The Zach Lowe Show - Free Agency Roundup With Bobby Marks, and Dan Woike on the Lakers!

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Zach is joined by Bobby Marks to break down the Jaylen Brown trade! Why did it happen now, and what does it mean for both teams? Plus, they break down all the other big moves so far and discuss what��s going on in Denver. Then, Dan Woike comes on to recap the Lakers' offseason and preview what the team will look like this season. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:42) Bobby Marks joins the show! (11:03) Why do the analytics not favor Jaylen Brown? (25:11) Why this deal for Jaylen Brown, and why now? (28:54) Donovan Mitchell gets a max extension (37:03) What’s going to happen with KAT? (44:38) Zach’s not concerned with the 76ers being able to share the ball (50:48) What’s happening with Nikola Jokic in Denver? (1:00:11) Bobby loved the Spurs getting Tobias Harris (1:04:06) Dan Woike joins the show! (1:08:32) Zach feels like the Lakers overspent on every acquisition (1:16:28) This could be a top-five offense right away (1:25:29) Walker Kessler is one of the most interesting players in the league (1:40:35) Let’s look at the Jazz's perspective on this trade Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Bobby Marks and Dan Woike Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On the Zach Lowe show, free agency is winding down with a few notable exceptions. LeBron James, among them as of now anyway. Bobby Marks, my old teammate, my fellow suffering Mets fan, is here to sort of sort through the rubble of free agency. Who got better? Who got worse? What are some small deals that we like? What are some small deals that have left us a little puzzled? We revisit because we're going to be revisiting it for the next year or so.

Jalen Brown, a transaction we're going to be talking. about for a long time, it touches on so many NBA flashpoints from analytics to collect the bargaining agreement to the apron, to salary levels, to all sorts of things. We're going to hit every angle of that now that the Celtics, the Sixers, the League at large, just had some time to digest it. How good are the Sixers, actually? How much worse are the Celtics? We talk about all of that and just, you know, we've got a ton of deals to sort through

the big deals, the small deals, guys like Tari Isid, Norm Powell, lots of stuff to talk about with Bobby Markston. And Dan Wojke from the Athleticist here to talk about the Lakers because I think it got swept under the rug a little bit amid the Jalen Brown mania. They took a lot of huge swings to remake this franchise, the league's glamour franchise around Luca Donchich. Is it good enough? Are they trapped into a team that's just good with no pathways to be great? Who is Walker Kessler? How is he going to fit with this team? All of that and more coming up on the Zach Lowe show. Do the Zach Lowe show. The NBA offseason has one huge storyline left,

and that's LeBron James, who broke up with the Lakers before they could break up with them. You can't fire me. I quit. And there's a lot of stuff going on around the league, too. Bobby Marks is here. How you doing, buddy? I'm good.

How are we doing? Good. I'm here to also announce that the Lowe family is throwing its entire football loyalty behind Norway from here on out. So just make note of that. and your press, that's my press release for today. Do you have a team that you are now throwing your full loyalty behind? That's a good one.

You know, I mean, watching Team USA last night was like watching Nets Pistons, O4, Eastern Conference semifinals, game seven, and lose by 30. You know, the hype was there and then it just didn't live up to the age. Or any of 60 Mets games that have happened so far this season, which is what I thought up when our goalie dragged his foot on the floor and that was it. Yeah, we're going, we're going Norway, and that's what we're going to do. So, Bobby, before I thought this was fitting, right before I hopped on with you, I just watched the six-minute video that the Raptors and Kyle Lowry posted about him signing a one-day contract

today with the Raptors and retiring after 20 years. And I thought that's such an interesting sort of just thing to happen in the same week as all this Jalen Brown discourse occurs. because they're similar and so different and in so sort of like divisive in similar but opposite ways. So like Lowry and Jill and Brown, you stack them up next to each other.

No one on the eye test would ever suggest that Kyle Lowry is a better basketball player than Jalen Brown, right? Jalen Brown's a six-eight wing. He does all these things. He's a much more natural floor razor than Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry is a six-foot, nothing, whatever he is, you know,

like average 20 points a game, only twice in his entire career. And yet the advanced analytics, which have become such a flashpoint in all, this is you, Bobby Marks, know better than anybody else, would tell you that in his prime, Kyle Lowry,

the advanced analytics would tell you this. Not Zach Lowe, not Bobby Marks, the advanced analytics, and not just some of them, pretty much all of them, because there are a lot of advanced analytics, would tell you that Kyle Lowry was a flat out better basketball player

than Jalen Brown. I also think that's interesting because, you know, Kyle Lowry was another one of these guys who was tagged with the, quote, smartest guy in the room thing throughout his career, Colin Coward, citing anonymous sources called Jalen Brown's smartest guy in the room thing or cited sources calling it a quote unquote disease, which I thought was a cheap shot on every possible level. But it's a useful reminder that this is this kind of label in varying degrees has been tagged to Chris Paul. It's been tagged to Spencer Dinwiddie and really hurt his career.

It was tagged very early with Kyle Lowry, who was like smartest guy in the room, coach killer and is now retiring today as the all-time franchise legend of the Toronto Raptors. Chris Paul. Did I say Chris Paul? Jared Allen, he liked computers too much to play. Like a lot of this stuff is sort of nonsense. But I think that it's just such an interesting dichotomy, the Kyle Lowry Day, props to Kyle Lowry.

What a story. Like discarded by Memphis, traded by Houston, you know, all of this stuff and becomes a franchise legend and a champion in Toronto and Jalen Brown. I don't know, Bobby. Like, what have you, what have you learned in the past week or six days or whatever since this Jalen Brown trade? Is anything changed in your perception of it? Well, I mean, I would start with, you know, just going back to, you know, when I just, you know, when I spoke with serious radio, I kind of had an idea, Zach, what his trade market looked like. Like, that was, like, really, that was like when I said, you know, and I, and it wasn't

just one person. Like, I had talked to a lot of people and a lot of people in front offices here about where his, his trademark was. And it wasn't that, you know, whether he's a seventh man or whether he's a rotational player or, you know, some of these other things that, which I told, and I totally agree, I disagree with what I was basically was set in the stage as far as like, when this guy gets traded, be prepared that his value is where it is. And I think, like, it was almost like doing weather and say, hey, there's a storm out there.

Like, be prepared. It's going to come soon. And that was really the reason. And for me, you know, I mean, for me, it was like kind of defending him. Like, say, wait a minute. Like, this thing is going off off the tracks here with everything there. I agree with you. I think, listen, whether you.

think you're the smartest man in the room or the you know or um you have a i don't want to say high opinion or um you know you know you like other things other than just basketball like i do think that sometimes there is a perceived notion um the disease thing is off like way off like you know like that is like beyond everything like that's one that's a personal shot yeah and we need we need Yeah, we need to draw a line between like anonymous source. This has been my pet peeve with the Sports Illustrated anonymous scout for 30 years. You need to draw a line between anonymous sources who are giving you news that you otherwise cannot get or giving you sort of just insight that's fair basketball criticism versus

name calling. And that's, that's name calling. And that's like put your name behind that one. Well, that's right. Like, you know, when I talk to whether it be an analytics person or. whether it be someone in the front office or whether it be, you know, like that was like, hey, this is what, this is what the perceived notion is. Now, that wasn't across the board with every team, but there was a, there was a strong belief as far as how teams viewed him. Now,

you can look at all the different numbers on off, you know, plus minus. But, but as I said, listen, at the end of the day, it was 191 and 80 in four years. He led a team that basically had no Jason Tatum this year to, what, 53 wins? wins in the two-seat in the Eastern Conference and finish sixth in MVP voting. I think that kind of carries a lot of weight as far as how you evaluate, how you evaluate a player and everything like that. And at the end of the day, you know, I watched Brad Stevens press conference on Monday. And he like, you know, listen, it felt like it kind of pained him, right? Like, oh, they're going through it right now. I mean, they are going through it on a lot of

different levels in Boston right now. You know, whether you could talk about the, you know, having two max, supermax players that tie up, I don't even know, 70% of your salary cap. He made a good point. I think he said three years ago was 44% of your salary cap and the ability to, now you can make the counter argument like, wait a minute, you just traded a max for a max. But it does give you the optionality as far as with Paul's one less year and there's a player option there and everything like that.

But yeah, it's, it's probably been one of the, um, more bizarre weeks for me, at least, just based on this discussion that started last week. And really, it's like, it's funny, after they lose to Philly in the first round, it's like, how did we get here, right? Like, how did we get to this point? And then the Yonis trade, right? And then it doesn't happen. And now we're like, we're here and everything like that.

And that's, that's, you know, that's the biggest thing is that a guy that, as I said, finished sixth and MVP was basically like, like when we look back five years from that, this is going to be one of those like studies, right? It's all the league is talking about a week later. And I'm glad you mentioned Janus because that's almost like, that's almost been pushed to the side that they almost traded for Janus and bailed out because of an extra first round pick, you know, three, they would have taken three first and at least Hugo Gonzalez, if not Baylor Shireman.

And you said the word optionality. And you got to get the Celtics points at least for this. consistency. They decided we don't want 35% of the max tied up with Janus or we don't want it enough to trade what it's going to take. And we don't want it necessarily long term with Jalen Brown, whose extension, I think, was hovering over all this too. Look, there are two separate questions here. Number one is just the big general one. Why trade Jalen Brown at all? Number two is the why now and why for this. Let's start with why trade Jalen Brown. I think this is very simple. And it's been overcomplicated a little bit because there are these ancillary

issues like, was he going to be happy with his role coming back onto this team with Jason Tatum as the new-ish old, new old number one guy? I think that was a real thing. I think there was, as the athletic reported, some internal concern related to that role issue with how Jalen Brown played in the Philly series in the first round, a little out of control, a lot of turnovers, maybe forcing the issue a little bit. I think they're kind of blowing that out of proportion personally, like he was not great, but I don't think it was like cataclysmically bad. So there's those issues. But really what it comes down to is this.

You can argue whatever you want about analytics. I don't really care. Here's the thing. All of them, there are certain players around the league, certain star players, two or three or or four, always around the league at the time, where all the advanced analytics, not just some of them, all of them, whether it's Vorps or Snorps or adjusted plus minus or this system or win shares or whatever box score plus my like take the whole spectrum of them they all scream in unison this player is not as good as the traditional stats say that he is or the MVP

votes stated that he is or there's always players like that devon booker is another one where the advanced analytics when you put them all on a spreadsheet he always comes out so low that you're like wait are these like broken but when they all say the same thing it behooves you to listen to them at least a little bit. That doesn't mean they are gospel. That doesn't mean Jalen Brown is the 50th best player in the NBA or the 70th best player in the NBA or the seventh best player on the Celtics. It just means they are flagging something.

And I think in Jalen Brown's case, what they are flagging is he is good at doing the number one option type of stuff, but not great, right? Like his playmaking, his assist to turnover ratio is usually about even, not a great passer, not a great three-point shooter, and he is just okay at the number two option stuff of defense and three-point shooting and extra passing and all that, which is why some of those analytics systems would rate guys like Derek White above him, because Derek White is elite at the secondary option stuff, not as good at the first option stuff. That doesn't mean all of that stuff is true, and you have to believe all that about Geelen Brown. But the analytics are sniffing out

something about him. And so when I say this trade really boils down, you can, don't, don't get too caught up in the role definition and the culture of the team and all that. To me, it really boils down to this. Me personally, I look at the eye test, I watch a gazillion games, seeing Jalen Brown play a gazillion games.

I've seen him win finals MVP deservedly. East Finals MVP deservedly. I put him second team all NBA this year on my fake ballot, deservedly. I know how good Jelen Brown is. I also pay attention to the analytics. To me, that nets out at probably Jalen Brown is something like the 12th to 20th best player in the NBA, 12th at the absolute apex, 20 to 22 or something at the absolute

floor. Really great player. And I think all this trade is, and maybe you disagree with me. And if so, please chime in, is he's making the fourth or fifth most amount of money in the league and he's the 15th, 16th, best player in the league in the eyes of maybe some decision makers. I don't know where exactly Boston ranks him. And that's it. Like, that's, that's the whole thing. That dichotomy between where his salary ranks and where he ranks is, I think, why this trade happened. Why it happened now and why this return we can get into. But I really think

that's basically what it is. I think you had a right on the head. I think, listen, I think for me, you know, the analytics part, yeah, there's a, I think there's a, I think there's a, I think there's a, I think there's a role for. And I think a lot of teams, when they went through the Jalen Brown process, they looked at it, okay, why do these numbers stand? Why do this pop? And then you kind of go to the film part of it. And then you look at kind of your roster construction as far as if you were going to make a trade for him and how he fits in.

And then also the financial part of it. I think the financial part of it is the biggest part. And I keep on going back as saying, I think I might have said this on TV. Really, the only pathway do I see at Jail and. on Brown trade is basically swapping Max for Max. Like when you look at it, so when you look at Janus, right, you know, Max for Max. When, you know, none of us talked about Paul George, Max for Max. Okay.

And when you talk with teams throughout this, after this trade happened, and you go back and like, well, what happened? A lot of it came down to originally the offers were too high, which Boston was looking for. Boston's asks. Boston's asks. were too high, there was such a short window when free agency was about to start that we needed to go back and we need to go do our own business, right? Like we weren't going to go back to the table and say, instead of this amount of picks, we're going to do this amount of picks because we already had trades lined up.

We already had free agent signings lined up. It basically had to be, hey, this is what it is. Let's do it now. And if not, then we're going to move on to our other business. But you hit it right on ahead when you look at trading a 54 or 58 million. dollar player in this day and age, it is extremely hard for teams from a roster construction standpoint trading three or four guys. Like it just really is. And Brad, you know, it's funny, Brad Stevens, you know, he talked about, you know, when you have two max guys tied up and it

hurts your depth. I actually thought at a point last year, I applauded the Celtics depth. When you look at what they were able to do, like even to the point I wrote in my, when I write my offseason articles. I wrote when I was writing Sixers article. And I said, and I changed it because Philly had beaten them in the first round. I said, listen, if you're Philly, you kind of want to mirror how Boston has built out, how they've drafted with Jordan Wash and Hugo Gonzalez and Luca Garza and Belchart. Like, you know, all these guys they were able to find and develop a name is Kada, right? Like these under the radar guys. And I thought for them last year, that kind of really sustain some things when you didn't have Jason Tatum for the most part of the year.

So I understand when Brad says, hey, like, listen, I'm watching New York and their depth and everything like that. Well, two years ago, we were talking about the next depth as their Achilles, right? So it's not like all of a sudden you swap the max for the max. And now you, yes, you were able to get Mitchell Robinson. But, Zach, at the end of the day, you would have been able to get Mitchell Robinson if you had jail and Brown still on your roster because they were salary. wise and everything like that. So, listen, I, I understand a lot of the different angles with,

with this trade from the teams that were interested from, from the Celtics perspective here. You know, the, you know, I, listen, I don't think a team did not trade for Jason Tatum because they thought he was the 50th. Jalen Brown, Jailen Brown, because he was the 50th. Some teams tried to trade for Jason Tatum. Some teams who did not express censorship in Jalen Brown and had the assets to do so did express interest in Jason Tatum and were shoved away, which is another sort of side angle to this. Well, I always say, like, you know, unless you ask, you never know, right? Why not ask?

Why not ask? Look, here's, like, the optionality thing is going to be interesting. And you bring up the NICs. It'll be interesting to see where the Celtics end up because you could end up. Is the optionality just going to lead you to another superstar player that's going to put you in the same? Are you going to trade all of this stuff for Superstar X down the line? Or are you going to try to mimic what the Knicks did, which is get a bunch of guys making between 15 and 45 million and nobody making the max? And guess what?

Part of that is because Jalen Brunson took a family discount that no other player is going to take in any other situation that has enabled them still to squeeze. under the second apron. They're still under, right? Right now? And it will be. And by the way, the Andre Drummond Mitchell Robinson thing, it's not nothing. I think it's a meaningful downgrade for the Knicks. And just like Andre Drummond is a great offensive rebounder, 17.5% offensive rebounding rate.

Mitchell Robinson was out of the universe as an offensive rebounder last year, almost 25%. The bigger decline to me will be rim defense. André Drummond allowed almost 70% shooting at the rim when he was contesting. Mitchell Robinson was under 60, 58%. That's a pretty good number, much faster, much different player. It's a meaningful thing, and they are squeezed under the second apron, and I'm sure you've heard people talk about, we'll talk about Denver later. The second apron is acting like a hard cap in a lot of these cases.

And it goes back, I'm going to get back to Jalen Brown, but it goes back to, like, I go back to this piece I wrote just for myself all the time. in 2018, 2018, eight years ago, I wrote a piece about the Supermax and how it was

forcing teams into very painful decisions with homegrown superstars. And the tent pole for it was Jimmy Butler when he became Super Max eligible

and the Bulls with Jimmy Butler just entering his mid-20s decided we have to get out of the Jimmy Butler business now. 30th pick homegrown Super Bowl

And yes, just like Jalen Brown, there were ancillary issues. Like, did he, was he disagreeing with Fred Hoyberg and poisoning the culture and all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is they didn't want to pay him the money. And I wrote in that article, like, these, these, if you draft a player and he becomes a success story to the point that Jalen Brown did, finals MVP, champion, beloved in the community, all of that, it just feels viscerally wrong to me that his contract is something that you want to get rid of.

And so how can we fix that? And in that story, eight years ago, I talked about, like, should you get some cap tax relief? If it's a homegrown, drafted, has only played on your team superstar earning the 30 or 35% max. And I said, well, yeah, cap tax relief. That's really just saving the owner's money. Kind of less so now in the apron because it's giving you more, like, flexibility to do stuff. I even pitch like, should you get some sort of mini, mid-level exception if you have one of those players on your team? to help you build the team around him and reduce the force you feel to get him off of your team.

And I remember thinking, well, you know, does that make tanking a little bit more beneficial because that's the way you get these superstar players? But now tanking has been like crippled under the new lottery. I just I just still viscerally believe that it's something is wrong with the system that turns these homegrown stars in some cases, not all. But like in that article, I talked about Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, on and on, that turns them into albatross contracts that you want the Celtics should want Jalen Brown to be a Celtic for life. Their fans want him to be a Celtic for life. And at some point, like, this does become about the fans.

Like, Boston fans, I have to watch Jalen Brown put on the freaking Alan Iris in Black Sixers jersey. Like, that's going to hurt. It's painful. It's emotional. And I think we something, there's got to be something there. I don't know what it is, but it just feels wrong to me. And it's almost like, you know, I'm just thinking out loud, like, you know, so it's a lot different because of the salaries. Like, so when you sign a veteran minimum, okay, the league wants you to sign guys who have been in the league.

So when you sign for the veteran minimum, if, if LeBron signs with Cleveland, for example, and he's signing for the veteran minimum for that $3.9 million, well, for cap purposes, you're only getting charged $2.4. So if you are talking about a Supermax guy, a 35%, right? So Shea, Jason Tatum, Jail Brown, guys like that. Why don't you get charged 30? Guy can still earn 35%. Right? You can still earn your 58, but instead of maybe. Yeah, to be clear, like, you're getting charged 30%.

All my proposals were the player gets all the money. Like, it's about all the cap issues and stuff. Yeah. And for cap hits, it's 30%. So there's a big difference. You know, like we go back to like Evan Mowgli, for example. And listen, Cleveland and him negotiated that in his rookie contract,

Kate also in Detroit, where when they did their rookie deals, they had the escalators in there that won from 25 to 30%. If you're in first team all NBA or defensive player of the year, and they hit him, right? Evan got named defensive player of the year. Instead of, you know, a $224 million contract, it became like 270.

teams root. It's a real thing. Teams, I'm not saying this about Cleveland. I'm saying teams root almost root against their players achieving things like that, like all NBA and defensive player of the year for financial reasons. And that's like toxic. That like that that should not be. All right. I just want to get before we go too far down. You know, it's a real real quick regarding Boston. And I know they're talking about finances and option. I'm just looking at his contract right now. It's interesting that they gave Mitchell. Robinson a three-year guaranteed deal. Like fully guaranteed

across the board where you look at some of these other centers, not Walker Kessler, but Robert Williams in Portland's got, you know, guaranteed game clauses and there's Jacques Landau and Atlanta gets a one-year deal, right? Like, so it is interesting that they went the full boat because really, there's a player option in the last year. Mitch was like the last man standing, right? Like there was like, he was the last of the centers

to come off the board here. And that's, you know, the game three years 47 million plus of, you know, of guaranteed money. I'm glad you brought that up because later in this episode, I have Dan Waikian, and we talk about the Lakers offseason and how I think they just kind of have trapped themselves into a team that isn't going to be as good as they think it is. And the question that you need to ask is, like, what are the alternate paths? What is the alternative to paying Walker Kessler a gigantic amount of money and trading

to massively valuable draft picks for him? It's like obviously that's an overpay in total for Walker Kessler. No one is debating that. What is the alternative that doesn't piss off Luke Godancho, which is he approaches like almost the end of his contract in a couple of years. And it's something like Mitchell Robinson, who's an injury risk at the mid-level exception. But there are other alternatives like that.

Anyway, that's Lakers. Okay, Jalen Brown. The other thing is why this deal and why now? And as we've begun to sift through the rubble of this, the answer to that, has become a little bit clearer. And I think it's because Boston felt an urgency to do this. I think they're just,

they were worried about the internal discord of bringing him back into a team that was going to be at least mostly Jason Tatum's team is the number one option. I think they were worried that deals were starting to disappear. So like Brooklyn moved on to other business. I think there was real interest there. Minnesota moved on to its business. I think there was real interest there. John Krasinski talked about it.

on the podcast. You know, Toronto, if they had been interested at all, pivoted to Kauai Leonard and coming back to Toronto and all that. And so was there fear that did, I think Boston probably miscalculated on a couple of levels. Number one, the Philly option was not going to go away. I think Philly became pretty, I think Josh Harris became pretty fixated on getting Jalen Brown. And I think they could have squeezed another asset out of the Sixers for sure. And I also think, I don't know.

I'm curious to hear. I think there was at least one or two other teams who might have been interested in Jalen Brown, who got intel that Jalen Brown was not super interested in them and to maybe stay out of the bidding. So I think Boston felt the circle closing. And then you throw on top of that teams like Houston and Cleveland who like could have had the assets just weren't, weren't diving into it at all. Portland.

You had Portland mixed too. Like I thought Portland was kind of a wild card just based on, listen, they got five guards that you could start. That's the one where I'm like, did Jalen Brown want to be there? Like that is that is that. So I, you know, I think all of that is sort of what drove them to do it now. It's just, it's going to be a trade we talk about for a long time. It's not a good trade. It's not a good. It's not a good return. I think we all agree. I do think it's going to age better than it feels right now in part because I think like it would not surprise me at all if Boston wins more games in the regular season than first.

Philadelphia. That doesn't mean there is good of a playoff team because I think that's, that's what the analytics may be missed is that when the game really gets tough and the defenses really get top notch and it's not a hundred game sample size, it's a seven game sample size against a defense with tons of great wings. That's game planning only to be you. Do you have more than one guy who can get a good shot, bully you into the paint, compromise your defense, pretty much every possession against. any defender you can throw at him. Jalen Brown for whatever war team might have as a passer or playmaker, tough shot taker, all of that, he can do that. Paul George can't anymore.

Paul George will play really well against the Celtics by shooting threes and hitting a lot of mid-range turnaround jumpers in isolation. The like fade away is that no one is sending doubles at him. They're really, really tough shots. He's not getting into the pain. He's not getting to the rim. He's not getting to the dotted line. I think that's when you're going to miss Jalen Brown in the playoffs. But look, like, they got two really good draft picks out of it. We'll see what those turned into. I think they're going to win a decent amount of regular season games to Celtics.

But it's a painful one that they're going to be thinking about in Boston for a long, long time. And when you talk about optionality, if you're going to say that stuff at a press conference, like Brad Stevens said, I don't think it's going to be this season. Maybe it's next season, next summer. Like, you better nail the next move. And that was the obvious angle I talked about right in my emergency podcast. was to judge this trade fully, you have to see what they do when Paul George isn't expiring.

Contract. Breaking news. What do we got? Donovan Mitchell. Four years, 273. Okay. Donovan Mitchell, breaking news from Shams Trania. But I was going to, let me just finish my thought.

You better nail with the next move with all these picks and the Paul George expiring. Like, if you're going to talk about it at a press conference, you better to that. Donovan Mitchell, four year, 273 max contract. includes a player option for the 30-31 season. So we can put it all to bed now, Bobby. Donovan Mitchell has said over and over again, I want to be in Cleveland. I want to win with this team.

We made the conference finals, blah, blah, blah. And the trade rumors have always like, you know, like, oh, but what if this happened? Now there's that, now he's on the team. Now the question is, I'll tell you what. I'm looking at the numbers. It's 70 a year. 75-5 in the last year, buddy, 34 years old. Look, I mean, this is literally what we just talked about, except he's not a homegrown star, I guess.

I don't know how to deal with that. But it's the same thing as the Devin Booker contract in Phoenix where it's like, I mean, I can't bring it up now because the numbers haven't updated for Donovan Mitchell. Like there's almost 60.9, 658, 70.6 and 755. Look, good for the Cavs because they get, they get their stability. They're clearly going for it. What's the other option? But they're clearly going for it. They're going to bring Hardin back at some number.

Maybe they'll get LeBron in a week, in a month, in three months. I don't know. Like they could probably use LeBron. I don't love the basketball fit there. But there's like almost, there's like a 10% chance that Donovan Mitchell is a $75 million player, quality-wise, production-wise, at age 34. It's not going to happen. It's the same thing with Devin Booker.

The difference is Cleveland is in a position to go for it now. And I think justifiably believes we're not far from making the finals. We might be far from winning the finals. Maybe not. I don't know. Phoenix is not and will not be, I don't think at any, well, it doesn't appear to be likely that they will be during Devin Booker's contract. At least Donovan Mitchell, we're breaking.

We're just reacting right now. So this is my snap reaction. this is a what else am I supposed to do the guy the guy was a first or second team all NBA level player all season I actually had him rated above jail and Brown in my sort of player rankings for the season he's an undersized two guard fine he's a really great player I don't know what else you're supposed to do they traded a whole shit ton to get him Utah is still benefiting from it right now okay Bobby Geon Brown donovan Mitchell well I mean what again what do you tell me what what what

What's your reaction? I knew it was coming. I'm not surprised by it. It's the summer of extensions, right? We've got all these all MBA, all stars, former MVPs that are extension eligible. There's over 20 of them. I said, like, when people ask me, who's the next domino to fall into trade? So let's see what happens in extension talks. Well, you know who's a name that is extension eligible?

And now it's a real thing that's almost on the clock because he has a player option for 27, 28. And that's it. That's the end of his contract. It's a player I talked a lot about when I was trying to prime Celtics fans for get ready for what looks like a disappointing return on the Jalen Brown trade. And that's Carl Anthony Towns. Yeah. And to me, that's still the best comp for the Jalen Brown trade is a team in Minnesota

had a great player making a huge amount of money, making a top six player amount of money that they thought was the 15th to 20th best player or whatever in the league. I'm not speaking for them. That's just like I'm just going to get. that that's what they conceived. A player who was roundly mocked for his postseason performances in a lot of years and all his warts and Jimmy Butler mocked him and all that.

And they decided we're kind of in jail. We need to get out of this contract to loosen up our books and give ourselves that O word, optionality. Right. Going to make my, never mind. I was going to make a bad job. Well,

I was going to make a bad office space joke. And they traded in for Julius Randall, Dante Juvenzo, and a first round pick. And it was like, whoa. that's Carl Anthony Towns trade value. I think that's what the jail and Brown thing was. I have no, I don't do I, can I say some other things that are not true about the jail and Brown trade? Or do you have more reaction to this?

Here are some things that I want to get off my chest. Number one, this is not as bad as the Luca Dantia trade. It doesn't even live in the same planet as the Luca Dantius trade. Boston canvassed the whole league and this was the best they got and you could decide, your criticism of should they have just done nothing? That's fair. Should they have done the honest deal? That's fair. It's not even close to the Mavericks, voluntarily trading Luca Danchich and only talking to one team about him. Not close. Number two, please miss me with the, well, Boston thinks Peyton Pritchard is going to be Jalen Brunson talk. Did you just see Jailen Brunson?

Just see what that dude did in the finals? I love Peyton Pritchard. He's not going to be Jailen Brunson. Number three, this is also not the Rudy Gay trade, whether it's the Memphis trading Rudy Gay to Toronto and getting better or Toronto trading Rudy Gay to Sacramento and getting better. Jill and Brown is a way better player than Rudy Gay ever was. Those are just things I wanted to get off my chest. Is there anything else you want to hit on this before we, whether it's smartest guy in the room, optionality, Boston, Donovan Mitchell, anything else you want to hit? I think the biggest thing like in, you know, just going back, like when I meet with these, when I go back and talk about draft prospects and stuff like that, like what they do off the

court and what they do in the community and what they do giving back or what their hobbies are, like, I don't know. I mean, like sometimes it's like we, some people look down on that, right? Like, look down on like, well, he's not, you know, he's not in the gym. not doing this. He's a locker room, you know, lawyer and stuff like that. And I, and I just think, like, I think it's easy for a lot of people who aren't in it, who aren't part of it. Like, you know, as far as like, like, like, I think the funny thing was that people, when I talked, when I said, yeah, like, hey, I talked to somebody in analytics, and I thought he was the seventh bus player,

which, and I, you know, as I said, pushed back on it. Everyone equated, oh, someone from the Celtics told Bobby Mark's that. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. The Celtics were not out there doing, you know, damaging their, their players trade value. That's not the case. My wife thinks I need to get a hobby, actually. Like, I'm short on hobbies. And I'll tell you one thing my hobby is not going to be is soccer, Bobby Marks, because I'm wearing my jersey today and I'm still pissed off about the bogus off sides call that robbed Croatia of a chance to beat Portugal an extra time. I don't understand it. I'll never understand it. You know what? But my daughter, my daughter and I were watching the game together.

My wife was at the game in Toronto with her sister. My daughter and I were watching it. My daughter was already in cope mode with like six, seven minutes left. They're down one. So they're going to lose daddy. It's over. Like, why are they still playing hard? And I was telling her, never ever give up.

This team has scored a lot of dramatic late, come from behind goals and it's run over the last decade of World Cup excellence and all that. Just never in sports, you never ever give up. never. This team has done special things. And they score. And I'm running around the living room. I'm saying, see, I told you. Lesson learned. This team's incredible. Never stop playing until the whistle. And I'm like, what a great teaching moment. The smile on her face was like pure glee. And then, well, VAR could have hit a follicle. And here's this little spike that indicates the chain. Get out of here with all that. All right. Let's take a break. And we'll talk more about, I don't know, basketball.

By the way, what do you think is going to happen with Carl, Antony Towns? Isn't that kind of like a pressing item of business or do they just like play it out? Like it seems like you don't really ever play it out, even with a player option like that. No, you don't. I mean, you could do it. You could take it through the whole year until June 30th just because he's got a player option. So technically he's on a one year deal. But as you've seen like next summer like Jalen's up for an extension, right?

So he's going to. Hi, right? I'm going to cash in now and everything like that. I think, you know, it's, it's, we've gone from, and I know the Mitchell case is probably a little bit different, though, but like we've seen teams more negotiate than in the past, just based on how these rules are set up. Like the rules set up, set you up to negotiate to get, like,

like if you, like people think, oh, maybe I'm wrong. Like the Kauai is going to sign a two for 124 in Toronto. I mean, like, that's his max, right? That's his max that he can get and everything like that. So I think, can I, if I'm trying, I'm like, hey, can we not? Can we not? Like, you're 35 years old. You never play a full season ever.

You've been healthy in the playoffs like twice out of the last six seasons, which kind of like a big deal. I think that was, I mentioned it in my reaction to the trade. Like, it's clearly a good trade. It clearly makes them better. It clearly gives them a little slice of Eastern Conference Championship equity that they did not have. to have that championship equity, you need Kauai Leonard to play four playoff series, three playoff, three playoff series. He has not done that in like a long, long time, basically since Toronto.

And so why should I expect him to do that again? And oh, by the way, there's a scandal that I guess, Bobby, like, are we going to be the woman from the Titanic being like, well, 75 years ago? And Watel is still billing people. Maybe me and you next week will be out in Vegas and we do our annual sitting next next to each other at the Adam Silver Board of Governors post recap in that whatever, the strip pavilion

there, right? And maybe that's, maybe then we hear about the aspiration. I don't know. Maybe, or maybe not, you know? Wachtel Lipton, Wachtel, Lippton, Noreauze and Cass, you guys are the real MVP's. You guys, you guys, great work, everybody involved. Okay. Oh, Towns. So,

I don't, I asked you about Town, you know, that we're talking about, Wachtel. I'm pretty sure the town's number is exactly the same as what Mitchell just signed, what he's eligible for, I mean. Yeah, four for 273. So 34, making $76, almost $76 million. Yeah, he, Carl Towns has a $61 million player option for 27, 28. And that's it. Like, that's the whole entirety of his contract. That's it. Okay. By the way, speaking of negotiation and the art of actually negotiating,

I asked you, like, pick a small deal that you like or, hate. And what mine was, what one of mine I was going to pick was just kind of slid under the radar that the Rockets re-signed Tar Heeson to five years, 81 million, which is basically like, hey, you know what you get young promising player who turned down, I think more, or there were talking about, I don't know who turned what down, but the extension talks were richer per year in the fall than this. Here's the mid-level exception, basically, like take it or leave it. Yeah. And look, Raphael Stone, some people like his move. Some people don't.

One thing you have to give him credit for is like the dude actually negotiates. He uses his leverage. Like Alper and Shen Gung, do you think you just walk into a max because, you know, you made an all-star team and you're a 20, whatever, 23-year-old, 24-year-old center? And that's what happens. No, you don't get the max. Take this. That would, that's like Tar Easton given his three-point shot fell off a cliff halfway

through last season and has been up and down throughout his career. I'm a believer, but the evidence is what it is. And he's had a lot of injury issues. Like, that's a fair deal for him. and it's still $81 million. It's not like they give them a minimum. It's a ton of money. And I think that was my pick for a good deal.

And the Rockets, they negotiate. It's what they do. Well, I mean, listen, it's when you're coming off a rookie contract, it's hard to turn down guaranteed money. Like, it's when you're making like $6, 7 million, like, and you can say here, we're going to give you 81. I think that's even like, and it sets up like the Duran extension, right? Like Durant extension last year, like they didn't just max them out.

They basically, they lowered the, number and it gave them the flexibility for Amen Thompson, who is one of these extension eligible players that are up this, him and his brother are up this, the summer with where they are here. I think for me, the not that, and I was just going through him last night, like, there's actually three contracts and they're from the same team, and they all came in last night. Like, I don't know what type of voodoo power, Leon Rose and Brock Oller and the group there does what some of their players. And probably it's just that they love playing in New York and that there's a,

comfort level and that the teammates really love each other. But the three guys, Jose Alvarado, Landry Shama and Mohamed DiWara, their contracts. And really not with, I'm just pulling them up now. Like, Alvarado goes for two for four, two, three for 14.4, two, first two years are guaranteed. Four point four is first year. Okay. Third year, partial guarantee. Okay. Two seven. Landry goes for $4.24 million. First year guaranteed $5.5 million. So basically it's the biennual exception.

Years three and four, partial. Okay. This is all with the eyes on the second apron, right? Because Brunson's going to get a raise and Towns is going to be back and all that. This is all one five, one six partial in the third year. Dear Wara, I was going to write about him when I did their offseason article because they were in this unique. position because they signed him. He basically signed the one-year rookie tender because he was a second round pick. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. The apron is going to bite them because the team can just

come in with an offer sheet and they wouldn't be able to match. He goes for four, for 11.3, first year salary, $2.6 million. First two years guaranteed, years three and four non-guaranteed. So as you could see, there is a trend here with the Knicks as far as the back end of some of these contracts, either partial or non-guarantee, but also fitting, I mean, basically, exactly, they signed three guys for, I don't know, $13 million. Breaking news from Bobby Marks. There you go. Okay, there's a lot to talk about, and I know you want to get to Denver,

and I want to get to Denver. So I'll be quick on this. The Sixers, I mean, I don't know if there's any team that needs LeBron more in the LeBron. maybe the heat, but the Sixers really could use an extra bit of depth at exactly LeBron's position. Start LeBron, bring Dean Wade off the bench. Starting five is Maxie, VJ, Jalen Brown, Dean Wade, Embed. And we know M.B., just pencil and he's going to miss half the season. Yeah.

And then off the bench, I like the Simon signing, even though they have a lot of guards and they drafted Phylon. I like Justin Edwards. They have Barlow still Jabari Walker. They have a bunch of backup centers. They have a big hole. They have a big hole at that three and a half kind of four position off the bench. And they're hard capped at the first apron, correct? So they only have a few million dollars of wiggle room.

Obviously, they can trade and stuff like that to open up flexibility if LeBron decides he wants to go there. We have time in a whole offseason to analyze Philly. I will say this. I am not as worried as a lot of people are about Maxie, Jalen Brown, and Joelle M. Bede, quote, sharing the ball. I understand why that's a concern. Jalen Brown likes to, he wanted to be the number one option and Boston sent him to a place where he's not going to be, but he plays like he is no matter what. Embed when he plays is either posting up, holding the ball at the nail, or not really doing very much useful. I mean, he'll set screens, but he's not a hard role or he's, he's involved, heavily involved.

And Maxie is Maxie. He's the most important player on the team now and going forward. I get there, there'll be hiccups and all that. Jelan Brown is not going to be a spot up guy like Paul George. was for them. I'm not worried about it. A, because Embed is going to miss half the games. And if you look at their lineup data, the more quality players they had, this is common sense. Like when it was the Maxi no Embed numbers last year were a slight minus. But you throw Edgecombe on, Edgecombe, it's about net neutral slight plus. You throw George Maxi MB, MBEed, or Maxie Edgecombe, no Mb. It's a

pretty emphatic solid plus. That's why Jalen and Brown matters. durability. And also like the ability to play two-man game like inverted pick and roll, maxi, Jalen Brown. There's a bully ball ingredient that they didn't have. So I'm not worried about that. I am a little bit worried about their depth and just like the idea that Joelle Embed is going to be healthy for an entire playoffs. It seems unfathomable to me. That's my Philly analysis. Yeah. I mean, I think the depth was the biggest concern for them going into the offseason. And I think the Brown edition helps alleviate, you know, Maxi's minutes. I mean, first in the NBA, 30 minutes, 38 minutes per night.

So it does help probably offset some of that. I thought Philly, I said this on TV and people thought I was crazy. I said, this was before they made the trade. Well, it was after the trade, but it was looking at their roster before they made the trade. I thought they were a, I didn't think they were a playoff team based on where they were with their roster. And I, and really a lot of it, Zach, was because what everyone else was doing in East, like after the Leonard trade, after New York winning it all, after, you know, some of the other teams, I thought Indiana, you know, I thought was a team that people should be talking about just because they've got a lot of

their guys back and everything. And I thought by the trade, it put them in the conversation. And their depth was a big concern because there was two ways you could go. You could have brought back one of Kelly Ubre or Quentin Grimes, right? Or you could go out and split the non-taxman level into multiple players and then use the biennual on a third player. And what they did was they split it between Wade and Simons. And then Hock Porty goes into the into the biennual there. So it's a nice, based on limited funds, I guess. It's a nice piece of business here.

And I thought from a trade standpoint, I thought Philly was in a tough spot because you see all these contracts that I call them like Sweet Spot contracts. Like they're the $10 to $20 million guys. Like every team needs those, like five guys. Like I'm looking at like Charlotte's like cap sheet. They got like 15 guys between like 26 and $2 million. And when you're top heavy like that, you need those type of contracts if you're going to go out and make a deal.

Fortunately for them, the deal they made was trading a, you know, 50 plus million dollar guy for a 50 plus million dollar guy. Look, you mentioned like it seems like heresy almost for you to come out and say, is Philly even a playoff team pre-trade even then. Here's the bottom line about the East. There are 11 teams for 10 play in plus playoff spots. And I'm not even counting Washington because I don't know what the fuck the wizards are at this point or who's even going to be on the team. But I'm not counting Washington, Milwaukee, Chicago, who's going to be fun but bad.

And Brooklyn, who I have no earthly idea what they're doing, but they're doing something. 11 teams for 10 spots. And all 11 of them probably believe that they are going to be or could or in some cases could be a top 6 team. All 11. Detroit. Kind of TBD on their offseason. They added some shooting with Isaiah Joe.

They still have Duncan Robinson, Kevin Herder. Tobias Harris for John Collins Exchange, we'll see. But like they won 60 games last year. Boston, New York. They just won the championship. Cleveland, conference finals, Toronto. and Atlanta, hey, they were the five and six seeds. Atlanta's like, we're the six seed, despite the fact that half our season was a mess and

then we figured ourselves out. Toronto just had a Kauai Leonard. Philly. Orlando's like, hey, are we still around? Miami got Janus. Charlotte is still going to be a solid team. I don't know if they're a top six team, but they're going to be in like this mix for the playing at least.

And Indiana is like, hey, we're back. We're here. We added Kelly Ubrae too. It's going to be hard to be a top six team in the east. Like one of these teams that you view as a, I don't know which one it is, but there's going to be a team that people view as an absolute stone cold lock for the top six that is in the play in. Like for 100% for sure, if you told me Boston's in the playing, wouldn't be surprised. If you told me Cleveland was in the playing, I'd be mildly surprised because they have a lot of regular season,

pretty high regular season floor. Like, told me Miami with Janus is in the play in. I wouldn't be surprised. Like that's just the reality of the East. Can we talk about the Nuggets now? Sure. Speaking of, by the way, you know, minimums and filling out rosters before we get to the Nuggets,

DeMarre de Rosen waved by the Kings. Kings, the summer of oopsie for the Kings, Devin Carter got off you, whoops, Miss lottery pick, Demar DeRosen, goodbye, will maybe wave and stretch you. I mentioned a couple weeks ago I thought he was a potential fit for the heat with Yannis,

and I think there'll be some minimum interest in him. Brown is still out there. He jumps probably besides, of course, LeBron probably to, you know, I mean, Hardin in Cleveland and Draymond State will go back, but he probably jumps to the top of the board as far as unrestricted guys. What's happening in Denver, Bobby, because Nicole Iokach hasn't signed his extension yet. And it's not nothing, but he did say yesterday in Europe that he is going to be a nugget for life and he's just waiting until after the season so he can sign a five-year gazillion-dollar deal

instead of a four-year sub-gazillion dollar deal. Fine. He said he's a nugget for life. He said it. He can't say it any more clearly than that. He's not going to be on a different team. The nuggets are not going to trade him. I mean, I'd be shocked if they ever did.

And yet, they have done very little in the off-season. Payton Watson is the restricted free agent de Jure. They leaked strategically through the athletic that they will match any offer sheet for Peyton Watson as if the other teams are like, whoa, they said it. Now we're scared. now we're not going to do it. The athletic reported that they're going to match any off-fursuit. I can't believe it.

Only the clippers in the nets really have the cap space to do it. But as we have seen with Walker Kessler, there are signed-and-trade agreements. I think they absolutely have to resign Peyton Watson. I've talked about that at length. But, like, man, they haven't traded Cam Johnson or Christian Brown. They haven't salary dumped anybody. What's going to happen here? Well, I think we're going to see, I know it's a minor move.

We're going to see Jonas Valenzhenius waived on Wednesday, the 8th because that's his guaranteed date. And I will probably see his money stretched out as $2 million guaranteed over three seasons. So that gives them a teeny bit of flexibility. But I ran the numbers, Zach, when you, if let's, I just put Peyton in there, like a $25 million number, let's just say in there and there. Their luxury tax, they are a repeater team. Okay. So this is four out of five years. that their tax bill would be $175 million.

That's not going to happen. For better or worse, we can sit here and say, why do you own a team with Nicola Yokic on it if you're not willing to eat $175 million tax bill to give yourselves all the bodies you need? Because you need all these guys. Like if you lose Cam Johnson for nothing, as shaky as he was last year,

year two, he'd be better. That's going to hurt. if you salary dump Christian Brown, that's going to hurt. Like he's, maybe your best perimeter defender other than Peyton Watson. I know he had a down year last year shooting. It's going to hurt. And you're going up against teams,

San Antonio and Oklahoma City notably, where there's not any weak spots to poke at there. And you need every tool you got. But the nuggets are not going to pay $175 million in luxury tax. They're just not going to do it. And you can sit here and complain about it. I would complain about you on Arsenal, you on the Rams. Like, are you really strong?

struggling to, like, do this, but they're not going to do it, right? No, I agree. And it's interesting, like, when you talk about, you know, finances and Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon or, um, are Cam Johnson, like, there's, there's really no, you know, we talked about Brooklyn a little bit. They've got, they've got like 20 million in room, but most of that's going to go away after they do the Randall trade because of how they're time, from a timing standpoint. Um, and how like, how teams have shaped.

money off is like a six-step process, right? Like, there's no like big swing and all of a sudden you're going to chop like 25 million off your books. Like Boston did it a year ago with holiday and Forcingus and then eventually sign, like all these different moves, but it took them to February to do. So if you're looking at, you're looking at from Denver's perspective, and if you're Yokic or if you're Jamal Murray, you're like, well, wait a minute. Like we're we're keeping Peyton Watson, but at the cost of two of our starters, for example, or one of our starters. And our depth is Tias Jones, Marvin Bagley, Zeke Naji, Julian Strather. Well, no, I'm not Julian Strother.

I'm still a resident of Strother Strauth. Your depth is like, you know, because what happened was you got fortunate on the Hardaway Jr. signing for the minimum. Oh, and they don't, and they still have to say. sign. I always call him Solomon Jones, but it's not Solomon Jones. It's Spencer Jones. Yeah, Spencer Jones. Who's a rich. Good player. It's a good player. Who's a restricted free aid and two. So you add him into the into the mix too. So it's, it's a fascinating. It's a, it's, you know, as you said, you've got the Yokic extension. And he came out yesterday and said it. He can sign by waiting to an extra $81 million.

It's five years, 359, which is like, five. Unbelievable. He will make, if he does this, he will make $725 million in career earnings, Zach. That is remarkable. A lot of buys a lot of horses. He can build his own, he can build his own race trap with that. He basically buy Sombor, Serbia 10 times over, if he wants to. And he's a guy who, I mean, he, defensively, he just is what he is and he's okay and sometimes he looks a little better than okay and sometimes he looks a little worse. Offensively, that guy is going to be tearing people up as long as he wants. Like between his shooting, passing and bulk, like he's going to age superbly on that end

of the floor. Like he's going to be a high level fulcrum of an offense into his mid to late 30s if he wants to be. I have no worries about that. The dude is a genius. It's why I kind of like that would be a super fun LeBron team. And I don't know if he'd ever go to Denver. It doesn't feel like a LeBron thing to do.

to just like up and decamp to a mid market in the mountain time zone on the team he's never played for before, but it would be a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, it sure would be. I mean, you slide him in there with that group there. And then basically someone gets pushed to the bench, and then that solves a little bit of your bench problem. But, I mean, just going back to their finances when, I mean, you've got five guys making north of $21 million here, two max guys.

It's funny. It's like the two max guys is, you know, it's almost going to be like a dying breed. I mean, it really is. I mean, it's like based on where this, where the system is and everything like that. But I'm interested. I'm just, I'm interested to see if what happens if there is no cap space left, right? And Peyton Watson is sitting there like we saw Josh Giddy and Kamenga and all those guys a year ago. and they based in Jalen Duren in in Detroit.

I should have mentioned, I should have mentioned Jail and Dern when I, when I just briefly talked about the Pistons because my assumption is he will be on the team next year. And they were, I could tell you, the Pistons were not phased by, I mean, I don't even know if the meetings happened. Did they, were these meetings with the Kings and Lakers real meetings?

I have no idea, but they were unfazed. Yeah, I would, I agree with you as far as working on a sign in, a sign in trade. I don't even think if, if the Lakers had, I'm just spitball and had offered two first and two unprotected for Jalen in a signed trade. Like what does that do for Detroit's trying to win right now, right? That's a little, they're in a little bit of different states. I know Utah is trying to win, but a little bit of a different stage.

But I'm glad you mentioned Jail. Yeah, what happens if Cap Space dries up? I mean, Peyton Watson is represented by Clutch. We've seen Clutch and Rich Paul with Eric Bledsoe with Tristan Thompson, like, go to the mat and take it into the fall. and take as long as it needs to get what they want. And they generally end up getting close to what they want. But the window for Denver is closing if it's not closed. So they need to claw like hell to reopen it.

Otherwise, what's the point of having Yokic on your team? And you mentioned the two Max Geising. It goes back to what we said earlier about something, something just feels wrong about the idea that maybe in a year Denver will have to basically salary dump Jamal Murray. If you want to call what Boston did a glorified salary dump, I don't think that's quite fair. But if you want to characterize it like that, it's not like entirely off base. Like they should like that would suck for Nuggets fans.

Like they drafted both of these guys, Murray and Yokic. They make music together. They've been a tandem. And it's like, so we just, we just have to get off this guy. And if they ever did trade Jamal Murray, their return would be disappointing just like Boston fans are disappointed with the Jeline Brown trade return. Yeah. I mean, I think what the rules are and what would. does is that, and I said this a year ago, makes you kind of pick and choose. And listen,

every team is different. If you don't want to do that and you, you're willing to go into the apron or pay a penalty and everything, like, you know, like Oklahoma City, they traded Wiggins and Isaiah Joe, but they were still able to retain their core, right? Like that and because they're like an anomaly because they've got all these draft picks that they can just kind of plug in when Lou Dork gets expensive or one of these other players here. But I do think it basically forces you to slot guys into different salary ranges, where your fourth best player, it's hard for them, you know, or third best player, it's hard for them to be making $26, $27 million. Aaron Gordon, if you say he's their third best player, is making $33 million.

That's hard, right? It has hard to do in this. It has leg issues that never seem to go away for more than a month at a time. Real quick, any small move you liked or didn't like that you wanted to mention that we didn't hit? Tobias Harris, San Antonio. Yes or no? Are you like or not like?

Oh, I'm disappointing. I had to give grades on TV. I gave it a beep. I gave the overall San Antonio B plus. I should have given him an A minus because I really thought that that was something they needed. I could have said like Rui, you know, Rui, Tobias, one of those two, Ruiz goes to the clips. And a pretty good deal also, but Tobias for two for 31, no options. I'm pretty sure I'm reading his contract right.

Let me pull it up. No player option in there. So they get him for two years. I saw Kevin O'Connor, among others, kind of ripped that deal and say, they could have done better than Tobias Harris. All he does is shoot mid-range shots and blah, blah, blah. Couldn't disagree more. I think that's a really good deal for the Spurs.

Power forward is the position that they're most short at. He's a good spot-up shooter. I don't know how much of his bucket getting they'll need. Like, the Pistons really sorely needed, like the Tobias Harris turnaround jumpers because they had no viable second option in the playoffs. the spurs will. But I just think he's exactly the position they needed. He's purely additive to what they do on both ends of the floor.

And his contract expires right when their team is set to get enormously expensive, depending, of course, on what happens with the Aaron Fox and others going forward. I thought that was a really nice deal for them. One more other deal that I thought was really interesting that happened on Monday was the Quinn Post offer sheet. We do not see offer sheets anymore. I think the last one, I'd said Aitin, but it was really Matisse Thibble back in, whether there was a one, a two-way guy a year ago, but that was the Thibble one in 23.

I think Dow signed him to an office sheet, Portland matches. We don't see it anymore, but what I found the most interesting, the apron rules really have eliminated teams from putting unlikely bonuses in contracts because they count against the apron. We had not, last summer, we went through a summer, no bonuses, right? Like the bonus system, which is my favorite, has dried out, except for the acquitant post offer sheet that contains one point, roughly

1.3 million, and unlikely bonuses in his contract for each year, the last few years are non-guaranteed. And why I say that is, if you are going to do an offer sheet and make it not appealing for the Golden State Warriors to do it, that is how you structure the offer sheet because

the Warriors are hard-capped at the second apron because of the D. Anthony Mountain signing. Okay, Bobby. If you are looking at Golden State's finances and there are $38 million, below and they've got Draymond Green still sitting out there to sign. It makes it unlikely for you to match this offer sheet because now you've got $9 million

in base and another 1.3 and unlikely bonuses that will count against the apron here. So I found that pretty, pretty interesting. I thought it was also like an indication like, how healthy is Zach Eady in Memphis, right? Like as far as where, you know, where they are as far as going out and getting another big there. and they already had beef stew that they did. How fast do you think Quentin Post signed that offer sheet? Is it the world record for fast? Like is he going through the docu sign, just clicking like sign, finish, sign, finish, sign,

sign, finish, sign, finish. What was he making like $2 million last year? Bobby Marks, you're the man. Let's go Mets. And I will see you in Las Vegas. Any parting thoughts here on anything? Listen, we wait and wait for LeBron and probably will be around like 10 o'clock tomorrow. morning when I'm flying over the Rocky Mountains somewhere or maybe it'll just be this weekend.

We're all together and we can share it wherever he goes. Maybe it'll be in August. Who knows? I mean, when I go to Europe, I'm going to take my microphone and my camera just in case. Bobby Marks, essential. Good to see you. I'll see you soon. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this.

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Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. All right. The dust is settled around the league. It's time to talk about the league's glamour franchise, a summer of change for the Los Angeles Lakers. Dan Wojki from the Athletics here. What's going on, Dan?

Zach, I'm happy to be here. Happy to not be talking about the New York Times. Oh, that was rude. I'm a White Sox fan, Zach. You know, we're riding high right now. This is our time. We're America's team. We're America's underdog.

I'm not going to comment on any of this. Okay, the Lakers, a totally remade team around Luca Donchich. It has happened after the gift from the gods fell into their lap last summer, last season, rather, with the Luca trade. Now they have actually remade the team in his image. out goes LeBron James, Rui Hachamura, Luke Kinnard, Marcus Smart, Jackson Hayes, DeAndre Aden, Incomes, Walker Kessler, Colin Sexton, Quintin, Mahmoo, Jaden Hardy, and in the Walker Kessler transaction, two unprotected, juicy, tasty first-round picks from the Lakers go to Utah and as well as two swaps. Dan Wojke, is this all worth it? Is this team? Like, what is this team? You said it. It's created in Lukadanchich's image. I think. think the Lakers made, I mean, whether it's promises or pitches or different things like this,

right? Like there was a mandate for change. And that mandate for change started last summer after they traded for Luca Donchich when they first started to talk about a contract extension. And they said, we can give you your team, right? I think it's important to know contextually, right? Like the team that Luca got traded from was the team that he wanted most in Dallas. It was the team that he felt was best built for him. Right. Now injuries and different things have happened. But like, that was the roster that he was supposed to win a championship with. A team that had very recently made the NBA finals, the longest run you could make in the playoffs before their general manager decided, let's just bust this whole thing up. Yeah. So I think,

you know, that that's the frame of mind, right, of Lucidant, it's when the Lakers tell him, you know, we don't have the flexibility to give you that today. But the way we're going to approach this summer in 2025 is we're going to keep that flexibility. And the biggest domino in that flexibility, right, was LeBron James's contract. There was no extension talk, right? It was we are going to treat your contract as an expiring contract. A sign of mild disrespect, I would say, to the second greatest player of all time. But, you know, I think the type of thing that the Lakers felt that they had to do to fully

on-ramp into like sort of Luca world, right? And so I think they went about the summer. They got Luca the thing he wanted most, right? Which was a center. He wanted a rim protecting center. You know, a lob threat, whatever we can talk about it, whether or not he's like a lob, lob, threat, but like a good around the rim center who guards his ass off on defense at the

basket. They wanted to get younger and more athletic on the wing. They wanted shooters. And he wanted a secondary playmaker. I think the cost of the secondary playmaker and Austin Reeves' contract was more than most people anticipated, but I think those were people who weren't reading the market properly, who didn't understand that in 2026,

when guys who averaged 23, 5, and 5 in their prime are available, they're going to have suitors when nobody good gets to free agency. And he had real suitors, and the Lakers had to pay to keep him. So, yeah, I mean, I think they gave Luca his team, and now it's on Luca to prove that he's good enough. with this group. I think they gave Luca his team step one. I mean, step one.

Yes, I think that's a great caveat. Step one. This isn't, this was never a magic bullet summer. This wasn't going to be able to do everything all at once. But here's my worry for the Lakers. And I preface this by saying, I think this is going to be a good team. Yeah. Next season.

Probably a top six team because the West is actually weirdly in a state of flux more so than the east. I think you feel you're a good team, perhaps a very good team, probably one of the very best offensive teams in the entire league because Luca is that good and they've surrounded him with shooting, secondary playmaking, ring, rumbling center. This is the model. This works. We know it works. He's going to kill teams in this environment offensively, defensively. TBD. We'll talk more about that.

I just feel like the Kessler trade is going to go down as one of the most important transactions of the last 10 years in the NBA. because all of this stuff, Grimes, Sexton, Mamu, that's all fungible stuff. That's all tradable stuff. This is the bet that matters. Kessler is the bet that matters because they have bet everything that they have left on Walker Kessler as a franchise center. They have paid them $32.5 million a year over four years. They now have, this is the team. More like the pieces around it are fungible and I think they'll play with the wings and they still have a couple of roster spots open.

I think they're still hunting for a backup center and maybe someone who could like a four who could maybe start, maybe come off the bench like one of those like six, seventh kind of guys who might have to start. They're still on the hunt. It's not done for this season. It's certainly not done for the future. But they have really no tradable draft pick assets left and no avenue to salary cap space for the next three or four years. This is the team. And I think they overspent on almost everybody they acquired. And I don't know that. A bigger bet has been made on a player who has accomplished less in the NBA than the bet the Lakers made on Walker Kessler. That's not to say that it won't pay off. I spent a lot of my Fourth of July weekend watching film of Walker Kessler trying to remember his game get a better feel for him. Happy 250th America.

Thank you. And I think a lot of that bet is going to pay off to a reasonable amount. But I just look at this team is like as great as Luca is. and even if he manages to stay healthy for entire seasons and entire playoff runs, which has been an issue for him the last few years, I just don't see how they can compete with the very best teams in the West. I'm not sure they're better than Denver, who's offseason is TBD or Minnesota.

And I don't know how they get any better going forward unless they reach a point where the Reeves trade becomes sort of the only out that they have to rearrange their team. So if I'm a Lakers fan, I'm like, okay that's like we we this is the team now that's that's it i mean it's good but i don't i don't i don't know where it goes dan maybe i'm being too pessimistic yeah i think okay so i think there's two things we should talk about um i can give you Zach you know me i'm if nothing if not an optimist i can give you the optimistic argument for this and i i think the other thing we need to talk about is a context around centers to kind of set the deck here i think the optimistic argument is that

you have a Laker team that the last two years, with flawed rosters, exceeded their projected win totals, both seasons, back-to-back 50 win seasons, a team that had a good defense in the regular season, a good defense, even after they traded Anthony Davis,

Austin Reeves was a part of that defense. Ruey Hachamura was a part of that defense. LeBron James was a part of that defense, right? I think all this is to say is, I think there's belief in this coaching staff to, like, make lemonade. Right?

Like they've shown, I think, a pretty good job of what I find to be, you know, if we're going to boil down basketball, though it's most simplistic, which is a space I like to operate in, it's can you maximize strengths

and can you hide your weaknesses, right? And I think they've done a good job with their teams to date in maximizing strengths and hiding weaknesses. How that plays out in the playoffs, totally different scenario, right? And I think for the Lakers discussion,

that's a huge part of this because this is not a team that is content. going to the second round. Lukadadaj is not a player who's content going to the second round. He wants to win a championship. So I think optimistically, the bet is that there are better versions of Quentin Grimes.

There are better versions of Sandry, Mamakishvili, that the best version of Walker Kessler has yet to be seen, and that the Lakers coaching staff, and even Colin Sexton, that degree, but the best version of Colin Sexton's bro is yet to really fully reveal itself. The Lakers coaching staff is good enough, and Luca Dantz is just good enough to take these players, to mold them into these roles,

and to kind of, you know, roll it out there and say, like, we think at least as a step one, we're moving in the direction we need to get. Obviously, like, they need a real point of attack defender on the wing. As of today, it's Quentin Grimes. I think there's a belief that Quentin Grimes internally can do this. That's a really hard job for one person to take on by themselves for 82 games and a playoffs.

Like, you know, like that's, you get hurt. a lot. You break down a lot when you have that job. I think, you know, you mentioned looking for fours, looking for backup bigs. I mean, like, a minga is like a three and a half four that I think is somebody that they like, again, not a proven defender in that way, but I think somebody who they feel like coaching staff wise, maybe they bend it. Maybe they can, maybe they can be the one who makes it work. That's just where they're at. I think, optimistically, it's the belief in the staff, belief in the system, belief in the start. I think the other thing, though, about all this,

and when we talk about Overfay, is like, I've been doing this exercise for 18 months around the NBA, even more than that, but like, it started with Anthony Davis when he first asked for a center. Like, who is going to play center for the Los Angeles Lakers? It's probably the single thing I've talked about most

with intel people, with other executives, with scouts around the league. And the list of, like, quote, unquote, Luca type centers is shitty. There just aren't a lot right now at this time. in space in the NBA of like rim running centers to

to you know to Rick Petino this like DeAndre Jordan isn't walking through that door like there aren't just that many guys who do this job and the ones that do haven't been that available or that inspiring you know like Nick Claxton is a guy that teams talked

about a lot too small the Lakers are going to trade for Nick Claxton. It's too small the cost for time was too high not interested like not the right guy you know, Mark Williams, they tried to get him in the door. Didn't like how he walked through it, you know, and decided that it wasn't him. Eves Mesey has averaged five points a game in the NBA and has not played an important minute yet.

By the way, one of my favorite tweets of the offseason was Chris Haynes saying that Nix have not only tried to trade for Yves Misi, but it feverishly tried to trade for, I think it was feverishly, right? I mean, it's like... The graphic. The graphic, the rejected, big letters, rejected underneath these. If I were a GM, I would want to be known as feverish. I'd want to have someone tweet that I was feverish in my desire for a random backup backup center. Well, so here's the thing. Like, I mean, Gafford injury concerns.

Derek lively, injury concerns. I mean, you could just go around the league. Like, I've done this for, like I said, a year and a half. It is a seller's market for sense. and Utah cash 10. So here's the thing. I want to start with you said better versions of Grimes and better versions of Mamu. I think what you were hinting at was that the coaching staff and this environment playing

with one of the five best players in basketball will open up a better versions of those players. I think to actually contend at any point in the next three or four years at a high, high level, they actually just need better players than those guys. and I don't know what vehicles they're left with to get better players than those guys. Now, they're creative and there's worlds in which lots of things happen, like Kessler hits and they end up trading Kessler for this and that. I think the Kessler bet is going to be just about good enough. I don't know if it'll ever justify the price that they've paid for him in terms of the

unprotected picks and all that. But I think the surrounding talent just probably isn't quite there, particularly defensively. Here's like, I think this could be a top five offense in the NBA. Boom, done. Like, and is Vero top. Can I ask you a question interrupts? Like, what did you see on film offensive? I'm good.

I'm going to talk. We're talking about it. I think it's going to be a top five offense in the NBA with like could be right off the bat. And like if you're if you're top five, you can be a pretty bad defensive team and still be a 50 win team. A 48 to 50 win team. Like, and when I look at the West, I'm just like the Lakers, I think will be better.

I mean, we could sit here like who's definitely better than the Lakers next year as of right now 350 p.m. Monday, Oklahoma City. Antonio, I think I'd probably take Minnesota and Denver still over them and probably, they're in the like the Houston Minnesota tier again. I mean, I mean, the Lakers like, like again, and

I sound like Lakers home or last year, the Lakers handled Minnesota. The Lakers handled Denver last year. But like, they're better than Sacramento. They're better than Memphis. They're better than Dallas. They're better than New Orleans. They're probably going to be end up better than Golden State depending on a couple of things, including

where the Brown goes. I don't. I don't think in the regular season they'll win more games than Houston, but it wouldn't shock me if they did. I think they're better than Phoenix. They're better than Portland, despite the John Moran thing, which I talked about last week. I think they're probably better than Utah, who we'll talk about a little bit at the end of this podcast. Like, the West is just a little more rickety, shaky teams like trying to do two things at once than the East. So I think it's going to be a good team.

Like, if they're fourth in offense and 18th in defense, that's like a really good team. Now, I think 18th in defense, and I've run this by a few people around. the league. Is that optimistic? A lot of that depends on Kessler. He's going to have to clean up a lot of messes. Here's the thing. 18th on defense was easier last year and the year before than it'll be this coming season because of the lottery rules. There's not going to be eight teams who aren't trying that you're automatically going to be better than on defense. So I think defense is obviously the question for this team. I think they're going to be an awesome offense as long as they're healthy. They're going to be a really good team. I'm not worried about that. And if that's like,

if Luca is going to be satisfied with that and clearly he had the organization, over a barrel this summer with the with the contract kind of tick, tick, ticking away. That's fine. And maybe you get lucky and you get the spurs with Wembeyanma injured or the thunder with whoever injured, but they're clearly not as good as those teams. And I don't know what avenue they have to, they have to get there. But I think they're going to be a really good team. I think Kessler will fit reasonably well. Yeah, I think so, you know, when you told me you were watching film, I picked two games just kind of out of random last year. I mean, it wasn't There were only five.

You watched 40% of Walker Kessler season. 50% of his season last year. I mean, there are things that I think, there are like real areas of improvement that I think, perhaps with like higher stakes, like can help, right? Like playing for something on a night to night basis,

I think. I mean, or maybe it doesn't. You know, maybe you break under those circumstances. You don't know. I think he's an okay screener. Like as of today,

I think that is something obviously like, if he became a great screen setter, a great screen setter. I could tell you for sure that was an area of consternation amongst the Utah Jazz. I agree. And that's, and do you know who they think is a great screen center? Yusuf Nerkich, who they signed. And I think that that to me is something that I'll watch. Now, look, you don't have to set awesome screens for Luca Dachian and Austin Reeves.

They're really good. They just had good seasons with DeAndre Aden setting those picks and Jackson Ayes sitting those picks, you know, you can set goodish screens. And I think he'll improve there. You said a lot of it's going to fall on Walker Kessler. At this point, it feels like all, to be honest. The whole bet is Kessler. All the rest is just noise.

Every other transaction they made, they can dig out of if it goes badly or flip it into something else. That's all easy. Kessler has to be a 10 out of 10 in terms of hitting his potential for this to result in what they dream of it resulting in. Yeah, I think that. There's two other things too here. I think I play. Like, and they have to do.

You mentioned the Luca healthy in the playoffs. I mean, Austin Reeves getting him healthy in the playoffs. The Sexton signing should help in theory there. I think, you know, just getting another on the ball player over the course of an 82 game season, helpful from like a scoring punch production, Quentin Grimes to score the ball a little bit too. I think like having that, they didn't have that as much last year. there was a reason why they were a better team after Luke Kinnard got there,

in part because those eight to ten points a game, like just made life easier on people. And I think, you know, Colin Sexton to me has like a real opportunity to have like kind of those like six man of the year type of seasons where you're going to like, you're going to look at a box score and he's going to average 16 points a game and you're like, oh my God. It's got to be someone, Dan, like someone off the bench has to be a six man to year. It's not going to be Vanderbilt. It's not going to be Mamu.

He might start. you might not. It's probably not going to be La Ravia. It's not going to be brawny. I don't know who it's going to be. And I was to say the other thing that when I've talked to Scots about the Lakers and we talked about like kind of the ability for them to like sort of make lemonade, you know, they basically like the good version of their defense two years ago was by playing like

hyper small, right? Or at least Doreenny Smith at center or LeBron at center, play small, switch everything and win the scrambles, right? Like last year was tinking around. around again like with a matchup zone that like our rotations are going to be tighter and that's why we're going to be able to do what we need to do we can blitz kevin durant at half court in the playoffs and get to where we need to go in rotations and do that um these are all like functional defenses they also have like real physical tear wearing tear on players i think when you the the style

of defense that they've had to play where you take non-defensive players and ask them to play incredibly physical and asking them to play in space and with speed and in rotations that like quite frankly like they're not like built for I think that that's worn on them and I think that's another thing too that that that that's that play here the only thing I'll say about Luca and Austin on defense too because that's I know that's a big thing you know you can't have these two guys on defense it's impossible you can't do it you can't do it um I I think if Kessler is what they hope he is and those three players are in communication and are in sync defensively. I think with Lucas size and his, you know, at times smarts and willingness to defend,

which we saw more of last year. And I think we've seen Austin Reeves function in team defenses in the past. That to me is, that's the bet, right? Is they're betting on IQ character, team defense, and like we can figure this out that way. And that's, that's their gamble because they don't have, they don't have that guy right now. I, I have a hard time seeing it above average NBA defense. But if they can sniff average, I think that's the, that's the roadmap for this team to meet and exceed expectations.

I like, the Luca Reeves thing is like, what, what are you supposed to? This is the whole Laker summer is like, what are you supposed to do? You have LeBron or you have cap space. And if you have cap space, there's only a certain amount of things you can do with it. There's only a certain amount of players you can get. Like someone floated to me, should they have just gotten Jalen Brown? Should they have used those two draft picks to get Jalen Brown instead of Walker Kessler and a similar like dump them into your cap space? You have to send out Vanderbilt and all this.

I'm not sure that makes them any better than what they've done in terms of the kind of player that they need. And Austin Reeves is a really, really good player. Like he's an awesome offensive player and he's on your team. He's a known commodity. He fits with Luca. Sometimes you just have to figure it out. And it's not like Luca and Kyrie was not some dynamic defensive defensive. duo and they made the finals.

Like you just have to sort of figure life out. Well, Zach, the lesson from the NBA finals to me, and I've says a bunch of offseason more than anything else, right, is that like the roadmap for teams are is like when you have a great player or an awesome guy is you just build the best possible team around that player. Like don't chase the thunder. You don't chase the Spurs. You don't chase the Celtics or whoever it is, right?

Like your only real chance if you have one of those dudes is to build a team that makes that guy as dangerous as possible that, again, I'll say it again, accentuates his strengths, hides his weaknesses. Do you know what no one talked about during the NBA finals? That like Jalen Brunson was a bad defender. Jalen and Katz together. Never came up.

Yeah, no. They like Kat stepped up and played the best defense for his career and got into matchups that were favorable to him. And the Knicks, I've talked about this had nauseam. They did two things with Jalen Brunson, who is a little stouter than Austin Reeves. At least he's a little harder. He's smaller, but he's harder.

to move. Fire hydrant. There's a Kyle. Everybody. They, they were like, we're never or we're almost never going to switch you into mismatches, and we're going to build our entire team around you with size and flexibility and speed to protect you when you're hedging and recovering. And they did that and it worked to a T. I want to talk about Kessler because I think he is now one of the most interesting players

in the league given what the Lakers just bet on him. He will be the ninth highest paid center in the league next year behind Joel and B. Anthony Davis, Joker, Cat, Bam, Chet, Shengoon, and Rudy Gobert. And obviously, Wembe, when that new deal kicks in, we'll jump over him and knock him to 10th. So, like, that's actually not outrageous. It's not enough. That feels out of said. It feels sort of right-ish.

I mean, again, the track record of Walker Kessler playing meaningful NBA games is extremely small because he played five all of last year and the jazz have been tanking for basically the entirety of his NBA career. So like everything with a grain of salt. His closest peer salary-wise is now Isaiah Hardenstein. And I think that that's sort of instructive because the vision, when I've sat down and watched a ton of Walker-Gessler film, the vision for him is can he become 85 to 90% of Gobert on defense and something like not stylistically the same, but like as useful and offensive

players, Hardinstein is for the Thunder in terms of being a pick and roll release valve and all that. And if you can get there, the contract is not outrageous. Now, the contract plus the draft picks is pretty, yeah, for sure, pretty like hard to justify. But here's what I'm going to say about Kessler offensively. You mentioned, like, is, you kind of raised the question, like, is he a true lob threat, like a rim running lob threat? He is, I think he will be on this team. So I watched, like, so many pick and rolls I don't even want it. It's embarrassing how many Walker Kessler screener rolls. I watched. He is not a speed demon slipping and rolling to the rim. In fact, one of the reasons

he has to set better screens and actually lay the wood on people is if you are not a real speed threat to slip out of picks and your speed is not going to compromise the defense alone and he is not one of those players, then you kind of have to set good screens because that's the way you're going to free up the guards and that's the way you're going to compromise the defense. So he's got to get better as a screener. And there are some like rock solid screens in that real. He has it in him. It's not as if he doesn't know how to do it or he's unwilling to do it. He'll have to do it more. The reason why I think he will thrive with the Lakers as a lob threat and a putback threat and all that is because the jazz had young speed demon guards

running take the role with him. I was thinking the same thing. Who just want to go downhill. And so he's not going to screen for Tyrese Maxie. That's how or Deerrin prime Deerrin Fox. Colin Sexton and Keanuthage ran Walker Kessler out of the pick and roll. his pick and roll game is a little slower. He's got a good little change of pace to him. He knows how to open himself up in the pocket if there's like a little bit of time to do it. Quick off the ground. He's pretty quick off the ground.

And Luca is the perfect guy. And Reeves too, but Luca more than anyone who slows down, changes pace, sucks the defender in one half step at the last second. He is going to feast on lobs and just put back attempts or like a little close floaters much more than he did in Utah. I think offensively that's going to be a fit. My questions for him offensively are if you look at his rim finishing percentages, they're elite elite. But if you actually look at it at an enormous amount of his shots, much more than most centers, are either lob dunks or offensive rebound putbacks.

The other shots where he is forced to catch the ball and put it down once or even just catch it and gather it and then go up in traffic, he can be a little soft going up in that situation. And so I'm interested to see what happens when teams blitz Luca and force him to make plays with the ball or just he just has to do a little bit more heavy lifting because he's going to see all those kinds of looks. I do believe in the passing. I think like when I've watched him, it's, I think it's there. You know, obviously he really benefited from playing with shooting, shooting bigs, right? Like one of the 20% of these games that I watched last year, which was one. you know, like there were minutes with Kyle Philopowski,

where that spacing mattered. Like obviously like like with Markinen, you know, and then like tiny, tiny sample. And that game against Phoenix, the one that I watched, like shot the ball with like a lot of confidence. Like quick, quick decision making. And then as the defense suggested that, a couple really good passes down to size, right?

Like where Markinen would have a size mismatch, and you would find that pass. are the Lakers going to have those mismatches? If he's playing with Sondro, he's playing with Mamu, yeah, I think so. You know, like that I think is going to be a play that they can use. And I think in his triple handoff game, I thought too, when I watched, like looked like, all right. Like, you know, if you have movement shooting, there's value. I think that's going to be a part of his game.

Like, so they're going to obviously experiment with him popping out for threes occasionally. And the defense is going to ignore him. and he's either going to make enough of them, I will see, or he's just going to pivot into those dribble handoffs with Reeves coming off, with Grimes coming off. Both of those guys are highly skilled at that. And if you're 15 feet off of him, those guys are going to come off those handoffs and they're going to have a wide open runway

to get to the rim. The other thing I think he's going to be good at is being a threat for lobs in the dunker spot when he's not in the play. So like a Luca Reeves pick and roll, which they are going to have to lean into that even more to hunt mismatches. and stuff. There is nobody better in the league. Zero people better in the league at sort of dribbling those mismatches into traffic and baiting the defense until they commit just enough. And he, Luca loves throwing those lobs through traffic, through hands, through every, through all

sorts of tiny, tiny windows to centers to dunk the ball. I think Kessler will fit with that is. I think he's going to the game, first play of that game against Phoenix that they ran, started with Walker Kessler opposite corner. And it was a design play for a lob. That's where that lob started for him, all on the base. So I think he's going to be fine offensively. I think the teams will blitz and test his ability to make plays in open space. I'm kind of TBD on that. Yeah, I see that.

And the finishing and traffic. But I think he'll be representative enough offensively. And defensively, the rim protection is real. Actually, interestingly, Utah had him defending in space a lot more last year. And again, a limited sample size was a clear point of emphasis. Like, hey, we want you to come up to the level of the screen instead of dropping way, way back. we even want you to switch sometimes more than we have to have asked you in the past. He was like actually okay doing that.

So I think like I actually think he's going to more or less live up to expectations, mostly because Luca, he's going to get better and Luca is going to make him look so good and play to his strengths. Like I think this is actually kind of a smart identification of a guy who doesn't look like a sexy offense player. He's not fast and bouncy like Derek lively was. Like Derek Live is jumped out of the gym. He's flying to the rim.

He can slip. He's like a mar. He's like a bigger on Mari Stadomire almost and how fast he can slip screens. That's not Kessler, but I do think he's going to mesh pretty well offensively with Reeves and Luka. And defensively, like, again, I think he's really good. He's just going to have to plug a lot of holes. And this team's going to have to sort out its depth, it's, its power forward spot and all that. But I think it's, I think he's going to be solid.

Grimes is a big swing guy for this team, right? Like that is going to be a big sort of like how good it goes or how good it doesn't go as of, like the way the roster is constructed today. Because if they, like, I've talked to some of their, their coaches and, like, they believe that there is, like, a real, like, defensive guy there. Okay. Okay. You know, that they saw when he was in New York, but they, like, that this exists, right? And, like, we can pull this out of him again.

And if you're a shooter or if you have the IQ to attack closeouts, playing with guys who touch the pain as much as Luca Dajus and Austin Re, Reeves, like, this is a position that you can succeed in, right? Again, I think they will be a top five, a top five offense next year. Like, I think if Luca's healthy and Reeves is healthy, I think offensively this team's going to be a machine. They're just, Luca is just, he problem solves every defense. It's like, you watch Film on Kessler, and it's like, oh, wow, they're switching pick and rolls and he's, he's posting up guards and the jazz aren't giving him the ball or he doesn't

look comfortable with his back to the basket and he's not. Well, that might be a problem for the Lakers. No, it's not. You have Luca attacking centers on the other. into that switch. Like, Luca problem solves every defense you can throw at them. This offense is going to be amazing. I'm just skeptical of the

defense. Can we talk a couple other Lakers things? Yep. I think Lakers fans are curious. I have my answer. I want to hear what you cover the team. Why is Rui Hachamara not on the team anymore? I think perhaps

too limited of an offensive skill set, right? Like, made every shot, but that's the skill set. Made every shot. like want guys who dribble pass and shoot, right? And Rui, and I think, by the way, an undervalued skill in the NBA, the ability to stand still, not touch the ball, and then when it comes to you bang shots,

is like really, really difficult to do. And then I think they just wanted more of a high-impact team defender. I think is sort of the idea. You know, the two years 28 million, that's not a number the Lakers had in their sort of, you know, I think, look, we can look at the way their summer constructed as what their plan was. I mean, they, like, uncinked the hose on July 1st. Like, that's the plan.

Like, those things were the plan, right? Everything that followed afterwards has been sort of, like, I think, reactionary and moving stuff around. There wasn't really $14 million there for him. I think there was a desire from people. People really like Rui Hachamura, a great dude, good in the locker room. Like, again, excellent. excellent elite spot-up shooter has worked his way into that I know the front office should feel good about Rui Hachamara

it's one of their best acquisitions right like a great trade that made Kendrick Nunn and three second round picks I think that they basically Thomas Bryant and Kendrick Nunn is what that trade turned out to be for Rui Hachamara for a guy who helped win you playoff games multiple seasons it's just I think again in the mandate for change and stuff like that like there were casualties and and this was one of them right like that money

just was not there for him. If there was a way to have slotted him in, you know, into the Sexton slot, like, I suppose they could have done that, but then you don't have that kind of, you don't have that offensive player. Like that, like that. These are just all. These are either or choices. Sexton was signed with the room, with the room exception.

And by the way, that's still a big pay cut from what he got to get you into that, into that place. And I think he, look, he wanted to stay in Los Angeles. that was really, really clear. Not only the Lakers, people around Ruri Achamer, to people around Luka Dajas, people around LeBron James, people around Austin, everybody knew that he wanted to stay in L.A. I think there was just sort of waiting to see if that could materialize

in any real meaningful way, and it just never did for him with the Lakers. Happy for Ruri Atlanta with the Clippers. I think he'll be really good there. I think he serves a need for them. And I think they're a team that's shaping up to be like kind of a real pain in the ass. like they have that they have that sort of like it's not going to be they're not going to be like particularly fun to play i don't think the tyloot teams never are i i think i think there'll be some teams that have a good time playing the clippers next year dan i think i think i think there'll be

some i think they'll have some fun playing the clippers they just always play hard they just always play hard i do think like this is a this is a nice this is the kind of thing you do when you're now starting over it's just like let's collect some assets get some interesting players in the door maybe we're the nine for them maybe we're the nine see To totally fine acquisition for the clippers. If I had to boil down to why Rue is not on the Lakers, it's both money and also just to your point, feel, just feel on both ends of the floor.

I think they wanted a little bit more feel from that spot. What is going to be your favorite memory from the D'Andre Aten era in Los Angeles? Because it's an era. There was the time in Milwaukee when I noticed he was wearing a t-shirt with his face and a lion. mesh together that the Lakers had printed for him. Sure. I asked him about it and he very lovingly yelled at me about how nobody asked him if he wanted to be called the lion.

He wasn't mad. Was he called the lion at some point? Internally, they were calling him the lion, the biggest five, a bunch of different stuff. I would say, Zach, maybe the time that he walked in the locker and singing unchained medley by the righteous brothers, as loud as I've ever heard an NBA player sing on-chray medley. I'll say this.

DeAndre Aden, like, was not a bad guy to be around. No! I think... I didn't know about the lion, though. That's all right. Yeah. I think the... They're very proud of those shirts. I think JJ wore one in a press conference at one point. Like, his name on it, the Bahaman, the Bahamian flag on the arm, the Bahaman.

The issue, I think, obviously, right, is like, is the effort you put into something, plus the output you get out of it, probably didn't match up. I think it was a lot of work to make sure he's getting the affirmation he needed and different things like that. I just, I think people undervalue how difficult this is, particularly for talented players to slot down and to do less than what they're actually like capable of on a basketball court, which I know that doesn't sound, maybe it sounds like I'm making excuses, but it's a thing I've seen time and time again as players have tried to become role players in the NBA. It's just hard. Like DeAndreating's entire basketball life, success has been judged by how many times it puts it on the basketball. this is his whole life, right?

And he came to a situation where success was like, did you set, you know, 23 minutes of good screens? Did you challenge stuff? Did you box out? Maybe you didn't get the rebound. Like, are you contributing to winning in different ways, you know, as our fifth best player? Like, that's a difficult adjustment. I think he gave it a go by and large.

And there was, it were bumps for sure. I just don't think there was like a tremendous appetite to do it again. I was a little surprised they were able to get assets back. tradeable assets and a cheaper and a cheaper contract potentially they have to do a wave and stretch or something like that you know but but yeah I mean I think mostly

that I mean the half court shot where seemingly underhand half court shot that he takes his pregame where he somehow seemingly like doesn't with like raptor arms like he doesn't there's no like actual bend in his like shoulders it's all elbows it's in wrists it's he's a bizarre talent said

I got to give it to the Wizards they're building like two teams at one One of them is like this fun young team that I really want to watch. And the other is this like zombie team of guys who I'm not even sure that they realize they play for the wizards. Pick and rolls that we thought the Lakers were going to get. We'll see. Maybe. Let's talk quickly about the other end of the Lakers Kessler trade, which is the jazz.

Because I mentioned when I was going through teams that I was confident I thought the Lakers will be better than next season. I mentioned the jazz. And I was a little surprised that I came to that conclusion because that was really like midseason when they made the Jaron Jackson Jr. trade. I thought they would bring Kessler back. I think they thought they would bring Kessler back. I was pretty high on the jazz. And I said, I think they could win 50 games next year. I'm a little bit less convinced of that now. And I'm worried specifically about their depth now that they've traded Kessler for, I mean, like, they got Jackson Hayes and they brought NERCich back. But like, there isn't another rotation player at a high level, starter level that came back.

I would project their starters right now. I bet they're going to start Nerkich. If I had to bet, I bet they're going to start Nerkich and try to mimic the. triple big look that they envisioned with Kessler. So that would mean Kianti George. I think Darren Peterson steps right into his starting role. And then Triple J, Lowry, Markin, and Nurkich. And then off the bench, I've got Collier, Ace Bailey. Now there's a world where Ace Bailey is the fifth starter and they don't start

Nirkachit Center. They start a little smaller. We'll see. And then I've got like this combination of wings, like Sensible. They just signed a Kogi. Cody Williams had like. Steve McHiluk, right? Steve, I'm going to, Svee's there.

Cody Williams had an okay finish to the year. Jackson Hayes is a backup five that's in the door. Kyle Filipowski is there who can play the four and the five. I think you probably stagger minutes so that one of Triple J and Lowry is on the floor either at the four or the five in backup minutes. The depth is a little young and a little unproven and a little like mistake prone for my taste. I do think it's going to be an interesting team. And I think they are doing something where it's really hard to be on two timelines at once.

And I think this is almost the best possible version of doing that because Markanin is only 29. And I feel like he's played one and a half seasons over the last four seasons. So the tires should be pretty unworn. And Jaron Jackson Jr. is only 26. So their veterans are like not old veterans. They're actually pretty young veterans in Triple J's case. And they just have now this trove of assets left over from the cabs trade for Donovan Mitchell, the Wolf's trade for Gobert, this Lakers trade where they're going to be in any kind of,

they're going to be in a position to either get a third big money player in the door. Now it's hard as we've seen to build with three guys making 40 or 50 million to trade one of their big salary guys for another big salary guy who's a better fit to do any to do all sorts of things. I think they're in a great position. But I think my outlook for them for next year is a like I think this is going to be a good team. But I would probably rank them slightly outside the top six.

I'd have to sit down and do it, but like, they're in, they're in like the Phoenix, Portland kind of world to me. And I think the Lakers are probably if healthy, a little bit above that. Yeah, I think hearing you run that down, like the pressure point to me, the big question I would have is about Kianti George. And I would have that question about his ability to get them organized and into offense and to have him be a playmaker more and a score or less, which as someone who's getting ready to head into extension talks from a human being standpoint, like being like, hey, dude, shoot less is like not always a great feeling. Because I think, right, like adding Jaron Jackson, adding Darren Peterson, those are shots, those are shots.

I think there was some real concerns. And there was like progress on that front I know with Will Hardy, but like it's still like, is he that kind of player? I'm glad you said Will Hardy's name because I have a ton of faith in Will Hardy as a head coach. I think he's an A head coach and he's going to be there for a long time. I think there was some, I think, concern internally with Keante George's people about the Keante George Darren Peterson fit and like what that would mean for his future with the team and his extension talks and all that.

I personally don't share that concern at all. I'm like, yeah, put two awesome combo guards on the floor at the same time with the rest of these guys. I'm excited about it. I think the leap Keante made last year was pretty real. The playmaking organization skills do have to come up a little bit. but I think that's also like they have a lot of guys who can collectively share in that kind of responsibility. I think the Kianti, Jaron Jackson Jr., Lowry, sort of tent pole trio makes a lot of sense for Utah. I just think that Kessler deal was just too good to turn down.

I think they really wanted Walker Kessler to be on the team next year. I think it was genuine. They had, they tried to squeeze on the salary. That's what you do with a restricted free agent. It's not a personal insult to Walker Kessler that they offered him $28 million a year. given his track record. It's just like, that would make them

the 12th highest paid center in the league or whatever. I just think this was too good, too good to pass up. And when that deal is too good to pass up, it does make you wonder like, ooh, the Lakers really gave up the farm

and what are they getting in the end? I think they're getting a good team and the path to great, great team, which is what Luke is going to demand is going to be tough. But that's the fun of this, Dan,

is we get to see them try to solve it this year and going forward. Yeah, one quick thing on the Jazz Act because it does relate to the Lakers too. I had a conversation with someone who works over there. Kind of, you know, during the restricted free agency phase for Walker Custin, we were just talking about picks and, you know, this idea that like, they're kind of past that. Like the jazz are sort of past that, like, give us your pick stage.

Like they're ready to like kind of go, right? Like they've got these guys. So like, why would those picks then be of value to them? Why would those swaps be a value to them? And I think the answer is, is like what it actually buys you and what the Lakers no longer have is it buys you mistakes. it gives you the opportunity to be wrong about a signing, to be wrong about a pick,

to be wrong about an extension, to all that stuff. It gives you like there are racers that you can then put into transactions later to get off your bad decisions, right? Like, you know, the Lakers valuably did that with Russell Westbrook. That's where that 27 Utah Jazz first round pick is,

top four protected. That, you know, that was an eraser pick from the Lakers that they used, to trade Russell Westbrook to take back DeAngelo Russell, Jared Vanderbilt, Lake Beasley. None of those guys are on that team. That team miraculously in hindsight made it to the Western Conference Finals. But I think, you know, that to me is,

I believe, right, the most competitive sweep of all time, sack in those conference models. The golden broom is Tim McMahon called it. Okay. To get to that point, I think that's, the Lakers don't have that stuff anymore, and Utah has it a ton of it, right? So, you know, if the marketing JJJ fit isn't what they want, like, they have the ability to go fix it.

And they can go fix it from a variety of angles. If they don't like their center production, you know, we talked about the list now. Prices are high for centers and stuff like that. Go knock on Portland's door and pull one out if you want. Like, you know, good luck. But I'm saying, like, you have opportunities, I think, around the league to if you decided you really want a Osloigadora to be your center. you have the picks to probably pry a player like that loose. You can do different things in a way that teams that don't have this optionality.

It's a, I use that word a lot. It's fine. It's a very g-my. It's a little jargony. It's such a GME word. It just, I think it gives you the chance to screw up in ways that other teams don't have it. Because no matter how good of a front office you are, you screw up. Everybody does.

You miss picks. You sign the wrong guys to exceptions and all that stuff. Utah has the ability to undo virtually any decision they make and try again. A huge advantage. And we'll just see how aggressive they are and writing wrongs and identifying them. I think that is the other holdup I have with the roster is like just how patient they're going to be with it, you know, or how aggressive they're going to try to win. And I think on the flip side of that, the worst case scenarios for the Lakers are that they've

trapped themselves into just a pretty good roster. And we'll see. I mean, there's on one poll, there's, you hit a home run and this is a 60 win team in two years. On the other poll is like franchise suicide. And I don't think that. Yeah, you're starting over. Luca doesn't want to play for you anymore. And you have no picks.

I think, I think, like, I don't think either of those scenarios is complete, is like likely, likely. But I think the worst case one is slightly more likely than the best case one. But we shall see Dan Wojke of the athletic. A plus job covering the Lakers. Thank you for your time. I will see you soon in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. Sunny, very sunny, very hot.

See you there, Zach. All right, that's it for today. Thank you to Bobby Marks. Thank you to Dan Wojke. Thank you to Billy, Mike, and Jonathan on production as always. And thank you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later this week from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I'm heading out for Summer League. Talk to you all then.

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