Free Agency Roundup With Bobby Marks, and Dan Woike on the Lakers!

>> Coming up on the Zacklow show, free agency is winding down with a few notable exceptions LeBron James among them as of now anyway. Bobby Marks, my old teammate, my fellow suffering meds fan is here to sort of sort through the rubble of free agency. Who got better? Who got worse? What are some small deals that we like? What are some small deals that have left us a little puzzled? We revisit because we're going to be revisiting it for the next year. So, Jalen Brown, a transaction we're going to be talking about for a long time. It touches on so many NBA flash points from analytics to collect the Barney agreement, to the apron, to salary levels, to all sorts of things. We're going to hit every angle of that now that the Celtics, the Sixers, the League at large has had some time to digest it. How good are the Sixers actually? How much worse are the Celtics? We talk about all of that and just, you know, we've got a ton of deals to sort through the big deals, the small deals, guys like Tari Esen, Norm Powell, lots of stuff to talk about with Bobby Marks. And Dan Wojiki from the Athletic is here to talk about the Lakers because I think it got swept under the rug a little bit amid the Jalen Brown mania. They took a lot of huge swings to remake this franchise, the League's glamour franchise around Lukadánchich. Is it good enough? Are they trapped into a team that's just good with no pathways to be great? Who is Walker Kessler? How is he going to fit with this team? All of that and more coming up on the Zach Lo Show. Welcome to the Zach Lo Show. The NBA offseason has won huge storyline left and that's LeBron James, who broke up with the Lakers before they could break up with them. You can't fire me. I quit. And there's a lot of stuff going on around the league too. Bobby Marks is here. How are you doing, buddy? I'm good. How are we doing? Good. I'm here to also announce that the low family is throwing its entire football loyalty behind Norway from here on out. So just make note of that and that's my press release for today. Do you have a team that you are now throwing your full loyalty behind? That's a good one. You know, I mean, watching Team USA last night was like watching Nets, pistons, O4 Eastern Conference semi-finals, game seven and lose by 30. You know, the hype was there and then it just just didn't live up to you. Or any of 60 match games that have happened so far this season, which is what I thought up when our goalie dragged his foot on the floor and that was it. Yeah, we're going Norway and that's what we're going to do. So Bobby, before I thought this was fitting, right before I hop down with you, I just watched the six-minute video that the Raptors and Kyle Lowry posted about him signing a one-day contract today with the Raptors and retiring after 20 years. And I thought that's such an interesting sort of just thing to happen in the same week as all this jail and brown discourse occurs because they're similar and so different and in so sort of like divisive and similar but opposite ways. So like Lowry and Jail and Brown, you stack them up next to each other. No one on the I test would ever suggest that Kyle Lowry is a better basketball player than Jail and Brown, right? Jail and Brown is a six, eight wing. He does all these things. He's a much more natural floor razor than Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry is a six foot nothing whatever he is, you know, like average 20 points a game only twice in his entire career. And yet the advanced analytics, which have become such a flashpoint and all, this is you Bobby Marx, you know, better than anybody else would tell you that in his prime, Kyle Lowry, the advanced analytics would tell you this. Not Zacklow, not Bobby Marx, the advanced analytics and not just some of them, pretty much all of them because there are a lot of advanced analytics would tell you that Kyle Lowry was a flat-out, better basketball player. He's in Jail and Brown. I also think that's interesting because, you know, Kyle Lowry was another one of these guys who was tagged with the quote, smartest guy in the room thing throughout his career, Colin Coward, citing anonymous sources called Jail and Brown's smartest guy in the room thing or cited sources calling it a quote unquote disease, which I thought was a cheap shot on every possible level. But it's a useful reminder that this is this kind of label in varying degrees has been tagged to Chris Paul. It's been tagged to Spencer Dinwitty and really heard his career. It was tagged very early with Kyle Lowry who was like smartest guy in the room coach killer and is now retiring today as the all-time franchise legend of the Toronto Raptors. Chris Paul, I say Chris Paul, Jared Allen, he liked computers too much to play like a lot of this stuff is sort of nonsense. But I think that it's just such an interesting dichotomy. The Kyle Lowry day props to Kyle Lowry. What a story. Discarded by Memphis, traded by Houston, all of this stuff and becomes a franchise legend and a champion in Toronto and Jail and Brown. I don't know, Bobby, what have you learned in the past week or six days or whatever since this Jail and Brown trade? Is anything changed in your perception of it? Well, I mean, I would start with just going back to when I spoke with serious radio I kind of had an idea of what his trade market looked like. Like that was, like really that was like when I said, you know, and I and it wasn't just one person, like I talked to a lot of people and a lot of people in front offices here about where his trade market was and it wasn't that, you know, whether he's a seventh man or whether he's a rotational player or he was some of these other things that which I told I totally agree with what I was basically was set in the stage as far as like when this guy gets traded, be prepared that his value is where it is. And I think like it was almost like doing weather and say, hey, there's a storm out there, like be prepared, it's going to come soon. And that was really the reason and for me, you know, I mean, for me, it was like kind of defending him, like say, wait a minute, like this thing is going off off the tracks here with with everything there. I agree with you. I think listen, whether you think you're the smartest man in the room or the, you know, or you have a, I don't want to say high opinion or, you know, you know, you like other things other than just basketball. Like I do think that sometimes there is a perceived notion. The disease thing is all like way off like, you know, like like that is like beyond everything like that. And that's one, that's a personal shot. Yeah. And we need, we need to draw, yeah, we need to draw a line between like anonymous sources. This, this has been my pet peeve with the sports illustrated anonymous scout for 30 years. Yeah. You need to draw a line between anonymous sources who are giving you news that you otherwise cannot get or giving you sort of just insight. That's fair basketball criticism versus name calling. And that's, that's name calling. And that's like put your name behind that one. Well, that's right. Like, you know, when, when I talk to whether it be an analytics person or whether it be someone in a front office or whether it be, you know, like that was like, Hey, this is what, this is what the perceived notion is. Now that wasn't across the board with every team, but there was a, there was a strong belief as far as how teams use them. Now you can look at all the different numbers on off, you know, plus, minus. But as I said, listen, at the end of the day, it was 191 and 80 in four years. He led a team that basically had no Jason Tatum this year to what 53 wins in the two seed in the, in the Eastern Conference and, and finished six in MVP voting. I think that kind of carries a lot of weight as far as how you evaluate, how you evaluate a player and everything like that. And, and at the end of the day, you know, I watched Brad, Brad Steven's press conference on, on Monday. And he like, you know, listen, he, it felt like it kind of pained him, right? Like, Oh, they're good. They're going through it right now. I mean, they are going through it on a lot of different levels in Boston right now, you know, whether you could talk about the, you know, having two max play, super max players that tie up, I don't even know, 70% of your salary cap. You made a good point. I think he said three years ago, it was 44% of your salary cap and the ability to, now you can make the counterargument like, wait a minute, you just traded a, a max for a max. But it does give you the optionality as far as with Paul's one less year. And there's a player option there and everything like that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's probably been one of the more bizarre weeks for me at least just based on this discussion that started last week. And really, it's like, it's funny after they lose the fully in the first round. It's like, how do we get here? Right? Like, how did we, how did we get to this point? And then the honest trade, right? Like, and then it doesn't happen. And now we're like, we're here and everything like that. And that's, that's, you know, that's the biggest thing is that a guy that, as I said, finished sixth in MVP was basically like, like, when we look back five years from now, this is going to be one of those like studies, right? It's all the league is talking about a week later. And I'm glad you mentioned Janus because that's almost like, that's almost been pushed to the side that they almost traded for Janus and bailed out because of an extra first round pick, you know, three, they would have taken three first and at least who will go Gonzales, if not Baylor Shireman. And you said the word optionality. And then you got to get the, the Celtics points, at least for this, consider They decided we don't want 35% of the max tied up with Yannis or we don't want it enough to trade what it's going to take and we don't want it necessarily long term with Jalen Brown whose extension. I think was hovering over all this to look there are two separate questions here. Number one is just the big general one why trade Jalen Brown at all. Number two is the why now and why for this let's start with why trade Jalen Brown. I think this is very simple and it's been over complicated a little bit. Because there are these insular issues like what's he going to be happy with his role coming back onto this team with Jason Tatum as as the new ish old new old. Number one guy I think that was a real thing. I think there was as the athletic reported some internal concern related to that role issue with how Jalen Brown played in the Philly series in the first round a little out of control a lot of turnovers may be forcing the issue a little bit. I think they're kind of blowing that out of proportion personally like he was not great, but I don't think it was like cataclysmically bad. So there's those issues but really what it comes down to is this you can argue whatever you want about analytics I don't really care. Here's the thing all of them there are certain players around the league certain star players two or three or four always around the lead get the time. Where all the advanced analytics not just some of them all of them whether it's warps or snorps or adjusted plus minus or this system or win shares or whatever box score plus my like take the whole spectrum of them. They all scream and unison. This player is not as good as a traditional stats say that he is or the MVP votes state that he is or there's always players like that. Devon Booker is another one where the advanced analytics when you put them all in spreadsheet he always comes out so low that you're like wait are these like broken but when they all say the same thing. It behoves you to listen to them at least a little bit that doesn't mean they are gospel that doesn't mean Jalen Brown is the 50th best player in the NBA or the 70th best player in the NBA or the 7th best player on the Celtics. This means they are flagging something and I think in Jalen Brown's case what they are flagging is he is good at doing the number one option type of stuff but not great right like his playmaking his assistant turnover ratio is usually about even not a great pastor not a great three point shooter. And he is just okay at the number two option stuff of defense and three point shooting and extra passing and all that which is why some of those analytics systems would rate guys like Derek white above him because Derek white is elite at the secondary option stuff not as good at the first option stuff that doesn't mean all of that stuff is true. And you have to believe all that about Jalen Brown but the analytics are sniffing out something about him and so when I say this trade really boils down you can don't don't get too caught up in the role definition and the culture of the team and all that to me it really boils down to this. Me personally I look at the I test I watching gazillion games seeing Jalen Brown played gazillion games I've seen him when finals MVP deservedly East finals MVP deservedly I put him second team all NBA this year on my fake ballot deservedly I know how good Jalen Brown is I also pay attention to the analytics to me that nets out at probably Jalen Brown is something like the 12th to 20th best player in the NBA. 12th at the absolute apex 20 to 22 or something at the absolute floor really great player and I think all this trade is it maybe disagree with me and if so please judge chime in is he's making the fourth or fifth most amount of money in the league and he's the 15th 16th 17th best player in the league and the eyes of maybe some decision makers I don't know where exactly Boston ranks him. And that's it like that's that's the whole thing that dichotomy between where his salary ranks and where he ranks is I think why this trade happened why it happened now and why this return we can get into but I really think that's basically what it is. I think you I think you had a right on ahead I think listen I think for me you know the analytics part yeah there's a I think there's a I think there's a role for and I think a lot of teams when they went through the Jalen Brown process they looked at it okay why do these numbers stand why do this pop and then you kind of go to the film part of it and then you look at kind of your roster construction as far as if you were going to make a trade for him and how he fits in and then also the financial part of it I think the financial part of it is the biggest part. And I keep on going back is saying I think I might have said this on TV really the only pathway do I see the Jalen Brown trade is basically swapping max for max like like when you look at it so when you look at Yannis right you know max for max when you know we none of us talked about Paul George max for max okay and when you talk with teams throughout this after the straight happened and you go back and like what happened. There are a lot of it came came down to originally the offers were too high which Boston was looking for Boston's asks Boston's asks were too high there were such a short window when free agency was about to start that we needed to go back and we need to go do our own business right like we weren't going to go back to the table and say instead of this amount of picks we're going to do this amount of picks because we already had trades lined up we already had free aid and signings lined up but basically had to be hey this is what it is let's do it now. And if not then we're going to move on to our other business but you hit it right on ahead when you look at trading a you know 54 58 million dollar player in this day and age it is extremely hard for teams from a roster construction standpoint trading three or four guys like it just really is and Brad you know it's funny Brad Stevens you know he talked about you know when you have two max guys tied up and it hurts your depth. I actually thought at a point last year that I applauded to Celtics depth when you look at what they were able to do like even to the point I wrote in my when I write my offseason articles I wrote when I was writing the sixers article. And I said and I changed it because Philly had beaten them in the first round I said listen if if you're Philly you kind of want to mirror how Boston has built out how they've drafted with Jordan wash and Hugo Gonzalez and Luca Garza and bell sharp like you know all these guys they were able to find and develop a name is Kate it right like these under the radar guys and I thought for them last year that kind of really sustained some things when you didn't have Jason Tatum for the most part of the year. So I understand when when Brad says hey like listen I'm watching New York and their depth and everything like that well two years ago we were talking about the next depth as dear Achilles right so it's not like all the sudden you swap the max for the max and now you yes you're able to get Mitchell Robinson but Zach at the end of the day you would have been able to get Mitchell Robinson if you had jail Brown still on your roster because they were salary wise and everything like that so. Listen I understand a lot of the different angles with them with this trade from the teams that were interested from from the Celtics perspective here you know the you know I listen I don't think a team do not trade for Jason Tatum because they thought he was the 50th round. Some teams tried to trade for Jason Tatum some teams who did not express insertion jail and Brown and and had the assets to do so did express interest in Jason Tatum and we're shoved away which is another sort of side angle to this well I always say like you know unless you ask you never know why not ask why not ask. So here's like the optionality thing is going to be interesting and you bring up the nicks it'll be interesting to see where the Celtics end up because you could you could end up are is the optionality just going to lead you to another superstar player that's going to put you in the same like if you are you going to trade all of this stuff for superstar X down the line or are you going to try to mimic what the next did which is get a bunch of guys making between. 15 and 45 million and nobody making the max and guess what part of that is because jail and Brunson took a family discount that no other player is going to take in any other situation that has enabled them still to squeeze under the second apron they're still under right with on right now it will be in by and by the way the Andre drum and Mitchell Robinson thing it's not nothing I think it's a meaningful downgrade for the nicks and just like Andre drum and Mitchell Robinson thing it's not nothing. I think it's a meaningful downgrade for the nicks and just like Andre drum and is a great offensive rebounder 17 and a half percent offense of rebound grade Mitchell Robinson was out of the universe as an offensive rebounder last year almost 25%. The bigger decline to me will be rim defense Andre drum and allowed almost 70% shooting at the rim when he was contesting Mitchell Robinson was under 60 58% that's a pretty good number much faster much different player. It's a meaningful thing and they are squeezed under the second apron and I'm sure you've heard people talk about we're talking about Denver later. The second apron is acting like a hard cap in a lot of these cases and it goes back I'm going to get back to jail and Brown but it goes back to like I go back to this piece I wrote just for myself all the time. In 2018 2018 eight years ago I wrote a piece about the super max and how it was forcing teams into very painful decisions with home grown superstars and the 10 pull for it was Jimmy Butler. When he became super max eligible and the bulls with Jimmy Butler just entering his mid 20s decided we have to get out of the Jimmy. about their business now. 30th pick, homegrown superstar. And yes, just like Jalen Brown, there were ancillary issues like Diddy was he disagreeing with Fred Hoyberg and poisoning the culture and all that blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is they didn't want to pay him the money. And I wrote in that article like these, if you draft a player and he becomes a success story to the point that Jalen Brown did, finals MVP champion, beloved in the community, all of that. It just feels viscerally wrong to me that his contract is something that you want to get rid of. And so how can we fix that? And in that story eight years ago, I talked about like, should you get some cap tax relief? If it's a homegrown drafted, has only played on your team superstar earning the 30 or 35% max. And I said, well, yeah, cap tax relief, that's really just saving the owner's money. Kind of less so now in the apron 'cause it's giving you more flexibility to do stuff. I even pitched like, should you get some sort of mini mid-level exception, if you have one of those players on your team to help you build the team around him and reduce the force you feel to get him off of your team. And I remember thinking, well, you know, does that make tanking a little bit more beneficial because that's the way you get these superstar players. But now tanking has been like crippled under the new ladder rule. I just still viscerally believe that it's something is wrong with the system that turns these homegrown stars. In some cases, not all, but like in that article, I talked about Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook on and on, that turns them into Albatross contracts that you want. The Celtics should want Jalen Brown to be a Celtic for life. Their fans want him to be a Celtic for life. And at some point like, this does become about the fans. Like Boston fans, I have to watch Jalen Brown put on the freaking Alan Iverson Black Sixers jersey. Like, that's gonna hurt. It's painful, it's emotional. And I think there's got to be something there. I don't know what it is, but it just feels wrong to me. And it's almost like, you know, I'm just thinking out loud. Like, you know, so it's a lot different because of the salaries. Like, so when you sign a veteran minimum, okay? The league of wants you to sign guys who have been in the league. So when you sign for the veteran minimum, if if LeBron signs with Cleveland, for example, and he's signing for the veteran minimum for at 3.9 million, well, for cap purposes, you're only getting charged 2.4. So if you are talking about a super max guy who is a 35%, right? So Shay, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, guys like that. Why don't you get charged 30 guy can still earn 35% right? You can still earn your 58, but instead of maybe. Yeah, to be clear, like 30% all my all my proposals were the player gets all the money. Like it's it's about all the cap issues and stuff. Yeah, and for cap hits, it's 30%. So there's a big difference. You know, like we go back to like Evan Mowgli, for example. And listen, Cleveland and him negotiated that in his rookie contract, Kate also in Detroit, where when they did the rookie deals, they had the escalators in there that won from 25 to 30% if you're in first team on B.A. or defensive player of the year. And they hit him, right? Evan got named defensive player of the year. Instead of a $224 million contract, it became like 270. Teams root, it's a real thing. Teams, I'm not saying it's about Cleveland. I'm saying teams root, almost root against their players, achieving things like that, like all NBA and defensive player of the year for financial reasons. And that's like toxic, like that, that should not be. All right, I just want to get before we go too far down. You know, it's a real real quick regarding Boston. And I know they're talking about finances and optionality. I'm just looking at his contract right now. It's interesting that they gave Mitchell Robins in a three year guaranteed deal. Like fully guaranteed across the board, where you look at some of these other centers, not Walker Kessler, but Robert Williams in Portland, Scott, you know, guaranteed game clauses in a Jacques Landel and Atlanta gets a one year deal, right? Like, so it is interesting that they went the full boat because really, there's a player option in the last year. Mitch was like the last man standing, right? Like there was like, he was the last of the centers that come off the board here. And that's, you know, the game three years, 47 million plus of, you know, of guaranteed money. I'm glad you brought that up because later in this episode, I have Dan Wakey on it. We talk about the Lakers off season. And how I think they just kind of have trapped themselves into a team that isn't going to be as good as they think it is. And the question that you need to ask is like, what are the alternate paths? What is the alternative to paying Walker Kessler a gigantic amount of money and trading to massively valuable draft picks for him? It's like, obviously, that's an overpaying total for Walker Kessler. No one is debating that. What is the alternative that doesn't piss off Lukatán Chuch is he approaches like almost the end of his contract in a couple of years. And it's something like Mitchell Robinson, who's an injury risk at the mid-level exception. But there are, there are alternatives like, anyway, that's Lakers. Okay, Jalen Brown. The other thing is why this deal and why now? And as we've begun to sift through the rubble of this, that the answer to that has become a little bit clearer. And I think it's because Boston felt an urgency to do this. I think they're just, they were worried about the internal discord of bringing him back into a team that was going to be at least mostly Jason Tatum's team is the number one option. I think they were worried that deals were starting to disappear. So like Brooklyn moved on to other business. I think there was real interest there. Minnesota moved on to its business. John Krasinski talked about it on the podcast. Toronto, if they had been interested at all, pivoted to Kawaii Leonard and coming back to Toronto and all that. And so was there fear that did, I think Boston probably miscalculated on a couple of levels. Number one, the Philly option was not going to go away. I think Philly became, I think Josh Harris became pretty fixated on getting Jalen Brown. And I think they could have squeezed another asset out of the Sixers for sure. And I also think, I don't know, I'm curious to hear. I think there was at least one or two other teams who might have been interested in Jalen Brown, who got intel that Jalen Brown was not super interested in them and to maybe stay out of the bidding. So I think Boston felt the circle closing. And then you throw on top of that, teams like Houston and Cleveland, who like could have had the assets, just weren't diving into it. Portland, yeah, Portland mixed too. Like I thought Portland was kind of a law card just based on, listen, they got five guards that you could start. That's the one that I'm like, did Jalen Brown want to be there? Like that is that, is that, so I, you know, I think all of that is sort of what drove them to do it now. It's just, it's going to be a trade we talk about for a long time. It's not a good trade. It's not a good, it's not a good return. I think we all agree. I do think it's going to age better than it feels right now. In part because I think like it would not surprise me at all if Boston wins more games in the regular season than Philadelphia. That doesn't mean there is good of a playoff team because I think that's, that's what the analytics maybe miss is that when the game really gets tough and the defense is really get top notch. And it's not 100 game sample size. It's a seven game sample size against a defense with tons of great wings. That's game planning only to be you. Do you have more than one guy who can get a good shot bully you into the paint, compromise your defense pretty much every possession against any defender you can throw at him. Jalen Brown for whatever war team might have is a pastor, a playmaker, tough shot takeer, all of that. He can do that. Paul George can't anymore. Paul George will play really well against the Celtics by shooting threes and hitting a lot of mid-range turnaround jumpers in isolation. The fade away is that no one is sending doubles at him. They're really, really tough shots. He's not getting into the pain. He's not getting to the rim. He's not getting to the dotted line. I think that's when you're going to miss Jalen Brown in the playoffs. But look, they got two really good draft picks out of it. We'll see what those turn into. I think they're going to win a decent amount of regular season games to Celtics. But it's a painful one that they're going to be thinking about in Boston for a long, long time. And when you talk about optionality, if you're going to say that stuff at a press conference, like Brad Steven said, I don't think it's going to be this season. Maybe it's next season, next summer. Like, you better nail the next move. And that was the obvious angle I talked about right in my emergency podcast was to judge this trade fully. You have to see what they do when Paul George is an expiring. Contract breaking news. What do we got? Donovan Mitchell four years, 273. OK, Donovan Mitchell breaking news from Shams Trania. Well, I was going to just finish my thought. You better nail with the next move, whether with all these picks in the Paul George expiring. Like that's if you're going to talk about it at press conference, you better than Donovan Mitchell four year 273 max contract that includes a player option for the 3031 season. So we can put it all to bed now, Bobby. Donovan Mitchell has said over and over again, I want to be in Cleveland. Yeah, I want to win with this team. We made the conference finals blah, blah, blah. And the trade rumors have always like, you know, like, well, but what if this happened? Now there's that now he's on the team. Now the question is, I'll tell you what, I'm looking at the numbers. It's 70 a year. 75 five in the last year, buddy, 34 years old. Look, I mean, here, this is this is literally what we just talked about, except he's not a homegrown star, I don't know how to deal with that. But it's the same thing is the seven book or contract in Phoenix where it's like, well, I mean, I can't bring it up now 'cause the numbers have been updated for not an initial like, there's 0.6.9, 65, 8, 70.6 and 75. - Look, good for the calves because they get their stability, they're clearly going for it. - What's the other option? - They're clearly going for it. They're gonna bring hard and back at some number. Maybe they'll get LeBron in a week, in a month, in three months, I don't know. They could probably use LeBron. I don't love the basketball fit there. But there's like, almost, there's like a 10% chance that not of a Mitchell is a $75 million player quality-wise, production-wise at age 34 and there's like, it's not going to happen. It's the same thing with Devon Booker. The difference is Cleveland is in a position to go for it now and I think justifiably believes we're not far from making the finals who might be far from winning the finals. Maybe not, I don't know. Phoenix is not and will not be, I don't think at any, well, it doesn't appear to be likely that they will be during Devon Booker's contract. At least, Donovan Mitchell, we're breaking, we're just reacting right now. So this is my snap reaction. This is a, what else am I supposed to do? The guy, the guy was a first or second team all NBA level player all season. I actually had him rated above Jalen Brown in my sort of player rankings for the season. He's an undersized to guard fine. He's a really great player. I don't know what else you're supposed to do. They traded a whole shit ton to get him. You taught us still benefiting from it right now. Ah, okay, Bobby. Jalen Brown, got it eventually. Well, I mean, what, what, wait, wait, wait, what's your reaction? You, you tell me what, what, what's your reaction? I knew it was, I mean, I, you kind of knew it was coming. I'm not surprised by it. It's the summer of extensions, right? We've got all these all NBA, all, all stars, former MVP's that are extension eligible. There's over 20 of them. I said, like, when people ask me, who's the next domino to fall on the trade? So let's see what happens in extension talks. Well, you know, who's the name that is extension eligible? And now it's a real thing that's almost on the clock because he has a player option for 27, 28. And that's it. That's the end of his contract. It's a player I talked a lot about when I was trying to prime self-expans for get ready for what looks like a disappointing return on the Jalen Brown trade. And that's Carl Anthony Towns. And to me, that's still the best comp for the Jalen Brown trade is a team in Minnesota had a great player making a huge amount of money, making a top six player amount of money that they thought was the 15th to 20th best player or whatever in the league. I'm not speaking for them that's just like, I'm just gonna guess that that's what they can see. A player who was roundly mocked for his postseason performances in a lot of years and all his warts and Jimmy Butler mocked him and all that. And they decided we're kind of in jail. We need to get out of this contract to loosen up our books and give ourselves that old word optionality, right? Gonna make my, nevermind. It was gonna make a bad joke. Well, I was gonna make a bad office space joke. And they traded in for Julius Randall, Dante, Juveness Chenzone, a first round pick. And it was like, whoa, that's Carl Anthony Towns trade value. I think that's what the Jalen Brown thing was. I have no, I don't, can I say some other things that are not true about the Jalen Brown trade? Or do you have more reactions to this? Here are some things that I wanna get off my chest. Number one, this is not as bad as the Lucodonchitz trade. It doesn't even live in the same planet as the Lucodonchitz trade. Boston kept, Boston canvas the whole league and this was the best they got. And you could decide that your criticism of should they have just done nothing? That's fair, should they have done the honest deal? That's fair. It's not even close to the Mavericks voluntarily trading Lucodonchitz and only talking to one team about him. Not close. Number two, please miss me with the, while Boston thinks Peyton Pritchard is gonna be Jalen Brunson talk. Did you just see Jalen Brunson? Just see what that dude did in the finals? I love Peyton Pritchard. He's not gonna be Jalen Brunson. Number three, this is also not the Rudy Gay trade, whether it's the Memphis trading Rudy Gay to Toronto and getting better or Toronto trading Rudy Gay to Sacramento and getting better. Jalen Brown is a way better player than Rudy Gay ever was. Those are just things I wanted to get off my chest. Is there anything else you want to hit on this before we, whether it's smartest guy in the room, optionality, Boston, Donovan Mitchell, anything else you want to hit? I think the biggest thing, like in, you know, just going back, like when I meet with these, when I go back and talk about draft prospects and stuff like that, like what they do off the court and what they do in the community and what they do giving back or what their hobbies are, like, I don't know, I mean, like sometimes it's like we, some people look down on that, right? Like look down on, like, well, he's not a, you know, he's not in the gym, he's not doing this. He's a locker room, you know, lawyer and stuff like that. And I, and I just think like, I think it's easy for a lot of people who aren't in it, who aren't part of it, like, you know, as far as, like, like, I think the funny thing was that people, when I talk, when I said, yeah, I'm like, hey, I talked to somebody in analytics and I thought he was a seven bus player, which, and I, you know, as I said, pushed back on everyone equated at, oh, someone from the Celtics, told Bobby Marks that it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. The Celtics were not out there doing, doing, you know, damaging their, their players trade value. That's, that's not the case. - My wife thinks I need to get a hobby, actually. Like, I'm sure on hobbies. And I'll tell you one thing my hobby's not gonna be is soccer, Bobby Marks, because I'm wearing my jersey today, and I'm still pissed off about the bogus off sides call, that robbed Croatia of a chance to be Portugal in extra time. I don't understand it. I'll never understand it. You know what? My daughter, my daughter and I were watching the game together. My wife was at the game in Toronto with her sister. My daughter and I were watching it. My daughter, like, was, was already in cope mode, with like six, seven minutes left. They're down one. So they are, they're gonna lose daddy, it's over. Like, why are they still playing hard? And I was telling her, never, ever give up. This team has scored a lot of dramatic, late, come from behind goals, and it's run over the last decade of World Cup, excellence and all that. Just never in sports, you never, ever give up. Never, this team has done special things, and they score. And I'm running around the living room. And I'm saying, see, I told you, less than learned, this team's incredible. Never stop playing until the whistle. And I'm like, what a great teaching moment. The smile on her face was like, purely. And then, well, the AR could have hit a follicle. And here's this little spike that indicates the chain on that, like, get out of here with all that. All right, let's take a break. And we'll talk more about, I don't know, basketball. By the way, what, what do you think is gonna happen with Carlan City Towns? Isn't that kind of like a pressing item of business or do they just like, play it out? Like, it just seems like you don't really ever play it out, even with the player option like that. No, you don't. I mean, you could do it. You could take it through the whole year until June 30th, just because he's got a player option. So technically, he's on a one-year deal. But as you've, as you've seen, like next summer, like, jail is up for an extension, right? So he's gonna, hi, right? I'm gonna cash in now and everything like that. I think, you know, it's, we've gone from, and I know the Mitchell case is probably a little bit different though. But like, we've seen teams more negotiate. And in the past, just based on how these rules are set up, like the rules set up, set you up to negotiate to get, like, if you, like people think, oh, maybe I'm wrong, like, like the quies are gonna sign it to for 124 in Toronto. I mean, like, that's his max, right? That's his max that he can get and everything like that. So I think, can I, if I'm Toronto, like, hey, can we not? Can we not? Like, you're 35 years old. You never play a full season ever. You've been healthy in the playoffs, like twice out the last six seasons, which kind of like a big deal. I think that was, I mentioned it in my reactions of the trade. Like, it's clearly a good trade. It clearly makes them better. It clearly gives them a little slice of Eastern Conference Championship equity that they did not have. To have that championship back, would you need Kauai Leonard to play four playoff series? Three playoff, three playoff series. He has not done that in like a long, long time, basically since Toronto. And so why should I expect him to do that again? And oh, by the way, there's a scandal that I guess, Bobby, like, are we going to be the woman from the Titanic being like, well, 75 years ago. And why don't you still be willing to be billing people? Maybe me and you next week will be out in Vegas. And we do our annual sitting next to each other at the Adam Silver Board of Governors post recap and that whatever's the strip pavilion there, right? And maybe that's maybe then we hear about the aspiration. I don't know, maybe, or maybe not, you know? - Wattell Lipton, Wattell Lipton, Neroz and Cass, you guys are the real MVP's. You guys, you guys, break work, everybody involved. Okay, oh, Towns, I saw, I asked you about Towns, and that was talking about Wattell. - I'm pretty sure the Towns number is exactly the same as what Mitchell just saw, what he's eligible for. I mean, yeah, four for 273, 34, making 75, almost $76 million. - Yeah, he carl towns as a $61 million player option for 2728, and that's it. Like that's the whole entirety of his contract. - That's it. - Okay, by the way, speaking of negotiation and the art of actually negotiating, I asked you, like, pick a small deal that you like or hate. And what in the mind was, what one of mine I was going to pick was just kind of slid under the radar that the rockets resigned to our Eason to five years, 81 million, which is basically like, hey, you know what you get young promising player who turned down, I think, more or there we're talking about, I don't know who turned what down, but the extension talks were richer per year in the fall than this. Here's the mid-level exception, basically. Like, take it or leave it. Yeah. And look, Rafale Stone, some people like his move, some people don't. One thing you have to give him credit for is like, to do it actually negotiates. He uses his leverage like Alper and Shengloon, you think you just walk into a max because, you know, you made an all-star team and you're a 20, whatever, 23-year-old, 24-year-old center. And that's what happens. No, you don't get the max. Take this. That's like Tar Eason, given his three-point shot fell off a cliff halfway through last season and has been up and down throughout his career. I'm a believer, but the evidence is what it is. And he's had a lot of injury issues like, that's a fair deal for him. And it's still 81 million dollars. It's not like they give him a minimum. It's a ton of money. And I think that was my pick for a good deal. And the rockets, they negotiate. It's what they do. Well, I mean, listen, it's when you're coming off a rookie contract, it's hard to get turned down guarantee money. Like, it's when you're making like $67 million, like, and you can say here, we're going to give you 81. I think that's even like, in a set-up, like, did the rent extension, right? Like, the rent extension last year, like, they didn't just max them out. They basically, they lowered the number and gave them the flexibility for a men Thompson, who is is one of these extension eligible players that are up this him and his brother are up this the summer with with where they are here. I think for me, the nut that and I was just going through him last night, like, there's actually three contracts and they're from the same team and they all came in last night. Like, I don't know what type of voodoo power Leon Rose and Brock Aller and the group there does with some of their players. And probably it's just that they love playing in New York and that there's a comfort level and that the teammates really love each other. But the three guys, Jose Alvarado, Lanjish Ahmed and Muhammad Dior are their contracts. And really, not with, I'm just pulling them up now, like, yeah, I'm telling you, but Alvarado goes for two for four, two, three for 14.4, two, first two years of guarantee, 4.4 is first year, okay? Third year, partial guarantee, okay? Two, seven. Landry goes for four, four, 24 million, first year guaranteed, 5.5 million. So basically, it's the bilingual exception. Years, three and four, partial. Okay. This is all with the eyes on the second apron, right? Because Bronson's going to get a raise in town. It's going to be back and all that. This is all one five, one six, partial in the third year. Dior Wara, I was going to write about him when I did their offseason article because they were in this unique position because they signed him. He basically signed the one year rookie tender because he was a second round pick. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, the apron is going to bite them because the team can just come in with an offer sheet and they wouldn't be able to match. He goes for four, four, 11.3, first year salary, 2.6 million, first two years, guaranteed years, three and four at non-guarantee. So as you could see, there is a trend here with the Knicks as far as the back end of some of these, these contracts, either partial or non-guarantee, but also fitting. I mean, basically, exactly. They signed three guys for, I don't know, $13 million. Breaking news from Bobby Marx. There you go. Okay. There's a lot to talk about. And I know you want to get to Denver. And I want to get to Denver. So I'll be quick on this. The sixers, I mean, I don't know if there's any team that needs LeBron more in the LeBron, maybe the heat, but the sixers really could use an extra bit of depth at exactly LeBron's position. Start LeBron, bring Dean Wade off to bench. Starting five is Maxi, VJ, Jalen Brown, Dean Wade, and B. And we know MV just pencil and he's going to miss half the season. Yeah. And then off to bench, I like the Simon signing, even though they have a lot of guards, and they drafted fire line. I like Justin Edwards. They have Barlow, still Jabari Walker. They have a bunch of backup centers. They have a big hole. They have a big hole at that three and a half, kind of four position off to bench. And they're hard-capped at the first apron, correct? So they only have a few million dollars of wiggle room. Obviously, they can trade and stuff like that to open up flexibility if LeBron decides he wants to go there. We have time in a whole off-season to analyze Philly. I will say this, I am not as worried as a lot of people are about Maxi, Jalen Brown, and Joelle and B. He'd quote sharing the ball. I understand why that's a concern. Jalen Brown likes to, he wanted to be the number one option and then Boston sent him to a place where he's not going to be, but he plays like he is no matter what. And B. When he plays is either posting up, holding the ball at the nail or not really doing very much useful. I mean, he'll set screens, but he's not a hard roller. He's like, he's, he's involved heavily involved. And Maxi is Maxi, he's the most important player on the team now and going forward. I get there. They'll be hiccups and all that. Jalen Brown is not going to be a spot-up guy like Paul George basically was for them. I'm not worried about it. A, because M.B. is going to miss half the games. And if you look at their line-up data, the more quality players they had, this is common sense. Like when it was the Maxi, no M.B. Numbers last year were a slight minus, but you throw edge-comon, edge-com, Maxi, no M.B. It's about net neutral, slight plus. You throw George, Maxi, no M, no M.B. It's a pretty emphatic, solid plus. That's why Jalen Brown matters. Their ability. And also like the ability to play two-man game, like inverted pick and roll, Maxi, Jalen Brown. There's a bully ball ingredient that they didn't have. So I'm not worried about that. I am a little bit worried about their depth. And just like the idea that Jalen beat is going to be healthy for an entire playoffs, it seems unfathomable to me. That's my Philly analysis. Yeah. I mean, I think that depth was the biggest concern for them going into the off-season. I think that the Brown edition helps alleviate, you know, Maxi, Maxi's minutes, right? I mean, first in the NBA, 30 minutes, 38 minutes per night. So it does help probably offset some of that. I thought Philly, I said this on TV and people thought I was crazy. I said, this is before they made the trade. Well, it was after the trade, but it was looking at the roster before they made the trade. I thought they were a, I didn't think they were a playoff team based on where they were with their roster. And I, and really a lot of exact was, because what everyone else was doing in the East, like, after the Leonard trade, after New York winning it all, after, you know, some of the other teams I thought Indiana, you know, I thought was a team that people should be talking about because they've got a lot of their guys back and everything. And I thought by do it by the trade, it put them in the conversation. And their depth was a big concern because there was two ways you could go. You could have brought back one of Kelly Ubrei or Quentin Grimes, right? Or you could go out and split the the the non-taxman level into multiple players and then use the biannual on a third on a third player. And what they did was they split it between Wade and Simon's and then Haqporti goes into the into the biannual there. So it's a nice based on limited funds, I guess. It's a nice nice piece of business here. And I thought from a trade standpoint, I thought Philly was in a tough spot because you see all these contracts that I call them like sweet spot contracts. Like they're the 10 to 20 million dollar guys. Like every team needs those, like five guys. Like I'm looking at like Charlotte's like Capshee. They got like 15 guys between like 26 and two million dollars. And when you're top heavy like that, you need those type of contracts if you're going to go out and make a deal. Fortunately for them, the deal they made was trading a 50 plus million dollar guy for a 50 plus million dollar guy. Look, you mentioned like it seems like heresy almost for you to come out and say is Philly even a playoff team preach, preach rate even then. Here's the bottom line about the East. There are 11 teams for 10 play in plus playoff spots. And I'm not even counting Washington because I don't know what the fuck the wizards are at this point or who's even going to be on the team. But I'm not counting Washington, Milwaukee, Chicago, who's going to be fun but bad and Brooklyn who I know at earthly idea what they're doing, but they're doing something 11 teams for 10 spots and all 11 of them probably believe that they are going to be or could it or in some cases could be a top 16 all 11 Detroit kind of TBD on their offseason. They added some shooting with Isaiah Joe. They still have Duncan Robinson, Kevin Herder to buy his Harris for John Collins exchange. We'll see, but like they won 60 games last year. Boston, New York, they just won the championship Cleveland conference finals, Toronto and Atlanta. Hey, they were the five and six seeds. Atlanta is like we're the 16 despite the fact that half our season was a mess and then we figured ourselves out. Toronto just had a quiet Leonard Philly. Or Lando's like, hey, are we still around Miami? Got honest. Charlotte is still going to be a solid team. I don't know if they're a top 16, but they're going to be in like this mix for the play in at least. And Indiana is like, hey, we're we're we're back. We're here. We added Kelly Ubrei to. It's going to be hard to be a top 16 in the East like one of these teams that you view as I don't know which one it is, but there's going to be a team that people view as an absolute stone cold lock for the top six that is in the play and like for 100% for sure. If you told me Boston's in the plan wouldn't be surprised. If you told me Cleveland was in the plan, I'd be mildly surprised 'cause they have a lot of regular season. Pretty. high regular season floor, like told me Miami with the honest is in the play and I wouldn't be surprised. Like it's that's just the reality of these. Um, uh, can we talk about the nuggets now here? Uh, speaking of, by the way, you know, minimums and filling out rosters before we get to nuggets, DeMar de Rosen weighed by the Kings, uh, Kings, the summer of of oopsie for the Kings, Devon Carter got off you, whoops, Miss lottery pick, DeMar de Rosen, goodbye, we'll maybe wave and stretch you. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was a potential fit for the heat with honest. And I think there'll be some minimum interest in him. Brown is still out there. He jumps probably to size, of course, LeBron probably to, you know, I mean, Harden and Cleveland, and Dramon going to stay will go back, but he probably jumps to the top of the board as far as unrestricted guys. Um, what's, what's happening in Denver, Bobby, because, ooh, Nicole Yokech hasn't signed his extension yet. And it's not nothing, but he did say yesterday, uh, in Europe that he is going to be a nugget for life. And he's just waiting till after the season. So he can sign a five year gazillion dollar deal instead of a four year sub gazillion dollar deal. Fine. He said he's a nugget for life. He said it. He can't say it anymore clearly than that he's not going to be on a different team. The nuggets are not going to trade him. Yep. I mean, I'd be shocked if they ever did. And yet, they have done very little in the office season. Peyton Watson is the restricted free agent, DeGeor, they leaked strategically through the athletic that they will match any offer sheet for Peyton Watson. As if the other teams are like, whoa, they said it. Now we're scared. Now we're not going to do it with the athletic reported that they're going to manage any offer sheet. I can't believe it. Only the clippers and the nets really have the cap space through. But as we have seen with Walker Kessler, there's signed in trade agreements. I think they absolutely have to resign Peyton Watson. I've talked about that at length, but like, man, they got it. Like they haven't traded. Cam Johnson or Christian Brown. They haven't salary dumped anybody. What's going to happen here? Well, I think we're going to see, I know it's a minor move. We're going to see you on his voucher, you can just wait on Wednesday, the eighth because that's his guarantee date. And I will probably see his money stretched out as 2 million guaranteed over three seasons. So that gives him a teeny bit of flexibility. But I ran the numbers, Zach, when you, if let's, I just put Peyton in like a $25 million number, let's just say in there and there, they're luxury attack. They are a repeater team. Okay, so this is four out of five years, that their tax bill would be $175 million. It's not going to happen. I like for better or worse, like we can sit here and say, why do you own a team with Nicole Yokech on it? If you're not willing to eat $175 million tax bill to give yourselves all the bodies you need, because you need all these guys, like if you lose Cam Johnson for nothing, as shaky as he was last year, year two, he'd be better. That's going to hurt. If you salary dump Christian Brown, that's going to hurt. Like he's, he's your, maybe your best perimeter defender, other than Peyton Watson. I know we had to down your last year's shooting. It's going to hurt. And you're going up against teams San Antonio, Oklahoma City, notably where there's not any weak spots to poke at there. And you need every tool you got. But the nuggets are not going to pay $175 million in luxury tax. They're just not going to do it. And you can sit here and complain about it. I would complain about you on Arsenal, you on the Rams. Like, like, are you really struggling to, like do this, but they're not going to do it, right? No, I agree. And it's interesting. Like when you talk about, you know, finances and Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon or our Cam Johnson, like, there's, there's really no, you know, we talked about Brooklyn a little bit. They've got, they've got like 20 million room. But most of that's going to go away after they do the Randall trade because of how they're tying it from a timing standpoint. And how, like, how teams have shaved money off is like a six step process, right? Like, there's no like big swing and all of a sudden, you're going to chop like 25 million off your books. Like Boston did it a year ago with holiday and horsingas and then eventually signed in like all these different moves, but it took them to February or it did do. So if you're looking at, you're looking at from Denver's perspective, and if you're a Yoke itch and or if you're a Jamal Murray, you're like, well, wait a minute, like, we're, we're keeping Peyton Watson, but at the cost of two of our starters, for example, or one of our starters. And our depth is ties Jones, Marvin Bagley, Zeke Najee, Julian Strather, well, no, I'm not Julian Strather, I'm still a resident of Strather Straits. They're on the whole Rock and I Strather Straits. Your depth is like, you know, because what happened was you got fortunate on the hard way junior signing for the minimum. Oh, and they still have to sign. I always call them Salman Jones, but it's not Salman Jones. It's Spencer Jones. Yeah, Spencer Jones, who's a restricted player, who's a restricted free agent too. So you add him into the into the mix too. So it's, it's a fascinating, it's, you know, as you said, you've got the Yoke itch extension and he came out yesterday and said it, he consigned by waiting to an extra $81 million. It's five years, $359, which is like unbelievable. He will make, if he does this, he will make $725 million in career earnings act. That is remarkable. A lot of a lot of a lot of horses. You can build his own, he can build his own racetrack with that. You basically buy some more Serbia 10 times over if he wants to. And he's a guy who, I mean, he defensively, he just is what he is. And he's okay. And sometimes he looks a little better than okay. And sometimes it looks a little worse. Offensively, that guy is going to be tearing people up as long as he wants, like between his shooting, passing and bulk, like he's going to age superbly on that end of the floor, like he's going to be a high level fulcrum of an offense into his mid to late 30s, if he wants to be. I have no worries about that. The dude is a genius. It's why I kind of like that would be a super fun LeBron team. And I don't know if he'd ever go to Denver. It doesn't feel like a LeBron thing to do to just like up and decamp to a mid market in the mountain time zone on the team he's never played for before. But it would be a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, it sure would be. I mean, you slide him in there with that with that group there. And then you basically, someone gets pushed to the bench. And then that solves a little bit of your bench pump. But I mean, just going back to their finances when I mean, you've got five guys making north of 20 $21 million here, two max guys, it's money. It's like the two max guys is, you know, it's it's almost going to be like a dying breed. I mean, it really is. I mean, it's like based on where this where the system is and everything like that. But I'm interested. I'm just I'm interested to see if what happens if there is no capspace left, right? And Peyton Watson is sitting there like we saw Josh Gidey and Kaminga and all those guys a year ago, and they based in jail and during and in Detroit and should have mentioned I should have mentioned jail and during when I when I just briefly talked about the pistons because my assumption is he will be on the team next year. And they were I could tell you the pistons were not phased by I mean, I don't even know if the meetings happened. Did they did where these meetings with the Kings and Lakers real meetings? I have no idea, but they were unfazed. Yeah, I would I agree with you as far as working on a sign in a sign and trade. I don't even think if if the Lakers had I'm just spitball and had offered to first and to unprotected for jail and in a sign trade like what does that do for Detroit's trying to win right now, right? That's a little they're in a little bit of a different states. I know Utah is trying to win, but a little bit of a different stage. But I'm glad you mentioned, Jill. Yeah, what happens if capspace dries up? I mean, Peyton Watson is represented by clutch. We've seen clutch and rich Paul with Eric Bledso with Tristan Thompson, like go to the mat and take it into the fall and and take as long as it needs to get what they want. And they generally end up getting close to what they want. But the window for Denver is closing if it's not closed, so they need to claw like hell to reopen it. Otherwise, what's the point of having Yoke it's on your team? And you mentioned the two max guys thing goes back to what we said earlier about something something just feels wrong about the idea that maybe in a year, Denver will have to basically salary dump Jamal Murray. If you want to call what Boston did a glorified salary dump, I don't think that's quite fair. But if you want to characterize it, like that, it's not like entirely off base. Like they should like that would suck for nuggets fans. Like they drafted both of these guys, Murray and Yoke, they make music together. They've been a tandem. And it's like, so we just we just have to get off this guy. And if they ever did trade Jamal Murray, the return would be disappointing just like Boston fans are disappointed with the jail and brown trade return. Yeah. I mean, I think what the rules are and what what it does is that when I said this a year ago makes you kind of pick and choose. And listen, every team is different. If you don't want to do that and you you're willing to go into the apron or pay a penalty and everything like, you know, like Oklahoma City, they traded Wiggins and Isaiah Joe, but they were still able to retain their core, right? Like that. And because they're like an anomaly because they've got all these draft picks that they can just kind of plug in when Lou Dork gets expensive or one of these other players here. But I do think it basically forces you to slot guys into different salary ranges where you're a fourth best player. It's hard for them, you know, or third best player. It's hard for them to be making $26, $27 million. Aaron Gordon if you say he's their third best player is making 33 million dollars, that's hard, right? And it has hard to do in this. It has lag issues that never seem to go away from more than a month at a time. Real quick, any small move you liked or didn't like that you wanted to mention that we didn't hit? Buies Harris, San Antonio. Wait, yes or no, are you like or not like? Oh, I'm disappointing. I had to give grades on TV. I gave it a beef, I gave the overall San Antonio beef plus. I should have given the name minus because I really thought that that was something they needed. I could have said like, Rui, you know, Rui Tobias, one of those two, Rui goes to the clips and a pretty good deal. Also, but Tobias for two for 31. No options. I'm pretty sure I'm reading his contract, right? Let me pull it up. No player option in there. So again, I saw Kevin O'Connor, among others, kind of ripped that deal and say, well, they could have done better than Tobias Harris. All he does is shoot mid-range shots and blah, blah. Couldn't disagree more. I think that's a really good deal for the Spurs. Power forward is the position that they're most short at. He's a good spot up shooter. I don't know how much of his bucket getting they'll need. Like, the pistons really sorely needed. Like the Tobias Harris turn around jumpers because they had no viable second option in the playoffs. The Spurs will, but I just think he's exactly the position they needed. He's purely additive to what they do on both ends of the floor and his contract expires right when their team is set to get enormously expensive, depending, of course, on what happens with the air and Fox and others going forward. I thought that was a really nice deal for them. One more other deal that I thought was really interesting that happened on Monday was the Quentin post offer sheet. We do, yeah, we do not see offer sheets anymore. I think the last one I said said eight, but it was really Matisse thibal back in with there was a month, a two a guy a year ago, but that wasn't the thibal one in 23. I think Dow signed them to offer sheet Portland matches. We don't see it anywhere, but what I found the most interesting. The apron rules really have eliminated teams from putting unlikely bonuses and contracts because they count against the apron. We had not last summer we went through summer no bonuses, right, like the bonus system, which is my favorite has dried out except for the Quentin post offer sheet that contains one point roughly 1.3 million and unlikely bonuses. In his contract for each year, the last few years are non guaranteed and why I say that is, if you are going to do an offer sheet and make it not appealing for the Golden State Warriors to do it. That is how you were structured the offer sheet because the Warriors are hardcapped at the second apron because of the Anthony mountain signing. Okay, you are, if you are looking at Golden State's finances and they're 38 million dollars below and they've got dream on green still sitting out there to sign. It makes it unlikely for you to match this offer sheet because now you've got 9 million in base in another 1.3 and unlikely bonuses that will count against the apron here. So I found that pretty, pretty interesting. I thought it was also like an indication like how healthy is that you'd be in Memphis, right, like as far as where, you know, where they are as far as going out and getting another big there. And they already had beef stew that they did, how fast do you think Quentin post sign that offer sheet? Is it the world record for fat? Like if you could do the docky sign, just clicking like sign finish sign finish, make it like 2 million last year. Bobby marks you're the man. Let's go meds and I will see you in Las Vegas, any parting thoughts here on anything. Listen, we wait and wait for LeBron and probably will be around like 10 o'clock tomorrow morning when I'm flying over the mountain, the Rocky Mountains somewhere or maybe it will just be this weekend. We're all together and we can share it. The wherever he goes, you know, maybe it'll be in August. Who knows? I mean, when I go to Europe, I'm going to take my microphone and my camera just in case Bobby marks you, but essential good to see you. I'll see you soon. All right. The dust is settled around the league. It's time to talk about the league's glamour franchise, a summer of change for the Los Angeles Lakers. Dan Wojki from the Athletics here. What's going on, Dan? Zach. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to not be talking about the New York pass. Well, that was rude. I'm white socks fans, Zach. You know, we're right now. Right now. This is our time. We're America's team. We're America's underdog. I'm not going to comment on any of this. Okay. The Lakers, a totally remade team around Luka Donchic. It has happened after the gift from the gods fell into their lap last summer or last season, rather with the Luka trade. Now they have actually remade the team in his image. Out goes LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Luke Canard, Marcus Smart, Jackson Hayes, DeAndre Aiden, incomes, Walker Kessler, Colin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, Mamou, Jaden Hardy, and in the Walker Kessler transaction to unprotected juicy tasty first round picks from the Lakers, go to Utah, and as well as two swaps. Dan Wojki, is this all worth it? Is this team? Like, what is this team? You said it. It's created in Luka Donchic's image. I think the Lakers made, I mean, whether it's promises or pitches or different things like this, right? Like, there was a mandate for change. And that mandate for change started last summer, after they turned it for Luka Donchic, when they first started to talk about a contract extension, and they said, we can give you your team. Right? I think it's important to know contextually, right? Like the team that Luka got traded from was the team that he wanted most and Alice. It was the team that he felt was best built for him, right? Now, injuries and things have happened, but like, that was the roster that he was supposed to win a championship with. A team that had very recently made the NBA finals, the largest one you could make in the playoffs before their general manager decided, let's just bust this whole thing up. Yeah, so I think, you know, that that's the frame of mind, right? Of Luka Donchic, when the Lakers tell him, you know, we don't have the flexibility to give you that today, but the way we're going to approach this summer in 2025 is we're going to keep that flexibility. And the biggest domino in that flexibility was LeBron James' contract. There was no extension talk, right? It was, we are going to treat your contract as an expiring contract. A sign of mild disrespect, I would say, to the second greatest player of all time, but, you know, I think the type of thing that the Lakers felt that they had to do to fully enramp into, like, sort of, Luka World, right? And so I think they went about the summer, they got Luka the thing he wanted most, right, which was a center. He wanted a rim protecting center, you know, a lob threat, whatever, what can talk about it, whether or not he's like a lob, lob threat, but like a good around the rim center who guards his ass off on defense at the basket. They wanted to get younger and more athletic on the wing. They wanted shooters, and he wanted a secondary playmaker. I think the cost of the secondary playmaker, an officer uses contract was more than most people anticipated, but I think those were people who weren't reading the market properly. I didn't understand that in 2026 when guys who average 23, 5 and 5 in their prime are available, they're going to have suitors when nobody good gets to free agency, and he had real suitors and the Lakers had to pay to keep them. So yeah, I mean, I think they gave Luka his team and now it's on Luka to prove that he's good enough. I think I think they gave Luka his team. Step one. Step one. Yes. Step one. Step one. This isn't. This was never a magic bullet somewhere. This wasn't going to be able to do everything all at once. But here's my worry for the Lakers, and I preface this by saying, I think this is going to be a good team. Yeah, next season, probably at top 16, because the West is actually weirdly in a state of flux more so than the East. I think if you're a good team, perhaps a very good team, probably one of the very best offensive teams in the entire league, because Luka is that good and they've surrounded him with shooting secondary playmaking ring running center. This is the model. This works. We know it works. He's going to kill teams in this in this environment, offensively defensively, TBD. We'll talk more about that. I just feel like the Kessler trade is going to go down as one of the most important transactions of the last 10 years in the NBA, because all of this stuff rhymes, sexting, mamu. That's all fungible stuff. That's all tradable stuff. This is the bet that matters. Kessler is the bet that matters because they have bet everything that they have left on Walker Kessler as a franchise center. They have paid him 32 and a half million dollars a year over four years. They now have this is the team more like the pieces around it are fungible. And I think they'll play with the wings and they still have a couple of roster spots open. I think they're still hunting for a backup center and maybe someone who could like a four who could maybe start maybe come off the bench, like one of those like six seventh kind of guys who might have to start. They're still on the hunt. It's not done for this season. It's certainly not done for the future. They have really no tradable draft pick assets left and no avenue to salary cap space for the next three or four years. This is the team. And I think they overspent on almost everybody they acquired. And I don't know that a bigger bet has been made on a player who has accomplished less in the NBA than the bet the Lakers made on Walker Kessler. And so that's not to say that it won't pay off. I spent a lot of my fourth of July weekend watching film of Walker Kessler trying to remember his game get a better feel for him. you. And I think a lot of that bet is going to pay off. to a reasonable amount. But I just look at this team as great as Luca is, and even if he manages to stay healthy for entire seasons and entire playoff runs, which has been an issue for him the last few years, I just don't see how they can compete with the very best teams in the West. I'm not sure they're better than Denver, whose offseason is TBD or Minnesota, and I don't know how they get any better going forward unless they reach a point where the Reeves trade becomes sort of the only out that they have to rearrange their teams. So if I'm a Lakers fan, I'm like, okay, oh, that's like, this is the team now, that's it. I mean, it's good, but I don't know where it goes, Dan. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. - Yeah, I think, okay, so I think there's two things we should talk about. I can give you, Zach, you know me, I'm if nothing, if not an optimist. I can give you the optimistic argument for this, and I think the other thing we need to talk about is a context around centers to kind of set the deck here. I think the optimistic argument is that you have a Laker team that the last two years with flawed rosters exceeded their projected win totals. Both seasons, back to back 50 win seasons, a team that had a good defense in the regular season, a good defense, even after they traded Anthony Davis. Austin Reeves was a part of that defense. Marie Hatchimer was a part of that defense. LeBron James was a part of that defense. So Gadotchich was a part of that defense, right? Like, I think all this is to say is, I think there's beliefs in this coaching staff to like, make lemonade, right? Like they've shown, I think, a pretty good job of what I find to be, you know, if we're gonna boil down basketball, though it's most simplistic, which is the space I like to operate in, it's, can you maximize strengths and can you hydrate weaknesses, right? And I think they've done a good job with their teams to date and maximizing strengths and hiding weaknesses. How that plays out in the playoffs, totally different scenario, right? And I think for the Laker's discussion, that's a huge part of this because this is not a team that is content going to the second round. LeBron James is not a player who's content going to the second round. He wants to win a championship. So I think optimistically, the bet is that there are better versions of Quentin Grimes. There are better versions of Soundroom, I'm a Cush-Feely that the best version of Walker Kessler has yet to be seen, and that the Laker's coaching staff and even Colin Sexton, that's a great one. But the best version of Colin Sexton's, bro, is yet to really fully reveal itself. The Laker's coaching staff is good enough, and Luke Adachi is good enough to take these players, to mold them into these roles, and to kind of roll it out there and say, we think, at least as a step one, we're moving in the direction we need to get. Obviously, they need a real point of attack, defender. On the wing, as of today, it's Quentin Grimes. I think there's a belief that Quentin Grimes internally can do this. That's a really hard job for one person to take on by themselves for 82 games, and to play off, that's, you get hurt a lot. You break down a lot when you have that job. I think, you mentioned looking for fours, looking for backup bigs. I mean, Manga is like a three and a half four that I think is somebody that they like again, not a proven defender in that way, but I think somebody who they feel like coaching staff wise, maybe they bend it, maybe they can, maybe they can be the one who makes it work. That's just where they're at. I think, optimistically, it's the belief in the staff, belief in the system, belief in the staff. I think the other thing, though, about all this, and when we talk about overfade, is like, I've been doing this exercise for 18 months around the NBA, even more than that, but like that started with Anthony Davis, when he first asked for a center. Like, who is going to play center for the Los Angeles Lakers? It's probably the single thing I've talked about most with Intel people, with other executives with scouts around the league. And the list of like, quote unquote, Luca type centers is shitty. There just aren't a lot right now at this time and space in the NBA of like, rim running centers to, to, you know, to Rick Patino, this, like, De Adry Jordan isn't walking through that door. Like, there aren't just that many guys who do this job. And the ones that do haven't been that available for that inspiring, you know, like Nick Claxton is a guy that teams talked about a lot. Too small. Oh, the Lakers are going to trade for Nick Claxton. It's too small, the cost for time was too high. Not interested. Like, not the right guy. You know, Mark Williams, they try to get him in the door, didn't like how he walked through it, you know, and decided that it wasn't him. He was me see, has averaged five points of game in the NBA and has not played an important minute yet. But one of my favorite tweets of the offseason was, Chris Haynes saying that Nick said not only tried to trade for you, you see, but if feverishly tried to trade for you, I think it was feverishly, right? I mean, it's like, the graphic, the graphic. I don't reject it. Big letters rejected underneath these missing. If I were a GM, I would want to be known as feverish. I'd want to have someone tweet that I was feverish in my desire for a minute back up center. - Well, so here's the thing, I mean, Gafford, injury concerns, they're lively, injury concerns. I mean, just go around the league, like I've done this for, like I said, a year and a half. It is a seller's market for centers. And do you talk cash then? - So here's the thing. I want to start with you said, better versions of Grimes and better versions of Mamu. I think what you were hinting at was that the coaching staff and this environment playing with one of the five best players in basketball will open up a better version of those players. I think to actually contend at any point in the next three or four years at a high, high level, they actually just need better players than those guys. And I don't know what vehicles they're left with to get better players than those guys. Now they're creative and there's worlds in which lots of things happen, like Kessler hits and they end up trading Kessler for this and that. I think the Kessler bet is going to be just about good enough. I don't know if it'll ever justify the price that they've paid for him. In terms of the unprotected picks and all that, but I think the surrounding talent just probably isn't quite there particularly defensively. Here's like, I think this could be a top five offense in the NBA boom done like, and is Vera top five? - Can I ask you a question here? I'm just like, what did you see on film offensively? - I'm going to talk a word about it. I think this could be a top five offense in the NBA with like could be right off the bat. And like if you're if you're top five, you can be a pretty bad defensive team and still be a 50 win team, a 48 to 50 win team. Like and if when I look at the West, I'm just like, the Lakers I think will be better. I mean, we could sit here like, who's definitely better than the Lakers next year? As of right now, 350 PM Monday, Oklahoma City, San Antonio. I think I'd probably say Minnesota and Denver still over them and probably, but they're in the like the Houston Minnesota. - I think Minnesota. - I think Minnesota maybe, but I mean, the Lakers like, like again, and I sound like Lakers on my last year. - The Lakers and Minnesota with the Lakers handled Denver. - That's sure. - But like they're better than Sacramento. They're better than Memphis. They're better than Dallas. They're better than New Orleans. They're probably going to be end up better than Golden State depending on a couple of things, including World of War and Houston. I don't think in the regular season, no one more games than Houston, but it wouldn't shock me if they did. I think they're better than Phoenix. They're better than Portland. Despite the John Moran thing, which I talked about last week. I think they're probably better than Utah, who we'll talk about a little bit at the end of this podcast. Like the West is just a little more rickety, shaky teams like trying to do two things at once than the East. So I think it's going to be a good team. Like if they're fourth in offense and 18th in defense, that's like a really good team. Now, I think 18th in defense, and I've run this by a few people around the league. Is that optimistic? A lot of that depends on Kessler. He's going to have to clean up a lot of messes. Here's the thing. 18th on defense was easier last year and the year before. Then it'll be this coming season because of the lottery rules. There's not going to be eight teams who aren't trying that you're automatically going to be better than defense. So I think defense is obviously the question for this team. I think they're going to be an awesome offense as long as they're healthy. They're going to be a really good team. I'm not worried about that. And if that's like, if Luca is going to be satisfied with that, and clearly he had the organization over a barrel this summer with the contract kind of tick, tick, ticking away, that's fine. And maybe you get lucky and you get the spurs with Wemba Niyama injured or the thunder with whoever injured. But they're clearly not as good as those teams. And I don't know what avenue they have to get there. But I think they're going to be a really good team. I think Kessler will fit reasonably well. Yeah, I think. So when you told me you were watching film, I picked two games just kind of out of random last year. I mean, there wasn't that. There were only five. You watched it three percent of Walker Kessler's season. A hundred percent of a season last year. I mean, there are things that I think. There are like real areas of improvement that I think, perhaps with like higher stakes, like can help, right? Like playing for something on a night to night basis, I think. I mean, or maybe it doesn't. You know, maybe you break under the circumstances. You don't know. I think he's an okay screener. Like, as of today, I think that is something. Obviously, like, if he became a great screen-setter. I can screen-setter. I can tell you, for sure, that was an area of consternation amongst the Utah jazz. I agree. And you know, who they think is a great screen-center? You're some garbage. Who they signed. And I think that to me is something that I'll watch now. Look, you don't have to set awesome screens for Luke Adonchish and Austin Reeves. They're really good. They just had good seasons with Deodre Aiden setting those picks. And Jackson A is setting those picks. You know, you can set good-ish screens. And I think he'll improve there. you said a lot of it's going to fall and walk a catcher at this point it feels like All the rest is just noise. Every other transaction they made, they can dig out of if it goes badly or flip it into something else. I'll say that that's all easy. Here's something. Here's something. Here's something that has to be a 10 out of 10 in terms of hitting his potential for this to result in what they dream of it resulting in. Yeah, I think there's there's two other things to hear. I think I play like and they have to do. You mentioned the Luca healthy in the playoffs. I mean, Austin Reeves getting him healthy to the playoffs. The sexton signing should help in theory there. I think, you know, just getting another on the ball player over the course of an 82 game season helpful from like a scoring punch production quit and grab some score the ball a little bit too. I think like having that, they didn't have that as much last year. There was a reason why they were a better team after Luke Canard got there and part because those eight to 10 points a game, like just made life easier on people. And I think, you know, Colin Sexton to me has like a real opportunity to have like kind of those like six man of the year type of seasons where you're going to like, you're going to look at a box where he's going to average 16 points a game. And he'll be like, oh my god, it's got to be someone then like someone off the bench has to be a six man. It's not going to be Vanderbilt. It's not going to be Mamu. We might start. It's probably not going to be Laravia. It's not going to be Bronnie. Yeah, I don't know who's going to be. And I was going to say the other thing that when I've talked to scouts about the Lakers and we talked about like kind of the ability for them to like sort of make lemonade. You know, they basically like the good version of their defense two years ago was by playing like a hyper small, right? Or at least Doreen Finney Smith at center for the Bronnett center. Play small, switch everything and win the scrambles, right? Like last year was taking around again, like the matchup zone that like our rotations are going to be tighter. And that's why we're going to be able to do what we need to do. We can blitz Kevin Durant at half court in the playoffs and get to where we need to go in rotations and do that. These are all like functional defenses. They also have like real physical tear wear and tear on players. I think when you the style of defense that they've had to play where you take non defensive players and ask them to play incredibly physical and try to ask them to play in space and with speed and in rotations that like quite frankly like they're not like built for. I think that's worn on them. And I think that's another thing too that that's that play here. The only thing I'll say about Luke and Austin on defense two because that's I know that's a big thing. You know, you can't have these two guys on defense. It's impossible. You can't do it. I think if Kessler is what they hope he is. And those three players are in communication and are in sync defensively. I think with Lucas size and his you know at times smarts and willingness to defend which we saw more of last year. And I think we've seen Austin Reeves function in team defenses in the past. That to me is that's the right is their betting on IQ character team defense and like we can figure this out that way. And that's that's their gamble because they don't have they don't have that guy right now. I I have a hard time seeing it above average NBA defense. But if they can sniff average, I think that's the that's the road man for this team to to meet and exceed expectations. I like the Luca Reeves thing is like what what are you supposed to this is the whole lake or summer is like what are you supposed to do? You have LeBron or you have cap space. And if you have cap space, there's only a certain amount of things you can do with it. There's only a certain amount of players you can get like like someone floated to me. Should they have just gotten jail in brown. Should they have used those two draft picks to get jail in brown instead of Walker Kessler and a similar like dump them into your cap space. You have to send out Vanderbilt and all this. I'm not sure that makes them any better than what they've done in terms of the kind of player that they need. And Austin Reeves is a really, really good player like he's an awesome offensive player. And he's on your team. He's a known commodity. He fits with Luca. Sometimes you just have to figure it out. And it's not like Luca and Kyrie was not some dynamic defensive duo. And they made the finals like you just have to sort of figure life out. The lesson, the lesson come to be a finals to me. And that says a bunch of soft season. More than anything else, right? Is that like the roadmap for teams are is like when you have a great player or an awesome guy is you just build the best possible team around that player. Like don't chase the thunder. You don't chase the spurs. You don't chase the Celtics or whoever it is, right? Like you're only real chance if you have one of those dudes is to build a team that makes that guy as dangerous as possible. That again, I'll say it again, accentuates the strengths, hide your weaknesses. Do you want no one talked about doing the NBA finals that like Jalen Brunson was a bad defender? Jalen and Kat, Jalen and Kat together. Yeah, no, they've like stepped up and played the best defensive career and got into matchups that were favorable to him. And the nicks I've talked about this ad nauseam, they did two things with Jalen Brunson who is who is a little stouter than Austin Reeves, at least he's a little harder, he's smaller, but he's harder than fire hydra is a kind of everybody. They they were like, we're never or we're almost never going to switch you into mismatches. And we're going to build our entire team around you with size, inflexibility and speed to protect you when you're hedging and recovering. And they did that and it worked to a tee. I want to talk about Kessler because I think he is now one of the most interesting players in the league, given what the Lakers just bet on him. He will be the ninth highest paid center in the league next year. Behind Jalen, B Anthony Davis, Joker, Kat, Bam, Chet, Shengoon and Rudy Gobert. And obviously, when be when that new deal kicks in, we'll we'll jump over him and knock him to 10th. So like that's actually not outrageous. It's not as I said, it feels sort of right. I mean, again, the track record of Walker, Kessler playing meaningful NBA games is extremely small because you played five all of last year and the jazz have been tanking for basically the entirety of his NBA career. So like everything with the grain of salt, his closest peer salary wise is now Isaiah Hardenstein. And I think that that's sort of instructive because the vision when I sat down and watched a ton of Walker, Kessler film, the vision for him is, can he become 85 to 90% of go bear on defense and something like not stylistically the same, but like as useful an offensive player as Hardenstein is for the thunder in terms of being a pick and roll release valve and all that. And if you can get there, the contract is not outrageous. Now the contract plus the draft picks is pretty hard to justify, but here's what I'm going to say about Kessler offensively. You mentioned like, is you kind of raised the question, like, is he a true lob threat, like a rim running lob threat? He is, I think he will be on this team. So I watched like so many pick and rolls. I don't even want it. It's embarrassing how many Walker Kessler screener rolls I watch. He is not a speed demon slipping and rolling to the rim. In fact, like one of the reasons he has to set better screens and actually lay the wood on people is if you are not a real speed threat to slip out of picks and your speed is not going to compromise the defense alone and he is not one of those players, then you kind of have to set good screens because that's the way you're going to free up the guards and that's the way you're going to compromise the defense. So he's got to get better as a screener. And there are some like rock solid screens in that real. He hasn't in him. It's not as if he doesn't know how to do it or he's unwilling to do it. He'll have to do it more. The reason why I think he will thrive with the lakers as a lob threat and a put back threat and all that is because the jazz had young speed demon guards running. I was like, the same thing. Who just want to go down hill. And so he's not going to scream for Tyrese Maxson. That's our dear and prime dear and Fox. Colin Sexton and Kiantha George ran Walker Kessler out of the pick and roll. His pick and roll game is a little slower. He's got a good little change of pace to him. He knows how to open himself up in the pocket. If there's like a little bit of time to do it, quick off the ground. He's pretty quick off the ground. And Luca is the perfect guy and Reeves too, but Luca more than anyone who slows down, changes pace, sucks the defender in one half step at the last second. He is going to feast on lobs and just put back attempts or like little close floaters much more than he did in Utah. I think offensively, that's going to be a fit. My questions for him offensively are if you look at his rim finishing percentages, they're elite, elite. But if you actually look at it at an enormous amount of his shots, much more than most centers are either lob dunks or offensive rebound put backs. The other shots where he is forced to catch the ball and put it down once or even just catch it and gather it and then go up in traffic. He can be a little soft going up in that situation. And so I'm interested to see what happens when teams blitz, Luca and fortune to make plays with the ball. Or just he just has to do a little bit more heavy lifting because he's going to see all those kinds of looks. I do believe in the passing. I think like when I've watched him, I think it's there. You know, obviously, he really benefited from playing with shooting, shooting bigs, right? Like one of the 20% of the games that I watched last year, which was one, you know, like there were minutes with Kyle Filipowski where that spacing mattered, like obviously like with Mark and then like tiny, tiny sample. And that came against Phoenix, the one that I watched, like shot the ball with like a lot of confidence, like quick, quick decision making. And then as the defense adjusted that, a couple really good passes down to size. right? Like we're marking and would have a size mismatch and you would find that pass. Um, are the Lakers going to have those mismatches? If he's playing with Sandro, he's playing with Mamu. Yeah, I think so. Um, you know, like that, I think is going to be a play that they can use. And, um, I think in his triple handoff game, I thought, too, when I watched, like looked like, all right, like, you know, I think if you have movement shooting, there, there's value. I think that's going to be a part of his game. Like, so they're going to obviously experiment with him popping out for threes occasionally. And the defense is going to ignore him and he's either going to make enough of them. I, I will see or he's just going to pivot into those dribble handoffs with Reeves coming off with Grimes, coming off. Both of those guys are highly skilled at that. And if you're 15 feet off of him, those guys are going to come off those handoffs and they're going to have a wide open runway to get to the rim. The other thing I think he's going to be good at is being a threat for lobs in the dunker spot when he's not in the play. So like, Aluka Reeves pick and roll, which they are going to have to lean into that even more to hunt mismatches and stuff. There is nobody better in the league, zero people. Better in the league. It's sort of dribbling those mismatches into traffic and baiting the defense until they commit just enough. And he look at loves throwing those lobs through traffic through hands through every through all sorts of tiny, tiny windows to centers to dunk the ball. I think Kessel will fit with that. I think he played the game. First play of that game against Phoenix that they ran started with Walker Kessler opposite corner. And it was a design play for a lob. That's where that lob started for him all along the base. So I think he's going to be fine offensively. I think the teams will blitz and test his ability to make plays in open space. I'm kind of TBD on that. Yeah. And the finishing and traffic. But I think he'll be representative enough offensively. And defensively, the rim protection is real. Actually, interestingly, Utah had him defending in space a lot more last year. And again, a limited sample size was a clear point of emphasis. Like, hey, we want you to come up to the level of the screen instead of dropping away, way back. We even want you to switch sometimes more than we have to have asked you in the past. He was like, actually, okay, doing that. So I think like, I actually think he's going to more or less live up to expectations, mostly because Luca, he's going to get better. And Luca is going to make him look so good and play to his strengths. Like, I think this is actually kind of a smart identification of a guy who doesn't look like a sexy offense player. He's not fast and bouncy. Like Derek Lively was like, Derek Lively has jumped out of the gym. He's flying to the rim. He can slip. He's like, I'm worried. He's like a bigger, I'm worried, shot him. I almost know. Fast. He can slip screens. That's not Kessler. But I do think he's going to mesh pretty well offensively with Reeves. And Luca and defensively, like, again, I think he's really good. He's just going to have to plug a lot of holes. And there this team's going to have to sort out its depth. It's it's power forwardspot and all that. But I think I think it's I think he's going to be solid. Grimes is a big swing guy for for this team, right? Like that is going to be a big sort of like, how good it goes or how good it doesn't go as of like the way the roster is constructed today. Because if they like, I've talked to some of their coaches and like, they believe that there is like like a real like defensive guy there. They've seen it, you know, that they saw when he was in New York, that they that this exists, right? And like, we can pull this out of him again. And if you're a shooter or if you have the IQ to attack closeouts playing with guys who touch the pain as much as Luca Dottish and Austin Reeves, like, this is a position that you can succeed in, right? Again, I think they will be a top five top five offense next year. Like, I think if they're, if Luca's healthy and Reeves is healthy, I think offensively this team's going to be a machine. They're just Lucas just is he problem solves every defense. It's like you watch film on Kessler and it's like, oh, wow, they're switching pick and rolls and he's he's posting up guards and the jazz aren't giving him the ball or he doesn't look comfortable with his back to the basket and he's not. Well, that might be a problem for the Lakers. No, it's not. You have Luca attacking centers on the other end of that switch. Like Luca problem solves every defense you can throw at him. This offense is going to be amazing. I'm just skeptical of um of the defense. Can we talk a couple other Lakers things? Yep. I think Lakers fans are curious. I have my answer. I want to hear what you you cover the team. Why is Rui Hachimura not on the team anymore? Um, I think perhaps too limited of an offensive skill set, right? Like made every shot, but that's the skill set. Made every shot, but like want guys to dribble pass and shoot, right? And Rui, um, and I think by the way, uh, an undervalued skill in the NBA, the ability to stand still, not touch the ball. And then when it comes to you, bang shots is like really, really difficult to do. And then I think they just wanted more of a high impacting defender. Um, I think it's sort of the idea, uh, that, you know, the two years 28 million that's not a number the Lakers had in their in their sort of, you know, I think look, we can look at the way their summer constraint as what their plan was. I mean, they like unkink the hose on July 1st, like that's the plan. Like those things were the plan, right? Everything that followed afterwards has been sort of like, I think reactionary and moving stuff around. Um, there wasn't really $14 million there for him. I think there was a desire from people. Um, people really like Ruiha Jumara, a great dude, um, go to the locker room. Like again, excellent, excellent elite spot-up shooter has worked his way into that. I know the front office should feel good about Ruiha Jumara. It's one of their best acquisitions, right? Like a great trade that made Kendrick none in three second round picks, I think that they basically Thomas Bryant and Kendrick none is what that trade turned out to be for Ruiha Jumara for a guy who helped win you play off games multiple seasons. It's just, I think again, in the mandate for change and stuff like that, like there were casualties. And, and this was one of them, right? Like that money just was not there for him. If there was a way to have slotted them in, you know, into the sexton slot, like I suppose they could have done that, but then you don't have that kind of, you don't have that offensive player. Like that, like these are just all, these are either or choices. Sexton was signed with the room, the room exception. By the way, that's still a big pay cut from what he got to get you into that, into that place. And I think he, look, he wanted to stand Los Angeles. That was really, really clear. Not only to Lakers, to people around Ruiha Jumara, to people around, look at all just people around the broad James, people around Austin, everybody knew that he wanted to stay in LA. I think there was just sort of waiting to see if that could materialize in any real meaningful way. And it just, it never did for him with the Lakers. Happy for Ruiha Lano with the Clippers. I think it'll be really good there. I think he serves a need for them. And I think there are team that's shaping up to be like kind of a real pain in the ass. Like they have that, they have that sort of like it's not going to be, they're not going to be like particularly fun to play. I don't think that the Tyloo teams never are. I, I think I think there'll be some teams that have a good time playing the Clippers next year. Dan, I think I think there'll be some, I think they'll have some fun playing the Clippers. They just always play hard. That's the team that always play hard. I do think like this is a, this is a nice, this is the kind of thing you do when you're now starting over. It's just like let's collect some assets, get some interesting players in the door. Maybe we're the nice them. Maybe we're the nice, to a totally fine acquisition for the Clippers. If I deploy all down to why Ruiha is not on the Lakers, it's both money and also just to your point, feel, just feel on both ends of the floor. I think they want it a little bit more feel from that spot. What is going to be your favorite memory from the Diadre era in Los Angeles? Because it's an era. There was the time in Milwaukee when I noticed he was wearing a t-shirt with his face and a lion mesh together that the Lakers had printed for him. Sure. I asked him about it and he very lovingly yelled at me about how nobody asked him if he wanted to be called the lion. He wasn't mad. Was he called was he called the lion at some point? I just turnally they were calling him the lion the biggest five. A bunch of different stuff. Yeah, I would say, Zach, maybe the time that he walked in the locker, I'm singing Unchained Medley by the Righteous Brothers, as loud as I've ever heard an NBA player sing Unchained Medley. I'll say this, Diadre was not a bad guy to be around. No, I think. I didn't know about the lion though. That's all right. Yeah. I think they're very proud of those shirts. I think JJ wore one in a press conference at one point. His name honoured the Bahamian flag on the arm, the Bahamian. The issue, I think, obviously, right, is like, is the effort you put into something plus they all put you get out of it? Probably didn't match up. I think it was a lot of work to make sure he's getting the affirmation he needed and different things like that. I just, I think people undervalue how difficult this is for particularly for talented players to slot down and to do less than what they're actually capable of on a basketball court, which I know that doesn't sound maybe it sounds like I'm making excuses, but it's a thing I've seen time and time again as players have tried to become role players in the NBA. It's just hard. Like, Diadre's entire basketball life, success has been judged by how many times it was the ball on the best. This is all life, right? And he came to a situation where success was like, did you set, you know, 23 minutes of good screens? Did you challenge stuff? Did you box out? Maybe you didn't get the rebound? Like, are you contributing to winning in different ways? You know, as our fifth best player, like, that's a difficult adjustment. I think he gave it a go, um, by and large. And I there was, it were bumps for sure. I just don't think there was like a tremendous appetite to do it again. I I have a little surprise. They're going to get assets back. And a cheaper and a cheaper contract potentially. You have to do a wave and stretch or something like that. you know, but but yeah, I mean, I think mostly that. I mean, the half-court shot where seemingly underhand half-court shot that he takes the free game where he's somehow seemingly like doesn't with like wrapped arms like he doesn't there's no like actual bend in his like shoulders. It's all elbows. It's it rests. It's it's he's not bizarre talent. I got to give it to the Wizards. They're they're building like two teams at once. One of them is like this fun young team that I really want to watch. And the other is this like zombie team of guys who I'm not even sure that they realize they play for Wizards picking roles that we thought the Lakers were going to get. I think we'll see maybe let's talk quickly about the other end of the Lakers Kessler trade, which is the jazz because I mentioned when I was going through teams that I was confident I thought the Lakers will be better than next season. I mentioned the jazz and I was a little surprised that I came to that conclusion because I was really like midseason when they made the Jeren Jackson junior trade. I thought they would bring Kessler back. I think they thought they would bring Kessler back. I was pretty high on the jazz and I said I think they could win 50 games next year. I'm a little bit less convinced of that now and I'm worried specifically about their depth now that they've traded Kessler for I mean like they got Jackson Hayes and they brought Nurgut back. But like there there isn't another rotation player at a high level starter level that came back. I would project their starters right now. I bet they're going to start Nurgut. If I had to bet I bet they're going to start Nurgut and try to mimic the triple big look that they envisioned with Kessler. So that would mean Kianta George. I think Darren Peterson steps right into his starting role and then triple J Lowry Markin and Nurgut. And then off the bench I've got Collier Ace Bailey. Now there's a world where Ace Bailey is the fifth starter and they don't start Nurgut at center. They start a little smaller. We'll see. And then I've got like this combination of wings like Sense of all. They just signed a Kogi. Kody Williams had like right. See I'm going to squeeze there. Kody Williams had an OK finish to the year. Jackson Hayes is a backup five that's in the door. Kyle Filipowski is there who can play the four in the five. I think you probably stagger minutes so that one of triple J and Lowry is on the floor either at the four or the five in backup minutes. The depth is a little young and a little unproven and a little like mistake prone for my taste. I do think it's going to be an interesting team. And I think they are doing something where it's really hard to be on two timelines at once. And I think this is almost the best possible version of doing that because Markin is only 29 and he's I feel like he's played one and a half seasons over the last four seasons. So the tires should be pretty unworn. And Jerry and Jackson Junior is only 26. So their veterans are like not old veterans. They're actually pretty young veterans in triple J's case. And they just have now this trove of assets left over from the cabs trade for Donovan Mitchell, the wolves trade for Goldbear, this Lakers trade where they're going to be in any kind of they're going to be in a position to either get a third big money player in the door. Now it's hard because we've seen to build with three guys making 40 or 50 million to trade one of their big salary guys for another big salary guy who's a better fit to do any to do all sorts of things. I think they're in a great position. But I think my outlook for them for next year is a I think I think this is going to be a good team. But I would probably rank them slightly outside the top six. I'd have to sit down and do it, but they're in the Phoenix, Portland kind of world to me. And I think the Lakers are probably if healthy a little bit above that. Yeah, I think hearing you run that down like the pressure point to me. The big question I would have is about Kianta George. And I would have that question about his ability to get them organized and into offense and to have him be a playmaker more and a score or less, which as someone who's getting ready to head into extension talks from a human being standpoint, like being like, Hey, dude, shoot less is like not always a great feeling. Because I think right, like adding Jared Jackson, adding Darren Peterson. Well, I mean, I think those are shots. Those are shots. I think there was some real concern. There was progress. And there was like progress on that front, I know it was hardy, but like still like, is he that kind of player? I'm glad you said will hardy's name because I have a ton of faith in will hardy as a head coach. I think he's an A head coach and is going to be there for a long time. I think that there was some, I think concern internally with Kianta George's people about the Kianta George Darren Peterson fit and like what that would mean for his future with the team and his extension talks and all that. I personally don't share that concern at all. I'm like, yeah, put two awesome combo guards on the floor at the same time with the rest of these guys. I'm excited about it. I think I think the leap Kianta made last year was was pretty real. The playmaking organization skills do have to come up a little bit. But I think that's also like they have a lot of guys who can collectively share in that kind of responsibility. I think the Kianta, Jared Jackson Jr. Lowry sort of tent pull trio makes a lot of sense for you talk. I just think I think that Kessler deal was just too good to turn down. I think they really wanted Walker Kessler to be on the team next year. I think it was genuine. They had they tried to squeeze on the salary. That's what you do with the restricted free agent. It's not a personal insult to Walker Kessler that they offered him $28 million a year given his track record. It's just like that would make them the 12 bias page center and the league or whatever. I just think this was too good too good to pass up. And when that deals to good to pass up, it does make you wonder like who the Lakers really gave up the farm and what are they getting in the end? I think they're getting a good team and the path to great, great, great team, which is what Luke is going to demand is going to be tough. But that's the fun of this stand is we get to see them try to solve the issue. Yeah, one quick thing on the jazz act because it does relate to the Lakers too. I had a conversation with someone who works over there kind of during the restricted free agency phase for Walker Kessler. We were just talking about picks and you know, this idea that like they're kind of past that like the jazz are sort of past that like give us your pick stage like they're ready to like kind of go, right? Like they've got these guys. So like why would those picks then be of value to them? Why would those swaps be a value to them? And I think the answer is is like what it actually buys you and what the Lakers no longer have is it buys you mistakes. It gives you the opportunity to be wrong about assigning to be wrong about a pick to be wrong about an extension to all this stuff. It gives you like there are racers that you can then put into transactions later to get to get off your bad decisions, right? Like you know, the Lakers valueably did that with Russell Westbrook. That's where that 27 Utah jazz first round pick is. Top four protected. That you know, that was an eraser pick from the Lakers that they used to trade Russell Westbrook to take back the Angelo Russell, Jared Vanderbilt, like Beasley. None of those guys are on that team. That team miraculously and hindsight made it to the Western government's finals. But but I think you know, that to me is I believe right the most competitive sweep of all time. Second, those covers. The golden broom is to make me and called it. Okay. The you know, to get to that point, I think that's the Lakers don't have that stuff anymore. And Utah has it a ton of it, right? So you know, if if the marketing JJJ fit is in what they want, like they have the ability to go fix it and they can go fix it from a variety of angles. If they don't like their center production, you know, we talked about the list now prices are high for centers and stuff like that. Go go knock on Portland's door and and pull one out if you want. Like you know, I'm good luck. But I'm saying like you have opportunities, I think around the league too. If you decided you really wanted also a good or to be your center, you have the picks to probably pry a player like that loose. You can do different things in a way that teams that don't have this optionality. It's a I say I used that word a lot. It's a lot. It's such a it's such a GM E word. It just I think gives you the chance to screw up in ways that other teams don't have it because no matter how good of a front office you are, you screw up. Everybody does. You miss picks. You sign the wrong guys to exceptions and all that stuff. Utilize the ability to undo virtually any decision they make and try again. A huge advantage and we'll just see how how aggressive they are and writing wrongs and identifying them. I think that is the other other hold up out of the roster is like just how patient they're going to be with it. You know, or how aggressive they're going to try to win. And I think on the flip side of that, the worst case scenarios for the Lakers are that they've trapped themselves into just a pretty good roster. And we'll see. I mean, there's on one poll. There's you hit a home run and this is a 60 win team in two years. On the other poll is like franchise suicide. And I don't think you're starting over. Luke, it doesn't want to play for you anymore and you have no picks. I think of downside. I think like, I don't think either of those scenarios is complete is likely likely, but I think the worst case one is slightly more likely than the best case one, but we shall see Dan Wike of the athletic eight plus job covering the Lakers. Thank you for your time. I will see you soon in less in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. Sonny very sunny very hot. See you there's act. All right, that's it for today. Thank you to Bobby Marks. Thank you to Dan Wikey. Thank you to Billy Mike and Jonathan on production as always. And thank you all for listening to and/or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later this week from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I'm heading out for Somber League talk to you all then. 21 or over in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in president DC can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem call 1 800 gambler or 1 800 my reset call 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or is it md gambling help.org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 5-0, 5-0 for 24/7's important Massachusetts or call 1-877-8 Hope NY or Text Hope NY in New York for Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.