The Ringer NBA Show - The NBA Expansion Draft With J. Kyle Mann. Plus, the Spurs Shut Down Wemby. | Group Chat

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Justin, Rob, and Wos are joined by J. Kyle Mann and start with the news that broke right before the show: Victor Wembanyama will be out for the season (5:00). Later, with Expansion Week happening at The Ringer, the guys decide to do an NBA Expansion Draft (10:38). Justin and Kyle are the GMs of the first expansion team in Seattle, while Rob and Wos are the GMs of the second expansion team in Vegas. Each team picks nine players, then they walk us through who’s eligible for the draft and their reasoning behind each pick. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Guest: J. Kyle Mann Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons, and I want to tell you about my movie podcast, The Rewatchables. We're each week, I'm joined by Ringer movie lovers, Chris Ryan, Sean Van Van Lathen, Kyle Brandt, Matley Rubin, we have a whole bunch of people on. We talk about movies. We can't stop rewatching. And now you can watch us cover these movies on video in the Spotify app. We have covered over 350 movies, including Heat, Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction. We have some real heavy hitters coming up here in 2025.

Make sure to follow us on Spotify, where you can watch. watch every new episode right now. Just head to the rewatchables on Spotify, now on video. And welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier. And joining me as always, Rob Mahoney, Big Was, and back on the pod after a couple months away, our friend, your friend, Jay Kyle, man. Hi, Kyle. I get to speak first. This is nice. It's good to be here. Should I just rally off just if I have any kind of points of business that I have at the top of the show here? Or whatever you want, man. Okay.

Grocery list. Like what you're thinking? You're the master. Severance talk. Whatever you want to get into. We're here for you. Severance talk. I'm good.

I'm good. How's everybody else doing? You know, been a week since I've seen you guys. Yeah. Did you miss me and all? We did. I think that's a question for you, though. We were just punching the clock business as usual.

Where the hell have you been? Well, first of all, you guys were also at All-Star weekend together. So I'm sure. at the very least, got up to some activations together? Or did you guys ever, did you meet up at all in San Fran? I literally didn't see was. Rob was unable to meet up, met up with Howard, Ben Cruz, Michael Pina, and Keith. We had a-limataries.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a nice little dinner. Ben Cruz and I went to the unveiling of Shea Gilgis Alexander's first ever signature shoe with Converse. So I thought that was a pretty cool event. How do you feel about the shoe was? Yeah. I like the shoe. I like the shoe.

It's very Iverson 4 inspired. He actually talked about being an Iverson guy, which I thought was weird because Iverson was pretty much washed up by 2009, but whatever, you know, Shea must have did his Googles and did his YouTube's. But I like the shoe. Thought the event was cool. They gave us all custom Chuck Taylor's with the Shea insignia on it, which I thought was dope.

I'll be wearing those soon to Ruby Tuesdays near you. And so, yeah, man. It's a good weekend. I was out in the desert. Took a little me time, you know, just went under the stars. It was nice to see sunshine yet again. I got to say, like, I have missed the healing properties of the sun out here in the Pacific Northwest and just have it kind of douse me.

It was kind of nice. Although it did downpour in L.A. the first night I was there. and then the wind was so furious, it disrupted my hiking. But, you know, other than that, good times were had. Kyle, how was your All-Star weekend? I mean, I'm not going to act like I immersed myself in the events. I actually weirdly watched most of the celebrity game.

I don't know why I would do that to myself, but I kind of followed the highlights from there. You know, I had a lot of stuff going on. You do the scouting. I'll say that. Like, you really do the work. You crunch the tape. Any standouts from the celebrity game that you want to point out for us today? No, not.

I mean, I mean, Tarell Owens, I thought he was. in the game, right? He kind of seemed like he was, you know, maybe lost a step a little bit. I don't know. There were just some influencers out there that I didn't. Well, I did see Drusky was wearing the book won Halloweens, which I have. That caught my attention. Other than that, you know, Barry Bonds was there. I'm trying to think, these are all really, you know, high-level thoughts I have about the game. I'm kind of leaning towards, I'm not trying to launch into the the discussion that everybody has, but I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, it doesn't do anything for me at all. So I'm like, should we just get rid of it completely or just, you know, start from

scratch? Because I just don't get anything out of it. I was way more excited about S&L 50 and the college slate on Saturday. It was just, it was hard for me to get motivated to watch it at all. I think that's the problem. I think all of us probably watch SNL 50, but not much of the All-Star weekend. So, but we are going to leverage Kyle's scouting background today because we're going to get into a little bit of an expansion draft based on some of the stuff they're doing at the ringer.com this week. It's expansion week, a couple articles up there, guys like Howard Beck, Michael Pena, etc. So go check that out. We're going to draft some of the guys based on Pina's protections of guys for the expansion draft. So we'll get into that a little bit later. But right before we came on,

kind of some sobering news, Victor Webbenyama out for the remainder of the season with a blood clot issue in his shoulder. Pretty concerning. We should mention that this has been sort of a thing over the past 10 to 12 years that we've had some cases of this. Chris Bosch. Unfortunately, his career was shut down based on recurring issues with blood clots. We have seen some guys more recently come back from this. Asar Thompson most recently with the Troy Pistons, Christian Coloco, now what the Lakers has as well? Brandon Ingram weighs back. Rob, what's just your overall thoughts of this pretty sobering news? I mean, it's a pretty terrifying revelation about a 21-year-old guy who is as big as Victor Webbenyama. Like, these are the players you worry about these sorts of health complications arising,

not just injuries, but things like blood clots. And it's scary. Like, all of these guys that you listed, there have been cases of players coming back and being more or less normal, going on to have productive careers, all of that. But the clearance process is usually pretty intense, because this is a very serious health risk that if unchecked can lead to some really dire complications. And so it's on the one hand, great that the proactive screening revealed this in the first place. But scary news about one of the growing, like, up-and-coming luminaries of the game.

Yeah, I just actually, before we hopped on, I was finishing up quarter gold on Netflix, which is about the Olympic basketball journeys of France, Serbia, Team USA and Canada. And, you know, I just finished watching that gold medal game. And Steve Kerr's, like, we knew when he was going to have a big game and he was incredible to be that young and to be playing against those guys in that moment on that stage and for him to come through like that for his team even in a loss, you know, it was just kind of a reminder for me like, damn, this kid is going to do a lot of amazing things. And then, you know, you hear the guys out for the season. And me, I'm not like, I don't know, I assumed it was going to be like, oh, he's got a foot. He's got a knee. He's

got a torn pectoral. He's got, I don't know, something that people. And there was some reporting that there was a shoulder oblique kind, like something upper body. issue, but I don't think anyone was anticipating blood clot. Right. And these are things guys come back from. And then you guys tell me it's blood clots in the sort of pre-production. And I immediately think of Chris Bosch, who's one of my favorite players ever, honestly. And his career got cut short by this. And I was like, damn, is it possible that we never see Wembe again? And hopefully that's not the case. Because if it was, just a major, major, major bummer. Yeah, it's, it's startling that that could even be on

to just have that thought into your mind that like that is a potential possibility and like you guys were talking about when he came into the league i think we always knew that um and i wrote about this i remember in my like rookie summation of his just looking at what he did and where he might go and you just get this overwhelming feeling of like please god to stay healthy but your mind goes to uh structural things like you were saying like please god let his feet hold up uh don't you know hopefully he doesn't have any kind of like join issue or anything like that. You don't go to something like this. And those are all kind of things that would just hamper your ability to, you know, stay as athletically. But this is one of the things that can, other than like serious like terminal kind of malady stuff, this is like a potentially very, very serious health issue. That goes beyond basketball. But it's, it is, it is tough because, you know, Wimby, like, Waz, like what you were talking about with Wimby, I mean, he's, it doesn't, you know, necessarily need to be said again, but I will say it that like he's, he's special on the court in his skills, but also just you're, you hit it where he's, he's this interesting combination of like

Ralph Samson meets Kevin Durant, mentally meets Kareem in terms of his sort of brooding, uh, intellect and things like that. But then he also has that incredible motherfucker competitiveness. Um, it would really, really stink, you know, if we, if we lose him selfishly as basketball fans, but beyond that, uh, you just hope that he can just get healthy and be a healthy human being period, you know, so that we can get to see and play basketball. Timing, obviously, super unfortunate as well. Just in general, this is awful. But like it seems like he was rearing in the spurs with Deer and Fox for rearing to really

make this second half or however many games we have left here, kind of a pretty interesting little case study of Wemby on the rise, right? It seems like the entire league is behind Wembe being a guy, being a future face of the league or whatever you want to say. They're pretty deep there now in the plane race in the West. So you assume this is more of a just a prelude to what will ever happen going forward. But obviously the bigger concern is just Wembe in general, getting him back on the court. And hopefully we'll see him next season at the start of next season.

So we wish him the best and the Spurs as well. Although, I mean, I guess if we're talking about all the different possibilities here, you know, there's a David Robinson possibility here where he misses the second half of this season. All of a sudden, they lucked their way into a high draft pick. Maybe they're better off for it. But we'll see there. There's also the part of this where, again, the primary concern is Victor Webbenyama's health. I don't want to be alarmist about it, given how little we know so far, but let's wait and see kind of what his state is and what his recovery looks like and what has returned to the court ends up being.

In for our purposes, as people on a podcast talking about the NBA, it's basically been a foregone conclusion all year that Victor Webb & Yama is going to be the defensive player of the year, for example. And now I think that race is completely shaken up. again, not of consequence relative to whether Victor Webinjama is healthy or not. But there's a lot of different conversations that open up now as a result of one of the stars of the league, suddenly having to exit the stage in the middle of a really triumphant season for him. All right. Should we get to the expansion draft now? So as I mentioned, Michael Pina went through the exercise of protecting every team's top eight players.

So he picked eight players who were not eligible to be selected in the, this expansion draft. The timing of it is a little weird where free agents are not eligible to be protected or be picked by us. And so guys like LeBron, guys like Kyrie Irving, who hold player options for this summer fall into this weird nebulous black hole, kind of like Ozzie Smith in that Simpsons episode where we just can't touch them on either side of this thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So it leaves a pretty shallow pool of deep cut players for which we will be drafting from. The teams are as follows. Rob and Waz are team Vegas. I mean, naturally. Naturally. Do you guys, actually, do you guys have a name for your new Vegas franchise?

Have you thought about that at all? What do you think, was? Did not think about it. Oh, oh, my God. And I might have said this on the show before, but one of my Uber. drivers during Summer League was like, we're going to get a team. And one of the names that were thrown about were the Black Jacks. But, you know, the Wokies won't let us have it.

That's what he said to me. Literally, literally said that. But I like the Black Jax being black, you know. Good news. The Wokies can't touch us here, was. Not in the rules. Not in 2025, baby. Let's go.

Blackjacks, it is. I have no argument. All right. The Vegas Blackjacks are on the conference. clock. Kyle and I are the other team. We are team Seattle for for obvious reasons. Kyle reppping the Seattle Sonics shirt. I have Sean Kemp in the background there. You got a flannel also wearing a flannel. Also have beards. This is a pretty easy choice for all of us. So we're the Sonics. Starbucks. Before we get going, I just want to shout out Quentin

Post for getting protected in this exercise. Good for him. He was a good. He was a that during the draft process last year, we would just be like, yeah, I like quit and post because there was nothing to lose by saying it. But it turns out, hey, he actually has stuck. I just wanted, I just enjoyed that. I also enjoy seeing Pina's sort of basketball values being reflected through this. You know, I was like, he hates this person. He likes this person. That was a fun little subrinkle of this for me. Salute to our guy, Michael Pina, who has Justin said, made all these protections throughout this entire process. I enjoyed reading his article on it. And yeah, I enjoyed seeing into Mike's soul a little bit. And I look forward to further exploring it in terms of what's left in this pile.

Yeah. All right. Any other ground rules we need to cover here? I think I got all of them, but any wrinkles, anything else you guys want to bring up or should we just get the draft? I think the only wrinkle I saw based on the actual expansion rules is that technically you can select someone who is a restricted free agent. But in doing so, you don't actually get their restricted rights. It just turns them into an unrestricted free agent, which is a weird rule. At least, least that was the case in our last expansion draft with the Charlotte Bobcats. So if someone

If they have no years left under contract, I would not recommend drafting them. Are you all trying to pull the chicanery that you pulled in Indianapolis where Demosonis became a Caucasian two minutes before the draft and you all made a absolute fool of me. You're not pulling

this shit again. Those were Waz's rules. That was the Waz draft. I have no jurisdiction in that area. I'm just here to tell you what the NBA decided in whatever that was, 2004? Despite the climate of the country. If you went to high school in America and you're white, you're a white American. I will defend de Monis a bonus being in the white American draft until the day that I die.

Okay. From your lips to the Supreme Court's ears was. That's it, baby. That's it. We need to figure out who's drafting first. which we haven't settled yet. We haven't settled the order. Isaiah, would you like to maybe like flip a coin or something?

I don't know. Is there like a generator online where you could just click a button and figure this out? There's definitely a generator. JV. Pick a number one or two. Two. Yeah, that's it. You guys got first pick.

Yeah. First psychology there. All right. So Kyle, as my co-GM here, we went a little back and forth. There are, I would say, four guys who are in the running here. And most of them are younger guys who are basically lottery polls one or two years after they were actually drafted. Kyle was making the case for an older player, but the rest is going to be, we should make a point. This is going to be very difficult because we're basically talking about who we might draft,

not just now, but later in front of the other team. So we're just going to go for it and hopefully guy goes. We'll play a factor here. You can just tell us if you want who you're going to draft later. Not a difficult part. Kyle, I think we should stick to the board. I think not go with the older player. I think we go with the guy that we think will have the brightest future for.

What do you think about that? Well, I mean, I'll go with you just to be agreeable. I don't, I wouldn't do that just because I think we, I think two through four is a little flatter. And I feel like if I get one of two through four, I'll be fine. I think four, which is where this person is, I want to take him first, but I'll go with you if that's what you want to do. I want to believe in my scouts. I want to trust the process here.

So why don't we go first pick of the expansion draft, the Seattle Supersonics Select, Santiago Alma from the Memphis Grizzlies. Yeah, baby. I believe Santiago Alma is exactly the kind of player I was just talking about. That's right. So we'll have to immediately sign him. to an extension. On the open market.

On the open market. But, you know, he has... Seems don't have money. I get it. It's true. It's fine. We'll have a ton of money. He'll feel good about being our first pick and ostensibly the face of the franchise in

Seattle. More importantly, though, we take him away from Rob, who has been the biggest old-dama fan, bar none in the world. I predate you. I know you tease me for being a hipster, Rob. I watched a lot of loyal of Maryland games, a lot of Fiba, you know, you've 18 19 whatever been a long time uh aldama hipster he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna interface well with whatever we choose to do which is to try to get darren peterson next year that's kind

of our plan or debonsa whichever one but i just think uh i like aldama a lot i called him modern kuk coach i just think he he adds a lot of stuff great side do i have to defend every pick am i doing so am i just being long winded for no reason here we might have to actually explain who these players are to the audience because these are deep cuts for even like hardcore NBA fans but no Aldama is probably amongst the younger group of players, probably one of the more well-known ones, just because he's had a really good season for the Grizzlies. It could probably come off the bench for like a championship contending team.

So I like the flexibility there, but I think he's more of like that Lamar Odom type where he could flex starter reserve based on whatever you got going on there. So flexibility, youth, upside. I like the pick there. Definitely. And this is where I revealed to you that perhaps my Santi Aldama standem, was maybe a long con

because he's not even on our draft board for the aforementioned free agent reasons. I am so terrified of being an expansion team in open bidding for Sontel-Dama's services when, as you said, he would be so attractive to so many winning teams. I'm not confident that we can keep him

under those circumstances, was. Look, he was on my big board. Rob was like, look, if the guy can walk of his own volition afterwards, we probably want to prioritize player control here. And so, you know, I was like, whatever, get him out of here. But I think in real life, like, is he getting,

is he getting more than the full, like, mid-level from somebody on the open market when the nets are the only team? He could. No one also has cap space. That's what I'm saying. This coming summer, it's like Brooklyn and no one else. It's mid-level money at best, which I think he's more than worth that, honestly. I think so, too. And to be in a broader agreement, just one of the better players, especially relative to age.

in this pool period. So I'm on board with the broader Sante Aldama experience. The bets at the top of the draft, I just feel like I would feel worse if you all made a bet and then you got El Dama.

Because I just wanted to go ahead and snag him. That was my thinking. I just think, you know, I just think he's going to fit with whatever we choose to do, baby. But did you snag him?

Or not know. Also, if somebody like becomes obsessed with Aldama, they could like work the sign in trade, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Yeah. Okay.

Pay us for it. Well, this makes it very easy for us, Waz, because I think we had the same guy at the top of both of our boards. Yeah. With the second pick in the expansion draft, the Las Vegas Blackjacks will select Cam Whitmore from the Houston Rockets. There's number one on my board. You can't dribble or pass, but that's fine.

I'm not worried about the dribbling or passing so much. Waz, I don't know how you thought about this. For me, it was like if you look at the history of these kinds of drafts, like look at what the Bobcats did, for example. It's a lot of role players. It's a lot of guys who have been kind of forgotten in the league. And then there is one player of relevance, and that's Gerald Wallace. And if I'm thinking about who could be the Gerald Wallace of an expansion draft,

Cam Whitmore has the profile of a big wing who can score, who can theoretically do lots of things, who could be a versatile tool that could be a part of your franchise for a long time. To me, the reason why he's not popping in Houston is because, like, the freaking back court is very overcrowded. And on an expansion team, that won't be a problem. So, you know, he will get to develop in the way that I think some of us were excited about, especially when we saw him last Summer League.

Like, he looked like a man amongst boys. And I get it. That's one of his strengths. It's like his physicality and his athleticism. But I think he needs the reps in order to become the guy he's going to become. And, yeah, the new age, black jacks, we're going to give them all. And plus, again, you know, Summer League was in Vegas. Maybe there's something to being in Vegas that makes this guy.

reaches full potential if not playing against nothing but G-leaguers. So we definitely had Whitmore on our board. I think I had him second overall before Kyle pulled the Aldama trick here. I'm curious though, like, what is Whitmore's ceiling in the league? Is he ultimately a guy we think

could even be a starter? Is he coming up? Kyle, you've done a lot of draft prep over the years. Like, where do you see Whitmore? Do you remember the sort of forensic findings from when we were writing about Whitmore last year? Justin, do you remember my conclusion? I can, I was like, Like his development, his tools, all every, his, his body type, he is note for note so similar to Jalen

Brown. It is absurd. They are built exactly alike. He's an even more explosive athlete, I think. I'm teasing. I just, it kind of depends on what your mindset going in. Are you drafting this person thinking this guy is our to use my draft writing kind of vernacular here? A roadmap.

Is he somebody that's going to be like, we'll build around him? Maybe not necessarily, because I don't know if like the passing is. the handling is ever going to be there. I don't know if he's ever going to be more than a Jalen archetype, but he's a good player. I'm teasing. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of where I think he, there is a potential for that.

Right. I think he's that type of player at Dylan Brown type of play. He's the reps though. Like Houston, if they were a normal team on a normal development curve, then he'd probably be playing more. But these guys shot up to third in the freaking Western Conference. I know. I'm sorry, you can't just be giving away minutes to young guys for development.

You have to be contributing right now. And I think on a team that has less lofty goals, he could do that. Like the Las Vegas blackjacks. We are going to be bad. But we're going to let Game Winmore dribbled the ball until he figures out how to dribble the ball. We're going to give him an apron. Let him cook. So one of the cases Kyle made for drafting Aldama first was that we thought by doing that,

our guy at number one might still be there when it came back around in the draft order. And he proved correct. because with the number three overall pick in the 2025 NBA expansion draft, the Seattle Supersonic Select Nicola Toppich. I knew it. From the Oklahoma City Thunder. I knew this was coming. The number 12.

The ball skills and the feel, we're just swimming in it over here. I'm just backpedaling in the feel and the, oh, it's great. We're going to be a, we're going to be a fun team right out of the, right out of the box. So the number 12 overall pick in this most recent draft hasn't played a lick of basketball, professionally yet he's basically been on ice because he was hurt before the draft. And so we basically get a free lottery pick, you know, like I believe in in expansion situations. And like the rest of the media, you want to glaze Sam Presti. No problem.

The man dress pretty well. I think half of our each of our teams is going to ultimately be under bear. It's very possible. I think it's going to be unavoidable. Yeah, it's going to be a decent money. But Kyle, I know going into last year's draft, There was talk about him potentially being like a top three to five talent. He slid to 12 because of the fact that he was hurt.

What do you see from him in the NBA next season when he's starting at point guard for the Seattle Sonics? Conversations I had kind of revealed that OKC had all of their guys. I mean, Jones, Mitchell, Topich, like, had they had them much higher than Consentis. I know they had Topich, Topich tours ACL, as we know. and sort of that sort of threw a wrench in people's security about him. The big thing for him is that great size, great spatial feel. He makes reeds really comfortably easily. Like he's one of these just prototypical pick and roll ball screen operator whiz guys.

So I feel really comfortable about him, even if he doesn't develop into a primary being somebody that we can put on the floor. And he's going to move the ball for us. So I love, like I said, and we're going to be bad. I expect to be bad. And we're going to be making a star play. and he'll be on a timeline because he's still only 19 years old. The shooting is the only question with him. But I feel okay.

I feel good about it. I think we can get him in the mid-30s. Can we have Chip England? Can we throw him it all into the draft? Because I'd like to, I'd just like to inquire about what he's up to so that we can feel a little better. Chip might take another pick just to lock up his services. So if you want to use it in that direction, we can negotiate.

But look, he was high on our board too. I think this is a natural, like, if you want to take a gamble on a prospect, why would you not take a gamble on someone like Nikola Topich? Like that makes all the sense in the world, the funky driving game, the feel, the playmaking. There's a lot to like there. And I kind of want to wait and see with the jumper, Kyle, just because his mechanics are a little funky. He is a little, like, stiff in a way that concerns me for a prospect coming in that could theoretically be handling the ball a lot.

I wonder if his ultimate, like, fate might be as more of an off ball facilitator second side type than it is someone who's actually driving offense, which even that would be perfectly fine. Very possible. We're also setting up a little bit of a European pipeline with Topich and then Aldama, you know, Seattle, a big hub for Europe. Sure. We're tapping into that market in the same way the Dodgers are tapping into Tokyo. So we have the extra revenue streams.

We're thinking big picture here. The business section of our organization is working here as well. By the way, how many players are we selecting in this draft? We never really ironed that out. That would have been a good question. I think we'll just go until we don't need. even know who these guys are. You just want to go until we stop?

I think like, I don't know, five to eight. We'll see how long. Okay. Okay. I was thinking I was going full squad over here. I'm ready to roll. Well, we also have free agency theoretically in this setup. So we wouldn't have to fill every spot.

And draft picks, which I was going to mention before. I think the way the expansion draft or expansion teams work in their first draft is they don't get the top picks, but they get somewhere near the top. Do they still do that? I remember. I remember. Well, when the, when the Grizzlies and. and Raptors were first expansion teams.

They were like banned from having the number one pick for like a few years. I don't know if it was top three, but definitely number one. I knew they weren't allowed to have for a few years. I don't think that's the case. Why would that even make any sense, especially with the lottery odds being what they are now? Yeah.

Well, part of the flaw in the design of this process is that there is a significant voice within the league to actually change. the expansion rules before there actually is an expansion draft and before new teams like Seattle and Vegas are actually brought in. These are ancient rules that reflect a different NBA. And so we're operating with the ones that are established, but they could change.

Do you guys trust Adam Silver and the purveyors of the second apron and all this other crap to actually get this right? Well, so here's the thing. The motivation for putting the new teams lower in the order isn't going to change because a lot of these franchises have spent

years, if not just the most recent season tanking in order to get that number one pick. So they're not going to cough that up. And we should mention the reason why expansion is happening to begin with is all 30 of these teams want to pocket the fees that all these teams are going to pay in the high billions in order to do so. So like I don't think they're going to roll out the red carpet for these new owners and new teams. Can we just talk about one thing? I do have one all-star observation. A lot of people who was their first all-star game felt like it was a, you know, sort of like a church crowd. And I saw one of my buddies who does not work in the NBA at the airport flying back to L.A.

I was like, what were you doing here? He was like, my company and I, we took clients to the NBA All-Star game. I said, how much of those tickets cost? $5,000 per ticket to sit nine rows up at a glorified exhibit. $5,000, y'all. that is unconscionable dude who like who's supposed to actually be at this game like how is this atmosphere supposed to be good

if it's just corporate sponsors and you know basically companies courting their freaking clients and not people actually give a shit about our league like this is fucking insane dude insane a freaking Modelo in there was $20

one modello that's it's just fucking gross I'm sorry it is gross get off my soapbox and I realize I'm a fucking caricature with my Bernie hat on right now but it's freaking disgusting I'm sorry it's gross

there's no reason for this shit you guys make enough money bro nasty man we need to do the expansion draft as an in-person attendable event a la the NBA draft so that the real sickos in attendance can have a standing ovation when Nicola Topich gets pulled off the board. Yeah. Like,

give the people for anything more than $10 for our expansion draft. Absolutely. We have selected three players, all of whom are bench players at best right now. Yes. By the way, so in 2004, the Bobcats were assigned the fourth pick in the draft. They did not participate in the lottery at all. And then they treat it up to the second pick, which, as we know, they used to select the mechaoka for Bobcats legend. You know, as we know

I mean, worked out for them relatively speaking, but Emeka Okifor is not Dwight Howard, it turns out. I definitely was an Okafor over Howard guy going into that draft. Oh, yeah. That was a conversation. Remember that?

That was like a real conversation. Yeah. Okafort was awesome. Did he win two championships in college? Just the one. But he was player of the year. He was like an awesome guy, that like culture guy you immediately wanted in your locker room.

Totally. Definitely did not have Dwight Howard's career. He did not. Do you guys want to go with your next pick? I believe the fourth pick in the draft. Who are you thinking here? I'm fine with going chalk here because we got to get spicy. Here's the thing.

I feel like the next guy we have on our board is going to be there for us. And I wonder if another young guy who we had on our mutual boards we should highlight here. You're right. You're right. So for our second pick, the Las Vegas blackjacks was like Gigi Jackson. Sir. Figured.

Yes, sir. That was a neon signs for me that G.G. Jackson was available because since he's been back, man, he's just a beautiful fill in the blank kind of player. Doesn't need to handle the rock. But like, when they ask him to do stuff with the ball in his hands, he's capable. I'm not saying he's like j-dub or anything like that. We're not getting crazy here. But he's more than capable of putting the ball on the floor and making something happen. And the jumper looks smooth, Kyle. I don't know if you've seen. him since he's come back. I like the stroke.

Aiming that at me for. No, I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you. I wasn't smiling in any kind of like making fun of you behind these eyes kind of way. I was just, I was just listening to you while. I don't have, he's, yeah,

he's improved a lot and it's just kind of it's been an interesting path for him because as everybody knows he entered college probably a little early. He was pushed in, I think, a little early. And he's just been kind of a step of head ahead of what he's quite ready for, and we've just kind of seen it start to stabilize. And I think what you're talking about is true. He's somebody that can offer a lot of different things.

He's six foot nine, dude. So my understanding, Kyle, is he was the best prospect going into college two years ago. Is that correct? Yeah, he was, it just flipped really quickly. I mean, he was going to go to North Carolina and that he would have been on a pretty good team. And then he ended up being on a bad South Carolina team as a freshman. And it was, was just a disaster and it pushed him down in the draft and then you saw the grizzlies get him understandably he and whitmore both interesting kind of value plays later in the first round and um yeah i mean it was it was just kind of like found money for the gris a no brainer to take a talent like that always always bet on those guys yeah uh i like the pick i might have picked him myself if if we were up

here at number five a lot of talent there still young on a cost controlled contract so yeah Lots of like there with Jackson. That's a good pick. All right. Next one is a little more difficult here because I think this is where for us at the very least, the draft breaks between if you want to still keep going young and cost-controlled versus maybe some more veteran players who could help now but might not be there when we're ready to be good two to three years down the road.

Kyle, I think we go ahead. The oldest player we've selected so far is 24 years old, right? Like we're still going very young to this point. Kyle, I think we go down. the same path. We set out a plan to let the spirit of Sonic Sam Presti kind of guide us through this process. And I think for that reason, I think we have to go with the guy number eight on our board. What do you think? Or excuse me, number five on our board. Oh, let me see. My numbers got jumbled here. Yes. Yes. That's that's kind of what I always. Well, no. Yes. A lot of dissension within the

ranks and by the ranks, I mean inside Kyle's mind. No, look, all right, I did that thing where I'm making a spreadsheet and I did the auto-populate to like to make it go all the way to 30, but then I moved the numbers around. So my fifth line says seven and it's like all off. Oh, boy. Yes. The difference between

Kyle and mine's draft board, because we did individual docs and basically shared them, uh, mine is just a Google doc with a list of guys, some of whom weren't even available because I misunderstood the rules. And then Kyle's is a spreadsheet. with color coding,

separate columns for the different types of players. I'm not talking about positions. I'm talking about like, the first columns are primary, defensive anchors, energy bigs, and then we also have switchbitten here. It's incredibly intense. It's a real like crystallizes the difference

between our approaches, I think. They're called archetypes, Justin. Maybe you should become familiar with them. The diligence is incredible. I thought, I think it may overstate slightly the depth of this pool where, well, honestly, we are scrambling for viable NBA talent you would actually want to have on your roster. And not so much like, can we build a coherent lineup. Well, you said it's, you said a pile earlier. And I was just like, well, a pile can be many different things. It's true. A pile of diamonds is awesome. Is it a pile of poop? Is it you said pool? Is it a pool of water coming in and out? Or is it one of those standing pools in the woods that you don't want your dog to drink from? Because it might have blue algae in it. I don't know. We're kind of, that's what we're figuring out here. So have you made a pick? taking her full five minutes on the clock.

Yeah. All right. So with the number five pick in the expansion draft, the Seattle Supersonics select back into the OKC pool, we're going AJ Mitchell. Second round pick for the Thunder last year showed a lot of promise earlier this season. Unfortunately, he's out right now with a toe injury,

but a three and D type can handle a little bit. I think he's just a classic Thunder developmental guy, cheap guy, as we mentioned before, cost controlled. So all those things combined. I think we like the big. He fits our vision for the future, we would say. I love taking this Thunder's

Sonic's Presti Ting pretty far, but okay, cook. AJ Mitchell's good, but yeah, that's pretty high for AJ Mitchell. It is, I kind of, I was teetering towards another person. Hopefully he'll still be there to address sort of the needs that we have. But it is a little

jarring and frankly a little nauseating to go on basketball reference and see OKC Thunder best players in history Gary Payton I just we got to stop that shit I can't do this anymore like we got it's time it's time to separate them and it's especially

disrespectful the way they freaking stole the damn team it's gross we're taking it back one deep role player at a time all right you guys are on the clock now all I was I mean I think with our next two guys on the board, we have

polar opposites, a steady, predictable role player type and a who the fuck knows wild card element. I'm going to defer to you which way you want to go with this one. Oh, you know, I'm having a pool party, baby. Jordan pool, come on

down. We're taking Jordan pool. Jordan pool, come on down. He's had enough distance from the punch. He's rehabilitated his image. And I think he's kind of the best actual NBA player today on this whole board. Yeah, I think so.

Right now on February 20th. Brad, I'm going to say, spoiler alert. We will not be selecting Brad Beal. But he's on the board. You're right. Brad Hill might be a little bit better than Jordan Pool. Yes. That's fair.

But with a lot of these other younger prospects, you're picking them in the hopes that they one day become as good as Jordan Pool is right now. Pull is still 25. Still 25. He'd be good this year. And look, the contract isn't good, but I also don't expect us to be free agent players. And the rest of our roster is going to be pretty cheap.

All good. I'm not worried about it. So bring on Jordan Poole. But invite us to the pool party. Yeah. He has been surprisingly good this year within the context of Jordan Poulness. But the contract for me was a little bit of a stopping point. Two years, 66 million.

So you're paying them over 30 a year for the next two years. Like the salary floor. Justin. That's right. But as we'll see here, some of these mid-tier contracts could pile up, especially if you guys vision yourself as wanted to go out and make him play at, I don't know, Kyrie Irving in free agency,

if that's a possibility. But I like pool as a player. I think he's a little underrated at this point. As crazy as that is the same. To me, he is the of the veteran core that's available, I mean, to the extent that he is a veteran, still a young player, but of the established players,

I think just one of the more proven productive of anybody in the pool. And so we're happy to have him on our team. Will anyone on our team pass? Who knows? Time will tell. Yeah, I can kind of see where you're all's needs are going to end up down the road. So before that most recent pick where we took Mitchell, unfortunately, Kyle had texted me to draft another guy and I completely missed it. So luckily, he's still on the board for us. Our organization is just a shit show right now. I was going to say, This got dark so quickly that you guys were legitimately stewing over like Brad Beal or Jordan Poole. No, no, no, no, Brad.

We were not stewing. Not you all. Justin had a real beat where he was like, you know what? Bradley Beale is a little better than Jordan Poole. I was like, wow. These are the stakes. Welcome to group jack, Kyle, man. But Kyle, I think we should go with the guy that you suggested we take.

And we're just, we're thrilled that he's still on the board at what is this, number seven. Yes. we're going to take Jonathan Mogbo he is a connector he's he's a switchable defender I think he's going to cover the needs that we have we have ball movers I think he'll shoot it eventually I'm not worried about that

Jonathan Mogbo is what I'm taking Rob go ahead react say what you're going to say I would say I would say he's like second if not third among the potential raptors that I would draft in this pool so not high on my board to say the least I

with all due respect do not understand this pick. Okay, that's fine. Listen, our scouts loved him. So we just had to go with the will of the room. Do I have anything to contribute about Jonathan Mogbo? No, I do not. But we're just happy to have him on the team.

Good culture guys. Great defensive hands. He's switchy. I feel good about it. He's 23. You know, he's okay, I'm not going to act like he's a spring chicken, but he addresses a need for us. We need some defense.

We can't have Aldama and Topich out there trying to protect him. He's AD to calls Nico Harrison. That's all. That's all that is. They identified the one guy that they had to have and it was Jonathan Logbaugh. All right. You guys are up at number eight. I feel pretty good about our next guy up was.

How do you feel about that? Yeah, lock him in. Lock him in. We're going to take Ben Shepard of the Indiana Pacers. And we're going to say we had two years under contract with Ben Shepard, plus his restricted free agency, potentially five or six years of just like a solid 3&D wing that we can pencil into our to dribble the ball, nor can he, but can knock down threes.

Can knock down threes, can guard, puts in good effort, understand spacing. Like, we're going to have some wild cards clearly with the rest of our lineup so far. And so let's have the one guy who just knows his role, who can do his job, who's going to show up, and is already a playoff caliber rotation guy for a team of some actual relevance. I wanted him. I wanted him. That was, that was going to be, he was going to be a nice thing to sprinkle over the guys that we have. And it was going to get a lot of open shots.

This is the first time I felt a little bitter so far on the draft. I haven't felt bitter about my own bad decisions yet in life. Let's go. So we made it this far. But on that note, we're going to stick to our basic ideology here. We're going to keep pulling from the young player pile. Just guys who can't play yet? Okay.

And guys who cannot play. And guys who are on the Thunder roster? No, this guy not on the Thunder roster. Okay, okay, okay. But he is coming to Seattle. He's from the Golden State Warriors. We're going to take him at, what is this, number nine, it's Trace Jackson Davis. Yes, nice pick.

So, big man, we don't have one of those yet. Obviously, fits the young, cheap guys that we've been basically only drafting thus far. Feeling good about him. Kyle, what do you think about Trace? Lob threat, high post, handoff, passer. You know, he can guard up and down the scale, good athlete. I think he fits what we need here. We were high on him too.

Yes. Like Trace Jackson Davis, does it concern you at all that some, Sometimes Steve Kerr doesn't appear to like Trace Jackson Davis all that much, or at least trust him all that much. Kerr is like a cat, man. He doesn't just give the freaking minutes and the love over just very easily, dude. They have Quentin Post now. There's only so many minutes available when you have a lot. And Quinn Post is like he's goddamn Dirk Novitsky, so shoot.

Yeah. Seems maybe a little generous. We feel good about Jackson Davis. Okay. Was, where do you want to go with this? I feel like our next group. I think we should go center here. Go center here.

Okay. Yeah. And we could definitely use a big. I think there's a natural center on the board. He's one of just the better players in the pool overall in terms of rock solid veterans. We're going to take Wendell Carter of the Orlando Magic. Yes, sir. Slightly overpaid, but is, you know, if he's your starting center, you're not getting killed.

You're not like Phoenix earlier this season, right? You're not like the freaking Lakers. overreaching for Mark Williams, who was horrible last night, by the way, even in a W, he sucked. You're not in that position where you're trying to overreach for a guy like that. You feel steady when you have Wendell Carter on your team,

so I like Wendell Carter here. I like Wendell Carter. My concern is that he signed longer than I would think is ideal. The third year is a team option. So three years under contract, but with a team option. He's a good player.

He's kind of been lost in the shuffle there. I thought he would start more this year once they got everyone back fully healthy because they need his stretch. But Goga has kind of locked down the starting center spot for them in Orlando. It could just be Carter himself working his way back from injuries. But I like him as a player, very versatile,

especially if you have like another big in your lineup who could do a little bit more of the big guy stuff. Sure. Good player. I think that's a good pick. Yeah. We could definitely use him like the stretch being actually stretchy this year. He's really struggled with his shot lately.

Like he needs to get back to some of his previous shooting form to really pay off for us. But good defensive player who's shown he can be a, like a crucial part of a really good defensive team. That's a nice place to fill out our center rotation from. So we've now gone through the first 10 picks and just to recap where we are here. The Sonics have,

Santi Aldama, Nicola Toppich, A.J. Mitchell, Jonathan Mogo. We'll get that right before the press conference. And Trace Jackson Davis. The Blackjacks of Las Vegas are Cam Whitmore. Gigi Jackson, Jordan Poole, Ben Shepard, Wendell, Wendell Carter, Jr. I'm thrilled. Sweet. You guys have the names.

We have the future. Yeah. Okay. You have Jonathan Mogbo's future for better or worse, that's for sure. Way in the future. But, okay, we'll... We're going to cancel your old asses out. I know it.

I just have a great feeling about it. Okay. Yeah. We'll break from the board a little bit because we have to start dipping into some of the older players here, guys who are actually steady NBA veterans. who have played NBA consistent minutes and playoff minutes for this guy. Unfortunately, we are going back to the Oklahoma City Bank for this guy. His name is Isaiah Joe.

Obviously, awesome score can fill it up for any team, instant offense, off the bench, or maybe in the starting lineup with this setup. Contract is also very, very good. Three years, 37 million with the team option on the last year. So he checks all the boxes for the types of veterans we want. Like, we're not cluttering our books. We can move them if we need to do. do so, but he's just like he's going to fit any version of the team that we have. So excited to

have Joe on board. It really is stunning how many Thunder players are not just eligible to be drafted, but like good good outcomes for an expansion draft. Like there's such a deep team. They can only protect so many guys. There are still Thunder players on the board who I think would be good additions to these expansion teams. And Isaiah Joe clearly on ours as well, the shooting speaks for itself. Even in relative down years, the threat that he presents, the movement that he brings to your team, just like a good element to add to your offense, especially these young teams, like an expansion team that are trying to get functional and trying to create space for whatever young prospects they're interested in to actually do things with the ball.

Isaiah Joe's the kind of guy you won alongside them. 165 pounds soaking wet, so watch out in the playoffs, but we don't have to worry about the playoffs. Yeah, no one's going to the playoffs for a while. Well, I was banking on you all passing up Ben Shepard and I was going to take him and then we could get traced, but you did that. So you're altering my plan a little bit here, but Isaiah Joe shoots it well. at volume every which way. Catch a shoot, in transition,

handoffs, whatever you want, he'll make threes, and he's going to get him on our team. I feel good about it. Veteran of the process Sixers and also the Thunder when they were bad. So he'll be used to losing games and putting up points.

So I think the fan base will love them. It is a skill set. Was, what do you think in here? I feel like I, look, I'm a little biased, but I feel like we could use a point guard and there's a veteran point guard in the mix. I was just going to say that.

And I want, and like, these guys call Isaiah Joe a veteran, and as if this guy's like been in the league and blah, blah, blah, is established. I want an actual guy who has, not only as he still have something in the tank, played over a decade, known as one of the most high quality human beings in the NBA, if not an NBA history, this guy, his reputation. No, not DeAndre A. He is also on our no-fly list, by the way.

And also has earned max contracts. lottery picks. Like all these, he's ticked off so many things in his career. I just think it's an important thing to establish a culture within an organization and in the locker room.

And that's why we're taking Mike Connolly, Jr. Hmm. Let's get this adult in the room with the rest of these guys. And by the way, Isaiah Joe is 25 years old. So, yeah, all the veterans are relatives. Except when you get to the Conley's.

Like, we want a steady hand. We want a shepherd. We want an older guy. Yeah. He's a little long in the truth sometimes for what the wolves need right now, but he's exactly what the blackjacks need. Ideally, he'd be playing like a little less than Chris Paul is playing for the Spurs this year.

Chris Paul's playing a lot this year. What's the Conley contract like right now? What's his deal? It's one more year after this one. Yeah, one year about $11 million. 11 million. So, yeah, it might be his last NBA season. So you guys have to barely get the send-off to sell to the fans.

He's going to be our U.D. That's true. You don't understand. He's going to be part of what we're building going. forward. We're even going to bring him into our own front office. Oh, yeah. He's going to get the U.D. the Nick Collison treatment. Like, that's going to be our guy. Assistant GM

Mike Conley someday. We're assuming a lot. You're assuming he wants to do that with his life. I mean, if you want to assume that, that's fine. God loves the game. He wants to be, stay around the game. And I think he's going to respond to the respect that we show him on a daily basis as to Mike Conley appreciators. All right. So we're back on the board

here. Number 13 in the draft. Kyle, I feel like we got to go thunder again. Oh, you want to? I was thinking you see to that or I was thinking it might be lather score time. I think we might need. Wait, I don't know. Hold on. Lather score? This is a, this is a, this is a me as I'm sorry. This is, I mean, just we need like a bucket getter second unit throat, you know, guy that's just going to go in and get, get points. Sure. But walk us to see where you go. What is the, what is being lathered? He gets in a

lathered. Immediately, immediately he gets a sweat going. Got you. The guys that get out there and they can just kind of get the Crawford archetype. You know, it's just, uh, they put points up. I know where he's going. We don't depend on them for much other than just points in the, in the second, second unit. I don't know who you're suggesting here. Oh, I see.

He's a guy. He's got a lady. He's Filipino. Is this lather score by low bet on? We have two. We have two lather score by low bets. Oh, that's right. You do have a second, lather score, comma, buy low bet.

Real fire sale. on leather scorers right now. Either of them is fine. I was going to go more big, but yeah, if you want another score. If you want to text me who the other person is,

that's fine. No, no. Go with your guy. I trust you. You're the big voice in the room. This feels like a lot of pressure on me. If you want to go with the glue guy, we can.

We can do that. It's just, oh, here's the question. Do we need more off the bench scoring punch when we have Isaiah Joe? At this point. I guess maybe if it's just, just Joe, it wouldn't be so bad.

Go with your guy. I trust you. That's how much trust I have in my organization. Or you just don't want to be burdened with thinking about it. That's also. He delegates. This is a coin toss because I think the other glue guy that we want, we could get a little

later. This guy is somebody that I think eventually could be a legitimate second unit. And I was in the draft. He's had an up and down sort of start to his career. This is a by low bet. Nick Smith, Jr. I think from Charlotte. I think that he's a guy that can get buckets.

He's been sort of slowly trending up. I like adding him to this situation because he'll be able to do what he does and then if he grows beyond that, excellent. Nick Smith Jr. Also another former, like, top rank player in size. You are cornering the market though at this point on guys who could be blown over by a strong gust of AC.

Like, it's a little scrawny out here with all due respect to Nick Smith Jr., who I do like and is an absolutely worthy bet. And I think it's symbolic in a lot of ways for what the expansion draft is about. These guys who just don't get protected because of depth or numbers games, who have promise, who are on rookie deals. Why wouldn't you bet on someone like Nick Smith, Jr.? See what he can get you in a potential lather?

There is something kind of interesting, though, being revealed about like what is value. Rob, we kind of talked about this a little bit over text. There is something interesting that's being revealed through this protection. And this isn't exactly how it would be played out, I guess, in real time. But I bet it wouldn't be far off from this. There are these guys who we assume are not going to be primaries, but they never quite graduate to legitimate second side dependability. And there's just a lot of those guys that just kind of fall by the wayside.

And there's a ton of them in this pool of players. But yeah, I'm willing to bet on Nick. He also is 6-2. He has shrunk year by year in the listings. He was like listed at 6-5 and he's just come down. The NBA is ruthless with their wet. Lucas 66 on the NBA website I noticed the other day. Wow.

Another guy recent late first round pick. I think it shows the depth of first round talent, I think, especially for teams that have stacked a lot of these picks. A lot of these guys are just expendable because a team like the Thunder or even a team like the Hornets that's had a lot of draft picks, just has late first just lying around available to just send off to Seattle where he could thrive in the Iranian environments. But we're excited to have Smith on board. I think that's one, two, three, seven.

We're seven picks in. So what is your guys's seventh pick, the number 14 overall pick? This is where I'm a little open, Waz. I don't have a lot of strong feelings about the guys we have kind of next up on the board here. Do you lean more veteran or do you want to take a chance on somebody? I'm good keeping it going with the veterans, bro. Like these guys that haven't shown anything, I think it's for a reason. Man, I get it.

I get wanting to bring a Tulsie guy and sort of taking a flyer on it. I just think with those people, like, when you have a gross sort of context, meaning the quality's not going to be there. So a dude who's like never found himself, he's not going to find himself amongst a bunch of slop. Like, it makes sense when these guys- The largest slops was left on our cutting road floor, unfortunately. When these guys have structured, like, forced onto them and they have to find something to stick to, right? And so we don't have that. That's why I'm like, I'm good with-

I'm good with taking another wing here, man. Yeah? Yeah. So what do you think in terms of the guys who are next on our list? Do you want to go, this guy I have highlighted here, who's the number eight player on our list? Or do you want to go to the guy we have a little higher who's admittedly a little more expensive? I think now that we have Jordan Poole's contract and Wendell Carter's contract, I'm starting to wonder about the money a little bit more, I got to say. So I was thinking about eight.

Let's go with eight. Yeah. This is good radio. I'm bored. That's what I was thinking about eight. Sorry, we're playing close to the vest here. We're locking it in. We're just giving away who we're looking at.

Our number, our, our, our pick is Ica Coro. Yeah. And again, what, nobody's ever called the mic before? I think I know of, but if he's getting a rebrand in Vegas. Ike, baby. Again, you know, every now and again has moments. The deal isn't completely unreasonable. Also, he's the type of.

player that a playoff team, veteran team can always talk themselves into, maybe we take a flyer and I could coro and might work out in the playoffs. He's that type of player because he has the pedigree of the, you know, the high lottery and stuff like that. And so, yeah, give me a coro. Plus two years running of good perimeter shooting, especially from the corners. Yes, only from the corners. I didn't claim anything else.

But we need some of these reliable three. and D types. And Isaac O'Cocor can get after it defensively. He can really pressure people. He can hound full court. He gives us an energy that I think is really beneficial to this group. Like there are a lot of kind of mercurial strange talents on our team. And we need some guys who are just going to go full bore every second out there on the floor.

And Isaac O'Coro, to me, is a bit of that. We definitely had him around this range. The type of contract that might be a little pricey for a team like the Cavs right now that just keeps adding to its books, including DeAndre Hunter at the trade deadline. but for a team with literally $0 on the books before this exercise, I think 11 million per season is totally adequate and fine. Yeah. So I like that pick.

Good second draft opportunity for him to find a footing. So there are a couple veterans, and let's do two more. And let's maybe be a little bit more transparent about how we're talking about these guys. Because I'll be frank. I don't know who else is listening to this still, but I'm having fun. I think we're looking at more veterans who are on real. deal veteran contracts, which we haven't really prioritized up until now. We're looking in the front court. We're a little thin there beyond Magbo or Jackson Davis. I think this is a between

Kyle Kenrich Williams, another Thunder player who I thought we were going to pick in the last pick. A good glue guy, chemistry guy could play a couple different positions for us, or a guy like Obie Topin, who is probably the better, more dynamic player, but on a longer contract, three years, There's 45 million after this season. It also increases as opposed to decreasing something to consider there. Where do you want to go? I'll go top in just because I feel like Kenrich is going to be there. But Kenridge is so funny to me because when you talk to OKC, I always say it reminds me of like when we were moving my grandmother, like moving her house.

She was like a hoarder basically. And we were like, you got it. You can't keep everything. And she was like, no, no, I got to. And she was like arguing for every little tiny thing. When you talk to OKC fans, they've had so much success drafting. You'd be like, well, I mean, you're not going to be able to hang on to Kenridge forever, right? They're like, no, no, no, no, we can keep.

You know, I think Kinrich is awesome. I'm a big fan of him, but I feel like he'll probably be there. If you guys want to draft him at a spite now that I've said that, but we need some more athleticism and size and strength. So we'll go with Topping. He's down, down, down, down our board. And full disclosure, Topin is the exact guy we were talking about previously. It's just the three years, 45 million for us, which contracts we already have might be a little bit much. Plus a Wendell Carter, Obie Topping front court is not what I'm looking for in terms of-O-Vy is so one-dimensional.

You know what I mean? Well, I mean, he can shoot now. He obviously is a great transition. No, I'm talking about he's just an offensive player. Oh, just offense, yes. Yeah, his defense is still, yeah. Doesn't really work. Tibido is somewhere saying, I told you, Wes.

So that's good. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Rob, I would encourage you to go freaky on this one. One of your young guys, flyer guys, you know, synergy guys. He's like, oh, that was a nice drop step. The problem is this isn't a very freaky collection of players anymore. The real freaks. The real freaks are already off the board.

And so now you're getting into some deep cut like spray and prey types. Like, I'm just really hoping that this type of. player could be important. Spray and pray. Like Musa Diabate? No, no. I have to say, I almost talked to myself into Musa Diabate if we were going like 15 deep in this draft.

I like him. Look, you have to applaud his willingness to just try shit. Like he's out there gobbling up boards and being kind of an effort defensive big, but also will just attempt things on offense that no player like him should really probably ever attempt. But I appreciate like the delusions of grandeur and maybe the hope of eventual. grander for Musa Diabate. So shout out to him. I will not be selecting

Musa Diapate. I'm going to take OMAX Prosper. Admittedly more of a project. But if you watch the Mavericks play these days, you will see one to two plays every game where OMAX Prosper will do some insane shit. Like intercept an outlet pass at

half court by going full vertical and triggering a transition break the other way. He will also do four or five things that make absolutely no sense And make you shoot like 35% from two or something crazy in two Cs. Not an offensive player. But here's the good news, Kyle. We have offensive players.

We have scoring at home. So we're going to bring in OMAX Prosper and just see what he can be. I think at this range in the draft, there aren't a lot of high upside plays left. And so it is either stable veterans or young guys who have kind of gotten a first shot and flamed out. OMAX is kind of just starting to get his real look in the NBA. And I'm at least interested to see if he can get a continued one. with the blackjacks.

Also, Haitian, Canadian. That always matters on a team that I'm GMing. So shall say Prosper and the Prosper family. That's right. I hope the people who are only listening to this on the audio version go to the YouTube version to see Kyle's reaction when Rob Redoff OMAX Prosper's name, the curious like, hmm. Well, that's interesting.

I'm selecting him with the 16th pick in our draft. You know, he's not exactly in Mogbo, range. but not everyone can be. Listen, I got like, leaning on your MoGBO jokes. That's fine. I just thought I literally have HOMACs higher on my board than MoGbo for the record. You are legitimately crazy.

I don't see any reason to do that. I just think there was a glut of archetype, like there's a glut of a certain type of guy that I knew would be there. I personally think that Moogbo is going to be a good defender in the league. And I was like, there's not as many of those guys. Justin, I just feel like, I just feel like, I've kind of forced to. too to be honest. I think at this point, if now

we're seeing that there is like an end to the runway of this and we're not going forever, I feel like we should be the last fix. We should get, we should probably get an adult defensive anchor for our basketball team. I think so. Because I mean, Jackson Davis can do some of that, but I think we actually need someone with legitimate size.

And then you just kind of start having these guys aren't, there is no long term bet in terms of a defensive anchor in this group. I mean, if you're looking down through here, I mean, my, hold on, let me pull up. I had them clustered together. Are you looking at defensive anchors or energy bigs or switch bigs? I don't waste picks on energy bigs, Justin.

Just Jonathan Mogbo. Do you want to pay DeAndre Aiton, who I wouldn't exactly call a lockdown anchor? I mean, or do you want to get somebody cost effective wise like a Nemias Kada? I mean, you know who has come on a lot lately. I would lean towards Kada for the value play. Honestly, among those guys, he's not going to demand shots. He's going to be an adult on defense. I might lean towards K to there.

Here's my counter here. I'm looking at our roster and why I love the talent. Love the upside of this team. 2028, that's our year, baby. Unfortunately, not a lot of names to sell to the Seattle faithful at this point. And if we don't go out and get someone in the draft who's like a college star or someone who's a little bit more of a name and free agency, I do think we might need to sell some tickets here at the very least.

Let's go to the fuck it. We need to sell some tickets, column, which I always. have here. So I think the guys who are on the board, we could just talk about this outright because I don't think our friends in Las Vegas, you're going to pick them. I think Aitin makes some sense for us, both because we have a hole at center. Also, he's an

expiring contract next year, so it really is just a one-year pull. I think you could also look at him more as trade fodder down the roll, but also we're stealing him from our Pacific Northwest Brethren. We're taking the heart and soul of this scrappy Trailblazers team importing him to Seattle

and so we're going to bring the eyeballs with us. But the other guy I think we need to consider might be Bradley Beal. Just if we're thinking the next two years, which is what Beal is under contract for, we just want the fans to enjoy halfway competent basketball. Beals a good player.

Jersey sales, man. Wow. They're just going to fly off the shelves. Yeah. Little Kenny and little Sarah who just want to buy a jersey of their favorite new Seattle Sonics player. I think there's a case for Bill. Which one do you want to go with Kyle? I love the idea of Aiton as trade bait, even though he's been offered up as expansion draft fodder.

That's just a hilarious two-step right there. He's a contract. I also think like when he's motivated, he's played ball this year. So that's another whole other story. It's true. Beeler, Beeler, Aiton, man. You also said something about Portland. You know, I think they're dead inside.

They've lost so many big guys. So I don't think they'd really be hurt, you know, over that. They might thank you for taking it. DeAndre ate off their hands. Honestly, they might. We haven't even gotten to Chris Murray or Ryan Rupert territory. Just like, don't get me started. I'll lose to you, Kyle. I think we need Aet and more in terms of the makeup of what we have on paper right now. But I think Beal would be the better draw. I don't know, man. I really don't. I honestly feel like we could meet halfway. And I can't believe I can't believe I'm going to even say this. But maybe Aten does make sense for the types of guys that we have. We're going to go Ian. I don't really want to do that.

You know, now we're just, who do you genuinely think is going to sell more tickets, Justin? Bradley Beal or DeAnda Aiton? I don't think anyone's coming. I could tell you for a fact. Nobody's coming to see DeAndre Aiton specifically. So I think Beal would be the better job. A ton of people. I like Aitin just with the makeup of our team.

He'll play one year. Worst case scenario. We flip them at the deadline for some team. Deans have gotten actually pretty desperate for centers who aren't on long-term commitments. And so worst case, he's just contract matching. We'll get a second round pick down the road for it. Just follow the Presti way, baby. We're taking DeAndre number 17 overall in the expansion draft, Seattle's comics. Thank you. Yeah, he was on our no-fly list. So other players who we were not going to draft under basically any circumstances. Bradley Beale has mentioned, Yusuf Nurchitch,

Pat Williams, Terry Rozier, Mo Wagner, who I probably would think about, but he's already out with a torn ACL. And so who knows what he's going to be next season. And then basically any the guys who are restricted for agents only. And as I mentioned, that would make them unrestricted for agents only. But, was, we still got some money we both love. Oh, yeah. A Grizzlies Big Man, who I know you

floated as we should maybe circle this guy. And frankly, we get to outflank Seattle so hard in selecting him and Portland so hard in selecting him that I think we should do it. Yeah, Jay Huff, come on down. I love it. Get on down to Vegas.

Definitely, he's just been a revelation for me watching so many Memphis games this year. And Kyle, I'd never heard of this dude a day of my life before this season. And like, he's good. This guy gives them good minutes every single night, dude. And so yeah, I definitely, I'm a, I've become a fan of his. Let's go. Love having Jayhuff with our team. Go ahead. What's the climbing gym scene look like in Las Vegas? Do you think I actually think, tap into that? I bet it's great. I bet a lot of casinos have them, honestly. as far to their like kid friendly entertainment wing. I bet there's a lot of like empty silos in the middle of the desert

that have been converted into climbing gems. I think the options are going to be robust. That's probably true. Hell yeah. Memphis deserves a lot of credit for like their like weight training program because he, you know, Aldama actually has improved his body a whole lot. Definitely. He was a goddamn stick figure.

Jayhoff, like he used to just kind of be like a poster target basically in summer league. That's kind of what I knew him as. Everybody was going to try to dunk on him. And he's improved his body so much. It's just cool to see. It was always a skilled player. And I think it's really helped him break through in the league.

I think the only other big I would really think about here if we were going big would be Kelly Olinick, who's available for a year under contract from the Pelicans. Just a really solid work a day, kind of stretch, kind of, you know, kind of ball skills. Having a stretch big is so huge to give them some room to breathe and operate. So definitely thought about all. Atlantic here too. We have one more pick, right? I think that's all we got.

Oh, that's all we got. Do you have any honorable mentions, though, was? Is there anyone you wish we had picked? Jed Howard didn't get taken, did he? He did not. Jet Howard. That's a reason for that. The problem of Jet Howard is like, you hope he can be Isaiah Joe, and

Isaiah Joe's on the board, so why would you not just take Isaiah Joe? Jordan Clarkson, nobody gave a damn about. I. O. DeSumu was high on my list. I love him just as an energy guy. Like he plays with a certain force that I really love. Oh, and Luke Garza. Luke Garza. Like, God damn.

Lukea Garza. Lukea Garza. Excuse me. Excuse me. He's going to be picked in the white guy. He said Lou Garza? He said Luke. But Wazz is closer with these players than we are.

Yeah. I give him guys nicknames. And Luke Garza, you know, those are his guys. But Kyle, Kyle, do you have an opinion of Jalen Wilson with the Nets? He's one of these random guys who every time I watch him play, it's like, I don't know if the jumper will ever be there for him, but it feels like he's in the right spaces and it feels like he knows how to play. And I'm kind of, I'm kind of drawn to him as a prospect. Yeah, I think people didn't totally know what to make of him when he was at Kansas. I believe he was on the with Grady Dick.

I'm not mistaken, but he's always, you know, he had great size. Like you said, if the shooting had been there, I think he probably would have been a lot of. lot more valued in that draft process. I'm not surprised that he's stuck with them. I don't know that I have a strong opinion about where he's going to go in his career. But he's one of those guys that I've always just kind of kept an eye on because he had a lot of tools to kind of make a leap. Do you want to hit some of our guys that we, I kind of passed our first. I just started like trying to build a basketball team. I mean, I was interested if the cost was right to get a point of attack guy in because I think we need one with this group. And I was like, that's either going to be.

be Davey on Mitchell or I wasn't going to spend a high pick on him. The other was Jordan Walsh, I think eventually, I don't know about the shooting ever, but at the right spot, I think he is going to be a pain in the ass defensively. He's got crazy long arms. He's got that kind of bendy, gumby strength that you like from your perimeter defenders. And then Jaden Hardy was the other coin flip lather scores. A couple other notable names that didn't go. A couple other notable names that didn't Marcus Smart, who was on an expiring contract. Simonee Fontecoe. Yeah, that one hurts.

It's been a weird year for big tech all around. Let's be honest. It's a very weird year. Cole Anthony, I believe, also available, did not go. Kobe Buffkin, a recent lottery picked for the Atlanta Hawks. Those are basically all the notable names. Yeah. I mean, Buffkin, again, is a guy who I think fits the profile of someone who would be selected

in a draft like this. And if the GM of an expansion team happens to be a buff, like love the guy, yeah. You can see him get selected. And he fits exactly what I was talking about though, about like the value of the league being played out by who's protected. Granted, we said, also Jamal Shed was one of Michael's highlighted guys that none of us took. I do like Shed. All right.

So, Rob, do you have the list of your team handy? I do. The Las Vegas Blackjacks will be, at least for starters before free agency in the draft and whatnot. Cam Wittmore. Gigi Jackson, Jordan Poole, Ben Shepard, Wendell Carter Jr., Mike Conley, player slash future assistant GM of the Black Jacks. That's right. Ica Cicoro, OMAX Prosper, Jay Huff. I'm pretty thrilled about this team.

I think we really nailed it. Look, okay, look, if we played you guys, you'd beat us, all right? I'll give you that. Okay, you'd do us. But that was not my thinking in this game. I'm thinking we're going to be bad. And if we try to be good, we're not going to be very good. So I didn't see much point in that.

Just remember. Just because you think you're Sam Presti doesn't mean you have his job security. Just always remember that. Well, fortunately, I'm also the owner of the team. So I control my own destiny. Hell yeah. The Sonics, just to recap here, Santi Aldama, Nicola Toppich, A.J. Mitchell, Jonathan Mogbo, who we love. Trace Jackson Davis, Isaiah Joe, Nick Smith, Jr., Obi-Toppin, D'Andre Ait in rounding out the core. that's the expansion draft. I feel pretty good about this. This is a fun exercise,

even though you really have to be a fucking sicko to have lasted this long in this podcast to want to hear our thoughts. We love you. About Nick Smith Jr., but we do love you and we love this exercise. We are who we are. But it does go to show when this does eventually happen

and it will. There will be expansion in the NBA. This is what you're looking forward to is guys of this caliber mostly, right? Second draft guys, distressed veterans or guys on overpaid contracts relative to what their teams want. it's not going to be a murderer's row.

Yeah. Yeah, we set out, we both agreed, like, we are not going after older players at all. We kind of drew a line on our board. We're like, at what point in the strap will you consider an older player? And we drew the line at 10. So we weren't even going to consider an older player past 10. Just to give you an idea of how different we were going into this. Yeah, that's how you end up with the process Sixers in that crap environment.

It's disgusting. You got to have actual real NBA players. adults in the room. It can't just be a bunch of kids. Then you draft some kid. You pat him in the ass, telling him he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's not the way to build a culture.

You got to have adults in the room. Or at least that's what I believe. And as far as our draft strategies, we selected one player older than 25. Like, we got a young team. It's just Mike Conley and the kids for the most part. Yeah, it's true. I think the veterans are out there in free agency.

You know, Todd Gibson is always looking for work. He's always bringing him in. He's always, Are you guys coaching Tibado or something? Just might. Not a bad play. I will say this does make me pretty excited for expansion.

I do think the teams will be pretty bad pretty quickly. But just to have new teams on the map, just exploring new territories in the NBA. I think Vegas will probably be an attractive market. I think Seattle is a more metropolitan city than I think people realize. And so I'm curious how much they'll attract. There's definitely more of like a downtown city scene there than there is for some of the smaller markets. So I just can't wait to see those jerseys out there.

See the Blackjack's logo get drawn up and unveiled by Waz. The Blackjacket. Better be black, too. I don't want to see any European blackjacks. Thank you very much. Kyle, you'll be doing some more scouting in recent weeks and months because you'll be heading up our draft coverage at the ringer. Anything you want to plug here, draft guide maybe?

You hit it. I mean, yeah, we're working on that. Danny and I are working on those. profiles and we've got some other draft kind of content. I'm going to be pumping some of that stuff out around the conference tournaments too. Just highlighting guys and trying to create a little bit of a watcher's guide since, you know, there are some people who aren't familiar with younger players in the NBA, so they especially don't know who the fuck these guys in the NCAA tournament are.

I understand all that. And we're editing another home and away also on top of all of that. Will you be explaining why Rutgers is so garbage? It's been a lot of money on two very, very, very, expensive freshman Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper

and their team is just not very good. My word. But if you have not seen Home and Away please go to

the Ringer NBA's YouTube page, watch all I believe you've done three so far Kyle, three Home and Away

video so far forth coming. Yeah. Fourth is coming. Yeah. Just not to blow too much smoke for Kyle

but one of the coolest things we do at the riner. Go watch home and away as soon as you can. Period. So check out

those things. Justin helps on that also. I do. It's all me. I do Thanks. Congrats to me.

We'll be back next week. Usual schedule Monday, Thursday. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. Thank you, Kyle, for jumping in here. We'll talk to you next time.