The Ringer NBA Show - Recapping the First Weekend of Free Agency (Ep. 131)

Episode Date: July 3, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Vernon is joined by NBA TV’s Tas Melas to discuss the Toronto Raptors’ free-agency moves (1:00), Gordon Hayward’s potential landing spots (9:45), the dearth of talent in the Eastern Conference (21:15), Blake Griffin’s max deal with the Clippers (31:40), and the possibility of LeBron leaving Cleveland again (41:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're like me and you're not so great at planning ahead, you have to try Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight is an app that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute up to seven days in advance. It's perfect for a spontaneous getaway or indulging at a little staycation. All it takes is 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe. So what are you waiting for? Get in on these killer last minute deals and download the Hotel Tonight app today. Welcome to the Ringer MBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me today for a free agency special is Taz Males.

You can watch Taz on NBA TV's The Starters. You can follow them on Twitter at Taz Mellas. Taz. So glad to be here. Things are happening in the NBA. It's a fun time this season. It's better than the game, some people tell me. I think it is. I had to call you because you got to give me that Raptor news, as you say.

This was a big weekend for the Raptors. First things first, were you surprised the Wraptor? way it played out. PJ Tucker gone, Lowry and Ibacca back. For sure. Lowry and Baca, a couple years, Clippers East and away. We've had this nice little window here of, hey, to be slightly above mediocre. That's great for, I think they should be pumped about it, and whether or not they sign them for five years. So to get them at three years is on both sides. Anything else to do years? And to actually have a training camp with these guys, you know, they only had a couple months. I lost to PJ Tucker.

does definitely. But, you know, rolling back to do it one more time with the training camp, the problem. Inison, Damari Carroll contracts. Those are the ones that are actually, you know, getting even closer. If you, if, do you think that this happens if everybody, if all these players don't end up going to the Western conference and then it was just teed off with Millsap another one last night? So A, if they don't, if a bunch of guys don't go to the Western Conference and B, if that whole David Griffin thing doesn't implode and then people really start speculating how long LeBron may be there. And the fact that all those guys signed in the Western Conference, could he have signed,

you know, playing home was $3 million per, and he wasn't getting that anywhere else. So that's a huge part of it. And yeah, I think you've got to think about going east because of, you mentioned, you know, there's three all-stars from the east going west, you know, 25%. of the All-Stars. You know, I don't really think it's so much the Cavs and LeBron possibly leaving. I just, I don't think guys think that's any neat to think that far ahead. And that's why it's tradable.

You know, in Denver, he signed Nene for a long term and traded them in that first year. And if LeBron does move, I mean, you're basically the number one team in the East. And you got to wonder, you brought up the Hayward stuff. If Boston doesn't get him, this is a disaster for them, right? I mean, I suppose there's always the big trade could be coming, and maybe Danny Angel will shock all of us. But as of right now, given the return that you saw Butler get, the return that you saw Paul George get, everybody now is focused on Danny Angel and the Celtics and sitting on those assets. And that those guys, like, it wonders how you couldn't beat those deals. And so now if you don't sign Hayward in free agency, this is headed for maybe an offseason that people.

are really, really out on. Danny Ainge is comfortable, though, Chris. He's comfortable sitting on all those assets. It's like LeBron sitting on the throne. You know, the fact that, you know, we just said it, even if fighting for the second best team in the Eastern Conference, it does, there's so many of them. I mean, there's so many assets.

You know, he has the number one pick next year. You know, he has, it could be the Lakers or the Sixers, the number one pick the next couple of years. he's got a bunch of young assets. So maybe the window for LeBron, and as you mentioned, Mago West starts to get older when he does these next few years. I think, you know, I feel crazy that he didn't go and get Paul George. He shows the market, though.

The market was Ola Depot. That's all it was. So he wasn't, he didn't have, I'm sure he didn't have an agreement that Paul. He's just by LeBron James anymore. And there looked to be the Celtics and the Wizards in the Eastern Coffee. What's a percentage chance that that Pacers deal does not look as bad as it does on the surface. Like that Ola Depot or Subonis becomes a much better player

than I think people give them credit for possibly being able to be, right? If that makes sense. You know, that one of those two guys becomes way better than they're giving credit for while the trade's taking place. What do you think? I think what's more likely to make the deal look good from the Pacer side is if Paul George leaves. Because then you gave up two players.

Yeah, everybody in the NBA extremely down. This organization that everyone praises signed Victorolo Depot before for 84, so they saw something. Can they be at the size at this point? It's only one year into his career, and Victorolo Depot has not an athletic guy that can get you a lot of points. So which one breaks out? I don't know, but some optimism there.

Oladip was only a four-year. George Leaves, you gave up two guys for nothing. I mean, they traded, although everyone said they won that, Gibson moves on to the Bulls, now you have that. You've got to, you know, this is a long-term game here. And people didn't do a lot for us. Let's have one year of Paul George's size and get better. So, you know, he seems like the guy that can, but he plays to his potential.

All right, so we saw Jimmy Butler get traded. We saw Paul George get traded. But when all this free agency stuff started, the big shoe that was going to drop is Gordon Hayward, and it has not happened yet. But before we go on, I'll get you our Captain Morgan's moment of the week. And it was this weekend emoji wars. We had Rudy Gobert. We had Isaiah Thomas.

We had Hassan Whiteside all getting involved, tweeting emojis, talking about championships. Obviously, all recruiting the player. Gobert wants him back. Isaiah wants him in Boston. You got Whiteside that wants him in Miami. I love the emoji. Wars. That being said, I did wonder about the Joe Inglis deal that happened over the weekend. Because people have told me that that's like his best buddy on the team, which is interesting

because when I was watching NBA TV last night, one of the things I said about Lowry was that him and DeMar de Mauda Rosen are like really close. Like they're friends, friends. And you do wonder, Like, that is, I wonder if that's going to play a part in this. They say that George Hill was as, you know, really close to him too. But it seems like that could be, you know that's pretty persuasive when if you're really friends with somebody and they're asking you to come back, right? So now I wonder. And what did you think about the Joe Engels deal? The friends thing, you know, maybe we'll play in a few years.

You know, be friends on opposite teams, too, the Canadian dollars. I can sign for lots of bucks for his, you know, first big contract in the NBA, and he deserves it. He's a perfect. I never buy into that too much, Chris. And foremost, and I think he loves Utah. He is sort of a lot more than his team's trying to heat. He's probably going to shoot more than like he did. He sees the stuff because he, the idea of being sort of a one.

Declare a victor of emoji wars. Gobert, Thomas, Hassan Whiteside. Who do you think won the, uh, Gordon, Hayward Free Agency emoji war. On White Side, there's too many emojis. It was, you get to put in numbers. And, you know, that's, if you have to spell it. I go with the, I go with the Isaiah Thomas.

And it was well done. It was well executed. And I have to give a shout out to the NBA on TNT or barbecue championships. Two championships. So that was a good little ad on. All right. That was the Captain Morgan's moment of the week. No matter how you live like a captain.

Captain, Captain Morgan reminds you to. please drink responsibly, captain's orders. All right, let's move on to what some of these other teams have reportedly done in free agency so far. Timberwolves moved Ricky Rubio to the aforementioned Utah Jazz. By the way, do you like the Rubio fit if Hayward comes back there? Let's start with that. I do like it. Yeah, I think Rubio was his best.

And I'm not going to say that he can't shoot ever. You know, I still think there is a bit of a – I think he could make it work in a George Hill play. April. Good defender. I wanted to see him with Tidt. Yeah, yeah. Which would you rather have? If I just said, you know, because obviously they moved Rubio to Utah. They signed Teague to a reported

or are going to to a three year $57 million deal. Just on the face. Would you rather have Jeff Teague or Ricky Rubio? I'd rather have Jeff Teague. It's like, it's, I don't know. It's a wish. You need a guy who can shoot and Jeff. Yeah, I don't feel this strong. Jeff Teak,

you know, because I've loved I guess part of it is I've loved Jeff Teague in the past and watching him with the here in Atlanta where I live so fun in the 2015 season when they won 60 games. He was a key part to just continuously keep moving that ball and that would better work well in Minnesota

and he was part of a good defense. Everybody says Ruby's fatigue and that's true but you know, team can do a lot of things but it just seems like he didn't have a great year last year with the Pacers although the numbers are fine and he shot the ball a little bit from three-point land, you know, like just over one three a game.

So then Rubio, so flexing to me, whether they go get Tosh Gibson, ridiculously tough guy, but a mid-range shooter. Carl Anthony Town is their best, a little bit more room than Ricky Rubio. So I suppose in that fit, I'd take T,

although he's been in the league forever, where he's not told he's being traded year after year. You know, it didn't start well with injuries in his career. Well, the interesting thing, right, is like you, I think we all wonder, amidst all of it, I am most fascinated in what happens with Wiggins over the course of the next couple of years, right? Because you know Towns has got to get the touches and the shots and you know Butler's getting touches and shots. Teague's not a, I don't, I mean, I guess he's not your typical, just, you know, get every,

run the offense kind of set up old school point guard. I mean, he's a guy, you know, he's got offense too. He's going to take shots. And so how does Wiggins fall in all of it? I really don't know. It'll be fascinating to see it. It feels like Rubio darting that ball around everywhere might have been better for Wiggins in the

situation, right? Less shot than Teague. That's totally true. Great ball mover. I mean, Teague is a guy Horford and Nilsap got their replicate and, you know, he's only 29, so he's not an oldie. And that system will

fit him well. But Rubio is definitely a bit of a better passer. I guess they just, they wanted a little bit better shooting, which makes sense. You know, you kind of have, you have to respect Pete, but he's not, he doesn't want to take that shot all that time either. You kind of, you can go under sometimes. And that's the worrisome part is, you know, that will seem is going to be fun, it'll be fun. But the other side is dude. And then how is Wiggins's three guy now? Is that good for him to have a little bit less spotlight and just be sort of a slasher or there's going to be no room on the floor for him to slash. All right.

So let's get to the Warriors. Usually when you win big, you know, there's the necessary evil is that you don't get to keep it all together. But we come out of the weekend and the reports are Livingston's going to be back. Aguadala is going to be back. David West is going to be back. Are you surprised they're able to run this all back? No.

It's crazy. It's crazy. Not because, you know, when you have a guy like Grant come. Yeah, they just forgive them everybody. Just give them a draft. Just being, and then, you know, I know this guy doesn't have a big name,

but Dwayne Dedman from, what kind of hope do you have other than? Dude, if Carmelo ends up in the Western Conference, too, come on. I mean, come on. Why is there even an Easter conference? Outrage it. I mean, they come on.

And they would run out, I suppose, what you do would run. run out Chris Paul, like you want to talk about positionless basketball. You'd run out Chris Paul, PJ Tucker. Well, hell, they got Trevor Reza too. And you'd have Paul George and Mello and then surely they'd have to give up Capella and a deal. Like, come on. You can't get to keep him too, right? I don't, I don't even know how they end up. I don't, I'm done thinking about how Darrell Moray can pull it off. He probably can. But good grief. If Carmelo ends up in, uh, in the, in the Western Conference, this is going to be the most bizarre offseason where just everybody

ends up in the West. Yeah, it's like they traded to 18 players. They're losing guys, but $11 million trade. I guess there has to be a three. Am I misremembering this? Or didn't Dan Tony go on like a podcast with Woge earlier this year and pretty much blame Carmelo for New York, right? Like when it was...

Well, yeah, yeah, it wasn't that long ago. I mean, he's apparently Mello said it's either me or Mike. that MD and Mello want to be buds again. And you said the Eastern Conference obviously get a heck of a lot weaker, but would the Knicks lose more games? Probably not, and there'd be... Melo needs... It would be so fun for us as basketball fans to see Mello in that Olympics.

There's going to be so many guys that are on Win East. It'd be strange to see him in New York next year. Let's put it in. If you're Cleveland, would you give up love to get him? It's a straight-up love. Sub and Mello for love on that team. maybe. Maybe you would. I think love

doesn't look all that healthy at times throughout the year. He's banged up. He seems to me to be one of those guys that's not going to be watching him. He's banged up every single postseason. So I think maybe that comes into play when you think about basically what you do though is if you're playing the calves, you're going to go

on mellow out because he's... But if you're the calves, you think about that. You definitely think about Well, let's be honest. We could throw away the whatever the hell our opinions are are those two guys, you just go to LeBron and be like, all right, does this help? What do you think? Because

if LeBron wants, like, in the end, if they run it back with the same guys that get beat, you got a good chance of losing him. Whereas if you try something different and it got his blessing, right? You're bringing in his buddy, Carmelo, then maybe you got

a better chance of keeping him, right, going forward. Yeah. I don't know. He said, Brad Stevens, we know how to beat them in LeBronston. We have to fly around on defense to help each other out a lot because they don't have great perimeter defenders a lot of time, and they don't have a great five-man behind them to block shots. And that's why they tried Andrew Bogot, they tried Larry Sanders.

So I think those are the get gritty and play deep. That is not part of Mello's DNA. But Love lacks that a little bit, too. He plays hard, but he doesn't really, yeah, you're right. Would that make him happy? Sure. but I think they wouldn't, he wouldn't want to be done after that. All right, Taz, we'll get right back into more signings.

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J.J. Reddick and Amir Johnson to the Sixers. They were loaded up with young guys, uh, maybe the best. The best tweet of the weekend was J.J. Reddick with the trust the process, letting everybody know that he was going to be signed with the Sixers. One year, $23 million, so he got paid. And then they bring in Amir Johnson, which is clearly another veteran presence, right? Colangelo clearly wanting to address the fact that they don't have a bunch of vets on the team, especially with all those young guys. Do you like, it seemed like they got a lot of praise for this. you know, guys that are super professional, guys that are hard workers, guys that the young guys can look up to.

What say you on Reddick and Amir Johnson being the guys that you add as veterans for the Sixers? I don't need a long-winded explanation here. You just said at all. I think they're perfect for that. A night's glue guys come in, their lunch, pale, Johnson, and Toronto. And even though Amir Johnson, the time is because he's on the big guys, and JJ Reddick's work ethic will do exactly the same. he's got an infamous work.

He won't stop trying to get better, and that's how he stayed in the league this long. A funny thing with the salary cap that they can give these sort of inflated contracts to a couple guys because they're way below the salary. He's will pay you $23 million, JJ Redick. Other teams were offering him. Somebody that's starting to be,

Embed and Simmons, oldies, plus, especially in the East, Tass. I mean, you're going to have to, it's going to be harder. It's going to be harder to, not make the playoffs in the east. Like, who is good?

Who is good? Like, once we get, all right, so Cleveland's going to be good. Toronto's going to be good. Boston's going to be good. Am I done? Is the list? Washington. Oh, Washington, for sure.

Okay. Is that what? Those four, you're right, though. Is that four teams? Where we are confidently, they are going to be good. You're right. The Sixers should try and lose and see if they can miss the playoffs. that you're, it's probably harder for them to miss the postseason in the East with all that talent.

I just want to see them stay healthy. Oh, you know what? I don't want to, I don't, the bucks will be, the bucks will be pretty good. Oh, bucks. Yeah, the, and the heat will be pretty good. Yeah, that's true. The Hornets. The Hornets have Dwight Howard.

The Hornets have Dwight Howard now. What does that mean? Not much. No, I was just saying they have Dwight Howard now. I didn't. I wasn't making any extra comment. I was just saying that. everybody can just make up their own mind on that whatever that means i'm just going to leave

the sentence there the the hornets have dwight hour then you can decide yeah you know what if anybody can make him worth the shit it's going to be cliford i i do believe that i do believe that yeah yeah i i do believe that all right i was i was shocked that uh we talked about the paul deal earlier with him going to the rockets i was pretty shocked that blake griffin got the to full on five years. I mean, damn, he's had 500 million injuries. And the t-shirt that they wore, how on earth did they let that become public? First of all, how do you wear the t-shirt with like Nelson Mandela and who else was on it?

Was it like Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali and Gandhi and, yeah. Is that how you have, have you typically viewed Blake Griffin? is the same level of pioneer as so many of those that were immortalized on the t-shirt with him? Yeah, totally. That's exactly who he is. By the way, what is he a pioneer of? Well, making the clippers relevant, I guess. Oh, okay, okay.

But that's actually how, you know, TV execs in the meeting. They showed up with Canadian legends on the shirts, like Wayne Grisky. John Candy. John Candy, Alanis Morrissey. Oh, yeah. That jagged little pill. What an album.

What an album? Who else was on the Canadian shirt? Did you say Trebek? Trebek, right? Terry Fox. Legendary Fox. Justin Bieber. Oh, for sure.

And then they just had you guys, then they just had the starters with the other famous Canadians? Oh, actually. If you're Blake Griffin, you are not flattered by that, right? Like, if you're Blake Griffin, you're... I think he... I think it was a joke. I think...

Okay. I think it was a sincere... Blake Gris-done stand-up. He would look at it and say, ha-ha, that's funny. He knows his play. He doesn't really think he's anywhere close to having that. If I was on a shirt, if they made a shirt like that with me on it, I would wear it every day. if my face is on

with all these great leaders in history or something yeah I guess what you're right I mean I didn't expect five years for Blake at this point either

but I guess it's like don't want to be a laughing stock anymore and they want to legitimize their franchise they just want to be you know a team like you know the the pastry or the mad that continued to pay Dirk or whoever you know

they just want to give sort of a legacy contract even though he's a young buck still, just to show. And everybody knows that. When Blake Griffin is healthy, he is a fantastic player. It's just like all the time you're hearing people compare it to Amar Estademeyer and say that's what this is. This is Amari all over again.

And it would probably be good for a couple years, but you are going to rue the day those last couple years of that contract when he is getting paid, you know, upwards of 40-something million dollars. which I could see that being true. The difference is to me, the knee injuries have Blake. It's been the equipment manager and with the clippers. So some strange injuries. But, yeah, the NBA landscape, there's going to be guys.

Maybe Blake's one of those guys, potentially one of those guys, you know, a Brandon Roy type of. It could be, man, it could be. All right, the big report last night. This last one will cover is Millsap. Three years, $90 million. So he got a massive contract, too, reportedly. will sign with the Denver Nuggets.

Nuggets were right on the outside looking in. A, does this make them a solidified playoff team for the upcoming season in your mind? I'd imagine most people will have it that way. And B, thoughts on the fact that that is, you know, when you saw this being bandied about a lot last night, he was the last of the five starters from that 60-win Hawks team, which was just a couple of years ago. is I think if you would have, if you had taken a snapshot at the moment with that team

won 60 games and said none of these five guys will be wearing hawks uniforms in two years time, that would have been unfathomable. But here we are. So first things, and I know, listen, you have watched and paid much more attention being in Atlanta to Millsap than many have. First, him getting that deal with Denver, what it does for Denver, and then the whole 2015 Hawks being completely disbanded by now. Millsap is great. Ball Handler, Spenn. He can do it all.

He can have a combo. They're going to be one of those rare teams in the NBA that focus pelicans with Anthony Davis and DeMarcus cousins. He got the nugs. So that'll be fun as just to happen. Yeah, he's perfect as a really good number two or three guy.

That being said, I don't think they're a lot for the postseason. There's just too many stinking teams, Chris. They, Pan China, Houston, likely O K. C or are still good. The pelicans are going to get better.

The wolves, obviously. They're going to be fighting for it. They should be there. They should be good enough. This is a team, I'm sure, even as a guy who,

you know, that's one team that's kind of enough of. Mountain time. They're going to be fun to watch. Well, they need Moodye. They need Moodyee to be good.

They need him to turn really good. You know. Yeah. Well, I don't think that's happening. I know, but, I mean, they needed Jemir to save them last year. Yeah, I know. You know, I think they have hope in Jamal Murray.

Shout out, incredible score. They've got, you know, he was rumored. And as far as the, it was a fun run. It was a really funny. They've given it up. You know, they traded Dwight. They're going downward, you know, trying to make the 60 games for wins. But, you know, there's still a lot of games where.

Oh, breaking news right here at the end of the podcast, as we're wrapping up recording, Adrian Ward Janowski from ESPN just reports. Chauncey Billups withdraws his name from consideration for Cleveland's president of basketball ops job. So I guess he's happy on TV or I guess he thinks that LeBron ain't staying. God, that's, I mean, if LeBron's not staying, that job stinks. You don't want any part of that thing. Yeah, that's the risky part of some part of that Dan Gilman.

Yeah, and that's what I'd worry about, right? Like, that's what that story tells me. You know Billups knows all those guys. you know he knows Maverick, you know he knows everybody, and you know he said, listen, I ain't taking this thing if y'all are going to be gone, let me know. And clearly nobody gave him the, yo, take it, we ain't going anywhere.

Because if you know LeBron's there, you take the job. End of story. And you know he did his due diligence on that. So that's what would freak me out if I'm a Cavs fan. Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds crazy because it sounds like Conti Boulbs is a big name, but David Griffin was underpaid. Yeah, you're right, though.

If LeBron wants to stay and you know that, why not take the offer? But you're buying the possibility of LeBron leaving. What do you think the chances? If they don't win the title, I think good. Yeah, I know. You know why? We can't underestimate it.

Because I, did you watch that thing they did in the barbershop? The thing with Draymond and Charles Oakley and Maverick Carter. there and everybody's there. Like at one point, all right, it's great. You usually look it up on YouTube. It's like they did it for whatever his thing is. What is it? Uninterrupted or something.

But I think they ran it on ESPN. Anyway, it's this barbershop talk, and they're just talking about all manner of things. But there's this moment where LeBron talks about going back to Cleveland and basically how he did it in spite of, or I don't want to say in spite of it, but basically his mom and his wife both said, screw that.

And mom said, I'm staying in Miami. You can do whatever you want, right? And the wife, like, they really, they, the people around him did not get over the Gilbert letter and the whole Benedict Arnold stuff and whatever else. And he was like, and I told him it's bigger than them. And it feels kind of like if those are the, if the people around you still hold a grudge, right? And then you have the whole Griffin thing that just took place, which clearly,

did not make him very happy. I just, I don't know. There's something in the back of my mind goes, they're not, he can now, it felt like when he was tweeting that out when Griffin was gone, you know, if nobody else respects you,

I do, whatever, that it kind of, it's almost like he can flip this around completely, that once upon a time, they were burning his jerseys for leaving, and now if he goes, they'll end up hating Dan Gilbert for it.

And so it's like the ultimate flip of the script. and I could see that happening. Yeah, I'd say this about LeBron. He doesn't care about convention. He doesn't care about your thing right now. Like in the back and just march to the beat of his own drummer, he does his old thing. Now, the flip side of that is because of the way this last week's played out,

it's like, why? Just stay there. He could play 50 games a year and be in the NBA finals for the next five years. Yeah, and if you want to do that, he will. will. I think that if you leave, he's got to go to a good situation. He's not, he's not going to go to try it out with him. He's not going to go to Miami now. He's going to go to somewhere that he's either playing with his buzz or there's a situation where he can win a chance. You're right. I mean, he can he can moonwalk and stroll to the Eastern Cost of finals. It sure seems like year after

year. So why leave? Unless there's, there's something else that he wants to achieve. He He wants on that LeBron resume when it's all said and done. But you're like, why I leave now? Unless he's pissed, unless he's really, really pissed at the organization. And you mentioned, you know, the Gilbert letter that was on the website for four years or whatever it was. Now they don't have a GM. Something strange there. He is Tasmelis watching on NBA TVs.

The starters, I know you just added a baby to the mix at home. So I'm deeply appreciative of you doing this today. on the child. Thanks a lot, man. How excited. I'm a great poop cleaner. I'm like LeBron. I just clean up people's mess.

That's what I do. Go get some sleep. Thanks, Taz. Thanks, Chris. All right, brother, that's going to do for another ringer NBA show. If you dig what you're here. Go give us a rating and review on iTunes, and we will talk to you next Tuesday. Podcast today brought to you by Hotel Tonight.

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