The Ringer NBA Show - Free Agency Speculation SZN Is in Full Swing | Heat Check

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

With the start of free agency right around the corner, everyone is wondering where some of the league’s biggest stars will end up (3:55). Plus: Draft additions make a handful of young teams (hint: one of the teams has Zion Williamson on it) instantly exciting to watch (34:06). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Dan Devine, Danny Chau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's Liz Kelly, the co-host of Tea Time. Your favorite celebrity and pop culture podcasts have moved out of Channel 33 and into their very own feed called Ringer Dish. On Ringer Dish, you can still listen to Jam Session on Wednesdays and Tea Time on Fridays, and we'll be launching a brand new show that will publish every Monday. Episodes so far have included a heated debate on which celebrity Chris reign Supreme and a social media deep dive on the Big Little Lies cast. So to hear more about the royal family and our current celebrity of sessions, subscribe to Ring Your Dish on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Heat Check. I'm your host, John Gonzalez, in Los Angeles with our esteemed producer,

Isaac Lee. A lot of things are happening in the NBA. We just got through the draft. We're going to get to that in a little bit. We've got free agency in a week. We're going to get to that in a little bit. Isaac, so many things happen in the NBA at all times that I forget about some of the things that happened. And I woke up this morning. And the NBA award shows tonight? Yeah. The regular season NBA Awards is happening about a week and a half removed from the finals. And after the NBA draft, and it doesn't feel like it's a big deal at all. Light years removed from one these guys actually did what they're getting awards for tonight. By the time you listen to this, they might have already had their awards. Do you generally end up watching this show? I feel like, you know me. I'm not a real hot takey kind of person. I'm largely dead inside and try not to care about things. But I feel like if I were going to have a take on something, it would be that this is a bad time to have these award shows. Back in the day, back in my day, when I walked uphill both ways, they would end up like you'd see like Alan Iverson with his MVP award in the playoffs, like being presented with the trophy at half time of a game or before a game or something like that.

That felt maybe not as momentous as having an award show, but certainly better timed than having it, as you mentioned, weeks removed from the regular season. being finished, weeks removed from the postseason being finished after the NBA draft, it just seems oddly timed. Yeah, I mean, they started doing this last year where they moved it to a date where all the players can show up, a lot of the celebrities can show up, and they made a whole event out of it. I think it's, it makes sense on paper, but it doesn't make sense in practice because who's going to watch this, dude?

Like, I'm not planning on watching it, even though it's kind of part of my job to watch it. We're not going to have an Oscars-type watch party. No, we're not going to go live afterwards. No. I thought that you would plan something. I was going to bring chips and dip. We were going to hang out. We'll just have to do it solo.

So the NBA award show is happening. That's something to check out. In the interim, thank you for listening. Please rate and review us and all of our fantastic Ringer NBA shows and pods. And while you're waiting for the award show, we've got lots of great content on the ringer.com. Paolo Rotary winners from the draft. Charks had his draft grades up there.

KOC wrote a piece. I am quickly getting behind the Atlanta Hawks. KOC wrote a piece about how the Hawks have a plan. And I was, as you know, all out on the Hawks last year. Now all of a sudden, maybe top of my league pass ranking. It's very intriguing. Kaka. And then I wrote a piece checking in on team building ahead of free agency,

which will start a little bit earlier this year. So it's sort of a free agency primer that you can find on the ringer.com. Check that out as well. Later in the show, we're going to have Danny Chow to join us to talk about the draft and the ripple effects for teams coming out of that. But first, we have lots to discuss, as we mentioned. Free agency is coming up fast. and we want to bring in one of our favorites,

so let's do that now. Bochakalaka! He's heating up. All right, joining me on the line. He's a staff writer at the ringer.com. Frankly, the unofficial third member of Heat Check already. It's Dan Devine. What a wonderful introduction, Gans.

How are we doing today? Good. While we're talking about you being the unofficial third member of Heechek, did you, and this is really not for the millennials. If you're a millennial, just fast forward until we get through this part, and if you're, say, like, over 35, you can stay. around. But did you watch A team back in the day? Of course, yeah. So you know how crazy Mad Murdoch was like to the team. He was on the team and he was an official member of the team as

the fourth guy. But the government, the MPs didn't know he was part of the team. That's, you're basically howling Mad Murdoch. A lot of people have said that about me that I'm, I'm very similar to Howling Mad Murdoch. Although sometimes I also more closely resemble B. A. Barracus in that I have to be knocked unconscious to get being brought from point A to point B. And now that we've completed our washed reference, let's move into the podcast. That's a very good transition. You could be both of those guys. We need somebody to fill in the BA role.

All right. So the Raptors. The Raptors are back in the news. You and I were in Toronto. Won the championship. I saw that. I heard about that. It was wonderful.

Congratulations to Toronto and all of Canada. I don't know if we mentioned that on He-check before. But they won the championship. They're very excited in Canada. And now everybody's talking about Kauai. And as you and I saw firsthand, they love him up there. they want to apply him with free food and free drinks. He recently opted to become a free agent.

And Chris Haynes from your former employer, Yahoo, reported that Kauai is, quote, seriously considering resigning with the Raptors. The Raptors obviously can give him the biggest chunk of change, five years and 190 million. It's also possible that he signs a shorter one in one, which we'll get to in just a second. If you're a Raptors fan, do you feel good about this report that he's, quote, seriously considering resigning with the Raptors? I would have expected that he won't, that would have already been under consideration. Yeah, I don't know that this necessarily changes things a whole heck of a lot. I don't doubt Chris's sourcing.

I don't doubt the relevance of saying, you know, that he's seriously considering this as opposed to, he would be unsuriously considering it or, you know, blithely considering it. I don't know. But this was sort of always the, what was going to happen next. He was going to opt out because then that would allow him to get into unrestricted free agency. And then his options on the table are the longest term, highest, amount that he can get in Toronto, or if he's going to decide to sacrifice a year and, you know, a little bit of long-term money to have the agency of deciding he wants to be where, you know,

somewhere else that he'd like to be maybe more comfortable closer to home in Southern California guy, long rumored to be the top target of the Clippers. Lakers, you know, allegedly also want to get involved, although we don't know how much cap space they actually will have, given the way the Anthony Davis deal is going to get structured. This was always what's going to come next. And I think if you're a Raptors fan, you have to feel at least like the team has done everything can to make as great a case as it can. Be here, you can win a championship. You literally just did. And we also haven't even necessarily fired all the ammunition we have because there's still some young assets on movable contract, attractive contracts. If we sort of see another opportunity to go out

there, snare another big fish to compete, help you compete, you can do that. There's sort of more opportunities here. Pascal Seacum, by the way, by this time next year, might be a legitimate all-star. So there's room for internal growth. And also with the contracts of Kyle Lauer recycling out and Sergei Baca, et cetera, there's sort of a room for what a new generation would look like in a case that you can make there. Whether that is speaking to Kauai in the way that it's going to need to get him to sign on the dotted line, what remains to be seen. But I think if you're a Raptors fan, you have to say, we've done absolutely everything we can to get him to stick around. And now, unfortunately, it's the waiting is the hardest part. Yeah, I'm very interested to

see what happens, like, team building roster construction-wise, if he stays or if he goes. But you mentioned, like, the fans and them doing everything they can. There is a segment of the fans. I'm very interested in how Toronto and the whole of Canada is handling this just from, like, the old saying, act like you've been there before? They haven't, right? They won a championship for the first time ever. And now it feels like they're kind of white knuckling this, like, Kauai might leave. Let's get them to stay thing because have you seen the appeals from Superfan Nob and also

the mayor of Toronto, John Tori? I'll be honest. I have not. I was away for the weekend and not really checking in too much on Superfan Nov. But you bring me up to speed. So you were living a life. And I was living a much different duller and less impressive life where I'm just checking in on the doings of Superfan Nov and the mayor of Toronto, John Tori, who appealed to other fans to just sort of pump the brakes and chill out a little bit. Superfan implored the other fans, hilarious, to leave Kauai alone when he's out in about in the city because he said that he likened it to, you know, Kauai's being out in the city and you guys are all like taking pictures of him surreptitiously and not very well on that front.

and then asking him for photos and bothering him, and he likened it to paparazzi, and he said, you're not giving him enough space. And then the mayor of Toronto went out and said that this is so Canadian, it's too good to be true. Fans need to approach this, the quote,

Toronto way, quietly and in a determined fashion. And he said that the Toronto way, I'm not making this up, he said the Toronto way to appeal to Kauai Leonard, was to sign a petition saying you want him to stay. I mean, they're fans.

Like, it's insane, but I love this. Be quiet and sign this piece of paper to show your love for Kauai. Right. Although, I mean, and I, I guess I understand that from a perspective of, like, you don't want to nuisance him away in the space of the next eight days or whatever. But I can't imagine that's going to be, like, Kauai got a very good look at the overall passion level of those fans throughout the postseason, right? Like, maybe the Toronto way is to quietly sign a petition, but the Raptors' fans way, as it exists right now, is, like, gigantically loud and overwhelmingly forceful and filling. up 37 different Jurassic parks over the span of the country, right? Like, he knows what that looks like.

Yeah, I mean, he probably would prefer it if he wasn't getting harassed or harangued wherever he was at. And to what degree that will change moving forward? Like, I don't know, but he's also a national hero right now in a different way than he's ever been before. So I'm sorry that I missed that while I was outliving my life. But being a human. It's an interesting place to be.

And I think that's also sort of refreshing from my perspective. Like, we were talking about the act like you've been there before. They haven't. Of course Raptors fans should be going nuts about this. They should be feeling all of the emotions that go along with all of it, the elation and the joy of the victory, the anxiety over, you know, what comes next, the feeling of like, well, maybe it's somewhere in between because no matter what happens next, we'll always have this and what we know what we just experienced and watch with Kauai.

I think it's kind of a cool place to be. Everybody's sort of the nerves and the, everybody's vibrating at a weird frequency right now. And I would imagine that's not going to change any time over the next few days before we get to the start of free agency. I just think it's so strange. Like a little bit of a red flag to me that you've got a, a guy of Kauai's stature and a city that large in Toronto, a massive city, right, that you would think, like, in no other place in the NBA and American sports, for, again, like, if you had a comparable star of his stature and a city of that size that you'd go, you'd put those two together.

And really, it could be any superstar A paired with any large city B, where you'd go, oh, yeah, you guys, like, just have to kind of leave him alone because he's going to want his privacy. That doesn't make any sense that those two things don't go together. and for a long time I had advocated for Kauai to stay in Toronto because it felt like the perfect pairing because if there was going to be a place where he could be beloved but also left alone, it kind of felt like Canada. But now post for all the reasons that you just mentioned, post parade, post championship, it feels like that might be a little bit more complicated now because they are clinging to him. They do want him to stay there.

They are super excited about what they've accomplished. And it sort of has shifted the dynamics. And in a really counterintuitive, crazy, strange way, moving to Southern California might give him more peace and quiet, which is kind of crazy. And there's two billboards up in L.A. today with Kauai and the king of SoCal stamped on it. And the Clippers denied knowing anything about it. But if Kauai came to Los Angeles and went to Isaac Lee's Clippers, which he very much wants to happen, like being in Los Angeles among all these other superstars and among all these like Hollywood celebrities and whatnot and playing for the Clippers,

the second team opposite of, even though they might be a. better team, they're still going to be the second team opposite LeBron and AD. That might afford him more anonymity. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is weird, but it makes sort of more sense. If you're one star in a constellation as opposed to the only one in the sky, it kind of, you know, it changes the way people's- You're a poet. You're not even a writer anymore. Now you're just doing poetry. Well, now I'm on two cups of coffee, so everything's happening. But it changes the way that people's eyes are drawn to you, right? You all of a sudden are now, instead of being the only focal point, and maybe that's not entirely fair. You know, like, and this is where if I had any knowledge of

who was on the Maple Leafs, I would be able to identify, like, Doug Gilmore. Let's say, yeah, Doug Gilmore. He's probably still around, right? He's 75 years old. Is that a person who plays hockey? I honestly don't know. Roundabout NHL 94, I think. Oh, yeah. So we'll go with that. Wendell Clark, we're going to continue saying old names. But there are obviously other stars in the market, but nothing quite like this and nothing quite like nobody who has provided what he has provided with this run and this championship. So, of course, he's going to be the focal point of all the energy and the excitement and the anxiety and the tension and all those sorts of things. And if you're in L.A., you are one of many megawatt superstars that are going to, in a variety of industries and

whatever, that can sort of defray some of that attention a little bit. He would obviously still be the unquestioned focal point of the clippers and, you know, the pivot point around which everything was going to evolve and revolve for them. But yeah, I can see the argument. And I could also see the argument of just like I did this. I experienced it. It was great. But I don't really know where else I can go with the situation in Toronto.

So why not go home? You know, there's a lot of sort of competing influences and factors. And I would imagine that all that stuff is what they've been sort of, you know, he and Uncle Dennis and, you know, the folks that he's got in that very tight inner circle are trying to navigate over the course of this, you know, that last couple of weeks and as they move into June 30th. what do you think he should do? Like, what do you want him to do?

Because who knows what he will do or what he's thinking or, you know, he's seriously considering staying with the Raptors or now, you know, he buys a house in Southern California. Nobody, like, as enigmas go and ciphers go, Kauai is the biggest in the NBA. We can't possibly deign to know what he'll actually do. But what do you want him to do? Well, you know, Gans, you made that really interesting and salient point about being one star

in a situation where sort of everybody, there's so many more stars and a lot of attention drawn in a lot of different directions. You know what else you can, where else you can do that instead of Los Angeles would be New York. You could have that same experience in New York.

How dare you? Concrete jungle where dreams are made of. There's nothing you can't do. I'm going to pause your recording, man. That's ridiculous. Hey, you asked me what I wanted. You asked me what I wanted. Eight million stories in the naked city

could be eight million and one. It feels like the arc of history is moving in that direction. But no, no, I think if I was just looking at what the coolest story, I think, would be from a league perspective. It would be him staying in Toronto because it would, there's an emboldening of a front office that took the big swing and said, you know, we are stuck in the mud at this point. We are sort of a broken team that is not going to get past this point.

Let's take our shot and, you know, the sort of biggest swing we can take. And then, you know, you do that and it pays off and you're rewarded for bold venture. On the heels of Oklahoma City doing the same with Paul George. then that happening. We'll see how it turns out with the Lakers and Anthony Davis. But I kind of like the idea that when you hit a sticking point

in your team, your organizational development and the flow and the history of your franchise, there's an idea that you could be rewarded for taking that big swing. Obviously, it didn't work out

quite the same way, or it appears that it will not have worked out quite the same way in Boston with their move for Kyrie Irving. But I like the idea narratively of that, personally, just the idea that

you get to that point, you take the big, maybe not a risk in the Kauai situation, because they were always sort of going to have the opportunity to rebuild if he said no anyway, and they had already run a ground with their previous construction. But the idea that you make this sort of bold gambit, and then it pays off and you're able to be rewarded for it. Narratively, I find that satisfying.

But that said, if he goes to, if the Clippers is the idea, there's the idea of a homecoming. There is the idea of him going from, you know, being the missing piece in one place to being the missing piece in another one, activating and sort of elevating a team that had already done all of the hard work of building its core beneath that sort of superstructure. our level talent. And, you know, the clippers have certainly put themselves in position to be maybe moving from the 8C to, you know, the top of the Western Conference with that one move. So I think that would also be sort of narratively satisfying for me, but none of it would be as satisfying as if he decided all of a sudden you wanted to come to Manhattan. Yeah, I think stay away from New York. Bad things happened there. But that was I,

what I heard from you was a lot of tap dancing and heming and hawing. And we don't go in for that here at Heech. I'm going to pick a side here, even though I just said that I don't do takes. I'm going to do a take. I want nice things for Toronto and Canada, but they just had nice things. And really, as Pichick-Chek listeners know, more than anything, I root for me. And what I want is to have domestic bliss in my home life and also specifically in my work life. And my main work spouse is one Isaac Lee. Isaac, I want nice things for you.

Go to the Clippers, Kauai Leonard. I just want Isaac to be happy. I mean, he'll push out a podcast better. It'll be better. Meanwhile, in Houston, I have no stake in that except for drama. and I want Chris Paul and James Harden to stay together forever because not only are they evidently warring, but now they're denying that they're warring. Chris Paul denied to the Houston Chronicle that he ever demanded a trade. He didn't say necessarily, though, that there was not any strife between those two or any tension between those two.

And we saw Darry Mori last week, Doth protesting way too friggin much, where he was tweeting out videos of CP being happy, but the video was like from a year ago. and Darrell Morey had also said, you know, he told Zach Lowe to quote him twice on Chris Paul never demanding a trade. But again, it feels like a lot of smoke could potentially be some fire. How do you feel about the Houston Rockets moving forward? And like what defcon level do we think they're at here? Well, I think that it's great that Chris Paul really set in stone and confirmed that he never requested a trade. I never demanded a trade.

You know, I'm going to be in Houston. I'm happy about that. I think the fact that Chris Paul is going to make $41.3 million in. 2020, 2021, and is on the hook for a player option for $44.2 million in 21-22. That's maybe what makes it so that he's going to be in Houston. I think those are the things that are, unless you're going to get into the galaxy brain area of like the four teamers where Andrew Wiggins and Gordon Hayward and John Wall are on the move into so we sort of push the plunger down on the chaos button for the entire league.

I think it's unlikely that we're going to see Chris Paul moving anytime soon just because of the realities of what Houston has locked itself into. We haven't seen a whole lot, or I haven't seen a whole lot of the same sort of repudiation and arguments and saying, no, no, all this is bogus. From James Hardin saying that he didn't actually say it's him or me or he's not having any issues. We haven't seen that part of it. So I think that's really the crux of it. Hardin is the franchise. He is the cornerstone. He's either the MVP or he's going to be second in the running again. And he is everything that has revolved around him, especially because you can't rely on Chris Paul to be out there for 80 games a season. And when he's not there, the only other way that the

Rockets work is with everything revolving around James Hardin. Now, that happened last season to a degree we've literally never seen in NBA history with the amount of isolation scoring that James Hardin did for that team. But there's a reason, I would understand the sort of static on both sides, but Harden looking at it and saying, our best way forward is me doing everything. So, like, you and you're not even here, you know, for half the time or a third of the time. So, like, what are we doing here? Why are we having this sort of discussion about who should be getting more of what? Like, I'm the thing that is the most efficient offense in the NBA.

When I am doing it by myself and then I step back and I shoot, like, that's the thing that makes us who we are. And Paul sort of saying, you know, he has an issue with that. Like, I can understand that. But then you have to be around. And when you're around, you have to be better. And Chris Paul wasn't able to do that this year. He went down, unfortunately, at the absolute wrong time two seasons ago. But, you know, if you're James Hardin and you're the rest of the Rock, it's, like,

you have you, you have. have to have that guy there. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense to pay him the amount of money that he's going to make. So I've never, never good at the defcons. The lower it gets is the worse it is, right? So I think DefCon maybe two or three. I always screw that up to. So, yeah, so this is the thing.

We don't, we don't know. We don't know anything. Whatever the one is bad, make it that. Working under the assumption, and then we can get everybody mad at us, that lower is worse, I'm going to say it's not DefCon one. I'm going to say maybe like two or three because this stuff is real and it's there and it's not going to get any better without like some maybe some big meetings and some big discussions and maybe a big move. It's always there and it's always real with Chris Paul.

This is classic Chris Paul going back to even his time in New Orleans. But then certainly it was time in Los Angeles when I can't tell you how many times, you know, we'd have press avail or whatever in Los Angeles and there'd be some story about, oh, you know, we heard, you know, maybe there's a little squabble with you and Blake or maybe like JJ and you were tight, but also like JJ even had you on his podcast and said, you know, like, there are times when you can be annoying. And, like, this is Chris Paul, that somebody is frustrated with Chris Paul or that he is frustrated with somebody else is not hardly news. The only news here is that it took this long. I'm shocked that it took two years. I thought it would happen immediately. They had that first honeymoon

season and it went well. And then obviously this last one, not quite as good. But in terms of chemistry, let me throw this past you. So you've got Chris Paul and James Harden. And as you mentioned, because of the contract with Chris Paul, it's going to be very difficult to unload Chris Paul. But if you're going to fix the chemistry, how do you feel about the whispers about them potentially introducing Jimmy Butler into the equation? I think that would just fix everything, right, immediately? Well, I mean, if you are of the mindset that, like, the best way to diffuse tension is to ramp it up to explosive levels and then everybody's got to get everything out. Like, I'm Irish Catholic. I'm very familiar with that dynamic.

The idea that you just got to let everything get out. And then it explodes. Exactly. Tamp it, tamp it down. And then it all explodes out. And then eventually everybody's, you know, crying and hug in, and, you know, you figured it all out later. It's, you know, most of the family functions good or bad over the course of my life. So especially if you, if that guy can perform.

And I think that's the thing we saw with Butler and Philly, right? Like, there were the initial conversations about who's best in what role and Bede grumbling about being sort of relegated to an off ball role. And Ben Simmons having issues with that and Butler grumbling about not getting to run enough pick and roll or enough isolation. When the games mattered most, everybody pointed in the same direction. and Butler was producing like a star player that you would, so you'd need to have in those big moments. He was the guy you trusted with the ball in his hands at the end of those games against Toronto in the first round as well.

Like this is the way that they need him to sort of, that's the player that you need in those moments. Houston needs those guys. I mean, having a third one would be a bulwark against missing one of those guys in all likelihood Chris Paul in those big moments. I can see that as a, you know, we talked about the bold ventures, the big swings. It's maybe the biggest move on the board.

for the Rockets to make. Daryl Moore is a much smarter guy about navigating the salary cap and trades than I am, but I don't really know that I see the best way for them to get there without moving significant salaries attached to players that are major parts of their team. Their most movable contracts right now are probably Capella, a little bit under $15 million.

Eric Gordon at $14 million, but those are movable pieces, but if you were able to move those guys, you're also taking significant pieces away from the six or seven guys that you need the most in your rotation come the playoff. So I think that's a, it's going to be a difficult line to walk. But I think at this point, given all the smoke and all the static, there's, should be

everything should be on the table for Houston, barring maybe Chris Ryan's wild take that you've got to think about trade and Hardin. I think maybe that's, that was maybe a bridge too far for me when I heard him sort of float that on the NBA show. But pretty much everything else, I think, you know, this is, this is their opportunity. It's their chance. And this is their window. These two years of the Hardin and Paul deal.

So you got to go for broke now. Chris is a little bit like our Oracle. He's a little bit clear. went because don't forget that he was the one who like dreamed up the what if we put Chris Paul on the rockets and then all of a sudden it happened so I don't doubt Chris Ryan but yeah I'm with you like Darry would have to get very very creative to add in Jimmy Butler here given their cap restraints and also I want Jimmy Butler to stay in Philadelphia because I want nice things for Philadelphia things I don't want nice things for for your teams in New York

if I'm being honest but I do however want to talk about them because just like as a Philadelphia in that I have a natural aversion to good things happening for our friends 90 miles to the north. And it doesn't look great for at least one of those teams. The Knicks, it's not really their fault here. They set themselves up to go free agent shopping and it looked like they were going to get KD and somebody and then KD heard his Achilles and now all of a sudden it's shoulder shrug. I don't know what they're going to do here. You tell me, they still have these two max slots. They've got Dennis Smith Jr. Apparently they were shopping Frankie Smokes before the draft for a second round pick and would, I guess, take him for a pack of smokes at this point.

It hurts my heart. It's a bummer. Frankie Smokes is a super nice kid, and I just don't think that's a good fit for him. I don't know what he could still be in the NBA. Maybe he can't be anything, but it's clear that it's not going to work out in New York. But then, you know, who knows, target-wise, maybe they throw a bunch of money at Jimmy Butler now. Maybe they go after a Tobias Harris or Julius Randall or whomever, but it doesn't look like they're going to make the massive free agency splash that we anticipated, at least not right now. How do you feel about your, and I'm putting on you. This is your team. How do you feel about your New York Knicks?

Well, so I wrote about this a little bit last week before the draft, and I got to, as you might expect, a vociferous and significant outpouring of response from Nix fans who are not exactly shrinking violence about this sort of thing. And I'm sure that they were very pleasant and said nice things about you. They're huge fans of mine, and they definitely don't think that all my stuff is being ghostwritten by a certain boss that has a Boston background. I would say this. You're absolutely right to point to the, obviously, the frustration and the difficulty of that idea that your big sort of dream scenario, as Kevin O'Connor had written after the Chrisaps Porzingus trade, your dream scenario was you come out of the summer with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving,

and Anthony Davis, and you are an instant super team. Katie Baker had also written for us about sort of the weirdness, the uncanny valley feeling of that, if that were to come to pass. As we know now, certainly the AD part's not going to come to pass because he's in L.A. now. The popped Achilles for Durant maybe changes that dynamic. Also, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they still want to go after him.

And it'd be the idea that you give him a year to rehab and the final three years of that deal are still valuable enough to make it worth your while. And the Kyrie question is something that's very much up in the air. You know, he'd been earmarked more toward Brooklyn. And now you're hearing that the nets are hemming and hawing about whether he's the guy they want to go with, especially if Durant doesn't go there. There's sort of so much up in the air. And the interesting thing to me about this is that before last season, the Nick's brain trust of team president, Steve Mills and general manager, Scott Perry, and coach David Fisdale. they were preaching this idea of playing the kids and building slow and steady moving forward. As you saw when they were out there in L.A., you wrote the big feature on sort of the tanking,

rebuilding situation for the NICS. And the only thing that changed was all of a sudden they trade Porzingus and now they have two max slots. And then all of a sudden the discussion becomes, well, now they're hitting overdrive and they're going to get these guys. They're not, maybe not doing that. And they're right back where they started with, well, slow and steady was the plan all along. We have R.J. Barrett now the number three pick. We have Mitchell Robinson coming back. Kevin Knox.

Your guy. My guy. I love Mitchell Robinson. Kevin Knox him a little bit less into. I think there were various metrics that suggested he might have been the worst player in the NBA last year. But 19 years old, still a ton of runway in front of him. He can still create a shot. So there's an opportunity there.

Dennis Smith Jr., your mileage may vary as to what he can be at the level. But he's still a really young point guard. And guys, that position can take some time to pop. The multiple first round, two more first round picks coming from the Porzingis deal in the years ahead. There's still all these sort of assets to be able to package together for something. If anybody really wants them with those young players, it kind of remains to be seen. I think they're in basically the position they wanted to be in with all of the sort of flexibility

and they're not expensive and they've got extra draft picks and they don't owe any first rounders out and yada yada. It just feels like it's going to be, it feels like a disappointment writ large because there was that brief moment where it was like, and now it's all going to start. And now it looks like that might not really have. happen. Yeah, it's a strange situation for them. And you mentioned the Nets. Like, they've got some decision-making to do, too, because initially it was supposed to be Kyrie and somebody supposedly, and now there have been reports that potentially they've soured on Kyrie if he's going to be a

solo act. And my question is like, and this is something I think that has been discussed around the league, you know, like a little bit of a debate. Is Kyrie Irving at a number greater than DeAngelo Russell would be appreciably better than DeAngelo Russell and just keeping him around, especially because you did have to give up some things and take on that odious Timofa Moskob contract in order to get him away from Los Angeles. Like, is that better? It's interesting, yes, that I'm actually, I'm working on something before we started recording. It'll be up a little later today about that same kind of question.

It's a really interesting one because I'll be honest with you, I'm not firmly arch in the camp of one decision or the other. Kyrie Irving, I think on balance, is a better basketball player than DeAngelo Russell. I don't think that's a particularly hot tape to say. but at a 30% of your salary cap max as opposed to the max that Russell would get on his rookie extension is a 25% max And at 125% of the crazy.

There's that part too. And so that idea like you're getting more talent, you're getting more shot creation, you're getting somebody you can believe in in the postseason, it has the resume and the pelts on his wall, but is that going to be worth whatever else he does, he kicks up organizationally? And Russell, we've already seen,

has been able to move from being a somewhat distressed asset after the way things broke for him in L.A. to we didn't really know what he was going to be in Brooklyn and then earning Kenny Atkinson's trust and becoming a guy that that team could sort of be organized around. He wasn't the star of that team at the beginning of the season last year. We were all writing about Kairis Levert being the breakout guy there. And then all of a sudden, Levert goes down

and the ball has to be in Russell's hands more often. And he responds by shouldering that responsibility. Even in those situations, there was a game, I think it was against Dallas. He gets benched for the fourth quarter because he wasn't having a good night and it winds up being Dinwiddie takes them into overtime. And Russell responds to that by saying like, all right, I got the ball taken out of my hands because I wasn't doing X, Y, and Z. I have to do those things better. Not by, you know, tearing the room apart, but by saying I've got to be better and I'm going to be better starting tomorrow and then being that guy.

So I think there's something to be said for a guy who's like part of that culture you've been building moving toward the next step and the next step and the next step and the next step. as Brooklyn tries to jump up a notch in terms of being a serious contender, rather than just sort of a feel-good story. But I think at a certain point, a lot of talent evaluators would look at it and just say, the shot creation difference between Kyrie Irving and DeAngelo Russell is such that you deal with whatever else comes with it because Kyrie's the guy you want in the foxhole of the game seven, and we don't know yet if DeAngelo Russell can be that guy. The uncertainty in New York is wonderful.

I love it. I want it to be in flux forever for both the Knicks and the Nets. So they're doing a wonderful job on that. But it does create a lot of drama. And I'm excited about that as free agency approaches on Sunday. Last one, because we're getting you out of here. You have things to do, and we've got to bring in Danny. Quickly, Willie Collie Stein has been making news because his agent said it's time for Willie

to move on. And Willie said that he hopes they don't even extend him the qualifying offer. I'm sure you, as our resident, Willie Collie Stein expert, have a lot of takes on this. Are you sad to see Willie Collie Stein sour in Sacramento? I'll always be a little bit bummed out. that it didn't work out because the idea of that dude, the way he was a sort of defensive tornado at Kentucky and could play all over the floor

and match guards stride for stride and guard out in space and still protect the rim and all that stuff. Like the kind of player he seemed like he was going to be made all the sense in the world for the way the NBA was going. Then there was just sort of this move where it was like, but maybe I'm more than that. Maybe I can be Kevin Durant.

Maybe I can be Chris Staps. Maybe I can be this sort of like, I'm a unicorn too. Guys, aren't we all unicorns when you really think about it? Yeah. And then it's just like, or you're maybe the fourth best player on a bad team. And like you've got to kind of trying to be the guy that you want to be, taking people off the dribble and stuff, that's not going to be what gets you paid.

It's not going to be what gets the team to the next level. You need to be the screen and roll dive guy, the rebounder guy, the defend all over the place guy. Like that has to be your lane. And he maybe just sort of sees more for himself. I can't, I can never argue with a guy who has reached the sort of the highest level of his profession thinking that he can do more and be more. That's the kind of confidence and self-belief that gets those guys that far. But it always feels with Willie Colley-Stein, like, if there was a little more, if he circumscribed

his role a little bit more, it could have sort of let him grow in a much bigger way. So whether that happens with his next team or not, I don't know, but it feels like there's an opportunity there for a really interesting player that maybe is getting sacrificed, although he remains a really interesting person. My understanding is that he's a pretty, you know, pretty interested in art and interested in music, and he's got a variety of sort of plate spinning, whether those results in him being an elite player remains to be seen. That was the perfect microcosm of our relationship.

I bring up Willie Colley Stein as a one-off joke just to laugh at his and the King's General direction. And you give a really thoughtful response to it. That's why you're the poet laureate and the Howling Mad Murdoch of He-Chack. He's the best. Read him on the ringer.com. He's Dan, thanks for doing this. Thanks, Gans. All right, that was Dan Devine.

We love him. We thank him for joining us. and now let's bring in another one of our favorites, Danny Chow. Boom, Shackalaka! He's heating up! All right, joining me in the studio. I just saw his smiling face last week for the NBA draft. He did lots of good work. He was up very late. He's a staff writer and an editor.

You're not a staff writer, you're an editor. Yeah. Yeah, he does a lot of things, but he also writes. Five different hats. He's got many titles. He's also one-third of the corner three. It's Danny Chow. Dan.

Hello. Do you ever do a Dan? I'm not a Dan. I'm actually, like, legally a Danny. You're legally a Danny. Yeah. So this is interesting. I meant to ask we just had Divine on and he's obviously a Dan.

I wonder if anybody ever called him a Danny, but you're saying you were never, you never get like a quick Dan from somebody, like who's like a good friend. I would get, so my next door neighbor's very lovely Jordanian old woman. She calls me Daniel. She's the only person I would ever allow to call me Daniel because it's just not my name. But you're a full Danny. Yeah. I like it.

Maybe we'll switch it up and we'll sometime we'll hit you with the Daniel or the Dan. And as you said, a man of many hats, you could be a man of many names. Don't come again. We'll see how it goes. We'll work it out. We'll workshop it. A lot of things happen in the draft that I want to get through with you. You've had some time to digest it.

Obviously, it will also inform what teams do as they approach free agency, which starts earlier. It's coming on a Sunday in the afternoon, which thank you the NBA, that it's not at a midnight a rando time. I like it much earlier. Yeah, but you're smiling like you like it later. It's on a Sunday, man. I'll take Sunday in the middle of the after.

All days are the same. for me like it's all grand hall day like the names of the day don't matter weekends don't matter uh nighttime at midnight very much matters or even 9 p.m sure and especially when it's like okay the first signing is going to be ed davis or like al farukaminu it's like all right what are we doing here let's bump that up a little bit they bumped it up i'm excited about it but so as you've gone back and looked through what happened uh in the nba draft i'm sure there must be some teams that you could easily identify as i really like what they did uh so winners for both teams and plus players landing in a certain location or teams that you liked what they did overall?

I mean, how do we not start off with the Pelicans? Pelicans. I think they started off perfectly. You get the best player in the draft, and then you kind of build this identity. I think one thing that I've noticed with this particular draft is a lot of teams seem to have a strategy, and a lot of teams seem to be sticking with it. And so the Pelicans drafted Zion. They got Jackson Hayes at the eighth pick.

And they got Nikiel Alexander Walker, who is one of my first. my favorite players in the draft. And basically related to Isaac Lee by proxy because he's SGA's cousin. Absolutely. And so they're very much of the same build and similar types of players in that you might not trust them yet to be the primary guy at point guard, but is someone who can be a secondary facilitator who can shoot the basketball and who projects to be a pretty good defender. And so that's another guy that they have alongside Drew Holiday and Lonzo Ball who can do those things. And in the modern NBA, you can take as many of those guys as you can and put them on the floor together.

And they've got caps meets. Yeah, absolutely. Like they could go out there and court a free agent or two to supplement this team. And for reasons, because I'm a terrible host, a guy who we just had on the program, Dan Devine, don't call him Danny or Daniel, just wrote a piece called the Zion era, Pelicans maybe closer to competing than you think. I didn't, for some reason, ask him about that piece, but I will, however, ask you about it. Do you buy that because I kind of do? Like I look at this team and I go, wow, they really rebooted this thing quickly on the fly. And I don't know, you know, necessarily if they'll be in the playoff picture next season because there's a whole bunch of teams and it's wide open in the Western Conference.

But I am very confident that they will be at the very top of my league pass rankings. Right. Right. I think they'll be competitive from the get-go. You're looking at two of the best on-ball, off-ball defenders in the back court positions at, you know, in Drew Holiday and Lonzo. and Zion, the thing about him that kind of gets swept under the rug is that he projects to be an elite defender as well. There aren't that many people who take up as much space in the paint.

But also his instincts on just being a guy who jumps into passing lanes. You don't see guys that big jump in passing lanes and have that type of timing and coordination. He's truly, truly like a one-of-one player. We're never going to see another guy like him. and if he comes even close to that level of, you know, the potential that he showed at Duke, this seems a contender. You mentioned his body type.

Is there any concern because he is so young and because he is already so big that, you know, a couple of donuts in the wrong direction and he ends up thick two seas on the, like too much? Like, like how worried would you be about that? And especially being in New Orleans where, yeah, they got great food. Great food. You love to eat. I would love to be down there. You know, it's all kind of like stick to your ribs type food.

Yeah, the bignets alone. Very dangerous. You're not getting many salads out there. Gumbos. As Justin Varyer, my editor and my office mate has told me, ain't too many salads out there. A lot of muffletta. Like, that sounds great. Po-boys.

Now all of a sudden I want him to just go that route and go like full Ray Felton and just give it up. I don't know. I feel like possibly this first year he could probably stand to lose a few. lose a few pounds just to just to kind of see what the rigors and the pace of the NBA is like. Obviously, the more weight you have on your body, the more pressure you're putting on your knees and whatever else. And honestly, his knees are probably the most valuable asset in the league right now. Yeah.

So. And as we said, he has a unique gait. Like, we were watching him during the draft show that you and I did with KOC. And he's sort of like, it's not a hobble. It's a little bit of a mozy. It's a little bit of a bow leg. He would be excellent in a cowboy movie because he has that sort of sashay where he comes into a saloon. Although I feel like I don't know what the point there is.

Yeah, yeah. Like being in locker rooms, plenty of NBA players walk strangely. It's like, you know, once they're off the court. This is very unique, though. Yeah, truly. All right. So just a counterpoint here because this is all of a sudden become a Pelicans podcast. And we're going to move on past them for a second.

I think that there's a segment of the Lakers fan base, not some of the first. surprisingly, who obviously are very on board with getting Anthony Davis for all the obvious surface reasons. But also as a component of that, I've since heard since the trade, because everybody, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody we're doing right now, have been pumping up the pelicans and being like, look at what they did and got already. And this is a fantastic thing. A segment of the Lakers fan base that say, maybe we were overvaluing Ingram and Lanzo and

Hart, even though they were doing the same thing when they were in purple and gold. Of course. But how do you feel about those guys as value from? the trade because, you know, Ingram was hurt. We're still not sure he's young, but we're still not sure what he can be. And I think the best he's looked in the NBA period was two years ago when he had the ball in his hands a lot and they were running him out there as the point guard. Lonzo's had injury issues as well, had a sort of kind of tweak and overhaul a shot.

And Josh Hart was very good at the beginning of the season and then very not as it went on. So how do you like those three guys? And especially with Brandon Ingram, we're still like, look, that blood clot that he had is always going to kind of shadow over his career. But as talents, I like them all, and I like them all as players who fit in with what the Pelicans are trying to build. I think when LeBron went down, Brandon Ingram kind of took on the mantle as this playmaking forward.

He clearly is a guy who's very comfortable with the ball on his hands. Lonzo, Drew Holiday, they can both play off the ball. So there's so many different looks that you can get out of this Pelicans team. I love their versatility. I think part of it is just Look, we like seeing the shiny new toy We like kind of projecting our wildest fantasies onto these teams that don't really have anything to prove yet

Yeah I think that's fun and I think that's kind of what we're looking at With the Lakers obviously you have two of the best players In the world together And that in itself is interesting But on the other hand it's like Oh, these guys are young and they have nothing to really lose here I think that's where the excitement is coming from

Change and new is good I like that. And to that point, you were an early adopter of this franchise, and if I was going to pick out another winner from the draft and also a winner of a young team hitting the reset button and doing it better and more quickly than or quicker than I think a lot of us anticipated, you were an early adopter of the Atlanta Hawks. You were on them last year. Ringer hipster Twitter and Slack was on them last year. I was out. I was like, I don't know what I'm watching here. Right.

You liked herder. I was like, me. And then as the year went, and I was like, may on Trey Young. And I was very much in the why would they pass on Luca Camp? And now it feels like both organizations could have won that trade, which is very rare. And especially after them coming out of the draft, I think that organization, like, you might not agree with the players that they picked or why they picked them in the area that they picked them and the trades that they made. But they have a fucking plan. Like some organizations, and we'll get to one of them in a second, I have no idea what they're doing from moment to moment, from trade to trade, transaction to transaction.

With the Hawks, clearly they're like, this is our vision and, you know, either get on board or not. And I think you're on board. Yeah, and I think Travis Schlanky, GM, who was an assistant GM for the Warriors, he saw it from the ground up. He saw the types of players that work in today's systems. He sees the types of talents, the types of personalities that you need on, you know, a championship caliber team. And I think he's very much just out there going out and getting them at whatever cost. I think he saw in DeAndre Hunter, a national champion who can defend. end three positions.

And what up to get him when he might have been available at eight. Absolutely. But it's better to get the guy you want than it is to kind of settle. Yeah. And I think by the end of the lottery, the Hawks got the two guys that they really, really wanted. And I think, like, ultimately, there are some general managers when they get their gig, they want to do the safe play, they want to be in that middle of the pack, be in constant contention for making the playoffs or being in the playoffs, but not necessarily in constant contention.

for a title, like you're going to get the gate for playoff games and you're going to be in the mix and you're going to be relevant and that's enough for them. And then there are others who decide, look, either this is going to be really good or I'm going to flame out, but I'm going to do it my way. And this is my way. And I think that's what the Hawks are doing right now. I find myself oddly excited to watch them next season. Oh, yeah. Going to be really high on my league pass rankings. A team that will not probably be as high on my league pass rankings, despite the fact that I watched so much Sun's basketball last year, just because I think I've mentioned this to you.

I just like watching Devin Booker heat check all night. Like, I know they're bad, and this offense is awful, and they're not going to win many games, and in fact, they're trying to lose many games. But I just like watching him cook. Yeah. The sons before the draft, when they offloaded T.J. Warren and freed up a lot of money,

everybody went, oh, they're going to make a play for DeAngelo Russell, and they're going to pair him with Devin Booker, and they're going to have sort of like a poor man's version of what they have in Portland. I'm like, that could be interesting. And then they went and made a bunch of curious moves in the draft that like negated all that cap space that they freed up. And you tell me, because I've asked a lot of people around the league, and everybody has given me essentially the shoulder shrug answer.

But what the hell are the suns doing? At least in terms of the draft, I have no idea what they're trying to gun for in free agency. Maybe DeAngel Russell is still on the table. I'm so bad with the cap stuff that like... It's going to be very difficult now because they took on those extra points. But just do the draft stuff. Like, what do you see there? They got a...

They got adults in the room. Like we were talking about, you know, Jimmy Butler or whatever in the Sixers kind of being that dude. They got some of the oldest guys in the draft. They got veteran dudes who are probably the two best shooters, in my opinion, in the draft in Cam Johnson and Ty Jerome later in the first round. So let me just stop you on Cam Johnson. He was, by most accounts, overdrafted.

Like, nobody anticipated he'd go in the lottery. And he's also had some injury issues. He is older. And on top of that, and correct me if I'm wrong, he's largely a one-dimensional player in that he's a shooter. Yeah, so he's a guy who's going to take maybe one or two dribbles max.

He's going to be shooting for you. But look, he's like 40... I think he shot like 47, 45% from three last year at Carolina. The dude is an incredible shooter. That's fantastic. But yeah, he's not going to be offering you much beyond that, beyond, you know,

passable defense at best. he doesn't really have the strength that's necessarily play the four full time and so he's kind of caught between positions and so you kind of have to like put him around certain players what about what Jerome

do you see him like how much of a rotation player could be is it going to immediately impact the team you like him I like him a lot I think he's one of the most skilled players in the draft the only knock on him is he basically runs around like he's carrying a sack of like boulders.

Okay. He is extremely slow. Not the most life player. No. Okay. But he is maybe the best shooter in terms of like every single spot on the floor. He can spot up. He can shoot off the catch.

He can shoot, you know, off dribble. He can shoot relocating off screens. He has the full repertoire there. He just, he just can't move very well. I just don't know what they're doing with all these different pieces. And then on top of that, they're like shopping Josh Jackson to everybody and their mom. They want to get rid of him. for obvious reasons, both on court and off court.

But it just feels like all of this is very piecemeal for the Sons. And I haven't seen anybody anywhere who's gone, hey, good for the Sons. They're really starting to figure this out. I mean, the thing is, it could work out for them. I guess. It's like when you get that many shooters on the same team and you put them all out on the floor and they're all smart and they know what they're doing, good things happen.

Like, you don't need to play defense if you're hitting, you know, all your threes. Now you're talking my language. This is my league past. Now I'm back in on the Suns for League Pass because I don't want defense. I just want you to run up and down the floor and fire. He checks. Any other team, you know, in the loser category or player where you're like, it sucks at that player, went to that team or that team where you went,

I don't know what they were doing here. I would probably have to say the Wizards. They drafted. Shouts to House. Rui Hachamara. At number nine. You were excited about Rui. I was excited about his blazer.

I am not a huge fan of his game. Okay. This is a huge moment for Japanese basketball for Beninese basketball. But he's kind of on the older side, a guy who still needs a lot of reps to kind of fulfill his potential if he ever does. Second best player on his team at Gonzaga. I would say so. And the funny thing is, I think what the report said was the Wizards drafted him sight unseen. They didn't work him out.

They didn't interview him. Awesome. This is Shades of the Lakers taken Talon Horton Tucker. and saying that they didn't scout him, but he had met with some clutch clients in AD and LeBron. So basically they outsourced it to clutch. The wizards don't even have that. No.

And so they drafted a guy who I think has a similar build, has a similar kind of baseline skill set as a guy who went later in the draft, who I thought the wizard should have drafted in Sekudombia. Right. The Frenchman who, yeah, like, is one of the youngest players in the draft. kind of has that Pascal Seaccom-esque, you know, a four-man who could bring the ball down the floor and shoot threes and play, you know, passable defense. I don't really know where the Wizards are going with this, especially with their team next year.

Yeah. Who knows where Beal's going to be? The ghost of Ernie Grunfeld lives. I mean, Ernie has moved on and, Godspeed to Ernie after 15, very successful years with Washington Wizards. But that, like, the ripple effect of the John Wall contract and, like, that team for Forever in a day. There was that period like, what, two years ago

where it looked like they had to like figure it out. And then, of course, that was an aberration, the exception, not the rule. But it just feels like the Wizards Forever are casting about trying to figure it out on the fly. It really could have been nice if they had, like, a set GM there. Some structure. Some structure would be good.

Last one for you, because as we mentioned, you wear many hats. What about for you personally, you spent months pouring over, you know, doing the draft guide with Kevin O'Connor and Charks and doing Corner 3. like just immersing yourself and all this stuff. The draft is over now. We're heading into free agency. But for your draft research and writing and editing, was there something that you got

right or wrong that you look back on now and go, oh, yeah, I'm excited I got that right? Or, oh, of course, this is an obvious miss on my part. I thought the rise of Kobe White made so much sense to me. He kind of followed the Che Gilgilliers-Alexander trajectory of last year. Kobe White was not the highly regarded recruit coming out of UNC. It was not. Nazir Little, who was a top five, top three recruit coming out of high school. He was supposed to have all the headlines. Kobe White comes in, and not only does he take the team by the reins, he's an incredible three-point shooter, incredibly confident in his shot.

And, you know, he averaged like 16.5 points per game as a freshman, 4.2 assists. He looked the part, and towards the end of the year, heading into the tournament, he was the guy. And that was exactly the kind of trajectory that Shagiel's just Alexander showed. He was a four-star recruit in Kentucky. No one really thought about him in comparison to the rest of his class. He winds up being the best player. He gets a promise from, you know, the Clippers last year and the rest is history. I think Kobe White really did set himself up to kind of come out from the shadows and emerge as one of the best prospects in this draft.

Bull is another team that's going to be high on my league pass rankings. I don't know how they'll actually shake out. I thought last year that they would end up being good. But now, like with Kobe White and Levine and Wendell Carter Jr., Everyone's healthy. Marketing and Otto Porter. And it's like, wow, they got some interesting pieces. I don't know if they'll all fit together. I'm still not sure about Kobe White and Zach Levine together.

And, you know, what do you do with Christon and all this stuff? But at least on the surface, a lot of interesting individual pieces that I want to see how they come together. Should be fun. This was fun. Thank you for doing this. Make sure to listen to him on the quarter three. He's a writer and an editor. Legally, you call him Danny.

Stanley Chout. Dan, thanks for doing this. What is this? It's fun. It's fun. I want to throw out of Dan. All right. That's like a Bob De Niro.

You're Bob now. As always, it's a pleasure. All right, we thank Dan, we thank Danny, we thank Isaac Lee. We thank all of you. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Read all of our content on the ringer.com as free agency approaches. Don't forget, it's coming early this year, gang. It starts on Sunday instead of Monday at midnight or whatever, much earlier.

It's going to be better for all of us. And for all of your listening needs as free agency approaches. And then afterwards, we're going to have the mismatch, Corner 3, and group chat. And of course, the each check will be back with Isaac and me, Johnzales. us. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye.