The Ringer NBA Show - To Russ or Not to Russ: Which Teams Should Be in on Westbrook? | Group Chat

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

With some distance from the initial shock value of the trade, we take a measured look at the unprecedented haul of picks that the Thunder received from the Clippers in exchange for Paul George (2:00). Then we try to find the ideal partner for Russell Westbrook at this stage of his career and consider which teams can make those partnerships happen (26:00). Finally, Tjarks shares his three biggest observations from NBA summer league in Las Vegas (47:30). Hosts: Justin Verrier and Jonathan Tjarks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Our rewatchable spin-off show on Luminary called Rewatchables 1999 is taking a little summer break, but we'll be back in the fall with more movies including Eyes Wide Shut, Never Been Kissed, and more. In the meantime, we're launching a new show on Luminary about another influential moment in 1999 called Breakstuff, The Story of Woodstock 99. The pod will dive deep on the iconic music festival and how its success and failures left its mark on history. The series begins on Tuesday, July 9th, and will be coming to you every Tuesday for eight weeks. So make sure to check out,

Breakstaff, the story of Woodstock 99 on Luminary. Basketball is very good. The Warriors are still the best team in the league. Kyrie will be a great locker room guy in Brooklyn. R.J. Barrett's ceiling is a sixth man.

Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer MBA show. This is the group chat, colon, intimate conversations, because this isn't much of a group. I am Justin Varyer. Chris Ryan is not with us today. It's probably kind of like a load management

sort of situation with him at this point in his career. But with me, joining from Texas, the Dallas cowboy himself, Jonathan Charks. What's up, Charks? Got back from Vegas like two days ago. I think I've just recovered. I'm ready to drop some takes. Yeah, how are you feeling in the post-Vegas

hangover situation? I just took a lot of naps, really. That's the key to get yourself back in equilibrium. I'm just got to talk with you. Normally you're on press box, dropping a Tucker Carlson Linda Randis takes. Right. I think I'm a little bit more qualified to talk about the sons in Kelly Ubrey than I am, perhaps, some political, just whatever is happening there.

You're great on that pot, I thought. Oh, thank you, Sharks. I appreciate that. I was a little in over my head, but I think I papered over pretty well. So, there's some stuff still going on in the NBA. I don't know if you've heard about this. Kelly Ubrey just signed a contract. Big news, Charks, any takes?

I'm glad he got some money, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure I'll play a lot for the Suns. Yeah, so I only bring this up because last night I got into some stuff with Sun's Twitter. I put in my blurb in a group post that we did earlier this week, just kind of wrapping up free agency, in which that I criticized the Ricky Rubio contract, which I thought was a pretty tame take.

I thought it was a pretty cold one, and yet Sun's Twitter was up in arms about it. They weren't having it. At one point, I was trying to explain irony to a certain person. It's not a good space to be in, especially at this point in the summer. I think explaining things on Twitter is just a losing battle. That's kind of what I came away with. I tried to have like a civil discourse, and by the end of it, I was like explaining what just like what discourse means.

Are these tweets still? I'm going to go back and read these. You shouldn't because I was literally eating ice cream last night doing this outline and arguing with people. on Twitter in Phoenix. Well, that explains this outline. That's true. Speaking of that outline, we're going to get into some summer league stuff with Charks because he spent some time down there.

So we'll get a read on what the scene was, even though some of those lottery picks that we're all hoping to see didn't end up playing. We're going to get into some Russell Westbrook matchmaker. We're going to try to take a different approach there based on some of the rust discussions happening and some of the trade possibilities that could be out there. But first I want to start with Kwai Leonard, a guy that we still can't get away from now,

almost a week later after he made his decision, excuse me, and brought Paul George with him. So we found out yesterday, this is Wednesday, that Kauai, though, he is indeed signing with the Los Angeles Clippers, he's only doing so for two guaranteed years with one player option after it. So three years total. Not the four years he was eligible to do with a contract, with a team. that did not have his bird rights. A little bit of a surprise because the Clippers, as we know at this point,

gave up years and years and years worth of draft picks. In fact, Quai is only under contract until the 2021 summer, I believe. And so the unprotected picks that the Clippers gave up start in 2022. So the season after he could theoretically leave, which could theoretically be a down year for the Clippers,

could be pretty bad. in the worst case scenario but on the other hand this is also when he could make the 10 year max which is worth 5% more than you can when you're 7 to 9 years in the league

so there is some reasoning beyond just perhaps the conspiracy theory that he's only looking at the clippers as a way station but I guess let's start their charts just generally does the fact that the contract details are different than what we assumed

perhaps a week ago change your opinion of the trade at all? I think it just kind of reinforces what really the reality of this trade and like the Anthony Davis trade just shows is that if you want one of these superstars, you've got to go all in. Like that's the, it's the cost of doing business. Like if you want Kauai on your team, you better be willing to sell your next 10 years of future away.

Because if you don't, somebody else will. And Kauai knows it and LeBron knows it. And they're just leveraging. their power to the best of their, to the maximum. And I think we're even seeing that now really literally the maximum amount of leverage they can create their creating because they know how valuable they are. And if you don't like it, they'll play somewhere else. Yeah, you wrote about that right after the trade, just that this is kind of what LeBron had done in years past, but just more an extreme version. It always reminds me of the wire.

I don't know if you're a wire fan charts. Of course. I'm a blogger. I've watched the wire. You work at the ring or so you have to be a wire fan. But it's just basically the idea that Arlo is doing the same thing, but just a little bit more fierce. The game didn't really change. And I guess for me, it just, it almost reinforced the idea that perhaps the Clippers aren't doing anything much different than what the Lakers just did. I came down a little bit harder on the Lakers when they got Anthony Davis just because it seemed like they weren't thinking long term.

It seems like next year, they will be fine. the Anthony Davis, LeBron, James pairing is perhaps even better than Kauai, Paul George. I mean, you're kind of splitting hairs at that point. It will be one of the best duels in the league next year. But the year after that, LeBron's going to get older and they don't have any other players to go with them

and if they don't have the draft picks, how will they get the guys around them? Now, I think that is a fair argument. On the other hand, the Clippers gave up way more. And I think we're rationalizing what the Clippers did more because of their history. The fact that they don't have much of a history and the few good teams that they had,

they really, the Lob City team is pretty much the only one. And perhaps if you want to throw in some of the Lamar Odom kind of head bopping Darius Miles teams, sure, but because they don't have much of a history, we're fine with saying, well, just maximize this one window. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts about that? Do you feel like the Clippers are in any worse position than the Lakers?

Well, I think that, the difference is they kept the rest of their pieces. So yeah, they've also like mortgaged their future. But like their supporting cast is stacked. And I think like you can debate LeBron AD versus Kauai, Paul George all day. And I'm with you. Maybe I take the Lakers guys one too. But look at three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine on their rotation. The Clippers got all the players. I think that's the difference is they're both all in, but L.A. is all in with a complete team. whereas the Lakers, I mean, they're kind of on seed and stems here

trying to make a team work. Yeah, the Lakers have this powerful duo. The Clippers have a powerful duo, but they also have a team around them. That's a critical difference. And even if something happens with this Clippers team, if Kauai doesn't play as much as we think,

if these shoulder injuries, Paul George, is reportedly dealing with and could still be dealing with when the season starts, they can go out and perhaps trade some of these guys for other. players. Perhaps they could roll some into

a star player. That's probably two pie in the sky thinking, but that's on the table because they have tangible things to deal with. Whereas the Lakers, even though they only gave up, I believe, at this point, two more first round draft picks. The Pelicans control

their draft from here through the next couple of years, just because of the stepping room and some of the bylaws in place. The Lakers would have to draft a guy and then trade them. So they couldn't make a trade before the draft. They have to be after they'd made on those picks they still have. So they couldn't make future trades with it, basically. Yeah. Well, this is a good side tangent before we get on to some other stuff, but

we talked about this in our group posts that went up earlier this week, just Clippers or Lakers. Are you pretty clearly Clippers? Yeah, I think just to depth on the roster. And I'll get into the Summer League, too, like the Clippers, even like they're 11, 12, 13, 14, they got players. Like, those Clippers, that roster is stacked. And I think that gives them the edge over the Lakers, who are really gambling a lot of older players to come together. Yeah, you brought this up

in your piece that went up today about kind of some of the intriguing guys at Summer League, specifically the second year guys, but you did mention the Clippers guys.

Who is it? It's Terrence Mann and who's their other rookie? Mifondo, I don't know how to his friends as then. I want to butcher this. It's Cavangeli, the FSU big man from,

yeah, Nakebe's nephew, very skilled. And the guy wrote about in the piece, Jerome Robinson, he's the number 13 overall pick. And as we speak now, he's probably out of the rotation. Like the Lakers would kill to have lottery picks

who can't crack that rotation. But that's not even possible in L.A. right now. Right. They ended up having to follow up the 80 trade by giving up some of their last draft did players, sending Mo Wagner and two others to the Wizards in order to clear up more cap space, which they're probably fine doing that all over again, simply because they just had a lottery ticket for Kauai Leonard,

and I think that was a worthwhile risk to take, considering that if they'd just put that big three together, they probably would have dominated the league for the next. whenever the contract ran for Kauai. But, you know, a Mo Wagner here, Jamario Jones. Is that his name? Jamario Jones. Okay.

Just to show you how... Close enough. Yeah. To show you how into the Lakers' deep draft Twitter, I am. Yeah, those type of guys would be helpful because you could just perhaps roll them together and get another guy or you could just see what you have there. A stretch big, for instance, is an interesting player to have, especially if you want to alleviate some of the minutes Anthony Davis is going to play at center, which

it seems like they're going to do because they did get DeMarcus Cousins. They did get Javelle McGee in there in order to play with those guys. But the interesting discussion that kind of spurred, that sparked up in our NBA slack that went in all very, a whole mess of directions, there seems to be a desire to want to extrapolate what's been happening this summer and make broad sweeping claims about where we are in the league and where player movement is. I don't know if you have any just general takeaways. This does it seem like based on everything that we experience

over the past only week, really, which is crazy to say, there's anything we could really come away saying definitively about where the league is and where player movement is? I think my big takeaway is that given the way, like these, it's really all about these like super superstars. So LeBron, Katie, Kauai. They're signing two and ones, one and ones because they want to, A, maximize their money and B, keep the pressure on those teams. I think what these stars are realizing is like I have a very finite window to win championships and the stack rings to go after MJ. You look at Durant. His window

might already be closed after that Achilles injury, right? So they can't afford to think, oh, in five years, what's a state of the franchise? They want that franchise all in right now. And the reality is, if you're all in every year, eventually the long-term costs pay off. So to me, my big takeaway is I think Dan Devine had a good piece today on The Ringer about it. Check that out. Where he talks about how windows are much shorter now. And that's what I feel like is my main takeaway. It's this idea of we're going to build the next San Antonio and compete for 15 years. I'm not sure that's really practical anymore. I think realistically, you've got to look in a two, three-year window and then reassess because if you're making like long-term plays, these stars are going to notice. They don't want the long-term play. They want the right now play.

And then they know if you make the right now play and they're on a short contract, well, in a few years, they'll go somewhere else and do the theme of thing all over again. Yeah, and I think it's a really good point. I would also point people to a story that Zach Cram wrote for us just the other week about how short windows actually are. So, Kram, basic takeaway is we think that teams that are engaged in these long, slow processes, the Sixers and some other teams that have really taken their time to stack assets and do it in air quotes right way, it doesn't actually bear out throughout history where a team one year, five years later, could be completely different. And I think for me, that kind of undercuts the idea that this is anything different. I think it's louder.

I think it's more interesting, but I'm wondering whether or not there really has been as much consistency in teams like the Spurs. The Spurs are the outlier. They aren't just, this isn't the rest of the league. Yeah, for sure.

And I think what people are missing in this whole conversation, they're looking at, oh, what happened with Paul George? And they're saying, oh my gosh, how can small markets contend, blah, blah, blah. I think the reality is

Oklahoma City was happy to make that train. they weren't like, oh man, we lost Paul George. You're like, this team, it needs to get blown up. He's the most movable piece. And like, right, let's say Paul George hadn't asked for a trade. OKC probably couldn't have sold it to their fans or blowing this team up. They needed that leverage. You need Paul George to ask for it.

Because realistically, if Oklahoma City was a title contender right now with George and Westbrook, they could have kept them for two years and said, we're going for the ring right now the next two years. They knew this team wasn't good enough. It had to get blown up. and they use this as like a leverage point to do it. So I don't really think Paul George, I wouldn't even say he forced his way out of town. I think Oklahoma City said,

thank God you asked, let's make this happen. Yeah, I think there's a possibility that we'll get four years out from now and we'll say what a disaster this was for the Clippers. I think that's a darkest timeline sort of situation, and I don't think it'll end up being what happens

considering how good Kauai is and how well he and Paul George can play off each other, and as we just described, the team that they built around them. But let's say if one of those guys gets hurt, it doesn't work out, maybe Kauai just clashes with something in the environment, there's a situation where they got this two-year window,

they didn't make good on it, and all of a sudden, the Thunder have draft picks that perhaps even exceed what the Nets gave up for the Kage and Pierce trade. And I look at that, and I look at also what the Pelicans got from the Lakers, terms of assets. They pretty much just completely flipped their situation to the point where we're

saying, wow, what a great young core this is. This might be one of the best young cores in the league. They fell backwards into Zion, and so that was just pure luck. But even if they didn't have Zion, I think we would have really liked what they're doing. And so I think, I guess I would just preach caution and to suggest that what has happened this summer completely just warps the league. I think we might be in more of a transition period where down the road, the teams that are thinking longer, perhaps not by choice,

but might end up being better off. And the other thing to throw in there is as we're talking about how dominant some of these teams that have been built, we're also saying that the league is more wide open. The title pitcher is more wide open. And in the thick of that is a lot of small markets.

We're trying to say that small markets are at a disadvantage and yet Milwaukee, we expect to be perhaps in the finals next year. Utah is a team that everybody loves and should dominate the regular season in kind of the worst case. Denver got better. They got Jeremy Grant from OKC, which I thought was a nice pickup. That was a smart move. It's funny.

I was talking to Danny Chow about this today. It feels like Jeremy Grant is the new ringer guy. Yeah, it fits. It fits. He's the new OG. So I'm glad we got that guy into the mix early this season. Portland. Another team that could be in the mix here. So it's weird to suggest that the big markets are just dominating when we're also saying that there could be league-wide parity. No? Yeah, I think too, like big markets can dominate for windows of time like we're talking about.

But you're right, the clippers, this is not built for a six, seven-year run. They've got a really narrow whether to win a championship. And if they win that ring, then whatever happens after happens. Yeah, and I don't think you're going to see like a 10-year run from the Lakers, the clippers, the Knicks, and the Nets. Those teams might all get very narrow windows, but when those windows close, someone else's opens. So I think really all this stupersar movement could end up being a positive for like some of these teams because it gives them more shots at the apple. Like Milwaukee, for example, I mean, realistically, there's a good chance they lose Janus in two years, but they've got two years right now. And it's like, oh, I mean, to lose Janus, but most teams only get two-year windows. They've got a massive two-year window, and that's as good chance as anyone's going to get.

So I don't really feel too bad for them. So the concern going forward here is I don't know if this is much of a different problem that we've dealt with in the past, but it does give small market owners fodder if they do want to cause a fuss about this with the league office. As we've seen in the years past, some of the bigger changes that we're dealing with now are a result of small markets kind of complaining about in the most recent instance, the Big Three Heat forming. And Dan Gilbert led the charge to kind of put us in the situation where we are today, where we have the Supermax and some of these other things that were put in place. The more punitive luxury tax in particular, where the small markets had theoretically

a better chance to compete where they just didn't have the market muscle or the kind of just whatever is drawing guys to those big markets. I don't know what you could do really to solve this issue. The one thing I was thinking about, and again, I don't even know if you need to solve this issue. It reminds me of tanking in a lot of way where it's, it's more of like a PR issue than anything else. Maybe the team control on the rookie deals gets a little bit longer,

because as we've seen, even though the Supermax contract is only eligible for guys who are still with, the team that had their rookie contract. We haven't seen a mass movement of guys wanting to get traded while on that rookie contract. And so they always ultimately sign the second deal. We'll see with Ben Simmons, a guy who's up for an extension. It seems like he's going to sign one with the Philadelphia 76ers.

We'll see what happens after he signs it. Maybe he'll try to force his way out. But it does seem like the way things have gone this far, guys stay for the first contract because they have to. and then they sign the extension for the second one. You know what's funny? The only guy who really push his way out is Porzingis out of the biggest market, right?

Right. Although I guess the Knicks are an outlier in that situation. Yeah, and I think even them, like the Knicks, it sounds like wanted to move them. They wanted to open up that cap space. And I think in terms of like with rookie contracts and these young guys, I don't really think you're going to see young guys

pushed their way out in year four or five because I think most young players want to be the man, right? They want to dominate the ball. I think Devin Booker isn't that unhappy right now because he gets to put up his crazy stats. I think eventually he'll get unhappy, year six or seven, but I think for now he's happy being the man in putting up like massive numbers. And like if you look at Simmons, the one reason why he would push his way out isn't because of market size or anything. It's because this is not his team because it's Embed's team. So I don't think really any of these young stars really want to team up and sacrifice

their games at like 23. I don't think Kat wants to leave an average 18 points of game somewhere. He wants to get like 30 points a game where he is now. Yeah, and it's interesting to see what the Pelicans are doing with Zion. I think in years past with Anthony Davis,

we criticized, I think, fairly, the Pelicans for accelerating the timeline around Davis. They went and got those young veterans in order to surround him in order to win sooner because he had proven pretty much from the jump that he was capable of being an impact player. in the league. I do look at the Pelicans and think if you have a number one pick, if you have

a transformative talent who could be one of these guys down the road, I do wonder if this shifts the thinking that you want to be better sooner. Yeah, I mean, I think they've actually kind of on a similar path. Like, here's my take. The real problem with the young veterans thing is the rest of the franchise. It was the infrastructure. Like, imagine if they had this Eric Gordon in New Orleans. Yeah. He could never stay healthy there. They had Drew, Gordon, and Davis. It's a pretty nasty team. Their problem was filling in the rest of those pieces, keeping guys healthy. Whereas I think with New Orleans now, with Benson's wife, with Daley Griffin,

they're counting on the rest of the infrastructure around them to compete around Zion immediately. Yeah, and they have a pathway going forward. Whereas the pelicans were really trying to maximize their window and weren't thinking past that, often because Del Demp's job was on the line seemingly year to year, they were giving up first round picks for Drew Holiday. They gave up a first round pick for Omer Ashik and sign him to a new deal at a time where the league was going away from guys who played that way.

The Pelicans have this pathway. Even if Lonzo Ball doesn't hit, even if Brandon Ingram doesn't become the player we expected him to be when he was drafted second overall, they have all these draft picks. They could turn them into actual players or they can just ride this out for a little bit longer. But I think it's interesting.

I like their team next year. J.J. Reddick is a good vet to have. I think he's probably closer to cooked than we realize. Sorry to our sort of ringer colleague. I think Derek favors. I'm really excited to see what he does away from Rudy Gobert and he could play more traditional center. He could be the only big in the paint.

I think he could have a monster year and we can look at him as perhaps a cornerstone of that franchise going forward. But it's interesting. I do wonder if the next team who drafts, perhaps James Wiseman first overall next year, start to think quicker for you. The guy is, it's Cade Cunningham, not James Wiseman.

See, I don't even know who that is. There you go. We're putting it out there right now. Where is he going to school? So he's not even going to be in college until two years from now. That's how far back we're doing this though, Justin. Then it's Eminie Bates. He's a freshman in high school.

He's the next next guy. It's weird. We never have number one picks who are like Carl Johnson. It's always like the most like interesting named dudes. I mean, James Wiseman, I guess. That's true. James, Jason Wiseman seems like an old Jewish guy.

And there's a next year it's like Cole Anthony and Anthony Edwards. But it seems like a down year. But these superstars, yeah, for whatever reason, I don't know. All right. Jonathan Charks Jr. Maybe we can get an enterprise story going on the psychological effects of being named Cool. We're just giving away Twitter now, Justin. Giving them away to the people.

There you go on to these. Maybe Sun's Twitter can invest in the gate that next. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and talk about some Russell Westbrook trades and then get into a little hot summer league action. Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Pointsbet. Are you a New Jersey sports better or thinking of getting in the action? Then I cannot wait to tell you about Points Bet.

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Shout out, Bobby. there's a divider in between Bobby and I, so I can't really see him, and thus I can't cue him to get on the mic, which makes him more difficult than usual. I'm quietly clapping over here for you the whole time. Every time you throw out a good take, I'm like, Justin, there's my guy. There you go. We wanted to hear on the pod. I know. Bobby always dings me afterward because I just throw hot potatoes at him whenever I'd like him to chime into a conversation. But now I feel like I'm vamping Bobby to the point where you can get on the mic and pop in right after here. Justin, you need Matt's pears. pitchers takes. That's what we'll get him, get him on this thing. You don't want that. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. But instead, we're going to talk about Russell Westbrook.

Perhaps the only guy left on the table here as we hope to wrap up free agency and start eating ice cream on our couches alone more frequently at night. Wow, that got dark. Listen, I had a great time. It was Banana Foster. It's from this place, Cool House that is in Los Angeles. I highly recommend. I had a nice little evening. It's not Jennings, though. Jennings is where you want to go, man. Jennings is solid.

Yeah, I support that. So Russell Westbrook, it seems like his days are numbered in Oklahoma City. He was the guy that stayed, but now after Paul George has left him, it seems like he's going to end up just like James Hardin and Kevin Durant before him and make his way to another team here. There have been a lot of ruminations, I guess, is what we'll call them, about teams that he could possibly land in. What we're going to do specifically, we're going to do specifically, we're going to do.

we're going to look a little bit at Russ and then look at perhaps what type of guy is best for him at this stage of his career. But I do want to reset Russ a little bit because he is kind of a lightning rod. He is a divisive figure where you're kind of in or out on him.

I'm kind of in the middle, surprisingly enough. I think clearly his style of play hasn't been conducive to winning big, especially in the playoffs. But I do think there's still a very valuable player in there. He was an all-MBA player this year, he averaged a triple double for the third straight season. And while I think

that conversation can get a little warped, I think there's clearly value in somebody who could do that. It's like, on the one hand, it's a very obvious thing to say. But on the other hand, there's so much more that goes into it because of the efficiency, all this other stuff. So, Sharks, I'll throw this to you. Like, where are you at Ross right now at age 30 going into this next phase of his career? Pretty clearly what Oklahoma City was doing. winning the last few years didn't work. I think even bigger than Russ, it seemed like their planning back to the KD gaze was we have these superstars, they get buckets at will, we're just going to put the best

defensive team around them and count on them to just carry us home. And that only gets you so far without Katie, it's gotten you nowhere at all. Because like Russ has never played in space, really his entire career where there's like multiple good three-point shooters around him. And this is a guy who can't shoot. So, like, it really puts him in a bind. So I do think he's not been able to show the best version of himself last few years. And I think if I was going to acquire Russell Westbrook, I'd want to have a whole lot of three-point shooting around him.

That said, do I really want to pay Russell Westbrook? I don't even know, $8 trillion in his 30s. If I'm okay, see, I'm like, this is a good time to move along. We got his 20s. We got the best for us we're ever going to get. doces. Right. So those are the concerns everyone is going to have with Russ.

Starting with the fact that, yes, he's only 30, but he has played 11 seasons at this point. And as we know at this point, while he was an Iron Man throughout most of the kind of prime of his career, the early prime, I guess we'll call it, and he's played

80 games or more seven seasons, which is crazy to say. When he does miss games, it's because of kind of a nagging, serious string of injuries specifically with his lower body. He has had four arthroscopic knee surgeries and one PRP injection that we know of. So I don't know what's happening in the offseason. Some guys just kind of it doesn't come out and they just get these work done. So there are concerns about how he will stand up physically going forward, even though he is just this battering ram who

plays an aggressive style. But again, perhaps that's more reason to be concerned. The other thing that you brought up is the shooting. He needs shooters around him. The Thunder haven't really done a good job of that. I think they've drafted well throughout the same presti regime, just getting a guy like Stephen Adams that late in the draft, getting Russell Westbrook and turning him into the player that he is today. I think they deserve a lot of credit.

Unfortunately, they have a type and that type does not shoot three-pointers. And last season, Russell Westbrook, 29% from three. I looked this up. He's the second player since Kobe Bryant, essentially, to shoot under 30% from three and attempt

five more threes per game. Do you know who the other players since Kobe? Not Russell Westbrook? Oh, so it's Westbrook and... I can't even say Westbrook. It's Westbrook and another player. I got no idea. It is Isaiah Thomas.

Wow, I thought it was a good shooter too. Last, not this past season, but the season before that he split between Cleveland and Lakers. Oh, that late era, Isaiah Thomas. Yeah, this is not good Isaiah Thomas. Oh, my God. Gosh, he took that many shots from those teams. That great. I mean, I guess the Lakers toward the end there,

they needed anybody to take those shots. So clearly a player who has his faults, I brought this up, and just to side tangent a little bit, it's kind of like he's as poor of a shooter as Ben Simmons, but he's actually willing to take those shots. And while I think it's important for the defense to respect that, we're at the point where he's gone to the extreme as he does so, often with Russ type things, and he takes too many of them? I do wonder if he cut that in half,

all of a sudden he's a different player. I mean, I think if you put him in like a system like Milwaukee with Yannis, where you had him with four shooters, like a Brooke Lopez, he could take those rim shots, and then he has someone else take those threes. But Oklahoma said he was taking those shots. It's not Stephen Adams. It's on Andre Robeschen. Someone's got to take him. Right. And obviously the last concern is his contract. He makes $171 million over the next four years. The last year is a player option for $47 million,

which is a lot of money. And so while you have a good player, somewhere deep inside there, trading him is going to be difficult. And so not only to make the money work, but in order to find the team that likes Russ enough and that wants to go forward with him, thinks they could play off his star or whatever,

So what we're going to do is we're going to look at some of the teams that could be in the mix here, specifically looking at the partnerships that Russ and this star player could form, because it does seem like the NBA is trending less toward big threes, more toward big twos, or we'll have to come up with a more creative name, and perhaps some other guys around them. In terms of just like, I put some names on this list here, but like who are the types of guys? Let's start there that you think would work best with Russ. I think the number one thing is a stretch big man. If I got Russ, Russ is going to have the ball.

Russ is going to play downhill. Let's get as many guys out of the pain as possible. Let's play four out around him. So that first piece I got to have, if I can get like a Kevin Love type, a stretch five, open up the floor, let him go to the room. I think you've got to have that piece. If you don't have it, I don't think it's going to work. Yeah, I mean, Kevin Love is an interesting one.

If you want to start looking at specific kind of instances, Danny Chow brought him up in a video series we did earlier this week. And I thought it was an intriguing possibility because, A, Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook go way back. Hey, UCLA, that's right. That's right. They will get along. And I think that their games at this point in their career is complementing each other well.

And I think the Cavs, while they are in kind of a cap mess right now, they do have all these big salaries which if you just want to get off of Russ's money and you just want to have clear your books and start fresh with all these draft picks with Shea Gilder's Alexander you can go forward with Russ

maybe keep Darius Garland Kevin Love and that's your core. Is that such a bad thing? Well they've got a young Russ and Colin Sexton they seem really like. Sure. Yeah. So I'm going to give up on that

which I don't know. I was never a big sexton guy but that would be the cost of that. Yeah, I'm not either. I guess in this setting, you would probably want to trade Sexton to the Thunder, perhaps that's the carrot for them. Or you could swing him to another team.

I don't know. I think they're in the position where, as we talked about earlier, like maybe the rebuild, maybe the runway isn't as long as we think. Maybe it's just a matter of pairing your existing guy and just finding another guy to go with him

and then going forward with that team. I think that's a team that could in theory make the playoffs, maybe? I mean, Russ and love, if they can say healthy. Yeah, that's the big thing. Love has not been staying healthy for quite a while now. Yeah. Who are some of the more intriguing fits that you have kind of targeted? Well, I mean, I like the piece that Haley wrote

maybe yesterday or two days ago, where she talked about Minnesota, talk about a stretch big man. Carl Towns and Russ would be pretty nasty together. Yeah, that's probably the most fascinating fit on the board. I do wonder if Ross, after all these years in Oklahoma City, he'll want to go to perhaps an even sleepier market. See, I would guess not. I would guess that would not go well with him.

Yeah. But on the court, though, it makes sense. Yeah. Well, he had all this kind of history with Oklahoma City. And obviously, Oklahoma City could pay him way more than any other team as a team that had his rights throughout his career. And so there was a combination of allegiance and financial incentive in order to keep playing with that team. I do wonder if he wants to keep doing that. and his career, no shots at Minnesota,

who has some lovely summers. I don't know if you've been there, Charks, but... No. It's worth checking out. It's a long way away from where I am. Yeah, right. I don't know if he wants to just be in that tunnel system

during the winter here. But no, I think Towns is a particularly interesting guy. I'm going to flip the other way. I'm going to say Bradley Beale. So everybody is thinking that the wizards are going to just completely tear things down and perhaps deal beel in the near future. This is me just reading the Teeleys based on some of the moves that they made.

It really didn't get anybody else in there. Isaiah Thomas is all of a sudden on the roster. They brought back Thomas Bryant, who I think is an intriguing young big guy. But they're pretty much just waiting for some of these contracts to kind of run their course, the Yon Mahimni types. And in the meantime, trying to figure out what they could do with Russell, with John Wall.

I almost said Russell Westbring. They're pretty much the same guy at this point. This trade you have, you want to have them have Wall and Westbrook on the same team? Yeah, I think you just assume that Wall is tax at this point, is sunk cost. And you go forward... He's got like four years left. Is he going to play for any of those years? He's definitely not playing next year.

I think he'll want those checks. I think he'll get back on the court. I would, if I were the Wizards, and I really wanted to take advantage of Bradley Beale, and I didn't want to lose any sort of whatever. momentum basketball has in our nation's capital, which has been historically over the past couple decades, a tough place to get people involved in the basketball scene, even though there is kind of a grassroots scene. Guys like Kevin Grant come from there. A lot of players come out of that DMV area. Yeah, the Wizards just don't really rate there based on everything I know in D.C. It seems

like a Redskins town. It seems like even a Capitals town, those teams come before the NBA franchise. But so if you want to just not go the rebuild course, the rebuild route, and you want to lean into Beal and show him that you could build something around him, you go Westbrook Beale and then you find a way to get off Wall's contract in the future. You basically Gilbert Arena's him. See, my question with that is, wouldn't Beal be like, didn't I just leave this party? I think Beale liked last year where he got to be the point guard, he put up the best hats of his career. he almost at all NBA. I think he is pretty happy. I'm not sure he wants to go back to riding shotgun with someone else.

I think Bill's like, I'm a lead ball handler now. I'm the man. I'm the captain now. Right. That's my guess. Yeah, no, I can totally see that. That was just my outside the box

sort of kind of candidate there. What do you think about Jimmy Butler? So Miami is one of the teams that keeps getting brought up as a possible destination. Honestly, it seems like just based on some of the rumblings have come out in public, that that's the most likely destination considering market, where they

are as a franchise, the fact that Jimmy Butler is kind of a prickly sort, and it seems like he and Russ would get along or perhaps even kill each other. Who knows? Do you think that works on the court, Jimmy Butler and Russell Westbrook? See, I think that's where Russ would want to go. I think, like, he'd love to live in Miami, and he could kind of talk himself into Jimmy Butler. I would just love to hear that conversation, or Jimmy's like, all right, Russ. spot up in the corner. I don't know how that's going to work. I just don't, it feels very, two alphas.

Remember the old three alpha team in Chicago? I don't see how that would work with two guys who want the ball and don't shoot very well. But I think that's where Russ wants to go. It's like the opposite of Minnesota where I feel like that's where he wants, but the encore fit to me is very questionable.

I think the guy that makes sense to me if we're talking just like out of left field or not even that, it's been rumored is Blake Griffin on the Pistons. He's a stretch big now. Detroit's really desperate. Maybe they'll go with that. Yeah, I could definitely see it.

I don't really see the next step for Detroit. It seems like they've hit their ceiling already, which is sad to say, with a team built around Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin, unless they want to do something super extreme. And as we've seen with the Blake Griffin trade in and of itself, they might be willing to do that in order to re-energize a fan base that in years past hasn't really come out for the team.

If you watch some of those games in a new arena, they just, they look dead. There's nobody there. So I think it's interesting. Similar thing, though. Do you think Russ would be okay with Blake handling the ball more than Russ himself? I think you'd have to have some kind of power sharing, but Blake may be willing to take a step back a little bit. I don't know. I mean, I think it's not a better chance working Jenny Butler,

but maybe not that great chance, so I don't know. Well, what's interesting about Detroit, which I think I didn't really take note of until I read your piece on some of these Summer League guys yesterday was that they have kind of filled out the roster quietly with more interesting guys than they have in the past. I think I'm not a big fan of what the core is with that team,

but one of the issues was is they kept cheating the process and kept trying to reach for these guys like Langston Galloway, John Lure. they never really found the right supplemental pieces to go around what they had, and then they overpaid for them on top of that, which just screwed things up for them long term. All of a sudden, they got guys like Bruce Brown, who I've called Bruce Bowen like 30 times at this point.

Even Svi from the Lakers is like, you could see it, you know, and they got this guy Seku Duymboya. Did I say that right? I'm not a name guy, so I can't even... I read them on the paper. I never think them, you know, I never said, oh, Right. So, I mean, Luke Kinnard, Fondmaker is like a worthwhile just lottery ticket to pull and see what you have in him still. I don't know. I'm a little bit more optimistic about what Detroit has going forward. Am I crazy? They have more young pieces. I'm not like super excited about them too much. I think they're not to the point where they can go to youth movement. They're still kind of stuck in that middle ground, unless you really love Luke Kinnard. Another team I think might make sense would be,

If you're looking strictly on the court, it would be Chicago. They have a lot of shooting. Yeah, all of a sudden, you watched Kobe White probably in person. Did you get a good long look at him? I did. Thoughts? I'm a big fan, but it's going to take him some time. He's pretty wild right now.

Right. Yeah. So I guess it depends on what you'd end up sending to Oklahoma City. Because in that case, they don't have a ton of huge contracts. I think you'd have to give up Zach Levine, which I am personally fine with. I'm not a big Levine guy, but I do wonder, they've kind of almost built their team

around Levine at this point, no? Yeah, I mean, he's the primary score. They got, you know, Laurie, Wendell, Autoporter, Satteransky. That'd be pretty nice four around Russ, actually. Like, that's four big guys who can all shoot it, all very unselfish.

Sateransky and Porter can defend multiple positions. I think that might be the best basketball fit, but does Russ want to be in Chicago in the cold is the only stalk? I don't know. So you're saying Satteransky is going to set up everybody eats 2.0?

Nice. Yes. I think it makes sense. I just realized, yeah, Otto Porter is right there too. So Sateransky, Russ, Porter, Markinen, Carter?

Yeah. He's got some jump shooting ability. That's not bad. That's like, what, a six seed? Maybe even better? Yeah, maybe higher. So, I don't know.

There are some interesting options on the board here. I guess we'll see. I think Knicks too. We could talk about the Knicks. I don't know what their pieces around them are, but couldn't the Knicks talk themselves into, oh, we need one star to get somebody else. Russ can be a star. I think Russ with a plan in New York City make a lot of money, sell a lot of clothes, go to Fashion Week. Right. You wouldn't have to travel for Fashion Week. He might be into that. Yeah, I bet he would be into New York. I don't know how quickly New York could ever be good enough for him to want to go there. Though I think from New York's point of view, my big question with them is, yeah, they are in theory taking the long road, although a long road that's been thrust upon them, I don't know how much of a conscious choice it was. They really just cleared cap space, just drafted a lot of guys highly who haven't really panned out, and now they're just hoping

that some of them come together or someone wants to come there. I think it's the bird in the hand sort of situation. Would you rather have Russell Westbrook, a guy who, despite guys leaving Oklahoma City and playing better, guys like Victor Oladipo, guys like Demada Sabona, Sabona, some of those other guys.

Everyone seems alike playing with Russ. I do wonder if guys will want to go play with Russ in New York if he's there entrenched as the guy. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, people seem to like him off the court. He has a good amount of charisma. I think if I was an NBA team,

I'd want Russ on his third team. I think wherever Russ goes on team number two, I'm not sure it'll go that well. But I would love to see Russ on team three when he's been humbled. Maybe he's in a smaller contract when he's trying to play a role on a championship team.

I think that maybe might be where you really get to see a cool version on Russell Westbrook, but that might be two, three years from now. Well, if you're waiting for his contract to run out, it's going to be five years from now. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I forgot how long that was.

Well, I mean, it is interesting. I think watching stars kind of phase into a next phase of their career is always fascinating because you have guys like Alan Iverson who probably could have in theory played a few more years. He just refused to play differently. On the other hand, you have a guy like Vince Carter who's literally still in the league. Jason Kidd, the perfect example. I loved him in Dallas with Dirk at the end of his career. He was awesome.

It's very surprising that you loved a Dallas area. Well, you know, stay on brandy. to support the home team. All right, we're going to, we're going to do one last thing here. I did not go to Vegas this year for one of the first times in a very long time. I do not feel bad about that coming off of a very long postseason and a very long, well, not very long, but an intense draft kind of process and everything that goes into covering the draft, and then immediately going to free agency, I just did not have the band of to do that again and to stuff my face and come away with a cold because of the difference

between the 100 degree temperature outside and the 50 degree temperature inside. It's true. My lips are very chapped right now. I got a lot going on over here. Yes. So Charks is feeling it right now, but he did end up spending a few days there and he came away with a few things. As we alluded to before, he has a piece on the ringer today, looking at the five most

intriguing second year players from Summer League action specifically in Vegas. Charks, you want to just run through some of the more interesting things that you saw off there? Yeah. I mean, so the guys I wrote about Miles Bridges, Lonnie Walker, Bruce Brown, Jerome Robinson. And then I went a little homerish there, wrote about Casano Acumpo. He's probably not in the same level of the other four guys, but, you know, have the dream a bit. He's interesting, right? He is. He's an interesting guy. I think there is some talent there. The Mavs are playing the long game, going for that 2021 free agency. Who knows? But the other four with Miles Lonnie Bruce Brown and Jerome Robinson.

They were all draft, oh, I guess not Bruce Brown, but the other three are all drafted in the middle of the first. And I'm watching on these guys, it's like it's so much of their success is situational. You look at like Miles Bridges, he went 11, yeah, he went 11 or 12. And now he's on a team where there's nothing else going on. He's going to be the guy eventually.

They'll give him every chance to succeed. Whereas Jerome Robinson taking a pick or two later, he might never play in L.A. It's just crazy how much like the context affects their careers and how they're perceived. Yeah, and I think it's particularly interesting because the crop of guys that you identified here are modern players that just, I don't know what their college situation was like. I don't really spend much time watching college basketball, but it seems like they didn't

get picked highly, but they play this sort of style that the game is going toward, which is particularly interesting because in last year's draft class, you had so many bigs going at the top of the draft. And there seemed to be still this kind of dissonance between acknowledging that wings who shoot threes play this type of style that the game is headed toward in particular in playoff basketball. And yet the most talented guys coming out were still big men. So I wonder how much they could adapt to the league. I guess a lot of them have adapted, surprisingly enough, Marvin Bagley, even DeAndre Aten had a good rookie season. Like pretty much all of them at the top did.

but these guys still fell probably farther than they should have. Is that fair to say? Well, it's interesting. So last year's draft, if you go from like 11 to 24, it was all wings. All wings, like 6-4 to 6-8 wings. It was this massive run from like SGA at 11 all the way to Chandler Hutchison at 24. And like, if you look at the odds in those drafts, two or three of those guys are going to pop, are going to become stars. And I could see Miles Bridges in Charlotte and Lonnie Walker in San Antonio.

I'm writing about Zaire Smith in Philly. We've already seen Kevin Hurd have a great year in Atlanta. Some of those guys are going to become stars. And it'll be interesting. I think a lot of it just comes down to the team they're on. Like Lonnie Walker, for example, he was killing it in Summerlee, getting like 30 points a night. But now he's going to go to San Antonio where they got a very disciplined system, a ton of veterans

ahead of them. And Lone's got that Mamba mentality. I'm not sure to play with pop. Yeah, I'm just looking at the rest of this draft class. Josh Akogi is interesting guy. Aaron Holiday for the Pacers. Anthony Simons is apparently every reporter's favorite new player.

Yeah, we got a Powell doing a piece in that, right, at some point. Paulo will do one for next week. Landry Shaman at 26. This is a really deep draft. So I do wonder if some of these guys that we didn't identify early as primary players,

could make impacts. And I think Bridges, in particular, it's an issue one for me, because I watched a little bit of Campbell Walker last year, and it seems like he's just a really good fit for perhaps what they wanted to do. Later in the year, they kind of leaned into more young guys.

They had some injuries, so perhaps it was just a result of necessity. But him playing that kind of three-four spot, it seemed like he had all the skills you would want if he just got more opportunity. Yeah, he's a crazy good athlete. What I love about Bridges is he has the athletic ability, and he's a very like smart polished player.

Like he really, he doesn't really force too much. He moves out the ball. He makes the extra pass. He's still like developing as a ball handler and a playmaker. But I think next year in Charlotte, they still have Terry Rozier, Nick Batum, Marvin Williams. I think he'll probably start next to those guys, play 30, 35 minutes a night and put up big numbers.

I think for Miles last year, so I looked at the whole rookie class, he was like number 15 in minutes. And I think if you're playing a small role on a good team, people will recognize that. And if you're playing a big role on a bad team, you'll have the stats. But if you have a small role on a bad team, no one's going to care, right? You slipped through the cracks. And that was Miles last year.

Now he goes from small role on a bad team to big role on a bad team. And my guess is we'll be talking a lot more about him. If anyone watches Charlotte, which is a different question. If they do watch the Hornets, he'll be the guy people are talking about. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people will be talking about. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people will be tuning in to Charlotte lately. That's probably a safe assumption. Yeah, I don't think they were with Kemba when he was there,

which is sad because Kemba's a very dynamic, exciting player, and I'm excited to see him and see what he does on a bigger platform next season. But it does seem like Charlotte is going to be in kind of a, you know, they're going to be off the radar for a next couple years here. And honestly, it's probably to their benefit. They need to take some time to get those big deals off their book. really take their time. Don't worry about Terry Rozier

being your next guy. Lottery pick, right? Lottery pick Terry Rozier. That got tossed around and kind of lambasted. I get what he was trying to say. Just that he's a young guy with upside who probably didn't play as much

as he would have wanted. And someone who had had his postseason in years past probably would have gotten. But yeah, that was a pretty... Maybe you should have said that then. He needs you running PR for it. Well, as someone, who recently came under fire for not perhaps articulating his argument as well as he would have liked.

I feel for Mitch Cupjack. There you go. Seriously, I'm shooketh by recent results. Okay, but the last thing you have here, two-way contracts. So if guys who aren't recent draft picks, lottery picks, were trying to either work on their skills or to kind of show themselves and perhaps improve for next season, this is kind of the next layer of guys here. So talk to us a little bit about perhaps what you saw on that front.

Well, so it's interesting. So I was talking to people about that. It seems like after about 40 or 45 in the second round pick, it becomes just like standoff because teams want to, they don't want to draft guys at those spots and bring them on their roster because usually their roster is full. They don't want to burn an asset. So like if we're going to draft you late to second round, you've got to be going to take a two-way contract. And some guys will take it.

And other guys, they're going to bet on themselves and say, don't even. draft me then. Because what teams don't want to have happened is you draft a guy, he won't take a two-way contract, he won't go to Europe, he comes to your camp and you've got to cut him and you lose the asset. So they're drafting possibly less talented players late second who will take that two-way contract, who will develop over a longer time frame. So that's what happened with Philadelphia and Sheikh Milton from SMU. So he drafted him last year's second round, signed to a two-way contract, And then this year gave him a four-year contract on a minimum salary, one of those hinky specials. So now they have them for five years.

And for Shake, he gets that guaranteed money, gets a shot in Philly. But the cost is he's locked up for almost his entire 20s because he was an older player coming out of college. So it's a real cost for him to do that. Whereas the flip of that is this guy, Terrence Davis, he was an old misguard, really skilled. I really liked him a lot coming out of the draft. and he didn't get drafted. I was very surprised.

And asking around is because, oh, every time in the one of the draft, Terrence Davis were like, sign a two-way. He's like, I don't want to do that. I'm better than that. So he didn't get drafted, goes to Summer League, plays with the Nuggets,

has won monster game, and the rappers give him a guaranteed contract off it. So he bettered himself and it paid off. So that's like, it's just a really big game of chicken happening at the end of the second round. It's kind of fascinating. That is super interesting.

And as we've seen in years past, like the second round is, this weird playground for enterprising GMs and I guess also kind of a standoff for a kind of positioning battle for some agents and some players. And so perhaps Chandler Parsons contract years ago was probably the original Hinkie special, right? And so since then we've seen teams get more creative. It went the opposite way when the Thunder probably outsmarted themselves. Oh, the Josh Heist's this one? Yeah. Yeah, so they basically guaranteed Josh Hussis a first round, late first round slot,

and thus all the guaranteed money that comes with it. But he immediately went into their G-League system. And I don't even know if he's still with the Thunder? No, he's not. He's out the league. So, yeah, I mean, on the one hand, you could see it blow back on some teams, in particular this Oklahoma City situation. But it is interesting to watch these kind of games play out,

as you suggest, because while this is the fringes of the fringe stuff in the NBA, the thing that probably only the cap nerds and the really deep cut draft nerds like ourselves are interested in, you see it play out. And if you have success with it, you could see what happens just in the NBA finals where a guy like Fred Van Vleet comes in and plays like a god in the playoffs and basically swung that series to a certain degree. So these moves on the fringes matter. All these small decisions become big decisions.

Everything has a cascading effect. So I think this is interesting. I mean, shout's to Terrence Davis. He's got a lot of actually some Norm Powell in his game. I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing for Toronto in the near future. He's a player. Is that a good thing to be a little Norm Powell? $40 million second round pick.

That's not too bad. That's true. All right. We will wrap it up right there. We will be back perhaps throughout the NBA. summer and especially when Russell Westbrook gets traded. I don't know when that will be. It doesn't seem like there's a huge incentive for the Thunder to do that immediately, especially with so much money wrapped up in all the deals that just got signed. Oh,

not even two weeks ago. So for Charks, for Bobby, and for me, we will see you next time. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.