The Ringer NBA Show - The Most Intriguing Draft Outcomes. Plus, Austin Reaves Re-signs and Next Questions After the Giannis Trade. | Group Chat

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann are here after night one of the NBA draft to discuss some of the most interesting selections from the first round. They discuss the top four picks, the run of guards, and discuss some other selections that caught their eye. Then they talk about Austin Reaves re-signing with the Lakers and answer some next questions for the Bucks and Heat after the Giannis trade. (00:00) Intro(4:08) Most intriguing draft outcomes(58:29) Austin Reaves re-signs(1:07:30) Next questions after the Giannis tradeHosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle MannProducers: Victoria Valencia, Isaiah Blakely, and Ben Cruz Buy any two Ferrero Brands and you could win $1 million. Visit GoAllInAndWin.com to learn more. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man, Kyle, who hasn't left that couch for multiple hours. We flipped on the Zoom and he was just there straight to camera talking about Henry Vissard. Yeah, man. That's the thing about, you know, parenthood, don't stop. Yesterday was my son's sixth birthday on the night of the draft. Happy birthday, buddy. It was like a, it was like a, it was like. It was like, you know, a sitcom where I'm like running around to different parties and just making everybody unhappy with the with so anyway no it was good so uh but yeah we finish at what two 30 in the morning and then up at 7 30 to take him to camp and we're just we're going man you know we're asking who has a hard out i said i might just pass out i might just hard pass out at some point but i'm ready to roll i think there's a decent chance you die doing what you love which is doing draft breakdowns on

this podcast. Again, like, I would, I would think at this point, you have written blurbs, rewritten blurbs, mocked and remocked, potted with us and Bill and other parties several times through these players. Is there a single, like, non-top three guy who you think you have talked about or brought up the most more than anyone else in this draft? Oh, dear God. No, I think what keeps coming up is guys that I've had lower. People keep going like, what about that? And asking me about Chris Sannack and Kareem Lopez. So I've kind of just kind of walked those circles a whole lot and then quaintance there's guys we can get into but um man i'm i'm just loopy honestly right now i would do do you all like talk to yourselves around the house or just do like

stuff like that when you're when you're i didn't unfortunately byproduct of working from home too much and also having just podcasts in your ears all the time it's just i think i've just become a bumbling old fool at this point oh yeah well especially if you have a pet if you have a dog then you can project your inner thoughts outward and it doesn't seem as insane but obviously it's insane This is some sad shit. I gotta be honest. This is who we are. I don't want to tell you.

I was like singing songs. I did like a prolonged just. I was just singing a song as I was changing clothes and I was like, dude, you are in outer space right now. I was like, you are just out there. My favorite part of the draft, I think, was when we were really in the thick of things, Kyle was just banging out blurbs. And then Rob is out there just like trying to get off his like cutesy text about like Darius Acuff. Like it was really like Rob like, oh, this is fun and exciting.

I know this guy. and then it's like cut to Kyle just like draped in blood like he's the DMX album cover. Or it's the guy sitting next to Jesus meme basically. I didn't even see that text. I was just so in the zone. So whatever cute text you made, I gave it the old Marshawn Lynch arm bar. I didn't even see it.

Sorry, buddy. You want to ride it off now? No. I'll let you give you a chance. I won't and I won't be rescinding it. In fact, I'm going to unsend it from my group chat. So you never get to see my bits.

Must not have been that cute, really. Yeah, that's true. All right, we're going to get to a lot of stuff today. In the back half of the pod, we're going to talk some Janish trade ripple effects, go through all the next steps from the biggest trade thus far in the offseason. But first, we've got to talk about the drift. So we're going to go through some draft. Most intriguing outcomes, we'll do that right after the break.

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Official rules apply. Learn more at go all in and win.com. All right. I want to talk about a bunch of stuff here because surprisingly enough, this felt like the type of draft where maybe the focus was on the top three, but I felt like there's a lot of interesting things happening throughout. Kyle, I have to imagine this is maybe a function of the draft being so deep, or do you feel like maybe like certain teams were in certain situations that might have led to a lot of intrigue? But I don't know, just felt like this was a more robust offering from start to finish in the draft. I don't know if robust. I mean, do you think you're saying like in terms of like transaction? Like there was a lot kind of moving and shaking? No transactions, unfortunately. We didn't get literally any player trades.

Within the draft, I mean, like how big, yeah. Yeah, but maybe it's just the function of like being more plugged into it than usual. But I just felt like there were just more names and more intriguing fits going to the point where it's just like a team like the Spurs drafts a big two of them later in the draft. And like that felt like it had more major ripple effects than typical where it's just like, oh, the Cavs just got this guy who may or may not play. Well, the depth, I think. The depth sort of begets the sort of thinking about the possibilities. And I think there's more of that than the nebulous like, you know, two years away from being two years away type of stuff. Like there's a lot of guys. There are a lot of just kind of quality role players, guys who project as quality role players starting after probably around the tin range. So I think just pie in the sky imagining those things was a little more realistic in this draft. Granted, we, we say that. that we don't know for sure. We may come back and be like, wow, we were, that's always the thing whenever we're doing grades, we're talking about, is it that the draft was really good?

Or was it just that it was consensus? So we're just sort of in our own sort of echo chamber of thinking that it's good. And maybe it won't be. Time's going to have to sort of inform those things as we go. Well, I think it does inform the decision making, at least for now, whether it ends up being true or not, teams are under the same impression. And I think you can tell some of that just by how few teams did end up trading out of, even later first round picks for the sake of getting veteran help,

I think there's enough hope that some of these guys can come in and play, if not immediately, relatively soon. Yeah. Well, I mean, one of those, and I think the most intriguing situation coming out of this, certainly as we look toward next season, is like what OKC did. I just thought, like, how do they end up getting basically exactly what they need

with their two picks? One, they actually took two guys who I think are going to be contributors for them. We thought they might not even be able to roster these guys before they dumped Darren Wiggins before the draft. But when you think about it, it's like, well, we need a little bit more juice. Clearly, Jared McCain is someone that succeeded for us. We don't know the future long term with Isaiah Joe. And so, like, we'll have a succession plan for our succession plan for our succession plan,

basically guard and they get Bennett's thirds. But getting a day Mara, Kyle, like, it seems exactly what they need, not only because Isaiah Hartenstein has one more year left on his current deal. We'll see if they bring him back. He's not a team option. Sorber didn't play next year. so they could use a backup. But if you look at, like, what their biggest obstacle is,

it's Wembe, who is a giant human, and they just drafted with their first pick at 12, another giant human who could potentially be like a guy that they just throw out there. And like, that's their counter to that. That felt like a really important pick, if not like maybe the most exciting pick. Yeah, the point I was making into grades

is that, you know, OKC is obviously going to want to run this back and just like bring back who they were during their title run because as good as that series was and their spurs were great, and they met the challenge in a lot of different ways. I think everybody watched that and kind of knew. I know Fox was gimpy. Nobody's perfect at that time of the year,

but the thunder were missing, I mean, arguably their like second offensive option. Chet really hasn't been. He's clearly sort of, I don't even know where he is in that conversation at this point has a lot to prove, but Jada was out. And, you know,

Jadab was a dude who in the finals ascended and we were just like, I remember the conversations we had about this where we were like, oh my goodness, this opens up so much. at a high level for them. They didn't get to run that back.

So not only I think do they want to go ahead and do that and be what they were before, adding Mara, and we can talk about Bennett Sturts, maybe, I don't know if he'll impact that as much in the short term, but adding Mara gives them the depth, like we said, Wimby's unavoidable, you know, and I don't even know that it's so much that Mara's going to go out there and defend Wembe. I think he's just an obstacle because I personally think Wimby would roast Mara in one-on-one situations because he's just. just so much quicker, so much bendier and things like that. That's not a super hot take.

But I do think that Mara, if they do run it back and they get similar to where they were, he also has so much offensive skill in the half court that I think he adds another wrinkle for them, which is a funny thing for a team to be in of their ilk. It's a funny position for a team like them that has so many options and so many things coming back to be like, oh yeah, we added this other compartment that could also be a legitimate thing. It's such a great developmental situation. for, I mean, obviously anyone in any position, but especially for Biggs to come into OKC. We were talking about a Daimara and what would happen if you went to the Warriors earlier this week.

That's like a pressure packed. You have to play. You are one of the like few non-Quentin post true Biggs on this roster. We need you to contribute something very specific. If he ends up playing a significant role, a minor role, if he ends up not being a part of the rotation at all next season, I think all three of those would be acceptable outcomes. And in the meantime, there's such a clear roadmap, but, between the bigs that OKC does have,

where you can see what Chet does defensively against the vast majority of the teams in the league and start to map what you bring as a Daimara onto what Chet does. And to what you're speaking about, Kyle, offensively, like Isaiah Hartenstein's high post passing, short roll passing, it sounds like that's something that Mara could potentially expand for them too over time.

So there's just a great combination of all of the infrastructure you could want as a young big, a lot of the cover that you need as a young player who's going to make mistakes, and some really good guys to learn from. in the process. Yeah, it's just like it felt like a lot of the guys who seem like they could make an impact soon, either because of where they are in their trajectory or because the role that they're

going to fit. I just landed in very intriguing situations. I think Yax-Lendon-Borg is another one. Obviously, going to the Warriors, he's just a big athlete who, despite being 24, seems like he still has a lot to figure out. Certainly, Kyle, I mean, you reference this a bunch in your draft coverage, but it seems like just maybe emotionally or maybe. maturity-wise.

That to me feels like the exact sort of thing that the warriors need because I think you could mock them a bunch of other sort of players, but they need size, especially as Drayman kind of sunsets into a different phase of his career. Yeah. But also because as we've seen so many times, like they're at their best with skill and just being able to move the ball and play their preferred curstile of offense, Lindenborg just seems to like split the baby in a way. that I think will benefit them potentially as soon as next season.

Yeah, I think so. It's a funny thing where I think we reference this to at one point that there's, there's a hilarious contradictory thing of there's, there are worries about his two biggest worries are his age and then his maturity. It's like that's really, and maybe it's that they, those two things just kind of come together to create an even more exacerbated megazort of worry where you're just like,

damn, if it was just one or the other, that'd be okay. but he adds a lot of things. I mean, he's going to add a spot-up shooter. I know he can do that stuff. I know he's a good connective passer. He's a really versatile defender. So I think the veteran kind of leadership of that team is going to create a nice kind of construct for him to fall into.

He's kind of in the, like, if you look at the Christian Linnaeus, and he the guy that did like the kingdom phylum class thing with the animal taxonomy. You know what I'm talking about? I know what you're talking about. I don't know who you're talking about. I think it was Linnaeus. I believe you. Do you get that straight off the dome on like two hours sleep?

Kingdom Philem class, order family, Gina, species. Let's go. So if we're talking about, if we're talking about where he is in the, in the sort of taxonomy of forwards, he's kind of over here in like a Marcus Morris, PJ Washington, but he has a little more. I don't know what you want to sprinkle in there with the self-creation stuff that he shows, but that's the type of player that he is. So very, very skilled, very dynamic. And I think the Warriors will get a lot out of him.

Can we circle back to Bennett Sturts for a second? Absolutely. So where in, I mean, first of all, the fact that OKC, I believe gave up two seconds to move up to this spot to get their guy, always of note to me. One spot, right? Just one spot. So clearly they had some intel that he might be off the board or at least worried about it of note. But where is he in the larger like Jared McCain, Isaiah Joe word cloud? Like what is it that he does potentially that those guys don't or what is it that they do that he doesn't?

Like how are these guys either redundant or kind of separating from each other? He's pace is the big thing that I would say. Jared just sort of like drowns you with get on it, get off a quick cut. Like he's a little more frenetic. A lot more energy to the way that he plays. Bennett is like a slower beat for minute type guy. Like he's methodical. He kind of gets to spots.

he kills you with just micro transactions and pick and roll. He just sets people, lures them into his pace. He makes contact with the screen. He also the thing that I've mentioned on other shows elsewhere too is just that he probably, he carried one of the biggest pick and roll loads in college basketball for like the last four years. He also played an insane amount of minutes. He was always surrounded by guys that he was elevating in sort of helio kind of settings. he's going to, for the first time, have a chance to show the thing that I think he'll

give the most impact with, which is just his shooting. He's, he is a great shooter. He's a really compact motion. He gets into his action really quickly. I think that that's going to be helpful to OKC pretty early, pretty quickly. So I'm interested to see if these two picks, it kind of, it makes me wonder about how those two picks affect the topitch. Granted, you know, Topich has things going on outside of his control. I don't know if he like heard his back skateboarding. I don't know the story there. So I may be wrong. But, uh, and then the Sorber thing. Sorber is a player that they had a lot of faith in. I'm like, are they, or are we just trying to spin all these plates and none of them are really winners or losers. It's just we see what we get as we go. Could be. Yeah.

I mean, we've talked about this a bunch, but certainly with Kays and Wallace and some of his comments coming out of the like end of season press conferences, but like it's not just disease of more that they're going to have to deal with. I think they're just going to have to deal with the fact that like there are so many good players on here and not of these guys are going to play to the point where you have to wonder if like have they just already moved on from sorber uh sam presdi had a very sam preste type comment about like the the value that they have with picks and they always want to just get the most out of those situations because they're so it's such precious resources for any franchise let alone a small market team that is going to go out and like swing in free agency and i get all that but i have to imagine certain guys feel a certain way and thomas sorber who did didn't get to play, but was still drafted highly last year, probably sees himself as a big part of this. I think Dan Wojke of the Athletic had a good piece about him, learning how to win from the bench as he was watching the Thunder kind of unfold in front of him. Just like, so what? Like maybe I have

to fight for even backup minutes at this point. Maybe the Thunder have this all laid out, Rob. Obviously, they think about these things to the level that, like, I find like super impressive. There's just a logistical acumen. And like maybe Hartstein goes and then all of a sudden it's Mara and Sorber. And maybe this is all for not, all this worry. But this seems like just like a real abundance problem that I've never seen a team have to really deal with. Yeah, I mean, they're the one roster maybe in the entire league right now that feels like

fully future-proofed in that way where, yeah, they do have the contingencies on contingencies. They have the option of like, okay, if we do need to trade Isaiah Hardenstein, if we do want a trade or at least kick the tires on moving J-dub at a certain point, if we need to move Kaysen Wallace, all of the backups are already installed. And so then you can be really, like, experimental in terms of what the returns are on some of those deals. But also you just, I think you insulate yourself from a lot of problems. And that's something I was thinking about with this pick as well, with Bennett Sturts. It didn't end up being a big deal in the playoffs because Isaiah Joe just, like, didn't have a good run.

Jared McCain, obviously had some incredible moments. But those two guys on the floor together actually were like a nice combination in the regular season. And so when you're thinking about what gets the thunder through the first 82 in a way where you know, hopefully J-Dub is even healthier at the end of the season. Hopefully, Shea can be even fresher at the end of the season. Some of it comes down to just stringing together some of these lineups of guys who may technically be 9th or 10th or 11th guys in the rotation, but all of a sudden you throw them out there together in certain combinations

and they just work. These are deeply competitive human beings at the end of the day, and they all think that like they should be at a certain level. Yeah. And this is just not even just like the NBA. This is like just like a human man problem. in the world, right? Like you throw an open ESPN job out to a bunch of journalists

and they will fucking shiv and stab all over the place just to get that, right? Y'all should hear this things JV says before this pod starts about how he's the alpha of this podcast. And does he need to sit down? He told me he thinks he should be hosting the Bill Simmons podcast. I heard that too.

I thought that was a little rich. I just started making progress and you guys are going to throw me under the bus here. All right, thanks. All right, who else am I going to talk about? Do you want to finish out the Michigan guys? I know they're like bigger, like, we didn't talk about the top three yet. We didn't talk about the guard tier.

We'll get to all that. But I found like this part of the draft, Kyle, was the most intriguing because like things kind of took a curve when the Dallas Mavericks took more as Johnson. Obviously, Dusty May, our guy, Dustin May is out there in Dallas. And like, clearly this might have shown that like maybe he thought Mores was the best player on his team and maybe not Yaxel or even Mara. That was insane. Sorry, Kyle, not to cut you up, but like the idea.

How dare you? Well, look, we were just talking about how rare it is to get a college coach in this kind of situation to begin with. Then his team has a chance to draft one of his three favorite players and they have to go in front of the basketball world and pick favorites. I don't know that we've ever seen that before. I don't. I think it must have been in place or he must have been at the top of their board before because it would be really stupid to hit yourself to a contract like that. and just because of a coach. I mean, I don't see that.

I mean, I think it's probably just a nice additive where it's like, okay, and all, it's a bonus that, okay, yeah, he knows Merez because Moresz was coveted by all kinds of people, but I was curious to flip it. He was, he was on one of my, like, most intriguing list just because, and I would flip this back to, I guess you were, I would as the Dallas guy, or I don't know if you pay more attention to Dallas than other teams, but the thinking here, what do you think, I was curious about what because he he adds some things that you know they have PJ on the watch it's just i don't i'm curious to see like i'm curious what the thought process was what you think it might have

been i think it's probably a level of insulation i mean my assumption would be that the hope is that he and cooper are the forwards together long term and that this is yet another to invoke the name again kind of PJ Washington type flexible defender where they can move him around the board a little bit where he can take some of the assignments off of Cooper's shoulders so that he doesn't have to guard, you know, the best three's in the league, if that's a viable thing that Meres Johnson can do kind of on a regular basis. But I'm, I mean, I'm still trying to figure out who he is offensively. Like, is he just going to be kind of a pick and roll finisher? Is there any more flourish to his game that you think can play off of the versatility of someone like Flagg?

Somebody, I don't know if I should say this one, I guess, but I'm going to. Somebody texted me, I won't say, who, that he's like SSRI. beef stew, basically. Jesus Christ. All right. He's a calm human being, but he also plays with, it's a little more contained fury. Like he's very aggressive.

He's nasty around the basket, but his offense is kind of in that realm. It's like he tries to dunk everything, great screener. But I think the defensive versatility is, you mentioned him guarding bigger three, I think like bigger playmaking kind of forwards, Merez is going to be a great weapon to have on your,

on your tool belt. So, yeah. I thought a lot about the guys who are making the picks at this point. Messiah Jerry, what do we know about his player type? It's just literally six, nine guys who have skill and their physical and like make an impact defensively.

I thought it was funny that the Raptors, I want to get to this later, but the Raptors just kept doing that by getting Alan Graves later in the round. It's like, oh, we're turning the page and still trying to, to do the same thing that we've been trying to do for 10 years, but with Bobby Webster in place there. So that's one, but Mike Schmidt's obviously now in charge there as the GM. I know is Mike a little bit from his time up here. And the one thing that I've always appreciated about him is that he's been very steadfast in his convictions. I think when you're in that seat, I think a lot of the

time you can get pushed around based off of like what you should do or perhaps what your owners want to do. Mike was always like, this is my one shot. I'm going to just pick the guy. I'm going to just pick the guys that I believe in. He's like, fuck it. I like Yonge. I'm going to pick, we're going to pick Yom. Right. And so I think that kind of like fueled this where a lot of mocks, Kyle had like Braden Burry's in this. Obviously the guard tier, we all thought it would go in succession. Zagging, I guess slightly. It seemed like some people did like Morez more than others. But like to me that spoke to me. We were just like, oh, he probably just likes this guy and they're just going to do whatever they want. That was the, that was the sort of, you know, diverging train tracks thing that I was

curious about was like there must have been some threshold with the quality of the guards there because their half court offense does need help. I mean, whether or not, and you know, and then you've got Kyrie coming back from injury. We know Cooper made a lot of progress as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, processor of the NBA game, which we knew that he would. But that was kind of, that, that line was what I was curious about was like they didn't really, I guess they didn't want to sign up for, you know, they didn't want to enter the small guard business any further than they already are. So I guess but Merez. Merez makes a lot of sense defensively.

Maybe they'll just try to answer that question and through other avenues. Yeah. What do you want to do next? Can we talk about the Grizzlies? Sure. I think in particular, because we talked about Cam

with the prospect of like what would happen if the Jazz drafted him and where does he fit into that kind of complicated mix of size and skill and how would all that fit together. I mean, this is really energizing in a way that I think like the Grizzlies are a team that clearly need a bad,

bankable, dependable element in their rotation, a way to, like, truly pivot away from the John Morant era into something new and even more exciting. And we can talk, go back and forth, I think, on which pieces are involved in that sort of like core, young core that they have going. But just the idea of Camboozer, Cedric Coward, Zach Edie, Jalen Wells, that's a really interesting collection of players, really skilled, really talented, really good defensively, potentially. I'm just, like, excited to watch the Grizzlies in a way that. I wasn't even expecting coming into this draft. I think the Grizzlies are going to be fascinating going forward

and perhaps might be the most interesting case study in how the lottery new rules kind of ripple into teams that are trying to rebuild on the fly light, the Grizzlies. And so Cam obviously has a lot going for him. Kyle had him number one on his board. We talked about how he would fit into Utah. Honestly, it's so funny, like I'm so anchored and thinking about him into Utah now.

It's almost like I have to rewrite my brain trying to force him into Memphis. this, but clearly it feels like they have something going very well, but they still ultimately will need a driving force. And I do wonder if they're the worst type of team where because of their market, they can't just import this guy in free agency. They really need to draft their way to that. How are they ever going to get the drink stirring talent like a Darren Peterson or like the next version of John Moran? Because it seems like what they've built is a really nice context for that. What they're going to need is that thrilling, exciting pop. And it just be a very big.

becomes a little bit harder because the lottery is the way it is in order to get that. And if you're in this market, like, I just don't know how else it's going to happen. Well, can I float an idea of how they might get that guy? Please. Not only do they own all their own picks. They have five additional first round picks over the next five years as a result of, you know, the Desmond Bain deal and now the Jaron Jackson deal. And some of those could be potentially pretty juicy, especially with the flattened odds,

where, you know, you're looking at a swap for a team like Cleveland or Minnesota or something. And in theory, that's not a great pick, but a couple of injuries, maybe one of those teams ends up in the late lottery. Maybe the Eastern Conference is even more competitive than expected. Crazy things can happen. And I think some of these picks could end up being bundled together into something at least pretty enticing. Maybe not for the premier guards in the league, but like a good, as you say, like driver of offense that fits their timeline. I think they could be in the market for some of those guys with the combination of those picks, plus a lot of other good players in the mix here with Scotty Pippen Jr. and Ty Jerome and all these guys.

They can put something together that could entice a lot of teams. Does the stability of Camboosur affect the possibility or the value of John Morant at this point? Because your leverage is pretty damaged, obviously. And you just kind of think like, not only is this,

like I keep using the term mouthwash for this show for our audience, swish and spit, not only is he that. It kind of makes me wonder if he is enough of, you know, a structure force for a team that he could affect the way job fits into this team. I mean, I'm just wondering. Just for the audience listening at home, is that a Moorhead State zip up that you have on? Yeah, man. Go Eagles.

Because it seems like you really want them to figure this out with Jod. Morehead State? Morehead State got crushed by Jock, actually. They were in the same conference as him. But they were just like, kindred spirit. Yeah, they're just like local teams. because it seemed like in your, I think what was your last mock, you were touring with the idea of like what have Jha played with Peterson. At the very least, you keep the flame alive in the way that I think few people are with Jah who are just kind of ready to turn the page because it's been such a catastrophe of late. I'm just like, is there an act too?

I mean, how old is he? He's probably 26. Is he 26 right now, John Moran? So just if you're not going to get a great return for him, I just kind of wonder if that is a zag that could happen. and if it did happen, I mean, the spacing on that team, if you think about it, Boozer can, if you have a shooting four or five like that, you have a bunch of shooters around them, you have a lot of length and size.

You've got this guy who, I guess it all just kind of depends on who Jha wants to be at this point because there's no team out there that sees him in his mind's eye, the same way that he does in his own mind's eyes. So I'm just kind of like, is a come to Jesus kind of pivot for his value seems like the smartest thing to do? Is he going to come to that conclusion, you know, that that's kind of what I'm I'm wondering. That's the deal. I mean, for all of the talk about how they need to move on or they can turn the page and weren't kind of engaging in some of that, finding a taker for Jha, I think is much more

challenging than sitting around and hoping and praying he can just be a little better and a little more attuned to what the team needs. Like maybe you just do hold out that prayer because the alternative, if they did put him on the market, a lot of teams just are straight up not interested, incredibly wary of the Jahn-Mrant experience. I think you're getting something probably worse than what the Hawks got for Trey Young. I don't even know that you're getting a C.J. McCollum level player in a John Morant deal at this point. If that's the case, you might as well see if he can be good and responsible, at least to a degree, in the way that a professional basketball team requires. Well, the good thing is that if that holds true, then Jai is in line for a $200 million extension.

It's true. Good work. If you can get it. Right. Do you want to do the flip side of this? Because in Utah, yet again, they stared a draft prospect in the face. as he was like, I don't know if I want to go there. And they're like, ha ha, ha, ha. And they cackled and they high-five the angels themselves. And then it just took Darren Peterson. We've talked a lot about Kim Boozer there, Kyle, and wondered, like, how that would all work out with the bigs there.

What do you think about Peterson there? Like, is the fit easier? Do you think this team could be even better next season with Peterson in there? Yeah, I think the logic behind the boozer pick was, he comes in and he you're one of the implied things about taking boozer was we're courting a scenario where we're going to have to make moves and we talked about this on this show with Peterson

I don't think that that's the case. I think that you, it's a clean basketball fit. He goes in there. I think he fits with Keonti. You'd have to figure that out. You'd have to figure out how to get those guys to play off of each other smoothly. But I think it can happen.

And I actually think it might benefit Keonti to have a little bit more that tilted away from him so he can be his true self. so he's not living and dying with like, okay, Keonté, run the show, be like an incredibly high, efficient decision maker, be and be a great score, like, please spin both of those plates. I think bringing in Peterson to play next to Ace Bailey with, you know, Lowry, with Jerry Jackson Jr., you're huge. You can shoot one through five legitimately.

And, you know, people say that all the time. It's like, no, man, I mean, like they, this is going to be a really, really long team that can kind of protect those guys. and we were talking about it with Bill and Houseless Nights. I think that they're one of the more talented teams now in the middle of the West. It's a pretty fascinating situation to be. I can't really remember a team like this that has been so dramatically unseen and different by the means that they've gone about getting to this point.

I think not just that everyone can shoot too, but all of those guys can shoot on the move in a really interesting way that fits like what Will Hardy wants to do. do in kind of the movement of that offense. One of those things that's easier said than done conceptually to just find people who are comfortable doing that at literally every position in a lineup. But I think it really suits them. I'm excited to see kind of where that action starts, as you're saying, like how much of

it starts with Keante versus Darren. But having that flexibility, I think is going to make them a really tough team to pin down, especially in the regular season. I think a lot of teams are not going to be ready to deal with everything that they're throughout you. As we've seen basically any time that the jazz were healthy enough or interested, enough to try to be good. If you think about the jazz,

if they can create, if they can find their spots where they can get into blender mode, I think the point you made about the movement shooting is really important because some guys just can't relocate left or right and shoot the ball as well. I see it all the time with prospects where I'm like, yeah, this guy can kind of shoot it, but

he needs to be set for a second and feel the win before he lets it fly. And, you know, this group of jazz guys can absolutely want to relocate. And, you know, as we've seen it, this is a popular sort of offball cutting and shifting of spacing phenomenon in the NBA. It's just like when you're a help defender and you're taking a single step towards the primary for another team, if that guy behind you is capable of taking a step or two steps to the left and shooting it 38, 40 percent from three,

that's a big difference between, you know, a guy who can just take a stationary shot. And these guys all have quick shots, too. So it's interesting on a lot of levels. It's a thrilling proposition what they could do together, both George and Peterson. I think with Boozer, there was something spiritually synchronistic to jazz teams in the past where it's like just methodical and efficient and exacting. But the two of them together, like I was trying to think of like, when's the last time we had these just like two zippy guards who could really just like fill it up

quickly playing off each other, dueling banjo's style? Like it doesn't really happen much anymore. if anything, it's usually more of like a heliocentric creator plus the other guy who goes in and just reeks have it, the Kyrie and the Luca types. Like, I don't know. There's just like something there that could be scintillating. The flip side of that, though, is like, how often do we see these together perhaps because of the overlap and because it takes like a certain personality, I think to play with that sort of like ferocity and like speed and all its other stuff. And so I do worry, especially considering what we're hearing about Peterson. On the other side of that, though, I am starting to get worried that maybe we're.

were overestimating, like, what type of a guy Peterson is just based off of, like, a pretty weird situation with Kansas. I don't know. It's a kid. He was maybe just didn't like Kansas. Clearly, he was dealing with a lot of things with his body and, like, how to manage that and how to manage that in a bureaucratic system that's just like trying to bleed him dry of money, for instance.

But, you know, it seems like at the very least, there's more room for a spark to happen when he's having to overlap with someone similar enough to him in his own back. car. Yeah, I think it's instructive for all of us to remember not to take an undue swipe at college basketball, but this is basically like, these dudes are mandated to go do something for a year while they wait to play in the NBA. And not every situation is going to be perfect. There are a lot of voices in their ears. There's a lot of conflicting motivations for everyone involved. But like, Darren Peterson's job, and this is, look, this is antithetical to how I feel about the sport in a lot of ways. And so you can sense this conflict within a lot of college players, but it's like their job

personally to themselves and to their family is to get to the NBA with the highest draft potential possible and the greatest earning potential possible. And their considerations for their teams, while important and clearly driving of like what makes, you know, a championship level squad at the NCAA level, doesn't have to be the primary concern there because it's not the end game. Like it's not where they want to end up. It's not what they're shooting for. And so judging them based on that goal as opposed to like what is going to get them to

the league, I think is missing the point for a lot of these guys. it's a funny detour when you're right. I mean, we all know what the end result is. You know, the high school thing went on for so long. And it's like college basketball is this odd thing that exists within the orbit of the NBA where you have the, there's, it's a great business, obviously, because you have these really, really old fan bases who are going to spend money. And it's, it exists. It justifies its existence based on that and the interest level as we've seen. But you're basically asking these guys.

who know that they're going to be in the NBA to do this like, hey, man, market yourself for a year. And if you're as good as Darren P. And you're like, you're fucking serious, man, I need to market. What? What? Like, I can understand how there'd be a little resentment or a lot of resentment on that front and how you'd want to just bide your time because you're talking about generational wealth. You're talking about, whereas, you know, I know college, the money's gotten better. But, you know, a million to three million dollars. It's like, it's a big difference between that and your initial rookie, rookie deal. So I understand that. And the NBA, but on the other hand, you know, the NBA values it too because in that year, that's a, there's some pretty interesting filtering that goes on in that year.

Absolutely. That can reveal personality, that can reveal developmental strain, you know, how you adjust to the speed of higher levels of organized basketball. So I see how it's a headache, but in most cases, it's kind of a, it's, it's a pretty valuable and necessary filter for the NBA. True. Listen, Peterson is a letterbox lord. He not only had favorite.

movies, but he had them straight off the dome. He knew what was happening. He had his four favorites locked in. And so he's a man of sophistication and taste. So don't let all these reports lead you astray. Okay? He loves Interstellar. Yep. He loves the Fugitive.

The Fugitive was a pole. Can we please? Can we please? I've been dying to talk about this with y'all. Interstellar is one of those like pop science. If you talk to like real science people, they're just like, give me a break. Like this is so cringe. Like the science of it?

You think the mystical time traveling bookcase isn't legit? What's funny about that movie is it seemed like they took so much effort to get the last part of the movie like scientifically correct. I think a lot of stuff is right in it. But I think people who are right, yeah. They resent them being. It's just like. But that's what makes the swerve good. Like the setting up the scientific reality to then go like, wait, but what about heart?

Anytime a movie comes in your orbit that tries to get like legitimacy. I just feel like, because I knew a lot of, I knew a lot of. people or just jazz majors. I was always the less talented person in those people's proximity, but I know a lot of them. And when Whiplash came out, I knew jazz people were just, it's not like that.

And I was like, this is a really good movie. I was like, why are you so? You know, they're just overly worried about the technical aspects of it. But Interstellar just has a like a broie. It's emotional.

It just, it checks a lot of boxes. I love that movie. It's good movie. It's like I'm not down playing. I just say that that one didn't surprise me. Fugitive, the era of fugitive is why I'm like, how did the young guy like Darren Peterson arrive at fugitive? I was like, because it played on T&T a lot, that he just kind of, maybe his dad's a film buff.

He's young enough to be watching T&T, I think, is like, or is the old enough to have like TNT on. He's probably firing that up on Netflix. NBA T&T, that was why I was thinking, like maybe the, I don't know, maybe it's just on, you turn the TV on. He's a bone guy too. Animal Kingdom guy. Suits, yeah. Waking up at 5 a.m. to charmed reruns, you know, it's all very normal stuff. But this was the clear syndication to me that, like, whatever concerns people had about

his makeup or his background, just throw them out. Like, if the Patriot, or not the Patriot, if the Fugitive is among your top three favorite movies, you were raised right, as far as I'm concerned. That's right. All right. Why don't we go to number four quickly? Obviously, that was probably the easiest pick on the board. I have to imagine, like, the Bulls' War Room was just, like, sipping my ties, just waiting

until they could just put Caleb Wilson's name in there. But I thought him plus Swain was a pretty interesting haul. I think that's what you had mocked to the Bulls with their two picks, Kyle. Like, what do you think ultimately? Like, I don't know. I know I'm a Bulls like apologist, but like, I feel it. I feel the energy kind of coursing through this franchise. You're a Bulls apologist?

Based on... Well, a giddy apologist, yeah. Oh. I think I think I have just seen the vision through a lot of smoke and hay. and like a lot of dumb stuff going on there. I see what they were trying to do. It just didn't really do it. Well, Bryson, there's just nothing.

He just started. So I'm just kind of like, if you're going on the vision of the past, I'm like, what? There seems to be a spiritual synergy to what happened before over with Kurnasovas with what I think they're kind of leaning towards, which is just athletes,

dribble past shoot guys who can defend. We're going to move up and down. We talked about this with Tate a little bit. They're like spiritual, Russo team. That seems like what they're going, especially because they went out and basically got Nick Claxton for free. Like, I think this team is going to be super fun next year. And it feels like Wilson in particular, but also like Swain, considering like what he could be, might fit this overall vision down the road. I get the sense that we're seeing a temporary look at something just because

you said dribble pass shoot. It's like there's a lot of dribble pass, but we're stacking a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of. He has to play with his face to the basket first and foremost. And then we'll get to the other stuff. Yeah, so we'll figure that out. And I was joking about this, where I was trying to think about like what Caleb and what Swain fit with on the roster. I was just like, this is a waste of time. Like, why I'm even worrying about this? Because we have a GM that's starting over, so he's probably going to shift the vision. And we've got just a lot of pieces that are clunky together. They became like a small guard offloading kind of loading zone. I don't, you know, and about taking on Dillingham and everything.

So in terms of Swain, man, I mean, that to be a broken. record here, but he's just, he's nasty. He's an upside played. I like him a lot. And I was saying that I could see him just succeeding Giddy. Like, I think that's possible. I know at that pick that might seem, for what Giddy's grown into, he just could be a cheaper guy who does more both directions. And he's a big time passer, really, really wiggly with the ball, really good score inside, you know, inside the arc. Just got to figure that outside the arc stuff. I would just say between what I think is like the three cornerstones, whatever you want to call them. Like, Bezellis, Wilson, and now Claxton all seem like they are of the same type.

Like, they're just athletes who could do a little bit. I know Claxton is like clashed glimpses of doing something before, but even if he is just an athletic run up and down the core bouncy rim protector and lob finisher, like, that all seems to work in concert to me. I hesitate to put Nick Claxton in that group. Okay. This, that trade felt so much more to me, like, let's just see if he has a little more life in him than he's shown.

Because frankly, like, all those things are within Nick Claxton. He's been a good switchable defender. He's still a young guy. He's a very young guy. That dude has been asleep for like two straight years. And no one really talks about, I'm not saying I blame him. But if you were trading for Nick Claxton under the pretense that he's going to be old Nick Claxton, it's going to be that he changes something pretty dramatically from the

guy he's been in the most recent seasons. Very possible. We've seen it tons of times. especially with teams like teams like Brooklyn where you go to a new situation you feel energized you feel invested in

and all of a sudden you start playing totally differently I'm just saying let's wait and see a little bit and that felt to me a little more like let's take a chance on not a damaged asset but a guy whose reputation has taken a spill he hasn't been exactly getting all defense votes

in the win consideration and the way that he used to let's see who Nick Claxton is in 2026, 27 I'm honestly not entirely sure I think it's a consistency issue more than anything. Will a Bulls team that seems like it's going to still be mired in sort of this like low level East team?

Like is that really the team to like unlock that? I don't know. But I just like that. They got them for free. Yeah. It's a why not for sure. The athletic like super fast. Let's just like kind of rip and run sort of style that they think that they're going to

play. Want to talk about the guards now who went after that? So we got Wogler to the Clippers. Mikelare to the Nets. A-cuff to the Kings, Fleming's. to the hawks and then i guess you could throw in buries there going to the to the bucks after mares johnson goes to Dallas which of these kyle do you think is the most interesting this kind of played out how you'd expected outside of burries going one pick maybe later um but are any of these

fits more interesting to you than others i mean i've been on record that kingston uh with the hawks that was that was the choice they had a similar choice to make as to alice where it was like you know we probably could go big or we could go guard here and they you know they you know they chose to do to go guard. I just think Kingston, I think resigning McCollum to kind of be around him also is another thing that could be cool. Kingston's just really bright. I mean, you listen to him talk about the game. I think he is a lot more methodical in the half court than he gets credit for. So you get his crazy speed and I think you get some thoughtfulness. And I think he's going to pick up the NBA game pretty quick. I just like the idea of he, they have enough creators and

They have enough big creators on that team with Jalen and then, you know, knock, I hate to say nah. I don't know. There's something about it. Kiel and Alexander Walker, I'll just go ahead and say it. They have some of those guys who can outsource some of that so that it's not

burdening him, but he's going to add a whole lot and make those guys good. So I could see that being pretty fun in the short term. Like I think that the Hawks are going to be pretty fun next year. Yeah, especially if he can give those guys just like any sort of downhill momentum to draft off of where, saw him get jammed up in the playoffs against the Knicks, right? It was when New York really battened

down the hatches and Jalen had to go ISO. Nikiel had to go ISO. CJ had to continue to go ISO over and over and over. They just ran into the wall. Those guys are not built for that kind of offense. And so anyone that can create an advantage that other people can then magnify and manipulate and play out of. I think Kingston could potentially be doing some of that pretty immediately, if not on a full-time starting level basis. He's probably going to be in like Tyree's Maxie Little brother mode for a little while with them. That's my expectation, but he'll be a pretty promising thing for them for the future. So ultimately, the Pelicans swapped Derek Queen for Fleming's, right? How do we feel about this? Because I think when it happened, it seemed like a catastrophe.

And I still think it was because there was a big possibility that this might have been a higher pick and all of a sudden it's Camboozer. And it's just like, holy shit, like this would have been a transformable guy. But just player for player, if you're the Pelham, I think you'd probably rather Queen. It's a little mixed because of who else they picked in last year's draft. Yeah. But like they seem similar level. If anything, Queen at the very least flashed as a rookie that he perhaps has like

a really high level ceiling in terms of just his playmaking juice. Well, it's Ays Anil too as well, right? It's like the combination of him in Kingston Fleming's. Unfortunately for Aes Inua, I don't know. I mean, I don't know either. But it's if we're talking about just like taking a flyer on guys and who they're going to 23rd pick, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, you talked to people around the league. I don't know if you all had conversations about this, but I'm sure you did. It was more for people I talked to, it was more just about the process. And it's about the simple logic of like, you know, if I jumped out and in the street, you know, on a busy highway and I was just like, you know, everybody was like, hey, man, you might get hit by a bus. And I'd be like, I didn't get hit by a bus. See everything? I was right. It was a good idea to do that. It's just like, no, man, like just don't jump out in traffic. Like. that that's a bad thing to do. It's like the process is bad even if the result didn't end up as

catastrophic. I don't know if that's a perfect one of one, but I'm sure there's a better one. But for me, that was everybody that I talked to, that was what it was about. Like if that pick had gone higher, I don't even know if the Kingston Derek Queen thing, I know we can do that all day and just compare them and whatever and we've yet to see Kingston. I think Derek also showed a lot of stuff this past year. I think he has some questions to answer in terms of how he can stay on the floor and be productive of a half board offense and everything. But yeah, it's, it's, the process was the thing that was the sticking point. The thing that might have bailed them out is three teams jumped into the top four.

And so then this is, this was like basically a worst case scenario for the Pelicans pick that became the Hawks pick. Optically, it just, history will look upon it a little better than they should. Hopefully so. Do you want to talk about Aikoff now? If you like. True. Going, going to the Kings.

I love it. Do you? I just, I, I think he's exactly what they need, which is just anything, any sort of juice, any sort of like leadership. Yeah. Just there are a blank slate in the way that few teams are in this day and age, considering the depth of talent in this league. And I just think he has something.

And if he's going to be that version of it, at the very least, like, they can build around him and insulate him from some of his potential defensive issues and just let him be like a, like, superstar in terms of like his ability to ride. to the moment and play to a certain stage. I don't disagree with the idea. I just think it's it's tough for any young player to come in on what is kind of philosophically a blank slate, but technically not. Like there's so many guys on this team who feel entrenched because of their deals,

who feel a little unmovable. We'll see what happens with Demar de Rosen. There's certainly some rumblings out there of what his future may or may not be with the team or the fact that he could be on the open market soon. But I don't know. it's hard to come in as a younger guy and be the energizing, collaborating, organizing force of a locker room. You can do it some as a point guard.

But other than, I don't know, Damien Lillard, have we seen a lot of young guards come in and really take on that role immediately? I think he's going to be pretty good in terms of like putting points on the board. I think he'll have nights on league pass where people, you know, that boy nice,

real hooper kind of stuff where it's just like, see, told you. I think that's going to be going on. But I think the main thing, the step one is just the stabilization. Like he's going to come in. He's got a quiet confidence about him. I think the vets will respect him pretty quickly. And then we can combine it with Justin's guy, Alex Caraband, who they took with their later

pick, which is that was an interesting like DNA of winning mindset that they took with that pick that they just don't typically do in the past. Like they haven't really done that. And so you start with. the stabilization and then we just start sort of working forward from there. Not that A-Cuff is just this like neutral, like flaccid guy. Like he's going to give you a whole lot. I think on an optimal type playoff, like really, really competitive team, you're not riding and living and dying with like whether or not he's this helio genius, whatever it is. He's probably, I think, going to play with like other

stars and be that just steady kind of force. But man, it's just crazy to think about where they are. like that 2023 team learned a hard lesson against the Warriors in the playoffs in that first round series and they run it back and we're like, all right, let's see what they do. Here we go. 2024 and they win what, 44 games again, something like that. And then it was just over. Like it really dropped out of school. Yeah. There's one lesson. They're like, see you. Got one bad grade on a final and they were just like, you know what, screw this. I'm going to go, you know, start a, start a greenhouse or something. I don't know. But it was. pretty crazy shift.

If they need any tips on the greenhouse, just let me know. Just all due respect to the vets on the Kings right now, I really don't think you matter. Like, I think they're going to last as long as their contracts last, yes. And so, like, Zach Levine will be there until he's not. DeMar de Rosen will be there as long as they need to make the math work on another trade in order to get someone else in there for his slot. And like Sabonis, I guess, has two years left on.

his deal, but, like, clearly they're out there trying to trade him. So the transition has started, and I just don't think, like, if everyone's on the same page and just, like, leaning more into A-Cuff than still trying to do deference to these guys, like, they should be fine. Can we rename him Zach Ravine? Because if you go and sign him, you've swerved into a basketball ravine. That makes more sense to me. Okay, Dad. All right. This is the two hours of sleep talking, I think. All righty. Any other intriguing fits?

Plenty of dads. Notted. Just no. You want to talk about the fit of Tim Bonteps going to the Hawks? Yeah. How do you think he's going to slot into the line up there? I think he's good, you know? I think he might need to work on a jumper a little bit, but he's a real alchemist out

there. But who's going to keep McMahon in check now? Like, I feel like there's a real vacuum he leaves behind. I think that's your job, you know? That's all tech. I mean, look, we check each other. That's an important job for anyone in the Lone Star State. But, I mean, I can be doing it on a regular basis.

I got you two to mind. Here's a question. When we look back on this draft, let's say three years, five years from now, we're always like, how did that guy fall? Like, how did he go so much later? Why didn't they see it? How could they not see it? And, Kyle, is there any guy that jumped out to you?

Maybe he didn't go in the top half of the draft or somewhere in that soft middle that you're like, oh, that's the guy that I'm betting on. I mean, a lot of people are going to point to LeBaron Phelon falling. I'll be interested to see as the like intel starts to pour out about that, like why that happened. It's possibly a result of maybe people not more clearly seeing like the scoring upside with him and a lot of his, his strengths are kind of subtle, like, okay, he's going to add a cleverness, just a less. obvious kind of offensive upside. And then, you know, he's skinny.

I could see where people were kind of dinging him on that. So he's somebody that I could see. He has a quiet kind of winning player vibe to his game that maybe he caused him to fall. It kind of reminds me of the way like Rondo fell in like, I guess, the 2006 draft. But Rondo had kind of personality issues that people were worried about. This isn't really that. I just think LeBaron Phelon, when all of this, the dust kind of settles, he's going to end up being somebody that's like,

Yeah, yeah, that was a good player. I'm not sure why he fell. If Rob, it feels like Swain could be one of those guys, too, right? Based on, at least based on the way you're kind of categorizing him, right? Kind of like, especially if some of these smaller guards don't pan out, this idea of like, oh, you had the run of all these guys and this like burly, versatile wing was sitting right there. I mean, he's still a little, we haven't seen it totally yet. I mean, he's an upside bed.

I don't think it was like crazy for him to get picked there because he just has so many things. Oh, no. roof still. But I mean in the decade out, yeah. Yeah, we could redraft and he'll be higher. That could happen for sure. Remember when the Sixers traded Jared McCain? Because they're like, eh, we don't need this on-balled juice guard off the bench.

We've got our guys. And then they just drafted a guy with juice who can handle the law. It's interesting. We make a mistake. Source subject in Philly. Yeah. Different regime, but I guess I get it. Do you want to talk about quaintence just real quickly because we mentioned him?

The Spur is just doubling down on Biggs is certainly interesting, especially considering when Quaintiffs talked to reporters after the draft, sounds like he's still, in his words, feeling pain in his knee and has to have another procedure. And so the risk here is just all over the place. That's why a guy this young and this assumedly talented would fall to number 20. But holy shit, if this gets right, like, think of it. about what happened with DeWan Blair, where like the no ACLs but ended up being like

a pretty credible rotation player for the Spurs. It's like, what about that, but like on like multiple steroids, like the absolute best possible version. Plus he could round out one of the best young talents that we've seen in this league. I'm speculating. I know for a fact that there was pressure for him to come back early. I feel like it was sooner than he probably should.

Because he came back from an ACL in less than a year. And just that body type, a big athletic guy, you know, the hard cuts, the moving around is just like, why I come back so early? I didn't really understand that. That makes me wonder if, because he didn't look right. He came back and had a game where he looked really, really peppy and dominant. And then after that it was like, something happened. Like, I think he aggravated his knee. That was a pretty, that was a pretty big talking point here. So if he does have lingering soreness, I think it's just because he didn't take his time coming back adequately the way that he should have. You also, you know,

you run the risk of getting re-injured, obviously always. That's possible, especially with, like, springy guys of his type. We've seen that with, like, Robert Williams, who slipped in the drafts. But, yeah, man, I mean, he's, he's so, so nasty around the basket and takes such just violent offense to anyone else scoring around the rim that he's going to add immediately a wrinkle for them that is much needed. And if you can get a talent like this, I said it on Bill's show, I'll say it again. Legitimately, it is possible that we could look back on this drafts. We're going to redrafts.

And he could be like in the five range. He's that talented of a defender. And I just think he's really, really special. And it really isn't a Kentucky thing. Like, I swear to God. Like, I had two Louisville guys in top 20 on my big board. Miss me with that shit. It's just, quaintance is really good.

I think this could pan out and be a huge way for the spurs. Well, especially in terms of archetype, it sounds like he's dramatically different from anything they all. else they had like especially going if he can play the four or play with wimby in some configuration that's that could be really exciting you could tell how excited they were for the opportunity because he might not play next year or he'll certainly like seems like he'll have a delayed start at the best case scenario and he's still young that's a crazy thing he's only 18 yeah he's literally not even 19 right now according to the draft guide he's 18.9 years so take that

decimal points but they're so excited about this that they got him at 20. They trade back into the draft because they need a big now. And then they get Terrace Reed from Yukon, clearly just the all-around great guy who's full of character and moxie that you just cannot teach. But they almost got like the- Except he was literally taught at Connecticut and didn't have it before you got 30.

Sorry. To your credit. Even better. Yeah. Even better. Like they basically are like, oh, we need someone in the meantime. We'll get him. I know they're different types of players.

Like maybe they. can even give a different type of flavor if you if you have both of them available but like clearly they're just like oh we need quaintance because he's such a like a high upside proposition let's just get a guy for now just to like fill that spot so have you thoughts on terris read robb i've done do you know who that is have you ever heard that name before it could be a fake name as far as i'm concerned he's a bobs and dug nut to you no i mean yeah he's a crafty post guy i think he'll he'll get buckets in the short term from You can.

I mean, I gathered that part. I mean, it's not lost on me that we all ended up, like, drudging up our alma maters into this because we're parodies of ourselves. But we also are who we are. So what can we do now? All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Yonis trade a little bit and also some news that just broke while we were in the midst of this podcast. All right.

As we were going deep on the draft, a little news broke. Austin Reeves is staying. with the Lakers in the bosom of one Luca Donchich, the bosom buddies, staying together, going forward. I don't think anyone calls them that. I do. I'm at my free time. Talking to myself.

It's not lost on us that you have found a way to yet again worm the Lakers into this podcast. So your powers... Why do you keep doing this as if I talk about the Lakers a lot? You do. I literally do not. You're weird about the Lakers. Take that.

This is completely, unfounded and it's almost as if like you're the one running these like bot accounts like trying to talk shit about me and like just like come up with things that just like aren't true first of all i do run those bot accounts you have outed me in front of the world but i will cop to it this though look i'm just saying some of the time it's like oh what teams should we talk about today what teams can we bundle together into a theme and the lakers have a way of finding themselves into that group and sometimes you flex your considerable muscle in this industry this is to force awesome reason to a match Fulshit.

I literally do not do this. If anything, I take great pride in the fact that we only talk about the Lakers when it matters. Well, it certainly matters today. That's true. Except for the previous spot. I definitely shoehorned the men. If only just because I want to talk about it. It's fair.

He's a one-man sci-op catalyst for the Lakers, Justin Verrier. They need the pub, for sure. That's true. So he comes back to the Lakers on a max, but only a four-year deal. So three plus one. I guess it kind of aligns him with Luca as one more extra year than Luca, but that is the player option.

So what do you think, Rob? I think just like good piece of business, they keep him out of the hands of like another team throwing an offer at them in, I guess, fewer years. I mean, what jumps to mind to you? Yeah, I think it's kind of a no-brainer. I know there's been plenty of perspective haggling over like what this contract might look like

or what it should look like, but the idea that the Lakers need to keep Austin Reeves is beyond reproach. And this is what it costs you. Like, I don't know, I don't know what to tell you. He's an incredible on-ball creator, an incredible facilitator, a shooter who can space the floor and play with other stars. Those guys don't come cheap. They usually cost you a max.

And so you can't really afford to take other steps back as you're trying to get the Luca era off the ground. And this feels just like business as it should be done for the Lakers, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, you can't let the, you had the good eyes and the good fortune of, you know, IDing Austin's talent. and I don't think you can kind of let somebody else reap the rewards of his prime years. I think you need to keep that in-house. I think that's a good strategy. I think he was a max player regardless, not only because of what he showed last season

and just like what he's been showing over the course of his career, but just out on the market, I think a lot of teams could use a player like them. So he was going to get the max, and once that happens, like there really isn't much haggling. It really is how many years you want on your deal. I think the big thing is like also this is why teams always try to retain their talent rather than playing like the cork board and like what can we do here and the fantasy of the trade machine because now that they have Reeves under contract and they know exactly

what they're getting into in free agency they now have the power to spend and like figure out the rest of their team their reports about like what are they going to do with lebron i think he's probably in addition to jalen brown like the big hanging matzabal over this off season i'm so conditioned at this point to like keep talking about lebron and just ends up going back to the lakers and so like I'm a little shell shock to even like get into the point where I'm like starting to think about him on another team. But the Lakers clearly by retaining Reeves now that they can go out and do the rest of their business. And we talked about last podcast when it was a perfect time to talk about the Lakers off season like what they were going to do to build a team around Luca because it is time to like hit the ground running, get him the requisite talent. And so they compete on the level that I think he's been waiting to compete for since he left the Mavericks.

I don't know that they're going to be hitting the ground running, but they can at least do it at like. more of a steady pace coming out of the gate and with a clear sense of not just what this upcoming season is going to be but hopefully what the shape of the core is going to be around Luke just like again one more piece in the door over the course of this off season I think is a reasonable expectation whether that ends up being a defensive wing whether that's a replacement big they just need one more thing to nail down and I feel like they can feel pretty confident about the state of things there hit the ground crawling jogging slow trot a canter I think they want a canter no one at canter I see what's a canter it's like a hop come on it's like a it's sub trot right or is it above trot

hmm should be powering it's a the I think this stuff has already been been done give me a Christian Linnaeus taxonomy of of movement so I'm learning that a canter is a very specific three beat horse gate that's like a little over 10 10 to 15 miles per hour roughly so I think we can expect that. Is it can't or purposeful? It's different than sort of a saunter or a humble. I think it's definitely more purposeful than those. They've been ambling.

LeBron and Cries has kind of forced them to amble. Crazy sex appeal in this podcast right now. Crazy. Well, speaking of teams that are ambling, why don't we talk about the Milwaukee Bucks, who finally, finally traded Janus and Tadacompo the other day. Maybe first blush takes overall.

Like, what's the knee-jerk reaction? Do you guys feel good that this is finally over? Do you feel intrigued by the new look Miami heat? Like, Rob, what's, like, number one on your board? I think it's intrigued by the heat. You're always more interested in the team that's actually going to be good, and it's going to be a long time before the bucks are actually good again. So it feels good to get excited about Janus with a collection of players

who are going to be a little more up to his competitive standard. Him and Bam, I'm excited to see their pairing, him and Davy on Mitchell, and kind of like the hell they can unleash defensively. again with BAM as part of that configuration, what the heat end up doing with Norm Powell and if they're able to bring him back or not. I'm kind of swirling around those ideas, especially with an Eastern conference

that the Knicks have entrenched themselves as a fixture there. Everything else feels like very up in the air. Some of these other contenders all have moving parts, moving pieces. They're trying to figure out who they are as well. I think the heat have injected themselves into that conversation in a fun way.

I think the proposition starts with the defensive identity that they're going to have a potentially really imposing one. If you think about the ball pressure of Davy on Mitchell, do you think the backstop of, what a combination. I know. Switchability and the rim protection between Bam and between Janus. A huge revelation being that Bam, very timely this past year, started to add more of a higher three point rate to his game, as we saw with this huge, you know, just utterly disrespectful to the Lakers. I just want to be clear how on the Lakers side I am in the Kobe thing here,

just so disrespectful to Kobe. I was just going with the Lakers bit there. And then we'll see how Andrew Wiggins kind of connects. Do we, how much more Andrew Wiggins can we get here? But I think you start there. I think they've offensive questions to answer. I was kind of going through the UFAs that are going to be on the market and just kind of where they could go.

Cam Thomas is available. I was going to say that's as a starting point. Sure he is. Knock on that door and he'll immediately answer, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing that jumps out is just spiritually he feels like a heat player. and for that reason, it's nice to see, like, these two things coming together. Janus, not Cam Thomas.

You can talk about Janus. Well, Cam Thomas, certainly spiritually, like a lot of certain types of heat players. Maybe the Deon Waiters, the ones that didn't necessarily work out. But, yeah, Janus and the heat definitely have a certain synergy. And, like, they seem like the, it's almost like a Jimmy Butler thing where it's like, he was always kind of a heat player just mentally. Like, now he just gets to put on the jersey. It's going to be a sludge factory in terms of offense because I don't know, we're just

assuming that they bring back Wiggins and Norm Powell at this point. Like, that is the starting point, but Wiggins has a player option. Norm Powell is an unrestricted free agent. I just assumed that they knew that they were coming back and already had those deals in place when they went out and made this. But like even on top of that, like they need to find like, I would say three role players. It is funny that the Bucks took literally every intriguing young player except for Nicole Yilovich, who unfortunately got signed to an extension, I think last year during like the rookie extension period. And it's now, like a pretty bad deal. Like, there's still something in there.

He has skill and he has size. Clearly, like, has an intuition for passing feel. But, like, I don't think he's really the answer. If anything, they need more just plug and play role players and shooters. But, like, it's there. Like, they're giving themselves a chance. And, like, after being in the wilderness, post-Jimmy and even during the late stage of Jimmy where it's just like, this is just, like, kind of a bummer to watch,

they seem like renewed and fun again, which is the best thing you could hope for at this. Absolutely. Let's get into some next questions, though. So, like, obviously everyone's had their whack on the Janus. Just, like, first kind of thought about this and what the fit is going to be, all that other stuff. I want to go kind of spin it forward from here. And interesting enough, like, I'm kind of curious about what the bucks do from here. They're basically, they just took everything that's interesting.

They've just gathered it all up in a little sack and then just ran off and that is their team at this point. They added two picks and these draft buries and then Nate a men. A meant certainly adds to this idea that they're just, like, trying to pull from, anything with upside in order to find something to hitch their wagon to. I'm curious if you guys, one, like, let's start with the bucks themselves. Like, which of these players, I think, do you think could have a more interesting future now with Milwaukee, Rob, is it like, are you, you think Ware has it? Is Hawkes with a little more space? Like, which of these guys do you think could pop potentially? Yeah, I mean, I think Ware is kind of the easy answer, potentially, although, like,

what do they do with him and Miles and are those guys playing together? Or is where I have to come off the bench in the short term? Or do you bring Miles off the bench? I don't know. There's a little clunky fit out of the gate. But who where could be? I think we're all enticed by the possibility. There's a lot he needs to nail down in terms of just kind of the fundamentals

of playing NBA basketball even still. He is very much a work in progress. But a work in progress that has a lot more allowance in Milwaukee to play through mistakes and to find himself and to experiment with all of the full range of his, not just size, but everything he's. can do like as a skill player. I'm hopeful that Kloa can be a different kind of player for the bucks than he was for the heat.

I also like I, I'm a real believer in Caspar's Yakuchonis. And so like he really found himself and kind of like found his stride, I would say, over the last 20, 25 games of last season. I don't think he's ever going to be a star. But I think he's going to be the kind of guy who we look up and has just been a good connecting player for good teams for a long time by the midpoint or the end point of his career. And so maybe this is yet. another chance where when he has a shooting slump, he doesn't get pulled from the rotation.

When he's showing some limitations, there's just like more reason to play him and keep pushing him forward in his development than Miami might have out otherwise if they kind of stood pat with what they had. Yeah, the Kaleleware thing, I think makes sense. He's shown, you know, he could space the floor. It's just kind of, he's yet to cross that bridge. I would say that he and Alex are kind of in a similar boat of like they add all these really crazy physical intangibles, but they're imposing the imposing quality of their offensive game, specifically, like as a self-creator, it's like in isolation. And post-ups, you just watch him and it's always fading.

It's getting run off of his line. It's like taking these like really odd fading short mid-range shots where you're just like, dude, do you know how big you are? Like, you know, just go out there and impose your will a little bit. Impose your wheel. So it's a very Kentucky in there moment. I was going to say, do we, in terms of who could level up? I mean, do we still count Tyler Hero as a young person?

I would. He's entering. Interesting thing could happen here. I don't necessarily think that Milwaukee has, in getting Hero, has discovered like, okay, this guy is the centerpiece. You have the car keys. We have a playoff team. I do think he's going to get the car keys.

He could have an all-star season next year because he's entering his like 27 through 31 range here where I expect his production to spike. That's one thing. So, you know, he only played 33 games. last season. So I could see him returning kind of to all-star form this coming year. I think that kind of gets us to this flip side of this question is like how many of the

holdovers are really destined to be with the Bucks beyond this off-season even going into this season. And I kind of would count Hero in that mix. Because on the one hand, you would think like maybe the bucks just want to have something to move forward with, like a temple. It seemed like part of their interest in Jalen Brown

was to just like kind of have a superstar and go from there and figure everything else out. Obviously, Hero is into that level. But certainly he is a known commodity, made an All-Star team two seasons ago. I have to wonder, like, would you keep them or would you try to spin him for it? Because I think there would be suitors. We talked, I think, on this podcast recently about the potential of him on the Pistons. They went out and got a Bukukkah Corey, who's like at the very least similar type, right?

I think like smaller, but it has more juice. A little more jitterbug, a little more low-to-the-ground sports car, you know, tight, tight turns, like point guard gets in the paint, you know, makes your ankles hurt when you watch him type guard, like scoring tilted heavily. He's smaller than hero. Heroes like gravity as a score is just completely different. Yeah. It's all dribble, pull up, kinetic, movement shooting kind of things. They could go get them both. I don't think one negates the other. What is the hero car comp? Is he just like a Toyota Camry? What's happening? That's a good question. I don't have a good answer for that.

A cyan. Maybe a Jeep. He's a Jeep wrangler, I think. Oh, okay. He's a little rugged. Maybe a Jeep renegade. Yeah, it's like a little rugged, but also like a little impractical for a lot of situations, if we're all being honest with ourselves. But you talk yourself into it. You like the look.

You know, maybe it just fits your style more than anything. I love, do you think, do you think he fits? That's good. Do you think he fits the style of Milwaukee and like potentially what they could be next? Oh, what is their style? I know exactly. I'm just trying to figure out. What are they?

I don't know. It's like, does this couch fit in this, the framing of this house and this dirt floor? I'm like, yeah, you can put that couch there. I don't really know what's going on in this house yet. It's just a backroom style, just like a clump of chairs. Yeah. It really feels that way the rest of this roster.

It's half-formed furniture sunken into the walls. Maybe it vaguely resembles something you remember from your past, but also maybe not. But that's kind of the question, though. Is he the type of player you want to build forward with or is he best used on a team that already hasn't established identity and you add his pop on top of that is shooting his stretch yeah i think it's more of that i think i think i think the plan here i mean look you bring him in and you see that's that's what it should be give him given the

opportunity give him the keys see what the offense looks like with even more freedom but although i would say he had plenty of it in miami at various stages to kind of do his thing it's not like he's been deprived of that but i think the model is sort of the michael porter junior rejuvenation plan of bring him in, let him expand his game in certain key areas, but keep constantly exploring the market and see if there is an opportunity to flip him to a team that's competing for a little bit more that can plug and play him in a way that they desperately need. The Brooklyn Bridges model, right, Rob?

You know, you come in, you run a little ball screen, we like it. I think the vision of Hero early in his career is, I don't know that he ever is going to evolve into a different species of player. I'm really hung on that today for some reason. I just think he played the finals, man, as a vision of kind of what I think he is. I think he's like a second, third score, and there's nothing wrong with that if you're winning. Right. And they definitely, like, had him moonlight is something a little bit more, something more on the ball,

someone who could be a little bit more of a playmaker. I just don't think that necessarily is that, that's him. But if he does a little bit of that in concert to whatever else you have going along, maybe do it more on second units, like I think that still works for him. Yeah. So he's a good player. He just needs to find the right home. I wonder if you could say that about many of the leftovers for the bucks, though, Rob.

I mean, you talked about Miles Turner. And my question just overall is like, is he just cooked at this point? Because I was just looking at the contract situation. You think it's worse than it is because of all the machinations that got him to Milwaukee, because the wave and stretch, all this other stuff. But it's just like, it's like pretty fine. It's like mid-20 starter quality center money. And I do wonder if his specific.

skill set to be able to protect the rim and still step out and shoot threes is pretty unique and advantageous if you specifically have a type of scoring for that a lot of these teams have and like and so i i wonder is there like is there still hope for him on another team there's still hope i'm not leaving miles turner for dead but last season was very flat and it was a weird bucks campaign they were dealing with all the honest stuff in addition to just like many other roster problems it wasn't an ideal fit for him given to the players they had on the floor but also just the way his career has kind of bent where I don't know that we really should consider him to be like an impact room protector anymore. I don't think positionally like he's in those spots often enough

to be like a real difference maker on defense. He is a he's a spacer truly. I think he showed over the course of that Pacer's run. He can also kind of step in and hit some midrange stuff. He can occasionally take the ball off the bounce and kind of help continue your play sequences. But I think he's more of an offensive big than a defensive one. And that's a crazy thing to say given and where his career started and kind of where he staked his claim as a pro. But that's where I would hesitate. If you're thinking of him as like the stretch five with the Brooke Lopez type potential, I just don't think he's that guy anymore.

I think he was right to kind of take the money and run when he did because the Halliburton value thing. I think he probably read the room was like Halliburton's out. This is probably the, Halliburton helped him as he often does with most players. He helps them to be the best versions of themselves. He's also pushing 30. isn't he? He's not mid-20s. He has to be. He was 15 draft. I think 29, 29, 30 somewhere in there. He was just what it is. He was just a pacer for like 50 years somehow.

And we, you know, perpetually trying to find other fits for him. He finally got his other fit. And now it's just, I don't know. I don't know where his career is going to go from here. I hope he has greener pastures ahead. Maybe they'll be in Milwaukee. Maybe they'll be somewhere else as kind of a reclamation project. Just turn 30. Yeah, I just feel like teams do so much elsewhere and often just leave the shooting component open. And when you have a lot of your skill in some of your bigger players, for instance, like what the Toronto Raptors do, like it would be advantage to have your five be able to step out in space a little bit.

The problem with the Raptors, for instance, one, it seems like they only want guys who are six, nine. And so maybe that's just their identity. Maybe it would just be Barnes and CMP and now Allen Graves and just everyone, it's just a different version of this Yakum style team that they had a couple years ago. On the flip side of that, like, I don't know, Turner, if you're just buying him so low that you're just dealing with the pain of his contract, none of that to your books.

Like, if you were to swap Rob R.J. Barrett for Miles Turner, does that intrigue you at all, if only to fill a gap on your team for a guy that doesn't seem long for your team? The thing is RJ also fills a lot of gaps for the Raptors. Like, who he is as a downhill driver is something that isn't replicated by Emmanuel quickly, that Scotty Barnes is kind of an otter-paced player. Like, RJ is really important. and it was one of their best players in the playoffs,

especially when Brandon Ingram was ineffective and then hurt. The idea of Miles Turner in place of Jakub Pertil, yeah, sign me up. Like, clearly that's a better fit and a better player than what they were trotting out at the five. But they also have Colin Murray Boyles, who I'm not bringing in anything to kind of stand in his way if I'm Toronto. Like I want to clear more avenues for him to play as much as anything. Let's just flip back to the heat before we get out of here. What's like a realistic outcome for this team next year?

Obviously, a lot is still to come in the offseason. But as we're looking at the landscape, just in the league overall, maybe specifically in the east, like, is a good bar just like top four seed in the east this year? Or are you already thinking more? Well, let's play out the string here in terms of the teams. Who do we think the top six playoff teams are in the east? Because that's kind of an open question, is it not? It is.

And despite the fact that the Knicks, I think, will go in as the presumed favorite. it. They still have a lot to figure out in terms of their bench because it seems like they're going to lose a lot of guys here, Mitchell Robinson, and they moved around in the draft so much that they might not end up with an actual player from this draft, including them moving one spot back and just getting a clump of cash from the Lakers. I haven't seen this in so many years because they, I have to assume that they didn't want to make this pick. We're trying to get like seconds or whatever out of it, and they ran out of time. And so they just went for the Lakers,

like give us a $20 in your pocket and you could just pick ahead of us. I think they ended up doing some of both. It was like they traded down for the cash originally. Then I think they traded to $30 for seconds. And then maybe out of 30 for more. I think they ended up with like five second round picks and the bag of cash.

And so they are, as we're recording this, I think they have the 30 second pick and I think they're actually trying to trade out of that one. The Celtics did this a couple years ago. But yeah, like the first trade was just like, Yes. Okay, I'll take 100 bucks. But I think a lot of that is for the purposes of trying to keep Mitchell Robinson specifically. Like Landry Shamit may not be along for New York,

but I think Mitch is the guy that they're trying to find the financial wiggle room to hold on to. Landry Shamet would be awesome in Miami if that version. I don't know if they can make that happen, but that is extremely true. Yeah. Maybe they just won't be enough suitors for Robbins. And I assumed when the playoffs ended that like he would have a pick a couple teams, but the Bulls, for instance, filled that gap. with Claxton.

And so we'll see what his market is. But I think the Knicks will be back mostly intact. They'll have to figure out some bench minutes, but probably a good problem to have at this point. So we would say Knicks, Pistons, who knows what's going to happen with the Celtics this off season, but I think whatever form will probably be good enough to be in that mix. Cavs.

And then it's an open question. How much is Embed going to play? I imagine the heat would be right there. That's probably where I would say. The Sweeney magic, how dare you? Oh, so you're big on the magic. You see that guy's glare? I think that's at least, that's 10 more wins at least, right?

I think. Intense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the Pacers are in that conversation, too. I would put them right there in that clump. It depends on what version of the Hawks or the Hornets you believe in as like a regular season team, where are they going to net out?

Are they going to make a jump or if they already kind of made their jump? I don't know. Hornets got better. I think they get better. I just know. think it's a foregone conclusion that the heat are in the top four i think i think there's a bunch of there's a wide range of outcomes right if if you told me that the detroit pistons slip to like 53 wins from 60 and the heat jump up into like the 54 55 range and leapfrog them

that feels entirely plausible to me if you told me that the heat janis has a season where like many in recent seasons he's out for a significant portion of it they don't have the depth to accommodate for that absence and they end up in the sixth or the seventh seed, I think that's totally plausible too. I think the best version of the heat is going to be quite good. How often will we see it? How long is it going to take them to come together? There is a lot of uncertainty around what their season is going to look like,

even against a very uncertain Eastern Conference field that makes me hesitant to say, like, okay, they are a lock it in top four kind of team. I do think a lot of it will be dictated by injuries and the fact that this team doesn't have a lot of depth is also going to compound that issue with Janus because he's just going to want to battering ram his way to the rim time and time and time after again. And so I do wonder, like, how much that's going to be a factor. But if he is healthy, if he plays 65 games, 70 games, like this is the team that's just going to grind out wins and he's going to probably be better. And so I'd say top four is a reasonable expectation with the hope of being a better playoff

team. Sure. They have a little bit more time in between games. I think the hope regardless is like you're going into a second round series with a real chance to win. And that's, that's a place the heat have not been in a long time, right? They have been kicked around in the play-in. They've been just summarily swept or dismissed out of the first round. I can't remember the last time that the heat had like an honest to goodness chance in a genuine competitive mid-round series. And so if they can get back to that level, that's a huge step up for the franchise. That's a return to form for, for Yonis, certainly getting back onto that kind of stage. And I would look forward to seeing it. I hope that's the version of the heat we get. That's kind of where I,

landed was, yeah, feisty second round. We have a chance to win. I just think in terms of the, if you look at the way the playoffs stress your optionality down, you know, it's like that you mentioned the depth, things like that. It's like, where are they going to go once the chess pieces start to move and the adjustments are going to be made? I can see some strain coming. Because having Yonness and BAM is that he's such a dominant proposition that it's almost you have a great chance of winning a first round series as it is. And I just think once the, once the, once the cable, team start moving the pieces around, I could see the strain of their depth being being an issue. So I'd say second round, is, yeah.

This is the typical trajectory of a team that gets put together on the fly where the first season ultimately is a prelude to the second season, where they have the time and the offseason and the money and perhaps the resources to go fill in the connective tissue that makes a title team. Like, a team like the Spurs or the Thunder are so young that they can go out and buy those sorts of guys because their primary guys are typically making so little money. When you have a basically they're trying to form a big two plus whatever else. It's just a little bit harder and it's going to take another off.

This is what happened with the big three in Miami to begin with. Before we get out of here, any other moves? You want to see this offseason. It feels like there aren't a ton of big ones on the board other than what we talked about. Jalen Brown will see what he ends up doing, how many Twitch streams he ends up doing between now and the publish of this podcast. LeBron, obviously, maybe Kauai. Is there anything else?

Honestly, the LeBron one is the big one for me. And specifically an outcome where he is on a team that's not the Lakers. And this does, to your point earlier, Justin, feel like, yeah, we're going around the carousel one more time with this intellectual exercise of could he be a cab or could he be a warrior or whatever. This one feels more real to me for some reason. And it feels like not only are we entertaining the idea, there are like, five what feel like realistic plausible outcomes as far as places he could go. That's a lot to wrap your head around as far as a player who could be a bunch of different things to a bunch of different teams who has shown a willingness to adjust to accommodate for other stars.

I just kind of want to see a proper one last ride for LeBron that's not just can I fit in with this Lakers team that's still kind of steering in this other direction. I don't know if it's necessarily like superstar level, but it's definitely a guy who could affect the highest level. levels of winning and it's you know we it's tray murphy is the tray murphy going to trade ever going to happen it seems like that the stance softened a little bit on that in the intel that was coming out around the draft so uh night two it seems like there's going to be more carnage tonight in terms of like stuff moving around so be fascinated to see we'll see or maybe he's the miles turner like maybe he's just going to be a pelican for life and we're going to have to wrap our heads around that the one guy i think we need to keep an eye on is

Anthony Davis here, not only because is Tray Young now a very rich man, and I assume Anthony Davis is looking around being like, what the hell happened? Like, how did this guy get paid? And you're kind of tone the line for me. But I do think there could be a situation where teams that missed out on Janus are reaching for some sort of splashy move in the front court. And I think they're going to be suitors for him more than you'd expect. And perhaps that could balance out some of the bad from the tray extension because like if they just were a way station for anthony davis for what is it like four or five months and just allowed the mavericks to get out of their cap crunch and they just like held on to them and like walked them around the stadium and then just sent them home only to cash in on him later

that'd be a nice little piece of business but i do think that there are teams that are interested all right let's get out on there i think we aren't back until next monday so enjoy some of the fireworks in between. Thank you to Ben Cruz. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. We'll talk to you next time. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino

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