The Ringer NBA Show - James Harden vs. Chris Paul, Plus: Utah Is Trying to Seize Its Window With Mike Conley | Group Chat

Episode Date: June 19, 2019

The Jazz are putting their chips in the center of the table, trading for an expensive, sure-handed star in Mike Conley—will it pay off in a wide-open Western Conference (1:00)? Plus, we break down all the reporting, theories, and future fallout in Houston after an explosive report of discord between James Harden and Chris Paul came out earlier this week. Should the Rockets do what they can to get rid of Chris Paul and his huge contract, or should they press the big red button and trade James Harden (22:37)? Hosts: Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The NBA finals are in the books and our staff is here to guide you through the NBA draft and free agency with daily podcasts and articles on the ringer.com. Also, be sure to check out Kevin O'Connor, Danny Chow, and John Gonzalez on Thursday, June 20th for our live NBA draft show on Twitter for instant reactions on every pick. And as always, be sure to listen to the Ringer NBA show for all of your offseason coverage. You can listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Basketball is very good. Kevon Looney is a max player.

The Lakers should hire Ernie Grunfeld. Kauai should sign with the Warriors. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. This is group chat. I am Chris Ryan. I am joined by Justin Verrier. I'm eating M&Ms.

Hello. Boy, oh boy. NBA never sleeps. We've got trades. We've got rumors. We've got teams in crisis. We've got dynasties ascending. We're going to break it all down for you today.

as we started this podcast, Mike Conley is now a member of the Utah Jazz. Memphis traded Conley to Utah for Grayson Allen, Kyle Corver, Jay Crowder, the 23rd pick in Thursday's draft, and a future first round pick. There are a bunch of protections on that future first rounder that we can get into. KOC wrote a piece on the ringer for us that essentially lays out the case for Utah as a contender now in the Western conference and by proxy, I guess, for the finals. I'm probably a little skeptical of that, of them being that powerful, Justin, but what's your read on the new Utah Jazz? Yeah, there's definitely a window. I mean, as we talked about with the Lakers, it seems like

the Warriors not being there presents this power vacuum at the top of the West and perhaps the entire NBA. I'm of two minds about this. I think that they solved one issue, but perhaps not their biggest issue. So let's start with the good of this. I am not as sold on Donovan Mitchell, as I think a lot of people are. Sure. In fact, I think that might be where people are coming around to with Mitchell. I don't know how you feel about him. It's hard for me to separate my fandom of the Sixers from my appreciation of Mitchell

after the quote-unquote rookie of the year race with Ben Simmons. I think Mitchell's very good. He seems like a player a little bit from another era to me, but that doesn't mean he can't be a huge contributor in the NBA. And I think he obviously gives them a few. face of the franchise, which is in a place like Utah, you could kind of need that. Yeah. He's given them more than you could have ever expected considering where he was drafted and kind of some of the pedigree that he had going into that draft. He's a huge fine and he's a

big asset in that regard. He provided a lot of verve for that offense at a time when they needed it desperately because they were looking at like smash mouth football in the wake of Gordon Hayward's departure. So he, to a large degree, he saved them. On the other hand, I do have slack receipts from last year's postseason suggesting that he could be the next Russell Westbrook because he's just he has all the opportunities and I just don't think he's an efficient enough player in order to deserve those. Yeah, I mean, the question is whether or not he had to do it that way. And whether or not, unlike Westbrook, he can learn a different way or play with it a little bit more of a team flow

rather than feel like he has to shoot his team to victory every night. And perhaps this is his window in order to prove that because I do think what they've needed most is a steady hand in the back court next to him. They've tried at times, giving the ball more to Joe Ingle's and playing Mitchell off of him. And I think it works, and we can circle back to that because I do wonder how all three of them are going to coexist on the same defense in particular. But Conley is perhaps the steadiest hand in the entire NBA. I looked this up before among players last season who played at least 15 minutes a game.

Conley was 12th and assists a turnover ratio. He's actually first among players with the usage rate over 20. So essentially... He's a lockbox. Among the ball handlers of the NBA, the best ones, he has the steady his hand, which is exactly what you need

next to Mitchell. And I think while Conley has often had the ball on his hands throughout his career, so he will have to defer more often, I think he is versatile enough. He's a good enough three-point shooter,

and he's just a smart player. I think that can work. So I think that is good. Yeah. I think that will help. Yeah. And they need more dynamic players on offense. On the other hand...

Yes, I was waiting for this. They're still going forward with the Rudy Gobert, Derek Faber's front court. Okay, so do you think that this necessarily means that favors will be their opening day? I think it makes it more likely. Bobby Marks had something today that... So they're going to take Conley into Cap's base is how they're going to end up executing this deal. That doesn't mean they have to get rid of favors who has a non-guarant. deal for next year,

but it makes it more likely that he'll stay simply because they won't have many paths to getting better and really replacing his minutes. He is more of probably a backup five at this point. They definitely played him and Gobert much less

during this year's postseason. They did last year's postseason. That could have just been the matchup, I'm not really sure. But they do have a mid-level exception so they can still fill this kind of stretch forward because if there's anything to be concerned about in this trade. I think it's a clear win for the most part. But they did get rid of Jay Crowder, who had been soaking up a lot of those power forward minutes when they wanted to go

smaller in the front court. Yeah, it's an interesting situation for Utah. I don't think that they can get somebody like Mike Conley's of Mike Conley's caliber to come as a free agent. And that's no knock against Utah or Salt Lake City. It's just traditionally they're not a free Asian destination with the exception of like Paul Millsap and a couple other guys. So if you're going to go for somebody like Conley who, while he hasn't really been recognized as an all-MBA play, player is of that level of talent. I think that this is the only way to do it.

And they moved quickly in a moment where the West is up in the air. Where L.A. looks like a superpower, but is actually in this really precarious position because they only really have three NBA players. So you have a lot of opportunity for growth here.

And I think the teams on the Utah, Oklahoma level, and we're going to talk about Houston in a few minutes, they need to be as aggressive as possible because this is This might be their best shot at a conference finals or a finals birth. Yeah, I applaud going for it. I applaud recognizing the window and really swinging for it. They had been the most likely Mike Conley destination pretty much since...

Yeah, they were close during the trade deadline in February. Yeah, and it seemed like, based on the reporting, the Grizzlies were holding out for two first-round draft picks. They ultimately got that, and if you want to include Grayson Allen, that's essentially three. I don't know what Grayson Allen is in the NBA. He really didn't play that much. Yeah. But so they got a player that will make a difference.

And I think that's important. Like we've been saying this. You look at the West, I don't know who the top contender is at this point. Yeah, I'm really mystified. Like, because I guess like I have to go with the Lakers in some ways because of just the accumulation of top end talent there. Yeah.

But I don't know. I just feel like over and over again, we're going to keep talking about this throughout the summer and into early next year is just like, the lesson I learned from the finals is about the distribution of talent across your cap. And just being able to have, being able to even make up for an OG Ananovi going out and not losing a step is like what Toronto was able to do. And being able to go into a trade deadline and have enough guys who are useful and interesting hanging around that you can deal them for somebody like Mark Gassal who goes on the market. This idea of putting together a super three, a big three and a super team and just like,

thinking that veterans and garbage guys are going to come and play for minimums because they just want to be in L.A. and go for ring. I don't know if that, even if that does work itself out, if that's going to get L.A. as far as they want to go this year. But maybe I could be wrong. Maybe I'm forgetting all the lessons I should have learned from the Miami-He era. Yeah, their depth is shaky, which is, you know,

a little concerning, considering that they've built pretty steadily through the draft. Utah, you're talking about. Utah, yeah. I think it would help if Dante X. wasn't hurt every single season, unfortunately for our guy. You know, Royce O'Neill is a good player. I like him. Thabalsephaloia is good.

They don't have draft assets really going forward now. So I think they have a second round pick in this year's draft. Maybe they could find someone on the fringes. They seem to really like a gorgeous Nyang, the worst name for me to pronounce in all of history. I think if they have seven or eight guys by the time the off season is over, it makes sense.

I am a little concerned, though, that when you swing for the fences in this way, you have to balance what you could be versus what you do best. And clearly they've had success the past two seasons, or at least in the past two regular seasons, being a defensive-minded team. And I do think there are certain concerns

presented by a Conley-Mitchell backcourt. I think they'll be fine overall because Gobert is such an eraser at the rim and Conley is a smart defender. Yeah. Even if he's not the most dynamic athlete anymore, right? Yeah, he's older, doesn't help. And I don't know if he was much of a linchpin on that defense,

even on the Grizzly's defense, even when they had their best years. I mean, he pretty much had two defensive player that your caliber players around him. Yeah, Tony Allen, watching his back. That helps a lot. Sure. And neither Ingalls, who's a smart defender, nor Mitchell, really fill that void. Yeah. So that's the balancing act they have to do there. I guess, you know what I'm comparing this to is other NBA backcourts? And there's just not that many defensive stalwart NBA backports. courts that have two perimeter defenders starting. So to me, that's not the big deal.

The biggest deal is that I don't really like their team after their fifth player. That's true. I think Royce is good, but Royce is good as an eighth guy. I don't really know who's the second unit here. And who's running the second unit? You mentioned staggering favors. I think that could work if they make him sort of the linchpin of the second unit a little bit. But it'll be really interesting to see what they do with this.

And it's a big test for Quinn Snyder and for Donovan Mitchell because clearly they orchestrated this and they gave up a little bit of draft capital to go for it this year. And it's going to be fascinating to see how other teams fall a suit. Yeah, I think it will come down to ultimately how they spend the rest of their offseason. I do wonder with that mid-level exception,

how far it can go in this marketplace. Because as I look at the board, I pretty much put together a free agent list and I kind of chop them up by tiers because I'm a really cool guy, and this is what I do in my free time. And it seems like the market is just super top-heavy with Max guys, and after that there's a significant drop-off.

And even from there, it's a lot of big men. So I'm not sure just where the wings are going to come from. Maybe they can get Trevor Areza, but he's more of a three than a four than I'd be comfortable with. He's also pretty fried. Yes, he's been around the block a few times. I mean, then you're talking about Casey Peach. Danny Green would be a good fit for these guys,

but more of a two. He's not really a four, which is what they need. Afrukumino, that's a good one. I like him. So they really need to figure out that piece. The weird thing about this free agency conversation,

and we can bring this back in when we talk about the Lakers. Obviously, Bill and Ryan talked about this Sunday, and Danny and Justin just did a video about it where you're basically, the Lakers have a choice to make as to whether or not they're going to pursue a Kemble-level, Jimmy Butler,

Kauai Leonard kind of player, or if they're going to chop up the remaining amount of their cap space and try and fill out the roster, I don't want to say in a responsible way but in a way that maybe adds more depth around LeBron and Anthony Davis. Well, they might not even have... It might not be their decision. It might not be their decision.

That honestly is almost beyond my like intellectual capabilities to understand as to how much cap space they're going to have. Basically, if it happens, if the deal is given to the league office at July 6th, they don't have a max slot. Right. And if they push it back to June 30th, which is the amount of time required by the league to trade a player who's already been drafted, then they will have more space

and they could potentially get a max player because a Mac contract for a seven to nine-year player, which is Kyrie, Jimmy, those sorts of guys, is in the 32 range. They'll probably end up happening, most likely at this point, based on reporting from ESPN and smart people like that, smart people like Bobby Marks, 23.7.

Okay. Which is... Which is not enough to get Kyrie. It's not enough to get Kempa. It's not enough to get Jimmy. It wouldn't be even close. But is there some finagling that can go on here? Like Anthony Davis is trade waver, which I can't imagine him wait.

Trade kicker, which I can't imagine him waving. Right. So, yeah, that plays a factor in it. There's also recent reporting, again, from ESPN that suggests the Lakers are frantically trying to sweeten the deal so that the Pelicans play along. Yeah, so there's like, they're trying to get rid of Wagner. They're trying to get rid of Banga and Banga and. They could buy seconds.

Literally their last three non-Cuzma James Davis players. They have five guaranteed contracts currently on the books. They have a sixth who is non-guaranteed. And there's this other weird thing where if they are below five players, you are charged 900. I read this the other day, 900,000 for like a filler space. So you don't even get as much cap space as you think you would by dumping some of those guys.

Right. So this is really complex, high-level math. Leave it to Rob Polinka, man. This is why I'm... See, this is why I love this part of the NBA. Because ultimately, it does come down to a lot of accounting and a lot of, like, attention to the smallest minute details. And, like, when you do things at what time

and who you get on a deal at a bargain, it all stacks up ultimately to get to the final product. And as we've seen recently with Polanka and before him Magic, they have not paid attention to some of those finer points. Do you know if there's even a person in the Lakers front office who is in charge of this stuff? I'm sure they have one. I'm not totally sure how they have stacked their front office, but it doesn't give me confidence that we don't know.

We don't know. And we also, in the Baxter home story, it was suggested that Rob and Magic had their own little office while the rest of the front office was in a different one during the draft, which is how they ended up with Mo Wagner instead of Amari Spellman. Oh, right. Because they thought the front office thought they were getting Spelman. That was all like asking Josh Hart what he thought of Amari Spellman thing, right?

So he could just not be listening to him. If you're on the phone and you're just like, you have to negotiate and that person isn't in the room with you. If you're not on a conference call, which is how some teams do it, no one's going to tell him that he's doing the wrong thing. The Pelicans have no incentive to tell him that he's screwing up his cap. Sure. And if anything, they have more incentive for him to screw up his cap because that means the picks in 2025 are going to be worse.

Right. Which they are going to get. So the Lakers could be in a situation where they have $23 million worth of cap space and out of the market for anybody unless they do some incredible L.A. discount, which doesn't make any sense, especially when you factor in California state taxes. Just adding on to the penalty that would come with coming to Los Angeles in the first place. That's a great point. even if they do only have $23 million, something funny is happening with this market because so many of these middle market teams

are essentially getting taken out of the race for, say, even a DeAngelo Russell, which Utah must have felt like we're not in the DeAngelo Russell market. You know, we have to trade for Conley even though Russell dovetails more nicely with the Mitchell window, maybe. It seems like guys like Boeem-Begovitch or even Patrick Beverly,

and I know Ryan and Bill talked about this, are going to be way out of like the Lakers price range. This is the question here. So if there are only so few guys that require max deals, they're going to be a lot of teams with money. Yes. And so are they just going to end up overpaying guys just to fill the spots?

Even if it's four short-term deals, as we saw last off-season, one or two-year deals, one-plus-ones, things like that, it'll be interesting to see because the two guys I came up with for the video project we did with Danny in order to fill that 23.7 were Terrence Ross and Patrick Beverly.

Two really good fits, I think, especially because Terrence Ross was particularly good three-point shooter in all ways last year. He was a good pull-up shooter. He was a good spot-up shooter, and he was good on open threes. I think those are the things you need. And Patrick Beverly is the defensive pit bull that they need, who doesn't really need the ball, and he could swing off and hit open threes as well. Unfortunately, I think they might not be able to afford both. Terrence Ross is the type of player who, who maybe you're projecting in the $12,000, $12 million range right now, but then bidding starts and all of a sudden it's a $17 million.

$15, 16, yeah, right. What if the Kings, a team that will struggle to get anybody into that team, especially if they don't bring back Harrison Barnes, who opted out recently, are they going to throw way more money at a Terrence Ross than any other team can imagine? Because the whole thing is one stupid team can just completely throw off some players' market value. Right. And Patrick Beverly, like maybe he's an $8 million player based on production

and age and all this other stuff. But if you're a playoff team, you might be thinking to yourself, Patrick Beverly's a really useful guy to have in the spring and summer. If you're going by the Nick Nurse April, May, June thing, you don't really care that Patrick Beverly is an eight point a game guy or a nine point a game guy in February.

You want somebody who's going to go attack and drive the opposing best player into fits the way Beverly likes to do. Maybe players will take more of a discount than I'm expecting because it's Los Angeles, because it's AD and LeBron. But that usually only has. happens when a player is at a certain point of his career.

And I just don't see a Patrick Beverly, for instance, just a player who didn't make a lot of money throughout his career because he really only had one contract. And I believe even the years were non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed towards the end. Like those rocketeers you mean? Yeah. And so he signed like a pretty team-friendly contract. So I don't know why he would ever take a discount at this point. Why not go to Orlando?

Why not go to Indiana if you can get more money for it? Dallas. Like, who's going to Dallas? Dallas is rumored to have already like basically scheduled a minute one meeting with Beverly. There you go. So if that's the case, the Lakers being like, hey, here's what we have left over might not work. And you brought up Harrison Barnes. Harrison Barnes opted out of, I think, the $27 million last year of his deal.

The rumor was that was going to be in order for him to sign a longer term if team friendly or deal with the Kings. That was also the rumor with Al Horford in a day that was a real up and down journey for any Celtics fan. And yesterday you had, Al Horford was opting out of his $30.1 million player option year with the Celtics. But the word from Woj was that he was going to resign a team friendlier, longer term deal with the Celtics, which would allow them a little bit more flexibility. That's not how that worked out. We're going to talk about what happened to the Celtics. We're also going to talk about what happened to the Rockets yesterday after a word from our sponsors.

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Today's episode of the Ringer NBA show is brought to you by City on a Hill, the action-packed new drama series from Showtime, the same network that brought you Billions Homeland and Ray Donovan. Set in a volatile early 90s era of Boston when police corruption ran rampant through a system played by racism. City on a Hill stars award-winning actors Kevin Bacon and Aldous Hodge. The new series follows an upstanding district attorney played by Hodge, who teams up with a corrupt FBI agent,

played by Bacon. The two form an unlikely alliance to take down a local crime family and clean up the city. Executive produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Tom Fontana to stream the first episode for free. Go to sho.com slash city. That's show.com slash city. City on a hill air Sundays at 9 p.m. only on showtime. Okay. Justin, so the Horford stuff. Horford says he's going to, he opts out of his 30 million final year with the Celtics. The word is in the morning They're talking They're going to get together Celtics and Horford

They're going to put together a team-friendlyer deal That takes care of Al for like four years or whatever it's going to be By the end of the day It seems like talks between the Celtics and the Horford camp have broken down And that the impression around the league Is that Horford thinks he has a richer longer-term deal Than the one he could get from the Celtics somewhere else I think that the first thing you think of is the Lakers

because he would make sense playing next to Davis, I think, and he would immediately make them a better defensive team, no matter who winds up playing on that team. I don't think 23 is enough to get him. Maybe not. It's probably in the ballpark, but if he isn't going to take a discount for the Celtics, I don't know why he would for the Lakers.

I don't know what his interest in Los Angeles is. I don't know his relationship with Davis. or LeBron. I guess my concern if I'm the Lakers is that's a lot of money tied up and functionally three center forward types. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think the AD in Horford pairing is nice

and I was actually looking forward to that had AD ended up in Boston had been able to play next to Horford. But you only have three good players in the Lakers right now. And they're LeBron, Kyle Kuzma, and Anthony Davis. Right.

So you'd be left with nothing but minimum contract and the room exception, which I forgot to mention in an earlier segment that the Lakers do have the 4.5 million room exception. Sure. But you can't bundle

that exception into something else. I don't believe so. Okay. And so they, I think you could break it up, though. Okay. I don't know

how they would just fill out an entire back court with minimum guys. Right. And that, like, from everything we know about the NBA, it's not winning basketball

to have like league minimum guards surrounding like 34-year-old front court and Anthony Davis. Yes. The thing every team wants are 3 indie wings, because that's the thing that, like, every team that's been successful in recent years has kind of been based around, these bigger guys who could switch on to other players who could shoot a little bit, could create a little bit.

Those guys are almost impossible to find, so that's going to be tough in and of itself. That's another reason why, like, the aminus of the world, you know, are going to be in such high demand, right? And then the next thing is just creation. Like, being able to create for other people is those are the two. foundational thing, shooting and creating on offense. And those are the two things they need the most of. Because even though LeBron will probably play point guard in most sets,

like he can't play, what, even 35 minutes at this point of his career? Do you want him to be playing it? No, they should. They should, I mean, Sharks wrote about this this week. They should probably move him into a more of a Tim Duncan, late period Tim Duncan, 28 to 31 minutes a game, and maybe on the Kauai diet of 60 games a year. Yes. And I've, with calculated breaks so that he doesn't have a breakdown in the spring. Yeah, I think they should consider doing that with Davis too, who over the course of his career is just like kind of dealt with these nicks and bumps that will throw him off for a couple games.

And he's been a lot healthier, I should say, more recently. But even like two years ago, what like his games played log massed the fact that he was leaving a lot of these games to go take MRIs to prevent things from getting worse over time. Yeah, and Davis has got the same thing that Embed has, which is every time he hits the deck, everybody holds their breath. It never feels like it looks good when he hits the ground. When I covered the team, I had so many partially, like, created news stories. Oh my God. Where it was just like fill in the injury

or the time of game that he left. Yeah. It's just, it happened constantly. Okay, so this is bad news for the Celtics. In some ways, it's bad news. I think that there is a path for Boston to just say, this didn't work out. We're building around Tatum and Brown.

We're going young. We have these picks. We'll sell some of them. I would even consider Hayward a very useful trade asset at some point. Yeah, I was hoping that there would be a pathway to bring him back to Utah. Because if you want a four, I think Hayward would be the perfect fit next to those guys because he probably doesn't need to be relied on as a first or second option as a score at this point of his career if he could never get back to the player he was in his first Utah tenure.

But I think he's the type of ball mover. I think he's bigger now. I think he would fit a lot. Unfortunately, he makes a shitload of money. And there's no way to match those contracts. That's the issue. So it caps off what has been a pretty rough few days in Celtics land in terms of stories coming out about Kyrie's relationship with the team, which apparently is non-existent. You hate to see it.

The relationship Kyrie had with Brad Stevens over the course of last season, which sounds extremely weird. And it got memed so hard that I don't even know what was real and what wasn't. It just got like completely deep faked. And Kyrie is such a like a unique cat in the first. first place that you could believe half of the jokes made about him. Well, was that quote that people were tossing around? Was that not true? The fact that he asked him about what does government mean?

And Brad Steven said, good morning. Yes. I have no idea. I have no idea. Apparently their relationship was strained. And furthermore, the vibes in the Celtics locker room were strained because there was a perception reportedly that Hayward was being force-fed possessions by Stevens. That Stevens was like

basically orchestrating possessions when Hayward was on the floor to get him looks, to get him points, to get his confidence back, to use him. They have a long-lasting relationship that goes back to their days in Indiana obviously together. So not great, Bob. So we got this whole situation with Boston, who

I think for the last few years, and I wrote about this when Davis got dealt, that you had to perceive Boston as a loser in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes because they ultimately had probably the best war chest for him and also an excellent playing partner for him had the Kyrie Irving thing worked out and instead now are looking at losing out on Irving and Horford and not having any

other free agents coming their way. So it's a bad beat for Danny Age. Definitely for Danny Age. I think if we were to do winners and losers over again, he would be among the biggest losers because things have just kind of continued from there. On the other hand, is there a silver lining here for Boston. After a year in which it seemed like most of the fans just like didn't want any part of that, is it not kind of, does it take the pressure off them to be this big honking contender, this next dynasty in the NBA that they've been saying that they're going to be, or we have been saying about them over the past few years. And they're just a fun young team that might play above their heads. Probably suits Stevens more. Definitely. Like look at the best teams that they've had.

It was the one without Kyrie Irving in the playoffs, led by Jason Tatum and Al Horford. L. Horford's going to be a big deal. Yes. And Baines is a free agent as well. I think he opted in. Okay. So Baines is back, but I mean, losing Horford is a pretty significant loss for them if that does in fact happen. And this isn't just leverage.

By the way, the moratorium on free agency, we're not even supposed to be talking about this for another few days, for another 10 days. And yet we are already seeing the lack of like any kind of tamper. oversight going on because there's no way Horford just changed his mind and was like I have a feeling that like somewhere out there be it from Clippers Brooklyn or LA or the Lakers that I can get a better longer term deal with a better shot at a title than I do now. That's ridiculous. Look, I'll never count Danny Aange out of doing something interesting and I there's already rumors that they're starting to get pretty interested in some of these higher lottery picks for tomorrow night, whether it's a Garland or whoever.

So I would never say like, oh, have a fun time in the wilderness for a few years, Boston. They'll be active. But, man, it's just, it shows how precarious this is. It shows how quickly everything can fall apart. And we're seeing that in a couple of different places around the league this week. Yeah, and the Celtics, they will have some cap space open, which they haven't had for a year now. On the other hand, as we've seen, like, they don't, they're not like a free agency destination. the two guys that they've gotten most recently

are Gordon Hayward and Al Horford. And both of those guys are kind of different. They're just not the type of fame-hungry stars that we're used to seeing. They're the guys that fit into that culture really well and seem to really just want to win, go to work, and then go home. Yeah.

So I just don't know how they take that next step at this point because even their draft capital is starting to kind of waste away. I had suggested in just conversation in the office just perhaps trading up to go get Darius Garland, and someone reported, I guess, that that's a possibility.

But even then, Garland is a clutch client, and there does seem to be some sort of simmering animosity. I don't know how you would describe it. It just doesn't sound like Clutch is interested in having their players play for Boston,

unless they get traded there and they have to show up. And they do have a lot of good players. Yeah. There's only so much you could do to work around that. The other team kind of having a little bit of a, I wouldn't, you know,

call it a free fall if you want. It gives me no pleasure to say this about my beloved Houston Rockets. Yeah, this is a tough one for you. So let's go through the Houston Rockets off-season so far for anybody who's not been paying attention. First, they had a coaching purge where they basically got rid of Mike Dantoni's entire staff,

including Jeff Banzelik, who is largely credited with being their defensive coordinator and shoring up what once was a punchline of a defense. Who came out of retirement in the middle of the season just to get fired at the end of the season. That move is worth noting. Yeah. Because he had left the team,

partially because he felt like reportedly was not getting the kind of respect he wanted from front office, the front office. And then the owner, Tillman Farido, went to Bed Zellick directly and brought him back

with apparently a six-figure raise. So that's, that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about a lot of cross-talk and a lot of owner, front office, and coach is not always singing from the same hymn book.

So you had the coaching purge. That coaching purge also included not only Bezellate, but Irv Rowland, and who had worked with James Hardin since Oklahoma City and was like basically Hardin's guy. I think he even Arizona State.

Since I think he met him back in ASU. That's right. After the purge, you also had a pretty public and weird dance between Dantone, Mori, and Farida about Dantone's extension.

Dantone's going into his last year of his contract. Previously, Mori had been very nice about Dantone, and was like he should have a job here for as long as he wants. I love him. It seems like Dantonie and Mory's offensive philosophies dovetail relatively well. That seemed to deteriorate a little bit in the Warriors' loss,

especially after Duran goes down, and you're like, okay, this is the Rocket Series to lose, and they did wind up losing it. So, Dantone goes back to West Virginia. There seems to be a lot of weird negotiations going on between Dantone and the team, Dan Tony's agent Warren Ligari and the team Warren Ligari

maybe not appreciating the team going directly to Dantone with some of their offers. Ultimately, it sounds like Dantone is still going to coach the team next year and that they'll work some sort of extension out. There was a lot of stuff built in there about how they wanted to give Dantone

a lot of performance-based incentives in terms of how far the Rockets got. And then in those first talks about the coaching, you started hearing the first murmurings of discord between C.P.3. and James Harden. Mm-hmm.

And that reached a sort of head yesterday when Vincent Goodwill published on Yahoo, an account of the Rockets' chemistry issues that included one source telling Goodwill, there is no respect at all on either side. They need to get away from each other. Chris doesn't respect James is standing in the league, and James doesn't respect the work Chris has put in up to this point.

There are rumors that Paul has requested a trade, There were rumors that Harden said it's him or me. This is what happens, honestly, when a bunch of employees leave an organization. Like, I have no idea who the sources are on any of these stories from Tim McMahon, from Vincent Goodwill, from Shams. Any of these, Jonathan Fagan, but when a bunch of people leave an organization and maybe not under the best circumstances, they're not going to be happy about it. And it's not surprising to see a bunch of tell-alls going on. Especially if they don't have a previous relationship with the owner. because it does seem like, especially in Tim McMahon's story on ESPN,

they went up, I believe, yesterday on Wednesday, or excuse me, Tuesday. It just seems like he's making a lot of new owner mistakes, including wanting to be in the public eye constantly, including like holding an interview with a reporter session with Mori and I believe Tad Brown, the CEO in a very public way. And not only doing that, but openly talking about contract details, which is like this thing that we don't care about, but I imagine people within the league do

because that's just not how business is done. Right. And so it sticks out more. And then as you alluded to, in order to kind of mend the fences with Dan Tony, they flew to West Virginia, Mori and Tillman did. And they wanted to smooth things over, which they did.

But apparently they walked away thinking that there was some sort of contractual agreement. Yes. Dan Tony was like, sounds great, talk to Warren. Yeah. And then. probably rightly so, Warren Ligary is going to want to like

negotiate to the best of his ability in order to get Dantone a better deal. So it just seems like he's making a lot of rookie mistakes. Look, if I go to you and I say hey Justin, you and I were friends outside of work, here's your new contract.

I'm going to throw a bunch of performance based incentives in there, but like I totally believe you can do it. But you have an agent and your agent's like no, because not only do I'm judging Justin's performance against the market of guys who do what Justin does. I also have a bunch of clients. And it's not good if I have my guy negotiating A outside of my purview, but B, making deals that are going to dent the market for the guys that I represent. Yes. And LaGerry's one of

the most powerful coaching agents out there. Yeah. So by the way, I now have you on the record next time my contract comes up. So let's put a put in that one. to be very clear. I have about as much power as Kurt Rambe as when it comes to this stuff. Which made me a lot. I don't know. Here's my point. So the CP3, was there a trade demand? We don't know. What is Hardin saying

when he said after the Warriors lost, I know what we need to do. I know exactly what we need to do. We'll figure out this summer. That was his quote after the Warriors' defeat. Was he talking about getting rid of Chris Paul? Hard to say. A thoroughly exasperated, according to Jonathan Fagan, a thoroughly exasperated, Darrell

Mori, got in touch with Jonathan Fagan. He also got in touch with Zach Lowe yesterday at the end of this really bad day for the Rockets. And he said, Chris Paul and his reps have never asked to trade him. And he will be on the Rockets next season. Morrie said that Paul and Hardin do not have issues with one other and that he has spoken to both often this offseason about free agency evaluations and plans. And then today, almost as a kind of like trying to balance the scales, the Rockets got their name attached to Jimmy Butler again.

I think this is straight from the Draymond Green. crisis management playbook, which is when someone says something that you could just key in on and make the focus of the entire thing, one error, perhaps error, or he just is phrasing it a little too strongly, that's what they're going to attack and that's what the entire thing's going to focus on. And that's what they're going to use in order to undercut this report. I don't know whether or not Chris Paul has ever asked for a trade. But I think the spirit of the sentiment is pretty obvious. Because even in the Tim McMahon story, which doesn't go that far, it seems like there are a world of sourcing in order to suggest that Paul and Hardin clash during the

playoffs and just because of their relationships or just because their personality are prone to kind of be at odds, which is the Chris Paul story. Yeah. Like we know enough about these guys. They've been in the public eye for long enough to know that those sort of personalities, their personalities just are a little bit oil and water here. Chris Paul is one of the great competitors in the history of the league. He is not an arm around the shoulder guy. He is not a guy out there to be like, you're doing great, let's just work through it. He's going to nitpick every single little mistake James Harden makes.

And by all accounts, the issue was essentially that they switched over from whatever the rockets were before, the Mori Ball version of it, maybe even the version of it that they played the first year with Chris Paul that got to the conference finals against the Warriors and lost, they went to a much more usage, high usage, harden, ISO offense that involves a bunch of guys standing around

and cleaning up after Hardin. And that worked when Chris Paul was injured, but when he came back, he was kind of like, okay, what's the deal? Oh, we're going to play this high usage Hardin offense. And when Hardin isn't being used,

he's just going to stand around. I found this quote, unquote, rest. Right. I found this quote from the McMahon story, according from a source familiar with the stars dynamic in air quotes to be the most telling one in the piece which was Chris wants to coach James and James looks at him like you can't even beat your man just shut up and watch me yes that's that's really the central tension we're dealing with because on the one hand

Chris Paul tends to be grading that's pretty obvious everyone who's been around him has said that but he's always been able to back up his play if he's not able to do that any longer it's hard to really kind of sit through some of his his personal personality and his gripes and some of those other things. So the Rockets, last year, I believe last season, beginning of last season, I can't remember when the exact deal went through, but they are in the midst of a four-year, $160 million $1,60 million contract. All right? I believe so.

And it is one that reportedly Tillman Farida has been griping about since he signed it. It wasn't crazy about it. Obviously, that was part of the getting Chris Paul from the Clippers deal. here, right? That was, Chris Paul went to the clippers and said, this is where I want to go. You can get something for me, trade me, and then the extension was going to kick him. There's a lot of stuff to talk about with Chris Paul's contract, especially with the CBA in relation to what LeBron and Chris Paul helped negotiate for that has never really seemingly like kicked in until now with Chris Paul.

This again seems like a rookie owner situation. Sure. And the fact that he did not inherit any of the things that came before him. We usually see this on the general manager coaching level where a coach perhaps suggests that he didn't pick the players and so he's not at fault for them. It just seems like the type of things that happen when there's turnover. Yeah. And perhaps that's why people are griping about it in the public too.

Yeah, Chris Paul made 35 last season, 38 this coming season, 41, 2021, and 44 in 2021, 22. And that 44 is a player option. and he is taking that. Yeah. That's $44 million for a Chris Paul in his late mid-30s, and he's not in the healthiest shape now.

Now, let me tell you something. They don't have a lot of stuff. They don't have a lot to do here. There's not a lot of daylight for Daryl. I mean, sure, like, I never count him out. He can make a lot of things happen. Maybe Eric Gordon, maybe Clint Capella. Maybe it's a matter of, like,

the kind of players they put around Paul and Harden. But they're more or less stuck with these two guys, right? Yes, it would surprise me if they're able. to get rid of Paul, although things have happened. Blake Griffin just got traded, you know, within the past two years. I might go the other way. Because as we were just saying at the top of the show,

the West is wide open. And the only challenger to the Golden State Warriors the past two years, before the Raptors, obviously, were the Rockets. Last year was probably the best team the Warriors ever faced. And although Tillman Furtida

is getting criticized for not wanting to pay the luxury tax this season, or this past season. apparently it was like, that was like Mori's choice of when to get it, because they wanted to get out of the repeater rate. So it had to happen over the like once over the next, the three years. Yes. And he did it this year, basically. That's what they're saying now. Right. Who's to say? But I will say it has set them up nicely for this season where, for instance, instead of the taxpayer mid-level exception, they have the kind of the bigger, just regular mid-level exception, which is a difference about a million dollars. And you already have a pretty good existing core. And as we saw last year, the big issue, especially in the earlier part of the season is they tried to fill the roster with purely minimum guys.

And a lot of the guys on their books, I think they could move. Like, Kunkapela is still a very good player on a very good contract. I don't know if he's the type of playoff player that you can count on, especially against teams that are going to go small. I guess it depends on how you play, right?

Yeah, I mean, he's still good. Eric Gordon is an expiring contract who has proven himself in the players. Like, if you're a team going for it, perhaps you're the Utah Jazz. that's a good player that you can use. And so they have a lot of options here. And I don't know.

I'm just of the belief. Maybe I'm just a Chris Paul stand and I'm just unwilling to see where he is at this point of his career. If he's just adequate, I think they have enough there to just roll it back and keep going with this. Well, I don't think that they look particularly good

this season and this offense with Paul on the floor. You know, I think they look great with Harden off the floor when Paul is playing. I think Paul's a good floor general, and they can play a lot of different stuff with him. I thought they looked really good. I think the plus minus was pretty high, although that was against Paul playing at second unit guys, as a lot of people have pointed out.

Let me throw this out there. So maybe they trade Hardin. Well, it's the Houston Rockets, not the Houston Hardens. Yeah. So wouldn't the most daring, you know, Mori Ball thing to do would be to sell as high as possible on your most valuable asset

and rebuild this team on the fly? And would this team with Paul George say? Just like as a guy who would match the... A guy who would match salary. Yeah. Of course, I don't think Hardin wants to go back to Oklahoma City and play with Westbrook and Adams. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be resistance to this idea.

But I sometimes wonder whether or not like that is an option. And this is going to be something that we're going to see a bunch of teams who have guys like Paul on the books, whether it's Griffin, Wall, even in Oklahoma, where they've got Westbrook signed up for that long-term deal, if you have all that cap space

committed to an essentially unmovable guy, even if you could get somebody like Miami or Orlando or somebody who would be like, yes, give us a star. We've been waiting 10 years for one. I don't know that you could get Chris Paul off your books. No. So then you have to start looking at elsewhere

on your roster for ways to improve. I completely agree with you. Houston's probably been the second best team in aggregate in the NBA over the last two or three years, right? But maybe this is the year to do something incredible. Maybe this is the year to do something completely out of left field. And if you can get a team to build around Paul that flows better, do you try it? Is this the, is Hardin? Is this like, what do you have two, three more years of Hardin and Peak Hardin? Yeah, yeah, probably. His contract extends for four more.

And in the last season, he is making $47 million. So it's just, I love the idea behind it. This is like they're going to have to, like, if Washington wants to get better, they have to trade Beal. You know what I mean? Like if Oklahoma City wants to change their roster, they're going to have to trade George or Adams. And they're not going to trade George because they'll never get out of their free agent again if they do that. You know, they have to do something where they have to lose a limb to gain a body, you know? And I don't know for these teams that have so much money tied up in guys who are by their nature of their contract in the end of their primes, you may have to make some incredibly difficult decisions.

And I can't think of a decision that would be more startling, but also game changing than trading hard. I think the comp would be cutting off your head if you're getting rid of hard. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying that's the decision they've got to make. Yeah, it is interesting though. I mean, because we have seen in recent history teams getting rid of stars and just filling them, back-filling them with just younger, higher-level guys who might not be just all-star prospects, but they still have something left and it is worked out, perhaps even just the fact that, you know, everyone else is filling into different roles. This is the whole Westbrook thing, right? You get rid of Demona Sabonis goes off to Indiana and he's playing and doing things that he never was able to do under Westbrook.

Sure. I just think like this entire Rockets team revolves around Hardin. It was built specifically with guys in order to just stand in the corner and shoot threes and play devens around him. But if I'm going to go and just suppress my cap head nerd self here, would you trade James Hardin for LeBron James if you're both teams? Well, I, okay, so taking the existence of Rich Paul out of the equation. Yeah, right. I don't say no I don't say I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't

dismiss it out of hand I was thinking something more like what's the best what's the best offer Boston could make I can't tell if this is going to be received as people being like you guys sound like you're you're doing helium hits or if this makes any sense to people but right I'm just saying like when this is happening when you've got something like almost like not collusion but like you've basically got the deck stacked against you with

players deciding years beforehand that this is where they want to go and they're going to orchestrate their exit to this place. Look, Houston could pull some miracle, switcharoo, and somehow Lamb Butler. And Butler might just be like, I want to go play in Texas. Jimmy Butler playing with Chris Ball is the funniest thing in the world to me.

But like, let's say they pull that off. And then Butler goes in signs for less than the max or whatever with Houston. And they get off of Gordon or they get off of Capella or whatever. They run it back. Butler, Paul, Hardin, in harmony, playing well, maybe they have a shot. I don't know.

But if you want to do something radical, do you want to rebuild the rockets for the next 10 years, it's hard. Yeah, and as we've seen in the past, guys who fit James Hardin's profile probably break down sooner than you think. He just has so many minutes on his legs, he's playing a very burden-heavy style.

He's just doing a lot. Yeah. And you probably want to get ahead of that. I am still of the belief as much as I love this theory that a few minor tweaks on the fringes is all they do. I think you're probably right.

I just think it's worth, I don't think that Hardin is Kauai. I don't think Hardin is the kind of guy who single-handedly can win an NBA title. So, I mean, he can still be the MVP. Yeah. But Kauai's not playing for MVP. Kauai obviously just is like,

I'm going to manage my body the way I'm going to manage it over the course of a year in the conjunction with the team or not in the case of San Antonio. and he's like, this is how I want to run my career. It's an interesting idea because as we've seen, especially in the past two years, there's a complete distinction between playoff basketball and regular season basketball.

And perhaps that's best exemplified by the MVP of the league, who is quite possibly the best regular season player of the past couple years where he could just literally be an offense for multiple games of the year. He scored, what was it, 27 games in a row, I think, with 30 or more.

He single-handedly, save the Rocket season. But does that matter as much? The style he plays, does it translate as well to the playoffs? If they're throwing junk defenses at him like that. Especially when it's all about exposing someone. Every single time he tries going to hunting for

an AM1 on a three-point shot, it's going to get debated and scrutinized and the refs are going to feel like we're really under the gun to make this even here. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the Raptors are a sterling example of a team that just had the best player in the playoffs. That's like kind of the redundant trait thing that we always say it's like the best player wins the series.

Yeah, but how many times? Crucially, he was also like, I will wipe Ben Simmons off the map. I will regard Janus. Well, yeah, exactly. So it just turned out that the best, like the best two-way player in the league ultimately carried his team far enough because the other team that they came up against in the finals

just wasn't this Goliaths like stacked with too many, with more players of that caliber than we've ever seen. That's the outlier situation. A team driven by a star like Kauai is the one traditionally who's won a lot of titles. Yeah. All right. I'm curious to see how the hardened thing floats with our listeners. I guess we purposely buried it at the end of this podcast.

We'll be back. So we have obviously a lot of stuff going on. So today there's a AMA with the Corner 3 guys. That video will be up in a bit. Tomorrow night, KOC, Gons, Chow, a bunch of other people will be hanging out. we'll all be going live from basically Picks 1 through 14. There will also be a corner three tomorrow night reacting to the draft with Chow, KOC, and Charks. Regularly scheduled programming next week with heat check, group chat, mismatch, all your favorites next week through and up to June 30th and the free agency.

So obviously, if the last few days or anything to go by, we'll be doing a lot of more emergency pods. All right, until next time for Justin, this is Chris. This has been The Ringer Ambiation. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.