LaMelo Is Headed to Minnesota! | Real Ones

I Was poppin ruins emergency edition. You know how we doing we supposed to record tomorrow now We're recording today because the Minnesota Timberwolves decided to trade for LeMelo ball Yeah, you heard that right. Yes, I did that was for effect the Minnesota Timberwolves traded for LeMelo ball. Why do they do that? We're gonna get into the why and all of those things with myself and Howard back and then we're gonna talk about just the Cuberus of NBA pre-agency the Austin Reeves deal Where's Jalen Brown gonna go? All the other things that have permeated throughout the league over the last week since we last recorded Yeah, really really fun episode. We're trying to figure this out. I'm still just Plexed at Minnesota. They're just decision-making skills over the last five years Where's aunt gonna go? It's gonna happen. I feel where all my pot and is on the shores of Blake, Minnetonka All right, enough of the intro cliff Victoria played a theme music What's poppin ruins Logan Murdock here? How are mother fucking back there? We planned to pot on Friday morning, but the Minnesota Timberwolves had other plans for us The Minnesota Timberwolves just traded for LeMelo ball and I will get to the trade package But I can only describe it as something you do when you are drunk at two in the morning playing 2k and just say fuck it All right, so let's with that being said this are the terms of the deal The hornets will send LeMelo ball and Josh Green to Minnesota in exchange for Nas Reed an Protected first-round pick in 2033 three first-round pick swaps in 20 28 29 and 20 30 and three second-round picks in 29 32 and 33 Now this has also been like a fire set a part of a fire sale and Reinvention that the Timberwolves have been doing they just basically dumped Julius Randall to Brooklyn for some scraps and Now they are reshaping their roster around Anthony Edwards an all-world talent and LeMelo ball in all-world roller coaster Throughout his career. I don't know I know how I feel about the deal Howard the deal looks crazy on its face I think it's gonna look even crazier when the season starts there's so many Ways we can go here, but first off was just think what is your first thoughts on the deal? Is it about what I think or are you a little bit more optimistic for it? My first thought is that This is the worst possible day for us not to have The president of the LeMelo ball fan club Roger Bell on this show. Where are you Roger? He's on the road to Atlanta right now. He's on the road to Atlanta. There will be no one here to defend LeMelo's honor If it's necessary. It may not be necessary. We'll see where this goes. I have no idea where this is going because we were just doing this on the fly I've had very little time to process this in my own head. I mean my first reaction was simply obviously holy shit But I think we all could see at least by the reports last night There were there were like strong rumblings and it was not just one media out that it was it was several But even in hearing that LeMelo ball was potentially available that teams were pursuing him My first thought was simply you know why now and it's one of the questions that we're going to have to get answered in the hours and days and weeks to come because The charlotte horn that I thought about from charlotte's side first They just have their best season in a very long time and that core group of LeMelo with Conconiple a very close runner up for rookie of the year Brandon Miller They've got a really nice core there. They've got a good thing going Charles Lee's got these guys playing defense And they're finally kind of ready to break through they created an identity And this signals to me and the hornets will surely push back on these kinds of interpretations But the sort of signals to me that the hornets didn't actually believe fully in what they had there and or had salary cap apron type concerns as they try to Pay all these guys right You mentioned it the mellows in all world roller coaster always has been And even as he smoothed out some of the rough edges last season there's still those wild moments The one-legged fadeaways and the impossible three-point shots and occasionally just tunnel vision But all that said Minnesota clearly sees a guy who's just incredibly talented and incredibly tall for a point guard beside so you now have this this just huge back court All of Anthony Edwards's you know a Physicality and athleticism all of the mellow balls height and athleticism and playmaking ability I mean for all of the issues about him and his shot selection sometimes. He's also incredibly gifted passer so You have the makings here of an absolute just explosive back court but it comes at the cost of one of their their last Broccoli like they went for being overindexed on the front court to now over indexed on the back court because they also just locked up Iodasun move and that they saved my training ran that was read was like a cultural icon cultural icon Dude could you imagine like there's there's like a vigil probably going on outside target center as we speak Nas read was like Nas read was to to that team what like I don't Josh Hart is to the nicks or something like like this this guy who just You you Anthony Edwards is the engine in Minnesota Jalen bruts the engine in New York But what you think of the guys who who feel like the heart and soul of a team sometimes Um, yeah, that was Nas read so I always thought it was a Nasr Julius Randall thing or a Nasr or cat thing before they traded cat for Randall And so when they offloaded Randalls, I okay cool more kind of read you know, shuffling the books and freeing up some money for Iodasun move fine You've got Nas read you could just plug right in oops Like so hey you could plug them right into its raid Yeah, so that like there's a lot of pieces of this that I Um, I can kind of see the outline of the the rationale in Minnesota and in Charlotte But I'm still like trying to figure out exactly What the the full vision here is and how and how they're going to backfill This episode of the ringer NBA show is presented by Ferrero the world is watching go all in for your team this summer with Ferrero Enter for the chance to win a range of prizes just by purchasing your favorite treats Like Kinder Bueno with an irresistible chocolate wafer and creamy hazelnut filling Or Kebler chips deluxe cookies with indulgent and rich chocolatey chunks or Ferrero Rocher squares with crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate wrapped in iconic gold Go all in by any two Ferrero brands and you could win one million dollars official rules apply learn more at go all in and win.com I'll tell you what from a observer like just from a observer standpoint from 3000 miles away I can tell you why Charlotte did the deal Charlotte saw what happened in Orlando to end the season and saw there was a ceiling on that team and then they all of a sudden They get a call from Minnesota saying hey, we're gonna get you all these picks for LeMelo who who kind of There's been a hot and cold relationship with LeMelo to even say it lightly even this season as they have been successful and even yeah Like the success that he had in the playing game against Miami when we talked about that right after right the highs and lows of that And there I honestly don't think that that is sustainable for a team that is trying to ascend in the way that they are Hornets are trying to ascend and you know there were rumblings in the beginning of the season about LeMelo may be wanting out and um You know just the back and forth in the clashing between those two entities and in a new coaching staff that wants to make its imprint I could definitely see the team just being like Let's just get this uh Let's get this problem off of our hands and not to mention like LeMelo has a crazy contract like you're locked in well like three more years with him if you're in Minnesota, right? Like if something goes bad This this could go really really bad and we'll talk about the ramifications of that in a second, but strictly as Charlotte standpoint Howard I see why they would do this they're not all in on him and they have proven that they are not in on LeMelo ball And you give me a boatload of picks to get him and you get to give me off of that contract For a guy that probably fits better of an aroster and we could help build the team or he could continue to build a team around Cochiniple and Brandon Miller and guys that we actually think are going to be um long-term guys. Hell yeah I'll do it like I see you can make a case if you're Charlotte like this is the deal that we should do at this particular time Well, and they also you know acquired Kobe white Earlier this year and they're now going to be locking him up So like that you could you could see like they they set themselves up for this They brought in a guy who initially was there to supplement the back court and their depth And now they can just plug him in as the new starter in LeMelo's place now Kobe white is not LeMelo ball for for good and bad I suppose But you're you're not putting yourself in a position where it's like you're having to scramble now To go find somebody to man the point guard position Kobe white's very capable and a very good young player Uh It's I think I'm more concerned on the Minnesota side of the backfill because No Randall no no Nas read are you playing small with with uh jade McDaniel's now um There are you are you finding somebody cheap and free agency It's interesting not for nothing like these are both uh, new ownership groups, right? Like Lori and Alex Rodriguez were putting their imprint on I think even the Rudy go bear trade had I think their stamp on it because they were in as minority partners then with the long-term agreement to take over. I think they were really influential in hiring Tim Connelly in the first place who made that deal. And now you've got, um, you know, Rick Schnell and that group who own the Hornets now been in place for a couple of years. Jeff Peterson, their GM, uh, who could come from the nets. He's been in place a couple of years. So you, you have two new-ish ownership groups and a new-ish front office in Charlotte that I think are all kind of trying to, um, you know, remake these rosters and the identity of these teams. And this is the first time since the Hornets drafted the mellow ball that I think they were in a position where they could, you know, make a kind of a clear-headed decision. Like we've had him long enough, we've got a new, again, new-ish coach, new-ish front office, new-ish ownership group. And they have now decided we have the core of a great identity going forward with Brandon Miller and Conckoniple. We don't need to ride the mellow ball roller coaster as you put it earlier anymore. And Minnesota, look, back-to-back conference finals. And then they backslide just a little bit this season. They traded cap because of, of second apron concerns. They would have kept him in perpetuity, I think. But, you know, they had, that was a deal they had to make and to try to give themselves some depth as well, getting Randall and, and even Chenzone, now no Randall, now no Nas Reed. They're basically just deciding, this is it now. Um, Rudy Gaubert is our defense. Hold on, hold on, can we, can we just like bask in what this, what you just said, that this is it move is trading all of our picks for a mellow ball. All right, let me back, all right, let me hold on on the poor thing. Let me, let me just hold up on the picks thing for a second here because the full package of picks, it's, it's one unprotected pick in 2033, which is a lot of years in the future. Um, the three first round swaps in 2029 and 30 swaps only matter if you're worse than the team, you traded the swap to, are the Minnesota timber wolves going to be worse and the, and therefore higher in the draft order than the Charlotte. There's a chance, there's a chance right now with the current makeup. There's always a chance, Logan, for sure. But I think Minnesota is betting on and Edwards and Lamello ball and whoever's around them go bare for now. He's getting up there in years. Being better for the next few seasons, right? 2030 is four years out. So we have the 2627 season to burn first, but three more seasons after that. Are you better than the Charlotte Hornets during that span of time or at least for a chunk of it? So those three swaps may never mean amount to anything. And even then you're, you're, you're so protected because you still have picks. They're, they're swaps. You're getting the Hornets pick in that case. So I don't, I may have issues with, or concerns with, uh, pairing Lamello ball and Edwards or pairing Lamello ball and anybody because I've often been a Lamello skeptic and I think you're further out on that one than I am. But I'm not concerned with with what they gave up. Nas Reedus is an essential player for them, but Lamello ball is a much higher ceiling talent. Unquestionably, they give it one actual pick or first round pick. The rest are swaps and second rounders. I don't feel like the investment is too much. I do. Um, you, you would think any investment was too much. That part is true. But the other thing that I'm saying is, okay, so anything Edwards has a contract up until the 2829 season, right? Now right now you are auditioning. He is the latest superstar that you are as a team auditioning for to make him want to resign. If I'm an, and I'm, and listen, I'm not an and I don't know what's in his head right now. But if I'm an, I'm thinking damn dude, you just traded away. A franchise pillar in Nas Reed, a, a, a, a, a community pillar in Nas Reed, who was my homie. You traded away, um, Carl Anthony Towns who I just saw won a championship a few weeks ago. You're trading away all of this talent. And what are we getting back, right? We're getting scraps and you're putting a lot more, um, responsibility on my shoulders to be the greatest player just for us to stay afloat. You are actively taking away talent off of this roster to and putting more responsibility on me, but responsibility on me to stay afloat. And the mellow ball thing can like be good, but it also can be really good. I don't look at a team with a mellow ball and the rest of that roster and say, damn, that's going to be a consensus team that is going to compete with the Oklahoma City thunders of the world. That's going to compete with the San Antonio Spurs of the world. That's going to even compete with the Denver Nuggets of the world. I'm starting to clip before this. I'm not ready to go the area yet, but Cliff was talking about how he pushes them out of the, that, this trade right here pushes them out of the Western conference race. And I, I was talking to him on the phone from before this. And I was like, I can't necessarily disagree with you, but like, that is where we're at right now. It is, it is addition by subtraction from a roster standpoint. And how does that get back to the picks, you might ask? Well, how does it get back to the picks? How does it get back to the picks, you might ask? Okay. There is a world here where this thing goes catastrophically terrible next season. And the seasons, it's soon after that. And there's a world where Anthony Edwards is like, man, F this, I see the riding on the wall. I see what we're doing here. And I don't like it. Get me the hell up out of here. All right, that's so though. I listen, but I'm and that has been there have been rumblings around the league about like, okay, what is is Anthony Edwards, the next guy to leave and we both know that, right? And so this isn't helping that case in my opinion. So back to the picks, say if, if everything goes to shit and you have to trade Anthony Edwards, which I mean, I'm sure you'll get picks back, but we'll see because it could be a yada situation and the picks could be, it could be really, really hard to move him and get like a Kevin Durant level circa 2022 level hall. We'll see. But you're not putting yourself in a position to one, make your star happy. And if your star is not happy, you're going to leave. And then you're stuck with Lamello ball and a whole bunch of pick swaps. And the, the, the, the hornets who theoretically could be a better team are taking advantage of that. It's a shit show going on right now. That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm saying the picks swaps mean everything because there is a world where this two Minnesota thing all goes to shit. And then the hornets are reaping the rewards of that. I mean, if I'm Tim Connelly, I'm getting fired in that scenario anyway, and I don't care. So at that point, um, about the Timberwolves, man, what's up with the fans? Yeah. The fans dog to do whatever room for this team. Jesus. Hey, all of all real quick, all of these owners, all of these front office people, all these players, they are going to be fine. The fans, they were like, come on, man. What are you doing, dog? Yeah, I know. Um, I'm being facetious, obviously. Um, listen, yeah, there's a worst case scenario here. There's always a worst case scenario. The worst case scenario of not doing anything Logan and not getting Anthony Edwards help in terms of scoring and playmaking and just somebody else to occupy the defense is that he was going to get so frustrated that he'd won out even sooner than that, which is why you and I were hearings. Even if they were like low murmurings, there were murmurings. And this is what happens in this league. I know some fans hate it, especially if it's your guy who's the subject of the murmurings. Milwaukee Bucks fans were really annoyed with all of us for the last several years. But guess what, folks, those murmurings actually meant something. And here we are. He's gone now. We were right. Sorry. But, you know, the, the murmurings happened for a fucking reason because people around the league hear that a guy might be discontent and they start loading up trying to get him. That's how this works. And was Anthony Edwards kind of teetering in that, that middle world where it was like, he's got, you know, he's, he's still firmly there, but there's a little bit of that. You need to show me something soon. We've kind of maxed out here. I'm a guy who's perennially considered potentially an MVP candidate, a top, you know, 10-ish player. But I don't have anything to show for it. And I'm tired of getting double teamed, right? That was one of the things we kept hearing. Anthony Edwards wants somebody else to handle some of the load here. They really didn't have that. Even when you had cat or then downgrading to Randall, even with even chance of coming along, you just didn't have anybody else to really carry the offensive load and Mike Conley, like the fact that they had to, like, how many times they brought Mike Conley back, like 15 times or something that you need, like 40-year-old Mike Conley at point guard was always a little bit of a troubling sign. And obviously diminishing returns there. So did you need to go all out to get Lamello Ball to fill that position? Was there, was there a middle ground somewhere was between a Mike Conley and Lamello Ball? Maybe, but I mean, listen, and this is where we really need Roger here to balance out, especially you today, but maybe me as well. I'm going to have to play the part of Roger Bell. Lamello Ball is stupid fucking talented. Like, he's just incredibly talented. He's a 6-7 point guard who can hit deep threes, who can pull off incredible shots from amazing angles and is a great passer. And he is going to from day one, take a lot of pressure off Anthony Edwards and keep defenses honest. That's what's going to happen. The back end of that is real quick. You are chasing two teams in the spurs and thunder that while their strengths are slightly different, slightly different, they are both loaded in the front court. Like, they've both got a lot of talent up front. And the Timber Wolves are now just like, I've sent out everybody. They're down to just Rudy Gober and I don't, is the young French kid ready to like step into a major role that they drafted a year ago? Baron J. I'm not even gonna, I think that's it, Baron J. - So, I got a couple of points on this. You were right to say that the Minnesota Timber rules need guard play to compete with the San Antonio Spurs of the world and the Oklahoma City Thunder of the world. But I got news for you. You know what J. Dub is doing right now? Look at his chops. He's like, "Oh, wait, I get to get Lavella Ball to switch, "potentially in a playoffs, a word, a cool bring your ass over here." Wait, Dylan Harper, whatever thing we saw over the summer, he's looking at Phil, like, "Oh, wait, I get Lavella Ball "on a switch and I get to go to the cup on him." Oh, cool, awesome. Second point is, you're right, Lavella Ball has all of the talents. He can pass the ball, he can score. But you know what he's yet to prove? That he can do that on a high level in the postseason. He's never done it before. So, and that's what they need right now, right? There's other people that could have, that they could, Jaylen Brown is sitting right there. Well, they were like, to that point, John Krasinski is reported the great John Krasinski from the athletic, long time beat red or covering the Timberwolves. God, he noted, you know, they poked around on Jaylen Brown, but the asking price was going to be a lot higher. And again, the price for Lavella Ball just now really wasn't that high. The potential price to your point about the swaps is there in the catastrophic scenario, but they didn't really have to send out much. Nas Reed, you sent out one rotation guy, one absolute, you know, one unprotected first-round pick, and then a bunch of swaps and second-rounders. It's not that big of an investment. I admire Tim Connelly's ambition here. The guy is not afraid to swing for the fences. He got crushed over the Rudy Gobert deal and all these years later, I think it looks pretty damn good. They did go to back-to-back conference finals. This has been their most successful, like, three, four-year run in franchise history. You can't argue with that part of it. So there's a party. If I were Timberwolves fan, I think this would be one of those, you know, trust the Connelly process kind of things, where it's like, all right, I'm skeptical, I'm worried. I don't like losing Nas Reed, but this team has made some pretty good bets. - Yeah, I don't know about that one, champ. I'm going to some group chats with a lot of Timberwolves fans. They are not taking that route. I'll tell you that right now. Let's stick on the ownership for a second. We talk about new ownerships in both places, right? And I think you're starting to see a smart way to go about it with new ownership and Charlotte, right? Just be patient, get assets from other people. And then you see the Timberwolves who historically like, and a perfect world, especially if you see, you know, the new apron coming, especially when they traded for Rudy Go Bear, 'cause that was right after the Warriors title, where there was such a backlash on teams that went over the salary cap and didn't go through the draft, right? And then that summer, you'd trade all of your draft picks for Rudy Go Bear. And a perfect world, if you have a Anthony Edwards or that type of top pick, you want to build gradually. You want to build through other memes through the draft. Keep it cheap, and then have to pay on the back end, just like Oklahoma City did, just like how San Antonio is doing right now. What Timberwolves did is say, "Hey, man, we're gonna push the button really, really fast." And we're just gonna figure it out. And I think that that's what they're keeping on doing. And what happens is, you don't really have any, not to say an organic rise 'cause they did have an organic rise, but you can't keep the roster cheap enough as the team grows. So you're constantly having to make moves on the fly. And there's not that much continuity there with the Timberwolves. So yes, you had another season of Anthony Edwards having to figure out a new roster, right? You might be able to get away with that in an Eastern conference where it's so wide open, but in the Western conference, it's this is just gonna be a really hard thing. So when you look at the new ownership group with the Timberwolves right now, and then you compare that to what's going on in Charlotte, what is this move saying about Minnesota? Like what is this saying about both front offices and both new ownership groups in your eyes? - Well, I do just wanna note that since they got Rudy Gober, the win totals, 42, so a little modest that first year, but 56, 49, 49, like they have put themselves in a position. Yeah, there are different ways to do this. And as you note, like the organic build would be, you get Anthony Edwards and then you just keep adding guys. And they had a lot of homegrown talent there. A lot of it is now gone through these deals. And chiefly carl entity towns, and it is fair to say that investing in Rudy Gober, as they did, effectively cost them towns. And effectively cost them their entire front court now, you could say, because again, towns for Randall, Randall now a salary dump, and I was read gone. But like, it's Rudy Gober at the time they got 'em, we always said, he's a walking top 10 defense by himself. That's what he does for you. And he's still capable of making you, you know, whether it's elite, just slightly sub-elite, he is that anchor. And Anthony Edwards is your offensive anchor, but Anthony Edwards can't do it alone. And finding other shot creators, or guys who can create and score at a super high level, is not that easy either Logan. And they weren't gonna do it through the draft once you start winning 49 games a season. And besides that, the draft picks were all out the window. So where else were you gonna go? Where else were you gonna get it? And the system is so tight now that every move you make, it used to be like you maybe could add somebody without giving up a ton. Once you've hit a certain level in this league now, you can't get without giving. Like, and it gets harder and harder. And so then you have deals like this one, where effectively the bulk of the outgoing assets are swaps because they don't even have picks to trade. I think in Minnesota you've got an ownership group that really wants to put its stamp on things. They're new, there's a swagger there because A-Rod is A-Rod, right? Like how many people even know that like Mark Laurie is the other owner because Alex Rodriguez just casts such a-- - That's by design by the way, that's by design. - Which is fine, but like most fans can't name most NBA owners, but it's hard to miss that Alex Rodriguez is one of the owners of the Minnesota Temporals. There's a swagger there, there's an Anthony Davis swagger, Anthony Davis, Anthony Evans swagger that was already built into this team. Like you can't, first of all, you can't afford to sit still. And in the Hornets case, it's just different. The Hornets are on a different timeline. They're just now starting to figure out who they are. That group I think has actually done a really smart, methodical job of, they didn't come in guns blazing. They came in and held onto the Millele Ball for the first couple of years and assessed where he was at, where what they were getting at a brand of Miller. Again, New Front Office, New Coach, all within the last couple of years and then they finally hit this summer where they were, "Okay, we've had a little bit of a breakthrough here, "but it was like a breakthrough that fizzled really quickly. "Is this really our core going forward? "We know enough about the Millele Ball now "to decide, is this the guy that we want to keep building around "or is there a better path?" And that maybe have to do with both the cap and the Millele Ball's makeup. And they clearly decided, and this is what would worry me if I were a Minnesota Timberwolves fan or the Timberwolves themselves. The Hornets saw enough of the Millele Ball to decide it was time to move on from him. - Yep. - And not a great sign. Now, if the rationale is gonna be purely about the salary cap, maybe that's the out, maybe that's the public rationale. But if you think this guy's actually capable of becoming an all MBA type player, Perennial All-Star, Fringe All MBA, is as great as his hype is, then you keep him. You find a way to keep him. You don't find a way to move him. And again, I don't think the return is so great that you could say, "Oh, it was an offer we couldn't refuse." Like, I think it's very fair, again, through a skeptical lens of Millele Ball, I think it's very fair to conclude that the Charlotte Hornets decided it was time to get out of the Millele Ball business. And that was the motivation for this deal for them. - I agree with you. That point you just made, I was thinking about that all morning since the trade went out at like 6 a.m., soon as I woke up and I'm like, "Oh, God." But I think the one of the reasons why I was so skeptical about it in general from Minnesota's timber will stand point is that, yeah, man, people forget, Millele Ball was the franchise in Charlotte. Was everything that Anthony Edwards was, two Minnesota to start, and I'm not talking about game, I'm just talking about how they perceived him and Charlotte. He was that, Millele was that. And for them to give up on him this easily and timing is everything. For them to give up on him right at the precipice as they're supposed to have success, tells you a lot about how Charlotte thinks about him. And that's why I'm just so skeptical on the deal. Well, Minnesota is like, yeah, you do have to pivot, but like you have to have a balance of being patient and getting the right guy when, if you're Minnesota, and I'm just not convinced this is the right guy, right? Like there's also a world where you can do nothing and go to the second round again with the team that you currently have, right? And have a full training camp with the Sumo, right? Maybe we better off that way, still have a balance of size and scoring. The Sumo Show, you could score in a postseason setting and continue to try to build off of that. I just don't think Lamello is the guy to help you get over the hump in the Western Conference considering what you had to give up, right? now is a really good basketball player, right? You still have to compete with, I don't think that we saw what happened, the conference finals of the Western conference showed us the high level basketball it's going to take to get out of the West. I don't think that this move necessarily puts Minnesota in the conversation to get into that level of basketball. I don't think that they're that good of a team anymore. I really don't. I think this was a level of subtraction. I don't think that they're, I'm sorry. And I know it's one player, I will. I don't, and you know, we have a running gag here that if I'm wrong, we apologize. And maybe I'll apologize later if I'm wrong. But right now as I sit, I don't think they're a better basketball team with a little ball on it. I'm sorry, I just, I simply don't think so. - Roger's not even on this call and he's already mad at you. I can feel it. He's going to be mad at you than me for once. I mean, listen to the point, the hornets in the Lamello ball era. And he was, he's been hurt a lot and that's part of it too, but hey, that's also a concern. 44 wins last year. Cool, great, awesome. They finally hit mediocre. Before that, 19 wins, 21, 27, 43. Like this has not been a stellar team. And you can say some of that is Lamello being hurt. You can say some of that is supporting cast, but a great player is supposed to elevate everybody. I do think on that note, by the way, one thing that concerned me on the again, back to the temporal side of this, John Krasinski had a blind quote from a wolf source on social media this morning saying, this is a wolf source on the addition of Lamello ball. Quote, he's going to make everybody better. That was the thing that was missing. That could be read as an indictment of your current superstar, by the way, that Anthony Edwards was not making everybody better. Now, Anthony Edwards is more of a, a just pure score, not a playmaker. I think he is, you know, a solid playmaker, but like if you say that that's the thing that was missing, there's a way to read that that's not flattering toward Anthony Edwards. I think Lamello ball does have the ability to make everybody better. If he's willing to play that role to its hilt and not get too obsessed with a low percentage high degree of difficulty shots all the time, I'm not sure they're worse off though, Logan. They have traded this stability and higher efficiency scoring of, you know, Randall, Nasrid, basically for the high highs and potentially low lows of Lamello ball. Like it's a, it's, and you've traded size for guard play. How that works out, I don't know. I'm not sure that this sell any worse off. I don't know if they're any better off either. Maybe they've raised their ceiling, but that's going to depend on what comes next. And this is the other thing we, we're so, we're 30 minutes into the pod before I did my usual stipulation, but here it comes. It's June 25th. No, it's June 25th. That teams are going to have more moves to make. When people are judging the honest deal, it's the first thing I always say. Like let's see what Miami does next. Yeah, they've got a lot of holes to fill in that roster. No, you wouldn't want to roll into the season this way, but good news is they don't have to. Same thing with Minnesota now. You've offloaded Randall and Reed. Is there a way to backfill in the front court a little bit to make up for what you just lost in getting the mellow ball? The other thing that I would like to ask, and I will ask Roger next time we see him this, who's going to be the adult in this room? Like, right, like, we even talked about would look, like they're competing as long as Anthony Edwards is on the roster. They're competing with Denver, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City. All of them got adults in the room. I don't see that in Minnesota. And that's what you need to get over the hump down the stretch of seasons. I'm sorry. I really tend. And every metric I think they've regressed. I'm sorry. I really do. They've regressed in terms of the size on their roster, the adults in their locker room, and the deep from defensive standpoint. I think they'd be really good in the Eastern Conference. I'm out on the straight, I'm sorry. I mean, we'll see what happens, but I'm with you. They do have two adult free agents. Can they, can, if they recite Mike Connelly and Kyle Anderson, does that, does that satisfy your concern for adults? It depends on if Lamello respects him, which I don't know if he will. I don't know, I don't know that answer. But that was another thing that was that was the hindrance for him actually being a franchise player and Charlotte. He wasn't, he wasn't the adult in the room. And you're expecting him, you're paying him like the adult in the room in Minnesota. And I just, I, we've seen this, we've seen this already happen before. Like the proof is in the pudding. I get the age and everything like that. But, you know, I am, I'm low on the straight. I'm sorry. Every time I think about it, I just do not think this is a good trade whatsoever. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, my last thought and not to be too glib about this, but seriously, like get, I hope this deal includes a stipulation that Lamello has to get a driver inapolis. Like don't press it. I don't work as I, that's a thing, that's a thing no, man. He's just speaking to the immaturity part of this. Like that's a serious thing. Yeah, I don't know why they don't get drivers. But the thing is like we're having all these question marks that we didn't have with previous rosters. That's why it takes like, you can't just see like, oh, the numbers, oh, he scores well, he's great. He's all of these things. You have to go in totality when you bring a guy into your locker room. For sure. And I think that from what we see with the Timberwolves and Connolly and just an overall, the overall direction of where they're going and the moves that they make, it's all off of emotion. It's all off of, oh, let's do this. Let's do this. Oh, this looks cool. Okay, let's get this done. There's not a plan. There's not a real plan. And so sorry, Minnesota Timberwolves fans. You guys have been great to me. I love going back and forth with you and my group chat in beyond, but it's tough, man. And I think y'all know this. I think you guys know this. So we'll see what happens, but I'm down on a trade. We got more to discuss. And I wanna get Howard's opinion on a lot more things that happened since we last potted. We're gonna do that after a quick break. And we are back, there's some other stuff that happens since we left that I want thoughts on from the God, Howard, motherfucking back. I'm just gonna throw these things out here. Austin Reeves' extension, how'd you feel about it? - Whoo, boy. You knew he was gonna get paid. So let's start here. Lakers kept Austin Reeves. Good news, that's great. That was the right move. They absolutely needed to lock him up. Did they need to pay him the max? Should they have paid him the max? Is he gonna be worth the max? And with he and Luke are both making the max, where does that leave the rest of your roster because this roster still has a lot of work to be done? That's how I react to it, like literally in order. Keeping Austin Reeves was the right move. You know, undrafted. I think he's like, all the reports that it's like the most money an undrafted player's ever made in a single contract or the, maybe it can't be the first max, but maybe the biggest max. Incredible, like great find by them, great development and Kudos to Austin Reeves for making himself into the player that he's become and Luke clearly wanted him there. That's kind of important too. So great, you've got your one, two punch now, but your one, two punch are both generally negative defenders or at best hold their own for portions of a game. You damn well better build out a great back line now. And I don't think that that's going to be Jackson Hayes and DeAndre 8. So there's just so much, and by the way, they need wing help too, wing defense. So there's a lot that they have to do still. So I guess I'll bring back the June 25th stipulation, which is I will reserve judgment on some level until we see what they do with LeBron, what they do with the rest of their cap room. The good news here just mechanically for people who, I know we all glaze over the second CBA stuff starts becoming the topic, and I'm not gonna go full Bobby marks here 'cause I could not possibly go full Bobby marks if I wanted to, but there's a timing element here. So right now Austin Reeves is just a cap hold. The contract won't actually be on the books until later in July after the July moratorium is over. So in the meantime, they can operate like a team under the cap and use their cap room to sign guys, and then with their over the cap they use the bird rights to give Austin Reeves his max deal. So they still have room to work with here, but some of that may go to LeBron and then they will have that much less to work with. Um, I think I've said it all along. I've been saying this for months. This is a huge, huge summer for the Los Angeles Lakers, for Rob Polenka and the rapidly growing front office that had been understaffed forever and that the new owners are finally insisting on building out. They need a lot of help around their new one, two punch of Luca and Austin Reeves. So I want to see what else they do, but when you lock up that much money and two guys, this is where it becomes a lot more difficult. And, you know, you know, Luca still wants his lob thread slash shot blocker at center. Where are you finding that guy? - He said Jackson Hays is that guy. - EG. - Sure. They've got work to do. They've got a lot of work to do. The thing is we're never in the room for these negotiations, right? Like, it's easy to say, oh, you should have held the line and paid him like X amount less than the max. Give yourself a little bit more wiggle room. You know, who else was gonna give him that kind of money? Besides, you've got his bird rights. You can give him the fifth year in the bigger raises. You've got the advantage. You shouldn't worry about the Brooklyn Nets or whoever else was gonna come at him hard. It's easy for us to say 'cause we're not in the room. You don't know where the actual line is, where that would have had his agents walk, right? We don't exactly know how much Brooklyn would have given him or another team potentially. So, I get it. There are market forces at work here. Sometimes you pay a guy more than he's worth. Is he actually like a max player in the way we talk about max players? Could he carry an entire team by himself? Probably not. But there are a lot of guys in this league making the max as- - There's one of my five guys in the league that acts like fit that criteria. - Exactly. Maybe 10, and Austin Reeves is not on that list, but again, market forces. Sometimes you pay a guy what it takes to keep him. And so, you know, not ideal, but I respect it. - By and large, it seemed like they're gonna be the same team that we saw last year this year. I mean, if they just brought it back with Aiden and Smart and everybody else, then yeah. - I think they're probably gonna run it back this year. It just would seem like that's what the wins seem to be going, right? Like, they feel like LeBron is gonna be back. They're like, they're gonna do the farewell tour and they're gonna figure out. The thing that I find much interesting in this is Luka Donchitz, right? Because on one hand, yes, you do have to play, you have to put the best team around him because of the talent that he has. There's also Luka Donchitz who is saying like, "Yo, man, you see my history and you've seen the teams that have taken the highest tights, really high heights, the types of teams, the 22 team that I took to the Western Conference Finals, the 24 team that I took to the NBA Finals. I say I'll let it say, he seems like a guy that says, "Hey, man, just get the guys that I like and I'll bring us to the Promised Land," right? Like, that seems to be his attitude towards things and it seems to be his attitude towards Austin Reeves, right? He is the new dog in town. It's very simple here. Luka Donchitz wanted Austin Reeves to be his running mate. So Austin Reeves is gonna be his running mate, right? And I don't see another, and also who's the other guy that you're gonna go out there and trade for? That is going, that you pair with Luka at this particular point, right? Because that's what we're thinking about here, right? And it's a really hard balance when you got LeBron in the weeds who was a league face, all-time history book face that you got to do right by, right? That's why this trade was just so nuanced and so all over the place because there was just so many tentacles from it that you have to navigate. And there's a new ownership group, but I think about Luka Donchitz is saying like, this is my guy and this is who I want to play with and we'll figure it out from there. And you know, that's why NBA players aren't GM's. But you also have to take that into account, right? That's a balance that you have to take into account. All right, below the alternative was you low-ball him or come up short, he walks, he signs four-year max with the nets or whatever, and where are you now? Like where's that money going? Who are you signing or acquiring instead of Austin Reeves? Who are you getting to be Luka's running mate if not him? And that's what they were facing. - Who are the guys? - Yeah. - Who are the guys? I don't know who the guys are out there did like to sign and this isn't a great variety's class, you know? - But that's why you do it. - They're great for it, right? - Yeah. - That's why you lock it? - No, we're on the same page. - Okay, I know, I thought you were questioning it. I thought you were saying, like-- - No, no, no, no, no, no, this is, we're at-- - I'm saying we're absolutely on the same page here. Okay, other things that have happened since we last spotted. - Where the hell is Jalen Brown going to play next year? (laughing) - I have not been playing with the trade machine, so I have not found him a new home. I don't have a configuration here, but like, listen, I don't wanna over read into Brad Stevens's comments on draft night because Brad Stevens is so great at saying a lot without saying anything. - Can I read the quote or a quick? Can I read the quote or a quick? - Yeah, by all means. - Okay, all right. - Jalen Brown, one of them, yeah. - One of them. Jalen Brown is a big part of us. He's a big part of us. I'm never gonna predict the future. Every indication, everything I think about over the last few years has been building around those guys. You never know, but at the same time, the one thing I make very clear is how valued he's always been. He's been amazing. He's been an amazing teammate and a great person to be around. Let me juxtapose that with a conversation that I had with Brad Stevens in 2023, who are a piece that I was doing on Jalen Brown. This is what Brad said to me in regards to the three way call that Jason Tatum himself and Jalen Brown had in the wake of the trade rumors of 22, right? And he says, you just have to have a direct conversation. And you just have to be able to say, this is what's real, this is what's not real. Obviously you and Jason are the two guys that we built the whole roster around. And every expectation is for us to come and compete together and try to win two games better than we were last year, last year being the finals for them in '22. And I'm sensing a pattern here where Brad Stevens says one thing in the Celtics are doing another thing behind the scenes. It's really frustrating to see this not only as an observer, but if I were in the shoes of Jalen Brown, where you're supposed to be a franchise guy and you feel lied to all the time, I don't know if you can come back from that, but Brad Stevens, I don't think is helping himself out at all. I don't know what he could have said better, but maybe just stop dangling one of your franchise guys, the only for sure guy on your roster at this particular point in terms of health and stats, even though he could have been better in the postseason, but I just feel like design a way to treat your stars. I mean, who hired Brad Stevens back in the day? Danny H. - Danny H. - Danny's baby. - One of the all time cold blooded executives in this league, right? - I think the nice people call it shrewd. - I don't think he would actually object to the cold blooded part of this. Like, he makes the hard decisions, right? Whether that was trading Pearson Garnett, whether that was trading Isaiah Thomas or not paying Isaiah Thomas, or both, I guess, but yeah, trading him after everything that Isaiah Thomas had meant there. Brad Stevens, like, I don't know how much he would consider age as a mentor. He was a coach under him, not a front office guy under him, but that seems to be the way of things with the Celtics. And Jalen Brown has said enough, we don't need to really get all that stuff, but he has said enough and hinted at enough that I'm sure it's made the Celtics at least a little bit uneasy. And after you've already put him in, you can't deny. He can't stand up there and say like, "Oh no, we didn't have any discussions about Yannis." And you can't talk about that anyway, probably, but he can't deny that Jalen Brown would have gone out in a Yannis deal. So you're at a point now where everybody kind of knows what the score is. Jalen Brown knows what the Celtics have tried to do and are maybe still trying to do not with Yannis, but with other teams and other targets. The Celtics surely know where Jalen Brown's head is in terms of what he may want. It's just common sense at this point that this is going one direction and that it would be incredibly awkward if they got to media day training camp in the fall with Jalen Brown still on the roster. Doesn't mean a deal is gonna get done, but look, I look down to this, like there's the obvious stuff, right? The Hawks Atlanta is home, he's from the Atlanta area, and that's a young team on the rise that has a lot of stuff. Could you cobble together the right pieces to get him, but could you do it without sending out their Jalen? You probably won't both Jalen's, or the Celtics gonna do it without that, but he's also making a lot of money, Jalen Brown. And so this may be another one of those deals where the end result, the return package, may not be as spectacular as everybody would expect. I do think it would be pretty pick heavy. But yeah, in the East alone, the Hawks, the Raptors, I don't think the heat could get him, I'm sure they would love him. They don't have the room. Out west, like the nuggets could really use a jolt. The Lakers would love to have Jalen Brown, they're not gonna be able to fit him now, and I don't see a Laker Celtics trade happening anyway. The Rockets would be great. There are teams that are in various states of kind of rebuild or trying to move forward. Like the Dallas Mavericks are another team that should be at least investigating. I don't know who's got the goods again. I haven't played with the trade machine, but there's like no shortage of places you could see potentially wanting Jalen Brown as their Kings on line one. The Kings on line one. I mean, I think the Kings are too far in the hole to decide that this is the, but like, but the Grizzlies aren't, right? Like the Grizzlies just picked up Isaiah Stewart, they've got some really good young players that they've drafted over the last couple of drafts. Yeah, but they're tearing down. They're not gonna, they're not good. I don't think this is going to tear down in Memphis. Yeah, but they're not gonna, but they're not gonna get, like Boston isn't gonna take back Java, right? That's, that's a lot gonna happen. No, that, yes, that is a problem. I don't think Josh the key to a Jalen Brown deal or a key to any major deal. Josh is gonna have to be probably a net negative giveaway in whatever trade that they finally make if they are able to make a trade at all. By the way, not for nothing. Last season, early last season, it was, oh, look at these three teams that are all stuck with these flawed or problematic point guards. John Morant, Trey Young, Lamello Ball. Two of the three have now been dealt. - Well, that's how it always goes, right? How many times did we say Russell Westbrook wasn't gonna get dealt and he got dealt hell of time? - No, but I'm just saying, like, I think there were some, in some parts of, you know, the NBA or at least NBA fandom, there was pushback about, you know, just about the whole theme surrounding those three guys. And so there was, you know, the jokes about just trade them all for each other. What we've seen so far is, Trey Young got traded for next to nothing. Lamello Ball got traded for, you know, some stuff, it's decent, it's respectable, but it's not some package that would blow you away, but it tells you everything you need to know about how the league actually viewed these guys. And John Marant is still stuck in Memphis because it tells you everything you need to know about how the league views John Marant and he's gonna end up going last of the three and probably for the least of the three, which, you know, Trey Young said a pretty low bar for that one already. But, yeah, I know this night, I do think that the Grizzlies, the way that they're moving right now does not suggest to me some like long-term rebuild. But we'll see. Anthony Davis, what does he do right now? Where is he going? Is he gonna be on the, on the roster next year? It doesn't seem so. And some team is gonna be out there desperate to be like, "Oh, yeah, we get 2020 Anthony Davis," and I'm like, "I got news for you, it's not 2020 Anthony Davis." I can't remember who-- Somebody's gonna talk themselves into thinking that and trading for him. I can't remember who floated somebody this, it's just the haze of all the social media stuff and too much radio and podcasts and everything else. Somebody throughout the idea of Anthony Davis for Jalen Brown, at least as the basis for a deal. That would be, I mean, the Celtics want a big. And the Wizards are certainly been the midst of something. But, yeah, I don't know. I never thought at the moment that they traded for Anthony Davis and Trey Young that this was truly the path forward for the Wizards, but they just locked up Trey Young on that insane extension. And so, I guess he is their future. Anthony Davis remains to be seen. - Yeah, just a lot of hubris going on right now. Like, the last thing I think I would ask is something that I've been thinking about is, has this, and me and Cliff are talking about this earlier, has this new era and new apron era, if you will, so far been helpful, right, with all of the movement, right? Because on one hand, yeah, it's entertaining, but we just had like a really historic finals a couple of weeks ago, and I feel like this is just undercutting all of that momentum as a league and it's just turning back into the soap opera. And maybe that's what the NBA wants, right? Like they want to be a year around league, but where are we right now in terms of, like this flurry of action so far? And like, you know, on a personal level, like if I'm a fan of a team and there's such constant movement of players, star players, it's like, do I ever get to know this team? Do I ever get to grow with this team in the highs and lows? And maybe that might be undercut by this new era. But like, what did this last week tell us about where the NBA is going? That's always a question I'd ask you, so I might ask you again. - I mean, like the NBA's always been about as much the off court, like drama and spectacle as it is about the on court. Like there's nothing new under the sun there. And like, you know, 16 years ago this week, we were all sitting around, you know, watching LeBron entertain all these delegations from various parts of the country, going to Cleveland to go meet with him and his team. Where's LeBron gonna go? And there's always been versions of all of this. And we don't have superstar free agency anymore. It's pretty much dead. So we have superstar trades instead. So we get Yannis and we get, I'm not gonna call them Elabal. Superstar, but we get the Elabal trade. We will have potentially a Jalen Brown trade. Like this is, this is the NBA off season. This is what we love. I don't think it overshadows or undercuts the next championship at all. I don't think, you know, as I sit here in New York, anybody in New York gives a damn about any of that stuff. They're still all just reveling in the glory of the Knicks right now. So they don't care. - Hey, it's gonna be December and they might be like 10 and 10 and everybody's gonna be like, I don't know if I would just let a chip, like they're, yeah, I don't think New York is even good to care about winning or losing for the next like two or three years. - They're good for a while. I think they're good for a while. But the NBA, like it's always been like this because of the way that the schedule is structured, right? We go straight from the finals to the draft and straight from the draft to free agency. And then there are just deals coming off left and right and everybody's leaking everything and there's tampering going on left and right. And so deals are being done even before they're supposed to get done and all this stuff. Like, ah, it's the fun of the NBA off season. And I think if anything, this should be reassuring. I think people worried that because of the second apron restrictions and teams ducking that apron or the first apron ducking the tax, you know, this is the closest to a hard cap the NBA's ever had. People were worried like, is there gonna be any transactions at all anymore? That's part of the fun of the NBA. And it has eliminated superstar free agency for the most part, but it has pushed everything toward trades instead. So we still get our pyro techniques. We still get our transaction. Why are we still get, you know, social media lighting up with all the rumors? So that part of it for the league is all good. And then as far as the rest of it, a lot of what we're seeing is at least partially or wholly the product of the new system. But it's created this parody where everybody thinks they've got a shot. The Minnesota Timberwolves think they've actually got a shot to go to the finals with the Milo Ball. How about that? - Why not? - Why not? We'll see, I think no matter what the, I personally think in game back to Timberwolves or where we get out of here, I think there's no matter the case and no matter the structure, no matter the apron, no matter the era, you still got to be patient and make methodical moves. And that applied in the 1970s when, you know, teams were trading Moses Malone for guys you've never heard of just to make short-term gains, right? But the smartest front offices and the most patient front offices are the ones that always went out. And I think that's gonna be a lesson for the Timberwolves going forward. That is my two cents. Anything else? Final thoughts on the trade? Or are we already exhilarating? - No, I just wanna clarify that I did not cover the Moses Malone trade. - I mean, yeah, but two was like 20 when that happened. - Oh, it was not. (laughing) - Just to be really fast and clear. (laughing) - That has been another addition of real ones. We will see you guys on Tuesday now. We're gonna be recording. It's gonna be a late record. You probably get into your feeds sometime Tuesday night 'cause we're gonna be recording a couple hours after free agency starts and just talking about deals. I don't know what we're gonna be talking about because anything can happen in this great league that we cover. All right, oh, also at some point, real ones, [email protected]. Real ones, [email protected]. Real ones, mailbag@whathowardbeck? - gmail.com. We've been neglecting them. - We have been neglecting them. We will get back to you. I promise. I promise. You know we love our real ones. All the shit. See you Tuesday. Bye. Must be 21 years and older in present and select states. For Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and older in present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming, gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler or 1-800-Myreset. Call 1-888-7897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here. 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