value is even greater. And you saw the way that. Like he's got this almost like this big brother, little brother, roll your eyes at the immature Jared McCain. Like their relationship they developed last year. And now Edgecombe coming in, like he'll be able to learn a lot from Kyle Lowry. And there's just,

it's very hard for the young guys that come into the league to actually have people around that they can learn from. There was, it's, eras have changed. eras have changed dramatically. And it used to be, it used to be a bunch of guys had vets,

you know, that they learned from. You talk to any of these great players and there's somebody, it's Charles Barkley talking about Moses Malone changing things for him. And it's Kevin Garnett talking, it's on and on and on. There's somebody that was like their OG. There was somebody that was their vet that kind of taught him the way of the world and everything else.

Even Gilder's Alexander talks about how his, life's completely different because of Chris Paul. That's what I was about to say. I want to break format here and ask, like, why are we hearing more about Chris Paul? Well, he's got one more year left, right? He says he's going to play one more year. But, like, where?

Oh, he's going to end up in Milwaukee. I think they said he was going to go to the Clippers, though, right? Like, then he might just run it back with the Clippers one time. It's just interesting. Because for, like, I think he's more valuable on the floor than Kyle Lowry. But I also, I love the decision. that he's made to go to the thunder and go to the spurs.

This isn't like Carl Malone going to the Lakers, being like, put him in the best team possible. Maybe it'd be the clippers. You know what I mean? Clippers would be interesting. That's who I think of. Do you think of him as a hornet or a clipper? Chris Paul? I think of him as a clipper. I actually think of him as like

a clipper and a rocket. Oh, a rocket. He wasn't there long. No, but that's one year when they missed the 17 threes in a row. Bust his hamstring. I love that team. I love that team. I wanted that team to beat the Warriors so bad.

Yeah. I mean, I think of him as a clipper, not a, not a hornet. Because that Lob City Clippers team is just so, like. Hateable? No, I liked him. I was in L.A. at the time. I've never been a Lakers guy. I covered all the Grizzlies Clippers Wars.

Those were great. That was a great rivalry. I didn't watch the scripted Clippers show. Did you watch that? They did like a winning time about the Clippers? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't watch it. I watched like a little bit.

I just couldn't, it didn't hit. Oh, here's my final perfect fit. This one's obvious, but I'm just going to say it anyway. Just Cam Johnson, maybe Valenciunist, Tim Hardaway and Bruce Brown to the to the Nuggets. It's just like so obvious. Yes. Just give Yokish better toys to play with. Yep.

That's all. Just getting better toys to play with. He'll do it all. He is your offense. Have you seen the off-season here? Why you got Google in front of you? Look at these new printers of Christian Brown. I saw that.

What the hell? I don't know. It's like you've been on P90X or something. I think it's just, it's just like angles and lighting and stuff. That's that way that's a super dated reference, isn't it? Okay. P90X. Was that the one that could like one barbell that could be like 10 pounds?

Yeah, it was that Tony Horton guy. Yeah. It came. It was DVDs. That's how long ago was. What the one with the, you to year as old as me, the one that had elastic bands instead of weights? Oh.

What was that called? I can't remember. I had a buddy that had one that's worst. Guess what? Wades are better than elastic bands. But it's just like, it just makes sense. Just give Yokic more things to play with. You know, just surround him with a little bit more shooting.

And, you know, I think Bruce Brown, we haven't really seen play basketball, but Tim Hardaway's going to have those nights. Awesome. A cowboy hat collection though. Yeah, he's got, he's got,

I almost prefer him not playing. Me too. Me too. They'll still win 50 games even with it without him. So he gets to look

his outfits more. Yeah, just wear the cowboy hats on the sidewalk. It was too bad he was on the rapists because like no one talked about how ridiculous he would be dressed.

And I looked it up before this pod. He's from like Eastern Massachusetts. He's from like a suburb of Boston. He's not even like a cowboy guy. I remember when he was being scouted out of,

college. He played at Miami. I remember somebody told me he was an awesome football player. Like awesome, awesome. Which stands to reason. He looks like the kind of guy that would be awesome at football, right? Yeah. I believe. Do you know, one of my

Bruce Brown's stories was when he was with the Nets, I think it was pre-nuggets he was with the Nets. And, you know, I'm a New York guy, so like you kind of hear a lot more about the local teams than most. He became this great screen and roll guy. And he's like six four.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. They completely unlock their offense by having, like, Bruce Brown be their screen and roll guy. He'd catch it, like, the short roll and, like, make things happen. I was just like, I don't know how this is working. I don't know why this is working, but it is working. And there's a large sample size. It was like they unlock their offense by having Bruce Brown to be the screen and roll guy. I don't think he'll be playing that role for the Nuggets, but he'll be wearing some cool clothes when he's not playing.

Yeah. The Nuggets off-season has been very, very good. And like the Hawks, like the Hawks, I didn't see the room. I saw more constraints on them. I think these would be teams that would take, have much better rosters this year than last year. But it goes to show, even with all the restrictions, if you are creative and lucky, you can make things happen.

When you make win now moves, because you're trying to, like when you have the best player in the world or certainly one, of the top three players in the world, every chance you have a chance to win the title. So you need to build a team around him that is equipped for playoffs. And again, you only have two spots to fill Jacoby. Gordon's a lock and Murray's a lock.

So you've got two spots to fill. Can you just ably fill those? And Christian Brown's going to play a lot, right? So like, you just like, it's also just like less Strother, less Watson. you know what I mean? Like those guys were on the floor a lot. And maybe they'll turn into great players,

but they weren't as effective as the guys. They've lost the guy, like, you know, Mike Malone or Michael Malone didn't want to play them. And Calvin Booth wanted those guys to become, you know, when you're the GM that drafted them,

now they've got new management. They ain't going to care. They ain't going to care about that. They'll bring in vets right over those guys' heads. Right. I know what Tim Hardaway Jr. is going to do. I don't know what Strather is going to do. for sure or yeah any of the jalen picket all all of them right that he you know the GM always

wants you to develop the guys that he's drafted rather than go get guys right and so that that thing went completely sideways when they lost kCP Michael malone was mad about that from i mean he wasn't going to let that go um and so anyways yeah but we like what they did in the offseason uh for sure i am going to be headed out to Las Vegas later in the week yeah a bunch of Summer League. So by next Monday, I'm going to have all manner of ridiculous thoughts on whatever I see out in Summer League. Hopefully I'll be able to glean a bunch of info from people and see a lot of players.

I can't wait. The trouble with the Summer League basketball is it comes right after the finals. So your brain is used to watching a certain level of basketball being played. And I'm watching it. I'm just like, this is disgusting. I know. I know. It's like this is corrupt.

Do you know that the first night, the opening night of Summer League, like they've traditionally always done, I believe, one versus two. So I was like, when are they going to do Cooper Flag versus Dylan Harper, right? Like that'll be the marquee night or whatever. Oh, no. They changed it up this year for the Cooper Flag debut, not Dylan Harper. Let me guess. No idea.

Brony. I think the NBA knows what it's doing. Yeah. There's like Brony updates. Like he's got some quote about how important defenses is. What are we doing? Cooper flag and Brony. I mean,

you want to talk about a hard ticket. That first night of Summer League, they're going to be facing each other. It's going to be lit. So anyways. There's all the other of those reports. I'm excited for this rookie class. I am.

The Edgecombe thing got me excited. I was like, you know what? Let's go. Let's go. You can't read too much into it, but like Edgecombe popped off the screen. Last year's rookie class was lame. Like.

I mean, even during the regular season. Yeah, it was like. Yeah. They didn't even like, bro. Zachary Reisachet was walking through my hotel and not one person recognized him. And that gives the number one pick of the drive. Yeah. He was the number one.

I'm saying. Six nine too. It's like, you know. I got it. But like, you know, any of these guys, even if you're just like a rostered player. If Bruce Brown walked through, there would be people running up to him. Hey, Bruce, can I get a picture? Can I get a cowboy had a plaid shirt and a gigantic belt buckle.

They'd be like, I love your song, Tipsy. They'd be like, yeah, hey, Shabuzi. Yeah. Got a haircut? But it'll be fun. It'll be a fun summer league because it's a fun rookie class. Yeah, it is a fun rookie class. And then obviously, you catch a bunch of softboards and third year players that are still playing there.

And, you know, the ones that don't get to play as. much on the court throughout the season. So they'll show up at Summer League and inevitably some of the second and third year guys will pop off. You know, that's the way this thing goes every year. Thank you to our executive producer Jesse Lopez. Thank you to Tucker on video and Jacoby.

I'll talk to you next week.