The Zach Lowe Show - Will the Kawhi Trade Go Through? Plus, Donovan Mitchell Extends, and Summer League Debuts

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Zach is joined by Howard Beck to discuss the Kawhi Leonard trade possibly not going through due to the NBA's ongoing investigation. Next, they discuss Donovan Mitchell's contract extension, where LeBron could end up, and the Summer League debuts of AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (03:12) Will the Kawhi trade go through? (21:58) Donovan Mitchell's contract extension (44:41) LeBron's next team (53:16) Summer League debuts Host: Zach LoweGuests: Howard BeckProducers: Jonathan Frias, Michael Szokoli, Mike Wargon, and Billy GilSocial: 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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right when I got to Las Vegas. The trade to Toronto. Not happening quite yet. Will it happen? Why isn't it happening? What's going on? Why is everything with Kauai is so confusing? Who stands to lose the most here? If this somehow gets undone, do we think it's going to get undone? Oh, Toronto, the Clippers, the league office, a law firm that won't stop billing hours, the Kauai Leonard story of 2026. It may be going into 27. Howard Beck is here to get into all of that. We talk about Donovan Mitchell's contract extension, which broke during our last episode. We get a little bit more in depth to that, how it's similar and dissimilar, maybe from the J.L. and Brown contract that just got traded. Yes, there is more J. Allen Brown content to come. Some Summer League observations, AJ DeBancel played against Darren

Peterson tonight. That is to say, the Jazz played against the Wizards. What did we see? What do we think of those teams? LeBron, yep, more LeBron talk. He hasn't signed yet as we're recording this. Where is you going to sign? Should you go to Cleveland? How does that interact with Donovan Mitchell? And then we talk a little bit about the relegation zone and the teams that are facing it, how they will behave. Lots to talk about never stops this NBA.

That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe show. I'm in Las Vegas and it's time to say the three most anticipated words in niche basketball podcasting, billable hours. Wait, no, that's not it. Howard Beck is here. What up, Beck?

That was a great misdirection play. What's happening, Zach? Billable hours, baby, because it's something, we just watched Darren Peterson and AJ DeBanza play a half of basketball. We'll talk about that later. Very exciting. Both those teams, very exciting. But the biggest news of the day kind of sent shockwaves through the league. It's been rippling behind the scenes, apparently, for the past 48 to 72 hours, at least among the principal parties involved.

The Kauai Leonard trade, the reunion with the Toronto Racket, The trade with the Clippers is on hold pending the results of the endless Wachtell Lipton, Rosen and Katz slash NBA, bullable hours extravaganza investigation into the aspiration scandal uncovered by Pablo Tori. The Clippers, of course, say they did nothing wrong. They said very directly today we did not funnel money toward Kauai Leonard through aspiration. But the deal is on hold, frozen pending the results of that investigation because the raptors apparently have learned at some point,

and we will talk about when and who and why, that they would be not exactly on the hook, but the sufferers of any consequences should Kauai Leonard himself be punished. If should this trade go through and Kauai Leonard either have his contract voided, and boy, would that be a can of worms,

or you could envision a scenario where he's suspended for 10, 20 games, something like that. What does that do? Does that change the terms of the trade? And so there is now, the Raptors learn this and there is now sort of a frozen moment. And Howard, it's hard not to have the initial reaction of like, how in the world did we end up here when almost six weeks ago Adam Silver stood up at the NBA finals and said

the investigation that started almost 10 months ago and nine months at that point should be wrapping up soon. These teams need to move on. Everybody needs to move on with their business. Hell, the clippers are sitting here with the potential of cap space, extra picks from the Toronto Raptors and an ability to maybe work some sort of sign and trade with Peyton Watson if they wanted to. What the hell are they supposed to do now? I think this is just, it just looks terrible for everyone involved and everybody should be embarrassed that we have arrived here. It's a debacle upon a debacle upon a debacle. It's the most debaclely debacle that ever debacleed. I mean, it's a debacle that the NBA is investigating cap circumvention at all in the year 2025, 26, and only

because Pablo Tori uncovered it. And in the absence of that, who knows if this ever comes to light, Zach? That's embarrassing for the league on its face. That we're here now in early July, where a trade that had been reported has to be paused pending this just shows how what a folly it is that they didn't resolve this sooner. And we'll get back to that about the timing of this.

Because it's easy for all of us to sit here and say, oh, they should have wrapped it up sooner. I will say for all of the various conspiracy theories that went on over the course of the last 10 or 11 months, I was one who always believed it will, you know, they'll do their due diligence, but I didn't think it was going to come out during the season. I thought they would wait for a nice, quiet moment. But the one thing I was sure of, absolutely sure of, and I've been absolutely wrong about, was that this had to be done by July 1st because you can't get to the offseason, the free agency transactional part of the off season, the moratorium, all of it, without resolution,

because it would leave the Clippers unsure of what they could or could not do with Kawhi Leonard and Kawhi Leonard unsure of his own future and other teams unsure of whether they could trade for. Like, I thought for sure, Zach, that however long it took, however much due diligence, they due diligence, it was going to be done by July 1st and it wasn't. And now here we are. This is embarrassing for everybody involved, but I will say, and I'll leave it at this until you, because I think we've both made some calls today. I think this is more embarrassing for Toronto right now than anybody or at least should be. I don't I don't agree with that.

And we'll talk about why. But let's zoom out. I think everyone involved remains optimistic that this trade will go through. That Kauai Leonard's contract will not be voided. There is this weird middle ground like what if he's suspended? What does that mean? But I everyone seems to think in both official statements that were released by the Clippers and the Raptors seems to think that this will actually.

get across the finish line and we can just sort of men in black magic ray this out of our minds and forget that this ever happened. Do you agree or no? If only. I think I'm less confident in saying that this will definitely get resolved only because we really don't know what the results of the investigation are going to be. And the whole reason it's on pause at all is there is still a chance, whatever percentage it is. And I don't think anybody really knows what the percentage is. but there is a percentage chance that Kauai Leonard's contract would get voided. That is the biggest reason this is being held up right now is the possibility that it gets avoided.

Let's imagine. The second biggest reason is it would be the long suspension. Let's imagine what Kauai's contract getting voided actually looks like. So this trade happens. Kauai's contract is voided. Does that immediately mean that the trade never happened because the contract and the player attached to were not allowed to be traded? Does that mean there's a separate arbitration where we have to decide,

wait did everyone do this knowingly and now like what goes back to Toronto you can like imagine a scenario where the contract is voided the trade stands and Kauai just signs with Toronto for the minimum it's almost like a win win win for Toronto and by the way if the contract were avoided

the league is like mostly out of cap space the only two teams that have workable cap space left are Brooklyn doesn't seem like a fit and the clippers somehow I don't think the clipper this is going to end with the clippers resigning Kauai Leonard with their cap room so like it's

And then the suspension is like, what's a 20 game suspension worth? Is that like we get a swap back in the trade? Like, how does this even work? It's crazy. No, it really is. But I do think in terms of like order of operations, logically to me, I am not a lawyer and I'm not an MBA lawyer. And they have a thousand of them. But order of operations to me is like if the trade had been, if they just let it go through,

like to be clear, the NBA is not holding this up. The Raptors and the Clippers essentially, but the Raptors. really are the ones I think who paused this. I do not think... Why do you say that? As I understand it, then we'll get to the reporting part of this, as I understand it from what I was able to gather today, according to sources that I've talked to,

well, let me back up. I'll get to that in a second. My first reaction when I saw this news today, Zach, when I saw the two statements come out was one, holy shit, but two, how is it possible that the Toronto Raptors agreed to a deal, in principle, to trade for Kauai Leonard, without knowing that there was still a possibility that his contract could be voided

and if it were that that's on them that they will they just simply lose out and by the way, to answer your other question I think it's implied what the order of operations is here you made the trade, you got Kauai and then we voided his contract, he's no longer yours and you gave it Brandon Ingram, Grady Dick, sorry, tough shit. I think that's the way this goes and I think that's the reason why it's

held up now is because you don't want to make the deal at all So the trade is not happened so that that's why we've essentially paused mid-transacted trade is not a fit, trade's not happening. Right. But my first reaction was how could the Raptors agree to this in principle at all and have it get then leaked to Shams on June 30th if they hadn't at least done their due diligence with the league to say, hey, listen, if we make this deal, what are the potential consequences for us? And to be clear, because there's a lot of nonsense floating around on social media about this.

The Raptors would not be getting punished for the Clippers crimes, people. They're not going to get fined. They're not going to get any, no one's getting docked anything. is only getting suspended. The consequences are that they would lose Kauai Leonard because his contract got voided or let's say it was a 50 game suspension or something. You're losing his services. And under those circumstances, you'd say, well, well, why we wouldn't have traded for him? We'd know that was going to happen. So fast forward to a couple weeks ago. They make the trade in principle. They agree, or they have the handshake deal. It comes out on June 30th. And all my,

all I could think today is, why didn't you know this on June 30th? If what caused you to pause it today was known to you then, why wouldn't you have just not gone into the deal, into that agreement, then? What I've learned today, according to sources, is the Raptors and the NBA did have that conversation. The Raptors did do their due diligence to their credit. They just simply apparently did not believe it enough or were not convinced enough or concerned enough at that time to pause then. So they went ahead with the handshaping. shake deal. The trade gets leaked. We all know about it. The whole world knows about it. The whole world's expecting this to happen. The moratorium comes and goes. The deal is still not finalized. And when they

finally get to the trade call and the NBA is once again reminding them, we can't guarantee anything about Kauai's contract or his availability. Suddenly the raptors get cold feet. And this is why I said a few minutes ago, I think they should be more embarrassed than anyone because this is a decision they could have made, whatever, a week and a half ago. And it shouldn't have gotten to this point. I think everybody got cold feet. I don't think that the Raptors got cold feet. I don't even know if the feet are cold. There may be just a little, a little nippy. I don't know. There's great socks up there in Toronto. You have to. It's Canada. Here's a sentence from the athletics reporting, Sam A. Make and Law Murray, who covers

the Clippers from run the story. The NBA informed the teams, the Clippers and the Raptors, before they agreed to the trade, that the investigation could cause issues. with any deal involving Leonard, according to league sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, blah, blah, blah. And so that's what you're saying that this conversation occurred. I've also heard such a conversation occurred. Look, I'll guarantee you, like Bobby Webster, who runs the Raptors, came from the league office. These are all of his former colleagues, many of them, who he's talking to, presumably,

in the legal department and the cap department and all that in the league office. So what did they know when that conversation took place and what? What do they know that's different today? I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect, based on what I've heard, that as they were, because something happened between two and three days ago where suddenly this began consuming all the parties involved, that something was amiss. So there's like a five or six day gap where like Kauai's like on the Raptors.

He's at Kyle Lowry's thing the other day. He's like, everyone's excited about this. There was already like word of, not word, but like rumblings up. Are they going to have extension talks with? Kow Island, it is eligible for a two-year something extension. Everything's fine. And then at some point in the last three days, everything's not fine anymore. What happened?

I don't really know. My theory is that as they're beginning to prepare for the trade call and paperwork this as they do, I think something like a little memo or addendum from the league office came in that's like extra on top of the trade stuff that's like, hey, just remember, we talked about this. If there's stuff that happens to Kauai, you are liable for it. And now suddenly this is blowing up. Look, I'm going to proceed on the assumption, perhaps naively, that this gets finished, that the trade goes through, that Kauai's contract is not voided.

But to your point, I don't, there's some, we don't, we have anything. If we've reached a point where a trade is being halted halfway through because of an investigation that simply will not end, anything is possible at this point. Adam Silver is speaking after the board of governors to the media. next week here in Las Vegas. Like, is it really still going to be going on then? Like, when does this end? Why is this taking so long?

It can't be that so many people were recalcitrant to talk. Recalcitrant, is that the right word? Reluctant, whatever I'm trying to say, to talk to the billable hours, maestro's, walk till Lipton Rosen and cats. Don't forget cats. It's that this is, it's been, it's been 10 months. What are we doing?

Like, yeah, I feel that too. I think we all do. Like, there's just an exact. exhaustion here. I will say, this is one of those can't-win situations in a way for the league, because if you wrap up the investigation and you haven't turned over every stone and spoken to every possible witness and the next person that they referred you to and the next person and the next person, and that's the way these things go, is that, well, who else should we talk to? Here's 10 more names. If you don't do all of that and you conclude the investigation, you give them

a slap on the wrist, oh, we didn't find a smoking gun, whatever it may be, and then somebody comes out a couple weeks later, or Pablo has another podcast episode a few weeks later with more envelopes taped under chairs and other pieces of furniture. And suddenly it's like, oh, here's the smoking gunner. Here's a person who talked to us who said the league never, the league's lawyers never came to them. Walk to Liptin never called me. I could have told them. And so there's some of that here, right? Like, I don't know how much is too much. I don't know what the due diligence limit becomes, but they have to do enough to be airtight in whatever the decision is, knowing full well that if they fall short,

we're going to all jump on them for missing something. And if they take too long, as it feels like they have, we're all over them right now for not resolving this and creating the conditions for what we're now seeing with the trade paused. So there is to an extent a no-win situation here in terms of perception. I do think, you know, look, the highest, you know, of responsibility here is to turn over every stone, to talk to everybody you could possibly talk to that may have evidence. And even with Pablo's show, right, like the revelation comes last

whatever, September, October, whenever it was. And there have been how many different installments since then of the slow drip drip? And they've been able to get that just as journalists, not as investigators for the league who have the ability to demand much more of the teams and of Kauai's, well, maybe not his, his, his, his representation. but certainly of the clippers Pablo can't demand anything of the clippers but the league's lawyers can and so there's much more

available to them and that they are obligated to pursue um there's there's just i mean the repercussions are unbelievable like the clippers we talked about like they're clearly pivoting in a new direction and have these extra picks from the raptors and who knows

what they could turn brandon ingram to and grady dick poor grady dick is like hey can i have a team what team am i on on is a reclamation project for them. The Raptors are like, hey, we just played the Cavs to the hilt in the first round of the playoffs and turned Brandon Ingram into Kauai Leonard. Like, could we make a run at winning the East next year?

I personally, I mean, they're clearly very good. And I just have said before, like, I just, Kauai Leonard never seems to be healthy for multiple playoff rounds anymore and has not been since like the bubble. And so I'm kind of skeptical that it takes three, Howard, if you remember, playoff series wins to make the finals. We'll see. clearly a very good team with them and now everything

is held up to your point about the raptors and the diligence and all that like there's a 10,000 percent chance that they called and worked and like got the information that they thought they needed and went forward I will say there's at least one team that I know of because I asked them about Kauai a team that theoretically had you know if I'm going through my fake trades would have all the assets that they would need and all the motivation that they would need to go and at least call about Kauai Lander and this team told me we're not touching that until this investigation is over. So there were teams in the league who were like,

this is a complete hands off, can't touch it with the 10 football situation until whatever this investigation is is over. I can't say what team that is, but it exists. And so here we are. I mean, I don't really know what else to say other than, I'm just now in wait and see mode, and I'm enjoying Summer League,

and I'm enjoying the 110 degree weather in Las Vegas. But this was a shockwave across the league today. the likes of which no one can really remember anything quite like this. Obviously, not the whole saga itself from Pablo's first episode until now, but just like, oh, wait, the trade was done. Everyone was like moving on with their business. And now it's it's not done. And it might like, are we undoing it?

What happens in that case? It's a crazy situation. And the thing is, this is coming on the heels of a Janus trade and a Jalen Brown trade. and John Morant trade and LeBron opting out. And like I actually was starting to consider earlier today. Like I'm not as good at this as Bill is off the top of my head. But we've got to be in the zone for like most bonkers like eight day span of an offseason in NBA history. Like the number of massive things that have happened in the last week, week and a half is just incredible.

And and this one is in a category all of its own because this whole fucking investigation. is in a category all of its own. And, you know, the only thing you can compare this thing to is Joe Smith, and that was over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, whatever it was, and different commissioner, different NBA, different circumstances by far, but that's the only one we've ever been able to compare this to. But to have a trade of this magnitude, and with implications, by the way, like you alluded to it, Toronto's an Eastern Conference contender with Kauai Leonard,

if he's healthy. if this trade does not go through, they are not. And the Clippers and the Raptors both have a lot of fences to mend or something with players. You know who else is very interested in all this is the Players Union, who if the wise contract were to be voided and there were to be increased policing of endorsement deals for players and all that. Like that's an area of extreme interest for the Players Union. And there's all sorts of other processes that need to happen here.

I guess we'll just wait and see. I'm very obviously curious to see what Adam Silver says after the Board of Governors meets next week here in Vegas. And I don't really, I mean, it's the other crazy offseason, fittingly, is of recent vintage anyway, is the Kauai offseason of 2019 where there's the literal earthquake in Las Vegas the night that he and Paul George are simultaneously. going from various places to the clippers. That's the same offseason that Durant and Kyrie choose the Nets. There's all sorts of stuff happening. There's all sorts of stuff happening.

And here we are back here again, what, seven years later? And it's another Kauai offseason. And everyone's just sort of wait and see what happens. Any final thoughts on there? Is there anything that we missed? I don't think it was particularly encouraging that when everybody reached out to the league, the statement from the league about the investigation was, you know, we're supposed to wrap it up in the next.

Couple of weeks. Hey, look, man. If this thing, if I go to Croatia and this thing, or we're going to a couple places, but if I'm in Croatia and this thing wraps up and I have my microphone and I'm three shots of Rakhia into my night in Dubrovnik. Like, I'm going live and all the bets are off. We're live streaming. We're no filter.

Can I be on that show? I will even go around the corner of my local liquor store here at Carol Gardens, Brooklyn, and find Rokia so I can drink with you on the show while we regale ourselves with Kauai Leonard conclusions, whatever that may be. I mean, you could even think of like, I wonder if the Celtics, I don't think they are because I don't think there was any ever, any momentum with real momentum with Jalen Brown going to either Toronto or the Clippers, like one of the two. But if you're the Celtics, you're like, man, this would have been handy to know

at least a little bit more information. But maybe the Raptors don't get Kauai and they get desperate and they're really interested in Jalen Brown. I never got the sense that there was a unified front in Toronto. in favor of pursuing Jalen Brown, but you never know. Okay, I'm done talking about Kauai. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about some other semi-pressing league business. Okay, the last episode I recorded was a couple of days ago with Bobby Marks.

And on that episode, as we were recording, the Cavs signed Donovan Mitchell to a four-year, $273 million contract extension that kicks in in 2728 and could pay him over $75 million. in the 2030, 31 season when he will be 34 years old, I believe. We had to give this kind of short, we didn't give it short trip. It was just it happened. It was like a bomb on our faces. We did. We just reacted live.

We've had some time to think about it. Obviously, it's an interesting juxtaposition with Jalen Brown, whose similar-sized contract was, you know, considered clunky enough for a team with another player, Jason Tatum, making the same or similar amount of money. and how constraining that is to have two players taking up 70% of your cap space in his second APN world to at least view as something like, could we get off of this and get some, quote, optionality in terms of picks and future cap flexibility a year or two down the road?

And Donovan Mitchell is almost exactly as old as Jalen Brown. They're both 29 years old. The Celtics traded Jailen Brown when he was 29. The Cads extend Donovan Mitchell, a small guard when he's 29, into his mid-30s at an enormous salary figure for a team that finally did to their credit. It wasn't in the most convincing fashion, breakthrough to the conference finals last year,

only to get walloped by the Knicks, a team that is in the hunt for LeBron James, a decision that could come any moment now, and presumably would either way, re-sign James Harden, who, like, Jermon Green, is sort of sitting out there, and, hey, just get to me when you're done with LeBron stuff,

another world. Now that you've had some time to think about this, and what it means for the Cavs, what it means about Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell, what it means for Jared Allen, what it means for this team is they begin to recoup assets that they, on the back end, that they sent out to acquire Donovan Mitchell.

What do you think of this? What do you make of this? One of the thing that just hit me was that as you were mentioning LeBron again is that I think I said opt out when obviously he just walked away as a free agent, but he opted not to be there. He opted for being single, Howard.

He chose himself. He broke up with the Lakers before they could break up with him, which is a framing that I find quite funny because I think both parties, like the Lakers signed 17 people in like 40 seconds. It doesn't happen. I think they were ready. I think everybody was ready for this. And I've talked to length about what the Lakers did and what I like and don't like

about it. But anyway, Donovan Mitchell. Yeah. No, but the number of people who were kind of just taking it face value, the idea that LeBron made this decision independent of anything, and yet we saw like this flurry of moves, some of which were complicated because a Walker special side in trade doesn't just happen in five minutes.

Like, come on. He read the room, they both read the room, they read each other, whatever. Donovan Mitchell, I think part of this, here's the pullback 30,000 foot view, which is the NBA has been moving toward for many years and many CBAs

and most especially this one, which is now a virtual hard cap, which by the way, I've even had people, whether they misspoke or whether they meant it, actual league office people use the word hard cap with me within the last few months. Good thing nobody from the players union was in earshot. Actually, the players union would probably like that because that would give them grounds to be

angrier and angry about it. I mean, it is a virtual hard cap. And one of the things that a hard cap does to you, especially in a league where players can make 30, 35 percent of the cap and up because of raises, and they make more as they get older, is it puts you in a position where you really can only have one of those guys? You can have two if they're on different timelines, if they're like three, four, five years apart and they're on different maxes, right? The max is not the max in this league.

There's three different maxes. And then those maxes aren't even the same every few years because the BRI keeps going up. And the cap goes up and the percentage. So what it results in is teams make to make extremely difficult decisions to decide sometimes on having just one star. The Celtics kind of just did this. I understand Paul George is making basically the same amount as Jalen Brown. But the optionality thing was about we're going to loosen things up a little bit,

and it's one year less. And maybe we can move off of Paul George, but we can't sign Jalen Brown to yet another max extension and have Jason Tatum. They had to make a choice. And the cavaliers at this stage, having flipped Garland for James Hardin, well, Hardin's no longer a max guy. Evan Mobley will, you know, is a max guy on a different timeline. His percentage of the cap is in like the low 30s, whereas Donovan Mitchell's is in the mid going up to the high 30s.

And we have to think of percentage of the cap as much as we think of the dollar values. And a big sort of wildcard in all of this. And something I was remiss in not mentioning during the Jalen Brown fallout podcasts, plural that I did, was that, you know, these maxes go up, what, 8% each year salary-wise. And if the cap does not match that, there was sort of an assumption that the cap would grow fast. than the max contracts would grow annually. And so they would take up less space over time. And what's happening is they might actually take up more space over time. Like Evan Mobley wins defensive player of the year,

triggers his version of the Supermax. So he's at 30% of the cap instead of 25% of the cap. The calves, of course, ironically, are in a position, an awkward position where like, hey, that's great. Our guy won defensive player of the year. Uh-oh, sucks for our cap sheet. And they are on different timelines, but they're both Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley taking up huge portions of a cap that may not be rising as much as anticipated.

Yeah. I mean, once upon a time this time of year, many years ago, you and I and our friend Rachel Nichols would do our drunk with power podcast and we would go around suggesting things that we would change if we were commissioner for a day and could just wave a magic wand. And I don't remember if I've mentioned this one back then, but it's one that's all I've always thought. It's one, it's kind of silly the NBA players have raises. Like people like us need raises, right? we're trying to keep up with the cost of living. Players making tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of their, do they need raises?

Why do we have raises at all in the NBA? Just make it an average, make it a total, whatever it is. That's one. The second one is we have these three separate maxes that are, whatever, 25, 30, and 35% of the cap, based on years of service. And the highest percentage you can get is for the guys who are 10 years and over. And what we see more and more, Stefan LeBron notwithstanding, Chris Paul notwithstanding, is that most guys, as they get to their mid to late

30s, there's a massive decline in production and efficiency and contribution to winning. And so there's another piece that the CABA just doesn't make sense on, right? Now you have Donovan Mitchell, who's going to be making 37% of the cap at age, what'd you say, 34, 35? Something like that. He's almost, he's about to turn 30, I think, but not about. He's close-ish to 30. So that's problematic.

It makes it hard to build a team around him and even more so now than ever, because we have a virtual hard cap called the second apron. And so that's one piece. That's the reality. But the other reality, Zach, is this. I think this, the Donovan Mitchell contract, just like the Jalen Brown previous extension that he had gotten with Boston, falls in the category of all capital on all these words. Things you just have to do when you have a top 15 to 20 player. You don't tell your top 10, top 15, top 20 player. We really don't want to pay you the max. You rightly shouted out, Rafael Stone the other day for how much of a hard line the Rockets take, Alpern-Shangoon and others. But like you don't do that usually with a guy who's like a true like top, you know,

an all-MBA type player in their prime. Also easier, easier to take a harder line against guys coming off their rookie scale contracts because any, any new contract they make is going to just trump by so many degrees what they've made before. Donovan Mitchell is prideful and in the middle of his career and is like, no, I want, I want all. I want this is what I'm accustomed to. My point is, like, how many teams in the cast position would have told Donovan Mitchell, no to this max, or we're going to try to squeeze you, or, you know what, if we can't pay you, so we're just going to trade you.

Like, you just, you can't do that. You don't do that. And there aren't going to be many Jalen Brunson's taking a discount, probably one he will never accept again, I would imagine. So what do you do? What else do you do? You have to resign your top 10, your top 15, your top 20 guy. And you, you're wincing as you do it.

Cap guys are going, oh, look at the year 2030 here, boss, it's looking kind of, and you're saying, I know, and the owner's going, we really, I mean, it was probably the same with the Devin Booker deal, whatever it was a year or two ago. Like, what choice do you have? There are market forces. There's respect from your players and keeping faith with your players, keeping faith with your fans, sending the right message to the rest of the league, other players and their agents. It's hard. It's almost impossible to just say, we'll do the right thing, quote unquote, right thing. and, you know, keep the cost down so that you can keep your cap flexible. Like, good luck with that.

Yeah. I mean, I said with Bobby the other day, eight years ago, literally eight years ago, 2018, I wrote a piece for ESPN about just how, how viscerally bad it feels to me, that homegrown stars who end up achieving so much for your team, the team that drafted them or traded for their draft rights, whatever, basically drafted them. end up making so much money that their contracts, if they're not like no-brainer, top five, top six guys, become albatross contracts, painful for you to have.

And I thought, I framed the story, as I said last week, around the Bulls deciding, oh, uh-oh, Jimmy Butler is eligible for the Supermax. This all comes from the Supermax, which all comes from Durant, leaving Oklahoma City to go to Golden State, but that's a different story. The Bulls saying voluntarily, you know what, Jimmy Butler is right in his prime. We just would rather not have him on our team. And what have the Bulls done since then, since that moment, a whole lot of nothing? And I realized that Donovan Mitchell is not a homegrown Cleveland Cavalier.

They did not draft him. They did not trade for his draft rights. So I don't know. Because I pitched like maybe you should get some cap or tax relief or something. If you have one of those players on your books, they don't count for so much to the apron or whatever. Do those rights go with you when a team like Cleveland trade tree? I don't know. I don't know what the right answer to any of these questions are.

And the counter argument that I did not mention with Bobby that I heard from a lot of executives when I wrote that piece eight years ago is it's really cute, Zach, that you think that there should be cap relief and all these things. And it's so awkward to have one of these guys on your. It's like it's not awkward. It's so sad to you that these guys become albatrosses. You know what you have to do? This is a minority of people would tell this to me. And this goes to the Donovan Mitchell, what are you supposed to do question that you asked? They said, you know what you have to do, Zach?

You have to make some tough decisions. Buck up and make some tough decisions. Offer them less money. Trade them before it becomes an issue. Trade them early on in the contract. Do whatever you have to do because if it's going to hurt you, it's your job to make the tough decisions. And I was like, yeah, I mean, that's true. And it's just like so, if you're applying that to this and you think that this deal is going to be,

if not an albatross, then a, you know, let's say net neutral kind of deal, a deal that will be hard to trade in five years. So what am I supposed to do if I'm Kobe Albin? Am I supposed to sign him to a shorter extension? That's not going to go over well. Am I supposed to not offer the extension at all? Then I'm looking at a trade demand. I can't let him walk in free agency.

So do I up and trade him? If I do up and trade him, so then I don't control my picks for the next three years because I traded for Donovan Mitchell. I can't tank. Tanking is already sort of less profitable anyway and whether that's good or bad for me,

the Cleveland Cavaliers remains to be seen. And so I trade them and I get back some like young players and some picks. And now my team is like Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, maybe like James Hardin is kicking around. Like I don't know.

So it's easy for people to say, well, that's your job. You make tough decisions. If you want to get out of jail, get out of jail early. I'm like, I don't know. This is what. one that he's such a great player.

And I had him ranked above Jalen Brown for the majority of this season, even in Jalen Brown's very best season. And whether you care or not, Howard Beck, the analytics, the advanced stats, all the stuff that became such a talk about with Jalen Brown, Donovan Mitchell outpaces him by a lot in all of those categories, every single advanced that you want to look at, including on-off data. On the other hand, he's a small guard. Jalen Brown is a big wing.

like those things matter too and how you age. I would be surprised if Donovan Mitchell earning $75 million in 2013 is a net positive outcome for the Cleveland Cavaliers. But I also, I'm kind of fine with them signing the contract because I don't know what the hell they're supposed to do and they're going to go for it next year. And if they get LeBron, as weird as the LeBron James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, but also you have two big guys.

So how often does LeBron play the four as weird as that all could feel? it's a pretty goddamn good team and it's like the whole point of this is to try to have a good team that can win. Yeah. End of story. I don't know. Sorry, I rambled.

I'm just, it's complicated. It's a complicated topic. It is. And to the GMs who told you, oh, well, this is, you know,

buck up and put on big boy pants. What a big boy pants look like exactly. Are they just bigger than average pants? They're not over. They're not, they're not, Dungarees. That word came up.

That word came up with me and my dad friends recently. I wish I can remember who we were talking. you were like, we were like, remember what dungarees? And I'm like, I'm not even sure I know what dungarees are or ever knew what they were, but I definitely had my mom was definitely like, we need to go over to Caldor and get some dungarees for school this year. We had to go to Mervyn's to get some dungarees. Dungerese was a, that was a word that only my parents ever used. In fact, I don't think even any of my friends' parents used it.

It sounds, it sounds. I think it's genes. It sounds almost profane. But anyway, I don't know. If you put on your big boy dungarees and you have to offload somebody as the Celtics just do with Jalen Brown. One, it reminds me of what David Stern said way back when, when we had the lockout in 2011. He used this phrase, this absolutely Orwellian phrase, player sharing. What they wanted was player sharing.

What happened the next summer after the lockout was done and they played a short season? And then we had free agency 2012. James Hardin was player shared to the Houston Rockets from the Oklahoma City Thunder. That's what happened because we had a new CBA. with a more punitive luxury tax, and the Thunder decided they didn't want to have to deal with that. And so that's what we're talking about here. Jalen Brown just got players shared to the Sixers,

who already had a bunch of stars, so it doesn't really work on that level. But the league's goal through all these CBAs has been, don't allow teams to build up and then keep, like the Warriors were able to, or the Clippers were able to accrue, so many stars at such a high cost, including luxury tax that you're out spending other teams by 50 to $100 million or $150 million. They don't want that.

and they do want more talent at the high end spread around. So there's that. I get it. Are the Cavaliers, how are they going to continue to build around Donovan Mitchell now that he's on the books for this? That's going to be an issue for them, just as it has been for, you know, whether it's Janus, there are other things at work there. But any of these guys making the Max, the Super Max, whichever Max, it's becoming harder and harder to build around them and sustain it around them. and before we get too far into the, well, that's what you're paid the big bucks for and everything.

And that's fine if you're a GM. But not if you're a fan. Like Brad Stevens put on his big boy dungarees and made the hard trade. That sucks to do. And he can say optionality 11 times and 10 minutes in a press conference or however many times it was. And it can all be very logical and reasoned. And the owner can be on board and his cap guys are on board and his analytics guys. Fine.

It sucks for the fans. And it actually eventually sucks for Brad Stevens too because he still has to figure out what the next couple of moves are to rebuild a championship caliber team around Jason Tatum. I mean, there are one right now. I don't know. There are a million reasons why that trade will be one of the rare trades that we talk about for many, many years, one of which, just won, and I outlined many of them with Bobby, go back and listen to that if you want, about chemistry and who's the number one option and Twitch and all that. One of them is that the Celtics already won a championship very recently with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum

as the best players on their team and then had to dismantle a lot of that team to get out of the second apron but it's not like unproven that you can win a title with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum as your number one and two players. It is unproven that you can get to the finals

with Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley as your number one or two and two players. And I think this trade, this extension rather, really underscores like the calves are now about Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley and everything else, including I'm sorry Jared Allen, is going to have to be fungible long term. And that's just the way that it's going to be. And I don't, if I'm betting on one pairing of players that they currently have and I'm boxed into paying some pairing of players this amount of money, I think they've picked the right to the right to.

And where they go from here, medium term, next two, three, four years is going to be very interesting. Where they could go from here now is there is a world where. they can get Hardin back and LeBron and just go full, they might have to sluff away a Max Struis or a Dennis Truder or both, but go full bore and try to win the East. How much, Zach, do you think this extension that Donovan Mitchell just signed, which they knew was coming and that they were going to offer him, influenced the Garland for Hardin Swap in the first place?

Because in retrospect, I feel like, and maybe we should have just even seen it in real time, it feels like those things are connected to me. because Hardin is 10 years older, but also cheaper as a result. And on the backside and has whatever, you know, a year or two left, something at what will be able to me a lesser number. And so the, you know, from the moment they had their core four of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley, Jared Allen, the concern that you'd hear express around the league was not concern, but the clock ticking was you can't pay all four of those guys.

there's some overlap, you know, and skill sets that are all that other stuff too, functionally on the court. But there was going to be a payroll issue eventually. How long could they go before they had to break it up? And they finally just did. And here we are. A couple of things about that. Number one, Orlando is staring a similar version of that problem.

Like there is a very close to 90 to 100% chance that Orlando is going to make a major move in the next 18 months because they simply cannot pay Anthony Black, Jalen Suggs, Desmond, Bain, Franz Wagner. and Palo Bancaro what they're slated to pay them. Something is going to have to give there. I mentioned earlier about buck up and put on your big boy dungarees. One small way of doing that

is look at what the thunder did with Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren and the escalator clauses in their contract. The same escalator clauses that, you know, Evan Mowgli was triggered when he got one defense player of the year. They negotiated those very carefully and very hard. And to like, Chet Holmgren took a straight 25% max. Doesn't matter if I make,

The all-NBA team or not. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think that's what happened. I'd have to go look it up. And Jalen Williams is kind of like staggered. If you make first team all-N-B-A can be up to this. Second-team all-N-A, it's a little lower. Third team, like that's, those things matter on the margins.

And our one reason the Thunder are a couple of mini-transactions away from getting under the second apron in this season where they should have no business being under the second. I don't even know what the hell we're talking about. The cabs. Should LeBron go to the cabs? Where do you want LeBron to go? I don't, by the way, I don't, it's, it's, uh, almost 11 o'clock Eastern on Thursday.

I don't know how long LeBron's going to take. I don't necessarily think it's going to be as long as everyone thinks it might be, but who knows, but we've got, in the universe of possibilities, we've, we've got Cleveland, Golden State, Miami, Philadelphia, Minnesota. Am I missing anybody? Is that, is that about it? I think that was all of them. Denver, Denver theoretically.

you know, I haven't heard as much buzz about them, but, you know, Bob Myers took the extraordinary step of appearing on Rich Paul and Max Carman's podcast, that part of our Spotify ringer network of podcasts to basically pitch Rich in person. This is why LeBron should come to Philadelphia. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. Sean Straneer reported today that Rich Paul has opened his voice mailbox to voice notes that people can send him, that he will. then forward along to LeBron.

It's a lot of faith in Rich Paul. He's like, all right, boy, here's a 90-second voice note. Can you read this to LeBron or listen? So who the hell knows what's going to happen? But obviously, a lot of people would think Cleveland is the sort of poetic ending point of his career, where it began for him both as a kid and as an NBA player, where he came back and won them a championship before leaving again. I don't think it's the cleanest basketball fit if Hardin is there and Mitchell is there.

and you have this sort of everyone operates with the ball. But he proved last year he can fill pretty much any role you want him to, even with two other ball dominant players. Having two big guys who play heavy minutes complicates that a little bit. But those are first world problems. The Cleveland fit is not the sexiest to me. But if he were to argue, it gives me the best chance to go out chasing a championship. And boy, if I did it for my hometown team, would that be incredible?

I don't think I can fault them for that. I couldn't either. Remember back in 2010 when the whole thing was like, oh, LeBron's making everybody come to Cleveland to come woo him at their office. Was it Cleveland or Accord? They were all, everybody had to go, the Clippers and the Knicks and the Bulls and the heat. Everybody all had to travel to Cleveland to go make their pitches and their powerpoints and their videos. And Mike Bloomberg was mayor of New York at the time, was part of this ridiculous, come on LeBron video.

And then we had the Hamptons for Kevin Duran. Oh, sure. Now we just go on Rich Paul's podcast. Like, Bob Myers first, like, who's next? Maybe I should leave. Are you going on the pod? Rich is here in Las Vegas. Clutch is actually having their party tonight.

Maybe I should leave him a voice note and say, as LeBron ever considered, just retiring and bringing the mind the game podcast into the Spotify ringer family and just go. Just go from there. Yeah. Come, come join the ringer verse. Listen, I think the most poetic choice. is Cleveland by far.

I think the next most poetic choice would sort of be Miami, but it doesn't have the same resonance, right? The one that I like, because I'm just a sentimental goofball who thinks it would just be fun to watch them, I like LeBron and the Warriors best. Like, I love the idea of him and Steph

and Dremont, Olympic buddies, former rivals who, you know, beat the crap out of each other, sometimes in the nuts, in the finals, and now are joining forces, like the Rocky Apollo thing, right? Like, I love that.

And it's a seniors tour and they got Jimmy Butler along for the ride. And nobody thinks they can actually win a title because they're too old. But if they just stayed healthy, who the hell wants to see them in April or May? I love that. That's my favorite version of this. But he has no ties other than personal ties to the Warriors, right? Not as a franchise. And if you think about LeBron's career in chapters,

amazing luck of the ping pong balls he gets drafted by his virtual hometown team in Cleveland. Luck you say, luck you say, Howard. Stop it. Stop it. When he decides to leave there, he goes to Miami. He wins a couple of championships. He grows up a bit. I was rereading the essay that he did with Lee Jenkins and Sports Illustrated back in 2014, 14, when he went back to Cleveland. And he talked about Miami is like college, right?

I never went to college, but that was like college for me. I learned, you know, I grew up a little. I learned how to be a champion, all these things. And I'm bringing all that knowledge back to Cleveland to raise up these young guys and bring us a championship in North East Ohio. And I want to be an inspiration. So he starts to frame this in terms of like these, they're chapters of a story. He does win the championship. Now he's free to leave without any guilt or backlash and goes to L.A. because his family loves it there and he's got his media empire there and everything else. Cool. So if this is now the final, final chapter, to make it a new team that he's never been part of doesn't feel right in terms of like just like the narrative arc Miami has a little bit of it Cleveland has the most of it by far it's so funny how I mean even Brian Winhorst who's as well sourced and careful as anybody in our business went on some show I think it was a Cleveland radio show about how the vibes just the idea of LeBron in Philadelphia the vibes just feel off and all the vibes about Cleveland feel right and it's amazing how, I mean, I've been in Vegas for like eight hours. I've already had a bunch of meetings. Everyone is just reading the tea leaves. I've already, I've already had one person tell me,

one person in the league tell me, well, you know, I mean, look, he's been around Cleveland the summer. They did the 2016 Cavs 10-year reunion where they forgot to invite Timofa Mazgov, but they all had a great time. Like, he's, that's him sending signals. And I had another person an agent tell me, would Bob Myers really go on that podcast if he thought like LeBron wasn't coming to Philadelphia? I'm like, I don't know. If you could, you guys are all just reaching for reaching for whatever. The one thing I will say

that I thought in response to the windy vibes thing, there's no question Cleveland has a poetry to it, no question. And I think would be his best chance to win. You know,

you could argue maybe for Denver. That just doesn't seem realistic. The one thing LeBron has always done in his career is take control of it and do stuff that just feels right to him

regardless of the consequences. So he goes to Miami and gets pounded for it, right? just destroyed. It does the TV show, the decision gets destroyed. Comes back to Cleveland.

And then he goes to the Lakers. Why? I don't know. Lakers weren't that good. They had a bunch of young guys. Maybe we get Anthony Davis. Oh, yeah, we did strong Armoia and Anthony Davis.

But he wanted to live in Los Angeles and expand his media empire. Like, if he decides, I think it would be kind of cool if I went to Philadelphia and, or Minnesota, right? But just say Philadelphia. And like, this franchise that just can't get out of its own way.

They can't go two months without something absolutely insane happening to it and try to lift them. and my young fellow clutch client, Tyrese Maxie, to a place they've never been before. And that's just what I feel like doing. Like, there's something LeBronian in that as well. But I, you know, look, we're all going to find out. Yeah. I mean, I kind of dismissed the Philadelphia, Minnesota.

Like, I could be completely wrong and it's fine. I don't care. I'm not looking to make a correct prediction here. But those feel off to me because of the idea that this is it. He's got a year two left, whatever. it is and he's going to go to a place where he has no ties and in Philadelphia, 3,000 miles from L.A. where he's going to leave his family behind. For what? Like, I don't know. It just, that doesn't make sense to me. Minnesota, really? Like it, it, but you're right, Zach. He has

been bold in his other decisions along the way, capital D or small D. And the idea of him going to a completely new place just because it's like, you know what, I'll be the first guy to get Philly to the, to the championship since 1983 or whatever. Like, yeah, I could say, I could say, you know, I could see him doing that. I mean, Rich Paul did say on the pod, and I kind of roll my eyes a little bit at this one, but like the, well, if the Knicks hadn't won the championship, he would have gone there. Like, really? Are you sure? Like, I mean, he said that with enough boldness that I was like, okay, like, I, I, I believe, I believe that's true. And I, it would, the Knicks would have to want it. And I assume the Knicks in that scenario would have been open to it. I, I believe

it. I'm, I'm, I'm, maybe I'm being too cynical on this. I am skeptical of that. I am, I'm, I'm, I'm, that. And I was skeptical of much of the whiteboard. I enjoyed the whiteboard. I want more more whiteboard. Great showmanship. There was something about LeBron, Philadelphia, Cleveland that now I am forgetting what it was. We're all going to, we're all going to find out eventually where LeBron is going to go. And I don't know how we're going to find out, but we will find out. I will say this. My final thought on it, that he can still have us all, and I know some people are going to just like fucking just like cringe at the, I'm even saying, he's still. has us all captivated. Dude's going to be 41, 42, uh, in December, 42. He's 41 years old and is

logged like 24 years in the league and or going into year 24. And we are still sitting here in July captivated by what he will do next. He's still one of the 20 to 25 best players in the NBA. Yes. No question. Sounds like damning with faint praise because it's LeBron James. He's again, almost he's going to be 40. He's 41 and a half years old. It's remarkable that he's in the NBA at all, let alone able to be the best player on a team that won a playoff series in the Western Conference last season. Oh, I know what it was. You mentioned a place where he has no ties of going, how weird it would be to see him a place

where he has no ties. I mean, other than he wanted to live there and did already live there in the offseason, he didn't really have ties to Los Angeles. And you would find Lakers fans who are like, I still don't feel a strong tie to LeBron James eight seasons later, a championship later. and I don't want to sit here and litigate all the gazillion reasons why that is from Kobe to he wasn't drafted by the Lakers. He came there as a mercenary late in his career to the bubble championship to no parade. But it never felt like LeBron's team and LeBron's franchise in Los Angeles from the outside looking in.

So it wouldn't be unprecedented from him to go to a place and just like where I want to go. I want to go here. I agree. But the natural fit there was I am an all-time great. And this is one of the greatest franchises in the history of sports. And so just the magnetism of these two poles, right? Of, you know, LeBron, an entity of, you know, a superstar, legend in, you know, already established, all this other stuff. But the Lakers, he needs somewhere he can go try to win championships again, you know, carve out this last stage of his career.

The Lakers needed somebody to prop them back up again in the post-Cobie years. It was, it's the glitz of the Lakers. So you didn't need another tie or another reason. The Lakers are the reason. You're saying that Timberwolves don't carry the same gravitas as the Lakers? The Sixers have a lot of gravitas. The Sixers are, they haven't won in a long time. Timberwolves and the Lakers do share the same roots.

They're both from Minneapolis, ultimately. That's true. All right, let's take another quick break and just wrap up with a couple of Summer League and other notes. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together. to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows

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Summer League is here and we have Agent DeBanza versus Darren Peterson. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust.

Visit Wayfair.ca. Every style, every home. Tonight and tomorrow we have Campoosa versus Caleb Wilson. Those are the headliners. From there, it's sort of Peters out. Peterson was spectacular in the Salt Lake Summer League. Less spectacular tonight, but it's still up to 21 points. As we record this, we watch the first half together.

DeBanza is up to 27 points on, let's see. He's only seven of 18, seven of eight from the line, but that really equates to like 16 free throws because we're doing the one free throw for all the points thing. in Summer League. I just, I think both of these guys are going to be amazing. I'm super excited for the jazz to see George and Peterson play together. He got roughed up a little bit tonight.

The whiz were pressing him all over the floor. He took some bad shots. DeBanza, I mean, again, seven of 18, not super efficient, got to the line whenever he wanted. Took a lot of tough shots. And that's going to be interesting because that tough shot, mid-range diet is not going to work in the NBA the way it's worked for him at other levels.

He's going to have to learn to play off the ball more than he did tonight when Trey Young is running point for the weirdo wizards. But I actually loved what I saw from his pick and roll game tonight in Summer League. Like a lot of creative reads, some nice passes, a drive where he rejected the screen and dunked on everybody and brought the arena to its feet. Just physically and in terms of its instincts on both ends of the floor, I like can't fault the Wiz for taking them number one. I think all four of these guys are going to be awesome. And if I were a whiz fan, it's a weird group, but I would be over the moon by. AJ DeBance's Summer League Vegas debut tonight.

Nah, he was fun. I mean, you know, it's summer league. So things I don't care about, not worried about how efficient they are, not worried about how much they're, you know, really involving their teammates, even if you're one of the top picks, because while I want to see that kind of virtue in the regular season with your real teammates, in the summer league, you're playing with mostly guys you just met like five minutes ago and you might not even remember their names.

But I loved his aggression. I love the confidence. I, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, and I'm getting, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, and I'm getting, the, uh, I'll be out your way, uh, was that, Friday in Vegas. So I'll hopefully get to see these guys up close. Yeah, Peterson looked awesome in those games and was playing off the ball a lot tonight, which is, he has good instincts to play off the ball. is obviously his three-point shot gravity is outrageous and he's a good cutter.

And that's all going to come in handy when, you know, Markinen's going to have the ball some running the offense and Keonté George is going to have it a lot. I think both these teams, particularly the jazz, I think, are a top six contender right off the bat next year in the West. The WIS are not quite in the east. But if you look at their starting five, it's in theory, it's Trey Young, somebody at the two guard. I would put Balakula Bally or Kishan George. there, although Trey Johnson, Tray Johnson loving every second of Summer League.

Just like, just give me the ball. Even Will Riley also loving every second of summer league. And then DeBancis Sarr Davis. And then all three of those other guys will come off the bench along with Bub Carrington and, you know, all the, like I mentioned Tray J, Will Riley. DeAndre Aiton is now on the team. Imagine that.

There's like a decent amount of talent in Washington. I don't know how it's all going to mesh. I don't know how long Anthony Davis is for the Wizards, at least, you know, beyond the first half of next season. I assume he will be on the team then. It's kind of fun. They're kind of a fun team. And this is what we were going to talk about,

but other things happen. They are one of, we were going to do a segment and we're going to do this at some other time, looking at sort of the bottom teams in each conference or at least projected bottom teams and look at like this new relegation zone thing is now a thing in the NBA,

starting this year, the new lottery odds. And the teams we were going to look at the wizards, the bulls, the bucks, the pelicans, the moths, not necessarily a bottom, whatever team, just they were last year. The kings, the gris, the nets, and the clippers. That's, I think, nine teams. Of those teams, they all control their first round pick, except for the clippers, the thunder get to swap it.

Somehow, again, the thunder are in a swap with the clippers. The bucks do not get their pick at all. It goes to either New Orleans or Atlanta. and the nets have to swap with the Rockets, which is unfortunate for them. All the other teams, more or less, Dallas's situation is a little tricky, control their own first round pick,

which means they are motivated to not be one of the three worst teams in the NBA because then you get relegated lottery odds-wise. So like a team like the Wizards, they have, I think, an incentive to try to win. And I think they have actually the talent to try to win enough games to not be in that relegation zone. On the flip side, I look at the Kings, they own their own first round pick.

They have all the incentive to win. They're going to have a real... They are like the relegations on team to watch. Like, they're going to try real hard, and I'm just not sure they have enough talent. But the WIS are kind of interesting, and this is going to... It is going to be very fun to watch these teams

sort of navigate these new waters and these new incentives. I'm going to try to say this in a way that's not super confusing because it's confusing in my own head. But I'm wondering, as we go into the first year of this system, Zach, are the bad teams who know they're going to be bad, they know they're going to be in the lottery, are they actively trying to avoid the relegation zone and how and by what means will we see that?

Or has the NBA simply removed the incentive to be in what is now considered the relegation zone and that was previously the best zone to be in odds-wise, right? Because the real goal for the league was don't have incentive to be super, super awful. And what we now have is incentive, we now have incentive to get out of that, that bottom tier. So how that's going to manifest itself in terms of the way that teams manage their roster, their lineups, they're in the case of Yusuf Nurkich, their nose surgeries. Like, what exactly your team is going to do differently to avoid the relegation zone? And I guess it's more just don't shut guys down if they can still play.

don't put out super weird lineups and a bunch of two-way guys instead of actual NBA players. I guess it's that. And the net result will be better basketball. But whether we'll actually see a team is, quote unquote, trying to avoid the relegation zone, as opposed to simply just trying to just be competent.

I mean, it's a subtle difference, maybe. I mean, there's a significant, the best place to be in the new system is not in the play-in, but not one of the three worst teams in the league. There are seven teams in total. have like substantially better odds at a top five and top three pick. Obviously there's some incentive, um, perhaps to fall out of the play in and get into that slot.

I don't, I'm skeptical. We'll ever see a team sort of duck the playoffs and the plan on purpose. But I do think there's real incentive there. And then that's, that's good for the league. The most fascinating one and it broke my brain is Dallas, who owes their pick to the Hornets, but it, from the PJ Washington deal, I think, um, to the Hornets. top two protection, meaning they keep it if it's in the top two. So they're like, I think if I, if I played it out in my head right, they're like super

incentivized to chase the play in and playoff spot because they, they like being in the relegation zone is bad for them on every level. And because they, they want to either get one of the top two picks or chase a playoff spot. And I think they actually, I know this is a team you wanted to talk about. They're, they're kind of an interesting group now with Kyrie coming back. I think Kyrie, who has one year left after this, but it's a player option, is one of the most interesting players in the league, bar none for the next 18 months. The Mavs have loved having them around.

Cooper Flagg loves having them around. And yet it's undeniable that the Mavs have to reset their timetable a little bit around Cooper Flag. And a healthy, productive Karee would have a lot of value around the league. But they're a team that's in an interesting spot as well. And they just made the Santay Aldama trade. they drafted Morez, Mores Johnson from Michigan. And they're an interesting group. I know you wanted to, what did you want to say about them?

No, just that, because they're still kind of caught between eras, right? Like they're in the Cooper Flag era, but they're still kind of dealing with the residue of the Lucodontich era and the Lucodontich trade. And Kyrie is a big part of that. Kyrie, like, if they're going to be a team that actually makes noise in the Western Conference, and the Western Conference is still really tough. And I'm, I was taking a little bit of back about the jazz as a top six team, which would be a contender. Contender for a top six spot.

Yeah. I feel like the top six, barring the unforeseen, are still locked-ish. But I'm, you know, I'm not, yeah, I'm not confident. Kyrie's 34 years old. Last played in March of 2025. So it'll have been like 19 months or something between games, has never played with Cooper. Super Flag. Is Kyrie going to come back and still be a top 20, top 30, top, I don't know where he was when he left the stage, but, you know, what is he when he comes back? What level of star is he?

What kind of playmaking do they have outside of Kyrie and Cooper Flag? Because Cooper Flagg had to bear too much of it last season as a rookie. And where's the internal improvement coming from? Is it just the addition of Kyrie back from the injured list? But they had all the injuries last year, too. And so they're really hard to assess in that regard, right? Derek lively played seven games. They got less than 60 games each from Dafford and Washington. And we don't know when Derek lively is coming back full strength and he's a huge part of their team. And yeah, their depth is like there are a lot of question marks once you get by the top three or four guys on the team,

which is the case for all of these teams? Like Marcus Sasser is he going to contribute? What does Clay have left in the tank? Is Max Christie a legit starter at two guard? On and on and on. So to your point about this exercise about like, do you want to, are you actively trying to avoid, you're trying to avoid the relegation zone? and Dallas doesn't have their pick except if it's top two.

You can't manipulate this now, right? Like, if you ever could and you couldn't really because of the lottery, but to the extent that you could at least put yourself in a better position by losing, you can't really now. And this is a great example of it too, right? Because Dallas doesn't, we don't know which direction they might want to go. Are you adding or you subtracting? Are you flipping Kyrie for younger pieces and picks if that is something that's even available?

because you need to start building on Cooper Flagg's timeline. Does winning this season matter yet? I would argue no. Cooper flag going into a year two. But it is an interesting case study for this whole mixed bag of motivations with regard to the lottery. I think they want to win games. I think Dallas wants to win games. I mean, in all these teams that we're going to have chances to talk about down the line are in earnesting.

Like New Orleans, what the hell is New Orleans? Does anyone know? the end of Zion's contract. He has only one year left after this year. Joe Dumars has said over and over again, we want to build around them, we want to keep them. That's all going to be tested.

I can't wait to watch Memphis play tomorrow. Brooklyn has Julius Randall on their team. That's the thing that happened in a bunch of young guards. It's very interesting. All right, Howard Beck, it's getting late here, even in Las Vegas. I haven't eaten dinner yet, so I'm getting hangary. Anything that we left out that you wanted to hit?

No, that's it. I did write about the whole LeBron shenanigans. at the ringer.com earlier this week. Yeah, earlier this week. People want to go check that out. And yeah, back on the real ones grind, I think. Is it next week? We're on a summer schedule. I'm not sure. But I'll be seeing you in Vegas soon. Maybe we'll grab a drink at a teaky bar or something. Oh, God. We're not going back to the teak bar with the talking parents. That's over. Howard Beck, thank you, sir. Thanks, Zach. All right, that's it for today's episode of the Zach Lowe Show, barring a LeBron emergency.

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