Is Giannis Better Off in Boston or Miami? Plus, Dusty Does Dallas and Draft Cause and Effect. | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat, I am Justin Barrier, and joining me, as always, Jay Kyle, man, and the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks is Rob Mahoney, what's up? I got the job. Yeah, didn't you know, what are my qualifications, because I, I wouldn't know. Good guy, likes basketball, knows how to speak to the fans, a good representative of what the franchise is all about, baby. You know what, I would say those things alone, pretty dramatic upgrade over a past iteration. So congratulations to me and the Dallas Mavericks, I guess. Yeah, efficient speaker, homegrown guy, you know, I think has the right temperament for it. I don't know that I've ever seen Rob get too wild about anything other than, you know, some, you know, open denim shirts or anything like that. And it typically keeps it pretty, pretty cool. Don't give me flustered on air, Kyle, please. Well, Rob had a couple days off from us, like how you feeling? Like do you feel regenerated? Do you feel like, what did you even do moving through you to talk about some trade fodder from maybe trades? I mean, I missed you both. I have to say, did I miss the NBA draft? I mean, I'm getting caught up, you know, I'm still getting out continued condescension. At least at least it's shitty when it goes into the bottle because we have to uncork it, come in the fall with all his takes. Who's Tyler Colock, NBA champion Tyler Colock? I'm stick that one squarely up your arse. Look, genuinely, it is not condescension. Just me acknowledging my personal limits. Do I know all of these prospects? I'm still getting up to speed. I'm still reading J Kyle man's draft guide. I'm still reading the mocks. I'm still crunching tape. The fun being totally honest, I'm crunching more Lawrence of Arabia 70 millimeter tape at this given point in time. I'm trying to take a step back from the NBA lifestyle to just like, I don't know, live a live a well-rounded existence. Is that allowed on this pod? You got three hours for Lawrence of Arabia, but you don't have three hours for Braden buries tape. Come on, man. I got bad news. It's more than three hours. That's really crazy. How long is the believable, but it was like, I think it was a double four hours plus intermission. That's crazy. Holy moly. Well, that's a great sell for this podcast, though, because we're going to be talking some draft stuff later on, but we're also going to be mirroring it with like teams that might be doing things outside of that teams kind of stuck in this middle ground where they have high draft picks, but they also have some business to attend to and to the offseason. A little draft cause and effect is what we're going to call it. Check that out. But first, we got to talk about Yannis, but we'll do that after the break. This episode of the Ringer NBA show is presented by Ferreiro. The world is watching. Go all in for your team this summer with Ferreiro. Enter for the chance to win a range of prizes just by purchasing your favorite treats like Kinder Bueno with an irresistible chocolate wafer and creamy hazelnut filling or kewler chips deluxe cookies with indulgent and rich chocolatey chunks or Ferreiro Rocher squares with crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate wrapped in iconic gold. Go all in by any two Ferreiro brands and you could win one million dollars official rules apply. Learn more at go all in and win dot com. All right, it is currently 9 15 a.m. Pacific time on Monday. So if you are listening to this, that means that Yannis has not been traded. But we are going to talk about this and what could happen because it seems like something is at the very least on the goal line. We have reports as of this morning, seems like it's Miami or Boston, and it seems pretty certain that he's going to get moved before the deadline. Rob, I don't know about you, but like I'll say this, I was pretty much done with all Yannis talking to about like two days ago or so just really fatigued. And so if the audience is out there being like, oh my God, what's going on here? We're going to do this again. At the very least, like this feels more realistic than ever before. Like it feels like we're about to get something. Finally, we'll take it. We will take the finish line. I think all I was really hoping for though was if this process was going to drag on, and it certainly has that we would get some twists and turns. They would get some new suitors entering the fray that, you know, teams like Portland would be considered in a totally different light. The fact that we're here and it's still just kind of like the heat. And I guess the change is that the Celtics are materially involved in these conversations and that Jalen Brown in particular, so heavily rumored in them. That's the new development. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough to kind of get the juices flowing again and make this feel exciting after I mean, we just gone round and around with the Yannis stuff for so long. It feels like every other possible consideration and option we've already kicked around. Yeah, I think the combination of Jalen's, the thing that has kind of made this cross the go over the mountain into, you know, more of a real like it's a realistic possibility and a more interesting possibility. My opinion is the combination of this track that Jalen Brown set on with Tatum being out this past season where he went on this journey of having all this new responsibility that he clearly enjoyed and relished and maybe, you know, like Caesar once he got control of the army didn't or he became in that the way they said he didn't want to, didn't want to give his power back after he had taken it. So I think and so the, I think the juxtaposition of, you know, Jalen may be wanting to segue at this point into his career to his own team. The box needing a new kind of central piece for their team, getting rid of Yannis. I mean, that's one of the possibilities. This has yet to, as we said, actually formally happen, but it's a very, very interesting storyline. I think in watching Jalen, if this does go down, I think we'll become a very fascinating thing in the east from Milwaukee next year. So is the, is the die as cast moment to just like really torture the Caesar thing further? Is it Jalen Brown becoming a superstar or is it him becoming publicly kind of involved in these conversations to a point where maybe there's no going back from something like this? You're saying like saying on a Twitch stream that you would prefer to have your own team might have like pushed them in the direction of giving him his own team. It's, he said a lot of things on Twitch streams, you know, like I think it can all be chopped in a lip seed into being whatever you want it to be. But look, he's, he's been, I think as forthright as you're going to get an NBA player to be on record about the fact that he enjoyed having this opportunity. And I really don't begrudge him that. Like I know it's a little weird coming off of a season like this to say things in that particular fashion. But a lot of these guys want the chance, want the control, want to lead a team of their own, want to see what they can do. It just may take moving away from Boston in a deal like this to kind of really make that happen for Jalen Brown in a sustaining sort of way. You're welcome to lead your life anyway you want. If you would prefer to be playing off of Ryan Rollins and whatever like second round picks the books can cobble together over the next like five drafts or however it is long it is until they get their own picks back like have at it. I think the thing Kyle that really like jumps out to me throughout this entire process and it's still going to be the case once we finally get a Yana steal is just that the box really screwed this up by waiting this long like as we're going through the draft. I'm like, why didn't you like just settle this last off season tank so that you could be a part of this great draft that we're about to get and also avoid the forthcoming penalties are the new lottery restrictions that are going to make it tougher to be in your exact position going forward from this point. And it also feels like they're in the situation where they have to choose between two like fine returns. It's either Jalen Brown plus whatever else is cobbled together or like the poo poo platter in Miami where it's like hot guys hero where you might spin hero off some like late round picks and so I'm like, can I have neither like neither is neither an option anymore. Well, I think parsing which one is the poo poo is a big question here because I keep here it's all a matter of perspective. Obviously we're evaluating guys in when we go into these deals evaluating doesn't just happen when guys come into the league. I talked to people around the league who work for teams who are like we're always evaluating we're always evaluating guys that have been in the league for a while. And I think when you look at the Miami heat when I keep hearing repeatedly people like saying that that's or it was reported this morning that it was believed to kind of be the better asset play. But I'm like, Kaleu where was sort of a risky pick for Miami took him knowing that that was sort of a like we this might turn into something. I don't know that we've moved out of this might turn into something phased with Kaleu where as much as he's shown off and on. We're like Tyler hero is he we know he can we know he's clutch. We know he's been in big games. We know he'd be hypothetically going home. People keep talking like that. That's more of a just connection that I think we all keep drawing and assuming that it's like some kind of positive thing for the box. It's like I don't know that it necessarily is. I think repeatedly we've heard these these NBA players like I wouldn't want to move to my fucking hometown. I don't know if you guys are like this. Great. Great. I'm from a very tiny town. But I nothing you can get sailors. Well, but granted, I just I think there was a lot. I just diss sailors. Well, sorry. It's just small. I didn't want to live there anymore. Bulls and bored material for Kaleu. Man, I can't go. I'm not getting a banner. That's for sure. No. Just talking about which one makes the most sense. I mean, we went through this cycle of the bull or the you know, the warriors with their their offering that the and I thought that that was kind of an attractive offering. But I also think we've gone on an interesting ride with Yannis in terms of his the three of us charted this throughout the year where it's almost like the bucks sort of in their in their like accepting the possibility that they might be breaking up with Yannis in like in moving on and sort of trading that off. I feel like we've gone on an interesting ride with him where I don't feel like we feel the same way about him that we did six months ago. I mean, even how recently it's just been an odd sort of see change for how he's viewed within the league, I feel like. Yeah, he's going to be what, 32 next season. Obviously, the injuries have been mounting even before this, this season and the weird thing is it feels like no matter where he goes. Let's say it is Boston or Miami at this point. They're going to need a lot of them because you're gutting probably a lot of the depth or your rotation pieces in order to do it, especially in Miami. And so it's just like you're going to need a lot from him and that led to some of the soft tissue injuries with the box in the first place. And so I get all that. It's just, I just don't know at this point, if you're the heat, for instance, if you want to take this team, my team, like, what else are the heat going to do? That's kind of where I've ultimately netted out here. At first, I was a skeptic of like Miami trying to pull the trigger on something like this, Rob. But like, you go through it. It's just like is Bam, Yannis, Wiggins, if they bring back Norm Powell. That's way better. I would assume than just going with the poo poo platter and figuring out later. Yeah, I think it's better in terms of the basketball. I also think it's better just in terms of sort of the spirit and energy around the team. Miami likes to kind of linger in these spaces and see what developmental projects are going to pop. What's the piece that might elevate them to a surprising tier. And frankly, we've seen them do that enough and Eric Spolstra do that enough to ever kind of turn our noses up at it. Like they are very good at finding ways from the middle of the Eastern conference pack up into competitive echelons. That said, like this particular group, it's harder and harder to see those inroads. Like this is a perfectly competent team. I suspect if they rolled it out as is, they would be perfectly competent again in many ways. But why? Like to what end other than that continued sort of treadmill existence, hoping that you get the jump, hoping that you get the pop. Why not see what you can do with Yannis, a player who I think in temperamentally in terms of his habits, aligns with a lot of what the heater about could fit what they do in a lot of ways could fit the development of someone like Bam who is trying to stretch out his game more and more every season. And thus those two guys might be able to play together if you can keep Bam in a trade like this. I really just don't see the downside for Miami given everything that they're playing for right now, which is mostly just where are you going to fall in the play and mix if that. Yeah. No, I mean, I know Miami wants to do it. I'm just kind of what do we, if we're weighing the potential offerings between Boston and Miami, though, or you taking Miami's like just no, well, because I'm not, I don't, I don't see it as much. My thing with every one player centric offer for Yannis, dating back to whenever Evan, Evan Mobley was like a hot, like sort of speculation, is that why would you just basically trade Yannis for another player in a similar situation where you had so much difficulty building the right contender immediately around Yannis, Jalen Brown is just like a younger different version of that. And I get if you're an owner, and you just want to sell a certain product and the offers are already so middling to begin with, maybe there's enough there. But I like Jalen, if they're then going to spin Jalen off into other assets, because my whole thing for this entire like what two years at this point is you just need stuff because you traded all your stuff, all your raw resources, your draft picks, everything else in order to build the teams you had in the past. Like, like, where's the other stuff coming from? Like there are no means to get there other than just like mining guys from the G league and like on the fringes. So we're just in stuff acquisition mode if we're the bucks now. We're not thinking like we reset. Now we have Jalen, we're moving forward. I mean, is that, I feel like that's probably a smart way to go. Yeah. That would be my approach. Yes, because what's left with Jalen? It's Ryan Rollins, you presume, Kuzma might get traded in this like Turner, you would assume want to like spin off again. Like it would just be a like six C like what we're saying about the heat right now. Sure. It would be that sort of teamwork. It's like playing maybe in the right year. It gets a little bit better. Well, to me, all this is kind of order of operations talk like do you want the supporting picks and role players and infrastructure necessary before you try to bring in a star or do you want the star to be a kind of foundation that then frees you up to trade and try to acquire the other things through other means. I think the Miami offer as it's been reported so far, we'll see if that isn't happening. What the what the finals on it turned out to be. But there's nothing in it that's so definitive that it gives you hope. There's a lot of like ifs decent enough players, interesting enough players, potential picks and the picks are useful for exactly the reason you laid out JV. But at least with Jalen Brown, yes, he's a lesser version of Yannis, but he buys you time. Like that's that to me is the huge variable and what you're talking about. It's like why do you trade Yannis for a worse player who's maybe a little bit younger? The answer is Yannis doesn't really want to be here anymore. And time will tell if someone like Jalen Brown wants to be the leader of the next version of the bucks or not. But at least you have time under contract to make some decisions, to make some further moves, to like figure out what the next stage of this is really going to look like without the sentimentality that I think clouded a lot of the Yannis trade, like Odyssey to begin with. It helps that Jalen Brown is trapped, basically, which is always the funny thing about this. It's like we need to get rid of this discontent guy who wants out for a guy who has no options and has to be here. Could talk about the Celtics and all of this as well, because I guess I get it from a pure talent grabs standpoint, like marrying Jason Taden with Yannis, two top 10 players in the league. Like, is it a pretty attractive option? I just don't know how we got here so quickly. I guess like I kind of do because we just laid out like with Jalen Brown, all the difficulties he is as just like a personality type. But I left the season and even the playoffs being like, you know, injuries, but this team still has a lot of what made it good. The fact that they found so many interesting guys on the fringes. I know Brad Stevens came out pretty like strongly, basically being like, we're not good enough in his post game or his postseason press conference. Yeah, that's sad about like, being three and 11 against the top three seasons needs conference. I get all that, but I didn't think that they were like light years away from leveling up and being on the same level of like, uh, nicks, uh, calves in the east where they had a chance at it. And if anything, they basically did such a good job resetting to the point where they could add something else. I know they were in the mix for a visa Zubach, for instance, at the trade deadline. Something like that to just add to what they have. I have to imagine that like, they're just so sick of dealing with not only Brown as a personality, but perhaps just like dealing with all the struggles that comes with trying to bring out the best of these two guys as our pillars. Yeah. It took true holiday and Christophe and this like awesome rock salad core that like had played the exact right style in order to hit the ground in 24 and win the title. Maybe it's just like it was just so like exhausting trying to make this all work from both the personality and the fit side that they're just like, let's just do something different. I think that's the way to think about it. I want to soften the like Jalen Brown as difficult personality stuff a little bit because to me, it's less that he is uniquely challenging to work with or uniquely difficult. Most NBA stars are challenging in their ways. They have certain demands. They have things that they want. I think the way you laid it out though, Justin as far as like, how much how much work does it take to make this function at a potential championship level? And clearly it takes some work like it takes some work in terms of the personalities involved. It takes some work in terms of the basketball side and building around, you know, Tatum and Brown in the best and optimal way and figuring out how to reload and do that yet again. All of that stuff takes a lot of effort and a lot of consideration and a lot of resources. And maybe at a certain point, it is worth it for everybody just to move on a little bit and turn the page and try something new. I think that's a normal, healthy part of the team building cycle. And to me, it has less to do with like, Oh, Jalen Brown is such a challenging part of this and more just these things run their course. And this team has been good and they've been together and maybe they can be good and be a part. And that's going to be fine too. You guys like either option more than the other like from whose perspective? I guess from the team that is trading for Yannis. Do you like Yannis on the heat more than Yannis on the Celtics? I like him as a Celtic a little more. Kyle, well, I mean, how are you feeling about it? I'm in the same camp. I mean, it kind of depends on how big a bite out of the Celtic roster they would have that, you know, the bucks would take based on what's there. I mean, I would like for like Derek White to be there. Although the Derek White part of this, I think when you're comparing why couldn't the Celtics have just kind of gone forward with the version of the roster that existed. The fact that Derek White kind of turned into a non entity on offense, at least as a scorer, I think is a huge part of why you can't just go business as usual for them. Yeah. Is that a blipper? Is that a trend that we think is like going to continue? I kind of feel like he'll, I feel like he'll come back the other way. I don't know. I've seen it. So the sample size is so good. Yeah. At this point, do you, where you guys say something? I think he's going to be better. Like, he's going to shoot better, almost because he can't shoot worse. But I wouldn't expect him necessarily to reach the kind of scoring and playmaking highs that he has earlier in his Celtics career already. Like that, that might have been kind of the high watermark for the version of the player he's going to be for this team. And he's still going to be useful. And he's still going to be an incredible defender, especially in helping off the ball. But expecting him to be a real deal consistent scorer just might not be what his role is for Boston going forward. Yeah. I think the playoffs are really where it becomes a concern there. All of like the connective plus minus goddy traits that he has that like kind of support him when he isn't shooting well. I think stand out just a little bit more when you're counting on him to provide offense. And like he shot 33% I believe in the regular season. Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, 33% from three in the regular season. He was worse in the playoffs. It was like dreadful at times where he just couldn't count on him to hit shots. And that's just critical component to like what they're doing. I agree with what Rob is saying. Like I think he's the honest with the Celtics out. Obviously there's just way more talent there. I just find the fit a little bit less seamless if only because like one, like are you sure that Yanis can play with another big? I think it's a little bit easier now that we're not in like the thick of the three-point boom. Like these teams are doing things a little bit differently and you have so much support outside and the rest of the team with that. But there's still like some stuff to figure out there where it's just like, is he gonna play center? Is he gonna play next to Keita? Will you then have to trade for a shooting center? Is that going to like be Nick Lovatovich? Like, is that someone you want next to Yanis because the whole thing would work well but he could protect the rim on top of being able to shoot. And so like, I don't think it's as plug-and-play as you think whereas like Jalen Brown is like, that's exactly the type of player you want in order to solve some of these issues you're talking about. And so if you're not taking advantage of the next year with Yanis, you say we're hitting the ground running and we can win a title tomorrow, then I'm less prone to like be willing to rip things up in the same way that it seems that they're willing to with Jalen. - Yeah, I mean, you would have some questions to answer, for sure, you'd have to go find something. I mean, you know, Brooke Lopez as much as people might not think that he, you might not think he's a super unique special player but finding a guy that can shoot, push in 40% from three and protect the rim and above. You know, it's just those guys aren't, they're just not really out there. But I think if you look at Yanis on the Celtics, I brought this up to you all over group texted. There are some interesting parallels that he is the same, I didn't know if you wanted me to bring this one up now, Javier or not, but he's the same age in the same mileage as Kevin Garnett was when he came to the Celtics in 2008, which I find interesting. So you could, I know people kind of worry about his health style of play, but I think his style of play does feed into a lot of the guys that they naturally already have on this team. So you're talking about just like the lesser role players that they've gotten a lot out of and elevated like the Baylor-Shirman's or, you know, we're talking about the same houses, Peyton Pritchard's guys who can just catch and shoot. And we know that Yanis just makes those players look good. Like, you know, Pat Connett them back in the day. It's just, he has a way of getting a lot out of those guys. So I feel like it would work. He and Tatum, there is the Tatum's on ball style. You kind of wonder if there might be some parallels between the way that the, the Dame Lillard fit was a little sticky. If you need a guy who like really readily gets off the ball quickly if you're playing with Yanis, they probably have to figure that out. But I don't know, I don't know that it would even be all that much different than the like Tatum brown kind of thing. It's like Tatum, Tatum needs to play with somebody that is more deferential. What do you all think is the optimal state there and how much of a problem will that cause? - Well, especially as far as the Dame contrast goes, I think there's a different kind of pressure when it's like point guard and big. It's like, okay, they have to work together, throw them in the pick and roll. Like, what is their immediate chemistry? And when it's more wing and big, like, I don't know, there wasn't the same conversation about like, how are Paul Pearson, Kevin Garnett going to amplify each other? It's like, more, how did they function within an offense? How does it find balance? And less, how are they interacting in like a really direct way all the time? And part, because like, if Jason Tatum and Yanis were on a pick and roll, most defenses are just gonna switch that and kind of try to batten down the hatches and hold on through to your life. And maybe that'll work and maybe it won't. But ultimately, I think the reason I'm a little more bullish on Boston finding a flow within their offense that works is that they're really good at one, just ball movement period. Like, one of the best ball movement teams in the league last season. They're really good at fainting spacing, even when it's not really out there. Like, they create the illusion of spacing through their movement in a way that I think is gonna be really challenging for teams to come up with. If Yanis is also a part of that. And then, I think Yanis is just gonna have to play more five as his career advances. That's gonna be something that he's gonna have to accept as much as anything. I don't know that he was ever gonna get to that point with the Bucks. There is that like mental hurdle when this is the team that I've been on. This is my team, my city, my franchise. I'm gonna do everything on my terms. Sometimes when these guys go to a new organization, they're a little more accommodating. They want to fit in. They want to, you know, endure themselves to the Celtics faithful. And they want to be a part of this kind of team and this kind of history. And so they're willing to do some things. They may have not, you know, been willing to do otherwise. So I wonder to how much of this will be resolved by, you know, there's just a lot more space out there. If Tatum is at the fore and Yanis is at the five, I would guess if things go that way, we're gonna see that a not insignificant bit, especially in the playoffs. - Yeah, this does feel like almost like a tacit acknowledgement to Yanis that the way he's done things, especially last season where the Bucks basically retailer their team so that he was everything and went out of their way in order to go into extreme debt unlike we've ever seen before in order to just get him the type of big that he wants that he needs to do things a little bit differently. Like he's still a superstar and things should still revolve around him wherever he goes. But like the Dame situation leading into this now where like the offers aren't all that attractive, just seems like he really needs to hit that next phase. If only to avoid some of these injuries that we were talking about and only to make things a little bit easier on his life. I just don't know how much he could just keep battering his head into a wall year after year going into his thirties. And so I think you're exactly right. I almost wonder Rob, if he needs a Mozilla or a Spolstra, as much as he just needs a fresh start and new personnel around him because it would be interesting to see him embrace being more of a five. I think with the Celtics, he could probably still have his preference of having the ball in his hands more than he's used to, maybe in Miami too. Like Miami, I guess I lean more in that direction. One because I just want to see Miami back on the board. I just think the league is more fun when they're like more involved in this thing. But also just like it feels like he could really energize them in a way. But it also feels like he's just going back to something similar to what he knows where it's like Boston feels like a fresh new idea. I just don't know if he's accepting of that at this point. Yeah. And as far as the old idea goes, look, the reason we're having this conversation is the Bucks were not a good team last season. When he was on the floor, they were dominant. Like even still, even with all those considerations, even with that supporting cast, like the Yan, any team driven by Yanis when he is healthy enough to do it is incredibly competitive. And so the idea of whether you're throwing that version of that player out with the heat and Yanis is willing to experiment and try some new things with the Celtics where he's recast in a new light with a very different kind of co-star, those are exciting possibilities for as much as we kind of rude talking about every Yanis trade rumor along the way. Like seeing him be a part of an actually good team again, I think will be just refreshing for all of us. Another fascinating thing is that these are two teams that he can potentially go to that have spent a lot of resources trying to figure out how to stop Yanis. That's why I always thought that the Sixers were an interesting, possible in the past, because if you just think about the binders and the like printer paper boxes, of course we're talking about the digital version of that that these guys have just, especially spull strife, you just think about the amount of time that he has spent trying to stop Yanis. So he knows all that kind of counter factual stuff in his mind about how we're gonna approach using him, but you're right, Rob. I mean, like I just pulled it up because I was curious. And it is gonna be interesting to see if he transitions away from this. If you wanted to say like, okay, what was Garnet? Like way more stationary offensive player than a Yanis, not that comparing them is gonna make it live or die, whether it works, but his hard charging ball in my hands, transition style, yet 1.187 points for possession in transition as the ball handler, pushing 70% from the field, got fouled almost 30% of the time. I mean, he's still one of the most unstoppable transition propositions in the world. So I mean, it'll be interesting to see if they can kind of take the pressure off of that and still get a lot of production out of him if he's more of a half court. You know, can't be ramming your head into the wall forever. You know, I always stay young for so long. Yes, I think just having like other players so that you can't guard him the entire length of the court so that you stop him from getting ahead of steam will go a long way. Just like getting to a new situation, having more talent, he'll be back on the map in that regard. Well, before we move on here, I'd kind of want to talk about like a sub plot of the sub plot going on here, where I guess if the Miami package is accepted, it seems like Tyler Hero Mike is spun off, the pistons might be interested there. Then there also is the whole like conspiracy theory that like maybe I see a steward might also go to the Lakers in that situation. And so I'm just curious overall, what you guys think about Hero to Detroit. And second to all that like, is this the answer for Luca with the Lakers? Like we've been now two years into this whole mess. Like I guess is it beef stew plus Austin Reeves plus maybe LeBron coming back like the best we're gonna get in the situation? Well, where do you want to start Kyle? You want to talk pistons first or Lakers first? How did we spin to the Lakers? Like them in the Yonis? Swim six, what is Justin's driving the ship? So any road can go to the Lakers, you know? I'm like, what is this? This is just like, I would say this is the other story out there that's like a major thing going into the draft because I don't know, just like as I think through like all these teams that really need to do something it's just like, like Luca's been there for two years and we're basically being like, oh, they need to bring back Austin Reeves and then figure everything else out. I'm just like, why? How is this happening? Well, she's been there for like seven, two months. Yeah, you're gonna have, and this is gonna be the reality of the Lakers situation is gonna be one kind of piece acquired at a time in a lot of ways. And honestly, they got about as lucky as they were gonna get in terms of like the returns on Marcus Smart, for example, or even what they got out of DeAndre Aiden, I would say it was above expectation given the player that he was in Portland. A lot of folks got through the year with it and they almost got there and even then look, he had some huge games that he had had to show up for. So I don't want to throw Deandre Aiden under the bus other than to say this is going to make incremental project given where the Lakers finances were before acquiring Luca given the state of the team and how long this thing is going to take to kind of turn around to begin with to reshape what kind of roster you want around him. It's going to be an Isaiah Stewart there, a Peyton Watson offer there like I just don't see things shifting so dramatically for the Lakers that all of a sudden they're going to come into next team and even then look like a fully formed Luca donchage operation ready to go. Do you have to move past LeBron to really begin that conversation though because it just I wonder if these two things are working against each other because you didn't expect to get Luca you didn't expect to be in this position it kind of makes me wonder if you got to you got to move on from let go of one branch to really free of the resources to enable the other because I agree but he's also so much better than so many of the alternatives. It's true it is but he eats up so many resources and at this at this point you know there are caveats with LeBron too. I mean he is like I just and there is some kind of dissonance between the way those two guys play granted they can put up points but it's like the defensive stuff that you have to I wonder if it just makes more sense to just kind of move on. Yeah that's what I'm starting to wonder if like the real logic behind trading him was just put him into this weird purgatory where though he'll just be like just good enough for the rest of his career. He's still really good I'm trying I want to be careful to say that he's incredible he dominated the first round we went on and on about it on. No it's it's more about like the construction of the team where it's just because LeBron is so good you can't really just like easily move on from him and because Reeves is coming into his own you can't move on from him or just like and if you try to trade him like what do you get back for all this stuff it's just like you're really just stuck in this and this muck and I don't really know how to get out of it and I don't know what you would trade in order to get something good enough in order to put alongside him while still having the roleplayers in order to put together in a good team so it's like it's like a multi-step process then I don't know when it's going to start and we're now two years into this in or 17 months or whatever you want to say and it really hasn't started like they haven't turned the page to the luca centric team perhaps spiritually but certainly not functional. They have I think they did to an extent last season and we started to see that shift as LeBron went into more of a facilitating almost like super charged trade on D kind of role. Yeah before Luca got hurt. Yeah honestly an incredible blow to the Lakers that they didn't get to see kind of that version of the team through to the end of the season and into the playoffs. But I think this is one of those things where LeBron himself is probably going to have to put this whole exercise out of its misery one way or another either he's going to be a part of this or he's going to go somewhere else because the like Hall of Fame golden handcuffs situation you're describing just it is so real and so potent you're just never going to opt out willingly of oh we have this guy on our team who can outthink everybody and also is an incredible playmaker and also even at his age can be a great like glue defender he has so much going for him in theory and in practice it's like when are you going to get out of the LeBron James business when are you going to sign up for that. It's an odd situation to be in to be as fun as they could have been and probably I mean it would have been really fun to see them in that next round if they had had Luca who's tormented the thunder in the playoffs in the past and just but then to also think to yourself like this is really good but we can't I always think about this is so we're in a but banana grams that game I think I've brought this up before you guys get at this game my wife and I obsessively talk about this game sometimes you'll have all you got to use all your titles it's basically like improv scrabble yeah you have to like use all your time and sometimes you'll get very far down a road and like your board and be like I got a great board here but you have like a few pieces you're like I don't think I can you and you have to tear down a pretty good board that's what that feels this feels like to me where it's like the Lakers are like Jesus they could have given the thunderous an interesting series I don't know they would have beaten them but sometimes you'll go far down a road like you were like Rob was saying and just have to start over because the end or you stick it out because it's fun I don't know it's a business also it's it's tough I'm glad I don't have to make these choices you go so far down the road that you're talking about Luca when you started off at y'all I didn't want to I didn't want to believe my mind they're they're cared because it's two players like that have been at the forefront of the league trying to figure things out this off season even for the draft we're talking about the Lakers we need someone to review the tape and see just in just in six degrees of separation to get back to the Lakers remaining given topic is do I talk about the Lakers a lot like you making it seem like a forward all your radio it's not even that you're LA radio I think it's just you see the red meat the editor brain and you it's like no Lucas right there we could just jump over there and talk about Luca for a minute now I think of the show is more like these are the things that we've been percolating on over until we record a next one and like these are the two big stories that I have been spinning through my brain I don't know what the rest of the world is talking about if that is just so happens to appeal to a vast number of fans that's just my you know expertise just showing I guess you're just out there pruning the garden thinking about Luke canard you know I do think I do a lot of that which is probably explains a lot do we want to talk about hero quickly hero to Detroit possibility no one's going to hear this part of the pot anyway this is all going to be like in two hours he's going to get traded no we're going to redo this whole thing but yeah how that happened I like that I mean what do you just spin them off I mean I'm I'm scintillated by the possibility as far you know Tyler here's a hard guy to find a good home for right to find the perfect combination of every factor of the exact kind of playmaking around him the exact kind of defensive coverage the exact kind of like potential pick and roll partners somehow Detroit has all of the stuff and especially because he could wind up with you know a Milwaukee team that may or may not be super interested in his services like I think that could make all the sense in the world for basically everybody involved yeah we're talking and we're writing about in the draft they're they're trying to find that type of guy through the draft and you're just hoping that one of these guys can elevate and rise to that level and help out Cade but if you look at the way the pistons are built it's like okay we have this pillar this this synergy between Durin granted everybody's got to hold up there into the bargain but we got this guy who can you know get in the paint and score we can spray we can score we can draw fouls we need somebody next to to Cade to sort of lighten that add some more oxygen to the offense I think hero would be actually one of the better options I think they're that I really like that fit because you can kind of let him be himself a little bit too we're like you don't have the burden of being like our full-time playmaker just go be cocky audacious Tyler here oh hit big shots spackle when you when we need you to I think that'd be an awesome fit I mean to buy his Harris was about as important to the pistons as any player was to any team in the playoffs so long as that is the case Tyler hero is a massive like schematic upgrade skill upgrade like I think what he brings out in your office is just so much more balanced and diverse I think this is the advantage to having the context that they do have and a lot of that stems from having such a giant creator doing things that like impacts the defense event and also just having the defense around him is that they are a welcoming home for the type of players that I think a lot of teams overpay and probably want to get off of because they don't rise to the level of being like their frontline guy the Tyler hero types like the the on ball like juice guy that like might be a six man but like we got to play him with the starters because that's just what his reputation suggests like if anything they seem like the perfect recipient to that and so like I still don't know why they didn't hit the button at the trade deadline but the very at least they seem like they're in a good position this off season to to add and it seems like there is a little bit of urgency to what they're doing anyway so I mean it would kind of be the promise of jaden ivy fulfilled you know if that if that wagon hadn't lost every one of its wheels and gone into the river this this is kind of what we dreamed that it could have been all right let's take a break and we come back let's talk some draft stuff all right the draft is hours away less than 24 hours away at this point Kyle how you feeling just you know it's right on time that you just published a mock draft recently almost at the finish line what's going through your head right now uh this is the time of the year where it's kind of like I said this is like low the other day you you have a moment there where you're like did I study enough for the you know the SAT or whatever it is that moment of panic of like am I ready or but really the the work happens through the year and you know it's like the work's kind of done now we just need to see where the chips fall and and and we react to it and see you know and just kind of cast judgment on who's dumb and who's not based on what on our short term reactionary kind of thing and that's the way this works right we do it every single year I'm not your editor Kyle but I got bad news the work is not done you have a lot of podcasting and writing ahead of you so I mean the preparation Rob that's what I'm referring to we've watched all these guys unlike you I value the you that's the thing growing yeah for some of the reasons beginning you know I'm I'm I'm still getting up to speed and really until I see some of these guys in summer league I'm not going to believe that they fully exist because to me they will only be a YouTube sensation so we're we're nearing the point of these being real corporeal NBA players all right well we're going to try to loop into the draft in a way that Rob can at the very least tolerate thank you so what we're going to go through is a couple teams that have big decisions in the draft but also big decisions waiting them in the off season because they're in this weird in between ground and where they have a high pick but they're still built kind of more for the now and so Kyle is going to walk us through the pick for the team why that would happen and then we're going to get through some of the ripple effects that would come as a result of that so why don't we start start at number two, which I think is going to be the most interesting point of the draft. It seems like AJ DeBonza more than likely is going to go number one. I think Kyle would agree as him there and his mock. That's out right now, which you should read on the ringer.com. Number two, though, Kyle, I think is where things could swing. Do you think that the jazz go cam boozer or do you think if Darren Peterson is still on the board that they would go with it? I'll pretend to say this was confidence, but I think they're going to take cam boozer. This is very similar to the Paolo Chet Jabari draft, where things kind of went up to the last minute because we're continuing to hear new reports about like, "Oh, it turns out Darren does want to meet with the jazz in New York, potentially work out with them, hard to say." But we're going to go ahead and just assume that the boozer connection there, that the organizational taste historically kind of aligns with boozer and just kind of go from there and talk about the fit of that, which is what we're doing here. Right. So, boozer could potentially be the better player. It sounds like you have number one in your board and it sounds like a lot of people are coming around to boozer late in the process, being that guy. I think a lot of it's driven by the analytics. I think it's probably just like the more people dig into Darren Peterson, perhaps, are starting to like be a little bit more shaky on drafting this guy as high as possible. Do you want to walk us through just quickly like why you have boozer number one and like why you would pick me even over to Bonsa? I'm always careful to correct people, or eager to correct people, whatever we want to put it, that it's not just an analytics thing for me because this kind of reminds me of the yokets thing where I'm like, people just say that over and over again where they're like, well, well, it's the analytics and that's all, it's like, no, man, I mean, like people say that people get people who think the yokets supporters are weird, you know, often will throw like, you add a litix, boys, you know, you dorks and you're in the rock band t-shirts it just like numbers. It's like, if I, if you need numbers to see how good yokets is or how good cam boozer is, I'm just kind of like numbers. How about wins? Yeah, I'm just like, well, I've just, you know, I need to take you to an optometrist is my thing. It's like, he's so good. You watch a basketball game and he, he impacts it in such a wide variety of ways. You know, if he had been born, you know, if, if he were playing in the NBA in the early 2000s, would he have been catching, you know, a million post ups like Al Jefferson or like his father, Carlos Booser, who played that way, it would have been a little bit different, but his skill set is very wide. He has catch it you game. We talked about this on this show just this last week. I think he's gonna, he can add to your game without, he's, I'll put it this way. Among the top three guys, he's the least like, I need to get a ton of shots up to be super effective or to get the most value out of me. He will, he is roll malleable in a really mature way. He can score a ton for you. I think Booser would also be content being like, all right, I'm getting 18 a game and seven assists. Like he's willing to play however you need to play. And then the issue here, Rob is that this is now another front court player after they just added one of the trade deadline. They were already a little beefy up front with the team that they already had. Ace Bailey also a pretty big wing. And so if you draft Booser, you have Booser, you have Jaron Jackson, you have Lowry marketing, you have Walker Kessler, you have Ace Bailey. You also have a bunch of other draft picks that they're just kind of been like, and these guys are fine. Cody Williams. Cody Williams actually was like, kind of nice little pop. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you do after that? And I guess how quickly do you need to do something after that? Like do you make a move immediately? Do you take advantage of, for instance, Detroit would be very welcoming of one Lowry marketing as we've been saying for years now. Yeah. Or do you want to play it out, see things are happening? What in the draft room, if you were there, what are you recommending? Oh, I want to play a lot of it out. And some of it is, if there was going to be a piece that would feel materially different after drafting Cam Booser, it would be Walker Kessler. And we've already seen some of the numbers that have been percolating with his extension negotiation had five years, $140 million on the table, pointed to McMahon, that was not satisfactory to Walker Kessler and his camp. I think the math on that changes a little bit. If you have Cam Booser in house, the desperation to keep Walker Kessler changes a little bit, but you also want to retain him to potentially flip him to another team. So it's not like they would just cut bait. Not like they would trade him immediately. I think you can slow play that sort of process. But the size of ace at the two, Lowry at the three, and a Booser, Jaren Jackson front court is very appetizing. Like I think that is an incredible kind of like allotment of skill and flexibility and mobility to throw out there all at the same time. Like that's a version of the jazz that if I were you to I would really be looking to cultivate and Walker Kessler can be a part of that or not. And if they draft Cam, I would assume that over time it becomes clear that he probably will not be a part of that blueprint. Yeah, I think the interesting thing about taking Booser here is that as opposed to taking Peterson is that you are kind of signing up for moves that you need to make or maybe a lack of a move with the Kessler. I still the interesting thing between that has muddied a little bit for me is like they are going to have to figure out the two spot. They're going to have to if they want to go big like this, you're talking about a real lack of like off the drivel creation. Like you have Kiantay. You can I'm you're not are you going to play Kiantay and call your together. I just think you need to have a little more creation at the two spot there. Maybe you use some of the leftover pieces that you have there. Maybe you can go get a Tyler hero. I don't know. Just go with what we were talking about, but the argument that I made in the mock was that I think I would just kind of look at is like this is a good problem and take be like somewhere in this in this cluster of what we have is something that is going to be really valuable that we can kind of sculpt around. I think this the most simple proposition here is just like Booser and Jaren Jackson Jr. next to each other is kind of my starting point. You know, I'd love to keep Lowry around, but both of those guys can shoot it. So I'm not really losing front court shooting. That's kind of where I would go from there. The Kiantay, Booser, Jaren Jackson Jr. Triumvirate is something that I can really work with. And you're okay with playing Jaren Jackson at true five, especially considering like, you know, against like big old boys, which the league seems to be adding more of these days, especially with Wendy terrorizing the league and teams like kind of building their selves in order to counter him, like him being the five and also like the lack of rebounding that comes with it. I guess from a talent standpoint, yes, like Jaren over Kessler is obviously a clear winner there. I just don't know fit wise. Like there's a lot to work with. And I like the fact that they would have an identity of being like the biggest baddest team like across the board. But I do wonder if like, threatening the needle seems a little bit more difficult than perhaps like just like, yeah, we'll just go at this guy over this guy, you know, especially there's a version of having a bunch of size on the floor that just makes you like the Orlando magic. You know, it's like, yeah, you're big in your tough, but you're also kind of awkward and inflexible as a result. And I think I think you're right to sing a lot the ball handling in particular. If they do have designs of playing Ace at the two and Kionte as their kind of go to point guard, their offense is basically like Kionte and the plunder, right? It is him initiating a lot of stuff off the dribble and the ball movement and the spacing resulting from those other guys creating offense for you. But maybe that works and maybe it doesn't. I think it depends on how heavy the stakes are for the jazz in the immediate future. Given everything we've seen from them and their willingness to be very patient with every single like sometimes excruciating step of this process, I would think they're going into the season, trying to feel it out more than anything, trying to understand if that Jaron Jackson, Campbell's or combination could be one that will work full time. And that's yet another reason why you don't cut bait on someone like Walker Kessler immediately. But again, you kind of tease that into the season and you work all three of those guys into your front court together. But as far as other moves they can make to I think if you do draft Booser, you probably do need to make like one veteran free agent wing signing of a kind. It's just like those guys are so young and so unproven in some cases. I like very sense of as much as anybody. But I think you need somebody who's a little more seasoned in who you can bring off the bench and like certain alternatives to situations who isn't like Sv, you know, like I think you need something else there. But if they were going to end up with the Daren Petersen in this spot, they might desperately need either to bring back use of Nirkich as a backup center or a use of Nirkich alternative. So you can see kind of the downstream stuff as far as their bench goes with this pick as well. Yeah, it's it's interesting. You were talking about them like staying with like excruciating the jazz. They're like commitment to stay with the excruciating bit is like Neil hamburger level. Like it's like what man, we are really sitting in this in this for a long time. A couple kind of pro arguments to kind of say what to answer what you were saying, Justin about like the rebounding stuff like you're adding an elite rebounder and can Booser. I think he's going to cover a lot of the sort of neurotic things about the way that Jiren Jackson plays that that will help. And another thing that's working in your in your favor here is that Jiren has kind of developed to the point where he can kind of drive close out a little bit. He he over the course of his career has started to drive the ball a little bit more. So that would differentiate differentiate them a little bit from the Orlando magic kind of thing there. And then but yeah, you're right about like weighing it against Darren is like so much of this is sight unseen because last year that the line up that they ran out when you said speed reminded me. Yeah, it was the heaviest minutes line up that they ran with Kiantes V a slowery and use of Nurgut. So we're really seeing a lot of things for the first time here. I would be really tempted. I know I have came mocked here, but I would be really tempted to just roll out Peters in there because that just that would immediately make sense. That that basketball team, I think, would be a playoff, you know, lower seeded playoff team immediately. This is just the unfortunate part about going out and doing the Geron Jackson trade when they did, where it's like you almost feel locked into thinking about the fit more than you probably would at this point because you have all this stuff here, and it is tougher to get like the exact fit you want once you've already have the names on the paper in order to make all the math work and all the actual like finite just strategic stuff work. The other part of this is just like the money is starting to add up very quickly like in two years, so once County George presumably banks and extension he's like up for it and he's going to have it lock in then you have Geron Jackson making 50 you want you have Lower making 50 Kessler's going to be making what probably 30 ish around there George like probably 30 to 40 million at that point like I was trying to approximate it like Jalen Green for instance is making 35 on an annual value. If George has a goes out and has a good year to kind of build upon last year like all of a sudden like you're getting more than that. We're already talking like pushing 200 million just with those guys alone and then you add in another high draft pick and the problem with high draft fixes they're coming in with pretty sizable salaries at this point the number to draft pick last year till Harper makes about 12 million so this isn't the type of thing where it's just like you're waiting for those guys to assert themselves and then they make the money they make a pretty good salary just from the start so. There's just like a lot to figure out sooner than unit hope for but I am coming around to the basic logic of drafting booster if only because like if you think he's the best player like there are options for you still to figure this out. Yeah I think especially for a franchise that is so desperate for cornerstones even still right like County George popping was such an important development for the jazz because it was even just the hope that hey this is a guy who could be around here for a long time he could be driving offense for Utah. On the ball off the ball even off the bench whatever his long term role ends up being but could really be a part of this. And like whatever you may think of Darren Peterson there's so many questions swirling around him that just don't really seem to be there with campus or I understand all the arguments came about his athleticism and how that factors into the NBA what he will and won't be able to do as a pro I get it he just feels like a safer bet for a team that yes needs stars but needs like a safe bankable star bet and. Maybe Darren Peterson is that but maybe he's not depending on the eye of the beholder talent evaluation wise yeah all right want to move along here I have up next the clippers at five Kyle who's the pick. The pick is Keaton Wogler the justification for this is I mean it's been hit at nauseam it's just if you're if you're in the Darius Garland business which they've chosen to get into that kind of scratches off a lot of the options on the board because you know you don't want to really go in with a huge. Exacerbated guard defensive issue here and the guys that kind of fall into that category of like I don't really know why I would do that would be Darius A cup Michael Brown is offensive you know he has a lot of defensive problems Kingston Flimmings LeBaron Phylon Christian Anderson Obuco Corey on and on and on it's we're out of the small guard business Keaton Wogler six six. I think he projects a sort of a guy who will sort of straddle the line between some primary stuff I don't think he's going to pound the ball and play pick and roll the way that he did at volume at Illinois where he's just kind of like pound and it's surgically finding its spot he's capable I know Rob you've seen him a little bit he's one of the news that you have bothered to see he can kind of shoot the ball he can play off ball really slick with a lot of that stuff so. I think he and Garland you still have defensive issues because your wispy your lie your you know you're you're more skill driven back court but I think that he would be the pick if you're going to if you're going to decide to keep a guy there's all kinds of permutations where they don't keep this pick but assuming they do I think Wogler's the guy well to me the other part of being in the Darius Garland businesses you need somebody who has that on ball off all flexibility you're talking about Kyle. But you also need somebody who could potentially fill in as a primary when Darius Garland is inevitably injured I mean it just kind of like happens he picks up all these random ailments these days. So the idea that okay this is a secondary facilitator who makes sense kind of patiently working off of Darius Garland working off of Kauai whatever the near term vision of the clippers ends up being. But also could take over some of those responsibilities when you need him to that that to me is very appealing. I guess my question overall Kyle is how much of the logic for this pick is just that Wogler would be the best player on the board at five because there's a clear tier four if anyone hasn't been following the draft and then there's just all these guards like would you pick Wogler for the clippers in a vacuum. Are we considering the Garland fit and how much should we consider the Garland fit at this point like is he the guy that is ultimately just going to be a stop gap or are we thinking going forward let's extend him let's make him a part of whatever is next. Wogler is very good in his own right if you wanted to just pivot away from Garland and say like you know there's and there have been worries about Wogler's athleticism about that he's a slow mo guy. I think we've seen enough in today's day and age that you can play that way and be an effective got lead guards you don't need to be you know putting pressure like don't pressure on the room every single time you come down the down the core. I have I mean I've gone all over the map with this pick in terms of guys that would fit better if I'm trying to build a playoff team one of the ones that I've circled back to over in Oregon as buries and you know one of the first mocks I don't just don't if you remember it was the first one where I mocked buries there and that was mocked in the comments a lot I got a lot of just like you fucking idiot there's no way the clippers would do this and then oh. Low behold reports come out that buries is being yeah anyway I know I did this on that you fuck now Kyle talk your shit you got it you can I it's just we go into the playoffs and we do this thing every year where we're like okay well the upside of him scoring in his pick roll and his shooting and blah blah blah blah it's like we just do all that it's like and you get to the end of the year and it's like all that stuff was adorable but it's like when you get into a series where you're being picked at over and over and over again would you this is this is a classic like tray young Derek white thing that we talked about that we've joked about a lot where I was like Derek white upside on ball and stuff like that no not necessarily tray young's upside is higher on that that you know type of thing but it's Derek white going to get picked on in a playoff series it's that's what we we have to have like winning driving our mentality whenever we talk about these guys and that's just my problem a lot of time where I get off course with people so I've considered buries there because I think he's a better two way player I think he's in a cancellation of what we were talking about there I think Woggler's going to get better defensively yet you know it's just he's one of the other guys I guess it kind of comes into a question of do you want to the guards are sort of the imply players there do you want to reach for a a Marez Johnson you want to reach for a a Yaxlinda board that high these more playoff ready players that discussion I think it gets a little rich to reach for those dudes there that's that's kind of where I well with that guard debate too that's a lot I know no no I think there's a lot of food for thought there as there should be with the clippers in their situation like they have one of the stranger circumstances to kind of fall into this pick in the first place and where they want to go if they do draft a guard I think not only shapes how you think about Darius Garland in the future the back court but what happens with some of these other guards on the roster too right so it's like if you if you do take Woggler Chris done is extension eligible and to me that is like a no brainer like you should try to get Chris done under a couple more years under contract because his defense is going to be even more important playing off of both of those two guards and kind of alternating back courts but the other huge piece of business that the clippers have is Benedict Matheryn's restricted free agency and if you do end up going more defense first with this pick in terms of like you know someone like Burries for example is the map on Matheryn even stranger in terms of your willing to invest more than say the mid level or mid level adjacent salary for a player like that because you need his punch off the bench maybe a little more than you would have expected to otherwise it's just going to affect the rest of the shape of this back court rotation period and with two of those guys kind of up for financial consideration I think we're gonna see some of the effects pretty quickly I think the clippers are just in the unfortunate situation where they have no other choice but to build on the fly and just to keep doing that and keep stacking good moves because they just don't have their picks until I think they don't have an control of until 2030 and so I would like to say like lean into quies last year and just be the best team that you can be but I also don't believe that because I don't know how that's going to happen and I also feel like that all already has such a defined ceiling to begin with if anything it feels like they're kind of stuck in the situation they were after trading Chris Paul and they got all this stuff back and it just happened to over chief they got Shay in a trade and all of a sudden they eventually spun that off and into quiet but like if you could just be good enough and keep getting steadily better and like if Garland for instance doesn't totally fit and let's trade him a deadline from now right like just basically like trading out parts here and there as opposed to like forming the Megatron from the jump I just don't see another path forward at this point I also think even within that yeah it's a little haphazard and there's gonna be some fits and starts as far as building the next version of this team it still feels really exciting to me right like there is Garland getting a chance to kind of reframe who he can be as a creator without some of the like guard to guard overlap or obstruction however you want to think about it of what he was going through in Cleveland I want to see what that version of Darius Garland is Yannick Conan Eater house or when he comes back from injury oh my god just like absolutely popped in the middle last season I want to see what he looks like for a completing version of this team and now you're bringing in another potential guard to work alongside those guys there's just like a another wave of clippers coming up that I thought to be honest we were going to have to wait like four or five years before they found those sorts of players again post coli and to have them here during this time yeah it's a little like two timeline zish in in terms of what they're trying to balance, but I don't think they have a lot of alternatives to what you're talking about, JV. They do just have to take these things as they come. And as they're coming, they're at least bringing in like good young players in the door who are gonna be interesting for the Clippers for a while. - Yeah, it's a quick question, just a real jumping off for the Clippers. Is we keep talking about this? Like it's an immediate, I even did it during this conversation where I was just like, well, this has to fit with Darius right now. Are they a playoff team next year? And how much is the urgency of win now driving this? Because if you think about the fifth pick, is it worth it to take a wogler if he's gonna be, if he's gonna be your second unit guy and get those, let's just say he's that. If he comes in and he's the guy who maybe you stagger a couple of the starters with some bench guys and then wogler takes over as the main guy, is it a failure if you take the fifth pick and he's kind of for two or three years playing in that role? Or does he need to, if you take him at five, is it like we need this guy to come in and be a star? Like immediately. Like how, I guess where the clippers are and whatever this timeline they're on is drives that I would think. - They were 20 and 15 after trading Harden and Zubach. And so like they were pretty okay. I think it just really like lays on how okay are you with being pretty okay is like really the ceiling for this team. And like if you think that's a good thing that like the expectations are low and we're just gonna have as much fun as possible and we'll go from there, then it's fine. Otherwise, then it can get pretty bleak pretty quickly. But I just think whatever pick they have should be thinking about first year Shay is the goal where it's like he does enough to be a contributor to a good team. Play some defense, move the ball, be a connector, do whatever you can on offense and we'll deal with the future down the road. Just be like a contributor to a healthy environment. I think would be a good star for the players. - And then eventually he becomes the best player in the world. - As you can see, but that was also like the 14th pick, you know, I guess I'm just asking you, does that a little more stomachable than if you take Shay at five? And then, you know, I guess that's one I'm wondering. - Yeah, I mean, they looked at this pick to begin with. So I guess it's all found money to a certain degree. All right, Hawks are up, pretty active in this pre-draft, pre-agency sort of period here. Aaron Reagan's for two seconds. It seemed like a no-brainer. Like just have to be able to accept the salary and give nothing back to the Thunder, done. CJ McCallum, $21 million for just giving it to the Knicks, really bottom some leverage there. But at eight, they have a nice little opportunity to add a good player. Kyle, who do you think they should go with for their pick? - There are two train tracks ahead of the Hawks here. And there are people who think that they could reach and, you know, address their rim protector and defensive anchor thing. They need another quality big. But I think it's a little rich to reach for a dimara here, based on I do have some kind of questions about his craft around the rim in terms of score. There's the minutes, the volume of minutes kind of thing. There is the, they're just kind of out, you know, outstanding questions for me. I think it would be really, really beneficial for them to go with a drink store like, you know, Kingston Flimmings who is the fastest guard in this class. I think he's tougher than he gets credit for. I think he's super smart. I don't think he's a bull headed like, I just have to pound the shit out of the ball and score all the time, like a Colin Sexton type player. I just think about him adding to the already kind of established, really great defensive perimeter personality of this team. Already an incredible and transition group, very physical. He would elevate those things and make them, that's the pick that I have projected there for the Hawks at eight because I think that he would do great in Atlanta. So yeah, this feels like you made this pick to appeal to me personally. Like the idea of putting in Kingston Flimmings with the Nikkeel, Dyson Daniels, sort of like hellish perimeter rotation. I mean, really speaks to me, really speaks to my sensibilities. And I think if we're talking about how do the Hawks get to the next level? Clearly they need more independently driven out offense, right? Like we are getting post flow into like, who has the shake off the dribble. And that's somewhere where, you know, Aaron Wiggins for a guy who's coming in off the bench potentially, like has a little bit of that one on one offense that could really help them. Hopefully Kingston can give them a dose of that too, but without taking away from all those other defining attributes of what made the Hawks so good down the stretch of last season and makes them still so interesting going forward. I think the question might come down to whether or not they should make this pick to begin with. Like are they so far along that actually we should be looking to spin this pick and not take a young guy into just a veteran player because we show that we are at a certain level, especially late in the season and pushing the next to the only team in the playoffs that actually got two wins on them. There's a popular rumor about maybe trading this pick for trade Murphy. I think that would be great if only for the comedy of giving back the pelicans their pick for one of their best player that seems like everybody wants. Incredibly mean. But also I think it's the type of guy that they need because he's young, still has more in him that perhaps another team could unlock. But he also allows them to level up. And so just a more of a timeline fits in someone like Fleming's you might need a little bit more time. Kyle, what do you think about that? Would you rather Fleming's because of the fit? Are you thinking like the Hawks are in a different phase right now? I think the fit is great there. If you think about a trade Murphy, how much does that affect sort of the strength of the thing that you already have? Do they need to change their perimeter core? Because bringing in a trade Murphy would change their-- you've already got Kuminga coming in that you're trying to figure out how to play. Granted, the pelicans might want Kuminga knowing them. But I just think Fleming's there's a hole on their roster that he fits into really well. And I think if you think of people worry about the small guard thing, it's like, no, I mean, like in shoes, he's six foot three. Maybe he doesn't have the longest arms in the world. The jump shot isn't pure. But he's like a shot maker. He tends to-- he's very, very fast getting to his spots. I think the wide open nature of the NBA game, he is going to pop even more, I think, because it was definitely a cluttered offense with Biggs that had very narrowed. The two Biggs for Houston were limited in their own ways in a way that really kind of hurt Houston's spacing this past year. And Fleming's was still really fast getting downhill. So I think if you think about the way the Hawks are built, I just think he would really help them. And another quick thing about the defense with him is, if you're a small guard, the things that you can do to bridge the gap and make you less of a liability, which Brunson has kind of figured some of these things out is that he is really bullish and aggressive in his helping and retreat kind of principles. He's really competitive in those areas. I think Kingston's going to figure those things out. I would like him with the Hawks. So I think he's a good enough fit that I would go ahead and take him here. Yeah, for as much as Trey Murphy could help the Hawks, I'm not so forward pressing on the timeline for them. Like, Jalen Johnson's 24 years old, you know, like there is time here to bring along another college or college age prospect and hope that they can be a core member of this team for the foreseeable future. There's nobody who's like really on the advancing side other than CJ that you're really worried to have to replace. And even he's only on the team for one more year under contract. So to me, it feels like a really natural handoff point for them to bring in another guard who, yeah, maybe coming off the bench for the course of this season, but then could eventually take over the reins and be a critical part of driving the offense. Yeah, I thought their biggest issue last year, especially in the playoffs was just the depth. And it seems like by adding Wiggins, bringing CJ back, maybe adding Flemmings, maybe adding somebody else, they're very at least still round out the version of the team that they have now. Trey Murphy as good as he is seems like he's more of a finishing piece to an already established core versus what the Hawks are where they really just don't know who they are right now. And if anything, perhaps I want to save my powder. And like, if I need to trade Flemmings, like wait for it to be like a true blue superstar who is like a clear companion to Jalen Johnson, not just someone who augments him. They don't have their pick next year, it goes to San Antonio, that's like some factor, but I think they're already going to be so good that it doesn't really matter to begin with. So I agree with Rob. I think they just kind of take Flemmings and go for it. Yeah, I mean, they also had the 23rd pick to play with. And they could flip that into another veteran guy, potentially a big, I mean, we talked about that as far as what this team really needs. Like, I thought a Kongu really proved himself as a starting level center for most circumstances, but Moge as a backup five, like Aeson Nuel will see if he's ever really fit to kind of play that role for them. I honestly don't know. They just need like a little burl there and all of their alternatives, you know, the Jocolandale Tony Bradley types, like all those guys are going to be on the open market for agency this season. I think it makes all the sense in the world for them to play with the possibilities and not back themselves until like the Jocolandale corner just because like, see what's out there, see what you can drum up, see what team might need to get out from a center's contract to make the moves that they want to make. I think there's an opportunity there for them to do something. And maybe it comes with attaching that 23rd pick to make it happen. I don't know. Yeah. All right. Two more here. Dallas at nine. And before we recorded this, they just got a new head coach because Rob refused to take the job. Dusty May, who just sounds like a Dallas coach, like a Dallas sports coach, like Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy Johnson was like, he's from hands on. So I could get it a little bit more. But like, I know Dusty May is like an Indiana guy, but Dusty May just feels like the type of gun slinger who just doesn't take no for an answer. He is an Indiana guy, but he's absolutely also been the Cowboys quarterback coach at some point in time. Right? Maybe not up for the head job, but a positional group without question. Yeah. Kyle, really, what are we going to think this guy. Yeah. Incredible climb. I mean, Dusty May, I had it pulled up here. His coaching history is really wild. I mean, he started out at Florida Atlantic. I believe in 2019. Just built that program from nothing. Had them in the final four. Ghost of Michigan has success. When's the title in year two? He's just, I don't blame him also for getting out of college basketball because it is just an absolute train wreck mess right now and dealing with that headache. But I think in terms of, if you're the Mavs, I think this guy has the right temperament to coach an NBA team. He can like chew, he can chew on that ass when he needs to. I've seen him get fired up and, and get on guys, but he also is very mellow and kind of level most of the time. So I'm sure that, you know, that I'm sure they've added this with Cooper and, you know, talked about it. And I think, I think this is a great opportunity for him. And I think it's going to work. I like it. And it also opens the door to like, is this going to open the door to maybe you taking one of the Michigan guys at that spot. So it's interesting on that level too. Well, and just continued signaling that the Mavrix have the right priorities in place after not for at least several years there, right? This is going to be a longer term process. This is going to be building around Cooper that this is a program, right? That you're trying to cultivate and build from the ground up in terms of personnel, in terms of culture, in terms of all those things. And in doing so, I mean, not only do we just not see many college coaches jump to the NBA at all anymore, although as you're looking to call, maybe we'll see more and more of it as they get frustrated with the ins and outs of navigating the transfers and everything going on with NIL right now. I was trying to remember any coach I could remember winning a championship in college and then immediately going to the pros. Because this is usually the time where you squeeze, right? It's like you flirt with the Lakers or whoever, and then you sign the like insane extension. This is just what happens. But like Billy Donovan, right? Signed down almost the magic, and then, and then aborted. But then he went back to college, held the ball in the picture. Which is wild. And I think he was rumored to even be in the mix for that job again, which would have been real coming, coming full circle moment. Well, I'm glad he brought this up though, because there really are so few examples of this. When I felt like when we were younger, this was happening a lot. And it was more about like taking the cult of personality and bringing it over to the NBA and maybe leffering that for like for gates, like for receipts. It's really Brad Stevens, Billy Donovan. And then on the bad side, John Bayline and Fred Hoyberg, Horberg wasn't bad per say. He was just like, it's fine. I think he got dealt a pretty weird team there. I do wonder, like not only because NIL perhaps in the riggers of the job in college might force guys to think about this more now, but is there any opening considering the way the league is going where someone who's maybe more strategically aligned? For instance, like I thought that would have made sense a lot last year for a guy in Yukon, just because like his his system felt a little bit more sophisticated in them. It was typically running college. I think it would have applied a little bit better to the NBA. Is there more Kyle, like there's there more reason to go to coaches in college than ever before? I think there's there's a differentiator there between like Hurley and May and that I still think Hurley is a little bit from the last generation of coaches of traditional sort of crack the whip, like coach really hard. His style, the motion kind of approach. It's just so it's a different type of a buy-in. I think I don't know that it would have poured it over to the NBA super, super well, but another difference too is you talked about B-line. You talked about Donovan even reaching back, like Patino and Calipari going to the NBA. Those were guys who just it's a little different I think with Dusty May because he is a part of this new ascendant crop of coaches that are in the college ranks that are so analytically driven that are just forward, forward thinking that I think it makes sense for him to sort of leave. And he's thought of one of the more progressive basketball minds in the country. You know, I know he had a team that just basically had the most like old school bludgeon you to death with size kind of thing, but he's he's considered a forward thinker. So I think that he'll on that front just be jump right on the the spinning the already spinning merry go round of the way the NBA runs now. It does seem like a tough thing to navigate though for a lot of college coaches. And I think the Fred Hoiberg example is kind of instructive of a guy who could walk into a college system and just have an authority based off of that rank alone. And you can you can talk to players a certain way. You can deal with them and address problems in a certain way. And then you go to the bulls and you have to like manage a locker room with Jimmy Butler and Rajan Rondo and Dwayne Wade. It's like you are just in over your head so quickly. The difference is like I think if you are of kind of the Dusty May mold. It's a lot of your currency comes from yes, you've done all these great things in college, but you come in and it's like if you're helping guys, whether it's helping them win if that's the goal or helping them develop if that's the goal, players respond to that kind of thing more so than just like, you know, being the big swinging dick college coach who can just like throw your weight around in a locker room. It's so much about like how do you appeal to these players on their terms in terms of what they need from you. And it does seem like he might have the right kind of temperament and approach for that as much as anything. Yeah. All right. So they have number nine in this draft. Kyle, do you think this affects anything that they're going to do? Not only just because obviously he comes from Michigan, you have Mara Johnson, you have Mara, you have all these guys in their lending board. But also like do you try to lean more in direction in terms of like stylistically anything you might want to do? It did come to mind to me that I've made this parallel on a few different shows now that Linda Morgan, particular, is a guy that we've discussed who has a really wide range of offerings. He's 24 years old. There's people who are worried about that, but started late. I compared his developmental arc and path to Pascal Siacum, who started late and just sort of like, rocketed upward. You know, he just started getting, he just his rate of improvement started as a late teenager in a way that Yaxel's did. But there's been like maturity concerns with Yaxel and how he interviews and things like that. You know, lest we forget the guy who drafted Siacum is now, you know, involved with the Mavericks. So I just and if you if you wanted to think about a situation that could absorb somebody in those concerns about Yaxel, who is a very good player, it does all kinds of stuff. It does kind of seem like the Mavers are increasingly a candidate to do that. And I think he could play with Cooper and give you a little bit more passing. He could play with anybody. But so there's that. I don't know if that necessarily means they're going to reach for like an edimara. I think that's a little high for Mares in terms of the type, the player type, even though I love Mares. I still have brain breweries mapped there because I think that he would be an excellent companion with Cooper. I think he'd be a great two-way player. I think that he could give Cooper a shooter out there. He's a guy who can run some point guard and still allow Cooper to kind of take the majority of the wraps. I think that he's an excellent sort of tamed up like a pairing there for him. So yeah, I still think that that's probably who they should take. Yeah, I mean, the consideration for the Mavers is who fits with Cooper Flag, who makes sense long-term with him. You want to prioritize the talent, but you want to at least have a vision of how it might work together. I also think for where the Mavers are, having someone who I don't think Dallas has any urgency to trade Kyrie Irving right now and North should they, but having someone who can handle on the roster so that when you get to January and February, if it makes more sense to trade Kyrie Irving, then you don't have to scramble and reconfigure everything you're doing offensively. It's like, oh my god, we have to get out of their guard in this deal because we literally don't have enough infrastructure to allow Kyrie to leave. That feels like the kind of freedom this team could really use right now. And frankly, I think as a broader philosophy, getting the level of depth that lets you let go of Kyrie and PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford and some of these vestiges of the last version of the Mavs, that's kind of the position the Dallas is in right now. Have you guys been following the reunion of the 26 Cavs title team that's been happening? I believe in Scotland. Is it in Scotland? It's somewhere like that where they're basically on a big ol mega rich guy golf outing. Is there making anybody else feel old? I mean, those pictures are making it's been a deck Kyle. It doesn't take anything to make us feel the stuff. I would say I get up off the couch and I feel old. Green at those guys are like kind of my age. All of them. Yeah, I was looking at those pictures. I was like, damn, it has been a decade since that happened. Wow. Not only does it make you feel old, but then you see guys like Richard Jefferson trying to mind it for content where he's doing like Instagram tick tocky memes based off of those guys all hanging out together. And just like, if it has a real like old guy still trying to get after it sort of vibe. And I was like, God, time has just slipped away from me, hasn't it? I mean, well, we are the old guys still getting after it in our way. So I hope it's still allowed. I hope it's still a thing that we can do. What did it for me was David Meneman was posting some like flashback photos to that 2016 run and just seeing LeBron who looks like a totally different person physically. Like in terms of his frame, his build, like he, I mean, he looks understandably. It was a very slim fit era for sure. And it's just been a long time since we've seen that LeBron. That's all he's doing great at 41, but you know, it's a different time. Yeah. And they were like, the parade was like, they were just in like flatbed trucks too in Cleveland. And like in comparison to what was going on with the Knicks, where it's just like fat Joe and his own float seem every person had their own. Yeah. That was pretty amazed by that. Mitchell Robertson had basically a monster truck that he was riding. Well, that's his style. I think he has several of those somehow. Oh, it's pretty crazy. Well, just like if you're in a neighborhood with a lot of little kids, I hope Mitch is riding that thing pretty slow because I was just amazed at the kids were like under the frame of the truck Like they're at their staining hide. I was like hope we hope we got some speed bumps in that neighborhood That scared me. Yeah, there were a lot of health issues going on for that next parade I don't know if you guys saw some of those but there's a lot gone down Got some of the next Liver damage health issues. I would say just among absolute basement of foot issue related content Just we got to get out of the gutter guys. What are we doing? Last one on the board here golden state at 11 Kyle Who's the pick? Give it a little This is this is a tricky one because I want to get your all's perspective on this because I think you kind of have no choice but to approach this as We can't go pure upside like this guy might help us someday You know, I think you're you are You know, I know golden state fans are probably going to win when they hear this But you're going to have to have a two timeline thought process with the one person that you take in this situation And somebody that's going to be able to give you something now and then be a part of whatever this next You know, we've said in the guy here that like Steph is pushing 40 years old This can't go on forever as much as I enjoy seeing them do another run potentially I have a diamarras the guy that they pick here and my reasoning is in the Immediate term he's fucking gigantic. I think that he's that that just put him on the court You got to avoid him. He's big gives them a rim protector gives them some depth in the you know The the Frenchman dominated looming kind of thing going on in the western conference You get some porzingus insurance in the short term in case he's in and out We could kind of have both of them go and then I also think offensively he fits the way they play Very very good pass or for somebody his size for any size. He's a great passer And then you know going forward you've got a seven foot three guy who's potentially could turn into an above average defensive anchor in the NBA So that's my thinking what do you all think about That mindset with this pick? I don't have any objections to the mindset. I just like What is this front court like what is what are the warriors gonna do where there's you know There's rumblings that they want to bring back Chris that's porzingus. We'll see if that happens or how much he's able to contribute or just like what his state is generally don't know Dream on green is obviously at a very peculiar place in his career in terms of what he gives a team and where he should be playing in the lineup and how I'll hope for it as a player option and could just like bolt out the door at any time if you would like to And honestly the best versions of this team are still the versions that play like Moses Moody or Guy Santos or Jimmy Butler when he's healthy at the forward to begin with And so I'm a little worried that I mean look the warriors have lots of problems. They have lots of limitations They're banking on aging stars of various kinds for a one last ride kind of thing But as far as they're bigs there's a little bit of like If they draft a big here in particular and then also have a lot of these kind of old timers or guys who are not as available as you'd like Like where's the Goldilocks zone of this is an actual good player who can play 70 regular season games and give us good minutes at a time where we desperately need it like this is There is no longer the luxury of just bringing in 16 game players anymore It's like how do we get through the season alive and then if you do and Steph is in in good health and playing well How can you maximize it going forward? I have no idea how they do it Are we past the point of James wiseman induced PTSD of like reaching for the big Because I feel like we got to the point where we move past it and like up We're actually at our best small ball finds energy. Let's just go to what works And then they bring back Christopps and then you bring up Mara. I'm like Know it'd be great If they're a little bit bigger and had something a little different than they're used to in order to counter balance All this other good stuff that they have but just like the fact of doing that like I almost feel like they move past it And so I don't know like how to feel about just the idea of going big at this point Especially because as Rob is alluding to like they just need good players here Which is becoming increasingly difficult because they have so much money tied up In Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry and also if Dreymon is coming back now and then because they're also like trying out there being like oh Let's go after LeBron. Let's go after call Y and just be like the expendables and so I just don't know how all these things fit together Is it acceptable to draft a backup big that could play in a playoff scenario at 11? That's the question you got to ask yourself because I mean, I think so I mean if he's gonna hold up in a playoff setting and then eventually he could become the starter because I think some of the on ball sort of guys They're risky. I mean if you if you think about taking like You know some of the guys that are mocked in this range. I mean Dalin Swain is a guy for Texas. He plays for Texas, but I bet Rob has never even heard of him or seen in play like a big big guy Big guy could get a six-sevenish guy who can really handle the ball But it's gonna be dared to shoot so that's gonna be like I don't know how that's gonna work in the playoffs defensively with like a cam car He's gonna get attacked all the small guards. Those are non-starters as much as I've loved I've mocked LeBron file on there before It's dialistically. I don't know that he's fits the Warriors. You'd hope maybe the long-term we could play that That's my that's my kind of thing there is like I think in the short term taking a backup big who can help you in the And it's not just winby. It's the other big teams in the in the West I think having Mara would be a helpful thing to have on a playoff team in the short term So that's kind of that's why I'm thinking that I think that's the issue with How should the Warriors play big versus small debate? It's it's less about like what is their optimal version and just more accepting the reality that Dremont can't do that all the time anymore I'll hover if he's back certainly can't do that all the time anymore So they just sort of need size by default unless you have another Anomalous playmaking for who can play the five just like you can find under a rock somewhere like they just need Something a little more conventional in a bunch of different respects. They need some front court size They need just like ballast on the wing. I'm not really sure where they're going to find it Especially if like Anthony melons another guy who could just kind of walk out the door if he would like to And I think there's a lot of winning situations that he or her first could potentially sign up for There would be more promising than gold state. We'll see what they do Maybe they just like being around and being a part of this team But also, I mean even if the the on-ball options are a little dicey as you mentioned Kyle They just need somebody who can initiate like you can't put stuff through the meat grinder of this through yet another year And Jimmy Butler hopefully being out there and healthy for a good portion of that will help But you need more than that like they could really use another guard one way or another who can actually drive something on offense Yeah, I wonder if there's a way to split the baby here Whereas like if mar is the extreme we're saying we're just gonna get the biggest old boy and perhaps he could be a nice little counter punch Like are the yaksels the more as is like do they have the girth and like the physicality that could bring something different But more in like the four three-mold and obviously like we'll still having more upside I think the unfortunate thing is they didn't get higher in the lottery because you get a guy like burries For instance where it's just like you kind of unleash him in that sort of Shay roll that we were talking about before Just let him do work and then just like develop from there like to me that is what they need and I almost feel like Maybe what they shouldn't be doing is like trying to chase after 40 year olds in order to get even older and like Make next year the only year that matters it's very least like pry open like like move up in the draft pry open Something and like maybe you just like try to get a two three-year run going here But they're not a tough spot regardless. I honestly don't know what they do from here I'm not sure there are two three-year runs. I think if you're a golden state every year is a one-year run And it's just like what can you do? What can you roll out there? How can you make? You know Steph and Dremond and Jimmy Butler and Steve Kerr's life a little bit easier in the process We'll see what they have in the books All right, while we wrap it there is a long one, but you know, it's that time of year. There's just so much to talk about including the lakers um We'll be back on Wednesday after the draft recapping all of the most important things that happened Uh, thank you to Ben Cruz. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. 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