The Ringer NBA Show - Are They on the Right Team? | The Answer

Episode Date: February 5, 2022

Chris and Seerat go through all 30 NBA franchises and discuss real, possible, and hypothetical roster moves that could elevate each one as the trade deadline approaches. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Production Assistant: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's The Answer. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm joined as always by Siritt. Sohey, what's up, Siritt? How's it gone, Chris? Today, we are answering 30 questions in about 30 minutes. It's a simple one. You've gotten a lot of maximalist NBA trade content, trade deadline content, I'm sure, in your podcast feeds on your internet's when you're reading out there. Please keep reading. It's like also like a totally valid way to get information. So what we're going to do today is do, 30 players, 30 teams, about 30 minutes, and it's basically, are they on the right team? Not always attached to, I'm not looking at spot track right now. I'm not making sure guys contracts fit with other teams. We're not doing trade machine stuff. We're just talking vibes.

Imagine Syriot and I are mediators called in to figure out whether or not this person is in the right situation and we have the right to extract them if we want. Sir, does this sound good to you? Yeah, we're like, we're basically like matchmakers without restrictions. Yeah, or reverse matchmakers, right? Like, we're like, this is the wrong match. We're like, you guys should break up. Exactly.

So, number one, let's start with the name that we just can't escape. And it's the Philadelphia 76ers and the player we are talking about is Ben Simmons, Ramona Shelburne wrote a piece this week on ESPN. That was like, I think one of the first things I've read in a while that actually, like, had details I hadn't read before or pushed the ball forward a little bit. It didn't answer any questions on a deep level of like, what would it take for Ben Simmons to come back to the Sixers or how close are the Sixers to dealing Ben Simmons? But he's so obviously the guy who needs to get out of this situation.

I'm sure the Sixers would welcome that if they found the deal that they wanted. Did you get a chance to read Ramon's piece, Sir? I did. I did. And he remains, he remains pretty adamant about the fact that he never wants to play for the Sixers again, does not want to be in the Sixers uniform. Yeah. So, yeah, it should be, it was a really interesting piece. And I wanted to ask you about the kicker at the end of it because, oh my God, did my heart break? Just a tiny bit.

Just a tiny bit. And he gave me just a sliver of hope about the situation. The end of that piece, I'll just read it. Even so, for however much he says he doesn't want to be in Philadelphia, for all the slights, real and perceived, he holds against a franchise. Simmons watches every game, sources close to him say, at the end of the day, it's still his team, and he still wants to play. That's the quote from the source at the end.

We don't know if that's because he's already finished Ozark already. He's finished Station 11. Maybe there's just nothing else. So he just watches the Sixers at night. I would expect him to watch the Sixers. He's still nominally on that team. I think he would want to be familiar. It would be weird if he rejoined the team after the February 10th day at deadline.

And they were like, and he was like, I haven't really been watching you guys. What's the deal? Are we like 500? what's been going on. Like, emotionally, did that register with you? I think the things that registered for me from Ramon's piece were just the name checks of various places in Southern New Jersey that Ben Simmons has either been practicing or living. It made it sound really hard to find a gym to work out in.

Well, I know. And it's also just like, you're Ben Simmons. If you play basketball in public, you're going to get photographed. And it's like, this person shared it to their 3,000 followers. I'm like, this is hardly the biggest deal, Ben. Like, you've got millions of people speculating about. about your state of mind. I don't think like a St. Joe's player putting it up on his Instagram stories is like a huge violation. Yeah. He seems like he was just an introvert season right now,

you know? You just want to like put a hoodie on and just like, you know, sunglasses and a mask even a mask like anywhere by himself. Maybe that's maybe that's a move for him. We're definitely trying to get Ben Simmons out of there. Yeah, definitely. Do you have anything else you wanted to add to the to the Ben saga? Oh, I mean, it was an interesting piece. Oh, the other thing I thought was interesting that I thought about a couple of times. And I'd like your, I'd like your Sixers fan take on it was the idea that if he actually did go out and play, you know, how bad would the booing really be? That was something that was kind of speculated in that piece.

I think somebody kind of suggested it would probably be for like a little while, maybe a few games, but then the second he plays well, you know. I said, I never really like look at Simmons as like any is any kind of like low or mid-effort player. Part of his, like, kind of play style is kind of predicated on a certain quiet intensity. At least that's the way I always perceived it. I think others maybe saw it differently, maybe on offense, especially when he didn't have the ball in his hands. But I don't really think Ben Simmons is the kind of guy who I've ever seen like half-asset on the court. And I think effort is what would at least initially, like, kind of endear him back to fans. I think it'll probably take a little while.

It would be. Yeah. If he was like, I'm coming. back if he was welcome back if this wasn't just like a weird i want to come back to like make the rest of my paycheck for this season i mean it's like i don't think the sixers would like kind of go along with that if he was dogging it and drills and you know like he got tossed out of a practice in october that's sort of what precipitated a lot of like the real thorniness that's been happening since then so i basically think like philly fans go hot and cold really quickly like they'll be like

they'll boo you one minute and then cheer you next so i think he could get over it i don't know if he has the patience for it, though. Yeah. I just, I just can't believe he's been watching the Sixers, you know, like struggle to have like Neon be like a power forward. Who do you think's watched more Sixers this year? Ben Simmons or me? That's a good question.

Well, he's apparently watched every game, so you watch every game? I have watched highlights of every game. I have not watched every game from front to back. That's probably good. So let's change the channel. Speaking of watching games. And let's move on to another team. We're going to try and move through the entire league here, the Golden State Warriors.

Now, you have a provocative pick for the person who we're asking, are they on the right team? You have a provocative pick for this one. It's Draymond Green. Yeah. So, Draymond Green, I kind of cheated with this one. He's definitely, he's on the right team. The fit is good, right? But I love two ideas. I like the idea of, they're basically the same idea. I like the general idea of sending Draymond to a young team that has a lot of talent, but doesn't play defense, you know, doesn't have discipline, but they can shoot the ball. and they could get it going on offense if they were organized. Hawks are the first team. They are organized on offense,

but they could definitely use a guy like him. And the Kings as well. The Kings is like, that's more delicious to me. If I was Draymond, I wouldn't go to Sacramento for anything less than like a minority stake in ownership. Well, we're going into this kind of like player empowerment is also just off the table, right? Like, Draymond's going to the Kings in the situation.

Like, I'm just going. Yeah, you don't have to check with Draymond. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I like the idea of, I kind of reversed wanting all the young players off of the Kings, like definitely just wanting Halliburton off the Kings because he's so good and trying to go the other way where it's like maybe we can kind of crisp qualify the situation, Raymond Green type of guy.

Floor coach. One thing about Draymond, real quick. Was this not a hamstring injury that now has turned into a back injury? No, I, you know, I feel like we kind of keep going. nobody really knows what it is. But like this way, like when he first was out, it was like, yeah, he's got like, there's something wrong with his hamstring, right?

Like I, this has been a weird NBA injury season where I think, I feel like things either like morph or what was supposed to be two to three weeks turns to six to eight, which turns into four months. The Joe Harris story is weird. The Zion story is weird. This Draymond back thing is not great.

Yeah. I mean, I'm a little bit confused by that one. My first read on it was just that they probably just didn't want to give it timeline just to leave him alone because it is also it is like a weird place in the body to have an injury as well especially at his age so that was my original read but I think like I guess you also have to remember like they have had issues with their medical staff in the past too so I don't know I guess monitor like keep monitoring but yeah it's weird it's weird hopefully he's back the hawks like ideas is like a pretty amazing destination for draymont he's not getting traded but this is

yeah yeah uh next up would be the uh Boston Celtics I'm tired of hearing about the J&J duo, even though I got the J&J shot. I just don't like Jalen and Jason and together. And I would just love to see Jalen Brown pulled out of that situation. You guys all think Jason Tatum's the second coming to Kevin Durant. Let's find out if that's true. Let's let him have his own team, force him to be a little bit more of a creator. What do you think? Jason Tatum is getting a chance to be a creator. That's for sure this season. He's not doing well. Yeah, I had Jalen Brown going to the Bulls. I like the idea of him in that sort of four slot. I'll skip ahead.

We're going to, we're going to be trading Voochovich. So he can just slide right in there. And kind of, I just feel like he shouldn't have, he's overtaxed in terms of how much he has a ball on his hands. Let's redesign Jalen Brown is kind of like a guy who hangs out in the midpost area and is more of a stretch for. And in general, let's have most of his diet be kind of like a Carl Malone catching the ball off of like, Damar, Zach, Wanzo, and just barreling the rim. And the Bulls are 19th in defense, too.

And this is kind of like their Patrick Williams before Patrick Williams gets there. There's no reality. I mean, like, if I'm Brad Stevens, I probably have the Darry or attitude that Jalen Brown doesn't get traded for anything like worse than a top 30 player, right? Yeah, I mean, the Bulls couldn't do it. You know, they just don't have enough assets. Although they do have a lot of passers. But like, I know, like the Bulls are one of the teams that I have hard time coming up with a trade for because. they are really well positioned. They're well positioned and they're also like these are our guys.

Yeah. So it's like you would be really, really hard pressed to like break up anything that had did that change the chemistry of Caruso de Rose and Levine. Yeah. And Lonzo. Yeah. And they're all healthy. Um, okay.

So I'm, I'm going with Jalen. Get him off the Celtics. This next one I thought was pretty interesting. It came up because I was reading Zach Lowe's column, uh, the 10 Things column. And, and, and he was talking about Carl Anthony Towns and how cats usage is starting to like drop down to meet Anthony Edwards and DeAngelo Russell's that like basically they're not always going to him and that he can get lazy passing out of a double team cornyzac but essentially like I was just kind of like wondering whether or not you felt like this

this number of those team I don't know if they're a lock for the playoffs but they have like a positive point differential they're seventh in the west they seem like they're going to at least make the play in pretty confidently but like I don't know do you still do you still like had on this team or would you like to see a different, a new start for him? You know, I think I'm of two minds of it about this. So my move would be to trade somebody to the wolves. We'll get to that later. Okay.

But I do see what you're saying because the other end of this is that like, you know, I think, you know, Towns has been there for a really long time. And I don't think he's ever actually been in a situation where he's appropriately gotten the amount of touches that he should have. But at the same time, like when you look at how the wolves are situated, like they have a very perimeter oriented defense that can hide a lot. of his flaws. And he's also just such a good passer. And they have a lot of guys that are really athletic who can score. So I think over time, it's just a matter of, you know, this is kind of their

iteration right now. But I think like they have a reasonable shot at kind of fixing their issues internally, I think. And I think it's just a matter of, you know, I don't think Edwards or Russell is really like a natural creator by any means. Or like a, or like a, or, or, Yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe I'll have a little bit more confidence in that, too. So, yeah, I think they need a table setter. Where would you trade him, though? I have a dream in my life of Kat being like the Lori Markinen upgrade on the Cavs.

And I have no idea how you would make that happen. And it was like, there was no reason for it to happen. Yeah. But like the idea of Kat being with Mowgli and Allen on a front line where he literally does not have to play defense anymore, I could just basically be like God-level Kevin Love. That's really good. That kind of harkens back to the, the Mobley Lurie Marketing pick and roll

that I talked about at the end of last week's episode where both guys are just so tall that if one of them slips a pick, you can just pass it over. Like, yeah, cat would fit perfectly into that role. And you can shoot three. Yeah.

You can tell the teams that I'm most in love with are like the Cavs and the Brizz this year because like all of my destinations are like, let's just put this guy on the cabs. Why not I? Okay, let's go on to a player I know is near and dear to your heart. I want to look at the Phoenix Suns, and I want to ask you, is DeAndre Aiton on the right team? This is a really interesting question.

I personally think that he is, especially having the sons, they're going to, you know, it's like a dream, it's like the Draymond situation, right? Where it's like, it's a perfect fit, but that also like might marginalize some of the things that he's able to do. The one team that like we've heard about him potentially, like the Pistons are interested. I'm sure if they actually got to a place where they were, you know, really going to open it up. A lot of teams would be interested. But, yeah, I mean, I think Aiton could fit in a lot of different places.

It's just because, you know, he's somebody who can kind of do a lot of different things. I like the Pistons because they don't play any defense. They don't rebound well. And they could definitely, you know, they could allow him to kind of explore his offensive game. They can afford that. They would probably, their offense would probably improve quite a bit. Where do you like him going? I mean, I think I like him right where he is.

Going to back to back to back finals would be pretty amazing. They have a decent chance of winning it all this year. But I do wonder between the contract stuff and also the shelf date of playing with Chris Paul, especially big men playing with Chris Paul and whether or not they get tired of being told what to do for 48 minutes a night. Whether or not like Aiton might see himself being like a little bit more of a centerpiece somewhere else. But that's just like pure speculation. There's two things on that, like the eight in conversation right now that I think are really interesting. The first is like the sun's going seven and oh without him.

Yeah, the sons are just really good, you know? They can go seven and oh without one of their best players. Yeah. Like, I mean, if the sons are doing what they do, like watching the sons with Biombo, I was just like, this is obscene that this is happening. I really like them this year. I like Beonbo being on that team too. Like that guy couldn't catch for like eight years.

He couldn't catch basketball. And now he's like a really, really decent. center. Should we, should we credit that to Chris Ball? I mean, yeah. Should we just do it? Did he say like, this is how you catch a basketball and he was like, damn, nobody ever explained that to me before. That's great. I will say as somebody who is like, you know, watch a raptors very closely. Beambo, regular season defense, great. Beyondbo in the playoffs, especially against a guy like Janus. I like, I like the six fouls. Let's move on to the next team, the Atlantic Hawks. Is Kevin Hurter too good for his role? Like, is it possible that Kevin Hurder

is Steph and Clay combined. Oh my gosh. And that he needs his own team. You know what? I'm going to give you the floor here for a second. First of all, like all the good like Atlanta lineup seem to feature Kevin Herder. I am absolutely drunk on this dude's game.

Like I just think he's like a perfect modern back court player. And we joke around about like, oh like Jalen Brown and we were talking about Anthony Edwards and DeAngelo Russell's like avoidance of creation. Like Herder's like a really good. a playmaker to me. So I mean, I'm just joking. I think it's great for them to have so much secondary playmaking. And I do think that like the addition by subtraction with the, the reddish trade seems to have like fixed a couple of things for them rotationally, which you kind of always

wondered if that was going to be the case after the playoff run last season happened while some dudes were hurt. But I'm just saying like, Hurtr can kind of like, I think Heter could take on more team responsibility somewhere else. So where are you sending him? straight up for Russ, you know? Oh, my God, I love that. I mean, like, obviously they would do that. No, but yeah, no, but like, you can't. But also, that would be like the Lakers would get better for sure.

Yes. You kind of like, well, duh. I mean, that's, you can say that for a lot of situations. Okay, yeah. No, I mean, I just, like, like, Hurt her, like, I think that the next person kind of probably to get picked on here in the Hawks, if they tried to do any more deals before, uh, the 10th. I would imagine possibly it would be Hunter,

but possibly it would be like Gowler. or Lou Will or something like one of the bench guys I really wouldn't trade Hunter if I was them man honestly I wouldn't either I just I just don't know whether or not like what like whether they've solved all the chemistry issues it seemed to be yeah this is like a real players only meeting team to me really are except I don't know how that would go I think uh that there's that is a team where I think they can solve most of their problems internally but I do like the idea of I like him on the Lakers I think that would be really fun shooting playmaking like reasonable perimeter defense when he wants to.

That's the hawks. I mean, I think Hurter and Monk is like, it's a finals back court. All right. So next team for the Nets, you know, which are really like kind of- You're crushing it today. They're bumming me out. Thanks. They're really bumming me out this season.

You know, like the hardened stuff I don't really have an opinion about. I just find this to be like a lot of like espionage going on. Like I think it's just like a lot of like stuff coming. from various, like, camps trying to, like, see this idea that Hardin is, like, up for, for leaving Brooklyn. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Uh, the Kyrie thing is, is just, like, if it comes down to a case of, like, Hardin, or if you have to choose between Hardin and Kyrie, that's, like, a really,

really tough decision because Hardin seems, like, quote unquote, more available, but, like, what you get on any given night, especially as he gets older, I think might have some more variance, especially if, like, his, like, fitness continues to be a, a question. Are you considering it with like Kyrie being able to only play like three or four playoff games in a series or is that like in the situation off the table? No, I'm considering that. You know? Okay. That's in.

Yeah. So like I'm considering like everything that I've seen this season, which is that like Kyrie is still like a pretty electrifying player. But like he's like he's like playing in away games. Like I don't really know what to say about that. Yeah. So I kind of wonder whether or not. I don't think they'll do anything before the deadline. I think that they're going to try like and just like hope that they get some version of their.

big three together for the playoffs and see how good they are. Obviously, like, Hardin can opt into his deal. But like, like everything that's happening with the Nets right now just seems super confusing. And I wonder whether or not just like cashing out on this Irving situation, if it doesn't really, really alienate and piss off Durant is the best move. What would you want to get back if you were the Nets? This is a team where I actually do think that the, the 80 cents on the dollar thing that Daryl doesn't want. for Simmons might actually work for the Nets because I think the Nets problem is just they're basically like patching together a G league team around three of the best players of all time. So I wonder

whether or not getting some depth would actually help here. Yeah, that's actually, that's a good point. Like what if you want to go to the reversal of what a lot of teams are trying to do where they would want to like consolidate some of their players for a star. Now I don't know if Kyrie is going to be the guy that a lot of teams go for. But that's out. there for sure there's a ton of teams that are in that position right now you know what we we were we never get to do this on the answer because it's we're friday mornings and like you know stuff tends to be quiet guess what we have we have a trade to talk about oh god really yeah yeah according to this is this the first time it's happened i know the clippers are trading eric bledso justice

winso at winslow and keon johnson and a future sec around pick to the trailblazers for norman pal and robert covington oh okay that's interesting blazers are blowing it up Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, okay, well, I guess we can talk about potential dame ramifications after this. I mean, I certainly think that means dame's not coming back this season. Yeah, but I just mean, you know, long term too.

We're going to hit him later as well. Right. Well, we get, let's put Portland up here now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, so the Clippers, Wendy was on ESPN talking about, like, they were starting to make some noise. Mm-hmm. And basically teams were kind of confused about what it is that they were actually trying to do

because they were starting to talk about, talk about some of their actual, their, they're bigger expiring contracts, right? Bledso is the biggest. So just in terms of, you know, getting that money out, that's great. I love Roco and Norman Powell coming to a team that actually plays defense. We talked about this last week, right? And yeah, I think, I think, I'm kind of curious when we go from here. We're going to do the Clippers next to Paul George trade, but this might kind of make

me rethink the idea I had in my mind. I really like this. If Kauai and Paul can come back, all, like, you have four guys that can really defend and switch. Yeah, Tylo said at a game after a game this week, maybe even after the Lakers game, I believe he was just basically like, I'm not, I basically don't think that Kauai's coming back this season. Oh, he said it yesterday?

He then kind of walked it back and he was like, hope is better than fear and I hope that he comes back. But like, I think that he was just kind of like, it doesn't seem likely that Kauai is coming back. I will say it's just probably smart also on his part to like not speculate on Kauai of all people in terms of injuries and stuff. I just feel like, I would imagine, and I like, I don't know this, but based on Toronto, I would imagine that Kauai probably wasn't that pleased to have any of that stuff come out. Okay. Like, he's, he's a private person in general. Then when it comes to his health, it's probably even more so. This is completely just, you know, that's my thought. Sure. Yeah. The idea of

Robert Covington, Kauai Leonard, and Paul George being your perimeter defense. pretty cool. Not bad. You can put Rocco on like the point of attack and keep in light of like the off ball situations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or even just like you can have him do kind of what he did in Houston where he became a sort of like just steals God. Yeah, free safety. Um, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, well, if it's this season, next season, that's, that's cool. Um, maybe there's something else coming for them. But so far, like, I like this. Well, let's talk about Portland a little bit. So now they have a situation where they've basically gotten rid of their second, or their third and fourth best player, fourth and fifth best player,

I guess Nurgich is up there now. They have Chauncey in his first year as head coach. They have a new GM who replaced Neil Ulshe. They have Damien Lillard with this abdomen injury that's been haunting him probably since, like, last season and through the Olympics. CJ, look and Dease, as usual. Do you think getting rid of Covington and Powell signals, a tear down and trying to use this Lillard absence as a vault us into the top two, three

picks in the NBA draft and get in on it. So they got Bledsoe, Winslow, who else? Keon Johnson. Keon Johnson. Bloodsell is an expiring contract. If you're tearing down and those two guys, you know, Norman Powell, you could have, there's somebody you could have gotten a pick for him from. Bloodsville probably not.

I don't know. No, I don't, that wouldn't make, I mean, you don't want to put too much logic into their decisions, but like it just, maybe there's something else coming. Like his contract is expiring and they're obviously getting on the trade game. And these guys aren't,

this isn't what you take back when you want to rebuild. I don't know. Let's see what happens. Unless they're like, we're rebuilding around CJ and Dame and want to get a, like, I really don't know what comes next year. Unless they're like,

I wonder if CJ is next. Maybe like maybe CJ's next. Maybe flip Ledzo in a trade to try to get somebody back. I'm curious. I wonder if Simmons is popping up here again. I wonder if this is like a pre precursor to a Simmons move for. Maybe. I don't know.

This is a weird trade. It does seem like a little bit of a money dump. It could be that. I mean, there's also like the stuff about their ownership as well. Yeah. Right. With Jody Allen taking over or having ownership of the team. Yeah.

There was definitely like there was speculation about. you know, the Olshay stuff, just being kind of a way to dump him without having to pay him. So, like, you know. All right. Well, let's move. Let's keep moving on. We sort of handle the clippers and the blazers there because we just wind up talking about them. The next one I wanted to chat about was Charlotte.

Oh, wait. Can we go back to the Clippers for one second? Because as we were talking about the Kyrie thing, my suggestion was going to actually be a straight up Kyrie for Paul George flip. I think Paul George would be amazing. I think he'd be amazing on the Nets. Like, he plays great defense. Like, he would kind of, there's a lot.

of guys that they play at that four position that they just kind of try to slot in. He would slide in perfectly. He could, I think he could go like defensive dynamo and just hit a ton of shots, you know, secondary playmaker, tertiary playmaker, really. It would be the perfect role for him, in my opinion. Man, it's just like the Ghost of Thunder past over there then. Oh yeah, Paul George is. Well, yeah, Paul George is on Thunder.

What a career. Somebody's got to do a retrospective on his career. Okay, let's move on. Yeah, I wanted to do Charlotte because I noticed that Gordon Hayward. Are we sure he's on the right team? I don't know if he like meshes that great. Like when I watch, when I look at like the lineup numbers for the Hornets,

and I've watched quite a bit of Hornets, but it does seem like his, like when he's, uh, on the floor, it's like, it's basically him or Lamello as the primary playmaker. And the, like,

he just doesn't seem to mesh. His numbers in Lamello lineups are just weirdly bad. Okay. What do we, what do we got? I don't know. I mean, like, who doesn't,

need a veteran playmaker who's capable of putting up like 22 and you need him to. I've got a couple destinations that I like for him. I would love to send him back to the Celtics. I don't know if he would want to go back to the Celtics, but sure. It just didn't work out at the time, you know? And it was, I really, I feel for the Celtics front office because I feel like they get a lot of shit for not really consolidating all of their talent. But in their defense, they have, right?

Like they did it for Kyrie. And they got, I mean, it was the Isaiah Thomas trade. So nobody was going to be like a big huge fan of that. Just like on an emotional level. And it was like just kind of bigger that Kyrie wanted to go. But that was a really good basketball trade for them that didn't work out for non-basketball reasons. And then Gordon Hayward also on that team like that, that team would have been amazing. And if you look at what the Celtics need, they need a player that's exactly like Gordon Hayward.

Right. Counterpoint, would you just leave him on Charlotte? I actually really like on the. Because that's sometimes the answer. Is like, are they on the right team? Yes. That's the name of this podcast. Let's keep moving through the teams because we got distracted by the Portland Clippers trade.

So the next one up we have is Memphis Grizzlies. This is really quick. No notes. They're all on the right team. Don't you guys dare make a trade at the deadline, please. Every podcast I've listened to this week, whatever the gris come up about how like they are the best prime team to make like a huge deal if they wanted to.

It's just like, but Desmond Bain is untouchable. So I'm just like, why don't we just leave them? Xavier Tillman is touchable, untouchable, you know? Okay, so the next team is Utah Jazz. Typically speaking, what happens is Rudy Gober and comes into these where it's like, are we sure he can play with Donovan Mitchell? What this podcast presupposes is what if Donovan Mitchell is the one who needs to go to a different team? What do you think?

I think it's interesting. We've heard a little bit of speculation, it sounds like. It doesn't seem like it's coming from him by any means, but there's been a little bit of like, you know, he's just a good player on a small market team. that isn't like exactly crushing it at this particular moment. So you're going to have some of these rumblings. I don't think it's not so big deal. But hey, let's let's, it gives us an avenue to talk about it.

So, you know, obviously there's some, uh, connection to the Knicks in the sense that the Knicks passed on Donovan Mitchell, but there's also like the kind of like worldwide West. He's from there. Yeah, and he's obviously from there. Is there any other place that you would like love to see Donovan play? I'm sure like 29 other teams would love to have Donovan Mitchell. But is there a place that you would like love to see.

him. I was thinking about Donovan Mitchell in terms of like what the best fit for him would be. And I honestly like it is pretty close to what what the jazz have right now. But yeah, if you could get him like in a spread five situation, I think that would be really fun. I would like to, I would be curious to see what he would actually look like. And I think most of most of what we're doing here is I think we're getting guys in situations where they would actually probably statistically play a little bit better. But I would like she really like to see Donovan in like a system where he's not like, you know, doing what he's doing right now. Um, I would send him to the Miami Heat.

Seriously. I think it would be fun. Yeah. I think I like him. I like him kind of going through that part of his development too. The getting incredibly swole part of his development. Yeah. He's already pretty swole.

But yeah, like we can see like, he could probably push some limits. Like there's like there's like a strange D. Wade connection to where like, you know, now that now that Wade is with the jazz like, you know, Mitchell just like just pulls one on him. I don't know why I want that to happen. But I want I like I kind of I like the reversal with him. I do too. That's a really good idea. Why don't we keep moving?

Yeah. Oh, I had something that I forgot to say earlier. Shoot. I'll be quick. So Aiton and Gobert, I think would be a really funny swap to do. Oh, my God. Gobert would get to play with Devin Booker finally. Just have his dreams come true.

And then, you know, Gobert would get to do this experiment where, you can find out, like, oh, was it really the Utah Jazz perimeter defense? That was the whole problem the entire time. And then Mitchell gets to play with a pick and roll partner that can hit a floater. And I think both sides would probably like that. That's way better than Donovan Mitchell. Like, you know, because like that would actually really work. Now that we're talking about it, it's actually kind of a really good fit.

Because I think like it would, the Aiton's offensive expansion would probably be more useful to the jazz. Yeah, you know what? I kind of like this. I love you. You're talking yourself into it. I'm actually, I'm in. I'm in.

Donovan Mitchell, you're staying in Utah. Yeah. We're moving Rudy Gober for DeAndre Aiden. All right. So next team would be Chicago Bulls. Honestly, like, unless you're trading Pat Williams, the only person I was really wondering about is whether Vooch works with this for guard hydra that they've got going when they're all healthy.

What do you think? Yeah. I just, you know, I think even when they, when we talked about them in the preseason, um, which was kind of in my eyes, always the odd man out in that. you know, I think he definitely gives you a lot offensively, but I think like in the long term, if you are trying to be a contender, he's just like, he's just a little too scoutable. I think maybe that's like kind of the concern with the Bulls in general that like, yeah, I'm really curious to see how everything holds up in the playoffs for them.

So yeah, I mean, Booch would be the guy that, that I would speculate on, um, where would you send him? I don't know where to go with Booch. You know, like, he, he seems like he's one of those players that is so like a self-contained. He gives you everything you want. Like he does the exact same thing almost every night. It's like no matter where he goes. Yeah, he's not going to be like much of an interior defensive threat. Like he can get like kind of those empty drum and d rebounds if you want him to and do the 26 and 11 night if you if you need it.

But like I don't really know if that really like raises the bar for your team. So I would probably like I dare say I'd send him back to Orlando. Like I don't know that he would want to do that. But that seems like the kind of consistency that some of those lower rung teams. teams need. I also wonder whether or not he would be beneficial to a team like San Antonio or Houston. Just in terms of, you know, giving them a little bit of a floor. Yeah. I mean, I know that Woods down there, but like, yeah, like, I just basically like another big shooter spread the floor and also give a little veteran like know how. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I'm pretty

firmly in the camp of like, you know, the Rockets should have been letting John Walt play this entire time. I am too. Jalen Green's going to have to unlearn a lot of stuff when he wants to win basketball games. And it's not going to be his fault. Next team up is the Cavs. We kind of chatted about like how much we adore them and don't want to mess with them. Ricky Rubio is obviously this contract they can trade because he's out for the year. Personally, like I would love for them to hold on to Rubio. I think he was kind of a floor raiser for them while he was on the team this year. I think he kind of has for me starting to have like a little bit of like a JV. Chris Paul vibe where you just plug and play him and he automatically like makes a couple of guys on that team better. What do you think?

So I kind of, I agree with you. But I also, I feel. like Ricky has done his work in Cleveland. Yeah. Okay. So like he's like, you know, now like, you know, he's like, it's like, it's time to like, you know, take the training wheels off. It's like when like the first time you're riding a bike and like, not the first time we're riding a bike, but when you learn how to ride a bike and you notice for the first time that like, when I, when I first figured out how to ride a bike, my dad just kind of like he just took his hands off and I didn't realize. Like I think I think Garland is kind of, he's kind of past that point. That's a beautiful image. Okay. Let's keep moving. We just did the. Cleveland, Dallas.

I think the obvious one is Chris Daps, but I'm starting to wonder whether or not this, like, top five defense they seem to have gotten themselves is how much that's rooted in Prozangis being like a rim protector. He seems to have a better reputation among NBA players than he does maybe statistically. But are you kind of like, do you want to see this version,

the Jason Kidd Mavericks, go through a playoff series before you break up in the Luca? I mean, I think everybody on the Mavericks deserves each other, but I think, No, but honestly, I'm from a basketball perspective. I would actually, I would like to see, I would like to see him stick around. Honestly, I kind of, I'm curious to see. I think he might have finally kind of figured out how to play with the Mavericks.

They're in an interesting place right now. I'm curious to see how it sort of progresses. But yeah, I mean, if we're throwing around a trade, I don't know, actually. I didn't think about this one. What did you have? I want to see what this defense really is. Like, I don't understand it. I don't know whether kid is like a wizard with a wizard.

or what or what. But there's something about what's happening there that it feels real to me. And I want to see them actually apply it in a playoff series. I want to see another Clippers Mavericks series, honestly, that would delight me. But probably wouldn't delight the Mavericks if they wind up getting Paul George, Robert Covington, Norman Powell, and even like a Phantom Kauai Leonard return. They would probably bum the Mavericks out quite a bit. We keep moving. Denver, I'm not going to do this to Denver because they've lost their whole team.

so everybody belongs on Denver. Detroit, the obvious question is, is Jeremy Grant on the right team? The answer is probably no, although Jeremy Grant did want to go to the Pistons. There's a lot of places you could put Jeremy Grant. Do you have a favorite destination for him? My favorite destination is probably Utah, just because I think that that's a team where, I mean, probably, if I was Jeremy Grant and I left Denver because I didn't want to be in a championship contending situation, but I wanted to like, you know, take my, you know,

I just wanted to figure out who I was as a player. and then I got traded right back into the mountain time zone into like a well-balanced offense, run around somebody else. You'd be like, but now I don't get passes from Yokach anymore. But from the jazz perspective, it's kind of exactly everything that they need.

Yeah. And especially now the Ingalls is out, there's probably a little bit more of a hole in that team. Next team up is the Houston Rockets. The obvious guys are Eric Gordon and John Wall and neither of which are on the right team. I love Eric Gordon to Cleveland. I would love for that to happen.

But John Wall, man, just still one of my favorite players of the last 20 years. I would love to see him be put somewhere. And I hate this like guys get rewarded for, you know, a decade of good basketball. They get rewarded with these contracts. And now like they become like quote unquote untradable or unplayable even in John Wall's case. I think that's actually like really, really wrong. Yeah, I want I think like let's talk about the one that it seems like could actually happen. John Wall on the Lakers would make a ton of sense to me.

But it's got to be for Russ, right? It has to be for us. And I know that we joke about it because it's like, it's hilarious that those two contracts can actually be traded for each other. Like we talked about this in the past two or like there's actually no such thing as an untradable contract because there are too many untradable contracts. You know, just on a team level. John Wall is a sneaky underrated passer.

Coming into into the NBA, I think he was more of a past first player. Before we even had the three-point revolution, he was like one of the best corner three passers in the NBA just in two. I think he got a really rough deal in terms of like some of the injuries that he had in terms of franchise he was on. And I think that he is actually probably more adjustable than we realized in terms of like being able to come onto a situation like the Lakers and kind of take a step back and be a bit more of a table setter. While also, you know, he can still run like, you know, he can still run in transition, get through the gaps and everything. and I think he's going to put in more of a defensive effort and also just be in general a better defender than Ross.

So, yeah, I'm actually, I'm really into it. I honestly just can't remember the last time I've seen him play. It's just so, it's kind of sad, you know. He wasn't bad in Houston last year. And that was with, like, actually handing a ball a ton too, right? Yeah. So, you know, like, I think, you know, a lower load for him would be great and love to, I have a lot to see him win a championship.

For the Pacers, I picked Lavert. I don't think he's on the right team. I don't know what this Pacers team is doing, but it, I would do the entire team. Yeah. I mean, like, I personally, I would just rip this team apart if I had the leverage to do so. I know that the ownership there is like, we don't, we don't tear down. We, we just kind of like fix on the fly. And I don't know if Carlisle has like the patience or the interest in like being part of a rebuild.

But I would just get rid of these guys while you could. Lavert to me, high volume player. Like, I've never really been super enamored with him. But I think he would be like an incredible six man on a on a, on a real good team. He's never gotten a good go either. He always kind of gets like flipped around. Yeah. Yeah.

I would almost like him on a team like the thunder. where it's going to be a smart place where he gets to get some reps, but they're also not really going to let him do anything, you know, extra. You know, like there's like that there's a balance of freedom, you know, that versus structure, I guess, that I think that they kind of do a good job of staying within that allows their players to actually develop within like an NBA framework, but still find their games.

Let's, let's put him there. Okay. Thunder. Yeah, or any good player development team. Yeah. The funny thing about the Thunder. We can do the Thunder next. I was going to ask you about SGA and whether it's, it's like, are we just going to kind of,

are you going to ever build around SGA or is SGA going to be the ultimate trade chip, along with all these first round picks and what is the Thunder's goal here? Is I wonder whether or not Levert, while he would probably, like, I think statistically improve and probably be playing in an environment where, like, his qualities would be really needed, like just a volume score. Like, what's the goal here? Like, I guess it's like there's a lot of, like, interesting parts on the, the Thunder. There's, you know, Dort has continued to be, like, to develop SGA is obviously awesome.

Giddy seems like a sick pick. But like, where are we going? You know what I mean? Like I, and I, I wonder whether or not, like, they're almost going to be in a situation where they have like all these assets, but not enough of, um, not enough juice to like attract anybody sincerely to the team. Like, let's say just for instance, Presby calls up David Griffin. And is it like, basically like, I want one of your stars. I want Zion, which is not going to happen, but Brandon Ingram. And he's got all these, like he's got all these picks. He's got like, he's got all this stuff to offer. Like, does Brandon Ingram want to go play in Oklahoma City? Like, does Brandon Ingram make Oklahoma City a play-in team? Like, I don't, I don't think so, right? Yeah, I mean, I think if you're the

thunder, you're probably not going to build through attracting free agents that much. I think they kind of understand that. Yeah, they're strange, but they're also like, I don't know, they're young. They have a ton of potential. They have a lot of guys who can make plays. I think that you kind of just ride it out for now. I like the idea of maybe like now that she has been through like the school of the thunder he's like ready for promotion to a playoff team. Yeah, I know. I would just, I would love to see him in a playoff situation. Yeah. Where would you send him? Well, I don't know because like here's the thing is that like one of the one of the another one that I was thinking about as like a destination. I was thinking about Oklahoma as a destination for Bradley Beal. Oh, okay. If you were going to

tear down the wizards and maybe you send beale and maybe you attach another contract you don't want and you send it to the thunder and the thunder give up some picks or maybe like like if you're gonna if the wizards are like let's let's rebuild sincerely here after this attempt at veteran like competency i don't know i mean like could the thunder ever get involved in one of these big big time like trade yeah you know in fairness to the thunder i think kd and russell gave them a lot of good practice in how to keep a superstar happy. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I think like they actually just do a good job of, I guess, there's no, it's so, it's so weird when you talk about this stuff. It's like, it's like, you know, they put their superstars, I guess, a good position to succeed.

But they also like, they do cater to them too. I think like, you know, the way that Westbrook was kind of able to do things, the way that he wanted to do there and I think probably misses. You know, there's, there's definitely like downsides to, to that approach. But I think a lot of franchises do have to do it. The Rockets, you know, Mori talked about pretty openly, like that is kind of something that they looked at as being one of their disadvantages. So what they did was they basically were like, okay, so we're going to then give our players more decision-making power in terms of free agency and stuff. Like, we're just, we're just actually going to empower them a little bit more. And that can be a tradeoff for the players to whom that is important. And I think, I think, you know,

I don't know exactly what it is at the thunder do. I don't think anybody really knows what they do. but they do have, I think, the ability to cater to the right type of player, somebody who would obviously be willing to play there. Then it just comes down to temperament, right? Sure. I'm sure what really like the Thunder are waiting on is with all these picks that they have and they can probably bunch some of those picks together if they want to move up. If a team isn't, you know, maybe doesn't love what they have in the top three.

The Thunder are waiting for a star. The Thunder are waiting for a star to fall into the laps of the draft. Yeah. I'm just, and you know, Presti's ball, all the patience in the world. So I guess we just got to kind of wait. Not for me. The Wizards, Bradley Beale, I think we could put Bradley Beale on any number of teams.

This is going to be a really interesting story to watch develop over the next 10 days just because I kind of wonder whether or not this is just going to end with Beal opting in, but then being like, trade me. You know, I, to the extent that I don't know if like that's exactly what Tommy Shepard has in mind over in Washington in terms of how he wants this situation to end. but there's been a little bit of like a loosening of the language I think around Beal and the press at least so it'll be interesting it'll be fascinating to see these next this next week going into next Thursday and see if he's still on the wizards do you have a prime beale destination um you know like I think in the for the purposes of this uh the cabs I'm on the I'm on the Chris Ryan train of sending everybody the cabs I'm on the train of sending everybody the cabs but I don't want to ruin the cabs like what the cabs have so this actually is I really don't want to talk about Bradley Bill.

I want to talk about this next one, which is the Lakers. And I think that LeBron is exactly what the Cavs need. Oh, my God. Yes. Veteran capable of playing making from the perimeter, give a little bit of like arrest to Garland. You know, like take the ball out of Garland's hand sometimes.

You know, just a stopgap for when Garland's off the court. LeBron does that. You know, like LeBron can, can come off the bench and just like kind of maybe work around mobily work around Jared Allen seriously though like would this be like the best you know you know how he would definitely do that no but here's the thing is like this is the lion in winter right LeBron's been out on the west coast like he knows what it's like outside of it the cozy confines of Ohio maybe he comes back and he wins one more for the gipper in Cleveland with this

like nucleus of like young gods. What do you think? That's actually a pretty good legacy move. Because I don't want him to go anywhere else. He should either stay in LA and like honestly just sink this franchise or he should go back to Cleveland. I don't want him to be like now I'm going to go play with the Bulls to be even more creepy about Jordan. You know? He'd actually, he'd actually fit really well in that in that like four role that I had Jill and Brown slotted at at the Bulls. LeBron going to Chicago and making a last dance documentary about it would be like, That'd be hilarious.

He should wait until he's bad. He should do what Wade did. Just tease him until, like, you know, you're at that place where it's basically like they're doing you a favor. We have the heat next, actually. Oh, I want to ask you one more LeBron question. Okay. I know we're not, we didn't stick to our 30 minutes thing.

We can breeze through the rest of these, but I wanted to ask you, LeBron watches Tom Brady retire after losing the NFC championship going out on an MVP caliber season. You could still do it if he wanted to, but he's decided like he wants to go out on top. and furthermore has decided he does not want a victory lap. He doesn't want to go into next season with everybody knowing he's going to retire and have to get like standing ovations or people flipping him the bird at every stadium he goes to and everything is like Tom, we've decided to give you this token of our appreciation for the game. Do you think that's LeBron?

No. LeBron wants the victory lap. He probably wants to play with Brani. I would imagine that if he can, he would. I don't know that it's necessarily a victory lap thing for him as much as I just think he's just always going to be a productive. basketball player. Yeah. It's too bad Tom Brady's son isn't a slot receiver already. Right. Yeah. I think well, his, Tom Brady's perspective on it was very interesting. Like, just like, you know, he's just like, you know, if I can't win a Super Bowl, like, you know, it's time to step out of the way.

I thought that was, you know, it's a good way to look at it. But also it kind of just, it kind of just struck me as like, you really think I'm going to get all these concussions if you don't think I can actually win a Super Bowl. Like, what the fuck is the point of that? And basketball just doesn't work that way. I think football players probably just have, like, you know, I think you got to be a little bit smarter about it just in general, right? Like, LeBron can ride it out. Let's do the heat because, you know, speaking of LeBron, we can, we can hit on the heat. So what do you think here? Lincoln Robinson. Yeah, so you had him there. I'm curious, like, what, let's, let's see what

you got. So at the heat to me are actually like the better version of what's been happening with Brooklyn, which is that they have rarely had their five best players. Like I was even watching this first game last night and there was like just a kind of sense of awe on the part of the announcers where I was like, wow, we got it finally get to see. Bam, Jimmy, Kyle, you know, Duncan and PJ on the floor at the same time. Like, they were like marveling at their starting five being together. Nothing at Duncan Robinson.

I just wonder if you're, if you, if you think that Duncan Robinson could be more useful anywhere else. I actually don't think so. Yeah, probably not. So we could just keep moving. Oklahoma City, we kind of covered with SGA. The Knicks. I want to see if RJ Barrett is like,

just like a product of like big Knicks pop propaganda or can he play anywhere else. So I would take RJ off the team. Okay. Where do you want to send him? I think for these purposes, you should send him to a really small market, just a really... Maybe New Orleans? I don't know.

I was going to say send him to New Orleans and try and... No, but then like that doesn't prove anything. It's like, you know, it's going to be the pelicans fault, probably if he doesn't play that well. What about RJ on the spurs? On the spurs? That's great. I really like RJ on the spurs. Yeah.

So RJ to the spurs. That would be great. Yeah. Oklahoma City, like I said, we did SGA. Yeah. The magic, I honestly, don't have a lot of opinions about magic players. Oh, yeah, just a quick one on the, on the magic.

I want to send Mo Bamba to a team with good, good player development, good big man development for his, his second draft. Because, you know, I think big men always just need a little bit more effort and, like, structure. And that just wasn't, like, not effort. I don't want to say effort. But, you know, the magic just, you know, it doesn't really seem like they had this structure to kind of help Bamba figure out the NBA game.

So I would send him to the Raptors of heat. For the Bucks. I picked Janice. Just because it was the most fun one. So you don't think that Janus is on the right team? So this, I think this is just going to be my favorite thing of the year. But I'm going to talk about the marketing and Evan Mobley pick and roll slip pass once again. Because the God mode version of it is the Yokic Janus.

Could you imagine? Yokic and Yon is playing together. It would be the funnest thing ever. Like everything that we love about the Cavs would be like the superstar version of that if you allowed. And you know what? And it doesn't have to be. Yokic can go to the box.

Dan Kronky would have to give Mark Lazarie Arsenal. Like I don't know what would be like enough, but you would have to like basically be like. Walmart. Arsenal football club and Wallet. Yeah. I just want to see them together. Okay.

I like it. I think I like Yokic going to Milwaukee more. but I like it. Portland, we kind of covered because they just did an actual trade with Covington and Powell going to the Clippers. I, you know, like, I feel ill-equipped to discuss this trade

on such short notice because I don't really know what's going on here. I does feel like it has to be. I don't understand how Portland could be like, this is as good as we could do for these players. It's got to be something else coming. Okay. I don't know.

Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but I just can't imagine it being this, you know. So let's put a pin in it. Last couple of teams here, Sacramento. know, like, Deerne Fox was supposed to be untradable. It was supposed to be untouchable, like, in terms of, like, I think that that was, like, muted in, like, the rumors with the Sixers was that he was off the table for the Ben Simmons trade.

I don't think he's on the right team. I don't know what the right team for him is. I don't know what I don't know what any Kings player can actually do. I feel like the Kings are, like, this void. And when guys go out on the Kings, like, they are never heard from again. I'm trying to remember the last time somebody was on the Kings, got off the Kings, and had like a healthy career afterwards. Like it seems like no matter what, like when guys go to the Kings, like they're somehow stuck on the Kings even emotionally for like the rest of their careers. They forget that they like basketball.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who they traded lately? Obviously the first one that comes to mind is DeMarcus, but he had the injuries and stuff. I feel like DeMarcus is still stuck in Sacramento. Yeah. But I think like he was stuck in Sacramento before he got there too, though. So I would still I would I still don't think that Deerrin Fox is on the right team there.

Stuck in Sacramento and that on like a on like a psychological level just sounds very much just like something. If Joan Didion wrote about basketball would have like a whole sort of thesis on just like the psychological. The last the last essay in the white album is about the Kings. She should have written one basketball article. I always I always thought that maybe one day she would like there's so many teams in California. I know. There's too many. the last two teams we got

Toronto near and dear reader heart are we sure this player is on the right team yeah I mean you put you put Pascal Seacum I'll let you I'll let you start that one off just because um you know my heart I want to see Maasai pull the trade that like we that's always threatened you know like he did the Kauai deal

and I feel like the Kauai deal kind of delayed the rebuild that he had always kind of wanted to do in Toronto and then he did it somewhat over the last season or two. But like, I mean, he'd let Kyle Lowry and Mark Gassal go and after, after Kauai left. But I kind of feel like Siakum's the last band-aid, you know?

Seacom is like the final step to like evolve beyond like whatever that championship team was and become something else. And they have a lot of really decent players. They have Van Vleet. Do you, would you say Seacom is the guy you're worried about or would it would be Fred that you would say, are you on the right team? Would you like to see Fred in a different situation? I like Fred where he is. I like all the rappers where they are. But I would say if they're the more interesting trade candidate to me is definitely

Seacom. And I think he kind of fits in some of the teams that we've talked about so far. Like the one that really sticks out to me is the Hawks. And on the other end of it, like, you know, the Hawks have guys who can, who can score the ball that the rappers could probably use to. What about the Spurs last team? Oh, yeah. You know what?

This is actually the perfect last team. I had a proposal for you. I would trade Thaddeus Young to the Sixers. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Full circle. I forgot about that. Yeah. What a long and interesting NBA career. Thadde's time. Very securitus, yeah.

So, I mean, I wouldn't blame anybody for not being on the sad young train as of late. He kind of built himself into like a strange sort of. I would have loved to actually have him stay on the Bulls, but like you understand. why they had to let him go to make moves that they made. But he kind of developed into like a strange sort of like Draymond role on offense where he was passing and rebounding and just kind of like playing like the four or five. And it really fit well in the same way that another former six or Igwadala like got out of

there and really found his role. Dad found it probably a little too late in his career. I think if he was like, you know, if he was five years younger, he'd be like a really great fit in the modern NBA. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of these teams are in the Ben Simmons sweepstakes, I think should be looking to trade for Thaddeus Young. He kind of gives you, like, a poor man's version of what you're looking for there. But I think if you're the Sixers, you know, like, who needs Ben Simmons more than any, like, they're the ones who really need him, you know? And now that we know that Simmons is watching every Sixers game, it's like, okay, you get him, you get in a guy that's like, can kind of do a little bit of what Simmons does and just kind of see what happens there. Like, there's a psychological aspect of it that you can, you can get into. But there's also just on the court, he spells him a little bit. And then maybe you can kind of, then maybe you can start to be a little bit patient if it really works out about trading Simmons.

But you also kind of, you know, he doesn't really like, he doesn't have leverage, but he doesn't really seem to care that he doesn't have leverage. So I don't know if this matters, but it also does decrease his leverage if they just find somebody who can kind of do some of the things he does. So you would say not Simmons involved in a Thad Young, Dejante Murray or whatever trade. You want Thad Young as a like carrot almost. to get Simmons to come back to the team. Yeah.

I like it. That's pretty smart. This is why you should be a GM. This is why I should be a GM as we're thinking outside the box like this. Plus, at least we wouldn't make a Norman pal on Robert Cumberton for Justice Winslow and Eric Blood So Trade. For CIRIT, I'm Chris. Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing us this week.

We will be back next Friday. Obviously, that will be a post-deadline day trade extravaganza. And then we'll be heading into All-Star Break. So, Syri, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you, Chris.