The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Tom Haberstroh on Luka Doncic in Dallas, Nikola Jokic's Future in Denver, and Muggsy Bogues HOF | 4.11

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Bomani Jones is joined by Tom Haberstroh of Yahoo Sports to discuss Luka Doncic's return to Dallas. Bo starts off the show by complimenting Tom having a framed Muggsy Bogues jersey hanging in the background (0:42) and how impactful Bogues is in the city of Charlotte. (2:27) They move on to Luka Doncic returning to Dallas for the first time after being traded and why Wednesday night's game was very tough on Anthony Davis. (6:25) Bo and Tom criticize Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban for his demeanor at the game (26:45) and defend GM Nico Harrison saying he wasn't the only front office member complicit in the Luka Doncic trade. (32:28) They wrap up the show by saying why it wasn't surprising the Denver Nuggets fired head coach Michael Malone (40:00) and why Tom has Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as his NBA MVP over Nikola Jokić. (47:05) . . . Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Support the Show: Discover faster, more reliable search with Perplexity today. Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at perplexity.com! https://pplx.ai/bomani-jones Download the DraftKings Pick Six app NOW and use code BOMANI. Better payouts. Bigger wins. Only with Pick6 from DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Go to zbiotics.com/BOMANI to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use BOMANI at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A Wave Original presented by perplexity. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater.

It is Habistro Friday. Tom Havistro of Yahoo Sports and others. What's going on? What's going on, Bo. Good to be here. Amen. Glad to have you. I asked you right before we got on.

jersey that was that you had behind you. I will stop you from having to address your camera shot, but there we go. Tyrone Mugsy Boggs from the east side of Baltimore, and you have a hot Mugsy Bowles take. I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. It's insane that a dude who's five foot three and had a 14-year NBA career, high-level career, not just like scraping on by on the back of these benches, this dude was a good NBA player who was like eight standard deviation, away from the norm in terms of his height. Like this is a league of giants. This is the equivalent of a blind baseball player hitting 300 for his career.

That is what Mugsy Boggs is like in the NBA. I don't understand how he's not in the hall. So I do think that this is an interesting one, right? Because I think we talked about this on the internet a few months ago, that his career, I don't think quite gets enough credit. Because it's not as though he was, like you said, just at the end of the bench somewhere, right? Like this is a dude that averaged a double double for full season in the NBA, right?

He was a very good defensive player. All of those things. The Hornets were good with him. Obviously, there are limitations that come when you have a 5 foot three point guard. But the idea that he was a starter for all of that time in the NBA. And I remember there were years, it was one year where I think, I can't remember exactly what year it was. But I think he averaged more rebounds than James Worthy.

You know, now granted, that was an indictment of what James Worthy was at that point in his career. But he was a guy and also was incredibly famous at the time because the Charlotte Hornets were really cool because they had jerseys that were in colors and they had Larry Johnson and they had Alonzo morning and and and they had Mugsy Bowes. I'm telling you man here in Charlotte. So I'm based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I moved here in 2017. And they have murals in like one of my favorite restaurants and bars in town. Like there's a mural of Mugsy. Boges, Alonzo Morning, and Larry Johnson. And people forget, like, the 90s Charlotte Hornets, I grew up north.

Everybody was wearing that starter jacket. Everybody. That was the most coveted starter jacket in the game, is the Charlotte Hornets with the purple and teal. And people are like, man, I just, Charlotte Hornets, how can they get back? Like, are they, there's such a depressing franchise right now. I'm like, y'all don't understand. The Charlottes were the team in the 90s.

Like they were the grandmama, like you're kidding me. Like this, this Charlotte Hornets team with Mugsy Boggs, Zoe, Grandma, Ma. They had it. There was something about Charlotte, the Hornets, the colors, the nostalgia. Mugsy Boggs was, what, he was in space jam. He was in curb. Like, this dude is a legit star and people love him.

The one person my mom always said she wanted to meet Boe in the world of sports. The one person is not Mugsy Boggs, but his mother. Really. It was like his mother, whatever she had to do to give the confidence and breathe the inspiration and the dreams of someone who stood five foot three to believe he can be one of the best basketball players on the planet, that takes a mother of mothers. And I'll never forget that. Well, two things, right?

Number one, Muzzy Bokes is also the most kid-friendly basketball player of all time, right? Like part of the Steph Curry phenomenon is that he is incredibly kid-friendly. step curry is gulliver to uh mugsy's lilliputian if in in the grand scheme of things right like step curry is literally about a foot taller than mussy bones is just throwing it out there but number two i firmly believe that while his mother probably did a lot to bring to breathe in the courage and everything he needed to make the dream the other part that is assuredly true is i guarantee you man that boy can fight ain't no way in the world you're getting as far him What's that boy's name? Earl Boykins.

I bet you you go to Cleveland. The street's going to tell you. You don't want no problems with Earl. Earl bench press like 400-something pounds, too, by the way, right? That told me everything I needed to know about how Earl Boykins got to where he got. Yeah, and also Dunbar in Baltimore. That team was the best high school team in the country. And the fact, how many NBA players are like D1 level guys that were on that team?

So what jumps out is him, Reggie Lewis, rest in peace, David Wingate. I think there's one more NBA player. not thinking of. Yeah. Like, you're on that team and you're coming from that city. Like, you're legit. And so, and he played on Team USA Mugsy. And like, this is, this is one of the most incredible careers. Forget the five, three, but just in terms of like the accolades, like this dude had it. And so I've, I've always been a big fan. We have the same birthday. I got Michael Beasley and Mugsy Boggs on my birthday. And so I've always had this like kindred thing with, uh, with Mugsy. I love that dude. And I really hope that one day we can get him into the hall.

By the way, I love that this is in his, the first paragraph of early life in the Mugsy Bowles Wiki page. Boggs was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in the Lafayette Court Housing Projects. His mother was four feet 11, and his father was five feet five. He had three older siblings. They just immediately let you know the boy never had a chance. Not a chance. And look, he also had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in NBA history. Like this dude is averaging 10 assists a game with like one turnover.

He was averaging two plus steals a game. And like Michael, there's clips of Michael, like hating to guard this dude. There's clips of Mugsy Bogs blocking Patrick Ewing. Like he played hard and nobody wanted to face that dude. Yeah, man. I'm just, I'm looking at this and thinking of all of this. Wow. I completely forgotten a whole range of this.

But this is crazy. All right. I want to get back to modern day NBA. Wednesday night, Lugudajic had his comeback game for the Mavericks. He put up 31 in the first half. I want to say he finished with 42. We'll get to the game performance itself. But I kind of want to talk a little bit about the just the surrounding everything of the game.

Because I think the Mavericks were in a bit of a tricky spot, right? A tricky spot of their own doing, just to be clear, they traded away, maybe the most popular player in franchise history. The fans are still not over it. Everybody got hurt after they made this trade. so there was no yeah but that could really be drawn in. And as is typically the case when somebody comes back, they had the tribute video. And you know, you make sure that the player and the fans know

that you appreciated everything that that player had done. The difference in this case, though, was that player right now is so much more popular than everybody that is associated with their own team. A team that then, by the way, asked people to pay more for their season tickets for the next season after they traded a one. way everybody's favorite player. Yeah, a real bungal sort of situation. But am I the only person that felt like it went a little bit too far with the T-shirts in Slovenian saying, I guess it said, thank you, Luca, or whatever it had to say, just because it went from being a tribute to the arena

throwing Luca Dachach night, which if I were on the team, I'd be a little bit furious. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that it took Anthony Davis a while to get going in this game as he looks around. it is Luca Dachish night. Man, like this whole arena, I was not there to be sure, but I wanted to point out that there were people outside of the arena with boxes of clown noses handing them out to fans. They were doing Fire Niko Chance in their own building while Luca Dantzic had the ball.

Like every time he had the ball, they were cheering or doing Fire Niko chance. And you know who isn't still over that trade either? Is Jason Kidd saw him after that game walk straight to the top. Like he's not over that. He's still feeling a certain way. I'm not saying he didn't want Luca traded. I'm saying there's a lot of raw emotions on both sides here. And Nico Harrison has not sat in his seat that he normally sits at. He's in the tunnel with security. Tim McMahon reports that according to team sources, and it's important to like underline that team sources. Someone from within the Dallas Mavericks is leaking this information to Tim McMahon. That the trade probably costs nine. figures over the next several years projected to lose dozens of millions of dollars this season due to dwindling sponsorships, ticket sales, and merchandise. The people with Inside the House, Bo, are not happy about this trade.

And it's not just the fans. It's the employees that you saw Luca Donchich walk into the arena and he's hugging people left and right. And they're also leaking business figures to show how much of a disaster this trade has been. Yeah, now one thing to note about a lot of these Fire Nico chance and everything else, this was a close game for the vast majority of it. Like LeBron James put the game away with one of those, I can't believe it's year 22 sort of fourth quarter performances. But even with Luca putting up all those shots and making all of them, he had 31 points in the first half.

It was a three point game. The fans were openly cheering basically against the home team. And this was something that was easy to foresee going into the game that it was going to happen. And Luca is the sort of guy who has the ability to go into that place of focus. And in a game like that, decide I'm going to put up 31 points in the first half. It also was not a sterling defensive performance from the Mavericks. They did not make it that difficult for him to put up the 31. But I am not as hard on Nico about making this trade as other people because I still contend.

He's the guy that has been around this dude to most and looked around and was like, it ain't going to happen here. And I do think it took a startling level of courage to decide. that you were going to be the one to make the trade. They handled everything after it terribly, though. Like if you're going to do this, you got to have a sell. You got to be able to come in front of everybody and at the very least sound incredibly confident about why you've made this decision and like, look, I get it.

You think this is crazy, but I'm telling you right now, this is going to work, right? And at every turn, you got to be willing to guide it stands up on it. Instead, they look soft, they look weak, and then the Lakers look good. This is a disaster. There's just no other way to put it. Full-on disaster. The Maves are six and 14 in their last 20. Kyrie Irving out with a torn ACL.

Daniel Gafford and Derek lively and Anthony Davis come back and they get destroyed by Luca in this game. Like there was no resistance. Luca was going right at those dudes for most of that game and scoring over them. Anthony Davis was absent for most of that game. And you know what's interesting about these like reunion games or like homecoming games? It's kind of a truth serum. when you're going against your former team, they're going to guard you the way that they were afraid

that other teams were going to guard you. Like Anthony Davis got doubled every single time he got the ball in the post. And you know JJ Reddick and LeBron James were probably on the other side be like, yo, the way to beat Anthony Davis is we got to frazzle him. Put two bodies on him and he's not going to be able to get out of him. He's not going to be able to split that double coverage

and he's going to figure out a way to cough up the ball. And that's exactly what happened. And I got to imagine a lot of emotions for Anthony Davis too. Like he's trying to prove like I'm the guy that's going to save this trade from being an outright disaster to like a break even. And ultimately I don't think he's that good to wash away everything that Luca does on the other end. And secondly, you said you're like easier, a little like less harsh on Nico Harrison

Harrison in the trade. I just feel like, Beau, the process is what bothers me. It's like if you are going to look at Luca Donchin and say that's not the guy. he's not going to stay healthy. But you're the only one who knows that. That's how you use leverage in trade negotiations. And you say to Rob Polenka, like, I'm going to get that 2031 first round pick.

I'm going to get Austin Reeves in that deal. Because we just went to the NBA finals with this, he's 25 years old. You're going to have to cough up more of your assets. And that bow is what I have a problem with. If Nico didn't believe that Luca was the guy, he keeps that close to his vest, and he goes into trade negotiations with a lot more leverage.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't think that that arena looks or sounds any different if they had gotten back eight first round picks of Austin Reeves. And look, like we're talking about Austin Reeves and Luke Godotches in this trade. Kind of like I look at back when the Celtics back in the day when they traded Danny Ains to Sacramento and they got back Joe Klein. Hey, hey, hey, one goes out. One comes in, all right? Like the fans, the fans appreciate that. One goes out.

One comes back in. I think that arena still would have looked the same because they traded, I stopped ruling for the Hawks and they traded Dominique. Dominique was 34 coming off of an Achilles chair. They traded Luca Dodgers at 25. And I think for Anthony Davis, where this is interesting, because when they first got him, he went super hard and then he got hurt, right? But I don't think that Anthony Davis ever imagined a world.

Because let us not forget. Anthony Davis, now as I think of it, Anthony Davis was probably the last true, this is a no-brainer superstar. Drafting him and number one picking the draft. Like the way we talked about Tim Duncan coming in the draft, the way we talked about David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, those sorts of guys. You can say Zion Williamson to a degree. I guess Victor. My bad. There was Victor. But in between those guys, but Anthony Davis was that level dude. Do you think he ever imagined a world where a team would trade for him? And, hey, not only would he not be considered the best player in the trade, but that the team that got you

wasn't really happy about it. Yeah, man, that's tough for Anthony Davis. And like, look, the defense is what's going to like carry the day. And they could not stop Luca and the Lakers in that game. And I think that's the problem is like if you're going to trade Luca Dantitch because quote and quote, what Nico Harrison said is defense wins championships, then you got to make sure you're going to be a lockdown defensive team. And Anthony Davis, it starts with him.

He can't go guard Luca. He can't. He's begging for fives. Like he wants to play with a center because he doesn't want to bang down low and be that rim protector. And so you're getting Anthony Davis to be a two-way superstar when he only wants to be a one-way dude who's not going to be able to switch on to Luca or garb one's, two, threes, or even like a guy like Shea Gildress Alexander. There are limitations to Anthony Davis's defensive ceiling. And yet that is the brand of basketball that Nico Harrison has set for the franchise going forward. I do want to say this, though.

the NBA conversation this season, there was a lot of conversation about ratings. There's a lot of conversation about too many threes or too many free throws, what have you. A lot of people are trying to solve the NBA. What happened before the game where Luca Donchich is crying and he's sobbing watching this tribute video and his lip is quivering like a Looney Tunes character trying to hold in an ugly cry.

I think that might have done more for the NBA's trust with the audience. or at least from the intrigue and the drama and the belief in the NBA product, then pretty much anything we've gotten this year. That moment right there, it shows me that Luca Dantich really cares, that this is personal, that this really hurt him deeply. And I wonder if all this stuff about NBA players make too much money, they just go from team to team, all they care about is themselves, I kind of feel like Luca Dantzich's reaction to that tribute video and that image of his eyes

bloodshot waterlogged and his lip quivering will stay with a lot of fans who may be checked out in the NBA and been like, oh, these team player relationships and the Dallas relationship with Luca, that mattered to that dude. That player cared about his relationship with his team in ways that I think a lot of sports fans feel like NBA players do not care about anything other than the check. I think that what it gave us, and I think there's something to that because I don't think there's any winning over the people who believe that only NBA, NBA players only care about a check because somehow this is the only league where they think that people play for money. I don't, I don't, you know, we can get into like exactly what the rationale is, right?

But what I think it gave us, if nothing else, is a storyline, right? So to me, I think an underrated demerit of the era of parity that the league gets created by the league, right? Like they decided that parity was what they wanted. And basically, losers deserve to win too. I feel like it's kind of ultimately what you wind up saying when you make it when a team gets good and you have to break it up because of these aprons and everything else. Even losers want to be good. And so you had to create a situation where a league where a lot of these owners are losers, they get their opportunity to be good too. Okay.

But the idea that Minnesota, for example, has gone back. Now, granted they traded Carl Anthony Towns. I get you. But they're down to eight after getting to the Western Conference. finals and it doesn't feel like they've been disappointing as much as that's the league that we are in what that creates or what that takes away that we used to have that I think is important to this that has always been important to these league and storylines is the idea of a build right like you start here and then you go here and then you get here and you keep bumping your head against

the ceiling right and then finally you struggle to get over like when we talk about the 80s and 90s there's so many teams that we can point to and we talk about their climb the shack Kobe Lakers for example. You can talk about the height of it, but the height of it was built by a four-year climb that involved a lot of disappointment. And so I think a lot of what happens is there's this kind of just ping pong up and down there and you don't really have like stories and rivalries and the likes to really hold on to and go to. And the Luca thing wound up being a very, very, very relatable thing, I think for all parties involved. But it's not like beforehand, And every show that talked about Luca nonstop after that trade,

they hadn't talked about the Mavericks one goddamn time that whole season. I know. I watched these shows. But what's that happened? It was in relatable story territory. And everybody jumped in on it. And I think that what you point to there with Luca in that last night was, I think, relatable for everybody because that's,

the Mavericks are fortunate, man. They've had that relationship with their star player for the last 27 years. Like what you hope for as a franchise is to have. a guy that you love that much where if he wound up being traded, it would break everybody down. Like, can you imagine if they traded Janus in say 2020 out of nowhere? I mean, if the calves were like, you know what, LeBron keeps showing up short in the postseason, we're trading that dude. Or he can't ever show up on time.

That's what it would be. They can't ever get here on time. He likes cookies too much. We got to get them out of here. That's the thing about this trade is like, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop where Nico has a sit down and he explains everything, but he's been hiding. He hasn't really talked to the media.

He's been staying out of the spotlight. And so we don't have that like, oh, now it makes sense. We don't have that. And by the way, the whole parody thing, I get it. There's a lot of financial and fiscal restraints that the new CBA has put in to smush all the teams kind of in the middle from what they can do cap-wise, right? But there's also this other thing, which is injuries. I think that a highly underrated reason why we're seeing the last six champions be a new champion is because the injury rate to star players.

This is so much harder to build a sustainable building on building on building because Janus is getting hurt. Chris Middleton's getting hurt. Damian Lillard's got a DVT. A lot of players are getting hurt in the postseason like they haven't before. And so we're seeing a lot of these would-be dynasties or these, these teams that would win back-to-back championships are losing because of injuries. And I think that's a huge part of the formula why we're seeing more parity when, in fact, what it is is players are breaking down.

Secondly, Anthony Davis was hurt for 30% of the Lakers games in the regular season. He was not this modicum of dependability and reliability. So like, if you are going to go with the defense wins championships, okay. But you can't argue that this was all about Luca Donchage's breaking down. because most players in the NBA are breaking down in their primes. And also the guy that you traded for, Anthony Davis, his nickname is street close because of how much he's been missing games. His nickname street closed because somebody said it wasn't, it was funny.

Now, also to be fair to Anthony Davis, the last two calendar years, he had been much more durable. Now, the question becomes, do you become a more durable player as you get older? Or was that just a streak of good luck? He's six years older than Luca, Paul. I mean, I hear what you say, but I said that you, that is the counter argument. It's worth presenting that in the last two years, he had played something like 95% of their games. The question about Anthony Davis, to me, in terms of his games played in the past,

was less about durability than it was willingness to play a little bit hurt. And I think my thought had always been in those last two years. He had demonstrated himself to be more willing to play hurt less than it was about being injured. because I'd also wondered early in the time with the Pelicans in particular, if he's a little hurt and you're not going to make the playoffs, are we just putting him on ice anyway? And so, and that ends up going into the game count. But I will throw this out here on Luca.

You and I are both guys that look at the numbers a bit. I don't know if we use them to the same degree, not saying that in either direction. But I am one of those people who looks at which shares per 48 is a thing that matters, right? Or at the very least, is a very interesting reflection. At the very least, mapping out to MVP, for example, The MVP in the league, just about every year, has been the guy that has been the

been tops in Winchairs for 48. Even this year, the top two guys by a wide margin are Shea Gildes Alexander and Nikolioch, who we will talk about it a few. Luca is in that kind of sort of interesting space of volume scorers where your eyes are telling you one thing and that particular advanced number doesn't always line up with it. So Luca typically does well in Winchairs per 48, but that also goes up as your usage rate goes up and Luca has literally the highest usage rate in the history of the NBA. What is fascinating is that all of us would say that we look at Luca Dodgers as a great

postseason performer and we could point to his great postseason performances. His winchairs per 48 in the postseason get into average pretty good player territory in the NBA. This year it's been at fringe all-star level performance, which is to say I could see how if you are the Mavericks, you could talk yourself into the idea. Like, for example, his winchers for 48 last year were a 0.220, which is very high level player. This year is 0.150, which is probably make the all-star level. You could talk yourself into saying, I don't know so much if this is going to be a thing to work long term. But a story Matt Doherty told after Dean Smith died was he called Dean Smith wants and said, what do you think I should do? We're up three at the end of the game.

Should we foul or should we play it out defensively? And he said, you know, Co-Smith didn't really give me an answer, but he said, whatever you do, it has to be something you can explain to the media and the fans. And they could not explain this to the media and the fans, which makes none of the other stuff matter. Like, these are arguments that I could make there that if you're in the weeds of basketball, I might be able to get you to understand. If you just watch and like it, you're try to hear that shit i was just talking no no no i mean the guy was just coming off a finals run at 25 years old so it's really hard to convince that he's not that guy he is that guy and everybody that has as many first team all nbAs scoring titles deep playoff runs in his career at 25 years old

they go on to become an all-time great and you can argue this guy is not dependable in terms of like his diet or his nutrition, his off-court stuff. You can say all those intangibles, he doesn't have it. But one way you can make sure that he's going to be a lot more motivated to get those things right is to trade him to L.A. Like now that dude is going to make you look really dumb. And that's what happened on Wednesday night. When you have Luca Donch, you're scoring 45 points because he's motivated.

He's got a chip, chip on his shoulder. And everybody's chanting either Luca, Luca or Fire Neke. that's what you did. You lit a fire up under his ass. And now you're seeing what's happening with Luca Donchich is like, man, that dude for us, he's not going to get right. He's not going to be well-conditioned. He's not going to take care of that calf.

But if I trade him to the Lakers next to LeBron James, you're going to be giving him a lot more motivation to get in shape and prove that he is that guy. Or you're hoping that L.A. get a whole level. That's what you're hoping. You're hoping. you're hoping that he out here. Go, go, go. Ale, Ale, Ale, Alay, just in the streets.

I know that ain't really an L.A. Salman, you know the vibes I'm thinking about. Like, you're hoping Luke just like, hey, man, L.A. does much better many in than Luca Donchich. Hey, I want to ask you about this after the game, speaking of celebrating and like all the emotions attached to this and him being in L.A. I wanted to get your take on Mark Cuban after the game

while Nico's gone and Jason Kidd is gone. After the game, Mark Cuban, make sure in front of the cameras, he daps up Luca Donchich and make sure that he gives him a good embrace on TV. Because I'm looking at this and I'm like, man, the NBA is such, the palace intrigue in the NBA is so fascinating to me.

Because Mark Cuban sold his team. The guy that no one ever thought would ever sell his team, sold it to this family and is now attending a game in which they're saying fire Nico, the guy you hired to help you steward your franchise with Luca Donchish, you traded to the Aedelson family and Patrick Dumont, and you wanted to run basketball operations? And now we're hearing from Mark Stein that he didn't want it to be written into the contract because he didn't want it to be considered an employee. He did not want to be an employee. So he said, all right, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, handshake agreement. I will still control

basketball operations, right? Right? And they pulled the rug out from underneath them. And now you got Mark Cuban after Luca Donchich puts 45 points up in the fire Nico chance. You know who's up there smiling ear to ear after his team. He still owns a chunk of the team, Bo. He still is a part owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

And he's smiling ear to ear when Luca Donchish drops 45 on him. This is a crazy development. And Mark Cuban, man, it has been an ugly look for him the way he's handled this whole thing. Coming up next. This episode is presented by Perplexity. Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that searches the internet in real time to deliver fast, clear, high-quality answers. Unlike legacy search engines that respond with a list of links, perplexity skip straight to the answers you need explained in everyday language that's easy to understand with sources and citations. Now, Sean, how do you use perplexity, especially when it comes to the right time?

You know, Bo, obviously, like I've been using it all throughout the show. especially when you need questions answered or stats confirmed. But, you know, say you're curious about a specific topic from our if you haven't heard segment. For example, if I wanted to know more about this corporate espionage happening with a company called Rippling, I can simply search the question on perplexity and get a full summary of the entire situation, which you can see here. And I would recommend you reading it because it is insane. Hey, man, you got to love reading about honeypots and corporate espionage.

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No questions asked. Remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash Beaumani and use the code. Bomani at checkout for 15% off. All right. We're back on the right time with Tom Havistro. And yes, you make a great point there about the whole Mark Cuban angle of this, right? And so there's so much, right? Cuban sold high, right?

And so the thinking has always been the Adelson's have an ultimate plan to want to do some casino business in the state of Texas. And this was their way to get in. They hit Mark Cuban would offer that he had. He could not refuse. It was hard to believe. And I remember when that trade was made that my thought, I thought I remembered them saying that Cuban would still basically run things. These people would just get all the money.

And then it ultimately did not go that way. And so when people make this argument now that Nico did this, or if you were to make the argument that Nico did this and the owners didn't have anything to do with this, Baby, I'm sorry. There is no way in the world that they forced Mark Cuban out so that they could give all the power to a man named Nico. No, zero chance. That did not happen, right? Everybody had to be involved in this. I just don't see any way in the world, especially given what the bottom line effects of this have been, that you're going to make this move and the owners not be in on it, right? Mark Cuban, obviously, never would have allowed this trade to go through. We all already know this. I don't know. I don't know. why he is so desperately needs to come out here and tell us this, even though we know it. And by the way, on Nico, I'll be to say this right quick before I forget. They got to the finals last year. Like, as much as we say that about Luca, we can also say that about their general manager.

And none of it matters. None of it matters at all. He didn't get any goodwill from that. None of that was engendered. Like, you want this move, at least I give this to Nico. He's the only one that seems to own it because everything else around it, that trade is an orphan, right? The owners don't want to claim it anything else. And Mark Cuban was to make sure that you knew, hey, she kicked me out of the house before we had the chance to do any of this

stuff. Yeah, man. And you know what's really interesting about this? Again, Mark Stein's reporting has been incredible around this story. He's been Dallas-based. We used to work together at ESPN. He's as plugged in in the NBA as anybody. And he gave this kind of backroom explanation to how Nico got so high up in the in the power structure of the Dallas Mavericks and they had told people, Mark Cuban had told people, hey, we're going to move on from Rick Carlisle, Don Nelson, and we're now going to figure out the GM, the head of basketball ops, and then we're going to have the head coach hired from that GM. And it got reversed because Mark Cuban wanted Jason Kidd and one of, Jason Kidd's represent.

was a man named Jeff Schwartz from Excel Sports Management. And when Jason Kidd got hired, they're like, who are we going to go get to run our basketball operations? And Jeff Schwartz, according to Mark Stein, got into Mark Cuban's ear who was recommending this guy named Nico Harrison. And so Jeff Schwartz comes in here, gets Jason Kidd hired, and also gets Nico Harrison hired, and then all of a sudden, in a couple of years, Mark Cuban's cut out of that entire organization.

And I say this because we talk a lot about clutch and how Rich Paul is like shadow running the Lakers and LeBron James. We talk about Leon Rose over in the New York Knicks, you know, shadow running the Knicks. And then finally gets the actual logo on the shirt, gets hired by the New York Knicks, and is now wearing a polo with the Knicks logo on it

with War Y. West. And they're literally from CIA, running CAA, the biggest sports agency, is now running the head, the head of that sports agency is now running the New York Knicks. But there's this little like piece here of Jeff Schwartz.

If you go to Hoopshype.com and you look at which agent has the most salary under contract in the NBA, it's Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management. And this guy has been under the radar for the NBA. Now it's kind of like, wait, this guy was behind the scenes, making recommendations to Mark Kuh,

about who he should hire, and it ends up being this guy, Nico Harrison from Nike. and then we have this complete cleaning a house in Denver. And until I reported this earlier this year, I don't think I saw this anywhere. But the most closely aligned agency with one NBA team is not clutching the Lakers.

And it's not the Knicks and CIA, led by Leon Rose, the power agent. It's actually Excel Jeff Schwartz's agency and the Denver Nuggets. Jeff Schwartz is the agent and his agency, Excel is the agency for Nikola Yokic, Jamal Murray, Russell Westbrook, DeAndre Jordan, Vlako, Kanchar, Peyton Watson, and Dario Sarich, who they just brought over to pair up with Nikoliyokic. This is one of the most underrated storylines in the NBA that the Denver Nuggets is clean house and the most closely aligned agency with Nikola Yokic and Jamal Murray. There's this power void now in Denver, and I don't think people are talking about this.

I want to just point out right fast that I was going to make one more point about the Mavericks and then from there was going to help make a transition into those points that Tom Haverstrow had reported. Like I added in my mind how I was going to do this at a host as a host. Shout out to Tom Havistro who was not leaving that shit to chance. No, sir Reeve-Bob. He was like, I right here have found the segue into this other thing that I wanted to get out here and talk about. I will put a pin in that for one second and I will make one point that was based on something you have said. Jason Kidd is one of the phenomenal political animals that has ever played

basketball, right? This goes back a long way. He gets a bad rap for what happened at Cal, right? It seems pretty clear that the administration decided to fire that coach and not Jason Kidd, but he got the blame at the time. However, we have seen it all the way through, all the way from him leveraging that next job into the buck's job, right? Like, he is a guy. He has done a good job of making it seem like he's playing a good soldier on this trade with Luca Dachich. And maybe that's the case, but I don't know. Yeah. When he was on that stage with Nico Harrison,

Nico Harrison, I was like, I didn't need to talk to Jason Kidd because we're, we think a lot, a lot of like, we're a line. And Jason Kidd's just like standing there, just like not talking.

And he's, he's on that stage for a reason, right? Like, this is Jason Kidd. You talk about the Bucks and Janus and then leveraging his previous Brooklyn Nets job into that. job and then getting the head coaching job with Dallas. I will not believe that Jason Kidd didn't have any fingerprints on this trade, that he didn't have any sort of input and didn't want,

I don't know, more say in the future of this franchise and believing that Luca Dantzich, who is, as you point out, one of the most high usage guys ever. And that's a lot of power that Luca Donchich has. And so one way you can get rid of that power and have more power in your organization is getting that guy up out of here. So, man, this is why the NBA is so great. And like the storylines, it's incredible. And I'd like me, the Luca trade was like this meteor hit the NBA, hit the sports world

where my cousins who don't even watch the NBA are now like, yo, did they really trade that guy, Luca? And now we're seeing it where Taylor Jenkins is fired. And then the Memphis, fire Memphis Grizzlies head coach gets fired. and then the Denver Nuggets clean house right before the postseason. And like, I'm not saying it makes me forget about the Luca trade, Bo. But it is kind of crazy how the NBA has been so dramatic over this last couple months that the Luca trade without that game, I feel like it would have like faded a little bit in the recesses.

I think that's, I think that's fair. I also think that a Jason Kidd had absolutely zero to do with that trade. We'd have heard a lot more through back channels about how Jason Kied had absolutely zero to do with that trade. The Jason kid, my name's Bennett, and I ain't in a campaign. I feel like it would have been a whole lot louder if it was a full Jason kid was not in it. But to the Nuggets, Mike Malone got fired. I don't think any of us is surprised. If you've paid attention in the league, you're not surprised that Malone has been fired.

Like this has been a tense situation with him and with Calvin Booth, the general manager there. However, and I felt the same way about the Taylor Jenkins train, when you fire your coach, now, you don't reasonably think this is going to make your team better, right? Maybe you think with your Memphis that there's some things that needed to be shaken up in part because your best player is a knucklehead, right? Like maybe you thought that there's no way if you're the nuggets that you think firing the coach with three games left and telling the world that the general manager is not coming back. There's no way you think that this makes your team better equipped to win a championship this year. It's not possible, right? If you thought that David

Adelman was that good, then he'd have been to coach already. There's no way that you do this and think it's, I would, if I were a player, I'm like, this is like major league. Like you just put it on our season except in major league. They did it in spring training. Bo, I kind of feel like there's a Luca connection to this. I saw Adam Mares who's, uh, who covers the Denver Nuggets talk about this on his show. Right of the program.

Yeah. He was great on this. And he was like, I think there is a little bit of what has. happens if Denver makes a run here with Michael Malone? Yep. I think the same thing with Memphis is like, I think Zach Kleinman, the GM of the Memphis Grizzlies is like, what if Taylor Jenkins and John Morant and Jaron and Jaron Jackson, June, Desmond, Bain, they all get healthy, they're making a run and they get into that

postseason. They find themselves in the NBA finals. Because the Luca Donchish, Dallas Mavericks just did that. And what do you hear is the reason why you can't trade Luca Dantzich? It's because they just got to the NBA finals. and they're getting destroyed in the media using that whole precedent is like you do not trade a 25-year-old

just took you to the NBA finals. And I think the Memphis Grizzlies and the Denver Nuggets were like, we cannot risk Yokic and Malone and Jamal Murray making a run this postseason because it's going to be really hard to fire them after that. And so they do it now because they see

there is potential that we are going to look really bad and we cannot fire these people because they just got to the Western Conference Finals and beat the Lakers. or beat the Warriors and got there. And I think there's something to that. Why you fire these dudes right before the playoffs is because you're afraid of what they're going to do in the playoffs.

I think you can fire any coach at any time, right? Like that's my thought. Now, I think what you raise is a plausible theory, right? Not everybody sees it as me. But like, I feel like Taylor Jenkins doesn't have the cachet. You could fire him at any time. And I think that Mike Malone has such a personality that even if you like him,

him, you could understand why somebody might decide to fire him. Like, it looked at times this year like he was trying to get fired. Like if someone's trying to fire me or like, do it or don't, right? Like that sort of situation. But you pointed out something interesting. You just talked about it a little while ago. Half their roster is represented by one dude. That was a fascinating thing to look at, especially since let Yokic tell it,

and I'm inclined to believe him. They told him they were firing alone. They didn't ask him about it. it. Like he doesn't seem like the guy throwing his weight around in the organization, but I guarantee you his agent does. Like the power that the player would normally have, does that power now become conferred upon the agent? That's the big question. Who's going to lead this franchise going forward? Because Tim Connolly, who built that championship core and then left because he wasn't getting paid like a top executive in Denver, left to go take the bag over in Minnesota.

and then Calvin Booth is promoted. He gets the job. They win the championship. Everything's great. And less than two years later, Josh Cronkey and the Cronky family said, you're out of here too. And that's what's fascinating to me about this

is they didn't just get rid of Michael Malone. We just saw this with the Memphis Grizzlies. They fired their coach. Great. There's Zach climbing out there being like, I'm the winner. I'm making the shots. I'm calling the shots going forward.

This is my choice. Cronkey came out here and was like, we don't trust either of those guys. We don't trust Calvin Booth, and we don't trust Mike. Michael Malone. And there is a power void. And in the NBA, someone's going to step into that power void, Beau. And it might just be this Jeff Schwartz agent, super agent from Pete Sampras all the way back into the tennis days when tennis was the it thing in America. This guy who the mannings,

Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Derek Jeter, the Excel management, we've seen Bob Myers make the switch. We've seen Rob Polinka make the switch. We've seen even Arndellum go into the front office with the Detroit Pistons. Will we see something like this? where Nikoliyokic doesn't have to throw around his weight because he's got a guy who's going to do that for him. And Jamal Murray, one thing that's interesting about this game on Wednesday night, Yokic had a 20% usage rate in that game.

That was the lowest usage rate for this season for Yokic in any Jamal Murray injury game. A game in which Jamal Murray did not play. Nikoliyokic was playing like a role player. Only took like a dozen shots in this game. the game that afterwards Michael Malone got fired, he had 33 shots. And in this game, he had 12. And he had a 20% usage rate for a guy who was right around 30, 34.

What that tells me is that Yokic was like, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of doing everything. I'm tired. I can't play defense in the way you need me to. And I'm just tired. And when you're seeing the change in the leadership and the change at the head coaching position, Yokic isn't going to be out here telling everybody I wanted a change. I am not down with this.

I got to do everything on both ends of the floor game. But he might get on the phone with his agent and growls. Or Jamal Murray might get on the phone with his agent and say, hey man, Yokic is different this year. He is unhappy. And that communication, that intel is very powerful in the NBA. When you have Russell Westbrook, Jamal Murray and Yokic having the same agency and then suddenly they clean house, it raises a lot of questions, Beau.

I will say this, though, also about Yolkich, I saw that low usage and it made me look at things somewhat differently. Did you read Mike Singer's Yolkich book? I have not. I have not. I read it. I blurbed it. It's very good.

I recommend people read it. It's a really fast-paced read. It creates a story out of very, very small vignettes going back to Serbia and through the whole time. Like I think it's really worth checking out. But one thing about Yokic is he will mail it in on you, right? Not forever. But he will take a game off on you.

But I saw those numbers, I was curious if that had happened in this case, except if mail it in, it's 2012, 11, and four steals, you know, you know, because I didn't see the game. I just looked at the numbers. And I was like, oh, okay. But I think, I do think you raise a fair point. He is not the guy that wants to have to be that guy on both ends. Although, that's kind of what the job calls for, especially when you are that much better than your teammates.

Yeah, I actually, that's why I have Shay Gilgers Alexander as my MVP is because Yokic is giving up the most baskets at the rim of anybody in the league in terms of volume. Part of that is just straight. He's been playing a lot of minutes at the five. They don't have a great rim protector. The guy who is that guy, Aaron Gordon, has been hurt for a bunch of this season. And so a lot of that is just like Yokic, hey, come on down. I ain't going to try to get myself hurt or get in foul trouble.

Go ahead, take that layup. I'm going to go start the fast break the other way. But he's given up 70% field goal percentage at the rim. One of the highest rates in the NBA, the most made baskets. of any big man defender in the NBA. And I get it. Like the dude has to do everything offensively for this team. And they have a 22nd rank defense in the NBA.

And that probably more than anything is that that was untenable. All that offensive responsibility for Yokish, that everything has run through him. He's a triple averaging a triple double as a big man. I think a lot of that weighed on Nikola Yokic. And he will make his presence known or his feelings known in those games or he's just like, yep. Like, you know, and like, they freeze out, Jeff Teague, like, yep,

we're going to speak volumes, not with our words, but with our actions. How much of this do you think is the Nuggets not wanting to pay the tax, which, while my money don't want to pay a tax, huh? Walmart money, okay, all right. Man, it could be, and this is the tough thing about small markets, is like when Oklahoma City has to pay these guys, it's going to be really, really awkward, right? Because Denver is not a big city.

It's not. And for a while, because of the broadcasting issues, a lot of the fans weren't even getting the games in Denver because there had some sort of disagreements with the carriers. And it's not something that they can print money and keep this team together. That's the weird thing. Calvin Booth signed Jamal Murray to a max extension this offseason

when he absolutely didn't have to. Absolutely. That dude played for Team Canada and looked awful. and at the end of last season looked awful against the Minnesota Timberwolves, you didn't have to pay up for Max. And now the next guy has to take over this franchise with about $100 million every year allocated to those three dudes. Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray, and Nikola Yokic.

I'm very curious to see how they're going to manage the books going forward with $208 million that has yet to kick in. Next year, that extension kicks in for Jamal Murray. And if he's not an all-star or if he's not playing in all-star level, it's going to make things really difficult to build a championship contender around Yokic. And one thing I point out in that article for Yahoo Sports, Yokic has never played with an all-star, never played with an all-N-B-A, never played with an all-defense. And the next guy who takes over, they got to solve that problem, quit. They also have an issue. A lot of their money goes to a

player that I think is probably untradable. I love Michael Porter except for the fact that his body is broken. Like I could not imagine giving up anything worth a damn to pay my $4 to $40 million a year on that sort of team. Like Yolkich, what does the max salary do? The max salary makes Jamal Murray a max salary player because you can't give that money to Yokk because it is clear when when that boy is not playing with Yokic like Team Canada, Team Canada, by the way, pretty good team. Stunk. He stunk out there during the Olympics. Yokic makes him seem so much better than he is. And he is not bad. But he is. is not a max salary NBA player. Still, after all this time, not being good enough to make an all-star team.

Porter at the very least is 16, shooting 40% from three at his best. He's just got a bad body. Yeah, Beaumani, it's not even close. Like, Jamal Murray has never finished higher than 10th in the West back court vote. Like, his best is an honorable mention. His best, his ceiling. And a lot of that is because of slow starts. He's a notoriously slow starter. And part of the reason why I don't think you give him the max, is because he's notoriously playing himself into shape every year, whereas other dudes are out here, Shea Gilgerus Alexander, Tyler Hero, Devin Booker, all these guys from Kentucky,

they come on right away, ready to go from the jump. And Jamal Murray plays himself into shape, come postseason time. And I'm just sitting here, I'm like, man, Yokic, it's weird to say this, but, like, he went from underrated into, like, he wins the championship. And now I'm like, wait, are we underrating him? again the fact that he's never played with a John Stockton, a Scotty, a D. Wade, like, he's never had his co-pilot. He's never had a co-star. And Beaumani, I'm wondering why that you think this is the case. Like, do you think this is a product of the management? Do you think it's a product of Yokic

and the way he operates is that, like, maybe everything needs to be Yokic? Or do you think this is more about, hey, man, Aaron Gordon and Jamal Moore are actually All-Stars? They just haven't made those All-Star teams. And it's not necessarily a reflection of how bad they are. It's just they are all stars if they're in the Eastern Conference because I've heard that argument is that Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon would be all stars in the Eastern Conference and his supporting cast would look a lot better. But to me, I think it's crazy that Yokic has never had a co-pilot

and I got to believe he kind of feels the same way. I think it's crazy and I think those guys are pretty good. Right? Like Aaron Gordon, you know what Aaron Gordon is? Aaron Gordon is a guy that makes you stop and evaluate what it means to be, what was he, the number four pick in 2014? Now, the 2014 draft is fascinating to look back at. And I say that because at the time, we thought that draft had three superstars in it. If you had one of the top three picks, like it was a big deal that Milwaukee

Gid Jibari Parker, who was from Chicago and actually wanted to be in Milwaukee, they could get a superstar, right? Two things become fascinating on the back end of that draft. One was that Milwaukee, it turned out, did have a, superstar except it was Yonis. He was already there coming out of maybe the weakest draft in recent memory. The other thing that became interesting about that draft was that there was a superstar in the draft. He was the 41st pick in the draft and it was Nicola Yokic. It was not those guys. I guess M.B. did make it to that place, but obviously with a lot of injury related caveats.

But what Aaron Gordon proved to be is what you hope to get from the number four pick in the draft, right? We tend to think that at number four, you should be getting a guy that's a superstar. You might. But what you're probably going to get is a guy like Aaron Gordon, a very good player who could be the third best player on a championship team. That's what you get from him. And that's about what he is. And that does not translate to AllStar. It doesn't.

And I wonder if OKC, I'm just throwing it out there. Jalen Williams is from Denver. He's a Colorado kid. Say OKC ends up an early out. got all these picks. Yokic really wants to play with another star. O KC wants to pair, Shea Gildress Alexander, cash in some of these picks that you got

because you can't sign 50 of these draft picks on your team. You're going to have to do something with it and cash three quarters for a dollar at some point. OKC gets on the phone and is like, hey, Yokic, we'll give you Jalen Williams and we'll give you the first round picks and we're going to pair Shea Gildesis Alexander

with Nikoliyokic and good night. Good night, everybody. And that's one of the things that I'm watching is all these other teams. Alper and Shangun, by the way, represented by Jeff Schwartz, Alper and Shangun and Nikoliyokic, like if things get really,

really frayed between Yokic and the Nuggets and Yokic is out here, and I don't think he's going to make a trade demand. But I can tell you this. Other teams in the NBA are looking at that power void in Denver and, and wondering when Yokic gets to be a little bit miffed by all of the rudderless franchise. The Denver Nuggets, are they really the team that I want to hitch my wagon to?

And Kevin Garnett told us to Chris Bosch. Kevin Garnett said, man, my big regret is not getting out of Minnesota sooner. Loyalty only gets you so far. And at some point, that loyalty is going to backfire on you. And Chris Bosch decides to go to Miami. LeBron decides to go to Miami. And the rest is history. I don't know if we're quite that there yet with Nikoliyyokic.

But I do imagine all of the GMs in the NBA are hoping he goes and decides, yeah, you know what? This ain't it? It is a fascinating question because I think none of us feel confident saying that we really know would motivate Yolkich, right? But I do think the people who think he doesn't really care about basketball or Looney Tunes. He cares clearly a lot about this. And I don't think that he's going to be away from service. all that stuff to be out here playing with losers, right? They had a window that got shrunk by the fact that Murray got hurt, right?

Like, as much as I don't think Murray's the greatest player in the world, if Murray's not hurt in 21 and 22, I think they're legitimate championship contenders. They went to the Western Conference finals in 2020 after coming back from down 3-1 in two different series in the bubble, right? Their window was then. It's probably closed now. I think you're right. If this were any other player in the NBA, as good as Yokic is, we'd be saying,

get it right or he's going to ask out. And I think that says a lot about Yokic and his whole energy about him and that how he, he just gives off this, like even after the game on Wednesday night in the postgame interview, he's like, yeah, it's a business, it's a business, but, you know, he also said that a beast is, he turned into, I think his analogy was like, we're vulnerable right now, but when a beast goes into beast mode is when you're most vulnerable. And he probably said it somehow more eloquently than me that is a native English speaker. But the point is he's trying to right now trying to tow the company line.

Like, yeah, the NBA is a business at the end of the day. But also, we're still good. We're still out here. And we can beat the Sacramento Kings. It's a question of matter of can they beat the Lakers? Can they beat the Warriors? Can they beat the thunder? Can they beat the Timberwolves?

We'll see about that. But I do think that Nikoliyokic, the fact that there has been a talent drain, with the Denver Nuggets and they let KCP, the only guy on that roster, I think had a really good chance of being all defense. They let him walk this summer. He hasn't been great in Orlando, but he was great for Denver.

I do imagine that Yokic, another year of this, another year of him having to be averaging a triple double and still fighting their way into the top six in the Western Conference, I do think we're going to have our KG moment where he's going to be like, I'm done with this. I gave you guys 10 years to figure this out.

And we'll see what have. happens. Now, to be fair, the Nuggets at no point squandered their future to make an illicit contractual agreement with the modern day version of Joe Smith. One of the underrated moments in the history of the NBA. And I think the best part, I think our buddy Amita has makes this point. Long and short, Joe Smith had agreed to sign a one-year deal for the dirt sheet because there was going to be a bigger deal on the back end, and this would allow Minnesota to get in under the salary cap and then pay the big deal. Once they had his bird rights, I guess, they could do that. But, but, and this is, I want to say like the year, I forget, 1990 something, right?

Whenever it was, Joe Smith wanted it in writing that they were going to do this because he was afraid that Glenn Taylor, the owner, might die. And that if he died, the deal will go up and smoke so he needed it in writing and it wound up getting caught up in some other probe and somebody came across the paperwork in this other probe but what makes it hilarious is tom is glenn taylor dead no no cluel's still here still haunting the minnesota temple wolves and joe smith needed didn't think he'd live one more year yo i man this is so like that was When was that? That was like,

are we coming up on like 20 years of that? I mean, that was. Oh, it's well past that. Yeah. Because KG didn't leave until 07. Yeah. Glenn Taylor's still out here at courtside.

Still got courtside seats. Man. KG. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Right fast. This happened.

The signing happened in 1998. See, this is actually what James Harden wanted, Darry to do. Remember Darry and James Hardin

had that split where James Hart's like I can't trust this guy and it's probably because of this like, hey, you scratch my back

I'll scratch yours. Like, will you take care of me on this one year deal if we get that max extension on the way back and didn't happen

and you saw that was a very ugly divorce between James Hard and Darryor I repeat my Chinese friends who may not speak English. Darry is a liar. Dude, this, ah, man, I love the NBA.

It's so great. It's so great. Hey, dude, the playoffs are coming up here, man. And it's going to be great theater. There's going to be a lot of deaths in the NBA in terms of these teams. And we're going to see some really good teams go down. And it's going to be crazy. And I can't wait for it.

I was not happy about the White Lotus. And I hope it's a way better ending to this season than White Lotus. Because, man, they promised a lot. And in that finale. I'm with you, man. That was, that was amateur hour at the end of that show. God, it was so bad. But guess what, buddy?

You will have the opportunity to come back here and talk about the playoffs, brother. This has been excellent. That's Tom Habistro. Check them out at Yahoo Sports. And you also got the substack for the people, right? Yeah, Tom, thefinder. We're wrapping up the Blazers season.

The regular season's over, so I'm not on their broadcast anymore, but also basketball Illumaddi, which comes out every Wednesday with Amino Hassan and Anthony May. Pleasure being here, Bo. Appreciate it. I appreciate you. Shaw, did Perplexity have anything to help us with on this here program? Yeah, they did. I thought Tom's thought about Jeff Schwartz as an agent was fascinating,

given his clients and the interrelationships between the teams. But, you know, Perplexity pulled up top MBA agents and obviously Rich Paul at the top, Jeff Schwartz, right there, number two, and his total contract value is just a hundred million away from Rich Paul. But I wanted to pull up some of Jeff Schwartz's biggest contracts. Obviously, Nikola Yokic, 272 million supermax extension. Tyler Hero, four years, $130 million extension. The Jamal Murray one, which you guys spoke about, 170 mil. Chris Stops 158.

This Cade Cunningham projected extension, expected to sign worth over 200 million with that rookie extension. And he just had Shangoon this past year. So, yeah, Jeff Schwartz, major power player in the NBA, obviously. And probably, according to Tom, doing a little bit. more than just signing contracts for NBA players. All right. I appreciate you. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this three times a week. That is Sean. You. He handles everything behind

the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, hit the voicemail line. 3-2-3-9-6-7-77-67. Remember that time you sent a text or you were talking about somebody, but you sent it to them? Yeah. 3-2-3-5-9-6-77-67. And just to be clear, that did not happen recently. I just thought it would be funny. Remember, follow the right time, subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater and we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.