The Ringer NBA Show - The Summer of Dumb: Jaylen Brown to the Sixers, the Lakers Bet It All on Kessler, and Much More | Group Chat

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann react to the blockbuster trade that will send Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers and Paul George to the Boston Celtics. They break down the fit for Brown in Philly and debate why this move was made at this exact moment. Next, they go through some of the major moves made since the start of free agency, including the Lakers acquiring Walker Kessler from the Jazz, Kawhi Leonard’s return to Toronto, and Ja Morant’s trade to the Blazers. They also discuss some of the smaller moves made, including Norman Powell signing with the Bulls, Tobias Harris signing with the Spurs, and more.(00:00) Intro(2:45) Jaylen Brown traded to the Sixers for Paul George and draft picks(14:43) Brown’s potential fit with the Sixers(25:34) Paul George’s role with the Celtics(34:15) Jazz get massive draft haul from Lakers for Walker Kessler(53:22) Kawhi Leonard returns to the Raptors(59:22) Grizzlies trade Ja Morant to the Blazers(1:11:17) Tobias Harris signs with the Spurs, Norman Powell signs with the Bulls, and other free agency moves Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle MannProducers: Victoria Valencia and Jessie LopezProduction Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor NevinsSocial: Jessie Lopez and Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to GroupShat. I am Justin Varyer and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man. Oh, boy. A lot of things have happened since the last time we recorded a podcast. Jalen Brown is in Philadelphia. Walker Kessler apparently is worth just as much as Janice and Tadacupo. There's like seven other things we need to get to. I don't know if we'll have enough time.

How long is this pod going to be, Rob? I think we could go at least over the 90 minute mark. You know, like make a full move. out of this thing. Why not? Isn't this what we want? I mean, we say we want this every offseason. We're getting exactly what we want. I know our heads are spinning, but my God, I don't know.

I feel like this is comparably, this has to be the craziest one in recent memory, right? I mean, like we're getting big pieces. We're getting fringe pieces. We're getting a little bit of everything. I think the best comp would have been 2019, which is when a lot of the things that we're seeing now were first set where it's Kauai going to the clippers. We had the Lakers getting Anthony Davis.

You have the Nets getting Kyrie and Kevin Durant. That one was huge. But that one was like pretty typical of the paradigm of the moment where it's like, oh, teams are kind of gutting their cap space and going after these big fishes where they're trading everything in order to get them. That like made a certain sense. This to me feels like the summer of dumb is kind of how I've been perceiving this. Okay.

where it's like a lot of big players go into certain places. But every time you're like, huh, that's a weird circumstance. Or like, why is this team doing that? And it's just like, what is this team after the fact? It doesn't line up in the way that you're used to seeing. Well, it doesn't line up yet in some of those cases. Because for example, I had a kind of like, what is going on here reaction to Dean Wade signing with the Sixers.

And now I'm like, I love Dean Wade with the Sixers. This actually makes total sense for what they need. And so maybe there are, you know, shoes left to drop. Maybe there are other kind of pieces and dominoes left to fall. That said, I think this Jalen Brown trade in particular is just going to break a lot of people's brains in the same way that once Luca got traded to the Lakers, we could never roll our eyes at a Laker Photoshop ever again. Can you even imagine the dumb things that people are funneling through the trade machine as we speak? because if Jalen Brown can be had for Paul George and two first round picks, that's basically it. Two seconds. Don't forget the two seconds. We will account for the seconds.

But like if that's all it takes, anything is possible. I think that's a good place to start here. Because I had to start wondering whether or not this was worse than the Luca Dodgage trade. And I don't think there's any topping that. If only because the shock of it was so profound last year when Luca got traded to the Lakers, there was no buildup, there was no prelude to that happening. It just happened and you're just left reckoning like where the world is, like whether or not you live in an actual reality that you're used to thinking that you were. Whereas like this one, we knew this was going to happen. I think we'd heard dribbles coming out where it's like, he's kind of available and he's

kind of available for not as much as you think. There really isn't much of a market for him. But I still thought it would be something like pretty significant, a ton of picks, or at least like an intriguing young guy. going back to the Celtics, this was just basically a dump. Because if you think about Paul George, like, how many picks do you think would take a team just to take on Paul George? At least one really good first, maybe beyond that.

Yeah. They didn't really get much in addition to that. So they just basically dumped Jalen Brown, which is wild. He was six for MVP last year. It does, it does remind me a little bit of the Luke. The parameters of what caused it to happen. There are some Luca vibes scaled down where, You have, at the time, there was some vocal, really crusty analytics, you know, in the dark corners of the analytics hoops internet, who were quietly raising their finger and being like, actually in the end game of a title conversation, Luca Donchich is actually not as good as you guys think he is.

And their arguments were all driven by like, you're going so far in this kind of helio mindset. It's like heavy assist percentage, everything, and then the defensive stuff. And you heard similar kind of arguments for Jalen, but I feel like those were a lot more on Main Street and a lot more widely adopted. In terms of like the shock, you talk about it's going to break people's brains. I think we're in the aftermath of the breaking of brains and we're starting to see some people kind of crawl their way back towards coping with it in some ways. I mean, I've seen some guys come out and make arguments about why this was a good move to get off him now. We can get into some of the details of that. but in terms of just the breaking the internet,

it's definitely, I don't think it rises to the level of the Luca because that went on and never stopped. And I have seen some coping kind of going on with the Jalen stuff. But the hall really, the hall's really hard to, hard to reckon with.

It doesn't like they should have. Well, the pittance, you know? A handful? Yeah, pittance is good. Yeah.

I mean, we just lost the plot as far as a lot of that stuff goes, Kyle. Like, I think with Luca and Jalen both, like what, Luca Donchage is going to be good enough to what, get you to the NBA finals,

or in the case of Jalen Brown, we're doing all this hand-winging and all this hemming and hawing about his plus minus and his on-off when he won a title as one of the most critical pieces of that team. If you want to have the conversation about whether he should be

the definitive star driving his own offense, let's have the conversation. That's not even where he got traded. Like he's going to be sharing responsibility with Tyrese and Joelle and Bede and VJ Edgecombe like on the come up as well. I would imagine a lot of the scenarios that were even possible for Jalen Brown

would be ones where there were also good secondary stars or guys like co-stars you could kind of share responsibility with. He's clearly qualified to do that because we've fucking seen it. What are we talking about with a two-way wing who's in the prime of his career, who is this good?

Yeah, there are caveats. There are quirks. There are elements of him, both as a player and a personality, that are a little tricky to make fit within your locker room or just like on the court in a lineup. Those are great problems to have

when Jalen Brown is the guy involved. I perversely love these sorts of things happening too, because it just feels like we spend so much of our lives. If you're a fan... A lot of perverse love in your life, Justin. That's true, but this is one in particular is, I guess, more of the S&M variety, because we spend

so much time, like, trying to nail down that we think we know everything about what's happening. We come to this agreement that, like, this is the structure. Everything within this box has to happen in a certain way. But I'm like, not... That's not the case. This is a lot of just like people making human decisions that sometimes

zag against the established structure. It reminds me of the thing someone was told me that like the NBA is basically just a small village. And it's kind of like all industries. But each individual franchise is its own house. It's its own home. And the one thing I think everyone can agree is that like everyone's family is fucked up in ways that don't typically like align with how things should happen. We all have these sets of rules. But like your family does something that's weird in a certain way that your other one is. And like I look at what the Celtics did. And it just seems like there was enough stuff that just got so weird that they just had

to move on from it, whether it was Jalen Brown's hardheaded personality wearing on them was the fact that they tried to trade him 20 times basically. And then this time in a very public way for Janice and Zeta Kupa, who by the way, like, Buck's probably feeling pretty good about what they got in comparison to what Jalen Brown is apparently worth. The fact that like new ownership is in charge. and apparently there's a lot of private equity money at stake there that's perhaps driving, perhaps some of these decisions, how much is Brad Stevens even involved here?

How good is Brad Stevens even? You know, there's just so much here that's just clouding what you would think Brown's value was. But in actuality, maybe it came down to this other stuff that isn't what we typically like base podcast segments about. All of these admittedly perverse curiosities you bring up feel totally reasonable to me in this moment because this is just, I mean, let's just say it, like an abject failure of management, if this is the return for Jalen Brown, complete and utter failure. And I say that because part of your job as a general manager or if you're running basketball operations for a team

is understanding the people involved that you're working with. You have to understand that you can't float Jalen Brown's name in a Yannis conversation one more time or there are going to be catastrophic consequences where you have to trade him. And then you have to know that if you do have to trade him. The market has more to bear than this, or also the first part can't happen, or if the first part does happen, you have to follow through on the Yannis trade in the first place. And so starting the Yannis conversation, stopping short because you won't trade Hugo Gonzalez or Baylor Shireman or potentially one extra pick or whatever protected, kind of inexcusable given the way things have turned out, and then getting this potential return, which

I will add the smallest asteris just to say, clearly the appeal of getting these two picks is to flip them into something else that will help the Celtics down the line, whether that's this season or in the future. So there is like a bit of an incomplete picture here as far as what the actual return will be. But this intermediate stage is not good enough. I know I'm the historical parallel guy. So I'm going to go ahead and just do this again because one came to mind that. So if we go back, there's some really interesting parallels with this.

If we go back to 1994. So we're coming out of the, well, we're coming out of the 92, 93. season. Michael Jordan decides he's not going to play. So Scotty Pippin gets handed the reins randomly for this one season and has a season where he's in MVP contention, has a great, you know, plays really, really well, takes him into the playoffs. And then in that spring in 1994, coming out of that season, the Bulls talk about trading him to the Sonics, interestingly enough, which I was thinking, I was like, this is kind of similar. It was like, Tatum was out for different reasons. Brown gets a taste of what it's like to be the main guy. And still, both of these

teams in those circumstances, you know, like 30 years apart, decide that they, uh, the Bulls didn't end up pulling the trigger, obviously, because Jordan wanted Pippin to be there. But I just thought that was interesting. How that end up for the Bulls, by the way. Did it go okay? Well, it was just, Piven's a way better player than Jalen Brown could ever dream of being, but for a lot of different reasons. But I just think, um, it's interesting, just two really kind of complicated personalities that the Bulls decided to kind of weather the storm and just ride it out and figure it out. But the Celtics, I think if you think about the upward arc of where Brown's career is headed, and I think it's tricky to bit, you were talking about him fitting into a title team.

I think, I don't know that the status quo coming into last season is the same as it is now, because the toothpaste is out in a lot of different ways. A, you know, you've got the weird locker room stuff going on. It's just hard to go back from. It's Jalen justifiably has extension coming up is another part of this. maybe they didn't want to sign up for that. And this is kind of a pivot for their title window. I think one title window in their team as it was has closed.

And they're like, we have to open another one to keep this going. Because if we re-sign him for that amount of money, for the role that he thinks that he's supposed to play, there's the off-court stuff that's weird with him. I think ultimately they just figured, like, we just got to get off of this. And I understand it on that level. It's just the return. Like, again, we're circling back to the return, the return, the return. That's the part that doesn't. that doesn't work out work for me.

Well, the big thing that teams of the past and even teams in recent years haven't had to deal with is just the second apron being a major impediment to team building, but also the kind of boogeyman that will allow teams to do things like this and blame it on the finances. Like, oh, it's not actually because we don't like Jalen. It's actually because we need to get off of this despite the fact that Paul George basically makes as much for one fewer year. So I don't know if you're really gaining much in the long term there. but it just feels like this is an opportunity to say something like that. I'll go back to the private equity thing. Like, if you haven't yet watched it, the June Lee video kind of diagramming how this all ended happening where according to his sources, like private equity had more money in the Celtics

when they announced the sale or at least that they intended to buy them. And then they went back and drove that down in order to satisfy the MBA requirements in order for private equity not to be the dominant owner there. And that's how Chisholm ended up happening. I think that's interesting context to all of this because it does feel like that, or at the very least, it's that sort of thinking where we're getting distressed assets. A lot of this is happening in Portland. We'll talk about the John Moran thing a little bit later.

It does feel more like, because like other than what Rob outlined that there is something else coming down the road that they just wanted assets that they could spin forward doesn't make a lick of sense. And even then, why wouldn't you do those in concert? Why wouldn't you wait until later in the summer? Like, why does Jalen Brown have to be on the Sixers? right now. That part of it, I just like, I can't reconcile. It doesn't really track. And I look, I'm fully understanding. I'm a believer in the idea that there are some bridges that once you cross

them, there is no going back. It would have like real devastating effects in a locker room or to a team and the momentum and the morale of that team to keep a certain guy around once you've, you know, in this case, like jerked him around in the trade market enough times. I don't really get the sense that that was like absolutely 100% the case right this second. Like I think that, They needed to trade Jaylen Brown. They had crossed that particular threshold. But the timing is negotiable. And frankly, we're not even close to the start of the season.

I know that it's a little easier to grease the wheels in transactions like this, when teams do have a little more space to work with or you could find it like a third party or an intermediary. That's not what ended up happening. Paul George's contract was not going anywhere. No other team was going to trade for it. So it was sitting there, this offer I would think, was going to be there for them every step of the way.

what exactly was the rush? And that's the crazy thing about the Luca comp too, because clearly the Celtics canvassed every single possible opportunity, and they decided this was the best we were going to get. Why they just decided to put up a hard deadline? I don't know. Maybe a Trey Murphy is coming down the road here. Maybe LeBron just decides, hey, actually, I love Boston.

Just send me there so I can play with the guts of this former contender. I don't know, but it just like it just doesn't all line up. And speaking of not really lining up, I do find the fit with Philly to be really interesting, Kyle. Like, it's so funny. Part of me you almost wonder if there's a little bit of spite kind of greasing the wheels here where Jalen Brown is out there being like, I kind of want my own team. Like, I had the most fun when the ball was in my hands and I could do everything. He goes to a team where, like, he's probably third in the pecking order. Like Tyree's Maxie already has declared like he's one of the best young scorers in the league. Joel and Bede is just one of the

most giant like obstacles to any sort of else going on in a franchise and then on top of that you have VJ Edgecombe who Rob wanted to trade for Jalen Brown and the other pod and we're like no you can't do that I destroyed the phone if let's you forget yeah I will say

Justin you said who could possibly have seen such a deal coming I mean one humble podcaster did flow Jalen Brown to the Sixers apparently he's too rich. A lot of people have brought that up Yeah, Rob called it. He did. But yeah, Kyle, I just, the fit with Brown on the Sixers, I mean, you take the talent, sure, like you didn't pay much for it. But it does feel a little uneasy. It's not like the easiest thing to work in a guy who's so, like, dominant and like, clear about how he wants to play versus his team.

That's already kind of like hit a bit of a run here with their current context. Yeah, I mean, you see Jalen like this past year, he did, he did show some signs. He played more ball screen this past year than he had played. I was looking at it from season to season. 22.4% of his possessions. His previous high was 17.5. So the ball was in his hands a lot. His assist numbers went up.

I've been one that, like, I don't really give a shit about like raw assist total, like, stuff like that. Assist numbers. I'm like, if the ball's in your hands all the time and you like get off the ball sometimes, like, woohoo, do you want some credit? But I've always thought that that was like the equivalent of like praying loudly in the street. look how spiritual I am. I'm just, I was like, you don't get credit for that.

Like, you need to sort of, you need to like assimilate and flow into an offense in a way that elevates everyone instead of just being like, aren't you, aren't you thankful that I just threw you the ball

when I decided I couldn't score? Like that kind of stuff. That's what we're talking about ultimately. I was making the point up before the show that like, you could make a very cynical argument that the Sixers just added like the worst wing version

of the way that bead plays, like, at his worst moments in terms of, like, I'm just saying that, like, this, if you look at the, the side by side, as Sixer fans throughout the year last year, there was these moments where there was this duality of like this very fun, kinetic, moving, run, and gunning, fast team. And then it'd be like, and dump it to Joel. And it's like, it just kind of, it's just like, and I kind of feel like, Rob, I want to hear your reaction to tell me how I'm wrong on this, because that's how Jaylin is. If you, If you talk about, like Justin was saying that he's coming in, like, he's the fourth option.

Jalen does not think he's the fourth option. No, no, no, no. Tyrese and BJ, no, no, no, he probably is going to have to be disabused of that. I just think, I'm curious just to hear you, explain your face reaction to that. I mean, I would say, explain your face. Explain your face at me. That's easier said than done. But as far as like Jalen's role in a buzzing team friendly offense, like he just did that.

The Celtics had a buzzing team friendly offense, including. including when he was out there as the driving force of it. And I say that in part, literally the driving force of it, who he is as a downhill player, I think is really vital for a lot of different systems and could be vital for the Sixers, too. They're going to figure out how they want to play, who they are, what the priority is in terms of who is handling the ball and scoring, of course.

The one thing about Jalen Brown, I definitely want to acknowledge is to me what's... Hold on, though. Yeah, yeah, please. You're saying that he was driving it. That's the whole point, is that he is going to want to drive it. And he is not going, I don't think he's going to feed into the, those three guys are not like get off the ball easily guys. Tyrese is traditionally a score. VJ, not when he came to the league.

He was a score, man. We're not when he came into the league anymore. I'm just saying it's about it going together. Yes. Sorry. I think, look, I think the hope that this can work, a lot of it comes down to the fact that Tyrese has one of the most elastic games of basically any guard in the league. He's such a good shooter. He's so good attacking off the ball and on the ball.

you can kind of move him around and make him work and he seems like he's amenable to doing that to a degree. Now how does that amenability make sense with how good he already is and the trajectory he was on last season being an all NBA player driving his own team. We'll have to see. There's a lot of ego and momentum

and individual development here that's sort of coalescing all at the same time. It's going to be a little clunky. It's going to be a little bit awkward. I just think Jalen's name gets dragged through the mud a little bit offensively when I don't think he's a great playmaker. I think what separates him from the truly elite class, like what's keeping him out of the top 10 is there's not like a really strong case that he makes other players

a lot better, that he can take on a certain amount of scoring load to make their lives easier for sure. But he's not passing guys open. He's not interacting with people in the pick and roll in like a really straightforward way that unlocks their game. He's a great individual skilled score and a good physical defender. And those two things at his position at the volume in which he are really important. They're just not as important as what you're going to get from the top five players in the league.

And so I don't want to, I don't want to, again, like, criticize the guy for only being the 15th best player in the world potentially. Jaylon Brown is really good. That doesn't mean the fit is going to be perfect,

but I think it's enough to at least kick the tires and figure out how it could work. I think one of the good things they have going for them in Philly is like Tyres Maxie. Well, they have a lot of good things going for them right now.

It seems like this is a real heyday for them. But like Tyrus Maxi, one of the good guys of the league, and I think he is going to take the burden on himself in order to play off of Jalen and VJ is still young and still kind of developing into who he is. Seems like he's at his best, just like wreaking havoc and playing off of guys, off of cuts, like being opportunistic there. And so if you're allowing Jalen to drive the offense, I do think it kind of sets up naturally. The problem is going to be in Bede, but I think

the problem with Embed is that you almost have to structure your team as if he's a bonus, that when he's available, we'll dump it in there and we'll just like slowly pace him back. And for like the two weeks randomly in December where he's playing like an MVP again, like, oh, well. But you can get through a regular season. You can stack 50 high 50 wins, maybe even 60 wins next year considering what else they do in free agency, what they do in particular to fill the void when Embedit isn't there. But like, now you have Jalen and Maxi and Vijay just driving a team. And like, there's just like so much here to regular season proof a team that is going to struggle no matter how long Mbid is going to be under contract there.

And just think about that. We're talking about the Sixers as a team that could be regular season-proofed. Like, they were having a constant existential crisis because of everything that was going on with Embed and whether he's available or not, how much do you build around him, his salary considerations, and how much space and oxygen he takes up within an organization.

I think a lot of those pressures are relief just by having Jalen Brown around. There are redundancies that come with it. And I think this really is the point. To me, it's less about how flexible Jalen is. and more about how flexible or inflexible Joelle Embed is. Because that is a guy who, as we've seen so far, only really knows how to play like a star.

Like, he only really knows how to operate getting the ball a ton. If he's just spacing the floor, he's just kind of standing around and he's not contributing a lot to your offense. If he's not incredibly mobile, as we've seen in some of his recent stretches in the NBA, then he's not really an impact defender either. So the Embed question marks loom large,

but now the Sixers can get through a regular. season, knowing that they can have two and a half stars, depending on how you, like, you classify edgecombe at this point on the floor at basically all times, like carrying them through the regular season, getting them through the schedule. Brown isn't, you know, infinitely durable, but fairly durable as stars go. Like, we'll play, we'll show up, we'll play big minutes like Maxi does. I just think those two guys plus Edgecombe together can carry a lot of responsibility.

And you're right that it's weird to think of Embed as the bonus. And maybe it's like not logistically. possible with the way that he likes to operate, but it is probably the way that they should try to dig into this. It's interesting that there's like a hoops boomerism going on across the league where it's like, but the boomers are millennials. So there's a little bit. And the varying justified degrees, because I know we'll get to Portland, but everybody was like,

oh, you know, John, day, you know, everybody's using, they're talking about these older millennial players. I mean, Dane's a millennial, right? I'm trying to, because I'm an old, older millennial. Lenny. I'm thinking of the spectrum of ages here. Embed, and it's like in some situations, those guys are justifiably at the center of plans. I mean, Steph's still really good. LeBron's still good.

But it's just interesting to me to see that pattern throughout the league where it's like, we can't think about Embed as the centerpiece of what we're doing. He's attack on. We can't think about Paul George. He's attack on. It's like that pivot is really interesting to me, observing it throughout free agency. Another quick thing about the Sixers, too, here that could be a point in your favor, what you were trying to say is that, or I think it will be, is that having Brown there, if they can figure out a way to make it fluid for him to sort of work with them. And it is more likely that Maxie is going to cater to that, is that Maxie won't get run into the ground like he was this past year. So that's going to work in their favor, too, just to have another creator score there and a guy who can guard bigger kind of wing players.

I guess Dean Wade starts at the four. think so. And like, that's where, again, that's signing of, if you think about these core four pieces, right, Joel Embed, Maxine Edgecombe, and now Jalen Brown, what do you want around them? You need someone who can really cross-match defensively and chase guys around, but also is kind of a power forward and also can kind of like stretch the floor. The stretch can be, I mean, a stretch for Dean Wade sometimes, to be honest with you, but defensively, he is kind of exactly what these other four guys need. Right. Until LeBron signs there tomorrow and then he's coming off the bench.

Oh, he's fine. Well, look, even if they don't make any other notable moves, if this is just kind of the core of the team, part of why I'm optimistic about the Sixers is, like, those four guys, that's four three-level scores on one team. I don't know that any other team in the league has that right now. And so, yeah, there's a lot of puzzling that has to happen to make it all fit, but the possibilities are pretty wild.

Yeah, I feel pretty confident the Sixers are going to be good next year. Oddly enough, I think the Celtics will be fine at the very least as a regular season team. It's odd that I look at all the names stacked up there. I'm like, this team can probably still win 50 games next year, which probably says something about the Jaling Brown conversation. At the very least, it's a credit to some of the context that they built in the wake of getting rid of guys like Drew Holiday and whatnot.

They're still Kada. I like the Mitchell Robinson signing. I think he's going to help them a lot. I wish they had just stopped there because it seemed like they just wanted a big to play against teams like the Sixers with Embed. There's still the guts of a very good team there, but I just don't understand Paul George coming here. He's 36 years old.

We talk about availability. Like Nick Nurse is just like licking his chops being like, oh, I get to play another guy for 40 minutes. Well, like, hopefully Paul George plays 40 games next year. I don't know, Rob. Is there any world, I guess, I'll have to ask the question in which Paul George, conduit of flow and good offense and just a guy, who's really a willing passer

and wanting to get other guys going, is there any world in which he fits so well there that this team still plays at a higher level than we were expecting? I think he's going to fit well. Paul George was good, especially when he came back after his suspension last season,

like was really good for the Sixers. Can't do all the things he used to do, but can do enough of them. And as you say, contributes to flow, helps keep plays moving, helps build action on action on action. That's Celtics basketball. That's the way they want to play. And so him fitting in there, I'm really not worried about.

To me, it's more the injury risk you outlined. On top of Jason Tatum is still a constant injury risk. Having the offseason off is great. But we just saw him get hurt in the playoffs. Mitchell Robinson, as you noted, their big offseason addition, a gigantic injury risk anytime you try to play him big minutes. So that's a lot for even a pretty deep Celtics team to weather. So there are a lot of pieces here.

there's a lot of guys that I like and that we like and that makes sense together. They're going to be a good team. It's less about, oh, the Celtics have imploded and are now going to be completely irrelevant and more they had a chance to kind of really put a foot down in contention in the Eastern Conference

to establish themselves as probably the foremost competitor to the Knicks if they really knocked the Jalen Brown trade out of the park. And they blew it. And so instead they're going to be in the mix with these other teams where, I mean, you can go through the East right now. I think there's probably nine or ten teams

that think they're going to be in the top six and things are going to go real sour somewhere and I just have no idea where it's going to be. Mitchell Robinson, I mean, on paper, initially when they added him, if you thought that they were just going to kind of run it back, he fits, if you think about the philosophy of the way that the Celtics play,

it's just like, okay, we're like plugging this into an amplifier because he's going to go get all of our misses. I mean, you're talking about an elite rebounder on a team that wants to shoot volume threes. I mean, those two together just felt like gatekeeper, keymaster kind of meeting up energies.

I really felt good about that. But the Paul George part of it, we're seeing him sort of pivot, I mean, I guess it's probably more of a de-evolution or just a conscientious sort of pivoting for him for how that he plays. You're talking about him coming back, and he's not going to be relied on to be like a,

I'll say this. There are a lot of shifting pieces on the board for the Celtics. Some are assumed. I think you assume and you hope that Derek White bounces back, that his inefficiency last year, that it was a blip more than like a trend that's going in the wrong direction. Peyton Pritchard, as we are being led to understand, is going to be, he's on the path to become Jalen Brunson, apparently. Yeah. And then, so you hope some of those improvements come, you know, we recover and we improve. But then there's also, Paul George is just kind of on this, this path towards being.

becoming more of a stretch four who gives you some just kind of like sprinkles some self-creation over because I was looking, he's just not driving the ball enough anymore. Granted, some of that was like the spacing when Embedde was out there. His room activity is a lot different. I mean, like in 24, 25 of you, he was driving per 100 possessions, 13.3, 13.4 times for game. And then this past season, that went all the way down to 8.5. So a lot less driving. I would even say it's not the space.

saying like Paul George cannot beat a man off the dribble anymore. It's just not really what he does. He's still really good. He has a lot to offer, but it's not that. Yeah, I think that was waning in his last couple of years with the Clippers. And if anything, I think that's part of why they wanted to get off him sooner than later. I just think this is shaping up to be like one of the bigger religious wars. Whether or not it actually is the case that this was guided by principles and philosophy and like analytics and all this other stuff, I think it's ultimately going to trend that way because it really does hit a lot of the hot buttons that we talk about constantly. It's depth.

It's just like the flow of an offense versus the raw talent of a guy like Brown. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of Rudy Gay back in the Grizzlies where they traded him, Vertesianne Prince, who is for the end of his career. But it does kind of like hit some of those benchmarks. The problem is that Jalen Brown is a finals MVP in one of the top 15 players in the league. He was good. He was good. Rudy K. It was never very good.

He was like a fine. Oddly enough, ended up in his career with the Spurs as sort of an analytics darling. Yes. Because he became more of a three and D. He did the Marvin Williams and it worked out for him. It did. Yes. But it does check a lot of those boxes where like I could see this getting more frothy as it happens,

especially if the Celtics play well if all of a sudden their depth allows them to pace out Mitchell Robinson and Paul George and get the best in them in the way that it will be tougher for the Sixers who are in his day. deep. And so I'm like almost bracing myself. Like I want to put a couple flack jackets on like as we go through next season because this could get pretty intense very quickly.

Especially when you think about how Jalen Brown's going to take it. Right. Like this is a slight. It's a slight to be traded. It's a slight to be traded for this. Everything that's been going on with the broader conversation is about, you know, this larger analytics bullshit like all of the demerits of his game, all

of the sniping. If you're Jalen Brown, do you go into next season being like, fuck you, I'm going to show you how great I am on my terms. Or are you saying, fuck you, I'm going to be the consummate team player for the Sixers? Like, there's so many different ways this could spill over and go. And similarly, on the Philly side, this is such a windfall for them. Like, they were never going to get a player as good as Jalen Brown for Paul George. That was not a thing that was going to happen until it literally just happened. And so if you are Tyrese-Max, or Juehl Embed, or anyone on that team, are you even more accommodating of the fact that this

incredibly surprising thing just happened to your team and could make it dramatically better is going to make Philly a different kind of contender as a result. The psychology of all this, I kind of can't wait to see how all these guys process would just happened. And it's in your, you're trading it to a team that you have direct interaction with all the time. And that's a really fascinating part of this. And part of me wondered if the Celtics were, the now they tell us stuff hasn't come out yet.

We don't fully know the scope of like everything that was going. on, but there was a part of me that wondered, like, did the Celtics just kind of hand a jump drive to the Sixers and say, hey, man, the Adobe Creative Suite is on this, but actually it's a virus, you know, like, I'm just kind of like, I don't know, I'm just wondering if this all nets out at that. Just them choosing to do business with them is fascinating. It is. What a time.

I just like, I can't wrap my head around this. This is really, like, I rarely get shaken by certain trades. I'm pretty numb to all this, because, really. veterans of two decades at this point of wild trades coming out of nowhere. This one was like, whoa, like what? What's going on here? Genuinely stunning. And I think the point that Kyle makes about them being in such close physical proximity

in terms of Boston and Philly, also just coming off of a seven-game series against each other. They were in the playoffs against each other. Just wild that this is the way it turns out. And like what the level of familiarity is with all of that stuff and the contempt that it breeds. I mean, this is, it really is something. Yeah. Well, we have much, much more because there were 30 other deals that happened. Let's take a quick break.

We'll come back, talk about that stuff. All right. Well, I thought this was going to be the biggest event of probably the offseason, ended up being number two, 30 minutes into this podcast. The Lakers just decided to spend it all for Walker Kessler. Didn't realize Walker Kessler was this coveted? Yeah. I guess young upside and fits exactly what they need.

But they sign and trade him for. from Utah, they get two first, or for two first and two swaps, then hand him a very rich deal of four years, $130 million, the player option on the last year of that deal. My takeaway from this, Rob, was that we all have bosses. And it turns out that the Lakers is Luca Donchich. As it should be. I guess so. I just didn't realize how desperate they were to appease him immediately, but you look at his contract. He's basically on a two plus one from here. And we saw once they immediately traded for him, they go out and get Mark Williams. or at least tried to.

And so on the one hand, I want to like see like, oh wait, the Lakers just see something in Walker Kessler. I know he's a big rim protector. All the analytics love his ability to defend the rim and like a big target offensively.

Luca loves that. And so I like want to see like maybe this new Lakers front office, like see something in Kessler that we all don't. But the truth is probably something closer to like they tried to do this with Mark Williams. They need a center. Luca wants a center. Go get him a center.

I think in the game of telephals. Luka wants a center resulting in you giving Walker Kessler $130 million and giving up two picks and two swaps. Something has been lost in the communication chain. I like Walker Kessler. We've talked about him so much on this pot

over the last couple of years, even when he's been hurt as this critical piece of the Jazz's future, a guy that is worth investing in, absolutely. Walker Kessler's a good prospect. He has shown almost no capacity to be a good offensive player yet. He's a really good offensive player.

He converts on those chances. Some of the other easy stuff are on the rim, but like, he's not really a fluid pick and roll guy. Like he doesn't really have those aspects to his game yet. He also is a huge injury risk on top of everyone else we're talking about today, who hasn't been able to stay healthy, who hasn't been able to be consistent yet. That would have all been fine if it was just like the jazz team that drafted him, continuing to see what he could be. But at the point where you're giving him the huge RFA contract and giving up all of these

picks to make it happen when you really don't have that much to give up to accomplish everything else you need to accomplish if you're the Lakers. This just seems like a lot to me. This just seems like a really big swing on a guy who I think is going to be pretty good, but mostly pretty good defensively and offensively, I really have no idea. Yeah, it's interesting because Kessler has always kind of had offensive aspirations, and he's shown little glimpses of it here and there, but you're right. I mean, it's never fully materialized.

He hasn't, he's had a really up and down. in the NBA. I mean, he was in the doghouse during at times with the Jazz, had to go play summer league when he didn't feel like he needed to go play summer league. Those always amused me when that happens. But, you know, he's only played over

70 games one time. I mean, 64, 58, and then five last season. I guess the thinking here is defensively he's always been pretty, you know, he's promising. He could be a pretty good, I would say, above average defensive center in the league. And then I

guess the rest of it is, you know, we can kind of compress your offensive aspirations with the fact that Luca just has a track record of you throw him even a league average big. Yeah. And he can turn them into something, he can turn them into something efficient and useful. So I think he'll get a lot of easy offense on that. But, you know, a year ago, we were having these conversations about DeAndre Aiton and then kind of talking ourselves into like, yeah, maybe this will work. I've just been kind of amused that, man, another, another laugh around the track and the Deion Andre Aiton experience did not convert any believers. Our congregation is not growing.

There are limits to what Luca can do, apparently. But I think that point is why I'm so confused, why they needed to overpay for a center like this. Because if Luca is able to draw so much out of these guys, couldn't you have, like, shopped more at, like, the T.J. Max aisle. Like, Daniel Gafford made the finals with Luca, and he seems imminently available considering where Dallas is at. Like, is there someone on that level that they could have given up

one pick four because the follow up to this is that they signed a bunch of guys who are basically the core of this team going forward because they only have I think like one swap available in 232 left in order to do anything else. And so your team really is all of these guys plus Mamu and Grimes and Sexton, which is why they're signed to like four year deals as opposed to we've seen in the past in some of the LeBron constructions where it's like one year from Malik Monk and we'll just like see what's up here. It's just like this is the team. And so It's one thing to go out and get Kessler. We could talk about the fit and what that means for them this year.

I think the problem is that like this is it for the foreseeable future. And that's kind of an issue with the Kessler signing too, where if you have Walker Kessler and you have all this other stuff kind of nailed down, then you can give him to just grow and be a young player and make young player mistakes. And there's enough to cover for him. As it stands, he's going to be really the only plus defender probably in their entire starting lineup. Maybe in their entire rotation, frankly, unless Jared Vanderbilt is a significant part of their plans.

But it sure feels like they're about to start Sandra Mamu Kailishvili at the 4. I like Mamu a lot. He had a really good season for the Raptors. Him as a full-time 4 is a lot. That's, again, a lot to ask of him. Quentin Grimes, yet another case, a wing we like. More 3 than D, certainly.

More likely to go off for 20 than he is to actually lock anybody down. He's a high octane score. You saw Sean's sweet. He was. He loves the score. He's fully outsourcing the copy for these tweets, right? I mean, we're doing, was there any question? Straight up, straight up going.

I mean, like, he's not touching it at all. If you look at the copy, the character count, I'm like, he's not typed in these. These are, these are straight up, like, I'll tweet this for you. You write it. It's going out. It's highly possible. Although high octane score is kind of reminds me of the press box thing where it's just like only sports writers say that.

And so, like, maybe they just said, like, oh, good score and he put a little of his magic shams dust, which is usually like something that kind of makes sense. And you're like, oh, that's, that's a word that people say sometimes, not really in this context. I just like that he's innovating. It's not just the agent name drops anymore, although I am considering whenever I tweet out a link for this pod and be like, great job by Justin Barrier and Kyle May are getting this pod done. You know, they really did it on this one. Well, I was amused just by, I was joke with Rob about this about when Dean Wade,

signed with the Sixers, the verbiage was like exactly the things that I've seen Dean Wade's agent argue with people about on Twitter, about him being on defense. I was like, I was like, nobody's like, I just thought it. I was like, it was just a dead giveaway there. I was like, that was kind of the language put in. You mentioned the high octane scoring of Quentin Grimes. Quentin Grimes. Yeah. Who's the third guy on the Lakers? Who's the third offensive? Who do you it is. I mean, it's either Quinn Grimes or Colin Sexton, I think, by default, right? Why

Colin Sexton? I don't mind it for like, it's not a lot of money. It's a pretty mild investment. But as far as like, we want one more guy who actually has some juice on the ball, who can spell Reeves and Luca. I think that's a worthy role of the dice that I really don't have a problem with.

Colin Sexton, that the Hornets had no desire to keep around, is going to be the third best score on a team that wants to be good in the West. It's just, it's interesting. I didn't say it was ideal, you know. Well, especially because Ubrey went for less, I think, right after that. I just, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Like, I guess you need more just only score, but there's only so much of those guys you could jam into one offense. Like maybe someone who's a little bit more of a caretaker ball handle I would have liked in order to compliment what you're getting for Luca. But maybe the ball's going to be in their hands so much. It just, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, I think both of those were basically, Yeah, similar price ranges for Ubre for sure,

but it also could just be a decision point about what kind of team you want to play for. Like, if you're Kelly Ubrei, would you rather be a part of an offense like Indiana's, or would you rather wait to get the kick out from Luka? Like, for some guys, that's not an appealing prospect. For some, it absolutely maxes out what they can do. And so some self-awareness is involved,

some taste is involved. Like, it may have just been a matter of that as much as anything. I think this is the point, though. They basically built a big three on the fly in a context where we've seen the teams that are succeeding are the ones that have the depth to trudge through the regular season because the regular season is now a battlefield. It's similar to what we're talking about the Sixers as before,

just like way worse because they have three guys. And as long as Luca or Reeves is on the court, it seems like they're going to have some legitimate juice in order to get some of those regular season wins. But I think you guys are right about the defense where it's just like, if Kessler, first of all, if Kessler's there, you're counting a lot on him. Mamu is like a, I would love him as a backup as a starting four basically to stretch.

Like, just seems like you're asking a lot of him. But if Kessler isn't there, like what happens to this team defensive? Let's just say he's out for two months. Could be. Like, this could be the worst defense in the league. I think with him, they're probably positioned to be one of the seven or eight worst defenses in the league already. Like, I just think that's probably where their baseline is. So, yeah, if he missed a significant time, they're going to be in a really bad way.

And they're going to try to go out over these next couple weeks and find defensive help specifically on the wing, I would imagine, to plug some holes in this lineup. I don't know who they're really going to find that's going to significantly help them. I want to appropriately couch all of this, though, because we have all these concerns. I think investing in Walker-Kessler to this degree

with all these resources, that's a larger team-building question. Everything that's going on with the defense that we've been circling, very concerning stuff for who they're going to be. they're still going to be one of the better teams in the West, I would think. So long as Luca is healthy, I think they're going to be one of the better teams. I just think they don't have a shot in hell of getting anywhere close to the Spurs Thunder level of things.

But after the Spurs and Thunder, everyone else has these big looming questions too. Like, what do the Wolves look like with Lamella Ball? What are the Denver Nuggets going to look like after the moves they do or don't make or who's injured or who's not? Like, the Houston Rockets are they ever going to get their shit together? Like, all of these other teams in the West are like pretty good. I think the Lakers, even with a bad defense, are going to be pretty good. Yeah, I just keep going back to this idea that maybe unknowingly,

Nico Harrison is going to get the last laugh with Luca. No, we can't do this. Well, it just seems like... Yeah, we can. Go ahead, Justin. He trapped... Thank you, Guyle, for supporting me. Seems like he is trapped in a purgatory of pretty good, right?

Like, the brass ring is, like, right there, and he's starving to get there, but he's just out of reach because this team will always be a certain level of good, but it will never be great just because of the way the contracts stacked up. I'm not saying that there was logic there that all of a sudden like, oh, he knew what he was doing. Nothing like that. But it just feels like they will always be considering the way the contracts stacked up, considering their assets happened, considering the way that Rob Polinka just goes about his business where like one year, like, is this guy the best GM in history in the next year?

It's like, holy shit, this guy does not deserve a job. Let me stop you there. I don't think we're ever saying. he was the best gym in history. That was not a conversation we were having. Well, he certainly had some hits. He was in the right coffee shop at the right time. That is for sure.

I'm saying even previous to that. In the right leather jacket. They won a title just basically by him doing the big swinging dick thing and just going out and getting the best player and then backloading it with a bunch of clutch guys. Sure. He's one of the more successful ones in recent history at the very least. But it's just like it just feels like what's going to have. happen with this team is just going to be slowly

just like just not there. They're just never going to be really where they need to be to compete on the level of the Thunder or Spurs or some of these other teams we're talking about. Yeah, I mean, look, it's much harder to acquire Luca Donchich and then over the course of several years meticulously build yourself into a championship team

when you have all the pressures that you talked about, Justin, as far as like, there just like is a drive to be good as soon as humanly possible and they've already kind of had the blip where they waited out of the gate. theoretically they could have rolled all this cap space over into next summer or a lot of it right like shorter term investments take on expiring contracts whatever it is get decent players in the door now to get through the season but really play for next year it's tough to sell yourself on that though like i i understand the want to do something quickly and i understand how that counteracts what's really in the best interest of the team just a real shame that luca danchage had a finals team around him and they decided you know what like maybe trade him to the lakers and see how that goes instead. Just quick before we go on to some other stuff.

Just again, I feel like the bucks are low-key winners in this. I think this is a credit Kessler going for this sort of package. Like, why you do the give me all you got style, just give me everything that is attractive as an asset package. And like we could we could kind of quibble over whether or not the buffet line of like recent draft picks and future draft picks for the heat will ever reap something like this. But basically just from the Rudy Gobert, deal with the jazz.

They end up getting six first round picks and two swaps out of this. One is Keante George. One is Walter Clayton Jr., who I believe is now on the Grizzlies. But like,

this is why you do that. You're going to find stuff that happens in these sorts of trades. And so if you're a Bucks fan, all of a sudden, just by getting your deal done early on, I feel like you have to be feeling pretty good right now.

Do you? I'm not going to pretend the Bucks also manage the Yonis situation well. We don't have to do that. We don't have to pretend that. Yeah, well, it was a year late, but yes. After they, after they botched the first three stages of it, given what else has happened. I'm just trying to see the good in everybody, you know? Your cynical ass just will never get there. Just, Justin's argument here is that there are levels of poo-poo platters. They're different. There are, there are states of hardness of bowel movements that, you know, some of these poo-poo platters are

diarrhea platters. And at least the buck's got more of a hard one, you know? That's all I'm saying. This is like a hometown buffet. Yeah. Fiber, yeah. And the other part of this that I really like is Jill and Duren, who's just like setting up all these phone calls being like, oh, I got so much interest elsewhere. And all of a sudden, the Lakers trade for Kessler. And it's like, oh, I guess you just got to go back to the pestis.

It just gets so much tougher when you have to look someone in the eye and pretend that you actually want to sign with the Kings as your leverage. Like, at least the Lakers was believable. Right. You just can't, you can't convince anyone of that. Isn't it interesting that? We had two teams that are, you know, I mean, you can maybe make this argument for Portland to lump them in there. These teams that perceivably were ascending and decided to make really interesting moves that kind of eat into the core essence of who they are.

You think, I mean, the Hornets took a big bite out of what they were doing with the mellow. And then the pistons, I think the pistons are one of the oddest. I don't know if this is on the docket of things we want to talk about, but just the handling of Duren, going and getting John Collins. I just think that's, that's an interesting move for them. And then Portland deciding, like,

dipping their toe in the John Morant stuff here. It's just like, you would have thought that the Pistons would have just run it back as it was and added, but it seems like they're taking a pretty big bite out of who they were. If their biggest addition is John Collins,

I mean, woof, like, that's such a tough outcome. And not even addition, but like replacing Tobias Harris effectively with John Collins. Tobias was a bit,

save their ass. One of their most important players. And John Collins does other things well. Like the idea of having another lob thread is not lost on me. Like he has been a good shooter. All those things are true. But you need somebody who has like a little bit more one-on-one capability to counterbalance what Cade does bring to the table.

Not just the space. They need the spacers, but they need guys who are creative too. When John Collins gets creative, I don't usually like it very much. So I really don't see the appeal of this kind of signing for them. It just really seems like they were stuck in their way. about what they want from some other supplementary guys. I thought this offseason was an opportunity to really explore what you can get outside of just having the Cade foundation,

the defense that they have in order to just pop in different options, allow ASAR basically to be the one non-shooter in crunch time. And you could just be a little bit more flexible. It just seemed like they lost a bias. And so they just like, we need a big physical shooter to be in the fore because we see ourselves as that sort of team, the team that's going to bully people around. Collins shot very well last year,

obviously has the option to be. play more of like a small ball five if you really want to go there. And so like, there's stuff there. But like even Isaiah Joe, good player, but still in that same mold they typically lean toward where it's like they cycle through these on-ball shooters or these guys that have

a little bit of spice in the six-man sort of role. And that's just kind of it. I just, I think it's a wasted opportunity after last trade deadline where we thought that was the opportunity to hit the button to begin with. They're also at that funky stage where they've obviously come on very strong. They've had their breakout season as a team.

they've really established their identity. And then you start like carving at that identity. It's like, oh, beef stew, we're just going to trade him away. John Collins and notoriously kind of like soft big in terms of the way he plays. You might now be our backup five or our crunch time five in games where Jalen Duren is struggling. We're going to bring in like try to get as much shooting on the floor, but oh wait, do we have enough defense to counterbalance what we're getting is shooting and not getting

from these guys? I just think they're at a very strange spot. And I would not be shocked at all for one if there's just a natural regard. to the mean in terms of how many actual regular season games that the Pistons end up winning. Like they're going to come back down to Earth a little bit, I would think. But also just like a really philosophical season from them as far as like, who are we? Which of these guys on our team actually serve the version of the Pistons that we want to be? I think that stuff's going to be in the air all year for them.

I was just going to tack on there. Yeah, John, it's funny to think like, okay, we have this, our five is having trouble like asserting himself in series half court situations. and then they go and try to put SAV on that with Salve, however you pronounce. I don't remember Sal. Sam. I think it's Sal.

With Collins, but I was just going to add this last. Collins is absolutely in the DeLon-Rite zone for me, where when there's no stakes, when there's no pressure on it, everybody is like, yeah, I like John Collins. He does some things.

I like Delon-Rite, but the moment there are stakes, you're like, oh, shit, I don't know. I don't know if I really, you know, he just says this really interesting, high approval rating that when it gets serious, we'll see. We'll see if John Collins.

helps them. Well, speaking of stakes, it feels like the Toronto Raptors think that they're big stakes for next season that I wasn't expecting them to have. So they get Kauai back with the trade from the Clippers, Ingram Dick, to first one swap and two seconds going back to the Clippers. A warm and fuzzy reunion, Rob, but also one that seems like it makes cold business sense, too, because as a result of this, he gets a nice little extension, which it doesn't seem like it was forthcoming from the Clippers. And this is also a guy who's under investigation

by the NBA for an entire year. Yeah. So it's like, it's great to have him back, but also it seems like the primary motivation to get there was this extension. Yeah. I mean, look, not to wade too deep into the aspiration waters, but like, is he under investigation

or is the Clippers or the Clippers under investigation? I feel like they are four of the, guilty party than he is, but that's not to say he couldn't be punished in some way. Assuming the NBA literally ever does that, I think that what they gave up in terms of the picks, it's like quite a bit for a

player of Kauai's age with his like constant will he or won't he play question. But if you're going to get him on the three-year deal with the extension, I'm totally fine with it. I like the Raptors accelerating in this way. I think, I thought they showed enough during the playoffs to justify that, whether it was going to be with someone like Kauai or not.

So why not get a half-quarter killer who resolves a lot of what your existing team couldn't do. And frankly, it's just like, I don't know, roughly 2,000 times better than Brandon Ingram. So like, let's just do it. Let's just get the good version of the player we have that can fit and resolve a lot of our problems. And I think maybe most crucially, just like the proof of concept, like Kauai is one of the best players in the world when he is right.

Now it's just going to be a question of if he is right often enough for the Raptors to be as good as they want to be. I mean, health aside, Kauai, the pace of his, game, I think should age pretty well because, I mean, he's not like a fly around rangey guy. He like brings you into his very strong physical world and and punishes you once you're in there. But defensively, I was, I was thinking about this. He absolutely, you hate Brandon Ingham Rob. I feel like you just, it really amuses me.

It's not hate. It's just what it is. It's just disappointment. We've seen this exact process so many times. How many times do we have to do it? that entire Lakers class, like all of those guys ended up being, like Lanzo was the only one that ended up. They just all got,

they ended up being just castoffs everywhere they went. Josh Hart. Josh Hart's the one exception, really. Well, that's true. You got me there. The Raptors. Good. I can be able to sleep tonight.

The Raptors, here's a take for you. I think the Raptors, we've talked a lot about how the, the heats defense on paper is going to be pretty gnarly next year. I think the Raptors have a chance to be maybe the best defensive team in the East next year. They're going to be. Oh.

I mean, it's going to be fucking gnarly. You think about it out there. I mean, I'm kind of like the shed quickly part of it is interesting. But the Colin Murray Boyles, and I was laughing about this at their front office, that video leaked of them saying like, we're the hand team now. And it was just pretty amusing to me that what's the ultimate endpoint to that line of thinking? Let's go trade for the guy who's the ultimate, the hand god himself. But you think about Scotty, you think about C&B, you think about Kauai. I mean, that's pretty tough, dude.

I mean, like, that's going to be, that's going to be something at RJ. Yeah. Well, especially, I mean, Shed is small, but, like, he is pesky in a way where if you have all of the all-hand team behind him, like, that is a really formidable thing all of a sudden. Yeah, I think they realized in the playoffs what everyone else did, that their future is Scottie Barnes and Cmb, and then everything else is kind of negligible. And I think adding Kauai is, like, exactly. the type of player that they need around there,

especially because if they're going to go into this project 6-9 mode again or like strong ball or whatever you want to call it, like it does feel like quite just slots in there nicely. To the point where like, yeah, he will have moments defensively, but you don't want to really rely on him to do any of the heavy lifting there. They have the defensive contacts to just support him and also be a little bit different than some of these other teams.

Like if you could be the one team still doing 6-9, like big-wing small ball in a league that's slowly starting to gravitate more and more towards centers. It's a nice little fastball or a little like curve while everyone else is throwing fastballs that like will give you something different. And I think that's the advantage of the Raptors where it's like, I don't think they'll be the best team, but they will be a different team that can compete on the level of some of these other teams. And so on the one hand, it's a lot.

I don't know long term what they're thinking with a 35 year old on a two-year deal on top of the picks. But there are a much more competitive, intriguing team next year than I ever. expected before this. Yeah. I mean, especially where they're coming from. They were already one of the best defensive teams in the league. They were already an above average offense. And now it's all just kind of icing on the cake as far as bringing back

Kawhi freaking Leonard to amplify and to add to that stuff. And really, I think the other part of this too is like Kauai, we all know who he has as a score can get to his spots better than just anybody in the world pretty much, maybe sort of like a Kevin Durant or a Shea. Also a really underrated defensive, kind of contested defensive rebounder. in a way that you can play him at the 4 really credibly. And frankly, like, any way you can wean yourself off of the Jakub Pertl minutes and experience, I think is going to be worth Toronto's while.

So, like, CMB should start day one of the regular season without question. Like, that should be your day one starter. Scotty Barnes should also probably be a realistic and regular backup 5 for you. And playing Kauai at the 4 makes that more possible as a result. So I think there's just like a lot of downstream stuff with Kauai. that now these other lineup combinations feel more feasible, more reasonable, more competitive even against some of the best teams in the East. Should we talk about Jha in Portland?

If we must. I mean, how are you feeling about it? Time for you to cook. I feel mixed. I will say my kind of response to everything about the Blazers is I just go to a lot of Blazers' game and I just want to have fun. And I do think watching John Morant just trying to climb the ladder on most centers is going to be pretty thrilling.

And so there's that. Ultimately, they didn't pay anything, and it is just a talent grab or a hope that they could re-energize this guy who was one of the five to ten best talents in the entire league, a guy who was potentially just like was going to be the face of the NBA. And so I get it from that respect. Jeremy Grant's contract was just as bad, almost as bad. And then Chris Murray is just a rotation wing at best. I don't think they really lost much there. But I think it is telling that they had to make. make a talent grab because despite going into the lottery for what was it for straight years before this recent draft, they just don't have the type of talent that could push them over the top. And so that's why you go and reach for something like this. I think the fit is incredibly complicated. I don't totally see the vision if this is the last of the moves.

I just assume this would be a setup to something else. I also don't love it now that Dane's there. Like if Dane wasn't there, I get like just having one small guard you have to account for because he energizes your offensive. And what we saw this entire last season, especially in the postseason, when Denny gives the ball up, you need something.

The only time they actually had offense outside of Denny was when Scoot just decided to be the best guard in the NBA all of a sudden. And then that went away just as quickly. And so, again, it's a worthwhile bet, but it just feels like they're already making bets with Dame and some of these young guys.

I just don't know how it all fits together. That's really where I get caught on it. Like, yes, teams should make calculated risks for talented players who underperformed or flamed out or maybe had injury troubles or like you think your team can serve them better than their previous team, you should take those risks and you should see if they could work for you. But to me, this is so much more complex than just Jeremy Grant's contract versus Jaws contract and the potential therein with Jah. There's so much opportunity cost here. Like putting the ball in Jahn's hands and that is the only way he plays.

like the only way he plays is as a guy who is someone you build around that you work around. He is now what you are orbiting as an organization. It takes so much away from Denny at a really critical point in his development. Scoot Henderson might just like not play very much as a result of having all these guards in the mix. That's going to depend on Dame's health, maybe first and foremost. But just like all of these young guys who I feel bummed about this because I believed in the core that the Blazers were building. And I wanted to see them continue to grow and take incremental. steps as they were adding other pieces, as they were rounding out the rotation. And I agree with you,

they were going to struggle to pick up another star along the way, as many teams do. But this is, like, Jha is the kind of player who stands in the way of younger players' development because of how he operates. It's not even a selfishness thing so much. It's just like, that's the way he is wired to score and to create is these other guys aren't going to have the ball as much. And that part of it, I just have a hard time getting over, like, taking that risk more so than anything financial, anything as far as who he is as a basketball player, which is aging and lessening and not getting to the rim as often,

we should note, I just don't like the cost of all that. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, like the IRISM parallels just continue to really stack up where it's like this guy plays a certain way, it's this exciting thing, go sour. But I think if you're in the John Morant business, you're signing up to build a very specific type of team

and the Blazers don't have that, I mean, if you think, and they have guys in place, like I agree with Rob in terms of, it feels like it would, it would hurt me if I were scoot, because it felt like finally I'm getting some traction after just having this really, you know, up and down just more, you know, injuries. He starts out tough and then he's missing time. And it's like, he's just trying to get back. He finally gets back and has this moment. And then we trade for this ball dominant guy who doesn't really space the floor. He's, you know, the strength, the high.

hypothetical strengths that he would bring, like you were saying, Robber, they were always going to be a tough aging curve for him as a smaller guy. He's not going to space the floor like we were saying. And I don't know. The things that it would take to get the most out of him just don't feel like they're present in Portland. And is he going to be happy there? That's another factor here. I guess it's kind of parallel to the Brown situation too, where you got these young guys that you want to give space. I feel like there are even fewer outlets for Jaa to succeed. in that way as opposed to even a Jalen Brown that I was criticizing earlier. It's just like the kind of player that JAA is right now, which is somebody who demands a lot of you in terms of the players you put around him and your lineup and your strategy,

but doesn't deliver at the level of like a superstar or even really a consistent all-star in recent years. I would argue those are among like the most destructive kinds of players in the league. They stand in your way the most. And so if it works great, like the Jahn, that was really electric for the Grizzlies,

I would sign up every day to build around that guy. That was a player I really believed in, the galvanizing effect he had on his teammates. You could see the way he could propel an entire franchise forward. I just don't think he's really that guy anymore. And if he's not that guy, he requires a lot of consideration to try to make his life easier. Yeah, it really feels like it had to be Jha or Dame

because the context that we're talking about supports, like, one of those small guards. And we'll even see what Dame even has left after, taking a year off from basketball. But Dame just feels like a little bit more of a facilitator of good offensive flow and especially considering what he means to the franchise. And he was just hanging out on the bench the entire year. You'd imagine he would just like kind of weave into the fabric there to the point

where like they're already like filming videos of him welcoming Jod to the team because he is the unofficial spokesman of the team. And so like there was just like more national like symbiosis there where things were going to ping a little bit more that you could compensate for it because they had all of these small, these bigger physical wings. and you wouldn't step on Denny, you would supplement Denny. What is he doing when the ball is in his hands? Like on both sides of the ball.

He's not going to help you defensively. And when he gives it up, he's just going to sit there and nobody's going to guard him because he hasn't shown a credible three-point shot the entire way. The one thing I would probably disagree slightly with you guys is that I don't know if Scoot is the one that suffers the worst here, if only because looking at Scoot up until the playoffs where he just hit another level, I don't think we'll probably even see that ever again. That almost felt like a fever dream at this point.

he was closer to Drew on a track than being someone on a level of like a driver of an offense. Like I see him as from this point forward like dogged defender who really gives a shit, which is probably his biggest trait. I really think he cares a lot. And then the three point shot was coming along there. And maybe that's what they're saying where he's like more of the compliment like the compliment to some of these offensive driven guys. But he is still pretty small. And so I think a lot of teams are going to shoot over the top of them.

The guy who I'm most worried about is. Shaden Sharp because like the success that he had all last season, which is primarily at the start of the season, was him just driving the ball when it was just literally him and Denny trading off because they didn't have anything else. Right. And I don't know, maybe that doesn't matter. Shaden's always going to be kind of a lottery pull because he's just so goddamn talented. I don't know if he'll ever put it together. But like he's slowly but steadily like just adding things and you basically just stopped the like the like the lifeblood of like continuing to to figure that out.

If you're not going to do that, then he should be moved at this point. Because I just don't see where he fits at all. I agree with you. The capacity to just sort of roll the dice with him has greatly diminished. There's just not going to be enough touch as an opportunity for Shaden

to be whatever the best version of him is going to be with this version of the team. I mean, the only reason I'm worried about Scoot is I totally agree with you in terms of role. Like off ball, utility guard, that feels like where he's slotting in and what he's shaping up to be. I really like that version of him.

But I think just from a minute standpoint, If, I mean, let's take this as starters, first of all. Scoot's obviously not going to start. Dame John Morant basically announced as starters to this point. We'll see if that ends up being the case. Drew, Tumani Kamara, and Denny Avdia. One of those guys is coming off the bench, at least. True.

You think it's Drew? I think Drew is going to be basically a three, four at this point. Because he's so strong and because he typically guards a lot of those guys, I think they're probably going to look at him. Because right now, they have a pretty big hole in the front court. I did think it was hilarious that they went out and got Brandon Carlson as a third center when Yang is still there. It's just like, that's a damning of indictment as anything.

You know, they had Dwap Wreath in that role last year. So maybe they're going to sell it as like, oh, well, he's just filling that. Or bring Yang around slowly. But like, Young should be playing that role no matter what. But it's a whole other issue. But yes, they have a hole at the wing power forward, basically. Yes. I assume they view Drew as.

that guy. Yeah, I mean, I guess they're just going to be playing three guards basically all the, well, I guess not three guards all the time, but like a decent chunk of the time and then just trying to find minutes for, for Tumani where they can. I don't know. Drew's one of the most important members of their team, like was as important spiritually to the defense they played last season as anybody. That was what made them good.

Like, they were a really good defense that had this all NBA worthy season from Denny Avdia. And John Morant compromises both of those things somehow. we're going to we're going to let his style of play like have us pivot away from that i just don't and you're you were yeah i mean just the the very first thing that you said you know dame's been out and it's it's it's odd that we're not moving forward on what we have it just feels like a really interesting pivot away because you started with john dame and i was like that already just doesn't make sense those two just so and you're bringing guys off the bench and it just feels like a

an odd step, a side step. I don't even know. It might be like a diagonal backward step, honestly. It's unfortunate. I felt like they needed one more year to build on what they had already established and then it could have been something pretty good,

but maybe it's an ownership thing. Maybe it's whatever it is. Maybe they just hit a certain point of their trajectory where they felt like they had to do something. I think they'll rationalize it is they didn't, it didn't cost them anything in terms of pure assets. And so like what's the harm?

But I think you guys are right. I just don't see how things align there. But luckily they made a million dollars in this trade so they can now pay for one year of Mike Anori. Well, but if you are Mike Anori, your one year of guaranteed money is now I have to try to make John Morant and Damian Lillard work as my defensive backcourt. And then I have a team option.

It's fucked up. He was already down in South Carolina, just like greasing the wheels there, just to try to make it like at least cordial. I mean, he's a good, like he's a good coach. I think he's going to do a good job. It's just, it's a lot to ask. South Carolina in July, man,

it's some, it's hot as hell. down there. But did you see Jha? He's out there kayaking, getting ready for those Pacific Northwest Springs and winters. I like a kayak. We run into him at REI

a couple days from now. It'll be great. Are you a kayak guy? Are you a stand-up paddleboard guy? No, but there's a lot of that happening. I'm more of an outsidesman now rather than an outdoorsman. Okay.

Yeah. When it's nice out, I'll be outside, just like mowing the lawn, doing stuff in the garden. But if, like, you want me to go to, a gorge. Like, fuck off. Like, I'm not going to just go, like, run up

a mountain for, like, a weekend. That's just not my vibe. Out on gorges. I mean, it's tough. It's tough to hear. Any of these other deals you guys want to get into? We mentioned John Collins going to the short. The flip side of that is to buy his hair going to the Spurs. We got it. We got to talk about it. Briefly, at least.

What's going on here? Oh, you don't like it? I just, I'm mostly confused. What's going on? Really? I like it. Which part of it confuses you? I mean, he is just, like, like significantly better Harrison Barnes. To me, he's just like not the kind of player I would have wanted for them, I guess.

But enough of a utility score that he's giving you something different from Julian Champany, certainly. That's, is that really it? Champany killed him. I mean, we talked about it in the final. Like down the stretch defensively, he was getting mercilessly hunted.

We'll see if Tobias does. But Tobias gives you a little bit more self-creation inside the arc. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily have to be like, driving the ball. Not that they're necessarily going to just dump it to him over and over again, but you get a little bit of that isolation. The catch and shoot three thing, I guess is the big thing, because Champany just has really, really grown in that area over the past few years.

And he was lethal for as much as he got hunted. He also helped him build some of those big leads during the playoffs. I guess that means he's moving back to the bench, right? I would assume. Or Tobias is coming off the bench. Yeah. Could be. It is funny because I do think the one thing with Champagne is just his consistency, not only just like, game to game, it's also like half to half at times with some of the shooting. Just like you get the paragon of consistency in the entire league with Tobias Harris, where it's just like, no matter where he is, he's going to be more disappointing if you put expectations on him, but he's going to give you exactly what you expect from him. Like, he's going to be a big physical guy who's going to score in interesting

ways. And enough of a stretch, but also not enough stretch, but like, that's who he is. And so I think Harrison Barnes is the perfect comp for him. He goes from playoffs. He goes from playoffs. Goat to playoff go, you know? I mean, you say that, but you're honest, you guys are honestly selling me a little bit. I can start to see the vision. I just saw the news of the signing and I was like, I never would have conceived of Tobias Harris as the answer for what we just saw from the Spurs and the playoffs. But he's an answer to some of their questions, that's for sure.

Well, this is going to be the most that he's ever been scaled down because they have so much already there. Like, I mean, I think the teams that he's been playing have stretched him out to the point where he's probably like, I don't know, like a full size mattress cover and he's been asked to be like a queen size. I don't know what the, I don't know what the comparison would be there. He just doesn't quite, the, the sheet doesn't quite reach around. And I just think, your feet are funny. Yeah. Yeah. When you look at the spurs, I mean, the question that they wanted to sort of address in the off season, man, I mean, they basically aimed the turret at like a small target and

just fired over and over again at fours. You mean, so now you think about the, they went out and got terrorists reading the draft. They got Jane Quatant's who's probably going to play some four for them. And then they go and get Tobias and you got Carter Bryant and they re-sign Harrison Barnes. It's just like the depth has been shored up. Granted Quaintens probably isn't going to play for another year for them. But it's interesting.

Yeah. They accomplished the mission. They had a hole. And they filled it. So I think this is fine. Norm Powell to the Bulls. I mean, this is your team. This is your other team. Justin loves it. I like it. I like it. And I like it because we're at the point now where tanking teams,

we don't have to like slap them on the wrist for signing decent players. Like what is the cost of doing this? Like typically we would be like, what are the bulls doing? Like they can't be just pretty good. And I'm just like, okay, be pretty good. Be all that you can be. It still might not be much if you're a team like Chicago who's still hoping and betting on the development of some of the young guys,

Caleb Wilson in particular. But like, Norm Powell fills a void of shooting that they'll need in order to give these guys some space. Just like steady vet. He's fine. You know? Like, I think it hurts the heat more than anything else.

It's probably the big headline here. But, like, for the Bulls, it's just like, this is great. Like, NBA teams are trying to be better and play more competitive basketball. Like, we should be celebrating that. That's fair enough. And look, there's nothing about this contract

that's offensive. Norm Powell is good, as you said, this is imminently movable if they ever wanted to make a trade to a contender for Norm Powell. A lot of teams could benefit from having him around. I think for me, it's just like, again, I don't want anything to stand in like Caleb Wilson and Modis Buzellis's way as far as any of this stuff goes. I don't think Norm Powell would. So yeah, it's rounding out a lineup that is probably not going anywhere, especially in an east that's as stacked as we just described. So does it accomplish anything? No. Does it hurt anybody? Clearly not. Yeah, you need some like multi-purpose shooting gravity. I think from that perspective, because they got a lot of guys who are inside the arc, downhill-type players who are questionable shooters. So Norm Powell is, he's going to get up contested shots. And we know that. That's what he's good for. In terms of like the other, any other just ones, I did want to say, I thought it was interesting that Yaxel is already quibbling publicly with the Warriors vets.

I mean, I think fake. quibbling. Was it? I don't know. The question is, is any quibbling with Draymond fake quibbling? Or is it all real high stakes live ammo all the time? It feels live to me. I don't feel like we're ever doing blanks with him.

John, I don't know. I was going to say Jonathan Isaac. That's not really worth talking about, I guess. Not so much. Vucevich going back to the magic. I mean, interesting for less money. Yeah. Supposedly.

The Mo Wagner replacement. Yeah. What do you think of the Nets? They're in on Julius Randall. They're in on Mo Wagner. They're in on Keon Ellis. I guess. They're trying to play the beautiful game up there.

That's true. I think it really could be as a chance to be something special. MPJ and Randall. Sanse Aldama, our guy, going to the Mavs for virtually nothing. Clearly they had a crowded front core in Memphis. Super crowded. I thought that was a nice little piece of big. business to take advantage of that and just get him for what is like a pretty heavily protected

pick down the road there. Well, and how does that pride the PJ Washington trade conversation is a little looser too? Like there's a lot of those guys kind of hanging around in Dallas where relics of the previous administration or era who are now still part of the team who could be interesting to a lot of good teams. And Sontief is the timeline better, really good player. I mean, we've liked him as a grizzly for a long time.

And frankly, I'm a little shocked that more teams didn't get in on that conversation or maybe they did and this was just the best offer, but it didn't even seem like it cost that much to get him. If you're going to talk about free agency, you have to say piece of business like Justin did. That's one of the rules I've noticed. It is a good piece of language. Thanks to Adam Poppice of Next Sports for helping me with that business. It's a good piece of business. It's a good piece of business. Next all caps for some reason. I don't know why. Do we need like a taboo buzzer system where it's like if we say piece of business during free agency, if we say small sample size during the first two weeks of the season.

Do we need to be checking each other on these things? If Justin says Deyes or if Rob says Ballast, I've noticed. I do love Ballast. I do. Mortar sometimes, you know. Then we'll never get through a podcast. That's true. Buttrus.

No, see, I'm anti-buttrusing. I'm all ballast, no buttress. Anything else? You guys want to hit before we get out here? I think we hit the big things. I mean, Justin, did you have any other curiosities among these signings that they really grabbed you? just the work of CAA's Austin Brown.

Yeah. I just thought was great. Like always bleeds in that guy. I know Kyle's been scouting his trajectory for a little while here. She had a big time. Colid McCaskill of Gloucheon Sports Management. Sean Kennedy of Excel Sports. Man, that guy.

That guy's a dog. Let me tell you. Couldn't together. Undeniable resume at this point. Yeah. I can't wait until we do winners and losers of the offseason. It's just all agents. just up and down the list.

I think that's what the people want. Dave Spahn? Dave Spahn? You tell me, Dave Spawn? Spawn and Mintz? They don't make them like Dave Spawn anymore. Kevin Bradbury of Lyft Sports Management. Lift also in all caps. Why?

Lifts always in all caps. They always do. Well, their lift sports management is a problem. Sam Goldfetter. I can keep going. You can do this all day. Mark Bartle's dying, the goat? I mean,

Bartlestein is it's it's implied at this point he's just trying to you know he's up there with tell him and uh who's the other yeah uh anyway uh david fall coming we're really putting together a hall of fame resume uh the nuggets had in marvin bagley i think we're rushmere rushmere we should end this now this pot is you don't you don't want to talk bagley i actually think the bagley signing was pretty good oh let's hear it tell me the spin. I thought at Marvin Bagley, very low key, very quietly. Actually pretty good for the Mavs last season

at the end of last season. Pretty decent backup big. Granted, this is a classic Dilan Wright. March. What will he be on a team with actual stakes where the backup center minutes are as scrutinized as maybe any in the league

may not go super great? But for a team on the budget that I assume is going to get rid of Jonas Valanchunis just for the non-guarantee alone. Get a little depth there, find somebody who can play. I don't hate it to have Marvin Bagley around. I just want one of the graphics, like the ESPN one, where it's just like all of the peak centers, it's like, well, Chamberlain on the Warriors and just like all the greats throughout the year. Then the last cell is just going to be Marvin Bagley in March, playing for the Wizards, playing for the Mavericks. He puts up numbers.

Let me tell you. He does. This is going to be like the Thadiest Young graphic is what you're really aiming for. Yeah. But yeah, congrats. Hopefully that salvages what seems to be a very tricky situation. Yeah. They really got to figure some stuff out. That's the summer of dumb for you though.

It just keeps going on. What do you think is the dumbest thing yet to happen? Do you have any dumb projections? I mean, LeBron seems like

he's going to go to a team that we're not expecting. It just, I don't know, it just seems like we keep talking about the same options.

But if all those options don't necessarily satisfy all of his requirements, is he going to zag at a certain point to take advantage of his last year and just join a team that we're not expecting. I mean, we just talked about the Spurs, for instance.

It doesn't seem like that was going to happen. But like, is there a team like that that's like on the precipice just needs a little bit of LeBron's magic pixie dust in order to get more of the top? I don't know. Denver would be interesting. Of course. Denver would be an awesome zag. That would be a great sag. I mean, your Bulls, your Blazers, both could use a LeBron, I would say.

Yeah. LeBron, third option, after John and Dame. I mean, look, him as a sixer as a fifth option. Let's do it. Let's just make it happen. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? Thank you to Jesse Lopez for filling in on production.

Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Jeff Schwartz at Excel Sports Management. We'll be back on Monday. We'll talk to you then.