An Icy Tatum-Brown Reunion, Plus Most Screwed NBA Teams With Rob Mahoney

This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three, Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. We did Air Force One. You can watch it or listen to it on Spotify or on Netflix. Me, CR, and Sean, it's our eighth Harrison Ford movie. I apologize during the podcast. I thought it was the seventh. It's actually the eighth, which puts him in a more elite category. I think he's like in the top 10 or 11 all time now, 12. Something like that. Anyway, one of my favorite movie presidents. We talked about that a lot more. Coming up next week on the Rewatchables. We're doing nine to five. It's available on Netflix. It's going to be me and Amy Poehler. Her first appearance. She's never been on this pod. She's going on the Rewatchables before this podcast. I don't know how that happened. Coming up on this podcast, at the very top, I'm going to talk about the Celtics-Sixers game, which was fascinating tonight and exhilarating. Yeah, I'm probably going to be a little bit giddy. You might want to fast forward. To the second section of this podcast with Rob Mahoney, where we talk about the, what the hell happened to these teams, teams, the worst teams in the league, and can they get out of the hole? That's the podcast. I'm going to talk a little NFL trade deadline at the top of the first segment too, but that's what's coming up. Let's take a break, Pearl Jam, and then I'm coming back. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Every football player brings something different to the field. Maybe they have a cannon arm, speed, power. Maybe. They have their own podcast. That being said, no two players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. All right. So I'm coming on right after Celtics Sixers. Not quite worthy of going live on Netflix, but in retrospect, I wish I had because the night could not have gone better. If you're a Celtic fan, if you were Paul George, if you're Jason Tatum, honestly, if you were Celtics owner Bill Chisholm and Brad Stevens, Mike Zarin and everybody behind the scenes with the Celtics who made that trade right as I was coming out of my colonoscopy in the beginning of July and they traded Jalen Brown for two first round picks and Paul George. And it seemed like a stunning trade, a staggering trade. Oh, why did they do the trade? If you remember during my podcast during the summer, it took me 50 days to talk myself into the trade. That's how long I had to stare at it and look at it and wonder what they were thinking. And what they were thinking was what we saw tonight that Paul George would be rejuvenated on this team with the ball movement that he would be, you know, a little inspired that Philly gave up on him and had to attach picks in a trade to get Jalen Brown back. And what you saw tonight from him is what he's been doing all season. He has been incredibly fun to play with. He's not a ball hog. The ball moves around with him. He can defend almost every position. He makes wide open threes. He makes contested threes. He can pass. He can post up. He can get to the basket. And as my dad texted after the game, I really hope he stays healthy because that's the question. He's 36 years old, but he looked fantastic tonight. I mean, he has, look, there's nothing stupider than an all-star game conversation after 10 days, but it's hard to believe he's not been one of the best four forwards in the Eastern Conference through three weeks of the season because just every time he's out there, it's just, you just feel like you're in good hands. And, you know, one of the main reasons they made this trade is because as I talked about all summer, as you saw in some of the pieces that were written this week, they felt like they had just reached the end of the line with Tatum and Brown with the your turn, my turn stuff and the lack of ball movement and some of the blown leads and just made the decision. We can't pay 65 to 70% of the salary cap for these two guys when we don't know if we can get out of the first round anymore with them. So they made a gamble. They got, they got some assets and really they rolled the dice that Paul George could be good for this year. They only need him to be good for this year. Next year, he's an expiring contract. Anything's a bonus. You can always flip it, but this year they needed him to be good so they could be competitive. And guess what? He's been a 10 out of 10. He's been an A plus for whatever you could have expected going into the season. So you have this comeback to Philly game, Tatum versus Brown. And how does it go for the Celtics? There's a blowout. Well, that was fun. Jalen Brown stunk. We'll get to that in a second. Paul George looked incredible. Jalen Brown had a poster dunk over LeBron James that Reggie Miller thought reminded him of the play in the bubble. Come on, Reggie Miller. It was 2018 game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals in Boston. It wasn't in the bubble. We'll get to NBC in a second too. So you had the JT poster dunk and he was fine. He was like a B minus today, but made a couple of big plays. You had LeBron looked 41 years old tonight, which he is. And you had Embiid look 51 years old tonight. So from a Celtics standpoint, perfect. But yet this is the NBA season. They're playing in Toronto by our night. There's 82 of these. You're going to have your ups. You're going to have your downs. And that's just the way the regular season goes. But for this specific night, where the Celtics team is kind of their number one in net rating, they're kind of feeling like a contender. Once you get past San Antonio and you talk about the next group of teams, but you know, you want to see them do something like this on the road against a team that has really good players and a crowd that was in it. And they answered the challenge. And, you know, you think about they, they lost to Detroit first game of the season where they're behind by 22 or they're up by 22 points and somehow blew that game. That's one of their two losses this year. They're just playing really well. It's a legitimate contender. All right. Jalen versus Tatum. I was thinking about bad blood games and I don't know for sure if there's bad blood or what kind of blood we're talking about here, but there's clearly something. And it's been brewing really since some of the stuff that happened even before Tatum came back. And then after Tatum came back and then really started when, um, Jalen said that, uh, this was his favorite season ever, which was just still one of the more bizarre quotes I can remember right around there. It's like, ah, this isn't good. It got worse. It got worse. We gleam all these anecdotes from the summer. They're in France in the same place. They don't talk. It's clear. They're not talking this whole time. The trade happens after a week of rumors to Philly. Unexpectedly we find out over the course of the summer, they never talked after that. After the trade, um, Jalen kind of up the ante in some interviews and a couple other things where it just felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire and Tatum kept trying to take the high road and then would say, and it just kind of went back and forth. And I thought tonight when the game started, I thought we would either, my money would have bet on the fist pump with either of them looking at each other, or maybe the joint slap on the ass. That's not what we got. And I was trying to think, you know, Jalen's just had a, I, I liked Jalen. I've talked about him over and over and over again on this podcast. I really liked Jalen. I enjoyed rooting for him. I defended how awesome he was last year. Uh, I loved them in the 24 playoffs. He was a great Celtic. He was unbelievable in the city, um, and for the community. And, uh, I will always defend that guy. I wonder if anyone, if he, if he has the right person in his life to just bounce ideas, in thoughts off of, because if he, let's say it was me, let's say, um, let's say I'm his, I'm his, I'm his buddy. It's like, well, it's like me and Joe house and I'm not for Jalen and Jalen just calls. It was like, Hey, I'm thinking about what to do tomorrow. When Tatum comes up to me in the, in the pregame, what I think I'll do is I'll spin a basketball. Like I'm on the Harlem globe. Trotters pretending that this isn't a moment at all. And then when Tatum comes up to me, I'm just going to ignore him. What do you think of that idea? You know what I would have said? That's fucking stupid. Don't do that. Be a bigger man. Just do it. Do a fist bump, slap each other on the butt, whatever, or just ignore him. Do what Larry bird did in the, uh, in 1987 game five in Boston against Detroit, the game after he got in a fight with Bill and bear and land beer walks over and, and like goes to shake his hand and bird just looks at it with complete disdain and, and basically just wants no part of them do that. The, the, been in the basketball thing. It was just lame and it was a weird moment. It was weird for Tatum. It was weird for everybody. And it was also weird for NBC who just missed it because they were in a split screen inexplicably. NBC had one job. They literally had one job during this game, which was to make sure when Tatum approaches LeBron or Brown or Brown approaches Tatum right before the game starts, make sure you have a wide shot and you can capture what happens. They fucked it up. Anyway, best bad blood games. Shaq and Kobe was incredible. The first time they played, it really felt like we all thought they hated each other. KD and Russ, the first time when KD went to golden state and, uh, and Russ was really mad about it. That one was fun. LeBron going back to Cleveland was actually, I didn't really like that one that much. It was, I don't know. I don't know. It was like a, like a wrestling pay-per-view only. It was real people. It's weird vibes. This was, I wouldn't say one of the best bad blood games I've ever seen. But once that intro happened, it's like, Oh shit, what's going to happen here? Jalen guards him coming out of the, coming out of the start, really physical with them. And then the game just went sideways. Um, Tatum guarded him for the first time, forced the turnover Brown dribbled it out of bounds and Brown just seemed discombobulated. He was trying to do too much. He got two fouls early, which is the usual. I'm going to have a bad game. Jalen Brown thing, um, forced a couple of plays and just, just seemed kind of out of it. The whole game, um, could not get into a groove. And you know, if you're a Sixer fan, again, this is one game out of 82, who knows what the hell is going to happen. But if you're a Sixer fan, you're worried about what this team is going to look like during moments of adversity. When, you have five guys who are all used to having a little bit more of a share of the pie, all kind of wondering who's going to step up when things are going sideways and then how they all fit in with each other. Like you saw LeBron really sacrificed in the first half as a Celtic fan. I'm waiting for Maxie to take over. I even texted, um, a couple of people in the third quarter, like Maxie's going to go nuts. And this game is going to be tied. It was exactly what happened. Max is the scariest guy in the Sixers team. You're just hoping that they don't realize that the entire time when you're playing them. You're hoping they spread it around. Oh yeah. Please run that and bead play. Let him bog everybody down. He'll go to the free throw line, whatever. I just don't want Max to get going. And, uh, and they were just discombobulated on offense, which is fine. That happens. It was the defense. That was I, whatever happened to them in the second half, this game was tied at one point. Um, and then near the end of the third quarter, all the way in the fourth quarter, it felt like the Celtics scored 30 straight points and they're just getting wide open threes and six or seven, six or players are just trapping for no re they're trapping aimlessly. They it's, it's like they had never trapped before. And Paul George is just open again. And then, Hey, here, Pritchard's wide open. Oh, there's Hauser. He's wide open too. And, uh, they just fell apart and that's that. And by the way, they can come to Boston and probably beat them. But, uh, and then we'll be like, Oh yeah, I remember when they lost that first game, then they rallied back. I'm trying to think like, is there an overreaction if you're a six or fan here? Cause Jalen stunk, um, and B kept falling down and they didn't get a lot from their bench. And then the Celtics hit just a slew of threes. What did they end up with from three? They were, I'm looking at the team stats, 22 for 49. Guess what? You're not winning many games when the other team is 22 for 49. I will say the free throws, which were, it was 26 to three free throw advantage for quarters. It ended up 28 to five. Now you could say it was because the Celtics were shooting a lot of threes, or you could say the Sixers are really good at drawing fouls and coercing the refs, whatever you want to say. I just know that the game I watched should not have had a free throw advantage like that. Um, the LeBron piece of this, there was a moment I'm going to say it was maybe late second quarter or third quarter. I can't remember. But LeBron was playing, it was second half. LeBron was playing center briefly. Kata was on him 25 feet from the basket. And in the old days that, I mean, the most famous version of this was bestest Azuli in game seven and 2016 finals when Azuli is trapped on an Island against LeBron 25 feet from the basket. First time LeBron hits a three second time, LeBron upfakes him, gets the three free throws. And those six points basically decided game seven of the finals. Cause he had Festus Azuli on an Island. And by the way, I'm not positive Festus Azuli ever played basketball again after that. Um, this time around he had Kate on an Island and he just can't go by people like that anymore. He can still, he can get his fast break straight line transitions. Um, he can get his stuff around the basket. He's become a better and better like bully ball post-up guy over the last 10, 12 years, three point shooting kind of comes and goes. He always manages to get his stats together. But the one thing he can't do anymore is is in that five out situation, just blow by guys. You just don't see it anymore. And you know why? Cause he's going to be 42 in December, but that was notable. Um, edge comb felt like he could get going at any point and just doesn't, isn't going to get the ball enough on this team. Um, I like their bench. I like Philly. I don't, to me, if I'm a Philly fan, I'm not overreacting to this. This is just a bad night. And, uh, and shit happens. There were a couple of small things though. The fact that Paul George has this whole history with LeBron, where he's played against LeBron, like for fucking ever, um, just comfortable against him, which you can't say about a lot of guys, uh, certainly seem comfortable going against Jalen Brown, but he's bringing a whole bunch of history, uh, against LeBron Jalen and Jason to have a whole bunch of history against each other, obviously. But then you, you're watching, it was really fun watching the different Celtics guard Jalen for a possession. Like Hugo was on him for a little bit. There was one time Pritchard was on him. White was on him a couple of times. White took a charge from him. You're going against this guy for 10 years, you know, all of his good and bad habits, but I did enjoy that part. I would like to watch at least 10 of these. Um, that was notable. And then the other thing was the Mitch Robinson against Embiid. Now Robinson got in foul trouble. They showed highlights of him from last year, dunking on Embiid back when he was about 20 pounds lighter and could jump. And that was one of those moments where like, Ooh, yeah, I forgot. That's what he used to look like. I assume he's going to play himself in shape over the course of the season, but this was a big physical guy they could put against Embiid and at least make them work. Um, from a Celtic standpoint though, Embiid who's in the regular season, at least has really killed them and killed them in the last couple of games of the playoff series last year. Um, he, he just has no lift anymore. I think he can still figure out how to get to the line and he can hit 15 footer, he finally hit a three today. He had this crazy old for 22, three point streak, but it just looks like he's laboring out there. Jack, uh, Zach compared him to Jamie Moyer this week. Like he's turning into a junk baller. I thought that was fair. Um, it's, it's not necessarily insulting either. It's just, he's moved into a different phase athletically. He's falling down all the time. And sometimes there's times when he falls down and he's milking an injury where it's like you're in first grade. Watching the kid who keeps pretending he's hurt, but you know, he's not hurt. He goes down at the end of the first half and it's just was an embarrassing play, right? He missed an easy shot and kind of landed funny and then went down like he'd been shot, not realizing that we were about to throw the ball away and Philly was going to have the ball back and somebody was going to dunk over him. So now he's got to keep going with the, Oh, I'm hurt. And it was, we're now in Rodney Dangerfield, Caddyshack. Oh, my arm. I think it's broken. And of course I and Eagle and Reggie Miller fall for it. And, and they're showing him, it's like, Oh, this is going to be interesting to see if he plays second half. I wish this had been a live bet on Fando. Will Joe Embiid be totally fine in the second half? I would have put any amount of money on that, but you know, the falling down the flopping, it's just, it's just hard to support. This is somebody who's one of the best 75 players of all time. It's just, I, even the Philly fans know, um, I got an email from Todd lifelong Celtic fan who wondered if Tatum and Jalen Brown, if this breakup was the most classic divorce couple situation in NBA history. He said, Tatum is the ex-wife who got to keep the house in Boston custody of the kids. Already has a new girlfriend. He's doing great. He's telling everyone I'll always love Jalen. We built something special together. Sometimes people just grow apart. Meanwhile, Jalen is the bitter divorce. His dad living in a two bedroom condo in Philadelphia, pissed every watching every Celtic game. Everyone knows someone's cheated and there's more to the story, but nobody's talking. I thought that was well put. Jalen does seem pissed about this though. And honestly, I don't blame him. He was an awesome Celtic. We loved having him for 10 years and it felt like they did him a little bit dirty near the end. And does that explain why he had to be petty with how he greeted Tatum at the top of this game? I don't know. Who knows the text history with these guys, phone call history, what they said over the last few years who knows but I don't know maybe a little sad these guys the Jays nine years of them we knew they weren't best friends but they they won a lot of games and did a lot of good stuff together and then it gets to the point where you're about to see each other and play against each other for the first time and spinning a basketball wants no part of the other guy I hope they hope they end up on better terms than this that's all I got from this game I feel good about the Celtics later in this podcast we're gonna talk about all the teams we don't feel good about quickly in the trade deadline so the big one was cousins goes back to Minnesota for a third if you remember I was begging Tom Palisaro to make this trade happen on this podcast like 10 days ago just like what are we waiting for let's do it Minnesota has to throw away the Buffalo game basically my take is Kevin O'Connell I think just kept Wentz out there even though he didn't have it he didn't want to bring Brozmer in because he was afraid if Brozmer came in that he played just well enough that maybe they wouldn't trade a third-round pick for Kirk Cousins so he waits until the game's over then brings Brozmer in against you know they're playing a prevent defense basically I think he threw Wentz to the Wolves for that game hoping that they would do this trade so they get yet Cousins for a third it's gonna be a ten million dollar bonus they have to do it so they get get Cousins for a third it's gonna be a ten million dollar bonus they have to do it when you're six and two when you're one of the when you have the best defense in the league when you're trying to keep somebody like Jefferson happy there's just that was the best option and you just have to do it so they lose the third round pick the Bills paid a second round pick for safety Mara hooker I support it I don't really love their secondary Casey gets Josh downs for a fourth and a fifth from Indy he's one of those great on paper receivers that we've never really seen it for an entire season and I say this partly because he's been on two of my fantasy teams doing basically nothing but Daniel dimes is his quarterback feels like a good fit for Casey let's put this way I'm gonna keep him on my fantasy teams and then the weird one was Jacksonville Jordan Davis they trade for from Philly and they gave up a first and a second so they gave up extra picks a second so they gave up extra picks a second so they gave up extra picks including a first for Travis Hunter they including a first for Travis Hunter they including a first for Travis Hunter they now gave up a first for Jordan Davis now gave up a first for Jordan Davis now gave up a first for Jordan Davis they this this general manager James they this this general manager James they this this general manager James Gladstone he's basically doing the mad Gladstone he's basically doing the mad Gladstone he's basically doing the mad Ishby I'm gonna set all my picks on fire Ishby I'm gonna set all my picks on fire Ishby I'm gonna set all my picks on fire and try to win this season move which and try to win this season move which and try to win this season move which I'm not a big fan of the Jordan Davis I'm not a big fan of the Jordan Davis I'm not a big fan of the Jordan Davis thing was especially weird because thing was especially weird because nobody seemed to think he was playing nobody seemed to think he was playing nobody seemed to think he was playing that well he was only playing half the that well he was only playing half the that well he was only playing half the snaps and he's an inside defensive snaps and he's an inside defensive snaps and he's an inside defensive lineman guy and they already just traded lineman guy and they already just traded lineman guy and they already just traded for another version of that I just would for another version of that I just would for another version of that I just would have traded for like Christian Barmore have traded for like Christian Barmore have traded for like Christian Barmore for a fourth rounder or something I for a fourth rounder or something I for a fourth rounder or something I couldn't believe how much they gave up couldn't believe how much they gave up couldn't believe how much they gave up for him um so Jacksonville is all in and for him um so Jacksonville is all in and for him um so Jacksonville is all in and they feel like rightly so that they have they feel like rightly so that they have they feel like rightly so that they have a chance to win the AFC but I'm not sure a chance to win the AFC but I'm not sure a chance to win the AFC but I'm not sure Jordan Davis was the answer there were Jordan Davis was the answer there were Jordan Davis was the answer there were some people on this I read Seth Walder some people on this I read Seth Walder some people on this I read Seth Walder on ESPN just absolutely torches trade I on ESPN just absolutely torches trade I on ESPN just absolutely torches trade I would have said if you had asked me would have said if you had asked me would have said if you had asked me Jacksonville's trading for Jordan Davis Jacksonville's trading for Jordan Davis Jacksonville's trading for Jordan Davis what do you think they gave up I would what do you think they gave up I would what do you think they gave up I would have said a second have said a second have said a second because that would have been end of the because that would have been end of the because that would have been end of the second round because they they're gonna second round because they they're gonna second round because they they're gonna have a good record um it was a first and have a good record um it was a first and have a good record um it was a first and a second it's pretty rough but those a second it's pretty rough but those a second it's pretty rough but those were the uh those are the big trades were the uh those are the big trades were the uh those are the big trades Jonathan Taylor inexplicably still on Jonathan Taylor inexplicably still on Jonathan Taylor inexplicably still on Indianapolis I think Carly wrote down in Indianapolis I think Carly wrote down in Indianapolis I think Carly wrote down in her notebook that they had to keep her her notebook that they had to keep her her notebook that they had to keep her keep him um the trade I was rooting for keep him um the trade I was rooting for keep him um the trade I was rooting for was the Giants trading was the Giants trading was the Giants trading cam scatabo and a second round pick for cam scatabo and a second round pick for cam scatabo and a second round pick for Taylor and then we have Cam in Taylor and then we have Cam in Taylor and then we have Cam in Indianapolis um maybe three years away Indianapolis um maybe three years away Indianapolis um maybe three years away from his ultimate Destiny of being one from his ultimate Destiny of being one from his ultimate Destiny of being one of the seven guys on McAfee show of the seven guys on McAfee show of the seven guys on McAfee show I think I think we all missed out on I think I think we all missed out on I think I think we all missed out on that maybe that'll happen uh next year that maybe that'll happen uh next year that maybe that'll happen uh next year but that's it it was pretty pretty uh but that's it it was pretty pretty uh but that's it it was pretty pretty uh unexciting trade deadline because we unexciting trade deadline because we unexciting trade deadline because we already had some good trades we covered already had some good trades we covered already had some good trades we covered it on the ringer NFL show all the guys it on the ringer NFL show all the guys it on the ringer NFL show all the guys are in LA the ringer fantasy guys talked are in LA the ringer fantasy guys talked are in LA the ringer fantasy guys talked about it as well so if you want to hear about it as well so if you want to hear about it as well so if you want to hear some in-depth stuff go check out those some in-depth stuff go check out those some in-depth stuff go check out those pods and I'll be talking about uh about pods and I'll be talking about uh about pods and I'll be talking about uh about these trades what it meant for the NFL these trades what it meant for the NFL these trades what it meant for the NFL season on Thursday as we do uh week 10 season on Thursday as we do uh week 10 season on Thursday as we do uh week 10 picks with house and mailbag and I have picks with house and mailbag and I have a couple other guests as well we're gonna a couple other guests as well we're gonna a couple other guests as well we're gonna take a break take a break take a break um I'm gonna still refuse to dap Jason um I'm gonna still refuse to dap Jason um I'm gonna still refuse to dap Jason Tatum or acknowledge him in any way Tatum or acknowledge him in any way Tatum or acknowledge him in any way and then um we're going to come back and then um we're going to come back and then um we're going to come back with the one and only Rob Mahoney after with the one and only Rob Mahoney after with the one and only Rob Mahoney after this this this the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Thursday Night Football you by FanDuel Thursday Night Football just got a little more rewarding with just got a little more rewarding with just got a little more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club FanDuel Rewards Club FanDuel Rewards Club FanDuel Rewards Club you can unlock exclusive offers you can unlock exclusive offers you can unlock exclusive offers throughout the NFL season including throughout the NFL season including throughout the NFL season including Thursday Night Football we're talking Thursday Night Football we're talking Thursday Night 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varies terms apply product availability varies terms apply product availability varies by region exclusions may apply see app by region exclusions may apply see app by region exclusions may apply see app for details for details for details all right we went in a time machine we all right we went in a time machine we all right we went in a time machine we went backwards a few hours Rob Mahoney is went backwards a few hours Rob Mahoney is went backwards a few hours Rob Mahoney is here on a Tuesday afternoon before all here on a Tuesday afternoon before all here on a Tuesday afternoon before all the other stuff I talked about in this the other stuff I talked about in this the other stuff I talked about in this podcast I invited you in to talk about podcast I invited you in to talk about podcast I invited you in to talk about the dregs of the NBA and my favorite the dregs of the NBA and my favorite the dregs of the NBA and my favorite honestly the theme being how did we get honestly the theme being how did we get honestly the theme being how did we get here teams after 9-10 games going here teams after 9-10 games going here teams after 9-10 games going what happened what happened what happened I thought everyone in the league was I thought everyone in the league was I thought everyone in the league was supposed to be good this year I didn't supposed to be good this year I didn't supposed to be good this year I didn't think we were gonna have tanking why do think we were gonna have tanking why do think we were gonna have tanking why do we suck but before we get into those we suck but before we get into those we suck but before we get into those teams the Cavs are are knocking on the teams the Cavs are are knocking on the floor of of wanting to be included in floor of of wanting to be included in floor of of wanting to be included in this group dregs adjacent five five and this group dregs adjacent five five and this group dregs adjacent five five and six but with no moves at all yeah they six but with no moves at all yeah they six but with no moves at all yeah they have Mobley four for 223 they have have Mobley four for 223 they have have Mobley four for 223 they have Mitchell four for 274 but 50 this year Mitchell four for 274 but 50 this year Mitchell four for 274 but 50 this year so it's five years of him Harden 30 32 so it's five years of him Harden 30 32 so it's five years of him Harden 30 32 33 Allen 28 30 32 and Watson 4 for 88 33 32 and Watson 4 for 88 who is their big move before the season who is their big move before the season who is their big move before the season yeah no moves left depressing last night yeah no moves left depressing last night yeah no moves left depressing last night like clips coming out of the game I I like clips coming out of the game I I like clips coming out of the game I I did I made a joke about Harden it did I made a joke about Harden it did I made a joke about Harden it reminded me of when I decided to quit reminded me of when I decided to quit reminded me of when I decided to quit pickup just standing stationary watching pickup just standing stationary watching pickup just standing stationary watching rebounds go around him then somebody rebounds go around him then somebody rebounds go around him then somebody knocks into him but bad so what happens knocks into him but bad so what happens knocks into him but bad so what happens I think for one on that game like you I think for one on that game like you I think for one on that game like you never want to over index on any one night never want to over index on any one night never want to over index on any one night but when you're getting just worked by but when you're getting just worked by but when you're getting just worked by the Grayson Allen Nas Reed super team the Grayson Allen Nas Reed super team the Grayson Allen Nas Reed super team it's sobering and it's hard to unsee it's sobering and it's hard to unsee it's sobering and it's hard to unsee and I think the Cavs have more of those and I think the Cavs have more of those and I think the Cavs have more of those games than almost any other good team games than almost any other good team where they'll just have inexplicable losses. So many games where it's like, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there's something that's just not there. And it's why it's so hard to trust them. And Harden has been so bad that I think our finger is on it now. This is a distinct, observable, very clear problem in the formula of the team that goes beyond whatever you may think of Donovan Mitchell, whatever you may think Evan Mobley can or can't do. James Harden is not a high-level player right now. And so long as that's the case, they're just not really going to be going anywhere. Do you feel like we've been in this situation with him a couple of times over the last five years where we said to ourselves, wow, I guess we've hit the end of the road with James Harden. And then he'll just start ripping off good games again. I mean, it certainly looked that way at the end of the Sixers run. And then he went to the Clippers and had a resurgence. This feels different. And I think some of it is kind of, if you want to take the broader view, over the last three or four years, you've seen the steady decline of, yes, he's still a good pick and roll player, a good playmaker, but the ISO scoring fell off a pretty steep cliff. And so he's clearly not the guy he used to be. The question was, could he even be the middle ground stage of like a good setup man for the rest of this offense? And that doesn't even seem to really be there right now either. And they, I like them as a regular season team because of the money they spent basically, but had the same concerns about them in the playoffs as a team when you're built around Mitchell and Harden, how am I getting stops? There's so many good guards in the league. And now that Harden started out this way, it brings a couple things to light here. One, is this a classic? If we had just lost game seven in round one, would all of this, would we be in a better spot? The fact that they got to the final four and then could kind of talk themselves into not just the Kenny Atkinson joke about the analytics, analytically we're solid, but like we did blow that game, game one, one of the flukiest playoff losses in the history of the league. We were one of the four best teams. We're better than 27 other teams. Now, if we had Peyton Watson, maybe, maybe there's something here, but if you lose in round one, you're not thinking that way. You're thinking, shit, what do we do? We're stuck with, they obviously wink blinked with Harden. Yes. Right. They couldn't get out of that. Of course, for legal reasons, they would never, they would never do something like that. The Bucks are like, yeah, we didn't do anything with Gary Trent either. No, no, no. But, but they were kind of stuck with that. So you have two. things going on one is they make that trade for garland for harden which then prohibits them from getting lebron because they're stuck with harden i will be convinced for the rest of my life lebron was going there but thought they were going to trade hard and they didn't so you have that but then you also have the did we deceive ourselves with the playoffs last year yeah did winning two rounds make us think we were different than we were and i think that's the answer is probably yes i think them maybe more than any other team in the field right now kind of needed that sort of wake-up call and it's why i mean i just have a lot of admiration for whatever you may think of the way that the knicks are run more broadly but like the hard look in the mirror to go from tom thibodeau to mike brown turned out to be a stroke of genius right like having having that kind of situational awareness to say we are good and there's a lot of reasons to think we could just like maybe take another half step forward if we keep doing the same thing but what if we tried something dramatic instead the calves have felt very good in for the most the majority of this era of calves basketball but often a little stale for i think a bunch of different reasons i think what's tough with this team is like they don't even feel big anymore like for a team that is employing like evan mobley and jared allen like where is this team on the glass he had two rebounds mobley last night completely inexplicable and it's like stuff like that hangs over them and so it's like if you're not going to be the dynamic perimeter team other than donovan mitchell who's still an incredible scorer and you're not going to be the physical big team what are you spiritually like like where does that leave you in terms of how you're going to navigate the best teams in the eastern conference i think the calves have shown they don't have answers to that they just kind of bludgeoned their way through especially when they get into a series of like donovan mitchell takeovers they'll have the occasional james hard pop or evan mobley pop but there are teams searching for answers that doesn't have a lot of resources to provide them well you know one of my great theories rob in a playoff series with seven games you basically have to go 500 and then win the last game you can basically be a 500 team for two weeks and you're not going to be able to advance that's true and they did that for two straight rounds and then uh it caught up to them but uh another one of my theories is if you give up 10 60 point halves in the first three weeks of a season fucking 10 60 point halves that's a bad sign now if i'm a calves fan we lost to okc twice we lost to philly we lost to new york we lost to atlanta we lost to a charlotte team last night that granted has been dog shit but had a big spotlight on them last night there was a lot of people panicking about the lamello trade and and it does not as we'd want to be here which it kind of didn't seem like he did but they came out they punched him in the mouth and they hit a ton of threes they did and it's like that charlotte can win that kind of game it's just cleveland leaves themselves open to a lot of those games too 16th and net so if you talk about moves mitchell extension basically makes it impossible to trade him the extending harden for three years i think he's untradeable and you can't even trade him till december 15th alan got that extension nobody wants to pay a center 32 million a year i don't think unless it's yokage yes they have no outs except the mobile trade that's so tough though and that got whispered about a little bit last summer there was a moment with jalen brown and i never knew what to believe and the calves were pretty adamant they didn't want to trade every mobile like there's a moment with the yana stuff too at various points of like could this be a conversation that brings everybody at the table and then it would fizzle out or go sideways but he would have been the only guy that would have made this situation weirder i think maybe throw miami yannis into this mess oh my god good lord talk about like uh nobody talking during dead balls yeah but you know they there's a golden state if golden state wanted to put dream on in a trade with with kp's contract and picks that's mildly interesting that cannot solve cleveland's problems i don't think i'm just talking if you want if you have this big money thing that's coming with the way they've done these contracts and you have a chance to get out of one of the contracts so that going forward you're not going to be screwed mobile is the tradable one clearly and i don't think they will i think he has a lot of appeal still for everything that we've said about him taking shots about the rebounding here they're like there are a lot of teams that would kill 25 he's five years younger than yaksa lindenberg mobile to charlotte for naz read and expirings would be the we can still be competitive yeah we save some money stuff later it's about naz makes half as much mobile to brooklyn for porters expiring and don't do that to heaven mobile if you want to get out of jail free card with this tax situation yeah that's probably the best expiring and then there's a hero and kuzma expirings which i don't i think i hate that trade for everybody i think so you go through the league it's hard to find teams that are just like cool i'd love to pay somebody 50 million dollars everybody's terrified yeah i think there's especially at this moment i think guys are getting hurt left and right and they're not getting hurt left and right and they're not in a way that one of the ripple effects is you're just looking at any of these deals that are over 30 million you're like can we survive 40 million in dead money over the course of a season if a guy goes down like the risk in just taking on anyone with that level of commitment even someone like evan mobley is relatively healthy but it just feels overwhelming sometimes even do you like that do you like that these are the rules now in in what sense the second apron and the fear that everybody has of basically having three expensive guys in the same team no unless you're an owner doesn't care anymore i'm of the somewhat radical opinion that owners should just fucking pay people and so the idea of like we're going to create the second apron so we can then hide behind it in fear is just like embarrassing i agree with you the players agreed to it though the players did agree to it um i i don't think it's been good for the game really at all i mean you could you could look at this a bit like the parody that has come of the nba finals and the deep playoff runs and say okay that's in part a byproduct of all this i'm i'm just not so convinced that's the only like factor that's going to happen i don't think it's going to happen i don't think it's going to i think i think there are a lot of reasons why the league is in a slightly more balanced place the injuries being a huge part of it like it's just hard to maintain multiple finals runs year over year even if you have an incredible oklahoma city thunder-esque roster yeah so yeah the second apron is handicapping teams in certain ways and preventing the knicks from signing or not preventing but convincing the knicks in some fashion that they shouldn't sign cat to an extension or whatever excuse they want to use but i just i think there's a lot in play and i don't think it's done a lot of good there's been different variations of it over the years like even i remember the 08 celtics decided not to bring back james posey who was huge on the 018 but he was that's basically the same thing as not giving cat the extension right like james posey was the guy for the way it's all he was in every good lineup we had in the playoffs but and it was 30 he got like 30 million from new orleans and it didn't seem like a lot at the time but they were like well we're kind of at capacity we we gotta hope that our young guys and so it's not like teams haven't been making these choices i think what's different now is like a town's type of i don't remember that before where somebody who's clearly the second best guy in that team at worst that's fair yeah where's the third a huge part of their success on a championship team and they might be like i don't know if we can do this that's where it gets hard we've done i don't remember that happening in the league before even golden state when they had the four guys together yeah and durant wanted to leave they still wanted to keep them they were still going to figure it out and if they just had to pay whatever they wanted to pay in luxury tax they were going to do it they didn't care i just think you should have to give something up if you're a billionaire and you're like i i simply can't afford to pay carl anthony towns or whoever it is over the second apron like you got to give up that billionaire card you got to go to the broke boys club with everybody else and like i don't sit out for a minute lose your board of governors seat i don't know what the punishment is but like like a scarlet letter when you go to the game i think that's fair you know bag over the head whatever it takes it's tough when you see that the knicks are worth like 17 billion dollars now or whatever it is and he's like i had towns i don't know what to do with it i don't know what to do with it i don't know what to do with it now on the other hand i'm not sure carl anthony town should make 60 million dollars a year that the reason that he became available for the knicks was because there was questions about is this a little like evan moby right now it's like i like evan moby i don't know if i want to pay him as one of my two max guys and that's the fundamental problem with the calves when you're built around moby and mitchell as your two expensive guys this is what the celtics decided with uh the philly boston game that we don't know what happened yet and we'll find out at the top of this podcast but they just decided they'd run their course with those two and they couldn't win anymore with those two guys as their best guys as their expensive guys and i wonder if the calves are going to realize that soon so i mean that's the difference with the timing on that too where the knicks have their proof of concept they just did it they know that's a championship team they know it works that's why it's less defensible the calves have been pretty expensive from the jump from the second they started piling up first donovan mitchell then james hard now peyton watson like all of that is i think a considerable and frankly admirable investment if we're going to dog out of the game and we're going to win the game we're going to win the game owners who aren't paying like this is an expensive team that they've put together it just isn't clicking in the way that i think anyone involved would have hoped and peyton watson is the part of that that it's so early i don't want to i don't want to dog on him too much but like it just has not fit or worked like he looked he looks pretty good for them as a small ball option playing with one of their bigs that kind of works but him as a three like the shooting hasn't been there the point of attack defense that they really rely on him to provide hasn't hasn't really been there at a high enough level so he's put in a very difficult spot and is asked to do a lot but yet again we have yet another cav small forward who's like this isn't exactly what they need i wasn't fired up for that one i saw both sides but it really worried me that his best stretch was without joker and i talked about that this summer well and that it was like it's 10 games when he had the but yeah it was what a month basically and he was awesome he had the ball all the time and you know i think it's really hard to play with mitchell and harden now you're in stand around zone which is great if you're dean wade right all right how do you feel how did we get here? I'm going to do an order of how bad I think these teams are. and also how screwed their future is. And there's a lot to choose from. I was looking at it and looking back at last season, 10 games in, there are almost twice as many teams right now with one or two wins than there were a year ago. And we had the whole lottery reform system. Supposedly, this was to be a much more competitive year. And here we are with even more truly bad and awful teams right now than we did last year. It's very strange. And when I told you I want to do this, my take was it's different to be bad now because you don't want to be too bad, right? You fall in that bottom three and now you only have the two ping pong balls instead of the three. You also might be in a situation where if you lose your pick this year, but then it ends up getting in the top three, then it can't, or top five, it can't be in the top five the next year. So there's all these variables. And I just don't think anybody wants to be one of the worst three teams. And yet we have seven, eight teams that are going to have a case. There's a couple of teams we're going to talk about that I think might, for that reason, be in the market for a win now trade of just like, how do we go from the literal worst record to just out of the relegation zone? Because they can't afford to have their pick docked in the odds. Like they desperately need some kind of help. And I wouldn't be shocked to see it. That's basically what Brooklyn did with Randall, right? But even that hasn't been enough. Maybe Randall will give us more wins. And guess what? He really hasn't. Really has not. Sacramento's in the worst shape of any team in the league. And I broke down, I sent you the document, document I was working off of. And it's basically like assets, cheap assets, expirings, tradables, sunk costs, and just contracts. And then do you have your pick? They do have their pick. Yeah. Thank goodness. I only have them for one actual asset, which is Acuff, who I think has been, I don't even take shit. He takes too many shots. But this guy's a really, really, really good offensive player and has a high upside. And if I'm a Kings fan, I'm excited about him. Yes. From what I've seen so far, it's like, yeah, he's going to produce offensively for his entire career, barring injury. They should be thrilled about him. They should. I mean, we've all had our fun about the performance art of him taking like 45 shots a game. And it is quite a novelty to watch. But like, he's unequivocally a great thing happening for a Sacramento team that has no other great thing. You're not a college guy, right? Not a college guy. And I have to say, like, dipping in on Acuff was tough because I don't have the context of like the big game performance and capacity that he has. So I just see this like kind of small guard getting a lot of shots up. I've been really impressed with him as a pro, though, just like I think the passing vision is really impressive. It's just a matter of like dialing in the balance of his game more than it is like what can he can do a lot. Yeah. It's just what does he want to do and what's going to be the best version of Darius Acuff? He's got so many things I like. The shooting's there already. The stop and start stuff is there. Clearly. He can finish in traffic, which you never really know with the smaller guards. Once they get to the next level, can they do it? He can do it. He's a good passer. I think if it was the right kind of guys around him, I think we'd see him on fast breaks more or they don't really have the team for that. I mean, they have Levine as an expiring of 49 and hunters and expiring at 25. Yeah. That allows them to basically do what you did earlier. What you'd mentioned earlier about, do you try to do a win now trade, but it's not a win the title now it's a, we need to win eight more games. But would that even work? Like, is there a guy you're going to get for Zach Levine, who's going to make you a better, a slightly marginally better team now for the, when you're giving up that kind of salary and what other teams are going to be willing to do to compensate for that? I don't, I don't know. And who wants Zach Levine? I don't know. I always felt like I felt for a while deep in the bones of my soul that Jalen green would be the perfect king and that it was going to be a match made in heaven at some point. You've said a lot of mean things about Jalen green on this podcast. That one is mean and deserved. I think he needs to just go to a team where he can get some shots and basically be what Levine is now they have a sunk cost contract, which is Keegan Murray five for one 40. I just don't think you can move that. So bonus 20 and 21. I don't think he moved that either, but at least it's expired next year. And then the big question for me is some bonus. See a negative, positive or neutral trade asset. He's 45 and 48. I don't know. It seems like at the market that they've explored, he's a non trade asset. Like they'd have to add something. It's sad that they have nothing. I don't think there's a huge market for me. Really good player could, could genuinely help a bunch of teams, but I don't know whether it's the King's asking price or what, like the fact that he's been in those conversations so often now for consecutive years and there's just no traction on a potential deal. And it's looks worse this year. Yes. Cause like there's CL who have games where he has like seven shots, you don't have the glow of the beam anymore. It's just a truly bad Sacramento team where he's often the third or fourth most involved offensive player for a vast majority of their possessions. Like it's not even a good showcase for him for a team like Charlotte or whoever might want to take a gamble on someone like Sabonis. It's when you go back. I did some work. I was just trying to refresh my memory on all the stuff that's happened with them. They've almost had three tranches of stupidity, like basically from the mid two thousands to the early 2010s and then 2010 through the Luca draft when they took Bagley. And then the 2020s had been no bargain either. Like Matt, they traded a bunch of crap for Deandre Hunter. Nobody knew why that happened. They traded Fox to San Antonio for Levine, basically getting back in the Fox spot, plus two San Antonio picks, but San Antonio had Wemby and this whole bright future ahead of them. I don't know what they were expecting with that. They traded Davion Mitchell and Jamal shed to, and a second for Jalen McDaniels to open cap space to, to trade for DeMar DeRozan. Oh boy. Which they then had to do a pick swap with San Antonio. They traded Harkless holiday and in 2025 first that became Derek queen for Kevin. Hurt her and they traded Halbert for Sabonis. This is all in the last five years. This team has a 10% chance of being competent with any move. They make 10% and they pulled off a cuff. 10% is a lot. I think the broader question of how did they get here? I think it's by mismanaging every move major or minor to a degree that no other team in the league can match right now. Like it is, it's unbelievable. It's truly uncanny to the point that like they just give away Nick Clifford for free. That's not going to be a Tyrese Halliburton level blunder. But like, we all kind of like Nick Clifford's a good player coming. Like when we were doing our preseason power rankings, he was like, other than Maxine Rey, no, like the prospect, I would say I was most interested in this roster, like actually good. I think he's going to have, you know, his version of a Jared McCain kind of pop for the thunder. He's a very different player, but like, that's a good, that's a good prospect worth investing in who knows how to play basketball on a team that doesn't have guys who know how to play basketball. Why are you giving him away for second round picks? And before that, why are you burying him? And why are you playing Zach Levine on an expiring? Just buy Zach Levine out and play Nick Clifford. Or with all due respect, like Daquan Plowden and Leaky Black. Like, what are we doing here? What are we doing? I really don't know. And the Keegan Murray part is just kind of heartbreaking because who he was as a rookie was an incredibly promising player. He looked at least like a playoff rotation guy. And he's, he's joining the season a little late. Like he's just kind of getting back into the mix. I believe, and this is not an exaggeration. He has not hit a single jump shot yet. So that's just kind of the state of where his offensive game is a guy who used to be a volume three-point shooter now cannot hit anything. The three and D piece is tough. If you can't hit threes and your D's not that good. Yeah. You weren't working for the ringer when they took Marvin Bagley over. I was not. We were all together. We had like 25 people. It's on video. I think there's video. It's documented. And it almost caused a riot in the room. It really did. It was just insane. It was insane when it happened. It's more insane now. And you can't even say that was the beginning of what's happened in the Kings because they had 12 other years. They have many original sins, it turns out. It's really, really rough. And I think the move would have been if I were them, if they asked me what to do, I would have said, you benched Zach Levine, tell him to go away, play Nick Clifford for a month, see if he's any good or not. Yeah. And then hope somebody wants to trade for Zach Levine's expiring. Maybe you can get a contract that expires next year and get an asset. Who knows? But they did the opposite. I have no idea what they're doing. We didn't talk about their drafts. Their 25 and 24 picks are already gone. It's only 2000. 2026, Devin Carter, Nick Clifford gone. Just a curse draft history. They traded number 24 in 2023 for Rashawn Holmes and cash. They took Davion Mitchell and name is Kata. Yeah. The me is kid. I can't speak. The me is Kata. They took both of those guys in 2021 and both are now on a one's on a actual playoff contender and the other's playing 35 minutes a game for Miami. So you can kind of be like, Hey, we nailed that. Really rough. Really rough. Almost as rough as the Milwaukee situation because the difference between these two friends, Milwaukee probably has more assets. They have Burry's who I really, really like. I want to talk more about Burry's. He's been awesome. They have a man who isn't bad. I thought he was going to be a bust. Yeah. I'm intrigued by him. I'm going to recant my, you're going to be a bus feelings and you've now moved into the I'm intrigued area for me. It's an important move up for any young man. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. He's clearly going to need a little more time than Burry's who I think is just like a gamer already. It was like, yeah. Burry's is like ready to roll. Yeah. If I'm picking five, six, seven, eight, nine, I'm wondering, fuck. Yeah. Right. Especially. I thought the Clippers should have taken them. We'll see with Wagler who we're going to talk about in a second, but I just thought the Burry's with Garland made a lot of sense to me. Plus he's from California. So they have Burry's, Amen, Hero, and Hawkeyes I would say are the assets. Hawkeyes is somebody that I keep waiting for them to just trade them to. Okay. And people are like, God, by the way, I forgot that I said this to Sal on Sunday. If I'm Sacramento and Presti calls I'm just hanging up Of course you should Block the number Crank caller It's like yeah Presti's interested in Nick Clifford What should we do It's like how about not trading with him Let's play Nick Clifford I don't want to pump up the Thunder too much They make mistakes They have misses Everyone does But if your priorities and the Thunder's priorities Are so different that you don't even want to play The guy they want to trade for You've just gone very far astray Start firing people So Milwaukee has Hero, Kuzma, and Levert on expirings For almost 70 million I think Jaquez is their tradable guy Other than Hero I don't know if Kalel Ware is tradable or not I don't know what he is But everybody needs a backup center I can see somebody talk themselves into him But that's what he is The intel on him is kind of rough though I feel like you hear a lot of Anytime you end up in Eric Spolster's doghouse The word of mouth is not great About your professional habits Or your attention to detail Or your focus in game And he's kind of in that zone Where incredibly capable player Everyone's kind of waiting for it to click And it's just not there And may not be there We'll have to see Eric Spolster's doghouse It's like Mallory Rubin's doghouse What's going on? Why doesn't Mallory like this person? They have a sunk cost And it might be the biggest sunk cost in the league Miles Turner at 27, 28, 29 I feel like he's awakened something in you specifically Watching Miles Turner Play basketball But do whatever it is that he's calling basketball I think he's the LVP of the season so far He's completely out of shape He was a stretch five basically But could also block shots But now is just out of shape And can't block shots Doesn't seem to move or care And I found his play to be alarming But the worst part is that they stretched Dame So that they could side Miles Turner And now Dame looks like Dame again in Portland So that's a catastrophe And I don't even think those picks have kicked in from that trade yet They have an A.J. Green 4 for 46 contract that I don't love You know, I don't mind that 4 for 46 feels, it's a little ambitious I feel like that range of contract is okay and movable And like he has a clearly defined skill 4 for 30 sounds great I mean, it certainly does But I think that one feels manageable to me It's a little high I just put it in the contract pile I didn't put it in the sunk cost It's when you're getting into the high 20s, 30s I think it gets like more worrisome to say the least Well, they don't have their pick They don't have their pick They don't have their pick for ever Like until 2030 But they have picks coming back from Miami Yes A nice trove of stuff coming back They need those to hit So the reason I think you could make a case This is a worse situation than Sacramento Is Sacramento has just been The fans have been in a bad marriage for so long It's just kind of It's like a family thing It's like we're just going to care We're going to go to the games We'll go on King's Reddit, make jokes We're not going to quit On the Kings Someday this will all come back They can point to the way at the bean season They're not losing fans And when you see games I think that attendance isn't the worst in the league It is the worst in the league for Milwaukee There are 13,000 people a game And probably less than that They're probably padding that Everybody moved to the Brewers, the Packers Giannis is gone I mean to go from Somewhat long suffering Into fairly mediocre Into like 8 to 10 years Of good 50 win equivalent Contending level basketball Off of this cliff Where I hate to break it to you If you're a Bucs fan This is the beginning of the beginning Of how ugly this gets The plan from here is yes You want to develop the guys Nate Amen, Brandon Burry All those guys who are already on the roster Sure But like Because you don't have your own picks You have to either trade the Jaime Jaquez types guys Into picks That you're then either conveying And waiting for those players to be good Or Having to make subsequent trades To make those work Into present tense players It's like We are a long, long way out From the Bucs being any kind of relevant And you're rooting against Miami As part of the joy of being a Bucs fan For the next few years Which sucks To just root against other teams I still feel like Jalen Was a better option for them I think at some point Giannis was in a little control of the trade And Milwaukee just Miami just kept adding stuff to it But I do think If they had added Jalen and pick Burris This wouldn't be one of the three Worst teams in the league And Jalen would have embraced Like this is my team And now you actually can build around that A little more than what they got Their season is going to come down To what they get from Hero And if somebody panics for them And we've been saying for two months It should be Detroit Like to me that's the natural Fit for him I think Cade needs the help They don't really have that second crater And I just like the thought of him on that team Is there another team you would like for him? Well I think the issue with Hero Is not just like Where you would want to potentially trade him this season But like Do you even want to be the team If you're the Bucs To give him a big bag of money At the end of this year To keep him Like if it's a long break But if you're the Bucs Like I mean I think they would like to move him on That would make sense for everybody involved But say a trade doesn't materialize to their liking I think the real danger zone As we're talking about All of the salary strictures right now Is when you pay the guy Conventional wisdom says Pay Tyler Hero Keep him Figure it out later We've seen so many teams get burned Doing that exact thing right now Like the cautionary tale of Just keep the good player And then try to find the trade Would you give a name for this? It's getting really dangerous Is this the Zach Levine? I mean kind of is Especially when you're paying Or the Bradley Beal 40 plus million dollars for those guys I mean Bradley Beal But Bradley Beal worked They got four swaps from Phoenix Yes Four first round swaps And like six second rounders So you could argue It was the right move to pay him But Zach Levine not the right move Maybe what the league needs Is more Ishbias You know like we need more owners Who are desperately pulling levers Just to make things happen out here He's coming up Well I just want to mention I want to commemorate the Bucs They have the same GM They've had the whole time They traded Giannis a year late For 50% of what I think They would have gotten for him At least a year late They also Because they traded him a year late That led to the Turner stretch Dame fiasco Whereas Dame would have been An expiring contract this year Playing really well And probably would have Fetched something Or You know whatever The Middleton for Kuzma's Longer contract was a classic That one That was You guys don't have league pass Gary The wink wink with Gary Trent For 64 million That's a disaster And then trading Dame For all the Portland stuff But not making sure That he couldn't get traded Back to Boston These are five F minuses Those are the five biggest moves They made All of them are an F minus How much does it offset That they won Like if you win a title Well that's the thing Does that Does that Have your grace period Which is now up Yeah I think the bill Is coming due for everything That they've done Like there's the natural Life cycle of a contender stuff Of trading picks And now you're out them And you have to live With that reality But then there's like The Kuzma thing is just He's still starting For this team We were all texting Laughing when they did it Like oh my god Have they seen him play this year Have you seen What he's been up to this week Well he's talking about NVIDIA right He was He was Business stuff He was also tweeting about How Saddam Hussein Hired Christian To be the staff Of his house Because he thought That they would not Sacrifice their own lives To kill him This is what Kyle Kuzma Is doing With his spare time How about How about looking at some film This episode is brought to you By WeatherTech Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee That goes splat in your seat Or a weekend tailgate That leaves your trunk Full of gear And who knows what You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle Whether you call it Fall, autumn Or spooky season Whether the mess Is your fault The kids, the dogs Or the weather's fault You're gonna want WeatherTech For American made Floor lighting And a cargo liner That laughs in the face Of fall weather Visit WeatherTech.com today This episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast Is presented by State Farm Every football player Brings something different To the field Maybe they have a cannon arm Speed Power Maybe they have their own podcast That being said No two players Are exactly alike And the same is true Off the field That's why State Farm Takes the time To get to know you So they can help Personalize coverage For your life And budget Like a good neighbor State Farm is there Jesus I got an email From Jeff from Charleston House on my Thursday pod Has this whole gimmick About eat a Eat a big fat dick When he gets upset At people He Jeff wanted everybody The NBA Jimmy Haslam NBA media I guess that includes us To eat a big fat dick The Bucs have no control Over their own picks Until 2031 We're still paying Dame Lillard We have to watch Kyle Kuzma And Miles Turner As a front court duo We've had to list Everyone for Giannis Out of Milwaukee Since 2013 Can you all Just leave us The fuck alone Why is the entire NBA media Obsessed on Gary Trent's Contract We'll be quiet And absolutely love Our 18 win season My defense to the Bucs They're not smart enough To pull off a secret Handshake deal They waved and stretched Damian Lillard So they could pay A non-rebounding Foul baiting 30% three point shooter They traded for Kevin Porter Jr. And Kyle Kuzma They don't run Shadow cap schemes They make bad deals Out in the open And it's all backed By the owner Who gave Deshaun Watson A fully guaranteed Deal Let us enjoy Braden Burry's In peace I keep calling him Brandon Burry's Because I just want His name to be Brandon But it's Braden Burry's I have no notes We should just Leave the Bucs alone I'm going to say The Gary Trent Situation is just Objectively funny Like we all can Accept that together Including if you're A Bucs fan The penalty is that They now have Gary Trent For $64 million You don't even need To punish them Like they have Punished themselves Braden Burry's though I feel like we're not There's kind of a void Of conversation around him Because the high end of this draft class has been so incredible he just looks incredibly legit and I love like he's just making smart winning plays constantly and some of that is like easy passes kind of walking a nice line of letting these veterans kind of do their thing but also asserting himself and also it's just like a complete menace on the offensive glass in a way that is so fun to watch I was looking at it I knew you'd like him he plays 20 minutes a game roughly he has more offensive rebounds right now than Jokic Embiid Mobley and Jared Allen Keita and Mitchell Robinson Anthony Davis I could go on and on like he's just a fiend creating extra possessions and yes the Bucks have a lot of extra possessions to create because their offense is terrible but when he's on a good team like I think the accumulation of all the small winning things that he does is just gonna it's gonna really sing he was my favorite guy from the draft other than the top four and I just didn't understand why the Clippers talked themselves out of him it was like all the draft boards came out and he was in that 8 to 11 range for some reason and people just decided the other guy Acuff and Wagler and Brown were just better and I just don't know what the evidence was he was so clearly a two guard in the NBA that could potentially guard different positions played he was on winning teams I like that he sacrificed in Arizona so I know he was a big topic of conversation in Dallas too and they took Mraz Johnson who's been pretty solid and I think could be a really good defensive big but then you see Kyrie playing with like Walter Clayton Jr. who's having a career year like these other guards who they're plugging and playing it's like what if they were Braden Burris? maybe they missed an opportunity maybe a lot of teams missed an opportunity I was rooting for him to go to either Cooper Flagg or Steph Milwaukee was the worst case scenario but at least he'll be able to make some mistakes Brooklyn speaking of worst case scenarios Jesus two assets I have for them Michael Porter aren't expiring and I think there's something there with Brown yeah he's I don't know what it is he made one of the dumbest plays I've seen in a couple years at the end of the Celtic game when he just tried to take a layup up one in overtime but he's he's certainly got the carries himself like he's good he's got for a shooter like he carries himself how you'd want there's something there cheap assets basically the two guards they took last year I like Clowney Clowney starts I think a fight every two games at this point I just want to see him on like I'd love to see Memphis get him as a backup just add him to the group I like Clowney I just need him at some point to be an offensive player I like the defense I like him as a switchable big it's just you got to be more than a theoretical stretch option or a theoretical finish option and I think the Nets have something I don't know that I've ever seen before which is they have what five rotation players right now with field goal percentages in the 30s wow five different guys regular minutes regular contributors no one can shoot and Michael Brown is one of them understandably like a rookie coming in you expect some of that but even the guys who have been around it's just like there's not a lot of function here there's not a lot of high achieving offensive players here for a team that's just been kind of in this rebuilding mode it's a little embarrassing that they don't have more prospects to point to and say look at these shining examples of what we've been able to cultivate this is four years wow they really their last excellent pick was Jared Allen in 2017 just talking about drafts oof trades Claxton for Randall Cam Johnson for Porter in the first and Mikael Bridges for first five first all defensible but at some point you got to nail the picks they don't have their first round pick this year it's swapped with Houston they get a Knicks pick I guess the question for me with them I don't know what you do if you're them because it's just this team that doesn't make sense when you watch it yeah is Randall I'll ask you this a bonus question again is he neutral a negative trade asset or a positive trade asset 33 and 35 this year and next I think he's a negative trade asset and some of that's just he has a funk around him at this stage that is really hard to get rid of but he has just shown and the Wolves did not mince words afterwards about the effect that he had on their locker room right and you could see it on the court as well and so if he's not if Julius Randall isn't useful to a contending team like the Wolves and he's not useful to a rebuilding team like the Nets who is he useful to like is there a middle ground there where it's like trying to think of are there more versions of teams I mean I guess if you're just so desperate to like make it into or through the play-in then you're not and maybe he could be of use to that or you had like an injury I guess you needed a 2010 guy for a year I honestly before the season kind of talked myself into the idea that maybe he just by being Julius Randall and attracting some attention could give some of these young guards around him in Brooklyn room to operate like a slightly more normal basketball workplace when did you give up on that idea six minutes into his first game like it it just has not been the case at all and it was just like he has not afforded any one spot base or opportunity to really do anything during his time as a Brooklyn net and really the only thing that matters here is being able to highlight people you can trade cultivate people you can trade or grow the next generation of good Brooklyn nets and I don't know that they're doing any of those things right now the irony is they take Brown which is like a home run pick now he's somebody who I think from an injury standpoint people are worried about but the two hey let's just bring in a guy who we know is going to be a professional good basketball player where Burr is and Yaxel now I don't think they would have taken Yaxel at six but Burr is would have made a lot of sense for them especially because they had a million point guards just somebody like a little more professional instead they kind of brought in somebody who could easily be in the ABC sitcom with Michael Porter just taking crazy threes I don't know what they do the key thing for them is what can we get for Porter will somebody panic and offer him and whether like if you're Golden State and you could get the Porzingis and Moody contracts together you have Butler coming back do you become intrigued by Porter as like the shooter yeah and hope you can patch the rebound together I don't know and those surplus picks that you mentioned that they have some of them are quite useful and I think it's in particular the really distant ones that they have from both Denver and the Knicks right 2031 from the Knicks 2032 from Denver do they have any Phoenix left I don't think they have any Phoenix left they have some other Knicks picks they have like a very convoluted like four-way pick swapping situation in 2028 that who knows how it's going to net out and then the Houston one which probably will not be very good a couple years out but 2031 you can tell me anything happens to the Knicks by then anything happens to the Nuggets by then and there are teams who will take that kind of moonshot and give you something pretty rewarding in return so how they want to parlay those I think that's kind of one of the big questions they have right now because certainly so many of these other guys that they've tried like Ben Saroff is not an NBA player you know like Drake Powell has neither the three nor the D to fill the brief of what his job is supposed to be so they've just whiffed on enough guys where they have to find other ways to replenish even the stores of prospects they were supposed to have in the first place Porter with the 41 expiring is the most intriguing they don't even really have like Keon Ellis nine and nine no not that excited about that I saw Terrence Mann who just kind of been coming back and playing with Yegor Out with the Bone Brews right now is shooting 10% from the field are you gonna will you be interviewed for my seven hour 30 for 30 about the Terrence Mann playoff game the most exciting moment in Quipper history should we just do like a real time real watchable reaction to it all different yeah plug me in I'm ready a shocking add to this list Utah one and nine yeah I talked about this last week with Kirk about the door A door B of you could have just had Kessler and Kambuza and just pounded people on the glass and probably been pretty solid instead they went the other way and Jaron Jackson and Peterson now Peterson had he looked the best he's ever looked in the Minnesota game did you see that game I saw the clips of him in it and he was really good he was good to A and I gotta be honest that was about as good as I've seen Lomelo look in a basketball game I'm ready for your apology to Lomelo whenever you're ready for that when I did my take on the trade I said look there's gonna be stretches where everybody will look like an idiot that was against this trade so just let's ride it out let's see what the six months look like he looked awesome in that Utah game when you're prepared when I'm prepared we'll invite Kyle Mann he'll sit right here I'll sit right here I'll invite everyone this is no judgment like we're ready to bring you in whenever you're ready that's fine their assets along with Peterson George who they signed to a reasonable contract Ace Bailey I like and marketing so four nice assets no shortage of good players Triple J for 49 51 52 and 53 I don't know if that's an asset and I'm kind of stunned for that they gave up the stuff they gave up for him and I didn't like it when it happened I just don't know if he can stay on the court I don't like bigs that don't rebound I've talked about it a million times but I don't think that contract's going anywhere if they start shopping that who's like oh I didn't realize he was nobody I don't think to be a very competitive market and I see that as I'm a Jaron Jackson guy like I like a lot of what he brings offensively the ball handling the driving like he's really unique for a big but you're right if you're a big who doesn't rebound who isn't the defensive player of the year caliber shot blocker anymore and he's taking like a slight step down from that and doesn't score doesn't score consistently enough and you're injured that's just too many caveats like that's just that's way too many questions to be paid that amount of money I had those questions a year ago Sensabaugh and Philipowski I guess could be considered cheap assets and they have 26 and expire and the big ones are what are they with Markkinen yeah what are they with what are they with Nurkic they have their own picks sort of it goes to Memphis but it's top five protected. I believe they don't have it. They don't have it unless. But there's no unless for them because they own Memphis, but one of the other new lottery rules is you can't be in the top five in three consecutive drafts. And they just had Ace Bailey and Darren Peterson in the top five. So they can't be in the top five in this draft. So Berno was complaining that Memphis won't get it. There's something funky with this pick. Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules, I'm not sure what would happen because it's still for the purposes of the top five sitting. No, but Ace Bailey was six, wasn't he? I think he was the fifth pick. Oh, yeah, right. He was fifth. He was the fifth. And I mean, that's its own conversation of if you want to identify how we got here, them sliding from, I think, the number one odds in that draft to the fifth pick and missing out on not just Cooper Flagg, but Vijay and Khan and Dylan Harper. Wow. Those are three sliding doors that lead to very, very different outcomes for the Utah Jazz. Every single person you just mentioned would make me feel horrible if I was a Utah fan. I'm sorry. They did get Peterson. He was very good. And Boozer and Caleb after, we'll see. But so their last five years, counting this year, 37 wins, 31, 17, 22, and this year they're one and nine. And this was after the Mitchell-Gobert blowup where I think all of us were like, wow, they got a lot of stuff for those guys. I think those trades were good trades. At some point, I think you have to look at this and go, what did we do wrong here? Why are we still a bottom five team? A lot of people like this team as like a possible playoff team. I know they had injuries. Jackson got hurt. Yes. Nurkic, like they don't have bigs right now. It's hard for me to accept, well, Nurkic is out as an excuse for why you're one and nine. It's not. And here's the thing. Even if they had Walker Kessler, this is the worst offense in the league. Like maybe he's getting some easy finishes and cleaning up the offensive glass. But Walker Kessler is not the problem with this team. In the same way that Yusuf Nurkic is not. It's that they have some nice players who have a lot of good players. Yeah. Yeah. Who have nothing to do with each other in terms of the way basketball is played. Like who is the player who builds on one of their teammates' actions between the key stakeholders of this team? Like no one really has like a synergy that unlocks. And it's like, if you don't have that, you're just a collection of guys out there running around that isn't good enough on the glass, isn't good enough in the playmaking, isn't good enough in the shot creation or the driving. Like it's got to come from somewhere. Spoh had a good word for this. He talked about why he started Peli Larson this week. I like that. I like Peli Larson. Same. Contract's a little rich, but it's defendable. Unlike the Jovich contract, which was a disgrace when it happened. But he said, I felt like we needed a connector in the starting five. And that's what he is. He's a connector. And I was like, it's a really good, I like to think back in the day, I was a little bit of a connector. Before your James Harden moment came for you. Another connector, Dave Jacoby. Oh, absolutely. Connector is basically a, are you fun to play with guy or not? Yes. Do you care if you have stats? Does the ball move? Do other people like playing with you? And you're right. Does Utah have a connector? Jacoby, I would say spiritual connector. Basketball terms, it's been a minute since I played with him. I remember him being maybe like a little bit of a chucker, a little bit of getting him up. This is great. I hope this starts a podcast. I hope it doesn't. We had some great runs together, but this is my memory. Good passer off the foul line. Now he's unselfish. Okay. I need to revisit. We got to get back out there. You got to look at the scouting tape from 2012. Adam Silver just took it off YouTube. Yeah, they need the connector. I had real reservations with Peterson and George together. And now you could say, oh, it's every, you need guards. Everybody loves guards. But I still was a little worried about that one. And from what I've seen so far, work in progress would be generous. I think it's, it's worth a try. And maybe it comes down to you prefer one or the other and you move the other one along. And at this point, I think that's probably Darren Peterson is where it will net out. And County George is like a really nice starting caliber. Point guard. Maybe you will have some like fringe all-star type seasons as we've seen him be capable of doing. But the question with Peterson, I think is going to be the separation. And it's really kind of what is stopping me short of feeling overwhelmingly bullish on his game. Crazy shooter. Like I think it just has unbelievable potential as a shooter. But getting the corner on NBA level defenders, I think has proved to be a little trickier for him than I was hoping it would be. And so it's like, if you're not going to be- Same for Wagler, by the way. I mean, that's a whole different issue. But Peterson is, I think, a little more, a little more explosive than Wagler, but still has to find ways to just like tap into really consistent high-level offense that are not just superior shot-making all day, every day. I wonder if he's a I-need-the-ball-all-the-time guy. Can you be both of those things? If you're not getting to the rim or drawing fouls consistently, you kind of can't- or like an amazing, amazing passer. I think he's a good one. Can you have the ball all the time? I think it becomes a tougher proposition if you're not meeting one of those criteria. Big question for them, regardless of the door A, door B, all the stuff they've already done is, what do you do with marketing? Yeah. And do you try to- now that you're going to be one and nine, and maybe this is- maybe you're not going to be a playoff team. Maybe you're not going to be a play-in team. I don't think they're even going to be a play-in team. Do you cash in on marketing? Do you give Ace Bailey those minutes? And, you know, I look at a team like the Warriors that was excited about marketing for a while there. The problem for the Warriors is Draymond would really have to be involved in any of that. for an expensive guy. Because I don't think they want to trade Jimmy Butler. I think they're banking on him coming back in January as like a huge asset, basically, for them. I think that's the hope for them. And so they're probably more in the center market, I would think, than they are the forward market. A Yaxel-Jimmy frontcourt would be really, really nice. You know what they're doing? They are grinding Nick Claxton tape right now. Like, grinding. They're paying, like, guys six hours straight, tapping off. There's like a Lakeup cousin. There's a Lakeup son. They're just in an assembly line for Claxton tape. I don't know. I might be on the Jalen Smith tape. If we're going to the Bulls, they might be targeting the wrong Bull. I'm just going to say that. I like it. Well, Miles Turner would have been a candidate if he wasn't the LVP of the week so far. There's like a whiff of, hey, if the Celtics don't love how this Mitch Robinson thing went, can I interest you in him for the Porzingis expiring? And then we can just get a reset on that. I'm still, I just think Mitch needs to be in shape. He had his best game the other night. Anyway, with Utah, Mark and in's the move. And I don't know. I don't know who, basically what you're getting for him at this point. I don't think you're getting what Golden State was offering two years ago, which seemed to be contracts and real picks. Yet another case of just like a team holding on perhaps a little bit too long. And I think that's what makes the Utah situation so shitty is like this was supposed to be the year where a lot of this stuff started to come together where they've been in the wilderness. They've been collecting these young players. They've been trying to play the lottery. You know, to the best of their ability and then rewriting the book on tanking in some ways over the course of the last year. But I think they really missed the boat on trading market at the peak of his value. But even now, like later might be better than never as far as reshaping this team to a point where it just feels like there's more structure. Like it's really hard to understand any of these disparate parts when there isn't some cohesive thing binding them together. And there's no structure in Utah. It's tough when marketing, it's also your best rebounder. I don't think even he would think that's a good idea. Yeah, but I do. I just think they should take him boozer. I felt that way at the time his dad played there. It was such an obvious, safe, awesome, easy pick. But Danny gets enchanted by the athletes. Chicago's also one in eight. I have sadly watched two entire Chicago games because they played the Celtics twice along with some pieces. Caleb Wilson. Yeah, nothing sad about it. Yeah, they have two assets. They have Caleb Wilson. They have Powell, 21 and 22. They should probably trade Powell before February. And that's, those are, those are good numbers. That's somebody that could be on a playoff team. Gusellis took a step back. I think that's being kind. Josh Giddey, now that he no longer has Billy Donovan. I don't know what happened. Signs of life though. The last game. Yeah, he has like an old school Josh Giddey box score. Finally has a bit of a Josh Giddey pulse again. So they're semi-tradables other than Powell or Claxton and Giddey. Giddey's 25-25-25. I don't know how tradable Josh Giddey is though. I'm just saying if. Like not impossible, not impossible, but as far as like trading him for things that help the Bulls, I don't know that that's happening. I would think about it if I was a couple teams. Okay. Yeah. There's not a lot of guys who know how to make other guys better in the league. Right? Even if I'm, I don't know, Brooklyn. And I'm trying to just get better. I mean, that's what they need is another big point guard. You can't shoot. Why not? Their sunk costs are Williams and Heald and the French kid who's just a sunk cost. And sadly, was. Where's the trade? Well, when they traded Zach Levine and they got all those dumb contracts back, but the prize was the 12th pick in the draft. Yeah. Noah Senge? Yes. Whiffed on that one. Look, Wilson was a great pick. I still, with no answer why they gave away the Sun Mu and Kobe White in February for nothing. I mean, they thought they didn't want to pay them. Why didn't they want to pay out a Sun Mu? They're both really good. I think you could argue that was the best free agent contract of last summer than anyone did for what they got him for. Especially for what he's been doing with Ant out has been just a lifeline for the Wolves. He's just really good. Really good bench player. Really good plug-in for a star bench player. Showed what he can do in a postseason setting. Didn't we see this in the playoffs? That's not. Did we not know this after April and May? I don't get it. All of this said, I think of all the teams on this list, list as far as like who has hope and who doesn't the Bulls being bad is hope like they were they were just like swirling through so many versions of mediocrity for so long yeah to get here get Caleb will like move up jump in the draft and get Caleb Wilson at four at the exact spot you need to be to get a player like a prospect of that caliber and I think Caleb Wilson is like a franchise altering prospect like he is a real star level like something waiting to be formed waiting to figure out the fullest extent of what he can do you got that and now you get to be continue like to continue to be bad and hopefully get a proper running mate with him if modest Bruzellas can't be that I think this is actually a good place for the Bulls to be weirdly enough just because the rest of it wasn't working out for them so well I say this with trepidation I say this knowing that even invoking this name is wrong but I'm only saying this because it's the same team and I want people to know I'm being very careful right now I'm not comparing him to Michael Jordan sounds like you're about to compare to Michael Jordan Michael Jordan's first season it's a shit show it's about like it's there's a bunch of drug guys on the team they're just terrible it's just a mess and it's just clear that whole season here's the one keeper all these other guys are gonna be gone and that's kind of how I feel watching Caleb Wilson he's not Michael Jordan but it's one of those things where it's like all right two years from now what are you gonna have around this guy because there's something special about him so let's start building it they got a new GM um this is I gotta say I this is a decent job like if you're taking over this team absolutely I know I have an asset I have my own pick I have some tradable stuff like I might be able to get something for pal like I feel good and you have starving basketball fans like that arena packs out even when the team is horrible now they are so starving where if you do the sort of middling job they will try to eat you alive so you have to be a little wary of that but if you give them a chance to do it I think you could do pretty well with the bulls five for 90 you didn't like that one for Patrick Williams the fact that he still has three more years I I love that they also have a coro it's it was these this four five in the draft and it was like you couldn't go right you would either pick and now they somehow both the Clippers we don't need to spend too much time in the Clippers but I do think Garland, Brewey, Wagler, and Niederhauser are all assets they're they have a bunch of expirings um I feel like you keep trying to trade Darius Garland every time I talk to you it's like you have a new theory on where he should go well so I put this on Twitter and people got mad I put a it was basically Garland's for France Garland for France with blacks and Derek Jones expiring and people that's crazy they'd never do that Orlando would never do that I don't think people realize how daunting the second apron is for a team like Orlando where you're paying Bain and Palo yeah and you have four years of Franz and the thinking was that I if I can turn Franz into something I need that's a shorter contract yeah I'd have to think about it and you know of course after I did Franz was awesome the other night against Golden State you catch Franz on the right night you're like is this guy an all-nba guy and then he you know then you look at his stats and he can't shoot and but there he's there's something there I want to see him on the right team at some point in life it would be ironic if the state was that team but um with the Clippers the big question is how much time can you get wogger he's playing like 16 minutes game that's not enough and less and less too I want to find out if him and Garland can play together is all I care about this month the next month that's that's question number one and then figure out in February I think brewery at 14 million is a legitimate trade essay yeah Rui's a good player that's like he can be a top seven guy on a playoff team I wouldn't even be surprised if that was kind of baked into their negotiation in the first place like come live in LA for a couple more months right we'll figure it out we'll figure out a place for you to go we'll be happy to have you in the meantime Derek Jones at 10 is absolutely a trade asset yep Brooke Lopez at nine incredibly yeah I saw him in person the uh last week against Miami he was great quite spry this year nine million with a team where 20 teams need a backup setter so that's one and then uh you know Chris Dunn at six isn't bad I would throw him in there yeah definitely so they have I think they're going to be just trying to get younger assets and they'll throw this year away because what do they care they don't have a pick it gets swapped they end up with Toronto so what are they yeah I'm completely with you about Garland and Wagler like that's the future of the team or a future of the team is if those guys can play together and I know there's like a lot of different motivations that happen within any team at any point in time you're trying to satisfy this guy you're trying to find time for that you're trying to indulge this other idea but it's like that is the most important thing that the Clippers have going is whether they are a long-term fit or whether you need to try to figure out some alternative options why they are not tethered together in the rotation like I don't care if you win I just care if these guys are compatible and why that is not the priority I don't really understand watching in person on Wednesday this first time I got to see Wagler he's looks like a 19 year old he's not strong enough yet he's skinny I don't know what he's gonna look like when he's 25 but I'm sure he'll be 25 pounds heavier part of the problem in college he could beat these guys off carry them on his side basically um he can't you can't do that in the pros these guys are too strong the first step isn't really there at that level for the pros either so if you look at his two-point percentage I think it's like 28 it's three points like almost 40 and he's got just a great stroke so I think he'll be able to live on the three-pointers and with Garland be basically play off him as a as a three-point threat would be where it goes I think yeah but if he can't get into the paint and beat guys off the dribble that's a tough pick I feel like Wagler's fate is probably going to be as like a win more player where if you have stars guys who create those sorts of advantages he's an excellent swing option spot a guy connector in exactly the way that you and Spill were talking about like he's going to do all that stuff really well but you need the stars and Darius Garland is kind of that but maybe not at the level that Keaton you can take the right teams can take him out he's good but not great yeah Wagler one thing I like about him he'll get a rebound and his heads up and he's seen everything like he's you know I a real true I see the floor guy he wants to move it and it seems like he'd be fun to play with it'd be nice if he made some too so they didn't offer Paul George four years they dumped Harden in time for Garland true they dumped zoo bots maybe in time considering he's hasn't been healthy really since two years ago yeah certainly worked out got those two first and the kawaii trade I think was a win kawaii's already hurt so they've made the right moves I don't know if Wagler or five was the right move but for the most part they made the right moves except for paying kawaii under the table for years and years losing five first round picks and disgracing themselves and getting their owners suspended yeah that wasn't the right move that was a bit of an issue you know in retrospect it's like in 2019 kawaii coming off of a you know a championship run totally get why you would want to invest in him it went wrong in every conceivable way like the injuries obviously the scandal but even in between like weird chemistry weird like is he gonna be available gray area that I think just kind of torpedoed the team in a lot of ways and I wouldn't say the crowd was littered with kawaii's jerseys no at every quipper game either it just didn't work this episode is brought to you by Tick Tock when you watch a football game you follow the ball right well there's a video on Tick Tock where this guy says to watch the players without the ball watch the routes and the action away from the play I'll change how you see the game and guess what he's not wrong that's the thing about Discovery on Tick Tock one video can change the way you see the game you can learn something new or see things in a completely different way your next Discovery is waiting on Tick Tock visit ticktock.com discover more episode is brought to you by McDonald's in sports and food details matter that's why the quarter pounder with cheese is made with 100 fresh beef and cooked right when you order it two slices of cheese arranged in a star two pickles side by side the perfect amount of slivered onions get the quarter pounder with cheese meal fries and a drink for just eight dollars for a limited time only at McDonald's for a limited time only prices and participation may vary prices may be higher in California and for delivery fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii offer not valid for delivery quickly Orlando we know the assets Palo friends and Franz and uh Bain black maybe he's a restricted free agent yeah the contract decided on him they have some expirings nothing great Carter is probably their tradable guy I think that's a really interesting Golden State guy yeah Orlando has their own pick their really only terrible contract for Suggs for for 150 when it just seems like he just keeps getting hurt I would love for him to be healthier but is he just to be one of those guys we said that over and over again as much as I like him well it seems that way for a lot of their team to be fair or I think a lot a huge part of the reason they are here right now is they've never been able to have their core guys healthy on a timeline where they could be good but even where they could play together enough to figure it out and we're here yet again Palo's out of the lineup Suggs has been out of the lineup Franz is carrying it to the best heading tonight yeah it's just it's never going to be good enough in this way and I don't know that we are any closer to seeing a compatible version of that core than we were two years ago this team has to make a trade I think there's some structural issues that can't be resolved otherwise you have to fix the Palo France Bain I think only only two survive yeah and I don't know who they pick I would keep Palo personally I wouldn't mess with that they could also just trade him and they could they could trade him to Golden State for Porzingis and to pick and that's an amazing trade For Golden State? Oh, for Golden State, sure. If they could turn that situation into Wendell Carter Jr. Porzingis expiring. Huge for them. For Carter, we'll give you a pick. Let's go. But then Orlando's just punting on yet another season or just like, you know, step up, go, go, Batase. The fact that they have their pick makes it a little more interesting for do you punt on a season? And I guess the question is if they're 2-13, like if this goes really bad and guys aren't back yet and it's just the season's just gotten away from them, do you start thinking about stuff like that? That Carter contract, to me, that's the right price for a guy like that. And I look at him, Jared Allen, I don't want to pay Jared Allen 32 when I can pay Carter 18. That's true. You know? And I like him. I think he's feisty. He can shoot some threes. Like, obviously, if he's one of your best three players, you're not going anywhere. But if he's your fifth best player, but with Golden State, with Horford, like, I don't know. I feel like he fits in with them. He would fit the Warriors great. He'd fit a lot of really good teams very well. I just don't know from Orlando's perspective if that kind of half measure is enough anymore. And I get the inclination of like, let's give this more time. Let's, you know, Sean Sweeney's just getting started here. Let's give him a chance to actually coach the team he signed up to coach. It's just, we've been doing this game with them for so long of like waiting for them to get healthy, waiting for the spacing to come together, waiting for them to have enough ball handlers. And I'm just at a point where I think the Franz or Paolo thing does probably need to happen. And you ask me on a given day which one I would say to keep and trade, I might flip. At the moment, I think this might be a good chance to trade Franz for as well as he's played. And I say that because you see this version of the team that is Franz-driven. He looks great, right? Like, he's racking up assists. He's driving. He's doing incredible stuff out there. For an offense that doesn't really accomplish much, like very mediocre, underwhelming at best in terms of the offensive production, as a team, they don't get to the basket enough despite the fact that he's driving. Like, the physicality that the Magic used to have bullying their way to the rim, they were just a different kind of team. And we've seen that their defense with this alignment just is not up to standards. Like, this used to be a perennial, like, top three defense. That was where they would hang their hat. They had that. They had depth. They had enough to work with. This isn't a good defensive team right now. And it's a team that's driven by Franz in a way that he is clearly dynamic and interesting and incredibly talented. But if he's the driver of your offense, I just don't know where that takes you. And I believe a little more in the version of Paolo that, to be fair, we saw at the beginning of this season where he was determined and uncompromising and I thought playing downhill as well as we've ever seen him play in the NBA. That plus, if he can do that stuff consistently and find a little bit more balance in his mid-range game where he's not settling, but it's like a fallback option, I just, I think I'm inclined to bet more on Paolo right now, even with Franz playing so well, if that makes sense. He just, he's seen, I understand, who Paolo is in the context of a great team. And Franz, I don't quite know if he's not going to hit threes and he's going to be the captain of a pretty good to okay offense, where that's ever going to take the magic. I think we're aligned on this. I do like that Franz has embraced his German a little more this year. That haircut he has, it's the most German he's looked. I was thinking Detroit for him. I keep coming up with people for Detroit, but I just feel like they need that second wildcard guy. That would be nice. That kind of driver. I mean, they need shooters in spacing a little bit too. And so you have to balance. Just want them to have somebody else who, when Cade doesn't have it or Cade is, I don't know. The second ball handler there, I think would be a huge help. But you know, someone who's not Danis Jenkins size, but Franz Wagner size, like you want to put your big wing on Cade. And now you have to deal with this guy coming in from the weak side too. That could be pretty dangerous. So your advice on Orlando, because this is probably we're at the cusp of, should you be on this list or not? Yeah. But I do think if you're Orlando and you're two and seven and you gave up, four firsts and a swap for Desmond Bain, you're probably looking around going, how the fuck did we get here? What happened? Your advice would be stay the course until Paolo gets back. See if you can be a playing team or maybe wait till February or start thinking about Franz now. The conservative part of me always wants to give these guys a shot. Like I have fallen for the magic so many times. I'm not doing it anymore. And I think I'm just kind of exhausted of that possibility. And so it's like, this is a great moment to be talking to people on the phone about Franz Wagner and saying, yeah, you're seeing what he's doing. You're seeing what he's capable of. Like recon, of course you want to know if Paolo is going to come back and be healthy and fully operational. But I think I would start like in the vein of taking the hard look in the mirror that at this point might be a year and a half or two years too late. Like I think the magic need to have those conversations. Now I would trade Carter to golden state, not just because it's good for Steph Curry, but I just like that idea. I think you could patch together his number. His numbers and his minutes. Gold state needs him more than you need. For the record. I'm good with whatever's good for Steph Curry. If that, you know, in making that team any better and even more watchable, let's do it. It's 90% of my non Celtics thoughts is what can we do to make one more step front happen? Joker. Joker. I'm also worried about, but I feel like Joker will be heard from again. Yes. Steph is like, this is it. Like the seas have now parted. We have, Oh my God. Okay. See with four injuries already. San Antonio is young. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows with Wemby? And then everybody else, Luca and LA is going to be going to be there. Minnesota. We'll see when the ant comes back. I like Houston, but if I'm going to stand, I'm like, we're a top six team in the West. And we have a guy who's playing as well as everybody else in the league. Unbelievable right now. So let's fucking go. How can we fix this? Charlotte just quickly. I'm not panicking with Charlotte, but I think you could feel it. I talked about this when we did the over unders. I really didn't want to go over for them. I just didn't. They had so much shooting, but I was like, man, they already have injuries. This way. And then everything went wrong. With that said, they're only four, four and seven. That feels like a miracle under the circumstances. How much Dennis Schroeder is happening? That's a miracle. So is there some sort of advanced stat? Like how much Dennis Schroeder is happening? Have we just figured out? I think it's, I think it's usually losses. It's not good. They have a Miller and con. They have Diabate Steinbeck, Anderson, McNeely, Kalkbrenner. I think all those guys are at least cheap assets. They have William Schroeder and saloon who they declined to extend tough. That's 36 million expiring. They have a huge trade exception. They have Nas that they wanted to get frisky. Nas is four for one Oh four. They have Grayson out at 18 and 19. I think is a good trade assets. They have a bunch of directions. They have some picks. I wouldn't do anything yet. I'd want to see what happens. Um, and I'm not going to, uh, admit defeat and I don't think anybody should take victory at a little mellow trade. Let's ride this out. Let's, let's talk in March. Let's talk in March. I'm like, I'm, I'm happy to talk whenever you want to talk about. It's fun to watch. I'm like, I'm having a good time watching him in Minnesota. Let's just wait. Let's just be patient. The wolves have been shockingly good without ant after, I mean, the initial game, the number one in defense with the mellow ball. That's a fucking miracle. It can be done. It is being done. And I think, I mean, so much of what you watch in Charlotte's like they're getting the same shots on paper that they used to get, except all of them are now bad shots. And a lot of them are, a lot of them are forced. A lot of them are out of rhythm. They're coming at inopportune times in the shot clock. They're coming. We must say from Brandon Miller, who I think the dream of Brandon Miller as a primary offensive option is like dying in real time. And right in front of our eyes, he's banging it off the side of the rim. Yeah. Every time he just chucked these shots, it was supposed to be him and con totally together as a combo. Neither of them could be the primary ball handler, but if, and Kobe white as a two of them together, let's see it. And I, I still really like Brandon Miller. I just think he's clearly settling into, he's going to be the second or third best player on a really good team. Yeah. And it has all of, all of the assets necessary to do that. This just kind of like usage has not suited him or looks good. It really would have looked like in the first, you know, year four through six of his career. If you asked him to run a team like this, he wouldn't have been able to do it. That's pretty. Yeah. I'm not panicking on Charlie yet, but it's been, it's been rough and the fans are fucking pissed about the LaMelo trade. They love them. I think that's, what's tough is it's a hard one. They were really riding a high last season. They, trade LaMelo. And so what, as a fan feels like it should be a one step forward kind of season. Everyone probably should have seen coming that this was going to be more of a significant step back, that the offense was not going to be up to the highest levels of the league. Like it was over the back half of last season in particular, this is a much longer time horizon. The upside is, as you mentioned, they have a lot to work with. They have picks. They have a lot of young players. They have a lot of opportunity. They made great moves. I think they're very true. Future Phoenix pick for Mark Williams. And, and, and they didn't get anything for miles bridges, frankly, like they got, they got, yeah, that's what it was. No, they got a future first for, for miles bridges. Yeah. On top of Grayson Allen, who I'd rather have than miles bridges. Oh, straight up. And they got an unprotected first in the trade. Can we talk about Phoenix a little bit too? Yeah. That's the last team we have assets. Dylan Brooks at 20 million a year, basically. Sure. Booker at 57, 61, 65, and 68. I think we need a new word for asset. Super expensive asset. I don't know. Like you read about these New York city penthouses that are like $78 million or whatever. And it's like, is that an asset? If nobody could buy the penthouse, I don't know. The equivalent of like being cash poor as a team, basically like her house poor, I should say. Cause who's trading for Devin Booker with that contract? I don't know. You're like, Oh cool. We get to pay him $68 million three years from now. Nobody's doing that on their books. Booker, obviously their highest paid player, Jalen Green, who I would say went from counterproductive to actively bad this season. 36 and 36. So I would say you're taking somebody else's problem back. Yes. Not a good player. Then Miles Bridges. Empty calorie player. Terrible human being. Horrible acquisition. Don't see why they did it. Fourth highest paid player. And they have to extend him, right? Because they gave a first round pick. If they talk themselves into that. They're so impatient as a team. I would believe anything. They just keep chasing, chasing, chasing after stuff and never seeing anything through and blowing everything up at first opportunity. Like it's just their instincts in terms of the timing have been all over the place and really bad. But their fourth highest paid player, Bradley Beal, who they paid a lot of money for this and three more years just to go away. So they did that for luxury tax reasons, right? There were real reasons. It was like $300 million or some crazy number. And that's why they did it. I think you can make a case they would have been better off just paying the $300 million for one year, having him as an expiring and figuring out if there was some move with him. Or not trading for Bradley Beal or not trading for first round swaps and six second round picks for another score when you already had two good scores or to rewind it even further like just not blowing up a finals team for Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant. Like I know some things had gone sour and sort of run their course in their own way, but like nothing there was salvageable putting Cam Johnson in the Durant trade was still unforgivable. I get the Durant trade. The guy bought the team Durant's really good. Durant wanted to go there. Beal is when the wheels came off for me. Yeah. And like you, you already have your two scorers. You needed to put the team around. So last year there was a lot of talking from Ishbia about when they started off well and they had a good defense this year. There has not been a lot of talking. I will throw in Durant for Jalen Green Brooks and the 10th pick, which they took Malyuch with. Malyach? Malawach. Malawach? Yeah. Who is? Malawach. He is. I mean, look, I like him on Malawach. He is underwater. Like, he's just not ready for any of this. Do you like him as a human being? I don't know him as a human being. I like him as a springy prospect. You know what he's not? A starting center. No, he's not. He's not a backup center. He's probably not a third string center. Would he play for the Celtics? No. Of course not. Would he play in a night when we rest everybody and we're playing like Chicago and the G League guys are up? Maybe so. But the hope with him is not does he play, it's can he play in, you know, three seasons from now, two seasons from now. He looks rarer than raw. Incredibly raw. But like you do see, you see glimpses you have to squint a little bit and somehow sometimes like pretend that you're not seeing some things. He challenges a shot and you're like, oh I, you know what? I could see how this might come together. Yeah, so CP's expiring was in that Beal trade. That was another murder because they could have actually turned that into something else. Yeah, they traded the number 29 pick which became Kalkbrenner in a 2029 first for Mark Williams, who's now hurt. And I was on with Eddie Johnson in Terminate and Eddie Johnson actually said the words, well, we don't have Mark Williams right now. Right now? As for why the Suns weren't playing well. And I was like, that might be part of your problem that you're pointing. It's like the Nurkic thing. It's like if you're pointing to somebody that's not that good and be like, whoa, he's not back yet. Yeah. So yeah, I think you have deeper issues. This is another team where I feel like everyone's pointing to the wrong stuff. It's like oh, Mark Williams is out. That must be the issue. Oh, they don't have it or they're not playing a traditional point guard. No, the issue is they used to win games defensively and their defense now is quite bad. They intentionally made their defense horrible. They traded for offense first players who don't know how to play this way and their edge just completely dropped off green and bridges together. It's a fucking miracle for the other team's offense non-starter. All right. So here's the big question to land the plane here. What franchise of all these ones that we just laid out? Who's in the worst predicament right now? Who's the one that you're like, oh my God, like to me, it's down to Sacramento, Milwaukee and Phoenix. You don't think the Clippers are maybe in there too just by the virtue of how many picks they have out there? You know, I would have thought that until I did this exercise and realized they actually had a couple assets. I like in some expirings. They can trade plus they have some picks coming from Toronto. It's kind of not as bad as I thought it was this summer. I was like, oh my God, this team is going to be wiped off the planet for the next five years. I don't think it's like that. I would rather be the Clippers than Phoenix. I'll tell you that much. Phoenix I think has an interesting case because their teardown process hasn't even begun yet. And so if they're not able to strive for even mediocrity, it's going to be years before they even clear the decks and then years more before they get anyone good. Like the idea of like, when are the Phoenix Suns next in the second round of the playoffs? It could easily be over a decade before something like that happens again. Like these can be long, long cycles when you go from one of the most expensive and also worst rosters in the league into being suddenly relevant again. Like that doesn't happen. Who hangs up faster, Booker or Bam? Booker for Bam. I mean, I think the Heat could really use someone like Devin Booker. And he would iron out a lot of kind of the inherent complications in that fit in a way that I think would absolutely work. I actually think he'd be a Spoh fit in a lot of ways. You think about what Spoh has done with. So Phoenix hangs up faster? I think they would because Bam is not doesn't have the wattage that Devin Booker does. It's not even about who they are, who's the better player, but Devin Booker is a draw in a way that Bam, 83 points a side, is not. You're at a hotel bar there, Shpia. It's like 1030. You're like, man, Jalen Green might be able to replace Booker's stats. And then you put Bam in? Now we're cooking! Someone in that franchise believes in Jalen Green. I don't know who it is, but I would have a strong talking to with that person. He's a rare guy who doesn't seem like he's gotten better in any way in the last couple years, but who's also clearly talented. Oh, undeniably talented. But for some reason, he's the same player he was when I watched him, that he was three years ago. This team's still my. They're still mildly interesting to me with the Brooks thing and the fact that they're weirdly, irrationally feisty. So anyway, Phoenix, Sacramento, Milwaukee. I think we still have to pick the Kings as the worst situation. I think so, too. And enjoy Darius Acuff. This is a nice silver lining to this whole moment, but they got a long, long way to go. And I think they just have to have to hope beyond hope that they can somehow climb out of the relegation zone to get a good pick with the pick that they own this year. Because that is one of the only ways out that they really have in the short term. So, Kings Reddit. You can now put this on your Reddit page that we have picked the Kings. The Kings won something. The Kings won the franchise you. The how did we get here franchise you don't want to be the most. Light the beam upside down straight to hell. It's not good. Light the beam, set the place on fire. Rob Mahoney, great to see you. You can listen to you and watch you on the Prestige TV podcast and on the Ringer NBA show. We've done a couple live shows, too. I know. You're going to America's heartland all over the place. Minnesota, Indiana. Yeah, if you're going to be in Indianapolis for the Cup, come see us December 10th. TheRinger.com slash events. We'd love to have you. I think Kyle Mann is in Indiana right now just getting ready for the NBA Cup. He's just on like. He's carrying a cup around. Some dusty hardwood court somewhere just really scouting the site. Just working on some video. Good to see you, Mahoney. Thanks, Bill. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Jack and Chris and everyone that's Spotify and The Ringer. Don't forget, Air Force One, Rewatchables. That's up now. I'm going to be back on Thursday with a big, rollicking, fat, juicy, mostly NFL podcast, maybe some basketball as well. And don't forget to watch 9 to 5 before Polar and I do Rewatchables next Monday. I will see you later in the week. I'll see you later. 888-777-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867. When you shop Kroger Delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. Our refrigerated trucks keep your items fresh while our associates are committed to getting every detail right. 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