The NBA Summer Movement Preview With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

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All right, 5 .30 p .m. Pacific time on a Sunday night.

You know, in years past, and we've been doing this since I think 2018 range, and there was always something, either a massive event, Rosillo, or like something we didn't expect right around like in that 36 -hour stretch before July 1st. I don't think the Jabari Smith extension has really qualified for me.

I don't know if you feel differently.

it's just nothing's really happening yet and yet there are all these moving pieces right now and I was just going to throw a bunch of stuff that I'm fascinated by so far since the finals have ended I'll start here I really like everything Houston's doing it's getting a 10 out of a 10 approval rating for me from the Durantrade which we already talked about they signed Jabari Smith today to a 5 year $122 million extension, they renegotiated with Van Vliet, got him at $25 million for two years each year.

And I just like the roster they put together.

It makes sense to me.

I'm not sure they need to do anything else.

And I think they're a real threat in the West now.

And they have stability and assets.

I think they have flexibility to do more stuff in December, January, February if they need to.

And I think they're in the mix.

I really do. What is your take on the Rockets?

Love what they've done.

I think we've kind of I touched on just a bunch of the things, even going back to last year, where they were one of the rare teams that spends a top pick on Jalen Green and then just doesn't give him the full max because he scored a million points.

They structured that deal in a way where it was like, we like you, but we're still not sure.

I think that showed you the rare— I want to get into some of these other deals where it feels like the overriding sentiment the last couple of days has just been teams doing players' favors, receivers, but they've been really just smart and calculated about it all.

Like when the Van Vliet signing happened, you looked at the total numbers.

You're like, well, that's nuts.

And it's like, what are they going to do with that player option?

Well, or excuse me, the team option.

So they declined the team option because it didn't really make a ton of sense that Van Vliet was going to make 45 million for one year.

They do the new deal two years, 25 million.

So that's a win for them.

Probably a little more stability.

Well, it's also kind of a win for him too, right?

Because they were going to decline the option and now he's out in the open market and And not looking at 45 million anyway, 25 million would have been the range.

Yeah. And even then it was going to be tough to find a landing spot because everybody like sits here.

Every article you read, it's like other than Brooklyn, other than Brooklyn, other than, you know, so some of these numbers, but even the Jabari deal, it's five for one 22, but seriously, like he's probably kind of like in a make or break season, but 20 plus million a year for him at this age, knowing that if it doesn't work out, you can trade him.

And then I was looking at, this is where it can get a little confusing on like, if they do this or they do that.

And, you know, they had to get cute with with some of the restructuring of how they were working their books.

But I think they can still use a full non -taxpayer mid -level if they want to get greedy for 14 .1.

Yeah. Yeah. So they've positioned themselves really well.

They'll probably do the Durant extension, I'd imagine, which is always going to be a little scary.

But hell, I was even like thinking, man, if I'm another team and Jay Sean Tate is available, I loved him when he got minutes and then they find a way to keep him.

so I'm incredibly impressed so I don't even know other than what Stephen Adams three years 39 million is there anything to really go like whoa I mean yeah it's like if it had been three years 30 I would have been like nice deal 39 is like a wee bit rich but you know splitting hairs they're number four in the unfriendles champion odds right now nine to one okay see the favorite Cleveland is six to one Knicks are nine to one and the Rockets are nine to one and I think that's I think that's fair I Minnesota is 14 -1, which I thought Minnesota and Houston would have similar odds, but the better is like

Houston a little more than Minnesota.

And that's the second story that ties into Houston and also ties into the big picture of all of this.

They keep Nas Reed, which I thought was impossible in February.

And I didn't realize what was going to happen with the market.

They kept Nas Reed.

That contract next year starts at $21 million.

He's a $30 million player.

Like in normal times, like basically what this new CBA has done is like when you buy a car, there's like this new car tax that you're basically paying for the moment you take the car off the lot.

The number of that car decreases by 25%, right?

You're just basically paying because you want a new car.

And MBA free agency has had this forever where it's like, well, Nas read is not worth 160 million for five years.

He's worth probably 120, but now you got to pay the extra 40 million to get Nas read.

It feels like this new CBA has eliminated the new car tax and Randall is $100 million for three years.

It's not $125 million for three years.

The last deal that we have that I think a team would regret is that Brandon Ingram deal where Toronto trades for him and then gives him, what was it, $120 million for three years.

it's just out of whack.

He's not, I don't think he, I think he should be in that Randall range of three for a hundred.

So we've seen a resetting and we've seen the smarter teams kind of lock down these contracts.

And I think it's going to be a free for all with these free agents where that we're just a bunch of guys who are like, wait, I thought I was worth this and say, nah, you actually aren't.

You're actually, the numbers have moved down here and that's just the reality of it.

Yeah, Minnesota is a big part of this because you had to figure with the cap trade because how big those numbers get at the back end.

And then Rudy did an extension, which was less annually than what he was building towards.

He's like, okay, they're probably trying to figure out a way to lock in this number that doesn't prevent total flexibility here.

But did you think they would be able to keep Randall and Nas?

Because I would have thought that would be impossible in February.

Well... I mean, who's going to pay Nas more than $25, $30 million a year?

Nobody. Nobody has the space.

Yeah. That's the thing.

Maybe I didn't look at it hard enough four months ago, but I just assume there would be the way the league works where it's like somebody creates space or there's a sign -and -trade or there's some suitor, and it's like, whoa, Indiana's getting Nas Reid?

How did that happen?

It seems like that era's over.

Nobody can do it. Well, I don't know that we're going to have a year where there's one team with major cap space and then nobody else does but i right i think there was also teams that were like you know where do i park my shit where do i park it oh there's there's nowhere to park it i mean think about like brooklyn they have their five picks it's like what are you going to do offer them another first to take on a contract sean marx is like hey boys you know open up the notebooks books we got six ball handling guard right and even then they took on um Terrence Mann's deal so they're it's just

such a rarity that you really didn't have anybody especially with the way the Detroit stuff worked out like at one point you thought could Detroit get a 25 million dollar player in there where their cap space but then Cade gets the bump so then that kind of eliminates that so Nas when I heard the first like offering like four years for a hundred I just assume whatever number I hear you like tack on a little bit more to it so when it came out I wasn't entirely shocked the Randall one like I was really looking at it this morning so he goes three years for a hundred ops out of the player option 35

.8 all right now too often I will look at a deal and go I hate to be in the Randall business for a hundred million dollars or I'd hate to be like there's too often I say it with too many players where it's like hey dude like I have to check check myself and go well at some point you have to sign somebody and you can't just let assets just walk for absolutely nothing yeah the top 60 guy you just gotta blink and suck it up yeah right and so if you think of randall's because i think there was still a little sticker shock and that's probably just the recency bias of the last series and you could say

well hey he was really good in the first two rounds well was that potentially the matchups that he was going up against i don't know i mean all that stuff i think is totally fair but i went back to 2021 where randall signed a four year deal with the Knicks for 117 million.

So it is four years, 117 million.

And that's when the salary cap is at 112 million.

Well, now the salary cap's north of 150 million and you're getting Randall for like, you know, depending on how they stagger with 8 % raises over the years, it's kind of the same contract.

And this is somebody four years ago, you were wondering during before he was um actually excuse me we were thinking back to last august if he was going to do a four -year like 184 million dollar extension like that was one of the things that was on the table like what if he puts up this huge granted i don't know what brunson he was going to get the same number of touches but you know three years for 100 million even though i don't love the guy that kind of puts him in the 70th highest paid player range that's kind of what he costs this This is what's changed, though, where it's become a little

more like movies. The star stars are going to get even more money.

Like Booker's going to get $75 million a year for two years or three years, whatever that extension is.

Whatever Luka wants to wait for, too.

Luka, SGA, Tatum already signed.

Especially if you have some sort of LNBA, you're looking at $65 million and up.

But then there's that class right below.

And we're seeing some of those Toronto contracts that none of them, But neither you or I really liked.

You go back and look at some of those deals now, like what Quickly signed for, what Ingram signed for.

And I just don't think, I think those guys would be 20 to $25 million guys in whatever this new version of the market is.

Quickly got five years, 162, fully guaranteed.

Which was my thing with Nas Reed.

It's like, if that's Quickly's price, how is Nas Reed not a $30 million a year guy?

But apparently those days are over.

But I looked up some of this other stuff too, too, like Nick Claxton was four years, 97 million.

So like you get sticker shock over Randall.

It's like, well, there's way more to Randall than what Nick Claxton is at this point.

Tobias Harris. Granted, it was shorter years, but it was two years, 52 million because Detroit's like, well, we've had him in here before.

Make some shots. John Collins.

I mean, this deal wasn't 21.

That was one of my favorites.

Five years, 125 million fully guaranteed.

Oh, he's making 26 this year.

Well, that's why Reeves turned down Reeves turned down 4 for 97 because he's one of those guys that actually can get to the 5 -150 I think.

Everybody knew that was getting turned down.

Even the Lakers were like, we knew he was going to turn it down but we just wanted to make them know that we were interested.

But that was like a done deal because it doesn't make any sense for him to do it knowing what's coming or what he's potentially eligible for.

When Collins picked up his player option for $26 .5 million do you know how old Collins is by the way off the top of your head isn't he still in his 20s he's 28 yeah he's just he came in the league pretty early yeah because if you look at the the uh the big free agents that are left because everybody basically got locked down and then Harden looked like he did a deal so Kyrie's three for 119 Harden's two for 81 so for that caliber where it seems like 40 million a year.

Randall, it seems a little light, but it also seems like he wanted to lock down a little long -term security.

So that Randall range is like 33 to 35 billion a year.

And then that Nas Reid range five for 125, that's about 25 a year.

And that seems like that's the hierarchy now.

So if you have a guy who's not one of the best three players in your team, but is super valuable like Nas Reid, it's in the 20 to 25 range, Jabari Smith.

Right? That's another one.

I don't know if this is going to last. By the way, the cap keeps going up 10 % every year.

So it might, as we keep going, there's more teams with cap space next year.

There's going to be a bunch of them.

Maybe this will flip, but this was the reality of this year.

Uh, Davion Mitchell two for 24, which just seems like a normal free agent contract any other year, but that's probably the price now for a roll guy, 10 million, 12 million, maybe shorter money.

So when I look at Finney Smith opting out with the Lakers, which I thought was interesting today and really speaks to how weird the Lakers situation is right now.

But I don't know, is he getting more than that?

Probably not. Maybe he'll get more years.

But he's looking at that $14 .1 million free agent exception, which half the teams in the league have. And maybe you can add three years to that.

It's three for 50, something like that.

But in the old days, he might've gotten like four for 75, like some really dopey max truce remember that contract i think those contracts are done max just four for 64 that's not happening anymore it may happen in the way that a team is not worried about the apron they're not worried about the tax and they go to we don't lose the asset for nothing i mean i think you're still going to see some of that stuff happen because i think there's another part of this summer no no no i'm talking like down the road yeah yeah i i just think it's very rare that that you have...

Like, it was two forces fighting each other.

One was one team with cap space that doesn't want to do anything with it, and then also not a ton of available free agents.

So I think that there are teams that probably could have held a much harder line if they wanted to be, like, way harder on teams. That might be happening right now.

Okay, but think about the Harden deal.

Like, Harden has a player option at $36 .5 million.

He signs for $81 .5 million.

So he gets a raise of like maybe a couple million for one year.

I mean, you could envision a scenario where the Clippers go, hey, if you opt out, you really want to go to free agency?

Who's signing you? So why don't you just pick up the player option?

And granted, all this stuff is worked out ahead of time, and I'm sure they're very happy with how productive he was.

He was all NBA in a way that you didn't really expect.

Like, this isn't about the playoff part of it.

Are they happy? Well, they gave Manny $1 .5 million, so they must feel pretty good about it.

we were at dinner with the Clippers people before they agreed to that contract and wine was going around and it's like 10 30 at night at the table, do you think somebody would have been basically just like, I just gotta say this game seven, are we sure we want two more years of this?

Like, there's no way they didn't have that conversation in the room at some point over the last four weeks.

Like, are we sure we want to do this?

Should we just talk about game seven again?

Because I think it's so hard to find guys in the top 50 that you just got to suck it up and you start going glass half full instead of glass half empty.

But there had to have been a moment in the last four weeks.

Like Ty Lue, there's no way he didn't crunch that game seven tape one more time and just like, my God, he won't fucking look at the rim.

Like, we're going to do this for two more years.

He won't fucking look at the rim.

But they did it because teams are so scared about not having an asset they'd rather have the asset they're not happy with.

Like, all right, we'll just get him figured out.

But I don't know. They said him in the open market.

What was he going to do?

Where was he going?

That's my point is there are multiple examples these last couple of days where a team could have been like, all right, you want to opt out?

Like, you want to raise from us and you want to throw in another player controlled second year?

Because the 81 and a half, the first year is fully guaranteed.

The second year is partially guaranteed, but it is a player option.

So we can be right back to this.

But he was never opting out.

worst case scenario he's opting in and grabbing that making sure he gets that one thing so that that was always how this is going to play out and the same thing for rando i think rando was ultimately he had to opt in that's that's the leverage the team said now whether this will be the case in three years from now when the cap is way higher right and everybody has recalibrated their books to some degree i don't know but i think this is the this is the weirdest summer since 2016 for just looking at either...

In 2016, it was the opposite.

People had so much cap space.

They were at the strip joint at three in the morning.

Evan Turter, Luol Deng.

That could be a documentary.

Think about that summer.

All those guys made more money than most of the free agency're going to make this summer.

Yeah, right. And then the players didn't understand, for the most part, what was going on.

And then once they realized, they were like, hey, so we were told not softening the cap would be good.

for us and you know the way that story goes the people were trying to explain it to players leadership and players you know association was like absolutely not and you know i can understand it too it's like what does that mean like no we want all of our money and the money that we're just like the way it works is this is how it goes and then all of a sudden everybody's just flush with cash and you're right like the evan turner contract when that one happened i just remember thinking like well that's wrong there's there's no way evan turner got set what was it 70 million I don't even think that was the one

I was the most upset about.

I think the Noah one was the most shocking one to me because there were real signs that he might be headed toward the downside.

It was like nobody had watched the previous season.

Speaking of cap space, this is another story I have in my eye on Russillo.

This has multiple tentacles to it.

Detroit now is going to have cap space, it looks like, because everyone thought they were going to re -sign Malik Beasley.

and apparently they had, it was reported that they were thinking about three years 42 for them, for him.

And that was going to take them out of free agent cap stuff, right?

They're probably going to let Schroeder go.

Tim Hardaway Jr., who knows?

But Beasley, so Beasley was going to be their free agent.

Then we get, we wake up this morning and he's in a gambling, being investigated.

Detroit is backed off of the thing.

He's now in some sort of, God only knows what's going to happen with that.

We can talk about that piece later.

but now Detroit is going to have like 17 million.

And then if they can trade some contracts or, you know, get somebody to take somebody out, they can probably get to 20, maybe even 25.

If somebody took Fontenaccio and all of a sudden, they're probably the biggest suitor out of all these dudes.

I don't know if there's anybody left, but that could be a Finney Smith spot.

I don't know. I think we've talked about in the past, like the East, who knows Indy, Boston, And, you know, you can, Detroit could have a chance to be like a two or three seed.

This is a really big decision for them who they're going to add.

And there's a lot of guys that I like too.

So what do they do?

Well, I mean, how, how many guys do you like?

How many of you guys do you like that are playing in their playoff rotation that are worth a multi -year investment, knowing that there's other players they're going to have to pay soon.

All right. I'll give you some, I do like Alexander Walker a lot.

I don't know if he's a top three guy, but I, we watched him play in a playoff series I like how he played.

I still like Ty Jerome.

I'm not going to get thrown off by that weird Indiana series.

I watched too many games during the season when he was just incredible.

And I know you're an even bigger fan.

He was just too impactful off the bench too many times.

Finney Smith, Yavaselli.

Then it starts getting, those are probably the top four for me.

That's why I was surprised that you said you liked that many people.

Those are four good ones though.

there's probably a conversation about Jerome allowing Cade to be off the ball a little bit instead of just having him run high pick and roll like you know 90 % of the game and providing spacing because Cade clearly I think this one year proved like if you give this guy a little bit of spacing what you could potentially lose the Beasley thing because you know Beasley's another guy even prior to all this news like I don't know I don't really want to pay you 14 million dollars a year and he may have just because he shot it so well this season so So, who knows?

Teams are always desperate for shooting.

I think I would have done that.

Not knowing. You would have done it?

Yeah, I think. I thought he was really good last year.

I know the playoffs he was a little up and down, but I really liked how he played last year.

I thought he was important to them.

I thought he was feisty.

Ty Jerome on Detroit, I like the feisty factor.

I could see him holding back Ron Holland.

I could see him convincing Beef Stew not to charge back at the other team's huddle, but maybe also trying to agitate things, too.

I could see him in there.

see I could see Stu being like well now the tie's here we have two dogs but Jerome can initiate the offense he can play off of guys Cade could play off of him a little bit and I I do think they tried to find ways to have Schroeder initiate some stuff to give Cade a break from just being the same every single time but it's very it's very clear that you need to have spacing around him so i think that's more important than them having another big guy even if you felt at times you know it's asking a lot of dern to just hold up the entire time against some of the bigger teams if they're going to go

a little bit deeper so yeah i just don't think it's really that long of a list of 14 .1 million dollar guys for the non -taxpayer mid -level would you rather have ty jerome or malik beasley no gambling scandal next year if you're the Pistons.

I'm not saying this because of what happened today.

I don't really trust Beasley.

I think he's the guy that hit shots and then the last two minutes of the game, I don't expect him to go in.

It would have been funnier if you said I trusted him before today.

Now I don't trust him as much. I went on an amazing rabbit hole with him.

I was all the way into the 2023 -24 season game logs.

That's the one that's being investigated.

I actually think it's awful.

I mean, this is not not a rant uh about the innocent until proven guilty or the guilty until proven innocent way that it seems to work now where people can just be charged with stuff and then it's just like your entire reputation is tarnished i just think there's a lot of dudes out there that see a bad play and then they post it and everybody's so excited to be like yep look at that he didn't get back all that stuff that happened after that yeah that was rough oh wait so i thought that's That's what you said you were watching.

No, I was watching the I was just I wasn't watching.

I was looking at the game logs and trying to figure out because they was reported on ESPN that they were studying January 2024.

And I'm like, huh? Let's lock in here.

Went through and who knows?

But it sucks because, first of all, shitty story.

I feel bad for him because he played really well last year.

and you know, it doesn't seem great when the feds get involved, not awesome.

So we'll see what happens with that, but they're going to have cap space to do whatever.

Yeah. And it might, you know, sometimes teams go, let's use it now, no matter what, like just make sure we use it before we lose this.

And then we'll worry about the asset management part of this a little bit later, but you know, the length of the commitment to the guys that are left over.

There's only a couple names that I'd feel really comfortable about going a bunch of years with.

Alexander Walker? I like him, but he's a bench player on a good team.

I mean, he could close with you maybe if he gets hot.

It's not the worst thing, but with the way Detroit is trending right now and hoping between Assar, Cade, Ivy coming back healthy, Durin, Harris when you're paying them north of $20 million a year.

Still trying to figure out what you have with Holland.

Kaminga? No, I'd rather pay Alexander Walker than Kaminga.

So you agree with me that Ty Jerome would be the move?

It makes the most sense.

I can already see it.

I really like it. Now, we also could be, like, overrating him a little bit.

But he was so impactful in so many different games.

And I'm sure, like, you know, best case scenario, it's like, does it become a Ty Jerome Thompson debate of what they were doing even against the Knicks?

It's like, well, what do we want to do?

Do we want to close with defense or do we want to close with shooting?

Yeah. Because to this point, it's just not somebody anybody's going to close out on, never mind, like, a playoff game, even in the regular season.

So, at least Jerome, I think, brings that respect and probably clear up some of the stuff for Cade and what he wants to do driving.

The free agent, 14 .1 million free agent spot teams. I think I have this right.

Indiana, Atlanta, Philly, Milwaukee, Washington, Charlotte, Chicago, Sacramento, New Orleans, Utah, OKC, Houston, Portland, San Antonio, and Golden State, if Kaminga goes.

It's more than half the league.

and then you have uh Brooklyn and Memphis have that 8 .8 a couple other teams do I don't know how many people get the 14 .1 what would you do over under on FanDuel how many guys get the 14 .1 would you say more than five from the list you've seen I mean it seems like no it does feel like it's a low number but you know it's how many teams think that they're in it.

Our team's in the West going like, hey, let's go to ownership and be like, hey, what do you think we're going to do?

We're going to win 48 games and be like, okay, now let's use our $14 .1 million tax.

So Houston was the one, I don't even know if they need Finney -Smith.

But that one made me think about it.

Right. Let's go for it here, right?

It's like, if you have Finney -Smith with Tari, with Amen, and it's like, just I don't know.

That was floating around a little bit today and I was like, oh man, I don't even know if they need him, but they're going for it this year.

For the people listening, the UFAs, Finney Smith, Miles Turner, technically right now, but everyone thinks he's going back to Indiana.

Ty Jerome, Alexander Walker, Capella, Bruce Brown, now underrated.

I don't know if you want to join me on buying some Bruce Brown is now underrated stock.

uh post yoke itch okay yaba selly can i answer you in a in a 14 million pour you a glass of yaba selly maybe 8 .8 yeah yeah of course i mean to me like anything under 10 is like and you can play you can be a rotation guy luke canard yeah where's the range for him there 8 .8 the thing is is like if you go hey we'll give you four for 40 and then every agent is going to say we can get 14 and then with as many teams as you just listed like good luck being the gm that's going to call the bluff on a guy that you actually want so you're probably just going to pay him to 14 i think i've said this to you

but my dream luke canard team is denver putting him with the oak edge i think would be really fun schroeder who i think is probably not a 14 guy but might be an 8 .8 man this one hurts i luke cornet i think teams like them like uh i don't think this is going to go well for the celtics i thought there was going to be a way that they were going to bring back luke cornet and horford i don't see it so far everything is working out for him so i'm not going to rule out anything what do you still i still can't believe that they were able to dump drew's contract and get back Anthony Simons and I still

can't Believe that it's another fan base that holds out Hope that Przingis is going to be healthy I said it was a borderline miracle On my Thursday pod that They shared $28 million with those Two guys it was incredible how It turned out I was getting texts like yo what's up With Brad is he like a fucking wizard Like what's How did he do this I still Like KP but I you know why cut 22 million I thought was was a miracle can you expand on why you you like Prozingas I think for what Atlanta gave up like whatever it's one year it's a one year flyer in him when he played last year he was really really

good I have no idea what happened to him in the playoffs nobody's been able to answer it and we've all agreed never to talk about it again for some reason the guy was unplayable and looked like he had like a like a virus I don't understand what happened him and now he's fine he's playing for the lafayette thing it's really weird when he's healthy he's good and the idea of what he can be is a rim protecting stretch five is still really valuable but even when the celtics made that deal even though I liked him a lot I was like so you had a tack on like two more years at 30 plus million for this guy

and then I still feel like celtics fans revisit 24 being like you know he was huge it's it's kind of it's kind of like the A guy that's getting laid off And you're saying it like The lunch where people are getting cake or whatever And it's like although there's usually not a lot Of cake that's where That's where Porzingis was for you the guy getting laid Off at lunch yeah but People just like pat him on the back And be like you know this department just None of this would have happened without you When the reality is if he was that valuable then he probably Would have still been there and it felt

Like that's what people were saying about Porzingis in the 24 title run I was like well those That Dallas that one Dallas game Hey, man.

Do you really think he was a great turn this season, though?

Come on. He was great during the season, but he got hurt.

He got hurt like everybody was worried that he would get hurt and he got all the time.

He got hurt again. Right.

And so the way I've seen the Atlanta part of the acquisition is like, oh, you know, like like, sure, maybe.

And at least for them, it's only one year.

Then Celtics had to make that extra investment.

but it becomes one of those transactions that's going to be remembered as a win because they won a title when they didn't need him for the title run in 24 whatsoever and not having him again this year and having this version I understood why Missoula tried to play him it was clearly he was trying to get something out of him but I actually feel like that transaction was a loss but no one will ever remember it that way because they won a title I think it's a win because they won a title last year sucked and then they were able to get out of the contract So I think ultimately the fact that they were able to

escape, but they escaped because it's weird. I don't, I didn't do a good job of talking about this the other day.

I still don't know what Brooklyn was doing.

Getting the 22nd pick and Terrence man who makes a real, real amount of money, like 15 million.

We just were, I was going through those UFAs with you.

Terrence man was a free agent.

I don't think he's getting 15 million, right?

Like I said, the other guys I was going to mention was Schroeder, Cornette, Kavon Looney, Batum, Porter, Gary Trent, Tim Hardaway, Brogdon, Chris Paul, Levert, Horford, Duncan Robinson now.

You go on and on. Terrence Mann for $15 million is not exactly a bargain.

And I wasn't that excited about the 22nd pick in the draft. So I don't really know what Brooklyn was doing with that.

Did you understand that?

When they already had all those picks to take on the money?

Four fucking first -rounders already.

Yeah. and especially the way people felt about this draft i guess there's all sorts of like man bogdanovich net stuff that i don't understand like collectively about the whole transaction it's like okay so you didn't want to lose bogdanovich you were sick of him granted he just sucked this past season that he was with atlanta yeah and so it's like all right let's get this guy out of here so they trade him at the deadline and don't forget bones highland in that transaction.

And then they take on Mann's contract and then it's like, now we have to dump it.

Granted, leadership had changed and everything.

So it was just a weird series of transactions.

Why did you trade for him five months ago?

So Atlanta basically trades Niang, Terrence Mann, and the 22nd pick to take a real flyer on Porzingis with some flexibility to do some other stuff.

I still kind of like it.

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That is loom .com. So we're talking about those, there's six RFAs and it seems like Grimes is going back to the sixers for in that 14 to 60 million range.

Yeah. It seems like a pretty big number.

I was surprised he had like one big month for them we've got to watch him for the last four or five years and it just seemed a little aggressive didn't you think I thought it would have been like around 10 unless they thought there was some team that was just going to sign him if they didn't give the money yeah I think sometimes too it's like anybody like you're only making so much you know he's going to make that much after the fact and I've always kind of liked him a little bit, even going back to those Knicks years and then it was something else to get on Dallas' case about by getting rid of him

and then bringing in the Caleb Martin contract where you're like, why are you bringing in this?

That's part of Nico's plan.

How about that guy?

People starting to understand the vision because the lottery just worked out for you?

There was a vision all along.

The vision was we're going to cash in on 1 .8 % chance with the lottery.

We've had a vision all along that we would have a miracle in May.

Sixers have been busy though because Yeah, Oubre picked up the option.

Yeah, I thought you were going to report that.

I was waiting to hear that from you.

Well, honestly, from another reporter, he hasn't been one of my favorites.

But for 8 .4 for him, that's kind of a win.

But that's Philly. Yeah, that's that's one of the differences, though, between like, what's Oubre's representation saying to him about like what's out there for him.

And if they're coming back going, hey, we didn't think you get the 14.

Then that's clearly why he's picking that up.

Lonnie Walker, see, Eric Gordon.

You I mean, I don't know.

There was some rumor that declining to 3 .4 million means they can get him at a lower number, bring him back.

Certainly that's still in the ballpark.

But the Grimes number, he was really productive.

But yeah, I think we're in agreement that I was like, man, that thing's going to get north of like 15 million for him.

I was surprised. I would have guessed in the tens.

There's some other veterans.

Like Russ is back. I know you're excited about that as a free agent.

I can't wait. GP2 is out there.

I like him. brooke lopez who i did not think was good last year but i think there's so few centers out there that he'll get one more where you stand on lauravia i like lauravia i just kind of like them too you know as a one more shot probably short years maybe i'd overpay for a year to give it a but i'd have to have like a club option on the second year maybe and then maybe his reps are absolutely not like it depends on where he's going to go and what kind of options he's going to get do you have any Kian Ellis excitement very active player Dean Whitty I know you're not a fan we know where you're

standing on D 'Angelo Russell who's available Tyus Jones not a quit himself great in Phoenix it really starts going downhill from the from the RFA's Santel Dama I think is an interesting one and I wonder if he could slide into that 14 14 .1 potentially for somebody trying to pull no I think Memphis will they match well they be psyched they'd be thrilled if they took an offer sheet at 14 .1 because I think he's a 20 million dollar guy if Jabari's that high yeah I do I think you put him in the Jabari level he's more productive than Jabari is I actually think he's shown more than Jabari has in my head

I am a notch lower but maybe you're right I don't know yeah I think Aldama is actually pretty underrated I'm not telling you like think he's like a two on a really good playoff team.

But the Bane contract and that deal, even though we had a lot of fun as soon as it happened, it seems pretty clear that it was about flexibility for whatever is coming for Alabama, a Jaron Jackson extension, and then figuring this thing out on the fly again.

And maybe if they get a rotation.

There's another piece.

I think they were excited about, maybe they knew they had a chance to get Coward in the draft. I think they love Wells.

They have all these other dudes.

I think they just This seems like they felt like wings by committee.

We can replace Bain stats, which I'm not against. I still don't think they should have traded them, but I get the logic.

I'm not against the logic of it.

I just wouldn't have traded them.

But it does feel like they're, and look, they're one of the smarter front offices.

I think what they do is they go, okay, you know, this is a haul for Bain and we really like them, but we're getting in front of this and then we can clean up our books.

And now we're going to have multiple chances here to fill things in around how, you know, we identify the top three guys you know maybe aldama's that third maybe he isn't wells is certainly more of a defensive guy yeah okay but i if aldama were there's no way he's going to sign an offer sheet for 14 .1 million because the grizzlies would be pumped i would think their reps would already know like hey partner plan is getting you settled you think he would sign that no i just i don't know anything anymore with these numbers i don't know who i i can't get a handle on it i'll be the first one to admit

it but so the difference with that bane trade versus how i felt about the new orleans trade a couple days ago the bane trade i get the logic i just personally would have done it but i get it and if you feel like you can replace them with the wings like i get it the new orleans not putting a top five protection on that pick i don't get you're never going to convince me that that was a good idea and i know you feel the same and i know know, everybody else who follows basketball.

Like nobody will ever understand why you played it that way.

It was poorly done and that's it.

And it has nothing to do with whether you think Derrick Queen's good or not.

He might be really good.

The point is you put this crazy price on moving up 10 spots that you didn't need to do and is absolutely reckless and incomprehensible.

And I still don't get it five days later, four days later.

I don't get it, man.

Everybody's talking about it too.

still yeah everybody's talking about it them and LeBron are the two kind of stealth topics right now what the hell is New Orleans doing there's been a lot of nets in there they really did it a lot of ball handlers there's some your guy Yang I definitely feel like I think your guy Yang Give me, Bill, I want a couple minutes on him.

The floor is yours.

Well, here's the thing.

And this goes back to your New Orleans point.

So if they're really calling around trying to move up for Derek Queen and they're for Portland, can we move up to your spot to number 11 before they trade back to 16?

Can we move up to 11 because we really want Derek Queen mean and you can have 20 23 whatever it was and you could just and we'll give you this crazy unprotected pick they could have taken yang at 23 right nobody would have nobody would have taken him from there before that you really feel like he would have gone before 23 he was killing at the combine dude uh chances are no chinese joker yeah yeah because i was getting a a few of the picks like ahead of time yeah and so i got all i got was uh oh my god wait until you see 16 so the guy wasn't gonna like yeah give it to me because he wanted me to

experience it live do you have any chance you have any thought in your head yang could go in the top 25 No. No, but I did get a few texts of like, your guy.

The backdoor shit was really high level.

I mean, I couldn't watch enough of it.

Oh, I watched all of it.

I gotta admit, he wasn't on my radar going into Wednesday night, but he jumped into the radar.

I tell you, if you watch his mixtape, you're like, how did he last until 16?

You've seen the future of basketball.

I heard that, at the very least, they just feel like there's revenue from him because of the China pipeline when you have these guys on a team.

You just make money from them.

You make real money, and if he's good, it's a bonus.

But then they obviously liked him as a player too, as a project.

But if you can get this guy and keep them on your team for five years, there's real revenue that comes with that.

It would help if he's good too.

Hollinger does a really good job on just pointing out how there's a lot of international stats that are good indicators.

They're better than college stats and how they translate to what you should expect a college player becoming an NBA player.

And his argument was like, hey, look, the league he played in, he wasn't exactly killing it there.

And that's a little alarming.

NBA castoffs are crushing it.

That can't even stick in the NBA.

And they're killing it in this league.

And like, now, granted, he's really, really young.

young but for somebody that big that moved that well that had these little flashes of like well that was kind of cool like i figured okay this guy's definitely going to get drafted now uh but i didn't yeah there's no way i thought it would be said it's it's so funny that he went to portland the team probably that you and i talk about the most that just makes no sense that should be in our lives in any way and now like you know the true thing i still feel like there's some real benefits with the uh with the leadership stuff and the veteran stuff with him and just having like a real adult in there

and he's a beloved teammate there's reasons beyond just trading simon that's a pretty expensive beloved teammate man two years listen they're trying to change the culture they're trying to build around a defense last time well i mean two years ago they're trying to tank it was part of the trade all right but i don't know yeah i get it right all right they're They're tanking that and now the refielders.

The fear is... I'd rather not pay a 37 -year -old guy two years from now $37 .4 million for vibes.

Here's the other problem is the playoffs, I think, made us all nervous with him.

It wasn't awesome. If he's moving toward a slightly different phase of his career, that 37 -year contract.

But listen. I thought it was a big price to pay.

and i still like when we're talking about more on the southwester side but i can't get on portland they took my guy lobs scoot to yang and then here's the thing i don't even know he was he was hansen yang at the combine and now he's young hansen so who knows opening night what his name gonna be then gonna be dave dave yang no i'm serious like there's so many times with international guys you just go through the cycle of what the fuck's this guy's name again so potentially we We could have Scoot, Drew Holiday, Kamara, Denny, and Yang out there all at the same time.

I don't know. I'll have a good time.

I can't wait for the first Aiden quote when Yang's getting his minutes.

Because they still have Klingon too.

I assumed as teams got desperate for centers that there would actually be an Aiden market that would materialize, and I'm not going to count it out.

because, I mean, we should talk about the trade that Sexton Nurkic traded today.

I thought that was a dumbfounding trade.

I didn't understand that at all.

Utah traded Sexton with a second round pick to get Nurkic back and I can't tell if this means centers have become more valuable or what's going on because Phoenix tried to trade Nurkic for two months last season and nobody wanted him and they finally had to attach some stuff to get rid of him.

Sexton, say what you want about the dude.

The guy's like a 40 % three point shooter and scores 18 a game in like 28 minutes.

Like he's a real guard. He's a real offensive player that would help a bunch of good teams. And Charlotte just basically took them.

I didn't understand that trade at all.

The only thing I can understand is between Collier and Keontae George, who, you know, you still have hope for with Utah.

And then, you know, you just feel kind of guard heavy.

And Clayton Jr. is coming in.

Clayton Jr. the draft. pick who was awesome as we all know um you know they clearly they don't really know what they are at this point and we'll see what happens with ace and all these different things like they wanted to make some room but i would tell you like the player you're getting back in nurkic versus the player that's going out and they're both expiring around 19 million and you can get on their case for having to attach a second rounder you know whatever uh it just feels like player for player charlotte got the much better player and i have an extra reason and that I think that trade

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that trade was so weird that I now feel like Utah that was the trade before the trade I really do and you know there's been rumors about them trading Kessler the Lakers have wanted them for two years but I was just in a trade machine rabbit hole trying to figure out what the next move was and do you have any?

well there's a LeBron piece we have to talk about to Utah?

not LeBron to Utah Utah.

I don't, I don't feel like that would happen, but I think Utah is a facilitator and a three team trade with Utah and Cleveland.

I just feel like I, it just sent my shit detector off.

And that rarely happens with trades where I'm like, huh, I'm pretty sure Danny Ainge knows basketball and I know Austin does.

And they just traded Colin Sexton with a pick to get Nerkage.

And I just feel like that means something else is going to happen.

I was in the trade machine trying to figure it out because they could send a bunch of stuff.

They could take contracts back.

The bigger question is, is LeBron going to stay with the Lakers, which is the other topic that has been a big behind -the -scenes thing.

He did the thing today where he opted in for the $53 million, had to put out through Rich Paul that he's going to be monitoring closely all the movement.

I don't know what he thinks the movement's going to be because they're paying him him and Luca combined 98 million dollars.

The Caps 154. They're keeping Reeves.

They have 70 million dollars more in contracts.

There's not a lot of movement.

They're not going to be able to trade Reeves for a center.

They can't extend Reeves either.

And I don't know what he thinks is going to happen with this team.

And I don't. I don't know if he's staying.

And I don't know what the move is, because once you opt in, you're basically saying a trade.

And at that point, it's Cleveland.

There's a buyout possibility, which I don't understand in a million years why they would ever do that.

And I don't know how this plays out, but it feels like we're going to be talking about it for the next three weeks, is my guess.

When he first opted in, like the first thing I was looking at was like the Dorian Finney Smith decision on where that would put them between a full mid -level and a taxpayer mid -level.

Which is, you know, you're talking about some of the names you've already covered, or maybe maybe Brooke Lopez, you know, for the taxpayer mid -level.

So when I was looking at that, I was thinking, did he really take like the full boat?

And now they can't bring in a full mid -level guy when they desperately need a center.

Are they going to be left?

With the no trade too.

Right, right. And so after Finney Smith opts out, and then I looked at it again, it looks like they're going to have the full taxpayer mid -level.

So like the angst that I think LeBron, some of like the early angst was, is this going to cost the Lakers a decent center option option versus here's the budget bin of centers because however the now it still could get a little weird i'm sure there's there's moves to be made but um i don't i don't really know like why it's not about him taking less money because i don't know that i ever feel comfortable being like hey you should take less money you should take less money but what he can't do is be upset you can't opt in and be upset which we've seen over and over again in the nba you've chose

to you reenter this situation you can't then you can't get mad about it the lack of options that the team will likely have and you know like kobe got that massive extension at the time when none of us could ever believe it and if you don't have the pieces around it and you're kind of just paying a collection of guys that aren't very good and then you're kind of stuck financially and then it's like man nobody wants it more than kobe's like he can want it all he wants but there's no No outs.

There's no outs where any of this talent coming out.

So, I mean, unless there's a Reeves deal where they feel like, hey, we're less like dominant on the perimeter or it's three guys taking turns, you know, maybe, maybe there's something there.

It's beyond that though with the three guys, because none of them are good defensive players.

I mean, LeBron is sometimes a good defensive player, but when you're thinking about a team built around those three, we saw it in the playoffs.

It's not going to work if those are your three guys.

I don't think. And especially LeBron's going to be 41 next year.

This is only going to get worse.

It's not going to get better, even though I thought in the regular season he exceeded expectations.

But he got hurt in the playoffs in the first round.

You get older, you're just going to get hurt more often.

It's the way it goes.

And they're paying him and Bronny together is $55 million.

You add Luka. Luka has a big extension coming.

There's just no way to improve the roster.

And every Laker fan I talk to says, well, you just got to trade Reeves for a center.

It's like, well, who's the center?

go through all the teams. Who are you getting?

Like, are you going to be happy with like a Kongwoo?

And why would Atlanta do that?

Like he's just, I, I just think they're stuck with this roster and they're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

And it's going to lead to some sort of move with them.

I don't believe for a second that he doesn't want to win another title and that he doesn't care about rings.

I think he does. I just don't believe it.

You don't believe what part?

When he's talking about ring culture, that stuff doesn't matter.

Like, I think he wants to win the title again.

He's going to try to go to a situation where he can win the title.

So you think this is the precursor to him actually moving on?

Because that Cleveland thing...

I do. I think it's in play.

I really do. Okay. All right.

I'm not disputing it.

But when I look at the Cleveland side of it, that's the one that I don't understand.

And, you know, a third team, I know that's always our kind of default of like, hey, to make this happen, who's going to third team this thing?

but why would I move out Garland and Jared Allen?

No, it wouldn't be.

I don't think it's Garland and Jared Allen.

I think it would be Jared Allen with Hunter and that you could get a third team involved and make something work with that pretty quickly but the Garland piece is weird because I think he is out there a little bit.

I think teams feel like he's attainable.

You're going to have to pay for him.

You're not just going to steal him.

But I don't think he's not—I wouldn't say this.

I don't think he's untouchable.

The stuff about him being the Durant trade was wrong.

I think that was something Phoenix wanted, not them.

But I do think—you know, I do wonder from a Cleveland standpoint, do they worry that this is the guy who gets hunted in the playoffs?

And can we change our team?

If we change our team in some way, that's who we should do with?

You know where I stand on Garland?

I would not trade him.

I think his two injuries, he had a fucked up toe, which could happen to anybody.

And he broke his face.

Like, you can't say like he's injury prone.

And I just think he's really good.

And if I was another GM, I'd be trying to get him right now.

If there was even a shadow of an opening that he might be available, like if I'm, name a team, I would be like going hard after trying to get him.

Well, now that Orlando did the Bain thing.

Right. Yeah, I don't know what Sacramento has that's enticing at all.

Chicago already traded all their guys.

But even when you look at the Lakers, is there a Rui deal out there for somebody?

Does Vando have any trade value at this point?

Does anybody care about Gabe Vincent at $10 million for the one?

So if this team is going to – because there was that stretch there, right?

They figured it out defensively.

The funniest thing about the Lakers timeline is as soon as they make the Luka trade, you're like, okay, well, this is for the future.

It makes all the sense in the world.

you're one of the best players in the world who cares about 25 and then they figure some stuff out right and then they get this great seat and you're thinking defensively and then people are actually talking about him and i think it was a bit of like the overvaluing just the lakers part of it yeah everybody's picking him in that first round series against minnesota and then that seems like one of the most absurd things ever now in hindsight because you're like why did they think they're going to be able to hang with him and jackson hayes is so bad that jj just pulls the plug because like if you're

telling me jackson hayes getting more minutes would have solved your problems in playoffs, then I would say that we're just going to disagree and move on from that whole thing.

And they were really physical with LeBron in a way that was surprising.

Randall was excited when LeBron was on.

That was a weird thing to see.

But that's the thing when I talk about building around those three guys.

We'll see what kind of shape Luka's in next year, but if those are your three, with what we just watched from Oklahoma City, I don't think it works.

And I think LeBron is smarter about basketball than just about anybody in the planet.

And he has to see that.

His supercomputer brain has to look at, all right, if these three guys are out there in crunch time for us and I'm one of them and we're playing a team like OKC, who else needs to be on our team?

Well, we need an awesome rim running center defensive shot blocker to protect all of us.

Well, how the fuck are we going to get that guy?

We've already traded all of our ads.

That guy doesn't exist. Oh, is it gonna be Kessler that's gonna be, that's gonna change you from being in one playoff game to four rounds?

I know, but it's still so much better than having no one.

But also, why am I trading Kessler from Utah?

That's the other part that I don't understand.

I want to get something back.

Nobody has centers like that anymore.

Even somebody like Klingin I feel like has more value.

So I think you're looking at like a DeAndre Ayton type of moving a bunch of contracts, attaching a pick and trying to roll the dice with somebody like him.

him and is that going to get you four rounds no so i i just think he's trying to figure this out because i don't i just don't believe him i think he wants to win the title again good luck on the eight and thing i do want to see it happen it's just that i mean that's such a massive but it's 35 and a half million for him and it's funny you could do the kleber vincent like you could throw some you could patch some contracts together and attach an asset and and maybe, I don't know.

I just want to see him go somewhere to watch that fan base talk themselves into it, and I'll sit back and be entertained.

Fair. Like, Miami would be my favorite.

Can I walk you through a fake trade I made?

Please. I probably don't have a choice, but I do want to hear it, so.

I think it's in your wheelhouse.

LeBron and his son go to Cleveland.

What if his son is like, actually, no?

Does he ever trade Vito?

Utah gets Darius Garland and Rui Hachimura.

The Lakers get Kessler, Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins.

Utah has to throw a pick or two.

Has to sprinkle some picks around.

Because ultimately they're getting Darius Garland.

The youngest. This is your Sexton thing.

This is tied to the Sexton thing.

You get Nurkic because you know you have Kessler going in this other trade.

I don't know. I was excited about it.

It's like Bane goes to the magic.

I'd be like, is Jaron Jackson better with the Lakers or the Clippers?

I just said on the record, I don't think Cleveland should trade Darius Garland.

But I'm just saying, I wonder if those types of deals are being talked about.

Or, could you do like a Darius Garland to our team Toronto?

For who? With Max Struis.

And the Lakers get Pirtle and RJ Barrett.

And LeBron just goes to Cleveland.

Like, the reason I'm bringing up these trades is like, if LeBron's actually leaving the Lakers, these are the type of trades that would have to happen for this to happen.

And the other option would be where the Lakers buy him out and he just jumps on a team and I don't know why they would do that in a million years so I think this is the whole reason I'm talking about this is I think this is going to be really hard now that he's opted in for any other outcome then he's just on the team doing that I don't know we'll see what they do I'm monitoring it it's like okay glad you're monitoring it like we're not gonna be able to get a center like do you want us to trade two unprotected first rounders for For Kessler?

The Lakers have Luka Doncic now.

Why are they doing that?

They're in Luka mode now for the next 10 years.

How do we build around Luka?

So it's really awkward. And I'm surprised it's not a bigger story.

I think this is pretty strange.

Okay, but what do you think should have happened?

Do you think he should have taken less?

Do you think they should have?

Well, he has no trade, so he's going to be able to veto anything.

Do you think they should have tried to figure out a way to do it for a year?

Well, I think that's what he wanted.

I think he wanted a longer commitment well I mean come on he's 40 gonna be 41 that's this is why I'm talking about this like I think this is a really weird situation and on top of it they just sold the team and they didn't give his whole side a heads up on any of it which you can argue well how do you not get a heads up that transaction has been talked about for two years I get it I'm just telling you the stuff I've heard um so I don't know it's a weird one and you could feel the Lakers shifting toward Luca which is a situation he's never been in before now granted he's been in the league 23 years

so it's maybe time for some new situations but um I think they have a new owner the guy paid a lot of money and they're going to gear this thing toward Luca and they have to figure out the LeBron piece and I don't know how they figure it out and maybe this will turn into like you know what what actually let's i'm good here let's stay but i think it's worth monitoring yeah but the likely outcome is what they figure out some sort of center we don't know which world they'll be in they probably get the benefit is okay but they're gonna i doubt they're gonna go into it without one again do you have laker

fans in your other is like we just got to get bam am not in my life but i'm that's like like people just think like we'll just well we'll just get clint capella it's like okay you've seen clint capella the last couple years that would have been a huge clint capella would have been a much better option than jackson jackson hayes yeah that's fair uh even okay so let's say it's it's pretty clear that clapella is on the decline here and why Atlanta went the route that they went with a combo.

But the likely scenario here is what?

Does he really want to leave L .A.?

He makes his 50 -plus million.

His son's still on the team.

Luka comes back in better shape.

They're able to outscore teams. Luka's in such good shape, LeBron's reinvigorated.

That's probably how I would bet on that as the maybe most likely scenario.

What do you think their win total is going to be?

I think there's a lot of smoke.

Like 47 .5? 48 .5? I mean, we still got to figure out.

hard yeah you gotta add the extra to what they always pad the it's like the Red Sox over under for wins there's certain teams where they pad the over under because they know the fan of the team is a huge fan base so I'd say probably like 47 out 48 and a half here's the thing Luca could come show up and look like like look like the best shape we were all in disbelief how good he looks and he's one of the best five six seven players in the league and maybe that's 50 wins if he's just in awesome shape playing great you know we've seen guys just be like so good that they're just in the 45 to 50 win range

because they're on your team and really what they need is they need like a 28 minute a night center who can run all night can run for Luca you don't have to necessarily be a stretch but I mean they're not gonna be able to afford the rim protecting run all night young guy who's also a stretch five okay so that's that's not going to happen but considering what luca has done in the past with some of those dallas teams and you figure offensively you're going to be fine uh they ran into the worst matchup if they had if they had faced golden state with their lack of size you know maybe golden state's

like hey this is great we actually don't have to worry about the laker size conversely but it it's probably there's probably like two matchups there with how weird the seating was just shuffling throughout the last couple weeks of the season where something that looked like it was a benefit of the Lakers to fight to get a three seed.

So I still think they're probably, even with their flaws last year, just anything that's a plus.

Anything that J .J. Reddick can look down at the bench and go like, okay, well, at least I feel okay with this guy for 20 minutes.

And if there's nights that we want to go small and he doesn't necessarily have to play because he's not a guy that's a $20 million a year center because that transaction is not going to be able to happen.

I still think they'll be in a decent in enough spot if everybody's healthy again that it's it's going to feel like they're somewhat competitive and that'll probably be enough i would think but you seem to think that there's much more like there's some really potential like you the reason you keep bringing this up is you think there's potential for something crazy all like some crazy scenario i think crazy is in play now um there's also like there's regular season versus playoffs which we talk about a lot whatever happens in the regular season with with whatever team they end up with versus what we

know is going to be needed in the playoffs that we watch every year and we're like oh yeah defense oh yeah you need depth like they just have a lot of shit that they need to pull off um that's a big one for me this episode is brought to you by linkedin during the the season, every baseball team plays 162 games.

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Atlanta's $25 million trade exception I think is fascinating because in some ways that's the best spot for, I don't know what, like whether you could that be like a DeMar DeRozan spot if Sacramento just wants to get off his deal.

Could that be part of like they help out with the trade package in general?

And I know people have talked about it all week.

I think Atlanta is an unbelievable shape with the roster they have and the assets they have to put, you know, they're not at, They're not at where Houston is from a close to win the title standpoint.

But it's a little similar in that I just like a lot of their pieces and they have flexibility.

And they don't have to, you know, they have some extension stuff coming.

You have to pay Trey in a year.

They're going to have to pay Dyson.

But for right now, they actually have the flexibility to do a couple more things.

And I think they should.

I think the East, as we've talked about many times, is sitting there to make a move.

and that's a team that I think I'm really interested to see what they do over the next 10 days yeah it could be you know they're probably going to end up having a decent record if they get this group right yeah with what's happening in the east I do think it was funny too when you were mentioning Miles Turner it's like okay this Pacers team never pays the tax never pays the tax Turner's going to be a free agent it has to be north of 20 million you know if Randle can get 30 if if Nas gets a five -year deal he's somewhere between those guys right yeah you have to feel like he's north of whatever

the number is that puts him in attacks and then I was like I wonder if because Halliburton's injury they could be like well you know since we're not gonna have Halliburton like does that turn into some weird Turner thing but I doubt it I highly doubt it but yeah I could see a scenario where the Hawks how every year they disappoint me with like I think we've spent three summers in a row going I kind of like a lot of the pieces you know look at all this depth and look at all these different options that they've had this is the most excited I've been about them I really like I really like the nucleus

it makes sense to me we're gonna find out once and for all about Trey Young I think this season what's actually there this is the perfect roster to have around him for the most part although it still feels like they're one kind of reliable score short that would uh would help him him out if he didn't have it.

Is Cleveland standing pat?

We talked about Garland earlier.

That's another one.

Are they just going to be...

Are they going to feel like they need to do something?

I was thinking about especially in the 80s or 90s when a season doesn't turn out the way you think it's going to turn.

The Lakers had a couple of those seasons in the 80s where they weren't like, now we have to trade Byron Scott.

We lost in round two.

They're just like, no, let's stay with the infrastructure.

The smartest teams kind of didn't panic if a season didn't turn out the way they thought.

Cleveland, I don't know.

I could, I think they should stand.

I would roll it back with this team.

You're going to lose Ty Jerome, but I would just be like, you know what?

The East got worse.

We won 64 games. That was fucking weird. Garland was hurt.

Moby missed the game.

We lost a fluky, crazy Halber and buzzer beater game.

let's not overreact.

Let's just run it back.

But these teams in 2025 and the 2020s aren't wired that way.

Like they always overreact.

So would you overreact or you'd run it back?

No. I mean, even when they lost, I was like, you were ready to fire up the trade machine.

You had two laptops open, like an oils future guy.

Uh, oil futures. Yeah.

So if anything, I mean, after what just happened with Tatum, Halliburton throw Dame into that mix, what's going to happen with Milwaukee.

Milwaukee, I think it'd be irresponsible to not run it back and give this group one more year together.

And granted, the Sam Merrill deal means Jerome's probably gone.

So, happy to see my guy Sam getting paid.

I thought I got to say that was a little rich. I was surprised.

It was. I would have guessed like, it was basically Hauser money.

It'd be one million more than Drew Holiday makes in three years.

He really didn't like that trade.

I didn't, and I like Portland too.

I just thought it was really expensive.

You know what we didn't do?

We didn't really even finish any of the Pelican stuff.

We kind of teased at it.

I had that next. Let's go.

All right. So if I understand this correctly, so Joe Dumars comes in.

Let's go, right? Brings in Troy Weaver.

Troy Weaver spent the previous year with the Wizards as a consultant.

So there were rumors before the draft, even the day of that they were going to take Queen seven.

All right. They don't.

They take fears. But at that point, everybody in the NBA world knew like Pelicans love Queen.

They love Queen. All right.

So then Yegor goes eight for the Nets.

First piece of their adventure.

Their five part adventure.

Right. A bunch of picks go off the board. You've got the coward trade.

So that takes out 11.

SNG for him to leave his team to come to the draft meant that somebody high up enough like was telling you we don't we are going to draft you.

And he's like, I'm in.

I'll get a suit. So then it gets to the the Derrick Queen pick.

So it's like, OK, so Pelicans clearly liked him.

And boy, did they really like him?

And they they move back.

Well, they move up 10 spots for the unprotected.

it when I first saw the trade I know you've already touched on I talked about it on the first day I could do it on Thursday but I kept waiting to think I was wrong I was like is there some language in this that I'm not understanding I don't quite get right oh it's the second of the two picks yeah there's a way yeah yeah by the way I think Atlanta might have done so we get the worst of the Milwaukee or New Orleans alright so we're done right right and it's like I'm going because the other thing thing too is like to move up 10 spots because I don't even know if the Nets if the Nets wanted to move

from 8 to 6 does Washington say yes for the other four like I don't know that might be a no Washington might not take four extra first rounders just to move back two spots right because the NBA draft it doesn't really work that way so you're moving back you're moving from 23 to 13 and so then you go okay so Weaver did really like him and then there's the Weaver part of it They've already traded for Jordan Poole, where you're like, all right, you want to tell me it was just a bad roster, and he got shots up, and he didn't take it seriously?

The tape isn't very good.

These stories, he was great in the locker room and all this different stuff.

It's like, okay, but that means you've got an extra $30 million a year for the CJ expiring that's sent out.

You want to tell me you think CJ's on the downside of everything?

Fine. But the whole point of him being there was the adult in the room, the guy that got it, the guy that wanted to be be in new orleans which is pretty rare you know holiday in portland there you go exactly a little cheaper but you trade out cj fine but for pool who no i'd rather have cj on my team but now pool's an extra year at 30 million another wizards guy okay so you've taken a maryland kid that you've done this unprecedented trade for because we just still can't believe it you traded for the the extra $30 million here in pool, you brought in Micah who played at Georgetown.

You brought in the undrafted Hunter Dickinson, who is a DeMatha kid.

There's an alarming connection of like how regional this is becoming, whether it's the wizard stuff or anybody in that area.

And I, I gotta tell you, like the idea, like I know Dumar, cause I was looking for it when he, when he did the press conference, he was like, we took, we, you know, know once pick seven went off like you know they had fears they take him seven then we started calling everybody i don't know do you really think that like does memphis say no if they offer that unprotected in 26 because they've already done the deal with portland maybe do you think phoenix says no because of malawatch for a pick next year the extra pick they could have taken somebody at 23 in the movement maybe they desperately wanted

by the way why would brooklyn have said no at eight i would have done that in five seconds maybe because brooklyn was like can we use one of these picks you know that's that's i don't know i mean i just thought that milwaukee new orleans pick was such an amazing asset because god only knows with milwaukee and then new orleans That team's going to be a mess.

Chicago at 12, it would have been criminal if they turned that trade down.

Everyone should be fired if they turn that.

If that was offered to them and they're like, nope, we have our guy, you should quit.

You think Toronto would have turned it down for Murray Boyles?

Well, as we found out, we don't really know who was running Toronto.

They fired their guy the day after the draft. that actually happened that was weird yeah honestly though i think that happens in sports more than people realize it's like we're gonna get rid of you but because you've already worked with this entire staff the entire year prepping for this draft night like you're gonna run the room but there's probably still somebody else who because his number two still there oh and by the way like the guy that that atlanta dealt with here was bryson who came come over as the assistant gm who used to work with new orleans right so that makes me go like who also probably

knew that they like queen right he was under the hood with that so i just i can't i tried to just figure it out what are you trying to land the plane on here that you feel like that it's actually even more dysfunctional than it seemed like from afar i don't know why brooklyn would turn it down i don't know why toronto would turn it down i don't know why phoenix would turn it down i guess i can understand why portland in the memphis deal would have said hey we already do too much work on this but that's where GM probably goes, are you fucking serious?

Hey, Portland, guess what?

Or hey, guess what?

Zach in Memphis, like we're out.

Chicago, it's like, ah, we promised Essenge.

Hey, you know, I mean, the guy just flew and left his team.

So there's maybe individual step -by -step stuff.

You're like, yeah, this is why all of these teams turned it down.

I have a hard time believing all of those teams turned down what so many people around the league are like, I can't believe they threw in the unprotected pick.

Now the reality is, as I land the plane here, it's what if Queen turns out to be really good?

Awesome. Austin. What if...

That doesn't matter with the trade discussion.

Okay. I know, but you know what happens is that we end up only evaluating stuff historically based on the results.

And this is the same as the Luca thing, not to the same magnitude, but it's like, if things were to work out for Dallas, it's like, yeah, but still the fundamental issue is you decided not build a market for Luca Doncic.

And whatever happens from that point on, that is the inexcusable part.

And I think in this transaction, again, not nearly the same magnitude, but the likelihood that this this unprotected pick in 26 turns out to like you know whatever the odds and the way the lottery goes like all you guys freaked out about that a year ago and it ended being the 11th pick and it's like that's not the point the point is is that the internal discussions at some point somebody in the room has to go hey is there a chance as much as we like queen we're moving up from 23 to 13 and hey we all like queen a lot but is there any chance of the unprotected 26 pick that we're including this like

say we in the west and things don't go well and zion gets hurt and i I know you already saw all this on Thursday's pod, but like, is there a chance we're giving up like the number one, could it be like worst case scenario?

Could it be the number one pick of the 26 draft when the answer is yes.

That's why so many people are freaked out.

But there's one other, there's one other extra question to that.

If we just top five protected, are they still saying yes to the deal?

And the answer is yes.

We have to move back 10 spots and it's just top five protected.

There's another crazy piece that I didn't even realize when I did my pod on Thursday, they traded, They got that 23rd pick by trading their Indiana 2026 first rounder, which they traded during the finals before Halliburton got hurt.

And then Halliburton got hurt.

So they're in 23 by using a pick that then became way more valuable that they didn't know that it was going to be more valuable.

And Atlanta somehow ends up with Indy's first. and then they the bucks first or the i mean it's just like insane how that played out for them which is why i was joking on thursday that they're like spraying champagne on each other after that second trade yeah and the smart part about the pacers thing because we get back to the tax thing and the turner decision and they're probably going hey we like the 26th draft better anyway we're already a super deep team and even with the turner discussion we still have probably a couple other decisions that we have to make on something like hey it's awesome

we're one of the deepest teams in the league downside is now we have to keep figuring this thing out because we can't always keep together so let's let's just go into next year's draft so i actually thought it was smart from the pacer side of it did you where you has a lot of assets though what were we gonna ask when the pelicans official feed came after you did you feel what was that like for you that day uh laughter laughter i laughed after pain did you feel like you could have been a social media guy seriously if it's 21 year old Bill 2025 I mean granted you don't make it a season because you'd

be too clever but they'd be mean I'm gonna get fired yeah you 100 % especially early 20s I'm definitely getting fired but I feel like these early 20s guys running team sites they're like they're your spirit animal it's almost like you're getting mad at yourself they they retweeted what was it a Shams thing Shams on McAfee yeah and it was an absurd absurd it was an absurd rationalization i mean chomps knows way more info than us both put together but it's like what if he's a hall of famer yeah it's like okay fine what if he does become a hall of famer it's still a dumb trade you still gave up too

much to get derrick queen um it was like yeah what if he's a hall of famer and the pelicans feed's like yeah fuck off ringer it's not what they said they were like this take won't get you a podcast cast on the ringer but with you know a pretty clear directed fuck you i love and i just i retweeted it immediately i love it down there i love it down there you know this hurts it's a tough segment for me to do what's funny is i was looking at their roster and i do kind of i kind of like all the pieces and they make zero sense together like you actually look at all the things they have and it's like

i don't know what this is it's like it's almost like a team you would put put together in 2k like i guess jordan hawkins was probably fired up for five seconds after they traded mccallum right like if you're trey murphy how are you feeling right now well thank god he's not from like russia you know he's from he's from north carolina so yeah you know like hopefully hopefully that's close enough to the DMV to keep them aligned with some of the recent decisions.

Well, what's weird is the team they're putting together is a team you'd put together if you didn't care about next season and you actually secretly wanted a really high lottery pick.

It's just this whole weird collection of assets but they don't seem to think that way at all.

They seem to feel like we're going to be good next year.

Yeah. And it's like they haven't noticed what conference they're in or the talent of all the other teams and also how unrealistic it would be to have a good team with the point guards they have and with Murray coming back from this injury and with how unreliable Zion is.

It's just... You'll be kind of fun to watch on League Pass, but you're not going to be good next year.

They can't actually think that, right?

The overriding message is we're going to be aggressive.

It's like, all right, well done.

but you certainly were aggressive mission accomplished yeah you did it you pulled it off um a couple other things i was gonna do the july desperation tears with you but let's let's take one more break and then we'll do that all right july desperation tears is this a real thing I think Milwaukee would you have them one with how do we make this roster better I don't believe it I still don't believe any of the Yanis stuff he's undecided like I think he's gonna be back in Milwaukee but I also think there's pressure on them to have a good roster they're bringing back Bobby Portis but it's a little

bit of make or break I think for Yanis and the Bucks this season if we're not gonna be a contender within this season And now you have to really reevaluate.

So I would put them number one on my desperation tiers for we have to get better right now.

Is there anybody you would put ahead of them as the number one desperation theme?

You're treating this like the 25 draft, though, like Cooper's in his own tier.

So if you're telling me Milwaukee's in their only tier.

No, I'm not. I have them number one.

I had a couple other possibilities.

Tilly's got to be in this conversation with Milwaukee, right?

I had them down as well.

Well, I had Phoenix because of this Beal situation that they just...

What do you do? You can't buy him out.

That would be idiotic.

Do you hope he's going to be better?

You can't trade him.

Do you bury him? Be like, you know what?

You're just not going to play basketball anymore.

We're not going to play you.

Getting ready for the road trip.

if we have you in B21 Southwest?

We have you in a room with two double beds.

They probably just suck it up this year and then it's an expiring contract even though it's $57 million.

But he still has the no trade clause.

Yeah, I know. It's an expiring contract that you can't move.

I think the Lakers are in there from a desperation standpoint on getting some sort of person that makes them feel different and then they were last year.

I'm putting Sacramento in here because I think they're just a no man's land and they're somehow back to who they were for the entire 2010s.

And they just have this weird team that doesn't make sense and are they capable of anything?

Zach did his little thing for us yesterday and he was talking about didn't think Jalen Brown was going to get traded but he was like Sacramento is a team I would watch for that.

there is this team every summer that's just like fuck it and make some crazy trade and I think that would be my number one draft pick for that category but would you put them in a desperation tier or no I don't know they changed management again even though I think Monty McNair did a really good job there but now you're paying 90 million dollars to Zach Levine and Savonis I know I like that plan No, I mean, I know I could get dumped on for being like, look, they traded Halliburton for Sabonis.

Although the Halliburton Sabonis, that was like a 1 ,200 -page book.

It was like, oh my God, this is the worst. But like, hey, look at this, maybe good for both teams. Oh my God, like, look, Sabonis.

I mean, Sacramento...

Everyone's happy. Yeah, and then it's like, oh, disaster.

But Sacramento was judged based on Sacramento's history, and considering their history, I felt like it was actually like a really nice stable, competitive run.

They're in that Game 7 with the Warriors, and they smoke them in the play -in, and nobody was looking looking at them going can they make some noise here as they flirted with playoff seating but for that organization like that was a real improvement and so now you look at it and you're like man this got bleak quick I just don't like paying those guys that much I guess DeRozan's the asset he's 36 years old and he's you know look his number at 25 million is totally fine it seems like he's just gonna age really well I remember the Bulls doing the first deal with him bringing him in years and years

ago was like man that was a lot for de rosen and it just seems like this guy the way he plays like he still can bring something to a team but what what would be what's like a realistic tier of player based on the i mean unless you want to start talking about keegan or devin carter having a market you know not that teams wouldn't trade for keegan like he's but you gotta pay him after next year i don't think the celtics are trading jaylen and i don't want to but zach did make me wonder like what kind of sacramento crazy trade was sitting there like how crazy would they get um because we've seen

them do it before uh i hope it doesn't happen i would do jaylen brown for trey murphy so i did look at i know that doesn't work but no you'd have to there'd have to be a third There'd have to be a third team where I think Jalen goes to a third team and Trey Murphy would be in the Celtics would cut salary.

There's ways to figure that out.

But I do think when they lopped off the $28 million, that kind of ended the Jalen, any sort of entertaining a phone call.

I think that they already got to their objective.

I'm going to put Miami in the desperation tiers.

We can figure out the tiers after I go through all the teams. I don't know.

I said this a couple of days ago.

I just don't know what Miami, what are they, what are they trying to do?

Like, even if they get Kamingo, which I think is a good idea.

And I like Kamingo.

I like their draft pick.

I liked it. They got at 20 on third on Wednesday night, but I still don't know.

Like, uh, they're going to pay Hero, I guess, a ton of money, which now when you're seeing some of the other money going, it's like, should he be making $15 million a year more than Julius Randle?

I don't think he should.

I just don't know what's going on with that team.

Do you have any handle on it?

Better hang Sacramento?

Oh, great hang, bad hang?

No, I'm just saying, like, are they Sacramento in a more desirable NBA city?

That's interesting.

so if you did if you did a draft of let's draft guys from Miami and Sacramento Bam goes first yeah Bam goes first Sabonis second yeah I think but Sabonis is like you know I think it's pretty clear against certain matchups in the playoffs it's probably not going to go great for you he still goes second though over Tyler Hero Hero's third Third, who's fourth?

DeRozan's got to be fourth, right?

You wouldn't have Levine over DeRozan?

That's me. Sorry, I forgot who I was asking.

I'd be like, Pell Larson.

You'd be like, Zach Levine's still on the board, we're still up.

Yeah, I'm aware. All right, so we'll go DeRozan, Levine, four, five.

And then who's the next guy in Miami you would have?

I love Jovich, but I mean, nobody should like him that much. So did Miami.

They wouldn't include him in the Durant deal.

I didn't think Jovich was good last year.

The times I watched Miami, I just felt like I didn't really see it.

Maybe it's lurking under there somewhere.

No, look, there's guys I still hold out hope for.

I mean, we spent probably too long talking about Lavravia.

And as I was doing it, I was like, this could also be a huge mistake.

Maybe if Lavravia stays in Sacramento, he goes higher in this draft. Malik Monk's gonna go before Roger is he go before Davion Mitchell Yes Keegan goes before Davion Mitchell Oh nah You know And then it's like we were doing this Two years ago with Hakez He goes a lot higher I don't know what I mean they were like done with him He couldn't make a three last year Couldn't make one in college and that's why he lasted so long in the draft too then he started just being really good so miami miami is is uh higher end sacramento i'm too online let's start there not news to anybody but what happened is and i

ended up like getting too much of it but i always think it's funny when people are on social media and be like how come i keep getting these posts it's like well that's the danger of the for you thread as opposed to the one that you're following yeah you dip your toes over to the for you and And then you start hate watching stuff.

And then next thing you know, you're watching high school fights for half an hour.

You're like, I don't feel like a good person right now.

And by the way, I don't watch them anymore.

It just got to me, it bothered me.

I was worried about the future of society.

But people fought in high schools.

I mean, you ever see Grease?

I mean, so this isn't new.

Anyway, so back when there was the embeed Jokic thing, I couldn't stop.

Like, I would just hate read every Sixers, like guy that had you know a few thousand followers and it was just always like insane MB arguments against Jokic I just couldn't get enough of it and then all of a sudden my feed was just Sixers stuff constantly so I finally was able to wean myself off of it years ago and I was all in on this heat thing just every guy with a couple thousand followers with a little bit of a heat page and again I still think it's all teenagers but if there was ever like a nationwide wide need for editors like that's the problem is nobody has an editor anymore you know

i could probably use one a little bit more often the number of heat trades that were so preposterous and were just so fucking terrible where the heat were never giving up anything in all of them and then it was always like hey 72 hours durant 48 hours durant like hey we're we're like a day away durant thing's gonna happen in a couple hours and it just was like guys kept doing it over and over again source all this stuff durant durant durant never happens and clearly they didn't even really want them that much. They must just not have wanted them nearly as much as, you know, maybe Phoenix.

How about this? Never wanted them in the first place.

Yeah, right. So you're sitting here and looking at all of these options and it's the reason I compare it to Sacramento.

It's just there's not a lot here to get you excited if you're like, let's do a deal unless it's Wiggins.

But Wiggins, I mean, Wiggins still has a player option next year for $30 million.

The other problem is their 2027 first goes to Charlotte.

So it can't be like blowing up rebuild because you don't have your first a year from now.

So there are no I don't think Riley I don't think Riley at this stage of his life is going to go all right, reset button time.

Wouldn't you say he's more in the stage of let's get a guy and pay as many assets as we possibly can and just try to be better right now?

That's what I would have thought the Durant thing would have made sense.

Do you think there's Laurie Markkinen?

I'm sidetracking now, but do you think there's Laurie Markkinen trade possibilities now?

Yeah. That's been another thing floating around right now.

What's your favorite Laurie Markkinen team?

San Antonio. Had that as well.

Vassell and Barnes.

Yeah, but then if you're Utah.

Yeah, I mean, there's going to be some sort of enticing pick there.

And Ainge is probably just going to, you know, that's the other thing with Ainge is he's just going to go, So I'm not like, you don't think you're giving me the extra pick.

We figured out the Ace Bailey thing a week ago.

Was that a we thing?

It was a you thing.

I signed on. I jumped in the car in the passenger seat.

We talked it through.

We did his pedigree.

We had a whole thing.

It was great. It was good.

It was really good.

And then you talked about his high school pedigree.

So it was great. And now Ace is super happy to be there.

It all worked out great.

Great. Is there a James Harden and Derek Jones for Zach Levine, anything that excites you?

No, I don't know that you could have presented anything that I'd be less excited about.

Just for those, like as a trade.

What was the point of that?

I just don't think the Clippers are going to roll into October with the exact same team.

I'm just not convinced.

maybe not but like hey how about me sticking up for harden i think you're a little dismissive of just the comfort of hey look it's a little more expensive we probably could have played harbaugh he made all nba last year he's probably going to play a ton of games he doesn't even need to be in great shape he's going to put up numbers and it helps us you know at least like have something that we can depend on because he's still better than a lot of the players out there and we'll just do that and give him a little bit of a bump and then whatever happens, we can figure this out in 26.

Like, don't you think?

It's not like they give him a four -year contract.

Can I have a counter?

Yeah. I want the counter.

All right. So, let's say I'm thinking of one of your friends that I met, Timmy Walsh.

You guys drive cross -country.

You and Timmy Walsh.

We thought about doing it.

Yeah. Gets to Arizona and something horrible happens.

Like he gets in some sort of road rage incident or like just a bad driver.

By the time you get to Arizona, you're like, I'm never doing this again with this guy.

I'm never going cross -country with him.

I think game seven was that bad for Harden.

What are you talking about?

He's not even phased by these.

He's got a million of these.

I'm not saying he's phased by these.

I'm saying if you're the Clippers and your goal is to win the title, this is all Steve Ballmer wants.

He built this fucking wall that they genuinely, and I think they're right, feel like swung three games.

They studied all the fan behavior in the wall and flew those people out to Denver.

Like, they're all in.

They're spending every dollar they possibly can.

And after watching hard in game seven, I just refuse to believe, with this whatever window they have left with Kawhi, that they're like, well, maybe it'll be different this year.

They're not getting in the car with him again, just like in my Timmy Walsh example.

I just want to shout out Timmy Walsh, one of my favorite conspiracy people.

I just don't think they want to get in the car with him for another road trip because they know what's going to happen when they get to Arizona.

I don't think they care.

They clearly don't care.

It's a smart front office.

They know everything that you just said.

And I don't think they thought they were going to tax him because of his history in those huge spots because the value over...

But don't you think it's an asset that they're...

Whatever, he's in. They now have him under contract, but this allows them to potentially do something.

Instead of just going.

That's my take. Right.

Asset management, which is a lot of what we've seen over the last couple of days.

It's like, oh, that number seems a little higher.

That was kind of my overriding thing.

I know I'm repeating myself at the very top of the podcast, but there were multiple examples of, they probably could have said, fine, cool, go to free agency.

You're never getting anything north of this.

The agent relationships, the history here, and then the fear of, okay, but now if I lose this piece And ownership is like, Hey, cool.

Like our, our payrolls lower.

I mean, Balmer would never do that to them, but it's just, well, we can't just let a bunch of these stuff.

We can't just let stuff walk and play hardball with everybody.

And then if there's actually something available in November, December, January, February, now we don't even have any of those pieces.

So yeah, maybe it is as simple as an asset management with just the one year.

But I do think that you're overlooking a little bit of the, just from October until April, like Hardin's probably going to be pretty good for us.

I am so happy I just got you to defend James Harden for like three minutes I've done it twice in my life and that was the second time felt good what about Westbrook where's he going I don't know who's left why do you have a team I can't find I mean I imagine it'll be one I can't find one either does Brooklyn just say fuck it for a year Is there a world where Reeves gets traded into Atlanta's $25 million trade exception for players and assets?

But it has to be one player that makes a huge difference.

Would you do a Kongu and some picks for Reeves?

Would you have a meeting?

Going, hey, we got Prazingis, and let's keep our fingers crossed.

and Reeves is a better player than Okonkwo yeah he's a better player he gives us a second creator than with Trey we might be able to patch together the center position we might be able to make a real run here I don't know it was the only thing I can think of with the Lakers where to get a center I think they would have that's the only thing that made sense to me and I have a by the way please anyone listening please don't aggregate these trades and say, please, whatever.

I'm just throwing dumb shit out.

You love aggregation.

Cause I had a, I had a Jalen one that I'm just not going to do cause I don't want it to become like one that I really liked.

I'm just going to tell you offline.

You know, I'm depriving, I'm depriving the people for the pod.

I hope that gets aggregated.

Simmons doesn't tell Rosillo Jalen Brown trade in fear of aggregation.

Simmons tells Rosillo Jalen Brown trade after podcast and, um and then i was thinking of available available trade guys would you have george last or beal last right now oh beal so beal's still number one that's been number one for two years now that should be some sort of wonder lick like nba thing like here here's a hypothetical you make 50 million a year but the team hates you and they never play you and you have a no trade clause if that happened to you for two years and you still had like a year left in your contract what would you want and if you answered like i'd be totally fine never playing

and then keeping all my money it's like yeah but you're still going to keep your money like would you eventually get sick of this when there'd be some competitive part of you that was like i'm a pretty talented player and i don't want to go out like this and if the guy at the combine answers no i'm totally fine it'd be a deal answer i'd be like okay we're gonna take this guy off the board we've seen some we've seen some people in the sports media world check out like that oh yes it's it's i love i love when it happens i love getting to see it i'm just gonna get so jealous is it tougher for you

and i i think to check out like i've wanted to check out for years what's your checkout date like age 58 yeah you know whatever it is that one last deal where you could just yeah completely check out yeah that'd be fun i don't i just need more of a team like the anchors get to check out it's awesome because the scripts can be written the segments are produced they'll even have people that produce the questions for him to like hey we have this person like you know uh just make sure you ask that you know alex bregman's you know nine for his last 18 you know and so i think there's you know we're

trying to carry these podcasts on our own it's a little tougher like i think it'd be pretty obvious if you start to realize because this guy waking up 15 minutes before he does these now can i get can i ask you for a day though yeah can i ask you for your take on the dumb team hierarchy now, because I mentioned the dumb teams during the week on the draft. And I think it's Sacramento, New Orleans, Brooklyn and Chicago in some order right now.

That would be my four.

Is there anybody I'm omitting for you?

And I think the qualifier is you have to be from afar going, what the fuck are those guys doing?

Because Chicago is a good example.

I don't know what that Lonzo Ball as a coral trade was.

Like, I just That was one of those where you're just like, I just don't understand what just happened.

You already have Patrick Williams. Why do you want Isaac Okoro?

Well, they're different in theory because Okoro, there's some shooting numbers where people would be like, hey.

And you're like, yeah, but he's not really a shooter.

There's some defensive metrics per 100.

They actually show up pretty good, what he brings defensively to the team.

So you think they can play them together?

No, no, but I can't.

But I can't. I'm saying Okoro just by himself there's a little bit of a discussion at 10 or 11 million dollars but not when you have Patrick Williams no and when you're getting rid of Lonzo where you're like alright this is an expiring 10 million dollar deal and we're bringing back a Coral for a similar number but then he's 11 .8 next year I don't I everyone loves Lonzo how many I read five stories last year about like this is the best story in sports everybody loves Lonzo amazing teammate I thought he was really fun to play for oh for the teams. That's our five right now.

I remember a GM told me a long time ago, I just need seven of these teams. As long as we always have seven, I'll be fine.

I'll always have somebody.

Right now, it seems like we have five.

Maybe there's more coming.

It's sad that the Lakers aren't on this list anymore.

somewhere um all right that's really all i have except i took ben to ufc in vegas yesterday yeah tell us about it awesome fight huh main card tipori is like i don't i just don't know i'm too casual of a ufc fan to put him against other guys from the past but that guy's just an animal he's just now he's still undefeated i don't he moved up in weight which sometimes can go one way or the other more in boxing boxing than UFC.

But I mean, wow. It just, he just has it, man.

You know, the guy is at the final level when they have the knockout and they're not phased at all by it.

They just kind of walk over and like, they want to like wave to Dana White.

Like they just knock somebody out that they'd been training to fight for three months.

And it's like, they went and got a latte.

That's when you know, it's like something really crazy, but he's, he's, I think he's the biggest star they have right now, they haven't been able to blow him up as a star.

Like he's not anywhere remotely close to Connor domestically, internationally maybe.

But I think he's the guy right now.

How into it has been?

He was really bummed out last night because he likes Charles.

Him and his friend Enzo really took it hard. They just like him.

They didn't want to see him.

They had slim expectations.

expectations, they didn't want to see what happened happen where he just got fucking his clock cleaned.

They were not happy.

Um, but that we have a new Simmons family as a new guy though.

Okay. Joshua Vann just won us over completely.

Just an incredible performance by him.

Did you see that fight?

It was the first fight.

Did you see it last night?

No I didn't I I know I took the boat out Oh Yeah I took the boat out Late And then You'll I don't know if you'd be proud Or disappointed I actually think You're gonna be disappointed But I was like Hey Lighter schedule Not a ton of prep You're on this Like if I can go out For a little bit Yeah You know Cause I won't drink on the boat Cause I gotta dock that thing I just don't wanna I don't wanna ever have like There's been one or two Bad incidents over the years with boats and alcohol that I've read about.

Yeah, right. So you're kind of like, oh, you know, but then I get so, even though I've done it a bunch of times now, I never want to be comfortable enough, you know, where somebody's like, oh, well, hey, it doesn't matter, you know, because I know, look, I'm not trying to act like some fucking prude about how...

I think it's the right way to think.

Right, right. But anyway, so I'm like, okay, I'm running home and I get an invite and I was like, all right, you don't even give yourself a chance.

to shut down. Don't even give yourself a chance.

Like you have to go out, you have to go out tonight.

And I changed. I ran the shower.

I looked at my bed and I went, Nope.

Like the window was three minutes.

There was like a three minute window where I was like, I'm doing it.

I'm going out. I'm going out.

That's an official sign.

You're moving in a different phase of life.

Yeah. But that's been happening a lot.

Like there's a lot of, depending on how the week works out because i don't go out very often but they'll still be like don't become a guy who just never ever does it and i'll i'll get up and like my day will be going great and i'm like you know what i'm in great mood whatever whatever and then you just know like hey i ate it's shutting down i want to work out tomorrow whatever i don't care i'm not missing anything and then i just i had this like peak energy like spike where i just went i'm gonna i'm gonna do this like fight through this thing and then you know you get that brine on you day at sea and it

it takes it out of you you know going my stepdad's big boat guy um it's a lot of work it's it's really like separates the men from the boys in the sense of it's not just like getting a car like you really if you're going to do it you got to do it it's a clean you got to there's just some real thought and care it's like adopting a dog like if you adopt a dog it's like I adopt a dog it's like okay your life's gonna be different now this dog's always gonna be around you're always gonna have to figure out what to do with it the boat is kind of like the dog yeah at least I can I don't feel bad leaving

it right yeah where I think some people you don't have to be like I'm going away somebody's gotta watch my dog but you still have to put in this extra time into it right that I don't think people realize when they don't get until they get a boat yeah I think if it's If it's on your, like you have a lake or something or the people down in Newport Beach where they have docks in the backyard. Yeah, whatever.

Right. That's sick.

You know, you don't have to hose it down immediately, although it'd be nice.

You know, you want that salt to build.

But when you have to go into Marina and, you know, the check in and all that kind of stuff and then get the thing untied.

And I did it by myself, too.

So there's always a little extra of just being like on it, on it, on it every time you have to do it.

So then I got really artsy, though.

Instead of watching fights, I watch Casablanca.

really you guys doing that the rewatchables because i'm ready you're ready for casablanca yeah it's considered the greatest screenplay ever written and listen that sounds like an amazing idea for the summer for us it's on the list it's funny it kind of lives on now in when harry met sally because it has like these two big parts when harry met sally for so for like the under 40 generation unless you you know your parents like force you to watch it or tell you to watch it or whatever um it came out in what was it 1942 great recall 1943 1943 so that's now 83 years ago like think how fucking long

that is right and so it's nuts like Jaws is 50 years old now yeah shout out to the vineyard speaking of poets oh you know what it's a big Jaws summer I was gonna call you in for Prestige TV TV because Amazon has the show set on Martha's Vineyard. It's a YA show, but it's just my daughter was out in 20 minutes.

So I, I, I didn't tell you about it, but yeah, fully vineyard, like they went all in.

Do you know the name of it?

Because I forget where I was.

It was kind of like one of those deals where you can't find the remote in a hotel room.

So that means the channel is just not going to be changed forever.

And looking as you're talking, there was this crime crime series that takes place on Martha's Vineyard it's all shot in Canada and I think even the actors are Canadian but I think the true story behind it is that it's these fictional books where all of these things take place on Martha's Vineyard because the author's father father -in -law uncle or something was actually a police chief in Egbertown so I could be sort of mauling this but I don't know if it was the same thing so I ended up watching I never watched that kind of stuff but I was like all right I gotta see what happens here well my daughter's

home right now so I can't say I'm watching I'm not watching a ton of stuff oh it's called We Were Liars I have not seen that you might want to give it a test run for the Martha's Vineyard footage I will no I'm in I'm totally in but I would tell younger people that are listening about Casablanca don't give it too hard of a time on the action scene at the end I think Bogart I think it's an over under of 4 1⁄2 here's looking at you kids like you might I don't know if you get away with that today like two of them yeah you know like Bruce Willis has said you know yippee -ki -yay motherfucker five times in Die

Hard yeah they tacked it on in Die Hard 3 we just did that one I do think about people like Bogart sometimes like when I work on rewatchables and you think about how famous These people were like when we do movies from the seventies and Redford and Newman and like, they were just so, so famous.

And they still are famous because there's a lot of people, but then when you go way back and you go to like Sir Lawrence Olivier, this is the reason I was thinking about it.

Cause he's a marathon man.

We did that one. And he's one of the most famous actors in the world.

Right. And he was married to Vivian Leigh, who was the lady in gone with the wind and was like one great stage actor was dead by like 54 and i was thinking like vividly probably one of the two three biggest actresses for 20 years right no longer discussed not in the mix in 2025 and there's no conversations like there's some sort of shelf life for when you're just not discussed anymore right ava gardner um you go like i don't know what it is like that mariska hargitay has this documentary now about jane mansfield who probably not discussed unless there's a documentary but it does make you think

like all right I'm gonna die someday and then everybody's gonna forget who you were not you they'll be they'll be gonna forget me I'll be five years after they'll be a doc Chris Ryan's gonna be old in a rocking chair and be like he wasn't the easiest to get along with but it was worth it there have been a lot of people like Bill was Bill but they say my name twice you know Bill was Bill like the Maynard Ramirez sterler so Casablanca that's your recommendation nation and it is it's it is pretty cool like when you think about all right bogart is this mysterious guy who's in occupied you know africa and yet

there's a dueling the vici and you've got the nazis and he's kind of his own man he's almost like this han solo type and it's bogart who's not exactly the most dashing guy ever and yet i was reading about him after the fact so i was trying trying to figure out like if there's a biography that it was worth i'm sure there's plenty of really good ones but like for me to do a biography on somebody i'm like i don't really like doing that all that much anymore but then the duke of all people john wayne being like that was the leading man that like i thought about when i pursued my career like to your

point like you can say hey man bogart was really famous and i remember like the first time i saw the african queen it was like you know a movie my parents wouldn't turn off or something when i was a really young kid being like this movie sucks but then even as a kid i kept because you know we'd didn't have any channels back then it was just on TV I think there were three channels and even as a kid I was like man this African queen's like kind of crazy like this is a crazy movie and he's so good at being the perfect like you know she would have never thought she'd be with him you know a lot of the standard

kind of like rule making that you have in storytelling and there is something to Casablanca that certainly you know holds up in the sense that it wasn't just this super simple straightforward love story of will they or won't they and with the backdrop of him owning his cafe and everything it was just cool I hadn't seen it in like forever and so yeah it is funny how I wish I I watched Sabrina a couple months ago with Audrey Hepburn right that's the one they did on the Vineyard with Harrison Ford yeah they redid it yeah this was the original one tons of shout outs today that movie is just when you

watch it Like just through the context of now, but when they made it back then, it's kind of amazing.

And just the premise of it, it's just like, great story.

Two brothers. She was always where her family worked for this super rich family.

Yeah, but it was. She has had a crush on one of the brothers.

He never realized it.

Was it kind of cocktail, right?

She went away to, and then came back a woman and the brother didn't realize it was her and then loved her, but he was kind of a rube.

It was like, I was like, this is they fucking nailed it with this every piece of it is just really smart it's gonna be a real out uh art house summer over here because i watched lawrence of arabia a couple weeks ago yeah and you know i don't know what's going on with me but i was like i'm just gonna start running through all of these like all -time classics uh they became classics for a reason you know it's like yeah the godfather and jaws and movies like those movies are fucking Fucking incredible.

That's why they became classics.

Peter O'Toole, though, laying on a little thick.

Dialed it up a little bit.

Yeah. I want to hear that.

The guys were very, very over the top.

Well, there were a lot of theater guys.

So I would love a Lawrence of Arabia rewatchables.

I don't want to be on it.

I want it to be UCR and fantasy.

And I would love to hear just see our breaking down.

O'Toole's passion really going for it.

Yeah. Well, Well, I think we're doing, we did After Hours.

That's coming Monday.

And then I think we're doing Jaws 2.

Ironically, another Vineyard shoutout.

That's the next one.

The Vineyard's on fire right now.

You don't have any Jaws 2 thoughts?

I don't. Dreyfus wouldn't do it.

He wouldn't be in. Which was the terrible one?

Three? Jaws 3. It was for 3D.

Three was 3D. It was Jaws 3D.

That makes more sense.

There's been two eras of movies when they got really excited about 3D.

That this is the next thing.

Here we go. 3D. And then people are like, nah, this kind of sucks.

They tried it again.

We're wrapping up. So we're back next Sunday.

Do you think, what do you think the, if you had to make one prediction for the biggest thing that will happen in the seven days before we see each other again.

Just give me a team.

You don't have to make a prediction.

Don't say Boston, please.

No, I don't. I'll say Spurs.

I like it. That's a good one.

All right. Good to see you, Rasul.

See you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rasul.

Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal as well.

Don't forget, new Rewatchables coming tomorrow night after hours.

and then you can watch all the stuff from this podcast and Bill Simmons' YouTube channel.

And I will see you at least once more this week, probably Wednesday, but not sure of the day yet.

But you will see me one more time this week.

See you then. must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president DC gambling problem call 1 -800 -GAMBLER or visit rg -help .com call 1 -888 -79 -7777 or visit ccpg .org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp .org in Maryland.

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[NBA Offseason Analysis: Market Shifts, Team Strategies, and the LeBron James Saga]-[The NBA Summer Movement Preview With Ryen Russillo]

📋 Summary

The New NBA Economic Reality: A Reset Market

The "Asset Management" Paradigm

The Detroit Pistons and the Search for Spacing

The Pelicans-Hawks Trade and the "Incomprehensible" Logic

The LeBron James and Lakers Situation

Cultural Shifts and Media Consumption

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript