The Ringer NBA Show - Three Things to Look Forward to in the NBA Offseason | The Mismatch

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Verno and KOC start off by discussing when the next NBA season should start, then they each get into their top three things to look forward to during the offseason. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of the mismatch, we're talking about three things we're looking forward to from this coming off season, as well as the latest rumblings for when next season could end up starting. One thing we didn't hit was the Pacers hiring Nate Bjorkren as their next head coach that came out after we recorded. So we'll talk about that on Friday. Anyway, here's today's mismatch. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Join him as he does every Tuesday from The Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Camra. Kevin O'Climber, Kevin O'Clymouth, Kevin O'Brien, Berna, what's going on this Tuesday?

We are officially in the off season, and today we are going to each bring to the table three things we look forward to in this upcoming off season. But as we start the show today, I do want to comment on what our boss, Bill Simmons, and then he went on a podcast with Zach Lowe, and they kind of discussed it a little bit. and that is next season. Before we look to the off season, we do need to kind of understand when is next season. And these guys have clearly done a lot of talking to people throughout the league.

After listening to them, I tried to call around and find out what people knew. And I think, for those that have not listened, just to sum this up, the basic idea that Bill was laying out was next NBA season is going to be messed up no matter what. So keep intact the following season

and being able to get back on the regular NBA schedule. Now, what this would include is probably not starting at Christmas, but rather Martin Luther King Day, having that entire day, almost making that like a Christmas day, as I understand it, and then start the season there. You decide on a number of games, whether that's 70 games or 50 games or whatever, but then be able to have eight weeks of playoffs there at the end

when they usually are in June and be able to wrap up the season then and then be able to get on a normal schedule after that. Obviously, there's a million details to work out, but the idea is not knowing when you can have fans in the stands anyway. Let's try to plan something and put something together where, yes, it's it's less of a season games-wise, but even if we have to start it late, we get a significant amount of games in

and we're back on track for the following season. And Martin Luther King Day seems reasonable, if that's a date. In other words, what Bill and Zach are, we're saying maybe teams are worried about, the league is worried about is the fact that ending the season during the NFL season, with everything else happening,

MLB playoffs, NHL, everything, it has hurt. And so you want to get it done earlier. I haven't heard anything about starting in January as of late. I know that's been talked about a lot. I've still heard a lot about February or March being more likely than January. But that's not off the table by any means. And there certainly are a segment of people that do want to see January for all the reasons that they discuss and we are now. Yeah, I think the reason March is so hard to get to is because,

is if you decide you're going to start in March and then you still can't have your fans back in the stands, then you're going to sit back and you're going to go, well, then why did we waste all of this time? Let's just go ahead and start this thing in January. And then we'll figure out when we can get, if that is a minor amount of fans in the stands, if that's half a state,

whatever it may be. Maybe by that time there's a vaccine. Maybe we're in a different world, hopefully, with COVID-19. at that point, but that if you did start in March, you wouldn't be able to finish. You know what I mean? And you might look back and say, geez, we just wasted two months because we thought if we started at March, we could have fans back in the stands, but now we can't. And so not being able to plan for that, I think you just try to figure out, how do we get a season in? It's ultimately going to be about the following year, you know, what would be the 20, 21, 22 season

and not screwing that up. And with that, even a January start, it's probably hard to have an October start unless you have a really condensed short and off season for the players, which, you know, for whatever team end up making a run to the conference finals and the finals, that might be a bit unfair to them, you know, in terms of rest and getting their body back to 100%. But, you know, the fact is that if you do want to retain that October start to the season, that might be what you have to do. But maybe what you do is you could have a November start. You could do that. You know, it'll be a one month late start and instead of, you know, three months late by starting in January instead of October.

So there's, there's ways, there's ways, maybe it is to change things. And maybe it is an agent for change. Maybe all of a sudden, and I know Bill's outlined this, that start after, like, you know, at the end of November when it's like week 10 of the NFL season. That's what I'm in favor of. Right. I'm in favor of that. And then play 70 games, play 72 games.

Spread them out a little bit more and, you know, shorten the schedule. Have your play in stuff at the end of the end of. end of the season. You know, there were lessons learned from the bubble. One of the lessons is, you can't go up against football. Another lesson was, people are going to love that playing, and they are going to love that at the end of a season. And so there's some things that you came out of this. And frankly, it took this to realize it, but for years there was that, hey, why don't we just start at Christmas? And then we can end a little bit later in the summer. And Adam Silver went out of his way during, I believe it was game one of the finals when he did his press

conference that said, what we've learned is that we need our summer months. We need June and July, right, as the moments where the NBA has center stage, because the more it gets fractured, and obviously this is an election cycle too, but the more it gets fractured, the worse it is. And so there were, I mean, look, there's a bunch of lessons learned from the bubble. I'm with you, though, starting in late November. It seems, and, games. I don't care if there's 82 games. To me, to me, a late November or a start anytime in December

is the move. I mean, we've talked, we talked about that during the hiatus. We talked about that when it was floated out there by someone from the Hawks front office, I forget who talked about it. I believe it's Sloan. And he was a big, you know, supporter of it as are there are a lot of people in the league that

thinks starting in December is the perfect middle ground, because then you with a slightly short in season and a plane and said you could have the see the finals take place in July or early August, which is just as NFL is about to really start going. If you're the NBA, in that situation, you lose some of the hype about the offseason, you know, about the draft and free agency, how close it gets to the NFL, start of the regular season or even preseason for that matter. But as long as you get the finals in before that,

I think you're in good shape. But we'll see. The other thing is this, if you can play out this season and get it done when the season would normally end, you also preserve the ability for your players to go play in the Olympics. And that has not come up a bunch. But that is a major factor. When your best players in the league include Nicolaeokic and Janice Ante Cumpo and Luca Donchich and on and on. I mean, these are not just guys that you would be saying,

hey, I know it's important to them to play for their country. It's a different world than it was 10 years ago. 15 years ago. These are the best of the best players in your league. And it matters greatly. You only get a couple of cracks to play in the Olympics, you know, and especially in your prime. And it matters greatly for them to be able to represent their country

and to go and play in the Olympics. And if you tried to extend this season, you know, again, you're just punting on that. They're not going to be able to participate. in that and I do think that matters to a lot of guys. I do. Oh, it 100% does 100%. And it's the type of thing. The Olympics are supposed to start July 23rd, 2021. And at that point, if you're starting the season at March, I don't know, I don't know, Yokic. I don't know, Luca. I don't know, you know, Janus, if you're actually going to be able

to make that, especially on the teams that they play for. I don't know if the season, you know, what it'll be at that point? But the fact is, if you start in late January, this chance with a condensed season. Yeah. And, and. And I think that might be the approach there for the NBA. Maybe you take a hit and then you're set up to start in October or in November, whatever you want to do when you recalibrate things for the following year. Yep. And you could knock it out, certainly.

I mean, we did that. We did that during the lockout year. You know what I mean? It just became a shortened season. One thought that just came to mind, and I haven't heard this discussed in months. But when we were talking about, you know, the playing or the group stage that were both in discussion and had a lot of support, the group stage, meaning like an Olympic style pool of, you know, six teams or whatever it might be competing against each other to get into the regular postseason tournament. You could always have something like that as part of the 2021 NBA regular season.

There could be a group stage towards the end of the year that the term that like kind of simulates the end of the season. You could use that. I'm just saying if you have a short and season, you have no other choice. I'm just saying. You're getting that thing in there, no matter what, aren't you? I'm just saying. You're getting that group. I'm just saying.

I mean, if you're trying to get the season over partially because of the Olympics and a large segment of your players wanting to have an opportunity to perform and play in that, you could also capture the spirit of the Olympics. I mean, look, they use this year to experiment. Yep. Why not also use next season? Especially if it has to be a shortened season. What's more exciting?

Like a 50-game regular season? or like a 50 game regular season with a group stage element. Something else to experiment because you know playing got support. You know Elam ending and the All Star Games got support. Why not also see if this could work

for like a midseason tournament format in the future? I'm sure to be on the table. I'm just saying. And especially for television purposes because they need to rebound big time TV wise. I mean, this was a unmitigated disaster. Everybody knows that. TV ratings are way.

weird man. I mean, like TV rating, like you have like one side that says like, NBA TV ratings are down for this reason and that reason. It's a disaster for them. What happens in the CBA? On the other side, you have people to say, yeah, but ratings are up on online streaming up and social media engagement and all that stuff. TV ratings may not matter as much in terms of as like a measurement for understanding where the league is in terms of popularity. I would say it is not the most relevant statistic. However, it still matters. a lot financially. And that's true.

Yeah, it's where they make their money. They don't make a, they make a money off Twitter. You don't, exactly. There's no good way to monetize social media comments. Like people commenting on your post or following the NBA Instagram

or Facebook pages. There's no way. And that, and that's something that's going to come up big. Not maybe for the next CBA, but for the one after that. I think the next CBA, you're still going to see, you know,

TV deals are still going to be huge. But what happens for the like in 2028 or 2029. That's where for the NBA, every league for that matter, that's going to be a big discussion. Well, and here's the other good thing. It's much like when people lamented like, you know, when owners would lament losing money.

And then when you put your team on the market, even the, even the sorriest teams get a billion dollars, you know, that somebody's willing to pay for them. Okay. So there is a value there. It's much like that when it comes to television ratings. where people can lament that, but the truth is, the advertisers are still there.

And beyond that, there are now, you know, we have created so much more competition for these outlets, right? Like, there's only one MBA. And so now you have, you have cable channels that are desperately trying to keep their relevance. And so they need it. And you have Amazon and you have Facebook and you have on and on and on, Apple and all these places that are getting into it. And there will come a time where one of those big tech companies owns a league or certainly a mass has the massive contract with the league. And so all I'm saying is it creates so much more competition. And so the money is going to be there for that property.

But they certainly learned their lesson in what they went up against because you just can't do it. You can't you can't do it. Definitely, you know what? And I wonder how much of this will just kind of develop over the passage of time as like the younger demographic, which is familiar with streaming and is normal to streaming. Oh, absolutely. grows older and that becomes more of a lucrative way to monetize. But this is a huge discussion for another day, Kev. But as a father of a son, I will tell you that I've had these discussions with a lot of business people in the NBA.

and, you know, the NFL promotes their teams as entities, right? And the NBA promotes their stars and the NBA promotes highlights. And there's a lot of people that are, quote, NBA fans that do not watch games. Yep. They don't watch games at all. They watch a Kyrie Irving highlight reel on Instagram on House of Highlights. They'll see the latest Janus dunk or whatever it might be. That's the problem because when I wake up in the morning and my son's eating.

breakfast and he's looking at his tablet, he, I will, by the time I get up, I can say, I don't know, did you see that LeBron dunk? He will have already seen it because he watches the 15 minute highlight packages. Yeah, the one on YouTube that they put together, right? Yes. Those are great. And by the way, they're awesome. They're great, but you have trained a generation of fans to take in your content like this

in this manner. And so that's the one concern. Yes, they are massive fans, and yes, they spend, you know, they want the jerseys and they want the cards and they want to go to the games, you know, to have me take him to the games or whatever else. But I also have an awareness of are they learning to not watch games and are we made the offseason and all the extracurricular stuff and the promotion of singular players so much bigger than. you know, people are loyal to players so much more than they are loyal to teams. That's a great, great point. And I wonder if maybe the NBA needs to start thinking about strategies to foster rivalries. Is that part of it?

And by that it could be like the top four seeds in each conference get to choose their opponent. You know, you choose your opponent. Like if let's say a team chose Dallas this year, a young up-and-coming team with Luca and when that team is ready for contention, is that suddenly like a marquee rivalry potentially? Could it turn into that? I don't know. It's hard for the NBA. It's easier for the NFL, I think, in terms of the fact that there's only 16 games.

You know, one game, this certainly determines everything. But I do, any plus you have divisional matchups with teams playing each other twice a year. Would the NBA wonder if there's a way aside from, you know, choosing your opponent in the playoffs that could help create some rivalries? and maybe that's something that could help in that way. I don't know. I mean, I'm just throwing the thought up there. Hey, Chris, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Yep.

All right, let's get into this offseason and what we look forward to. All right, I'll start with this. The first, first things first, there is an NBA draft that is going to be coming up a lot sooner than we think. Hopefully the CBA all gets knocked out. And that number one pick in the draft is held by the. Minnesota Timberwolves. I have them and what they do with number one as one of my biggest things I'm looking forward to this offseason.

And here's why. A, nobody has any idea who is going to go number one, at least to the point where nobody would bet a lot of money on it yet. It could be a bunch of different players, including the three that are behind you on your wall. B, does Minnesota exercise that pick? I mean, they have a guy right now in towns who's in his second contract there.

And I would think at Gerson Rosas took over, you added DeAngelo Russell, another guy in his second contract. I mean, you can't draft somebody that's going to be good in three years. You know what I mean? I would imagine they're going to try to win now and be a playoff team now and be able to take those lumps now. And so do they use that pick to take an exceptionally talented player at the number one pick? Or do they use that pick in order to move it to get veteran players, to get assets, you know, good players that they could stack around towns and Russell rather than exercising it on. a young player knowing that, I mean, I got to believe Minnesota's in win now mode, right? Like, what are you waiting for? And if you wait too long, you know, there's obviously going to be

a guy that says, I don't want to be here anymore. Well, they are in win now mode. And I reported last week that their preference is to trade down against some type of win now player. And there remains to be seen if they are out, they'll actually be able to do that. However, my first one is related a little bit to yours. It was what happened. right behind number one because at Golden State, Golden State has a number two pick and league sources around the league have said they want James Wiseman. I've heard that the Hornets at number three want James Wiseman.

So would show it? I told you this during the season. He is perfect for the Warriors. Oh, 100%. Wiseman is, I mean, look, if I'm doing, like my player rankings right now, I think I have Wiseman sixth on my ranking. If you told me Golden State is getting James Wiseman, I'm skyrocketing, skyrocketing him up my board.

It's a, because that's a perfect fit for him to grow and develop and to work on some of the weaknesses he has in terms of, you know, quick decision making on offense, reading the floor and defense. I mean, imagine having Draymond Green as a mentor. Can you imagine that? And that whole culture there, come on, that's perfect.

And you also have guys that, you know, if you're the true rim runner, I mean, look, they got mileage out of Jeval. they got mileage out of Kevonne Looney. They turned Willie Colley-Stein into a nice-looking player there for a minute. I mean, like, if you're just talking about a guy that you don't have to dump it down to him,

him command a double team and get you a bucket. He is the fourth option at best, and he is running to the rim and finishing lobs when the big guy comes over to stop that Steph Curry floater. I mean, that is, in terms of development and James would be in a bad way if he has to go to some place where you know, Charlotte and he's expected to be

the savior. He's not that guy. But he could be someday. It's just a matter of the pressure aspect. But it might kill his development. It might. If you're forcing that upon him so much, too much too soon, whereas with Golden State, that can develop a little bit and it could

flash here and there. But at a minimum, like the thing I like about Wiseman as a prospect, and I don't think this is really reflective in my ranking of him is the fact that he is a foundation for success. He's going to be a good NBA player because of his athleticism and his length, ability to run the floor, just as sheer size around the rim. That's going to be able to give him some minutes throughout his career.

That's a baseline. And for Golden State, there's a lot of noise that he's their guy at number two. So if you're Minnesota and there's teams behind him, whether it's Charlotte, which I hear likes Wiseman as well a lot, whether it's Chicago at four or somebody else, is that enough for them to try to leapfrog over the warriors with the rumors out there? Or let's say you're the Hornets at three, would you in that situation just stay there and hope that guy falls to you anyway? Because think about it.

Like if you're them, your hearing gold and state likes Wiseman, you don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. It's out there. It's floating out there. Everybody in the league's talking about it. But, I mean, they might. They might want Wiseman to go number one. So Anthony Edwards falls to number two.

You know what I'm saying? You don't know. This stuff floats up there all the time. It's so hard to read. And ultimately, I think you get to just make the move that you think is best suited to your franchise. And that could lead to mistakes. We saw Philadelphia trade three for one to get Markell Fultz. And Boston likely would have taken Tatum at number one anyway.

And Los Angeles would have taken ball at number two. anyway and faults likely would have been at number three for philly anyway so that can happen but ultimately if you think that guy is the number one option for your franchise by far you're going to make the moves that you think are best for you but ultimately i mean i'm just excited to see what happens behind that number one pick in terms of trades in terms of movement or or if they stay at number one where these guys end up falling so i'm excited for that and a couple of words are actually Warriors are in an ideal position. They really are.

I mean, they're going to be, you know, maybe not be favorites, but they are near the top of championship favorites next season. No, no, no. I'm saying for the draft, like where they landed. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oddly, too, is a great spot to be in because you could,

you could find the desperate team. And so if you wanted to move your pick and get win now players, you could. If you wanted to try to, if you want to try to package it, you know, in order to get some, an awesome package,

or you could take, okay, here's our next foundational piece. Yeah. And you get that with number two. To me, I go young. I go younger if I'm then. I'm not training for a veteran. I mean,

maybe I trade down and, you know, because I've heard they like four, some of the wings in this draft as well, whether that's Denny Avdia or Isaac O'Corro, somebody like that. I could see the logic in doing that as well, um,

trading down and taking them. or even just taking them in number two for that matter. But, you know, for them, I think keeping with that young player, regardless of if they stay at two or trade down, makes the most sense to me when they already have so much finances committed to their their existing star players. You want to grow a young one in with that, in my opinion. No, the interesting thing, though, is you,

there probably trades out there where you could get number one or you could get number two. I don't know if you could get three. I don't know, Charlotte would. Charlotte probably. I mean, look, you're Charlotte, you want to get a young player. You want to try to nail it. You want to try to nail the draft on that. All right. Next to what I've got. Okay, so we have had the Philadelphia offseason. Brett Brown is gone. They are, they lament the fact of the whole Jimmy Butler, you know, carrying Miami to a sixth game of the NBA finals. But now you got to figure it out.

And they hired Doc Rivers. And he brings in assistant Dave. So they've gotten the bench solidified, but we have talked so much. They were the biggest disappointment last year for injuries and other reasons, ending sixth in the standings when people thought they could be one of the favorites, certainly to be in the Easter conference finals. And so the next thing is, how do they clean that up? Or do they clean it up? And I mean that by saying is, is Doc Rivers going to say, hey, I've coached a

Harris. I got the best out of him when he was in L.A. And so I'll, we, Tobias is here and we don't need to find a landing spot for him. We got Ben and Joel. And then can we find something to do with Horford? And is there a landing spot anywhere without having to give up draft picks and everything else? But like, how do we have said that there is, there is a roster thing that's going on there, right, where they have done a poor job managing that. And so how do they clean it up? Because otherwise, if they don't, then you are going to be looking at the last time we last season that we watched Ben Simmons and Joel Embed play together as a two-man unit.

I mean, they got one chance to clean this thing up. And they had Jimmy Butler and JJ Reddick and fast forward the next year when they were so close to possibly being an NBA finals team and fast forward the next year. and they're a friggin' succeed. So now how do you clean up those mistakes? And then obviously you get into the season. Doc's got to figure it out. But, I mean, they got a roster thing they got to deal with first.

There's a limit to even what Brett Brown was going to be capable of doing with their offense. Would you trade for Chris Paul? 100%. Reunite Doc Rivers and Chris Paul? 100%. But I don't think I have the assets to do it if I'm Philly, right? Here's what Doc Rivers said in September about his relationship with Chris Paul. This is related to Chris Paul's leadership, head of the NBA Players Association.

Doc Rivers said, our relationship is great. We put that all behind us a year ago at least, golfed a bunch of the summer before the season started. We cleaned the air long ago. That happens from coach player a lot. Usually when a guy leaves a company and business, most of the time, it's not on great terms, even if they're just not going, even if they're just going to another opportunity. But usually you come back to that company and say thank you and appreciate all the things you've done. I think that was CP in our case. That's old news with us regarding some of the, you know, the riffs in their relationship when he parted ways.

So Doc Rivers did say that, you know, they're good now, that they're cool. They've golfed together. They've talked about it. So it's just interesting. I think Chris Paul in that offense with Ben Simmons and Joel Embed, if you're able to flip, you know, Horford. or with other, you know, assets to get Chris Paul. I'm not sure you really have enough. Do you think, I don't think you do have enough.

Does Horford have value to you? Do you think another team around the league? Yeah. If I'm OKC or anybody. I mean, I mean, I think if I'm okay, see, I'm less worried about that big salary I'm getting back and more worried about what assets I'm also getting in addition to them. So you think in order to move off of Horford,

you're going to have to package him with other stuff. people. It's not about moving off Horford. It's about getting Chris Paul, and that's going to require assets. I wonder, I mean, look, his contract stinks, but he's better than what he showed. I don't think he Horford? Totally washed.

I'm with you. I think so, too. That's why, like, that's why I don't think is really getting off Horford. I mean, he's 34 and he's overpaid for the production you get out of him, but. It's a terrible fit. You're right? Yeah, it's just a terrible fit. And it's not like with OKC, that,

you know, you're getting some player who's going to be benched. El Horford's going to play for you. And depending on who you draft, he can serve as like a leader by example in that situation. He had expressed interest in going to OKC before. Granted, that was with KD. Still there. Different situation. But, you know, fact is is that if I'm OKC, it's really about what's the best offer out there.

And I'm not sure Philly can put those pieces together unless there's less of a marker for Chris Paul than I expect. which touches on my second one. Let's hear it. What do the bucks do? Is it a Chris Paul trade, which I've been obsessed with for a long time with them, packaging, you know, Eric Bledsoe and a couple other salaries together, get a Janus, Chris Paul, high pick and roll going? Oh, my God, I get so excited thinking about that, man. That's so fun.

That would be awesome. Or is it maybe, as Nikias Duncan from Basketball News.com suggested, a Victorolo Depot trade? Could it be something like that? Ola Depot, he has expressed your desire to win. I mean, what could it be? Can you imagine you let Brogden walk and then you turn around and try to get Ola Depot? I mean, I'm not sure how I'm not sure how much I'd trade for Victor O'Odipo right now. He did not look like Victor O'Dipo when we saw him in the bubble coming off that major, major injury.

I'm not so sure. No, I'm not either. And this is this is a massive year for building around Yannis. Janice had stayed the course on, look, I don't, I'm not walking out the door. I'm building this from the ground up. I want to be here. But there does, there obviously is, you know,

a conversation that has to be had when you say, look, I only have one career to play. And I don't want to look back and wish I would have done something different. And I look around and I say, I can't win. like this. I can't win with this. And so it's clearly on my best friend John Horst to build around

Yannas. I mean, but this is a huge off season. Either way, you're dealing with the whole frigging year of people talking about him going somewhere else. And he might. That's what's going to happen. He might. I mean, like, this is a, it comes to mind, but with Tom Brady,

it's very clear why he chose to go to Tampa Bay. It's a flat out better team than New England. And they gave him a better opportunity to win another Super Bowl. With Yanis, obviously this is totally different. A younger guy has not yet won six rings like Tom Brady has. But with him, it's like, I do have only one career here. And what gives me the best opportunity to win? Milwaukee needs to show that they are that franchise. They just have to do it. And I'm not sure what the move is for them. Maybe it's not Chris Paul. Chris Paul is in his mid-30s. And he is somebody who, you know,

despite how great he was last year, there's only a limited amount of time left for him to be an elite player. And, you know, maybe if you're Milwaukee, you try to go younger and, you know, hit the restricted for agent market. I don't know. Maybe it's both. But the fact is that the bucks have to do something here to show to Yannas that they're a better fit for him than Dallas with Luca. That with Miami and Jimmy Butler and Bamette Abio and Duncan Robinson and all those guys, they have to show that they're a better fit than Toronto with Pascal Seacum and the culture that they have there. and with Nick Nurse and everything. There's a lot they have to prove over this coming year. And that's all going to start in the off season. And you do wonder who is out there and available.

And what kind of assets? It's slim. It's slim. And they paid Middleton a fortune. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And they paid Eric Bletso close to a fortune. Is Middleton the second best guy on a title team?

I mean, it's certainly a question, right? Is that the best utilization of the money next? to Janus. It's a totally fair question. I still think, I still think Chris Paul's the answer, despite his age, despite the salary, despite, you know, you've got to give a Bletsho and some other pieces to get him. I still think that Chris Paul, what he does for that offense, he solves their problems. Let's just be straight up. He solves the shock creation problem, period. And that's the number one problem here. Yonis can win a championship. He is not a guy that a team could game plan around if he has a guy handling those duties for him and helping him out.

Janus could then be, you know, your shack around the rim. He could be that guy who also does things from the perimeter for you. It's just there'd be less pressure on him to have to do that. Oh, it's a perfect fit. It is. It is. It's ideal. And by the way, like what you might lose, Eric Bletsoe, who was tremendous on defense

during the regular season. Like, we can knock his offense and poke fun of the fact defenses don't respect him as a shooter. But he was a great defender. Chris Paul is also a very, very good defender still. And so you don't lose a lot there. The gains heavily outweigh any losses. And by the way, the risk that you take on with Chris Paul's injury history,

you know, with lingering problems in the playoffs, I think it's worth any risk that's taken on there, especially in a potentially short in season. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Chris, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. Did you see that Turner and Fanduel announced a partnership for NBA on TNT? A lot of partnerships have been announced in sports betting,

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Call 1-800-5-2-4700 in Iowa. Call 1-800. bets off. All right. Last thing of our three things, three things that we're looking forward to this off season. My last one is what kind of money do these free agents get? This is so close to mine.

It is. It's similar. This has all gotten screwed up, Kev. And so it's not a big time free agent class. We knew that going in. But there are a lot of guys that I think we would have looked and we would have said, hey, you remember that off season when this guy got wildly way more than maybe what he's worth now? when we look back at a four-year contract or something like that, right?

Like we once did with the, that whole, it wouldn't have been as bad as like the Baysmore, Parsons, Allen Crabbe year, but it could have been where we're looking and we're going, hey, we should have seen in the bubble Montres Harold wasn't going to be that guy forever. And so next thing you know, you got Montres Harrell sitting around with $20 million, you know, because he got an $80 million deal the all season. You've got a bunch of really good guys, right? Like the Van Bleets and the Davis Burntons and the Montres Harrells and all these kind of guys that would have gotten paid a ton of money.

And now first they got to work the CBA out. And then beyond that, is that money still there? Is somebody maxing Fred Van Vleet? Or are they giving him a fortune? You know what I'm saying? Like is he getting a massive contract? Is Davis Bertons who decided to sit out during the bubble? Is he getting some kind of huge bag?

I mean, this is the free agency year. It's not a huge year. There's not a lot of teams with a lot of money. There's whatever, 25 or whatever it'll be that, you know, could have the mid-level to throw around. but are we talking about guys getting, you know, 17 to 25 million that probably or absolutely would have gotten 17 to 25 million if it weren't for the coronavirus, the, you know, the year, the new CBA, the full on.

I mean, I really don't know, man. I really don't know. Do you like Van Fleet is a, and Montrez are really good ones, Kev, to talk about. because like if that whole thing doesn't happen, if it's just a normal year, I mean, they are getting big bags of money. Probably. Do they still? I would think so. And so the teams that are likely going to have cap space more than the mid-level exception is Atlanta, New York, Detroit, Charlotte, Miami, Phoenix.

I could see the case for Atlanta paying a lot of money to a Fred Van Bleet. I could see it for the Knicks. So they could have the tiniest backcourt in? Willie Kishner. Yeah. Why not go for it? Go for it. Yeah.

But I mean, I could see some of the teams like that. I could see Charlotte if they wanted to make a $20 plus million dollar offer. I could see that for sure. How about the next? I could see it too. I could. You know Tidado loves Fred Pampi. I could see it for all those teams.

And that's where it's going to be really interesting for some of those guards. And sort of related to that just to, you know, include my third into the discussion here around what guys get paid. I'm wondering what do bigs get paid specifically? Because you have a couple of extremes. You have a younger guy like Christian Wood who's entering not restricted. Let me correct myself there, my bad. Who's entering free agency, unrestricted free agency,

following a really, really great breakout year after a handful of years in the league, bouncing between teams, but always showed his upside. He looks really good. What does somebody like him make? Bobby Marks mentioned that he could, get paid likely the mid-level exception, which is projected to be $9.3 million, but could it be more for that when he's a young guy? What about some of the other young guys, a Yacob Purdle, who showed some flashes in San Antonio as a solid rep protector? What about somebody like who's

older, a Marka Sol making over $20 million this season? What about Tristan Thompson? Well, he's going back to Spain. He's going back to the NBA after Spain or is he staying in Spain? He's going. He's going to finish up there. So he's staying in Spain, 100%. I mean, that's what I was told. No chance of coming back? I think he's... Someone drops the bag for one year, $15 million. He's staying in Spain.

I think he's going back to Spain. He's got the kids. He's got his house there. He's got his garden in his backyard. Interesting. You know what I mean? So is this... Do you want to move around?

It was reported that he's taking a deal out there, but is it like a long term or is it just until... No, I don't know, but I do know this. When you've got three young kids, and you just moved to Toronto for a year and a half, are you going to go move around again to play a year, to play two years? You know,

how about I just go have fun playing basketball, make a little coin doing it, live in my house. Yeah, live in my house, have my kids go to the schools that I want them to go to rather than, you know,

either you only have two choices, right? You're either apart from them, and family is a massive, massive deal to these. Gassals, right? And Powell just had his kid, right? Pound just had his daughter. And so I think Mark's

that kind of guy. I think he... Interesting. I think he'll walk away and just be in Spain. I might be wrong. There was that report. In late September, there was a report about him going to Barcelona. Yeah. Signing with them and maybe finishing out there. But it was unclear if if him had finishing or just like

for now until NBA comes back midseason and, you know, maybe go back and finish out there. He ain't the kind of guy that wants to live somewhere for a year, though. Not with the little kids. You know what I'm saying? Because you only have two choices there, right? You're either away from them or you're moving them somewhere for a year.

Especially with everything going on this year with coronavirus, maybe you're like, you know what? Why bother? Let's just go back home. Well, he's made his money. He's made his money. He's made his money. And he won his title. And, you know, by the way, like, he could go there and be an elite player.

That's right. Oh, yeah. And in the NBA, he's a son. solid player right now, but he could be the guy for Barcelona. And he loves it. But you know what? And to your point about the whole, what does it do for Biggs?

Okay. There's a perfect example on Montres. I mean, could have heard his value, did, I think, certainly heard his perception from every NBA fan, but could have really cost him, I mean, hurt his value by that bubble performance.

I mean, he was abysmal. He really was. He went from like 18, and eight to six and four, you know. And the amount I pay for a guy that gets me 18 and eight every night and his six band of the year on an outstanding team versus the guy that gives me six and four when it matters most, like that's, it's a different, it's a different tax bracket. To be fair to him, he averaged 10.5 points and three rebounds. I thought it was going to be more than four rebounds.

I sure did him. But there wasn't. Yeah. I shorted him. But Montrez. Shorted of a couple points. Montres is like outside of Anthony Davis, of course, he's the big that's out there. And we all thought is the modern big, you know.

I mean, Gallinari's out there too and Bertons, those kind of stretch four guys. But in terms of like a guy that I could play as a center, you know, an energy guy. To me, to me, he's not the big. To me, it's Christian Wood. Christian Wood to me is the guy, obviously 80s staying with the Lakers, so he almost doesn't even count. Christian Wood to me is the guy that I look at at 25 years old. He can hit threes at a good rate. He shot 36% from three last year with Detroit.

Maybe he falls down back to like 31, 32%, closer to his career average. But he can do that. He's an elite finisher around the rim. He has shown versatility on defense. He makes some mistakes in terms of rotations and whatnot. but he can switch for you and be relied on against quicker guys. To me, Christian Wood is like discount AD. In terms of the skills he brings with perimeter, interior finishing, lob finishing,

and versatility on defense. If you're a team that's a, by the way, if you're a Pistons fan, I would be very worried about losing Christian Wood. I'd be worried because Wood has received interests, you know, at least in my conversations, like saying, hey, what do you think about this guy? What do you think about Christian Wood? Is this for real what we saw?

I've had a handful of those conversations with some executives recently. People look at him and they don't want to get screwed after a small sample size of him shining after, you know, they traded drum and he excelled to finish the year. But it was a whole year thing. He was great. If you look at his per 36 numbers pre-drum and trade, it's not far off in terms of what he did after when he was actually given the opportunity. And with Christian Wood, if you're him, you're looking at Detroit and you're like, oh, they had me behind Drummond and Blake Giffin.

What happens when Blake comes back? Do I want to go back to a retooling, rebuilding situation when there could be good teams offering similar money for a chance to win and produce and play? If I'm a Pistons fan, I'd be worried because Christian Wood is getting talked about a lot in league circles. And to me, like just my own opinion, that's the guy I would be targeting. Wow. I would be targeting Christian Wood because he shoots and he can finish and he can switch. Like, what more do you want? You know what's crazy, Kev?

I went to his draft workout and he was one of those guys that was long, athletic, tall, and you sat there and you go, he just, it looks the part and the kid just, it's not there. He can't play. And he couldn't. Like, that's not, that's not like I was watching him and he was good and you didn't see it. Like, that kid put his nose to the ground and just decided I am going to work my ass off to fulfill my destiny. Because he had all of the stuff. It was just so raw. He just didn't know how to play.

And he didn't have the requisite skills. And I don't know where his trek completely took him. But, I mean, that's got to be, what, six, seven years ago? I don't know what draft he was in. It was the 2015 draft. So Christian Wood was just about to turn 20 entering his rookie year after two years at UNLV. And I heard he had some bad workouts like some this. This is one of the worst workouts I've ever seen type of workouts.

It was bad. And it's a type of thing where the frustration with him was always, always about like, can he actually play and fulfill the fact that he's. 6 foot 11 with a long wingspan and can handle the ball and is quick and agile. It was always that. You know who it was like? To start to interrupt. Do you remember the kid from Baylor Perry Jones?

Yeah, similar like that. Like guys can go down the Perry Jones lane. I love Perry Jones in the draft. Look, but I mean, like you could look back at Perry Jones and you could go, damn, man, if he ever puts this together, he could be a hell of a player. And he never did. He never, and Christian Wood is the exact opposite. He put it all together.

Absolutely. He did. And by the way, I mean, he's only 25. And what he showed to me is somebody who's maybe about to hit his prime. I mean, the fact he's improved a shot, he's improved his decision making, he's improved on defense. It's all coming together. It seems like there's some maturity there.

That was always a question teams have. How mature is he? I understand teams hesitations. But to me, if I'm a good team with championship aspirations, you bring a guy like that into that culture, I would think it only elevates that player further. I'm looking through it. I mean, you got some guys on the older side.

Serge Baca's a free agent, Aaron Baines, Hassan White side. Like, these guys are free agents, but Marcus Morris. But, you know, when you were talking about what do the bigs get, geez, man. I mean, there's not a ton of, there's not a ton of that range, though, Kevin. It's like Aaron Baines, Derek favors, Paul Millsap, Marcus Morris,

Hassan White's like all those kind of guys that are all kind of 30 plus, you know, how much do we pay them to come play for us for a couple of years or a year? What kind of value does a Sergei Baca or a Tristan Thompson have? And does that,

has that value gone up? And then likewise, what does that mean for the perimeter guys? Because are people spending a fortune on Bogdan Bogdanovich? Are they spending a fortune on Malik Beasley? You know, especially not if they're going to draft Anthony Edwards number one, you know, right? Like Malik Beasley doesn't get his money.

And what we might see a little bit of is sign in trades. Interesting. Let's take Gallinari from Oklahoma City as an example. But this could be true for Bogdanovich with the Kings or anybody. With Gallinari, they had trade offers for him. You know, Miami was after Gallinari before the February deadline. But they opted to wait because they. wanted to play out the season with the good roster that they had, but also because you enter

free agency with 29 other teams that may or may not want Gallinari that could sign and trade for him. OKC can simply sign and trade Gallinari to anybody, even if a team doesn't have enough cap space, because then they could just send a player back with assets for him. And so that opens up more options. With Bogdanovich, you know, he's a younger player who would probably receive more interest from a wider range of teams. They don't need. cap space to get Bogdanovich could always be a sign and trade. I tell you this, look at that list. I think Abaka, you know, he's only 31.

That's crazy to me. I feel like I've been watching Serge Abaka for 20 years. I mean, 30, dude, but my, my sense of time is just so on a whack. The past, the past year and a half of my life, I don't know what's what. Abaka is still good, though. Like, Abaka could start at center on a good team. he's still good. And he had a bit of a resurgence too.

It seemed like he was declining. And then in Toronto, his play picked up. He started shooting even more threes. You know, his defense looks really good. I mean, Sergei Bacca to me doesn't look like he's right near the end. Like he did for a little bit. It looked like he was really declined quickly. He's not the shop locker he once was.

No. He's adapted to what he is. That's right. And did he did what took place with the yokages and the Davises and the MBEs and on and on. did, you know, and bam out of bio also, you know, does that now, do you look at it and whatever Serge Baca would have gotten, it's a different price now because his value is much greater. If I'm a contender, I sit there and I go, man, this is, I need a guy like this. I need a guy that I could throw on Yokic and Davis, like not to shut down, to slow down, you know,

because otherwise these guys are just going to murder me. For sure. And that's where that guy like that who's really good, not like consistent all-star level, but he gets a good little chunk of change just because he's so useful against the good teams. Absolutely. And that's why, you know, this free agent class is weak in terms of star power. But much like the draft, there's still some quality rotation players that could help out a team that's trying to contend for a championship. Whether it's an Ibaka, an older guy who's proven it, who's won it, who has a long, a,

longevity in the league, whether it's a young guy like Christian Wood who just popped and maybe his best years are still ahead of him, there's options out there for teams that are looking to bolster their odds in the playoffs to go out and get somebody. And with a suppressed market without a lot of money out there and with teams due to coronavirus pandemic, maybe not wanting to spend, that also creates more opportunity for those teams that do have a mid-level exception worth about $9 and $10 million or do have an owner that's a Like, yeah, let's go for it. And so I'm, I'm going to be fascinated to see where these bigs go and how much they actually end up getting paid.

Well, the other thing is this, Kev, if you decide, if you're Toronto, who knows who they bring back of those two? And if you decide, I'm going to throw a fortune at Fred Van Vali. And he's going to be my next, the next phase of the Toronto Raptors is him as our starting point guard. well, you've talked a lot about Chris Paul and all these landing areas. How about the other guy? And if he could land somewhere else. Kyle Lowry. Right?

If you are spending a fortune on Van Ville, if you decide, if I'm Toronto and I say, I want to keep him, we don't want to lose him. He's the younger player and he'll be our point guard going forward. Well, now all of a sudden, I mean, you could get some, you could, Kyle Lowry's got a few more really good years. And, hey, Kev, I don't know if you know this, but Kyle's a Philly kid. He is a Philly kid.

It's true. It's true. That's not a bad one. I could see Toronto going either way with in terms of maybe you want to continue trying to compete and you keep Kyle Lari through the last year of his contract. Or maybe you're trying to flip them and to a team that's also contending. You want to do the player right. and Philadelphia makes a heck of a lot of sense in terms of what he brings with the play on the court,

what we see with the numbers or the stats, the style, but also the intangibles, the leadership, that's something that they need a guy who's done it, who has a voice in the locker room. What is Philly missing there? That's what it is,

right? So, you know, I think something like that is something to explore. God, they love him. It would be really nice to see that. Yeah.

That'd be cool. All right. Well, I can't wait. Wait, I mean, we don't have too much longer. How, let me just ask you one quick question before we get out of here today. How are you outside of like calling people and asking them for opinions on stuff and watching, you know, more videos, how can you update the draft thing? Like from now until the draft?

I mean, this is like your baby, this draft thing. Like, how do you move guys up and down at this point? Because this is so effed up. All this draft preparation is just. crazy. And as someone who's trying to put together a mock draft and put together a draft board, I can only imagine you just must be pulling your hair out because the lack of information is so severe. When it comes to the mock draft, it's too early. It's really too early to know who's going to go where. It's like when putting together a mock right now, it's more about the range of a player and trying to hear which guys might be rising or falling.

Like there's a step about Patrick Williams from Florida State kind of on the rise, maybe into mid to late lottery. I put that in my mock, just that I'm hearing that and it reflects in the mock, not necessarily what team is taking a specific player. Like, gold and state, there's a lot of noise about Wiseman like we just talked about. And I'll, you know, in my mock next Monday, I'll put him in there. But, you know, we'll see what actually ends up happening. It's still too soon for that. And with my big board, in terms of my philosophy, I don't, I don't stress too much. about my rankings until about a couple

weeks before the drafts because that's when you have all your intel. That's when you know as much as possible about who these players are as people. It's what you know about what they've been working on. You see video of somebody like Devin Bacel from Florida State chucking the ball and you're like what's going on with his jump shot

mechanics and maybe instead of moving him up you start moving him down. It's all of these things. And also like I said in passing earlier with James Wiseman, if you told me he's going to Golden State, I would move him up my board because that's a perfect situation for him to develop. And if noise starts to come around closer to the draft that Wiseman is going to go to the Warriors, I'm probably going to move

them up a little bit on my board because I'm going to feel more comfortability with what the player is going into because so much of success has to do with more than just the player's own talents and their skills and what their potential might be. It's about the situation that they go into and how that's developed and how that's shaped. So I think that should be important in terms of what is a general agnostic big board. This is not a team-specific big board that I put out there. It's a general one. If you're doing team-specific,

every team would be different. Every board would be different. And that would be kind of a fun experiment to do? Imagine a big board for each team. Would that be cool? Would that be too much information? Like if you had 30 big boards? How about a top five?

How about a top five? A top five for each team? Yeah. I guess the team needs page can handle that. It's going to do it for another Rigger NBA show. We'll be doing mailbags on Friday, so give up that email again. Yeah, send us any questions. It can be basketball related, life related, music related, whatever it might be, to NBA mailbag at gmail.com.

Thank you so much for everybody. NBA mailbag at gmail.com. Thanks to producer, Sasha, as always. And we will talk to you on Friday. Thanks a lot of y'all.