Kawhi Is Headed Back to the Raptors! Plus, Where Will LeBron Sign and Ja Traded to Portland

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Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TramphyaRadio.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every football fan is different. Some won't wash their lucky jersey. Some insist they can't sit during third downs. Some are just here for the snacks. And you can say the same about life. We're all different. That's why State Farm gets to know your insurance needs so they can help you personalize your insurance. Create a personal price plan to help fit your life and budget today. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, well that was a day in the National Basketball Association. Kawhi Leonard is a Toronto Raptor. Again, for Brandon Ingram, some draft picks, and Grady Dick going back to the Clippers. The Kawhi PG era is officially over in Los Angeles. Who won the trade? How good are the Raptors? How good is this roster in Toronto? What holes do they need to fill? Is this Kawhi's last stop in the NBA? How will we remember the Clippers? How big of a failure was this era in Los Angeles? And how did they do in this trade? Have they pivoted well enough with Zubats, Harden, Kawhi, PG all gone? Other places in a totally new era, blank slate, Clippers team. How do they look? Hello, Keaton Wagler. Another era, LeBron James era in Los Angeles. That's over. He's not going to be a Laker. He might be a Warrior. He might be a Cav. There's a Dean Wade signing that happens in the middle of this podcast that we react to. He might be a Heat. He might be something else. Was his tenure in Los Angeles a success, a failure? Either, neither. Where is he going to go? Where should he go? And then we get into everything going on in the NBA. John Moran, Jalen Duren, Jalen Brown, Damanis Sabonis, the Blazers, the Grizzlies, tons into the Thunder. The Heat made a couple of signings. The Nuggets have been idle so far. The Pistons have been semi-idle status quo. Just a ton of stuff going on. Rob Mahoney is here to help. To help sort it all out. A big, big 48 hours in the NBA, in the books, all coming up on The Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show. It's Tuesday night. Free agency just started, air quotes, three hours ago. And it has already been a monumental 24 hours in NBA history. Two separate, but interconnected years in the NBA history. Two separate, but interconnected years of Los Angeles basketball are over. LeBron James told the Lakers, it's not you, it's me, it's us. I'm leaving. I'm going to play for another team. TBD next season. Is it the Warriors? Is it the Cavs? Is it the Heat? Is it other? We will see. And the Los Angeles Clippers, after seven star-crossed years, traded Kawhi Leonard back to the Toronto Raptors for Brandon Ingram, two unprotected first round picks, Grady Diggs. Grady Diggs is back. Two unprotected first round picks, Grady Diggs, Grady Diggs is back. Two unprotected first round picks, Grady Diggs, Grady Diggs, a pick swap and two second round picks. Toronto were in one season. Kawhi Leonard won more playoff series than he did in seven with the Los Angeles Clippers, continuing one of the strangest careers in modern NBA history. Rob Mahoney, I want to start with Kawhi because it's a trade, it's done. We know where he is. We can react to it. This was a tough situation for the Clippers. Rob Mahoney: Ever since that Zubats trade and the Harden trade, it's been a look in the mirror and say, we don't really have it anymore. This is over. Kawhi has one year left on his deal. He had a certain amount of leverage in this situation. He made it known that there were places he would go, places he wouldn't go, places he would extend, places he would not. Toronto, familiarity, success. Alex McKechnie, the medical director there, is probably the secret MVP of all of this, was one of the places that he said he would extend, and I believe the only one in the end that was actually interested in trading for him. The Raptors were bidding against mostly the Clippers' willingness to keep Kawhi Leonard and just say, "Okay, if you don't meet our price, we'll keep him." In the end, this is where they settled. Where would you like to start on this, Mr. Mahoney? Alex McKechnie: I would like to start, I think, with the Raptors' side, honestly, because they were already quite good. And I would say Kawhi gives them exactly what they need in a way that is, frankly, a good deal. Alex McKechnie: I would like to start, I think, with the Raptors' side, because they were already quite good. And I would say, frankly, a little bit terrifying to me. And so I'm very eager to see them in action with Kawhi back in the fold, back in the city, a cult hero in Toronto, to say the least. And I'm eager to see him back in a Raptors' uniform. Justin Donald: I mean, obviously, when he was healthy last year and he was healthy for the last whatever games of the season, he played 65 games last year. He was one of the seven or eight best players in the NBA, a legitimate first-team all-NBA player, a massive upgrade over Brandon Ingram. By the way, there's some wonderful symmetry here between the championship team Kawhi Leonard played for and this one. If you trace the lineage of how we got from point A to point B, it traces from Pascal Siakam and the stuff that they got back for Pascal Siakam, including Bruce Brown and a first-round pick that became Keaton Wagler, of all things. Then they traded that for Brandon Ingram. Then they traded Ingram and more stuff to the Clippers today. So there's some nice symmetry there between the old Raptors and the new Raptors. The starting five, presumably, will be Emmanuel Quigley, RJ Barrett, whose extension now becomes a very interesting piece of business for a Raptors team that is much more wind now than they were eight hours ago. Kawhi, Scottie Barnes, probably Yaka Pirtle, but when it comes time, maybe Colin Murray-Boyles. And boy, Kawhi, Scottie Barnes, the Scottie Barnes we saw in the playoffs in particular. And by the way, this does not happen if the Raptors don't have a success. season and a successful-ish postseason when Scottie Barnes, with kind of everything in shambles around him other than Colin Murray-Boyles, not only rises to the occasion on both ends of the floor, but proves to the world, you want 45 minutes of play-to-exhaustion two-way play at an elite level? You want me to try to carry you by myself over a really good team? I'll do it. None of this happens. This Kawhi deal doesn't happen if those things don't happen. Kawhi, Scottie Barnes, and CMB defensively together. Oh my God. Throw Jamal Shedd in there too in some lineups. They're going to be hellacious just grinding teams to dust. Off the bench, we have Jamal Shedd, Jacoby Walter still here. I'm a believer. I'm a Jacoby Walter guy. Me too. CMB, that's the top eight. After that, we're talking Jamison Battle, the Graves kid they just drafted, and some fill in the blanks as they approach the first apron here. I think this is a really good team. FanDuel upgraded them to fifth in championship odds, but in a big tie with Cleveland, Denver, Minnesota, a bunch of other teams. The East is going to be really good next year. That's one of the stories that's. We're going to see what happens with Boston and Jalen Brown and some other things, but there's a lot of good teams in the East, but they have announced themselves as like, "Look, Kawhi is one of those guys who there's never any fit issues. He elevates everything around him. He has no weaknesses. He can shoot. He took way more threes last season. He's purely additive in every possible sense." Is it worth Ingram? Most notably, I think the haggling ended up being how many unprotected picks and when. The Clippers forced them as far out as possible. 2031 and 2033, Kawhi will certainly be out of the NBA. By then, Scotty Barnes will still be in the NBA, but they forced them way out there to get the worst-case scenario in play. Rob Mahoney. CMB: Yeah. Assuming the Raptors extend Kawhi, he's only eligible for a two-year extension, which by the way, great for the Raptors. Only two years? Perfect. We can't even. Sorry, man. We can't give you three. We can't give you four. Sorry. Our hands are tied. Assuming there's a two-year, $100 million extension coming here, is this a fair price? Is it worth it? Is this team good enough? It's more than I thought any team would give up for Kawhi, just because he is an elite player, as we described, but an elite player whose availability just looms over everything, causes a lot of problems. CMB: I think it makes total sense for the Raptors, though. It makes total sense with that extension. If you're talking about yet another short-term lease Kawhi Leonard situation, that's a different return. That's a different package that you're putting together, but for three years of Kawhi, potentially, with this team obviously up and rearing and ready to go in so many ways, Scotty Barnes being ahead of schedule as a star, CMB being ahead of schedule as a real disruptor and a two-way player, frankly, I don't see a reason why the Raptors shouldn't have been emboldened, why they shouldn't have been trying to push, and if not with Kawhi, then with something else. So why not swing big with a player who is beloved in the city, who clearly works alongside supporting cast replacing i'm gonna say your least engaged defender in the starting lineup and brandon ingram with an absolute hellcat someone who can create so many problems and exactly the sort of half-court offensive weapon they needed it just he fits he fits this team in so many ways can you recreate on the spot actually the raptors should do this i think at the introductory press conference they should ask kawaii to do the laugh again you can you do the laugh it's almost painful the way he does it it's coming from from a really dark and tortured place um i think it's i think it's fair i mean i understand why the raptors did it they still have plenty of draft picks to work from and even swaps to work from by the way i expect them to be aggressive if not this summer then toward the trade deadline if the team is good i think they will look to upgrade more you perhaps at the center position but that's down the line i do think it's it's obvious but it must be acknowledged that here are kawaii's games played since his last year with the spurs 65 37 68 52 52 57 60 zero i missed the zero in there and nine um and even more so i mentioned that the clippers won three playoff series and they're going to win three playoff series and seven seasons they have not won any since 2021 zero and in that time when you look at why they haven't won any um in 2022 they missed the playoffs because kawaii was injured in 2023 they lost to the suns in the first round kawaii missed part of that series in 2024 they lost to the mavericks in the first round kawaii missed part of that series in 2025 he was healthy they lost to a very good denver team last year they're in the play-in because kawaii was not healthy in part because kawaii was unhealthy at the beginning of the year like this he this this is great on paper for all the reasons that we've already discussed i just is he ever going to get through four playoff series was that one raptors year with the shot that hit the rim four times against philly the championship the finals mvp the second of his career it looks more and more like an anomaly with time and yeah alex mckechnie is there they know how to manage them they're going to get them through the regular season the way they did back then but if we're going to get through the regular season they're going to get them through the regular season they're going to get them through the regular season they're going to get them through the regular season they're going to get them through the regular season championship equity and playoff equity like it just feels pretty hard for me to believe that he's ever going to get through a playoffs healthy again because we just haven't seen it in a while and i just feel like i have to throw that caveat out there it's a big caveat it's not just the games played it's the grind of the playoffs that takes its toll uh even even so i think the price is is worth it for the raptors even if i'm skeptical that this team is going to win the championship with kawaii leonard or maybe even make the finals they should be able to win the. i would love it um the raptors acquire it among many other things but they acquire this particular pick that becomes keaton wogler they acquire it for pascal siakam they trade it to new orleans for brandon ingram new orleans trades it back to indiana to get back into the first round and then tyrese halliburton gets injured to like two days later indiana then trains it to the clippers top five protected boom it's or whatever top four protected boom it's five and it becomes keaton wogler quite a journey um for that draft pick uh here's a question i posed to you i mentioned that i thought the raptors were bidding at the end basically against the clippers willingness to just not do a deal i do think there is truth to the reports that kawai made it known that dallas and san antonio were two other teams that he would at least consider signing an extension with you : neither team appears to have have just have pursued it really just you know not on their timeline whatever and so the question i asked you was give me a team or two that you think could have would have should have just said forget it we'll do exactly what the raptors did all those years ago and just take them on a rental come what may did you find any teams that were in position to do that i honestly think that the teams that make the most sense in that way are teams you've already sort of discussed like i'm with the celtics jalen brown conversation as that stuff goes like why not kawai in those circumstances but he's just such a particular kind of player given the injury risk to talk yourself into that even if like lebron you could put almost anywhere and he can fit and make sense for a lot of different teams even with all of the lebron-sized considerations that come with his reputation and his history and all that but i don't know like i don't know that kawaii like if you're the sixer sure like you should take a swing on a conversation like this but how do you make it worth the clippers time that would be a whole lot of draft picks or returning the picks that the clippers traded you for james harden the clippers by the way still do not control their first round pick i believe for the next three seasons which um is another boon perhaps for oklahoma city they get to swap picks with the clippers in 2027 i think i should probably check to make sure that that's right but yeah uh yeah oklahoma city um and also makes the clippers immune from caring about the relegation zone if their pick is relegated and they certainly are a major total rebuild work in progress at this point they don't really care um uh boston was at the top of my rental teams list obviously jalen brown would have been the piece i mentioned it with pina even two days ago kind of your problem for my problem and i could see i said then i could see both teams arguing over who should send who draft compensation what picks how many picks the clippers i think clearly wanted picks more than a present-day player although they could flip they could flip brandon ingram for picks now they could have flipped um i don't think that was ever seriously discussed between the two teams i think it's just too messy these things it's it's a monumental you know it's a monumental thing to contemplate the only other ones i could think of were the cleveland cavaliers um who can only trade one future first right now but have jared allen and could put together the salary it's interesting they're also have some apron issues that they'd have to deal with the denver nuggets who i think right now and i think they're going to have to deal with the denver nuggets because they're going to at 10 eastern time uh are to me maybe the most intriguing team remaining in the offseason including at least in my theoretical dreams we will talk about later as a lebron james destination again theoretical dreams uh they've got a lot of big salaries they can move around i don't think that was ever discussed what about houston houston could have done a durant kawaii deal yeah or barry smith is almost an exact salary match plus some draft compensation i don't think that was ever seriously contemplated by the rockets either those were my only hey should you dip your toe into this one maybe is it worth the short-term upgrade to do it and i think some of this is also like you will hear people around the league ask i mean they asked me um are like do we know what's happening with the aspiration investigation or like are we sure that um this would be a good idea for us obviously toronto thinks it's a good idea for them and i'm sure that they did their due diligence with the league office but those were my only rental teams uh the clippers um i don't know any reflections on this era of clippers basketball rob i mean obviously it's like darius garland brandon ingram a bunch like it's tempting to say maybe they held out too long and should regret losing paul george for nothing but i thought they did great in the hardened trade i thought they and i said this before they even got the pick i thought they hit the zubat straight out of the park uh even though i think zubats will help indiana and i think they did pretty well with this trade too obviously the era did not turn into what they wanted it to be it turned to do exactly what oklahoma oklahoma city could have wanted it to be it should and will go down as a failure a worthy attempt and yet a failure um but i think they've done pretty well pivoting away from it here i think that's the way to classify it and i i mean the grizzlies are kind of in this conversation too where there's there's an original sin that is maybe like slightly delayed versus what would have been optimal and then from that point getting off of the right guys at the right time to get pretty substantial hauls for the hardened types and the evita zubats types and yeah it puts the clippers into a different sort of holding pattern as they figure out what kind of team they want to be which of these core pieces are actually core pieces or not i think brandon ingram with all due respect has proven he's not really usually that guy like he's the guy who is on your team when you're playing for anything serious and then when you start to get serious you trade him for kawaii leonard i i see it though more as like garland and woggler And this like a young core that is interesting enough. And most importantly, those refresh picks that they desperately needed. They did well pick wise. They did well in this trade. I think Toronto paid about the max it was willing to pay. And I think it's worth it. And the only team Toronto is maybe worried about in this rental conversation in the back of their heads was Boston. But I don't think they had anything to be worried about in the jail and Brown situation. I've done to death already. It remains as of this moment, unresolved. And we will come back to it. Toronto is going to be super fun. Yeah, they got to round out their team a little bit. They have to, you know, figure out if Graves can play, if Jackson Davis can give them meaningful minutes. Those are now important depth pieces for them. Do you think, I mean, you mentioned the RJ extension kind of in the air here. Yeah. Do you feel like he is as important to this version of the team as he was to the previous version? Cause he was quite good for them as a slasher connecting dots as a facilitator, but he is more ball handler than he is spacer. And I could see them having the conversation of like, do you try to move? Off of Barrett, not just because of the extension, but because you want someone who's a little bit more of a pure off ball presence of the two now with this being in the construction of your team. Yeah. I think again, they will be pretty active at the trade deadline ahead of the trade deadline next year. And it could be with that piece. Um, I will say, and I've always thought this about RJ, he's an easy player to take for granted because of the things that he doesn't do well. He doesn't shoot the three as well as you'd hope though, though that's, he's had times where it's like, is he nailed? Is he mastered it? And then it'll dip off. Yeah. He doesn't defend nearly as, as consistently as you'd hope. And yet he's always just helping out. Like he always, he's a very adaptable player. He can get off the ball a little bit. He can do, he can cut a little bit. He can be a second side driver instead of a primary driver. Like he finds ways to contribute. And to me, I just think it's all about the price point. Like he's making $30 billion this year. You know, you know what his agents will do. They'll go in and say, Hey, he was one of the most consistent all around players on the team. He's plus minus his X, Y, and Z. He's making 30. Now he should make 40 on his next contract. And to me, that's like a no-go, but if it's a fair deal, he's a good player, easy to take for granted. And I think with an upgrade in shooting from Brandon Ingram to Kawhi, I mean, Kawhi's like an all time shooter, an all time shooter who now is just launching threes. I think he actually fits better with this group. And he's also like Emmanuel quickly is not exactly barreling to the rim over and over again as a point guard. So they need kind of a head down. He's really the best on their team at it in a lot of ways. That's where I'm with you. Like it's kind of reintroducing to the Raptors, all of these philosophical questions that come with Kawhi of, do you try to find players who fit the Kawhi version of the team perfectly? Do you try to find players who fit if he misses 30 games that help you get by in those moments even more effectively? And I mean, RJ might be kind of straddling that line as best as you can find under the circumstances. I think this is going to be a really good team. It's really fun. I think it's absolutely worth the risk. Toronto fans should be over the moon. It's a cool story. Like of all the places, like not that many people have chosen Toronto and Kawhi not only went there unwillingly and now wants to go back and maybe end his career as a Raptor. Yeah. And like, and I'm not even like what in, in the theoretical hall of fame where you have to pick a hat. Is this hat? Is this a Raptors hat now? Is it a Clippers hat? Is it an aspiration hat? Like what's the hat? Speaker 1 : It's gotta be an aspiration hat. Like, let's be real about it. Where w who's signing the checks, you know? Speaker 2 : It's an interesting question. Speaking of hats. I don't have any thought more. I let's move on. I will say someone posed this to me today. If zoo bots were still on the Clippers, would there have been some sort of jail and Brown's zoo bots and other stuff plus picks trade package, but alas, that ship has sailed. I don't know. Speaker 1 : I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I'm good. Try Clippers. It didn't really work out well done streetlights versus spotlights. We never even got to see the Lakers and the Clippers play in the playoffs during the streetlights versus spotlights era. Speaking of the spotlight era, LeBron James is not going to be a Laker anymore. Raising a frenzy of interest. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to say. I don't know. I don't know. patient and open-minded about it he's going to choose happiness happiness i should note very very much a synonym for joy which has been the watchword in golden state since steve kerr yeah maybe they're using it tongue-in-cheek like we can't say joy and make it obvious but we can say happiness these days though happiness i think is well over the second apron like there's some real financial worries trying to sign with happiness right now i i really want people to find happiness and joy and apparently he decided he could not find it with the lakers and he will find it somewhere else question one rob mahoney eight years with the los angeles lakers one championship a couple of absolutely seismic trades seven playoff series wins in eight years compared to three for the clippers in the seven years when kawaii was there um is this is this a success for the los angeles lakers and for lebron james yes yeah like unquestionably yes for me i think look win a title absolutely eight years in a city in which you have six playoff appearances you have the title you have the west western conference finals run you have six all nba teams during that time all successes also i think some of it is just about context like yes lebron james is an all-time great player and you may think eight years with an all-time great you have certain expectations that come with that he's an all-time great who was 33 to 41 and i think if you look at even the greatest to ever play from 33 to 41 i would put this up there as i mean maybe it's not quite kareem level that might be the gold standard for this particular age bracket but as good and as productive as you could possibly expect from someone under these circumstances and frankly some of this as a recent transplant to los angeles i just do not understand the laker fan relationship with lebron james it is like deeply strange the way that like how how easily he's disregarded like the way people talk about him as a legend and it's like i don't know man he won a title he did really well during his time here he is the reason anthony davis was traded to los angeles which is thus the reason luka donchic was traded to los angeles i just really don't see the hesitation to call this anything other than a success because you won it all while he was here i think it's a success i'm a little less enthusiastic about it uh than you are but it's it's clearly a success here's what i would reject okay i would reject calling it a failure because if you win a championship it's not a failure i would reject the notion that i've seen elsewhere that oh well i mean this just shows trading all the young guys they traded for anthony davis that was a mistake that was not a mistake first of all like the young guys in that trade were lonzo ball josh hart brandon ingram julius randall went separately they announced his rights he wasn't in that trade uh a draft pick that became deandre hunter and another draft pick that i believe became dyson daniels on balance fine that's before you remember that anthony davis got them luka donchic which as insane as that is it's a thing that happened and it set them up for a long time um i also would reject it as as a failure just based on success period they won a championship um and if you go through if you go through the years they missed the playoffs this first year they lost the playoffs this first year they lost the playoffs this first year they then they win the championship uh 2021 the suns eliminate them in the first round that's the j crowder salsa dance series i'll never forget that anthony davis was hurt in that series yeah and then the crossroads moment and i think how you regard lebron's tenure is at least a little bit touched by how much blame you lay at his feet at clutch's feet at rich paul's feet for the russell westbrook trade and we can relitigate that forever and ever and ever but combined with the players they lost off that championship team in 2020 the danny greens and alex caruso's and on and on with that trade which completely fucked up their whole team and their asset base it has had ripple effects ever since they were kind of drawing dead as a championship contender from almost that moment on and yet they still make the western conference finals in 2023 then the nuggets sweep them the minnesota timberwolves after luka gets there beat him four one people are hurt in that series and then lebron kind of goes out with a bang in his final season with the lake upsetting the rockets in the first round durant hurt obviously but everyone on the lakers hurt for a lot or all of that series in some cases um i think it's a success i get why it feels weird like it just kind of feels it feels weird it feels a little weird to lakers fans he came late in his career that's um the the championship was the bubble championship and lakers fans know i've always been a pro bubble championship is a legit real championship nothing's wrong with it no asterix no nothing but it still felt weird it just was weird the people that were there were people were in their zoom windows cheering you on it was just weird um i think it does count as a success though i'm with you yeah i mean he was wildly successful given where he was in his career as the second oldest finals mvp of all time this is what happens when you have an aging star on your team even if it is an aging legend i think i don't know It's like we would never have this conversation about like, what did Kobe Bryant do from his 30 age, 34 season on? And some of that is because there is the built in goodwill of a star who spent his prime with this team and in this city. It's different for someone like LeBron who's jumping in late in the game. But from the moment he did, I think he pretty much paid off, if not the wild expectations that follow him everywhere he goes. Certainly any reasonable ones. And now this this divorce raises some questions. Number one, the Lakers now have a lot of cap space and how they use it is going to be very interesting. And Luka Doncic is going to be watching it very carefully. Rui Hachimura is a free agent. I think he's going to be on another team next year. Austin Reeves is obviously back. They're going to meet with a lot of centers. Jalen Duren is reportedly taking a meeting with it with them. We'll get to his situation later. And Walker Kessler is reportedly likely to take a meeting with them. A. Boone for the free agent centers in the NBA. The Lakers have in cap space. We'll see how they use it. And then the more fun conversation is where is LeBron going to play? Golden State without Anthony Davis. It looks like just just LeBron. You got to go on your own. There's no package deal. It's just you, man. Miami and Cleveland for nostalgia's sake. Golden State for the hey, this will be fun. Let's all old guys team up and use our IQ. And our genius and our synergy together to try to topple these young guys. Off the throne that should belong to us. And then there's other and a whole host of others. The athletics, John Krasinski, my guy reporting that Minnesota, just like Tim Connolly did when he was in Denver is like, hey, if I can get a meeting, man, why not? Why not? We need a power forward. We don't have a lot of money to spend. We got a lot of young guys who just upended our front line. Why not? Is there a team? Just take the take the take all. All constraints away. Rob, is there just a team that you think he would fit best on or you would like to see him go to just for fun? There are two, but one of them you just named and it's the Minnesota Timberwolves. The idea of who would you want around the mellow ball to get his head screwed on exactly straight. LeBron James is a great place to start. What kind of young stars or great young players would you want around LeBron to take the load off of him? Okay, Anthony Edwards offensively, Jaden McDaniels defensively, plugging LeBron into that. That group with Rudy Gobert at the five as well. I mean, holy shit like that. That has all bases covered. It's super exciting solves all of Minnesota's off like off ball play making issues and facilitation issues. One fell swoop kind of one size fits all silver bullet solution for a lot of their problems. The other team and this is I mean, we're getting pretty pie in the sky on this one. But if you want to slot LeBron into the Aaron Neesmith role for the Indiana Pacers. Wow. I mean, that's that's a team that really speaks to me. This is what I want for LeBron is like who are the elite ball movers who he can draft energy off of and turn into just like the supercharged forget like the Draymond role like supercharged late-stage Magic Johnson version of himself and a version that has Tyrese Halliburton and Andrew Nem hard Pascal Siakam Navita Zubats we barely seen with the Pacers man. That would be super exciting to see so it's funny. I mentioned my Kawhi rental teams that I went through Houston Cleveland Denver. I'm in Boston Indiana was also on my initial list that I looked at their cap sheet and I called around a little bit. It's just they would have to have combined like four guys to get to Kawhi's salary. It would have been pretty impractical for them. But I but the infusion of that level and size of player is super interesting for a Pacers team that is very deep. That's a fun one. Mine is I like the Minnesota one is great. Although it does give rise to the Danny. Glover lethal weapon. I'm getting too old for this shit meme. Like of just like LaMelo did what like I would LeBron even understand LaMelo's text messages or would he just be like I need I need Bronny here to translate this man because I don't understand what these messages say speaking of Bronny Bronny and Luke Kennard both just Bronny's left behind and in LA and Luke Kennard just signed with the Suns which surprised me a little bit. I thought Luke Kennard I kind of found a found a home with the Lakers two years 13 true with the Phoenix Suns. But who it all has a home with the Lakers right now like it is Luke and Austin Reeves obviously DeAndre Aiden picked up his option Jake LaRavia congratulations. You're now like a full-time maybe starter on this team like they're just short on bodies right now. Well, I mean I talked about this earlier in the week when we discussed the Reeves Max contract, which is a contract you have to do in Austin Reeves. You were I heard you talking about it is just a like a phenomenal offensive player. Yeah, and what he did when one of Luke or LeBron was out was like, oh, he just averaged. Like 30 and eight on super efficient shooting defensively. It's going to be a challenge. But look if you have Luca and Reeves making a hundred million dollars combined filling out the rest of the team is not going to be easy. They have draft assets assets to work with but this this center position thing Aiden is clearly not it and not the answer. I'm interested to see how serious they get with some of these restricted free agents and if they at least make one of these teams eat it with an offer sheet. Like I think what do you think? I don't know if Walker Kessler, you know, when when there was a report in the athletic that things were a little strained with Utah, I said, I can't remember who I had on as my guest, but I said like I think people would be I had the number but I didn't have to go ahead to like say the number but I knew the number was like twenty seven twenty eight million dollars a year average annual value and I said, I think people would be surprised that like Walker Kessler was turning his nose up at the amount of money is being offered and Tony Jones in the athletic reported today that he's going to be he's expecting deals in the thirties like the mid thirties, maybe even high thirties. I like Walker Kessler. I think there's some offensive potential that is untapped there. The three-point shooting. I think whoever whatever team he's on will continue to say, hey, can you try it defensively? He's a beast but like that seems like a lot of money for Walker Kessler to me for someone who is still so hypothetical, right? Like guys like us will come out here and say like, oh who he could be as a rim protector who he already is as an offensive rebounder. He certainly had like the high water. Marks offensively in terms of just converting easy stuff. He also doesn't really expand his offensive game at all other than those occasional threes like he's not someone who has even come up into the high paint and been like a threat with a floater or any kind of short roll game at all. He's had stretches of his career where he's had like total crises of confidence in terms of his ability to finish around the rim, which is a crazy thing to say when you look at oh, he's a 65 to 70% field goal percentage finisher, but he's had stretches where like he will shy away from even trying to finish around the rim. That's a problem and it's also the kind of thing when you're on a Luka Doncic team you straight up can't do. So I I both fully believe the best version of Walker Kessler could be unlocked by someone like Luka and by a team like the Lakers, but that price point that's it's a little aggressive for someone who has basically no proof of concept playing actually competitive basketball. We've got a very important text right now from my sister-in-law Paola. I'm going to shout out Paola on the podcast. She's a Toronto Raptors season ticket holder. She texted me the trade. You know, just FYI pal. I knew she says for real not sure what I think of this interesting. I think maybe you know goes back to it was a little acrimonious when he left and Uncle Dennis was making demands left and right. I don't know like what do you do if you're Toronto if Uncle Dennis strolls up and he's like, hey, where's my credential? Where's my I remember how I roam the back of the halls and get to go wherever I want. I'm actually kind of being serious is like is he that I don't I don't know what to do with him. I don't know. I don't know. Is it not part of the package? I thought it was a two for two, you know, Kawhi for Kawhi and Uncle Dennis for Brandon or for a like, I just assume he's part of the trade ultimately. I don't know man, I guess but but that's why the San Antonio one was was quite interesting to me because there was if you think it was acrimonious in Toronto, it was way more acrimonious in San Antonio. Yeah, Lakers gonna have an issue building a team, but that's fine. They have Luka Donchik like that solves a lot of problems still all gravy for them to have been able to been gifted this my dream. Here are my here were my dream LeBron teams. I had Indiana on my list to let's just go through some of the ones that are already out there. Sure, Miami. Am I wrong to just be like LeBron Bam Giannis is like a little clunky is anything clunky with those guys is clunky is probably the wrong word, but it's not it doesn't strike me. I'm even going to say it's it's not what Miami needs but Miami needs everything Miami needs all the talent it can get it's clunky but clunky in the way like washing someone smash a whack-a-mole game with a hammer until it dissolves would be kind of clunky like yeah, is this the best use of everyone's time? Is this exactly how you're supposed to play this game? Maybe not. But do I want to see those three guys together? Absolutely. Okay, you know what? Yeah, that's a good one. We'll get back to Miami later Cleveland James. Harden Donovan Mitchell Evan Mobley Jared Allen. I don't know exactly who's still on the team here, but it's just there's always a lot of James Harden happening in any James Harden team and I'm not sure I want I'm not sure I love that one either. I don't either and I also don't love like I guess Evan Mobley you're now defending threes full-time that just doesn't seem great for anybody San Antonio Bill mentioned. I like that one. I don't necessarily see that happening the Golden State one. I mean it really all. depends on how they fill out the rest of their roster like i really as great as lebron and steph curry still are and as synergistic as we've seen them be in their brief like supernova appearances together for team usa their two-man game all of that i mean the steph durant two-man game was unstoppable and like barely tapped into really by the warriors uh lebron by some measures was the most efficient pick and roll screener in the league last year according to the tracking data that i'm looking at now um there's just you know like a lot of questions is jimmy butler ever going to be healthy in time for the season for this particular season um you know draymond green spacing all that stuff depth i mean they just resigned poor zingas two years 40 million with the player option i kind of like that deal for them it's it's a bit for i don't know chris that's where zingas makes me very nervous moody's gonna be out for a lot if not all the season like i don't think there's i don't think that team is a title contender again for four playoff series at that age is very very hard but it would certainly be fun mine was denver and just plop him in denver uh and just oh you just want two of the all-time genius passers in history to play off of each other and and you know lebron respects yokich as a peer basically definitely and denver again looms to me as the most interesting team remaining on the board in the offseason for just an out of left field we got to change something and it's got to be a big change kind of thing but i don't think those are those are i i thought about houston i don't know how they could make it work but just plop them in there um for some decision making whatever veteran veteran guile um boston you could make the argument but if it's if it's warriors calves heat i this was a heated debate today on nba twitter like what's the rarest most fitting way to cap his career of those three going back to miami mending fences with pat riley heedles again going back to cleveland for a third time where he's from and brought the end of the 50-year title streak 50 whatever your title streak or new adventure with the rival that he crossed with over and over again in the finals and and it was cantankerous there for a little while between steph and lebron is any of those more apt for you i think so i appreciate the narrative closure of the other two but this is where like i'm treating this more as an epilogue i guess than as the actual final note and some of that is like i just want the new adventure i just want the lizard part of my brain to get to watch steph curry and lebron play together on an ongoing basis in the regular season i i don't think like obviously teams like cleveland like miami would be in the hunt in a way that golden state is not but i i'm kind of down for chasing joy i'm kind of down for embracing that part of this experience for him for steph for all of us there's a magic to them playing together that i think would always be a shame if we never got more of it and i want to see it even if some of them get hurt along the way i want to see it even if they peter out before they can go on their full playoff run i just want to see more of it and i i get the appeal of the other two but there's just a part of me that cannot deny wanting that specific combination on the floor as much as we could possibly get it i'm gonna say this up front i don't live in cleveland i've never lived in any of these places so i have no i have no sort of hometown tug of nostalgia for any of them if you're just asking me as a basketball fan which of these seems the most fun to me to watch and mix that with could you realistically win at some interesting level i think i would rank them golden state one miami two cleveland three i i just don't something about the cleveland and all the dribbling and all the guards it doesn't it doesn't quite feel as fitting to me and i'm with you like these two guys have circled each other stephan lebron and played opposite each other played with each other in the olympics um i i said this with bill the other day i don't know if you remember this robin the 2016 finals i mean remember it got like heated like the halloween party where the calves halloween party where they made fun of the warriors and the 3-1 lead being a gravestone and all that i think it was game six in cleveland there's a lebron block on steph at the rim it's an all-timer where he flexes in a with a with a nastiness and a cruelty and and just like it it his body language is just just remember i'm fucking way bigger than you and it's still my league and i'm kind of offended that people have a little guard as my equal or perhaps my even superior in some corners and i will not accept it and to see them come full circle and use their gifts to lift each other up would be kind of fun well especially how clearly lebron has wanted this even before the olympics like they they started this flirtation years ago in terms of floating it or like oh what if we're paired together on these all-star teams of various constructions to go from that like not only was it a flex but a moment is like this fucking guy like are you kidding me this is this is the point it felt like a message to everybody to the nba media to the unanimous mvp voters to all it felt like just a message like it's still my league and that that is one dot and that the dot we experience now could be these guys are so eager to team up together that lebron is going to take a massive pay cut to make it happen ostensibly like that's a journey right like that is a narrative that i think is worth telling and worth exploring and understanding the before and after of how we got to that point that's compelling to me we have breaking news rob before we take a break are you ready yeah what do we have free agent forward speaking of the cabs dean wade dean wade for all your accounting needs has agreed to a four-year 39 million dollar deal with the philadelphia 76ers mike gansey's first order of business coming from cleveland to philly i need dean wade i need dean wade on that wall give me dean wade that opens up a little bit of the cabs i'm not sure how much we're doing this on the fly he's been a really important three and d player for them yeah i'm just gonna raise my fingers like okay like anytime the cab shed a little money and open up a position that like the three four and lebron's available i'm just gonna like i'm just noticing that's all it's worth noticing what is it that he's bringing to the sixers exactly like i'm with you especially on the rest of mike gansey's luggage maybe well i competitive defensive player the three comes and goes can be kind of a zero offensively at times but i guess they're going to kind of reshuffle their their kind of wing and forward rotation around there and try to get a little bit more size i i gotta be honest with you i spend the sixers are in like the bottom 10 percent of teams i spend thinking about just because they're in this mb george prison yeah uh for of their own making for so long uh and so i mean he fits there he fits he fits the need anywhere but to your point like the time that the three-point shot always seems to go is the playoffs and his minutes often go with it uh okay but that was breaking news we got dean wade taken care of uh let's take a quick break there's much more to uh to talk about with rob mahoney this episode is brought to you by michael ultra whether you're racing to climb the tallest mountains seeing who can score more birdies on the green or competing in a professional soccer match it's always better when there's a prize on the line especially if it's a ultra smooth refreshing and worth all that hard work superior is worth playing for mcglobe ultra superior light beer enter for a chance to win superior soccer basketball and golf prizes at mcglobeultra.com slash superior access enjoy responsibly copyright 2026 anizer bush mcglobe ultra light beer st louis missouri this episode is brought to you by service now look i have my dream job i get to watch basketball think about basketball talk about basketball but even dream jobs have the stuff that nobody dreamed about the busy work that gets in the way of the actual work service now's ai specialists tackle that work requests handled cases closed the whole thing done so you have more time for the work you actually want to do for me that's breaking down sga film whenever i want and then talking about it into a microphone to learn how to put ai to work for people visit service now.com all right the other big piece of news from the last 36 hours that i have not yet uh waited on the long john moran saga in memphis is over john moran has been traded from the grizzlies to the portland trailblazers for jeremy grant and chris murray the blazers now have the following guards on their team john moran and damian lillard who according to chris haynes the plan is to start them together i would say any plan for next season that exists on june 30th is not really a plan at all but it's not a good plan either way scrooge henderson and andrew holiday are all still here denny obdia is still here an interesting fit to say the least and the end to an era in memphis the final sort of player from that core to be traded away that started with such promise from like the very first game john moran played in the nba or one of the very first where he blocked a kyrie irving buzzer beater and just from that point on for the next 24 months it was just pure electricity and it seemed like not only were they a sure thing to be a sure thing for a long time but that he was exactly the kind of franchise building block that you wanted he seemed to care about his teammates he didn't play selfishly he played a lot of time he didn't play a lot of time he didn't play a lot of he cut hard, he enabled and lifted up up as teammates and then it all went sideways they won a grand total of one playoff series in the john morant era and now there were injuries to it all the time then when they lost to the warriors in the second round people were injured including job when they lost to the lakers in the first round the following year their whole big man rotation was pretty much injured but still one playoff series and it's over um let's start with portland because obviously memphis was going to dump john morant yeah they didn't have a lot of homes for john morant and i think it's a win for them to not have to attach any assets to get john morant because they took back a contract that portland was trying to dump in jeremy grant it could also find no other homes for but i think it's a win in that sense for the grizzlies a lot of scrutiny on portland in this deal both for basketball fit for cultures fit for the people who remember the jailblazers fit um for what is the new owner doing why is he doing this fit um before i share what i think what what's your reaction to this from the blazers perspective i'm just kind of bummed out like for all the momentum that portland established last season this fun up-and-coming team this incredible defense all of everything we saw with denny avdia's development even scoot henderson like popping at moments in the regular season in the playoffs like i was really energized by what they were doing and eager to see you know add a couple pieces add some support and cast i like round out your rotation in a way that makes sense all of that on board john morant i they already have as you alluded to a dame like their high profile guard that they're trying to fit into this puzzle and make it work putting another one in just because you can doesn't strike me as like good proactive team building and frankly with a player like jaw like i understand the talent play but there is a tilt there's like a tipping point between oh look how little it took us to get him to oh my god look how little this team was willing to accept to get off of him because they were so desperate to do it like as you laid out the grizzly story with jaw he was like a hero in that city and and for that franchise and he himself caught like cast such a dark shadow over the grizzlies that they had to move on they were forced to move on because of his actions and his decision making and frankly the deterioration of his game and so like why would you be signing up for that when so many of the indicators within the game were like oh my god look how little this team was willing to this young roster you have are pointing forward and pointing towards guys putting things together in their career they never have before and here comes john morant to take up oxygen in the room to cast a similar dark shadow to be an impossible fit with dame it just strikes me as like welcoming a huge problem into your team when you had absolutely no reason to do it the words that i want to focus on that you said were the deterioration of his game and of his health yeah 20 games last year 50 games the year before nine games the year before that obviously there's some off-court circumstances that caused that number to be so low 61 57 and on and on the availability is issue number one issue number two is in 20 games last year he shot 41 and 47 on twos his rim frequency dropped a little bit in the last couple years but not as much as people think free throws down all the stuff that made john morant john morant the explosion the ferocity not quite there the same way and of course the other parts of his game did not round out at all in fact they got worse his three-point shooting has plummeted 30 23 31 for his career uh his defense is a disaster partly due to effort partly due to his being slight of frame um and so that's that's the more important point for me because for me like i is it wrong that i i get what everyone is fretting about all the guard overlap this team the blazers built their feel-good season on defense he does not add to that they suffered on offense because they had nobody that could shoot he only exacerbates that problem he creates a guard at glut the departure of grant creates a glut not a glut a guarded glut i think i said a glut at guard uh jeremy grant's departure creates a void at power forward there's not really a traditional power forward on the team to monty kamara's closest thing in the rotation so it's a little bit more complex than that but it's a little bit more complex and it's a little bit more complex than that but it's a little bit more complex than that but it's a little bit more uh scoot henderson's development is going to be hindered by this so i i mean i get all the basketball reasons i guess i'm just other than that mrs lincoln how was the play well here's what i'm going to say um two years ago john moran in 50 games albeit average 23 points and seven assists on 45 shooting and 52 on tuesday he's 26 years old here's what i'm going to do for the blazers you got six months i think the blazers are going to be the best in the world i think the blazers are in doing this trade just said to themselves he has two years left on his contract so it's not a marathon contract it's not an albatross yeah he it's it's too enticing an upside bet for us to pass up let me give you six months to figure out the rest of your roster because clearly this can't be the end game with all these guards you're not like last year was a feel-good season after your coach got removed in a gambling probe and all of that yeah um i i think much in in a less rational more disturbing way than the hornets they looked at themselves in the mirror and said oh let's feel good season what is it ultimately leading to we're not going to worry too too much about the present build of this team if we can get a talent like this in the door and just see what the hell happens and to me i think i'm focused more on the see what the hell happens part of this than the here are all the downstream effects that could be bad for our team because i can make changes i can pivot out of this if it goes badly to me it's an up like there's if there's still anything like this borderline all nba player who has made an all nba team before in there i just think you do this trade and figure out the rest later um the off-court stuff is also problematic so i get it i get all the fretting i just i can't get i can't get that mad at it i'm sorry i can't i think if he were a normal basketball player i would understand where you're coming from if he were just a run-of-the-mill this is a star guard who can help a team or hurt a team and you can move on depending on what the contract situation is in time absolutely but the electricity that he gave the grizzlies and then the electricity he sapped out of the entire operation there with his decision making i get it like it just feels different to me like to me john morant is the sort of radioactive that he can it's it's not like oh we're gonna either build a team that makes sense or not like he could blow this whole thing up like he has shown the ability to walk into a team i guess i don't sour it i guess i don't agree with that i if if it's going badly i just banish him and i eat the money and it's fine like i it's not great yeah that sucks um but i'm gonna give them six months to figure out their roster figure out if mike inori can reach john morant and maybe hope that like some of the shitty defense the non-effort the attitude issues the lack of like all-out ferocity on offense was part of just like i don't want to play for this coach i don't want to play for this team this team doesn't want me anymore and this is the end game that we're and and some injuries and it's maybe it ends up being a disaster but i'm i think it's worth the risk for a blazers team that is still kind of figuring out what they are uh and given the what the price was like i don't like jeremy grant's a solid player i think he's actually become a little bit underrated but i just i'm not that mad at it but the guy that i am most interested in in all of this is scoot henderson because that was an interesting last two and a half months of the season and an interesting start to a playoff series against a team that was wildly better than them than san antonio spurs what was interesting about scoot season to me was that he wasn't really playing point guard anymore i think he averaged like two assists down the stretch of the season and less than that in the playoffs he was very much playing off abdia off holiday and now would probably play off damian lillard who again part of the reason i'm not fretting about i can't make too many decisions about my team centered around damian lillard at age 36 coming off at achilles tear like i don't really care that he's coming back and what does john maria do about that but scoots development into some sort of like hybrid attacking semi-off ball guard with a decent three-point shot was kind of interesting to me and seemed to make his life a little easier as he's learning the nba amid all his injuries what did you think about his uh his like last couple months i went from really bad to really bad to really bad to really bad to really bad to really really wondering how much of a future he would have in the league as a full-time rotation player to being pretty bought in on the idea of what he could be and i think some of it is is not just playing off ball and the improvement in his shooting alone like the high water marks for him shooting the three during last season i think really won me over and made me a believer in what he could become being in the drew holiday school of like this is how you kind of handle the ball kind of play off of it this is how you use your strength your advantage for the first time in your career like i feel like you could see some of the things that he's been doing in the last couple years that he's been doing in the last couple years that he's been doing in the last couple years like i feel like you could see some of the things that he's been doing in the last couple years the influence of having a guy like drew around he we just have to recontextualize him a little bit from on ball pick and roll heavy prospect as he was slated to be coming into the league into maybe this is more of a hybrid guy maybe this is someone who really benefits from having other supplementary ball handlers around him whether it's denny driving offense and him drafting off of it whether it's him attacking from the second side and being really good at it like kind of shockingly good at it in certain ways given how he grew up playing the game i'm i'm pretty in on scoot henderson at this point in a way that if you had told me that a year ago, I simply wouldn't have believed you, I guess what? i'm saying is the way he played the last couple of months of the season makes me less worried about integrating another ball dominant player into the blazers because scoot henderson became much less of a ball dominant player in fact he became a different kind of player than i think anyone envisioned him being yeah and i'm curious about him because i'm not sure if that was him just hewing to what the team needed him to do and what he needed to do to get minutes on the team or and whether it was like he he enjoyed it or whether he still envisions himself as no i'm i am the guy that runs 40 pick and rolls a game and that's going to be me and i'm going to force my way into that role to me the moran thing is worth the risk i don't really mind it i think it's memphis clearly just turns the page moves on and that's um that's fine too i can't believe i've become the guy that's caping for john moran in this trade that's like it's not a disaster for the blazers when when he was good i mean he is he's the kind of guy who makes you believe crazy things about basketball of what a player is capable of of what he can do to rally a team around him that might be flawed or might not have this or might not have that you could talk yourself into the grizzlies like winning some of those series where they were like horribly outmatched in some cases just based on his his moxie his savvy who he was as a playmaker i think it's always been a really underrated part of his game i just think so much of that for me has turned in seeing how how bad it gets when it gets bad and just like the way that it took the wind out of the sails of the i don't know that i'm getting over that so soon and a lot of it to me too is for everything we've said about you know giving the blazers six months or giving them that kind of time frame to to regroup and change the structure of their team john moran is a player you have to go through great lengths to build around he is not someone who accommodates others very easily like he does need the ball in his hands he doesn't have a variety of uses like he will make the scoot henderson types bend around him all of that works fine when he is a superstar and it does not work fine when he's just a superstar and he's just a superstar and he's just a superstar and he's just a guy who is pretty athletic and not getting to the rim as often as you want maybe i like this whole idea that they're going to start him and dame together is completely untenable like there's just no way to survive defensively are you trying to kill tumani kamara like genuinely so i don't know what gives there um neither of those guys seems willing to raise their seems like a likely candidate to be like no six man i'm cool like you like dame dame is old enough that it's not like he's going to be able to survive defensively and he's going to crazy coming off the injury to suggest that sure um maybe also like jaw just needs to play 25 minutes a game for a little while as he gets his body back under him and that's another solution here but i would i mean to me drew holiday has to start one way or another and someone else has to come off the bench and kamara has to start and obviously clinging has to start good business bringing robert williams back at three years 44 i thought he was like i thought he outplayed clinging against the spurs of the playoffs and was generally really good in the regular season how many players did we just say have to start like that's tumani that's drew that's denny five five i'm just saying it's difficult that's all and then shaden sharp is like is the new coach gonna play me at all in the playoffs if we get there again and i i make 20 something million dollars a year for the next four years i hope i'm part of this too it's a it is a weird mix but i'm okay with i mean portland is a good place to be weird let's take another quick break and we'll wrap up with some uh uh some other gray roots and during the chat uninvited garnier's got you garnier color sensation retouch covers up to 100 of grays in just 10 minutes no ammonia no mess and the color lasts up to four weeks it's as easy to apply as shampoo plus it's vegan and cruelty free 10 minutes sensational color sensational price with those savings your next girls night is basically free find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you this episode is brought to you by boar's head it may have been years ago but i still remember the feeling of unpacking my kids lunch boxes after school and find that nothing left as a parent that's a total win boar's head maple honey ham american cheese maple honey turkey all-time greats in the school lunch game it's real quality protein that tastes great so you can feel that winning feeling all term long whether you're doing wraps sandwiches or a quick snack box boar's head makes packing school lunches easier you'll be proud of it they'll be happy to finish it fuel their school day with the premium choice boar's head for lunchtime inspiration visit boar's head.com slash back to school or head to your local deli counter all right i know you wanted to talk boston a little bit um portland has been rumored as a potential jalen brown destination for a while i think most of that was theoretical i theoretically pitched the three-team trade where boston would get janice portland would get jalen brown and milwaukee would get assets from both of them including the picks the bucks picks that portland still owns now um the reporting on portland and jalen brown has been all over the place my best reporting has been that they're not really involved but i'm not 100 sure of that and this is lying season but that's where i would lean um i discussed boston at length with michael two days ago um that i think they're kind of stuck with a bunch of offers that they don't consider good enough um i i just know you want to talk a little bit about jalen brown so so say your piece honestly it was less jalen brown and you raised i thought some interesting celtics hypothetical some what ifs about their recent history that i wanted to dig into can we go for it yeah sure we can do that uh so you put two what ifs to me that i've been kind of stewing on and i haven't been able to knock out of my brain and this this is related to to be clear i forgot that i'd say yes but this is related to the jalen brown situation which is very clearly gone sideways on the celtics uh since he was out there and janice they didn't get the honest deal done and i i have spent a lot of time thinking about like what what like why has this gone so sideways and these are two what ifs that i proposed to you so go ahead i will say one of them i think leads us to a pretty similar place to where we are now and that's what if boston just won game seven against philly like i that one i don't think changes a ton like where do you see the division point if they had won that series do you think that men's enough fences do you think that sues enough egos where jalen brown is still a celtic well a couple of things about that i i pitched that as a what if only because um it it was so dispiriting how they collapsed against philadelphia yeah and they were so exposed as a team that was too thin small talent deficient on the front line that it it raised a bunch of emergency level questions questions that were always hovering in the background that became like embarrassing emergencies and one of the remedies was let's try to go get janice and this is the only really way we can do it if they squeak that series out and lose to the knicks in six games does this feel different does it feel like less of an emergency now i think your counter is going to be all evidence suggests that the knicks are not going to beat the celtics in six games they're going to blow the shit out of them in four games five at best specifically i think we had seen enough evidence and enough like forward progress with cat's role development already to that point in the atlanta series that i think he would have created real problems for boston if they were to meet and i do think five might have been likely and really it just might have been similarly dispiriting in a way to just get wiped off the floor by a knicks team that had so much going for it already we also don't know like does tatum play at all in that series i've had to play game seven that's the other one and the other one if i gave you was what if tatum just never gets hurt and they lose the knicks series in 2025 in which they look like they were going to do they were about to go down 3-1 so tatum stays healthy they lose the series in six games what like i just wonder like what is the jalen brown never gets the taste of being the guy indisputably but they still lose the series they still come into this season with some apron issues with some question marks all the same tree all the same sort of salary trimming moves might happen what is like where are we now i don't that's a fascinating one i don't know the answer to that that one kind of broke my brain because yeah i think so many of their financial decisions were rooted in jason tatum's not going to play anyway so we can trade your holiday and cut bait with chris epps for zingas and lose al horford and we're just going to try to turn the page the way i remember it was so much of that apron conversation was about okay they're probably going to have to make a choice between either drew or chris epps for zingas but they might have the opportunity to keep one of them pre-injury pre-tatum injury and then in this hypothetical of jason tatum doesn't get injured and it's like if they keep let's say chris epps for zingas or if he stays healthy or they're able to convince al horford to come back either one then it's like namish kata doesn't have a big breakout year if they keep drew holiday does derrick white not get overexposed offensively in the way that he did over the course of that season and so there's all with these like downstream effects of little successes like peyton pritchard is more of a sixth man in a traditional sense than he ended up being for that celtics team like that's the thing you can't quite put back in the box either there are a lot of things that you can't quite put back in the box either there are so many younger guys who ended up having like you know like the yannis trade conversations pivoting on whether baylor shireman was available is predicated on baylor shireman playing enough to be important enough to the celtics to prove something in the first place and so i was like i don't even know where we are if jason tatum doesn't get hurt in that series where we are now is a very uncomfortable position for boston and um everyone has already discussed this to death of are they going to just have to get everyone in a room and hash it all out and bring them back but because by the way this is a proven championship caliber duo and we know that it works despite the fact that it's gotten a little uncomfortable right now. And I just have reached a point where I legitimately don't know what's going to happen because I don't know what the Jalen Brown team is. Teams keep falling away because they've moved on and pivoted to other things. Deals keep falling away, like the Giannis deal escapes Boston. I know some teams that were interested that are no longer interested for various reasons. I know some teams that I thought could theoretically be interested, have the assets to be interested that for various reasons, like Houston, for instance, appear to not be and never have really been. So I just don't even know what the team is right now for Jalen Brown. We mentioned Portland before. Wendy was on TV today on ESPN mentioning Cleveland, which has been something that's been mentioned over and over again, including by me. And he was thinking about, he was saying, you know, Mobley has been the piece that would have to move, just there's no real other realistic way to do it. I've said over and over, like Cleveland is not doing that. Cleveland is aware that that possibility exists and haven't done it. Wendy's point was if Mobley for Jalen Brown entices LeBron, and that's why the Dean Wade thing made me just, you know, take note. Okay. Maybe I spin it that I'm trading Mobley for both of those guys, but then I have Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, LeBron James, Jalen Brown, and it just, that, that feels almost like fantasy land to me. Yeah. Is there a Jalen Brown angle that, you, you, you like, or you've seen, or a team that's out there that you don't think has gotten its due? Like Denver has been the wild card and I've talked about them already. I, I, I don't know what that deal looks like quite yet, but I don't know anything strike your fancy. I like the Denver conversation because I think that that team does have to do something really radical. I think they had such like a wake-up call in the playoffs that just rolling it back and presuming everything can be okay. If Peyton Watson is healthy, it's like not nearly enough to rectify what's going on there. So I would love to see them getting interested. In that conversation. I still like Atlanta as a possibility and the trade package would have to be a little more elaborate. And frankly, it might be impossible now that Jonathan Kaminga's salary is off the books, but that was one I was always daydreaming about. Yeah. Without Kaminga. And obviously it's not going to be Jalen Johnson. It's got to be Dyson Daniels plus a lot of stuff plus picks. And the Celtics are probably going to want the, a lot of stuff to include Zachary research, because he's in a former number one, overall pick and that's sexy, but they're also probably going to be like, but he's also been kind of a bus. So we need Nikhil Alexander Walker too. And it just gets a little clunky. But this is the problem as you're alluding to like teams are dropping out, not just because they've started to move on, but because some of these options have swung one way or another with teams and players. And now the salary math doesn't really make sense in the way that it did a week or two ago. It's hard to trade guys who make $60 million a year and are not one of the five best players in the league. It's just, it's just hard to do. Um, one deal that has been mentioned, uh, another piece of news today, the jail endurance situation in Detroit has gotten interesting in a way that was entirely predictable after he kind of crapped the bed in the playoffs. I don't think we've ever seen a player eligible for a Rose rule, 30% max extension on a team that was like, Hey, we're like, that's, we're not going near that. And it was very predictable to see this happen. And now the games are afoot. Um, jail endurance is taking meetings with teams with caps. He wants to meet the Kings. The Kings are like, someone wants to meet with us. What a delight me really. Um, and the Lakers who have cap space as well, um, for potential sign and trade, uh, situations, uh, it was floated that Damanis Sabonis would be going back to Detroit. I don't think anyone are interested in that. Um, here's my read on this. I think Detroit is so far. It's pretty unruffled about this. I think they're like, this is cool. Like you guys are doing all the leverage stuff. This is just like restricted for agency one-on-one. Yep. Guess what? You want to have a sign and trade. Guess who has to cooperate in the side of trade? We do. We're not going to, so you can go get all the deals you want. We're not going to participate in them. The wild card is the offer sheet. And I'm not sure who the offer sheet team would be. The Nets still have a ton of cap space. Sure. The Lakers are obviously the team that has a lot of cap space. I'm not sure who the offer sheet team would be. I'm not sure who the offer sheet team could make it hurt. The bulls still have like 30 million in cap space. That's not enough to make it hurt. I think Detroit is just sitting back here and being like, we're cool. And that's like, I mentioned jail and Brown because there's been this idea. Could we solve all these problems with the jail and during jail and Brown sign and trade mega trade? I don't see that happening either. I don't, I don't think, I don't think the Pistons are ready to just upend what they've got going on. And Kate and jail and Dern are very close. My assumption is, this is all going to be sound and sound, sound and fury signifying nothing. And he's going to go back to the Pistons on a deal that he's probably not psyched about. They're probably not psyched about. That's the way it goes. But the offer sheet lurking, you know, teams don't really do this to other teams as much as they used to, where they're just like, Oh, here, here, poison pill, everything bad, you know, or trade kicker, every shortest possible contract. Here it is. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, I just, I mean, yeah, the playbook is all of those things. Like what? Like a three-year deal with a player option at the end. So it barely guarantees anything is probably the structure with like as much money as you can throw into that thing. I'll say Gordon, Gordon Hayward to Charlotte. Exactly. In this case, I will believe it when I see it. I just like, I think the math is tough for a lot of these teams. The sign and trade is almost a necessary mechanic for some of the candidates we've talked about. And for jail and during, like, I think it's okay to come off of an absolute disaster of a playoff run and be squeezed a little bit. Like that feels like a reasonable exchange of, yeah, you end up in some kind of sweet spot where Detroit isn't thrilled, as you said, but it would be so much worse to come out of this with over dramatically overpaying jail and during based off of what we just saw in the post-season that have some hurt feelings on both sides. And so far, you know, Detroit was on my list with Minnesota and Denver is sort of the most guards of the off season. Minnesota certainly went wild and Denver still could. Detroit is really the sum total of what they've done so far is salary dump Isaiah Stewart draft a Corey and then re-sign Kevin Herter and add Isaiah Joe as shooters, which obviously I think puts a little bit of question where Duncan Robinson's fitted on this team is. And he has a very lightly guaranteed contract for next year. Um, I think the Herter one in particular felt like, and at, granted, Kevin Herter shooting has not been, no, another level level as a shooter and was like essential for them the entire season and doubly so in the playoffs. Yes. But does the team have room for all three of those guys? I don't know. Uh, but the big move hasn't happened. And by the way, Tobias Harris is still a free agent. They have his bird rights. I think they are, I have some interest at some price point in bringing him back. Yeah. I would be a little disappointed as the wrong word, just a little surprised if Detroit came out of this off season looking like more or less the same as they did after last season, would you, or am I just like, they're young enough? It doesn't matter. I would be too. I mean, that was the argument we were having all throughout last season was this is a team that is winning a ton of games that feels rock solid in certain ways, but also has clear definable needs. Will they preempt those needs or will they go through the process of kind of exposing them in the post season? As many young teams do, they got exposed. They got exposed. They got exposed. They got exposed. They got exposed. Like all the needs are laid very bare for not just them to feel and experience and chase after, but for the rest of the league to see it and acknowledge. So if not now, it would have to happen at some point in the season. Like you got to start pushing chips and picks and, you know, Ron Hollins off your bench. If you can find takers for him or people who are excited about his future, there has to be something to string together here to get a wing or a forward that actually makes the team feel more cohesive. TBD I'll give them some time. Obviously free time. But I think it's interesting that it's been not a bang for them so far, despite this during thing getting kind of spicy. Okay. I'm assuming you don't have much to say about Julian Champagne three years, 45 million to the Spurs. Thumbs up. Absolute thumbs up. We pop forks for Champagne around here. Bones Highland going back to Minnesota. Probably. I don't know if it's a minimum, but it's not gonna be much fine. Usman Jang three years, 17.5 to Milwaukee. I liked the way he finished the season. Same. He, he hasn't been mentioned in the like Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe salary. He's been mentioned in the like Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe salary. He's been mentioned in the like Aaron Wiggins, but he was quite good for the bucks last year. Speaking of that, I haven't spent much time at all on Isaiah Hardenstein coming back three years, 75 and Lou Dort's option being picked up for this coming season, which feels both interesting, maybe ominous, maybe not. It does. And then they, I think they released Kendrick, Ken Rich Williams, but there's a possibility they can bring him back on the minimum. All of this was like exactly the playbook that I outlined and others outlined for how can Oklahoma city sniff the second apron, maybe dodge it. Eventually certainly cut hundreds of millions of dollars from its tax bill and remain competitive. Joe out Wiggins out Ken Rich out, or at least at this number, Isaiah Hardenstein back Dort back. No notes. I think, I think it's exactly what I expected. It's expensive. Guess what? Being a championship team is expensive. Mitchell Robinson is Mitchell Robinson. He's the second apron piece for the Knicks. They're either going to have to decide we're going over it this year and trying to get back under it next year. I don't know. I don't year, which is going to be really hard unless cat takes a pay cut, but boy oh boy mitchell robinson can feel like a luxury sometimes the minutes he plays and all that he's really really good it's interesting though that portland was the team that was in on him yeah time lord they're out now um but he'll still have suitors for sure as he should yeah i think this one is vital not just in a keep the good like the good energy going and bring back the championship team but you're right like they are kind of compromised without him structurally like he's so important to them in terms of his rebounding is so important to them in terms of like the weight the specific way he spells cat while challenging teams in totally different ways that's not something i ever turn my nose up at and if all it's going to take you is more money and decreased flexibility like you just keep mitchell robinson and you figure out the rest later i agree um and that just brings us to the last sort of major item of the day and i'm not talking about the mets giving up it inside the park home run on the first batter of the game the other day just the most embarrassing thing um this is a little one but it's interesting tim hardaway jr signed with the heat tonight one year six and a half million dollars so they dipped into their mid-level exception they brought back our guy simone fontechio hey big tech um off the bench they are now like i don't know i'll just ballpark it like 10 million under the first apron in that they are hard capped there because of the honest trade which means norman powell is definitely out there's a lot of people out there that are out there that are out there that are there's no norm powell return uh that's happening and so he becomes an interesting i don't know what his home is i think he has a home i just don't know what it is i mean could is there still room for him to be a piston potentially sure i guess the pistons have a ton of flexibility um and so that this is where we are then with the the heat we need to redo the heat depth chart post the honest trade and all this because norm powell was sort of wrongly i think penned in as a starter and now he's like not there i would put their starting lineup as davion mitchell pella larson andrew wiggins janice bam makes sense which leaves me off the bench drew smith tim hardaway jr fontechio jovich portis obviously i can stagger minutes um and wiggins by the way came back on a opted in and then signed a two-year deal for much less money it appears that he was making um and then i've got myron gardner and kashad johnson possibly in some other pieces to play with and then i've got myron gardner and kashad johnson possibly in some other pieces to play with and then i've got myron gardner and kashad johnson possibly in some other pieces to play with and then i've got myron gardner and kashad johnson possibly in some other pieces to play with and and they'll fill up there's other minimum guys coming and ring chasing guys coming and buyout guys coming is that team good enough no honestly weirdly enough one of the spots that makes me oddly nervous is the drew smith spot where davion mitchell's been really solid for them drew smith is coming off of really the only healthy season he's ever had as a professional basketball player and even then i think he's okay and this is a team that i think could really use a little bit of guard flexibility pella larson a great connector a really good fluid player for their system makes a ton of sense but like i will i would feel better about them if they had one more guard option i felt really solid about and they just do not have that right now tim hardaway jr doesn't do it for you coming off a borderline six minute a year campaign he was quite good but i'm i think i'm speaking more in like a ball handling capacity than just a pure kind of like gunner shooter i think he's a good get for them yeah there's more coming to me like drew smith simone fontechio as much as we love him rub and jovich were rendered by eric spolstra unplayable in games that mattered in the play in games and all that he just decided you guys aren't good enough to be on the floor so that's three of the five guys that we just said we're coming off the bench for the heat we're very recently rendered unplayable well can i can i push back on that point given the change in circumstance like is that it is that any different in a world where yannis is going downhill 20 times a game where all of a sudden a simone fontechio is like okay this is a different thing than you know putting putting him around the blender system we already had yeah that's a very fair point um i just like penciling them in as rock solid bench contributors on like a team with championship aspirations is i i kind of and i've always been high on jovich clearly a higher on jovich than spolstra is because he doesn't play him um and portis the defensive decline has been pretty real he's still a really good shooter on long twos and threes um i'm interested to see if they play him with bam and yannis together which is a kind of look that milwaukee did not do much of but their version involved brooke lopez who's obviously much slower a foot and less switchable than bam and yannis are so i think that's worth looking at uh and i think they'll still obviously um do some things but it's it's a team that you know you you make this trade for your team and you're not going to be able to win the championship i'm not really sure i see it uh yet but especially like the east is every playoff series in the east is going to be hard like being a top six team in the east is going to be hard yeah i don't see it yet either but i do think they are close enough that you can see the gaps in the rotation and think okay if they could just swing a trade for this kind of player if they can just get it was wing shooting honestly and i think tim hardaway jr certainly helps with that simone fontekio if he plays bring him back helps with that god knows they needed to keep who just as a two-way guy is really critical for them but if they can get one more big they trust in big time games and one more ball handler they trust to be a real rotation player i think it's coming together in a pretty compelling way i stick by what i said right after the honest trade despite my concerns about their viability as a real true blue title contender yet anyway i still think the risk was worth it because the present day situation was going nowhere and i'm not sure if it's worth it but i think it's worth it i think it's worth it because it's not sure what other star was going to become available in the near future who was younger than janice as good as janice fit them better than janice so i get i think the opportunity cost was a little bit less painful for them given that one potential path just staying the course was not going to lead to anything real until they found another star down the line so i i think it ultimately is worth it i think there'll be a good team it's just hard for me to see like four playoff greatness um i think it might be tough i one thing i do want to hit though because i feel like when we talk about the fit with janice a lot of the focus is on okay what are the ways this is going to be difficult or challenging or spatially complicated that's all going to be there him and bam in particular like they're gonna have to figure it out bam is gonna have to be probably an even better shooter in some ways or else they're gonna have to put him in different spots on the floor it's also been a minute since bam has had a real non-tyler hero style star that makes his life easier and his job for the heat has been make everyone else's life easier like right move around the floor facilitate these guys we're gonna put you here we're gonna move you up we're gonna make you a a handoff guy now you're not now you're a spacer i'm i i can't wait to see a version of bam that gets to play off of someone like janice even with all those considerations even with the challenge is just janice attracts so much attention and bam is a guy who if you give him any space if you give him any flow or momentum can do so much with it that part of his game is really gonna thrive even if he's gonna have to figure out how to navigate some tight spaces along the way well as you know i am the driver of the bam wagon so anyone anytime i'm tired of people coming in this podcast rob and telling me about when's bam gonna average 25 points a game bam can't be a guy that you depend just throw the ball to and score like charles barkley and bam can't do this i'm glad to finally have someone who comes on and says hey here's all the things that bam can do pretty well how about everything how about every single thing he's like pretty good at he might not be as great at the scoring part as you want him to be but the heat of ask him to basically play point center jump shooting guy do everything that on offense with this weird personnel around you and we're going to change the system every year and now we don't run any pick and rolls but now we run a ton of pick and rolls now we run none now we play turbo fast and by the way one thing we have to stop doing this hmm in the wake of the honest trade i saw in real not fantasy land like blogs about whoa whoa let's look we know what i mean we are of blogs well the blog i think the blogosphere has changed uh that is quite greatly i saw it written and said on airwaves that the heat had the best offense in franchise history and the number one scoring offense in the nba and they were adding yannis and thus we're going to just blow the doors off everybody how are we still how are we still how are we still how are we still how are we still how is any segment of speaking written verbal basketball media still so dumb as to not just say the heat were an average offense last year their pace was obscuring the fact that they were 13th in offensive efficiency like there people talk about this heat team especially locally like they're this offensive juggernaut they were an average offensive team they'll be better with yannis but like they're not adding yannis to the 2017 warriors and just like come on um i don't know bam thank you for extolling the virtues of bam how about you you're the fulcrum of our entire offense and please guard everybody on defense on every single possession and then score 83 points against the hapless washington wizards super easy stuff to do but yeah i think especially with yannis teammates there's such a focus on like shooting shooting shooting like how do we space the floor for this guy it's clearly a critical component i just think if you are as you alluded to b plus or a minus at basically every other part of the game you do so many things to make winning around yannis and you're not going to win against yannis and you're not going to win against as possible that I'm not worried about that part of the shooting. I just want to see it from the Tim Hardaway and Simone Fontechio types. The last thing on Hardaway is it's like it's not a meaningless loss for Denver. Not at all. Who also declined a team option on Jalen Pickett over the weekend and so have like almost no guards on the team other than Jamal Murray and kind of Christian Brown and maybe Julian Strother. Christian Brown who was bad, like just really bad last season. They didn't draft anyone. Like literally no one. They have Spencer Jones and Peyton Watson among their free agents. They just don't like have a lot of players on their team and they have this Jokic thing which, you know, he's not signing his extension yet. I said the other day, I think it's mostly nothing but not like 100% nothing. It can't just be dismissed as completely nothing. I think he's going to be a nugget for life. He said he's going to be a nugget for life. But this is not one of those situations where everyone knows it makes more sense for whatever financial reason. I just can't wait to see what they're going to do because they have to do something and it has to be a meaningful shake up to their team. And it may also have to involve cutting money because that's just how they operate. And it may also have to involve the assumption that, hey, I know Aaron Gordon is a critical component of our team and I am like Aaron Gordon fanboy number one. I'm not sure I can count on him to be healthy for a full playoffs like ever again. How do I deal with that? It's just like losing Tim. Hardaway junior is not nothing for this team. I also, I understand why you're saying they made also have to cut money as part of that process because that's how they operate. I just don't want to excuse it. Like that is a realist perspective on what the Denver Nuggets do, but it also doesn't have to be that way. Like they could pay more. They could invest more in the team. They could not cut corners. That's just what they do. And it, it sucks that that is a part of the calculus, but welcome to Denver Nuggets basketball. I mean, their roster right now is Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Cam. Johnson, presumed salary dumpy. Yes. Still a good player, by the way, like disappointing last year in Denver, but like, I'd like to see it again. I'd like to get a year of comfort. Even as moments in the playoffs to Christian Brown, Jonas Valanciunas, non-guaranteed contract may play in Europe next season. According to some reports, probably cut Zeke Najee somehow still not traded Julian Strother, Daron Holmes. That's it. That's their whole roster right now. Time to build out a team around, you know, one of the best players. Of his generation, three-time MVP finals MVP, but they did win a championship. And it's, it's good that you got one. They got the one and it, it hadn't gone great since then, but I agree with you on Jokic. And frankly, like, this is something you should do. If you're a player in his position, there are a couple of ways that you can really leverage your power to put pressure on an organization, to build around you in the ways that you might like. And I don't know if you're how, if you're Nicole Jokic, how could you look at the Denver Nuggets and say, this is good enough for me to just sign up site on site. And I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but I think it's, it's, it's a good thing to do, but I think it's, it's a good thing to do, but I think it's a good thing in a year or two years. Like you want to see movement. You want to see growth. You want to see not only the Peyton Watson's brought back, but some creative, like management of the cap and creative management of the roster in terms of turning these into players that make sense for whatever the next version of the team is going to be. They're just not there right now. Like this, this can't be enough. Let's wrap real quickly. We gave the Clippers present and future a little bit of short shrift. Because it's really a total start over for them. Like, I don't think Brandon Ingram is going to be a long-term Clipper. He might play the year out, but I would assume they'll sniff around offers for him. And we're down to Darius Garland, Derek Jones, Jr. Brooke Lopez is still here. Chris Dunn is still here. They just resigned Kobe Sanders on a four year, 12 ish million dollar deal, which I like Grady Dick. They just acquired, I mean, Lopez and Derek Jones are, you know, whenever they're not part of this. The next great Clippers team, let's say, uh, and Keaton Wagler, they just drafted number five. Um, I don't, and, and obviously they're going to have all the cap flexibility in the world to chase star free agents going forward with the Inuit dome and Los Angeles and everything that they stand for and all that. I'm waiting for one more name that I don't know what his injury status is, but to me as a core part of their team, Yannick, Yannick, Conan, Niederhazer, like that guy's good. Really good. And they're going to have infinite cap space. The thing about cap space. Um, if we haven't seen teams just like lure the two star free agents together kind of thing in quite a while, and you need to have good players in the door to do it, they don't control their picks in either of the next three years. The 27 is swapped with Oklahoma city. 28 goes to Philadelphia via hardened trade. 29 is a swap with Philadelphia via the same trade. Now they have all these extra picks that are very valuable. It's really a stunning level of like blank slate at this point. I mean, I know Garland has made it all start. But he really has to rehab his value. Yannick, Conan, Niederhazer is, is, is a very, very good prospect. And so is Keaton Wagler. And other than that, I'm like, okay, we'll see what Grady Dick brings you. Kobe Sanders looks like an interesting role player. It's, it's kind of a stunning, like, whew, it's all cleared out now. Yeah. I think we talked about the quiet part of that return to me. The James Harden one is, is really the crown jewel of this sort of like reboot is the way that he was able to come to the Clippers rehabilitation. He was able to take his own career, to be fair, play some really good basketball for them during his stint and turn into the kind of player who they could actually get things for on the way out, gave them an exit ramp that I didn't know existed for the Paul George Kawhi Leonard era. Like the fact that that turned into something that was a real mechanism for forward momentum and improvement. They needed that. They need that really desperately. And to get this full hall of picks that gives you so much to work with, as you try to figure out what to do with all these pieces, it's really all you can ask for to be in this situation. Given aspiration, given the injuries, given Paul George's just like general whole state a visa zoo box is really like the one piece that they elected to move that they probably didn't need to, to refresh. But even then they ended up getting an incredible return for him. It feels really like not that long ago, pre COVID that we all woke up at three in the morning to this just earth shattering earthquake of news. Kawhi and Paul George go to the Clippers and now it's all over and the Raptors are back as a legit. You know, threat to win the East threat to really go on a deep playoff run. We'll see a good deal for them. Rob Mahoney, you got group chat coming up this week before the holiday weekend. What else? We got the prestige TV pod humming along covering Cape fear right now, but I'm going to be honest. My eye is on the NBA. It's so active right now. It's so insane. We got Kawhi Leonard trades just kind of manifesting out of thin air. I have no TV shows to talk about with you. I'm out of TV shows right now, but yeah, it's NBA time. Are you going to? Will I see you in Las Vegas? I think I'm actually going to skip this year and it is heartbreaking to me, but I am one of the few remaining summer league devotees that actually does love being out there in the desert for as long as they'll have me, but just wasn't meant to be for this year's schedule. You will pry my Vegas trip from my cold, dead, my, actually my sweaty, gross hands out in Las Vegas. I love Vegas. I love Vegas in the summer. I might even hit top golf this year, Rob Mahoney. Thanks, bud. I'll see you soon. Listen to Rob on group chat, prestige TV. Talking about art and whatever's going on on television. Severance season three coming in 2031. We'll talk about that when it comes out. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Zach. All right. That's it for this edition of the Zach Lowe show. Thank you to Rob Mahoney. Thank you to Jonathan, Billy, Mike, and Mike on production as always. Thank you to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show right now. As we approach Wednesday morning on the East coast, the plan is probably to come back next week. The holiday weekend. You just never know if something bizarro happens in the NBA. We might be back, but that's the plan. Everyone have a safe and fun 4th of July weekend. If that's the case, we will see you next time on the Zach Lowe show. 21 or over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.com. Org slash chat in Connecticut, or is it MD gambling help.org in Maryland? 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