Will the Kawhi Trade Go Through? Plus, Donovan Mitchell Extends, and Summer League Debuts

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Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026, Anheuser-Busch, Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show from my hotel room in Las Vegas. Oh boy, another Kawhi Leonard bombshell, or something like a bombshell, dropped today right when I got to Las Vegas. The trade to Toronto, not happening quite yet. Will it happen? Why isn't it happening? What's going on? Why is everything with Kawhi so confusing? Who stands to lose the most here if this somehow gets undone? Do we think it's going to get undone? Ugh! Toronto, the Clippers, the league office, a law firm that won't stop billing hours, the Kawhi Leonard story of 2026. It may be going into 2027. Howard Beck is here to get into all of that. We talk about Donovan Mitchell's contract extension, which broke during our last episode. We get a little bit more in-depth to that, how it's similar and dissimilar maybe from the Jalen Brown contract that just got traded. Yes, there is more Jalen Brown content to come. Some summer league observations. AJ DiBanzo played against Darren Peterson tonight. That is to say, the Jazz played against, the wizards what did we see what do we think of those teams lebron yep more lebron talk he hasn't signed yet as we're recording this where is he going to sign should he go to cleveland how does that interact with donovan mitchell and then we talk a little bit about the relegation zone and the teams that are facing it how they will behave lots to talk about never stops this nba that's all coming up on the zach lowe show welcome to the zach lowe show i'm in las vegas and it's time to say the three most anticipated words in niche basketball podcasting billable hours wait no that's not it howard beck is here what up beck that was a great misdirection play what's happening zach billable hours billable hours baby because it's something we just watched darren peterson and aj debansa play a half a basketball we'll talk about that later very exciting both those teams very exciting but the biggest news of the day kind of sent shockwaves through the league it's been rippling behind the scenes apparently for the past 48 to 72 hours at least among the principal parties involved the kawaii leonard trade the reunion with the toronto raptors the trade with the clippers is on hold pending the results of the endless wildcard wachtell lipton rosen and cats slash nba billable hours extravaganza investigation into the aspiration scandal uncovered by pablo tory the clippers of course say they did nothing wrong they said very directly today we did not funnel money toward kawaii leonard through aspiration but the deal is on hold frozen pending the results of that investigation because the raptors apparently have learned at some point we will talk about when and who and why that they would be not exactly on the hook but they would be on the hook and they would be on the hook and they the sufferers of any consequences should Kawhi Leonard himself be punished? Should this trade go through and Kawhi Leonard either have his contract voided, and boy, would that be a can of worms, or you could envision a scenario where he's suspended for 10, 20 games, something like that. What does that do? Does that change the terms of the trade? And so there is now, the Raptors learned this, and there is now sort of a frozen moment. And Howard, it's hard not to have the initial reaction of like, how in the world did we end up here when almost six weeks ago Adam Silver stood up at the NBA finals and said, the investigation that started almost 10 months ago, and nine months at that point, should be wrapping up soon. These teams need to move on. Everybody needs to move on with their business. Hell, the Clippers are sitting here with the potential of cap space, extra picks from the Toronto Raptors, and an ability to maybe work some sort of sign and trade with Peyton Watson if they wanted to. What the hell are they supposed to do now? I think this is just, it just looks terrible for everyone involved and everybody should be embarrassed that we have arrived here. It's a debacle upon a debacle upon a debacle. It's the most debacle-y debacle that ever debacled. I mean, it's a debacle that the NBA is investigating cap circumvention at all in the year 2025, 2026, and only because Pablo Torre uncovered it. And in the absence of that, who knows if this ever comes to light, Zach. It's embarrassing for the league on its face that we're here now in early July where a trade that had been reported has to be paused pending this just shows how what a folly it is that they didn't resolve this sooner. And we'll get back to that about the timing of this, because it's easy for all of us to sit here and say, oh, they should have wrapped it up sooner. I will say, for all of the various conspiracy theories that went on over the course of the last 10 or 11 months, I was one who always believed it will, you know, they'll do their due diligence, but I didn't think it was going to come out during the season. I thought they would wait for a nice, quiet moment, but the one thing I was sure of, absolutely sure of, and I've been absolutely wrong about, was that this had to be done by July 1st because you can't get to the offseason, the free agency transactional part of the offseason, the moratorium, all of it, without resolution because it would leave the Clippers unsure of what they could or could not do with Kawhi Leonard, and Kawhi Leonard unsure of his own future, and other teams unsure of whether they could trade for it. I thought for sure, Zach, that however long it took, however much due diligence they due-diligenced, it was going to be done by July 1st, and it wasn't. And now here we are. This is embarrassing for everybody involved, but I will say, and I'll leave it at this until you because I think we've both made some calls today, I think this is more embarrassing for Toronto right now than anybody, or at least should be. I don't agree with that, and we'll talk about why, but let's zoom out. I think everyone involved remains optimistic that this trade will go through, that Kawhi Leonard's contract will not be voided. There is this weird middle ground, like what if he's suspended? What does that mean? But everyone seems to think, and both official statements that were released by the Clippers and the Raptors, seems to think that this will actually get across the finish line and we can just sort of men in black magic ray this out of our minds and forget that this ever happened. Do you agree or no? If only. I think I'm less confident in saying that this will definitely get resolved. Only because we really don't know what the results of the investigation are going to be, and the whole reason it's on pause at all is, there is still a chance, whatever percentage it is, and I don't think anybody really knows what the percentage is, but there is a percentage chance that Kawhi Leonard's contract would get voided. That is the biggest reason this is being held up right now, is the possibility that it gets voided. The second biggest reason is it would be the long suspension. Let's imagine what Kawhi's contract getting voided actually looks like. So this trade happens, Kawhi's contract is voided. Does that immediately mean that the trade never happened because the contract and the player attached to were not allowed to be traded? Does that mean there's a separate arbitration where we have to decide, wait, did everyone do this knowingly, and now what goes back to Toronto? Imagine a scenario where the contract is voided, the trade stands, and Kawhi just signs with Toronto for the minimum. That's almost like a win-win-win for Toronto. And by the way, if the contract were voided, the league is mostly out of cap space. The only two teams that have workable cap space left are Brooklyn, doesn't seem like a fit, and the Clippers. Somehow I don't think the Clippers, this is going to end with the Clippers re-signing Kawhi Leonard with their cap room. And then the suspension is like, what's a 20-game suspension worth? Is that like, we get a swap back in the trade? How does this even work? It's crazy. No, it really is. But I do think in terms of order of operations, logically, to me, I am not a lawyer, and I'm not an NBA lawyer, and they have a thousand of them. But order of operations to me is like, if the trade had been, if they just let it go through, like to be clear, the NBA is not holding this up. The Raptors and the Clippers, essentially, but the Raptors really are the ones I think who paused this. I do not think. Why do you say that? As I understand it, then we'll get to the reporting part of this. As I understand it, from what I was able to gather today, according to sources that I've talked to, well, let me back up. I'll get to that in a second. My first reaction when I saw this news today, Zach, when I saw the two statements come out was, one, holy shit, but two, how is it possible that the Toronto Raptors agreed to a deal, in principle, to trade for Kawhi Leonard without knowing that there was still a possibility that his contract could be voided, and if it were, that that's on them, that they just simply lose out. And by the way, to answer your other question, I think it's implied what the order of operations is here. You made the trade, you got Kawhi, and then we voided his contract, he's no longer yours, and you gave it Brandon Ingram, Grady Dick, sorry, tough shit. I think that's the way this goes, and I think that's the reason why it's held up now, is because you don't want to make the deal at all. So the trade has not happened, so that's why. that we've essentially paused mid-transaction. Trade is not official, trade is not happening. Right, but my first reaction was, how could the Raptors agree to this in principle at all and have it get then leaked to Shams on June 30th if they hadn't at least done their due diligence with the league to say, hey, listen, if we make this deal, what are the potential consequences for us? And to be clear, because there's a lot of nonsense floating around on social media about this, the Raptors would not be getting punished for the Clippers' crimes, people. They're not going to get fined. They're not going to get any, no one's getting docked, anything's only getting suspended. The consequences are that they would lose Kawhi Leonard because his contract got voided, or let's say it was a 50-game suspension or something. You're losing his services, and under those circumstances, you'd say, well, why, we wouldn't have traded for him if we'd known that was going to happen. So fast forward to a couple weeks ago. They make the trade in principle. They agree, or they have the handshake deal. It comes out on June 30th, and all I could think, today is, why didn't you know this on June 30th? If what caused you to pause it today was known to you then, why wouldn't you have just not gone into the deal, into that agreement then? What I've learned today, according to sources, is the Raptors and the NBA did have that conversation. The Raptors did do their due diligence. To their credit, they just simply apparently did not believe it enough or were not convinced enough or concerned enough at that time to pause then. So they went ahead with the handshake deal. The trade, it gets leaked. We all know about it. The whole world knows about it. The whole world's expecting this to happen. The moratorium comes and goes. The deal is still not finalized. And when they finally get to the trade call and the NBA is once again reminding them, we can't guarantee anything about Kawhi's contract or his availability, suddenly the Raptors get cold feet. And this is why I said a few minutes ago, I think they should be more embarrassed than anyone because this is a decision they could have made, whatever, a week and a half ago. And it shouldn't have gotten to this point. I think everybody got cold feet. I don't think that the Raptors got cold feet. I don't even know if the feet are cold. They're maybe just a little nippy. I don't know. They have great socks up there in Toronto. You have to. It's Canada. It's cold. Here's a sentence from the Athletics reporting, Sam Amick and Law Murray, who covers the Clippers, so I'm on this story. The NBA informed the teams, the Clippers and the Raptors, before they agreed to the trade, that the investigation could cause issues with any deal involving Leonard, according to league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, blah, blah, blah. And so that's what you're saying, that this conversation occurred. I've also heard such a conversation occurred. Look, I'll guarantee you, Bobby Webster, who runs the Raptors, came from the league office. These are all of his former colleagues, many of them, who he's talking to, presumably, in the legal department and the cap department and all that in the league office. So what did they know when that conversation took place? And what do they know that's different today? I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect, based on what I've heard, that as they were. Because something happened between two and three days ago where suddenly this began consuming all the parties involved, that something was amiss. So there's like a five or six day gap where Kawhi's on the Raptors. He's at Kyle Lowry's thing the other day. He's like, everyone's excited about this. There was already word of. Not word, but rumblings of, are they going to have extension talks with Kawhi Leonard? He's eligible for a two-year-something extension. Everything's fine. And then at some point, in the last three days, everything's not fine anymore. What happened? I don't really know. My theory is that as they're beginning to prepare for the trade call and paperwork this as they do, I think something like a little memo or addendum from the league office came in that's like extra on top of the trade stuff that's like, hey, just remember, we talked about this. If there's stuff that happens to Kawhi, you are liable for it. And now suddenly this is blowing up. Look, I'm going to proceed on. The assumption, perhaps naively, that this gets finished, that the trade goes through, that Kawhi's contract is not voided. But to your point, I don't. There's some. We don't. We have anything. If we've reached a point where a trade is being halted halfway through because of an investigation that simply will not end, anything is possible at this point. Adam Silver is speaking after the Board of Governors to the media next week here in Las Vegas. Like, is this really still going to be going on then? Like, when does this end? Why is this taking so long? It can't be that so many people were recalcitrant to talk. Recalcitrant? Is that the right word? Reluctant? Whatever I'm trying to say. To talk to the billable hours, maestros at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and cats. Don't forget cats. That this is. It's been 10 months. What are we doing? Like. Yeah. I feel that too. I think we all do. Like, there's just an exhaustion here. I will say, this is one of those can't wait days. This is one of those can't win situations in a way for the league. Because if you wrap up the investigation and you haven't turned over every stone and spoken to every possible witness and the next person that they referred you to and the next person and the next person and that's the way these things go, is that, oh, well, who else should we talk to? Here's 10 more names. If you don't do all of that and you conclude the investigation, you give them a slap on the wrist, ah, we didn't find a smoking gun, whatever it may be, and then somebody comes out a couple weeks later or Pablo has another podcast episode a few weeks later with more envelopes taped under chairs and other things and other pieces of furniture and suddenly it's like, oh, here's the smoking gun or here's a person who talked to us who said the league never, the league's lawyers never came to them. Wachtell Lipton never called me. I could have told them. And so there's some of that here, right? Like there, I don't know how much is too much. I don't know what the due diligence limit becomes, but they have to do enough to be airtight in whatever the decision is, knowing full well that if they fall short, we're going to all jump on them for missing something. And if they take too long, as it feels like they have, we're all over them right now for not resolving this and creating the conditions for what we're now seeing with the trade paused. So there is to an extent a no-win situation here in terms of perception. I do think, you know, look, the highest, you know, level of responsibility here is to turn over every stone, to talk to everybody you could possibly talk to that may have evidence. And even with Pablo's show, right? Like he, the revelation comes last, whatever, September, October, whenever it was. And there have been how many different installments since then of the slow drip drip. And they've been able to get that just as journalists, not as investigators for the league who have the ability to demand much more of the teams and of Kawhi's, well, maybe not his representation, but certainly of the Clippers. Pablo can't demand anything of the Clippers, but the league's lawyers can. And so there's much more available to them and that they are obligated to pursue. There's just, I mean, the repercussions are unbelievable. Like the Clippers we talked about, like they're clearly pivoting in a new direction and have these extra picks from the Raptors and who knows what they could turn Brandon Ingram to. And Grady Dick, poor Grady Dick is like, hey, can I have a team? What team am I on? Is a reclamation project for them. The Raptors are like, hey, we just played the Cavs to the hilt in the first round of the playoffs and turned Brandon Ingram into Kawhi Leonard. Like, could we, could we make a run at winning the East next year? I personally, I mean, they're clearly very good. And I just have said before, like I just, Kawhi Leonard never seems to be healthy for multiple playoff rounds anymore and has not been since like the bubble. And so I'm kind of skeptical that it takes three, Howard, if you remember, playoff series wins to make the finals and we'll see, but they're clearly a very good team with them. And now everything is held up to your point about the Raptors and the diligence and all that. Like there's a 10,000% chance that they called and worked and like got the information that they thought they needed and went forward. I will say there's at least one team that I know of because I asked them about Kawhi, a team that theoretically had, you know, I'm going through my fake trades would have all the assets that they would need and all the motivation that they would need to go and at least call about Kawhi Leonard. And this team told me we're not touching that until this investigation is over. So there were teams in the league who were like, this is a complete hands-off, can't touch it with the 10 football situation until whatever this investigation is. Is over. I can't say what team that is, but it exists. And so here we are. I mean, I don't really know what else to say other than I'm just now in wait and see mode and I'm enjoying summer league and I'm enjoying the 110 degree weather in Las Vegas. But this was a, this was a shockwave across the league today. The likes of which no one can really remember anything quite like this. Obviously from, not the whole saga itself from Pablo's first episode till now, but just like, oh, wait, the trade, like the trade was done. Everyone was like moving on with their business and now it's, it's not done and it might be like, are we undoing it? What, what happens in that case? It's a crazy situation. And the thing is, this is coming on the heels of a Giannis trade and a Jalen Brown trade and a John Morant trade and LeBron opting out. And like, I, I actually was starting to consider earlier today. Like I'm not as good at this as Bill is off the top of my head, but we've got to be, be in the zone for like most bonkers, like eight day span of an off season in NBA history. Like the, the number of massive things that have happened in the last week, week and a half is just incredible. And, and this one is, is in a category all of its own because this whole fucking investigation is in a category all of its own. And, you know, you know, the only thing you can compare this thing to is, is Joe Smith. And that was over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, whatever it was. and different commissioner, different nba different circumstances uh by far but that's the only one we've able ever been able to compare this to but to have a trade of this magnitude and with implications by the way like you alluded to it toronto's an eastern conference contender with kawaii leonard if he's healthy uh if this trade does not go through they are not and uh and the clippers and the raptors both have a lot of uh fences to mend or something with players you you know who else is very interested in all this is the players union who if kawaii's contract were to be voided and there were to be increased policing of endorsement deals for players and all that like that's an area of extreme interest for the players union there's all sorts of other processes that need um that need to happen here i guess we'll just wait and see i'm very obviously curious to see what adam silver says after the board of meets uh next week here in vegas and i don't really i mean it's it's the the other crazy offseason i fittingly is is of recent vintage anyway is the kawaii offseason of 2019 where there's the literal earthquake in las vegas the night that he and paul george are simultaneously going from various places to the clippers that's the same offseason that uh durant and kai reach who's the nets there's all sorts of stuff happened durant there's all sorts of stuff happening and uh and here we are back here again what seven years later and it's another kawaii offseason and everyone's just sort of waiting to see what happens any any final thoughts on that i think that's a good question anything that we missed i don't think it was uh particularly encouraging that when everybody reached out to the league the statement from the league about the investigation was yeah you know we expect to wrap it up in the next couple of weeks hey look man something like this thing if i go to croatia and this thing or we're going to a couple places but if i'm in croatia and this thing wraps up and i have my microphone and i'm three shots of rakia into my night in dubrovnik like i'm going live and all the bets are off we're live streaming we're filled with no filter can i be on that show i i will i will even go around the corner of my local liquor store here at carol gardens brooklyn and find rakia so i can drink with you on the show while we regale ourselves with kawaii leonard uh conclusions whatever that may be i mean you could even think of like i wonder if the celtics i don't think they are because i don't think there was any ever any momentum with real momentum with jalen brown going to either toronto or the clippers like one of the two but if you're the celtics you're like man this would have been handy to know at least a little bit more information but maybe the raptors don't get kawaii and they get desperate and they're really interested in jalen brown i never got the sense that there was a unified front in toronto in favor of pursuing jalen brown but you never know okay i'm done talking about kawaii uh let's let's take a quick break and we'll talk about some other uh semi-pressing league business okay uh the last episode i recorded was a couple of days ago with bobby marks and on that episode as we were recording Donovan Mitchell to a four year, two hundred and seventy three million dollar contract extension that kicks in at twenty seven, twenty eight and could pay him over seventy five million dollars in the 2030 31 season when he will be thirty four years old. I believe we had to give this kind of short that we didn't give it short shrift. It was just it happened. It was like a bomb in our faces. We did. We just reacted live. We've had some time to think about it. Obviously, it's an interesting juxtaposition with Jalen Brown, whose similar sized contract was, you know, considered clunky enough for a team with another player. Jason Tatum making the same or similar amount of money and how constraining that is to have two players taking up 70 percent of your cap space in a second open world to at least at least view as something like, could we get off of this and get some, quote, optionality in terms of picks? And few. Future cap flexibility a year or two down the road. And Donovan Mitchell is almost exactly as old as Jalen Brown. They're both twenty nine years old. The Celtics traded Jalen Brown when he was twenty nine. The Cavs extend Donovan Mitchell a small guard when he's twenty nine into his mid thirties at an enormous salary figure for a team that finally did to their credit. It wasn't in the most convincing fashion breakthrough to the conference finals last year, only to get walloped by the Knicks, a team that is in the hunt for LeBron James, a decision that could. And presumably would would either way re-sign James Harden, who, like Draymond Green, is sort of sitting out there and, hey, just get to me when you're done with LeBron stuff, another world. Now that you've had some time to think about this and what it means for the Cavs, what it means about Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell, what it means for Jared Allen, what it means for this team is they begin to recoup assets that they've that they on the back end that they sent out to acquire Donovan Mitchell. What do you? What do you think of this? What do you make of this? One of the things that just hit me was that, as you're mentioning LeBron again, is that I think I said opt out when obviously he just walked away as a free agent, but he he he he he he opted for for being single. Howard, he chose himself. He broke up with the Lakers before they could break up with him, which is which I a framing that I find quite funny because I think both parts like the Lakers signed 17 people in like 40 seconds. It doesn't happen. I think they were ready. I think. I think everybody was ready for this. And I've talked at length about what the Lakers did and what I like and don't like about it. But anyway, Donovan Mitchell. Yeah. No, but the number of people who were kind of just taking it face value, the idea that LeBron made this decision independent of anything. And yet we saw like this flurry of moves, some of which were complicated because a Walker special sign and trade doesn't just happen in five minutes. Like, come on. He read the room. They both read the room. They read each other, whatever. Donovan Mitchell. I think part of this. Here's the pullback. Thirty thousand foot view, which is. The NBA has been moving toward for many years and many CBAs and most especially this one, which is now a virtual hard cap, which, by the way, I've even had people, whether they misspoke or whether they meant it. Actual league office people use the word hard cap with me within the last few months. Good thing nobody from the Players Union was in earshot. Actually, the Players Union would probably like that because that would give them grounds to be angrier and angrier about it. I mean, it is a virtual hard cap. And one of the things that a hard cap does to you, especially in a league. Where players can make 30, 35 percent of the cap and up because of raises and they make more as they get older, is it puts you in a position where you really can only have one of those guys. You can have two if they're on different timelines, if they're like three, four or five years apart and they're on different maxes. Right. The max is not the max in this league. There's three different maxes. And then those maxes aren't even the same every few years because the BRI keeps going up and the cap goes up and the percentage. So what what it results in is. And teams making have to make extremely difficult decisions to decide sometimes on having just one star. The Celtics kind of just did this. And I understand Paul George is making basically the same amount as Jalen Brown. But the optionality thing was about we're going to loosen things up a little bit and it's one year less and maybe we can move off of Paul George. But we can't sign Jalen Brown to yet another max extension and have Jason Tatum. They had to make a choice. And the Cavaliers at this stage, having flipped guard. Harland for James Harden. Well, Harden's no longer a max guy. Evan Mobley will, you know, is a max guy on a different timeline. His percentage of the cap is in like the low 30s, whereas Donovan Mitchell's is in the mid going up to the high 30s. And we have to think of percentage of the cap as much as we think. And a big a big sort of wild card in all of this and something I was remiss in not mentioning during the Jalen Brown fallout podcasts, plural, that I did was that, you know, these maxes go up. What? Eight percent each year salary wise. And if the cap does not match that, there was there was sort of an assumption that the cap would grow faster than the max contracts would grow annually. And so they would take up less space over time. And what's happening is they might actually take up more space over time. Like Evan Mobley wins defensive player of the year, triggers his version of the supermax. So he's at 30 percent of the cap instead of 25 percent of the cap. The Cavs, of course, ironically, are in a position, an awkward position where like, hey, that's great. Our guy won defensive player. The year sucks for our cap sheet. And and they are on different timelines. But they're both Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley taking up huge portions of a cap that may not be rising as as much as anticipated. Yeah. I mean, you know, once upon a time, this time of year, many years ago, you and I and our friend Rachel Nichols would do our drunk with power podcast. And we would go around suggesting things that we would change if we were commissioner for a day and could just wave a magic wand. And I don't remember if I've mentioned this one back then, but it's one that's all I've always thought. It's one. It's kind of silly. The NBA players have raises like people like us need raises. Right. We're trying to keep up with the cost of living players making tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars over the course. Do they need raises? Why don't we have raises at all in the NBA? Just make it an average, make it a total, whatever it is. That's one. The second one is we have these three separate maxes that are whatever, 25, 30 and 35 percent of the cap based on years of service. And the highest percentage you can get is for the guys who are 10 years and over. And what we see. We see more and more Stefan LeBron, notwithstanding, Chris Paul, notwithstanding, is that most guys, as they get to their mid to late 30s, there's a there's a massive decline in production and efficiency and contribution to winning. And so there's another piece that the the the CBA just doesn't make sense on. Right. Now you have Donovan Mitchell, who's going to be making 37 percent of the cap at age. Would you say 34, 35? Something like that. He's almost he's about to turn 30, I think, but not about close ish to 30. So that's problematic. It makes it hard to build a team around him. And even more so now than ever, because we have a virtual hard cap called the second apron. And so that's one piece. That's the reality. But the other reality, Zach, is this. I think this, the Donovan Mitchell contract, just like the Jalen Brown previous extension that he had gotten with Boston, falls in the category of all capital on all these words. Things you just have to do when you have a top 15 to 20 player. You don't tell your top 10, top 15, top 20 player, we really don't want to pay you the max. You rightly shouted out Rafael Stone the other day for how much of a hard line the Rockets take, Alperen Shangun and others. But you don't do that usually with a guy who's a true top, an all NBA type player in their prime. Also easier to take a harder line against guys coming off their rookie scale contracts because any new contract they make is going to just trump by so many degrees what they've made before. Donovan Mitchell is prideful and in the middle of his career and is like, no, I want all. This is what I'm accustomed to. My point is like how many, how many teams in the Cavs position would have told Donovan Mitchell no to this max or we're going to try to squeeze you or you know what, if we can't pay you, so we're just going to trade you. Like you just, you can't do that. You don't do that. And there aren't going to be many Jalen Brunson's taking a discount, probably one he will never accept again, I would imagine. So what do you do? What else do you do? You have to resign your top 10, your top 15, your top 20 guy. And you're wincing as you do it. Your cap guys are going, look at the year 2030 here, boss. It's looking kind of, and you're, and you're saying, I know, and the owner's going, well, we really, I mean, it was probably the same with the Devin Booker deal, whatever it was a year or two ago. Like you, what choice do you have? There are market forces. There's respect from, from your players and keeping faith with your players, keeping faith with your fans, sending the right message to the rest of the league, other players and their agents. It's hard. It's, it's, it's almost impossible to just say, we'll do the right thing, quote unquote, right thing. And, you know, keep, keep the cost down so that you can keep your cap flexible. Like good luck with that. Yeah. I mean, I said with Bobby the other day, eight years ago, literally eight years ago, 2018, I wrote a piece for ESPN about just how, how viscerally bad it feels to me that homegrown stars who end up achieving so much for your team, the team that drafted them or traded for their draft rights, whatever, basically drafted them. End up making so much money that their contracts, if they're not like no brainer, top five, top six guys become albatross contracts, painful for you to have. And I taught, I framed the story, as I said last week around the bulls deciding, oh, Jimmy Butler's eligible for the super max. This all comes from the super max, which all comes from Durant leaving Oklahoma city to go to golden state. But that's a different story. The bull saying voluntarily, you know what? Jimmy Butler is right in his prime. We just would rather not have him on our team. And what have the bulls done since then? Since that moment, a whole, a whole, a whole, a whole, a whole, a whole lot of nothing. And, and, and I realized that Donovan Mitchell is not a homegrown Cleveland Cavalier. They did not draft him. They did not trade for his draft rights. So I don't know. And cause I pitched like, maybe you should get some cap or tax relief or something. If you have one of those players on your books, they don't count for so much to the apron or whatever. Do those rights go with you when a team like Cleveland trade tree? I don't know. I don't know what the right answer to any of these questions are. Um, and, and the counter argument that I did not mention with Bobby that I heard from a lot of executives when I wrote that piece eight years ago is it's, it's really cute Zach, that you think, um, that there should be cap relief and, and all these things. And it's so awkward to have one of these guys on. It's like, it's, it's not awkward. It's, it's so sad to you that these guys become albatrosses. You know what you have to do? This is a minority of people would tell this to me, and this goes to the Donovan Mitchell. What are you supposed to do? Question that you asked, they said, you know what you have to do? Zach? You have to make some tough decisions, buck up and make some tough decisions, offer them less money, trade them before it becomes an issue, trade them early on in the contract, do whatever you have to do, because if it's going to hurt you, it's your job to make the tough decisions. And I was like, yeah, I mean, that's, that's true. And it just like, so if you're applying that to this and you think that this deal is going to be, um, if not an albatross, then a, you know, let's say net neutral kind of deal, a deal that will be hard to. Trade in five years. Like, so what am I supposed to do if I'm Colby Albin? Am I supposed to sign him to a shorter extension? That's not going to go over well. Am I supposed to not offer the extension at all? Then I'm looking at a trade demand. I can't let them walk in free agency. So do I up and trade them if I do up and trade them? So then I don't control my picks for the next three years because I traded for Donovan Mitchell. I can't tank tanking is already sort of less profitable anyway. And whether that's good or bad for me, the clue. And Cavaliers remains to be seen. Um, and so I traded him and I get back some like young players and some picks and now my team is like Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, maybe like James Harden is kicking around. Like, I don't, I don't know. So it's, it's easy for, for people to say, well, that's your job. You make tough decisions. You, if you want to get out of jail, get out of jail early. I'm like, okay, I don't know. This is one that he's such a great player. And I had him ranked above jail and Brown for the majority of this. This season, even in jail and Brown's very best season. And whether you care or not, Howard Beck, the analytics, the advanced stats, all the stuff that became such a talking about with jail and Brown, Donovan Mitchell outpaces him by a lot in those, in all of those categories, every single advanced that you want to look at, including on off data. On the other hand, he's a small guard. Jalen Brown is a big wing. Like those things matter too. And how you age. I would be surprised if Donovan Mitchell earning $75 million in 2031. Is a net positive outcome for the Cleveland Cavaliers. But I also, I'm kind of fine with them signing the contract. Cause I don't know what the hell they're supposed to do. And they're going to go for it next year. And if they get LeBron as weird as the LeBron, James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, but also you have two big guys. So how often does LeBron play the four as weird as that all could feel? That's a pretty goddamn good team. And it's like the whole point of this is to try to have a good team that can win. Yeah. And the story, I don't know. I'm sorry. I rambled. I'm just, it's complicated. It's a complicated. It's a complicated topic. It is. And to the GMs who told you, Oh, well, well, this is, you know, Buck up, put on your big boy pants. What a big boy pants look like. Exactly. Are they just bigger than average pants? They're not, they're not over. They're not dungarees. That word came up. That word came up with me and my dad friends recently. I wish I could remember who we were talking to. We were like, we were like, remember what dungarees. And I'm like, I'm not even sure. I know what dungarees are or ever knew what they were, but I definitely had, my mom was definitely like, we need to go over to Caldor and get some dungarees for school this year. We had to go to Mervin's to get some dungarees. Dungarees was a, that was a word that only my parents ever used. In fact, I don't think even any of my friends' parents. It sounds, it sounds. I think it's jeans. It sounds almost profane. But anyway, I don't know. If you put on your big boy dungarees and you, you have to offload somebody as the Celtics just do with Jalen Brown. One, it reminds me. It reminds me of what David Stern said way back when, when we had the lockout in 2011. He used this phrase, this absolutely Orwellian phrase, player sharing. What they wanted was player sharing. What happened the next summer after the lockout was done and they had played a short season. And then we had free agency 2012. James Harden was player shared to the Houston Rockets from the Oklahoma city thunder. That's what happened because we had a new CBA with a more punitive luxury tax and the thunder decided they didn't want to have to deal with that. And so that's what we're talking about here. Jalen Brown just got player shared to the Sixers who already had a bunch of stars. So it doesn't really work on that level, but the league's goal through all these, these CBAs has been don't allow teams to build up and then keep like the Warriors were able to, or the Clippers were able to accrue. So many stars at such a high cost, including luxury tax that you're outspending other teams by 50 to a hundred million or $150 million. That's they don't want that. And they do want more talent at the high end spread around. So there's that. I get it. Are the Cavaliers, how are they going to continue? To build around Donovan Mitchell now that he's on the books for this, that's going to be an issue for them just as it has been for, you know, whether it's Giannis, there are other things at work there, but any of these guys making the max, the super max, whichever max, it's becoming harder and harder to build around them and sustain it around them. And before we get too far into the, well, that's what you're paid the big bucks for and everything. And that's fine if you're a GM, but not if you're a fan, like Brad Stevens put on his big boy dungarees and made the hard trade. It sucks to do, and he can say optionality 11 times in 10 minutes in a press conference or however many times it was. And it can all be very logical and reasoned and the owner can be on board and his cap guys are on board and his analytics guys. Fine. It sucks for the fans. And it actually eventually sucks for Brad Stevens too, because he still has to figure out what the next couple of moves are to rebuild a championship caliber team around Jason Tatum. I mean, they're one right now. I don't know. There are a million reasons why that trade will be one of the rare trades that we talk about for. Many, many years, one of which just one. And I outlined many of them with Bobby, go back and listen to that if you want about chemistry and who's the number one option and Twitch and all that. One of them is that the Celtics already won a championship very recently with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum as the best players on their team, and then had to dismantle a lot of that team to get out of the second apron. But it's not like unproven that you can win a title with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum is your number one and two players. It is on. proven that you can get to the finals with donovan mitchell and evan mobley as your number one or two and two players um and i think this trade this this extension rather really underscores like the calves are now about donovan mitchell and evan mobley and everything else including i'm sorry jared allen is going to have to be fungible long term and and that's just the way that it's going to be and i don't if i'm betting on one pairing of players that they currently have and i'm boxed into paying some pairing of players this amount of money i think they've picked the right the right two and where they go from here medium term next two three four years is going to be very interesting where they could go from here now is there is a world where they can get uh harden back and lebron and just go full but they might have to slough away a max truce or a dennis or both but go full bore and try to win the east how much zach do you think this extension that donovan mitchell just signed which they knew was coming and that they were going to offer him influenced the garland for harden swap in the first place because in retrospect i feel like and maybe we should just even see that in real time it feels like those things are connected to me um because harden is is 10 years older but also cheaper as a result and on on the back side and and has whatever you know a year or two left something at at what will be ultimately a lesser number and so the the you know from the moment they had their their core four of uh garland mitchell mobley jared allen the concern that you'd hear expressed around the league was not concern but the the the clock ticking was you can't pay all four of those guys uh there's some overlap you know and skill sets that all that other stuff too functionally on the court but there was going to be a payroll issue eventually how long could they go before they had to break it up and they finally just did and here we are a couple of things about that number one orlando is staring a similar version of that problem in the like there is a very close to 90 to 100 chance that orlando is going to make a major move in the next 18 months because they simply cannot pay anthony black jalen suggs desmond bain franz wagner and paulo bancaro what they're slated to pay them something is going to have to give there i mentioned earlier about buck up and put on your big boy dungarees one small way of doing that is look at what the thunder did with jalen williams and chet holmgren and the escalator clauses in their contract the same escalator clauses that you know evan mobley was was triggered when he won defense player of the year they negotiated those very carefully and very hard and to like chet holmgren took a straight 25 max doesn't matter if i make the all nba team or not if correct me if i'm wrong i think i think that's what happened i'd have to go look it up and jalen williams was kind of like staggered if you make first team all nba can be up to this second team all nba it's a little lower 30 like that's those things matter on the margins and our one reason many transactions away from getting under the second apron as in this season where they should have no business being under the second. I don't even know what the hell we're talking about. The Cavs should LeBron go to the Cavs. Where do you want LeBron to go? I don't know. By the way, I don't. It's it's almost 11:00 Eastern on Thursday. I don't know how long LeBron is going to take. I don't necessarily think it's going to be as long as everyone thinks it might be. But who knows? But we've got in the universe of possibilities. We've got Cleveland, Golden State, Miami, Philadelphia, Minnesota. Am I missing anybody? Is that is that about it? I think that was all of them. Denver, Denver. Theoretically, you know, I haven't heard as much buzz about them. But you know, Bob Myers took the extraordinary step of appearing on Rich Paul and Max Carmen's podcast that part of our Spotify ringer network of podcasts to basically pitch Rich in person. This is why LeBron should come to Philadelphia. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. Sean Strani reported today that Rich Paul has opened his his voicemail box to voice notes that people can send him that he will then forward along to LeBron. It's a lot of faith in Rich Paul. It's like, all right, boy, here's a 90 second voice note. Can you read this to LeBron or or listen? So who the hell knows what's going to happen? But obviously, a lot of people would think Cleveland is the sort of poetic ending of his career, where it began for him both as a kid and as an NBA player where he came back and won them a championship before leaving again. I don't think it's the cleanest basketball fit if Harden is there and Mitchell is there and you have this sort of everyone operates with the ball. But he proved last year he can fill pretty much any role you want him to, even with two other ball dominant players. Yeah, having two big guys who play heavy minutes complicates that a little bit. But those are first world problems. The Cleveland fit is not the sexiest to me. But if if he were to argue, it gives me the best chance to go out chasing a championship. And boy, if I did it for my hometown team, would that be incredible? I don't I don't think I can fault them for that. I couldn't either. Remember back in 2010, when the whole thing was like, Oh, LeBron's making everybody come to Cleveland to come woo him at their office. Was it Cleveland or Akron? They were all everybody had to go the Clippers and the Knicks and the Bulls and everything. He everybody all had to travel to Cleveland to go make their pitches and their PowerPoints and their videos. And Mike Bloomberg, who was mayor of New York at the time, made this was part of this ridiculous. Come on, LeBron video. And then we had the Hamptons for Kevin Durant. Oh, sure. Now it's now we just go on Rich Paul's podcast. Like, I mean, you know, it's like, who's next? Maybe I answer you going on the pod. Richard Rich is here in Las Vegas. Clutch is actually having their party tonight. Maybe, maybe I should leave him a voice note and say, has LeBron ever considered just retiring and bringing the mind the game podcast into the Spotify ringer family? There we go. Just go from there. Yeah, come come come join the ringer verse. Listen, I think the most poetic choice is Cleveland by far. I think the next most poetic choice would sort of be Miami, but it doesn't have the same resonance, right? I the one that I'm most excited about is the most poetic choice is Cleveland by far. I think the next most poetic choice would sort of be Miami, but it doesn't have the same resonance. Right. I the one that I'm most excited about is the one that I'm most excited about. I think the one that I'm most excited about is the one that I like, because I'm just a sentimental goofball who thinks it would just be fun to watch them. I like LeBron and the Warriors best. Like I love the idea of him and Steph and Draymond, Olympic buddies, former rivals who you know, beat the crap out of each other, sometimes in the in the nuts in the finals, and now are joining forces like the Rocky Apollo thing, right? Like, I love that. And it's a it's a seniors tour. And they got Jimmy Butler along for the ride. And nobody thinks they can actually win a title because they're too old. But if they just stay in the ring, they're going to win the title. And if they just stay made healthy. Who the hell wants to see them in April or May? I love that. That's my favorite version of this, but he has no ties other than personal ties to the Warriors, right? Not as a franchise. And if you think about LeBron's career in chapters, amazing luck of the ping pong balls, he gets drafted by his virtual hometown team in Cleveland. Luck you say, luck you say, Howard. Stop it. Stop it. Um, when he decides to leave there, he goes to Miami. He wins a couple of championships. He grows up a bit. And in his, I was rereading the essay that he did with Lee Jenkins and sports illustrated back in, uh, in 2014, 14, when he went back to Cleveland. Um, and he talked about Miami is like college, right? I never went to college, but that was like college for me. I learned, you know, I grew up a little, I learned how to be a champion, all these things. And I'm bringing all that knowledge back to Cleveland to raise up these young guys. And, and bring us a championship in Northeast Ohio. And I want to be an inspiration. So he starts to frame this in terms of like these, these are chapters of a story. He does win the championship. Now he's free to leave without any guilt or backlash and goes to LA because his family loves it there. And he's got his, his media empire there and everything else. Cool. So if this is now the final, final chapter to make it a new team that he's never been part of, doesn't feel right in terms of like, just like the narrative arc, Miami has a little bit of it, Cleveland has the most of it by far. It's so funny how, I mean, even Brian Windhorst, who's as well sourced and careful as anybody in our business went on some show, I think it was a Cleveland radio show about how the vibes just, the idea of LeBron in Philadelphia, the vibes just feel off and all the vibes about Cleveland feel right. And it's amazing how, I mean, I've been in Vegas for like eight hours. I've already had a bunch of meetings. Everyone is just reading the tea leaves. I've already, I've already had one person tell me one person in the league, tell me, well, you know, I mean, look, he's been around Cleveland this summer. They did the 2016 Cavs 10 year reunion where they forgot to invite Timothy Mozgov, but they all had a great time. Like he's, that's him sending signals. And I had another person, an agent tell me, would Bob Myers really go on that podcast if he thought like LeBron wasn't coming to Philadelphia? And I'm like, I don't know if you could, you guys are all just reaching for, um, reaching for whatever the, the one thing I will say that I thought in response to the windy vibes thing, there's no question. Cleveland has a poetry. No question. And I think would be his best chance to win. You know, you could argue maybe for Denver that just doesn't seem realistic. The one thing LeBron has always done in his career is take control of it and do stuff that just feels right to him, regardless of the consequences. Like, so he goes to Miami and gets pounded for it, right? Just destroyed. He does the TV show of the decision. He gets destroyed, comes back to Cleveland. Then he goes to the Lakers. Why? I don't know. Lakers weren't that good at a bunch of young guys. Maybe we get Anthony Davis. Oh yeah, we did strong. Our boy and Anthony Davis, but he wanted to live in Los Angeles and expand his media empire. Like if he decides, I think it would be kind of cool if I went to Philadelphia and, uh, or Minnesota. Right. And, but just say Philadelphia and like this franchise that just can't get out of its own way. They can't go two months without something absolutely insane happening to it. try to lift them and my my young fellow clutch client Tyrese Maxey to a place they've never been before and that's just what I feel like doing like there's something LeBronian in that as well but I you know look we're all we're all gonna find out yeah I mean I I kind of dismissed the the Philadelphia Minnesota so like I could be completely wrong and it's fine I don't care I'm not looking to to make a correct prediction here but those feel off to me because of the idea that this is it this he's got a year two left whatever it is and he's going to go to a place with where he has no ties and in Philadelphia 3,000 miles from LA where he's going to leave his family behind for for what like I don't I don't know it just that doesn't make sense to me Minnesota really like it but you're right Zach he has been bold in his other decisions along the way capital D or small d and the idea of him going to a completely new place just because it's like you know what I'll be the first guy to get Philly to the to the championship since 1983 or whatever like yeah I could see him doing that I mean Rich Paul did say on the pod and I I kind of roll my eyes a little bit at this one but like the well if the Knicks hadn't won the championship he would have gone there like really are you sure like I mean he said that with enough boldness that I was like okay like I I believe I believe that's true and I it would the Knicks would have to want it and I assume the Knicks in that scenario would have been open to it I believe that I I'm maybe I'm being too cynical on this I am skeptical of that and I was skeptical of much of the whiteboard I enjoyed the whiteboard um I want more more whiteboard um there was something about LeBron Philadelphia Cleveland that now I am forgetting what it was um we're all gonna we're all gonna find out eventually where LeBron is gonna go and I don't know how we're gonna find out but we will find out I will say this my my final thought on it that he can still have us all and I know some people are going just like cringe at that I'm even saying he still has us all captivated dude's gonna be 41 42 uh in December 42 he's 41 years old and is logged like 24 years in the league and or going into year 24 and we are still sitting here in July captivated by what he will do next he's still one of the 20 to 25 best players in the NBA yes which is no question sounds like damning with faint praise because it's LeBron James he's again almost he's going to be 40 he's 41 and a half years old it's remarkable that he's at all let alone able to be the best player on a team that won a playoff series in the western conference last season oh i know what it was you mentioned a place where he has no ties of going how weird it would be to see him a place where he has no ties i mean other than he wanted to live there and did already live there in the offseason he didn't really have ties to los angeles and you would find lakers fans who are like i still don't feel a strong tie to lebron james eight seasons later a championship later and i don't want to sit here and litigate all the gazillion reasons why that is from kobe to he wasn't drafted by the lakers he came there as a mercenary late in his career to the bubble championship to no parade but it like it's it never felt like lebron's team and lebron's franchise in los angeles from the outside looking in so it wouldn't be unprecedented for him to go to a place and just it's like where i want to go i want to go here i agree but the natural fit there was i am an all-time great and this is one of the greatest franchises in the history of sports and so just the the magnetism of these two these two poles right of of you know lebron entity of you know a superstar legend uh in in you know already established all this other stuff but the lakers he he needs somewhere he can go try to win championships again you know carve out this last stage of his career the lakers needed somebody to prop them back up again in in uh in the post kobe years it was it's the glitz of the lakers so he you don't you didn't need another tie or another reason the lakers are the reason you're saying that timberwolves don't carry the same gravitas as the lakers the sixers have a lot of gravitas the sixers are they haven't won in a long time but they are the lakers do share the same roots they're both from minneapolis ultimately that's that's true all right let's take another quick break and just wrap up with a couple of uh summer league and other notes 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 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 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restrictions apply copyright 2026 applebee's restaurant llc this episode is brought to you by 20th century studios the dog stars now playing in theaters and imax visionary filmmaker ridley scott returns with a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller on a mysterious radio transmission shatters a lone pilot's isolated existence he embarks on a dangerous journey in search of hope starring jacob lordy josh brolin margaret qualley alice and jenny and guy pierce the dog stars now playing in theaters and imax tonight uh and tomorrow we have camp boozer versus caleb wilson those are the headliners from there it sort of peters out uh peterson was spectacular in the salt lake summer league uh less spectacular tonight but it's still up to 21 points as we record this we watched the first half together debansa is up to 27 points uh on let's see he's only seven of 18 seven of eight from the line but that really equates to like 16 free throws because we're doing the one free throw for all the points thing in summer league i just i think both these guys are going to be amazing i'm super excited for the jazz to see george and peterson play together he got roughed up a little bit tonight the whiz were pressing him all over the floor he took some bad shots debansa i mean again seven of 18 not super efficient got to the line whenever he wanted um took a lot of tough shots and that's going to be interesting because that tough shot mid-range diet is not going to work in the nba the way it's worked for him at other levels he's gonna have to learn to play off the ball more than he did tonight when trey young is is running point for the weirdo wizards but i actually loved what i saw from his pick and roll game tonight in summer league like a lot of creative reads some nice passes a drive where he rejected the screen and dunked on everybody and brought the arena to its feet just physically and in terms of its instincts lore i like can't fault the whiz for taking him number one i think all four of these guys are going to be awesome and if i were a whiz fan it's a weird it's a weird group but uh i would be over the moon by aj debances summer league vegas uh debut tonight nah he he was fun i mean you know it's it's summer league so things i don't care about uh not worried about how efficient they are um not worried about how much they're you know really involving their teammates even if you're i want to see that kind of virtue in the regular season with your real teammates in the summer league you're playing with mostly guys you just met like five minutes ago and you might not even remember their names um but i loved his aggression i love the confidence um i the the the uh the driving two-headed dunk uh was that first quarter um was a nice little highlight moment i yeah the debansa looks awesome um peterson looked good i did not see the um what was the previous the salt and i'm getting i'll be out your way starting tomorrow friday in vegas so i'll hopefully get to see these guys up close yeah peterson looked awesome in those games and was playing off the ball a lot tonight which is he has good instincts to play off the ball is obviously his three-point shot gravity is outrageous and he's a good cutter and that's all going to come in handy when you know marketing is going to have the ball some running the offense and keontae george is going to have it a lot i think both these teams particularly the the jazz i think are a top six contender right off the bat next year in the west um the whiz are are not quite in the east but if you look at their starting five it's in theory it's trey young somebody at the two guard it could i i would put balal kula bali or kishan george there although trey johnson trey johnson loving every second of summer league just like just give me the ball even will riley also loving every second of summer league and then debansa sar davis and then all three of those other guys will come off the bench along with bub carrington and you know all the three of those guys will come off the bench along with bub carrington and you know all the of talent in washington i don't know how it's all going to mesh i don't know how long anthony davis is for the wizards at least you know beyond the first half of next season i assume he will be on the team then um it's kind of it's kind of fun they're kind of a fun team and this is what we were going to talk about but other things happen they are one of we were going to do a segment and we're going to do this at some other time looking at sort of the bottom teams in each conference or at least projected bottom teams and we're going to do a segment and we're going to do this at some teams and, and, and look at like this new relegation zone thing is now a thing in the nba starting this year the new lottery odds and the teams we're going to look at are the wizards the bulls the bucks the pelicans the maths not necessarily a bottom whatever team just they were last year the kings the grizz the nets and the clippers that's i think nine teams of those teams they all control their first round pick except for the clippers the thunder get to swap it somehow again the thunder are in a swap with the clippers uh the bucks do not get their pick at all it goes to either new orleans or atlanta and the nets have to swap with the rockets which is unfortunate for them all the other teams more or less dallas's situation is a little tricky control their own first round pick which means they are motivated to not be one of the three worst teams in the nba because then you get relegated lottery odds wise so like a team like the wizards they have i think an incentive to try to win and i think they have actually the talent to try to win enough games to not be in that relegation zone on the flip side i look at the kings they own their own first round pick they have all the incentive to win they're gonna have a really they are like the relegation zone team to watch like they're gonna try real hard and i'm just not sure they have enough talent but but uh the wiz are kind of interesting and this is gonna it is gonna be very fun to watch these teams sort of navigate these new waters and these new incentives try to say this in a way that's not super confusing because it's confusing in my own head but i'm wondering as we go into the first year of this system zach are the are the bad teams who know they're going to be bad they know they're going to be in the lottery are they are they actually trying to avoid the relegation zone and and and how and and what by what means will we see that um or have has the nba simply removed the incentive to be in what is now considered the relegation zone and that was previously the best zone to be in the nba so i'm wondering if that's going to happen odds wise right because the the real goal for the league was don't have incentive to be super super awful and what we now have is incentive uh we now have incentive to get out of that um that bottom tier so how that's going to manifest itself in terms of the way that teams manage their roster uh their lineups uh they're in the case of yusuf nurkic their uh nose surgeries um like what what exactly your team's going to do differently to to avoid the relegation zone and i guess it's more just don't shut guys down if they can still play um don't put out super weird lineups and a bunch of two-way guys instead of actual nba players like i guess it's that and and the net result will be better basketball but whether there will actually see a team is quote-unquote trying to avoid the relegation zone as opposed to simply just trying to just be competent um i mean it's a subtle difference maybe i mean there there's a there's a significant the best place to be in the new system is uh not in the play-in but not one of the three worst teams in the league there are seven teams in total they have like substantially better odds at a top five and top three pick obviously there's some incentive um perhaps to fall out of the play-in and get into that slot i don't i still don't i'm skeptical we'll ever see a team sort of duck the playoffs and the play-in on purpose but i do think there's real incentive there and then that's that's good for the league the most fascinating one and it broke my brain is owes their pick to the hornets but from the pj washington deal i think um to the hornets but with top two protection meaning they keep it if it's in the top two so they're like i think if i if i played it out in my head right they're like super incentivized to chase a play-in and playoff spot um because they they like being in the relegation zone is bad for them on every level and because they they they want to either get the one of the top two picks or chase a playoff spot and i think they actually i know this is a team you wanted to talk about they're they're kind of an interesting group now with kairi coming back and i think kairi who has one year left after this but it's a player option is one of the most interesting players in the league bar none for the next 18 months the mads have loved having them around cooper flag loves having them around and yet it's undeniable that the mads have to reset their timetable a little bit around cooper flag and a healthy productive kairi would have a lot of value around the league but but they're they're a team that's in an interesting spot as well and they just made the santi aldama trade they drafted uh mores mores johnson from michigan um and uh they're an interesting group i know you wanted to what did you want to say about them no just that because they're still kind of caught between eras right like they're in the cooper flag era but they're still kind of dealing with the residue of the luka donchic era and the luka donchic trade and kairi is a big part of that kairi like if they're going to be a team that um actually makes noise in the western conference and the western conference is still really tough and i'm i'm i i was taking a little bit of back about the jazz as a top six team which would be contender contender for a top six spot yeah um i feel like the top six barring the unforeseen are still locked ish um but i'm you know i'm not i'm not you know i'm not confident i'm not confident um kairi's 34 years old last played in march of 2025 so it'll have been like 19 months or something uh between games has never played with cooper flag is kairi going to come back and still be a top 20 top 30 top i don't know where he was when when he he left the stage but you know um what is he when he comes back what level of star is he um what kind of playmaking do they have outside of kairi and cooper flag because cooper flag had to bear too much of it last season as a team um and where's the internal improvement coming from is it just the addition of kairi back from the injured list but they had all the injuries last year too and so they're really hard to assess in that regard right derrick lively played seven games they got less than 60 games each and we don't know when derrick lively is coming back full strength and he's a huge part of their team and yeah their depth is like there are a lot of question marks once you get by the top three or four guys on the team which is the case for all these teams like marcus sasser is he going to a legit starter at two guard on and on and so to your point about this exercise about like do you want to are you are you actively trying to avoid you're trying to avoid the relegation zone um the dallas doesn't have their pick except if it's top two you can't manipulate this now right like this is like if you ever could and you couldn't really because of the lottery but to the extent that you could at least put yourself in a better position by losing you can't really now and this is a they might want to go are you adding are you subtracting um are you flipping kairi for younger pieces and picks if if that is something that's even available because you need to start building on cooper flag's timeline does does winning this season matter yet i would argue no yeah cooper flag going into year two um but it is an interesting case study for for this this whole mixed bag of motivations with regard to the lottery i think they want to win games i think dallas wants to win games um i mean in all these teams that we're going to have a chance to talk about down the line are are interesting like new orleans what the hell is new orleans um you know is that zion does anyone know toward the end of zion's contract he has only one year left after this year joe dumars has said over and over again we want to build around them we want to keep them that's all going to be tested i can't wait to watch memphis play tomorrow brooklyn has julius randall on their team that's the thing that happened uh in in a bunch of young guards so it's very interesting all right howard beck it's getting late here even in las vegas i haven't eaten dinner yet so i'm getting hangry uh anything that we left out that you wanted to hit uh no that's it um i did write about the whole uh lebron shenanigans uh at the ringer.com earlier earlier this week yeah earlier this week if people want to go check that out and um yeah back on the real ones grind i think uh is it next week we're on a summer schedule i'm not sure but uh i'll be seeing you in vegas soon maybe we'll grab a drink at a tiki bar or something oh god not we're not going back to the tiki bar with the talking parrots that that's over uh howard beck thank you sir you're welcome thanks zach all right that's it for today's episode of the zach lowe show barring a lebron emergency we will be back next week as normal thank you to the great howard beck for his insight thank you to mike jonathan and billy on production as always and thank you to all of you for listening to and or watching the zach lowe show we will see you soon 21 or over and president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 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