The Ringer NBA Show - Did Another Dennis Seal the Clippers’ Fate? Plus, the Giddey Deal’s Impact on Other RFA Holdouts.

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Justin and Wos are back and they’re joined by Howard Beck to talk about his takeaways from Adam Silver’s latest press conference (2:33). Then, they get into their thoughts on the Kawhi Leonard–Clippers scandal. Lastly, they wrap up by talking about Josh Giddey’s contract extension (48:13), and the decision fellow restricted free agents Jonathan Kuminga and Quentin Grimes still have to make.Hosts: Justin Verrier and Wosny LambreGuest: Howard BeckProducer: Isaiah BlakelyAdditional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, as always, Big Was. But Rob Mahoney is not here. He's got a DNP sickness going on. So we have invited Howard Beck for what I believe is the first time you're in group chat. Howard, is that correct? Long time listener, first time participant. Really honored to be here.

I feel like I'm at the cool kids table finally. Also, like I'm working my way through all of. the ringer NBA pods. Like, I just need, like, if I hit mismatch, is that bingo? How does this work? Yeah, you're in an Andy Dufrain situation where you got a long ways to go to get to the end of the tunnel because there are a lot of NBA pods on the Ringer podcast network, but we're glad that you made it this far.

Was, how are you? How was your summer? You blogging those no-show hours? Nah, man. Just the crazy summer culminating in. Last Friday, I got engaged. Let's go. Yeah, shouts to my fiance,

which is something I got to get used to saying, Tammy. She's not listening, but I'm sure some people who are friends and connected with her are. And so, yeah, shouts to my fiancee. Shouts to the staff, the staff at Delilah, Miami, man. They took care of me. They made this thing run like the smoothest operation you could possibly even conceive of.

So shout to my people over there at Delilah Miami. Of all the shoutouts we've got from you, I think this is the most important one. Yeah, I think so. Producer Zay pointed out that I've shouted out so many people for their weddings and birthdays and all of this stuff. I think it's important that I shout my fiancé for saying yes to my proposal. As a long-married person, yes, that was the correct decision.

Thank you. Well, shout out to your soon-to-be wife. And shout out to you for making the plunge. Can't say I'm ready to do it myself, but good for you. We know this. But yeah, I've finally become a man. The boy is now a man, Justin. That's great.

So we are assembled here to talk about a few things, including Josh Giddy's new extension. But unfortunately, that isn't the first item on the docket. We have to talk about, of course, Kauai Leonard. We haven't weighed in on the brewing scandal happening in Clipperland. Howard, you were there. at the border governor's meeting yesterday, at least for the presser, saw you, if not front and center, but certainly center because they had that row of basically business types that were working as some sort of an offensive line in between the reporters and Adam Silver at the

dais. We have since gotten a new report from Pablo Torre, which indicates a few things that we'll get into. But I guess first and foremost, what was the experience like being at the presser? Was there anything that you learned or perhaps that contradicted the things that we learned today. Yeah. No, nothing to contradict anything that none of us knew at the time was coming today on yet another edition of Pablo Tori finds out a bunch of shit that the clippers are allegedly doing that they shouldn't be. That would be a very long podcast name. I don't recommend it. You know, I think if there was anything to me that was a little surprising yesterday, guys, it's just that Adam Silver was very much willing to talk about this in a much more expansive manner than I thought. Now, you can say,

at the end of the day, he didn't really, you know, he didn't drop any clues about where this is heading. He didn't say much substantively. But I think what he said was significant. And I thought he was going to shut everything down. I thought every question might just be a guys, there's an investigation underway, and we can't talk about it. And we'll get back to you when the investigation's done. He didn't do that. He actually asked or answered a bunch of kind of process type questions and also some philosophical questions. And the one that I asked him, and I did not expect this answer. So I will lead with this. The question I asked was, what does circumstantial evidence mean as it pertains to the CBA? Because it says in there you can find cap circumvention by actual or circumstantial

evidence. I said, what does that mean to you guys? But also, more importantly, is the burden of proof on the league to prove this or on the clippers to disprove it. And Adam very assertively and definitively said, the burden of proof is on us as the league, as the ones potentially charging them. which I think is important, right? If we're all trying to figure out what the baseline is, as this moves forward, is it what Pablo Tori had already reported a week ago? Is it the additional information that I think is incredibly damning and more specifically damning as it pertains to the Clippers' involvement,

which came today? What is the baseline? How much does the league, does Adam Silver feel, is enough, right? Because we can look at it and see all the smoke and go like, oh my God, how could they not be guilty? That's fine for us as the court of public opinion. That's fine for us in punditry world here on a podcast. It's not fine if you're the commissioner of the NBA or maybe even the other 29 owners.

You want to ensure the integrity of the system and of the league. At the same time, you want to make sure that if you're going to throw the book at somebody, if you're going to give them the Joe Smith type death penalty of multiple draft picks lost, contracts voided, owner and executives suspended, you got to be damn well sure of what you have found. And it certainly seemed to me that Adam Silver, and this is consistent with, I think, what we've seen from him ever since he became commissioner. He's going to err on the side of, if not caution, just being methodical and making sure that, you know, all the, whatever, eyes are dotted T's or cross kind of thing. He's going to do this right. He's not going to

leave the conclusions. He's going to want to have as airtight a case as he can to take any drastic steps. To that extent, I think Pablo Torrey's latest pod this morning, pushed that further along quite a bit. But there's a lot to go. Yes. So that brings us to today. Pablo put out a new episode, kind of following up on some of the reporting that he already did in the

Mark Cuban conversation that he had as this kind of supplementary episode after the initial report. Well, one of the reasons that the Board of Governors is interesting is because according to Pablo, they didn't really talk about it in the meeting itself. The scandal, the Balmer part of it,

Kauai, didn't come up within the meeting. Pablo suggested that there were other side conversations to be had, but nothing on paper, almost mafioso's style, don't talk about it on the phone, occurred within the meeting itself. And then Pablo dropped another kind of bombshell here

where Dennis J. Wong, the only minority partner for the clippers. So Steve Ballmer owns 99% of the Clippers. This other businessman who happens to be Steve Ballmer's roommate from Harvard owns 1%. That is the entire ownership group. He put in $2 million into aspiration as they were basically folding, I believe, December 22nd or sometime as the company was teetering into the sea.

He put in $2 million, which then led to a payment for Kauai for $1.75 million, the implication being that perhaps Wong put in the money, funneled it to Kauai, so he got his payment. And so that's where we are today. I think everyone else has probably caught up on all the other details about about Quai's 48 million, which ended up being 28 million, which 20 in stocks, all this other stuff. I'm sure, if you're listening to this, you're probably caught up on the basic details. But while I'm curious as someone watching this from afar, how are you processing this?

What do you think about all this? First and foremost, I want to say that Pablo Tori is like a person, he's not like he's a personal friend of mine, like a close friend of mine. And because I'm so close to him, I know that he is just reveling and wallowing and all the attention that is being showered upon him and is making me sick. So that's the first thing I want to get out the way. Like, Pablo is absolutely loving all of this. And he's earned it. And he's definitely earned it.

And that being said, before I get into what I'm going to get into, one, I absolutely can be convinced that Steve Ballmer wanted, want to. is somebody who's capable of circumventing the rules to pay Kawhi Leonard Moore to come play for the clippers. Two, like, I'm willing to believe that there's something shady here. My third thing is I'm not convinced

that there's quite a smoking gun yet, and there's a couple of reasons. And just from what I've been able to glean by talking to a couple of people, one, Steve Balmer's kid is, in this environmentalist sort of green energy business community or is aspiring to be in that community. So I think people underestimate the degree

to which rich guys will spend money to get their fail sons involved in legitimate business. Like, $50 million just is nothing to Steve Balmer to get it like, oh, shoot, this is something my son is interested in getting involved in. I want to make sure my son can be involved with this company, yada, yada, yada, keep it moving. Another thing nobody's talked about is that Dr. Wong's kid also worked for this freaking company and is also invested in this sort of green energy environmentalist movement. I'm not saying this, you know, sort of exonerates these guys.

I don't know. I'm just saying like the idea that the only. reason these guys would have wanted to give these people money is to pay Kauai Leonard, I personally have not been convinced of. That's all I will say. And another thing, it's like, even on Pablo's newest episode, like the people that were like supposedly needed to be paid immediately, there's Kauai and there's also the clippers. So if they're paying the clippers back as people that need to be immediately paid back, then that kind of dispels the notion that the payment is one v1.

We don't know if the clippers got money back in all of this. We don't know if the clippers were paid back. Why would they be part of the people that this company needs to pay back? I'm just saying like, I'm not saying Steve Barmer didn't do it. I'm just saying I personally haven't been convinced that this is like,

oh, we got these guys. And Judge Waz's opinion, you cannot convict. In my opinion, that's it. That's it. People can disagree with me. Mind you, I don't care about the clippers I have no investment in any of this. I'm just like, I don't know. I think the timing, though, like if we're saying this isn't the Joe Smith situation

where there's actually on paper an agreement that suggests this nefarious plot. That we know of so far. That we know of so far. Very good point. But the timing of this particular instance, Howard, seems even more suspect than the stuff that came before, at least to me. The timing is damning. On his podcast, Pablo called this revelation, and on today's episode,

quote, the single most indicting piece of documentary evidence we have provided. Which is a lot. It's a mouthful, but it's, I think it's accurate. I think it's true, given, you know, what we've seen so far. The initial disclosures of this entire scheme, let's call it, seemed pretty damning because it's like, you know, wow, why would the clippers do this? And, you know, there's no show contract and quite enough to do anything for it. And it's way out of scale, way out of proportion.

to other endorsement deals that any other player had. Like, none of this makes any sense. So just the outline of it all, I think, was, you know, suggestive of something illegal in terms of caps or convention from the beginning. But today's details, today's disclosures, the fact that, so here's what I was looking for, guys. Let me back up. I as somebody who, I think you guys know me a little bit now after a couple of years

of working together, I am pretty much about the nuance, right? I am not a rushed to judgment guy. I don't get real hot takey about this stuff. I'm not going to be the first one saying, oh, my God, throw the book at them. Obviously, they're guilty. I tend to take a kind of a take a step back. And was, I agree with a lot of what you said in terms of like, there is a, there are some plausible other explanations here. But I think everything was that you laid out.

It's plausible that those things are true and a scheme to absolutely divert money to Kauai outside of the bounds of the CBA is also potentially true simultaneously. Like these are not mutually exclusive. But after the initial report, I was like, hmm, looks bad, but I don't see anything short of a text from Balmer or a text from a Clippers executive or somebody else working on their behalf to aspiration saying, we need to do XYZ or you need to do XYZ. Short of there being that conduit between the Clippers organization and the aspiration organization, I was thinking, well, maybe the league won't have enough. Adam Silver might not have enough. But that's why you hire Walk Tell Lipton. They're going to comb through all the electronic records that the Clippers have. They're going to ask to speak to the same aspiration employees if they can find them. They're anonymous that Pablo spoke to. And if they can get those same people and get the same accounting of things, that may lead

them on the trail that gets them to the certitude that they need or close to it to throw the book at the clippers at that point. But I think when you, today's disclosure by Pablo about a $2 million infusion at a time when this company was buckling, they're laying people off or being, or about to. and it comes just at a time when they're, they're actually overdue to pay Kauai's latest installment of 1.75 million. And the two million comes in just at the time they need to do that. And these two transactions happen in very close proximity to each other is incredibly suspicious at the least.

And whereas before, you know, bombers, $50 million at the beginning. Okay, cool. Rich guys throw money around to invest in, in various things. Maybe he liked the cause. That's fine. If you want to like say there's a plausibility there, I get it. But this is different. This is $2 million at a time that they needed roughly $2 million to pay Kauai on an overdue payment. And it happened in close proximity. And it happened not just

from any investor, but from the one other guy who owns a piece of the clippers. Like that is, that's, that's, that's damning, guys, to me. And I'm, and I think I have a higher bar the most that I think need to be, need to be cleared. A lot of people I know around the league and friends of mine who were just NBA fans and others out there, we're ready to convict the moment the first podcast dropped. I wasn't there. After today, I'm a little closer. Yeah. No, I think the thing for me was before today's episode, what was aspiration getting from the money that they paid to Kauai?

And why was Kauai being paid so much more than other celebrity sponsors that actually did something. And you could think of maybe 20 to maybe even 50 other NBA pitchmen before I would get to Kauai Leonard of all people. Not only, I know he's a superstar, great player coming off a title in 2019. He's not a pitchman. He's not a pitchman. In fact, doesn't want to do literally anything. I think people have suggested and I think they're correct. If he had just tweeted once or twice, this might have been more easy to skirt than it is now by doing literally nothing for. the amount of money that he's been giving. And so, like, I'm willing to entertain this idea that there's some sort of, like, fraud

or, like, some high-level business maneuver that I'm just not aware of that would lead to him being paid ultimately what was supposed to be $48 million. But I think that's where for me, the burden on the proof isn't on the NBA. It's now on the clippers, especially in light of this most recent turn-up from Pablo's podcast, to prove what was this money going to, if not $4? for cap circumvention and how did Boomer not know even via whispers or anyone in the Clippers organization that Kauai was being paid such an absorbative amount more than a Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert Downey Jr. or somebody else. Like, how does that not get back to you at some point?

Is it standard to know the final details of every single deal your players do outside of your organization? No. No, but I just think in terms of like the town hall of the Clippers and the NBA, I think you would hear whispers of something like this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if Kaui was getting $50 million for doing nothing. It would have to be announced. Yeah, like, there's a lot of things that I think, again, you can convince me that the Clippers did this.

But just individually, one, the idea that Kauai might get paid too much for nothing, that doesn't really move me personally. Like, to be honest, I thought of Bill complaining about, about Megan Markle, but whatever. I'm just saying, like, this kind of thing happens all the time in terms of celebrities getting paid for nothing by shady actors who want to be associated with them. Also, again, this is, I'm just throwing ideas out there

in terms of what could be plausible or not. It's very plausible that these aspiration people were trying to impress Balmer by being like, look what we did for your boy type of situation. With Palmer didn't be like, yo, I need you guys to give this guy what we're calling 48 million, which again, 20 million in stocks that are just paperless, paper money, like, cool. Again, the part where they're like, oh, why would they put a stipulation that if he leaves the clippers, like, bro, people put that kind of stuff in athlete contracts all the time.

If you leave a certain market and you go somewhere else, this contract becomes a different story. Again, individual pieces can be explained. Now, when you talk about the totality of how it looks, it looks horrible. There's no two ways about it, bro. I'm just saying, like, in terms of the Joe Smith situation where these two business partners are suing each other, so it comes out in court. what these guys are up to. This ain't that is what I'm saying.

The similarity is that in both cases, we don't know about it, if not for a legal issue, right? The Joe Smith contract, the illegal Joe Smith contract comes out during discovery in this dispute between two agents. All these records that Pablo and his gang have been sifting through for the last several months, apparently,

it's because of a bankruptcy filing. Right. If not for that bankruptcy filing, if aspiration doesn't go under, we still don't know that Kauai was getting paid $28 million plus potentially $20 million in stock options for an out of fund company. It never comes out. Like, and I think what this speaks to is to the extent that the NBA needs to govern these things, right, but cannot or does not have the tools to. There's a massive freaking gap in this whole system, right? Here are the things you're not supposed to. do. Here are all things you can't do. Here are the things that, well, somebody could do on the side, but if the team knows about it, that's when it becomes illegal. But how do you know, where are the junctures between these things? It's, what this says to me is, and I asked a couple people with the league this yesterday just as like, is this unrealistic to think you guys could or should do this? I didn't hear any immediate pushback. But why isn't there? Shouldn't there be some department over there at Olympic Tower in Manhattan where the accountants and the marketing people

and the legal team are all together. There's like a little work. group that vets all of these endorsement contracts as players sign them. And it's on the players and their representation to do so so that the league can say, wait a minute, you're being paid $28 million and there's no requirement to do anything? No. Can't happen. That to us is cap circumvention, even if the clippers had nothing to do with it. That would be one solution. The other one would be and John Hollinger had a great piece in the athletic yesterday where he talked about in the NCAA, you have the lack of institutional control thing, the NBA could decide, let's put it on the teams. And again, all of this would have to be bargained with the union.

It'd have to be agreed to among all the owners, right? Maybe the teams should be responsible for this, where you say at the outset, we have a new baseline here. You are responsible for as long as this player is with your team to know what their outside endorsement deals, especially if they are with sponsors that also sponsor the team, because that's what opens a lot of the door to capser convention. So then the teams would have the little work group of the accountants and the marketing people and the lawyers to vet. And they would require it of every player. Every player's agents got to submit this stuff so that the team could ensure for its own sake and for the integrity of the system that there's nothing going on here that would violate cap rules. And then if you now you now, now you can't plead ignorance.

Right now with the Clippers essential defense right now, Steve Bomber's defense with Ramona Shelburne a week ago is basically. pleading innocence. I didn't know. How did I know? This is some company. I was defrauded too. I mean, listen, like, you can plead ignorance if there's nothing statutorily that requires you to know this. But if you put it on the teams and you create a new policy, now it is on them. Now you can't plead ignorance. You say, sorry, you didn't know. Tough. It was your player. When this happened, it's on you. We're throwing the book at you. Yes. And that refrain has been repeated, not only in an interview with Ramona Shelburne, but sometimes, in the press releases suggesting, well, these scammers are under investigation by the FBI, et cetera, et cetera.

Basically, scammers is going to scam. And I agree to that to a certain point, but to pretend like you were just completely innocent of this or just ignorant of everything happening is a little bit of a stress for me, especially because the clippers themselves were fined as a result of modest cap circumvention for Dandre Jordan, correct, in 2015, when they said. signed him to keep him away from the Mavericks. So they should be aware of this more than anybody. And so, I don't know, there's just so many things that, like, strained credulity in order

to suggest that the clippers weren't aware of this. And I think the biggest thing was is the fact that Uncle Dennis is very much in the midst of all this, the other uncle in this whole, the second uncle. Back to the boogie man, Uncle Dennis. But what I'm saying is just like, clearly he was up to some shit. He was asking for a lot of things. And to suggest that, like, he wouldn't have been in the mix of all of this doing something, like, being really rigorous about upholding the law, letter of the law in the NBA. That seems pretty suspect, in my opinion.

Uncle Dennis upholding the letter of the law in the NBA seems like, yeah, that would be a stretch. I think, yeah, again, the Clippers, like, maybe I'm just assigning too much. I wouldn't even say honor, but just prudence on the part of the Clippers. Like, if you, this is the worst crime a team can commit in the league. Like, there is no bigger crime. And also, this wasn't some low-key, this wasn't the Joe Smith signing. This wasn't some low-key signing. This was the marquee signing of that summer when the Clippers got him in 2019.

Like, not only was it the marquee signing, they were going directly up against the marquee franchise in the league. The idea that this wouldn't attract eyeballs in for people to be like, man, how did you make this happen? That they would do this through some environmental bullshit company and then let it fall into bankruptcy? Like, Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in sports by like 20-fold, lets this thing fall into bankruptcy. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking they can't possibly be this incompetent in their corruption. But oftentimes, you know what, Howard? Our betters are super incompetent and dumb and sloppy. Like, straight up.

Like, oftentimes the people who run our society are dumber than we think. So, like, maybe I'm an idiot for thinking better at these guys. I have many thoughts on exactly what you just said. But I look on there. I, no, I think, listen, if I, I were, and I, this is the way I looked at it a week ago, too, right? I'm a big benefit of the doubt guy. And also, like, I want you to prove it to me.

I don't want to have any ambiguity. Yeah, it looks bad, but okay, where is the conduit? And I also thought when Bomber goes on with Ramona, like, you don't, there was a part of me that thought, if Steve Bomber and the clippers are guilty of this, if they had a hand in this and they directed it, and he's willing to go on live TV and say all the things he said, maybe it's because either A, he's truly innocent of it all and didn't know about it. or B, knows something happened, but they already knew we covered our tracks. There are no tracks to cover.

We didn't put anything in writing. There is no text. There is no email. There is no paper trail. There's no electronic trail. There's nothing to find to link us to it. And as long as we just stick to our guns and say, this was just aspiration. They did this on their own.

It was them and Uncle Dennis, and we had no involvement. We can skirt this. And maybe the confidence was because they knew there was nothing there in the record. But then this thing comes out today on Pablo's. podcast about their 1% owner giving us the direct line that I, that personally I was looking for. Where is the direct line from the Clippers to this? And I mean, and I think that's fundamentally different. The $50 million in seed capital at the beginning is not the same as the $2 million quick deposit right as the time that they owe Kauai a payment of 1.75. That to me is, is, like I say,

far more indicative and damning. But yeah, it is. Listen, guys, let's admit, it's hard for all of us to get our head around the idea that Steve Balmer, as smart as he is, as sophisticated is, as rich as he is, would be either foolish enough to throw away his money as one version on this sketchy company or foolish enough to do something so blatantly illegal and stupid that if things go the wrong way, you might get caught for. And the bankruptcy filing opened the door to that. Yeah. And I think the new report was pretty damning for two reasons, not only because of the new evidence that Popple found, but I have found, especially as time goes on,

to be almost equally concerned about the fact that they did not discuss this at the Board of Governors meeting because it almost suggests that the NBA might be trying to avoid really hammering the clippers, if only to acknowledge that this is something that happens. And I have to worry about how much the NBA is involved on the Balmer side of things or just trying to make things look good for Balmer because I think there's two ways to look at this.

Do they want to really hammer them, both because silver and the league office technically works for the body of 30 owners? And they're at the behest of what they would want. If there are enough owners who are upset about this, and I assume there are. Then they would really want to correct the mistake, if only for competitive advantages or just all this other. On the other hand, maybe they're just trying to avoid a scandal and get away with just doing the least amount to maybe slap them on the wrists so that it doesn't suggest to the public at large that this was happening, that the product that you were so heavily invested in, people are circumventing the rules that you care so much about. Steve Balmer is on the audit committee. Let's point that out first and foremost. And just the idea that they're not talking about this on record is kind of suspect to me.

And it's something that I've always kind of, maybe it's a little conspiratorial, but it's something I've always really wondered about, especially in the more modern times under the Silver Administration, where like I think they've been pretty soft on crime on a lot of things that aren't clear wind for them, like getting rid of Donald Sterling, a reviled racist to everybody wanted it out to begin. I'll just say this. You know, they hired Walk Till Lipton, which is the same firm that they used to investigate Donald Sterling, the same firm they used to investigate Robert Sarver, after Baxter Holmes' stories about Robert Sarver. walk till lipton is going to do the job right and the league you know they will participate in in this investigation to the extent that that they need to and that rick buchanan their their lead council needs to but walk till lipton is going to lead this thing now and as with all these other investigations in the past whether it was you know the aforementioned owners or the tim donagy scandal or various of the things this is what you do this is the process you hire the law firm they go investigate and you and you

wait. You participate and you direct, but you wait for the results. That they did not discuss it yesterday's board of governors meeting. Surprise me only to the extent that it was such an explosive revelation just days before they were scheduled to meet that I thought for sure, at a minimum, this is a conversation in the room. It sounds like Adam specifically tried to direct away from that and keep it from being a conversation in the room. I'm sure it would have been really awkward. Steve Balmer was there yesterday. So that's an awkward conversation to have, but also, again, process and, and, you know, following due process, a phrase that Adam used yesterday. This is not a legal setting, but he believes in due process. He's a lawyer. It's not the time to do it if you don't have the investigation complete.

It's not the time to do it if all you have to go off of so far is Pablo's 80-minute podcast last week. So to that extent, guys, it doesn't surprise me that they did not have some full-on conversation yesterday because what are you going to do? put bomber on trial with the other 29 owners in the room in real time. Like, that doesn't make sense. The investigation will happen. It will eventually be a discussion for the board of governors when that investigation's over. And here's the other thing when I think about, okay, if this is a widespread practice in the NBA,

which I don't believe it is, in fact, I think it's the opposite. I think guys take pay cuts and just never get taken care of. again um like if this was widespread like we we pay attention to contracts and market value and who's taking less and why like it's just not happening dude like most of the times 98% of the times when guys come up for deals they're getting pretty much as much as we thought they were going to get so this isn't a widespread thing no it is so it's not a wide spread thing no it is so it's not a widespread thing. So if we can establish that it's not,

and the owners know to their bones that Balmer just cheated all of them, like he just straight up cheated them. Why would they not be killing him for this collectively? That's what I'm not understanding at the moment. Respect for the process, respect for their structure, I guess, which is that if any of us are under investigation, you know, I'm going to want that to be complete

before you guys start, you know, jumping down my throat in a meeting, right? I think maybe it's just, you know, decorum, right? Just not appropriate to do it, to try to vet this whole thing, air it all out in real time just days after this report drops. They themselves, the owners and maybe even the league, don't have all of the information in front of them that Pablo had for the podcast. And one of things Adam said yesterday, which, you know, it's a fair point to make.

There are sometimes things that come out in public on a podcast, podcast and a news report, whatever, everybody reacts. We're all like, you know, ready to like light somebody on fire. And then it comes out later after a full investigation. Now that wasn't the full story and it looks a lot different in the light of day. And that's a prudent way to approach these things, right? Again, Adam, lawyer by trade, cautious by temperament. This is the way I would expect the lead to handle on his watch. So I'm not, I don't think that they didn't discuss it yesterday. The board of governors is any indication of anything other than respect for the process. One last thing on this, and I know this isn't like our area expertise, but like, if you're somebody who cares about, like, climate change and, like, climate change solutions and the idea that there's going to be some private sector business focused, like, model that solves this thing, this is a huge freaking blow. This is nasty work, right? Like, these, this thing was founded by two very well-connected Democrats. And, like, the idea that this was a show.

sham and a scam. Like, if you really deeply care about this stuff, this is a huge blow to that as well. It ain't, it ain't great. I did have one of the stray thought yesterday on this guys, which is, could the NBA and the CBA somewhere and the Constitution by the list, like, just have a carve out. We'll call it like the karma clause. And it would be basically, yeah, this all looks really bad. Yeah, there was probably caps circumvention. We may be able to prove it. We may not. But you know what, guys? Haven't they suffered enough? maybe maybe the clippers punishment is that they've had kawai for six years and won three playoffs series and he rarely plays and they've had to pay him a lot of money like maybe karma already

took care of it we're fine we're done like the ledgers is is is even like I don't know just I can see it um well one thing I do want to talk about you got with you guys is because we kind of have been circling the Joe Smith sort of aftershocks of this it feels like the type of thing that is constantly like in the background of everything that happens in the league, but certainly in this case where there's like a direct comparison. I'm curious because Watts and I were present for that. We were following the NBA, but Howard, you were covering the NBA at that point. I assume you were covering the Lakers. Do you remember anything from that time or do you think there's anything like that you could think of that informs what's happening

here? I'm just like, I'm just curious about like the actual details of it because like I see it referenced so often now, Joe Smith, Joe Smith, this was this huge thing. But like you were front and center for it. I was covering the Lakers at the times. I wasn't like, you know, a national guy. So it wasn't like, this was not my purview. I was not covering the Joe Smith case. I don't know if I wrote a single word about this at the time. Because, you know, when you're covering Shack of Kobe, it's just all Shack and Kobe all the time with a little Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, Robert Ory mixed in. But it was a big fucking deal, guys.

Like it was a huge scandal. And of course, that's the David Stern era. And if there's nothing people, you know, if the youngans don't know, they at least know this much. You don't mess with David Stern or David Stern's MBA. And like there's a reason why it's funny because every summary of the Joe Smith case is, here are all the punishments, including five forfeited picks, parentheses two or later restored. The two were later restored on appeal. But the fact was at the beginning, Stern was going to be like, I am taking every last

fucking ounce of, you know, discipline here of whatever that I can get. So five draft picks, five first round draft picks. You know, the maximum fine. suspension for Glenn Taylor for the rest of that season and Kevin McHale, who was jammed at the time for the rest of that season, voided Joe Smith's contract with them, made him a free agent, stripped him of his bird rights. Like, like everything but like imploding the target center. So it's a big deal. Cap circumvention is a capital crime in this league.

And, you know, the thing that struck us all in real time, guys, like there's little things I remember. one is like, wait a minute, you did all this and risk the, like the viability of your franchise for Joe freaking Smith. Joe Smith. But they were so desperate. Like even in the modern era, like we all, you know, we've all seen versions this, right? Oh, they're so desperate to keep LeBron happy, to keep Steph happy to get whatever. All the things, the extent that teams go to, to just show good faith, right? I mean, I don't want to, this is, this is not a comparison. Miles Turner's a much better player. But the Bucks put. themselves in, you know, debt cap-wise for years with the wave and stretch of Dame, so I think it's I'm Miles Turner. You go to extreme lengths sometimes to keep your star happy. And the Timberwolves have done a really crappy job of building around Kevin Garnett. And this was an attempt. Oh, Joe Smith, you know, recent number one overall pick, you know, we can get him. Oh, but we can't, we can't pay him what he's worth. I mean, what he's worth or is market value questionable in real time

and certainly looking back. So we're going to sign you to three, to quick, explanation. To get your full bird rights so you can get the max, you've got to be with the team for three straight seasons, right? So they came up with three consecutive one-year deals saying at the end of this, you'll have your bird rights. And at the end of that, we'll be able to pay you the max of like 70-something, 80-something million or whatever. And they put that thing in writing. Never put stuff in writing, And so now later, you have this, this, this, this, this, this, uh, two agents fighting lawsuit about clients and this and that. And that all comes to light in discovery. And, and there you go. Like, it could have never been caught if not for that dispute. So, but it was. And it ruined the rest of KG's

time in Minnesota. Yeah. Like they went to that one conference finals and that was it. When you talk about the what ifs of the last 25 years, that's a pretty big. one. Like what if they don't screw that up? What if they don't get caught? What if they don't lose all those picks? This one would be more about whether or not James Hardin got to the second round and was able to flub yet again. So perhaps not as many victims on the player side. But I'll say this. If the penalty is as as as harsh as the Joe Smith one and Kauai is just let loose and is able to sign with whatever team he is allowed to, like that would be the biggest ripple effect of all because he could just walk across the street and go to the Lakers and all of a sudden this looks completely different.

I would just advise whatever team he lands with next. Don't let Uncle Dennis anywhere near you, your sponsors, the bodega, he's going to try to get something. Uncle Dennis is just looking for something at all time. So Bruce Arthur had a great piece about what Uncle Dennis trying to get all the same stuff in Toronto. That came out a couple days ago. Maybe it was yesterday.

I don't know. It's all a blur. But yeah. Kawhi Lin is a free agent would be really interesting. That's right. Anything else that came out of the BOD that you guys want to talk about? There were a couple little dribbles of information. The new All-Star change.

No more heaves or like you can hear. Heaves don't count anymore. Who needed this? Like who is always always tackling the big issues, Howard? He's too online. I think this is very much a Twitter thing that people complained about and all of a sudden. All right, well, hold on.

You can make the heap. So the rule is just. This is a blogosphere complaint, Howard. 100%. This is not a Joe six-pack complaint. This is a blogosphere complaint. All right, but I mean, yes, you're talking about the most plugged in. Like, this is a hashtag NBA Twitter, hashtag hoop idea.

Shout out to Henry Abbott type thing. But those things, I mean, they're not irrelevant. Like the real hoop heads, like the NBA thrives off of every, sport thrives off of right the casual fans right you need the people you get a gazillion people tuning in for the finals all-star whatever else and it's but you you the hardcores watch the rest of season and they're like your lifeblood right and the hardcores care about stuff like this I think and I like we can all find in two seconds the reels of players making sure that they they threw the heave purposely double pump it happens all the time right and we kind of like buzzer beaters and we

kind of like the idea that players will be incentivized to so now it becomes a So the way that they reinterpreted it is it becomes a team attempt and not an individual attempt. So it doesn't hurt your field goal percentage. A stupid thing for any player to be thinking about anyway, but whatever, they do. They think about everything. I get it. You don't want to hurt your shoe, your field goal percentage. This alleviates that.

There'll be more heaves, presumably. And that little aspect of the game where we're going, oh, come on, man, you, you threw that late on purpose. It goes away. What's the harm? I think the only good thing that we're, come of this in addition to perhaps like more end of quarter heaves is that the players who were pocketing

those heaves will now be found out. Like this is a real like cloak and dagger attempt by the NBA to uncover the people who are not heaving to protect their own shooting percentage. That would be a great year over year stat to track who had more the biggest percentage of heaves increase.

Preach of Tray Young is one of those fake hevers. Like he waits to the last second and then throws the heaves. This does raise a question though, which is like if Adam is too online, what else in like social media NBA chatter is going, what's the next rule going to be? Like, what else could he overreact to? Oh, my God. Well, I mean, I think the All-Star changes, which now we're on, I think the 49 different one, uh, is part of that. He admitted to that yesterday. He took that. He's like, uh, you know, yeah, we thought we had to figure out. We didn't. Like,

you know, there's some, some, uh, but aren't we doing the world versus America now? Technically, although it's brown rob. been now where there are three teams made of eight players, two of which I believe are the U.S. One is the world. So technically, I don't know why this is any better or why players will give any more

effort than they were last year. But it's worth a shot. American players are already getting smoked every year on MVP, so they've already lost, you know. Right. I do think like, I guess the conversation that's sprouted based off of Silver's comments about I think we believe in response

question from Tanya Ganguly of the New York Times about just the cost of trying to follow the NBA to actually watch the games now has become absorbent because of the different streamering services that you would need in order to do so. He didn't mention at some point that he said that the NBA is sort of like a highlight-based sport. It's kind of, it definitely wasn't a good look for him, although I think it has taken on a life of its own where he was suggesting, like you could only watch it in highlights. If you watched the actual comment and Howard you were there, you can tell us. He was just saying, like, oh, if you can't get to this stream or that streamer, like, you could still, like, follow along on highlights. We're just,

we're made for highlights because we have exciting plays. And so, like, as you would for Sports Center, watch the highlights. Like, we're good for that as well. He wasn't saying, like, just watch highlights, right? No. I think the way he phrased it was unfortunate, but I think what he was trying to acknowledge, which the league does acknowledge is, especially among the younger audience, there are a lot of people who followed the NBA primarily through clips, through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, and that that is part of the audience, too, and that's an important part of the audience. Some people follow it that way.

Some people watch actual games from start to finish. Also, he was not saying that it's only a highlights league, or that is the only way to consume it. But also, by the way, and he mentioned this in passing yesterday, I don't have the numbers in front of me, the new TV deals, though there's a bunch going to streaming, right? And like, if you wanted everything, you got to have Amazon Prime and Peacock and whatever you've got to get ESPN and ABC and all your over the air local stuff, right? Like, it's a lot of freaking different networks. And it's, I'm more worried personally about just like trying to remember who's on what night, which channel, whatever you.

It's hard to flip back and forth when you're streaming. That sucks. So it's going to be harder. We're all going to have an adjustment to make. But there are actually more over the air games under this format than the previous. deal split between TNT and Disney. So there are plenty of over-the-air games, whether you're getting it with an actual intent on your roof, if you still have one of those, or whether it's through cable or

direct TV or whatever, there's plenty going on that is not requiring you to have a subscription to one of the new carriers. But there are going to be plenty that are on Peacock or Amazon Prime. And if you don't have those, yeah, I guess you are shut out on those. I think it's a real concern. dismiss it. Maybe he was a little too dismissive of it. But man, like the ship sailed a long time ago when the NBA went to the deal that they had for the last like 25 years where a lot was on TNT. You got to have cable for it. Coming out of an era where, by the way, everybody did have roof antennas

or what we called rabbit ears that you put it on top of the team. Never mind. But the fight over like free versus paid was lost long ago when everybody moved to cable and satellite as opposed to literal over the air. I just think directionally, it's a bad response in terms of the question being like, what about people who are priced out who want to follow their team? And Adam Silver was just like, yeah, you got YouTube. Have fun. Like that.

Like, to me, I'm like, Howard just beautifully laid out, like, the reality of what it means to try to watch the NBA as much as you can in terms of how much it costs, like, got to have a cable package. and all of that stuff. I just would have liked to have heard a better response to what I think is a legitimate question, especially if you don't live in OKC or Milwaukee, right? Or Memphis, where you could get a ticket for $40.

Where, like, other markets, man, like, if you want to take two kids to a game, forget about it, dude. Like, we're talking about $400, $500. You know, when you incorporate it, parking and concessions and the price. Like, it's kind of crazy, but, you know, God forbid we worry about people who don't got as much money as everybody else. No, real quick, my friend June Lee, who I worked with a bleach report back in the day,

he's got his own substack and YouTube channel, and he did a whole thing on this a couple months ago, along with actually an opinion piece that ran in the Sunday New York Times about not just the NBA, all sports, across sports. If you are a super fan, if you want to, like, go to games, watch games in person and on TV. and if you want to buy the jersey, you want to, and you have to pay for parking. And the totality of all that now versus whatever, 10, 20, 30 years ago, it's, it's, the

inflation of it all is insane. To be a hardcore sports fan now requires immense resources. And let's be clear, like that fucking sucks. That sucks for everybody but the one percenters. And it is why, to your point, was, and I agree, Adam, I think could have done a much better job of answering that question with a little more sensitivity toward. people who, you know, are, you know, they love the sport. They want to watch as much as they can. They do want to watch more than just the highlights. And, and it, and it's getting harder.

There's no question about that. I think it's a worst problem in the NBA as well, because in the NFL in particular and in baseball, a lot of fans are fans of their direct team. In the NBA, it breeds more of league-wide fans. I think all of us are watching the entire league. If you even have one team that you follow, you're generally watching what's going on with the other teams and all this other stuff. So it becomes harder to really invest in being a hardcore fan because you don't have as much of an access to the way that you want to watch it. And the NFL, for instance, if you just get the big, all expensive package, it's really

expensive. But I get to watch Russell Wilson throw five lame duck completions every week now. Whereas if I was a fan of the New York Knickerbockers, I think it would be tough to get around a little bit more. It's especially tough these days if you're a fan of the Chicago Bulls. because who knows what the hell that they're doing. But I will say, I think they got this most recent transaction right. I'm talking, of course, about the Josh Giddy extension.

Four years, $100 million keeps him out of taking the qualifying offer for next season, like some others have threatened to do Cam Thomas of the Brooklyn Nets actually went ahead and did it. We'll talk about some of the other ones. But I want to talk about the Giddy extension first and foremost. I thought $25 million a year for a soon-to-be-23-year-old who showed promise last year wasn't that bad. Do you guys agree? Like, I thought this was a perfectly fine contract. 100%.

I don't see how, especially if the Bulls' plans is that Josh Giddy's going to be a 28 to 32 minute a game player, basically a starter or your most prominent bench player, whatever you want to call it, pseudo-starter sometimes, $25 million is kind of like about where you want to place him, especially as a guy who has the ball in his hand all the time. I think this is a fair deal. Like the jumper is improving, if not where it needs to be, Justin. But like, I don't know how this is somehow some travesty of a,

of a contract when you consider how much the bulls are going to rely on this guy? If people flinch initially, because it's like 25 million, wow, 25 million. It sounds like a lot. Perspective is important here in an era where the salary cap just keeps like growing and growing and growing. So Bobby Marks posted it yesterday, and I think this is like the key point that everybody needs to try to internalize. We got to start talking about these things as a percentage of the cap. And so he says, for your contract for Josh Giddy will range from 13.8 to 14.5% of the cap. A max for Giddy would have been 25%.

So he's making like at the outset about half the max. And it'll go up to a little bit more than half. Is he a half the max player? That's an interesting thing to contemplate. But the bottom line is any player who's young, still promising, has a definable skill set, has some things he does really, really well. He's got some things that are severe deficiencies, too. But there's a clear plus talent there when it comes to passing and playmaking. 13.8 to 14.5% of the cap, it's fine. I'm totally with you, Justin. I'm not alarmed by it.

And, you know, there's also the whole, you know, we traded Alex Caruso just for Josh Giddy and nothing else. The Caruso went and wins the championship of the Thunder. Like, you can't let him walk away. You can't screw this up. If you had to pay a little bit more than you intended to, fine. He's young enough. I think I think the question to me is how real was the surge in his three-point shooting? Because that's a not game changer is a little strong, but it is a potential game changer if he's like now a 38% three-point shooter, right? But that was mostly in the back half of the season, right? Like he finished the season at like 37, 38%. But like his monthly splits on three-point shooting went like through the roof at a certain point.

It was like 29% in November, 22% in December, 36% in January, and then 53% in February, 35, almost 36% in March and 40% in April. So it was really like in the back half the season, meaningless games. We see this happen sometimes where guys inflate their stats on a going nowhere team in meaningless games. And the analytics guys will tell you too, three-point shooting in particular. If a guy's been a shitty three-point shooter his whole life and suddenly has what

looks like a quote-unquote breakthrough a year, wait one more season because it takes a while. You can have an outlier full season when it comes to three-point shooting. And so I don't think we can just say he's turned the corner. It's changed. There's still kind of let's wait and see. Yeah. The one big caveat to the back end of the season was obviously that they made some changes to the roster.

Zach Levine was no longer there. And they did play not only Giddi. but also Kobe White in particular with much more verve and energy. And I think they played off of each other way better than when Levine was there to stop the ball, basically. And so I don't know, a lot of these second contracts tend to be educated bets, especially with someone as young as getting. He's younger than some of the players that are getting their second contracts at this point. I'm looking at a guy who is a fantastic pastor with great vision and also very good size.

And he also leverages that to rebound particularly well. and if you're just you're counting on him to be the face of the franchise your next superstar that's not it and so that's why i'm buoyed by giving him 25 million which is just good starter money because it suggests that he's going to be a part of perhaps whatever is coming next in chic what is that i have no fucking clue and so if we're talking about the bulls as a whole that's a whole other story but i think giddy himself has proven last year to be a helpful player and we'll see if he could do that again And just to kind of emphasize that, 25 million, Howard brought up the percentage of the cap. Other players making 25 million on the annual value next year,

Draymond Green, Anthony Simons, Nas Reid, John Collins. And just below that, like 24 point, whatever, Jabari Smith Jr., Nick Claxton, Terry Rozier. Like, there's some good players in there, but there's also some, like, totally fine players as well. Yeah. I thought it was perfectly reasonable. Completely reasonable. And I think, you know, again, I'm interested.

to see what this portends for the Kaminga deal, where his agents have to be like, I mean, come on, y'all. Like, Josh Giddy, again, productive for the Bulls, a team that went nowhere fast, whatever. But like, you can't tell me I'm a one-year, one-year $21 million guarantee plus a team option. That's crazy the deal that they offered this guy. Well, that's a good segue then,

because I do think it ripples into the two remaining restrictive free agents who are kind of playing this dance a little bit. That's Kaminga and it's Quentin Grimes. Kaminga is probably the most interesting one, not only because he's part of the Warriors, but he's been very loud about wanting to be something different than he is on the Warriors. The more recent reporting suggests that the real choice that he has in front of him is take the qualifying offer, which would pay him roughly $8 million next year, but he gets an implicit no trade clause in that. If you're on a one-year deal, you're basically, you have to sign off on a trade. The other offer that the dubs are reportedly offering two years, 45 million thereabouts with the team option on the second year,

Kaminga's like, no, I'm not going to go somewhere if you're just going to, they're going to have the option to keep me. I'll offer this as kind of a counterpoint. If those are my choices in front of me, and I have to wonder if he hits the open market, like it's not going to get better than 45 million over two years. But that's a side issue. would I not, Howard, rather, the higher dollar amount, because it seems like if you're opting to that, there's an agreement from both sides coming in the Warriors,

that we're looking for a trade ultimately. This is a stopgap to get us somewhere else, right? Would I not want the higher dollar amount, just to make more money first and foremost, but also to force the team that is trading for me to make a larger sum commitment and thus be more invested in me long term? If I'm on an $8 million, like, qualifying offer, yes, I have the no trade clause I could direct where I want to go.

But on the other hand, like, it's also easier to get somewhere or just like this end up going to me like to free agency. And I don't know if there's enough free agent dollars in this current environment to get to an appreciably better situation. So I guess TLDR is basically like, I actually think getting to a better team that wants you, it's easier if you take the higher dollar amount in the two years. possibly for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that we've seen this happen in the league before, right? Like if you are on an only $8 million contract, right? And you're the Warriors. And you both the warriors would agree as Comingo would and his representatives would as the next team would, that he's worth more than that. What he's actually worth is what's in dispute, right?

But he's worth more than that. When you're trading a player, you're trying to get equal value back. And if you trade an $8 million a year player for another $8 million year player, chances are that other $8 million a year player is not going to be somebody who's wildly outperforming their contract. There may be somebody who they might be like rightly priced. So if it's a $22 million a year, 22 and a half, whatever it was going to be under this two-year-45 offer, you've got a better chance of getting back the multiple pieces that you think make up the whole of Jonathan Cominga's talent, right? There's a better chance of the Warriors recouping what they're trying to get in an eventual trade. Because, yeah, intuitively you'd think, well, lower number easier to trade in a cap system, right?

In terms of cap room and what Camiga can get next summer, there's going to be a lot of. more teams of the cap room in 2026. And so he is clearly banking on and his agent's banking on, like, we want to hit free agency again because we think we can actually clean up. I think there's a lot of risk and a lot of assumption baked into that. And then the last piece of this is just like if you're the Warriors and, you know, you're holding fast to the offer you're making, I think at least it's in part because, yeah, we're going to trade him eventually. Everybody, everybody agrees. The Warriors will be better off moving him. Cummingo will be better off playing somewhere else where he's, can spread his wings a little bit. But to do that, you have to price him at a point that other

teams want to acquire him. If you give him 30, 35, 40 million or whatever year, guess what? Things are going to tip real hard the other way where all of a sudden the trade market for him sucks. So it's in, I think, I hate to say it this way because it sounds obnoxious. But I think it's almost in Cummega's best interest to compromise because the number below what he wants, but higher than what he would make as on a qualifying offer is probably, the number that's most movable and gets the Warriors where they need to go and that's comfortable for the team acquiring him.

I just think the two-year team option is just the Warriors trying to have their cake and eat it too. And if you're comminga, like, these people are basically treating you like you're worthless and you have to take your qualifying offer and tell them to stick it. If they don't change

that offer, to me, I think he has to take his qualifying offer and be like, I'm going to walk for free. Like, there's no chance I'm signing back with you idiots next summer. And you guys are going to lose me for nothing. I think the Warriors just need to come up off of this idea that they have the team control and can trade them and he can't hit free agency for unrestricted for another two years.

Like what is, like, I get it. There's more money guaranteed. But if you can see the light of unrestricted free agency and you put your agents to the work and to the test and you put yourself to the test as a competitor going. out and betting on yourself and proving yourself. I don't see how you sign that two-year deal. That's insane to me. To me, like, you have to sign your qualifying offer and make Golden State eat it. That's clearly what Cam Thomas and his representation concluded with the Nets, right? Sure. But Cam Thomas, I think, will have more opportunities, if only because there are plenty of

opportunities for anybody in Brooklyn. Because the Nets will stay. To prove your worth. Whereas if you're Kaminga and you're basically bound to the Warriors because you don't want to get traded to perhaps a team that you don't want. because you dictate the process. How are you going to show that you play beyond that qualifying offer? Are you going to be stuck in that middle ground? We've seen with a lot of veterans who take the veterans minimum, it's hard to get out of that to prove that you are worth another bigger deal down the road. And to that point, I was like trying to do back of the envelope math of like players that took the qualifying offer and then got a huge payday in their next deal. This isn't a

full accounting of it. But there are instances. They tend to be long ago. Ben Gordon was one of them. He scored a $58 million deal from the Pistons after taking qualifying offer with Bulls. Greg Monroe signed a max after doing it with the Pistons. Pistons surprisingly not are not surprisingly involved in a lot of this. But like in recent years, it really couldn't come up with anyone except for Miles Bridges. And obviously that was mitigated by his legal concerns. And so that's a completely different situation. There's a lot of Nick Young's, Ray Felton's, Nerlins, Noel is a pretty prominent example.

He ended up suing clutch over that decision. And so it really takes it like a perfect storm in order to take the qualifying offer and then bank loads of money in your next deal when you hit unrestricted free agents. That's a common thread running through most of those names. Most of them weren't worth the trouble or the money. That's true as well. I will say Ben Gordon had some moments on the Bulls, but yes. Overall, those guys did not.

Once the Pistons gave him that big deal. Yeah, the pistons. Doesn't help if the sample includes the pistons. A lot of the ones. I think it's just the cautionary tail can go in both directions here. And I think for Justin was going to cape for the Yukon guy. Come on. That's true.

Ben Gordon had some real moments. So he was fun on the Bulls. No, I just, I do think that like if you're the Warriors, just like if you're the Sixers, and especially like right now, right? Like all we can talk about is the second apron and how tight the system is. And like you can't afford to make mistakes. You can't have a contract that's going to to wreck. you or that's going to put you into the second apron and all this.

I get where the warriors are coming from. Are they holding the line too hard here? Is it disrespectful? Yeah. But like that's a negotiation. Someone will blink between now and October 1st or sooner. And it's tough. Like there's no positives here.

It sucks all the way around. And especially for the player. Restricted free agency is a disaster for the players. especially now. It's always been tough. It has been reformed over the years. Once upon a time, you decided to get into an offer sheet on restricted free agent. And I think it was like a full 14 days for the original team to match.

Then they ratchet it down to seven, then ratchet it down to three. So it used to be super onerous potentially. And, you know, now there's more of an opportunity to get that offer sheet from another team. But as we saw this summer, in a tight cap summer, it doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't help you at all. And you just spend the whole summer, you know, worrying about your future, not knowing where you're going to be.

And that's, that sucks. Yes. The players that are squeezed the most this off season or score first guards and restricted free agents. And unfortunately, Cam Thomas is both of those. And so double time there. The only other guy out there in a similar situation is Quentin Grimes, a little bit more of a clear cut situation, at least to me,

because he hasn't made a lot of money up until this point. was a lower first round traffic and thus isn't making as much as comminga. So comming his qualifying offer is $8 million. Grimes has made up until this point 11.1 million. There's buzz out there that the Sixers are trying to get rid of people, Drummond, Ubre, in order to give him more money. But I don't know, Howard. This seems like a tougher situation for Grimes who hasn't made real NBA money to be like,

I'll bet on myself because I don't have much in the coffers right now. Also, he just finally found a place that seems to really value him and where he was doing some really good work down the stretch. Again, down the stretch of a loss season, and I will always put some qualifiers on that. But still, dude was bowling. Like, he was phenomenal. He had, he was, he was the only one worth watching for the last month or so for them.

And he's really important for them now, right? Here's a team where, you know, all we can talk about is like, well, if Joel and B. can stay healthy. And if Paul George can stay healthy. And now they've got these young guys between McCain and Maxi and Edge come and and I think you put Grimes not at the same level, but as part of this where you've got a viable supporting cast for as long as your vets hold up and a viable bridge to whatever is next if you've got these guys.

I don't like, was, your Knicks probably should have never traded Grimes for one, but there's that. I'll just throw that in there. Grimes, it's, I mean, I didn't think Dallas should have moved them. No, they absolutely should not have. And I was surprised when Detroit did it to get Tim Hardaway, Junior, like, I, I don't, I've never looked into this. There are times when you look up at the league and you think, that's a really good player. How come he's on a different team every year?

And sometimes there's an answer for that. And sometimes, sometimes, sometimes it's completely situational. It's not to, you know, cast innuendo or anything. It is sometimes just like a combination of opportunity, cap room, whatever. But I think Grives is a really good player. Like, good, like, 3 and D wing, who in the right situation could really thrive. and he seemed like he found the right situation. So yes, by all means, he should be rewarded for that

and the Sixers should want to reward him for that and keep him. My guess is they'll find a way to get this done in the next couple of weeks. And this will be one of the more peaceful ones overall. And it's all going to come down to like, yeah, the Warriors and Cominga stare down is going to be the one to watch. I think that would be the counter if your Grimes is that you do play a premium position that tends to get paid

regardless of where the cap environment is, where the money is flowing. As we saw this summer when the Pistons signed Duncan Robinson, well, I thought it was like, you know, a totally fine player, but they needed someone to fill the Malik Beasley role, all of a sudden, he's getting paid again. And so someone will find money for 3&D guys. And so if you wanted to bet on yourself,

I think money would probably be there in free agency next year. So we shall see. Well, last thing before, man, we got to pour out a little liquor for your man, Ben Simmons. He's out the league, bro. Officially? He's done. He's done.

Like nobody's sniffing around. He's not even going to get a camp invite. I mean, God, what, like, what do you camp invite Ben Simmons for? Like,

what do you, emotional support of the veteran leadership? Yeah, veteran leadership. He could be the new big locker room guy. He's always been. Yeah, that's right.

Well, it sounds like he's flirting with maybe just not playing all together, which is partly why his representation dropped him. I mean, I don't know. There's dyr. Questions about him going all the way back, not just to the Sixers when they drafted him, but even all the way back to LSU about how much he really loved the game, right?

So, like, this is not anything new. If he, with all the money he's made on and off the court, decided just hanging up at age, whatever he is, 26, something, 27? I don't know how old defense is. He's 28? If he decided to walk away, I don't think anybody would be shocked. 29. God, that happened fast.

Yes. I don't think anybody. he'd be shocked if he just walked away. The more interesting one, because we know he loves the game, Westbrook's still out there as a free agent, too. So, you know, that Simmons's career might be over, doesn't shock me in the least, and I wouldn't have shocked me any time in the last couple of years.

Russ, obviously older, but, you know. I think he'll end up on a team. People actually like Russ personally. And so, like, I could see that working out. Simmons is just, it's done. It seems to be over. Yeah. the kings will clean up some of this mess, I'm sure.

And they have been reportedly sniffering around Russ for a while here. And they've been like talking about other moves. So maybe something opens up for them to get in the mix. They're even in the mix for Kelly Ubray apparently. But guys, we're going to miss the underrated problems. We're going to miss like the summer videos of Ben Simmons in an empty gym shooting three. Like who's going to fill that void? We didn't get any of those this summer.

None? Which is what we should have known. I don't think so. We should have started a production company and based our entire blueprint around this. And then also found a way to sponsor players in order to funnel money to them illegally. And they called Steve Walmart for sure. All right. Well, we wrap it there.

Howard, thanks so much for joining us today. No, thanks for having me, guys. This is fun. We'll be back, not next week, but the week after that. And then I think we're back to our regularly scheduled rotation. So we'll talk to you then. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Ben Cruz.

We'll see you soon.